Dark Alliance

"Dark Alliance" was a three-part investigative series published by the San Jose Mercury News on August 18, 1996, written by Gary Webb. The series documented how a 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 the Contra army run by the Central Intelligence Agency.¹

The Allegations

The series opened the first pipeline between Colombia's cocaine cartels and the black neighborhoods of Los Angeles, a city then known as the crack capital of the world. Danilo Blandón and Meneses, both connected to the CIA-backed Contra army, supplied massive quantities of cocaine to "Freeway" Ricky Ross, who converted it into crack and distributed it across South Central L.A.. Webb did not allege a grand CIA conspiracy behind the crack plague, but rather that the Contras' cocaine ended up being turned into crack through what he called "a horrible accident of history."²

Public Reaction

Initially published during the week between the Republican and Democratic national conventions, the series gained traction through talk radio and the Internet. The Web site recorded over one million hits in a single day. The Los Angeles City Council unanimously called for a federal investigation. Both California senators and a half-dozen congressmen demanded inquiries. CIA Director John Deutch ordered an internal investigation. Time magazine called it "the hottest topic in black America." Webb appeared on CNN, C-SPAN, MSNBC, and Dateline NBC.³

Media Counterattack

The Washington Post struck first on October 4, 1996, under the headline "The CIA and Crack: Evidence is Lacking of Alleged Plot." On October 20, 1996, both the New York Times and Los Angeles Times launched multi-day attack series, admitting the basic facts were true while arguing they did not prove CIA complicity. Webb discovered the Post's lead attacker, Walter Pincus, had been a former CIA operative. The attacks alarmed Mercury News editors. Jerry Ceppos ordered Webb to stop advancing the story.⁴

Aftermath

On May 11, 1997, Ceppos published a column acknowledging "shortcomings" in the series, a move the New York Times splashed on its front page. Ceppos killed all follow-up stories and transferred Webb to a suburban bureau. Webb resigned from the newspaper in November 1997. In March 1998, CIA Inspector General Fred Hitz testified before Congress that the CIA had maintained relationships with dozens of suspected drug traffickers during the Contra war and had failed to cut off those relationships. The New York Times reported on July 17, 1998, that CIA higher-ups knew about the drug connections, confirming central elements of the series.⁵