Asa Winstanley: A good piece, with interesting updates, but the idea that Webb was “undone by the petty jealousies of the modern media world” fundamentally ignores the propaganda role of the mainstream media in this case. The media were willing leaders of the pro-CIA smear job on Webb because they were already so fully in the pockets of the security establishment. Hell, reading Dark Alliance the book, it seems pretty certain Walter Pincus is an actual CIA asset. Also, I’ve read Schou’s biog and it’s frankly disappointing. There is very little new in there of significance. You can learn more far from Webb’s book. The CSJ school of “reasonable” critics of Webb (including Schou) always seem to talk about supposed “flaws” in the original Dark Alliance stories without really specifying them, and Devereaux seems to buy into that a little too much for my liking. (The only one he specifies — that Webb failed to mention his attempts to contact the CIA for comment is IMO trivial – frankly there was a valid case for NOT contacting the CIA for comment until after publication – The Mercury News badly edited the stories from the start so it’s possible that’s one of things they cut. I’d have to re-check the book on that.) The main thing missing here is the most salient point: after an internal investigation, Webb was subsequently proven not only right, but somewhat conservative on the extent to which the CIA’s Contra proxies were running drugs into black areas in the US in order to fund their war against the Sandinistas — all with CIA and DEA involvement, they were not merely turning a blind eye.
Read the article in The Intercept here.