Joe Kelso person
also: Richard Williams, Kelso
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Related entities (most co-mentioned)
Costa Ricacountry · 18Drug Enforcement Administrationorganization · 13Robert Nevesperson · 10CIAintelligence service · 8Brian Caldwellperson · 8United Statescountry · 7U.S. Customs Serviceorganization · 7Oliver Northperson · 6Larry LaDodgeperson · 6Contrasorganization · 6Douglas Lee Kotchenbergerperson · 5Costa Rican National Narcotics Policeorganization · 5Rob Owensperson · 5San Joséplace · 5Robert Vescoperson · 5U.S. Embassyorganization · 5John Hallperson · 5Irancountry · 3Alexander McNultyperson · 3Norwin Menendezperson · 3Iran-Contra affairevent · 3Warren Treceperson · 2Daniel Blantonperson · 2Heinrich Ruppperson · 2
Claims (44)
Joe Kelso member_of
U.S. Customs Service documented
“It was a tough nut to crack, he said, but I was constantly emphasizing they had to work with the feds. Hoffman reluctantly agreed to bring the Department of Justice agents aboard, but had the L.A. officers known what was going on right then…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 17 @ 20:01
Drug Enforcement Administration covered_up
Joe Kelso documented
“release any records or answer any questions about the agent's background or their possible work for other government agencies. Sometimes the lines really got blurred when you were working for Oliver North, agreed former Iran Contra Committe…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 17 @ 36:07
Robert Neves attempted_assassination_of
Joe Kelso guest_asserted
“Puerto Rican, and that that's the key word that makes him trip off, okay? He goes psychotic. He goes bananas, Kelso said. Neves told him, you are a dead SOB. And he's actually saying out the words. I'm just not going to say them. He also sa…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 17 @ 47:28
Robert Neves covered_up
Joe Kelso guest_asserted
“The DEA has been tipped off. Kelso's got the goods on him. So they call the Costa Rican police to go arrest Kelso. Kelso said they came stomping in there and demanding to see Caldwell and the stuff. And he saw a couple rolled up maps and he…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 17 @ 45:56
Rob Owens covered_up
Joe Kelso documented
“was the eyes and ears of the CIA and Oliver North. Kelso testified that after Owen got a look at the documents seized at the hotel room, he ordered the DEA agents to stop making copies. He whisked Kelso out of the embassy and dropped him ba…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 17 @ 48:56
John Hall covered_up
Joe Kelso guest_asserted
“Hall, who had been accused repeatedly of facilitating contra-drug trafficking, was weary, thinking Kelso may have been sent by the Sandinistas. He knows he wasn't. Hal is part of the CIA. And obviously, he's just putting that in there for h…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 17 @ 51:48
William Rosenblatt covered_up
Joe Kelso documented
“Robert Tracy. Owen said there are some thought, at least according to Mr. Tracy, that the DEA officials may have been in on the take. There was accusations made. Rosenblatt said he washed his hands of the whole matter after he turned the ta…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 17 @ 54:17
Douglas Lee Kotchenberger covered_up
Joe Kelso guest_asserted
“that it was a waste of time, get back on the airplane, and immediately take the documentation out of town. The agent's response, Kelso said, was, wow, that's not State Department policy. I can't do that. I'm going to get in trouble. Kotchen…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 17 @ 43:58
Joe Kelso spied_on
Drug Enforcement Administration documented
“According to the Iran-Contra Committee Minority Report, Kelso and Caldwell told Customs that the DEA agents in Costa Rica knew the location of the drug labs and had been paid to conceal the locations of narcotics. Kelso said he gave Kotchen…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 17 @ 42:31
Joe Kelso member_of
U.S. Customs Service documented
“Some of what he said was totally checked out to the best of my ability to corroborate it, Black told the district judge. He confirmed that Kelso worked around the world under another name for the U.S. Customs Service. Argued Snow, quote, by…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 17 @ 58:11
Joe Kelso spied_on
Robert Neves guest_asserted
“participating in drug manufacturing. Okay, Kelso said. He said it was later determined that the two men may have been part of Norse resupply operation, which could or couldn't have been official CIA, but they were basically still working fo…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 17 @ 39:33
Joe Kelso spied_on
Sandalio Sandy Gonzalez guest_asserted
“participating in drug manufacturing. Okay, Kelso said. He said it was later determined that the two men may have been part of Norse resupply operation, which could or couldn't have been official CIA, but they were basically still working fo…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 17 @ 39:33
