WORMSCAN: MENA0 [PART 2]

Mena, Arkansas, base of CIA drug importation.

Apr 16, 2024

NOTES: I made a few corrections to spellings and grammar.

I am no longer editing out the address of David P Beiter. It is an address of a place that doesn’t exist. As if his identity weren’t shrouded in mystery already.

If you missed previous parts to this part of the WORMSCAN series, you can find it here.

WORMSCAN: MENA0 [PART 1]

Date: Mon Aug 28, 1995 7:27 am CST
From: John Q. Public
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: capmicro@inxpress.net

TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: Terry Reed Lawsuit: Court Date Delayed till 1/16/96

Washington Weekly, 8/28 edition, reports that Terry Reed has been granted a delay in bringing his lawsuit against Raymond "Buddy" Young et al until 1/16/96. Apparently, Mr. Reed sought the delay because witnesses who didn't wish to be deposed were not showing up for interviews, etc.

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Date: Mon Aug 28, 1995 7:38 am CST
From: ezehr
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: ezehr@capaccess.org

TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: Re: DEA at Mena?

In Message-ID: chauptma@netcom.com (Charles Hauppman) wrote:

Strange indeed that Larry all of a sudden has cleared the Republicans of any connection to Mena. I find that Terry Reeds book is more credible than some of Larry's comments have been in the past, but still Larry is on the ground and SHOULD know what happened in the past.

Well, it's not really so strange if you have followed Nichols' comments for the past six months or so. He stated his reasons openly in his August 24 interview with Mike Reagan:

NICHOLS: Oh absolutely — once, I believe, the Republicans lose the fear that they're gonna get themselves in trouble, then I think you'll see the gates open. You know, that's been one of the major drawbacks to the Republicans — they've been afraid to go after ADFA, because to get to ADFA, you've got to have a source of money. The source of money was Mena. And then if they opened up Mena, they were afraid that they would be getting a whole bunch of Republicans.

Nichols believes that the Republicans' fear of uncovering something at Mena that would incriminate some of their own has inhibited them from pursuing the Clinton scandals — from money laundering by ADFA to the death of Vince Foster. Given their timidity in this summer's hearings, he may have a point. Apparently he believes the article to which he referred will support Oliver North's contention that all illicit drug activity in the Contra operation had been reported to the DEA. He hopes that this will remove whatever inhibitions the GOP may have about going after Clinton.

Oliver North raises an interesting point about the drug-running allegations in his book *Under Fire*:

Very little in my life has angered me as much as the allegations that I or anyone else involved with the resistance had a drug connection. I hate to put it in these terms, but since December 1986, the office of the special prosecutor [Lawrence Walsh] has spent tens of millions of dollars investigating us — and me in particular. If there was even a grain of truth to these stories, it surely would have come out.

On the face of it, North would seem to have a point — unless Walsh was reluctant to open that can of worms. Part of the problem is that Mena is not the only place illicit drugs are alleged to have been brought into the country in connection with a covert CIA operation. (See, for example, Sally Denton's book *The Bluegrass Conspiracy* that deals with such a scandal in Kentucky during the 1980s).

The deeper one digs into the Mena story and its implications, the broader they appear to be. What, for example, did Ross Perot have against George Bush that made him so antagonistic as to run against him in 1992? Perot is enough of a realist to understand that he had no chance to win — but had a definite opportunity to deny Bush a second term. But why did he do it? It was monstrously expensive, both in terms of money and lost prestige for Perot, who was generally well thought of before he entered the presidential race.

To understand this, one must recall that Perot supported Reagan in 1980, and after the election Reagan gave Perot a broad mandate to investigate rumors that American POWs had been abandoned when the U.S. pulled out of Vietnam. Perot was frustrated at every turn by the entrenched bureaucracy.

I quote from the book *Kiss the Boys Goodbye*, written by Monika Jensen-Stevenson and William Stevenson and published in 1990:

Relations between Bush and Perot had gone downhill ever since the Vice President had asked Ross Perot how his POW/MIA investigations were going.

