GNN: Grail News Now

THE BUSH HARD DRUG EMPIRE EVIDENCE

We encourage you to discern, utilise coherent integrative logic, compassion, intuitive flow, and independent investigation, before arriving at any definite conclusion as to materials posted by GNN. Please read Ananda´s GNN: Global News Flash. Truth is plural. Opinions do not necessary reflect those of GNN news service

Here is some of the material that was to be presented by European media networks. Whilst we do not necessarily subscribe to all of its contents, the documentation in many places is as objective as it can be. Since is information is for some reason not coming to the average citizen, it is imperative that this information is circulated and considered and further verified or denied. The contents are far too alarming to be suppressed. If the Bush family and others mentioned involved, some of whom are also directly involved in this war, are innocent to the information herein, then what can there be to fear in bringing this information to the public for all to consider and so that it is cleared up objectively. Perhaps your passing on to responsible researchers and journalists, this material, may aid in this clarified outcome, coherently.

Had this along with the other data apparently showing Bush´s use of hard drug money in "winning" the election been presented to the European and world public, just perhaps there may not have been any war. Perhaps it is still not too late.

We also resonate with Michael Ruppert´s suggestion for a solution at the end of part two, in terms of changing the drug legislations, along with the "cure for addiction" with the Shamanic Affrican root Ibogaine, which has 90% success rate, and prevents toxic withdrawal symptoms in exchange for psychological neurological processing of the addictive pattern. Also it prevents the addictive drug to work for several months. Solutions not wars, and "Just say KNOW".

-Ananda, GNN, September 16th 2001

CONTENTS:

1. 9TH CIRCUIT BACKS CONTRA LEADER RENATO PENA APPEALS CLAIM OF CIA DRUG INVOLVEMENT - IT'S ALL BACK IN PLAY IN TIME FOR THE ELECTION
2. Former contra wins review of U.S. drug ties. By Bob Egelko OF THE EXAMINER STAFF July 27, 2000
3. "PLEASE HELP STOP CONGRESSWOMAN PELOSI FROM KILLING THE CIA-DRUG STORY"
4. What Will Congress Do About New CIA-Drug Revelations?
5. ANALYSIS: THE HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE RESPONSE TO THE WEBB ALLEGATIONS
6. Chapter Four. The Response By Congress
7. House Sneaks Close-Out of CIA Drug Investigation
8. The Biggest CIA Scandal in History Has Its Feet in the Starting Blocks in a Houston Court House
9. The Bush Drug Sting, The Sins of the Father,
10. The Sins of the Son and -- The Smoking Airplane
11. Why Does George W. Bush Fly in Drug Smuggler Barry Seal's Airplane? y
12. Daniel Hopsicker and Michael C. Ruppert
13. The CIA Gets Busted --Yet Again
14. IIOLIVER NORTH IS TOAST!
15. Volume Two of CIA Inspector General's Drug Report Released
16. A CIA Confession - Oliver North Exposed by Michael C. Ruppert
17. RELEVANT EXCERPTS - VOLUME TWO of the CIA INSPECTOR GENERAL'S REPORT OF INVESTIGATION INTO CONTRA DRUG TRAFFICKING
18. Celerino "Cele" Castillo III Author: "POWDERBURNS" Cocaine, Contras & The Drug War WRITTEN STATEMENT OF CELERINO CASTILLO III, (D.E.A., RETIRED) FOR THE HOUSE PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE
19. OPENING REMARKS OF MICHAEL C. RUPPERT for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence

Here is an excerpt of what is revealed amidst a mountain of documentation:

 

It has all the makings of a major box office thriller: Texas Governor and Republican Presidential contender George W. Bush and his brother Jeb, allegedly caught on videotape in 1985 picking up kilos of cocaine at a Florida airport in a DEA sting set up by Barry Seal

An ensuing murderous cover-up featuring Seal's public assassination less than a year later by a hit teamthe members of which, when caught, reveal to their attorneys during trial that their actions were being directed by then, National Security Council (NSC) staffer - Lt. Colonel Oliver North

And a private turboprop King Air 200 supposedly caught on  tape in the sting with FAA ownership records leading directly to the CIA and some of the perpetrators of the most notorious (and never punished) major financial frauds of the '80s. Greek shippers paying bribes to obtain loans from American companies that would never be repaid.An American executive snatching the charred remains of a $10,000 payoff check from an ashtray in an Athens restaurantSwiss police finding bank accounts used for kickbacks and bribes

Add to this mix the now irrefutable proof, some of it from the CIA itself, that then Vice President George H.W. Bush was a decision maker in illegal Contra support operations connected to the "unusual" acquisition of aircraft  and that his staff participated in key financial, operational and political decisions

All these events lead inexorably to one unanswered question: How did this one plane go from being controlled by Barry Seal, the biggest drug smuggler in American history, to becoming, according to state officials,  a favored airplane of Texas Governor George W. Bush?

Halliburton Corporation's Brown and Root is one of the major components of

 THE BUSH-CHENEY DRUG EMPIRE

 

[Lead story in the October 24, 2000 issue of "From The Wilderness"] 

by

Michael C. Ruppert

 

© Copyright 2000, Michael C. Ruppert and "From The Wilderness" Publications, P.O. Box 6061-350, Sherman Oaks, CA 91413, 818-788-8791, www.copvcia.com. All Rights Reserved. - Permission to reprint for non-profit only is hereby granted as long as proper sourcing appears. For all other permissions contact mruppert@copvcia.com.

 

FTW  October 24, 2000 - The success of Bush Vice Presidential running mate Richard Cheney at leading Halliburton, Inc. to a five year $3.8 billion "pig-out" on federal contracts and taxpayer-insured loans is only a partial indicator of what may happen if the Bush ticket wins in two weeks.

A closer look at available research, including an August 2, 2000 report by the Center for Public Integrity (CPI) at www.public-i.org, suggests that drug money has played a role in the successes achieved by Halliburton under Cheney's tenure as CEO from 1995 to 2000. This is especially true for Halliburton's most famous subsidiary, heavy construction and oil giant, Brown and Root. A deeper look into history reveals that Brown and Root's past as well as the past of Dick Cheney himself, connect to the international drug trade on more than one occasion and in more than one way.

 

This June the lead Washington, D.C. attorney for a major Russian oil company connected in law enforcement reports to heroin smuggling and also a beneficiary of US backed loans to pay for Brown and Root contracts in Russia, held a $2.2 million fund raiser to fill the already bulging coffers of presidential candidate George W. Bush. This is not the first time that Brown and Root has been connected to drugs and the fact is that this "poster child" of American industry may also be a key player in Wall Street's efforts to maintain domination of the half trillion dollar a year global drug trade and its profits. And Dick Cheney, who has also come closer to drugs than most suspect, and who is also Halliburton's largest individual shareholder ($45.5 million), has a vested interest in seeing to it that Brown and Root's successes continue.

 

  Of all American companies dealing directly with the U.S. military and providing cover for CIA operations few firms can match the global presence of this giant construction powerhouse which employs 20,000 people in more than 100 countries. Through its sister companies or joint ventures, Brown and Root can build offshore oil rigs, drill wells, construct and operate everything from harbors to pipelines to highways to nuclear reactors. It can train and arm security forces and it can now also feed, supply and house armies. One key beacon of Brown and Root's overwhelming appeal to agencies like the CIA is that, from its own corporate web page, it  proudly announces that it has received the contract to dismantle aging Russian nuclear tipped ICBMs in their silos.

 

Furthermore, the relationships between key institutions, players and the Bushes themselves suggest that under a George "W" administration the Bush family and its allies may well be able, using Brown and Root as the operational interface, to control the drug trade all the way from Medellin to Moscow.

 

Originally formed as a heavy construction company to build dams, Brown and Root grew its operations via shrewd political contributions to Senate candidate Lyndon Johnson in 1948. Expanding into the building of oil platforms, military bases, ports, nuclear facilities, harbors and tunnels, Brown and Root virtually underwrote LBJ's political career. It prospered as a result, making billions on U.S. Government contracts during the Vietnam War. The "Austin Chronicle" in an August 28 Op-ed piece entitled "The Candidate From Brown and Root" labels Republican Cheney as the political dispenser of Brown and Root's largesse.  According to political campaign records, during Cheney's five year tenure at Halliburton the company's political contributions more than doubled to $1.2 million. Not surprisingly, most of that money went to Republican candidates.

 

  Independent news service "newsmakingnews.com," also describes how in 1998, with Cheney as Chairman, Halliburton spent $8.1 billion to purchase oil industry equipment and drilling supplier Dresser Industries. This made Halliburton a corporation that will have a presence in almost any future oil drilling operation anywhere in the world. And it also brought back into the family fold the company that had once sent a plane - also in 1948 - to fetch the new Yale Graduate George H.W. Bush, to begin his career in the Texas oil business.  Bush the elder's father, Prescott, served as a Managing Director for the firm that once owned Dresser, Brown Bothers Harriman.

 

It is clear that everywhere there is oil there is Brown and Root. But increasingly, everywhere there is war or insurrection there is Brown and Root also. From Bosnia and Kosovo, to Chechnya, to Rwanda, to Burma, to Pakistan, to Laos, to Vietnam, to Indonesia, to Iran to Libya to Mexico to Colombia, Brown and Root's traditional operations have expanded from heavy construction to include the provision of logistical support for the U.S. military. Now, instead of U.S. Army quartermasters, the world is likely to see Brown and Root warehouses storing and managing everything from uniforms to rations to vehicles.

 

Dramatic expansion of Brown and Root's operations in Colombia also suggest Bush preparations for a war inspired feeding frenzy as a part of "Plan Colombia." This is consistent with moves by former Bush Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady to open a joint Colombian-American investment partnership called Corfinsura for the financing of major construction projects with the Colombian Antioquia Syndicate, headquartered in Medellin. (See FTW June, 00). And expectations of a ground war in Colombia may explain why, in a 2000 SEC filing, Brown and Root reported that in addition to owning more than 800,000 square feet of warehouse space in Colombia, they also lease another 122,000 square feet. According to the filing of the Brown and Root Energy Services Group, the only other places where the company maintains warehouse space are in Mexico (525,000 sq. feet), and the U.S. (38,000) square feet.

 

  According to the web site of Colombia's Foreign Investment Promotion Agency Brown and Root had no presence in the country until 1997. What does Brown and Root, which, according to the AP has made more than $2 billion supporting and supplying U.S. troops, know about Colombia that the U.S. public does not?  Why the need for almost a million square feet of warehouse space that can be transferred from one Brown and Root operation (energy) to another (military support) with the stroke of a pen?

 

DRUGS

 As described by the Associated Press, during "Iran-Contra" Congressman Dick Cheney of the House Intelligence Committee was a rabid supporter of Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North. This was in spite of the fact that North had lied to Cheney in a private 1986 White House briefing. Oliver North's own diaries and subsequent investigations by the CIA Inspector General have irrevocably tied him directly to cocaine smuggling during the 1980s and the opening of bank accounts for one firm moving four tons of cocaine a month. This, however, did not stop Cheney from actively supporting North's 1994 unsuccessful run for the U.S. Senate from Virginia just a year before he took over the reins at Brown and Root's parent company, Dallas based Halliburton Inc. in 1995.

 

As the Bush Secretary of Defense during Desert Shield/Desert Storm (1990-91), Cheney also directed special operations involving Kurdish rebels in northern Iran. The Kurds' primary source of income for more than fifty years has been heroin smuggling from Afghanistan and Pakistan through Iran, Iraq and Turkey. Having had some personal experience with Brown and Root I noted carefully  when the Los Angeles Times observed that on March 22, 1991 that a group of gunmen burst into the Ankara, Turkey offices of the joint venture, Vinnell, Brown and Root and assassinated retired Air Force Chief Master Sergeant John Gandy.

 

In March of 1991, tens of thousands of Kurdish refugees, long-time assets of the CIA, were being massacred by Sadam Hussein in the wake of the Gulf War. Sadam, seeking to destroy any hopes of a successful Kurdish revolt, found it easy to kill thousands of the unwanted Kurds who had fled to the Turkish border seeking sanctuary. There, Turkish security forces, trained in part by the Vinnell, Brown and Root partnership,  turned thousands of Kurds back into certain death. Today, the Vinnell Corporation (a TRW Company) is, along with the firms MPRI and DynCorp (FTW June, 00) one of the three pre-eminent private mercenary corporations in the world. It is also the dominant entity for the training of security forces throughout the Middle East. Not surprisingly the Turkish border regions in question were the primary transhipment points for heroin, grown in Afghanistan and Pakistan and destined for the markets of Europe.

 

A confidential source with intelligence experience in the region subsequently told me that the Kurds "got some payback against the folks that used to help them move their drugs." He openly acknowledged that Brown and Root and Vinnell both routinely provided NOC or non-official cover for CIA officers. But I already knew that.

 

From 1994 to 1999, during US military intervention in the Balkans where, according to "The Christian Science Monitor" and "Jane's Intelligence Review," the Kosovo Liberation Army controls 70 per cent of the heroin entering Western Europe, Cheney's  Brown and Root made billions of dollars supplying U.S. troops from vast facilities in the region. Brown and Root support operations continue in Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia to this day.

 

 Dick Cheney's footprints have come closer to drugs than one might suspect. The August Center for Public Integrity report brought them even closer. It would be factually correct to say that there is a direct linkage of Brown and Root facilities - often in remote and hazardous regions - between every drug producing region and every drug consuming region in the world. These coincidences, in and of themselves, do not prove complicity in the trade. Other facts, however, lead inescapably in that direction.

 

 

A DIRECT DRUG LINK

The CPI report entitled "Cheney Led Halliburton To Feast at Federal Trough" written by veteran journalists Knut Royce and Nathaniel Heller describes how, under five years of Cheney's leadership, Halliburton, largely through subsidiary Brown and Root, enjoyed $3.8 billion in federal contracts and taxpayer insured loans. The loans had been granted by the Export-Import Bank (EXIM) and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC). According to Ralph McGehee's "CIA Base ©" both institutions are heavily infiltrated by the CIA and routinely provide NOC to its officers.

 

One of those loans to Russian financial/banking conglomerate The Alfa Group of Companies contained $292 million to pay for Brown and Root's contract to refurbish a Siberian oil field owned by the Russian Tyumen Oil Company. The Alfa Group completed its 51% acquisition of Tyumen Oil in what was allegedly a rigged bidding process in 1998. An official Russian government report claimed that the Alfa Group's top executives, oligarchs Mikhail Fridman and Pyotr Aven "allegedly participated in the transit of drugs from Southeast Asia through Russia and into Europe."

 

These same executives, Fridman and Aven, who reportedly smuggled the heroin in connection with Russia's Solntsevo mob family were the same ones who applied for the EXIM loans that Halliburton's lobbying later safely secured. As a result Brown and Root's work in Alfa Tyumen oil fields could continue - and expand.

 

After describing how organized criminal interests in the Alfa Group had allegedly stolen the oil field by fraud, the CPI story, using official reports from the FSB  (the Russian equivalent of the FBI), oil companies such as BP-Amoco, former CIA and KGB officers and press accounts then established a solid link to Alfa Tyumen and the transportation of heroin.

 

In 1995 sacks of heroin disguised as sugar were stolen from a rail container leased by Alfa Echo and sold in the Siberian town of Khabarovsk. A problem arose when many residents of the town became "intoxicated" or "poisoned." The CPI story also stated, "The FSB report said that within days of the incident, Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) agents conducted raids of Alfa Eko buildings and found 'drugs and other compromising documentation.'

 

"Both reports claim that Alfa Bank has laundered drug funds from Russian and Colombian drug cartels.

 

"The FSB document claims that at the end of 1993, a top Alfa official met with Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela, the now imprisoned financial mastermind of Colombia's notorious Cali cartel, 'to conclude an agreement about the transfer of money into the Alfa Bank from offshore zones such as the Bahamas, Gibraltar and others. The plan was to insert it back into the Russian economy through the purchase of stock in Russian companies.

 

" He [the former KGB agent] reported that there was evidence 'regarding [Alfa Bank's] involvement with the money laundering of Latin American drug cartels."

 

It then becomes harder for Cheney and Halliburton to assert mere coincidence in all of this as CPI reported that Tyumen's lead  Washington attorney James C, Langdon, Jr. at the firm of Aikin Gump "helped coordinate a $2.2 million fund raiser for Bush this June. He then agreed to help recruit 100 lawyers and lobbyists in the capital to raise $25,000 each for W's campaign."

 

The heroin mentioned in the CPI story, originated in Laos where longtime Bush allies and covert warriors Richard Armitage and retired CIA ADDO (Associate Deputy Director of Operations) Ted Shackley have been repeatedly linked to the drug trade. It then made its way across Southeast Asia to Vietnam, probably the port of Haiphong. Then the heroin sailed to Russia's Pacific port of Valdivostok from whence it subsequently bounced across Siberia by rail and thence by truck or rail to Europe, passing through the hands of Russian Mafia leaders in Chechnya and Azerbaijan.  Chechnya and Azerbaijan are hotbeds of both armed conflict and oil exploration and Brown and Root has operations all along this route.

 

This long, expensive and tortured path was hastily established, as described by FTW in previous issues, after President George Bush's personal envoy Richard Armitage, holding the rank of Ambassador, had traveled to the former Soviet Union to assist it with its "economic development" in 1989. The obstacle then to a more direct, profitable and efficient route from Afghanistan and Pakistan through Turkey into Europe was  a cohesive Yugoslavian/Serbian government controlling the Balkans and continuing instability in the Golden Crescent of Pakistan/Afghanistan. Also, there was no other way, using heroin from the Golden Triangle (Burma, Laos and Thailand), to deal with China and India but to go around them.

 

It is perhaps not by coincidence again that Cheney and Armitage share membership in the prestigious Aspen Institute, an exclusive bi-partisan research think tank, and also in the U.S. Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce. Just last November, in what may be a portent of things to come, Armitage, played the role of Secretary of Defense in an practical exercise at the Council on Foreign Relations where he and Cheney are also both members. Speculation that the scandal plagued Armitage, who resigned under a cloud as Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Reagan Administration, is W's first choice for Secretary of Defense next year is widespread.

 

The Clinton Administration took care of all that wasted travel for heroin with the 1998 destruction of Serbia and Kosovo and the installation of the KLA as a regional power. That opened a direct line from Afghanistan to Western Europe and Brown and Root was right in the middle of that too. The Clinton skill at streamlining drug operations  was described in detail in the May issue of FTW in a story entitled "The Democratic Party's Presidential Drug Money Pipeline." That article has since been reprinted in three countries. The essence of the drug economic lesson was that by growing opium in Colombia and by smuggling both cocaine and heroin from Colombia to New York City through the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico (a virtual straight line), traditional smuggling routes could be shortened or even eliminated. This reduced both risk and cost, increased profits and eliminated competition.

 

FTW suspects the hand of Medellin co-founder Carlos Lehder in this process and it is interesting to note that Lehder, released from prison under Clinton in 1995, is now active in both the Bahamas and South America. Lehder was known during the eighties as "The genius of transportation." I can well imagine a Dick Cheney, having witnessed the complete restructuring of the global drug trade in the last eight years, going to George W and saying, "Look, I know how we can make it even better." One thing is for certain. As quoted in the CPI article, one Halliburton Vice President noted that if the Bush-Cheney ticket was elected, "the company's government contracts would obviously go through the roof."

 

THE DARK PAST

In July of 1977 this writer, then a Los Angeles Police officer struggled to make sense of a world gone haywire. In a last ditch effort to salvage a relationship with my fiancée, Nordica Theodora D'Orsay (Teddy),  a  CIA contract agent, I had traveled to find her in New Orleans. On a hastily arranged vacation, secured with the blessing of my Commanding Officer, Captain Jesse Brewer of LAPD, I had gone on my own, unofficially, to avoid the scrutiny of LAPD's Organized Crime Intelligence Division (OCID).

 

Starting in the late spring of 1976 Teddy had wanted me to join her operations from within the ranks of LAPD. I had refused to get involved with drugs in any way and everything she mentioned seemed to involve either heroin or cocaine along with guns that she was always moving out of the country. The Director of the CIA then was George Herbert Walker Bush.

 

Although officially on staff at the LAPD Academy at the time, I had been unofficially loaned to OCID since January when Teddy, announcing the start of a new operation planned in the fall of 1976 had suddenly disappeared.  She left many people, including me, baffled and twisting in the breeze. The OCID detectives had been pressuring me hard for information about her and what I knew of her activities. It was information I could not give them. Hoping against hope that I would find some way to understand her involvement with CIA, LAPD, the royal family of Iran, the Mafia and drugs I set out alone into eight days of  Dantean revelations that have determined the course of my life from that day to this.

 

Arriving in New Orleans in early July, 1977 I found her living in an apartment across the river in Gretna. Equipped with scrambler phones, night vision devices and working from sealed communiqués delivered by naval and air force personnel from nearby Belle Chasse Naval Air Station, Teddy was involved in something truly ugly. She was arranging for large quantities of weapons to be loaded onto ships leaving for Iran. At the same time she was working with Mafia associates of New Orleans Mafia boss Carlos Marcello to coordinate the movement of service boats that were bringing large quantities of heroin into the city. The boats arrived at Marcello controlled docks, unmolested by even the New Orleans police she introduced me to, along with divers, military men, former Green Berets and CIA personnel.

 

The service boats were retrieving the heroin from oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, oil rigs  in international waters, oil rigs built and serviced by Brown and Root. The guns that Teddy monitored, apparently Vietnam era surplus AK 47s and M16s, were being loaded onto ships also owned or leased by Brown and Root. And more than once during the eight days I spent in New Orleans I met and ate at restaurants with Brown and Root employees who were boarding those ships and leaving for Iran within days. Once, while leaving a bar and apparently having asked the wrong question, I was shot at in an attempt to scare me off.

Disgusted and heart broken at witnessing my fiancée and my government smuggling drugs, I ended the relationship. Returning home to LA I made a clean breast and reported all the activity I had seen, including the connections to Brown and Root, to LAPD intelligence officers. They promptly told me that I was crazy. Forced out of LAPD under threat of death at the end of 1978, I made complaints to LAPD's Internal Affairs Division and to the LA office of the FBI under the command of FBI SAC Ted Gunderson. I and my attorney wrote to the politicians, the Department of Justice, the CIA and contacted the L.A. Times. The FBI and the LAPD said that I was crazy.

 

According to a 1981 two-part news story in the "Los Angeles Herald Examiner" it was revealed that The FBI had taken Teddy into custody and then released her before classifying their investigation without further action. Former New Orleans Crime Commissioner Aaron Cohen told reporter Randall Sullivan that he found my description of events perfectly plausible after his thirty years of studying Louisiana's organized crime operations.

 

To this day a CIA report prepared as a result of my complaint remains classified and exempt from release pursuant to Executive Order of the President in the interests of national security and because it would reveal the identities of CIA agents.

 

On October 26, 1981, in the basement of the West Wing of the White House, I reported on what I had seen in New Orleans to my friend and UCLA classmate Craig Fuller. Craig Fuller went on to become Chief of Staff to Vice President Bush from 1981 to 1985.

 

In 1982, then UCLA political science professor Paul Jabber, filled in many of the pieces in my quest to understand what I had seen in New Orleans. He was qualified to do so because he had served as a CIA and State Department consultant to the Carter administration. Paul explained that, after a  1975 treaty between the Shah of Iran and Sadam Hussein the Shah had cut off all overt military support for Kurdish rebels fighting Sadam from the north of Iraq. In exchange the Shah had gained access to the Shat al-Arab waterway so that he could multiply his oil exports and income. Not wanting to lose a long-term valuable asset in the Kurds, the CIA had then used Brown and Root, which operated in both countries and maintained port facilities in the Persian Gulf and near Shat al-Arab to rearm the Kurds. The whole operation had been financed with heroin. Paul was matter-of-fact about it.

 

In 1983 Paul Jabber left UCLA to become a Vice President of Banker's Trust and Chairman of the Middle East Department of the Council on Foreign Relations.

 

----------

If one is courageous enough to seek an "operating system" that theoretically explains what FTW has just described for you, one need look no further than a fabulous two-part article in "Le Monde Diplomatique" in April of this year. The brilliant stories, focusing heavily on drug capital are titled "Crime, The World's Biggest Free Enterprise." The brilliant and penetrating words of authors Christian de Brie and Jean de Maillard do a better job of explaining the actual world economic and political situation than anything that I have ever read.

 

De Brie writes, "By allowing capital to flow unchecked from one end of the world to the other, globalization and abandon of sovereignty have together fostered the explosive growth of an outlaw financial market

 

"It is a coherent system closely linked to the expansion of modern capitalism and based on an association of three partners: governments, transnational corporations and mafias. Business is business: financial crime is first and foremost a market, thriving and structured, ruled by supply and demand.

 

  "Big business complicity and political laisser faire is the only way that large-scale organized crime can launder and recycle the fabulous proceeds of its activities. And the transnationals need the support of governments and the neutrality of regulatory authorities in order to consolidate their positions, increase their profits, withstand and crush the competition, pull off the "deal of the century" and finance their illicit operations. Politicians are directly involved and their ability to intervene depends on the backing and the funding that keep them in power. This collusion of interests is an essential part of the world economy, the oil that keeps the wheels of capitalism turning."

 

  After confronting CIA Director John Deutch on world television on November 15, 1996 I was interviewed by the staffs of both the Senate and House Intelligence Committees. I prepared written testimony for Senate Intelligence which I submitted although I was never called to testify. In every one of those interviews and in my written testimony and in every lecture since that time I have told the story of Brown and Root. I will tell it again at the USC School of International Relations on December the 8th, 2000 - regardless of who wins the election.

 

Michael C. Ruppert

 

www.copvcia.com

 

Sources:

 

 -         The Center for Public Integrity, "Cheney Led Halliburton to Feast at Federal Trough", Knut Royce & Nathaniel Heller,

http://www.public-i.org/story_01_080200.htm

 

-         "Le Monde - Diplomatique",  April 2000.

 

-         The U.S. Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce

 

-         The Aspen Institute, www.aspeninst.org

 

-         "The Austin Chronicle", August 28, 2000

 

-         The Associated Press, "Study: US Could Save Cost in Balkans" - 10/10/00

 

-         The Associated Press, "Cheney, North Relationship Probed" - 8/11/00

 

-         "The New York Times" Index

 

-         The Council on Foreign Relations

 

-         "The Unauthorized Biography of George Bush" - Webster Tarpley and Anton Chaitkin

 

-         "CIA Base" © 1992, Ralph McGehee

 

-         CIA Inspector General Report of Investigation: Allegations of Connections Between CIA and the Contras in Cocaine Trafficking to the United States. Volume II: The Contra Story - Report 96-0143-IG.

 

-         newsmakingnews.com,  27 August 2000, "The Dick Cheney Data Dump"

 

-         Securities and Exchange Commission - "Edgar" Data base.

