San Jose Police Clearance Letter: Fill & Download for Free

How to Apply | Single Subject Credential Program"What the educator does in teaching is make it possible for the students to become themselves" - Paulo FrierePotential candidate: We are excited for you to take this next step in your educational journey and apply to enroll in our teacher preparation program! The SJSU Single Subject Credential Program is known for effectively preparing transformative educators at the secondary education level in the San Jose region and beyond. See PayScale ranks SJSU education majors #7 in the nation for salary potential.Application UpdatesSummer/Fall 2021 applicantsWe understand that COVID-19 is impacting potential applicants’ ability to complete some of our normal admission requirements. We will update you on all requirements through this web page as we have further information. It is important to note that even if a requirement is waived or deferred, it strengthens your application to complete or show progress toward completing that requirement.Updates as of 9/8/2020 to the Pre-Professional Hours and Certificate of Clearance requirements are detailed below.Updates as of 9/18/2020 to the CBEST and CSET requirements are detailed below.Click here for a one page summary of current requirements. Further information about each requirement is detailed on this "How to Apply" webpage.For questions about current requirements, please contact our Single Subject Credential Program Coordinator Paula Oakes at [email protected] or contact the Teacher Education Department at [email protected]. We are happy to work with you on admissions.Overview of Eligibility and Application RequirementsTo ensure the quality of our program and compliance with California standards, qualified candidates must have a Bachelor’s Degree with at least a 2.75 grade point average. GPA for admission to the university is calculated by the last 60 semester units or by the last 90 quarter units taken or your cumulative GPA, whichever is higher.Note: International coursework may require additional steps of evaluation. See Graduate admission for more details (include hyperlink) (This requirement also reflects that during the program, you must maintain a B average or better to remain in good standing, and you will need a B average to be able to apply for your credential at the end of the program.).You will also need to submit the following materials as part of your application:An official, sealed transcript from each college you have attendedVerification of meeting the Basic Skills requirement (CBEST or equivalent) (Covid Flexibility--see below)Completed Certificate of Clearance1-page resumeVerification of your completed 45 hours of Pre-Professional ExperienceVerification of CSET subject matter competency or Teacher Ed Approved Subject Matter Preparation Program Form (Covid Flexibility--see below)Two letters of recommendation1-page cover letter (optional, unless you are applying for the Yearlong Residency Program, Critical Bilingual Authorization Pathway (CBAP), or Internship Program)Tips:Our Deadlines webpage will help you identify when you need to submit your application materials to SJSU via CalState Apply and to our Teacher Education Department.Admissions to this program occur on a semi-rolling basis, so it is in your best interest to apply as soon as you are prepared to.You should begin to schedule your CBEST and CSET exams as soon as you know you will be applying to this program. It can take time to prepare, receive your results, and retake if necessary.See below for required steps prior to application review. Note: each step may have a number of components.Step 1 | Attend an Applicant Information Session & Meet with Your Subject Area AdvisorRSVP and attend an Applicant Information Session. These sessions provide an overview of the program, address questions and introduce you to advisors and potential future classmates.Contact your Subject Area Advisor to schedule an appointment to complete the following requirements. The process and availability for each advisor will vary.Subject Area Advisor Meeting:Evaluation of Subject Matter Competency (SMC)You will have your transcripts evaluated to determine which CSET exams you need to pass, if any. If you do not have SMC via coursework, you have the option of either taking the additional required coursework or earning passing scores on the required CSET exams in your subject area.Your advisor will forward your SMC Report to the Department of Teacher Education. This required document must be signed by your Subject Area Advisor in order to be admitted into the credential program.Writing taskYou will complete a timed writing task that addresses a specific prompt. This writing sample is reviewed by Teacher Education as part of your application materials. If you need to retake the writing task, you will be notified by email. The writing section of the CBEST does not fulfill this requirement.InterviewThe interview assesses your dispositions toward the teaching profession and also screens for English oral language proficiency. Be prepared to discuss relevant experience, qualities, and interest in education. If your English oral language proficiency is not at the mid-level advanced as defined by the ACTFL you may be called in for further screening.NOTE: The English Education Department interviews are held only once each semester: in Fall, the first Friday in November; in Spring, the second Friday of March.Step 2 | Create Your SJSU Application via CalState ApplyTip: As you go through the application process, keep copies of everything you submit for your entrance application. You will need your documents when you apply for your preliminary credential after completing the program.Create your applicationGo to the Cal State Apply website, select the term you are applying for at the top of the page, and create your account.When searching for Graduate programs at San Jose State University, only enter San Jose in the search field (Do not enter SJSU, San Jose State, or San Jose State University ...just enter San Jose. Otherwise our programs will not populate.).If you're unable to find the semester you desire to apply for, and you know the deadline hasn't passed, go to the CalState Apply home page. Then scroll down and click on the "Select a Term to Apply For" drop-down menu. You should see all of the available semesters in that drop-down menu. Choose your desired semester and click Apply. That will take you to your application. If you click on the "Submit Application" tab at the top of your application, it will confirm which semester you're applying for.For any questions about the "Personal Information," “Academic History," and "Supporting Information" sections and the "Home" tab of the "Program Materials" section of the Cal State Apply application portal, please contact Graduate Admissions by email (preferred) at [email protected] or by phone at 408-283-7500.For any questions regarding the "Program Materials" section (with the exception of the "Home" tab) of the CalState Apply application portal, please read the Program Materials section below or contact us at [email protected] your transcriptsOfficial transcripts are required and must be sent to Graduate Admissions.If your university offers official electronic transcripts, we will also accept this method of delivery. If your university requires an email address to send an official, electronic transcript, the recipient address is: [email protected] mailed transcripts must be sealed and unopened to be accepted as official documents.Transcripts sent by mail should be sent to:Graduate Admissions and Program EvaluationsSan Jose State UniversityOne Washington SquareSan Jose, CA 95192-0017SJSU students do not have to submit SJSU transcripts with your application.International Applicants: Please also visit the SJSU Graduate Admissions and Program Evaluations’ International Steps to Admission webpage for further instructions. If you have any questions regarding these instructions, please contact SJSU Graduate Admissions.Step 3 | Upload Your Program Materials to Your CalState Apply Application for the SJSU Teacher Education DepartmentIn CalState Apply Under "Program Materials" submit the following:Note: Keep your copies! Application documents are also required at the end of your successful completion of the program in order to apply for your preliminary credential.Verification of meeting the Basic Skills requirementCOVID Flexibility for Spring/Summer/Fall 2021 Applicants: We stongly recommend completing this requirement by the point of admission, but you do have the option to defer meeting this requirement until you apply for your Preliminary Credential after completing the program. You will not be able to apply for your Preliminary Credential without this requirement. If you have not completely fulfilled this requirement already, please fill out the COVID-19 Exceptions Form (read/follow instructions on form).There are several ways you can meet the basic skills requirement. View this PDF on the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CTC) website for a full list of possible options.If you plan to satisfy the Basic Skills requirement by an option other than the CBEST, please contact the SJSU Lurie College of Education Credential Services to have your documentation verified. Once Credential Services has reviewed the documentation, please upload the verified document(s) through the CalState Apply application portal.Visit our Test Preparation Resources webpage for several free resources to prepare for passing the CBEST exam.Upload a PDF copy of your verification to your CalState Apply applicationCertificate of Clearance (COC)There are 3 steps to obtaining your Certificate of Clearance (CoC). Do not wait until the last minute to request this item, as it can take weeks for the CTC to issue.(COC) Step 1 | Live Scan ServiceFor Live Scan Service locations, visit Live Scan Locations. Live Scan Services may also be available at the SJSU Police Department. Call (408) 924-2172.Print three copies of the Request for Live Scan Service form [form 41-LS] and take it with you to your Live Scan appointment.