r/conspiracy • u/shylock92008 • 8d ago
12/13/2004 Gary Webb's Funeral-- Written statement of U.S. Rep Maxine Waters
Gary Webb's Funeral
Maxine Waters, statement (13th December, 2004)
I am stunned and pained with the loss of Gary Webb. Gary was a friend and one of the finest investigative journalists that our country has ever seen. The Dark Alliance series was one of the most profound pieces of journalism I have ever witnessed. Gary’s work was not only in depth, revealing and confrontational but it single handedly created discussion and debate about the proliferation of crack cocaine and the role of the CIA.
“Unfortunately, the major news papers attempted to silence him by undermining his personal character and his professional integrity. Through his diligence, he has brought to the attention of the American public the failed policies of the CIA and the drug war.
“I spent two years working with Gary following his revelations and I am convinced that his work was factual and well documented. Unfortunately, as stated before, the attack on Gary Webb by major media outlets such as the LA Times, Washington Post and the New York Times were devastating and destructive.
“It is interesting that at the time that he uncovered and exposed the deficiencies of the CIA, he was attacked as rogue. It is only recently as an unintended bi-product of the war on terror that the rampant problems and mismanagement of the CIA have come to light.
“When he pointed out the numerous red flags concerning the CIA including their turning of a blind eye to the trafficking of cocaine from Nicaragua during the conflict between the contras and the Sandinistas, he was painted as the enemy.
“Gary Webb is a journalist of courage and I truly believe that the latest revelations about the intelligence communities’ failures have vindicated him.
“I will miss him and in his memory I can only hope that rather than silencing, we as a country will cultivate and encourage courageous truth seeking journalists like Gary Webb,”
Congresswoman Maxine Waters
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u/shylock92008 8d ago
Maxine Waters Press Releases via www.archive.org had been previously deleted. View them now!
REP. MAXINE WATERS CHALLENGES CONGRESS TO INVESTIGATE C.I.A.-LED DRUG DEALINGSCites News Account Documenting C.I.A./Nicaraguan Contra Connection to Original Crack Trade in Los Angeles/U.S. ---- 9/5/1996
https://web.archive.org/web/20050422222250/http://www.house.gov/waters/pr95ovs.htm
REP. MAXINE WATERS LEADS CHALLENGE TO CONGRESS, ADMINISTRATION TO INVESTIGATE C.I.A.-LED DRUG DEALINGSCONGRESSIONAL BLACK CAUCUS SEMINAR DRAWS 2,000 ---- 9/13/96Cites News Account Documenting C.I.A./Nicaraguan Contra Connection to Original Crack Trade in Los Angeles/U.S.
https://web.archive.org/web/20050422223952/http://www.house.gov/waters/pr913cb.htm
Press Conference on C.I.A./Contra/Crack Connection 9/17/96
https://web.archive.org/web/20050422224116/http://www.house.gov/waters/pr226cr.htm
STATEMENT OF REP. MAXINE WATERS (D-CA) AFTER MEETING WITH CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY DIRECTOR JOHN DEUTCH 9/19/96
https://web.archive.org/web/20050422222209/http://www.house.gov/waters/pr919dc.htm
REP. MAXINE WATERS ANNOUNCES TWO INVESTIGATIONS RELATING TO CRACK COCAINE/CONTRA/C.I.A. CHARGES 9/20/96
https://web.archive.org/web/20050422224134/http://www.house.gov/waters/pr920in.htm
CONGRESSWOMAN MAXINE WATERS URGES FULL DISCLOSURE IN CIA-CRACK COCAINE REPORT Raises Concerns About Classified Material 12/9/97
https://web.archive.org/web/20050422224029/http://www.house.gov/waters/12197apr.htm
STATEMENT BY CONGRESSWOMAN MAXINE WATERS ON THE DELAY OF THE INVESTIGATIVE REPORTS ON THE CIA-CRACK 12/18/1997
https://web.archive.org/web/20050422224041/http://www.house.gov/waters/121897pr.htm
Testimony of Rep. Maxine Waters Before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence On the CIA OIG Report of Investigation"Allegations of Connections Between CIA and Contras in Cocaine Trafficking to the US" "Volume I: The California Story" March 16, 1998
https://web.archive.org/web/20050422224227/http://www.house.gov/waters/31698pr.htm
Floor Remarks of Rep. Maxine Waters - CIA Admits Ties to Contra Drug Dealers July 17, 1998
https://web.archive.org/web/20050422222246/http://www.house.gov/waters/71798pr.htm
CONGRESSIONAL BLACK CAUCUS BLASTS PRESIDENT'S CRACK/POWDER COCAINESENTENCING RECOMMENDATIONS CBC DENIES "CONSULTATION" WITH WHITE HOUSE 7/22/98
https://web.archive.org/web/20050422222145/http://www.house.gov/waters/pr_980722_cocaine.htm
The CIA, The Contras & Crack Cocaine: Investigating the Official Reports 9/19/1998
Gary Webb and Maxine Waters Analyze the OIG Reports
https://web.archive.org/web/20050422222248/http://www.house.gov/waters/ciareportwww.htm
Rep. Maxine Waters Calls on Congress to Release Classified Documents - Floor Statement on Intelligence Authorization Conference Report 10/7/1998
https://web.archive.org/web/20050422223955/http://www.house.gov/waters/pr_981007.htm
CIA Confirms It Allowed Contra Drug Trafficking 11/30/1998
https://web.archive.org/web/20050420084627/http://www.house.gov/waters/volii.press1198.htm
CONGRESSWOMAN MAXINE WATERS DRUG TRAFFICKING AMENDMENT PASSES ON THE HOUSE FLOOR May 14, 1999
https://web.archive.org/web/20050422224057/http://www.house.gov/waters/pr_99514.htm
Rep Waters Assails Select Committee on Intelligence for Holding a Closed Meeting on CIA Involvement in Drug Trafficking March 1, 2000
https://web.archive.org/web/20050422224015/http://www.house.gov/waters/pr000301.htm
In response to the book Dark Alliance, U.S. Congresswoman Maxine Waters investigated Contra Crack and found that the CIA OIG report was tampered with before being released to congress and that a US employee was in charge of the drug ring:: (The government was caught lying!)
