The_Info_Web/60 - PLACES/CITIES/Mena, Arkansas.md

title	aliases	created	updated	category	tags	location	summary
Mena, Arkansas	Mena, Arkansas Mena Mena, AR Mena Arkansas Mena Intermountain Airport Mena Intermountain Municipal Airport Intermountain Regional Airport Nella, Arkansas	2026-05-17	2026-10-05	City	Geography UnitedStates Arkansas 1980s ContraWar DarkAllianceInvestigation CIADrugTrafficking Mena IranContra Whitewater	Polk County, Arkansas	Western Arkansas town where Barry Seal based aircraft from late 1982; its money-laundering inquiries, a CIA 'two week exercise' and CIA records searches ran from 1983 to the 1996 Inspector General report.

Mena is a town in Polk County, Arkansas in western Arkansas near the Oklahoma border. Its Intermountain Municipal Airport (given in some sources as Intermountain Regional) was the base from late 1982 of the smuggler Barry Seal, and the aircraft-modification company Rich Mountain Aviation there worked on his planes. The area north of the town, around Nella, was the site of an alleged Contras pilot training camp.

Seal at Mena

Police watching the Mena airport reported in late 1982 that a heavy man from Louisiana had begun frequenting Rich Mountain Aviation, and federal agents had already identified Seal as "a major international narcotics trafficker." Asa Hutchinson, the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Arkansas, assigned the Internal Revenue Service criminal investigator William Duncan to watch for money laundering, and the Arkansas State Police assigned Russell Welch to look for cocaine arriving at the airport. Both men told the journalist Mara Leveritt that their assignments ended their careers.¹ Welch said that in December 1983 he and other officers watched Seal and a co-pilot land at Rich Mountain Aviation, where workers installed an extra fuel tank, and that the DEA officers who had met them at a Mena motel did not join the stakeout. They were not told that Seal had become a DEA informant.¹

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee reported in 1988 that "associates of Seal who operated aircraft service businesses at the Mena, Arkansas, airport were also the targets of grand jury probes into narcotics trafficking," that evidence sufficient for a money laundering indictment was available, that the cases were dropped over the strong protests of state and federal law enforcement officials, and that the apparent reason was that the prosecution might have revealed national security information, even though the crimes preceded Seal's work as an informant.² Duncan said he asked Hutchinson in mid-1985 for 20 subpoenas based on sworn statements from Rich Mountain Aviation employees and Mena bankers about illegal cash deposits and received three; Hutchinson's successor J. Michael Fitzhugh canceled Seal's grand jury appearance five days before it was to convene, and the Arkansas Times obtained a 1986 Federal Bureau of Investigation memorandum that Fitzhugh would be "withholding presentation" of the investigation to the grand jury. Duncan said in a deposition "It was covered up." Hutchinson said in 1996 that he started the investigation and was "called to run for office" and "out of the loop."¹³

Charles E. Black, the deputy prosecuting attorney at Mena, asked the governor's office for $25,000 to impanel a state grand jury on Rich Mountain Aviation's role; he said he got no response, and Governor Bill Clinton later said he had authorized payment of $25,000 and "nothing ever came of that." Arkansas Attorney General Winston Bryant said in 1995 that he spent three years trying to get files from the U.S. Department of Justice and "all we ever got was a total run-around." The Arkansas State Police file that Leveritt read shortly after Seal's murder ran to about 3,000 pages; in 2016 the agency could release 409.¹³

The aircraft

Seal kept a C-123K, "Fat Lady," at Mena; the Central Intelligence Agency Inspector General's case file calls it N4410F, and a CIA briefing memorandum gives its Air Force serial as 54-0679. A DEA spokesman told The New York Times in 1986 that it was the plane shot down over Nicaragua on October 5, 1986 with Eugene Hasenfus aboard.⁴⁵⁶ The independent counsel recorded that Southern Air Transport was paid $1,935,596 for contra-related services including the purchase of a C-123; the CIA review found no record that Southern Air owned or leased a C-123K.⁷⁵ The Inspector General also asked for records on a Convair C-131A, N5575A, which the Federal Aviation Administration lists as deregistered.⁸

The CIA's statements, 1994 to 1998

On June 30, 1994 the operations directorate answered the Wall Street Journal's June 29 article "Mysterious Mena" by writing that the directorate "has never had a proprietary at Mena nor is there any record of dealings with Rich Mountain Aviation," that "our records also show support in terms of [text withheld] training operation at Mena Airfield," that officers canvassed knew of no CIA Contra training in Arkansas, and that Seal's aircraft had been equipped with a camera at the DEA's request.⁹