(COC) Step 2 | Certificate of Clearance ApplicationAfter you’ve completed your Live Scan, complete and submit the CTC Online Application for the Certificate of Clearance (CoC). The $50 fee for a CoC application is payable by credit card only.When requirements for issuance of the CoC are completed an email will be sent informing the individual that the document has been granted and can be viewed in 48 hours on the CTC website.(COC) Step 3 | Upload a PDF of the granted Certificate of Clearance to your Cal State Apply application or submit the COVID Exceptions Form if you are unable to complete the Live Scan due to COVID-19.Note: An emergency sub permit may be submitted in lieu of the Certificate of Clearance, as long as you ensure the department always has a current, valid copy.District-Level Fingerprint Clearance: In addition to the required Certificate of Clearance, some school districts also require a district-level clearance prior to student teaching. Candidates should arrange an appointment with the participating district’s Human Resources Department at least 10 working days before the start of the field placement student-teaching experience to ensure district-level fingerprint clearance is completed. Candidates may not begin their field placement without having both CCTC and, if required, district-level clearance.Your ResumePrepare a one-page resume that details your college-level academic, employment, and volunteer experiences. For each position you held, highlight the duties you performed and any accomplishments you achieved. Uploa Editd your resume as a PDF.Verification of your Pre-Professional Work ExperienceCOVID Flexibility for Spring 2021 Applicants: This requirement has been temporarily waived by the CSU Office of the Chancellor. However, we ask you to submit any hours that you have completed. If you have zero hours, upload the COVID Exceptions Form.--Any explanation of your work with an interest in work with middle school, high school or other youth is helpful to the review process.Complete a minimum of 45 observation hours of "Pre-Professional Experience" and upload a completed/signed Pre Professional Experience form [pdf] to your Cal State Apply application.Pre-Professional Experience in a public middle or high school during the regular school day schedule is a requirement for admission. You may contact any California public elementary school school and let them know that you are applying to the SJSU Single Subject Credential Program and need to complete your 45 observation hours of Pre-Professional Experience. You should observe classes in the subject area you want your credential in. Twenty of the 45 observation hours may be from other experience with youth, such as: a summer school class at a California public middle school or high school (preferably in the subject area you are seeking a credential in), tutoring, camp counselor position, private school experience, etc.You may also document coursework that included work with secondary youth.If you need assistance with finding a placement to complete these hours, please contact the SJSU Lurie College of Education Student Success Center.Subject Matter Competency (CSETs or Teacher Prep Program)COVID Flexibility for Spring/Summer/Fall 2021 Applicants: If you are meeting this requirement via CSETs, we stongly recommend completing this requirement by the point of admission, but you do have the option to defer meeting this requirement until you apply for your Preliminary Credential after completing the program. You will not be able to apply for your Preliminary Credential without this requirement. If you have not completely fulfilled this requirement already, please fill out the COVID-19 Exceptions Form (read/follow instructions on form).CSET Subject Tests | PDF verifications of your passing scores for all of your CSET subtests must be submitted at the time of application, even if you have already submitted them to your subject area advisor. The list of CSET subtests is available on the CTC website. Visit our Test Preparation Resources webpage for several free resources to prepare for passing various CSET exams.Your Subject Area Advisor will identify the method of demonstration. While the advisor will send a copy to teacher education, you will need a copy of your approved teacher waiver program or CSETS. SJSU Lurie College of Education Credential Services can validate waiver programs from other universities.Two Letters of RecommendationTips: Be sure to use an early submission deadline for your letters of recommendation. You will want them to be available as soon as your file is reviewed so the the earlier the deadline you use, the better. In your message to your recommenders, include the name of the program you are applying for at San Jose State University - Single Subject Teaching Program - as well as the name of the Single Subject Credential Program Coordinator - Paula Oakes.This step is located in the “Recommendations” tab of the “Program Materials” section of your online application.Two (2) letters of recommendation are needed for the department application. These letters must be from people in a supervisory role who have known you in a professional or educational setting. Letters must speak to your ability to work with people, experience with youth, your work ethic, your intellectual capabilities, or other characteristics pertinent to teaching.You can submit your application after requesting recommendations. Once you submit your Cal State Apply application, however, you cannot go back and request more recommendations. Recommendations which are requested from within CalStateApply will be connected to your application once they come in. Additional or alternate letters can be emailed as a Word or PDF attachment directly to the Teacher Education Department to [email protected]. Recommendation letters are an essential component of your application.Cover LetterIf you are applying to the Bilingual Authorization Pathway (BAP), Internship Program, or the Yearlong Residency Program, (which begins during the summer term), please write a 1-page, single spaced cover letter that outlines your teaching and related experiences and skills that you believe make you a good candidate. Upload a PDF copy to your Cal State Apply application. Other applicants are welcome to submit a cover letter but are not required to.Next Step | Admissions DecisionCongratulations - if you completed the above steps, you have successfully applied for our SJSU Single Subject Credential Program! After your application has been reviewed by the SJSU Office of Graduate Admissions, which may take a few weeks, and the Department of Teacher Education, you will receive an email regarding your application status and any next steps. Some candidates are asked in for interviews with Teacher Education depending on their application status or program. You can check the status of your Cal State Apply application by logging into your MySJSU account.

The list is too long:Israel’s Attack on the USS Liberty: A Half Century Later, Still No JusticeIn early June of 1967, at the onset of the Six Day War, the Pentagon sent the USS Liberty from Spain into international waters off the coast of Gaza to monitor the progress of Israel’s attack on the Arab states. The Liberty was a lightly armed surveillance ship.Only hours after the Liberty arrived it was spotted by the Israeli military. The IDF sent out reconnaissance planes to identify the ship. They made eight trips over a period of three hours. The Liberty was flying a large US flag and was easily recognizable as an American vessel.Soon more planes came. These were Israeli Mirage III fighters, armed with rockets and machine guns. As off-duty officers sunbathed on the deck, the fighters opened fire on the defenseless ship with rockets and machine guns.A few minutes later a second wave of planes streaked overhead, French-built Mystere jets, which not only pelted the ship with gunfire but also with napalm bomblets, coating the deck with the flaming jelly. By now, the Liberty was on fire and dozens were wounded and killed, excluding several of the ship’s top officers.The Liberty’s radio team tried to issue a distress call, but discovered the frequencies had been jammed by the Israeli planes with what one communications specialist called “a buzzsaw sound.” Finally, an open channel was found and the Liberty got out a message it was under attack to the USS America, the Sixth Fleet’s large aircraft carrier.Two F-4s left the carrier to come to the Liberty’s aid. Apparently, the jets were armed only with nuclear weapons. When word reached the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara became irate and ordered the jets to return. “Tell the Sixth Fleet to get those aircraft back immediately,” he barked. McNamara’s injunction was reiterated in saltier terms by Admiral David L. McDonald, the chief of Naval Operations: “You get those fucking airplanes back on deck, and you get them back down.” The planes turned around. And the attack on the Liberty continued.After the Israeli fighter jets had emptied their arsenal of rockets, three Israeli attack boats approached the Liberty. Two torpedoes were launched at the crippled ship, one tore a 40-foot wide hole in the hull, flooding the lower compartments, and killing more than a dozen American sailors.As the Liberty listed in the choppy seas, its deck aflame, crew members dropped life rafts into the water and prepared to scuttle the ship. Given the number of wounded, this was going to be a dangerous operation. But it soon proved impossible, as the Israeli attack boats strafed the rafts with machine gun fire. No body was going to get out alive that way.After more than two hours of unremitting assault, the Israelis finally halted their attack. One of the torpedo boats approached the Liberty. An officer asked in English over a bullhorn: “Do you need any help?”The wounded commander of the Liberty, Lt. William McGonagle, instructed the quartermaster to respond emphatically: “Fuck you.”The Israeli boat turned and left.A Soviet destroyer responded before the US Navy, even though a US submarine, on a covert mission, was apparently in the area and had monitored the attack. The Soviet ship reached the Liberty six hours before the USS Davis. The captain of the Soviet ship offered his aid, but the Liberty’s conning officer refused.Finally, 16 hours after the attack two US destroyers reached the Liberty. By that time, 34 US sailors were dead and 174 injured, many seriously. As the wounded were being evacuated, an officer with the Office of Naval Intelligence instructed the men not to talk about their ordeal with the press.The following morning Israel launched a surprise invasion of Syria, breaching the new cease-fire agreement and seizing control of the Golan Heights.Within three weeks, the Navy put out a 700-page report, exonerating the Israelis, claiming the attack had been accidental and that the Israelis had pulled back as soon as they realized their mistake. