The Contra-Cocaine Connection

TRANSCRIPT

In August of nineteen ninety-six, the San Jose Mercury News published a three-part series called Dark Alliance. Its claim was explosive: that the crack cocaine sold on the streets of Los Angeles was helping fund the Central Intelligence Agency's war in Nicaragua.

Three weeks later, the Director of Central Intelligence asked the Agency's Inspector General to investigate. A seventeen-person team, two volumes, two years.

The result is one of the strangest documents the Agency has ever published about itself. It says, flatly, that the CIA did not conspire with drug traffickers — and then spends hundreds of pages describing exactly what the Agency knew about Contra-linked cocaine trafficking, and how little it did about it.

DOCUMENTED: a memo that removed the obligation to report. DOCUMENTED: the knowledge. CLAIMED: that the Agency ran the trade.

So here is the deadpan version of this story. The CIA didn't run the drug trade. It just signed a memo agreeing not to look at it too closely.

The memo is real, and it is an exhibit in the report. March second, nineteen eighty-two: a Memorandum of Understanding between the Attorney General and the Director of Central Intelligence, under Executive Order twelve three three three, governing the reporting of potential crimes.

Before the memo, the rule was strict. Under the Attorney General's guidelines, the Agency had to report possible violations of any federal law — including narcotics laws — by its employees. And 'employee' was defined broadly: it included agents, assets, and independent contractors.

The nineteen eighty-two memo kept the 'any federal law' language. But it changed the definition of 'employee.' Agents, assets, and independent contractors were moved to the non-employee category. And narcotics violations were not on the list of reportable non-employee offenses. The Agency kept the discretion to report them anyway. It was simply no longer required to.

'However, because of a change in the definition of employee, agents, assets and independent contractors were moved to the non-employee category and thereby subject to the list of reportable offenses that did not include narcotics violations.'

The Attorney General signed off on the gap. In a letter to Director William Casey, William French Smith noted the memo contained no formal requirement for reporting narcotics violations by non-employees — and merely urged continued cooperation with the Justice Department and the Drug Enforcement Administration.

And in January of nineteen eighty-eight, the Agency's own General Counsel, David Doherty, referred a possible narcotics violation by a Contra official named Adolfo Chamorro to the Justice Department — and explained, in writing, why he was bothering:

'Although this non-employee crime is not required to be reported under the Attorney General-approved guidelines, I am making this report because of the serious nature of the alleged offense.'

The arrangement lasted thirteen years. In August of nineteen ninety-five, the memo was revised: assets and contractors became employees again for reporting purposes, and narcotics violations went back on the list. The window was March of nineteen eighty-two to August of nineteen ninety-five. The entire Contra war — and then some.

If you watched episode thirteen, the Iran-Contra story, this is the same war. Same Contras. Same decade. Episode thirteen was about the arms side: the deals, the diversion, the notebooks. The Senate subcommittee whose drug report anchors this episode worked through those same notebooks — Oliver North's two thousand eight hundred and forty-eight pages. Companion pieces, two apart. We won't re-litigate the arms deals here. This episode is about the other side of the ledger.

What did the Agency know? DOCUMENTED — from the report's own findings.

In December of nineteen eighty-eight, the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations published a report called Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy — the Kerry Committee report. The IG report quotes its section on the Southern Front Contras verbatim:

'Information developed by the intelligence community indicates that a senior member of Eden Pastora's Sandino Revolutionary Front agreed in late 1984 with Jorge Morales that FRS pilots would aid in transporting narcotics in exchange for financial assistance. FRS officials agreed to use FRS operational facilities in Costa Rica and Nicaragua to facilitate transportation of narcotics. Morales agreed to provide financial support to the FRS, in addition to aircraft and training for FRS pilots. Morales reportedly provided the FRS one C-47 aircraft and two crated helicopters. He is reported to have paid the sum of one hundred thousand dollars to the FRS, but there was no information available on who actually received the money.'

Jorge Morales was a known narcotics trafficker. Eden Pastora's group was the Agency's Southern Front. The Agency broke off contact with Pastora's organization in October of nineteen eighty-four — but kept in contact with four of the Morales-linked individuals through nineteen eighty-six and eighty-seven.

The report names names — and only the names the document names. Adolfo Chamorro, Pastora's second-in-command. Mario Calero, the brother of Contra leader Adolfo Calero. Octaviano Cesar. Meneses, Blandon, Ross, Zavala, Cabezas, Castro — several dozen individuals across five categories.

