Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 3 Num. 03

("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.

[Disclaimer: Opinions expressed are those of the persons mentioned above and do not necessarily reflect my own views.]

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SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Yeah.

MARK SATO:
It [i.e., the report, circa 1990, by congressman Doug Bernard, "Senior IRS Employee Misconduct"] was about the fact that many, many people in the IRS knew what was going on at Mena -- especially Mr. Duncan, but nobody wanted to listen to Mr. Duncan. And several very high up IRS attorneys went to Mr. Duncan and threatened his life! [From] fear that he'd talk about Mena and the fact that Edwin Meese was involved with Mena...

SKOLNICK

Yeah. So what happened is, just prior to the time that, the '86 congressional election, about a day or two after is when the Iran-Contra thing blew. And of course, as we now know, the Mena thing was tied in with... The Contras were getting guns in one direction, and then dope was coming back in the reverse direction. After all, you wouldn't want the planes to come back from Nicaragua empty. They made a side trip to Columbia.

CLIFF KELLEY:
[Unclear]

SKOLNICK

Right! And that helped the Contra thing. So just before that scandal broke (and I think early in '86 there were some people [that] knew that scandal was gonna break), the gang over here [i.e., Chicago area], which we're gonna outline, started in their own episode. And that gang includes the one who at the time was the governor, Jim Thompson. And we'll call it the Robert Tezak - Jim Thompson gang.

Because Tezak was a very interesting fellow. He ran a worldwide company called International Games, Incorporated, headquartered in Joliet, Cayman Islands, and in Hong Kong. And he had his own plane, and occasionally went to Hong Kong -- supposedly to check out the shipments coming in of his supplies.

But what happened in 1986... (There's a picture on the screen of Tezak. He's a rather young fellow.)

SATO

He was the Will County coroner from 1976 to 1988. He was the youngest elected official ever in Will County. He did that, he campaigned in '76, off of his Uno fortune {5}.

KELLEY

What was his politics?

SKOLNICK

He was close with George Bush, Jim Thompson, Anton Valukas, and Dan Webb.

SATO

Well his local support in Will County included John Anarino(sp?) and Representative Jack Davis.

SKOLNICK

Right! So what happened in '86 is, the Robert Tezak gang, with Jim Thompson, by chartered plane went to mainland China -- purportedly to arrange for the first Chinese factory, industrial facility, to be built, to be set up in the United States, in west Joliet! It was purportedly for soybean and soybean curd processing plant.

JIM REIS:
You're saying that the Chinese were gonna make an investment over here?? {6}.

SKOLNICK

That's your allegation.

KELLEY

Well no, he's asking a question.

REIS

That's totally ludicrous. They don't have enough money.

SKOLNICK

Not, not... As we will point out later, starting in 1983 (just to back up a little bit) a very highly secretive unit of the Treasury Department began investigating the Joliet-Chicago area, that is, between Chicago and Joliet: the banks, the fake real estate development companies, these local development companies that were "washing" not only dope money, but bribery money for state and federal officials. And so they were on the track of all this, and by 1986... What happened is, when Thompson and the Tezak gang went over there -- then began to come in here purported Chinese technicians, supposedly to scout out the building of this soybean processing plant. (I'm not sure that they needed another soybean processing plant in Illinois, frankly.)

REIS

I would think Archer Daniels Midland would be able to take care of...

SKOLNICK

Well, that's a, that is a money laundering operation for another show, Archer Daniels Midland.

But anyway...

KELLEY

What was the stated reason? Answer the question. What was the stated reason?

SKOLNICK

...free enterprise zone in the DesPlaines River Valley. It was to make employment. Yeah, you made employment...

REIS

For Chinese immigrants?

SKOLNICK

Well, now get the picture. By 1986...

KELLEY

...to ask you, what we need to know: what the intent was for the Chinese trip. We certainly didn't need to go to there for any technical advice. But why did Thompson...

SATO

To make... I think it was probably to make connections with the Triad societies.

KELLEY

Sure. I'm just wondering what... He didn't say that. I was just wondering, what was the purpose...

SATO

...societies are the ones that control the dope.

KELLEY

Yeah.

SKOLNICK

That is what happened!

KELLEY

But that's not what he told the public.

