The Colonels Corner Dark Alliance Part 16

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Transcript

0:00 Hello, everyone. Hello, Bridget. Good afternoon, Colonel. How are you? I'm better now. I just saw Malia in the audience. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my God. I have to be on my best behavior. That's one of my best friends in the whole world. Her and I were so cool. Yeah, we work together at Central Command. So here.

0:32 That's awesome. That is awesome. And I have to tell you, I have to brag, Sarah's a rock star. I'm just telling you. Who is? The little rescue dog that we found trying to get hit on the road. Yep. She is a rock star, man. That's so cool. Yeah. It is just amazing to see her blossom, you know? That's a good story. All right.

1:07 Guys, we're going to jump right in. I see SR here. Let me get him up here to co-host. And all right. So we've been covering, obviously, Dark Alliance by Gary Webb and the collusion between the CIA, the DEA, the ATF, the State Department, and all of them in the drug trafficking of Colombian drugs into the United States.

1:34 While at the same time trying to convince everybody that they're actually coming from Nicaragua. But they were not. And of course, they're using the profits of the drug proceeds to buy weapons to ship them back to the Contras. So that's what this is all about. So we're going to jump into Chapter 15 and start off with this basically is three years after.

2:05 the purposefully trafficking of cocaine into South Central Los Angeles. The crack explosion is everywhere inside of South Central LA. It's making the national news now, finally, after three years of it existing. Within weeks of each other, in May of 1986,

2:36 NBC News, People Magazine and the Associated Press had began covering the story. Finally, they referred to it as a new drug plague stalking the countryside. Tom Brokaw said crack was flooding America. The AP news article, quote, crack is becoming the nation's drug of choice, unquote, like a wildfire.

3:08 Even the New York Times chimed in with, quote, a wave of crack addicts, unquote, were engulfing the city, spreading prostitution and other crimes. Then came the cataclysmic event that is needed to convert any problem into a national disaster. Celebrities started dying. Two well-known black athletes dropped dead from cocaine abuse.

3:41 What Richard Price did for free base college basketball star Len Bias and pro football player Don Rogers did for crack with their death in June of 1986. Crack went from being a long ignored problem only in the black neighborhood where no one cared about it to a threat to our national security, as one U.S. senator described it.

4:11 Sorry to interrupt, Colonel, but there's no sound on rubble. OK, got it. Thank you. Before the year was in, Time and Newsweek had chimed in. They were running cover stories about the crack epidemic. Newsweek would say that it was the biggest story since Vietnam and Watergate. Time said it was the issue of the year. By November.

4:44 NBC News alone had run more than 400 stories on it after ignoring it for three years. As with most drug stories, the mainstream reported tended to be half-baked or just plain wrong. The coverage followed a typical pattern in which exaggerated claims were supported by carefully selected cases and fueled with provocative words such as epidemic.

5:14 with implications that it was a plague or a disease or some type of existential crisis. The crack attack began with a faulty premise based largely on the news media. Because there had been few previous reports about it, many editors assumed that it hadn't existed until right then. And now crack was seemingly everywhere. It was in Houston, Detroit, Newark.

5:46 New York City, Atlanta, Kansas City, and San Francisco and Los Angeles. Thus, the nation's editors and news directors concluded crack had spread overnight while we slept. It just appeared. Crack had been ravaging South Central Los Angeles since 1983. None of that was mentioned. None of the stories that had been reported locally was even referenced.

6:18 Nor did the press notice that a similar migration had been occurring on the East Coast for about 18 months as the Jamaican posses, which is their name for gang, and Dominican gangs from Miami began spreading their markets all over. The typical observation was contained in the Washington Post in June 13th, 1986, which reported that.

6:46 Crack was, quote, virtually unheard of nine months ago on the East Coast, unquote. The only explanation a frightening and bewildering public was given was this sudden deluge of crack was a modern day theory of spontaneous combustion, which holds that people can simply burst into flames. Crack hit our society with a suddenness unprecedented in history, Senator Sam Nunn of Georgia said.

7:16 Quote, literally an overnight phenomenon. Crack caught many police agencies by surprise. Unquote. Eight months ago, I had never heard of it, said Senator Lawton Childs of Florida. He's from my hometown. I actually live on a road named after him. Who would write the heartiest anti-crack laws on the books. This thing is a tidal wave. It just hit everywhere.

7:46 We're talking about a phenomenon that basically hit this country in the last nine months. Representative Hamilton Smith of New York declared that nine months ago, addiction to crack was virtually unheard of. If one believed the papers and the politicians, the crack epidemic simply happened and no one knew anything about it. During all of this, the government's two...

8:18 top drug experts and law enforcement officers lined up to proclaim their official shock and surprise. These are the same DEA and FBI that have known about it for three years, that Castillo had sent all of his reports to the DEA. For the last three years, they knew all about it, and they got in front of Congress and framed surprise. Scientists at

8:49 the National Institute of Drug Abuse testified that the agency had never heard of crack before the year before. Again, a total lie. They had been briefed. If you guys remember one of the very first chapters, some of these same people had been down in Bolivia and had been briefed about the invention of crack and how it would not stay in Latin America.

9:20 And they get in front of the cameras and tell complete lies. The DEA's director of operations, David Westray, said his agency could only guess at how prevalent the problem was since crack had emerged as a major drug problem in less than a year. Those were his exact words. Westgate confirmed that there is no comprehensive analysis of a crack problem.

9:55 Either from a health or enforcement viewpoint, DEA's own enforcement information on crack is also incomplete. That's another quote. Representative Benjamin Gilman of New York could scarcely believe what he was hearing. Well, of course, you are telling us that crack is just beginning to spread across the country like wildfire in the past year. We have no current data. Is that correct? Gilman asked.

10:23 I think it would be fair to say that we do not have any accurate estimate at this time, the scientists from the Drug Institute said. Am I correct then, Gilman asked, that at this point, we really don't have any definitive knowledge of how extensive the use of crack is in our country with all of our expertise. Is that right? The Drug Institute guy says that's correct.

10:54 And he kept asking other people on the panel the same question. Gilman looked at the DEA representative, Mr. Westgate. He said, yes, I would say, especially with statistical valid information. So you see how he caveats that? They're not keeping statistics on it because they're allowing it to happen. They don't really want to know how bad it is. But the government's experts weren't quite.

11:23 as ill-informed as they claim. There was a method to their ignorance. Pretending that crack was something that appeared out of nowhere was politically much safer than admitting the truth. That federal government had been warned about it very specifically many years earlier and hadn't lifted a finger to stop it, effectively surrendering the inner cities to an ongoing plague. If that information

11:51 became too widely known, the public might start asking questions. Why weren't they told? And how could a question like that be answered? Because we didn't believe it? Because we didn't care? They framed ignorance because up until this point, it had been confined to lower income, inner city, primarily Black communities. Sitting in the audience at one of the congressional hearings,

12:24 That summer in 1986, listening to the official excuses was a man who knew the truth better than anyone. Dr. Robert Bick, Yale University's top cocaine expert. It had been seven years since he appeared before Congress to sound the alarm of the approaching drug plague, only to have his warnings ignored. He had no intentions of letting the government get away with it. In 1979.

12:54 This is a quote from him. In 1979, I testified before the House Committee on Narcotic Abuse and Control, and I said that we were about to have the worst epidemic of drug use this country had ever seen. Something like the speed epidemic of the 1960s, except on a national scale, and that it was going to be the use of free-based cocaine, unquote. He went on to say, I begged people, and I begged people at the

13:25 Drug Institute, for goodness sake, this is a chance to stop. If not stop it, at least to take a chance on education campaign to avert the drug abuse epidemic. This advice went unheeded. We are not significantly more knowledgeable about cocaine smoking. No educational campaign was mounted. Today, we are in the midst of the predicted epidemic. That ended his quote.

13:53 DEA official Westgate hastened to assure Congress that the drug agency was on full alert now. Quote, DEA last week began an extensive in-depth intelligence survey through all of the domestic field offices to try to discern the use and availability of crack, its purity and its price. Westgate said BIC renewed his plea for research money for scientists so they can get the answers to the crack use.

14:25 Quote, I hope my testimony today will have a greater effect than my warnings in 1979. Bix said bitterly, but it did not. Quote, every problem that comes before us, everybody says that money is the answer. Scott, the chairman, Senator William Roth of Delaware. Quote, I think you have to use it pretty intelligently and we don't have it in large supply. Unquote.

