The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia
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The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia Alfred W. McCoy with Cathleen B. Read and Leonard P.Adams II Contents Glossary Acknowledgements Introduction: The Consequences of Complicity Heroin: The History of a "Miracle Drug" The Logistics of Heroin 1. Sicily: Home of the Mafia Addiction in America: The Root of the Problem The Mafia in America The Mafia Restored Fighters for Democracy in World War II Luciano Organizes the Postwar Heroin Trade The Marseille Connection Mapa de la Conquista de Sicilia (1943) 2. Marseille: America's Heroin Laboratory Genesis From Underworld to Underground Political Bedfellows The Socialist Party, the Guerinis, and the CIA The Guerini-Francisci Vendetta After the Fall The Decline of the European Heroin Trade, and a Journey to the East 3. The Colonial Legacy: Opium for the Natives The Royal Thai Opium file:///I|/drugtext/local/library/books/McCoy/default.htm[24-8-2010 15:09:28] The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia Monopoly Burma Sahibs in the Shan states French Indochina The Friendly Neighborhood Opium Den The Opium Crisis of 1939- 1945 The Meo of Laos Politics of the Poppy Opium in the Tai Country Denouement at Dien Bien Phu Into the Postwar Era 4. Cold War Opium Boom French Indochina Opium Espionage and "Operation X" The Binh Xuyen Order and Opium in Saigon Secret War in Burma The KMT Thailand's Opium The Fruits of Victory Isn't it true that Communist China is the center of the Appendix international narcotics traffic? No 5. South Vietnam: Narcotics in the Nation's Service The Politics of Heroin in South Vietnam Tradition and Corruption in Southeast Asia Diem's Dynasty and the Nhu Bandits The New Opium Monopoly The Thieu-Ky Rivalry The GI Heroin Epidemic South Vietnam Heroin Achieves Full Market Potential The Opium Airlift Command Thieu Takes Command The Vietnamese Navy Up the Creek The Vietnamese Army Marketing the Product The Lower House Heroin Junkets The Khiem Apparatus All in the Family Tempest in a Teapot The Thieu-Khiem Squabble file:///I|/drugtext/local/library/books/McCoy/default.htm[24-8-2010 15:09:28] The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia The Mafia Comes to Asia The Consequences of A Generation of Junkies Complicity 6. Hong Kong: Heir to the Heroin Traffic 7. The Golden Triangle Heroin Is Our Most Important Product Laos Land of the Poppy Corsican Aviation Pioneers "Air Opium," 1955-1965 Gen.Phoumi Nosavan "Fedalism is Still with US" Secret War Secret Strategy in Laos Long Pot Village Rendezvous with Air America Gen. Ouane Rattikone The Vientiane Connection The CIA in Northwest Laos Prelude to the 1967 Opium War Gen. U Ba Thein Reaping the Whirlwind The KMT in Thailand Guardian at the Northern Gate Battle at Ban Khwan The Challenge of Chan Shee-Fu Survival of the Fittest The Shan Rebellion The Road to Chaos Gen. Ouane Rattikone Winner Takes Something Conclusion 8. What Can Be done? Cure the Individual Addict Destroy the Narcotics Syndicates Eliminate Illicit Opium Production 1972 The Year of Decision Appendix The Historical Setting of Asia's Profitable Plague (by Leonard China P. Adams II) China Grows Her Own The Tarnished Crusades Notes Notes: Introduction: The Consequences of Complicity Notes 1 Sicily: Home of the Mafia Notes 2 Marseille: America's Heroin Laboratory file:///I|/drugtext/local/library/books/McCoy/default.htm[24-8-2010 15:09:28] The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia Notes 3 The Colonial Legacy: Opium for the Natives Notes 4 Cold War Opium Boom Notes 5 South Vietnam: Narcotics in the Nation's Service Notes 6 Hong Kong: Heir to the Heroin Traffic Notes 7 The Golden Triangle: Heroin Is Our Most Important Product Notes 8 What Can Be Done? Notes 9 Appendix Alfred W McCoy with Meo hill tribe soldiers in the opium-growing country of northern Laos during his investigations in August 1971 file:///I|/drugtext/local/library/books/McCoy/default.htm[24-8-2010 15:09:28] The page cannot be found The page cannot be found The page you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable. Please try the following: If you typed the page address in the Address bar, make sure that it is spelled correctly. Open the home page, and then look for links to the information you want. Click the Back button to try another link. HTTP 404 - File not found Internet Information Services Technical Information (for support personnel) More information: Microsoft Support file:///I|/drugtext/local/library/books/McCoy/index.htm[24-8-2010 15:09:29] Acknowledgments The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia Acknowledgments Examining and exposing the true nature of the international heroin traffic has provided interesting copy for. some writers and brushes with danger for others. Very early into our research we discovered that