newsviewsnolose@yahoogroups.com on behalf of dick.mcmanus
Copyrighted 20 April 2008
I am going to outline how Mena, AR, drug trafficking and the Contra connection story.
The following is based on an anonymous source or email. Whoever, wrote this knows one hell of a lot and his/her information agrees with my research. This source sounds like someone from the intelligence community with inside information. To understand the following you have to understand that right wing political people, many who had worked at the CIA, decided to go outside the Congressional funding of foreign policy covert direct actions, using drug money to finance their operations.
After Pres. Carter won election and Admiral Stansfield Turner became director of the CIA. Under Carter's direction, Admiral Turner began to dismantle large parts of the CIA's covert (direct action) operations apparatus (laying off CIA officers, who numbers had grown massive during the Vietnam war).
Some time afterwards, CIA officer Ted Shackley, Richard Secord, and Eric Von Marbod formed a company called EATSCO, the Egyptian American transport and Service Company. Because Eric Von Marbod had been assistant Secretary of Defense, the company received the contracts to ship all of the arms shipments into Egypt. The routes into Egypt had been opened due to the Camp David peace accords. These shipments were partially coordinated by Adler Berriman (Berry Seal's CIA cover name ship via Air America airplanes). Air America seems to have become a part of this private ENTERPRISE, instead of in the past in Vietnam where it was a front company for the CIA operations and funded by the US. Congress.
The Air America apparatus banked hundreds of millions of dollars over the next several years until they came under the unwelcome scrutiny of U.S. Attorney Larry Barcella. Barcella discovered that CIA offiver, Edwin Wilson had been selling explosives to Col. Qaddaffi in direct defiance of the U.S. arms embargo. Barcella indicted Edwin Wilson and Frank Turpel and began an investigation of Shackley, Clines, Secord and Von Marbod. This investigation lasted less than a week before it was quashed, but Deputy Director of Intelligence Frank Carlucci did ask that Shackley and CIA officer Tom Clines resign from the CIA, they did.
Air America was mothballed for a period of slightly more than two months while
Edwin Wilson, then under multiple federal indictments, traveled to Nicaragua to
negotiate a deal with then dictator, Anastasio Somoza. After obtaining a
contract to supply Somoza with U.S. military hardware and private sector
advisors in open contempt of U.S. policy, the apparatus was reactivated. Even
after Somoza was forced to flee to the Bahamas, Air America continued to supply
arms and advisors to the vestiges of his supporters in Nicaragua, now called
the Contras. The man who acted as liaison to the Contras was one of Ted
Shackleyís old Operation 40 operatives (anti-Castro Cubans), professional assassin Chi Chi Quintero. Quintero took orders from the Contras and relayed them to Adler Berrimen (Seal) who set up the shipping routes.
Shackleyís next coup was to negotiate a deal with the Iranians whereby the
hostages were kept on ice until the election was over. This enabled Reagan
strategists to portray the Carter administration as weak and vacillating.
All of this time and all of these operations were leading the Air
America apparatus incrementally toward Mena, AR.
Berry Seal started bringing planes into Mena in 1979, but the operation never
really got into full swing until late 1980. There never seemed to be any
deviation from the cycle that ran until his death in 1986. Armaments were
loaded at Mena. They were then flown to a private airfield in Costa Rica
located on a gigantic ranch belonging to a millionaire named John Hull. The
construction of this airfield had been supervised by Chi Chi Quintero. From
there, the planes were refueled and sent on or sometimes the cargo was off
loaded for overland shipment to boats waiting in Costa Rican waters. But
wherever the planes finally did offload their cargo, they picked up kilos of cocaine.
The airplanes deliver their cocaine cargo to various drop points
throughout the South.
One video tape discovered after Seal's death among the voluminous financial
records, journals, bank drafts and classified federal documents, shows a cargo plane dropping several sturdy looking duffel bags by parachute, Seal retrieving them and stuffing them into a helicopter that had come in behind the cargo plane. He then smiles into the camera and says "That was the first daylight cocaine drop in the history of the state of
Louisiana." The pattern of financing a black op, that could not be financed
through normal intelligence community appropriations channels with the profits
from drug sales to American citizens was being continued by the same group of
men who had done it in Vietnam a decade previously. (see below for the this part of the history of US drug trafficking.
The C-123K cargo plane used by Seal used, later became an important link
in another chain. The chain connecting the operations at Mena to the original
Air America apparatus.
Seal's C-123K cargo plane, which he dubbed "Fat Lady", had been part of the
original Air America fleet in Laos. After the fall of Saigon "Fat Lady" had
stayed on at the secret base in Thailand, occasionally turning up working for
CIA friendly companies but mostly doing heroin runs for Vang Paoís
organization. Seal's plane was used in this way until it turned up in Mena.
The smugglers at Intermountain Regional Airport (just of short distance south of the city limits of Mena, AR) seem to have enjoyed reasonably cordial relations with the local community. The one horrific exception to this was the deaths of two local teenagers, found bludgeoned and stabbed, then laid across tracks to be struck by the morning freight train. Authorities stepped all over themselves to rule the deaths an "accident", saying, "the boys had
been smoking marijuana and fell asleep on the tracks" Only after the coroners
report showed that the boys had been killed prior to being laid on the tracks
were the deaths pronounced murders. Some of Seal's records indicate that the
area in which the boys had been camping was one of his drop zones and that
there had been a flight on the night they were killed. Since Seal modeled his
operations so closely on Airborne resupply procedures, it is only logical that
he would have set out security teams to patrol the perimeter of his drop zone.
Don Henry and Kevin Ives may have run afoul of just such a patrol and been
killed because of it. Whatever the case, a large number of people who were
either investigating or implicated in the death's of the two teenagers have
either been killed or have committed suicide. This has all the hallmarks of
black operations damage control.
Seal's relations with the banks were especially good. Secretaries have
testified that there were days that they were given stacks of cash and directed
to secure cashiers checks and money orders, just below the ten-thousand dollar
limit that triggers an automatic IRS cash transaction report. The Union Bank of
Mena seems to have been a particular favorite of Seal's. Not only did he
maintain several accounts there, but some of the bank's officers were also
administrators of the Intermountain Regional Airport. One of these officers,
Jackson Stevens, was an early Clinton campaign contributor. The Union Bank of
Mena was currently under investigation by the house banking committee.
Another name that crops up time and again in relation to Seal's financial
activities is Don Lassater. Lassater ran a Little Rock bond house that was
investigated for laundering cocaine profits. He was also involved in a cocaine
distribution trial as a codefendant with Roger Clinton, the President's
brother. Lasater was sentenced to a short prison stay in this case.
