The Crimes of Mena - Denton and Morris
David Goldman
> by Sally Denton and Roger Morris
>Barry Seal -- gunrunner, drug trafficker, and covert C.I.A. operative extraordinaire -- is
>hardly a familiar name in American politics. But nine years after he was murdered in a hail
>of bullets by Medellin cartel hit men outside a Salvation Army shelter in Baton Rouge,
>Louisiana, he has come back to haunt the reputations of three American presidents.
>Seal's legacy includes more than 2,000 newly discovered documents that now verify and
>quantify much of what previously had been only suspicion, conjecture, and legend. The
>documents confirm that from 1981 to his brutal death in 1986, Barry Seal carried on one
>of the most lucrative, extensive, and brazen operations in the history of the international
>drug trade, and that he did it with the evident complicity, if not collusion, of elements of
>the United States government, apparently with the acquiescence of Ronald Reagan's
>administration, impunity from any subsequent exposure by George Bush's administration,
>and under the usually acute political nose of then Arkansas governor Bill Clinton.
>The newly unearthed papers show the real Seal as far more impressive and well-connected
>than the character played by Dennis Hopper in a made-for- TV movie some years ago,
>loosely based on the smuggler's life. The film portrayed the pudgy pilot as a hapless victim,
>caught in a cross fire between bungling but benign government agencies and Latin drug
>lords. The truth sprinkled through the documents is a richer-and altogether more
>sinister-matter of national and individual corruption. It is a tale of massive, socially
>devastating crime, of what seems to have been an official cover-up to match, and, not least,
>of the strange reluctance of so-called mainstream American journalism to come to grips
>with the phenomenon and its ominous implications-even when the documentary evidence
>had appeared.
>The trail winds back to another slightly bruited but obscure name-a small place in western
>Arkansas called Mena.
>Of the many stories emerging from the Arkansas of the 1980s that was crucible to the
>Clinton presidency, none has been more elusive than the charges surrounding Mena.
>Nestled in the dense pine and hardwood forests of the Oachita Mountains, some 160 miles
>west of Little Rock, once thought a refuge for nineteenth-century border outlaws and even
>a hotbed of Depression-era anarchists, the tiny town has been the locale for persistent
>reports of drug smuggling, gunrunning, and money laundering tracing to the early eighties,
>when Seal based his aircraft at Mena's Intermountain Regional Airport. From first accounts
>circulating locally in Arkansas, the story surfaced nationally as early as 1989 in a
>Penthouse article called "Snowbound," written by the investigative reporter John
>Cummings, and in a Jack Anderson column, but was never advanced at the time by other
>media. Few reporters covering Clinton in the 1992 campaign missed hearing at least
>something about Mena. But it was obviously a serious and demanding subject - the specter
>of vast drug smuggling with C.I.A. involvement - and none of the major media pursued it
>seriously. During 1992, the story was kept alive by Sarah McClendon, The Nation, and The
>Village Voice.
>Then, after Clinton became president Mena began to reappear. Over the past year, CBS
>News and The Wall Street Journal have reported the original unquieted charges
>surrounding including the shadow of some C.I.A. (or "national security") involvement in
>the gun and drug traffic, and the apparent failure of then governor Clinton to sue evidence
>of such international crime so close to home. "Seal was smuggling drugs and his planes at
>Mena," The Wall Street Journal reported in 1994. "He acted as an agent for the D.E.A. In of
>these missions, he flew the plane produced photographs of Sandinista loading drugs in
>Nicaragua. He was killed by a drug gang [Medellin cartel] men] in Baton Rouge. The cargo
>plane he flew was the same one later flown Eugene Hasenfus when he was shot down over
>Nicaragua with a load of contra supplies."
>In a mix of wild rumor and random fact, Mena has also been a topic of ubiquitous
>anti-Clinton diatribes circulated by right-wing extremists - an irony in that the Mena
>operation was the apparent brainchild of the two previous and Republican administrations.
>Still, most of the larger American media have continued to ignore, if not ridicule, the Mena
>accusations. Finding no conspiracy in the Oachitas last July a Washington Post reporter
>typically scoffed at the "alleged dark deeds," contrasting Mena with an image as
>"Clandestine, Arkansas ... Cloak and Dagger Capital of America." Noting that The New
>York Times had "mentioned Mena primarily as the headquarters of the American Rock
>Garden Society," the Columbia Journalism Review in a recent issue dismissed "the
>conspiracy theories" as of "dubious relevance."
>A former Little Rock businessman, Terry Reed, has coauthored with John Cummings a
>highly controversial book, Compromised: Clinton, Bush, and the C.I.A., which describes a
>number of covert activities around Mena, including a C.I.A. operation to train pilots and
>troops for the Nicaraguan Contras, and the collusion of local officials. Both the book and
>its authors were greeted with derision.
>Now, however, a new mass of documentary evidence has come to light regarding just such
>"dark deeds" - previously private and secret records that substantiate as never before some
>of the worst and most portentous suspicions about what went on at Mena, Arkansas, a
>decade ago. Given the scope and implications of the Mena story, it may be easy to
>understand the media's initial skepticism and reluctance. But it was never so easy to dismiss
>the testimony and suspicions of some of those close to the matter: Internal Revenue Service
>Agent Bill Duncan, Arkansas State Police investigator Russell Welch, Arkansas Attorney
>General J. Winston Bryant, Congressman Bill Alexander, and various other local
>law-enforcement officials and citizens.
>All of these people were convinced by the late eighties that there existed what Bryant
>termed "credible evidence" of the most serious criminal activity involving Mena between
>1981 and 1986. They also believed that the crimes were committed with the acquiescence,
>if not the complicity, of elements of the U.S. government. But they couldn't seem to get the
>national media to pay attention.
>During the 1992 campaign, outside advisers and aides urged former California governor
>Jerry Brown to raise the Mena issue against Clinton - at least to ask why the Arkansas
>governor had not done more about such serious international crime so close to home. But
>Brown, too, backed away from the subject. "I'll raise it if the major media break it first," he
>told aides. "The media will do it, Governor," one of them replied in frustration, "if only
>you'll raise it."
>Mena's obscure airport was thought by the I.R.S., the F.B.I., U.S. Customs, and the
>Arkansas State Police to be a base for Adler Berriman, Barry Seal, a self-confessed,
>convicted smuggler whose operations had been linked to the intelligence community.
>Duncan and Welch both spent years building cases against Seal and others for drug
>smuggling and money laundering around Mena, only to see their own law-enforcement
>careers damaged in the process.
>What evidence they gathered, they have said in testimony and other public statements, was
>not sufficiently pursued by the then U.S. attorney for the region, J. Michael Fitzhugh, or by
>the I.R.S., Arkansas State Police, and other agencies. Duncan, testifying before the joint
>investigation by the Arkansas state attorney general's office and the United States Congress
>in June 1991, said that 29 federal indictments drafted in a Mena-based money-laundering
>scheme had gone unexplored.
>Fitzhugh, responding at the time to Duncan's charges, said, "This office has not slowed up
>any investigation ... [and] has never been under any pressure in any investigation." By 1992
>, to Duncan's and Welch's mounting dismay, several other official inquiries into the alleged
>Mena connection were similarly ineffectual or were stifled altogether, furthering their
>suspicions of government collusion and cover-up. In his testimony before Congress,
>Duncan said the I.R.S. "withdrew support for the operations" and further directed him to
>"withhold information from Congress and perjure myself."
>Duncan later testified that he had never before experienced "anything remotely akin to this
>type of interference.... Alarms were going off," he continued, "and as soon as Mr. Fitzhugh
>got involved, he was more aggressive in not allowing the subpoenas and in interfering in
>the investigative process."
>State policeman Russell Welch felt he was "probably the most knowledgeable person"
>regarding the activities at Mena, yet he was not initially subpoenaed to testify before the
>grand jury. Welch testified later that the only reason he was ultimately subpoenaed at all
>was because one of the grand jurors was from Mena and "told the others that if they wanted
>to know something about the Mena airport, they ought to ask that guy [Welch] out there in
>the hall."
>State Attorney General Bryant, in a 1991 letter to the office of Lawrence Walsh, the
>independent counsel in the Iran-Contra investigation, wondered "why no one was
>prosecuted in Arkansas despite a mountain of evidence that Seal was using Arkansas as his
>principle staging area during the years 1982 through 1985."
>What actually went on in the woods of western Arkansas? The question is still relevant for
>what it may reveal about certain government operations during the time that Reagan and
>Bush were in the White House and Clinton was governor of Arkansas.
>In a mass of startling new documentation the more than 2,000 papers gathered by the
>authors from private and law enforcement sources in a year long nationwide search answers
>are found and serious questions are posed.
>These newly unearthed documents - the veritable private papers of Barry Seal - substantiate
>at least part of what went on at Mena. What might be called the 'Seal archive dates back to
>1981, when Seal began his operations at the Inter mountain Regional Airport in Mena. The
>archives all of it now in our possession, continues beyond February 1986, when Seal was
>murdered by Colombian assassins after he had testified in federal court in Las Vegas, Fort
>Lauderdale, and Miami for the U.S. government against leaders of the Medellin drug cartel.
>The papers include such seemingly innocuous material as Seal's bank and telephone
>records; negotiable instruments, promissory notes, and invoices; personal correspondence;
>address and appointment books; bills of sale for aircraft and boats; aircraft registration, and
>modification work orders.
>In addition, the archive also contains personal diaries; handwritten to-do lists and other
>private notes; secretly tape recorded conversations; and cryptographic keys and legends for
>codes used in the Seal operation.
>Finally, there are extensive official records: federal investigative and surveillance reports,
>accounting assessments by the I.R.S. and the D.E.A., and court proceedings not previously
>reported in the press testimony as well as confidential pre-sentencing memoranda in federal
>narcotics-trafficking trials in Florida and Nevada-numerous depositions, and other sworn
>statements. The archive paints a vivid portrait not only of a major criminal conspiracy
>around Mena, but also of the unmistakable shadow of government complicity.
>Among the new revelations: Mena, from 1981 to 1985, was indeed one of the centers for
>international smuggling traffic. According to official I.R.S. and D.E.A. calculations, sworn
>court testimony, and other corroborative records, the traffic amounted to thousands of
>kilos of cocaine and heroin and literally hundreds of millions of dollars in drug profits.
>According to a 1986 letter from the Louisiana attorney general to then U.S. attorney
>general Edwin Meese, Seal "smuggled between $3 billion and $5 billion of drugs into the
>U.S."
>Seal himself spent considerable sums to land, base, maintain, and specially equip or refit his
>aircraft for smuggling. According to personal and business records, he had extensive
>associations at Mena and in Little Rock, and was in nearly constant telephone contact with
>Mena when he was not there himself.
>Phone records indicate Seal made repeated calls to Mena the day before his murder. This
>was long after Seal, according to his own testimony, was working as an $800,000-a-year
>informant for the federal government.
>A former member of the Army Special Forces, Seal had ties to the Central Intelligence
>Agency dating to the early 1970s. He had confided to relatives and others, according to
>their sworn statements, that he was a C.I.A. operative before and during the period when he
>established his operations at Mena. In one statement to Louisiana State Police, a Seal
>relative said, "Barry was into gunrunning and drug smuggling in Central and South
>America ... and he had done some time in El Salvadore [sic]." Another then added, "It was
>true, but at the time Barry was working for the C.I.A."
>In a posthumous jeopardy assessment case against Seal also documented in the archive the
>I.R.S. determined that money earned by Seal between 1984 and 1986 was not illegal
>because of his "C.I.A.-D.E.A. employment." The only public official acknowledgment of
>Seal's relationship to the C.I.A. has been in court and congressional testimony, and in
>various published accounts describing the C.I.A.'s installation of cameras in Seal's C-123K
>transport plane, used in a highly celebrated 1984 sting operation against the Sandinista
>regime in Nicaragua.
>Robert Joura, the assistant special agent in charge of the D.E.A.'s Houston office and the
>agent who coordinated Seal's undercover work, told The Washington Post last year that
>Seal was enlisted by the C.I.A. for one sensitive mission-providing photographic evidence
>that the Sandinistas were letting cocaine from Colombia move through Nicaragua. A
>spokesman for then Senate candidate Oliver North told The Post that North had been kept
>aware of Seal's work through "intelligence sources."
>Federal Aviation Administration registration records contained in the archive confirm that
>aircraft identified by federal and state narcotics agents as in the Seal smuggling operation
>were previously owned by Air America, Inc., widely reported to have been a C.I.A.
>proprietary company.
>Emile Camp, one of Seal's pilots and a witness to some of his most significant dealings,
>was killed on a Mountainside near Mena in 1985 in the unexplained crash of one of those
>planes that had once belonged to Air America.
>According to still other Seal records, at least some of the aircraft in his smuggling fleet,
>which included a Lear jet, helicopters, and former U.S. military transports, were also
>outfitted with avionics and other equipment by yet another company in turn linked to Air
>America.
>Among the aircraft flown in and out of Mena was Seal's C-123K cargo plane, christened
>Fat Lady. The records show that Fat Lady, serial number 54-0679, was sold by Seal months
>before his death. According to other files, the plane soon found its way to a phantom
>company of what became known in the Iran-Contra scandal as "the Enterprise,' the
>C.I.A.-related secret entity managed by Oliver North and others to smuggle illegal weapons
>to the Nicaraguan Contra rebels.
>According to former D.E.A. agent Celerino Castillo and others, the aircraft was allegedly
>involved in a return traffic in cocaine, profits from which were then used to finance more
>clandestine gunrunning.
