Gunrunner

Former CIA agent is convicted

His lawyers called the tall, gaunt ex-CIA agent "the spy who was left out in the cold." His multimillion-dollar gunrunning operation to Libyan terrorists, they argued, was nothing more than a clever cover for his real mission: ferreting out Libyan Dictator Muammar Gaddafi's secrets for his former employer, the Central Intelligence Agency. But the Government prosecutor in federal district court in Alexandria, Va., depicted Edwin Wilson, 54, not as an undercover agent but as a skilled, avaricious wheeler-dealer, exploiting contacts and expertise built up after years of "Company" service. After deliberating only 4 1/2 hours, the five-man, seven-woman jury last week sided with the prosecutor's views that greed, not patriotism, had led Wilson to export an M-16 automatic rifle and three pistols from the U.S. to Libya in 1979. It convicted him on seven counts of arranging to transport the guns, samples of a promised larger shipment that later won him a $22 million contract to arm and train Libyan fighters. He faces a maximum prison sentence of 39 years and a $240,000 fine.

It was, in the end, a strange and unexpectedly short trial--the first of four that Wilson faces on charges that he masterminded an international web of illegal arms deals and terrorist activities between 1976 and 1979. Wan and slimmer after five months in federal custody, Wilson did not take the stand in his own defense, and maintained a dour demeanor during the 2 1/2-day trial. A CIA agent from 1954 to 1970 who then worked in a Navy intelligence group before retiring in 1976, Wilson seemed to sense that his luck had run out. For nearly two years after his first indictment in 1980, the millionaire ex-spook escaped arrest, living in a seaside villa in Tripoli, Libya, on the proceeds from his lucrative business. In his dealings he enlisted help from former agents, as well as from firms he had used as covers in his CIA days. Last June federal agents sprung a brilliant, elaborate trap covering three continents and lured the elusive Wilson back to New York City, where he was then seized. His partner, former Agent Frank Terpil, is still at large.

In court last week, the prosecution laid out an impressive case. Prosecutor Theodore Greenberg elicited the most damaging testimony from Wilson's former associates. His girlfriend and manager of his Geneva office, Roberta Barnes--code-named "Wonder Woman" in the operation--said that Wilson did send the U.S. Government information about Libyan plans to build an atomic bomb, but only after he was already under indictment. Peter Goulding, another former aide, testified that Wilson had threatened to kill Goulding's wife if Goulding returned to the U.S. and cooperated with investigators. He also entertained the jury with a vivid description of Wilson's childlike delight when, after a two-year effort, he managed to sneak an M-16 into Libya. Wilson, said Goulding, "was very, very happy, literally roaring with laughter," as he handed the rifle to a Libyan official, who gave it "a full-function test out of the window of his office, a full clip of 30 rounds."

Wilson's conviction was the first successful application in a major case of the Classified Information Procedures Act of 1980, which is designed to prevent defendants from "graymailing" the Government with threats to disclose secret information. In a pretrial ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Oren Lewis used this law as a basis to bar the defense from presenting certain sensitive Government documents as evidence. Wilson's lawyer, Herald Price Fahringer, said he will appeal the verdict on several grounds, including the constitutionality of the new law. Wilson, who is being held under a $60 million bond, begins his second trial next week in Houston. A third is set for January in Washington, D.C., on charges growing out of a six-year probe of illegal arms dealings and conspiracy to murder a Libyan dissident. Said Assistant U.S. Attorney E. Lawrence Barcella Jr., who has been involved in the Wilson case since 1977: "The five-year odyssey is coming to an end."

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