Drug Czar Walters and the Iran-Contra Connection
by Uri Dowbenko
John P. Walters, appointed "Drug Czar" by President George Bush Jr., is uniquely qualified for his new job. He was actually involved in the Iran-Contra Drug Trafficking Cover-up.
In a recent interview, whistle-blower Al Martin, who testified before the congressional Kerry Committee and the Alexander Committee about Iran-Contra, stated that "when Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams went to Panama to have a meeting with [former Panamanian ruler] Noriega, he took along Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, Michael Kozak, and John Walters, who at that time had been appointed special advisor to the State Department's Office of Inter-American Affairs."
Martin says, "They went down to smooth things over with Noriega, who was complaining that he wasn't getting a big enough piece of the pie for allowing Panama to be used as a trans-shipping point for drugs and weapons. We were complaining that he wasn't keeping up his end of the bargain, making facilities secure for the storage of drugs and weapons. His G-2 was pilfering a lot of materiel. Meanwhile Noriega was complaining that he wasn't getting a big enough slice of the pie."
"This came soon after Oliver North had ripped Noriega off for $5 million dollars in that boat deal with Donald Aronow [See Chapter 18 of "The Conspirators" by Al Martin]. He was still upset about Ollie taking his money. So the three of them went down to have a discussion. They met at the Intercontinental Hotel in Panama on December 10 to smooth things out."
"Noriega was promised a bigger cut of the pie, when he said he wasn't making enough money," Martin continues. "He claimed there were a lot of people on his end within G-2 that had to be paid. Abrams tried to tell him that everybody was not getting the cut they had. The price of cocaine was falling so rapidly because we were importing so much of the stuff. Consequently the whole pie had become smaller than before. And that's what John Walters was all about. Now he's appointed 'drug czar,' which is not only ironic, it's absolutely laughable."
"When he went down to meet with Noriega, John Walters was the 'special advisor.' His father Vernon Walters got him the position. His father is very, very loyal to the Bush Cabal and had been for years. You don't see Vern much anymore. Vernon Walters was one of the original post-war Military-Industrial Complexers."
A little family history -- the father of John Walters is US Army Lieutenant General Vernon A. Walters, the deputy director of the CIA from 1972 to 1976 during the Nixon administration.
When the Watergate scandal erupted, Walters was very adept at covering the CIA's liabilities. After all, Agency fingerprints were all over the Watergate burglary, and the prime players -- the Cubans, Hunt and McCord -- were all CIA agents or assets. Later, according to "Silent Coup" author Len Colodny, his old friend General Alexander Haig was instrumental in getting Walters the job of translator for the secret Paris talks between Henry Kissinger and the North Vietnamese. Walters was also the acting Director of Central Intelligence in 1973 (between James Schlesinger's and William Colby's directorship). Later Vernon Walters was appointed Ambassador-at-Large by President Reagan.
In his book "The Conspirators," Al Martin describes the real reason why the price of cocaine kept falling in the mid 1980s. In a chapter called "Classified Illegal Operations Cordoba and Screw Worm," he describes how Oliver North planned to distribute "more cocaine into the United States than ever imagined before. 'Operation Screw Worm' was the last and the largest. It envisioned a tremendous expansion of 'authorized' narcotics trafficking."
Martin writes, "North had set up the time in May 1986 of the first biweekly policy and planning session of the FDN and this absolutely astounded me. Fred Ikley was there. Donald Gregg himself was there. The usual cast of characters, Manuel Diaz, Nestor Sanchez."
"North envisioned an increase of 50,000 kilograms a month which absolutely astounded me," Martin continues.
"Jeb Bush [the current governor of Florida], I think, correctly voiced concerns that had already come into play that the Agency [CIA] was dealing in so much cocaine that its street value was becoming depressed. This had already happened. In 1985, cocaine was commanding $30,000 per kilogram. By 1986, it had dropped to $15,000 per kilogram and was continuing to drop."
"But North felt it was important to raise the revenues, so there was going to be a tremendous increase in importation," writes Martin. (P.65, "The Conspirators" by Al Martin