WhoWhatWhy's Podcasts

Before "Freeway" Ricky Ross gained infamy as a $3 million-a-day Los Angeles crack dealer with hidden CIA support, he was headed to college on a tennis scholarship.

In the most explosive episode of RadioWHO yet, Ross gives host Guillermo Jimenez his definitive answer about the CIA's motives to sponsor drug dealing. Was it just to support the Nicaraguan Contra rebels, or a plot to harm black Americans?

Ross rose to national infamy in 1996 after he featured prominently in investigative journalist Gary Webb's "Dark Alliance" series, which unearthed the CIA's involvement in drug dealing to help pay for Nicaragua's Contra rebels.

Webb's scoop would lead to his eventual professional undoing and suicide, now the subject of the movie "Kill the Messenger", starring Jeremy Renner.

Before that, Ross was an aspiring college tennis player with a scholarship - that fell through and returned him to the mean streetst of South Central L.A. the game had helped him avoid for so long.

Tune in now to RadioWHO to hear straight from the mouth of a man at the center of one of the CIA' murkiest operations yet.

Most people know what Hollywood agents do: but how Paul Alan Smith does it is unlike anyone else.

Smith left a lucrative job at one of Hollywood's most influential agencies to found his own: Equitable Stewardship for Artists. The idea, Smith tells RadioWHO host Guillermo Jimenez, was to build a model agency to fundamentally change how business is done in Tinsel Town.

Tune in to listen to Paul's wide-ranging and inspirational perspective on:

• How Hollywood can change to help American democracy
• Why the Occupy Movement couldn't sustain its push
• Why investigative journalism is patriotism in action
• The Establishment's last word on Hollywood productions
• And why the TV series is the art form with the potential to have the most powerful impact on the world.