Once Owned by drug Smug­gler Barry Seal, It’s Now the Favorite Plane of Texas Gov­er­nor George W. Bush

(Two 30-minute segments)

This inter­view sets forth a Byzan­tine series of machi­na­tions, through which an air­plane pur­chased for drug and arms oper­a­tions by drug smug­gler, DEA infor­mant and Iran-Contra Lynch­pin Barry Seal wound up being Texas Gov­er­nor George Bush’s favorite air­craft. Mike Rup­pert (for­mer LAPD nar­cotics inves­ti­ga­tor and long-time cru­sader against the intel­li­gence community’s involve­ment in the nar­cotics traf­fic) has co-authored a block­buster story about the clan­des­tine oper­a­tions against the San­din­istas in Nicaragua and the Bush family’s involve­ment in, and prox­im­ity to, many of these oper­a­tions. (See more on the inves­tiga­tive work of Mike Rup­pert.)

In this broad­cast, Mike sets forth the main points of his arti­cle. Barry Seal’s exper­tise as a drug pilot par excel­lence and his air­craft and bases of oper­a­tions were tailor-made for the Rea­gan administration’s clan­des­tine wars in Cen­tral Amer­ica, par­tic­u­larly the Con­tra sup­port effort. More­over, the wind­ing path fol­lowed by “Zero-Eight Fox­trot” from Seal to the Governor’s man­sion is an excel­lent van­tage point for exam­in­ing myr­iad and over­lap­ping crim­i­nal con­spir­a­cies that helped to sup­port the Con­tra war. (The plane’s nick­name is derived from its reg­is­tra­tion num­ber.) Fol­low­ing the aircraft’s trail, one will come across drug-smuggling, the sav­ings and loan scan­dal, insur­ance scams and other “bust-out” oper­a­tions, the pro­ceeds of which went to finance the Contras.

This par­tic­u­lar Beechcraft King Air 200 was one of sev­eral pur­chased by Seal, as part of a wider effort that placed small air­craft at the dis­posal of CIA direc­tor William Casey’s clan­des­tine war against the San­din­istas. When Con­gress cut off mil­i­tary assis­tance to the Con­tras, the intel­li­gence com­mu­nity began uti­liz­ing ele­ments of the under­world (as well as its own air pro­pri­etaries) to con­tinue the war ille­gally. Seal’s air­craft deliv­ered mil­i­tary sup­plies to the Con­tras and brought drugs into the United States on the return trip. He was mur­dered in 1986 and his killers had con­nec­tions to Oliver North. As noted in numer­ous broad­casts, then Vice-President George Bush was prin­ci­pally involved in the ille­gal Con­tra sup­port activ­i­ties. Zero-Eight Foxtrot’s own­er­ship has changed many times, some­times more than once in a sin­gle day. As a result, the real owner of the air­craft became dif­fi­cult to deter­mine. In addi­tion, the trail has been obscured by decep­tive behav­ior, and state­ments, by some of the prin­ci­pals involved in the oper­a­tion. The plane’s offi­cial paper trail is mys­te­ri­ous as well. FAA records of the air­craft raise more ques­tions than they answer. It should be noted that this plane may have been the air­craft involved in an alleged drug sting, in which both George W. and his brother Jeb picked up a kilo­gram of cocaine each, on cam­era! The broad­cast con­cludes with updates of a num­ber of sto­ries that Mike has been cov­er­ing in his newslet­ter From The Wilderness.

Pro­gram High­lights Include: The mys­te­ri­ous Finova and Finalco com­pa­nies (appar­ent intel­li­gence front com­pa­nies); Finova’s con­nec­tions to South­ern Air Trans­port (one of the most famous CIA air pro­pri­etaries, cen­trally involved in the Iran Con­tra affair); Finova’s loot­ing of Grey­hound Leas­ing, or “Grey­cas,” in order to help finance the Con­tras; Seal’s own­er­ship of a C-123 air­craft that was involved in an alleged “San­din­ista drug-sting” (whose down­ing in Octo­ber of 1986 pre­cip­i­tated the Iran-Contra scan­dal); a review of the Tyree suit; the dis­missal of the Tyree suit “with­out prej­u­dice” (which will allow the suit to be re-filed); retal­i­a­tion against Tyree as a result of his suit; pos­si­ble prepa­ra­tions for deeper U.S. involve­ment in Colom­bia under the pre­text of “the Drug War”; the U.S. sale of heli­copters to Mex­ico (osten­si­bly to be used to com­bat drug-dealing, many sus­pect that they were ear­marked for use against the Zapasti­tas in Chi­a­pas); Con­gres­sional inves­ti­ga­tors trav­el­ing to Mike’s apart­ment to copy files; Iran-Contra player Felix Rodriguez’s involve­ment with the Mex­i­can heli­copter sale; a syn­op­sis of the early part of the Con­tra War and America’s covert strat­egy in Cen­tral Amer­ica in the 1980’s. (Recorded on 11/7/99.)