Date sent:        Mon, 26 Jan 1998 21:55:50 -0600
From:             Michael Novick <mnovickttt@pop.igc.apc.org>
Subject:          The Dike Begins to Burst...

From the website--MN:

The DrugMoney Times

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Barry Seal Purchased U.S. Minesweepers for Use in Contra War

Relationship to the CIA Closer than Previously Admitted
 
 
<Picture: Caribbean>
WASHINGTON, D.C.-- A just finished TV documentary reveals new details of
the association between legendary drug smuggler Barry Seal and the Central
Intelligence Agency.

Sam Dalton, the New Orleans-based attorney for three Colombian hitmen
convicted of assassinating Barry Seal in Baton Rouge, Louisiana in 1986 has
told TV producer Daniel Hopsicker that on the night of Seal's murder the
FBI threatened local police to release the contents of Seal's Cadillac.

When the contents of Seal's trunk was brought into evidence at the murder
trial--after the judge had threatened the federal government with
contempt-- it changed the picture of Barry Seal as a free-lancing drug
trafficker.

"Barry Seal was delivering arms and money to the Contras," Dalton says.
"Now one of the things that really turned us on about that premise, which
held hope we would be able to persuade a jury to spare the lives of the
Colombians convicted of Seal's murder--was Barry's Seals' ability to buy a
surplus minesweeper from the government."

"Wait a minute," Hopsicker protested, "Barry Seal, a drug smuggler, bought
a minesweeper from the government? How did you find out about this?"

Dalton smiled. "It was formerly named the Stark, and its name was changed
to the Condor," he said. "My investigation led me to a transcript of the
IRS. So we just felt like that was too close to the federal government to
be done in that fashion without the federal government knowing full well
what was going on, and having plans of its own for the contras and the use
of that minesweeper by the Contras."

Barry Seal first appeared on the front page of the Washington Times on July
17, 1984 in a picture showing his participation in a CIA sting of the
Nicaraguan Sandinistas. Seal also carried out a CIA operation to detect
nuclear devices in Nicaragua from his airplane. After Seal's assassination,
his C-123K Fairchild provider was shot down over Nicaragua with Eugene
Hasenfus on board--unraveling the CIA involvement in the Contra war under
the Iran-Contra diversion.

The close association between Barry Seal and the CIA uncovered by Hopsicker
has led him to conclude that Seal may have been a CIA agent. "The biggest
drug smuggler in American history was a CIA agent," he says, adding "being
a CIA agent is not something one does at the same time as one smuggles
drugs. One smuggles drugs as part of one's duties as a CIA agent." By the
federal government's own estimate, Seal imported drugs at a street value of
between $3 billion and $5 billion.

The CIA last year released a declassified summary of a report by the CIA's
inspector general on the activities at Mena airport in Arkansas where
Seal's C-123K was based. Inspector General Frederick P. Hitz confirmed the
existence of covert activities at Mena, but claimed that the CIA had only
had "limited contact" with Seal and that "all allegations implying that the
CIA condoned, abetted or participated in narcotics trafficking are
absolutely false."

The report did, however, confirm that Arkansas State Trooper L.D. Brown had
been under consideration for employment by the CIA in 1984. Brown has told
the Washington Weekly that he was asked by his CIA contact Donald P. Gregg
to participate in Seal's transport flights to Central America carrying
M-16s for the Contras and bringing duffel bags of cocaine back to Arkansas
with the apparent knowledge of then-Governor Bill Clinton and then- Vice
President George Bush.

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<Picture: Secret Heartbeat>Daniel Hopsicker has now finished the TV
documentary mentioned in this story, as well as a book. A video tape of the
documentary as well as a pre-publication version of the book are available
by clicking here.

Published in the Aug. 11, 1997 issue of The Washington Weekly..
Non-commercial reposting permitted with this message intact.

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