REPORT DISMISSES CIA-DRUG ARTICLES

A congressional investigation has found no evidence to support a series of
Mercury News stories that implicated the CIA in the origins of the crack
epidemic of the 1980s.

The House intelligence committee Thursday released the results of its
investigation into the 1996 articles in a unanimously adopted 500-page report.

"Bottom line: The allegations were false," Rep. Porter Goss, R-Fla.,
committee chair, stated in a committee press release.

The report mirrored the findings of two investigations in 1997 and 1998 by
the inspectors general of the CIA and the Department of Justice, and an
earlier investigation by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

The series, titled "Dark Alliance," was published in August 1996. It
alleged that two expatriate Nicaraguans raised millions of dollars for a
CIA-backed guerrilla army by selling cocaine in predominantly
African-American neighborhoods of Los Angeles. The story implied that U.S.
government agencies had protected the drug dealers while they raised money
for the army, called the Contras, who were attempting to overthrow the
government of Nicaragua.

The Mercury News later acknowledged shortcomings in the story. In 1997, it
conceded that the series did not meet the paper's standards, partly because
it presented only one interpretation of sometimes-conflicting evidence.

The intelligence committee found that the two drug dealers gave a Contra
chapter in California $30,000 to $40,000, apparently from their drug
activities, but nothing approximating the millions of dollars alleged in
the stories. The two were not connected to the CIA, nor were they selling
drugs on behalf of the Contras, the committee found.

In a summary, the committee said its investigation "does not support the
implications of the San Jose Mercury News -- that the CIA was responsible
for the crack epidemic in Los Angeles or anywhere else in the United States
to further the cause of the Contra war in Central America."

On the other hand, the committee was "concerned by evidence" that the CIA
used or maintained relations with alleged drug dealers associated with the
Contras or the Contra resupply effort. The CIA inspector general previously
reported that the CIA failed to investigate allegations about drug dealers
involved in the Contra resupply effort and even continued using some
alleged drug traffickers as assets.