SKOLNICK

Well I've got some of the documents, confidential and otherwise. In March '86, they sent out a news release: "China Site Selected". This was gonna do a great thing for Illinois.

KELLEY

"China Site Selected". Let me see that.

SKOLNICK

Yeah. [Hands news clipping to Kelley]

KELLEY

"China Site Selected". Keep talkin'.

SKOLNICK

But now here's the point! The technicians...

SATO

Before you do that, it should be explained that Triad societies in China have been around for hundreds of years...

SKOLNICK

Thousands!

SATO

...and it has controlled the dope trade for, for a very long time. The drug trade has been around for a long time in China. The southwestern corner of China... I should say the south, into Indochina, which includes part of the Golden Triangle, from which 60 percent of the world's heroin is...

KELLEY

Let me interrupt for a minute. We owe an apology.

SATO

To who?

KELLEY

Mr. Skolnick.

SATO/REIS:
[Groans]

SATO

Oh, gosh!

KELLEY

Now listen. I'm just as... [Reads] "Department of Community and Economic Development, dated March 26th, 1986,

China Site Selected

Joint venture partners Mr. John Wong and Mr. Bing Lao announced today they have selected a 10 acre site on the west side of Joliet for the construction of their joint venture soybean processing plant. Will County board chairman John Anarino said [unclear] Consul General of the People's Republic joined John and Bing to announce this historic step in the relations between the United States and the People's Republic of China.

SKOLNICK

Here's what actually happened...

KELLEY

I would never...

SKOLNICK

Here's what actually happened. What the highly secretive Treasury [Department] unit, that had been going since '83, found out was, that of the Chinese technicians that were coming in here, some of 'em were high-up officials of the Tewu, the Chinese secret service, or secret police. And the Chinese secret police have got only one instance where one of their people defected to the west. Because of their use of the secret dialects, in with the Triads that Mark [Sato] mentioned, there has been almost no penetration. In fact, one of the only officials in this part of the world that understood a little bit about it was at one time, in the '70s, the States Attorney of Cook County, Bernard Carey. He was at one time with the CIA China desk. And whether he knew these secret dialects, I don't know. I mean, I used to run into him sometimes at a place where I used to eat lunch, but...

But anyway, here is the point. By 1986, the First National Bank of Chicago (and I think we all understand that that's Rockefeller money), First National Bank of Chicago had loaned massive amounts to China on the idea that there was going to be, that it was gonna be supported, in part, by gold from the western provinces -- which turned out to be a mirage! The western provinces were so remote, nobody went to look there to see if they actually had a gold mine there!

KELLEY

That's how he got the money back.

SKOLNICK

Yeah. Yeah.

KELLEY

So they were gonna get it back. But not with soybeans.

SKOLNICK

Now the Golden Triangle produces the very high class, high purity narcotic -- "China White", it's called. And it goes for a very high price, because it can be cut down and so on in laboratories. And basically, what was gonna happen is, the NSA and the CIA leaned on the Treasury [Department] unit and says, "You must not continue to investigate, because it's 'national security'." But they continued to investigate, and that led to a break between the Justice Department and the Treasury [Department].

SATO

A little background, before you go on. So that people understand.

The reason why the Golden Triangle is so important: 60 percent of the world's heroin comes from the Golden Triangle. The reason why the Viet Nam War was fought was because of the Golden Triangle. There isn't another reason why it was fought. It was fought to enable the CIA to pry loose French hands from the Golden Triangle. The reason why the "French Connection" was blown apart was also related to the reason why the CIA wanted to get into the drug business -- knock the French off; knock the Corsican Mafia off. And the Viet Nam War enabled the CIA, which was -- The Viet Nam War was basically a CIA war, fought to gain control of the Golden Triangle.

SKOLNICK

Yeah, that's true.

[...to be continued...]

---------------------------<< Notes >>--------------------------- {5} "...Uno fortune." Remember the popular card game called "Uno"? Tezak apparently owned that via his International Games, Incorporated.

{6} Reis has jumped ahead of Skolnick. The soybean processing plant was apparently just a cover story for the real purpose behind the Tezak-Thompson trip to China in 1986. One wonders if the facility was ever actually built here.

I encourage distribution of "Conspiracy Nation."

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

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