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@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ aliases:
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- Enrique Miranda
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- Enrique Miranda Jaime
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created: 2026-05-17
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updated: 2026-05-17
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updated: 2026-10-08
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category: "Intelligence & Government"
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tags:
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- Person
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@ -21,25 +21,31 @@ Enrique Miranda Jaime was a former [[Sandinistas|Sandinista]] intelligence offic
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### Testimony on the Ilopango Drug Pipeline
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Miranda testified in a 1992 trial in [[Nicaragua]] that "Norwin was selling drugs and tunneled the benefits to the Contras with help of high-ranking military officials of the Salvadoran Army, especially with the help of the head of the Salvadoran Air Force and a Nicaraguan pilot named [[Marcos Aguado]]." Miranda said the cocaine brought from Colombia by [[Medellin Cartel|Medellín cartel]] pilots arrived in [[Costa Rica]] in square twenty-five-kilo packages, was unloaded at various airstrips including one on CIA operative [[John Hull]]'s farm, and was placed aboard Contra planes flown into [[Ilopango Airbase|Ilopango Air Force Base]].[^1]
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Miranda testified at the 1991 trial in [[Nicaragua]] that "Norwin was selling drugs and tunneled the benefits to the Contras with help of high-ranking military officials of the Salvadoran Army, especially with the help of the head of the Salvadoran Air Force and a Nicaraguan pilot named [[Marcos Aguado]]." Miranda said the cocaine brought from Colombia by [[Medellin Cartel|Medellín cartel]] pilots arrived in [[Costa Rica]] in square twenty-five-kilo packages, was unloaded at various airstrips including one on CIA operative [[John Hull]]'s farm, and was placed aboard Contra planes flown into [[Ilopango Airbase|Ilopango Air Force Base]].[^1]
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Once at Ilopango, Miranda said, Aguado and Meneses supervised loading the cocaine onto U.S.-bound aircraft owned by the Salvadoran Air Force and the Miami-based CIA contractor [[Southern Air Transport]]. Miranda said Meneses told him U.S. military hardware stockpiled at Ilopango was loaded onto Salvadoran transport planes and flown south, where guns were traded for cocaine and flown back.[^1]
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### Aguado's Cartel Operations
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Miranda met CIA pilot Marcos Aguado for dinner at Meneses's mansion in [[Managua]] in 1991, where Aguado described flying for the Colombian cartels. Aguado claimed he once took a Salvadoran Air Force bomber and leveled a warehouse full of Medellín cartel cocaine on behalf of the rival Cali cartel. He also made plans to bomb the prison where Medellín cartel chief Pablo Escobar was briefly imprisoned. Aguado boasted of flying weapons from the Salvadoran military to the Colombian cartels - claims Miranda said he doubted until a Salvadoran Air Force colonel and associates were arrested in 1992 for selling bombs and high explosives to Colombian drug dealers.[^1]
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Miranda met CIA pilot Marcos Aguado for dinner at Meneses's mansion in [[Managua]] in 1991, where Aguado described flying for the Colombian cartels. Aguado claimed he once took a Salvadoran Air Force bomber and leveled a warehouse full of Medellín cartel cocaine on behalf of the rival Cali cartel. He also made plans to bomb the prison where Medellín cartel chief Pablo Escobar was briefly imprisoned. Aguado boasted of flying weapons from the Salvadoran military to the Colombian cartels, claims Miranda said he doubted until a Salvadoran Air Force colonel and associates were arrested in 1992 for selling bombs and high explosives to Colombian drug dealers.[^1]
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### Background
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Miranda was arrested by former Nicaraguan antidrug czar Roger Mayorga. He and Mayorga told interviewers the U.S. air base where drugs from Ilopango were flown was near Fort Worth, Texas - likely the now-closed Carswell Air Force Base, home of a Strategic Air Command bomber squadron.[^1]
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Miranda was arrested by former Nicaraguan antidrug czar Roger Mayorga. Miranda and Mayorga told Gary Webb that the U.S. air base where drugs from Ilopango were flown was near Fort Worth, Texas. Webb identified it as the now-closed Carswell Air Force Base, home of a Strategic Air Command bomber squadron, the only air force base near Fort Worth at the time, and reported that the Air Force told a 1997 Freedom of Information Act requester that flight records for Salvadoran military aircraft in the mid-1980s had been destroyed.[^1]
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### Justice Department Review of His Account
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Miranda told DEA agent Jose Delgado about cocaine smuggling for the Sandinistas during debriefings as a confidential source in 1996, and did not raise Contra trafficking then. Interviewed by the Justice Department Inspector General's investigators in 1997, he described Contra trafficking through Ilopango and said he had heard it from Aguado, who claimed to fly Salvadoran military planes from Ilopango to a military airport in Texas. He said Meneses had invited him to watch the Texas operation and, when pressed, said he had not seen it occur. The Inspector General wrote: "The failure to report such important information in 1996 makes it difficult to credit Miranda's account in 1997." The same review records that the Sandinista government jailed him for treason in September 1985, that he was released in 1989 for health reasons, that he was arrested with Meneses in November 1991 in connection with the seizure of 764 kilograms of cocaine bound from Managua to the United States, and that he was sentenced to fourteen years in August 1992.[^2] The CIA Inspector General's Volume II summarizes Miranda's claim that Aguado flew weapons to Medellín and returned with cocaine stored at Ilopango, and states: "No information has been found to support Miranda's allegations."[^3]
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### Escape from Prison and DEA Recruitment
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In early 1996, journalist [[Georg Hodel]] requested permission from the Nicaraguan Ministry of the Interior to interview Miranda, who had been moved to a prison in the city of Granada after Meneses allegedly hired someone to kill him. Miranda "escaped" the same day Hodel made his request, leaving on a weekend furlough and never returning. Prison officials called it "extremely out of character" for a model inmate nearing the end of his sentence. The police had not been notified of the escape, and Hodel's discovery became front-page news in Managua.[^2]
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In early 1996, journalist [[Georg Hodel]] requested permission from the Nicaraguan Ministry of the Interior to interview Miranda, who had been moved to a prison in the city of Granada after Meneses allegedly hired someone to kill him. Miranda "escaped" the same day Hodel made his request, leaving on a weekend furlough and never returning. Prison officials called it "extremely out of character" for a model inmate nearing the end of his sentence. The police had not been notified of the escape, and Hodel's discovery became front-page news in Managua.[^4]
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Miranda was captured in [[Miami]] in December 1996, where he was living with his wife. He had entered the [[United States]] with a visa the U.S. Embassy in Managua issued him the day he escaped. Despite being listed in the State Department's computers as a convicted drug trafficker and therefore ineligible for a visa, the State Department claimed two simultaneous computer failures resulted in him "erroneously" receiving one. The DEA denied involvement but admitted Miranda was placed on the DEA payroll as an informant "soon after he came to Miami" and was sent to Central and South America to work drug cases. The DEA never informed Nicaraguan authorities it was harboring one of their fugitives.[^2]
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Miranda was captured in [[Miami]] in December 1996, where he was living with his wife. He had entered the [[United States]] with a visa the U.S. Embassy in Managua issued him the day he escaped. Despite being listed in the State Department's computers as a convicted drug trafficker and therefore ineligible for a visa, the State Department claimed two simultaneous computer failures resulted in him "erroneously" receiving one. The DEA denied involvement but admitted Miranda was placed on the DEA payroll as an informant "soon after he came to Miami" and was sent to Central and South America to work drug cases. The DEA never informed Nicaraguan authorities it was harboring one of their fugitives.[^4]
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### Footnotes
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[^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"
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[^2]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 25: "Things are moving all around us"
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[^2]: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, *The CIA-Contra-Crack Cocaine Controversy* (December 1997), Chapter VII, "Enrique Miranda-Jaime," sections A to E, https://irp.fas.org/agency/doj/oig/c4rpt/ch07.htm
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[^3]: CIA Inspector General, *Allegations of Connections Between CIA and the Contras in Cocaine Trafficking to the United States*, Volume II (October 8, 1998), Marcos Antonio Aguado section of the Southern Front chapter, https://irp.fas.org/cia/product/cocaine2/south.html
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[^4]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 25: "Things are moving all around us"
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@ -21,7 +21,7 @@ tags:
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summary: "ARPA projects manager who joined Ray Hyman and Robert Van de Castle at SRI's Uri Geller experiments on December 8, 1972, and later monitored the NRC's 1988 performance-techniques study for the Army Research Institute."
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relations:
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- type: employed_by
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with: "[[Advanced Research Projects Agency]]"
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with: "[[DARPA|Advanced Research Projects Agency]]"
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start: 1972
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role: "projects manager; arranged the visit to SRI on December 8, 1972 with consultants Hyman and Van de Castle"
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fn: 1
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@ -42,10 +42,10 @@ relations:
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role: "Army Research Institute project monitor"
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fn: 4
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created: 2026-05-17
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updated: 2026-10-05
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updated: 2026-10-08
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---
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George H. Lawrence was a psychologist and a projects manager at the [[Advanced Research Projects Agency]] (ARPA) of the [[Department of Defense]] in the early 1970s. He visited the [[Stanford Research Institute]] (SRI) on December 8, 1972, with his consultants [[Ray Hyman]] and [[Robert Van de Castle]], to see the work of [[Hal Puthoff]] and [[Russell Targ]] with [[Uri Geller]],[^1] and *[[Time]]* of March 12, 1973 reported that neither he nor Hyman was impressed.[^2] According to a CIA note of February 28, 1973, the magazine's science editor named him as the source of a skeptical article, which Lawrence denied.[^3] By 1984 he was a staff member of the [[U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences]], and from 1985 to 1988 he served as its project monitor for the [[National Research Council]] committee whose report on techniques for enhancing human performance included a chapter on parapsychology.[^4]
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George H. Lawrence was a psychologist and a projects manager at the [[DARPA|Advanced Research Projects Agency]] (ARPA) of the [[Department of Defense]] in the early 1970s. He visited the [[Stanford Research Institute]] (SRI) on December 8, 1972, with his consultants [[Ray Hyman]] and [[Robert Van de Castle]], to see the work of [[Hal Puthoff]] and [[Russell Targ]] with [[Uri Geller]],[^1] and *[[Time]]* of March 12, 1973 reported that neither he nor Hyman was impressed.[^2] According to a CIA note of February 28, 1973, the magazine's science editor named him as the source of a skeptical article, which Lawrence denied.[^3] By 1984 he was a staff member of the [[U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences]], and from 1985 to 1988 he served as its project monitor for the [[National Research Council]] committee whose report on techniques for enhancing human performance included a chapter on parapsychology.[^4]
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### The visit of December 8, 1972
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@ -67,7 +67,7 @@ A note of February 28, 1973, "More Geller Business," records that the science ed
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### Later accounts
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A staff study prepared for the Army's [[Center Lane]] program in 1983 includes an article by Dr. [[Roger A. Beaumont]], "On the Strategic Potential of ESP," which says that "in 1972, the [[Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency]] sent a team to evaluate Stanford Research Institute's claimed results with spoon-bender Geller. The team was headed by Dr. George Lawrence, a psychologist who is open-minded on the subject of parapsychology," and that "the team's report was totally negative."[^11] A [[Defense Intelligence College]] thesis of 1992 by Captain [[Michael Zarbo]], citing [[Ronald McRae]]'s *[[Mind Wars]]* (1984), states that "DARPA's director, Dr. George Lawrence, was ordered by his superiors to find something to satisfy Congressional demands to match purported Soviet efforts in the field."[^11]
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A staff study prepared for the Army's [[Center Lane]] program in 1983 includes an article by Dr. [[Roger A. Beaumont]], "On the Strategic Potential of ESP," which says that "in 1972, the [[Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency]] sent a team to evaluate Stanford Research Institute's claimed results with spoon-bender Geller. The team was headed by Dr. George Lawrence, a psychologist who is open-minded on the subject of parapsychology," and that "the team's report was totally negative."[^11] A [[Defense Intelligence College]] thesis of 1992 by Captain [[Michael Zarbo]], citing [[Ronald McRae]]'s *[[Mind Wars]]* (1984), states that Lawrence "was ordered by his superiors to find something to satisfy Congressional demands to match purported Soviet efforts in the field."[^11]
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### The Army Research Institute
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@ -77,7 +77,7 @@ A memorandum of January 31, 1995, ORD-0143-95, from the CIA's Director of Resear
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### Footnotes
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[^1]: Hyman, Ray. "Psychics and Scientists: 'Mind-Reach' and Remote Viewing." *The Humanist,* May/June 1977, pp. 16-20 and following (visit of December 8, 1972), CIA-RDP96-00787R000200080037-4. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
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[^1]: Hyman, Ray. "Psychics and Scientists: 'Mind-Reach' and Remote Viewing." *The Humanist,* May/June 1977, pp. 16-20 and following (visit of December 8, 1972), CIA-RDP96-00787R000200080037-4. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection. Jim Schnabel, *Remote Viewers* (Dell, 1997), p. 138, dates the visit of the agency's three-man team to early 1973.