14:56 So supposedly we are addressing the worst thing that happened since Vietnam and Congress doesn't have any money. Instead of authorizing money for crack research and educational campaigns, the congressman voted on tougher laws against crack dealing. If crack was more dangerous than regular cocaine, they said, its sellers need to be dealt with more severely.

15:25 And that kind of medicine didn't cost the federal government a cent up front. At least that was the rationale behind one of the laws Congress created that summer. It was so-called the 100 to 1 weight ratio, which would fill American prisons with tens of thousands of black street corner crack peddlers and users over the next decade without making a dent.

15:55 in the crack problem itself. Under the 100 to 1 ratio, a law Congress passed without any hearings. Crack dealers were singled out for particularly harsh punishment. The scale of justice became so lopsided that a powder dealer had to sell $50,000 worth of cocaine to get the same five-year mandatory sentence of someone.

16:22 selling $750 worth of crack. And the reason this is, let me explain this. Remember what we learned in this book. Crack is cheap. Cocaine is expensive. They have no intentions of locking up their celebrities or their friends. They are focusing this enforcement mechanism on blacks in inner cities. So they stood by despite warnings.

16:52 and facilitated the trafficking of cocaine into the United States for years, using their DEA offices, the FBI offices, and the CIA to move the cocaine into the United States, into black neighborhoods to make crack. And then their answer is, lock them all up. Now, are they going to lock up the source? Absolutely not.

17:23 is still a narco state today. And they knew back then that all of this drugs was coming from Colombia, and they didn't do anything about it. This entire thing was a scam to lock up Black Americans in prison and destroy families. It was, as Bic said years later, it was all absolutely senseless. Quote,

17:55 That all comes from one of the congressmen, the one from Florida, Lawton Childs. He recalled, quote, Childs was asking me a question in which he stated something up front. Dr. Bick, isn't it true crack 50 times more addicting or something like that? And I said, yes. And that 50 is the number that got doubled by people who wanted to get tough on cocaine.

18:22 And some experts' opinion on addictiveness got translated into a weight. The numbers are fabricated, but not reality, unquote. Another congressional kabuki dance. As drug expert Stephen Balenko of New York City Criminal Justice Agency later observed, quote, one interesting aspect of the anti-crack crusade is that it occurred in the presence of a real vacuum of knowledge about the drug, unquote.

18:54 It didn't because Dr. Bick knew all about it. He'd been briefed about it in Latin America. Meanwhile, drug experts were reading and hearing about this tidal wave of crack and began wondering which planet the media was reporting from. When the scientists looked around, they didn't see any epidemic, except in a few hot spots here and there in specific neighborhoods like Los Angeles, Miami, New York, and Houston. It was certainly not.

19:26 nationwide. A Chicago drug expert went so far as to call the whole thing a hoax. Researchers were finding crack to be not a national epidemic, but a phenomenon isolated to inner cities of less than a dozen urban areas. Even in New York, it was written, the fact of the matter was that if you lived outside of Washington Heights, crack was unavailable.

19:59 Malenko would later write, during the period of strongest concern over crack in 1986 to 90, crack was actually the least used drug among illicit drugs. In Miami, at the supposed height of the crack epidemic, there, cops were running a sting in Liberty City, had called it quits because few cocaine customers wanted crack. They were looking for powder.

20:29 It was different, of course, in Los Angeles. But those who deviated from the official line of nationwide crack pandemonium were ignored or chastised outright. After the Drug Institute officials called a press conference to announce the good news that cocaine use appeared to be leveling off, Senator Lawton Childs sternly reprimanded the head of the Drug Institute, Charles Sluder.

20:58 Quote, what kind of message are we sending out there? On the one hand, when we are saying that it is an epidemic, you have your Newsweek story. You have your Time magazine story. You have the New York Times story, all of which are controlled by the CIA, by the way. You have everybody in the world saying we're having an epidemic. And then you come along and say that the figures are level and not to worry about it. Why was it necessary?

21:27 to even call a conference, Childs said. After finishing its review of the local field offices, the DEA initially sided with the scientists. Crack is currently the subject of considerable media attention, they said. The result has been a distortion of public perception on the extent of the crack use compared to other drugs, the DEA announced. Crack presently appears to be secondary.

21:59 rather than the primary problem in most of the areas. The DEA findings went virtually unreported because it didn't fit the narrative. The kind of news was not what the politicians or the media wanted to hear. But when DEA officials changed their tune and began denouncing crack, those comments were plastered everywhere. One truly remarkable thing about crack scare was the degree to which the national news

22:29 particularly the New York Times, walked in lockstep with the federal government on the issue. Not for those of us who know about that. Fanning the flames of hysteria and unquestionably parenting the official line. When First Lady Nancy Reagan was off on a world anti-drug tour in the spring of 1986, the Times began almost daily reporting on the growing public outrage over the spread of crack.

22:58 The Times featured links from White House sources who confided that the president himself was taking this crack issue very seriously. Robert Stutman, who was the chief of the New York DEA office, would later admit that the crack panic of 1986 was largely his creation. He didn't think the Justice Department was taking the issue seriously enough. So to speed up the process of convincing Washington.

23:27 I needed to make it look like a national issue and quickly. I began lobbying efforts and I used the media. Reporters were only too willing to cooperate because as far as the New York media is concerned, crack was the hottest combat reporting story to come along since the Vietnam War. By the end of August, he noted, the groundwork had been laid carefully through press accounts and my own public appearances.

23:55 That produced incredible results. Newsweek was calling crack a national scandal, and the New York newspapers were blaming every crime on a crackhead. Crack was a national menace, he said, and in 1986, it was the year of crack. The PR campaign worked so well that the New York Times was reporting a frenzy in Washington over drugs.

24:23 That frenzy created a bonanza for the media. CBS 48 Hours on Crack Street aired in the fall of 1986. It is, up until the time this book was written, one of the highest rated TV documentaries in history. The politicians facing critical midterm elections in a few months went down the crack road as well. They viewed it as heaven sent, lashing out at Crack Street.

24:53 and crack dealers. It was a painless way to get free publicity. Other analysts found that most of the information appearing in the New York Times, Newsweek, and Time came from two sources, cops and politicians. Drug researchers or academics were not quoted. The New York Times in particular showed a remarkable aversion to any expert. Fewer than 10

25:23 in any of their stories was ever referenced. The crack hysteria continued unabated through the elections until something else diverted its attention. It was not until the revelations about Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North and the Iran-Contra connection towards the end of 1986 that the crack media coverage experienced significant decline, a drug researcher said.

25:53 It's going to be all the hype until the government's implicated. Then we're not going to hear about it. In October 1986, about a week after the Iran-Contra scandal began, the LA Times carried a story inside the paper about the LAPD quietly disbanding its 32-member anti-crack task force in South Central LA.

26:19 Chief Daryl Gates told the Times that the task force was needed in other parts of the city. So we're not going to investigate it anymore because the CIA is behind it. As the Reverend Charles Mims, a South Central minister, observed, it seems logical to move this task force from what most everybody grants is the most active rock cocaine area on the earth. Just how quickly the crack.

26:48 problem was forgotten by the Reagan administration was demonstrated when DEA director Jack Lawn, following up on the Reagan's pledge to crack down on crack, asked for $44 million to hire 200 additional agents focused strictly on crack. The Justice Department Budget Committee rejected it. They didn't treat it as a major issue. That was surprising to Lawn.

27:19 And he said so in a U.S. News and World Report. The magazine identified the Justice Department official responsible for the decision as Associate Attorney General Stephen Trott. By then, however, Steve Trott had bigger worries about inner city crackheads than inner city crackheads. He had Iran-Contra to deal with.

27:44 Not only was Congress screaming about North and beginning to scrutinize the Justice Department's involvement in the scandal, but Trott was monitoring a pesky Senate investigation into allegations of the Contra drug trafficking. Trott viewed this probe with considerable agitation. Oliver North and the FBI were also keenly interested in its progress. As noted in North's notebook, the administration's concern was understandable.

28:14 By the spring of 86, the Contras were almost out of money, while North and his agents were able to replace some of the Contras' lost CIA funding with donations from Saudi Arabia and Taiwan again. Taiwan's awful involved in the crack cocaine business. The amounts were only a fraction of what it was necessary to keep the Contras in business.

28:45 The Reagan administration and CIA officials estimated that their monthly food bill alone was between one and two million dollars. Some estimated the annual cost of a Contra war to be about 100 to 200 million dollars. In March of 1986, the White House began lobbying Congress to turn the money spigots back on so the CIA could be back in business.

