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Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3

Request for Comment: Academic historians

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
In this long discussion, editors consider whether to include a section on the alleged CIA participation in Camarena's interrogation. The debate includes several participants who adopt complex and nuanced positions, and offer detailed and persuasive arguments in favour of them, but even after all these words, editors don't seem to be changing their minds in any very substantive way. The job of a closer is to summarize the debate's conclusions, after weighing them in the light of Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. In weighing this one, I have understood the phrase "oppose as written" to mean that the respondent agrees to a change in the article without agreeing to this specific change in the article. If anyone who wrote "oppose as written" meant that they oppose the principle of including the CIA involvement allegations, then I have badly misunderstood this debate, and I would appreciate being pinged or contacted on my talk page so I can revise my close.
With that said, I would summarize this debate's conclusions after weighing them in light of policies and guidelines, as follows:-
Q: Should we include a section on the alleged CIA participation in Camarena's interrogation?
A: Yes. There is a rough consensus that there are sufficient sources to include a section about it.
Q: Should the section we include read like Darouet's proposed edit?
A: No. The claim that the CIA was somehow involved or connected with Camarena's murder is of course an extraordinary one, and it requires in-text attribution to a specific source as well as an inline citation that directly supports the claim. The proposed addition is also long enough to raise concerns that it might give undue prominence to what may well be no more than a conspiracy theory. The kind of addition that could gain consensus would need to be succinct as well as specific in order to circumvent this concern.
Q: Should the proposed new material appear in the lead?
A: I don't think there's sufficient consensus to include it in the lead at this time.
Q: How should we draft this proposed addition?
A: Editors have objected to drafting the new material by directly editing the article. These objections are legitimate because we're in the "discuss" phase of the WP:BRD cycle. Therefore, please draft the proposed additions in an unindexed space (such as a user sandbox) first, then discuss them here and reach consensus before inserting it into the article. I trust that it will be possible to do this without resorting to a second RfC.
I hope this helps—S Marshall T/C 00:35, 17 October 2020 (UTC)
@S Marshall: 6 editors responding to the RfC supported inclusion of the text, including in the lead, while 3 editors opposed it. That means editors supported the text by a 2:1 margin. Among outside editors coming here for comment — that's the point of an RfC — 5 editors supported inclusion, and one opposed: that's a 5:1 margin. Editors supporting inclusion point out that WP:SECONDARY and tertiary WP:RS treat the allegations "extremely seriously", and also point out that arguments opposing inclusion are based almost wholly on WP:OR. Because your close so wholly disregards both the policy-based arguments and the overwhelming majority of editors here, I'm going to challenge your close at WP:AN, per policy. I'm informing you here first, as you've requested. -Darouet (talk) 16:32, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

Should we include a section on possible CIA participation in Camarena's interrogation, and his case more broadly, using this text at least, [1] and based on these sources? -Darouet (talk) 22:40, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

Academic

  • Bartley, Russell H., and Sylvia Erickson Bartley. Eclipse of the Assassins: The CIA, Imperial Politics, and the Slaying of Mexican Journalist Manuel Buendía. University of Wisconsin Pres, 2015 [2].
  • Pansters, Wil G. "Drug trafficking, the informal order, and caciques. Reflections on the crime-governance nexus in Mexico." Global Crime 19.3-4 (2018): 315-338 [3].
  • Marshall J. CIA Assets and the Rise of the Guadalajara Connection. Crime, Law and Social Change. 1991 Jul 1;16(1):85-96 [4].
  • Freije, Vanessa. "Eclipse of the Assassins: The CIA, Imperial Politics, and the Slaying of Mexican Journalist Manuel Buendía." (2016): 766-768 [5].
  • Pansters, Wil G. "Spies, Assassins, and Statesmen in Mexico’s Cold War." (2017): 143-156 [6].

Newspaper articles

  • Tucson Sentinel, "Blood on the Corn. Bowden: How the CIA may have tortured one of America's own," by Charles Bowden & Molly Molloy, April 7th 2015.
  • Processo, "A Camarena lo ejecutó la CIA, no Caro Quintero, by Luis Chaparro and Jesus Esquivel, 12 October 2013.
  • LA Weekly, "How a dogged L.A. DEA agent unraveled the CIA'S alleged role in the murder of Kiki Camarena," by Jason McGahan, 1 July 2020.
  • El Pais, "“The CIA helped kill DEA agent Enrique ‘Kiki’ Camarena,” say witnesses," by Juan Diego Quesada, 15 October 2013.
  • Fox News, "US intelligence assets in Mexico reportedly tied to murdered DEA agent," by William La Jeunesse and Lee Ross, 10 October 2013.

Reopened Justice Department Investigation

  • Fox News, "US probing claims that CIA operative, DEA official betrayal led to murder of agent: report", by Greg Norman, 28 February 2020.
  • USA Today, "Killed by a cartel. Betrayed by his own? US reexamines murder of federal agent featured in ‘Narcos,' by Brad Heath, 28 February, 2020.