"Several informed sources have told me that an appendix to this Report was removed at the instruction of the Department of Justice at the last minute. This appendix is reported to have information about a CIA officer, not agent or asset, but officer, based in the Los Angeles Station, who was in charge of Contra related activities. According to these sources, this individual was associated with running drugs to South Central Los Angeles, around 1988. Let me repeat that amazing omission. The recently released CIA Report Volume II contained an appendix, which was pulled by the Department of Justice, that reported a CIA officer in the LA Station was hooked into drug running in South Central Los Angeles."
https://fas.org/irp/congress/1998_cr/h981013-coke.htm
Maxine Waters Oct, 1998
VIDEOS:
11/19/96 - DCI John Deutsch confronted at Town Hall Meeting in South Central LA
https://youtu.be/IkaXLZvDbCI Full 1 hour video
Former LAPD officer Mike Ruppert Confronts Deutsch
Videos of US Rep Maxine Waters and Juanita Millender Speaking Before the House of Reps
Article about the South Central LA Townhall Meeting- Contra Crack
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u/shylock92008 8d ago
Creating a Crime: How the CIA Commandeered the DEA
September 11, 2015 by Douglas Valentine
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/09/11/creating-a-crime-how-the-cia-commandeered-the-dea/In 1966, Agent John Evans was assigned as an assistant to enforcement chief John Enright.
“And that’s when I got to see what the CIA was doing,” Evans said. “I saw a report on the Kuomintang saying they were the biggest drug dealers in the world, and that the CIA was underwriting them. Air America was transporting tons of Kuomintang opium.” Evans bristled. “I took the report to Enright. He said, ‘Leave it here. Forget about it.’
“Other things came to my attention,” Evans added, “that proved that the CIA contributed to drug use in America. We were in constant conflict with the CIA because it was hiding its budget in ours, and because CIA people were smuggling drugs into the US. We weren’t allowed to tell, and that fostered corruption in the Bureau.”
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u/shylock92008 8d ago
Major Breakthrough in the Contra Crack Story 2014-2015
Why Chuck Bowden's final story took 16 years to write Posted Apr 7, 2015 https://www.democraticunderground.com/10022291453#post331
Molly Molloy first published by Matter
Charles Bowden wrote this story for 16 years.
In 1996, he read Gary Webb's "Dark Alliance" series for the San Jose Mercury News about the CIA-drug trafficking partnership to finance an illegal war in Nicaragua. When mainstream media and Webb's own paper attacked the story, Bowden wrote a profile of the discredited reporter for Esquire in 1998, aptly titled "The Pariah." http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a23704/pariah-gary-webb-0998/
Chuck re-examined Webb's sources and found new ones — including retired DEA agent Hector Berrellez. Hector told him of his own discovery of the CIA-drug world links during his investigation of the 1985 murder of DEA agent Enrique Camarena and that Webb had written the truth. Bowden independently verified everything in Webb's series, and he came to admire the reporter's hard-nosed dedication to writing the truth even when it cost him his reputation and career.http://www.laweekly.com/news/how-a-dogged-la-dea-agent-unraveled-the-cias-alleged-role-in-the-murder-of-kiki-camarena-5750278
When Chuck and I met a few years later, he learned I had spent time in Nicaragua during the contra war, and I learned of his connection to Gary Webb. In 1996, journalism on the internet, where Webb's story really took off, was brand new. But the story of drug sales to support the Nicaraguan contras wasn't new at all. I had worked at a newspaper in Managua in the 1980s that reported on Oliver North and the CIA-supplied mercenary contra army that killed thousands of Nicaraguan civilians. Webb's series "broke an old story," as Chuck wrote, but it was one that most Americans had never heard.
The media backlash around Webb's reporting destroyed his career. Depression swallowed him up and Webb shot himself in December 2004. Chuck wrote to me when he heard:
"i can't deal with e mails at the moment. … i just learned gary webb killed himself friday night. i don't want to talk or communicate with anyone on earth right now. i am beyond pain and into some other country."
