[[ placed on JFK Place on April 4, 1997. ]]
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                   Drugs and the CIA 
          by Ralph McGehee <rmcgehee@igc.apc.org

   The CIA's anger over the issue of its involvement in drug trafficking 
is somewhat understandable -- primarily because it knows little. It 
seldom reports such details on its own agent operations; and, it 
does not catalogue its own sins. (The CIA protested details of the 
Discovery Channel's program on the CIA -- especially Part III
"Blowback," to be broadcast tonight.)

   CIA's Public Relations officers must rely on the Operations
Directorate to provide it with information and that process/element
inevitably practices internal deceit even when it knows the details. 
So genuine denials by the CIA's PR offices should not be taken at face 
value.

   Other elements contributing to this problem are the
policies of "Need To Know" and "Compartmentation."  The top
management knows some, but individual case officers frequently
are unaware of what others in their offices do. But top officers
are interested in moving projects forward, not mentally or
otherwise cataloguing details, especially details of illegal
activities.

   Another major problem is record-keeping. Once an operational
plan becomes an operation, the operation is given a cryptonym
and virtually all reporting goes into the operational file with
no attempt made to record details in an information-retrieval system.
(Exceptions are some personality information that goes into an 
individuals file, intelligence reporting being considered for dissemination,
and a few other items.) Once an operational monthly or periodic report
is filed, the information is recoverable only by a document-by-document 
review. Consider that the 1975-1976 Church Committee said at one point 
that in a multi-year period the CIA ran 900 major covert operations and 
thousands of lesser operations. Knowing that each operation generates 
some to massive amounts of documents, we can appreciate what happens.

   The CIA's Inspector General promised months ago to compile
a report on the CIA's drug trafficking/suppression consequences. 
To do a thorough job his staff would have to review all operational 
files -- this is impossible so his report will only touch the surface.

   For my part I have catalogued overt reporting on the drug
trafficking/suppression operations which the IG is welcome to
use as one part of his search for the truth. A few of these
citations are listed below. 

Ralph McGehee
CIABASE

Drugs

  in  71  nixon made a  CIA official, Lou Conein, a drug intel agency boss. 
  CIA hand lucien conein named head of DEA's special operations branch. 
  He created a deep-cover CIA/DEA narcotics op in miami, code-named 
  buncin/deacon, and recruited a staff of 19 - anti-castro contract agents. 
  documents released under FOIA to researcher john hill describe a gentlemen's 
  agreement between CIA and the justice department to ask for dismissals 
  rather than expose sources or techniques. convicted drug smuggler and bay 
  of pigs vet carlos hernandez rumbaut, continued his trafficking activity 
  through 1976. justice dumped the agreement in 1976, but conein had worked 
  out a "crossover" arrangement whereby DEA would claim that any CIA asset 
  busted for narcotics smuggling was on a deep-cover DEA assignment. none of 
  CIA's cubans were prosecuted for drug smuggling. 27 u.s. prosecutions of 
  latin america drug cases and two other major cases had to be dropped 
  because of CIA's domestic involvement. information from the book by a 
  former FBI officer -- William Turner; and, writer warren hinckle (1992). 
  deadly secrets xxxvii

  50-92  "the big white lie: the deep cover operation that exposed CIA
  sabotage of the drug war" by michael levine with laura kavanau-levine 1993
  thunder's mouth press. on his resignation, kerry's chief investigator, jack
  blum, said, "i am sick to death of the truths that cannot be spoken." as a
  25-year veteran undercover agent for DEA working deep-cover drug cases from
  bangkok to buenos aires, i was witness to the most scandalous of these
  truths. CIA would have us believe their protection of drug dealers for past
  two decades - from heroin-producing tribes of southeast asia to the
  cocaine-dealing nicaraguan contras - was well-meaning and in the interests
  of national security. enter the inner sanctum of the biggest, whitest,
  deadliest lie of them all - the war on drugs. fortfan aol.com 10/20/96

