Talk:Barry Seal

message: There are too many problems with the article to mention, so I will hit on the main points. Firstly, larger portions of the article are cut and paste from the High Times article, and as such a violation of copyright. Secondly, High Times does not conform to WP:V or WP:CITE guidelines, so an article comprised almost entirely of information from it does not conform to these guidelines either. Next we have the issue with the picture. Not sure where it comes from, the pictures file states that it was donated by Seal's wife, but once again there is no verification of this. As such, I am reverting the article back to the state I had left it in. Discuss changes here and add material slowly so it can be properly vetted. Torturous Devastating Cudgel 17:00, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Too many problems to count

message: (Copied from discussion comments at Felix Rodriguez for ease of future revisions: 
TDC: welcome to the scholarly study of US relations with Latin America. Your Wikipedia web-page clearly states your political biases: you are a self-proclaimed "defender of capitalism against the 'Neo-Coms' ('neo-Communists')."  "William Blum, Howard Zinn, George Galloway, Michael Moore, Naomi Klein, Robert Fisk, and [Noam] Chomsky sound exactly like Osama bin Laden."  "Those who beat their swords into plowshares usually end up plowing for those who kept their swords."  Your first words on your page are: "Wise words to bear in mind before picking a fight with The TDC'ster."  You are welcome to these opinions.  Wikipedia articles, however, require a NPOV.  You are welcome to offer countervailing facts and sources to those on an existing page.  You are are not welcome, however, to randomly delete well-documented and highly relevant material that happens to run against your views.  You have done this repeatedly, and a complain will soon be lodged against you.  I suggest you work with Wikipedia guidelines, which will help create more informative and balanced web pages.  Your contributions are welcome!  But please do not delete the hard work of others just because you disagree with them politically.  Stick to adding factual material and sources.)
(1) You write: "larger portions of the article are cut and paste from the High Times article, and as such a violation of copyright."  Nonsense.  Please do not use specious arguments to support your political biases.  Stick to historical facts.  Nothing in this article comes remotely close to copyright violation.  The HT article is clearly referenced and cited, and there are many other sources.  (If you see a section that is "cut and pasted" then put it in quotes and cite the HT article.  Do not simply delete whole sections of the article that challenge your political views.  If there are particular facts you dispute, then flag those and raise them in discussion, and we can go over them.  A blanket revert does no-one any good.  (2) There is considerable discussion within Wikipedia as to what constitutes a reliable source WP:RS.  Agreed, High Times is not the first choice of scholarly sources; although it does have verifiable evidence.  This article, however, clearly contains "multiple independent sources," including many original archival documents (which you have deleted, for no reason).  (3) The picture: "there is no verification of this" -- really, TDC, this is being excessively contentious, and it seems likely you are using this to further your political agenda and not to seek a NPOV historical truth.  As such, your broad deletions constitute Vandalism (Blanking); it goes way beyond bold edits. 208.59.121.177 00:23, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: TDC: Please do not revert or this will quickly go to Admin

message: * While in Vietnam did Seal with work with Ted Shackley or Richard Secord?— Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.59.121.177 (talk) 23:40, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: * Also, did he work with Felix Rodriguez (CIA) then?— Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.50.13.23 (talk) 19:47, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

text: Adding this comment for those who might be confused by all this. Seal was never in Vietnam. The references to Seal working with Shackley, Secord, Rodriguez, Plumlee, etc. are all taken from Daniel Hopsicker's unreliable self-published work. Rgr09 (talk) 11:25, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
thread_title: Research needed

