Gary W. Potter and Victor E. Kappeler, Professors, Criminal Justice and Police Studies, Eastern Kentucky University

Introduction

In late August of 1996, the San Jose Mercury News ran a remarkable three-part investigative report, under reporter Gary Webb's byline entitled Dark Alliance (Webb, 1996a; 1996b; 1996c; 1996d; 1996e; 1996f; 1996g 1996h). The "dark alliance" referred to in the report was a series of links between a network of ex-patriate Nicaraguan cocaine wholesalers, the U.S. government-backed contra rebels fighting a clandestine war against the revolutionary Sandinista government in Nicaragua and youth gangs in California, particularly Los Angeles, involved in the retailing of "crack."

Initially the story drew little response. It was overshadowed by the Republican and Democratic conventions and the kickoff of the 1996 presidential campaign. It also appeared at a time of historic inattention to news developments, the height of the summer vacation season when the public is more preoccupied with pleasure than corruption (Kornbluh, 1997; Solomon, 1997). The mainstream press, particularly the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the local Los Angeles Times virtually ignored the series. In fact, it was not until the Dark Alliance reports began to attract considerable attention in the black community that the establishment press took significant notice of the charges.

By mid-September 1996 the allegations printed by San Jose Mercury News began to attract considerable attention from two sources: (1) African-American journalists, both print and electronic; and, (2) black members of Congress. Columnist Carl Rowan summarized the series and commented, "If this is true, then millions of black lives have been ruined and America's jails and prisons are now clogged with young African-Americans because of a cynical plot by a CIA that historically has operated in contempt of the law" (Solomon, 1997). The story was also quickly picked up on black talk radio shows, particularly the highly-rated syndicated radio program of talk-radio host Joe Madison. It was on Lisa Mitchell's radio talk show on WOL in Baltimore, on September 10, 1996, that the story made the leap into politics, when California Congresswoman Maxine Waters announced that the Congressional Black Caucus would take up the allegations at its weekly meeting in Washington (Kornbluh, 1997; Solomon, 1997). The Black Caucus anticipated about two hundred observers at its meeting, over two thousand actually attended (Fletcher, 1996a). On the floor of the House, Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney denounced the "Central Intoxication Agency." Civil rights organizations held town meetings across the nation handing out copies of the Dark Alliance series (Fletcher, 1996b; Harris, 1996; Herman, 1997). As New York Times reporter Tim Weiner noted, a controversial story from a more-or-less obscure newspaper had become a "metastory." The development of a "metastory," however, stirred the sleeping giants of the mainstream media (Solomon, 1997). On October 2, 1996, the Washington Post, in its Style section, initiated the response (Kurtz, 1996). Post media reporter Howard Kurtz noted that despite the storm of controversy, Webb's Mercury News stories never "actually say the CIA knew about the drug trafficking." In fact, Webb in an interview with Kurtz clearly stated that his story "doesn't prove the CIA targeted black communities. It doesn't say this was ordered by the CIA." In fact, that is quite true. At worst, the Dark Alliance series questioned the CIA's oversight of individuals with varying degrees of contact with the agency. Nowhere did it allege a conspiracy involving the CIA. It simply correctly pointed that groups and individuals involved in political activities sanctioned, financed, and supported by the U.S. government were involved in drug trafficking. This, of course, raised serious questions about the commitment of the U.S. government itself to its own drug war, about the competence of America's premier intelligence agency, and about the relative importance in policy of foreign affairs and drug enforcement. That was the story. The Post and Webb correctly stated the issues. Unfortunately it would be the last time the mainstream media would correctly state the issues.

Following the "cone of silence" surrounding the Dark Alliance reports in the mainstream press came a frenetic counter-attack starting in late September and early October after the story had gained considerable currency in the African-American community. ABC news, for example, did nothing until November 15, when Night Line featured CIA director John Deutsch denying agency collaboration. Similarly, PBS's News Hour, also used Deutsch's denials as the lead for its first story on the subject on November 18 (Heyboer, 1996; Kornbluh, 1997; Solomon, 1997).

What the "Dark Alliance" Series Actually Said

The San Jose Mercury News' "Dark Alliance" story was presented in three lengthy installments. The stories primarily dealt with the activities of three men deeply involved in the cocaine trade: "Freeway" Rick Ross, who was Los Angeles' most notorious "crack" retailer during the 1980s; Oscar Danilo Blandon Reyes, a Nicaraguan living in the United States who was both a right-wing opponent of the Sandinista government and a major cocaine wholesaler; and, Juan Norwin Meneses Cantarero, a close friend of former Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza and allegedly Blandon's cocaine supplier.

