CIA Contra Crack and LA Gangs (fwd)

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>From notes@igc.org  Tue Aug 20 15:07:25 1996
Date: Mon, 19 Aug 1996 20:27:27 -0700 (PDT)
Reply-To: Moderator of conference "justice.polabuse" <bwitanek@igc.apc.org>
From: Bob Witanek <bwitanek@igc.apc.org>
Subject: CIA Contra Crack and LA Gangs
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From: Bob Witanek <bwitanek@igc.apc.org>

Posted mnovick@laedu.lalc.k12.ca.us  Sun Aug 18 22:23:45 1996

This is an astonishing mainstream media documentation of the role of the
U.S. state in the guns for drugs trade and its social devastation results in
the U.S. Although the piece focuses on U.S. involvement on the guns end in
Central America, this was a clear two-birds with one stone
counter-insurgency strategy at this end, too.  Given the continuing effect
of crack (and its hypocritical super-criminalization by the government),
genocide is probably too  mild a word for this.

'80s effort to assist guerrillas left legacy of drugs, gangs in black L.A.
By Gary Webb

Mercury News Staff Writer

For the better part of a decade, a Bay Area drug ring sold tons of cocaine to 
the Crips and Bloods street gangs of Los Angeles and funneled millions in drug 
profits to a Latin American guerrilla army run by the U.S. Central Intelligence 
Agency, a Mercury News investigation has found.

This drug network opened the first pipeline between Colombia's cocaine cartels 
and the black neighborhoods of Los Angeles, a city now known as the ``crack'' 
capital of the world. The cocaine that flooded in helped spark a crack explosion
 in urban America -- and provided the cash and connections needed for L.A.'s 
gangs to buy automatic weapons.

It is one of the most bizarre alliances in modern history: the union of a 
U.S.-backed army attempting to overthrow a revolutionary socialist government 
and the Uzi-toting ``gangstas'' of Compton and South-Central Los Angeles.

The army's financiers -- who met with CIA agents both before and during the time
 they were selling the drugs in L.A. -- delivered cut-rate cocaine to the gangs 
through a young South-Central crack dealer named Ricky Donnell Ross.

Unaware of his suppliers' military and political connections, ``Freeway Rick"'' 
-- a dope dealer of mythic proportions in the L.A. drug world -- turned the 
cocaine powder into crack and wholesaled it to gangs across the country.

The cash Ross paid for the cocaine, court records show, was then used to buy 
weapons and equipment for a guerrilla army named the Fuerza Democratica 
Nicaraguense (Nicaraguan Democratic Force) or FDN, the largest of several 
anti-communist groups commonly called the Contras.

While the FDN's war is barely a memory today, black America is still dealing 
with its poisonous side effects. Urban neighborhoods are grappling with legions 
of homeless crack addicts. Thousands of young black men are serving long prison 
sentences for selling cocaine -- a drug that was virtually unobtainable in black
 neighborhoods before members of the CIA's army brought it into South-Central in
 the 1980s at bargain-basement prices.

And the L.A. gangs, which used their enormous cocaine profits to arm themselves 
and spread crack across the country, are still thriving, turning entire blocks 
of major cities into occasional war zones.

``There is a saying that the ends justify the means,'' former FDN leader and 
drug dealer Oscar Danilo Blandon Reyes testified during a recent cocaine 
trafficking trial in San Diego. ``And that's what Mr. Bermudez (the CIA agent 
who commanded the FDN) told us in Honduras, OK? So we started raising money for 
the Contra revolution.''

Recently declassified reports, federal court testimony, undercover tapes, court 
records here and abroad and hundreds of hours of interviews over the past 12 
months leave no doubt that Blandon was no ordinary drug dealer.

Shortly before Blandon -- who had been the drug ring's Southern California 
distributor -- took the stand in San Diego as a witness for the U.S. Department 
of Justice, federal prosecutors obtained a court order preventing defense 
lawyers from delving into his ties to the CIA.

Blandon, one of the FDN's founders in California, ``will admit that he was a 
large-scale dealer in cocaine, and there is no additional benefit to any 
defendant to inquire as to the Central Intelligence Agency,'' Assistant U.S. 
Attorney L.J. O'Neale argued in his motion shortly before Ross' trial on cocaine
 trafficking charges in March.

The most Blandon would say in court about who called the shots when he sold 
cocaine for the FDN was that ``we received orders from the -- from other 
people.''

The 5,000-man FDN, records show, was created in mid-1981 when the CIA combined 
several existing groups of anti-communist exiles into a unified force it hoped 
would topple the new socialist government of Nicaragua.

>From 1982 to 1988, the FDN -- run by both American and Nicaraguan CIA
agents -- 
waged a losing war against Nicaragua's Sandinista government, the 
Cuban-supported socialists who'd overthrown U.S.-backed dictator Anastasio 
Somoza in 1979.

Blandon, who began working for the FDN's drug operation in late 1981, testified 
that the drug ring sold almost a ton of cocaine in the United States that year 
-- $54 million worth at prevailing wholesale prices. It was not clear how much 
of the money found its way back to the CIA's army, but Blandon testified that 
``whatever we were running in L.A., the profit was going for the Contra 
revolution.''

