Pubdate: Mon, 9 Mar 1998
Source: The Nation
Author: David Corn
Contact: www.thenation.com

C.I.A. CLEARS SELF OF DRUG CHARGE

For the covert gang, the headlines were refreshing. "C.l A. Report
Concludes Agency Knew Nothing of Drug Dealers- Ties to Rebels' The New York
Times announced. 'C.l.A. Finds No Significant Drug-Contra Tie' the Los
Angeles Times proclaimed. These and similar media declarations were
prompted by the January release of the agency's internal review of
allegations, published in a 1996 San Jose Mercury News series, that a
California narcotics ring had funneled millions of dollars in drug profits
to the Nicaraguan Contras. The series, written by Gary Webb, suggested that
this one drug outfit was instrumental to the birth of the crack cocaine
epidemic. The allegations ignited an uproar Members of Congress and black
talk-radio hosts demanded investigations. Now the inquiring is done, or
nearly so. Headlines aside, while this 149-page C.l.A. report dismisses the
most explosive portions of Webb's problematic series, it also provides
material showing that contras and drug dealers dill hobnob together. And
that the Contras' patrons in the U.S. government knew that and did little
about it.

It is hardly shocking that the C.l.A.'s inspector General found no evidence
that the agency was connected to Danilo Blandon and Norwin Meneses, the
Nicaraguan drug dealers featured in the Mercury News "Dark Alliance-'
series. (The articles had implied such a connection without offering proof,
which the paper later admitted in a mea culpa.) The C.l.A. reports that it
located no information to support the charge that Blandon and Meneses
peddled drugs to raise money for the Contras; nor that the C.l.A. had
interfered with the prosecution of drug-related cases against them. Then,
too, the agency states that "Freeway" Ricky Ross, a Los Angeles drug
chieftain who figured prominently in the newspaper series, told its
investigators that he'd been a crack peddler years before hooking up with
Blandon, and Blandon confirmed it. So, case closed? Not at all.

The C.l.A. promises a second report, on other allegations of contra
drug-trafficking and there are contra-drug links more substantial than
those  described in the Mercury News series. (Remember Manuel Noriega's
offer to  bump off Sandinista if the White House would clean up his
coke-tainted  reputation? Or drug runners winning U.S. contracts to haul
supplies to the Contras?) But even this first self-absolving volume offers
evidence that there was a symbiotic relationship between drug dealers and
the Contras, that the C.I.A. ignored reports of contra-drug involvement and
that the agency and the Justice Department colluded in limiting a
prosecution that threatened to expose one Contra-drug link.

The report quotes Blandon as claiming he had no tie to the C.I.A. and that
he never sold cocaine on direct behalf of the contras. But he did make
other  interesting statements: for example, that he supplied roughly
$40,000 to the  Contras and that his partner Meneses gave a similar amount.
In 1982, Blandon  notes. He met with contra leaders in Honduras. Afterward
when he was  detained at the Tegucigalpa airport by Honduran officials who
discovered  that he was carrying 5100,000, his contra friends interceded
winning his release and the return of the cash (which was drug money). That
is, the  Contras helped wittingly or not a drug dealer escape the
authorities because  he was a supporter That same year, according to
Blandon, the Contras' military chief, Enrique Bermudez, asked him and
Meneses to raise money for  them, saying, "The ends justify the means."
Blandon maintains that Bermudez  did not know that he and Meneses were
cocaine smugglers. But, as the  C.l.A.'s own cables noted Meneses had been
the narcotics kingpin of  Nicaragua when Bermudez was a high-level
government official, so Bermudez could be expected to know of Meneses'
"means." Blandon also says he attended  a summit of contra leaders in
Florida in 1983 and financially assisted  contra leader Eden Pastora (who,
by the way, acknowledges having received significant help from another
narcotics dealer).

All this is not proof of a contra-cocaine grand conspiracy. But it provides
further reason to conclude that the contra war and the drug trade existed
in all-too-close proximity to each other.