In the first installment ("'Crack' plague's roots are in Nicaraguan war") Gary Webb focused on the connections between the contra's war in Nicaragua and the spread of "crack" in Los Angeles (Webb, 1996a; 1996b). The story's allegations were straightforward: the Crips and the Bloods were receiving large quantities of cocaine which was being subsequently converted into crack from a drug network operating through San Francisco which was, in turn, donating its profits to the U.S. backed contras for their guerilla war. The story said:

For the better part of a decade, a San Francisco Bay Area drug ring sold tons of cocaine to the Crips and Bloods street gangs of Los Angeles and funneled millions in drug profits to a Latin American guerilla army run by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency ...

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 (Webb, 1996a).

The second installment entitled "odd trio created mass market for 'crack'," detailed the backgrounds of Ross, Blandon and Meneses and the connections among them in the cocaine trade (Webb, 1996c; 1996d; 1996e). The final installment, "war on drugs' unequal impact on U.S. blacks," looked at sentencing discrepancies between whites and blacks for cocaine-related crime, particularly differentials between cocaine hydrochloride and crack sentences (Webb, 1996f; 1996g; 1996h). Those discrepancies were highlighted by the differences in sentences for Ross and Blandon: "crack" retailer Ross was sentenced to life without parole and Blandon, the cocaine wholesaler was sentenced to twenty-months and became a highly-paid government informant.

In sum, the Dark Alliance series told a dramatic and important story of two right-wing Nicaraguans; with clear connections to U.S.-supported FDN "freedom fighters"; who were major cocaine wholesalers, importing thousands of kilos of cocaine to California cities; who in a drug war miracle escaped prosecution; and, who made significant cash contributions to the contra cause. Interestingly enough, despite the later controversy, no where in the series does Webb allege that the CIA approved of drug trafficking or targeted black communities for the 'crack" trade. The only inferences made are to the well-established facts that the U.S. government and the CIA were supporting the contra rebels in Nicaragua.

The Establishment Press Counterattacks

A critical barrage from the nations' major newspapers began in late September. The New York Times (9/21/96) in a story entitled "inquiry is ordered into reports of contra cocaine sales in U.S." paid scant attention to the particulars of the Mercury News stories (Kornbluh, 1997; Reider, 1997; Solomon, 1997). Instead the article focused on denials from CIA director Deutsch. Deutsch claimed that "the agency never had any relationship" with Nicaraguan drug traffickers Oscar Danilo Blandon and Norwin Meneses. The New York Times piece also cited anonymous sources as saying that "former senior CIA officials involved in the contra operations said this week they had never heard of" Blandon or Meneses. By late October and early November other establishment press entities were ratcheting up the attack on the Mercury News. On November 11, 1996, Newsweek reported on skepticism by other media outlets, without reviewing the specific allegations and supporting evidence in the Dark Alliance series (Turner, 1996). On October 21, 1996, Tim Golden wrote a major article in the New York Times on the Mercury news series (Golden, 1996). Golden used unnamed, anonymous intelligence community sources to deny the charges in sweeping generalizations, once again, without referring to the specifics. On the same day the Los Angeles Times launched a three-part critique of the Mercury News stories, once again using intelligence community officials to deny that the CIA had been involved in cocaine trafficking (The cocaine trail, 1996). On October 28, 1996, Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz wrote a dismissive piece about the series entitled "a Webb of conspiracy," ending with the line "Oliver Stone, check your voice mail" (Kornbluh, 1997; Shepard, 1997; Solomon, 1997). Washington Post columnist Mary McGrory wrote on October 27, that "major publications" had doubts about had discredited the series, once again without confronting the specific allegation (Heyboer, 1996; Kornbluh, 1997; Solomon, 1997).
 

As the mainstream media campaign continued unabated several key themes emerged. First, there was an overarching theme of incredulity accompanied by official denials. Second, there was obfuscation of the basic issues, with attacks being levied against charges the Mercury News had not made, thereby establishing "strawmen" to be knocked down. Finally, there was distinctive shift in media criticism from the facts and the supporting evidence to the language used in transitional sentences and paragraph leads in the Dark Alliance series. It was this third, theme, allegations of imprecision in Gary Webb's writing style which carried the day. A combination of suggestions that Webb may have overstated his case in a few sentences and a continual mainstream media barrage (the content of which will be analyzed below) led to the Mercury News distancing itself from its own story (Ceppos, 1997; Kornbluh, 1997; Shepard, 1997).

Going Too Far?

The saga of the "Dark Alliance" took one final, strange twist when San Jose Mercury News editor Jerry Ceppos, after months of an unrelenting critical barrage from the mainstream media, took a step back from his paper's story (Ceppos, 1997). In reviewing the four-part series, Ceppos wrote that the story "fell short of my standards for the Mercury News." The Ceppos apology suggested that Gary Webb's story "presented only one interpretation of complicated, sometimes-conflicting pieces of evidence." Ceppos pointed to what he called "imprecise language" in the series as a major problem. Curiously, despite that "imprecise" language, Ceppos in his mea culpa neglected to detail everything that was entirely correct in the "Dark Alliance" series.