>F.A.A. records show that in October 1986, the same Fat Lady was shot down over
>Nicaragua with a load of arms destined for the Contras. Documents found on board the
>aircraft and seized by the Sandinistas included logs linking the plane with Area 51 - the
>nation's top-secret nuclear-weapons facility at the Nevada Test Site.
>The doomed aircraft was co-piloted by Wallace Blaine "Buzz" Sawyer, a native of western
>Arkansas, who died in the crash. The admissions of the surviving crew member, Eugene
>Hasenfus, began a public unraveling of the Iran-Contra episode.
>An Arkansas gun manufacturer testified in 1993 in federal court in Fayetteville that the
>C.I.A. contracted with him to build 250 automatic pistols for the Mena operation. William
>Holmes testified that he had been introduced to Seal in Mena by a C.I.A. operative, and that
>he then sold weapons to Seal.
>Even though he was given a Department of Defense purchase order for guns fitted with
>silencers, Holmes testified that he was never paid the $140,000 the government owed him.
>"After the Hasenfus plane was shot down," Holmes said, "you couldn't find a soul around
>Mena."
>Meanwhile, there was still more evidence that Seal's massive smuggling operation based in
>Arkansas had been part of a C.I.A. operation, and that the crimes were continuing well after
>Seal's murder. In 1991 sworn testimony to both Congressman Alexander and Attorney
>General Bryant, state police investigator Welch recorded that in 1987 he had documented
>"new activity at the [Mena] airport with the appearance of ... an Australian business [a
>company linked with the C.I.A.], and C-130s had appeared...."
>At the same time, according to Welch, two F.B.I. agents officially informed him that the
>C.I.A. "had something going on at the Mena Airport involving Southern Air Transport
>[another company linked with the C.I.A.] ... and they didn't want us [the Arkansas State
>Police] to screw it up like we had the last one."
>The hundreds of millions in profits generated by the Seal trafficking via Mena and other
>outposts resulted in extraordinary banking and business practices in apparent efforts to
>launder or disperse the vast amounts of illicit money in Arkansas and elsewhere. Seal's
>financial records show from the early eighties, for example, instances of daily deposits of
>$50,000 or more, and extensive use of an offshore foreign bank in the Caribbean, as well
>as financial institutions in Arkansas and Florida.
>According to I.R.S. criminal investigator Duncan, secretaries at the Mena Airport told him
>that when Seal flew into Mena, "there would be stacks of cash to be taken to the bank and
>laundered." One secretary told him that she was ordered to obtain numerous cashier's
>checks, each in an amount just under $10,000, at various banks in Mena and surrounding
>communities, to avoid filing the federal Currency Transaction Reports required for all bank
>transactions that exceed that limit.
>Bank tellers testified before a federal grand jury that in November 1982, a Mena airport
>employee carried a suitcase containing more than $70,000 into a bank. "The bank officer
>went down the teller lines handing out the stacks of $1,000 bills and got the cashier's
>checks."
>Law-enforcement sources confirmed that hundreds of thousands of dollars were laundered
>from 1981 to 1983 just in a few small banks near Mena, and that millions more from Seal's
>operation were laundered elsewhere in Arkansas and the nation.
>Spanish-language documents in Seal's possession at the time of his murder also indicate
>that he had accounts throughout Central America and was planning to set up his own bank
>in the Caribbean.
>Additionally, Seal's files suggest a grandiose scheme for building an empire. Papers in his
>office at the time of his death include references to dozens of companies - all of which had
>names that began with Royale. Among them: Royale Sports, Royale Television Network,
>Royale Liquors, Royale Casino, S.A., Royale Pharmaceuticals, Royale Arabians, Royale
>Seafood, Royale Security Royale Resorts ... and on and on.
>Seal was scarcely alone in his extensive smuggling operation based in Mena from 1981 to
>1986, commonly described in both federal and state law enforcement files as one of the
>largest drug-trafficking operations in the United States at the time, if not in the history of
>the drug trade.
>Documents show Seal confiding on one occasion that he was "only the transport," pointing
>to an extensive network of narcotics distribution and finance in Arkansas and other states.
>After drugs were smuggled across the border, the duffel bags of cocaine would be retrieved
>by helicopters and dropped onto flatbed trucks destined for various American cities.
>In recognition of Seal's significance in the drug trade, government prosecutors made him
>their chief witness in various cases, including a 1985 Miami trial in absentia of Medellin
>drug lords; in another 1985 trial of what federal officials regarded as the largest narcotics
>trafficking case to date in Las Vegas; and in still a third prosecution of corrupt officials in
>the Turks and Caicos Islands.
>At the same time, court records and other documents reveal a studied indifference by
>government prosecutors to Seal's earlier and ongoing operations at Mena.
>In the end, the Seal documents are vindication for dedicated officials in Arkansas like
>agents Duncan and Welch and local citizens' groups like the Arkansas Committee, whose
>own evidence and charges take on new gravity and also for The Nation, The Village Voice,
>the Association of National Security Alumni, the venerable Washington journalists Sarah
>McClendon and Jack Anderson, Arkansas reporters Rodney Bowers and Mara Leveritt, and
>others who kept an all-too-authentic story alive amid wider indifference.
>But now the larger implications of the newly exposed evidence seem as dis- turbing as the
>criminal enormity it silhouettes. Like his modern freebooter's life, Seal's documents leave
>the political and legal landscape littered with stark questions.
>What, for example, happened to some nine different official investigations into Mena after
>1987, from allegedly compromised federal grand juries to congressional inquiries
>suppressed by the National Security Council in 1988 under Ronald Reagan to still later
>Justice Department inaction under George Bush?
>Officials repeatedly invoked national security to quash most of the investigations. Court
>documents do show clearly that the C.I.A. and the D.E.A. employed Seal during 1984 and
>1985 for the Reagan administration's celebrated sting attempt to implicate the Nicaraguan
>Sandinista regime in cocaine trafficking.
>According to a December 1988 Senate Foreign Relations Committee report, "cases were
>dropped. The apparent reason was that the prosecution might have revealed
>national-security information, even though all of the crimes which were the focus of the
>investigation occurred before Seal became a federal informant."
>Tax records show that, having assessed Seal posthumously for some $86 million in back
>taxes on his earnings from Mena and elsewhere between 1981 and 1983, even the I.R.S.
>forgave the taxes on hundreds of millions in known drug and gun profits over the ensuing
>two-year period when Seal was officially admitted to be employed by the government.
>To follow the I.R.S. logic, what of the years, crimes, and profits at Mena in the early
>eighties, before Barry Seal became an acknowledged federal operative, as well as the
>subsequently reported drug-trafficking activities at Mena even after his murder - crimes far
>removed from his admitted cooperation as government informant and witness?
>"Joe [name deleted] works for Seal and cannot be touched because Seal works for the
>C.I.A.," a Customs official said in an Arkansas investigation into drug trafficking during
>the early eighties. "A C.I.A. or D.E.A. operation is taking place at the Mena airport," an
>F.B.I. telex advised the Arkansas State Police in August 1987, 18 months after Seal's
>murder.
>Welch later testified that a Customs agent told him, "Look, we've been told not to touch
>anything that has Barry Seal's name on it, just to let it go." The London Sunday Telegraph
>recently reported new evidence, including a secret code number, that Seal was also working
>as an operative of the Defense Intelligence Agency during the period of the gunrunning and
>drug smuggling.
>Perhaps most telling is what is so visibly missing from the voluminous files.
>In thousands of pages reflecting a man of meticulous organization and plan- ning, Barry
>Seal seems to have felt singularly and utterly secure, if not somehow invulnerable, at least
>in the ceaseless air transport and delivery into the United States of tons of cocaine for more
>than five years. In a 1986 letter to the D.E.A., the commander and deputy commander of
>narcotics for the Louisiana State Police say that Seal "was being given apparent free rein to
>import drugs in conjunction with D.E.A. investigations with so little restraint and control
>on his actions as to allow him the opportunity to import drugs for himself should he have
>been so disposed."
>Seal's personal videotapes, in the authors' possession, show one scene in which he used
>U.S. Army paratroop equipment, as well as military like precision, in his drug-transporting
>operation. Then, in the middle of the afternoon, after a number of dry runs, one of his
>airplanes dropped a load of several duffel bags attached to a parachute. Within seconds, the
>cargo sitting on the remote grass landing strip was retrieved by Seal and loaded onto a
>helicopter that had followed the low-flying aircraft. "This is the first daylight cocaine drop
>in the history of the state of Louisiana," Seal narrates on the tape.
>If the duffel bags seen in the smuggler's home movies were filled with cocaine, as Seal
>himself states on tape, that single load would have been worth hundreds of millions of
>dollars.
>Perhaps the videos were not of an actual cocaine drop, but merely the drug trafficker's
>training video for his smuggling organization, or even a test maneuver. Regardless, the
>films show a remarkable, fearless invincibility. Barry Seal was not expecting apprehension.
>His most personal papers show him all but unconcerned about the very flights and drops
>that would indeed have been protected or "fixed," according to law-enforcement sources,
>by the collusion of U.S. intelligence. In an interview with agent Duncan, Seal brazenly
>"admitted that he had been a drug smuggler"
>If the Seal documents show anything, an attentive reader might conclude, it is that ominous
>implication of some official sanction. Over the entire episode looms the unmistakable
>shape of government collaboration in vast drug trafficking and gunrunning, and in a
>decade-long cover-up of criminality.
>Government investigators apparently had no doubt about the magnitude of those crimes.
>According to Customs sources, Seal's operations at Mena and other bases were involved in
>the export of guns to Bolivia, Argentina, Peru, and Brazil, as well as to the Contras, and the
>importation of cocaine from Colombia to be sold in New York, Chicago, Detroit, St.
>Louis, and other cities, as well as in Arkansas itself.
>Duncan and his colleagues knew that Seal's modus operandi included dumping most of the
>drugs in other southern states, so that what Arkansas agents witnessed in Mena was but a
>tiny fragment of an operation staggering in its magnitude.
>Yet none of the putative inquiries seems to have made a serious effort to gather even a
>fraction of the available Seal documents now assembled and studied by the authors.
>Finally, of course, there are somber questions about then governor Clinton's own role
>vis-a-vis the crimes of Mena. Clinton has acknowledged learning officially about Mena
>only in April 1988, though a state police investigation had been in progress for several
>years. As the state's chief executive, Clinton often claimed to be fully abreast of such
>inquiries. In his one public statement on the matter as governor, in September 1991, he
>spoke of that investigation finding "linkages to the federal government," and "all kinds of
>questions about whether he [Seal] had any links to the C.I.A. ... and if that backed into the
>Iran Contra deal."
>But then Clinton did not offer further support for any inquiry, "despite the fact," as Bill
>Plante and Michael Singer of CBS News have written, "that a Republican administration
>was apparently sponsoring a Contra-aid operation in his state and protecting a smuggling
>ring that flew tons of cocaine through Arkansas."
>As recently as March 1995, Arkansas state trooper Larry Patterson testified under oath,
>according to the London Sunday Telegraph, that he and other officers "discussed repeatedly
>in Clinton's presence" the "large quantities of drugs being flown into the Mena airport,
>large quantities of money, large quantities of guns," indicating that Clinton may have
>known much more about Seal's activities than he has admitted.
>Moreover, what of the hundreds of millions generated by Seal's Mena con- traband? The
>Seal records reveal his dealings with at least one major Little Rock bank. How much drug
>money from him or his associates made its way into criminal laundering in Arkansas's
>notoriously freewheeling financial institutions and bond houses, some of which are
>reportedly under investigation by the Whitewater special prosecutor for just such large,
>unaccountable infusions of cash and unexplained transactions?
>"The state offers an enticing climate for traffickers," I.R.S. agents had concluded by the end
>of the eighties, documenting a "major increase" in the amount of large cash and bank
>transactions in Arkansas after 1985, despite a struggling local economy.
>Meanwhile, prominent backers of Clinton's over the same years, including bond broker and
>convicted drug dealer Dan Lasater and chicken tycoon Don Tyson, have themselves been
>subjects of extensive investigative and surveillance files by the D.E.A. or the F.B.I. similar
>to those relating to Seal, including allegations of illegal drug activity that Tyson has
>recently acknowledged publicly and denounced as "totally false."
>"This may be the first president in history with such close buddies who have NADDIS
>numbers," says one concerned law-enforcement official, referring to the Narcotics and
>Dangerous Drugs Intelligence System numbers assigned those under protracted
>investigation for possible drug crimes.
>The Seal documents are still more proof that for Clinton, the Arkansas of the eighties and
>the company he kept there will not soon disappear as a political or even constitutional
>liability. "I've always felt we never got the whole story there," Clinton said in 1991.
>Indeed. But as president of the United States, he need no longer wonder, and neither should
>the nation. On the basis of the Seal documents (copies of which are being given to the
>Whitewater special prosecutor in any case), the president should ask immediately for a full
>report on the matter from the C.I.A., the D.E.A., the F.B.I.., the Justice Department, and
>other relevant agencies of his own administration including the long-buried evidence
>gathered by I.R.S. agent Duncan and Arkansas state police investigator Welch. President
>Clinton should also offer full executive-branch cooperation with a reopened congressional
>inquiry, and expose the subject fully for what it says of both the American past and future.
>Seal saw himself as a patriot to the end. He had dictated his own epitaph for his grave in
>Baton Rouge: "A rebel adventurer the likes of whom in previous days made America
>great." In a sense, his documents may now render that claim less ironic than it seems.
