POLITICS 88 : Jackson Charges CIA With Drug-Dealing

TOPEKA, Kan. — Democratic presidential candidate Jesse Jackson charged Friday that the “CIA is dealing drugs” in association with officials in Central and Latin America.

“Noriega is dealing in drugs,” Jackson told a rally at Washburn University one day before the Kansas Democratic caucuses, referring to Panamanian military strongman Manuel A. Noriega, who has been indicted on drug charges in Miami. “The Honduran generals are dealing in drugs. The CIA is dealing in drugs.”

In response to questions later, Jackson also said the CIA was implicated in “exchanging drugs for arms” to the Contras in Nicaragua.

‘Sleazy Operation’

“The CIA has been involved in the drugs-for-arms operations (with the Contras) and with the Honduran generals,” he said. “Some of it came out of the hearings about the Iran-Contra situation. Our dealings with the Contras is a sleazy operation. We are heavily implicated in that situation.”

Jackson has referred indirectly to so-called drugs-for-arms operations involving the Contras in earlier stump speeches. But his remarks Friday went further, directly charging the CIA with dealing in drugs, and apparently expanding that to one or more Honduran generals whom Jackson did not name.

When asked if he meant to say that members of the CIA had profited from the selling of drugs, Jackson said: “I’m convinced that our CIA is deeply involved in the sleazy and corrupt behavior in Central America and Latin America, and that we should have a full and complete investigation.”

Cites Hearings

When pressed again for further details, Jackson said only: “It did come out in the hearings about the exchanging of drugs for arms with the Contras. It did come out in the hearings.

“We (the United States) are as aware of a Honduran general dealing in drugs as we are of Noriega dealing drugs . . . the reality is our CIA has been involved in that whole drug operation. It is beneath the dignity of our government. It should never be allowed to happen again.”

Jackson’s comments echo charges leveled last month in a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee inquiry into the narcotics trade. The hearing was headed by Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), one of the Contras’ and the CIA’s most relentless critics.

Kerry’s panel has been investigating allegations of drug trafficking by the Contras and other CIA-backed Central Americans, including the Honduran military and Noriega, for more than a year.

More Hearings Planned

It has yet to produce evidence backing allegations that the CIA tolerated drug trafficking by its allies, although Kerry aides say they plan further public hearings this spring.

The CIA has denied any role in or approval of narcotics trafficking. Senate Intelligence Committee officials who recently studied the CIA’s ties to Noriega say privately that they found no evidence of misconduct.

State Department officials have previously agreed that some fringe elements of the Contra movement based in Costa Rica--in particular a rebel branch once headed by charismatic guerrilla Eden Pastora--had joined in narcotics smuggling into the United States. The United States divorced itself from Pastora’s operations in 1984.

Others have alleged that the main U.S.-backed Contra faction, called the FDN, has trafficked in drugs to finance the war and that the CIA has turned a blind eye to the practice. While there are indications that some rebels have smuggled drugs, no evidence of any systematic Contra involvement in the drug trade has been made public.

Staff writer Michael Wines in Washington contributed to this story.