C.I.A. Plays Drug Role Off Screen, Too
September 10, 1990
Like Mr. Robbins, I have long attempted to explain that the Central Intelligence Agency's motives in tolerating heroin smuggling on the aircraft of Air America, of its predecessor, Civil Air Transport, and on a dozen other air proprietaries (which Mr. Robbins does not mention), in at least three other areas of operation, were not overt fund raising. United States taxpayers were billed for those conflicts.
It was a matter of C.I.A. policy not to offend military and political allies by protesting their lucrative opium trade or by obstructing their use of C.I.A. aircraft, facilities and, often, the agency's ''laissez-passer,'' or unchecked access, to military air bases. However, C.I.A. managers were well aware of the indirect funding benefits for their allies and were certainly willfully complicit in the trafficking.
Under present law in the United States war on drugs, the C.I.A.'s assets can be confiscated (the policies continue), as Eastern Airlines aircraft have been in recent years. Investigation by Senator John F. Kerry's subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Communications has exposed the continuation of drug hauling on C.I.A.-funded aircraft in the Iran-contra affair. The notes of Oliver L. North and Rob Owen (those that survived the shredder) document their awarenesses of drug smuggling on contra aircraft in their Central American program.
As for Hollywood's movie ''Air America,'' I have to note that when the crunch came in my own post, when we were surrounded by menacing North Vietnamese divisions, the heroic Air America pilots refused to come and get us. We sweated out two harrowing days and escaped on a returning Vietnamese air force resupply chopper.
JOHN STOCKWELL
Elgin, Tex., Aug. 29, 1990
The writer is a former Central Intelligence Agency provincial officer in charge in Vietnam and author of ''In Search of Enemies.''