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their allies import cocaine into the US, during the period that President Reagan was Syndicate
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talking about "fighting drugs" and locking up all those drug users in a cage, beefing up the
5 replies police state and the prison industrial complex. CIA drug trafficking had already been well
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Oh, the idiocy of it all
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1980s) article here:
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he had acknowledged all the other proof of CIA drug trafficking over the years, notably Request new password
You have to admire their out-and-out gall
A break from politics for some Culture "The Politics of Heroin" by Alfred McCoy, and directly relating to CIA-Contra cocaine
CIA Drug Trafficking and remembering Gary Webb trafficking there was Senator John Kerry's 89 commission, which established beyond any
Creating Fiction - The Administration Bush Wants doubt that the Contras and their allies were bringing cocaine into the US with the help of
To Be Remembered For. the CIA.
Merry Christmas for the Chosen Few
I'm looking forward to Biden's Vice Presidency. So, in the interests of that, I am including below the definitive summary of CIA drug
Blame America first trafficking, written by William Blum. Check out all the footnotes below, to learn more, but
Reconsideration on blogging changes my overall favorite book, which summarizes all the best dirt we have on the CIA, is
"Whiteout: The CIA, Drugs, and the Press" by Counterpunch's Alexander Cockburn and
more Jeffrey St.Clair
-----------------
The CIA and Drugs
Just say "Why not?"
by William Blum

"In my 30-year history in the Drug Enforcement Administration and related agencies, the
Web Capitol Hill Blue major targets of my investigations almost invariably turned out to be working for the CIA."
Dennis Dayle, former chief of an elite DEA enforcement unit.{1}

On August 18, 1996, the San Jose Mercury initiated an extended series of articles about
the CIA connection to the crack epidemic in Los Angeles. Though the CIA and influential
media like The Washington Post , The New York Times, and The Los Angeles Times went
out of their way to belittle the significance of the articles, the basic ingredients of the story
were not really new -- the CIA's Contra army, fighting the leftist government of Nicaragua,
turning to smuggling cocaine into the U.S., under CIA protection, to raise money for their
military and personal use.

What was unique about the articles was (A) they appeared in a "respectable" daily
newspaper and not an "alternative" publication, which could have and would have been
completely ignored by the powers that be; and (B) they followed the cocaine into Los
Angeles' inner city, into the hands of the Crips and the Bloods, at the time that street-level
drug users were figuring out how to make cocaine affordable: by changing the costly white
powder into powerful little nuggets of crack that could be smoked cheaply.

The Contra dealers, principally Oscar Danilo Blandon and his boss Juan Norwin Meneses,
both from the Nicaraguan privileged class, operated out of the San Francisco Bay Area
and sold tons of cocaine -- a drug that was virtually unobtainable in black neighborhoods
before -- to Los Angeles street gangs. They then funneled millions in drug profits to the
Contra cause, while helping to fuel a disastrous crack explosion in L.A. and other cities,
and enabling the gangs to buy automatic weapons, sometimes from Blandon himself.

The principal objection raised by the establishment critics to this scenario was that, even if
correct, it didn't prove that the CIA was complicit, or even had any knowledge of it.
However, to arrive at this conclusion, they had to ignore things like the following from the
SJM series:

a) Cocaine flights from Central America landed with impunity in various spots in the
United States, including a U.S. Air Force base in Texas. In 1985, a Drug Enforcement
Administration (DEA) agent assigned to El Salvador reported to headquarters the details
on cocaine flights from El Salvador to the U.S. The DEA did nothing but force him out of
the agency{2}.

b) When Blandon was finally arrested in October 1986, after congress resumed funding
for the Contras, and he admitted to crimes that have sent others away for life, the Justice
Department turned him loose on unsupervised probation after only 28 months behind
bars and has paid him more than $166,000 since.

c) According to a legal motion filed in a 1990 police corruption trial: In the 1986 raid on
Blandon's money-launderer, the police carted away numerous documents purportedly
linking the U.S. government to cocaine trafficking and money-laundering on behalf of the
Contras. CIA personnel appeared at the sheriff's department within 48 hours of the raid
and removed the seized files from the evidence room. This motion drew media coverage in

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Criminal Arrest Records 1990 but, at the request of the Justice Department, a federal judge issued a gag order
Find any Arrest Records Instantly. Unlimited & Detailed
Arrest Queries
barring any discussion of the matter.
Australian-Records.com
Drug Issues & News d) Blandon subsequently became a full-time informant for the DEA. When he testified in
Latest drug issues & news online News & Your Views. No 1996 as a prosecution witness, the federal prosecutors obtained a court order preventing
Bull. TheVine defense lawyers from delving into Blandon's ties to the CIA.
TheVine.com.au/News
What drug is that? e) Though Meneses is listed in the DEA's computers as a major international drug
DVD, poster and brochures explaining legal and illegal smuggler and was implicated in 45 separate federal investigations since 1974, he lived
drugs
www.bookshop.adf.org.au
openly and conspicuously in California until 1989 and never spent a day in a U.S. prison.
The DEA, U.S. Customs, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, and the California
Case Management Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement have complained that a number of the probes of Meneses
From referral to close Manage - Track - Analyse were stymied by the CIA or unnamed "national security" interests.
www.PolonIous.com.au

