AN INTERVIEW WITH ALFRED W. MCCOY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP84-00499R000100040003-9
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 11
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 8, 2006
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: August 15, 1972
• Content Type: TRANS

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RADIO TV REPOwTS, INC.
4435 WISCONSIN AVE. N.W.. WASHINGTON, D. C. 20016, 244=3540
PUBLIC AFFAIRS STAFF
PROGRAM Today Show
DATE
STATION WRC TV
NBC Network
August 15, 1972 7:00 AM CITY Washington, D.C.
AN INTERVIEW WITH ALFRED W. McCOY
FRANK McGEE: In this portion of the program we're
going to talk with Alfred McCoy, the young man who's been in
the news lately because of a conflict with the Central Intelligence
'Agency, the CIA.. It's his assertion that the CIA as well as
other government agencies are involved in the illegal narcotics
traffic in Southeast Asia -- a claim the CIA says is totally
without foundation.. He has a lot of other things to say about
the politics of the narcotics trade in Southeast Asia. I think
you'll find h'im interesting.
McGEE: A writer claims the United States government
is actually participating in drug traffic in Southeast Asia.
? In just a moment we'll meet him and ask him to substantiate
that charge.
McGEE: In the triangle where Laos, Thailand, and Burma
meet, opium has been. produced as a cash crop for more than a
hundred years. Some narcotics investigators, as well as members
of Congress, believe this area.provides 70 percent of the world's
illicit supply of heroin and that much of it makes its way into
the United States.
A new book called "The Politics of Heroin in'Southeast
Asia" traces the increase in opium production in this area since
the end of World. War If, and it also makes the claim that various
governments in Southeast Asia,- including South Vietnam, are
involved in the production and transport of illegal narcotics.
Perhaps more significantly, it asserts that the United States
government and its agencies. have actually supported the opium
trade.
The book was written by Alfred-W. McCoy, who spent
18 months researching in Asia, Europe, and the United States,
and has testif?ied.before a congressional committee where his
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charges were made under oath.
Mr. McCoy, thank you for joining us. Let me ask you
first what United States. agencies are involved in this and --
and what proof do you have of it.
ALFRED W. McCOY: Well, first of-all, the involvement-
is on three levels. One, aligned with corrupt local groups,
providing them with aid, without pressuring them to get out
of the narcotics traffic. This has been done by almost all
U.S. agencies. operating in Southeast Asia -- the State Department,
USAID, and the Central Intelligence Agency.
Two, whenever allegations from the media or from Congress
concerning the involvement of these local allies is forthcoming,
U.S. agencies, most particularly the State Department embassies
in Southeast Asia, come forward with usually very, very vehement,
usually inaccurate denials about these allegations.
And then finally, U.S. agencies, particularly the Central
Intelligence Agency and its charter airline, have been actively
engaged in the transport of illicit narcotics in Southeast Asia
and northern Laos.
So those are the three levels of involvement and those
are the agencies involved.
McGEE: Okay. And what proof do
you have of this?
McCOY: All right, well, for example let's take the
more sensational charges here, the ones the media have concentrated
the most on. I don't think it's the most important.
McGEE: I don't care where the media is concentrating.
We can skip to something else if you'd like.
McCOY: No. It's the...
McGEE: Let's get at the most
McCOY :
moment, okay?
.McGEE :
McCOY:
and its charter
McGEE:
McCOY:
of illicit opium
serious one.
All right. Well, the -- let me just
Uh huh.
That the -- that U.S. agencies, that the CIA
airline have been actually engaged in this...
That's Air America.
Right. Have been engaged in th-e transport
in northern Laos.
All right, now, for example, Senator Tunney, Ramparts
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magazine, a number of sources had -- had -- had aired this charge
prior to my trip to Southeast Asia. And I decided that the
only way to really confirm or deny this was to go into an actual
opium-growing village in northern Laos, which is supplying troops.
for the CIA's secret army that's fighting in Laos against the
Pathet Lao and the North Vietnamese, and to..actuall.y find out
how they were getting their opium to market.
I spent ten days in a -- in a village called Long Poc
(?) in northern Lao's, about 90 miles north of -- of Vientiane.
