Section of Pamphlet released as part of Nancy Spannaus'
campaign for U. S.
Senate, Virginia, August, 1994:
DEFEAT OLLIE NORTH -- THAT SON-OF-A-BUSH
- Why We Must Defeat Ollie North -
When I concluded my primary campaign last spring, I
announced that my chief objective in the general election
campaign, no matter who won the primary, would be the
defeat of Oliver North. I believed then, and I believe
now, that his election to the U.S. Senate would be a
disaster for the nation and Virginia.
In mid-June, I formed a political committee to
further this end. It is named Defeat that Son-of-a-Bush
Commmittee (Defeat that SOB), and it is registered with
the Federal Election Commission (FEC). Because of the
nature of the committee, FEC rules do not permit it to
coordinate with any particular candidate or electoral
campaign; its objective is purely the negative one of
defeating Oliver North.
The SOB committee can receive contributions of as
much as $5,000 per person in furtherance of its objective.
Its expenditures have no limit but what is raised.
Our activities are just getting under way. We have
received our first shipment of 10,000 bumper stickers, out
of what we expect to be at least 100,000. I have
personally gone on some radio shows to get the word out,
and hope to begin a radio advertising campaign in the near
future.
- An Insider for Bush -
But the guts of our campaign is included in this
pamphlet--the documentation that Oliver North is no
champion for the little guy, but a part of the political
apparatus of former President George Bush. As such, he was
personally on top of bringing planeloads of cocaine into
the United States as part of the Contra operation, of
carrying on an illegal arms trade with the communists he
was supposedly fighting, and of running dirty tricks
operations against anyone who got in the way of his
fundraising and other illegal operations.
As will be amply clear from the selection of the
documentation which we include here, there is more than
enough evidence on the public record to indict Ollie North
for heading a conspiracy to import narcotics into the
United States. Many individuals are in federal prison as a
result of far less evidence. You might say that Ollie
North had a right to keep certain secret intelligence
operations from the glare of publicity in congressional
hearings. There's no way you can say that he had a right
to carry on massive drug trafficking into the U.S.A., to
the benefit of known drug traffickers, and to the
detriment of our children.
The necessity of the SOB committee's work is becoming
increasingly clear. Despite the breaking of a national
wire story in mid-June on North's drug-running, the major
press has continued to black out his real crimes. It's
going to take an intensive campaign by political activists
to ensure that the credulous are educated on the real
history of Ollie North.
This is a campaign of utmost importance to moral
individuals from all political parties and all states of
the Union. North says he's pro-family, but he's against a
family getting a living, union wage. The only families he
serves well are those of his cronies, and the drug mafia
families.
So, I urge you to become active now. Order your bumper
stickers--we'd appreciate donations or contributions,
but there's no set price. Call us about meetings we can
address, or where Truth Squads should appear to expose
Ollie's crimes. And circulate this pamphlet!!
Ollie North is part of the George Bush apparatus
which not only destroyed the economy and law in this
country, but is determined to destroy our lawfully elected
President and any political force that gets in its way. To
protect the rule of law, and the commitments of our
Constitution, this charlatan must be defeated. I hope to
hear from you soon.
{Nancy Spannaus
August 1, 1994}
- Chapter 1 -
- The Ollie North Myth -
On Nov. 25, 1986, a myth was born.
It was on that day that Attorney General Edwin
Meese--for the first time--linked the recently exposed
illegal Contra support operations, with the Iran
arms-for-hostages scandal. Meese linked these two hitherto
separate operations--previously labelled ``Contragate'' and
``Irangate'' or ``Iranscam''--by revealing that monies from
arms transactions between Israel and Iran had been
``diverted'' to the Contras.
``The only person in the United States government
that knew precisely about this,'' declared Meese, was
Oliver North, a member of the staff of the National
Security Council operating out of the White House.
From that point on, the ever-compliant news media
focussed all their attention on Marine Lt. Col. Oliver
North, and on something that came to be called
``Iran-Contra.'' Then, most of the media devoted their
efforts to trying to find out how much President Reagan
knew about what Ollie was doing.
This diversion was eminently successful.
North himself has enjoyed perpetuating these myths,
myths which placed him center stage, masterminding covert
operations, tirelessly fighting communists and terrorists.
To top it off, Ollie has portrayed himself as falling on
his sword for his President, Ronald Reagan.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
By no means was Oliver North a renegade, or a loose
cannon on the National Security Council staff. He was a
staff member of a well-defined but secret operating
structure, a structure which was headed by none other than
Vice President George Bush. This apparatus ran a myriad of
covert operations, spied on U.S. citizens, ran guns all
over the world, and was responsible for bringing a virtual
flood of drugs into the United States.
It is George Bush, not Ronald Reagan, whom North has
protected to this day. You can prove this to yourself
simply by looking at North's 1991 book {Under
Fire}. Ollie is quick to say that he is convinced that
``President Reagan knew everything''--but he
{never} describes the role of George Bush. Mr.
North devotes an entire chapter of his book to providing
profiles of all the top officials he worked
with--President Reagan, Secretary of State George Shultz,
Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, CIA Director
William Casey, National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane,
Admiral John Poindexter--with one glaring omission: his real
boss, George Bush.
Bush's ``secret government'' apparatus--built up from
1982 to 1986--drew upon the CIA and the Department of
Defense's ``special operations'' capabilities. But the
operations run by Bush's White House apparatus were
neither ``CIA'' nor ``Pentagon'' operations. Rather, they
were set up in order to bypass the official agency
structure of the federal government. Senate Chief Counsel
Arthur Liman, who conducted the Iran-Contra hearings,
called the ``Enterprise'' run by Oliver North and his
cronies ``a CIA outside the CIA.'' Others called it a
``secret, parallel government.''
- Bush's `Secret Government' -
To understand how Bush's ``secret government''
worked, we must look at the ``crisis management''
apparatus in the White House and the misnamed National
Security Council staff (which is not a ``staff'' for the
National Security Council, but a staff for White House
operations involving national security).
In December 1981, President Reagan signed Executive
Order 12333, designed to ``unleash'' U.S. intelligence
agencies from the restrictions of the 1970s. E.O. 12333,
governing all ``foreign intelligence'' operations,
included provisions for the use of private ``assets'' by
the intelligence and law enforcement community.
E.O. 12333 also designated the NSC as ``the highest
Executive Branch entity'' for review, guidance, and
direction of {all} foreign intelligence,
counterintelligence, and ``special activities'' (i.e. covert
operations). This effectively put the NSC in charge of the
CIA, military intelligence, special operations, etc. This
did not mean the President's National Security Adviser,
but the NSC staff structure--which for these areas was run
by George Bush. How did that work?
In January 1982, National Security Decision Directive
(NSDD) Number 2 was issued, which formalized the National
Security Council structure, including for Central America.
NSDD-3, to which Secretary of State George Shultz vigorously
objected, put Bush's SSG and its subordinate Crisis
Pre-Planning Group (CPPG) right between the President
and the Secretary of State, followed by the interagency
committees.
During December 1982, in between the adoption of E.O.
12333 and NSSD-2, National Security Decision Directive
(NSDD) Number-3 had been issued. Entitled ``Crisis
Management,'' this completed the first phase of George
Bush's takeover of intelligence and secret operations.
NSDD 3 created the Special Situation Group (SSG),
headed by the Vice President. Then, on May 14, 1982, the
CPPG was created under Bush's Special Situation Group. The
CPPG was an interagency body with representatives of the
CIA, Pentagon, White House, State Department, and others.
Its staff coordinator was ... {Oliver North}.
Thus, under NSDD-2 and NSSD-3, one man was in charge of
the ``secret government'' machinery. This structure
combined, as much as possible, all intelligence and
foreign policy ``crisis management'' under the operational
control of the Vice President of the United States. This
was George Bush--Ollie North's real boss.
- Chapter 2 -
- `Continuity of Government:' A Domestic Dictatorship -
Ollie North's first major project as a staffer at the
National Security Council had nothing to do with Iran or
the Contras. In truth, Ollie wasn't called upon to
organize support for the Contras until 1984, and it wasn't
until late 1985 that he got involved in trading arms for
hostages in Iran. What was ``Mr. Iran-Contra'' doing
before there was any such thing as ``Iran-Contra''?
Ollie had been detailed to the National Security
Council staff in August 1981. His first big project there
involved what is known as ``continuity of government,'' or
COG, and in it, he worked for none other than George Bush.
Listen to Ollie's own words. In his book {Under
Fire,} North describes ``my first major assignment at
the NSC'' as involving contingency plans for enabling the
President and the country's leadership to continue to
function and communicate in the event of nuclear war or
other extraordinary disaster. North calls it simply ``The
Project,'' and says that this was ``where I came to know
George Bush.''
Eleven years later, on April 18, 1994, {The New
York Times} reported some facts about that project. In
a front-page story, the {Times} reported that the
Pentagon was planning to shelve its ``Doomsday Project,''
the plan to enable the nation's military and civilian
leadership to survive a six-month nuclear war. This
project, said {The Times}, ``was an amalgam of
more than 20 `black programs'--so highly classified that
only a handful of military and civilian personnel knew of
them.''
The ``continuity of government'' program was
elaborated in National Security Decision Directive 55,
signed by President Reagan in January 1983 and still
classified top secret. NSDD-55, said {The Times,}
``was drafted by, among others, Oliver L. North, then an
obscure Marine on the National Security Council staff.''
And, {The Times} continued, during the Reagan
administration, ``the project was supervised by Vice
President George Bush.'' The CIA's Charles Allen became
its deputy director.
{The Times} says that in the Reagan and Bush
administrations, the program involved military officers,
CIA officials, and private companies run by retired
military and intelligence personnel. This ``private'' side
was typical of the covert intelligence operations run by
Bush's ``CIA outside the CIA.''
A public version of the same operation went under the
label of ``emergency preparedness,'' and was the subject
of an earlier presidential directive, NSDD-47, signed in
July 1982, in which North was also deeply involved. This
revolved around the Federal Emergency Management Agency
(FEMA), and included a secret interagency ``continuity of
government'' committee made up of about 100 top government
officials.
In August 1989, {U.S. News & World Report}
published a story called ``America's Doomsday Project,''
which, it noted, ``many government bureaucrats call COG,
short for `continuity of government.'|'' According to this
article, the Reagan administration undertook a review of
COG programs shortly after coming into office, and found
that much of the technology used in the program had not
been updated since the 1950s and 1960s.
``In 1982, a new secret agency was created,''
reported {U.S. News}. ``It was called the Defense
Mobilization Planning Systems Agency, and its officials
were instructed to report to then Vice President George
Bush.''
The first major exposure of this project was
published in 1987, by {The Miami Herald}. It
called the Continuity of Government program ``a virtual
parallel government.''
``Lt. Col. Oliver North,'' reported
{The Herald}, ``helped draw up a controversial plan to
suspend the Constitution in the event of a national
crisis, such as nuclear war, violent and widespread
internal dissent, or national opposition to a U.S.
military invasion abroad.''
{The Miami Herald} reported that North
assisted FEMA from 1982 to 1984 in revising contingency
plans for dealing with nuclear war, insurrection, or
massive military mobilization. North was involved in
planning and running ``readiness'' exercises, which
utilized scenarios involving domestic protests over U.S.
military adventures abroad, or massive social unrest due
to economic depression conditions following a global
financial collapse.
During his July 1987 testimony in front of the
congressional hearings, North and his lawyer Brendan
Sullivan ridiculed the ``suspend the Constitution''
allegation, but he has admitted everything else.
A recently published book on the CIA, {Eclipse}, by
Mark Perry, reports that CIA Director William Casey
designated Charles Allen as the CIA's representative to
the COG project, and that this was what brought Allen into
contact with Oliver North. Perry's book quotes
Allen--perhaps somewhat whimsically--as saying during a
COG meeting: ``Let's see now. Our job is to throw the
Constitution out the window.''
In {Under Fire,} Ollie writes:
``During my work on The Project, I wrote several
directives which President Reagan signed, authorizing
further steps to be taken to ensure that our government
could not be rendered impotent by enemy action or an
extraordinary disaster. This was also where I came to know
Vice President Bush.''
North's next statement is quite revealing, in light
of later charges that Mr. Bush was actually conducting a
coup against President Reagan in 1986: ``As first in line
to succeed the President, he took an active interest in
this program. I briefed him often, and he asked detailed
and penetrating questions about how things worked, and how
they could be improved. It was obvious that his interest
was more than a formality.''
``Even at the NSC, only a handful of people were
aware of The Project. But for me, it was enormously
satisfying,'' wrote Ollie North, the candidate who has now
been miraculously reborn as an ``outsider.''
[box]
- Iran Contra Hearings: North -
- Would Suspend Constitution in Case of Emergency -
During the congressional Iran-Contra
hearings in 1987, the issue of the ``continuity of
government'' project came up in the following rather
startling manner:
{{Rep. Jack Brooks:}} Colonel North, in your work at
the NSC, were you not assigned at one time to work on
plans for the continuity of government in the event of a
major disaster?
{{Chairman Sen. Daniel Inouye:}} I believe the
question touches upon a highly sensitive and classified
area. So may I request that you not touch upon that, sir?
{{Rep. Brooks:}} I was particularly concerned, Mr.
Chairman, because I read in the Miami papers and several
others that there had been a plan developed by that same
agency, a contingency plan in the event of emergency that
would suspend the American Constitution, and I was deeply
concerned about it and wondered if that was the area in
which he had worked. I believe that it was, but I wanted--
{{Chairman Inouye:}} May I most respectfully suggest
that that matter not be touched upon at this stage? If we
wish to get into this, I'm certain arrangements can be
made for an Executive Session.
{{Brendan Sullivan}} (North's lawyer): Well, I must
say, the inferences from that statement are ridiculous.
