The Mena Airport story is familiar enough to anyone who followed that business. There were three major players: Governor Clinton, Vice President Bush (then under Reagan), and Manuel Noriega.
The motivation for the CIA to be involved in it was when the idiot Democrats in congress cut off all funding to the Contras in Nicaragua. Reagan thought, plausibly enough, that if the Communist takeover was not reversed, it would spread throughout Latin America. So he needed to find some source of funding.
One source appears to have been Iran-Contra. That was seedy enough, but I think they were desperate to head off a mortal danger to our security. Another source was the Mena drug smuggling operation.
The CIA has, I believe, recurrently been in the drug smuggling business, sometimes to raise money, sometimes to make connections in places like the Golden Triangle that were useful in the war against Communism. Was this justified? Probably not. But at least the basic motive of national security gave it some excuse.
I have always thought that Bush senior was involved as a patriot. And he was probably involved because of his background as CIA head and insider and because Ronald Reagan asked him to do it. Reagan probably felt that it was either that or see the whole world go under to a wave of Communist takeovers. And the Democrats did everything they could to block him from doing anything.
Clinton was involved because he was the governor of the state where the smuggling took place. And his motives were clear enough too: a long record of drug smuggling in the past, and greed in the present.
During the course of this business, $100 million of profits disappeared. It’s anyone’s guess which of the three bosses stole it, but my money is on clinton. It fits him to a T. In other words, Bush was involved out of patriotism—maybe misguided patriotism, if you disapprove—and clinton was involved out of pure greed.
But you are quite right that it subjects him to the threat of blackmail. Or at least I think you are right. Could clinton squeal on Bush without implicating himself? How could he make this story public without suffering the consequences? I suppose that it means that each of them agrees to leave the other alone. Which is sick, but the Bushes had more admirable motives than the clintons: patriotism vs. Greed.
I tend to believe as do you, that any involvement by Bush was because of patriotism and the necessity of defeating communism. To what extent he was directly involved, I do not know. We do, however, know how Clinton benefitted. And this may be why, other than impeachment, he always has gotten a free pass. And from impeachment, documents are locked away in the Ford Building for another 40 years.