 

-         Halliburton/Brown and Root - www.Halliburton.com/brs

 

-         The Vinnell Corporation - www.Vinnell.com

 

-         "The New York Press," 8/1/00

 

-         "The Los Angeles Times," March 23, 1991.

 

-         "The Los Angeles Herald Examiner:, Oct. 11 & 18, 1981

 

-         "The Christian Science Monitor" - Oct. 20, 1994

 

-         "Jane's Intelligence Review" - February 1, 1995.

 

-         Written testimony of Michael C. Ruppert for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence dated 10/1/97 - http://www.copvcia.com/ssci.htm

 

-         "From The Wilderness" (4/99, 4/00, 6/00)

 

9TH CIRCUIT BACKS CONTRA LEADER RENATO PENA APPEALS CLAIM OF CIA DRUG INVOLVEMENT - IT'S ALL BACK IN PLAY IN TIME FOR THE ELECTION  

 

THE "SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER" today reported that the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has found valid evidence that former Contra supporter Renato Pena's claims of CIA involvement in protecting drug trafficking to support the Contras were credible. The court also ruled that Pena's assertions of CIA authorization for drug trafficking in the San Francisco bay area were sufficiently grounded in fact to warrant a remand of Pena's deportation case for an evidentiary hearing in U.S. District Court (the full story follows).

 

Pena's attorney, Stephen Shaikin, contacted by FTW, doubted that the U.S. Attorney would risk an evidentiary hearing in which Pena could introduce into evidence Volume II of the 1998 CIA Inspector General's report that would prove his case, outright. FTW agrees. Additional facts supporting Pena's assertion contained in Volume I of the CIA IG Report by Frederick P. Hitz and a subsequent Department of Justice Inspector General's report by Michael Bromwich were drawn to Shaikin's attention in an interview this afternoon. FTW has offered to make all of our research available in preparation for the hearing. No date for the evidentiary hearing has been set.  

 

The language used by the Ninth Circuit was unequivocal and stunning for it's directness:

 

"Pena and his allies supporting the contras became involved in selling cocaine in order to circumvent the congressional ban on non-humanitarian aid to the contras," the three-judge panel said. "Pena states that he was told that leading contra military commanders, with ties to the CIA, knew about the drug dealing. Pena believed that the sole purpose of these drug transactions was to help the contras, and he believed the United States government would not seek to prosecute.

 

"The circumstances surrounding Pena's case, including his belief that his activity was supported by the U.S. government and his alleged reliance on the assurances of the assistant U.S. attorney regarding his immigration status, raise important questions about public confidence in the administration of justice."

 

San Francisco attorney Bill Simpich, acting as lead counsel for class action suits filed against the CIA in 1999 based on the same issues and evidence told FTW, "This is the best break we've had since we filed our suits. This opens an important new vein of evidence with one of the highest courts in the land, saying, in effect, that this issue needs to be addressed."It is all back in play and everyone please notice that this is happening, just like Dark Alliance first did, in a Presidential election year in time to influence votes before the election. We will probably see Congresswoman Maxine Waters break her deafening silence on Volume II and the infamous actions of the House Intelligence Committee this May in closing out their investigation and ignoring the blatant evidence of CIA involvement contained CIA's own report.

 

This trial will allow Pena to put Volume II and all of the available documentation on trial. If the U.S. Attorney's office doesn't drop this, it gives us all of Volume II and Gary Webb right back again in a way that Porter Goss can't lie about because it now becomes non-disputable evidence, openly submitted in a court of law for public scrutiny. And that is exactly what the House intelligence Committee should have done more than a year ago. We wonder how quickly Congressman Porter Goss and the CIA will be in touch with the U.S. Attorney in San Francisco telling them to drop the case and give Pena a permanent green card.

 

[THE FULL STORY FOLLOWS IMMEDIATELY]

 

Mike Ruppert

Publisher/Editor

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Reprinted with permission from San Francisco Examiner. (c)2000 San Francisco Examiner.

 

Former contra wins review of U.S. drug ties.

 

By Bob Egelko

OF THE EXAMINER STAFF July 27, 2000

 

Fights deportation to Nicaragua, says CIA knew of cocaine deals The former Northern California spokesman for the Nicaraguan contras, facing deportation for cocaine trafficking in the 1980s, will apparently get the chance to convince a federal judge that he was assured the drug deals had U.S. government approval.

 

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that a judge should hear and evaluate Renato Pena's claim that a federal prosecutor in San Francisco had told him after his arrest in 1984 that he was at no risk of deportation for having carried cocaine and cash to Los Angeles about a dozen times.

 

In court papers opposing Pena's challenge to his current deportation order, the U.S. attorney's office said no such assurance was given. Pena's case recalls the controversy over allegations of CIA- backed drug dealing by the contras, the U.S.-supported guerrillas fighting Nicaragua's leftist government in the 1980s. Accused in a San Jose Mercury News series of connections to the early crack cocaine trade in Southern California, the CIA hotly denied having anything to do with Los Angeles drug traffickers who claimed contra connections.

 

Pena said he had been told by Norwin Meneses, a major drug trafficker with ties to the contras, that CIA-connected contra commanders were aware of the drug operation in which Pena took part. The CIA has denied any relationship with Meneses.

 

The appeals court stopped well short of finding that the government condoned Pena's activity as a drug courier. But the court said Pena's claims about the government's attitude were relevant to his attempt to overturn his 1985 drug conviction, the basis of the current attempt to deport him.

 

"Pena and his allies supporting the contras became involved in selling cocaine in order to circumvent the congressional ban on non-humanitarian aid to the contras," the three-judge panel said. "Pena states that he was told that leading contra military commanders, with ties to the CIA, knew about the drug dealing. Pena believed that the sole purpose of these drug transactions was to help the contras, and he believed the United States government would not seek to prosecute.

 

"The circumstances surrounding Pena's case, including his belief that his activity was supported by the U.S. government and his alleged reliance on the assurances of the assistant U.S. attorney regarding his immigration status, raise important questions about public confidence in the administration of justice."

 

The court said a federal judge should hear testimony from Pena and others about what assurances he had been given before pleading guilty in 1985, and about whether his court-appointed attorney had acted incompetently by failing to tell him he risked deportation. The judge would then decide whether to set aside the guilty plea. Pena's suit, seeking to overturn the guilty plea, had been dismissed by U.S.

 

District Judge Fern Smith in 1997. The hearing ordered Wednesday would be held before another judge, because Smith now heads the Federal Judicial Center in Washington, D.C.

 

"He's a credible person," said Pena's current attorney, Stephen Shaiken. "He was good enough for the U.S. government when he was spokesperson for the opposition and when he was an informant (against others in the drug ring). He was telling the truth then, and he's telling it now."

 

He said Pena, now a San Francisco city employee, was not speaking to reporters about the case. 

The U.S. attorney's office, which represented immigration officials who want Pena deported, declined comment on the ruling.

 

Pena was a member of the security force of Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza, who was overthrown by the leftist Sandinistas in 1979. Pena came to the United States in 1980 and became the chief of public relations in Northern California for the FDN, the contras' political arm. He applied for political asylum in August 1984 but was arrested three months later on charges of possessing cocaine with intent to distribute it. Pena said he had been asked by Norwin Meneses' nephew, Jairo Meneses, to travel to Los Angeles with money that would be used to buy cocaine and finance contras, whose U.S. military aid had been cut off by Congress. He was paid about $6,000 for carrying money and drugs to Los Angeles between March and November 1984, the court said.

 

Pena said he had agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in exchange for a reduced sentence and been told by a federal prosecutor that he would be taken care of and had nothing to fear about his immigration status. He said he never would have pleaded guilty if he had known he could be deported to Nicaragua, then governed by the Sandinistas. He also said his court-appointed attorney had never spoken to him about the possibility of deportation.

 

After serving a year in a halfway house and testifying against another Meneses relative in the drug case, Pena was granted asylum in 1987, the court said. But the Immigration and Naturalization Service revoked his asylum in 1996 and moved to deport him to Nicaragua because of his drug conviction.

 

In court papers, Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Yeargin said Pena's asylum had been withdrawn because he had failed to disclose his conviction on his asylum application. Yeargin also said the original prosecutor in the case, Rodolfo Orjales, had discussed drug smuggling to Pena but made no promises to him.

 

Orjales, now a Justice Department employee in Washington, D.C., was out of his office Wednesday and unavailable for comment.

 

(c)2000 San Francisco Examiner

Examiner Hot News

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------

July 12, 2000, Peter Dale Scott asks:

 

"PLEASE HELP STOP CONGRESSWOMAN PELOSI FROM KILLING THE CIA-DRUG STORY"

 

Berkeley - In May 2000, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, a liberal Democrat, participated in a shameless attempt to stop public interest in the CIA's use and protection of drug-traffickers supporting the Nicaraguan Contras.  If you did not know this, please read the attached op-ed and analysis of a Report released in May by the House Permanent Select Committee (HPSCI), on which she serves.

 

If you agree that she should now repudiate the Report, please let her know.  As this is written, in July 2000, the U.S. is drifting into a protracted war in Colombia, a war all too like the Vietnam War in its early stages.  Rep. Pelosi herself recently warned that Clinton's $1.6 billion aid plan will lead the United States into "a five- to 10-year commitment, which will cost U.S. taxpayers in excess of $5 billion." Many observers envisage a much more costly scenario, not only in dollars but in lives.

 

Congresswoman Pelosi needs to be persuaded that it is thus a matter of life and death to undermine the ideological underpinnings of this so-called War on Drugs. One of the best ways to do this is to expose, rather than dishonestly bury, the CIA's recurring habit of allying itself with drug-traffickers.

 

The HPSCI Report is a dishonest piece of propaganda, transmitting lies easily disproven. It purports to be based on two earlier investigative reports by CIA Inspector-General Frederick Hitz. However, compared to it, the Hitz reports are relatively candid, casting needed light on the CIA-drug problem which Pelosi herself has deemed to be important. Pelosi may not have realized all this when she let the Report be released without dissent.

 

But what will she do now? Will she represent the needs of the CIA or of her electorate? If the latter, how will she challenge the cover-up she signed on to?

 

Will Pelosi repudiate the HPSCI Report?

 

Will Pelosi press for an open hearing on the second Hitz Report, something originally promised by the Committee but never provided?

 

Will Pelosi press for a fuller release of Hitz II? As released in redacted form, Hitz II has only one page on Southern Air Transport, a former CIA proprietary which was in the DEA database for suspected smuggling?  Many have suspected a major scandal here which the CIA is still trying to hide.

 

Was Pelosi aware that John Millis, HPSCI chief of staff when the Committee's report was prepared and released, was a CIA veteran who for thirteen years worked with and supplied the heroin-smuggling mujahedeen in Afghanistan? (At least one of the suspect airlines supplying these mujahedeen, Global International, was also involved in Iran-Contra.)

 

If Pelosi was aware of this conflict of interest, will she apologize?  If not, will she expose Chairman Porter Goss, another CIA veteran, for so brazenly putting the interests of the CIA ahead of those of Congress and the American people?

 

Up to now, Nancy Pelosi and her Washington and San Francisco offices have refused to answer repeated phone calls and FAXes on this question. This is where you can make a difference, whether or not you are a voter in her Eighth District in San Francisco. Please contact her and let her know your concern, preferably in your own words.

 

She can be reached by email at sf.nancy@mail.house.gov   Her office phone numbers are (415) 556-4862 (San Francisco) or, preferably (202) 225-4965 (Washington).

 

Peter Dale Scott, Ph.D.

 

University of California

 

[Following is an editorial written by Peter in response to the House Intelligence Committee's actions of May 12, 2000]

 

OP-ED

 

What Will Congress Do About New CIA-Drug Revelations?

 

Peter Dale Scott

 

Monday, June 19, 2000  San Francisco Chronicle

 

URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2000/06/19/ED58466.DTL

 

CONGRESS WILL shortly have to decide whether to bury or deal with explosive new revelations that the Central Intelligence Agency protected major drug traffickers who aided the Contra army in Central America. These new findings go far beyond the original stories which gave rise to them by Gary Webb in 1996.

 

Webb had alleged that cocaine from two Contra-supporting traffickers, Norwin Meneses and Danilo Blandon, had helped fuel the national crack epidemic. The resulting political firestorm brought promises of a full investigation. After an unprecedented review of internal CIA and Justice Department files, three massive reports, totaling almost 1,000 pages, were released by the inspectors general of the CIA (Fred Hitz) and Justice Department (Michael Bromwich).

 

The new revelations confirmed many of Webb's claims. Meneses and Blandon were admitted to have been (despite previous press denials) "significant traffickers who also supported, to some extent, the Contras." For years they escaped prosecution, until after support for the Contras ended.

 

Meanwhile the reports opened the doors on worse scandals. According to the reports, the CIA made conscious use of major traffickers as agents, contractors and assets. It maintained good relations with Contras it knew to be working with drug traffickers. It protected traffickers which the Justice Department was trying to prosecute, sometimes by suppressing or denying the existence of information.

 

This protection extended to major Drug Enforcement Agency targets considered to be among the top smugglers of cocaine into this country. Perhaps the most egregious example is that of the Honduran trafficker Juan Ramon Matta Ballesteros.  Matta had been identified by the DEA in 1985 as the most important member of a consortium moving a major share (perhaps a third, perhaps more than half) of all the cocaine from Colombia to the United States. The DEA also knew that Matta was behind the kidnapping of a DEA agent in Mexico, Enrique Camarena, who was subsequently tortured and murdered.

 

A public enemy? Yes. But Matta was also an ally of the CIA. Matta's airline, SETCO, was recorded in U.S. files as a drug-smuggling airline. It was also the chief airline with which the CIA contracted to fly supplies to the Contra camps in Honduras. When the local DEA office began to move against Matta in 1983, it was shut down. Though Matta's whereabouts were well- known, the United States did not arrest and extradite him until 1988, a few days after Congress ended support for the Contras.

 

At Matta's first drug trial, a U.S. attorney described him as "on the level of the top 10 Colombian drug traffickers." We now learn from the CIA Hitz reports that, in the same year, 1989, CIA officials reported falsely, in response to an inquiry from Justice, that in CIA files "There are no records of a SETCO Air." CIA officers appear also to have lied to Hitz's investigators about who said this.

 

There appears to have been a broad pattern of withholding information from the Justice Department. For example, when Justice began to investigate the drug activities of two Contra supporters, CIA headquarters turned down proposals that CIA should interview the two men.  The reason in one case was that such documentation would be "exactly the sort of thing the U.S. Attorney's Office will be investigating."

 

The House Committee on Intelligence received this information, and chose to deny it.  According to a recent committee report, "There is no evidence . . . that CIA officers . . . ever concealed narcotics trafficking information or allegations involving the Contras."

 

Just as dishonestly, the committee found that "there is unambiguous reporting in the CIA materials reviewed showing that the Nicaraguan Democratic Force (FDN) leadership in Nicaragua would not accept drug monies and would remove from its ranks those who had involvement in drug trafficking." In fact, the Hitz reports contained a detailed account of drug-trafficking by members of the main FDN faction, the September 15th League (ADREN).

 

Those named included the FDN chief of logistics. According to the Hitz Reports, "CIA also received allegations or information concerning drug trafficking by nine Contra-related individuals in the (FDN) Northern Front." This included credible information, corroborated elsewhere, against leaders such as Juan Ramon Rivas, the Northern Army chief of staff. Yet CIA support for the FDN continued, through a period when aid to any drug-tainted Contra organization was forbidden by statute.

 

In short, the House Committee Report is a dishonest coverup of CIA wrong-doings, what one might expect from a committee chaired and staffed by former CIA officers.

 

As committee member Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, D-S.F., said in a hearing two years ago, "This is an issue of great concern in our community." Will she, and other like-minded representatives, repudiate this flimsy attempt to silence that concern with falsehoods?

 

The answer may depend on the voters: Will they object as strongly as before?

 

(Peter Dale Scott was an expert witness before the Citizens' Commission on U.S. Drug Policy.)

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

Michael C. Ruppert

P.O. Box 6061-350, Sherman Oaks, CA 91413

(818)788-8791 * fax(818)981-2847

mruppert@copvcia.com

 

© COPYRIGHT 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 MICHAEL C. RUPPERT. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

 

 

Michael C. Ruppert

P.O. Box 6061-350, Sherman Oaks, CA 91413

(818)788-8791 * fax(818)981-2847

mruppert@copvcia.com

 

© COPYRIGHT 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 MICHAEL C. RUPPERT. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

 

ANALYSIS: THE HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE RESPONSE TO THE WEBB ALLEGATIONS

 

 

The following excerpt is Chapter IV of Drugs, Contras and the CIA: Government Policies and the Cocaine Economy: An Analysis of Media and Government Response to the Gary Webb Stories in The San Jose Mercury News (1996-2000), by Peter Dale Scott.

 

[© Copyright 2000, From The Wilderness Publications. This excerpt may be copied and distributed freely so long as proper sourcing remains attached]

 

This entire essay, 50 pages plus index and bibliography is available for $14.95 plus $3.00 s&h from From The Wilderness Publications, P.O. Box 6061-350, Sherman Oaks 91413; www.suppressedwriters.com, 818-788-8791.)

 

 

Chapter Four. The Response By Congress

 

In February 2000 the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence issued its own Report on the charges first brought forward by Gary Webb's stories in the San Jose Mercury News. The Committee conducted its own interviews to supplement its review of the two CIA IG Reports (Hitz I and II) and the DOJ IG Report. The Committee claimed to have used Webb's own articles and his book, Dark Alliance as "key resources" in focusing and refining their investigation (HR 2).

 

This Report represents a further episode in the on-going national debate stirred up by Gary Webb's stories, rather than a useful resolution of that debate. Webb polarized this country into two outraged factions, an elite faction offended by Webb's references to the CIA, and a public infuriated by Webb's revelations of government favors to major drug dealers.

 

The House Committee [HPSCI], to no one's surprise, has once again revealed its allegiance to the first faction. It barely addresses what Webb actually wrote, and misrepresents even the few sentences from which it quotes. Instead it focuses, over and over, on what it calls the "implications of the San Jose Mercury News" (HR 5), or "the government conspiracy theories implicit in the 'Dark Alliance' series" (HR 5). Although the Report contains a few valid criticisms, its major arguments are flawed by misrepresentations and systematic falsehoods.

 

MISREPRESENTATIONS:

 

Here is the Committee's version of what Webb wrote:Among other things, the series stated that CIA assets were responsible, during the 1980's, for supplying cocaine to South Central Los Angeles.  The cocaine operation, according to the articles, was part [sic] of the Nicaraguan Democratic Force (FDN), and it was masterminded by CIA assets who were using the sale of this cocaine to finance the Contra movement. The articles stated that these individuals met with "CIA agents both before and during the time they were selling the drugs in L.A." (HR 6)

 

A Committee footnote to the last sentence adds, erroneously, that "From the context in which the term 'agent' is used, it is apparently meant to refer to CIA staff employees."

 

The Report then shifts from Webb's alleged statements to what he "suggested:" Although the articles did not specifically state that the CIA was directly involved in cocaine trafficking, the series suggested that the CIA condoned the trafficking.

 

For this "implication" the Report musters one credible piece of evidence:

 

For months the San Jose Mercury's internet web page introduced the articles with a title page that presented an individual lighting a crack cocaine pipe superimposed over the official seal of the CIA, clearly demonstrating an intent to link the CIA with cocaine trafficking. (HR 6)

 

This bit of web sensationalism was indeed responsible for much of the furor in response to Webb's articles. The San Jose Mercury News was right to withdraw it. But, as the Committee should have known, the web logo was not part of the series; and Gary Webb in particular had nothing to do with it.

 

The Report's one effort to quote the Report itself is blatantly illogical. "The articles left readers with the impression that the CIA was responsible for the spread of cocaine in South Central Los Angeles," it argues (HR 43), and then supports this claim with a citation from Gary Webb whose statement about the CIA is quite different:

 

For the better part of a decade, a San Francisco Bay Area drug ring sold tons of cocaine to the Crips and Bloods street gangs of Los Angeles and funneled millions in drug profits to a Latin American guerrilla army run by the  U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, a Mercury News investigation has found.                                   

 

One can question whether the cocaine amounted to "tons;" one can question whether the profits amounted to "millions;" one can even question (and the Report does, vigorously) whether the Contras amounted to an "army." But the connections presented in this sentence have been validated by the DOJ investigation, which found that the two main dealers, Norwin Meneses and Danilo Blandon, were, as the Report concedes, "significant dealers who supported the Contras" (HR 11).  The DOJ also corroborated Webb's claim that the government knew of the two men's drug trafficking, but never moved against them until after the Contra program ended.

 

Nothing in Webb's sentence, or any other part of Webb's stories, stated or implied that either Meneses or Blandon were themselves "CIA agents" or "CIA assets." The only people named as "CIA agents" (Webb never used the term "assets") were the Contras' military chief Enrique Bermudez, and the Contra political leaders Adolfo Calero (who Webb called a "CIA operative") and Marcos Aguado.

 

Elsewhere I have faulted Webb for using the term "CIA agent" too loosely.  Enrique Bermudez is not known to have been a "CIA agent" (as opposed to "CIA asset," "client," or "invention"). But Aguado has been said in sworn testimony to have presented himself as a CIA agent (Scott and Marshall 113). Calero, by most informed accounts, was a long-time CIA agent.

 

Webb was unambiguously referring to Bermudez and Calero when he claimed that Meneses and Blandon "met with CIA agents both before and during the time they were selling the drugs in L.A." And unquestionably they did. Blandon confirmed to the Committee what Webb had claimed: that in 1981 he and Meneses met Bermudez in Honduras, and that Bermudez had urged the two men (at this time only Meneses was a prominent drug dealer) to support the Contras, adding that "the end justifies the means." Blandon disputed only Webb's interpretation that Bermudez was sanctioning a drug traffic: "It didn't mean that he told us, go on, sell drugs" (HR 26). (Meneses denied that Bermudez used the phrase at all, but confirmed that Bermudez gave him "instructions about generating support for the Contra cause;" HR 22.)

 

It is equally certain that both Meneses and Blandon met with Adolfo Calero. Webb documented this with a photograph of Meneses and Calero together, The Report claims that Webb presented the photo "as evidence that there was an association between the CIA and drug trafficking," and it calls "this type of 'proof'...fallacious" (HR 3). What nonsense! Webb presented the photo as evidence that Calero and Meneses met.

 

Webb reported the eyewitness account of a former Contra supporter, "David Morrison," that Calero and Meneses met frequently; and also that (as "Morrison" told the FBI in 1987) Calero's FDN faction of the Contras had "become more involved in selling arms and cocaine for personal gain than in a military effort."

 

"Morrison" tipped Webb to his central allegation, that (in the Committee's words) "attempts by law enforcement entities to investigate and prosecute...Meneses...were 'stymied' by 'agencies of the U.S. government'" as long as the Contras were in existence (HR 6).

 

Amazingly, the Committee does not address this claim in their Findings, presumably because they knew it was correct. The DOJ confirmed that Meneses was investigated but never arrested on drug charges from 1980 to 1989; and even (as Webb had noted) that "Meneses was able to enter the United States repeatedly, despite the various investigations of him for drug trafficking" (DOJ 187). The Committee virtually suppresses this corroboration in its summary of the DOJ Inspector-General's Report, saying merely that "there was uncertainty within the DOJ concerning whether to prosecute Meneses or use him as a witness in other cases" (HR 11).  This is a very tepid way of acknowledging that a well-known and "significant" drug dealer moved freely without fear of arrest.

 

FALSEHOODS:

 

The Committee's determination to exonerate the government and invalidate Webb leads them to make a number of statements that can only be called falsehoods. These falsehoods are not random. On the contrary, they add up to a coherent but false picture that has been the CIA's fallback account of Contra drug trafficking since 1985. In sum, the Committee tries to corroborate the claim of CIA Task Force Chief Alan Fiers, testifying in 1986, that "there was a lot of cocaine trafficking around Eden

 

Pastora...None around FDN, none around UNO"-the successive names for the Bermudez-Calero faction of the Contras (HR 213; cf. Hitz II, para 242).(The Independent Counsel for Iran-Contra concluded that Fiers had committed perjury in other statements which he made to Congress. Fiers pleaded guilty to two lesser counts; Walsh 263.)

 

Falsehood #1: The FDN Leadership Avoided Drug-Trafficking:

 

In the Committee's words, there is unambiguous reporting in the CIA materials reviewed showing that the FDN leadership in Nicaragua would not accept drug monies and would remove from its ranks those who had involvement in drug trafficking. (HR 44n)

 

A more honest summary of the Hitz reports would acknowledge that they contained a detailed account of drug-trafficking by members of the main FDN faction, ADREN, alias the 15th of September Legion. Those named included the FDN Chief of Logistics (Hitz II, paras 181, 187, 194, 542). Hitz I reports that a key figure in the so-called "Frogman" drug case claimed to have personally delivered drug profits to FDN leader Aristides Sanchez, saying that the money was from Aristides' brother Troilo-a known drug-trafficker and source for the "Frogman" cocaine (Hitz I, para 270).

 

The Committee received, and even reprinted, the Hitz II Summary finding that "CIA also received allegations or information concerning drug trafficking by nine Contra-related individuals in the [FDN] Northern Front, based in Honduras" (Hitz II Summary para 17; HR 169). This included credible information, corroborated elsewhere, against Adolfo Calero's brother Mario Calero, the chief purchasing agent, and Juan Ramon Rivas, the Northern Army Chief of Staff (Hitz II, paras 550-52, 560-72).

 

A CIA HQ cable in November 1986 described Mario Calero as "a symbol to our critics of all that is perceived to be rotten in the FDN" (Hitz II, para 557). At this time there was a statutory requirement to cut off "funding to any Contra group that retained a member who 'has been found' to engage in drug smuggling" (Hitz II Summary, para 33; HR 175).

 

Falsehood #2: The Kerry Senate Subcommittee found that the U.S. Government cut off aid to Pastora's faction, because of its involvement in drug-trafficking.

 

Let us quote the Committee exactly on this false claim, which is central to their overall argument:

 

The [Kerry] Subcommittee...noted that all U.S. assistance to the [Pastora] Southern Front Contra organization (ARDE) was cut off on May 30, 1984 because of the involvement of ARDE personnel in drug trafficking.

 

As we shall see, this is a double falsehood. The May 1984 cutoff of aid to Pastora was not because of drug trafficking, and the Kerry Committee never "noted" that it was.

 

If we turn to the page in the Kerry Report cited by the House Committee, we find the following:

 

After the La Penca bombing of May 30, 1984, all assistance was cut off by the CIA to ARDE, while other Contra groups on both fronts continued to receive support from the U.S. government through a variety of channels.  The United States stated that its cut-off of ARDE was related to the involvement of its personnel in drug trafficking. Yet many of the same drug traffickers who had assisted ARDE were also assisting other Contra groups that continued to receive funding. Morales, for example, used Geraldo [sic] Duran as one of his drug pilots, and Duran worked for Alfonso Robelo and Fernando "el Negro" Chamorro, who were associated with other Contra groups" [i.e. the Calero-Bermudez faction] (Kerry Report, 52).