{{Chairman Inouye:}} We'll decide whether it's
ridiculous or not.
--
- Chapter 3 -
- Kissinger the Matchmaker: Ollie and the Contras -
While continuing to work on Bush's ``Project
Doomsday,'' and serving as the NSC liaison to FEMA, North
took on his second major assignment at the NSC. This was
to serve as the NSC liaison to the Kissinger Commission on
Central America, starting in the summer of 1983. Prior to
this, North says, he had been invited to participate in a
``Saturday morning study group'' on Central America held
weekly at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va.
North made a number of trips to Central America on
particular assignments, and then took at least one major
trip to Central America and Mexico with the Kissinger
Commission in early October, 1983. Rep. Michael Barnes, a
congressional adviser to the commission, noted Ollie's
eagerness to attach himself to Kissinger. ``He hung out
with Henry,'' Barnes said. ``Ollie has quite a remarkable
facility for ingratiating himself with important
people ... more often than not, he was at Henry's elbow.''
A few months later, in December 1983, he accompanied
George Bush to El Salvador. In both his congressional
testimony and his book, Ollie gushes forth with fawning
praise for the manner in which Mr. Bush supposedly faced
down Salvadoran military leaders. ``I know a wimp when I
see one,'' said Mr. North, ``and George Bush was no
wimp.''
- North and Grenada -
Ollie's first big ``success'' at the NSC was his
coordination of the U.S. invasion of Grenada in October
1983. As NSDD-2 and NSDD-3 prescribed, the invasion was set
in motion at a meeting of the Special Situation Group, a
meeting convened by George Bush, on Oct. 20, 1983. North
was made the liaison between the White House and the Joint
Chiefs of Staff.
It is ironic that North became a rising star at the
NSC because of Grenada, since from a military
standpoint--command and control, communications, special
forces operations--the operation has been judged a
failure. U.S. forces had overwhelming superiority in
numbers and weapons, yet suffered 29 killed and 152
wounded. Four Navy SEALS drowned in an accident; three
Marine pilots were killed trying to rescue other SEALS.
Four Army Rangers were killed, and others dismembered,
when two U.S. helicopters crashed into each other. A
senior intelligence officer was quoted in one published
account calling the whole thing ``Ollie North's charade.''
- The Contras -
Ollie's involvement in supplying and financing the
Nicaraguan Contras began in 1984-85. Previously, the
support operations for the Contras were first run out of
the CIA, with Defense Department assistance. The first
Boland Amendment was passed in December 1982, putting
restrictions on CIA and Pentagon support for the Contras.
When the second Boland Amendment was passed by
Congress in October 1984, all CIA operations in support of
the Contras had to be officially terminated, and the
secret support operation began to be run out of the White
House. The Contra supply operation went ``private,'' under
the supervision of George Bush. Much of this was organized
by retired CIA agent Felix Rodriguez, a friend of Bush's
Vice Presidential National Security Adviser Donald Gregg from their days in
Vietnam.
In late 1984, Gregg introduced North to Rodriguez,
who had already been working in Central America under
Bush's direction for over a year. In January 1985, Bush's
office arranged for Rodriguez to set up a Contra resupply
depot at Ilopango Air Base in El Salvador. This became the
principal air base later used by the North-Secord
operation; it was also, according to eyewitnesses, a major
drug transshipment point.
At the recommendation of CIA Director William Casey,
North enlisted special operations veteran Gen. Richard
Secord to aid the Contra supply operation. Secord
recruited a staff from the pool of retired Army and Air
Force Special Forces operatives, most of whom had, at one
point or another, been posted to the CIA-linked Special
Operations Division at the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Room
2C840--a room which will take on special significance
later in our story.
Secord had already begun, in 1983, to create a
network of private companies to run arms smuggling and
covert operations, as part of CIA Director Casey's
``privatization'' of intelligence operations. This private
network of companies formed the core of the North-Secord
``Enterprise,'' and was also referred to as ``Project
Democracy'' by North, Secord, and company.
Secord's first purchase of arms for the Contras came
from Red China at the end of 1984. Later on, Poland also
became a major source. In late summer of 1985, Secord
began organizing the air supply operation for the Contras;
and in September, North asked Rodriguez to allow Secord to
use Ilopango Air Base.
North was not ``running'' the Contra supply operation,
anymore than he was ``running'' any other operation. He was
simply carrying out policies set by Bush and to a lesser
extent by CIA Director Casey, who were both running parts
of the Contra operation. The person who knew the least
about what Ollie was actually doing was President Ronald
Reagan. And in fact, the North-Secord air-lift operation
was in most respects subordinate to the side of the
operation being run by Bush's office through Felix
Rodriguez.
When the C-123 was shot down over Nicaragua on
October 5, 1986, with three crewmen killed and Eugene
Hasenfus captured, the first notification to Washington
was from Felix Rodriguez to Bush's office. Unable to reach
Don Gregg, Rodriguez instead spoke to Bush's military aide
Sam Watson, who notified the White House situation room. A
few hours later Rodriguez called Watson again with more
information about the downed flight, identifying it as one
of North's. This was how the White House and the NSC
learned about the incident which threatened for a while to
engulf and bring down the Reagan presidency.
--
- Chapter 4 -
- North Beats the Rap -
``I'm the most investigated man on this planet,''
says Ollie North when confronted with charges of his
involvement in drug-running. Special Prosecutor Lawrence
Walsh spent $100 million dollars ``trying to lock me up
for jaywalking,'' Ollie complains.
``No one, not even the special prosecutor, not the
congressional inquisition, raised that charge
[drug-running]. We all know it's wrong,'' Ollie told a
radio interviewer in Bluefield, West Virginia, on June 10.
Wrong. Ollie's lying again.
Although Ollie claims that he was hounded
relentlessly by Special Prosecutor Walsh, the truth is
that Walsh's original mandate from Congress was defined
very narrowly, concentrating on the Iranian arms sales,
the ``diversion'' of funds from the Iranian arms sales to
the Contra operation, and on the Contra support operation
as a violation of U.S. law. Walsh then construed his
mandate even more narrowly, prosecuting North for lying to
Congress, and for accepting illegal gratuities. Walsh's
voluminous final report never mentions drug trafficking.
Even on those charges on which he was indicted, North
escaped the central, most serious charge against him--the
conspiracy count. Counts 1 and 2 of the original
indictment against him were dismissed in January 1989. How
did North wriggle out of those counts? The Reagan-Bush
administration (which Bush was running by that time),
withheld crucial classified information from the court,
protecting itself and North, and thus forced the
dismissal on the grounds that North could not get a fair
trial unless the information were made available to him.
Neat trick.
The truth is, for all of his whining, Ollie North was
treated with kid gloves. He was {never} prosecuted
for his most serious criminal offenses--the two most
important being his complicity in bringing tons of deadly,
illegal drugs into the United States, and his use of
police-state harassment and frameups as part of the
targetting of the ``secret government's'' opponents.
In his famous congressional testimony, North was thrown
``softballs,'' which not only helped him expound on side
issues and develop his ``renegade'' image, but also helped
set up the conditions under which he could ``beat the
system'' and walk away free, despite his lying to
Congress. When Congress granted immunity to North and
others for their testimony--over the strenuous objections
of the special prosecutor--it set up the basis on which
North's convictions were later vacated by the federal
appeals court.
At no point during the official ``Iran-Contra''
investigations, did those examining North actively pursue
his complicity in drug-trafficking operations that were
bringing planeloads of dope into this country, for sale
and distribution in the neighborhoods of America, perhaps
to your own children.
According to the U.S.'s former top agent in El
Salvador, Celerino Castillo, he and his associates were
ordered by DEA headquarters to keep all their case files
open, so that the special prosecutor's office could not
get access to them, on the grounds that these were ``active
investigations.''
- The Kerry Committee Evidence -
The sole exception to this pattern was the
investigation conducted by a subcommittee of the U.S.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the Subcommittee on
Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Operations,
sometimes called the ``Kerry Committee'' after Senator
John F. Kerry (D-Mass).
The evidence compiled by that committee alone would
have been enough to prosecute and convict Oliver North and
his confederates for conspiracy to import cocaine into the
United States and many other offenses.
People are sent to prison every day in the United
States on {far less} evidence than the Kerry
Committee report contains against Oliver North. To be
convicted of a drug conspiracy, a defendant need not
actually touch or use the drugs; he only need know of the
conspiracy, to tacitly agree with it, and to commit one
``overt act'' in pursuit of the conspiracy.
Approving payments to known drug-traffickers (which
North did), or approving the involvement of known drug
traffickers in Contra support operations (which North also
did), would qualify as overt acts in any prosecutor's
handbook.
In fact, by normal prosecutorial standards, Ollie
would probably qualify as a ``drug kingpin.''
Let's look at some of the evidence.
--
- Chapter 5 -
- Ollie North: Drug Kingpin -
- The Evidence Against Him -
Six months before the ``Iran-Contra'' story was ever
heard of, a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee--known
as the ``Kerry Committee''--opened a major investigation
into the international drug trade, particularly focusing
on allegations of illegal gun-running and
narcotics-trafficking associated with the Contras.
Sources close to the investigation have told this
news service that 75% of the evidence on Contra
drug-dealing was never used by the Kerry Committee.
Nevertheless, what is there is devastating, and is
sufficient to sink the ``U.S.S. Ollie North'' many times
over.
Jack Blum, an investigator for Sen. Kerry, testified
to the committee on Feb. 11, 1987 that the Contras move
drugs ``not by the pound, not by the bag, but by the ton,
by the cargo planeload.''
The final committee report, entitled ``Drugs, Law
Enforcement and Foreign Policy,'' and issued in December
1988, stated that the committee had uncovered considerable
evidence relating to the Contra network, which
substantiated many of the initial allegations put in front of
the committee when it began its investigation in the
spring of 1986.
The report states:
``On the basis of this evidence, it is clear that
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.''
The committee report found that these links included:
@sb|``|Involvement in narcotics trafficking by
individuals associated with the Contra movement.
@sb|``|Participation of narcotics traffickers in
Contra supply operations through business relationships
with Contra organizations.
@sb|``|Provision of assistance to the Contras by
narcotics traffickers, including cash, weapons, planes,
pilots, air supply services and other materials, on a
voluntary basis by the traffickers.
@sb|``|Payments to drug traffickers by the U.S. State
Department of funds authorized by the Congress for
humanitarian assistance to the Contras, in some cases
after the traffickers had been indicted by federal law
enforcement agencies on drug charges, in others while
traffickers were under active investigation by these same
agencies.''
In a number of instances, the Kerry report documents
Oliver North's personal knowledge or involvement in these
matters involving drug traffickers or drug money.
@sb|So-called ``humanitarian'' payments to the
Contras made through the ``Nicaraguan Humanitarian
Assistance Organization'' (NHAO) were personally overseen
and supervised by North. The Kerry Committee report shows
that many NHAO payments went to companies known to be
involved in drug trafficking.
@sb|SETCO (see below) ``received funds for Contra
supply operations from the Contra accounts established by
Oliver North.''
@sb|DIACSA, a company under Drug Enforcement
Administration (DEA) investigation in 1985-86 for drug
trafficking and drug money laundering, was used by the
principal Contra organization, the FDN, for
``intra-account transfers.'' ``The laundering of money
through DIACSA concealed the fact that some funds for the
Contras were through deposits arranged by Lt. Col. Oliver
North.''
The State Department continued to make payments to
the Contras through DIACSA even {after} the top
officials of the company were indicted for cocaine
trafficking and money laundering in January 1985 and
thereafter.
@sb|North suggested to the DEA in June 1985 that $1.5
million in drug money carried aboard a plane piloted by
informant Barry Seal be provided to the Contras.
- Ollie's Confederates -
The people Ollie North worked with in the Contra
operation could make up an international police lineup of
drug traffickers and terrorists. Here are some of his most
notable associates:
{{Juan Ramo@aan Matta Ballesteros:}} This
Honduran cocaine kingpin was convicted in July 1990 of
conspiracy to kidnap, torture, and murder DEA agent
Enrique Camarena. {The Los Angeles Times} (July 7,
1990) said that Ballesteros ``is reputed to be one of the
world's biggest drug kingpins.''
At the time of the Camarena affair, Matta Ballesteros
was the owner of a Honduran charter airline, SETCO Air,
that was paid over half-a-million dollars by the U.S.
State Department to airlift ``humanitarian aid'' to the
Contras in a program run by Ollie North from the White
House. Other funds, drawn directly from secret
North-Secord bank accounts in Switzerland, were also
funneled into SETCO Air.
The Kerry Report states: ``SETCO was the recipient in
1986 of $185,924, in State Department NHAO office funds
for the transportation of humanitarian assistance to the
FDN [Contras] based in Honduras. A 1983 U.S. Customs
Service report stated that `SETCO aviation is a
corporation formed by American businessmen who are dealing
with Matta and are smuggling narcotics into the United
States.' The Matta referred to in the report is Juan Matta
Ballesteros, a major cocaine trafficker in the region, and
wanted by U.S. law enforcement agencies for the brutal
murder of DEA agent Enrique Camarena in Mexico.''
An Aug. 9, 1985 entry by Oliver North into his
notebook removes any shadow of a doubt that North was
fully aware of the Contra-cocaine connection: ``Honduran
DC-6 which is being used for runs out of New Orleans is
probably being used for drug runs into U.S.'' The Honduran
plane referenced by North was owned by Matta Ballesteros.
{{Rafael Caro Quintero:}} According to CIA contract
agent Laurence Victor Harrison, Matta and Mexican dug
cartel figures Caro Quintero and Felix Gallardo, enjoyed
North and the CIA's protection in return for letting
Central American ``freedom fighters'' be trained at dope
ranches in Mexico, and for flying arms shipments to the
Contra supply bases in Central America.
