Sound like paranoia? In fact, this information has been confirmed by scholars and researchers throughout the past three decades. Any honest scholar that has researched the issue will tell you that this is the truth, but you will find very little information about it in the mainstream mass media. The most recent scandal involved the Central Intelligence Agency selling crack cocaine in South Central Los Angeles in order to fund the U.S. covert war against the people of Nicaragua.

While the CIA's heavy involvement in the drug trade, and especially the crack cocaine trade, has been well documented by scholars such as Dr. Peter Dale Scott at least since the Iran-Contra hearings in the 1980s, the mass media are only now beginning to take notice. And even when they do take notice, most of the sheep-like journalists and anchorpeople continue to parrot the absurd government line in contradiction to the blatant facts, which are available to anyone who reads beyond the corporate summaries of government press releases. On NPR, for example, a reporter commented that since the story wasn't picked up by the New York Times, it must be false. Another reporter on FOX News said "there has been no direct evidence, repeat, no direct evidence, linking the CIA to the crack trade in South Central."

These people are either complete idiots or just flat out liars. The evidence is overwhelming and will convince anyone other than an utter fool. The facts have finally hit the mainstream media only due to pressure from concerned citizens and reporters they could no longer afford to ignore. This link continues to be updated as the story unfolds. Write your Congresspersons today and demand a full Congressional investigation! Also contact your mainstream news media and ask them why they continue to whitewash the evidence of U.S. government hypocrisy with regard to the drug trade!

Thanks to some real investigative reporting by Gary Webb of the San Jose Mercury News, combined with public pressure by residents of South Central Los Angeles, this story is finally reaching the mainstream news media. If public pressure continues, U.S. government officials may finally be called upon to answer for their actions. One can only hope that the American public will hold the true murderers and drug dealers responsible rather thanletting the story blow over with a few slaps on the wrist the way we did with the Iran-Contra revelations. This page is one attempt to gather and distribute the evidence so that people can make informed decisions and begin the long process of calling our government to responsibility.

• Dark Alliance: The San Jose Mercury News exposé. This excellent web site presents the evidence in a series of compelling articles, along with photographs and sound clips from testimony about the CIA's involvement in the crack trade in South Central.

• (Never heard of the contras? Read this.)

• Contras, Crack, and the CIA: Editorial by Robert Parry in a recent issue of the Nation which gives evidence that the U.S. government knew about and covered up contra drug dealing for at least the past ten years.

• Media Focus on CIA's Cocaine Links is Long Overdue, short article by Norman Solomon, dated Oct. 1 '96.

• Media War over CIA and Cocaine, also by Norman Solomon.

• The Kerry Report: During the Iran Contra Investigation ten years ago, much evidence linking the CIA to drug dealing came out but was successfully covered up by an obedient and sheep-like mass media. Read excerpts of the Senate Investigative Committee Report which detailed this evidence here, or ask your library for the full document.

• Crack Reparations. Argues that the U.S. government should pay reparations to South Central Los Angeles for destroying communities by bringing in crack cocaine. Do you have a friend or loved one whose life has been destroyed by the crack trade? Demand reparations now! From the terrific new Seattle 'zine Eat the State!

• How the CIA Created the Crack Epidemic, story from the Revolutionary Worker.

• Ex-DEA Agent Castillo Tells All: Excerpt from Castillo's book Powderburns. I have the book and it would be a really good book if Castillo's publisher would LEARN TO FUCKING SPELL! I wouldn't complain but with more than 5-10 errors per page the book becomes unreadable. (sigh) I'm still glad this info is out there though....

• Chronology of Events outlining the CIA/Contra Drug Dealing Connection. Note that this chronology was developed in 1990, six years before the most recent revelations.

• Cocaine Importing Agency: Dave Feustel maintains a nice collection of articles on CIA drug smuggling over the years.

• "WormScan": A collection of news items relating to official complicity and responsibility for the drug trade. Mirrored here, with a longer version here.

• Cockburn v. Secord: When Leslie and Andrew Cockburn exposed the CIA's drug connections in 1987, Richard Secord sued them for defaming his character. He lost the suit because he was unable to produce any evidence of malice or distortion. Read the court's decision here!

