CIA's Assets: Drug kingpins, the mafia, dictators, and more

Related: (Wikipedia) Though the Somozas were generally regarded as ruthless dictators, the United States continued to support them as a non-communist stronghold in Nicaragua. President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) supposedly remarked in 1939 that "Somoza may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch." According to historian David Schmitz, however, researchers and archivists who have searched the archives of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library have found no evidence that Roosevelt ever made this statement. (Comment: As if things of this sort are always written down.)


TIME: There was little surprise among Afghanistan experts and longtime CIA watchers at the New York Times report that claimed Ahmed Wali Karzai, brother of the Afghan President and alleged drug kingpin, has been paid by the CIA for eight years. Whether or not Karzai fits the bill — and the allegations against him remain unproven — it would come as a surprise if the CIA did not have any number of shady Afghan politicians on its payroll.


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