IS THE CIA MIXED UP IN DOPE TRAFFIC?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP73B00296R000300060015-7
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 24, 2001
• Sequence Number: 15
• Publication Date: May 7, 1971
• Content Type: NSPR

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New Yorl.-A weird series of incidents is bringing
into focus the question of the CIA's relation to the
booming Indochina traffic heroin and the opium
from which it is made. -
Ramparts magazine has published a study of the
drug trade in Indochina, pupil together many de-
tails of the widely but' only vaguely knovni story and
malting a ,series of specific charges against toj) So,_ ili
Vietnamese, Laotian and Thai officials. T'urti
Ramparts charged that it is CIA operations and
subsidies in the area which have made possible the
big increase in the supply of heroin from Indochina.
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Sen. George McGovern (D-N.D.) wrote a letter to
Helms said it wasn't true, sc Ginsberg said
CIA Director Richard Helms on April 13 asking six "
I'll. make you a wager." if he lost, Ginsberg
questions about it. One inquired whether the opium
;hroimisod to give Helms his which he
production in Laos was conducted with the knowl-
describes as "a Buddhist Hindu ituai implemen
edge of CIA officials, particularly around the CIA's
cf brass symbolizing the lightning x It doctrine o
secret army base at Long Cheng in Laos, and if the
sudden. illumination." Helms was .o meditate' ore
effect of CIA operations is to "protect the supplies
hour a day for the rest of his life if he los .
(of opium) and facilitate their movement."
Some time Iater, Ginsberg sent ; Ims a clip-
On April 29, CIA legislative counsel 'Jack
ping from the Far East Economic; Review saying
Maury called on McGovern to give oral answers to
that a number of correspondents who sneaked into
the questions. IIe referred to a sheaf of IegaI size
Long Chen.- over the years saw raw opium openly
papers for his information, indicating that the CIA
piled up for sale in the market there, in full view of
has made a new investigation, but he didn't give
CIA armed agents. He also sent a note offering
McGovern the papers. He denied sonme of the charges,
Helms suggestions about how to keep a straight back
but said the CIA has been trying to convince the
while meditating, the best sitting p& loon and proper
local people not to be in the drug traffic, which
breatlh:ag.
obviously in'iplies that the CIA knows about it.
He has had no acknowledgemeri from the CIA
McGov rn's qucr wa s'X t the f= 'j,1~,e
i4,FC91~ 409 qjX~t$~2I~ A-RI3~6R~f0A0?6~P5i~nt toward .iim.
Helms on t is tern y important to et him i .t,) an improved
his wife to an evening event at the Corcoran Gallery mind-consciousness. Anything that .night help save
in Washington. The star happened ti .:e Alien Gins-
borg, the tousle-haired mystic poet. '.:iey met at a
reception before the poetry rradin;;, and Ginsberg
took after Helms for wlhat the says i:> CIA support of
the dope trade.
The poet has be: n investigatin ; c traffic for
seven years, he has on the J,) d, i.is tongue a lot
of precise ,names and places , nd For one
tiiln , he said, Loner C:'lheng is a c'ca ral collecting
market for the opium flowing from nc:rthern Burma,
northeastern Thailand and Laos (tltr fertile triangle)
down into Vietnam and Bangkok an,l out around the
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 Approved For Release 2001/08/30 : CIA-RDP73B00296R000300060015-7
the world situation would be
magic. The hard-headed people have brought us to
such an apocalyptic mess."
Helms says that lie has received no note `ro::h
Ginsberg, and only vaguely remcinbes the bet. I-:o
called the charges "vicious," "silly," ?'PiGIC::-
lous." He told me: "There is no evidence over the
years that any of these people were involved in any
significant way. Almost ali the opium grown tlhe e is
in Communist-controlled areas, P athet Lao ar,'.as."
I asked about Thailand, and he said "1 don't
control northern Thailand. I don't control the Rova
Laotian government; it's an independent coun;.ry"
(whose national budget and army are subsidized by
the United States). "I don't know why you want
to lay all this on the. poor old CIA.
"We are not involved in the drug traffic
Laos or anywhere else. There is no evidence at ad3.
To have evidence you'd have to get somebody in my
office and have him say yes, I ran drugs with your
approval."
At another point, he said "Opium's been
that part of the world for centuries," an,, nose
drugs in the United States come from Turkey."
Fie said he didn't know anything about a UN re-
port that 70=80 per cent of the world's supply comes
from Southeast Asia. And at another point he
."that part of the country (Laos) is ca(Ied wit .
opium. It's all over the area."
? Maury, he said, had told .lcGa 'e?, t ha
"it's all rot. It's not true." Later, 'iaury ':e u
me that he couldn't say anything about his V"it
McGovern and that a written report ~'.' hich the h.:
promised to give the senator "won't be avai
able to you or anybody else for publication."
Meanwhile, the rate of heroin addiction among
GIs in Vietnam is soaring dramatically, and drugs
continue to pour into the United States. The cations will be discussed in my column that wail
appear tomorrow.
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FLORA LEWIS COLUMN
RELEASE DATE: Saturday, May 8, 1971
Sanday, May 9, 1971
T '- QU:.ST1OX C.' CIA AND DRUGS
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Ev1 YORK--Richard Helms, director of the CIA, is evidently much upset at char as that,
the CIA is, involved in the fiourishinZ dug traffic in Indochina, wlich is making
a v#ry substantial contribution to add:i.cilon among Americans,
11Elms says flatly that the CIA is "not involved in the drug 'crc:da -.;yt':"r:EA in
the World." in the literal, organizational SEnSE, he is probably "ri ;rt?, a; thougi;
almost any Ex-CIA man will testify that the field doesn't always tell tai home office
Everything it knows. There is a t#nd#ncy to protect headquarters from .:'.:.iarr aSSinG
insights and information.
