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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