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For two years, Blum and Kerry supervised the interrogation of dozens of witnesses who described CIA-related drug deals in central America. But ultimately, the responsibility was, and is, mine.". As it turned out," she adds, "that was not their intent.". Webb moved his wife and two young children to a suburb and continued a tradition he had started in Cleveland, restoring their small house with the help of how-to books, installing wainscoting and custom tile, new cabinets and gardens, while putting in overtime at the paper. [52] Webb was allowed to keep working on the story and made one more trip to Nicaragua in March. He is from United States. Webb's series was published on the Mercury News's fledgling website, but it wasn't exactly an instant sensation. I'm glad that I didn't dissuade him, because it was important to get the truth out but for Gary Webb, there was a very high price to pay." "I had to warn Gary that what he was looking at was probably true, but that he would run very big risks," Parry recalls. Gary Webb was born in Corona, California, in 1955. Start your Independent Premium subscription today. His series of articles - which prompted the distinguished reporter and former Newsweek Washington correspondent Robert Parry to describe Webb as "an American hero" - incited fury among the African-American community, many of whom took his investigation as proof that the White House saw crack as a way of bringing genocide to the ghetto. Depressed, he became increasingly unpredictable in his behaviour and embarked on a series of affairs; he was divorced from Bell in 2000, though he remained close to her throughout his life and lived in a house in nearby Carmichael. By the end of September, three federal investigations had been announced: an investigation into the CIA allegations conducted by CIA Inspector-General Frederick Hitz, an investigation into the law enforcement allegations by Justice Department Inspector-General Michael Bromwich, and a second investigation into the CIA by the House Intelligence Committee. Gary was born Sept. 4, 1947, to Percy and Pauline (Haas) Webb. . "He had six in a short period of time." The character reporter Irene Abe is said by fans of the show to be a stand in character for the real life Gary Webb. Emma Lee Webb, age 75, of Crossett, AR passed away Monday February 27, 2023, in her home surrounded by her family. "Gary was 18 and I was 16 when we first met and started dating in Indianapolis," said Sue Stokes. Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in, Find your bookmarks in your Independent Premium section, under my profile. The passing of Gary ends more than 50 years with his best friend and loving wife, Marilyn J. [15], In 1988, Webb was recruited by the San Jose Mercury News, which was looking for an investigative reporter. He concluded, "How did these shortcomings occur? Webb took a modestly paid, low-profile job as an investigator with the California State Legislature. line-height:1.5; Gary Webb, 64, Oroville, Wash., died Oct. 30, 2021. The Los Angeles Times and other major papers published articles suggesting the "Dark Alliance" claims were overstated and, in November 1996, Jerome Ceppos, the executive editor at Mercury News, wrote about being "in the eye of the storm". So, how much is Gary Webb worth at the age of 49 years old? I ask Bell. He began his career working for newspapers in Kentucky and Ohio, winning numerous awards, and building a strong reputation for investigative writing. "They use the giant corporate press rather than saying anything directly. "[80], Not all writers agree that the Inspector-General's report supported the series's claims. Webb established incontrovertible links * between Ricky Ross and Blandn who, two years later, would betray Ross to the authorities. Webb, one of the boldest and most outstanding reporters of his generation, was the journalist who, in 1996, established the connection between the CIA and major drug dealers in Los Angeles, some of whose profits had been channelled to fund the Contra guerrilla movement in Nicaragua. I believe that we fell short at every step of our process: in the writing, editing and production of our work. "[55] In June 1997, The Mercury News told Webb it was transferring him from the paper's Sacramento bureau and offered him a choice between working at the main offices in San Jose under closer editorial supervision, or spot reporting in Cupertino; both locations were long commutes from his home in Sacramento. ", Many of these are in the series archive at. Jeff Leen, assistant managing editor for investigative reporting at The Washington Post, wrote in a 2014 opinion page article that "the report found no CIA relationship with the drug ring Webb had written about." [50] By January, Webb filed drafts of four more articles based on his trip, but his editors concluded that the new articles would not help shore up the original series's claims. She and Gary were married from 1979 to 2000 and had three children. Gary was born May 5, 1954, to his parents Worley