CONTRA AID AND ALLEGED DRUG SMUGGLING

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000707110002-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 7, 2011
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: April 6, 1987
• Content Type: MISC

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/07: CIA-RDP90-00965R000707110002-7
RADIO TV REPORTS, INC.
4701 WILLARD AVENUE, CHEVY CHASE, MARYLAND 20815 [phone]
)'
PROGRAM CBS Evening News
STATION W U S A T V
CBS Network
DATE April 6, 1987 7:00 PM CITY Washington DC
SUBJECT Contra Aid and Alleged Drug Smuggling
DAN RATHER: For the past several years the Reagan
Administration has been involved in the expensive, sophisticated
and highly publicized campaign, it says, to stamp out drug
smuggling. But there've been increasing charges that the United
States government, itself, may have actually helped bring drugs
into this country as part of the secret effort to supply arms and
perhaps money to the Nicaraguan rebels, the contras.
Correspondent Jane Wallace has been investigating this
story for the CBS News magazine, "West 57th."
JANE WALLACE: Thank you, Dan.
We all knew there was a secret weapons' network to supply
the contras. The Tower Commission confirms that. What's news is
that some of those who flew guns down to the contras are claiming
that they brought drugs back to the United States to raise
untraceable cash for the contra war. All of this was part of an
arrangement that included former and current CIA operatives.
Mike Toliver is a pilot whose principal occupation has
been smuggling drugs. He's currently in federal prison on a drug
charge unrelated to his flights for the contras. He says he was
approached in 1985 and the arrangement was clear from the start.
MIKE TOLIVER: We could bring back our own cargo. They
would arrange it. Or, we could bring back their cargo without ever
having to worry about interception, arrest, anything like this;
that everything was taken care of.
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Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/07: CIA-RDP90-00965R000707110002-7
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/07: CIA-RDP90-00965R000707110002-7
WALLACE: What kind of cargo were you talking about?
TOLIVER: Drugs.
WALLACE: What kind of drugs?
TOLIVER: Whatever you wanted, marijuana or cocaine.
WALLACE: Whatever you want to come back with, fine, we
can make sure you don't get hit by Customs....
TOLIVER: We can make sure. It was my understanding
that they would make sure we wouldn't get caught. They would
provide not only the cargo, but the landing areas, crews, everything.
WALLACE: For a drug run?
TOLIVER: Yeah.
WALLACE: They would also provide the drugs if you
TOLIVER: Absolutely. Which indeed they did.
WALLACE: Toliver says he had two meetings with this
man, CIA veteran Rafael Quintero.
Then in March of 1986, he says he flew 14 tons of
weapons down to Honduras to this contra resupply base set up by
the CIA.
What kind of cargo were you bringing back'?
TOLIVER: Twenty-five thousand and change of pot.
WALLACE: Twenty-five thousand pounds of pot?
TOLIVER: Yes. Marijuana. Same plane.
WALLACE: And the same people you believe set you up
with the arms...
TOLIVER: Exactly. Oh, of course....
WALLACE: ...also set you up the 25....
TOLIVER: Sure.
WALLACE: Twenty-five thousands pounds of pot?
TOLIVER: And change, yeah. That's what they -
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/07: CIA-RDP90-00965R000707110002-7
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/07: CIA-RDP90-00965R000707110002-7
the piece of paper they gave me said twenty-five, I think,
three-sixty.
pot?
WALLACE: So what do you do with that 25,000 pounds of
TOLIVER: We take off from Tegucigalpa, Honduras, and we
WALLACE: To?
TOLIVER: South Florida.
WALLACE: Where in south Florida?
TOLIVER: We landed at Homestead.
WALLACE: Homestead?
TOLIVER: Homestead Air Force Base.
WALLACE: You brought 25,000 pounds of marijuana and
landed it at Homestead Air Force Base?
TOLIVER: That's correct.
WALLACE: This is the plane Toliver says he used. The
plane traces to a company that had a State Department contract to
fly humanitarian supplies to the contras at the same time Toliver
made his flight. The Air Force says it has no record of the
flight.
Were you surprised you were going to land all
this pot at an Air Force base?
TOLIVER: Well, I was a little taken aback, to be honest
with you. I was somewhat concerned about it. I figured it was a
set up. They were going to, you know -- or it was a DEA
bust, or a sting, or something like that.
WALLACE: And instead nothing happens to you.
TOLIVER: No, the little guy in the truck puts it
into a pickup truck and takes us out, and I got in a taxicab.
WALLACE: Did you get paid for the flight?
TOLIVER: Seventy-five thousand dollars.
WALLACE: Toliver's not alone. Two other men who worked
in the contra supply network tell a similar story. The CIA
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/07: CIA-RDP90-00965R000707110002-7
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/07: CIA-RDP90-00965R000707110002-7
denies it was involved in drug smuggling. But Congress is
interested enough to invite all three to testify under oath next
month.
RATHER: Jane, why believe this man instead of the CIA?
WALLACE: In terms of his prison sentence, he seems to
have nothing to gain from telling this story. In addition to
that, three dozen sources confirm the basic scheme. And in
addition to that, it seems as though he was a man who became
expendable in a secret operation, and his only apparent motive is
"get back."
RATHER: Thanks, Jane.
Now there's a lot more to this story -- a lot more. And
it will be broadcast later tonight on CBS News magazine, West
57th, on most of these CBS stations at 1n:00, Eastern Time, 9:On,
Central.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/07: CIA-RDP90-00965R000707110002-7