message: For future ease of reference by Arb Cttee.
5 December 2005: 
First mention of Dalton and Unglesby, by user Nfgii.  Also mentions connection to Bush Sr.  Also notes that Seal's plane later was used by Bush Jr.  These points seem largely accepted by users IP 83.76.85.156, Bluemoose, Cmdrjameson, 69.150.58.188, CmdrObot, Gamaliel, LoganCale, and JoeBot.   http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Barry_Seal&oldid=30210677
10 May 2006:
By user IP 141.161.48.111.  Section headings added.  Photo of Barry Seal (and others) from 1963 added.  Users Gamaliel, SamanthaForrester, IP 208.59.121.177, and Nloth, continue to contribute to article.   http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Barry_Seal&oldid=52545902
15 May 2006: 
Major blanking by TDC, who alleges "most of this is ridiculous rumor mongering", without engaging in discussion.  (Note that this wipes out much of five months of unchallenged work.) 
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Barry_Seal&oldid=53375520
17 May 2006:
Re-revert by SammanthaForrester.  Continued improvements by 208.59.121.177.  Revert war with TDC escalates, initially with no discussion by TDC, until { test } template is employed on his Talk page.  TDC violates conditions of his parole (as noted in User talk: TDC).  
19 May 2006:
TDC turns to Admin MONGO, who (as noted in User talk: TDC) twice before has unsuccessfully tried to defend TDCs behavior amid widespread complaints, and does so again here.  This calls into question MONGO's neutrality (a defining responsibility of Administrators).  MONGO reverts to TDC's version with no discussion, evidently based on TDC's word, leaving only the Edit Summary:  "lots of mostly unsourced POV removed...kennedy assassination? surely."  IP-208.59.121.177 posts on Talk, requests discussion, agrees that JFK category should not be there, removes it, reverts to version accepted by users Gamaliel, SamanthaForrester, Nloth, and 208.59.121.177 (including earlier work by IP 83.76.85.156, Bluemoose, Cmdrjameson, 69.150.58.188, CmdrObot, Gamaliel, LoganCale, and JoeBot).  
At 7:49pm, TDC helpfully replies on the Discussion page, showing signs that he is willing to negotiate and improve the article jointly.  He adds to this at 8:01pm.  This could lead to productive dialogue.  At 8:13pm, TDC inserts a {TotallyDisputed} template (which is fine).  Six minutes later, at 8:19pm, without giving any time for response, "Admin" MONGO once again reverts to TDC's much earlier version, which ignores virtually all prior work, again with no discussion or negotiation, and only the Edit Summary: "I have a tendency to revert anonymous IP accounts when they do major overhauls to articles such as this."  (Note to MONGO:  
"IP addresses:  Visitors who haven't 'signed in' can still do most things, including the most important: editing articles".)  
Given that TDC initiated the dispute, and given his indication to work on improving the page ("One at a time then"), the page is being reverted to TDC's last edit, undoing MONGO's revert.  Responses to TDC on "The Picture" will be made above, in due course.  Others are inivited to chime in. 208.59.121.177 02:23, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You need a lesson in civility which is policy here. Argue about the message, not the messenger. I have done nothing wrong as I demand proper, unbiased references if you are going to add potentially libelous content...it is as simple as that. Honestly, if you want your edits to be taken seriously when working on articles such as this and adding or reverting items as you have, you will be viewed with less suspicion if you create and use only one username.--MONGO 03:44, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  "You need a lesson...", "I demand...", "if you want your edits to be taken seriously...", "you will be viewed with less [sic] suspicion..."   Hrm.  Yup, WP:CIVIL is a useful page.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.50.13.23 (talk) 19:38, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Brief history of dispute on this page

message: It would be more helpful to use section templates and line templates (rather than article templates).  There are discussed here and  here  E.g., {Sectfact}, {POV-section}, {TotallyDisputed-section}, {Not verified}, {fact}, etc.  This would productively help move revisions forward. 68.50.13.23 19:47, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It was a good idea to wait for expert opinion.  Reverted to Mongo's previous edit, with the edition of [de:] per YurikBot.  As stated, section and line templates are preferred to an entire article template.  68.34.61.218 21:58, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  None of the above issues have ben dealt with, namely the use of poor sources. I have laid out in detail why sources like personal webpages and www.whatreallyhappened.com do not conform to WP:V. Torturous Devastating Cudgel 12:47, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Improvements

message: I thought the movie was great. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 75.57.60.161 (talk) 01:36, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Uncle Sam wants me? 