Joe Kelso spied_on
Oliver North guest_asserted
“participating in drug manufacturing. Okay, Kelso said. He said it was later determined that the two men may have been part of Norse resupply operation, which could or couldn't have been official CIA, but they were basically still working fo…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 17 @ 39:33
Joe Kelso spied_on
John Hall guest_asserted
“participating in drug manufacturing. Okay, Kelso said. He said it was later determined that the two men may have been part of Norse resupply operation, which could or couldn't have been official CIA, but they were basically still working fo…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 17 @ 39:33
Joe Kelso spied_on
Rob Owens guest_asserted
“participating in drug manufacturing. Okay, Kelso said. He said it was later determined that the two men may have been part of Norse resupply operation, which could or couldn't have been official CIA, but they were basically still working fo…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 17 @ 39:33
Joe Kelso spied_on
Joseph Fernandez guest_asserted
“participating in drug manufacturing. Okay, Kelso said. He said it was later determined that the two men may have been part of Norse resupply operation, which could or couldn't have been official CIA, but they were basically still working fo…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 17 @ 39:33
Joe Kelso spied_on
Drug Enforcement Administration guest_asserted
“participating in drug manufacturing. Okay, Kelso said. He said it was later determined that the two men may have been part of Norse resupply operation, which could or couldn't have been official CIA, but they were basically still working fo…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 17 @ 39:33
Joe Kelso spied_on
U.S. Customs Service guest_asserted
“participating in drug manufacturing. Okay, Kelso said. He said it was later determined that the two men may have been part of Norse resupply operation, which could or couldn't have been official CIA, but they were basically still working fo…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 17 @ 39:33
Joe Kelso spied_on
United States Secret Service guest_asserted
“participating in drug manufacturing. Okay, Kelso said. He said it was later determined that the two men may have been part of Norse resupply operation, which could or couldn't have been official CIA, but they were basically still working fo…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 17 @ 39:33
Joe Kelso spied_on
Iran-Contra Committee guest_asserted
“participating in drug manufacturing. Okay, Kelso said. He said it was later determined that the two men may have been part of Norse resupply operation, which could or couldn't have been official CIA, but they were basically still working fo…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 17 @ 39:33
Joe Kelso spied_on
National Security Council guest_asserted
“participating in drug manufacturing. Okay, Kelso said. He said it was later determined that the two men may have been part of Norse resupply operation, which could or couldn't have been official CIA, but they were basically still working fo…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 17 @ 39:33
Joe Kelso spied_on
Costa Rican Ministry of Public Affairs guest_asserted
“participating in drug manufacturing. Okay, Kelso said. He said it was later determined that the two men may have been part of Norse resupply operation, which could or couldn't have been official CIA, but they were basically still working fo…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 17 @ 39:33
Joe Kelso spied_on
Costa Rican National Narcotics Police guest_asserted
“participating in drug manufacturing. Okay, Kelso said. He said it was later determined that the two men may have been part of Norse resupply operation, which could or couldn't have been official CIA, but they were basically still working fo…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 17 @ 39:33
Joe Kelso spied_on
Guardian Technologies guest_asserted
“participating in drug manufacturing. Okay, Kelso said. He said it was later determined that the two men may have been part of Norse resupply operation, which could or couldn't have been official CIA, but they were basically still working fo…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 17 @ 39:33
Joe Kelso spied_on
Medellin Cartel guest_asserted
“participating in drug manufacturing. Okay, Kelso said. He said it was later determined that the two men may have been part of Norse resupply operation, which could or couldn't have been official CIA, but they were basically still working fo…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 17 @ 39:33
Joe Kelso spied_on
Sandinistas guest_asserted
