The Big White Lie: The CIA and the Cocaine/Crack Epidemic: An Undercover Odyssey

by Michael Levine

Book Overview

In The Big White Lie, Michael Levine, former DEA agent and bestselling author of Deep Cover, leads the reader through a decade of undercover work. Levine's prose is fast-moving, highly readable, and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 156025064X
• ISBN13: 9781560250647
• Release Date: January 1993
• Publisher: Thunder's Mouth Press
• Length: 472 Pages
• Weight: 1.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.7" x 6.4" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

A Man Among Men

I dont think I would be priviliged enough to be in the same room as this superhero. No need for reviews as the others did a pretty good job. After you read this, you will never trust the government again. He deserves 10 stars.

Money, Power, Drugs, Policy, Cocaine/Crack Epidemic

The first sign of corruption in a society ... is that the end justifies the means. ~Georges Beranos, "Why Freedom?" (1955) When you finish going through this book, you will gain a new perspective on the drugs war, and some of the root causes of the drugs problem in United States. "Look Mike, our country has many diverse interests and you're one man in one little corner of the world. There are a lot of people a lot smarter than you and I involved in this business who might know a few things we don't. So just because an action might seem right doesn't mean it is; and even if it's the right thing to do, sometimes it's not the healthiest." ... He was silent for a long moment. "Mike, don't ever forget a peanut butter sandwich." "You're kidding." "No, I'm not. I'm telling you this because I like you." ... "Bario was one of the best and most committed undercover agents in DEA; he had done some of the agency's highest-level deep cover work. He was also a friend of mine. A year earlier he had been arrested for smuggling heroin from his post of duty in Mexico. While in jail in a Texas border town awaiting a removal hearing, he took a bite of a peanut butter sandwich and went into convulsions, and then a deep coma. He died a month later. He wife was told by the prison warden that strychnine had been found in his blood. The official autopsy report listed the cause of death as asphyxiation -- he choked on a peanut butter sandwich. Many of Bario's fellow agents were aware that he was involved in cases that overlapped CIA interests. The rumor was that he "knew too much" about the CIA smuggling drugs into the United States to support its own interests and that he was killed by either members of DEA's Internal Security (who was in reality CIA) or by the CIA itself. I had always been one of those who had placed little credence in the rumor. Who could really believe that a branch of the U.S. government would assassinate its own people for any reason?" I reserved all rights and permission under the FAIR USE NOTICE. This website contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. It is being made available without profit to those who have an interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance their understanding of personal worldview, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. I believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

Reads like a Tom Clancy novel - but this is TRUE

Mike Levine is a good writer. Add that to the fact that he was one of the best undercover agents in American history and you've got the equation for a great book. I had to stop myself a number of times to remember that this is NON-Fiction. The bumbling and deception that goes on at the higher levels of our Criminal Justice system would be laughable had this been a work of fiction. There is just too much detail here for it NOT to be true. This book, coupled with Levine's other book "Deep Cover" show you how the people in power manipulate the media to show the public the reality they want them to see. In light of the Iraq war "intelligence" misinformation, we can see that nothing has changed. In fact, the stakes have gotten higher.

Was This Book "Privished?"

Note that this review is 4 years after publication... four years of silence.A book that tears the mask off the fraudulent "War on Drugs". It exposes the growth of the war from two (highly mutually destructive) agencies in 1971 (Customs and DEA) to 55 and counting. It describes very extensive, high-volume CIA involvement in smuggling itself to obtain unaccountable funding. It documents the cost of the fraudulent war. In dollars misspent, in innocent lives lost through raids gone amok and witnesses silenced, in the credibility of government agencies and the news media, and in the harm resulting from the 5-fold increase (his figures) in drug usage during the time $1 trillion has been wasted in the fight.Recommend finding this book used or in a library, or reading Levine's chapter in "Into the Buzzsaw" by Kristina Borjesson.

An excellent book written by a very courageous individual

Michael Levine is a former DEA agent who, throughout the 1980's, worked to uncover, expose and convict many of the leading suppliers of cocaine to the United States. Unfortunately for Levine, many of the most powerful cocaine dealers proved to be CIA assets, supported and even bankrolled by the American government in pursuit of shadowy foreign policy objectives. Levine's diligence in fighting the so-called "drugs war" brought him the ruination of his reputation within the DEA and ultimately the destruction of his career. The cynicism that Levine exposes within the highest levels of American government is breathtaking - and profoundly depressing.