The memo also said Uribe had links to an unnamed business tied to narcotics activities in the U.S. and that Uribe's father was killed for ties to drug lords. Uribe's father was killed by rebels with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia in 1983. Colombian military officials have long described the incident as a botched kidnapping attempt.
Although several Colombian and U.S. officials said it was possible that Uribe knew Escobar or ignored signs of drug trafficking, they discounted the idea that he played an important role in the operations.
Thomas E. McNamara, the U.S. ambassador to Colombia until a few months before the memo was written, said Uribe "never came up on my screen."
"If everything said in that short paragraph were true, those of us in the embassy working the issue hard would have had him in our scopes," said McNamara, now a counterterrorism consultant to the State Department. "He wasn't."
Whatever its validity, the document is likely to play a role in Colombia's politics. Uribe has drawn a host of critics despite his popularity for curtailing rebel attacks and kidnappings.
The publication of the document comes as criticism of the talks with paramilitaries is increasing. The U.S. has faulted Uribe's negotiators for being overly forgiving of the rightists, who are suspected of killing thousands of peasants. And Colombians are demanding results, since as many as 400 people have been killed or kidnapped by paramilitaries since the talks began.
Military analyst Alfredo Rangel predicted that the president would emerge with his credibility intact.
"Since he's been the object of so many accusations that haven't taken root, the public will see this as a rehashing of old accusations," Rangel said. "The public won't trust the substance of these accusations, and it will give him an opportunity to show they aren't true."
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Special correspondent Ruth Morris in Bogota contributed to this report.
