From: Daniel Hopsicker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Some notes on the man who has proven that going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than going to a carwash makes you a car. A law enforcement official of my acquaintance has told me that a secret Congressional hearing in 1988 heard enough evidence about North's drug smuggling to put him in jail for the rest of his life. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Another former DEA agent, Michael Levine, said he has pored over North's diaries and found "hundreds" of references to drugs that "have never been investigated." For example, Levine said, on July 9, 1984, North wrote: "RDEA, Miami. Pilot went, talked to [Federico] Vaughn, wanted aircraft to go to Bolivia to pick up paste, want aircraft to pick up 1500 kilos." "My god," said Levine, author of The Big White Lie, "when I was serving as a DEA agent, you gave me a page from someone in the Pentagon with notes like that, I would've been on his back investigating everything he did from the minute his eyes opened!" In November and December 1987, the cleared Committee staff read thousands of pages of Iran/Contra Committee material including the "North notebooks," which consisted of 2,848 pages of spiral-bound notes taken by North on a daily basis from September, 1984 through November, 1986 covering his activities, telephone calls and meetings while he was at the National Security Council. In reviewing these notebooks, the Committee staff found a number of references to narcotics, terrorism and related matters which appeared relevant and material to the Subcommittee's inquiry. However, in many of these cases, material in the Notebooks adjacent to the narcotics references has been deleted from the material provided to the Committee. Upon reviewing the matter with staff of the Iran/Contra Committees, the Subcommittee learned that neither the Iran/Contra Committees nor the White House had had access to uncensored North Notebooks. Instead, North or his attorney had deleted portions of the Notebooks which they considered to be outside of he jurisdiction of the of the Iran-Contra Committees. In all, 1,269 of the pages of the Notebooks were censored to some extent by North or his attorneys prior to being delivered to the Iran/Contra Committees, with 155 pages blacked out completely. This occurred because North took the Notebooks from the White House in November 1986 before his documents were impounded, and turned them over to his lawyer, Brendon Sullivan. The Notebooks were then subpoenaed by the Iran/Contra Committees. North asserted his Fifth Amendment Constitutional right, and was then given limited immunity by the Committees to compel his testimony. After North was given immunity, his attorneys still objected to furnishing the full Notebooks, contending that they were not relevant to the Committee's investigation and North need only furnish portions which he and his attorneys determined were relevant. Because of the Iran/Contra Committee's very tight deadlines and the need to have the Notebooks for at least a brief period prior to beginning the questioning of North, the Committee agreed to allow North's lawyers to make deletions from the Notebooks. North or his attorneys blacked out hundreds of Notebook pages and numerous entries. Some f the censored entries were read by Committee lawyers, but most were not. Most important, the lawyers who read the diaries at that time did not know names, dates and places which would later prove to be important, and therefore were not in a position to determine the relevance of the material deleted. The Iran/Contra Committee's staff had only a few days to review the material before North was questioned. The thousands of pages were furnished in often illegible copies and would have taken weeks of analysis to make sense of under the best of conditions. Under a fundamental agreement over classification which the Iran/Contra Committees made with White House, the Notebooks were classified at codeword level and could only be released after a review by a White House declassification team. Following the review of the diary entries by cleared staff, Senator Kerry read several hundred pages of the North Notebooks and wrote the White House on January 25, 1988 requesting the immediate declassification of 543 pages containing references to drugs and drug trafficking, North's probe of the investigation into North's activities initiated by the Foreign Relations Committee in 1986, and related matters. A White House declassification team declassified some of the requested materials. Some of the materials were deemed "not relevant to the investigation," and others were not declassified because the White House team could not determine what they meant without reading portions not in their possession since they had been previously censored by North and his attorneys. The White House did not declassify 104 of the pages requested by the Committee staff, contending that all further declassifications would have to await the processing of materials necessary for Independent Counsel Walsh in connection with the prosecution of Admiral John Poindexter, Albert Hakim and Richard Secord for alleged criminal activity in connection with their roles in the Iran/Contra affair. When the Committee staff discussed the problem posed by the high classifications given the materials within the North notebooks, White House Counsel A.B. Culvahouse said the White House considered the Notebooks the property of the federal government and subject to classification at the highest levels. The Subcommittee chairman, Senator Kerry, wrote the White House to state that if the Notebooks were as sensitive as the White use contended, they should not be allowed to remain in the possession of either North, whose clearances had been terminated and who remained under