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William Casey's Statement
(An excerpt from The Secret History of the New World Order)
Image by Peter Soros | petersoros.com
Fellow Operation Forty pilot, Robert Plumlee maintains that Seal moonlighted as a CIA pilot working for Theodore Shackley in Laos and Vietnam, flying Special Operations missions. On December 1979 he was arrested in Guatemala with $25M worth of cocaine and imprisoned. He bribed the Guatemalan government to release him, but before he could be released, elections were held, forcing him to bribe an entirely new set of Guatemalan officials. In September 1980, he was released without being charged.
While in prison, Barry Seal met William Roger Reeves, a fellow drug smuggler who worked for the Ochoa family of Medellin. In 1981, Reeves, Ochoa's business manager in New Orleans, introduced Seal to Felix Bates. As a result Seal began a close relationship with the Colombians and became part of what became known as the Medellin Cartel. Established in 1980, the Medellin Cartel began when Jorge Ochoa convinced the major cocaine families to contribute $7 million each for the formation of a 2,000-man army in order to destroy the Marxist revolutionary group M-19 that was causing the drug barons problems in Colombia.
Drug barons such as Jorge Ochoa and Pablo Escobar now began working together. It has been estimated that the cartel made up to $60 million per month and its leaders joined the list of the world's richest men. The CIA decided that the Medellin Cartel could be used to help defeat communism throughout Latin America. According to Leslie Cockburn, CIA agent, Felix I. Rodriguez, persuaded the Medellin Cartel to make a $10 million contribution to the Contras.
By 1982, Barry Seal was bringing in drugs to the United States for the Medellin Cartel. Seal moved his base of operations from Louisiana to Mena airport in western Arkansas. Seal told friends that he once made $1.5 million on a single cocaine flight. Seal worked directly for Sonia Atala, the CIA protected drug baron, according to Michael Levine in his book The Big White Lie: The CIA and the Cocaine/Crack Epidemic.
By the time Seal was arrested in Ft. Lauderdale in March 1984, he had flown over 100 flights for the Medellin cartel, bringing between $3 Billion and $5 Billion worth of cocaine into the United States -- perhaps more than anyone in history. He tried to cop a deal with the Florida DEA, but they declined. Rebuffed, Seal managed to contact Vice President George H.W. Bush, with whom he struck a deal to testify, before the Task Force on Drugs, that the Sandinistas were complicit in the Columbian cocaine trade. In order to exchange a ten-year sentence for six months probation, he also agreed to participate in a drug sting aimed at Pablo Escobar and other top-ranking members of the Medellin cartel.
Seal agreed to testify against his former employers and associates in the drug trade, putting several of them in jail. Among those Seal testified against were Chief Minister of the Turks and Caicos Islands, Norman Saunders and members of the Medellin Cartel. No CIA employees were mentioned in Seal’s testimony. Seal also testified before the President's Commission on Organized Crime in October 1985.
Seal now returned to drug-smuggling with official sanction (if indeed he hadn't had it before) in return for smuggling arms to Contras in Honduras. Seal managed to obtain several photographs of Escobar directing Nicaraguan soldiers loading 1200 kilos of cocaine onto a plane. Ronald Reagan later displayed one of the photographs on national television, denouncing the Sandinistas as "drug smugglers corrupting American youth".
Before 1984 was over, Seal would be again arrested for smuggling drugs, this time marijuana. He posted bail and once again returned to smuggling drugs. In December 1985, Seal was finally sentenced to six months supervised probation. From 6 p.m. till 6 a.m. every day, Seal was required by the terms of his probation to report to the Salvation Army halfway house in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He complained of the regular schedule and spoke of being made a "clay pigeon".
On February 19, 1986, Barry Seal was shot to death in Baton Rouge, Louisiana in front of the Salvation Army halfway house. Over the next few days the police received information that enabled them to arrest several men for the killing of Barry Seal. This included Miguel Velez, Bernardo Vasquez, Luis Quintero-Cruz, John Cardona, Eliberto Sanchez and Jose Renteria. A seventh, Rafa Cardona, managed to escape back to Colombia. He was murdered later that year.
Eliberto Sanchez and John Cardona were deported and never appeared in court for the crime. Nor, did Jose Coutin who supplied the weapons for the killing of Seal. However, he was not charged with any crime and instead testified in court against Miguel Velez, Luis Quintero-Cruz and Bernardo Vasquez. According to Leslie Cockburn in her book Out of Control, Coutin was a CIA asset.
