When I looked for more information on the network described in my last post, I found a book by Peter Dale Scott (I actually found 2 books).
Peter Dale Scott, Jonathan Marshall, Jane Hunter – The Iran-Contra Connection: Secret Teams and Covert Operations in Reagan Era (1987): hhttp://web.archive.org/web/20190331015456/https://www.lpis.ir/uploads/the_iran_contra_connection.pdf
I wouldn’t make a post on this book, if I thought it’s completely worthless, but there is something wrong when the 200+ page book, contains less interesting information than the article by Henrik Kruger...
There isn’t a lot of information on drugs that I didn’t know yet. There is more information on weapons.
South East Asia
Ex-Nazis became pilots in the 1950-52 supply operation of Civil Air Transport (later Air America) to opium-growing Chinese Nationalist (Kuomintang, or KMT) guerrilla forces in Thailand and Burma.
Air America planes flew opium out of areas controlled by Meo tribesmen in north-eastern Laos. In that Laotian war, the key players were: John Singlaub (in 1987, Chairman of WACL), Richard Secord, Theodore Shackley, Tom Clines, and Felix Rodriguez.
Cuban exiles
The Iran-contra network goes back to the Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961, or even before.
Cuban exiles, assets to the CIA, worked on assassinations, terrorist operations, and included the infamous Watergate burglaries. Rodriguez, Luis Posada, and their friend, Watergate burglar Eugenio Martinez, were members of Operation 40.
Some Cuban exiles were arrested in 1970 for narcotics dealing. In the early 1970s, law enforcement officials estimated that at least 8% of the Bay of Pigs army had been arrested for drug crimes.
Armando Lopez Estrada said that "on the instructions of a U.S. official in Costa Rica" he recruited Bay of Pigs veterans to advise the contras.
Some terrorists financed their covert operations by trafficking marijuana, cocaine or heroin.
The staff of Sen. John Kerry linked Bay of Pigs veteran Frank Castro to the Contras.
WACL, CAL – P2
The Confederacion Anti-comunista Latinoamericana (CAL) of the World Anti-Communist League (WACL) was involved in drugs trafficking and terrorism.
While Oliver North was portrayed as THE architect of Iran-Contragate, in reality North was the junior of the “secret team” of John Singlaub, Richard Secord, Robert McFarlane and Eugene Hasenfus.
Reports linking WACL to drugs became particularly flagrant in the period 1976-80, when Carter was threatening to expose WACL.
When Stefano delle Chiaie was accused of ties to French Connection heroin merchants that relocated to Italy; the Italian magazine Panorama named CAL Chairman Suarez Mason as "one of Latin America's chief drug traffickers".
Francesco Pazienza was a financial consultant of Roberto Calvi at Banco Ambrosiano. Pazienza was indicted in an Italian court for luring President Carter's brother Billy in a compromising relationship with Gaddafi during the 1980 presidential campaign. Ledeen was named as his co-conspirator.
Mario Genghini (a member of P2) was one of the biggest foreign investors in Nicaragua. In 1978, to avoid an investigation by the Bank of Italy, Calvi moved the centre of his international fraud to Nicaragua. One year later, as Somoza's position worsened, the operation was moved to Peru.
Latin America
The CIA was involved in destabilising several Latin America countries using the secret police, including El Salvador, Paraguay, Chile, Argentina, Honduras and Nicaragua.
On 19 March 1981, less than two months after coming to office, the Reagan Administration asked Congress to lift the embargo on arms sales to Argentina. General Roberto Viola, one of the junta members responsible for the death squads, was welcomed to Washington in the spring of 1981 (in 1987, he had been sentenced to 17 years for his role in the "dirty war").
On 25 June 1982, Reagan's first Secretary of State, Alexander Haig, had to resign over the "dirty war" in Argentina and Israel's invasion of Lebanon.
US intelligence officers trained their South American counterparts in torture techniques.
Lau was orchestrating political killings in Honduras. Between 1981 and 1984, Lau, Argentine advisers, the contras and CIA-advised Honduran security systematically eliminated more than 200 Honduran “leftists”.
Peter Maas claimed that Ted Shackley's assistant Tom Clines, "even before he left the CIA...was promoting a deal with the Nicaraguan tyrant, Anastasio Somoza, to create a search-and-destroy apparatus against Somoza’s enemies".
Arms from Shackley and Secord reached the Contras via the firm of the Cuban Rafael "Chi Chi" Quintero.