and Margaret Webb, who preceded him in death as well as his brother, David Webb. The couple got married recently in November of 2020 after dating for some time. Ross was also released early after cooperating in an investigation of police corruption, but was rearrested a few months later in a sting operation arranged with Blandn's help. The first effect of the onslaught was to ease the pressure on the CIA. In February, Gary Webb gave his ex-wife. ". "[77], Webb's reporting in "Dark Alliance" remains controversial. It sounds like a Tom Clancy novel, right? Today, Narco News, with support from The Fund for Authentic Journalism, is pleased to announce that the Dark Alliance website has a new, and this time permanent, home at Narco News. And it ruined that reporter's career. Gary Webb passed away on March 2, 2019. It was an amazing scoop - but one that would ruin his career and drive him to suicide. Then, in August the same year, the first of three instalments of "Dark Alliance" appeared. Webb's ex-wife, Sue Bell, discounted theories Tuesday that her husband had been murdered, saying the 49-year-old Webb had been distraught for some time over his inability to get . Gary E. Webb, a dedicated husband, dad, pappy, coach, mentor, teacher, supporter, hero, and best friend, was called home by the Lord while surrounded by family. As a result, some major US newspapers ignored its findings completely, while others relegated a brief summary to their inside pages. Webb's ex-wife, Stokes, now remarried and still living in Sacramento, had heard it all before, too. By Sam Stanton Bee Staff Writer Published 2:15 am PST Wednesday, December 15, 2004. . [17] The Mercury News's coverage of the earthquake won its staff the Pulitzer Prize for General News Reporting in 1990. Last edited on 10 February 2023, at 03:36, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion, CIA involvement in Contra cocaine trafficking, "To readers of our 'Dark Alliance' series", "America's 'crack' plague has roots in Nicaragua war", "War on drugs has unequal impact on black Americans", "Los Angeles Sheriff's Department Inquiry Findings", "The CIA and Crack: Evidence Is Lacking Of Alleged Plot", "Though Evidence Is Thin, Tale of C.I.A. "Although Ross had become a millionaire by 1984," Katz now wrote, "the market was so huge by then that even a dealer of his stature could seem dwarfed How the crack epidemic reached that extreme, on some level," he continues, "had nothing to do with Ross". The review was conducted primarily by editor Jonathan Krim and reporter Pete Carey, who had written the paper's first published analysis of the series. Webb, a Pullitzer prize winning journalist, exposed CIA drug trafficking operations in a series of books and reports for the San Jose Mercury News. The attack on Gary Webb and his series in the San Jose Mercury News remains one of the most venomous and factually inane assaults on a professional journalist's competence in living memory . While police were preparing the case against her boyfriend, Baca alleged, officers had disclosed documents which revealed that one of her lover's associates had been working for the Contras. "Report on Alleged Involvement: Findings" 43. The article resulted in a lawsuit against Webb's paper which the plaintiffs won. "I believe that Americans, as a nation, are mainly concerned with living their happy little lives. "They tried to make us look like crazies," says Blum. "But that," pointed out Blum, who is now a Washington attorney, "in no way - in no way - diminishes the wrongness of what these bastards did. Even 10 years after his tragic death, the media refuse to let him rest. He died by suicide on December 10, 2004. Regarding issues raised in the series's shorter sidebar stories, it found that some in the government were "not eager" to have DEA agent Celerino Castillo "openly probe" activities at Ilopango Airport in El Salvador, where covert operations in support of the Contras were undertaken, and that the CIA had indeed intervened in a case involving smuggler Julio Zavala. Going to the CIA to ask if they've ever profited from drug sales in Los Angeles, I suggested to Kornbluh, is rather like asking Fagin if he has ever picked a pocket. Instead, he found work in 1978 as a reporter at the Kentucky Post, a local paper affiliated with the larger Cincinnati Post. This emotive last phrase refers to Webb's experience in the immediate aftermath of publication of his three lengthy articles, in the summer of 1996. Calling the Post's overall focus "misplaced", Overholser expressed regret that the paper had not taken the opportunity to re-examine whether the CIA had overlooked Contra involvement in drug smuggling, "a subject The Post and the public had given short shrift. In 1986, Webb wrote an article saying that the Chief Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court, Frank D. Celebrezze accepted contributions from groups with organized crime connections. Occupation: Machine Operators, Assemblers, and Inspectors Occupations. A time of fellowship and remembrance is scheduled from 6 to 8 p.m. on Wednesday, March 6, 2019, at Lake Ridge Chapel and Memorial Designers. After the series's publication, the Northern California branch of the national Society of Professional Journalists voted Webb "Journalist of the Year" for 1996. She was a homemaker and a member of Hunters Chapel Baptist Church. The article discussed Webb's contacts with Ross's attorney and prosecution complaints of how Ross's defense had used Webb's series. 