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70
00 - META/CHANGELOG.md
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@ -1,21 +1,48 @@
- 2026-10-05T1756 · [[Southern Air Transport]]
- 2026-10-05T1756 · [[Sandinistas]]
- 2026-10-05T1807 · [[Washington Post]]
- 2026-10-05T1806 · [[David Ben-Gurion]]
- 2026-10-05T1806 · [[Cheri Seymour]]
- 2026-10-05T1805 · [[New York Times]]
- 2026-10-05T1805 · [[Psi]]
- 2026-10-05T1804 · [[Ernst David Bergmann]]
- 2026-10-05T1803 · [[Richard Bissell]]
- 2026-10-05T1803 · [[Sandinistas]]
- 2026-10-05T1803 · [[Manuel Noriega]]
- 2026-10-05T1803 · [[Adolfo Calero]]
- 2026-10-05T1803 · [[Robert McFarlane]]
- 2026-10-05T1803 · [[Iran-Contra Affair]]
- 2026-10-05T1802 · [[Horizon Institute for Public Service]]
- 2026-10-05T1802 · [[Kenneth A. Roe]]
- 2026-10-05T1802 · [[Southern Air Transport]]
- 2026-10-05T1802 · [[Arkansas]]
- 2026-10-05T1802 · [[Mena, Arkansas]]
- 2026-10-05T1802 · [[Eugene Hasenfus]]
- 2026-10-05T1802 · [[Barry Seal]]
- 2026-10-05T1802 · [[Felix Rodriguez]]
- 2026-10-05T1802 · [[Eugene Hasenfus]]
- 2026-10-05T1801 · [[_FOIA_B3]]
- 2026-10-05T1801 · [[_NOTES_B3]]
- 2026-10-05T1801 · [[_FOIA_B2]]
- 2026-10-05T1801 · [[_NOTES_B2]]
- 2026-10-05T1800 · [[Adolfo Calero]]
- 2026-10-05T1800 · [[Sandinistas]]
- 2026-10-05T1800 · [[Manuel Noriega]]
- 2026-10-05T1800 · [[Robert McFarlane]]
- 2026-10-05T1800 · [[Iran-Contra Affair]]
- 2026-10-05T1759 · [[Felix Rodriguez]]
- 2026-10-05T1759 · [[Barry Seal]]
- 2026-10-05T1759 · [[Arkansas]]
- 2026-10-05T1759 · [[Southern Air Transport]]
- 2026-10-05T1759 · [[Mena, Arkansas]]
- 2026-10-05T1755 · [[LASD Major Violators]]
- 2026-10-05T1755 · [[Manuel Noriega]]
- 2026-10-05T1754 · [[Mena, Arkansas]]
- 2026-10-05T1754 · [[Eden Pastora]]
- 2026-10-05T1754 · [[Enrique Bermudez]]
- 2026-10-05T1754 · [[Carlos Cabezas]]
- 2026-10-05T1754 · [[Norwin Meneses]]
- 2026-10-05T1754 · [[Danilo Blandon]]
- 2026-10-05T1754 · [[Robert McFarlane]]
- 2026-10-05T1753 · [[Danilo Blandon]]
- 2026-10-05T1753 · [[Adolfo Calero]]
- 2026-10-05T1753 · [[_FOIA_B1]]
- 2026-10-05T1753 · [[_NOTES_B1]]
- 2026-10-05T1753 · [[Barry Seal]]
- 2026-10-05T1752 · [[Eden Pastora]]
- 2026-10-05T1751 · [[Felix Rodriguez]]
- 2026-10-05T1750 · [[Carlos Cabezas]]
- 2026-10-05T1749 · [[Enrique Bermudez]]
- 2026-10-05T1749 · [[Norwin Meneses]]
@ -71,30 +98,3 @@
- 2026-10-05T1727 · [[Gambino Crime Family]]
- 2026-10-05T1727 · [[Cocaine]]
- 2026-10-05T1727 · [[Jose Santacruz Londono]]
- 2026-10-05T1726 · [[_FOIA_A3]]
- 2026-10-05T1726 · [[Thomas Gates]]
- 2026-10-05T1726 · [[John F. Kennedy]]
- 2026-10-05T1725 · [[Cocaine]]
- 2026-10-05T1725 · [[Jose Santacruz Londono]]
- 2026-10-05T1725 · [[Gambino Crime Family]]
- 2026-10-05T1724 · [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]]
- 2026-10-05T1722 · [[Ronald Reagan]]
- 2026-10-05T1721 · [[Fort Meade]]
- 2026-10-05T1721 · [[Dimona]]
- 2026-10-05T1721 · [[Science Applications International Corporation]]
- 2026-10-05T1721 · [[U.S. Army]]
- 2026-10-05T1721 · [[U.S. Air Force]]
- 2026-10-05T1721 · [[Science Applications International Corporation]]
- 2026-10-05T1720 · [[_FOIA_A4]]
- 2026-10-05T1720 · [[_NOTES_A4]]
- 2026-10-05T1720 · [[Oliver North]]
- 2026-10-05T1719 · [[U.S. Air Force]]
- 2026-10-05T1719 · [[Dimona]]
- 2026-10-05T1718 · [[Freedom of Information Act]]
- 2026-10-05T1718 · [[U.S. Customs]]
- 2026-10-05T1718 · [[DEA]]
- 2026-10-05T1718 · [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]]
- 2026-10-05T1718 · [[DEA]]
- 2026-10-05T1717 · [[_DELTA_Ingo Swann_A6]]
- 2026-10-05T1717 · [[_DELTA_Hal Puthoff_A6]]
- 2026-10-05T1717 · [[_FOIA_A2]]

106
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Adolfo Calero.md
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@ -3,44 +3,108 @@ title: Adolfo Calero
aliases:
- Adolfo Calero
- Adolfo Calero Portocarrero
- Adolpho Calero
- Sparkplug
created: 2026-05-17
updated: 2026-05-17
category: "Intelligence & Government"
updated: 2026-10-05
category: "Political Figure"
tags:
- Person
- Contra
- Contras
- FDN
- Nicaragua
- CIA
- 1980s
- IranContra
- ContraWar
- DarkAllianceInvestigation
summary: "Longtime CIA agent and former Coca-Cola bottling plant manager in Managua who was selected by the CIA in 1983 to lead the political wing of the FDN and worked closely with Oliver North."
- 1980s
summary: "Nicaraguan businessman and political leader of the FDN, the largest Contra army, who handled Saudi and private Contra money and bought arms through Oliver North and Richard Secord from 1984 to 1986."
born: 1931-12-22
died: 2012-06-02
location: "Managua, Nicaragua"
relations:
- type: head_of
with: "[[FDN]]"
start: 1983
role: "political leader of the Nicaraguan Democratic Force, the largest Contra group; Enrique Bermudez commanded its military side"
fn: 1
- type: member_of
with: "[[United Nicaraguan Opposition]]"
start: 1985
role: "one of three directors, with Arturo Cruz and Alfonso Robelo"
fn: 2
- type: partner_of
with: "[[Oliver North]]"
start: 1984
end: 1986
role: "North's chief contact among the Contra leaders during the Boland ban; received traveler's checks, intelligence and Saudi funds through him"
fn: 3
- type: partner_of
with: "[[Richard Secord]]"
start: 1984-07
end: 1985-07
role: "bought arms through Secord and Albert Hakim, transferring $11.3 million from December 1984 to July 1985"
fn: 2
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Iran-Contra Affair]]"
start: 1984
end: 1986
role: "recipient of third-country and private Contra funds; testified for the prosecution at North's 1989 trial"
fn: 4
---
Adolfo Calero was a longtime [[Central Intelligence Agency]] agent and former manager of the Coca-Cola bottling plant in [[Managua]].[^1] Selected by the CIA in 1983 to lead the political wing of the [[FDN]], Calero worked closely with [[Oliver North]] and met with [[Norwin Meneses]] several times during the years Meneses was selling drugs for the Contras.[^1] He later became a member of the [[Nicaragua|Nicaraguan]] Assembly.
Adolfo Calero Portocarrero was a [[Nicaragua|Nicaraguan]] businessman who led the political side of the [[FDN]], the largest [[Contras|Contra]] organization, during the war against the [[Sandinistas]]. The congressional [[Iran-Contra Affair|Iran-Contra]] Committees describe him as an accountant and businessman active in the movement against [[Anastasio Somoza]], who after the 1979 revolution became political coordinator of the Conservative Democratic Party, became an outspoken critic of the Sandinista government and joined the resistance after his office and home were attacked and he was forced into exile.[^1] He had attended the [[University of Notre Dame]] and headed the [[Coca-Cola]] bottling company in [[Managua]], and the [[Associated Press]] reported that he met Sandinista leaders in 1978 to look for common cause against Somoza.[^2] The New York Times editors' cast of characters to the Committees' report describes him as "North's chief contact with the rebels during the two-year ban on U.S. military aid" and as the Contra with "primary responsibility for distributing most private funds received by the Contras."[^3]
### Relationship with Meneses and Blandón
The writer [[Gary Webb]] described Calero as a longtime [[Central Intelligence Agency]] agent selected by the CIA in 1983 to lead the political wing of the FDN, and quoted the former FDN director [[Edgar Chamorro]]: "Calero and Bermúdez were our main links with the CIA. They met constantly with the CIA station chief."[^4] Webb wrote that Calero led the political side while [[Enrique Bermudez]] commanded the military side and [[Aristides Sanchez]] managed supplies and logistics; that [[Oliver North]] called Sánchez "Calero's hatchet man"; and that [[Manuel Porro]], arrested in a [[DEA]] operation with associates of [[Norwin Meneses]] and later a commander of the [[Legion of September 15]], became a top aide to Calero and handled some of his Caribbean banking.[^4] Webb is the sole source for the passages so cited.
Norwin Meneses traveled to [[Honduras]] to meet with [[Enrique Bermudez|Enrique Bermúdez]] and brought Calero a crossbow as a gesture of esteem. Calero confirmed the meeting but denied that Meneses or [[Danilo Blandon|Danilo Blandón]] held any official positions with the FDN.[^2]
### Saudi money, Secord and the Enterprise
### San Francisco Activities and USACA
The Independent Counsel's Final Report states that in the fall of 1984 North introduced retired Air Force Major General [[Richard Secord]] to Calero "to assist Calero in the purchase of arms, using the proceeds of a contribution from [[Saudi Arabia]]." The Committees place Secord's first meeting with Calero in July 1984, with the former CIA operative [[Rafael Quintero]], after which Secord left with a weapons list; Secord acted as broker with his partner [[Albert Hakim]].[^5][^6] A December 4, 1984 North memorandum to [[Robert McFarlane]] concerned the introduction of a British security expert, David Walker, to Calero to conduct sabotage against Nicaragua, with efforts to help Calero "defray the cost," and a November 7, 1984 North memorandum described Calero's wish for intelligence to "take out" Soviet-made Hind helicopters, supplied by the CIA national intelligence officer [[Robert Vickers]] and General [[Paul Gorman]].[^7]
In 1984, Calero began visiting San Francisco frequently, staying with Contra supporters [[Don Sinicco]] and [[Dennis Ainsworth]] while attending to FDN business. At Calero's request, Sinicco founded [[USACA]], a Contra support group. On June 4, 1984, Ainsworth arranged a private reception for Calero at the St. Francis Yacht Club with sixty influential business leaders. At a subsequent dinner at Caesar's Italian Restaurant, Meneses picked up the tab for the entire party. Two days later, at a cocktail party at Sinicco's home, Meneses met privately with Calero and was photographed in the kitchen huddled with Calero and FDN officials.[^3]
From December 1984 through July 1985, according to the Committees, Calero transferred $11.3 million to Secord, which paid for five arms shipments (Phases I through IV and a supplement); Secord spent $9.4 million on the arms, and the shortfall against the total cost, including commissions to Secord, Hakim and [[Thomas Clines]], was made up from other Enterprise funds, including donations from the private fund-raising network.[^6] Calero testified that he was unaware Secord was earning money on the sales and believed he supplied the weapons at cost. Secord testified that his markup "averaged out almost exactly 20 percent"; the Committees found that the commission actually averaged 38 percent of the cost of the arms. A European dealer introduced to Calero by General [[John Singlaub]] quoted AK-47 prices "about half of what we had previously had to pay."[^6] The first sale, of Chinese SA-7 missiles shipped under false [[Guatemala|Guatemalan]] end-user certificates, was the first executed by Secord and Hakim.[^7]
Calero has admitted meeting Meneses on at least six occasions in San Francisco but portrayed them as simple greetings at large public gatherings. He repeatedly denied knowing Meneses was a drug trafficker, yet admitted to a Costa Rican paper in 1986 that he knew Meneses was "involved in some illegal things, but I don't know anything." Sinicco's files showed Meneses contributed financially to USACA. Former FDN director Edgar Chamorro declared: "Calero and Bermúdez were our main links with the CIA. They met constantly with the CIA station chief."[^3]
In late June 1985 North and Secord met in [[Miami]] with Calero and Bermudez and told them that donors would henceforth pay the suppliers, the Enterprise, directly. Walsh writes that this effectively eliminated Calero "as a money-handler," except for what remained in the Contra account from the Saudi donations; the Committees add that the participants agreed on the need to open a southern front, and that Calero "continued to concentrate his resources on his own organization in the North." A fourth shipment in December 1985 was bought by Calero with funds remaining in his account and delivered to [[El Salvador]] on December 15, 1985, the Enterprise crediting Secord's personal account with $100,800 in profits two days later.[^8][^6]
### Role in the Contra Leadership
In February 1985, with McFarlane's approval, North decided to support another Resistance leader with money from the Calero account; by February 27, 1985 "Adolfo [Calero] ha[d] agreed to provide [the] requisite funds in the blind without [the] [Resistance leader] becoming aware of the source," at $6,250 a month, and the money was in the event passed in traveler's checks by Owen and [[Jonathan Miller]] of the [[United States Department of State|State Department]]'s public diplomacy office. North also warned Calero: "Too much is becoming known by too many people. We need to make sure that this new financing does not become known. The Congress must believe that there continues to be an urgent need for funding."[^6]
Calero led the political side of the FDN while Enrique Bermúdez commanded the military side and [[Aristides Sanchez|Aristides Sánchez]] managed supplies and logistics.[^2] Oliver North called Sánchez "Calero's hatchet man," indicating the closeness of their working relationship. Calero worked with Sánchez on Caribbean banking activities and was closely monitored by the CIA throughout his tenure.[^2]
### Traveler's checks and the private network
Manuel Porro, a man arrested in a [[DEA]] operation alongside Meneses associates who later became a commander of the [[Legion of September 15]], went on to serve as a top aide to Calero and handled some of his Caribbean banking activities.[^2]
Walsh states that "nearly $6 million" in cash and traveler's checks moved through the Iran and Contra operations and that traveler's checks "were purchased by contra leader Adolfo Calero and used as a convenient form of currency." The checks totaled $2,691,950 in 25,637 checks; Calero said his lawyer [[Carlos Morales]] bought the blank checks from BAC International Bank in Miami with funds transferred from the Contras' [[Cayman Islands]] accounts, and that he initially kept a journal of the disbursements but discontinued it, so that the Office of Independent Counsel obtained no record of what the payments were for, only who endorsed them; on 4,982 checks totaling $479,010 the signatures were illegible. North estimated he received about $100,000 in blank checks from Calero, which went into an operational fund used to pay about 40 Contra leaders; Calero said it was necessary for North to make the payments because of "politically sensitive relationships" between Calero and rival faction heads. North cashed 49 checks in his own name totaling $4,940 and 37 checks totaling $2,420 under the alias William P. Good; the jury acquitted him of converting $4,300 of the checks.[^9]
In January 1985, as the FDN reached its nadir, Reagan national security adviser [[Robert McFarlane]] told Calero that perhaps it was time to start thinking about "cutting both our losses and theirs." The FDN's only ray of hope was to withdraw from battle and lie low until spring, when Congress would let the administration make one more pitch for Contra funding.[^4]
The private fundraisers [[Carl Channell]] and [[Richard Miller]] advised Calero from 1984: Calero's [[Nicaraguan Development Council]] paid $55,000 in retainer fees to Miller's [[International Business Communications]] between September 1984 and May 1985. After the first White House briefing in June 1985 Channell gave Calero a $50,000 check. Of $6,323,020 in Contra-related donations to the [[National Endowment for the Preservation of Liberty]] from June 1985 to November 1986, $3,306,882 went to Contra support at North's direction, including $1,738,000 to the Enterprise's Swiss Lake Resources account and $1,080,000 in transfers to Calero.[^10] The courier [[Robert Owen]], an employee of [[Gray and Company]], met regularly with Calero and other Contra leaders for North; the Committees' account of the [[National Security Council]]'s NHAO humanitarian office records that when [[Robert Duemling]] refused to hire Owen, the three directors of the United Nicaraguan Opposition, Calero, [[Arturo Cruz]] and [[Alfonso Robelo]], wrote Duemling asking for Owen's help.[^6] Owen's April 1, 1985 memorandum to North, in which Calero carries the code name "Sparkplug," also reported that new Southern Front officials included people with "potential involvement with drug running."[^11]
### The arms supermarket
Walsh's chapter on the CIA's senior field officer in Central America, "CIA Subject #1," records that the Miami arms dealer [[Ron Martin]], who had been investigated by the [[Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms]] for years and at one time charged with providing arms illegally to narcotics traffickers, planned with Colonel [[James McCoy]] a stock of weapons in [[Honduras]] from which the Contras could buy "on a cash-and-carry basis." Martin's financing came from [[Enrique DeValle]], the brother of a former [[Panama|Panamanian]] president. CIA field reports of February 1985 learned of it "from Calero and others." On May 13, 1985 North starred as "to do" items "Check w/ Ron Martin 'Supermarket'" and "Secord/Aplicano meeting," and on May 20 noted Calero's assessment: "Supermarket is proceeding." Martin told the Independent Counsel that he used the Danish freighter *Erria*'s manifest to try to convince Calero that Secord was "ripping off" the Contras. In September 1985 Calero, under "increasingly intense pressure" from Bermudez to use the warehouse, asked the CIA about it; the CIA officer wrote that Martin's prices were good and the credit terms excellent, that "there is no advantage for [CIA] to get involved," and the CIA ended up making no recommendation; Calero purchased weapons from the supermarket.[^12]
North's notebook for July 12, 1985, released through a [[National Security Archive]] lawsuit, records a call from Secord discussing a Honduran arms warehouse the Contras planned to buy from, with the note, "14 M to finance [the arms in the warehouse] came from drugs."[^11] The National Security Archive's briefing book states that the Contras did eventually buy the arms with money the administration secretly raised from Saudi Arabia.[^11]
### Mario Calero, Frank Moss and the Kerry Committee
The [[Kerry Committee]]'s report states that the FDN's chief supply officer was Adolfo Calero's brother [[Mario Calero]], and that under a commercial agreement with the pilot [[Frank Moss]], Mario Calero was to receive an ownership interest in Moss's company [[Hondu Carib]], which flew weapons purchased from R.M. Equipment (the firm controlled by Martin and McCoy); Moss, the report says, had been investigated but never indicted for narcotics offenses by ten law enforcement agencies. [[SETCO]], the Honduran company that carried at least a million rounds of ammunition and other FDN supplies from 1983 to 1985, received funds, according to the testimony of Adolfo Calero to the Iran-Contra committees, from the Contra accounts established by North; U.S. law enforcement records, the report says, state that SETCO was established by [[Juan Ramon Matta Ballesteros]]. The report also states that at North's direction Calero paid $10,000 a month to the Costa Rican rancher [[John Hull]] who helped the CIA with Contra supply operations.[^13] North's notebook for August 9, 1985 summarizes a meeting with Owen about a plane used by Mario Calero to transport supplies from [[New Orleans]] to Honduras: "Honduran DC-6 which is being used for runs out of New Orleans is probably being used for drug runs into U.S."[^11] The Kerry Committee's conclusion was that it "did not find evidence that the Contra leadership participated directly in narcotics smuggling," although the FDN "did move Contra funds through a narcotics trafficking enterprise and money laundering operation."[^13]
Webb wrote that Norwin Meneses traveled to Honduras to meet Bermúdez and brought Calero a crossbow as a gesture of esteem; that Calero confirmed the meeting but denied that Meneses or [[Danilo Blandon]] held any official FDN positions; that from 1984 Calero stayed in [[San Francisco]] with the Contra supporters [[Don Sinicco]] and [[Dennis Ainsworth]], that at his request Sinicco founded the Contra support group [[USACA]], and that on June 4, 1984 Ainsworth arranged a reception for Calero at the St. Francis Yacht Club for sixty business leaders, after which Meneses paid for a dinner at Caesar's Italian Restaurant and on June 6 was photographed in Sinicco's kitchen with Calero and FDN officials. Webb also wrote that Calero admitted meeting Meneses at least six times in San Francisco but described them as greetings at large gatherings, and that he told a Costa Rican newspaper in 1986 Meneses was "involved in some illegal things, but I don't know anything."[^4] Webb is the sole source for the passages so cited.
### Swiss accounts, testimony and later life
The [[Tower Commission]] records that Attorney General [[Edwin Meese]]'s notes of his November 23, 1986 interview with North show North saying that the [[Israel|Israelis]] handled the diverted money and that he had given them the numbers of three accounts in [[Switzerland]] opened by Calero. The March 1988 indictment charged, in Count Seven, that North's statement to Meese that he had advised Calero to open Swiss accounts to receive the diverted funds was false.[^14][^15]
Calero testified before the Iran-Contra committees in May 1987, and on February 23, 1989 gave detailed prosecution testimony at North's trial about North's role in supplying weapons and other support; on cross-examination he called North a "savior" for whom Nicaraguans should "erect a monument."[^16] The AP obituary reports that in 1987 he said he used to tell North "frankly, everything. I had no reservation," denied knowing the money came from Iranian arms sales, and acknowledged that three former U.S. military officers helped the Contras buy more than $18 million in military equipment while official arms aid was suspended. After the Sandinistas lost the 1990 election he returned to Nicaragua, recovered his confiscated home and worked as a lawyer. He died in Managua on June 2, 2012 of lung problems.[^2]
In January 1985, Webb wrote, Robert McFarlane told Calero that perhaps it was time to think about "cutting both our losses and theirs," as the FDN reached its nadir; the Saudi contribution doubled the following month according to the Final Report.[^4][^8]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Cast of Characters
[^2]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 3: "The brotherhood of military minds"
[^3]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 9: "He would have had me by the tail"
[^4]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 10: "Teach a man a craft and he's liable to practice it"
[^1]: Brinkley, Joel, and Stephen Engelberg, eds. *Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair, with the Minority Views*, abridged edition (New York: Times Books/Random House, 1988), Part I, ch. 1, "Introduction: Background on U.S.-Nicaragua Relations," section "The Contras." https://archive.org/details/reportofcongres00unit
[^2]: "Former Nicaragua Contra leader Adolfo Calero dies." Associated Press, June 3, 2012 (Deseret News). https://www.deseret.com/2012/6/3/20416430/former-nicaragua-contra-leader-adolfo-calero-dies/
[^3]: Brinkley and Engelberg, eds., *Report of the Congressional Committees*, "Cast of Characters." https://archive.org/details/reportofcongres00unit
[^4]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998, Cast of Characters; ch. 3, "The brotherhood of military minds"; ch. 9, "He would have had me by the tail"; ch. 10, "Teach a man a craft and he's liable to practice it." Sole source for the passages so cited.
[^5]: Walsh, Lawrence E. *Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters*, vol. I (Washington, D.C.: Division for the Purpose of Appointing Independent Counsels, August 4, 1993), ch. 8, "The Enterprise and Its Finances." https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_08.htm
[^6]: Brinkley and Engelberg, eds., *Report of the Congressional Committees*, chapters on the private operation, the Enterprise and the NHAO. https://archive.org/details/reportofcongres00unit
[^7]: Walsh, *Final Report*, vol. I, ch. 1, "United States v. Robert C. McFarlane," discussion of the North memoranda of November 7 and December 4, 1984. https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_01.htm
[^8]: Walsh, *Final Report*, vol. I, ch. 8, sections "Summer 1985: Calero's Purchasing Power Is Removed" and "Phase IV of the Contra Arms Sales." https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_08.htm
[^9]: Walsh, *Final Report*, vol. I, ch. 14, "Other Money Matters: Traveler's Checks and Cash Transactions," citing Calero's North trial testimony of February 23, 1989 and FBI interview of September 22, 1987. https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_14.htm
[^10]: Walsh, *Final Report*, vol. I, ch. 13, "Private Fundraising: The Guilty Pleas of Channell and Miller." https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_13.htm
[^11]: National Security Archive, "The Contras, Cocaine, and Covert Operations," Electronic Briefing Book No. 2, section "Documentation of Official U.S. Knowledge of Drug Trafficking and the Contras" (North notebooks of July 12 and August 9, 1985; Owen memorandum of April 1, 1985). https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB2/index.html
[^12]: Walsh, *Final Report*, vol. I, ch. 21, "CIA Subject #1." https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_21.htm
[^13]: U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations, *Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy*, S. Prt. 100-165 (December 1988), sections on SETCO and Hondu Carib, on John Hull, and the Conclusions. https://archive.org/details/Kerry-Report-Drugs-Contras
[^14]: Tower Commission, *Report of the President's Special Review Board* (February 26, 1987), "Contra Diversion," excerpts. https://archive.org/details/tower-commission-report-excerpts-reagan
[^15]: Walsh, *Final Report*, vol. I, ch. 2, "United States v. Oliver L. North," description of Counts Seven and Eight. https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_02.htm
[^16]: Walsh, *Final Report*, vol. I, ch. 2, trial testimony of Calero (February 23, 1989). https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_02.htm

