Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 3 Num. 01

("Quid coniuratio est?")

C.I.A. and the Dope Business

My thanks to a CN reader for sending a videotape of several episodes of a public access show out of Chicago called "Broadside". This particular episode (below) features Cliff Kelley, a former Chicago alderman, Jim Reis, producer of a public access show called "Wall Street Lies", Mark Sato, author and researcher, and Sherman Skolnick, researcher and founder of the Citizens' Committee to Clean-up the Courts.

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[Awesome sounds of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture]

CLIFF KELLEY:
Good evening, and welcome to another edition of "Broadside". I'm your host, Cliff Kelley.

Today we're gonna be talking about something very interesting which I'm sure many of you have heard something about, but you're maybe surprised at the intricacies involved in, the CIA and the dope business. That is our subject for this edition of "Broadside" -- The CIA and the Dope Business.

And in this edition we're going to begin doing something new. We're going to have a guest panelist with us. Occasionally we will be doing this in the future. As many of you regularly see the show, you know quite often we have a guest. But in this edition we're gonna have a guest panelist who can help us to understand the issue that we're speaking about. And he is Mr. Jim Reis, who is the producer of "Wall Street Lies". And of course, "Wall Street Lies" is shown right here on cable access.

And Jim, thanks for joining us today.

JIM REIS:
It's a pleasure to be here.

KELLEY

Appreciate your being with us.

Also with us is our regular panelist, Mr. Mark Sato who, of course, is a legal researcher and an author. Mark, thank you.

And of course, rounding out our panel, our other regular panelist, Mr. Sherman Skolnick, who is the founder of the Citizens' Committee to Clean-Up the Courts and the editor of "Hotline News". Welcome, Sherman.

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Thank you.

KELLEY

The CIA... Many feel CIA should, of course, stand for "Cocaine Import Agency". And 60 Minutes has had a recent segment on, showing the fact that the CIA brought in so many thousands of kilos into the inner cities and the country, and lost them, although they were supposed to be controlled. The only thing that was wrong with the [60 Minutes] segment that many of us saw was the fact that the inference was that this was a one-time deal. It wasn't a one-time deal. The CIA deals [unclear] drugs, as does the DEA, the ATF, and a number of other government agencies.

MARK SATO:
Don't leave out the FBI.

KELLEY

Or the FBI. You're right, Mark. Don't leave them out.

SATO

And the IRS.

KELLEY

And the IRS.

SKOLNICK

And the DEA.

KELLEY

I mentioned that. At any rate, there's been a lot of work done by our team of investigative reporters, and that is the subject of our show for today.

We're gonna start off, talking about Mena. Many people have heard of Mena. Mena is a small town in southwestern Arkansas which has an airstrip larger than anything at O'Hare or the airports in New York. And many people don't understand why.

Well the reason is, of course, that there were shipments, trans- shipments, being flown by C-130s at Mena, having, taking off to Nicaragua and bringing drugs back.

President Clinton, before he was elected, admitted that, on a national show, that in fact that was happening, but that he didn't have anything to do with it [Skolnick breaks out laughing], because it was done by the federal government.

But let's start off, Sherman, with you. And exactly what is going on? We found out, through the investigative reporters, that not only do we have Mena, we have something a lot closer than Mena.

SKOLNICK

Right. We have Joliet, Illinois, which is just south of Chicago. And there's a comparison there between... Well there's a fight going on, as many of us know, between the Justice Department and the Treasury Department, and some of it is breaking out into the open.

Now the Wall Street Journal, for example, on October 18th, 1994, ran on the editorial page a big feature story called "The Mena Cover-Up", where they told about how an IRS investigator, William C. Duncan, had for 10 years [tried] to get the Mena story out in the open. And that the media -- well of course the Wall Street Journal doesn't admit it -- but the media "pooh-poohed" it. They didn't go ahead with it.

Now they're praising him as a great hero -- of course, he's no longer an IRS investigator. But he pointed out about these things that are now coming more out in the open: that the CIA pilots... In fact, one of the CIA pilots, Terry Reed, has written a book called Compromised that deals with Clinton, as governor, being involved in the dope shipments, Ollie North, George Bush. It was sort of a non-partisan thing... bi-partisan is I think what you'd call it.

KELLEY

What exactly, so our viewers totally understand this, Sherman, what exactly is the purpose, what was the reason, for the drug sales?

SKOLNICK

The Mena thing? I think the rationale there was that it helped finance the Contras. Which I suppose, maybe they wanted to bring some dictator back to Nicaragua.