 

In other words, the Kerry Report discredited the government claim that aid to Pastora was cut off in May 1984 because of drug trafficking. In fact, the Report went on the repeat the claim of a Pastora aide, Karol Prado, that the CIA was manipulating drug trafficking allegations to discredit Pastora and his supporters. The Report then supported this claim with an entry from Oliver North's diary (7/24/84), "get Alfredo Cesar on Drugs" (Kerry Report, 53).

 

Prado's claim has been endorsed by a number of books (e.g. Honey 365, Scott para 82). It was repeated to the House Committee by Pastora himself (HR 21-22).However

 

the Committee found no evidence to support Pastora's claims....On the contrary, interviews with CIA officials and a review of the CIA's operational correspondence from that period reveal that the CIA began to distance itself from Pastora and his organization because it had received information that Pastora and members of his group were involved with drug trafficking." (HR 22)

 

What the CIA officials told the Committee is demonstrably untrue. Aid to Pastora was cut off "in May 1984" (HR 21), after Pastora had rejected a CIA ultimatum to merge his organization with the FDN led by Bermudez and Calero. The relevant allegations of drug trafficking around Pastora date from after, not before, this cutoff. Joe Fernandez, the former CIA Station Chief in Costa Rica, told the HPSCI that

 

CIA immediately sought to sever its relationship with Pastora when it was determined that Morales was involved in narcotics trafficking and that Pastora had access to some of Morales' illicit funds. (HR 19)

 

But this determination was made in October 1984, four months after the aid cutoff. In the words of Hitz II,

 

The cutoff of U.S. funding led associates of Pastora to begin looking for alternative sources of funds. In October 1984, CIA began receiving the reporting mentioned earlier that Southern Front leaders allied with Pastora had agreed to help Miami-based trafficker Jorge Morales bring drugs into the United States in exchange for his material and financial help to the Southern Front. (Hitz II, para 221; cf. para 225)

 

The CIA made a final termination of its relationship with Pastora two weeks later, completing the break that began with the aid cutoff in May (Hitz II, para 232).

 

The Hitz II chronology, though enough to disprove the claim that drug allegations led to the aid cutoff, does not tell the full story. According to the Kerry Report, Morales' financial help also went to former associates of Pastora (like Fernando Chamorro and Alfonso Robelo) who under CIA pressure had defected from Pastora and joined with the FDN in a new, allegedly united UNO.

 

Thus the CIA use of the Morales story is duplicitous. They used the Morales connection to discredit Pastora, both at the time and later to the House Committee. Yet the CIA, even though it was getting reports on the Morales operation from Morales' two top Contra contacts, never reported to anyone about the connections of Morales and his pilot Duran to those (like Fernando Chamorro and Alfonso Robelo) in its preferred UNO faction.

 

Hitz II corroborates that Adolfo "Popo" Chamorro and Octaviano Cesar, the two Contra leaders receiving funds from Morales until 1986, had by then broken with Pastora and joined a rival faction, the CIA-preferred BOS (Hitz II, paras 245, 331). Hitz II also reveals that a source for the October 1984 drug accusations against Pastora, Harold Martinez, left Pastora for the BOS, where he was later identified as a drug trafficker (Hitz II, paras 424-25). Even the tepid Hitz II summary confirms that whereas the CIA broke off contact with Pastora in October 1984, it "continued to have contact through 1986-87 with four of the individuals involved with Morales"-i.e. with Chamorro and Cesar (Hitz II Summary, para 14; HR 168-69).

 

The relative candor of Hitz II is wholly suppressed in the House Committee Report, which reverts to the 1980s cover story:

 

Several senior CIA managers [interviewed by the Committee] could recollect only a single instance of narco-trafficking by Contra officials....based on these reports, CIA program managers severed U.S. support to this Contra faction [i.e.  Pastora's] (HR 42).

 

It is possible that the Committee did hear this falsehood, but that is no excuse for transmitting it.

 

The Committee did interview Adolfo "Popo" Chamorro, who readily admitted his involvement with the confessed drug trafficker George Morales (HR 24). Chamorro told the Committee "that his cousin, Octaviano Cesar [widely reported from other sources to have been a CIA agent; Scott and Marshall 113] asked permission from the CIA to proceed with an operation involving Morales" [i.e. the drug operation]" (HR 24).

 

It is highly revealing of the Committee's aims and method that, after hearing that Cesar had requested CIA permission before proceeding in an operation with a drug dealer, it did not interview Cesar. (Cesar had earlier reported to the Kerry Committee that he reported to CIA about his deal with Morales, and Hitz II [para 332] confirms that Cesar gave a full account of it to CIA Security.)

 

This is a matter of the greatest seriousness. A US government witness, Fabio Carrasco (one of Morales' pilots) gave sworn testimony that on instructions from Jorge Morales he personally delivered "several million dollars" in 1984-85 to Southern front Contra leaders Octaviano Cesar and Adolfo "Popo" Chamorro (NSA Packet [47]). This represented payment for "between five and seven" drug

 

shipments under the Morales-Chamorro deal, amounting in all to between 1,500 and 2,800 kilos of cocaine; p. [51].

 

Carrasco and another pilot testified that they understood the flights had CIA protection, and it is clear that they were able to fly into customs-controlled airports without interference. In addition Morales, just like Meneses, was able to enter and leave the United States without difficulty, even though he was under indictment for drug offenses at the time (Scott paras 78-92).

 

FALSEHOOD #3: CIA officers never concealed narcotics trafficking.

 

This falsehood is so outrageous that, once again, it should be quoted:

 

CIA reporting to DOJ of information on Contra involvement in narcotics trafficking was inconsistent but in compliance with then-current policies and regulations. There is no evidence, however, that CIA officers in the field or at headquarters ever concealed narcotics trafficking information or allegations involving the Contras. (HR 42)

 

In fact CIA officers did take steps to prevent what the CIA knew about Contra drug-trafficking from reaching the DOJ.  In 1987 the Miami U.S. Attorney's office was investigating drug allegations concerning two Cuban Contra supporters, Felipe Vidal and Moises Nunez, as well as their seafood company Ocean Hunter.  When a CIA officer proposed to debrief Vidal about these matters, he was overruled, on the grounds that "narcotics trafficking relative to Contra-related activities is exactly the sort of thing that the U.S. Attorney's Office will be investigating" (Hitz II, para 522). A similar proposal to debrief Nunez was likewise overruled (Hitz II, para 491).

 

The cover-up involved acts of commission as well as omission.  In July 1987 CIA lawyers transmitted a request from the Miami U.S. Attorney's office for "any documents" concerning Contra-related activities of Ocean Hunter.  The Department of Operations advised the CIA lawyers that "no information had been found regarding Ocean Hunter," although such information existed (Hitz II, para 528). Concerning the drug-suspected airline SETCO, owned by Class One narcotics trafficker Juan Ramon Matta Ballesteros, and used by CIA to supply FDN camps in Honduras, CIA officials reported falsely, in response to an inquiry from Justice, that in CIA files "There are no records of a SETCO Air." CIA officers appear also to have lied to Hitz investigators about this matter (Hitz II, paras 820-23).

 

This protection of drug traffickers expressed itself in other ways as well. A CIA cable discouraged CIA counternarcotics efforts against a major trafficker, Alan Hyde, on the grounds that Hyde's connection to CIA "is well documented and could prove difficult in the prosecution stage" (Hitz II, para 953). CIA headquarters gave orders that DEA Agents not pursue a drug investigation of a Contra pilot that would have risked exposure of CIA Contra support operations at Ilopango Airport(Hitz II, para 451).

 

The Committee appears to have been aware that CIA officers did withhold information from Justice. What else can explain the comically restricted language of its official Finding Number Six:

 

CIA officers, on occasion, notified law enforcement entities when they became aware of allegations concerning the identities or activities of drug traffickers" (HR 44).

 

This seems to concede that "on occasion" they did not. Such a finding is about as helpful as if the FBI, after investigating a suspect, found that "on occasion" he was nice to people.

 

One cannot agree with the Committee that such withholding of information was "in compliance with then current policies and regulations." It is true that the Reagan Justice Department had exempted CIA officers from the legal requirement to volunteer to the DOJ what they knew about drug crimes.  It did not however give them permission to withhold information about drug crimes, or to lie about them.

 

The Committee claims that narcotics trafficking was not a high priority in the 1980s:

 

Narcotics trafficking today is arguably our most important national security concern....This was not the case during the Contra insurgency, and the CIA's counternarcotics reporting record from that time is mixed at best" (HR 38-39).

 

It is abundantly obvious that in the 1980s narcotics trafficking was not an important national security concern of the CIA. But in downplaying its importance, the CIA substituted its own priorities for those of the nation. President Reagan himself, in 1986, signed a directive declaring drugs to be a national security threat (Scott and Marshall 2). In a White House address, he also called on the American people to join him in a national crusade against drugs (Los Angeles Times, 8/5/86).

 

CONCLUSIONS:

 

The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Report is an important document, one deserving the attention and close scrutiny of the American public. It is important for what it tells us, not about the CIA, but about the Committee itself. The Committee was originally created to exert Congressional checks and restraints on the intelligence community, in accordance with the spirit of the Constitution. For some time it has operated instead as a rubber stamp, deflecting public concern rather than representing it. It is however possible that never before  has such a dishonest and deceptive document, on such an important subject, been approved without dissent by the full membership of the Committee.

 

What is particularly disappointing is that the CIA and DOJ Inspector Generals' Reports, although limited and in some ways flawed, represented a new level of candor in admitting that journalistic accounts of Contra drug-trafficking were grounded in real problems.  Rarely has the public waited so attentively for a response from the HPSCI, just as perhaps never before had there been so much interest in an HPSCI public hearing.

 

I am told that, at the public town hall meetings in Los Angeles where Julian Dixon and other members of the panel were present, the American people were promised open hearings. In fact the one open hearing (on Hitz I) was held so suddenly that even a concerned Congresswoman learned of it only after the hearing began. The May 25, 1999 hearing on Hitz II and the DOJ Report was closed. Congress should now be pressured to take steps to ensure that the promise of an open hearing is fulfilled, preferably in another Committee.

 

For the HPSCI's record on drug trafficking by CIA assets has been constantly abysmal. We know now that in the 1980s the Chairman of the HPSCI, Lee Hamilton, was regularly receiving reports from the CIA about Contra-related drug trafficking (Hitz II, e.g. paras 237, 287, 308,1099). Yet, as Chair of the House Iran-Contra Committee, Hamilton commissioned a staff memo which alleged, falsely and dishonestly, that "reams of testimony from hundreds of witnesses...developed no evidence which would show that Contra leadership was involved in drug smuggling. (Iran-Contra Report, 631, Scott paras 178-87). Bill McCollum, who as member of the HPSCI had also received such reports, endorsed the lying memo. He is still an active member of the HPSCI.

 

This latest deception cannot be written off as an academic or historical matter. The CIA's practice of recruiting drug-financed armies is an on-going matter. It appears to have begun when Sicilian mafiosi, some of them freshly deported from U.S. prisons, were used to attack and kill the Communists who threatened to win an election in Sicily.  Using Laotian hill people whose sole cash crop was opium, the CIA recruited an entire army numbering tens of thousands.

 

At the same time as the Contras, the CIA was arming and advising heroin-trafficking guerrillas in Afghanistan. Its preferred leader, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, became for a period one of the leading heroin suppliers in the world. In the last few years, the CIA has helped promote the Kosovo Liberation Army, many of whose leaders and arms are known to have been financed by Kosovar drug-trafficking.

 

No one can pretend that these practices have not contributed to our national drug crisis. In 1979, when the U.S. first established contact with heroin-trafficking guerrillas in Afghanistan, no heroin from the so-called Golden Crescent on the Afghan-Pakistan border was known to reach the United States. By 1984, according to the Reagan Administration, 54 percent of the heroin reaching this country came from the Afghan-Pakistan border.

 

The CIA's drug scandals are not confined to its allegedly unmanageable guerrilla armies.  In March 1997 Michel-Joseph Francois, the CIA-backed police chief in Haiti, was indicted in Miami for having helped to smuggle 33 tons of Colombian cocaine and heroin into the United States. The Haitian National Intelligence Service (SIN), which the CIA helped to create, was also a target of the Justice Department investigation which led to the indictment. (San Francisco Chronicle, 3/8/97). A few months earlier, General Ramon Guillen Davila, chief of a CIA-created anti-drug unit in Venezuela, was indicted in Miami for smuggling a ton of cocaine into the United States. According to the New York Times, "The CIA, over the objections of the Drug Enforcement Administration, approved the shipment of at least one ton of pure cocaine to Miami International Airport as a way of gathering information about the Colombian drug cartels." (New York Times, 11/3/96). The total amount of drugs smuggled by Gen. Guillen may have been more than 22 tons.

 

So the HPSCI Report should be taken as an occasion for both Congressional and national action. Reforms of the Intelligence Committees are urgently needed, to create greater space between the Committee and the bodies they are supposed to oversee. (Porter Goss, the current HPSCI chairman, is a former CIA officer, while George Tenet, the current CIA Director, is a former member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence staff.)

 

Porter Goss's true agenda is revealed by his selection in 1997 of another former CIA officer, John Millis, to be Chief of the HPSCI Staff. In 1997 it was obvious that the HPSCI would be called on to make an objective evaluation of the Gary Webb allegations. However Millis had served for thirteen years as a case officer supplying covert CIA aid to the heroin-trafficking guerrillas in Afghanistan-an analogous and contemporary alliance between the CIA and known drug-traffickers (New York Times, 6/6/00). At least one of the airlines involved in the Afghan support operation, Global International Airways, was also named in connection with the Iran-Contra scandal (Los Angeles Times, 2/20/97).

 

The most immediate national priority should be to demand an accounting for what happened from the present members of the HPSCI. Their constituents should inform them and their personal staffs of the reasons why this Report is unacceptable and should be rejected.

 

[The full 50 page report, with index and bibliography is available for $14.95 + 3.00 s&h at www.suppressedwriters.com]

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

Michael C. Ruppert

P.O. Box 6061-350, Sherman Oaks, CA 91413

(818)788-8791 * fax(818)981-2847

mruppert@copvcia.com

 

© COPYRIGHT 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 MICHAEL C. RUPPERT. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

00-06 House Sneaks Close-Out of CIA Drug Investigation

 

On 5-11-00 at 7:04 PM, EDT, a single AP story was posted without fanfare. It happened after all of the deadlines had passed for evening news broadcasts, after anyone on the West Coast who actually caught the story might have had a chance to respond. It happened as quietly, perhaps, as the Third Reich might have announced in 1944 that it had found no evidence of death camps anywhere in Europe.

 

In a demonstration that the United States Congress and the CIA had evolved and improved their propaganda techniques over those of the Nazis, a black man actually helped make the announcement of CIA innocence in drug trafficking. This, in spite of the fact that the CIA's own public documents establish their complicity in a cocaine epidemic that decimated African-American communities throughout the 1980s.

 

By the 1940s all the Jews in German public life had already been sent to the camps. And, by way of either acknowledging the shame or of resting comfortably in denial, not a single national media outlet has further reported on the story that was released so quietly that it almost went unnoticed.

 

The headline on the Associated Press story read, "House Committee Sees No CIA Role in 1980s Drug Smuggling." AP writer Tom Raum's lead said, "The CIA did not play a role in bringing crack cocaine into the Los Angeles area in the 1980s, the House Intelligence Committee [HPSCI] concluded in a report Thursday." Two paragraphs later appeared the quote, "'Bottom line: the allegations were false,' said the committee chairman, Rep. Porter Goss, R-Fla." Two paragraphs later the AP story added, "'The committee found no evidence to support the allegations that CIA agents or assets associated with the Contra movement were involved in the supply or sale of drugs in the Los Angeles area,' the committee said in a report." Two paragraphs after that - in perfect cadence - came the following quote: "'All the issues raised by the 'Mercury News' articles were addressed in the investigation,' said Julian C. Dixon of California, the committee's senior Democratic [and ranking African-American] member.'

'I believe that the committee's effort, together with the work of the Justice Department and CIA (inspector general), thoroughly examined those issues.'"

 

The term "no evidence" was repeated three times in the 13 paragraph story which ultimately implied that the blame for all of this exhaustive government expense and waste of the taxpayer's money fell squarely at the feet of former "San Jose Mercury News" reporter Gary Webb. Webb's August, 1996 "Dark Alliance" stories began the investigations. There was, of course, no mention of the publicly available Volume II of the CIA's Inspector General report, the Casey-Smith letter of 1982 or the voluminous hard evidence that exists showing direct CIA complicity in drug trafficking. That evidence, as reported ad nauseum in FTW, exists in the CIA's own documents and is available to anyone who wants to read it at our web site. While shocking in its audacity and absolute disregard for the truth, HPSCI's move was not unexpected. With Volume II still open in the committee it was a ticking time bomb in the 2000 Presidential election. Chairman Goss, (himself a former CIA officer), had a need to close the report out before its revelations could have publicly damaged George H.W. Bush and his son, George W., the Republican candidate for President. Also, the CIA has made motions to move class action lawsuits filed against the Agency, on behalf of Los Angeles residents, to Florida in preparations for motions to dismiss the suits as unfounded. Attorneys working on behalf of the plaintiffs in the lawsuits are planning on contesting the CIA motions to move the Los Angeles suit to Florida.

 

I am aware that last month's lead story in FTW, exposing a drug money pipeline into Al Gore's campaign might have provided the Republicans on HPSCI with a shield to use against opposition from Rep. Maxine Waters and other Democrats to their move. But if I have learned anything in 22 years it is that the truth can never be compromised, for any reason, in the hopes of securing crumbs of justice. I have never seen it work. Safety for activists and whistleblowers alike lies in never hiding, soft-pedaling or concealing any wrongdoing for any purpose. Arguing for the lesser of two evils is still arguing for evil.

 

HPSCI's actions will be hotly discussed by experts and activists at a cia-drugs conference to be held in Eugene, Oregon on June 10th. Presenters will include Peter Dale Scott, Celerino Castillo, Dan Hopsicker, Catherine Austin Fitts, activist Didon Kamathi and Mike Ruppert. Further information on the conference is available in the April issue of "From The Wilderness", or can be obtained by e-mailing conference coordinator Kris Millegan at roadsend@aol.com. A web site with current information on the conference, lodging and speaker's schedule is at www.ctrl.org/ciadrugsymposium/index.html.

 

All this means is that the paradigm has shifted and we must shift with it and adapt. As of this posting there is no evidence that Rep. Maxine Waters (D), Los Angeles has made any public reaction to the report, has seen it, or is even aware of yesterday's actions by HPSCI. FTW and all concerned activists will be watching closely to see what she does but we are emphatic in that any action, or lack thereof, by the Congresswoman will not affect our position or our future actions. We wonder if she can politically afford to remain silent with so many of her constituents watching and aware. HPSCI staff today advised that my copy of their final report is already "in the mail" to me. We wonder how they are sending a copy to Maxine.

 

Mike Ruppert

Publisher/Editor

www.copvcia.com

 

 

Ed Wilson's Revenge

The Biggest CIA Scandal in History Has Its Feet in the Starting Blocks in a Houston Court House

 

by

Michael C. Ruppert

 

[The following article appeared in the January, 2000 issue of From The Wilderness - 

Copyright and Reprint Policy]

 

The following is written after examining more than 900 pages of documents, in four volumes, filed since last September, in Houston Federal Court, by attorneys representing former CIA operative Edwin P. Wilson and the United States Department of Justice. As strange as it may seem, FTW assures you that there is a document on file or an on-the-record quote to support everything we now tell you.

 

 

On February 2, 1983, the Houston trial of former CIA agent Edwin P. Wilson, on Federal charges that he had unlawfully sold explosives to Libya, hung at a truly precarious moment. In chambers, the Judge hearing the case had refused to allow a CIA witness, using the pseudonym William Larson, to testify using a false name. The CIA, and prosecutors like aggressive Northern Virginia Assistant United States Attorney (AUSA) Ted Greenberg, relying on investigative materials produced under the direction of Washington, D.C. AUSAs Larry Barcella and Carol Bruce, were also concerned about limiting Wilson's ability to cross examine Larson for "security" reasons. Larson's intended testimony would have included statements that, according to CIA records under Larson's care, Ed Wilson had not been a CIA employee or done any work for the Agency since 1971.

 

According to Barcella, who gave a detailed interview to FTW for this story, the Judge's ruling raised serious security concerns for the Justice Department. The CIA records issue still needed to be addressed from another angle - and quickly. Wilson's defense had already made the case that the CIA had known and sanctioned the activities for which he was now on trial. That position needed to be countered in the rebuttal phase before the case went to the jury. Time was running out.

 

 Ed Wilson stood accused of shipping 42,000 pounds of the plastic explosive C-4 directly to Libyan dictator Moammar Qadaffy in 1977, and then hiring U.S. experts - former U.S. Army Green Berets - to teach Qadaffy's people how to make bombs shaped like lamps, ashtrays and radios.  Bombs were actually made, and foes of Qadaffy were actually murdered. This was the ongoing crime that had made Wilson, and his still-missing accomplice, former CIA employee Frank Terpil, the most infamous desperadoes in the world. C-4, according to some experts, is the most powerful non-nuclear explosive made. Two pounds in the right places can bring down a jumbo jet. Hence, 42,000 pounds would be enough to bring down 21,000 jumbo jets. C-4 is highly prized on the world's black markets and is much in demand. It is supposedly very tightly controlled where it is manufactured - in the U.S.

 

At the time it was shipped from Houston International Airport, in 1977, the 42,000 pounds of C-4 represented almost the entire United States domestic supply. It had been collected for Wilson by one California explosives distributor who collected it from a number of manufacturers around the country. Surprisingly, no one had officially noticed. Wilson had, in earlier and subsequent deals, also sold a number of handguns to Qadaffy, and several had been used in assassinations of Libyan dissidents in a number of countries, including the United States. It was these and other firearms violations by Wilson, including a scheme to ship more than a thousand M16 rifles to Qadaffy, that had put the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) and Larry Barcella on Wilson's trail back in late 1977. 

 

That investigation, which resulted in a 1982 Virginia conviction, led to the discovery of the C-4 shipment to Qadaffy. By January of 1983 Barcella and a team of dedicated BATF agents had been on Ed Wilson's trail for five long years. Barcella, in Houston as an observer and advisor, had been "twiddling his thumbs most of the time," but he did testify as a witness.  He was, by virtue of his role as the originator of the cases, "the institutional memory" of DoJ. Ted Greenberg had, from the other side of the Potomac in Alexandria, taken over other investigations stemming from Wilson's activities which led eventually to the Eatsco scandal. That investigation involved Wilson cronies Tom Clines, Air Force General Richard Secord, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Eric von Marbod and the legendary Ted Shackley.

 

Shackley had served in the hottest CIA posts in history. He had run the Miami station known as JM-WAVE, targeting Fidel Castro in the early 1960s, and had been a key planner in the Bay of Pigs invasion. He was also directly involved in CIA attempts on Castro's life in concert with the Mafia. In the mid-sixties he had been the Chief of Station (COS) in Laos, running the largest covert operation in CIA history -  a secret war intimately tied with opium and heroin smuggling and the abandonment of large numbers of American POWs. In the late sixties and early seventies he had served as COS in Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War. After leaving Saigon, Shackley had, for a time, served as Chief of the Western Hemisphere Division as the CIA orchestrated the overthrow of Chile's Salvador Allende. He had then become Associate Deputy Director of Operations (running all covert operations) in time to, as FTW believes, "preside" over Ed Wilson's Libyan affairs and the events that would ultimately result in the downfall of the Shah of Iran. Everywhere you looked in Wilson's life - post 1971 - you found either Shackley or his career-long deputy and sidekick, Tom Clines.

 

Shackley testified twice before Federal grand juries in the Wilson case. In one of those sessions, included in Wilson's recent court filings, he denied anything other than social contacts and a few meetings to evaluate information that never amounted to much. CIA Inspector General records (some still classified) belied Shackley's testimony. In light of voluminous CIA material, investigative reports, witness statements, BATF interviews with Shackley associates and a long litany of other records, Ted Shackley's testimony made a lot of people at CIA and DoJ very nervous. [FTW found it very interesting to note that, in his first testimony, Ted Shackley denied having ever met Ronald Reagan's CIA Director, William Casey. That may have to be the subject of another FTW article.]

 

Notes made by Justice Department lawyers in meetings held in late 1983, after Wilson's conviction, indicate their belief that Ted Shackley lied to the grand juries. Unattributed quotes found in meeting notes include the statements "Stupid -TS lied to GJ."

 

The Houston prosecution, for which Greenberg had served as the primary classified record handler, and AUSAs Jim Powers and Karen Morrissette, had no difficulty establishing that Wilson, in 1976, had secured plans for miniature timing devices from CIA contractors and, subsequently, had thousands manufactured and shipped to Libya. The Houston prosecution had no difficulty - using Barcella's, Bruce's and Greenberg's investigations - to establish that Wilson had conspired to obtain and ship the C-4 in 1977. Greenberg, Barcella, Bruce, Karen Morrissette and local Houston AUSAs also had absolutely no difficulty establishing that Wilson then chartered a DC-8 to ship the C-4 to Libya using falsified records. A hapless lawyer friend of Wilson's California explosives honcho, believing he had clearance from the CIA and other government agencies, even went along on the delivery. He had also been arrested and charged in the case. All of this took place under the guidance of Deputy Assistant Attorney General Mark Richard, and the supervision of Assistant Attorneys General Steven Trott and D. Lowell Jensen,

 

Evidence of Wilson's venality was not hard to find and put before the jury. While living in Libya for extended periods between 1977 and 1981, Wilson hired former Green Berets, some of whom were, according to FTW sources, alleged to be active-duty troops posing as rogues and retirees out for money. Using them, he set up an intensive instructional training program for Qadaffy that was intended to make the Libyan Colonel a credible terrorist threat - and credible foe - to any opponent, anywhere in the world. That effort was an unqualified success. People and things started blowing up and dying all over the place.

 

All the while, Wilson traveled the globe first-class, an ostentatiously wealthy man owning more than 6,000 acres of prime properties in Virginia, Great Britain and Malta. Much of that, the prosecution argued, had been paid for with millions from a Libyan dictator who had subsequently dispatched in 1982, if you believed the press, assassination teams to blow up Ronald Reagan in the White House.

 

Making Ed Wilson out to be a very nasty and unlikable individual was the easy part of the prosecution's case.

 

The second part of the prosecution's case was that one-time career CIA Agent Edwin P. Wilson had had absolutely no official relationship with the Agency since 1971. Wilson was, they argued, a good guy gone hopelessly bad who had abused his contacts, experience and the trust placed in him to commit horrible crimes behind the backs of his former colleagues. And that was where both the Department of Justice - and the CIA - were in deep, deep trouble on February 2, 1983.

