CIA documents shine light on secretive Air America

CIA documents shine light on secretive Air America

www.comcast.net

Former naval aviator Don Boecker isn't too proud to say he was scared out of his wits on that July 1965 day in Laos when he dangled by one arm from a helicopter while enemy soldiers took aim below.

Boecker had spent the longest night of his life in the thick jungle, evading capture and certain execution while awaiting rescue. The Navy aviator had ejected after a bomb he intended to drop on the Ho Chi Minh trail exploded prematurely.

His rescuers that day, however, weren't from the American military, who couldn't be caught conducting a secret bombing campaign in Laos.

They were civilian employees of Air America, an ostensibly private airline essentially owned and operated by the CIA.

Boecker, now a 71-year-old retired rear admiral, plans to tell the story on Saturday at a symposium intended to give a fuller account of an important outfit that alumni say is still misunderstood by the American public.

The University of Texas at Dallas event coincides with the CIA's release of about 10,000 previously classified Air America records, which will become part of the school library's extensive aviation collection. The CIA declassified the documents following a Freedom of Information Act request by UT-Dallas.

(visit the link for the full news article)

I think this is great. So many documents coming into the light. There are so many people who have some connection to Air America and really have no idea of what really happened over there. Some have family members that were a part of it, whisperings from long forgotten friends. Personally, I was a mechanic on a plane that was apart of the operation. It had been sold into the private sector and it was my job to get it flight ready for the new owners. Trying to track down all the records of maintenance turned out to be a wonderful journey through stacks of paperwork. I can't wait to see what great stories come out of this release of documents.

www.comcast.net
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 15-4-2009 by maxweljames]

Lets hope he makes it until Saturday without some car accident or death by natural causes some night in his sleep.

Actually contrary to what Don Boecker is saying, this isn't really anything of a revelation.

Anthony Poshepny who was a career CIA case officer in the Special Activities Division blew the lid on Air America and it's operations in Laos in the 1970's together with historian Alfred W. McCoy:
infocollective.org...

Air America amongst other things was one of the CIA's many drug smuggling fronts to help generate revenues for it's black budget, undisclosed operations in South-East Asia and elsewhere, which they couldn't (or didn't want to) get Congressional funding and oversight for.

Ethically questionable operations like supporting Saddam Hussein with chemical weapons & assorted military hardware, the MKULTRA mind control programme (which involved testing on unwitting subjects), assassination attempts on Fidel Castro, overthrowing Manuel Noriega of Panama, installing Augusto Pinochet as a right-wing dictator of Argentina, teaching the Nicaraguan Contras how torture it's dissidents, etc.
Things Americans might find *gasp*, reprehensible. Those pathetic babies.

Air America was being used by the CIA to transport heroin and opium from the Vietnamese poppy fields owned by South Asian drug lords (who tie into the "Golden Crescent", a drug smuggling ring operating from Afghanistan-Burma-Vietnam, who grow almost all of the world's opium), back into the United States in uncharted, unmarked, secret flights.

An unintended consequence of this was that many soldiers and officers involved in the transportation and logistical operation became addicted to heroin, which as is well known, became a major epidemic amongst US military personnel in Vietnam and continued well after they had been discharged from service in the United States.

These high-quality, refined drugs were filtered through gangsters and Italian crime families that had links to the CIA, like the Chicago Outfit headed by Sam Giancana, a man commonly implicated in the assassination of President Kennedy and who cooperated with the CIA in attempted assassinations on Castro, after his casinos in Cuba were closed down by him. Or Santo Trafficante Jr., the Florida mob boss who is now confirmed to have been involved in anti-Cuban operations conducted by the CIA, via their declassified "Family Jewels" documents.

This is just the beginning in a long history of illegal drug smuggling operated through CIA front organisations in South-East Asia, Central America and Afghanistan.
Ironically instead of furthering the national security of the United States, it completely undermined it by flooding America with vast amounts of coc aine, heroin and amphetamines, amongst other drugs which helped to foster the reckless growth in drug smuggling and gang activity in the US during the 1980's to the 1990's as well partially being responsible for the American recession during the 1980's.

