The Kerry Committee (formally the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Operations of the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations) was a

US Senate The United States Senate is a chamber of the bicameral United States Congress; it is the upper house, with the U.S. House of Representatives being the lower house. Together, the Senate and House have the authority under Article One of the ...

subcommittee A committee or commission is a body of one or more persons subordinate to a deliberative assembly or other form of organization. A committee may not itself be considered to be a form of assembly or a decision-making body. Usually, an assembly o ...

during the

100th United States Congress The 100th United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, composed of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It met in Washington, D.C., from January 3, 19 ...

that examined the problems that drug cartels and drug money laundering in South and Central America and the Caribbean posed for American law enforcement and foreign policy. The Sub-Committee was chaired at the time by Democratic Party Senator

John Kerry John Forbes Kerry (born December 11, 1943) is an American attorney, politician, and diplomat who served as the 68th United States secretary of state from 2013 to 2017 in the Presidency of Barack Obama#Administration, administration of Barac ...

from

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

so the name of the committee and the report are often referred to under his name.

Background

Press accounts concerning links between the

Contras In the history of Nicaragua, the Contras (Spanish: ''La contrarrevolución'', the counter-revolution) were the right-wing militias who waged anti-communist guerilla warfare (1979–1990) against the Marxist governments of the Sandinista Na ...

and drug traffickers, which began with a December 1985 story by the

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American not-for-profit organization, not-for-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association, and produces news reports that are dist ...

, led to a review by the

United States Department of State The United States Department of State (DOS), or simply the State Department, is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy of the United State ...

U.S. Department of Justice The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the U.S. government that oversees the domestic enforcement of federal laws and the administration of justice. It is equi ...

and relevant U.S. intelligence agencies in 1986. In April 1986, the State Department informed Congress that it had "evidence of a limited number of incidents in which known drug traffickers tried to establish connections with Nicaraguan resistance groups." Kerry was not selected to be on the Iran–Contra committee, but was reported to be offered the chairmanship of the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Operations as a consolation prize.

Hearings begin

In April 1986,

and Senator

Christopher Dodd Christopher John Dodd (born May 27, 1944) is an American lobbyist, lawyer, and Democratic Party politician who served as a United States senator from Connecticut from 1981 to 2011. Dodd is the longest-serving senator in Connecticut's history. ...

, a Democrat from

Connecticut Connecticut ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York (state), New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. ...

, proposed that hearings be conducted by the

Senate Foreign Relations Committee The United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations is a standing committee of the U.S. Senate charged with leading foreign-policy legislation and debate in the Senate. It is generally responsible for authorizing and overseeing foreign a ...

regarding charges of Contra involvement in

cocaine Cocaine is a tropane alkaloid and central nervous system stimulant, derived primarily from the leaves of two South American coca plants, ''Erythroxylum coca'' and ''Erythroxylum novogranatense, E. novogranatense'', which are cultivated a ...

and

marijuana Cannabis (), commonly known as marijuana (), weed, pot, and ganja, List of slang names for cannabis, among other names, is a non-chemically uniform psychoactive drug from the ''Cannabis'' plant. Native to Central or South Asia, cannabis has ...

trafficking Smuggling is the illegal transportation of objects, substances, information or people, such as out of a house or buildings, into a prison, or across an international border, in violation of applicable laws or other regulations. More broadly, soc ...

. Senator

Richard Lugar Richard Green Lugar ( ; April 4, 1932 – April 28, 2019) was an American politician who served as a United States Senate, United States Senator from Indiana from 1977 to 2013. He was a member of the Republican Party (United States), Republ ...

Indiana Indiana ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Michigan to the northwest, Michigan to the north and northeast, Ohio to the east, the Ohio River and Kentucky to the s ...

, the Republican chairman of the committee, agreed to conduct the hearings.

Findings

The Kerry Committee report, formally titled ''Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy'', was the final report of the subcommittee. The report was released on April 13, 1989, ''Hosted on National Security Archives'' and included discussions of drug trafficking in the Bahamas, Colombia, Cuba and Nicaragua, Haiti, Honduras, and Panama. The longest chapter in the report was on narcotics trafficking and the

Nicaragua Nicaragua, officially the Republic of Nicaragua, is the geographically largest Sovereign state, country in Central America, comprising . With a population of 7,142,529 as of 2024, it is the third-most populous country in Central America aft ...

. The Subcommittee determined that there was "substantial evidence of drug smuggling... on the part of individual Contras, Contra suppliers, Contra pilots, mercenaries who worked with the Contras, and Contra supporters". It "did not find that Contra leaders were personally involved in drug trafficking". The Kerry Committee report found that "the Contra drug links included... Payments to drug traffickers by the U.S. State Department of funds authorized by the Congress for humanitarian assistance to the Contras, in some cases after the traffickers had been indicted by federal law enforcement agencies on drug charges, in others while traffickers were under active investigation by these same agencies."

Reception

The report did not initially receive significant news coverage. Some of its allegations were reintroduced into public discourse during the 1996 series '' Dark Alliance'' by reporter Gary Webb at ''The San Jose Mercury News''.

Oliver North Oliver Laurence North (born October 7, 1943) is an American political commentator, television host, military historian, author, and retired United States Marine Corps lieutenant colonel. A veteran of the Vietnam War, North was a National Sec ...

publicly denounced the report. Peter Kornbluh said that North mischaracterized what the report claimed and that North's own diaries (released in 2004) show North was aware of the allegations surrounding the Contras and their supply network. North has said he passed on some of his suspicions of drug smuggling to the DEA. But a 1994 investigation by ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

'' found no evidence that he had done so.

References

External links

The Kerry Committee report (does not include appendices)
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Kerry Committee Hearings Volume 1: Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy (incomplete)

Kerry Committee Hearings Volume 2: Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy – Panama

Kerry Committee Hearings Volume 3: Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy – The Cartel, Haiti and Central America