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[^2]: "The Magician and the Think Tank," *Time,* March 12, 1973, as held in CIA-RDP96-00787R000400100023-4. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
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[^3]: Note for the record, "More Geller Business," February 28, 1973, CIA-RDP96-00787R000400070022-9. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
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[^4]: Druckman, Daniel, and John A. Swets, eds. *Enhancing Human Performance: Issues, Theories, and Techniques.* Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1988, preface and references (Lawrence, G. H., *Biofeedback and Performance: An Update,* Technical Report 658, U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences, Alexandria, Virginia, 1984; Lawrence and Johnson, 1977), read in ERIC document ED296127, archive.org, and in the CIA Reading Room copy CIA-RDP96-00791R000200320001-1.
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@ -87,6 +87,6 @@ A memorandum of January 31, 1995, ORD-0143-95, from the CIA's Director of Resear
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[^8]: Memorandum for the record, "Paranormal Phenomena: Further Developments / Reflections / Suggestions," February 2, 1973, CIA-RDP96-00787R000400070025-6. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
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[^9]: Jacobsen, Annie. *Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis.* Little, Brown and Company, 2017.
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[^10]: "Boom Times on the Psychic Frontier," *Time,* cover story, March 4, 1974, as held in CIA-RDP96-00787R000100030002-8. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
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[^11]: Beaumont, Roger A. "On the Strategic Potential of ESP," in the 1983 Center Lane staff study, CIA-RDP96-00788R001700360003-3. Zarbo, Michael E. *Remote Viewing: Parapsychological Potential for Intelligence Collection?,* master's thesis, Defense Intelligence College, November 1992, CIA-RDP96-00789R002600250001-6. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
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[^11]: Beaumont, Roger A. "On the Strategic Potential of ESP," in the 1983 Center Lane staff study, CIA-RDP96-00788R001700360003-3. Zarbo, Michael E. *Remote Viewing: Parapsychological Potential for Intelligence Collection?,* master's thesis, Defense Intelligence College, November 1992, CIA-RDP96-00789R002600250001-6. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection. The thesis introduces the sentence as "DARPA's director, Dr. George Lawrence" and cites McRae, *Mind Wars,* p. 107 (thesis note 71); the Institute for Defense Analyses history of the agency (Richard H. Van Atta, Seymour J. Deitchman and Sidney G. Reed, *DARPA Technical Accomplishments,* vol. III, IDA Paper P-2538, 1991, DTIC ADA241680) lists Stephen Lukasik, from 1971, and George Heilmeier as its directors in the period.
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[^12]: Memorandum, Director of Research and Development to the Associate Deputy Director for Military Affairs, "Request for Military Liaison Support," ORD-0143-95, January 31, 1995, CIA-RDP96-00791R000100140001-2 and CIA-RDP96-00791R000100140004-9. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
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[^13]: May, Edwin C. "The American Institutes for Research Review of the Department of Defense's STAR GATE Program: A Commentary," *Journal of Parapsychology,* vol. 60, no. 1, 1996, pp. 3-23.
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@ -1,9 +1,10 @@
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---
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title: George Morales
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aliases:
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- Jorge Morales
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- George Morales
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created: 2026-05-17
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updated: 2026-05-17
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updated: 2026-10-08
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category: "Organized Crime"
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tags:
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- Person
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@ -19,7 +20,9 @@ George Morales was a major Colombian cocaine trafficker who operated during the
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### Support to the Contras
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In March 1984, three Contra officials with close CIA ties ([[Octaviano Cesar]], ARDE logistics chief [[Adolfo Chamorro|Adolfo "Popo" Chamorro]], and ARDE air force commander [[Marcos Aguado]]) met with Morales at his offices in [[Fort Lauderdale]] and asked him to contribute to Pastora's army. "During our conversation they told me they were CIA agents. Two of them said they were, Octaviano Cesar and Marcos Aguado," Morales testified before Congress in 1986. Cesar assured Morales that if he assisted the Contras, his legal problems from the pending cocaine indictment would disappear: "He told me he had plenty of friends, being him, the CIA, can advise the superiors about my financial support and airplane and training and therefore they will finally, eventually, will take care of my problem, which they did." During the entire time Morales worked with the Contras on drug deals, no action was taken on his pending indictment. When he started talking to U.S. Senate investigators about his Contra dealings two years later, the case moved quickly to trial and conviction.[^1]
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In March 1984, three Contra officials with close CIA ties ([[Octaviano Cesar]], ARDE logistics chief [[Adolfo Chamorro|Adolfo "Popo" Chamorro]], and ARDE air force commander [[Marcos Aguado]]) met with Morales at his offices in [[Fort Lauderdale]] and asked him to contribute to Pastora's army. Morales testified before the Senate subcommittee on July 15, 1987 that the Contra leaders "represent themselves as CIA agents," and on April 7, 1988 that "they told me that they were CIA agents. Two of them said they were," naming Cesar and Aguado.[^2][^3] Cesar assured Morales that if he assisted the Contras, his legal problems from the pending cocaine indictment would disappear: "He told me he had plenty of friends, being him, the CIA, can advise the superiors about my financial support and airplane and training and therefore they will finally, eventually, will take care of my problem, which they did." During the entire time Morales worked with the Contras on drug deals, no action was taken on his pending indictment. When he started talking to U.S. Senate investigators about his Contra dealings two years later, the case moved quickly to trial and conviction.[^1]
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The subcommittee report instead says that [[Marta Healey]] introduced Morales to Chamorro, Aguado and Cesar at a meeting in [[Miami]], when Morales was under indictment for marijuana smuggling, and that each of the three denied knowing of the indictment when they first met him at Healey's house.[^4] The Justice Department Inspector General records Morales saying that after Healey's May 1984 approach he met Cesar, Chamorro and Aguado in Miami.[^5]
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Morales later passed a DEA-administered lie detector test about his drug dealings with the Contras. Two pilots who flew the Contra drug missions for him - [[Fabio Ernesto Carrasco]] and [[Gary Betzner|Gary Wayne Betzner]] - confirmed his story under oath as U.S. government witnesses.[^1]
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@ -29,10 +32,18 @@ Morales and his pilots flew planeloads of weapons to a ranch in northern Costa R
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### Aircraft Donations
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Morales gave the Contras an aged C-47 cargo plane stored in [[Haiti]], plus $10,000 for operating costs. The airplane was officially transferred from Morales to Marcos Aguado for $1 on October 1, 1984. Between October 18, 1984 and February 12, 1986, the C-47 moved 156,000 pounds of material from [[Ilopango Airbase|Ilopango Air Force Base]] in [[El Salvador]] to airfields in Costa Rica. Investigative reporter Jonathan Kwitny obtained the refueling receipts and confirmed the plane "was repeatedly piloted into and out of Ilopango Air Force Base in El Salvador by Marcos Aguado." Morales contended the C-47 continued from Ilopango to Colombia, where it was reloaded with drugs before flying back to Florida.[^1]
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Morales gave the Contras an aged C-47 cargo plane stored in [[Haiti]], and the Senate subcommittee found that $10,000 was given to Chamorro to cover the cost of flying it to Ilopango.[^4] The airplane was officially transferred from Morales to Marcos Aguado for $1 on October 1, 1984. Between October 18, 1984 and February 12, 1986, the C-47 moved 156,000 pounds of material from [[Ilopango Airbase|Ilopango Air Force Base]] in [[El Salvador]] to airfields in Costa Rica. Investigative reporter Jonathan Kwitny obtained the refueling receipts and confirmed the plane "was repeatedly piloted into and out of Ilopango Air Force Base in El Salvador by Marcos Aguado." Morales contended the C-47 continued from Ilopango to Colombia, where it was reloaded with drugs before flying back to Florida.[^1]
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When Aguado quit the war in May 1986, he sold the airplane to [[Norwin Meneses]] for $30,000. In 1997, Aguado said the C-47 was still being used by Meneses in Venezuela.[^1]
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### Aguado and the Cocaine Flights
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The Justice Department Inspector General's account of the Morales debriefing records that in June 1983 Contra pilots Aguado and [[Gerardo Duran]] flew a group that included members of the [[Medellin Cartel]] into Opa Locka airport, and that John Hull accompanied the group without taking part in the meeting. Morales said that Aguado refused to fly the cocaine shipments because of his "CIA connections."[^5] A Customs Service record given to the subcommittee showed Morales entering the United States from the [[Bahamas]] on October 13, 1984 with Aguado, Cesar and Chamorro, carrying $400,000 in cash and checks, which the three declared and said were returned to Morales after clearing customs.[^4]
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### Footnotes
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[^1]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 11: "They were looking in the other direction"
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[^2]: U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, *Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy: Hearings ... May 27, July 15, and October 30, 1987*, Part 1 (1988), testimony of Jorge Morales, July 15, 1987, https://archive.org/details/micro_IA41152832_0003
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[^3]: U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, *Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy: The Cartel, Haiti and Central America*, Part 3, hearing of April 7, 1988, testimony of Jorge Morales (pp. 297 to 300) and videotaped depositions of October 31, 1987, https://archive.org/details/micro_IA41152832_0005. Gary Webb, in Dark Alliance (1998), dates the "CIA agents" statement to 1986 congressional testimony, and his chapter notes give April 7, 1986 and March 27, 1987.
