Alfred W. McCoy
Alfred "Al" William McCoy (born June 8, 1945) is an American historian and educator. He is the Fred Harvey Harrington Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.World War II to the Vietnam War.
Premise
''Politics of Heroin'' documents CIA complicity and aid to the Southeast Asian opium/heroin trade. The book explained that most of the world's
heroin
Heroin, also known as diacetylmorphine and diamorphine among other names, is a potent opioid mainly used as a recreational drug for its euphoric effects. Medical grade diamorphine is used as a pure hydrochloride salt. Various white and brow ...
was produced in the
Golden Triangle
Golden Triangle may refer to:
Places
Asia
* Golden Triangle (Southeast Asia), named for its opium production
* Golden Triangle (Yangtze), China, named for its rapid economic development
* Golden Triangle (India), comprising the popular tourist ...
and transported by the United States.
It is transported in the planes, vehicles, and other conveyances supplied by the United States. The profit from the trade has been going into the pockets of some of our best friends in Southeast Asia. The charge concludes with the statement that the traffic is being carried on with the indifference if not the closed-eye compliance of some American officials, and there is no likelihood of its being shut down in the foreseeable future.
Air America, covertly owned and operated by the CIA, was used to transport the illicit drugs.
The heroin supply was partially responsible for the perilous state of US Army morale in Vietnam. "By mid 1971 Army medical officers were estimating that about 10 to 15 percent of the lower-ranking enlisted men serving in Vietnam were heroin users."
Having interviewed
Maurice Belleux Maurice may refer to:
People
*Saint Maurice (died 287), Roman legionary and Christian martyr
*Maurice (emperor) or Flavius Mauricius Tiberius Augustus (539–602), Byzantine emperor
* Maurice (bishop of London) (died 1107), Lord Chancellor and L ...
, former head of the French intelligence agency SDECE, McCoy also uncovered parts of the French Connection scheme used by the agency to finance all of its covert operations during the First Indochina War through control of the Indochina drug trade.
Background
The book was the product of eighteen months of research and at least one trip to
Laos
Laos (, ''Lāo'' )), officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic ( Lao: ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ, French: République démocratique populaire lao), is a socialist ...
by Alfred W. McCoy.
McCoy conducted "more than 250 interviews, some of them with past and present officials of the CIA He said that top-level South Vietnamese officials, including President
Nguyen Van Thieu
Nguyễn () is the most common Vietnamese surname. Outside of Vietnam, the surname is commonly rendered without diacritics as Nguyen. Nguyên (元）is a different word and surname.
By some estimates 39 percent of Vietnamese people bear this su ...
and Premier
Tran Van Khiem
Tran may refer to:
Arts, media, and entertainment
* "Tran", a novel in the Janissaries series named for a fictional planet
* Dr. Tran, an animated miniseries
People
* Trần (陳), a Vietnamese surname
* Tran, member of the Nazi-era comedy duo ...
, were specifically involved."
McCoy wrote ''Politics of Heroin'' while seeking a
PhD PHD or PhD may refer to:
* Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification
Entertainment
* '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series
* ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic
* Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group
** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...
in Southeast Asian history at Yale University. Cathleen B. Read (a graduate student who spent time in the region during the war) and Leonard P. Adams II are also listed as co-authors.
Publication
The CIA reacted strongly to the boo A Correspondence with the CIA "...high-ranking officials of the C.I.A have signed letters for publication to a newspaper and a magazine, granted a rare on-the-record interview at the agency's headquarters in McLean, Va." The C.I.A letters were to the '' Washington Star'' and were signed by
William E. Colby
William Egan Colby (January 4, 1920 – May 6, 1996) was an American intelligence officer who served as Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) from September 1973 to January 1976.
During World War II Colby served with the Office of Strat ...
and Paul C. Velte Jr. "a Washington-based official with Air America, a charter airline that flies missions for the CIA in Southeast Asia."
CIA general counsel Lawrence R. Houston wrote the book's publishers Harper & Row and asked that they be given the
galley proof
In printing and publishing, proofs are the preliminary versions of publications meant for review by authors, editors, and proofreaders, often with extra-wide margins. Galley proofs may be uncut and unbound, or in some cases electronically tran ...
s so that the CIA could criticize errors and rebut unproven accusations: "We believe we could demonstrate to you that a considerable number of Mr. McCoy's claims about this agency's alleged involvement are totally false and without foundation, a number are distorted beyond recognition and none is based on convincing evidence."Hersh 1972 and take whatever legal action they felt necessary before the book's publication.
McCoy reluctantly allowed Harper & Row to provide a copy to the CIA, who sent a list of undocumented denials and criticisms. Harper & Row's lawyers determined that the CIA's complaints about the manuscript were completely baseless and without foundation.
A vice president and general counsel of Harper & Row said "We don't have any doubts about the book at all. We've had it reviewed by others and we're persuaded that the work is amply documented and scholarly." Harper & Row published it two weeks before its scheduled release date.
'' Publishers Weekly'' wrote: "Scrupulously documented...this is a valuable corrective to the misinformation being peddled by anti-drug zealots on both sides of the aisle."
'' The New York Times'' also reviewed the book.
Quotes
* "We have to continue to fight the evil of Communism, and to fight you must have an army, and an army must have guns, and to buy guns you must have money. In these mountains the only money is
opium
Opium (or poppy tears, scientific name: ''Lachryma papaveris'') is dried latex obtained from the seed capsules of the opium poppy ''Papaver somniferum''. Approximately 12 percent of opium is made up of the analgesic alkaloid morphine, which i ...
." General Tuan Shi-wen, commander of the Kuomintang Fifth Army (based in the Golden Triangle), as quoted by McCoy.
* "The picture of corruption that he draws, of cruel and naked jockeying for power, of bloodletting and cynical maneuvering with underworld peddlers, is so strongly documented that it might make even the stanchest defender of the war in Southeast Asia wonder if it is worth it."
Thomas Lask
Thomas may refer to:
People
* List of people with given name Thomas
* Thomas (name)
* Thomas (surname)
* Saint Thomas (disambiguation)
* Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, and Doctor of the Church
* Thomas the Ap ...
, "Bonanza in 'Golden Triangle'".
See also
*
Anthony Poshepny
Anthony Alexander Poshepny (September 18, 1924 – June 27, 2003), known as Tony Poe, was a CIA Paramilitary Operations Officer in what became the Special Activities Division (renamed Special Activities Center in 2016). He was known for h ...
*
Bank of Credit and Commerce International
The Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) was an international bank founded in 1972 by Agha Hasan Abedi, a Pakistani financier. The bank was registered in Luxembourg with head offices in Karachi and London. A decade after opening, BCC ...
*
First
First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1).
First or 1st may also refer to:
*World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement
Arts and media Music
* 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and rec ...
and
Second Opium War
The Second Opium War (), also known as the Second Anglo-Sino War, the Second China War, the Arrow War, or the Anglo-French expedition to China, was a colonial war lasting from 1856 to 1860, which pitted the British Empire and the French Emp ...
* Forbes, Andrew; Henley, David (2001). ''Traders of the Golden Triangle''.
Chiang Mai
Chiang Mai (, from th, เชียงใหม่ , nod, , เจียงใหม่ ), sometimes written as Chiengmai or Chiangmai, is the largest city in northern Thailand, the capital of Chiang Mai province and the second largest city in ...