CIA Admits Knowledge of Contra Drug Trafficking

CIA Inspector General Frederick R. Hitz revealed this in testimony last week before the House intelligence committee. His statement further undermined CIA efforts to distance itself from drug traffickers who supported contra forces. He revealed, for the first time, a 1982 agreement under which agency officials were not required to report allegations of drug trafficking involving "non-official employees."

Despite the revelations, Hitz insisted that "we found absolutely no evidence to indicate that the CIA as an organization or its employees were involved in any conspiracy to bring drugs into the United States."

Members of the House panel and other lawmakers, however, questioned the agency's ability to investigate itself and its claim that it "left no stone unturned" before concluding that it had no direct or indirect ties to two Nicaraguan drug dealers operating in California, each of whom provided some $40,000 to the contras.

Among the shortcomings, the lawmakers said, was the fact that the CIA never interviewed several key figures -- including former Reagan White House Aid Oliver North, who directed fund-raising for the contras.

The hearing on Mar. 16 was called to review the inspector general's 156-page report on his investigation into claims that the CIA, through its ties to Nicaraguan drug dealers, was linked to the introduction of crack cocaine into Los Angeles, allegations that were raised by a series of articles published in the San Jose Mercury News in August 1996.

Hitz said his 17-month investigation, the "most comprehensive and exhaustive ever conducted" by the agency, found no evidence that linked any past of present CIA officials to the drug dealers mentioned in the articles. Nor, he added, could it substantiate claims by two drug dealers -- Norwin Meneses and Danilo Blandon -- that they each provided as much as $40,000 to the Nicaraguan Democratic Front (FDN), one of several contra armies.

Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald and Rep. Maxine Waters, both Democrats, questioned the thoroughness of the CIA's initial investigation and its conclusions. The two lawmakers' Los Angeles districts were at the epicenter of the crack epidemic.

"The ultimate question is: can the CIA investigate itself?" said Millender-McDonald, who called for the public release of the some 250,000 pages of documents the agency reviewed as part of its initial probe. The report showed that the CIA "turned a blind eye, at best" to allegations that contra forces and their supporters were involved in drug trafficking, she said.

She accused the agency of using cleverly worded denials and selective quotations from documents to support its conclusions, which should be dismissed because they lacked credibility.

Both Millender-McDonald and Waters questioned why several key former CIA officials were not interviewed as part of the investigation. Among those who declined the agency's request for interviews were former Costa Rican station chief Joseph Fernandez and others who, Waters noted, "had major responsibilities for the CIA's contra operations."

Hitz responded by noting that he lacks the subpoena power needed to compel former agency employees to testify. And he discounted the importance of Fernandez and others to his investigation by saying he did not believe any of those how refused to talk had "any significant information that would have substantially altered the conclusions of the report."

Under questioning from Rep. Norman Dicks, the ranking Democrat on the intelligence panel, Hitz admitted that North, despite his prominent role in organizing contra forces, was not interviewed by the CIA. At first, the inspector general tried to dismiss the need to interview North by noting investigators had reviewed all of the testimony he had given during earlier congressional probes, but he eventually acknowledged that the previous investigations did not address the issues currently being examined.

"I think that is one person you should go interview," Dicks said. He suggested that the intelligence committee call its own hearings to question North, Fernandez and other U.S. officials not interviewed by the CIA.

Hitz stressed that, despite the agreement, which remained in effect until 1995, agency officials did become aware of numerous allegations of drug trafficking by contra supporters. But, he admitted, "there are instances where CIA did not, in an expeditious or consistent fashion, cut off relationships with individuals supporting the contra program who were allegedly to have engaged in drug-trafficking activity or take action to resolve the allegations."

The CIA's 600-page, classified report on its wider probe into links between U.S.-backed contra forces and drug trafficking will be delivered to Congress later this month, according to Hitz.