Narco-Mex: The History of the Drug Trade in Mexico

Archivo General de la Nación

• Presidentes (Obregon-Calles, Cardenas, MAC, MAV, ARC) GDO and LEA have no catalogues. JLP and Miguel de La Madrid do have catalogues but are radically reduced. – Citizens’ complaints about trafficking– Some legislation– Basic reports on some anti-drugs campaigns

Investigaciones Politicas y Sociales

• Newspaper clippings about busts, campaigns etc

• Some investigations into drug production, political corruption, and local effects.

• Handful of biographies of 1940s foreign traffickers

• Information on military campaigns against drug production in trafficking (particularly in the 1970s)

Ciudad Juarez, 1926

SEDENA

• Reports on military anti-drugs campaigns• Complaints of civilians against military

aggression, especially during Operation Condor

Dirección Federal de Seguridad

• Relatively banal collections of newspaper clippings on traffickers linked to the DFS (Felix Gallardo etc)

• More interesting documents on pre-1978 leaders e.g. Pedro Aviles (BUT these are now redacted)

Other potential AGN collections

• SEP? a) Allegedly a mess b) Which regions do we choose

• Secretaría de Salubridad y Asistencia - no catalogue.

• Tribunal Superior de Justicia del Distrito Federal/ Siglo XX/ Archivo Histórico/ – This contains drug cases from both DF and for some

reason Tijuana from 1920 to 1930– This is catalogued

Archivo del Estado de Baja California

• Small scale drug rings

• Increasingly alarmist official reports over drug use.

Archivo Histórico de la Secretaria de la Salubridad

• Can’t photograph, prohibitively expensive to take photocopies.

• We have noted all entries in written but not online post 1940 catalogue

• Health police in charge of drug busts up to 1940s.

• Drug busts• Drug policy• Legalization• Treatment of addicts

• Casas Juridicas

• Drug cases from 1920-1950– SLP (done)– Tijuana (partly done)

• Mostly small scale drug arrests, offer insight into a) judicial system b) to some extent profile of Mexican drug user.

• In Tijuana, some more high profile arrests, larger drug rings.

DEA Library

• Figures on drug busts, drug addicts,

• Explanations of policies and international cooperation

Digital National Security Archives

• Online, purchased by Universities of Sheffield and Warwick

• Policies, international cooperation, presidential discussions.

• I have gone through 1969-1980 stuff and pdf it.

Ford Archives

• Lots of information about anti-drugs campaigns 1974-6

• Complaints of congressmen, other US citizens.

• Policies, international relations

Interviews

• DEA Agents – Mike Vigil (twice), Tony Ricevueto

• How far do we want to go down this path? Does this depend on what date we finish the book?

• I have contact details for another 8-10 agents.

• Tony Ricevueto has offered his personal archive for our use.

Kenneth Johnson Archive

• US political scientist

• Was working with Sonoran intellectual and politician, Oscar Monroy.

• Has interesting documents on police corruption and the drug trade

NARA RG 21 RIverside

• Criminal cases of minor drug traffickers coming over border in San Diego

• Gives an idea of small-scale US traffickers

• Large-scale traffickers (e.g. Robert and Helen Hernandez) have had files removed.

NARA RG 36 Riverside

• Customs offices in California

• Annual reports 1940-1955– Can really get a sense of decline of Mexican drug

trade in 1950s

• Individual drug busts 1914-1920

NARA RG 59 Washington

• State Department Archives

• All major busts, policies, instances of international cooperation between 1930 and 1973.

• We do not have 1910-1929 which does contains drug files but is also on microfilm at LSE and Oxford (?)

• Peter has asked for certain files 1970-3 to be FOIAed

NARA RG 84 Washington

• Consular records– Mostly from 1920-1945/50– We have Chihuahua, Mexicali, Ciudad Juarez,

Durango, Guadalajara, Matamoros, Nogales, Mazatlan, and Veracruz.

– We are missing Tijuana– What about post 1945/50. Do these reports exist?

RG 170 Riverside

• DEA Records for California 1972-4

• Some files relating to Mexico

• I have currently asked them to be FOIAed

RG 170 Washington

• Federal Bureau of Narcotics archives, 1920-1962

• Huge collection of data on drugs busts, international cooperation, policy.

Newspapers• El Sonorense – media link between drugs and left wing student group

• El Informador – online Guadalajara newspaper, useful for tracing major drug busts/policy shifts. Also has 1935 poem in praise of Marijuana

• Rolling Stone Mexico, interest articles on drug culture in Mexico late 1960s

• San Diego Union – on Robert and Helen Hernandez

• Hemeroteca Nacional– Has newspapers pre-1910 online– Has some national newspapers and magazines post 1910 online ONLY in Hemeroteca

building. Can we word search busts/policies?– What local newspaper/crime newspapers should we look at? – Baja

California/Tamaulipas/Ciudad Juarez/Alarma/Alerta? These are not online and are tough/expensive to photograph.

