Kerry Committee report

The Kerry Committee report, formally titled Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy, was the final report of an investigation by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Operations.[1] The report examined the problems that drug cartels and drug money laundering in South and Central America and the Caribbean posed for American law enforcement and foreign policy. The Sub-Committee was chaired at the time by Democratic Party Senator John Kerry from Massachusetts, so that the report is often referred to under his name.

Cover of the Kerry Committee report

The report was released on April 13, 1989,[2] and included discussions of drug trafficking in the Bahamas, Colombia, Cuba and Nicaragua, Haiti, Honduras, and Panama. The longest chapter in the report was on narcotics trafficking and the Nicaraguan Contras. The Subcommittee determined that there was "substantial evidence of drug smuggling... on the part of individual Contras, Contra suppliers, Contra pilots, mercenaries who worked with the Contras, and Contra supporters".[3] It "did not find that Contra leaders were personally involved in drug trafficking".

Background

Press accounts concerning links between the Contras and drug traffickers, which began with a December 1985 story by the Associated Press, led to a review by the United States Department of State, U.S. Department of Justice and relevant U.S. intelligence agencies in 1986.[4] In April 1986, the State Department informed Congress that it had "evidence of a limited number of incidents in which known drug traffickers tried to establish connections with Nicaraguan resistance groups."[4]

Hearings begin

In April 1986, John Kerry and Senator Christopher Dodd, a Democrat from Connecticut, proposed that hearings be conducted by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee regarding charges of Contra involvement in cocaine and marijuana trafficking. Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana, the Republican chairman of the committee, agreed to conduct the hearings.

Findings

The Kerry Committee report found that "the Contra drug links included... Payments to drug traffickers by the U.S. State Department of funds authorized by the Congress for humanitarian assistance to the Contras, in some cases after the traffickers had been indicted by federal law enforcement agencies on drug charges, in others while traffickers were under active investigation by these same agencies."[5]

Reception

The report did not initially receive significant news coverage. Some of its allegations were reintroduced into public discourse during the 1995 series Dark Alliance by reporter Gary Webb at The San Jose Mercury News.[6]

See also

References
  1. United States Senate. Committee on Foreign Relations. Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Operations. (1989). Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy. Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office. OCLC 968628011. S. Prt. No. 100-165.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  2. Peter Kornbluh (January–February 1997). "Anatomy of a Story, Crack the Contras and the CIA: The Storm Over Dark Alliance". Columbia Journalism Review. Retrieved April 22, 2006. Hosted on National Security Archives
  3. Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate 1989, p. 2.
  4. Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate 1989, p. 37.
  5. Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate 1989, p. 36.
  6. Devereaux, Ryan (September 25, 2014). "How the CIA Watched Over the Destruction of Gary Webb". The Intercept. Retrieved March 18, 2020.

Further reading
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