CONGRESSIONAL REPORTS

CONGRESSIONAL REPORTS

Drugs
CONTINUED INVESTIGATION OF SENIOR-LEVEL EMPLOYEE MISCONDUCT AND MISMANAGEMENT AT THE INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE, Hearing before the Commerce, Consumer, and Monetary Affairs Subcommittee of the Committee on Government Operations, House of Representatives, One Hundred Second Congress, First Session, July 24, 1991, GOV DOC # Y 4.G 74/7:Em 7/16 House probe into why IRS investigator William Duncan faced a career crisis for documenting the money-laundering through Arkansas in the 1980s.

DRUGS, LAW ENFORCEMENT AND FOREIGN POLICY, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations, Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, 1989, S. Prt. 100-165 Chaired by Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, the subcommittee heard abundant testimony by drug dealers and pilots about CIA connections to the smuggling.

ENFORCEMENT OF NARCOTICS, FIREARMS, AND MONEY LAUNDERING LAWS, Oversight Hearings before the Subcommittee on Crime of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, One Hundredth Congress, Second Session, July 28, September 23, 29, and October 5, 1988, GOV DOC # Y 4.J 89/1:100/138 Investigation of connections between cocaine smuggler Barry Seal and the Contra resupply network.

IRS SENIOR EMPLOYEE MISCONDUCT PROBLEMS, Hearings before the Commerce Consumer and Monetary Affairs Subcommittee of the Committee on Government Operations, House of Representatives, July 25, 26 and 27, 1989, GOV DOC # Y 4.G 74/7:Em 7/11 Congressional hearings discover that IRS employee problems are due to employees investigating money-laundering of cocaine through Arkansas.

SYRIA, PRESIDENT BUSH AND DRUGS, Subcommittee Staff Report, House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Crime and Criminal Justice, October 28, 1992 Reports that Bekaa Valley heroin traffickers have close ties to the Syrian government and Army, and that President Bush ignores this problem in his policy towards Syria.

http://www.thememoryhole.org/kerry/index.htm
In 1987/8, two subcommittees of the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations held ~~three~~ 14 days of hearings on drug trafficking. Headed by Sen. John F. Kerry (D - Mass.), the panel heard evidence of official corruption in Central America, South America, the Caribbean, and the United States. The next year, the government published the transcripts in a 4-volume set that has remained a touchstone for anyone interested in narco-corruption, particularly as it involves US intelligence agencies.

The trouble is, this 1,800-page goldmine of information has been incredibly hard to find. The Memory Hole's copy was given to me by a friend of the family—Lorenzo Hagerty—who told me an interesting story. As soon as the Kerry Report was published, Lorenzo ordered a set of the transcripts from the Government Printing Office. When it arrived, he began reading it and realized how important it was. He immediately called the GPO to order another set. He was told that the set was already out of print and would not be published again. It had been available to the public for one single week.

Small portions of the Kerry Report transcripts have been published online, but they are only a fraction of the entire four volumes. The Memory Hole has scanned and posted the entire thing.

The one-volume final report based on these hearings—also very rare—has been scanned and posted by the National Security Archive. It's available here [PDF].

More info about the hearings is here.

Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy:
Transcripts of the Hearings

Part Four: The Cartel, Haiti and Central America

Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Communications of the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, One Hundredth Congress, Second Session, July 11, 12, and 14, 1988

first half of the volume [PDF | 27 meg | 190 pp]

second half of the volume [PDF | 11 meg | 189 pp]

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Part Three: The Cartel, Haiti and Central America

entire volume [PDF | 22 meg | 194 pp]

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Part Two: Panama

entire volume [PDF | 27 meg | 226 pp]

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Part One

Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Communications and International Economic Policy, Trade, Oceans and Environment of the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, One Hundredth Congress, First Session, May 27, July 15, and October 30, 1987

cover and title page | committee members | table of contents

pages > 1-20 | 21-40 | 41-60 | 61-80 | 81-100 | 101-120 | 121-140 | 141-160 | 161-190

Quotes
Suddenly, Coral's phone call didn't seem so crazy. Webb called up Jack Blum, the Washington, D.C., lawyer who led the Kerry inquiry and said, "Maybe I'm crazy, but this seems like a huge story to me." "Well, it's nice to hear someone finally say that, even if it is ten years later," Blum allowed, and then he proceeded to tell Webb almost exactly what he told me recently when I made a similar innocent phone call to him. "What happened was, our credibility was questioned, and we were personally trashed. The [Reagan] administration and some people in Congress tried to make us look like crazies, and to some degree it worked. I remember having conversations with reporters in which they would say, 'Well, the administration says this is all wrong.' And I'd say, 'Look, why don't you cover the ****g hearing instead of coming to me with what the administration says?' And they'd say, 'Well, the witness is a drug dealer. Why should I do that?' And I used to say this regularly: 'Look, the minute I find a Lutheran minister or a priest who was on the scene when they delivered six hundred kilos of cocaine at some air base in contra land, I'll put him on the stand, but until then, you take what you can get.' The big papers stayed as far away from this issue as they could. It was like they didn't want to know." Gary Webb Revisited