f) The U.S. Attorney in San Francisco gave back to an arrested Nicaraguan drug dealer the
$36,000 found in his possession. The money was returned after two Contra leaders sent
letters to the court swearing that the drug dealer had been given the cash to buy supplies
"for the reinstatement of democracy in Nicaragua". The letters were hurriedly sealed after
prosecutors invoked the Classified Information Procedures Act, a law designed to keep
national security secrets from leaking out during trials. When a U.S. Senate subcommittee
later inquired of the Justice Department the reason for this unusual turn of events, they
ran into a wall of secrecy. "The Justice Department flipped out to prevent us from getting
access to people, records -- finding anything out about it," recalled Jack Blum, former
chief counsel to the Senate subcommittee that investigated allegations of Contra cocaine
trafficking. "It was one of the most frustrating exercises that I can ever recall."

A Brief History of CIA Involvement in Drug Trafficking

1947 to 1951, France

CIA arms, money, and disinformation enabled Corsican criminal syndicates in Marseille
to wrestle control of labor unions from the Communist Party. The Corsicans gained
political influence and control over the docks -- ideal conditions for cementing a long-term
partnership with mafia drug distributors, which turned Marseille into the postwar heroin
capital of the Western world. Marseille's first heroin laboratories were opened in 1951,
only months after the Corsicans took over the waterfront.{3}

Early 1950s, Southeast Asia

The Nationalist Chinese army, organized by the CIA to wage war against Communist
China, became the opium barons of The Golden Triangle (parts of Burma, Thailand and
Laos), the world's largest source of opium and heroin. Air America, the CIA's principal
airline proprietary, flew the drugs all over Southeast Asia.{4}

1950s to early 1970s, Indochina

During U.S. military involvement in Laos and other parts of Indochina, Air America flew
opium and heroin throughout the area. Many GI's in Vietnam became addicts. A
laboratory built at CIA headquarters in northern Laos was used to refine heroin. After a
decade of American military intervention, Southeast Asia had become the source of 70
percent of the world's illicit opium and the major supplier of raw materials for America's
booming heroin market.{5}

1973-80, Australia

The Nugan Hand Bank of Sydney was a CIA bank in all but name. Among its officers were
a network of US generals, admirals and CIA men, including former CIA Director William
Colby, who was also one of its lawyers. With branches in Saudi Arabia, Europe, Southeast
Asia, South America and the U.S., Nugan Hand Bank financed drug trafficking, money
laundering and international arms dealings. In 1980, amidst several mysterious deaths,
the bank collapsed, $50 million in debt.{6}

1970s and 1980s, Panama

For more than a decade, Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega was a highly paid CIA
asset and collaborator, despite knowledge by U.S. drug authorities as early as 1971 that the
general was heavily involved in drug trafficking and money laundering. Noriega facilitated
"guns-for-drugs" flights for the Contras, providing protection and pilots, as well as safe
havens for drug cartel officials, and discreet banking facilities. U.S. officials, including
then-CIA Director William Webster and several DEA officers, sent Noriega letters of
praise for efforts to thwart drug trafficking (albeit only against competitors of his Medellin
Cartel patrons). When a confluence of circumstances led to Noriega's political luck
running out, the Bush administration was reluctantly obliged to turn against him, invading
Panama in December 1989, kidnapping the general, and falsely ascribing the invasion to www.iqtest.com
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the war on drugs. Ironically, drug trafficking through Panama was not abated after the US
invasion.{7}

1980s, Central America

Obsessed with overthrowing the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua, Reagan

administration officials tolerated drug trafficking as long as the traffickers gave support to
the Contras. In 1989, the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and
International Operations (the Kerry committee) concluded a three-year investigation by
stating: "There was substantial evidence of drug smuggling through the war zones on the
part of individual Contras, Contra suppliers, Contra pilots, mercenaries who worked with
the Contras, and Contra supporters throughout the region. ... U.S. officials involved in
Central America failed to address the drug issue for fear of jeopardizing the war efforts
against Nicaragua. ... In each case, one or another agency of the U.S. government had
information regarding the involvement either while it was occurring, or immediately
thereafter. ... Senior U.S. policy makers were not immune to the idea that drug money was
a perfect solution to the Contras' funding problems."{8}

In Costa Rica, which served as the "Southern Front" for the Contras (Honduras being the
Northern Front), there were several different CIA-Contra networks involved in drug
trafficking, including that of CIA operative John Hull, whose farms along Costa Rica's
border with Nicaragua were the main staging area for the Contras. Hull and other
CIA-connected Contra supporters and pilots teamed up with George Morales, a major

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Miami-based Colombian drug trafficker who later admitted to giving $3 million in cash
and several planes to Contra leaders.{9} In 1989, after the Costa Rica government indicted
Hull for drug trafficking, a DEA-hired plane clandestinely and illegally flew him to Miami,
via Haiti. The US repeatedly thwarted Costa Rican efforts to extradite Hull back to Costa
Rica to stand trial.{10}

