For example, Spinelli said, "one of the big conspiracy theories around Barry is that he was [George] H.W. But there were still questions regarding the Mena airport and people who worked there, according to the FBI memo. They ask Seal to get photos that tie the Medelln Cartel to the Nicaraguan Sandinistas. OCA 88-1404 Subject: Mena [25], The film was released in 21 countries on August 25, 2017, and grossed a total of $6.1 million over the weekend. In 1983, the DEA arrested him on drug smuggling charges. February 22, 1996 28-Sep-2009 There is also an annual Children's Exhibit and a High School Exhibit.

SUBJECT: Mac Don Lumber was also the namesake for E. Howard Hunts CIA code name of Edward Joseph Hamilton which Hunt used in both, the Bay of Pigs and Watergate. American Made stars Tom Cruise as Barry Seal, a real-life former airline pilot who embarked on a wildly successful cocaine smuggling operation between Colombia and a tiny airstrip in Mena, Arkansas, in the 1980s. Clinton never appears in the scene we only know it's him on the phone after the state attorney general calls him "Bill" but the filmmakers claim that this event, or at least something like it, did happen.

trafficking by the Nicaraguan government or-the Contras. 23-Sep-2009 Jesse Plemons, Caleb Landry Jones and Lola Kirke were added to the cast in May 2015. [12], During the 1980s, drug smuggler Barry Seal moved his operations to the Mena Intermountain Municipal Airport, where he owned and operated many planes and helicopters, as well as advanced radar equipment. "In other words, the charges of drug smuggling and money laundering were not enough to warrant the release of information about the use of the airport in the Iran-Contra Affair," wrote Sherwood for the Arkansas encyclopedia.

Follow him on Twitter @micah_morrison. "Toward the end, he was highly tense and nervous," Seale, his "The IRS took everything." MEMORANDUM FOR: -DO RELEASE DATE: In February 1986, Seal was killed in a hail of machine-gun fire outside a Baton Rouge Salvation Army halfway house after allegedly crossing Pablo Escobar and the Medellin drug cartel. Probably all of them were. 1. As for the Seals Mena-related activities? REFERENCE: OGC-96-50560 Memo dated 4 March 1996 On Watch: The #COVID19 Crisis on our Southern Border the Media ISN'T Coveri On Watch: Marxism & the Current Insurrection in America. We had nothing zero to do with it. The next 28 pages of the CIA report are blankredacted on national security grounds. The public deserves answers to what really went on at Mena., Micah Morrison is chief investigative reporter for Judicial Watch. Seal also flew gun and drug smuggling missions between Mena and Nicaragua as part of a CIA scheme to support the Contras. The Sandinistas overthrew Nicaraguan President Anastasio Somoza Debayle in 1979, ending 46 years of dictatorship by the Somoza family. Further Inquiry - -Mena Activities The AP will not be held liable for any delays, inaccuracies, errors or omissions therefrom or in the transmission or delivery of all or any part thereof or for any damages arising from any of the foregoing.

For every 100 females, age 18 and over, there were 79.9 males. The report notes that certain Arkansas state and local officials were informed about CIA activities at Mena. Strange events unfolded at Mena, a small city in remote western Arkansas, in the 1980s. Production on the film resumed February 3, 2016 in New Orleans, Louisiana as filming has been suspended due to a plane crash in Colombia that occurred in September 2015. Now, in Arkansas in the 1980s, Gov. The small town gradually becomes wealthy as the hub of U.S. cocaine trafficking. ), While both Spinelli and Liman stand by American Mades assertions, they ultimately set out to make an entertaining movie and by having Seal narrate his own story, they can couch their narrative in his subjective point of view. Thats new, too. "There are also allegations that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency used the airport as a base of operations to help train pilots and troops for the intervention in the Nicaraguan uprising by the Contras during the 1980s," according to the encyclopedia entry, which was written by Robert Sherwood of Georgia Military College. Mena was founded by Arthur Edward Stilwell during the building of the Kansas City, Pittsburg and Gulf Railroad (now the Kansas City Southern), which stretched from Kansas City, Missouri to Port Arthur, Texas. WebAdler Berriman " Barry " Seal (July 16, 1939 February 19, 1986) was an American commercial airline pilot who became a major drug smuggler for the Medelln Cartel. According to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, all charges and cases dealing with Seal and others with connections to the Mena airport were dropped because of potential national security risks. operated by a CIA front company in 1984 used the airfield at "Toward the end, he was highly tense and nervous," Seale, his "The IRS took everything."

"Despite the availability of evidence sufficient for an indictment on money laundering charges, and over the strong protests of state and federal law enforcement officials, the cases were dropped," according to the report. According to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, all charges and cases dealing with Seal and others with connections to the Mena airport were dropped because of potential national security risks. The FBI in Little Rock began investigating Seal's operation at the Mena airport in February 1984, according to the recently released FBI document. Judicial Watch: Fighting for Clean Elections. "I just wanted to put a little fun thing between Barry and George W. Bush to just sort of say, 'We're not ignorant of those allegations,'" said Liman. The AP will not be held liable for any delays, inaccuracies, errors or omissions therefrom or in the transmission or delivery of all or any part thereof or for any damages arising from any of the foregoing. Adler Barriman "Barry" Seal records search request(Tab A)for any information on various WebA Baton Rouge, Louisiana native, Barry Seal was eventually forced to move his drug smuggling operation after he drew the attention of Louisiana authorities. A private school in Mena, Hendrix Academy, closed in 1905. The mysteries of Mena revolve around a drug-smuggling pilot named Barry Seal. Surrounded by the Ouachita National Forest, Mena is a gateway to some of the most visited tourist attractions in Arkansas. request from ORM to respond to the following two questions posed Required fields are marked *. During the past few years, the activity at the airstrip has aroused the interest of local law enforcement, who then attempted to conduct some investigations but were blocked by the U.S. WebSeal began serving his probation January 25, 1986. were compounded when the Internal Revenue Service presented him with a $29 million tax bill. When Seal was convicted of smuggling charges, he became an informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration and testified in several major drug trials. Before American Made went into production, Liman actually cut allegations in Spinelli's original script that the CIA was directly trafficking in cocaine with Seal in part because, as fate would have it, the chief counsel for the Senate's investigation into the Iran-Contra scandal was Liman's late father, Arthur L. Liman. Goodfellas is one of my favorite movies and I was always on the hunt to try to find my version of that.

RELEASE^DATE: Please read our Terms of Use or contact us. It feels, for better or worse, like a film he could have made at almost any point in the last 30 years. WebSeal was murdered more than two years ago, but questions and allegations persist about the Fat Man and his activities at the Mena Intermountain Regional Airport. Chairman Seal, a pilot, moved much of his smuggling operation from Baton Rouge to Rich Mountain Aviation at the Mena Intermountain Airport, according to the May 1986 FBI memo.

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