190 lines
29 KiB
Markdown
190 lines
29 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: Gary Betzner
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aliases:
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- Gary Betzner
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- Gary Wayne Betzner
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- Gary Wayne "Hippie" Betzner
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- Gary "Hippie" Betzner
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- Lucas Harmony
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created: 2026-05-17
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updated: 2026-10-15
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category: "Organized Crime"
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tags:
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- Person
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- DrugTrafficker
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- Pilot
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- 1980s
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- ContraWar
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- CongressionalTestimony
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- DarkAllianceInvestigation
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- MoralesOrganization
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- KerryHearings
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summary: "Pilot for Colombian trafficker George Morales who told the Kerry subcommittee in April 1988 that he flew weapons to John Hull's Costa Rica ranch and returned with cocaine loads."
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location: "Akron, Ohio"
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relations:
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- type: employed_by
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with: "[[George Morales]]"
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role: "pilot on Morales drug flights, early 1980 to April 1984"
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start: 1980
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end: 1984-04
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fn: 12
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- type: participant_in
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with: "[[Contras]]"
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role: "pilot on weapons-for-cocaine flights to Ilopango and to John Hull's airstrip"
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start: 1983-05
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end: 1984-07
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fn: 18
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- type: participant_in
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with: "[[Kerry Committee]]"
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role: "witness, hearing of April 7, 1988"
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start: 1988-04-07
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end: 1988-04-07
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fn: 2
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- type: partner_of
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with: "[[Richard Healey]]"
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role: "fellow pilot on the May 1983 flight to Ilopango"
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start: 1983-05
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end: 1983-05
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fn: 20
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- type: partner_of
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with: "[[Fabio Ernesto Carrasco]]"
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role: "companion (Tito) on the July 1984 Hull airstrip flights"
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start: 1984-07
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end: 1984-08
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fn: 25
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---
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Gary Wayne "Hippie" Betzner is a former Navy electronics technician, crop duster and drug pilot who flew for the Colombian trafficker [[George Morales]] from 1980 to 1984. In 1983 and 1984 he flew weapons from the United States to [[El Salvador]]'s [[Ilopango Airbase|Ilopango Air Force Base]] and to [[John Hull]]'s airstrip in northern [[Costa Rica]], and on the Hull flights he carried back about 500 kilos of cocaine. He was arrested in [[Florida]] in November 1984, received a total sentence of 27 years and two months for cocaine importation and related offenses, and testified as a federal prisoner before the [[Kerry Committee]] on April 7, 1988.[^1][^2]
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### Early Life and Navy Service
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Betzner was born in [[Akron, Ohio]] and raised in [[Arkansas]], where he finished high school at DeValls Bluff High School.[^3] He enlisted in the [[United States Navy|Navy]] in 1959 and served until 1963, first aboard the carrier [[USS Hancock]] on a tour of the Far East, then in patrol squadron VP-17 at [[Whidbey Island]], Washington, which deployed to [[Alaska]] for anti-submarine patrols. His specialty was electronic countermeasures, and he was discharged as an E-6.[^4] He attended Arkansas State Teachers College for almost a year without graduating, then worked for a logistics contractor at the Pacific missile range on [[Kwajalein]].[^5]
