At the same time in Central America, Lt. Col. Oliver North and high-level CIA personnel aided and abetted big-time cocaine smugglers who ferried weapons to the Nicaraguan contras fighting the Sandinista government.

North and three other U.S. officials were banned for life from Costa Rica after that country's government came up with hard proof of the Reagan administration's role in secretly facilitating the flow of narcotics � all this while U.S. officials were preaching about the war on drugs