CIA to Continue Probe of Crack Allegations
Journalism: Internal and congressional inquiries won't be dropped despite
newspaper's admission that investigative series linking agency to smuggling
was flawed.

From a Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTONThe Central Intelligence Agency and
several congressional committees will continue investigating
reports that the CIA was involved in cocaine smuggling, despite a
newspaper's admission that many of its charges that sparked the
inquiries could not be supported, officials said Monday.
The question of possible CIA involvement in the cocaine trade
was reopened in Washington last year after the San Jose Mercury
News alleged in a series of stories that the agency had protected
two Nicaraguan drug traffickers in California. The newspaper said
the two Nicaraguans deliberately introduced crack to black
neighborhoods in Los Angeles and then sent millions of dollars in
profits to the CIAbacked Nicaraguan rebels known as Contras.
On Sunday, the Mercury News said it had reinvestigated its own
report and decided that its central assertions were not sufficiently
proved.
Nevertheless, U.S. officials said Monday that their investigations
would continue.
"The CIA's independent, statutory inspector general is
conducting a thorough review of the allegations raised by the San
Jose Mercury News," CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield said. "That
review is still underway and should be completed by the end of the
year."
But Mansfield added: "That said, it is 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."
Aides to the Senate and House committees on intelligence said
they also would continue looking into the charges, although no
hearings are scheduled. The aides said the congressional panels are
waiting for the CIA to conclude its inquiry before conducting further
hearings.
One reason the investigations will continue, officials said, is that
their scope has widened beyond the specific allegations in the
Mercury News.
Officials refused to say whether they have turned up any new
evidence of CIA complicity in the cocaine trade.
In the past, the agency has acknowledged that some of the
Nicaraguans it dealt with were involved in drug trafficking. But the
CIA insisted that it never directed, condoned or protected any drug
smuggling.
In a long article Sunday, the editor of the Mercury News, Jerry
Ceppos, wrote that the newspaper had wrongly implied that the
CIA knew about the Nicaraguans' cocaine operations and
protected them.
"Although members of the drug ring met with Contra leaders
paid by the CIA and [reporter Gary] Webb believes the
relationship with the CIA was a tight one, I feel that we did not have
proof that top CIA officials knew of the relationship," he wrote. "I
believe that part of our contract with readers is to be as clear about
what we don't know as what we do know.
"We also did not include CIA comment about our findings, and I
think we should have."
Ceppos also wrote that the "clear implication of our series" that
the Nicaraguans' drug trafficking "played the critical role in the
crack explosion in urban America" was an "oversimplification."
Ceppos added: "I believe that we fell short at every step of our
processin the writing, editing and production of our work. Several
people here share that burden," he wrote. "We have learned from
the experience and even are changing the way we handle major
investigations."

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