>The tons of drugs that Seal and his associates brought into the country, officials agree,
>affected tens of thousands of lives at the least, and exacted an incalculable toll on American
>society. And for the three presidents, the enduring questions of political scandal are once
>again apt: What did they know about Mena? When did they know it? Why didn't they do
>anything to stop it?
>The crimes of Mena were real. That much is now documented beyond doubt. The only
>remaining issues are how far they extended, and who was responsible.
Bear Bottoms
Sent: Wednesday, December 04, 1996 8:25 PM
To: 'Sally Denton and Roger Morris'
Subject: Mena, Arkansas
Hi gang
My name is William "Bear" Bottoms aka "Billy Bob". I
was Barry Seal's brother-in-law and chief pilot from the
time he got out of jail in Honduras in 1980 until his death
in Feb. 1986. We have things to talk about. There is a
request and ready audience on the usenet that would greatly
like to see a debate there between you guys and myself. It
would be entertaining to the internet and might draw some
publicity or media attention. You know what they say, you
can't get bad publicity, just publicity. We can correspond
via email or if you like jump into the alt.current-events.
clinton.whitewater newsgroup.
Sincerely
"Billy Bob"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
From: DenM...@aol.com[SMTP:DenM...@aol.com]
Sent: Saturday, December 07, 1996 6:29 PM
To: bbot...@rouge.net
Subject: Re: Mena, Arkansas
Thanks for your email. We're familiar with the newsgroup
and with your role in the Barry Seal family and organization,
although we haven't seen the infamous Penthouse exposette.
Frankly, we'd love a debate, but we're very busy right now on
another related project and haven't even had time to check
the newsgroup for months. In fact, this is our first time on-line
since September or October, so sorry for the delay in responding.
When we get off the deadline we're on, we'll weigh in. Email
us your piece if you get a chance. We must say, though, anyone
who speaks so highly of a "journalist" like John Camp --or is it
Campeaux-- gives us substantial pause. At any rate, we'd love a
debate when we have time. Sally Denton & Roger Morris
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
From: William Bottoms[SMTP:bbot...@rouge.net]
Sent: Sunday, December 08, 1996 6:16 AM
To: 'DenM...@aol.com'
Subject: RE: Mena, Arkansas
----------
From: DenM...@aol.com[SMTP:DenM...@aol.com]
Sent: Saturday, December 07, 1996 6:29 PM
To: bbot...@rouge.net
Subject: Re: Mena, Arkansas
Thanks for your email. We're familiar with the newsgroup and
with your role in the Barry Seal family and organization, although
we haven't seen the infamous Penthouse exposette. Frankly, we'd
love a debate, but we're very busy right now on another related
project and haven't even had time to check the newsgroup for
months. In fact, this is our first time on-line since September or
October, so sorry for the delay in responding. When we get off
the deadline we're on, we'll weigh in. Email us your piece if you
get a chance. We must say, though, anyone who speaks so highly
of a "journalist" like John Camp --or is it Campeaux-- gives us
substantial pause. At any rate, we'd love a debate when we have
time. Sally Denton & Roger Morris
I like that...Campeaux. He happens to be the only journalist that
has accurately reported anything close to the issues at hand. His
knowledge is rather limited however.
I know Mena is pretty old stuff, but there still
seems to be a fair amount of interest in it. I only recently joined in
the hype, but it has been rather fun. I probably would never have
bothered but for the fact that Steve Ganis recently interviewed me
for the Leach investigation. He put a twist on it that disturbed me
and I decided to get my bit out before I sat across the table from some
query. I now doubt any such query will take place.
The Penthouse piece was rather cheesy in my opinion. It
certainly wasn't very representative of what I sent them, but the basic
story is there. While I can debunk the Mena conspiracy, there is
actually a much better story concerning the same that involves Hillary
and a real cover up. The stuff I put out on the internet is rather blase.
I have been saving the really good stuff in the event I percieve any real
pressure.
The Wall Street Journal was aware of me and part of my story during
the time you were trying to get them to publish yours. I fortunately know
quite a lot about those events, but as I said, there is a much better story.
I am not looking for a fist fight, however, I think a good debate could be
quite entertaining and open up new avenues which would more accurately
address the issues. Smoke screens have a tendency to get nowhere
fast which is what has been happening. If the right doors are opened,
many more can be shut.
Bear Bottoms aka "Billy Bob"
Below is the Penthouse piece that Sharon Churcher wrote. It is copy/
pasted out of Microsoft word. I will also attach it as a .doc file in the
event
it causes line feed problems in your reader.
(File Churcher.doc was attached.)
By Sharon Churcher
The Republicans are pulling a last-minute "dirty trick" against
Bill Clinton. At least that's the way it looks to a former drug
smuggler called Billy Bob Bottoms, who says he was astonished
when congressional leaders announced that they were
investigating allegations that Clinton covered up an international
cocaine ring. Bottoms, you see, worked as the ring's chief pilot.
And he says that, at the time of the announcement, the G.O.P.
already knew that the allegations were a "hoax." "They're
desperate to find any scum they can to throw at Clinton," he told
Penthouse in an exclusive interview. The deeds that purpor- tedly
went on at Mena, Arkansas, while Clinton was in the statehouse
certainly have made lurid headlines for House Banking Committee
chairman Jim Leach (R-Iowa), who has asked the C.I.A. to
investigate what he calls "credible" allegations that the town was
the nerve center for a shadowy conspiracy between the agency and
state officials. According to books, articles, interviews, and
videotapes pouring onto the market from the conspiracy theorists--
who range from R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr., editor of the ultra-right
American Spectator, to a former state trooper who first enjoyed his
15 minutes of fame when he claimed the Clintons had marital
problems--smugglers under C.I.A. direction airlifted arms illegally
to Nicaragua's Contra rebels. The smugglers supposedly were
rewarded by being allowed to flood the U.S. with between "$3 billion
and $5 billion" worth of cocaine, with the state taking a ten-percent
"commission" from the "evil" trade. The former trooper, Larry Patterson,
charges that conversations about "large quantities of drugs being flown
into Mena airport, large quantities of guns ... an ongoing operation
training foreign people in the area" took place in Clinton's presence.
In a new book, Boy Clinton, Tyrrell goes even further. Quoting
another ex-trooper, L. D. Brown, he alleges that there appeared to be
a plan to kill "anybody that apparently had anything to do with what
happened at Mena." Incensed that "lies" are being told about the man
who is now President, Bottoms says he has decided to speak out for the
first time about his old crimes. And he makes a convincing case that
they have nothing to do with guns, the Contras, or Clinton. For that
matter, they seem to have only the most tenuous connection to Mena.
"I guess Leach thought the smugglers were hardly going to come
forward and talk about what really happened," says Bottoms. "
Well, he's in for a shock."Bottoms says that the only shred of
truth in the allegations is that he was the chief pilot for a ring,
founded by his then brother-in-law, an adventurer named Barry
Seal, that smuggled drugs, mostly Colombian coke, into the U.S.
All told, according to Seal's estimates, the ring brought in more
than $50 million worth, of which, adds Bottoms, not one cent
went to Clinton. Though Seal kept two maintenance hangars at
the Mena airport, they neither knew the Governor nor needed to
pay him off, Bottoms explains, since none of the airstrips they
regularly used for landing the drugs were in Arkansas. Moreover,
far from enjoying any official protection, the ring's dope-hauling
bonanza came to an abrupt end, Bottoms says, when Seal was
busted by the feds in April 1983 in a Fort Lauderdale sting,
"Operation Screamer." After that Seal and Bottoms indeed
worked for the government. But not for Bill Clinton's arm of
the government and not ferrying guns. After Seal cut a deal with
the anti-drug task force headed by Vice President George
Bush--yes, Jim Leach, that George Bush--they agreed to work
undercover in a series of federal sting operations, the most
ambitious of which, confirmed to us by a Drug Enforcement
Administration agent who was one of their handlers, was
designed to trap Pablo Escobar, Jorge Ochoa, and other
overlords of the Colombian cartels. "The Republicans know
darn well what went on because this all went on during the
Reagan and Bush administrations," says Bottoms, who was
under contract to the D.E.A. until 1989. "They know we had
nothing to do with Clinton. We were snitches for their own
party's war on drugs, not gunrunners. Even if we had been
asked to carry guns, which we were not, we'd never have done
it, because Barry hated guns. "In 1979, on one of his first
cocaine runs from Colombia, he [Barry] landed in Honduras
to refuel, and the Hondurans found a gun in his plane and
arrested him. It took him nine months to get out of jail, and
after that he always said, `We don't use guns, because money
can get you out of anything in Central and South America,
unless you got a gun with you. Guns make those guys think
you may be some kind of rebel.' "There's no way Barry could
have lied to me about what was going on because after
Honduras, most of the time he wasn't even in the planes. I was
the one flying nearly all the runs in the period the Republicans
are talking about, and I certainly never had any guns on board.
"I laughed at first when these conspiracy theorists said Barry
was running around the woods in Arkansas and training Contras.
I was the one who bought 110 acres in the mountains near Mena,
not Barry, and the land was for recreation. The only time I know
of guns being fired there is one day me and my daddy and a
friend went there to do some target shooting. "I never intended
to talk about what I did in those days because I'm not proud of it.
I'm married and I have two little boys and no one in our
community knows I was a smuggler. But I'm not willing to
allow the Republicans to put Clinton's head on a platter.
"Let me tell you something that proves they're liars. When
Barry was busted, he wanted to get out of trouble bad because
if he didn't he was going to go down for a long time. The only
way he could keep out of jail was to promise the feds he'd put
together the biggest criminal case in history against cocaine
traffickers, and the bigger the names he could give up, the
better it was gonna be for Barry. Reagan, Bush, or Clinton, it
didn't matter to him. If he could have named them and proved
they were dealing narcotics, he'd have done it. But the fact is,
he had nothing on Clinton, any more than he had anything on
Bush or Reagan." The first sting that Seal coordinated not only
was mounted under Republican auspices, it was also aborted by
Republicans. The sting inadvertently had turned up evidence
that the Nicaraguan Sandinistas, the archenemies of the Contras
for whom Reagan was seeking congressional funding, were
allowing Colombian drug lords to use their territory as a staging
post. Reagan White House officials leaked this information to
the media, according to Ernst Jacobsen, one of the D.E.A. agents
who "ran" Seal and Bottoms, and the sting had to be called off.
Two years later, hit men for the cartel tracked down Seal and
killed him in a hail of bullets.
"This really ticks me off," Jacobsen told Penthouse. "First the
Republicans blow an operation that I believe would have shut
down the most powerful cocaine operation in the world, and
now they're trying to turn a legitimate law-enforcement
operation into a lie to use against Bill Clinton. They don't want
to know the truth. All they want is mud on Clinton." "What
the Republicans should be investigating is why their own people
blew the chance to destroy the cartel that has destroyed so many
Americans' lives," says Bottoms. Now a Louisiana businessman
who says he has been burdened with guilt for years about his
crimes, Bottoms has provided Penthouse with extensive proof
of his partnership with Seal. Another ringleader in the
smuggling operation (who asked not to be identified since,
unlike Bottoms, he never turned himself in to the feds) confirmed
that Bottoms was the traffickers' chief pilot. Ironically, it was
Seal, Bottoms acknowledges, who provided some of the initial
fodder for the conspiracy theory. Originally a TWA pilot, in
1972 Seal was caught with a DC-6 loaded with explosives and
was charged with trying to smuggle them to Mexico. But after
he testified that the ammo was really part of a C.I.A. plot to
overthrow Fidel Castro, an appeals court threw out the indictment.
"It was certainly Barry's story that he was working for the
government," recalls Bottoms. "He said he'd been recruited
to do the job by Carlos Marcello [a Mafia boss linked to
earlier schemes against Castro]. Although the charges
against him were dropped, TWA fired him, and he went
into drug smuggling. He bought a real nice house in the
Baton Rouge suburbs, and his wife drove an expensive
Mercedes, and they had all this jewelry and fur coats, and
he was buying helicopters and planes, including a Learjet,
and then he began buying boats. So he has this nice lifestyle
and no sign of a job. What's he to tell the neighbors? He
could hardly say, `I'm trying to be the world's biggest drug
smuggler.'
"He began creating his own little conspiracy theory as a
cover story. When people asked him what he was doing,
he'd say, `That's something I can't talk about,' hinting he
was in the C.I.A. "But of course I knew he wasn't. He
was smuggling marijuana from Colombia for connections
in California and Georgia right up until the end of 1979.
That was when he started to try to smuggle coke and was
caught with the gun in Honduras. It was after he got out
of jail there and came back to the States that I joined his
operation. I'd been a pilot for the U.S. Navy, and I went to
Barry and said, 'I want in.' Smuggling seemed exciting, and
the timing was right for Barry. He'd never
come right out and say he was afraid of anything, but after
Honduras he didn't want to take the risk of flying anymore
unless he had to. "He'd sit in his house or in a little radio
shack out in a Louisiana river valley and direct the
operation, and he'd make the business connections. Mostly
we were paid just to transport the drugs for the Colombians.
But Barry had been stuck with what supposedly were boxes
of ludes. That was how he got busted. It turned out they
were just chalk. Barry offered them for sale to a man in
Florida who turned out to be a federal agent working for
Operation Screamer.
"That's the story of what Barry and I were doing in the
first years when we're supposed to have been paying off
Bill Clinton. We didn't even use Mena to bring in drugs.