"Well, George, I go in looking for prisoners," said Perot, "but I spend all my time discovering the government has been moving drugs around the world and is involved in illegal arms deals... I can't get at the prisoners because of the corruption among our own covert people."

This ended Perot's official access to the highly classified files as a one-man presidential investigator. "I have been ordered to cease and desist," he had informed the families of missing men early in 1987.

Of course, this book treats Perot in a favorable light. The quotation obviously came from Perot and was no doubt "remembered" in such a way as to place him at an advantage. Nevertheless, this excerpt suggests the extent to which widespread corruption within the government has poisoned every aspect of its operation and tainted those who chose as their career a life of "public service."

Through continuous neglect by all concerned this wound has been allowed to fester until gangrene set in. We have now reached the stage that no thoughtful person is able to believe the lies and cover stories told by government officials who appear desperate to cover their tracks. Unfortunately, many knowledgeable persons within the government and the establishment media (which have become little more than a branch of the government) still pretend to believe the lies. If this situation is not corrected soon, it will destroy the legitimacy of the government.

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Date: Mon Aug 28, 1995 11:27 am CST
From: John Q. Public
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: capmicro@execpc.com

TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: John Crudele, NY Post 8/28 (via Mr. Ken R. Cook)

forwarded, without permission

Date: Mon, 28 Aug 1995 12:00:57 EDT
From: VJDB56A@prodigy.com (MR KEN R COOK)

Subject: WW Mailing — 7/28/95

This mailing is going out to all those on my WW mailing list.

Here is the latest from John Crudele. It appeared in today's New York Post on page 5. This article, coupled with the Mena-related columns printed by the Washington Times last week should really begin making Mena a household word in America. In Britain, where Mena is a household word, the British equivalent of "60 Minutes" had a film crew in Mena and should have an expose on British television soon — the "telly" as they call it over there.

Meanwhile on the FOSTERGATE front, stay tuned. Jim Norman just did two hours on the Jack Christy show yesterday and had some amazing things to say. I hope to get a report out to you all shortly.

Read on the Internet that Newsweek (Michael Isikoff) is planning an attack on this article, tying it to "conspiracy theorists." The strategy here will obviously be to turn people off to this article before they even get a chance to read it for themselves. Isikoff is reportedly contacting all reporters who are covering Foster (Ruddy, Pritchard, etc.) for his story.

As I've said a million times before, I do not necessarily buy into all the elements of Jim Norman's FOSTERGATE story. But I do feel that Jim Norman sacrificed a lot (he lost his job at Forbes) to get this story out and that he deserves to be heard. I also feel that Norman believes in his story and if it does turn out to be inaccurate, then he was duped by others. Bottom line is that I feel that Norman's motives are pure in this whole matter.

Stay tuned, I have some information re: FOSTERGATE that could be earth shattering. There is a chance that a very prominent person may confirm what Norman has reported. I either have to check it out and be sure of myself first before I post it, or I will just have to wait for this person to identify himself.

Here's the John Crudele article from today’s NY Post:

WHITEWATER PROBE MAY EYE ARKANSAS DRUG RING
by John Crudele

A massive drug-running operation out of Mena, Ark., apparently had a guardian angel. And congressional investigators are now trying to find out who interfered with the ability of law-enforcement authorities to stop the flow of Latin American cocaine into that state and why.

The matter is also likely to soon be incorporated into the massive probe of Arkansas state corruption now being conducted by Special Prosecutor Kenneth Starr. The drug-running venture poured hundreds of millions of dollars into Arkansas during the mid-1980s. And many believe it was at the root of substantial financial corruption now being uncovered in that state.

According to two Arkansas State troopers who I've interviewed by telephone this week, law-enforcement authorities were within minutes of confiscating an aircraft they thought was being used by Barry Seal to smuggle cocaine. Seal was believed to have been a CIA operative who had been enlisted

to smuggle guns from Mena, Ark., to Contra rebels in Nicaragua. It was on return flights from Latin America that authorities suspect drugs were stashed on the planes.