“participating in drug manufacturing. Okay, Kelso said. He said it was later determined that the two men may have been part of Norse resupply operation, which could or couldn't have been official CIA, but they were basically still working fo…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 17 @ 39:33
Joe Kelso spied_on
Contras guest_asserted
“participating in drug manufacturing. Okay, Kelso said. He said it was later determined that the two men may have been part of Norse resupply operation, which could or couldn't have been official CIA, but they were basically still working fo…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 17 @ 39:33
Joe Kelso spied_on
U.S. Embassy guest_asserted
“participating in drug manufacturing. Okay, Kelso said. He said it was later determined that the two men may have been part of Norse resupply operation, which could or couldn't have been official CIA, but they were basically still working fo…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 17 @ 39:33
Joe Kelso spied_on
U.S. Department of Justice guest_asserted
“participating in drug manufacturing. Okay, Kelso said. He said it was later determined that the two men may have been part of Norse resupply operation, which could or couldn't have been official CIA, but they were basically still working fo…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 17 @ 39:33
Joe Kelso spied_on
Costa Rican Legislative Assembly guest_asserted
“participating in drug manufacturing. Okay, Kelso said. He said it was later determined that the two men may have been part of Norse resupply operation, which could or couldn't have been official CIA, but they were basically still working fo…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 17 @ 39:33
Joe Kelso spied_on
Costa Rican Electric Company guest_asserted
“participating in drug manufacturing. Okay, Kelso said. He said it was later determined that the two men may have been part of Norse resupply operation, which could or couldn't have been official CIA, but they were basically still working fo…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 17 @ 39:33
Joe Kelso spied_on
Tom Gordon guest_asserted
“participating in drug manufacturing. Okay, Kelso said. He said it was later determined that the two men may have been part of Norse resupply operation, which could or couldn't have been official CIA, but they were basically still working fo…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 17 @ 39:33
Joe Kelso spied_on
Brian Caldwell guest_asserted
“participating in drug manufacturing. Okay, Kelso said. He said it was later determined that the two men may have been part of Norse resupply operation, which could or couldn't have been official CIA, but they were basically still working fo…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 17 @ 39:33
Joe Kelso spied_on
Drug Enforcement Administration host_asserted
“Mr. CIA himself. Kelso said his witnesses claim the CIA was involved in the operation of a drug lab at a contra base near northern, it was, I don't know how you say the name of the city, but it was in northern Costa Rica. So it was my probl…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 17 @ 39:02
Joe Kelso spied_on
Snow guest_asserted
“participating in drug manufacturing. Okay, Kelso said. He said it was later determined that the two men may have been part of Norse resupply operation, which could or couldn't have been official CIA, but they were basically still working fo…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 17 @ 39:33
Joe Kelso spied_on
Bruce Black guest_asserted
“participating in drug manufacturing. Okay, Kelso said. He said it was later determined that the two men may have been part of Norse resupply operation, which could or couldn't have been official CIA, but they were basically still working fo…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 17 @ 39:33
Joe Kelso spied_on
Jack Lawn guest_asserted
“participating in drug manufacturing. Okay, Kelso said. He said it was later determined that the two men may have been part of Norse resupply operation, which could or couldn't have been official CIA, but they were basically still working fo…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 17 @ 39:33
Joe Kelso spied_on
Hilberry guest_asserted
“participating in drug manufacturing. Okay, Kelso said. He said it was later determined that the two men may have been part of Norse resupply operation, which could or couldn't have been official CIA, but they were basically still working fo…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 17 @ 39:33
Joe Kelso spied_on
Warren Trece guest_asserted
“participating in drug manufacturing. Okay, Kelso said. He said it was later determined that the two men may have been part of Norse resupply operation, which could or couldn't have been official CIA, but they were basically still working fo…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 17 @ 39:33
Joe Kelso spied_on
CIA guest_asserted