We'd fly right out of the Baton Rouge metropolitan airport
or airports in other cities in Louisiana and come back
into a cane field in the same state. You know our only
connection to Arkansas? The hangars at Mena. We used
them for maintenance andnb to store equipment and, late
in our operation, airplanes.Never for drugs.
"I don't think I even knew the name of the governor at the
time. The reason we chose Mena was it was low-key, so
nobody was going to ask questions about what kind of work
we were in. And it had good metal shops and paint shops."
Ernst Jacobsen, who is now retired from the D.E.A., says
he would be amazed if the Republicans are unaware of such
facts. Seal and Bottoms made full confessions, the ex-agent
says, when they cut their deals to become informers. Seal
got six months' probation instead of a ten-year prison term;
Bottoms was granted immunity from prosecution after he
agreed to join the undercover missions.
The place where the D.E.A. initially planned to cast the
dragnet was Sandinista-controlled Nicaragua. Seal had told
his handlers that the Central American nation was becoming
a base for processing Colombian cocaine. The plan was for
him to fly a C-123K cargo plane he had bought, christened
The Fat Lady, to Nicaragua and pick up a cocaine load. "The
C.I.A. had installed cameras on the plane, and obviously the
hope was we'd get pictures of the Colombians loading her up,"
says Jacobsen. When Seal returned it was with surveillance
photos showing, among others, Pablo Escobar.
The D.E.A. agents were ecstatic. What they didn't know was
that the trip had been monitored by the White House. One day
the agents got a call from their headquarters warning them that
word of the sting had been leaked to The Washington Times. "
The White House had gotten pictures of Escobar and
Sandinistas loading the aircraft," says Jacobsen. "Reagan's
men didn't care about catching Escobar. All they cared about
was discrediting the Sandinistas and trying to get Congress
to approve funding the Contras. So they ruined our case."
The story duly appeared in The Washington Times (one of
the same right-wing publications that just happen to be now
claiming that Seal was in cahoots with Clinton). Though the
cartel now knew that Seal was a turncoat--and ultimately
would take their revenge with his murder--they didn't have
an inkling that their other old buddy, Bottoms, was now in
the D.E.A.'s service. And so Bottoms became the pilot on
numerous sting operations, one of which snared Norman
Saunders, chief minister of the Turks and Caicos islands, a
cartel refueling post on the long haul from Colombia to the
U.S. Both Bottoms and Seal testified against Saunders and
cartel members at several trials.
"The Republicans only have to look at the court records to
see that not one of these sting operations had anything to
do with Mena. The planes for the government didn't leave
from Mena. They didn't return to Mena. We flew into
airfields in Florida, Texas, and Nevada--everywhere but
Mena," says Bottoms. What has given the conspiracy theory
superficial plausibility is Seal's decision to sell The Fat Lady.
A few months after his death the plane was shot down in
Nicaragua, and was found to be laden with illegal *arms
shipments destined for the Contras.
Eugene Hasenfus, the mechanic on The Fat Lady that day,
said it was sheer coincidence that a plane once owned by
Seal was now part of Oliver North's secret network to
support the rebels. But the stage was set for swarms of
investigative reporters--most of them, initially, on the left--
to start digging into the case. They soon found people who
remembered Seal's boasts about working "for the C.I.A."
Their theory was that Seal had been masterminding some
kind of spin-off from North's scheme for laundering arms-
sales profits from covert U.S. deals with Iran to the Contras.
Interestingly, in those days there was no mention of Clinton
being in league with the smugglers. Far from it. After The
Fat Lady crashed, it was the Democrats who began
demanding an inquiry into what the Republicans
supposedly were covering up. "Now it's the Republicans
who are trying to turn the thing around and claim that
Clinton--who had no more reason than we did to have any
link to the Contras--was part of this crazy conspiracy,"
Bottoms says angrily. In the interests of setting the record
straight, we asked a spokesman for Jim Leach when we
might expect the release of his report. Not before the
election, we were told.
Bear Bottoms
>If you READ the material carefully in the Penthouse 95 article and in
>Partners in Power you will see that Roger and I draw an important
>distinction between1) the massive amount of drugs in the overall
>traffic
>stemming from Seal operations based and maintained at Mena, most of the
>drops from which went to sites all over the southern United States,
>including but not limited to Arkansas, and
BEAR BOTTOMS COMMENT:
First Mena was a hideout and service facility for us. Our base of
operations was Louisiana. All ALL of our drops went to Louisiana.
This is a totally unsubstantiated statement of rhetoric.
> 2) the relatively less but
> >still significant and criminal amounts of drugs dropped in Arkansas,
BEAR BOTTOMS COMMENT:
There were no drugs dropped in Arkansas and there is no
evidence of it period.
>3)
>the literally billions of dollars in the overall traffic that was
>laundered throughout the United States, including but not limited to
>Arkansas,
BEAR BOTTOMS COMMENT:
Well, it sure wasn't our money. There is evidence to support my
statement, and none to support her rhetoric.
>4) the relatively less but still significant and criminal amount
>of money laundered in Arkansas, and finally,
BEAR BOTTOMS COMMENT:
Yes, the money Duncan and Operation Greenback found paid to
Fred Hampton which he laundered and put in his pocket.
>5) the relatively less but
>still significant and criminal amount of drugs that came actually
>through
>the airport at Mena and the relatively small but still criminal amount
>of
>money that eyewitnesses watched laundered at local Mena, Arkansas banks.
BEAR BOTTOMS COMMENT:
This is two parts. The second part is the same as in her number 4. The
first part about the drugs has no evidential support. I know that it
didn't happen except for the possibility that one plane load of a small
unknown
quantity may have landed at Mena. This is another story I will tell at a
later
date.
>These are import distinctions for historical and evidentiary purposes.
>But they are distinctions without meaning when one is discussing whether
>enormous crimes originated at and were facilitated by what was going on
>at
> >Mena as a base for Barry Seal and others,
BEAR BOTTOMS COMMENT:
This is crapola. Historical and evidentiary purposes? This is pure
unmitigated bs, with no factual soft or hard evidence to back it up. Only
rhetoric
and bandwagon jumpers with no substance or evidence or witnesses to back
their claims. Mena was a hide out. We based in Louisiana. When we needed
our equipment we would go get it and refuel in Louisiana. I would arrive to
a
ready airplane get in it and go south. I would then return to Louisiana and
drop
the load to Seal's helicopter and go land somewhere and leave the plane.
Seal
would round up the plane and clean it up and take it back to Mena.
>and now as an acknowledged base
>of maintenance and operations for the CIA.
BEAR BOTTOMS COMMENT:
And everybody else and his brother who wanted to fly an airplane into
Mena, stride up to the service manager and say, I need an engine
overhaul, or my landing gear is sticking, or my landing light is out,
would you take care of it. They would say "Yes sir, you can pick
it up on Wednesday." It was a good repair facility for anybody
on earth who wanted to use it.
>This was a huge nationwide
>organized crime-government conspiracy reaching from coast to coast,
>involving distribution to a number of major cities, and was part of a
>nationwide network that included other bases of operation and drop
>points
>such as those in New Mexico, Louisiana, Florida, Kentucky and elsewhere
>in
> >the middle and lower south.
BEAR BOTTOMS COMMENT:
This is more unsupported rhetoric. Too far reaching without evidence.
Organized crime in my book is the Mob. They were not involved for
reasons I earlier expressed.
> What in the world is this so-called debate all about?
"The Crimes of Mena" by Sally Denton and Roger Morris.
> To deny that Mena was implicated in these crimes is like arguing that
>Chicago had nothing to do with Al Capone's activities. Let's get on to
BEAR BOTTOMS COMMENT:
No my dear. There is EVIDENCE what Capone did in Chicago. The only
evidence at Mena is that we used it as a service center and hideout for
equipment. You have laid claim without evidence to support it that much
more happened at Mena. Billions of dollars laundered through Mena, Drugs
imported through Mena, Guns exported from Mena, Contra soldiers trained
at or around Mena. Clinton's involvement with Seal. Government hinderment
of indictments. All of the above and more has been alleged about Mena.
It is simply not true. That is what the debate is about my dear. Seal and
I only used Mena for a repair and modification facility and hide out for
equipment. That is all for the Seal/Mena story.
>the relevant and important matters of establishing who and what
>benefitted
>from these crimes, who covered them up, who continues to have a stake in
>covering them up and what do they say about the larger corruption of
>American democracy. Denton & Morris
BEAR BOTTOMS COMMENT:
Well Sally, I agree with you on this one. Let us find the answers to these
questions honestly and factually. There is a problem. Seal has been used
as a scapegoat for many things. None of them true except our
transportation operation into Louisiana. Rhetoric to the elsewise has only
helped throw anyone interested in the truth off track.
>
>P.S. By the way, Billy Bottoms, was that not you who first mentioned
>Seal's relationship with Carlos Marcello and then later said an
>organized
>crime connection was presposterous???
>
BEAR BOTTOMS COMMENT:
Yes. 1972 Carlos Marcello hired Seal to fly a DC6 from NY to Louisiana that
was loaded with explosives destined for Cuban Resistance. There is no
other connection. This is an obvious attempt the blur the truth with
unconnected events. This is done a lot. Because of that then huge jump
to this. Very similar to Seal owned the C123 that was shot down in
Nicaragua
after he sold it so he is connected to the Contras. Pure unsupported jump.
David Goldman
>Bill Clinton. At least that's the way it looks to a former drug
>smuggler called Billy Bob Bottoms, who says he was astonished
>when congressional leaders announced that they were
>investigating allegations that Clinton covered up an international
>cocaine ring.
Anyone having read the books that touch on this subject knows very
well that the Mena issue touches on corruption among both Democrats
and Republicans. Any Republicans who think it was only a Clinton
thing would be in for a big surprise. Maybe that is why even the most
well known of conservative commentators don't want to deal with this
at all.......
David Goldman
>it up on Wednesday." It was a good repair facility for anybody
>on earth who wanted to use it.
Without the use of a hangar for a C123..........except for
storage........
David Goldman
>First Mena was a hideout and service facility for us. Our base of
>operations was Louisiana. All ALL of our drops went to Louisiana.
>This is a totally unsubstantiated statement of rhetoric.
Bill Bottoms wants us all to accept his word against everyone else
that has researched this subject by virtue of FAITH alone, that he is
the only credible person on this issue. That is a mighty big leap of
faith for any of us. Until the scale has commensurate evidence
documented on Bottoms' side, the scale tips heavily on the side of the
Hitz Report, Pritchard, Morris, Denton, Reed, Webb, Ruppert,
Hopsicker, Rivero, Bender, Brenneke, LD Brown, Crudelle, Judge
Johnson, Welch's depositions and diary, Parry, Perry, Seal's papers,
Tatum, Jean Duffey, Linda Ives, et al.
This is the bottom line (no pun intended)........See the already
limited acknowledgements in Hitz's report again: We are still waiting
to hear about volume 2 that remains strangely classified.......
>> The CIA last year released a declassified summary of a
>> report by the CIA's inspector general on the activities
>> at Mena airport in Arkansas where Seal's C-123K was
>> based. Inspector General Frederick P. Hitz confirmed
>> the existence of covert activities at Mena, but claimed
>> that the CIA had only had "limited contact" with Seal
>> and that "all allegations implying that the CIA
>> condoned, abetted or participated in narcotics
>> trafficking are absolutely false."
>> The report did, however, confirm that Arkansas State
>> Trooper L.D. Brown had been under consideration for
>> employment by the CIA in 1984. Brown has told the
>> Washington Weekly that he was asked by his CIA
>> contact Donald P. Gregg to participate in Seal's
>> transport flights to Central America carrying M-16s
>> for the Contras and bringing duffel bags of cocaine
>> back to Arkansas with the apparent knowledge of
>> then-Governor Bill Clinton and then- Vice President
>> George Bush.
>> Published in the Aug. 11, 1997 issue of The
>> Washington Weekly Copyright 1997 The Washington
>> Weekly (http://www.federal.com) Reposting
>> permitted with this message intact
David Goldman
>>> that the CIA had only had "limited contact" with Seal
>>> and that "all allegations implying that the CIA
>>> condoned, abetted or participated in narcotics
>>> trafficking are absolutely false."
I wonder what his definition of "limited contact" is.......
So what he is saying is that absolutely everyone on earth, such as
Gary Webb who have written on this are total liars. Why doesn't Hitz
just say so. Isn't there an issue of libel against the CIA that could
be litigated? I would like to see Hitz contradict and refute Gary
Webb's book.......
Bear Bottoms
>
>Now Billy Bottoms admits that he has read neither our Penthouse piece, nor
>Roger's chapter on Mena, but has only "heard" what the two "alledgedly"
>[sic] say? We rest our case. Sally and Roger
Bear Bottoms Comment;
Oh yes, I indeed read "The Crimes of Mena." Pretty poor title by
your own revelations. As a result of the poor journalism, I would
not waste any money on Partners, but I have seen excerpts from
it. The references made about Seal or poor representaions of
journalism. Unless you want to call Russell Welch a liar, you are
going to have to eat those words Sally my gal.
I invited you for a civil debate, yet you want to get into the gutter.
That is fine by me. You sent me email stating you were aware
of who I was and my relationship with Seal's family and organization
in response to my email to you inviting you into the newsgroup for
a debate. You "weighed in" the newsgroup with a lie that you
knew nothing of me and thought my allegations were dubious if
not fabricated. I posted your email to me on top of that to show
the world your character. You have further demonstrated your
character in this newsgroup by your additonal postings.
