No other name is perhaps more associated with the Iran-Contra affair than Oliver North, but his involvement in exposing Barry Seal's mission and blowing his cover is unknown and entirely speculation. "The estimated value of the narcotics smuggled through the facility is $3 [billion] to $5 billion. FITTON: #TwitterFiles EXPOSE FBI & CIA Election Interference! Judicial Watch has launched a new campaign for answers. In other words: nothing to see here, move on. Many names in the documents have been redacted. An indignant Brown began toying with the idea of exposing the corruption of Arkansas politics. Seal, a pilot, moved much of his smuggling operation from Baton Rouge to Rich Mountain Aviation at the Mena Intermountain Airport, according to the May 1986 FBI memo. The New York Times and "West 57th," a CBS television news show, were working on stories about CIA activities at the Mena airport, according to a 1987 FBI memo released last week. In the film, his abductors take him to a secret airstrip in the Colombian jungle where three businessmen, including Pablo Escobar, make him an offer he can't pass up. The mysteries of Mena revolve around a drug-smuggling pilot named Barry Seal. While the filmmakers were shooting the movie in South America, a local pilot who was working with them said that he had met Barry. "I trusted him so I didn't ask questions," says Debbie. Not all of Barry Seal's heirs were happy with the making of the movie. He also says he told Seal he wanted no part of what was happening; then he left. Then both men got into the front set of the car, and Seal reached into the duffel bag, and pulled out a manila envelope with $2,500 in it. Welsh said it had not, but Youngs concern was intriguing. Brown says he never saw the bags again. He suspected a CIA involvement, although his brother did not confirm it. Like Clinton, Brown passed through a radical stage when he attended the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. In the American Made movie, Barry Seal (Tom Cruise) crash lands a plane in a suburban neighborhood in an effort to escape the DEA who ordered him to land. -Daily Mail Online. In the least, his exploits with the CIA and agent Monty Schafer in the movie are largely fictional and based on speculation. But there were still questions regarding the Mena airport and people who worked there, according to the FBI memo. It would later be serviced and financed by Southern Air Transport, a CIA front company, and it was eventually shot down over Nicaragua in a doomed supply effort to the Contras that left an American, Eugene Hasenfus, a prisoner of the Sandinistas and the CIA link to the Contras revealed. Barry also had a daughter and a son not shown in the movie, Lisa and Alder, with his first wife Barbara Bottoms. He was hired by Trans World Airlines (TWA) in 1964 and at age 26 became one of the youngest Captains operating a Boeing 707. Judicial Watch, Inc. is a conservative, non-partisan educational foundation, which promotes transparency, accountability and integrity in government, politics and the law. Goodwin told me and ABC that Brown had passed it. Advertisement. In exploring the American Made true story, we discovered that Doug Liman's father, lawyer Arthur L. Liman, ran the Senate investigation into Iran-Contra. Hahn was part of the task force that pursued Seal in the 1980s. Evidence emerged suggesting that the CIA was operating in the area in the early 1980s; that a major cocaine and gun smuggler was based at the airfield; and that the U.S. military was somehow involved. Subsequently, the special prosecutor investigating Whitewater subpoenaed Brown to disclose what he knew about Clintons connections to David L. Hale. Barry Seal's smuggling operation began in Louisiana, and like in the American Made movie, he sometimes pushed packed duffel bags full of drugs out of his plane and into the Atchafalaya basin, to be collected by associates on the ground. Yes. Although, the truth, as it happened has never been revealed to the public. Judicial Watch is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. -Vulture. Alexander said he has been meeting weekly with the GAO investigating team and has been in touch with the House and Senate subcommittees . The movie's loose interpretation of the true story is echoed in the trailer when a voice-over by Tom Cruise as Barry Seal tells us that only "some of this sh*t really happened." Judicial Watch Sues Air Force Academy for Records about Critical Race Theor DOJ & FBI Target Biden Political Opponents, Judicial Watch Warns: Critical Race Theory Rising. American Made stars Tom Cruise as Barry Seal, a real-life former airline pilot who embarked on a wildly successful cocaine smuggling operation between Colombia and a tiny airstrip in Mena, Arkansas, in the 