Dark Alliance: Movie Tie-In Edition: The CIA, the Contras, and the Cocaine Explosion

(Paperback, Media tie-in)

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A major film release called Kill the Messenger, starring Jeremy Renner and based on this book, prompts the movie tie-in edition of this explosive, true story involving an intrepid reporter, crack cocaine and the highest levels of government In August 1996, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Gary Webb stunned the world with a series of articles in the San Jose Mercury News reporting the results of his year-long investigation into the roots of the crack cocaine epidemic in America, specifically in Los Angeles. The series, titled "Dark Alliance," revealed that for the better part of a decade, a Bay Area drug ring sold tons of cocaine to Los Angeles street gangs and funneled millions in drug profits to the CIA-backed Nicaraguan Contras. Gary Webb pushed his investigation even further in his book, Dark Alliance- The CIA, The Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion. Drawing from then newly declassified documents, undercover DEA audio and videotapes that had never been publicly released, federal court testimony, and interviews, Webb demonstrates how our government knowingly allowed massive amounts of drugs and money to change hands at the expense of our communities. Webb's own stranger-than-fiction experience is also woven into the book. His excoriation by the media-not because of any wrongdoing on his part, but by an insidious process of innuendo and suggestion that in effect blamed Webb for the implications of the story-had been all but predicted. Webb was warned off doing a CIA expose by a former Associated Press journalist who lost his job when, years before, he had stumbled onto the germ of the "Dark Alliance" story. And though Internal investigations by both the CIA and the Justice Department eventually vindicated Webb, he had by then been pushed out of the Mercury News and gone to work for the California State Legislature Task Force on Government Oversight. He died in 2004.

Reviews

"Webb reminds us that the Reagan-approved contra program attracted lowlifes and thugs the way manure draws flies. He guides the reader through a netherworld of dope-dealers, gunrunners, and freelance security consultants, which on occasion overlapped with the US 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, Washington Post

"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, San Francisco Chronicle

"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, New York Times Book Review

Author Bio

In 1996, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist GARY WEBB (1955-2004) wrote a shocking series of articles for the San Jose Mercury News exposing the CIA's link to Nicaraguan cocaine smuggled into the US by the Contras, which had fueled the widespread crack epidemic that swept through urban areas. Webb's bold, controversial reporting was the target of a famously vicious media backlash that ended his career as a mainstream journalist. When Webb persisted with his research and compiled his findings in the bookDark Alliance, some of the same publications that had vilified Webb for his series retracted their criticism and praised him for having the courage to tell the truth about one of the worst official abuses in our nation's history. Others, including his own former newspaper and the New York Times, continued to treat him like an outlaw for the brilliant and courageous work he'd done. Webb's death on December 10, 2004, at the age of 49, was determined to be a suicide.