SECTION
FIFTEEN
EMAIL PAGE THREE
sm
COLUMN
SEVENTY, APRIL 1, 2002
(Copyright © 2002 The Blacklisted Journalist)
DUMB
DUMBYA WANTS A PHONY TO LEAD
'THE WAR ON DRUGS'
Subject:
Hutchinson, CIA, DEA and COKE
Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2002 15:00:17 -0500
From: "vanna" <malicia@ntrnet.net>
To: info@blacklistedjournalist.com
http://arktimes.com/010525coverstoryb.html
Arkansas
Times
Asa
and me
I've wondered for years: What does Hutchinson know about Arkansas's biggest drug
smuggler? And when did he know it?
By
Mara Leveritt
May
25, 2001
Asa
Hutchinson and I share a passion for the subject of drugs. As a crusading member
of Congress, he talks a lot about them. As a reporter focused on crime, my
writing centers on them. Hutchinson wants to intensify this country's war on
drugs. I think three decades of failure have proven the war a disaster.
Now
President George W. Bush has nominated Hutchinson to head the DEA, the biggest
drug-fighting squad in the world. But before Hutchinson assumes that post, there
are some questions about high-level cocaine trafficking in Arkansas while he was
a U.S. attorney here that he should be required to answer. The questions have
hung about for years, but so far he has managed to dodge them.
They
relate to the period from 1982 to 1985, when Hutchinson served as the federal
prosecuting attorney for western Arkansas. He speaks often of that time.
"During
the 1980s, our nation declared a war against drugs," he proclaimed in a
1997 speech to the House. "I was in that battle as a federal prosecutor. It
was during that time that our families, our communities, and our law-enforcement
officials mobilized in a united effort to fight this war."
In
another speech he observed, "I have seen the drug war from all sides---as a
member of Congress, as a federal prosecutor, and as a parent---and I know the
importance of fighting this battle on all fronts."
But
some strange things happened in Hutchinson's district while he was federal
prosecutor that he doesn't mention in his speeches. Specifically, a man
identified by federal agents as "a documented, major narcotics
trafficker" was using facilities at an airport in Hutchinson's district for
"storage, maintenance, and modification" of his drug-running aircraft,
throughout most of Hutchinson's tenure.
The
man was Adler Berriman "Barry" Seal. For the last four years of his
life---and throughout Hutchinson's term as U.S. attorney---his base of
operations was Mena, Arkansas.
In
1982, the year that Hutchinson took office as U.S. attorney and Seal moved to
Mena, federal officials were already aware that he controlled "an
international smuggling organization" that was "extremely well
organized and extensive." Agents for the DEA, FBI, U.S. Customs, and IRS
were watching him. They brought Hutchinson evidence that Seal was "involved
in narcotics trafficking and the laundering of funds derived from such
trafficking."
I
knew none of this in the early 1980s. At the time, this was highly secret
information, known only to a handful of state and federal investigators and a
few politicians, including U.S. Attorney Asa Hutchinson.
My
interest in the relationship between Seal and Hutchinson was piqued as I became
aware of how heavily drug prosecutions fell on street-and mid-level dealers,
while smugglers like Seal, who imported drugs by the ton, rarely ended up in
prison. So when rumors surfaced about Seal and his organization, and how they
had managed for years to avoid prison, even though the extent of their
activities was well known to drug authorities, I wanted to know more.
But
getting the story has not been easy. In the early 1990s, I asked Hutchinson
about Barry Seal and his associates at Mena. Hutchinson provided no information,
and politely dismissed the complaints that had arisen by then about his failure
to prosecute Seal. He said he had already resigned as U.S. attorney by the time
the matter arose.
Even
then I knew better than that. Ignoring sidelong glances from some of my peers,
who already equated drug smuggling at Mena with reports of life on Mars, I began
collecting official accounts of what had happened there. My main thrust was an
attempt to acquire, through the federal Freedom of Information laws, all the
documents relating to Seal that were generated by the FBI.
I
wish now that I had gone after the DEA's records on Seal, but I was working in
the dark. I knew that the FBI had been involved in Seal's case, so I began with
what I knew.
The
battle to obtain even those documents has now taken longer than the length of
time that Seal was based at Mena. At first the FBI denied that it had any
records on Seal. When I produced photocopies of FBI memos relating to the Seal
investigation, the agency acknowledged that a file existed. But, I was told, it
probably would take years to review it, and besides, thousands of applicants for
other files were already ahead of me.