The President has been accused of varying degrees of collusion in the Mena
case. The single most glaring piece of evidence that he did indeed know about
the activities at Intermountain Regional Airport is the Congressional testimony
of a former Arkansas state trooper named Larry Patterson who said that he and
other officers repeatedly discussed in Clinton's presence large amounts of
guns, money and drugs going in and out of Mena.
Another Arkansas State Trooper L.D. Brown has said in a magazine interview that while a member of the Governor's security detail, he applied to the CIA with Clinton's verbal and
written endorsements. Shortly after submitting an application to the CIA due to an ad in a newspaper for jobs in the CIA, and after being interviewed by a person from the CIA in Texas, he was contacted by Berry Seal. Brown found himself making gun smuggling flights with Seal into Central America and bring cocaine back to the U.S. After this Brown quite the CIA.
Brown received a call from Barry Seal, inviting him to Mena airport. Two identical missions followed. With Brown on board, Seal's plane left Mena, dropped crates somewhere in Central America, loaded duffel bags in Honduras and returned to Mena. L.D. Brown: "The second time we come back from where Seal said we were going, which he said was Honduras, he breaks open a bag and pulls out of it what to me, having worked in Narcotics, was a kilo of cocaine. I mean he never opened it — it had a numbers sign and two on it which I had seen packaged before. And then, I just, we supposedly were flying guns - it's what he had told me. I didn't know what was coming back on return trips." [1]
As early as 1986 the Attorney General of Louisiana wrote to then
Attorney General Edwin Meese that Seal had ìs muggled between three and five
billion dollars worth of cocaine into the United States. In 1991 Arkansas State
Attorney General Bryant wrote to independent council in the Iran-Contra
investigation as to "why no one was prosecuted in Arkansas despite a mountain
of evidence that Seal used Mena as his principle staging area during the years
between 1982 and 1985". Both Internal Revenue Service Agent Bill Duncan and
Arkansas State Police Investigator Russell Welch accused U.S. Attorney
J. Michael Fitzhugh of not pressing evidence that they presented him
Welch was later poisoned with military grade anthrax, something that is very
difficult to come by unless you can lay hands on biological warfare stores.
The final nail in the coffin of the Mena operation came, not with the murder of
Barry Seal in Feb. of 1986, rather it came with crash of the "Fat Lady" which
was shot down over Nicaragua loaded with supplies for the Contras. Arkansas
pilot Buzz Sawyer was killed in the crash and mercenary pilot Eugene Hasenfus
was taken prisoner. After that, according to one arms dealer who had come to town to get paid,
"You couldn't find anybody in Mena".
The newest incarnation of Air America has turned up in the Wackenhut
corporation. Specializing in security related products, the Wackenhut
corporation'
who's who of retired spooks and spymasters. The Wackenhut corporation was also
active in developing chemical and biological weapons for the contras at a
secret facility on an Indian reservation in Southern California.
The United States does not want to win the war on drugs. If we were to do so, nearly a dozen
South and Central American countries would default on their loans to Chase
Manhattan and the World Bank, plus a huge amount of money currently circulating
on the streets of the U.S. would be taken off.
Today, over 62% of those people imprisoned in the United States are imprisoned due to drug
offenses.
http://www.csun.
– A former CIA asset ( hired by a CIA officer on contract), Richard Brenneke, who worked with Israeli Mossad agents and Manuel Noriega to run a guns/drugs pipeline. Met with George HW. Bush's national security adviser Donald Gregg. On June 21, 1991, Brenneke gave a sworn deposition before Congressman William Alexander, fingering John Gotti as an active detergent in "laundering" the CIA drug shipments coming into the Mena Airport in Arkansas.
--------
What follows is a transcript of Brenneke's 21 June 1991 sworn deposition before Congressman William Alexander, Jr., and Chad Farris, chief deputy attorney general of Arkansas.
"Joint Investigation by the Arkansas State Attorney General's Office and the United States Congress:"
Q. And when you landed at Mena, what would be the disposition of the cargo?
A. On one or two occasions the cargo was taken off by people who were not residents of the Mena area and put into other aircraft which departed from there. However, the most frequent activity was that the aircraft would be unloaded in front of [deleted]'s hangers and it would be stored in the back of the hanger....
Q. And go back in your mind to the first trip you took and describe to me the disposition of the cargo; that is, the cocaine, once it returned to Arkansas, once it was delivered to Arkansas? And I am especially -- I am particularly interested in the identification of persons other than [deleted]. You've talked about [deleted]. You've identified him. Can you identify other people who might have received this cocaine?
A. Yes. I can identify people who in fact received the cocaine, not "might have." And --
Q. Can you tell us who they were?
A. I can tell you that they were members of John Gotti's family in New York. One of them was an individual know[n] to me by the name of Sal Reale.
Q. Could you spell that name for us?
A. R-E-A-L-E. . . .
Q. Salvatore Reale?
A. Correct.
Q. And how did you know Mr. Reale?
A. Mr. Reale at that time was the Director of -- I believe it was that time, was the Director of Security of Kennedy International in New York City.
Q. . . . Speak to the subject of your knowledge of Mr. Reale and his activities as the head of security at Kennedy? Tell us what you know about him and what he did?
A. Okay. Mr. Reale was a -- was one of Mr. Gotti's lieutenants. I watched the two of them interact. Mr. Gotti would provide directions, Mr. Reale would carry them out. It was his job to make sure that cargo being shipped through Kennedy was not lost, but properly located, and in some cases avoiding . . . the customs procedures.
Q. Are you saying that you saw Mr. John Gotti, the famous head of the organized crime syndicates, in New York together with Mr. Reale?
A. Yes, sir, I did.
Q. Where did you see them?
A. That was in New York City.
Q. . . . What was the occasion that permitted you to see them together, do you recall? A. I don't recall the nature of it. I do recall that it was a private club that I was taken to, and I had an opportunity to meet with them at that time.
Q. And so -- okay. Do you remember when it was you saw them together?
A. It was either late '84 or early 1985. But in that three-or-four-
Q. Was your notice of Mr. Gotti and Mr. Reale in any way connected with your contractual job with the Central Intelligence Agency?
A. Yes. As far back as 1968 and early '69, we had begun to launder money from organized crime families in New York. At that time, Mr. Gotti was an up-and-coming member of the families. I got to know them at that time. We used to wash their money out overseas and put it in Switzerland in nice, safe places for them.
