THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH Despite the Reagan-Bush Justice Department's strategic inaction in prosecuting Contra-connected drug operations, legal actions were taken against some disillusioned Contra supporters who spoke out against the drugs and corruption.
On June 28, 1988 a Federal grand jury in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, handed down indictments against 13 pro-Contra mercenaries for conspiring to violate the Neutrality Act, which prohibits U.S. citizens from direct, private involvement in foreign wars.
A key target of the indictment was former Contra-trainer, Jack Terrell. Months before the Iran-Contra scandal erupted, Terrell, a U.S. citizen, voluntarily provided the Miami U.S. Attorney, the FBI, Congress, and journalists with information about the grittier aspects of the illegal Contra network. As an investigator for the International Center for Development Policy, Terrell had prepared an exhaustive list of the major and minor players in the Contra secret war.
However, after Terrell appeared on a June, 1986, CBS news-magazine show, National Security Advisor John Poindexter wrote a memo to President Ronald Reagan terming Terrell a "terrorist threat" because of his public allegations about the Contra network's alleged human-rights abuses, drug-running and arms smuggling.
Poindexter also suggested that Terrell might be a foreign agent for the Nicaraguan government, threatening to assassinate the President.
"This is the ultimate reward you get for talking," Terrell said in an interview after he was indicted. "When you blow the whistle, when you talk against the policy and start exposing corruption... then the administration's policy starts falling apart and people start falling off the wall like Humpty Dumpty. Then they go after you with everything they got."
It turns out that Terrell had been attracting concern for a while. Eighteen months earlier, Robert Owen, a former aide to then-Senator Dan Quayle, wrote North a memo stating that Terrell "knows too much and it would do no one any good if he went to the press. He has to be finessed out."
He was.
Wow. Just wow.
Fascinating information.
Forgive me for asking what might seem like a dumb question, but do we know for certain that THIS John Poindexter at the ranch is the SAME John Poindexter of Iran-Contra?
The coincidence just seems too insane.