A major character in The Secret History is a DEA agents tortured and killed by Mexican drug cartel figures. But his name is rarely mentioned in the novel. And he’s only in the background.
So, I thought you should know more about this agent, Enrique “Kiki” Camarena.
He was born in 1947 in Mexicali, a Mexican city just across the border from the United States; his family moved to Calexico, California, while he was a child. After graduating from high school, he joined the Marines, was discharged in 1970 and went to work with the Calexico police department. He eventually became an undercover narcotics officer and, in 1973, joined the newly established Drug Enforcement Agency, which was particularly interested in hiring Spanish speakers.
Eventually, Camarena – who by then was married with three children – ended up as the resident DEA agent in Guadalajara, Mexico.
And this is basically where he comes into The Secret History’s story lines.
The plot line about Kiki Camarena basically involves one essential question: was the Central Intelligence Agency involved in his abduction, torture and murder at the hands of a Mexican cartel?
You’ll have to read The Secret History to learn my answer to this question. But meanwhile, I’ll lay out the predominant allegation of CIA involvement.
At the time, the CIA was heavily involved with supplying weapons to the Contra insurgents fighting against the government of Nicaragua. The theory is that Camarena – perhaps inadvertently – stumbled upon threads of this involvement, including the notion that the CIA had infiltrated the DEA. At the same time, his undercover work had disrupted the smuggling activities of the powerful Guadalajara Cartel. Therefore, it was to the advantage of both the CIA, which had many contacts with Mexican smugglers, and the Cartel to find out what he knew and what he intended to do. (And remember that the CIA had been heavily involved with Mexican law enforcement and security since at least the 1960s.)
A number of former DEA agents, Mexican law enforcement officers, journalists and historians have bought into this theory, publishing accounts and investigative reports, much of the work coming out ten to twenty years ago. (Interestingly, many of the investigative reports also bring in the assassination of Mexican journalist Manuel Buendia, alleging that he had discovered the CIA’s involvement in trafficking drugs into the United States about the same time.)
The CIA, of course, has denied all of this.
You might want to check out Amazon’s The Last Narc for more information. You can also read The Secret History to know what I think.