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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.