That's
when I wrote to two members of Congress, asking for their help. Even though
Hutchinson is not from my district, I contacted him in hopes that, having been
close to the events, he would want to help clear the record. Again, he responded
politely.
He
told me that it was always good to hear from me, that he had contacted the FBI
in my behalf, and that he would be back in touch with me when the agency
responded. He included a copy of a federal guide to using the Freedom of
Information and Privacy Act, in the hope that it would help in my "research
efforts." He thanked me for my patience.
That
was the last I heard from Asa Hutchinson until a couple of years later, when I
mentioned the incident in a column. At that point, an aide to Hutchinson
hastened to apologize for the lack of followup. But still, there was no help on
the Mena front coming from the Hutchinson camp.
Fortunately,
Rep. Vic Snyder was more responsive. In fact, Snyder and his staff made repeated
attempts to persuade the FBI to release the records I had requested. Finally,
after a personal visit from Snyder, the agency agreed to start releasing some of
its files on Mena. As a result, during the past two years, I have received
several hundred pages of reports relating to Barry Seal. I have posted many of
these pages on my website, http://www.maraleveritt.com
, and a new batch will be posted soon. The pages reflect the intensity of
activity surrounding Seal, even if, in true wartime fashion, most of the details
have been blacked out.
Many
of the documents have been so heavily censored that they have been rendered
worthless. And hundreds more were withheld altogether. Some of the redactions
were made, according to agency notations, to protect the privacy of named
individuals. Many others, however, are said to have been made under laws to
protect "national security."
In
an effort that my children predict I'll still be waging from beyond the grave, I
am appealing the national security exclusions. What, I ask, is the connection
between Seal and national security?
I
have seen the rug of "national security" grow larger by the year, and
it concerns me that so many aspects of this war on drugs are piously being swept
under it. Too often "national security" means "don't tell the
American people."
I
believe that if this country is going to fight a long and costly war, the war's
leaders have an obligation to report faithfully on its battles. The incidents
that surrounded Seal constituted a major battle. But the faithful report has
been missing. For more than 15 years, U.S. government officials, including
Hutchinson, who were close to the events have maintained a stony silence.
Yet,
despite the former prosecutor's unhelpfulness, chunks of the story have emerged.
And scoffs about Mena aside, it is a remarkable one. The stakes with Seal were
about as high as they can get in a war. The story is replete with intrigue and
layers of betrayal. The losses it reflects were enormous.
Here's
a gram of what happened:
Early
in 1984, after years of painstaking investigation, law enforcement agencies,
including the DEA, were ready to prosecute Seal. But Seal called upon political
connections, and they let him become an informant rather than go to prison. The
price of Seal's last-minute deal with the U.S. government was that he was to
betray his Colombian allies, toppling the leadership of the Medellin cartel.
But
the government lost on the deal. The plan to use Seal to rout the cartel ended
in murder and failure. Not only was Seal exposed, and then assassinated, but
members of his "extensive" organized crime operation evaded
prosecution.
The
fiasco left many law enforcement officers who'd worked on the Seal case feeling
that they'd been betrayed. I've interviewed some of them, and their
disillusionment is heartbreaking.
In
1992, I spoke with Jack Crittendon, a sergeant with the Louisiana State Police.
He told me that 10 years earlier, in early 1982, he and his partner were
building a case against Seal when they were notified that DEA officials in Miami
were on the verge of indicting Seal. Armed with that information, Crittendon and
his partner confronted Seal at a steak house in Baton Rouge.
"We
told him we'd like for him to turn around and cooperate with us and with the DEA
and with the U.S. attorney in Baton Rouge," Crittendon recalled. "We
were looking across the table at him. Now, the man had a mind for business. With
his mind, he could have been the head of a Fortune 500 company. It just so
happened that his business was smuggling. We told him we wanted the cartel. He
said he'd have to give it some thought."
Ultimately,
Seal rejected the Louisiana proposal. Crittendon recalled, "We said,
'That's fine with us, but wherever you go, they're going to be after
Seal
was being watched so closely that state and federal officials in Arkansas,
including Asa Hutchinson, knew of his move to Arkansas, almost from the moment
his first aircraft arrived. They also knew that Seal had formed a business
relationship with Rich Mountain Aviation, an aircraft modification company
headquartered at the Mena airport.