message: The Social Security death records show that the name associated with the SSAN #436-56-3533 is BERRY Seal, born 7/16/39 and died Feb 1986. If his middle name was Berriman it would seem likely that he would spell it Berry rather than Barry, but most articles use Barry. Should we put up a redirect for Berry or correct this to Berry and redirect Barry? BuffaloBob 02:49, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Name

message: Just an anon passerby. This sentence from the Undercover Informant section:
: In an attempt his 1984 arrest in Florida, Seal agreed to cooperate with the DEA, and testify against his former colleagues.
makes no sense in the In an attempt his 1984 arrest in Florida part. What exactly is this referring to? Thanks all for this page.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.128.242.153 (talk) 04:44, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sentence fragment 

message: Hi. Total newcomer here. Question about something that seems to need fixing. From the article:
" A story appeared in the Washington Times in 1984 describing the infiltration of the Medellín cartel's operations in Panama and Nicaragua.[11] The story was based on a leak from a congresswoman(Diane Feinstein), whom in turn had been briefed by Oliver North, who in turn claims he had been ordered to do so by a higher authority. The alleged purpose was to prove the Nicaraguan Sandinistas' involvement in the drug trade and to build support for the Contra war effort. This leak and subsequent controversy eventually led to the Iran Contra Affair which unraveled a year later.[12]
The Wall Street Journal also printed the story. The media coverage indirectly exposed Seal's involvement in the operation. "
This passage has a number of problems. First, no evidence is given for the somewhat extraordinary claim that the leak "led to the Iran-Contra Affair." Indeed, wiki's own Iran-Contra article suggests (in agreement with Bob Woodward's book 'Veil') that the public phase of the scandal began with a leak to a Lebanese magazine by an Iranian (Mehdi Hashemi) furiously opposed to the arms dealing with the United States and Israel. Also, Seal had been dead for months by the time the Lebanese article was published; it seems to me the claim that Seal's murder, in and of itself, led to exposure of the Iran/Contra scheme is overstated at best and certainly ignores major facts. (Hashemi also organized a noisy protest in downtown Tehran in opposition to the 'secret' visit of US envoy Robert McFarlane; the article in the Lebanese magazine Ash-Shiraa caused wide comment in the Arabic-reading world; also we should not forget the crash and resultant capture & trial in Nicaragua of Eugene Hasenfus — which was, of course, major worldwide news.)
Second, and perhaps more importantly, I cannot find anywhere in any of the cited sources (or in many others besides) any basis for the claim that US Senator Dianne Feinstein was responsible for the leak the Washington Times story was based on. I went through the citations one by one (citation number [11] or 'a b Barry Seal: The Leak' directly refutes this contention, naming Oliver North as the source) and searched through books and the web a long, long time afterward. Nothing. Yet the page declares Feinstein the leaker, twice, as unchallenged fact.
In 1984, Feinstein was the mayor of San Francisco. As the Democratic mayor of what is arguably the most liberal large city in the United States she seems an unlikely candidate to have been briefed into a highly secret, quasi-illegal undertaking being run in Washington by the the National Security Council, the CIA and a hardline anti-Communist Republican White House.
Is this good faith gone awry? Am I missing some vital source somewhere? Is it vandalism? More to the point: How best to resolve it? It's a serious claim if true; especially the seemingly-unlikely statement that Sen. Feinstein leaked it at the behest of Oliver North and for political gain. North and then-mayor Dianne Feinstein? A team? The idea is prima facie absurd.
I realize not every single sentence in an encyclopedia needs a citation. But the way the quoted passage — and the bold statement a few grafs above it on the page — are written seems heavy enough, to me, to graze against NPOV. If these statements are not factual, as well … that's bad. While digging around teh interwebs trying to suss all this out, I found the Barry Seal article reproduced in full several times and unsourced bits from it scattered about like the seeds of future conspiracy theories. (The article's subtle — and irrelevant unless there is further provable reason to suggest this! — hints of JFK-assassination involvement do not help in this regard.) It's a problem.
Shall I just be bold and revise the whole article? It has other problems, as mentioned above. Should I limit it to editing out that claim, or replacing the mentions of Feinstein with something like "an un-named Congressperson"? I suppose I could re-read 'Veil' with an eye towards exactly who the leaker was; it's a thorough overview of those events and Woodward is a reputable source …
I welcome your suggestions.
Ericksommers (talk) 19:02, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Major unsourced claim re: Dianne Feinstein 