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[^4]: 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), pp. 37, 50 to 52, https://archive.org/details/Kerry-Report-Drugs-Contras
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[^5]: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, *The CIA-Contra-Crack Cocaine Controversy* (December 1997), Chapter XI, section on the debriefing of George Morales, https://irp.fas.org/agency/doj/oig/c4rpt/ch11p1.htm
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@ -3,14 +3,32 @@ category: "Authors & Journalists"
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tags:
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- Person
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summary: "Gérald Messadié was the editor of *Science et Vie*, a top French science journal."
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born: 1931
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died: 2018
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aliases:
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- Gérald Messadié
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- Gerald Messadie
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relations:
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- type: participant_in
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with: "[[The Nautilus (Telepathy Project)]]"
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start: 1960
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role: "author of the Science et Vie article of February 1960"
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fn: 1
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updated: 2026-10-08
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---
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Gérald Messadié was the editor of *Science et Vie*, a top French science journal. In February 1960, his journal published an expanded version of [[Jacques Bergier]]'s story about a secret government [[Extrasensory Perception|ESP]] program, which Martin Ebon, Jim Schnabel and the Parapsychology Foundation title "The Secret of the Nautilus"; the 1972 DIA report and Ostrander and Schroeder cite it as "Du Nautilus," and I. V. Tsykunov as "Une étrange expérience à bord du «Nautilus»," issue no. 509, pages 30 to 35.[^1]
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Gérald Messadié was the editor of *Science et Vie*, a top French science journal. In February 1960, his journal published an expanded version of [[Jacques Bergier]]'s story about a secret government [[Extrasensory Perception|ESP]] program, titled "The Secret of the Nautilus"[^1].
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[[Martin Ebon]] visited Messadié in his Paris office in the summer of 1980. He wrote that Messadié's view was then that the whole thing was probably a hoax, that he regretted having published it, and that he had assumed his source was beyond question. According to Ebon, Messadié named Jacques Bergier, editorial adviser to the magazine, as that source, and recalled that when Bergier said "in a most affirmative tone that the U.S. Navy had engaged in telepathic research aboard the Nautilus," he and the editor-in-chief of the time, Daniel Vincendon, "did not resist his authority." Messadié is quoted as saying that Bergier "was sometimes prone to elaborations that verged on pranks, not to say hoaxes."[^2] The Parapsychology Foundation reported in 1963 that Science et Vie had received no report of the experiment from its regular New York correspondent or from Science Service and that its editors had not disclosed their source.[^3] [[Jim Schnabel]] wrote that Messadié "would admit that he had probably been fooled."[^4] I. V. Tsykunov gives his years as 1931 to 2018 and writes that he edited the magazine for 25 years.[^5]
|
||||
|
||||
Messadié stated in an interview that his information for the article came from Bergier and "other sources," who confirmed the story on condition of anonymity. The article identified [[J. B. Rhine]] of the [[Duke University Parapsychology Laboratory]] as the civilian scientist assigned to the project, reporting a high success rate for telepathic communication[^1].
|
||||
According to Annie Jacobsen, Messadié stated in an interview that his information for the article came from Bergier and "other sources," who confirmed the story on condition of anonymity. The article identified [[J. B. Rhine]] of the [[Duke University Parapsychology Laboratory]] as the civilian scientist assigned to the project, reporting a high success rate for telepathic communication[^1].
|
||||
|
||||
Despite the [[U.S. Navy]]'s denial of the story as a hoax, Messadié's publication contributed to the widespread attention given to the alleged ESP experiments aboard the [[USS Nautilus]]. This, in turn, had significant real-world consequences, as the [[Soviet Union|Soviets]] used the news to stimulate their own [[Parapsychology|parapsychology]] research. [[Leonid Vasiliev|Leonid L. Vasilev]], Russia's leading ESP researcher, claimed that Soviet parapsychology research was stimulated by the *Nautilus* reports[^1].
|
||||
The [[U.S. Navy]] denied the reports. Messadié's publication drew wide attention to the reported ESP experiments aboard the [[The Nautilus|USS Nautilus]], and the [[Soviet Union|Soviets]] used the news to stimulate their own [[Parapsychology|parapsychology]] research. [[Leonid Vasiliev|Leonid L. Vasilev]], Russia's leading ESP researcher, claimed that Soviet parapsychology research was stimulated by the *Nautilus* reports[^1].
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Jacobsen, Annie. *Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis*. Little, Brown and Company, 2017.
|
||||
[^2]: Ebon, Martin. *Psychic Warfare: Threat or Illusion?* McGraw-Hill, 1983, chapter 3, pp. 29-31.
|
||||
[^3]: Newsletter of the Parapsychology Foundation, "Nautilus Hoax Exposed," vol. 10, no. 6, November-December 1963, citing This Week, September 8, 1963. NSA-RDP96X00790R000100040002-2, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/nsa-rdp96x00790r000100040002-2.
|
||||
[^4]: Schnabel, Jim. *Remote Viewers: The Secret History of America's Psychic Spies*. Dell, 1997, pp. 90-93. Sole source for the passages so cited.
|
||||
[^5]: Tsykunov, I. V. "От фантазии к реальности: как история «Наутилуса» открыла гонку сверхъестественных вооружений между СССР и США" [From fantasy to reality: how the story of the Nautilus opened the race for supernatural weapons between the USSR and the USA]. Aliter, no. 20 (2023), pp. 34-55. https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/ot-fantazii-k-realnosti-kak-istoriya-nautilusa-otkryla-gonku-sverhestestvennyh-vooruzheniy-mezhdu-sssr-i-ssha. Sole source for the passages so cited.
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -11,7 +11,7 @@ summary: John Hull was a CIA operative whose ranch in northern Costa Rica served
|
|||
---
|
||||
John Hull was an American [[Central Intelligence Agency]] operative who lived on a ranch in northern [[Costa Rica]] during the [[Contras|Contra]] war, posing as a midwestern farmer managing plantations for wealthy investors. In reality, Hull's ranch served as a training area and hiding place for Contra soldiers; it was where the [[Legion of September 15]] gathered before its bungled raid on the Argentine radio station in 1980.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
Hull was the CIA's unofficial liaison to the Contras in northern Costa Rica and a close associate of [[Marcos Aguado]], a CIA-trained pilot and business associate of [[Norwin Meneses]]. Colombian trafficker [[George Morales]] and his pilots flew planeloads of weapons to Hull's ranch, where after dropping off arms, large green duffel bags full of cocaine belonging to the Contras were loaded aboard for return flights to the United States, usually to [[Opa Locka]], Florida.[^1]
|
||||
Hull was the CIA's unofficial liaison to the Contras in northern Costa Rica and according to Gary Webb a close associate of [[Marcos Aguado]], whom Webb calls a CIA-trained pilot and business associate of [[Norwin Meneses]].[^2] Colombian trafficker [[George Morales]] and his pilots flew planeloads of weapons to Hull's ranch, where after dropping off arms, large green duffel bags full of cocaine belonging to the Contras were loaded aboard for return flights to the United States, usually to [[Opa Locka]], Florida.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Drug Flight Evidence
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
@ -19,13 +19,17 @@ Former CIA official [[Alan Fiers|Alan Fiers Jr.]], who oversaw the Contra progra
|
|||
|
||||
Pilot [[Fabio Ernesto Carrasco|"Tito" Carrasco]], who flew drug missions for Morales in and out of Hull's ranch, testified that one of [[Eden Pastora|Pastora's]] commanders assured him the CIA was protecting the flights from Costa Rica all the way into Florida.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
On July 31, 1987, Fiers briefed the [[Senate Select Committee on Intelligence]] on Hull's alleged relationship with Morales. According to the committee transcript as quoted by the CIA Inspector General, Fiers said that Morales "saw John Hull in his, Morales' office, with [Marcos] Aguado in 1983. However, Morales didn't meet him. He didn't want to." The Inspector General also reports that on March 7, 1989 a Costa Rican judge charged Hull with "hostile acts" and "drug trafficking," and that Costa Rican court documents claimed Hull and Contra pilot [[Gerardo Duran]] had met Morales in Miami to discuss the sale of drugs and weapons, and that planes piloted by Duran and Aguado had landed at Hull's airstrips carrying military supplies and, with Hull's knowledge, left loaded with drugs. The Inspector General quotes Hull's reply to the allegations of [[Gary Betzner|Gary Wayne Betzner]]: "not true, not true! He made it up. He was coached."[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Kelso Visit
|
||||
|
||||
In August 1986, [[Joseph Kelso]], a CIA and [[U.S. Customs]] informant fleeing [[DEA]] agents in Costa Rica, arrived at Hull's ranch seeking refuge. Kelso told Hull and [[Robert Owen|Rob Owen]] that DEA agents had maps of cocaine lab locations but were protecting them, including "one large lab located in southern Nicoya. And another in Talamanca region." Hull wrote a detailed report and gave it to Owen to deliver to [[Oliver North]], noting: "If the DEA people are in the drug business it should be stopped." Hull eventually concluded Kelso was telling the truth: "He was giving me locations of cocaine labs in Costa Rica and who they belonged to and then a week later one of them was busted and it was right where he said it was."[^2]
|
||||
In August 1986, [[Joseph Kelso]], a CIA and [[U.S. Customs]] informant fleeing [[DEA]] agents in Costa Rica, arrived at Hull's ranch seeking refuge. Kelso told Hull and [[Robert Owen|Rob Owen]] that DEA agents had maps of cocaine lab locations but were protecting them, including "one large lab located in southern Nicoya. And another in Talamanca region." Hull wrote a detailed report and gave it to Owen to deliver to [[Oliver North]], noting: "If the DEA people are in the drug business it should be stopped." Hull eventually concluded Kelso was telling the truth: "He was giving me locations of cocaine labs in Costa Rica and who they belonged to and then a week later one of them was busted and it was right where he said it was."[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
The next morning, Costa Rican Rural Guards awakened Kelso with automatic rifle fire and beat him with rifle butts. A colonel told Hull the embassy said Kelso "should be shot if he resisted arrest." Hull's Contras surrounded the guards with 12-gauge riot guns. Hull broke up the standoff but permitted the guards to take Kelso away.[^2]
|
||||
The next morning, Costa Rican Rural Guards awakened Kelso with automatic rifle fire and beat him with rifle butts. A colonel told Hull the embassy said Kelso "should be shot if he resisted arrest." Hull's Contras surrounded the guards with 12-gauge riot guns. Hull broke up the standoff but permitted the guards to take Kelso away.[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 11: "They were looking in the other direction"
|
||||
[^2]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 17: "We're going to blow your fucking head off"
|
||||
[^2]: Gary Webb, *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion* (Seven Stories Press, 1998), Chapter 13, "The wrong kind of friends," and Cast of Characters. Sole source for the passages so cited.