Q. So you worked for Mr. Gotti as well as for the CIA?
A. Actually the CIA told me to do that on his behalf.
Q. So the CIA was in, would you say, partnership or association with Mr. Gotti?
A. Yes, sir. I would say a partnership.
Q. And can you describe the nature of that partnership?
A. Sure. The organized crime members had a need for two things: they needed drugs brought into the country on a reliable, safe basis; they needed people taken out of the country or people brought into the country without alerting customs or INS to the fact that they were being brought into the country; they also needed their money taken offshore so that it would not be subject to United States tax where they might have to declare its source. And so we performed these kinds of functions for them.
Q. Mr. Brenneke, are you saying that the CIA was in the business of bringing drugs into the United States?
A. Yes, sir. That's exactly what I'm saying.
Q. And that they were in partnership with Mr. Gotti in this operation?
A. I would say that they worked with Mr. Gotti and his organization very closely. Whether it was a formal partnership, I don't know. But there certainly was a close alliance between the two.
Q. All right. Now let's go back to the Mena Airport in Arkansas for a moment. At a time when you saw Mr. Reale there, did he receive any of the shipment, the cargo of the drugs that you brought back from Panama?
A. He did not personally take any of the drugs. He did, however, see that they were transferred into aircraft and vehicles so that they could be moved off the field, and that was his function. His function was not to load the vehicles, but to see that nothing got lost on transit.
Q. Are you saying that drugs that you brought back from Central America to Mena were for the purpose of delivery to Mr. Reale, who was in the employ of Mr. John Gotti, the New York crime syndicate boss?
A. Yes, sir. I would say that.
Q. And Mr. Reale was there to manage the transshipment of those drugs?
A. From time to time there were other people from the family down there.
Q. Did you have any conversations with him about where he intended to take those drugs?
A. Yes, sir. I asked on more than one occasion where the drugs would be taken, and I was told the New York City area, specifically Kennedy International Airport.
Q. Now, do you have any knowledge of the CIA, quote, "black bag," operations at Rich Mountain Aviation? . . . And maybe a more interesting way to ask that question would be, you knew that you were dealing with criminals; is that correct?
A. That's correct, sir.
Q. You were dealing with criminals that were transporting and selling cocaine in the United States? . . .
Q. Now, did the Gotti organization, through Reale, pay money to the CIA for the drugs?
A. Yes, they did.
Q. Do you know how much money?
A. Firsthand knowledge, somewhere in the $50,000,000 bracket.
Q. How do you know how much money?
A. Because I banked that money for them in Panama City, and ultimately transferred it to other locations in Europe....
Q. Can you recall any conversations you had with any of the CIA agents about the money, and tell us the nature of that conversation, the scope of it?
A. Sure. When I found that we were bringing drugs into the United States, and that we were receiving money which was being put into accounts which I knew to belong to the United States Government, as I'd set them up specifically for that purpose, I called Mr. Don Gregg, who was a CIA officer with whom I was acquainted, and complained about the nature of what we were doing.
Q. Now, who is Mr. Don Gregg?
A. At that time, he was . . . Vice-President George Bush's National Security Advisor. . . .
Q. And can you tell us what you remember about that conversation?
A. I surely can. I was told that it was not my business, what I was flying in and out of the country. That I was hired to do specific things, and if I would do those things and not pay any attention to anything else, we would all be very happy. I didn't like that.
Q. Well, what else did he say?
A. Shut up and do your job.
Brenneke deposition Joint Investigation by the Arkansas State Attorney General's Office and the U.S. Congress, June 21, 1991.
Mr. Richard Brennecke testified that he was a former contract employee with the CIA, and that as a pilot he transported guns and munitions from Mena, Arkansas to Panama. And that on the same airplane returned with a cargo of drugs, mostly cocaine but some marijuana, that was brought back to Mena and delivered to Freddie Hampton, and to representatives of the Gotti New York crime syndicate operation, the Mafia from New York.
The owner of Rich Mountain Aviation was Frederick L. Hampton.
http://www.prorev.
A (Bernneke) . He provided landing facilities, a place to store the aircraft,
assistance with mechanical problems on the aircraft or avionics problems
on the aircraft if they were necessary to get it out of there, a storage
area for drugs that were brought in, a storage area for weapons that
were taken out, a place where people could rest or wait for a truck to
haul them out to Nella (an airport 10 miles north of Mena, AR)
Q. And how much did the CIA pay him for his services?
A. I don't know the dollar figures. That's -- the figure I saw on his tax
returns at one point indicated that he had received something in excess
of $10,000.
Q. Who would have handled the payment to Hampton for the CIA?
A. My understanding was that the man I was working for at the time paid
him, and that was Bob Kerritt.
Q. Bob Kerritt. Can you identify where he might reside?
A. Mr. Kerritt is a full-time employee of the Central Intelligence
Agency; and when I first met him, I checked on that by waiting for him
to return to Washington, calling Information in the D.C. area, got the
phone number for the switchboard at the CIA, called and asked for him by
name, and I got him.
Q. I think, finally, I want to ask you if you have any knowledge of the
money that you're talking about coming from the Gotti organization being
used for any other purposes, other than depositing in the bank accounts
for the CIA?
A. Sure. We had to run the operations at Nella, for instance. The
training facilities at Nella had to be paid for.
Q. Now, where is Nella?
A. Nella is about 10 miles out of Mena, north.
Q. North of the Mena Airport. We've not talked about that, Mr. Brenneke.
Can you tell us what you know about Nella; what it is, and for what
purposes it was established?
A. Sure. Nella was a training base for military and paramilitary folks
from south of the border, Mexico, Panama.
Q. Who managed the base? Who operated the base?
A. Don't know the names of the operators.
Q. What agency operated the base?
A. Central Intelligence Agency, as far as I knew.
Q. Did you know anyone from the agency that was responsible for the
operation?
A. I knew the names of some of the people over there. I didn't spend
much time at Mena, so I'd have to answer that by saying, no, I really
don't know. I do know one of the folks who was a flight instructor over
there, and that was Terry Reed. (pp. 37-40)
http://www.marijuan
In addition to the people who have made claims of illegal drug trafficking, here are more. Remember, will all these people making claims, the main stream media refuses to cover this criminal activity.