message: Here are two acceptable and two unacceptable sources for the article:
*
*
Shannon was a reporter for Time in the mid to late 80s. Gugliotta and Leen were reporters for the Miami Herald.  Although the books are old and the details may need correction, these are solid journalistic accounts that put Seal's story in context.
*
*
These are two books that have both been used in the past in the this article. Both are seriously non-RS. Reed is yet another case of someone claiming to be a CIA operative without a scrap of paper to back it up. Hopsicker's book was originally self-published (Mad Cow), but it is now available from the emphatically non-RS Trine and Day.Rgr09 (talk) 09:50, 13 June 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Conspiracy theories about the JFK assassination and alleged CIA drug trafficking are two of my favorite Wikipedia subjects right now... and Hopsicker is one of the guys who manages to tie them together! Love it! -Location (talk) 15:21, 13 June 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sources for Barry Seal article 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 2 external links on Barry Seal. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090122214512/http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/gangsters_outlaws/outlaws/barry_seal/16.html to http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/gangsters_outlaws/outlaws/barry_seal/16.html
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090122214518/http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/gangsters_outlaws/outlaws/barry_seal/17.html to http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/gangsters_outlaws/outlaws/barry_seal/17.html
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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: The book American Desperado (apparently ghosted by Evan Wright for Jon Roberts) repeats much of the Seal as CIA agent claims of the Reed and Hopsicker books. See especially the footnote on p. 319, where Wright claims that Seal learned to fly with the Louisiana Civil Air Patrol, "whose members included future presidential assassin Lee Harvey Oswald," worked with  "Operation 40", did clandestine work for CIA while working as a TWA pilot, etc. None of this information is sourced, but it could not have come from Roberts, who apparently did not meet Seal until the 1980s. For all these claims, Del Hahn's book, cited in the main article, is far more reliable than Wright's. Hahn interviewed Seal's family and closest friends, including Eddie Duffard, the flight instructor who taught Seal to fly, went over Seal's military records from the early 1960's, read court records the 1972 "gun-running" case that got Seal fired from TWA, and interviewed one of the customs agents involved. He found zero evidence for any of this claptrap. Based on Hahn, I've deleted (again) the claim that Seal flew in Civil Air Patrol as a teenager. Please discuss here before adding questionable material from American Desperado or other such works. Rgr09 (talk) 22:12, 8 September 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  American Desperado claims 