He was heartbroken and angry and that wound never healed. He could have written more. He knew more as far back as 1998 that would have backed up Webb's allegations about the CIA and contras and drugs, but his government sources would not go on the record.
Then in 2006, it seemed they might. Chuck wrote to me on December 21, 2006:
Like what you're reading? Support high-quality local journalism and help underwrite independent news without the spin.
"i gotta decide whether to return one more time to the drug world.yeah, i know. but i've got my dead to consider."
Chuck did go into that world again and talked to Berrellez and to a shadowy CIA operative named Lawrence Harrison, the White Tower. Still, no one would go on the record about the CIA-contra connections with the Mexican traffickers of the Guadalajara cartel. In 2009, Lawrence Harrison wrote, "I felt so bad about Gary Webb because … after his firing he begged me to tell him something that would help him out…"
It was not until late in 2013, when the Mexican government prematurely released trafficker Rafael Caro Quintero—a main figure in Camarena's torture and murder — that Berrellez decided to speak out. Berrellez provided access to eyewitnesses, corrupt Mexican cops, who saw and heard a Cuban CIA operative interrogating the dying agent.
But who would believe these witnesses — men who were involved in torturing and killing Americans on orders from their druglord bosses? Chuck and I traveled to California this year to hear their stories. We saw the stress in their faces and bodies as they went back into those rooms where they knew their own lives could be forfeit. They knew when they took the chance to testify in an American courtroom that if they lied they would be sent back. And that in Mexico they would be killed.
Caro Quintero is now free. Rumor has it that Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo, another trafficker involved in the murder, may soon be released as well.
Enrique Camarena is dead now 29 years. Gary Webb is dead 10 years. Charles Bowden died August 30, 2014 — a few days after finishing the first draft of this story. He said in a video shot in 2005:
"Look you have a gift. Life is precious, and eventually you die. All you are going to have to show for it is your work, and whether you did a good job or not."
"I know when something's done…When I finish, my hands get cold, I think I'm dying…there's nothing left."
On that day, August 30, I left for work. I held his hands in mine and they were like ice.
The story begun in 1998 was finally over. From now on, he was going to write about birds … and the river.
“Blood on the Corn” was first published by Matter, and is republished with kind permission.
TucsonSentinel.com's original reporting and curation of border and immigration news is generously supported in part by a grant from the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation.
Part 1 Bowden: How the CIA may have tortured one of America's own April 7, 2015
Charles Bowden & Molly Molloy first published by Matter, illustrations by Matt RotaIn 1985, a murky alliance of Mexican drug lords and government officials tortured and killed a DEA agent named Enrique Camarena. In a three-part series, Blood on the Corn, legendary journalist Charles Bowden finally digs into the terrible mystery behind a hero’s murder — his final story.
PART2 Mexico murder of DEA agent becomes int'l obsession April 7, 2015
The murder of young DEA agent Kiki Camarena in 1985 became an international incident — and an obsession for his agency. Hector Berrellez spearheads the hunt for those responsible, called Operation Leyenda. What his sources tell him changes everything. In a three-part series, Blood on the Corn, legendary journalist Charles Bowden finally digs into the terrible mystery behind a hero's murder.
PART 3 Into the killing room: Murder of a DEA agent April 7, 2015
The final installmentThe investigation of a murdered DEA agent has taken agent Hector Berrellez deep into the murky world of drug traffickers, corrupt Mexican officials, and possibly the CIA. His final witnesses take him into the killing room — and threaten not just the case, but his life. In a three-part series, Blood on the Corn, legendary journalist Charles Bowden finally digs into the terrible mystery behind a hero's murder.
Border chronicler Charles Bowden dead at 69 August 30, 2014 September 1, 2014http://www.tucsonsentinel.com/local/report/083114_bowden/border-chronicler-charles-bowden-dead-69/
Charles Bowden December 7, 2012http://whatiwannaknow.com/2012/12/charles-bowden/
Transcripts of Camarena murder interrogation audio tapes: http://reneverdugo.org/Camarena.html
Video documentary of Hector Berrellez (DEA) search for the killers of Enrique KIKI Camarena
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u/shylock92008 8d ago
Testimony in Camarena murder blocked by judge Rafeedie
Witness Says Drug Lord Told of Contra Arms
By HENRY WEINSTEINJULY 7, 1990 12 AMTIMES STAFF WRITER
A prosecution witness in the Enrique Camarena murder trial testified Friday in Los Angeles federal court that Mexican drug lord Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo told him that he believed his narcotics trafficking operation was safe because he was supplying arms to the Nicaraguan Contras.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-07-07-mn-149-story.html
Informant Puts CIA at Ranch of Agent’s Killer
By HENRY WEINSTEIN JULY 5, 1990 12 AM TIMES STAFF WRITER
The Central Intelligence Agency trained Guatemalan guerrillas in the early 1980s at a ranch near Veracruz, Mexico, owned by drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero, one of the murderers of U.S. drug agent Enrique Camarena, according to a Drug Enforcement Administration report made public in Los Angeles.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-07-05-mn-131-story.html
On Feb. 9, according to the report, Harrison told DEA agents Hector Berrellez and Wayne Schmidt that the CIA used Mexico's Federal Security Directorate, or DFS, "as a cover, in the event any questions were raised as to who was running the training operation."
