Ilopango Air Force Base is a military airfield outside [[San Salvador]], [[El Salvador]], that served as the hub for [[Oliver North]]'s illegal Contra resupply operation and a center for Contra-connected cocaine trafficking during the 1980s. Situated atop a plateau surrounded by imposing cliffs, the base had a restricted military side tightly guarded by the Salvadoran military and a civilian side used for private aviation.[^1] ### Contra Resupply Hub The [[Contras]] had been using Ilopango with Salvadoran Air Force commander General Juan Rafael Bustillo's blessings since 1983, when [[Norwin Meneses]]'s friend, CIA pilot [[Marcos Aguado]], arranged to base [[Eden Pastora]]'s ARDE air force there. Most accounts date the Contras' intensified use to September 1985, when North wrote to [[Felix Rodriguez]] asking him to use his influence with Bustillo to secure hangar space. Rodriguez "greased the skids" with Bustillo and became overseer of North's Contra resupply operation. Rodriguez recruited [[Luis Posada Carriles]] as his day-to-day manager, operating under the alias "Ramon Medina."[^1] The operation was run openly. The assistant regional security officer for the U.S. embassy in San Salvador told Iran-Contra investigators in 1991: "The woman selling tortillas at the gate of Ilopango could tell you what was going on. Anyone who ever flew into or over Ilopango air base could see something like that was going on. When looking down at Ilopango from the air, one could see one side of the airfield having a ragtag operation of inferior planes, dilapidated buildings and the like. On the other side of the airport were nice facilities, lift trucks unloading supplies from more sophisticated and bigger aircraft, and gringos running around." The modern facilities "all belonged to the American operation."[^1] ### Hangars 4 and 5 [[Central Intelligence Agency]] records show Hangar No. 4 was used by the Agency for covert Contra operations until it was turned over in 1985 to the National Security Council and Oliver North's illegal arms network, "The Enterprise." CIA agent Felix Rodriguez also used Hangar No. 4 for his helicopter-based counterinsurgency program. The adjoining Hangar No. 5 continued to be used by the CIA in support of the Contra project.[^1] In March 1986, a cable from the Costa Rican [[DEA]] office reported that a pilot named Carlos Amador intended to fly into Ilopango, pick up cocaine at Hangar No. 4, and transport it to [[Miami]]. Amador had been working with the CIA for years, flying missions for the Costa Rican Contras. The CIA had collected information for at least a year indicating Amador was also flying drug planes between [[Costa Rica]], [[Panama]], Belize, and Miami for a pair of major cocaine traffickers, the Sarcovic brothers, at the same time he was flying for the White House.[^1] ### Drug Trafficking DEA agent [[Celerino Castillo]]'s informant Murga, who wrote flight plans for private planes on the civilian side of the base, reported that Contra pilots were brazenly flying drugs to the United States and money to Panama, sometimes leaving with kilos in plain view or arriving with boxloads of money. When Castillo ran pilot names through DEA computers, nearly all came back as documented narcotics traffickers. Among the busiest pilots was [[Francisco Guirola Beeche]], who was later observed zooming in and out of Ilopango hauling drugs in and carrying cash to the Bahamas.[^1] Former Meneses aide [[Enrique Miranda]] testified that cocaine from [[Colombia]] arrived at various Costa Rican airstrips, including one on CIA operative [[John Hull]]'s farm, and was placed aboard Contra planes flown into Ilopango. There, Marcos Aguado and Norwin Meneses supervised loading the cocaine onto U.S.-bound aircraft owned by the Salvadoran Air Force and, on occasion, the Miami-based CIA contractor [[Southern Air Transport]]. Miranda said Meneses told him U.S. military hardware stockpiled at Ilopango was loaded onto Salvadoran transport planes and flown south, where guns were traded for cocaine and flown back.[^1] ### CIA Obstruction of Investigations When Celerino Castillo's investigation began probing the hangars, the CIA sent an April 1986 cable from its El Salvador station to the Costa Rican office asking if the DEA could be persuaded to back off: "El Salvador Station would appreciate Costa Rica Station advising DEA not to make any inquiries into anyone re: Hangar No. 4 at Ilopango since only legitimate CIA supported operations were conducted from this facility." The CIA official who wrote that cable later conceded "the language in the cable could be read to suggest a meaning he did not intend" but acknowledged that was the effect it had.[^1] U.S. Ambassador Edwin Corr sent a secret "back channel" cable to the State Department requesting an internal DEA review of Castillo's allegations. The DEA informed Corr that Castillo's information was "totally inaccurate" and Castillo was told to close his investigation. When he continued, Corr personally ordered him to "stop the witch hunt." Three years later, when Castillo opened another investigation into drug trafficking at Hangar No. 5, the CIA refused to allow him on the base.[^1] [[Alan Fiers|Alan Fiers Jr.]], the former CIA official who headed the Contra program from 1984 to 1988, acknowledged: "We had a capability and indeed a responsibility for reporting what had been happening at Ilopango." The DEA later claimed under FOIA that it had no reports from Castillo about drug trafficking at Ilopango—a claim the Justice Department Inspector General exposed as false, having found and quoted from the reports liberally.[^1] ### Footnotes [^1]: Gary Webb, *Dark Alliance*, Chapter 13: "The wrong kind of friends"