Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Cocaine Explosion

by Gary Webb

Book Overview

Major Motion Picture based on Dark Alliance and starring Jeremy Renner, "Kill the Messenger," to be be released in Fall 2014In August 1996, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Gary Webb stunned the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1888363681
• ISBN13: 9781888363685
• Release Date: June 1998
• Publisher: Seven Stories Press
• Length: 592 Pages
• Weight: 2.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.8" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

CIA Case Officer from Central American Era Validates This Book

I am probably the only reviewer who was a clandestine case officer (three back to back tours), who participated in the Central American follies as both a field officer and a desk officer at CIA HQS, who is also very broadly read. With great sadness, I must conclude that this book is truthful, accurate, and explosive. The book lacks some context, for example, the liberal Saudi funding for the Contras that was provided to the National Security Council (NSC) as a back-door courtesy. There are three core lessons in this book, supported by many books, some of which I list at the end of this review: 1) The US Government cannot be trusted by the people. The White House, the NSC, the CIA, even the Justice Department, and the Members of Congress associated with the Administration's party, are all liars. They use "national security" as a pretext for dealing drugs and screwing over the American people. 2) CIA has come to the end of its useful life. I remain proud to have been a clandestine case officer, but I see now that I was part of the "fake" CIA going through the motions, while extremely evil deeds were taking place in more limited channels. 3) In the eyes of the Nicaraguan, Guatemalan, and Honduran people, among many others, the US Government, as represented by the CIA and the dark side Ambassadors who are partisan appointees rather than true diplomats, is evil. It consorts with dictators, condones torture, helps loot the commonwealths of others, runs drugs, launders money, and is generally the bully on the block. I have numerous notes on the book, and will list just a few here that are important "nuggets" from this great work: 1) The CIA connection to the crack pandemic could be the crime of the century. It certainly destroys the government's moral legitimacy in the eyes of the people. 2) The fact that entrepreneur Ricky Ross went to jail for life, while his supplier, Nicaraguan Blandon, was constantly protected by CIA and the Department of Justice, is a travesty. 3) Nicaragua, under Somoza, was the US Government's local enforcer, and CIA was his most important liaison element. As long as we consort with 44 dictators (see Ambassador Palmer's "The Real Axis of Evil," we should expect to be reviled by the broader populations. 4) I believe that beginning with Henry Kissinger, the NSC and the CIA have had a "eugenics" policy that considers the low-income blacks to be "expendable" as well as a nuisance, and hence worthy of being targeted as a market for drugs to pull out what income they do have. 5) I believe that CIA was unwitting of the implications of crack, but that Congress was not. The book compellingly describes the testimony provided to Congress in 1979 and again in 1982, about the forthcoming implications of making a cocaine derivative affordable by the lowest income people in our Nation. 6) The Administration and Congress, in close partnership with the "mainstream media," consistently lied, slandered witnesse

Sometimes Conspiracies do Happen

This is a remarkable book. My first inclination was to disregard it as another conspiracy theory. After reading it and checking some of the sources, however, I have concluded that it is accurate. Gary Webb traces the introduction of crack cocaine into Los Angeles in the early 1980's and followed its rise to a full blown epidemic by the mid to late 80's. Undoubtedly, agents of the CIA and DEA, and most certainly Oliver North and his Contra operation were aware of the source of the cocaine. Indeed, it is apparent that the White House knew and acted to protect the drug pipeline in order to keep the money flowing to the Contra organization. Ronald Reagan was clearly more interested in fighting the war on communism than the war on drugs. The hypocrisy of the Reagan administration is apparent when we realize that Reagan declared illicit drugs a national security issue and championed the most draconian drug laws written to that date. Would crack cocaine have become an epidemic without CIA support? Probably, Webb points out that the development of a similar drug in Latin America by the 1970's had been studied and scientists warned that a similar epidemic in the U.S. was imminent. Would it have happened as fast or been as bad without government protection? No one knows the answer to that question. Ultimately, there were two big losers. Inner city dwellers were hit hardest. Not only were they exposed to this incredibly addicting drug, but they bore the brunt of the government crack-down on illicit drugs. The other loser was Ronald Reagan, whose legacy of integrity and honor is destroyed in his ends justifies the means approach to government. Anyone who reads this book will never look at Ronald Reagan or Oliver North in quite the same way.

A stunning story from start to end

I followed the "Dark Alliance" story from the time it was published in the San Jose Mercury News to the time it was ridiculed by the country's largest newspapers and Gary Webb was hung out to dry by his own paper. I picked up the book with an open mind but no expectation of being convinced.I was not only convinced, I was stunned by the story from start to finish. Webb has assembled not shadowy sources leaking dark innuendos but a thorough reporting of facts taken from congressional testimony, court testimony, declassified documents and personal interviews. It's clear, at a minimum, that the US government was connected to the people responsible for a large piece of the cocaine trade. The only thing that remains uncertain is whether US officials actually participated in the drug trade directly with these people or simply forged a marriage of convenience and looked the other way. It's worth noting that a large amount of information comes from documents that are only partially declassified -- meaning that plenty of incriminating information remains to be disclosed. Years from now we'll finally see what is still being concealed, and I suspect we'll learn that the story goes beyond the basic verifiable information that Webb reports here.For those who believed the NY Times' cursory dismissal of this story, please note the Times' record in the case of El Mozote as told in the book "The Massacre at El Mozote" by Mark Danner. The Times pulled its own Latin American correspondent off the story of a massacre by US-supported Salvadoran troops when the government went on the attack. Ten years later, the hundreds of bodies were found and the whole story was confirmed. The Times was left looking as if it had participated in the official coverup, and maybe it did. It would be no surprise to find out a similar story in this case.

Terrifying

How did this happen to Gary webb? A prize winning reporter,a middle of the road news reporter from a conservative stable backround suddenly becomes the pariah of the press? I read this book with great trepidition,seeing the JFK conspiracy folks running around ...well, i was surprised, shocked,horrified.Perhaps i shouldnt have been...Mr Webb ahs laid out, simply, forcibly a case so damning that most simply wont look.The case he sets forth is so damning infact, that if true, and I think it is, then we need to overhaul our entire system. The absurd "war on drugs'[which doesnt really exist,except in political newspeak]is shattered by Mr Webb in the first 100 pages. 3 administrations,and countless pols either ignored or knew what was happening. Oliver North comes off none too well, though he is an easy target, and not even close to one of the important folks here. This is a searing piece of journalism,and one wonders why My Webb has been consigned to the far left by the celebrated organs of media, THe NY TIMES, THE WASHINGTO POST and The LA TIMES?. When these 3 folks stand up to criticise at once, well, i smell soemthing...where is the uproar from the 'mainstream press' ?After all, I thought the war on drugs was a family values issue. One of the most disturbing books I have ever read.

Absolutely superb investigative reporting!

This book takes us back to the 1980's, the dark days of Oliver North's "neat idea," Reagan's Freedom Fighters, and the crack cocaine explosion. The evidence is overwhelming that agencies of the U.S. government were complicit in the importation of cocaine, and Oliver North was even more deserving than I originally believed of a long-term stay in a prison cell (too bad Alcatraz is no longer a federal prison - it's where Ollie belongs!). We probably can never know the extent of CIA involvement as then U.S. Attorney General William French Smith exempted the CIA on behalf of then CIA Director William Casey from having to report illegal drug activities. If you don't have to report it, you don't have to keep records - therefore, there are no records and the Inspector General's report can truthfully say - "We can find no records."Thank you Gary Webb for writing this book. I am truly sorry this cost you your job at the San Jose Mercury News.