NEWSWEEK has pieced together the following narrative of what happened in the case of Maj. Eric Buckland. Last Nov. 16 the priests were gunned down in San Salvador. Col. Guillermo Alfredo Benavides, head of the Salvadoran military school, and seven other soldiers were charged with the killings. On Dec. 20, Buckland, a U.S. adviser to the Salvadoran military, was told by a senior Salvadoran officer that Colonel Benavides led the attack. But it wasn’t until Jan. 2 that Buckland reported the tip to his superiors, who confronted Salvadoran Army Chief Col. Rene Emilio Ponce. Nine days later Buckland told FBI agents he’d been warned of the attack 10 days before it happened. He also said that Ponce knew of the plan and tried to stop it. Buckland said he dismissed the threat because he didn’t think the Salvadoran Army “would do something that foolish.” On Jan. 13 the FBI briefed U.S. Embassy officials in San Salvador about Buckland’s report. On Jan. 18 Buckland said he’d been confused and his earlier statements were “not correct.”
U.S. officials told NEWSWEEK that Buckland’s original statement was “100 percent accurate.” The administration “didn’t want that story to come out,” sources said, because it “wasn’t productive to the conduct of the war.” Buckland couldn’t be reached for comment. The State Department denied pressuring Buckland to recant, and the FBI had no comment.
