THE ASIAN CONNECTION U.S. FORCES TOO OFTEN FIGHT EACH OTHER IN A SECRET WAR AGAINST THE GOLDEN TRIANGLE'S HEROIN SUPPLIERS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00901R000600200006-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 15, 2005
• Sequence Number: 6
• Publication Date: June 25, 1984
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

ARTICLE APPEtpoved For ReIQl12/14': CIA-RDP91-009019
ON PAGE 6 J__--' 25 June 19814.
Ch, C
JUSTICE
U. S. forces too often fight each other in a secret
war against the Golden Triangle's heroin suppliers.
Once more the United States is fighting a
seemingly endless war in Southeast Asia.
Despite successful American-sponsored of-
fensives, the enemy has grown steadily more
intractable.. And as before, the American
effort has been hobbled by dangerous and
self-defeating bureaucratic battles among
the federal agencies responsible for the
struggle. But the ultimate aim of the
war in the notorious Golden Tri-
angle of Southeast Asia is irre-
proachable: to shut down the
opium fields and heroin refin-
eries located in the high-
lands of Burma, Thailand and
Laos. This area--controlled by
independent warlords rather
than organized governments-
is fast becoming the heart-
land of the international her-
oin trade. `Elaine Shannon of
NEWSWEEK reports:
T he Trail of the Horse
begins high in the moun-
tain jungle on the Burmese side
of the border. There, most of
the Golden Triangle's opium
crop-700 metric tons a year,
according to U.S estimates-is
refined into heroin. Then it is
moved by horse and donkey
caravans into northern Thai-
land.. From there, transporta-
tion to Bangkok is easy, thanks
to a network of modern roads
the United States built during
the Vietnam War. And after
Bangkok comes the world: her-
oin produced in the Golden
Triangle now accounts for 20..
percent of the American mar-
a bumper crop in Burma, the wholesale price
of top-grade No. 4 heroin is at its lowest level
in years. And drug officials warn that the
Mafia has begun to join forces with Chinese
crime families who have long controlled this
bountiful harvest.
Meanwhile, America's war in Chiang
Mai all too often takes the form of a three-
cornered bureaucratic struggle, producing
assault on the heroin refineries in the
nearby jungle. In early 1983 the CIA dis-
patched a commando mission into Burma,
searching forone ofthe DEA's most-wanted
men-an elusive Chinese refiner named Lao
Su. Thai Army commandos failed to find
ripe poppies: A cash crop too good to give up
Lao Su, but the operation com-
plicated DEA plans to trap Lao
Su on his next trip across the
Thai border. A week later the
DEA's own call for help in cap-
turing Lao Su was answered by
overzealous Lahu tribesmen,
who brought the refiner to the
border-and heaved his bullet-
riddled body into a Thai bor-
der-patrol helicopter.
Ambush: The most chilling
bureaucratic blunder occurred
last October when the CIA sta-
tion chief in Chiang Mai appar-
ently placed a higher priority
on secrecy than on the safety of
a DEA agent. Both agencies
were organizing raids on the
same drug transaction: the
planned sale of 42 kilograms of
pure heroin in the Thai frontier
hamlet of Pha Ni. But the CIA
station chief kept his own plans
secret, even after the DEA
agent told him that he would be
accompanying the Thai border
patrol to Pha Ni. Only a last-
ington-where the CIA and
? the DEA had better liaison-
prevented the drug agent from
driving into the CIA-spon-
Thai farmer with
ket, double the figure of just three years ago.
Chiang Mai, a northern Thai trading cen-
ter adorned with glittering temples and vil-
las, is a principal way station on the heroin
highway from Burma to Bangkok. With the
encouragement of the friendly Thai govern-
ment, Chiang Mai has also become the com-
mand post for America's latest warin South-
east Asia; and the news from the front is
decidedly mixed. Heroin seizures in Thai-
land are at record levels-more than 1,200
pounds so far this year. Yet drug agents
rea dil.y admi t this is j ust the tip of a mountain
of white powder. About 100 pounds of high-
quality heroin a week leave Thailand on
trawlers bound for Hong Kong and Europe,'
replace a shortfall fro
chaos, waste and needless endangerment of sored ambush.