“participating in drug manufacturing. Okay, Kelso said. He said it was later determined that the two men may have been part of Norse resupply operation, which could or couldn't have been official CIA, but they were basically still working fo…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 17 @ 39:33
Joe Kelso spied_on
Robert Vesco guest_asserted
“participating in drug manufacturing. Okay, Kelso said. He said it was later determined that the two men may have been part of Norse resupply operation, which could or couldn't have been official CIA, but they were basically still working fo…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 17 @ 39:33
Joe Kelso spied_on
Heinrich Rupp host_asserted
“Kelso said he was approached by a CIA agent who called himself Bill Chandler and asked to gather information about Rupp's activities. Rupp was selling arms to the Argentines during the Great Britain-Faulkland Islands War, and CIA wanted to …”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 17 @ 23:13
U.S. Customs Service covered_up
Joe Kelso host_asserted
“were undercover customs investigators. Kelso's arrest presented the CIA with a problem. The agency's charter prohibits it from working inside the United States, which it was doing. To keep the operation under wraps, Kelso was advised by his…”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 17 @ 24:12
Joe Kelso attempted_assassination_of
Saddam Hussein host_asserted
“Saddam Hussein. The agency figured it would draw some interesting people out of the woodwork, Kelso said, but the mission ended in a disaster. A tough-talking 26-year-old was arrested by the U.S. Customs Service and charged with attempting …”
▶ The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 17 @ 23:43
Mentions (53)
▶ 20:01
It was a tough nut to crack, he said, but I was constantly emphasizing they had to work with the feds. Hoffman reluctantly agreed to bring the Department of Justice agents aboard, but had the L.A. officers known what was going on right then…
▶ 20:31
informant for the U.S. Customs. He slipped quietly into Costa Rica in April of 1986 on the trail of an elusive drug dealer. Before his visit was over, he would be chased, beaten, shot at, clubbed, caged, threatened with death, and deported.…
▶ 20:55
would earn him a minor place in history, a footnote to one of America's worst scandals, the Iran-Contra. His case would be cited by the Congressional Iran-Contra committees as an example of how Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North and the Nation…
▶ 21:23
But the four paragraphs about Joe Kelso buried deep in that official report only tell a fraction of his story. How the former fireman from Golden Valley, Minnesota, happened to attract the gaze of Oliver North and his preppy CIA informant, …
▶ 21:50
Congressman Peter Rodino of New Jersey and Dante Bassel of Florida, Jack Brooks of Texas, and Louis Stokes of Ohio, who decided to write their own report about Joe Kelso. The significance of Kelso's section of the committee report is not en…
▶ 22:18
Quote, in order to understand why Owen and North were so concerned about Kelso, one must understand just what Kelso was doing and learning in Costa Rica, unquote. What Kelso was doing, the record showed, was investigating allegations that t…
▶ 22:47
What he was learning was just how hazardous investigating such matters could be. Kelso, a would-be spy, had been working as a CIA informant since the early 1980s, after he befriended a German-born arms dealer named Heinrich Rupp, R-U-P-P.…
▶ 23:13
Kelso said he was approached by a CIA agent who called himself Bill Chandler and asked to gather information about Rupp's activities. Rupp was selling arms to the Argentines during the Great Britain-Faulkland Islands War, and CIA wanted to …
▶ 23:43
Saddam Hussein. The agency figured it would draw some interesting people out of the woodwork, Kelso said, but the mission ended in a disaster. A tough-talking 26-year-old was arrested by the U.S. Customs Service and charged with attempting …
▶ 24:12
were undercover customs investigators. Kelso's arrest presented the CIA with a problem. The agency's charter prohibits it from working inside the United States, which it was doing. To keep the operation under wraps, Kelso was advised by his…
▶ 24:45
Federal court records lend support to Kelso's story. Despite the severity of his crime, attempting to acquire cruise missiles for a quote-unquote unfriendly government, although it was actually propped up by the CIA as well, Kelso was put o…
▶ 25:15
The very agency that had just arrested him, the U.S. Customs. Now, you guys, this is a pattern that we've come across over and over and over again. They set people up. They arrest them. They tell them that if they play ball with them as a q…
▶ 25:44
by the way, is just what they did to Tom Homan. And they tried to do to Matt Gates. They tried to do this to everybody that they feel they can control or that they can use for whatever their purpose is. His control officer, Special Agent La…
▶ 26:11