indictment, or in the hands of his attorneys, who cannot be cleared to the codeword level. While reiterating that it considered the materials to be highly classified, the White House took no steps to secure the materials it contended remained federal property. COMMITTEE ACTION On April 26, 1988, the Committee voted 17-1 to approve a subpoena for the full North Notebooks. The subpoena was served on Lt. Colonel North. On May 10, 1988, North's attorney, Brendon V. Sullivan, Jr., appeared before a Committee hearing called for the purpose of receiving the subpoenaed materials. Sullivan provided no materials and asserted North's Fifth Amendment privilege. He further asked the Committee to rescind the subpoena on the grounds that its issuance would jeopardize North's right to a fair trial, and that the material requested was beyond the jurisdiction of the Foreign Relations Committee. After receiving legal advice from the Office of the Senate Legal Counsel, the Committee voted 10-8 to enforce the subpoena on September 14, 1988, but was unable to secure the materials prior to the end of the 100th Congress. CASE STUDY: THE DRUG-RELATED ENTRIES Because of the extensive deletions in the Notebooks made first by North and his attorneys and secondly by the White House, it is difficult to gauge from the non-classified materials of the Notebooks the full extent to which the Notebooks relate to terrorism or narcotics trafficking, the areas of the Subcommittee's direct jurisdiction. However, even in their highly incomplete state, the Notebooks do contain numerous references to drugs, terrorism, and to the attempts of the Committee itself to investigate what North was doing in connection with his secret support of the Contras. Among the entries in the North Notebooks which discernably concern narcotics or terrorism are: May 12, 1984. ... contract indicates that Gustavo is involved w/drugs (Q0266) June 26, 1984. DEA - (followed by two blocks of text deleted by North) (Q0349) June 27, 1984. Drug Case - DEA program on controlling cocaine - Ether cutoff - Colombians readjusting - possible negotiations to move refining effort to Nicaragua - Pablo Escobar - Colombian drug czar - Informant (Pilot) is indicted criminal - Carlos Ledher - Freddy Vaughn (Q0354) July 9, 1984. Call from Clarridge - Call Michael re Narco Issue - RIG at 1000 Tommorrow (Q0384) - DEA Miami - Pilot went talked to Vaughn - wanted A/C to go to Bolivia to p/u paste - want A/C to p/u 1500 kilos - Bud to meet w/Group (Q385) July 12, 1984. Gen Gorman - *Include Drug Case (Q0400) Call from Johnstone - (White House deletion) leak on Drug (0402) July 17, 1984. Call to Frank M - Bud Mullins Re - leak on DEA piece - Carlton Turner (Q0418) Call from Johnstone - McManus, LA Times-says/NSC source claims W.H. has pictures of Borge loading cocaine in Nic. (Q0416) July 20, 1984. Call from Clarridge - Alfredo Cesar Re Drugs-Borge/Owen > leave Hull alone (Deletions)/Los Brasiles Air Field- Owen off Hull (Q0426) July 27, 1984. Clarridge: - (Block of White House deleted text follows) - Arturo Cruz, Jr. - Get Alfredo Cesar on Drugs (Q0450) July 31, 1984. - Finance: Libya - Cuba/Bloc Countries - Drugs ... Pablo Escobar/Frederic Vaughn (Q0460) July 31, 1984. Staff queries re (White House deletion) role in DEA operations in Nicaragua (Q0461) Dec. 21, 1984. Call from Clarridge: Ferch (White House deletion) - Tambs-Costa Rica - Felix Rodriguez close to (White House deletion) - not assoc. W/Villoldo - Bay of Pigs - No drugs (Q0922) Jan. 14, 1985. Rob Owen - John Hull - no drug connection - Believes (Q0977) July 12, 1985. $14 million to finance came from drugs (Q1039) > Aug. 10, 1985. Mtg. w/A.C. - name of DEA person in New Orleans re Bust on Mario/DC-6 (Q1140) Feb. 27, 1986. Mtg. w/Lew Tamb- DEA Auction A/C seized as drug runners. - $250-260K fee (Q2027) Numerous other entries contain references to individuals or events which Subcommittee staff has determined to have relevance to narcotics,terrorism, or international operations, but whose ambiguities cannot be resolved without the production of the deleted materials by North and his attorneys. Accordingly, the Subcommittee continues to believe that the production of the deleted material could shed important light on a number of important issues in connection with foreign policy, law enforcement and narcotics and terrorism. The Chairman of the Subcommittee will urge that further steps be taken to secure the original North notebooks in an uncensored form. Oliver North's own notebooks are chock full of references to drug related contra operations that clearly support Castillo's claims. On July 9, 1984, when the contras were desperate for money, North wrote that he went and talked to (contra leader Federico) Vaughn, (who) wanted aircraft to go to Bolivia to pick up paste, wanted aircraft to pick up 1,.500 kilos. BTW, the man photographed loading cocaine in Nicaragua is Contra leader Federico Vaughn, mentioned in the excerpt about Cele Castillo. North's notebook notation: (Q0384) -- DEA Miami [DEA/Seal sting] -- Pilot [Seal?] went talked to Vaughn [Sandinista official] -- wanted A/C to go to Bolivia to p/u paste -- want A/C to p/u 1500 kilos -- Bud to meet w/Group (QO385). This particular entry has made urban legend status. Vaughn vanished off the map after North's leak. It was reported he never turned up again in the Sandinista rank & file. Then, not too long after, Seal was assassinated. - Daniel Hopsicker http://www.madcowprod.com The DrugMoney Times ALL THE NEWS THAT'S RIPPED FROM PRINT! "And it came to pass that idiots roamed the earth, and morons ruled the masses." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ To unsubscribe from this mailing list, or to change your subscription to digest, go to the ONElist web site, at http://www.onelist.com and select the User Center link from the menu bar on the left.
