A Furor Over the CIA and Drugs   

For years there have been allegations that the CIA was involved in or condoned illegal drug trafficking. And many in the nation's African American communities have long expressed the belief that the federal government was behind the narcotics epidemic that has ravaged black neighborhoods.

The two notions came together with a vengeance in the wake of a three-part series that appeared August 18-20 in the San Jose Mercury News.

The series by reporter Gary Webb, called "Dark Alliance," reported that CIA-backed supporters of the Nicaraguan contras had raised money to purchase weapons by importing crack cocaine and selling it to Los Angeles street gangs. "This drug network opened the first pipeline between Colombia's cocaine cartels and the black neighborhoods of Los Angeles, a city now known as the crack capital of the world," the newspaper reported, adding that the ring's efforts "helped spark a crack explosion in urban America."

The articles did not flatly assert that the CIA was behind the drug dealing or was even aware of it. But they left the clear impression to many that there was indeed a CIA connection.

Webb's findings initially attracted little interest in the mainstream media, but they found a receptive and widespread audience on the Internet and on black- oriented talk radio shows.

Some critics assailed the media for lavishing attention on events such as the Dick Morris sex scandal while ignoring the explosive story of how "the CIA's army" had triggered the devastating crack outbreak.

But the Washington Post wasn't turning a blind eye to the saga. It launched its own investigation, and on October 4 published a story concluding that the Mercury News series had exaggerated the drug ring's significance and raising questions about Webb's reporting techniques.

"Dark Alliance" told the tale of a San-Francisco-based ring that flooded Los Angeles with cheap cocaine during the 1980s through a dealer named "Freeway" Ricky Ross. The series reported that the head smugglers, Danilo Blandon and Norwin Meneses, imported cocaine, sold it in Los Angeles and used millions of dollars in profits to fund the CIA-backed Nicaraguan contra "freedom fighters" in their war against the socialist Sandinista regime.

"It is one of the most bizarre alliances in modern history: the union of a U.S.-backed army attempting to overthrow a revolutionary socialist government and the Uzi-toting 'gangstas' of Compton and South-Central Los Angeles," Webb wrote, basing his series on declassified government documents and interviews with drug dealers.

While some black activists, politicians and conspiracy buffs seized the story as proof of a connection between the U.S. government and the mistreatment of African Americans, other journalists began to question the foundation of the stories that spawned the furor.

While the series neither alleged nor established any hard link between the CIA and drugs, the logo that ran on the series' Web site and in reprints shows a man smoking a crack pipe superimposed over the CIA seal (the logo did not accompany the series in the newspaper). Washington Post media writer Howard Kurtz wrote that while the series didn't explicitly say there was a CIA connection, it certainly gave the impression that there was one, repeatedly using the phrase "the CIA's army" in referring to the contra supporters. No one from the CIA is quoted in the series--because the agency wouldn't return phone calls or respond to his Freedom of Information Act request, Webb says.

The Washington Post ran its investigation of the San Jose paper's investigation on the front page, under the headline "The CIA and Crack: Evidence is Lacking of Alleged Plot." Post reporters Roberto Suro and Walter Pincus picked apart the Mercury News series, concluding that neither the CIA-backed contras nor Nicaraguans in general "played a major role in the emergence of crack as a narcotic in widespread use across the United States."

The Post also raised questions about Webb's journalistic ethics, reporting that he gave Ross' lawyer the idea that the CIA was behind the drug suppliers. The story detailed how Webb, unable to get an interview with Blandon, suggested questions that Ross' lawyer should ask the drug smuggler on the witness stand and then used the answers as a basis for his series--a fact he fails to mention in "Dark Alliance."

Mercury News Executive Editor Jerry Ceppos says he isn't troubled by Webb's reporting methods, including his "indirect" interviewing of Blandon on the witness stand. "I don't have a problem with Gary saying to a lawyer, 'Gee, there are one or two holes I need to fill,' " says Ceppos.

To some, the Post's investigation seemed to answer critics who had accused the national press of deliberately ignoring the story. Pincus, a veteran Post reporter who covered the Iran-contra affair, says he was reluctant to acknowledge Webb's findings because he didn't think the San Jose series was supported by enough documentary evidence.

