Is Camp Stanley, an Army weapons depot located southeast of Boerne, Texas (near San Antonio), the secret home of a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) weapons stash known as the “Midwest Depot”? The Midwest Depot is allegedly where the CIA has stockpiled AK-47s and RPG-7s that have been allegedly spread around by the CIA for decades, including weapons used in the Iran-Contra Scandal during the Reagan Administration.
Charlie Savage of the New York Times reports that Camp Stanley may just be the long-kept-secret Midwest Depot. According to the Times article, the Midwest Depot has stockpiled and distributed untraceable weapons linked to the Bay of Pigs invasion the arming of rebels in Angola, Nicaragua and Afghanistan. About three years ago, it became known that Camp Stanley was the location of some kind of secret CIA operation and now has reported that a retired CIA analyst, Allen Thomson has documented enough evidence to suggest that Camp Stanley is actually the shadowed Midwest Depot.
Breitbart Texas reached out to Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX) and John Cornyn (R-TX) along with Congressman Lama Smith (R-TX), whose district is home to Camp Stanley for comments on this issue. Sen. Cruz’ staff responded that they would look into this to see if additional information was available. Sen. Cornyn and Congressman Smith have not responded to Breitbart Texas’ request for comment.
Thomson’s report, attached below, suggests the activities of the Midwest Depot’s history should be closely looked at. “I have worried about the extent to which the U.S. has spread small arms around over the decades to various parties it supported,” he said. “Such weapons are pretty durable and, after the cause du jour passed, where did they go? To be a little dramatic about it, how many of those AK-47s and RPG-7s we see Islamists waving around today passed through the Midwest Depot on their way to freedom fighters in past decades?”
In 2011, a former CIA official, Kevin Shipp, filed a lawsuit against that first revealed the existence of CIA activity at Camp Stanley. Shipp claimed health issues related to drinking water contaminated by toxic chemicals from the weapons storage area.
According to Thomson’s report, Jennifer Youngblood, a C.I.A. spokeswoman, denied any wrongdoing by the agency. “The C.I.A. takes great care to help protect the health and welfare of its employees,” she said.
Shipp’s lawsuit drew the attention of Thomson, a San Antonio resident and former CIA analyst in the 70s and 80s. He began compiling declassified documents and other clues to compile his report.
The Times reports how Thomson began to make the connection between Midwest Depot and Camp Stanley:
Several of the documents he found traced Midwest Depot’s role without identifying its location, including a 1967 C.I.A. memo linking it to paramilitary training of Cuban exiles before the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, and a 1987 State Department memo showing that equipment bound for the Nicaraguan contras passed through it.
The Times separately identified a 1963 C.I.A. memo discussing 300 tons of C-4 plastic explosives that were available in the “Midwest Depot stocks.” There were no restrictions on its use “because the items have world-wide distribution and are consequently deniable.”
But Mr. Thomson, who said he had not been read into classified information about Midwest Depot’s location when he worked at the C.I.A., identified a series of references in old news accounts, books and interviews placing a covert weapons depot near San Antonio.
And he found an explicit reference in a 1986 memo by Col. Oliver North, a chief figure in the Iran-contra affair. It said the C.I.A. would truck missiles bound for Iran from a military arsenal “to Midwest Depot, Texas,” for preparation, then fly them out of Kelly Air Force Base. Connecting Midwest Depot to yet another historical episode, it added that some missiles would go to “Afghan resistance” fighters battling the Soviets.
Camp Perry seems to be in a growth mode similar to the rest of the Texas economy, but most likely for different reasons. The Times reports Camp Stanley is building more warehouses and in March, 2010, they posted a request for bids for environmental cleanup where the workers would need to be able to have security clearances. “The installation stores large quantities of arms and ammunition and has sensitive missions, thus access to the installation and security clearance requirements for long-term personnel are much more restrictive than most military installations,” according to the bid request.
Thomson also reported a request from the Army to purchase two million rounds of AK-47 ammunition. The U.S. military does not use AK-47s. The order calls for 2,000,000 rounds of 7.62x39mm ball (full metal jacket) ammunition to be delivered to “Camp Stanley in Boerne, TX”. The same order calls for over one million additional rounds of AK-47 ammunition to be delivered to the “Blue Grass Army Depot”. The Army also placed an order for nearly 600,000 AK-47 rifle magazines.
Thomson’s report also includes a formerly Top Secret 1986 memo from Lt. Colonel Oliver North that traces 1,000 TOW missiles through Midwest Depot and then on to Kelly AFB (San Antonio), and on to Germany, Israel and eventually to Iran. The memo makes several references to “Midwest Depot, Texas”.
Thomson also disclosed Midwest Depot’s role in supplying AK-47’s and ammunition to Iraq and Afghanistan. The report references a warehouse in Germany run by the CIA’s “indispensable man, Kyle Foggo. After getting the go-ahead from the CIA shortly after the attacks of 9/11, Foggo emptied the CIA’s stockpile of AK-47s and ammunition stored at Midwest Depot within weeks.
Thomson has detailed out the long history of Midwest Depot and the clues tying it to Camp Stanley in Texas. Take a look at the long and detailed report from Mr. Thomson in the attachment below
Follow Bob Price on Twitter at @BobPriceBBTX.
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