Historian Alfred W. McCoy, writing in his 2017 book titled "In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of US Global Power", cited the assertions made by the "Dark Alliance" reporting series that "'the Contra-run drug network opened the first conduit between Columbia's...cartels and L.A.'s black neighborhoods,"' with the additional belief in an accompanying editorial that "'It's impossible to believe that the Central Intelligence Agency didn't know."' Once the chorus of indignation over the "San Jose Mercury News's" claims had risen to an undeniable shrill in the African American community, "the national press entered the debate on the side of the CIA...publishing front-page investigations, attacking the "Mercury's" story and accusing that paper of fanning the flames of racial discord."." The contrast was a guerrilla force that was backed by President Reagan’s administration, the same government that attacked Nicaragua’s Sandinista government during the 1980s. A year later, the Office of the Inspector General, of the US Department of Justice, investigated the ""CIA-Contra-Crack Cocaine"" matter, and planned to issue a report in 1997". See Nicaragua 1998 for information on the initial suppression of this report and the actions taken by the Inspector General." On December 17, 1997, I signed our completed report entitled, The CIA-Contra-Crack Cocaine Controversy: A Review of the Justice Department's Investigations and Prosecutions. This 407-page report was the culmination of a comprehensive 15-month investigation by the Office of Inspector General (OIG) into allegations first raised in the San Jose Mercury News that U.S. government officials -- including Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Department of Justice (DOJ) employees -- either ignored or protected drug dealers in Southern California who were associated with the Nicaraguan Contras. We originally planned to release the report the following day, December 18 publicly, 1997. However, the Attorney General, citing law enforcement concerns, invoked Section 8E of the Inspector General Act to defer the release of our report. This was the first time that the publication of one of our reports has been prevented in this manner. Given the extraordinary nature of the Attorney General's action and the significant interest in why our story was not released in December 1997, we believe it necessary to describe the sequence of events that resulted in the Attorney General's decision not to permit the report to be publicly disclosed until now. The report we are releasing today is the same report that we completed on December 17 and planned to release on December 18.