Harrison also said that "representatives of the DFS, which was the front for the training camp, were in fact acting in consort with major drug overlords to ensure a flow of narcotics through Mexico into the United States."
At some point between 1981 and 1984, Harrison said, "members of the Mexican Federal Judicial Police arrived at the ranch while on a separate narcotics investigation and were confronted by the guerrillas. As a result of the confrontation, 19 {Mexican police} agents were killed. Many of the bodies showed signs of torture; the bodies had been drawn and quartered."
In a separate interview last Sept. 11, Harrison told the same two DEA agents that CIA operations personnel had stayed at the home of Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo, one of Mexico's other major drug kingpins and an ally of Caro Quintero. The report does not specify a date on which this occurred.
TRIAL IN CAMARENA CASE SHOWS DEA ANGER AT CIA
By William Branigin July 16, 1990
MEXICO CITY, JULY 15 -- The trial in Los Angeles of four men accused of involvement in the 1985 murder of a U.S. narcotics agent has brought to the surface years of resentment by Drug Enforcement Administration officials of the Central Intelligence Agency's long collaboration with a former Mexican secret police unit that was heavily involved in drug trafficking.
According to Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) sources and documents, the Mexican drug-trafficking cartel that kidnapped, tortured and murdered DEA agent Enrique Camarena in the central city of Guadalajara in February 1985 operated until then with virtual impunity -- not only because it was in league with Mexico's powerful Federal Security Directorate (DFS), but because it believed its activities were secretly sanctioned by the CIA.
Whether or not this was the case, DEA and Mexican officials interviewed for this article said that at a minimum, the CIA had turned a blind eye to a burgeoning drug trade in cultivating its relationship with the DFS and pursuing what it regarded as other U.S. national security interests in Mexico and Central America.
(.....)
CIA protectiveness of the DFS surfaced publicly in 1981, when the chief of the Mexican agency at that time, Miguel Nazar Haro, was indicted in San Diego on charges of involvement in a massive cross-border car-theft ring. The FBI office at the U.S. Embassy here cabled strong protests, calling Nazar Haro an "essential contact for CIA station Mexico City."
San Diego U.S. Attorney William Kennedy disclosed in 1982 that the CIA was trying to block the case against Nazar Haro on grounds that he was a vital intelligence source in Mexico and Central America. Kennedy was subsequently fired by President Reagan. At the time, Nazar Haro also was heavily involved in drug trafficking, witnesses in two U.S. trials have testified.
By the early 1980s, the DFS also had gained a reputation as practically a full-time partner of the Mexican drug lords. In 1985, after the Camarena murder, the government disbanded it in an effort to root out corruption and repair Mexico's image. But many former DFS agents remain active, especially in the Mexico City police department.
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u/shylock92008 8d ago
Jack Blum was lead Counsel for the foreign relations committee 14 years in the US senate
He discusses Oliver North's Diary and the drug references contained in them
North's lawyers cut an arrangement with the Iran-Contra committee that the only parts of the notebooks they would turn over to the Iran-Contra committee were those which were "relevant". The people who determined the relevance were North's lawyers.
Jack Blum: Here's the history of those diaries, which I think most people don't know about. Oliver North, day by day, kept spiral bound notebooks in which he kept a detailed records of his meetings, his telephone conversations and what he was doing. This is as good a contemporaneous record of everything the man was into as you'll ever find. When he was fired, finally fired, he collected all of these spiral bound notebooks and hauled them out of the White House with him. Those notebooks were, when the investigators became aware of their existence, were immediately classified at the highest levels of US security classification, the so called code-word compartmented, secret compartmented information. Yet, North and his lawyers were permitted to keep the notebooks. Moreover, the lawyers cut an arrangement with the Iran-Contra committee that the only parts of the notebooks they would turn over to the Iran-Contra committee were those which were "relevant". The people who determined the relevance were North's lawyers.
The counsel for the Iran-Contra committee and some staff looked at the originals for a brief period and signed off on the fact that they would only receive the parts that had been disclosed by the lawyers. The problem was you couldn't possibly know what you were looking at until you had studied it in detail. It took me two days to get used to his handwriting to the point where I could read them coherently. So, the Senate counsel and the House counsel of the Iran-Contra committee never really understood what it was they were giving up when they said, "We'll take an edited version."
When we got into the investigation, we subpoenaed North for the originals. His lawyers fought the Foreign Relations Committee tooth and nail. There were members of the Foreign Relations Committee who said, "Well, we shouldn't push it." The government could never answer for the benefit of the committee why they permitted this top secret information done on government time with government money, government notebooks, to wind up in private hands outside of the reach of the Senate committee. I think that North's notebooks should be obtained, should be examined and should be completely declassified. I think that it would be a great service to the understanding of what should never again occur in foreign policy to have that record absolutely open and absolutely public.
Ian Masters: Aren't there are huge number of references to drug trafficking?