So, where was imprecision in language that brought about the Ceppos apology. The first was a somewhat overstated passage which read "Freeway Rick had no idea just how 'plugged' in his erudite cocaine broker [Blandon] was. He didn't know about Norwin Meneses or the CIA" (Carey, 1996; Ceppos. 1997; Rieder, 1997; Solomon, 1997) The imprecision here, apparently, is an implication of CIA involvement in the actual wholesaling of cocaine to LA street gangs. In the supporting evidence the story points to a series of meetings between Blandon and Meneses; provides evidence that both were officials of the FDN; and demonstrates that both met several times with FDN leaders Adolfo Calero and Enrique Bermudez. The imprecision apparently was this, although no one disputes that the FDN was created, trained, financed, equipped and subject to CIA oversight, Webb failed in his articles to make a distinction between CIA officers who actually were agency employees and CIA "agents" or "operatives" who were simply being carried on the CIA payroll for purposes of the contra operation. Yes, this is imprecise, but it also trivial and tangential to the thrust of the stories.

The second "imprecision" involves the grand jury and trial testimony of Blandon himself (Carey, 196; Ceppos. 1997; Kornbluh, 1997; Rieder, 1997). With regard to two issues, the length of time during which Meneses and Blandon funneled money to the contras and the total amounts of cash actually involved, contradictions appear in the testimony. Blandon's actual testimony was marked with great imprecision. For example, he testified that Reagan came to power in 1983 (actually it was 1981) and then used that 1983 date as a reference point for dating other activities. The issue was simple, if money was being diverted to the contras as late as 1986, Webb's story was accurate, if that diversion ended in 1981 or 1983 then the story overstated the duration of the conspiracy and the amounts of money involved. Critics of the "Dark Alliance" series looked to the contradictions in Blandon's testimony to assert that the story was wrong, but corroborating documents, including a 1986 L.A. County Sheriff's affidavit for a search warrant, which cited three informants stating that the Blandon was still sending money to the contras in 1986, supporting the time line in Webb's story. In any event the undisputed fact was that a money for drugs pipeline supporting the contras existed, at issue was only how much money the contras made and how long the pipeline functioned. The fundamental assertions of the story were true.

So, yes there were imprecisions of language. There may have been transitional statements that were sensationalized or overemphasized. Gary Webb, through a couple of minor examples of imprecise writing had given the defenders of the dominant ideology cannon fodder to sink the whole story, truth and all. But the fundamental facts of the story were true and despite the best efforts of the CIA, the federal government and the mainstream media, withstood every challenge. In that light, the Ceppos apology may have been justified as a critique of imprecision and overstatement. But the omission of any reiteration of the basic and uncontested facts of the story cast a much darker shadow than was justified on Gary Webb's reporting. Ceppos, in his column, followed perfectly the lead of the mainstream media when he ignored everything right in the series and focused only on those few cases where the series' verbiage overshot the mark. The apology was an exact copy of the strategy employed by national press and the CIA to discredit the series.

So, in reconstructing the controversy surrounding the Dark Alliance series two issues become predominant in their importance. First, what did Gary Webb and the three-part series actually say, could it be verified, and was that verified information important. Second, what did the establishment press focus on in critiquing that series, how credible were their critiques, what information did they present and how much of it is verifiable. As we shall see, the mainstream media attack was organized around four highly questionable theses: (1) that it is reputable journalism to use those accused of misconduct as authoritative sources for denying that misconduct; (2) that it is reputable journalism for media sources to cite each other as authoritative for denying allegations unrelated to them and their activities; (3) that it is reputable journalism to engage in semantic "sleight-of-hand" to deny the obvious; and (4) that the mainstream media was actually correct in its charges that Webb overstated the facts in a few transitional statements printed as part of a very long three-part series. Let us begin that review with the predominantly anonymous and general denials from the CIA used as authoritative sources by the mainstream media.

Sourcing the CIA

Golden's New York Times story (Golden, 1996) relied almost exclusively on interviews with anonymous sources identified as "government officials with access to intelligence reports," and "more than two dozen current and former [contra] rebels, CIA officials and narcotics agents, as well as other law-enforcement officials and experts on the drug trade." The story relied on denials such as this: "Although he claimed to have supplied several thousand pounds of cocaine to one of the biggest crack dealers in Southern California, officials said the CIA had no record of Mr. Blandon before he appeared as a central figure in the series in the Mercury news." There was no suggestion in the story that CIA's and government officials' denials might be self-serving.

The The Los Angeles Times' three part series also relied on CIA sources: "CIA officials insist they knew nothing about Meneses' and Blandon's tainted contribution to [Adolfo] Calero or other contra leaders" (The cocaine trail, 1996). Unlike the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times did identify one of their major sources. That source was Vincent Cannistraro, who claimed the CIA had no connection to drugs or drug dealers, and was identified by the LA Times as " a former CIA official." Cannistraro assured reporters that: "There's no tendency to turn a blind eye to drug trafficking. It's too sensitive. It's not a fine line. It's not a shaded area where you can turn away from the rules" (The cocaine trail, 1996).