Seal was killed while working for the government on an undercover operation in the mid-1980s. The troopers say they were ready to confiscate the plane one day in the winter of 1984 when they were suddenly told by someone working for the FBI to leave the aircraft alone. Eleven years later, neither could provide the exact date, but they still have official log books which they say would contain the entry. Neither of these troopers has ever stepped forward with accusations before. And both have been interviewed by an investigator for Iowa Republican Congressman Jim Leach's office.

As I said last week, Leach's recent hearings on the Whitewater scandal will probably be expanded to look into the operations of the Arkansas Development and Finance Authority (ADFA) as well as the events that took place at Mena. There have been accusations that ADFA — possibly unknown to its officials — may have been used to launder drug money. Starr isn't permitted to officially look into Mena unless a link between it and the corruption in the Arkansas banking system can be found.

One of the troopers, Steve Clements, told me that he was relatively new to the force and was working on the narcotics detail in 1984 when he and partners came upon a suspicious aircraft in Mena. Clements and his partners were waiting in a hotel room, he says, for permission to seize the plane.

"All I remember is what my boss told me," said Clements. "He said someone called and told him we could seize it if we want, but they'd get it back in a few minutes."

His boss was a man named Finus Duvall, who was the company commander at the criminal investigations division of the state police. Duvall is now retired and says the decision not to take the aircraft was his biggest mistake.

"I should have seized it. The worst mistake I ever made was not seizing it because I let the government override the state," he said. "We made a call. We called an outfit called Group 7. It was the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) operation in Miami. They told us that if we took the airplane down, they would be up there in three hours and take it away from us. That particular plane was smuggling cocaine."

Duvall couldn't explain why the DEA would quash an operation that could have stopped the flow of narcotics.

Bill Clinton, the governor of Arkansas at the time, was "aware that we were investigating but he never knew the minute details because it was too complicated," said Duvall, adding that nobody in the Arkansas government ever interfered with his Mena investigation.

Another trooper named L.D. Brown recently said that he told Clinton around 1984 that drugs were being smuggled into Mena. Brown has said a number of times — including during an interview with The Post — that Clinton had not appeared surprised about his accusations of drug smuggling. But he was surprised that Brown had been shown some of the cargo.

Duvall says that L.D. Brown never told the Mena investigators of his suspicions. Duvall said he was "mad as hell" when the raid wasn't carried out. Later, he said, he handed over all his files on the case to Lawrence Walsh, the special prosecutor assigned to the Iran-Contra investigation.

"I shipped Walsh a complete case file of the Mena investigation," Duvall said. "It weighed 400 pounds. Where the hell is the case file?"

The Arkansas state police started investigating Mena in 1982, says Duvall. Others, including investigators from the Internal Revenue Service, later tracked several hundred dollars that were being laundered in Mena. But Duvall indicates that the money coming from the Mena operations was much more substantial than that. In fact, he says that Seal made a video "that shows Barry Seal at the Mena airport counting $1 million. That's been documented."

"I don't have any idea where the money went," says Duvall.

As bizarre as it might seem, investigators believe that Barry Seal bank accounts may still exist in the banking havens in the Caribbean. In fact, one source claims that the government recently seized one of Seal's bank accounts.

END OF ARTICLE BY JOHN CRUDELE FOR NY POST — 8/28/95

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Date: Mon Aug 28, 1995 10:16 pm CST
From: Jamianne [Ms. Freddi ".A.R.." Reddi]
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: jamiv@verilink.com

TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
CC: jamiv
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: jamiv@verilink.com
Subject: list/ufos/Mena-Gate is overflowing

David

Sorry I don't have the bounce message from your server. It said something like: machine unreachable for 2 or 3 days.

What is the syntax to subscribe to snet-l run from ?

subscribe snet-l run? or without the "run" I may want to check it out.