88
10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Eugene Hasenfus.md
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@ -1,31 +1,91 @@
---
category: "Intelligence & Government"
title: Eugene Hasenfus
aliases:
- Eugene Hasenfus
- Gene Hasenfus
- Eugene H. Hasenfus
created: 2024-04-25
updated: 2026-05-01
updated: 2026-10-05
category: "Intelligence & Government"
tags:
- Person
- CIA
- IranContra
- Contras
- Nicaragua
- Enterprise
- AirAmerica
- Contra_War
- Dark_Alliance_Investigation
summary: "Former Air America cargo handler who survived the shootdown of a CIA-contracted C-123K over Nicaragua, exposing the Ilopango Contra supply operation and CIA involvement."
- DarkAllianceInvestigation
- CIA
- 1986
born: 1941-01-22
died: 2025-11-26
location: "Marinette, Wisconsin"
summary: "Cargo kicker and sole survivor of the October 5, 1986 shootdown of a Contra resupply C-123K over Nicaragua, whose captured statements named Max Gomez and Ramon Medina and exposed the Ilopango operation."
relations:
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Air America]]"
start: 1966
end: 1974-02
role: "packer and kicker; the CIA's 1986 briefing record lists him first with the proprietary Air Asia in 1966, then Air America, resigning in February 1974"
fn: 3
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Corporate Air Services]]"
start: 1986
end: 1986-10-05
role: "cargo handler ('kicker') on Enterprise resupply flights; Hasenfus said his paychecks came from Corporate Air Services, which shared Southern Air Transport's Miami address"
fn: 10
- type: participant_in
with: "[[The Enterprise (Iran-Contra)]]"
start: 1986
end: 1986-10-05
role: "crew of the C-123K shot down over southern Nicaragua"
fn: 6
- type: prosecuted
with: "[[Nicaragua]]"
reverse: true
start: 1986-10-05
end: 1986-12
role: "tried in Nicaragua and sentenced to 30 years; pardoned and released in December 1986"
fn: 1
---
Eugene Hasenfus was a former [[Central Intelligence Agency]] [[Air America]] cargo handler who survived the shootdown of a Contra supply plane over [[Nicaragua]] on October 5, 1986, becoming living proof that the CIA and [[White House]] had been lying about U.S. involvement with the [[Contras]].[^1]
### The Shootdown
Eugene Hasenfus was born on January 22, 1941 in Marinette, [[Wisconsin]], and died on November 26, 2025 in [[Menominee, Michigan]], at age 84 after a nine-year battle with cancer, according to an [[Associated Press]] report citing his funeral home obituary.[^1] He was the only one of four men aboard a Fairchild C-123K cargo plane to survive its shootdown over southern [[Nicaragua]] on October 5, 1986.
Hasenfus was the only crew member carrying a parachute when [[Sandinistas]] shot down [[Southern Air Transport]]'s C-123K cargo plane - the same aircraft formerly used by [[Barry Seal]] in CIA-DEA operations. The Sandinistas found Hasenfus's crewmates carried "all sorts of pocket litter that identified and connected them back to [[Ilopango Airbase|Ilopango]]," including cards of [[NHAO]] employees and flight logs, said [[Alan Fiers|Alan Fiers Jr.]], the CIA officer then in charge of the Contra program.[^1]
### Air America and the CIA's record of him
### Exposing the Operation
His brother William Hasenfus of [[Oshkosh]], Wisconsin told reporters on October 7, 1986 that Eugene was a former Marine who during the [[Vietnam]] War flew on [[Air America]] aircraft in Vietnam, [[Laos]], [[Cambodia]] and [[Thailand]], responsible for weighing and balancing equipment, and that he had gone to work for a [[Florida]] air freight firm in the summer of 1985 after working in construction.[^2] A CIA memorandum for the record of a [[Senate Foreign Relations Committee]] briefing on October 10, 1986 states that Hasenfus worked in 1966 as a packer and kicker for the CIA proprietary [[Air Asia]], later worked for Air America, and resigned in February 1974; it states that the pilot William J. Cooper also worked for Air Asia, and that the co-pilot [[Wallace Sawyer]] later worked for [[Southern Air Transport]].[^3]
Hasenfus told the press he was working for the CIA - at a time when the agency was officially not involved with the Contras. He identified his CIA handlers as "Ramon Medina," the alias of [[Luis Posada Carriles]], and "Max Gomez," the alias of [[Felix Rodriguez]]. Hasenfus also exposed the secret Contra air base at Ilopango. The revelation created enormous political problems for the Reagan administration. "Aside from the legal problems Hasenfus presented for the administration, he was an even bigger political headache - living proof that the CIA and the White House had been lying about U.S. involvement with the Contras," threatening to derail the $100 million Contra aid bill then in its final stages of passage.[^1]
### The shootdown
### Cover-Up
On October 5, 1986 a [[Sandinista]] soldier fired a shoulder-launched missile at the C-123K, which was flying arms to the [[Contras]]. Cooper, the pilot, Sawyer, and a third crew member were killed; Hasenfus, the cargo handler or "kicker," survived and was captured.[^4][^5] The independent counsel's report states that the shootdown "settled irrevocably the question of CIA assumption of Enterprise assets," because with a $100 million contra aid bill awaiting final approval the agency could not associate itself with the operation.[^6] [[Felix Rodriguez]], in [[Miami]], reached the Office of the Vice President by telephone, and the notes of Colonel [[Samuel Watson]] of October 6 record "C-123 = Ollie's" and list the crew, with the kicker's name garbled.[^7]
[[Ronald Reagan|Reagan]] administration officials scrambled to contain the damage, sending false press advisories, booking spokesmen on talk shows to spread the official line, and sending CIA officials to give false testimony to congressional committees. The disinformation campaign, combined with reluctance by congressional intelligence committees to investigate, worked long enough to get the $100 million aid bill through Congress.[^1]
The identity of the airframe is recorded differently by different sources. A DEA spokesman in Miami, Jack Hood, told *The New York Times* that "we believe that the C-123 that was shot down in Nicaragua was the same plane that was used in the Barry Seal operation," and the CIA Inspector General's Mena case file refers to Seal's C-123K as N4410F.[^8][^9] The CIA's October 10, 1986 briefing record says the plane "was sold as U.S. military surplus in 1983" and that its purchaser had not been determined.[^3] *The [[The Christian Science Monitor]]* reported that news reports said it was bought six months earlier by a California company, [[Four Aces Inc.]], and leased to Southern Air Transport, which said it did not own it and had serviced it; the independent counsel's report states that Southern Air Transport received $1,935,596 for contra-related services including the purchase of a C-123.[^10][^11] The Inspector General's December 24, 1996 review found no document indicating a CIA link with N4410F and none showing that Southern Air Transport owned or leased a C-123K.[^9] See [[Barry Seal]] for the Seal records.
### Press conference and the names Gomez and Medina
On October 9, 1986 Hasenfus said in [[Managua]] that he had made ten flights supplying the contras, four from [[Aguacate]] air base in [[Honduras]] and six from [[Ilopango Airbase]] in El Salvador, that 24 to 26 "company people" assisted in El Salvador including "two Cuban nationalized Americans that worked for the CIA," and that he was to be paid $3,000 a month plus housing. He named "Max Gomez" and "Ramon Medina" as overseers of housing, transportation, refueling and flight plans.[^10][^7] Gomez was Felix Rodriguez and Medina was [[Luis Posada Carriles]].[^6] The independent counsel's chapter on Clair George records that Hasenfus had publicly identified Gomez, and that [[Clair George]] was charged with falsely denying before Congress that he knew Gomez's true identity.[^12] [[Gary Webb]] wrote in *Dark Alliance* that [[Alan Fiers]], then in charge of the CIA's Contra program, said the [[Sandinistas]] found among the crew's effects "all sorts of pocket litter that identified and connected them back to Ilopango," including cards of [[NHAO]] employees and flight logs.[^13]
### The CIA and State statements
On October 10, 1986 the CIA and the [[State Department]] briefed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for three hours. Assistant Secretary of State [[Elliott Abrams]] stated that "there is no U.S. Government involvement" in the supply system; Clair George and Fiers gave a statement denying a CIA connection with the C-123 or its crew; and the briefing record states that "no one knows why Mr. Hasenfus has claimed that he worked for CIA," that "he might have been exposed to pressure by the Sandinistas," or that he "might have been hired under 'false-flag' circumstances."[^3] The same day Fiers briefed House intelligence committee staff and described Rodriguez as a twenty-year Agency veteran who retired in 1978.[^14] In *Dark Alliance* Webb wrote that administration officials sent false press advisories, booked spokesmen on talk shows and sent CIA officials to give false testimony to congressional committees, and that this delayed congressional investigation long enough to pass the $100 million aid bill.[^13]
### Trial and release
Hasenfus was tried in Nicaragua and sentenced to 30 years in prison on charges related to delivering arms to the contras; he was pardoned a month later by President [[Daniel Ortega]].[^1] The independent counsel found that [[Oliver North]]'s notebooks of October 8 to 15, 1986 record conversations with [[Richard Secord]] and others about getting a lawyer for Hasenfus and about death benefits and funerals for the dead pilots; the Enterprise's manager [[Edward de Garay]] and North's friend [[William Haskell]] went to [[Panama]] to find a lawyer, without success, and Secord and [[Albert Hakim]] had [[Willard Zucker]] hire a [[Switzerland|Swiss]] lawyer who could not reach Nicaraguan officials. After the shootdown Secord told [[Rafael Quintero]] to set aside a $75,000 check and a $50,000 check to establish a defense fund; Quintero endorsed the first with a forged signature and sent both to a [[Bahamas]] bank. In December 1986 the Enterprise's air-support manager John Piowaty carried $6,000 in cash from Southern Air Transport in Miami to Hasenfus's wife Sally, two months of his salary, and the Enterprise arranged $3,000 in cash for Sawyer's burial at a funeral home in [[Magnolia, Arkansas]].[^6]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 18: "We bust our ass and the government's involved"
[^1]: Associated Press, "Key figure in the 1980s Iran-Contra affair dies," December 2025 (citing the Hansen-Onion-Martell Funeral Home obituary), as printed by the *Tribune Chronicle*. https://www.tribtoday.com/obituaries/2025/12/key-figure-in-the-1980s-iran-contra-affair-dies/
[^2]: Alfonso Chardy, "Brother says captured kin once worked on CIA airline," *The Philadelphia Inquirer*, October 8, 1986 (CIA Reading Room, CIA-RDP91-00587R000200880028-6). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp91-00587r000200880028-6
[^3]: CIA Office of Congressional Affairs, memorandum for the record, "Briefing on the C-123 Crash in Nicaragua: Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 10 October," OCA 86-3575, October 10, 1986, paragraphs 7, 9, 14 and 16. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-00788192
[^4]: Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters (Lawrence E. Walsh, August 4, 1993), chapter 29, "Donald P. Gregg" (shootdown of October 5, 1986; three crewmen killed). https://irp.fas.org/offdocs/walsh/chap_29.htm
[^5]: Walsh, chapter 29 (Watson notes of October 6, 1986, ALU 025478) and chapter 8.
[^6]: Walsh, chapter 8, "The Enterprise and Its Finances" (dismantling the operation; Hasenfus defense fund; Piowaty cash delivery; Magnolia, Arkansas funeral home). https://irp.fas.org/offdocs/walsh/chap_08.htm
[^7]: Walsh, chapter 29 (State cable of October 9, 1986, ALW 0026774; Watson notes of October 6, 1986). https://irp.fas.org/offdocs/walsh/chap_29.htm
[^8]: Richard Halloran, "Plane Downed in Nicaragua Was in a U.S. Drug 'Sting,'" *The New York Times*, October 10, 1986 (CIA Reading Room, CIA-RDP90-00965R000402690007-7). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00965r000402690007-7
[^9]: CIA Inspector General, memorandum for the record, "C-123K - Review of Additional Records," December 24, 1996, case Mena 96-0036-IG (CIA Reading Room 0001289850). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-0001289850
[^10]: Warren Richey and George D. Moffett III, "Credibility crisis over downed plane," *The Christian Science Monitor*, October 10, 1986, https://www.csmonitor.com/1986/1010/ashot.html, and Marshall Ingwerson, "Contra aid shadow dance," December 15, 1986, https://www.csmonitor.com/1986/1215/atrans.html (Corporate Air Services paychecks).
[^11]: Walsh, chapter 8 (Southern Air Transport; $1,935,596).
[^12]: Walsh, chapter 17, "United States v. Clair E. George." https://irp.fas.org/offdocs/walsh/chap_17.htm
[^13]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998, chapter 18, "We bust our ass and the government's involved." Sole source for the Fiers quotation and the cover-up passage as carried here.
[^14]: CIA Office of Congressional Affairs, memorandum for the record, "HPSCI Staff Briefing on Crash of C-123 in Nicaragua," OCA 86-3489, October 16, 1986, paragraph 12. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90b01390r000400550034-9

93
10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Robert McFarlane.md
View file

@ -3,31 +3,100 @@ title: Robert McFarlane
aliases:
- Robert McFarlane
- Bud McFarlane
- Robert C. McFarlane
- Robert C. "Bud" McFarlane
- Robert Carl McFarlane
created: 2026-05-17
updated: 2026-05-17
updated: 2026-10-05
category: "Intelligence & Government"
tags:
- KeyFigure
- Person
- Politician
- 1980s
- ContraWar
- NationalSecurityAdviser
- IranContra
summary: "Ronald Reagan's national security adviser who in January 1985 advised FDN leader Adolfo Calero that it might be time to consider cutting losses on the Contra project."
- ContraWar
- NationalSecurityCouncil
- MarineCorps
- 1980s
summary: "Reagan's national security adviser from October 1983 to December 1985 who delegated Contra support and Iran arms contacts to Oliver North, pleaded guilty in 1988 to four misdemeanors and was pardoned in 1992."
born: 1937-07-12
died: 2022-05-12
location: "Washington, D.C., USA"
relations:
- type: employed_by
with: "[[National Security Council]]"
start: 1983-10
end: 1985-12-04
role: "Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (national security adviser)"
fn: 1
- type: appointed
with: "[[Ronald Reagan]]"
reverse: true
start: 1983-10
role: "named national security adviser after serving as deputy to William Clark"
fn: 1
- type: reported_to
with: "[[Oliver North]]"
reverse: true
start: 1984
end: 1985-12
role: "North, McFarlane's deputy director of political-military affairs, ran the Contra support effort McFarlane delegated to him"
fn: 1
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Iran-Contra Affair]]"
start: 1984
end: 1986-11
role: "organized third-country Contra funding, an early advocate of the Iran arms sales, and led the May 1986 mission to Tehran"
fn: 6
- type: prosecuted
with: "[[Lawrence Walsh]]"
reverse: true
start: 1988-03-11
end: 1992-12-24
role: "pleaded guilty March 11, 1988 to four misdemeanor counts of withholding information from Congress; sentenced March 3, 1989; pardoned December 24, 1992"
fn: 8
---
Robert "Bud" McFarlane served as President [[Ronald Reagan]]'s national security adviser during the period when the [[Contras]] reached their lowest ebb, both on the battlefield and in the battle for U.S. public opinion during the winter of 1984–85.[^1]
Robert C. "Bud" McFarlane was a [[United States Naval Academy|Naval Academy]] graduate and Marine Corps officer who served as President [[Ronald Reagan]]'s national security adviser from October 1983 to December 1985. Before that he had been deputy to his predecessor [[William Clark]], counselor to Secretary of State [[Alexander Haig]], a staff member of the [[United States Senate Committee on Armed Services|Senate Armed Services Committee]], and military aide to [[Henry Kissinger]] when Kissinger was national security adviser to [[Richard Nixon]]. He commanded the first U.S. Marine battery to land in the Republic of [[Vietnam]], completed two tours, received a Bronze Star, and resigned from the [[United States Marine Corps]] as a lieutenant colonel.[^1] [[Lawrence Walsh]]'s Final Report records that under Reagan the [[National Security Council]] staff "at times became operational, taking on primary responsibility for the execution of the [[Iran]] and contra covert operations," and that McFarlane "did not shrink from the operational tasks that were of high personal interest to the President," delegating some of them to his deputy director of political-military affairs, [[Oliver North]].[^1]
### Advice to FDN Leadership
### Contra funding, 1984
In January 1985, as the [[FDN]] spent its last batch of [[Central Intelligence Agency]] money and Contra forces retreated from Nicaragua into Honduras, McFarlane told FDN leader [[Adolfo Calero]] that perhaps it was time to start thinking about "cutting both our losses and theirs." The administration's prestige was riding on the Contras; Reagan had compared them to the founding fathers of the American Revolution during a speech. The FDN's only ray of hope was to withdraw from battle and lie low until spring, when Congress agreed to let the administration make one more pitch for funding.[^1]
On January 6, 1984 the National Security Planning Group approved "immediate efforts to obtain additional funding of $10-15 million from foreign or domestic sources," the current $24 million appropriation to the [[Contras]] being enough only through June; McFarlane was responsible for carrying it out with North and the NSC staff member [[Constantine Menges]]. On February 21, 1984 he warned Reagan that the program would have to be curtailed by May or June unless new money was found.[^1][^2] In late March 1984 [[William J. Casey]] sent him a memorandum urging that Israel and other countries be asked for weapons and money, and in April McFarlane sent the NSC staff member [[Howard Teicher]] to ask the Israelis; the mission was unsuccessful, and when Secretary of State [[George Shultz]] learned of it from the embassy in [[Israel]] McFarlane told him Teicher had gone "on his own hook."[^1]
### Context
In May 1984 he met the Saudi ambassador, Prince [[Bandar bin Sultan]], and explained Reagan's concern about the gap in Contra financing; days later Bandar volunteered $1 million a month. McFarlane obtained from North a Contra bank account number and gave it to Bandar. He later testified that he told Reagan and Vice President [[George H.W. Bush]] within a day or two, and that when he put the first contribution to the President on a card in the daily briefing book with the words that no one else knew of it, Reagan answered, in writing or orally, "Good, let's just make sure it stays that way."[^1] At the June 25, 1984 National Security Planning Group meeting, where Shultz quoted Chief of Staff [[James Baker]] as calling third-country solicitations an "impeachable offense," McFarlane said: "I propose that there be no authority for anyone to seek third party support for the anti-Sandinistas [contras] until we have the information we need, and I certainly hope none of this discussion will be made public in any way." Walsh noted that none of the participants raised the fact that the Saudi solicitation had already occurred. Attorney General [[William French Smith]] ruled the next day that third-country funding was permissible so long as no U.S. funds were used and no repayment was expected.[^1] The [[Boland Amendment]] of October 1984 then barred funds of any agency "involved in intelligence activities" from supporting [[Nicaragua|Nicaraguan]] military or paramilitary operations "directly or indirectly."[^3]
McFarlane's pessimistic counsel came after twelve months of consecutive public relations disasters for the Contra project, including the CIA's seeding of [[Nicaragua|Nicaraguan]] harbors with mines, a bombing at [[Eden Pastora|Eden Pastora's]] jungle headquarters, the public exposure of a CIA-printed terrorism manual, and the passage of a stringent [[Boland Amendment]] in October 1984 that cut off all U.S. government funding for the Contras.[^1]
McFarlane testified that in spring and summer of 1984 Reagan let it be known "very clearly" that the Contras were to be kept together "body and soul," and that he discussed the directive with his deputy [[Donald Fortier]] and with North; he said he told North that no one could "solicit, encourage, coerce, or broker the transmission of money" to the Contras. Walsh found that he assigned the work to North and that North kept him generally informed. A September 2, 1984 North request to approach a private donor for a "civilian" helicopter drew McFarlane's marginal note "I don't think this is legal."[^1] Walsh's conclusion on the arrangement was that Reagan "put McFarlane in a difficult position," and that McFarlane "put his subordinates in an equally difficult position by delegating to them the operational tasks."[^1]
The writer [[Gary Webb]] reported that in January 1985, as the [[FDN]] spent its last batch of [[Central Intelligence Agency]] money and Contra forces retreated from Nicaragua into [[Honduras]], McFarlane told the FDN leader [[Adolfo Calero]] it might be time to think about "cutting both our losses and theirs," after twelve months that had included the mining of Nicaraguan harbors, a bombing at [[Eden Pastora]]'s jungle headquarters and exposure of a CIA-printed terrorism manual.[^4] In February 1985 the Saudis agreed to give an additional $24 million, according to the New York Times editors' chronology of the Committees' report; Walsh puts the Saudi total at $32 million for the period, with [[Taiwan]] adding $2 million.[^1][^5]
### Contra memoranda and the 1985 letters to Congress
McFarlane received North's written reports throughout 1985. Walsh lists six "problem documents" that the NSC general counsel [[Paul Thompson]] pulled from the NSC's System IV file in August 1985 after Representatives [[Michael Barnes]] and [[Lee Hamilton]] asked about press reports of North's activity: a December 4, 1984 memorandum on Chinese SA-7 missiles shipped under false [[Guatemala|Guatemalan]] end-user certificates and on a British security expert for Calero; a February 6, 1985 memorandum proposing that the Nicaraguan merchant ship Monimbo be seized or sunk; a March 5, 1985 memorandum on compensating Guatemala; a March 16, 1985 "Fallback Plan" in which McFarlane marked an additional $25 to $30 million from the Saudis "doubtful"; an April 11, 1985 memorandum reporting that Contra strength had grown from 9,500 to more than 16,000; and a May 31, 1985 memorandum on the delivery of lethal supplies.[^1] On October 30, 1985 North's "Reconnaissance Overflights" memorandum, which told McFarlane that the intelligence would be air-dropped with two Honduran recoilless rifles to sink arms carriers, was marked by [[John Poindexter]] "President approved."[^1]
On September 5, 1985 McFarlane wrote Hamilton that "at no time did I or any member of the National Security Council staff violate the letter or spirit of the law" and that "we did not solicit funds or other support for military or paramilitary activities either from Americans or third parties"; his September 12 letter to Barnes and an October 7 reply to Hamilton's questions said North had not "used his influence to facilitate the movement of supplies." On October 17, 1985 he showed Barnes a stack of NSC documents that could not leave the White House; Barnes did not take up the offer, and McFarlane did not answer his request of October 29 for the documents.[^1] North's secretary [[Fawn Hall]] later altered five of the six documents in November 1986.[^1] Asked at North's 1989 trial whether he lied to Congress, McFarlane said: "At the time I didn't believe it but at the time I was wrong and I admit that," and explained that "you don't lie. You put your own interpretation on what the truth is."[^1]
### The Iran initiative, 1985 to 1986
McFarlane and Casey were, in Walsh's words, "the chief advocates of weapons sales to Iran in exchange for the release of American hostages." In spring 1985 McFarlane sent the NSC consultant [[Michael Ledeen]] to Israel; Ledeen testified they had "an understanding that neither of us would keep anything in writing." Ledeen met Prime Minister [[Shimon Peres]] on May 3, 1985. On June 17, 1985 McFarlane circulated a draft National Security Decision Directive recommending the sale of military equipment to Iran; Shultz and Secretary of Defense [[Caspar Weinberger]] opposed it and Casey endorsed it. The Final Report's overall conclusions state that the Iran operations were carried out with the knowledge of Reagan, Bush, Shultz, Weinberger, Casey, McFarlane and Poindexter, of whom only Weinberger and Shultz dissented.[^6][^1][^5]
On July 3, 1985 [[David Kimche]], director general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, met McFarlane in [[Washington, D.C.|Washington]]. McFarlane's recollection was that there was no request for arms and no linkage to the hostages, though Kimche mentioned that arms might be raised later, and that Reagan then approved a political dialogue. On August 2, 1985 Kimche asked, "What if Israel were to deliver the TOWs, not the United States, would that be different?" McFarlane testified that Reagan "decided that he would approve Israel's delivery of ... TOW missiles, and that if Israel came to us to purchase replacements they could do that." Israel shipped 96 TOW missiles on August 20, 1985 and 408 on September 14, 1985, the day the Reverend Benjamin Weir was released.[^1][^5] Walsh found that McFarlane "stood alone" in insisting that Reagan had approved the earliest sales and the replenishment, and that "it was only after contemporary notes recording the events in question were discovered late in Independent Counsel's investigation" (notes of [[Charles Hill]], Weinberger and Chief of Staff [[Donald Regan]] obtained in 1990, 1991 and 1992) that much of what he said could be verified.[^1] Weinberger's notes of a December 7, 1985 White House meeting record his objection that the U.S. embargo made such a sale illegal even through Israel.[^1]
McFarlane resigned on December 4, 1985; Reagan told reporters he would be "calling on you from time to time" and wrote that he trusted McFarlane would "still permit me to call on you." On December 7 he attended the White House residence meeting on Iran, and on December 8 he flew to London with North to meet [[Manucher Ghorbanifar]], Kimche and [[Yaacov Nimrodi]].[^1][^5] He stayed in contact with North and Poindexter on the NSC's PROFs computer system from a terminal at his home. On May 25, 1986 he arrived in [[Tehran]] with North and others carrying HAWK spare parts, and, according to Walsh, a cake; the party left on May 28 without a hostage release. North's contemporaneous note records that they were "heavily escorted by Rev[olutionary] Guard types who are also physically and technically surveilling our rooms." After the trip McFarlane and North briefed Reagan, Bush and Regan; Walsh records that McFarlane "was concerned about North's revelation regarding the Iran/contra diversion, but said he shared the information with no one," and recommended to Poindexter that North be returned to the Marine Corps.[^1]
### Exposure, plea and pardon
After the Lebanese magazine Ash-Shiraa published the story on November 3, 1986, McFarlane publicly called the reports "fanciful" on November 6. On November 8, 1986 he sent North a PROFs message with the subject "Audit trail": "I hope to daylights that someone has been purging the [intelligence] files on this episode."[^1] In February 1987 he was taken to a hospital after an overdose of Valium the day before he was due to testify to the [[Tower Commission]]; Walsh records that he attempted suicide in February 1987 and that the Independent Counsel weighed it when deciding on a plea.[^1][^7]
On March 11, 1988 McFarlane pleaded guilty to four misdemeanors of unlawfully withholding information from Congress: his September 5, 1985 reply to Hamilton, his September 12, 1985 reply to Barnes, his October 7, 1985 response to Hamilton's questions, and his December 8, 1986 testimony to the [[House Committee on Foreign Affairs|House Foreign Affairs Committee]] that third-country financing was "beyond my ken." He agreed to cooperate, was named an unindicted co-conspirator in Count One of the March 1988 indictment of Poindexter, North, [[Richard Secord]] and [[Albert Hakim]], and on March 3, 1989 was sentenced to two years' probation, 200 hours of community service and a $20,000 fine. The Independent Counsel gave up felony charges of conspiracy, false statements and obstruction in the plea, and wrote that the prosecution of North and Poindexter "would be seriously hampered by the jury's realization that McFarlane, their superior, had been permitted to plead guilty to crimes less severe than those for which his subordinates were on trial."[^1][^8] After he testified in 1991 that his trial testimony had been "colored" by North's immunized testimony, the Independent Counsel consented to the dismissal of the remaining charges against North.[^9] President George H.W. Bush pardoned McFarlane on December 24, 1992, with Caspar Weinberger, [[Elliott Abrams]], [[Duane Clarridge]], [[Clair George]] and [[Alan Fiers]].[^8]
McFarlane died on May 12, 2022, at a hospital in Lansing, Michigan, aged 84; his son Scott McFarlane said the cause was an exacerbation of a lung condition.[^7]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 10: "Teach a man a craft and he's liable to practice it"
[^1]: Walsh, Lawrence E. *Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters*, vol. I (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Division for the Purpose of Appointing Independent Counsels, August 4, 1993), ch. 1, "United States v. Robert C. McFarlane" (citing McFarlane, North trial testimony, March 10 to 16, 1989; Select Committees testimony, May 11 to 13, 1987; SSCI testimony, December 7, 1986; NSPG minutes, June 25, 1984; Hill, Weinberger and Regan notes). https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_01.htm
[^2]: Brinkley, Joel, and Stephen Engelberg, eds. *Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair, with the Minority Views*, abridged edition (New York: Times Books/Random House, 1988), "Iran-Contra Chronology," entry for February 21, 1984. https://archive.org/details/reportofcongres00unit
[^3]: Walsh, *Final Report*, vol. I, Part I, "The Funding Cut-Off," quoting the Boland Amendment of October 1984. https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/part_i.htm
[^4]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998, ch. 10, "Teach a man a craft and he's liable to practice it."
[^5]: Brinkley and Engelberg, eds., *Report of the Congressional Committees*, "Iran-Contra Chronology," entries for February 1985, May 3, June 17, July to September 1985, December 4 to 8, 1985. https://archive.org/details/reportofcongres00unit
[^6]: Walsh, *Final Report*, vol. I, Executive Summary, "Overall Conclusions." https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/execsum.htm
[^7]: "Robert 'Bud' McFarlane, Reagan national security adviser, dies at 84." Associated Press, May 13, 2022. https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/05/13/nation/robert-bud-mcfarlane-reagan-national-security-adviser-dies-84
[^8]: Walsh, *Final Report*, vol. I, "Summary of Prosecutions" and ch. 1, section "The Guilty Plea." https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/summpros.htm
[^9]: Walsh, *Final Report*, vol. I, ch. 2, "United States v. Oliver L. North," section on the dismissal of September 16, 1991. https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_02.htm

118
10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Barry Seal.md
View file