According to a report published in {The
Washington Post} on July 5, 1990, a ranch near Vera
Cruz, Mexico, owned by Rafael Caro Quintero, the
mastermind of the Camarena torture-murder and the head of
the Mexican drug mafia, was used by the CIA to train
Central American guerrillas. According to DEA informant
Laurence Victor Harrison, the CIA used Mexico's Federal
Security Directorate (DFS) ``as a cover in the event any
questions were raised as to who was running the training
operation. 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.''
{{Francisco Chanes}} and {{Frank Castro}}: Ollie
North and company were aware of the cocaine connection
even earlier, according to other government records. On
Sept. 26, 1984, the Miami Police Department provided FBI
Special Agent George Kiszynski with an investigative
report identifying a network of Miami cocaine-traffickers
which was pouring money into the Contras' coffers. Within
days of the report being turned over to Kiszynski,
according to congressional testimony, it had been passed
on to Oliver ``Buck'' Revell, North's FBI liaison for the White
House Central America program.
The Miami Police Department document stated in
unambiguous terms: ``Frank Castro is a close associate of
an individual by the name of Francisco Chanes ... Chanes
is a narcotics trafficker ... Chanes was giving financial
support to anti-Castro groups and the Nicaraguan Contra
guerrillas; the monies come from narcotic transactions ...
Frank Castro contacted Mr. Coutin to give the Legion
Cubana financial support to fight the Nicaraguan
Sandinista Marxist Government ... the financial support
was from drug monies.''
Frank Castro, a convicted Cuban-American marijuana
and cocaine smuggler, was a mainstay of the Contra
recruitment and resupply operations in Miami. When the
Miami police report was passed to the FBI and eventually
on to the North-led interagency task force, the Miami
investigation was quashed and all Contra cocaine links
suppressed.
Jack Terrell, a soldier-of-fortune who worked with
the Contras for a time, says he was introduced by Tom
Posey of CMA (Civilian Military Assistance) to a Cuban
named Francisco `Paco' Chanes, part-owner of Ocean Hunter
Seafood in Miami, which bought frozen seafood from
{Frigori@aaficos de Puntarenas}, a Costa Rican
seafood company. Terrell says Chanes offered him a
million-dollar bribe to help smuggle cocaine into the U.S.
in frozen lobsters. Chanes said that CMA would get a lot
of money from the operation.
The Kerry report states: ``Frigorificos de
Puntarenas, a Costa Rican seafood company, was owned and
operated by convicted drug traffickers, Luis Rodriguez,
Carlos Soto and Ubaldo Fernandez. Frigorificos received
$231,587 in humanitarian assistance funds for the Contras
from the State Department in late 1985 and early 1986.
Luis Rodriguez was finally indicted on September 30, 1988
for drug smuggling which took place between November 1980
and January 1983.''
{{John Hull}}: John Hull's ranch in Costa Rica,
whose airstrip was used by the North-Secord Contra arms
and resupply operation, was also a transshipment point for
Colombia cocaine bound for the United States.
The Kerry report states the following: ``John Hull
was a central figure in Contra operations on the Southern
Front when they were managed by Oliver North, from 1984
through late 1986....
``Five witnesses testified that Hull was involved in
cocaine trafficking....'' One witness, pilot Gary Betzner,
testified that his flights had carried weapons for the
Contras to the Hull ranch, and then he carried drugs from
the Hull ranch to the U.S.A.
{{Steve Samos}}: Steve Samos is a top
drug-money launderer in Panama. In January 1987, {The
Wall Street Journal} reported that Mr. Samos was used
by the North-Secord operation for two purposes:
1) Samos created Amalgamated Commercial Enterprises
(ACE) in November 1984; ACE was used to administer the
airlift operation from Ilopango air base in El Salvador to
the Contras; its role was thoroughly established by
special prosecutor Walsh.
2) Samos also has extensive dealings with Panama's
Banco de Iberoamerica, which {The Wall Street
Journal} said may have been used for Contra financing;
it was also part of the money-laundering apparatus which
Samos set up for marijuana smuggler Jose@aa Antonio
Ferna@aandez.
{{Michael Tolliver}}: Pilot Michael Tolliver, a
convicted drug smuggler, testified before the Kerry
committee that at one point he had flown 20 tons of
marijuana to Homestead Air Force Base in Florida, in
exchange for weapons for the Contras. The U.S. government
settled a civil insurance claim for a plane flown by
Toliver which crashed in 1983; Toliver said he had been
hired to deliver weapons to the Contras and he often
brought back drugs on the return flight.
In a deposition in another case, Tolliver testified
that he had received payments for the drugs from Felix
Rodriquez.
Federal Judge Patrick Kelly accused the U.S.
government of engaging in ``criminal conduct'' in the
Tolliver case. He said the case ``stinks to high heaven''
and ``involves the transport of drugs by agents of the
United States, or with the acquiescence of the United
States.''
{{Mansur Al-Kassar}}: Al-Kassar is a notorious
Syrian heroin, hashish, and marijuana smuggler who became
North's ``second channel'' to Ayatollah Khomeini. After
all, funding the Central American Contras was not the only
thing Ollie North was doing--he was also mixed up in the
Middle East. Al-Kassar has been convicted of
drug-trafficking in England and France, was expelled from
Spain when Spanish authorities photographed him hosting
Medellin Cartel figures Pablo Escobar and Rodriguez Gacha
at his Marbella estate, and has been on Interpol's watch
list since the late 1960s.
The CIA lists Al-Kassar as a KGB agent, and scores of
law enforcement agencies list him as a leading
international terrorist, with ties to Abul Abbas and Abu
Nidal. Al-Kassar sold Soviet-made weapons to the Black
September group of Abu Nidal and to the Syrian-sponsored
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General
Command (PFLP-GC) of Ahmed Jibril.
Despite these credentials, Al-Kassar was brought onto
the North team and paid millions of dollars to funnel
Soviet-made arms to the Contras. In 1986, one transaction
alone netted Al-Kassar $1.5 million in payments from the
North-Secord Lake Resources Swiss bank accounts.
- The Mena, Arkansas Story -
Former CIA contract agent Terry Reed, and
investigative reporter John Cummings, have recently
written a book called {Compromised} which
describes Reed's personal experiences in dealing with the
Bush-North secret operations in Arkansas and later in
Mexico. (An exclusive interview with Terry Reed on this
and related subjects appeared in {Executive
Intelligence Review} magazine, Vol. 21, No. 23.)
The individual in charge of the operation introduced
himself to Reed as ``John Cathey''--whom Reed later
discovered to be Oliver North. After working on the secret
(and illegal) Contra training and arms supply operations
in rural Mena, Arkansas for over a year, Reed was later
sent to Mexico to set up a machine-tool manufacturing
operation there which could be used as a front for arms
shipments and intelligence operations. In July 1987, he
discovered that ``ex''-CIA agent Felix Rodriguez--a central
figure in the Contra operations under the name of ``Max
Gomez''--was using Reed's company and warehouse to ship
tons of cocaine into the United States. After a showdown
with Rodriguez, Reed and his family fled Mexico and
returned to the U.S.A. When Reed contacted Oliver North in
November 1987, hoping to go to Washington and tell his
story. North told Reed to lay low, and to stay as far away
from Washington as he could.
- Felix Rodriquez's Role -
The drug-running role of Felix Rodriquez, described
by Terry Reed and also documented by the Kerry committee,
has also been recently confirmed by the U.S. DEA's top
agent in El Salvador from 1985 to 1991. Former DEA agent
Celerino (``Cele'') Castillo, gave interviews in mid-June
to {The Texas Observer} magazine and to the
Associated Press, charging that Oliver North knew all
about the drug flights in and out of El Salvador.
Castillo says that the North network and the CIA
``were running large quantities of cocaine to the United
States via Ilopango,'' the military air base in El
Salvador. He told Associated Press that shipments were
flown to Florida, Texas, and California. ``Oliver North
was running the operation. His pilots were known drug
traffickers listed in government files and these people
were being given U.S. visas.''
Castillo told {The Texas Observer} that the
drugs were flown into Ilopango from South America, stored
in Hangars 4 and 5 there, and were then smuggled northward
for sale in the United States. ``Hangar 4 was owned and
operated by the CIA, and the other hangar was run by Felix
Rodriguez, [alias] `Max Gomez' of the Contra operation.
``Basically they were running cocaine from South
America to the U.S. via Salvador,'' Castillo continued.
``That was the only way the Contras were able to get
financial help. By going to sleep with the enemy down
there.'' He said that North's agents and the CIA were at
the two hangars overseeing the operations ``at all
times.''
In a Feb. 14, 1989 memo to U.S. attache@aa Robert
Stia in Guatemala, Castillo identified more than two dozen
known drug smugglers frequenting Hangars 4 and 5, among
the pilots hired by Oliver North. ``Now all these contract
pilots were documented [in DEA files] traffickers, Class I
cocaine violators that were being hired by the CIA and the
Contras. And the U.S. embassy in El Salvador was giving
visas to these people even though they were documented in
our computers as being narcotics traffickers.''
Castillo says that in 1986, he reported the cocaine
smuggling to George Bush in person and to the U.S.
ambassador to El Salvador. As to the ambassador's
response, Castillo reports: ``His words to me were that it
was a covert White House operation run by Colonel Oliver
North and for us to stay away from the operation.''
On Jan. 14, 1986, Castillo says, he met Vice
President Bush at a cocktail party at the U.S.
ambassador's house in Guatemala City. Castillo described
to Bush his job as chief of the U.S. drug law enforcement
in the region. When Castillo told Bush minute details of
North's drug-running operations, Castillo reports, Bush
``just smiled and he walked away from me.''
At a press conference in Washington on Aug. 2, 1994,
Castillo again reiterated his belief that North knew that
narcotics were being run out of the air base in Ilopango.
``All of his pilots were drug-traffickers,'' Castillo
said. A majority had been arrested for drug-trafficking.
``He knew what they were up to and refused to do anything
about it.''
Castillo said he had two informants at Ilopango who
had access to all the flight plans and the pilots. The
informants saw the drugs and the money, and the pilots
also talked freely about cocaine they were taking to the
United States and about the money. When the DEA ran the
nam
At no point during the official ``Iran-Contra''
investigations, did those examining North actively pursue
his complicity in drug-trafficking operations that were
bringing planeloads of dope into this country, for sale
and distribution in the neighborhoods of America, perhaps
to your own children.
According to the U.S.'s former top agent in El
Salvador, Celerino Castillo, he and his associates were
ordered by DEA headquarters to keep all their case files
open, so that the special prosecutor's office could not
get access to them, on the grounds that these were ``active
investigations.''
- The Kerry Committee Evidence -
The sole exception to this pattern was the
investigation conducted by a subcommittee of the U.S.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the Subcommittee on
Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Operations,
sometimes called the ``Kerry Committee'' after Senator
John F. Kerry (D-Mass).
The evidence compiled by that committee alone would
have been enough to prosecute and convict Oliver North and
his confederates for conspiracy to import cocaine into the
United States and many other offenses.
People are sent to prison every day in the United
States on {far less} evidence than the Kerry
Committee report contains against Oliver North. To be
convicted of a drug conspiracy, a defendant need not
actually touch or use the drugs; he only need know of the
conspiracy, to tacitly agree with it, and to commit one
``overt act'' in pursuit of the conspiracy.
Approving payments to known drug-traffickers (which
North did), or approving the involvement of known drug
traffickers in Contra support operations (which North also
did), would qualify as overt acts in any prosecutor's
handbook.
In fact, by normal prosecutorial standards, Ollie
would probably qualify as a ``drug kingpin.''
Let's look at some of the evidence.
--
- Chapter 5 -
- Ollie North: Drug Kingpin -
- The Evidence Against Him -
Six months before the ``Iran-Contra'' story was ever
heard of, a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee--known
as the ``Kerry Committee''--opened a major investigation
into the international drug trade, particularly focusing
on allegations of illegal gun-running and
narcotics-trafficking associated with the Contras.
Sources close to the investigation have told this
news service that 75% of the evidence on Contra
drug-dealing was never used by the Kerry Committee.
Nevertheless, what is there is devastating, and is
sufficient to sink the ``U.S.S. Ollie North'' many times
over.
Jack Blum, an investigator for Sen. Kerry, testified
to the committee on Feb. 11, 1987 that the Contras move
drugs ``not by the pound, not by the bag, but by the ton,
by the cargo planeload.''
The final committee report, entitled ``Drugs, Law
Enforcement and Foreign Policy,'' and issued in December
1988, stated that the committee had uncovered considerable
evidence relating to the Contra network, which
substantiated many of the initial allegations put in front of
the committee when it began its investigation in the
spring of 1986.
The report states:
``On the basis of this evidence, it is clear that
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.''
The committee report found that these links included:
@sb|``|Involvement in narcotics trafficking by
individuals associated with the Contra movement.
@sb|``|Participation of narcotics traffickers in
Contra supply operations through business relationships
with Contra organizations.
@sb|``|Provision of assistance to the Contras by
narcotics traffickers, including cash, weapons, planes,
pilots, air supply services and other materials, on a
voluntary basis by the traffickers.
@sb|``|Payments to drug traffickers by the U.S. State
Department of funds authorized by the Congress for
humanitarian assistance to the Contras, in some cases
after the traffickers had been indicted by federal law
enforcement agencies on drug charges, in others while
traffickers were under active investigation by these same
agencies.''
In a number of instances, the Kerry report documents
Oliver North's personal knowledge or involvement in these
matters involving drug traffickers or drug money.
@sb|So-called ``humanitarian'' payments to the
Contras made through the ``Nicaraguan Humanitarian
Assistance Organization'' (NHAO) were personally overseen
and supervised by North. The Kerry Committee report shows
that many NHAO payments went to companies known to be
involved in drug trafficking.
@sb|SETCO (see below) ``received funds for Contra
supply operations from the Contra accounts established by
Oliver North.''
