Walter Pincus

Walter Pincus was a national security reporter for the Washington Post who wrote the first major newspaper attack on the Dark Alliance series and had a documented history as a Central Intelligence Agency operative.¹

CIA Background

In 1967, Pincus wrote a confessional published in the San Jose Mercury under the headline "How I Traveled Abroad on CIA Subsidy." Pincus described how, posing as an American student representative in the late 1950s and early 1960s, he secretly gathered information for the CIA and smuggled in anti-Communist propaganda at international youth conferences. A CIA recruiter had approached him, and he agreed to spy on student delegations from other countries and on his American colleagues. "I had been briefed in Washington on each of them," Pincus wrote. "None was remotely aware of CIA's interest."¹

In 1975, the New York Times selected Pincus to review ex-CIA officer Philip Agee's expose, CIA Diary. In an unfavorable review, Pincus suggested Agee was in league with Cuban intelligence in a conspiracy to destroy the CIA. Pincus's prior CIA association was not disclosed. In 1986, when the Post was criticized by the CIA for printing classified information, Pincus went on the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour and stated that the Post frequently withheld information in consultation with the government. "We've been dealing with it for a long time and I think we have withheld a great deal of information," Pincus said.¹

Attack on Dark Alliance

In October 1996, Pincus and coauthor Roberto Suro published "The CIA and Crack: Evidence is Lacking of Alleged Plot." The story falsely claimed the series made a "racially charged allegation that the CIA's army of Contras deliberately targeted the black community." Despite Danilo Blandón's testimony that he sold 200 to 300 kilos of Cocaine for Norwin Meneses in Los Angeles and sent all profits to the Contras, the Post quoted unnamed officials saying Blandón sold only "$30,000 to $60,000 worth of cocaine in two transactions." The story dove through the "window" that prosecutor LJ Oneale had opened at trial, accepting Blandón's claim he quit dealing Contra cocaine before meeting Ricky Ross. It buried key admissions, including that "the CIA knew about some of these activities and did little or nothing to stop them."¹

Role in Iran-Contra Investigation

Iran-Contra Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh wrote in his memoir Firewall that Pincus had published a false story claiming Walsh was planning to indict Ronald Reagan, a report that "infuriated the congressional Republicans." Walsh suspected Pincus had been fed the story by Boyden Gray, attorney for President George Bush, who "had been known to float stories through persons close to the publisher of the Washington Post; Pincus had sometimes been asked to write these stories." The Post never acknowledged the story was bogus.¹