Scott, Peter Dale and Marshall, Jonathan. Cocaine Politics: Drugs, Armies, and the CIA in Central America. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991. 279 pages.

Periodically during the contra war in Nicaragua, stories would surface about the contra-drug connection. In some cases, planes flying south with arms would return with marijuana or cocaine. Rumors suggested that the CIA might even be using drug money to promote a war that Congress at one point refused to fund; at best the CIA seemed blissfully ignorant and forgiving when a number of their contra contract agents were reported to be involved with the drug trade. By the time of the Iran-contra hearings in 1987, it was clear that a number of the principals in Oliver North's network had been aware of contra drug smuggling for some time.

DEA agents and prosecutors who went after certain dealers would discover that they had a "get out of jail free card" because of their CIA connections, and in 1985 two journalists who filed a contra-drug story for Associated Press were heavily edited. By 1989, three years after it began its investigation, the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Operations, headed by John Kerry (D-MA), released a 144-page report that confirmed most of the suspicions. "Cocaine Politics" draws on this report and a wealth of additional research and evidence to present the most complete picture that has yet been published.
ISBN 0-520-07312-6

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