All Quiet at Mena: A reporter's memoir of buried investigations

by Mara Leveritt

All Quiet at Mena is Mara Leveritt’s personal account of the obstacles faced by investigators reporting on one of the most secretive episodes in America’s long war on drugs. Starting with the crash that killed Emile Camp, a co-pilot of the notorious cocaine smuggler Barry Seal, she explores how a money laundering investigation prompted by Seal’s move to Arkansas collided with Reagan-era politics, leaving the drug war’s touted objectives—and law enforcement itself—in the wreckage. Seal’s presence at Mena forced investigators in Arkansas to confront an array of questions that grew increasingly uncomfortable during the four years his planes were there. Among --Why were DEA agents not revealing what they knew about the smuggler? --Why were witnesses in a money laundering case who had agreed to appear before a grand jury never called to testify; --And why, after Seal became an informant, were members of his organization—including those who’d serviced and harbored his planes at Mena—not prosecuted? Drawing on extensive interviews with state and federal investigators, access to hundreds of FBI records, and her reporter’s familiarity with Arkansas, Leveritt exposes the secrecy that thwarted investigations into activities of his associates at Mena. Even today, decades after Seal’s murder, sensitivities about this little-known piece of Arkansas history remain so acute that the resistance she encountered in writing the book became an unexpected part of the story. The title All Quiet at Mena evokes the hush that has stifled this story -- at the same time it bows to Erich Maria Remarque’s great book about an earlier misbegotten war.

Genres: True Crime

330 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 30, 2021

About the author

Mara Leveritt is an Arkansas reporter best known as the author of Devil’s Knot (Atria 2002) and Dark Spell, (Bird Call Press 2013), the first books of her intended Justice Knot Trilogy about three Cub Scouts who were murdered in West Memphis, Arkansas and the case of the three teenagers who were convicted of the murders and then, 18 years later--and after pleading guilty--were abruptly set free. A 2013 feature film staring Colin Firth, Reese Witherspoon and Stephen Moyer is based on Devil's Knot. Leveritt’s earlier book, The Boys on the Tracks, (St. Martin’s Press 1998, republished by Bird Call Press, 2011) focused on the political intrigue surrounding the still-unsolved murders of two Arkansas teenagers.
Leveritt is a contributing editor at Arkansas Times, where she has written extensively about the prosecution of Tim Howard, an African-American man, for the murder of his best friends, who were white. After Howard spent almost 15 years on death row, a court found that state officials had not released potentially exculpatory evidence to his defense lawyers at trial--a violation of law. A new trial has been scheduled for September 2014.
Leveritt also blogs on her website about law, police, courts, and prisons. She has won several awards for her writing and posts the photo here of herself in cap and gown because she is so unabashedly proud of her honorary doctorate of humane letters from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
As Leveritt is new to Goodreads, she has started by adding books that influenced her to her bones.

Reviews

[Dutchermann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Leveritt weaves the stories of the Mena airport, Rich Mountain Aviation, Barry Seal, and money laundering together with the stories of those, including herself, who investigated them. The U.S. War on Drugs, Iran-Contra, and Arkansas politicians Asa Hutchison and Bill Clinton in state and national roles are tangled in this story. She doesn’t have all of the answers, and the story is sometimes fast-paced, in other places hard to follow, but that is part of the point. I will use parts of the book and the larger story in my History & Globalization of the Drug Trade course to discuss asking research questions, how what we know about history is shaped by the sources we can access, and contextualization.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Apparently, Arkansas was a rather dark place in the 1980s, at least according to the author. Unfortunately the main question of the book can’t be answered. Which makes it seem like a conspiracy theory since I spent 350 pages on this and still don’t know what happened. I really struggled with this book. There are so many names and places that it’s practically impossible to follow the narrative on a first read.

[Lori Trautwein · Rating 5 out of 5]

Politics and power trump everything. Disturbing and infuriating recent history still to be fully exposed.

[Micki Sewell · Rating 5 out of 5]

I couldn't put it down! Being from Arkansas and knowing many locations in Mena, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this and envisioning the various locations discussed. Loved it!!