which was [Manuel] Artim's initials spelled backwards. Periodically, deposits of hundreds of
thousands of dollars would be made in Maritima BAM's accounts, and disbursed by Cuban
corporation officers. The U.S. government had the deniability it wanted; we got the money we
needed.... In fact, what we did in Nicaragua twenty-five years ago has some pretty close parallels
to the Contra operation today.@s8Rodriguez followed his CIA boss Ted Shackley to Southeast Asia in 1970. Shackley and
Donald Gregg put Rodriguez into the huge assassination and dope business which
Shackley and his colleagues ran during the Indochina war; this bunch became the heart of
the Enterprise'' that went into action 15 to 20 years later in Iran- Contra. Shackley funded opium-growing Meo tribesmen in murder, and used the dope proceeds in turn to fund his hit squads. He formed the Military Assistance Group-Special Operations Group (MAG-SOG) political murder unit; Gen. John K. Singlaub was a commander of MAG- SOG; Oliver North and Richard Secord were officers of the unit. By 1971, the Shackley group had killed about 100,000 civilians in Southeast Asia as part of the CIA's Operation Phoenix. After Vietnam, Felix Rodriguez went back to Latin American CIA operations, while other parts of the Shackley organization went on to drug- selling and gun-running in the Middle East. By 1983, both the Mideast Shackley group and the self-styled Shadow Warrior,'' Felix Rodriguez, were attached to the shadow commander-in-chief,
George Bush.
May 25, 1983:Secretary of State George Shultz wrote a memorandum for President Reagan, trying to
stop George Bush from running Central American operations for the U.S. government.
Shultz included a draft National Security Decision Directive for the President to sign, and
an organizational chart (Proposed Structure '') showing Shultz's proposal for the line of authority--from the President and his NSC, through Secretary of State Shultz and his assistant secretary, down to an interagency group. The last line of the Shultz memo says bluntly what role is reserved for the Bush-supervised CPPG:The Crisis Pre-Planning
Group is relieved of its assignments in this area.'' Back came a memorandum for The
Honorable George P. Shultz, on a White House letterhead but bearing no signature,
saying no to Shultz: The institutional arrangements established in NSDD-2 are, I believe, appropriate to fulfill [our national security requirements in Central America]....'' With the put-down is a chart headlinedNSDD-2 Structure for Central America.'' At the
top is the President; just below is a complex of Bush's SSG and CPPG as managers of the
NSC; then below that is the Secretary of State, and below him various agencies and
interagency groups.@s9
July 12, 1983:Kenneth De Graffenreid, new manager of the Intelligence Directorate of the National
Security Council, sent a secret memo to George Bush's aide, Admiral Daniel Murphy:
`` ... Bud McFarlane has asked that I meet with you today, if possible, to review procedures for
obtaining the Vice President's comments and concurrence on all N[ational] S[ecurity] C[ouncil]
P[lanning G[roup] covert action and MONs. ''@s1@s0