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Re: CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] Introducing Crack Cocaine to Black America 10/96
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Re: CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] Introducing Crack Cocaine to Black America 10/96
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James (Terry) Edmonds' Files
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FOIA Number: 2006-0462-F
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This is not a textual record. This is used as an
administrative marker by the William J. Clinton
Presidential Library Staff.
Collection/Record Group:
Clinton Presidential Records
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Speechwriting
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Terry Edmonds
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10981
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Re: CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] Introducing Crack Cocaine to black America 10/96
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10/10/96
[On Charges Regarding the CIA]
When I first heard that there were news accounts alleging the CIA was involved in
introducing crack cocaine to black America in the 1980s (to raise money to fund an army
in Central America) was remarkably not surprised. One, because however unfair, there are
few charges made against the CIA that would surprise me -- both because the CIA has a
long history of having conspiracy charges leveled against it and because one or two or
them have turned out to be true. Two, because as an African-American, I'd heard this
charge before - that is that the government was involved in introducing illegal, immoral or
otherwise destructive forces into black communities.
Somehow, though, I didn't think this story had "legs" as they say. But it has turned
from a story in the press to calls for congressional and other investigations to rising
temperatures in African-American communities, particularly in California. Before this story
gets off in a direction that could lead to even greater division between the races, let's, all of
us, consider a few things:
On October 16, 1995, President Clinton delivered a speech on race in America.
He said a lot of important things in that speech but none so important than when he said
"[i]n recent weeks, every one of us has been made aware of a simple truth - white
Americans and black Americans often see the world in drastically different ways -- ways
that go beyond and beneath the Simpson trial and its aftermath
"
He was talking, of course, about the fact that some polls showed most African-
Americans believed O.J. Simpson was innocent and most white Americans believed he
was guilty. A similar division seems to be emerging now. Commentary on this issue has
found little middle ground. Either African-Americans are injudiciously overreacting to a
self-generated paranoia without substantiation or support (as some commentary goes) or
the United States government under the Reagan Administration was covertly involved in a
scheme to introduce crack cocaine into black neighborhoods in a deliberate effort to kill
them off. I am in no position even to speculate on the detailed accounts of interviews and
documents reported on in various newspapers. Besides, I have confidence in General
McCaffrey's commitment "[i]f there is wrongdoing there, it should and will be punished."
But I also think an unchecked manipulation of either potential reality is dangerous and
unproductive. Worse, we may be missing the point.
However unhappy a truth this may be to some, all Americans must consider that
the basis upon which concerns have risen over this issue - and caused African-American
leaders like Maxine Waters and Jesse Jackson to call for investigations - is real. By that I
mean African-Americans were borne to this nation as a giant state-sponsored "conspiracy"
to be denied their basic human rights - that was called slavery. After slavery was
abolished, schemes to undue what Mr. Lincoln had done abounded, in law and later in
fact. Thus, the fact that African-Americans might: (1) believe charges that the CIA may have
sponsored or supported the introduction of destructive elements into black communities in
an attempt to undermine their communities, and (2) demand an investigation into such
charges, shouldn't have come as a surprise to anyone, really. Neither, however should
African-Americans be surprised by incredulity on the part of an America that desires or
chooses to believe we've overcome our dismal history.
It is manifestly important to examine charges that an entity representing the United
States of America was engaged in something so horrific, either deliberately or
inadvertently. According to interviews by Gary Webb, his Mercury News series doesn't
actually say the CIA knew anything about the drug trafficking. But now the charge is out
there. It is also critical that whatever the reality, we still need to address an undeniable
reality - the belief as Courtland Malloy describes - "that drugs and alcohol are the way out
of the afflictions that so many are so desperately seeking to escape."
But what I'm concerned about is that we may be missing a bigger picture - not that
this one isn't big enough. That is that race relations in America are still raw and bitter and
fragile. The wounds are deep and formidable. That's what President Clinton attempted to
address last year when he said to white American "[we] must clean our house" and to
black America "[w]e must be one." Maybe we should have paid better attention.
So, I have a suggestion. In his September 4, 1996 letter to Congresswoman Waters,
CIA Director Deutch said he asked his agency's Inspector General report to be completed
within sixty days. Let's try to get through this now unavoidably difficult time keeping in
mind the following:
1) The rifts between blacks and whites that still exist today - the fact that "white
Americans and black Americans often see the same world in drastically different ways"
- as President Clinton has said, "rooted in the awful history and stubborn persistence of
racism." For many African-Americans a story like this will not only be real - it will be true,
whatever an investigation ultimately reveals. Thus, the resulting complications are the
same: cocaine use is a huge problem in the black community, as are other problems of
substance abuse, and racial tensions persist. However tempting it must be for some to be
dismissive of all three, we need to fix all three problems, as a community, or suffer the cost
of continued division.
2) Thus, it does little good to continue to go back and forth about whether readers
read more into the Mercury News story than the writer intended. The House Intelligence
committee, the CIA Inspector General, and the Attorney General Inspector General offices
have all launched their own investigations. We will know more when these investigations
are concluded. But we don't have to wait to remember what Clinton said a year ago. In
the past "[w]hen divisions have threatened to bring our house down, somehow we have
always moved together to shore it up." These divisions still exist today and we can't expect
a congressional investigation to solve them - we need to move together to shore up our
house.
Leslie T. Thornton