The book is based on "Dark Alliance", Webb's three-part investigative series published in the San Jose Mercury News in August 1996.

Later, at the behest of Oliver North, the Reagan Administration began to use Contra drug money to support the anti-communist Nicaraguan rebels' efforts against the Sandinista government.

Blandon, a cocaine smuggler who founded an FDN chapter in Los Angeles, was a major supplier for Freeway Ricky Ross.

"[5] The release of the "Dark Alliance" series on the San Jose Mercury News' state-of-the-art website, complete with images and facsimiles of the copious official US Government documentary record assembled by Webb and his colleagues broke new ground for both journalism and the Internet.

"[6] The number of visits or "hits" to the "Dark Alliance" website rapidly climbed to 500,000, then 800,000 and topped out at 1,000,000 a day - phenomenal for this early stage of the development of the modern Internet.

[7] In October 1996, two months after the release of the series, a Boston Globe reporter wrote "that the story was 'pulsing through [L.A.'s] black neighborhoods like a shockwave, provoking a stunning, growing level of anger and indignation.

[11] Massing found that Webb "seems on solid ground in arguing that money from Nicaraguan traffickers ended up in Contra coffers," but observed that "the sums involved are in question."

He believed that Webb does not demonstrate that the CIA was involved in or sanctioned these activities, but did show that agency officials "heard allegations ... but did little to intervene."

[12] Adams was critical of Webb's "failure" to contact the CIA to "cross-check sources and allegations," and concluded that "For investigative reporters determined to uncover the truth, procedures like these are unacceptable.