@sb|DIACSA, a company under Drug Enforcement
Administration (DEA) investigation in 1985-86 for drug
trafficking and drug money laundering, was used by the
principal Contra organization, the FDN, for
``intra-account transfers.'' ``The laundering of money
through DIACSA concealed the fact that some funds for the
Contras were through deposits arranged by Lt. Col. Oliver
North.''
The State Department continued to make payments to
the Contras through DIACSA even {after} the top
officials of the company were indicted for cocaine
trafficking and money laundering in January 1985 and
thereafter.
@sb|North suggested to the DEA in June 1985 that $1.5
million in drug money carried aboard a plane piloted by
informant Barry Seal be provided to the Contras.
- Ollie's Confederates -
The people Ollie North worked with in the Contra
operation could make up an international police lineup of
drug traffickers and terrorists. Here are some of his most
notable associates:
{{Juan Ramo@aan Matta Ballesteros:}} This
Honduran cocaine kingpin was convicted in July 1990 of
conspiracy to kidnap, torture, and murder DEA agent
Enrique Camarena. {The Los Angeles Times} (July 7,
1990) said that Ballesteros ``is reputed to be one of the
world's biggest drug kingpins.''
At the time of the Camarena affair, Matta Ballesteros
was the owner of a Honduran charter airline, SETCO Air,
that was paid over half-a-million dollars by the U.S.
State Department to airlift ``humanitarian aid'' to the
Contras in a program run by Ollie North from the White
House. Other funds, drawn directly from secret
North-Secord bank accounts in Switzerland, were also
funneled into SETCO Air.
The Kerry Report states: ``SETCO was the recipient in
1986 of $185,924, in State Department NHAO office funds
for the transportation of humanitarian assistance to the
FDN [Contras] based in Honduras. A 1983 U.S. Customs
Service report stated that `SETCO aviation is a
corporation formed by American businessmen who are dealing
with Matta and are smuggling narcotics into the United
States.' The Matta referred to in the report is Juan Matta
Ballesteros, a major cocaine trafficker in the region, and
wanted by U.S. law enforcement agencies for the brutal
murder of DEA agent Enrique Camarena in Mexico.''
An Aug. 9, 1985 entry by Oliver North into his
notebook removes any shadow of a doubt that North was
fully aware of the Contra-cocaine connection: ``Honduran
DC-6 which is being used for runs out of New Orleans is
probably being used for drug runs into U.S.'' The Honduran
plane referenced by North was owned by Matta Ballesteros.
{{Rafael Caro Quintero:}} According to CIA contract
agent Laurence Victor Harrison, Matta and Mexican dug
cartel figures Caro Quintero and Felix Gallardo, enjoyed
North and the CIA's protection in return for letting
Central American ``freedom fighters'' be trained at dope
ranches in Mexico, and for flying arms shipments to the
Contra supply bases in Central America.
According to a report published in {The
Washington Post} on July 5, 1990, a ranch near Vera
Cruz, Mexico, owned by Rafael Caro Quintero, the
mastermind of the Camarena torture-murder and the head of
the Mexican drug mafia, was used by the CIA to train
Central American guerrillas. According to DEA informant
Laurence Victor Harrison, the CIA used Mexico's Federal
Security Directorate (DFS) ``as a cover in the event any
questions were raised as to who was running the training
operation. 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.''
{{Francisco Chanes}} and {{Frank Castro}}: Ollie
North and company were aware of the cocaine connection
even earlier, according to other government records. On
Sept. 26, 1984, the Miami Police Department provided FBI
Special Agent George Kiszynski with an investigative
report identifying a network of Miami cocaine-traffickers
which was pouring money into the Contras' coffers. Within
days of the report being turned over to Kiszynski,
according to congressional testimony, it had been passed
on to Oliver ``Buck'' Revell, North's FBI liaison for the White
House Central America program.
The Miami Police Department document stated in
unambiguous terms: ``Frank Castro is a close associate of
an individual by the name of Francisco Chanes ... Chanes
is a narcotics trafficker ... Chanes was giving financial
support to anti-Castro groups and the Nicaraguan Contra
guerrillas; the monies come from narcotic transactions ...
Frank Castro contacted Mr. Coutin to give the Legion
Cubana financial support to fight the Nicaraguan
Sandinista Marxist Government ... the financial support
was from drug monies.''
Frank Castro, a convicted Cuban-American marijuana
and cocaine smuggler, was a mainstay of the Contra
recruitment and resupply operations in Miami. When the
Miami police report was passed to the FBI and eventually
on to the North-led interagency task force, the Miami
investigation was quashed and all Contra cocaine links
suppressed.
Jack Terrell, a soldier-of-fortune who worked with
the Contras for a time, says he was introduced by Tom
Posey of CMA (Civilian Military Assistance) to a Cuban
named Francisco `Paco' Chanes, part-owner of Ocean Hunter
Seafood in Miami, which bought frozen seafood from
{Frigori@aaficos de Puntarenas}, a Costa Rican
seafood company. Terrell says Chanes offered him a
million-dollar bribe to help smuggle cocaine into the U.S.
in frozen lobsters. Chanes said that CMA would get a lot
of money from the operation.
The Kerry report states: ``Frigorificos de
Puntarenas, a Costa Rican seafood company, was owned and
operated by convicted drug traffickers, Luis Rodriguez,
Carlos Soto and Ubaldo Fernandez. Frigorificos received
$231,587 in humanitarian assistance funds for the Contras
from the State Department in late 1985 and early 1986.
Luis Rodriguez was finally indicted on September 30, 1988
for drug smuggling which took place between November 1980
and January 1983.''
{{John Hull}}: John Hull's ranch in Costa Rica,
whose airstrip was used by the North-Secord Contra arms
and resupply operation, was also a transshipment point for
Colombia cocaine bound for the United States.
The Kerry report states the following: ``John Hull
was a central figure in Contra operations on the Southern
Front when they were managed by Oliver North, from 1984
through late 1986....
``Five witnesses testified that Hull was involved in
cocaine trafficking....'' One witness, pilot Gary Betzner,
testified that his flights had carried weapons for the
Contras to the Hull ranch, and then he carried drugs from
the Hull ranch to the U.S.A.
{{Steve Samos}}: Steve Samos is a top
drug-money launderer in Panama. In January 1987, {The
Wall Street Journal} reported that Mr. Samos was used
by the North-Secord operation for two purposes:
1) Samos created Amalgamated Commercial Enterprises
(ACE) in November 1984; ACE was used to administer the
airlift operation from Ilopango air base in El Salvador to
the Contras; its role was thoroughly established by
special prosecutor Walsh.
2) Samos also has extensive dealings with Panama's
Banco de Iberoamerica, which {The Wall Street
Journal} said may have been used for Contra financing;
it was also part of the money-laundering apparatus which
Samos set up for marijuana smuggler Jose@aa Antonio
Ferna@aandez.
{{Michael Tolliver}}: Pilot Michael Tolliver, a
convicted drug smuggler, testified before the Kerry
committee that at one point he had flown 20 tons of
marijuana to Homestead Air Force Base in Florida, in
exchange for weapons for the Contras. The U.S. government
settled a civil insurance claim for a plane flown by
Toliver which crashed in 1983; Toliver said he had been
hired to deliver weapons to the Contras and he often
brought back drugs on the return flight.
In a deposition in another case, Tolliver testified
that he had received payments for the drugs from Felix
Rodriquez.
Federal Judge Patrick Kelly accused the U.S.
government of engaging in ``criminal conduct'' in the
Tolliver case. He said the case ``stinks to high heaven''
and ``involves the transport of drugs by agents of the
United States, or with the acquiescence of the United
States.''
{{Mansur Al-Kassar}}: Al-Kassar is a notorious
Syrian heroin, hashish, and marijuana smuggler who became
North's ``second channel'' to Ayatollah Khomeini. After
all, funding the Central American Contras was not the only
thing Ollie North was doing--he was also mixed up in the
Middle East. Al-Kassar has been convicted of
drug-trafficking in England and France, was expelled from
Spain when Spanish authorities photographed him hosting
Medellin Cartel figures Pablo Escobar and Rodriguez Gacha
at his Marbella estate, and has been on Interpol's watch
list since the late 1960s.
The CIA lists Al-Kassar as a KGB agent, and scores of
law enforcement agencies list him as a leading
international terrorist, with ties to Abul Abbas and Abu
Nidal. Al-Kassar sold Soviet-made weapons to the Black
September group of Abu Nidal and to the Syrian-sponsored
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General
Command (PFLP-GC) of Ahmed Jibril.
Despite these credentials, Al-Kassar was brought onto
the North team and paid millions of dollars to funnel
Soviet-made arms to the Contras. In 1986, one transaction
alone netted Al-Kassar $1.5 million in payments from the
North-Secord Lake Resources Swiss bank accounts.
- The Mena, Arkansas Story -
Former CIA contract agent Terry Reed, and
investigative reporter John Cummings, have recently
written a book called {Compromised} which
describes Reed's personal experiences in dealing with the
Bush-North secret operations in Arkansas and later in
Mexico. (An exclusive interview with Terry Reed on this
and related subjects appeared in {Executive
Intelligence Review} magazine, Vol. 21, No. 23.)
The individual in charge of the operation introduced
himself to Reed as ``John Cathey''--whom Reed later
discovered to be Oliver North. After working on the secret
(and illegal) Contra training and arms supply operations
in rural Mena, Arkansas for over a year, Reed was later
sent to Mexico to set up a machine-tool manufacturing
operation there which could be used as a front for arms
shipments and intelligence operations. In July 1987, he
discovered that ``ex''-CIA agent Felix Rodriguez--a central
figure in the Contra operations under the name of ``Max
Gomez''--was using Reed's company and warehouse to ship
tons of cocaine into the United States. After a showdown
with Rodriguez, Reed and his family fled Mexico and
returned to the U.S.A. When Reed contacted Oliver North in
November 1987, hoping to go to Washington and tell his
story. North told Reed to lay low, and to stay as far away
from Washington as he could.
- Felix Rodriquez's Role -
The drug-running role of Felix Rodriquez, described
by Terry Reed and also documented by the Kerry committee,
has also been recently confirmed by the U.S. DEA's top
agent in El Salvador from 1985 to 1991. Former DEA agent
Celerino (``Cele'') Castillo, gave interviews in mid-June
to {The Texas Observer} magazine and to the
Associated Press, charging that Oliver North knew all
about the drug flights in and out of El Salvador.
Castillo says that the North network and the CIA
``were running large quantities of cocaine to the United
States via Ilopango,'' the military air base in El
Salvador. He told Associated Press that shipments were
flown to Florida, Texas, and California. ``Oliver North
was running the operation. His pilots were known drug
traffickers listed in government files and these people
were being given U.S. visas.''
Castillo told {The Texas Observer} that the
drugs were flown into Ilopango from South America, stored
in Hangars 4 and 5 there, and were then smuggled northward
for sale in the United States. ``Hangar 4 was owned and
operated by the CIA, and the other hangar was run by Felix
Rodriguez, [alias] `Max Gomez' of the Contra operation.
``Basically they were running cocaine from South
America to the U.S. via Salvador,'' Castillo continued.
``That was the only way the Contras were able to get
financial help. By going to sleep with the enemy down
there.'' He said that North's agents and the CIA were at
the two hangars overseeing the operations ``at all
times.''
In a Feb. 14, 1989 memo to U.S. attache@aa Robert
Stia in Guatemala, Castillo identified more than two dozen
known drug smugglers frequenting Hangars 4 and 5, among
the pilots hired by Oliver North. ``Now all these contract
pilots were documented [in DEA files] traffickers, Class I
cocaine violators that were being hired by the CIA and the
Contras. And the U.S. embassy in El Salvador was giving
visas to these people even though they were documented in
our computers as being narcotics traffickers.''
Castillo says that in 1986, he reported the cocaine
smuggling to George Bush in person and to the U.S.
ambassador to El Salvador. As to the ambassador's
response, Castillo reports: ``His words to me were that it
was a covert White House operation run by Colonel Oliver
North and for us to stay away from the operation.''
On Jan. 14, 1986, Castillo says, he met Vice
President Bush at a cocktail party at the U.S.
ambassador's house in Guatemala City. Castillo described
to Bush his job as chief of the U.S. drug law enforcement
in the region. When Castillo told Bush minute details of
North's drug-running operations, Castillo reports, Bush
``just smiled and he walked away from me.''
At a press conference in Washington on Aug. 2, 1994,
Castillo again reiterated his belief that North knew that
narcotics were being run out of the air base in Ilopango.
``All of his pilots were drug-traffickers,'' Castillo
said. A majority had been arrested for drug-trafficking.
``He knew what they were up to and refused to do anything
about it.''
Castillo said he had two informants at Ilopango who
had access to all the flight plans and the pilots. The
informants saw the drugs and the money, and the pilots
also talked freely about cocaine they were taking to the
United States and about the money. When the DEA ran the
names of the pilots through their computer, ``every single
one of them was documented as a narcotics trafficker in
DEA files.''
Castillo also pointed to the 543 pages of Ollie North
notebooks which make reference to drugs and drug
trafficking, as identified by the Kerry Committee.
``Robert Owens, his buddy, was warning him and advising
him that the Contras were heavily involved in narcotics
trafficking.''
Castillo also disclosed that there is still an open
DEA investigation on North. He said that the DEA has a
case, No. GFGD 91-39, in which North is being investigated
for smuggling weapons to the Philippines with known drug
traffickers.
- Ollie Defends a Narco-Terrorist -
All of Ollie's campaign promises to get ``tough on
criminals'' are a farce in light of what Ollie actually did
in the case of Jose Bueso-Rosa. Bueso-Rosa was convicted
in a U.S. court in 1985 in connection with a plot to
assassinate the President of Honduras, a plot which was
funded by a multi-million dollar cocaine deal.