The C.l.A. report shows that the agency was hardly vigilant in probing
reports of contra-drug links. One 1986 C.l.A. cable revealed that contra
leader Fernando Chamorro was asked by Meneses to "move drugs to the US."
How did Chamorro deal with this request? Did the C.I.A. pursue this lead?
The report says nothing further about it. In a similar instance, a 1982
C.l.A. cable reported that "there are indications of links between [a US.
religious organization] and two Nicaraguan counter-revolutionary groups....
These links involve an exchange in [the United States] of narcotics for
arms." The cable noted that representatives of the major contra groups
might have been participating in the scheme. In response, C.I.A.
headquarters, as reported in the review, initially decided not to dig into
the matter because US citizens might be involved. Then it decided to ask
one of its foreign  stations to find out if such a plot was under way. The
station replied that  contra leaders had recently traveled to the United
States for meetings, but that it had no further information. By all
appearances, the agency did little to ascertain the truth of the
arms-for-drugs charge. And there is no  evidence that in these instances
the C.LA. turned over reformation to the Drug Enforcement Administration
for further investigation.

The most damning portion of the CIA report concerns the "Frogman" case, a
contra-drug story broken in 1986 by the San Francisco Examiner and reprised
by Gary Webb. In 1983 the Feds in San Francisco arrested fifty people and
seized 430 pounds of cocaine. Two of the principals Julio Zavala and Carlos
Cabezas were Nicaraguans who claimed their drug trafficking was linked to
the congas. The inspector General's review found no evidence of dais. But
She most intriguing aspect of this episode involved about $37,000 seized at
Zavala's safehouse by the F.B.I. Zavala said the cash belonged to the
Contras, and he produced letters written by two contra leaders to support
his claim. The  U.S. Attorney's office was left with the problem of what to
do about the  money. In 1984 US. Attorney Joseph Russoniello decided that
federal officers would travel to Costa Rica and take depositions from the
two contra leaders.

But the C.l.A., according to an agency cable, worried that the relationship
between Zavala and one of the contra leaders "could prove most damaging'
and that a "case could be made that [C.I.A.] hands are being diverted by
[C.I.A.] assets into the drug trade.'- So the agency made a "discreet
approach" to the Justice Department, the cable reported. Subsequently, the
depositions were canceled and "at [the C.l.A.-s] request the US. Attorney.
agreed to return the money to Zavala" To recap: The C.I A. intervened m a
law enforcement matter to smother embarrassing exposure of a contra-drug
link. Suspiciously, the C.l.A. says it had a hard time determining
precisely who in the agency orchestrated the "discreet approach" And almost
as am  aside the report notes that when Senator John Kerry's subcommittee
requested  information on the Frogman case in 1986, the C.I.A. refused to
provide it and succeeded in obstructing a major Congressional investigation.

The C.l.A. study is troubling. Obvious questions go unanswered. In a
matter-of-fact tone, it notes that several former senior C.l.A. officers
responsible for the contra operation declined to cooperate with the
inspector General's review. The report takes comfort in the finding that
Blandon's and Meneses' drug transactions were not "motivated by any
commitment to support the Contra cause.' But motivation is not the key
issue. It appears that the Mercury News did go too far, and that Blandon
and Meneses did not sell millions in drugs specifically for the contras.
The implication of the series that the C.l.A. and the Contras bore
responsibility for the crack epidemic was over the top. But the real story,
as confirmed by the C.l.A. report, is that the cocaine business and the
secret war in Nicaragua intersected repeatedly. Not m as cinematic a
fashion as Webb portrayed it, but in more subdued and routine ways. The
question for the C.l.A. is, What was done about that?

The next C.l.A. volume is supposed to consider this wider topic. But it too
will have to be read carefully. Unfortunately, the C.l.A. has the review
field to itself. The Justice Department was scheduled to release a report
of  its own on this subject in mid-December Then it suddenly pulled the
study, claiming that the entire report could somehow compromise an ongoing
criminal matter The Justice review was expected to look beyond the Mercury
News allegations and examine the possibility that prosecution of drug cases
in the eighties had been compromised because of the Reagan Administration's
support of the Contras.

On a new Web site, the C.l.A. proclaims that "an informed citizenry [is]
vital to a democratic society" indeed. There are enough substantiations of
a contra-drug overlap to support public suspicion that the US. government
perverted priorities in pursuit of the contra war. The agency and Justice
owe the citizenry a full explanation. Thus, they should accede to a request
from the National Security Archive, a private nonprofit research group,
that they release the tens of thousands of documents gathered for their
reviews. The C.l.A. may judge itself innocent, but the public should be
able to examine the evidence.