SAN FRANCISCO -- Congress may be asked to probe an alleged U.S. Army cover-up of an out-of-control Green Beret unit suspected of selling illegal arms, gold and drugs in Southeast Asia -- and plotting murder.
Rep. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., said if a report she is expecting from the Defense Department's inspector general's office 'comes back lacking in scope, I will call for hearings, not just on this specific matter but on the whole issue of the accountability of Special Forces.'
The San Francisco Examiner reported Wednesday and Aug. 12 on alleged illegal activities of Bravo Company, First Battalion, First Special Forces Group -- an 80-member Green Beret unit ordered home by embarrassed Army officials in 1988 at the Thai government's request.
The newspaper said hundreds of pages of documentation and interviews with former members of the battalion established the existence of a huge illegal cache of U.S. munitions and evidence of a cover-up.
The attempt to hide the scandal included incomplete investigations, the burning of documents, falsifying of records and harassment of potential witnesses, the Examiner said.
An aide to Sen Mark Hatfield, R-Ore., said, 'We are going to be insisting on an explanation, a definitive response' from the Army.
The secretary of the Army's Congressional Liaison Office had insisted in a letter to Hatfield last October that an internal investigation had 'revealed no wrongdoing.'
The Okinawa-based Green Beret unit was accused of illegally stockpiling millions of dollars worth of U.S. ammunition and explosives in Thailand -- with some of it ending up on Bangkok's black market. The buyers reportedly included Cambodian resistence forces and murderous Khmer Rouge guerillas.
Tons of the secret munitions were illegally given to the Thai military, the Examiner said.
The 80-man unit's sergeant major, Edward Gleason, was convicted of plotting to murder his captain in Thailand and sent to prison. He had been removed from Bravo Company and transferred back to Okinawa because of suspicions he was involved in the smuggling of Thai handguns into Japan for sale to Yakuza gangsters.
Currently being investigated by the Defense Department is the Aug. 8, 1988, death of Sgt. Kasemsook Pansanont, who was killed by a mine that exploded in the Bravo Company Okinawa locker room. The Army declared the death an accident.
Boxer said investigators are trying to determine if Pansanont's death was connected to the problems in the unit.
She said she was told that Pansanont 'knew the details' of the munitions smuggling and 'knew the most about the scandal.'
Soldiers of the Green Beret unit were also suspected of smuggling Thai gold, jewelry and pharmaceutical drugs past customs for sale on the black market in Japan.