@ -1,7 +1,19 @@
---
category: "Organized Crime"
---
title: Barry Seal
aliases:
- Barry Seal
- Adler Berriman Seal
- Adler Barriman Seal
- Adler Barriman "Barry" Seal
- A. B. Seal
- Barry Seale
- El Gordo
- Eric Arthur
- Ellis McKenzie
- Joseph Warren Church
created: 2026-05-01
updated: 2026-05-17
updated: 2026-10-05
category: "Organized Crime"
tags:
- Person
- DarkAllianceInvestigation
@ -9,42 +21,104 @@ tags:
- IranContra
- Contras
- MedellinCartel
summary: "Adler Berriman 'Barry' Seal (1939-1986) was a Baton Rouge, Louisiana pilot and the Medellín Cartel's chief U.S. cocaine distributor, who flew an estimated 56 tons of cocaine worth $3-5 billion before flipping as a DEA informant in 1984, providing photographic evidence of Sandinista officials loading cocaine at a Nicaraguan airfield; he was assassinated by cartel hitmen in February 1986, and his C-123K cargo plane was subsequently used in the Oliver North Contra supply network before being shot down over Nicaragua with Eugene Hasenfus aboard."
- CIADrugTrafficking
- DEA
- 1980s
born: 1939-07-16
died: 1986-02-19
location: "Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA"
summary: "Louisiana pilot who flew cocaine for the Medellin Cartel from Mena, Arkansas, became a DEA informant in 1984, flew the CIA-camera-equipped Nicaragua sting, and was shot in Baton Rouge on February 19, 1986."
relations:
- type: member_of
with: "[[Medellin Cartel]]"
start: 1978
end: 1984
role: "pilot and smuggler flying cocaine from Colombia and Central America; he testified to about 60 trips before 1982 and 3,000 further kilograms as an informant"
fn: 2
- type: informant_for
with: "[[DEA]]"
start: 1984-03
end: 1986-02-19
role: "informant; the DEA's Miami office handled him; he flew the June 1984 Nicaragua sting with CIA-installed cameras"
fn: 5
- type: subject_of
with: "[[Internal Revenue Service]]"
start: 1983
role: "criminal investigator William Duncan assigned to watch for money laundering around Mena"
fn: 2
- type: subject_of
with: "[[Arkansas State Police]]"
start: 1982
role: "investigator Russell Welch assigned to look for cocaine arriving at Mena"
fn: 2
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Los Brasiles Airfield]]"
start: 1984-06
role: "flew to Managua with CIA-installed cameras in the aircraft; photographs of Federico Vaughan and cocaine loading released 1986"
fn: 5
---
Adler Berriman "Barry" Seal was born July 16, 1939, in [[Baton Rouge]], Louisiana. He became a licensed pilot in his teens and joined [[Trans World Airlines|TWA]] in 1964 as a flight engineer, rising to one of the youngest Boeing 747 captains in the fleet. He was fired in July 1972 after being implicated in a conspiracy to smuggle plastic explosives to anti-Castro Cubans in Mexico using a DC-4. He was killed February 19, 1986, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana -- shot six times with a MAC-10 submachine gun by a contract killer while sitting in his Cadillac outside a Salvation Army rehabilitation center where he was required to report under the terms of a criminal sentence.[^1]
### Drug Trafficking Career
Adler Berriman "Barry" Seal was a pilot from [[Baton Rouge, [[Louisiana]]]] who flew cocaine for the [[Medellin Cartel]] from [[Colombia]] and [[Nicaragua]] into the American South in the early 1980s, based his aircraft at [[Mena, Arkansas]] from late 1982, became a [[DEA]] informant in 1984, flew the 1984 sting in which cameras the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] installed photographed cocaine being loaded in [[Managua]], and was shot to death on February 19, 1986. His C-123K, nicknamed "Fat Lady," is the aircraft the DEA and the CIA's Inspector General identify with the one lost over Nicaragua with [[Eugene Hasenfus]] on October 5, 1986.
Seal began air smuggling marijuana from Honduras around 1976 and transitioned to cocaine by 1978. By 1981 he had established himself as the primary U.S. distribution pilot for the [[Medellin Cartel|Medellín Cartel]], working directly with [[Pablo Escobar]] and Fabio Ochoa. At his peak, Seal earned up to $500,000 per flight. Over the course of his trafficking career he flew an estimated 100 or more flights, importing approximately 56 tons of cocaine with a street value estimated at $3 billion to $5 billion; his personal net worth at the time of his death was estimated at $60 million.[^2]
### Louisiana, 1972 and the early record
From approximately late 1980 through March 1984, Seal used the Mena Intermountain Municipal Airport in Mena, [[Arkansas]], for aircraft maintenance and modifications, including enlarging cargo capacity and improving avionics on his aircraft. An investigation by the FBI, Arkansas State Police, and IRS documented Seal's smuggling operations through Mena during this period. The Arkansas deputy prosecuting attorney in Mena requested $25,000 from the governor's office to impanel a state grand jury investigating personnel who assisted Seal's operations; the request received no response.[^2]
In 1972 federal agents in Louisiana caught Seal attempting to take off from an airport in [[Shreveport]] with a planeload of plastic explosives bound for [[Cuba|Cuban]] exiles in [[Mexico]]. He was charged with taking part in a plot against [[Fidel Castro]], and prosecutors abruptly dropped the case at the start of his trial. The journalist Mara Leveritt, who reported on Seal in the 1980s, wrote that this episode prompted later speculation that he performed contract work for the CIA.[^1] The CIA stated in 1995 and 1996 that it had found no record of contact with him before the 1984 sting (see "The CIA records" below).
### DEA Informant
In April 1981, according to later court records Leveritt summarized, DEA agents in [[Florida]] caught Seal in a drug sting, and while the case was pending he agreed to become an informant. In his own later testimony he claimed to have grossed $750,000 per flight smuggling for the cartel, to have made about 60 trips to Central America in the two years before 1982 and brought back 18,000 kilograms, and, after becoming an informant, to have smuggled in a further 3,000 kilograms (about 6,000 pounds), including one flight for which the DEA allowed him to keep $575,000.[^1][^2] [[Gary Webb]] wrote in *Dark Alliance* that Seal flew about 56 tons of cocaine worth $3 billion to $5 billion and earned up to $500,000 a flight; the November 1986 Miami indictment of the cartel leaders charged at least 58 tons smuggled between 1981 and 1985.[^3][^4]
In March 1984, Seal was arrested with 462 pounds of Medellín cocaine aboard his plane. Facing a potential ten-year sentence, he signed an agreement on March 28, 1984, to become a DEA informant under agent Ernst Jacobsen. He pleaded guilty to his Florida indictment and was released pending performance as a confidential source.
### Mena, 1982 to 1984
The [[Central Intelligence Agency]] installed concealed cameras in Seal's cargo aircraft. On June 25, 1984, at the Los Brasiles airfield outside Managua, Nicaragua, the cameras photographed Pablo Escobar, José Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha, and Federico Vaughan - an official of the Nicaraguan Sandinista government - loading cocaine onto Seal's plane for transport to the United States. This photographic evidence was used by the Reagan administration in its anti-Sandinista campaign; President [[Ronald Reagan]] displayed a copy of the image in a nationally televised address on March 16, 1986.[^2]
By late 1982, when Seal moved his aircraft from [[Baton Rouge]] to the airport at Mena, federal agents had already identified him as "a major international narcotics trafficker," and police watching the airport reported that a heavy man from Louisiana had begun visiting an aircraft-modification company, [[Rich Mountain Aviation]]. That year President [[Ronald Reagan]] appointed [[Asa Hutchinson]] United States attorney for the Western District of Arkansas, and Hutchinson assigned the IRS investigator William Duncan to watch for money laundering around Mena; the Arkansas State Police assigned Russell Welch to look for cocaine arriving there.[^1] Welch said that in December 1983 he and other officers, including [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] agents and a Game and Fish officer, staked out the airport and watched Seal and a co-pilot land and taxi to Rich Mountain Aviation, where workers installed an extra fuel tank, after which Seal took off without lights. DEA officers who had met the group at a motel in Mena did not join the stakeout. The co-pilot, Billy Earle Jr., later told Welch that after the tank was installed Seal planned to fly to southern Colombia for 200 kilos of cocaine for an operation to be staged from the Carver Ranch in [[Belize]]; Leveritt noted that on February 8, 1984 the pilot of the [[Little Rock]] bond dealer [[Danny Ray Lasater]] flew Lasater and his partner Patsy Thomasson to Belize to look at a horse farm for sale by Roy Carver.[^1]
On July 17, 1984, the *Washington Times* published details of Seal's infiltration operation, including the photograph, effectively burning him as an undercover source. The [[Senate Foreign Relations Committee]]'s 1988 investigation, chaired by Senator [[John Kerry]], concluded this leak originated with [[Oliver North]].[^3]
The Arkansas lawmen were not told that Seal had become a DEA informant. Leveritt wrote that in the summer of 1984, facing a possible life sentence, Seal flew his Lear jet to Washington and met top DEA officials to set the terms of his release, and that Welch and Duncan believed throughout 1984 that he was an active smuggler and noted the DEA remained "conspicuously absent" from Mena.[^1] The *[[Arkansas Times]]* reported in 1995 that Seal met two members of the Vice President's drug task force in Washington before he became an informant; it also reported that his assigned DEA handler never set foot in Arkansas.[^2]
### The 1984 sting, the cameras and the Washington leak
The DEA's Miami office planned a sting of the cartel's leaders that failed and exposed Seal's status, and the Reagan administration then used him for the Nicaragua operation.[^1] The [[Senate Foreign Relations Committee|Kerry subcommittee]]'s report stated that Seal's task was documenting the relationship of Colombian traffickers and Nicaraguan officials "by using cameras installed in a plane he flew as part of an undercover operation," that Seal flew to Nicaragua and photographed [[Federico Vaughn]], whom U.S. authorities identified as a Nicaraguan government official, and [[Pablo Escobar]] loading the plane, and that the material became the central evidence officials cited for Sandinista involvement in narcotics. The subcommittee also reported that after the operation was exposed, Vaughn disappeared, and that the [[House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime]] found that the telephone number Vaughn used in calls received from Seal had been controlled by the U.S. Embassy since 1985.[^5] The *[[The Washington Times|Washington Times]]* reported on November 19, 1986 that an indictment unsealed in Miami, returned in August 1986 and sealed at the State Department's request, charged Vaughan, a former assistant to Interior Minister [[Tomas Borge]], with arranging cocaine laboratories and a fuel stop for cartel aircraft and with directing soldiers to load cocaine; the Miami prosecutor Richard Gregorie said Seal refused witness protection.[^6]
The CIA's own records on who installed the cameras are set beside one another here. A CIA memorandum for the record of May 3, 1988 on a House Judiciary Crime Subcommittee staff interview of [[Duane Clarridge]], former chief of the Latin America Division, states that the DEA operation was in June 1984, that "the hidden cameras were installed by the Agency on the plane in Miami," that Clarridge recalled being asked by the DEA to install a hidden camera, that the photographs showed Vaughan, and that not long afterward the DEA arranged a briefing in [[Oliver North]]'s office, which Clarridge attended without knowing why; a few weeks later the pictures reached the *Washington Times*, and Clarridge recalled that Senator [[Paula Hawkins]] used them in her re-election campaign.[^7] On October 10, 1986 *[[The New York Times]]* quoted a DEA spokesman in Miami, Jack Hood, saying the C-123 shot down in Nicaragua was the plane used in the Seal operation, and said CIA experts installed the cameras at Rickenbacker Air National Guard Base in Ohio in 1984.[^8] The Kerry subcommittee concluded that the operation was disclosed prematurely by an administration official who leaked to the press evidence supposedly collected in an effort to influence a Congressional vote on Contra aid, and that North "decided to play politics with the issue"; it recorded that law enforcement officials were furious and agents' lives jeopardized.[^5] A CIA directorate of operations memorandum of June 30, 1994, written when the *[[Wall Street Journal]]* raised Mena, states "It is believed Mr. Seal had an aircraft equipped by CIA to photograph Nicaraguan drug lords. Seal was at the time a DEA asset and the camera was installed at the request of DEA."[^9]
A Baton Rouge reporter, Jack Camp, filmed an interview in late 1984 in which Seal, aboard the C-123 at Mena, pointed out where the CIA technicians had hidden the cameras; Leveritt wrote that the broadcast is how Louisiana and then Arkansas law enforcement learned of his dual role.[^1] In October 1985 the [[President's Commission on Organized Crime]] invited Seal to speak at a Washington symposium, and he testified before it that his own organization had laundered between $10 million and $20 million.[^1][^2]
### The grand jury that did not meet
Duncan told Hutchinson in mid-1985 that he had sworn statements from Rich Mountain Aviation employees and Mena bankers about illegal cash deposits, and asked for 20 subpoenas; Hutchinson issued three. Asked later under oath whether he believed there was a cover-up, Duncan said "It was covered up." Hutchinson's successor, J. Michael Fitzhugh, subpoenaed Seal for a grand jury at [[Hot Springs]], Duncan and Welch interviewed Seal in Baton Rouge in December 1985, and five days before the session Fitzhugh canceled his appearance for "lack of credibility." The *Arkansas Times* obtained a 1986 FBI memorandum from Hot Springs stating that Fitzhugh would be "withholding presentation" of the Mena investigation from the grand jury, dated days before Seal's death.[^1][^2] The Kerry subcommittee wrote that associates of Seal operating aircraft service businesses at Mena were targets of grand jury probes into narcotics trafficking; "despite the availability of evidence sufficient for an indictment on money laundering charges, and over the strong protests of State and federal law enforcement officials, the cases were dropped," the apparent reason being that a prosecution might reveal national security information, though the crimes preceded his work as an informant.[^5]
### Assassination
The Medellín Cartel placed a $500,000 contract on Seal's life after his role as an informant was exposed. On February 19, 1986, Luis Carlos Quintero-Cruz shot Seal with a MAC-10 submachine gun in Baton Rouge. Three Colombian nationals were convicted of first-degree murder in April 1987: Quintero-Cruz (triggerman), Miguel Vélez (driver), and Bernardo Antonio Vásquez. Federal charges were also brought against Escobar and Fabio Ochoa for conspiring to murder Seal. Former cartel member Max Mermelstein testified that the contract was authorized at a meeting attended by Escobar and Ochoa in December 1984.[^1]
Seal was ordered to spend nights at a [[Salvation Army]] community treatment center in Baton Rouge while on probation. On February 19, 1986 Colombian gunmen shot him with a MAC-10 in the parking lot, four weeks before Reagan held up one of his photographs on television.[^1] Three Colombians, [[Miguel Velez]], Bernardo Antonio Vasquez and Luis Carlos Quintero-Cruz, were convicted of first-degree murder in Louisiana in 1987 in a case moved to [[Lake Charles]]; the appellate opinion places Seal's DEA informant agreement in March 1984, the cartel indictments in July 1984 and the murder contract in December 1984.[^10] Seal's lawyer Lewis Unglesby said the cartel had Seal killed to stop [[Spain]] sending [[Jorge Ochoa]] to the United States.[^1] Seal was killed before the cartel indictment was unsealed; the Kerry chronology records that on December 2, 1986 the [[U.S. Department of Justice|Justice Department]] prosecutor Feldman was told to stay away from the Jose Coutin matter, where Coutin was held as the supplier of the weapon used to kill Seal.[^11] A federal prosecutor in the later tax case said the government found $1.5 million to $2 million in assets and asked "Where is the other tens of millions of dollars? We don't know."[^2] On March 16, 1986 Reagan displayed the Vaughan photograph in an address on Nicaragua without naming Seal, saying it was "secretly taken at a military airfield outside Managua."[^12]
### The Fat Lady and the Hasenfus Shootdown
### The CIA records and the Mena inquiries
Seal operated a Fairchild C-123K transport, tail number N4410F, which he nicknamed "The Fat Lady" and had fitted with CIA camera equipment for the Nicaraguan operation. After his death, the aircraft came under the control of North's covert Contra resupply network. On October 5, 1986 - more than seven months after Seal's assassination - a Nicaraguan soldier shot down N4410F with a shoulder-launched SAM-7 missile while it was on a weapons delivery flight to the [[Contras]]. [[Eugene Hasenfus]], a former [[Air America]] cargo handler serving as the aircraft's kicker, survived by parachuting and was captured. His capture and subsequent press conference in Managua directly exposed the existence of North's private Contra supply network, triggering the unraveling of the [[Iran-Contra Affair]].[^3]
In 1994 the CIA's operations directorate replied to the Wall Street Journal's "Mysterious Mena" by saying it had never had a proprietary at Mena, that its records "also show support in terms of" a training operation at Mena airfield (text partly withheld), and that the book *Compromised* described "a conspiracy which exists only in the minds of the authors."[^9] In May 1995 Representative [[James Leach]] asked the House intelligence committee for access to Iran-Contra files on whether the CIA had "any contractual or other relationship" with Seal, and on June 9, 1995 the CIA's Office of General Counsel confirmed that all components tasked on June 7 had responded "no records."[^13] At a July 21, 1995 briefing the CIA told Leach it "was aware of Barry Seal, but had no relationship with him nor any records regarding his activities in Mena," while listing as open the question whether the Agency had any connection to Seal's cargo plane, serial number 54-0679.[^14] A September 8, 1995 memorandum from the DCI Crime and Narcotics Center said "CIA's OTS may have installed cameras on the aircraft used in the 1984 operation."[^15]
### Meese and the DOJ
The Inspector General opened case 96-0036-IG on February 26, 1996, asking components for documents on Seal under the aliases A. B. Seal, FNU Billings, Eric Arthur, Ellis McKenzie, "El Gordo" and Joseph Warren Church; on the C-123K; on a Convair C-131A, N5575A; on 22 named Mena companies and individuals; and on the former state trooper L. D. Brown.[^16] The unclassified summary of the November 1996 report, as reported by the *[[Arkansas Democrat-Gazette]]*, stated that CIA had "limited contact" with Seal during the DEA sting, providing "technical support" in the form of cameras, and that there was "no evidence" CIA knew his true identity.[^17] A December 24, 1996 memorandum in the case file examined whether Seal's C-123K (N4410F, "Fat Lady") had a Vietnam-era link to the CIA as suggested by an officer whose name is redacted; the review found no document indicating a CIA link with N4410F and no document showing that [[Southern Air Transport]] owned, operated or leased a C-123K, and listed further file review and a reinterview as remaining actions.[^18] A 1998 letter from the Inspector General to Leach said all information developed on Mena and Seal was in the November 1996 report.[^19]
The attorney general of Louisiana wrote to Attorney General [[Edwin Meese]] characterizing Seal's smuggling operation as having transported "$3 billion to $5 billion worth of drugs into the U.S." Despite the scale of Seal's operations, which made him the largest cocaine importer then operating in the American South, the Department of Justice under Meese dropped federal cases against Seal and related figures over the objections of state and federal law enforcement officials. The stated justification was that prosecution would expose national security information related to covert operations.[^4]
### The aircraft
The CIA's Inspector General treats N4410F as Seal's aircraft. A CIA memorandum for the record of October 10, 1986 on a Senate Foreign Relations Committee briefing states that information developed to date indicated the downed C-123 "was sold as U.S. military surplus in 1983" and that its purchaser had not been determined; *The [[Christian Science Monitor]]* reported the same day that news reports said the plane was bought six months earlier by a California company, Four Aces Inc., and leased to Southern Air Transport.[^20][^21] The independent counsel's report recorded that Southern Air Transport received $1,935,596 in 1985 and 1986 for contra-related services including the purchase of a C-123.[^22] The [[Federal Aviation Administration]]'s registry now lists N4410F only as deregistered, and N5575A the same.[^23]
### Footnotes
[^1]: "Barry Seal." FBI Famous Cases and Criminals; U.S. Department of Justice press releases, United States v. Quintero-Cruz, 1987.
[^2]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998.
[^3]: U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations. *Drugs, Law Enforcement, and Foreign Policy: A Report.* 100th Congress, 2nd Session, December 1988. (Kerry Committee Report.)
[^4]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998; see also Edwin Meese page, re: reported Louisiana attorney general letter.
[^1]: Mara Leveritt, "Who's afraid of Barry Seal?" *Arkansas Times*, September 28, 2017. https://arktimes.com/news/cover-stories/2017/09/28/whos-afraid-of-barry-seal (Leveritt is the claimant for the interview accounts of Duncan, Welch, Earle and Unglesby and for the court-record summaries.)
[^2]: Mara Leveritt, "Mena rides again," *Arkansas Times*, August 25, 1995. https://arktimes.com/news/cover-stories/1995/08/25/mena-rides-again
[^3]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Sole source for the 56-ton, $3 billion to $5 billion and $500,000-per-flight figures; the Louisiana attorney general letter to Edwin Meese that Webb cites is not carried in the Kerry report.
[^4]: Michael Hedges, "Nicaraguan Official Tied to Cocaine Ring," *The Washington Times*, November 19, 1986 (CIA Reading Room, CIA-RDP90-00965R000402790019-3). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00965r000402790019-3
[^5]: U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations, *Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy* (Committee Print, December 1988), Cuba and Nicaragua chapter, pp. 68-69 (citing Jacobsen testimony, House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, July 28, 1988), and "Barry Seal and the Cartel," pp. 121-122. https://archive.org/details/Kerry-Report-Drugs-Contras
[^6]: Washington Times, November 19, 1986, cited in footnote 4.
[^7]: CIA Office of Congressional Affairs, memorandum for the record, "Interview of Dewey Clarridge by House Judiciary Committee Staff," OCA 88-1404, May 3, 1988 (CIA Reading Room 0001289872). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-0001289872
[^8]: Richard Halloran, "Plane Downed in Nicaragua Was in a U.S. Drug 'Sting,'" *The New York Times*, October 10, 1986 (CIA Reading Room, CIA-RDP90-00965R000402690007-7). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00965r000402690007-7
[^9]: CIA Directorate of Operations, memorandum for the Executive Assistant to the Director of Central Intelligence, "Wall Street Journal Allegations of Possible CIA Operations in Arkansas," June 30, 1994, paragraphs 2 to 7 (CIA Reading Room 0001289708). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-0001289708
[^10]: *State v. Velez*, 588 So. 2d 116 (La. Ct. App. 3d Cir. October 2, 1991). https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1767808/state-v-velez/
[^11]: Kerry report, chronology (entry for December 2, 1986). https://archive.org/details/Kerry-Report-Drugs-Contras
[^12]: Ronald Reagan, "Address to the Nation on the Situation in Nicaragua," March 16, 1986, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/speech/address-nation-situation-nicaragua
[^13]: Letter, Rep. James A. Leach to Rep. Larry Combest, May 9, 1995, and CIA Office of General Counsel memoranda OGC-95-51546 (June 7, 1995) and OGC-95-51574 (June 9, 1995), "Confirmation of Records Search, Adler Barriman 'Barry' Seal" (CIA Reading Room 0001289830; case record 0001289687). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-0001289830
[^14]: CIA Office of Congressional Affairs, memorandum for the record, OCA 95-2274, August 16, 1995, on the briefing of Rep. Leach on July 21, 1995 (CIA Reading Room 0001289684; also 0001289686 and 0001289820). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-0001289684
[^15]: CIA, DCI Crime and Narcotics Center, "Records Searches: Mena, Arkansas and Related Topics," September 8, 1995 (CIA Reading Room 0001289705). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-0001289705
[^16]: CIA Inspector General Frederick P. Hitz, memorandum IG 96-0302, "Request for Documents Relating to Possible Agency Knowledge of Certain Activities in or Around Mena, Arkansas," February 26, 1996 (CIA Reading Room 0001289863). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-0001289863
[^17]: Kathy Kiely, "CIA admits training at Mena," *Arkansas Democrat-Gazette*, November 9, 1996. https://archivesspace.wilkes.edu/files/normanmailer/65.9_HG2_HarlotsGhostSequelResearch_ArkansasDemocraticGazetteArticles_1996November9.pdf
[^18]: CIA Inspector General, memorandum for the record, "C-123K - Review of Additional Records," December 24, 1996, case Mena 96-0036-IG (CIA Reading Room 0001289850). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-0001289850
[^19]: Letter, CIA Inspector General to Rep. James A. Leach, 1998 (CIA Reading Room 0001289865). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-0001289865
[^20]: CIA Office of Congressional Affairs, memorandum for the record, "Briefing on the C-123 Crash in Nicaragua: Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 10 October," OCA 86-3575, paragraph 14. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-00788192
[^21]: Warren Richey and George D. Moffett III, "Credibility crisis over downed plane," *The Christian Science Monitor*, October 10, 1986. https://www.csmonitor.com/1986/1010/ashot.html
[^22]: Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters (August 4, 1993), chapter 8. https://irp.fas.org/offdocs/walsh/chap_08.htm
[^23]: Federal Aviation Administration, Aircraft Registry N-Number Inquiry results for N4410F and N5575A, accessed October 5, 2026. https://registry.faa.gov/AircraftInquiry/Search/NNumberResult?nNumberTxt=N4410F

