Gary Webb - Dark Alliance : The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion

"Today, it is hard to say how Webb will be remembered by history. But if there is any justice, he will be remembered favorably. His book demonstrates that the original expose was on the right track. Rather than going too far by implicating U.S. government officials in illegal activities, it seems to me the newspaper series did not go far enough.
Based on the evidence in Webb's book, news organizationsespecially the Washington Post, New York Times , and Los Angeles Times should re-examine their knockdown stories. They owe such a re-examination not only to Webb, but also to their readers."

Steve Weinberg in the Baltimore Sun (June 14, 1998)

"Two years ago Gary Webb touched off a national controversy with his news stories linking the CIA and the Nicaraguan Contras to the rise of the crack epidemic in Los Angeles and elsewhere. His gripping new book, richly researched and documented, deserves an even wider audience and discussion."

Peter Dale Scott in the San Francisco Chronicle (June 28, 1998)

"Webb reminds us that the Reagan approved contra program attracted lowlifes and thugs the way manure draws flies. He guides the reader through a nether world of dope-dealers, gunrunners, and freelance security consultants, which on occasion overlapped with the U.S. government. He entertainingly details the honor, dishonor, and deals among thieves...All in all, it's a disgraceful pictureone that should permanently taint the happy-face hues of the Reagan years."

David Corn in the Washington Post (August 9, 1998)

"Webb [is] a highly regarded investigative reporter.... Dark Alliance is his effort to tell his side of the story and set the record straight."

James Adams in the New York Times Book Review (September 27, 1998)

"An excellent new book..."

Norman Solomon in the San Francisco Bay Guardian (July 22, 1998)

"The Central Intelligence Agency continued to work with about two dozen Nicaraguan rebels and their supporters during the 1980s despite allegations that they were trafficking in drugs, according to a classified study by the C.I.A. The new study has found that the agency's decision to keep those paid agents, or to continue dealing with them in some less formal relationship, was made by top officials at headquarters in Langley, Virginia, in the midst of the war waged by the CIA-backed contras against Nicaragua's leftist Sandinista Government."

James Risen, page one of the New York Times (July 17, 1998)

"Two years ago, Gary Webb wrote a series of articles that said some bad things about the CIA and drug traffickers. The CIA denied the charges, and every major newspaper in the country took the agency's word for it. Gary Webb was ruined. Which is a shame, because he was right."

Charles Bowden in Esquire (September 1998)

"A standing room only crowd of several hundred people jammed a meeting hall in mid-town Manhattan on Thursday night to hear the details of a news story that refuses to die..."

Juan Gonzalez in the New York Daily News (June 16, 1998)

"[It is an] issue that feels like a dagger in the heart of African Americans.... Even if the CIA's motive proves less malevolent, any evidence that it supported drug trafficking would indeed be the crime of the century."

Barbara Reynolds in USA Today (February 26, 1997)

"After thousands of hours of work by investigative reporters at several newspapersalmost all of them predisposed to proving that Gary Webb was wrongnone has succeeded in doing so."

Jill Stewart in New Times Los Angeles (June 5, 1997)

"Gary Webb brought back before the American public one of the darkest secrets of the 1980sthe cocaine smuggling by the Nicaraguan contra forcesand paid for this service with his job."

Robert Parry, winner of the George Polk Award for National Reporting

"This story challenges the moral authority of our government."

Rev. Jesse L. Jackson

"Absolute garbage."

Lt. Col. Oliver North

"No story in recent memory had generated the intense controversy or exposed cultural-political fault lines the way the San Jose Mercury News ' 'Dark Alliance' series has. If you judge journalism by its ability to stir up the pot, then this serieswith its explosive suggestion of CIA complicity in the crack cocaine epidemic that paralyzed black neighborhoods in Los Angeles and subsidized the Contra war in Nicaragua in the '80sdeserves some kind of an award."

Mark Jurkowitz, ombudsman, the Boston Globe (November 13, 1996)

"It may be the most significant news story you've never heard."

Michael Paul Williams in the Richmond Times-Dispatch
(September 16, 1996)

"A copiously researched tale of how two Nicaraguan drug dealers with connections to the CIA-backed contra army moved tons of drugs into Los Angeles."

Newsweek (November 11, 1996)

"The hottest topic in black America."

Jack E. White in Time (September 30, 1996)

TO SUE, WITH LOVE AND THANKS