In his book, Called to Serve, former U.S. Army Colonel James “Bo” Gritz described his several meetings in May 1987 with Khun Sa, the head of the largest heroin-producing region in Southeast Asia. Gritz had been on a team mission called LAZARUS trying to locate missing prisoners of war when he found evidence of massive heroin production involving the CIA and the military.
Col. Bo Gritz lifts the veil of National Security to reveal how U.S. Forces have been used as tools by international elitist; precisely which high-level federal officials, guilty of drug trafficking, prevent American POWs from coming home; specifically how narcotics are used to pay for U.S. and Israeli covert operations. Gritz names the killers of the Kennedy brothers, discloses the truth behind the Watergate coup and the attempted assassination of Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan. In the Chapter, The Third World War, Gritz exposes patriots for profit who use the CIA as muscle to maintain subjugation over emerging nations. This is required reading for all who would understand the New World Order.
Khun Sa described to Gritz how he sought U.S. help in replacing the heroin crop with another salable commodity and how this offer was refused. Gritz described how heroin production in the Golden Triangle area shot up from 40 tons in the early 1950s to 700 tons in the early 1960s. During the first set of meetings, Khun Sa said to Gritz that he might consider telling who were his largest prior U.S. customers for the heroin, but would not disclose the present customers.
During the second set of meetings in mid-1987, Khun Sa brought his aides together for a meeting with Gritz, at which time the group provided Gritz specific information on who in the United States were his main customers for heroin. Gritz wrote in his book that these U.S. customers included:
- Theodore Shackley (former deputy director for covert operations in the CIA). Shackley was identified by several of my deep-cover sources as being actively involved in drug trafficking.
- Richard Armitage, also CIA, later holding the key position of Assistant Secretary of Defense in the United States. (He also handled much of the drug-money laundering for Khan Sa through Armitage’s connections with the Nugan Hand Bank.) In his defense department position, Armitage was responsible for locating missing POWs. But if these POWs were found and returned to the United States, they could be expected to describe the U.S. involvement in drug trafficking.
- Daniel Arnold handled the arms and drug sales formerly handled by Armitage. He served as CIA station chief in Thailand.
- Jerry Daniels, a CIA agent who replaced Armitage when Armitage returned to the United States.
- Santos Trafficante, head of one of the many criminal cartels with which the CIA had been doing business for decades.Gritz’s trip to visit Khun Sa was known to Justice Department officials, who sought to have him arrested on bogus passport charges before he went back to Indochina. Gritz left the United States before this could be accomplished.Among the many articles on CIA drug trafficking was the April 1988 story in The Progressive. The article described the testimony given by Michael Toliver concerning his flights for the CIA hauling drugs from Central America into the United States, including landing with 25,000 pounds of marijuana at Homestead Air Force Base in Florida. The article stated that Federal Judge Patrick Kelly found the testimony compelling enough that he called it to the attention of President Ronald Reagan, as well as the CIA, the FBI, special prosecutor Lawrence Walsh, and Congress. Judge Kelly directed federal marshals to deliver the transcript of Toliver’s deposition directly to President Reagan. Toliver’s story was broadcast on CBS television’s West 57th Street. According to the article, no one from the Justice Department questioned Toliver about his serious charges.
