Jack Anderson did two columns on Mena in 1989.
He recounts how Louisiana and Arkansas officials
were frustrated by U.S. Justice Department's refusal
to prosecute cocaine smuggling through Mena.

Anderson used the right word -- coverup.

Larry
_____________________

" Drug Runner's Legacy"
By  Jack Anderson and Dale Van Atta
THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE   
February 2, 1989

THE CLOAK AND dagger legacy of Barry Seal lives on
in a little town in Arkansas, three years after the
international drug smuggler-turned-informant was
assassinated.
       Seal was believed to have introduced the Medellin
cocaine cartel of Colombia to the United States. He flew
drugs and arms in and out of the tiny Arkansas town of
Mena in the Ozark Mountains. In 1986, after Seal became a
snitch for the Drug Enforcement Administration, the
cartel gunned him down on a street in Baton Rouge, La.
       Just exactly what arrangement Seal had with the
U.S. government is still unclear. And it appears the
government wants to keep it that way. Investigators in
Louisiana and Arkansas claim Seal was allowed to continue
smuggling drugs and guns while he spied for the
government, and he may have been linked to the secret
Nicaraguan Contra supply network.
      FRUSTRATED investigators told our associate Jim Lynch
that the full story on Seal could make a mockery of the
administration's war on drugs and heap more embarrassment
on the government for the Iran-Contra scandal.
       In April 1986, two months after Seal was killed,
two Louisiana state police investigators wrote an angry
letter to the Drug Enforcement Administration. They
blamed the agency for failing to protect Seal from the
Medellin cartel. They said the DEA allowed Seal to pose
as a drug smuggler under cover, and continue his
lucrative business as a real smuggler at the same time.
        The Louisiana attorney general asked then-U.S.
Attorney General Edwin Meese to investigate the handling
of Seal. Meese never responded.
       Seal left behind a criminal resume unrivaled in the
smuggling business. He was a pilot for TWA in the early
1970s and then quit to fly drugs and arms around the
world. By the late 1970s, Louisiana police were tracking
the smuggler they called the "fat man." Seal moved his
operation to Mena. When he was arrested in 1984, he
offered his services to the Drug Enforcement
Administration.
       ARKANSAS OFFICIALS have pushed for a federal grand
jury to investigate Seal's enterprise and any remnants
that might still be operating in Mena.
       Rep. Bill Alexander, D-Ark., smells a coverup and
has suggested convening a state grand jury. The House
Subcommittee on Crime sent a sleuth to Mena last year.
The Seal case is expected to be a centerpiece in the
committee's upcoming report on how the federal government
interferes in local law enforcement.