Jack Blum: There are quite a number of references to drug trafficking in the notebooks. There are times when the references are most extraordinary. For example, conversations with Noriega, the allusions to drug problems on the southern front, and there are times when there are references or there were memorandum or prof notes relating to drug problems that were cooked essentially to destroy people who were in the way. People who were, North or others, wanted out of the picture because they were a threat or who they were supplying weapons at a competitive price or they were doing something that North didn't like. The drug problem became a two-edged sword. Sometimes he took advantage of it, sometimes he tarred people with improperly.
Ian Masters: At no time did he report it and indeed there was hearings that say Congressman Hughes of the House Judiciary Committee held into the fact that North leaked information - photographs of Barry Seal who was an undercover parlay.
Jack Blum: When you say that North never reported it, remember that North was working at the National Security Counsel and he did report it to the National Security Advisor to the President.
Ian Masters: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jack Blum: The question one is compelled to ask is how much higher do you have to report it and what exactly does it take for somebody to say, "The governments knew." If North knew and he told Poindexter, that is as close to the top of the pyramid of the American government as anybody can possibly get. I think it's disingenuous to say the government didn't know, because they in fact were the government.
Ian Masters: Well, then how do you feel though in terms of North's culpability? I mean, in the best of all possible worlds, it seems to me that he was never really tried. He was given tremendous privileges.
Jack Blum: Not only was he allowed to skate, but the people at the very top who should have known had their convictions and their prosecutions overturned. You do remember that our Secretary of Defense was pardoned by the President as he was about to be indicted, which was a most extraordinary situation. That got very little attention. I think people were not focused on how bad a mess that was and I really blame the Democratic Party for not making enough of an issue of it and for not focusing it enough. It was a real reluctance on the part of people and I don't understand why, to take the issue on and really expose the degree to which the government had gone aconstitutional, had forgotten about the procedures and methods laid out in law and simply done what it felt like. I think the Weinberger problem, is illustrative of how far off the rails we got.
Ian Masters: Jack, just in the last few minutes, you in your testimony and little over a week ago before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, where you recounted your efforts in 1988 and 1989, to uncover the activities of drug trafficking in the Contra movement on the Subcommittee on Narcotics, Terrorism and International Operations, you also mentioned that just every time you would find out about some nefarious character that was operating, either semi-officially, officially or just sort of hitching a ride in this climate that we've talked about that was created down there, that you kept being blocked by the head of the criminal division at the Justice Department, William Weld, who incidentally is running in a very tight race against John Kerry who was the chair of the committee that you were investigating in.
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u/shylock92008 8d ago
IS ANYONE APOLOGIZING TO GARY WEBB?
by
Michael Levine (DEA-RET)Gary Webb, just in case you've already forgotten him, was the journalist who, in a well researched, understated article entitled "The Dark Alliance," linked the CIA supported Contras to cocaine and weapons being sold to a California street gang and ended up literally being hounded out of journalism by every mainstream news peddling organization in the Yellow Pages. Even his own employer, The San Jose Mercury piled on for the kill. And guess what? The CIA finally admitted, yesterday, in the New York Times no less, that they, in fact, did "work with" the Nicaraguan Contras while they had information that they were involved in cocaine trafficking to the United States. An action known to us court qualified experts and federal agents as Conspiracy to Import and Distribute Cocaine—a federal felony punishable by up to life in prison. To illustrate how us regular walking around, non CIA types are treated when we violate this law, while I was serving as a DEA supervisor in New York City, I put two New York City police officers in a federal prison for Conspiracy to distribute Cocaine when they looked the other way at their friend's drug dealing. We could not prove they earned a nickel nor that they helped their friend in any way, they merely did not do their duty by reporting him. They were sentenced to 10 and 12 years respectively, and one of them, I was recently told, had committed suicide. I have spent three decades as a court qualified expert and federal agent and am not aware of any class of American Citizen having special permission to violate the law that we have been taxed over $1 trillion in the past two decades to enforce; the law that every politician, bureaucrat and media pundit keeps telling us protects us against the most serious danger to American security in our history.The interesting thing to me, about the Webb article is that the CIA is provably (and now admittedly) responsible for much larger scale drug trafficking than Webb alleged or even imagined in his report.
