[1] He specializes in the history of the Philippines, foreign policy of the United States, European colonisation of Southeast Asia, illegal drug trade, and Central Intelligence Agency covert operations.
As a Ph.D candidate in Southeast Asian history at Yale, McCoy testified before the United States Senate Committee on Appropriations foreign operations subcommittee on June 2, 1972, and "accused American officials of condoning and even cooperating with corrupt elements in Southeast Asia's illegal drug trade out of political and military considerations".
[3] One of his major charges was that South Vietnam's President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu, Vice President Nguyễn Cao Kỳ, and Prime Minister Trần Thiện Khiêm led a narcotics ring with ties to the Corsican mafia, the Trafficante crime family in Florida, and other high level military officials in South Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand.
[3] He told the subcommittee that these military officials facilitated the distribution of heroin to American troops in Vietnam and addicts in the United States.
[3] According to McCoy, the Central Intelligence Agency chartered Air America aircraft and helicopters in northern Laos to transport opium harvested by their "tribal mercenaries".