Dark Alliance:
The CIA, The Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion
By Gary Webb
"The [Dark Alliance] series became the most talked-about piece of journalism in 1996 and arguably the most famous-some would say infamous-set of articles of the decade." - Columbia Journalism Review.
In August 1996 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 the crack cocaine epidemic in America. The series, titled "Dark Alliance," reveals that for the better part of a decade, a bay area drug ring sold tons of cocaine to Los Angeles street gangs which funnelled millions in drug profits to the CIA-backed Nicaraguan Contras.
Webb's articles created an immediate national and international outcry. Within days of publication, both of California's senators made formal requests for investigations of the US government's relationship with the cocaine ring. Yet, the mainstream press refused to assign any importance to Webb's expose. As a result, public demonstrations erupted in LA, Washington, and New York. The "Dark Alliance" page on the World Wide Web was deluged with visits-on one day alone it received 1.3 million hits.
According to a recent cover story in the Columbia Journalism review, the series has become what New York Times reporter Tim Weiner calls a "metastory-a phenomenon of public outcry, conspiracy theory and media reaction that has transcended the original series itself." In his book, Dark Alliance, Webb pushes his investigation further, drawing from hours of undercover DEA audio and video tapes that have never been publicly released, federal court testimony, and interviews. Webb demonstrates how our government brought death, disease, crime and unspeakable violence to millions of its most vulnerable citizens through a breathtaking combination of negligence, greed, and criminal conduct.
The characters in Dark Alliance are like something out of a spy novel. Webb focuses on the three men who created the nation's biggest crack cocaine market: Norwin Meneses, the international crime boss who oversaw the operation; Danilo Blandon, the Contra cocaine broker with a marketing MBA; and Freeway Rick Ross, an illiterate ghetto teenager who became America's first king of crack.
Further, Webb takes a broader look at the darkest secret of the Iran Contra scandal: the involvement of US government agents and agencies with Latin American drug traffickers. Dark Alliance may be the most controversial book of the decade.
Gary Webb has been an investigative reporter for 19 years, focusing on government and private sector corruption. His controversial 1996 newspaper series "Dark Alliance" - which exposed the sale of cocaine and weapons by CIA-supported rebels to the street gangs of South Central L.A. - caused a nationwide outcry that is still reverberating today.
Webb has written for the San Jose Mercury News since 1988. He worked as a statehouse correspondent for The Cleveland Plain Dealer and The Kentucky Post before that, and has won more than 30 journalism awards. Webb was part of the Mercury News reporting team that won the 1989 Pulitzer Prize for news.
He has appeared on Dateline NBC, the Montel Williams Show, CNN, National Public Radio, C-SPAN, CBS Morning News, MSNBC, the BBC, British and Australian TV, and dozens of syndicated and local talk radio shows from Bogota, Colombia to British Columbia.
Webb and his wife Susan live with their three children in Sacramento, California.
50,000 copy first printing. National media: five-city tour (New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Chicago). Special discount. Advertising in alternative weeklies, The Nation, Emerge, and Ebony.
For more information on the "Dark Alliance" series: http://www.sjmercury.com/drugs/ [The Merc removed this material from their website. I have it on file, but hesitate to post it for fear of retaliation. It may be posted on FreeRepublic. Forest ]
The CIA investigates itself and finds no link between itself and crack trade - but their report remains secret. Sound good to you? Read the article by Tim Weiner as seen in The New York Times on December 19, 1997.
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