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Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Nov. 28, 1996
issue of Workers World newspaper
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Tension near boiling point

CIA head finds himself unwelcome in Los Angeles

By Vanessa Lewis in Los Angeles

On Nov. 15, an unprecedented meeting took place in South Los Angeles.

CIA Director John Deutch tried-unsuccessfully-to assure the African American community that the spy agency will conduct a "full and independent" investigation into allegations that the CIA helped funnel drugs into South Los Angeles. The drug profits, according to a series of recent reports in the San Jose Mercury News, were used to fund the U.S.-backed contra war against the popular Sandinista government in Nicaragua in the 1980s.

The revelations of CIA drug dealing have enraged the community. Hundreds came to hear Deutch, filling a high-school auditorium to capacity.

U.S. Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald, member of Congress from Carson, Calif., had initiated the meeting.

The event was historic. The CIA is a secretive government agency. Next to no one even knows the director's name. Never before has the CIA been forced to directly address allegations of wrongdoing-especially in an extraordinarily oppressed community.

It was also far too appropriate that the meeting took place in Locke High School, which is notorious for widespread drug use on campus. Police raids take place on a weekly basis.

Along with Millender-McDonald, Reps. Julian Dixon and Jane Harman joined Deutch. Both are on the House Central Intelligence Committee.

Harman made it a point to remind the audience of "how extraordinary this is"-the CIA director personally addressing the community's concerns. She cited her 20-year relationship with Deutch, going back to the Carter administration, to assure the crowd that whatever her friend had to say could be believed.

But it was evident that the people would not be pacified.

When Deutch spoke he was met with a resounding hiss.

Government can't investigate itself

Trying to be heard over the din, the spy chief proceeded to make four points before opening the floor for discussion. He first said that "the CIA understood that drugs create famine in oppressed communities." He went on to add that the CIA has been responsible for "seriously disrupting drug cartels from Peru to Colombia."

Deutch said that because CIA activities "are secret, people are suspicious of the CIA."

He acknowledged that it is common knowledge that the CIA helped the contra war against the Sandinista government. But, Deutch said, the allegation that the CIA introduced crack into the Black community in South Los Angeles is not true.

He said: "The CIA fights drugs. The CIA does not encourage drugs."

Perhaps it was his next remark that cemented the open hostility that met the panel once the floor discussion opened. Deutch proceeded to say that he is committed to a full investigation of the charges.

The allegations will be investigated, he said, by the inspector general-an "independent agent of the government by law," whose job Deutch described as "whistle blower."

Deutch tried to assure the audience of the inspector general's independence with an example from October. He said the inspector general discovered that CIA employees were guilty of misusing Agency credit for personal use, "and now those people are in jail."

What followed was an unleashing of outrage, completely directed at the government. The anger was not only at Deutch as a leading government official, but also at the three members of Congress acting as mediators between the most oppressed and the government.

Rep. Maxine Waters, who has been a leader in demanding an investigation into the CIA-drugs scandal, was not present at the meeting. When Workers World asked Rep. Millender-McDonald about Waters' absence, the response was that Waters was out of town, and must be out of the country.

Every person who got up and spoke questioned the government's ability to investigate itself. Many were indifferent to the "investigation" entirely, but demanded to know what the solution is for their shattered community.

Largely dismissing Millender-McDonald's "plan" to rebuild, people in the audience raised a different answer over and over again. A young man from Unity One, an organization largely made up of former gang members, summed it up:

"Nothing is going to change because of this [meeting with Deutch].

"We need to take it to the streets, and stand united."

The coming struggles

The ruling class is worried. The head of one of the chief organs of state repression was forced to come to Los Angeles to address the community in hopes of cooling tensions. But the anger is not easing.

Racist police repression has picked up around the country. Tensions are running even higher here in Los Angeles since the passage of the racist anti-affirmative-action Proposition 209.

One participant in the Nov. 15 meeting told Deutch, "This meeting is a mandate for six months from now, when you tell us that your investigation found nothing."

No one expects a real investigation from the government. The only reliable, truly independent investigation would be run by the community itself.

People see the government, its police and spy agencies as the problem, not the solution. This meeting served as a barometer to show the ruling class how angry people really are.

What Deutch might not have expected was that it also served as a message to the racist ruling class that feelings around this issue will stand. The CIA's crimes provide perhaps the strongest affirmation of how necessary the coming struggles against racist repression are.

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