message: The article currently cites an article in the Wall Street Journal by Jonathan Kwitny that casts doubt on the sting operation in Nicaragua. Although written by a well-known investigative reporter and published in the highly reliable WSJ, this is a very problematic article, contradicting several other accounts of the incident on numerous points. As a small sample, in the quote that the article uses, Kwitny states:
*Los Brasiles, the airport where Seal's plane landed, was not a military airport. Kwitny claims this undermines the basis for linking Defense Minister Humberto Ortega to the operation.
*AUSA Richard Gregorie said 'he could find no information beyond Mr. Seal's word tying any Nicaraguan official to the drug shipment.'
*President Reagan identified Federico Vaughn as a top aide to Interior Minister Tomas Borge, but Kwitny writes that 'federal prosecutors and drug officials now say they aren't sure who he is.'
All other accounts I've seen agree that Los Brasiles was a military airport. Vaughn's role as an aide to Tomas Borge is generally accepted in most accounts, and the photos of Vaughn are evidence outside of Seal's word that elements of the Sandinista government was involved. Other parts of the article not cited in the article are even more problematic. For example, Kwitny says that during the Reyes trial in Las Vegas, when asked about his arrest for smuggling explosives in 1972, Seal testified that the explosives were for 'CIA-trained personnel trying to overthrow Cuba's Fidel Castro.' Yet Hahn's book Smuggler's End quotes the trial transcript as follows: 'Q: Was it connected with the CIA? A:It was alleged to be. I had no direct knowledge of that.' Kwitny's description is clearly inaccurate. Based on all this, I propose to drop the Kwitny story as a source, but I'm interested in hearing any comments. Rgr09 (talk) 14:05, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: The reminds me of Robert Parry's reporting on the October surprise conspiracy theory. Kwitny's report is not a reliable source in this context (e.g. The Contra Story indicates that Vaughan was known to the US as early as 1982), but it could be used with attribution if discussed by reliable sources (e.g. those outside the walled-garden of conspiracy theorists). Here is the edit first mentioning Kwitny's report and here is the edit that expanded it. Note that the very next edit removed the url because it is to a blacklisted conspiracy website. While the motivation for adding that material here should not matter, it appears to me that Kwitny's report is used by CT's to imply that the Reagan administration lied to cover-up alleged CIA involvement in drug trafficking. -Location (talk) 16:50, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the comments. I will drop the story, which is way too problematic. Kwitny also cites four "Contra pilots" in the story, but names only two: Gary Betzner and Michael Tolliver. Tolliver gave a deposition in the Christic suit in March 1987, and is heavily cited in Sheehan's 1988 affidavit. Hahn has several pages on Tolliver (p. 221-223), and not surprisingly, describes his claims, especially about Seal, as totally unreliable. Rgr09 (talk) 21:57, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Betzner is not credible either, but I suspect you already knew that. The middle few paragraphs here give a credible explanation for why convicted drug smugglers pointed the finger at the CIA. I was about to joke that the only pilot who hasn't made a claim about Barry Seal is Tosh Plumlee, then I took a look at what the internet had to say. Sheesh! -Location (talk) 00:02, 19 September 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, the range of websites that cite Plumlee is impressive. More recently, he is also an important source for conspiratorial claims about the murder of DEA agent Enrique Camarena. His claims have spawned extensive coverage in LA Weekly in the US and Proceso in Mexico, as well as two books, one in English and one in Spanish (not to mention creeping into the Wikipedia article on Camarena via an article from El País). I have still not fixed this, but it should be done soon. In terms of sheer scale of inaccuracy and breadth of coverage, however, Plumlee is still far behind Oswald LeWinter.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Rgr09 (talk • contribs) 00:46, 21 September 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Ha! Give him time because he's working on it! As far as I'm concerned, any source that gives any credence to the claims of either one should be scrubbed as unreliable. Schou, for example, has written about Plumlee's stories for over a decade. I guess there is a certain gullible segment of his readership that eats up those stories. -Location (talk) 03:06, 21 September 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Kwitny story 

message: Made in America is "comedy"?
Will any who laughed while watching it please contact me at  .  .  . 
It's not the least bit funny.
I don't mean that as a criticism, and I see that Comcast calls it a comedy, too, but again, it's not funny.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:701:C002:FD40:2D20:AF7A:43CD:DC3F (talk) 01:33, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: "Made in America" != "American Made". Also, funny can be different things :) -- Evilninja (talk) 22:17, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Made in America is "comedy"? 