Despite the fact that the Los Angeles Times neglected to identify Cannistraro's role, he was in charge of the CIA's contra activities in the early 1980s. In 1984, Cannistraro moved to the National Security Council, where he worked as the supervisor of covert aid to Afghanistan's mujahedeen guerillas, a group actively involved in the opium trade. It is also instructive to note that very shortly after the NSC and the CIA began supplying logistical and financial support to the mujahedeen, Afghanistan and Pakistan developed into two of the world's main heroin suppliers (Crack reporting, 1996). Michael Hedges, writing in the Memphis Commercial Appeal (9/29/96) identified Cannistraro as a "retired CIA counter terrorism and Latin American expert" (cited in Solomon, 1997). Surely some background information on Cannistraro would have assisted readers in evaluating his probative credibility.

The Los Angeles Times series also drew heavily on the recollections of three unnamed associates of Blandon and Menses, who never denied that drug money was sent to the contras, they simply disputed the amount (Herman, 1997; Kornbluh, 1997; Solomon, 1997).

In summing up the credibility of sources used to rebut the Mercury News story, New Times Los Angeles (Barr 1996) commented: "Regarding the all-important question of how much responsibility the CIA had, we are being asked to take the word of sources who in a more objective account would be considered suspects."

Sourcing Each Other

In addition to allowing the CIA, the Contras, and government officials to deny their own culpability, the establishment press relied on the extraordinary tactic of "sourcing" each other. The stories attacking Webb's San Jose Mercury News series utilized a methodology of citing anonymous and amorphous media sources as credible expert authorities for disbelieving the contra-crack story and believing the establishment press denials. For example, the Washington Post boldly stated: "Many of the series' conclusions have been widely challenged" (Pincus, 1996b). The New York Times chimed in with similar phraseology saying, "media critics and other newspapers have questioned the Mercury News' findings" (cited in Kornblu, 1997 and Solomon, 1997; see also, Rieder, 1997). In a later story the New York Times embellished this claim by combining the assertion that reputable media stories and reputable clandestine operatives had rejected the Dark Alliance allegations. Under the headline "CIA Chief denies Crack Conspiracy," the paper asserted: "Agency officials said they had no evidence of any such plot. Other news organizations were not able to confirm the plot. Still, the rumor mill continued to grind, seemingly unstoppable" (cited in Kornbluh, 1997 and Solomon, 1997; see also, Shepard, 1997). The very next day New York Times in-house columnist Maureen Dowd repeated the same double-sourced assertion saying: "Mr. Deutch and investigators for several major newspapers have found no evidence to support the conspiracy theory that grew out of a series in the San Jose Mercury news suggesting a CIA roles in the spread of crack in America's inner cities" (Kornbluh, 1997; Rieder, 1997; Solomon, 1997). Sourcing their media colleagues, Newsweek reported (Turner, 1996): "Last month the Merc started getting trashed -- by its peers. In turn, the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and New York Times poked holes in the story, exhaustively and mercilessly." So with denials in hand, sourced by themselves and the CIA, commentators for the establishment press started deriding and ridiculing the San Jose Mercury News story.

In Deep Denial

Another tactic used by establishment newspapers to discredit the Mercury News series was to deny the obvious. For example, the Washington Post criticized the story for "Webb's repeated use of the phrase 'the CIAs army' ... [which] clearly suggests that the agency was involved" (Kurtz, 1996). The Post became so adamant in denying this obvious connection that by November of 1996 they were essentially suggesting the CIA and the contras had no connections at all (Johnson, 1996). The simple fact is that Webb's statement in the Mercury News is solid journalism supported by Congressional investigations, innumerable newspaper and television stories, academic investigations, and court transcripts. The contra army was formed at the instigation of the CIA. Its leaders were selected by and received salaries from the CIA. CIA officers controlled and managed day-to-day military activities of the contra army. In the words of one of the contra leaders, Edgar Chamorro, the FDN's leaders were "nothing more than the executioners of the CIA's orders (Interview with Chamorro, 1987).

While the Washington Post tried to ignore the obvious, the New York Times tried a bit of close-up magic to make the connection go away. The New York Times (Golden, 1996) used semantics to deny the connection between the CIA and the contras saying that Menses and Blandon "traveled once to Honduras to see the FDN's military commander, Enrique Bermudez." But, the Times added: "Although Mr. Bermudez, like other contra leaders, was often paid by the CIA, he was not a CIA agent." While the distinction may be important to the personnel department at Langley, it seems unimportant to the San Jose Mercury News story. As veteran journalist Murray Kempton points out (cited in Solomon, 1997; see also, Kornbluh, 1997; Rieder, 1997): "The maintenance of such distinctions without any essential difference is one of the more cunning of the infinite devices the agency employs on obfuscation. The CIA identifies highly placed foreign hirelings not as 'agents' but as 'assets.'" "Agents" or "assets" the denial by the Times is weak refutation of the connection between the FDN and the CIA.