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He returned to Arkansas in 1965 or 1966 to farm his parents' land and ran a crop-dusting business for about twelve years, which he stopped in 1977. He was president of the local [[Jaycees]] in [[Hazen, Arkansas|Hazen]], a county coordinator for Senator [[Dale Bumpers]], and a member of the executive committee of the Young Democrat Club; he testified that while in college he sat on the executive committee of the Republican Party and that his political views in those years were "somewhere to the right of the John Birch Society." In 1975 and 1976 he worked in [[Anchorage]] for [[International Air Taxi]], which flew helicopters.[^6] He told the subcommittee that his electronics training later helped him avoid radar.[^4]
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### Arrest, Flight and the First Drug Loads
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After returning to Arkansas, Betzner testified, he made his first attempt to buy cocaine, which ended in an arrest in [[Miami]]. He posted bond, jumped it, and left Arkansas on a motorcycle for [[California]]. He later re-established himself in Miami under the name Lucas Harmony and took a job with [[DECA Aircraft]].[^7] During that job he fell from the wing of an [[Air Florida]] Boeing 737 and broke a small bone in his leg. While he was recuperating, a friend involved in marijuana smuggling offered him an old twin Bonanza that the friend's Colombian connection had supplied.[^8] In early 1980 he flew that aircraft to a lake strip in the [[La Guajira|Guajira Desert]] of northern [[Colombia]], picked up marijuana, and recovered the load after the planned Florida landing strip proved unusable. He landed instead at [[Marathon, Florida]] and was paid $40,000, plus $10,000 that he charged for saving the load.[^8]
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### Flights for George Morales, 1980 to 1984
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Betzner's losses came later in the same period. A Beechcraft Queen Air he was flying lost both engines near [[Bimini]], and he ran it off the runway. Bahamian officers arrested him that night, held a gun on him, and released the aircraft after he offered them 300 or 400 pounds of marijuana he had left in the brush.[^9] The next day, he said, a Colombian-American employee of Morales, [[Hiro Plata]], introduced him to Morales at a fishing tournament in Bimini. Morales, whom Betzner described as a competitive speedboat racer, took him into his circle, and within a week or two Betzner was flying for him, first in an old Aztec from Colombia to [[Great Harbor Cay]] in the [[Bahamas]].[^10] Betzner said the only other Morales pilot he knew was [[Richard Healey]], Morales's chief pilot at Aviation Activities in Miami, the son of an American father and a Colombian mother, who made a few drug flights with him. Healey's wife was Marta, formerly Marta Chamorro, a Nicaraguan who had been married twice to [[Adolfo Chamorro|Adolfo "Popo" Chamorro]]; Betzner agreed with Kerry that Chamorro was a leader of the Southern Front of the ARDE Contra movement and said he learned only later that Chamorro worked with [[Eden Pastora]] in Costa Rica. Kerry stated that Marta Healey was under subpoena. Betzner also said Morales, Healey, Plata and another man had been indicted in 1980 on a DC-3 load.[^11]
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Betzner testified that he made about fifty Morales flights between late 1981 and the end of 1982, at $40,000 per trip.[^12] Morales's fleet included Piper Navajo "Panthers"; Betzner knew of four or five that Morales bought and said "we called his place the zoo, he had so many Panthers around." The loading hangar was at [[Opa Locka]]. Marijuana and Quaaludes went from Colombia to the Bahamas and were moved to the United States by boat.[^13] Bahamian police and defense officials flew along as copilots. Betzner described the usual payment as about $15,000 a trip, with $5,000 apiece for customs and immigration and for the military or police, while also saying he did not recall customs officials flying along.[^14]
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In 1983 Betzner set up a business at [[Tamiami Airport]] that modified aircraft for smugglers. He bought a twin Comanche from [[Air America]] in [[Pennsylvania]] and operated it from [[Lakeland, Florida|Lakeland]].[^15] He testified that Morales gave him a transponder code, 1301, that permitted him to overfly [[Cuba]], and that he landed in [[Havana]] once as a trick.[^16]
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### The Ilopango Flight of May 1983
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In May 1983 Healey asked Betzner to fly a DC-3 to Ilopango for a fee Betzner recalled as about $300,000, which the two split two to one in Betzner's favor. The aircraft was already loaded with about forty M-79 grenade launchers at Opa Locka. The pair landed without flight-plan clearance at the [[Boca Chica]] naval air station in the Florida Keys, where they took on ship mines. At Ilopango, Betzner delivered a tube of maps and a manila envelope to an American who identified himself only as "Chris." Five or six men in uniform unloaded the grenade launchers and mines by hand into a large green military truck. The aircraft then flew to [[Riohacha|Ria Hacha]], Colombia, where it loaded marijuana, which Betzner later learned weighed 6,009 pounds, and returned to Great Harbor Cay. Betzner said he was paid $200,000 for the flight.[^17][^18]