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10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Felix Rodriguez.md
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@ -2,40 +2,147 @@
title: Felix Rodriguez
aliases:
- Felix Rodriguez
- Félix Rodríguez
- Felix Ismael Rodriguez
- Félix Ismael Rodríguez Mendigutia
- Felix Rodriguez Mendigutia
- Max Gomez
- Maximo Gomez
- Max Gómez
- Felix Ramos
- Félix Ramos Medina
created: 2026-05-17
updated: 2026-05-17
updated: 2026-10-05
category: "Intelligence & Government"
tags:
- Person
- Intelligence
- CIA
- ElSalvador
- Cuba
- Bolivia
- 1980s
- ContraWar
- IranContra
- DarkAllianceInvestigation
summary: "CIA agent and Bay of Pigs veteran who oversaw Oliver North's Contra resupply operation at Ilopango Air Force Base under the alias 'Max Gomez.'"
born: 1941-05-31
location: "Havana, Cuba"
location: "Sancti Spiritus, Cuba"
summary: "Cuban-born CIA paramilitary officer (Bay of Pigs infiltrator, Bolivia 1967) who from 1985 coordinated North's Contra resupply flights at Ilopango as Max Gomez and was a friend of Donald Gregg."
relations:
- type: member_of
with: "[[Brigade 2506]]"
start: 1960
end: 1961
role: "Cuban exile force trained by the CIA in Guatemala; leader of a five-man infiltration team"
fn: 1
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Bay of Pigs]]"
start: 1961-02
end: 1961-04
role: "infiltrated into Cuba at the end of February 1961 to prepare an internal uprising; escaped through the Venezuelan embassy"
fn: 1
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Central Intelligence Agency]]"
role: "full-time clandestine officer from the mid-1960s; retirement dated about 1975 by the Los Angeles Times and 1978 by Alan Fiers"
fn: 1
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Che Guevara]]"
start: 1967-07-30
end: 1967-10-09
role: "CIA adviser to the Bolivian 2nd Ranger Battalion; transmitted the Bolivian order to execute Guevara at La Higuera"
fn: 2
- type: reported_to
with: "[[Donald Gregg]]"
role: "supervised by Gregg in Vietnam according to Gregg; the two remained in contact"
fn: 3
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Iran-Contra Affair]]"
start: 1985-03
end: 1986-09
role: "based at Ilopango air base; coordinated North and Secord's private Contra resupply flights as Max Gomez"
fn: 6
- type: partner_of
with: "[[Oliver North]]"
start: 1984-12-21
role: "first met North December 21, 1984; recruited by North's September 20, 1985 letter to arrange aircraft servicing at Ilopango"
fn: 3
- type: subject_of
with: "[[Office of Independent Counsel for Iran-Contra Matters]]"
start: 1987
role: "grand jury and Select Committee witness on the Ilopango operation and his contacts with the Office of the Vice President"
fn: 3
---
Felix Rodriguez was a [[Cuba|Cuban]]-born [[Central Intelligence Agency]] paramilitary specialist and [[Bay of Pigs]] veteran who participated in the capture and execution of [[Che Guevara]]. In early 1985, Rodriguez appeared in [[El Salvador]] as an adviser to the Salvadoran Air Force, working on a helicopter-based counterinsurgency operation against the [[FMLN]] guerrillas. Though Rodriguez claimed to be retired from the CIA and merely a volunteer, former CIA official [[Alan Fiers]] testified that Rodriguez was sent to El Salvador as part of a CIA reorganization after Fiers took over the Central American Task Force, to fill "a void" in certain operations.[^1]
### Ilopango Operations
Felix Ismael Rodriguez Mendigutia was born on May 31, 1941 in [[Sancti Spiritus]], [[Cuba]], the son of a shopkeeper, and was educated at a Catholic high school in [[Havana]] and a private boys' school in [[Pennsylvania]]. His parents were in [[Mexico]] during the revolution and did not return to Cuba. He joined [[Brigade 2506]], the Cuban exile force the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] trained in [[Guatemala]].[^1]
Operating under the alias "Max Gomez," Rodriguez oversaw [[Oliver North]]'s [[Contras|Contra]] resupply operation at [[Ilopango Airbase|Ilopango Air Force Base]]. In September 1985, North wrote to Rodriguez asking him to use his influence with Salvadoran Air Force commander [[Juan Rafael Bustillo]] to secure hangar space. Rodriguez "greased the skids" with Bustillo and became the day-to-day manager of the operation. CIA records show Hangar No. 4 was used for covert Contra operations until it was turned over to North's "Enterprise" in 1985; the adjoining Hangar No. 5 remained CIA-run.[^1]
### Bay of Pigs and the Cuban operations
### Connection to Ramon Milian Rodriguez
The CIA named Rodriguez leader of a five-man infiltration team. At the end of February 1961 the team left [[Key West]] in a 26-foot launch and landed at night east of Havana. Florida state representative Javier Souto, who was on the boat, said Rodriguez was assigned to the eastern city of [[Moron, Cuba|Moron]] to prepare weapons and explosives for an uprising timed to the invasion. Rodriguez himself later said he had explosive charges primed against bridges on April 17, 1961, the day the [[Bay of Pigs]] landing began, and that the messages ordering the sabotage reached him only at midday, by which time the underground networks were being rolled up. He made his way back to Havana, took asylum in the [[Venezuela|Venezuelan]] embassy, and some months later was allowed to leave Cuba.[^1]
Before departing for El Salvador, Rodriguez received a call from a private investigator in [[Miami]] who wanted him to meet "a client who could compromise the Nicaraguan Sandinista government for drug-money laundering." The client was [[Ramon Milian Rodriguez|Ramon Milian Rodriguez]], the [[Medellin Cartel|Medellín cartel]]'s former money-laundering expert, who had set up [[Frigorificos de Puntarenas]]. Rodriguez said he passed Milian's information to the CIA and [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] and heard nothing back. Milian told a different story: he met with Rodriguez to offer $10 million to the Contras in exchange for dropped charges, and money was delivered on five separate occasions. Milian later failed a polygraph on payments to Rodriguez. Noriega's former political adviser described Rodriguez as "a very close friend of Milian."[^1]
Jose Basulto, a Brigade veteran and friend, told the *[[Los Angeles Times]]* in 1986 that Rodriguez took part in at least six sabotage raids on Cuba and infiltration attempts after the invasion, some of them CIA-assisted. About 1963 Rodriguez and more than a hundred other Brigade veterans entered a special officer training program at [[Fort Benning]], Georgia, and he became communications chief of a CIA-sponsored boat-raid group whose actions included the sinking of a Spanish freighter by mistake. The *Times* wrote that his career became hard to trace in the mid-1960s; Basulto said a cover story of army service concealed that Rodriguez was by then a full-time officer of the CIA's clandestine service.[^1]
### Deputy: Luis Posada Carriles
### Bolivia, 1967
Rodriguez recruited veteran CIA agent [[Luis Posada Carriles]] as his right-hand man at Ilopango, where Posada operated under the alias "Ramon Medina." Posada had escaped from Venezuelan prison in 1985 after nearly ten years of incarceration following his arrest for the midair bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed seventy-eight people. Rodriguez helped Posada relocate to El Salvador and find housing.[^1]
In June or July 1967, after an interview in [[Miami]] at which he was a case officer for the CIA station there, Rodriguez was assigned to [[Bolivia]] with another Cuban exile, [[Gustavo Villoldo]], to train intelligence teams for the Bolivian Army's 2nd Ranger Battalion. They left New York on July 30, 1967 on false re-entry permits. A CIA Inspector General memorandum of June 3, 1975, written after a two-day interview of the officer and prepared while Congress was investigating CIA assassination operations, records that the instructions included doing everything possible to keep [[Che Guevara]] alive if the Bolivians captured him.[^2]
### Ilopango Drug Trafficking
The same memorandum records that at La Higuera on October 9, 1967 the interviewee, as the highest-ranking "Bolivian officer" present, answered a field telephone call giving the code numbers 500, 600 and 700, which he understood to mean Guevara, execute, and preserve his life. He took the order as authentic and made no effort to have it confirmed, asked whether Guevara's life could be preserved, and was told it was not in the caller's power to reverse the order. He spoke with Guevara, who blanched on being told he would be executed, and he said the sergeant was ordered to fire below the head; the shots were heard at 1:20 p.m.[^2] The [[National Security Archive]], which published the memorandum in 1997 after the journalist David Corn found it in a declassified file marked with Rodriguez's name, summarized it as showing that Rodriguez transmitted the order to execute Guevara from the Bolivian high command to the soldiers, told them not to shoot Guevara in the face so the wounds would appear combat-related, personally informed Guevara he would be killed, and afterward took Guevara's Rolex watch.[^2] The *Los Angeles Times* reported in 1986 that Rodriguez still wore Guevara's wristwatch, and that [[Jorge Mas Canosa]] of the [[Cuban American National Foundation]] called him "the greatest guerrilla of all time" for the capture.[^1]
The Contra air operations at Ilopango were deeply intertwined with drug trafficking. [[Enrique Miranda]] testified that [[Norwin Meneses]]'s associate, CIA pilot [[Marcos Aguado]], moved permanently to Ilopango after North set up the resupply operation, working as an aide to a high-ranking Salvadoran air force commander and directing drug flights as far as [[Colombia]]. Among the busiest pilots was [[Francisco Guirola Beeche]], a Salvadoran elite with connections to [[Roberto D'Aubuisson]], who had been caught with $5.9 million in cash at a Texas airport yet received only probation.[^1]
### Vietnam and retirement from the CIA
The *Los Angeles Times* reported that in the late 1960s Rodriguez went to [[Vietnam]] with the CIA's expanding operations, worked in the [[Mekong Delta]], learned to fly helicopters on his own, was shot down twice, and fused most of his vertebrae in the last crash. It dated his retirement on full medical disability to about 1975 and listed among his Washington contacts [[Ted Shackley]].[^1] [[Donald Gregg]] stated that he supervised Rodriguez in South Vietnam, and the two kept in contact afterward.[^3] At a briefing of the [[House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence]] staff on October 10, 1986, [[Alan Fiers]] described Rodriguez as a twenty-year veteran of the Agency who retired in 1978, and disavowed all knowledge of what Rodriguez had done since leaving.[^4]
### Gregg, Bush and El Salvador, 1983 to 1985
When Gregg became national security adviser to Vice President [[George H.W. Bush]] in August 1982 he consciously cut ties with former CIA colleagues, with one exception he described as Rodriguez. In March 1983 Rodriguez left Gregg a proposal for helicopter anti-guerrilla operations in Central America; Gregg forwarded it with a favorable recommendation to [[Robert McFarlane]], who sent it to [[Oliver North]].[^3] North's schedule card and notebook show Rodriguez meeting North at 3:45 p.m. on December 21, 1984, with a note that he would see Gregg at 4:00 p.m.; William R. Bode, a former State Department official, said he had referred Rodriguez to North. Rodriguez also met Gregg that day and said he wanted to work with the [[Salvadoran Air Force]].[^3]
At North's April 11, 1989 trial North testified that Gregg introduced Rodriguez to him and that he spoke to Gregg before recruiting him; at his [[Senate Foreign Relations Committee]] confirmation hearing on May 12, 1989 Gregg denied both statements, and the Independent Counsel found no evidence contradicting Gregg's denials.[^3] Gregg took Rodriguez to Bush's [[Old Executive Office Building]] office on January 22, 1985. Rodriguez described the meeting as brief: he showed Bush his photograph album and they watched a television report on the Bush family. Gregg said he told Bush beforehand that Rodriguez, "a remarkable former agency employee," wanted to help in [[El Salvador]] and would be introduced to Assistant Secretary of State Tony Motley, Ambassador [[Thomas Pickering]] and [[Nestor Sanchez]].[^3]
On January 31, 1985 a CIA field officer cabled that Pickering wanted help "in finding out who Felix Rodriguez is and what is behind his apparent mission to El Salvador," and reported that Pickering had been told NSC staff members Nestor Sanchez and Constantine Menges were sending him "to solve the insurgency problems." Headquarters answered on February 2 that Rodriguez's visit was "totally unrelated" to the CIA. Pickering asked General Paul Gorman of the [[Southern Command]] to evaluate him, and Gorman cabled on February 12 that Rodriguez "has been put into play by Ollie North, and, while well acquainted, does not have higher backing."[^3] Gorman spoke to North about Rodriguez on February 8, 1985 and met Rodriguez in [[Panama City]] on February 14; North's notes of February 19 record Gorman saying he had told Rodriguez to make the contras his priority. Rodriguez testified that his short-term priority was delivering night-drop security equipment bought with money from the contra leader [[Adolfo Calero]].[^3] After meeting Pickering and Colonel [[James Steele]], commander of the U.S. Military Group, on February 15, Rodriguez went to Washington and reported to Gregg on February 19.[^3] He relocated to [[Ilopango Airbase]] in mid-March 1985 and began flying helicopter missions with the Salvadoran Air Force the next month, after arranging with General [[Adolfo Blandon]] and General [[Juan Rafael Bustillo]], the Air Force commander, on January 24 and 30 to stay at the base.[^3]
In *Dark Alliance* [[Gary Webb]] wrote that Fiers testified Rodriguez was sent to El Salvador as part of a CIA reorganization after Fiers took over the Central American Task Force, to fill "a void"; Rodriguez described himself as a retired volunteer.[^5]
### Ilopango, 1985 and 1986
Walsh's chapter on Clair George records Rodriguez as based at Ilopango and coordinating North's weapons shipments while the humanitarian flights of the Nicaraguan Humanitarian Assistance Office were routed through the same base, so that the two operations "became indistinguishable," using the same equipment and pilots and coordinated by Rodriguez.[^6]
On September 10, 1985 North's notebook has an entry at 4:30 p.m., "Mtg w/ Jim Steele/Don Gregg," with notes about the arms dealer Mario Dellamico and Calero and [[Enrique Bermudez]] visiting Ilopango; Gregg and Steele both denied that the meeting took place, and the Independent Counsel noted that Steele failed a polygraph question on whether Gregg attended.[^3] On September 20, 1985 North wrote "Dear Felix" asking Rodriguez to help get contra resupply aircraft serviced at Ilopango, not to tell CIA field personnel or Dellamico, and to destroy the letter; a caller sent by "Mr. Green," later identified as [[Rafael Quintero]], would contact him.[^3] North's October 1, 1985 notebook has the entry "Don Gregg: Maximo Gomez [Rodriguez] 27-31-59," a [[San Salvador]] telephone number that [[Robert Duemling]], head of the Nicaraguan Humanitarian Assistance Office, also noted in a meeting that day.[^3] Rodriguez testified that North told him not to mention his assistance to anyone on the "second floor," meaning the Vice President's office, and that he did not discuss contra resupply with Gregg until August 8, 1986; North denied giving that instruction.[^3]
Rodriguez arranged the landing of a 707 from Europe carrying weapons to Ilopango in December 1985 after Quintero's call. He attended the December 30, 1985 meeting at Ilopango with North, Fiers, Ambassador [[Edwin Corr]] and Bustillo on [[NHAO]] logistics, and in January 1986 met [[Richard Gadd]], the Secord associate who then advised him of arriving planes.[^3] Walsh's report recorded that after cash reached Ilopango the fuel-fund deposits were made by the Enterprise employees [[Luis Posada Carriles]], using the alias Ramon Medina, and Rodriguez, and recorded by William Cooper.[^7] In early 1986 Fiers went to Ilopango, watched a [[Southern Air Transport]] C-130 being loaded with supplies for the contras, and went to Rodriguez's quarters, where he persuaded North to cancel the flight; a CIA call recorded on August 6, 1986 describes Rodriguez as "getting himself out of control," and says he and Bustillo had flown from Miami in a C-123K that did not belong to them.[^8] On April 11, 1986 Rodriguez assisted in the first lethal-resupply flight to the contras' southern front.[^3]
Rodriguez's relations with the Secord network deteriorated through the spring and summer. He objected that aircraft were bought at a profit by people he linked to [[Edwin Wilson]], Quintero and [[Thomas Clines]], whose [[Libya]]n associations disturbed him, and told Ambassador Corr on April 24, 1986 he intended to leave. On May 1, 1986 he met Bush, Gregg, Colonel [[Samuel Watson]] and [[Nicholas Brady]] in the Vice President's office; by all accounts contra resupply was not discussed, but the scheduling memorandum prepared on April 16 gave the purpose as a briefing "on the status of the war in El Salvador and resupply of the [[Contras]]." Gregg's secretary Phyllis Byrne testified that Watson supplied the phrase; Watson denied it, and Gregg suggested it meant "resupply of the copters." Walsh's report recorded that two support staff contradicted Watson, who answered "I do not recall" repeatedly before the grand jury under immunity.[^3] On June 25, 1986 North and Robert Dutton, who had replaced Gadd, confronted Rodriguez in the Old Executive Office Building over open-line calls, and Rodriguez complained that Clines was selling $3.50 grenades for $9.00.[^3]
### August 1986
On July 29, 1986 Watson noted a whispered message from North at a White House meeting, "Max shut down pilots resupply." After Rodriguez flew from Miami to El Salvador in a C-123 loaded with spare parts, Quintero accused him of stealing it and North telephoned Gregg to say so. Rodriguez met Gregg and Watson at 9:30 a.m. on August 8, 1986. Gregg's handwritten notes from the meeting read, among other lines, "Using Ed Wilson group for supplies," "Felix used by Ollie to get Contra planes repaired at Ilopango," "'Mr. Green' = Rafael Quintero," "Felix knew him at Bay of Pigs," "Southern Air Transport said plane OK to go. Called Jim Steele," and "Bustillo angry, feels plane is a donation." Gregg asked North's deputy Robert Earl to join, and Earl's note attributes to Gregg "Tom Clines = snake!" Rodriguez said he told Gregg about North's involvement with the Wilson group, and testified that it could be worse than Watergate. Gregg said he understood only the "tip of the iceberg" and was not fully aware of Rodriguez's involvement until December 1986; the Office of the Vice President's December 15, 1986 chronology said the August 8 meeting was the first time Rodriguez discussed resupply with it, and Walsh's report recorded that Gregg's [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] interview of December 15 and his chronology omitted what Rodriguez said about North.[^3] Gregg called a meeting in his office on August 12, 1986 with Fiers, Corr, Earl, Steele, [[William Walker]], Raymond Burghardt and Watson; Earl's notes record "Felix Rodriguez, compadres w/ Busti[ll]o" and "Felix claims working w/ VP blessing for CIA," and Corr's view that Rodriguez had to be "eased out w/ honor." Fiers said the meeting concerned whether the CIA would purchase the resupply operation's planes, and that he declined.[^3][^8]
### The Hasenfus shootdown and the Vice President's office
Rodriguez was in Miami on October 5, 1986 when the Enterprise C-123K carrying [[Eugene Hasenfus]] was shot down over Nicaragua. He telephoned the Office of the Vice President that night; Watson's notes of October 6 record "C-123 = Ollie's." Gregg's immediate assumption, he testified, was that the plane belonged to the operation Rodriguez had described in August.[^3] On October 9, Hasenfus named "Max Gomez" and "Ramon Medina" as CIA employees who oversaw housing, transportation, refueling and flight plans, and on October 10 *The San Francisco Examiner* reported that Gomez had been placed at Ilopango by Gregg after being introduced to Bush. Bush's press office said no one on the Vice President's staff was directing an operation in Central America. On October 11 Bush said "I know Felix Gomez," acknowledged meeting him twice, in January 1985 and May 1986, and said they discussed only El Salvador.[^3]
On October 10, 1986 [[Clair George]] and Fiers briefed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and the committee memorandum records the statement that it "appeared possible that Gomez was an alias used by a former Agency contact," with identifying information to follow; later that day Fiers briefed House intelligence committee staff on Rodriguez, and the staff memorandum records that he explained it might appear Rodriguez was still working for the CIA because "they used a house." Abrams told the House intelligence committee on October 14 that Gregg had introduced Rodriguez to the Salvadorans in about 1984. Gregg sent the CIA buttons reading "Who is Max Gomez?" and "I'm Max Gomez."[^4][^9][^3] On October 13 Gregg cabled Corr that Rodriguez intended to keep a low profile in Miami and suggested Steele keep him informed, and on October 16 a note by [[Charles Hill]], aide to Secretary of State [[George Shultz]], recorded Abrams saying "A yr ago Pdx + Ollie told VP staff stop protecting FR as a friend."[^3] George was charged with falsely denying before Congress that he knew the true identity of Max Gomez.[^10] Kerry's staff had already written on October 14, 1986 that Max Gomez was "managing contra supply operations out of Ilopango having allegedly been placed there by NSC."[^11]
### Ramon Milian Rodriguez
In a June 25, 1987 closed session of the Kerry subcommittee, [[Ramon Milian Rodriguez]], a Medellin Cartel money launderer, testified that at a meeting arranged by the Miami private detective Raoul Diaz he offered Felix Rodriguez drug money for the contras and help entrapping the [[Sandinistas]] in a drug sting, in return for dropping charges against him, and that $10 million was provided through couriers. Felix Rodriguez strenuously denied this and said he reported the offer to the FBI and CIA, which took no action; Diaz refused a subpoena, and the subcommittee could not resolve the difference.[^12]
### Ilopango and cocaine
In *Dark Alliance* Webb wrote that Enrique Miranda, a former aide to [[Norwin Meneses]], testified that Meneses's associate [[Marcos Aguado]] moved to Ilopango after North set up the resupply operation, worked as an aide to a Salvadoran air force commander and directed drug flights as far as [[Colombia]], and that among the busiest pilots was [[Francisco Guirola Beeche]], who had been caught with $5.9 million in cash at a Texas airport and received probation.[^5] The Posada connection recorded by the Independent Counsel is that Posada handled the pilots' expenses and housing, and after the shootdown cleaned out the houses, retrieved documents and terminated the leases.[^7]
### Investigations
The Independent Counsel investigated Gregg and Watson for false testimony about their knowledge of Rodriguez's role. Walsh's final report stated that despite unresolved conflicts between documents and testimony, the Independent Counsel could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt a criminal case against Gregg, and that Watson's immunized grand jury testimony in 1991 and 1992 did not advance the inquiry. The same report notes that Bush said in March 1987 Gregg had "forgotten" the August 8 meeting.[^3] Gregg was confirmed as ambassador to South Korea on September 12, 1989.[^3] Rodriguez later published *Shadow Warrior* (1989, with John Weisman), a source the Independent Counsel cited for his 1985 movements.[^3]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 13: "The wrong kind of friends"
[^1]: Doyle McManus and William R. Long, "Crash Puts Shadow Warrior in Spotlight," *Los Angeles Times*, October 16, 1986 (copy in CIA Reading Room, CIA-RDP90-00965R000504130024-6). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00965r000504130024-6
[^2]: CIA Inspector General, memorandum for the Deputy Inspector General, "Interview of [redacted] concerning his assignment to Bolivia in 1967 and his role in the capture of Ernesto 'Che' Guevara de la Serna," June 3, 1975 (CIA Historical Review Program), published with a summary in Peter Kornbluh, ed., "The Death of Che Guevara: Declassified," National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 5, 1997, document 15. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB5/docs/doc15.pdf and https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB5/index.html (The memorandum's name fields are redacted and its scan is poorly legible; the identification with Rodriguez is the National Security Archive's.)
[^3]: Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters (Lawrence E. Walsh, August 4, 1993), chapter 29, "Donald P. Gregg" (citing Gregg, Rodriguez, North, Watson, Fiers and Abrams grand jury and Select Committee testimony, North's notebooks, Office of the Vice President chronology of December 15, 1986, and CIA and State cables), and chapter 25, "United States v. Elliott Abrams" (Hill note of October 16, 1986; Abrams HPSCI testimony of October 14, 1986). https://irp.fas.org/offdocs/walsh/chap_29.htm and https://irp.fas.org/offdocs/walsh/chap_25.htm
[^4]: CIA Office of Congressional Affairs, memorandum for the record, "HPSCI Staff Briefing on Crash of C-123 in Nicaragua," OCA 86-3489, October 16, 1986, paragraph 12. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90b01390r000400550034-9
[^5]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998, chapter 13, "The wrong kind of friends." Webb is the sole source for the Fiers "void" testimony and the Miranda and Guirola Beeche passages as cited here.
[^6]: Walsh, chapter 17, "United States v. Clair E. George" (Rodriguez based at Ilopango and coordinating North's weapons shipments; NHAO flights and lethal resupply "indistinguishable"). https://irp.fas.org/offdocs/walsh/chap_17.htm
[^7]: Walsh, chapter 14, "Other Money Matters" (fuel fund deposits by Posada and Rodriguez), https://irp.fas.org/offdocs/walsh/chap_14.htm, and chapter 8, "The Enterprise and Its Finances" (Posada, alias Ramon Medina, closing out the Ilopango operation after the shootdown), https://irp.fas.org/offdocs/walsh/chap_08.htm
[^8]: Walsh, chapter 19, "United States v. Alan D. Fiers, Jr." (Rodriguez, the C-123K flight from Miami, PRT-250 conversation of August 6, 1986; August 12, 1986 meeting in Gregg's office), and chapter 21, "CIA Subject #1" (Fiers at Ilopango, February 1986). https://irp.fas.org/offdocs/walsh/chap_19.htm and https://irp.fas.org/offdocs/walsh/chap_21.htm
[^9]: CIA Office of Congressional Affairs, memorandum for the record, "Briefing on the C-123 Crash in Nicaragua: Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 10 October," OCA 86-3575, October 10, 1986, paragraphs 14 and 16. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-00788192
[^10]: Walsh, chapter 17. https://irp.fas.org/offdocs/walsh/chap_17.htm
[^11]: U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations, *Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy* (Committee Print, December 1988), chronology (entry for October 14, 1986). https://archive.org/details/Kerry-Report-Drugs-Contras
[^12]: Kerry report, section "Ramon Milian Rodriguez and Felix Rodriguez" (Milian Rodriguez, closed session, June 25, 1987). https://archive.org/details/Kerry-Report-Drugs-Contras

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10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Kenneth A. Roe.md
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@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ tags:
- Politician
summary: "Under Roe's leadership, Burns & Roe, Inc."
---
[[Kenneth A. Roe]] was a Director of [[First Intercontinental Development Corporation|FIDCO]] and served as the Chairman and President of[[Burns & Roe, Inc]]., an international engineering and construction corporation. Burns & Roe, Inc. was a family corporation owned by Kenneth Roe and his family.[^1]
[[Kenneth A. Roe]] was a Director of [[First Intercontinental Development Corporation|FIDCO]] and served as the Chairman and President of [[Burns & Roe, Inc]]., an international engineering and construction corporation. Burns & Roe, Inc. was a family corporation owned by Kenneth Roe and his family.[^1]
Under Roe's leadership, Burns & Roe, Inc. was involved in major projects, including the engineering design and construction of the U.S.A. [[Fast Breeder Nuclear Reactor Plant]] in conjunction with [[Westinghouse Electric Corporation]], which was responsible for the nuclear system supply of steam. At the time, the construction value of Burns & Roe, Inc.'s business backlog exceeded six billion U.S. dollars.[^1]

