The candidates running for Senate in Massachusetts this fall have something
in common: Both dismissed evidence that the Nicaraguan contras were partly
financed by drug money in the mid-1980's. Sen. Kerry, in the course of his
investigation of the covert operations in Central America during the Reagan
administration, ran across numerous indications that CIA fronts may have
established operations that brought cocaine into the United States in
exchange for guns for the Nicaraguan resistance.

The most recent revelation comes from The Nation magazine, which reported
that Wanda Palacio, who broke with Colombia's Mendellin cartel to become an
informant for the FBI, had tried to inform the Kerry Commission about her
suspicions of CIA-Contra drug-running but was met with indifference.
Nevertheless, he passed along the testimony to William Weld, then assistant
attorney general for criminal affairs in Reagan's Justice Department. Weld
showed no more interest in the matter than Kerry, referring at the time to
``bum agents'' who may have been responsible.

Voters deserve to know the truth about the the part Kerry and Weld played
(or failed to play) in the investigation of the Iran-Contra affair.

MICHAEL SUSSMAN
San Francisco