Dark Alliance
The CIA, The Contras, and The Crack Cocaine Explosion
by Gary Webb
Published by Seven Stories Press
1-888363-68-1; $24.95US; June 98
In August 1996, award-winning journalist Gary Webb stunned the world with a series of articles in the San Jose Mercury News reporting the results of his year-long investigation into the roots of America's crack cocaine epidemic. The series, tiled "Dark Alliance," revealed that for the better part of a decade, a Bay Area drug ring sold tons of cocaine to Los Angeles street gangs which funneled millions in drug profits to the CIA-backed Nicaraguan Contras.
Webb's articles spurred a national and international outcry. Within days of publication, both of California's senators made formal requests for investigations of the U.S. government's relationship with the cocaine ring. Public demonstrations erupted in L.A.; Washington, D.C.; and New York. The "Dark Alliance" page on the World Wide Web was deluged. On one day alone it received 1.3 million hits.
Eventually, Webb himself would be blamed in the national press for the implications of the story he had written. Throughout the storm of controversy, however, Webb never backed away from his findings. Instead, he continued his research and wrote this book.
Webb draws from thousands of pages of once-secret files from the CIA, DEA, and FBI, the L.A. Sheriff's Department, and recently declassified papers from the Iran-Contra investigation. Together with Nicaraguan journalist Georg Hodel, Webb interviewed former members of the Contra drug ring, as well as former federal prosecutors, CIA and DEA agents, and former Central American police officials.
This book shows how the L.A. crack market flourished through a breathtaking combination of government negligence, greed, and criminal conduct. It also demonstrates that the U.S. government agencies, including the CIA, the DEA, and the FBI, were aware of the activities of this well-connected drug network throughout its long existence and did little or nothing to stop it. Indeed, in several instances documented here, the Justice Department, the CIA, and the secret National Security Council unit run by Oliver North, took extraordinary steps to protect the ring from public exposure.
In its final chapters, DARK ALLIANCE reveals Gary Webb's personal account of the behind-the-scenes conflict that led to his newspaper's stunning repudiation of its own groundbreaking series--and at what cost he has stood by his story.
About the Author
Gary Webb was an investigative reporter for 19 years, focusing on government and private sector corruption and winning more than 30 journalism awards. He was one of six reporters at the San Jose Mercury News to win a 1990 Pulitzer Prize for General News Reporting for a series of stories on northern California's 1989 earthquake. He also received the 1997 Media Hero Award from the 2nd Annual Media & Democracy Congress and in 1996 was named Journalist of the Year by the Bay Area Society of Professional Journalists. In 1994 Webb won the H.L. Mencken Award given by The Free Press Association for a series in the San Jose Mercury News on abuses in the state of California's drug asset forfeiture program. And in 1980 Webb won an Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) Award for a series that he co-authored at the Kentucky Post on organized crime in the coal industry.
Prior to 1988 Webb worked as a statehouse correspondent for The Cleveland Plain Dealer and The Kentucky Post. From 1988 through 1997 he was a reporter for the San Jose Mercury News where the "Dark Alliance" series broke in 1996. Months later, Webb was effectively forced out of his job after the San Jose Mercury News retracted their support for his story. He is now a consultant to the California State legislature Task Force on Government Oversight.
He lives with his wife Susan and their three children in the Sacramento Valley area of California.
Excerpt: Author's Note
The following is an excerpt from the book Dark Alliance: The CIA, The Contras, and The Crack Cocaine Explosion by Gary Webb.
Published by Seven Stories Press; 1888363681; $24.95US; May98
Copyright ©1998 Gary Webb
This, sadly, is a true story. It is based upon a controversial series I wrote for the San Jose Mercury News in the summer of 1996 about the origins of the crack plague in South Central Los Angeles.
Unlike other books that purport to tell the inside story of America's most futile war (Kings of Cocaine by Guy Gugliotta and Jeff Leen and Desperados by Elaine Shannon spring to mind), Dark Alliance was not written with the assistance, cooperation or encouragement of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration or any federal law enforcement agency.
In fact, the opposite is true. Every Freedom of Information Act request I filed was rejected on national security or privacy grounds, was ignored, or was responded to with documents so heavily censored they must have been the source of much hilarity down at the FOIA offices. The sole exception was the National Archives and Records Administration.
Dark Alliance does not propound a conspiracy theory; there is nothing theoretical about history. In this case, it is undeniable that a wildly successful conspiracy to import cocaine existed for many years, and that innumerable American citizens--most of them poor and black--paid an enormous price as a result. This book was written for them, so that they may know upon what altars their communities were sacrificed.
Excerpt: Foreword BY U.S. CONGRESSWOMAN MAXINE WATERS
The following is an excerpt from the book Dark Alliance: The CIA, The Contras, and The Crack Cocaine Explosion by Gary Webb.
Published by Seven Stories Press; 1-888363-68-1; $24.95US; June 98
Copyright ©1998 Gary Webb
The night that I read the "Dark Alliance" series, I was so alarmed, that I literally sat straight up in bed, poring over every word. I reflected on the many meetings I attended throughout South Central Los Angeles during the 1980s, when I constantly asked, "Where are all the drugs coming from?" I asked myself that night whether it was possible for such a vast amount of drugs to be smuggled into any district under the noses of the community leaders, police, sheriff's department, FBI, DEA and other law enforcement agencies.
I decided to investigate the allegations. I met with Ricky Ross Alan Fenster, Mike Ruppert, Celerino Castillo, Jerry Guzetta, and visited the L.A. Sheriff's Department. My investigation took me to Nicaragua where I interviewed Enrique Miranda Jaime in prison, and I met with the head of Sandinista intelligence Tomas Borge. I had the opportunity to question Contra leaders Adolfo Calero and Eden Pastora in a Senate investigative hearing, which was meant to be perfunctory, until I arrived to ask questions based on the vast knowledge I had gathered in my investigation. I forced Calero to admit he had a relationship with the CIA through the United States Embassy, where he directed USAID funds to community groups and organizations.
The time I spent investigating the allegations of the "Dark Alliance" series led me to the undeniable conclusion that the CIA, DEA, DIA, and FBI knew about drug trafficking in South Central Los Angeles. They were either part of the trafficking or turned a blind eye to it, in an effort to fund the Contra war. I am convinced that drug money played an important role in the Contra war and that drug money was used by both sides.
The saddest part of these revelations is the wrecked lives and lost possibilities of so many people who got caught up in selling drugs, went to prison, ended up addicted, dead, or walking zombies from drugs.
It may take time, but I am convinced that history is going to record that Gary Webb wrote the truth. The establishment refused to give Gary Webb the credit that he deserved. They teamed up in an effort to destroy the story--and very nearly succeeded.
There are a few of us who congratulate Gary for his honesty and courage. We will not let this story end until the naysayers and opponents are forced to apologize for their reckless and irresponsible attacks on Gary Webb.
The editors of the San Jose Mercury News did not have the strength to withstand the attacks, so they abandoned Gary Webb, despite their knowledge that Gary was working on further documentation to substantiate the allegations of the series.
This book completely and absolutely confirms Gary Webb's devastating series. This book is the final chapter on this sordid tale and brings to light one of the worst official abuses in our nation's history. We all owe Gary Webb a debt of gratidude for his brave work.
The above excerpt is from the book Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion by Gary Webb.
Published by Seven Stories Press; 1-888363-68-1; $24.95US;June 98
Copyright ©1998 Gary Webb