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara suggested the whole affair should be forgotten. “These errors do occur,” McNamara concluded.***In Assault on the Liberty, a harrowing first-hand account by James Ennes Jr., McNamara’s version of events is proven to be as big a sham as his concurrent lies about Vietnam. Ennes’s book created a media storm when it was first published by Random House in 1980, including (predictably) charges that Ennes was a liar and an anti-Semite. Still, the book sold more than 40,000 copies, but was eventually allowed to go out of print. Now Ennes has published an updated version, which incorporates much new evidence that the Israeli attack was deliberate and that the US government went to extraordinary lengths to disguise the truth.It’s a story of Israel aggression, Pentagon incompetence, official lies, and a cover-up that persists to this day. The book gains much of its power from the immediacy of Ennes’s first-hand account of the attack and the lies that followed.Now, decades later, Ennes warns that the bloodbath on board the Liberty and its aftermath should serve as a tragic cautionary tale about the continuing ties between the US government and the government of Israel.The Attack on the Liberty is the kind of book that makes your blood seethe. Ennes skillfully documents the life of the average sailor on one of the more peculiar vessels in the US Navy, with an attention for detail that reminds one of Dana or O’Brien. After all, the year was 1967 and most of the men on the Liberty were certainly glad to be on a non-combat ship in the middle of the Mediterranean, rather than in the Gulf of Tonkin or Mekong Delta.But this isn’t Two Years Before the Mast. In fact, Ennes’s tour on the Liberty last only a few short weeks. He had scarcely settled into a routine before his new ship was shattered before his eyes.Ennes joined the Liberty in May of 1967, as an Electronics Material Officer. Serving on a “spook ship”, as the Liberty was known to Navy wives, was supposed to be a sure path to career enhancement. The Liberty’s normal routine was to ply the African coast, tuning in its eavesdropping equipment on the electronic traffic in the region.The Liberty had barely reached Africa when it received a flash message from the Joint Chiefs of Staff to sail from the Ivory Coast to the Mediterranean, where it was to re-deploy off the coast of the Sinai to monitor the Israeli attack on Egypt and the allied Arab nations.As the war intensified, the Liberty sent a request to the fleet headquarters requesting an escort. It was denied by Admiral William Martin. The Liberty moved alone to a position in international waters about 13 miles from the shore at El Arish, then under furious siege by the IDF.On June 6, the Joint Chiefs sent Admiral McCain, father of the senator from Arizona, an urgent message instructing him to move the Liberty out of the war zone to a position at least 100 miles off the Gaza Coast. McCain never forwarded the message to the ship.A little after seven in the morning on June 8, Ennes entered the bridge of the Liberty to take the morning watch. Ennes was told that an hour earlier a “flying boxcar” (later identified as a twin-engine Nord 2501 Noratlas) had flown over the ship at a low level.Ennes says he noticed that the ship’s American flag had become stained with soot and ordered a new flag run up the mast. The morning was clear and calm, with a light breeze.At 9 am, Ennes spotted another reconnaissance plane, which circled the Liberty. An hour later two Israeli fighter jets buzzed the ship. Over the next four hours, Israeli planes flew over the Liberty five more times.When the first fighter jet struck, a little before two in the afternoon, Ennes was scanning the skies from the starboard side of the bridge, binoculars in his hands. A rocket hit the ship just below where Ennes was standing, the fragments shredded the men closest to him.After the explosion, Ennes noticed that he was the only man left standing. But he also had been hit by more than 20 shards of shrapnel and the force of the blast had shattered his left leg. As he crawled into the pilothouse, a second fighter jet streaked above them and unleashed its payload on the hobbled Liberty.At that point, Ennes says the crew of the Liberty had no idea who was attacking them or why. For a few moments, they suspected it might be the Soviets, after an officer mistakenly identified the fighters as MIG-15s. They knew that the Egyptian air force already had been decimated by the Israelis. The idea that the Israelis might be attacking them didn’t occur to them until one of the crew spotted a Star of David on the wing of one of the French-built Mystere jets.Ennes was finally taken below deck to a makeshift dressing station, with other wounded men. It was hardly a safe harbor. As Ennes worried that his fractured leg might slice through his femoral artery leaving him to bleed to death, the Liberty was pummeled by rockets, machine-gun fire and an Italian-made torpedo packed with 1,000-pounds of explosive.After the attack ended, Ennes was approached by his friend Pat O’Malley, a junior officer, who had just sent a list of killed and wounded to the Bureau of Naval Personnel. He got an immediate message back. “They said, ‘Wounded in what action? Killed in what action?’,” O’Malley told Ennes. “They said it wasn’t an ‘action,’ it was an accident. I’d like for them to come out here and see the difference between an action and an accident. Stupid bastards.”The cover-up had begun.***The Pentagon lied to the public about the attack on the Liberty from the very beginning. In a decision personally approved by the loathsome McNamara, the Pentagon denied to the press that the Liberty was an intelligence ship, referring to it instead as a Technical Research ship, as if it were little more than a military version of Jacques Cousteau’s Calypso.The military press corps on the USS America, where most of the wounded sailors had been taken, were placed under extreme restrictions. All of the stories filed from the carrier were first routed through the Pentagon for security clearance, objectionable material was removed with barely a bleat of protest from the reporters or their publications.Predictably, Israel’s first response was to blame the victim, a tactic that has served them so well in the Palestinian situation. First, the IDF alleged that it had asked the State Department and the Pentagon to identify any US ships in the area and was told that there were none. Then the Israeli government charged that the Liberty failed to fly its flag and didn’t respond to calls for it to identify itself. The Israelis contended that they assumed the Liberty was an Egyptian supply ship called El Quseir, which, even though it was a rusting transport ship then docked in Alexandria, the IDF said it suspected of shelling Israeli troops from the sea. Under these circumstances, the Israeli’s said they were justified in opening fire on the Liberty. The Israelis said that they halted the attack almost immediately, when they realized their mistake.“The Liberty contributed decisively toward its identification as an enemy ship,” the IDF report concluded. This was a blatant falsehood, since the Israelis had identified the Liberty at least six hours prior to the attack on the ship.Even though the Pentagon knew better, it gave credence to the Israeli account by saying that perhaps the Liberty’s flag had lain limp on the flagpole in a windless sea. The Pentagon also suggested that the attack might have lasted less than 20 minutes.After the initial battery of misinformation, the Pentagon imposed a news blackout on the Liberty disaster until after the completion of a Court of Inquiry investigation.The inquiry was headed by Rear Admiral Isaac C. Kidd. Kidd didn’t have a free hand. He’d been instructed by Vice-Admiral McCain to limit the damage to the Pentagon and to protect the reputation of Israel.The Kidd interviewed the crew on June 14 and 15. The questioning was extremely circumscribed. According to Ennes, the investigators “asked nothing that might be embarrassing to Israeland testimony that tended to embarrass Israel was covered with a ‘Top Secret’ label, if it was accepted at all.”Ennes notes that even testimony by the Liberty’s communications officers about the jamming of the ship’s radios was classified as “Top Secret.” The reason? It proved that Israel knew it was attacking an American ship. “Here was strong evidence that the attack was planned in advance and that our ship’s identity was known to the attackers (for it its practically impossible to jam the radio of a stranger), but this information was hushed up and no conclusions were drawn from it,” Ennes writes.Similarly, the Court of Inquiry deep-sixed testimony and affidavits regarding the flag-Ennes had ordered a crisp new one deployed early on the morning of the attack. The investigators buried intercepts of conversations between IDF pilots identifying the ship as flying an American flag.It also refused to accept evidence about the IDF’s use of napalm during the attacks and choose not to hear testimony regarding the duration of the attacks and the fact that the US Navy failed to send planes to defend the ship.