methamphetamine dealer who was wanted in the U.S. on numerous charges, Kelso said. Kelso followed the dealer's trail around Holland, England, and then LaDodge picked up word that he had a ranch in Costa Rica, as all good drug dealers did at…
▶ 26:41
a standing directive from the CIA to gather intelligence about Robert Vesco. And by the way, Robert Vesco was also employed by the CIA. The millionaire swindler and fugitive who lived in Havana and had been going to Costa Rica and Nicaragua…
▶ 27:13
It helps when you're working for the CIA. Kelso found the methamphetamine dealer's ranch, but not its owner. He had a house on the Mexican border, so he'd hop back and forth between the U.S. border and the Mexican border so that he could co…
▶ 27:44
in San Jose, Costa Rica. When he checked to see who was paying the storage bills, he learned that it was the owners of the shrimp company, the cocaine-dealing CIA threat, that was helping Oliver North funnel U.S. government money to the Con…
▶ 28:13
while they're pretending they're hunting for him. Just want to make that clear. A decision was being made up here in the United States whether we were going to put a satellite pinger on it or not, Kelso said, and they chose not to. So they …
▶ 28:45
frequenting a bar in San Jose across from the headquarters of a political group known as Costa Rica Libre. To hear Kelso tell it, the bar was like something out of Casablanca. It was where most of the upper echelon of Costa Rica hung out. T…
▶ 29:48
supposedly right-wing people and supposedly left-wing terrorist groups all hanging out together. I'm telling you guys, this is all a kabuki dance. It's all bullshit. From the crooks and mercenaries, Kelso picked up word that the U.S. embass…
▶ 30:16
Some Costa Ricans that were hired there had been manufacturing passports for a long time and selling them. Where have we heard that story before? Kelso said he forwarded a report to the FBI and they turned around and shut the embassy down f…
▶ 30:46
Kind of double-hatted as a CIA guy. And Norwin Menendez's control agent had been taking cocaine from seizures made in Costa Rica's narcotic police. Kelso said the allegations were largely conjecture, but he confided them to the Department o…
▶ 31:16
and left it at that. Kelso claimed that Agent LaDodge authorized him to pursue the allegations further. He snooped around Neves and the other DEA agents working at the embassy for a couple of months, enlisting the aid of a Canadian who work…
▶ 31:48
saying six witnesses, current and former Costa Rican and American government officials, were willing to testify that the DEA agents were skimming cocaine from drug seizures, taking counterfeit money, sanitizing intelligence reports to Washi…
▶ 32:18
was their direct knowledge of Mr. Neves and his activities. Kelso was asked during his deposition, which was taken by a Washington Bank Christic Institute as part of a civil racketeering lawsuit filed in 1986 against a variety of current an…
▶ 33:14
These particular Contras were in fact involved in narcotics and were smuggling them, period. That was his statement. One of Kelso's witnesses was Warren Trece, T-R-E-E-C-E, the deputy director of the narcotics department of the Costa Rican …
▶ 34:41
a route being flown so that they could get out before they got caught. And that's according to the Costa Rican police. Gonzalez and Neves were never charged with a crime, either in Costa Rica or the United States, and the allegations were n…
▶ 39:02
Mr. CIA himself. Kelso said his witnesses claim the CIA was involved in the operation of a drug lab at a contra base near northern, it was, I don't know how you say the name of the city, but it was in northern Costa Rica. So it was my probl…
▶ 39:33
participating in drug manufacturing. Okay, Kelso said. He said it was later determined that the two men may have been part of Norse resupply operation, which could or couldn't have been official CIA, but they were basically still working fo…
▶ 40:01
and some personal papers of DEA agents, including the radio code names. A customs agent familiar with the case said Kelso stole Agent Neves' briefcase from his car. In an interview with the Jack Webb, Kelso denied this. At the end of July 1…
▶ 42:03
The New Orleans agent, Douglas Lee Kotchenberger, met with Kelso and Codwell in early August, ostensibly to debrief them and also to pay them the money that Mr. LaDodge felt was owed to them. Rosenblatt testified to this. He did not check i…
▶ 42:31
According to the Iran-Contra Committee Minority Report, Kelso and Caldwell told Customs that the DEA agents in Costa Rica knew the location of the drug labs and had been paid to conceal the locations of narcotics. Kelso said he gave Kotchen…
▶ 43:01
relatively inexperienced, became nervous, insisting that he had to report the information to the DEA attache in Costa Rica at the embassy, the very person that was being accused of the wrongdoing. Kelso couldn't believe his ears. If he had …
▶ 43:30