Former Arkansas Supreme Court Justice Jim Johnson, a historian of Arkansas politics, says the implications of Mena are appalling. Jim Johnson: "These people got what they needed in their operations down there. But I'm sure that the powers that be surely to God didn't mean to put America in the dope business. And that's what resulted in Mena, with America literally being in the dope business. And there's nothing as degrading as the thought of my country being a party to that kind of activity and that occurred, in my view, in Mena." http://www.serendip
Two investigators have worked carefully and relentlessly for over ten years against a backdrop of Federal and State-level resistance. Russell Welch, a state police investigator, has kept watch on Barry Seal's drug-running from the beginning. Bill Duncan, an IRS investigator, tracked money laundering in Mena banks. And Terry Reed, wrote his book Compromised about the drug trafficking of Seal and Oliver North at Mena. This was after he would not have anything to do with drug trafficking.
In an extensive phone interview, former IRS special agent, Bill Duncan, asserted that he had over 25 specific instances of money laundering in Mena area banks, (including Union Bank) from over 7000 pages of evidence on the Mena case. According to the depositions: a scared secretary at Rich Mountain Aviation (RMA) reported the use of cashier's checks to avoid filing Currency transaction reports; the first cases of money laundering were used to build Seal's hangar in Mena airport; a local bank VP admitted under oath that RMA had laundered money with them; Seal's pilot confessed that irregular procedures were used; and, an overheard conversation between the CIA and US customs hinted at "some type of joint operation at the Mena Airport" "active as late as October of 1991."
In December 1985, Russell Welch and Bill Duncan interviewed Barry Seal under a plea agreement, less than two months before he was gunned down. He confessed to drug smuggling on a massive scale. According to the depositions: a DEA official verified Seal's claim of arms and drug-running; a well-understood method of cocaine delivery emerged from the questioning and the physical evidence; and, an informant reported that cocaine had actually been kept in the hangars.
Russell Welch, former Arkansas Stale Investigator said, "Barry Seal was a cocaine smuggler. He used the Mena airport. He used other places too, but he based his operation - starting in 1982 and through 1983 - to smuggle cocaine, not for anybody but Barry Seal, he based it at the Mena airport. That is not even debatable."
According to Bill Duncan, nine separate state and federal probes into Mena went nowhere or were blocked. What happened to the investigations? And what happened to the investigators? According to the depositions: Troopers were told to keep their mouths shut, to forget what they had heard or what they had seen; the House subcommittee on crime in 1990 never allowed Duncan's evidence; a now-controversial Grand jury made no convictions; an FBI agent memorandum copied to FBI and CIA headquarters spoke of the cover-up.
Bill Duncan had submitted the names of the prospective witnesses to the U. S. Attorney in Arkansas, Asa Hutchinson. However, Hutchison subpoena onlythree of the 20 to the grand jury'
Duncan: As two of the witnesses exited (the grand jury room), one was a secretary who had received instructions from Hampton, Evans (the owner of Rich Mountain Aviation), and I think on some occasions had discussed with Barry Seal, the methodology. She was furious when she exited the grand jury, was very upset, indicated to me that she had not been allowed to furnish her
evidence to the grand jury.
Q. Which witness was this?
Duncan. Kathy Corrigan Gann.
Q. Kathy Corrigan Gann. Do you know her address?
Duncan. She is in Mena, Arkansas.
Q. Mena, Arkansas. Now, she was a witness?
Duncan. She was the secretary for Rich Mountain Aviation, who
participated in the money laundering operation upon the
instructions of Hampton, Evans.
Q. You talked to her about her evidence given to the grand
jury?
Duncan. Yes. I had taken two sworn statements, recorded sworn
statements prior to the grand jury, and those transcripts were
furnished to the U. S. Attorney.
Q. And what did she say about the evidence that she was
allowed to give the grand jury as it might have been different
from the evidence that you wanted her to give to the grand jury?
Duncan. She basically said that "she was allowed to give her name,
address, position, and not much else.
Q. Mr. Duncan, are you saying that the prospective witness was
not permitted in your judgment to give evidence of the money
laundering to the grand jury?
Duncan. That's what this witmess told me.
…
Duncan state: "I talked to (one of the witnesses called to testify at the grand jury), his name was Jim Nugent, who was a
Vice-president at Union Bank of Mena, who had conducted a search
of their records and provided a significant amount of evidence
relating to the money laundering transactions. He was also
furious that he was not allowed to provide the evidence that he wanted to provide to the grand jury."
Q. What was the result of the grand jury inquiry into the
money laundering investigation which you had conducted?
Duncan: There were never any money laundering indictments.
Q. There was no indictment?
Duncan: No.
http://www.marijuanalibrary. org/MENA2
Duncan was also not called to testify at the grand jury. It is very unusual for the chief investigator not to be call to testify before a grand jury to explain the evidence.----------
Sources from the House Banking Committee say that Seal's money laundering was at least in the seven figures. It is speculated that the money trail may go beyond the Mena area, perhaps as far as Dan Lasater's firm. One curious fact: Lasater and Co made millions of trades in the account of an unsuspecting Kentucky citizen during 1985. The trading suddenly stopped in February, 1986, the month that Seal was killed. Terry Reed's book claims that Dan Lasater was a major recipient of Seal's cocaine. It is a fact that in late 1986, Dan Lasater pleaded guilty to distributing cocaine and received a 30-month sentence. It was cut short by a pardon from Governor Clinton who had lobbied to give Lasater a $30 million State Police radio contract. Lasater contributed to Clinton's campaigns, was a major underwriter of Arkansas bond issues, and had hired Clinton's brother, Roger as a chauffeur -- even paid Roger's drug debts.
Although both Lasater and Clinton now claim that they have only met a few times at crowded events, Congressman Dan Burton, former Chairman of the Republican Study Committee strongly disagrees. "He was so close to the Governor that he got $664 million in Arkansas development bonds from which he was able to get $1.6 million in commissions. And this was at a time when Dan Lasater was under investigation by the state police for cocaine trafficking and cocaine use."
Based on a deposition by Betsy Wright, Governor Clinton's former chief of staff, the Governor's Mansion was "inundated" with phone calls concerning Mena in 1985. Bill Clinton has claimed that he knew nothing about Mena until 1988. Even then, the State Authorities took no action and no-one was prosecuted.
1….Source: Excerpts from NET special report, "American Investigator: Mena, Arkansas Under Investigation"
Some of the most compelling documentation on Seal's Mena operation and related money laundering was provided by William "Bill" Duncan, the former Special Operations Coordinator for the Southeast Region of the Criminal Investigation Division, Internal Revenue Service at the U.S. Treasury. The U.S. Treasury fired Duncan in June of 1989 when he refused to dilute or cover up the facts in Congressional testimony. Since it is illegal to lie to Congress, this is the equivalent of being fired for refusing to break the law, and in the process, protecting a criminal enterprise.
