Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C. was the command center for the Reagan administration's Contra policies and the destination for DEA reports on Contra-connected drug trafficking that were ignored or suppressed. The city housed the National Security Council, Central Intelligence Agency headquarters, and the congressional committees that investigated and ultimately failed to fully expose the Contra-drug connection.¹

Reports to Washington

DEA agent Celerino Castillo III began firing off reports to DEA headquarters in Washington in January 1986 about suspicious activities of Contra pilots at Ilopango Air Base in San Salvador, listing their names, destinations, tail numbers, and criminal records. He received no replies and no offers of assistance. It was, he wrote later, as if his reports were falling into "some faceless, bureaucratic black hole." Ex-CIA agent Luis Posada recounted that the resupply project was always looking for people to carry cash from the United States into El Salvador, and he was told "the money came from Washington," but never got a better explanation.²

NSC and CIA Operations

The National Security Council, based in the White House, became an operational intelligence agency during the Reagan administration. Oliver North ran the Contra resupply operation from the NSC, coordinating weapons shipments and managing "The Enterprise." CIA agent Felix Rodriguez traveled to Washington for final approval of his mission to manage Ilopango before deploying. Former CIA officer Alan Fiers testified that Rodriguez was sent to El Salvador as part of a formal CIA reorganization directed from Washington.³

Congressional Investigations

John Kerry's Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Operations held hearings in 1987 and 1988 into links between the Contras and cocaine trafficking. Chief investigator Jack Blum detailed that narcotics were coming into the United States "not by the pound, not by the bag, but by the ton, by the cargo planeload." The State Department assured Congress that DEA had found no information indicating Contra members were involved in narcotics trafficking. CIA Inspector General Fred Hitz testified before Congress in March 1998 that the CIA had failed to cut off relationships with individuals supporting the Contra program who were alleged to have engaged in drug trafficking.⁴