-Darouet (talk) 22:40, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

Survey

  • Include the section in the main text [7] and include in the lead as well [8]. At least five academics have described CIA involvement as likely in this case, and I can't find a single academic source disputing that. Many newspapers have also covered these allegations, with the investigative report by Bowden and Molloy reporting that the allegations are likely true. Lastly after the Mexican government released the putative killer Caro Quintero in 2013, three former DEA agents including the man who led the DEA investigation into Camarena's death, two people who describe themselves as former CIA assets, and multiple witnesses who describe themselves as former employees of the cartels, all describe CIA involvement in Camarena's torture. Whether readers side with historians and agree the CIA was involved — that's for them to decide. But we can't just exclude all academic and journalistic reliable, secondary sources published after 2012. -Darouet (talk) 22:40, 8 September 2020 (UTC)
  • Include prominently, including in the lead. This is more than enough sourcing to include prominently. Furthermore, the arguments against inclusion seem weak or WP:OR-ish (mostly boiling down to "I think this can't be true because XYZ, therefore any historian that says otherwise is a bad source and any source that relies on those historians is also unusable", which strikes me as a red-alarm bad argument in that it indicates that the editor is relying on their own WP:OR to the extent that they will aggressively disregard any sources that say otherwise.) For the better or worse, we go by what the sources say, and this not just has significant coverage among historians but substantial WP:SECONDARY and tertiary coverage that treats the allegations extremely seriously. "But but but I think Tosh Plumlee is a liar and choose to believe Victor Harrison was not a CIA agent!" are not serious arguments - obviously a CIA agent is going to, at certain times, say they are not a CIA agent; and the veracity of accounts told by primary sources (both in a case like that and when there's other reasons for skepticism) are for secondary sources to assess, not us. If you think that those things invalidate the story you should write to the numerous high-quality secondary and tertiary sources that have covered it asking them for retractions or corrections, or produce comparable sources disagreeing with them (and making the argument you're trying to make here) so we can present that disagreement in text. Until then it's meaningless to bring such arguments up - the strong secondary and tertiary sourcing is sufficient to indicate that more reliable sources than "some rando Wikipedia editors attempting original research" have looked at such concerns and determined that the overarching story is credible regardless. --Aquillion (talk) 01:39, 9 September 2020 (UTC)
  • Include, obviously, on the basis of the multiple sources (mainly academic works) provided. This is standard Wikipedia practice and we have a prohibition on WP:OR. The "analysis" below should and will be set aside. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 08:04, 9 September 2020 (UTC)
  • Include There are more than enough sources that warrants inclusion. Idealigic (talk) 14:13, 9 September 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose as written. This RfC is not neutrally phrased and seems to grossly exaggerate the quality of Darouet's cited sources. Having read through the exhaustive discussions preceding this RfC as well as the continued discussion below, it seems that Darouet's repeated assertions that "At least five academics have described CIA involvement as likely in this case" cannot be taken at face value. In fact, Darouet has just one academic source for this claim (Bartley & Bartley 2015), along with two book reviews that merely summarize it, noting that Bartley & Bartley rely on "circumstantial" evidence to connect the CIA to Camarena's murder. Darouet argues that since the reviewers (Pansters and Freije) are mostly favorable, and do not expressly set out to disprove any of the content in Bartley & Bartley, that means they are additional sources independently corroborating Bartley & Bartley's findings. However, as Rgr09 has noted ([9], [10], [11]), that is not entirely clear from the text of the reviews and the vast majority of the content in Bartley & Bartley is about the life of Mexican journalist Manuel Buendía, with much of the contentious material about the CIA and Camarena being relegated to a brief ~30 page epilogue in a book that Darouet himself states ([12]) is "around 500 pages long" and difficult to read in its entirety. I was very curious about Darouet's reference to Marshall 1991 as a "fifth" academic source that has "described CIA involvement as likely in [Camarena's murder]," especially because it never seems to have come up in the preceding discussions (unless I'm missing something), yet now Darouet has conceded ([13]) that "Marshall does not write that Camarena was killed with CIA complicity." I do not think that anyone should support Darouet's proposed addition on the pretense that he has marshaled an array of academic historians representing a broad scholarly consensus in the field of contemporary Latin American history when he really just has a single academic source from a few years ago, that is under-reviewed and contains controversial findings that have not been proven or independently confirmed either by other academics or any of the legal trials involving this incident. None of this is to say that Bartley & Bartley 2015 is not a reliable source with attribution (despite its undisputed shortcomings) or not DUE for at least a short paragraph in this article, but if Darouet wants an RfC to effectively "vote" on his preferred version rather than drafting a consensus version in collaboration with Rgr09, then my inclination is to say no—primarily because of Darouet's tendency to overstatement.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 02:29, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
Historians Russell and Sylvia Bartley, historian Wil Pansters, journalists Molly Molloy and Chuck Bowden, the newspaper Proceso, the lead DEA investigator into Camarena's killing Hector Berrellez, and additional US government agents and cartel witnesses, all assert a CIA link to Camarena's death, through the Contra affair. Historian Freije views this hypothesis as plausible, historian Marshall wrote way back in 1990 that the CIA was protecting some of the drug kingpins, and there are over a dozen newspaper articles covering this topic in major international papers. But you admit that you have not read these works — you don't quote from them — and because you write that I am an unreliable source, editors should ignore all the historians, journalists, agents and witnesses prominently commenting on this case. That's a very weak argument. -Darouet (talk) 16:02, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
  • Include There are reliable sources available to support this. ~ HAL333 22:45, 11 September 2020 (UTC)
  • Include Certainly this information sourced to the Bartley/Bartley book and some of the commentaries in journals should be included in the body and in the lead. Particularly the favourable review by Vanessa Freije, which specifically endorses the evidence on Camarena and interpretation presented by the Bartleys, that was published in The Hispanic American Historical Review. Alongside the Journal of Latin American Studies and the LAP it is the preeminent English-language journal in the field, and cannot simply be disregarded. It is important that the information is presented, as the Bartleys do, as circumstantial but nevertheless compelling. To those others arguing at great (!!) length against inclusion: if you wish to dispute the articles supporting the Bartleys' findings you are welcome to submit an article for publication to either of the aforementioned journals or any of several other excellent scholarly publications. But WP Talk pages are not the place for your research and rambling cant on a subject in which you evidently have little expertise. See here. My only caveat would be that Freije's support for Bartley should also be cited. Cambial Yellowing❧ 21:17, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
I'm not sure who you are talking about with the comment "little expertise", but AGF. We are not talking "little expertise" with some of the people making these comments. They are about as knowledgeable as I have come across. And secondly, I think a great deal of caution is called for in this circumstance. That is why your are seeing comments bordering on OR and I think it says much positive about the editors saying it. Based on a handful of DEA agents (albeit being quoted in academic publications) we are adding to the article the implication that a government agency fostered the drug trade that devastated the USA's inner cities. If that wasn't fantastic enough, we are also talking a story that has been chased by a whole bunch of journalists (to a dead end; not to mention the numerous Federal investigations).....oh and add on the fact the CIA supposedly sanctioned the torture and murder of a DEA agent. Sorry but it's more like something you would read in the checkout stand in the supermarket than a "academic" publication. So that is why you are seeing some (justifiable) hesitation here. As the saying goes "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". There is nothing extraordinary about these types of stories in the drug underworld. (Or them getting re-printed/shown in a variety of sources.) I am not (by the way) arguing for exclusion....just caution and being careful about WEIGHT.Rja13ww33 (talk) 22:42, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
Don't try to falsely imply that I did not AGF. My comment was directed not at their motive, but at their competence to comment, the measure of which for WP purposes is the venue and manner in which their conclusions are published, not whether one anonymous WP account thinks them "about as knowledgeable as I have come across". Multiple referees for the journal articles in question, who unlike you or I, have recognized expertise, considered the articles endorsing the Bartleys' findings to be worthy of serious publication. Everything "published" here – including your characterisation of the assertions as "fantastic" – are by the measure of WP sourcing policy scrawlings on a toilet wall, good faith or no. Cambial Yellowing❧ 23:35, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
Putting aside your further lack of good faith and insults....how exactly did these "referees for the journal articles in question" establish these sources are legit? For starters, what do you know about Plumlee? Do you know that this University of Wisconsin Press publication (that you claim was peer reviewed) doesn't even explore some of the obvious issues with his credibility? And are you saying the assertion that the CIA brokered a deal with a Cartel to import drugs and kill a DEA agent isn't "fantastic"? (Speaking of lack of judgement.)Rja13ww33 (talk) 00:20, 15 September 2020 (UTC)
Before making any further false accusations about good faith or insults (which I will take seriously), I suggest trying to understand what AGF means, and why making repeated false accusations of bad faith is not appropriate because of this policy.
What you or I think we know about Plumlee, or about Donald Duck, is irrelevant. In WP we only follow what appears in reliable secondary sources. If you want to argue the point about what I claimed (correctly) is peer reviewed you should at least get your facts straight: I referred to the journal articles, which are published by Routledge, Springer, Duke University Press, and the University of Amsterdam respectively. We know they are peer reviewed because a. all other scholarship confirms this fact and b. the publishers explain their peer-review process in detail. Your personal opinion about the merits of WP:SCHOLARSHIP is not relevant to the discussion. Cambial Yellowing❧ 01:18, 15 September 2020 (UTC)
I know exactly what AGF is. You need to observe it in the future. The Journal articles cited here (at least the ones I could access) really don't explore this issue (on Plumlee) either. If you know better: fire away. I never said my "personal opinion" was a substitute for scholarship or RS. I also said I was not arguing for exclusion.....I advised "caution and being careful about WEIGHT". And I think some good RS about Plumlee's credibility issues are in order as well.Rja13ww33 (talk) 01:54, 15 September 2020 (UTC)
Feel free to introduce to the discussion any scholarly articles you think are directly relevant to the author's conclusions. Cambial Yellowing❧ 02:05, 15 September 2020 (UTC)
Doesn't necessarily have to be scholarly.....just has to be RS.Rja13ww33 (talk) 02:14, 15 September 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose as written. I have put in two more comments in the discussion section, one on how to bring the article current and the other summarizing three points of dispute with the proposed addition. I will also add that Jack Lawn and Jack Taylor's public rejection of Berrellez and Jordan's 2013 claims should go in the article. At this point, I’m done with the article. It’s too bad that a long discussion has not resulted in any substantive improvements to the article, which still has numerous inaccuracies and massive omissions that I am no longer interested in fixing. Rgr09 (talk) 08:14, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
See also a long article on the Berrellez documentary The last narc by Elaine Shannon. Rgr09 (talk) 10:41, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
Shannon's response to the recent Amazon documentary is interesting and might deserve a reference, but "https://spytalk.substack.com/" is not a reliable source. -Darouet (talk) 14:48, 5 October 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose as written. At issue is the dissemination of a conspiracy theory by Russel H. Bartley and Sylvia Erickson Bartley that has gained traction among Qanon and other supporters of the "deep state". To be clear, it was only Mr. Bartley who held an academic position and it is not unusual for university publishers to print conspiracy theory works by academics (e.g. see Peter Dale Scott and his promulgation of the deep state). The claims of the Bartleys could possible be used with attribution, but reliable sources refuting the conspiracy theory would also need to be included. - Location (talk) 20:53, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

