Nexus - 0502 - New Times Magazine-pages

Page Content (OCR)

DEEP BLACK The CIA's Secret Drug Wars DEEP The CIA's Secret Wars Drug Is the ongoing ‘War on Drugs’ merely a smokescreen for the CIA's own drugs empire? Part 2 he history of how the US became involved in narcotics trafficking dates back more than 150 years. Prominent families of great wealth—often members of secret societies such as Yale's secretive Order of the Skull and Bones—pounced on the opium trade to generate wealth and influence. One of the founding fami- lies of the Skull and Bones were the Russells. To this day, the Russell Trust is the legal entity of the Order of the Skull and Bones. In 1823, Samuel Russell established Russell and Company. He acquired his opium sup- plies in Turkey and smuggled them to China aboard fast clippers. By 1830, Russell bought out the Perkins opium syndicate of Boston and established the main opium smug- gling enterprise to Connecticut. His man in Canton was Warren Delano, Jr—grandfather of Franklin Roosevelt who was US President prior to and during the World War II years. Other Russell partners included the Coolidge, Perkins, Sturgis, Forbes and Low families. By 1832 Samuel Russell's cousin, William Huntington, formed the first US chapter of the Order of the Skull and Bones. He attracted members to the Order from the most pow- erful and influential American families. The membership roster read like a who's who of America: Lord, Whitney, Taft, Jay, Bundy, Harriman, Weyerhauser, Pinchot, Rockefeller, Goodyear, Sloane, Simpson, Phelps, Pillsbury, Perkins, Kellogg, Vanderbilt, Bush and Lovett, to name some of the more prominent. Significantly, Skull and Bonesmen have always had a very close and enduring associa- tion with the US intelligence community. Former US President and Bonesman George Bush was Director of Central Intelligence in 1975-76. The intelligence connection unsur- prisingly dates back to Yale College, where four Yale graduates formed part of the "Culper Ring", one of the first US intelligence operations, established in great secrecy by George Washington to gather vital intelligence on the British throughout the War of Independence. By 1903, Yale's Divinity School had established a number of schools and hospitals throughout China. Mao Zedong was a member of the staff. By the 1930s, such was the clout of Yale's Chinese connection that US intelligence called on "Yale in China" to assist them in intelligence operations.' Interestingly, the by-product of opium, heroin, was a trade name of the Bayer company that launched its highly addictive product in 1898 and is still a world leader in the phar- maceutical industry. Heroin and cocaine were legally available for purchase until they were outlawed by the League of Nations—the forerunner to the United Nations—and the USA in the 1920s. Following prohibition, consumption of these drugs began to spiral. Even so, the war years 1939-46 saw addiction virtually eradicated in Europe and North America—a happy state of affairs that would not last long. by David G. Guyatt © 1997 All correspondence c/- NEXUS Office 55 Queens Road East Grinstead, W. Sussex RH19 1BG United Kingdom Telephone/Fax: +44 (0)1702 217523 E-mail: david.g7@ukonline.co.uk THEN ALONG CAME THE VIETNAM WAR Indo-China, much of which was under French control or influence from the mid-19th century, was captured by the Japanese during World War II. At the conclusion of the War, France regained influence over Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand. But inde- pendence movements had begun fighting to evict the French. This ultimately resulted in the 1954 Viet Minh-orchestrated battle of Dien Bien Phu which resulted in French defeat and eventual withdrawal from Indo-China. They were to be immediately replaced by the United States. In the interim, the French had developed a wide-ranging intelligence apparatus through- out the region, financed by opium. Maurice Belleux, former head of SDECE, the French NEXUS - 27 BACKGROUND TO US INVOLVEMENT IN DOPE TRAFFICKING by David G. Guyatt © 1997 FEBRUARY - MARCH 1998