Agency officials have scant fear of being slapped on the wrist over their prevarications à la Helms. Joseph Fernández, CIA station chief in Costa Rica during the secret war against Nicaragua, lied about his role in channeling money and weapons to the Contras in violation of US law. So did Deputy CIA Director Clair George. Neither did time. “We’ve created a class of intelligence officers who can’t be prosecuted,” concluded Iran/Contra prosecutor Lawrence Walsh.
Organizations such as the CIA require immersion in criminal milieus, virtually unlimited supplies of “black” or laundered money and a long-term cadre of entirely ruthless executives (some of them not averse to making personal fortunes from their covert activities). The drug trade is an integral part of such a world. The zones of primary production of opium and coca have fallen in contested zones of the Cold War: Southeast Asia, Central Asia and the Andean countries. The drug distribution networks again passed through such contested territories as Afghanistan, Vietnam and Central America. The drug traders – from rural warlords in Laos to the Thai police and Honduran generals – were similarly of enormous interest to any intelligence agency. The drug money involved is both profuse and off the books.
The drug milieu is also, in its various stages of production and transmission, inevitably associated with organized violence, from enforcers to paramilitaries to guerrilla supervisors to military detachments to generals commanding their slice of the trade. All of these areas are once again central to the concerns of an organization such as the CIA. And the drug traders (unless they operate as an arm of government, as in Mexico) are often in opposition to the ruling power, a situation that is of paramount interest to a body such as the CIA.
From the perspective of the drug lords, an alliance with or employment by the CIA is equally fruitful. They can use CIA services to suppress their rivals and protect their turf. CIA proprietaries, such as Air America, can be used to provide access to international markets. And, despite Deutch’s protestations to the contrary, the CIA has repeatedly suppressed criminal investigations of its operatives by the US Customs Service, the Drug Enforcement Agency and the FBI.
Given these areas of mutual interest it is not surprising that since its inception the Central Intelligence Agency has been in permanent collusion with narco-traffickers, assisting their safe passage, protecting their activities, rewarding drug lords, hiring them for covert missions and using money derived from these operations for other activities. The fact that these drugs end up in American veins has never deterred the Agency and, given the hue of the skin often covering those veins, has perhaps even been seen as a positive outcome.
Sources
The indictment of Gen. Ramón Guillén Davila, the CIA’s man and anti-drug czar in Venezuela, was ably covered by Frank Davies at the Miami Herald. In digging through hundreds of books we did not come across a satisfactory history of the CIA. John Ranelagh’s history, The Agency, is a bland, though detailed overview. John Prados’s book, The President’s Secret Wars, was also useful, though it steps lightly over the Agency’s biggest war, the debacle in Afghanistan. William Blum’s Killing Hope is an exquisitely documented and passionate assessment of the Agency’s incessant and often violent interventions in the politics of other nations. Jonathan Kwitny’s Endless Enemies is also a valuable account. Of the books written by former CIA officers four stand out: Ralph McGehee’s Deadly Deceits, Victor Marchetti and John Mark’s The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence, Frank Snepp’s Decent Interval and John Stockwell’s In Search of Enemies.
The CIA has recently announced plans once again to step up its activities in Africa. Stockwell’s book presents a compelling case for why the Agency should be banned from the continent. Tim Weiner, a reporter at a newspaper that has too often tried to obscure the Agency’s blood trails, provides the best account of how the CIA funds its operations in his book Blank Check. David Wise is one of the best writers about the CIA. His 1973 book, The Politics of Lying, remains a reliable road map to the mendacity of the Agency and its opposite numbers at the Pentagon. Challenging the Secret Government, Kathryn Olmsted’s appraisal of Congress’s investigations of the CIA in the 1970s, is excellent. Olmsted concludes that far from opening the Agency up to detailed scrutiny and meaningful oversight, the Pike and Church hearings backfired, permitting the CIA to become even more insulated from outside accountability. Even so, the hearing records and Final Report from the Church committee provided a trove of information on the Agency’s covert actions, assassination plans and ongoing affiliation with criminal elements. The Inspector General’s report on the CIA’s ceaseless attempts to murder Fidel Castro is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand how the Agency operates.
Adams, Samuel. “Vietnam coverup: Playing War with Numbers.” Harper’s, May 1979.
Agee, Philip. Inside the Company: CIA Diary. Stonehill, 1975.
Alsop, Stuart, and Thomas Braden. Sub Rosa: The OSS and American Espionage. Reynal and Hitchcock, 1946.
Anderson, Jack. Confessions of a Muckraker. Random House, 1979.