In July 1995 the CIA Public Affairs office wrote the Acting Director that the August American Spectator article "alleges, explicitly and implicitly, that an aircraft operated by a CIA front company in 1984 used the airfield at Mena" as a staging point, that "there is no reason to believe any of the allegations," and that "as soon as those searches are complete, we hope to have a crisp public statement that distances us from the allegations, if the Agency IG's look into them does not constrain us from doing so."¹⁰ Representative James Leach, chairman of the House Banking Committee, wrote to the House intelligence committee chairman on May 9, 1995 and to the Director of Central Intelligence on July 11, 1995 asking whether the CIA or the NSA had any relationship with Seal, in connection with Whitewater-related allegations. At the July 21, 1995 briefing he said he was not opening a probe of Contra policy, that most of the allegations were probably false, and that some might be credible; later he told reporters "We have more than sufficient documentation that improprieties occurred at Mena." The CIA told him it had "no relationship with him nor any records regarding his activities in Mena," and left open its connection to Seal's cargo plane, "Park-o-Meter," and Terry Reed.¹¹³ The first CIA search request, made on June 7, 1995, produced "no records" from the components tasked.¹²

On February 26, 1996 Inspector General Fred Hitz opened case 96-0036-IG. His tasking memorandum asked for documents on any CIA activity at Mena or Nella, any CIA briefing of Arkansas state officials, any effort to influence the Justice Department, Seal and his aliases, and 22 named Mena persons and businesses, including Rich Mountain Aviation, Multitrade International, Fokker Air, Eagle Aviation, Southern Cross Aviation, Goodner Aircraft Painting, Reebaire and Freddie Lee Hampton.¹³ An employee bulletin of May 15, 1996 extended the period to "1980 to the present" and added whether L. D. Brown, who may have used the alias "Michael Johnson," applied for CIA employment from 1984 to 1986.¹⁴ The unclassified summary of the November 1996 report, as reported by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, said the CIA ran "a joint training operation with another federal agency at Mena Intermountain Airport," a "two week exercise," used Mena for "routine aviation-related services" on agency-owned equipment, and found "no evidence" of CIA involvement in "money laundering, narcotics trafficking, arms smuggling or other illegal activities at or around Mena"; it also described "limited contact" with Seal and "technical support" through cameras.¹⁵ The 1998 letter from the Inspector General to Leach said all information on Mena was in that report.¹⁶

Allegations by named witnesses

Reed, a former Air Force intelligence officer, is reported by The American Spectator's R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. to have said that he trained Contra pilots under Seal's supervision at Nella; Tyrrell also reported that the trooper Larry Patterson said in a March 1995 deposition that he overheard talk of "large quantities of drugs being flown into Mena airport, large quantities of guns." L. D. Brown, a former member of Clinton's security detail, told Tyrrell he flew with Seal on October 23, 1984 from Mena to Tegucigalpa on a C-123K from which pallets of M-16 rifles were dropped, was recruited by CIA representatives Ken Cargile and Dan Magruder, and received $2,500; Tyrrell wrote that Brown's exact relationship with the agency may never be known.¹⁷ The CIA's 1996 review of a documentary featuring Brown and Welch said the credibility of Reed's book was "questioned somewhat."¹⁸ The CIA's 1995 briefing outline said Brown applied for CIA employment in 1988 and was rejected in November 1988, while the reported Inspector General summary said he was a candidate in 1984 and the agency decided in December of that year not to hire him.¹⁵¹¹

In Dark Alliance Gary Webb wrote, drawing on the historian Roger Morris, that Seal's records "showed him to be a contract" CIA operative before and during Mena, and that coded records reportedly showed him on the Defense Intelligence Agency payroll from 1982; the CIA's 1995 records search found no record of contact with Seal, and the reported 1996 Inspector General summary described "limited contact" in 1984. Webb wrote that Reed, author of Compromised: Clinton, Bush and the CIA, said he was asked to help set up secret weapons-parts facilities in Arkansas and Mexico, one of them Park On Meter in Russellville. Webb also wrote that a former Arkansas State Police intelligence unit staff member testified to "a shredding party" in which nearly a thousand Mena documents, including ones referring to Oliver North and Reed, were purged, that the mechanic John Bender swore he saw Clinton at Mena three times in 1985, and that L. D. Brown said Clinton told him "That's Lasater's deal," referring to Danny Ray Lasater; Webb is the sole source for these passages as carried here.¹⁹ The Washington Post, according to Webb, confirmed the parking-meter company "did make some gun parts for Iver Johnson."¹⁹ Leveritt reported that in the fall of 1986 the FBI, investigating Lasater, learned from his pilot that on February 8, 1984 he flew Lasater and Patsy Thomasson to Belize to look at a horse farm for sale by Roy Carver, weeks after the Belize ranch operation that Billy Earle Jr. told Welch Seal had planned.¹