Establishment Debunking

Other than citing each other's incredulity and emphasizing denials from CIA and other government officials, the establishment press did little to offer rebuttals to the evidence presented in Webb's San Jose Mercury News series. For example, none of the major papers, news magazines or television networks attempted to dispute, in any way Blandon's testimony or the documents cited by the San Jose Mercury News strongly suggesting that Meneses and Blandon were under the protection of federal law enforcement agents (Webb, 1996b). For the most part the major media outlets confined themselves to denouncing the series for failing to prove charges that the San Jose Mercury News had never made. For example, the Washington Post in its October 4th comprehensive attack on the story repeatedly condemned Webb and the San Jose Mercury News for not identifying specific CIA officials who knew of the alleged cocaine trafficking or who had approved it (Pincus, 1996a). But this criticism amounted to slaying a paper dragon because the Dark Alliance series only claimed to have evidence of contra links to cocaine importation, not prior CIA approval of that drug dealing.

When it came down to specific claims made in the Dark Alliance series, the establishment press was able to raise only three substantive, but highly debatable, objections: (1)that Webb had exaggerated the amount of crack profits actually going to the contras; (2) that the funneling of drug money to contras ended earlier that the San Jose Mercury News stories claimed; and (3) that "Freeway" Rick Ross was not as important a drug dealer as originally suggested. What is remarkable about these issues in dispute is that none of them refutes the fundamental assertion of the Dark Alliance stories, that the contras, operating with U.S. government funding, logistical assistance, and supervision from both the National Security Council and the CIA, received money from crack cocaine sales. That basic assertion, alone, on its face, should have called into question the very legitimacy of the Republic.

The first of the issues in dispute was whether Gary Webb had exaggerated the total amount of crack profits being funneled to the contras, which the stories had hyperbolically suggested were in the "millions" of dollars. The Washington Post reported that "according to law enforcement officials, Blandon sold $30,000 to $60,000 worth of cocaine in two transactions and delivered the money to Meneses for shipment to the contras" (Pincus, 1996a). The Los Angeles Times' "refutation" stated: "Meneses was indeed a financial contributor to the contras, but his donations to the rebel cause amounted to no more than $50,000, according to two men who knew him at the time" (The cocaine trail, 1996). These estimates, despite weak sourcing, and despite the fact they could not possibly claim to eliminate the possibility of additional drug sales or contributions, became quickly accepted as journalistic orthodoxy. But the fact is the San Jose Mercury News' estimates, are better sourced, being based on sworn grand jury testimony and court transcripts. While the San Jose Mercury News estimates are still speculative extrapolations from those sources, there can be little doubt that sworn testimony is a better source that anonymous "law enforcement officials" (Pincus, 1996a); "a contra supporter and a business partner who sold drugs to Blandon" and "associates in drug trafficking in Los Angeles" (The cocaine trail, 1996).

The second issue revolves around a claim by both the Washington Post (Pincus, 1996a) and the New York Times (Golden, 1996) that crack money stopped flowing to the contras early in the 1980s. But that assertion is simply untrue: "A Los Angeles County sheriff's affidavit for searches of the homes and business of Blandon and members of his drug ring shows that the contra connection lasted into the mind-1980s. In the 1986 affidavit, three confidential informants said that Blandon was still sending money to the contras" (Carey, 1996).

Finally, the establishment press claimed that the central character in this controversy, "Freeway" Rick Ross, the retail crack distributor for Blandon's cocaine, was not a major Los Angeles-area drug dealer. The Washington Post characterized Ross' activities as incidental to the spread of crack, arguing that their information "points to the rise of crack as a broad-based phenomenon driven in numerous places by players of different nationalities" (Pincus, 1996a; 1996b). The New York Times (Golden, 1996) cited "several experts on the drug trade," without telling us their positions or credentials, who "said that although Mr. Ross was indeed a crack kingpin, he was one of many."

There was a huge problem with the attempt to make Ross into a minor player, and that problem emanated in the Los Angeles Times itself. In 1994, Ross had been the featured played in a 2,400 word Los Angeles Times article (Katz, 1994) written by Jesse Katz that described him as one of the central characters in the spread of crack cocaine in the LA area: "If there was an eye to the storm, if there was a criminal mastermind behind crack's decade-long reign, if there was one outlaw capitalist most responsible for flooding Los Angeles' streets with mass-marketed cocaine, his name was Freeway Rick." The Los Angeles Times' headline for the Ross expose was "Deposed King of Crack; Now Free After 5 Years in Prison, This Master Marketer Was Key to the Drug's Spread in L.A." The article described Ross' role in the crack trade as follows: "Ross did more than anyone else to democratize, boosting volume, slashing prices and spreading disease on a scale never before conceived." Ross was described as "South-Central's first millionaire crack lord." Katz concluded his report with this comment on the volume of Ross' crack business: "While most other dealers toiled by the bottom rungs of the market, his coast-to-coast conglomerate was selling more than 500,000 rocks a day, a staggering turnover that put the drug within reach of anyone with a few dollars."

