Peter Dale Scott: Venezuela and Cocaine Politics

A letter submitted to the New York Times by Peter Dale Scott in early December, 2025. Peter Dale Scott, a former Canadian diplomat and English Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, is a poet, writer, and researcher. Website: peterdalescott.net

Aaron Good and Peter Dale Scott || Re: “With Pardon, a Contradiction In a Campaign Against Drugs” (news story, NYT December 1 – online version here: “In Announcing Pardon of Drug Trafficker While Threatening Venezuela, Trump Displays Contradictions”)

The ill-conceived and deliberately misnamed “War on Drugs” has been a cover for contradictory CIA involvement with drug​-traffickers for decades, notably vis-a-vis Venezuela.

In 1993, a New York Times story revealed that “Anti-Drug Unit of CIA Sent Tons of Cocaine to U.S. in 1990.” The CIA had collaborated with U.S.-trained Venezuelan General Ramón Guillén Dávila, head of Venezuela’s National Guard anti-drug unit between 1987 and 1991. In late 1990, the US Customs Service seized 998 pounds of cocaine at Miami International Airport and traced it back to the CIA and Guillén. Jim Campbell, CIA Venezuela station chief, and Mark McFarland, CIA officer in charge in Caracas were also involved.

Granted immunity, Guillén confessed in a Miami court to cocaine smuggling. When the investigation was reopened in 1993, Guillén failed to appear. He never ​ stood trial in the US, while the CIA, after an internal investigation, found “no wrongdoing.”

Before Chavez came to power, the previous US-friendly governments of Venezuela were never labeled a “narco-state,” despite the years during which the CIA- Guillén connection smuggled “tons of cocaine” from Venezuela without any interference whatsoever.

But matters changed when, in 2005, Venezuela’s new President Hugo Chavez expelled the DEA from Venezuela for drug trafficking. In 2007, then-retired General Guillén was arrested on allegations of “promoting a military rebellion to oust the president.” For the first time, Venezuela, under Chavez, began to be labeled a “narco-state.”

This narrative is normal, business as usual. For this and other instances of this global pattern, see Peter Dale Scott and Jonathan Marshall, Cocaine Politics: Drugs, Armies, and the CIA in Central America.