Beginning of Essay
Webb focused on three figures. One was "Freeway Ricky" Ross, a black dealer who introduced L.A. and other cities to crack. A second was Daniel Blandón, a Nicaraguan who not only supplied Ross (and others) with his cocaine, but developed the concept of creating a ....

Middle of Essay
.... the special connection between these papers and the CIA is no secret. Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein once wrote in Rolling Stone that the CIA’s "relationship with the [New York] Times was by far its most valuable among newspapers, according to CIA officials. From 1950 to 1966, about 10 CIA officials were provided Times cover...[as] part of a general Times policy ... to provide assistance to the CIA whenever possible." The situation at the Washington Post was hardly different. In 1988, the paper’s owner, Katharine Graham, said in a speech at the CIA’s Headquarters: "There are some things the general public does not need to know and shouldn’t ....