At the time of that testimony, Blandon was a full-time informant for the Drug 
Enforcement Administration, a job the U.S. Department of Justice got him after 
releasing him from prison in 1994.

Though Blandon admitted to crimes that have sent others away for life, the 
Justice Department turned him loose on unsupervised probation after only 28 
months behind bars and has paid him more than $166,000 since, court records 
show.

``He has been extraordinarily helpful,'' federal prosecutor O'Neale told 
Blandon's judge in a plea for the trafficker's release in 1994. Though O'Neale 
once described Blandon to a grand jury as ``the biggest Nicaraguan cocaine 
dealer in the United States,'' the prosecutor would not discuss him with the 
Mercury News.

A known dealer since '74

has stayed out of U.S. jails

Blandon's boss in the FDN's cocaine operation, Juan Norwin Meneses Cantarero, 
has never spent a day in a U.S. prison, even though the federal government has 
been aware of his cocaine dealings since at least 1974, records show.

Meneses -- who ran the drug ring from his homes in the Bay Area -- is listed in 
the DEA's computers as a major international drug smuggler and was implicated in
 45 separate federal investigations. Yet he and his cocaine-dealing relatives 
lived quite openly in the Bay Area for years, buying homes in Pacifica and 
Burlingame, along with bars, restaurants, car lots and factories in San 
Francisco, Hayward and Oakland.

``I even drove my own cars, registered in my name,'' Meneses said during a 
recent interview in Nicaragua.

Meneses' organization was ``the target of unsuccessful investigative attempts 
for many years,'' prosecutor O'Neale acknowledged in a 1994 affidavit. But 
records and interviews revealed that a number of those probes were stymied not 
by the elusive Meneses but by agencies of the U.S. government.

Agents from four organizations -- the DEA, U.S. Customs, the Los Angeles County 
Sheriff's Department and the California Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement -- have 
complained that investigations were hampered by the CIA or unnamed ``national 
security'' interests.

1988 investigation

hit a wall of secrecy

One 1988 investigation by a U.S. Senate subcommittee ran into a wall of official
 secrecy at the Justice Department.

In that case, congressional records show, Senate investigators were trying to 
determine why the U.S. attorney in San Francisco, Joseph Russoniello, had given 
$36,000 back to a Nicaraguan cocaine dealer arrested by the FBI.

The money was returned, court records show, after two Contra leaders sent 
letters to the court swearing that the drug dealer had been given the cash to 
buy weapons for guerrillas. Russoniello said it was cheaper to give the money 
back than to disprove that claim.

``The Justice Department flipped out to prevent us from getting access to 
people, records -- finding anything out about it,'' recalled Jack Blum, former 
chief counsel to the Senate subcommittee that investigated allegations of Contra
 cocaine trafficking. ``It was one of the most frustrating exercises that I can 
ever recall.''

It wasn't until 1989, a few months after the Contra-Sandinista war ended and 
five years after Meneses moved from the Peninsula to a ranch in Costa Rica, that
 the U.S. government took action against him -- sort of.

Federal prosecutors in San Francisco charged Meneses with conspiracy to 
distribute one kilo of cocaine in 1984, a year in which he was working publicly 
with the FDN.

In S.F. photo, Meneses

seen with CIA operative

Meneses' work was so public, in fact, that he posed for a picture in June 1984 
in a kitchen of a San Francisco home with the FDN's political boss, Adolfo 
Calero, a longtime CIA operative who became the public face of the Contras in 
the United States.

According to the indictment, Meneses was in the midst of his alleged cocaine 
conspiracy at the time the picture was taken.

But the indictment was quickly locked away in the vaults of the San Francisco 
federal courthouse, where it remains today -- inexplicably secret for more than 
seven years. Meneses was never arrested.

Reporters found a copy of the secret indictment in Nicaragua, along with a 
federal arrest warrant issued Feb. 8, 1989. Records show the no-bail warrant was
 never entered into the national law enforcement database called NCIC, which 
police use to track down fugitives. The former federal prosecutor who indicted 
him, Eric Swenson, declined to be interviewed.

After Nicaraguan police arrested Meneses on cocaine charges in Managua in 1991, 
his judge expressed astonishment that the infamous smuggler went unmolested by 
American drug agents during his years in the United States.

``How do you explain the fact that Norwin Meneses, implicated since 1974 in the 
trafficking of drugs . . . has not been detained in the United States, a country
 in which he has lived, entered and departed many times since 1974?'' Judge 
Martha Quezada asked during a pretrial hearing.

``Well, that question needs to be asked to the authorities of the United 
States,'' replied Roger Mayorga, then chief of Nicaragua's anti-drug agency.

U.S. officials amazed

Meneses remained free

His seeming invulnerability amazed American authorities as well.