there were facts we were just not supposed to know, people we were not supposed to talk to, and questions we were not supposed to ask. But there was a large group of friends who cooperated with us, and we with them, in uncovering the political dimensions of the international heroin traffic. There are many persons in Southeast Asia who helped us immeasurably by supplying us with firsthand accounts of incidents and other "inside" information whose names may not be mentioned out of respect for their personal safety, but whose assistance is greatly appreciated. This group includes students, past and present government officials, law enforcement personnel, and journalists. We would like to acknowledge the many newspapers and periodicals that opened their files to us, including Far Eastern Economic Review, La Marsedlaise, Lao Presse, Le Monde, Le Provencal, and the South China Morning Post. We are grateful to members of the press corps in Hong Kong, London, Paris, Saigon, Singapore, Vientiane, and the United States who shared their information and informants with us and gave us many leads, some of which they themselves were unaware or unwilling to follow up. Among this group we would like to thank Simon Albury (British Broadcasting Corporation), T. D. Allman, Jacques Decornoy (Le Monde), Leo Goodstadt (Far Eastern Economic Re-view), Grace Helms (Milford Citizen), John Hughes (Christian Science Monitor), and Peter Dale Scott. We were assisted in our research in London by Adrian Cowell and Cornelius Hawkridge and in Paris by Jean Chesnqaux, Phillipe Devillers, General F. Gambiez, Annick Levy, Guy Mor‚chand, Laura Summers, and Christine White. In the United States we were helped and advised by Fred Branfman, James Boyd of the Fund for Investigative Journal-ism, Antonia Dul, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Litshultz, Professor Karl Peltzer of Yale University, and Virginia Lee Read. In Laos we are grateful to our interpreter, Phin Manivong, and our photographer/guide, John Everingham. Finally, we are most indebted to Elisabeth Jakab of Harper & Row, who, in addition to being a superb editor, was a constant source of encouragement and inspiration. file:///I|/drugtext/local/library/books/McCoy/book/01.htm[24-8-2010 15:09:29] Introduction: The Consequences of Complicity The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia Introduction: The Consequences of Complicity * Notes can be found here AMERICA is in the grip of a devastating heroin epidemic which leaves no city or suburb untouched, and which also runs rampant through every American military installation both here and abroad. And the plague is spreading-into factories and offices (among the middle-aged, middle-class workers as well as the young), into high schools and now grammar schools. In 1965 federal narcotics officials were convinced that they had the problem under control; there were only 57,000 known addicts in the entire country, and most of these were comfortably out of sight, out of mind in black urban ghettos.(1)* Only three or four years later heroin addiction began spreading into white communities, and by late 1969 the estimated number of addicts jumped to 315,000. By late 1971 the estimated total had almost doubled-reaching an all-time high of 560,000.(2) One medical researcher discovered that 6.5 percent of all the blue-collar factory workers he tested were heroin addicts,(3) and army medical doctors were convinced that 10 to 15 percent of the GIs in Vietnam were heroin users.(4) In sharp contrast to earlier generations of heroin users, many of these newer addicts were young and relatively affluent. The sudden rise in the addict population has spawned a crime wave that has turned America's inner cities into concrete jungles. Addicts are forced to steal in order to maintain their habits, and they now account for more than 75 percent of America's urban crime.(5) After opinion polls began to show massive public concern over the heroin problem, President Nixon declared a "war on drugs" in a June 1971 statement to Congress. He urged passage of a $370 million emergency appropriation to fight the heroin menace. However, despite politically motivated claims of success in succeeding months by administration spokesmen, heroin continues to flood into the country in unprecedented quantities, and there is every indication that the number of hard-core addicts is increasing daily. file:///I|/drugtext/local/library/books/McCoy/book/02.htm[24-8-2010 15:09:29] Heroin: The History of a "Miracle Drug" The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia Heroin: The History of a "Miracle Drug" Heroin, a relatively recent arrival on the drug scene, was regarded, like morphine before it, and opium before morphine, as a "miracle drug" that had the ability to "kill all pain and anger and bring relief to every sorrow." A single dose sends the average user into a deep, euphoric reverie.