29:15 and to provide the money to fight the quote-unquote Sandinista government. But Senator John Kerry from Massachusetts and his staff had started making noises about the Contra being involved with cocaine. They had been interviewing mercenaries, former Contras, and Cuban-Americans taking trips to Costa Rica and Miami, talking with foreign officials and federal prosecutors.

29:43 They started pushing for an official investigation into Contra connections to drug traffickers. With the public's crack hysteria at a fever pitch, a more deadly or untimely accusation could not have been made against the Contras and the Reagan administration. The obvious intent of Senator Kerry is to try to orchestrate a series. This is a quote.

30:08 The obvious intent of Senator Kerry is to try to orchestrate a series of sensational accusations against the Contras in order to obtain massive press coverage at about the time the next Contra aid vote, according to Trott. It will be Senator Kerry's intention to try to twist facts and circumstances in order to unjustifiably defame the Justice Department, the FBI, and the DEA. Unfortunately, it was all true.

30:38 Indeed, we have been informed that Senator Kerry will take every opportunity to make the implication or express claim that there is a conspiracy within the administration to cover up illegal activities of the Contras and their supporters, because there were. The fact that Kerry, a former federal prosecutor, had been an outspoken opponent of Contra Aid made Reagan administration officials even more distrustful.

31:08 By June of 86, Kerry's staff had compiled enough information for the senator to approach his colleagues on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and seek authorization for an official investigation. According to transcripts of that secret meeting, Kerry warned the assembled senators that some of what he was about to tell them, quote, strains credibility at moments in time, and it strained my credibility.

31:40 It strained his ability to comprehend it. When I first heard this stuff, I said, I don't believe this. It cannot be true, unquote. But after talking to many of the current and former Contras, Kerry said, there was ample evidence to suggest that the Contra leaders were corrupt, dealing in drugs and weapons, using their supply lines to run both, that some of the U.S. government officials were protecting them.

32:13 We can produce specific law enforcement officials who will tell you that they have been called off drug trafficking investigations because CIA is involved or because it would threaten national security or because the State Department didn't want it to happen, Kerry told the committee. Our sources have suggested in direct testimony that agencies of the U.S. government may be failing to stop or punish those engaging in those criminal activities.

32:42 because those individuals are otherwise engaged in helping the United States foreign policy. When the State Department, Kerry warned, quote, when the State Department begins to say that we should not be pursuing the drug trafficking because it would threaten our national security, this committee ought to understand why we are making a decision that is okay to have drugs coming into this country, unquote.

33:10 Kerry's chief investigator in D.C. was Jack Bloom. He detailed some of the charges Kerry's staff had looked into, and he told the senators that, quote, the narcotics are coming into the United States not by pound, not by the bag, but by the ton, by cargo airplane loads, unquote. And Kerry added that the leadership of the FDN knew about it and was involved in it.

33:38 Quote, it is clear that there is a network of drug trafficking through the Contras. And it goes right up to Calero, Aldolfo Calero and Enrique Bermudez. And we have people who will testify and who have unquote. But the idea of diving into such a stinky swamp made some of the other senators squeamish. Senator Joe Biden of Delaware warned that.

34:11 Quote, we should understand that this thing may take us places we have rather not gone, but we should be aware of it. And I think there is no choice but to go there. Unquote. Senator Nancy Kasabam of Kansas said she didn't think the committee had the authority to get into this issue. Instead of holding hearings and subpoenaing records, she suggested an alternative route. Quote.

34:39 It seems to me that we should be able somehow to really work with the CIA and the DEA. There are channels, it seems to me, that have that ability, unquote. Yeah, let's work with the CIA and the DEA. And I'm sure they're going to be honest with Congress saying, yeah, we're running the entire thing. What a great idea. Kerry almost laughed. Quote, well, let me see.

35:09 that I would be amazed if the CIA were to be very cooperative in this. We had a meeting with CIA Justice Department. CIA jumped out of their seats at some of the stuff that they heard we were thinking about looking into. I mean, they just literally jumped out of their seat. They were amazed that we were looking into this stuff, unquote. They were amazed that anybody in Washington, D.C. knew what they were doing.

35:39 At the request of the Foreign Relations Committee Chairman, Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana, Perry gave the committee a list of areas that needed investigation, among them the murder of Dr. Hugo Spadaforto by Contras engaged in drug smuggling in Costa Rica, an ongoing drug smuggling operation connecting

36:06 Colombia, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and the United States, in which the Contras and American supporters, with the apparent knowledge of Contra leadership, handled the transport of cocaine produced in Colombia shipped to Nicaragua in the region, transported to airstrips controlled by American supporters of the Contras and distributed to the U.S., and allegations

36:32 That have also surfaced regarding the drug smuggling operations involving sprint boats operating out of Texas, Louisiana and Florida. The Foreign Relations Committee voted to approve Kerry's request for a behind the scenes investigation, but grudgingly. And the Republican staff members on the committee kept the Reagan administration fully informed about it all. When Kerry's investigators thought to interview Contra drug dealer.

37:05 Cabeza, about the San Francisco Frogman case, the Justice Department announced that he couldn't possibly be questioned since he was going to be a federal witness in an upcoming drug trial. Cabeza said, that was bullshit. I was never a witness in that trial. They just didn't want anybody talking to me. Justice Department official Mark Richard later admitted in a deposition that the department was seemingly just stonewalling. DEA was saying,

37:35 They won't do it. They didn't want to respond. They didn't want to provide any information. But some information trickled out anyway, and it got awfully close to exposing the Norwin Menendez-Daniello Blanton drug operation. In the spring of 1986, San Francisco Examiner reporter Seth Rosenfeld broke the story of the Frogman case, exposing the Justice Department's bizarre handling of the $36,000.

38:03 found in Zavala's nightstand. Remember they gave it back because it was for the Contras. It was reported that Zavala's claim from a prison cell in Arizona that he personally delivered about $500,000 in drug profits to the Contras in Costa Rica. Rosenfeld also unearthed Carlos Cabreza's long buried testimony about selling Horacio Pereira's cocaine to raise money for the Contras.

38:35 Coming on the heels of several Associated Press reports by Robert Perry and Brian Barger about Contra cocaine trafficking in Costa Rica, Rosenfeld's story provided the first hard evidence of a Contra drug ring operating inside the United States. The Associated Press picked up the story and several other newspapers printed it, but cautiously burying it deep inside the papers.

39:03 surrounded by all kinds of official denials. So later on, the newspapers that are controlled by the CIA can say they printed it, but nobody's going to see it. San Francisco U.S. attorney Joseph Rosanello mailed a four-page letter to the Examiner's editor calling Rosenfeld's work one of the most blatant attempts at contrived newsmaking. This is the U.S. attorney.

39:33 That's supposed to be prosecuting drug cases. He's chastising the media for revealing the drug operations. He's not going to prosecute him. So it's going to make him look bad. Crazy, crazy, crazy. He went on to say he suggested that it was a political stunt to harm the contra chances of getting aid from Congress. Though Rosenbelt never made the charge.

40:07 Rosanello indignantly wrote that there is absolutely no evidence of CIA involvement. Rosenfeld didn't accuse the CIA, but thank you for adding that. Incredibly, he made the same claim regarding the Contras. There's no evidence to warrant the insinuation that defendants were connected to the Contras, except their own statements offered after the arrest.

40:37 In a futile attempt to explain away their conduct. Okay, so we're going to believe all the other stuff they said, just not that part. Rosanello did not disclose that Carlos Cabreza, as a witness for his office, had testified about selling dope for the Contras under oath years before this. He knew that they were doing it for the Contras.

41:08 And he writes a letter to a reporter who actually says what he already knows to be true, accusing them of lying. U.S. attorney guys. Nor did he mention that two high-ranking FDN barn officials had written letters to the court attesting to Zavala's official position as a member of the Contras. He had it all.

41:41 He also forgot about the 1982 FBI teletypes that named Contra officials Fernando and Trujillo Sanchez as the drug ring suppliers. They're both, by the way, Contras, too. In a white paper subsequently circulated to Congress by the U.S. State Department, Zavala and Cabrezas were portrayed as liars and opportunists.

42:10 And Rosenfeld's story was dismissed as gobbledygook. One upping Rosanello, the State Department claimed that Capresa and Zavala had never said anything about the Contras until long after their conviction. They did not, quote, they did not raise those issues as a defense in their trial or at sentencing.