I went through a phase of interest in UFOs. I read every book I could get for several months. It was interesting but inconclusive and illusive. The VHS on the anti-matter power and transmission plant by the guy who worked at Hanger 18 Area 51, Dreamland was somewhat plausible. The saucer worked by distorting gravity and thereby snapping itself along in pulses. The electrical power was generated by an anti-matter reactor based on type of stable isotope not available locally (some ungodly atomic number). I found Strieber's books (Communion, etc) imaginative but probably works of fiction or hallucination.

Thanks for the Bluegrass news items. I rough-processed the files by taking out a whole lot of ascii codes that somehow got put in at some boundaries.

I enclose some Mena articles from the Clinton Scandals (CS) list

I ordered the laser disc "cover-up" from Tower records. I will make you a VHS copy if you like, when I get it. I saw part of this when I rented it. It was well done. I had to take it back when I ran out of time.

I also ordered "the Mena Connection" by Terry Reed in VHS from the number given in the CS list. I cannot copy VHS to VHS right now since I do not have two VCRs.

— Ms. Freddi ".A.R.." Reddi, "the Columbian Camou-Frogess"

3rd EXECUTEIVE VP for Stations WMNA AND KMNA, "your `Mena-Gate' stations on the net"

"You mess with the 2nd amendment, and you mess with me."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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From owner-cs@oak.oakland.edu Tue Aug 22 11:15:25 1995
Path: news1.oakland.edu!vtc.tacom.army.mil!ulowell.uml.edu! europa.chnt.gtegsc.com!howland.reston.ans.net! news-e1a.megaweb.com!newstf01.news.aol.com! newsbf02.news.aol.com!not-for-mail
From: theknep@aol.com (TheKnep)
Newsgroups: alt.current-events.clinton.whitewater
Subject: : Mena again folks/was :The Gramm Factor—Will Democrats Panic?
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Read the latest issue of Strategic Investment, which I hope someone will be kind enough to post here. James Dale Davidson, who I respect greatly, feels it's no accident Dole has been such a foot dragger on uncovering the Crimes of Mena. In fact he was endorsed last month for President by those Arkansas godfathers Don Tyson and Jackson Stephens. Davidson figures they were especially grateful that Dole went along with Field Marshal Janet Reno's decision to block Special Prosecutor Smaltz's investigation of Tyson.

Davidson makes a good case for pessimism that the truth will ever come out about why Vince Foster was killed. The major media has clamped the lid on, all Republican Congressional investigations so far have studiously avoided the subject of Foster's death. Now all journalists, and they are few in number, who question the party line, despite its patent absurdity, are being marginalized and branded as lunatic right-wingers. Our government is being Stalinized before our very eyes, and Republicans are going along with it. That is what cuts me to the quick.

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From jamiv Wed Aug 23 19:56:27 1995
From: jamiv ([Jamianne [Ms. Freddi ".A.R.." Redi]])
To: jamiv
Subject: The Mena Connection VHS video terry reed
Content-Length: 1957
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> From ca-firearms-owner@shell.portal.com Fri May 12 19:09:44 1995
From: Brad Parsons
Subject: ** The Mena Connection **
To: roc@xmission.com, libernet@dartmouth.edu, libernet-d@dartmouth.edu,
                c-news@world.std.com, ca-firearms@shell.portal.com,
                constitution@earthlink.net, cybernews-publish-l@cornell.edu,
                michigun@css.itd.umich.edu, noban@mainstream.com,
                patriots@kaiwan.com,
                texas-gun-owners@zilker.net, alt-conspiracy@cs.utexas.edu
Cc: alt-activism@cs.utexas.edu
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Sender: ca-firearms-owner@shell.portal.com
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Newsgroups: alt.current-events.clinton.whitewater
Subject: ** The Mena Connection **
Date: 12 May 1995 20:34:01 -0500

"The Mena Connection" ($19.95) 1-800-888-9999 ( call 24.hrs)