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Betzner testified that Morales had bought six or eight Brazilian-registered DC-3s and sold them while using some, and that the aircraft carried a sticker that he thought might have come from [[U.S. Customs]], the [[DEA]] or the [[Federal Aviation Administration]], and that the aircraft had been grounded at one point, so someone had to arrange its release.[^19] The subcommittee report identifies Healey as the co-pilot on the flight.[^20]
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### Retirement and the Morales Contra Deal
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After a load was lost in [[Glades County, Florida|Glades County]], Florida, in April 1984, Betzner retired a second time and went to [[Hawaii]] until July. Morales telephoned him there and said Betzner could be "very beneficial" in helping him get out from under an indictment. Morales then told him, Betzner testified, "that he had made a deal with [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] to supply them with money and with assistance, and that he wanted me to fly some guns and ammunition and stuff like that down to the Contras and bring some contraband back." Betzner said he did not want to do it, but "I always loved and respected George because he took me in and he trusted me when I was like an orphan," and he agreed. Asked whether this was the first time he had heard Morales mention the CIA or the Contras, he said it was, adding that he had suspected Morales had connections with some government officials.[^21][^22][^23]
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### Hull's Airstrip, July and August 1984
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In July 1984 Betzner flew a Cessna 402B from [[Fort Lauderdale]] at about midnight, with a companion he called Tito, a young Colombian whom Morales trusted and who had flown with Betzner several times for Morales. Webb identifies Morales's pilot "Tito" [[Fabio Ernesto Carrasco|Carrasco]] as a flyer into Hull's ranch and calls Betzner Carrasco's copilot. The cargo included an M-60 machine gun, M-16s and C-4 explosive. He landed at Hull's airstrip at about 7 a.m. Hull met him there, and Betzner watched as the weapons were offloaded into a truck. Betzner testified that Morales told him before the flight that he would be bringing cocaine back and that "there would be no problems, everything is covered and you won't have any problems," which Betzner understood to mean that Customs or the DEA would not bother him if they followed him in.[^24] He described Hull as an older man of about sixty to sixty-five, bald and from [[Indiana]], and said he had since seen Hull's photographs. Hull stayed at the strip while Betzner loaded about seventeen duffel bags and five or six boxes of cocaine. Betzner said he flew the cocaine to Lakeland, where it was offloaded into a van that Tito drove to Miami, and that he kept twenty kilos for himself.[^25]
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About ten days later Betzner flew a Panther from the Morales hangar at Opa Locka, departing near midnight with Tito. The cargo was small arms and possibly land mines. He landed at a strip called Los Llanos, about ten miles from Hull's ranch and near four [[Voice of America]] towers, where Hull and two Latin men were waiting. Betzner testified that about 500 kilos of cocaine in fifteen or seventeen duffel bags was handed to him from the compartment of a fuel truck and that he stacked the bags in the aircraft. He said this was the last flight he made for Morales and that he was paid $360,000 for it.[^26]
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Betzner's account of Hull's airstrip conflicts with Hull's. Betzner testified that the strip was "a little over 3,000 feet long" and ran along a river.[^27] Hull told investigators that his grass strip had only about 1,600 usable feet, with hills at one end and a river at the other, and that a Cessna 402B loaded as Betzner described would have been about 800 pounds over its gross weight for a takeoff from a grass strip.[^28]
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### Arrest and Sentence, November 1984
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Betzner flew a Panther with a load of cocaine from Colombia to [[Lake City, Florida|Lake City]], Florida, on November 13 and 14, 1984. He got away from the airport and was apprehended in the city. He testified that AWACS tracking on that last trip made him suspect an informant, and that the informant was his associate Henry (Enrique) Lopez, a former partner of the DEA informant known as Kojak, who he said had worked with Morales and Hiro Plata. He was indicted on four counts of cocaine importation and received fifteen years plus ten years of special parole. After he pleaded guilty in Miami to the earlier charge and the bond jump, a consecutive sentence was added, for a total of 27 years and two months.[^29]
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### Testimony to the Kerry Subcommittee, April 1988