42:39 but waited two years before making these allegations, which, as indicated, could not be confirmed, unquote. Congress was assured that the DEA had examined allegations of linkage to the Contras and had found none. But it couldn't have been looking very hard. In April of 86, a UPI story featured an interview with former Contra official

43:12 Rodriguez, who said he was beaten, paralyzed and left for dead because he he had denounced contra involvement in drug dealing. He specifically identified Norwin Menendez's partner, Trujillo Sanchez, as being involved and said Sanchez had been arrested for cocaine traveling or trafficking in Costa Rica. Then a month before the State Department's white paper was sent to Congress, Rosenfeld.

43:45 had another major front page story in the Examiner, exposing Norwin Menendez's cocaine trafficking network and his involvement with the Contras in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Rosenfeld reported on Menendez's meeting with CIA agents Enrique Bermudez and Calero and other Contra leaders.

44:14 He reported that the Contra spokesperson in San Francisco had been convicted of cocaine charges. He disclosed Menendez's donations and Contra fundraisers. The Menendez's story was considerably more damaging to the Contras than the Frogman story because it directly involved the CIA's primary army with...

44:41 a major international cocaine and arms trafficker. Yet it drew no response from the administration, no angry denunciations from federal prosecutors. The State Department's white paper, which belittled every other allegation of the Contra drug trafficking, was absolutely silent on all of this.

45:07 Though the examiner's expose appeared just two days before the House of Representatives was scheduled to take up the highly controversial issue of $100 million of our money to the Contras, not a single major newspaper published this story. It drew nothing but silence. After Kerry's committee lawyer, Jack Bloom, saw the examiner's story,

45:37 He asked the Justice Department to turn over its files on Menendez and the long-closed Brogman case. He ran into a buzzsaw. He said, quote, we had a terrible, terrible time getting information about Menendez from the fellow who was the U.S. attorney out there at the time, Rosanello, who was a rabid.

46:04 right-wing true believer as ever came down the road and who was bound and determined to prevent anyone from learning anything about the case, Bloom said. He and the Justice Department flipped out to prevent us to getting any access to the people, the records, or finding anything out about it. It was one of the most frustrating exercises I ever recall, Bloom said.

46:34 and Rosanello got into a screaming match over the phone. On October 15th, 1986, the controversy over the Frogman files reached Oliver North's ears. 46 boxes of transcripts of Frogman case North wrote in his diary. Justice never provided. That was in his notebook that they found. They didn't get shredded mysteriously.

47:07 So back to the Torres brothers, providing intelligence and letting the cops follow them around was one thing. But if the investigation was going to progress beyond that level, the L.A. drug team called the majors had to be sure that the two Nicaraguans could take the next critical step. The brothers chose one of the Colombians they named as a sword for.

47:37 The dealers, Jamie Ramos, one day in early September 1986, they told Bell narcotics detective Jerry Guzetta that Ramos and another man was going to be making a pickup from two dealers that day at an abandoned apartment house in South Central. Within an hour, a red Chevy carrying two Latinos and a black Mustang with two black men.

48:06 inside, rumbled up the driveway. They chatted briefly and drove off, leading the detectives on a six-hour ride around L.A. Finally, the cars pulled over and one of the black men got out and tossed a blue nylon gym bag into the Chevy. The Chevy sped off to a restaurant in Glendale, where the bag was transferred to a white car and driven to a house after a short wait.

48:37 The majors burst in, yelling and waving their guns. Jamie Ramos and the blue gym bag were found in the bedroom. It was stuffed with $120,000 in small bills and $100,000 in cashier's checks. In a closet, they found a suitcase with six more nylon gym bags with 114 kilos of cocaine.

49:04 At another house, a brown suitcase contained 17 kilos. Ramos, who had been carrying an ID from the Colombian military, and three other Colombians were arrested. The $2 million worth of dope and a quarter million dollars in cash, not bad for an afternoon's work. It looked as if the Torres brothers were for real, while Detective Tom Gordon and the majors...

49:36 Plotted their next move, Jerry Guzetta asked the Torres brothers to show him around South Central. He wanted to know more about this black dealer by the name of Rick. They drove Guzetta to a vacant two-story apartment building and told Guzetta that it was a cocaine lab. The building was occupied only when dealers were busy. Near the entrance ramp to Harbor Freeway,

50:05 They pointed out a multi-story apartment building they said served as one of his distribution centers. Even during the middle of the week, there were a lot of activity. Young men lounging around on the curb, hanging in doorways. But the Torres told Grisetta to come by the place on a Friday or Saturday night. That's when it was really hopping. It was full of drug dealers driving Mercedes and Cadillacs.

50:37 Swinging by another place, the brothers pointed out a newly constructed motel named Freeway Motor Inn. Rick had bought the land for a million dollars, and they told Gussetta that he had built the hotel there and that Rick's mother, Annie, worked the front desk. Suddenly, everything clicked. Rick, the Freeway Motor Inn. This was too good to be true, Gussetta marveled.

51:05 The Torres brothers had led him to the legendary three-way Rick, the elusive crack lord whose existence was a myth to that point. While rumors of the super crack dealer had been floating around South Central for years, it wasn't until 1986 that the police received informant information suggesting there might be truth behind all of the rumors.

51:35 One squad asked Detective John Edner to see what he could find out. Edner confirmed that Freeway Rick actually was real and his real name was Ricky Donnell Ross. While Edgar couldn't track him down, he did find Freeway Rick's girlfriend, Marilyn Doublefield, and got her address. The majors introduced themselves.

52:03 On May 15, 1986, according to Stubblefield's brother, Steve, they kicked the door in, ransacked the apartment, arrested her, and beat Steve with a flashlight, telling him to pass a message to Freeway Rick that they were on to him. During the search of the house, which turned up a bit of cocaine, marijuana, and some empty kilo wrappers,

52:29 Ricky's cousin, George Modlin, stopped by and the majors gave him the same warm welcome. Modlin showed up while they were in the process of searching the house. We had most of the subjects detained in the living room. Modlin shows up and got into a shouting match with one of the detectives after he was told not to interfere. One of the supervisors said, I believe he got hit by a flashlight, too.

52:58 In late August, the major one struck again, rousting two of Ross's cousins, Anthony and Eric Modlin, on suspicion of having stolen firearms. They didn't arrest them. They tuned them up, is what they referred to it. In other words, they beat him up. Years later, Ross surmised that the Torres brothers gave him up because he quit buying cocaine from them.

53:27 reverting back to his exclusive relationship with Daniello Blanton. His price were so low, you just couldn't compete. Ross and Blanton had become very close friends. While the Majors crew worked Ross's organization from the bottom up, Majors 2 was working it from the top down, trying to zero in on his suppliers.

53:56 The Ramos bust had been impressive in terms of cocaine and cash, but ultimately it was a dead end. Despite Torres's claim that the Colombian was one of Ross's big suppliers, no evidence linked him directly to Ross. In later interviews with police, Ross and his partner, Ollie Newell, both specifically denied that was their source because it wasn't.

54:22 The Ramos case was eventually plea bargained down to basically nothing. And they let a guy who we found with 230 pounds of coke plead to a five kilo bus and deported him. Gordon said later events led him to believe that Ramos had been a CIA operative. But according to court records, his light punishment may have been due to the fact that the majors had no search warrant.

54:51 When they went to the house, he started working his way down a list of other men that Torres brothers had provided him. It was not promising, but it was full of Colombians. The information was much harder on one particular guy, Daniello Blanton, and his ex-cop sidekick, Ronnie Lister, because Lister is CIA.

55:24 These were the guys who, according to Grisetta, the Torres brothers were really afraid of. If they were able to frighten a pair of heavily armed, very large Nicaraguans, they must be something. On the afternoon of September 17th, 1986, Gordon ran the names the Torres brothers had provided them into two computer bases.

55:51 They collected information from narcotics investigations around the world. They can instantly provide an officer with a criminal history of any suspect that had been entered, his known associates, aliases, addresses, and case files of all DEA investigations in which they were supposedly involved in.

56:13 Running this check is a routine way to begin a narcotics investigation. It lets the investigator know if someone is working on the same suspects. If they have a file, the official protocol dictates that whoever entered the trafficker into the database owns that particular person. Narcotics cops frequently complain about officers who enter everyone they run across into the database.