A Customs agent who investigated Meneses in 1980 before transferring elsewhere 
said he was reassigned to San Francisco seven years later ``and I was sitting in
 some meetings and here's Meneses' name again. And I can remember thinking, 
`Holy cow, is this guy still around?' ''

Blandon led an equally charmed life. For at least five years he brokered massive
 amounts of cocaine to the black gangs of Los Angeles without being arrested. 
But his luck changed overnight.

On Oct. 27, 1986, agents from the FBI, the IRS, local police and the Los Angeles
 County sheriff fanned out across Southern California and raided more than a 
dozen locations connected to Blandon's cocaine operation. Blandon and his wife, 
along with numerous Nicaraguan associates, were arrested on drug and weapons 
charges.

The search warrant affidavit reveals that local drug agents knew plenty about 
Blandon's involvement with cocaine and the CIA's army nearly 10 years ago.

``Danilo Blandon is in charge of a sophisticated cocaine smuggling and 
distribution organization operating in Southern California,'' L.A. County 
sheriff's Sgt. Tom Gordon said in the 1986 affidavit. ``The monies gained from 
the sales of cocaine are transported to Florida and laundered through Orlando 
Murillo, who is a high-ranking officer of a chain of banks in Florida named 
Government Securities Corporation. From this bank the monies are filtered to the
 Contra rebels to buy arms in the war in Nicaragua.''

Corporate records show that Murillo -- a Nicaraguan banker and relative of 
Blandon's wife -- was a vice-president of Government Securities Corporation in 
Coral Gables, a large brokerage firm that collapsed in 1987 amid allegations of 
fraud. Murillo did not respond to an interview request.

Despite their intimate knowledge of Blandon's operations, the police raids were 
a spectacular failure. Every location had been cleaned of anything remotely 
incriminating. No one was ever prosecuted.

Ron Spear, a spokesman for Los Angeles County Sheriff Sherman Block, said 
Blandon somehow knew that he was under police surveillance. Others thought so, 
too.

``The cops always believed that investigation had been compromised by the CIA,''
 Los Angeles federal public defender Barbara O'Connor said in a recent 
interview. O'Connor knew of the raids because she later defended the raids' 
leader, Sgt. Gordon, against federal charges of police corruption. Gordon, 
convicted of tax evasion, declined to be interviewed.

Lawyer suggests aid

was at root of problem

FBI records show that soon after the raids, Blandon's defense attorney, Bradley 
Brunon, called the sheriff's department to suggest that his client's troubles 
stemmed from a most unlikely source: a recent congressional vote authorizing 
$100 million in military aid to the CIA's Contra army.

According to a December 1986 FBI Teletype, Brunon told the officers that the 
``CIA winked at this sort of thing. . . . (Brunon) indicated that now that U.S. 
Congress had voted funds for the Nicaraguan Contra movement, U.S. government now
 appears to be turning against organizations like this.''

That FBI report, part of the files of former Iran-Contra Special Prosecutor 
Lawrence Walsh, was made public only last year, when it was released by the 
National Archives at the Mercury News' request.

Blandon has also implied that his cocaine sales were, for a time, CIA-approved. 
He told a San Francisco federal grand jury in 1994 that once the FDN began 
receiving American taxpayer dollars, the CIA no longer needed his kind of help.

``When Mr. Reagan get in the power, we start receiving a lot of money,'' Blandon
 testified. ``And the people that was in charge, it was the CIA, so they didn't 
want to raise any (drug) money because they have, they had the money that they 
wanted.''

``From the government?'' asked Assistant U.S. Attorney David Hall.

``Yes, for the Contra revolution,'' Blandon said. ``So we started -- you know, 
the ambitious person -- we started doing business by ourselves.''

Asked about that, prosecutor Hall said, ``I don't know what to tell you. The CIA
 won't tell me anything.''

None of the government agencies known to have been involved with Meneses and 
Blandon over the years would provide the Mercury News with any information about
 them.

A Freedom of Information Act request filed with the CIA was denied on national 
security grounds. FOIA requests filed with the DEA were denied on privacy 
grounds. Requests filed months ago with the FBI, the State Department and the 
Immigration and Naturalization Service have produced nothing so far.

None of the DEA officials known to have worked with the two men would talk to a 
reporter. Questions submitted to the DEA's public affairs office in Washington 
were never answered, despite repeated requests.

Blandon's lawyer, Brunon, said in an interview that his client never told him 
directly that he was selling cocaine for the CIA, but the prominent Los Angeles 
defense attorney drew his own conclusions from the ``atmosphere of CIA and 
clandestine activities'' that surrounded Blandon and his Nicaraguan friends.

``Was he involved with the CIA? Probably. Was he involved with drugs? Most 
definitely,'' Brunon said. ``Were those two things involved with each other? 
They've never said that, obviously. They've never admitted that. But I don't 
know where these guys get these big aircraft . . .''

That very topic arose during the sensational 1992 cocaine trafficking trial of 
Meneses after Meneses was arrested in Nicaragua in connection with a staggering 
750-kilo shipment of cocaine. His chief accuser was his friend Enrique Miranda, 
a relative and former Nicaraguan military intelligence officer who had been 
Meneses' emissary to the cocaine cartel of Bogota, Colombia. Miranda pleaded 
guilty to drug charges and agreed to cooperate in exchange for a seven-year 
sentence.

