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In April 1986, Kerry and Senator Christopher Dodd, a Democrat from Connecticut, proposed that hearings be conducted by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee regarding charges of Contra involvement in cocaine and marijuana trafficking. Sen. Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, the Republican chairman of the committee, agreed to conduct the hearings.
Meanwhile, Kerry's staff began their own investigations, and on October 14 issued a report which exposed illegal activities on the part of Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, who had set up a private network involving the National Security Council and the CIA to deliver military equipment to right-wing Nicaraguan rebels (Contras). In effect, North and certain members of the President's administration were accused by Kerry's report of illegally funding and supplying armed militants without the authorization of Congress.
These parties were said to be involved in shipping cocaine and marijuana to the United States, with the profits from the sales going to pay for the Contra weaponry. The investigation, Kerry's report said, raised "serious questions about whether the United States has abided by the law in its handling of the contras over the past three years." The Kerry report generated a firestorm of controversy and marked the beginning of years of investigations, hearings, and televised proceedings, which altogether, were referred to by some as the Iran-Contra affair. On May 4, 1989, North was convicted of charges relating to the Iran/Contra controversy, including three felonies. On September 16, 1991, however, North's convictions were overturned on appeal because North's testimony before Congress under immunity may have affected testimony in the trial. [14][15]
Kerry's inquiry eventually widened, expanding its focus from the Contras to U.S. involvement in Cuba, Haiti, the Bahamas, Panama, and Honduras. In 1989, he released a report that slammed the Reagan administration for neglecting and undermining anti-drug efforts while pursuing other objectives in foreign policy. The report contended that the U.S. government "turned a blind eye" in the 1980s to the corruption and drug dealings of CIA-backed Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega, who had assisted the Contras. Kerry's report concluded that the CIA and the State Department had known that "individuals who provided support for the contras were involved in drug trafficking...and elements of the contras themselves knowingly received financial and material assistance from drug traffickers." While some critics attacked him as being a " conspiracy theorist," the CIA inspector general released a pair of reports that confirmed Kerry's findings ten years later.
On November 15, 1988, at a businessmen's breakfast in East Lynn, Massachusetts, Kerry made a joke about president-elect George H.W. Bush and his running mate, saying "if Bush is shot, the Secret Service has orders to shoot Dan Quayle." He apologized the following day.
During their investigation of Noriega, Kerry's staff found reason to believe that the Pakistan-based Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) had facilitated Noriega's drug trafficking and money laundering. This led to a separate inquiry into BCCI, and as a result, banking regulators shut down BCCI in 1991. In December 1992, Kerry and Senator Hank Brown , a Republican from Colorado, released The BCCI Affair, a report on the BCCI scandal. The report showed that the bank was crooked and was working with terrorists, including Abu Nidal. It blasted the Department of Justice, the Department of the Treasury, the Customs Service, the Federal Reserve Bank, as well as influential lobbyists and the CIA. [16]
One of the Bush administration figures criticized for his handling of BCCI was Robert Mueller who, in his then-role as Deputy Attorney General , was critized about slow performance regarding the investigation. Kerry himself was criticized in some circles for not pressing harder against certain Democrats, and he was also criticized by some Democrats for pursuing his own party members, including former Secretary of Defense Clark Clifford. The BCCI scandal was later turned over to the Manhattan District Attorney's office.
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