Aronson, James. The Press and the Cold War. Monthly Review Press, 1990.
Aspin, Les. “Misreading Intelligence.” Foreign Policy, 43, 1981.
Bamford, James. The Puzzle Palace. Houghton Miflin, 1984.
Bernstein, Carl. “The CIA and the Media.” Rolling Stone, Oct. 20, 1977.
Bissell, Richard. “Reflections on the Bay of Pigs: Operation ZAPATA.” Strategic Review 8, Fall 1984.
Blum, William. Killing Hope. Common Courage Press, 1995.
Braden, Tom. “What’s Wrong with the CIA?” Saturday Review, April 5, 1975.
Branch, Taylor. “The Trial of the CIA.” New York Times Magazine, Sept. 12, 1976.
Church, Frank. “Do We Still Plot Murders? Who Will Believe We Don’t?” Los Angeles Times, June 14, 1983.
Cline, Ray. The CIA Under Reagan, Bush and Casey. Acropolis, 1981.
Codevilla, Angelo. “The CIA: What Have Three Decades Wrought” Strategic Review, Winter 1980.
Colby, William, and Peter Forbath. Honorable Men: My Life in the CIA. Simon and Schuster, 1978.
Corson, William. Armies of Ignorance: The Rise of the American Intelligence Establishment. Dial Press, 1977.
Davies, Frank. “Drug Trial May Put CIA Actions in Spotlight.” Miami Herald, Sept. 13, 1997.
——. “Agent Tells of CIA Defeat in Drug War.” Miami HeraId, Sept. 18, 1997.
——. “Deposed Venezuelan Drug Czar Denies He’s a Dealer.” Miami Herald, Nov. 25, 1996.
——. “CIA Operative Charged in Drug Smuggling Case.” Miami Herald, Jan. 14, 1997.
Epstein, Edward Jay. “Disinformation: Or Why the CIA Cannot Verify an Arms Control Agreement.” Commentary 74, July 1982.
Fallaci, Oriana. “Otis Pike and the CIA.” New Republic, April 3, 1976.
Fisher, Roger. “The Fatal Raw in Our Spy System.” Boston Globe, Feb. 1, 1976.
Gelb, Leslie. “The CIA and the Press.” New Republic, March 22, 1975.
Greene, John R. The Limits of Power: The Nixon and Ford Administrations. Indiana University Press, 1992.
Harbury, Jennifer. Searching for Everado: A Story of Love, War and the CIA in Guatemala. Warner Books, 1997.
Halperin, Morton. “Led Astray by the CIA.” New Republic, June 28. 1975.
——. “The CIA’s Distemper.” New Republic, Feb. 9, 1980.
Halperin, Morton, Jerry Berman, Robert Borosage and Christine Marnick. The Lawless State: The Crimes of the US Intelligence Agencies. Penguin, 1981.
Hersh, Seymour. “Underground for the CIA in NY: An Ex-Agent Tells of Spying on Students.” New York Times, Dec. 29, 1974.
——. “Hunt Tells of Early Work for CIA Unit.” New York Times, Dec. 31, 1974.
——. “Target Qaddafi.” New York Times Magazine, Feb. 22, 1987.
Hinckle, Warren. “CIA Reunion.” San Francisco Examiner, Jan. 27, 1986.
Hougan, Jim. Spooks: The Haunting of America: The Private Use of Secret Agents. Morrow
, 1978.
——. Secret Agenda: Watergate, Deep Throat and the CIA. Random House, 1984.
——. “A Surfeit of Spies.” Harper’s, Dec. 1974.
Ignatius, David. “Dan Schorr: The Secret Sharer.” Washington Monthly, April 1976.
Immerman, Richard. The CIA in Guatemala: The Foreign Policy of Intervention. Univ. of Texas Press, 1982.
Jeffries-Jones, Rhodri. American Espionage: From Secret Service to CIA. Free Press, 1972.
Johnson, Loch. America’s Secret Power: The CIA in a Democratic Society. Oxford Univ. Press, 1989.
Joselyn, Eric. “CIA Off Campus: Closing the Company Store.” Nation, March 26, 1988.
Kessler, Ronald. Inside the CIA. Simon and Schuster, 1992.
Kirkpatrick, Lyman. The Real CIA. Macmillan, 1968.
Kwitny, Jonathan. Endless Enemies: The Making of an Unfriendly World. Congdon and Weed, 1984.
Le Moyne, James. “Testifying to Torture.” New York Times Magazine, June 5, 1988.
Loory, Stuart. “The CIA’s ‘Man’ in the White House.” Columbia Journalism Review, Sept./Oct., 1975.