In a long, handwritten statement he read to Meneses' jury, Miranda revealed the 
deepest secrets of the Meneses drug ring, earning his old boss a 30-year prison 
sentence in the process.

``He (Norwin) and his brother Luis Enrique had financed the Contra revolution 
with the benefits of the cocaine they sold,'' Miranda wrote. ``This operation, 
as Norwin told me, was executed with the collaboration of high-ranking 
Salvadoran military personnel. They met with officials of the Salvadoran air 
force, who flew (planes) to Colombia and then left for the U.S., bound for an 
Air Force base in Texas, as he told me.''

Meneses -- who has close personal and business ties to a Salvadoran air force 
commander and former CIA agent named Marcos Aguado -- declined to discuss 
Miranda's statements during an interview at a prison outside Managua in January.
 He is scheduled to be paroled this summer, after nearly five years in custody.

U.S. General Accounting Office records confirm that El Salvador's air force was 
supplying the CIA's Nicaraguan guerrillas with aircraft and flight support 
services throughout the mid-1980s.

Miranda did not name the Air Force base in Texas where the FDN's cocaine was 
purportedly flown. The same day the Mercury News requested official permission 
to interview Miranda, he disappeared.

While out on a routine weekend furlough, Miranda failed to return to the 
Nicaraguan jail where he'd been living since 1992. Though his jailers, who 
described him as a model prisoner, claimed Miranda had escaped, they didn't call
 the police until a Mercury News correspondent showed up and discovered he was 
gone.

He has not been seen in nearly a year.

Additional reporting for this series in Nicaragua and Costa Rica was done by 
Managua journalist Georg Hodel. Research assistance at the Nicaraguan Supreme 
Court in Managua was done by journalist Leonore Delgado.


This material is copyrighted and may not be republished without permission of 
the originating newspaper or wire service. NewsHound is a service of the San 
Jose Mercury News. For more information call 1-888-344-6863.



-- 
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I've heard that story so many times from so many less-than-worthless sources
(primarily the wacky-left "Christic Institute" and KPFK Radio) that I find
it difficult to take it seriously. But I do. The US, Cuban, and
"entrepreneurial" actors in Central America in the 80's were so fucked up
that just about anything is possible. 

Although... I thought it was pretty funny that today's story matter-of-
factly identified Calero as a CIA agent. Yeah, and registering Republican
makes me Barbara Bush. 

At least he's not quiting Agee.

-rich

Roger Morris has documented the base story nicely, first in an article 
intended for the Washington Post (but which wound up in Penthouse when the 
Post got cold feet) and now in a book, _Partners in Power_.

bd

On Tue, 20 Aug 1996, Rich Graves wrote:

> I've heard that story so many times from so many less-than-worthless sources
> (primarily the wacky-left "Christic Institute" and KPFK Radio) that I find
> it difficult to take it seriously. But I do. The US, Cuban, and
> "entrepreneurial" actors in Central America in the 80's were so fucked up
> that just about anything is possible. 
> 
> Although... I thought it was pretty funny that today's story matter-of-
> factly identified Calero as a CIA agent. Yeah, and registering Republican
> makes me Barbara Bush. 
> 
> At least he's not quiting Agee.
> 
> -rich
> 
>

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On Tue, 20 Aug 1996, Brad Dolan wrote:

> Roger Morris has documented the base story nicely, first in an article 
> intended for the Washington Post (but which wound up in Penthouse when the 
> Post got cold feet) and now in a book, _Partners in Power_.

You're joking, right? I must admit that the irony of a story fabricated by
the far left being used against the left by the far right is delicious. 

Just in case you're serious, if you liked Partners in Power, you'll love
this... 

- -rich

             Gary Hart, George Bush, and Michael Williams

Lean forward in your chairs a little more. Get a little closer to the
monitor. You need to read every word of this, and slowly.

Senator Gary Hart, the man the overwhelming majority of Americans wanted
to be their President in 1988, was eliminated from the U.S. Presidential
race he was expected to win with the biggest landslide in American
history. His elimination from the race was engineered by vice president
(and former C.I.A. Director) George Bush, whose father, Senator Prescott
Bush, personally financed the political career of Adolf Hitler. 

Bush employed the use of the C.I.A. and other less official criminal
organisations to accomplish his goal of eliminating Hart from the race
after I refused to sabotage the Hart campaign and set Hart up for a
false arrest. The key C.I.A. operative in the scheme to eliminate Hart
from the race was international prostitute, Donna Rice.

After Bush and his band of scary men succeeded in eliminating Hart from
the race, I convinced him to re-enter it, something no one had ever done
before. I formed the "Draft Hart Committee", resurrected his campaign,
and managed it, until he was once again eliminated from the race by Bush
and his C.I.A. co-conspirators. 

