January 17, 2023

By Ian Stuart

A former CIA officer, John Stockwell, as well as 2 former DEA officers, Michael Levine and Celerino Castillo III, have all written books that discussed CIA drug trafficking, and a former head (administrator) of the DEA, Robert Bonner, who was later also the head (commissioner) of the US Customs Service, also accused the CIA of drug trafficking, as did former DEA Supervisor and Special Agent Hector Berrellez, the former head of the DEA's Centac (Central Tactical Unit), Dennis Dayle, and the late former Los Angeles Police Department narcotics detective Michael Ruppert, as I will explain in a moment.

Three American major media journalists. Leslie Cockburn, the late Gary Webb, and the late Jonathon Kwitny, have also written books about CIA drug trafficking, which I will cite later. A 4th American major media (CBS News) journalist, Jane Wallace, accused the CIA of drug trafficking in a CBS News documentary, which I will also cite later, and the late Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist Jack Anderson, whose syndicated newspaper columns were printed in about 1000 newspapers with 45 million daily readers, alleged in at least 2 articles which I will cite that the CIA was involved in drug trafficking. 

Associated Press news agency journalist Brian Barger, and Lowell Bergman of CBS's "60 Minutes" have also accused the CIA of drug trafficking, as I will also explain later.

That trafficking has of course made a huge amount of money for a criminal faction at the CIA, so has that group been spending that money on secret black budget covert operations that it can hide from Congress, whose committees are given a few scraps of information about American taxpayers funded CIA covert operations? 

That is the same American taxpayers whose neighbourhoods have been wrecked by thieving hard drug addicts, who are responsible for the overwhelming majority of all burglaries, car thefts, shop thefts, and muggings.

As this "Liverpool Echo" article pointed out, after the Widnes drug dependency clinic near Liverpool began prescribing pharmaceutical heroin, cocaine, and amphetamine to local addicts, the level of property crimes like burglaries dropped by 93% in the local area, so it would be reasonable to assume that the overwhelming majority of all American burglaries, muggings, car thefts, and thefts from shops are committed by hard drug addicts.

Former CIA officer John Stockwell, whose rank was equivalent to an army colonel, discussed CIA heroin, cocaine, and marijuana trafficking in "The Praetorian Guard: The US Role in the New World Order" (South End Press, Boston, 1991)

You can read a section of his book which talked about the CIA's covert involvement in the heroin, cocaine, and marijuana trade on page 119.

The CIA posted a "Highland Park News" Chicago area newspaper's article about John Stockwell's CIA drug trafficking allegations on its own website. The article began, "Through the CIA's activities, the U.S. is supporting violence, drug trafficking, political assassinations and civil wars, charged John Stockwell, a former CIA official who spoke at Highland Park High School Sunday". The article finished by saying, "He [Stockwell] is the highest ranked official to leave the CIA and go public with his criticism. He received the CIA's Medal of Merit and is now its most outspoken critic."

John Stockwell discussed CIA drug trafficking around the world at length in a 1988 cable TV programme.

The CIA also posted the whole of an anti-CIA magazine's "The CIA & Drugs" issue on its website. The magazine, "Covert Action Information Bulletin", was co-founded by former CIA officers Philip Agee, Elsie Wilcott, and James Wilcott.

Two former DEA officers, Michael Levine and Celerino Castillo III, have also accused the CIA of drug trafficking in their books.

25 year DEA veteran Michael Levine's "The Big White Lie: The CIA and the Cocaine/Crack Epidemic: An Undercover Odyssey" (Thunder's Mouth Press, New York, 1993) is, as as the title suggests, about the CIA's secret involvement in the cocaine/crack trade, and it also discusses the role which Nazi (Gestapo) war criminal Klaus Barbie played in helping the CIA to sell drugs. 

Michael Levine has discussed CIA drug trafficking on American TV programmes which you can watch here and here, while the former head (administrator) of the DEA from 1990-1993, Robert Bonner, who was also the head (commissioner) of the US Customs Service from 2001-2003, and the head of the US Customs and Border Protection division of the Department of Homeland Security from 2003-2005, has also accused the CIA of drug trafficking on film.

12 year DEA veteran Celerino Castillo III's "Powderburns: Cocaine, Contras, and the Drug War" (Atlantic Books, London, 1994) is about the CIA's involvement in cocaine trafficking.

Former DEA Supervisor and Special Agent Hector Berrellez's claim that the CIA is involved in the drug trade was reported in this "New York Post" article. He alleges that the CIA uses drug profits to finance covert military operations.

The former head of the DEA's Central Tactical Unit, Dennis Dayle, has said that, "In my 30-year history in the Drug Enforcement Administration and related agencies, the major targets of my investigations almost invariably turned out to be working for the CIA."