Sally, you are an irrisponsable person and a poor journalist who
cares not that you lie about me, much less lie to anyone who has
read your material.
For your reference Sally:
From: "Russell F. Welch"
Sent: Wednesday, October 09, 1996 9:51 PM
To: bbot...@rouge.net
Subject: B. Seal
Mr. Bottoms, my name is Russell Welch. I'm sending this in ref to a
post, that was brought to my attention, dated 10/7/96. It's the most
accurate representation I have seen concerning the last few years of
Barry's life; but, still not without errors. Please, don't
missunderstand me, I don't claim to have the last word on anything. But,
I did spend a disproportionate amount of my own life investigating
certain events surrounding Barry Seal. I, also, suspect that you might
be Billy Bottoms, who would know more about Seal than any person living,
in my opinion. Assuming that's who you are, please let me make a
statement in reference to your well written post.
My investigation concerned cocaine smuggling, nothing more. Bill Duncan
investigated money laundering and actually spent very little time in
Mena. I was assigned to that investigation by Col. Goodwin, director of
the Arkansas State Police. I didn't want the case. I knew that I was way
out of my league. Anyway, I handled that case just like all of my
others. I was very thorough, followed only the evidence, and never
allowed myself the luxury of speculation. If there had been no evidence
to follow, I would have gladly closed investigation. A very good case
was put together against Seal and two people at the Mena Airport. Seal
was, for the most part, exempt because of two previous plea agreaments
in Florida (two different jurisdictions) and eventually a third plea
agreament in Louisiana. The case which I put together for conspiricy to
smuggle cocaine was very strong and should have resulted in convictions.
The time period of the conspiricy started on April 12, 1982, when Seal
purchased N8049Z from Louisiana Aircraft. On March 22, 1982, Seal had
purchased N7409L, which appeared at Mena on April 16, 1982, when it was
refueled at the FBO. For the sake of the investigation, the conspiricy
ended on Dec. 13, 1983, when Seal flew a Venezuelan airplane (YV189CP)
Mena. William Earle (the younger one) was with him, and I, sorry to say,
was in the grass watching, as the result of tip out of New Orleans.
There were other deals being set up by Barry at the time, but he ended
up using them when he started snitching for the DEA, in Florida, so I
didn't include them in my investigation. I was very careful not to
include anything in my investigation that might have been part of a
ligitimate undercover investigation. On March 24, 1984, Barry Seal
became a snitch, to stay out of prison. He did not start snitching one
day earlier than that. As far as my investigation was concerned, I did
not give a shit what Seal did after March 24, 1984. None of it went into
my file. The criminal acts between April 12, 1982, and Dec. 13, 1983,
were very clear and they are still as well documented as ever. There was
no government involvement with Seal during that time. He was smuggling a
lot of cocaine and 1983 was his most profitable year.
You're right, Terry Reed is a lier. He's never met Barry Seal. In my
opinion, Reed has done more to create confusion about Mena than anybody
else. I don't know what you ment, though, when you stated that "Welch
and Duncan are only speculating". I have never speculated into Seal's
activity with the CIA. There was a covert operation here at Mena. It did
use the strip at Nella for a period of time. But there was no other
apparent connection between Seal and the CIA. That was Reed's invention.
If I have been quoted with anything different, then it's a miss-quote.
Duncan may have said something that I don't adhere to. It seems that
you're speculating when you state that my speculation was fueled because
I wasn't allowed to continue my belated investigation into Seal. I was
allowed to investigate. In fact, I couldn't quit. I tried to get off of
the case because it was way out of my league. But I was kept on it and I
finished it. My investigation was brought to a conclusion and should
have been prosecuted. Even after I finished it, the US Attorney in Fort
Smith kept calling me back in, to work on it. Any time I finished a
case, successful or not (most were), I walked away from it and put it
behind me. After that, it was the prosecutors problem. I worked as hard
for a suspect as I did a prosecutor. I never looked at myself as flunky
for the prosecuting attorney. I only wanted to develop an investigation
as much as possible.
Indeed, Seal sold the pills to DEA Agent Beasley in 1981 and his court
cases didn't come around until late 1983, but your wrong when you say
that everything illegal was over by 1982. If you are Billy Bottoms, you
remember taking the money to Nella in 1982 to pay for the little strip.
Thinks were just starting. Barry was buying some Senecas and Navajos.
Those people at Nella still have you're name and address on their
kitchen wall.
I spoke to a Customs agent in Shreveport about the load of explosives in
1974. He, also, said that it was Carlos Marcello's deal. He said that
charges were dropped because they couldn't go to court without burning
their snitch.
I've never said anything that I couldn't document. Please don't
missunderstand me. I just wanted to make a simple statement. If you are
Billy Bottoms, I've got a lot of respect for you, and you certainly know
more about many of these things than I do. I only make reference to what
was a very thorough investigation. Thank you for taking the time to read
this. Best Wishes. - Russell Welch -
Bear Bottoms
Bear Bottoms
Subject: Re: Attn: Roger Morris or Sally Denton
From: denm...@aol.com (DenMorPar)
Date: 1996/12/21
Message-Id: <19961221052...@ladder01.news.aol.com>
Newsgroups: alt.current-events.clinton.whitewater
[More Headers]
We've been out of touch with the newsgroup, but want to weigh in here.
Neither of us have any idea why Bear Bottoms is using us to vouch for his
credibility. We know nothing about him. We try to take everyone on the
Net seriously and in good faith until proven otherwise. But we have no
independent corroboration of who and what he is, and think most of his
claims are dubious, if not fabricated. We do know that in 2500 papers of
Barry Seal, he does not appear. Thanks. Sally Denton & Roger Morris
---
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From: DenM...@aol.com
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Date: Wed, 1 Jan 1997 17:31:06 -0500
Message-ID: <97010117310...@emout17.mail.aol.com>
To: j...@globaldialog.com
Subject: Re: Request info
We're talking past each other here in very important respects. If you
read the article and Roger's Mena chapter carefully, you will see that we
acknowledge that by far most of the money and all but an occasional small
amount of drugs went elsewhere besides Arkansas. This was a huge,
multi-billion dollar organized crime operation to which the CIA gave
protection, but was only a party, in which Seal, as he told government
investigators, was "only the transport," and in which enormous amounts of
money went in all different directions --not only for profits, but to
finance
other government and/or criminal operations.
With all the evidence we have, we have only the slightest evidence of
this
rather massive undertaking which went on after Seal's death, and may well
continue today. Though we have our suspicions, informed sources, and other
evidence, we have no definitive proof of exactly how much money went through
Arkansas financial institutions, whether ADFA, Madison Guaranty, or other
banks or businesses --though Roger's book does summarize the IRS
investigation in the late 80s which did find a massive amount of cash
transactions in Arkansas pointing to substantial laundering and trafficking
through the state. There is also the large still unanswered question of Dan
Lasater, his operations in Arkansas and in other states, including New
Mexico
and California, and his ties to Las Vegas. (We believe there is a Vegas
connection to almost everything in this story --something no one has
explored. And you may be interested in our piece on the Clinton and Dole
Vegas connections which appeared in the New York Times on July 9, 1996.)
Roger could have written a book literally twice of Partners in Power on
drug
trafficking and financial chicanery alone, including the first shards he had
turned up some time ago what is now seeping out the Indonesian and Pacific
Rim money scandals, etc., etc. But we simply did not have the time or the
support of the publisher to go further and to develop the kind of
definitiive
documentation which stands behind everything that did appear in Partners.
Thanks again for your interest. Sally and Roger
-----------
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Date: Sat, 4 Jan 1997 20:04:15 -0500
Message-ID: <97010420041...@emout07.mail.aol.com>
To: j...@globaldialog.com
Subject: Re: ???, 2
In a message dated 97-01-03 00:37:12 EST, you write:
>
We can't confirm the figures attributed to Welch. At least none of his
documentary evidence or other law enforcement files go that high. But the
shocking fact, of course, is that even if the numbers for Arkansas were that
high, that would still be a relatively small amount of the overall traffic,
as we indicated. We are talking about literally TONS not kilos of cocaine
in
this traffic. And while Arkansas got some of this, a relatively small
amount
occasionally through Mena and other amounts dropped elsewhere in the state,
there were many other distribution points in the middle and lower south. We
have always been at a loss to understand the issue here. We seem to be
arguing over irrelevant distinctions when the fact of the trafficking,
Mena's
role in it, and outright official suppression by both state and federal
officials are beyond dispute. Let us know your thoughts. s & r
----
>>From: DenM...@aol.com
>>Date: Wed, 1 Jan 1997 17:31:06 -0500
>>To: j...@globaldialog.com
>>Subject: Re: Request info
>>
>> We're talking past each other here in very important respects. If
you
>>read the article and Roger's Mena chapter carefully, you will see that we
>>acknowledge that by far most of the money and all but an occasional small
>>amount of drugs went elsewhere besides Arkansas.
Well, yes, but it requires a *very* close and careful reading of the
Penthouse article, which, after all, is entitled "The Crimes of Mena."
It seems that there must have been some shifting of the viewpoint
since that article was prepared, possibly as more information became
available. If that is the case, shouldn't a followup article be in the
works? There are legions of proselytizing "big CIA drugs, big
money at Mena" believers who apparently have the story messed up, and
who thus inadvertently damage the credibility of all concerned people.
More importantly, I am deeply concerned about this fallacy, if it is
such, being used to deflect interest and scrutiny away from where it
ought to be focused.
- Mike
---------
Subject:
Re: The Mena Myth is over
Date:
Sat, 04 Jan 1997 21:43:15 -0600
From:
"John Q. Public" <j...@globaldialog.com>
Organization:
Exec-PC BBS Internet - Milwaukee, WI
Newsgroups:
alt.current-events.clinton.whitewater
References:
1 , 2
DenMorPar wrote:
>
> If you READ the material carefully in the Penthouse 95 article and in
> Partners in Power you will see that Roger and I draw an important
> distinction between1) the massive amount of drugs in the overall traffic
> stemming from Seal operations based and maintained at Mena, most of the
> drops from which went to sites all over the southern United States,
> including but not limited to Arkansas, and 2) the relatively less but
> still significant and criminal amounts of drugs dropped in Arkansas, 3)
> the literally billions of dollars in the overall traffic that was
> laundered throughout the United States, including but not limited to
> Arkansas, 4) the relatively less but still significant and criminal amount
> of money laundered in Arkansas, and finally, 5) the relatively less but
> still significant and criminal amount of drugs that came actually through
> the airport at Mena and the relatively small but still criminal amount of
> money that eyewitnesses watched laundered at local Mena, Arkansas banks.
> These are import distinctions for historical and evidentiary purposes.
> But they are distinctions without meaning when one is discussing whether
> enormous crimes originated at and were facilitated by what was going on at
> Mena as a base for Barry Seal and others, and now as an acknowledged base
> of maintenance and operations for the CIA. This was a huge nationwide
> organized crime-government conspiracy reaching from coast to coast,
> involving distribution to a number of major cities, and was part of a
> nationwide network that included other bases of operation and drop points
> such as those in New Mexico, Louisiana, Florida, Kentucky and elsewhere in
> the middle and lower south.
> What in the world is this so-called debate all about?
> To deny that Mena was implicated in these crimes is like arguing that
> Chicago had nothing to do with Al Capone's activities. Let's get on to
> the relevant and important matters of establishing who and what benefitted
> from these crimes, who covered them up, who continues to have a stake in
> covering them up and what do they say about the larger corruption of
> American democracy. Denton & Morris
>
> P.S. By the way, Billy Bottoms, was that not you who first mentioned
> Seal's relationship with Carlos Marcello and then later said an organized
> crime connection was presposterous???
-----
> >From: DenM...@aol.com
> >To: j...@globaldialog.com
> >
> >We can't confirm the figures attributed to Welch. At least none
> >of his documentary evidence or other law enforcement files go
> >that high. But the shocking fact, of course, is that even if
> >the numbers for Arkansas were that high, that would still be a
> >relatively small amount of the overall traffic, as we indicated.
> >We are talking about literally TONS not kilos of cocaine in
> >this traffic.
>
> I guess I have to say that I'm not surprised by the news that tons and
> tons of cocaine were imported into the U.S. Are you familiar with
> the stories about "The Lord of the Skies"?
>
>
> >And while Arkansas got some of this, a relatively small amount
> >occasionally through Mena and other amounts dropped elsewhere in the
state,
> >there were many other distribution points in the middle and lower south.
**************************************************
Then *why* did you entitle that article "THE CRIMES OF MENA"?
Are you alleging that Mena, Arkansas was the center of operations
for massive cocaine importation and distribution, or are you not?
**************************************************
>
> Just so we're on the same page, are you conceptually including
> what was brought in by overland traffic (via car and truck)
> and via water shipment?
>
> >We
> >have always been at a loss to understand the issue here. We seem to be
> >arguing over irrelevant distinctions when the fact of the trafficking,
> > Mena's role in it, and outright official suppression by both state
> >and federal officials are beyond dispute.
>
> I take it as a given that a massive importation of cocaine occurred
> in the U.S., and that the CIA and at least part of DOJ protected at
> least some of the trafficking in an effort to operationalize both Reagan
> administrations' objective of getting and keeping communism out of
> power in Central America. Given the ease with which lots of money
> could be made, it is inconceivable that all government employees
> and associates turned temptation aside. It wouldn't surprise me
> to find that the CIA extracted a quid pro quo from the cartels.
> It doesn't surprise me to find that a U.S. Attorney F. impeded
> the course of cases (one of which went before a grand jury (Welch)
> and one that didn't (Duncan-Greenback)).