 

Wilson, a one time career CIA agent, who had also worked for the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), was fighting for his life. An "open source" paper trail from CIA showed that he had not worked at Langley since 1971. Shortly thereafter he began working for a secret Navy operation known as Task Force 157. But, according to other records from both CIA and the Navy, he stopped working for the ONI in 1976 and none of his Navy work was connected to Libya. After that, or so it seemed, even though he continuously socialized with some of the most powerful people in the U.S. intelligence community and the military, he did no official work for anyone.  It was in late 1975 and 1976, when George Bush ran the CIA, that Wilson, as an alleged rogue, opened ties to Qadaffy and began selling weapons, explosives and other services and equipment to the terrorist regime.

 

This would not be the last time that a so-called enemy of the United States in the Arab world would be supplied with weapons and bomb making materials on a watch under the command of George H. W. Bush. 

 

While Ed Wilson was training and equipping Qadaffy, he was also lunching with Bush protégé Shackley. He was providing personal airplanes for Air Force General Richard Secord to fly around in, and loaning large sums of money to Shackley's sidekick, Tom Clines. His company, Consultants International, once a CIA proprietary, which Wilson "bought" in 1971, was still receiving referral contacts from the Agency. And while former U.S. Army Green Berets, in Wilson's employ, were teaching Libyans how to blow things up, Clines, a high-ranking active CIA officer, was walking Wilson employee Douglas Schlachter through the halls at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. In 1977 Clines even introduced Schlachter to Jimmy Carter's newly appointed CIA Director, Navy Admiral Stansfield Turner. Exclusive parties, horseback riding events and private hunting parties were held for the "A" list at Wilson's expansive Mount Airy farm in Northern Virginia.

 

With the January 1977 change in Presidents from Ford to Carter it was inevitable that George Bush (the elder) would have to leave as Director of Central Intelligence (DCI). Shackley, however, remained in charge of covert operations until December of that year. Then, with a kiss of death, as Wilson's work and life became increasingly high-profile, Turner removed Shackley from the prestigious post of ADDO and transferred him to a non hands-on post out of the loop. It was the signal that Shackley's career was over. This came at the same time that Turner gave 800 CIA career covert operatives pink slips and "early retirement." FTW believes that it is no coincidence that Barcella's and the BATF investigations of Wilson began at exactly the same time.

 

President Jimmy Carter had already begun the groundbreaking work with Menachem Begin of Israel and Anwar Sadat of Egypt that would lead to the Camp David peace accords. It would not be good PR for the U.S. to be exposed secretly arming Sadat's bitter enemy and next door neighbor, Moammar Qadaffy - especially since Qadaffy intended to kill Sadat.

 

The problem with the government's position in the Wilson case was absolutely huge. It was almost beyond huge. And the rationale implied during the trial, with the preceding and ensuing vilification of Wilson in major newspapers, People Magazine and best selling books like Manhunt by Peter Maas, was that the heinousness of his crimes justified obsession and even rule-bending in order to  bring the monster to justice. CIA Inspector General investigations, some partially redacted, made available to Wilson's prosecutorial team, dating as far back as 1977, proved that Wilson had provided a number of often embarrassing services for the Agency since 1971. Those records also showed no less than 80 "non-social" contacts between Wilson and the CIA between 1971 and 1978. The Agency had many records, some still classified, of Wilson meeting with Agency personnel - especially Shackley, Clines or Shackley's secretary.

 

Contrary to what would later become almost nonsensical hairsplitting by some of the most powerful, and supposedly ethical, lawyers in the country, the CIA - according to incredibly detailed reports compiled by the BATF, the FBI and the CIA's own Inspector General - was "operationally tasking" Wilson and his employees to accomplish specific objectives in Libya before, during and after delivery of the C-4. Both the Justice Department and the CIA had witness statements that the CIA had been tasking and debriefing Wilson's employees at exactly the same time that Wilson's employees were teaching Qadaffy's people how to blow things up.

 

Wilson's defense against the government's case had concluded at the end of January. His attorneys had made a compelling argument that apparently threw the Justice Department and the CIA into a crisis mode. Exhibits filed in Wilson's motion show that Greenberg and Barcella were concerned about it in advance. The defense was simple: Edwin P. Wilson, a loyal American whose company, Consultants International, received CIA referral business throughout the period, had been sanctioned by the CIA for the purposes of gathering intelligence, gaining access to Soviet military equipment in Libyan hands and other murky objectives. If Ed Wilson had not been sanctioned, he certainly believed that he had been, and the litany of his CIA contacts reasonably justified that belief. It was more than enough to raise doubt in the mind of the jury.

 

Wilson and his trial lawyers had introduced evidence from 1977 CIA Inspector General reports and other records that supported his claims. It was not enough to dismiss the case, perhaps, but it was a point that the prosecution could not let go unchallenged. There was too much at stake. Contrary to Barcella's suggestion to FTW that he was essentially an observer in Houston he did say that, "One of the problems that I had certainly had, from prior cases involving claims of a CIA defense, was that the Agency's compartmentalization oftentimes required two or three different people to be doing record searches because only certain people would be allowed to search certain components of the Agency.

 

"It was a pain in the ass from a trial lawyer's standpoint because you would oftentimes end up with three different witnesses. And any good defense lawyer. can make mincemeat out of them by bouncing back and forth between one and the other One of the things that I wanted was one person as a witness to be given the authority by the CIA to search all components of the Agency, not just a single component of the Agency. "

 

The man originally scheduled to perform that role, to speak for all of the records in the Central Intelligence Agency, the man with the pseudonym "Larson", had just been exposed to cross examination by Wilson and been withdrawn. There had to be another way.

 

The Briggs Declaration

Charles A. Briggs was, on February 3, 1983, the third highest-ranking official at the Central Intelligence Agency. He was one of few men at CIA who could break through the compartments and search anywhere for records. He was the man to solve the problem in Houston. In Langley, Virginia, at 2:23 P.M., Houston time (according to a government teletype), Charles Briggs signed a declaration stating that on November 8th of 1982 he had authorized a search of all records of the CIA "for any material that in any way pertains to Edwin P. Wilson or the various allegations concerning his activities after 28 February 1971, when he resigned from the CIA."

 

Paragraph 4 of the Briggs Declaration states, "According to CIA records, with one exception while he was employed by Naval Intelligence in 1972, Mr. Edwin P. Wilson was not asked or requested, directly or indirectly, to perform or provide any services, directly or indirectly, for CIA."

 

At 2:30 P.M., Houston time, CIA General Counsel Stanley Sporkin certified the affidavit and affixed the seal of the Central Intelligence Agency to it. It was also notarized by a notary public licensed in Fairfax County, Virginia. Harold   Fahringer, one of Wilson's attorneys was served with a copy of the affidavit at  3:55 P.M. Houston time - presumably in Houston.

 

According to a partially declassified CIA memorandum, included in Wilson's filings, dated March 15, 1983 (40 days after Wilson's conviction), on the day and evening of February 3, 1983 "CIA attorneys stated to Assistant U.S. Attorney (AUSA) Ted Greenberg that the Briggs affidavit should not be admitted into evidence as then written, and requested that Greenberg not introduce the affidavit.

 

"The signers of the affidavit further state that CIA General Counsel Stanley Sporkin stated that, at minimum, the word 'indirectly' should be removed from paragraph four of the Briggs affidavit.

 

The signers of the document further state in the document that AUSA Greenberg decided against complying with the CIA attorneys' requests described above."

 

Apparently, through the evening of February 3rd, the phone lines between Langley and Houston were smoking. FTW has interviewed a number of people close to the trial and none indicate that Ted Greenberg left Houston to retrieve the declaration. Stanley Sporkin knew that the affidavit was incorrect and so did a great many people at CIA. The Houston time apparently indicates that a copy was telexed to Wilson's lawyer and another copy was placed in the master DoJ case files in Houston. Larry Barcella has "no recollection" of being involved in those phone conversations. No phone logs listing participants in them have, as yet, been disclosed.

 

In researching this story FTW contacted best-selling author Peter Maas who wrote the book Manhunt which detailed the hunt for Ed Wilson and the four and a half year mission by Barcella, et al to bring him to justice. Maas indicated that he had been aware of the Briggs affidavit and questions surrounding its use in court. He was careful to state that it was his belief that Barcella had no knowledge of the inaccuracies in the document - or the controversy surrounding it - until after it had been introduced into evidence. The paper trail seems to contradict this position. Barcella was in almost every pre-trial conference discussing Wilson's history. He was aware of the affidavit's existence and, therefore, had to have been aware that it was inaccurate.

 

Maas was, however, more open on the subject of Ted Greenberg who apparently had the power to override the CIA's top lawyer and number three executive. Maas said simply that Greenberg was aggressive and not well liked by the other lawyers. He was, in Mass' opinion, "Capable of anything."

 

On February 4th 1983, apparently without objection, the Briggs declaration was entered into evidence by Assistant U.S. Attorneys. Both the prosecution and the defense rested and, in the afternoon, the jury began deliberations.

 

On the morning of February 5th, 1983, the jury sent a note to the trial judge requesting that the Briggs affidavit be reread. At 9:50 A.M. the Judge empanelled the jury and reread the affidavit to them.  The jury returned to deliberations and, at 10:45 A.M., sent a note announcing that they had reached a verdict. Wilson was guilty on all counts. The jury never asked for any other exhibit to be reread.

 

That same day a UPI wire service story described the deliberations. "Juror Betty Metzler said the panel was divided 11-1 almost from the start, and one juror was not convinced until Saturday morning by rereading of Briggs' affidavit denying Wilson's actions had anything to do with the CIA."

 

A week later, on February 10, 1983,  Attorney Kim E. Rosenfield in the Attorney General's office sent a memorandum to Deputy Assistant Attorney General Mark Richard who ran DoJ's Criminal Division. The title of the memorandum was "Duty to Disclose Possibly False Testimony" and the memorandum pulled no punches. It went straight to prevailing case law (then and now) as decided by the U.S. Supreme Court and cited two cases known as Brady and Napue. The Napue case held that, "Failure of prosecutor to correct testimony which he knows to be false violates due process, whether the falsehood bears on credibility of witness or guilt of defendant, if it is in any way relevant to the case." In Brady the court ruled that "Suppression of material evidence by the government requires a new trial, irrespective of good or bad faith."

 

The memorandum continued, "Prosecutor has duty to correct false testimony even if falsehood was inadvertent or caused by another government officer. New trial required if the false testimony could "in any reasonable likelihood have affected the judgement of the jury."

 

The Forrest and the Trees

FTW has, unfortunately, interviewed no less than six lawyers in researching this article. The problem with that is that if one talks to too many lawyers, for too long, one gets confused - very confused. Medication, meditation and/or prayer is sometimes required. Clarity vanishes. Occasionally, however, an attorney will utter statements of breathtaking logic that confirm what the layman already suspected. We want to thank Larry Barcella for giving us that kind of clarity in one instance but he may not like what we did with it.

 

It would be easy to pull example after example out of the 900 pages of Exhibits filed by Ed Wilson's attorney, David Adler, to show various and sundry shocking examples of Wilson's ongoing contacts with Agency personnel and Ted Shackley. But, to do that would distract from the real issues. We could laughingly try to lay out some of the pretzel-bending logic expended by an array of legal horsepower, up to and including Assistant Attorneys General of the United States. We could pull quotes, like one in notes from a meeting including Mark Richard, Lowell Jensen and a half dozen other lawyers in which someone quipped, "We're bending over backwards to fall down."

 

From the documents in the filing it is apparent that through November of 1983, long after Edwin Wilson had been sentenced to 17 years on the C-4 violations, every lawyer from the Justice Department who became aware of the "inaccuracy" of the Briggs affidavit kept their moth shut about it. A reading of the law and an easily understandable sense of fair play suggest that this was wrong. That many people were worried about the use of the memorandum is clear. Both Stanley Sporkin and Mark Richard can be seen, in a variety of memoranda and meetings, arguing for disclosure or some remedy. It is apparent that either their consciences or their fears of exposure were very "sensitized."

 

And, on close scrutiny, the remedy that was found does not sit well either. From exhibits filed by Adler on Wilson's behalf it is apparent that Assistant Attorney General Steven Trott, now a Judge on the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, gave permission to the worried lawyers to disclose some "inaccuracies" in the Briggs affidavit in an obscure paragraph in filings to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. This was long after the conviction. If the Appeals court said to do something they would, if not, they were off the hook.

 

Adler's response on this point is clear and compelling. "The problem with the logic is, at least, twofold. The 'disclosure' was made to the appeals court, not the trial court. I don't believe the Supreme Court's prohibition on the government's knowing use of false testimony is rectified by admitting the truth to an entirely different court. The second problem is that telling the truth and admitting a lie has been told are two different statements It [DoJ's attempt to satisfy disclosure requirements] simply mentioned (in a document only a few select people had access to) that Wilson had provided 'a few services'. The trial court and, more importantly, the jury were never told."

 

Barcella's position is that a lot of honorable people engaged in a lot of mental effort, that may have "gotten too technical" to protect the integrity of a conviction that doesn't need to be undermined.

 

"While the inaccuracies in the Briggs affidavit are unfortunate," Barcella said, "they really don't go to the heart of the defense. To have an authorization defense you have got to be able to show that the act that you are charged with was authorized Wilson never even alleged that he was authorized to ship the C-4. He didn't want to admit that he had anything to do with the C-4 He never called Shackley or Clines to the stand because he knew what they would have said. That claim would have been very easy to refute.

 

"People can claim the CIA does weird, bizarre, strange counterproductive things. And they may be able to claim that with some good, solid basis behind it. But what kind of logic would have to be employed to assume that the CIA would authorize the shipment of  40,000 pounds, 20 tons, of C-4, to the guy that was then the biggest terrorist in the world?"

 

Ironically Barcella's own logic is called into question on three accounts. Once, by the very CIA witness whose testimony the prosecution refused to allow under the conditions imposed by the court - William Larson. In a deposition before the Judge's ruling, according to Adler's motion, Larson told prosecutors "that the Agency might consider providing 40,000 pounds of explosives to Libya if the source who needed to provide the explosives could obtain 'great' information in return. Larson said the Agency would deal with the devil if needed."

 

Second, as regular FTW readers know, we have often spoken of the pattern of the U.S. secretly arming its enemies for the purposes of expanding budgets, "stimulating" the economy and ensuring election victories. Abundant documentation - irrefutable documentation - exists to indicate that the Rockefellers, Henry Ford and major American firms financed Adolph Hitler both before and during the Second World War. Fletcher Prouty, using Department of Defense Records has documented how, in 1946, we gave half the weapons intended for use by the U.S. military in the aborted invasion of Japan to Ho Chi Minh. Iraqgate and the scandal around Banco Nacional de Lavoro (BNL) and Kennametal showed us how George Bush had secretly armed Sadam Hussein before the Gulf War. Even Ted Shackley's own book, The Third Option (McGraw-Hill, 1981), suggests that arming both sides of a conflict is often the best way to control the outcome, sharpen skills and make a profit.

 

Third, the concept of plausible deniability is not a theoretical abstract from spy novels. It is an enshrined principle of covert operations around the world. There is a point in the food chain at which deniability by higher ups is essential to the conduct of all covert operations. Ed Wilson made millions of dollars because he was taking the risks. He knew that if Shackley or (the now deceased) Tom Clines ever took the stand, they would deny any connection to his actions. That, FTW believes, was the deal from the start. Deniability is reportedly one of Ted Shackley's favorite words.

 

Is it really so hard to believe? It is harder for FTW to believe that Ed Wilson had so much contact with Agency employees and they didn't know about the C-4. Is that possible when Wilson's personal assistant Douglas Schlachter was walking the halls at CIA headquarters with Clines? That would kind of make the reported $30 billion CIA budget a waste of money wouldn't it? And, as it plays right now, believing that we live in a nation governed by the rule of law doesn't make much sense either. Our favorite quote from all of the exhibits so far is not an exact quote but rather a note included with the exhibits. It was made during a meeting of lawyers held on an undetermined date after the trial. Attending the meeting were D. Lowell Jensen, Mark Richard, Stanley Sporkin, Larry Barcella,, Houston AUSA Jim Powers, CIA Attorney David Pearline, DoJ Lawyer Kim Rosenfield (who wrote the Duty to Disclose memorandum) and several other people.

 

Jensen, now a sitting U.S. District Court Judge in Oakland said that the premise was that DoJ didn't need to disclose because Wilson already knew the facts. As recorded in the notes Stanley Sporkin the replied, "Goes beyond that this is record affidavit, if found things in records, must be disclosed. - Not in someone's mind."

 

We wish that Justice was that simple.

 

NEXT?

In a response made public on January 18, the Department of Justice acknowledged that Ted Greenberg introduced inaccurate testimony at Wilson's trial. David Adler has told FTW that he has until February 11th to file his response to the DoJ at which time the court may grant Wilson's motion to set aside the conviction, reject it, or hold a hearing. Adler has told FTW of his intention to subpoena all of the involved attorneys and judges and put them on the stand if a hearing is granted. Adler also intends to call Ted Shackley. Former CIA Director, Admiral Stansfield Turner was also on the list of potential witnesses until he was critically injured in an airplane accident on Jan 15th.

 

If the hearing takes place David Adler may then have to admonish each witness of their rights against self-incrimination before asking them about their role in the submission of, and their ensuing silence about, the Briggs affidavit.

 

FTW will be following every development closely.  We are in the process of obtaining a copy of the government's response and we will report on that next month. We have secured permission from Wilson and his lawyer for a telephone interview but, as of press time, the Federal Prison at Allenwood, Pennsylvania has not put me on the approved phone list. - We are not holding our breath. FTW has already been denied permission to interview Wilson in person.

 

If Edwin Wilson's conviction is vacated then a great deal more than just one man will be on trial next. And it is hard to believe that the government, after the mountains of press devoted to Wilson, could let him walk without another trial. It is also not inconceivable that the first conviction could be placed in jeopardy as well. Wilson's last conviction, 25 years for conspiracy to murder Larry Barcella and other prosecutors, remains intact but Wilson has now served 17 years. If two convictions are thrown out then he is at least eligible for a parole hearing. At 71, and with reportedly failing health, there might remain little justification for keeping him locked up in a maximum security prison.

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

Michael C. Ruppert

P.O. Box 6061-350, Sherman Oaks, CA 91413

(818)788-8791 * fax(818)981-2847

mruppert@copvcia.com

 

© COPYRIGHT 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 MICHAEL C. RUPPERT. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

AS PUBLISHED IN THE November/December, 1999 issue

 

 

IF YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THIS SUBJECT WE RECOMMEND THE FOLLOWING ITEMS

 

Item #1 - Extracts and Commentary, Vol. II CIA's IG Report

 

Item #02 - Albert Vincent Carone The Missing Link Between The CIA and

 

 The Mob

 

Item #03 - The Tyree Papers

 

Item #10, 11 - CIA, Drugs and The Impeachment Circus

 

Item #14 The CIA drug Economy and The Way Out

 

A Subscription to From The Wilderness

 

 

Questionable Document Causes Stir

Bill Casey Drug Letter Ordered Sealed By U.S. Judge

 

by Michael C. Ruppert

 

 For months now we have been telling you about a letter, purportedly written by Ronald Reagan's CIA Director, William Casey, that admits direct CIA involvement in the drug trade during the Contra War years. The letter appeared anonymously, via the U.S. Mail in the hands of Dee Ferdinand, daughter of deceased CIA operative Albert Carone who has been trying to recapture personal funds, pensions and benefits due her and her family after her father's 1990 murder. Not sure what to do with the letter she contacted retired CIA executive Ted Shackley and read him the contents. That was last spring. Shackley (according to Ferdinand, as reported in June) after hearing the letter told Ferdinand to "call the CIA and the FBI and tell them that you have this letter. Ask them to come pick it up because you are not supposed to have it."

Ferdinand gave the letter to her attorney, Ray Kohlman of Massachusetts, who also represents former Green Beret William Tyree (see Wilson story this issue). Kohlman immediately forwarded the letter to both Agencies, retaining a copy for his records. After six months of no response on the letter's authenticity from either agency Kohlman and Tyree filed it as an exhibit in a motion for a new trial for Tyree. A copy was sent to FTW at that time. FTW subsequently provided a copy to staff members from the House permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. [We have heard nothing back.]

While FTW believes strongly in the factual accuracy of the letter, especially insofar as dates, names and mission names are concerned, we cannot completely overcome our distrust of the letter's obvious butchery of the English language and misspelling of words like McFarlane and Ilopango.  Even taking into account that the letter was dated (12/9/85) at a time when Casey would have been impaired by the cancerous brain tumor that took his life exactly five months later, it was difficult to believe that Richard Nixon would have affixed his signature to such a document. To FTW, the letter is plausible because, almost literally with his dying breaths, Bill Casey failed to mention head man George Bush and gave the impression that drug trafficking was an expediency of the Cold War rather than an economic perquisite of the privileged class. The letter was continuing a cover up and it admitted guilt only for the dead and dying, or the enemies of Bill Casey and George Bush.

We decided, after interviewing people close to Casey, not to print the letter in October because we could not vouch for its authenticity - one way or the other. We still can't. The Casey letter was also introduced by Tyree in a second suit against the Department of the Army, last August. (Tyree v. U.S. Department of the Army, 99-CV-2709) and events in that case have since forced us to change our mind.

On November 8th, United States District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who is presiding in the Army suit, unilaterally, and without any request by either Tyree, or the Army, or the CIA, ordered the Casey letter sealed. Tyree's attorney, Ray Kohlman (also participating in the MLK lawsuit in Memphis) was flabbergasted. He told FTW, "In all the cases involving classified material I have ever seen or been involved with, I have never seen a judge seal a document without being asked to do unless there was something in it, even in cases like this. It is a clear indication that the judge believes that the letter is, in some measure, the real thing."

Given these developments FTW feels compelled to show you the letter without further comment. While we are convinced that the factual material contained therein is correct,  we remain unconvinced as to the letter's authorship. Given the judge's action in sealing it, the American people have a right - and an urgent need - to know.

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

Michael C. Ruppert

P.O. Box 6061-350, Sherman Oaks, CA 91413

(818)788-8791 * fax(818)981-2847

mruppert@copvcia.com

 

© COPYRIGHT 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 MICHAEL C. RUPPERT. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

 

AS PUBLISHED IN THE OCTOBER, 1999 ISSUE

 

 

IF YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THIS SUBJECT WE RECOMMEND THE FOLLOWING ITEMS 

 

Item #1 - Extracts and Commentary, Vol. II CIA's IG Report

 

Item #14 The CIA drug Economy and The Way Out

 

Item #02 - Albert Vincent Carone The Missing Link Between The CIA and

 

 The Mob

 

A Subscription to From The Wilderness

 

 

The Bush Drug Sting, The Sins of the Father,

The Sins of the Son and -- The Smoking Airplane

 

Why Does George W. Bush Fly in Drug Smuggler Barry Seal's Airplane?

 

by Daniel Hopsicker and Michael C. Ruppert

 

It has all the makings of a major box office thriller: Texas Governor and Republican Presidential contender George W. Bush and his brother Jeb, allegedly caught on videotape in 1985 picking up kilos of cocaine at a Florida airport in a DEA sting set up by Barry Seal

An ensuing murderous cover-up featuring Seal's public assassination less than a year later by a hit teamthe members of which, when caught, reveal to their attorneys during trial that their actions were being directed by then, National Security Council (NSC) staffer - Lt. Colonel Oliver North

And a private turboprop King Air 200 supposedly caught on  tape in the sting with FAA ownership records leading directly to the CIA and some of the perpetrators of the most notorious (and never punished) major financial frauds of the '80s. Greek shippers paying bribes to obtain loans from American companies that would never be repaid.An American executive snatching the charred remains of a $10,000 payoff check from an ashtray in an Athens restaurantSwiss police finding bank accounts used for kickbacks and bribes

Add to this mix the now irrefutable proof, some of it from the CIA itself, that then Vice President George H.W. Bush was a decision maker in illegal Contra support operations connected to the "unusual" acquisition of aircraft  and that his staff participated in key financial, operational and political decisions

All these events lead inexorably to one unanswered question: How did this one plane go from being controlled by Barry Seal, the biggest drug smuggler in American history, to becoming, according to state officials,  a favored airplane of Texas Governor George W. Bush?

-----------------------------------

 

Three months into an exhaustive investigation of persistent reports dating to 1995 that there exists an incriminating videotape of current Republican Presidential front-runner Bush caught in a hastily-aborted DEA cocaine sting, the central allegation remains unproven

But some startling details have been confirmed, amid a raft of new suspicions emerging from conflicting FAA records. Those records, along with other irrefutable documents, point to the existence of far more than mere happenstance or dark "conspiracy theorist speculations" in the matter of how George W. Bush came to be flying the friendly Texas skies in an airplane that was a crown jewel in the drug smuggling fleet of the notorious Barry Seal. Those documents reveal - beyond any doubt - that in the 1980s Barry Seal, with whom the CIA has consistently denied any relationship, piloted and controlled airplanes owned by the same Phoenix Arizona company, Greycas, which in a 1998 bankruptcy filing, was revealed to have been a subsidiary of the same company that owned the now defunct CIA proprietary airline Southern Air Transport.

The investigation started with a lead into the history of the aircraft (a 1982 Beechcraft King Air 200 with FAA registration number N6308F - Serial Number BB-1014). The handwritten tail number was found in records kept by Seal's widow and later linked to other "hard paper" records left by Seal after his 1986 assassination by "drug traffickers"  who were subsequently connected to Oliver North. Those records,  including leasing agreements, insurance policies and maintenance records, exhibit a deliberately-confusing "paper trail" of convoluted ownership recalling the 'glory' days of the Iran Contra hearings, where the machinations of American covert intelligence operators were unmasked before a disbelieving public.

Combined with revelations in a 1998 CIA Inspector General's report of Contra-era cocaine trafficking in which the CIA admits to "briefing" then Vice President Bush on how it lied to Congress about cocaine trafficking by its agents, it becomes clear that father and son have common secrets to conceal from the American public. That report, Volume II of the CIA Inspector General's report into allegations of Contra cocaine trafficking can be viewed at http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/cocaine2/index.html. A detailed discussion of that report, along with relevant excerpts is available at www.copvcia.com.

Unraveling the plane's tangled and colorful history requires, first, a brief look backwards at the momentous year of 1982, when President Reagan first introduced the public version of "Project Democracy," in which he called for a "crusade for freedom."

What it became instead was a license to murder, loot and steal. This climate was the nursery into which N6308F was born.

 

 

"The War of '82" 

The detonations had rumbled like Armageddon along the rocky course of the Rio Negro in Nicaragua throughout the night of March 14, 1982... Concrete bridges groaned suddenly under their own weight, crashing in avalanches of black dust in a dark landscape seen through night-vision goggles In Washington D.C., it was time to break out the champagne. War was breaking out in Central America. Just two days later Barry Seal took possession of the first of many planes supplied to him through CIA Director Bill Casey's "off-the-books" Enterprise.