56:41 just to claim ownership in case they get busted. But you can see the problem with that. If the DEA is entering the people that they want to protect in there, this is how they do it. Because anybody investigating them has to contact the DEA. See that? The computer screen brought up Blanton's file first. He was listed as a class one trafficker, the biggest.

57:15 He had some addresses in Glendale, which showed up in connection with the Torres brothers. A couple of file references from 1983 and 1984 described him as the head of a cocaine distribution organization in Los Angeles. He had only two known associates, Roger Sandino and Norwin Menendez. And also, let me just say this.

57:45 of something that I ran across in another book. The CIA, if they're using somebody as a quote unquote informant, which means they're protecting him and they're part of their operation, they will enter them into this database and sometimes even allow them to be arrested on a small charge so they can quote unquote own them. And then they have to be notified or someone posing as a police officer that's really CIA.

58:14 They have to be notified so they will get an early in or a hint that someone's on to them. Okay. Gordon, once he sees the names Roger Sandino and Norwin Menendez, decides to check them out. Sandino's criminal history included an 81 conviction in Hialeah, Florida, for attempting to sell Quaalude tablets while in the country illegally from Nicaragua. The next name.

58:51 Gordon typed in was Norwin Menendez. When his file came up, it seemed as if it would never end. It went on and on, screen after screen. This guy, Gordon observed, was in a league all of his own. Another Nicaraguan who had been in the database since 1976, well into the Somoza government of which he was part of. He was a class one trafficker.

59:23 He had 12 aliases. He had houses all over the San Francisco Bay Area. He had a mansion in Managua. Mentioned in 32 DEA investigations, some as far back as 1974. A couple of classified files from 1976. Bringing cocaine in from Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, sending it to New Orleans, Miami, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

59:55 He had a lot of associates. The report also revealed that someone else had been in Menendez's folder recently. The date of the last update was only 19 days earlier. When Gordon started checking the status of the DEA investigations in Menendez's file, he learned that a number of them were still open. Yet, despite all of the official interest, he had never been charged with a single

1:00:25 cry. Gordon called up Ronald Lister's file next. It was short and sweet. He was an ex-policeman who was under an active DEA investigation. The case was so active, he noticed, that Lister's file was less than a month old. But all of the details of this case were classified because he's CIA. Gordon jotted down the name of Lister's owner on the bottom of the printout.

1:00:58 DEA agent Sandalio Sandy Gonzalez, U.S. Embassy, Costa Rica. The name of the agent who owned Blanton. Something didn't add up. Lister lived in Orange County. Blanton lived in San Bernardino County. Why would a Costa Rican DEA agent have them under investigation as their owner unless they had been down to Costa Rica?

1:01:31 Then Gordon noticed that Menendez had been under investigation in Costa Rica as well. So again, this system is being used to protect the drug traffickers. When Jerry Gazzetta brought the case in the door, he'd been insisting that he'd uncovered an international crack ring. And that's exactly the way it looked. Gordon picked up the phone and called DEA.

1:02:02 Agent Gonzalez to find out what was going on. The reaction he got was memorable. Gonzalez goes through the ceiling, Gordon said. He starts screaming on the phone line that the phone lines are going through Nicaragua and he shouldn't be calling him and talking about any of this over an open phone line. He said he'd fly to Panama and call me from there.

1:02:32 Now the detective was really baffled. So what if the phone lines went through Nicaragua? They probably went through a lot of places. What was the big deal? Gordon didn't hear from Gonzalez for five days. And when the DEA agent finally called back, he had just left a message. When Gordon found it on his desk, it said Tom got a call from Sandy Gonzalez of Costa Rica DEA. He said.

1:03:03 Local DEA agent will let you read the info. Sandy cannot talk on the phone because all the lines run through Nicaragua. Sandy asked that you don't mention anything in your search warrant affidavit. There's those Nicaraguan phone lines again, Gordon thought. And what's this crap about a bum? That was a cop slang term.

1:03:32 that his investigation had been exposed and that bad guys knew he was investigating them. Gonzalez was telling Gordon not to put any details of his investigation into a sworn statement he had to file with his application for a search warrant because the search would come up dry and he'd be tipping his hand. Gordon didn't get that one at all. How the hell could his investigation of Blanton and Lister

1:04:02 have been burned. It hadn't even started. The case was still sitting on the top of his desk. Nobody had done anything except run a couple of computer checks and no one besides Gary Gussetta and now the DEA even knew about the majors working on any of this. Besides, how would a DEA agent a couple of thousand miles away know anything about a brand new investigation?

1:04:33 of the L.A. County Sheriff's Office. And how could they burn it? When Gordon called the DEA office in L.A., as Gonzalez suggested, his uneasiness grew. No, he was told, the Costa Rican DEA office was not investigating Lister and Blanton, but an agent in Riverside, California, just outside of L.A. was. But again, they're listed as the owner in the database. Gordon found that Riverside DEA agent

1:05:04 Thomas Shretner was only too happy to help him. Shretner had his hands full with other investigations, he told Gordon, and his supervisors wouldn't let him spend any time on the Blanton case. All he could do for him was pass along a little information. In retrospect, Gordon said, that should have set off a lark. The DEA was notorious among local lawmen for coming in and stealing the best cases.

1:05:34 mainly for publicity purposes. It almost never handed off anything to a smaller department. Yet, here was this case involving a major international cocaine trafficking network, crack in the ghettos, multiple shipments, hundreds of millions of dollars, the kind of case they salivate for in the DEA, but he was too busy. At the time, Gordon thought,

1:06:02 offer was a clever way to get around a bureaucratic roadblock and still bring a dope dealer to justice. And when Shretner sent Gordon a copy of his report on the investigation, the detective quickly forgot his concerns about unusual behavior. The case was everything Gordon imagined it would be. It was international. So we're going to stop there for the day.

1:06:30 And we'll pick up from there. We will not be doing one tomorrow. I don't think. There's a whole bunch of stuff going on here tomorrow that I'm going to be involved in. So we will not be having a show tomorrow. FYI. They kicked my Bridget out again. All right. So, Ron, what's going on? Hey.

1:07:16 Wow. I get, you know what? I just, I love, I, I, I have missed listening to you.

1:07:24 To the degree that I have, it's like, man, I got to get back in there and listen on the daily because it's so fun to listen to you because you bring such energy and passion and knowledge. And, you know, I just I can't tell you how much I appreciate that. And the funny thing is, is that when you're talking, I'm hearing I'm like I'm connecting all kinds of dots in my in my head. And one of the things that I really kind of got me to thinking about is.

1:07:54 This stuff is going on right now with Iran-Contra. Well, my mind, the way it goes now is when there's a big shiny object going on, what else is going on? And I kind of posed the question as like, what else was going on at the same time of Iran-Contra? And it was, you had the AIDS epidemic.

1:08:22 And you had all of the – well, you had the deindustrialization of America that was essentially coming to fruition as a result of sending all the money out for the Marshall Plan. And all the American jobs were gone. Well, Reagan was – now I really kind of see why Reagan ramped up the military stuff.

1:08:45 was because what it did is it gave jobs to people because they didn't have any other jobs. There was no manufacturing jobs. It was all going to be military. You forgot about Angola. And Angola, exactly. I'm sure I'm forgetting quite a few things. But, you know, you look here and you look at what we said about the black community and how they got, you know, fucked six waves from Sunday.

1:09:15 And I have my friend not too long ago. She says a couple of years ago she sent me something and it was like, oh, well, the black black community was targeted. And I don't disagree with that. But she said it wasn't until the white the suburban white people got in the early 2000s that all of a sudden they started to bring in all of the stuff with the insurance companies and the drug treatment and stuff like that. And I want to ask you.

1:09:43 Because I pushed back on that a little bit. I don't think that they, I don't think they had the mechanism in place to do drug treatment in the 80s. And I don't think they, I don't think they, they may not have had the desire either, 80s and 90s. But if they could have found a way to make money using the insurance companies with drug treatment in the 80s and 90s, I feel like they would have done that on top of.

1:10:10 The private prisons. I want your thoughts on that. Well, you have to understand why they targeted the black neighborhood to begin with. They were trying to destroy the black family. You you're not going to offer treatment and alternatives until you've done the damage to the black families that they deemed necessary. And you lock up enough of the black fathers.

1:10:39 in prisons. So now you've destroyed future families. And once the damage was done and bringing in the treatment as a scam in order to milk people for money makes more sense then. But it's my opinion based on their business model. And you go back to the 60s with the welfare programs.

