Cocaine Politics: Drugs, Armies, and the CIA in Central America [Hardcover]

Peter Dale Scott (Author), Jonathan Marshall (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 16, 1991

Now in paperback, this penetrating account of the real drug war will lead readers to demand a more thorough accounting of foreign policy. "Scott and Marshall call for immediate action to end Washington's complicity. Their heavily documented book deserves a wide audience".--Publishers Weekly.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This important, explosive report forcefully argues that the "war on drugs" is largely a sham, as the U.S. government is one of the world's largest drug pushers. The authors unearth close links between the CIA and Latin American drug networks which provide U.S. covert operations with financing, political leverage and intelligence. CIA-protected Panamian ruler Manuel Noriega supplied drugs, pilots and banking services to Honduran and Costa Rican cocaine smugglers who were partners in Reagan's support program for Nicaragua's Contras. Together, Honduran and Costa Rican traffickers supplied one-third of the cocaine smuggled into the U.S. in the 1980s, according to the authors. The Bush administration showers hundreds of millions of dollars on Latin American military elites in Guatemala, Colombia, etc. to enlist them in the "war on drugs." In so doing, charge the authors, the U.S. risks empowering the very forces that protect drug-pushing crime syndicates. The U.S. also gave covert aid to Afghan guerrillas who smuggled drugs in concert with Pakistan's military--an operation that produced half of the heroin consumed in the U.S. during the 1980s. Scott, a professor at UC-Berkeley, and San Francisco Chronicle economics editor Marshall call for immediate political action to end Washington's complicity. Their heavily documented book deserves a wide audience.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Coauthor Marshall's recent Drug Wars ( LJ 2/15/91) shows how Washington overlooks or supports drug trafficking as part of its efforts to thwart Third World communism around the world. This new book explores in detail the tangled connection between the Nicaraguan Contras, U.S. support for them, and drugs. Marshall and Scott argue that the United States might actually have furthered the flow of cocaine from Central America to the States by colluding with anti-Sandinista forces. Government intimidation of witnesses, a complacent Congress, and timid media have served to keep this a quiet story. Extensive interviews, government records, and secondary sources (enough, in fact, to produce over 60 pages of cited sources), are used to document in great detail how the war on communism took precedence over the war on drugs. An authoritiative account of a crucial but underpublicized issue.
- Cathy Seitz Whit aker, Univ. of Pittsburgh Lib.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 260 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press (April 16, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520073126
• ISBN-13: 978-0520073128
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,146,808 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A masterpiece of investigative reading, March 19, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Cocaine Politics: Drugs, Armies, and the CIA in Central America, Updated Edition (Paperback)

This incredible volume was one of the first things I read when I began researching the issue of Contra cocaine trafficking for the San Jose Mercury News in 1995. To call the experience an eye-opener is a major understatement. Cocaine Politics not only confirmed to me that the Contra-drug link was for real, but that it was just a small part of an even more insidious picture: a secret and practically invisible world where intelligence operatives and criminals collude, wreak havoc, and almost always escape prosecution and accountability. When a producer from Dateline NBC, which did a show about my Dark Alliance series, asked me for recommended reading material on this issue, I unhesitatingly recommended Cocaine Politics. His reaction afterwards was memorable: "This is the most amazing book I've ever read. How come I've never heard any of this stuff before?" The answer is pretty obvious once you read this book. If the American public ever got wind of this story, our country and our government would never be the same again.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars disturbing and sobering necessity, May 24, 2002

By 

Jeffrey Ian Ross (Washington, DC United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Cocaine Politics: Drugs, Armies, and the CIA in Central America, Updated Edition (Paperback)

This book has all the possibilities of being an academic pot boiler. Divided into two parts, "Right-Wing Narcoterrorism, the CIA, and the Contras," and "Exposure and Cover-Up" and covering twelve chapters, including a glossary of terms, the book is one part investigative journalism and another academic treatise. In general, the book details the toleration or complicity of the American government with drug traffickers to protect the interests of national security or covert operations.
The book has a number of advantages and disadvantages. First, while perhaps a moot point is that a considerable amount of discussion focuses on South America rather than on Central America as promised in the title. Second, and perhaps an editorial point, while there is a four-and-a- half page glossary of names and organizations at the back of the book, there is a sort of breathless spouting off of a succession of names and organizations in the book. This is distracting and tiresome for the reader. Third, even though there is a phenomenal amount of documentation (i.e., approximately 23 percent of the book (a total of 64 pages) is devoted to notes) and a 14-page index, the authors rely on the same basic sources, including Kerry's subcommittee report and american and mainstream newspaper and magazine coverage; few articles come from the spanish speaking press, and few interviews are conducted with sources. Fourth, while the book is highly descriptive and reads like a murder mystery, it is short on analysis, theory building or testing, and/or recommending policy changes. Regardless, this book is a disturbing and sobering necessity for those wishing to understand the so-called war on drugs in the United States and the reasons U.S. foreign policy in Latin America is problematic, a best.

Jeffrey Ian Ross

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Cocaine as an instrument of foreign policy, March 2, 2000

By 

Ramsundar Lakshminarayanan - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cocaine Politics: Drugs, Armies, and the CIA in Central America, Updated Edition (Paperback)

Good reading.

The book gives an account of the dirty tricks involving Oliver North, the State Department and the Justice Department regarding the Central American activities.

The use of cocaine to finance the contra activities is well documented with opinions and lots of factual information.

Even the Israeli involvement in the central american politics is mentioned. Not to mention about the references to the Argentine hold over the Contras during the early phase of the war.

Although at times I have felt, there is too much of factual information to digest.