The Justice Department had called the case the ``most
significant case of narco-terrorism yet discovered.'' Yet,
Ollie directly intervened with federal authorities to try
and keep Buena-Sosa from having to serve his U.S. prison
sentence!
The Kerry report states that senior U.S. government
officials, including North, ``intervened with a federal
judge to obtain a reduction to five years in the sentence
for Honduran General Jose Bueso-Rosa, who was convicted in
1985 of conspiring to assassinate President Suaza Cordoba
of Honduras.''
The Kerry Report also reports that the assassination
attempt was to have been financed by the proceeds from the
sale {in the United States} of $40 million in
cocaine.
According to the Kerry report, Oliver North
``suggested that efforts be made on Bueso-Rosa's behalf''
to keep him from disclosing details of his support for the
Contras. At a meeting of top State and Justice Department
officials on Sept. 24, 1986, after Bueso-Rosa had already
been sentenced to prison, North demanded that Bueso be
released and sent back to Honduras, rather than going to a
U.S. prison. North did not succeed in preventing
Bueso-Rosa from going to prison, but he did succeed in
having him transferred from a medium-security facility in
Alabama, to the minimum-security ``Club Fed'' prison camp
at Eglin Air Force base in Florida.
North's strenuous and repeated efforts on
Bueso-Rosa's behalf were even opposed by FBI and Justice
Department officials, as well as DEA officials.
One U.S. law enforcement official, testifying before
the Kerry committee, said outright that the intervention
of North and others had ``undermined President Reagan's
policies'' in the areas of anti-terrorism and
anti-narcotics.
Justice Department official Mark Richard testified
that he had told North that his efforts would undercut the
Justice Department's position that ``this man is a serious
international terrorist.''
Top FBI official Oliver Revell, then working closely
with North on other matters, recently told {The
Washington Post}: ``There was no way we could do
something for someone who had been involved in drug
trafficking against the United States.''
But that didn't stop Ollie.
--
- Chapter 6 -
- Ollie and the East Bloc -
Although Ollie loves to brag about how he was
``fighting communists and terrorists,'' here also, the
reality is very different. Oliver North worked
hand-in-glove with communists and terrorists as part of
the worldwide gun-running network of which his
``Enterprise'' was a major component.
Some of this began to come to light after the fall of
the Berlin Wall. In December 1989, angry East German
citizens, accompanied by television camera crews, went to
a highly guarded site near Rostock, and uncovered a huge
secret arms and ammunition depot. The depot had been under
the control of a little-known East German state company,
IMES GmbH. Hours later, the man alleged to have been the
mastermind of a multi-billion-dollar illegal
arms-smuggling trade, which also involved narcotics, went
underground.
This was Alexander Schalck-Golodkowski, a
57-year-old, 220-pound East German communist nicknamed
``Big Alex,'' who had controlled East German foreign trade
as its deputy foreign trade minister.
Schalck was also a colonel in the East German State
Security machinery, known as the ``Stasi.''
Soon thereafter, West German authorities revealed
that Schalck had fled to the West and turned himself over
to West Berlin police, requesting to be placed in
protective custody. By February 1990, the West German
press was reporting that Schalck was in the U.S.A., at a
special CIA ``debriefing'' camp near Washington.
IMES was a key part of a major international network
over which Schalck had presided since 1967. A web of
secret Swiss, West German, Liechtenstein, and
``letterbox'' firms in other nations, were used by the
East German regime and the Stasi for the smuggling
operations, overseen by Schalck under the Department of
Commercial Coordination of the Ministry of Foreign Trade,
or CoCo. According to West German reports, Schalck and his
CoCo reported directly to party boss Erich Honecker and
the Central Committee of the East German Communist Party
(SED).
On Jan. 27, 1990, a dispatch datelined Berlin
appeared in the conservative West German newspaper
{Die Welt}. The front-page report, citing sources
high up inside the East German regime, reported that
Schalck and his operation at the East German Foreign Trade
Ministry ``played a decisive role'' in narcotics traffic.
The East Berlin Schoenefeld Airport, controlled by
Schalck's ministry, according to these reports, served as
the central ``crossroads, ... above all for Libya and
Syria as well as Iran,'' in their international drug
trafficking.
IMES had first come to light in the West when
documents were seized by Swedish Customs officials at the
Malmoe offices of Swedish businessman Karl-Erik Schmitz on
Sept. 29, 1985, over a year before the ``Iran-Contra''
story broke in the U.S.A.
The Malmoe raid produced thousands of pages of
material which documented international smuggling routes
employed by what was known in the trade as the
``explosives cartel,'' an elite group of western companies
including Bofors-Nobel of Sweden and related firms in West
Germany, the United States, Belgium, Italy, France,
Holland, and Great Britain.
It is also the case that this Swedish-based worldwide
arms smuggling network was fully integrated into the
networks used by the North-Secord ``Enterprise.''
Scandinavian investigators familiar with the Schmitz
affair state bluntly that the network of Schmitz and that
of Ollie North are one and the same.
Schmitz is known to have used a CIA proprietary air
charter service, St. Lucia Airways, for some of his
illegal shipments. St. Lucia Airways was also used for CIA
and ``Enterprise'' arms shipments to Angola and Iran, and
it provided Richard Secord with the plane on which North,
Robert McFarlane and others travelled to Teheran in May
1986.
- East Bloc Arms Deals -
This now brings us to the strange cases of two Danish
ships, the {Erria} and the {Pia Vesta}.
On April 28, 1986, the North-Secord Enterprise sent a
team, including Albert Hakim and former CIA official Tom
Clines, to Copenhagen where they set up a web of dummy
companies. Clines and friends met with Tom Erik Parlow and
his business partner, Danish ship charterer Svend
Andersen. Clines for years had a special friendship with
the Norwegian businessman Parlow, who reportedly spent
entire summers at Clines's U.S. summer home. The
Copenhagen meeting was reported by Secord to North in a
coded message sent via their KL-43 encryption devices.
According to the 1993 Final Report of the Iran-Contra
Independent Counsel (the Walsh Report), Clines ``had
developed significant contacts with arms dealers in
Western Europe and behind the Iron Curtain.'' Clines,
according to Walsh, ``oversaw the logistics of purchasing
weapons from private suppliers in Europe and arranging for
their delivery to Central America.''
The Walsh Report also reports that on April 28, 1986,
Hakim and Clines purchased a ship called the
{Erria}, ``which the Enterprise had leased a year
earlier for weapons shipments to the Contras.... Thomas
Parlow became the {Erria}'s Danish shipping
agent.'' The Walsh report says that Hakim would telephone
Parlow with shipping instructions, and Parlow would
communicate them to the ship's captain.
The {Erria} was used by the Enterprise for a
number of purposes, including shipping East bloc arms to
the Contras. The Walsh report, for example, states that in
July 1986 the {Erria} left Portugal with a
shipment of arms picked up in Poland and in Portugal
destined for the Contras.
Secord also directly arranged for communist arms, in
one instance purchasing a shipload of weapons from the
People's Republic of China in late 1984, according to the
Walsh report.
At the same time that the Enterprise was buying the
{Erria} in April 1986, it was also arranging,
through Svend Andersen's S.A. Chartering, to charter the
{Pia Vesta}.
On May 6, 1986, a week after Clines and Hakim were in
Copenhagen, the {Pia Vesta} departed Rostock, East
Germany, where it had been loaded with a shipment
including 32 military trucks and 200 tons of arms,
including 1,500 Soviet AK 47 assault rifles, and 1,440 RPG
rockets. The {Pia Vesta} left Rostock with ``end
user certificates'' which falsely labelled its cargo ``32
specialized trucks and spare parts.''
Where did the arms come from? The East German
state-owned shipping company, VEB Deutrans, had delivered
goods from Schalck-Golodkowski's IMES for loading at
Rostock, and IMES in East Berlin had drawn up papers dated
April 15, 1986, claiming that the cargo was headed for
Peru.
- Star Productions -
Captured papers from the ship further revealed more
about the false documentation provided by IMES and
Deutrans. The papers declared that the purchase of the
``cargo'' was ordered by a company named Marnix. Records
reveal that Marnix was acting on behalf of a Geneva-based
French national, George Starkmann, owner of a Geneva firm,
Star Productions SA. A declassified NSC memo from Tom
Clines to Oliver North dated March 17, 1986, names ``Star
Production'' and one ``George Stockman'' in connection
with Secord's supplying arms and aircraft for the Contras.
It was Star Productions SA, which actually paid IMES
for the weapons loaded onto the {Pia Vesta} in
Rostock. More curious still is the fact that the money
Star Productions used to pay IMES originated from the
Banco Arabe Espanol of Madrid, whose head is the former
head of Qaddafi's Libyan National Bank, Abdulla A. Saudi.
Someone should ask Ollie North why he used a
Libyan-controlled bank to finance a shipment of East bloc
arms, under the guise of ``fighting communism.''
After sailing through the Panama Canal towards Peru,
the {Pia Vesta} turned back to Balboa, Panama. On
June 14, 1986, officials of the Panamanian government,
acting reportedly on orders of General Noriega, who
himself had been reportedly alerted by Peru's President
Alan Garcia, boarded the {Pia Vesta}, discovered
the arms and the false end-user documents, and impounded
the vessel and its contents. A subsequent investigation by
the Peruvian Senate concluded that the {Pia Vesta}
was carrying arms destined for the Contras in Central
America.
However, other evidence later emerged indicating that
the ship's cargo of East bloc weapons was part of a
deception operation being run out of the Bush-North secret
government apparatus in the NSC. The real destination of
the East bloc arms was to have been the Marxist rebels in
El Salvador. The weapons were to be the bait in an
elaborate ``trap,'' in which the arms would be captured,
and then identified as of East bloc origin, in order to
give Washington a public pretext to escalate its covert
operations in Central America.
The {Erria} had been purchased for the
Enterprise in the name of Dolmy Business Inc., a
Panamanian shell company, which Walsh found to be owned by
the Compagnie de Services Fiduciaries (CSF) of Geneva. The
Walsh report declares:
``Financial management of all Enterprise assets was
done in Switzerland by Compagnie de Services Fiduciaire
(CSF) controlled by Willard Zucker, an American tax lawyer
living in Geneva.''
Zucker in fact was the Geneva representative of New
York law firm, Willkie Farr & Gallagher, whose senior
partner was Kenneth Bialkin--a top official of the
Anti-Defamation League (ADL) of B'nai B'rith. Bialkin,
working with Zucker, had arranged for Robert Vesco to take
control of the old Meyer Lansky money-laundering apparatus
of Investor's Overseas Services (IOS) from Bernie
Cornfeld. Zucker then ran an asset-stripping operation on
IOS, and left the company to form CSF in September 1971.
Informed reports say that CSF is simply a reorganization
of the same money-laundering networks used by Lansky,
under a new, less-publicized name.
Vesco today is based in Havana, reportedly under the
personal protection of Fidel Castro. He went there
following an extended stay in Costa Rica, where he fled
after being charged by Swiss authorities of embezzling
what the U.S. authorities estimated in 1973 to be $392
million through his network of Luxembourg and Swiss
``shell'' bank accounts. From Havana, Vesco is said to
coordinate financial and other services for the worldwide
cocaine trafficking operations of the Colombian Medellin
cartel.
--
- Chapter 7 -
- Bush's `Terrorism Task Force': Ollie's Plumbers Unit -
Ollie North is now campaigning as a candidate who
will oppose ``big government'' and who will fight for our
liberties against the ``Washington crowd.''
But during the years 1981-86, no one was more of an
insider than Ollie North, and no one had less regard for
our liberties. We now look at the police-state apparatus
which George Bush and Ollie North used to hound their
enemies--for harassment, dirty tricks, and frameups.
In the first part of this pamphlet, we saw how a
secret ``crisis management'' apparatus was created in the
White House and National Security Council, operating under
the direct control of George Bush. This included the
Special Situation Group (SSG) chaired by Bush, and the
SSG's subordinate Crisis Pre-Planning Group (CPPG), of
which Oliver North was the staff coordinator. We saw that
North was the NSC representative to the Continuity of
Government and related ``emergency management'' projects.
That apparatus continued to grow. In April 1984,
President Reagan signed NSDD 138, creating the ``Terrorist
Incident Working Group'' (TIWG, or ``Tee-wig'') which
reported to Bush's Special Situation Group. Then, in July
1985, President Reagan named Bush to head up a new
Terrorism Task Force, consisting of representatives of the
Defense Department, CIA, State Department, NSC, plus the
FBI's Oliver ``Buck'' Revell, and the Israeli Amiram Nir.
(North also claims to have written the NSDD establishing
the VP's Task Force.)
The task force's report, issued in February 1986,
created a permanent extension of the task force: the
Operations Sub-Group (OSG), officially a sub-group of Mr.
Bush's TIWG. It also established a permanent
counter-terrorism office located in the NSC staff, headed
by--guess who?--Oliver North. Mr. North's two assistants,
Craig Coe and Robert Earl, were simply reassigned from Mr.
Bush's task force.
The Operations Sub-Group (OSG) was an interagency
coordinating group which operated so as to bypass the
regular intelligence and law enforcement agencies. For
example, when the FBI's Buck Revell was operating under
the authority of the OSG, he would report to the OSG, not
to the FBI director. The OSG was used, among other things,
to run domestic surveillance and ``dirty tricks'' against
Bush's enemies, particularly against opponents of the
Contra policy.
The OSG overlapped heavily with the Continuity-of-
Goverment project. For example, the CIA's Charles Allen
was his agency's representative to {both} COG and the
Operations Sub-Group.
The domestic side of North's operations was
investigated by Congress, but the results were never made
public. The pro-establishment magazine {Foreign
Policy} reports: ``Congressional investigators did
draft a chapter about the domestic side of the scandal for
the Iran-{contra} report, but it was blocked by
House and Senate Republicans.''