1980s. He took it out for a test flight and never came back." Using pilots like Barry Seal was a means to an end. As author Del Hahn states in his book about Barry Seal's life, Smuggler's End: The Life and Death of Barry Seal, there is no evidence to support claims that Barry Seal worked for the CIA. Then it was refueled while Sale and the kickers got off. Yet she pressed on with her writing and finished the book. barry seal mena house address. In his research for the book, the only confirmed connection Hahn could make between the CIA and Barry Seal was in 1984, after Seal had started working as an informant for the DEA. He says that he wanted to go public with his revelations about Mena, but that he did not know whom to tell. When he returned to Little Rock, he called his brother Dwayne. In the 1980s, the Mena airport was the reported base of a drug-smuggling, money-laundering and arms-smuggling ring run by Adler Berriman "Barry" Seal, according to an Encyclopedia of Arkansas entry on the airport. Seal's mysterious activities have spawned books, movies and a cornucopia of conspiracy theories. Dwayne Brown says he knew his brother had made some unexplained trips out of the country. Things became worse when a report in the Washington Times on July 17 . In American Made, Barry Seal's family consists of his wife and their three children, two boys and one girl, all seen at various stages in their lives throughout the film. I understand that Fred Hitz or someone from his staff, along with other CIA officers will brief Congressman Leach on Friday 21 July in an attempt to address his concerns about these and other allegations. Barry Seal "'Fat Man' key to mystery" By Michael Haddigan THE ARKANSAS GAZETTE June 26, 1988 Allegations of cocaine smuggling and international intrigue swirled about the Mena Airport and Seal for years. Three early drafts of the essay contain interpolations in Clintons handwriting. Seal was shot dead in 1986 at a safe house in Baton Rouge . Two years later, he would be shot dead in Louisiana. How much did Clinton know about what he called Lasaters deal in that conversation with L.D. Brown was 28 years old in 1984. An "extensive joint investigation" by the FBI, Arkansas State Police and IRS revealed that Barry Seal used the Mena airport for "smuggling activity" from late 1980 until March 1984, according to . We had nothing zeroto do with it, and everybody whos ever looked into it knows that.. -The Hollywood Reporter, Debbie Seal insists that she was unaware of what her husband was up to. Seal made an estimated $60 million off smuggling drugs into the country and became one of the richest people in America. Undercover cameras installed on Seal's plane captured photos on the tarmac of a Nicaraguan airport. us. Lasater went to jail for a cocaine connection, as did his friend, Roger Clinton, Bill Clintons brother. "He stopped in there and, just like that, he asked me out," says Debbie. "Tom did all his own flying in the movie," says director Doug Liman, who is a pilot himself (Vulture.com). Scared the s---- out of me just taking off. Brown says that when the plane took off, he was sitting on a bench behind the two pilots. Over a quarter of a century ago, George H.W. Barry's widow, Deborah Seal, says that he began smuggling drugs in 1975, first focusing mainly on marijuana. "The apparent reason was that the prosecution might have revealed national security information, even though all of the crimes which were the focus of the investigation occurred before Seal became a federal informant.". It may also never be known whether CIA officials approved or knew of Seals activities, or whether he was operating on his own. With the publication of The American Spectator article, we expect more. According to a 1988 Senate Foreign Relations Committee report, Seal's associates at the Mena airport were also being investigated. As Slate notes, Seal stuck a plea deal, where he testified in three major drug trials and got five years' probation and six months at a halfway house. "Little Rock [FBI] is attempting to establish that [redacted] modified, maintained and stored Seal's aircraft with the knowledge that he was involved in cocaine smuggling activities prior to Seal's plea bargaining agreement on March 24, 1984," according to the memo. At present, although there is no reason to believe any of the allegations, we are declining to comment publicly, pending exhaustive searches of DO files, as tasked by ICA. Clinton, Brown believed, was the CIA. How could that be? Seal's mysterious activities have spawned books, movies and a cornucopia of conspiracy theories. The real Barry Seal claimed that he started running covert operations for various government agencies as early as the late 1950s, while he was a member of the Civil Air Patrol