As my "reward" for my work with the Man Who Would Be President, the
fascist criminal tyrant, George Bush, had the F.B.I. arrest me (without
any warrant or indictment), torture me for two years, break up my
family, arrange for the kidnap of my two small daughters, seize
virtually all of my significant assets and property, and, after several
assassination attempts failed (as had the attempted Bush-ordered C.I.A.
assassination of Senators Gary Hart and William Cohen when they flew to
Nicaragua on an Iran-Contra fact-finding mission) exile me to
Switzerland, where I have remained ever since, unable to safely return
to America, the land of my birth.

The story has never been told. Not one American publisher has the
courage to publish it.

It is fashionable in the United States to be a coward today. In the past
nine years, I have been unable to find an attorney willing to properly
represent me in my single-handed fight against the F.B.I. and U.S.
government, which continues to this day, lasting longer than World War
II. 

So, as it stands, the American people did not get the President they
wanted. Instead of President Hart, they got President Bush, who, along
with Richard M. Nixon and Lyndon B. Johnson led the conspiracy to
assassinate President John F. Kennedy on 22. November 1963 and the coup
d'etat it began. Each of the three men then took turns playing "El
Presidente" ... each of them were nothing more than four-year dictators.

For my role in defending America's liberty and right to vote, I lost
everything I had. The story ... has never been told. Just like the story
of the JFK assassination. You can visit my web site at:

http://www.iahushua.com/mbw.html

There, you will find enough information about what George Bush and the
fascist U.S. government did to me and my family to ruin your dinner.

Eight days ago, when George Bush visited his numbered bank accounts here
in Berne, one of the highest-ranking officers of the United States
government threatened my life in person. As a matter of fact, I am
risking my life by writing this. Even though very few, if any of you,
give a damn about what happened to me last Wednesday, or that fateful
day of 18 March 1988, when jack-booted thugs with badges broke into my
peaceful Rocky Mountain home, I am here to tell you about it, because,
as Americans, all of you who sit there on your sofas with your cans of
beer and bags of potato chips, doing nothing while your country sinks
even farther down the tubes, into a fascist police state, the likes of
which the world has never known ... you are all, each and every one of
you, equally as responsible for my pain and for the pain of your fellow
patriotic countrymen as George Bush and his gang of liars, traitors and
thieves. 

Little by little, the truth is trickling out. As I risk my life today, I
now give to you the opportunity to read an article put out by another
group of brave people. You lost your chance for President Hart to save
your nation. Now, read for yourself how the fascist criminal tyrant drug
dealer, George Herbert Walker Bush, who introduced heroin and other
hard drugs to the children of America, prevented you from voting for the
only man who loved his country enough to save it from what it has now
become.

Michael Williams
Patriot in Exile
06/20/96


              Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 8  Num. 19
             ======================================
                    ("Quid coniuratio est?")

- -----------------------------------------------------------------
 
WHO IS DONNA RICE HUGHES?
=========================
 
Following the  recent  much-cheered  ruling  by  3 federal judges
which, for the moment anyway,  has  over-ruled  the  Clinton  law
against  "indecency"  on  the  Internet,  I noticed a woman named
Donna Rice Hughes appearing on the  TV networks.  She was said to
be with a group called "Enough is Enough", said to  be  organized
to  protect  children  against  pornographers  supposedly lurking
everywhere in cyberspace. 
 
Donna Rice Hughes.  Take away  the  "Hughes" and what do you get?
You  get  "Donna  Rice",  nemesis  to   1988   Democratic   Party
presidential  candidate  Gary  Hart.   You may remember how Hart,
looking  strong  as   the   potential   candidate,  was  sunk  by
allegations of his shocking (as in "I am shocked...   *shocked*")
affair with "party girl" Donna Rice.  Seems pretty tame, compared
with Lothario Bill Clinton's escapades, but for "some reason" the
mainstream  press  really  sat up and took notice, playing up the
affair for the couch potatoes in TV land.
 
So *if* this is the same Donna  Rice, one wonders if she has "got
religion"  or  if  the CIA has merely given her a new assignment:
working to shut down freedom of  speech under the guise of saving
our  children  from  pornography.   (You  remember  "saving   our
children",  don't  you?  Like with President Nixon in 1969 saying
he wants to "save our children" from drugs?)
 
Reading in the recent book by  Dr.  Roger  Morris,  *Partners  in
Power*,  one  finds  further background on former candidate Hart.
On March 27, 1987, Billy Clinton is sucking up to Hollywood types
on the west coast.   At  an  exclusive dinner, King Clinton dines
with, among others, Don Henley, formerly of the Eagles rock band.
Close friend to Henley is Donna Rice, who is at about  that  time
boarding a yacht called the *Monkey Business*.
 
Young  Senator  Hart  had  been  on  the  Church  committee which
investigated the CIA  and  its  ties  to  organized crime.  After
that, he was  on  the  Senate  Intelligence  Oversight  Committee
where,  says  Morris, he continued a relentless effort to uncover
CIA hanky-panky.  Hart strongly opposed the Nicaraguan Contra war
and was skeptical of the official  "Oswald did it" version of the
JFK assassination.  Mobster Santos Trafficante is alleged to have
stated, regarding Hart:  "We need to get rid  of  the  son  of  a
bitch."
 