114
10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Manuel Noriega.md
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@ -2,40 +2,124 @@
title: Manuel Noriega
aliases:
- Manuel Noriega
- Manuel Antonio Noriega
- Manuel Antonio Noriega Moreno
- General Noriega
- El Man
created: 2026-05-17
updated: 2026-05-17
updated: 2026-10-05
category: "Political Figure"
tags:
- Person
- Politician
- Military
- Panama
- 1980s
- PanamanianDefenseForces
- DrugTrafficking
- MedellinCartel
- IranContra
- ContraWar
- BCCI
- 1980s
- DarkAllianceInvestigation
summary: "Military dictator of Panama who simultaneously served as a CIA asset and facilitated Colombian drug trafficking, was ousted by U.S. invasion in 1989, and had his 40-year sentence reduced to 10 years after former CIA officials testified on his behalf."
summary: "Panamanian intelligence chief and commander of the Defense Forces who dealt with the CIA, the Medellin Cartel and Oliver North at once, was indicted in Miami in 1988, invaded in 1989 and convicted in 1992."
born: 1934-02-11
died: 2017-05-29
location: "Panama City, Panama"
relations:
- type: head_of
with: "[[Panamanian Defense Forces]]"
start: 1983
end: 1989-12
role: "commander; before that chief of Panamanian military intelligence under Omar Torrijos"
fn: 5
- type: informant_for
with: "[[Central Intelligence Agency]]"
role: "intelligence contact and, per Webb and the testimony of CIA operations chief Donald Winters, a long-term paid asset; the 1976 DCI (Bush) file on Noriega is partly withheld"
fn: 3
- type: partner_of
with: "[[Medellin Cartel]]"
start: 1982
end: 1984
role: "paid by Pablo Escobar and Gustavo Gaviria for passage of cocaine flights through Panama, per the pilot Floyd Carlton"
fn: 4
- type: partner_of
with: "[[Oliver North]]"
start: 1985-06
end: 1986-09
role: "met North in June 1985 and London on September 22, 1986 on sabotage of Nicaraguan targets"
fn: 8
- type: investigated
with: "[[Kerry Committee]]"
reverse: true
start: 1987
end: 1988-12
role: "Senate subcommittee examined Noriega's drug, arms and intelligence ties"
fn: 2
- type: prosecuted
with: "[[United States Department of Justice]]"
reverse: true
start: 1988-02-04
end: 1992-07
role: "indicted in Miami February 4, 1988; convicted on eight counts April 1992; sentenced to 40 years"
fn: 10
---
Manuel Noriega was the military dictator of [[Panama]] who performed valuable work for the [[U.S. government]] in [[Central America]] during the 1980s while simultaneously facilitating Colombian [[Cocaine]] trafficking.[^1]
Manuel Antonio Noriega Moreno was a Panamanian army officer who rose from chief of military intelligence under [[General Torrijos|Omar Torrijos]] to commander of the [[Panamanian Defense Forces]]. The [[United States Department of State|State Department]]'s [[Foreign Relations of the United States]] volume for Panama lists him as "Lieutenant Colonel, Panamanian military figure and Chief of Military Intelligence in Panama."[^1] The Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations chaired by [[John Kerry]] reported in December 1988 that after Torrijos died in a plane crash on July 31, 1981, Noriega gained control of the [[U.S. Customs|Customs]], Immigration and Passport Services, Civil Aeronautics, the National Bank of Panama and the Attorney General's Office, consolidated the National Guard, Air Force, Navy and police into the Defense Forces, and made [[Panama]] what one witness termed a "narcokleptocracy."[^2]
### CIA Asset
### Before 1981: intelligence contacts and early reports
Noriega brokered deals with South American leaders, acted as liaison to Cuba's Fidel Castro, and provided intelligence on guerrilla and terrorist activities. He was a longtime CIA asset who received payments from the agency.[^2]
The Kerry report states that, according to press accounts, the first ties between the Panamanian military and drug traffickers were noted in the early 1970s by the [[Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs]], which identified Noriega, then in charge of military intelligence, as working with traffickers; a DEA agent in South America told the subcommittee that reports linking Noriega and narcotics were received before 1978, and that Noriega and Torrijos were seen visiting [[Medellin]], where traffickers met them. The report counts more than 80 DEA files between 1970 and 1987 in which Noriega's name appeared, none followed up because the references were "third party or hearsay information which we cannot pursue very well."[^2]
### Contra Connections
The State Department's own volume for 1973 to 1976 contains, as document 133, a "Memorandum of Conversation" of October 6, 1976, 3:30 to 4:30 p.m., in New York, whose person index lists George Bush, then Director of Central Intelligence ([[George H.W. Bush]]), and Noriega; its source note reads "Central Intelligence Agency, Executive Registry, Job 90M01243R: Box 15, Folder 15: Noriega /Panama Search: DCI (Bush) Files on Noreiga," and states "Three pages not declassified."[^1] The writer [[Gary Webb]] described Noriega as a longtime CIA asset who received payments from the agency, brokered deals with South American leaders and acted as liaison to [[Fidel Castro]]; [[Donald Winters]], identified as the CIA's chief of operations in Panama, testified in the proceeding that led to Noriega's 1999 resentencing that Noriega brokered deals with South American leaders, served as a liaison to Castro, supplied intelligence on guerrilla and terrorist activity and sheltered the former Shah of [[Iran]].[^3]
[[Sebastian Gonzalez|Sebastian "Guachan" Gonzalez]], a CIA asset and close friend of [[Norwin Meneses]] who was heavily involved in drug trafficking in Panama and [[Costa Rica]], was close to Noriega. Gonzalez was suspected of involvement in the beheading of Contra supporter [[Hugo Spadafora]] shortly before Spadafora was to make information about Noriega's drug involvement public. [[Rafael Cornejo]] was arrested, tortured, and jailed by Noriega's men in 1977 while smuggling cocaine through Panama for Meneses.[^3]
Noriega's own arms trade began before the Contra war. The Kerry report, citing the testimony of [[Jose Blandon]], says that using his control of the security apparatus Noriega arranged Panamanian end-user certificates, resold the weapons to the highest bidder, and counted among his earliest clients the [[Sandinistas]], then trying to overthrow [[Anastasio Somoza]]; the arms were bought in [[Europe]] by [[Michael Barari]] and [[Jorge Krupnick]] and moved to [[Costa Rica]] under the eye of Noriega's partner, the Costa Rican Security Minister [[Johnny Echevarria]]. After the 1979 victory surplus weapons were sold on to Salvadoran rebels, and the pilot [[Floyd Carlton]] and his partner [[Cesar Rodriguez]] flew guns into [[El Salvador]] in 1980 in Panamanian military aircraft until Rodriguez's plane crashed. The former State Department official [[Francis McNeil]] testified that Torrijos was told to "knock it off," producing "a diminution of Panamanian involvement" until his death.[^2]
### Arrest and Conviction
### Control of institutions and the Medellin Cartel
Noriega was ousted by the U.S. invasion of Panama in December 1989 and brought to the [[United States]] in chains. He was convicted of drug trafficking and money laundering and sentenced to forty years in prison. In December 1998, Donald Winters, the former chief of CIA operations in Panama, testified on Noriega's behalf, describing his valuable service to the U.S. government. Former U.S. Ambassador Arthur Davis testified that Noriega did "a lot of good work." In March 1999, Noriega's sentence was slashed from forty years to ten, making him eligible for parole.[^1]
The Kerry report names Panamanian military officers it said were drug-involved, among them Captain [[Luis Quiel]], whom Noriega placed in charge of Panama's anti-drug smuggling unit and as his representative to the DEA, and a nonmilitary "civilian group" of Noriega's personal pilots and business partners including [[Enrique Pretelt]], [[Carlos Wittgreen]], [[George Novey III]], Cesar Rodriguez and Floyd Carlton. Blandón told the subcommittee that Quiel was used to eliminate competitors of the Cartel by turning them over to the United States even as [[John Lawn|DEA Administrator John Lawn]] called Quiel "integral to the success" of the anti-drug effort.[^2]
Carlton testified that in mid-1982, while serving as Noriega's personal pilot, he was asked by [[Pablo Escobar]] and [[Gustavo Gaviria]] to fly cocaine from [[Colombia]] into Panama; Escobar offered Noriega $30,000 to $40,000 a load, Noriega said that was too little, and he was paid $100,000 for the first flight, $150,000 for the second, $200,000 for the third and $250,000 for the fourth.[^4] The subcommittee's account is that in May 1984, on the day of the Panamanian elections, the Cartel leaders came to Panama to meet the former Colombian president [[Alfonso Lopez Michelsen]] a week after the assassination of the Colombian Justice Minister [[Rodrigo Lara Bonilla]], and Noriega told associates the Cartel paid between $4 million and $7 million for protection; that in mid-May Noriega, pressed by U.S. law enforcement, allowed a raid on a Cartel cocaine laboratory in [[Darien]] province, and according to Blandón the Cartel decided to kill him until Fidel Castro mediated, sending a 25-man [[Cuba|Cuban]] military unit to fly back with Noriega.[^2][^5] The money launderer [[Ramon Milian Rodriguez]] told the subcommittee that he negotiated for the Cartel an agreement with Noriega with fees of one to ten percent depending on the amount laundered, and that currency was flown to Panama by airlines whose station managers were in Noriega's employ. The American trafficker [[Steven Kalish]] testified that Noriega gave him three Panamanian passports and protected his organization until Kalish's arrest on July 26, 1984.[^2] The BCCI manager [[Amjad Awan]] and bank officials told the subcommittee that in 1982 Noriega opened an account at the [[Bank of Credit and Commerce International]] that grew to about $20 million through cash deposits and from which he paid cash to Panamanian political figures; Noriega asked that its records be kept away from Panamanians and booked outside the country.[^2]
### Spadafora, the Contras and the "rent-a-colonel"
By 1984 the Panamanian physician [[Hugo Spadafora]] was publicly criticizing Noriega for working with Colombian traffickers, and the subcommittee heard testimony from Carlton and Blandón that Noriega had Spadafora tortured and murdered by members of the Defense Forces in September 1985.[^2][^6] Webb wrote that [[Sebastian Gonzalez]], a CIA asset and close friend of [[Norwin Meneses]], was close to Noriega and was suspected of involvement in the beheading of Spadafora, who was a Contra supporter, shortly before Spadafora was to make public information about Noriega's drug involvement, and that [[Rafael Cornejo]] was arrested, tortured and jailed by Noriega's men in 1977 while smuggling cocaine through Panama for Meneses. Webb is the sole source for the passages so cited.[^3] [[Robert Owen]]'s April 1, 1985 memorandum to [[Oliver North]], released by the National Security Archive, described Gonzalez as "now involved in drug running out of Panama."[^7]
McNeil told the subcommittee that the State Department had never trusted Noriega and called him "the rent-a-colonel," in tribute to his ability "to simultaneously milk the antagonistic intelligence services of the United States," and that U.S. intelligence agencies, whom he said had become Noriega's clients, took a "see no evil approach." The former NSC staff member [[Norman Bailey]] testified to the [[House Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control|House Select Committee]] on Narcotics that when he was at the NSC from 1981 to 1983 "a plethora of human intelligence, electronic intercepts and satellite and overflight photography" constituted "not a smoking gun but rather a twenty-one cannon barrage" of evidence of Noriega's drug and arms dealing, including gunrunning to the Sandinistas, Contras and Salvadoran guerrillas and illegal technology transfers to the Soviet bloc. Customs Commissioner [[William Von Raab]] testified that his service had evidence linking Noriega to narcotics trafficking as early as 1983. In 1985 and 1986, McNeil testified, a formal policy review concluded with a decision "to put Noriega on the shelf until [[Nicaragua]] was settled"; Assistant Secretary of State [[Elliott Abrams]] publicly denied that the delay was because of Nicaragua. [[Daniel Murphy|Admiral Daniel Murphy]] gave the explanation that lower-level information was not passed to policymakers.[^2]
The Kerry report records that the United States admitted, in agreed statements of fact in the North trial, that Noriega gave Contras of the [[Southern Front]] $100,000 in July 1984. Blandón testified that Noriega met North in June 1985 on a boat off Panama City to discuss Panamanian cooperation while the Boland Amendment barred direct or indirect support, and agreed to help train Contra troops and to let Contra leaders enter and leave Panama; Blandón had no information that Noriega acted on North's request. Noriega met CIA Director [[William J. Casey]] in November 1985; Casey's memorandum recorded that Noriega left "reassured" and the narcotics issue was not raised, and other officials concluded Casey had "let Noriega off the hook." Ambassador [[Everett Briggs]] complained and Admiral [[John Poindexter]] was sent to Panama to "upbraid" Noriega; on December 17, 1985 Noriega met Poindexter and Briggs, and Blandón testified that Noriega told him Poindexter said a group of officers would have to leave the country because of the Spadafora murder.[^2]
On May 8, 1986, DEA Administrator Lawn wrote to Noriega expressing "deep appreciation for the vigorous anti-drug trafficking policy that you have adopted," and a May 27, 1987 letter again assured him of DEA's welcome of cooperation.[^2] Lawn testified that DEA had never been refused a narcotics request by the Panamanian government. [[Seymour Hersh]]'s article in the New York Times of June 12, 1986 quoted an unnamed White House official that "the most significant drug running in Panama was being directed by General Noriega."[^7]
### Sabotage proposals, August to September 1986
The National Security Archive's briefing book prints North's electronic message to Poindexter of August 23, 1986: "You will recall that over the years Manuel Noriega in Panama and I have developed a fairly good relationship," North wrote, before explaining that if officials could "help clean up his image" and lift the ban on arms sales to the Defense Forces, Noriega would "take care of the Sandinista leadership for us." North suggested paying Noriega $1 million from "[[Project Democracy]]" funds for help destroying Nicaraguan economic installations; Poindexter replied the same day authorizing a secret meeting: "I have nothing against him other than his illegal activities." North's notebook for August 24 records a meeting with the CIA officer [[Dewey Clarridge]] and a decision to "send word back to Noriega to meet in Europe or [[Israel]]."[^7]
[[Lawrence Walsh]]'s Final Report records that at a [[Restricted Interagency Group]] meeting in Assistant Secretary of Defense [[Richard Armitage]]'s office on September 19, 1986, North said Noriega had offered to have sabotage conducted inside Nicaragua for $1 million in cash that would not come from the U.S. Government; [[Alan Fiers]] understood the funds would be from Project Democracy. Elliott Abrams's meeting with the State Department officials [[Nicholas Platt]] and [[Charles Hill]] the next day is recorded in Hill's notes: "Noriega offers to do some sabotage (electric pylons) that we training contras to do but which they can't do for 18 mos. Wd get us on the map fast. Do it via mercenaries who may not know who employers are. Brits. Wd do it for cash (not from USG). Wants our go-ahead. Ollie will meet him w/approval of Pdx." Walsh states that "ultimately, the decision was made not to have North cause the $1 million to be paid to Noriega." Fiers testified at the 1992 trial of [[Clair George]] that he said, "No. We don't want to do that."[^8][^7] North met Noriega at a London hotel on September 22, 1986, where, according to North's notebook and the agreed statements of fact in his trial, they discussed a commando training program in Panama with Israeli support and sabotage of major economic targets near [[Managua]], and Noriega "agreed to take immediate actions against the Sandinistas and offered a list of priorities, including an oil refinery, an airport, and the [[Puerto Sandino]] off-load facility."[^2][^7] The Final Report's summary of North's "Quid Pro Quo" conduct lists discussions with Noriega about sabotage "in exchange for U.S. help in rehabilitating Noriega's public image."[^9]
Webb wrote, citing government documents filed in North's trial, that Noriega also offered to have the entire Sandinista leadership assassinated in exchange for a promise to "clean up Noriega's image," that North was told to say the administration was not keen on murdering Nicaraguan officials though sabotage would be acceptable, that North returned to Panama a month after Spadafora's death to assure Noriega of increased U.S. aid, and that within a year $200 million in additional U.S. funds and bank loans went to Noriega. Webb is the sole source for the passages so cited.[^3] The Kerry report dates Spadafora's murder to September 1985, the first North-Noriega meeting to June 1985 and the London meeting to September 1986.[^2]
### The Kerry Committee, the GAO and the NSC
The Kerry report states that the Reagan administration blocked a [[General Accounting Office]] review requested by Kerry of how U.S. agencies used information about Noriega's drug activity in policy decisions: the [[National Security Council]] "ordered all relevant agencies to withhold their files on Panama from the GAO," and the subcommittee "has not been able to undertake a full analysis of how the Noriega problem was handled by the U.S. prior to his indictment." An NSC legal adviser, [[Nicholas Rostow]], wrote on July 13, 1988 that the request sought "sensitive law enforcement and intelligence files covering a substantial period of time" and raised "important statutory and constitutional issues." DEA Administrator Lawn told Admiral Murphy less than eight weeks before the indictment that none would be issued for insufficient evidence. In 1987 Murphy, with the Korean businessman [[Tongsun Park]], visited Noriega in August and November after briefing officials at the CIA, State, Defense, the NSC and the Vice President's office; Murphy described himself as a private businessman, and Blandón testified that Noriega took the visits as a message from the U.S. government that he could remain in power until February 1989.[^2]
The Kerry report's conclusion on Panama is that it "provides the best example in recent U.S. foreign policy of a foreign leader able to manipulate the United States to the detriment of our own interests," that Noriega "recognized that by making himself indispensable to various U.S. agencies, he could develop U.S. agents who would become dependent on him," and that the result was that "our government did nothing regarding Noriega's ... substantial criminal involvement because the first priority was the Contra war."[^2]
### Indictment, capture and trial
A federal grand jury in the Southern District of [[Florida]] indicted Noriega on drug charges on February 4, 1988. After the United States invaded Panama in December 1989 he surrendered to U.S. military officials on January 3, 1990 and was brought to Miami. In April 1992 a jury convicted him on eight counts and he was sentenced to consecutive terms of 20, 15 and 5 years, forty years in all; the [[Eleventh Circuit]] affirmed on July 7, 1997, rejecting a head-of-state immunity claim because "by pursuing Noriega's capture and this prosecution, the Executive Branch has manifested its clear sentiment that Noriega should be denied head-of-state immunity."[^10] [[William Hoeveler|Judge William Hoeveler]] had granted him prisoner-of-war status and held him in a two-cell suite at a federal prison near Miami.[^5]
On March 4, 1999 Hoeveler cut the sentence by ten years, to thirty, citing "the nature of his confinement" and the "disparity between the defendant's sentence and the sentences served by his co-conspirators"; the defense had argued that Noriega deserved credit for aiding U.S. interests in Latin America, and Winters testified to those services. Webb added that former ambassador [[Arthur Davis]] testified that Noriega did "a lot of good work." The parole board had indicated he would not be considered before 2019 under the original sentence; the reduction made a first hearing in 2000 possible, with release set for September 2007.[^5][^3] Parole was denied in March 2000 after former President George H.W. Bush said he feared Noriega would try to assassinate him if released early, and Hoeveler wrote a letter in February 2004 recommending early release.[^11]
[[France]] convicted Noriega in absentia in 1999 of laundering $2.8 million in drug money through the purchase of property; he was extradited to France in 2010, sentenced to seven years, and extradited to Panama on December 11, 2011, where Panamanian courts had convicted him in absentia of the murders of Spadafora and [[Moises Giroldi]] and of the killing of rebellious soldiers. He died at the Santo Tomas hospital in Panama City on May 29, 2017, aged 83, after surgery for a brain tumor.[^11]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Epilogue: "The damage that has been done"
[^2]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Cast of Characters
[^3]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 5: "God, Fatherland and Freedom"
[^1]: U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian, *Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969-1976*, vol. XXII, *Panama*, "Persons" and doc. 133, "Memorandum of Conversation," New York, October 6, 1976. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v22/d133
[^2]: U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations, *Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy*, S. Prt. 100-165 (December 1988), ch. "Panama" (pp. 80 to 98), including appended GAO and NSC correspondence, testimony of Carlton, Blandon, Milian Rodriguez, Kalish, McNeil, Bailey, Lawn, Murphy and Gorman, and the Conclusions. https://archive.org/details/Kerry-Report-Drugs-Contras
[^3]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998, Cast of Characters; ch. 5, "God, Fatherland and Freedom"; chs. 11 and 12; Epilogue, "The damage that has been done." Sole source for the passages so cited.
[^4]: U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations, *Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy* (1988), "Noriega and the Cartel" and "Noriega's Rift With the Cartel." https://archive.org/details/Kerry-Report-Drugs-Contras
[^5]: "Noriega's Prison Sentence Cut." CBS News/Associated Press, March 5, 1999. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/noriegas-prison-sentence-cut-05-03-1999/
[^6]: Kerry Subcommittee, *Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy*, "Panama," testimony of Carlton and Blandon on the murder of Hugo Spadafora in September 1985. https://archive.org/details/Kerry-Report-Drugs-Contras
[^7]: National Security Archive, "The Contras, Cocaine, and Covert Operations," Electronic Briefing Book No. 2, section "U.S. Officials and Major Traffickers: Manuel Noriega" (North e-mail of August 23, 1986; Poindexter reply; North notebook entries of August 24 and September 22, 1986; Fiers testimony in *United States v. George*, 1992; Owen memorandum of April 1, 1985; Hersh, New York Times, June 12, 1986). https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB2/index.html
[^8]: Walsh, Lawrence E. *Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters*, vol. I (Washington, D.C.: Division for the Purpose of Appointing Independent Counsels, August 4, 1993), ch. 25, "United States v. Elliott Abrams," section on the September 19 and 20, 1986 meetings (citing Fiers, Grand Jury, August 14, 1991; Hill note, September 20, 1986). https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_25.htm
[^9]: Walsh, *Final Report*, vol. I, ch. 2, "United States v. Oliver L. North," summary of the "Quid Pro Quo" admission. https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_02.htm
[^10]: *United States v. Noriega*, 117 F.3d 1206 (11th Cir. 1997) (Kravitch, J.), docket nos. 92-4687 and 96-4471, decided July 7, 1997. https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/743130/united-states-of-america-plaintiff-appellee-v-manuel-antonio-noriega/
[^11]: "Manuel Noriega Fast Facts," CNN, August 19, 2013; "Former Panama dictator Manuel Noriega dies at 83," JURIST, May 2017; "Ex-Panama dictator Noriega denied parole," NBC News/Associated Press. https://www.jurist.org/news/2017/05/former-panama-dictator-manuel-noreiga-dies-at-83/

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20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PARAMILITARY/Sandinistas.md
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@ -2,43 +2,88 @@
title: Sandinistas
aliases:
- Sandinistas
- FSLN
- Sandinista
- FSLN
- Sandinista National Liberation Front
- Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional
- Frente Sandinista de Liberacion Nacional
created: 2026-05-17
updated: 2026-05-17
updated: 2026-10-05
category: "Paramilitary"
tags:
- Organization
- Political
- Nicaragua
- 1970s
- FSLN
- ContraWar
- IranContra
- 1970s
- 1980s
- DarkAllianceInvestigation
summary: "Leftist revolutionary guerrilla group that overthrew Somoza's U.S.-supported dictatorship in Nicaragua in 1979 and governed the country during the CIA-backed Contra war."
start: 1961-01-01
summary: "Nicaraguan revolutionary front founded in 1961 that overthrew the Somoza dynasty in July 1979, governed under Daniel Ortega, and fought the CIA-backed Contras until losing the 1990 election."
start: 1961-07-26
location: "Managua, Nicaragua"
relations:
- type: founded
with: "[[Carlos Fonseca]]"
reverse: true
start: 1961-07-26
role: "Carlos Fonseca Amador, Silvio Mayorga and Tomas Borge Martinez founded the FSLN"
fn: 1
- type: founded
with: "[[Tomas Borge]]"
reverse: true
start: 1961-07-26
role: "co-founder of the FSLN"
fn: 1
- type: member_of
with: "[[Daniel Ortega]]"
reverse: true
start: 1979-07
role: "member of the five-person governing directorate of 1979; elected president in the election of November 4, 1984 and inaugurated January 10, 1985"
fn: 2
- type: partner_of
with: "[[Manuel Noriega]]"
start: 1978
end: 1979-07
role: "Noriega's arms-resale business counted the Sandinistas among its earliest clients, per the Kerry Committee"
fn: 3
---
Frente Revolucionario de Sandino (FRS) were the leftist revolutionary guerrilla group that overthrew [[Anastasio Somoza|Somoza]]'s [[United States|U.S.]]-supported dictatorship in [[Nicaragua]] in July 1979.[^2] Their victory triggered the [[Contras|Contra]] war and set in motion the events documented in the [[Dark Alliance]] investigation.[^1]
The Sandinista National Liberation Front (Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional, FSLN) was formally organized in Nicaragua in 1961. The [[Library of Congress]] country study states that it was founded by [[Carlos Fonseca|José Carlos Fonseca Amador]], [[Silvio Mayorga]] and [[Tomas Borge|Tomás Borge Martínez]], who began in the late 1950s as Marxist student activists at the National Autonomous University in [[Managua]], and that it was "officially founded in [[Honduras]] on the symbolic date of July 26, 1961," the eighth anniversary of the launching of the [[Cuba|Cuban]] Revolution by [[Fidel Castro]]; its rural tactics were patterned after Castro's army and its forces were trained in Cuba.[^1]
### Revolution
### The war against Somoza
Sandinista columns swarmed into [[Managua]] after Somoza fled to [[Florida]] on July 17, 1979, proclaiming an end to both the [[Nicaraguan National Guard|National Guard]] (which had hunted the rebels for more than a decade) and the Somoza dynasty.[^1] The Sandinistas had waged a guerrilla campaign against Somoza's regime for years.
The FSLN first drew wide attention with its December 1974 raid and hostage-taking at a reception for the U.S. ambassador, after which the government of [[Anastasio Somoza]] accepted demands for ransom and the release of fourteen prisoners. The seizure of the National Palace by a small group in August 1978 set off a mass uprising, and the Front mounted a "final offensive" in May 1979; Somoza resigned on July 16 and fled, and the [[National Guard]] collapsed two days later.[^1] The congressional Iran-Contra Committees give July 17, 1979 as the date Somoza and his family fled, ending a 43-year dynasty and a civil war with more than 130,000 casualties.[^2] The Sandinista victory was supplied in part through [[Panama]]: the [[Kerry Committee]] reported, on the testimony of [[Jose Blandon]], that [[Manuel Noriega]] resold weapons through Panamanian end-user certificates and that "his earliest clients included the Sandinistas." The arms were bought in Europe, moved to [[Costa Rica]] under the eye of Noriega's partner, Costa Rican Security Minister [[Johnny Echevarria]], and flown in on planes from Panama loaded with [[Cuban]] weapons, refueled and repaired at the crop-dusting business of the Costa Rican [[Jaime Guerra]] in the north of the country. Former Costa Rican law enforcement officials told the subcommittee that during the revolution they were instructed to keep their narcotics investigators away from the Nicaraguan border and to let flights go even when they had information about drugs aboard the aircraft delivering weapons.[^3] [[David Westrate]] told the subcommittee in July 1988 that "people on both sides of the equation (in the Nicaraguan war) were drug traffickers, and a couple of them were pretty significant."[^3]
### Post-Revolution
### Government, 1979 to 1990
After taking power, the Sandinistas imprisoned or executed captured National Guard officers.[^1] Former Guard officers who escaped across Nicaragua's borders into [[El Salvador]], [[Honduras]], and [[Costa Rica]] became the founding cadre of the Contras, reassembled by the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] starting in 1980.
A five-person Provisional Government directorate took office in 1979: [[Violeta Chamorro]], widow of the murdered *[[La Prensa]]* editor, [[Alfonso Robelo]], [[Sergio Ramirez]], [[Moises Hassan|Moisés Hassan]] and [[Daniel Ortega]]. The Committees' report states that the Sandinistas took over television and radio stations, censored *La Prensa*, forced Chamorro and Robelo to resign from the governing council, and announced on September 19, 1980 that national elections would not be held until 1985; the [[Jimmy Carter|Carter]] administration gave $39 million in emergency food aid and suspended it as U.S. intelligence found the Sandinistas helping the Marxist rebels in [[El Salvador]]. Cuban military personnel helped set up the Sandinista army.[^2][^1]
The Sandinista government was opposed by the [[Ronald Reagan|Reagan]] administration, which authorized the CIA to create and fund the Contra army to overthrow it.[^1] Former Sandinista intelligence officer [[Enrique Miranda]] later became a CIA asset, [[DEA]] informant, and right-hand man to [[Norwin Meneses]] from 1989 to 1991.[^2]
In the election of November 4, 1984, about 75 percent of registered voters went to the polls, the FSLN won 67 percent of the vote, the presidency and 61 of the 96 seats in the National Assembly. The Library of Congress study states that foreign observers generally reported the election to be fair, while opposition groups said Front domination of government organs, mass organizations and much of the media precluded a truly open election. Ortega was sworn in on January 10, 1985, the seventh anniversary of the assassination of the editor [[Pedro Joaquín Chamorro]]. The Front lost the 1990 elections, and a government headed by Violeta Barrios de Chamorro was installed in April 1990.[^1]
### Unsubstantiated Drug Trafficking Allegations
Webb wrote that after taking power the Sandinistas imprisoned or executed captured National Guard officers, and that former officers who escaped into El Salvador, Honduras and Costa Rica became the founding cadre of the [[Contras]], reassembled by the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] starting in 1980.[^4] Webb is the sole source for the passages so cited. The congressional Committees describe the Contras as three elements: former National Guardsmen and right-wing figures, anti-Somocistas who had supported the revolution but felt betrayed, and Nicaraguans who opposed the Sandinistas' increasingly anti-democratic regime; "initial support" came from another country, understood to be [[Argentina]], which organized and supplied paramilitary forces in early 1981.[^2]
Despite the Reagan administration's efforts to link the Sandinistas to drug trafficking, the evidence never materialized. "Although uncorroborated reports indicating Nicaraguan involvement in the shipping of cocaine to the United States had been received, CIA was unable to confirm reports implicating high-level Sandinistas in drug trafficking," the CIA informed the [[Senate Select Committee on Intelligence]] in April 1984. Two years later, Justice Department officials reached the same conclusion.[^3]
### United States policy and the Contra war
President Reagan displayed a photograph of [[Federico Vaughn]], identified as "a top aide to one of the nine commandantes," loading an aircraft with drugs. A subsequent [[House Committee on the Judiciary|House Judiciary Committee]] investigation revealed Vaughn was likely a U.S. double agent whose house had been "continuously rented" by the U.S. Embassy since 1981, and who was associated with both Norwin Meneses and [[Oliver North]].[^3]
In December 1981 President [[Ronald Reagan]] signed a Finding authorizing a covert CIA operation to support the Contras, with the administration telling Congress the aim was to limit the spread of communism in the region. The first [[Boland Amendment]] of December 21, 1982 barred use of federal funds to overthrow the Nicaraguan government; in April 1984 press accounts reported that the CIA had mined Nicaraguan harbors; and the October 1984 Boland amendment barred any agency "involved in intelligence activities" from supporting military or paramilitary operations in Nicaragua "directly or indirectly."[^2][^5] [[Lawrence Walsh]]'s Final Report records that Reagan compared the Contras' struggle against Nicaragua's "communist-supported Sandinista government" to that of the American revolutionaries.[^6] The [[International Court of Justice]], in its judgment of June 27, 1986 in *Nicaragua v. United States*, rejected the U.S. claim of collective self-defense and found the United States had breached customary law duties not to interfere in another state's internal affairs, not to use force, not to violate sovereignty and not to interrupt peaceful maritime trade, and that it had broken the 1956 Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation; the United States had announced on January 18, 1985 that it would not participate. Nicaragua discontinued the proceeding in September 1991 and the case was closed on September 26, 1991.[^7]
On October 5, 1986 a C-123 cargo aircraft belonging to the Enterprise run by [[Oliver North]] and [[Richard Secord]] was hit by a Sandinista SAM-7 missile over Nicaragua, killing three of the four crew; the survivor, [[Eugene Hasenfus]], was captured.[^2][^8] The Contras' principal arms and money pipeline of those years is described on the [[Iran-Contra Affair]] page.
### Drug-trafficking allegations and the Seal sting
The Kerry Committee found that the U.S. [[United States Department of State|State Department]], in an International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, noted "no evidence" of the use of Nicaragua to ship drugs to the United States "since the allegations made in 1984" in connection with the case of the [[DEA]] informant [[Barry Seal]]. Seal, working undercover after being caught smuggling drugs, flew to Nicaragua with cameras installed in his plane and obtained photographs of [[Federico Vaughn]], whom U.S. authorities identified as a Nicaraguan government official, and [[Pablo Escobar]] loading the plane with drugs; the committee found this material "became the central evidence thereafter used by U.S. officials citing Sandinista involvement in narcotics." After the operation was exposed Vaughn disappeared, and the [[House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime]] found that the telephone number Vaughn used in calls he received from Seal was controlled by the U.S. Embassy.[^3] The Kerry report also states that the Seal operation "directed at officials of the Sandinista government in Managua was prematurely announced publicly by U.S. government officials, shortly before a crucial Congressional vote on Contra aid, thereby jeopardizing an ongoing DEA investigation," and that DEA officials testified before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime on July 28, 1988 that in June 1985 North suggested that $1.5 million in drug money carried aboard Seal's plane be given to the Contras, which DEA rejected.[^3][^9]
Webb wrote that the CIA informed the [[Senate Select Committee on Intelligence]] in April 1984 that "although uncorroborated reports indicating Nicaraguan involvement in the shipping of cocaine to the United States had been received, CIA was unable to confirm reports implicating high-level Sandinistas in drug trafficking," that [[United States Department of Justice|Justice Department]] officials reached the same conclusion two years later, that Reagan displayed a photograph of Vaughn, "a top aide to one of the nine commandantes," loading an aircraft with drugs, and that the House Judiciary Committee investigation found Vaughn likely a U.S. double agent whose house had been "continuously rented" by the U.S. Embassy since 1981 and who was associated with [[Norwin Meneses]] and North. Webb also wrote that the former Sandinista intelligence officer [[Enrique Miranda]] became a CIA asset, DEA informant and right-hand man to Meneses from 1989 to 1991.[^4] Webb is the sole source for the passages so cited.
The Kerry Committee recorded two other approaches. In a closed session on June 25, 1987 the money launderer [[Ramon Milian Rodriguez]] testified that he had offered to help entrap the Sandinistas in a drug sting in return for dropping charges against him; [[Felix Rodriguez]] denied his version of a meeting in which Milian offered drug money to the Contras, and no action was taken by the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] or CIA. A Miami attorney who in 1985 met lawyers for the [[Medellin Cartel]] in [[Bogota]] and later its leaders in [[Medellin]] told the DEA in October 1986, and passed a polygraph on his account, that a Bogota lawyer for the Cartel said [[Jorge Ochoa]] "finances both Sandinista and anti-Sandinista forces in Nicaragua by setting up drug operations there"; the Cartel proposed to collect intelligence on guerrillas for six months to a year in return for amnesty, and the DEA and FBI broke off contact with the attorney.[^3]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 1: "A Pretty secret kind of thing"
[^2]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Glossary of Organizations and Locations
[^3]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 13: "The wrong kind of friends"
[^1]: Merrill, Tim L., ed. *Nicaragua: A Country Study*, Federal Research Division, Library of Congress (December 1993; DTIC ADA288675), chs. 1 and 5, "The Rise of the FSLN," "Sandinista Guerrilla Movement, 1961-79," "Sandinista People's Army, 1979-90" and the account of the 1984 election. https://archive.org/details/DTIC_ADA288675
[^2]: Brinkley and Engelberg, eds., *Report of the Congressional Committees*, Part I, chs. 1 and 2, and "Iran-Contra Chronology." https://archive.org/details/reportofcongres00unit
[^3]: U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations, *Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy*, S. Prt. 100-165 (December 1988), chapters on Nicaragua and Costa Rica, Cuba, Panama and the Cartel, and Panama (testimony of Blandon, Westrate, Milian Rodriguez and the "Miami Attorney"; DEA debriefs of October 21 and November 13, 1986; Jacobsen testimony, House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, July 28, 1988; Conclusions). https://archive.org/details/Kerry-Report-Drugs-Contras
[^4]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998, ch. 1, "A pretty secret kind of thing"; Glossary of Organizations and Locations; ch. 13, "The wrong kind of friends." Sole source for the passages so cited.
[^5]: Walsh, Lawrence E. *Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters*, vol. I (August 4, 1993), Part I, "The Reagan Administration's Contra Policy" and "The Funding Cut-Off." https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/part_i.htm
[^6]: Walsh, *Final Report*, vol. I, ch. 1, "United States v. Robert C. McFarlane." https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_01.htm
[^7]: International Court of Justice, *Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v. United States of America)*, Judgment of June 27, 1986 (merits), case overview and discontinuance order of September 26, 1991. https://www.icj-cij.org/case/70
[^8]: Walsh, *Final Report*, vol. I, Executive Summary, "The Basic Facts of Iran/contra." https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/execsum.htm
[^9]: National Security Archive, "The Contras, Cocaine, and Covert Operations," Electronic Briefing Book No. 2 ("In 1988, two DEA agents testified ... that in 1985 Oliver North had wanted to take $1.5 million in Cartel bribe money that was carried by a DEA informant and give it to the contras"). https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB2/index.html