in New Orleans, well before he became a TWA pilot. _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); Soon after, JB is killed by a car bomb. Tax records show that, having assessed Seal posthumously for some $86 million in back taxes on his earnings from Mena and elsewhere between 1981 and 1983, even the l.R.S. Dr. Faucis "SHADY" Gain of Function Research! Bill Clinton? he replied: Yes, sir. Connor Hagan, a spokesman for the FBI in Little Rock, said the release of so much information into the FBI's public "vault" doesn't mean that the documents haven't previously been made public. })(); FBI agents in Miami wanted to know what Seal might have told people at Rich Mountain Aviation regarding his smuggling activities, according to the document. Brown has identified him as Dan Magruder, and says that he spoke admiringly of Clinton. At this juncture, no one, including Brown, can say precisely what Clinton was doing at Mena. A flamboyant businessman who continued to deal in aircraft, Seal lost several planes among assets seized in Louisiana and Arkansas in a jeopardy assessment by the Internal Revenue Service in a $29,487,718 tax lien placed against his property. Still unknown at the time, the cartel would go on to make hundreds of millions from the explosion of cocaine use in the U.S. Barry Seal, who became known as "El Gordo" (The Fat Man), ended up being an integral part of that success. And while Clinton would later correctly note that events at Mena were primarily a matter of federal jurisdictionmeaning that Republicans probably had more to lose than Democrats if the truth was exposedits also true that a Clinton friend and supporter named Dan Lasater was under investigation for drug smuggling at the same time Seal was operating in Arkansas. The CIA stonewalled the release of information now sought by Judicial Watch on the Mena Airport controversy, said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. In total, he had illegally imported $3 to $5 billion worth of drugs and an estimated 56 tons of cocaine into the U.S., making over 100 flights. The state really had next to nothing to do with it. alan dershowitz cost per hour; what is pak po chicken; sonamukhi powder benefits; Eventually, Brown recalls, Seal startled him by yelling, Well, you all hang on. In her suit, Lisa, who is not depicted in the movie, also claimed that there were factual inaccuracies in the script, including the fact that Barry had five children, not three, and that the movie falsely suggests he was an alcoholic and a reckless pilot. Set in the year 1978, Barry Seal (Tom Cruise) works as a pilot for Trans World Airlines. var sc_click_stat=1; But Brown says he is lying. Were suing the CIA for the full inspector general report and we want documents from other agencies as well. var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); In its review of the 2017 movie "American Made" -- about Seal -- the New York Times called it the Conspiratorial Industrial Complex. He then was able to get a meeting with Vice President George H.W. When ABC News interviewed Brown in the fall of 1994, the White House tried to malign him. Wouldn't it be fun if they were fooling around in a plane and the plane went into the same kind of parabolic arc and they got pinned against the ceiling?" One passage discusses the deductibility of charitable donations, and another the length of residency required in Washington before tax liability is incurred. This doesn't add up with the true story. Three Colombians eventually were arrested and convicted of the murder. In February 1986, Seal was killed in a hail of machine-gun fire outside a Baton Rouge Salvation Army halfway house after allegedly crossing Pablo Escobar and the Medellin drug cartel. And move on, the world did. Though the Clinton machine feared him the most, he showed no intention of breaking his silence until a chain of random events made it inevitable. -Vulture.com Barry Seal was a ballsy and confident risk taker, who rarely acknowledged the possibility of failure, and that's just how Tom Cruise portrays him in the American Made movie. Yes. "The apparent reason was that the prosecution might have revealed national security information, even though all of the crimes which were the focus of the investigation occurred before Seal became a federal informant.". The AP will not be held liable for any delays, inaccuracies, errors or omissions therefrom or in the transmission or delivery of all or any part thereof or for any damages arising from any of the foregoing. However, her real name is Debbie, not Lucy. That didnt happen. Clinton had been asking him a similar question for months, ever since, with Clintons encouragement, he had applied for a job with the CIA. 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