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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.