An excerpt from "Agents and Assets"

By Los Angeles Poverty Department

[Note: This script is from the transcript of a Congressional hearing into allegations that the CIA was involved in selling drugs to the African-American community in Los Angeles to finance the Nicaraguan Contras. It was performed verbatim by the homeless and formerly homeless members of the Los Angeles Poverty Department. –Ed.]

Denise Hall as Maxine Waters in "Agents and Assets", photo credit: David Michalek [image gallery]

THE CHAIRMAN (Mr Goss):

Mr Lewis.

MR LEWIS:

Thank you Mr Chairman and colleagues. Mr Hitz, I too appreciate your making the effort to come and be with us today and want to express my appreciation for your long service to the country. What were the CIA’s legal and regulatory responsibilities from 1979 to ’96 regarding the reporting of potential crimes and the maintenance of relationships with persons suspected of involvement in drug trafficking?

MR HITZ:

Well, it was a movable feast, so to speak, the requirements kept changing. From 1976 to 1982, it was an issue that was not really addressed. From 1982 to 1995, in an agreement hammered out between Attorney General Smith and the Reagan administration, there was no requirement to report on allegations of drug trafficking with respect to non employees of the intelligence agencies. And during the period that did not include agents of the CIA, did not include assets. That has been changed. The agreement in 1995 superseding the 1982 to 1995 period, specifically lists narcotics crimes as reportable, irrespective of whether or not the agency acquires information that they are being carried on by non employees, namely assets.

MR LEWIS:

Thank you very much, Mr Hitz. Mr Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

THE CHAIRMAN:

Mr Dixon.

MR DIXON:

Thank you very much, Mr Chairman. Mr Hitz, I join those who are sorry to see you leave. I understand you are off to Princeton University. Regarding the Frogman case, you say that the CIA became involved mistakenly. As I recall, your report indicates that the attorney from CIA traveled to northern California and had a conversation with the prosecutor. I believe your testimony today reflects that you could find no written material by the attorney who, in fact, had that engagement with the prosecutor?

MR HITZ:

What we did find, of course, and I believe you are familiar with this, Mr Dixon, is the write-up that was made by the Office of General Counsel commenting on that particular exchange, that intervention with the assistant U.S. Attorney. The individual whom we think was involved in the actual negotiations, in fact, doesn’t have a recollection of it.

MR DIXON:

And the write-up was not made by the person who was involved?

MR HITZ:

Well, we don’t know that.

MR DIXON:

You don’t know who it was made by? Is that right?

MR HITZ:

Correct. He has no recollection of it.

MR DIXON:

Now, you come to the conclusion that they interceded because of a mistake. And I believe the report indicates it is a mistaken identity of someone that the CIA did have a relationship with.

MR HITZ:

That’s correct, Mr Dixon. We did not, the CIA did not get involved in the Frogman case until several years after the arrest took place. It came as a consequence of a cable, a State Department cable from Costa Rica saying that a private attorney and attorneys from the United States Attorney’s office in San Francisco were about to come to Costa Rica to take the deposition of two signatories to a letter which had been directed to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, seeking to reclaim the $36,000 that had been confiscated on Zavala’s arrest. The letter came from what appeared to be Contra support groups, and one of the signatories, the agency mistakenly identified as an asset. It was a Hispanic name that was remarkably close to the name of an agent that had worked for us. In any event it was, as you suggest, a case of mistaken identity. Not having been able to locate the lawyer who was actually involved in this, and therefore not being able to speak to his or her mind set, it appears what they were trying to do was to protect the identity of the Contra support group’s connection and in that way keep it from being revealed.

MR DIXON:

Did your investigation make an independent evaluation that this was a mistake or is this something that the CIA told you?

MR HITZ:

The CIA did not tell us, and in point of fact, we were the ones that discovered that the identity of the agent was mistaken.

MR DIXON:

Thank you Mr Hitz.

THE CHAIRMAN:

Ms Pelosi.

MS PELOSI:

Thank you, Mr Chairman. Again, I want to compliment you for having this open hearing, but I would request that we have another opportunity to question the Inspector General, because he will not be available long enough today for us to ask even a substantial part of our questions. In your judgment, was the contact between the CIA and the U.S. Attorney’s office in this case, the Frogman case, appropriate?

MR HITZ:

There appears to have been a difference in interpretation of the propriety of the contact by the individual attorney who engaged in it. He stated in his write-up that he felt he was getting into an area that could cause embarrassment to the President’s covert action activity in the Contra matter and drugs.

MS PELOSI:

My concern is whether the U.S. Attorney’s office would perhaps not proceed in a matter for the reason you just said; to not jeopardize activities of the CIA.

MR HITZ:

Well, my experience with the U.S. Attorneys’ offices has been, Ms Pelosi, that if the U.S. Attorney felt that he or she had a case in this matter, no intervention from the CIA would have warded them off. They would have gone for it and appropriately so.

MS PELOSI:

Mr Chairman, I know that we won't have much more time. So I’m not going to ask any more questions but I would like to make a couple of observations. As I listen to what you say, Mr Hitz, I appreciate you establishing your limitations: you don’t have the power of subpoena, the guidelines weren't clear, certain things were not reportable at the time. For example whether an asset that we were engaged with was involved in drug trafficking. And that leads me to conclude that we may have unwittingly, and I use that word generously, we may have been subsidizing assets who engaged in drug trafficking. I’m glad that the law has changed, that now at least, it is reportable. But, I, for the life of me, cannot figure out why, as you say in your statement, that the CIA did not know whether these people were involved in drug trafficking. At least they should know, whether it is reportable or not, we at least should know. We are CIA. Shouldn’t we know? Doesn’t the pen say "knowledge is our business"?

MR HITZ:

We are pretty categorical on the issue of Blandon and Meneses and their lack of relationship with the CIA. Ricky Ross as well.

MS PELOSI:

I think that in our investigation we should talk to the people you couldn’t subpoena. We could figure out why it wasn’t worth $36,000 to go to Costa Rica for a deposition, and we can find out whether the CIA mistakenly identified somebody or not. This is not to say that within the limitations that you have in the Inspector General’s office that you haven’t made a good effort, but I’m afraid it keeps open some questions that I would hope that it would close.

But, nevertheless, thank you.

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