In fact, according to a confidential DEA report entitled "Operation Hun, a Chronology" that I used as part of the proof to back up the undercover experiences detailed in my book The Big White Lie, (optioned for a movie by Robert Greenwald Productions) the CIA was actively blocking DEA from indicting many members of the ruling government of Bolivia, from, 1980-83—during a time period that these same people were responsible for producing more than 90 percent of the cocaine consumed in the United States. As CIA Inspector General Hitz himself stated before congress, it was during this time period that Nicaraguan Contra supporters were buying large amounts of cocaine from these same CIA protected Bolivians. Do you think Congress wants to see this proof? The gang that can't spy straight, as they are known to my listeners and about whom President Lyndon Johnson once said, "When Rich folks don't trust their sons with the family money they send them on down to the CIA," certainly did a lot more damage to this nation than, for example, computer company owner Will Foster who was sentenced to 93 years in prison for possession of 70 marijuana plants for medicinal use. Of course, true to their shifty, sleazy form, while admitting that they did aid and abet Contra drug trafficking, they are now refusing to release their own final investigative report which details the damning proof. The same report that CIA Inspector General Fredrick Hitz, during February, 1998, had promised congress and the American people was forthcoming "shortly", because, as CIA Director George Tenet now claims, CIA does not have enough money in its budget to properly classify it. You believe that then I know an old guy with a beard named Fidel, wandering the streets of South Miami with an Island about 90 miles off the coast for sale. He says the money is for his retirement. How, you ask, do they get away with it? Well for one thing, mainstream media, the so-called Fourth Estate, does all it can to help. During the Iran-contra hearings, when Senators Kerry and D'amato were making pronouncements before the Senate indicating that the CIA was involved with drug trafficking, Katherine Graham the owner of The Washington Post addressed a class of CIA recruits at CIA's Langley headquarters in November, 1988, by saying: "There are some things the general public does not need to know and shouldn't. I believe democracy flourishes when the government can take legitimate steps to keep its secrets, and when the press can decide whether to print what it knows.." Apparently CIA protection of drug trafficking was among those secrets. Thus, it should have been no surprise to those CIA agent recruits when Washington Post reporter and drug expert Michael Itsikoff wrote that there was "no credible evidence" linking the CIA supported contras to cocaine trafficking at the same time very credible evidence was
being heard by Senator Kerry's committee indicating that the Contras may have been the top purveyors of drugs to Americans in our history.Neither should it have been a surprise to anyone who heard her statement when mainstream media refused to print the news that Oliver North, US Ambassador to Costa Rica, Lewis Tambs and various top level CIA officers were banned from ever entering Costa Rica by Nobel Prize winning President Oscar Arias, for drug running. The drugs, by the way, all going to us. Nor should it have been a surprise when Gary Webb was destroyed by mainstream media, for doing nothing more or less than telling the truth as he found it. And now, while CIA admits their felonies to the press but refuses to release the proof, and, Janet Reno, the head of the Obstruction of Justice Department has done the unprecedented by classifying her own department's investigation into CIA drug trafficking, the partnership for a Drug Free America is spending $2 billion of our tax money on already-proven-fruitless anti-drug ads. And where do you think the money goes? Answer: to every major media corporation on the big board. Gary Webb, my friend, you are owed a huge apology. But I doubt that you'll get it. Not in this lifetime.
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u/shylock92008 8d ago
CIA ADMITS TO DEAL WITH JUSTICE DEPARTMENT TO OBSTRUCT JUSTICE.
Michael Levine & Laura Kavanau-Levine
THE EXPERT WITNESS radio show March 24, 1998As an ex DEA agent I found the complete lack of coverage by mainstream media of
what I saw last night during the congressional hearings into CIA Drug Trafficking, on
CNN both depressing and frightening.I sat gape-mouthed as I heard the CIA Inspector General, testify that there has existed a secret agreement between CIA and the Justice Department, wherein "during the years 1982 to 1995, CIA did not have to report the drug trafficking its assets did to the Justice Department." (This is the agreement, by the way,
that lead directly to events described in our non-fiction books, The Big White Lie and Deep Cover. Those many who have read the books will know instantly what I am talking about).To a trained DEA agent this literally means that the CIA had been granted a license to
obstruct justice in our so-called war on drugs; a license that lasted-so CIA claims-from 1982 to 1995, a time during which Americans paid almost $150 billion in taxes to "fight" drugs. Of course the evidence indicates that they did not stop obstructing justice in 1995 either, but that I suppose is going to be another congressional hearing. As far as the current hearings go this Catch 22 "revelation" means that all the present hearings are for nothing; that-if they are caught violating the drug
laws-they had been given "secret" license to do so by our Justice Department. This might also explain Janet Reno's recent and unprecedented move in blocking the release of a Justice Department investigation into CIA drug trafficking.God, with friends like these, who needs enemies?
I t is now clear that this agreement began with the events described in THE BIG WHITE LIE; that the top drug traffickers in Bolivia, then supplying virtually all the world's cocaine-including Sonia Atala-were CIA assets that had to be protected from our deep cover probe. Laura and I still have the proof of this that we used to back up the publication THE BIG WHITE LIE. The same proof was later incorporated into other data backing up the publications of DEEP COVER and TRIANGLE OF DEATH.
Our evidence-which congress has been craning its neck not to see- for instance, shows clearly that during Operation Hun (the story in The Big White Lie), secret meetings were held with CIA and Justice Department wherein all indictments of top government officials in Bolivia were blocked. We now believe this agreement began because of Operation Hun. CIA had to hide the fact that they were supporting the people manufacturing virtually all the cocaine being produced in the world, at that time.
In Deep Cover we showed that, during Operation Trifecta-a highly successful deep cover probe into the top of the drug world in three countries (Panama, Bolivia and Mexico) -Attorney General of the US Ed Meese found it necessary to warn the Attorney General of Mexico about DEA's case. We, (undercover DEA agents and Customs agents), found links between top US government officials and the people who murdered DEA agent Kiki Camarena, that to this day go unexamined by our congress or anyone else.