——. “The CIA’s Use of the Press: A ‘Mighty Wurlitzer’ ” Columbia Journalism Review, Sept./Oct. 1974.
McGehee, Ralph. Deadly Deceits: My 25 Years in the CIA. Sheridan Square, 1983.
——. “The CIA and the White Paper on El Salvador.” Nation, April 11, 1981.
Marchetti, Victor, and John Marks. The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence. Knopf, 1974.
Marks, John. “How to Spot a Spook.” Washington Monthly, Nov. 1974.
——. “The CIA’s Corporate Shell Game.” Washington Post, July 11, 1976.
Melanson, Philip. “The CIA’s Secret Ties to Local Police.” Nation, March 26, 1983.
Miami Herald, editorial. “CIA Knifes Nuccio.” Miami Herald, Dec. 16, 1996.
Morris, Roger. “William Casey’s Secret Past.” Atlanta Constitution, August 31, 1987.
Olmsted, Kathryn S. Challenging the Secret Government: The Post Watergate Investigations of the CIA and FBI. Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1996.
Persico, Joseph. Casey: From the OSS to the CIA. Viking Press, 1990
Peterzell, Jay. “Can Congress Really Check the CIA?” Washington Post, April 21, 1983.
Phillips, David Atlee. The Night Watch. Atheneum, 1977.
Pincus, Walter. “Covering Intelligence.” New Republic, Feb. 1, 1975.
Powers, Thomas. The Man Who Kept the Secrets: Richard Helms and the CIA. Knopf, 1979.
Prados, John. The President’s Secret Wars: CIA and Pentagon Covert Operations. Morrow, 1986.
Ransom, Harry Howe. The Intelligence Establishment. Harvard Univ. Press, 1970.
Roosevelt, Kermit. Countercoup: The Struggle for Control of Iran. McGraw-Hill, 1981.
Schlesinger, Stephen, and Stephen Kinzer. Bitter Fruit: The Untold Story of the American Coup in Guatemala. Doubleday, 1982.
Semas, Philip. “How the CIA Kept an Eye on Campus Dissent.” Chronicle of Higher Education, Dec. 5, 1977.
Stockwell, John. In Search of Enemies: A CIA Story. Norton, 1978.
Turner, Stansfield. Secrecy and Democracy: The CIA in Transition. Houghton Miflin, 1985.
US Central Intelligence Agency, Office of Inspector General. Report on Plots to Assassinate Fidel Castro. CIA-IG, May 23, 1967.
US Congress. Senate. Select Committee (Church Committee) to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities. Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders: An Interim Report. Government Printing Office, 1975.
——. Select Committee (Church Committee) to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities. Ninety-fourth Congress. Final Report. Government Printing Office, 1976.
US, Executive Office of the President, Commission on CIA Activities. The Rockefeller Report to the President on CIA Activities. Government Printing Office, 1975.
Valentine, Douglas. The Phoenix Program. Morrow, 1990.
Weissmann, Stephen. “CIA Covert Action in Zaire and Angola: Patterns and Consequences.” Political Science Quarterly, Summer 1979.
Wills, Gary. “The CIA from Beginning to End.” New York Times Book Review, Jan. 22, 1976.
Wise, David. The American Police State. Random House, 1976.
——. The Politics of Lying. Random House, 1973.
——. “Is Anybody Watching the CIA?” Inquiry, Nov. 1978.
Woodward, Bob. Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA, 1981–1987. Simon and Schuster, 1987.
5
Lucky’s Break
On July 14, 1943, five days after the Allied invasion of Sicily, a plane flew at low altitude over the villages in the mountains outside Palermo trailing a long banner made of yellow cloth. In the center of this pennant was a large black L. Above the town of Villalba the plane dropped a black nylon bag near the estate of Don Calogero Vizzini. Known as Don Calo, Vizzini was the most powerful Mafia baron in western Sicily. Inside the bag was a gold foulard handkerchief, also sporting the letter L. The handkerchief was a prearranged message for Don Calo indicating that it was time for him to meet with representatives of the Allied forces. The don immediately left Villalba with several of his underlings and made his way to a rendezvous with Allied tank commanders from General George Patton’s Seventh Army. After further parleys, the Mafioso helped the Allied forces negotiate the difficult crossing of the San Vito mountains, a decisive maneuver that split the Axis forces. Don Calo received his reward for these services when the Allied command later permitted him and his Mafia colleagues to oversee the government of Sicily during the occupation.
