How Crack Funded a CIA War: Gary Webb Interview (C-Span Live 1996)

[think]

Related background:

How John Kerry exposed the Contra-cocaine scandal

By ROBERT PARRY - MONDAY, OCT 25, 2004 03:04 PM EDT

In December 1985, when Brian Barger and I wrote a groundbreaking story for the Associated Press about Nicaraguan Contra rebels smuggling cocaine into the United States, one U.S. senator put his political career on the line to follow up on our disturbing findings. His name was John Kerry.

Yet, over the past year, even as Kerry’s heroism as a young Navy officer in Vietnam has become a point of controversy, this act of political courage by a freshman senator has gone virtually unmentioned, even though — or perhaps because — it marked Kerry’s first challenge to the Bush family.

In early 1986, the 42-year-old Massachusetts Democrat stood almost alone in the U.S. Senate demanding answers about the emerging evidence that CIA-backed Contras were filling their coffers by collaborating with drug traffickers then flooding U.S. borders with cocaine from South America.

Kerry assigned members of his personal Senate staff to pursue the allegations. He also persuaded the Republican majority on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to request information from the Reagan-Bush administration about the alleged Contra drug traffickers...

Full article:
http://www.salon.com/2004/10/25/contra/

[zeemike]

1. All of that has long been forgotten.

But it shows that beck then they still had journalist and the C-Span actually covered them.

[Enthusiast]

2. This is what Eisenhower was warning us about.

They will kill anyone standing in their way.

[wildbilln864]

3. k & r & thanks! n/t

[Peace Patriot]

4. I am beginning to understand what went wrong with the Iran-Contra hearings.

I understood, at the time, that the Democrats who ran that committee were whitewashing Reagan's treason and other horrible, murderous actions, because Reagan's economic policies were making the 0.01% so much more wealthy and those Democrats had become dependents of the 0.01%.

I did NOT know that they were covering up a deep trail to CIA and Bush Cartel drug trafficking. That's what Kerry was on to that so frightened off the Washington and Los Angeles Slimes and the Washington Psst. If I had known this, I would have realized how very strongly the CIA already controlled the content of the major U.S. news organizations.

[Hotler]

5. If you get a chance to read the "Dark Alliance" series do so.

One of the most interesting parts of this C-SPAN video was about 19:00 minutes in when a caller from Rode Island called in and talked about the US government buying up the whole crop of opium from Turkey in 1943 and letting Lucky Luciano distribute it here in the United States. Things that make you go hhmmmmmm. The caller mentioned "The Board of Economic Warfare" and William Casey and the early days of the OSS the organization before the CIA

[Octafish]

7. Outstanding reportage from Gary Webb. For telling the truth, the Mighty Wurlitzer destroyed him.

http://www.narconews.com/darkalliance/

[think]

8. Yes. I caught that part where the caller stated the National archives had released documents

about the Board of Economic warfare & William Casey's involvement in the US Govt buying the opium crop.

Last night was the first time I'd seen this C-Span interview. I"ll try and check out the Dark Alliance series.

Such a long history of things of this nature happening...

[Overseas]

6. K&R.