The New York Times Wrote an Article Responding to the San Jose Mercury News Report

The New York Times wrote an article responding to the San Jose Mercury News Report.

COMPTON, Calif., Oct. 16 -- Over the years that Beverly Carr has lived in South-Central Los Angeles, she has seen crack cocaine rage through her neighborhood like a violent storm, littering the streets with young bodies, battering schools and homes, tearing families from their hinges.

But it was only after a series of articles in The San Jose Mercury News that Mrs. Carr found what she took to be proof of an unseen force behind the devastation (harm). That the force was said to be the United States Government surprised her not at all. That the plot supposedly involved associates of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) selling drugs in black neighborhoods to finance an anti- Communist crusade in Central America made perfect sense.

''Everybody my age or older has always known that something like this was going on,'' the 48-year- old caterer said. ''Who down here in Watts or Compton has planes or boats to get these drugs up here? They're targeting the young black men. It's just ruining a whole generation.''

The problem however, is that the evidence is thin. Neither Blandon or Meneses ever held an official position in any of the Nicaraguan groups, many former contra and United States Government officials insist. Neither of them, Government officials say, worked for or had any direct contact with agents of the C.I.A.

African-American communities are quick to believe conspiracies about the government. CBS-TV found that a quarter of the 1,047 black New Yorkers surveyed believed that the Government ''deliberately harms black people.'' Another third of those polled said that might possibly be true. Similarly, the poll showed that blacks were more likely than whites to believe that the AIDS virus was created to infect black people, and that the Government persecutes black elected officials.

The following is from an interview with Gary Webb for PBS. The New York Times and other big newspapers thought it was a conspiracy theory. African-American communities believed every word that I said and they called all of us conspiracy theorists. I don’t think there’s any other way to describe this except racism. I have never seen an entire race labeled as conspiracy theorists before. This was when I thought they had really gone off the deep end, when they were trying to convince everybody that, well, you know, these black people, you know, they believe anything they’re told, which was when you boil it down, that’s exactly what the articles were saying. They tried to couch it in the scientific and sociological terms as why blacks distrust government. The bottom was that they thoughts blacks were dumb and would believe anything that was written. Guiding Questions for Analytical Reading 1. Summarize the main idea of the documents. a. New York Times

b. Gary Webb interview

2. Who wrote the article? What reason do they have to tell the truth? What reason do they have to lie? Think about BIAS. New York Times Article Gary Webb interview

Further Investigation: 2 Perspectives Maxine Waters Frederick Hitz (Summary) (Summary)

(Bias) (Bias)

Group Decision: Based on what you’ve read. Do you think that the CIA… (a) Directly supported and encouraged the sale of cocaine to South Central, LA? (b) Knew about the sale of cocaine, but didn’t do anything about it? (c) Did not know and was not connected to the sale of cocaine in South Central LA? Explain. Maxine Waters, Foreward to Gary Webb’s book published a few years after his stories in the Mercury News. Maxine Waters is the Congressional Representative of neighborhoods including South Central in the city of Los Angeles.

The night that I read the “Dark Alliance” series, I was so alarmed, that I literally sat straight up in bed, poring over every word. I reflected on the many meetings I attended throughout South Central Los Angeles during the 1980s, when I constantly asked, “Where are all the drugs coming from?” I asked myself that night whether it was possible for such a vast amount of drugs to be smuggled into America under the noses of the police, FBI, DEA and other law enforcement agencies. I decided to investigate the allegations. I met with Ricky Ross, Alan Fenster, and Mike Ruppert. My investigation took me to Nicaragua where I interviewed Enrique Miranda Jaime in prison. I had the opportunity to question Contra leaders and suspected drug smugglers Adolfo Calero and Eden Pastora in a Senate investigative hearing. I forced Calero to admit he had a relationship with the CIA and directed USAID funds to community groups and organizations. The time I spent investigating the claims of the “Dark Alliance” series led me to the undeniable conclusion that the CIA, DEA, and FBI knew about drug trafficking (trade) in South Central Los Angeles. They were either part of the trafficking or turned a blind eye to it, in an effort to fund their war. The saddest part of these revelations is the wrecked lives of so many people who got caught up in selling drugs, went to prison, ended up addicted, dead or walking zombies from drugs. The editors of the San Jose Mercury News did not have the strength to withstand the attacks, but we all owe Gary Webb gratitude (thanks) for his brave work.

After the article, the CIA decided to investigate their own organization. They hired Frederick Hitz

Before I go any further, I want to make clear that we found absolutely no evidence to indicate that CIA as an organization or its employees were involved in any conspiracy to bring drugs into the United States. The Mercury News claimed that the CIA had knowledge of the activities of Ross, Blandon and Meneses. Ross, Blandon and Meneses are convicted drug dealers. Our investigation found no information to indicate that any past or present employee of CIA, or anyone else acting on behalf of CIA, had any dealings with Ross, Blandon or Meneses, or had any knowledge of their drug activities.

Ross was a drug dealer who, by his own admission, says his sole motivation was to derive personal financial gain from the illegal trafficking of drugs. However, Ross told us that he never sold drugs for the Contras or donated any money to the Contras. CIA never had any relationship with Ross. Likewise, Blandon and Meneses also trafficked in drugs to derive personal financial gain. While CIA had no relationship with Blandon and Meneses, our investigation did find that Blandon and Meneses were connected to Contra support organizations and each made financial contributions to those groups. Blandon and Meneses each claimed to have provided between $3,000 and $40,000 worth of support to the Contras, although we found no information to prove these claims. The CIA had no way of being sure these men were trafficking drugs.