Discussion

There are so many sources on this topic, and yet none are in the article: this issue needs wider input from across the encyclopedia. I'll admit, I had never even read on Camarena until the last year. But I'm shocked that literally every reliable source from academia, and from recent newspaper reports on this topic, is being systematically removed from the article. Why is that happening? When I asked for comment previously at WP:RSN, the only uninvolved editors who commented [14], Horse Eye Jack and Nomoskedasticity, said that it should be fine to use this material with attribution. That advice has had no impact on this page however. -Darouet (talk) 22:40, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

I object to the use of any source that states Tosh Plumlee (the SPLC said he makes shit up) and Victor Harrison (who testified under oath that he did not work for the government) were CIA agents. Working in academia does not mean one puts out reliable information. Bartley and Bartley, for example, cite dubious sources such as Plumlee, Harrison, others who have falsely claimed to be CIA agents such as Richard Brenneke and Terry Kent Reed, and conspiracists Daniel Hopsicker, Gary Webb, and John Simkin/Spartacus Educational. I would like some discussion on how to reconcile this. - Location (talk) 23:12, 8 September 2020 (UTC)
Harrison said that he didn't work for the CIA in 1990 [15], five years after Camarena was killed. Since 2013, he's been telling journalists and historians that he did, in fact, work for the CIA [16][17][18][19]. The evaluation of historians and journalists is worth more than the speculations of editors here. As to Plumlee, I don't know, but his story lines up with all the other witnesses. -Darouet (talk) 23:17, 8 September 2020 (UTC)
Harrison did not tell Pansters he worked for the CIA, Harrison did not tell LAWeekly he worked for the CIA, Harrison did not tell Esquivel he worked for the CIA. I do not know if Harrison told Bowden he worked for the CIA. The source cited should say that if its true, but I can't find such a statement. Help me out. Finally, as noted above, Bartley says Harrison didn't tell him he worked for the CIA, only implied it. Damn, forgot sig again! Rgr09 (talk) 04:49, 9 September 2020 (UTC)
Russell and Sylvia Bartley's book [20] contains a glossary, summarizing who is who in the Buendia and Camarena murders. There's an entry for Harrison:

Harrison, Lawrence Victor—cover name assumed by George Marshall Davis (q.v.) when he was given a new identity by the CIA in the mid-1960s; served as a CIA “illegal” (deep-cover agent) in Mexico; has personal knowledge of the Manuel Buendía assassination, as well as agency collusion with Mexican drug traffickers and government officials in support of the Nicaraguan contras.

Here's what historian Wil Pansters writes in his review of the Bartley book [21]:

A crucial step in getting to this conclusion was the authors’ engagement with a former CIA agent, Lawrence Victor Harrison, who for a long time had worked under deep cover in the Mexican netherworld of the DFS, drug trafficking and political repression. He later became disenchanted with the agency and in conversations with the authors eventually spilled the beans about the relationships between organized crime, security agencies, law enforcement, and political interests in Washington, Mexico, and beyond. In his mind Buendía was murdered on the orders of the architect of the Iran-contra network, Oliver North (p. 331)!

Here's what historian Vanessa Freije writes in her review of the Bartleys [22]:

The authors unearth new evidence of US intelligence assistance in Mexico’s dirty war. According to their interviews with disaffected ex-CIA agent Lawrence Victor Harrison, CIA operatives helped identify leftist “dissidents” and reported directly to Mexican intelligence officers such as Miguel Nazar Haro, notorious for ordering tortures and disappearances (p. 314).

Here's what journalists Charles Bowden and Molly Molloy write about Harrison [23]:

Lawrence Harrison comes up to the U.S. in September 1989. In his initial debriefing, he explains that he holds a rank in DFS. He had handled all the communications for the drug leaders in Guadalajara — Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo, Rafael Caro Quintero, Miguel Félix Gallardo, and El Cochiloco. He says he attended classes at the University of California at Berkeley but was not officially enrolled and he also attended some classes in the law school there. Then, in 1968, he is recruited by the CIA, trained, and sent to Mexico... It is a simple arrangement: He is a CIA operative embedded in DFS and assigned by DFS to assist and guard major drug people in Guadalajara.

This is what journalist Jason McGahan writes about Harrison [24]:

Once in the safety of Berrellez's office in L.A., Harrison told his story. He said he was a CIA agent who was trained in Virginia and assigned to pose as an English instructor at the Autonomous University of Guadalajara.

This is what reliable sources are writing about Harrison's relationship with the CIA. -Darouet (talk) 14:00, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

I am shocked that Darouet is shocked that his additions to article have not been generally accepted. I wrote earlier that I did not have time to discuss the article in detail, but that I had doubts about his sources. I was not in his rsn discussion because I had no time. Now I do. Wikipedia is full of this sort of back and forth, I have felt frustrated over it myself, but that is the way WP has evolved.

