RENDER UNTO GARY WEBB THE THINGS
WHICH ARE GARY WEBB'S

NEEDLESS CONTROVERSY AT THE DEBUT OF AN HEROIC BOOK

by Michael C. Ruppert

I didn't know what to expect from The Dark Alliance. With what I had read from Gary Webb as a reporter, under the control of editors and business people, I guess I expected that the book would sound like more newspaper stories; full of great facts but short on the powerful writing that this horrible chapter in American life deserves. I expected more startling facts and greater detail but I have to admit that I didn't think it would stack up against Scott, McCoy, Reed, Gritz, Jensen-Stevenson, Levine or Castillo. I own almost every book written on the subject of CIA and drugs. Most of them are autographed. I was eager to learn more about Norwin Meneses and Danillo Blandon but had little hope that Gary would encompass the horrors he had documented into the much larger and inevitable picture, which reveals the truly depraved condition of this nation and its government.

Boy was I wrong!

I set high standards as I opened to the first page. In order for Gary's book to ring bells with me it would have to: address the subject of Mena, Arkansas; point to George Bush as the architect of Contra era (and earlier) CIA drug dealing; clearly show that CIA had infiltrated local police departments; unhesitatingly state that the CIA knew and encouraged drug dealing in minority communities; and show that CIA had "hands on" involvement with both drugs and money. In the end he did all of that and more.

I hadn't read the book on June 2^nd when I went to a bookstore in Santa Monica for his book signing and talk. So when he was rudely interrupted by some members of the crowd demanding that he assert that CIA had devised crack to hook African-Americans, or that he assert that CIA had colonized Haiti to maintain a racist drug hegemony, or that all CIA drug activity was a consciously articulated program of genocide, or that LAPD officers had created crack, I was taken aback. So, I think, was Gary. Some in the crowd had become uncontrollable and Gary was having trouble regaining the floor when Maxine Waters showed up and reminded everyone of Gary's accomplishment. The people who were so loudly pushing agendas and pet theories without benefit of research could have been disinformationists or agitators. At best their ignorance proves again how easily we are all manipulated. CIA really does do that, now more than ever, to create controversy where there is none.

What Gary Webb handed, on a silver platter, to all who are serious about this and who know the story well, was absolute documented and undeniable evidence that: CIA knew of Ricky Ross' and Danillo Blandon's activities from the earliest days and protected those activities from the start, even at the local level; that CIA, through Ron Lister, actively supported the distribution of automatic weapons to the gangs in South Central; that as investigative heat mounted against Ross and Blandon, CIA efforts to protect them increased measure for measure; and that, as the crack epidemic spread from city to city, the CIA allowed and encouraged that contagion.

This is like the point I make about one entry in Oliver North's diary that "$14 million to buy arms for the Contras came from drugs." What more proof does a logical mind need? What more proof could minority activists ask for in their search for justice? If CIA devised crack with an ethno-specific motive there is most likely no document that shows it. That would not have been written down. If such a document existed and appeared with any kind of public exposure then we would be facing civil war instead of entrenched apathy. That war would include many whites fighting on the side of minorities. There are too many who remember the Nazis and Zyklon B.

Gary Webb HAS provided evidence of a racist conspiracy. Its right there in his book. It is some of the most amazing reporting I have ever read. And it is detailed and eloquent. He writes, "Pretending that crack was something that had appeared out of nowhere was, politically, much safer than admitting the truth - that the Federal government had been warned about it very specifically many years earlier and hadn't lifted a finger to stop it, effectively surrendering the inner cities to an oncoming plague. If that information became too widely known, the public might start asking prickly questions, such as: Why weren't we told?

"And how could a question like that be answered? Because we didn't believe it? Because we didn't care? Because we thought it might encourage people to try it? Or was it because the drug problem looked as if it would be confined to lower income neighborhoods, ghettos as it had been in South America, Jamaica, and the Bahamas?"

I have been studying the machinations of the CIA for twenty years. Their predictable behavior is that they will locate and nurture the worst and weakest parts of human nature. They will find those parts of a culture or society which inspire distrust and conflict and they will take a pinhole and widen it into an eight-lane highway which is constantly maintained and improved. In that manner they perpetuate spending on everything from atom bombs to handcuffs, from jails to military adventurism.

African-American leaders don't need anything beyond what's in The Dark Alliance to batter down the doors of Congress and say, "You want proof? Here's the damn proof!"

But the saddest part of all this is that, just now when I put Gary's book into an overloaded bookshelf, I realized that it might just become another book on the shelf. How many are needed and who is to blame if they have no impact? As I turned to walk away I noticed something else. The bookshelf was starting to sag from the weight. Maybe the government is starting to sag from the weight too. The attacks are now coming from all sides and they are relentless.

At the end of his book Garry Webb seemed to lament that after twenty years he was no longer a working newspaperman. I for one am grateful for that. As he finds his legs behind this accomplishment he will discover his evolution into something bigger and more important. Reluctantly or not Gary Webb has crossed the threshold of history and we should be grateful for it.