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John Sayles Remembers Kris Kristofferson

My favorite story he told me is that he was in Nicaragua when the Sandinistas were in power, doing some concerts for them. On departure day his car was stopped on the way to the airport — a government official explained that they’d just captured this American, Eugene Hasenfus, shot down in a plane that was delivering military supplies to the Contras. The guy looked bad, they were afraid he might have a heart attack or try to commit suicide, and as Kris was the only other American they had around at the moment, would he go in and take a look at the guy?

Kris said he had a plane to catch, but the government official assured him it wouldn’t leave till they told it to. So he said what the hell, and they drove him back to Managua, to a building where Somoza used to have political prisoners tortured. He’s led up three stories in the otherwise unoccupied building, goes down a hallway, there’s a guard with a rifle outside one room. They let him in and he sees a worse-for-wear looking American in the bare room, staring out the barred window. The guy hears him, turns around, and Kris said he could read the expression on the man’s face — Kris Kristofferson?????

Relieved that he wasn’t about to be shot, Hasenfus listened to “some 12-step bullshit I knew” and Kris got out of there, advising the Sandinistas to get rid of the guy before the Reagan government could use him as an excuse to invade. 

One of my all-time favorite co-conspirators.

The Eugene Hasenfus Story [1991]

YouTube playlist: Nicaragua/Kris Kristofferson