And I did interviews, most particularly with the chief district
officer' in the area, a man named Getsu Yong (?), who told me
that Air America aircraft had been carrying opium out of the
village for the last three years.,
McGEE: He's a Laotian?
McCOY: He's a Meo. A Meo -- a hill tribe that is
supplying troops for the CIA.
McGEE: And he told you what?
McCOY: That Air America aircraft have been coming
into the village. Officers, Meo officers in the CIA's secret'
army, have been getting off the aircraft; the-aircraft would
then return to the CIA headquarters at Long Tieng. The officers
would go through the area buying up opium. In this one village
alone they were buying almost a ton of opium every year. The
aircraft would then be called back to the village, and the officers
would load on these, you know, substantial quantities of opium,
fill up the helicopter, and then return to-Long Tieng with the
opium.
Now, what I found most interesting about -- let me...
McGEE: Yes, okay.
McCOY:. What I found most interesting about the CIA's
response to my trip to the village, and also to my charges,
was their -- was their -- was their actions against my source,
Mr. Getsu Yong.
First of all, shortly after I left the village, CIA
officers from Long Tieng flew in to -- flew into the village
of Long Poc and told Mr. -- told Mr. Getsu Yong.that if any
more information came out of the village he'd be arrested, and
,led him to believe that if he were arrested he would never come
back alive.
McGEE: How do you know that?
McCOY: How do.I know that? It's because my photographer,
a man named John Evingham (?),. who'.s a -- who took the photographs
which are in the book and is a correspondent for Dispatch News
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Service in Washington, was in the village several times last
year and several=times this year.. More particularly, he was
in the village the day that the CIA interrogated Getsu Yong --
I believe it was this month -- actually was sitting on the --
well, after a prior receipt of my manuscript, I.don't know exactly
when, the CIA decided to go interview some. of my sources.
And actually the way they conducted those interviews
they -- they in effect intimidated them in an attempt to silence
my sources.
A CIA helicopter flew into the village, picked up Getsu
Yong, flew him to Bon Sung (?) where he was berated by CIA officer
for about an hour, let him back; and he asked my photographer,
who happened to be in the village -- he said he was enormously
frightened by the...
McGEE: Getsu Yong.
McCOY: Yes, that's right.
McGEE: And he was talking to your photographer?
McCOY: Right. He was enormously intimidated by the
experience, particularly in light of the.earlier threats that
had been made to him. And he said, "Do you think that they
will send Vang Pao's officers to" -- no, ".Do you think they
will send the. helicopter to arrest me? Or do you think they
will send Vang Pao's officers to shoot me?"
McGEE: Okay. Now, other than this man,-who -- who
after all...
McCOY: Oh, well...
McGEE: Did -- did you see with your own eyes, for
example,.any opium being loaded onto an Air America plane?
Or...
McCOY: First of all....
McGEE: ...any evidence like that?
McCOY: No. First of all, I -- I -- you know, he gave
me -- he-just didn't flatly state it; he gave me very detailed
evidence of -- of exactly how the traffic functioned. Then
I spent most of my time in the area going around from village
to village. He would say, "The officers went to this village
and-they went to that village." I went from village to village
interviewing the headmen in all the villages.
Now, I was not there during the opium growing season,
so there wasn't actually any opium in the village. It had already
been carried the previous May. I was there in August-September
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of last year. The previouus May it had been carried out by
Air America helicopters. So that it -- there was none to be
carried out; it had already been carried out.
McGEE: Uh huh.
McCOY: I interviewed a'number of other sources, including
General Ouan Radikan (?), former USAID officials, the former
commander of the Royal Laotian Air Force, who all -- you know,
who all, you know,-corroborated and provided supplementary evidence
on Air America's involvement in the traffic.
I don't think there could be any reasonable doubt that
Air America was carrying the opium.
McGEE: Well, the -- the managing editor -- managing
director of that operation says .that your charges are "utterly
and absolutely false."
McCOY: Uh huh.
McGEE: But then...
McC-OY: I wouldn't expect him to admit it. Would you?
