Gavin Links 2 Mexico Officials to Drug Trade

Former U.S. Ambassador to Mexico John A. Gavin said that two governors of Mexican states are “up to their elbows” in drug trafficking and corruption, but he declined to identify them to a Senate subcommittee Thursday.

Gavin said Gov. Rodolfo Felix Valdez of Sonora, who had been accused by U.S. Customs Commissioner William von Raab of owning four ranches on which opium poppies and marijuana are being grown under police and military protection, was not one of the two.

Gavin said he called Von Raab in an effort to clarify the point after the commissioner’s testimony before the Senate panel May 13 produced a storm of protest in Mexico.

Calls Valdez Honest

“I think Gov. Valdez is an honest public servant,” Gavin told Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on Latin America, who has charged that widespread corruption in Mexico threatens to collapse the debt-ridden economy. “Unfortunately, there are other governors we can’t say that about. There are two governors who are up to their elbows in the drug trade.”

While Gavin refused to name the two, Helms asked him about reports of gubernatorial protection for Felix Gallardo, whom he called “the drug overlord of Mexico,” after Gallardo was alleged to have murdered a U.S. narcotics agent in 1985.

Although Gavin would only say that “I don’t believe I mentioned any names,” he smiled broadly and refused to deny charges that the governor of Sinaloa, Antonio Toledo Corro, was responsible for this reported sheltering of a suspected criminal.

Subcommittee sources, who spoke on condition that they not be identified, charged that Toledo Corro is a notorious drug trafficker and said that Valdez had been erroneously accused in his place because the names of the Mexican states, Sinaloa and Sonora, had been confused. It was not known which other Mexican governors Gavin might have been alluding to in his testimony.

Two U.S. border state governors, Bruce Babbitt of Arizona and Toney Anaya of New Mexico, both warned Helms against using the subcommittee as a platform for “Mexico bashing.” But Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.), who sat in for the session although not a subcommittee member, countered that public outcry in California has been aroused over the drug trade and the tide of illegal immigration to the point that Mexican sensitivity has taken second place to a demand for resolving such border problems.

Meanwhile, the White House confirmed that President Reagan will meet with Mexico’s President Miguel de la Madrid, possibly in August, but denied that the session will offer a debt-rescue package or soothing words by Reagan to remedy the irritation provoked by Helms’ hearings. Presidential spokesman Larry Speakes said the planned meeting is routine, with nothing unusual scheduled to take place this year.

A White House official, who spoke on condition that he not be identified by name, said the crisis brought on by Mexico’s nearly $100 billion in foreign debt would obviously have to come up in the meeting, but no definite solutions have been prepared. The drug problem would also be on the agenda, the official said.

“We don’t think it’s anything that can’t be resolved,” the official said, referring to any damage to diplomatic relations between the two nations. “This is still a strong and healthy relationship despite what you’ve read.”

Babbitt, alluding to Helms’ accusation June 17 that Mexico’s ruling party had falsified returns in the 1982 election that brought De la Madrid to power, said in a prepared statement:

“I cannot imagine what has impelled the use of this forum for unfounded charges of criminal behavior and for sweeping accusations--on undisclosed evidence--of electoral fraud on a scale which bears on the legitimacy of the Mexican government. . . . These hearings have had a profoundly destructive influence on the mutual relationship at just the time when the greatest care is required.”

Anaya, speaking at the end of the hearing, added, “The impression in my state is that we’ve undertaken Mexican bashing here.” He told reporters later that he believes Helms is a “bigot,” as demonstrated by his public record and by “anti-Mexican, anti-Hispanic intonation” of the hearings.

In a discussion with Babbitt, Helms denied any animosity toward Mexico or its people, insisting that his chief interest is to ensure that U.S. taxpayers are not forced to pay the bill if Mexico defaults on its debts. Babbitt agreed with Helms that economic expansion in Mexico through the mechanism of a free market, rather than new ways of stretching out debt payments, is the answer to the problem.