Dark
Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion
by Gary Webb
Reviews
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. - James Madison
The Nation, Jo Ann Kawell
I find his argument to be very well documented,
very careful and very convincing. In fact, the readability of the book
suffers a bit from what seems to have been a fear that if he didn't include
absolutely every bit of evidence he had unearthed, he would open himself
up to new criticisms of inadequate reporting - but this editor's quibble
shouldn't stop anyone from buying and reading Dark Alliance. Long-time
followers of the Contra tale are likely to find new revelations
in the book.
Customer Comments
mark_j_d@hotmail.com from
Washington, DC, February 27, 1999
The missed major story of the past 20
years.
Gary Webb has uncovered the biggest story
of the past twenty years. It covers three Presidential administrations
and uncovers the corruption of our government and the few officials who
abuse the power entrusted with them. It also shows how bad modern media
has gotten in its responsibility to do true "journalism." Gary Webb has
gathered "hard" evidence, organized it and made sense of lengthy and complex
conspiracy of our and central american governments plan to fund a private
war through drugs sales. The Los Angeles Times, The Washington
Post and
The New York Times denounced his findings without a
shred of contrary evidence or with just statements from the CIA saying
it was a lie and they all just took the CIA's statement as fact. The major
news media reporters have just become stenographers for the big, corrupt
government in Washington and they will swallow anything that is spoon fed
to them. The biggest loser in all of this is the American public, the people
who have become addicted to drugs and the truth. But thanks to Gary Webb
the truth wasn't lost but placed in a forum where the WHOLE story could
be told, "Dark Alliance."
calipygian@mindspring.com,
November 15, 1998
Engrossing, Exhaustive, Exasperating,
Exhausting
The even BIGGER scandal brought to the fore
by this book is that the Clinton/Lewinsky "scandal" is treated more seriously
than this; after all, when we elected Clinton, we KNEW he was a scumbag
adulterer. When we elected Reagan, we didn't expect to be electing a scumbag
cocaine smuggler (or at least someone who tacitly approved cocaine smuggling).
And the awful thing is that, according to Ronnie, our Founding Fathers
are now the moral equals of thuggish corrupt cocaine smugglers. By the
end of the first chapter I was ill. I am tremendously disappointed in my
government, that the government of the country I love was (is?) capable
of such things. The one complaint I have about Mr. Webb's book is sheer
amount of detail which hampers the readability, although his shabby cowardly
despicable treatment by his employer and colleagues probably has something
to do with that. Mr. Webb, I salute you for your courage and commitment,
I hope you don't end up like Danny Colasero for your trouble. I think it
would also make a great movie, only when you make it, Mr. Stone, please
don't film it like you went to the MTV School for Nauseating Cinematography.
Shame on you Ollie North!! Its a disgusting travesty that you are not breaking
big rocks into little rocks.
A reader from Los Angeles,
October 12, 1998
Honest journalists do exist
Gary Webb is the best kind of journalist
- the kind prepared to put his career on the line to uncover the truth.
His story mirrors that told by former DEA agent Michael Levine in "The
Big White Lie" (Thunders Mouth press, 1988), and both men forfeited their
careers and livelihoods to bring the true story of America's War on Drugs
to light. Webb's book suffers from a profusion of detailed evidence which,
though it tends to confirm the authenticity of his conclusions, makes things
hard going at times. Levine's book, by contrast, is a ripping yarn, and
in consequence was dismissed as "sensationalist" by the few main stream
papers which bothered to review it. Sometimes you just can't win.
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