Whiteout: The CIA, Drugs and the Press First Edition

by Alexander Cockburn (Author), Jeffrey St. Clair (Author)

63 ratings

ISBN-13: 978-1859841396

ISBN-10: 1859841392

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A shocking expose of the CIA’s role as drug baron. On March 18, 1998, the CIA’s Inspector General, Fred Hitz, told astounded US Reps that the CIA had maintained relationships with companies and individuals that the Agency knew to be involved in the drug business. More shocking was the revelation that the CIA had received from Reagan’s Justice Department clearance not to report any knowledge it might have of drug-dealing by CIA assets. Many years’ worth of CIA denials, much of it under oath to Congress, were sunk. Hitz’s admissions made fools of some of the most prominent names in US journalism and vindicated others that had been ruined. Particularly resonant was the case of the San Jose Mercury News, which published a sensational series on CIA involvement in the smuggling of cocaine into black urban neighborhoods, and then under pressure conspired in the destruction of its own reporter, Gary Webb. In Whiteout, Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair finally put the whole story together, from the earliest days, when the CIA’s institutional ancestors cut a deal with America’s premier gangster and drug trafficker, Lucky Luciano. This is a thrilling history that stretches from Sicily in 1944 to the killing fields of Laos and Vietnam, to CIA safe houses in Greenwich Village and San Francisco where CIA men watched Agency-paid prostitutes feed LSD to unsuspecting clients. We meet Oliver North, as he plotted with Manuel Noriega and Central American gangsters. We travel to little-known airports in Costa Rica and Arkansas. We hear from drug pilots and accountants from the Cali Cartel. We learn of DEA agents whose careers were ruined because they tried to tell the truth. Cockburn and St. Clair show how the CIA’s complicity with drug-dealing criminal gangs was part and parcel of its attacks on labor organizers, whether on the docks of New York, Marseilles, or Shanghai. They trace how the Cold War and counter-insurgency led to an alliance between the Agency and the vilest of war criminals like Klaus Barbie, or fanatic opium traders like the mujahedin in Afghanistan. Cockburn and St. Clair horrifyingly affirm charges of outraged black communities that the CIA had undertaken enduring programs of experiments on minorities. They show that the CIA imported Nazi scientists straight from their labs at Dachau and Buchenwald and set to work, developing chemical and biological agents, tested on blacks, some of them in mental hospitals. Cockburn and St. Clair dissect the shameful way American journalists have not only turned a blind eye to the Agency’s misdeeds, but also helped plunge the knife into those who tried to tell the truth. Fact-packed and fast-paced, Whiteout is a richly detailed excavation of the CIA’s dirtiest secrets. For anyone who wants to know the real truth about the Agency, this is the book to start with.

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair take the revelations of the links between the Central Intelligence Agency, the Nicaraguan Contras, and the Los Angeles crack market that journalist Gary Webb exposed in 1996--revelations that are the basis of Webb's book Dark Alliance--and use them as a springboard for a tale of the U.S. government's involvement with the illegal drug trade that extends much further back than Webb's tale.

The specific revelations are not, perhaps, entirely new; many know, for example, that even before there was a CIA, the WWII-era Office of Strategic Services enlisted the aid of gangster "Lucky" Luciano in arranging support among the Sicilian Mafia for the American invasion of Italy, or that the CIA was actively involved in the Southeast Asian opium trade during the Vietnam War. But Cockburn and St. Clair persuasively argue that the traditional explanation for such events--"rogue elements"--is deliberately misleading, and that the mainstream "liberal" press plays an active role in this obfuscation (noting, for example, that Webb's three biggest attackers were the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Washington Post). By providing an overarching narrative rather than treating these incidents as isolated, the authors present a damning indictment of the CIA--but one that fully admits that the agency was not acting on its own, but was merely fulfilling the mandates of the American government. --Ron Hogan

Review

“Cockburn and St. Clair present a litany of CIA misdeeds, from the recruitment of Nazi scientists after WWII to the arming of opium traffickers in Afghanistan. All of this is extremely well documented ... A chilling history that many will take issue with of what the CIA has been up to in the past 50 years.”—KIRKUS

“A solid, pitiless piece of muckraking, ... Cockburn and St. Clair raise troubling questions about the role of a largely secretive government agency in a democratic society.”—San Diego Union Tribune

“A probing examination of the CIA’s chilling history of coddling major drug traffickers, gangsters and Nazi psychopaths.”—Philadelphia Tribune

“A convincing, well-researched, comprehensive condemnation of the CIA.”—Maximum Rock 'N Roll

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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Verso; First Edition (August 17, 1998)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 416 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1859841392
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1859841396
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.9 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.5 x 1.25 x 9.75 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #2,237,176 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,023 in Political Leadership
- #1,200 in Journalism
- #1,559 in Drug Dependency Recovery

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Jacob Selchau

A book of horrors

Reviewed in the United States on December 15, 2013

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This is a horrifying book. Every reader has two options: Either he must decide that at least ninety percent of the contents of this book is lies, or they must concede that the US government is fundamentally corrupt. And sadly, all the major claims that I researched up on were well-documented.

The book contains accounts of the US government complicity in drug trade, state terror, torture, genocide and mass murder. Even its own citizens have been subjected to terrible crimes through grotesque biological, radiological and chemical experimentation. The book details many such cases and describe how politicians and the so-called "respectable" press often deliberately look the other way.

The book is also highly readable. The authors are good narrators and the absurdity of the subject matter comes through clearly. It does not contain much original research, but it does collect scattered and willfully-forgotten knowledge that is very valuable. Frankly, I know of no books which describes as many grotesque and absurd high crimes by various US administrations and institutions. It clearly shows that these actions are not performed for the sake of the US citizenry, which are among the victims of this book.