McGEE: Well, let me -- let me ask the qu-cc-stions.
McCOY: Okay.
McGEE: -Because I -- I'm -- I'm not trying to harangue
you here, I'm just trying to get this -- this out'
Now why, in your opinion, would the CIA.be involved
in -- in such an activity?
McCOY: First of all, it's not a case of corruption
on the individual -- on the part of individual CIA officers.
It's not a case of using the opium traffic'to finance CIA covert
operations, as French military intelligence did during the first
Indochina war. It's simply a case of bowing to the political
and economic imperatives of the region.
The CIA found itself in Laos with a limited -- limited
amount of -- of human resources. The Laotian Army is extremely
inefficient, very, very incompetent. So what they did in order
to combat the North Vietnamese and Pathet Lao was recruit a
.clandestine army among the Meo tribesmen, who are a very, very
warlike people. They -- they live in the mountains. They fight
well.
All right,, now it also happens that their major cash
crop is opium.. The CIA uiob_ilizing the Meo population to fight
the North Vietnamese and the Pathet.Lao -- and it found itself
having to support them. It has to give them rice. It has to.
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give them food. It takes total responsibility for*this tribe.
And their major cash crop is opium, so it inevitably finds itself
flying the opium out of the hills. It's just bowing to the
imperatives of the situation.
McGEE: Uh huh.
McCOY: In other words, I don't think it's -- I don't
think it's a question of maliciousness. I think it's a question
of priority. The CIA, as -- as other U.S. agencies in Southeast
Asia, the State Department and USAID, are so committed to winning
the war, so committed to fighting the war, that anything else,
any other priority in the region, simply gets lost, with this
one willing -- you know, pressing goal.
And so that they just figure that sometime we'll get
rid of this, or maybe never we'll get rid of it, but it's not
important now.
McGEE: I want to talk with you about the possibility,
indeed, the probability, of some of this heroin finding its
way into the hands of American troops in Vietnam, and what you
think might be done about the situation, realistically and reasonably...
McCOY: Uh huh.
McGEE: ...in just a few moments.
McGEE: Does a substantial amount, a small amount,
or any of this opium and heroin from this triangle area find
its way to our troops in Vietnam?
McCOY: Oh, the -- almost, I'd say, all of the heroin
that's being used by U.S. GIs in Vietnam or has been used by
U.S. GIs in Vietnam for the'last two years comes from the Golden
Triangle region of -- of - of Laos, Burma, and Thailand.
There's no question of that fact. Nobody disputes that.
The really'controversial point, of course, is how much
of this heroin is finding. its way into the United States.
McGEE: How much is what?
McCOY: Of this hero i-n that's being produced ' i n the
Golden Triangle region. Or how much of the morphine from this
region is going to lab -- other laboratories in other areas,
particularly Hong Kong and Marseilles, and then finding its
way into the United States. That's the only controversial question.
McGEE: How much would you say-of the American supply
of heroin comes from this area and by this process?
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NoO, Now
McCOY: It's very, very difficult to judge, because'
it's in transition now. For -- let's say since the end of World
War II until the mid-/late 1960s,. it was definitely true that
almost a ,11 of the heroin, supply came from the -- the Turkey-
Sicily-Marseilles axis, essentially from Europe and the Middle
East.
However, since the late 1960s, and particularly in
the light of U.S. diplomatic and law enforcement initiatives
and successes in Europe, narcotics syndicates have been forced
to make a transition to Southeast Asia. And I'd say that as
Turkey's opium production goes -- it's been completely abolished
this year -- that it'll be late this year or early ne.xt year
that almost all of our heroin supply will start coming. from
Southeast Asia.
I know NBC Chronolog in their work came up with an
estimate from reliable sources that 30 percent comes from Southeast
Asia now. That's a pretty arbitrary estimate, because it is
in transition. All I can simply say is that organized crime
has moved out to Southeast Asia. It has connections with indigenous
Corsican syndicates in Southeast Asia, with indigenous Chinese
syndicates in Southeast Asia. And the transition is in process.-
McGEE: What do you thinlS.the United States government
could realistically do about this?