There were more than 100 U.S. advisers in Honduras by March of 1982.  In April, the chief of the Honduran Army, General Gustavo Alvarez, said that his country would agree to U.S. intervention in Central America if it were the only way to "preserve peace."

"Up to March 1982 you could still change your policy," recalled a member of the NSC Core Group In Charge as he spoke to reporters later. "The issue was still the question of support for El Salvador's rebels. If that ended, so could pressure on Managua. But once the first forces of Nicaraguan exiles were trained and set in motion, any real negotiating became much harder. The blowing of the bridges was an announcement."

Throughout 1982, Democrats, fearing that President Reagan was pushing the United States into another Vietnam-style quagmire, tried to cut off aid to the Contras. It was precisely at this time, the height of CIA Director Bill Casey's frenetic efforts to ward off these Congressional efforts,  that Barry Seal acquired use of not one but several brand new Beech Craft King Air 200s.  Ownership of the planes had been deliberately obscured through a number of convoluted transactions involving Phoenix-based corporations suspected of being "fronts" for General John Singlaub's "Enterprise" activities. Based in Phoenix, Arizona, Retired Major General Singlaub organized in early 1982 an American chapter of the World Anti-Communist League (WACL), called the United States Council for World Freedom (USCWF), with a loan from Taiwan. Funding for Seal's planes would come from sources close to those efforts.

"Jack" Singlaub had a long history of involvement in covert operations, beginning with service in the World War II Office of Strategic Services (OSS). He had served as CIA Desk Officer for China in 1949 and Deputy Chief of Station in South Korea during the Korean War, and during the Vietnam War he commanded the Special Operations Group Military Assistance Command, Vietnam--Studies and Observation Group (MACVSOG), which participated in the CIA's Operation Phoenix assassination program.

Singlaub's efforts, and Seal's as well, had been necessitated by the shocking scandals of the 1970s combined with drastic reductions in "official" CIA capabilities in the Carter years. Until then, the CIA. had controlled a huge network of planes, pilots and companies for use in paramilitary situations. But with the end of the Vietnam War and the public revulsion at disclosures of out of control CIA covert operations, many of those assets (such as the infamous Air America) were dissolved or sold off.

Consequently, when the Reagan Administration sought to expand covert paramilitary operations in Central America and elsewhere, the Agency was forced to rebuild much of its capabilities illegally, relying frequently on outside assets, usually retained under contract, like Barry Seal. The Contra war put everything into high gear.

The CIA and the Army jointly agreed to set up a special aviation operation called "Seaspray," New York Times reporter Seymour Hersh revealed in 1987. [This was old news to local and state police in affected areas. Cops had already seen the cynical (and perhaps intentional) manipulation of this operation flooding America with a river of drugs. When law enforcement authorities debriefed convicted "drug smuggler" Seal in late 1985, one of the cops present brusquely began by stating, "We already know about Seaspray."]

 

Everybody Will Be There.

The "boys" were getting ready to go to war in the Spring of 1982:

-- CIA agent Dewey Clarridge put a proposition to Contra leader Eden Pastora.  "He would become the star of the second revolution as he had been the star of the first," -- John Hull, whom Congressional sources said worked for the CIA since at least the early 1970s,  rented a Contra safe house in San Jose, Coast Rica at CIA request. -- Retired Air Force Major General Richard Secord began managing an operation in which Israel shipped weapons captured in Lebanon to a CIA arms depot in San Antonio, Texas, for re-shipment to the Contras. -- Felix Rodriguez drew on his Vietnam experience and wrote a five-page proposal for the creation of an elite mobile strike force, called the Tactical Task Force (TTF), that would "be ideal for the pacification efforts in El Salvador and Guatemala."-- And at this exact same time, in the Spring of 1982, Barry Seal began flying private planes into a then-obscure airport in the secluded mountains of western Arkansas known as Mena. He moved his base of operations from Louisiana to hook up with the CIA, which was anxious to use Seal's fleet of planes to ferry both legal and illegal supplies to Contra camps in Honduras and Costa Rica.

Rodriguez dubbed the search and destroy units "Pink Teams" and advocated using napalm and cluster bombs to give them "more destructive power." Rodriguez's proposal included a map of Central America which indicated that Nicaragua would be a target of Pink Team operations (based in El Salvador and Honduras).

Favorably impressed, Vice President George (Poppy) Bush's National Security Advisor Donald Gregg sent Rodriguez's Pink Team plan to then Deputy National Security Adviser Bud McFarlane on March 17, along with a secret one-page memo on "anti-guerrilla operations in Central America."

This was also, according to later Iran-Contra testimony of Medellin Cartel money man Ramon Milian Rodriguez, when he began to launder, at Felix Rodriguez' request, $10 million from the cartel for the Contras. In secret, sworn testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations, Milian Rodriguez claimed that he had been solicited by his old friend Felix Rodriguez.

Also early in 1982 a new covert unit of the Armed Forces was set up by General Richard Stilwell.  Known as the Intelligence Support Activity (ISA), it became a separate entity in the Army's secret world of special operations, with its own commander, a Col. Jerry King. The army's involvement in secret operations would first became known to the House and Senate intelligence committees in early 1982, when they discovered a project known as Yellow Fruit, which ferried undercover Army operatives to Honduras, where they trained Honduran troops for bloody hit-and-run operations into Nicaragua.

Through private front companies, like the ones that supplied Barry Seal with his fleet of smuggling aircraft, Operation Yellow Fruit ferried weapons like rapid-fire cannons to CIA operatives. It was these same operatives who later mined Nicaragua's harbors and raided oil depots, all in violation of Congressional legislation barring the Defense Department and the Agency from taking any action aimed at overthrowing the Sandinistas.

The Army went to outside businessmen and arms dealers to make off-the-books airplane purchases, with funds that had been "laundered" through secret Army finance offices at Fort Meade, Md. More than $325 million was appropriated for the Special Operations Division of the Army between 1981 and the autumn of 1983.  Had any of these operations become public then it would have caused enormous political damage to the Reagan Administration's campaign in Central America, according to a 1987 New York Times report by Seymour Hersh.

 

"Enter CIA Agent Adler Berriman Seal"

The flight plans for Seal's drug enterprise provided the perfect cover for the illicit resupply missions. Seal's planes would fly from Mena to Medellin Cartel airstrips in the mountains of Colombia and Venezuela, make refueling stops in Panama and Honduras, and then return to Mena, where, en route, the planes would drop parachute-equipped duffel bags loaded with cocaine over Seal-controlled farms in Louisiana.

"His well-connected and officially protected smuggling operation based at Mena accounted for billions in drugs and arms from 1982 until his murder four years later," said Dr. Roger Morris and Sally Denton in their book Partners in Power. They also reported that coded records of the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) showed Barry Seal on the payroll beginning in 1982.

"My investigation established a conspiratorial period, chronologically, with a first overt act and a last overt act. The first overt act was April 12, 1982," stated Arkansas state criminal investigator Russell Welch, who was charged, he thought, with digging into Seal's Mena activities. Between March and December 1982, according to law enforcement records, Seal fitted nine of his aircraft with the latest electronic equipment, paying the $750,000 bill - as was his custom - in cash.

The effects of  Barry Seal's efforts to take weapons one way and bring drugs the other were soon visible, in ruined lives in the U.S. and in the maimed bodies appearing all over Central America.

 

"Riding the Elephant Herd"

Barry Seal was not alone. When small private planes began to bomb the Nicaraguan capital, resulting in the crash of a Cessna 404 at the Managua airport, an account of how three Cessnas were secretly transported from the New York Air National Guard to Central America for the raid on Managua reached the press. It was later learned that custody of a number of additional planes were moved from the U.S. Air Force in a top-secret Joint Chiefs operation code-named "Elephant Herd," on to the CIA, via a Delaware aviation company where they were armed, and then transferred to their ultimate destination, the Contras. 

A senior administration official admitted that small noncombatant military aircraft had been transferred from the Air Force to the Contras through the CIA. One company involved, Summit Aviation, was doing regular business with Barry Seal according to records in his widow's possession.  In addition, according to Congressional sources, Summit,  known to do Contract work for the CIA, had former CIA personnel on the payroll, and was linked through ownership records to the Cessna that crashed while bombing Managua.

That aircraft, according to FAA records, was purchased by Summit Aviation in October 1982 from Trager Aviation Center in Lima, Ohio. On the same day that Summit purchased the plane, the company sold it to Investair Leasing Corp. of McLean, Va.. Investair, which has an unlisted telephone number, does Contract work for the CIA, according to Congressional sources. Bruce W. Trager, who sold the Cessna to Summit for $308,872, says the deal was "put together" by Patrick J. Foley, Summit's "military director."

In addition to its work for Investair, Summit maintained and modified planes for Armairco, another company involved in covert government projects. Armairco, organized in 1982, also bought several multimillion-dollar Beechcraft King Airs, like Barry Seal's. Those aircraft were  purchased directly from Beech in a procedure normally used only for military projects, according to Beech officials and aviation experts.

When asked whether Armairco's government work included activities in Central America, an Armairco official said, ''That may well be.''

  

 

The Beechcraft King Air 200 has been in production since the mid 1970's. A little less than seven hundred of them have been manufactured to date. The twin engine turboprop has a pressurized cabin capable, with different configurations of seating up to nine passengers. It has a cruising speed of approximately 330 mph and a cruising range of more than 1,800 miles. New plane prices in1982 started at around $1,700,000 based on equipment.

 

 

N6308F

 

The convoluted,  pretzel-like paper history of the airplane that once belonged to Barry Seal and is today used by Texas Governor George W. Bush  begins when the title to the brand new aircraft was first recorded by Portland, Oregon dealer Flightcraft, Inc.

Flightcraft's President, David R. Hinson, a former military and commercial airline pilot active in the Republican Party in Oregon, was, according to The Oregonian, at the time under consideration to head the FAA. The paper stated that Hinson had met with Transportation Secretary Elizabeth Hanford Dole to express interest in the job after travelling to Washington to promote himself for the post. Helping Bill Casey subvert the will of Congress, presumably, did nothing to hurt his chances.

N6308F was spoken for, several times over, even before it arrived at Flighcraft's facilities in the Spring of 1982.

"I don't think we're going to help you - I mean "be able" to help you said a nervous Phil Carrell of Flightcraft, Inc. when contacted for information by FTW. Carrell, a sales executive who was working at Flightcraft when "Zero-Eight-Foxtrot" was originally sold, told FTW that as far as he knew any records of the aircraft were no longer in existence. He referred us to the FAA title records for answers. We wish that answers were what we had found.

According to records located by Dan Hopsicker in his investigation, a now defunct Lake Arrowhead, California firm, Ken Miller Aircraft Sales, entered into leasing agreements with developer Eugene Glick in February 1982, two months before the manufacturer's title was transferred to Flightcraft.  Ken Miller Aircraft appears nowhere in the FAA title history of the plane.  Ken Miller Aviation is also no longer in existence. Nonetheless, in February 1982, Ken Miller Aviation entered into a leasing agreement with real estate magnate Eugene Glick for the brand new aircraft. In that agreement, Glick and his wife agreed to make eighty-four monthly payments of more than $37,000 ($2,835,672) for the airplane which had a new purchase price of $2,010,556. No record linking Ken Miller Aviation to Flightcraft is known to exist.

On paper at least, according to Contracts dating from February of 1982, the plane was owned by a Greyhound Bus Lines subsidiary, Greycas, which in turn leased it to a mysterious Phoenix firm in close proximity to John Singlaub's Enterprise operations named Systems Marketing, Inc."  Systems Marketing then leased it to Continental Desert Properties which was the firm owned by Glick. In the final step, Glick leased the plane over to Barry Seal.

In a Contract dated March 21, 1983 N6308F was leased by Continental Desert Properties to Seal's firm Baton Rouge Aviation . Insurance policies found in Seal's private papers confirm that Barry Seal subsequently purchased an insurance policy on the aircraft.

What, exactly, was the purpose of this convoluted ownership record? What was it designed to conceal? The answer lies in the very definition of "tradecraft," a term for what it is that spies and covert operators do to operate in the dark. The "front" companies were in place to act as "cut-outs," layers of insulation, between the spy agency -- in this case Bill Casey's CIA--and the covert operative--, in this case, Barry Seal.

FAA ownership records show that Gene Glick, who lived on Hope Ranch near Ronald Reagan's Rancho del Cielo in Santa Barbara, California, leased "Zero-Eight-Foxtrot" as well as several of Barry Seal's other planes during the same years that Seal was most active in drug and weapons smuggling 1982-5. Other documents located by Hopsicker confirm that Glick was also actively helping Seal purchase ocean-going vessels for use in drug smuggling activities and as stationary platforms for the CIA to use off the coast of Nicaragua in covert operations.

An FBI agent had dismissed Glick's importance to Dan Hopsicker, which fueled his suspicions early on. "He's just a money launderer," said Delbert Hahn, who was the Special Agent in Charge of an Inter-Agency Organized Crime Drug Task Force looking into Barry Seal's organization back in the middle 1980s.  At least in this case, Glick's behavior was consistent with Iran-Contra "bust out" operations because the lease defaulted in two years. The plane was repossessed.

According to FTW contributing editor Catherine Austin Fitts who, as a former Wall Street investment banker and Assistant Secretary of Housing, served on the Resolution Trust Corporation in the wake of the S&L scandal, "This could have been a substantial cash pay-off to the concerned parties." Fitts, who also served on the "clean-up" committee for BCCI (a bank with abundant connections to CIA covert operations, financial fraud and drug trafficking) observed that the pattern here is typical of those seen by enforcement officials in that era.

"It is worth researching to see if there were substantial cash pay-offs to the concerned parties," said Fitts. "If the lease were insured at or near its full value and defaulted  early as it did here in around two years; if the total value of lease > payments were $2.8 million and if the lessor had paid only $2.1 million for the  aircraft then any insurance pay-off or "write down" after only a  year or two  could have netted a profit of a half million dollars or more for  the covert operators. This type of insurance fraud was used routinely during Iran-Contra to finance covert operations"

 

 

The CIA Gets Busted --Yet Again

The circle was completed with the discovery that "Zero-Eight-Foxtrot," as well as several other planes used by Barry Seal, was in reality owned by the same company revealed in 1998 bankruptcy proceedings to have owned the notorious CIA airline Southern Air Transport (SAT). Congressional and public records from the era establish Southern Air as a legendary CIA proprietary - second only to Air America - and as being connected to Secord, Singluab, Rodriguez, Casey and George H.W. Bush.

Among its long list of dubious "achievements," Southern Air had owned the C123 used by Seal in the Nicaragua sting operation which made Barry Seal famous. That same aircraft was later shot down over Nicaragua in 1986 and the lone survivor Eugene Hasenfus was captured alive by Sandinista soldiers.. That is what started the Iran-Contra scandal to begin with. No one knew--or admitted knowing--just who owned Southern Air Transport back in 1986, although government officials all swore up and down that it wasn't the CIA.

Southern Air's ownership by Greyhound Leasing, which became the entity called Finova, was only disclosed after no one was looking, when SAT went into bankruptcy in 1998. This is the first time the holding company, Finova, has been revealed for what it clearly is, an Agency front, set up in Arizona and headquartered in Canada to escape American financial disclosure requirements.

Suddenly, on June 14, 1984, after passage of the second Boland Amendment and the consolidation of Contra operations under Oliver North the plane was sold twice in one day. According to journalist, producer and author Dan Hopsicker, "This was at a period in time when Barry knew he was on the way out." The plane went first to a mysterious Morgan B. Mitchell of Vale, Oregon, and then to Chevrolet Dealer Merrill Bean of Ogden Utah.  Bean, curiously, gave the Dover, Delaware address of the "Prentis Hall [sic] Corporation" on his FAA registration.

Students of the CIA have long been aware of the Agency's affinity for hiding its assets in Delaware shell corporations. But, to be fair, many other companies do so for reasons of convenience. In an interview Bean stated that he had incorporated in Delaware as a legal necessity because of the needs of his investors. "Delaware is a very convenient place for many kinds of corporations to incorporate and many large corporations and multi-nationals do so," Bean told FTW. "Because other companies I was in partnership with were incorporated there I chose to do so also. It was much easier that way and it was a requirement of the partners who were investing."

However, Delaware officials in the Secretary of State's office said that Bean's company, Prentis Hall [not Prentice Hall], does not exist.  And in the FAA records connected to Bean's ownership of "Zero-Eight-Foxtrot" we find yet another unexplained gap in FAA records. Whenever major mechanical repairs are made on an aircraft, the involved mechanic is required to complete an FAA Form 337. In December 1989, FAA certified mechanic Irvin Strayer installed some routine de-icing equipment on the plane. The mechanic, reviewing what should have been original ownership documents, listed the owner as United Insurance of Ogden Utah.  Nowhere in FAA title paperwork does United Insurance appear as an owner. And a spokesman for the Utah State Department of Insurance told FTW that there had never been a United Insurance licensed to do business in the state.

"It was an insurance company that a group of car dealers had formed to handle title and financing and other insurance for car sales," said Bean. "I bought the other guys out of the airplane and had some repairs done before I sold to Corporate Wings."

Someone should have told the FAA. Or perhaps someone changed the FAA's records. Stranger things have happened. Bean does not recall if he changed the records to reflect this or not.

 

A Likely Suspect

 

In what will become a long litany of links between Barry Seal's activities and the financial fraud of the 1980's, Merrill Bean was also involved in what The Salt Lake City Tribune called "the worst financial disaster in Utah since the Great Depression."  That disaster was the en masse 1980s failure of Utah thrifts -- hybrid financial institutions that offered high interest rates and consumer loans -- and the collapse of the insurance fund that was supposed to protect their deposits.

Because Utah's thrifts were heavily underinsured, the actions of Bean's thrift, Western Heritage Thrift and Loan, left a trail of broken hearts, and broken people.

"We had just moved to Utah from California two years ago," 58-year old Irene Culver told The Salt Lake City Tribune in 1986. "My husband Kent was an aircraft mechanic but he has Parkinson's Disease. We put half our savings in there [Western Heritage]  and bought a little fixer-upper with the other half. When the State closed everything, I thought, 'I suppose we're lucky.' My Social Security should start in four years. We were going to put a new roof on and install a gas furnace because the electricity's expensive. Now we can't do it, so we've got half the house closed off."

Bean told FTW, "I was Director of that failed thrift. I came aboard when it was almost going under. And I poured some money into it to try to save it and it didn't happen. I was hoping that my $75,000 that I put into it would help revive it." While admitting that he was on the Board of Directors of Western Heritage, Bean stated emphatically that he was not "a Honcho."

FTW wonders how an obviously savvy businessman who owns several aircraft and car dealerships believed that $75,000 would turn around a failing savings and loan.  In "The Mafia, The CIA and George Bush," Texas journalist Pete Brewton documented how much of the S&L scandal was connected to Iran-Contra operations and illegal covert operations of the CIA. In many of those schemes a $75,000 or similar "buy-in" might have secured  the mighty a seat at a highly-lucrative but completely criminal feeding frenzy.

.

Disappearing' Money

 

Following the "paper trail" of Barry Seal's King Air 200 revealed connections to some other unsavory perpetrators of the major financial frauds that -- like the S&L scandal -- marred the 1980s. Greyhound Leasing, or "Greycas" for short, was at the center of a huge and seemingly inexplicable financial fraud that, like the half-trillion dollar S&L scandal, no one seemed too concerned about unraveling. The corporation was openly and eventually very publicly looted.  Afterwards, company management pretended to be "baffled" as to how it could have happened.

It went down like this:

Greycas Inc. and another Greyhound unit, Greyhound Leasing & Financial Corp., were  bilked of over $ 75 million by one Sheldon Player, a former Vernal, Utah, resident assumed to be in the machine and oilfield equipment sales business, who gained the money through fraudulently obtained loans from Greyhound. Greycas then devised an elaborate cover-up scheme to prevent disclosure of details about the loss.

This episode began at the beginning of the 1980's with one $ 600,000 loan.  Player and his companies would sell Greycas heavy machine tools, lease them back and then pretend to sublease the expensive devices to end-users.  In most cases the machines, which were collateral for the loans, were non-existent.

By 1984, Player had borrowed nearly $ 8 million from Greyhound in the same scheme. That year he asked for $ 40 million in new loans to continue his transactions. A total of $23.5 million had been disbursed by the time the company first got suspicious and confronted Player. He was told the company wanted to inspect the machinery that it was supposed to have owned.  Remember, this was a company owned by the CIA front Finova. Player resisted, leading some company executives to wonder about the "integrity of the transactions with Player."

Then, incredibly, despite the company's doubts about Player's credibility and integrity, and in spite of Greycas' inability to make inspections of the equipment, the company lent Player another $ 24 million. In the ensuing months lucky Sheldon Player drew $66 million on the credit line authorized by the company.

This was an Iran-Contra bust-out.

 

Nice Work if You Can Get It

 

Anyone who has ever borrowed money for a car or home must admire the chutzpah of Sheldon Player, whom the business press took to calling an "admitted con artist." Yet Player had no history of financial fraud that we could discover before this, which took place at the same time  that officers of a Swiss-based subsidiary were defrauding Greycas of  another $120 million, in a purportedly unrelated scandal that sent shock waves from Athens to Phoenix.

"Many borrowers failed to make even the initial monthly payment,'' court documents state. The company's accountants wrote that "fraudulent and dishonest acts . . . resulted directly in a loss of $119,684,598." Not so, said  the company's hapless General Counsel, who responded, weakly, that the loss has been reduced to a mere $72 million.

The fraud included checks written as bribes on napkins in Swiss restaurants and then set afire the reported possibility that one of the participants was blackmailing other participants and some mighty upset shareholders who filed lawsuits in Phoenix urging the Greyhound board to take legal action against top officials. The troubling question that puzzled business reporters never were able to answer was this: Why were they giving money away down at Greyhound during the 1980's?

 

Being Connected Means Never Having To Say You're Sorry

 

The disposition of the resulting criminal trial of Sheldon Player is an illustration of the maxim that in George Bush's America, "Being connected means never having to say you're sorry." 

When Sheldon Player was sentenced, he received a five-year sentence. Yup. Five years -- one year for each $13 million he stole. This is clearly a deal that, if offered to regular Americans--as opposed to the CIA-related kind who killed Barry Seal --would have people lining up around the Phoenix Federal Courthouse to sign up. After receiving this draconian sentence Mr. Player was given additional time to settle personal affairs before entering prison. No one can say American justice is not compassionate. And prison, for Mr. Player, consisted of  the Lompoc Camp, a minimum-security facility known as one of 10 to 12 "country club" institutions in operation around the nation, according to Dick Murray, community programs manager for the U.S. Bureau of Prisons in Phoenix.

Former Greycas official Robert Bertrand, who apparently covered up for Player's fraud, lucky fellow, never went to prison. Instead he resigned his position at Greyhound in 1986, and was soon appointed the new President and Chief Executive Officer of Finalco Inc. [Sounds like Finova doesn't it?], an equipment finance and brokerage company which just happens to be based in McLean, Virginia,  the home of the CIA.

 

(Back?) Into the Hands of the Guvnah

 

Merrill Bean, the Utah Chevy dealer who acquired "Zero-Eight-Foxtrot" in 1984 sold the plane in May of 1990 to Corporate Wings of Salt Lake City. Two days later Corporate Wings sold it to Gantt Aviation of Georgetown, Texas, which a month later sold it to the State of Texas Aircraft Pool where it resides today.  Johnny Gantt, President of Gantt Aviation told FTW that he probably knew that the State of Texas had a bid out when he acquired "Zero-Eight-Foxtrot".  At the time the Governor of Texas was Bill Clements and George "W", a good friend, was owner of the Texas Rangers.

A genial Gantt explained that he had probably been aware that the State was "putting out a bid" for a King Air and scooped up the plane. Press clipping show that Gantt Aviation is a large dealership with a long history of providing planes to the State of Texas. It was a done deal within weeks and Zero-Eight-Foxtrot found the home where it lives happily today.

At the beginning of this article we outlined briefly how a tail number in Barry Seal's papers started this investigation. It actually began when author Terry Reed announced at a Los Angeles public gathering in July, 1999 that a video tape might surface during the 2000 Presidential campaign "showing George W and Jeb arriving at Tamiami Airport in 1985 to pick up two kilos of cocaine for a party. Said Reed, "They flew in on a King Air 200." Subsequent statements made by Barry Seal and recorded in Reed's 1995 book Compromised recount how Seal bragged about how he had video of "the Bush boys" doing coke. Other witnesses located by both writers of this story, who were in relevant official positions in 1985, have confirmed that the described Tamiami sting took place. All, in fear for their lives, have refused to go on the record.

Does George "W" use  Zero-Eight-Foxtrot? According to Jerry Daniels, Executive Director of the Texas State Aircraft Pooling Board, "He used to fly on that airplane all the time. He stopped when he became a Presidential candidate because the State won't let you fly its aircraft for political purposes." But FTW learned that if and when Dubyah is back in the state and on state business, he probably will because Dubyah is a licensed pilot and Zero-Eight-Foxtrot is one of his favorites though he doesn't get to pilot much any more.

Said one savvy Pol of George W,  "The last thing we need in this country is another President with lingering drug scandals in his past--and maybe present."

 

© Copyright 1999, From The Wilderness. No portion of this article may  be reproduced, resold or reprinted without express written permission.

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Daniel Hopsicker is the producer of a business news television show airing internationally on NBC called Global Business 2000. That is, he was the Producer until Dan produced a 2-hour special on the CIA and drugs, Mena, Arkansas and Barry Seal called "The Secret Heartbeat of America."  Dan was told by his biggest friend in Hollywood, "Your show will not air while Clinton is President." When a subsequent attack in broad daylight on Wilshire Boulevard outside the Federal Building in Los Angeles confirmed his friend's judgment and prediction, Mr. Hopsicker began work on a book called "Barry and 'the boys," due to be finished by the end of 1999.

 

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Professional videotape copies of Dan's  two TV specials-- a second one is on the Federal Reserve and the Bilderbergers-- may be ordered for $19.50 plus $4.50 s&h by calling - 941.416.3734.

 

Special Thanks - to From The Wilderness readers  Mr. P. a lawyah from the South, John Carman, and "The Goddess", who contributed critical pieces to this story. You are living proof that no one is as smart as all of us and that with the Net we can beat the major media every time!

 

FTW''s mission for readers - This story, like Watergate will be broken in increments. We need to find out how many times and on what dates Zero-Eight-Foxtrot landed at Tamiami Airport in 1985 and who was piloting. Freedom of Information Act requests need to be very specific. Think of creative ways to find out.

 

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Michael C. Ruppert

P.O. Box 6061-350, Sherman Oaks, CA 91413

(818)788-8791 * fax(818)981-2847

mruppert@copvcia.com

 

© COPYRIGHT 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 MICHAEL C. RUPPERT. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

C.I.A. IG REPORT -

VOL. IIOLIVER NORTH IS TOAST!