I first have some comments on the book by Bartley and Bartley. The full title is Eclipse of the assassins : the CIA, imperial politics, and the slaying of Mexican journalist Manuel Buendia. The subject of this book is the murder of Buendia. Its focus is Buendia's life and career, including his early biography, his later career, the political and historical background, Buendia's political views and roles, and, in detail, the investigation of his murder and the prosecution of the men accused of killing him. For Camarena, on the other hand, the book has no personal details, no discussion of his career, no discussion of DEA either in general or in Mexico, no discussion of drug traffickers or trafficking in general or in Mexico, no discussion of the circumstances of Camarena's murder, no discussion of the investigation of Camarena's murder in Mexico or in America, except as it relates to Lawrence Harrison, no discussion of the legal proceedings over the murder in Mexico or America except as it relates to Harrison. Harrison provides B & B with grounds to claim that CIA was involved in Buendia's murder. In fact, Harrison says Buendia was killed at the behest of Oliver North (p. 394). B & B are not interested in Camarena. The sole exception to this lack of matters relevant to Camarenais in the "Epilogue" section of the book, about 30 pages where the Bartleys discuss the 2013 claims of BJP. The main focus of this discussion is on whether the accusations fit in with their views of Lawrence Harrison. In other words, the book is barely relevant to Camarena at all, except for the 2013 BJP claims, which should not, at this stage, have a central or even peripheral position in the article. Rgr09 (talk) 01:13, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

Enrique Camarena is referenced 410 times by Russell and Sylvia Bartley in the main text of their book [25], and an additional 100+ times in their glossary, endnotes and index. That a lot of references for two historians who, in your words, are "not interested in Camarena," and for a book that is "barely relevant to Camarena at all." The book situates both the Camarena and Buendia murders in the context of international politics, which is what you'd expect from historians, and hope for in a Wikipedia article.
Here's what the Barleys conclude about Camarena, for the record (pp. 402-403):

The preponderance of evidence now available in the public record, confirmed and further nuanced by our own cited sources and most especially by Lawrence Victor Harrison, persuades us beyond a reasonable doubt that Manuel Buendía was slain on behalf of the United States because of what he had learned about U.S.-Mexico collusion with narcotics traffickers, international arms dealers, and other governments in support of Reagan administration efforts to overthrow the Sandinista government of Nicaragua. The evidence we have developed also leads us to conclude that DEA S/A Enrique Camarena Salazar was abducted, interrogated, and killed for the same reason and that the two cases are therefore related. The import of this latter conclusion is that, contrary to the hero status accorded Camarena as an ostensible casualty of the "war on drugs," he was sacrificed by his own government in order to prevent exposure of a covert operation against the legitimate authorities of another country.

Note that this reference to Camarena is #258 and #259 out of 543 in the book altogether. -Darouet (talk) 13:39, 9 September 2020 (UTC)
The lengthy quote above is irrelevant padding and has nothing to do with my comment. As for the 410 instances of Camarena in the main text of B & B, counting words is no substitute for reading a book. Darouet's comments frequently show that D. has not carefully read all, or even most of B & B. Read it. I have read it, I discuss it. I repeat, it is not WP:OR to read all of the books one cites, or to check the book's citations. That is nonsense.
If you must use the crutch of numbers to discuss books, please note that without knowing total text tokens, total instances of a particular token is meaningless. Relative counts, however, can show us something. Compare the relative frequency in B & B for Buendia (B), Harrison (H), and Camarena (C). Using the pdfs I have, main text, no front or back matter, B=1502, H=848, and C=407. (D's count for C a little bit different from mine). What does this mean? The main subject of the book is Buendia, the secondary subject is Harrison, Camarena is tertiary.
Another funny textual result: “Russell” and “Sylvia”, the authors’ names, and their collective pronoun “we” appear over 1300 times. The reviewers were all struck by this self reference: Freije calls it a “new journalism” style, an irritated Pansters describes it as “too personal”. Good or bad, the Bartleys are almost as important in this book as Buendia. Camarena is far down the list.
4-500 instances of Camarena does not reassure us that this is a useful book for the article. 410 instances of C in the main text doesn't show how many of these are "Camarena trial", "Camarena case" (80x) being used to discuss the testimony of Victory Harrison. 150 instances of C appear in the Epilogue to discuss the claims of BJP; this indicates how skewed the discussion of Camarena is throughout B & B. But BJP is what D. is really interested in.
A further indication that Camarena is peripheral to B & B's writing: Look at the list of people B&B interviewed. Most are relatives or colleagues of Buendia. Harrison’s relatives were also tracked down and interviewed; some of these discussed in the book were omitted from the list of interviewees. B & B interviewed no one who knew Camarena, unless you count Phil Jordan, who apparently met Camarena once in April 1984. B & B interviewed none of the prosecutors at the LA trials, who spoke for Camarena at the trial. Camarena is peripheral to B & B’s book. Much of Camarena's story is omitted from it. It would expand this comment to massive lengths to detail them all.
In fine, the more B & B is used in the article, the less of Camarena is in the article. The article is about Camarena; it is not about Buendia or Harrison. It is not about the multitudinous, turbid, conspiracist claims that float through B & B’s book. The article is better off without the book. Rgr09 (talk) 14:53, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

I also have some comments on the reception of “Eclipse” Who are the five academics? Russel and Sylvia Bartley, Pansters, Freije, and who else? Darouet writes “at least five academics have described CIA involvement as likely in this case.” Freije mentions Camarena only once in her review. “Using [testimonies] which come from the trial for the 1985 murder of undercover DEA agent Enrique Camarena, the authors hypothesize that the United States played a role in the Buendia and Camarena murders to prevent the so-called “Veracruz link” from surfacing (p. 195). The evidence for US involvement is compelling but, as Bartley and Bartley acknowledge, Circumstantial (p. 394).” The use of hypothesize and circumstantial contradicts Darouet’s claim that Freije described CIA involvement as likely. The description of Camarena as an undercover agent shows that Freije was not familiar with the Camarena case. Rgr09 (talk) 02:57, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

Really, this could be described as either four or five. The historians are:
  • no. 1 Russell and no. 2 Sylvia Bartley, Eclipse of the Assassins: The CIA, Imperial Politics, and the Slaying of Mexican Journalist Manuel Buendía. University of Wisconsin Press, 2015 [26]. They conclude:

The preponderance of evidence... persuades us beyond a reasonable doubt that Manuel Buendía was slain on behalf of the United States because of what he had learned about U.S.-Mexico collusion with narcotics traffickers, international arms dealers, and other governments in support of Reagan administration efforts to overthrow the Sandinista government of Nicaragua. The evidence we have developed also leads us to conclude that DEA S/A Enrique Camarena Salazar was abducted, interrogated, and killed for the same reason.