Hart seems to have been  set  up, says Morris, and gives evidence
to back up the claim.  Readers  of  Conspiracy  Nation  are  most
likely  well-aware  as  to  how  CIA/Mafia have often used "party
girls" to compromise  and/or  ruin  politicians.   Was Donna Rice
just a "party girl", or was she more than  that?   And  just  who
*is*  this  person  called "Donna Rice Hughes" of an organization
called "Enough is Enough"?  Did "somebody" get a promotion?
 
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>>snip<<
>It also rained cocaine in Tennessee in the '80s,
>but the authorities never seemed to notice.  Ask the Knoxville
>_News-Sentinel_ how many stories it can find in its archives relating
>to planes loaded with cocaine crash-landing on remote airstrips,
>airdrops being found in citizens' yards, etc.  Then ask the DEA what it did
>about those events.
>

The DEA probably didn't do shit, if you were (are) paying  attention, the
DEA has had its hands tied by the state department and the CIA for years.
As they are now an arm of the FBI, they have been almost totally deballed.

 When Klaus Barbie and his mercenaries from Argentina overthrough the
Government of Bolivia back in '80, it was blessed by the CIA and the State
department, cause the Bolivians were defineatly going "left". Bolivia is
now and was at the time, a coca country, that is their principal export.
Nearly 1/2 of all our cocaine comes from there. It is transported through
the Honduras and Coloumbia, Both CIA "Friendly" countries. The biggest dope
exporters are always up to their necks in CIA and US state department.

 Pay attention. The DEA has attempted to deal with this, and many of their
operatives end up fired or dead, this is why so many of them resigned back
in the late 80's after DEA operative Enrique (Kiki) Camerara was tortured
to death by the Mexican Government. The State department had the white
house (Ronald) get the DEA to back off the investigation after they
implicated top government and military people in Mexico as being involved
in the torture.

 The DEA may not actually be the "Good" Guys, but there are some much worse
out there




>bd
>
>p.s. Donna Rice has lately been running point for a regulate-the-internet
>front group.  I wouldn't put anything past her.

On Tue, 20 Aug 1996, Rich Graves wrote:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> 
> On Tue, 20 Aug 1996, Brad Dolan wrote:
> 
> > Roger Morris has documented the base story nicely, first in an article 
> > intended for the Washington Post (but which wound up in Penthouse when the 
> > Post got cold feet) and now in a book, _Partners in Power_.
> 
> You're joking, right? I must admit that the irony of a story fabricated by
> the far left being used against the left by the far right is delicious. 
> 
> Just in case you're serious, if you liked Partners in Power, you'll love
> this... 
> 
> - -rich
> 
>              Gary Hart, George Bush, and Michael Williams [...]

Goofy guy agrees with Morris about X, therefore Morris' well-documented 
claims about X and Y are false?

Maybe I should have cited R. Emmett Tyrell's _Boy Clinton_?  ;-)

It also rained cocaine in Tennessee in the '80s, 
but the authorities never seemed to notice.  Ask the Knoxville 
_News-Sentinel_ how many stories it can find in its archives relating 
to planes loaded with cocaine crash-landing on remote airstrips, 
airdrops being found in citizens' yards, etc.  Then ask the DEA what it did 
about those events.

bd

p.s. Donna Rice has lately been running point for a regulate-the-internet 
front group.  I wouldn't put anything past her.

On Tue, 20 Aug 1996, Brad Dolan wrote:

> Goofy guy agrees with Morris about X, therefore Morris' well-documented 
> claims about X and Y are false? 

Lots of footnotes to "confidential interview" do not make a valid study. How
many "well-documented" studies of the Kennedy assassination and UFO
sightings have you read? 

I followed this wild goose chase to exhaustion back in 1986-7. I've
forgotten most of it, but I'm sure I have some notes and maybe some tapes
lying around. Yes, some contras and some sandinistas and some martistas and
*lots* of the senderos and M-19 ran drugs. That's what happens when you
criminalize a political movement -- political figures become criminals in
order to survive. (When the crime they're involved is simply free trade in
criminalized agricultural products, it just adds another layer of irony.)

There's a kernel of truth and plausibility to most conspiracy theories,
including this one. (It's a big mistake to say *all* conspiracy theories.) 
However, the money involved was rather small, the process was basically skew
to politics (both sides did it all), and I have never been convinced that
the CIA -- or even North's coterie in the NSC, which as you know ran a
number of ops that the CIA would never have gone for -- was in on it. 

(ObConspiracy: H. Ross Perot actually was involved in funneling money to the
contras. He was rather open and proud of it. Is he mentioned in Morris's
book?)

