Smuggler's End: The Life and Death of Barry Seal

by Del Hahn, Tom Aswell (Editor)

Adler Berriman "Barry” Seal had a brief, but spectacular, career as a cocaine smuggler-turned DEA informant. At the height of his career, he was under investigation by the DEA in Mena, Arkansas, and New Orleans, Louisiana, in addition to being under the watchful eye of the FBI. Despite the heat surrounding Seal, he made a drug run to Nicaragua in 1984, where he picked up 1,465 pounds of cocaine and took photos of Sandinista soldiers loading the drugs. Then the Washington Post leaked the story, revealing that Seal was working undercover for the CIA. As a result of the article, Seal has long been identified as an undercover CIA informant. The conspiracy revolving around this supposition included the attorney general, FBI agents, Gov. Bill Clinton, and others inside the CIA.

Author Del Hahn, who worked on the FBI drug task force that targeted Seal, presents a different story. Hahn begins by calling into question the accuracy and legitimacy of the primary literary sources that support these "CIA/Mena myths.” In doing so, Hahn aims to dispel the distorted stories, rumors, and outright lies about Seal, the government’s investigation of him, and the actions that led to his murder by Colombian drug lords in 1986 at a halfway house in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

404 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 21, 2016

Reviews

[David Lubin · Rating 5 out of 5]

After watching the entertaining movie, "American Made," with Tom Cruise in the leading role of Barry Seal, I decided to do a little research. I remember all the rumors and innuendos surrounding this case back in the 1980's and wanted to be sure I had my facts straight, so I chose this book.
The story by itself is interesting enough not to require embellishment by movie makers and rumor mongers and this author sticks to the facts and just the facts. It is an informative, easy to read dissertation on what really happened and is well worth the time to read. It puts to rest a lot of myths that I actually believed.
Barry Seal was an interesting man with loads of good old boy values. He was well liked even by those investigating him. And he smuggled a lot of nasty product into this country for profit without regard for those he was ultimately hurting. I recommend this book as I enjoyed it.

[Dick Darden · Rating 1 out of 5]

Poorly written, poorly edited. Multiple instances of spelling a name two different ways, sometimes in the same paragraph. There is no flow to the book whatsoever and I had to force myself to slog through the last half.
The author spends the whole book repeatedly telling you that the CIA had no involvement in Barry Seal’s drug smuggling. While that is most likely true, a former CIA agent might not be the most convincing person to write that kind of book. He seems to relish the war on drugs with a bootlicker’s glee. “Colombian police and military forces, including an air strike—the BBC said a bombing attack—killed Navarro in early October 2015. That’s a real war on drugs.” (p. 292) Disgusting. His smarmy sarcastic and extremely off-putting voice throughout the book was at first annoying and by the end of the book was downright enraging.
A hack job trying to give the CIA a makeover. Don’t waste your time with this book, I wish I had my time back.

[Tyler Frank · Rating 1 out of 5]

Once you do a little research into Barry Seal and Mena, it is immediately apparent how misinformed Del Hahn is. Given his life before writing this book I'm inclined to believe he's nothing more than an opportunistic disinformation agent.

There’s no way his research could be this flawed unless it was intentional.

[Hasan Ibrahim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book