Dark Alliance
(Book Review)
From Amazon.com

In July 1995, San Jose Mercury-News reporter Gary Webb found the Big One--the blockbuster story every journalist secretly dreams about--without even looking for it.

A simple phone call concerning an unexceptional pending drug trial turned into a massive conspiracy involving the Nicaraguan Contra rebels, L.A. and Bay Area crack cocaine dealers, and the Central Intelligence Agency.

For several years during the 1980s, Webb discovered, Contra elements shuttled thousands of tons of cocaine into the United States, with the profits going toward the funding of Contra rebels attempting a counterrevolution in their Nicaraguan homeland. Even more chilling, Webb quickly realized, was that the massive drug-dealing operation had the implicit approval--and occasional outright support--of the CIA, the very organization entrusted to prevent illegal drugs from being brought into the United States.

Within the pages of Dark Alliance, Webb produces a massive amount of evidence that suggests that such a scenario did take place, and more disturbing evidence that the powers that be that allowed such an alliance are still determined to ruthlessly guard their secrets.

Webb's research is impeccable--names, dates, places, and dollar amounts gather and mount with every page, eventually building a towering wall of evidence in support of his theories. After the original series of articles ran in the Mercury-News in late 1996, both Webb and his paper were so severely criticized by political commentators, government officials, and other members of the press that his own newspaper decided it best not to stand behind the series, in effect apologizing for the assertions and disavowing his work. Webb quit the paper in disgust in November 1997.

His book serves as both a complex memoir of the time of the Contras and an indictment of the current state of America's press; Dark Alliance is as necessary and valuable as it is horrifying and grim. --Tjames Madison -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine vergriffene oder nicht verfügbare Ausgabe dieses Titels.

The following is an excerpt from the book Dark Alliance: The CIA, The Contras, and The Crack Cocaine Explosion by Gary Webb.
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."




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