-rich

On Tue, 20 Aug 1996, Rich Graves wrote:

> On Tue, 20 Aug 1996, Brad Dolan wrote:
> 
> > Goofy guy agrees with Morris about X, therefore Morris' well-documented 
> > claims about X and Y are false? 
> 
> Lots of footnotes to "confidential interview" do not make a valid study. How
> many "well-documented" studies of the Kennedy assassination and UFO
> sightings have you read? 
> 
> I followed this wild goose chase to exhaustion back in 1986-7. I've
> forgotten most of it, but I'm sure I have some notes and maybe some tapes
> lying around. Yes, some contras and some sandinistas and some martistas and
> *lots* of the senderos and M-19 ran drugs. That's what happens when you
> criminalize a political movement -- political figures become criminals in
> order to survive. (When the crime they're involved is simply free trade in
> criminalized agricultural products, it just adds another layer of irony.)
> 

Those products should be legalized of course - but that would deprive the 
CIA etc. of a nice hidden source of income.


> There's a kernel of truth and plausibility to most conspiracy theories,
> including this one. (It's a big mistake to say *all* conspiracy theories.) 
> However, the money involved was rather small, the process was basically skew
> to politics (both sides did it all), and I have never been convinced that
> the CIA -- or even North's coterie in the NSC, which as you know ran a
> number of ops that the CIA would never have gone for -- was in on it. 
> 

If you don't believe the principled left (Morris, etc.), the principled 
right (Tyrell, etc.), the mainstream media (see below), or my personal 
local observations, I think you've made up your mind and are beyond 
convincing.

> (ObConspiracy: H. Ross Perot actually was involved in funneling money to the
> contras. He was rather open and proud of it. Is he mentioned in Morris's
> book?)

Briefly.

bd

> 
> -rich
> 
> 

Wall Street Journal, 5/3/94, Letter to the Editor

STILL A STRONG SCENT ON THE MENA TRAIL

We are glad that Edward Jay Epstein saw the CBS News report on Mena, 
Ark., which he discussed in his April 20 editorial-page piece.  "On the 
Mena Trail."  Our story, like others on Mena, raised questions.  They 
won't be answered until reporters follow the money - millions of dollars 
generated out of the operations at Mena.  That could either put it to 
rest, or lead to a story at least as important as Whitewater.

The original report on Whitewater by Jeff Gerth of the New York Times was 
ignored for many months.  The Mena story probably will suffer the same 
fate unless other journalists pick up the trail.  That might not happen 
if readers conclude, as Mr. Epstein seems to, that the only place Mena 
could lead is to Whitewater. What if Mena has nothing to do with Whitewater?

Our sources agree with Mr. Epstein on a number of things:  There was most 
likely a CIA-sponsored Contra operation run out of Mena, as well as a 
huge parallel cocaine-smuggling operation, money laundering, and a 
Justice Department coverup.  Much of this happened on Mr. Clinton's watch 
as governor.

But Mr. Epstein says that after smuggler Barry Seal was killed there was 
really no one else to go after.  Investigators never targeted Mr. Seal.  
They knew he was working for the federal government and was therefore 
untouchable.  Instead, they targeted Seal's associates - the bankers and 
businessmen who allegedly laundered his drug profits and illegally modified
his planes so he could smuggle tons of cocaine into the U.S. They were 
never prosecuted by either the federal government or the state of Arkansas.

Mr. Epstein says that no one is claiming that Mr. Clinton blocked legal 
proceedings in this matter.  But as the CBS News story revealed, Mr. 
Clinton was asked by a state prosecutor for help to pursue the case 
against Seal's associates.  Help was promised but never arrived.

Arkansas Rep. Bill Alexander tried to save and then re-start an 
investigation of Mena.  Mr. Clinton did not seize on this issue and offer 
support, despite the fact 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.

Mr. Epstein suggests there is no reason to believe Mr. Clinton knew 
about Mena.  But the governor's own state police began investigating at 
Mena in 1984.  Isn't it reasonable to assume that he was made aware of 
the investigation?  Mr. Clinton did acknowledge learning about Mena as 
early as April 1988; Ross Perot, who had done his own investigation of 
Mena, was concerned enough about the drugs-for-guns operation to call Mr. 
Clinton.  And former Clinton staff people have told CBS News that the 
governor was aware of what was going on there.

Mena is a perplexing and difficult story.  There is a trail - tens of 
millions of dollars in cocaine profits, and we don't know where it 
leads.  It is a trail that has been blocked by the National Security Council.

The FAA, FBI, Custons, CIA, Justice, DEA and the IRS were all involved in 
Mena.  They won't say how they were involved, but they will tell you 
there is nothing there.

Bill Plante, CBS News Correspondent
Michael Singer, Producer, CBS News
New York

On Tue, 20 Aug 1996, Rich Graves wrote:

> lying around. Yes, some contras and some sandinistas and some martistas and
> *lots* of the senderos and M-19 ran drugs. That's what happens when you
> criminalize a political movement -- political figures become criminals in
> order to survive. (When the crime they're involved is simply free trade in
> criminalized agricultural products, it just adds another layer of irony.)

But also many 'legitimate' political movements in South American countries
engage in the cocaine trade (the President of Colombia etc). And why
shouldn't they. Here, the South countries at least have one commodity that
is highly prized in the North countries. It's very bad economy not to profit
from this.

Asgaard

Yes, oh, I'm breathing hard now.


The majorityh of the nation wanted President Hart.

