FACT: CIA ALLIANCE WITH THE DRUG TRAFFIC

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01350R000200300037-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Sequence Number: 37
• Content Type: NEWSPAPER CLIPPING

STATI NTL
Approved For Release
CHICAGO DAILY NEWS
23-211. Sept 1972
19 1
to : l auUn nc wf
THE POLITICS OF HEROIN
IN SOUTHEAST ASIA by
Alfred W. AlcCov (Harper &
Row, $10.95).
By Keyes Beech
HEROIN didn't always have
a bad name. Around the turn
of the century it was hailed as
a "miracle drug" and ap-
proved by the AMA for general
use. In fact, it didn't even have
"a name until Germany's Bayer
chemical combine invented
"Heroin" as a brand name and
put It on the market as a
cough medicine,
But this fascinatinrl bit of
drug lore is only incidental to
the central theme of this dev-
astating book: that because of
Its commitment' to contain
communism in Southeast Asia,
the U.S. govprnment helped
create a generation of junkies.
SOUTHEAST Asia's "Golden
Triangle" - where Laos, Thai-
land and Burnia meet.- has
been an opium-growing area
for centuries. But what McCoy
and his fellow authors are con-
cerned about Is how within the
last 20 years the "triangle"
has expanded its production
until today it accounts for 70
per cent of the world's illicit
supply of heroin.
For this the authors hold the
U n I t e d States responsible.
They specifically charge that
I n 'the I r clandestine war
against the Communists, U,S.
agencies, notably the CIA, al-
lied themselves with elements
known to be engaged in the
drug traffic; ignored and even
covered up the activities of
known drug traffickers, and
allowed American military air-
craft to be used to transport
drugs.
The charges are difficult to
refute because, in the main,
they happen to be true. McCoy
has done his homework. Crit-
ics may quarrel with some of
his facts and dispute many of
his judgments, but he con-
Ct 9 (ED n 110 Al In
COMPANY MAN bye Joe Mag-
gio (Putnam, $6.9J).
By George Harmon
./TIE late Allen Duties, gluar-
terback of our World War II
-- naive, home-grown, even
homespun --- and training such
a man to he a good intelligence
officer, however long the pro-
cess lasts." Those homespun
spies and later chief of the CIA,
scoffed at the notion of the
American diplomat or spy
being a closed-mind blunderer
too cynical to play by any
rules but his own. lie criti-
cized such novels as Graham
Greene's "The Quiet Ameri-
can" and Burdick and Lede-
rei?'s "The Ugly American"
for promoting "mischief-creat-
ing prejudices,"
Dulles wrote that he pre-
ferred "taking the raw inate-
ria! which we find in America
vincingly demonstrates, for ex-
ample, that the G.I. heroin epi-
demic in South Vietnam could
not have happened without the
active participation of greedy
generals and government-offi-
cials who owed their jobs to
the United States.
U.S. Involvement in the drug.
ve LIVE,.
0A
11,
boys, if we are to believe re-
cent news accounts, are trav-
eling much farther afield than
Dulles seemed willing to send
them.
THE BACKBONE of CIA ac-
tivity apparently remains the
clandestine listening posts and
purloined letters which Duties
so loved. But now the charge
is often made that the CIA
tries to foment change rather
than merely report it; in
Uganda, for example: in Chile,
in Laos.
So much is being written
about the CIA, in fact, that its
argot is creeping into Ameri-
can slag: a spy is a spook, to
kill Is to."terminate with ex-
treme prejudice."
Now. arrives doe Maggio, a
mercenary-turned-writer, who
says lie worked off and on for
the CIA In places like Africa
and Laos.
His novel tells of Nick Mar
tin, a sort of comic book super-
hero and former Green Beret
A "home-grown" boy whom
Dulles would have liked; he is
recruited off a Florida campus
by "the Company" (in-group
slang for the CIA), and works
part time, training Bay of
Pigs invaders and shooting
up Africa and the Tonkin Gulf.
There Is enough bad writing to
f i 1 I three pulp. magazines
("steel split the air over-
head").
BUT MAGGIO'S book has an
aura of authenticity about it,
and few readers know enough
about the CIA to dispute him
Wall it 1 i STATINTL
traffic was, as the authors con-
t e n d , an "inevitable con-
sequence" of our involvement
I n Southeast Asia, where
opium was a way of life. But it
did not become an "American
problem" until It touched
American lives.
THE BOOK Is not quite the
scholarly work that it pretends
to be. It Is as much an in-
dictment of the Vietnam war
as it is a documentation of the
drug traffic. The, authors sug-
gest that all will be well if
President Nixon is defeated
and the United States pulls out
of Southeast Asia lock, stock-
and barrel.
Maybe so. But the sad thin-,
is that the book's chief victims
are a handful of dedicated CIA
men who went to Southeast
Asia to do a job. That job was
to fight communism, not re-
form a society.
Keyes Beech is Tha Daily
News' , correspondent in
Asia. .
dry fabrication" filled with
"lurid writing and innate con,
tradictions." lie denies that
the CIA ever has carried out
assassinations or has traf-
ficked in drugs, as Maggio as-
serts.
Colby also says it Iagio was
"terminated for cause" during
a six-month CIA training pro-
granh and never went overseas
for the CIA or undertook, any
of the "assignments" Ala- t io
says he perforined..But Mag-
gio has obtained a government
letter quoting the CIA as say-
ing that he worked for the
agency on contract:
- even though the question al- - In any event, Maggio writes
ready has been raised: Is doe enough like a soldier to con-
Maggio the -Clifford Irving of vince the reader he has been
the barracks set? one. He has produced an vn-
W. E, Colby, executive direc- V,hiofessional but good example
of thriller fiction.
tor of the CIA, disputes the
publisher's contention that
"Company Man" is "a novel of
George Harmon is a Daily
facts," proclaiming it a "taw- News editor and writer.
Approved For Release 2006/09/29: CIA-RDP88-01350R000200b