Further evidence comes from Dee Ferdinand. She told Daniel Hopsicker that her father, Al Carone, a CIA paymaster and a Colonel in Army Intelligence, had been sent to Dallas to pay off Jack Ruby before the assassination of John F. Kennedy. She also claimed that 33 years later Carone performed the same function for the killing of Barry Seal. According to FAA investigator, Rodney Stich, Carone was Oliver North's bagman.
Al Carone had been a detective in the New York Police Department, but this didn't stop him from becoming a "made" man in the Genovese crime family. He knew all the leading Mafiosi of his day, including Vito Genovese, Sam Giancana, Santos Trafficante, Joe Colombo and Pauley Castellano amongst others. To Carone's daughter, Dee, they were all known as "Uncle". When she got married, her father arranged two different reception rooms to separate the Mob guests from the NYPD guests.
Meanwhile, another "Uncle" was Bill Casey, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency during the Reagan Administration. During his tenure in that role, Casey used Carone as a "cut out" to pass sensitive insider information to Mob capo Pauley Castellano. Carone was also a Knight of Malta which historically has been the military arm of the Vatican. One of Carone’s principal functions in the NYPD was to act as the "bagman" in protecting shipments of CIA drugs to the various Mafia families.
Richard Sharpstein, defense attorney for one of Seal's assassins, Miguel Velez, says: "All three Colombians who went on trial always said they were being directed, after they got into this country, on what to do and where to go by an ‘anonymous gringo,' a US military officer, who they very quickly figured out was Oliver North."
There was apparently another reason why George Bush wanted Seal dead. According to friends, Seal had a copy of a videotape of a 1985 DEA cocaine sting which showed George Bush's two sons, George and Jeb, picking up kilos of cocaine at Florida Homestead AFB.
Barry Seal’s wife, while looking through Barry Seal’s papers after his death, discovered a phone number often called by her husband. When she called the number, she discovered she had contacted the Defense Intelligence Agency. She was told to "never call it again". Later that day, the DIA phoned her back. "Debbie, you're young, you have a whole life ahead of you, and you have your kids to think about... Don't call anyone in Washington again."
Another “good old boy” that flew opium on Air America in Laos and was a Contra Resupply pilot was Eugene Hasenfus. On October 5, 1986, his C-123K cargo plane was shot down by a Sandinista Patrol in Nicaragua. Hasenfus survived the crash and told his captors that he thought the CIA was behind the operation. He also provided information that several Cuban-Americans were running the operation in El Salvador. This resulted in journalists being able to identify Rafael Quintero, Luis Posada and Felix Rodriguez as the Cuban-Americans mentioned by Hasenfus. Also, it turned that his C-123K cargo plane was previously owned by Barry Seal!
In September 1998, a US $63 million lawsuit (Case No. 98-CV-11829-JLT) was filed by Massachusetts attorney Ray Kohlman on behalf of former Green Beret, William M. Tyree. In the course of the trial, Ray Kohlman, Tyree's attorney, received a document titled "Declaration of William Casey". In Kohlman's own affidavit, dated August 27, 1999, he states that "most the contents of this affidavit can be proven" and that he "will testify to the contents of this affidavit in court” The declaration gives revealing insight of the Director of Central Intelligence’s rational for his crimes.
Declaration:
I, William J. Casey, declare: I have found that freedom is a priceless commodity that demands constant vigilance to guarantee its longevity.
I was assigned to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in London, England, during World War II. During that time I befriended a young German soldier named Gunther Russbacer. I used Gunther and several other anti-Nazi German prisoners of war in OSS operations within Nazi Germany.
I knew this violated Geneva (War) Convention. I did not care. The Geneva Convention was but a set of rules governing man's atrocities committed in the name of political ideology. To wage war with rules is to prolong human suffering. Open warfare is the last resort of a civilized nation and must be used sparingly. Wars must be fought savagely utilizing all tools and tricks at hand. Gunther was a tool. Ignoring the Geneva Convention was the trick.
After I became Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) on January 28, 1981, I was approached and briefed by William Colby, former DCI. My history with Bill Colby is known. Colby notified me off the record of two operations he was still running in Latin America. Both operations were without the knowledge and consent of the United States Congress, President Ronald Reagan or even the United States intelligence apparatus. Colby identified the operations as "A-6" (RED MIST) and "A-7" (PROJECT SANDMAN). A-7 entailed smaller operations.
I was told that A-6 identified individuals and the build-up of the communist threat in Latin America. Some intelligence collected in A-6 was used in TASK FORCE-157.