1:11:08 Their intent was to destroy it because in the 50s, the nuclear family, number one, black families, the most religious people in the country, number one, black. So if you're going to destroy America, you are going to target the two number ones, the black nuclear family and the religious.

1:11:39 And that's exactly. And then once you get the black men in prison system, the CIA was seeding imams from the Middle East and to convert them to Islam. I didn't even think about that. Wow. Yeah. So how do you destroy Christianity? Wow. You just blew my mind. Thank you.

1:12:09 You're welcome. SR71, go ahead. Thank you, Colonel, and thank everyone for attending today and out on Rumble as well. Two points here that I've got. One is the 100 to 1 sentencing disparity for crack versus powder cocaine. The Congress passed that now sets at 18 to 1. There have been some changes to it. However, it's not a total 1 to 1 deal as of yet.

1:12:41 The other thing that got me thinking here a minute, Colonel, is since this is all for one world order, and we're looking at this from the standpoint of, okay, in order to achieve it, we have to create chaos to get everybody to get on board. Now, given all of that, the question that's bothering me at this moment in time is, well, okay, you get everybody on board, then what do you do with the drugs?

1:13:12 It sort of defeats the purpose at that point for anything in that sense. Along with the deal of the databases, you have an Interpol database that keeps track of all of the drug trafficking as well, although they don't identify people. I don't understand that piece of it. Whereas what the DEA is using and what our law enforcement is using does identify people.

1:13:43 And what they've been doing internationally as well as nationally. So there's a lot of disparity going on here in my brain. Thank you, Carol. Sure. Well, obviously, in this book, they're using the one with names. And it's full of information about. And as Gary Webb says.

1:14:09 You have somebody that has pages and pages and pages of drug activity and they took no action. And the guy, the detective out there in Los Angeles, rightfully was very suspect about what has this is. This has been alleged both by the FBI whenever a local cop will.

1:14:41 basically do all the legwork to bust somebody that the FBI comes in at the last minute and hogs all the glory. That's kind of a common theme that I've heard people discuss routinely. And when it's related to, that's normally on the gang side of it, but on the drug side of it, that the DEA does exactly the same thing.

1:15:09 At the last minute, because they're not going to do any of the real hard work. And so that really should have been like a flashing neon light that they're too busy to deal with what was at the time. Norwin Menendez was like one of the largest cocaine traffickers in the entire world at that point.

1:15:34 And what's interesting about this to me, and it goes to the whole part of Operation Gladio, is the Somoza government was put in place and controlled by the CIA. And it spawned all of these people, all of these corrupt people. You've heard me talk about how they go in. And back in the day in Guatemala, when the Rockefellers United Fruit first went in there, they create this elite group of people.

1:16:03 They're corrupt, all of them. And they hog up all of the corrupt land deals and push peasants off of their land. And then they basically lease these farms for cultivation of whatever the crop was. In the case of Guatemala, they were taking self-sufficient crops.

1:16:32 coffee plantations that people could make decent livings on. And basically, the government that was in bed with the Rockefellers, United Fruit, would basically trump up charges against the landowner, bankrupt them, and then United Fruit would buy the land. And then they didn't use it. They were only cultivating of all of the land they owned in Guatemala, a small fraction of the land.

1:17:01 But they held it so that no one could compete with them. So it requires a corrupt elite, not unlike we have here, in order for them to perpetuate this stranglehold. And they have fake elections so they can appear to be a democracy. Otherwise, the United States does not have the ability to give them aid and basically use our tax dollars to prop up corrupt regimes.

1:17:31 And on the off chance that a charismatic leader comes around in the case of Guatemala and overcomes the cheating in the elections and wins, which is exactly what happened, then they're going to overthrow the government and put their corrupt people back in. And that is, in essence, what was happening in Nicaragua. Somoza was in charge.

1:17:59 had the National Police Force that was created thanks to the USAID Office of Public Safety, and they were basically running terrorists. They were death squad people. Anybody that they saw rising up as a charismatic leader or trying to form labor unions against U.S. oligarchs doing business in Nicaragua, they would exterminate.

1:18:25 And eventually, the Sandinistas were able to overthrow the Somoza government. Well, then what do you do with all of these elite corrupt people? Well, as it turns out, they just shuffled them off to Honduras or Guatemala or Costa Rica, which they all controlled, and brought a whole bunch of them, obviously, like Daniel Blanton and Norwin Menendez, to the United States. And they set up a drug ring.

1:18:54 We went over the connections of Norwin Menendez to the Somoza family. I mean, basically, they were intermarrying. And the same thing with Danielle O'Blanton. These are the elite. And they just picked them up, thanks to the CIA, and they plop them down in the United States to create havoc here and run their operations. And in this case, it happened to be drug trafficking. And all of these displaced.

1:19:24 foreigners that come in from uh cia experiments in foreign countries are all corrupt they wouldn't protect them and bring them to the united states if they weren't basically not necessarily on their payroll but at least in collusion with them they're never going to make it here and so if you start going and we've already covered there's like 90 um governments that we've overthrown a portion of them

1:19:55 Have gotten their countries back. Well, then the CIA flies in as expats from those countries, the people they want to protect. They did it in Iran. So that when you look around, you realize that some of these people, especially ones right now running for political office that are descendants of Vietnam.

1:20:27 Guatemala, Nicaragua, all of these places. And you wonder why they're as corrupt as the political elite here. It's because they were the political elite there in bed with the CIA. So you really have to look at those people with a side eye as to, you know, where did they come from? Like that Mandavi guy, I told you his dad came to the United States on a CIA funded college scholarship.

1:20:56 He was created by the CIA, set up in New York, and this guy is running for the mayor of New York as his son. It's just crazy. Ron, go ahead. I think SR had his hand up ahead of me. Okay, go ahead, SR. One of the other points I failed to mention is we're talking about databases back in the 80s and 90s, okay?

1:21:27 So when you talk about those databases in the 80s and 90s that they're using and what's been going on, to believe they don't have databases on everyone here is far-fetched. I mean, you have to take it to the point that, okay, if they were capable of doing this back then, think of what they're capable of doing today. It is unbelievable.

1:21:54 Thank you, Carol. Well, we know that they had a computer database in Vietnam in the late 60s. We also know in the 70s that they were running basically a Phoenix program in Operation Condor in Latin America via the IBM. Because remember, I talked about that on Alpha Warrior Show and it was actually called Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs because they had the mainframe.

1:22:20 And then they had the seven satellite computer systems in all of the countries that they were going to overthrow under the auspices of Operation Condor. And they put all of the dissidents' names in those computer databases because oftentimes, because it was kind of like a rolling coup, they didn't do every coup at the same time, that the dissidents would move from Brazil over to Uruguay or Paraguay.

1:22:48 computer system when they got to that other country would show that they were a dissident in Brazil and they'd pick them up and kill them there. And so they were collaborating among all of the Operation Condor countries in South America to exterminate people using IBM computers. Go ahead, Ron.

1:23:11 You were talking about how the corrupt leaders are taken, the groomed by the CIA or whatever, and then if the country goes bunk or whatever, then they put them back in there. There's a perfect example of that. It was Harmad Karzai. He was a royalty in Afghanistan, sort of, and then fought for the resistance with the CIA.

1:23:39 Once the Taliban won, they put him back in there in 2001, I want to say. Well, he wasn't royalty. The royal family was who the CIA overthrew originally. I didn't mean royalty. Forgive me. I was kind of saying that euphemistically just as like a – They had a royal family there. The CIA overthrew them. Right. But, you know –

1:24:03 Pointing to Reagan again, it was, you know, Reagan is the one who created USAID. No, no, no. He did the National Endowment for Democracy. OK, OK, OK. I thought it was I thought I thought Reagan was the one who created USAID. USAID, as it was constituted up until a year ago, was created by JFK because we had AID and he took like three or four other.

1:24:31 foreign aid programs and rolled them all up into USAID. That's right. Okay, I'm conflating. Thank you for that. But the point is, when Kennedy started USAID, it was a noble thing, but it was twisted, was it not? So, I mean, you could make the argument that Kennedy

1:25:00 certainly did not want to use foreign aid to overthrow governments. He made that perfectly clear. And that was one of the reasons why he created the Peace Corps, because his focus was peace, not war. And so the rolling up and central control.