Nixon Library

• Surprisingly poor collection of documents on policy and international relations.

• Interesting anonymous hippy article on marijuana smuggling.

NSA, Washington

• This contains more documents than the NSA online archive.

• Extras include– Edward Heath’s Masters Thesis on Operation Trizo

(Carlos Perez Ricart has FOIAed the documents from this)

– Nazar Haro and Zuno’s court cases in the US.

PGR

• This has been given to me by Carlos Perez Ricart

• Contains acts of official PGR-US cooperation between 1930 and 1980.

• Contains a lot more but I have not had time to look at it.

Secondary Literature

• Like local newspapers, small-print-run books also could reveal regional drugs business

Secretary of State Cables 1973-1978

• After 1973, State Department in US moved to cable system.

• They are much less detailed, it seems to me, than the previous system.

• But they do have ample figures about drug busts, drug campaigns and some interesting stuff on some drug traffickers (E.g. Aviles and Herrera)

Tribunal Superior de la Justicia

• There is one computer in the Tribunal Superior, DF which allows one to search and access files of drug offenders that have asked for an amparo from 1920-2012

• Results are mixed– Some of the case files are huge e.g. Jaime Buelna Aviles (1980)

traces out the arrival of cocaine in Culiacan in the early 1970s. – Some of pitiful and simply ask for an amparo. – If you ask for copies all names are redacted. But if you work in

the Tribunal, you can get all names. – How much do we use this?

US Congress Investigations

• US Congress and US state congresses often did lengthy investigations into the drug industry, using court documents we do not have access to.

• I have collected a lot that are online in pdf form but not all. Mostly from late 1960s and 1970s.

US newspapers on the drug war

• Collected some US newspapers on Mexican drug war, particularly 1970s.

• Playboy, Oui and other semi-pornographic magazines have serious investigations.

• Border newspapers have good news stories on drug trade.

• Again, how far do we go down this road?

UT El Paso Oral History Archive

• Contains interview with US Customs agents working in the 1940s-1960s

• Some mentions of drugs from braceros and other workers.

Questions• How centralised was the drug trade?

• How involved were federal organizations, local government?

• How did this change over time?

• Effects on local communities?

• To what extent was US pressure key to anti-drugs legislation?

• How to get at the post-1980s drug trade?– Proceso and other newspapers– Interviews– Toluca Casa Juridica– Tribunal Superior– Local/Nota Roja papers

• How to read judicial files?– As evidence of social cleansing campaigns– As evidence of patterns within the drug trade/drug trafficking?

Archives: The main questions• Nat goes to Salubridad (notes) and AGN (photos). But where else?

• UNAM/Biblioteca Medica theses

• Casas Juridicas– Where? Tijuana (finish?), DF, Guadalajara, Mazatlan, Ciudad Juárez?

• Casa Juridica Nacional, Toluca has post 1950s cases. We have catalogue for SLP, Sonora and Michoacan. No photographs. Do we go here or use Tribunal Superior?

• Newspapers. Wordsearchable access to Excelsior, Universal etc in Hemeroteca Nacional. We can get pdfs of stories. Do we search specific dates for Prensa, BC, and CJ newspapers.

• Magazines. Key magazines: Detective Internacional, Alarma, Alerta, some issues of Por Que?

• US newspapers – how local?

• DEA agents?

• Charles Bowden Archives

• Local studies using triangulations of NARA/AGN sources plus RAN, SEP, Newspapers, court cases– Looking at weight of evidence/strategic importance, I would suggest– Sonora/Sinaloa 1920s-1940s– Tijuana/CJ 1940s/1950s– Sinaloa/Michiacan 1960s/1970s– Guerrero 1970s

Strategy• Plan of book

– 400 pages OUP/University of California series– Series of standalone regional/chronological/thematic case studies ad

infinitum– 800 page two volume text, 1910-1960, 1960-?– One or two volume popular Verso text?– Middle road – Harvard?

• Division of Labour (Are we doing individual archives or individual tasks?)

• Nat’s involvement.

What type of book: Pros and Cons

• Academic Text– Pros – easy contract, relatively easy to write, academically

important, included within proposal, can include technically difficult studies of legal changes etc, can if necessary get two volumes.

– Cons – will have to cut radically, will probably leave out much of the “flavour” found within the documents, will hit a small audience.

– Middle road: • Harvard popular press• 2 books, one academic, one popular• 1 popular book and then host of academic articles?