Seth Rosenfeld
San Francisco Examiner reporter whose 1986 investigative stories exposed the Frogman Case Contra drug connections and Norwin Meneses's cocaine trafficking network.
Seth Rosenfeld was an investigative reporter for the San Francisco Examiner whose 1986 stories provided the first hard evidence of a Contra drug ring operating in the United States.1
The Frogman Case Expose
In spring 1986, Rosenfeld broke the story of the Frogman drug case, exposing the Justice Department's handling of the $36,000 found in Julio Zavala's nightstand in 1983. Rosenfeld reported Zavala's claim from prison that he had personally delivered about $500,000 in drug profits to the Contras in Costa Rica. Rosenfeld also unearthed Carlos Cabezas's long-buried testimony about selling Horacio Pereira's cocaine to raise money for the Contra revolution. Coming on the heels of Associated Press reports about Contra cocaine trafficking, Rosenfeld's story provided the first hard evidence of a Contra drug ring operating in the United States.1
The Meneses Expose
A month before the State Department issued a White Paper dismissing all Contra drug allegations, Rosenfeld published another front-page story exposing Norwin Meneses's cocaine trafficking network and his involvement with the FDN in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Rosenfeld reported on Meneses's meetings with CIA agents Enrique Bermúdez and Adolfo Calero and other Contra leaders. He reported that the FDN's spokesman in San Francisco had been convicted of cocaine charges. He disclosed Meneses's donations at FDN fund-raisers. The story was considerably more damaging than the Frogman story because it directly involved the CIA's primary army with a major international cocaine and arms trafficker.1
Government Reaction
U.S. Attorney Joseph Russoniello mailed a four-page letter to the Examiner's editor calling Rosenfeld's Frogman story "one of the most blatant attempts at contrived news-making we have witnessed in recent years" and suggesting it was a political stunt to harm the Contras' chances of getting aid from Congress. The State Department issued a White Paper portraying Cabezas and Zavala as liars and dismissing Rosenfeld's reporting as malarkey—while studiously avoiding any mention of Meneses. Though the Examiner's Meneses expose appeared just two days before the House was to vote on Reagan's $100 million Contra aid package, not a single major newspaper in the country touched the story.1
Sources
- Webb, Gary. Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion. Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 15: "This thing is a tidal wave" ↩
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