message: Unless the contract killers do confirm neither of that, there will be a reason to remove that sentence. Emotioness Expression (talk) 09:53, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: There was specific evidence at the trial, and later, of the direct involvement of the Ochoas in the murder of Seal, from three different people: Max Mermelstein, Carlos Uribe, and Fernando Arenas. This evidence was sufficient for the jury to convict all three of the Colombians arrested at their 1987 trial. There was zero evidence in the record regarding the CIA. We do not have to wait for the now aged or dead murderers to admit they did it in order to state that they did it at the behest of the Ochoas, or that Cardona-Salazar, Carlos Lehder, and Pablo Escobar were parties to the plot to kill Seal. I have changed the lead to state the facts and will add the supporting sources and content to the section on Seal's murder. Rgr09 (talk) 07:52, 18 May 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  "It is unknown whether they were hired by Pablo Escobar, head of the Medellín Cartel, or the CIA." 

message: I now think the only way to fix this very problematic article is a rewrite. I am using as primary sources Del Hahn's biography of Seal, and Gugliotta and Leen's account of the rise of the cocaine trade in the 1980s. Both of these are discussed on this page. Please give me a day or two to put this back into readable shape. Rgr09 (talk) 05:21, 19 May 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Very good work! -Location (talk) 15:35, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article rewrite 

message: Removed some comments in the film section about Double-Crossed which were not sourced; also removed two citations which referred to text versions of newspaper/magazine articles. These did not refer to the film, and had no obvious place in the article. Even if relevant, text versions of articles (the custom in usenet forums) should be avoided, for reasons of copyright and accuracy; just cite the original source. Rgr09 (talk) 04:36, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Film section 

message: A paragraph recently added to the article discusses the C-123K plane that Seal used in the undercover operation against the Medellin cartel as follows:
:The same aircraft, piloted by Eugene Hasenfus was shot down over Nicaragua barely a year later, having been used by Southern Air Transport, a CIA front company, to smuggle arms and equipment to the Contras, and allegedly smuggle cocaine back to the US on the return journey.
The NYT article cited here does not support most of the statements made. NYT does not say SAT was a CIA front company, or that SAT was the one who was smuggling arms and equipment to the Contras. NYT does not mention one word about alleged cocaine smuggling to the U.S. on the return journey. I am deleting the addition, please discuss here before reinserting. Rgr09 (talk) 01:15, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  C-123K 

message: The section on the Nicaraguan undercover operation was recently revised, based on the book Cocaine Politics (written by Peter Dale Scott and Jonathan Marshall). The revision was as follows:
:Seal returned to the Los Brasiles airfield in Nicaragua on June 25. The pickup went as planned this time, and the cameras successfully photographed Seal and several individuals in civilian clothing, later reported as Nicaraguan soldiers and officials, as well as members of the Medellin Cartel, loading cocaine onto the plane. While later widely reported that Seal was directly aided by the Ochoa Brothers, Pablo Escobar> Later  Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha (another important cartel member), and Federico Vaughan, multiple sources contradict each other regrading who was present in the photographs, with only Escobar and Seal clearly identifiable. Oliver North, for example, who kept close tabs on the operation, made mention in his notes only of Escobar and Seal. On his return to the U.S. Seal landed the plane at Homestead Air Force Base and the drugs were transferred into a Winnebago camper, which Seal turned over to his Colombian contact.
Some of the text in the addition seems to have been scrambled. I am removing the revisions from Scott & Marshall and reverting back to the previous version. Here are some comments. First, Seal testified concerning his multiple trips to Nicaragua before a grand jury, which returned an indictment against the Medellin cartel members plus Federico Vaughan. He testified in open court concerning his Colombian and Nicaraguan trips at the Miami trial of the cartel distributors. Although the cartel members were not in custody to be tried, the Miami distributors were, and were all convicted. In fact, after the first day of Seal's testimony, three of the four defendants changed their pleas to guilty. As far as I can tell, Scott does not mention the indictment or trial in his book at all. Please correct me if I am wrong. In fact, Scott skips ALL of Seal's undercover work and court testimony, except to quote one paragraph from Gugliotta and Leen, which he describes as a "DEA-assisted book". He has virtually nothing else to say about Seal except to add a truly dubious account of how Seal was finally enrolled as a DEA informant. Gugliotta and Leen, and especially Hahn, did extensive interviews with ALL of the people involved in Seal's enrollment. Scott and his co-author Jonathan Marshall did NONE. All of this is exceptionally bad for Scott's attempt to discuss Seal's role in drug smuggling and as a DEA informant, and is strong reason to avoid using his book in the article. Rgr09 (talk) 03:20, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Peter Dale Scott on Seal 