>
> What has surpised me is none of the above, but rather the extent
> to which a mythology has grown up, unquestioned, among the community
> of citizen investigators. So I began to look at various claims.
>
> I began to dispute "Mena's role in it", as you put it, more as a
> device than anything else, as a good researcher is supposed to
> do. The more I read, the less clear that it became. I got copies
> of some of the Alexander papers, including the unfiled (draft) indictment.
> (My desk is still littered with internal police and DEA documents
> from the mid 70s on up, listing D. T. and/or D. L. as
> being suspected of this or that, NADDIS numbers, tail numbers,
> allegations of methamphetamines being packed in company trucks,
> reports of flights to the southwest, etc. On top is Alfred McCoy's
> latest book, and under it is Castillo's book, under that is
> _Compromised_, and over to the side is _The Bluegrass Connection_.)
>
> My first reaction was that I was disappointed. The more I read
> (carefully) about Mena, the more that the puny numbers toted up by
> the checks attached to the draft indictment seemed to make sense,
> if I discounted what hadn't really been established by evidence
> or sworn testimony. In short, there was lots of smoke, but it was
> from the same splif, which was being passed around from article to
> article, from author to author. But most of it was without documentation.
>
> As I stated before, my specific interest is in following the money,
> particularly through Arkansas institutions. When I had to admit to
> myself that there was no evidence of large scale drug money laundering
> through Mena area banks, I also had to ask myself how all
> that money got from Mena to ADFA, or to W-M, etc. It occurred to me
> that maybe it had not come as a result of drug drops into Mena.
>
> Sally and Roger, once it occurred to me that Mena may not have been
> the source of ADFA's money, then the story about Mena became a
> potential source for obfuscation and disinformation, because Mena was
> accepted so easily as *the source*, and the CIA became accepted so
> easily as *the villain*, and Barry Seal became accepted so easily
> as *the vehicle*. It occurred to me that maybe some of the money had
> come from international sources, without having had to be turned into
> white powder dropped into Arkansas. I noticed that the growth of
> the Stephens empire (as well as one can piece it together), and the
> growth of Wal-Mart, and the growth of BCCI, more or less paralleled
> the growth of Mochtar Riady's enterprises, including Lippo Group.
>
> Of course you are right, that the larger story is that the U.S.
> was awash in cocaine. The extent to which specific agencies of
> the USG, and their "private sector" business partners were involved,
> is the really big story. But what happened in Arkansas in the 1980s
> is also a big story, because it seems to be recurring on a national
> basis right now. Establishing the truth of the Big Drugs at Mena story,
> no matter how big or small it is, is important because it is preventing
> people from looking elsewhere, and elsewhere may be where they ought
> to be looking.
>
---
Bear Bottoms
>
>>> Trooper L.D. Brown had been under consideration for
>>> employment by the CIA in 1984. Brown has told the
>>> Washington Weekly that he was asked by his CIA
>>> contact Donald P. Gregg to participate in Seal's
>>> transport flights to Central America carrying M-16s
>>> for the Contras and bringing duffel bags of cocaine
>>> back to Arkansas with the apparent knowledge of
>>> then-Governor Bill Clinton and then- Vice President
>>> George Bush.
>
by saying the weapon of choice for the guerrillas was the AK-47...
the M-16's sound was too distinctive and would easily give away
the position of the guerrillas. Show me a picture of a contra
carrying an M-16.
Bear Bottoms
David Goldman wrote in message <35f3034b...@news.erols.com>...
>> but claimed
>>>> that the CIA had only had "limited contact" with Seal
>>>> and that "all allegations implying that the CIA
>>>> condoned, abetted or participated in narcotics
>>>> trafficking are absolutely false."
>
>I wonder what his definition of "limited contact" is.......
>
Like placing a camera in Seal's fat lady during a DEA sting.
Bear Bottoms
David Goldman wrote in message <35f2fffa...@news.erols.com>...
>>BEAR BOTTOMS COMMENT:
>>First Mena was a hideout and service facility for us. Our base of
>>operations was Louisiana. All ALL of our drops went to Louisiana.
>>This is a totally unsubstantiated statement of rhetoric.
>
>that has researched this subject by virtue of FAITH alone, that he is
>the only credible person on this issue. That is a mighty big leap of
>faith for any of us. Until the scale has commensurate evidence
>documented on Bottoms' side, the scale tips heavily on the side of the
>Hitz Report, Pritchard, Morris, Denton, Reed, Webb, Ruppert,
>Hopsicker, Rivero, Bender, Brenneke, LD Brown, Crudelle, Judge
>Johnson, Welch's depositions and diary, Parry, Perry, Seal's papers,
>Tatum, Jean Duffey, Linda Ives, et al.
>
anyone on these issues. The evidence itself proves it.
The holes and glaring errors in the made up stories proves it.
You have many of the charlatans, there are more. BTW,
the Hitz Report substantiates my story. To be perfectly clear,
Welch and I are the foremost experts on these issues. My
knowledge is a little better informed since I was the one
performing the actions, and Welch was trying to find out.
There is no one on the planet who knows more, if anything
at all.
The names you listed were not *at* Mena during these times
or were they in any way connected with inside information.
The people who corroborate my story are Seal's mother,
Seal's two brothers, Seal's secretary, Fred Hampton owner
of Rich Mountain Aviation, Sheriff Al Hadaway, State Trooper
Russ Welch, Seal's son, the helicopter pilot, Pete Everson
the flight engineer/mechanic, Joe Evans mechanic/member,
Joe Evans wife, Joe Evans daughter, Red Hall electronics
specialist, Florida AUSA Dick Gregory, DEA Ernst Jacobsen,
DEA Bob Joura, Organization member Ellis McKenzie, DEA
Rich Gorman, DEA Mike Powers, DEA Ernie Batisto, DEA Gene Bustos,
DEA Ken Miley, DEA Rick Sabana, DEA John Wagner, DEA
Pete Seran, DEA Gary Sloboda, DEA Dave Ohlson, DEA John
Pulley, Caymen enforcement officer Alvin Conners, DEA Juan
Perez, Costa Rica Director Rodolfo Jimenez Montero National
Contro of Drugs, DEA Victor Olivarie, DEA Vito Guarrino, DEA Eddie
Deamore, Customs Agent Gary Small, C.A. Roger Grubb, C.A
Ernie Winnburg, C.A. Russ Pretentist, C.A. Dave Urso, GBI agent
Steve Sachs, GBI agent Dick Wiggins, GBI agent Tommy Morris,
FBI Ken McCabe, AUSA Allen Ceballos, AUSA John Steele,
AUSA Tom Green, AUSA Gloria Bedwell, AUSA Jim Keesler,
AUSA Jeff Sessions, Reporters Theresa Dickie, John Camp,
Carl Hiaasan, and David Lewis, AUSA Don Campbell, Atty
Roy Fugler, Atty Lewis Unglesby, Atty Tom Sclafani, FAA inspector
Eddie Gober and S. Macarhur, Bill Becker, Chick Gilpen, Bill Goode,
Alberto Herreros, Rus Hensley, Devin King, Scott maulding, Mickey McGinty,
Mike McMurrey, Dan McDaniels, Pete Parrots, Gerorge and Edith Reynoso,
Russell Slough, Ronnie Steiner, John Shelly, Dan Timmons, Harold Williams,
Jim Leach, and the list goes on.
Get this in an official hearing and I will laugh the charlatans
out of the courtroom.
Bear Bottoms
ellensmith wrote in message <35f32de7...@news.swbell.net>...
>On Sun, 6 Sep 1998 19:02:13 -0500, "Bear Bottoms" <bbot...@eatel.net>
>wrote:
>>
>> Show me a picture of a contra
>>carrying an M-16.
>sent me a picture of Mark Levin wearing nothing
>but a strategically placed cobra. Or how about
>Alan Dershowitz in a boa?
>
I see where ya cummin from. Thanks, but
I would prefer Brooke Shields wearing a
tennis racket.
Bear Bottoms
David Goldman wrote in message <35f33dbc...@news.erols.com>...
>>Like placing a camera in Seal's fat lady during a DEA sting.
>
>
LOL, well they had to put film in the camera, load the camera in the
plane, wait for the plane to come back, take the film out of the camera,
develop it, analyze it, have meeting to determine if they were going to
even put the camera in the plane, have meetings to discuss if they had
a camera, etc. It would have been impossible to have "one single
contact" to do this...LOL.
Bear Bottoms
David Goldman wrote in message <35f33e17...@news.erols.com>...
>>Get this in an official hearing and I will laugh the charlatans
>>out of the courtroom.
>
>are the depositions?
Not neccessary...this mythological story is officially dead. For good
reason.
Bear Bottoms
David Goldman wrote in message <35f33d73...@news.erols.com>...
>>LOL, the Contras didn't use M-16's. Gen Singlaub refuted this
>>by saying the weapon of choice for the guerrillas was the AK-47...
>>the M-16's sound was too distinctive and would easily give away
>>carrying an M-16.
>
>This reasoning sounds comical. The sounds too distinctive........
Show me a picture of a Contra with an M-16...LOL. Besides,
one of the several films on this subject shows Singlaub making
just such a statement. I believe it was one of the films Scott
Wheeler helped produce. Besides, picture yourself in the
jungle hidden from Sandinistas and popping off an M-16.
Your position would without any doubt be given away immediately.
No question who would be firing such a gun since all of the
Sandinistas had AK-47's. Besides, the Contras had to get
amunition anywhere they could, imagine trying to put an AK-47
round in an M-16. I believe this is another demonstration of
Terry Reed's lack of expertise and blunders. He still hasn't
accepted my challenge to him to fly a light twin into my airstrip
at Nella, even in the daytime. 911
Bear Bottoms
ellensmith wrote in message <35f33ded...@news.swbell.net>...
>On Mon, 07 Sep 1998 02:00:17 GMT, da...@erols.com (David Goldman)
>wrote:
>
>>>Get this in an official hearing and I will laugh the charlatans
>>>out of the courtroom.
>>
>>So where is the book with their interviews? Where is the video? Where
>>are the depositions?
>
>
>Whhhhhhhhheeeeeeere is Love?
>Does it fall from stars above?
>Is it underneath
>the willow tree
>that I've been dreaming of????
>
>Wherrrrrrrrrrrrrre is he?
>Who I close my eyes to see?
>Will I ever know
>that sweet hello
>that's meant for only meeeeee??
>
>Who can say where he may hide?
>Must I travel far and wide
>Till I am beside the someone
>who
>I can mean
>Something
>to
>Wheeeeeeeeeeeerrrrre ????
>Wheeeeeeeeeeerrrrrreeeeee is
>Looooooooooooooove?
>
><hic>
You ok Ellen?
Bear Bottoms
David Goldman wrote in message <35f3427f...@news.erols.com>...
>I thought you might like to take Bottoms on re the supposed list below
>of people who supposedly corroborate his story......
>
>
>On Sun, 6 Sep 1998 19:42:40 -0500, in
>alt.current-events.clinton.whitewater "Bear Bottoms"
><bbot...@eatel.net> wrote:
>
>>
>>David Goldman wrote in message <35f2fffa...@news.erols.com>...
>>>>BEAR BOTTOMS COMMENT:
>>>>First Mena was a hideout and service facility for us. Our base of
>>>>operations was Louisiana. All ALL of our drops went to Louisiana.
>>>>This is a totally unsubstantiated statement of rhetoric.
>>>
>>out of the courtroom.
>>
>
>known about a CIA connection to Seal when apparently even his own wife
>Debby didn't know about it. These individuals would have never been
>privy to that information, and certainly the owner of Rich Mountain or
>Ernst Jacobsen would not admit to it, if even Oliver North doesn't.
>What have these people testified to in relation to any knowledge of
>Seal's CIA affiliations, one way or the other? Maybe only Ellis
>McKenzie would have, but we know what happened to him.......
>
They could put the complete timeline together which would
devastate the myths...besides, use your own logic, then how
would the charlatans know???? You out argue yourself.
Bear Bottoms
ellensmith wrote in message <35f342a4...@news.swbell.net>...
>On Sun, 6 Sep 1998 20:17:16 -0500, "Bear Bottoms" <bbot...@eatel.net>
>wrote:
>
>>
>>ellensmith wrote in message <35f32de7...@news.swbell.net>...
>>>On Sun, 6 Sep 1998 19:02:13 -0500, "Bear Bottoms" <bbot...@eatel.net>
>>>wrote:
>>>>
>>>>carrying an M-16.
>>>sent me a picture of Mark Levin wearing nothing
>>>but a strategically placed cobra. Or how about
>>>Alan Dershowitz in a boa?
>>>
>>I see where ya cummin from. Thanks, but
>>I would prefer Brooke Shields wearing a
>>tennis racket.
>>
>mostly men for some reason.
>You might try alt. tennis.
>She's tall isn't she? :)
>
Oh yes...yummmmm.
But hey, I can get into short.
ellensmith
wrote:
>
> Show me a picture of a contra
>carrying an M-16.
Well I don't have one of those but someone just
sent me a picture of Mark Levin wearing nothing
but a strategically placed cobra. Or how about
Alan Dershowitz in a boa?
________________
Pagelsham!!!
David Goldman
>by saying the weapon of choice for the guerrillas was the AK-47...
>the M-16's sound was too distinctive and would easily give away
>carrying an M-16.
This reasoning sounds comical. The sounds too distinctive........
David Goldman
David Goldman
>out of the courtroom.