2) The series's estimate of the money involved was presented as fact instead of as an estimate. [44], Ceppos' column drew editorial responses from both The New York Times and The Washington Post. The first article, by Katz, developed a different picture of the origins of the crack trade than "Dark Alliance" had described, with more gangs and smugglers participating. "Everyone got out and left the person who had made the noise - issued the report - alone. Cuts and amendments were made at the request of Ceppos, executive editor of the Mercury News, and Webb's immediate editor Dawn Garcia, among others. If you work through friendly reporters on major newspapers, it comes off as The New York Times saying it and not a mouthpiece of the CIA. But, Ceppos wrote, the series "did not meet our standards" in four areas. He kept saying that he would never get another job in journalism.". The story they printed was just awful. Cooper and Mariah were engaged before they finally tied the knot. His victory in the event last year gave him . Gary Webb sums up the story in his last major interview just days before his death. One of his last articles examined America's Army, a video game designed by the U.S. Gary Webb, Into the Buzzsaw, CH 13, Prometheus Books. color: #ddd; n 1996, journalist Gary Webb wrote a series of articles under the title "Dark Alliance" for the suggesting a CIA connection between anti-government contras in Nicaragua and monies raised from. By William Kennedy / Jan. 22, 2023 12:00 pm EST. Two years later, he was promoted to Vice President of Knight Ridder, the Mercury News's parent company; he retired from this position last month. padding:0!important; [65], After leaving The Mercury News, Webb worked as an investigator for the California State Legislature. One of these was a 1986 raid on Blandn's drug organization by the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, which the article suggested had produced evidence of CIA ties to drug smuggling that was later suppressed. Shortly before I left for Sacramento, Moreira, who knew Webb, had shown me unbroadcast footage which shows the French reporter making a phone call to a media commentator in the US, asking him about Webb's death. "He told me, not long before he died, that he didn't want to get up in the mornings," she says. "I am scared," the voice replies. I mean - please.". "Looking back," she says, "I think Gary had been obsessed with suicide for some time. . Gary Stephen Webb was a Pulitzer prize winning American investigative reporter who exposed cocaine trafficking by the CIA.He wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, which initially backed his articles but later dropped him.Webb was put under pressure most certainly from the CIA under John Deutch for his reporting. margin-bottom: 20px; Webb undeniably made mistakes of detail and emphasis in the newspaper version of "Dark Alliance". Unfortunately, the railroading of Gary Webb had begun and he was run over. [22], The lede of the first article set out the series' basic claims: "For the better part of a decade, a San Francisco Bay Area drug ring sold tons of cocaine to the Crips and Bloods street gangs of Los Angeles and funneled millions in drug profits to a Latin American guerrilla army run by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency." [69], Webb was found dead in his Carmichael home on December 10, 2004, with two gunshot wounds to the head. "It says the CIA helped introduce poison into our children. Although it did find that both men were major drug dealers, "guilty of enriching themselves at the expense of countless drug users," and that they had contributed money to the Contra cause, "we did not find that their activities were responsible for the crack cocaine epidemic in South Central Los Angeles, much less the rise of crack throughout the nation, or that they were a significant source of support for the Contras. According to the report, the Inspector-General's office (OIG) examined all information the agency had "relating to CIA knowledge of drug trafficking allegations in regard to any person directly or indirectly involved in Contra activities." His career ended, his livelihood was destroyed and certain games were started to be . He was sentenced to life in prison, though the sentence was shortened on appeal and Ross was released in 2009. "Ross," his report went on, dealt "on a scale never before conceived," with "a staggering turnover" of "50 to 100 kilos of cocaine a day". I remain astounded by the editorial decisions they made.". Gary Hays Webb, 78, passed away on Monday May 9, 2022, at ThedaCare Regional Medical Center, Neenah. In city after city, local dealers either bought from Ross or got left behind."