Pubdate: Sun, 11 Oct 1998
Source: Houston Chronicle (TX)
Contact:  (c) 1998 Houston Chronicle
Website: http://www.chron.com/
Author: JOHN DIAMOND, Associated Press

CIA DID NOT TELL ALL ABOUT CONTRAS' DRUG ACTIVITIES, REPORT SAYS

WASHINGTON -- The CIA failed to fully inform Congress and law enforcement
agencies of reports that Nicaraguan Contras were involved in drug
trafficking, according to a newly declassified agency study.

While congressional oversight committees got some briefings during the
U.S.-backed Contra wars of the 1980s, "CIA did not inform Congress of all
allegations" linking Contras to drug trafficking, the CIA Inspector General
L. Britt Snider concluded.

"No information has been found to indicate that any U.S. law enforcement
entity or executive branch agency was informed by CIA of drug trafficking
allegations" concerning 11 Contra-related individuals who worked with the
CIA, the report said.

The 410-page declassified version of the report, posted on the CIA's Web
site late Thursday, provides new insights into U.S. intelligence during the
Reagan years as it aided the anti-Communist Nicaraguan Contra forces.
Throughout those years, House and Senate Democrats -- then the majority
party in Congress -- regularly questioned the CIA about persistent rumors
that the Contras were trafficking in narcotics to finance their effort to
overthrow the Sandinista government.

In classified briefings on Capitol Hill, CIA officials typically
acknowledged only one major case of narcotics involvement by an
anti-Sandinista group -- the so-called ADREN 15th of September group, which
had been disbanded in 1982. But the newly declassified report links to drug
allegations 58 other individuals belonging to various Contra groups.

For example, the CIA had information connecting 14 pilots and two other
individuals involved in transport to drug trafficking. In 1984, the CIA
broke off contact with one member of the Contra Sandino Revolutionary Front
linked to known drug trafficker Jorge Morales but "continued to have
contact through 1986-87 with four of the (other) individuals involved with
Morales," the report said.

In the fall of 1986 and all of 1987, Congress prohibited the Reagan
administration from funding any Contra group with members known to be
involved in drug smuggling. In response, the IG report says, the CIA did
not investigate such allegations and thus avoided invoking the funding
cutoff.

At a time when CIA files contained numerous cases of suspected drug
trafficking by Contra-connected individuals, Alan Fiers, then chief of the
CIA's Central American Task Force, was telling the Senate Intelligence
Committee in 1987, "We have uncovered no indications that any of these
individuals are involved or have been involved in narcotics trafficking."

In 1988, Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Claiborne Pell, D-R.I., were
pressuring John Helgerson, the CIA's chief liaison to Congress, to produce
information on alleged Contra drug activity. In a memo to senior CIA
officials, Helgerson wrote, "Realistically, we are likely to have to
respond somehow -- fairly quickly -- to the Kerry and Pell requests
regarding when we knew what." But Helgerson advised against passing on "raw
reporting or operational traffic" to the lawmakers.

The CIA apparently had allies on the Senate Intelligence Committee who
"were not `taken' with the topic and were very frustrated by the tasking
from Senators Kerry and Pell," the IG report said. Current CIA Director
George Tenet and Inspector General Snider were then on the committee's
staff.

Then-acting CIA Director Robert Gates did try to get tough regarding
contacts with drug traffickers. The IG report describes an April 9, 1987,
memo from Gates to his operations chief, Clair George. Gates said it was
"absolutely imperative" that the CIA and its Central American operatives
"avoid any kind of involvement with individuals or companies that are even
suspected of involvement in narcotics trafficking." Apparently the memo
never made it past George.

"No information has been found to indicate that this memorandum, in its
entirety, was disseminated to anyone at CIA headquarters other than DDO
George," the report states.

This IG report grew out of a CIA inquiry following a newspaper series that
alleged a connection between the agency and Contra-connected crack cocaine
dealers. The CIA has disavowed any such connection, and the inspector
general did as well in an earlier report.

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