Alfred W. McCoy
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'''Alfred W. McCoy''' (born [[June 8]] [[1945]]) is a [[historian]] and a Professor of History at the [[University of Wisconsin-Madison]]. He earned his [[B.A.]] from [[Columbia College]]<ref>See http://history.wisc.edu/people/faculty/mccoy.htm</ref>, and his [[Ph.D]] in [[Southeast Asia|Southeastern Asian]] history from [[Yale University]].
==McCoy's thesis==
McCoy researches and has written about [[Philippines]] history, and in particular on the [[Golden Triangle (Southeast Asia)|Golden Triangle]] drug trades of [[opium]] and [[heroin]]. His ''[[The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia]]'' (1972 first ed.) was a landmark work in documenting the interactions between the [[CIA drug trafficking|CIA and drug cartels]] in Southeast Asia.
In this work, McCoy's principal thesis is that, following the effective suppression of the heroin trade in America during [[World War II]] and the subsequent decision to stamp out [[opium]] growing by [[Turkey]] - which had been one of the main sources of raw opium - organized crime organizations in America and Europe collaborated in a wide-ranging conspiracy to establish new centers of opium production, [[heroin]] refining and distribution in Southeast Asia, and that their efforts were greatly facilitated by the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] and the unstable political situation created by the ongoing [[Vietnam War]].
He points out that the [[French Connection]] found its basis on the control of the opium production in the Golden Triangle by the French [[SDECE]] military intelligence agency, who financed its [[covert operation]]s during the [[First Indochina War]] (1947-1954) in this way <ref name=Rienzo> [http://www.bearcave.com/bookrev/nugan_hand.html Interview with Alfred Mc Coy, 9 November 1991] by [[Paul DeRienzo]]</ref>.
McCoy asserts that the "French Connection" conspiracy arose from an alliance between the [[Corsica]]n [[Mafia]], who had an historical presence in [[South Vietnam]] dating back to the [[French Indochina|French occupation]], and leading members of the American and [[Sicilian Mafia]], under the leadership of [[Lucky Luciano]], who had been imprisoned in the U.S. during World War II for [[racketeer]]ing, but was asked to provide assistance to American military intelligence about Axis infiltration of the waterfront in American ports (which was effectively controlled by the Mafia), as well as assisting Allied forces in their [[Allied invasion of Sicily|invasion of Sicily]] and [[Allied invasion of Italy|Italy]]. He reportedly used his contacts in the Sicilian Mafia to assist U.S. forces by gathering intelligence and identifying both fascist collaborators and Socialist/Communist elements in the [[Italian resistance movement]], who were then systematically eliminated.
In return for his assistance, Luciano was covertly permitted to run his crime operations from prison, and at the end of the war he was deported back to Sicily, where he immediately began a major expansion of his drug operations, forging alliances with Corsican Mafia members in South Vietnam and organised crime figures in other countries, including [[Australia]].
McCoy wrote in the book, "American involvement had gone far beyond coincidental complicity; embassies had covered up involvement by client governments, CIA contract airlines had carried opium, and individual CIA agents had winked at the opium traffic. As an indirect consequence of American involvement in the Golden Triangle until 1972, opium production steadily increased....Southeast Asia's Golden Triangle grew 70 percent of the world's illicit opium, supplied an estimated 30 percent of America's heroin, and was capable of supplying the United States with unlimited quantities of heroin for generations to come."<ref>pg 383</ref>
The CIA's actions were more specifically described by him thus: "In most cases, the CIA's role involved various forms of complicity, tolerance or studied ignorance about the trade, not any direct culpability in the actual trafficking ... [t]he CIA did not handle heroin, but it did provide its [[drug-lord]] allies with transport, arms, and political protection. In sum, the CIA's role in the Southeast Asian heroin trade involved indirect complicity rather than direct culpability." <ref>p. 385 of ''[[The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade]]'', by McCoy, with Cathleen B. Read and Leonard P. Adams II, [[2003]], ISBN 1-55652-483-8</ref>
McCoy believes the CIA recruited drug lords in the frame of the [[Cold War]], underlying a "conflict between the [[drug war]] and the cold war." <ref name=Rienzo/> For instance, McCoy suggests that the CIA assisted drug lords in [[Burma]] in 1950 in operations against [[China]]. Without the benefit of any first hand observations or evidence, he then alleges similar [[drug trafficking]] from 1965 to 1975 in [[Laos]] and through the [[Soviet War in Afghanistan|1980s in Afghanistan]], supporting for example the drug and warlord [[Gulbuddin Hekmatyar]], leader of the [[Hezbi-i Islami]] guerilla group <ref name=Rienzo/>.