So where is the book with their interviews? Where is the video? Where
are the depositions?
ellensmith
wrote:
>>Get this in an official hearing and I will laugh the charlatans
<stands alone looking forlorn>
Whhhhhhhhheeeeeeere is Love?
Does it fall from stars above?
Is it underneath
the willow tree
that I've been dreaming of????
Wherrrrrrrrrrrrrre is he?
Who I close my eyes to see?
Will I ever know
that sweet hello
that's meant for only meeeeee??
Who can say where he may hide?
Must I travel far and wide
Till I am beside the someone
who
I can mean
Something
to
Wheeeeeeeeeeeerrrrre ????
Wheeeeeeeeeeerrrrrreeeeee is
Looooooooooooooove?
<hic>
________________
Pagelsham!!!
David Goldman
of people who supposedly corroborate his story......
On Sun, 6 Sep 1998 19:42:40 -0500, in
alt.current-events.clinton.whitewater "Bear Bottoms"
<bbot...@eatel.net> wrote:
>
>David Goldman wrote in message <35f2fffa...@news.erols.com>...
>>>BEAR BOTTOMS COMMENT:
>>>First Mena was a hideout and service facility for us. Our base of
>>>operations was Louisiana. All ALL of our drops went to Louisiana.
>>>This is a totally unsubstantiated statement of rhetoric.
>>
>Get this in an official hearing and I will laugh the charlatans
>out of the courtroom.
>
Please explain how virtually any and all of these folks would have
ellensmith
wrote:
>
>ellensmith wrote in message <35f32de7...@news.swbell.net>...
>>On Sun, 6 Sep 1998 19:02:13 -0500, "Bear Bottoms" <bbot...@eatel.net>
>>wrote:
>>>
>>> Show me a picture of a contra
>>>carrying an M-16.
>>Well I don't have one of those but someone just
>>sent me a picture of Mark Levin wearing nothing
>>but a strategically placed cobra. Or how about
>>Alan Dershowitz in a boa?
>>
>I see where ya cummin from. Thanks, but
>I would prefer Brooke Shields wearing a
>tennis racket.
>
I don't have any of those. I get sent
mostly men for some reason.
You might try alt. tennis.
She's tall isn't she? :)
________________
Pagelsham!!!
David Goldman
>Terry Reed's lack of expertise and blunders. He still hasn't
>accepted my challenge to him to fly a light twin into my airstrip
>at Nella, even in the daytime. 911
Maybe he is concerned he would end up like Bill Cooper and Ramon 2,
and you would bail out like Eugene Hasenfus ;-)
David Goldman
>devastate the myths...besides, use your own logic, then how
>would the charlatans know???? You out argue yourself.
Because they have done documented research, and in several cases were
witnesses. Why don't your corroborators put their supposed data
together? By the way, how would they have known that Seal was NOT with
the CIA? Have you read the Seal Papers?
David Goldman
>>
>plane, wait for the plane to come back, take the film out of the camera,
>develop it, analyze it, have meeting to determine if they were going to
>even put the camera in the plane, have meetings to discuss if they had
>a camera, etc. It would have been impossible to have "one single
>contact" to do this...LOL.
Mincing words. What about a single project? That is, the staged sting
to implicate the Sandinistas.......
Bear Bottoms
David Goldman wrote in message <35f3e21c...@news.erols.com>...
Oh??? and your not one to mince words....stored????? I don't think
you are being honest in these discussions. They said what they said...
limited contact...and that is exactly what it was. The meaning is clear,
except if you don't want to believe the truth.
Bear Bottoms
David Goldman wrote in message <35f3e28a...@news.erols.com>...
Documented research...that is a joke. The two experts on the
subject are ignored. Russ Welch has said that no one has
examined his files in detail. Good reason...they devastate
the myths. There is no such thing as "the Seal Papers."
None of the Charlatans were witnesses. It has been proven
that L.D. Brown couldn't have flown in a plane that didn't fly.
Terry Reed couldn't have operated at night off of an airfield
which could not physically support the type of aircraft he claimed
to have used. Chip Tatum falls apart completely. Seal was
in the witness protection program when he claimed to have
seen Seal in Honduras in an airplane that had already been
repossesed. One needs better liars. The 'journalists' all circulated
the same jump about the shot down C-123 being Seals thus
Seal is CIA crap. Lame innuendo's associated with huge jumps
and no technical fact. Myths my man...myths.
David Goldman
>subject are ignored. Russ Welch has said that no one has
>examined his files in detail. Good reason...they devastate
>the myths. There is no such thing as "the Seal Papers."
>None of the Charlatans were witnesses. It has been proven
>that L.D. Brown couldn't have flown in a plane that didn't fly.
>Terry Reed couldn't have operated at night off of an airfield
>which could not physically support the type of aircraft he claimed
>to have used. Chip Tatum falls apart completely. Seal was
>in the witness protection program when he claimed to have
>seen Seal in Honduras in an airplane that had already been
>repossesed. One needs better liars. The 'journalists' all circulated
>the same jump about the shot down C-123 being Seals thus
>Seal is CIA crap. Lame innuendo's associated with huge jumps
>and no technical fact. Myths my man...myths.
So if you have documented knowledge that all these people are absolute
liars, why not undertake a court case? The "charlatans" did research
which you say are all made up, all lies. This, by the way, creates the
impression of a very large uncoordinated alternative conspiracy. Can
you identify your own theory for this alternative anti-CIA conspiracy,
and is there evidence to that effect? You are not just calling into
question matters of interpretation, but rather out and out lies of
substance, such as the non-existence of Seal papers. By the way, how
do YOU think the CIA could have overlooked such an outstanding asset
used by the DEA like Barry Seal? I mean once they used him for one
lousy sting, wouldn't they have considered him for alot of activity in
the future.
BTW, what do YOU think were the circumstances that resulted in
the deaths of the two poor kids (Ives and Henry), and a number of
other kids in Fayetteville?
Here is the partial list of "liars", who according to you should be
the subject of lawsuits, at least defamation, by the CIA and various
other individuals, Clinton included...... and who must be part of some
kind of conspiracy.......
Sally Denton - liar?
Roger Morris - liar?
Gary Webb - liar?
AEP - liar?
Hopsicker - liar?
Welch - used to be a liar?
Reed - liar?
Ives - liar?
Tatum - liar?
Duffey - liar?
Brown - liar?
Perry - liar?
Parry - liar?
Bender - liar?
Brenneke - liar?
Judge Johnson - liar?
Bryant - liar?
Delaughter - liar?
Duvall - liar?
Bear Bottoms
David Goldman wrote in message <35f41760...@news.erols.com>...
(North) screwed up his case...the biggest drug sting in American
history...and left him to his wits end of how to get out of trouble.
That is what sparked the Norman Saunders case. His big Nicaraguan
case was destroyed so he needed something else to insure no
jail time.
>BTW, what do YOU think were the circumstances that resulted in
>the deaths of the two poor kids (Ives and Henry), and a number of
>other kids in Fayetteville?
I have no inside information, but from what I have gleaned,
if the boys were murdered, it was most definately a local
problem. Could very well have had something to do with
drugs and local corruption. The facts of the case have been
so distorted that it is hard to tell fact from fiction. That is
one of the problems Duffey has contributed to. Harmon may
have had something to do with it. There is no question that
Seal's organization or Seal's Mena had anything to do with it.
Bear Bottoms
>the deaths of the two poor kids (Ives and Henry), and a number of
>other kids in Fayetteville?
>
>the subject of lawsuits, at least defamation, by the CIA and various
>other individuals, Clinton included...... and who must be part of some
>kind of conspiracy.......
>
>Sally Denton - liar?
agendizing reporter.
>Roger Morris - liar?
agendizing reporter
>Gary Webb - liar?
Sensational reporting
>AEP - liar?
Duped agendizing reporter.
>Hopsicker - liar?
Sicko...most definately a liar
and fabricator.
>Welch - used to be a liar?
Welch has been the only honest
objective white hat I have found.
He had opinions and assumptions
but he is quick to show you the facts
he had that were prosecutable and
what was not.
>Reed - liar?
Most definately a liar. Got in
trouble via an insurance scam
and tried to sham his way out.
>Ives - liar?
Duped by Jean Duffey
>Tatum - liar?
Most definately a liar. Visions
of granduer but wasn't grand so
he had to make something up.
>Duffey - liar?
A scorned woman. She went
to far and vindictively lashed out
with sensationalism. Could very
well have come up against corrupt
officials with the deck stacked against
her...no justification to lie however.
The truth will set you free. She is not
free yet.
>Brown - liar?
No question a piss poor liar.
>Perry - liar?
Don't know much about him.
>Parry - liar?
Don't know much about him.
He likes October surprises.
Fall pretty much in the same
category as all of these people.
>Bender - liar?
Never said he lied. Don't know.
He didn't say anything of substance.
>Brenneke - liar?
No question a liar.
>Judge Johnson - liar?
Maybe. For sure he overreacted
from poor information passed to him.
>Bryant - liar?
Who?
>Delaughter - liar?
Who?
>Duvall - liar?
Who?
If the who's jumped on the Seal myth bandwagon
then they are sensationalizing without factual
evidence to back it up. Quite common.
There are quite a few more charlatans.
The real evidence depicts a far different
story than the Seal's myths. Those who
chose to spout the myths in face of this
do so irresponsibly. What drives them to
do so varies.
Bear Bottoms
David Goldman wrote in message <35f47536...@news.erols.com>...
>>Seal refused to work for the CIA. He hated them because they
>>(North) screwed up his case...the biggest drug sting in American
>>history...and left him to his wits end of how to get out of trouble.
>>That is what sparked the Norman Saunders case. His big Nicaraguan
>>case was destroyed so he needed something else to insure no
>>jail time.
>
Thank you, then Seal *never* worked for the CIA. Not even once
(not mincing words).
It was North who was responsible for putting the camera in the
C-123. North just directed the CIA to do it.
THE OLLIE NORTH AND BARRY SEAL STORY
by Bear Bottoms
After the Operation Screamer indictments in early 1983, Barry Seal made a
decision to try and work off his legal problems. He started trying to get
someone to work with him. He was having difficulty finding someone.
Finally, in March of 1984 he flew his Lear Jet to Washington and received an
audience with Vice President Bush's Anti-Drug Task Force. He first went to
the National Narcotics Border Interdiction office and was referred to DEA
Agent Frank White. Mr. White was a staff investigator for DEA’s Chief of
Cocaine Desk Ron Caffrey. He told them an unbelievable story. He left,
however, without a deal.
Soon after, he was contacted and told that DEA Agents Robert Joura and Ernst
Jacobsen would get with him and see if he could produce anything they would
be interested in. Barry sat them down at a telephone and he called Carlos
Bustamante and Felix Dixon Bates, who represented the Jorge Ochoa
organization. Needless to say, Bob Joura and Ernst Jacobsen became Barry's
handlers. With that telephone call, Barry set up a meeting in Colombia with
Pablo Escobar. That Colombian meeting resulted in plans for a large load of
cocaine to be flown from Colombia to the U.S. Barry returned to the U.S.,
briefed the DEA, and prepared for the trip. He flew a Lockheed Lodestar dow
n to Colombia to get 1500 kilos of cocaine. Carlos Lehder was on the field
to meet him. Barry did not want to attempt takeoff because the field was
muddy. Lehder made him go anyway, and Barry crashed on takeoff. The Cartel
produced a Cessna Titan for Barry to continue on to the States. Barry said
the plane didn't have enough range. They said he could refuel in NICARAGUA.
He flew the Cessna loaded with cocaine to Nicaragua, refueled at Los
Brasiles, and took off for the U.S. He was struck by anti-aircraft fire
shortly after takeoff and landed in Managua where he was arrested and
released through Frederico Vaughn’s efforts after a few days. Frederico
Vaughn was an associate of Nicaraguan Government Officials and the Medellin
Cartel. Barry told the Cartel that he would go to the States, get a larger
plane and would return to Nicaragua to get the cocaine. Barry was flown
back to the States in an aircraft owned by Pablo Escobar.
He briefed Joura and Jacobsen. Nicaragua! They couldn't believe it. It
was not a known fact, prior to this event, that Nicaragua was involved with
the Medellin Cartel. Barry purchased a C-123 from Harry Doan. Joura and
Jacobsen started working on the details in Washington for clearances, and
finally they were ready to go to Nicaragua. What they didn't know was
Washington DEA agents Ron Caffrey and his boss Dave Westrate were briefing
Ollie North about the details of the undercover operation. What was being
discussed in these meetings would greatly effect the undercover operation.
Before the plane left for Nicaragua on its first trip, the CIA approached
them and installed a 35mm camera in the airplane at Homestead AFB in Florida
just before they departed for the first C123 trip to Nicaragua. That is the
first indication that North/CIA/NSC had an interest in the operation. The
CIA also moved a satellite over Nicaragua and took photos while the plane
was in Nicaragua. A U-2 spy plane also flew a photo mission over Nicaragua.
That is the only direct involvement with the CIA Barry had...ever! Barry
went to Nicaragua in the C-123 and returned to Homestead AFB on 06-26-84
loaded with 666 kilos of cocaine. Barry had used the 35mm camera installed
by the CIA. Those grainy pictures became famous.
A second trip was planned and the agreement with the Cartel was after that
trip everyone (Seal, Jorge Ochoa, Pablo Escobar, Rivas Gacha, Carlos Lehder,
Frederico Vaughn, etc.) would meet in Panama or Guatemala to celebrate and
pass around money. The whole Medellin Cartel and other high level people
would have been arrested by the DEA in one fell swoop.