A highly recommended book.

19 people found this helpful

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Mark Wylie

A Superbly Researched Account of Some Unpleasant Events

Reviewed in the United States on March 10, 2000

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The CIA has always been a very secretive organization, and remains one today. In 1996, the publication of Gary Webb's "Dark Alliance" series threatened the CIA with unwelcome public scrutiny by exposing its complicity in the drug trade: the CIA-created Nicaraguan contras were funding their operations, in part, by selling crack cocaine on the streets of Los Angeles, with the agency's knowledge.
Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair's "Whiteout: The CIA, Drugs and the Press" jumps off from here. Wisely, Cockburn and St. Clair do not make Webb's story the core of their book; Webb's own book does that job admirably. What they do contribute to this story is a devastating account of the shameful way that the mainstream press, led by former intelligence officer Walter Pincus of the Washington Post, turned on Webb in an effort to discredit him and his story. Cockburn and St. Clair repeatedly expose the flaws in mainstream efforts to "debunk" the Dark Alliance series, and catch many reporters acting as little more than flacks for the CIA, often writing stories that said little more than "we know Webb's story is false because the CIA told us so."
But the core of "Whiteout" has a more historical perspective, as the authors set out to review the underside of the history of the CIA and its precursor, the OSS. And an ugly picture it is, too, as we see these agencies:
-recruiting the Mafia to assassinate foreign leaders.
-recruiting Nazi scientists to conduct experiments (often on blacks) in torture and mind control.
-helping war criminal Klaus Barbie escape Europe, and justice, to become a South American drug lord, arms dealer and apparent CIA operative.
-allying with the opium and heroin traders of Southeast Asia.
Working with drug dealers and other criminal elements is so common for the CIA that it would appear from this account to have been standard Agency procedure.
"Whiteout" is a well-written and well-researched book. Helpfully, the authors end each chapter with an annotated guide to further reading on the subject.
"Whiteout" is not pleasant reading; I could only take so much at a time before having to put it aside for the day. But it is necessary reading. In a democratic society, an agency such as the CIA, if it must exist, must be under constant scrutiny or it will lapse into lawlessness (the same is true of law enforcement agencies). It is clear that the mainstream media are not going to provide such scrutiny, so we must turn to independent journalists like Cockburn and St. Clair and others like them for the accurate information we need.

88 people found this helpful

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One of the most important books in my library

Reviewed in the United States on March 10, 2001

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This is a story that can't be told too many times by too many people. It's volatile, it's important, and there are still too many people who don't know anything about it at all.
The most crucial aspect of this book and the clearest documentation I have yet to find, regards OPERATION PAPERCLIP and the birth of CIA generated projects MK-ULTRA and BLUEBIRD. While this is only the tip of the iceberg of what the CIA has done and is doing to this country, it is imperative that people understand this part of the story in order to believe any of the rest of it. To that end, Whiteout is one of the most important books in my library. If there is better documentation of MK-ULTRA, Bluebird, CHATTER, MKSEARCH, SPELLBINDER, ARTICHOKE, and ultimately, MONARCH, I want to know about it.

11 people found this helpful

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Robert W. Smith

outstanding

Reviewed in the United States on March 25, 2009

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I found this book very easy to read and devoured it quite briskly. I found the whole premise to be plausible and I believe that the conclusions were well supported with references to facts. It is a deeply disturbing conclusion. I think that this is a well written book that addresses US involvement in several geo-political regions. I think I say this of any book that's not 50,000 pages in length, but, it was certainly not comprehensive, providing only a smattering of conflicts about which the reader's whistle is whetted. This book might be interesting supplemental reading for an undergraduate political science course or simply an excellent read for novices (especially on raining weekends). I give the premise of the book an "A+" and I give the writing and scholarship an "A-". It is highly recommended.

4 people found this helpful

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RJ, Mesa, AZ

Arrived in the time and condition that was advertised . . . a good experience!

Reviewed in the United States on January 6, 2020

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Arrived as advertised!

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zansdor

Excellent and informative

Reviewed in the United States on January 7, 2017

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Excellent book. Found out things I had no idea happened. It also proved to me once again that the people who are responsible for tragic things are seldom held accountable.

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Bobby Phisher

Smoke and Mirrors really exist...

Reviewed in the United States on December 4, 2015

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Another reason to end the War on Drugs--how many reasons does it take?

2 people found this helpful

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Rick Davenport

Eye opening book about how the CIA is in bed ...

Reviewed in the United States on August 18, 2015

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Eye opening book about how the CIA is in bed with drug dealers or are in fact sponsoring their black ops with drug money.

One person found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Cafe Baghdad

The CIA's involvement in the drug trade

Reviewed in Germany on August 13, 2020

Verified Purchase

A fantastic account of the drug trade, the people involved and their CIA connections. The sourcing of the drugs and the main market, the US where effectively the CIA helped bring it to market. The book does touch on the history but misses out on the family of the Iraqi Jew David Sassoon, whose father was the Nassi of Baghdad, the Jewish Pope, that ran the Asian opium heroin trade in the 19th century that basically was the predecessor of all drug lords. The family founded the Hong Kong Shanghai Banking Corporation in 1865 aka HSBC and prints the money in HK still today.

Amazon Customer

Three Stars

Reviewed in Canada on October 29, 2015

Verified Purchase

Very difficult to get into, but interesting once you bury yourself into the materiel.

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Whiteout: The CIA, Drugs and the Press First Edition

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