- The Case of Jack Terrell -
One well-documented incident of Operations Sub-Group
targeting of the secret government's ``enemies' list'' is
the case of Jack Terrell, who was a source for
congressional investigations and news media exposure of
the Contra operation beginning in March 1986. Terrell had
also been interviewed by federal investigators in Miami
who were looking into both gun-running and drug
trafficking in connection with the Contras, and was thus a
federal witness.
Two news media programs based on Terrell's
information had a particularly strong impact. The first
was a segment on National Public Radio (NPR) run on May 5,
1986, which triggered a renewed round of inquiries, and,
says Terrell, the White House/NSC ``picked up the pace
of its efforts to silence critics through intimidation and
smear tactics.''
Then, on June 25, 1986, CBS-TV's ``West 57th Street''
news magazine show ran a piece on the secret Contra
program, after which Oliver North and Richard Secord set
into motion their own plan to silence Terrell. This first
involved Secord's deploying of the ``Enterprise'' security
agent, Glenn Robinette, to find out what Terrell knew, by
posing as a lawyer representing investors who wanted to do
a movie and book using Terrell's information.
On July 17, 1986, North wrote a ``Top Secret'' memo
to National Security Adviser Poindexter, entitled:
``Terrorist Threat: Terrel.'' North began:
``Several months ago, a U.S. citizen named Jack
Terrel [sic] became an active participant in the
disinformation/active measures campaign against the
Nicaraguan Democratic Resistance.... Terrel has appeared
on various television `documentaries' alleging corruption,
human rights abuses, drug running, arms smuggling, and
assassination attempts by the resistance and their
supporters. Terrel has also been working closely with
various congressional staffs in preparing for hearings and
inquiries regarding the role of U.S. government officials
in illegally supporting the Nicaraguan resistance.''
North's memo went on to claim that one of the
security officers for Project Democracy (i.e., Robinette)
had evaluated Terrell as ``extremely dangerous,'' and
possibly a foreign agent. Never one to be confined by the
truth, North even alleged that Terrell had offered to
assassinate the President of the United States.
North told Admiral John Poindexter that the FBI ``is
preparing a counter intelligence/counter-terrorism plan
for review by OSG-TIWG tomorrow.''
Admiral Poindexter turned down North's proposal that he
discuss this with the President and the Attorney General,
and instead asked North to give him another memo, with the
results of the OSG evaluation. Ten days later, North gave
Admiral Poindexter a drastically toned-down memo, which
omitted any reference to the assassination threat or to
Terrell as a foreign agent, but which mentioned that ``his
charges are at the center of Senator [John] Kerry's
investigation in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.''
Meanwhile, Buck Revell was deploying the FBI's
Special Operations Groups (SOG) to conduct intensive
surveillance of Terrell. An FBI memo released by the
congressional Iran-Contra Committee says: ``we need
full-time SOG coverage of Terrell''--which resulted in
heavy surveillance of Terrell, including FBI agents
following Terrell from Washington to Miami and back.
Revell and North were doing this, at the same time Terrell
was a government witness regarding the Contras!
This got to be too much even for FBI officialdom. The
FBI liaison to the NSC asserted that North ``was trying to
interfere with a bureau investigation into allegations
that the Contras were involved in running drugs.'' Revell
himself tried to cover his own rear end, by telling
{The Wall Street Journal} that he and others at
the FBI were concerned that North might be running a
``plumbers' unit'' out of the White House.
The congressional Iran-Contra Committee report cited
the Terrell case as one of {seven} instances which
``show how the NSC staff, and North in particular, tried
to prevent exposure of the Enterprise by law enforcement
agencies. We do not mean to impugn the integrity of the
law enforcement officials involved.... The fault lies with
the members of the NSC staff who tried to compromise the
independence of law enforcement agencies by misusing
claims of national security.''
--
- Chapter 8 -
- North vs. LaRouche -
Oliver North's first documented operation against
Lyndon LaRouche came in connection with North's services
for the Kissinger Commission on Central America. In March
1984, LaRouche wrote to President Reagan, warning of the
dangers of carrying out Kissinger's policies, and in
particular, of the danger of playing into the Soviet
strategy of tying down the United States in escalating
insurrection and warfare in the Americas.
It was Oliver North who made a written recommendation
to the White House on March 15, 1984, that LaRouche's
letter ``should {not} be answered. Mr. LaRouche
simply wants the attention of a reply--and would probably
use such a response irresponsibly.''
Around this same time, two top officials of the
Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a hate organization which
had just finished collaborating with NBC in broadcasting
lies about LaRouche, met with NSC officials and demanded
that the NSC cut off all contact with LaRouche. The ADL's
intervention was reflected in a NSC internal memorandum
written some days after the meeting, on March 22, 1984,
which reported that the ADL officials ``emphasized their
concern re the possibility of some sort of NSC link with
the LaRouche organization.''
Why was the ADL worried about a link between the NSC
and LaRouche?
On March 4, 1984, NBC-TV had broadcast a 20-minute
attack on LaRouche, designed not only to instigate a legal
frameup of LaRouche, but also to force the Reagan
administration to break off all contact with LaRouche and
his associates. In preparing the NBC program, one of the
people interviewed was Dr. Norman Bailey, a special
assistant to President Reagan on the NSC. Dr. Bailey
acknowledged meeting with associates of LaRouche on a
number of occasions. ``This I found quite useful quite
simply because they have in my view one of the best
private intelligence services in the world,'' Bailey told
NBC. ``They are also strongly in favor of certain programs
that the administration is very much in favor of also.''
One of the programs to which Bailey was referring was
President Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI).
Lyndon LaRouche first began designing and advocating a
ballistic missile defense system employing new physical
principles in 1977, and by early 1982, 14 months before
President Reagan's March 23, 1983 televised announcement
of SDI, LaRouche was asked to function as a White House
back-channel for high-level ``private'' discussions with
Soviet diplomats. LaRouche's discussions with Moscow
representatives covered a broad range of SDI-related
issues, including the economic benefits of a crash program
to develop and deploy ballistic missile defense. All of
this was known to North's boss, George Bush.
Richard Morris, executive assistant to William Clark,
President Reagan's national security adviser during
1982-83, later testified in court that LaRouche and
associates had had many meetings with NSC staff to discuss
policy issues. Morris said that there was a group in the
NSC staff hostile to LaRouche, who described Mr. LaRouche
as a communist, a fascist, a member of the KGB, etc.
Three NSC staff officials named by Morris as heading
up this anti-LaRouche cabal were Walter Raymond (who was
in charge of ``public diplomacy''), Kenneth de
Graffenried, and Roy Godson (a long-time LaRouche watcher
who had tried to incite the FBI against LaRouche as early
as 1976).
In his book {Under Fire}, Oliver North is quick to
line up with the anti-LaRouche Bush clique. He writes that
in early 1983, ``an adviser to a senior government
official sent me a weird magazine clipping about an
Israeli conspiracy to dominate the world--and suggested I
might want to look into it.'' The article, North says,
turned out to be from a magazine ``put out by Lyndon
LaRouche and his followers''--which North cites as an
exmple of the ``distinct anti-Israel bias'' in some
government circles. Other examples North cites are the
State Department and former Defense Secretary Caspar
Weinberger.
- `Public Diplomacy'' and John Train -
The core of what later became known as the ``Get
LaRouche Task Force'' had its origins in the secret White
House/NSC apparatus and the anti-LaRouche cabal within it.
In early 1982, CIA official Walter Raymond was
brought into the NSC to head a government propaganda and
disinformation operation known as ``Public Diplomacy.''
Raymond was recommended for this job by George Bush's
national security adviser Don Gregg, also a CIA veteran.
The ostensible purpose of this apparatus was to organize
``private'' news media support for the secret government
projects, such as the Contras and the Afghanistani
Mujaheddin. It was described by another official who
worked with the group as a ``vast psychological warfare
operation.''
Raymond then engineered the creation of an Office of
Public Diplomacy for Latin America and the Caribbean in
the State Department, which operated under the direction
of a Restricted Interagency Group (RIG) run by Oliver
North.
In late 1982, Henry Kissinger began writing to FBI
Director William Webster to demand an FBI investigation of
LaRouche; when the FBI didn't move fast enough,
Kissinger's cronies raised the issue at a January 1983
meeting of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory
Board (PFIAB), which spurred the FBI into action within a
matter of weeks.
About the same time, Walter Raymond was instrumental
in establishing a ``private donors executive committee,''
wealthy businessmen who could be drawn upon to support
specific programs of the secret government's covert
apparatus, either financially or by placing stories in the
news media.
One of the first projects of this group was a meeting
which took place in April 1983 at the New York apartment
of financier John Train. This meeting planned out every
significant news media attack on LaRouche over the next
few years, beginning with the NBC-TV slanders in January
and March of 1984, which set the stage for the subsequent
judicial frameup and imprisonment of LaRouche and a number
of his associates. The NSC's Roy Godson, the ADL's Mira
Boland, and NBC's Patricia Lynch were among the attendees
at the Train salon meetings.
- Stings and Scams -
In August 1984, the Bush-North secret government
attempted a clumsy frameup operation against associates of
LaRouche, particularly targeting Jeffrey Steinberg, one of
the heads of security intelligence for LaRouche. Based on
information fed to the CIA by former Army special forces
sergeant Fred Lewis and two of his associates, Gary Howard
and Ron Tucker, the FBI put out the phony story that
Steinberg had a $20 million kitty to finance
assassinations of Latin American drug dealers; and it
labelled Steinberg a ``terrorist threat''--the same way
this same apparatus labelled Jack Terrell less than two
years later.
Steinberg was then added to the FBI's ``Terrorist
Photo Album''--a file of persons and organizations opposed
to Reagan administration policies in Central America. This
compilation even included U.S. senators and congressmen.
The FBI temporarily opened a spurious ``terrorism''
investigation of Steinberg, which had to be dropped in
1985 for lack of any evidence--without Steinberg ever even
being informed of this foisted and fraudulent
``investigation.''
The targeting of Steinberg via the phony
``terrorism'' allegation was particularly ironic. He had
been one of the principal authors of the 1978 book
{Dope, Inc.,} which exposed the role of major
financial institutions, eastern and western intelligence
agencies, and terrorists, in the world drug trade. The
initial contact with Fred Lewis had come as the result of
Steinberg's role in arranging the safe escort of a
LaRouche associate and leading anti-drug activist from
Colombia to the United States following a kidnapping
incident.
Following the first targeting of Steinberg, the
Lewis-Howard-Tucker trio attempted a clumsy scam operation
involving Soviet dissidents Andrei Sakharov and Elena
Bonner. The trio had told relatives of Sakharov and Bonner
that they could arrange for them to escape from the Soviet
Union, and then Howard approached Steinberg in late 1984
seeking financing for the operation. LaRouche and his
associates turned down the request; the FBI subsequently
investigated the trio for conducting an ``advance fee
scam.''
An FBI document disclosed in 1988 stated that Lewis,
Howard, and Tucker ``claimed they had previously been
requested by the FBI and CIA to penetrate the LaRouche
organization.'' A more precise reading of just who was
deploying them is indicated by the fact that Howard and
Tucker were part-time deputies for Sheriff Gary Painter in
Midland, Texas, where the Bush family oil company, Zapata
Oil, is based, and where Sheriff Painter is known to be
personally close to George Bush. Howard and Tucker told
{The Washington Post} that in 1986 they had met
with Bush's chief counsel, C. Boyden Gray. We will meet
Fred Lewis again soon, in connection with Oliver North and
Richard Secord.
- The Frameup Begins -
In the autumn of 1984, coordinated with ``Public
Diplomacy'' news media attacks, a federal grand jury
witchhunt was launched against LaRouche's 1984
presidential campaign organization in Boston.
In the fall of 1985, North asked Texas businessman
(and reputed CIA contract employee) Phil Mabry to monitor
a list of organizations, both ``liberal'' and
``conservative,'' including the LaRouche group. (Mabry
said that North had already brought up LaRouche before
this.) LaRouche was on Mabry's list of ``conservative
groups'' to monitor. His assignment was: ``Keep close
watch & discredit, disinfo [disinformation] on all
above.''
North also asked Mabry to write to the FBI to ask
them to investigate a list of liberal groups opposing U.S.
policy in Central America. North told Mabry that he could
guarantee results, and that ``[o]ur man Buck will take
care of things''--referring to Oliver ``Buck'' Revell, who
was the FBI representative on Ollie's Operations
Sub-Group. Indeed, Mabry addressed a letter to FBI
Director Webster--and he got a reply signed by Buck
Revell.
Mabry later told {The Boston Globe} that
North's technique was the following: ``Ollie told me that
if the FBI received letters from five or six unrelated
sources, all requesting an investigation of the same
groups, that would give the bureau a mandate to go ahead
and investigate.''
Meanwhile, associates of LaRouche were in direct
competition with Ollie North's private fundraising
operations.
One notable example is Barbara Newington, one of the
largest private contributors to the Contra support
operations, who also contributed in the range of $2
million to organizations identified with LaRouche.
According to the Walsh Final Report, Mrs. Newington
was the second-largest private contributor to North's
Contra operations. Two of North's fundraising operatives,
Carl ``Spitz'' Channell and Richard Miller, later each
pled guilty to a felony, involving illegal use of a
tax-exempt organization. According to Special Prosecutor
Lawrence Walsh, the private fundraising also was part of
the central conspiracy charge against North, which had to
be dismissed prior to trial because the Reagan-Bush
administration refused to allow the use of classified
information in his trial.
North's sidekick Channell fed warnings and slanders
about LaRouche to Mrs. Newington, and on the weekend of
May 3-4, 1986, North and Channell held a weekend outing at
her Connecticut estate, after which she soon ceased her
``LaRouche'' contributions. (See Chapter 9.)