  central america,  81-96  jack blum says CIA ignored drug issue. agency did
  not encourage trafficking by contras. jack blum testified the justice
  department blocked kerry subcommittee's inquiry in late 1980s into
  allegations CIA intervened in court cases, "to help people who helped them
  in covert wars." william weld, then assistant attorney general in charge
  was an "absolute stone wall who systematically tried to discredit the kerry
  investigation by preventing u.s. attorneys from cooperating with them.
  panama, haiti, and honduras were countries where the reagan adm was aware
  intel officers were tolerating drug dealing by local citizens. washington
  post 10/24/96 a18

  central america,  81-96  senator kerry committee chief counsel jack blum
  says, "if you ask: in the process of fighting a war against the
  sandinistas, did people connected with the u.s. gvt open channels which
  allowed drug traffickers to move drugs to the united states, did they know
  the drug traffickers were doing it, and did they protect them from law
  enforcement? the answer to all those questions is yes." los angeles times 
  10/21/96 1

  central america,  82-96  geraldo rivera show on cnbc-tv 10/9/96. jack blum,
  chief counsel for the kerry committee, michael levine, former DEA
  undercover agent, rep. maxine waters, congresswoman from california. blum:
  we investigated these charges almost 10 years ago. the contras were
  involved in trafficking cocaine. reagan adm worked very hard to make us
  forget about the problem completely. blum: there was absolutely no evidence
  that there was a CIA conspiracy to sell drugs to support the contras. i can
  assure you that the contras never saw the money. money itself was pocketed
  by a whole range of contra crooks. blum: there is no question that ollie
  north knew he was dealing with drug dealers. north ...negotiated with
  general noriega at the time noriega was known to be dealing drugs. michael
  levine: and ollie north had large amounts of unexplained cash that he was
  never investigated for.... blum: and ollie says during the course of
  negotiating with noriega, "what can be done to clean up the problem?" and
  noriega volunteers to assassinate the sandinista leadership. levine: in
  1993, CIA was caught red-handed smuggling a ton on [cbs-tv's] "60 minutes"
  you saw the head of DEA look at the camera and say, "there is no other way
  to describe this other than drug smuggling. there were specific people
  involved, but we never prosecuted." i personally was involved in a
  deep-cover case that went to the top of the drug world in three countries.
  CIA killed it. jimh wwa.com langley dirac.scri.fsu.edu 10/10/96

  central america, guatemala,  50-96  jack blum's paper. those of us involved
  in the senate investigation were aware of the contra connection to the west
  coast cocaine trade. when we tried to pursue the investigation, the justice
  department criminal division, then headed by bill weld, fought giving us
  access to essential records and to witnesses in government custody. the
  justice department did everything possible to block our investigation. it
  moved prisoners to make them inaccessible, instructed justice employees not
  to talk to us, punished an assistant u.s. attorney for passing information
  to the subcommittee. a review of the history of covert operations in the
  caribbean and south and central america shows a 40-year connection between
  crime and covert ops that has repeatedly blown back on the united states.
  same history will show that the ops in the region were, for the most part,
  moral and political failures. other ops in asia and europe have had similar
  consequences -- the worst in the narcotics area. many historical details.
  jack blum 10/23/96

  central america, nicaragua,  81-96  jack blum, helped run kerry
  investigation. a former senior CIA officer said that from 1981 to 1984
  agency case officers working in field with contra "weren't making
  themselves fully aware of drug activity. we were focused on building up"
  the contras. clarridge, in 1981 was chosen to head ops against sandinistas.
  he said his interest in drugs was documenting cocaine trafficking by
  sandinistas. morales case, seems to remain best-documented example of a
  contra group cooperating with a drug trafficker and receiving substantial
  aid in return. per pastora and chamorro, morales -- who was convicted in
  1986 of drug trafficking and died in prison in 1991 -- contributed at least
  two airplanes and $90,000 to the pastora group, known by its spanish
  initials arde. in sworn testimony to the kerry committee and a separate
  court case before he died, morales said he gave airplanes and cash to
  contras because he was promised by chamorro that contras would use their
  influence with the u.s. to help with his legal problems. although
  imprisoned, he told kerry committee that he had in fact received some legal
  help. washington post 10/31/96 a1

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