---
aliases:
- Thomas Dowling
- Father Thomas F. Dowling
category: Intelligence & Government
created: 2026-05-17
summary: Fake Catholic priest and Contra activist who received $73,000 from Oliver
  North and Adolfo Calero for domestic propaganda operations.
tags:
- Person
- Intelligence
- UnitedStates
- ContraWar
- 1980s
- DarkAllianceInvestigation
title: Thomas Dowling
updated: 2026-05-17
---

Father Thomas F. Dowling was a San Franciscan who passed himself off as a Roman Catholic priest while actually being ordained in a tiny splinter church called the North American Old Roman Catholic Church of the Utrecht Succession.[^1] Dowling was a founding member of [USACA](/organizations/usaca/) and played a significant role in domestic propaganda operations supporting the [Contras](/organizations/contras/).

### Congressional Testimony

While working with USACA and the Contras, Dowling appeared before Congress in 1985 sporting a clerical collar and identifying himself as a Catholic priest, testifying as a purported witness to [Sandinista](/organizations/sandinistas/) atrocities. His appearance had been arranged by the State Department's Office of Public Diplomacy for Latin America, later described by congressional investigators as an illegal CIA-run domestic propaganda mill. A 1992 House committee staff report concluded that "senior CIA officials with backgrounds in covert operations, as well as military intelligence and psychological operations specialists from the Department of Defense, were deeply involved in establishing and participating in a domestic political and propaganda operation run through an obscure bureau in the Department of State." A 1987 investigation by the Comptroller General found the State Department had engaged in "prohibited, covert propaganda activities."[^1]

### Funding from North and Calero

Dowling admitted receiving about $73,000 in cash and travelers checks from [Oliver North](/people/oliver-north/), [Adolfo Calero](/people/adolfo-calero/), and other members of North's operation between 1986 and 1987 "to affect public opinion favorably toward the Reagan position inside, regarding Central America." The money went to a nonprofit Dowling set up called the Latin America Strategic Studies Institute (LASSI). LASSI employed G. James Quesada, a recently retired CIA officer with extensive Latin American experience who was Nicaraguan. Quesada met [Norwin Meneses](/people/norwin-meneses/) and [Danilo Blandón](/people/danilo-blandon/) at an FDN meeting but said he stayed away from them, recognizing Meneses was involved in drug trafficking on "the other side" - the military part of the Contra operation.[^1]

### CAUSA Connection

Dowling was a member of [CAUSA](/organizations/causa/)'s national advisory board and a frequent speaker at CAUSA rallies. CAUSA was a conservative political organization part of the Rev. [Sun-Myung Moon](/people/sun-myung-moon/)'s [Unification Church](/organizations/unification-church/), which was linked in the 1970s to the Korean Central Intelligence Agency. During the CIA funding cutoff, Moon's organization stepped in and began funneling money and supplies to the Contras. An August 1984 letter from CAUSA's president, retired Air Force general E. D. Woellner, thanked USACA for attending the annual CAUSA convention and suggested closer cooperation.[^1]

[^1]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 9: "He would have had me by the tail"