Lis­ten: Side 1 | Side 2

In this pro­gram, for­mer LAPD nar­cotics detec­tive Mike Rup­pert brings the audi­ence up to date on a num­ber of dif­fer­ent sto­ries relat­ing to the intel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty’s involve­ment in the nar­cotics traf­fic.

Much of the first half of the pro­gram con­sists of review and analy­sis of the case of Bill Tyree, a for­mer Spe­cial Forces troop­er serv­ing time for the mur­der of his wife.

Tyree was alleged­ly framed for his wife’s mur­der because he (and his wife) attempt­ed to expose his involve­ment in two oper­a­tions code-named Watch­tow­er and Orwell. Oper­a­tion Watch­tow­er alleged­ly involved the plac­ing of elec­tron­ic bea­cons in the Cen­tral Amer­i­can jun­gle for the pur­pose of guid­ing CIA drug planes into Pana­ma. Oper­a­tion Orwell entailed the sur­veil­lance and har­rass­ment of civic and gov­ern­men­tal insti­tu­tions and indi­vid­u­als that were attempt­ing to inter­dict the Watch­tow­er-relat­ed drug traf­fic. Tyree has filed suit against a num­ber of indi­vid­u­als and agen­cies includ­ing for­mer Pres­i­dent George Bush, Pres­i­dent Clin­ton, Oliv­er North and the CIA in an attempt to win his free­dom. The inves­ti­ga­tion into Tyree’s case has turned up con­nec­tions to numer­ous inves­ti­ga­tions, includ­ing the assas­si­na­tion of Pres­i­dent Kennedy.

In this update on Tyree’s case, Mr. Rup­pert relates cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing Mass­a­chu­setts Sen­a­tor John Ker­ry’s con­nec­tions to the case. (Ker­ry was involved with the orig­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion of Tyree’s case.) In a dra­mat­ic devel­op­ment, a let­ter alleged­ly writ­ten by for­mer CIA Direc­tor William Casey admits to and attempts to jus­ti­fy decades-long CIA involve­ment in drug traf­fick­ing as a com­po­nent of the war against com­mu­nism. (When the let­ter was shown to for­mer CIA offi­cial Theodore Shack­ley, Shack­ley emphat­i­cal­ly stat­ed his belief that the let­ter was gen­uine.) The let­ter was sent to Dee Carone Fer­di­nand, the daugh­ter of Colonel Albert Vin­cent Carone. Work­ing var­i­ous­ly (and some­times simul­ta­ne­ous­ly) for the U.S. Army, the OSS (Amer­i­ca’s World War II intel­li­gence ser­vice and the pre­de­ces­sor of the CIA), the CIA, the New York City Police depart­ment and the Mafia, Carone was a good friend of Casey.

The sto­ry of his remark­able career is one of the most impor­tant aspects of the Tyree inves­ti­ga­tion. Mike informs us that, after nine months, George Bush’s coun­sel has failed to respond to the suit. Fol­low­ing the update of the Tyree suit, Mike dis­cuss­es the pre­cip­i­tous deci­sion by Con­gress to hold secret, closed-door hear­ings on Vol­ume II of the CIA’s inter­nal inves­ti­ga­tion into alle­ga­tions of Agency com­plic­i­ty in the Con­tra-relat­ed drug traf­fic.

Vol­ume II direct­ly impli­cates some of the defen­dants in the Tyree suit in the Cen­tral Amer­i­can cocaine traf­fic and Con­gress had stat­ed its intent to hold pub­lic hear­ings into the mat­ter. Obvi­ous­ly, that state­ment was less than sin­cere.

Next, the dis­cus­sion turns to alle­ga­tions made by for­mer HUD offi­cial Cather­ine Austin Fitts, who believes that the crack-cocaine epi­dem­ic of the 1980’s was delib­er­ate­ly intend­ed as a device to effect “eth­nic cleans­ing” in neigh­bor­hoods that had received HUD loans.

Rav­aged by the effects of the crack epi­dem­ic, these areas were soon aban­doned by many home­own­ers who had received loans. This flight shat­tered the eth­nic sol­i­dar­i­ty of the neigh­bor­hoods and left the real estate to be bought up at pen­nies on the dol­lar.

Anoth­er ele­ment of analy­sis con­cerned the rela­tion­ship between the “under­world” drug econ­o­my and the “over­world” of Wall Street invest­ment. Mr. Rup­pert con­cludes the inter­view by dis­cussing sev­er­al class-action suits that have been filed against the CIA in con­nec­tion with the Con­tra cocaine traf­fic and its rela­tion­ship to the crack epi­dem­ic of the 1980s (Record­ed on 7/11/99.)