1:25:23 of foreign aid is not a bad idea i mean it obviously has its efficiencies if it's being ran out of one office and i think he thought um putting it under the state department probably not realizing um the nefariousness of the state department being in bed with the cia was the right place to put it because they deal with foreign affairs so

1:25:49 It makes logical sense. And if you understand his focus on using developmental aid to try to put people on the right path to a democracy, I don't think there was anything nefarious about it with him creating it. It is what it has been used for since that is very nefarious. Yeah, agreed. Stellar, go ahead.

1:26:20 So the Peace Corps is part of the CIA stuff, too, the Operation Gladio things, too. Is that how they would set people up into those areas that were less questionable? Or is that still a clean thing? Because I remember when I was a kid, it's not clean. But don't misunderstand that. There are perfectly legitimate people in the Peace Corps doing perfect, legitimate things. But there has been people.

1:26:50 embedded in the Peace Corps that were not there for perfectly legitimate reasons. They were there to gather intelligence for the CIA. They will infiltrate and infect every single thing they can. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. Because I was going to say, because I remember like a friend of mine who had kids that were like in the, I want to say it would have been probably around the night. Well, it might have.

1:27:20 Yeah, it had to have been the 1990s. In Arizona, the Peace Corps was really strong trying to recruit high school students for graduation to go into it. So that's why I was wondering. I'm like, oh, wow. Yeah. And like I said, like anything, they have to have a legitimate exterior. And we've talked about the missionaries. We have not found a single faith.

1:27:47 that has not been infiltrated by the CIA in some capacity in their missionary work. I'd even go along with the Mormons on that one, too, because they always get notified beforehand to remove their kids from their missions. Like with Guyana, when that started to have a big thing years and years ago, they started telling, you know,

1:28:13 retrieving the missionaries from those areas at least six months beforehand. It seemed like they knew beforehand. And then like six months to a year later, you'd hear stuff going on in the news and stuff like that. Well, the Mormons is definitely a target because of their propensity to teach foreign languages in all of their school systems. So one of the most active statewide recruiting efforts for the CIA is Utah.

1:28:43 Because they go as parts of families on mission trips during the summer the entire time they're in school and they're learning foreign languages. And obviously, those are skill sets that the CIA looks for. Does that mean all of it's nefarious? No. It just means that that is a fertile recruiting tool because the kids come out of high school with a foreign language and in-country experience.

1:29:12 And so if they can sponsor them and recruit them in college to join covertly or overtly the CIA, they are definitely going to do it. And they have recruiters on almost every one of those major campuses out there. I know because I well, I my family's LDS. So I know that like a lot of like my ex-husband who went on a mission to Ecuador when he was in the MTC Missionary Training Center.

1:29:43 They would give them anywhere from three to six months to learn the language because he didn't speak Spanish at all and stuff. And I knew a lot of people that went to Japan and to Korea. I should have probably gone so then I could have learned the language. The other thing that I was going to mention is back, I remember back in the 80s, like when I graduated high school. In the 80s.

1:30:05 They were really pushing like those magazines and stuff. And so they were trying to get kids to go door to door. I mean, take jobs, go to different states and sell magazines, the subscriptions and stuff. And one of the families that was doing one of the magazine subscriptions, he was just a few years older than me. But by the time he was like 24 or 25.

1:30:29 His list, he made millions off of it from whoever by selling those lists. So I know that when they do those subscriptions and stuff like that, a lot of times they will sell your information. But back in the 80s and early 90s, they were doing it big time with those magazine drive people and things like that. It was really weird. Well, it's a way of profiling people because if you back then could cold knock on someone's door and get them to buy something.

1:30:55 you realize from a telemarketing perspective that they were much more susceptible. They were very, very valuable to have on a list. Yeah. These people are sick. Sorry, just had to say that. I have to say at least once in your space. Yeah, you won't get any argument from me. All right. If that's it, we're going to call it a night. And again, I'm...

1:31:25 Like 99% sure we are not going to have a space tomorrow. So I just want to put that out there. And we're going to be traveling on Friday. If I can have a space, I will. But that's going to be kind of ad hoc at best. But if there's time for me to squeeze one in tomorrow during the couple of events that we have, I will do it. But it will be last minute, just FYI. But, you know, it doesn't offend me that you watch this later.

1:31:54 obviously, but I just really want to consistently try to get this information out there because it's so relevant. Because what you guys are finding out, the relevancy to today is that the government, the entire time that they were creating the crack cocaine epidemic, they were telling everyone in the United States that the crack cocaine

1:32:24 Cocaine in general was coming from Nicaragua and it absolutely was not coming from Nicaragua. It was coming from Colombia. And of course, you know that I say this often, the same is true with Venezuela. That does not mean that there's no cocaine coming out of Venezuela. That means the source of the cocaine is still Colombia. And we have to be much more diligent in pushing back on information.

1:32:54 because there are still deep state fake intelligence people embedded in all of these organizations i don't know where they're getting their intelligence from um but they're definitely acting on that intelligence and we as informed citizens have a right to put the information out that we know and we should have very loud voices in doing it i'm giving you the background

1:33:22 In order for you to have those very loud voices. Go ahead, Stellar. So I sent Bridget a message real quick. Korea is pretty much on fire like everywhere else. Apparently the president who's in is similar. It sounds like my mom says very similar to like how Biden was and the regime and stuff. A lot of people not happy of what's going on. And did you guys ever find out anything about that pastor and his son that they imprisoned over there?

1:33:56 Because you were talking about stuff I didn't know if they had anything. I did a little bit of research and digging into it, and actually it looks very genuine. But again, I didn't get, you know, there's only so much information we can access, I guess is where I was headed. So in other words, they're doing... But I mean, it's based on the pastor. He seems genuine.

1:34:23 Okay, so that's probably one of the reasons why my mom was saying Korea is like really going crazy right now. So it sounds like they're having a lot of the same stuff that's happening in Europe, too. She didn't know much about that pastor, but she says that, you know, after their family had met with Charlie Kirk and stuff like that, everything kind of went crazy. And now just people are very upset. So I didn't know if this is their awakening, like how it's kind of been here in the U.S. for a lot of people that are not awake and aware of Operation Gladio.

1:34:53 So I just didn't know. So just another one, then I guess that we can notch in those assholes things. The international syndicate needs to go. Did you have anything? Yeah, I was just going to say real quick, you know, you know what we're seeing right now and what you guys are talking about. And, you know, I was I was as you were talking about the testimony that was given by the by the D.A. in the 80s. It's just.

1:35:19 It that just goes to show you the theater that's been going on for as long as it's been going on. And and I mean, I know people want this thing. Oh, well, why can't just Trump just arrest everybody? It's like you don't understand the the whole thing literally is like 90 percent of the of the people at the high, high levels. It's all an incestuous. It's all incestuous.

1:35:49 nepotistic and corrupt. And you would essentially have the corrupt judging the corrupt, and they're not going to come in. It's not going to come out in your favor. So, you know, the people that get pissed off at Trump, oh, he's not doing enough. You don't understand. You know, the point I wanted to make the other day is I truly believe that the release of the internet was one of the first strikes of the white hat.

1:36:19 military to get information out to the people. And it started in, what, the 90s? So, you know, I think the operation has been going on for quite a while.

1:36:33 And we are beginning to see some of the manifestations of that. But if you want a parallel, look at what happened to the Soviet Union when it collapsed in the early 90s. I mean, it's just now starting to come around, and that's been 30 years.

1:36:50 So I think that there are good guys out there who want to do the right thing, but they recognize the minefield that they're walking. It's like they're walking a minefield with magnets, and it's extraordinarily difficult. So I just would say to people, hey, relax, calm down. Anyway, you get my drift. All right. I got to go.

1:37:17 I will be on Alpha Warrior Show tonight. We are going to talk about the Freedom House and the National Endowment for Democracy. So I hope you guys can all join us. I have not done a dedicated show on the Freedom House, and you guys need to understand what it is because it still exists today. Although it's been crippled thanks to USAID being deleted, but you need to know where it came from and what it's been doing just so that you understand how this network works.

1:37:46 So I will see you tonight at 930 East Coast time on the Alpha Warrior show. Thanks for being here, everybody.