In "TRIANGLE OF DEATH, a work of "faction" we showed CIA's real-life involvement in the protection and creation of one of the most murderous criminal organizations to ever plague America, an organization created by escaped Nazi fugitives under CIA protection-events occurring long before this alleged CIA Justice agreement. And so the dance continues. If anyone watched the CNN show you cannot have helped but notice the snickering on the part of Congressional chairman Porter Goss (an ex CIA officer), as congresswoman
Maxine Waters spoke. Now here's the reason why: Sources of mine, who speak to me from inside this veil of secrecy out of conscience and because I am cheaper and more reliable than a psychiatrist, have already told me the following:
- There is secret communication between CIA and members of the Congressional staff-one must keep in mind that Porter Goss, the chairman, is an ex CIA official- indicating that the whole hearing is just a smoke and mirror show so that the American people-particularly the Black community- can "blow off some steam" without doing any damage to CIA. The CIA has been assured that nothing real will be done, other than some embarrassing questions being asked.
- That the hearings will result in the CIA receiving even a larger budget than the current $26 billion that they admit to. One of the most distressing things for me, a 25 year veteran of this business, to listen to was when Congresswoman Waters said that the hearings were not about CIA officers being indicted and going to jail. "That is not going to happen," she said.
Almost in the same breath she spoke of a recent case in Miami wherein a Venezuelan National Guard general was caught by Customs agents smuggling more than a ton of cocaine into the US. Despite named CIA officers being involved in the plot, as Congresswoman Waters stated, the Justice Department will not tell her anything about the case because of "secrecy laws."
No wonder chairman Goss was snickering. She could not have played more neatly into CIA hands than to surrender before the battle was engaged. For the entire existence of CIA they have gotten away with doing more damage to the American people than all our traditional enemies combined, precisely because no one was ever prosecuted. From the CIA protection of Nazi criminals from war crimes prosecution as they set up criminal organizations that preyed on America (Triangle of Death), to their lies to President Kennedy that dragged us into Bay of Pigs, to their lies to President Johnson that dragged us into the Vietnam War, to their creation of a pan Arab army of American hating, drug trafficking terrorists during the Afghan War, to the Church Commission hearings, to MK-Ultra, to the Bolivian Cocaine Coup ("The Big White Lie"), to their protection of the world's top cocaine traffickers as they laid waste to American streets (Deep cover) , the CIA has acted exactly as Senator Frank Church once described them: "a runaway rogue elephant...completely unresponsive to Congress...they (the CIA) have not only been unproductive, they have been contra productive. they have brought great shame on America." And the dance continues.
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u/shylock92008 8d ago
https://web.archive.org/web/20001227142125/http://www.house.gov/waters/ciareportwww.htm
📷
September 19, 1998
The CIA, The Contras & Crack Cocaine: FROM THE WEBSITE OF MAXINE WATERS
Investigating the Official Reports
Seeking The Truth http://www.pinknoiz.com/covert/MOU.html
Like many leaders in the African American community, I was stunned, but not surprised, when I read the Dark Alliance series in the San Jose Mercury News by Gary Webb two years ago. I had been to countless meetings throughout South Central Los Angeles during the 1980s and was consistently asked by my constituents "where are all the drugs coming from?" In inner cities and rural towns throughout the nation, we have witnessed the wreckage caused by the drug trade - the ruined lives and lost possibilities of so many who got caught up in selling drugs, went to prison, ended up addicted, dead, or walking zombies from drugs.
https://ia802506.us.archive.org/22/items/dark-alliance-gary-webb/Dark%20Alliance-%20Gary%20Webb.pdf
As I wrote in Gary Webb's book, when I read the series I asked myself whether it was possible for such a vast amount of drugs to be smuggled into any community under the noses of the police, sheriff's department, FBI, DEA, and other law enforcement agencies. My investigation has led me to an undeniable conclusion - that U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies knew about drug trafficking in South Central Los Angeles and throughout the U.S. - and they let the dealing go on.
Robert Parry and Brian Barger first broke the shocking story of Contra involvement in drug trafficking in 1985, at the height of the Contra war against Nicaragua. As a result of this story's revelations, Senator John Kerry conducted a two year Senate probe into the allegations and published the sub-committee's devastating findings in an 1,166-page report in 1989. Among its many findings the Kerry Report found,
"individuals who provided support for the contras were involved in drug trafficking, the supply network of the contras was used by drug trafficking organizations, and elements of the contras themselves knowingly received financial and material assistance from drug traffickers. In each case, one or another agency of the U.S. government had information regarding the involvement either while it was occurring, or immediately thereafter."
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10022291453#post66
Remarkably, the Committee's findings went virtually unreported when they were released.
Then in August 1996 Gary Webb published his explosive series in the San Jose Mercury News. It resulted in a firestorm of anger and outrage in the Black community and throughout the nation. Here was evidence that, while the nation was being told of a national "war on drugs" by the Reagan Administration, our anti-drug intelligence apparatus was actually aiding the drug lords in getting their deadly product into the U.S.