[24]. This support "was not directed by anyone within the Contra movement who had an association with the CIA," and the Committee found "no evidence that the CIA or the Intelligence Community was aware of these individuals support. The first one, "The California Story," was issued in a classified version on December 17, 1997, and in an unclassified version on January 29, 1998. We had been here before." Ross was a major drug dealer in Los Angeles. [9], Webb's first major investigative work appeared in 1980, when the Cincinnati Post published "The Coal Connection," a seventeen-part series by Webb and Post reporter Thomas Scheffey. . Video courtesy of documentary FREEWAY: CRACK IN THE SYSTEM premiering on Al Jazeera America in early 2015. LOS ANGELES, Dec. 12 - Gary Webb, a reporter who won national attention with a series of articles, later discredited, linking the Central Intelligence Agency to the spread of crack . Age 43 years. "The cause of death was determined to be self . But once the flak really started to fly, from the nation's grandest newspapers, Ceppos - having come under exactly what form of pressure it is difficult to know - printed a retraction which Webb dismissed as spineless. The CIA Inspector General's report, commissioned in response to the allegations in "Dark Alliance", was published in the autumn of 1998. And he finallyyou know, they finally left the country. One time he called me and he said: 'I have this plan that will benefit us both.' Webb's corpse was found in the bedroom, with two gunshot wounds to the head. [20] The website artwork showed the silhouette of a man smoking a crack pipe superimposed over the CIA seal. "[82], Kill the Messenger (2014) is based on Webb's book Dark Alliance and Nick Schou's biography of Webb. Webb strongly disagreed with Ceppos's column and, in interviews, was harshly critical of the paper's handling of the story. Newsweek called Kerry a "randy conspiracy buff". A jury awarded the plaintiffs over 13 million dollars and the case was later settled. Gary Webb was at his desk in the Mercury News's Sacramento office, in July 1995, when he received a message to call Coral Baca, a Hispanic woman from the San Francisco Bay area, allegedly connected to a Colombian drug cartel. He was a former member of Bethlehem . When Webb wrote another story on the raid evidence in early October, it received wide attention in Los Angeles. Gary is survived by his loving wife of 41 years, Barbara; their son, Jeff; his nephew, Christopher (Stephanie) Webb; niece, Sara (Gary) Dugan; and . In the final few months of his life, Bell says, Webb became increasingly withdrawn. When his medical insurance expired, he stopped taking his antidepressants. The "Dark Alliance" series remains controversial. He was preceded in death by his wife, Melody Webb; parents and three brothers, Albert, Duane and Ronald. "You do not understand the power of these people," he adds, referring to the US intelligence services. Cleveland Plain Dealer film critic Clint OConnor had a solid featurethe other day about Kill the Messenger, the journalism true-tale movie opening Friday with Jeremy Renner starring as the late Gary Webb. We're well aware that they/it (the cia) did do it. He wrote that the series likely "oversimplified" the crack epidemic in America and the supposed "critical role" the dealers written about in the series played in it. Osborn, Barbara Bliss (MarchApril 1998). When I first heard the news, I tell Bell, I was inclined to believe the conspiracy theories that still proliferate on the internet, suggesting that Webb had been assassinated - either by one of the drug dealers he'd met while writing Dark Alliance, or by the intelligence services who were supposed to police them. Parry, the first reporter to write about the US authorities' drug-running on behalf of the Contras, had survived a campaign by the White House to discredit first his story, then his reputation. When they married, she was aged just 21. Webb disagreed with this conclusion.[1][2]. But the biggest loss he had was the writing. and Drugs Has a Life of Its Own", "Pivotal Figures of Newspaper Series May Be Only Bit Players", "Tracking the Genesis of the Crack Trade", "Examining Charges of CIA Role in Crack Sales", "History Fuels Outrage Over Crack Allegations", "Ex-L.A. Times Writer Apologizes for "Tawdry" Attacks", "Mercury News Executive Editor Jerry Ceppos' Letter to the Washington Post", "Washington Post response to Mercury News Executive Editor Jerry Ceppos", "Despite critics, a good story Crack and the contras", "CIA-Contra-Crack Cocaine Controversy: Epilogue", "CIA-Contra-Crack Cocaine Controversy: Conclusions", United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, "Are You Sure You Want to Ruin Your Career? The series provoked outrage, particularly in the Los Angeles African-American community, and led to four major investigations of its charges. [32], The New York Times published two articles on the series in mid-October, both written by reporter Tim Golden. After the announcement