The Secretary of the Treasury when Duncan was fired was Nicholas F. Brady.
http://www.scoop.
Charles Hayes who helped to run these operations at Mena, Arkansas says that he personally saw Barry Seale give BOB NASH a suitcase full of drug money as a payoff or kickback. Bob Nash - now (2008) Hillary's campaign co-chair - was one of wild Bill's closest aides. Here is the interview (7-14-92) with Charles Hayes, the man who ran operations at Mena:
The Charles Hayes interview notes is a document generated by an Arkansas Committee investigator and is one of the documents made available to U.S. Attorney J. Michael Fitzhugh during his grand jury investigation of Mena. State Police Investigator Russell Welch, IRS Investigator Bill Duncan, and other competent investigators compiled a 20,000-page file on the Mena-Airport-
Charles Hayes was contacted by telephone on 7-14-92 by (interviewer'
Hayes began (the interview with Jean Duffy) by saying that he would not advance any information or elaborate, but that he would answer questions.
Q. Do you now Bob Nash?
A. Yes, I was personally present when Barry Seal gave Bob Nash a suitcase full of money. I don't take payoffs, and don't like those who do.
Q. Did you know that Bob Nash is currently president of ADFA?
A. You're kidding.
Q. No, I have interviewed Bob Nash in his office at ADFA.
http://www.idfiles.
Facts about Dan Harmon and the "train deaths" in chronological order
- August 23, 1987 - The bodies of Kevin Ives, 17, and Don Henry, 16, were run over and mutilated by a passing train in Saline County, Arkansas. The state's medical examiner, Fahmy Malak, ruled the deaths accidental in spite of evidence to the contrary.
- February, 1988 - Failing to get anything accomplished through government agencies, the parents took advantage of the media's interest in the case, and held a press conference to demand a new autopsy.
The second autopsy, done by a noted Atlanta forensic pathologist, showed that the face of one of the boys had been smashed in before death, and that his cheek still bore the imprint of a rifle butt. The other boy had been stabbed in the back. The weight of their lungs, filled with blood, was clear proof from the beginning that they didn't die from the impact of that train. All of which the State Medical Examiner, Dr. Fahmy Malak, had failed somehow to ascertain. This second autopsy, showed clearly how ridiculous Dr Malak ruling of accidental death was and it was way beyond the bounds of incompetence here; it was evidence of criminal intent. He should have been charged with "conspiracy to cover up." LITTLE ROCK, Ark.-Gov. Bill Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, refused for several years to dismiss a state medical examiner, Dr. Fahmy Malak, "was sort of protected by the governor and the [state crime laboratory] board," state Rep. Bob Fairchild, a Democrat from Fayetteville, told The Times.
Three weeks before Clinton announced his presidential candidacy last Oct. 3, he pushed Malak, whom he had appointed during his first gubernatorial term, to resign. But then the Clinton Administration found Malak another well-paying job in state government.
Source: MAY 19, 1992 http://www.idfiles.
The Saline county grand jury ruled the boys death a homicide. Around this time, Jean Duffey was the prosecuting attorney of a federally funded Drug Task Force in Saline County Arkansas. Duffey stated, "I had hired seven undercover investigators," she explains. "Their job was to make drug buys, and work their way up the ladder to drug suppliers. That's who we were after. Duffey stated "About three months after we were up and running, one of my undercover investigators asked if he could open the Trains Deaths case, which was, at that point, two-and-a-half years old…." Her Drug Task Force investigators proceeded to develop startling evidence that had previously been ignored. First, on the drug-related aspect of the crimes. The drug trafficking .."connections began to lead almost immediately to public officials, who were either protecting the drug trade or actively involved in the drug trade themselves." The name came up most often in her investigations was Dan Harmon. He had been the special prosecutor in the initial grand jury investigation into the train deaths of the boys and after nearly year, he had nothing, but establish that the cause of death was indeed homicide. Duffey said, "It became apparent almost immediately that Dan Harmon was a key player in the drug trafficking activity taking place in Saline county." He was appointed by Judge John Cole to head the Saline County grand jury investigation of the murders? "Why did Cole refuse to hear the complaints of the grand jurors that Harmon would not allow them to see the evidence and hear the witnesses they wanted? " "One of the first things my investigator did was to interview people living in the vicinity of where Kevin and Don were murdered. He discovered that drug drops had been rumored in that area over the six months before the boys murders, that citizens had filed reports of low-flying aircraft buzzing over in the middle of the night with their lights turned off. "The system kept me from prosecuting," she continues. "Our Drug Task Force was actually doomed from the beginning. On the very day I was appointed to head the drug task force, Gary Arnold, my boss, walked into my office, stared at me hard, and instructed me not to use the Drug Task Force to investigate any public officials." Duffey states in an even tone. "My drug task force was shut down cold. Because we were getting too close. We were not allowed to get there." - April, 1988 - Harmon was appointed by Circuit Judge John Cole to head a county grand jury investigation, which ruled the deaths homicides after hearing the evidence of an out-of-state medical examiner.
- March, 1990 – Jean Duffey took her evidence to Assistant U.S. Attorney, Bob Govar, who was heading a federal grand jury investigation of public official corruption in Saline County.
- June, 1990 - Harmon became the district's prosecutor-elect and used his powerful media friends to launched a smear campaign against Jean Duffey.
- November, 1990 – Jean Duffey's task force was dismantled, but we continued to investigate until we linked the murders of Kevin and Don to a large drug operation involving public officials.
- December, 1990 – Duffey took the evidence my task force developed to U.S. Attorney Chuck Banks, who promised he would carry on our investigation. Instead, Banks ousted Govar and shut down the grand jury probe of Saline County public officials.
- January, 1991 - Harmon took office as the district's prosecutor and subpoenaed me to bring him all the evidence Duffey had against him and other public officials. To protect witnesses, she ignored the subpoena, and Judge Cole issued a felony warrant for her arrest, even though "avoiding service" is a misdemeanor.
- February, 1991 – Duffey received death threats and left the state to Texas to wait for the promised federal indictments against Harmon and other public officials.
· In 1991, drug task force secret agent Scott Loellen quit, saying "There is just too much dirt behind the scenes." He served Saline, Grant, and Hot Springs counties. He later bad mouthed the drug task force saying, "That district is immersed in a reign of corruption that has important and powerful connections to political, judicial, and law enforcement officials." Scott gathered evidence of illegal activity, but for some reason the drug task force chose to ignore him. He quit because of the firing of Jean Duffey, the drug task force administrator.
