Investigative Reporter Says He's Been Pulled Off CIA-Crack Cocaine Story

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (June 11, 1997 6:03 p.m. EDT) -- The San Jose Mercury News investigative reporter who linked the CIA to crack cocaine sales in the United States said Wednesday he has been pulled off the story and is being transferred to a small suburban bureau.

Gary Webb said newspaper management told him to stop reporting on the "Dark Alliance" series, published last summer, or he would lose his job. He also said the newspaper is transferring him from the state capital to Cupertino, 150 miles away.

"This is just harassment," Webb said. " This isn't the first time that a reporter went after the CIA and lost his job over it."

Executive editor Jerry Ceppos declined to comment, describing the issue as a personnel matter.

Representatives from the San Jose Newspaper Guild met with management to protest Webb's transfer, but Webb said he was pessimistic about persuading the Mercury News to continue to support the series.

"I wouldn't happily go with this plan to back away from this story, and I insisted that my story was right," Webb said. But he added that with a wife and three children, he can't afford to quit.

Webb's series charged a San Francisco Bay area drug ring sold cocaine in South Central Los Angeles in the 1980s, then funneled profits to CIA-backed Nicaraguan Contra rebels for the better part of a decade.

When the series was published, Webb was widely praised. But he was quickly put on the defensive after The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times disputed his findings. In addition, federal investigations spurred by the series found no links between the CIA and drug dealing.

In a column last month, Ceppos called the series "oversimplified" and criticized it for falling "short of my standards."

"I believe that we fell short at every step of our process -- in 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."

The newspaper's parent company, Knight-Ridder Inc., has sided with Ceppos and supports his criticism of the series.

By CASSANDRA SWEET, The Associated Press