“No one came to help us,” said Dr. Richard F. Kiepfer, the Liberty’s physician. “We were promised help, but no help came. The Russians arrived before our own ships did. We asked for an escort before we ever came to the war zone and we were turned down.”None of this made its way into the 700-page Court of Inquiry report, which was completed within a couple of weeks and sent to Admiral McCain in London for review.McCain approved the report over the objections of Captain Merlin Staring, the Navy legal officer assigned to the inquiry, who found the report to be flawed, incomplete and contrary to the evidence.Staring sent a letter to the Judge Advocate General of the Navy disavowing himself from the report. The JAG seemed to take Staring’s objections to heart. It prepared a summary for the Chief of Naval Operations that almost completely ignored the Kidd/McCain report. Instead, it concluded:that the Liberty was easily recognizable as an American naval vessel; that it’s flag was fully deployed and flying in a moderate breeze; that Israeli planes made at least eight reconnaissance flights at close range; the ship came under a prolonged attack from Israeli fighter jets and torpedo boats.This succinct and largely accurate report was stamped Top Secret by Navy brass and stayed locked up for many years. But it was seen by many in the Pentagon and some in the Oval Office. But here was enough grumbling about the way the Liberty incident had been handled that LBJ summoned that old Washington fixer Clark Clifford to do damage control. It didn’t take Clifford long to come up with the official line: the Israelis simply had made a tragic mistake.It turns out that the Admiral Kidd and Captain Ward Boston, the two investigating officers who prepared the original report for Admiral McCain, both believed that the Israeli attack was intentional and sustained. In other words, the IDF knew that they were striking an American spy ship and they wanted to sink it and kill as many sailors as possible. Why then did the Navy investigators produce a sham report that concluded it was an accident?Twenty-five years later we finally found out. In June of 2002, Captain Boston told the Navy Times: “Officers follow orders.”It gets worse. There’s plenty of evidence that US intelligence agencies learned on June 7 that Israel intended to attack the Liberty on the following day and that the strike had been personally ordered by Moshe Dayan.As the attacks were going on, conversations between Israeli pilots were overheard by US Air Force officers in an EC121 surveillance plane overhead. The spy plane was spotted by Israeli jets, which were given orders to shoot it down. The American plane narrowly avoided the IDF missiles.Initial reports on the incident prepared by the CIA, Office of Naval Intelligence and the National Security Agency all reached similar conclusions.A particularly damning report compiled by a CIA informant suggests that Israeli Defense minister Moshe Dayan personally ordered the attack and wanted it to proceed until the Liberty was sunk and all on board killed. A heavily redacted version of the report was released in 1977. It reads in part:“[The source] said that Dayan personally ordered the attack on the ship and that one of his generals adamantly opposed the action and said, ‘This is pure murder.’ One of the admirals who was present also disapproved of the action, and it was he who ordered it stopped and not Dayan.”This amazing document generated little attention from the press and Dayan was never publicly questioned about his role in the attack.The analyses by the intelligence agencies are collected in a 1967 investigation by the Defense Subcommittee on Appropriations. Two and half decades later that report remains classified. Why? A former committee staffer said: “So as not to embarrass Israel.”More proof came to light from the Israeli side. A few years after Attack on the Liberty was originally published, Ennes got a call from Evan Toni, an Israeli pilot. Toni told Ennes that he had just read his book and wanted to tell him his story. Toni said that he was the pilot in the first Israeli Mirage fighter to reach the Liberty. He immediately recognized the ship to be a US Navy vessel. He radioed Israeli air command with this information and asked for instructions. Toni said he was ordered to “attack.” He refused and flew back to the air base at Ashdod. When he arrived he was summarily arrested for disobeying orders.***How tightly does the Israeli lobby control the Hill? For the first time in history, an attack on an America ship was not subjected to a public investigation by Congress. In 1980, Adlai Stevenson and Barry Goldwater planned to open a senate hearing into the Liberty affair. Then Jimmy Carter intervened by brokering a deal with Menachem Begin, where Israel agreed to pony up $6 million to pay for damages to the ship. A State Department press release announced the payment said, “The book is now closed on the USS Liberty.”It certainly was the last chapter for Adlai Stevenson. He ran for governor of Illinois the following year, where his less than perfect record on Israel, and his unsettling questions about the Liberty affair, became an issue in the campaign. Big money flowed into the coffers of his Republican opponent, Big Jim Thompson, and Stevenson went down to a narrow defeat.But the book wasn’t closed for the sailors either, of course. After a Newsweek story exposed the gist of what really happened on that day in the Mediterranean, an enraged Admiral McCain placed all the sailors under a gag order. When one sailor told an officer that he was having problems living with the cover-up, he was told: “Forget about it, that’s an order.”The Navy went to bizarre lengths to keep the crew of the Liberty from telling what they knew. When gag orders didn’t work, they threatened sanctions. Ennes tells of the confinement and interrogation of two Liberty sailors that sounds like something right out of the CIA’s MK-Ultra program.“In an incredible abuse of authority, military officers held two young Liberty sailors against their will in a locked and heavily guarded psychiatric ward of the base hospital,” Ennes writes. “For days these men were drugged and questioned about their recollections of the attack by a ‘therapist’ who admitted to being untrained in either psychiatry or psychology. At one point, they avoided electroshock only by bolting from the room and demanding to see the commanding officer.”Since coming home, the veterans who have tried to tell of their ordeal have been harassed relentlessly. They’ve been branded as drunks, bigots, liars and frauds. Often, it turns out, these slurs have been leaked by the Pentagon. And, oh yeah, they’ve also been painted as anti-Semites.In a recent column, Charley Reese describes just how mean-spirited and petty this campaign became. “When a small town in Wisconsin decided to name its library in honor of the USS Liberty crewmen, a campaign claiming it was anti-Semitic was launched,” writes Reese. “And when the town went ahead, the U.S. government ordered no Navy personnel to attend, and sent no messages. This little library was the first, and at the time the only, memorial to the men who died on the Liberty.”***So why then did the Israelis attack the Liberty?A few days before the Six Days War, Israel’s Foreign Minister Abba Eban visited Washington to inform LBJ about the forthcoming invasion. Johnson cautioned Eban that the US could not support such an attack.It’s possible, then, that the IDF assumed that the Liberty was spying on the Israeli war plans. Possible, but not likely. Despite the official denials, as Andrew and Leslie Cockburn demonstrate in Dangerous Liaison, at the time of the Six Days War the US and Israel had developed a warm covert relationship. So closely were the two sides working that US intelligence aid certainly helped secure Israel’s devastating and swift victory. In fact, it’s possible that the Liberty had been sent to the region to spy for the IDF.A somewhat more likely scenario holds that Moshe Dayan wanted to keep the lid on Israel’s plan to breach the new cease-fire and invade into Syria to seize the Golan.It has also been suggested that Dayan ordered the attack on the Liberty with the intent of pinning the blame on the Egyptians and thus swinging public and political opinion in the United States solidly behind the Israelis. Of course, for this plan to work, the Liberty had to be destroyed and its crew killed.There’s another factor. The Liberty was positioned just off the coast from the town of El Arish. In fact, Ennes and others had used town’s mosque tower to fix the location of the ship along the otherwise featureless desert shoreline. The IDF had seized El Arish and had used the airport there as a prisoner of war camp. On the very day the Liberty was attacked, the IDF was in the process of executing as many as 1,000 Palestinian and Egyptian POWs, a war crime that they surely wanted to conceal from prying eyes. According to Gabriel Bron, now an Israeli reporter, who witnessed part of the massacre as a soldier: “The Egyptian prisoners of war were ordered to dig pits and then army police shot them to death.”The bigger question is why the US government would participate so enthusiastically in the cover-up of a war crime against its own sailors. Well, the Pentagon has never been slow to hide its own incompetence. And there’s plenty of that in the Liberty affair: bungled communications, refusal to provide an escort, situating the defenseless Liberty too close to a raging battle, the inability to intervene in the attack and the inexcusably long time it took to reach the battered ship and its wounded.That’s