  • no. 3 Wil Pansters, "Spies, Assassins, and Statesmen in Mexico’s Cold War." (2017): 143-156 [27]. He writes:

Since the overriding concern of the CIA was the anti-Sandinista project, it trumped the DEA's task of combating drug trafficking, and covertly incorporated (or pressured) parts of the Mexican state into subservience. Buendía had found out about the CIA-contra-drugs-DFS connection, which seriously questioned Mexican sovereignty, while Camarena learned that the CIA had infiltrated the DEA and sabotaged its work so as to interfere with the clandestine contra-DFS-traffickers network. They knew too much and were eliminated on the orders of the U.S. with Mexican complicity. Later official investigations attempted to limit criminal responsibility to the dirty connections between drug traffickers, secret agents and corrupt police, leaving out the (geo)political ramifications.

  • Note that Pansters also describes this in his own work, "Drug trafficking, the informal order, and caciques. Reflections on the crime-governance nexus in Mexico." Global Crime 19.3-4 (2018): 315-338 [28]. He summarizes:

The Camarena affair constituted a turning point in the recent history of state-crime governance in Mexico, as it brought to light the complicity between drug traffickers and the Dirección Federal de Seguridad (DFS), which enjoyed the support of or worked on behalf of the CIA.

  • no. 4 Vanessa Freije. "Review: Eclipse of the Assassins: The CIA, Imperial Politics, and the Slaying of Mexican Journalist Manuel Buendía." (2016): 766-768 [29]. She writes:

The product of [The Bartleys'] research, Eclipse of the Assassins, suggests that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the DFS, and high-ranking Mexican politicians collaborated to murder Buendía... The second half of the book uncovers the authors’ proposed motive for the Buendía assassination: his knowledge of Mexico’s connection to the Iran-Contra affair. According to the authors, Buendía learned that the Mexican government was aiding the CIA in its proxy war against Nicaragua’s leftist government. Specifically, the CIA used a Veracruz airfield to transport weapons to the Nicaraguan Contras, and at the same time the agency trained Contras on the ranch of Guadalajara Cartel kingpin Rafael Caro Quintero. Bartley and Bartley find confirmation for these claims in US court case files, which include statements by ex-CIA and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents asserting that such operations involved the knowing collaboration of Mexican politicians, the DFS, drug traffickers, and the CIA, among others. Using these testimonies, which come from the trial for the 1985 murder of undercover DEA agent Enrique Camarena, the authors hypothesize that the United States played a role in the Buendía and Camarena murders to prevent the so-called “Veracruz link” from surfacing (p. 195). The evidence for US involvement is compelling but, as Bartley and Bartley acknowledge, circumstantial (p. 394).... Eclipse of the Assassins offers important insights into Mexico’s dirty war and the US-Mexican relationship during the late Cold War... Bartley and Bartley have uncovered a chilling transborder history of government collusion to silence criticism and subvert dissidents.

  • no. 5 Jonathan Marshall, CIA Assets and the Rise of the Guadalajara Connection. Crime, Law and Social Change. 1991 Jul 1;16(1):85-96 [30]. Marshall does not write that Camarena was killed with CIA complicity, but does write that the CIA supported and protected some drug kingpins in Mexico, including those affiliated with Camarena's murder, and that this CIA-cartel relationship was pursued in part to support Contra and contra-related projects. Of course Marshall could not have made the connections of other journalists and historians prior to 2013. We could cite this as an example of early work on this topic but it's not as strong as recent sources.
So overall, three historians support a direct CIA connection with Camarena's death, and a fourth reviews this historical research favorably. Pansters endorses the findings of Bartley and Bartley, and while Freije is more critical, she still reviews the book favorably, and does not dispute the CIA claims. -Darouet (talk) 14:46, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

One more comment. First, in defense of my doubts on Plumlee. This is not unique to me; as noted above, doubt is shared by Vincent Bugliosi who writes in Reclaiming History that Plumlee is "a fraud so pathetic that he is an insult to those who make their living by fraudulent means." I have defended my views on Harrison and Bartley's evaluation of him above, read it if you want. Finally, I disagree that I have put anything into the article remotely resembling original research. I have read three books: Shannon, Kuykendall, and Bartley-Bartley. I have read all of the content of these books and looked at the notes and checked some, though not all, quotes. I have looked at some legal documents on the Camarena case, but I have not put these in the article. This may be research, but I believe its the kind of research that WP requires, not proscribes. Rgr09 (talk) 03:59, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

Thanks @Buidhe: I was not aware that at WP:RSN, I was not allowed to take a position in my notification post, particularly since my last post there on this issue garnered only support for inclusion of this material. I've edited the post per your recommendations, removing my own view. I hope it looks right now? Cheers, -Darouet (talk) 12:31, 9 September 2020 (UTC)
Just a brief note on this sentence: The use of hypothesize and circumstantial contradicts Darouet’s claim that Freije described CIA involvement as likely. This is absurd and wildly confused sophistry: the words do nothing of the sort, and any competent reader can recognize that. "Hypothesize" means they draw by inductive reasoning the conclusion mentioned, it is a statement of fact about the content of the book and implies no value judgement about the merits of the(ir) reasoning. The word circumstantial means that the evidence requires a logical step of reasoning; again it makes no value judgement about the merits of the reasoning. The Bartleys state that the evidence is of this type. The word in the relevant section of the review which does make a value judgement is "compelling", meaning "Not able to be refuted; inspiring conviction" (OED), or "convincing" (M-W). Cambial Yellowing❧ 00:40, 15 September 2020 (UTC)
Hm. It seems to me I have seen the phrase "compelling but circumstantial evidence" used to describe evidence that is strong but not conclusive. I will get back to you on this. Rgr09 (talk) 21:41, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

I added the official denials on this to the Felix Rodriguez article....it might be a good idea to use them here as well. Not sure how to address the problem of Plumlee's (obvious) credibility issues. He doesn't have a wiki article and inserting those issues might be awkward (since they are tangential to this particular one).Rja13ww33 (talk) 22:43, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

