June 10–17, 1999
20 questions
interview by Sam Adams
Since the San Jose Mercury News published his series "Dark Alliance" in August 1996, Gary Webb has been lauded as a crusader and denounced as a fraud. "Dark Alliance," which detailed the connection between the crack epidemic, Nicaraguan Contras and the CIA, won Webb Journalist of the Year honors from the Society of Professional Journalists, but it also led to an unprecedented backlash, with the nation’s major media outlets lining up to summarily dismiss Webb’s reporting and attack his journalistic competence. (His trophy shelf also includes a Pulitzer.) After the Mercury News apologized for the series, Webb left newspaper journalism entirely, and now works for the California government. Published in massively expanded form, the chronicle continues in Webb’s book Dark Alliance (Seven Stories), which fills many of the gaps in what Webb admits was a truncated newspaper account, and makes a case for what he calls "not conspiracy theory but conspiracy fact" with far greater detail than any of his critics.
Why do you think the major media reacted so negatively to the original series?
You have to remember that this was an enormously popular story, and I think that scared the shit out of a lot of people. A lot of the reporters who covered — I should say covered up — the story in the ’80s are still in positions of influence in the journalism community in Washington, so if this thing turned out to be true, they were going to look really bad, because they’d spent 10 years denying this was going on.
The story was accepted much more readily in the black community, which many newspapers chalked up to ingrained paranoia.
That’s just racism. It’s not surprising to me that blacks and the black media were receptive to this story — first of all, it concerned their neighborhoods, and nobody had ever given them an explanation of how [the crack epidemic] popped up and spread from black neighborhood to black neighborhood across the country. There’s no mystery to that; the mystery to me was why the white press reacted like this was some crazy conspiracy theory of the black community when it was in a white newspaper.
Is there any validity to the criticisms lodged against you?
The idea that we didn’t know for sure how much money went from this drug ring to the Contras, that’s an accurate criticism. We never said we did, and we still don’t know — we just said it was millions. Other than that it was just niggling things, but nothing changed the basic thrust of the article which was: a) this drug ring exists, b) they were supporting the Contras, and c) there were CIA agents involved with these folks. No one denies any of that. The only thing left to deny is how bad it was. The argument we made was that this drug ring was instrumental in kicking off the crack explosion, and to people who say that’s not true, I always ask, "Who did it, then?" And you don’t hear anything.
After what you’ve been through, do you think it’s possible to investigate the CIA without wrecking your career?
I don’t think you can do it and escape unscathed. My case and the Tailwind case — and to a lesser extent the Chiquita banana stories with the [Cincinnati] Enquirer — were lessons to journalists that you go into these areas at your own risk. You cannot expect the corporate moguls who run these institutions now to stand behind you when the heat comes down. That’s the one thing that amazed me when I was researching this story is how little the U.S. media looks at the activities of the CIA. Almost fucking never. Seymour Hersh did it in the ’70s and got beat up for it. Bob Perry got beat up for it in the ’80s, I got beat up for it in the ’90s. I don’t think it takes a genius to figure out whoever does it again is going to get beat up for it. But I don’t think that should stop you from doing it if you’re a true journalist.
Gary Webb will speak on June 10 at 7 p.m. at the First Unitarian Church, 2125 Chestnut St. Call 215-413-0999 for information. Tickets are $3-$10. No one will be turned away for lack of funds.
