The Quiet Professional: Major Richard J. Meadows of the U.S. Army Special Forces

13. Entrepreneur in Peru: 1984–1989

173 13 Entrepreneur in Peru 1984–1989 Meadows called on his friend at the U.S. embassy in Lima and spoke to the few businessmen to whom he had been given introductions. The situation was much worse than he had imagined.1 Under President Fernando Belaunde corruption was rife. The cocaine trade was booming. The activities of the two principal guerrilla movements, the Movimiento Revolucionario Tupac Amaru (MRTA) and the Sendero Luminoso (SL), had grown to such a level of violence that rich families were either living in cocoons of self-imposed security or fleeing the country. Often they left their affairs and estates in the hands of corrupt or inefficient management. Meadows studied the newspapers and chatted with the local taxi drivers and shop and restaurant owners. Not everyone was willing to talk openly. So concerned was Meadows that in his own inimitable manner he forgot the fact that he was supposed to be there to investigate the army surplus business and he began to talk long and loud to anyone who would listen about what he saw as “the coming storm.” Before long he was invited to make formal presentations to groups of businessmen and even to his own embassy: I guess that I didn’t tell the guys at the embassy anything that they didn’t already know. They were probably checking me out to see if I was some sort of renegade. I made a lot of senior business contacts during that short stay in Lima and they eventually asked me why I didn’t talk to President Belaunde himself. I said that if they could get me to him I would be pleased to give him my views. Well, they did. I met him and a bunch of his ministers and went through my act. At the end I suggested that he take some rapid and serious action to resolve his problem. Guess what his answer was? “What problem?” I suppose that was typical of Iquitos Pucallpa Trujillo LIMA Cusco San Juan Moyobamba Juanjuí Minera Yanacocha B R A Z I L P E R U BOL. CHILE E C U A D O R C O L O M B I A Lake Titicaca Pacific Ocean Upper Huallaga Valley AMAZON Marañón U c a y a l i H u a l l a g a U r u b a m b a A p u r imac M a r a ñ ó n Napo 100 200 miles 0 Peru’s Upper Huallaga Valley, an area that benefitted from Meadows’s security expertise. Entrepreneur in Peru 175 official attitudes in Peru at that time. The government was coining in the money and didn’t believe that either the SL or the MRTA would ever present a personal threat to them. The campesinos and the rest of the population could go to hell on a raft for all they cared. I heard afterwards that he [Belaunde] was angry that a gringo had the nerve to speak to him about interior matters. Meadows returned home to Crestview in an optimistic mood. He was very interested in the prospects offered in Peru. He had a great sympathy with the underdog, but what could he do for them? The first thing, of course, was to give them a cause, but how was he to do that? He also had to make a living. If security was such a problem in Peru, then why not start right there in Lima. The cost of living was acceptable; he had a nucleus of contacts which had been strengthened by his recent visit; he had a basic grasp of the language and understood the culture. In Pamela, who must have been looking forward to having him spend more time at home, he found only solid support. He decided to move to Lima for a limited amount of time and try to set himself up as a security consultant. If it didn’t work then he would only be out of pocket by a couple thousand dollars. Initially he rented a modest apartment in Miraflores. He soon found out that the businessmen who had been so keen to get him to expound his theories to Belaunde were not so anxious to lay bare their own secrets. Nevertheless, his conversations gave him access to gossip that was denied to the staff of the embassy, and where possible...