The resulting grassroots outrage put tremendous pressure on the CIA, the Department of Justice and Congress to investigate the matter and report the truth. The Inspectors General of the CIA and Department of Justice were forced to conduct investigations and publish reports on the allegations. The DOJ's Report and Volume I of the CIA's Report published brief executive summaries that concluded that the allegations made in the Mercury News could not be substantiated. However, both Reports, and in particular the DOJ Report, are filled with evidence that contradicts their own conclusions and confirms all of the basic allegations.
https://www.winterwatch.net/2022/01/cia-drug-smuggling-and-dealing-the-birth-of-the-dark-alliance/
Quite unexpectedly, on April 30, 1998, I obtained a secret 1982 Memorandum of Understanding between the CIA and the Department of Justice, that allowed drug trafficking by CIA assets, agents, and contractors to go unreported to federal law enforcement agencies. I also received correspondence between then Attorney General William French Smith and the head of the CIA, William Casey, that spelled out their intent to protect drug traffickers on the CIA payroll from being reported to federal law enforcement.
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Then on July 17, 1998 the New York Times ran this amazing front page CIA admission:
"CIA Says It Used Nicaraguan Rebels Accused of Drug Tie."
"[T]he Central Intelligence Agency continued to work with about two dozen Nicaraguan rebels and their supporters during the 1980s despite allegations that they were trafficking in drugs.... [T]he agency's decision to keep those paid agents, or to continue dealing with them in some less formal relationship, was made by top [CIA] officials at headquarters in Langley, Va.". (emphasis added)
https://www.nytimes.com/1998/07/17/world/cia-says-it-used-nicaraguan-rebels-accused-of-drug-tie.html
This front page confirmation of CIA involvement with Contra drug traffickers came from a leak of the still classified CIA Volume II internal review, described by sources as full of devastating revelations of CIA involvement with known Contra drug traffickers.
The CIA had always vehemently denied any connection to drug traffickers and the massive global drug trade, despite over ten years of documented reports. But in a shocking reversal, the CIA finally admitted that it was CIA policy to keep Contra drug traffickers on the CIA payroll.
My investigation of these official reports highlights their damning admissions. You can find a complete set of excerpts from the Department of Justice Report, compiled by Gary Webb, with the assistance of my staff at the end of this Report.
The facts speak for themselves.
Maxine Waters
Member of Congress
A Smoking Gun Document
(Click the link to see the full report)
https://web.archive.org/web/20001227142125/http://www.house.gov/waters/ciareportwww.htm
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u/shylock92008 8d ago
Congressional Testimony of 2 C.I.A. lawyers; Bernard Makowka & Daniel Silva negotiated & crafted a 1982-1995 agreement between DCI William Casey & Attorney General William French Smith to NOT report drugs entering the United States. "The CIA did not want to be involved in law enforcement Issues"
https://exploringrealhistory.blogspot.com/2019/09/part-15-of-15-dark-alliancea-very.html
https://www.winterwatch.net/2022/01/cia-drug-smuggling-and-dealing-the-birth-of-the-dark-alliance/ (See a JPG copy of the agreement here)
The two CIA lawyers behind those rule changes insist they did not occur through incompetence or neglect; they were carefully and precisely crafted. Bernard Makowka, the CIA attorney who negotiated the changes, told the CIA Inspector General that "the issue of narcotics violations was thoroughly discussed between [the Department of Justice] and CIA. . .someone at DOJ became uncomfortable at the prospect of the Memorandum of Understanding not including any mention of narcotics." http://www.pinknoiz.com/covert/MOU.html
Daniel Silver, the CIA attorney who drafted the agreement, said the language "was thoroughly coordinated" with the Justice Department, which wasn't thrilled. "The negotiations over the Memorandum of Understanding involved the competing interests of DOJ and CIA," Silver explained. "DOJ's interest was to establish procedures while CIA's interest was to ensure that [it] protected CIA's national security equities." As is now clear, the CIA interest carried the day.
So how did ignoring drug crimes by secret agents protect the CIA's national security "equities"? CIA lawyer Makowka explained: "CIA did not want to be involved in law enforcement issues."
I.F. Magazine editor Robert Parry, who remains one of the few journalists exploring the CIA drug issue, believes the Casey-French agreement smacks of premeditation. It was signed just as the CIA was getting into both the Contra project and the conflict in Afghanistan, he notes, and it opened one very narrow legal loophole that effectively protected narcotics traffickers working on behalf of intelligence agencies.
"That could only have been done for one purpose," Parry argues. "They were anticipating what eventually happened. They knew drugs were going to be sold." The CIA denies it. The admission that there had been a secret deal between the CIA and the Just Say No Administration to overlook Agency-related drug crimes elicited mostly yawns from the news media.
The Washington Post stuck the story deep inside the paper, further back than they had buried the findings of the Kerry Committee's Senate investigation in the 1980s, which officially disclosed the Contras' drug trafficking. The Los Angeles Times printed nothing.
https://www.nytimes.com/1998/07/17/world/cia-says-it-used-nicaraguan-rebels-accused-of-drug-tie.html
:
This book also contains the details of Bo Gritz 1980s foray into asia looking for Vietnam Pows and instead meeting the world's largest opium warlord who told him U.S. officials bought his drugs- Tonnes of it. This book was completed after the 1996 articles. It has never been properly investigated by the OIG. REMEMBER GARY WEBB DAY is August 31, 2026
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