of federal investigations into the claims made in the series, other newspapers began investigating, and several papers published articles suggesting the series' claims were overstated. In August of 1996, investigative journalist Gary Webb broke the biggest story of his life. ", "Reporter's suicide confirmed by coroner", "Repercussions From Flawed News Articles", "Herhold: Thinking back on journalist Gary Webb and the CIA", Ex-L.A. Times Writer Apologizes for "Tawdry" Attacks, "Gary Webb was no journalism hero, despite what 'Kill the Messenger' says", "Jeremy Renner's 'Kill the Messenger' Gets Fall Release Date", The CIA-Contra-Crack Cocaine Controversy: A Review of the Justice Department's Investigations and Prosecutions, United States Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General, Report of Investigation Concerning Allegations of Connections Between CIA and The Contras in Cocaine Trafficking to the United States, Central Intelligence Agency Office of the Inspector General, United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, "Secrecy, Conspiracy, and the Media During the CIA-Contra Affair", Freeway Rick Ross: The Untold Autobiography, "Inside the Dark Alliance: Gary Webb on the CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion", 'A NATURAL STORY': Tribute to 'Dark Alliance' and Journalist Gary Webb, San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center, Archive of Gary Webb stories at Sacramento News and Review, "Frontline: Cocaine, Conspiracy Theories & the C.I.A. George Webb and Paul Cottrell have begun a weekly series on CoronaVirus now, Mondays at 5PM, EST on paul Cottrell's Rumble Channel. "The government side of the story is coming through the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Washington Post", he stated. Save 50% with early-bird passes. According to the report's "Epilogue," the report was completed in December 1997 but was not released because the DEA was still attempting to use Danilo Blandn in an investigation of international drug dealers and was concerned that the report would affect the viability of the investigation. His was the story of a man who gains information of wrongdoing, then, attempting to act in the public interest, seeks protection from his superiors, and the forces of law, and does not receive it. My wife has kept me grounded for . The series follows the stories of several characters whose lives are fated to intersect including CIA operative Teddy McDonald who helps to secure guns for the Contras. Then, on 10 December, he resigned. The CIA admits used the media to ruin his career. According to Corn, Webb "was wrong on some important details, but he was, in a way, closer to the truth than many of his establishment media critics who neglected the story of the real CIA-contra-cocaine connection." margin-top: 10px; In 2004, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Gary Webb was found dead from an apparent suicide, as Democracy Now! After Webb's death, a collection of his stories from before and after the "Dark Alliance" series was published. Meneses, an established smuggler and a Contra supporter as well, taught Blandn how to smuggle and provided him with cocaine. It was accurate. The follow-up reporting in the Los Angeles Times and other papers has been criticised for focusing on problems in the series rather than re-examining the earlier CIA-Contra claims. Webb - whose article had never alleged that the CIA deliberately targeted any ethnic group - became a national celebrity. "[79], Writing after Webb's death in 2005, The Nation magazine's former Washington Editor David Corn said that Webb "was on to something but botched part of how he handled it." [62], Examining the support that Meneses and Blandn gave to the local Contra organization in San Francisco, the report concluded that it was "not sufficient to finance the organization" and did not consist of "millions," contrary to the claims of the "Dark Alliance" series. It was published in 1998 as Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion. Actor Jeremy Renner portrays Webb.[83]. That was just the way he was.". Webb's condition exacerbated his natural recklessness. [13] Webb then moved to the paper's statehouse bureau, where he covered statewide issues and won numerous regional journalism awards. "Do you think that a part of him did this out of revenge?" Connie Webb (304) 778-2546: Status: Homeowner. He was taken to hospital by air ambulance. He also stated "the series presented dangerous ideas" by suggesting "crimes of state had been committed" (i.e. Few reporters I've known could match his nose for an investigative story. Gary Webb's Ex-Wife Set to Attend New York Premiere By Richard Horgan October 8, 2014 Cleveland Plain Dealer film critic Clint O'Connor had a solid feature the other day about Kill the. In the six years he worked at its Sacramento office, he won the HL Mencken award, for a story exposing corruption in California's drug enforcement agency, and his Pulitzer prize - won jointly, as part of a Mercury News team covering the 1990 Loma Prieta earthquake.