 

 

NOTE: At the time this story was written it looked like the House Intelligence Committee was going to get away with closing out the CIA drug investigations. But thanks to the efforts of From The Wilderness that resulted in class action suits being filed against the CIA in Los Angeles and Oakland and other publicity we have generated Volume II has not been closed out. They can't because too many people are watching. On October 12, 1999, investigators from House Intelligence came to Los Angeles and copied 6,000 pages of our records for review. Going into 2000, Volume II is still very much an open investigation and FTW is proof that something can be done. - MCR

Volume Two of CIA Inspector General's Drug Report Released

---------------

A CIA Confession - Oliver North Exposed

by

Michael C. Ruppert

 

© COPYRIGHT 1998, 1999, 2000, Michael C. Ruppert - From The Wilderness @ www.copvcia.com.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Permission to reprint only if the preceding appears.

 

October 21, 1998

In a move apparently deliberately timed to muzzle Congressional response, the Central Intelligence Agency, on October 8, released the long awaited declassified version of Volume II of Inspector General Frederick Hitz's investigation into allegations of Contra drug trafficking. The report, which had been in the hands of the Intelligence Committees of both Houses since Spring is a virtual confession by CIA that it engaged in a conspiracy to protect known narcotics traffickers throughout the Contra war years. Release of the declassified version of the report came just one hour after the House of Representatives voted to conduct an impeachment inquiry on President Clinton and just before House members were compelled to cease all other activity to resolve the budget crisis. Mike Schmitz, aide to Congresswoman Maxine Waters who sits on the Judiciary Committee, which debated the impeachment measure, told From The Wilderness, "She was unable to read it. She couldn't respond. And then she had to go right into budget talks.

 

"But," Schmitz added, "You can bet the farm that she is not going to keep quiet about this." This writer has prepared a 44-page extract of relevant passages from the report, which shows that the Agency participated in an apparent conspiracy to protect traffickers throughout the Contra war. It also demonstrates that now departed CIA Inspector General Fred Hitz opted for a course which pointed accusing fingers directly at retired Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North, the National Security Council (NSC) and indirectly at then Vice President George Bush. A copy of that extract was sent to Waters' office last week.

 

The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) has not yet announced a date for hearings to review the report but it will have to do so in the near future. Many are still smarting from HPSCI's last set of hearings on Volume I which were begun March 15, without notice, on orders of Committee Chair Porter Goss, (R) Fla, who is himself a retired CIA case officer. Calls and letters to HPSCI and the White House accusing Goss of a conflict of interest and demanding adequate public notice have already started going out. It is not likely that hearings will be held until after the November elections when Republicans hope to increase their majority in the House.

 

Mainstream media coverage of the report, though underplayed, gave indications of how damning the report really is. None of the stories I reviewed mentioned the fact that the Inspector General's report also goes a long way toward corroborating allegations made by retired DEA Agent Celerino Castillo and author Gary Webb.

 

As reported by Associated Press, the report, "portrays the spy agency as reluctant to inform Congress or law enforcement of suspected drug activity by Nicaraguan Contra forces." The AP story continued to say that, "In classified briefings on Capitol Hill, CIA officials typically acknowledged only one major case of narcotics involvement by an anti-Sandinista group - the so called ADREN [sic] 15th of September group, which was disbanded in 1982. But the newly declassified report links to drug allegations 58 other individuals belonging to various Contra groups."

 

A telling passage of the CIA report itself states that "In six cases CIA knowledge of allegations or information indicating that organizations or individuals had been involved in drug trafficking did not deter their use by CIA. In at least two of those cases, CIA did not act to verify drug trafficking allegations or information even when it had the opportunity to do so."

 

In an apparent confirmation of Gary Webb's Dark Alliance series The New York Times, in a brief story, picked out a paragraph from the report which acknowledged that Contra leaders in California and the Bay area specifically planned to deal drugs to raise money for the Contras.

 

The Los Angeles Times has not printed a word about the report.

 

The report itself is a thousand times more damaging to CIA than even these limited stories indicated. It begins by going through a detailed and convoluted process of describing how, beginning in 1981, the CIA entered into a conspiratorial set of negotiations with the Justice Department which accomplished two things. First, the negotiations took literally thousands of people described as agents, assets and contractors and removed them from their previous as classification of "employees" and made them instantly "non-employees." This set the stage for the second part of the conspiracy, which was to remove a previously stated responsibility to report drug trafficking by non-employees connected to Agency operations.

 

Later on the report describes how, in 1987, then acting DCI Robert Gates, wrote a strident and noble sounding memorandum to then Deputy Director of Operations, Clair George, setting down no-nonsense policies against dealing with traffickers. The problem is that the memorandum was not officially distributed for 15 years.

 

In a move apparently intended to show that the Agency had some sense of right and wrong it describes in detail the drug trafficking activities of Jorge Morales as connected to ARDE Southern Front Contra leader Eden Pastora. Pastora was, almost from the outset, in disfavor with the Agency. A credible case has been made, in fact, that the Agency intended several times to assassinate Pastora and one failed attempt, a bombing at La Penca in Nicaragua, led to the serious injury of American journalist Tony Avirgan. Much later in the report the Agency links the infamous John Hull to the bombing through its own cable traffic and information developed by the government of Costa Rica where Hull operated.

 

As the report continues, CIA's excuses and denials for continued dealings with other traffickers begin to sound strangely like Bill Clinton's evolving definitions of sex. When absolutely cornered they lay out someone else, namely Ollie North and the NSC.

 

In a sections on SETCO, an air freight company owned by Class I violator Juan Ramon Matta Ballesteros, which was documented shipping tons of cocaine, CIA says SETCO was chosen by NHAO [The Nicaraguan Humanitarian Assistance Office of the State Department which reported to Oliver North] to transport goods on behalf of the Contras from late 1985 through mid-1986. According to testimony by FDN leader Adolfo Calero before the Iran-Contra committees, SETCO received funds for Contra supply operations from the "bank accounts that were established by Oliver North." Oliver North's ally at State was Elliot Abrams, a frequently named co-conspirator in the Iran Contra affair, and a man known to have worked with CIA bagman Albert Vincent Carone who dealt with organized crime figures for the purpose of moving cocaine and laundering money in the era. Carone has been covered in previous issues of From The Wilderness.

 

In another section on major trafficker Moises Nunez, who was being investigated for shipment of hundreds of kilos of cocaine through firms named Frigorificos de Puntarenas and Ocean Hunter (also NHAO contractors), the CIA lays out North yet again. They describe how cocaine was reportedly received at air strips owned by John Hull in Costa Rica and taken to ships owned by these two firms. The CIA report then states, "On March 25, 1987, CIA questioned Nunez about narcotics trafficking allegations against him.

 

"Nunez revealed that since 1985, he had engaged in a clandestine relationship with the National Security Council (NSC). Nunez refused to elaborate on the nature of these actions, but indicated it was difficult to answer questions relating to his involvement in narcotics trafficking because of the specific tasks he had performed at the direction of the NSC (emphasis mine). Nunez refused to identify the NSC officials with whom he had been involved."

 

Oliver North was the point man at NSC for all Contra support activities.

 

The IG report continues, "Headquarters cabled in April 1987 that a decision had been made to "debrief" Nunez regarding the revelations he had made. The next day however, a Headquarters cable stated that 'Headquarters had decided against debriefing Nunez.' The cable offered no explanation for the decision."

 

As to allegations of trafficking at Ilopango Air Base in El Salvador the report, over approximately five pages, appears to corroborate many of the allegations made by former DEA Agent Celerino Castillo in his book Powderburns. The Agency draws a distinction between two separate hangars at Ilopnago, one of which was operated by the Agency, the other of which was operated by the NSC [Oliver North]. In making those distinctions the Inspector General's report also tends to state that CIA personnel somehow evaporated from the airfield during the time period when Castillo documented many drug flights. The CIA report also, referring to him as an unnamed "American citizen", utterly trashes and disavows the spook Wally Grasheim who Castillo arrested on drug trafficking and weapons charges. Grasheim had recently filed suit against the U.S. government and is currently represented by former Kerry Committee lawyer, John Mattes.

 

John Hull, one of the biggest covert operators in the region, who was indicted along with Oliver North on drug and weapons charges by the Costa Rican government, is similarly left on twisting in the breeze. In spite of allegations from a number of pilots and major traffickers including Jorge Morales, eyewitness testimony and the fact that the Costa Rican government indicted Hull and North on drug trafficking and weapons charges. Hull denied any such activity. He did admit to fleeing the country in 1989.

 

What is unusual is that CIA devotes approximately four pages to Hull demonstrating that his drug trafficking connections, murders and even a planned bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Costa Rica were the subject of intense and frequent communications between CIA and the Congress. Whereas in other places the CIA report goes to great lengths to state that suspected drug traffickers were not employed by the Agency, in Hull's case it neither confirms or denies any such relationship.

 

Additional operations and individuals discussed in the CIA report include Arnoldo Arana, Frank Castro, Vortex, Michael Palmer, Hondu Carib, Alan Hyde, Manuel Noriega, Felix Rodriguez, Eden Pastora, Ramon Milian Rodriguez, Jorge Morales, Jorge Ochoa and an elusive CIA contractor/employee who worked under the pseudonym of Ivan Gomez.

 

Celerino Castillo, in an interview with From The Wilderness stated that he believed the mysterious Ivan Gomez to be a Venezuelan trafficker named Victor Rivera who Cele had met and had dealings with during the course of his DEA investigations. He described Rivera, in his book and the interview as a goon who fired shots within inches of torture victims ears as a means of intimidation. The CIA says of Gomez, that virtually his entire family was in the drug business at the same time that Gomez was married to a CIA employee.

 

From the damaging nature of the report it is apparent that what happens now will be up to the Congress and the people. There is no longer any room for CIA to hide and Oliver North should start packing his bags - either to go to jail or to flee the country.

 

 

[ All of the revelations made in the CIA report are too numerous and too damning to list here. They read like a really good (dumb) spy novel. A 44 page extract with additional exhibits and commentary by this writer is available for $12.95 plus $2.00 shipping and handling. It is strongly suggested for anyone who would like to have 44 pages of CIA's own self-condemning words and who would like to begin the hunt for Oliver North, NSC and George Bush.]

---------------------------------------

TO OBTAIN YOUR COPY OF THE From The Wilderness EXTRACTS AND COMMENTARY ON VOLUME TWO OF THE CIA's INSPECTOR GENERAL REPORT WITH COMMENTS AND NOTES BY MIKE RUPPERT

SEND CHECK OR MONEY ORDER FOR $12.95 PLUS $2.00 SHIPPING AND HANDLING PAYABLE TO Michael C. Ruppert

P.O. Box 6061-350, Sherman Oaks, CA, 91413

(allow two weeks for delivery - All orders shipped by Priority Mail)

----------------------------------------------

RELEVANT EXCERPTS - VOLUME TWO of the CIA INSPECTOR GENERAL'S REPORT OF INVESTIGATION INTO CONTRA DRUG TRAFFICKING

(released Oct. 8, 1998)

Edited with Notes by Michael C. Ruppert

© COPYRIGHT 1998, 1999, 2000, Michael C. Ruppert - From The Wilderness www.copvcia.com

P.O. Box 6061-350, Sherman Oaks, CA 91413

 

[All Paragraph numbers herein listed are taken directly from the CIA Inspector General's report. My notes and emphases are followed by the initials MCR. All other highlights, underlines, etc. are exactly as they appear in the original 410 page report. The complete report with appendices is available at no charge and located at www.cia.gov. - MCR]

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Executive Summary and Conclusions

Key Findings

 

Introduction

 

14. "CIA received allegations or information regarding drug trafficking by Contra-related individuals in the Southern Front that operated from Costa Rica. In 1984, CIA received allegations that five individuals associated with the Democratic Revolutionary Alliance (ARDE)/Sandino Revolutionary Front (FRS) were engaged in a drug trafficking conspiracy with a known narcotics trafficker, Jorge Morales. CIA broke off contact with ARDE in October, 1984, but continued to have contact with four of the individuals involved with Morales"

 

16. In addition to the five individuals associated with ARDE, CIA received drug trafficking allegations or information concerning 16 other individuals who supported Southern Front Contra operations based in Costa Rica."

 

17. Contra Related Individuals - Northern Front. CIA also received allegations or information concerning drug trafficking by nine Contra-related individuals in the Northern Front based in Honduras.

 

18. Other Individuals Involved in the Contra Program. CIA received drug trafficking allegations or information concerning five individuals who were used to support the Contra program.

 

19. Companies, Pilots and Other Individuals Working for Companies Used in Support of the Contra Program. CIA received drug trafficking allegations or information concerning 14 pilots and two other individuals who were associated with companies that provided support for the Contra program. CIA also learned of drug trafficking allegations or information concerning three companies that were used to support Contra activities from 1984 until at least 1988.

 

20. CIA received drug trafficking allegations or information concerning an individual who flew Contra support missions from Ilopango Air Base in El Salvador in 1985 and 1986.

If you want to know MORE about this subject,

we recommend the following:

Item #01 - Extracts and Commentary from Vol. II of the CIA Inspector General's

Report.

Item #07 - Mike with Maxine Waters at Fairfax High

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Michael C. Ruppert

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mruppert@copvcia.com

 

© COPYRIGHT 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 MICHAEL C. RUPPERT. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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RELEVANT EXCERPTS - VOLUME TWO of the CIA INSPECTOR GENERAL'S REPORT OF INVESTIGATION INTO CONTRA DRUG TRAFFICKING

 

(released Oct. 8, 1998)

 

Edited with Notes by Michael C. Ruppert

 

© COPYRIGHT 1998, 1999, 2000, Michael C. Ruppert - From The Wilderness www.copvcia.com - P.O. Box 6061-350, Sherman Oaks, CA 91413

 

[All Paragraph numbers herein listed are taken directly from the CIA Inspector General's report. My notes and emphases are followed by the initials MCR. All other highlights, underlines, etc. are exactly as they appear in the original 410 page report. The complete report with appendices is available at no charge and located at www.cia.gov. - MCR]

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Executive Summary and Conclusions

 

Key Findings

 

Introduction

 

14. "CIA received allegations or information regarding drug trafficking by Contra-related individuals in the Southern Front that operated from Costa Rica. In 1984, CIA received allegations that five individuals associated with the Democratic Revolutionary Alliance (ARDE)/Sandino Revolutionary Front (FRS) were engaged in a drug trafficking conspiracy with a known narcotics trafficker, Jorge Morales. CIA broke off contact with ARDE in October, 1984, but continued to have contact with four of the individuals involved with Morales"

 

16. In addition to the five individuals associated with ARDE, CIA received drug trafficking allegations or information concerning 16 other individuals who supported Southern Front Contra operations based in Costa Rica."

 

17. Contra Related Individuals - Northern Front. CIA also received allegations or information concerning drug trafficking by nine Contra-related individuals in the Northern Front based in Honduras.

 

18. Other Individuals Involved in the Contra Program. CIA received drug trafficking allegations or information concerning five individuals who were used to support the Contra program.

 

19. Companies, Pilots and Other Individuals Working for Companies Used in Support of the Contra Program. CIA received drug trafficking allegations or information concerning 14 pilots and two other individuals who were associated with companies that provided support for the Contra program. CIA also learned of drug trafficking allegations or information concerning three companies that were used to support Contra activities from 1984 until at least 1988.

 

20. CIA received drug trafficking allegations or information concerning an individual who flew Contra support missions from Ilopango Air Base in El Salvador in 1985 and 1986

 

Celerino "Cele" Castillo III

Author: "POWDERBURNS" Cocaine, Contras & The Drug War

    2709 N. 28 1/2 St., McAllen,Texas 78501

    Tele/Fax: 956-631-3818 Pager: 956-318-4913

    E-Mail: powderburns@prodigy.net

 

WRITTEN STATEMENT OF CELERINO CASTILLO III, (D.E.A., RETIRED) FOR THE HOUSE PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE

 

April 27, 1998

For several years, I fought in the trenches of the front lines of Reagan's "Drug War", trying to stamp out what I considered American's greatest foreign threat. But, when I was posted, in Central and South America from 1984 through 1990, I knew we were playing the "Drug War Follies." While our government shouted "Just Say No !", entire Central and South American nations fell into what are now known as, "Cocaine democracies."

 

While with the DEA, I was able to keep journals of my assignments in Central and South America. These journals include names, case file numbers and DEA NADDIS (DEA Master Computer) information to back up my allegations. I have pictures and original passports of the victims that were murdered by CIA assets. These atrocities were done with the approval of the agencies.

 

We, ordinary Americans, cannot trust the C.I.A. Inspector General to conduct a full investigation into the CIA or the DEA. Let me tell you why. When President Clinton (June, 1996) ordered The Intelligence Oversight Board to conduct an investigation into allegations that US Agents were involved in atrocities in Guatemala, it failed to investigate several DEA and CIA operations in which U.S. agents knew before hand that individuals (some Americans) were going to be murdered.

 

I became so frustrated that I forced myself to respond to the I.O.B report citing case file numbers, dates, and names of people who were murdered. In one case (DEA file # TG-86-0005) several Colombians and Mexicans were raped, tortured and murdered by CIA and DEA assets, with the approval of the CIA. Among those victims identified was Jose Ramon Parra-Iniguez, Mexican passport A-GUC-043 and his two daughters Maria Leticia Olivier-Dominguez, Mexican passport A-GM-8381. Also included among the dead were several Colombian nationals: Adolfo Leon Morales-Arcilia "a.k.a." Adolfo Morales-Orestes, Carlos Alberto Ramirez, and Jiro Gilardo-Ocampo. Both a DEA and a CIA agent were present, when these individuals were being interrogated (tortured). The main target of that case was a Guatemalan Congressman, (Carlos Ramiro Garcia de Paz) who took delivery of 2,404 kilos of cocaine in Guatemala just before the interrogation. This case directly implicated the Guatemalan Government in drug trafficking (The Guatemalan Congressman still has his US visa and continues to travel at his pleasure into the US). To add salt to the wound, in 1989 these murders were investigated by the U.S Department of Justice, Office of Professional Responsibility. DEA S/I Tony Recevuto determined that the Guatemalan Military Intelligence, G-2 (the worst human rights violators in the Western Hemisphere) was responsible for these murders. Yet, the U.S. government continued to order U.S. agents to work hand-in-hand with the Guatemalan Military. This information was never turned over to the I.O.B. investigation. (See attached response)

 

I have obtained a letter, dated May 28, 1996, from the DEA administrator, to U.S. Congressman Lloyd Doggett (D), Texas. In this letter, the administrator flatly lies, stating that DEA agents "have never engaged in any joint narcotics programs with the Guatemalan Military".

 

I was there. I was the leading Agent in Guatemala. 99.9% of DEA operations were conducted with the Guatemalan military. In 1990, the DEA invited a Guatemalan military G-2 officer, Cpt. Fuentez, to attend a DEA narcotic school, which is against DEA policy. I know this for a fact because I worked with this officer for several years and was in Guatemala when he was getting ready to travel to the States.

 

Facts of my investigation on CIA-Contras drug trafficking in El Salvador:

 

The key to understanding the "crack cocaine" epidemic, which exploded on our streets in 1984, lies in understanding the effect of congressional oversight on covert operations. In this case the Boland amendment(s) of the era, while intending to restrict covert operations as intended by the will of the People, only served to encourage C.I.A., the military and elements of the national intelligence community to completely bypass the Congress and the Constitution in an eager and often used covert policy of funding prohibited operations with drug money.

 

As my friend and colleague Michael Ruppert has pointed out through his own experience in the 1970s, CIA has often bypassed congressional intent by resorting to the drug trade (Vietnam, Laos, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc).

 

When the Boland Amendment(s) cut the Contras off from a continued U.S. government subsidy, George Bush, his national security adviser Don Gregg, and Ollie North, turned to certain foreign governments, and to private contributions, to replace government dollars. Criminal sources of contributions were not excluded. By the end of 1981, through a series of Executive Orders and National Security Decision Directives, many of which have been declassified, Vice President Bush was placed in charge of all Reagan administration intelligence operations. All of the covert operations carried out by officers of the CIA, the Pentagon, and every other federal agency, along with a rogue army of former intelligence operatives and foreign agents, were commanded by George Bush. Gary Webb (San Jose Mercury News) acknowledged, that he simply had not traced the command structure over the Contras up into the White House, although he had gotten some indications that the operation was not just CIA.

 

On Dec. 01, 1981, President Ronald Reagan signed a secret order authorizing the CIA to spend $19.9 million for covert military aid to the recently formed Contras--- hardly enough money to launch a serious military operation against the Cuban and Soviet-backed Sandinista regime.

 

In August 1982, George Bush hired Donald P. Gregg as his principal adviser for national security affairs. In late 1984, Gregg introduced Oliver North to Felix Rodriguez, (a retired CIA agent) who had already been working in Central America for over a year under Bush's direction. Gregg personally introduced Rodriguez to Bush on Jan. 22, 1985. Two days after his January 1985 meeting, Rodriguez went to El Salvador and made arrangements to set up his base of operations at Ilopango air base. On Nov. 01, 1984, the FBI arrested Rodriguez's partner, Gerard Latchinian and convicted him of smuggling $10.3 million in cocaine into the U.S.

 

On Jan. 18, 1985, Rodriguez allegedly met with money-launderer Ramon Milan-Rodriguez, who had moved $1.5 billion for the Medellin cartel. Milan testified before a Senate Investigation on the Contras' drug smuggling, that before this 1985 meeting, he had granted Felix Rodriguez's request and given $10 million from the cocaine for the Contras.

 

On September 10, 1985, North wrote in his Notebook:

 

"Introduced by Wally Grasheim/Litton, Calero/Bermudez visit to Ilopango to estab. log support./maint. (...)"

 

In October of 1985, Upon my arrival in Guatemala, I was forewarned by Guatemala DEA, County Attaché, Robert J. Stia, that the DEA had received intelligence that the Contras out of Salvador, were involved in drug trafficking. For the first time, I had come face to face with the contradictions of my assignment. The reason that I had been forewarned was because I would be the Lead Agent in El Salvador.

 

DEA Guatemalan informant, Ramiro Guerra (STG-81-0013) was in place in Guatemala and El Salvador on "Contra" intelligence. At the time (early 80's), he was a DEA fugitive on "Rico" (Racketeering Influence and Corrupt Organizations) and "CCE" (Continuing Criminal Enterprise) charges out of San Francisco. In 1986, he became an official advisor for the DEA trained El Salvador Narcotics Task Force. In 1989, all federal charges were dropped because of his cooperation with the DEA in Central America. Guerra is still a DEA informant in Guatemala.

 

December 1985, CNN reporter Brian Barger broke the story of the Contra's involved in drug trafficking.

 

                Notes from my Journals & Intelligence Gathering

 

January 13, 1986, I wrote a report on El Salvador under DEA file (GFTG-86-9145).

 

January 16, 1986---HK-1217W--Carlos Siva and Tulio Pedras Contra pilots.

 

January 23, 1986, GFTG-86-9999, Air

 

Intelligence in "El Salvador" TG-86-0003, Samana and Raul.

 

In 1986, I placed an informant (Mario Murga) at the Ilopango airport in El Salvador. He was initiated and wrote the flight plans for most Contra pilots. After their names were submitted into NADDIS, it was revealed that most pilots had already been document in DEA files as traffickers. (See DEA memo by me date 2-14-89.)

 

Feb. 05, 1986, I had seized $800,000.00 in cash, 35 kilos of cocaine, and an airplane at Ilopango. DEA # TG-86-0001; Gaitan-Gaitan, Leonel

 

March 24, 1986, I wrote a DEA report on the Contra operation. (GFTG-86-4003, Frigorificos de Puntarenas, S.A), US registration aircraft N-68435 (Cessna 402).

 

April 17, 86, I wrote a Contra report on Arturo Renick; Johnny Ramirez (Costa Rica). Air craft TI-AQU & BE-60.. GFTG-86-9999; Air Intelligence.

 

April 25,26 1986--I met with CIA Felix Vargas in El Salvador (GFTG-86-9145).

 

April of 1986, The Consul General of the U.S Embassy in El Salvador (Robert J. Chavez), warned me that CIA agent George Witters was requesting a U.S visa for a Nicaraguan drug trafficker and Contra pilot by the name of Carlos Alberto Amador. (mentioned in 6 DEA files)

 

May 14, 1986, I spoke to Jack O'Conner DEA HQS Re: Matta-Ballesteros. (NOTE: Juan Ramon Matta-Ballesteros was perhaps the single largest drug trafficker in the region. Operating from Honduras he owned several companies which were openly sponsored and subsidized by C.I.A.)

 

May 26, 1986, Mario Rodolfo Martinez-Murga became an official DEA informant (STG-86-0006). Before that, he had been a sub-source for Ramiro Guerra and Robert Chavez. Under Chavez, Murga's intelligence resulted in the seizure of several hundred kilos of cocaine, (from Ilopango to Florida) making Murga a reliable source of information.

 

May 27, 1986, I Met U.S. Army Lt. Col. Alberto Adame in El Salvador. Has knowledge of the Contra Operation at Ilopango. He was in El Salvador from 1984 thru 1987.

 

On June 06, 1986, I send a DEA report/telex cable to Washington DEA in regards to Contra pilots, Carlos Amador and Carlos Armando Llamos (Honorary Ambassador from El Salvador to Panama) (N-308P). Llamos had delivered 4 1/2 million dollars to Panama from Ilopango for the Contras. Information was gathered by informant Mario Murga. Leon Portilla-TIANO = Navojo 31 & YS-265-American Pilot: Francisco Viaud. Roberto Gutierrez (N-82161) Mexican (X-AB)

 

June 10, 1998, I spoke to CIA agent Manny Brand Re: Sofi Amoury (Cuban Contra operator and Guatemalan Galvis-Pena in Guatemala.

 

June 16, 1986-GFTG-86-9999, Air Intel (DEA-6) El Salvador

 

 

 

Early part of 1986, I received a telex/cable from DEA Costa Rica. SA Sandy Gonzales requested for me to investigate hangers 4 and 5 at Ilopango. DEA Costa Rica had received reliable intelligence that the Contras were flying cocaine into the hangars. Both hangers were owned and operated by the CIA and the National Security Agency. Operators of those two hangars were, Lt. Col. Oliver North and CIA contract agent, Felix Rodriguez, "a.k.a." Max Gomez. (See attached letter by Bryan Blaney (O.I.C.), dated March 28, 1991).

 

June 18, 1986, Salvadoran Contra pilot, Francisco "Chico" Guirrola-Beeche (DEA NADDIS # 1585334 and 1744448) had been documented as a drug trafficker. On this date, at 7:30a.m, he departed Ilopango to the Bahamas to air drop monies. On his return trip (June 21) Guirrola arrived with his passengers Alejandro Urbizu & Patricia Bernal. In 1988 Urbizu was arrested in the US in a Cocaine conspiracy case. In 1985 Guirrola was arrested in South Texas (Kleberg County) with 5 and 1/2 million dollars cash, which he had picked up in Los Angeles, California. (U.S. Customs in Dallas/ Ft. Worth had case on him.)