The 1994 story portrays Ross as a latter-day "Scarface," a drug-kingpin dominating innovations in the market (Katz, 1994). It was only after the San Jose Mercury News series that the Los Angeles Times found it politic to downplay Ross' importance in congruence with the prevailing orthodox ideology. Jesse Katz, the very same reporter who had written the story on Ross' major role in the crack trade now commented on the front-page of the Times that Ross was only one of many "interchangeable characters" whose actual importance was "dwarfed" by other crack dealers in South-Central LA. Katz went on to say that: "How the crack epidemic reached that extreme, on some level, had noting to do with Ross" (cited in Kornbluh, 1997). Nowhere in the post- Dark Alliance article (10/20/96) does Katz indicate how he could have made so many egregious errors in his earlier reporting on Ross.

Snow Blind

While the Mercury News was under heavy attack by the establishment press for overstating the evidence against the contras and the CIA, no similar problem of overstatement or exaggeration could be attributed to the critics. In fact, over the years the coverage of important contra drug scandals had been marked by a singular case of snow blindness among the elite media, and now where was this malady more pronounced than at the Washington Post.

It may not have been obvious to general consumers of media news in the United States, but Dark Alliance was far from the first expose of drug smuggling by the contras. The first major story on this issue was carried by the Associated Press on December 20, 1985 (Cohen 1996; Flethcer, 1996b; Kornbluh, 1997; Solomon, 1997). Reporters Robert Parry and Brian Barger reported in that story that three of the main contra political groups "have engaged in cocaine trafficking in part to help finance their war against Nicaragua." As important a story as this was, it almost didn't run because of pressure by the Reagan administration (Kornbluh, 1997). The Reaganites waged a vicious behind the scenes campaign to discredit the reporters who broke the story. Coverage of the Parry and Barger story was delayed by many papers and minimized by others. A few regional papers, like the San Francisco Examiner followed up the story. In fact the San Francisco Examiner broke a major story of its own on June 23, 1986 with a front-page expose of the drug smuggling activities of contra activist Norwin Meneses, who would later be a key figure in the Mercury News series. But the larger papers and networks (with the exception of CBS) devoted little time or space to the Parry and Barger story. The reaction of the Washington Post was typical, Robert Parry recalls: "When Brian Barger and I wrote the first story about contra-cocaine smuggling for the Associated Press in December 1985. The Post waited a week, added some fresh details and then stuck the story near the back of the national news section" (Kornbluh, 1997; Solomon, 1997).

A similar fate awaited a report in 1987 by the House Narcotics Committee, chaired by Representative Charles Rangel. The committee had investigated contra drug smuggling allegations and found "a need for further congressional investigation." The Washington Post spun the story in a totally different way, distorting the committee's report with the headline, "Hill Panel Finds No Evidence Linking Contras to Drug Smuggling" (7/22/87) and then refusing to publish Congressman Rangel's letter clarifying the issue.

Also in 1987 Laurence Zuckerman, a staff writer for Time magazine, was given a special assignment to work on an investigation related to the contra-cocaine allegations. The Time reporters found what they characterized as serious evidence of links between the contras and cocaine traffickers, but the story was suppressed by Time's senior editors. One of those editors explained the Zuckerman: "Time is institutionally behind the contras. If this story were about the Sandinistas and drugs, you'd have no trouble getting it into the magazine" (Solomon, 1997).

In 1989, when the Senate subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Operations, chaired by Massachusetts Senator John Kerry released a blistering indictment of contra drug trafficking, the establishment media was more snow blind than ever. The report was 1,166 pages long and covered covert operations in Nicaragua, Panama, Haiti, and the Bahamas. The Washington Post buried the report in a 700-word articles in page A20. In addition, most of the Post's story dealt with Republican criticisms of Kerry rather than the compelling evidence the committee had produced (The Consortium, 10/28/96; www.delve.com/consort.html). The New York Times ran a brief story on page A8 and the Los Angeles Times ran a 589-word story on page A11 (Kornbluh, 1997). Newsweek dismissed the committee report, calling Senator Kerry a "conspiracy buff" (cited in Solomon, 1997; see also Kornbluh, 1997).