You can read more about it here:
www.serendipity.li...
www.consortiumnews.com...
www.gnn.tv... Interesting Documentary on CIA Drug smuggling.

The most recent, confirmed operation to have involved the CIA smuggling drugs was the Iran-Contra affair, in which the Contras of Nicaragua were growing coc aine plantations for the CIA to fund their support of both Iran & Iraq, ironically, against each other in the Iran-Iraq war during the 1980's.

However, knowing the CIA, you can bet your bottom dollar this is still continuing into the present day era.

Why do you think the government is determined to keep up a continued presence in Afghanistan? The world's largest producer of opium.

It's quite simple when you look at this:


And look at who the US decided to install as their main man in Kabul, Hamid Karzai:

Many chastise Karzai for being too docile in his dealings with corrupt governors and police chiefs and for maintaining ties for the country's former warlords. But Karzai's latest troubles are closer to home in nature: They center around allegations that one of his brothers is involved in drug trafficking. His younger brother Ahmed Wali Karzai is influential among the Popalzai, a Pashtun clan, in Karzai's home province of Kandahar and is the chairman of the provincial council. It is believed the Ahmed Wali is also the head of a group involved in opium and heroin trafficking that smuggles drugs to the West through Iran and Turkey. Sources in security circles claim that he provides protection for drug transports in southern Afghanistan.

www.spiegel.de...
afp.google.com...

Put two and two together.
Drugs is a multi-trillion dollar a year industry.

[edit on 15/4/09 by The Godfather of Conspira]

I don't know if there's any connection but the steady stream of information and government history that's been coming out under Obama's administration has been refreshing. I will certainly be fascinated learning about Air America and hearing this man's story.

reply to post by The Godfather of Conspira


Great info, great links. And I would have to agree that the meat of what Air America was has been made fairly public. I guess what interests me is the human side of it. The personal notes and stories of the people that were actually there living it. And I'm hoping those are just the kinds of things that gets released. Like Boecker said, Air America is misunderstood.

I think that's a true statement, in that, just telling the public the facts of a case doesn't nessasarily bring out the truth of the matter. Maybe I'm just a little too philosophical when it comes to an old timer's "war stories".

It does seem like there is more personal stories and revelations coming out from ex-CIA and ex-MI5 members lately.....and more posts here about it (which I think is super cool too)

ON a more conspiratorial note though, could this be the signaling of a "pass the buck" scenario and if so to who---DHS?

Originally posted by mkultraangel
ON a more conspiratorial note though, could this be the signaling of a "pass the buck" scenario and if so to who---DHS?

I'm not sure that it is, thought it's crossed my mind a time or two. I see two different generations, two different modes of operations.

It seems like, at least from the stories I've heard thus far from ex-cia, ex-black-ops, etc. the 50's through the 70's were real cowboy times. It wasn't the time to wait and observe, it was time for action. If something needed done they didn't spend millions of dollars and months of time reviewing it to get the best answer. They saddled up and took care of business. For better or worse they got in the game and got results.

Today seems like it's more run by analysts, and technologies. It's Chessmaster 9000, there is no longer a physical board to play on. And that is the exact reason the old timers are coming forward. They can't even get the computer turned on, let alone play the game. And perhaps the new kids on the block running the show don't care. I mean, really what could a bunch of retired old men know about what's going on in the world. A world which they now think they control via super technologies that the old guys wouldn't recognize if it bit them in their dentures.

In other words, I don't think the "buck" was passed. I think sometime towards the end of the cold war the "buck" was stolen and all those people were kicked to the curb. Get out of the way for the next generation, bigger, faster, quieter, cleaner.

I think what you have posted is very interesting....however I wouldn't say that the younger generations just don't care...after all it was the older people who put down the "blueprint" for operations today. And although technology is of course a huge part of the playground, there are certain skills that can't be taught and used in that manner---I would think that what the older guys have to say would be needed or maybe I just watch too many movies and it really isn't all Brad Pitt/Leonardo DiCaprio stuff