 

June 18, 1986, DEA 6 on Air Intelligence, GFTG- 86-9999; El Salvador.

 

June 27 & 28, 1986, US Lt. Col. Albert Adame spoke with US Ambassador Edwin Corr re: Narcotics.

 

In a July 26, 1986 report to the Congress, on contra-related narcotics allegation, The State Department described the Frogman CASE as follows, "This case gets it's nickname from swimmers who brought cocaine ashore in San Francisco on a Colombian vessel." It focused on a major Colombian cocaine smuggler, ALVARO CARVAJAL-MINOTA, who supplied a number of west coast smugglers. It was further alleged that Nicaraguan Contra, Horacio Pererita, was subsequently convicted on drug charges in Costa Rica and sentenced to 12 years imprisonment. Two other members of the organization were identified as Nicaraguans Carlos Cabezas & Julio Zavala. They were among the jailed West Coast traffickers and convicted of receiving drugs from Carvajal. They claimed long after their convictions, that they had delivered sums of monies to Contra resistance groups in Costa Rica.

 

July 28, 1986, I Met with CIA agents Don Richardson, Janice Elmore and Lt. Col. Adame in El Salvador.

 

July 29, 1986, I Met with Don Richardson and Robert Chavez at the US Embassy in El Salvador.

 

August 03,1986, Ramiro Guerra, Lt. Col. A. Adame, Dr. Hector Regalado (Dr. Death, who claimed to have shot Archbishop Romero) and myself went out on patrol in El Salvador.

 

In Aug. 1986, The Kerry Committee requested information on the Contra pilots from the DEA. The Department Of Justice flatly refused to give up any information.

 

Aug. 15, 1986, I spoke to CIA (Chief of Station) Jack McCavett and Don Richardson; El Salvador; Re: Fernando Canelas Sanez from Florida.

 

Aug. 18, 1986, I received $45,000.00 in cash from CIA Chief of Station (CIA), Jack McKavett for the purchase of vehicles for the DEA El Salvador Narcotic Task Force.

 

Aug. 28, 1986, I had a meeting with El Salvador US Ambassador, Edwin Corr, in regards to Wally Grasheim, Pete's Place and Carlos Amador (3:00 p.m.)

 

Oscar Alvarado-Lara "a.k.a." El Negro Alvarado (CIA asset and Contra pilot) was mentioned in 3 DEA files. On June 11, 1986, Alvarado transported 27 illegal Cubans to El Salvador Ilopango, where they were then smuggled into Guatemala. On Sept. 28, 1987, Alvarado picked up CIA officer Randy Capister in Puerto Barrios Guatemala after a joint DEA, CIA and Guatemala Military (G-2) operation. Several Mexicans and Colombians were murdered and raped. This was supported by the CIA. DEA File TG-86-0005.

 

1986, DEA El Salvador, initiated a file on Walter L. Grasheim (TG-87-0003). He is mentioned in several DEA, FBI and U.S Customs files. This DEA file is at The National Archives in The Iran-Contra file in Washington D.C (bulky # 2316). Also see attached Top Secret/Declassified Record of Interview on Mr. Grasheim, by the Office of Independent Counsel, dated Jan. 03, 1991.

 

Sept. 01, 1986, at approximately 5:00pm, I received a phone call in Guatemala from (C.I) Ramiro Guerra, Re: Raid at Wally's house in El Salvador Wally's plane (N-246-J).

 

On September 01, 1986, Walter Grasheim (a civilian) residence in El Salvador was searched by the DEA Task Force. Found at the residence was an arsenal of US military munitions, (allegedly for a Contra military shipment). Found were cases of C-4 explosives, grenades, ammunition, sniper rifles, M-16's, helicopter helmets and knives. Also found were files of payment to Salvadoran Military Officials (trips to New York City). Found at his residence were radios and license plates belonging to the US Embassy. We also found an M16 weapon belonging to the US Mil-Group Commander, Col. Steel. Prior to the search, I went to every department of the U.S. Embassy and asked if this individual worked in any way shape or form with the embassy. Every head of the departments denied that he worked for them. A pound of marijuana and marijuana plants growing in the back yard, were also found.

 

Sept. 02, 1986, I departed Guatemala on Taca Airlines @ 7:30a.m to El Salvador.

 

Sept. 26, 1986, Meeting with Col. Steel Re: Mr. Grasheim (Col. Steel admitted that he had given an M-16 to Grasheim) and CIA George W. Also talked to Don Richardson (CIA) re: Ramiro Guerra. Talked to Col. Adame Re: CIA George.

 

October 03, 1986, Spoke to DEA Panama re: Mr. Grasheim. Was advised to be careful.

 

October 15, 1986, Asst. Atty. Gen. Mark Richard testified before the Kerry Committee, that he had attended a meeting with 20 to 25 officials and that the DEA did not want to provide any of the information the committee had requested on the Contra involvement in drug trafficking.

 

October 21, 1986, I send a Telex/cable to Washington D.C on the Contras.

 

October 22, 1986 talked to El Salvador Re: Grasheim.

 

October 23, 1986, HK-1960P Honduras. 1,000 kilos of cocaine. DEA- 6 was written on this case.

 

October 29, 1986 Talked to DEA HQS (John Martch) re Contras & Grasheim.

 

October 30, 1986, Talked to Salvadoran Gen. Blandon re: to Mr. Grasheim.

 

Nov. 07, 1986, Talked to John Martch 202-786-4356 and Azzam-633-1049; Home: 301-262-1007. (Contras).

 

Nov. 13, 1986, I Met with Ambassador Corr @2:00pm re: Mr. Grasheim. (He stated, "let the chips fall where they may." Met w/ Lt. Col. Adame.

 

November 14, 1986, Met with Salvadoran Col. Villa Marona re: Mr. Grasheim. He advised that the U.S Embassy had approved for Grasheim to work at Ilopango.

 

On January 20, 1987, Joel Brinkley (special to the New York Times) reported. "Contra Arms Crew said To Smuggle Drugs" The 3rd secret had surfaced. Brinkley wrote: "Fed. Drug investigators uncovered evidence last fall that the American flight crews which covertly carried arms to the Nicaraguan rebels were smuggling cocaine and other drugs on their return trips back to the US. Administration Officials said today that when the crew members, based in El Salvador, learned that DEA agents were investigating their activities, one of them warned that they had White House protection. The Times then quoted an anonymous US official who said the crew member's warnings which came after DEA searched his San Salvador house for drugs, caused 'quite a stir' at Ilopango."

 

Feb. 09, 1987, I had meeting with Lt. Col. Adame and Elmore re: major argument with DEA HQS I.A. Lourdez Border. They had just arrived in Guatemala for a two-day fact finding tour of El Salvador.

 

Feb.10, 1987, I met with U.S. Ambassador Corr (Salvador) re DEA HQS Intel. Analyst Lourdez Border and Doug (last name unknown) - both were rookies. In two days in El Salvador, they determined that there was no contra involvement in drug trafficking.

 

February 27. 1987, I spoke to Mike Alston, DEA Miami, RE: Contra pilots John Hall; Bruce Jones' airstrip in Costa Rica, Colombian Luis Rodriguez; Mr. Shrimp-Ocean Hunter Costa Rica > to Miami. Contra Operation from Central American to U.S.

 

March 03, 1987, met with Janis Elmore (CIA) from 9:00pm till 12:00

 

March 30, 1987, I invited U.S. Customs Agent Richard Rivera to El Salvador in an attempt to trace ammunitions and weapons found in Mr.Grasheim's residence. It's alleged that The Pentagon put a stop on his trace. (They were never able to trace the items).

 

April 01, 1987, Bob Stia, Walter (pilot) Morales and myself flew to El Salvador. Met with two CIA agents who advised us that we could no longer utilize Murga because he was now working with them).

 

April 07,08,09, 1987, I met with John Martch in Guatemala Re: Contras and OPR.

 

Sept. 27, 1987, Central American CIA agent, Randy Capister, the Guatemala military (G-2) and myself, seized over 2,404 kilos of cocaine from a Guatemalan Congressman, Carlos Ramiro Garcia de Paz and the Medellin cartel (biggest cocaine seizure in Central America and top five ever). However, several individuals were murdered and raped on said operation. CIA agent and myself saw the individuals being interrogated. The Congressman was never arrested or charged.

 

October 22, 1987, I received a call from DEA HQS Everett Johnson, not to close Contra files because some committee was requesting file. If you have an open file, you do not have access to the files under Freedom of Information Act.

 

Aug. 30, 1988, Received intelligence from (Guido Del Prado) at the U.S. Embassy, El Salvador re: Carlos Armando Llemus-Herrera (Contra pilot).

 

Oct. 27, 1988, Received letter from "Bill," Regional Security Officer at the Embassy in El Salvador re: Corruption on US ambassador Corr and del Prado.

 

Dec. 03, 1988, DEA seized 356 kilos of cocaine in Tiquisate, Guatemala (DEA # TG-89-0002; Hector Sanchez). Several Colombians were murdered on said operation and condoned by the DEA and CIA. I have pictures of individuals that were murdered in said case. The target was on Gregorio Valdez (CIA asset) of The Guatemala Piper Co. At that time, all air operations for the CIA and DEA flew out of Piper.

 

Aug. 24, 1989, Because of my information, the U.S. Embassy canceled Guatemalan Military, Lt. Col. Hugo Francisco Moran-Carranza, (Head of Interpol and Corruption) U.S. visa. He was documented as a drug trafficker and as a corrupt Guatemalan Official. He was on his way to a U.S. War College for one year, invited by the CIA.

 

Feb. 21, 1990, I send a telex-cable to DEA HQS Re: Moran's plan to assassinate me.

 

Between Aug. 1989 and March 06, 1990, Col. Moran had initiated the plan to assassinate me in El Salvador and blame it on the guerrillas. On March 06, 1990, I traveled to Houston to deliver an undercover audio tape on my assassination. The Houston DEA S.A Mark Murtha (DEA File M3-90-0053) had an informant into Lt. Col. Moran.

 

Feb. 24, 1990, I moved my family back home because DEA could not make a decision.

 

March 15, 1990, After 6 months knowing about the assassination plan, DEA transferred me out to San Diego, California for 6months.

 

April 05, 1990, an illegal search was conducted at my residence in Guatemala by Guatemala DEA agents Tuffy Von Briensen, Larry Hollifield and Guatemalan Foreign Service National, Marco Gonzales in Guatemala (No search warrant). DEA HQS agreed that it had been an illegal search requested by OPR S/I Tony Recevuto. (OPR file PR-TG-90-0068) On Sept. 16, 1991, a questionnaire was faxed to me in regards to the illegal search. (see attached)

 

April 11, 1991, in an undercover capacity, Carlos Cabezas's wife sold me 5 kilos of cocaine in San Francisco. (DEA # R3-91-0036; Milagro Rodriguez)

 

On April 16, 1991, I met with Carlos Cabezas at the DEA Office in San Francisco. He stated to me that Zavala and himself were informants for the FBI in San Francisco at the time his wife delivered the cocaine. Alvaro Carbajal had supplied the 5 kilos of cocaine. (There is an undercover audio tape available as evidence) Mr. Cabezas gave me his undercover business card. It was identified as "The California Company" at 3519-Mission St., San Francisco, CA 94110 REAL ESTATE & INVESTMENTS Carlos A. Cabezas, Sales Associate Pager: 371-7108 Fax: (415) 647-0918; Res: (415 991-3104; Bus: (415) 647-8014.

 

May 10, 1990, DEA HQS OPR S/I Tony Recevuto returned to Guatemala and requested the U.S. Ambassador, to please grant Lt. Col. Hugo Moran-Carranza a US Visa, so that he could testify before the BCCI investigation in Miami. The ambassador could not understand why anyone, for any reason would request a US Visa for an individual who had planned the assassination of a US drug agent.

 

May 27, 1990, I was ordered to return back to Guatemala to pack my household goods. The threat was still very real for me. On June 01, 1990, I departed Guatemala for the last time. On June 05, 1990, another American was killed by the Guatemalan Military. Before the Kerry Committee

 

The CIA acknowledged drugs in a statement by Central American Task Force Chief Alan Fiers who testified: "with respect to (drug trafficking) by the Resistance Forces...It is not a couple of people. It is a lot of people."

 

The DEA has always stated that my reports were unfounded, but they later recanted. DEA Assistant Administrator, David Westrate stated of the Nicaraguan War: "It is true that people on both sides of the equation (in the Nicaraguan War) were drug traffickers, and a couple of them were pretty significant."

 

In a Sept. 20-26, 1989, series of debriefings and in subsequent debriefing on Feb. 13, 1990, by DEA agents in Los Angeles, Lawrence Victor Harrison, an American-born electronics specialist who had worked in Mexico and had been involved with the leading figures in the Mexican drug cartel, was interviewed. He testified that he had been present when two of the partners of Matta-Ballesteros and Rafael Caro-Quintero, met with American pilots working out of Ilopango air base in El Salvador, providing arms to the Contras. The purpose of the meeting was to work out drug deals.

 

Several days earlier, on Feb. 09, 1990, Harrison had told DEA interrogators that Nicaraguan Contras were being trained at a ranch in Vera Cruz, owned by Rafael Caro Quintero. It was at Quintero's Guadalajara ranch that DEA Agent Kiki Camarena, and his pilot were interrogated, tortured and buried alive.

 

January 23, 1991, letter to Mr. William M. Baker, Asst. Director of Criminal Investigative Division, FBI; from Lawrence E. Walsh and Mike Foster, requesting several FBI files on Walter L. Grasheim. (see attached)

 

January 30, 1991, letter to DEA Ronald Caffrey, Deputy Asst. Administrator for Operations at DEA from Craig A. Guillen, Associate Counsel of the Office of Independent Counsel; requesting Walter L. Grasheim reports. (see attached)

 

In 1991, a DEA General File was opened on an Oliver North in Washington D.C. (GFGD-91-9139) "smuggling weapons into the Philippines with known drug traffickers."

 

In 1991, before I departed the DEA, I met with FBI agent Mike Foster, investigator for The Office of Independent Counsel on Iran-Contra, where I gave him detailed information of the Contras' involvement in drugs. 

 

October, 1994, The Washington Post reported that former Government Officials, including the DEA, CIA, State Department, US Customs and White House officials were quoted as saying that Lt. Col. Oliver North did not advise them of his knowledge that the Contras were involved in drug trafficking.

 

In 1997, I joined DEA SA Richard Horn in a federal class action suit against the CIA. The suit is against the CIA and other federal agencies for spying on several DEA agents and other unnamed DEA employees and their families. United States District Court for The District of Columbia; Richard Horn vs. Warren Christopher, Civil Action No. 1:96CV02120 (HHG) January 30, 1994.

 

 

 

This is a list of DEA case file and names of individuals that may help support my allegations.

 

           GFTG-86-9145, GFTG-87-9145 El Salvador

 

        GFTG-86-9999, GFTG-87-9999, Air Intelligence

 

        TG-87-0003, Walter L. Grasheim (Salvador case)

 

        TG-86-0001, Leonel Guitan-Guitan

 

        DEA Informants STG-86-0006 and STG-81-0013

 

        US Ambassador Edwin Corr

 

        Janis Elmore (CIA 1986 through 1989). I reported to her when in El Salvador.

 

        Don Richardson ( CIA & Political Officer in El Salvador 1986,87). I reported to him in El Salvador.

 

        Felix Vargas (CIA El Salvador 1986, 87)

 

        Col. James Steel ( Mil-Group Commander El Salvador).

 

        U.S. Lt. Col. Alberto Adame (Under Steel)

 

        Lupita Vega (the only Salvadoran which was cleared for "Top Secret")

        worked in the Milgroup in El Salvador.

 

        Felix Rodriguez (CIA at Ilopango hanger 4 & 5)

 

        Jack McCavett (CIA Chief of Station in El Salvador).

 

        CIA George Witter in El Salvador. He asked for US visa on drug trafficker Carlos Alberto Amador.

 

        CIA Randy Capister (covert operation in Central America 1985 t090). Involved in several atrocities.

 

        CIA Manuel Brand (retired Cuban-American) Guatemala

 

        State Department (De Luoie) El Salvador

 

        State Department RSO Bill Rouche El Salvador

 

        State Dept. Official Del Prado (El Salvador)

 

        DEA John Martsh (DEA HQS)

 

        DEA Jack O'Conner (DEA HQS)

 

        DEA HQS Agents AZZAM & Frank Torello (retired) involved in Contra ops in Europe

 

        Salvadoran General Bustillo (retired in Florida)

 

        US Custom Richard Rivera and Philip Newton

 

        DEA Sandy Gonzales (Costa Rica)

 

        Lincoln Benedicto-Honduras US Embassy-Consul General April 30, 1986. Re: Matta-Ballesteros

 

Some people have asked, "Why I am doing this? I reply, "That a long time ago I took an oath to protect The Constitution of the United States and its citizens". In reality, it has cost me so much to become a complete human being, that I've lost my family. In 1995, I made a pilgrimage to the Vietnam Wall, where I renounced my Bronze Star in protest of the atrocities my government had committed in Central America. I have now become a veteran of my third, and perhaps most dangerous war --- a war against the criminals within my own Government. Heads have to roll for those who are responsible and still employed by the government. They will be the first targets in an effective drug strategy. If not, we will continue to have groups of individuals who will be beyond any investigation, who will manipulate the press, judges and members of our Congress,

and still be known in our government as those who are above the law.

 

© COPYRIGHT 1998, 1999, 2000, CELERINO CASTILLO & MICHAEL C. RUPPERT. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PERMISSION TO REPRINT IN WHOLE OR IN PART IS EXPRESSLY GRANTED ONLY IF THE FOLLOWING APPEARS: "Permission to reprint from Celerino Castillo & Michael C. Ruppert, From The Wilderness @ www.copvica.com"

 

 

 

 

 

 

OPENING REMARKS OF MICHAEL C. RUPPERT

for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence

 

 

(WRITTEN STATEMENT WITH EXHIBITS)

 

WEB NOTE: This document appears exactly as I submitted it to the Select Intelligence Committees of both Houses.To date, it remains only a document submitted in advance of testimony and it has not been placed in the Congressional Record. Although I and Cele Castillo remain on potential witness lists, we have not ben allowed to testify.. The sheer volume of my exhibits and the disk space required to scan them makes it impossible to include these important documents here. To obtain my full statement, with all 32 pages of exhibits and photographs - CLICK HERE.

 

 

Mr. Chairman:

 

On November 15, 1996, I stood at a town hall meeting at Locke High School in Los Angeles and said to Director of Central Intelligence John Deutch, "I am a former Los Angeles Police narcotics detective. I worked South Central Los Angeles and I can tell you, Director Deutch, emphatically and without equivocation, that the Agency has dealt drugs in this country for a long time." I then referred Director Deutch to three specific Agency operations known as Amadeus, Pegasus and Watchtower.

 

Most Americans have been lead to believe that the purpose of these hearings is to ascertain whether or not there is any evidence that the Central Intelligence Agency dealt drugs during the Iran-Contra era. If these hearings were about evidence, then the most patriotic duty I could perform would be to quote Jack Blum who served as chief investigator for the Kerry Subcommittee on narcotics and terrorism ten years ago. He testified before this committee last year and said, "We don't have to investigate. We already know." We could save a lot of taxpayer money by just rereading the records of the Kerry hearings. There is more evidence in there than any court in the world would ever need to hand down indictments.

 

At best, I could just quote you one entry from Oliver North's diary dated July 5, 1985, which said that $14 million to buy weapons for the Contras, "came from drugs." I wouldn't need to mention the two hundred and fifty other such entries in his diary, which refer to narcotics. Or I could quote Dennis Dayle a senior DEA supervisory agent who said, "In my thirty year history in DEA, the major targets of my investigations almost invariably turned out to be working for the C.I.A."

 

But these hearings are not about evidence. They are about corruption and cover-up. The CIA did not just deal drugs during the Iran-Contra era; it has done so for the full fifty years of its history. Today I will give you evidence which will show that the CIA, and many figures who became known during Iran-Contra such as Richard Secord, Ted Shackley, Tom Clines, Felix Rodriguez and George Herbert Walker Bush, who was DCI when I first became exposed to Agency drug dealing, have been selling drugs to Americans since the Vietnam era. I have been very careful to make sure that what I tell you today is admissible evidence in criminal proceedings.

 

In a court of law the testimony of an eyewitness is one of the most prized possessions of a prosecutor. It is direct evidence of a crime. I am an eyewitness. Another form of frequently used evidence is an exception to the hearsay rule in which admissions against the interest of a criminal participant or a material witness are admitted into evidence if given under oath by the person to whom the statements were made. I am under oath and I will provide you today with utterly damning admissions against interest made by people with direct knowledge of these events. There is also documentary and circumstantial evidence and I will present you with that as well.

 

My evidence will show conclusively that, as a matter of national policy, set at the National Security Council - the White House - elements of the C.I.A., in concert with elements of the military, and other federal agencies, have dealt drugs to Americans for at least three decades. Major defense contractors like E-Systems have also engaged in such traffic. I will not cover the outstanding work of scholars such as Alfred McCoy of the University of Wisconsin and Peter Dale Scott of the University of California at Berkeley who document this activity back to the forties. Nor will I attempt to deliver the material which should be given to you directly by a great many other heroic witnesses including Celerino Castillo, Mike Levine, Dee Ferdinand, David Sabow, Brad Ayers, Tosh Plumley, Bo Abbott, Danny Sheehan, Gene Wheaton, John Mattes, Jack Terrell, Winfred Richardson (formerly of E-Systems), Michelle Cooper (formerly of E-Systems), Bill Tyree and Dois G. "Chip" Tatum. Also this committee should interview two former CIA employees on the subject. Their names are David MacMichael and Ralph McGehee.

 

The evidence will also show that the CIA has infiltrated and established illegal relationships with a number of police departments around the country. One of the purposes of this has been to protect CIA drug operations from law enforcement. I have personal knowledge of this activity in Los Angeles and New Orleans and have documented such a case in New York City.

 

All of the exhibits I will present today are among the two hundred and fifty plus pages of documents I provided to your investigators when they visited me in Los Angeles last year.

 

This is my testimony:

 

My name is Michael Craig Ruppert. I was born in Washington, D.C. My father was an Air Force officer and later an aerospace executive who worked on projects which included the Titan IIIC which was then the primary booster for the CIA's Keyhole spy satellites. My father's cousin, Barbara Burges and her husband Sam, are both retired from the Central Intelligence Agency. My mother was a cryptographer for Army Intelligence at Fort Meyer during the Second World War.

 

I was raised Republican into a culture steeped in the best traditions of honor and national defense. From 1969 to 1973 I was one of two "living" Republicans on the UCLA campus. The other was Craig L. Fuller who was chosen to intern for Governor Ronald Reagan at the same time that I was chosen, as an honors student in Political Science, to intern for Chief Edward M. Davis of the Los Angeles Police Department.

 

I interned for LAPD for three years and during that time was exposed to many LAPD officers of varying ranks who had connections to the intelligence community. I was told that I held a "Q" Clearance at age twenty. Just before my graduation from UCLA, on a plane ticket paid for by family, I flew to Washington and, in a meeting arranged by the Burgesses, was interviewed by a CIA officer regarding employment with the Agency. At that interview the recruitment officer told me he wanted me to join the Agency and then return to Los Angeles where I would attend the Los Angeles Police Academy and use my position as a police officer as a cover.

 

The CIA officer provided me with a stack of documents which he said were necessary for me to complete for a background check. The interview ended.

 

Because I knew that CIA domestic operations were illegal and because I felt extremely uncomfortable with that proposition, I never completed the forms or had any further official contact with the Agency until seven years later.

 

After my graduation from UCLA in June 1973 I joined the LAPD and was the Valedictorian for the last three classes of 1973. I was assigned to Wilshire Division patrol. I excelled at patrol work and was subsequently loaned into Detective assignments including burglary and homicide. I had two extended loans into Wilshire Division Narcotics and was recommended by the narcotics Officer-In-Charge to attend a two-week DEA training school held in Las Vegas. Narcotics was my chosen specialty. I have given expert court testimony on the subject twenty-seven times.

 

Most of the details of what I am about to tell you are contained in an FBI report and investigation made pursuant to a complaint I filed with Special Agent Stan Curry of the L.A. Field Office on December 4, 1978. This was after I was forced out of LAPD on November 30, 1978. I trust your staff has located and reviewed the report.

 

In December 1975 I met and quickly fell in love with a CIA agent named Nordica Theodora D'Orsay - Teddy. Teddy and I moved in together in March of 1976. As a childhood friend of a niece of the Shah of Iran, Teddy had many unusual acquaintances which, as she revealed them to me, turned out to include senior members of LAPD's Organized Crime Intelligence Division like Lee Goforth and Norm Bonneau, narcotics investigators like Carl Thompson from Wilshire Division and organized crime figures like Carlos Marcello, Hank Friedman and Dan Horowitz. She also had relationships with members of the Carlo Gambino crime family.

 

Around this time she indicated to me that she knew Sergeant Carl Thompson of Wilshire Division narcotics. Thompson had just been my supervisor on an extended loan into the unit. Thompson was a designated supervisor with access to the Narcotics Intelligence Network, a secure system allowing detectives to track narcotics investigations conducted by other units or Agencies including DEA. Months later Teddy told me that N.I.N. was very important to "her people". They could tell when investigations got too close to their operations.

 

Then she started revealing information to me from my confidential LAPD personnel package. She also had accurate inside knowledge of operations inside the Los Angeles Police Department. In May, 1976 she revealed to me that she worked for the federal government in a capacity that had to do with terrorism and narcotics. It was extremely classified, she said. She convinced me of these connections by accurately predicting changes of command in LAPD's intelligence divisions. She refused to name the Agency she worked for but categorically denied that it was the FBI or any Bureau of Justice or the Treasury.

 

As time passed, she indicated that "her people" were interested in having me work for them. I was promoting rapidly and had an extremely bright future with LAPD. I could be of great use. This excited me until Teddy started revealing that, on various trips, including Hawaii, the Bahamas, New Orleans, Texas and Baja California - where she said she had once seen narcotics offloaded from a submarine - she had seen large quantities of firearms and narcotics - specifically cocaine and heroin. Always, the guns were leaving the country and the narcotics were coming in.

 

When I asked her what happened to the narcotics her response was, "My people are not interested in narcotics. We just let it go."

 

After returning from a trip to Hawaii in early 1976 she told me of having been in a room with close to a thousand M16s and fifty kilos of cocaine.

 

Repeatedly, I said to her that I would not overlook narcotics. I said, "If I'm ever in a room with fifty kilos of cocaine somebody's going to jail and it's not going to be me." On this position I have never compromised.