|
||||
[^3]: CIA Inspector General, *Allegations of Connections Between CIA and the Contras in Cocaine Trafficking to the United States*, Volume II (October 8, 1998), chapter on other individuals (John Hull; March 7, 1989 reporting; July 31, 1987 SSCI briefing transcript), https://irp.fas.org/cia/product/cocaine2/other.html
|
||||
[^4]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 17: "We're going to blow your fucking head off"
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -11,6 +11,7 @@ tags:
|
|||
- CIA
|
||||
- SRI
|
||||
summary: "Kress was the lead analyst assigned to the operation involving Pat Price's Remote Viewing of URDF-3, a highly classified Soviet research and development facility in Kazakhstan."
|
||||
updated: 2026-10-08
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Kenneth A. Kress was a physicist, engineer, and analyst with the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]]. He is considered by some to be the "father of America's remote-viewing program" as he was responsible for giving [[Stanford Research Institute|SRI]] its first [[Psi]] research contract in 1972[^1]. Kress, then a young, dark-haired engineer, was instrumental in bringing [[Hal Puthoff]] and [[Ingo Swann]] into the Central Intelligence Agency's orbit for psychic research[^1].
|
||||
|
|
@ -39,6 +40,8 @@ The office had spent 874 dollars on a few days' work in August 1972 and 2,500 mo
|
|||
|
||||
His review, "Parapsychology in Intelligence: A Personal Review and Conclusions," appeared in the classified *Studies in Intelligence* in the winter of 1977 and was declassified in 1996. It recorded the briefing of Director [[George H.W. Bush|George Bush]] in 1976, [[Stansfield Turner]]'s public acknowledgment of 1977, and the state of interest at DIA, DARPA, the Navy, and the Air Force, and ended: "This is not to say that parapsychology is a proven intelligence tool; it is to say that the evaluation is not yet complete and more research is needed." In a postscript of January 1999 for its reprinting he mentioned a later "secure line call from a person who identified himself as an FBI agent" and wrote: "Me, I remain a skeptical agnostic." Representative [[Charles Rose]] was briefed at OTS by its chief, [[David Brandwein]], on February 9, 1978.[^2][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
In the review Kress wrote that the [[DARPA|Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency]] "reported that they had not only a showing of interest but a hostile response as well," and that "The SRI contractors and I went to a briefing where we had a several-hour confrontation with an assemblage of hostile DARPA people who had been convened especially to debunk our results." He wrote that after "a long, inconclusive, emotional discussion" they left and that "Contacts with DARPA stopped for several years." He wrote that the Navy reviewed part of the work, that minor funding was provided to SRI by the Navy to replicate one of SRI's earlier experiments under more controlled conditions, and that the Navy then became very concerned about the research being "mind warfare"-related and stopped funding.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Jacobsen, Annie. *Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis*. Little, Brown and Company, 2017.
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -20,13 +20,26 @@ Johnson's ties to [[Israel]] were strong, influenced by his close advisers like
|
|||
|
||||
Johnson's strong emotional ties to Israel and his belief that Soviet arms were altering the balance of power in the [[Middle East]] drove him to become the first American President to supply Israel with offensive weapons and the first publicly to commit America to its defense. In the early years of his presidency, he echoed Kennedy's policy by urging Israel to submit [[Dimona]] to [[International Atomic Energy Agency|IAEA]] inspection, motivated by his belief that a nuclear Israel could lead to a nuclear [[Egypt]], increased Soviet involvement, and potentially war.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Intelligence during the June 1967 crisis and war
|
||||
|
||||
On the morning of May 23, 1967, Johnson summoned [[Richard Helms]] from a congressional briefing and asked for an assessment of the Middle East situation. [[David S. Robarge]], the CIA's chief historian, writes that Johnson declined to airlift special military supplies to Israel or to support it publicly, and quotes Johnson's later recollection of telling the Israeli foreign minister [[Abba Eban]] on May 26: "All of our intelligence people are unanimous that if the UAR attacks, you will whip hell out of them."[^2] On May 25 [[Walt Rostow]] sent Johnson an Israeli intelligence estimate with a CIA appraisal attached that, in Rostow's words, "throws a great deal of cold water on the Israeli estimate"; a handwritten "L" on the memorandum indicates that the President saw it.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
On June 5, 1967, Johnson told congressional leaders that he had been expecting Israel's move, which Robarge attributes to CIA analyses and a tip from Helms. Helms recalled that "in the midst of one meeting" during the war Johnson asked how accurate his intelligence was on the progress of the war, and that he answered it was accurate "just as long as the Israelis are winning."[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
Notes of the [[National Security Council]] Special Committee meeting of June 9 record [[Clark Clifford]] saying that the attack on the [[USS Liberty Incident|USS Liberty]] should be handled "as if Arabs or USSR had done it" and calling it "Inconceivable that it was accident"; the note-taker's marginal notation next to the remarks reads: "President subscribed 100%."[^4] On June 12 Johnson requested a special study on the strafing and torpedoing of the ship, covering pilot conversations and "everything we can get" from the [[NSA|National Security Agency]]; Rostow sent a preliminary CIA report on June 13 as the "CIA's first cut at the problem," noting "They do not find evidence of U.S. identification before the attack."[^5] On June 26 Rostow sent Johnson the proposed public release of the Navy Court of Inquiry summary, noting that the Israelis had asked for 24 hours of lead time and that Deputy Secretary of Defense [[Cyrus Vance]] was inclined to give 12; the 12-hour option is the one checked.[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
### Bobby Baker
|
||||
|
||||
Lyndon B. Johnson served as the 36th President of the United States. His rise to power emanated directly from his friends in Texas oil, including the [[Clint Murchison, Sr.|Murchison family]].[^2]
|
||||
Lyndon B. Johnson served as the 36th President of the United States. His rise to power emanated directly from his friends in Texas oil, including the [[Clint Murchison, Sr.|Murchison family]].[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
As Senate Majority Leader, Johnson made [[Bobby Baker]] his secretary of the Senate Democrats in 1955, referring to Baker as "my strong right arm, the last man I see at night, the first I see in the morning." A major scandal brewed around Baker in the autumn of 1963, involving numerous questionable deals that were tightly interwoven with the Murchison family and organized crime figures.[^2]
|
||||
As Senate Majority Leader, Johnson made [[Bobby Baker]] his secretary of the Senate Democrats in 1955, referring to Baker as "my strong right arm, the last man I see at night, the first I see in the morning." A major scandal brewed around Baker in the autumn of 1963, involving numerous questionable deals that were tightly interwoven with the Murchison family and organized crime figures.[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy*. Random House, 1991. Chapter 9.
|
||||
[^2]: Seymour, Cheri. *The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro’s Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal*. First Edition. TrineDay, 2010.
|
||||
[^2]: Robarge, David S. "Getting it Right: CIA Analysis of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War." *Studies in Intelligence* 49, no. 1 (March 2005). https://www.cia.gov/resources/csi/static/CIA-Analysis-1967-War.pdf Robarge quotes Helms's memoir and Johnson's The Vantage Point.
|
||||
[^3]: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, vol. XIX, Document 61, Memorandum from Rostow to President Johnson, May 25, 1967, with attached CIA appraisal. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v19/d61
|
||||
[^4]: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, vol. XIX, Document 236, Notes of a Meeting of the Special Committee of the National Security Council, June 9, 1967 (Saunders's handwritten notes). https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v19/d236
|
||||
[^5]: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, vol. XIX, Document 284, Intelligence Memorandum, "The Israeli Attack on the USS Liberty," June 13, 1967, with source note on Helms's notes of the June 12 meeting and Rostow's covering memorandum of June 13. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v19/d284
|
||||
[^6]: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, vol. XIX, Document 324, Memorandum from Rostow to President Johnson, June 26, 1967. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v19/d324
|
||||
[^7]: Seymour, Cheri. *The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro’s Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal*. First Edition. TrineDay, 2010.