He also uncovered [[money laundering]] activities by banks controlled by the CIA, first the Castle Bank which was then replaced by the [[Nugan Hand Bank]], who had as legal council [[William Colby]], retired head of the CIA <ref name=Rienzo/>. He also alludes to the [[BCCI]], which seems to have played the same role as the Nugan Hand Bank after its collapse in the early 1980s, claiming that "the boom in the Pakistan drug trade was financed by BCCI." <ref name=Rienzo/>.
Between a repressive policy (the "[[Drug war]]"), which he considers a failure ("The repression creates a shortfall in supply which raises price and then stimulates production everywhere around the world." <ref name=Rienzo/>) and a full [[Drug liberalization|legalization of drugs]], which he considers "politically impracticable", McCoy argues in favour of an "alternative strategy," "regularization": "I favor regulation because if cocaine and heroin are commodities let's deal with them as such. You don't repress commodities, you regulate them." <ref name=Rienzo/>. Furthermore, against bilateral agreements between the US and other nations (Colombia, Bolivia, etc. - see [[coca eradication]] campaign by the US), McCoy argues in favour of multilateral policies under the direction of the [[United Nations]] <ref name=Rienzo/>.
==Grant Goodman Prize==
In 2001, the [[Association for Asian Studies]] awarded him the Grant Goodman Prize for his career contributions to the study of the Philippines.
==References==
{{reflist}}
==Partial bibliography==
* ''[[Laos]]: War and Revolution'', co-editor, [[1970]]
* ''[http://www.drugtext.org/library/books/McCoy/default.htm The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia. CIA complicity in the global drug trade]'', by Alfred W. McCoy with Cathleen B. Read and Leonard P. Adams II, [[1972]], ISBN 0-06-012901-8 <!-- It's OK to include the external link here because we've already wikilinked to the article on the book previously. -->
* ''An Anarchy Of Families (state and family in the Philippines)'', [[1998]], ISBN 971-550-128-1
* ''Closer Than Brothers: Manhood at the Philippine Military Academy'', [[1999]], ISBN 0-300-07765-3
* Alfred W. McCoy, "Requiem for a Drug Lord: State and Commodity in the Career of Khun Sa," in, Josiah McC. Heyman, ed., States and Illegal Practices (Oxford: Berg, 1999), pp. 129-67.
* Alfred W. McCoy, "Mission Myopia: Narcotics as 'Fall Out' from the CIA's Covert Wars," in, Craig R. Eisendrath, ed., National Insecurity: U.S. Intelligence After the Cold War (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2000), pp. 118-48.
* Alfred W. McCoy, "The Stimulus of Prohibition: A Critical History of the Global Narcotics Trade," in, Michael K. Steinberg, Joseph J. Hobbs, and Kent Mathewson., eds., Dangerous Harvest: Drug Plants and the Transformation of Indigenous Landscapes (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 24-111.
* ''A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, From the Cold War to the War on Terror'', [[2006]], ISBN 0-8050-8041-4
==External links==
* [http://seasia.wisc.edu/People/Alfred%20McCoy.htm Page] on McCoy at the "Center for Southeast Asian Studies"
* [http://pdr.autono.net/mccoy.htm Interview] of McCoy on ''The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia''
* [http://www.nybooks.com/articles/article-preview?article_id=10079 "A Correspondence with the CIA"] -(part of an article for the [[The New York Review of Books]] on the CIA's interest in his ''Politics of Heroin''
* [http://www.counterpunch.org/mccoy05292004.html "Cruel Science: The Long Shadow of CIA Torture Research"] -(article for ''[[CounterPunch (newsletter)|Counterpunch]]'' on the [[Abu Ghraib]] tortures)
* [http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/091104D.shtml "The Hidden History of CIA Torture: America's Road to Abu Ghraib"] -(similar editorial for [[Truthout]])
* [http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/02/17/1522228 Interview: Democracy Now, Transcript and Audio February, 2006]
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccEudcvc1lM Lecture] "A Short History of Psychological Terror" exploreing the history and use by the CIA of psychological torture
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|SHORT DESCRIPTION=American historian of Southeast Asia and of the drug trades
|DATE OF BIRTH=8 June 1945
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|DATE OF DEATH=
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Maccoy, Alfred W.}}
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[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:American historians]]
[[Category:American non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:Columbia University alumni]]
[[Category:University of Wisconsin-Madison faculty]]
[[Category:Yale University alumni]]
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