I got Terry Reed's video tape yesterday and viewed it. IT IS OUTSTANDING. Better than his book. I highly recommend that everyone here get it. It has a bunch of news footage from a Ft. Smith, AR TV station, from a major Chicago network TV station, and the CBS Eye on America report on the matter. There is also a very interesting recording in the tape of a phone conversation between Hubbell and a Time reporter. Terry's wife Jan also give a great interview in the tape. And much more. There is a lot of video footage in this tape that I had not seen before, and I have been following this issue for two years, have read Terry Reed's book, and been following this newsgroup since the day it began. You can order "The Mena Connection" for $19.95 at 1-800-888-9999 (24 hrs). This is FYI only, I have no connection with the producers/sellers of this excellent video tape. After viewing the tape a few times and sharing it with family and close friends, you might also consider donating the video to your local cable access station. ;)

"The Mena Connection" ($19.95) 1-800-888-9999 (24.hrs)

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From owner-cs@oak.oakland.edu Sat Aug 26 12:46:58 1995
Path: news1.oakland.edu!simtel!news.sprintlink.net!howland.reston.ans.net!usc!news.service.uci.edu!taurus.oac.uci.edu!eaou669
From: Duane Roberts
Newsgroups: alt.current-events.clinton.whitewater
Subject: Re: DEA at Mena?
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In a previous message, "John Q. Public" wrote the following:

> Last night, Larry Nichols told Michael Reagan that an article would likely be published today that would reveal DEA involvement with the Mena cocaine operation. Has anyone seen such an article?

I haven't seen the article.

But I do want to confirm that the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) was involved with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in an alleged sting operation conducted against the Medellin Cartel by the late Adler Berriman "Barry" Seal. This alleged sting operation was the one where Seal supposedly collected evidence that the Nicaraguan government was letting the Medellin Cartel use airstrips in their country to ship cocaine to the United States. Barry Seal launched this alleged sting operation from the Intermountain Regional Airport in Mena, Arkansas during the middle of 1984 (A congressional hearing conducted by the House Judiciary Committee in 1988 on Seal's role as a "confidential informant" for the DEA confirms this).

However I disagree with Mr. Nichol's suggestion that Lt. Col. Oliver North and other high-ranking Reagan Administration officials weren't involved in overseeing a contra resupply operation at the Intermountain Regional Airport in Mena, Arkansas; and I don't agree with his claim that most of the activities taking place at Mena were primarily the result of a sting operation being conducted by the DEA.

During the early 80s, Seal's gunrunning and drug smuggling activities (apparently with the tacit approval of the CIA) were beginning to attract the attention of law enforcement agencies in Florida, Louisiana, and other states. When Seal was arrested by the DEA for smuggling drugs into Ft. Lauderdale, Florida in April of 1983, his mounting legal problems threatened to jeopardize his efforts to arm the Nicaraguan Contras with weapons purchased with drug money. Hence, Seal flew off to Washington, D.C. in his LearJet and spoke with Reagan administration officials (e.g., Vice-President George Bush), who subsequently pressured the DEA to reduce the charges against him and enlist Seal as a "confidential informant" for sting operations. Seal's role as a "confidential informant" for the DEA enabled him to continue working for the CIA in their efforts to supply the Nicaraguan Contras with weapons. This was his "cover," so to speak. And it gave him a license to continue running a contra resupply operation for the Reagan administration — and finance it with drug money — without any interference from law enforcement agencies in other states. For example, if law enforcement agencies in Louisiana uncovered evidence that Seal was smuggling cocaine into Arkansas through their state, they wouldn't be able to do much of anything about it because of his status as a "confidential informant." If the Louisiana State Police asked the Reagan administration why Seal was being allowed to smuggle drugs into the country, all the Reagan administration needed to do is claim that Seal was doing this as part of a "secret sting operation" being conducted by the DEA. Of course, this explanation serves the useful purpose of hiding the fact that high-ranking Reagan administration officials (apparently in collusion with the governor of Arkansas) were allowing a major drug trafficker like Seal to freely import drugs into the United States in return for using a portion of the profits to finance the purchase of weapons and supplies for the Nicaraguan Contras.