- June, 1991 - Chuck Banks held a press conference, cleared all Saline County public officials, and insinuated the grand jury had made the decision. Three grand jurors got word to Duffey and they were unanimously ready to indict Harmon and others but the grand jury was sent home without being allowed to vote.
- Banks was the U.S. Attorney when the 1990 federal grand jury heard evidence against Harmon. Banks, a republican appointee, was then nominated for a federal judgeship position by George Bush. The explanation made simple is, Banks thwarted the federal investigation before it connected Kevin and Don's murders to the Mena/CIA drug smuggling operation.
In 1994, the Little Rock FBI recommended Banks be charged with obstruction of justice when they opened their own investigation of Harmon and the murders of Kevin and Don. They wanted Banks charged for shutting down his grand jury and for protecting Harmon. Banks had cleared Harmon, even though enough evidence existed to indict Harmon on many other counts dating back to 1987, within the ten years time limitations.
http://www.idfiles.
Jury convicts Harmon
In 1997, a team of FBI agents and U.S. Attorney staffers brought charges against.
Harmon was indicted under the federal RICO statute, so his illegal activities up to ten years back could have been named in the indictment, including his involvement in the murders of Kevin and Don. The indictment, however, was cut off at August, 1991. This was to protect then-U.S. Attorney Chuck Banks from the obstruction of justice charge the FBI recommended back in 1994 and never acted on, and it protects the Mena drug smuggling operation from being exposed.
Harmon's indictment is based primarily on the testimony of indicted witnesses who made deals with the feds in exchange for their testimony against Harmon. In 1990, my task force provided witnesses against Harmon who were never indicted for anything and had no personal vendetta against Harmon
Former Prosecuting Attorney Dan Harmon was found guilty Wednesday of five of 11 federal felony charges, including racketeering by using his office to get drugs and money.
Harmon was acquitted on one count of witness tampering, a count of retaliation against an informant, two counts of possession with the intent to distribute drugs and a fourth count of extortion.
Former 7th Judicial District Drug Task Force head Roger Walls and defense lawyer Bill Murphy were indicted with Harmon in April, and they share some of the same charges
The jury decided that Harmon participated in and benefited from the sale of 117 pounds of marijuana found in the car of Arturo Valdez during a traffic stop.
The final extortion charge on which he was convicted had Harmon taking $10,000 in exchange for allowing an Indiana resident, Patrick Davis, to leave the state without being prosecuting after being found with drugs during a traffic stop.
http://www.idfiles.
Harmon ran what a lawyer in Pulaski County recently described as "a reign of terror" in the counties he was sworn to serve. All of that raises the question of why the man was not stopped earlier. It could have happened.
Former U.S. Attorney Chuck Banks could have brought his evidence against Harmon before a federal grand jury. He would not.
http://www.idfiles.
The death of a Florida journalist from pulmonary (also called inhaled or airborne) anthrax has focused some renewed interest in the unexplained death of Oklahoma businessman Ron Miller in October 1997. Miller was expected to accuse former Clinton Chief of Staff Thomas F. "Mack" McLarty in the Oklahoma Corporation Commission scandal of the early nineties that sent three individuals to prison.
John Hippard, the FBI agent (now retired) who worked closely with Miller for five years. Hippard said that, in his dealings with Miller, Miller had never given him any reason to doubt his word, or trustworthiness.
On September 5, 1997, the congressional committee deposed McLarty. He was asked about ARKLA lobbyist Bill Anderson.... The congressional committee was scheduled to begin its formal proceedings on October 8, with Ron Miller slated to testify.
Thomas McLarty, a childhood friend of Bill Clinton, was the Chief Executive Officer of Arkansas Louisiana Gas (ARKLA).
October 2, 1997 Miller became increasingly ill with what he believed to be the flu ; his condition worsened on Saturday to the point that he was taken to the emergency room at Norman Regional Hospital. Doctors diagnosed pneumonia and he was admitted to the hospital. Miller was in respiratory distress, with a temperature spiking to 105. Miller was transferred to Baptist Hospital, where doctors worked to determine the cause of his pneumonia.
Some important signs of pulmonary anthrax include a widened mediastinum and acute tubular necrosis, both of which Miller had. Other symptoms common to inhaled anthrax suffered by Miller include fever, chills, hypotension, diasphoresis, shock, non-productive cough, severe breathing problems, and confusion. Bacillus anthracis is a large, gram-positive bacteria. Medical records indicate that Miller's lab test confirmed gram-positive bacteria.
The District Attorney in Cleveland County, Tim Kuykendall, opened an investigation following the change in Miller's case from a natural death to undetermined.
It is a complicated story that begins many years ago. Oklahoma Natural Gas, claimed that Creek Systems, a GAGE subsidiary, was "fraudulently" overcharging the company's customers, and sought to end a long-term gas purchase contract with GAGE. Ron Miller took the case to the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, which regulates the natural gas business in Oklahoma. To his dismay, the Commission sided with ONG. This threatened to financially bankrupt Miller and his corporate partner, James H. Kitchens, also of Norman.
On October 2, 1992, Commissioner Bob Anthony made headlines with his public announcement that he had been assisting the FBI (specifically Special Agent John Hippard) in uncovering corruption at the Commission.
Nolanda Butler Hill, a former business partner of the late U.S. Commerce Secretary Ron Brown, testified before the Oklahoma Corporation Commission on January 31, 2001. Hill's testimony confirmed the deep involvement of the Clinton White House with the contract between Oklahoma Natural Gas (ONG) and Dynamic Energy Resources of Tulsa. Hill told the Commission that Secretary Brown met with First Lady Hillary Clinton at the White House shortly after Bill Clinton took office in 1993. According to Hill, Mrs. Clinton expressed "appreciation" for Brown's "efforts toward resolution of Mack McLarty's problem in Oklahoma." McLarty's "problem in Oklahoma" concerned "a small gas company, GAGE, with which McLarty had some association.
Why did the first lady take McLarty's "problem" in the matter so seriously?
As the criminal investigations into Brown's activities moved closer, Brown signaled an interest in making a deal with prosecutors. Brown died in a plane crash while on a trade mission in the Balkans on April 3, 1996. Brown's sudden death aborted an independent counsel's investigation into Brown's role in the Dynamic Energy deal.
NOTE Remember Russell Welch, who survived inhaled militarized pulmonary anthrax. The trooper was investigating the MENA drug ring in Arkansas in 1991 when he became ill. The first doctor that he sought help from could not determine the cause of his illness. A second physician was an Army Reserve doctor who served in the Gulf War, and had received special training in detecting airborne anthrax. He was able to begin treatment early and, after fourteen days in the hospital, survived. Welch told Bohnen that he believes he was infected "through the mail.