Entities here

Fuerza Democrática Nacional20 Tom Gordon16 Norwin Menendez15 Los Angeles12 Majors Drug Task Force11 Daniel Blanton11 U.S. Department of Justice10 Nicaragua10 Contras9 Robert Bick9 Costa Rica9 Floyd "Freeway" Rick Ross8 U.S. State Department8 Guatemala7 Ron Lister7 Seth Rosenfeld7 John Kerry7 Edward Kennedy6 Jerry Gazzetta6 Operation Gladio6 Sandalio Sandy Gonzalez6 Joseph Rosonello6 Jamie Ramos6 The New York Times6 Julio Zavala5 Colombia5 National Institute on Drug Abuse5 Carlos Cabezas5 Oliver North4 Lawton Chiles4 David Westray4 San Francisco4 USAID4 United States4 Jack Blum4 Newsweek4 Iran-Contra affair4 Peace Corps4 Frogman Case4 Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints3

Claims made here

Robert Stutman founded The New York Times book_quoted ▶ 22:58

“The Times featured links from White House sources who confided that the president himself was taking this crack issue very seriously. Robert Stutman, who was the chief of the New York DEA office, woul…”

Oliver North funded Contras book_quoted ▶ 28:14

“By the spring of 86, the Contras were almost out of money, while North and his agents were able to replace some of the Contras' lost CIA funding with donations from Saudi Arabia and Taiwan again. Taiw…”

John Kerry exposed Contras book_quoted ▶ 31:08

“By June of 86, Kerry's staff had compiled enough information for the senator to approach his colleagues on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and seek authorization for an official investigation. …”

Jack Blum member_of Edward Kennedy documented ▶ 33:10

“Kerry's chief investigator in D.C. was Jack Bloom. He detailed some of the charges Kerry's staff had looked into, and he told the senators that, quote, the narcotics are coming into the United States …”

Enrique Bermudez member_of Fuerza Democrática Nacional host_asserted ▶ 33:38

“Quote, it is clear that there is a network of drug trafficking through the Contras. And it goes right up to Calero, Aldolfo Calero and Enrique Bermudez. And we have people who will testify and who hav…”

José Daniel Contreras member_of Fuerza Democrática Nacional host_asserted ▶ 33:38

Joe Biden member_of Senate Foreign Relations Committee documented ▶ 33:38

Nancy Kassebaum member_of Senate Foreign Relations Committee documented ▶ 34:11

“Quote, we should understand that this thing may take us places we have rather not gone, but we should be aware of it. And I think there is no choice but to go there. Unquote. Senator Nancy Kasabam of …”

Fuerza Democrática Nacional assassinated Hugo Spadafora documented ▶ 35:39

“At the request of the Foreign Relations Committee Chairman, Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana, Perry gave the committee a list of areas that needed investigation, among them the murder of Dr. Hugo Spad…”

U.S. Department of Justice covered_up Carlos Cabezas host_asserted ▶ 37:05

“Cabeza, about the San Francisco Frogman case, the Justice Department announced that he couldn't possibly be questioned since he was going to be a federal witness in an upcoming drug trial. Cabeza said…”

Seth Rosenfeld exposed Frogman Case documented ▶ 37:35

“They won't do it. They didn't want to respond. They didn't want to provide any information. But some information trickled out anyway, and it got awfully close to exposing the Norwin Menendez-Daniello …”

Seth Rosenfeld exposed Fuerza Democrática Nacional documented ▶ 38:35

“Coming on the heels of several Associated Press reports by Robert Perry and Brian Barger about Contra cocaine trafficking in Costa Rica, Rosenfeld's story provided the first hard evidence of a Contra …”

Joseph Rosonello covered_up Seth Rosenfeld documented ▶ 39:03

“surrounded by all kinds of official denials. So later on, the newspapers that are controlled by the CIA can say they printed it, but nobody's going to see it. San Francisco U.S. attorney Joseph Rosane…”

Joseph Rosonello covered_up Fuerza Democrática Nacional documented ▶ 40:07

“Rosanello indignantly wrote that there is absolutely no evidence of CIA involvement. Rosenfeld didn't accuse the CIA, but thank you for adding that. Incredibly, he made the same claim regarding the Co…”

Joseph Rosonello covered_up Carlos Cabezas documented ▶ 40:37

“In a futile attempt to explain away their conduct. Okay, so we're going to believe all the other stuff they said, just not that part. Rosanello did not disclose that Carlos Cabreza, as a witness for h…”

U.S. State Department covered_up Julio Zavala documented ▶ 41:41

“He also forgot about the 1982 FBI teletypes that named Contra officials Fernando and Trujillo Sanchez as the drug ring suppliers. They're both, by the way, Contras, too. In a white paper subsequently …”

U.S. State Department covered_up Carlos Cabezas documented ▶ 41:41

U.S. State Department covered_up Seth Rosenfeld documented ▶ 42:10

“And Rosenfeld's story was dismissed as gobbledygook. One upping Rosanello, the State Department claimed that Capresa and Zavala had never said anything about the Contras until long after their convict…”

José Rodríguez member_of Fuerza Democrática Nacional documented ▶ 43:12

“Rodriguez, who said he was beaten, paralyzed and left for dead because he he had denounced contra involvement in drug dealing. He specifically identified Norwin Menendez's partner, Trujillo Sanchez, a…”

Norwin Menendez member_of Fuerza Democrática Nacional documented ▶ 43:45

“had another major front page story in the Examiner, exposing Norwin Menendez's cocaine trafficking network and his involvement with the Contras in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Rosenfeld reported on …”

Seth Rosenfeld exposed Norwin Menendez documented ▶ 43:45

Norwin Menendez funded Fuerza Democrática Nacional documented ▶ 44:14

“He reported that the Contra spokesperson in San Francisco had been convicted of cocaine charges. He disclosed Menendez's donations and Contra fundraisers. The Menendez's story was considerably more da…”

Jack Blum member_of Edward Kennedy documented ▶ 45:07

“Though the examiner's expose appeared just two days before the House of Representatives was scheduled to take up the highly controversial issue of $100 million of our money to the Contras, not a singl…”

Joseph Rosonello covered_up Norwin Menendez host_asserted ▶ 45:37

“He asked the Justice Department to turn over its files on Menendez and the long-closed Brogman case. He ran into a buzzsaw. He said, quote, we had a terrible, terrible time getting information about M…”

Jack Blum covered_up Norwin Menendez host_asserted ▶ 45:37

Oliver North covered_up Frogman Case documented ▶ 46:34

“and Rosanello got into a screaming match over the phone. On October 15th, 1986, the controversy over the Frogman files reached Oliver North's ears. 46 boxes of transcripts of Frogman case North wrote …”

Marilyn Stubblefield member_of Floyd "Freeway" Rick Ross documented ▶ 51:35

“One squad asked Detective John Edner to see what he could find out. Edner confirmed that Freeway Rick actually was real and his real name was Ricky Donnell Ross. While Edgar couldn't track him down, h…”

George Modlin member_of Floyd "Freeway" Rick Ross documented ▶ 52:29

“Ricky's cousin, George Modlin, stopped by and the majors gave him the same warm welcome. Modlin showed up while they were in the process of searching the house. We had most of the subjects detained in…”

Eric Modlin member_of Floyd "Freeway" Rick Ross documented ▶ 52:58

“In late August, the major one struck again, rousting two of Ross's cousins, Anthony and Eric Modlin, on suspicion of having stolen firearms. They didn't arrest them. They tuned them up, is what they r…”

Anthony Modlin member_of Floyd "Freeway" Rick Ross documented ▶ 52:58

Floyd "Freeway" Rick Ross member_of Ollie Newell documented ▶ 53:56

“The Ramos bust had been impressive in terms of cocaine and cash, but ultimately it was a dead end. Despite Torres's claim that the Colombian was one of Ross's big suppliers, no evidence linked him dir…”

United Fruit Company funded Somoza government host_asserted ▶ 1:16:32

“coffee plantations that people could make decent livings on. And basically, the government that was in bed with the Rockefellers, United Fruit, would basically trump up charges against the landowner, …”

Sandinistas overthrew Somoza government host_asserted ▶ 1:18:25

“And eventually, the Sandinistas were able to overthrow the Somoza government. Well, then what do you do with all of these elite corrupt people? Well, as it turns out, they just shuffled them off to Ho…”

John F. Kennedy founded USAID host_asserted ▶ 1:24:03

“Pointing to Reagan again, it was, you know, Reagan is the one who created USAID. No, no, no. He did the National Endowment for Democracy. OK, OK, OK. I thought it was I thought I thought Reagan was th…”

Ronald Reagan founded National Endowment for Democracy host_asserted ▶ 1:24:03

John F. Kennedy founded Peace Corps host_asserted ▶ 1:25:00

“certainly did not want to use foreign aid to overthrow governments. He made that perfectly clear. And that was one of the reasons why he created the Peace Corps, because his focus was peace, not war. …”