The Courier News from Blytheville, Arkansas • Page 2

Page Two-Courier News, Blytheville, March 26,1976 Military Drug Ring Used AF Planes to Move Drugs RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) Operating from the safety of U.S. military bases in this country and Thailand, a syndicate led by Army and Air Force sergeants smuggled more than $300 million in pure heroin into this country on Air Force tanker planes, federal officials say. The heroin was hidden in false bottoms attached to wooden tables and other furniture shipped from Tapao Air force Base in Thailand as military baggage or was concealed in black AWOL bags the small hand luggage carried by returning GIs. That was the account given Thursday by officials here and in Washington after federal indictments were returned in Raleigh against 14 persons, most of them present or former military men, on charges of conspiring to import heroin.

The three-count indictment returned by a federal grand- jury was made public after 11 of the defendants were arrested in a series of coordinated raids by military police, federal agents and local police. Three of those indicted were already in jail, one in this country and two in Thailand. The heroin arrived via Strategic Air Command planes at Mather and Travis air force bases in California, Seymour Johnson AFB, N.C., and and Langley Air Force Base, officials said, and was soon on its way to the streets of New York and other major cities. At least 220 pounds of heroin came into this country that way between August 1974 and last October when the operation began to fall apart, officials of the Justice Deaprtment and the Drug Enforcement Administration said. But the syndicate had been operating since 1968 from the American Star Bar on Pittbury Road in Bangkok, and officials refused to say how much heroin the ring might have shipped into this country during that time.

Peter N. Bensinger, federal drug enforcement administrator, said in Washington that the demise of the syndicate would "have a major crippling impact on importation of heroin into the United States." One of those indicted in the heroin conspiracy was Leslie "Ike" Atkinson, 50, a retired Army master sergeant from Goldsboro, N.C., who is serving a 19-year sentence in the federal prison in Atlanta on a pre- Military Officer Will Replace Peron vious conviction for importing heroin from Thailand. The indictment said Atkinson had continued to run the operation from his prison cell with the help of his daughter, Leslie Sharon Atkinson Arrington, 24, and her husband, Michael Otis Arrington, 24, of Raleigh, both of whom were also indicted. Among the others indicted were James Smeddley, 54, described as the procurer of heroin, and Jasper Myrick 23, of Montgomery, an alleged courier. Both are now serving terms in Kalang Prison in Bangkok.

Also named in the indictments, for allegedly serving as packers, couriers or mailers of heroin to other defendants in the United States were Freddie Clay Thornton, 40, Detroit; Rudolph Valentino Jennings, 49, Goldsboro, N.C.; William King Wright, 30, Washington; William Thomas, 42, Goidsboro; Monroe Lorenzo Martin 43, Long Beach, Robert Ernest Patterson, 34, Hampton, William Kelly Brown, 38, Augusta, James McArthur, 40, Fayetteville, N.C.; and Charles Murphy Gillis, 40, Goldsboro. By WILLIAM R. LONG Associated Press Writer BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) The military junta that overthrew President Isabel Peron has announced that it will replace her with a high- ranking military officer. Reliable sources said that the junta leader, Gen. Jorge R.

VI- dela, would assume the presidency Monday and would slso continue to be of the army. The announcement Thursday night also said the commanders-in-chief of the army, navy and air force would hold their posts for a maximum of three years but gave no indication how long military rule of the country might last. But since the junta is made up of the three commanders of the armed forces, the announcement indicated Argentina would get a new trio of rulers by 1979 at the latest. On its second day in power, the junta also' banned five leftist political parties, said orders had been given to dismiss government employes "connected with activities of subversive character" and declared that its chief objective was to wage a nationwide battle against subversion. Other decrees suspended temporarily the right to strike, dismissed the justices of the supreme court and other judges and declared a "judicial vacation." The junta still was not saying what be done with Mrs.

Peron or the many other officials of her regime arrested since the bloodless coup early Wednesday. After 21 chaotic months in office, the 45-year-old widow of Juan D. Peron was being held at a luxurious Andes mountain estate 900 miles south of Buenos Aires. The leftist parties banned were the Communist Revolutionary party, the Socialist Par- ty of the Workers, the Worker Policy party, the Trotskyite Worker party and the Marxist- Leninist Communist party. The Moscow-line Argentine Communist party was not mentioned, but the junta on Wednesday suspended the activities of all parties, including the Peronist Justicialist party.

Banks and primary schools were ordered to reopen today, but the banks were prohibited from dealings in foreign currency. Meanwhile, Buenos Aires was calm Thursday, and a soccer game was played in a stadium at nearby La Plata. During the Mexican War Capt. Charles May, chief of the U.S. Cavalry, led a staggering charge against Mexican forces camped in a ravine near Resaca de la Palma in May 1846, forcing Mexicans to retreat, across the Rio Grande River" into Mexico.

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