Certainly, Helms is right when hE says that drug control is not t,4 CA's
responsibility. But two facts are incscapablE.
1--Dugs are flowing into Vietnam and out of Indochina into the t:orld undergrO' d
network in dramatically increasing quantity. Not only is there a fEaKul growth in
the amount of opium produced and exported from Southeast Asia. Alongs.iLE the 4raditiona:
opiumtrade, heroin is being produced there now. This is new. The proof that it is
true is the ready availability of heroin to GIs, in Vietnam. Their po:?lcr doesn't
come all the way from Turkey or France.
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`aatjtY~. Two . . . .l.i1 i +NiU T E `t "' ?}i 1200 ~/Vl..v~? 0^'-',,a+~i . . ri- ,t-e} Q i L.~t ''"1n
L r .41-L h~ aiacG
While the standard American govzr r:,ent position is that Turkey is he main
source of the heroin reaching the United States, there is every reason to question
whether this remains true. The United Nations Commission on Narcotic Dr=.:is has said
that 80% of the world's opium, from which eroin is produced, comes :;rc..s Southeast
Asia. Dr. Alexander Messing, a U. N. narcovics expert, says that "`r (V,,.: supply o'
opium from) Turkey were shut down ovennizht, there is Still SO Much Of z stuff around
that it would hardly make a difference.
2---The CIA provides virtually all the transportation, the arm.. a:, much of the
money on which the people Engaged in the Southeast Asia drug trade depeK to keep
going. The CIA isn't there because of the drug traffic. As Helms says; it does not
in any way officially condone the traffic. But official CIA operations have made it
much easier for the trade to prosper in security.
Partly, this is because the main producers of opium are the hill -;.:: bes in Laos
and northeastern Thailand. Many are the Meo people, on whom the CIA rEL.es for its
"clandestine army" in Laos. Opium is their one cash crop. The CIA ::CEds the good twiL.L
of the Leos. It does not go out of its way to offend them.
Partly, this is because the very nature of CIA ..operations in Southeast
Asia requires the co-operation of high local officials, daredevils, adventurers.
Often those who are corrupt co-operate all the more willingly, since it 'acilitatcs
their illicit enterprises. The GI..A doesn't support what they do on tF.e side, but it
does support them.
.While the extent of the trade is new, the trade itself and corription have
been going on in that area for a very long time. The CIA didn't start it. It went in
for another reason, to fight the Communists, and its leaders felt of necessity that
thejr had to work with the people and the situation which they found.
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 Los AnUZ,rq,[e-mail] 2001/08/30 : CIA-RDP73B00296R000300060015-7
Page ThrEE . . T: rLO i i1Z1:1S CO:.L.,2 . . . '-hey round.
That is the ttsophisticatEd," "rEal:istic," "Eyflc:i.Entt" VIEW -v,,1-7c a has been thi:
1asis of CIA operations in thz Liza from the start. It SEEMS to makE :znsE. You can't
bE too choosy about your friends in the acc of EnEmiES. That is w 3'' any Arwzrica .
officials who havE been awarE of t:.E situation ha.vE said nothing.
It is probably why Jack Maury, CIA lE gislativE counsEl, said tht.t reports thZE
se Lh1 .2- 4P ry i7 - .. . w
CIA has mac on e subjECt w4-11 not uE available for publication, i.i iOU a it- - i_oz-
not SEEM rEasonablE that the U.S. govErnmEnt must keep SEcrEt- scan it. p;op .E what -t
lEarns about an acknowl C:g#d nation^.#.l EnEmy--heroin.
But it is a view which does not accept but co ncEals rzality, a v -w wh=ich has
come to harm t'ri# United States more than it SE:"VES intE~adEd national YL iJOSEa t
is the:. VIEW which madE My i POSSiblE, and madE the lonU I n0ia's:CE of ,1'.y l'i
possible, and which mac it poss ble or many Americans to s 1pat iz# t.~ : -. CaL yr
when hE was singlEd out for panis'rmEnt.
It is a VIEW which says that bad things arz bound to hap~JEn :in mand a~. cE
WE arE at war WE must sacrificE many ' things including ol.'Y' scruylEs and our rzuL1lsiO;1
to drugs. MEn havE always felt oblig#u to choosE among IESSEr EVILS. 'Nu- is the
human condition.
ThE cEntral quEstion, thEn, Must bz which is the lEssEr Evil. W"-.Lt is it that we
are doing in Indochina which justifiES what wE arE doing to oursElvts, pECifically in
this instance, what WE are doing to promotE.. hEroin
addiction? What is the value of the CIA operations in Laos and Thailand which so
outweighs the Evil of the drug traffic which has prolifEratEd as an un1i11tEnded rEsult?
What is the value of a war, a crusade to givE South ViEtnamEsE ita chance" as
PrEsidEnt Nixon says, against so much dEath and misEry and degradation, in the
UnitEd States as well as in Indochina?
It is timE to take another reading of the scalES, Sacrifice ca.mot be a
principlE, it must bE for a pri.nciplE. ThE problEm isn't whEthEr to J"lamE the CIA
for the: drug traffic. Th, E problEm is whEthEr to continuE Endorsing wiat the CIA
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