Newspaper backs down over CIA drug deal

FROM IAN BRODIE IN WASHINGTON

IN A highly publicised correction, a California newspaper has acknowledged that its allegations of CIA involvement in spreading crack cocaine among urban blacks were seriously flawed.

Despite the admission by the San Jose Mercury News, the CIA said yesterday it would continue to investigate the allegations that its agents were linked to drug smuggling.

The newspaper's exposE caused an uproar and led to heated protests by black politicians last August. It alleged that the CIA protected two Nicaraguan drug traffickers who introduced crack to black neighbourhoods of Los Angles and sent millions of dollars in profits back home. The money was to support the Contras, a guerrilla force largely financed by the CIA to fight the Marxist-led Sandinista Government.

"Crack was virtually unobtainable in black neighbourhoods before members of the CIA's army began bringing it into South-Central LA," the series said.

The suggestion was so shocking that John Deutch, then director of the agency, flew to the South-Central area to reassure a crowded town meeting. He was given a hostile reception.

Jerry Ceppos, editor of the Mercury News, assigned seven reporters and editors to re-examine the series before writing that the newspaper's implication about the CIA and the crack explosion was an "over-simplification".

Although members of the drug ring did meet Contra leaders paid by the CIA, the paper had no proof that senior CIA officials knew of the relationship, Mr Ceppos wrote.

He added that in making its error, the newspaper fell short of his standards at every step of the writing, editing and production of the series. Registering strong disagreement was Gary Webb, the reporter who wrote the series, who described his editor's column as bizarre, misleading and nauseating. He is still employed by the paper, despite protests by numerous staff members.

In his explanation to readers, Mr Ceppos said the series, called "Dark Alliance", not only implied CIA knowledge of a crack-selling ring linked to the Contras but did not include agency comment in response to the paper's findings, as it should have done. "Our contract with readers is to be as clear about what we don't know as what we know," he wrote.

The series implied that drug runners who were Contra sympathisers had been the pivotal force in the crack epidemic in the United States when in fact the roots of the drug's spread were much more complex, Mr Ceppos admitted. Mr Webb claimed that he had been abandoned by the Mercury News, which has a circulation of 285,000, and that he had more information to confirm his original assertions. Mr Ceppos said that the reporter's notes would be looked at.

The series was challenged last autumn by The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and The New York Times, none of which found clear evidence of a direct link between the drug dealers and CIA.

The agency said its independent inspector-general was conducting a thorough review of allegations raised by the paper and would report by the end of the year. Maxine Waters, a Democratic black congresswoman for Los Angeles, said she was troubled by the episode. The paper's admission did not alter the fact that Nicaraguan drug traffickers sold crack and sent the profits home, whether the CIA knew or not, Ms Waters added.

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Date: Fri, May 16, 1997 1:22 AM EDT

From: Gary Webb

Subj: Re: SJ Mercury News Backs Down

You want my opinion? You got it. This is a statement that my colleague Georg Hodel, a Managua based journalist, and I are issuing. Feel free to post it where you want.

The only "shortcoming" in our Dark Alliance series is that it didn't go far enough. What Mr. Ceppos' column fails to mention is that, as a result of our continuing investigation, we DO have evidence of direct CIA involvement with this Contra drug operation.

We have evidence that at least one top CIA official in Washington was aware of the drug ring's activities in El Salvador. We also know that these traffickers were more deeply involved with the U.S. intelligence community than we reported last year.

Perhaps one day Mr. Ceppos will allow us to share this information with the public.

Despite the efforts of the biggest newspapers in the country to discredit our work, our central findings remain unchallenged: After being instructed by a CIA agent to raise money in California for the Contras, two Contra drug dealers began selling vast amounts of cocaine in inner-city Los Angeles, primarily to the Crips and Bloods. Some of the profits went to pay for the CIA's covert war against the Sandinistas.

We wrote last year that the amounts were in the millions and we stand by that statement. We have confirmation from an eyewitness that our figure is accurate.

The drug ring's main customers, the LA gangs, introduced crack to more than 110 cities across the U.S. by the end of the 1980s according to federal reports. Only a fool could argue that this wasn't a critical factor in the spread of crack from South Central to the rest of the country. If we as journalists have to take a beating for publicly exposing these truths, so be it. We believe it is a beating worth taking.

Gary Webb, reporter, San Jose Mercury News

Georg Hodel, journalist, Managua, Nicaragua