Dark Alliance (book)

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

The hardcover edition
Author	Gary Webb
Publisher	Seven Stories Press
Publication date	November, 1998 (hardcover)
Media type	hardcover, paperback
Pages	548
ISBN	978-1-888363-93-7
OCLC	38281498
Dewey Decimal	363.4/5/097285

Dark Alliance is a book by journalist Gary Webb that alleges that, in order to help raise funds for efforts against the Nicaraguan Sandinista Government, the CIA supported the cocaine smuggling of top members of the Nicaraguan Contra Rebel organization and allowed the subsequent crack-cocaine epidemic to spread in Los Angeles. The book also recounts the media’s reaction and initial dismissal of Webb’s expose of the same name, which appeared in the San Jose Mercury News in 1996.

Webb supports his thesis with the testimony of Contra leaders Oscar Danilo Blandon and Juan Norwin Meneses, as well as documents acquired through the Freedom of Information Act. He also took much from the earlier reporting on the Iran-Contra scandal by Robert Parry, whose footsteps he followed in his investigation for the piece. The book contains 476 references, extensively laying out the trail of proof for his claims.

Dark Alliance was published by Seven Stories Press in hardcover in 1998 and in an updated revised edition in 1999. It contains an introduction authored by U.S. Representative Maxine Waters. The book has been called an important part of recent history. Its continuing popularity is also partially connected to Webb’s 2004 death and the rumors that he was murdered in retribution for telling this story.

The book served as the basis for the 2014 movie Kill the Messenger, starring Jeremy Renner as Gary Webb.

In 1999 the book won a Pen/Oakland Censorship Award as well as a Firecracker Alternative Bookseller Award in the Politics category.

Synopsis

Webb alleges that in the 1980s, when the CIA exerted a certain amount of control over Contra groups such as the FDN, the agency granted amnesty to and put on the agency’s bankroll important leaders known to be cocaine smugglers. Later, at the behest of Oliver North, the Reagan Administration began to use Contra drug money to support the Nicaraguan rebel’s efforts against the Sandinista government. The Sandinistas were disliked by the administration for their support of “Marxist” revolutions happening throughout Central and South America.

Blandon, a noted smuggler and leader of the FDN, found a seller for his cocaine in Los Angeles, Freeway Ricky Ross. Ross was an illiterate high school graduate who failed to procure a tennis-scholarship for college and was introduced to drug dealing by a former teacher. With access to cheap, pure cocaine and the idea to cook the cocaine into crack, Ross grew his drug empire and fueled the popularity of crack. At his peak, Ross was selling 3 million dollars worth of product a day. All the while, Webb alleges, the CIA was supporting the Contras supplying him with the cocaine.

After outlining the conspiracy, Webb turns to discuss the reaction to his newspaper articles about the conspiracy. He notes that the use of the internet and the uploading of the documents on which his assertions rest helped ensure his articles would not be stamped out by the government. Nonetheless, the media slowly turned against Webb and attempted to discredit him. Notably, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times ran articles calling his argument unfounded. The Mercury News originally stood by Webb’s reporting, but, amidst the denunciations by other news sources, executive editor Jerry Ceppos published an apology for much of the series’ content in May 1997.

Critical Reception

The book was met by generally positive reviews. Notably, two of the three main papers that had besmirched Webb’s article series, the Washington Post and the LA Times, gave the book positive evaluations. Writing for the Washington Post, David Corn mentioned his paper’s prior rejection of Webb’s claim and wrote, “He had kicked open an old trunk and discovered it full of worms—real worms, ugly and nasty…With this book, Webb advances his newspaper series and supplies more muck to make a decent citizen cringe.”

The book was noted for being gripping and reading like a thriller.

The Baltimore Sun, Esquire, the San Francisco Chronicle, and Newsweek all gave positive reviews.

The book did receive some criticism, notably from the New York Times. In his review of the book, James Adams wrote that it suffered from “an inability to reach inside the intelligence community to cross-check sources and allegations.”

Amongst many members of that intelligence community, the book was similarly rejected. Oliver North, for one, said that it was “Absolute garbage.”