Sincerely,

Duane J. Roberts
eaou669@ea.oac.uci.edu

Undergraduate Student
Criminology, Law, and Society
School of Social Ecology
University of California, Irvine

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From owner-cs@oak.oakland.edu Mon Aug 28 10:29:33 1995
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From: capmicro@execpc.com (John Q. Public)
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Subject: mena fostergate John Crudele, NY Post 8/28 (via Mr. Ken R. Cook)
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forwarded, without permission

Date: Mon, 28 Aug 1995 12:00:57 EDT
From: VJDB56A@prodigy.com (MR KEN R COOK)
Subject: WW Mailing — 7/28/95

This mailing is going out to all those on my WW mailing list.

Meanwhile on the FOSTERGATE front, stay tuned. Jim Norman just did two hours on the Jack Christy show yesterday and had some amazing things to say. I hope to get a report out to you all shortly.

Here's the John Crudele article from todays NY Post:

WHITEWATER PROBE MAY EYE ARKANSAS DRUG RING
by John Crudele

to smuggle guns from Mena, Ark., to Contra rebels in Nicaragua. It was on return flights from Latin America that authorities suspect drugs were stashed on the planes.

"All I remember is what my boss told me," said Clements. "He said someone called and told him we could seize it if we want, but they'd get it back in a few minutes."

Duvall couldn't explain why the DEA would quash an operation that could have stopped the flow of narcotics.

"I shipped Walsh a complete case file of the Mena investigation," Duvall said. "It weighed 400 pounds. Where the hell is the case file?"

The Arkansas state police started investigating Mena in 1982, says Duvall. Others, including investigators from the Internal Revenue Service, later tracked several hundred dollars that were being laundered in Mena. But Duvall indicates that the money coming from the Mena operations was much more substantial than that. In fact, he says that Seal made a video "that shows Barry Seal at the Mena airport counting $1 million. That's been documented."

"I don't have any idea where the money went," says Duvall.

END OF ARTICLE BY JOHN CRUDELE FOR NY POST — 8/28/95

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From owner-cs@oak.oakland.edu Sat Aug 26 16:39:09 1995
Newsgroups: alt.current-events.clinton.whitewater,alt.conspiracy, alt.politics.economics,soc.rights.human,alt.society.revolution, soc.culture.usa,alt.politi
Subject: Clark: A review of the Mena coke operation
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As I've said, this report came very, very close to being published in the _Washington Post_ in late January of this year. Revealed are both state and federal law-enforcement files containing solid evidence of one of the largest drug trafficking operations in U.S. history. Until now these files have been kept secret.

Literally tons of cocaine were shipped into the U.S. over a period of 5 or 6 years, through Bill Clinton's Arkansas. The operation was overseen by a former officer of the U.S. Army Special Forces, Barry Seal, who court records show was an employee of both the CIA and the DEA. This was an operation that was carried out with the collusion and cover-up of the United States government.

Mena, of course, is not a new story. The highly esteemed journalist Sarah McClendon has dealt with it; so has CBS, the _Wall St. Journal_, _The Nation_, and the _Village Voice_. Elements of the story have been in print, one place or another, now and then, since 1989, when Jack Anderson first broke it. But never before have so many of the documented facts been put together in such compelling fashion.

Consider the article that appeared in the _Wall St. Journal_ in 1994. Here's a quote:

"(Barry) Seal was smuggling drugs and kept his planes at Mena (Arkansas). . . The cargo plane he flew was the same one later flown by Eugene Hasenfus when he was shot down over Nicaragua with a load of Contra supplies."

