Starting with the San Diego Union Tribune back in December, in the piece that still remains the Bible on the Dusty Foggo-Brent Wilkes relationship, there have been hints of this intriguing era in Foggo's early career in the CIA, as a money man helping fund the Contras in Central America in the mid 1980s. But we haven't seen more than a hint of what was going on down there, at a moment when Foggo was not only becoming the go-to guy for a network of CIA officers and associates who saw their fortunes rise in the Goss era, but also when Foggo's best friend Brent Wilkes was launching his career as a Washington lobbyist, by bringing congressmen, starting with Bill Lowery, down from Washington for a front row view of the action -- and some entertainment. Various lesser forms of which they would recreate at the Watergate and on houseboats in Washington in the 1990s.

Now Harper's Ken Silverstein has interviewed a half dozen former CIA officials who know Foggo and his work as an apparently quite talented Agency fixer, who knew how to keep the VIPs happy, and put together a glimpse of Foggo's somewhat cinematic time in Honduras, beginning at the Maya Hotel's casino Gloria:

The sources said that Foggo was a regular at the Maya Hotel's casino in Tegucigalpa; in 1993, the Chicago Tribune described the hotel as having once been “the unofficial headquarters for those who came here to help—or watch—the U.S. try to purge neighboring Nicaragua and El Salvador of communist threats” Foggo, said my sources, was also a regular at a local bar named Gloria's, which one source said was chiefly known for having “a brisk hooker trade.” While my sources had no direct knowledge of Foggo consorting with prostitutes, several said that simply being at a place like Gloria's was deemed to be a serious security problem and that Foggo's nocturnal habits were a source of great concern within the local CIA station...

Go read.

Also, check out Time's piece on the investigation of Foggo reaching abroad, to his time as the logistics officer at a secret CIA base in Frankfurt, when a front company for Wilkes got its first CIA contract. I've already explained here why I think it's extremely implausible that Foggo didn't know Wilkes was a beneficiary of that contract, and the other contract I heard was until recently under discussion.

Posted by Laura at May 13, 2006 02:41 PM