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CIA Dope Calypso

Allen Ginsberg
Language: English


Allen Ginsberg

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[1983]
Album "First Blues" (1971-1983)

First Blues

L'album raccoglie brani registrati tra il 1971 e il 1983 da Ginsberg insieme a Bob Dylan e ad alcuni membri della Dylan's Rolling Thunder Review band.

In "CIA Dope Calypso", Ginsberg sintetizza una sua inchiesta sul coinvolgimento dell'intelligence statunitense nei traffici di droga in Indocinaprima e durante la guerra in Vietnam:

"CIA Dope Calypso was based on a lot of research I did in '71. I'd got-ten into the Time magazine morgue and read informal dispatches talking about illegal CIA dope dealings. then went down to Washington to the Institute for Policy Studies and spent several weeks doing research on CIA involvement in dope trafficking from Indochina. starting with Meo tribesman at our air base at Long Cheng, which was a CIA secret. I interviewed veterans, congressional investigative-committee aides, the head of CIA even, etc. Results contributed to The Politics Of Heroin (Alfred McCoy, 1971, reprinted by Lawrence Hill Books, Brooklyn, 1991)."
[Allen Ginsberg]

[source: Holy Soul Jelly Roll: Poems and Songs (1949 - 1993) Rhino Word Beat 4-CD set R2 71693]
In nineteen hundred forty-nine
China was won by Mao Tse-tung
Chiang Kai Shek's army ran away
They were waiting there in Thailand yesterday

Supported by the CIA
Pushing junk down Thailand way

First they stole from the Meo Tribes
Up in the hills they started taking bribes
Then they sent their soldiers up to Shan
Collecting opium to send to The Man

Pushing junk in Bangkok yesterday
Supported by the CIA

Brought their jam on mule trains down
To Chiang Mai that's a railroad town
Sold it next to the police chief's brain
He took it to town on the choochoo train
Trafficking dope to Bangkok all day
Supported by the CIA

The policeman's name was Mr. Phao
He peddled dope grand scale and how
Chief of border customs paid
By Central Intelligence's U.S. aid

The whole operation, Newspapers say
Supported by the CIA

He got so sloppy and peddled so loose
He busted himself and cooked his own goose
Took the reward for the opium load
Seizing his own haul which same he resold

Big time pusher for a decade turned grey
Working for the CIA

Touby Lyfong he worked for the French
A big fat man liked to dine & wench
Prince of the Meos he grew black mud
Till opium flowed through the land like a flood

Communists came and chased the French away
So Touby took a job with the CIA

The whole operation fell in to chaos
Till U.S. intelligence came in to Laos

I'll tell you no lie I'm a true American
Our big pusher there was Phoumi Nosavan

All them Princes in a power play
But Phoumi was the man for the CIA

And his best friend General Vang Pao
Ran the Meo army like a sacred cow
Helicopter smugglers filled Long Cheng's bars
In Xieng Quang province on the Plain of Jars

It started in secret they were fighting yesterday
Clandestine secret army of the CIA

All through the Sixties the dope flew free
Thru Tan Son Nhut Saigon to Marshall Ky
Air America followed through
Transporting comfiture for President Thieu

All these Dealers were decades and yesterday
The Indochinese mob of the U.S. CIA

Operation Haylift Offisir Wm Colby
Saw Marshall Ky fly opium Mr. Mustard told me
Indochina desk he was Chief of Dirty Tricks
"Hitch-hiking" with dope pushers was how he got his fix

Subsidizing the traffickers to drive the Reds away
Till Colby was the head of the CIA.

Contributed by Alessandro - 2008/12/17 - 11:27




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