And what did the Agency do with what it knew? Here is the report's own verdict on its own Agency:

'CIA acted inconsistently in handling allegations or information indicating that Contra-related organizations and individuals were involved in drug trafficking. In some cases, CIA pursued confirmation of allegations or information of drug allegations. In other 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 other cases, CIA did not act to verify drug trafficking allegations or information even when it had the opportunity to do so.'

In plain terms: they knew — and they kept working with some of the people they knew about.

In nineteen eighty-seven, Congress tried to close the gap. An appropriations act prohibited assistance to any Contra group that retained anyone found to engage in drug smuggling. During the period the prohibition was in effect — October of nineteen eighty-six to December of nineteen eighty-seven — the Agency was aware of drug trafficking allegations against ten Contras. The report's verdict: 'additional actions could have been taken by CIA in each of these cases to determine the credibility of the allegations.'

Now the other pole: the series that started all of this.

Gary Webb's Dark Alliance ran in the San Jose Mercury News in August of nineteen ninety-six. Its thesis: that Contra-linked traffickers — Meneses and Blandon supplying Ricky Ross in Los Angeles — were moving crack cocaine tied to the Contra war. The version that traveled was bigger: that the CIA created the crack epidemic. That is CLAIMED — the series' argument, repeated and amplified far beyond what its sourcing showed.

The Inspector General's two volumes took the allegations apart piece by piece. Volume One: the California story — Ross, Meneses, Blandon. Volume Two: the Contra story — this episode. And Volume Two's answer to the biggest question — did the CIA conspire with or assist Contra drug trafficking — is one sentence:

'No information has been found to indicate that CIA as an organization or its employees conspired with, or assisted, Contra-related organizations or individuals in drug trafficking to raise funds for the Contras or for any other purpose.'

That is DOCUMENTED: the no-conspiracy finding. Note exactly what it says — and what it doesn't. It says the Agency didn't conspire. It doesn't say the Agency didn't know. The hundreds of pages before and after describe what it knew. That gap — between knowing and conspiring — is where this episode lives.

Gary Webb died on December tenth, two thousand four, his death ruled a suicide by the Sacramento County coroner. That is all this episode will say about it.

Now the labels, applied with care.

The memo: DOCUMENTED. March second, nineteen eighty-two, to August third, nineteen ninety-five. Narcotics violations by assets, agents, and contractors were not required to be reported to the Justice Department. The Attorney General's letter, the nineteen eighty-five Justice memo, the General Counsel's nineteen eighty-eight letter — all exhibits in the report. The report also found no information that the narcotics exclusion was written to protect Contra activities — but the drafters' intentions, beyond the paper trail, are a separate question.

The knowledge: DOCUMENTED. The Morales arrangement with Pastora's group — the C-47, the two helicopters, the one hundred thousand dollars with no record of who received it. The 15th of September group, trafficking for fundraising. Chamorro, the Caleros, Cesar, Meneses, Blandon, Ross, Zavala, Cabezas, Castro, and dozens of others the report names. And the Agency's inconsistent response — knowledge that did not deter use, allegations never verified even when verification was possible.

The no-conspiracy finding: DOCUMENTED. 'No information has been found to indicate that CIA as an organization or its employees conspired with, or assisted, Contra-related organizations or individuals in drug trafficking to raise funds for the Contras or for any other purpose.'

The big claim: CLAIMED. That the CIA ran the Contra drug trade, or created the crack epidemic — the traveling version of Dark Alliance. The Inspector General investigated it across two volumes and found no such conspiracy. Asserted, investigated — and not shown.

Where the Morales money went: UNVERIFIED. 'There was no information available on who actually received the money' — the report's own words. What the Agency's drafters intended when they left narcotics off the nineteen eighty-two list, beyond the paper trail: UNVERIFIED. And what the Agency never verified, it can never know — the allegations it chose not to chase are permanently UNVERIFIED.

The deadpan truth of the Contra-cocaine story is the gap between knowing and conspiring.

DOCUMENTED: the Agency knew that Contra-linked figures were trafficking cocaine, and kept working with some of them. DOCUMENTED: for thirteen years, no rule required the Agency to tell the Justice Department. DOCUMENTED: when the question was conspiracy, the Inspector General found nothing.

CLAIMED: that the CIA ran the trade. UNVERIFIED: where the money went, and what the memo's drafters intended.

The CIA didn't run the drug trade. It signed a memo agreeing not to look at it too closely — and then, for a decade, it didn't look. That is the honest line. That is the story.