2
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Horizon Institute for Public Service.md
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@ -45,7 +45,7 @@ The Horizon Institute for Public Service was founded as a 501(c)(3) public chari
Horizon's advisory board in 2023 comprised [[Kari Bingen]], former deputy under secretary of defense for intelligence and security; [[Beth Cameron]], former senior director for global health security and biodefense at the [[National Security Council]]; [[Richard Danzig]], former Secretary of the Navy; [[Michael Kratsios]], then managing director at [[Scale AI]] and former chief technology officer of the [[United States]]; [[Jason Matheny]], chief executive of the [[RAND Corporation]] and former director of IARPA; [[Nadia Schadlow]], former deputy national security adviser for strategy; Lieutenant General (ret.) [[Jack Shanahan]], inaugural director of the [[Pentagon]]'s [[Joint Artificial Intelligence Center]]; and [[Andrew Weber]], former assistant secretary of defense for nuclear, chemical and biological defense programs.[^1] Its later adviser list described Shanahan as "former inaugural Director of [[Project Maven]] and the Joint AI Center."[^2]
Horizon says it takes no government or corporate money and that "no foundation or donor provides a majority of our funding." It lists as funders [[Helena]], [[Renaissance Philanthropy]], the [[Maurice Amado Foundation]], the [[Policy Entrepreneurs Network]], the [[Lonsdale Family Philanthropic Fund]] of the [[Palantir Technologies|Palantir]] co-founder [[Joe Lonsdale]], [[Coefficient Giving]] (the renamed Open Philanthropy), the [[Navigation Fund]], the[[ David and Lucile Packard Foundation]], [[Fulcrum Science]], the [[John Quincy Adams Society]] and [[Sentinel Bio]].[^2]
Horizon says it takes no government or corporate money and that "no foundation or donor provides a majority of our funding." It lists as funders [[Helena]], [[Renaissance Philanthropy]], the [[Maurice Amado Foundation]], the [[Policy Entrepreneurs Network]], the [[Lonsdale Family Philanthropic Fund]] of the [[Palantir Technologies|Palantir]] co-founder [[Joe Lonsdale]], [[Coefficient Giving]] (the renamed Open Philanthropy), the [[Navigation Fund]], the [[David and Lucile Packard Foundation]], [[Fulcrum Science]], the [[John Quincy Adams Society]] and [[Sentinel Bio]].[^2]
### The Politico Report

106
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Southern Air Transport.md
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@ -3,33 +3,113 @@ title: Southern Air Transport
aliases:
- Southern Air Transport
- SAT
- Southern Air Transport Inc.
- Southern Air
- Southern Air Holdings
created: 2026-05-17
updated: 2026-05-17
updated: 2026-10-05
category: "Private Organization"
tags:
- Organization
- Intelligence
- CIA
- 1980s
- CIAProprietary
- AirAmerica
- IranContra
- ContraWar
summary: "Southern Air Transport was a CIA-owned airline used for Contra resupply flights that was repeatedly linked to drug trafficking investigations by the DEA, U.S. Customs, and congressional investigators."
start: 1947-01-01
- CIADrugTrafficking
- 1980s
- Aviation
start: 1949-10-31
location: "Miami, Florida"
summary: "Miami air carrier the CIA owned from August 5, 1960 to December 31, 1973, which in 1985 and 1986 serviced and supplied the Enterprise's Contra flights; later military cargo carrier."
relations:
- type: owned
with: "[[Central Intelligence Agency]]"
reverse: true
start: 1960-08-05
end: 1973-12-31
role: "CIA proprietary operated under the Air America management team; sold back to a former owner"
fn: 1
- type: contractor_to
with: "[[Central Intelligence Agency]]"
start: 1960
end: 1973
role: "supplemental air carrier flying Military Air Transport Service contracts with equipment leased from Air America"
fn: 1
- type: contractor_to
with: "[[The Enterprise (Iran-Contra)]]"
start: 1985-01
end: 1986-12
role: "subcontracted Phase II arms flights, serviced and supplied the resupply aircraft, supplied cash advances, and was paid $1,935,596 for contra-related services including the purchase of a C-123"
fn: 6
- type: contractor_to
with: "[[NHAO|Nicaraguan Humanitarian Assistance Office]]"
start: 1986
role: "State Department contractor for deliveries of nonlethal aid to the contras"
fn: 9
- type: contractor_to
with: "[[U.S. Department of Defense]]"
start: 1986
end: 2012
role: "Military Airlift Command contracts, about half of contracts in 1986; later Civil Reserve Air Fleet participant"
fn: 9
- type: owned
with: "[[Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings]]"
reverse: true
start: 2016-04-07
role: "acquired Southern Air Holdings for about $110 million in cash"
fn: 20
---
Southern Air Transport was once owned by the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] and continued to serve as a CIA contractor airline during the [[Contras|Contra]] war. Based at [[Ilopango Airbase|Ilopango Air Force Base]] in [[El Salvador]], Southern Air Transport aircraft were used for Contra supply runs. The airline was "of record" in the [[DEA]]'s databases from 1985 through 1990 "for alleged involvement in cocaine trafficking...several of the firm's pilots and executives were suspected of smuggling narcotics currency," the DEA reported. The CIA and DEA records show the airline was under investigation for drug trafficking by [[U.S. Customs]] in 1987.[^1]
### Barry Seal's C-123K
Southern Air Transport was incorporated in [[Florida]] on October 31, 1949, as an air carrier flying under a supplemental certificate, and was bought by the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] on August 5, 1960. The company says its own history goes back to 1947 in [[Miami]].[^1][^2]
The CIA took [[Barry Seal]]'s C-123K cargo plane to Rickenbacker Air Force Base in Ohio, outfitted it with hidden cameras, and used it in a joint CIA-DEA sting operation against the [[Sandinistas]] in 1984. After Seal flew his missions, the plane was parked at [[Mena, Arkansas|Mena airport]] for a year, then sold back to its original owner. In early 1986 it wound up with Southern Air Transport, where it was used for Contra supply runs and based at Ilopango until the Sandinistas shot it down over Nicaragua in October 1986.[^1]
### CIA ownership, 1960 to 1973
### Drug Trafficking Allegations
The Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities (the [[Church Committee]]) reported that the CIA bought Southern Air Transport because in June 1960 the [[U.S. Department of Defense|Department of Defense]] and the [[Civil Aeronautics Board]] changed the rules for [[Military Air Transport Service]] contracts, requiring a supplemental certificate and participation in the [[Civil Reserve Air Fleet]], which [[Air America]] could not obtain. Director of Central Intelligence [[Allen Dulles]] approved the purchase on July 15, 1960. Air America management surveyed the 18 remaining supplemental carriers and chose Southern Air Transport, which operated two C-46s; the ownership was kept completely separate from Air America to avoid public hearings, but the new company was to fly on equipment under conditional sale from Air America and with transferred personnel, and the Committee wrote that it "was actually an integral part of the complex from a management perspective," its management decisions made by the same CIA consultant and advisory team that set Air America policy. The Agency later acquired [[Boeing]] 727s that Boeing modified to enlarge the ventral exit for airdrops.[^1]
Miami FBI informant [[Wanda Palacios]] reported in 1986 that she witnessed Southern Air Transport planes being loaded with cocaine and unloading guns in Barranquilla, [[Colombia]], in 1983 and October 1985. She said she accompanied [[Medellin Cartel|Medellín cartel]] boss [[Pablo Escobar]] to the landing site and spoke with [[Jorge Ochoa]], who bragged about working with the CIA. When the downed C-123K's flight logs were recovered in October 1986, they revealed flights to Barranquilla during October 1985 - exactly as Palacios had claimed. Southern Air said the planes carried drilling equipment, not drugs.[^1]
By 1972 the Agency decided to sell. The DCI on May 5, 1972 approved selling the equity to current management; the Committee wrote that "none of the employees of SAT had ever been an employee of the Agency." An accounting firm valued the company, the asking price was set at $2.7 million for stock plus $3.2 million to pay off a note to Air America, and a former owner, who is not named in the report, made offers in December 1972 and January 1973. The DCI approved a sale at $5.605 million on January 19, 1973 ($2.145 million for stock, $3.125 million in debt and a $335,000 credit). Competing supplemental carriers lobbied [[Congress]], the [[General Accounting Office]] and the General Services Administration against the sale and one offered about $2 million more; on July 31, 1973 the DCI ordered the company dissolved, then on October 1 agreed to entertain a sale if the buyer obtained prompt financing. The sale closed on December 31, 1973 after a $4.5 million loan commitment from the [[First National Bank of Chicago]] on November 29. In early 1974 Southern Air Transport exercised its option on a [[Lockheed]] L-100-30 Hercules for $3.15 million and resold it to [[Saturn Airways]] for $4.35 million; the CIA read this as a breach of the agreement against windfall profit, an arbitrator ruled for Air America on September 5, 1974, and the Agency received an additional $1,304,243. Employees filed a class action in March 1974 alleging the sale was illegal; the federal court dismissed it with prejudice on July 17, 1974. The Agency received $6.47 million in total.[^1] *The [[The Christian Science Monitor]]* reported in 1986 that the buyer was [[Stanley Williams]], who had run the company for the CIA for 11 years, and that [[Lawrence Houston]], the CIA's general counsel at the time of the sale, said that as far as he knew there was no continuing relationship; a company spokesman, [[William Kress]], said Southern had "no contracts with the CIA, nor have we since they owned the airline prior to 1973."[^3]
Former Meneses aide [[Enrique Miranda]] testified that on occasion, cocaine from Ilopango was loaded onto aircraft owned by the Salvadoran Air Force and Miami-based Southern Air Transport for shipment to the United States. Miranda said [[Marcos Aguado]] and [[Norwin Meneses]] supervised the loading at Ilopango Air Force Base. Southern Air officials vehemently denied involvement with drug smuggling and sued news organizations that aired such allegations.[^1]
### Contra resupply and the Enterprise, 1983 to 1986
Colombian informant [[Allen Raul Rudd]] reported that Escobar claimed planes similar to C-130s were flying guns to the cartel in Colombia, off-loading guns, loading cocaine, and flying it to U.S. military bases - an arms-for-drugs swap coordinated between the Medellín cartel and elements of the U.S. government.[^1]
[[CBS News]] reported in 1984 that a CIA-sponsored Southern Air flight landed in [[Honduras]] with 22 tons of small arms on April 9, 1983.[^3] The independent counsel's report states that in the second phase of the Contra arms sales, in January and March 1985, [[Richard Secord]] arranged air transport with the help of [[Richard Gadd]], a former Air Force subordinate who enlisted Southern Air Transport, and that the company subcontracted those flights to a second carrier.[^4][^5] In late 1985 the company set up a [[Panama]]nian corporation, [[Amalgamated Commercial Enterprises]], at Gadd's request as a "financial cut-out," which received $1,540,956 in Enterprise funds and paid for two C-7 and one C-123 aircraft.[^6] The Enterprise paid Southern Air Transport $1,935,596 in 1985 and 1986 for contra-related services "including the purchase of a C-123 cargo plane, repair and maintenance of aircraft, sale of spare parts and the supply of cash advances," and $200,000 for a Jetstar used by Secord.[^6] The company disbursed about $467,000 in cash from petty-cash funds for the resupply operation, carried to Central America in amounts up to $50,000.[^7] [[Robert Dutton]]'s mid-1986 inventory of the operation lists "Maintenance Support Miami," where a crew worked closely with Southern Air for procurement and delivery.[^6] On April 11, 1986 a Southern Air L-100 under contract to the private benefactors, which had delivered [[Department of State|State Department]] aid to [[Ilopango Airbase]], dropped arms and supplies to contra forces in southern [[Nicaragua]].[^8]
Southern Air Transport also held the State Department's [[NHAO|Nicaraguan Humanitarian Assistance Office]] contract for $27 million of nonlethal aid, so that the two flows used the same aircraft and sometimes legs of the same trip; *The Christian Science Monitor* wrote in December 1986 that "the two operations are woven so closely together they are sometimes difficult to separate," that the fleet had grown to seven times the three Hercules the company operated in 1983, and that about half its contracts were with the [[Military Airlift Command]].[^9] In early 1986 [[Alan Fiers]], chief of the CIA's Central American Task Force, saw a Southern Air C-130 being loaded at Ilopango on [[Felix Rodriguez]]'s authority, and persuaded North to have Rodriguez cancel the flight.[^10] The notes of [[Donald Gregg]] on an August 8, 1986 meeting with Rodriguez record, concerning a C-123 sitting in Miami, "Southern Air Transport said plane OK to go. Called Jim Steele," the U.S. Military Group commander [[James Steele]].[^11]
### The Hasenfus aircraft and crew
The independent counsel's report records that after the October 5, 1986 shootdown of the aircraft carrying [[Eugene Hasenfus]], news reports linked it to Southern Air Transport, which had in fact contracted to service the resupply network's airplanes, and that Fiers was concerned because the company had been used for NHAO deliveries.[^12] A CIA memorandum of October 10, 1986 on a [[Senate Foreign Relations Committee]] briefing states that the co-pilot [[Wallace Sawyer]] "later worked for Southern Air Transport" and at one point asked to become a CIA staff employee, and that the [[U.S. Customs|Customs Service]] would investigate the company's activity.[^13] *The Christian Science Monitor* reported that the company had serviced the downed plane, that Sawyer had worked for it until April 1986, that it reportedly said it did not own the plane, and that news reports said the plane was bought six months earlier by a California company, [[Four Aces Inc.]], and leased to Southern Air.[^3][^9] *The [[The Washington Post]]* reported that a Southern Air credential issued to the pilot [[William Cooper]] was found in the wreckage, that Kress said it let Cooper onto the facility to supervise maintenance, and that a second camouflaged C-123 serviced at Southern Air flew from Miami toward Honduras in the days after the shootdown; the only FAA record of that aircraft was a July 3 reservation by a mechanic for "Corporate Air Service," with a Miami address that was Southern Air's.[^14] In December 1986 an air-support manager carried $6,000 in cash from Southern Air in Miami to [[Sally Hasenfus]].[^15]
On the aircraft identity, the CIA Inspector General's December 24, 1996 review of [[Iran]]-Contra files, Southern Air files from the 1960s and 1970s, and other records found no document indicating a CIA link with N4410F and no document that Southern Air Transport owned, operated or leased a C-123K, and listed review of further Southern Air files as an action remaining.[^16] The Enterprise paid Southern Air for the purchase of a C-123, per the independent counsel; the report does not identify the airframe.[^6]
### Drug-trafficking records
The CIA Inspector General's 1998 report recorded that on January 21, 1987 Deputy Director [[Robert Gates]] sent Assistant Secretary of State [[Morton Abramowitz]] a memorandum stating that the Customs office in New Orleans was investigating an allegation of drug trafficking by Southern Air Transport crew members, that the source was a senior official of the FDN, and that the official feared the scandal "could redound badly on FDN interests"; Gates's transmittal letter attributes the allegations to [[Mario Calero]]. A February 23, 1991 [[DEA]] cable stated that Southern Air Transport was "of record" in the DEA's database from January 1985 to September 1990 for alleged involvement in cocaine trafficking, and that an August 1990 entry alleged that $2 million was delivered to the company's business sites and that several pilots and executives were suspected of smuggling "narcotics currency."[^17]
[[Gary Webb]] wrote in *Dark Alliance* that the Miami [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] informant [[Wanda Palacios]] reported in 1986 that she saw Southern Air planes loaded with cocaine and unloading guns in [[Barranquilla]], [[Colombia]], in 1983 and October 1985, that she accompanied [[Pablo Escobar]] to the landing site and spoke with [[Jorge Ochoa]], who said he worked with the CIA, and that the recovered flight logs showed flights to Barranquilla in October 1985; Southern Air said the planes carried drilling equipment. Webb wrote that [[Enrique Miranda]] testified cocaine from Ilopango was loaded onto Salvadoran Air Force aircraft and Southern Air planes under the supervision of [[Marcos Aguado]] and [[Norwin Meneses]], that Southern Air officials denied involvement and sued news organizations, and that the informant [[Allen Raul Rudd]] reported Escobar's statement that planes like C-130s flew guns to Colombia and cocaine to U.S. military bases. Webb is the sole source for these passages.[^18]
### Later operations
Southern Air Transport's operations continued under the Southern Air name after 1999. Southern Air Holdings filed Chapter 11 petitions in the Bankruptcy Court for the District of [[Delaware]] on September 28, 2012, describing itself as a long-haul wide-body air cargo provider for governments and commercial users, a participant in the Civil Reserve Air Fleet with contracts with the Department of Defense and the [[United Kingdom Ministry of Defence]], and [[DHL]] as its largest commercial customer; it attributed the filing to reduced Department of Defense air cargo spending as [[Afghanistan]] deployments wound down.[^19] [[Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings]] completed its acquisition of Southern Air Holdings, including Southern Air and [[Florida West International Airways]], for about $110 million in cash on April 7, 2016.[^20]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 13: "The wrong kind of friends"
[^1]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, *Foreign and Military Intelligence*, Book I, Final Report, S. Rept. 94-755, 94th Cong., 2d Sess. (April 26, 1976), section on CIA proprietaries (pp. 239-247), including "The Sale of Southern Air Transport, Inc." https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/94755_I.pdf
[^2]: Amended Declaration in Support of Chapter 11 Petitions, as summarized in American Bankruptcy Institute, "Southern Air Holdings" case summary (company began in Miami in 1947; incorporated in Delaware in 1999). https://www.abi.org/node/24777
[^3]: Warren Richey and George D. Moffett III, "Credibility crisis over downed plane," *The Christian Science Monitor*, October 10, 1986 (citing the Church Committee report, Lawrence Houston, William Kress and CBS News, 1984). https://www.csmonitor.com/1986/1010/ashot.html
[^4]: Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters (Lawrence E. Walsh, August 4, 1993), chapter 8, "The Enterprise and Its Finances." https://irp.fas.org/offdocs/walsh/chap_08.htm
[^5]: Walsh, chapter 8 (Phase II of the Contra Arms Sales, January to March 1985).
[^6]: Walsh, chapter 8 (Amalgamated Commercial Enterprises; Southern Air Transport; Dutton's description of the resupply operation).
[^7]: Walsh, chapter 14, "Other Money Matters." https://irp.fas.org/offdocs/walsh/chap_14.htm
[^8]: Walsh, chapter 19, "United States v. Alan D. Fiers, Jr." (April 11, 1986 L-100 drop). https://irp.fas.org/offdocs/walsh/chap_19.htm
[^9]: Marshall Ingwerson, "Contra aid shadow dance," *The Christian Science Monitor*, December 15, 1986. https://www.csmonitor.com/1986/1215/atrans.html
[^10]: Walsh, chapter 19 and chapter 21, "CIA Subject #1." https://irp.fas.org/offdocs/walsh/chap_21.htm
[^11]: Walsh, chapter 29, "Donald P. Gregg" (Gregg notes, August 8, 1986, AKW 029885-87). https://irp.fas.org/offdocs/walsh/chap_29.htm
[^12]: Walsh, chapter 25, "United States v. Elliott Abrams" (RIG meeting of October 8, 1986). https://irp.fas.org/offdocs/walsh/chap_25.htm
[^13]: CIA Office of Congressional Affairs, memorandum for the record, "Briefing on the C-123 Crash in Nicaragua: Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 10 October," OCA 86-3575, paragraph 14. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-00788192
[^14]: Joe Pichirallo, "C123 Pilot Flew Aid Mission for U.S.," *The Washington Post*, October 11, 1986 (CIA Reading Room, CIA-RDP90-00965R000605070050-2). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00965r000605070050-2
[^15]: Walsh, chapter 8 (Piowaty, FBI 302, June 22, 1987).
[^16]: CIA Inspector General, memorandum for the record, "C-123K - Review of Additional Records," December 24, 1996, case Mena 96-0036-IG (CIA Reading Room 0001289850). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-0001289850
[^17]: CIA Office of Inspector General, *Report of Investigation: Allegations of Connections Between CIA and the Contras in Cocaine Trafficking to the United States* (96-0143-IG), Volume II: The Contra Story (October 8, 1998), "Allegations Involving Other Companies Associated With the Contras" and the Gates transmittal letter. https://irp.fas.org/cia/product/cocaine2/pilots.html
[^18]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998, chapter 13, "The wrong kind of friends." Sole source for the Palacios, Miranda and Rudd passages as carried here.
[^19]: American Bankruptcy Institute case summary, cited in footnote 2.
[^20]: Ivan Nadalet, "Atlas Air completes acquisition of Southern Air," ch-aviation, April 8, 2016. https://www.ch-aviation.com/news/45363-atlas-air-completes-acquisition-of-southern-air

