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At an early age, Hall had two passions: diving and politics. The first earned him a silver medal at the 1960 Rome Olympics. The second was cultivated at home in Dayton, where his late father, Dave Hall, was mayor. Sam served one term in the Ohio legislature; his brother Tony is a liberal Congressman from Ohio who opposes Reagan's Nicaragua policy. According to Lawrence Hussman, an English professor who helped Sam chronicle his life story in an as-yet unpublished book, the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics was a turning point. "Sam feels very strongly about the Olympics as an institution," says Hussman.
After receiving military training in Israel in the late 1970s, Hall traveled to Lebanon, El Salvador, southern Africa and Nicaragua. Hall, however, does not view himself as a mercenary. "He calls himself a volunteer counterterrorist," says Hussman. "He would consider it an insult to take money for himself." There have been personal battles as well. Hall has spent time in the mental health unit of a hospital, fought a drug problem and been through three divorces. He has apparently been a lone operator since his expulsion from C.M.A.
Hall was not the only former C.M.A. member in the news. One day after Hall's arrest, Steven Carr, 27, died in the driveway of his Los Angeles condominium, presumably of a cocaine overdose. Carr was one of five mercenaries jailed in Costa Rica in 1985 for aiding the contras. Police say there is no evidence of foul play, but some people close to Carr find the death suspicious. In interviews, Carr has said that he made one arms run for the contras from Florida to El Salvador, where weapons were unloaded in the presence of U.S. military personnel. Carr was scheduled to testify about such activities before congressional committees investigating the Iran-contra connection.
With Carr gone, Hasenfus is certain to be grilled all the more intensively by congressional investigators. As he headed home last week, Hasenfus sounded weary: "I'm just going to settle down and be a father for a while." It may be a very long time until Sam Hall sees his own three children. The rumor mill in Managua suggests that, with some hard-line Sandinistas piqued by Hasenfus' early release, Hall will have a far harder time securing a pardon.