In July 1989, Lt. Col. Oliver North, National Security Adviser John Poindexter, U.S. ambassador to Costa Rica Lewis Tambs, CIA station chief Joseph Fernandez and others were barred from traveling to Costa Rica after a Costa Rican congressional investigation concluded that the contra supply network operating in Costa Rica, in which all of those individuals had been active, was in reality a drug smuggling operation. This surely was a big story. But, even though the Associated Press (7/22/89) sent out a detailed wirestory, the New York Times and the major television networks failed to cover it. The Washington Post ran the story as a small back-page item (Kornbluh, 1997; Pincus, 1996c; Solomon, 1997).

Power Elites, Dominant Ideology and the Media

Of course, the compelling question in all of this is why did the elite establishment media move with such force and determination to attempt to discredit Gary Webb's reporting in the San Jose Mercury News. The politics of power explains some the reaction. Both the New York Times and the Washington Post had taken editorial positions in support of Ronald Reagan's policy of contra-support. While their endorsements were not unqualified, both papers supported military aid to the contras. The Washington Post, in two editorials had urged military action as part of a "carrot-and-stick approach" to moving the Sandinistas toward compromise with their opponents (Kornbluh, 1997; Solomon, 1997).

The second factor which impacted the response to the Dark Alliance series can be found in the organizational constraints owners and management set for journalists. Denis McDougal, a former reporter at the Los Angeles Times, described the regime of editor Shelby Coffey III as follows:

He is the dictionary definition of someone who wants to protect the status quo. He weighs whether or not an investigative piece will have repercussions among the ruling elite, and if it will, the chances of seeing it in print in the L.A. Times decrease accordingly (Barrs, 1996).

It is therefore, not surprising that, despite editorial denials that the Los Angeles Times targeted Gary Webb and the San Jose Mercury News for attack, one reporter who worked on the Times' three-part response said that he had been "assigned to the 'get Gary Webb team.'" Another reporter working on the series bragged that, "we're going to take away this guy's Pulitzer." It appears the Los Angeles Times was less interested in checking facts and doing additional investigative reporting than in engaging in damage control for the "ruling elite" (Barrs, 1996; Kornbluh, 1997; Rieder, 1997; Solomon, 1997).

At the New York Times and the Washington Post connections to both the "ruling elite" and the CIA are even closer. In fact, one of the Washington Post's premier investigative journalists, Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame, took it upon himself to expose both his paper's and the New York Times' connection to the CIA. Bernstein wrote:

... the agency's relationship with the [New York] Times was by far its most valuable among newspapers, according to CIA officials. From 1950 to 1966, about 10 CIA employees were provided Times cover under arrangements approved by the newspaper's later publisher, Arthur Hays Sulzberger. The cover arrangements were part of a general Times policy -- set by Sulzberger -- to provide assistance to the CIA whenever possible (Rolling Stone, 10/20/77, cited in Solomon,1997).

The Washington Post was also a useful partner of the CIA. Bernstein quoted a CIA official as saying, "it was widely known that Phil Graham [the late owner and publisher] was somebody you could get help from" (Rolling Stone, 10/20/77). After Phil Graham's death, his widow, Katherine Graham took over the Post. In 1988 she spoke at the CIA's Langley Virginia headquarters, saying:

We live in a dirty and dangerous world. There are some things the general public does not need to know and shouldn't. I believe democracy flourishes when the government can take legitimate steps to keep its secrets and when the press can decide whether to print what it knows (Regardie's Magazine, 1/90, cited in Solomon,1997).

The lead reporter on the Dark Alliance story at the Washington Post was Walter Pincus, a reporter known to friendly to the intelligence community. At a journalism forum in 1995 Pincus said, "you never should and never will get rid of intelligence organizations" (Our man at thePost, 1997). Pincus should know. In 1960 he was recruited by CIA employees to serve as a U.S. representative at two international conferences, and his trips were financed by CIA front companies. Pincus was totally unapologetic when he admitted his CIA role in an article he wrote on connections between the press and the CIA (Pincus, 1967). The Washington Times, the Post's conservative rival and a strong supporter of the CIA described Pincus as a reporter "who some in the agency refer to as the 'CIA's house reporter'" (Our man at the Post, 1997).

And so, in Katherine Graham's words, there are things we don't need to know about "this dirty dangerous world." Institutionally, the establishment press serves to shield us from these annoying facts. Institutionally, the establishment press serves to protect and advance the dominant corporate ideology and corporate culture of which it is such an integral part. Institutionally, the establishment press coordinates inquisitions to rope in heretics and preserve the dogma of power. Even more than crack and the CIA, it is the press and its role as a defender of the status quo and the dominant ideology that is the real story behind the Dark Alliance.

Sources

Barrs, Rick. 1996. A barracuda tries to eat the messenger. New Times Los Angeles. October 31.

Carey, Pete. 1996. "Dark Alliance" series takes on a life of its own: Analyzing criticism of drug series. San Jose Mercury News. October 13.