To qualify or disqualify it would be stupid, Kelso testified, because if he was doing it, he would normally head over and do something to protect himself so that no one could touch him. Kelso said Kotchenberger had explicit orders not to sa…
▶ 43:58
that it was a waste of time, get back on the airplane, and immediately take the documentation out of town. The agent's response, Kelso said, was, wow, that's not State Department policy. I can't do that. I'm going to get in trouble. Kotchen…
▶ 45:26
How standard is it that you get accusations about the DEA dealing drugs? How standard is that? The next day when Kelso and Brian Caldwell were lounging in their rooms in the hotel in San Jose, the DEA called the Costa Rican National Narcoti…
▶ 45:56
The DEA has been tipped off. Kelso's got the goods on him. So they call the Costa Rican police to go arrest Kelso. Kelso said they came stomping in there and demanding to see Caldwell and the stuff. And he saw a couple rolled up maps and he…
▶ 46:28
started confiscating everything in the room, tried to take our notebooks, my briefcase, everything, Kelso said. Kelso and Codwell was hustled off to a construction warehouse owned by the Costa Rican Electric Company, where they were shoved …
▶ 46:58
He then said, get in the effing car. So we go there and we go down to the Costa Rican National Police main office, right up to the director's office. Soon, Kelso said, DEA agent Neves comes in and he starts screaming, I'm going to blow your…
▶ 47:28
Puerto Rican, and that that's the key word that makes him trip off, okay? He goes psychotic. He goes bananas, Kelso said. Neves told him, you are a dead SOB. And he's actually saying out the words. I'm just not going to say them. He also sa…
▶ 47:58
Kelso's story was confirmed by the Costa Rican police officers that were present at the incident. According to Costa Rican newspaper, which asked Neves about Kelso in 1986, Neves did not even disguise his anger then about the fact that the …
▶ 48:29
but get out of it. Kelso was taken to the U.S. Embassy, where he said the DEA agents began copying the documents in his briefcase until a person that I had never saw before came in, sat down at one of the desks, very nice suit, well-dressed…
▶ 48:56
was the eyes and ears of the CIA and Oliver North. Kelso testified that after Owen got a look at the documents seized at the hotel room, he ordered the DEA agents to stop making copies. He whisked Kelso out of the embassy and dropped him ba…
▶ 49:27
ran to the Costa Rican narcotic investigator Warren Tracy's house and hid out. The next day, Neves called him there and ordered him back to the embassy. Kelso refused to go, and Neves told him he would be at Tracy's house in five minutes. I…
▶ 49:56
Arias took Kelso up in the jungle and dropped him off and then returned to San Jose to pick up weapons in one of the presidential security cars. Kelso said he had been instructed by his handlers to rendezvous on the CIA operative John Hall'…
▶ 50:24
In the dead of night, Tracy and Minolte drove Kelso north to Hall's well-guarded compound and dropped him off with a dentist friend of Hall's where he spent the night. The dentist drove Kelso to Hall's ranch the next day. Rob Owens later re…
▶ 50:53
the one guy that I should contact. There's a real problem here. I think the DEA people are trying to kill me. I'm convinced that they were involved in the narcotics trafficking and looking the other way. I don't know who else to turn to. Pa…
▶ 51:21
has his maps of coke labs located in Costa Rica, but is protecting them. A large lab located up north and other ones in other areas. While Kelso talked, Hall carefully examined the stranger's passport, which bore the name Richard Williams, …
▶ 51:48
Hall, who had been accused repeatedly of facilitating contra-drug trafficking, was weary, thinking Kelso may have been sent by the Sandinistas. He knows he wasn't. Hal is part of the CIA. And obviously, he's just putting that in there for h…
▶ 52:18
He was waking up with automatic rifle fire, and he saw in the yard Costa Rican guards armed with AK-47s and heard this guy yelling something in Spanish. Suddenly, Kelso felt his head explode. One of his captors bashed him in the head with t…
▶ 1:13:02
I'm sure we're going to hear more about that. SR-71, go ahead. Thank you, Colonel. I can't help but believe that Tracy is the one who put the icing on the cake. Without him, there's no doubt in my mind that Kelso would have been toast. Peri…
▶ 1:06:15
and 3,000 pages of one secret document about the Blanton raid that had just been released by L.A. County Sheriff's Office. I also wrote a sidebar on Joe Kelso's attempt to investigate allegations of DEA drug trafficking in Costa Rica, altho…
▶ 12:37
John Kelso, who shows up twice in Oliver North's White House notebook and claims to have worked on a contract basis for the CIA, told Washington journalist Paul Mulalo that Ross Miller laundered money for the CIA. Kelso, who went to jail fo…