American lives. The principal antagonists In early December, prompted by the Pha
are the Drug Enforcement Administration Ni incident, DEA Administrator Francis
-(DEA) and the CIA. Theirs is the classic . (Bud) Mullen hammered out a formal con-
philosophical and tactical fight between .cordat with John McMahon, the deputy
cops a d-c-loak-and-dagger operatives. The CIA director. According to a CIA source,
DEA believes in classic aboveground police McMahon acknowledged that "Bangkok
work, helping the Thai border patrol to was being a little twerky" with the DEA-
arrest and win convictions of major drug and he ordered the Thai contingent to "get
refiners and wholesalers. The CIA actively in a more cooperative state of mind." So far,
entered the fray in 1981, in part because its the new arrangement, which gives the DEA
director, William Casey, believed that the a voice in plans for border raids, has been
opium trade in Southeast Asia would be successful. Relations between the two agen-
used to fund communist plans for regional cies in Thailand are now correct if cool-
takeover. Working in close conjunction probably all that can be expected, given
with the Thai military, the CIA has been their differences in style and tactics.
or Re lns nost successful antidrug
~s
>
op g fe' n opera ions aye een marred by unintended
lrtintlgd
 ARTICLE pproved For a 0(J11 4 : CIA-RDP91-00901R
ON PAGE ~~ 19 May 19B4
Greece Orders U.S. Aide to Leave;
Says He Was a Key C.I.A. Agent
By JOHN TAGLIABUE.
Specal to The New York Times
ATHENS, May 18 - A Government
spokesman said today that Greece had
expelled a United States diplomat. The
spokesman affirmed a published re-
port here that the envoy was an agent
of the Central Intelligence Agency. '
The Government spokesman, Dimi-
tris Maroudas, said the contents of the
report, in a Greek satirical newspaper,
were accurate, but would not elabo-
rate. The newspaper report appeared
earlier today, shortly before the Gov-
ernment announcement.
The report, in the newspaper Pontiki,
said the diplomat,' whom it identified
only as Huey, had been expelled for en-
gaging in improper activities. The
newspaper said the diplomat posed as a
United States Embassy employee, but
was in fact the "deputy C.I.A. station
chief."
A United States Embassy spokes-
man, Gary Edwards, refused to com-
ment on the newspaper report.
Tie Expulsion to Investigation
George Tsantes, a United States Navy
Captain and member of the Joint
United States Military Assistance
Group, was shot and killed.. .
Last month Master Sgt. Robert Judd
of the United States Army, was shot
and wounded. .
No One Charged in Shootings
Responsibility for all three shootings
was claimed by a group calling itself 17
November, for the day in 1973 when stu-
dents at the Athens Polythechnic
School staged an unsuccessful uprising
against the Greek military dictator-
ship.
Nothing further is known of the
group, and no one has ever been ar-
rested or charged in the shootings.
The newspaper said the Deputy Di-
rector rector of Central Intelligence, John
McMahon, discussed the incident with, Greece's Minister for Public Order,
loannis Skoularikis, during a recent
visit to Athens.
The newspaper said the official it
identified as Huey was accused of con-
ducting a separate investigation of the
shootings without cooperating with'
Greek authorities. It did not say when
he was expelled.
Pontiki said the envoy had been ex-
pelled because of improper involve-
ment in an investigation of shootings in
Greece in which a Central Intelligence
'Agency agent and a United States serv-
iceman were killed, and another serv-
iceman was seriously wounded.
The official list of foreign diplomats
in Athens, published by the Foreign
Ministry, -lists no United States Em-
bassy official named Huey.
In December 1975 gunmen shot and
killed Richard Welch, the C.I.A. station
chief in Athens. Last November
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 May 1984
r K `rr ~3
,, Q- r ed For Release 2005/ W- E:IA-RDP91-00901 R06
[Evidence]
THE CENSOR
AT WORK
This official CIA photograph was introduced at a recent
Senate hearing by Deputy Director John McMahon, who
testified in support of a bill (S. 1324) that would exempt
the CIA's operational files from the Freedom of Informa-
tion Act. McMahon explained to the Select Committee on
Intelligence that the picture dramatizes a single FOIA
search in which 91h linear feet of documents were re-
viewed, but only a six-inch stack was finally made public.
He told the committee that such searches are wasteful,
since "the public derives little meaningful information
from the occasional isolated paragraph which is ultimately
released. " By ex opting these files from FOIA searches,
he argued, "the public (would be) deprived to no meaning-
ful information whatsoever." The Senate passed the
bill; it is pending before the House.
Approved For Release 2005/12/14: CIA-RDP91-00901R000600200006-7
 Approved For Release 60,MW4 : LDP91