Reply #116: Oliver North: Diaries, E-Mail, and Memos on the Kerry Report, Contras and Drugs

[L. Coyote]

The Oliver North File:
His Diaries, E-Mail, and Memos on the Kerry Report, Contras and Drugs
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 113
Feb 26, 2004 - Peter Kornbluh - http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB113/index.htm


Washington D.C., 26 February 2004 - Diaries, e-mail, and memos of Iran-contra figure Oliver North, posted today on the Web by the National Security Archive, directly contradict his criticisms yesterday of Sen. John Kerry's 1988 Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee report on the ways that covert support for the Nicaraguan contras in the 1980s undermined the U.S. war on drugs.

Mr. North claimed to talk show hosts Hannity & Colmes that the Kerry report was "wrong," that Sen. Kerry "makes this stuff up and then he can't justify it," and that "The fact is nobody in the government of the United States, going all the way back to the earliest days of this under Jimmy Carter, ever had anything to do with running drugs to support the Nicaraguan resistance. Nobody in the government of the United States. I will stand on that to my grave."

The Kerry subcommittee did not report (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB113/north06.pdf) that U.S. government officials ran drugs, but rather, that Mr. North, then on the National Security Council staff at the White House, and other senior officials created a privatized contra network that attracted drug traffickers looking for cover for their operations, then turned a blind eye to repeated reports of drug smuggling related to the contras, and actively worked with known drug smugglers such as Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega to assist the contras. The report cited former Drug Enforcement Administration head John Lawn testifying that Mr. North himself had prematurely leaked a DEA undercover operation, jeopardizing agents' lives, for political advantage in an upcoming Congressional vote on aid to the contras (p.121).

Among the documents posted today are: ......

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB113/index.htm#doc1
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB113/index.htm#doc4
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB113/index.htm#bueso
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB113/index.htm#noriega
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB113/index.htm#northnotes

Also in the posting is Peter Kornbluh's detailed critique - the January/February 1997 cover story in the Columbia Journalism Review - of news coverage of the contra-drug allegations, including the controversial San Jose Mercury News series. http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB113/storm.htm

Read the Documents
Documentation of Official U.S. Knowledge of Drug Trafficking and the Contras http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB113/index.htm#1
Evidence that NSC Staff Supported Using Drug Money to Fund the Contras http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB113/index.htm#2
U.S. Officials and Major Traffickers http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB113/index.htm#3
Kerry Report - Iran/Contra North Notebook Citation Bibliography http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB113/index.htm#4

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 with Public Citizen Litigation Group. The notebooks, as well as declassified memos sent to North, record that North was repeatedly informed of contra ties to drug trafficking.

Document 1 .................. many more documents .....