McCOY: I think the key problem in Southeast Asia is
governmental corruption: that police -- police agencies, military
agencies, in Thailand, South Vietnam, and Laos, profit from
? the traffic and are actively engaged in the traffic. So. that
any kind of realistic enforcement campaign can't begin until
these agencies change.their attitude and tell our Southeast
Asian allies: "Make narcotics, any narcotics work, a top priority."
And right now they're not.
They're simply involved in the traffic at all levels,
right up to the very...
McGEE: Well, listen,'we -- our -- our government agencies
conceivably can change their attitudes. But what can they do
to make those people change?
McCOY: No. They -- I -- I do not think that given
the political -- the present political and military situation
in Southeast Asia that - - that' U.S. agencies. are In a position
to change their attitude.
McGEE: To change the attitudes of the others.
McCOY: No, no.
McGEE: Their own?
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McCOY: I- think -- I think there's a fundamental contradic-
tion between our political and military goals we're presently
pursuing in Southeast Asia and cleaning up the narcotics traffic..
For example, when I went down to Washin.gton...
McGEE: Well, excuse me. I want to press that point
a bit. In other words, unless we change our objectives in-Southeast
Asia...
McCOY: Right.
McGEE: ...we can do nothing about this heroin problem.
McCOY: All right. Now let me -- let me give you --
let me explain that a bit and clarify it. Okay?
I went down to Washington and testified in June. After
that I was called over at the State Department by some friends,
who had some informal talks with me. And I said, "Okay, you
say" - and they said, "You know, I think you're too pessimistic."
I said, "Well, let's break it down country by country
and see, you. know, what you're doing." I said, "How about Thailand?
Secretary Rogers has said -- Secretary of State Rogers has said
we're getting good cooperation from the Thais. What do you
think?"
And universally everybody in the State Department said,
'Not true. Not true."
I said, "Well, why does Secretary of State Rogers say
we're getting good. cooperation?"
They said, "You have to understand: it's politics.
We're moving all of our air bases, all of our Air Force, out
of South.Vietnam to Thailand. We have no leases on those bases.
We have no right to be there. We're there at the -- at the
good graces of the Thai government. Therefore we're using all
.of our diplomatic and political leverage that our aid and our
position in the region gives us in order to get -- in order
to pressure the Thais, in order to encourage the Thais to let
us remain there. We simply are not in a position to make any
narcotics hook a top priority at this point."
And you see, all of this leverage on --' on getting
these bases open, on fighting the war...
McGEE: Well, that would apply to other countries...
McCOY: That would apply to -- right. It is particularly
true in South Vietnam, where you've got systematic corruption
in the Thieu administration. For-example, your own correspondent,
Phil Brady, filed a report last year in which he said that the --
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quote: "the biggest pusher in South Vietnam is" General -- General
Thieu -- "President Thieu's chief national security advisor,
General Vong Hon Quong (?)." At the same time Mr. Brady made
those charges, I was conducting my own interviews with -- with
top level officials in the police intelligence bureaucracy in
Saigon, and I found very, very -- you know,. very similar and
enormous detail about General Quong's activities: that the Vietnamese
may -- I' don't have time to deal with them now -- but just many
of the highest officials in'the -- in the Thieu administration
are working closely wity General Quong to profit from the narcotics
traffic.
And yet the United States government has done nothing
about this. They know. Phil Brady Was thrown out of Saigon.
McGEE: Well...
McCOY: But nothing happened.
McGEE: What it boils down to is the United States
feels -- finds itself in the position where it has to accept
these conditions if it wants to achieve other objectives.
McCOY: Right. We -- we've picked allies who are corrupt.
And one of the forms of corruption -- you know, there's currency
manipulation, there's theft of U.S.-ai.d supplies, there's theft
and sale on the black market of military goods, and there's
narcotics traffic. And it's always been felt that you really
can't deal with corruption as long as you're fighting the war.
That's what the locals do; that's what the natives Want. They.
want their money from corruption. We don't touch it.
And narcotics traffic has never been treated differently.
As long as we continue to support these corrupt'local governments.
in Southeast Asia we will be unable to deal with the narcotics
problem.