After CIA crack dealing stories, which I will discuss in a moment, were published in 1996 in "The Mercury News" in San Jose, the resulting scandal created so much outrage in Los Angeles, that then CIA Director John Deutch went to a local town hall meeting to try to defuse people's anger. As the "Washington Post" explained, a former LAPD narcotics detective came to the meeting, and said that the CIA had tried to recruit him in the late 1970's to "protect CIA drug operations" in south central Los Angeles, and that he was shot at and forced out of his job after he refused to do that, and tried to blow the whistle on the CIA's drug trafficking instead.

That former detective was Michael Ruppert. You can see him confront John Deutch here. 

Ruppert's website features a CIA & Drugs page, which includes links to numerous articles about that subject.

These are the 7 American major media journalists who have written books or articles about CIA drug trafficking, who have made TV documentaries about that subject, or who have unearthed evidence that the CIA is involved in the drug trade. 

Leslie Cockburn, who has worked for various TV stations (CBS, ABC, and PBS), wrote "Out of Control: The Story of the Reagan Administration's Secret War in Nicaragua, the Illegal Arms Pipeline, and the Contra Drug Smuggling Connection" (Atlantic Monthly Press, Washington D.C., 1987).

This is the transcript of Leslie Cockburn's PBS "Frontline" documentary, "Guns, Drugs and the CIA".

That documentary can also be watched here.

The late "Mercury News" journalist Gary Webb, whose 1996 stories in that newspaper about CIA Contra agents' crack trafficking created uproar internationally in 1996, until the American media and public came to believe that they were based on false information, thanks to attacks on those stories which were led by journalists who, Webb alleged, all had CIA links, discussed those journalists' alleged CIA links in his book, "Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras and the Crack Cocaine Explosion" (Seven Stories Press, New York, 1998), which has a foreword by 16 term Congresswoman Maxine Waters.

You can read a summary of the contents of Gary Webb's articles on the CIA website.

As footnote 9 of the summary revealed, Maxine Waters was not the only congresswoman to have criticised the CIA in the wake of Gary Webb's articles, as Cynthia McKinney referred to the CIA as the "Central Intoxication Agency".

These are 2 C-SPAN interviews with Gary Webb, in 1996 and 1998.

Gary Webb explained how at first his articles became a media sensation in this clip. 

You can read about his book on the publisher's website.

"Kill the Messenger: How the CIA's Crack-cocaine Controversy Destroyed Journalist Gary Webb" by Nick Schou (Thunder's Mouth Press, New York, 2006), and the Hollywood film "Kill the Messenger", are about how Webb's journalism career was destroyed by allegedly CIA linked journalists' alleged lies about his articles.

In "Kill the Messenger", Gary Webb is played by Jeremy Renner, who was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for his role in "The Hurt Locker", and for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role in the Ben Affleck film "Town". 

This Netflix documentary about crack is mostly just about the origins and early days of the crack epidemic, but it also has 3 sections about several hundred corrupt police officers around the US selling crack, stealing crack dealers' money, etc., about the Reagan White House allegedly turning a blind eye to Contra cocaine and crack trafficking, and about the CIA allegedly turning a blind eye to Contra cocaine and crack trafficking.

The documentary features a 3rd major American media journalist, Associated Press news agency reporter Brian Barger, who says in the film that more than 3 dozen sources told him that cocaine smuggling was being used to fund the Contras.

The 4th American major media journalist who wrote about CIA drug trafficking was the late Jonathon Kwitny, who worked for the "Wall Street Journal" and PBS.

He wrote "The Crimes of Patriots: A True Story of Dope, Dirty Money, and the CIA" (W.W. Norton Company, New York, 1988).

A 5th American major media journalist, Jane Wallace, made a documentary for CBS News's "West 57th" programme ("Drug Smuggling and the Contras", April 6, 1987), which accused the CIA of cocaine and marijuana trafficking. The documentary was produced by Leslie Cockburn.  You can read the documentary's transcript on the CIA's website.

You can watch another "West 57th" documentary about CIA drug trafficking here. 

You can also read the transcript of an April 6, 1987 CBS Evening News report on this subject,  "Contra Aid and Alleged Drug Smuggling", on the CIA website.

The late Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist Jack Anderson, whose syndicated newspaper columns were printed in about 1000 newspapers with 45 million daily readers, alleged on at least 2 occasions that the CIA was involved in drug trafficking, so he is the 6th American major media reporter to have alleged that the CIA is involved in drug trafficking.

You can read Jack Anderson's May 5, 1971 "Washington Post" column, which accused the CIA of involvement in the heroin trade in Laos, on the CIA website.

Again on the CIA website, you can read Jack Anderson's December 26, 1984 "Washington Post" article about former CIA agent Ronald Ray Rewald's claim that a CIA superior had asked him to be part of a CIA sponsored drug smuggling operation. The article said that the Nugan Hand Bank, which no longer exists, was staffed by former CIA and US military officers, and laundered money for heroin and arms trafficking syndicates, which it helped to finance. Finally, the article stated that Rewald's Hawaiian investment firm, Bishop, Baldwin, Rewald, Dillingham & Wong, "was hip-deep in active or retired CIA employes. My staff has identified at least 17 BBRD&W employes who were CIA agents."  