174
40 - EVENTS/INTELLIGENCE_SCANDALS/Iran-Contra Affair.md
View file

@ -4,8 +4,10 @@ aliases:
- Iran-Contra Affair
- Iran-Contra
- Irangate
- Iran/Contra
- Iran-Contra scandal
created: 2024-04-25
updated: 2026-09-22
updated: 2026-10-05
tags:
- Event
- Political
@ -14,53 +16,165 @@ tags:
- ContraWar
- Iran
- Nicaragua
- DarkAlliance
- IranContra
- NationalSecurityCouncil
- BolandAmendment
- Enterprise
- DarkAllianceInvestigation
category: "Intelligence Scandal"
summary: "Political scandal involving the secret sale of arms to Iran to fund the Nicaraguan Contras in violation of the Boland Amendment, leading to indictments of multiple CIA and NSC officials."
start: 1985-01-01
end: 1987-01-01
location: "United States / Iran / Nicaragua"
summary: "Two secret Reagan administration operations, arms sales to Iran for hostages and Contra aid during a congressional ban, joined by a diversion of proceeds; 14 people were charged and six pardoned."
start: 1984-01-01
end: 1992-12-24
location: "United States / Iran / Nicaragua / Israel / Panama / Switzerland"
relations:
- type: investigated
with: "[[Lawrence Walsh]]"
reverse: true
start: 1986-12-19
end: 1993-08-04
role: "Independent Counsel; final report August 4, 1993"
fn: 1
- type: investigated
with: "[[Tower Commission]]"
reverse: true
start: 1986-12-01
end: 1987-02-26
role: "President's Special Review Board, Executive Order 12575"
fn: 9
- type: investigated
with: "[[Kerry Committee]]"
reverse: true
start: 1987
end: 1988-12
role: "Senate subcommittee on Contra drug links and Noriega"
fn: 12
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Oliver North]]"
reverse: true
start: 1984
end: 1986-11-25
role: "NSC staff officer who ran the Contra resupply Enterprise and Iran arms details; fired November 25, 1986"
fn: 4
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Robert McFarlane]]"
reverse: true
start: 1984
end: 1986-11
role: "national security adviser to December 1985; pleaded guilty March 11, 1988"
fn: 4
- type: participant_in
with: "[[John Poindexter]]"
reverse: true
start: 1985-12
end: 1986-11
role: "national security adviser who authorized the diversion; convicted April 7, 1990, reversed November 15, 1991"
fn: 11
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Richard Secord]]"
reverse: true
start: 1984
end: 1986-11
role: "retired Air Force general who ran the Enterprise; pleaded guilty November 8, 1989"
fn: 11
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Albert Hakim]]"
reverse: true
start: 1984
end: 1986-11
role: "Enterprise financial manager; pleaded guilty November 21, 1989"
fn: 11
- type: participant_in
with: "[[William J. Casey]]"
reverse: true
start: 1984
end: 1986-11
role: "Director of Central Intelligence; paired North with Secord; died before investigation"
fn: 1
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Adolfo Calero]]"
reverse: true
start: 1984
end: 1986
role: "FDN leader who bought arms through the Enterprise"
fn: 6
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Manucher Ghorbanifar]]"
reverse: true
start: 1985
end: 1986
role: "Iranian broker for the arms sales"
fn: 6
- type: prosecuted
with: "[[Lawrence Walsh]]"
reverse: true
start: 1987
end: 1993
role: "14 persons charged, 11 convicted, 2 convictions overturned, 2 pardoned before trial, 1 case dismissed"
fn: 11
---
The Iran-Contra Affair was a political scandal in the [[United States]] that came to light between 1985 and 1987, involving the secret sale of arms to [[Iran]] by the [[Ronald Reagan|Reagan]] administration in exchange for American hostages held in [[Lebanon]], with the profits illegally diverted to fund the [[Contras]] in [[Nicaragua]] in violation of congressional prohibitions. The scandal exposed the agency's direct management of the Contra war and the National Security Council's transformation into an operational intelligence agency based inside the [[White House]].[^1][^2]
The Iran-Contra Affair was the exposure, in October and November 1986, of two secret operations of the [[Ronald Reagan]] administration: the military support of the [[Nicaragua|Nicaraguan]] [[Contras]] during an October 1984 to October 1986 prohibition on such aid, and the sale of U.S. arms to [[Iran]] in contravention of stated U.S. policy. In late November 1986 officials announced that some of the proceeds of the Iran sales had been diverted to the Contras. The Independent Counsel's Final Report states that the two operations were coordinated by the staff of the [[National Security Council]] and merged when Iran sale funds were diverted to the Contra effort, and that "both the Iran and contra operations, separately, violated [[United States]] policy and law."[^1] The secrecy was pierced on October 5, 1986, when [[Sandinistas|Sandinista]] soldiers shot down an American cargo plane carrying supplies to the Contras and captured its sole surviving crew member, [[Eugene Hasenfus]]; on November 3, 1986 a Lebanese magazine reported the Iran sales; and on November 25, 1986 Attorney General [[Edwin Meese]] announced the diversion.[^1]
### Congressional Prohibitions
### The Boland restrictions and the NSC Contra program
Between 1982 and 1986, Congress passed a series of amendments (known as the Boland Amendments) prohibiting the [[Central Intelligence Agency]], the National Security Council, or any other U.S. government agency from providing military aid to the Contras. The Reagan administration circumvented these prohibitions through a network of private operatives and foreign governments.[^2]
In December 1981 President Reagan signed a Finding authorizing a covert [[Central Intelligence Agency]] operation to support the anti-Sandinista rebels. The first [[Boland Amendment]] (December 21, 1982) prohibited funds for overthrowing the Nicaraguan government; in early December 1983 Contra funding was capped at $24 million; in April 1984 the CIA's mining of Nicaraguan harbors was exposed; and the October 1984 amendment provided that "no funds available to the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of Defense, or any other agency or entity of the United States involved in intelligence activities may be obligated or expended for the purpose or which would have the effect of supporting, directly or indirectly, military or paramilitary operations in Nicaragua by any nation, group, organization, movement, or individual."[^2][^3] National security adviser [[Robert McFarlane]] had, according to his testimony, been told by Reagan to keep the Contras alive "body and soul," and assigned the task to NSC staff member [[Oliver North]]. In May 1984 Saudi ambassador Prince [[Bandar bin Sultan]] agreed to give $1 million a month; [[Saudi Arabia]] ultimately gave $32 million and [[Taiwan]] $2 million.[^2][^4]
### Key Figures
CIA Director [[William J. Casey]] reorganized the CIA's Operations Directorate in 1984, removing the Latin American Division chief [[Dewey Clarridge]] and installing [[Alan Fiers]] as chief of the Central American Task Force; Fiers soon learned who had "taken the reins on contra activities: North." The CIA's deputy director for operations [[Clair George]] told Fiers in November 1984 that Casey had promised the President to take care of the Contras and that any denial of operational activity by North would be "just for show." North, on Casey's recommendation, asked retired Air Force Major General [[Richard Secord]] to help the Contra leader [[Adolfo Calero]] buy arms with Saudi money.[^2] Walsh lists about $1.7 million in private contributions passed through the tax-exempt [[National Endowment for the Preservation of Liberty]] to accounts North controlled, and approximately $4 million from the Iran arms sales; the fundraisers [[Carl Channell]] and [[Richard Miller]] pleaded guilty in 1987 to conspiracy to defraud the United States and named North as an unindicted co-conspirator.[^5][^1]
### Oliver North and the Enterprise
On August 10, 1985 North flew to [[Costa Rica]] to meet Ambassador [[Lewis Tambs]] and the CIA station chief [[Joseph Fernandez]] about a secret airstrip for the Contra operation; Costa Rican officials disclosed the airstrip on September 25, 1986 after Ambassador Tambs had called President [[Oscar Arias]] to cancel a press conference.[^3] In 1985 and 1986 the Enterprise's air operation flew from [[Ilopango Airbase]] in [[El Salvador]], where General [[Juan Rafael Bustillo]] ordered the operation's warehouse; the Hasenfus shootdown "settled irrevocably the question of CIA assumption" of the operation, in the words of Walsh's Enterprise chapter.[^6]
[[Oliver North]], a Lieutenant Colonel in the [[United States Marine Corps]] serving on the National Security Council staff, ran an illegal Contra resupply operation from the White House. The writer Cheri Seymour wrote that he received drug profits from [[Monzer Al-Kassar]], a Syrian kingpin and arms dealer, which were then used to purchase arms for the Contras. The United States Tower Commission probe into Iran-gate specifically revealed that Al-Kassar had been paid $1.2 million by North's co-conspirator, General [[Richard Secord]], to facilitate the movement of weapons from [[Israel]] to the Contras.[^1][^3]
### The Enterprise
North's "Enterprise" used [[Ilopango Airbase]] in [[El Salvador]] to funnel weapons to the Contras and reportedly brought [[Cocaine]] back on return flights.[^4]
Secord and Albert [[Hakim]] founded [[Stanford Technology Trading Group International]] in 1983; by 1986, Walsh writes, its business "was the Enterprise." Its finances were managed in [[Switzerland]] by the fiduciary [[Compagnie de Services Fiduciaire]], controlled by the American tax lawyer [[Willard Zucker]]. In late June 1985 North and Secord met Calero and the Contra commander [[Enrique Bermudez]] in [[Miami]] and told them that private and third-country donors would pay the Enterprise directly, removing Calero as a money-handler. In July 1985 Zucker's firm created a Liberian shell, [[Defex]] S.A., deliberately named like the Portuguese arms firm Defex, so that the Enterprise's mark-ups would appear in its books as payments to the supplier; Zucker's memorandum of July 8, 1985 describes the objective as having "sufficient debit advices" to show payments "approximating the amounts received." The Enterprise's receiving account was moved to [[Lake Resources]] in [[Geneva]], and all receipts were commingled. Draws from Contra arms sales between April 1985 and September 1986 came to $4.579 million.[^6] The congressional Committees found that Secord testified his mark-up "averaged out almost exactly 20 percent" while the actual commission averaged 38 percent, and that Calero was unaware of it.[^3] In total the Walsh report counts "more than $47 million" through Enterprise accounts; the Committees' figure is nearly $48 million, of which $16.5 million supported the Contras or bought arms sold to them, $15.2 million was spent on Iran, Secord, Hakim and [[Thomas Clines]] took $6.6 million in commissions and profit, and about $1 million went to other North-sponsored covert operations.[^1][^3]
### Arms-for-Hostages Middlemen
In July 1986 the Enterprise paid the Portuguese firm Defex $2.6 million and $500,000 to the arms dealer [[Monzer Al-Kassar]] for Contra weapons. Walsh's trial-proof estimate of the diversion is $3.6 million and excludes that $500,000 payment, because Al-Kassar "was not available to testify," as well as a $200,000 Jetstar and about $535,000 for the freighter *Erria*, bought in April 1986 through the Panamanian shell company Dolmy Business Inc. The Committees put the amount of the diversion at about $3.8 million of $16.1 million in Iran arms profits.[^6][^3] The writer [[Cheri Seymour]] wrote that Al-Kassar, a Syrian arms dealer, supplied drug profits to North for Contra arms, and Seymour and [[Gary Webb]] each state that the Tower Commission probe revealed Al-Kassar had been paid $1.2 million by Secord to move weapons from [[Israel]] to the Contras; the Tower Commission excerpts and the Walsh report, which place the Enterprise's payment to Al-Kassar at $500,000 in July 1986, contain no such figure. Seymour and Webb are the sole sources for the $1.2 million figure.[^7][^8]
[[Adnan Khashoggi]], an international arms merchant, and [[Manucher Ghorbanifar]], an Iranian arms dealer, served as crucial middlemen in the arms-for-hostages exchange. Khashoggi was found to have borrowed money for these arms purchases from the now-bankrupt [[Bank of Credit and Commerce International|BCCI]], with financial backing from Saudi and U.S. sources. [[Ari Ben-Menashe]], a self-proclaimed Israeli military intelligence officer, played a role in exposing the scandal by tipping off an obscure Lebanese magazine. [[Barbara Honegger]], a former Reagan White House aide, alleged in her book *October Surprise* that Monzer Al-Kassar's heroin smuggling network in [[Italy]] was utilized to launder [[North Atlantic Treaty Organization|NATO]] arms stocks, diverting them to Iran with the assistance of corrupt Italian intelligence officials linked to the secretive fascist Masonic lodge, P2.[^1]
### The Iran arms sales
### Indictments and Pardons
In 1985 the Israelis, working through [[Michael Ledeen]], [[David Kimche]], [[Yaacov Nimrodi]], [[Al Schwimmer]] and the broker Manucher Ghorbanifar, "an Iranian exile and former CIA informant who had been discredited by the agency as a fabricator,"[^6] sold 504 U.S.-made TOW missiles to Iran in August and September 1985 (96 on August 20 and 408 on September 14, the day the Reverend Benjamin Weir was released) after McFarlane obtained President Reagan's approval for Israeli sales with U.S. replenishment; McFarlane stood alone in testifying that Reagan had approved them, until notes found late in the investigation corroborated him. On November 24 to 25, 1985 the CIA arranged an airlift of 18 HAWK missiles from Israel to Iran aboard a CIA front-company plane; Iran rejected them after test-firing one. Poindexter later testified that he destroyed the December 1985 Finding that retroactively authorized the shipment.[^4][^3] Israel paid $1 million into the Enterprise's Lake Resources account on November 20, 1985 for the airlift; the Enterprise spent $127,700, and approximately $870,000 remained in the account, which Secord testified North told him they could use "for whatever purpose we wanted. We actually expended it on the Contra project."[^6]
[[Dewey Clarridge]], former chief of the CIA's Latin American Division, was indicted on seven counts of perjury. [[Joseph Fernandez|Joseph Fernández]], CIA station chief in [[Costa Rica]], was indicted on four counts. [[Alan Fiers]], who took over the Contra project in 1984, pleaded guilty to withholding information from Congress. All were pardoned by former CIA director [[George H.W. Bush]].[^2]
A January 17, 1986 Finding authorized direct U.S. sales to Iran with Secord as agent, and [[Amiram Nir]] replaced Kimche as the Israeli official in the deals. Ghorbanifar borrowed from the financier [[Adnan Khashoggi]]; between February 7 and 18, 1986 Khashoggi deposited $10 million into Lake Resources, of which $5 million came from his own account at the [[Bank of Credit and Commerce International]] in [[Monte Carlo]] and the remainder from a wealthy woman in Monte Carlo and from Galliot Lines, owned by the Syrian banker [[Oussama Lababidi]]. North and Secord negotiated a price of $10,000 per TOW, while telling the [[Department of Defense|Defense Department]] and CIA that Secord would receive $6,000; the Pentagon sold to the CIA at $3,700. The Enterprise's direct expenses were about $716,000, leaving a surplus of $5.6 million. Between February 17 and 27, 1986 1,000 TOWs were shipped.[^6] The Tower Commission quotes Ghorbanifar as saying North was "greatly relieved" when told the Iranians would pay $10,000 rather than $6,500 per missile.[^9] On May 25, 1986 McFarlane, North and others flew to [[Tehran]] with HAWK spare parts and left on May 28 without a hostage release. An August 25, 1986 meeting in [[Brussels]] opened a "Second Channel" through a [[Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps|Revolutionary Guards]] officer; a further 500 TOWs were sent on October 28, 1986, and the Committees' chronology states that 2,004 TOWs were sent in all, not the 1,000 President Reagan cited at his November 19 press conference.[^3]
### Connection to Drug Trafficking
### The diversion, exposure and cover-up
The [[John Kerry|Kerry]] Committee investigation found evidence of drug trafficking within the Contra supply network, but the Iran-Contra investigating committee refused to examine those connections. Kerry investigation director [[Jack Blum]] told [[Gary Webb]]: "We were even dumped on by the Iran-Contra Committee. They wouldn't touch this issue with a ten-foot pole."[^2]
On December 6, 1985 North told an Israeli official he planned to use profits from future arms sales to support the Contras; on April 4, 1986 he wrote an unsigned memorandum proposing $12 million in residuals "to purchase critically needed supplies for the Nicaraguan Democratic Resistance Forces," which, the Tower Commission found, "no evidence has emerged" was ever placed before Poindexter, the President or any other official.[^3][^9] Poindexter told [[United States Congress|Congress]] he made the decision on his own, did not tell the President and believed he would have approved; North testified he believed the President authorized it. The Independent Counsel could not prove that Reagan authorized or knew of the diversion.[^1] In the Tower Commission's account Attorney General Meese told it that North said in their November 23, 1986 interview that the Israelis had handled the money and that he gave them numbers of three Swiss accounts opened by Calero; the March 1988 indictment charged that the statement about Calero was false.[^9][^10]
During Oliver North's congressional testimony in July 1987, two men from Baltimore jumped up in the audience with a banner reading "Ask about the cocaine smuggling" and shouted questions about drug dealing before being dragged out by police.[^2]
North began shredding documents on November 21, 1986 after being told [[United States Department of Justice|Justice Department]] officials would inspect his files; a Justice Department official found the April 1986 memorandum on November 22; on November 24 Meese told Reagan of the diversion, and on November 25 Reagan announced Poindexter's resignation and North's dismissal.[^3] Walsh found that "the President's most senior advisers and the Cabinet members on the National Security Council participated in the strategy to make National Security staff members McFarlane, Poindexter and North the scapegoats," and that notes of Reagan's chief of staff [[Donald Regan]] showed Poindexter and Meese attempting to create a false account of the 1985 shipments from Israeli stocks; [[Weinberger]]'s diary notes, withheld from investigators until late 1991, and the notes of [[Charles Hill]] and [[Nicholas Platt]] of the [[United States Department of State|State Department]] showed that Secretaries [[Caspar Weinberger]] and [[George Shultz]] knew more than they told Congress. Vice President [[George H.W. Bush]] "was fully aware of the Iran arms sales"; the Independent Counsel learned in December 1992 that he had not produced a diary containing contemporaneous notes, and the pardon of Weinberger on December 24, 1992 "pre-empted a trial in which defense counsel indicated that they intended to call Bush as a witness."[^1]
### The Shootdown That Broke the Scandal
### Investigations
The scandal broke open when [[Barry Seal]]'s drug-hauling airplane, a Fairchild C-123K called The Fat Lady, was shot down over Nicaragua by a Sandinista soldier with a SAM-7 missile in 1986. [[Eugene Hasenfus]], a former [[Air America]] cargo handler, survived the shootdown. The plane had been based at [[Mena, Arkansas]] before Seal sold it and it began flying weapons-hauling missions for North and the [[FDN]]. Congressional records show North was being regularly briefed by the CIA on Seal's joint CIA-DEA sting operation against the Sandinistas and allegedly leaked the information to the press shortly before a critical vote on Contra aid.[^5]
President Reagan created the President's Special Review Board, known as the [[Tower Commission]], on December 1, 1986 under Executive Order 12575, with former Senator [[John Tower]] as chairman. Its report of February 26, 1987 stated that Poindexter, North, Israeli participants and other key witnesses "refused to appear before the board," that the bank records could not be obtained, and that "there was considerable evidence before the board of a diversion to support the contras. But the board had no hard proof."[^9][^3] The [[Lawrence Walsh|Independent Counsel]] was appointed on December 19, 1986. The Senate and House select committees were set up on January 6 and 7, 1987, held televised hearings from May 5 to August 3, 1987 with more than 250 hours of testimony from 28 public witnesses, took North's testimony for six days beginning July 7 and Poindexter's for five beginning July 15, and issued their report on November 18, 1987.[^3]
### The Octopus Connection
Walsh's Final Report (August 4, 1993) states that the Iran operations were carried out with the knowledge of Reagan, Bush, Shultz, Weinberger, Casey, McFarlane and Poindexter, of whom only Weinberger and Shultz dissented, and that "large volumes of highly relevant, contemporaneously created documents were systematically and willfully withheld from investigators by several Reagan Administration officials." Casey, hospitalized with a fatal illness before the Independent Counsel was appointed, was never formally investigated. Walsh observed that the problems were "not those of rogue operations, but rather those of Executive Branch efforts to evade congressional oversight," and that grants of immunity to North, Poindexter and [[Albert Hakim]] by Congress, and the attorney general's discretion under the [[Classified Information Procedures Act]] to refuse to declassify information, undermined prosecutions.[^1]
The Iran-Contra Affair was a significant component of [[Danny Casolaro]]'s broader "[[The Octopus]]" investigation. Casolaro believed that this scandal was deeply interconnected with the [[PROMIS Software Scandal]] and the BCCI scandal. He obtained documents related to Iran-Contra arms deals, including photocopies of checks drawn on BCCI accounts for Adnan Khashoggi and Manucher Ghorbanifar, from his confidante [[Bob Bickel]]. Bickel, in turn, had acquired these documents from [[October Surprise]] source [[Richard Brenneke]]. The name of [[Ian Stuart Spiro]] also appeared in Oliver North's personal notebooks documenting the Iran-Contra Affair, and Spiro's death was subsequently linked to a spy network and the affair itself.[^1]
### Prosecutions and pardons
After the Independent Counsel's appointment 14 persons were charged, 11 were convicted (two convictions being overturned on appeal), two were pardoned before trial and one case was dismissed when the Bush administration declined to declassify information needed at trial. Pleas: Carl Channell (April 29, 1987) and Richard Miller (May 6, 1987); McFarlane (March 11, 1988); Secord (November 8, 1989, one felony of false statements to Congress); Hakim (November 21, 1989, a misdemeanor of supplementing North's salary, with Lake Resources Inc. pleading to theft of government property); Fiers (July 9, 1991, two misdemeanors); [[Elliott Abrams]] (October 7, 1991, two misdemeanors, including his solicitation of $10 million from the Sultan of [[Brunei]]). Convictions at trial: Clines (September 18, 1990, four tax-related felonies, 16 months); North (May 4, 1989, three counts, vacated July 20, 1990, dismissed September 16, 1991); Poindexter (April 7, 1990, five felony counts, reversed November 15, 1991, certiorari denied December 7, 1992, indictment dismissed in 1993); George (December 9, 1992, two felonies, pardoned before sentencing). The case against Joseph Fernandez was dismissed on November 24, 1989 after Attorney General [[Richard Thornburgh]] blocked the disclosure of classified information ruled relevant to the defense; the Fourth Circuit upheld that ruling on September 6, 1990.[^11]
On December 24, 1992 President Bush pardoned Weinberger (indicted June 16, 1992, trial set for January 5, 1993), [[Duane Clarridge]] (indicted November 26, 1991 on seven counts of perjury and false statements, trial set for March 15, 1993), George, Abrams, Fiers and McFarlane. Fernandez, whose case had been dismissed, was not among those pardoned.[^11]
### The Contra network and drug trafficking
The Kerry Committee's report of December 1988 stated that "individuals who provided support for the Contras were involved in drug trafficking, the supply network of the Contras was used by drug trafficking organizations, and elements of the Contras themselves knowingly received financial and material assistance from drug traffickers," and that "in each case, one or another agency of the U.S. government had information regarding the involvement either while it was occurring, or immediately thereafter." It found that the State Department paid funds Congress had authorized for humanitarian assistance to traffickers, "in some cases after the traffickers had been indicted by federal law enforcement agencies on drug charges." It found no evidence that the Contra leadership participated directly in narcotics smuggling, but that the FDN "did move Contra funds through a narcotics trafficking enterprise and money laundering operation," and that "some officials may have turned a blind eye." It concluded that "there are serious questions as to whether or not U.S. officials involved in Central America failed to address the drug issue for fear of jeopardizing the war effort against Nicaragua," citing the delay in dealing with [[Manuel Noriega]], the premature public announcement of the DEA's [[Barry Seal]] sting of Sandinista officials shortly before a crucial congressional vote on Contra aid, and the case of the Honduran General [[Jose Bueso Rosa|José Bueso-Rosa]], convicted of a plot to assassinate President [[Roberto Suazo Cordova|Roberto Suazo Córdova]] financed by a $40 million cocaine sale, who received a light sentence after U.S. officials intervened.[^12] The Kerry report also described Contra supply contractors paid by the State Department's Nicaraguan Humanitarian Assistance Office, the Contra supply officer [[Mario Calero]]'s agreement with the pilot [[Frank Moss]], and the passage of Contra funds through traffickers.[^12]
The National Security Archive's briefing book prints North's notebook for July 12, 1985, in which Secord is quoted as saying that "14 M to finance [the arms in a Honduran warehouse] came from drugs," and North's August 9, 1985 entry that a Honduran DC-6 used for runs out of New Orleans "is probably being used for drug runs into U.S."; the briefing book also notes that DEA agents testified on July 28, 1988 that North had wanted $1.5 million in Cartel money carried by a DEA informant given to the Contras.[^10] The Kerry report states that the pilot [[Floyd Carlton]] testified that Noriega was paid $100,000 to $250,000 for each of four cocaine flights he piloted for the [[Medellin Cartel]], and that the same Panamanian general met North in June 1985 and again in [[London]] on September 22, 1986 to discuss sabotage in Nicaragua; when North proposed a meeting on August 23, 1986, Poindexter replied, "I have nothing against him other than his illegal activities," and Walsh records that the decision was made not to pay Noriega the $1 million.[^12][^10][^13]
Webb wrote that Kerry investigation director [[Jack Blum]] told him: "We were even dumped on by the Iran-Contra Committee. They wouldn't touch this issue with a ten-foot pole," and that during North's July 1987 testimony two men from Baltimore stood with a banner reading "Ask about the cocaine smuggling" before police removed them. Webb also wrote that the plane shot down over Nicaragua was a Fairchild C-123K called The Fat Lady, based at [[Mena, Arkansas]] before Barry Seal sold it, after which it flew weapons for North and the [[FDN]]; that Hasenfus was a former [[Air America]] cargo handler; that congressional records show North was regularly briefed by the CIA on Seal's joint CIA-DEA sting of the Sandinistas and allegedly leaked it to the press shortly before a critical vote on Contra aid; and that the Enterprise's flights from Ilopango reportedly brought cocaine back on return flights, with Hangar No. 4 there used by the CIA until it was turned over to North's operation in 1985. The Committees' account identifies the aircraft only as one belonging to the Enterprise, with a [[Southern Air Transport]] identification card found on the pilot. Webb is the sole source for the passages so cited.[^8][^3]
### The Octopus and the BCCI cluster
The writer Cheri Seymour wrote that the Iran-Contra Affair was a significant component of [[Danny Casolaro]]'s "[[The Octopus]]" investigation, which Casolaro believed was interconnected with the [[PROMIS Software Scandal]] and the BCCI scandal; that he obtained photocopies of checks drawn on BCCI accounts for Khashoggi and Ghorbanifar from [[Bob Bickel]], who had them from the [[October Surprise]] source [[Richard Brenneke]]; that [[Ian Stuart Spiro]]'s name appeared in North's notebooks and his death was linked to a spy network and the affair; that [[Ari Ben-Menashe]], a self-described Israeli military intelligence officer, tipped off the Lebanese magazine; and that the former White House aide [[Barbara Honegger]] alleged in her book *October Surprise* that Al-Kassar's heroin smuggling network in [[Italy]] was used to launder [[North Atlantic Treaty Organization|NATO]] arms stocks, diverting them to Iran with the help of Italian intelligence officials linked to the P2 lodge. Seymour is the sole source for the passages so cited.[^7] The Walsh report places Khashoggi's own BCCI account in Monte Carlo as the origin of $5 million of the February 1986 bridge financing.[^6]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Seymour, Cheri. *The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro's Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal.* TrineDay, 2010.
[^2]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Prologue: "It was like they didn't want to know."
[^3]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 4: "I never sent cash."
[^4]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Cast of Characters.
[^5]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 6: "They were doing their patriotic duty."
[^1]: Walsh, Lawrence E. *Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters*, vol. I (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Division for the Purpose of Appointing Independent Counsels, August 4, 1993), Executive Summary. https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/execsum.htm
[^2]: Walsh, *Final Report*, vol. I, Part I, "Iran/contra: The Underlying Facts," sections "The Reagan Administration's Contra Policy," "The Funding Cut-Off." https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/part_i.htm
[^3]: Brinkley, Joel, and Stephen Engelberg, eds. *Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair, with the Minority Views*, abridged edition (New York: Times Books/Random House, 1988), "Iran-Contra Chronology," Parts I to III and the Committees' findings (S. Rept. 100-216, H. Rept. 100-433, November 18, 1987). https://archive.org/details/reportofcongres00unit
[^4]: Walsh, *Final Report*, vol. I, ch. 1, "United States v. Robert C. McFarlane." https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_01.htm
[^5]: Walsh, *Final Report*, vol. I, ch. 27, "President Reagan," section on contra financial support. https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_27.htm
[^6]: Walsh, *Final Report*, vol. I, ch. 8, "The Enterprise and Its Finances," including notes 5, 30 to 35 and 51. https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_08.htm
[^7]: Seymour, Cheri. *The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro's Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal.* TrineDay, 2010. Sole source for the passages so cited.
[^8]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998, Prologue, ch. 6 ("They were doing their patriotic duty") and ch. 4. Sole source for the passages so cited.
[^9]: Tower Commission, *Report of the President's Special Review Board* (February 26, 1987), Part I, "Contra Diversion" and "N.S.C. Staff and Support for the Contras" (excerpts published by the American Presidency Project). https://archive.org/details/tower-commission-report-excerpts-reagan
[^10]: National Security Archive, "The Contras, Cocaine, and Covert Operations," Electronic Briefing Book No. 2 (North notebooks of July 12 and August 9, 1985; North and Poindexter electronic messages of August 23, 1986). https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB2/index.html
[^11]: Walsh, *Final Report*, vol. I, "Summary of Prosecutions." https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/summpros.htm
[^12]: U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations, *Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy*, S. Prt. 100-165 (December 1988), "Summary of Findings," chapters on the Contras and on Panama, and the Conclusions. https://archive.org/details/Kerry-Report-Drugs-Contras
[^13]: Walsh, *Final Report*, vol. I, ch. 25, "United States v. Elliott Abrams," section on the September 19 and 20, 1986 meetings. https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_25.htm