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Betzner testified on April 7, 1988, as a federal prisoner accompanied by counsel [[Sheldon Yavitz]], who told the subcommittee he had represented Betzner since 1984. Chairman [[John Kerry]] administered the oath.[^30] Kerry warned that the testimony was given under penalty of perjury, and asked whether Betzner was prepared to say things he had not said publicly. Betzner said yes, and said he had had no contact with the subcommittee about parole.[^30]
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The subcommittee's report says five witnesses testified that Hull was involved in cocaine trafficking: [[Floyd Carlton]], [[Werner Lotz]], [[Jose Blandon]], Morales and Betzner. It adds that Betzner "was the only witness who testified that he was actually present to witness cocaine being loaded onto planes headed for the United States in Hull's presence."[^31]
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Asked whether he wished to change anything in his testimony, he said: "No, sir. None whatsoever. I wish I would have been in a situation where I could have kept notes and times and dates and places."[^32] Asked whether he had been personally supportive of the Contras, he said: "Well, I was sympathetic for the Contras; yes."[^33] He described the methods he used to avoid detection, including flying below radar coverage and under shipping lanes, painting his aircraft dark green, tinting its windows and removing its tail numbers.[^34]
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Asked about Barry Seal, Betzner said he met [[Barry Seal]] in Nassau, in Miami and at Air America in Pennsylvania, and that he thought Seal "was playing both sides," involved "with the CIA or DEA, but CIA was the indication that I got."[^35] Asked about a story of a cocaine load that Hull allegedly took from a sunken plane, and of a kidnapping of one of Hull's children to recover it, Betzner said he had heard it in passing conversation after his arrest, while in custody.[^36]
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### Oklahoma Testimony and the Abello Silva Trial
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[[Gary Webb]] reported that Betzner gave sworn testimony as a witness for the [[Department of Justice]], not as a defendant, at a federal trial in [[Oklahoma]]. Webb identified the case as United States v. Jose Rafael Abello Silva, 87 CR 140B, in the Northern District of Oklahoma, in 1990.[^1] In the passages Webb quotes from that transcript, a defense lawyer asked whether "these CIA people" permitted him to fly airplanes into foreign countries carrying weapons, and Betzner answered: "Why, sure." Asked whether he brought drugs back, he answered "Yes." Asked whether the CIA people knew what he was doing with the drugs, he answered: "Certainly."[^1]
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Webb also quotes Betzner on why he was not surprised that Morales was helping the Contras: "No, actually, I wasn't surprised by it because I knew that George was anti-Communist, as are most Colombians. So the Cartel and people like that are definitely anti-Communist. . . It's strictly a capitalist movement, this drug business."[^1] The same answer, with "cartel" in lower case, appears in the April 1988 Senate transcript.[^37] Webb wrote that Betzner and "Tito" Carrasco both confirmed George Morales's story about flying weapons to Hull's ranch in northern Costa Rica and returning with cocaine, under oath as U.S. government witnesses.[^1]
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An [[Associated Press]] report of May 20, 1990, says a federal court in [[Tulsa, Oklahoma|Tulsa]] convicted Jose Abello Silva, a Colombian reputed to be a figure in the [[Medellin Cartel|Medellín cocaine cartel]], on two drug-conspiracy counts. Prosecutors called 23 witnesses, many of them convicted drug smugglers who said he supervised shipments from Colombian airstrips through the Bahamas. The AP account names none of the witnesses.[^38]
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### Press Reports and Committee Inquiries, 1987 and 1988
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The [[Tampa Tribune]] reported on September 3, 1987 that investigators of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, whose counsel was Hayden Gregory and whose chairman was Representative [[William Hughes]] (D-NJ), had interviewed both Betzner and Morales. Hughes said: "Some of the information we've received, and I'm not limiting myself to Betzner and Morales, seems to be of some substance and other is unsubstantiated." The paper reported that Morales said a Cessna 404 Titan had been bought for the Contras and turned over to Adolfo "Popo" Chamorro, and that Federal Aviation Administration records showed the aircraft purchased through the broker Dennis Martin by a Costa Rican company, Cultivos Experimentales, which listed Chamorro as vice-president; the transfer was in October 1984, about three months after the date on which Betzner and Morales said they used the plane to carry arms for drugs.[^39]
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[[Jack Blum]], counsel to the Senate subcommittee, told the Tribune that the Senate committee had heard Betzner and Morales describe landing in Lakeland with cocaine. Blum said Betzner "could be telling the truth" but that the committee had decided not to pursue his allegations because his credibility "could be easily attacked."[^39]
