Many are aware of the articles he wrote,not so many the book
Dark Alliance...The CIA,The Contra's and The Crack Cocaine Explosion
By Gary Webb
Author's Note
This, sadly, is a true story. It is based upon a controversial series I wrote for the San Jose Mercury News in the summer of 1996 about the origins of the crack plague in South Central Los Angeles. Unlike other books that purport to tell the inside story of America's most futile war (Kings of Cocaine by Guy Gugliotta and Jeff Leen and Desperado's by Elaine Shannon spring to mind), Dark Alliance was not written with the assistance, cooperation, or encouragement of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration or any federal law enforcement agency. In fact, the opposite is true. Every Freedom of Information Act request I filed was rejected on national security or privacy grounds, was ignored, or was responded to with documents so heavily censored they must have been the source of much hilarity down at the FOIA offices. The sole exception was the National Archives and Records Administration. Dark Alliance does not propound a conspiracy theory; there is nothing theoretical about history. In this case, it is undeniable that a wildly successful conspiracy to import cocaine existed for many years, and that innumerable American citizens—most of them poor and black—paid an enormous price as a result. This book was written for them, so that they may know upon what altars their communities were sacrificed. —G.W.