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---
title: Mena, Arkansas
aliases:
- Mena, Arkansas
- Mena
- Mena, AR
- Mena Arkansas
- Mena Intermountain Airport
- Mena Intermountain Municipal Airport
- Intermountain Regional Airport
- Nella, Arkansas
created: 2026-05-17
updated: 2026-10-05
category: "City"
tags:
- Geography
- United_States
- UnitedStates
- Arkansas
- 1980s
- Contra_War
- Dark_Alliance_Investigation
summary: Small Arkansas town where Barry Seal based drug-smuggling and weapons operations at Intermountain Regional Airport during the Contra war.
- ContraWar
- DarkAllianceInvestigation
- CIADrugTrafficking
- Mena
- IranContra
- Whitewater
location: "Polk County, Arkansas"
summary: "Western Arkansas town where Barry Seal based aircraft from late 1982; its money-laundering inquiries, a CIA 'two week exercise' and CIA records searches ran from 1983 to the 1996 Inspector General report."
---
Mena, Arkansas is a small town in western Arkansas where [[Barry Seal]] based his drug-smuggling and weapons operation at Intermountain Regional Airport during the early to mid-1980s.[^1] Mena became a hub for CIA-connected covert operations during the Contra war, involving drug trafficking, weapons manufacturing, and pilot training for the [[Contras]].
### Barry Seal's Operations
Mena is a town in [[Polk County, Arkansas|Polk County]] in western Arkansas near the [[Oklahoma]] border. Its Intermountain Municipal Airport (given in some sources as Intermountain Regional) was the base from late 1982 of the smuggler [[Barry Seal]], and the aircraft-modification company [[Rich Mountain Aviation]] there worked on his planes. The area north of the town, around Nella, was the site of an alleged [[Contras|Contra]] pilot training camp.
Seal moved from [[Baton Rouge, Louisiana|Baton Rouge]] to Mena in 1982 and began running drugs and weapons. In the early 1980s, Seal was one of the biggest cocaine and marijuana importers in the southern [[United States]], flying loads in directly for the [[Medellin Cartel|Medellín cartel]] and air-dropping them with pinpoint precision across [[Louisiana]], [[Arkansas]], and other southern states. IRS spokesman Henry Holms said Seal was involved in 50 drug-smuggling trips between 1981 and 1983, and a letter from Louisiana's attorney general to U.S. Attorney General Ed Meese said Seal "smuggled between $3 billion and $5 billion worth of drugs into the U.S."[^1]
### Seal at Mena
Seal's personal records showed him to be a contract [[Central Intelligence Agency]] operative both before and during his years of drug-running at Mena. Historian [[Roger Morris]], a former NSC staffer, wrote that Seal also worked for the [[Defense Intelligence Agency|Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)]], "where coded records reportedly showed him on the payroll beginning in 1982."[^1]
Police watching the Mena airport reported in late 1982 that a heavy man from [[Louisiana]] had begun frequenting Rich Mountain Aviation, and federal agents had already identified Seal as "a major international narcotics trafficker." [[Asa Hutchinson]], the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Arkansas, assigned the [[Internal Revenue Service|IRS]] criminal investigator [[William Duncan]] to watch for money laundering, and the [[Arkansas State Police]] assigned [[Russell Welch]] to look for cocaine arriving at the airport. Both men told the journalist [[Mara Leveritt]] that their assignments ended their careers.[^1] Welch said that in December 1983 he and other officers watched Seal and a co-pilot land at Rich Mountain Aviation, where workers installed an extra fuel tank, and that the [[DEA]] officers who had met them at a Mena motel did not join the stakeout. They were not told that Seal had become a DEA informant.[^1]
### Terry Reed and Weapons Manufacturing
The [[Senate Foreign Relations Committee|Kerry subcommittee]] reported in 1988 that "associates of Seal who operated aircraft service businesses at the Mena, Arkansas, airport were also the targets of grand jury probes into narcotics trafficking," that evidence sufficient for a money laundering indictment was available, that the cases were dropped over the strong protests of state and federal law enforcement officials, and that the apparent reason was that the prosecution might have revealed national security information, even though the crimes preceded Seal's work as an informant.[^2] Duncan said he asked Hutchinson in mid-1985 for 20 subpoenas based on sworn statements from Rich Mountain Aviation employees and Mena bankers about illegal cash deposits and received three; Hutchinson's successor [[J. Michael Fitzhugh]] canceled Seal's grand jury appearance five days before it was to convene, and the *[[Arkansas Times]]* obtained a 1986 [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] memorandum that Fitzhugh would be "withholding presentation" of the investigation to the grand jury. Duncan said in a deposition "It was covered up." Hutchinson said in 1996 that he started the investigation and was "called to run for office" and "out of the loop."[^1][^3]
Former Air Force intelligence officer [[Terry Reed]] was initially recruited to train would-be Contra pilots at a clandestine airstrip near Nella, Arkansas, not far from Mena. Later, he claimed, he was asked to help the CIA set up secret weapons parts facilities in Arkansas and [[Mexico]]. One company Reed worked with was [[Park On Meter]] Inc. in Russellville, Arkansas, which he claimed was secretly manufacturing parts for M-16 rifles as a subcontractor on a CIA weapons project to supply the Contras. The *Washington Post* confirmed that the parking meter company "did make some gun parts for Iver Johnson," though it disputed the significance.[^1]
[[Charles E. Black]], the deputy prosecuting attorney at Mena, asked the governor's office for $25,000 to impanel a state grand jury on Rich Mountain Aviation's role; he said he got no response, and Governor [[Bill Clinton]] later said he had authorized payment of $25,000 and "nothing ever came of that." Arkansas Attorney General [[Winston Bryant]] said in 1995 that he spent three years trying to get files from the [[U.S. Department of Justice|Justice Department]] and "all we ever got was a total run-around." The Arkansas State Police file that Leveritt read shortly after Seal's murder ran to about 3,000 pages; in 2016 the agency could release 409.[^1][^3]
### Government Knowledge
### The aircraft
Clinton's critics charged that it was impossible for the governor of Arkansas to have been unaware of Seal's activities at Mena. Former Arkansas state trooper Larry Patterson, a member of Governor Clinton's security detail, testified that he and other troopers were aware "that there was large quantities of drugs being flown into the Mena airport, large quantities of money, large quantities of guns, that there was an ongoing operation training foreign people in that area. That it was a CIA operation." Mechanic John Bender swore in a deposition that he saw Clinton at Mena three times in 1985.[^1]
Seal kept a C-123K, "Fat Lady," at Mena; the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] Inspector General's case file calls it N4410F, and a CIA briefing memorandum gives its Air Force serial as 54-0679. A DEA spokesman told *The New York Times* in 1986 that it was the plane shot down over [[Nicaragua]] on October 5, 1986 with [[Eugene Hasenfus]] aboard.[^4][^5][^6] The independent counsel recorded that [[Southern Air Transport]] was paid $1,935,596 for contra-related services including the purchase of a C-123; the CIA review found no record that Southern Air owned or leased a C-123K.[^7][^5] The Inspector General also asked for records on a Convair C-131A, N5575A, which the Federal Aviation Administration lists as deregistered.[^8]
Ex-trooper L. D. Brown said that when he confronted Clinton about the cocaine flights, the governor replied, "That's Lasater's deal," referring to [[Danny Ray Lasater]].[^1]
### The CIA's statements, 1994 to 1998
### Suppression of Investigations
On June 30, 1994 the operations directorate answered the *[[Wall Street Journal]]*'s June 29 article "Mysterious Mena" by writing that the directorate "has never had a proprietary at Mena nor is there any record of dealings with Rich Mountain Aviation," that "our records also show support in terms of [text withheld] training operation at Mena Airfield," that officers canvassed knew of no CIA Contra training in Arkansas, and that Seal's aircraft had been equipped with a camera at the DEA's request.[^9]
The same Senate subcommittee that looked into the Contras' connections with [[Hondu Carib Cargo]] in 1988 also investigated Mena and concluded that "associates of Seal who operated aircraft service businesses at the Mena, Arkansas, airport were also the targets of grand jury probes into narcotics trafficking. Despite the availability of evidence sufficient for an indictment on money laundering charges, and over the strong protests of State and federal law enforcement officials, the cases were dropped. The apparent reason was that the prosecution might have revealed national security information."[^1]
In July 1995 the CIA Public Affairs office wrote the Acting Director that the August *[[American Spectator]]* article "alleges, explicitly and implicitly, that an aircraft operated by a CIA front company in 1984 used the airfield at Mena" as a staging point, that "there is no reason to believe any of the allegations," and that "as soon as those searches are complete, we hope to have a crisp public statement that distances us from the allegations, if the Agency IG's look into them does not constrain us from doing so."[^10] Representative [[James Leach]], chairman of the [[House Banking Committee]], wrote to the House intelligence committee chairman on May 9, 1995 and to the Director of Central Intelligence on July 11, 1995 asking whether the CIA or the [[NSA]] had any relationship with Seal, in connection with [[Whitewater]]-related allegations. At the July 21, 1995 briefing he said he was not opening a probe of Contra policy, that most of the allegations were probably false, and that some might be credible; later he told reporters "We have more than sufficient documentation that improprieties occurred at Mena." The CIA told him it had "no relationship with him nor any records regarding his activities in Mena," and left open its connection to Seal's cargo plane, "Park-o-Meter," and [[Terry Reed]].[^11][^3] The first CIA search request, made on June 7, 1995, produced "no records" from the components tasked.[^12]
In sworn testimony, a former staff member of the Arkansas State Police Intelligence Unit described "a shredding party" in which she was ordered to purge the state's Mena files of nearly a thousand documents, including those referring specifically to Iran-Contra conspirator [[Oliver North]] and Seal associate Terry Reed.[^1]
On February 26, 1996 Inspector General [[Fred Hitz|Frederick P. Hitz]] opened case 96-0036-IG. His tasking memorandum asked for documents on any CIA activity at Mena or Nella, any CIA briefing of Arkansas state officials, any effort to influence the Justice Department, Seal and his aliases, and 22 named Mena persons and businesses, including Rich Mountain Aviation, [[Multitrade International]], [[Fokker Air]], [[Eagle Aviation]], [[Southern Cross Aviation]], [[Goodner Aircraft Painting]], [[Reebaire]] and [[Freddie Lee Hampton]].[^13] An employee bulletin of May 15, 1996 extended the period to "1980 to the present" and added whether [[L. D. Brown]], who may have used the alias "Michael Johnson," applied for CIA employment from 1984 to 1986.[^14] The unclassified summary of the November 1996 report, as reported by the *[[Arkansas Democrat-Gazette]]*, said the CIA ran "a joint training operation with another federal agency at Mena Intermountain Airport," a "two week exercise," used Mena for "routine aviation-related services" on agency-owned equipment, and found "no evidence" of CIA involvement in "money laundering, narcotics trafficking, arms smuggling or other illegal activities at or around Mena"; it also described "limited contact" with Seal and "technical support" through cameras.[^15] The 1998 letter from the Inspector General to Leach said all information on Mena was in that report.[^16]
### CIA Acknowledgment
### Allegations by named witnesses
While denying that the CIA was involved in any illegal activities at Mena during the time Seal's drug-smuggling operation was based there, the CIA's Inspector General's Office confirmed in 1996 that the CIA ran a "joint training operation with another federal agency at Mena Intermountain Airport." The IG report, which has never been publicly released, reportedly claims the exercise lasted only two weeks, but conveniently omits the year. The CIA also used the Mena airport for "routine aviation related services" on CIA-owned planes, according to a declassified summary of the report.[^1]
Reed, a former Air Force intelligence officer, is reported by *The American Spectator*'s [[R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr.]] to have said that he trained Contra pilots under Seal's supervision at Nella; Tyrrell also reported that the trooper [[Larry Patterson]] said in a March 1995 deposition that he overheard talk of "large quantities of drugs being flown into Mena airport, large quantities of guns." L. D. Brown, a former member of Clinton's security detail, told Tyrrell he flew with Seal on October 23, 1984 from Mena to [[Tegucigalpa]] on a C-123K from which pallets of M-16 rifles were dropped, was recruited by CIA representatives [[Ken Cargile]] and Dan Magruder, and received $2,500; Tyrrell wrote that Brown's exact relationship with the agency may never be known.[^17] The CIA's 1996 review of a documentary featuring Brown and Welch said the credibility of Reed's book was "questioned somewhat."[^18] The CIA's 1995 briefing outline said Brown applied for CIA employment in 1988 and was rejected in November 1988, while the reported Inspector General summary said he was a candidate in 1984 and the agency decided in December of that year not to hire him.[^15][^11]
### The Fat Lady
Seal's drug-hauling airplane, a Fairchild C-123K called The Fat Lady, was based at Mena before Seal sold it and it began flying weapons-hauling missions for North and the [[FDN]]. The plane was shot down over [[Nicaragua]] in 1986 by a Sandinista soldier with a SAM-7 missile, breaking open the [[Iran-Contra Affair]].[^1]
In *Dark Alliance* [[Gary Webb]] wrote, drawing on the historian [[Roger Morris]], that Seal's records "showed him to be a contract" CIA operative before and during Mena, and that coded records reportedly showed him on the [[Defense Intelligence Agency]] payroll from 1982; the CIA's 1995 records search found no record of contact with Seal, and the reported 1996 Inspector General summary described "limited contact" in 1984. Webb wrote that Reed, author of *Compromised: Clinton, Bush and the CIA*, said he was asked to help set up secret weapons-parts facilities in Arkansas and Mexico, one of them [[Park On Meter]] in [[Russellville]]. Webb also wrote that a former Arkansas State Police intelligence unit staff member testified to "a shredding party" in which nearly a thousand Mena documents, including ones referring to [[Oliver North]] and Reed, were purged, that the mechanic [[John Bender]] swore he saw Clinton at Mena three times in 1985, and that L. D. Brown said Clinton told him "That's Lasater's deal," referring to [[Danny Ray Lasater]]; Webb is the sole source for these passages as carried here.[^19] The *[[Washington Post]]*, according to Webb, confirmed the parking-meter company "did make some gun parts for [[Iver Johnson]]."[^19] Leveritt reported that in the fall of 1986 the FBI, investigating Lasater, learned from his pilot that on February 8, 1984 he flew Lasater and [[Patsy Thomasson]] to [[Belize]] to look at a horse farm for sale by [[Roy Carver]], weeks after the Belize ranch operation that [[Billy Earle Jr.]] told Welch Seal had planned.[^1]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 6: "They were doing their patriotic duty"
[^1]: Mara Leveritt, "Who's afraid of Barry Seal?" *Arkansas Times*, September 28, 2017. https://arktimes.com/news/cover-stories/2017/09/28/whos-afraid-of-barry-seal
[^2]: U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations, *Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy* (Committee Print, December 1988), "Barry Seal and the Cartel," pp. 121-122. https://archive.org/details/Kerry-Report-Drugs-Contras
[^3]: Mara Leveritt, "Mena rides again," *Arkansas Times*, August 25, 1995. https://arktimes.com/news/cover-stories/1995/08/25/mena-rides-again
[^4]: CIA Inspector General, memorandum for the record, "C-123K - Review of Additional Records," December 24, 1996, case Mena 96-0036-IG (CIA Reading Room 0001289850). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-0001289850
[^5]: CIA Office of Congressional Affairs, memorandum for the record, OCA 95-2274, August 16, 1995 (briefing of Rep. Leach, July 21, 1995; "serial number 54-0679") (CIA Reading Room 0001289684). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-0001289684
[^6]: Richard Halloran, "Plane Downed in Nicaragua Was in a U.S. Drug 'Sting,'" *The New York Times*, October 10, 1986 (CIA Reading Room, CIA-RDP90-00965R000402690007-7). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00965r000402690007-7
[^7]: Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters (August 4, 1993), chapter 8. https://irp.fas.org/offdocs/walsh/chap_08.htm
[^8]: CIA Inspector General memorandum IG 96-0302, February 26, 1996 (CIA Reading Room 0001289863) and Federal Aviation Administration Aircraft Registry, N-Number Inquiry N5575A (deregistered), accessed October 5, 2026. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-0001289863
[^9]: CIA Directorate of Operations, memorandum, "Wall Street Journal Allegations of Possible CIA Operations in Arkansas," June 30, 1994 (CIA Reading Room 0001289708). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-0001289708
[^10]: CIA Acting Director of Public Affairs, note to the Acting DCI, "Mena," July 19, 1995 (CIA Reading Room 0001289860). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-0001289860
[^11]: CIA, memorandum for the record on the Leach briefing of July 21, 1995 and briefing outline (CIA Reading Room 0001289686, 0001289820), and CIA status report on the inquiry from Chairman Leach (0001289828). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-0001289828
[^12]: CIA Office of General Counsel, "Confirmation of Records Search - Adler Barriman 'Barry' Seal," OGC-95-51574, June 9, 1995, with Leach to Combest letter of May 9, 1995 (CIA Reading Room 0001289830). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-0001289830
[^13]: CIA Inspector General memorandum IG 96-0302, February 26, 1996, cited in footnote 8.
[^14]: CIA Office of Inspector General, Employee Bulletin IG EB No. 0007-96, "Inspector General Inquiry Regarding Mena, Arkansas," May 15, 1996 (CIA Reading Room 0001289765). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-0001289765
[^15]: Kathy Kiely, "CIA admits training at Mena," *Arkansas Democrat-Gazette*, November 9, 1996. https://archivesspace.wilkes.edu/files/normanmailer/65.9_HG2_HarlotsGhostSequelResearch_ArkansasDemocraticGazetteArticles_1996November9.pdf
[^16]: Letter, CIA Inspector General to Rep. James A. Leach, 1998 (CIA Reading Room 0001289865). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-0001289865
[^17]: R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr., "The Arkansas Drug Shuttle," *The American Spectator*, August 1995 (copy attached to the CIA note of July 19, 1995, CIA Reading Room 0001289860). Sole source for Brown's account as carried here. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-0001289860
[^18]: CIA memorandum for the record, "Video Tape Review: National Empowerment Network, American Investigator, 'Mena, Arkansas Under Investigation,'" February 22, 1996 (CIA Reading Room 0001289764). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-0001289764
[^19]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998, chapter 6. Sole source for the Morris, Bender, shredding-party, Park-On-Meter and Brown-Lasater passages as carried here.

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---
title: Arkansas
aliases:
- Arkansas
- State of Arkansas
created: 2026-05-17
updated: 2026-10-05
category: "U.S. State"
tags:
- geography
- contra-war
summary: Arkansas, particularly the small town of Mena, served as the base of operations for CIA-DEA contract agent Barry Seal's massive cocaine and weapons smuggling operation during the early to mid-1980s.
- Geography
- UnitedStates
- ContraWar
- Mena
- DarkAllianceInvestigation
- Whitewater
summary: "U.S. state where Barry Seal based aircraft at Mena from late 1982; federal, state and CIA records on the Mena airport run from a 1983 IRS inquiry to the 1996 CIA Inspector General report."
---
Arkansas, particularly the small town of Mena, served as the base of operations for CIA-[[DEA]] contract agent Barry Seal's massive [[Cocaine]] and weapons smuggling operation during the early to mid-1980s. The Mena operation represented one of the clearest intersections between U.S. intelligence activities and drug trafficking in the domestic [[United States]].[^1]
### Barry Seal at Mena
Arkansas appears in this record because of the airport at [[Mena, Arkansas]], where the smuggler [[Barry Seal]] kept his aircraft from late 1982 until 1984 and where investigators from the [[Internal Revenue Service|IRS]] and the [[Arkansas State Police]] worked from 1983. The [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]]'s own file copies, the [[Senate Foreign Relations Committee|Kerry subcommittee]] report and Arkansas press accounts are summarized on that page.
Seal moved in 1982 from [[Baton Rouge, Louisiana]] to a tiny airfield at isolated Mena, Arkansas, Intermountain Regional Airport, and began running drugs and weapons. He became one of the biggest cocaine and marijuana importers in the southern United States, flying loads in directly for the [[Medellin Cartel|Medellín Cartel]] and air-dropping them with pinpoint precision across [[Louisiana]], Arkansas, and other southern states. Seal detailed his cocaine-smuggling activities involving approximately 50 trips during 1981, 1982, and 1983.[^2]
### Officials and investigations
### Protection from Prosecution
[[Asa Hutchinson]], appointed United States attorney for the [[Western District of Arkansas]] in 1982, assigned the IRS investigator [[William Duncan]] to Seal, and his successor [[J. Michael Fitzhugh]] canceled Seal's grand jury appearance in December 1985 for "lack of credibility." A 1986 [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] memorandum from [[Hot Springs]], obtained by the *[[Arkansas Times]]*, said Fitzhugh would be "withholding presentation" of the Mena investigation to the grand jury. Hutchinson later served as administrator of the [[DEA]] and governor of Arkansas.[^1][^2] Attorney General [[Winston Bryant]] said in 1995 that he spent three years trying to get Mena files from the [[U.S. Department of Justice|Justice Department]] and "all we ever got was a total run-around."[^2]
A Senate subcommittee later concluded that despite the availability of evidence sufficient for an indictment on money laundering charges, and over the strong protests of state and federal law enforcement officials, the cases against Seal were dropped. The apparent reason was that prosecution might have revealed national security information. Arkansas state trooper Larry Patterson testified that troopers were aware that large quantities of drugs were being flown into the Mena airport and that it was a [[Central Intelligence Agency]] operation. Bill Clinton's close friend Danny Lasater was convicted as part of a major drug ring in [[Little Rock, Arkansas|Little Rock]].[^3]
The Kerry subcommittee's 1988 report stated that grand jury probes of Seal's Mena associates were dropped over the protests of state and federal law enforcement officials, with the apparent reason that prosecution might reveal national security information.[^3] [[Charles E. Black]], deputy prosecuting attorney at Mena, asked Governor [[Bill Clinton]]'s office for $25,000 to impanel a state grand jury and said he received no reply; Clinton later said he had authorized the payment and "nothing ever came of that."[^1]
### Iran-Contra Connection
### Little Rock
After Seal's CIA-DEA missions ended, he parked his C-123K cargo plane at the tiny Mena airport. He sold it back to the same company he had obtained it from, and in early 1986 it wound up with CIA contractor Southern Air Transport, where it was used for Contra supply runs based at Ilopango Air Base in [[San Salvador]] until its last, fatal flight, the shootdown that broke open the [[Iran-Contra Affair|Iran-Contra scandal]]. Seal's farm in [[Baton Rouge]], Louisiana, according to a 1983 [[U.S. Customs]] report, was allegedly used as a drop site for cocaine and marijuana flown into the country aboard a DC-4 aircraft, the same plane that subsequently turned up flying supplies for the [[Contras]] through a company operated by FDN leader Adolfo Calero's brother.[^4]
The [[Little Rock]] bond dealer [[Danny Ray Lasater]] and Clinton's half-brother [[Roger Clinton]] pleaded guilty to drug charges. The *Arkansas Times* reported that the FBI's 1986 investigation of Lasater found that his pilot flew him and [[Patsy Thomasson]] to [[Belize]] on February 8, 1984, to look at a horse farm for sale by [[Roy Carver]], a ranch [[Billy Earle Jr.]] told investigator [[Russell Welch]] Seal had planned to fly to for a cocaine operation weeks before; it noted that no link between Clinton and Seal has ever been established.[^1]
### The aircraft
The C-123K "Fat Lady" that Seal kept at Mena is the aircraft the CIA Inspector General's file calls N4410F, and a DEA spokesman said in 1986 that it was the plane shot down over [[Nicaragua]] with [[Eugene Hasenfus]] aboard. [[Gary Webb]] wrote in *Dark Alliance* that Seal sold the plane back to the company he got it from and that in early 1986 it wound up with [[Southern Air Transport]]; the CIA Inspector General found no record that Southern Air owned or leased a C-123K, and a CIA memorandum of October 10, 1986 said the plane was sold as military surplus in 1983 to an undetermined purchaser.[^4][^5][^6] Webb also wrote that a 1983 [[U.S. Customs]] report said Seal's farm near [[Baton Rouge, Louisiana]] was allegedly a drop site for cocaine and marijuana flown in aboard a DC-4 that later flew supplies to the [[Contras]] through a company operated by the brother of [[Adolfo Calero]], [[Mario Calero]]; Webb is the sole source for that passage.[^7]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Cast of Characters.
[^2]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Ch. 7.
[^3]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Ch. 7.
[^4]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Ch. 7, Ch. 15.
[^1]: Mara Leveritt, "Who's afraid of Barry Seal?" *Arkansas Times*, September 28, 2017. https://arktimes.com/news/cover-stories/2017/09/28/whos-afraid-of-barry-seal
[^2]: Mara Leveritt, "Mena rides again," *Arkansas Times*, August 25, 1995. https://arktimes.com/news/cover-stories/1995/08/25/mena-rides-again
[^3]: U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations, *Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy* (Committee Print, December 1988), "Barry Seal and the Cartel," pp. 121-122. https://archive.org/details/Kerry-Report-Drugs-Contras
[^4]: CIA Inspector General, memorandum for the record, "C-123K - Review of Additional Records," December 24, 1996 (CIA Reading Room 0001289850). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-0001289850
[^5]: Richard Halloran, "Plane Downed in Nicaragua Was in a U.S. Drug 'Sting,'" *The New York Times*, October 10, 1986 (CIA Reading Room, CIA-RDP90-00965R000402690007-7). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00965r000402690007-7
[^6]: CIA Office of Congressional Affairs, memorandum for the record, OCA 86-3575, October 10, 1986, paragraph 14. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-00788192
[^7]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998, chapters 7 and 15. Sole source for the Seal sale-back, Customs report and DC-4 passages.