FREE ESSAY ON ART OF LIVING

ART OF LIVING

An August, 1996, series in the San Jose Mercury News by reporter Gary Webb linked the
origins of crack cocaine in California to the contras, a guerrilla force backed by the
Reagan administration that attacked Nicaragua's Sandinista government during the 1980s.
Webb's series, The Dark Alliance, has been the subject of intense media debate, and has
focused attention on a foreign policy drug scandal that leaves many questions unanswered.

This electronic briefing book is compiled from declassified documents obtained by the
National Security Archive, including the notebooks kept by NSC aide and Iran-contra
figure Oliver North, electronic mail messages written by high-ranking Reagan
administration officials, memos detailing the contra war effort, and FBI and DEA reports.
The documents demonstrate official knowledge of drug operations, and collaboration with
and protection of known drug traffickers. Court and hearing transcripts are also
included. 
Special thanks to the Arca Foundation, the Ruth Mott Fund, the Samuel Rubin Foundation,
and the Fund for Constitutional Government for their support.
Contents:
Documentation of Official U.S. Knowledge of Drug Trafficking and the Contras 
Evidence that NSC Staff Supported Using Drug Money to Fund the Contras 
U.S. Officials and Major Traffickers:
Manuel Noriega
Jose Bueso Rosa
FBI/DEA Documentation 
Testimony of Fabio Ernesto Carrasco, 6 April 1990 
National Security Archive Analysis and Publications 
Click on the document icon next to each description to view the document. 
Documentation of Official U.S. Knowledge of 
Drug Trafficking and the Contras 
The National Security Archive obtained the hand-written notebooks of Oliver North, the
National Security Council aide who helped run the contra war and other Reagan
administration covert operations, through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed in
1989. The notebooks, as well as declassified memos sent to North, record that North was
repeatedly informed of contra ties to drug trafficking. 
In his entry for August 9, 1985, North summarizes a meeting with Robert Owen (Rob), his
liaison with the contras. They discuss a plane used by Mario Calero, brother of Adolfo
Calero, head of the FDN, to transport supplies from New Orleans to contras in Honduras.
North writes: Honduran DC-6 which is being used for runs out of New Orleans is probably
being used for drug runs into U.S. As Lorraine Adams reported in the October 22, 1994
Washington Post, there are no records that corroborate North's later assertion that he
passed this intelligence on drug trafficking to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

In a July 12, 1985 entry, North noted a call from retired Air Force general Richard
Secord in which the two discussed a Honduran arms warehouse from which the contras
planned to purchase weapons. (The contras did eventually buy the arms, using money the
Reagan administration secretly raised from Saudi Arabia.) According to the notebook,
Secord told North that 14 M to finance [the arms in the warehouse] came from drugs. 
An April 1, 1985 memo from Robert Owen (code-name: T.C. for The Courier) to Oliver North
(code-name: The Hammer) describes contra operations on the Southern Front. Owen tells
North that FDN leader Adolfo Calero (code-name: Sparkplug) has picked a new Southern
Front commander, one of the former captains to Eden Pastora who has been paid to defect
to the FDN. Owen reports that the officials in the new Southern Front FDN units include
people who are questionable because of past indiscretions, such as Jose Robelo, who is
believed to have potential involvement with drug running and Sebastian Gonzalez, who is
now involved in drug running out of Panama. 
On February 10, 1986, Owen (TC) wrote North (this time as BG, for Blood and Guts)
regarding a plane being used to carry humanitarian aid to the contras that was previously
used to transport drugs. The plane belongs to the Miami-based company Vortex, which is
run by Michael Palmer, one of the largest marijuana traffickers in the United States.
Despite Palmer's long history of drug smuggling, which would soon lead to a Michigan
indictment on drug charges, Palmer receives over $300,000.00 from the Nicaraguan
Humanitarian Aid Office (NHAO) -- an office overseen by Oliver North, Assistant Secretary
of State for Inter-American Affairs Elliott Abrams, and CIA officer Alan Fiers -- to
ferry supplies to the contras. 
State Department contracts from February 1986 detail Palmer's work to transport material
to the contras on behalf of the NHAO. 
Evidence that NSC Staff Supported Using Drug Money to Fund the Contras
In 1987, the Senate Subcommittee on Narcotics, Terrorism and International Operations,
led by Senator John Kerry, launched an investigation of allegations arising from reports,
more than a decade ago, of contra-drug links. One of the incidents examined by the Kerry
Committee was an effort to divert drug money from a counternarcotics operation to the
contra war. 
On July 28, 1988, two DEA agents testified before the House Subcommittee on Crime
regarding a sting operation conducted against the Medellin Cartel. The two agents said
that in 1985 Oliver North had wanted to take $1.5 million in Cartel bribe money that was
carried by a DEA informant and give it to the contras. DEA officials rejected the idea. 
The Kerry Committee report concluded that senior U.S. policy makers were not immune to
the idea that drug money was a perfect solution to the Contras' funding problems. 
U.S. Officials and Major Traffickers
Manuel Noriega 
In June, 1986, the New York Times published articles detailing years of Panamanian leader
Manuel Noriega's collaboration with Colombian drug traffickers. Reporter Seymour Hersh
wrote that Noriega is extensively involved in illicit money laundering and drug
activities, and that an unnamed White House official said the most significant drug
running in Panama was being directed by General Noriega. In August, Noriega, a
long-standing U.S. intelligence asset, sent an emissary to Washington to seek assistance
from the Reagan administration in rehabilitating his drug-stained reputation. 
Oliver North, who met with Noriega's representative, described the meeting in an August
23, 1986 e-mail message to Reagan national security advisor John Poindexter. You will
recall that over the years Manuel Noriega in Panama and I have developed a fairly good
relationship, North writes before explaining Noriega's proposal. If U.S. officials can
help clean up his image and lift the ban on arms sales to the Panamanian Defense Force,
Noriega will 'take care of' the Sandinista leadership for us. 
North tells Poindexter that Noriega can assist with sabotage against the 
Bibliography
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