Reference no: EM132927443 , Length: word count: 300

Cocaine, conspiracy theories and the cia in central america by Craig Delaval

• Delaval is a freelance writer and filmmaker and was a production assistant for "Drug Wars." This article was edited by Lowell Bergman, series reporter for "Drug Wars."
• Since its creation in 1947 under President Harry Truman, the CIA has been credited with a number of far-fetched operations. While some were proven - the infamous LSD mind-control experiments of the 1950s - others, like the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the crash of the Savings and Loans industry, have little or no merit.
• In 1996 the agency was accused of being a crack dealer.
• A series of expose articles in the San Jose Mercury-News by reporter Gary Webb told tales of a drug triangle during the 1980s that linked CIA officials in Central America, a San Francisco drug ring and a Los Angeles drug dealer. According to the stories, the CIA and its operatives used crack cocaine--sold via the Los Angeles African-American community--to raise millions to support the agency's clandestine operations in Central America.
• The CIA's suspect past made the sensational articles an easy sell. Talk radio switchboards lit up, as did African-American leaders like U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Los Angeles, who pointed to Webb's articles as proof of a mastermind plot to destroy inner-city black America.
• One of the people who was accused in the San Jose Mercury-News of being in the midst of the CIA cocaine conspiracy is one of the most respected, now retired, veteran D.E.A. agents, Robert "Bobby" Nieves.
• "You have to understand Central America at that time was a haven for the conspiracy theorists. Christic Institute, people like Gary Webb, others down there, looking to dig up some story for political advantage," Nieves said. "No sexier story than to create the notion in people's minds that these people are drug traffickers."
• But in the weeks following publication, Webb's peers doubted the merit of the articles. Fellow journalists at the Washington Post, New York Times and Webb's own editor accused him of blowing a few truths up into a massive conspiracy.
• Amongst Webb's fundamental problems was his implication that the CIA lit the crack cocaine fuse. It was conspiracy theory: a neat presentation of reality that simply didn't jibe with real life. Webb later agreed in an interview that there is no hard evidence that the CIA as an institution or any of its agent-employees carried out or profited from drug trafficking.
• Still, the fantastic story of the CIA injecting crack into ghettos had taken hold. In response to the public outcry following Webb's allegations--which were ultimately published in book form under the title Dark Alliance--the CIA conducted an internal investigation of its role in Central America related to the drug trade. Frederick Hitz, as the CIA Inspector General-- an independent watchdog approved by Congress--conducted the investigation. In October 1998, the CIA released a declassified version of Hitz's two-volume report.
• The IG's report cleared the CIA of complicity with the inner-city crack cocaine trade. It refuted charges that CIA officials knew that their Nicaraguan allies were dealing drugs. But, the report said that the CIA, in a number of cases, didn't bother to look into allegations about narcotics And the Hitz report describes how there was little or no direction for CIA operatives when confronted by the rampant traffic in drugs in Central American during the 1980s.

Question 1: What follows is a closer look at the Hitz report, drawing on interviews with Frederick Hitz and others interviewed for FRONTLINE's "Drug Wars" series.