• CIA is Up to Its Eyeballs in Cocaine Deals, by Dierdre Griswold. Could the title be any more plain?

• Dark Alliance: Reprint of the SJMercury article with commentary from Arm the Spirit.

• CIA's Contras Linked to Crack Trade: nice summary of the San Jose Mercury News exposé

• DEA's Finest Details Corruption, by John Viet for MediaFilter.

• Congressional Reports on Drug Corruption in the Federal Government, a list of resources available from the government documents collection of your library.

• U.S. Officials Joined Mexican Drug Smugglers, from the Sacramento Bee in February of 1996.

• Snowbound: A 1989 expose on U.S. government drug smuggling from Penthouse magazine.

• Justice Department Investigation Begins: This brief CNN report of 23 September 1996 indicates the first sign that the government is looking into the CIA involvement in drug trafficking. I include it here in spite of its blatant whitewashing of responsible parties (giving plenty of space to Oliver North's mendacious denials and not even pointing out that these denials are in obvious contradiction to what he testified during the Iran-Contra hearings).

• Ex-DEA Agent Celerino Castillo announced his intention to confess about the CIA/DEA connection to the drug trade over a year ago. When he told former president George Bush of his intentions, Bush "smiled and walked away." More on the story here.

• Haiti's Nightmare: The Haiti connection to the CIA/Contra Drug Operation (mirrored here). See also "Haiti, Thugs, and Drugs."

• The De-Central Intelligence Agency, a site dedicated to ending the media blackout on the CIA's involvement in heroin and cocaine trafficking.

• A Scandal Unravels in Arkansas: Just because the contra war against Nicaragua was the product of the 12-year reign of the G.O.P. (Greedy Old Pricks), doesn't mean Bill Clinton's hands are clean. 1995 article from the New York Post

• Arkansas Drug Probe Could Be Dynamite. Followup of the above. Also a 1995 followup exists.

• Starr Investigation Targets Arkansas Police: Read how Arkansas Law Enforcement tried to cover the CIA's tracks while it was dealing drugs.

• The MENA Coverup: Wall Street Journal article on Clinton's role in the CIA-drug connection.

• More on MENA, from Paul DiRienzo in 1992. See also this post from alt.politics.clinton.

• 1985: from the Secret History of the United States. Details some of the Clinton-Bush-North connection in the drug scandal. More info in 1996.

• The Crimes of MENA: A London Perspective. London's Sunday Telegraph points out that the Whitewater connection to drugs and contras is a smokescreen being used both to smear the Clinton White House and cover up the fact that these operations have been going on for a long time.

• Assorted Mena Links: more links to articles on Mena from the Real Change website, exposing the corruption of all of the currently running Presidential candidates.

• Drugs and Covert Operations, 1991 article from Convergence magazine.

• How the Drug War Created Crack, from Cures not Wars. Excellent article from the Village Voice in 1990 arguing that the U.S. "War on Drugs" led to the crack cocaine epidemic.

• Shooting Up in Public, by Ron Reed. Great essay against prohibition which discusses the U.S. involvement in narcoterrorism in Central America and Vietnam. Mirrored here.

• The Duplicity of the War on Drugs: a nice USENET post against drug prohibition which discusses the U.S. government's heavy involvement in the Southeast Asian heroin trade in the 1970s.

• The Politics of Drugs in America, by Frank Morales. From MediaFilter.

• Alfred McCoy discusses U.S. involvement in the Southeast Asian Heroin trade. See also the interview here.

• Doping and Duping America: more on the hidden history of heroin.

• The Intelligence Connection, designed for the "incurably informed" by the De-Central Intelligence Agency.

• Want More Information on CIA Covert Operations Domestically (in explicit violation of Federal Law)? Check out this site for details.

• Cops and Drugs: Details corruption of Law Enforcement Agencies Across the Nation.

• Rhetorical Genealogy of the War on Drugs: a Drug War History I wrote a few years ago. Mentions some of the U.S. government complicity in the heroin trade, as well as the CIA's use of LSD in the 1950s and 1960s. Also see my links to drug legalization resources for further information.