  • Bringing the article current: The USAToday article cited above is a source for the current state of the 2013 BJP accusations. It introduces the BJP claim of U.S. government involvement in Camarena’s murder, but does not purport to explain why he was involved. It gives the names of informants who have gone on record with accusations about the CIA paramilitary officer, and a DEA "official" (unnamed) who they say were present at discussions of Camarena's kidnapping and/or his interrogation. This description is accurate, without bringing in problematic claims via the Bartley book. Note the article does not mention Lawrence Harrison at all. It does not mention Plumlee at all. There is no reason to suppose the DOJ is interested in talking to either of these men (see section below).
The USAToday article also mentions the reexamination of the Camarena case by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and some of the doubts about the new claims. The reexamination and doubts should be mentioned in the article as well, but doubts are NOT included in the proposed addition, an omission which gives a false impression of the current status of the accusations. The USAToday article is unfortunately not completely accurate on details of the previous U.S. Camarena trials. These details should be checked against Shannon and Kuykendall before using.
Another important element to bring the article up to date is the DOJ decision to drop the Camarena charges against Juan Matta. I have added an update on this to the Matta article which gives sources. Charges have been dropped against other people in the 88-92 Camarena trials as well. This information is needed to bring the article up to date. It is one reason the AUSA is questioning witnesses again. The DOJ would like to keep the people convicted in the earlier trials in prison if they could. Rgr09 (talk) 07:05, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
  • Areas of dispute in the proposed addition: The two men who are described as CIA "assets" in the proposed addition are an issue for me. The word "asset" is not used to describe these men in any of the sources ((B&B actually call Harrison a "deep cover agent"). What is their affiliation with CIA? There should be a cited reliable source for whatever they say they were called. One of these men, Plumlee, claims his CIA career included involvement in the JFK assassination. Vincent Bugliosi, in his book Reclaiming History, calls this man a fraud. Bugliosi’s book was published by Norton and reviewed favorably in major papers. This is not my personal opinion or research. If Plumlee is mentioned as proposed, his name, his JFK claim, and Bugliosi’s evaluation should be mentioned too.
The other “asset”, Harrison, denied under oath in court any association with American intelligence agencies in Mexico. If he is mentioned in the text this should be mentioned as well. Bartley’s book states that this man did NOT tell Bartley he was a CIA agent, only implied it. The citation for this is given above. If this man is mentioned as proposed, this fact should go in as well. The addition does not clearly state what these “assets” contributed to the 2013 accusations. This should be corrected.
The motivation for killing Camarena is described in the proposed addition as follows: "Camarena was killed with the complicity of the CIA after he uncovered its drug trafficking operations in Mexico, which were used to fund the Contras in Nicaragua". As cited above, however, B&B says: "Manuel Buendía was slain on behalf of the United States because of what he had learned about U.S.-Mexico collusion with narcotics traffickers, international arms dealers, and other governments in support of Reagan administration efforts to overthrow the Sandinista government of Nicaragua" and "DEA S/A Enrique Camarena Salazar was abducted, interrogated, and killed for the same reason." Whatever the motive is alleged to for Camarena's murder, it should be cited to a specific passage, and accurately stated. The proposed addition does not do so.
Instead, the addition waffles about CIA "complicity", meaning CIA helped others do it, or failed to stop it. B&B do not waffle: "Buendia was slain on behalf of the United States." Ditto Camarena. Rgr09 (talk) 08:04, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Transcript of testimonies - credibility of Berrellez

Hi, I see past discussion about murder of Camarena. This is transcript of proceedings from late '80s/90s (Camarena case, court in Los Angeles): http://www.reneverdugo.org/pdf/ Maybe it will help you.

There are official testimonies of men like Harrison, Berrellez, Godoy, Lopez and many, many other people. If you compare their testimonies with their words from The Last Narc (and other interviews), you will see the huge differences. Not only in big cases like 'corrupt Kuykendall', but also in small things like 'how Berrellez found Harrison':

In november 2020, Berrellez told at one interview that he talked with Harrison in Mexico. Harrison agreed with cooperation, but then he disappeared, so Berrellez was looking for him for one year and he finally found him in Mexico's mountains. In reality, as you can see in those transcripts, Harrison talked with Berrellez for the first time in California, when he was already recruited by Mexicans working for DEA.

At these transcripts, you can also find there that one of the witnesses told that he was imprisoned because he didn't lie, how Berrellez wants. Berrellez visited him in jail and told him that if he doesn't tell the court what he wants, he will never see his family again.

There were many doubts about credibility of all Berrellez's witnesses. Except one. There was only one Berrellez's witness, who was seen as trustworthy - Hector Cervantes Santos. And this is what Cerventes told few years later: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1998-jan-17-mn-9150-story.html

If you have time, you can read those transcripts. You will see that nobody ever said any single word about Kuykendall's or CIA involvement in murder of Camarena. Moreover, except Berrellez's witnesses, nobody ever said anything about alleged meetings prior kidnap of Camarena (between Mexico's politicians and Guadalajara Cartel). And even those Berrellez's witnesses sometimes denied themselves. Btw, as a bodyguards of drug traffickers, they used to made less than $50/mo. But when Berrellez recruited them, they were all paid $3,000/mo by DEA.

I was able to read maybe 10% of all material, so I don't know everyhing from that. Anyway, good start for you can be "Related Cases" > "Zuno Arce" > "Trail Transcripts". By the way, there are also details about burned field in Zacatecas (1984). You can add them to this article about Camarena since it was mainly his job. SaintSanti (talk) 00:05, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

The Last Narc (documentary)

I've not looked for better references yet, but the content being edit-warred over looks grossly undue at best. [31]. Maybe if we can find some high-quality, independent sources about it, but that New York Post article is not. --Hipal/Ronz (talk) 23:33, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

As noted above, there are high quality sources for this content. The last source we should ever turn to is the NY Post. Also, today I learned about the Last Narc documentary, and made an article about it. But I haven't watched it yet. I think we should prioritize academic sources and newspaper articles, since we have them. -Darouet (talk) 00:22, 9 September 2020 (UTC)


I think we should pay attention also to the sources of the documentary itself, first of all the former DEA Héctor Berellez that led the investigation of Camarena's murder in operation Leyenda:


Hector Berrellez: Former D.E.A. Supervisor and Special Agent, thirty years experience in counter terrorism and narcotics enforcement. One of the most highest decorated Drug Enforcement Agent in the history of the bureau. He was recognized by the U.S. Attorney General Ed Meese for heroism. He received the Federal Bar Association Medal of Valor, the Federal Executive Board Chairman's Special Award. And is credited for his handling and solving of the kidnap, torture and murder of undercover DEA Agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena by drug traffickers in Guadalajara, Mexico in which Hector received the prestigious DEA Administrator's Award. He has a BS and BA from the University of Phoenix, AZ and a Doctorate degree in International Law from the University of Michoacan. He is considered an expert by the U.S. Government in terrorism, security protection and threat assessment. He has implemented anti-terrorist security measures for U.S. Embassies in Central and South America.
Phil Jordan: Former DEA Intelligence Director.
Mike Holm: DEA resident agent in charge in Guadalajara with Camarena.
Manny Medrano: Former Assistant US Attorney, Lead Prosecutor, Camarena Case.
It's obvious that the testimony of these guys in the documentary needs to be in the articles of Camarena and Félix Rodríguez.--Cocedi (talk) 08:56, 9 September 2020 (UTC)
Where did you get this information? Sources please. One place you are dead wrong: Mike Holm was Berrellez's supervisor in the DEA Los Angeles office. James Kuykendall was Camarena's supervisor in Guadalajara from 1982 un until Camarena's murder. Rgr09 (talk) 10:14, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
There's currently a lawsuit going on now over the documentary. [1] Jaydoggmarco (talk) 06:41, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
I saw that James Kuykendall released a statement through his lawyer last month suggesting that he was considering legal action.[2] - Location (talk) 15:59, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
@Location: And now we have another user adding back conspiracy theories. [3] Jaydoggmarco (talk) 01:51, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
The Last Narc has already been heavily analyzed here. There is a clear evidence that Berrellez and his people are liars. According to that info, I made changes at wiki The Last Narc page. Feel free to edit my amateur's contribution. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SaintSanti (talk • contribs) 01:02, 4 February 2021 (UTC)
I just read that thread, Interesting. Jaydoggmarco (talk) 05:39, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ https://web.archive.org/web/20201222063516/https://variety.com/2020/tv/news/james-kuykendall-lawsuit-amazon-the-last-narc-1234868193/
  2. ^ https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201116006083/en/Former-DEA-Agent-James-Kuykendall-Disputes-His-Characterization-in-Amazon-Prime-Docuseries-%E2%80%9CThe-Last-Narc%E2%80%9D
  3. ^ https://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Kiki_Camarena&type=revision&diff=1001728332&oldid=1001712232

CIA allegations section

In his RfC close, S Marshall stated that we should "include a section on the alleged CIA participation in Camarena's interrogation," but that the section should not "read like Darouet's proposed edit." That proposed edit can be seen here [32]. S Marshall added that text linking the CIA to Camarena's killing "requires in-text attribution to a specific source as well as an inline citation that directly supports the claim," and wrote that this issue should not be given "undue prominence."