I was told that A-7 was "the Phoenix Program" of Latin America. It involved the assassination of the communist infrastructure throughout Latin America.
I was told that Colby authorized assets involved in A-6 and A-7 to engage in narcotic’s trafficking to finance both operations. Colby engaged in similar operations that I know of in Vietnam for the same reason.
Colby candidly informed me that he had prepositioned more than one million pounds of cocaine in Panama between December 1, 1975 and April 1, 1976. This was done with the aid of our gallant ally, General Manuel Noriega. The cocaine was transported into El Salvador, Costa Rica and Honduras between 1976 and 1981. Colby now sat in front of me with hat in hand and requested my help in the delivery of the cocaine to the American market.
I was told that Colby was using a mutual friend of ours, Colonel Albert Vincent Carone, United States Army, Military Intelligence, to field A-6 and A-7. Al Carone is a charismatic patriot that General Joseph W. Stilwell introduced us to in late 1945. Besides the usual qualifications, Al Carone brought to the anti-communist effort a direct connection to his longtime friend, Vito Genovese. Genovese was the head of the gambling and narcotics for the controlling mafia family in New York to which Al Carone was made a member. Carone is a friend of international fugitive Robert Vesco. Carone has several anti-communist intelligence sources that include Maurita Lorenz, a friend of Fidel Castro. Al Carone is the younger brother of Dr. Pasquale Carone. Dr. Carone worked for Central Intelligence on other matters.
Colby told me that profits from the prepositioned cocaine would be laundered through Al Carone, the New York mafia and Robert Vesco, then redirected to the anti-communist effort through Colby.
After discussion with Al Carone, I made the decision to bring the prepositioned cocaine into Mena airport, Mena, Arkansas. Central Intelligence has used Mena Airport on prior occasions. This time the cocaine is the tool. The trick was to ignore the law and avoid public scrutiny. We were helped in our efforts by William J. Clinton and William F. Weld.
By 1984 all prepositioned cocaine had arrived at Mena airport and additional cocaine sources were secured. Cocaine was being transshipped through Hangar Four and Five at Ilopango Airbase, El Salvador. My point man at Mena was Adler Berriman Seal (Berry Seal).
Bill Clinton has proved invaluable so far by containing the local law enforcement investigations into the intelligence activity at Mena. Bill Weld, as Assistant United States Attorney, was placed in charge of the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice. This was done so that Bill Weld could control investigations into Mena by federal law enforcement agencies. The placement of Weld has proved invaluable.
I ordered John Poindexter, Robert McFarlane and Oliver North to go outside normal channels and use available assets, including the mafia, to ensure the arrival of the cocaine into Mena Airport. The arrivals occurred in no small part through the efforts of personnel assigned to the National Security Agency (NSA) and Army Security Agency (ASA). The men and women of the NSA and ASA blinded early warning defense satellites and radar grid to enable the aircraft to land undetected at Mena Airport. The NSA and ASA operations were SEA SPRAY and JADE BRIDGE.
I have learned that the course of the democratic struggle for Nicaragua and Latin America is beginning to swing in our direction. I attribute this success to A-6 and A-7 which Bill Colby had the insight, precision and spine to carry out.
I take notice of the heroic efforts of Al Carone, Bill Clinton, Bill Weld, John Poindexter, Bud McFarlane and Ollie North. Without these men, A-6 and A-7 would not have appeared.
Freedom is a priceless commodity. The amount of freedom you enjoy is a result of the amount of vigilance you invest.
My actions may be recorded as criminal, condemning countless American's to drug dependency. I don't care. All wars produce casualties. Generally the more violent the war, the shorter the length. My choice was either to stare down a protracted cold war guerilla insurgency in Latin America or use the means' available to finance and wage a violent war of short duration for democracy. I stand by my decisions. The tool is cocaine. The trick is to understand that the drug user had the freedom to make a choice. They chose the drug. I chose to use their habit to finance the democracy that all Americans enjoy. To keep those American's safe from the communist threat knocking on our back door in Latin America. For a change the drug user will contribute to society.
I declare under penalty of perjury that the above facts are true and correct to the best of my knowledge and belief.
It is interesting that “Maurita Lorenz, a friend of Fidel Castro”, mentioned here by Casey, had testified before the House Select Commission on Assassinations, implicating some Anti-Castro Cubans as the gun men and Frank Sturgis and Jack Ruby as their paymasters in the Kennedy Assassination.
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