title: Kill the Messenger: How the CIA's Crack-Cocaine Controversy Destroyed Journalist Gary Webb
author:  Nick Schou 
description: *Starred Review* Schou personally knew Gary Webb, the reporter with the <i>San Jose Mercury News</i> whose 1996 series of articles linked the CIA to the nation's crack-cocaine plague. Schou, who had spent eight years following a similar story, worried that Webb's suicide in 2004 would cause reporters to shy away from uncovering government involvement in drug trafficking. Schou offers a portrait of a dogged reporter, a motorcycle-driving rebel who was occasionally arrogant and had a history of depression. But Webb, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, also had a reputation for meticulous research. Schou retraces Webb's exhaustive research, which connected crack cocaine sold on the streets of L.A and CIA operations in Nicaragua. Schou also recalls other reporters who faced attacks by the government, lack of support by editors, drug-possession setups, and death threats for investigating CIA involvement in drug trafficking. He also details the personal ruin Webb suffered when his series was greeted first with silence by the journalistic community and later attacked, a series that Schou maintains was on target. An impressive look at the intersection of clandestine government operations and a free press. <i>Vanessa Bush</i><br><i>Copyright &#169; American Library Association. All rights reserved</i>
zlib_text: **IN PRAISE OF GARY WEBB'S** _ **DARK ALLIANCE**_ **:**
  
    
  
  "Today, it is hard to say how Webb will be remembered by history. But if there
  is any justice, he will be remembered favorably. His book demonstrates that
  the original expose was on the right track. Rather than going too far by
  implicating U.S. government officials in illegal activities, it seems to me
  the newspaper series did not go far enough.  
  Based on the evidence in Webb's book, news organizations—especially the
  _Washington Post, New York Times_ , and _Los Angeles Times—_ should re-examine
  their knockdown stories. They owe such a re-examination not only to Webb, but
  also to their readers."
  
  —Steve Weinberg in the _Baltimore Sun_ (June 14, 1998)
  
  "Two years ago Gary Webb touched off a national controversy with his news
  stories linking the CIA and the Nicaraguan Contras to the rise of the crack
  epidemic in Los Angeles and elsewhere. His gripping new book, richly
  researched and documented, deserves an even wider audience a