And that poor decent man was _raped_ by the bimbo. He didn't want to do 
it with her, but she forcibly made him do it.

Oh my God.

At 5:13 PM -0400 8/20/96, Brad Dolan wrote:

> p.s. Donna Rice has lately been running point for a regulate-the-internet 
> front group.  I wouldn't put anything past her.

Which reminds me of a story. 

First, however, a joke, which in hindsight taught me about the propagation of information across geodesic networks, that is, capital market trading rooms, long before I had ever heard of either Peter Huber or geodesic networks. 


To wit, 

Q: What did Donna Rice say to the press when they caught her leaving Gary Hart's house?  

A: She said she was taking a poll. <"Pole", get it? Hyuk!>


The reason I remember this paragon of modern political humor is that I heard it no more the 30 minutes after the story broke on the AP wire machine in the Morgan Stanley branch where I was clerking at the time. I heard the joke from trading assistant, who in turn had heard it over the "hoot & holler" line which wired Morgan's various trading desks together with a bunch of permanently open-miked full-duplex speakerphones. The joke originated somewhere else, and was probably told to someone at Morgan's New York office over a direct "ring-down" line linking one company's trading desk to another.

I thought at the time that someone should do a study of the velocity of information flow in the markets, using jokes as information proxies. I've since outgrown such foolishness, though I keep expecting to hear about someone's Ph.D thesis on the topic someday. :-). 


But, of course, that's not the story I *wanted* to tell. *This* one, of course, has absolutely no crypto relevance whatever...

All these conspiracy theories about Donna Rice and George Bush got me to remember something. Brian Smith, who shot that famous Pulitzer-winning(!) picture of Gary Hart with Ms. Rice seated on his lap and the "Monkey Business" lifering in the background, was a friend of mine at Missouri. 

Clever boy, Brian was. When he graduated from the Missouri School of Journalism (Missouri's most famous, er, "professional" school [God help us all], with alums like Carl Rowan, and Dan Rather, and John Chancellor, etc.), he managed to produce, out from under his graduation robes, his entire motor-driven Nikon SLR outfit, complete with strobe apparatus, and took a series of pictures of himself graduating, right down to the handshake from Van Gorton Sauter, the President of CBS News. 


I always wondered what that masonic pyramid, with the eyeball on top, was doing tattooed on Brian's forehead. Now I know. Beware the Illuminati.

Cheers,
Bob Hettinga







-----------------
Robert Hettinga (rah@shipwright.com)
e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"'Bart Bucks' are not legal tender."
                -- Punishment, 100 times on a chalkboard,
                       for Bart Simpson
The e$ Home Page: http://www.vmeng.com/rah/

My first real job was as a clerk in the New York Merchantile Exchange, 
back in the days when we stood on platforms, writing trade prices on the 
wallboards with chalk.

I should have stayed around, most white males who did eventually moved up 
to being a floor trader.

I wish they'd get back in the business, but add an overt poison to the 
product.

Clean out the shit from the cities. Long live Darwinism.

On Tue, 20 Aug 1996, Alan Horowitz wrote:

> I wish they'd get back in the business, but add an overt poison to the 
> product.
> 
> Clean out the shit from the cities. Long live Darwinism.

Actually, I'd say that's closer to Lamarckism. The rich get richer, and the
poor get poorer, by the accumulation and inheritance of acquired rather than
innate goods.

If we were thrown back to a natural Darwinian world, I doubt many of us
would last long. 

-rich

> 
> I wish they'd get back in the business, but add an overt poison to the 
> product.
> 
> Clean out the shit from the cities. Long live Darwinism.

Darwinism is working as well as it ever was. You may not like it, but
shit is being selected for.


-- 
"Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely  exercised for the good of its victims  
 may be the most  oppressive.  It may be better to live under  robber barons  
 than  under  omnipotent  moral busybodies,  The robber baron's  cruelty may  
 sometimes sleep,  his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who  
 torment us for own good  will torment us  without end,  for they do so with 
 the approval of their own conscience."    -   C.S. Lewis, _God in the Dock_ 
+---------------------+--------------------+----------------------------------+
|Julian Assange RSO   | PO Box 2031 BARKER | Secret Analytic Guy Union        |
|proff@suburbia.net   | VIC 3122 AUSTRALIA | finger for PGP key hash ID =     |
|proff@gnu.ai.mit.edu | FAX +61-3-98199066 | 0619737CCC143F6DEA73E27378933690 |
+---------------------+--------------------+----------------------------------+

On Wed, 21 Aug 1996, Julian Assange wrote:

> Darwinism is working as well as it ever was. You may not like it, but
> shit is being selected for.

    Well that sounds.... internally consistent. Oh my God. I'm a dinosaur.

On Tue, 20 Aug 1996, Alan Horowitz wrote:

> I wish they'd get back in the business, but add an overt poison to the 
> product.
> Clean out the shit from the cities. Long live Darwinism.

     Really? 

     What are you drinking right now? 

Petro, Christopher C.
petro@suba.com <prefered for any non-list stuff>
snow@smoke.suba.com