but par for the course. But something else was going on that would only come to light later. Through most of the 1960s, the US congress had imposed a ban on the sale of arms to both Israel and Jordan. But at the time of the Liberty attack, the Pentagon (and its allies in the White House and on the Hill) was seeking to have this proscription overturned. The top brass certainly knew that any evidence of a deliberate attack on a US Navy ship by the IDF would scuttle their plans. So they hushed it up.In January 1968, the arms embargo on Israel was lifted and the sale of American weapons began to flow. By 1971, Israel was buying $600 million of American-made weapons a year. Two years later the purchases topped $3 billion. Almost overnight, Israel had become the largest buyer of US-made arms and aircraft.Perversely, then, the IDF’s strike on the Liberty served to weld the US and Israel together, in a kind of political and military embrace. Now, every time the IDF attacks defenseless villages in Gaza and the West Bank with F-16s and Apache helicopters, the Palestinians quite rightly see the bloody assaults as a joint operation, with the Pentagon as a hidden partner.Thus, does the legacy of Liberty live on, one raid after another.A version of this essay appeared in The Politics of Anti-Semitism by Alexander Cockburn andRecent ArticlesCurrent CounterPunch MagazineDonateCounterPunch, Tells the Facts and Names the Names, Published since 1996, Copyright © CounterPunch, All rights [email protected] PodcastHOMEDONATEDONATE VIA PAYPALSEARCHRECENT ARTICLESTOP STORIESPODCASTSSUBSCRIBEMAGAZINE – CURRENT ISSUEROAMING CHARGESBOOKSSTOREARCHIVESFAQSCIA-Contra-Crack Cocaine ControversyTHE CIA-CONTRA-CRACK COCAINE CONTROVERSY:A REVIEW OF THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT'SINVESTIGATIONS AND PROSECUTIONSChapter I: IntroductionA. The San Jose Mercury News ArticlesOn August 18, 1996, the San Jose Mercury News published the first installment of a three-part series of articles concerning crack cocaine, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the Nicaraguan Contra army. The introduction to the first installment of the series read:For the better part of a decade, a San Francisco Bay Area drug ring sold tons of cocaine to the Crips and Bloods street gangs of Los Angeles and funneled millions in drug profits to a Latin American guerrilla army run by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, a Mercury News investigation has found.This drug network opened the first pipeline between Colombia's cocaine cartels and the black neighborhoods of Los Angeles, a city now known as the "crack" capital of the world. The cocaine that flooded in helped spark a crack explosion in urban America . . . and provided the cash and connections needed for L.A.'s gangs to buy automatic weapons.The three-day series of articles, entitled "Dark Alliance: The Story Behind the Crack Explosion," told the story of a Los Angeles drug operation run by Ricky Donnell Ross, described sympathetically as "a disillusioned 19-year-old . . . who, at the dawn of the 1980s, found himself adrift on the streets of South-Central Los Angeles." The Dark Alliance series recounted how Ross began peddling small quantities of cocaine in the early 1980s and rapidly grew into one of the largest cocaine dealers in southern California until he was convicted of federal drug trafficking charges in March 1996. The series claimed that Ross' rise in the drug world was made possible by Oscar Danilo Blandon and Norwin Meneses, two individuals with ties to the Fuerza Democratica Nicaraguense (FDN), one group comprising the Nicaraguan Contras. Blandon and Meneses reportedly sold tons of cocaine to Ross, who in turn converted it to crack and sold it in the black communities of South Central Los Angeles. Blandon and Meneses were said to have used their drug trafficking profits to help fund the Contra army's war effort.Stories had previously been written about the Contras' alleged ties to drug trafficking. For example, on December 20, 1985, an Associated Press article claimed that three Contra groups "engaged in cocaine trafficking, in part to help finance their war against Nicaragua." Rumors about illicit activities on the part of the Contras had also been probed in Senate hearings in the late 1980s. However, the Mercury News series contained -- or at least many readers interpreted it to contain -- a new sensational claim: that the CIA and other agencies of the United States government were responsible for the crack epidemic that ravaged black communities across the country. The newspaper articles suggested that the United States government had protected Blandon and Meneses from prosecution and either knowingly permitted them to peddle massive quantities of cocaine to the black residents of South Central Los Angeles or turned a blind eye to such activity.The Mercury News later proclaimed that the article did not make these allegations. However, notwithstanding the Mercury News' proclamations, involvement by the CIA and the United States government in the crack crisis was implied through oblique references and the juxtaposition of certain images and phrases in the Dark Alliance articles: the Contras, who purportedly received drug money from Blandon and Meneses, were referred to as the "CIA's army" and links between the CIA and the leadership of the Contra movement were repeatedly emphasized throughout the articles; the stories reported how investigations into Blandon's cocaine operation conducted by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) were allegedly dropped without cause or shunted aside for unexplained reasons; the articles told how United States prosecutors invoked the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA) to prevent certain testimony concerning Blandon from being presented to a jury in the interest of national security during Ross' federal trial; and, from August 1996 until October 1996, the image of a crack smoker silhouetted against the emblem of the CIA was emblazoned on the Mercury News web page carrying the Dark Alliance stories.The news media picked up on the Mercury News series' insinuation and made it explicit in coverage of the series. On August 20, 1996, the headline of the first article to cover the Mercury News series, published by the Associated Press, stated, "Newspaper Alleges that CIA Helped Spark Crack Cocaine Plague." It was followed by other articles and editorials declaring that the crack cocaine crisis had been created by the CIA and/or agents of the United States government: "CIA's War Against America," (Palm Beach Post, September 14, 1996); "The U.S. Government Was the First Big Crack Pusher," (Boston Globe, September 11, 1996); "Thanks to the U.S. Government, Oscar Blandon Reyes is Free and Prosperous Today; One Man is Behind L.A. Tide of Crack," (Pittsburgh Post Gazette, September 16, 1996).Critics and commentators would later debate whether the Mercury News articles in fact accused the United States government of being responsible for the nation's crack cocaine epidemic. In an October 2, 1996, Washington Post article, Gary Webb, the reporter who wrote the Dark Alliance series, asserted that the article had not claimed that the CIA knew about Blandon's drug trafficking. The Washington Post article quoted Webb as saying, "We've never pretended otherwise . . . This doesn't prove the CIA targeted black communities. It doesn't say this was ordered by the CIA.. . . Essentially, our trail stopped at the door of the CIA. They wouldn't return my phone calls." Webb would say as late as June 22, 1997, in an interview with The Revolutionary Worker, "We had The Washington Post claim that the stories were insinuating that the CIA had targeted Black America. It's been a very subtle disinformation campaign to try to tell people that these stories don't say what they say. Or that they say something else, other than what we said. So people can say, well, there's no evidence of this, you know . . . You say, well, this story doesn't prove that top CIA officials knew about it. Well, since the stories never said they did, of course they don't."(1)According to The Washington Post, Mercury News editor Jerry Ceppos stated that he was troubled by the interpretive leap many people made about the article's claims of CIA involvement in the growth of crack cocaine. Ceppos was quoted as saying, "Certainly talk radio in a lot of cities has made the leap. We've tried to correct it wherever we could . . . People [have been] repeating the error again and again and again." Approximately a month and a half after the Dark Alliance series was posted on the Mercury News website, the newspaper changed the introduction to the articles, in apparent recognition that certain wording had contributed to the misunderstanding. Rather than stating:For the better part of a decade, a Bay Area drug ring sold tons of cocaine to the Crips and Bloods street gangs of Los Angeles and funneled millions in drug profits to a Latin American guerilla army run by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency . . .the Dark Alliance website introduction was altered to read:The Mercury News published a three-part series in late August that detailed how a San Francisco Bay Area drug ring sold tons of cocaine to the street gangs of South-Central Los Angeles in the 1980s, sending some of the millions in profits to the Contras. The series never reported direct CIA involvement, although many readers drew that conclusion.Regardless of the intent of the Mercury News, the accusation of government involvement in the crack epidemic had taken root. This dramatic interpretation of the series continued to build with ferocious velocity, especially in black communities, as the Mercury News story attracted the attention of newspapers across the country.Throughout September 1996, the Dark Alliance series was published in one newspaper after another: the Raleigh News and Observer ran the articles on September 1, 1996; the Denver Post published