Copyright 1996 Jim Crogan. 
                       First appeared in LA Weekly
                                October 04, 1996
                                
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 13
LENGTH: 1004 words
HEADLINE: THE SMUGGLERS' TRAIL
FEDERAL EVIDENCE OF THE CIA / CONTRA COCAINETRADE
BYLINE: BY JIM CROGAN
 BODY:
 
Miami attorney and former Federal Public Defender John Mattes finds grim irony
in the furor generated by the recent San Jose Mercury News stories describing
a CIA-backed operation to finance the Contra war in Nicaragua by channeling
cocaine into south Los Angeles.

Mercury News series," he says, "but after the Kerry committee report, I didn't
realize that Contra involvement in drug dealing and the use of those funds by
Oliver North were still a matter of debate."

A decade ago, while still new to the public defender's office, Mattes found
himself in the thick of the cloak-and-dagger escapades of the Contras and
their allies in Miami.

In early 1986, Mattes was assigned to defend self-described mercenary and
freelance intelligence operative Jack Terrell from charges he had violated the
U.S. Neutrality Act because of his Contra-supply work. Ultimately the case was
dismissed by a federal judge in 1990 on grounds that Terrell was a victim of
selective prosecution.

In the course of legal discovery in the Terrell case, Mattes obtained stacks
of previously classified documents about the secret Contra supply network.
These he turned over to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and its
Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Communications, headed
in 1987 by Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), which was then digging into Contra
improprieties.

Mattes became an important source for the committee, which went on to issue a
scathing critique of the Contras and their improprieties.

Officials with the CIA and the Department of Justice have issued blanket
statements in recent weeks denying any official U.S. involvement in drug
trafficking, but Inspectors General from both agencies, as well as the House
Intelligence Committee, have promised to investigate.

Mattes cautioned against overplaying the scope and significance of the recent
revelations. "Politically, people need to be careful right now so we don't end
up with a bunch of wild charges that help the intelligence community escape
this issue one more time," he says.

But he adds, "I also think it's incredibly important not to dismiss this issue
as a bunch of black paranoid ramblings. It's not just a question of whether
the CIA ran cocaine bake sales in the ghetto, it's also about what the CIA
knew and didn't do about the contras and their drug-dealing."

The Kerry committee one of three separate congressional committees which
investigated the Iran-Contra scandal. But Kerry's was the only one to look
into charges of drug-dealing and money-laundering involving the Contras, the
CIA and its agents.

In following the trail of Contras and the traffickers they were associated
with, the testimony taken by the Kerry Committee hopscotched the Caribbean,
with witnesses describing a fantastic array of illicit transit operations and
high-level miscreants, many involving active or tacit support from U.S.
authorities.

The Kerry report remains the most extensive inquiry into the Contra-CIA-drug
connection, but as the years go by, other damaging material continues to
filter out.

"Objective is to keep Bueso from feeling like he was lied to in legal process
and start spilling the beans," North e-mailed to Vice Admiral John Poindexter,
National Security Advisor to President Reagan and North's superior at the
White House. North also wrote that Bueso Rosa was "the man with whom Honduras
Ambassador John Negroponte, U.S. Southern Commander in Panama Paul Gorman,
Dewayne Clarridge head of CIA operations in Central America , and I worked out
arrangements . . ."

What followed next in the message was censored before it was released.

In the end, North expressed at least partial satisfaction with the outcome.
"Bueso Rosa was convicted of conspiracy under RICO, which would normally have
gotten him 25-30 years." North e-mailed Poindexter. "He was also convicted of
conspiracy to do harm/assault a friendly head of state . . . with a sentence
up to life. He was 'awarded' two concurrent five-year terms. The judge is on
our side."

Bueso Rosa ultimately served less than five years in a minimum-security
country-club prison. He was given time off for good behavior, kept his mouth
shut and retired to an undisclosed location in the U.S.

Like Mattes, Paul Kornbluh, a senior analyst at the National Security Archive,
regards the resurgent interest in the question of Contra drug trafficking with
caution.

"My real concern here is twofold," adds Kornbluh. First, in addition to the
inquiries already proposed, "I'd like to see the (president's) Intelligence
Oversight Board (IOB) initiate an investigation into this drug dealing
controversy."

Kornbluh points to the recent investigation done by the CIA into allegations
that the agency had knowingly hired a Guatemalan military man and known killer
and human rights violator as an intelligence asset.

The CIA Inspector General "supposedly did a great investigation and then only
made a three-page summary public, But the IOB did an investigation, published
a 50 page report and made the previously classified documents public," he
says. "I believe it's the only way the public will ever really get access to
the details of the story and to the classified documents we need to understand
the CIA's real role in this matter."

Second, Kornbluh says he's worried that the official investigations will be
limited only to the issue of whether or not the CIA was involved in
drug-dealing to raise money for the Contras.

"This current scandal is really about our U.S. Government-sanctioned covert
operations and the real harm that some of them do, not only to the targets but
to our country and the people's trust in government," Kornbluh emphasizes.

"As someone who has dedicated the past 10 years to examining and reporting on
classified documents from the Iran-Contra scandal, I can almost guarantee you
that unless we expand this debate to include the overall role of agencies like
the CIA, we'll be back here again sometime next year."

GRAPHIC: Photo: Senator Kerry: Question man
   Credit: Rick Reinhard/Impact Visuals