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The Associated Press reported from the April 7, 1988 hearing that Betzner "said he flew weapons to Costa Rica for the Contras and picked up cocaine to be taken back to the United States" and that Kerry said the testimony "makes it very clear that narcotics dollars were involved in the Contra support process."[^40] The Florida Times-Union version added that Betzner went to Hawaii and returned to Miami three months later when the trafficker he worked for was arrested, and that Morales told him that if he helped fly arms to the Contras there was a chance Morales could use contacts with CIA officials to work a plea bargain. The AP quoted Betzner: "I didn't want to do it, but I love and trusted George. He took me in when I was, well, like an orphan."[^41]
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### Broadcasts and Hull's Response, 1987 to 1989
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On April 6, 1987, the [[CBS]] program West 57th Street broadcast Betzner's statement: "I took two loads, small aircraft loads of weapons to John Hull's ranch in Costa Rica and returned back to Florida with approximately a thousand kilos of cocaine."[^42] On the same program Betzner said he had returned with "500 each trip," that personnel working for Hull "would load the aircraft," and that Hull "physically saw the bags" of cocaine. He described a whistle used to signal the strip before landing. Of the second trip he said: "I didn't go back into John Hull's place. I went into another strip that was maybe 10 or 15 miles east of the place, but a little better strip." Hull denied the allegations, saying "There's never been any drug movement through this zone or through any of our farms," and that there was no air-to-ground communication at his strips.[^42]
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On January 13, 1989, the Associated Press reported: "Convicted cocaine pilot Gary Betzner has testified that Hull once met his plane when it landed on the ranch to exchange Contra arms for Colombian cocaine."[^43] Hull responded that Betzner's allegations were "not true, not true! He made it up. He was coached."[^43] On March 7, 1989, a Costa Rican judge charged Hull with "hostile acts" and "drug trafficking." The reporting the Inspector General cites adds, on Betzner's account, that about 1,000 kilograms had once been transported from the ranch to Florida.[^43]
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### Government Knowledge and Responses
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The subcommittee placed in the record a letter from the Customs Service, written to [[Ralph Martin]] at the Department of Justice's public integrity section, reporting that the [[Treasury Enforcement Communications System]] had been checked against names from the subcommittee's 1986 report. The letter stated that "the name John Hull resulted in 293 possible matches." Kerry told the hearing that Hull continued to operate with impunity after that finding.[^44]
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The [[United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida|U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida]] opened an investigation of Hull in the spring of 1985. [[Jeffrey Feldman]], an assistant U.S. attorney, and two FBI agents went to Costa Rica in late March 1985 to examine Neutrality Act violations by participants in the Contra resupply network.[^45]
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The [[CIA Inspector General]] reports that [[Alan Fiers]] briefed Kerry on October 15, 1986, and that on July 31, 1987, Fiers briefed the [[Senate Select Committee on Intelligence]] on Morales's claim that Hull's airstrip was used to load and unload drugs.[^46] [[William Webster|DCI William Webster]] wrote to Kerry on December 22, 1987, that he had directed officials to conduct "an in-depth review" of Hull. The Inspector General found no information that the review was conducted.[^47]
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The DEA gave Morales a lengthy polygraph examination in November 1988 on his testimony before the subcommittee, and the subcommittee's report states that he was "considered truthful."[^48] Webb wrote that Morales also passed a DEA-administered lie detector test about his Contra drug dealings.[^1]
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### Footnotes
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[^1]: Gary Webb, *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion* (Seven Stories Press, 1998), chapter 11, "They were looking in the other direction," and chapter notes, which state that quotations from Carrasco and Betzner are taken from a transcript of their sworn testimony and identify United States v. Jose Rafael Abello Silva, 87 CR 140B, N.D. Okla., 1990. https://archive.org/details/dark-alliance-the-cia-the-conas-and-the-crack-cocaine-explosion-gary-webb
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[^2]: U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations, *Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy: Hearings*, S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3 (April 4 to 7, 1988), testimony of Gary Betzner, April 7, 1988, pp. 240 to 274. https://archive.org/details/micro_IA41152832_0005
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[^3]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, pp. 240 to 241 (birthplace, parents, high school).