Next, let's consider the principal and most credible people who have thus far testified, and who have, in doing so, implicated the President of the United States. First there is IRS investigator Bill Duncan, followed by Arkansas State Police investigator Russell Welch, Arkansas Attorney General Winston Bryant, Congressman Bill Alexander, and various other law enforcement officials. In 1991, Bill Duncan testified at a joint investigation by the Arkansas state attorney general's office and the U.S. Congress. At that time he referred to 29 federal indictments having to do with a Mena-based money laundering scheme that was in operation when Clinton was governor of the state. The problem was, Duncan said, that the U.S. Attorney for the region, as if because of orders from above, had refused to act on these indictments. Then too, there was the matter that the IRS had specifically instructed him — its own investigator — to "withhold information from Congress and to perjure (himself)." This Duncan stated before Congress. He further testified that the U.S. Attorney for the region had stopped the subpoenas in this investigation and had blocked the entire investigation.

Meanwhile, Arkansas Attorney General Winston Bryant wrote to independent counsel Lawrence Walsh in 1991, expressing his bewilderment as to "why no one was prosecuted in Arkansas despite a mountain of evidence that (Barry) Seal was using Arkansas as his principle staging area (for drug smuggling) during the years 1982 through 1985." The fact that Mena was indeed one of the centers for international drug smuggling is confirmed by official IRS and DEA records, sworn court testimony, and other corroborative records. In fact Seal later admitted to IRS investigator Duncan that he had indeed been a drug smuggler!

So why was he allowed to continue? The answer, perhaps, lies in U.S. Customs evidence that Seal surreptitiously exported huge arms shipments to the repressive governments of Bolivia, Argentina, Peru, and Brazil, as well as to the Contras. In a sense, Barry Seal was an instrument of U.S. foreign policy, and was appropriately (if illegally and improperly) rewarded for his assistance.

Remember, though, we're talking about many thousands of kilos of cocaine and literally hundreds of millions of dollars in drug profits. According to a 1986 letter from the Louisiana attorney general to then U.S. attorney general Edwin Meese, this former U.S. military officer Barry Seal (with well established CIA connections, flying CIA charter planes) "smuggled between $3 billion and $5 billion of drugs into the U.S." In addition to the $50,000 a day in drug-money greenbacks that Seal's people were depositing into banks around Mena between 1981 and 1985 — they have testified to this — Seal was also receiving $800,000 a year from the U.S. government — so he testified — because of the valuable information and evidence he was providing the gov't about the Sandinista/Columbian involvement in this drug trafficking.

Then, after he was murdered by a Medellin hit squad, Seal's relatives and friends all testified to police that he had told them he was working for the CIA when he established his smuggling operations at Mena. Even the IRS had determined, in its investigations, that the millions "earned" by Seal between 1984 and 1986 was not illegal, because of his "CIA-DEA employment" at the time. It was the CIA, after all, that had installed cameras in one of Seal's planes, so as allow him to get photographic evidence, much touted by Ronald Reagan, of the Sandinistas loading Colombian cocaine onto a plane, for shipment into the U.S. Perhaps most compelling of all, court documents show clearly that Seal was indeed employed both by the CIA and the DEA in 1984 and 1985.

In addition, a spokesman for Oliver North actually told the _Washington Post_ that North had been kept aware of Seal's work through "intelligence sources." Indeed one of Seal's planes was purchased by North's Iran-Contra operation, known as "The Enterprise," and was used to smuggle still more cocaine back into the U.S. on each return trip, after guns were delivered to the Contras. This according to sworn testimony by former high-ranking DEA agent Celerino Castillo. Finally there is the Arkansas gun manufacturer who, in 1993, testified in federal court that the CIA contracted with him to build 250 automatic pistols, equipped with silencers, for the Mena operation. At that time, he testified, he was personally introduced to Barry Seal, in Mena, by a CIA operative, and then sold weapons to Seal.

Interestingly the gun manufacturer was provided with a U.S. Department of Defense purchase-order for some of the weapons he sold at this time, but was never paid the $140,000 that the government owed him, due to the fact that when the Hasenfus CIA plane was shot down over Nicaragua, Mena's population was suddenly reduced by half and he was unable to collect.

And who, according to telephone records, was the first person that the Central American CIA operative in charge of this smuggling operation telephoned, after this plane went down? None other than George Bush, our then beloved Vice President.

More evidence from the article appears in the next post.