Aquillion suggested holding another RfC, but whether we do or don't hold an RfC, we need to decide what text is being considered for addition to this article.

Academic sources with meaningful discussion of possible CIA involvement in Camarena's death include:

  • Bartley, Russell H., and Sylvia Erickson Bartley. Eclipse of the Assassins: The CIA, Imperial Politics, and the Slaying of Mexican Journalist Manuel Buendía. University of Wisconsin Pres, 2015 [33].
  • Pansters, Wil G. "Drug trafficking, the informal order, and caciques. Reflections on the crime-governance nexus in Mexico." Global Crime 19.3-4 (2018): 315-338 [34].
  • Freije, Vanessa. "Eclipse of the Assassins: The CIA, Imperial Politics, and the Slaying of Mexican Journalist Manuel Buendía." (2016): 766-768 [35].
  • Pansters, Wil G. "Spies, Assassins, and Statesmen in Mexico’s Cold War." (2017): 143-156 [36].

Newspaper articles include:

  • Tucson Sentinel, "Blood on the Corn. Bowden: How the CIA may have tortured one of America's own," by Charles Bowden & Molly Molloy, April 7th 2015.
  • Processo, "A Camarena lo ejecutó la CIA, no Caro Quintero, by Luis Chaparro and Jesus Esquivel, 12 October 2013.
  • LA Weekly, "How a dogged L.A. DEA agent unraveled the CIA'S alleged role in the murder of Kiki Camarena," by Jason McGahan, 1 July 2020.
  • El Pais, "“The CIA helped kill DEA agent Enrique ‘Kiki’ Camarena,” say witnesses," by Juan Diego Quesada, 15 October 2013.
  • Fox News, "US intelligence assets in Mexico reportedly tied to murdered DEA agent," by William La Jeunesse and Lee Ross, 10 October 2013.
  • Fox News, "US probing claims that CIA operative, DEA official betrayal led to murder of agent: report", by Greg Norman, 28 February 2020.
  • USA Today, "Killed by a cartel. Betrayed by his own? US reexamines murder of federal agent featured in ‘Narcos,' by Brad Heath, 28 February, 2020.

A relatively high-quality blog post has been offered as capable of providing a counternarrative:

  • [37] "TV Spies: Amazon’s Wacky CIA Drug War Conspiracy Flick Draws Qanon Raves," on Spy Talk, by Elaine Shannon, Sep 27, 2020.

Lastly, there's this book by journalist Jesús Esquivel, that's referenced by some of the academics:

  • [38] "La CIA, Camarena y Caro Quintero: La historia secreta," Penguin Random House Mexico, 2014.

If you think there's another source we really must mention, please post it here. Since nobody has done so, I'll draft a text proposal shortly. -Darouet (talk) 20:57, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

I don't know if this helps....but this is how I wrote this whole thing up on the Felix Rodríguez page:[39]. I think it's pretty fair but it may not capture all the skepticism that some may want (or was available when I wrote it up).Rja13ww33 (talk) 21:27, 5 February 2021 (UTC)
Thanks @Rja13ww33: your text is a good start. It also includes some sources I haven't mentioned, above. While many (not all) of the sources mention Rodríguez, I'm hesitant to argue that we should do so here, and I'm not sure it's necessary. I'll try to copy some of your text as a template. -Darouet (talk) 22:24, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

@Rja13ww33 and Aquillion: here's my effort at a draft:

Allegations of CIA involvement

A number of former DEA agents, CIA agents, Mexican police officers, and historians contend that the CIA was complicit in Camarena's death.[1-7] DEA agent Hector Berréllez writes after he was named director of the DEA's investigation into Camarena's death Operation Leyenda in 1989, Mexican police informants and CIA agent Victor Harrison told him that Camarena had been killed with CIA complicity.[1,2] According to Berrellez, in response to his discovery he was told by senior DEA officials not to investigate possible CIA involvement, was threatened by the CIA, and removed from the investigation.[1,2]

Since the Mexican government released Rafael Caro Quintero from prison in 2013, Harrison and the police informants have been joined by several former DEA agents who similarly argue that the CIA had participated in Camarena's killing.[1-6] Between 2013–2015, the Mexican newspaper Proceso,[3] journalist Jesús Esquivel,[4] journalists Chuck Bowden and Molly Malloy,[5] and historians Russell and Silvia Bartley[6] published investigative reports and books making the same allegation. They write that Camarena, like Mexican journalist Manuel Buendía, discovered that the CIA helped organize drug trafficking from Mexico into the United States in order to fund the anti-communist Contras in Nicaragua as a part of the Cold War. Historian Wil Pansters explains that US victory in the Cold War was more important to the CIA than the DEA's War on Drugs:[7]

"Since the overriding concern of the CIA was the anti-Sandinista project, it trumped the DEA's task of combating drug trafficking, and covertly incorporated (or pressured) parts of the Mexican state into subservience. Buendía had found out about the CIA-contra-drugs-DFS connection, which seriously questioned Mexican sovereignty, while Camarena learned that the CIA had infiltrated the DEA and sabotaged its work so as to interfere with the clandestine contra-DFS-traffickers network. They knew too much and were eliminated on the orders of the U.S. with Mexican complicity. Later official investigations attempted to limit criminal responsibility to the dirty connections between drug traffickers, secret agents and corrupt police, leaving out the (geo)political ramifications."[7]

In 2019 the United States Department of Justice began reinvestigating Camarena's murder,[8] and in 2020 Amazon Studies released a documentary, The Last Narc,[1,9] supporting the allegations. The CIA has said the allegations are untrue.[8] Camarena biographer Elaine Shannon describes the allegations as "another Deep State conspiracy theory," and interviews other former DEA agents including Jack Lawn, who agree with her.[10]

Full details are given for references above, but listed briefly for clarity here, they are [1] 2020 Amazon documentary, [2] 2020 Berrellez book, [3] 2013 Proceso investigative report, [4] 2014 Esquivel book, [5] 2015 Bowden and Malloy investigative report, [6] 2015 Bartley book, [7] 2017 Pansters review, [8] 2018 USA Today article, [9] 2020 Variety article, [10] 2020 Shannon blog post.