North blew the cover BEFORE the second flight ever left. Barry was taking
1.5 million dollars in cash and other goodies requested by Escobar. North
asked Caffrey and Westrate to have Seal land close to the Contras and give
them the money. They refused because it would destroy the undercover
operation and hence the arrest opportunity. North threw a temper tantrum
and leaked the information to General Paul Gorman, Commander of Southern
forces in Central America. North figured that if the cover was blown then
he could get the money for the Contras.
North was briefed about every aspect of the Nicaraguan sting by the DEA.
There were at least two meetings in the Executive Office Building as
testified to in Oversight Hearings before the Subcommittee on Crime of the
Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, One Hundredth
Congress, Second Session, July 28, September 23, 29, and October 5, 1988
conducted by Congressman William J. Hughes, Chairman of the Subcommittee and
Congressman Bill McCollum. Three top level DEA agents were interviewed by
this committee. DEA Assistant Administrator Frank Monastero, DEA Deputy
Assistant Administrator Dave Westrate, and DEA Chief of Cocaine Desk Ron
Caffrey..
(Barry’s first flight to Nicaragua in the C123 was on June 26, 1984.)
Present at the first meeting on June 27, 1984 were Dave Westrate, Col.
North, Dewey Clarridge of the CIA, Kennedy Grafinrid assistant to the
President, and Greg Johnstone Office of Indian Affairs at the State
Department. North conducted the meeting. Mr. Clarridge opened the meeting
by producing photos of the first trip to Nicaragua. They were told that
Frederico Vaughn was an associate of Nicaraguan Government Officials. The
CIA later denied that they had knowledge about Frederico Vaughn’s
relationship with Sandinista Officials. Second on the agenda was discussion
about releasing the facts of the case would enhance the probability that
Congress would vote for funding the Contras, if they knew the Sandinistas
were involved with the Medellin Cartel. Next the rules of press releases
were discussed. Then the future potential of the DEA case was discussed.
Westrate testified that he made it very clear that a press release would
jeopardize the case, and the future potential of the case was great. The
DEA would not agree to blowing such a significant case.
(Note in North’s diary June 27: I am going to ask one of my staff to put it
up.) Present at the second meeting on June 29, 1984 was Dave Westrate, Ron
Caffrey, Col. North, Dewey Clarridge, and Greg Johnstone. North again
conducted this meeting. Ron Caffrey testified in the oversight hearing that
he brought the photos to this meeting. North already had the photos in the
first meeting. Clarridge produced them. Clarridge claimed that one of the
people in the pictures was Frederico Vaughn, an associated of Nicaraguan
Government Officials. Pressure was stepped up to get the DEA to go along
with releasing the information about Sandinista involvement in drugs. North
warned Westrate and Caffrey not to send Seal on the second flight, it would
be dangerous. Westrate and Caffrey claimed they would not agree to blow the
cover on such a significant case.
On 06-29-84, PRIOR to the second trip to Nicaragua, Gen. Paul Gorman makes a
speech to the American Legion in El Salvador in which he mentions Nicaraguan
involvement in drug smuggling. That speech said we had proof the Nicaraguan
Government was involved with cocaine, and the speech was on a radio
broadcast. North was sure that this leak would subvert the second trip and
the Contras would get the 1.5 million dollars that Seal was supposed to
bring with him on that second flight. This leak reverberated back to the
DEA who now were at a quandary as to what to do next. To North's dismay,
the DEA sent Seal and crew to Nicaragua anyway without telling them their
cover was blown. DEA agents Joura and Jacobsen found out about the leak
after the plane had already departed on July 7, 1984. They tried to contact
Seal and warn him but couldn't make HF radio contact. When Seal landed at
Los Brasiles in Nicaragua, they got a cold reception and no return load of
drugs even though they saw cocaine at the airfield. Escobar said plans had
changed and wanted Seal to go on to Peru and fly coca paste to Nicaragua.
Escobar would then send the cocaine manufactured from the paste to the U.S.
in small aircraft. North then desperately tried to cover his leak to Gen.
Gorman by again leaking the information to the Washington Times AFTER the
plane had already returned. Then blamed the leak that shut down the
operation on the Washington Times story by Edmond Jacoby dated 07/17/84. On
07/17/84 Carlton Turner, Drug Policy Advisor at the White House, accused DEA
Assistant Administrator Frank Monastero that the DEA had leaked the story.
Monastero said that during this meeting and accusation, Mr. Turner was very
knowledgeable about the case. Monastero angrily denied that the DEA had
leaked the story and said that the White House had leaked the story.
Nevertheless, the case was over and further evidence of Sandinista
involvement would never be developed.
Their cover was blown, but Barry and his crew took off on the second flight
to Nicaragua without this information. One of the crew members, the only
one still alive, will testify to this. North warned the DEA not to send the
second flight. The government has maintained that Seal was informed their
cover was blown before the flight, but Seal decided to go anyway in hopes
that the Cartel had not heard about the leak. Barry and crew departed on
07/07/84 for their second flight to Nicaragua. After a cold reception and
the request by Escobar for him to go to Peru, Barry told Escobar he would
have to make some repairs on the aircraft first, and returned to the U.S.
empty. The flight engineer that went on both flights will testify that they
were not informed their cover was blown before landing in Nicaragua the
second time, and they saw cocaine at Los Brasiles. During the debriefing
following their return from the second trip to Nicaragua was when they were
informed about the leak.
North had blown the cover on the most significant criminal drug
investigation in America's history, while it was on going, and he and Reagan
later used this information to get 100 million dollars from Congress for the
Contras. Remember Reagan showing the pictures of the plane on the ground
with Barry, Escobar, Gacha, and Vaughn etc. clearly visible on national
television. The Medellin Cartel went on to make history. North went on to
wreak havoc.
The C-123 was taken to Mena and repaired where it remained from 07/84 to
06/85. There were two flight during this period, a short local maintenance
test flight and a short local flight in which Investigative Reporter John
Camp and Barry filmed "Uncle Sam Wants You." All of the people who have
said they flew guns down and drugs back with Barry are lying. Everything
Terry Reed says about Mena in his book “Compromised” is a lie. Arkansas
Sheriff Al Hadaway and Arkansas State Policeman Russell Welch watched that
aircraft during this period and verifies that it was not used for any more
flights. Seal sells the C-123K on 06-15-85 back to Harry Doan for 250,000
dollars. I delivered it to his hanger at New Smyrna Beach Airport in
Florida. We were never again associated with that airplane. It was later
shot down in October of 1986 over Nicaragua with Eugene Hasenfus aboard.
Bill Cooper and Buzz Sawyer, the pilots, were killed along with the rest of
the crew except for Hasenfus. They worked for Corporate Air Services, a
Southern Air Transport subsidiary. Southern Air Transport bought the C-123
through an advertisement in Trade A Plane for 450,000 dollars with a check
written on a Southern Air Transport account a short period before the
aircraft was shot down in Nicaragua. This event has been misleadingly
associated with Barry Seal for a decade by the media. Barry Seal has never
worked for the CIA.
j...@inxpress.net
>
> >Seal refused to work for the CIA. He hated them because they
> >(North) screwed up his case...the biggest drug sting in American
> >history...and left him to his wits end of how to get out of trouble.
> >That is what sparked the Norman Saunders case. His big Nicaraguan
> >case was destroyed so he needed something else to insure no
> >jail time.
>
> The CIA wasn't just North.
Is this an editorial comment? What does it mean?
>Actually North was working for the NSC.
And the CIA isn't the NSC, and vice versa? Thanks, I'll
try to remember that, and jam it up your ass next time
you get sloppy to score a propaganda point.
David Goldman
>(North) screwed up his case...the biggest drug sting in American
>history...and left him to his wits end of how to get out of trouble.
>That is what sparked the Norman Saunders case. His big Nicaraguan
>case was destroyed so he needed something else to insure no
>jail time.
The CIA wasn't just North. Actually North was working for the NSC.
David Goldman
>(not mincing words).
>It was North who was responsible for putting the camera in the
>C-123. North just directed the CIA to do it.
Not necessarily, since you already admitted that he had one job, the
so-called sting for the CIA. They work together.
Bear Bottoms
David Goldman wrote in message <35f48fed...@news.erols.com>...
>>Thank you, then Seal *never* worked for the CIA. Not even once
>>(not mincing words).
>>It was North who was responsible for putting the camera in the
>>C-123. North just directed the CIA to do it.
>
>so-called sting for the CIA. They work together.
Either you can put it together or you don't want to. I have
clearly stated that the Nicaraguan sting was a DEA undercover
operation. North found out about it through briefings. The
Nicaraguan complicity in the drug trade promted the interest
of North and the Reagan administration seeing it as a card
that could be played to win money for the Contras. They
horned in on the DEA sting by putting a camera in the airplane
so they could obtain political pictures which they used for
their own purposes and actually destroyed the sting.
Seal hated them for this.
Bear Bottoms
David Goldman wrote in message <35f5d1c8...@news.erols.com>...
>> They
>>horned in on the DEA sting by putting a camera in the airplane
>>so they could obtain political pictures which they used for
>>their own purposes and actually destroyed the sting.
>>Seal hated them for this.
>
>mention in Hitz's report with the CIA......So there is a CIA
>connection, even according to you.
I was very clear in the Ollie North and Barry Seal (C-123) Story.
*You* even cleared up the fact that North was not really CIA
and that is who created the situation to have the camera installed
in the C-123 by the CIA. That was the only contact, limited or
otherwise Seal had with North or the CIA, however you want to
mince words.
j...@inxpress.net
>
> >I was very clear in the Ollie North and Barry Seal (C-123) Story.
> >*You* even cleared up the fact that North was not really CIA
> >and that is who created the situation to have the camera installed
> >in the C-123 by the CIA. That was the only contact, limited or
> >otherwise Seal had with North or the CIA, however you want to
> >mince words.
>
> divisions of labor. They are all working in tandum.
> And I am really
> interested to know how sure we are that the *sting* wasn't staged for
> public consumption as one of the CIA's creative methods for getting
> public support and funding.
Oh, sorry; I thought that your position is that the CIA
is *self-funding* via the sale of drugs. Or was that
your last post? I get so confused, what with you jumping
around like a Nicaraguan child in a Sandanista mine field.
Speaking of that, how come Hillary Clinton contributed to
CISPES? Was she really in favor of blowing off the extremities
of the children of the uncoverted, so that resistance to
the communists would die off? Or was it something else?
David Goldman
David Goldman
>*You* even cleared up the fact that North was not really CIA
>and that is who created the situation to have the camera installed
>in the C-123 by the CIA. That was the only contact, limited or
>otherwise Seal had with North or the CIA, however you want to
>mince words.
I wanted to emphasize that NSA/NSC and CIA, DIA are just bureaucratic
divisions of labor. They are all working in tandum. And I am really
interested to know how sure we are that the *sting* wasn't staged for
public consumption as one of the CIA's creative methods for getting
public support and funding. Besides, how come Hasenfus was the only
one with a parachute in his plane? How DID he know what hit him? How
come Bill Cooper's body was never sent back to his family? How come
some careful observers felt that the C123 was exploded from within?
David Goldman
>Oh, sorry; I thought that your position is that the CIA
>is *self-funding* via the sale of drugs. Or was that
>your last post? I get so confused, what with you jumping
>around like a Nicaraguan child in a Sandanista mine field.
Is there no limit to the money a "company" can accumulate? So they got
$100 million plus anything else they could muster independently. They
don't want to be dependent on the constitutional system. Bill Casey
said so. BTW, I am still wondering who arranged for Casey's convenient
brain hemorrhage just before he was supposed to testify.
Bear Bottoms
David Goldman wrote in message <35f5df93...@news.erols.com>...
I have no inside information an the C-123 once I delivered it
to Harry Doan. The Nicaraguan sting happened whether you
want to believe it or not. You are mincing words to say that
everything is "just bureaucratic divisions of labor." Each is
an entity no matter how you mince words. The Ollie North and
the C-123 story is the most accurate representation of those
events in existence.
j...@inxpress.net
>
> On Tue, 08 Sep 1998 22:22:05 -0500, j...@inxpress.net wrote:
>
> >David Goldman wrote:
> >>
> >> >I was very clear in the Ollie North and Barry Seal (C-123) Story.
> >> >*You* even cleared up the fact that North was not really CIA
> >> >and that is who created the situation to have the camera installed
> >> >in the C-123 by the CIA. That was the only contact, limited or
> >> >otherwise Seal had with North or the CIA, however you want to
> >> >mince words.
> >>
> >> I wanted to emphasize that NSA/NSC and CIA, DIA are just bureaucratic
> >> divisions of labor. They are all working in tandum.
> >> And I am really
> >> interested to know how sure we are that the *sting* wasn't staged for
> >> public consumption as one of the CIA's creative methods for getting
> >> public support and funding.
> >
> >
> >is *self-funding* via the sale of drugs. Or was that
> >your last post? I get so confused, what with you jumping
> >around like a Nicaraguan child in a Sandanista mine field.
> >
>
> never fail to attract your attention, do they? It's like waving a red cape
> right in front of the eyes of a raging bull - you're certain to break into
> a savage charge at the offender. You should learn to exercise a little more
> restraint. The way you are operating is just too obvious.
What are you doing, using a random insult generator from behind
an anonymizer?
I think the CIA ought to be taken down to its foundation. I think
that chickenshit lying cockroaches like you ought to continue
to be exposed whenever possible.