Investigative journalist Jack Anderson explores the spooky,
drug dealing through Mena, Ark.

He also alleges that U.S. government protected cocaine 
trafficking continued after the Contra war was over.  This 
story is seven years old.  There are recent reports that 
the cocaine is still coming in.  

And there are yet to be any prosecutions.

Larry
__________________________

"Small Town For Smuggling"
By  Jack Anderson and Dale Van Atta
THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE 
 March 1, 1989

        THE JOKE AROUND Mena, Ark., is that everyone works for
the Central Intelligence Agency.
         Mena is a tiny town of 5,000 nestled in the Ozark
Mountains, far from the interstate. Its most noteworthy
landmark is what locals call "The Barry Seal Memorial
Airport," in memory of a notorious drug smuggler.
        From 1982 to 1986, Seal used the airport as the
headquarters for a massive drug-dealing, arms-smuggling
and money-laundering operation. During part of that time,
he was both a smuggler and an undercover federal
informant posing as a smuggler. He was killed in 1986 by
the Medellin cocaine cartel of Colombia.
         STATE AND local police suspect that the Mena airport
is still being used by smugglers. But efforts to prove
that have been stymied at every turn. Police have been
stonewalled by the Justice Department, the Drug
Enforcement Administration, the FBI and even the Internal
Revenue Service. When the heat is on, the suspects fall
back on the line that worked for Barry Seal. They say
they work for the CIA.
       Sources tell us that several Mena businesses have
used that line to discourage state officials from asking
too many questions about their activities.
       In late 1987, a firm which once had a minor
maintenance contract with the Strategic Defense Command,
used that tie to convince the airport authority to build
a security fence around a hangar and supply more guards
to protect an airplane.
       A former top Pentagon criminal investigator checked
through the Pentagon's top secret "black" channels to see
if the government is sanctioning any covert activities in
Mena. The answer was no.
      Sources familiar with the ongoing activities in
Mena speculate that the area is one of several places
used to ship private aid to the Nicaraguan Contras. "They
pushed Ollie (North) aside and kept going," one source
said.
       A CONGRESSIONAL investigator told our associate Jim
Lynch that covert support operations that used to be in
highly visible places in southern Florida were moved to
remote locations. The former Pentagon investigator said
some of those operations are suspected of financing their
private military aid by running drugs.
       Since Seal's death, a new cast has settled in at
the Mena airport. One business calls itself an
"international aircraft delivery company," another
"delivers aircraft parts all over the world." State
police are wondering why all those international services
picked a remote base in the Ozarks.