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -11,7 +11,7 @@ aliases:
|
|||
- El Perico
|
||||
- El Maestro
|
||||
created: 2026-05-17
|
||||
updated: 2026-10-05
|
||||
updated: 2026-10-08
|
||||
category: "Organized Crime"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Person
|
||||
|
|
@ -65,7 +65,7 @@ relations:
|
|||
role: "San Francisco historical conspiracy case and 1989 fugitive file"
|
||||
fn: 19
|
||||
---
|
||||
Norwin Meneses Cantarero, born June 21, 1943, and known in Nicaragua as "El Rey de la Droga" and "El Perico," was a [[Nicaragua|Nicaraguan]] cocaine trafficker who moved between [[Managua]], the [[San Francisco]] Bay Area and [[Costa Rica]].[^1] From 1980 the [[DEA]] and the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] opened a series of cases on his family's organization, in which his nephews and associates were convicted and he was not; from July 1986 the DEA's Costa Rica office used him as a source and then as an informant while the FBI in San Francisco was assembling a case against him; a sealed federal indictment followed in 1989; and Nicaraguan police arrested him on November 3, 1991 with 764 kilograms of cocaine.[^1][^2] [[Gary Webb]] wrote that he was the [[Cali Drug Cartel|Cali cartel's]] representative in Nicaragua and a recruiter, arms supplier and benefactor of the [[Contras]]; the Justice Department's Inspector General found he gave the Contras little, dealt with all sides, and had no CIA connection.[^3][^1]
|
||||
Norwin Meneses Cantarero, born June 21, 1943, and known in Nicaragua as "El Rey de la Droga" and "El Perico," was a [[Nicaragua|Nicaraguan]] cocaine trafficker who moved between [[Managua]], the [[San Francisco]] Bay Area and [[Costa Rica]].[^1] From 1980 the [[DEA]] and the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] opened a series of cases on his family's organization, in which his nephews and associates were convicted and he was not; from July 1986 the DEA's Costa Rica office used him as a source and then as an informant while the FBI in San Francisco was assembling a case against him; a sealed federal indictment followed in 1989; and Nicaraguan police arrested him on November 3, 1991 with 764 kilograms of cocaine.[^1][^2] [[Gary Webb]] wrote that he was the [[Cali Drug Cartel|Cali cartel's]] representative in Nicaragua and a recruiter, arms supplier and benefactor of the [[Contras]]; the Justice Department's Inspector General found he gave the Contras little, dealt with all sides, and had no CIA connection.[^1][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Family and early record
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
@ -89,9 +89,9 @@ Jairo Meneses's lawyer told the DEA's Office of Professional Responsibility in J
|
|||
|
||||
### The Contras
|
||||
|
||||
The records agree that Meneses attended Contra meetings in San Francisco and gave some money; they disagree on how much and why. Meneses told the CIA's Inspector General that between 1983 and 1984 his main role was recruiting Nicaraguans for the [[FDN]] at the request of [[Enrique Bermudez|Enrique Bermúdez]], that he sat on a fundraising committee without leading it, that he gave at most about $3,000 between 1982 and 1984, and that Bermúdez "was very strict and did not want anyone involved in drugs." He told the Justice Department he gave about $3,000 between 1982 and 1985 and denied that he or anyone sold drugs for the Contras.[^8][^5] Webb quoted Meneses as saying he became Bermúdez's "intelligence and security adviser in California," that Bermúdez was a friend since he was a lieutenant, that Edmundo had known Bermúdez since childhood, and that "nobody would join the Contra forces down there without my knowledge and approval." Webb cited [[Dennis Ainsworth]], a San Francisco Contra supporter, telling the FBI in 1987 that Meneses and Bermúdez dealt arms and drugs, and later telling Webb that Meneses "was national. And he was totally protected."[^4]
|
||||
The records agree that Meneses attended Contra meetings in San Francisco and gave some money; they disagree on how much and why. Meneses told the CIA's Inspector General that between 1983 and 1984 his main role was recruiting Nicaraguans for the [[FDN]] at the request of [[Enrique Bermudez|Enrique Bermúdez]], that he sat on a fundraising committee without leading it, that he gave at most about $3,000 between 1982 and 1984, and that Bermúdez "was very strict and did not want anyone involved in drugs." He told the Justice Department he gave about $3,000 between 1982 and 1985 and denied that he or anyone sold drugs for the Contras.[^5][^8] Webb quoted Meneses as saying he became Bermúdez's "intelligence and security adviser in California," that Bermúdez was a friend since he was a lieutenant, that Edmundo had known Bermúdez since childhood, and that "nobody would join the Contra forces down there without my knowledge and approval." Webb cited [[Dennis Ainsworth]], a San Francisco Contra supporter, telling the FBI in 1987 that Meneses and Bermúdez dealt arms and drugs, and later telling Webb that Meneses "was national. And he was totally protected."[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Adolfo Calero]] told the Inspector General he met Meneses at Contra social events in San Francisco, that Meneses never held an FDN position, that Bermúdez told him Meneses had visited the Contras' first Honduran camp and given the troops a crossbow, and that he would have remembered receiving $500. The Examiner reported on June 23, 1986 that Calero said he had met Meneses as many as four times.[^5] [[Edgar Chamorro]] told the Examiner that he and [[Frank Arana]] flew to San Francisco in October 1982 to name local FDN leaders, that Meneses stood in the back of the meeting, helped arrange a Los Angeles meeting the next day, and was "one of the main contacts in L.A."; Renato Pena, the self-styled FDN representative in northern California from late 1982 to mid-1984, told federal investigators in 1997 that he heard Meneses telephone Bermúdez in Honduras and relay requests for silencers, crossbows and military equipment.[^9][^5] The FDN representative who replaced Pena, Tony Navarro, said Meneses came to a couple of meetings, was never a member and, as far as he knew, gave nothing; the Contra supporter Carlos Rocha put Meneses's gifts at perhaps $5,000; "David Morrison" recalled hearing of a $40,000 donation in 1981 and that Meneses traded weapons for cocaine paste with the Sandinistas.[^5][^6] The Inspector General found Navarro, Rocha and LA CI-1 substantially credible and found no concrete evidence, "such as bank records or drug ledgers," that money from Blandón or Meneses reached the Contras; it concluded that Meneses's reputation preceded him in the exile community, so that people dealing with him "knew or should have known" his money was probably illicit.[^5] The Inspector General also reported that several people familiar with him said he "lacked any political allegiance and would deal with anyone who would provide cocaine at the lowest price," and that Jairo Meneses told prosecutors in 1986 he dealt with leaders of both the Contras and the Sandinistas, getting cocaine from Sandinista officials through Margarita Castana, a niece of the Sandinista commander Bayardo Arce.[^1][^5]
|
||||
[[Adolfo Calero]] told the Inspector General he met Meneses at Contra social events in San Francisco, that Meneses never held an FDN position, that Bermúdez told him Meneses had visited the Contras' first Honduran camp and given the troops a crossbow, and that he would have remembered receiving $500. The Examiner reported on June 23, 1986 that Calero said he had met Meneses as many as four times.[^5] [[Edgar Chamorro]] told the Examiner that he and [[Frank Arana]] flew to San Francisco in October 1982 to name local FDN leaders, that Meneses stood in the back of the meeting, helped arrange a Los Angeles meeting the next day, and was "one of the main contacts in L.A."; Renato Pena, the self-styled FDN representative in northern California from late 1982 to mid-1984, told federal investigators in 1997 that he heard Meneses telephone Bermúdez in Honduras and relay requests for silencers, crossbows and military equipment.[^5][^9] The FDN representative who replaced Pena, Tony Navarro, said Meneses came to a couple of meetings, was never a member and, as far as he knew, gave nothing; the Contra supporter Carlos Rocha put Meneses's gifts at perhaps $5,000; "David Morrison" recalled hearing of a $40,000 donation in 1981 and that Meneses traded weapons for cocaine paste with the Sandinistas.[^5][^6] The Inspector General found Navarro, Rocha and LA CI-1 substantially credible and found no concrete evidence, "such as bank records or drug ledgers," that money from Blandón or Meneses reached the Contras; it concluded that Meneses's reputation preceded him in the exile community, so that people dealing with him "knew or should have known" his money was probably illicit.[^5] The Inspector General also reported that several people familiar with him said he "lacked any political allegiance and would deal with anyone who would provide cocaine at the lowest price," and that Jairo Meneses told prosecutors in 1986 he dealt with leaders of both the Contras and the Sandinistas, getting cocaine from Sandinista officials through Margarita Castana, a niece of the Sandinista commander Bayardo Arce.[^1][^5]
|
||||
|
||||
In April 1986 a DEA analyst interviewed an informant the Inspector General calls SR3, who had worked on the Meneses investigation for three years and was considered extremely reliable; SR3 said Meneses was trafficking both for himself and to raise money for the Contras, that some proceeds bought weapons in Colombia, and that Meneses boasted that "United States agents would assist him." SR3 had no first-hand knowledge beyond what Meneses told him.[^5] Pena told the DEA in the early 1980s that the CIA allowed the Contras to fly drugs into the United States; the Inspector General records he did not repeat it, and told the inspectors he made six to eight trips carrying $600,000 to nearly $1 million from San Francisco to a Colombian called "Carlos" in Los Angeles and returned with six to eight kilograms of cocaine each time, and that "Carlos" said "we are helping your cause with this drug thing."[^5] A CIA domestic station cable of October 22, 1982, relaying an INS informant, reported links between a religious organization and two Nicaraguan counter-revolutionary groups involving "an exchange in the US of narcotics for arms" and a planned meeting in Costa Rica; the November 3 follow-up named Pena as one of four FDN representatives; headquarters instructed the station on November 13 not to pursue it because of the involvement of United States persons and said on November 17 that the informant had probably been misinformed.[^5][^8]
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
@ -99,7 +99,7 @@ Webb described Meneses's FDN role as public, with Contra functions at his homes,
|
|||
|
||||
### The Frogman network
|
||||
|
||||
Webb wrote that Meneses's Costa Rican pipeline ran through [[Horacio Pereira]] and [[Troilo Sanchez|Troilo Sánchez]], who supplied Peruvian cocaine hidden in woven baskets to Julio Zavala and Carlos Cabezas in San Francisco, with profits carried back to Costa Rica and Honduras.[^7] Cabezas told the Inspector General in 1997 that Meneses had no connection to the Zavala organization and was not affiliated with any Contra group; Troilo Sánchez said Pereira and Meneses had trafficked together since before Somoza fell; the FBI's November 8, 1982 teletype named Pereira "the major source of cocaine smuggling from Costa Rica to the United States."[^11][^12] The Senate's Kerry subcommittee reported that Pereira was convicted in Costa Rica in 1985 and sentenced to 12 years; the Justice Department's inspectors were told he was dead.[^13][^12]
|
||||
Webb wrote that Meneses's Costa Rican pipeline ran through [[Horacio Pereira]] and [[Troilo Sanchez|Troilo Sánchez]], who supplied Peruvian cocaine hidden in woven baskets to Julio Zavala and Carlos Cabezas in San Francisco, with profits carried back to Costa Rica and Honduras.[^7] Cabezas told the Inspector General in 1997 that Meneses had no connection to the Zavala organization and was not affiliated with any Contra group; Troilo Sánchez said Pereira and Meneses had trafficked together since before Somoza fell; the FBI's November 8, 1982 teletype named Pereira "the major source of cocaine smuggling from Costa Rica to the United States."[^11][^12] The Senate's Kerry subcommittee reported that Pereira was convicted in Costa Rica in 1985 and sentenced to 12 years; the Justice Department's inspectors were told he was dead.[^12][^13]
|
||||
|
||||
### Costa Rica
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
@ -111,21 +111,23 @@ In July 1986 Meneses went to the DEA's Costa Rica office and told agent [[Sandal
|
|||
|
||||