 

The strains my position produced on our relationship were unbearable. Teddy left suddenly in January, 1977 and almost immediately a group of organized crime figures entered a real estate office in Orange County where my mother worked as an agent selling single family homes. My mother was suddenly immersed in a $45 million deal involving thousands of acres of prime land and circumstances which caused her great fear. She asked me for help and, as a loyal police officer and son, I gathered all the available information and presented it to the Organized Crime Intelligence Division of LAPD. I quickly found myself "unofficially" working with Detectives Lee Goforth and Norm Bonneau. Goforth was the same Lee Goforth Teddy had earlier mentioned knowing. Lee was also a Brigadier General in the California National Guard. I will tell you that I believe that Lee Goforth and Norm Bonneau were both long term CIA assets, possibly deep cover officers within LAPD.

 

At the time I was on staff at the Los Angeles Police Academy. Goforth and Bonneau visited my Captain, Jesse Brewer, who later rose to become Assistant Chief and Police Commissioner in Los Angeles. I was to be freed from basic duties and allowed to come and go as I pleased. A car was to be made available for me whenever I needed one. The instructions I received were to visit my mother as often as needed and to gather all available information on the real estate deal. I had frequent meetings with Goforth and Bonneau at the OCID offices. Always, they seemed just a little more interested in my relationship with Teddy than with my mother's dilemma.

 

Present at many of these meetings was another detective named John Xavier Vach whom I had known from my internship years as having heavy intelligence connections. Vach later served for several years as driver/bodyguard to Chief Daryl Gates and was convicted in 1985 of moonlighting for the CIA on city time and with providing Agency sources with illegally obtained documents and records. His conviction and the connections to CIA are a matter of public record in Los Angeles.

 

While working this "unofficial" loan to Organized Crime Intelligence I experienced five months of surveillance, harassing phone calls and ultimately "black bag" burglaries of my home and car in which photographs of Teddy and my off duty weapon were taken.

 

In July of 1977, having heard from Teddy, I forced my way to New Orleans where she was then living with her younger sister. What I saw and heard there over the course of eight days changed my life forever.

 

Teddy was living in an apartment in Gretna, a New Orleans suburb. One of the first things I saw in her apartment was an unusual telephone. It was of the new "touch-tone" variety and it was very heavy. An AC power adaptor hung from a cord in the phone. When Teddy took sensitive calls she would plug the adaptor into a wall socket and push a series of buttons. This phone was a scrambler, years later, revealed to me as bearing the U.S. Air Force designation KY3 which required a clearance to possess.

 

I also saw a plastic shopping bag which contained a black monocular night vision device. Then I saw Teddy receive sealed communiques from Naval and Air Force NCOs stationed at Belle Chase Naval Air station. I heard her speak on the phone and in person to a U.S. Army Special Forces veteran named Freddy about meetings with a Carlos Marcello associate named Adrian. I was introduced to a number of employees of the Brown & Root corporation, long identified in public source material as a CIA contractor, who were shipping out for Iran. Teddy told me that she was especially concerned with making sure that certain important shipments - weapons - were safely loaded onto Brown and Root ships destined for Iran.

 

On one occasion we went to a bar and sat with several employees from "the company", Brown & Root and members of the New Orleans Police Department.

 

Outside a bar in Terrytown, shots were fired as Teddy and I walked to my car. The shots struck the pavement a few feet from us. This was the first time I was shot at.

 

In other conversations, sometimes behind partially closed doors and upon which I admittedly eavesdropped, I heard Teddy use the scrambler phone to make arrangements for service boats operated by firms connected to Carlos Marcello to pick up "packages" from oil rigs in the Gulf. She later admitted that these packages contained heroin.

 

On several evenings she left with Freddy to make sure that deliveries were proceeding as scheduled. Finally, on my last two days there, Teddy and an Air Force NCO named Johnny admitted CIA involvement. Teddy even showed me a cover letter of transmittal stamped with various routing and clearance boxes which was addressed to Agent 2T6.

 

I should point out here that the Director of Central Intelligence when I met Teddy and when the New Orleans operations began was George Herbert Walker Bush. The Deputy Director of Plans, or covert operations, was Ted Shackley. Both men are central to the drug trafficking by CIA and NSC which became epidemic in the Iran-Contra era. The New Orleans operation continued unabated under the Directorship of Admiral Stansfield Turner and the Presidency of Jimmy Carter.

 

What I saw broke my heart and terrified me. I severed all relations with Teddy. I returned home to Los Angeles and reported everything I had seen to detectives Goforth and Bonneau. Both had denied any knowledge of her both before and after my trip. The one physical piece of material I have remaining directly from Teddy is a code key in Teddy's own handwriting which she used to decipher messages received via U.S. Mail. I gave a copy of it to the F.B.I. I refer you to EXHIBIT 1.

 

I took a leave for stress and returned to full duty. For one year I earned the highest rating evaluations possible in the LAPD. I was locked-in for promotion to detective. Then came the revolution in Iran and I wondered if perhaps the weapons I had seen Teddy arranging to leave New Orleans were somehow connected. I began studying CIA and Iran. I reported my activities to my superiors.

 

The second round of burglaries, harassments and surveillance culminated in a death threat which I tape recorded and still possess to this day. I played it for investigators from the House Permanent Select Intelligence Committee last winter. I have it here with me if you wish to hear it.

 

When I sent a message to LAPD's new Chief Daryl F. Gates that my life was in danger and that his driver, John Vach, was a CIA man I received word back, "The Chief is busy. He can give you five or ten minutes in a week to ten days. Would you care to make an appointment?"

 

Having prepared for this contingency I resigned in the dead of night and fled Los Angeles. I returned with an attorney, Tim Callahan, and went directly to the Los Angeles Field Office of the F.B.I. and reported everything I have just told you. I also sent packages to Senators Hayakawa and Cranston as well as representatives Dornan and Bielenson. I refer you here to EXHIBIT 2, dated December 6, 1978.

 

Nothing happened. I was labeled crazy by both LAPD and the FBI. After pressure from my attorney and Senator Hayakawa an extensive investigation was conducted by LAPD's Internal Affairs Division. Although I was made aware by friends and intelligence officers within LAPD that I had struck a raw and exposed nerve, the official position of LAPD as reported to me by Sgt. Martin Pomeroy, who is now a Deputy Chief, was that no action was to be taken.

 

The general consensus was that Teddy had been fabricating a wild story to lead me on while she conducted affairs behind my back. She even said so herself in a newspaper interview with the L.A. Herald Examiner in 1981. But bear in mind that I had detailed guns for drugs operations involving Carlos Marcello and the Gambino crime family at locations which included Mexico, New Orleans, the Bahamas and Texas. I had even related her description of the use of submarines for such activity.

 

I refer you now to EXHIBIT 3. On November 15, 1979, almost exactly a year after my complaint to the FBI, The Los Angeles Times ran a story reprinted from Newsday. Written by veteran reporter Tom Renner, the story described a burgeoning guns-for-drugs trade which centered around the crime families of Dons Carlo Gambino and Carlos Marcello. The story specifically described DEA investigations into exchanges of firearms for drugs with known Latin American and Middle Eastern terrorist groups in such locations as the Bahamas, New Orleans and Mexico. The story even described the use of submarines to transport the drugs off the Mexican coast. The story also described efforts to "sanitize" DEA reports on the subject and interfere with law enforcement efforts. Both Renner and a Senate investigator, Bill Christensen of the Subcommittee on Improvements in Judicial Machinery later confirmed that these efforts originated with the C.I.A.

 

If Teddy made it all up then she ranks right up there with Nostradamus as a prophet since most of her statements were made to me three years before the Renner story broke. Those events were the backbone of my complaint to my government and then, after I was told they were nonsensical, they turned up almost verbatim in U.S. Senate records a year later from official U.S. Government sources.

 

I called Tom Renner and I said, "I think the CIA is dealing drugs to fund covert operations." Renner replied, "I think you're absolutely right." He referred me to Bill Christensen. Not only did Christensen confirm my conclusions, he expanded on them by adding that his offices were being burglarized, his phones were tapped and he was being routinely surveilled. I refer you now to EXHIBIT 4, which was my first letter to him.

 

Christensen later assured me that I would be called to testify. It never happened. Instead, as I was looking for employment I found that unmarked LAPD vehicles would routinely turn up at places where I was having job interviews. Even though I had no disciplinary actions at LAPD and an exemplary record job offers and interviews were terminated without explanation. Desperate for money I took a job as a 7-11 store clerk. Two hours into my second shift I was arrested for selling liquor to a minor in what I am sure, to this day, was a set-up.

 

Under enormous stress I got drunk one night and collapsed on my front lawn. A shot barked in the distance and stuck the grass inches from my head. This was the second time I was shot at.

 

On April 18, 1980 two FBI agents confirmed to me that CIA had been dealing drugs to fund covert operations during an interview at the FBI field office in Westwood, California.

 

My car was repossessed shortly thereafter. I filed bankruptcy in December, 1980.

 

In 1981, with the new Reagan administration I discovered that my old friend Craig Fuller was now Assistant to the President for Cabinet Affairs. I was grateful when L.A. Herald Examiner columnist Randall Sullivan wrote two front-page stories on me in October which also referred to our friendship. I refer you to EXHIBIT 5. Having just made contact with Fuller, and having been warmly received, I flew to Washington where I waited for a follow-up on his invitation to visit him. I refer you now to EXHIBIT 6, which is the first of approximately six letters I was to receive from him over the next six years.

 

On October 26, 1981 I sat in Craig Fuller's office in the West Wing of the White House. We talked of personal matters and then our conversation turned to the stories by Randall Sullivan. I looked at Craig and I said, "The CIA is complicit in bringing drugs into this country and it is wrong." Craig made no response whatsoever. He became motionless and expressionless. He did not come back to life again until I changed the subject. But I knew he heard me. Craig served as Chief of Staff to Vice President Bush in the second Reagan term.

 

I should point out here that original letters to me from Craig Fuller - including the one I just exhibited, were stolen from my residence while I slept just three days after I confronted DCI Deutch. The burglary occurred the same day that an investigator from this committee called me and asked if I possessed such letters and if I could fax them immediately. LAPD Foothill Division has obtained fingerprints other than my own from the place where the documents were stored. I should mention that another original exists, on White House stationery, which I can produce should the Committee wish to see it.

 

After my visit to Craig Fuller I became increasingly frustrated with the lack of progress. Several days later I picked up the phone and called the Managing Editor of The Washington Star. I got right through. I said, "The CIA is dealing drugs in this country to finance covert operations." His response was, "Mike, that's the worst kept secret in Washington."... The worst kept secret in Washington!

 

Now to a specific case of admissions against interest which constitute admissible evidence.

 

Back in los Angeles and still not clear on the causes of what I had seen I sought out a middle east expert at UCLA. I was placed in touch with Professor Paul Jabber of the Political Science Department. Paul was impressed by my conclusions that the weapons leaving New Orleans had been destined for one of several indigenous rebel groups in the region. He then disclosed to me that he had been a CIA and State Department consultant at the NSC level during the Carter Administration. Having signed secrecy oaths he could not disclose to me the information I needed. He could, however, direct me to open source material which might fill in the blanks.

 

I followed his direction, which was to read certain stories by William Safire and C. L. Sulzberger, and returned with an explanation for what I had seen. Paul Jabber unilaterally confirmed my conclusions. Sulzberger himself, the scion of The New York Times, knew that CIA had been dealing drugs for a long time. I refer you to EXHIBIT 7.

 

What my directed research revealed was that on March 3, 1975 the Shah of Iran and Sadam Hussein had signed the Treaty of Algiers. In that treaty the Shah received control of the Shaat-al-Arab waterway so that he could increase his oil exports. In exchange, he immediately cut off all U.S. covert military assistance to Kurdish rebels operating in the Turkish/Iraqi/Iranian trans-border region. The U.S. had been arming the Kurds to wage guerilla warfare against the Iraqi army to divide it sufficiently so that it could not attack Israel. Within days of the treaty's signing thousands of Kurds were massacred by Sadam in a foreshadowing of what was to come in Desert Storm.

 

Alarmed at the potential loss of a long term asset the CIA decided to aid the Kurds in the only way possible - by smuggling weapons into Kurdestan along opium smuggling routes and to sell the opium grown there to Americans to pay for the weapons. I should point out that Kurdestan is in the second largest opium growing region in the world.

 

Not only did Paul Jabber confirm my analysis, he added that in March, 1975, just weeks before the fall of Saigon, "Congress was not about to appropriate a nickel for a covert operation anywhere." The decision, he said, "was made at the National Security Council."

 

I refer you now to EXHIBIT 8 which is a letter of recommendation written for me by Paul Jabber in which he praises my analytical thinking after discussing matters related to the international drug trade. At the time he wrote it Paul had left UCLA to become Vice president of Banker's Trust. I believe he is still there.

 

It is critical to note that as this operation went into effect Richard Secord was transferred to Iran as Senior Air Advisor, Richard Helms became Ambassador and other key Iran-Contra figures such as Richard Armitage, Ted Shackley, Tom Clines and, I believe, Felix Rodriguez assumed duties in the region. These are the same men who funded an entire secret war in Laos for the Agency on the profits of heroin produced in the Golden Triangle of Burma, Laos and Thailand. These men all resurfaced in the heroin explosion from Pakistan in 1980 and then in Iran-Contra. They are still extremely active today. In fact, sources tell me that Felix Rodriguez has just been placed in charge of a program to deliver helicopters to Mexico to "assist" the Mexican government with eradication efforts and suppression. I am extremely suspicious.

 

Then, in January, 1987, a story broke in The Boston Globe about how Ross Perot had confronted Richard Armitage and George Bush over CIA involvement in drug trafficking and the related abandonment of POWs after Vietnam. It said everything I had been saying for ten years. I reasoned that if a man like Ross Perot knew, and if he had made it known inside the White House, with his influence, then surely something would happen. Nothing happened.

 

Then came the Kerry hearings. Twice I was assured by Kerry staff members that I would be called to testify. It never happened. I conclude that this was because what I had seen in New Orleans occurred during the Carter Administration not the Reagan Administration. It proved to me that a shadow government had seized control of our country. That shadow government stood, and stands today, isolated and immune from the operating principles of democracy. It is autonomous and it operates through self-funding via narcotics and weapons trafficking. To quote William Casey it is "a completely self-funding, off-the-shelf operation." It, in fact, dictates a substantial portion of this country's foreign, economic and military policy from a place not accessible to the will of a free people properly armed with facts.

 

For three years I forgot about all of this. In 1990 as the Kurds were once again being massacred and Brown & Root subsidiaries increased their operations in Turkish Kurdestan I wrote to Ross Perot who had opposed Desert Storm and he called me. I shall never forget what he said.

 

"Mike, I must know forty or fifty former military officers and law enforcement personnel who have discovered what you have. They have all had their lives ruined, been called crazy and forced into poverty. You'd think they'd do something different once in a while but they don't because it works."

 

Then he said something which has haunted me ever since. He said, "Even with all of my resources I don't know why I pursue it. I can't seem to get anything done. And they do the same thing with me and it works."

 

I had two phone conversations with Ross Perot. When he ran for President in 1992 I was the press spokesman for the Perot Presidential Movement in Los Angeles County. That led to a brief story in PEOPLE Magazine about my efforts to expose CIA drug dealing. That Presidential campaign and the PEOPLE story opened the doors for me into the inner world of the shadow government. Since then I have met more than a dozen former U.S. Army Special Forces troops, Navy Seals, a half dozen former CIA officers and many DEA agents and former federal law enforcement officers who have confirmed that CIA deals drugs.

 

When I made my statement to Director Deutch I spoke of three specific Agency operations called Amadeus, Pegasus and Watchtower. I would like to speak of them briefly.

 

The Watchtower missions surfaced around 1990 when an affidavit allegedly written by Col. Ed Cutolo of the 10th Special Forces Group, Airborne surfaced through retired Lt. Col Bo Gritz whom I have met twice. Although not actually written by Cutolo the affidavit has since been corroborated by a number of supporting affidavits, military records, Freedom of Information Act inquiries and dedicated research - some of which has been contributed by me.

 

Cutolo was killed in an accident in England in 1980 after expressing his concerns about illegal operations. His death has been linked to the murder of four other Special Forces Colonels including the legendary Bo Baker and Nick Rowe. Among the murders and mysterious deaths listed in the affidavit are those of Archbishop Romero and Congressman Larkin Smith.

 

That affidavit details how Special Forces personnel were ordered by CIA personnel including Ed Wilson to penetrate Colombia in 1975 and 76 to plant radar beacons so that cocaine flights could successfully fly below radar and land undetected at Albrook field in Panama. It also details how a former Special Forces troop named William Tyree, who was on these missions, was framed, in spite of overwhelming evidence of his innocence, for the murder of his own wife. This was in 1979 after he had expressed misgivings about being ordered to participate in massive domestic surveillance, harassment and blackmail operations. It was also exactly the same time that I was forced out of LAPD. Bill has been serving a life sentence in Walpole State Prison in Massachusetts for eighteen years.

 

I have spoken to and corresponded with Bill Tyree many times and I consider him to be as innocent as Geronimo Pratt, the Black Panther who was recently released from a California prison. Indeed, there is evidence that Tyree was not at the murder scene and that there were witnesses who saw the actual killer emerge from Tyree's bedroom window the day his wife was murdered. He was framed to ensure his silence and the threat of harm still hangs over his family as I speak to you this day if he ever reveals all of what he knows.

 

The Agency even admitted the existence of the Watchtower missions in correspondence to Bill Tyree several years ago. I refer you to EXHIBIT 9.

 

The Pegasus operations are listed in a variety of sources and published books including works by the Christic Institute and Rodney Stich. They have been most dramatically confirmed recently by Dois G. "Chip" Tatum, a former high-ranking CIA officer, who has placed his documentation on his web page at www.wild_life.com. The missions are Iran-Contra era operations and directly link to admitted Agency operations at Mena, Arkansas where tons of cocaine were smuggled by Agency personnel into this country. That smuggling took place under direct orders from the highest levels of this government.

 

The investigative material, contrary to denials, is overwhelming, irrefutable and shows a direct link between then Governor Bill Clinton and CIA operations. It is further corroborated by investigative material, court records and the testimony provided by Terry Reed in his book Compromised. I have unclassified reports from CIA in which the Agency admits to running covert operations at Mena during the period.

 

Finally the Amadeus missions are the single most important piece of investigative work, other than my own experience, which I have to add to this investigation. My investigations into Amadeus have detailed the life of Albert V. Carone, a retired New York Police detective who, at his death from "chemical toxicity of unknown etiology", held the rank of full Colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves. I refer you to EXHIBIT 10. I have held this man's personal phone book in my hands. In it I found the home addresses and phone numbers of DCI William Casey, Paul Helliwell, a long establish CIA covert operative connected to drugs, General Richard Stillwell and many other CIA figures.

 

I also found the home addresses and phone numbers of a number of Mafia figures including Pauly Castellano, head of the Gambino crime family and many other known Mafia figures. This is hard documentary evidence which is available to this Committee.

 

In the years before his death Carone made open statements - admissions against interest - to family members not only about the hands-on drug dealing roles of such figures as Oliver North, Richard Secord, Elliot Abrams, George Bush, John Poindexter, Felix Rodriguez and Chi Chi Quintero but about murder and torture. Carone frequently referred to Amadeus as the CIA umbrella governing his laundering of drug money through a host of banks worldwide. Some bank records and account numbers connected to the Bahamas and the Jersey islands still remain. He also described the operations of such Iran-Contra era drug kingpins Rafael Caro Quintero and Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo. When he died in 1990 he left behind records, a passport and a great many leads which totally substantiate these allegations.

 

Carone and an associate, James Robert Strauss, went on many covert missions to Mexico and Central America. After one such mission to Mexico in the Spring of 1985 Carone returned home, disheartened, and told of how CIA operations had directly resulted in the murder of a DEA agent and his pilot. He was referring, of course, to Agent Kiki Camarena.

 

We have since obtained tape recorded statements from James Robert Strauss that Amadeus was none other than George Herbert Walker Bush. That tape is safely stored, awaiting an opportunity to be presented to the American people directly for their judgement by Carone's daughter, Dee Ferdinand.

 

Travel records of Strauss' insurance firm show that Strauss, a small time insurance broker and manager, routinely made frequent trips, sometimes just days apart to such cities as Paris, London, Johannesburg, Dharan, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Hong Kong, Jedda, Lisbon, Madrid, New York and the Bahamas. In his own words he did it under orders. I have provided copies of those travel records to your committee. A former FBI agent who once served as my lawyer reviewed the records and stated that such travel expenditure could only occur on a GTR government account. I refer you to EXHIBIT 11.

 

Insurance executives, in statements made to me, have confirmed that Strauss was terminated in 1987 as an agency manager for his involvement with drugs. I have those statements with me now if you want them.

 

When Al Carone died in 1990 a funny thing happened. His NYPD pension disappeared. His military records disappeared. His life insurance policies disappeared. His joint bank accounts, held with his daughter, disappeared. Even his New Mexico driver's license and car registration disappeared. His family and his daughter were left on the brink of bankruptcy - wiped out. Carone was buried in a New Mexico cemetery with the rank of Staff Sergeant, the highest rank he attained during the Second World War. The Army said he had never served a day since. Everybody said they had never heard of him. Nonetheless, his official military record in St. Louis is now the copyrighted report I wrote on his life in 1994 and which I have provided to this Committee.

 

Now for some circumstantial evidence which serves as utter damnation. Bill Tyree and the daughter of Colonel Ed Cutolo, when shown a photograph of Albert Carone, both identified him and provided Carone's daughter, Dee Ferdinand of Corrales New Mexico, with information about him which had previously been unpublished and unknown to any outside his family. Tyree confirms a direct link between Carone and the Watchtower missions in Panama as well as illegal domestic operations run from Fort Devens.

 

I visited Dee in 1993. At the time I told her that there was only one man who could help her. That man was a retired, but still very active, Deputy Director of CIA, Ted Shackley. Within approximately ten days of Dee's first contact with Shackley Carone's headstone was changed from Staff Sergeant to full Colonel. She possess a copy of the order so directing. She has had a number of conversations with Shackley in which Shackley has admitted to having known and worked with her father. She is only too eager to testify about them.

 

I have been burglarized twice since I confronted John Deutch yet I have not been interviewed by the CIA when the only stipulation I asked for was that a lawyer or witness be present and that I be allowed to tape record. This was after the Agency advised me that nothing in its investigation would be redacted or withheld from the American people. The Agency's response was that we would be discussing classified material and they would not allow me to tape. Does not their admission that my story reaches classified material constitute an admission of its accuracy?

 

The material I would have given the Agency is the exact same material I give you today. It is the exact same material I have used for lectures at UCLA, San Jose State, Cal Poly Pomona, Ventura College and at approximately fifteen private venues. It is the exact same material which the History department of UCLA accepted into its archives when Professor James Wilkie took a three hour oral history of my life on April 9, 1997. If this material is classified then what does the government have to hide? And doesn't, "The cat's out of the bag" even remotely apply here? This cat's been out of the bag for a long, long time. And it has left quite a few signs of its passing.

 

Since my confrontation with DCI Deutch mail sent to me, intended to be passed along to the Honorable Maxine Waters, has been intercepted at the post office, opened, documents replaced with classified ads and the envelope returned to the sender.

 

When I weaken and grow tired of the sacrifice this struggle has demanded from me I think of Bill Tyree in prison or the family of Marine Colonel Jim Sabow who was murdered for trying to expose this treachery when he was Chief of Air Operations at El Toro Marine Air Station. I think of the families who attended a conference I sponsored in Indiana in the winter of 1993 where we gathered to investigate the inexplicable suicides of what was to become more than one hundred active duty personnel in the U.S. military. Many of these men had complained of drugs or covert operations in the weeks prior to their deaths. I think of the families of the POW/MIAs left behind in Southeast Asia and I think of the black men tortured with syphilis at Tuskegee or the thousands of crack babies born in inner city ghettos. I think of the white middle class Americans in Kansas City, Portland and Boston who lost lives and families to drug addiction at the same time that I think of the Americans who lost their savings and pensions during the saving & loan crisis - which is directly related to these events. I think of the lies and death of principle at Ruby Ridge and the disproportionate sentencing which makes black men serve one hundred times longer for using the same drug which whites use in a different form. I think of scandals like Wedtech, Kennametal, the Gander Crash and the horrible crimes behind INSLAW including the death of Danny Casolero. I think of Agent Orange and the Gulf War syndrome and I stand firm with the growing constituency of Americans who no longer have faith of any kind in their government.

 

Someday we will be the majority.

 

And I thank God that Maxine Waters and angry African-Americans have flexed their political muscle along with a few concerned whites to compel these hearings. For they and they alone hold the soul of this nation in their hands until such time as we are joined in unity by all justice loving Americans. Never have the words of Ben Franklin rung so true, "We must all hang together or else we shall all surely hang separately."

 

This is not about race. This is not about left and right. This is about right and wrong.

 

Some three hundred and fifty years ago Galileo Galilei was persecuted for teaching that the earth was a round planet which revolved around an obscure star at the edge of an unremarkable galaxy. The Catholic church and much of the citizenry of the time shunned and persecuted him for telling the truth. They were afraid he might upset the social order. But they could not kill him because the Church knew that his science was the key to successful navigation and exploration of the planet. Those who followed Galileo's discoveries could be counted on to gain wealth and power and the resulting economic growth would benefit all mankind. I live, Senator, for the day and the hour in which the people of this country and this world will recognize that honor, integrity and trust are as indispensable to the growth and perhaps the survival of this race as Galileo's discoveries were.

 

Senator, if you truly represent the best interests of the people, I want you and your colleagues to pass a law which grants absolute immunity from prosecution or punishment to anyone covered under the National Security Act, the CIA Act, the Espionage Act or any applicable military regulations so that they can come forward and speak first-hand of the crimes which are destroying the fabric of this nation. If you truly represent the people you will see to it that Nuremburg style trials are held in full view of the world and the guilty are brought to justice. And you will see that intelligence agencies of this government are either abolished or so drastically restructured that crimes of this nature can never happen again.

 

Abraham Lincoln once said, "If slavery is not evil, then nothing is evil." I say that if CIA dealing drugs to Americans is not wrong - then nothing is wrong.

 

Thank you for finally allowing me to speak my peace. My duty is now discharged. I welcome your questions.

 

10/1/97

 

[As of March 1997 these remarks are in the possession of the Intelligence Committees of both houses and five additional members of Congress. I have received no reply.]

 

[© COPYRIGHT 1997, MICHAEL C. RUPPERT. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED UNTIL SUCH TIME AS THESE REMARKS ARE ACCEPTED INTO THE RECORD IN AN OPEN HEARING AND I HAVE GIVEN OPEN TESTIMONY BEFORE THE UNITED STATES SENATE OR THE HOUSE OR REPRESENTATIVES.]

 

Michael C. Ruppert

P.O. Box 6061-350, Sherman Oaks, CA 91413

(818)788-8791 * fax(818)981-2847

mruppert@copvcia.com

 

© COPYRIGHT 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 MICHAEL C. RUPPERT. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

MUCH MORE FOLLOWS IN PART TWO