them on September 13, 1996; the Pittsburgh Post Gazette ran them on September 15, 1996; and so on. While many other newspapers did not publish the Dark Alliance series, they carried stories about the sensation created by the series' claims. The story garnered further exposure from television and radio talk show appearances by Gary Webb. Ricky Ross' attorney, Alan Fenster, also made several appearances on television shows to assert that the government, not his client, was responsible for cocaine dealing in South Central Los Angeles.Many African-American leaders were particularly troubled by the articles, mindful of the frequency with which young black men were being incarcerated for drug offenses. If the Mercury News was right, it appeared that the same government that was arresting so many black men had played a role in creating the drug crisis that precipitated their arrest. This point was emphasized by the Mercury News' Dark Alliance series, which included articles entitled, "War on drugs has unequal impact on black Americans; Contras case illustrates the discrepancy: Nicaraguan goes free; L.A. dealer faces life"; and "Flawed sentencing the main reason for race disparity; In 1993, crack smokers got 3 years; coke snorters got 3 months." The president of the Los Angeles chapter of the NAACP issued the following statement in response to the Dark Alliance series: "We believe it is time for the government, the CIA, to come forward and accept responsibility for destroying human lives." In a letter dated August 30, 1996, Representative Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) requested that the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the House Judiciary Committee conduct investigations of the allegations. The Congressional Black Caucus and many leaders in the black community also insisted upon an investigation into the charges raised by the Mercury News.B. The Contra StoryAs noted above, the Mercury News series was not only a story about the United States government and crack cocaine. It also revisited allegations concerning the Contras and drug trafficking that has been reported upon and investigated for many years. In 1987, the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Operations of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations began an investigation focusing on allegations received by the subcommittee chairman, Senator John Kerry, concerning illegal gun-running and narcotics trafficking associated with the Contras. A two-year investigation produced a 1,166-page report in 1989 analyzing the involvement of Contra groups and supporters in drug trafficking, and the role of United States government officials in these activities. Allegations of cocaine trafficking by Contras also arose during the investigation conducted by Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh into the Iran-Contra affair. Drug trafficking allegations, however, were not the focus of that inquiry and the Walsh report included no findings on these allegations.The issue of drug trafficking by the Nicaraguan Contras has also been the subject of books: e.g., On Bended Knee: The Press and the Reagan Presidency, by Mark Hertsgaard, 1989; Cocaine Politics: Drugs, Armies, and the CIA in Central America, by Peter Dale Scott and Jonathan Marshall, 1991. It was also reported upon in the news media. Following the December 1985 piece mentioned above from the Associated Press, the San Francisco Examiner ran stories in 1986 about Norwin Meneses, Carlos Cabezas (an individual with links to Contra organizations who was convicted in the mid-1980s of drug charges), and drug trafficking by the Contras.It is undisputed that individuals like Meneses and Blandon, who had ties to the Contras or were Contra sympathizers, were convicted of drug trafficking, either in the United States or Central America. There is also undeniable evidence that certain groups associated with the Contras engaged in drug trafficking. The pervasiveness of such activities within the Contra movement and the United States government's knowledge of those activities, however, are still the subject of debate, and it is beyond the scope of the OIG's investigation, which we describe below. Yet it is noteworthy that, as interesting as the story of Contras and illicit drug deals may be, it was not the catalyst for the public's or the media's interest in the Dark Alliance series. Investigations into the alleged connection between Contras and cocaine dealing were conducted and articles were printed in the late 1980s, at a time when interest in the Iran-Contra story was cresting. Neither those investigations nor the published articles tracking the allegations sparked a firestorm of outrage comparable to that created by the Dark Alliance series. The furor over the Mercury News series was driven by the allegations of the government's complicity in cocaine deals within black communities. If the Dark Alliance series had been limited to reporting on Contras, it seems unlikely that the groundswell of press and public attention would have occurred.C. Reaction from the Journalism CommunityNotwithstanding the Mercury News' explosive allegations, the series did not receive extensive coverage from major newspapers in either August or September 1996. The Los Angeles Times briefly discussed the Mercury News series in several articles in August and September 1996 that covered Ross' postponed sentencing and other events in the Ross trial. Similarly, the Dark Alliance series did not initially receive much television coverage. With the exception of CNN, which ran several pieces on the story in September, and the NBC Nightly News, which ran a piece about the allegations on September 27, 1996, the story received little national television news coverage. By early October 1996, however, that changed.The Washington Post weighed in first on October 2, 1996, with a short analysis -- "Running with the CIA Story: Reporter Says Series Didn't Go as Far as Readers Took It" -- noting that the allegation of CIA involvement in drug trafficking in the United States had not actually been made in the article. The Washington Post followed-up two days later, on October 4, 1996, with a story entitled, "The CIA and Crack: Evidence Is Lacking of Alleged Plot." The Washington Post piece concluded that "available information does not support the conclusion that the CIA-backed Contras -- or Nicaraguans in general -- played a major role in the emergence of crack as a narcotic in widespread use across the United States." The Washington Post article mainly addressed the Mercury News series' claims about Ross' and Blandon's roles in the growth of crack cocaine. It did not, for the most part, wrestle with the series' claims about drug dealing by the Contras. The Washington Post noted that the series had been selective in its use of Blandon's testimony to support its claims:The Mercury News uses testimony from Blandon in establishing that Nicaraguans selling drugs in California sent profits to the Contras. But if the whole of Blandon's testimony is to be believed, then the connection is not made between Contras and African American drug dealers because Blandon said he had stopped sending money to the contras by [the time he began selling to Ross].And if Blandon is to be believed, there is no connection between Contras and the cause of the crack epidemic because Blandon said Ross was already a well-established dealer with several ready sources of supply by the time he started buying cocaine from Blandon.The Washington Post piece also emphasized apparent contradictions between Ross' and Blandon's accounts. For example, while Blandon claimed to have been a used car salesman in 1982 who on the side sold two kilograms of cocaine for Meneses, Ross said Blandon was instead handling bulk sales of 100 kilograms of cocaine for Meneses at the time. The article did not seek to resolve these issues and merely noted the conflicts.The Washington Post piece was followed on October 20 and 21, 1996, by two New York Times articles that also found fault with the Mercury News series. One article, "Though Evidence Thin, Tale of CIA and Drugs Has Life of Its Own," primarily reported on the reactions within the black community to the series. The other article, "Pivotal Figure of Newspaper Series May Be Only Bit Player," noted problems with the series' portrayal of Blandon and Meneses. It concluded, after conducting interviews of various unnamed sources:[W]hile there are indications in American intelligence files and elsewhere that Mr. Meneses and Mr. Blandon may indeed have provided modest support for the rebels, including perhaps some weapons, there is no evidence that either man was a rebel official or had anything to do with the C.I.A. Nor is there proof that the relatively small amounts of cocaine they sometimes claimed to have brokered on behalf of the insurgents had a remotely significant role in the explosion of crack that began around the same time.After reportedly assigning three editors and fourteen reporters to the story, the Los Angeles Times published its own three-part analysis of the Mercury News piece, which ran from October 20 to October 22, 1996. The Los Angeles Times concentrated on three claims raised by the Mercury News series: 1) that a drug ring related to the CIA had sent millions of dollars to the Contras; 2) that the same drug ring had created a cocaine epidemic in South Central Los Angeles and other United States cities, and 3) that the CIA had approved a plan for the ring to raise money for the Contras through drug trafficking or had deliberately turned a blind eye to the drug ring's activities. The Los Angeles Times found that "the available evidence, based on an extensive review of court documents and more than 100 interviews in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington and Managua, fails to support any of those allegations."The first installment of the Los Angeles Times series was devoted to a discussion of the origins of crack cocaine. It found that crack cocaine existed in Los Angeles long before Ross began selling it. In response to the claim that Ross had played a principal role in bringing cocaine to South Central Los Angeles, it identified several drug dealers from South Central Los Angeles who were contemporaries of Ross and were reputed to have sold similar quantities of cocaine.The second installment of the Los Angeles Times series explored whether there was in fact a CIA-sanctioned operation that funneled millions of dollars into the Contras. It found no proof that Blandon and Meneses had given millions of dollars to the Contra party and could confirm only that Blandon had given about $50,000. Indeed, the Los Angeles Times article concluded that the Mercury News had arrived at its million-dollar estimate of Meneses' and Blandon's donations based on its own calculations derived from "the volume of cocaine that they were selling, and Blandon's statement that what he sold, he gave to the Contras."