Dark Alliance

Dark Alliance, Gary Webb, Seven Stories Press, 1998

Here is the expanded book version of the San Jose Mercury News series that said the US government was involved in selling cocaine by the ton in 1980s Los Angeles and sending the profits to the Nicaraguan Contras. The story sent the mainstream media into paroxysms of consternation, not that the story might actually be true, but that anyone would suggest that an agency of the federal government would actually do such a dastardly thing.

Webb does a fine job taking the reader through the whole process, from the Contras to Central American drug running to an "overnight" drug epidemic that was predicted as early as the 1970s. The Contras started as part of President Somoza's hated and feared National Guard (not exactly President Reagan's "moral equivalent of the Founding Fathers"). Various agencies of the US government, including the FBI, DEA and Justice Department did little or nothing to interfere with the drug network, despite plenty of evidence of its existence.

Included is the story of how, when the story first went on the paper's web site, everything was wonderful, with the site recording up to 1 million hits every day. But, when the government and mainstream media began to turn up the heat, the Mercury News backtracked and eventually repudiated the whole story.

After reading this book, one might wonder how the CIA could justify an assertion of No Evidence of Drug Running by its employees. From 1982 to 1995, there was a gentleman's aggreement where the CIA was not required to tell the Justice Department about drug running by its employees.

This book is extremely highly recommended.