On October 9, 1986 Gonzalez opened a DEA case on Blandón on Meneses's information. On December 21, 1986 Meneses and DEA CI-1, an experienced informant who claimed to have worked for the CIA years before in Europe and the Soviet Union, left Costa Rica for Los Angeles in a plan Gonzalez filed as "Operation Perico." They met Blandón and [[Ivan Torres]] on January 7 and 15, 1987, and DEA CI-1 recorded that the traffickers called Meneses "El Maestro" and treated him as retired from the business two or three years before. The Los Angeles DEA had agreed to the plan on December 23, after the departure; the DEA offices in Riverside and San Francisco and the FBI were not coordinated, and Aukland did not learn of it until January. Gonzalez's later reports quoted Torres on CIA tolerance of Contra trafficking and recorded that Pastora wished to enter cocaine trafficking to funnel money to the Contras and had asked Meneses to find a buyer for a DC-3 at Ilopango.[^17] Webb wrote that the informant was a CIA operative known as "Roberto," that the FBI in San Francisco issued warrants for both men and they fled, and that Meneses then said he would never return or testify; the Inspector General records DEA CI-1's claim of a warning from DEA agent Eddie Hill, which Hill denied, and found no FBI warrant in January 1987. The Mexican "Roberto" whom Troilo Sánchez said Meneses introduced to him in 1987 did not resemble the CIA contractor who used the alias Ivan Gómez.[^16][^17][^18]
|
||||
|
||||
On January 29, 1987 the DEA's San Francisco office cabled that the FBI had "an indictable case against the CI" and asked whether an indictment "will result in national security problems with other agencies"; the Inspector General noted that the San Francisco FBI had source information that Meneses might have worked for the CIA and that the Iran-Contra independent counsel's inquiry was just beginning. On February 27, 1987 the San Francisco U.S. Attorney's Office wrote that, on assurances from Assistant U.S. Attorney Crossan Andersen in Los Angeles, it would defer prosecution because Meneses would "be required to plead guilty to a cocaine-related charge as part of his cooperation agreement"; no written agreement was found and Andersen and Swenson did not recall one, and the FBI placed its case in inactive status.[^17] Webb wrote that recently released Justice Department records show no such cooperation agreement existed.[^16] Meneses's conditions for returning, in June 1987, were anonymity, no testimony, contact only with named DEA personnel and restoration of resident status; headquarters refused on June 26 to guarantee that his identity would never come out in court, the Los Angeles case was declined on July 17, and Gonzalez nevertheless registered him as an informant on July 24, 1987, with a form that listed "no pending charges known at this time."[^17][^6]
|
||||
On January 29, 1987 the DEA's San Francisco office cabled that the FBI had "an indictable case against the CI" and asked whether an indictment "will result in national security problems with other agencies"; the Inspector General noted that the San Francisco FBI had source information that Meneses might have worked for the CIA and that the Iran-Contra independent counsel's inquiry was just beginning. On February 27, 1987 the San Francisco U.S. Attorney's Office wrote that, on assurances from Assistant U.S. Attorney Crossan Andersen in Los Angeles, it would defer prosecution because Meneses would "be required to plead guilty to a cocaine-related charge as part of his cooperation agreement"; no written agreement was found and Andersen and Swenson did not recall one, and the FBI placed its case in inactive status.[^17] Webb wrote that recently released Justice Department records show no such cooperation agreement existed.[^16] Meneses's conditions for returning, in June 1987, were anonymity, no testimony, contact only with named DEA personnel and restoration of resident status; headquarters refused on June 26 to guarantee that his identity would never come out in court, the Los Angeles case was declined on July 17, and Gonzalez nevertheless registered him as an informant on July 24, 1987, with a form that listed "no pending charges known at this time."[^6][^17]
|
||||
|
||||
In September 1987, on a visa waiver the DEA requested over State Department and CIA information that he was a narcotics kingpin, Meneses went with DEA CI-1 to Miami, where he met Blandón, and to San Francisco, where an FBI informant said he was telling associates he worked for the CIA; they returned in November and December 1987, producing a case against Aparicio Moreno. An INS stop in Miami in September 1988, when the DEA said it had not expected him, ended with his agreeing to leave. Gonzalez moved to Mexico City in January 1988 and agent James Rivera took over, working cases on cocaine from Panama through Costa Rica. Meneses traveled for the DEA to Miami, Los Angeles and Colombia in 1989, and the DEA deactivated him on December 23, 1989 because none of his cases "appears to have any chance of fruition." He was reactivated on May 10, 1990 after reporting that Blandón wanted help moving cocaine from Central America to Florida, paid $500, and closed on August 16, 1990. The DEA's payments totaled $7,377.50 in thirteen payments.[^6][^19][^2]
|
||||
In September 1987, on a visa waiver the DEA requested over State Department and CIA information that he was a narcotics kingpin, Meneses went with DEA CI-1 to Miami, where he met Blandón, and to San Francisco, where an FBI informant said he was telling associates he worked for the CIA; they returned in November and December 1987, producing a case against Aparicio Moreno. An INS stop in Miami in September 1988, when the DEA said it had not expected him, ended with his agreeing to leave. Gonzalez moved to Mexico City in January 1988 and agent James Rivera took over, working cases on cocaine from Panama through Costa Rica. Meneses traveled for the DEA to Miami, Los Angeles and Colombia in 1989, and the DEA deactivated him on December 23, 1989 because none of his cases "appears to have any chance of fruition." He was reactivated on May 10, 1990 after reporting that Blandón wanted help moving cocaine from Central America to Florida, paid $500, and closed on August 16, 1990. The DEA's payments totaled $7,377.50 in thirteen payments.[^2][^6][^19]
|
||||
|
||||
Meanwhile the San Francisco FBI's Donald Hale wrote to headquarters in January 1988 that "it became apparent to the FBI that Norwin Meneses was, and may still be, an informant of DEA" and "an informant for the Central Intelligence Agency," on the word of a source who said Meneses was bragging that this was why he was not prosecuted. On April 15, 1988 headquarters relayed the CIA general counsel's reply, dated March 31, 1988, that a search found no information that Meneses was ever employed by or an informant for the CIA and that the CIA had no objection to prosecution.[^19][^8] A grand jury in San Francisco indicted Meneses on February 8, 1989 on two counts, conspiracy to distribute cocaine, from a 1984 sale to an undercover agent in which he was the source, and possession with intent to distribute, from a 1985 informant's report; the indictment was sealed and a no-bail warrant issued. Swenson wrote that the reason was "upcoming Statute of Limitations problems," and told Agent Stephen Tse in 1991 that the case was "old and very weak." The warrant was entered in the FBI's NCIC database on April 12, 1989; the indictment was unsealed on August 4, 1997.[^19][^2] Rivera said he did not know of the warrant when he requested a visa for Meneses that year. On January 22, 1990 the DEA's country attaché Ron Lard told an FBI legal attaché that Meneses was "a very valuable and current active DEA source," though he had been deactivated the previous month; the San Francisco FBI replied on February 12 that it would not have sought the indictment had it known. No extradition request was ever made, and a treaty with Costa Rica did not cover drug offenses.[^19]
|
||||
Meanwhile the San Francisco FBI's Donald Hale wrote to headquarters in January 1988 that "it became apparent to the FBI that Norwin Meneses was, and may still be, an informant of DEA" and "an informant for the Central Intelligence Agency," on the word of a source who said Meneses was bragging that this was why he was not prosecuted. On April 15, 1988 headquarters relayed the CIA general counsel's reply, dated March 31, 1988, that a search found no information that Meneses was ever employed by or an informant for the CIA and that the CIA had no objection to prosecution.[^8][^19] A grand jury in San Francisco indicted Meneses on February 8, 1989 on two counts, conspiracy to distribute cocaine, from a 1984 sale to an undercover agent in which he was the source, and possession with intent to distribute, from a 1985 informant's report; the indictment was sealed and a no-bail warrant issued. Swenson wrote that the reason was "upcoming Statute of Limitations problems," and told Agent Stephen Tse in 1991 that the case was "old and very weak." The warrant was entered in the FBI's NCIC database on April 12, 1989; the indictment was unsealed on August 4, 1997.[^2][^19] Rivera said he did not know of the warrant when he requested a visa for Meneses that year. On January 22, 1990 the DEA's country attaché Ron Lard told an FBI legal attaché that Meneses was "a very valuable and current active DEA source," though he had been deactivated the previous month; the San Francisco FBI replied on February 12 that it would not have sought the indictment had it known. No extradition request was ever made, and a treaty with Costa Rica did not cover drug offenses.[^19]
|
||||
|
||||
### Nicaragua, 1990 to 1997
|
||||
|
||||
After the Sandinistas lost the 1990 election Meneses returned to Nicaragua, where, Webb wrote, he sought $12 million in confiscated holdings and recruited the former Sandinista intelligence officer [[Enrique Miranda]] to reopen his routes through concealed airstrips, including one near Rosita.[^20] In September 1991 a DEA informant told the Guatemala office he was driving a car loaded with cocaine from Managua to Houston for Meneses and Miranda, and DEA cases opened in Guatemala, Houston and Los Angeles; on September 23 Lard told the FBI that Meneses had contacted the DEA again, and agent Federico Villarreal met him two or three times in Managua, without a record of reactivation or payment.[^19] On November 3, 1991 the Nicaraguan National Police arrested Meneses, his half-brother Luis Enrique Meneses, Miranda, an engineer who concealed the cocaine, Carmelo Lacayo Briceño, and Carlos Francisco Merlo Bermúdez, seizing about 764 kilograms of cocaine and a kilogram of heroin being loaded into vehicles for the United States; a CIA station reported the arrest on November 4 and a DO update called him "the top Cali Cartel trafficker in Nicaragua."[^2][^8] Webb wrote that police chief Rene Vivas said Meneses told him "he had the backing of a higher power, a superpower" and was working for the United States to get Sandinista officials on drug charges, that Roger Mayorga complained that Villarreal had been meeting him secretly, and that the State Department pressed the Chamorro government to dismiss Vivas.[^20] Webb gave the seizure as 725 kilograms; the Inspector General and the CIA give 764. Villarreal told the Inspector General he did not send Meneses against the Sandinistas and that Meneses may have wanted to be able to say he was still working for the DEA.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
Meneses was convicted on August 16, 1992 and sentenced to 300 months; Miranda received 168 months. The term was later reduced to twelve and a half years, and the U.S. Embassy reported his release on November 14, 1997.[^2] Webb and the journalist [[Georg Hodel]] interviewed him at Tipitapa prison in January 1996, where Webb wrote the guards murmured "Señor"; Meneses told the Justice Department's inspectors in April 1997 that he had never dealt drugs, that the Sandinistas set him up and that he never cooperated with any United States agency, and told the CIA's inspectors he never dealt with the CIA.[^21][^1][^8]
|
||||
Meneses was convicted on August 16, 1992 and sentenced to 300 months; Miranda received 168 months. The term was later reduced to twelve and a half years, and the U.S. Embassy reported his release on November 14, 1997.[^2] Webb and the journalist [[Georg Hodel]] interviewed him at Tipitapa prison in January 1996, where Webb wrote the guards murmured "Señor"; Meneses told the Justice Department's inspectors in April 1997 that he had never dealt drugs, that the Sandinistas set him up and that he never cooperated with any United States agency, and told the CIA's inspectors he never dealt with the CIA.[^1][^8][^21]
|
||||
|
||||
### Miranda and Ilopango
|
||||
|
||||
Miranda testified at the 1991 trial that Meneses financed the Contras with cocaine and that the Salvadoran Air Force landed his shipments at a Texas base. Webb relayed more: that cocaine from Colombia reached Costa Rican strips including the farm of the CIA-linked [[John Hull]], that [[Marcos Aguado]] and Meneses supervised loading at [[Ilopango Airbase]] onto aircraft of the Salvadoran Air Force and of [[Southern Air Transport]], and that guns went south and drugs north.[^22] Miranda told the Inspector General that his knowledge was all from Meneses and Aguado; that he said he had witnessed a shipment in Texas and, pressed, said he had not; that he had been paid about $3,500 a month by the CIA for eight months in 1985 and was accused of being a double agent; and that he had never raised Contra trafficking when the DEA debriefed him in 1996. The Inspector General concluded his allegations "lack substantial force"; the CIA's inspectors said he could provide nothing to corroborate them. Miranda also said the Sandinistas asked him in 1981 to recruit Meneses for their drug operation and that Meneses declined, telling him he was already selling for the Contras with CIA support and that he stopped in September 1985.[^23][^8]