message: A long section was added disputing the account of Seal's undercover work in Colombia and Nicaragua given in the article. I have moved this to the controversies section for now. Most of this is based on Cocaine Politics by Scott and Marshall and has many questionable elements. Rgr09 (talk) 03:33, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: [Federico] Vaughn's cousin, Barney Vaughn, was an employee of the Popular Bank and Trust Company, used during the Iran Contra affair to funnel money to the Contras, in cooperation with Issac Kattan. 
CP says: "A third bank, the Popular Bank and Trust Company, was used by the State Department to transmit funds to the Contras. According to Jack Terrell, it had been owned by deposed Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza until his murder in 1980. It also allegedly employed a cousin (Barney Vaughan) of Federico Vaughan..." The endnotes give as the source for these claims "interview with Jack Terrell, June 24, 1989." Jack Terrell, AKA Colonel Flaco, was an ex-con who was a major source for much of CP. This is very bad for the book's credibility. Scott himself has acknowledged problems with Terrell's credibility. Terrell made news accusing Philippine Foreign Secretary, Raul Manglapus of arranging the assassination of a rebel military leader. He also gave testimony in William Pepper's lawsuit on the MLK assassination, substantiating the existing of a supposed army assassin. Other than Terrell, there is no evidence whatsoever of the existence of Federico's "cousin" Barney. Note also that it is inaccurate and misleading to describe State Department humanitarian aid to the Contras in this way. I have deleted the passage. Rgr09 (talk) 05:49, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

text: One former contra, in an interview with researchers in the early 1990s alleged that while Seal had indeed been fired on and forced to land by the Nicaraguan army, as he reported, he had not unloaded his cargo, and the photographs were not taken in at the Managua airport at all, but at the Corn Island airstrip, several miles off the coast. 
This claim is unsourced, but it probably comes from CP (100-101): "One veteran of the Contra scene, who has proved reliable on other matters, has told us that these photographs were not taken in Nicaragua at all, but at a small Carribean airstrip on Corn Island." The Corn Islands are in fact a part of Nicaragua, and the "veteran of the Contra scene" is probably Jack Terrell again; he claimed more than once that Colombian cocaine was smuggled through a Corn Island airport into Costa Rica. 
The paragraph added here confounds Seal's first and second flights to Nicaragua (he was shot down the first time, and took the pictures on cameras in the C-123, his second flight). CP's position on all this is confused in the extreme.
In any case, the C-123 flight was described by Seal under oath in open court; any fraud would have put the DEA agents who supervised the flight and the prosecutors who presented the case in court in prison.  Seal was not the only one on the plane; his co-pilot was Emile Camp and the flight engineer was an aircraft mechanic named Peter Everson. Del Hahn interviewed Everson, and he confirmed the story. In addition to the three flights described in the article, Seal first flew to Managua on May 20, 1984 with Felix Bates, one of the four people indicted (and convicted) in the Miami trial, to check out the Los Brasiles field. They were escorted to the field by Federico Vaughan (Hahn, p. 90). This trip, like all the others, was monitored by the DEA.  Seal could not have faked a landing at Los Brasiles even if he had wanted to. But why would he want to? Scott's entire claim here is conspiratorial. The DEA deliberately faked the landing, the AUSA who prosecuted the case knowingly abetted their fake, all at the behest of the deep state. I have deleted this passage as conspiratorial tripe. Rgr09 (talk) 13:21, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

