Title: Dark alliance
First published: 1998
Description: Gary Webb draws from thousands of pages of once-secret files from the CIA, DEA, and FBI, the L.A. Sheriff's Department, and recently declassified papers from the Iran-Contra investigation. Together with Nicaraguan journalist Georg Hodel, Webb interviewed former members of the Contra drug ring, as well as former federal prosecutors, CIA and DEA agents, and former Central American police officials.

This book shows how the L.A. crack market flourished through a breathtaking combination of government negligence, greed, and criminal conduct. It also demonstrates that the U.S. goverment agencies, including the CIA, the DEA, and the FBI, were aware of the activities of this well-connected drug network throughout its long existence and did little or nothing to stop it.

Indeed, in several instances documented here, the Justice Department, the CIA, and the secret National Security Council unit run by Oliver North, took extraordinary steps to protect the ring from public exposure.
Subjects: United States, Crack (Drug), Cocaine abuse, United States. Central Intelligence Agency, Counterrevolutionaries, Cocaine industry, Drug traffic, Foreign relations, Political aspects, Political aspects of Drug traffic, United states, central intelligence agency, Latin america, politics and government, Nigeria, politics and government, Cocaine, Nicaragua, foreign relations, Nicaragua, history, Revolutionaries, united states
Places: California, Nicaragua, Los Angeles, United States
LC classification: HV5833.L67 W43 1998