and harms plenty of others, so the fact that it’s come under some
sort of control is a step forw ard.
In August 1996, Gary Webb w rote a three-part article in the San
Jose Mercury News, w hich w as expanded into a book called Dark
Alliance. Webb alleged that the CIA had been making money selling
crack cocaine in the black ghetto in Los Angeles, and in fact w as
responsible for the explosion of that drug’s popularity in the 1980s.
I’ve noticed that you tend to stay aw ay from such stories—at
least until you’re asked about them during a question-and-answ er
period. You don’t devote much energy to them.
I just look at them differently. T he Webb story is fundamentally
correct, but the fact that the CIA has been involved in drugrunning
has been w ell-know n since Al McCoy’s w ork 25 years ago [in books
lik e The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug
Trade]. It started right after the Second World War. You can follow
the trail through the French connection in Marseilles (a
consequence of CIA efforts to undermine unions by reconstituting
the Mafia for strikebreaking and disruption), to the Golden T riangle
in Laos and Burma, and on to Afghanistan, etc.
Bob Parry and Brian Barger exposed a lot of the story ten years
ago. T heir evidence w as correct, but they w ere shut up very
quickly. Webb’s contribution w as to trace some of the details and
discover that cocaine got into the ghettos by a particular pathw ay.
W hen the CIA says they didn’t know anything about it, I assume
they’re right. W hy should they w ant to know anything about details
like that? T hat it’s going to end up in the ghettos isn’t a plot—it’s just
going to happen in the natural course of events. It’s not going to
sneak into w ell-defended communities that can protect themselves.
It’s going to break into devastated communities w here people have
to fight for survival, w here kids aren’t cared for because their
parents are w orking to put food on the table.
So of course there’s a connection betw een the CIA and drugs.
T he U S w as involved in massive international terrorism through -
out Central America. It w as mostly clandestine (w hich means people
in pow erful positions in government and the media knew about it,
but it w as enough below the surface that they could pretend they
didn’t). To get untraceable money and brutal thugs, our government