Mercury News, "Dark Alliance" , 1996
San Jose Mercury News investigative journalist Gary Webb researched Contra drug trafficking throughout the 90s, publishing his findings in the revolutionary 1996 series "Dark Alliance", claiming the CIA was complicit in this trafficking, and connecting their negligence to the crack epidemic.
Contra fundraiser-turned-cocaine-dealer Oscar Blandón was central to Webb's investigation, testifying in court that he sold cocaine in L.A. to finance the Contras. Webb traced this operation to Enrique Bermúdez and Adolfo Calero, whom the Reagan Administration identified as key Contra contacts.
Previous investigations also link CIA negligence to Contra
trafficking. In 1988, Senator John Kerry's Subcommittee on Terrorism,
Narcotics, and International Operations uncovered “substantial
evidence of drug smuggling through the war zones on the part of
individual Contras, Contra suppliers, Contra pilots, mercenaries who
worked with the Contras, and Contra supporters throughout the region"
(Subcommittee on Terrorism).
Kerry's report revealed how the CIA's anti-communist agenda overrode
their mandate to prevent drug trafficking. Despite its findings,
the report didn't reach mainstream audiences. Archivist Peter
Kornbluh notes, "The 1,166 page report … was the first to document
U.S. knowledge of, and tolerance for, drug smuggling under the guise
of national security" (Kornbluh, “Storm over 'Dark Alliance'”). This
investigation established groundwork that Webb would build upon years
later, bringing it to a nationwide audience.
"Dark Alliance"'s publication in the San Jose Mercury News reached audiences at a monumental scale through a medium revolutionary to investigative journalism: the Internet. Webb's series became an online sensation, gaining over a million views daily at its peak, which was an incredible feat in the mid-90s.
"Perhaps when the government officials who presided over these outrages are safely in their crypts, and their apologists and cheerleaders are buried with them, future historians can finally call these men to account for the miseries they caused"
- "Dark Alliance", 538