Footnotes

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1. Mara Leveritt, "Who's afraid of Barry Seal?" Arkansas Times, September 28, 2017. https://arktimes.com/news/cover-stories/2017/09/28/whos-afraid-of-barry-seal ↩︎

2. U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations, Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy (Committee Print, December 1988), "Barry Seal and the Cartel," pp. 121-122. https://archive.org/details/Kerry-Report-Drugs-Contras ↩︎

3. Mara Leveritt, "Mena rides again," Arkansas Times, August 25, 1995. https://arktimes.com/news/cover-stories/1995/08/25/mena-rides-again ↩︎

4. CIA Inspector General, memorandum for the record, "C-123K - Review of Additional Records," December 24, 1996, case Mena 96-0036-IG (CIA Reading Room 0001289850). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-0001289850 ↩︎

5. CIA Office of Congressional Affairs, memorandum for the record, OCA 95-2274, August 16, 1995 (briefing of Rep. Leach, July 21, 1995; "serial number 54-0679") (CIA Reading Room 0001289684). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-0001289684 ↩︎

6. Richard Halloran, "Plane Downed in Nicaragua Was in a U.S. Drug 'Sting,'" The New York Times, October 10, 1986 (CIA Reading Room, CIA-RDP90-00965R000402690007-7). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00965r000402690007-7 ↩︎

7. Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters (August 4, 1993), chapter 8. https://irp.fas.org/offdocs/walsh/chap_08.htm ↩︎

8. CIA Inspector General memorandum IG 96-0302, February 26, 1996 (CIA Reading Room 0001289863) and Federal Aviation Administration Aircraft Registry, N-Number Inquiry N5575A (deregistered), accessed October 5, 2026. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-0001289863 ↩︎

9. CIA Directorate of Operations, memorandum, "Wall Street Journal Allegations of Possible CIA Operations in Arkansas," June 30, 1994 (CIA Reading Room 0001289708). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-0001289708 ↩︎

10. CIA Acting Director of Public Affairs, note to the Acting DCI, "Mena," July 19, 1995 (CIA Reading Room 0001289860). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-0001289860 ↩︎

11. CIA, memorandum for the record on the Leach briefing of July 21, 1995 and briefing outline (CIA Reading Room 0001289686, 0001289820), and CIA status report on the inquiry from Chairman Leach (0001289828). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-0001289828 ↩︎

12. CIA Office of General Counsel, "Confirmation of Records Search - Adler Barriman 'Barry' Seal," OGC-95-51574, June 9, 1995, with Leach to Combest letter of May 9, 1995 (CIA Reading Room 0001289830). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-0001289830 ↩︎

13. CIA Inspector General memorandum IG 96-0302, February 26, 1996, cited in footnote 8. ↩︎

14. CIA Office of Inspector General, Employee Bulletin IG EB No. 0007-96, "Inspector General Inquiry Regarding Mena, Arkansas," May 15, 1996 (CIA Reading Room 0001289765). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-0001289765 ↩︎

15. Kathy Kiely, "CIA admits training at Mena," Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, November 9, 1996. https://archivesspace.wilkes.edu/files/normanmailer/65.9_HG2_HarlotsGhostSequelResearch_ArkansasDemocraticGazetteArticles_1996November9.pdf ↩︎

16. Letter, CIA Inspector General to Rep. James A. Leach, 1998 (CIA Reading Room 0001289865). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-0001289865 ↩︎

17. R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr., "The Arkansas Drug Shuttle," The American Spectator, August 1995 (copy attached to the CIA note of July 19, 1995, CIA Reading Room 0001289860). Sole source for Brown's account as carried here. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-0001289860 ↩︎

18. CIA memorandum for the record, "Video Tape Review: National Empowerment Network, American Investigator, 'Mena, Arkansas Under Investigation,'" February 22, 1996 (CIA Reading Room 0001289764). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-0001289764 ↩︎

19. Webb, Gary. Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion. Seven Stories Press, 1998, chapter 6. Sole source for the Morris, Bender, shredding-party, Park-On-Meter and Brown-Lasater passages as carried here. ↩︎