Secretary of State George Shultz and his chief assistant on Latin American affairs, Elliott Abrams, asked the Sultan of Brunei for a donation to the Contra cause. The sultan reportedly deposited $10 million in a Swiss bank account controlled by Oliver North. The deal involved billionaire arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi.
Iran
Kissinger wrote in his memoirs that he had envisioned an important role for Iran in the Middle East and South Asia.
In late May 1972, during a visit to Tehran, President Nixon and Kissinger offered the Shah unlimited access to America’s “conventional” weapons and support in fighting the Kurds. The Shah in turn guaranteed oil.
Chase Manhattan Bank’s chairman, David Rockefeller, was a long-time friend of the Shah and received huge payments from the National Iranian Oil Company. In the 1960s, Chase took a leading position in Iran. In 1972, it opened a merchant bank in London. By 1975, Chase was handling $2 billion a year in Iranian transactions.
Why did they orchestrate a coup in which the Shah was replaced by Ayatollah Khomeini?! The Shah complained about the corruption; that "the chicanery of Pentagon officials and their military and civilian representatives" was "intolerable".
General John Singlaub and Richard Secord flew to Iran with Reagan’s staff members Robert McFarlane and Oliver North in May 1986 for an arms deal.
The law suit against Richard Secord was settled out of court in 1983, after Michael Ledeen intervened. Ledeen has since confirmed that as a National Security Council consultant he helped set up the first contacts between Teheran and Washington on the arms deals.
Ayatollah Hussein Ali Montazeri once told reporters that former National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane had personally visited Iran to trade military spare parts for American hostages held in Beirut.
Israel
Israel was (is?) a major player in the arms trade. One out of 10 Israeli workers is employed in arms-related production. In 1975, arms exports represented 31% of Israel’s industrial exports and probably even more in 1987.
Israel supplied the new Khomeini regime with arms, even during the hostage drama.
Already in the 1950s, Mossad cooperated with the CIA in establishing the Shah's secret police, SAVAK.
David Kimche, director general of Israel's foreign ministry, discussed Israeli arms shipments worth tens of millions of dollars to "moderates" in Iran with Secretary of State Alexander Haig and his counsellor Robert McFarlane.
NSC consultant Michael Ledeen had close ties to Israel. In 1981, Ledeen was a founder of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs. His wife Barbara is an assistant in the Pentagon office of Stephen Bryen, who was investigated by the FBI in the late 1970s after it was reported that he passed secrets to Israel.
Israel was also arming and training the Contras. It has even been reported that the Israelis helped launch the contras soon after Somoza was overthrown, in 1979.
Oliver North testified that the idea of Iran-Contra had originated with David Kimche. The Times of London claimed that the Iran-Contra operation was first put forward by then Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres.
Ya'acov Nimrodi, who figured prominently in the arms-to-Iran dealings, also handled "shipments" of arms to the Contras, which were paid for with several million dollars, given by the Israeli government at the request of CIA Director Casey.
Both the Contras Mario Calero and Julio Montealegre (an aide of Adolfo Calero) spent time in Israel.
In 1985, Reagan Administration officials and members of Congress said that Israel had increased aid to the Contras, but denied that US foreign aid was funnelled through Tel Aviv, El Salvador or Honduras.
According to Rep. Jim Wright in one transaction, Iran paid the Israelis $19 million - $3 million of that went to the Pentagon, $4 million to arms brokers and $12 million went to the Swiss accounts for the contras. Please note that one top of that millions were made with the cocaine smuggled by the Contra network...
Also tens of millions were funnelled to the heroin producing, Afghan “guerrillas”.
Lyndon LaRouche and Ross Perot
Two politicians, that are considered adversaries of the Reagan/Bush crime syndicate, were also involved.
Lyndon LaRouche was employed by WerBell since 1977. Mitch WerBell had a long-time relationship with John Singlaub. In 1976, WerBell was indicted on drug smuggling charges.
Dallas billionaire H. Ross Perot, owner of Electronic Data Systems, supplied private funds to help pay the ransom by NSC's Oliver North for American hostages held in Lebanon. He also bankrolled a former Special Forces colonel and veteran of White Star missions in Laos - Arthur Simons.
Perot “advised” President Carter's national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski on the 1980 embassy rescue mission.
Perot also played a role in supporting both "Bo" Gritz's POW searches in Laos and the rescue of Gen. James Dozier.
Maybe in my next post; information from the other Dale Scott book...
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