text: when members of the House Judiciary subcommittee on crime attempted to call the Managua phone number Seal provided as his contact with Vaughn, they discovered that the building to which the call was placed had been rented by the US Embassy since 1981, with embassy staff stationed to said office since 1985. William Hughes, chairman of the subcommittee at the time asserted that the embassy official responsible for renting the building was expelled from Nicaragua, and that he considered the allegations of high-level collusion between the Medellin Cartel and the Sandinista government to be a fabrication by members of the US intelligence community.
To go through this line by line would take walls of text. To simplify, Scott did not write what he is alleged to write, FAIR did not write what it is alleged to write, and Hughes did not say what he is alleged to say. Since none of the cites support the addition, I have removed it. If there is a question about the passage, please discuss here, do not just revert. Rgr09 (talk) 03:25, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

text: The DEA rapidly distanced itself from the claims of official Nicaraguan involvement in the cocaine trade, particularily after Vice President Bush began to claim that the sandinistas acted as intermediaries between M-19 guerrillas and the Medellin cartel in organizing the 1985 attack on the Palace of Justice in Bogota.
As far as I can tell, the DEA did not change its position on official Nicaraguan involvement, if that is supposed to refer to Federico Vaughan. Nor is there anything even in CP to support the idea that there was a relation between DEA statements on Nicaragua and any statements then VP Bush made. What statements? I cannot find these cited in CP. Without real sources this paragraph goes too. Rgr09 (talk) 05:41, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

text: No photos released to the public depicted uniformed soldiers, with the identification of participants as Nicaraguan officials dependent entirely on Seal's testimony. Federico Vaughn, the only Nicaraguan directly named in the photos was later revealed to be the head of a mid-sized state-run firm, and not a senior advisor to the interior ministry, as alleged by Seal. 
Both claims are unsourced, the probable source is CP. Uniformed soldiers DO appear in at least one of the photos Seal took, so CP is demonstrably wrong on this. Some of the photos are available in Guggliota and Leen, others can still be seen in various news articles and videos of Reagan's press conference and Hawkins' press conference. I have seen at least one uniformed soldier in tapes of these. They were introduced as evidence at the Miami trial and are almost certainly still available to the public because of this. Vaughan was head of the Nicaraguan state-run trading company, an important source of government revenue under the Sandinistas. The trading company was part of the Interior Ministry. Both of these claims are therefore in error, and I have removed them. Since they were all that is left of the section, the section is now gone from the article. Rgr09 (talk) 01:27, 9 August 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nicaraguan undercover work 

message: I think there's evidence that he did smuggle marijuana. Did somebody look further about it rather than at the surface? Sometimes, it's hard to find what has been claimed but never present evidence to the table. Emotioness Expression (talk) 08:25, 24 September 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: The article states: "By 1976, Seal was probably smuggling marijuana." In context, I inferred that it was the exact date/year for marijuana smuggling that was questionable.  Thoughts? - Location (talk) 21:59, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

text: The GBooks version of Hahn states: "By his own admission, Seal began smuggling small quantities of marijuana by air beginning in early 1976." I will make a change, but I'm fairly certain that Rgr09 has read the actual book. - Location (talk) 17:08, 25 September 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Seal was probably smuggling marijuana" 

message: I watched a movie with Barry seal involved and I'm pretty sure it was not American made or double crossed does anybody know what it is 2601:547:B02:1480:D96E:1829:C8A3:F800 (talk) 00:28, 21 August 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Movies 

message: Add the inflation $$$ amounts.  His June 1985 bounty of $500K is worth a lot more today, to the tune of $1.4M NotBond007 (talk) 07:50, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Inflation $$$ including his bounty