This is the same kind of militarized or specially manufactured germ warfare kind pulmonary anthrax sent in the mail to two US. Senators and several news reporters after 9/11.
http://www.oklahoma
Riconosciuto also claimed that, in connection with this work on the Cabazon Reservation, he had been involved with the development of chemical and biological weapons in a project connected with Park-O-Meter (POM), the parking meter company owned by Seth Ward.
He claimed (POM made) weapons (untraceable to the U.S,) for the Contras, and were designed for the C-130 transport planes [which] were at the time carrying weapons and drugs in and out of Mena, Ark. He further stated that he had supervised high-tech equipment transfers and had developed computer software to help launder drug money emanating from the Mena operation
Dr. Larry C. Ford suicide, 49, committed suicide March 2, 2000, following an attempted murder of his business partner.
On May 15, 2000, The Chemical and Biological Arms Institute released the results of preliminary tests on the substances found in Dr. Ford's home. The Los Angeles Times reported on May 15, 2000, that some of the live cultures contained cholera and salmonella. The New York Times reported on November 3, 2002, that the refrigerators in Ford's home and office had a total of 266 bottles and vials of lethal toxins. Live cultures of botulism and typhoid fever were also found. On November 7, 2002, CBS News said that police also found the medical files of some 83 women, including some of their personal effects and photos, below the floorboards of the house. Investigators believed that the discovery of the biological materials and other articles found at Ford's home could serve as a link to a biological warfare program run by the military in South Africa -- a country that Dr. Ford visited often before his death.
Police suspected Ford of having links with the apartheid-era South African military's biological weapons program from the beginning of the investigation. Bryan Card said that the doctor had at one time worked for the U.S. government on a chemical weapons project. According to the L.A. Times, Ford acted as a consultant to the South African Defense Force providing advice on protecting military personnel against biological attacks.
Nine months following Ford's death on November 3, 2002, the New York Times reported that police found the doctor's business card and directions for making chemical and biological weapons, including anthrax, in a gold mine in Nevada.
http://www.crimelib
Dr. Stephen Dresch of Forensic Intelligence International, who had done extensive research on Dr. Ford and his work developing genetically selective toxins at Project Coast's Rhodoplast Labs in South Africa, then under the direction of Wouter Basson, whose testimony before the Truth and Reconciliation hearings in South Africa are a matter of public record.
http://www.tamitipp
Source of the following: A brief history of CIA involvement in the Drug Trade
by William Blum
1970s and 1980s, PANAMA
For more than a decade, Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega was a highly
paid CIA asset and collaborator, despite knowledge by U.S. drug
authorities as early as 1971 that the general was heavily involved in
drug trafficking and money laundering. Noriega facilitated
"guns-for-drugs" flights for the contras, providing protection and
pilots, as well as safe havens for drug cartel officials, and discreet
banking facilities. U.S. officials, including then-ClA Director William
Webster and several DEA officers, sent Noriega letters of praise for
efforts to thwart drug trafficking (albeit only against competitors of
his Medellin Cartel patrons). The U.S. government only turned against
Noriega, invading Panama in December 1989 and kidnapping the general,
once they discovered he was providing intelligence and services to the
Cubans and Sandinistas. Ironically drug trafficking through Panama
increased after the US invasion. (John Dinges, Our Man in Panama, Random
House, 1991; National Security Archive Documentation Packet The Contras,
Cocaine, and Covert Operations.)
1980s, CENTRAL AMERICA
The San Jose Mercury News series documents just one thread of the
interwoven operations linking the CIA, the contras and the cocaine
cartels. Obsessed with overthrowing the leftist Sandinista government in
Nicaragua, Reagan administration officials tolerated drug trafficking as
long as the traffickers gave support to the contras. In 1989, the Senate
Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Operations (the
Kerry committee) concluded a three-year investigation by stating:
"There was substantial evidence of drug smuggling through the
war zones on the part of individual Contras, Contra suppliers,
Contra pilots mercenaries who worked with the Contras, and
Contra supporters throughout the region.... U.S. officials
involved in Central America failed to address the drug issue
for fear of jeopardizing the war efforts against Nicaragua...
In each case, one or another agency of the U.S. govemment had
information regarding the involvement either while it was
occurring, or immediately thereafter..
makers were not immune to the idea that drug money was a
perfect solution to the Contras' funding problems." (Drugs,
Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy, a Report of the Senate
Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Terrorism,
Narcotics and Intemational Operations, 1989)
In Costa Rica, which served as the "Southern Front" for the contras
(Honduras being the Northern Front), there were several different
ClA-contra networks involved in drug trafficking. In addition to those
servicing the Meneses-Blandon operation detailed by the Mercury News,
and Noriega's operation, there was CIA operative John Hull, whose farms
along Costa Rica's border with Nicaragua were the main staging area for
the contras. Hull and other ClA-connected contra supporters and pilots
teamed up with George Morales, a major Miami-based Colombian drug
trafficker who later admitted to giving $3 million in cash and several
planes to contra leaders. In 1989, after the Costa Rica government
indicted Hull for drug trafficking, a DEA-hired plane clandestinely and
illegally flew the CIA operative to Miami, via Haiti. The U.S.
repeatedly thwarted Costa Rican efforts to extradite Hull back to Costa
Rica to stand trial.
Another Costa Rican-based drug ring involved a group of Cuban Americans
whom the CIA had hired as military trainers for the contras. Many had
long been involved with the CIA and drug trafficking They used contra
planes and a Costa Rican-based shrimp company, which laundered money for
the CIA, to move cocaine to the U.S.
Costa Rica was not the only route. Guatemala, whose military
intelligence service -- closely associated with the CIA -- harbored many
drug traffickers, according to the DEA, was another way station along
the cocaine highway. Additionally, the Medellin Cartel's Miami
accountant, Ramon Milian Rodriguez, testified that he funneled nearly
$10 million to Nicaraguan contras through long-time CIA operative Felix
Rodriguez, who was based at Ilopango Air Force Base in El Salvador.
The contras provided both protection and infrastructure (planes, pilots,
airstrips, warehouses, front companies and banks) to these ClA-linked
drug networks. At least four transport companies under investigation for
drug trafficking received US government contracts to carry non-lethal
supplies to the contras. Southern Air Transport, "formerly" ClA-owned,
and later under Pentagon contract, was involved in the drug running as
well. Cocaine-laden planes flew to Florida, Texas, Louisiana and other
locations, including several militarv bases Designated as 'Contra
Craft,' these shipments were not to be inspected. When some authority
wasn't clued in, and made an arrest, powerful strings were pulled on
behalf of dropping the case, acquittal, reduced sentence, or
deportation.
