BEFORE THERE WAS GARY WEBB, THERE WAS MICHAEL LEVINE…
Former undercover drug agent Michael Levine wrote in the ‘Author’s Note’ of this 1993 book, “The story you are about to read is true… I have reconstructed the incidents, events, and conversations I was party to... A good portion of the evidence gathered in Operation Hun… were mysteriously destroyed by the Drug Enforcement Administration… The Prologue is a fictionalized dramatization of a meeting and transaction that actually occurred and is based on my personal knowledge of all the parties, informants’ statements, and statements made to me by drug dealers during my deep cover assignment in Operation Hun. The ‘suits’ are the drug war bureaucrats---the armchair generals who direct the drug war from behind desks and in front of television cameras, and for whom for the most part are more concerned with their own careers and images than the lives of the men and women they command.”
He states in the Introduction, “Senator John Kerry, after hearing evidence of our own government’s massive involvement in drug trafficking during his Iran-Contra Senate hearings… said that ‘…[our covert agencies] had converted themselves into channels for the flow of drugs into the United States.’ He noted with astonishment that while American taxpayers were taxed more than $100 billion to stop drugs, their own government was complicit in flooding their country with them… [Yet] not a single U.S. Official was ever officially charged with violating our drug laws. Evidence… was heard by Kerry’s committee in secret session and will never be revealed to the American people. This secrecy was allegedly for reasons of national security. After you read this book, you will know that this reason could not be true; more damage was done to our national security by those responsible for this falsehood and the flood of drugs that has followed than any foreign enemy…
“In these pages I will lead you through the deep cover odyssey that I lived for six years. You will… learn the real reasons behind our cocaine and crack epidemic---the ones your elected representatives hid from you behind closed doors… I will give you a … look at how the CIA perverts the American justice system by protecting drug dealers and murderers from prosecution… at how a beautiful South American woman known as the ‘Queen of Cocaine’ [Sonia Atala], responsible for shipping more cocaine into the United States than any one person I had ever known of---was able to seduce the CIA into destroying her competitors, protecting her from prosecution as she sold drugs to Americans, and paying her a small fortune in taxpayer dollars for her ‘services’; at how the only ruling government of Bolivia… that ever wanted to help DEA defeat their drug barons was paid for its faith in our sincerity with torture and death at the hands of CIA-sponsored paramilitary terrorists….
“These lies have caused the worst deterioration in American life and family values in our history… and two generations of brain-damaged crack babies whom sociologists tell us are destined to become conscienceless sociopaths. And none of those responsible for these lies has gone to jail…”
He recounts the ‘Cocaine Coup’ in Bolivia: “it was clear that the primary goal of the of the revolution was the protection and control of Bolivia’s cocaine industry. All major drug dealers in prison were released, after which they joined the neo-Nazis in their rampage… Government employees were tortured and shot, the women tied and repeatedly raped by the paramilitaries and the freed traffickers… The Cocaine Coup had tuned Sonia Atala into … beyond any doubt the biggest drug dealer in the world.” (Pg. 58-60) Later, he adds, “If the Cocaine Coup were part of a worldwide plot by the CIA to throw the election to Reagan, Carter would not have played into their hands any better. His administration … ordered DEA to close its offices there. A State Department spokesman called Bolivia the ‘first government in history to be taken over by drug traffickers.’ Arce-Gomez, the new Bolivian Minister of Interior… promised to ‘flood’ the United States with cocaine, and then made good his promise. It was truly the beginning of the cocaine explosion of the 1980s.” (Pg. 76)
He recounts, “Ronald Reagan had been elected President and redeclared the war on drugs. The media suddenly discovered that the cocaine economy was taking over South America and were ‘astonished’ to learn that Bolivia was actually run by drug dealers… The media coverage was so incomplete that anyone watching it would come away with the impression that our leaders were really trying to win the drug war.” (Pg. 102)
He observes, “I had come to South America full of hatred for those druglords… I had laid my life on the line believing in the virtue of the drug war. I had been betrayed. The war on drugs was only an illusion that I had been fool enough to believe in… I had been one of those for whom being a DEA agent had become their reason for living… Perhaps we kept at it because we never doubted that what we were doing was right; that we were putting evil people in cages… and that in the end, the rightness of what we were doing would prevail… But the war I now found myself engaged in wea one I had never prepared myself for. I was on my way to … work among the very people who were trying to steal my reason for living… and I wasn’t sure I knew how to stop them.” (Pg. 124)
He reports a conversation with a man he calls ‘The Rabbi’ [“who was one suit who had the respect of a lot of street agents’; pg. 51], who told him, “The DEA doesn’t function in a vacuum… maintaining our strength and defending our way of life are priorities that come before everything… Especially the drug war… The point is, Michael, we cannot let them [the communists] take Bolivia, no matter what… [In] countries like Bolivia … drug crops feed a lot of people. These people have to keep eating… or they become vulnerable to change. And ‘change’ in our hemisphere is something America must keep a tight control over.” (Pg. 390-391)
He records, “Papo Mejia’s drones were found guilty on all charges. Not long after the trial, the suits began the cover-up. In violation of a DA and Department of Justice regulations, administrative procedures were begun with the intention of destroying all evidence and closing Operation Hun. That was how the special interests in our government wanted the operation to end, for as long as that evidence existed and the spotlight was on Sonia, their secret was in danger… If it was up to the suits, no one else would have been arrested in Operation Hun.” (Pg. 402)
He asserts, “From the Bolivian point of view the whole drug war was a choreographed show run for the benefit of visiting U.S. politicians and media for the purpose of keeping American aid dollars flowing. There were also those disquieting rumors that at least one of the biggest cocaine labs… was run by the CIA to finance covert South American operations like the Contras. Some eyewitnesses claimed to have seen Oliver North, American hero, at [this] lab.” (Pg. 455)
He summarizes, “the Columbian economy was far too dependent on drugs to make real war against coca… drug money was the only thing repaying the huge debts owed by countries like Columbia, Bolivia, and Peru to already nervous U.S. bankers… the new offensive in Columbia was turning out to be a godsend to American and Columbian politicians… Americans were once again told they were winning the drug war, and President Bush got $9 billion … toward the new militarized war on drugs. For the American politicians who had supported the militarized drug war, as long as there were action headlines they could keep winning elections. For the drug war bureaucrats, there was more funding and bigger empires.” (Pg. 456-457)
He concludes, “So with the help of American bureaucrats and gutless politicians, they put on a … show to demonstrate to the American taxpayers how they committed they are to our war on drugs… Yet incredibly, after almost three decades of international cooperation and statistic-spouting politicians who tell us again and again how we are now ‘turning the corner in the drug war,’ drugs keep pouring across our borders at an ever-increasing rate. But … there is hope on the horizon… People are looking for the truth about the drug war, and when they find it, that will be the doom of the Underground Empire.” (Pg. 463-464)
This book will be “must reading” for those studying the ‘drug \war,’ and related topics.