|
||||
Miranda testified at the 1991 trial that Meneses financed the Contras with cocaine and that the Salvadoran Air Force landed his shipments at a Texas base. Webb relayed more: that cocaine from Colombia reached Costa Rican strips including the farm of the CIA-linked [[John Hull]], that [[Marcos Aguado]] and Meneses supervised loading at [[Ilopango Airbase]] onto aircraft of the Salvadoran Air Force and of [[Southern Air Transport]], and that guns went south and drugs north.[^22] Miranda told the Inspector General that his knowledge was all from Meneses and Aguado; that he said he had witnessed a shipment in Texas and, pressed, said he had not; that he had been paid about $3,500 a month by the CIA for eight months in 1985 and was accused of being a double agent; and that he had never raised Contra trafficking when the DEA debriefed him in 1996. The Inspector General concluded his allegations "lack substantial force"; the CIA's inspectors said he could provide nothing to corroborate them. Miranda also said the Sandinistas asked him in 1981 to recruit Meneses for their drug operation and that Meneses declined, telling him he was already selling for the Contras with CIA support and that he stopped in September 1985.[^8][^23]
|
||||
|
||||
The San Jose Mercury News reported on August 18, 1996 that at his 1991 trial Meneses testified that Aguado had sold him an auto transport trailer, which Meneses's men were stuffing with cocaine when Nicaraguan police arrived; Aguado was not charged, and the newspaper could not reach him. The newspaper also reported Meneses describing Aguado as one of his oldest friends, a Nicaraguan who worked for the Salvadoran air force high command.[^24] Webb put the trailer's price at $125,000 and wrote that Aguado, interviewed, denied knowing how Meneses would use it.[^25]
|
||||
|
||||
### CIA records and the arrangement of the claims
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
@ -135,7 +137,7 @@ The San Francisco DEA agent accused in 1985 told the Inspector General that Mene
|
|||
|
||||
### Family
|
||||
|
||||
Webb listed the nephews Guillermo, Jaime and Jairo Meneses as Bay Area traffickers, Jairo as the son of Edmundo and Blandón's partner in Nicaraguan hotels and casinos; the Justice Department's inspectors could not locate Jairo and received an unconfirmed report that he was killed in Nicaragua in 1991 or 1992.[^15][^5] Webb described Rafael Cornejo as a Bay Area distributor for Meneses since the mid-1970s, convicted of tax evasion in 1985 and indicted for cocaine trafficking in 1992, against whom Blandón later cooperated.[^3][^24] Webb listed [[Marcos Aguado]] as a CIA-trained pilot and business associate; the CIA's Inspector General recorded that Miranda's allegations about Aguado could not be supported.[^15][^14]
|
||||
Webb listed the nephews Guillermo, Jaime and Jairo Meneses as Bay Area traffickers, Jairo as the son of Edmundo and Blandón's partner in Nicaraguan hotels and casinos; the Justice Department's inspectors could not locate Jairo and received an unconfirmed report that he was killed in Nicaragua in 1991 or 1992.[^5][^15] Webb described Rafael Cornejo as a Bay Area distributor for Meneses since the mid-1970s, convicted of tax evasion in 1985 and indicted for cocaine trafficking in 1992, against whom Blandón later cooperated.[^3][^26] Webb listed Marcos Aguado as a CIA-trained pilot and business associate; the CIA's Inspector General recorded that Miranda's allegations about Aguado could not be supported.[^14][^15]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
@ -162,4 +164,6 @@ Webb listed the nephews Guillermo, Jaime and Jairo Meneses as Bay Area trafficke
|
|||
[^21]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Prologue: "It was like they didn't want to know." Sole source for the passages so cited.
|
||||
[^22]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 13: "The wrong kind of friends." Sole source for the passages so cited.
|
||||
[^23]: U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General, *The CIA-Contra-Crack Cocaine Controversy* (December 1997), Chapter VII (Enrique Miranda-Jaime), https://oig.justice.gov/sites/default/files/archive/special/9712/ch07.htm
|
||||
[^24]: U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General, *The CIA-Contra-Crack Cocaine Controversy* (December 1997), Chapter II, section K (the 1992 San Diego prosecution of Blandon), https://oig.justice.gov/sites/default/files/archive/special/9712/ch02p6.htm
|
||||
[^24]: San Jose Mercury News, August 18, 1996 (Gary Webb, "Testimony Links U.S. to Drugs-Guns Trade Dealers Got Their 'Own Little Arsenal,'" Dark Alliance series), https://people.duke.edu/~ldbaker/clippings/da1.html
|
||||
[^25]: Gary Webb, *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion* (Seven Stories Press, 1998), Chapter 13, "The wrong kind of friends," and Cast of Characters. Sole source for the passages so cited.
|
||||
[^26]: U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General, *The CIA-Contra-Crack Cocaine Controversy* (December 1997), Chapter II, section K (the 1992 San Diego prosecution of Blandon), https://oig.justice.gov/sites/default/files/archive/special/9712/ch02p6.htm
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
created: 2026-05-15
|
||||
updated: 2026-09-21
|
||||
updated: 2026-10-08
|
||||
title: Richard Helms
|
||||
aliases:
|
||||
- Richard McGarrah Helms
|
||||
|
|
@ -63,11 +63,21 @@ The CIA subsequently funded opposition media, political parties, and military fa
|
|||
|
||||
In February 1973, when Helms testified before the [[Senate Foreign Relations Committee]] regarding CIA activities in Chile, he stated under oath that the CIA had not "tried to overthrow the government of Chile" and had not "passed money to the opponents of Allende." Both statements were false. The 1974 Pinochet coup and subsequent Church Committee investigation produced documentary evidence of both activities. In 1977, Helms was charged with two misdemeanor counts of making false and misleading statements to Congress. He pleaded no contest (nolo contendere) and was fined $2,000 with a two-year suspended sentence - the minimum possible consequence for what amounted to perjury before Congress. CIA veterans gave him a standing ovation in the courthouse corridor after sentencing.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Israeli estimate and the June 1967 warning
|
||||
|
||||
On May 25, 1967, Helms had the [[Office of National Estimates]] appraise an Israeli intelligence estimate within five hours. The appraisal stated: "We do not believe that the Israeli appreciation . . . was a serious estimate of the sort they would submit to their own high officials. We think it is probably a gambit intended to influence the US to do one or more of the following: (a) provide military supplies, (b) make more public commitments to Israel, (c) approve Israeli military initiatives, and (d) put more pressure on Nasser." [[David S. Robarge]], the CIA's chief historian, describes the Israeli paper as a [[Mossad]] estimate and writes that the Israelis may have been exploiting their special relationship with James Jesus Angleton.[^4][^5]
|
||||
|
||||
On June 1, 1967, Helms's deputy, Vice Admiral [[Rufus Taylor]], wrote the memorandum of the conversation between Major General [[Meir Amit]] and Secretary of Defense [[Robert S. McNamara]], captioned "Personal and Eyes Only for the Secretary of Defense and the Director of Central Intelligence."[^6] Robarge writes that Helms met a senior Israeli official on June 1 who hinted that Israel could no longer avoid a decision, that the official left the United States on June 2, and that that morning Helms wrote an "Eyes Only" letter to President Johnson forewarning that Israel probably would start a war within a few days.[^7] Helms was awakened at 3:00 a.m. on June 5 by a call from the CIA Operations Center. He recalled that "in the midst of one meeting" during the war Johnson asked how accurate his intelligence on the progress of the war was, and that he answered: "It's accurate just as long as the Israelis are winning."[^5]
|
||||
|
||||
### NUMEC letter, April 1968
|
||||
|
||||
On April 2, 1968, Helms wrote to Attorney General [[Ramsey Clark]] asking that the FBI "initiate a discreet intelligence investigation of an all source nature of Dr. Shapiro in order to establish the nature and extent of his relationship with the Government of Israel," and asked that the letter be returned to him once the Attorney General had acted, because the subject matter was "so sensitive for obvious reasons." A twelve-line passage before the request remains redacted.[^8] The subject was [[Zalman Mordecai Shapiro]] of the [[Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation]].
|
||||
|
||||
### Israel: The "Open Pipeline" Assessment
|
||||
|
||||
Helms developed a personal conviction, disclosed to his deputies, that Israel was providing American satellite intelligence to the [[Soviet Union]] as part of an undisclosed intelligence exchange - characterizing Israel as "an open pipeline for pumping intelligence to Moscow." He never officially reported this assessment or commissioned a formal investigation, and he took no documented action on it. His reluctance reflected both the sensitivity of accusing an ally and the particular weight of any assessment that ran against the interests managed by Angleton's [[KK MOUNTAIN]] Israeli liaison program.
|
||||
|
||||
When President Johnson sought an intelligence assessment of whether Israel had manufactured nuclear weapons, Helms provided the estimate (four warheads) and then obeyed Johnson's instruction that the finding be buried rather than formally reported. Johnson did not want intelligence conclusions that would require him to act on them politically. Helms's willingness to suppress an accurate intelligence product at presidential direction exemplified the institutional failure the Church Committee later documented.[^4]
|
||||
When President Johnson sought an intelligence assessment of whether Israel had manufactured nuclear weapons, Helms provided the estimate (four warheads) and then obeyed Johnson's instruction that the finding be buried rather than formally reported. Johnson did not want intelligence conclusions that would require him to act on them politically. Helms's willingness to suppress an accurate intelligence product at presidential direction exemplified the institutional failure the Church Committee later documented.[^9]
|
||||
|
||||
### Iran, Retirement, and Memoirs
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
@ -80,4 +90,9 @@ He published his memoirs, *A Look Over My Shoulder: A Life in the Central Intell
|
|||
[^1]: Powers, Thomas. *The Man Who Kept the Secrets: Richard Helms and the CIA.* Knopf, 1979 (the essential biography, based on extensive interviews). Church Committee (Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities). Final Report, S. Rept. 94-755, April 26, 1976.
|
||||
[^2]: Church Committee. "Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders." Senate Report No. 94-465, 1975 (documents ZR/RIFLE and the failure to disclose to Warren Commission). Jacobsen, Annie. *Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis.* Little, Brown, 2017.
|
||||
[^3]: John D. Marks, *The Search for the Manchurian Candidate*. Times Books, 1979, Chapters 1, 4, 12.
|
||||
[^4]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy.* Random House, 1991. Chapters 11, 14, 16.
|
||||
[^4]: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, vol. XIX, Document 61, Memorandum from Rostow to President Johnson, May 25, 1967, with attached CIA appraisal. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v19/d61
|
||||
[^5]: Robarge, David S. "Getting it Right: CIA Analysis of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War." *Studies in Intelligence* 49, no. 1 (March 2005). https://www.cia.gov/resources/csi/static/CIA-Analysis-1967-War.pdf
|
||||
[^6]: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, vol. XIX, Document 124, Memorandum for the Record by Vice Admiral Rufus Taylor, June 1, 1967 (prepared June 2). https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v19/d124
|
||||
[^7]: Robarge, David S. "Getting it Right: CIA Analysis of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War." *Studies in Intelligence* 49, no. 1 (March 2005). https://www.cia.gov/resources/csi/static/CIA-Analysis-1967-War.pdf For the June 1 to 2 meeting Robarge relies on published accounts, among them Michael B. Oren's, which rest on Amit's interviews and writings.
|
||||
[^8]: National Security Archive, "The NUMEC Affair: Did Highly Enriched Uranium from the U.S. Aid Israel's Nuclear Weapons Program?" (November 2, 2016), Document 8, Letter from Richard Helms to Ramsey Clark, April 2, 1968 (ISCAP Appeal No. 2013-062). https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/nuclear-vault/2016-11-02/numec-affair-did-highly-enriched-uranium-us-aid-israels-nuclear-weapons-program
|
||||
[^9]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy.* Random House, 1991. Chapters 11, 14, 16.