McGEE: Well, if Iunderstand your book properly, you --
you say the same thing happened immediately after World War
II in -- in Europe: that the United States government found
itself in the a position where it had to accept certain conditions
that.allowed the heroin traffic, which .was virtually dead at
that time, to flourish and -- and come back again.
McCOY: Right. That was-most particularly the OSS,
the Office of Strategic,Services`s alliance with the Sicilian
Mafia, and the CIA's alliance with the Corsican syndicates in
Marseilles. They were basically involved in a situation where
they were fighting local Communist parties and were looking
for any ally they could find.
The only allies they could find: in Sicily that were
effective was the Mafia.' And in Marseilles it was the underworld.
And so they used them.
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At the time it was felt that, you know, Communism was
so evil that the block, the defeat of Communism in Europe was
so important that any means was justified. And so they used
those means.
McGEE: What are your -- what's your background and
what are your credentials for doing this kind of research and
writing this kind of book?
McCOY: I'm a Ph.D. student in Southeast Asian history
at Yale University. I simply...
McGEE: In Southeast Asian history?
McCOY: Right. My specialty is in modern political
history in Southeast Asia. Harper and Row asked me to start
doing research. I spent 18 months doing it. Before.I started
I just simply had some general knowledge and background on Southeast
Asian politics. I just simply worked very hard to gather this
'information. That's my -- my credential.
I 'have written a number of other things in the past.
I edited "Political. History of Modern Laos," which Harper and
'Row published. I've done some other articles on Southeast Asia.
McGEE: In the -- then, it's your -- most of the --
'50 percent, I think you said, of the illicit heroin supply now
comes from Burma.
McCOY: No, I said -- I said your network said 30 percent
and I. think that was...
McGEE: You have -- you have a graph in your book showing
50 percent coming from...
McCOY: -Well, opium,-- I know. Seventy percent of
the world's illicit opium supply comes from the Golden Triangle.
And 50 percent of the world'.s illicit opium supply comes from
Burma. -
McGEE: Ah. It's 50 percent of the 70 percent, then,
comes from Burma.
McCOY: No. I meant 50 percent of the world's total
supply. Okay?.
McGEE: Okay. Do we have the same sort of situation
in Burma? .
McCOY: No. The situation in. Burma is much more compli-
cated. The United States has never been involved in Burma to
the same extent that they have in Thailand and Laos.
However, for example take.the history of CIA*cross-
border operations into China. The CIA used opium smugglers.
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They used the Nationalist Chinese bases inside-Burma, which
were used for the opium traffic. In other words, the whole
logistics 'of CIA intelligence operations, inside Burma, which
were a staging ground for operations inside China, were involved
in the opium'traffic.
. This stopped as of last year. But this went on for
better than a decade.
Also inside Burma itself the CIA originally built up
in the early 1950s the Nationalist Chinese irregular units,
which now control almost all of the opium traffic in Burma and
which were -- well, before the Nationalist Chinese units were
created there was something on the order-of probably 40-to 50
tons of~illicit opium being grown inside northeastern Burma;
by the time that -- by the end of the decade after the KMT,
the Nationalist Chinese units, occupied northeastern Burma,
wi.th.CIA support, this...
McGEE : ' Okay.
McCOY: ...had blown up to something on the order of
three to four-hundred tons.
McGEE: The remnants of these Chiang Kai-shek forces
used the money that they got from the -sale of opi.um to buy --
what?
McCOY: Arms.
McGEE: From?
McCOY: From? At the time, they were being supplied
by the Central Intelligence Agency. But...
McGEE: From us.
McCOY: Well, no..'It was indirectly. They were buying
from the Thai and the Laotian army. Corrupt generals inside
the Thai and the...
McGEE: 'Well, we're the only ones who make M-is, so
far as I know.
McCOY: Right. Well, that's one thing that I saw when
I observed Shan rebel units: they all carry M-1s, M-2s, M-16s,
U.S. .50 caliber machine guns. They dress up like the South
Vietnamese and La-otian armies.
McGEE: I'm sorry: we.'ve run out of time'.
McCOY: Okay.
McGEE: Thank you very much.
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