All right, 321. Hi, this is William Ramsey. Welcome to William Ramsey Investigates on tonight's show. I have a very special guest. His name is Herb Smith. I actually listened to him close to maybe 10 years ago on a show that I used to be on and listen to religiously, which was the Visigoth show with Keith Hanson, who I think the show is pretty much defunct

the shows are still available online it was really one of the first early podcasts but

tonight we're going to talk I think about an important subject that's still relevant which is

about the trafficking network that was centered in Mena, Arkansas.

And so we're going to go into detail. We've decided to break it into two hours, so this will be the

first hour, and there's so much information there. So Herb Smith, are you there?

Yes, I am. Nice to meet you, William.

Nice to be with you as well. So as a listener to your shows, you've talked about 9-11 as well.

So I recollect you talking about that and me listening to those. So I'm delighted that you

agreed to the interview. So for people who don't know your background, can you talk a little bit about yourself

and how you became interested in the subject of Mena, Arkansas?

Yeah, to just give you about myself, I'm 57 years old.

I'm a retired postal worker, so I'm part of the system too.

So when we talk about the Iran- Contra Fair and Mina or Mena, I was in my 20s during the

Iran Contra Fair.

So that I remember some of these things.

But what really kind of woke me up was 9-11, but going into 9-11, I think around I was a Republican way back.

And when the 2000 election came around, I was, I wasn't crazy about Bush Jr.

I didn't know I was actually thinking about voting for Gore and all that.

And so when the hanging chadads thing came up, that started, it just kind of stumped to me.

Even that, you know, at that time, it just something didn't seem right to me.

And I was already, I'd voted for Bush Sr. twice.

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