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -46,9 +46,9 @@ relations:
|
|||
with: "[[Gordon Rhea]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "counsel in the territory's estate litigation"
|
||||
fn: 14
|
||||
fn: 16
|
||||
created: 2026-09-25
|
||||
updated: 2026-09-25
|
||||
updated: 2026-10-08
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Richard D. Kahn is an accountant who was [[Jeffrey Epstein]]'s longtime in-house accountant, treasurer and director of [[Southern Trust Company]] and of the Virgin Islands corporations that held Epstein's real estate, and, with the lawyer [[Darren Indyke]], co-executor of Epstein's estate and co-trustee of the 1953 Trust. The trust names Kahn to receive 25 million dollars, third in order of payment. The [[U.S. Virgin Islands]] government sued him personally in 2020, victims sued him and Indyke in a class action the estate agreed in February 2026 to settle for up to 35 million dollars, and in September 2026 federal prosecutors in Manhattan were reported to be investigating both men. Kahn and Indyke deny knowing of Epstein's sex trafficking or knowingly helping him.[^1][^2][^3][^4]
|
||||
|
|
@ -77,11 +77,13 @@ In March 2019 Kahn took part in the exercise of warrants in the Israeli company
|
|||
|
||||
*[[The Daily Beast]]* reported in August 2020 that on the day after Epstein's death Kahn was photographed leaving the Manhattan townhouse with a bag that, according to a source close to him, contained Epstein's funeral clothes.[^13]
|
||||
|
||||
On May 16, 2014, Kahn wrote to [[Larry Visoski]]: "Can you poke around tonight about Black Diamond Trading as Danny says they are trying to buy Jet Center." He added, "They appear to be an nyc hedge fund with an office in stt as an EDC company as well," and asked, "who are principals? type of plane? tail? anything else relevant.."[^14] Kahn then forwarded the exchange to Epstein, writing that "these are the black diamond guys trying to buy aircraft," linking two pages of the website of [[Black Diamond Capital Management]], the firm of [[Stephen Deckoff]], and saying that "larry has obtained some good info on them." A reply from the account "jeffrey E." reads "yes why not?"[^15]
|
||||
|
||||
### Co-Executor
|
||||
|
||||
Kahn and Indyke filed Epstein's will for probate on August 15, 2019, valuing his Virgin Islands property at 577,672,654 dollars, and filed a Certificate of Trust for the 1953 Trust on August 26, 2019. Testifying to the [[House Oversight Committee]] on March 11, 2026, Kahn said: "I believe that Epstein envisioned me taking this role as co-executor and co-agent trustee ... would be many, many years of working. So if I was not in Epstein's Trust and I was a corporate trustee, I probably would have received an executor fee of $12 million for serving as co-executor and serving as co-trustee. So that could be the only reason why he left me such a large bequest." He testified that the estate spends 10 to 15 million dollars a year on legal and other fees and pays the co-executors' legal bills. The estate's assets fell from 655.1 million dollars at the end of 2019 to 107.6 million dollars by September 2026.[^1][^2]
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The territory's action against the estate, Kahn, Indyke and the Epstein companies settled on December 1, 2022 for more than 105 million dollars in cash, half the proceeds of the sale of [[Little St. James]] and the return of more than 80 million dollars in tax benefits.[^5] In 2024 Governor Bryan appointed as attorney general [[Gordon Rhea]], who had represented Kahn in that litigation; Rhea said he would recuse himself from Epstein matters.[^14]
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The territory's action against the estate, Kahn, Indyke and the Epstein companies settled on December 1, 2022 for more than 105 million dollars in cash, half the proceeds of the sale of [[Little St. James]] and the return of more than 80 million dollars in tax benefits.[^5] In 2024 Governor Bryan appointed as attorney general [[Gordon Rhea]], who had represented Kahn in that litigation; Rhea said he would recuse himself from Epstein matters.[^16]
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### Victim Suits and Federal Investigation
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@ -104,4 +106,6 @@ On September 23, 2026 the [[Washington Examiner]], citing a source familiar with
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[^11]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA02634615, DataSet 11, email chain "Carbyne warrants" among Tomer Toor, NJF Capital, Darren Indyke and Jeffrey Epstein, February 28 to March 14, 2019. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2011/EFTA02634615.pdf
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[^12]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA01035810, DataSet 9, email from Richard Kahn to Jeffrey Epstein, "Fwd: Carbyne," March 15, 2019; EFTA02636176, DataSet 11, email from Jeffrey Epstein to Richard Kahn, "Re: CARBYNE," March 27, 2019. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA01035810.pdf ; https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2011/EFTA02636176.pdf
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[^13]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00163119, DataSet 9, press printout: Kate Briquelet and William Bredderman, "Jeffrey Epstein's Right-Hand Mystery Men: The Lawyer and the Accountant," *The Daily Beast,* August 30, 2020. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00163119.pdf
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||||
[^14]: Suzanne Carlson, "Docs confirm Bryan pressed for special treatment of sex offender," *Virgin Islands Daily News,* February 2, 2026, https://www.virginislandsdailynews.com/news/docs-confirm-bryan-pressed-for-special-treatment-of-sex-offender/article_5e9483c9-38d2-406c-8bb0-e5757ce287f2.html ; Suzanne Carlson, "Bryan unapologetic for texts with Epstein, doubles down on denial of wrongdoing," *Virgin Islands Daily News,* March 3, 2026. https://www.virginislandsdailynews.com/news/bryan-unapologetic-for-texts-with-epstein-doubles-down-on-denial-of-wrongdoing/article_8bab46a1-6075-4c7c-abec-6efb19622e62.html
|
||||
[^14]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA02383246, DataSet 11, email chain headed "Jeffrey Epstein," May 16, 2014. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2011/EFTA02383246.pdf
|
||||
[^15]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA02583238, DataSet 11, email chain headed "Re: Barn," May 16, 2014. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2011/EFTA02583238.pdf
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||||
[^16]: Suzanne Carlson, "Docs confirm Bryan pressed for special treatment of sex offender," *Virgin Islands Daily News,* February 2, 2026, https://www.virginislandsdailynews.com/news/docs-confirm-bryan-pressed-for-special-treatment-of-sex-offender/article_5e9483c9-38d2-406c-8bb0-e5757ce287f2.html ; Suzanne Carlson, "Bryan unapologetic for texts with Epstein, doubles down on denial of wrongdoing," *Virgin Islands Daily News,* March 3, 2026. https://www.virginislandsdailynews.com/news/bryan-unapologetic-for-texts-with-epstein-doubles-down-on-denial-of-wrongdoing/article_8bab46a1-6075-4c7c-abec-6efb19622e62.html
|
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|
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|
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|
@ -9,7 +9,11 @@ summary: "In his testimony, Moultrie acknowledged the reality of UAP and the pot
|
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|
||||
### Congressional Testimony on UAP
|
||||
|
||||
In his testimony, Moultrie acknowledged the reality of UAP and the potential threat they pose to national security. However, he also stated that the [[Pentagon]] was unaware of UAP incursions near sensitive nuclear facilities, a statement that was contradicted by historical records. He also claimed that, other than the [[Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program]] (AATIP) and [[Project Blue Book]], there had been no other government programs to investigate UAP, a statement that has been challenged by whistleblowers who allege the existence of a long-standing "Legacy Program."[^1]
|
||||
In his testimony, Moultrie acknowledged the reality of UAP and the potential threat they pose to national security. Asked about a reported incident at [[Malmstrom Air Force Base]], Moultrie passed the question to [[Scott Bray]], Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence, who said: "That data is not within the holdings of the UAP Task Force." Bray said: "I have heard stories. I have not seen the official data on that," and "We have not looked at that incident."[^2] Asked about any initiatives between [[Project Blue Book]] and the [[Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program]] (AATIP), Moultrie said: "Not aware of anything that is official that was done in between those two," and "I haven't seen other documented studies that have been done by DOD in that regard." He said he was "not aware of any contractual programs that are focused on" UAP apart from "what we are doing in the Navy task force."[^2] Whistleblowers have alleged the existence of a long-standing "Legacy Program."[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
On the new office, Moultrie said: "The NDAA for fiscal year 2022 has helped us to establish a dedicated office to oversee processes and procedures for the timely collection, processing, analysis, and reporting of UAP-related data." He added that "we have, as of this week, picked the Director for that effort," and said the office's name "will likely change."[^2]
|
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|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Elizondo, Luis. *Imminent*. William Morrow, 2024.
|
||||
[^2]: House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation, hearing "Unidentified Aerial Phenomena," May 17, 2022, statements of Ronald S. Moultrie and Scott W. Bray, and question period. https://www.congress.gov/117/meeting/house/114761/documents/HHRG-117-IG05-Transcript-20220517.pdf
|
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|
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|
|
@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ summary: "Samuel Koslov was a top scientist for the U.S."
|
|||
|
||||
Samuel Koslov was a top scientist for the [[U.S. Navy]] and the scientific assistant to the Secretary of the Navy. He became a central figure in the debate surrounding the [[Moscow Signal]] and its potential health effects, often publicly downplaying its dangers despite his involvement in classified research related to it[^1].
|
||||
|
||||
Koslov led the charge of those who insisted that the Moscow Signal was harmless, arguing that any reported issues were psychological trauma rather than physical effects. He stated, "The actual physical results were nonexistent, but the real psychological trauma (in this case in a group of well-educated and dedicated people) was sad and startling"[^1]. This view was in direct opposition to [[Richard S. Cesaro]] of [[Advanced Research Projects Agency|ARPA]], who believed the beams were harmful and could penetrate the human nervous system[^1].
|
||||
Koslov led the charge of those who insisted that the Moscow Signal was harmless, arguing that any reported issues were psychological trauma rather than physical effects. He stated, "The actual physical results were nonexistent, but the real psychological trauma (in this case in a group of well-educated and dedicated people) was sad and startling"[^1]. This view was in direct opposition to [[Richard S. Cesaro]] of [[DARPA|ARPA]], who believed the beams were harmful and could penetrate the human nervous system[^1].
|
||||
|
||||
As a lead scientist on [[Project Pandora]], a classified, multiservice effort to duplicate the electromagnetic weapon of the Moscow Signal, Koslov was deeply engaged in research involving microwave beams. This project involved exposing primates and later unwitting sailors to microwave radiation[^1].
|
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|
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