Mrs. Newington's principal contact among LaRouche's
associates was Michael Billington. Billington was
viciously targeted by the Get LaRouche Task Force and was
indicted three times--two federal indictments, plus the
state of Virginia. He is now serving a 77-year sentence in
Virginia.
- `Our Man Here' -
On May 5, 1986, immediately after North's weekend
outing at Barbara Newington's estate, Richard Secord sent
an encoded message to Oliver North. The message, marked
``Secret,'' included the phrase: ``Our man here claims
Lewis has collected info against LaRouche.''
The ``Lewis'' was Fred Lewis, whom we have met
before, as the ex-Green Beret who was one of the
instigators of the 1984 effort to label Jeffrey Steinberg
as a ``terrorist.''
The May 5 message was sent from Secord to North on a
KL-43 encryption device. North had improperly obtained
these portable devices from the National Security Agency,
and distributed them to Secord, Richard Gadd, Felix
Rodriguez, and others in his network, enabling them to
send messages in a secure manner via telephone lines or
radio transmitters from anywhere in the world.
Secord was in possession of one of North's illicit
NSA encryption machines, and marked his messages as
``Secret,'' even though he was a private citizen and had
no classification authority!
(That date, May 5, 1986, has already come up in our
story: Jack Terrell reported that the May 5, 1986 NPR
program on Contra gun-running and drug-smuggling set off a
new White House/NSC campaign to silence its enemies.)
In May-June 1986, soon after the ``our man here''
message was sent, the federal grand jury investigation of
LaRouche's campaign organizations in Boston, which had
been languishing for almost two years, was reactivated.
The issues behind the growing campaign to frame up
and eliminate LaRouche were much bigger than North himself
would have known. As we have indicated earlier, Kissinger
and Bush, Ollie North's real controllers, understood
better, for example, the Soviet demands to eliminate
LaRouche, especially after President Reagan adopted
LaRouche's proposal for the Strategic Defense Initiative
(SDI) in March 1983.
Using perjured testimony from witnesses provided by
the ``Train Salon'' gang, particularly NBC's Pat Lynch,
the Boston grand jury issued indictments against 17
organizations and individuals associated with LaRouche on
Oct. 6, 1986--including Michael Billington and Jeffrey
Steinberg. At the same time, federal and Virginia state
and local officials carried out a massive armed raid on
offices of LaRouche's associates in Leesburg, Virginia.
Standing by during the raid was an armored personnel
carrier owned by ARGUS--a Project Doomsday-linked private
entity operating in Virginia and other states.
The local organizer of the raid was then-Deputy
Sheriff Donald L. Moore--the Get LaRouche Task Force's
point man in Leesburg--who also had been deputized by the
U.S. Marshals. Moore says that he had served as a
lieutenant in the same Marine company as Ollie North in
Vietnam in 1969, where they were both platoon leaders.
(The company, prophetically, was called ``Kilo company.'')
(According to court documents, Moore was later
diagnosed as suffering from ``Post Traumatic Stress
Disorder,'' and was subject to fits of anger, emotional
outbursts, and flashbacks, all attributed to his Vietnam
experience. Ollie North has similar problems; North was
hospitalized in 1974 for psychiatric treatment, after he
was found running around naked, babbling incoherently and
waving a .45.)
- The Leesburg Raid -
On Oct. 6, 1986, as more than 400 local, state and
federal law enforcement officials carried out an
early-morning raid against offices of LaRouche-associated
publishing companies in Leesburg, Va., Moore was eager to
launch a bloody assault on the farm where LaRouche was
staying at the time. In fact, Moore had proposed a plan
for the attack on LaRouche's residence. The logistical
backup for that support was to be provided by the ARGUS
private army apparatus. The attack was called off after
LaRouche dispatched a telegram to President Reagan on the
evening of Oct. 6, warning of the planned assault.
The raid by heavily armed police and FBI
agents--backed by helicopters and armored
vehicles--against the LaRouche-associated businesses was
one of the largest police actions ever carried out in the
United States. Another highly irregular feature of the
raid was what happened to the two truckloads of documents
which were seized by the FBI and other agencies from the
publishing companies' offices. Strangely enough, the
documents were whisked off to a Marine Corps facility
located at Fort Myer in Arlington, Virginia, just across
the river from Washington, D.C.
The use of the Marine building was arranged through
Ollie North's friends in the Pentagon's Special Operations
Division. The official request for use of the military
facility was sent on Oct. 1, 1986 to Room 2C840 of the
Pentagon--the Special Operations Division, then known as
the Joint Special Operations Agency (JSOA) of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff.
This is the Pentagon's CIA-linked center for
counter-terrorism operations, which functioned as a
deployable asset of the ``crisis management'' apparatus
coordinated by North at the NSC. It was also the same
office, naturally enough, from which Secord had recruited
a number of key personnel for his ``private'' Contra
supply operation starting in 1984.
The head of the Joint Special Operations Agency, at
Room 2C840, was also a member of the NSC Operations
Sub-Group, along with North, the FBI's Buck Revell, and
the CIA's Charles Allen--all known LaRouche-haters.
Two months later, after the Leesburg raid, FBI agents
searched Oliver North's own office in connection with the
``Iran-Contra'' investigation. Among the documents in
North's safe which had not been shredded, was found a
printed copy of the ``our man here'' KL-43 message. It was
handed over to special prosecutor Lawrence Walsh.
- Mistrial in Boston -
In early 1988, during the trial of LaRouche,
Steinberg, Edward Spannaus, and others in Boston, a copy of
the secret Secord-to-North message was obtained by a
co-defendant of LaRouche by means of a Freedom of
Information (FOIA) request to the special prosecutor's
office.
Release of the ``our man here'' message blew the
LaRouche case in Boston wide open.
``Our man here'' was first identified by federal
prosecutors as the FBI's Buck Revell. A few days later,
``our man here'' was re-identified as one John Cupp by
government prosecutors. Richard Secord said the same thing
in a newspaper interview.
Cupp had ``retired'' from the military just a few
months before the date of the North-Secord message, and
had gone to work for Secord's Contra supply operation,
traveling back and forth to Central America. He often
worked out of Felix Rodriquez's base at Ilopango. Cupp's
last official posting, before joining Secord's operation,
had been to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Room 2C840.
Most of the last two months of the trial was spent in
hearings on classified information and on government
misconduct. When the federal task force realized they were
losing the case in Boston, they scuttled it. A mistrial
was declared in May 1988. The jurors took a poll among
themselves, and told {The Boston Herald} that they
would have acquitted all defendants on all charges.
While vowing to retry the case in Boston, the federal
task force was secretly agreed on moving it instead to
Alexandria, Va. The federal court there, with the Pentagon
and CIA headquarters close by, is the government's
favorite venue for trying cases involving the intelligence
community and the secret government.
Here, federal prosecutors could be certain of ramming
through a conviction--by preventing any more evidence on
the Bush-Kissinger-North operation from coming out, and by
preventing the evidence that the defendants already had
from being presented to the jury.
Still, Bush's secret government team took no chances.
The foreman of the jury which convicted LaRouche along
with Mike Billington and five others, was one Buster
Horton, identified at the time only as a Department of
Agriculture official.
Buster Horton, it later turned out, was no ordinary
Agriculture Department employee. Government documents
subsequently obtained by LaRouche and his defense team
showed that Horton had served as one of his agency's
representatives on the FEMA ``continuity of government''
committee--alongside Oliver North.
--
- Ollie's Buddies in Loudoun County, Virginia -
The Bush-North ``secret government'' apparatus extended
its tentacles directly into Loudoun County, Virginia,
where the publishers of {New Federalist} and associates of
Lyndon LaRouche have been headquartered since the
mid-1980s. Recently, a number of North's co-conspirators
there have come to grief.
The Loudoun-based paramilitary organization known as
ARGUS (Armored Response Group U.S.) organization, is
reported to be a Loudoun component of the FEMA/Doomsday
apparatus. ARGUS units were on stand-by during the October
1986 raids in Leesburg, and were ready for the planned
bloody assault on Lyndon LaRouche's residence. ARGUS was a
product of the same circles that sponsored North's
operations.
The financing for ARGUS came from some of the same
very spooky foundations--such as the Hanes Foundation and
the Ohrstrom Foundation--which also funded Carl ``Spitz''
Channell's National Endowment for the Preservation of
Liberty, and PRODEMCA, a ``Project Democracy'' front, both
of which were used to funnel ``private'' donations into
Ollie North's Contra projects.
In June 1992, the Loudoun Board of Supervisors
ordered the Sheriff's Department to sever all ties with
ARGUS, of which the local sheriff, John Isom, was a
founder along with ``Major General'' J.C. Herbert Bryant,
Jr., the self-styled ``commander'' of ARGUS.
On June 14, 1994, Bryant was indicted by a federal
grand jury in the District of Columbia. He was charged
with impersonating a U.S. marshal and carrying a pistol
without a license, and now faces up to nine years in
federal prison.
The local point man for the Get LaRouche Task Force
in the mid- and late-1980s was Loudoun County Sheriff's
Deputy Donald Moore--who bragged that he had been in the
same unit as Ollie North in Vietnam. Moore testified that
he viewed his anti-LaRouche campaign in Loudoun in the
same terms as pacification of a ``strategic hamlet'' in
Vietnam.
In February 1992, Moore was fired from the Sheriff's
Department. In September 1992, Moore was arrested along
with four accomplices, and charged with conspiracy to
kidnap LaRouche associate and du Pont heir Lewis du Pont
Smith. Moore escaped conviction only through the
intervention of a corrupt judge who rigged a not-guilty
verdict.
In 1993, one of Moore's accomplices, Galen Kelly, a
kidnapper for hire, was convicted for another kidnapping,
and was sentenced to over seven years in federal prison.
Two other accomplices also entered guilty pleas.
Then, on June 3, 1994, Moore pled guilty to a
felony in the same kidnapping. On July 29, Moore was
sentenced to eight months in prison, two months home
confinement, and an additional year of supervision.
He was immediately sent off to the Alexandria jail,
where he is awaiting transfer to a federal facility.
--
- Chapter 9 -
- Ollie North's Role in Putting Me in Prison -
- And Why He Should Take My Place -
- by Michael Billington -
{This article first appeared in the national
newspaper} The New Federalist,{ Vol. 8, No. 28, Aug.
1, 1994.}
As this newspaper has documented, several new
``inside'' witnesses have stepped forward in the past
period to reveal the massive flow of drugs which were run
under the cover of Col. Oliver North's ``Contra supply''
operation. These crimes, although well-documented, have
been virtually blacked out from press coverage.
During the period of 1983-1987, I was involved, in
collaboration with Lyndon LaRouche and others, in exposing
this drug dealing and its sponsorship by the
Kissinger-allied banking institutions in New York and
London. I was unaware of North's personal role in the drug
running until the ``Iran-Contra'' affair broke in October
1986. As I was to learn, however, Lt.-Col. North was
{very much} aware of {my} activities
during that same period.
It is now known that North, working directly under
Henry Kissinger and George Bush, was actively involved in
the federal-state-private Get LaRouche Task Force,
attempting to disrupt, discredit, and, if possible, kill
or incarcerate LaRouche, while breaking up his
organization. The ultimately successful railroad of
LaRouche into prison in 1989 on charges known to be false
by everyone involved in the prosecution, also resulted in
11 others being condemned to prison time, either in the
federal case or in the parallel case brought by the
Commonwealth of Virginia. (A New York case is still under
appeal.)
I received ``special treatment'' in these cases: I
was the only one charged in {both} the federal and
the Virginia cases, with the Commonwealth and their
carefully selected judges turning cartwheels to deny my
constitutional protection from double jeopardy. After
serving 3 years in a federal prison, I was condemned to 77
years (!) in the Virginia prison system for political
activities which were known to be totally within the law,
but which were a serious threat to the lawlessness of
Bush, North, and their backers. My ``special treatment''
was the result of my personal role in confronting North
amongst a layer of conservative, wealthy Americans whom
North was organizing to support his covert drug deals
under the cover of ``Contra support.'' North was
simultaneously using his position as a U.S. government
official to discourage Americans from supporting
LaRouche's efforts to unite the nations of North and South
America behind effective measures to crush the drug trade
and the drug armies which were wreaking havoc across
Ibero-America.
- LaRouche's War on Drugs -
Lyndon LaRouche and associates launched a War on Drugs
movement in 1978, publishing a magazine by that name. In
1978, LaRouche commissioned the now-famous book {Dope,
Inc.} The focus of the campaign was to identify the
controllers of the drug business among the British and
American banking institutions. Besides the devastation
wrought upon the minds of millions of American youth by
drugs, the {business} of Dope, Inc. was then
providing over $200 billion per year to the U.S. banking
system. A national economy which was already close to
bankruptcy had become ``drug dependent,'' in the sense
that a flow of drug dollars was a major prop to the
overextended banking system. To stop drugs, we warned,
required joint military collaboration with the nations of
Ibero-America, and a crackdown on the U.S. banks which
laundered the money.
Between 1978 and 1988, I was directly involved in
this War on Drugs, including public organizing in New
York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, a campaign for
Congress in New York, and fundraising efforts for our
publications and our activities. I came to know a number
of people who were to become victims of an illegal scam
run by North and some of his seedier associates in the
Washington neo-conservative circles.
In particular, I came to know a woman named Barbara
Newington, a widow in her 50's who lived in Greenwich,
Connecticut. Barbara Newington had responded
enthusiastically to the appeal of the newly founded
Schiller Institue, which was headed by Helga
Zepp-LaRouche, the wife of Lyndon LaRouche. The Schiller
Institute was dedicated to building a cultural and
scientific renaissance as the necessary prerequisite for
reversing the ongoing social and economic decay of the
western world. Barbara Newington was the primary financial
sponsor of the 10,000-strong March on Washington sponsored
by the Schiller Instiute on Martin Luther King Day in
January of 1985, whose theme was to build the Strategic
Defense Initiative, and to use the technologies generated
by that process to develop the African continent and the
rest of the Third World.