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[^4]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, pp. 241 to 243 (Navy service, USS Hancock, VP-17, electronic countermeasures, discharge as E-6, and the radar testimony at pp. 273 to 274).
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[^5]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, pp. 242 to 243 (Arkansas State Teachers College, Global Associates at Kwajalein).
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[^6]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, pp. 242 to 243 (farm return, crop dusting until 1977, Jaycees in Hazen, International Air Taxi in Alaska), and p. 272 (Bumpers, Young Democrats, Republican committee, "somewhere to the right of the John Birch Society").
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[^7]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, p. 243 (first purchase and Miami arrest, bond jump, motorcycle, Lucas Harmony identity, DECA Aircraft).
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[^8]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, pp. 244 to 245 (the Air Florida fall, the Bonanza, the Guajira strip, the landing at Marathon, and the $40,000 and $10,000 payments).
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[^9]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, pp. 247 to 248 (the Queen Air loss, the Bimini arrest and the offer of marijuana for the aircraft).
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[^10]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, pp. 248 to 250 (Hiro Plata, the Bimini introduction to Morales, the first Morales flight in the Aztec to Great Harbor Cay).
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[^11]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, pp. 251 and 254 (Healey as chief pilot at Aviation Activities, Marta Healey formerly Chamorro, Adolfo Chamorro and the Southern Front of ARDE, Kerry's statement on the subpoena, the 1980 indictment with Healey and Plata).
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[^12]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, pp. 250 and 253 (about fifty flights for Morales; "late 1981 to the end of 1982"; $40,000 a trip).
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[^13]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, pp. 250 to 252 (Panthers, "the zoo," marijuana and Quaaludes by boat).
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[^14]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, pp. 252 to 253 (Bahamian officials as copilots, payments of about $15,000 a trip).
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[^15]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, pp. 254 to 255 (the Tamiami business, the twin Comanche bought from Air America, Lakeland operations).
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[^16]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, p. 254 (transponder code 1301, the Havana landing).
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[^17]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, pp. 255 to 258 (the Ilopango flight, the May 1983 DC-3, the grenade launchers, the Boca Chica landing, the mines, the "Chris" envelope, the offload by men in uniform).
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[^18]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, pp. 258 to 259 (the Ria Hacha load of 6,009 pounds, the $200,000 payment); S. Prt. 100-165, p. 56 (DC-3 flight to Ilopango; marijuana load flown to Great Harbor Cay).
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[^19]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, pp. 256, 258 to 259 (Brazilian DC-3s, aircraft sticker, grounding and release).
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[^20]: S. Prt. 100-165, p. 56 (Richard Healey as co-pilot, DC-3 flight to Ilopango). https://archive.org/details/Kerry-Report-Drugs-Contras
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[^21]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, pp. 260 to 261 (the April 1984 loss in Glades County, retirement to Hawaii, the July 1984 telephone call).
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[^22]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, pp. 261 to 262 (Morales's account of the Contra deal, "that he had made a deal with CIA to supply them with money and with assistance").
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[^23]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, pp. 261 to 262 (the "orphan" answer; first mention of the CIA and the Contras by Morales).
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[^24]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, p. 265 (Morales's assurances; "everything is covered"; Customs or DEA "wouldn't bother me").
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[^25]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, pp. 262 to 265 (the July 1984 Cessna 402B flight from Fort Lauderdale, the Hull airstrip, the offload and load, the Lakeland offload, the twenty kilos).
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[^26]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, pp. 267 to 269 and 271 (the Panther flight to Los Llanos, the fuel-truck load, the $360,000 payment as the last Morales flight).
