Foreign Desk | July 17, 1998, Friday

C.I.A. Says It Used Nicaraguan Rebels Accused of Drug Tie

By JAMES RISEN (NYT) 903 words Late Edition - Final , Section A , Page 2 , Column 3 ABSTRACT

- Classified study by Central Intelligence Agency says that CIA continued to work with about two dozen Nicaraguan rebels and their supporters during 1980's despite allegations that they were trafficking in drugs; new study finds that agency's decision to keep those paid agents, or to continue dealing with them in some less formal relationship, was made by top officials at headquarters in Langley, Va, in midst of war waged by CIAbacked contras against Nicaragua's leftist Sandinista Govt (M) The Central Intelligence Agency continued to work with about two dozen Nicaraguan rebels and their supporters during the 1980's despite allegations that they were trafficking in drugs, according to a classified study by the C.I.A. The new study has found that the agency's decision to keep those paid agents, or to continue dealing with them in some less formal relationship, was made by top officials at headquarters in Langley, Va., in the midst of the war waged by the C.I.A.-backed contras against Nicaragua's leftist Sandinista Government.

Risen, James. "CIA Said to Ignore Charges of Contra Drug Dealing in '80s." New York Times, 10 Oct. 1998. [http://www.nytimes.com] The second volume of the CIA Inspector General's report says that "the agency 'did not inform Congress of all allegations or information it received indicating that contra-related organizations or individuals were involved in drug trafficking.'" Pincus, Walter. "CIA Ignored Tips Alleging Contra Drug Links, Report Says." Washington Post, 3 Nov, 1998, A4. [http://www.washingtonpost.com] A 450-page declassified version of a report by the CIA's inspector general [Frederick Hitz] released in October 1998 "discloses ... that the agency did little or nothing to respond to hundreds of drug allegations about contra officials, their contractors and individual supporters.... "[The] report disclosed ... that in 1982, after the CIA's covert support of the contras began, then-Reagan Attorney General William French Smith and CIA Director William J. Casey agreed to drop a previous requirement that agency personnel report information about alleged criminal activities when undertaken by persons 'acting for' the CIA....

"[T]he report ... does not lend any new support to charges of an alliance among the CIA, contra fund-raisers and dealers who introduced crack cocaine in the 1980s in south-central Los Angeles.... "Hitz's report ... consists of more than 1,000 items containing unsourced allegations about hundreds of individuals and companies, and none reaches a conclusion. Hitz said his aim in the report was 'to try to find out what was on the written record . . . and not develop any cases to bring to closure. . . . This is grist for more work, if anyone wants to do it.'" Hitz, Frederick P. "Obscuring Propriety: The CIA and Drugs." International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 12, no. 4 (Winter 1999): 448-462. The former CIA statutory Inspector General examines "[s]ome of the reasons for the inconsistency in CIA's responses to drug trafficking allegations or information concerning Contra-related individuals in the 1980s."