When a Southern Air Transport plane was shot down over Nicaragua in October 1986, the world got a rare window into U.S. government covert activity. Southern Air Transport was founded as a small cargo airline in 1947, the same year the Office of Strategic Services evolved into the Central Intelligence Agency as the U.S. pivoted to its Cold War posture. The agency owned the airline outright from 1960 until 1973, at which point it was sold to the same man, Stanley Williams, who had run the company since the Kennedy administration.
Epstein, Israel, and the CIA: How The Iran–Contra Planes Landed at Les Wexner’s Base Jeffrey Epstein helped Leslie Wexner repurpose the CIA’s Iran–Contra planes from arms smuggling to shipping lingerie.