(2)Rejecting the Dark Alliance assertion that Blandon had sent profits to the Contras from 1981 to 1986, the Los Angeles Times found, based upon Blandon's testimony, that he had sent profits to the Contras in only one year. The second installment of the Los Angeles Times series also suggested, based on interviews with various CIA officials and former government officials, that CIA involvement in such a scheme was improbable. But the article quoted the chief investigator for Senator Kerry's subcommittee investigation, Jack Blum, as saying that, while the CIA did not have agents selling drugs to fund the Contras, the United States government may have opened channels that helped drug dealers bring drugs into the United States and protected them from law enforcement.The last installment of the Los Angeles Times series examined the reaction in black communities to the series, particularly the proliferation of conspiracy theories.The Los Angeles Times, New York Times, and Washington Post articles were criticized by some who believed that the mainstream press was attempting to minimize a story that it had failed to cover. Some accused the papers of erecting strawmen by accusing the Mercury News of making allegations that it had not in fact made: e.g., that the CIA "targeted" communities into which crack cocaine was distributed. Others stated that the major papers had committed the same mistakes it criticized the Mercury News of making: e.g., selectively picking from among available information to support their conclusions, crediting information provided by suspicious sources, and failing to evaluate contradictory evidence.(3)Despite the major newspapers' mounting criticism of the Dark Alliance series, the Mercury News continued to defend its story. However, in the meantime the paper launched its own investigation of the claims made by the Dark Alliance series. On May 11, 1997, Jerry Ceppos, the Executive Editor of the Mercury News, published the results of the newspaper's analysis of its own series. Ceppos wrote that the story had four short-comings: 1) it presented only one side of "complicated, sometimes-conflicting pieces of evidence"; 2) it failed to identify the estimate of Blandon's financial contributions to the Contra movement as an "estimate"; 3) it "oversimplified the complex issue of how the crack epidemic in America grew," and 4) it contained imprecise language and graphics that fostered the misinterpretation concerning the CIA and crack dealing. Ceppos attributed some of these problems to the newspaper's failure to present conflicting evidence that challenged its conclusions. The column also revealed that the same debate over the correct interpretation of the Mercury News' conclusions found in the press also existed in the Mercury News newsroom:The drug ring we wrote about inflicted terrible damage on inner-city Los Angeles, and that horror was indeed spread to many other places by L.A. gangs. Webb believes that is what our series said. I believe that we implied much more, that the ring was the pivotal force in the crack epidemic in the United States. Because the national crack epidemic was a complex phenomenon that had more than one origin, our discussion of this issue needed to be clearer.Some of the reporting on Ceppos' column by the major newspapers failed to recognize that it was not intended as a repudiation of the entire Dark Alliance series. Rather, it was a limited admission that portions of the story had been misleading and should have been subjected to more rigorous editing. Ceppos specifically did not disclaim what he believed were the articles' central allegation -- that a drug ring "associated with the Contras sold large quantities of cocaine in inner-city Los Angeles in the 1980s at the time of the crack explosion there" and that "some of the profits went to the Contras." It is noteworthy, however, that the facets of the article about which Ceppos had the greatest reservations were the articles' most sensational claims -- the way crack cocaine spread in the United States, and the ties between the CIA and the spread of crack.D. What Did the San Jose Mercury News Articles Allege?It is difficult to discern which allegations the Mercury News intended to make, in large part because the series is replete with innuendo and implication that verge on making assertions that are in fact never made. Many readers interpreted the series to assert that the CIA and other agencies of the United States government had intentionally funneled crack cocaine into black communities by either permitting or endorsing cocaine trafficking by Blandon and Meneses. Others interpreted the Dark Alliance series to charge that the spread of crack cocaine was the unintended -- but proximate -- result of actions taken by the United States government to promote the Contra war effort. While the series does not allege that there was a deliberate plan to target black communities by the CIA or other agencies of the United States government mentioned in the article (e.g., DEA, U.S. Attorney's Offices, and the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), the articles strongly imply such a plot.First, the title of the series, "Dark Alliance," is itself ambiguous, since the series fails to identify the parties to the purported "alliance." One interpretation is that it refers to the link between Blandon and Ross. However, another interpretation, bolstered by the repeated mention of the CIA throughout the series, is that the title refers to an agreement between the CIA and drug-trafficking Contras. The web page bearing the "Dark Alliance" title and the image of a crack smoker silhouetted against the CIA emblem strengthened the insinuation. The Dark Alliance story also included leaps of logic that suggested direct CIA involvement in Blandon's trafficking activities. For example, the article notes: "The most Blandon would say in court about who called the shots when he sold cocaine for the FDN was that 'we received orders from the -- from other people.'" An explanation of how the CIA created the FDN from various anti-communist factions immediately follows the quote. The writer's implication is patent: the CIA was giving "orders" to the FDN about cocaine deals.One oft-quoted portion of the articles relates to a meeting that allegedly occurred in Honduras among Meneses, Blandon, and Enrique Bermudez, a leader of the FDN's military effort. The preceding paragraph in the article recounted how cocaine "has spread across the country . . . turning entire blocks of major cities into occasional war zones." The paragraph that immediately followed reads:"There is a saying that the ends justify the means," former FDN leader and drug dealer Oscar Danilo Blandon Reyes testified during a recent cocaine trafficking trial in San Diego. "And that's what Mr. Bermudez (the CIA agent who commanded the FDN) told us in Honduras, OK? So we started raising money for the Contra revolution."The implication of this paragraph, made through its juxtaposition to the discussion of black communities ravaged by cocaine, is that a "CIA agent" decided to raise money for the Contras by any means, including by selling cocaine in black communities. It is noteworthy that the parenthetical reference to Bermudez as a "CIA agent who commanded the FDN" was added by the Mercury News and was not a statement actually made by Blandon. The parenthetical underscores reputed ties between Bermudez and the CIA.The specter of a government-wide plan to target black communities is raised throughout the article in other ways, but mostly through innuendo. The subtext of the article seems to be: If there was no government plot, why else would an Assistant U.S. Attorney prevent evidence relating to Blandon's drug trafficking from being raised in open court under the claim of protecting classified information during a 1990 federal trial?; how else would Blandon have escaped more vigorous prosecution by the Department of Justice or other prosecutor's offices for drug trafficking?; why else would federal agents descend upon the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department to claim evidence obtained in a search of Blandon's home in 1986?; and how else would Meneses escape arrest and prosecution in the United States or be allowed by the INS to freely enter and exit the country? While the allegation of a deliberate government plan was not explicitly made, the drumbeat of questions insinuated a multi-agency, government scheme designed to protect Blandon's illegal activities, which "opened the first pipeline between Colombia's cocaine cartels and the black neighborhoods of Los Angeles."The Mercury News stated repeatedly that the series was not intended to allege a deliberate government scheme to use cocaine dealing in black communities to finance the Contra effort, notwithstanding the logical inference that could be drawn from the series' substance. But while it is true that the articles did not explicitly allege a government conspiracy, the path charted by the Dark Alliance