The L on the pennant and handkerchief stood for one of Don Calo’s old friends, Charles “Lucky” Luciano, who was at that very moment sitting in Great Meadows Prison outside Albany, New York. The story of how America’s most notorious gangster after Al Capone came to a mutually profitable partnership with two of the CIA’s progenitors, the Office of Strategic Services and the Office of Naval Intelligence, demonstrates with agreeable clarity the point made at the end of the preceding chapter, namely the existence of a perennial alliance between enterprises like the Central Intelligence Agency and the Mafia. In this case, the consequence of the relationship was an enormous increase in the global heroin trade.
In 1942 the so-called “secret intelligence office” of the OSS in Washington, D.C. was headed by Earl Brennan, a former State Department official and New Hampshire Republican who had spent his childhood in Italy. Brennan’s task was to prepare for the invasion of Sicily and Italy. He had opened a channel to the Vatican, the so-called Vessel Operation. His Vatican contact, Monsignor Giovanni Battista Montini, an influential aide to Pope Pius XII, suggested that Brennan recruit the services of a range of Italian exiles, including Masons, business leaders and members of the Mafia. Twenty-one years later, in 1963, Giovanni Montini became Pope Paul VI.
Following Montini’s advice, Brennan journeyed to Canada in 1942 to meet with exiled leaders of the Italian and Sicilian Mafias who had fled Benito Mussolini’s vigorous campaign against them. Il Duce’s attack on the Mafia began in 1924, after he had been publicly insulted by Don Ciccio Cuccia during a trip to Palermo. According to the detailed account by historian of the Mafia Michele Pantaleone, after the Cuccia affair Mussolini “started the real drive against the Mafia and resorted to methods that would have made the Holy Inquisition turn pale.” Mafia leaders were rounded up, tortured and placed in large cages for public trials.
The man Mussolini placed in charge of eradicating the Mafia was Cesare Mori, whose favorite method of interrogation was the casseta. The suspect was tied to a wooden crate, whipped with a leather lash soaked in salt water, shocked with a cattle prod, his genitals squeezed in a vice, and the soles of his feet burned with a cigarette. Hundreds of Mafia leaders, or “reprobates” as Mori called them, were tracked down, tortured and then shot in the public square at Palermo. Mori, however, soon let his war on the Società Onorata go to his head. He began building triumphal arches to him
self bearing the phrase Ave Caesar, and initiated trials of Mussolini’s associates in Sicily. Mori was soon relieved of command and disposed of in the customary manner. But by 1942, as a result of Mori’s purges, the Sicilian Mafia existed only in small mountain villages such as Villalba. Its other leaders were either dead or had fled to the sanctuary of the United States. Mussolini’s triumph over the dons won him accolades from the New York Times, which exulted that “the Mafia is dead, a new Sicily is born.”
Thus when Earl Brennan met with the dons in Montreal they were delighted to offer cooperation with the enemies of their persecutor, Mussolini, and smiled in agreement when the OSS man invited them to “take a shot at their relatives.” The Mafia chieftains helped Brennan establish contacts with Sicilian Mafiosi and also with recent Italian immigrants to the United States. To further this work Brennan assembled a team of three intelligence officers, David Bruce, Max Corvo and Victor Anfuso. Bruce, the brother-in-law of Paul Mellon and one of arch-spy Allen Dulles’s most hated rivals, went on to become commander of the OSS’s European Operations, and later still US ambassador to London and also to Paris, and thereafter lead negotiator at the Vietnam peace talks in the early 1970s. Corvo was a Sicilian-born US Army private who recruited dozens of recent Italian immigrants to New York and Connecticut, infiltrating them back into Sicily in the weeks prior to the invasion. Anfuso was a Sicilian-born New York lawyer, part of the Democratic Party machine which had close ties to Frank Costello and other mobsters in the Luciano network. After helping to recruit Sicilian immigrants to the Allied cause, Anfuso resurfaced in Italy five years later, this time working as a CIA agent in the fixing of the 1948 elections, where Agency money and Mafia thugs helped turn back what had looked like certain victory for the Italian Communists.
Not everyone at the OSS was convinced of the usefulness of this alliance with the Mafia. Particularly hostile was Major George Hunter White, head of OSS counter-intelligence operations in the US. White was familiar with many of the Mafia gangs from his earlier work as an agent in the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (BNDD). He had been looking for spies and potential turncoats in the Manhattan Project, America’s program to produce an atomic bomb. He was also looking for subversives inside OSS, which had two derisive acronyms hanging around its neck, “Oh So Social” and “Oh So Socialist,” referring both to its Georgetown timbre and to such of its leftist recruits as Norman O. Brown and Herbert Marcuse.
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