Gary Webb

About the author: Gary Webb has been an investigative reporter for over twenty years, focusing on government and private sector corruption and winning more than thirty journalism awards. Webb is currently a consultant to the California State Legislature's Task Force on Government Oversight. Webb is also author of the book Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion, from which this excerpt was taken. Dark Alliance originally appeared as a controversial series published in 1996 in the San Jose Mercury News.

Money derived from drug trafficking in the United States during the 1980s was being used to fund the Nicaraguan Contras, who were trying to overthrow the ruling Sandinista regime. In 1992, a drug smuggler with connections to the Contras named Danilo Blandón was indicted for drug...