series' trail of implications led to that conclusion. In fact, a prophetic editorial that appeared in the Mercury News on August 21, 1996, the day after the Dark Alliance series finished running in the paper, made just that point. It read:[T]he CIA-Contra story can only feed longstanding rumors in black communities that the U.S. government "created" the crack cocaine epidemic to kill and imprison African-Americans and otherwise wreak havoc in inner cities.At times, the Mercury News sent conflicting messages that confounded attempts to correct misconceptions about the article. While the newspaper was disavowing allegations of CIA involvement in the spread of crack, the articles' author was making public comments to the contrary. In an article entitled, "The CIA-crack connection: The story nobody wants to hear: Your worst fears are true -- the CIA did help to smuggle drugs into American ghettos, says an investigative reporter," Webb was asked whether his story had confirmed the suspicion within the black community "that the crack cocaine epidemic might be part of a government conspiracy." He replied:It confirms the suspicion that government agents were involved. Clearly, when you're talking about drug dealers meeting with CIA agents it does go a long way toward validating this suspicion. There's a grain of truth to any conspiracy theory and it turns out there are a lot of grains of truth to this one. If you want to stretch it to its logical conclusion, the government was involved in starting the crack epidemic, because it was this pipeline that did it. Now we know what we didn't know in the '80's -- which is where they were selling the stuff. We were able to close the circle and show how this affected American citizens, whereas before it was some sort of nebulous foreign policy story. Now we can see the damage. Whether or not these guys were part of our government or just contract agents is unclear.Further, the newspaper itself was sending mixed messages. An August 21, 1996, Mercury News editorial supported claims of CIA or United States government involvement. The editorial, entitled "Another CIA disgrace: Helping the crack flow," stated:It's impossible to believe that the Central Intelligence Agency didn't know about the Contras' fund-raising activities in Los Angeles, considering that the agency was bankrolling, recruiting and essentially running the Contra operation. The CIA has a long history of embarrassing the country it is supposed to work for, from the Bay of Pigs in Cuba to the jungles of Vietnam. But no action that we know of can compare to the agency's complicity, however tacit, in the drug trade that devastated whole communities in our own country.1. In contrast, Webb has made other statements all but stating that the Dark Alliance series did demonstrate CIA involvement in the spread of crack in America. In September 1996, in the immediate wake of the Dark Alliance series, Webb reportedly posted the following comment on the Mercury News electronic bulletin board: "One thing I did want to respond to directly is the writer who claimed there wasn't any 'proof ' of CIA involvement in this thing. That's like saying there's no proof of General Motors involvement in making Chevrolets. I also heard a great line while I was doing a radio show in Florida yesterday: `Now we know what CIA really stands for: Crack in America.'"2. In a response to a May/June 1997 Columbia Journalism Review article analyzing the Mercury News series, Webb more specifically explained how he arrived at a figure, which he believed to be between $12 million and $18 million: "My stories were about the drug money [Blandon] admitted delivering to Meneses for the FDN. When you look at that cash, the sums are obvious. Blandon told a federal grand jury in 1994 that he sold between 200 and 300 kilos of cocaine for Meneses in L.A. In court, Blandon swore that all the profits from that cocaine went to the contras, and said he was selling it for $60,000 a kilo ... Some might call it an extrapolation to describe $12 million to $18 million as 'millions.' I call it math."3. See, e.g., Columbia Journalism Review, January-February 1997, at 33.Ford 'used slave labour' in Nazi German plantsBy Simon English in New York12:01AM GMT 03 Nov 2003The Ford Motor Company knowingly allowed slave labour at its German subsidiary during the Second World War and backed its European divisions making equipment for the Nazi military, according to a new book.Although it has long been known that Henry Ford, the company's founder, held anti-Semitic views, the extent of his involvement in Hitler's rise to power is in dispute.Max Wallace, a journalist and Holocaust researcher, says in The American Axis: Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh and the Rise of the Third Reich that both men fell for Nazi propaganda.Referring to newly declassified government documents, Mr Wallace alleges that Nazi links at the Detroit company went well beyond Henry Ford.The documents indicate that his son Edsel, the then company president, could have been prosecuted for trading with the enemy had he not died in 1943.Related ArticlesThe evidence included 11 letters between Edsel and the head of Ford's French division in 1942 which suggest that the parent company knew and approved of the manufacturing efforts being undertaken on behalf of the German military.The Justice Department concluded that there was "a basis for a case" Edsel Ford.Before America entered the war Ford supplied Germany with military equipment, while declining to make engines for the RAF, calling into question Ford's claims to have been "strictly neutral", says Mr Wallace.Ford argues that it had no control over the use of slave labour at its German plant, as it lost control of the company after 1941. But documents cited in the book say the first forced labourers arrived at the factory before America entered the war.Intelligence documents also suggest that Henry Ford's secretary, Ernest Liebold, was a Nazi spy who helped develop his boss's paranoia about Jews.Henry Ford is mentioned in Mein Kampf, and was hailed by Hitler, who kept a portrait of the industrialist above his desk, as "my inspiration".Mr Wallace said he was surprised how easily the reputations of Henry Ford and Lindbergh had been rebuilt. "They started out as heroes, they became pariahs, now they are heroes again," he said.The company is loath to discuss the details of the book, but Tom Hoyt, a spokesman, said: "We think it sheds little or no new light on Henry Ford's activities. He was a brilliant innovator but a fallible human being."In 1938 Ford was awarded the Grand Cross of the German Eagle, the highest Nazi honour that could be given to a non-German.Simon Reich, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh who was employed by Ford to investigate the activities of the company's German arm under the Nazis, said of Mr Wallace: "He is reminding a new generation of who Henry Ford was and what he did."But some of the most provocative claims in the book lack serious substantiation."Bush bank tied to Nazi fundingUnion Banking CorporationEditBush was a founding member and one of seven directors (including W. Averell Harriman) of the Union Banking Corporation (holding a single share out of 4,000 as a director), an investment bank that operated as a clearing house for many assets and enterprises held by German steel magnate Fritz Thyssen.[7][8]In July 1942, the bank was suspected of holding gold on behalf of Nazi leaders.[9]A subsequent government investigation disproved those allegations but confirmed the Thyssens' control, and in October 1942 the United States seized the bank under the Trading with the Enemy Act and held the assets for the duration of World War II.[7]Journalist Duncan Campbell pointed out documents showing that Prescott Bush was a director and shareholder of a number of companies involved with Thyssen.[7]It is unclear whether Bush was aware of Thyssen's Nazi connections or approved of them, and some historians even dispute Thyssen's allegiance to the Nazi party.[10]Historian Herbert Parmet agrees with the assessment that Bush was not a Nazi sympathizer.[8]Smedley Darlington Butler (July 30, 1881 – June 21, 1940) was a United States Marine Corps major general, the highest rank authorized at that time, and at the time of his death the most decorated Marine in U.S. history. During his 34-year career as a Marine, he participated in military actions in the Philippines, China, in Central America and the Caribbean during the Banana Wars, and France in World War I. Butler later became an outspoken critic of U.S. wars and their consequences. He also exposed an alleged plan to overthrow the U.S. government.By the end of his career, Butler had received 16 medals, five for heroism. He is one of 19 men to receive the Medal of Honor twice, one of three to be awarded both the Marine Corps Brevet Medal (along with Wendell Neville and David Porter) and the Medal of Honor, and the only Marine to be awarded the Brevet Medal and two Medals of Honor, all for separate actions.In 1933, he became involved in a controversy known as the Business Plot, when he told a congressional committee that a group of wealthy industrialists were planning a military coup to overthrow Franklin D. Roosevelt, with Butler selected to lead a march of veterans to become dictator, similar to Fascist regimes at that time. The individuals involved all denied the existence of a plot and the media ridiculed the allegations, but a final report by a special House of Representatives Committee confirmed some of Butler's testimony.In 1935, Butler wrote a book titled War Is a Racket, where he described and criticized the workings of the United States in its foreign actions and wars, such as those in which he had been involved, including the American corporations and other imperialist motivations behind them. After retiring from service, he became a popular advocate, speaking at meetings organized by veterans, pacifists, and church groups in the 1930s.