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[^27]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, p. 263 (the strip described as "a little over 3,000 feet long" and along the river).
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[^28]: CIA Inspector General, *Allegations of Connections Between CIA and the Contras in Cocaine Trafficking to the United States* (96-0143-IG), Volume II (October 8, 1998), chapter on John Hull (Hull's account of the 1,600 usable feet and the 800 pounds over gross weight). https://irp.fas.org/cia/product/cocaine2/other.html
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[^29]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, pp. 271 and 274 (Lake City arrest, four counts, fifteen years plus ten years special parole, the Miami plea and the consecutive sentence, 27 years and two months).
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[^30]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, pp. 240, 244 and 260 (oath, counsel Sheldon Yavitz, perjury warning, questions on parole and undisclosed testimony).
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[^31]: S. Prt. 100-165, p. 55 (five witnesses on Hull's cocaine trafficking; Betzner as the only witness present for a loading in Hull's presence). https://archive.org/details/Kerry-Report-Drugs-Contras
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[^32]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, pp. 272 to 273 (closing opportunity to revise testimony).
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[^33]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, pp. 272 to 273 (Contra sympathies).
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[^34]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, pp. 273 to 274 (detection avoidance, dark green paint, tinted windows, removed tail numbers, flying under shipping lanes).
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[^35]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, pp. 265 to 266 (Barry Seal in Nassau, Miami and Pennsylvania; "CIA was the indication that I got").
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[^36]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, pp. 269 to 270 (Betzner's account of the Hull passing conversation, the sunken plane and the kidnapping, and the Customs letter that follows at pp. 270 to 271).
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[^37]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, p. 265 (Betzner on Morales's anti-Communism and the drug business).
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[^38]: "Reputed Cartel Figure Convicted In Tulsa," Associated Press, May 20, 1990, *Seattle Times* archive. https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/19900520/1072717/reputed-cartel-figure-convicted-in-tulsa
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[^39]: "Committee probes smugglers' claims," *Tampa Tribune*, September 3, 1987, p. 1B (continued inside).
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[^40]: "Drug smuggler donated $$$," Associated Press, *Gettysburg Times*, April 8, 1988, p. 5.
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[^41]: "Smuggler recalls drugs-for-weapons deal," Associated Press, *Florida Times-Union*, April 8, 1988, p. A-1.
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[^42]: CIA Inspector General, *Allegations of Connections Between CIA and the Contras in Cocaine Trafficking to the United States*, Volume II (October 8, 1998), quoting the CBS West 57th Street broadcast of April 6, 1987 and Hull's denial on the same program. https://irp.fas.org/cia/product/cocaine2/other.html
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[^43]: CIA Inspector General, Volume II, passages quoting the Associated Press story of January 13, 1989, Hull's response, and the March 7, 1989 Costa Rican reporting. https://irp.fas.org/cia/product/cocaine2/other.html
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[^44]: S. Hrg. 100-773, Part 3, pp. 270 to 271 (Kerry's statement and the Customs letter from Raphael Lopez to Ralph Martin, Department of Justice public integrity attorney, with the TECS query of 21 matches and 293 matches for John Hull).
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[^45]: S. Prt. 100-165, p. 56 (investigation of Hull by the U.S. Attorney, Southern District of Florida, spring 1985), citing the Iran-Contra deposition of Jeffrey Feldman.
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[^46]: CIA Inspector General, Volume II, passages on the Fiers briefing of October 15, 1986 and the July 31, 1987 briefing to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, quoting the SSCI transcript. https://irp.fas.org/cia/product/cocaine2/other.html
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[^47]: CIA Inspector General, Volume II, passage on the December 22, 1987 Webster letter to Kerry and the "in-depth review." https://irp.fas.org/cia/product/cocaine2/other.html
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[^48]: S. Prt. 100-165, p. 54 and note 93 (Morales section, DEA polygraph of November 1988, citing a January 1989 letter from DEA Administrator John C. Lawn to Kerry). https://archive.org/details/Kerry-Report-Drugs-Contras
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