CrackContra probe will continue, official says
By THOMAS FARRAGHER
KNIGHTRIDDER NEWSPAPERS

WASHINGTON A federal investigator said he will continue to examine
whether a California drug ring sold cocaine to aid a CIArun guerrilla
army, even though the San Jose Mercury News has backed away from some
aspects of the stories that sparked the inquiry

"We have our own investigative agenda, and the item ... printed this
weekend won't affect our investigation," said Michael Bromwich, Justice
Department inspector general.

"Did I expect to see this when I woke up this morning? No. But I think
all of us can use selfscrutiny. I think our institutions are stronger
when you do that."

Bromwich's comment came after the Mercury News on Sunday acknowledged
that its series about shadowy drug dealers didn't meet the paper's
standards.

That unusual selfcritique made frontpage news Tuesday in the New York
Times and the Washington Post, which last year both published articles
critical of the original Mercury News report.

The inspector general drew a distinction between journalistic concerns
of Mercury News editors and what interests government investigators.

"We're not examining per se the practices in the newspaper that led to
the pubication of the article," Bromwich said.

"We're not an ombudsman. We are continuing to gather facts as to whether
those allegations are true or not."

In its "Dark Alliance" series published in August, the Mercury News
traced urban America's crack cocaine explosion to a Northern California
drug ring involving two Nicaraguan cocaine dealers. The Times ran a
condensed version of the series on Sept. 8.

Those dealers also were civilian leaders of the Contras, an
anticornmunist commando group formed and run by the CIA during the
1980s.

The series said millions of dollars in profits from the drug sales were
lunneled to the Contras. It never reported direct CIA involvement,
though many readers drew that conclusion.

With the help of the Internet and radio talk shows across the country,
those allegations have been accepted as fact by many who mistrust the
government.

But on Sunday, Mercury News Executive Editor Jerry Ceppos told readers,
"We didn't know for certain what the profits were" and that the crack
cocaine scourge "was a complex phenomenon that had more than one
origin."

Ceppos also said the newspaper "did not have proof that top CIA officials
knew of the relationship" of the drug ring and Contra leaders.

"I believe that we fell short at every step of our process in the
writing, editing and production of our work," Ceppos wrote.

Rep. Maxine Walters, DLos Angeles, the chief congressional champion of a
thorough investigation into the newspapers's findings, insisted Tuesday
that the Mercury News, while acknowledging problems with its series, has
not retreated from findings tht some drug money went to the Contras.

"Not one dime of dope money should have supported a war in Nicaragua,"
Waters told reports at a Capitol news conference.

"What difference does it make whether it was $100,000 or $1 million?"

She said the S house Select Committee on Intelligence recently
sent investigators to Nicaragua to investigate the cocaineContra
connection in preparation for hearings later this year.

The Mercury News series has spawned twin investigations by the inspectors
general of the CIA and the Justice Department.

They proceed unaffected by the latest acknowledgment by the Mercury
News.

Mark Mansfield, a CIA spokesman, said that agency's findings are not
expected until the end of this year.

"It's gratifying to see that a large segment of the media, including the
San Jose Mercury News itself, has taken a serious and objective look at
how this story was constructed and reported," Mansfield said.