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White Out: The CIA, Drugs and the Media
Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair
London:Verso, 1999, £10
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Richard Alexander
Much has been written about the
role of the Central Intelligence Agency
in the global drugs trade but this is the first book that actually
brings it all together in one place. The authors haven't exposed much that is
new, instead they have taken all the previous stories and strung them together
to make a damning indictment of the CIA. All your favourite stories are in
here, from Gary Webb's breakthrough piece chronicling the links between the
CIA; the Contras and the crack cocaine explosion in Los Angeles; through the
CIA's use of psychedelics, ex-Nazi scientists and mind control, into the murky
worlds of Indo-China; and then, via a chapter on Afghanistan, back to the
United States and the cocaine connections to Arkansas and ex-prez Clinton. As
the title implies, the role of the American press in suppressing (or
selectively reporting) this story is also told. Each chapter has a page or two
of bibliography for those wishing to follow-up the stories in more depth. So if
you haven't investigated this area yet (maybe you thought it was just
conspiracy theory?) and want an excellent introduction to it, I can thoroughly
recommend this title.
The current war on Afghanistan makes this an especially timely
read. Not only is there much useful background to the heroin trade in that
country, there is an account of the
'humanitarian' assistance in the Contras war with the Sandinistas. In Central America 'humanitarian' assistance
was a euphemism for 'guns in and drugs out'. We shall see if things are
different this time round.
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