Barbara Newington was to become the primary financial
sponsor of a series of dramatic developments in our War on
Drugs over the course of 1985 and 1986. At some point
during early 1985, Oliver North's fundraiser, Carl
``Spitz'' Channell, went to see Mrs. Newington, and began
a process of calls, meetings, and arranged trips to
Washington intended to persuade her to cut off support for
the LaRouche organization and divert the money to the
illegal Contra support. U.S. government official and U.S.
Marine Colonel Oliver North and his cohort ``Spitz''
Channell lied to Mrs. Newington (and others) that donating
money to purchase weapons for the Contras was not only
legal, but {tax deductible!} All of this is in the
{Congressional Record} from the Iran-Contra
hearings.
Although North has never publicly admitted his
responsibility for the drug trafficking run under his (and
George Bush's) direction, he did admit to the illegal arms
sales to the Iranian terrorist regime, supposedly in
exchange for hostages, and the use of the proceeds of
those sales to supply the Contras. North describes this
illegal diversion of funds as a ``neat idea.''
Throughout 1985 and 1986 I was in regular contact
with Barbara Newington, briefing her on various projects
and arranging briefings with others who were coordinating
these projects, both within the U.S.A. and in
Ibero-America.
- The Cover Story -
In 1985, the LaRouche-associated weekly magazine
{Executive Intelligence Review} began to document
that, under the cover of fighting communism, the Contra
apparatus, including its pilots, logistical capabilities
on the ground, and so forth, was fully integrated into the
Medellin-based regional cocaine trade. Although Newington
was aware of Henry Kissinger's leading role in Central
America, due to his appointment in 1983 as head of the
U.S. Commission on Central America, she was hesitant to
accept the mounting evidence that the Contra-support
controversy in the press--both pro and con--was
orchestrated to divert attention from the necessary
continent-wide fight against narcoterrorism. Although she
discussed with me the general content of what she was
being told by Spitz Channell, she had been instructed not
to mention North, nor the fact that the Contra support was
being passed off as a U.S. government-approved policy. The
Contras would ``draw the line on communism,'' she was
told, and worrying about drugs or narcoterrorism elsewhere
would only divert attention from the courageous Contras.
Barbara Newington eventually turned over several
million dollars to North's scam. Whether that money ever
made it to the Contras is not known, although the
``fundraisers'' admitted to Congress that they took a
large chunk for their ``services.'' As was subsequently
revealed in the ``Iran'' side of the Iran-Contra deal, far
larger amounts of money were being obtained from the
Ayatollahs and diverted for the Contras, than the few
millions contributed by wealthy Americans.
The point is that North's work with Mrs. Newington
and dozens of other leading sponsors of conservative
causes was not simply for the money, but to win
conservative support for a policy of collaboration with
drug-runners and terrorists, while parading as patriots,
and, in the process, to use the aura of official
government authority to wage financial warfare against
LaRouche's privately financed efforts. North's activities
were at all times carried out in close collaboration with
other members of the Get LaRouche Task Force.
- Why Kissinger Hates Us -
A brief review of the extraordinary developments on
several fronts of the {real} War on Drugs during
1985 and 1986, and our critical role in these
developments, will clarify why Kissinger and his
controllers in New York and London (as well as their boy
Ollie) were so intent on sabotaging our work and throwing
us into prison.
In 1982, in response to requests from prominent
politicians and economists associated with the government
of President Jose Lopez Portillo in Mexico, Lyndon
LaRouche wrote a program for the development of the
Americas, called ``Operation Juarez.'' LaRouche proposed
that the nations of Ibero-America create an alliance of
sovereign nations in order to deal with common issues in a
united way. These common issues included the debt crisis,
which had just reached an explosion point, as well as the
{international} apparatus that ran the drug
business in each nation, and the threat of the terrorist
armies, which were connected to that business.
Most important, LaRouche proposed continent-wide
infrastructure development for the Americas as a whole,
especially in energy and transporation. This was presented
as the prerequisite for building strong national
economies, free of the devastating ``conditionalities''
being imposed by the International Monetary Fund which
were rapidly destroying the productive potential of every
Ibero-American nation. LaRouche insisted that such a
policy would also contribute to a recovery of the U.S.
economy by providing export markets for high-technology
industrial production, but that Ibero-America must be
prepared to go it alone if the U.S.A. chose to follow the
IMF/Kissinger policy.
Between 1982 and 1985, the ``Operation Juarez''
proposal gathered support from nationalist leaders across
Ibero-America, who recognized the urgent need to launch
aggressive development policies in league with their
neighbors. However, it became increasingly clear that one
of the greatest threats to these efforts was the enormous
economic and military power of the drug cartels.
LaRouche called for a Spanish language edition of
{Dope, Inc.} to be prepared as ammunition for the
War on Drugs in Ibero-America. In January of 1985,
{Narcotrafico, S.A.} was published, dedicated to
Colombia's ex-Justice Minister Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, who
had been gunned down by the drug armies in April 1984.
(Lara Bonilla had met on various occasions with LaRouche's
associates in Colombia, including Max Londono, and had
personally expressed concern over threats against Londono
from the drug cartels). Barbara Newington was again an
enthusiastic sponsor of the Spanish-language book and the
various conferences held to release the book in
Ibero-America.
The reaction to the book was electric. Tens of
thousands of copies spread rapidly throughout
Ibero-America, while newspapers carried extensive coverage
of the charges and documentation of the Kissinger-allied
banking families ``above suspicion'' who actually ran and
protected the drug trade. A leading Peruvian paper
serialized the book.
Those exposed also reacted swiftly. Within weeks, in
Venezuela, the powerful Cisneros clan, obtained a pliant
judge who banned the book in Venezuela and jailed the
local representatives of the publisher, who were later
deported from the country. It was the first book to be
banned in democratic Venezuela since the 1950s. A high
official in the Venezuelan government had been preparing
to cosponsor a conference with {Executive Intelligence
Review} to announce the release of the book, when
Cisneros made his move.
In Peru in mid 1986, Manuel Ulloa, the former prime
minister and another Rockefeller business buddy, brought a
suit for slander over the documentation in
{Narcotrafico, S.A.} that Ulloa's pro-IMF economic
policies had led to an expansion of the drug trade in
Peru. Ulloa lost the suit, and a subsequent appeal.
In July 1985, a new President of Peru took office.
Alan Garcia, who shocked the world by declaring in his
inaugural address an all-out war on drugs, linked to a
rejection of the debt collection conditions of the IMF.
The LaRouche-linked Schiller Institute and the{
Executive Intelligence Review} (EIR) mobilized support
for the Peruvian President throughout the world, while
proposing that these steps become the impetus toward
uniting Ibero-American policy along the lines of
LaRouche's ``Operation Juarez.''
In July of 1985, a conference was held in Mexico of
trade union leaders from various Ibero-American nations,
forming a Schiller Institute Ibero-American Trade Union
Commission (COSIIS). This commission became the kernel of
an Ibero-American-wide alliance of political, military,
trade union, and church leaders committed to the
integration of the Ibero-American economies, a joint war
on drugs, and joint debt negotiations with the IMF.
When Alan Garcia was inaugurated in July of 1985, he
appointed one of the Peruvian members of the COSIIS, Juan
Rebaza, to a government post, and later to a cabinet
position. In August of that same year, a Colombian friend
of the COSIIS, Jorge Carrillo, was appointed minister of
labor in his country. He subsequently appointed LaRouche
associate Max Londono, as his adviser. When the
narco-terrorist M-19 seized the Colombian Justice Palace
in November of 1985, killing 11 supreme court justices and
burning all files related to drug cases, Carrillo and
other members of the cabinet stood firm behind President
Belisario Betancur and the Colombian military in
suppressing the rebellion and preventing the fall of
Colombia to the direct control of the drug cartels at that
time.
A delegation of COSIIS members from various countries
travelled to Peru in August 1986, to meet with President
Garcia. They presented him with another book published by
the Schiller Institute, called {La Integracion
Iberoamericana,} on LaRouche's proposed economic
policy for Ibero-America. Together with {Narcotrafico,
S.A.}, this book became the programmatic link among
nationalist forces across the Americas that were
determined to destroy the scourge of drugs and unleash the
productive potential of the Ibero-American nations.
In Guatemala, during the course of 1985, the authors
of {Dope, Inc.} helped bring together nationalist
Guatemalan military leaders committed to a serious war on
drugs, with private U.S. citizens with access to U.S.
officials also involved in combatting drugs. A proposal
made by LaRouche for U.S./Guatemalan intelligence and
related cooperation in anti-drug deployments was approved
and successfully carried out in one specific case, under
the code name GUATUSA.
The spread of LaRouche's ideas across Ibero-America,
including into Bolivia, led the head of the anti-drug
efforts in that nation, Gen. Lucio Anez, to write the
following for publication: ``The war on drugs by Lyndon
LaRouche, as a war, is the only adequate approach to face
that problem. It is from that standpoint that
collaboration between the United States and Latin America
should proceed.'' Gen. Anez travelled to the U.S. in 1988
to testify on behalf of the LaRouche defendants in our
federal trial in Alexandria, Virginia.
- Chronology of Crimes -
Taken as a whole, the influence of LaRouche in
Ibero-America during 1985 and 1986 reached a critical
point, such that the successful crushing of the drug
cartels and their international banking sponsors became a
real possibility. It was this potential which motivated
Barbara Newington to provide critical financial support to
virtually every step of the unfolding process. Throughout
the U.S.A., citizens who had followed LaRouche began to
sense that his intelligence had been accurate and that his
method worked. In March of 1986, two LaRouche supporters
won statewide primary elections in Illinois, campaigning
heavily on the War on Drugs platform.
Kissinger and the Get LaRouche Task Force escalated
efforts following the Illinois election victories, with
North playing a key role. The following is a partial grid
of North's role against LaRouche between 1983 and 1986:
{July 1983}: North becomes the liaison
between the National Security Council (NSC) and
Kissinger's Commission onf Central America.
{October 1983}: North accompanies Kissinger
on a visit to Central America.
{January 1984}: North helps draft the
official report for Kissinger's Commission.
{Summer 1984}: North begins his role in the
Contra supply operation.
{March 1984}: LaRouche writes to President
Reagan, warning him of the dangers inherent in following
Kisisnger's proposed policies in Central America. North
intervened to recommend that the letter {not} be
answered, saying that LaRouche ould ``probably use such a
response irresponsibly.''
{Spring 1984}: Kissinger intervenes with the
Marine Corps to extend North's position at the NSC.
{Spring 1985}: ``Spitz'' Channell, the
leading fundraiser for North's ``Enterprise'' front,
appeals to Barbara Newington to finance the Contra supply
effort, and slanders LaRouche, discouraging her from
supporting LaRouche-connected activities.
{Jan. 13, 1986}: North's notebook entry:
``Kissinger re;Int'l fundraising mtg w/Spitz - Dave Fisher
- CALL! Special event for Barbara.'' Fisher was Channell's
partner and reputed lover.
{May 3-4, 1986}: North and his wife, together
with Channell and his friend Dave Fisher, spend the
weekend at Mrs. Newington's estate in Greenwich,
Connecticut. Mrs. Newington's congressional testimony
during the Iran-Contra hearings revealed that when she
questioned North about the ``others'' who were soliciting
her support for anti-drug and anti-subversive operations
in Ibero-America, North personally instructed her to
divert all her support to Channell and Fisher. North also
arranged for a ``sweep'' of Newington's phone, supposedly
to check against taps by unnamed enemies. It is at least
likely that North was more interested in {placing}
a tap on her phone, with which he could monitor the
frequent briefings that I and my associates gave Mrs.
Newington concerning our many activities. That North was
actively engaged in such spying and disruption of
LaRouche-related activities was proven by an encoded
message North received the following day, May 5.
{May 5, 1986}: North cohort Richard Second,
using an encryption device illegally provided to him by
North, wrote to North that ``our man here claims Lewis has
collected info against LaRouche. Let's see how polygraph
goes.'' The memo was found in North's safe by special
Iran-Contra prosecutor Lawrence Walsh. (``Lewis'' was Fred
Lewis, an intelligence stringer who had been active in
other covert operations against LaRouche associates
involved in the War on Drugs.)
{Summer 1986}: Barbara Newington's support
for LaRouche-related activities fell off sharply, although
she continued occasional, smaller contributions until her
role in the North scam became public.
{Oct. 6, 1986}: massive government raid on
the Leesburg, Virginia headquarters of our organization
and on several regional offices in other states. I was
arrested in Leesburg, together with two members of our
security staff who had written portions of {Dope,
Inc.} This was the first of {four} different
arrests I experienced in Leesburg over the following two
years, all related to the same organizing and fundraising
activities.
The local officer overseeing the various cases was
Sheriff's Deputy Don Moore, Ollie North's alleged tentmate
in Vietnam. Moore took particular delight in personally
arresting me on one occasion, parading himself before the
cameras with me in handcuffs. (Moore later ran a
kidnapping attempting against an associate of LaRouche,
and has been convicted of complicity in yet another
kidnapping.)
{Every aspect} of our documentation of the
drug-running and other crimes of the Bush/North ``secret
government'' apparatus has been substantiated by
subsequent revelations and confessions of those involved.
Those Americans--nd especially those Virginians--who are
horrified by the effect of drugs in the destruction of our
nation, must demand that Oliver North answer for his role
in that destruction, and must also demand the full
exoneration of Lyndon LaRouche, myself, and my other
associates who are being held as political prisoners for
the ``crime'' of fighting for justice for our nation and
for the world.
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