SATO

Well the rationale they sold to anybody who was willing to listen.

SKOLNICK

What do you think the rationale was?

SATO

To line their own pockets.

SKOLNICK

Yeah, that's also a rationale.

KELLEY

[unclear]

REIS

In addition to that, it's also to give the people another drug, much like alcohol, or television and the mass media.

SKOLNICK

Not officially.

REIS

Correct. To keep them... stupid...

KELLEY

The opiate of the masses. {1}. Yes.

REIS

I mean, there is... It is simply another tool of the power structure, the elite, to keep people from seeing what's really going on!

KELLEY

I think probably what we have here, gentlemen, is all three of those things, because through the last three decades we can certainly trace the sale of certain types of narcotics here in the United States based on who we are trying to supply arms to, and can't, legally, through Congressional act. And of course, as you know, arming the Contras was illegal since the Congress has said, "No more money." So we've done this quite often, in a number of places.

REIS

Well it's clear that the CIA is heavily involved in drug running operations.

KELLEY

Yeah.

REIS

And it's just something that people should be aware of. And a lot of the money is laundered through Wall Street, through so many different methods.

KELLEY

That is your focus; give us an idea on that.

REIS

Well I, you know, there are so many ways to do it. And in fact, recently -- I didn't cut any articles out because it's such a well-known fact -- that not just the Mafia, but all kinds of people use Wall Street brokerage firms to launder their money, their drug profits.

But also, when you look at the central banking system, which Mark and I have discussed on my show, the central bankers have to know where these billions and billions of dollars are coming in. Now through the late '70s and early '80s it was through the central bank in Miami. And it was clearly, the money was all funneling through there. Because Miami was absolutely the major drug port in the United States.

KELLEY

They even purchased some banks.

REIS

But the money eventually has to funnel through the central bank. The bank there was CenTrust Savings. And there were so many of those savings and loans. David Paul and CenTrust Savings was just one of the biggest. It was a big scandal. But so many of them were used by the drug dealers to launder the money. And the central bankers have to know what's going on. They keep track of the cash, flowing in and out of the local banks. Because the local banks then have to move it through the central bank.

KELLEY

So you're saying you can't launder the money without them being...

REIS

Absolutely not!

SATO

The thing that I think that's really funny, that when these "austerity bankers" {2} get up...

SKOLNICK

[laughs] Yeah...

REIS

We have hundreds of thousands of accounts working in the banking system. [sarcastically] <<We don't know where this cash is coming from!>> They know exactly where it's coming from. They know exactly where it's going as well.

SATO

There was a 60 Minutes a few years ago in which they did an expose' of the legalized drug culture in Switzerland. And on that show they had a Swiss banker admit that right down the street, where they had a majority of the Swiss banks, at least 60 to 65 percent of the money flowing through the Swiss banks was drug money, was narcotics profits.

REIS

That's why you have these secret accounts. Now there's also a proposal that could really shake up all the guys that we're gonna talk about on this show. Because the Swiss bankers are saying, "O.K. Maybe we'll open up the banking system, and there won't be any more secret bank accounts!" Well that's where all the politicians who take the bribes and everything, that's where the money ends up!

SKOLNICK

That's passe'. Switzerland is out, the Grand Caymans, the...

KELLEY

Well let me ask Jim this one question: What you're saying is interesting. What you're saying is people know what's going on...

REIS

Well of course!

[...to be continued...]

---------------------------<< Notes >>--------------------------- {1} Sports is the opiate of the masses.

{2} "austerity bankers" -- like, for example, the above-mentioned David Paul. The "austere" Mr. Paul, chief executive of the failed CenTrust Savings Bank of Miami (estimated cost to U.S. taxpayers, $2 billion) "...wasted depositor money on excesses that included $29 million for fine art, $1.4 million a year for a corporate jet, and $43,000 for limousines. (Paul paid himself $16 million a year in salary and bonuses, according to suits filed by federal thrift regulators. Among other things, he used CenTrust's insured deposits for a $7 million yacht, on which he installed gold nails and so much marble that some doubted it could stay afloat.) CenTrust was a major junk bond buyer, tied heavily to deals with Drexel Burnham Lambert." {S&L Hell by Kathleen Day. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1993}.

I encourage distribution of "Conspiracy Nation."

Brian Francis Redman bigxc@prairienet.org "The Big C"

"Justice" = "Just us" = "History is written by the assassins."