Date sent:        Fri, 30 Jan 1998 17:07:55 -0600
From:             Michael Novick

Friday, January 30, 1998

CIA Finds No Significant Drug-Contra Tie

Only an "insignificant" tie?--MN

Investigation: Report contradicts charges that agency was involved in
trafficking. Rep. Maxine Waters is not satisfied.
By DOYLE MCMANUS, JAMES RISEN, Times Staff Writers
 

WASHINGTON--The Central Intelligence Agency said Thursday that a 17-month
internal investigation has found no evidence that the U.S.-supported
Nicaraguan rebels of the 1980s received significant financial support from
drug traffickers.

A fuller "non-denial denial" than the original leak, carefully
circumscribed statement that doesn't deny CIA involvement with drug
dealers, does it?--MN

     CIA Inspector General Frederick P. Hitz, releasing the first volume of
a two-part report on the drug issue, said his findings contradict
widespread charges that the agency was involved in drug trafficking as a
means of funding the Contras.

     The investigation was touched off by allegations that three California
drug traffickers introduced crack cocaine to Los Angeles and funneled
millions of dollars to the Contras under protection from the CIA.

     "No evidence has been found . . . that the CIA as an organization, or
any of its employees, engaged in drug trafficking in support of the Contras
or to raise funds for Contra-related programs," Hitz said.

Any other purposes they might have engaged in drug trafficking for?--MN

     He said the inquest found that cocaine traffickers in California had
donated between $6,000 and $80,000 to the Contra movement, adding that he
considered the smaller sum more likely.

     Asked whether investigators had detected any significant flow of drug
money to the Contras from any source, in California or elsewhere, Hitz
replied: "No."

     CIA Director George J. Tenet praised the investigation. "I am
satisfied that the IG has left no stone unturned in his efforts to uncover
the truth," he said in a written statement.

     But Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles), who demanded the inquest, said
she was not satisfied.

     "There are undeniable connections between the drug dealers and the
Contras that raise questions still," she said. "Where there's this much
smoke, there must be some fire."

     The allegations that led to the inquest were reported in the San Jose
Mercury News in 1996. Other newspapers, including The Times, investigated
the same allegations and found evidence that the traffickers had
contributed some money to the Contras, but no proof that the CIA knew of
the pipeline.

     Hitz's report, based on 365 interviews with former CIA officials and
Contra leaders, as well as 250,000 pages of documents, said two traffickers
had contributed money to the rebels, but in amounts well short of millions.

     "Based on figures they gave us . . . we believe they contributed in
the order of $3,000 to $4,000 each" from drug operations in California,
Hitz said.

     One of the traffickers, Oscar Danilo Blandon, told CIA investigators
he donated about $40,000 to the main Contra organization, the FDN, through
a San Francisco-based support group. Blandon estimated that his partner in
drug trafficking, Juan Norvin Meneses, also contributed about $40,000 to
the organization.

     But Hitz said his investigators concluded that Blandon was
"exaggerating" the amounts of aid.

     The report quoted Blandon as saying he met with the Contras' military
commander, Enrique Bermudez, four times during his drug trafficking career.
At a 1982 meeting in Honduras, he said, Bermudez asked him and Meneses for
financial help, saying: "The end justifies the means." But he added that
Bermudez did not specifically ask him to raise money through drug
trafficking. Bermudez, who long denied any relationship with drug
traffickers, was assassinated in 1991.

     Waters pointed to those meetings as a reason for continued suspicion.
"Bermudez was the CIA's man," she said. "It is difficult for me to believe
that with Bermudez looking for money, there was never a discussion between
Bermudez and his CIA contacts about his ongoing meetings with Blandon and
Meneses."

     The first volume of the CIA report focused on Blandon and Meneses and
their operations in California. "The notion that we and [Los Angeles drug
dealer] Ricky Ross invented crack--we discard that entirely," Hitz said.

     A second volume, to be released next month, will contain findings on
broader questions of CIA complicity in drug trafficking in Central America
during the Contra war.

     But Hitz previewed its findings in an interview, saying the inquest
found evidence of several links between Contra leaders and drug
traffickers, but no CIA complicity and no major sums of drug money.
* * *
     For example, Nicaraguan rebel leader Eden Pastora told CIA
investigators that he received $40,000 and the loan of two helicopters from
one drug trafficker, $40,000 and the use of two airplanes from another,
$20,000 from a third, $25,000 from Panamanian Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega,
and about $6,000--plus two pickup trucks--from the ubiquitous Blandon.

Okay, so here is documented, admitted funding of over $131,000 plus
substantial services and materiel right there, none apparently part of the
CIA's total; and remember, Pastora was the smallest and least US-dominated
of the Contra operations --MN

     In another case, the report said the CIA learned in 1982 of a possible
deal among Contra groups and an unnamed U.S. "religious organization" to
exchange narcotics for weapons. But CIA headquarters concluded that the
report "simply does not make sense," and did not pursue it vigorously.

And so, have they pursued it subsequently?  Have they "named" the
religious organization now? Perhaps one of Falwell's, or Robertson's, or
maybe Larry Pratt's counter-insurgency operations?--MN

     The volume released Thursday did not include findings on many of the
apparent links between the Contras and drug traffickers that have been
reported before--in a 1987 U.S. Senate investigation led by Sen. John F.
Kerry (D-Mass.), for example. "Volume 2," Hitz promised.

     The Senate and House committees on intelligence said they were
studying the report and planning to hold hearings on it, probably after the
second volume has been released.

     No matter what their findings, Tenet said he doubts that the agency
will ever fully shake its drug-tainted image.

     "I must admit that my colleagues and I are very concerned that the
allegations made have left an indelible impression in many Americans' minds
that the CIA was somehow responsible for the scourge of drugs in our inner
cities," he said. "Unfortunately, no investigation--no matter how
exhaustive--will completely erase that false impression or undo the damage
that has been done."
 

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