The CIA's website also includes a copy of a January 11, 1985 "Philadelphia Inquirer" article which revealed that Anderson had then accused the CIA of trying to intimidate him to name his sources for that 2nd column, and that the CIA had also complained to ABC News about a story which reported that it had plotted to murder Ronald Ray Rewald.

NBC News reported in this 2010 article, "Nixon plot against newspaper columnist detailed", that President Nixon had also plotted to murder Jack Anderson, who Nixon had blamed for costing him the 1960 election. Former Watergate burglar and CIA officer Howard Hunt admitted on his death bed that the Nixon murder plot was real. The plan was to either poison Anderson, or to put a massive dose of LSD on his car's steering wheel, which could have led to a fatal car crash when the LSD had seeped into his hands, and then into his brain.

In a "Time" magazine interview, which is mentioned in this Associated Press news agency story on the CIA website, Hunt admitted that he had been told to drug Jack Anderson, but denied that he had been told to murder him.

Howard Hunt also admitted on his death bed that he had been part of the group who assassinated President Kennedy. In an American TV documentary which was presented by former Governor of Minnesota Jesse Ventura, Howard Hunt's son plays a recording of his father admitting on his death bed that he had been involved in JFK's murder, and saying that another former Watergate burglar and CIA operative, the late Frank Sturgis, had also been part of the JFK conspiracy.

As another AP article explains, a 3rd former Watergate burglar, G. Gordon Liddy, also admitted in 1991 that Nixon operatives had plotted to murder Jack Anderson, and that dosing him with LSD was one assassination plan that the Nixon agents came up with. The article pointed out that Anderson had found out that the CIA had set up an entire operation, codenamed Operation Mudhen, to surveil him, and were using 18 radio cars, as well as electronic and photo surveillance of his home and office to find out what he was doing. 

Lowell Bergman of CBS's "60 Minutes" is the 7th American major media reporter to have alleged that the CIA is involved in drug trafficking. He discussed the CIA importing a ton of cocaine into the USA in this clip.

This CBS News story is about the CIA's ton of cocaine.

This 1979 ABC News documentary, "Mission Mind Control", is about the CIA's research into using LSD, magic mushrooms, and mescaline to control human behaviour.

The CIA's own website reveals that it also researched using nitrous oxide laughing gas, which is causing spinal cord and nerve damage, as well as paralysis, to control human behaviour.

The CIA also researched MDMA, or ecstasy in other words, to see if it could be used as a psychological weapon, as well as methamphetamine and barbiturates.

If you are sceptical about the hard facts which this article discusses, you need to ask yourself if a former head of the DEA who was later the head of the US Customs Service, 4 other former DEA officers, a former CIA officer, a former LAPD narcotics detective, and 7 American major media journalists are/were all deluded fantasists. 

They are/were not of course, so it is clear that the CIA has a long history of involvement in the drug trade.

The CIA has of course admitted that it worked with the (drug trafficking) Mafia to assassinate Fidel Castro.

I should also point out that Fox News, "USA Today", the "Daily Mail", and the English language edition of the Spanish national daily "El País" have published articles which have alleged that one or more CIA operatives, and a corrupt DEA official may have been involved in the 1985 torture and murder of DEA officer Enrique "Kiki" Camarena, just one of whose DEA operations had cost a Mexican drug trafficking cartel $2.5 billion. If these claims are true, they would of course reveal that that cartel had or has CIA ties.

"The Last Narc", which is a 4 part 2020 Amazon Prime TV series about Kiki Camarena's death, alleges that the CIA was involved in his kidnapping, torture, and murder, as this "New York Post" article explains. It also reports former DEA Supervisor and Special Agent Hector Berrellez's claim that the CIA is involved in the drug trade, and that the CIA uses drug profits to finance covert military operations. The director of "The Last Narc" had researched Camarena's murder for 15 years.

Some people who have read this article may be asking themselves how some people working for the CIA could wreck areas of their own country which have been devastated by crack and heroin addicts burgling, mugging, stealing cars, and shoplifting to feed their drug habits.

Do you really think that extreme right wing CIA men living in nice middle class suburbs could care less if primarily American working class people's areas and lives are devastated by thieving hard drug addicts, and especially racial minority working class people's areas and lives?

If you are thinking "Which extreme right wing CIA men?", I will point out that this "New York Times" article, "In Cold War, U.S. Spy Agencies Used 1,000 Nazis", is essential reading if you do not understand how deeply embroiled the CIA was with Nazis during the Cold War.

Those 1000 Nazis included men who were involved in the Holocaust and other war crimes, as we now know from declassified CIA files that discuss the CIA's Nazi links.

This 2004 History Channel documentary, "The CIA and the Nazis", discussed the CIA's employent of Nazi war criminals who were involved in the Holocaust, and explained how in fact over 4000 former Nazis were recruited by US government agencies.