Michael Jon Hand

Michael Jon Hand (born December 8, 1941, New York City) is a US ex-Green Beret known for co-founding the Nugan Hand Bank.

Hand grew up in New York City, where he attended De Witt Clinton High School. After graduation, he attended Syracuse University, completing a year long course in the State Ranger School. In May 1963, Hand enlisted in the United States Army, where he served in the Army Special Forces ("Green Berets"). After Special Forces training at Fort Bragg, Hand was posted to Vietnam, where he received a Purple Heart, a Silver Star, and the Distinguished Service Cross, the second highest military award in the United States. He received this for his actions on 9 June 1965 in defending the Special Forces camp at Dong Xoai against a Viet Cong attack during the Battle of Dong Xoai.

Reporter Jonathan Kwitny, who wrote extensively on the Nugan Hand Bank, cites a passport document in which Hand claimed to have left the army in May 1966, and from 1966-67 "worked directly for the U.S. government." According to other unnamed sources cited by Kwitny, Hand helped train guerrilla forces in Laos and worked with the Air America crews that supplied them. The CIA Vientiane station chief Theodore Shackley acknowledged meeting Hand during this period.

In September 1967 Hand moved to Australia, where he found work in real estate, selling development lots. He was a close associate of Bernie Houghton, the owner of the Bourbon and Beefsteak Bar in Sydney's Kings Cross, a nightspot notorious for drug use. In 1969, Hand formed his own development company, which soon began doing business with Australian lawyer Francis John Nugan. In 1973 Hand and Nugan founded the Nugan Hand Bank, with Hand concentrating on the international side of the bank. In January 1975 Hand spent over a year in southern Africa seeking to arrange arms deals, at a time when the CIA was providing support to groups such as UNITA in Angola. Efforts to arrange deals included incorporating a company in Pretoria, South Africa, and sending Bernie Houghton with two Nugan Hand employees to the United States to meet Edwin P. Wilson.

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