Soon
after Seal's move to Mena, U.S. Attorney Hutchinson called a meeting at his Fort
Smith office to coordinate local surveillance. Among those attending were an
Arkansas DEA agent, a U.S. Customs official, and U.S. Treasury agent William C.
Duncan.
Duncan's
job was to investigate money laundering by the Seal organization. By the end of
1982, he had gathered what he believed to be substantial evidence of the crime.
Duncan
and an Arkansas State Police investigator, who was also monitoring Seal's
enterprise, took their evidence to Hutchinson. They asked that the U.S. attorney
subpoena 20 witnesses they'd identified to testify before a federal grand jury.
To Duncan's surprise, however, Hutchinson seemed reluctant. Ultimately,
Hutchinson called only three of the 20 witnesses the investigators had
requested.
The
three appeared before the grand jury, but afterwards, two of them also expressed
surprise at how their questioning was handled. One, a secretary at Rich Mountain
Aviation, had given Duncan sworn statements about money laundering at the
company, transcripts of which Duncan had provided to Hutchinson. But when the
woman left the jury room, she complained that Hutchinson had asked her nothing
about the crime or the sworn statements she'd given to Duncan. As Duncan later
testified, "She basically said that she was allowed to give her name,
address, position, and not much else."
The
other angry witness was a banker who had, in Duncan's words, "provided a
significant amount of evidence relating to the money-laundering operation."
According to Duncan, he, too, emerged from the jury room complaining "that
he was not allowed to provide the evidence that he wanted to provide to the
grand jury."
Hutchinson
left the U.S. attorney's office in October 1985, to make what turned out to be
an unsuccessful bid for the U.S. Senate. His successor, J. Michael Fitzhugh,
appeared no more zealous than Hutchinson to pursue information regarding Seal.
As a result, neither Seal nor his associates in Arkansas were indicted.
(As
late as 1989, according to records I've received, FBI agents in Little Rock were
still expecting that some of Seal's associates would be indicted. Only after
Sen. Dale Bumpers inquired into the status of the case, and calls were made to
Fitzhugh's office, did the agents learn that the grand jury had disbanded the
previous summer without issuing the expected indictments.)
In
1991, Treasury agent Duncan was questioned under oath about the Seal
investigation. Asked what conclusions he and his superiors at the IRS had drawn,
Duncan answered matter-of-factly, "There was a cover-up."
"I
had found Asa Hutchinson to be a very aggressive U.S. attorney in connection
with my cases," Duncan said. "Then, all of a sudden, with respect to
Mena, it was just like the information was going in, but nothing was happening,
over a long period of time. But, just like with the 20 witnesses and the
complaints, I didn't know what to make of that. Alarms were going off...
"We
were astonished that we couldn't get subpoenas. We were astonished that Barry
Seal was never brought to the grand jury, because he was on the subpoena list
for a long time. And there were just a lot of investigative developments that
made no sense to us."
Asked
to elaborate, Duncan explained, "One of the most revealing things was that
we had discussed specifically with Asa Hutchinson the rumors about National
Security [Administration] involvement in the Mena operation. And Mr. Hutchinson
told me personally that he had checked with a variety of law enforcement
agencies and people in Miami, and that Barry Seal would be prosecuted for any
crimes in Arkansas. So we were comfortable that there was not going to be
National Security interference."
Duncan
also said he found it "very strange" that he saw so few signs of the
DEA at Mena while Seal was headquartered there. "We were dealing with
allegations of narcotics smuggling [and] massive amounts of money
laundering," Duncan said in his deposition. "And it was my perception
that the Drug Enforcement Administration would have been very actively involved
at that stage, along with the Arkansas State Police. But DEA was conspicuously
absent during most of that time."
Duncan
did not know while he was investigating Seal that, about a year and a half after
Seal's move to Arkansas---and about midway through Hutchinson's term as U.S.
attorney---the smuggler had changed his mind about becoming a federal informant.
In March 1984, with charges filed against him in Florida and others pending in
Louisiana, Seal was desperate to make a deal. But the U.S. attorney in Fort
Lauderdale was more inclined to prosecute than to let Seal roll and become an
informant. The talks had reached an impasse.
Not
everyone charged with drug crimes can bargain effectively with the U.S.
government. But Seal had some advantages. For one, he had financial resources.
