This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------DA8B2EFB4F49C3B7B7BFA8C2 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/early/sanjose-crack-media.html --------------DA8B2EFB4F49C3B7B7BFA8C2 Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii; name="sanjose-crack-media.html" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline; filename="sanjose-crack-media.html" Content-Base: "http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/early /sanjose-crack-media.html" <html> <head> <title>Expose on Crack Was Flawed, Paper Says</title> <meta name=slug content=BC-DRUGS-CIA-PAPER-2TAKES-NYT> <meta name=date content=05-12> <meta name=length content=1178> </head> <body bgcolor=#ffffff> <nobr><a href=""><img src="/images/bannewna.gif" border=0 alt=banner></a> <!--ELEMENT HEAD ADVT--> </nobr> <br><a href="/images/toolbar.map"><img src="/images/toolbar.gif" border=0 alt=toolbar ismap></a> <blockquote><blockquote> <h5>May 13, 1997</h5><br> <h2>Expose on Crack Was Flawed, Paper Says</h2> <h5>By TODD S. PURDUM</h5> <p> <img src="/images/s.gif" align=left alt=S>AN JOSE, Calif. -- In a highly unusual critique published in his own newspaper, the editor of The San Jose Mercury News acknowledged on Sunday that a series of articles last year on the rise of crack cocaine in urban America was marred by serious shortcomings, including its strong implication that the CIA had countenanced the drug's spread in league with Nicaraguan dealers. <p> The publication of the series, "Dark Alliance," provoked a furor among black elected and community officials and prompted multiple federal investigations. Its central assertion was that a pair of Nicaraguan drug traffickers with CIA ties had started the nationwide crack trade by selling drugs in black neighborhoods in the 1980s. Their goal, the series said, was to help finance the CIA-backed rebels, or Contras, then fighting the Sandinista government in their homeland. <p> That notion -- amplified by the paper's Web site and distorted by talk radio and street-corner gossip -- prompted widespread outrage, [172 lines left ... full text available at <url:http://www.reference.com/cgi-bin/pn/go?choice=message&table=05_1997&mid=2747475&hilit=CIA> ] -------------------------------- Article-ID: 05_1997&2596604 Score: 91 Subject: Re: Mercury News Retraction(cia lost)