Whiteout: The CIA, Drugs and the Press - Hardcover

Cockburn, Alexander And Jeffrey St. Clair

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1859848974 ISBN 13: 9781859848975

Publisher: Verso, 1998

Synopsis

In 1996, Gary Webb, a young reporter on a California newspaper charged that the CIA had conspired in the smuggling of cocaine into the U.S. and its subsequent dissemination into black urban neighborhoods. In an exciting narrative, WHITE-OUT surveys the resulting furor and lays out in explosive detail one of the most shocking hidden histories of our time .

About this title

Review:

Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair take the revelations of the links between the Central Intelligence Agency, the Nicaraguan Contras, and the Los Angeles crack market that journalist Gary Webb exposed in 1996--revelations that are the basis of Webb's book Dark Alliance--and use them as a springboard for a tale of the U.S. government's involvement with the illegal drug trade that extends much further back than Webb's tale.

The specific revelations are not, perhaps, entirely new; many know, for example, that even before there was a CIA, the WWII-era Office of Strategic Services enlisted the aid of gangster "Lucky" Luciano in arranging support among the Sicilian Mafia for the American invasion of Italy, or that the CIA was actively involved in the Southeast Asian opium trade during the Vietnam War. But Cockburn and St. Clair persuasively argue that the traditional explanation for such events--"rogue elements"--is deliberately misleading, and that the mainstream "liberal" press plays an active role in this obfuscation (noting, for example, that Webb's three biggest attackers were the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Washington Post). By providing an overarching narrative rather than treating these incidents as isolated, the authors present a damning indictment of the CIA--but one that fully admits that the agency was not acting on its own, but was merely fulfilling the mandates of the American government. --Ron Hogan

About the Author:

Alexander Cockburn co-edits CounterPunch with Jeffrey St. Clair. Together they have written Whiteout: The CIA, Drugs and the Press and A Dime’s Worth of Difference: Beyond the Lesser of Two Evils.

Jeffrey St. Clair co-edits CounterPunch with Alexander Cockburn. Together they have written Whiteout: The CIA, Drugs and the Press and A Dime’s Worth of Difference: Beyond the Lesser of Two Evils.

About this edition

• Publisher: Verso
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 1859848974
• ISBN 13: 9781859848975
• Binding: Hardcover