Undercover Armies - CIA FOIA - Central Intelligence Agency

C05303949
THE NARCOTICS QUEST/aND
By mid-1968, when Larry Devlin was preparing to replace Shackley, the
first allegations of CIA participation in narcotics trafficking had already
appeared. As Devlin recalled it, Rolling Stone magazine had just accused the
Agency of financing its Laotian operations with proceeds from heroin trafficking.
Upon his departure, new DDP Tom Karamessines told him that many
mistakes could be forgiven, but failure to prevent any Agency involvement in
the traffic would cost him his job. Devlin wound up with nine people from
the Office of ,most of them assigned to keep narcotics off CIA-controlled
aircraft. 14
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Devlin put his emphasis on the only traffic of commercial importance, that
which took opium or heroin out of Laos into the international market. Field
case officers were under instruction to be on the alert for commercial-scale
movement between or from upcountry sites, but most physical searches were
of aircraft leaving Laos. A well-intentioned acting chief of security once proposed
a sting operation, with narcotics on an Air America plane going to
Saigon used to lure traffickers there into a trap. Devlin imagined the press hysteria
that would result if word got out about drugs moving on the CIA's airline,
and he rejected the idea on the spot.150
Field officers encountered occasional tension between the proscription on
commercial trafficking and the tolerance of narcotics use by the tribesmen
themselves. Yang Pao strongly discouraged the use of opium by the' ablebodied,
and any smoker would be ostracized. Even a clan chief would incur
the penalty of being denied any real command responsibility. But Yang Pao
tolerated opium smoking by the elderly, who used it as an analgesic against
such things as chronic dental pain and cancer. 16D .
I .
recalled becoming interested in the opium question after camping
once on an extraordinarily beautiful poppy field on Phou Pha Thi. He
inquired about cultivation, use, etc., and was thus alert to any indications of a
commercial traffic to the outside world. Despite the easy availability of the
drug and its common use among the Hmong and other tribes, I Isaid he
never encountered any evidence that CIA people participated in or allowed
any such traffic. To be sure, not every Hmong or Lao passenger was searched
before boarding an aircraft. Some pathetic refugee might be carrying a bundle
shaped rather like an opium brick and still be allowed on a plane. Butl I
could see, not only no systematic commerce, but no suggestion whatever of
malfeasance by either CIA officers or American aircrews. 17D
16
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