CIA INQUIRY REJECTS ALLEGATIONS OF LINKS TO CRACK COCAINE EPIDEMIC

WASHINGTON -- A CIA internal investigation found no evidence linking its
employees, agents or operatives with the crack cocaine drug epidemic in the
United States and no connection between the agency and three men at the
center of that drug trade.

The findings, released yesterday, dispute allegations made in a series of
1996 newspaper reports of a CIA link to cocaine trafficking in California.

The CIA released the first of two volumes of conclusions reached by agency
Inspector General Frederick Hitz, who led a 17-member team that reviewed
250,000 pages of documents and conducted 365 interviews.

The report found no evidence that CIA employees or agents colluded with
allies of Nicaraguan Contra rebels to finance their guerrilla operations by
bringing crack cocaine into the United States.

"I am satisfied that the IG has left no stone unturned in his efforts to
uncover the truth," CIA Director George Tenet said in a written statement
accompanying the IG report.

Tenet called it the most extensive investigation ever undertaken by the
inspector general.

In August 1996, the San Jose Mercury News published a series of stories
that concluded that a Bay Area drug ring sold cocaine in Los Angeles and
funneled profits to the Nicaraguan Contra rebels for the better part of a
decade.

The paper traced the drugs to dealers who also were leaders of a CIA-run
guerrilla army in Nicaragua during the 1980s.

The newspaper series reported that two Nicaraguan cocaine dealers, Oscar
Danilo Blandon and Norwin Meneses, were civilian leaders of an
anti-Communist commando group formed and run by the CIA during the 1980s.

The articles traced the explosion of crack cocaine abuse in the United
States to a crack dealer named Ricky Donnell Ross and said he was supplied
through Blandon and Meneses.

The CIA report said there was no such CIA link.

"No information has been found to indicate that any past or present
employee of CIA, or anyone acting on behalf of CIA, had any direct or
indirect dealing with Ricky Ross, Oscar Danilo Blandon or Juan Norwin
Meneses," the CIA report said.

"No information has been found to indicate that the drug trafficking
activities by Blandon and Meneses were motivated by any commitment to
support the Contra cause or Contra activities undertaken by CIA."

Jerry Ceppos, Mercury News executive editor, declined to comment on the
CIA report. Last spring, Ceppos wrote a column published by the paper that
critiqued the series, saying it "did not meet our standards" in key areas.

By then, the newspaper series had generated widespread anger toward the CIA
among black Americans, as well as federal investigations into whether the
CIA took part in or countenanced the selling of crack to raise money for
the Contras.