1980s to early 1990s, AFGHANISTAN
ClA-supported Mujahedeen rebels engaged heavily in drug trafficking
while fighting against the Soviet-supported govemment and its plans to
reform the very backward Afghan society. The Agency's principal client
was Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, one of the leading druglords and a leading
heroin refiner. CIA supplied trucks and mules, which had carried arms
into Afghanistan, were used to transport opium to laboratories along the
Afghan/Pakistan border. The output provided up to one half of the heroin
used annually in the United States and three-quarters of that used in
Western Europe. U.S. officials admitted in 1990 that they had failed to
investigate or take action against the drug operation because of a
desire not to offend their Pakistani and Afghan allies. In 1993, an
official of the DEA called Afghanistan the new Colombia of the drug
world.
Mid-1980s to early 199Os, HAITI
While working to keep key Haitian military and political leaders in
power, the CIA turned a blind eye to their clients' drug trafficking. In
1986, the Agency added some more names to its payroll by creating a new
Haitian organization, the National Intelligence Service (SIN). SIN was
purportedly created to fight the cocaine trade, though SIN officers
themselves engaged in the trafficking, a trade aided and abetted by some
of the Haitian military and political leaders.
William Blum is author of
Killing Hope: U.S Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II
http://www.marijuan
The ENTERPRISE:
Up until the moment when three medellin cartel gunmen blew the life from his
body in front of a dingy Baton Rouge Salvation Army outlet, Adler Berriman,
better known as Berry Seal ran the largest drug smuggling operation in the
continental United States. From his headquarters at the Intermountain Regional
Airport in Mena Arkansas, Seal oversaw the importation of tens of thousands of
pounds of cocaine and the export of tremendous amounts of U.S. military
hardware. He was able to accomplish this with the overt and covert complicity
of at least four major U. S. government agencies and despite being investigated
at least nine times between 1981 and 1986 by everything from a grand jury to an
official Congressional inquiry. The case of Berry Seal stands as a cautionary
tale of Intelligence Community's covert operational capability run amok. It ís
true roots lie not in the Oachita mountains, some 160 miles from Little Rock
where he broke state and federal laws for so long and with such impunity,
rather they lie in the dank steaming jungles of North Vietnam. For to tell the
story of Berry Seal is to tell the story of Air America.
When Ted Shackley arrived in Laos, Vang Pao was at war with two rival druglords
for control of the Southeast Asian opium trade. Shackley had just been
transferred to Laos from Miami where he had run JMWAVE, a Spanish language
radio station broadcasting nonstop propaganda into Havana. He had also run
Operation 40,which was a program dedicated to training and equipping assassins
for the express purpose of killing the upper echelons of the Cuban
revolutionary government. It was thought that if this could be accomplished
that the communist regime in Cuba would collapse under itís own weight.. At
some point this operation evolved into the infamous Operation Mongoose, which
was tasked with training and equipping Cuban exiles for the doomed Bay of Pigs
invasion. Even after the Bay of Pigs debacle Shackley stayed on in Miami to
conduct a covert war against Cuba. In 1965 the covert war on Cuba was folded up
and Shackleyís team was moved en masse to Laos. Shackley took three of his
Operation 40 assassins to Laos with him, Felix Rodriguez, Jose Pasada and Chi
Chi Quintero.
Shackley was in Laos a matter of days before intermediaries set up a meeting
between he and Vang Pao. Vang Pao wanted total control of the opium trade and
Shackley wanted a military intelligence foothold in the Southeast Asian opium
trade. The two struck a bargain. The United States Air Force would bomb the
compounds of both of his rivals out of existence in exchange for certain favors
once he was in control of the opium traffic. The Air Force carried out itís end
of the bargain. The young major who coordinated the bombing attacks on Vang
Paoís rivals was Richard Secord. When Vang Pao did become undisputed lord of
the Southeast Asian opium trade, he regularly began donating a share of his
profits to the training and equipping of Laotian tribesman for incursions
against North Vietnamese supply lines and to carry out assassinations against
suspected communist sympathizers. The director of training for the tribesman
was Shackleyís second in command, Tom Clines. Major General John Singlaub ran
the assassinations arm of the enterprise. Richard Secord coordinated the
flights that ferried arms, personnel, and heroin to various points throughout
Europe and Asia. One of the pilots who made these flights was a Special Forces
lieutenant named Adler Berrimen, later known as Berry Seal.
In 1968 Mafia Don Santos Trafficante visited Vang Pao in a Saigon hotel. There
are at least three different military intelligence reports that mention this
meeting so it is highly unlikely that it escaped Shackleyís notice. More
likely, it occurred with his direct complicity. Subsequent to the meeting
Trafficante became the leading importer of China White heroin in the western
world. Vang Paoís profits soared, and as they did so did his contributions to
the training and equipping of the Laotian tribesman. What had been a relatively
small scale operation suddenly blossomed into the Phoenix Project. The Phoenix
Project was an epic intelligence debacle that resulted in the assassinations of
nearly 35,000 noncombatants throughout Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Thailand.
The Phoenix Project acquired itís own airforce, paid for with profits from Vang
Paoís heroin trade and piloted by U.S. intelligence personnel such as Adler
Berrimen (Seal).
In 1972, with the coming fall of Saigon, Air
America, as the group had come to be known (complete with the cynical motto "We
Fly Right") was officially disbanded. But during their four years of existence,
they had established an important precedent. They had used an existing criminal
infrastructure to finance intelligence community operations that they never
would have received funding for had they gone through standard appropriations
channels, thus subverting the will of Congress and the American people. Even
after Ted Shackley was brought back to the United States to run the western
hemisphere operations of the CIA, his agents were still extorting millions of
dollars from Vang Pao and transferring it to a bank in Australia called the
Nugun Hand Bank. They also began to pilfer tons of military equipment from
depots around Asia and transfer it to a secret base in Thailand. One of the men
who flew the military hardware into Thailand and made the odd smuggling run for
Vang Pao was Adler Berrimen a.k.a. Berry Seal.
In 1975 George Bush became director of the CIA and Ted Shackley received yet another promotion, this time to Deputy Director of Intelligence in charge of world wide covert operations. This was a major step towards the directorship of the CIA, which Shackley would have received had Ford won the election.
http://www.csun.
For more information see: Jean Duffey's website http://www.idfiles.
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