This text doesn't mention more minor people involved by name, and instead places an emphasis on the secondary sources: journalists and historians. It also attempts to avoid duplicated references. Let me know what you think. -Darouet (talk) 17:09, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

@Darouet: Hi, I have got few questions (on anybody): 1) Did Proceso, Esquivel, Bowden, Malloy, Russell and Bartley investigate Camarena's murder, or they "only" investigated CIA and drugs in global? In case of Camarena, they only cited people around Berrellez and his five sources? Or did they find another people, who supports these allegations? I think this is a big difference. 2) And if there are is only one group of people, which make these allegations, they should be cited in an article only once, shouldn't they? I mean - in 2013, Berrellez' and his 5 witnesses made these allegations. And after that, they repeated it many times. If you write 5 books with same allegation, is correct to write that these 5 books supports this allegation? You for example write that Amazon's documentary supports the allegations. But people who originally made the allegations are the same, as those talking in the Amazon's documentary. So they supports their own allegation. 3) Is correct to "cite" Harrison since there is not any article which shows that he really made these allegations (or at least I have never seen it)? I only found that he said: "I don't know who killed Camarena [...] And if CIA would want to kill him, they are not so stupid to do it personally, so they would ask Mexicans." Same in case of second Berrellez' source Calderoni (but he is not cited here). All rest three sources (Lira, Godoy, Lopez) at least gave some testimonies for some newspapers (despite they change them every few years). 4) Wouldn't be better to call Berrellez "one of the Leyenda supervisors" instead of "Leyenda supervisor"? Leyenda / Camarena's investigation runs since 1985 until these days, and there were many supervisors. If he is "supervisor", it sounds like nobody else was investigating Camarena's case, so Berrellez' version is the only one (and it could also sound that it is an official DEA's finding). But in fact, no other Leyenda investigator made same allegations, moreover two former DEA's directors opposed his findings (despite one of them calls CIA the drug traffickers) 5) I respect that you said that wikipedians can't make own research or something like that. But to make this kind of an article, use simply must do some own research, or to have an own opinion, right? For example source A says: CIA killed Camarena; B says KGB killed Camarena; C says DFS killed Camarena. So wikipedian must decide, which source is credible, or not? So if we can see that CIA's involvement was openly discussed at Camarena's trial in '90s, how credible is a statement from 2013 that nobody was allowed to investigate CIA in '90s? Harrison openly talked about CIA, DFS, Contras and that Guadalajara cartel had agreement with CIA. Godoy, Lopez and Lira didn't. Harrison personally never said that CIA killed Camarena. Godoy, Lopez and Lira did, but 26 years later. None of them said that El Chapo was involved in murders of all Americans in 1985 (Camarena, La Langosta, Jehovists). Until 2018, when Godoy saw El Chapo torturing / killing all of them. Same Godoy said at trial that he didn't work for cartel in those days. Godoy even repeated it in 2013 in interview for The Blood in the Corn. Lopez always said that Jose Luis Gallardo 'consulate guy' identified Camarena, but in The Last Narc he said it was Rene Verdugo. Lira said in 2013 in interview that he didn't participate in Camarena's abducation (he 'only' was at Lope de Vega during the torture), but in 2020 for The Last Narc he said that Jaime Kuykendall identified Camarena. You can say that they change testimonies because fear of CIA. But you can't say that they didn't name El Chapo or Kuykendall because any fear. They always could, but they didn't. Until years, when both of them became more famous. SaintSanti (talk) 19:41, 7 February 2021 (UTC)
@SaintSanti: since the cited sources answer these questions, I think it's best if we don't elaborate in the text, and instead allow readers to follow the sources if they're interested. That's the appropriate role of an encyclopedia. -Darouet (talk) 04:31, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

Second draft

I've shortened the text in this second draft. Per the RfC, there was consensus to include this in the article, but S Marshall did insist that the text be changed to accommodate objections. If there's no feedback here — S Marshall requested discussion before inclusion — I'll launch another RfC to see what the community thinks.

Allegations of CIA involvement

A number of former DEA agents, CIA agents, Mexican police officers, and historians contend that the CIA was complicit in Camarena's death.[1-7] Between 2013–2015, the Mexican newspaper Proceso,[3] journalist Jesús Esquivel,[4] journalists Chuck Bowden and Molly Malloy,[5] and historians Russell and Silvia Bartley[6] published investigative reports and books making the same allegation. They write that Camarena, like Mexican journalist Manuel Buendía, discovered that the CIA helped organize drug trafficking from Mexico into the United States in order to fund the anti-communist Contras in Nicaragua as a part of the Cold War. Historian Wil Pansters explains that US victory in the Cold War was more important to the CIA than the DEA's War on Drugs:[7]

"Since the overriding concern of the CIA was the anti-Sandinista project, it trumped the DEA's task of combating drug trafficking, and covertly incorporated (or pressured) parts of the Mexican state into subservience. Buendía had found out about the CIA-contra-drugs-DFS connection, which seriously questioned Mexican sovereignty, while Camarena learned that the CIA had infiltrated the DEA and sabotaged its work so as to interfere with the clandestine contra-DFS-traffickers network. They knew too much and were eliminated on the orders of the U.S. with Mexican complicity. Later official investigations attempted to limit criminal responsibility to the dirty connections between drug traffickers, secret agents and corrupt police, leaving out the (geo)political ramifications."[7]

In 2019 the United States Department of Justice began reinvestigating Camarena's murder,[8] and in 2020 Amazon Studies released a documentary, The Last Narc,[1,9] supporting the allegations. The CIA has said the allegations are untrue.[8] Camarena biographer Elaine Shannon describes the allegations as "another Deep State conspiracy theory," and interviews other former DEA agents including Jack Lawn, who agree with her.[10]

The references (see above) are [1] 2020 Amazon documentary, [2] 2020 Berrellez book, [3] 2013 Proceso investigative report, [4] 2014 Esquivel book, [5] 2015 Bowden and Malloy investigative report, [6] 2015 Bartley book, [7] 2017 Pansters review, [8] 2018 USA Today article, [9] 2020 Variety article, [10] 2020 Shannon blog post. -Darouet (talk) 00:11, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Phil Jordan, Hector Berrellez, Jorge Godoy, Ramon Lira and Rene Lopez (for The Last Narc 2020) support the allegations (from 2013) originally made by Phil Jordan, Hector Berrellez, Jorge Godoy, Ramon Lira and Rene Lopez. :-) I give it up, it's waste of my time. SaintSanti (talk) 23:33, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Conspiracy Theories

Can we have some argument to delete these conspiracy theory claims? I followed the link and there just aint nothing to prove any of what it claims, and to put a misbegotten and ridiculous conspiracy theory on the same level as fact seems too much relativism even for wikipedia... and, how do I put this? the unstable comments by the people up above lead me to think they're the ones responsible for this hijacking

thanks - Eli

I think it's important to include the conspiracy theory as it has received wide currency throughout Latin America ie: https://diario1.com/zona-1/2014/09/crimen-ordenado-aqui-partio-el-mundo-de-carteles-de-drogas/?fbclid=IwAR1om8fHtXkj8phcMuTieT3BoC_GWUtRAfBDWCHD4xRZaGMIoD989h39l1o — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jpmcphaul (talk • contribs) 17:15, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

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