According to his own account, by 1984 he had already earned between $60 and $100
million smuggling cocaine into the U.S. He could hire his own lawyers.
Perhaps
more important, it appears, he had cultivated some important connections.
Stymied in his negotiations in Florida, Seal flew his personal
There
is no indication that then Vice President George Bush was present at the meeting
with Seal. But the meeting was important, nonetheless. Where Seal had failed in
Florida, he now succeeded in Washington, as members of the task force backed his
offer to become a federal informant.
Days
later, in the presence of Justice Department officials, Seal signed an agreement
to cooperate with the DEA. The problem for Duncan and other investigators
working in Louisiana and Arkansas was that the deal was kept a secret. Contrary
to law enforcement protocols, they were not informed of the change in Seal's
status.
Seal
lived for 23 months after he cut that deal. They are months shrouded in mystery.
Questions that have festered for years remain to this day unanswered.
Why
were Duncan and other investigators assigned to follow Seal not notified that he
was now a confidential government informant? And what was the DEA's role with
regard to Seal? How close was the supervision of this high-level criminal turned
critically-important informant? After Seal became an informant, did he continue
to smuggle drugs---and keep the money he made from them---as he later testified
in court that he did?
By
Seal's own account, his gross income in the year and a half after he became an
informant---while he was based at Mena and while Asa Hutchinson was the federal
prosecutor in Fort Smith, 82 miles away---was three-quarters of a million
dollars. Seal reported that $575,000 of that income had been derived from a
single cocaine shipment, which the DEA had allowed him to keep. Pressed further,
he testified that, since going to work for the DEA, he had imported 1,500 pounds
of cocaine into the U.S.
Of
course, Duncan and other investigators knew nothing of all this. They had no
idea in 1984, as they monitored Seal's occasional appearances at Mena, that the
smuggler was also flying between meetings with high-level U.S. officials and the
cocaine lords of Central America. Between March 1984 and February 1986, records
indicate that Seal flew repeatedly to Colombia, Guatemala, and Panama, where he
met with Jorge Ochoa, Fabio Ochoa, Pablo Escobar, and Carlos Lehder---leaders of
the cartel that at the time controlled an estimated 80 percent of the cocaine
entering the United States.
Compounding
the mystery around Seal are questions that arose during this period about his
relationship with the CIA. Were the connections extensive, permeating his
career? Or were they limited to one event, as the CIA maintains? I know that
some of the records in Seal's FBI file---ones I've been denied on grounds of
national security---originated with the CIA. So the questions remain.
What
we do know is that, in June 1984, CIA technicians installed hidden cameras in
Seal's C-123K at Florida's Homestead Air Force Base. The next day, Seal flew to
Nicaragua, where the CIA-installed cameras captured images of cocaine being
loaded onboard the plane. Two months later, at the height of the Reagan
administration's effort to get congressional funding for the Nicaraguan Contras,
those photos were leaked to the media. Administration sources identified the
blurry figures as leaders of the Sandinista government, who were opposed by the
Contra rebels.
The
leak exploded Seal's cover, revealing to his associates in the Medellin cartel
that he was now cooperating with the U.S. government. It ruined Seal as an
informant just three months after he'd made the deal. And it set him up for
retaliation.
How
much of this Hutchinson knew at the time, he has never said. What is known is
that at the end of 1984, Seal was indicted in Louisiana, and in January 1985, he
pled guilty to drug charges there. His usefulness now limited to courtrooms, for
most of 1985, Seal made appearances at federal drug trials, where he testified
as a government witness against others in his trade. He helped in several
prosecutions, though none in Arkansas.
Seal's
most important court appearance was to come in 1986, when he was scheduled to
testify at the trial of Jorge Ochoa Vasques. But in February of that year,
shortly before the trial was to begin, Seal was ambushed in Baton Rouge and
killed in a hail of bullets. Upon hearing of Seal's murder, one stunned DEA
agent lamented, "There was a contract out on him, and everyone knew it. He
was to have been a crucial witness in the biggest case in DEA history."
Why
was Seal not protected? There are no good explanations. Seal's status as an
informant was destroyed by the decision to leak his photos. And he was gunned
down, ending his ability to testify, when he showed up for an appointment that a
federal judge had ordered him to keep.