Richard Clark

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From owner-cs@oak.oakland.edu Sun Aug 27 18:45:19 1995
From: cardin@slip.net (Richard Clark)
Newsgroups: alt.current-events.clinton.whitewater,alt.conspiracy, alt.politics.economics,soc.rights.human,alt.society.revolution, soc.culture.usa,alt.politi
Subject: more?: A review of the Mena coke operation
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The secretaries employed at the Mena airport have testified that when Barry Seal flew into Mena "there would be stacks of cash to be taken to the bank and laundered." One secretary told IRS investigator Bill Duncan that she was ordered to obtain numerous cashier's checks, each in an amount just under $10,000, at various banks around Mena. Why? — So that federal Currency Transaction Reports would not have to be filed. Bank tellers testified before a federal grand jury about an instance when a Mena airport employee carried a suitcase into their bank that was stuffed with $70,000 in cash. The bank officer calmly proceeded from one teller to the next, handing out stacks of hundred dollar bills to each one, so that the proper cashier's checks could be drawn up without delay. (The best customers get the best service.)

Between 1981 and 1983, hundreds of thousands of dollars were in this way laundered just in the few small banks near Mena, according to law-enforcement sources. Millions more were laundered throughout Arkansas. According to other sources there is also evidence that then-governor Clinton was able to siphon off some of these proceeds, putting them to use in the purchase of political advantage not otherwise available. Apparently much of Arkansas was benefiting from this operation, especially the Arkansas Development Finance Authority (AFDA), which helped launder (and disburse) much of the money. Political payoffs were rampant.] Of special interest here, to the Whitewater special prosecutor, were the huge and completely unaccountable infusions of cash into various Arkansas financial institutions. IRS records show a "major increase" in the amount of large cash and bank transactions in Arkansas around this period, despite a rather poor and struggling local economy. It would seem that unless the Whitewater investigation is somehow corrupted or stopped, some very upsetting truth is likely to emerge. Note: many of the recently unearthed Barry Seal documents have been forwarded to the Whitewater special prosecutor because they are believed to have great relevance to that investigation.

What happened to the nine different investigations into Mena after 1987? Mainly it was a matter of compromised federal grand juries and congressional inquiries that were suppressed by the National Security Council under Ronald Reagan's directives. Then there was Justice Department sand-bagging under George Bush. The whole story had to be quashed for reasons of "national security." It seems that Reagan, Bush and Clinton can't imagine a nation in which the truth about this would come out. Why? Perhaps because it would be a nation in which they would be in jail.

Curiously, as governor of Arkansas in 1991, Clinton publicly acknowledged that the Mena investigation had found "linkages to the federal government," and had come up with "all kinds of questions about whether he [Barry Seal] had any links to the CIA" and about whether or not this was tied into "the Iran-Contra deal." But then Clinton apparently decided it would not be to his advantage to press for any further inquiry. Meanwhile his principal political backers in Arkansas are under FBI investigation and have been assigned case numbers under the Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Intelligence System.

Clinton's failure, as governor, to press for an investigation of this is mighty strange, according to Bill Plante and Michael Singer of CBS News. They write that "a Republican administration was apparently sponsoring a Contra-aid operation in his state and protecting a smuggling ring that flew tons of cocaine through Arkansas."

Now, for the time being, one can only speculate as to why _president_ Bill, now that he has the power, does not immediately ask for a full report from the CIA, IRS, DEA, and FBI about their rather abundant and long-suppressed records having to do with the Mena operation. Why must the cover-up continue, Bill? Why not bring the whole truth out into the open? Could the answer to this question possibly have something to do with the tens of thousands of lives that have been destroyed by these tons of coke that were flown into Arkansas? Could it possibly have something to do with the tens of thousands of young black men whose souls rot in the proliferating numbers of penitentiaries that have had to be constructed to house them all? Worst of all, could these be the people who unwittingly made it possible for Bill Clinton to become president?

Richard Clark

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Elizabeth The Punisher Dove’s Newsletter

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