Federico Vaughn
Alleged Sandinista aide shown by President Reagan loading drugs onto an aircraft, who evidence suggests was actually a U.S. double agent working for the CIA.
Federico Vaughn was identified by President Ronald Reagan on national television as "a top aide to one of the nine commandantes who rule Nicaragua," shown loading an aircraft with illegal narcotics "bound for the United States." Evidence later emerged suggesting Vaughn was actually a U.S. government double agent.1
The Reagan Broadcast
The night before a crucial vote in Congress on Contra aid, Reagan displayed a grainy photograph taken during Barry Seal's joint Central Intelligence Agency-DEA sting operation against the Sandinistas. "This picture, secretly taken at a military airfield outside Managua, shows Federico Vaughn, a top aide to one of the nine commandantes who rule Nicaragua, loading an aircraft with illegal narcotics, bound for the United States," Reagan announced. "No, there seems to be no crime to which the Sandinistas will not stoop—this is an outlaw regime."1
Evidence of U.S. Government Ties
A 1988 House Judiciary Committee investigation produced evidence suggesting the entire Seal sting was stage-managed by Oliver North and the CIA as a domestic disinformation operation. Committee chairman William Hughes of New Jersey told reporters that "subcommittee staff recently called Vaughn's number in Managua, Nicaragua, and spoke to a 'domestic employee' who said the house belonged to a U.S. Embassy employee," and that the house had been "continuously rented" by the United States since 1981.1
Declassified CIA cables supported the idea that Vaughn was a U.S. double agent. In March 1985 the CIA reported that Vaughn "was said to be an associate of Nicaraguan narcotics trafficker Norwing [sic] Meneses Cantarero." Norwin Meneses at that time was working with the DEA in Costa Rica, assisting the Contras. Oliver North's daily diaries contained several references to "Freddy Vaughn," including a July 6, 1984, entry: "Freddy coming in late July."1
Far from being a "top aide" to a Sandinista commandante, Vaughn was a deputy director of Heroes and Martyrs Trading Corporation (H&M Corp.), the official import-export agency of the Sandinista government—a firm heavily infiltrated by CIA operatives. Dagoberto Núñez, a Costa Rican-based drug trafficker working for North and the CIA, obtained a contract with H&M Corp. to cover an intelligence-gathering operation aimed at Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega, his brother Humberto, and Interior Minister Tomas Borge.1
The Leak and Aftermath
Four DEA officials testified before Hughes's committee that they received pressure from North and the CIA to leak Vaughn's involvement with drugs to the press. They also said North wanted to take $1.5 million in drug profits Seal had collected from the Medellín cartel and give it to the Contras. When the DEA refused, the story was leaked by the White House to the right-wing Washington Times. The leak publicly linked the Sandinistas to drug trafficking right before the Contra aid vote and prematurely exposed the DEA's investigation of the Medellín cartel—the DEA's most promising chance ever to break up the Colombian drug conglomerate. Vaughn disappeared.1
Sources
- Webb, Gary. Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion. Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 13: "The wrong kind of friends" ↩
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