by
Darryl Phillips
This is a story of drug running. It's not about your typical low-life cocaine smuggler profiting by hooking American kids on drugs. This is a story of top government officials profiting by hooking America's kids on drugs.
It is a story of flights under the radar, flights immune from inspection by Customs, flights the Drug Enforcement Agency could not touch. It is a story of gun running and international intrigue.
It is a story that is true.
Nestled in the Ouachita mountains of western Arkansas is the peaceful little town of Mena. Population 5500. It's a normal sort of town, county seat of an area that's mostly rugged hills and forestland. The one unusual thing about Mena is the airport. For decades, there has been a positive relationship between the town and the airport. As a result, many aviation businesses thrive. Taxiway access is permitted to nearby properties and the atmosphere is pro-airplanes. Whether you need a fresh paint job for your 727 or a posh interior for your Baron or a custom engine for championship aerobatic competition, Mena is the place. Besides, the field lies far below radar horizon, with no tower, FSS, or any of the other federal impediments to aviation.
During the early 1980s, Mena became a base of supply for the Nicaraguan Contras. "Pro democracy freedom fighters" was what President Reagan called them. Officially we were not involved in that war, but it was hardly a secret that the United States government was active in supplying the Contras with guns, ammunition, air support, and much more. Given it's location far from the news media, Mena was a natural departure point for flights to the south.
C-123s and C-130s were used to fly the supplies and equipment from Mena to Central America. Mena was the point of departure for Eugene Hassenfus and his two companions on that fateful day when their C-123, loaded with guns, was shot down over Nicaragua. He survived, the others did not.
The biggest problem the government had was finding money to buy all those munitions. Remember the Iran-Contra scandal? Our high officials were selling our missiles to Iran (the same Iran that had recently held our embassy hostage for 444 days), and using the proceeds to buy supplies for the Contras. But the Iran money wasn't enough, tens or hundreds of millions more were needed. At the same time, our planes were flying to Central America full of cargo, and returning empty. How do you raise large amounts of untraceable cash when you have frequent flights coming into the country from the south? It didn't take long for CIA Chief Bill Casey and National Security Advisor Oliver North to figure it out.
So the two-way shipments began. The CIA flew the guns south, and returned with cocaine. Sale of the illicit drugs provided the funds to purchase more guns, and the cycle continued. It is a slick deal, if the damage caused by cocaine addiction isn't considered. Just as selling weapons to the enemy is a good deal if you ignore the weapons.
I was living about 50 miles west of Mena during those years. When you live in the backwoods and keep your plane at home, you tend to fly everywhere. At that time I was working on equipment design with an engineer in Mena, so I flew there a lot. More than once I parked in the shade of a C-130 wing.
Mena unicom was often in Spanish. When challenged, the pilots would revert to perfect American. These were not foreigners who could speak our language, these were American pilots.
A "secret" training airfield was carved out of the forest a few miles north of Mena. It's still there. Reportedly it was used for foreign troop training. If so, that is another activity the CIA conducted in direct violation of U.S. law.
Occasionally at Mena we would see a Citation or Lear or G-II. Of course it is impossible for an outside observer to separate the legitimate flights from the bad guys, but some of these flights seemed to take extra pains to hug the terrain and avoid any use of the radio. One afternoon I had a very close encounter with a G-II (in Air Force colors) skimming the hills about 15 miles south of Mena. Could it be that I almost met Ollie North that day?
By 1983, IRS agent William Duncan had begun an extensive investigation of the money laundering associated with the sale of cocaine. He regularly forwarded reports to the Reagan Justice Dept. But nothing was done. No action then, none to this day. Bill Duncan quit the IRS.
It was no secret what was going on. Local TV ran a series entitled "The Mena Connection" about the drug flights, money laundering, and illicit aircraft modifications. Area newspapers ran stories and pictures. The Polk county sheriff threatened to quit, saying he was sick and tired of busting kids for an ounce of marijuana while he couldn't touch the tons of cocaine flowing through his county.
In 1988, U.S. Representative Bill Alexander formally asked the GAO to investigate the Mena/CIA drug connection. But the National Security Council (in the person of Oliver North) told the GAO that this was a matter of national security and ordered them to cease the investigation.
When nothing could be done on a national level, local investigators appealed to the State of Arkansas. In 1991 a federal grant was received by the Arkansas State Police for an investigation. There is a lot of finger pointing and it's hard to know who did what, but according to ASP Chief Tommy Goodwin they didn't think there was anything to investigate so they sent the money back to the federal government. Did you ever hear of a city or county or state returning federal money because they couldn't find anything to spend it on?
Was Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton aware of all this? I don't know. Perhaps as the Whitewater investigation continues we may learn some details. Arkansas, politically speaking, is a rather tiny place. The cast of characters is small, there are relatively few TV stations or major newspapers. Bill Clinton seemed to know other things going on in his state. I imagine he read the papers. Yet in his 1992 presidential election campaign against former CIA chief George Bush, not a word was mentioned. Fascinating.
America is the loser in all this. Cocaine has done a lot of damage to our society. The Contras didn't win anyway, in spite of U.S. support. And our freedom as aviators has been badly hurt. We are subject to gestapo treatment by Customs and DEA agents who are frustrated that they aren't allowed to touch the CIA planes. Society doesn't distinguish between a C-152 in Idaho and a DC-3 in south Florida, to the non-flyer they are both suspect drug planes.
Is the CIA still running cocaine? I do not know. It's not happening at Mena, things are very quiet around that airport. Several businesses are gone. Those companies had been good for aviation until they got caught up in the huge profits to be made working for the CIA. Once corrupted, they could never go back to fixing airplanes for a living.
And what about the central figure in all this, Oliver North? The man responsible for importing untold tons of cocaine, for causing immense harm to family values across the land, recently received the Virginia GOP nomination for United States Senate. He is supported by those who believe in family values.
We live in interesting times.