After
Seal's murder, the attorney general of Louisiana wrote to U.S. Attorney Edwin
Meese, requesting answers to some of the bigger questions about the government's
relationship with Barry Seal. William J. Guste Jr. asked Meese why "such an
important witness" had not been given protection. Guste also wanted to know
how Seal had been "supervised, regulated and controlled" after
agreeing to work with the DEA.
The
Louisiana attorney general asked, "Was Seal allowed to work in an
undercover capacity in Arkansas and Louisiana without notification to Louisiana
and Arkansas officials?" And, "How were the contraband drugs he
brought into the United States while cooperating with the DEA regulated and
controlled?
"Was
Seal's drug smuggling organization allowed to remain intact during and
after the time of his cooperation with the government? If so, why?
"Was
he permitted to keep hundreds of thousands of dollars which he made while
working for the DEA by actually smuggling drugs into he United States? How was
such money accounted for?"
Guste
wrote, "All of these questions and others that will undoubtedly develop cry
for investigation. And law enforcement agencies and the public have a right to
know the answers." In 1994, Guste told me that Meese never responded to the
letter. If Asa Hutchinson, who worked under Meese, made any similar inquiries,
they have never come to light.
Fifteen
years have now passed since Barry Seal's murder, and the still unanswered
questions remain as haunting as ever. Bill Clinton, who was governor of Arkansas
during Seal's tenure here, dismissed the questions during his campaign for the
presidency as entirely a federal matter. Once he gained the White House, a
spokesman ridiculed questions about Seal and Mena, calling them "the
darkest backwater of conspiracy theories."
But
these questions do not deserve such a brush-off. They deserve answers. Yet, even
at this late date, instead of providing them, President Bush plans to install
Hutchinson, the tight-lipped and loyal drug warrior, as head of the DEA.
While
Hutchinson (and others) have remained mum about the deals and questions,
politics and bungles that surrounded Barry Seal, the peculiarities that marked
Seal's case have not escaped mention entirely. In 1988, the Senate Committee on
Foreign Relations issued a report prepared by its Subcommittee on Terrorism,
Narcotics and International Operations that exposed the seriousness of the Seal
disaster. That report read in part: "Law enforcement officials were furious
that their undercover operation was revealed and agents' lives jeopardized
because one individual in the U.S. government---Lt. Col. Oliver North---decided
to play politics with the issue."
The
report continued: "Associates of Seal, who operated aircraft service
businesses at the Mena, Arkansas airport, were also targets of grand jury probes
into narcotics trafficking. Despite the availability of evidence sufficient for
an indictment on money laundering charges and over the strong protests of state
and federal law enforcement officials, the 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."
When
I wrote to Hutchinson in 1995, he might have referred me that report. But he
didn't. Now that Hutchinson is in line to head the DEA, I think he should be
required to address the long waiting questions about Seal. And a few more
questions to boot. Among them:
What
are the limits on secrecy when it comes to fighting this war?
What
should be the DEA's relationship with the CIA?
How
heavily should narcotics investigators be allowed to rely on drug-
criminals-turned-snitches---people like Barry Seal---for activities that are
kept from public review and for testimony resulting from deals?
What
explanation is owed to law enforcement officers, many of whom risk their lives,
only to see their efforts wasted---not purposefully undermined---as they were in
the case of Seal?
What
about all the inmates who are serving time in prisons for drug law violations
that were insignificant compared to Seal's? What does Hutchinson say to them?
And to the American people?
Like
most drug warriors, Hutchinson speaks often about "messages." He
resists changing even marijuana laws, saying that to do so would send the
"wrong message." He opposes calling the war on drugs anything but a
war, arguing that to change the terminology sends "the wrong message."
I
share his respect for messages. So I'd like to hear how he interprets this one:
In
1994, when I asked the head of the DEA's office in Little Rock what had actually
transpired with Seal, the agent answered obliquely that "no conclusion was
determined." When I asked what in the world that meant, he explained,
"Sometimes that is the conclusion: that there can be no conclusion."
I'd
like to know: Would that answer satisfy Hutchinson? It does not satisfy me. ##
CLICK
HERE TO GET TO INDEX OF COLUMN SEVENTY
CLICK HERE TO GET TO INDEX
OF COLUMNS
The
Blacklisted Journalist can be contacted at P.O.Box 964, Elizabeth, NJ 07208-0964
The Blacklisted Journalist's E-Mail Address:
info@blacklistedjournalist.com
THE BLACKLISTED JOURNALIST IS A SERVICE MARK OF AL ARONOWITZ