Ceppos defends the pieces, saying the paper never claimed to have proof that the CIA knew about the drug trafficking ring. "I almost feel like I'm denying things we never said," Ceppos says. "My fear is that some of the critics may not have read" the series.

Ceppos says the Mercury News' "main regret" was allowing the logo with the CIA seal to run in the "Dark Alliance" reprint and on the Web site (it was removed from the site after the Post article appeared).

The Mercury News' investigation "established that cocaine dealers working with the CIA-sponsored contras sold large amounts of cocaine powder in predominantly black neighborhoods of Los Angeles at the time of the crack cocaine epidemic there, and some of the drug profits were sent to the contras to buy war supplies," Ceppos wrote in a letter to the Post. "There is no question in my mind that this is news."

For his part, Webb is no stranger to controversy. In 1990 his former employer, Cleveland's Plain Dealer, was assessed $13.6 million in damages in a libel suit stemming from Webb's stories reporting that the promoters of the Cleveland Grand Prix paid themselves nearly $1 million from race proceeds, violating a city lease. (The case was settled out of court after the Plain Dealer appealed; details of the settlement were not disclosed.)

Webb's year-long immersion into the intricate tale of contras and crack began with a tip. His follow-up to a 1993 Mercury News series on drug forfeiture laws prompted a call from the girlfriend of a jailed member of a Nicaraguan drug ring. In the midst of telling Webb her boyfriend's story, the woman mentioned that there were documents in the case that linked the CIA to drug suppliers.

After a few months of digging through declassified documents and sitting in on court trials, Webb began to piece together what he saw as a crack/contra link.

It was just the sort of story he had come to the Mercury News to do. Webb, 41, dropped out of journalism school in 1978 to take a job at the Kentucky Post. After a stint at the Plain Dealer, he joined the Mercury News in 1988. Researching the story was a time-consuming process and one of Webb's sources, jailed drug dealer Ross, got impatient, shopping his tale to the Los Angeles Times. Webb was relieved when the Times ran a story about the case in March but didn't mention the possibility of any CIA connection.

Los Angeles Times Metropolitan Editor Leo Wolinsky says reporter Jesse Katz talked to Ross but that Ross didn't offer him any evidence of links to the CIA. "We had heard a lot of these charges before, but we didn't have any strong information at the time," says Wolinsky. "We didn't have a solid lead to go on."

Webb's series attracted interest from movie producers and book editors, but the wire services, networks and major newspapers paid little attention. By mid-September, however, fallout from Webb's reporting, stemming largely from heavy play on the Net and talk radio, pushed the issue to the fore.

It was then that CIA Director John Deutch issued a statement saying that a preliminary internal investigation concluded that the agency "neither participated in nor condoned drug trafficking by contra forces." He also promised black lawmakers, who had been flooded with phone calls and faxes from outraged constituents, that there would be an independent investigation.

The fact that the Mercury News series has taken on a life of its own frustrates the Los Angeles Times' Wolinsky, whose paper has received much local criticism for apparently being beaten on a major story in its own backyard by an out-of-town paper. "The way this has resonated on the street is that the government is responsible for the crack epidemic," he says. "But those kinds of questions aren't really answered."

Webb, who was named Northern California SPJ Journalist of the Year for his work on the series, says he can't control the conspiracy myths that his work has fueled. He refers his critics and those reading too much into his theories to the extensive documentation on the series' Web site. In addition to the full text of the series, the site features links to declassified government documents, photos and audio testimony that Webb used for his series.

In September, Mercury Center, the San Jose paper's online venture, had its most active day ever following one of Webb's national television appearances, recording more than 850,000 hits. "The promise of the Web and the way it is going to change journalism is demonstrated here," says Mercury Center Managing Editor Bruce Koon, who considers the site a breakthrough for online journalism (see "Net Gain," page 20).

Instead of being an afterthought, the "Dark Alliance" site was planned simultaneously with the print version of the story, taking three months to design and one month to produce. The site includes updates on the latest developments in the story and a forum for comments from readers.

As the series developed into a national controversy, the site also provided a place for readers and fellow journalists to draw their own conclusions. Webb says with all of the documentation available online, the final word on whether the story is legitimate remains with the readers.