Ceppos, Jerry. 1997. To readers of our "Dark Alliance" series. May 11.

Ceppos, Jerry. 1996. Perspective: In the eye of the storm. San Jose Mercury News. Novermber 3.

Claiborne, William. 1996. Hearing on CIA Drug Allegations Turns Into Rally. The Washington Post. October 20: A4.

Cohen, Richard. 1996. Crack and the CIA: Why the Story Lives. The Washington Post. October 24: A21.

Crack reporting. 1996. The Nation. November 18.

Farah, Douglas. 1996. Drug Dealer Depicted as Contra Fund-Raiser. The Washington Post. October 4: A18.

Farah, Douglas and Walter Pincus. 1996. CIA, Contras and Drugs: Questions On Links Linger. The Washington Post. Octber 31: A1.

Fletcher, Michael. 1996a. Black Caucus Urges Probe of CIA-Contra Drug Charge. The Washington Post. September 13: A20.

Fletcher, Michael. 1996b. History Lends Credence to Conspiracy Theories, October 4: A1.

Golden, Tim. 1996. Pivotal figures of newspaper series may be only bit players. New York Times. October 20.

Harris, Hamil R. 1996. Hearing Attracts a Skeptical Audience. The Washington Post. October 24: A18.

Herman, Edward. 1997. Gary Webb and the media's rush to the barricades. Z Magazine (February).

Heyboer, Kelly. 1996. A furor over the CIA and drugs. American Journalism Review. November.

Hill panel finds no evidence linking contras to drug smuggling. 1987. The Washington Post. July 22.

Johnson, Christopher. 1996. CIA, Contras and Drugs: Questions Linger. The Washington Post. November 8.

Interview with Chammorro. 1987. Extra! (A publication of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting). October 11.

Justice Opens Probe on CIA Drug Charges. The Washington Post. September 21: A15.

Katz, Jesse. 1994. Deposed king of crack; Now free adter 5 years in prison. Los Angeles Times. December 20.

Kornbluh, Peter. 1997. The storm over "Dark Alliance." Columbia Journalism Review. January/Feburary.

Kurtz, Howard. 1996. Running With the CIA Story. The Washington Post. October 2: B01.

Our man at the Post. 1997. Extra! ( A publication of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting). January. February.

Overholser, Geneva. 1996. OMBUDSMAN: The CIA, Drugs and the Press. The Washington Post. November 10: C6.

Pincus, Walter. 1996a. A Long History of Drug Allegations. The Washington Post. October 4: A18.

Pincus, Walter. 1996b. Internal Investigator Extends Probe Of CIA-Contra Crack Cocaine Allegations. The Washington Post. October 12: A6.

Pincus, Walter. 1996c. Ex-Prober: CIA Ignored Drug Issue. The Washington Post. October 24: A18.

Pincus, Walter. 1996d. No Links to Drug Dealers Turn Up in CIA Records. The Washington Post, Nvember 6: A14.

Pincus, Walter. 1967. How I traveled abroad on CIA subsidy. San Jose Merury News. February 18: 14.

Rieder, Rem. 1997. The lessons of "Dark Alliance." American Journalism Review. June.

Shepard, Alicia. 1997. The web that Gary spun. American Journalism Review. January/February.

Solomon, Norman. 1997. Snow job: The establishment's papers do damage control for the CIA. Extra! (A publication of FAIR, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting). January/February.

Suro, Roberto and Walter Pincus. 1996. The CIA and Crack: Evidence Is Lacking of Alleged Plot. The Washington Post. October 4: A1.

The cocaine trail. 1996. Los Angeles Times. October 20-22.

Turner, Richard. 1996. Cracks in the story. Newsweek. November 11.

Webb, Gary. 1996a. Dark alliance, Part 1: America's "crack" plague has roots in Nicaraguan war. San Jose Merury News. August 18.

Webb, Gary. 1996b. Testimony links U.S. to drugs-guns trade. San Jose Mercury News. August 18.

Webb, Gary. 1996c. Dark alliance, Part 2: Shadowy origins of "Crack" epidemic. San Jose Mercury News. August 19.

Webb Gary. 1996d. Drug agent thought she was onto something big. San Jose Mercury News. August 19.

Webb, Gary. 1996e. Drug expert: "Crack" born in San Francisco Bay Area. San Jose Mercury News. August 19.

Webb, Gary. 1996f. Dark alliance, part 3: War on drugs has unequal impact on black Americans. San Jose Mercury News. August 20.

Webb, Gary. 1996g. Flawed sentencing the main reason for race disparity. San Jose Mercury News, August 20.

Webb, Gary. 1996h. San Francisco Bay Area man tangled in drug web. San Jose Mercury News. August 20.

Dr. Gary W. Potter
Department of Criminal Justice and Police Studies
Eastern Kentucky University
padpotte@acs.eku.edu