Michael Levine - The Big White Lie: The Deep Cover Operation That Exposed the CIA Sabotage of the Drug War

THE REAL HISTORY OF THE US DRUG EPIDEMIC

In The Big White Lie, Michael Levine, former DEA agent and bestselling author of Deep Cover, leads the reader through a decade of undercover work.

Levines prose is fast-moving, highly readable, and hard-hitting. He tells how the beautiful South American Queen of Cocaine seduced the CIA into protecting her from prosecution as she sold drugs to Americans; how CIA-sponsored paramilitary ousted, tortured, and killed members of a pro-DEA Bolivian ruling party; and how the CIA created La Corporacion, the General Motors of cocaine, which led directly to the current cocaine/crack epidemic.

As a 25-year veteran agent for the DEA, Michael Levine worked deep-cover cases from Bangkok to Buenos Aires, and witnessed firsthand scandalous violations of drug laws by U.S. officials.

Praise for THE BIG WHITE LIE:

A shocking exposhis first person account reads like an edge-of-the-seat thriller.

-Publishers Weekly (Starred review)

A vivid picture of how international cocaine distribution actually works and yields some important insights into why US drug control efforts have consistently failed.

-The Nation

Hair raising...moves with the speed of a first-rate thriller.

-The New York Times Book Review

Levines description of this undercover work is gripping as he details the tension of big bucks and kilos on the table and of cocaine cowboys--suave yet savage--making deals while drunk and cranked up, playing with their knives and guns. Moreover, the authors suspicions of the CIAs invisible hand appears confirmed by, among other suspicious disasters, having the sound wiped off of all of his incriminating videotapes of drug deals. Undeniably the real nitty-gritty at its core.

-Kirkus Review

The Big White Lie is likely to score big with those who like a good cop book.

-Washington Post

A good read with numerous unsavory but believable characters and rich

reconstructed dialogue.

-Book List

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Michael Levine , called Americas top undercover agent for 25 years, by 60 Minutes, is the New York Times bestselling author of Deep Cover, The Big White Lie and Triangle of Death, and one of the most decorated undercover agents in the history of the Drug Enforcement Administration. He is active as a court qualified expert and trial consultant in Covert Operations, International Narcotics Trafficking, Informant Handling and Police Use-of-Force. He is currently lecturing on Undercover Survival Tactics and Informant Handling for the U.S. State Department in Brazil. His New York City radio program, The Expert Witness Show, can be heard on WBAI 99.5 FM as well as Stitcher.com and iTunes. Visit his websites at:

www.michaellevinebooks.com

www.policetrialexpert.com

www.expertwitnessradio.org

Laura Kavanau-Levine is the coauthor of The Big White Lie and Triangle of Death as well as the screenplays for HBO Pictures and Deutsche Colombia Pictures. She holds an MFA from New York University and a MSW from Fordham University.

D EDICATIONS

In memory of my son, New York City Police Sergeant Keith Richard Levine, killed on December 28, 1991 while trying to stop an armed robbery by a crack addict with a record of two murder convictions.

While the CIA and other covert agencies betrayed us, and while our leaders looked the other way, they left it to law enforcement to clean up the mess they made of America. And we continue to pay with our blood and the blood of our children.

To all law enforcement officers who have died trying to take drugs off the street.

3/3/11 BOLIVIAN PRESIDENT BANS DEA CITING THE BOOK LA GUERRA FALSA (THE BIG WHITE LIE), BY FORMER DEA AGENT MICHAEL LEVINE

On March 3, 2011, Bolivian President Evo Morales vowed before the world press that DEA would never again be permitted to enter Bolivia. He cited the events in La Guerra Falsa (the Spanish language translation of The Big White Lie) as proof of Americas covert use of the War on Drugs to manipulate his and other governments as his justification. This event was largely ignored by American mainstream media. As a consequence, the American taxpayer who is paying the price of the War on Drugs in drug related deaths, homicides and more than a trillion in taxes, continues to be left in the dark.

This book is not about the betrayal of the Bolivian people; its about the betrayal of both our peoples by individuals in CIA and the Department of Justice whom in a sane world should have been indicted for treason and complicity to mass murder.

Since the first publication of this book in 1993, CIA Inspector General Frederick Hitz admitted CIAs support of the same drug dealers targeted by DEA, in essence, corroborating every accusation documented in these pages.

___________________________

Morales: DEA Not Coming Back to Bolivia. (March 3, 2011). The Associated Press.

Statement of Frederick P. Hitz Inspector General Central Intelligence Agency: Hearing Before The Permanent Select Committee On Intelligence. 105th Cong. (March 16, 1998).

60 Minutes. (November 21, 1993). The CIAs Cocaine. New York, NY: CBS News.

Authors Note

T he story you are about to read is true. Certain names have been changed and descriptions altered to avoid jeopardizing current law enforcement agents and informants, to avoid violating secrecy laws, and to protect the identities of people protected under the Witness Protection Program.

I have also changed the names of some criminals with whom I dealt with in my undercover role. For reasons unknowndespite having violated numerous state and federal laws from drug smuggling to homicidethey were never prosecuted, and in some cases never even fully identified. Our governments failure to take action against these drug dealers and murderers makes me vulnerable to civil action if I use their true names. However, if elected officials find the events described herein as scandalous as you will, I will furnish them with the true identities of these criminals.

I have reconstructed the incidents, events, and conversations I was party to with the aid of transcripts of taped conversations, personal diaries, copies of reports, court transcripts, and interviews of other participants. Those incidents, events, and conversations I was not party to were reconstructed from statements made by participants, statements made to me by criminals I associated with while working undercover, interviews of informants, historical research, and government reports.

A good portion of the evidence gathered in Operation Hun, including videotapes and tape-recorded conversations, were mysteriously destroyed by the Drug Enforcement Administration. Thus some of the recorded conversations recounted in these pages had to be reconstructed from court transcripts, personal diary notes, and other documents.

The Prologue is a fictionalized dramatization of a meeting and transaction that actually occurred and is based on my personal knowledge of all the parties, informants statements, and statements made to me by drug dealers during my deep cover assignment in Operation Hun.

The suits are the drug war bureaucratsthe armchair generals who direct the drug war from behind desks and in front of television cameras, and whom for the most part are more concerned with their own careers and images than the lives of the men and women they command.