Another Costa Rican-based drug ring involved a group of Cuban Americans whom the CIA
had hired as military trainers for the Contras. Many had long been involved with the CIA
and drug trafficking. They used Contra planes and a Costa Rican-based shrimp company,
which laundered money for the CIA, to move cocaine to the U.S.{11}

Costa Rica was not the only route. Other way stations along the cocaine highway -- and
closely associated with the CIA -- were the Guatemalan military intelligence service,which
harbored many drug traffickers, and Ilopango Air Force Base in El Salvador, a key
component of the U.S. military intervention against the country's guerrillas.{12}
The Contras provided both protection and infrastructure (planes, pilots, airstrips,
warehouses, front companies and banks) to these CIA-linked drug networks. At least four
transport companies under investigation for drug trafficking received US government
contracts to carry non-lethal supplies to the Contras.{13} Southern Air Transport,
"formerly" CIA-owned, and later under Pentagon contract, was involved in the drug
running as well.{14} Cocaine-laden planes flew to Florida, Texas, Louisiana and other
locations, including several military bases. Designated as "Contra Craft," these shipments
were not to be inspected. When some authority wasn't clued in and made an arrest,
powerful strings were pulled on behalf of dropping the case, acquittal, reduced sentence,
or deportation.{15}

1980s to early 1990s, Afghanistan

CIA-supported Moujahedeen rebels engaged heavily in drug trafficking while fighting

against the Soviet-supported government and its plans to reform the very backward
Afghan society. The Agency's principal client was Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, one of the
leading druglords and leading heroin refiner. CIA-supplied trucks and mules, which had
carried arms into Afghanistan, were used to transport opium to laboratories along the
Afghan-Pakistan border. The output provided up to one half of the heroin used annually in
the United States and three-quarters of that used in Western Europe. US officials admitted
in 1990 that they had failed to investigate or take action against the drug operation
because of a desire not to offend their Pakistani and Afghan allies.{16} In 1993, an official
of the DEA called Afghanistan the new Colombia of the drug world.{17}

Mid-1980s to early 1990s, Haiti

While working to keep key Haitian military and political leaders in power, the CIA turned a
blind eye to their clients' drug trafficking. In 1986, the Agency added some more names to
its payroll by creating a new Haitian organization, the National Intelligence Service (SIN).
SIN was purportedly created to fight the cocaine trade, though SIN officers themselves
engaged in the trafficking, a trade aided and abetted by some of the Haitian military and
political leaders.{18}

NOTES

1. Peter Dale Scott & Jonathan Marshall, Cocaine Politics: Drugs, Armies, and the CIA in
Central America, Berkeley: U. of CA Press, 1991, pp. x-xi.

2. Celerino Castillo, Powder Burns: Cocaine, Contras and the Drug War, Mosaic Press,
1994, passim.

3. Alfred W. McCoy, The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia, New York: Harper & Row,
1972, chapter 2.

4. Christopher Robbins, Air America, New York: Avon Books, 1985, chapter 9; McCoy,
passim

5. McCoy, chapter 7; Robbins, p. 128 and chapter 9

6. Jonathan Kwitny, The Crimes of Patriots: A True Tale of Dope, Dirty Money and the
CIA, New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1987, passim; William Blum, Killing Hope: U.S.
Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, Maine: Common Courage Press, 1995,
p. 420, note 33.

7. a) Scott & Marshall, passim

b) John Dinges, Our Man in Panama, New York: Random House, 1991, passim
c) Murray Waas, "Cocaine and the White House Connection", Los Angeles Weekly, Sept.
30-Oct. 6 and Oct. 7-13, 1988, passim
d) National Security Archive Documentation Packet: "The Contras, Cocaine, and Covert
Operations" (Washington, D.C.), passim

8. "Kerry Report": Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy, a Report of the Senate
Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and
International Operations, 1989, pp. 2, 36, 41

9. Martha Honey, Hostile Acts: U.S. Policy in Costa Rica in the 1980s, Gainesville:
University Press of Florida, 1994.

10. Martha Honey and David Myers, "U.S. Probing Drug Agent's Activities in Costa Rica,"
San Francisco Chronicle, August 14, 1991.

11. Honey, Hostile Acts.

12. Frank Smyth, "In Guatemala, The DEA Fights the CIA", New Republic, June 5, 1995;
Martha Honey, "Cocaine's Certified Public Accountant," two-part series, The Source,
August and September, 1994; Blum, p. 239.

13. Kerry report, passim.

14. Scott & Marshall, pp. 17-18

15. Scott & Marshall, passim; Waas, passim; NSA, passim.

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16. Blum, p. 351; Tim Weiner, Blank Check: The Pentagon's Black Budget, New York:
Warner Books, 1990, pp. 151-2

17. Los Angeles Times, Aug. 22, 1993

18. New York Times, Nov. 14, 1993; The Nation, Oct. 3, 1994, p. 346

Written by William Blum, author of Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions
Since World War II; email:bblum6@aol.com

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