The CIA-Crack Connection-10 Years Later

The CIA-Contra-Crack Connection, 10 Years Later - Los Angeles Times: "The CIA-Contra-Crack Connection, 10 Years Later
Reporter Gary Webb was the victim of his own hyperbole, but he never got credit for what he got right.
By Nick Schou, NICK SCHOU is an editor for OC Weekly. His book, 'Kill the Messenger: How the CIA's Crack-Cocaine Controversy Destroyed Journalist Gary Webb,' will be published in October.
August 18, 2006



TEN YEARS AGO today, one of the most controversial news articles of the 1990s quietly appeared on the front page of the San Jose Mercury News. Titled 'Dark Alliance,' the headline ran beneath the provocative image of a man smoking crack superimposed on the official seal of the CIA.

The three-part series by reporter Gary Webb linked the CIA and Nicaragua's Contras to the crack cocaine epidemic that ripped through South Los Angeles in the 1980s.

Most of the nation's elite newspapers at first ignored the story. A public uproar, especially among urban African Americans, forced them to respond. What followed was one of the most bizarre, unseemly and ultimately tragic scandals in the annals of American journalism, one in which top news organizations closed ranks to debunk claims Webb never made, ridicule assertions that turned out to be true and ignore corroborating evidence when it came to light. The whole shameful cycle was repeated when Webb committed suicide in December 2004.

Many reporters besides Webb had sought to uncover the rumored connection between the CIA's anti-communism efforts in Central America and drug trafficking. 'Dark Alliance' documented the first solid link between the agency and drug deals inside the U.S. by profiling the relationship between two Nicaraguan Contra sympathizers and narcotics suppliers"