The Progressive Review was one of the few journals to report the Barry Seal story, its connection to what was going on in Mena, Arkansas, and the role of the governor, Bill Clinton. Links to some of these stories are below.
Daily Mail UK - It's a plot that will have left Hollywood script-writers salivating.
A daredevil pilot who made millions of dollars flying almost 60 tons of cocaine into the US in the 1970s and 1980s before turning federal informant and dying in a hail of bullets at the hands of Colombian hit men.
Now the amazing true story of American drug smuggler turned CIA gun runner Barry Seal is heading for the big screen starring superstar Tom Cruise.
Cruise - a pilot himself - has just started shooting 'Mena', based on the real story of the 280lb airman dubbed 'El Gordo', Spanish for The Fat Man.
As the first American to see the inner workings of the powerful Medellin cartel, Seal's inside information - and fearless undercover work – led to historic prosecutions as the Drug Enforcement Administration battled the cocaine explosion of the time.
But his exploits as a drug smuggler, as well as alleged stints flying secret ops for the CIA, have left him a controversial figure....
Now, as Cruise films the epic portrayal, Seal's widow has broken her silence and tells Daily Mail Online about her husband's mysterious life and how authorities 'signed his death warrant'.
Just months before being the star witness in the case to extradite a cartel drug lord to the US, Seal's cover was blown by a leak and the father-of-three was killed by Colombian hitmen in deep Louisiana.
Three decades on, Debbie Seal talks about her ongoing pain, reveals she forgives her husband's killers and tells why she still seeks answers about the death.
'The authorities made him a sitting duck,' said the 64-year-old, fighting back tears.
'It would have actually been more merciful if they had killed us all that day.'....
Some believe Seal was using Mena to fly guns to Nicaraguan rebels for the CIA.
At the time, the US government sought to secretly help overthrow the country's communist rulers, in what has become known as the Iran Contra Affair.
The Crimes of Mena, a 1995 article by Sally Denton and Roger Morris
From the Progressive Review
After The Progressive Review ran a brief item on Daniel Hopsicker's documentary on Mena, we received a message from William Bear Bottoms, who appeared in the film, complaining that the movie distorted the reality of Mena and the role that he and Barry Seal, the drug trafficker for whom he flew, played in it. We then commenced a two-part on-line conversation with Bottoms that is published here.
One of the great myths of the Clinton scandals is that Mena -- the major Contra training, supply, and drug running headquarters -- was a myth. One of those with solid evidence to the contrary was William Duncan, the former Special Operations Coordinator for the Southeast Region of the Criminal Investigation Division, Internal Revenue Service. In 1991, Duncan (who had lost his job trying to get to the bottom of the Mena story) gave a deposition to a joint investigation conducted by Rep. William Alexander and the Arkansas attorney general's office, represented by Winston Bryant. Here are some excerpts from the deposition -- giving a vivid snapshot of what was going on and what honest investigators such as Duncan were up against.
An Arkansas drug timeline
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