that the "federal government bore some responsibility, however indirect, for the flood of crack that coursed through black neighborhoods in the 1980s"). 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. 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". When Webb wrote another story on the raid evidence in early October, it received wide attention in Los Angeles. [39] Carey's critique appeared in mid-October and went through several of the Post's criticisms of the series, including the importance of Blandn's drug ring in spreading crack, questions about Blandn's testimony in court, and how specific series allegations about CIA involvement had been, giving Webb's responses. 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. Its pointed to as one of the clearer cases of CIA intervention as revenge for Webb revealing damaging secrets about the agencies involvement in drug smuggling. The link between drug-running and the Reagan regime's support for the right-wing terrorist group throughout the 1980s had been public knowledge for over a decade. [63]Dark Alliance was a 1998 Pen/Newman's Own First Amendment Award Finalist, 1998 San Francisco Chronicle bestseller, 1999 Bay Area Book Reviewers Award Finalist, and 1999 Firecracker Alternative Booksellers Award Winner in the Politics category. Connie Webb (304) 778-2546: Status: Homeowner. Gary Webb, friends say, was a far more combative character than either the Mercury News's executive editor Ceppos or page editor Garcia. "Do not quote me. His. A 1985 series, "Doctoring the Truth," uncovered problems in the State Medical Board[12] and led to an Ohio House investigation which resulted in major revisions to the state Medical Practice Act. He was found dead on Friday morning in what the police said was an apparent suicide. The truth was that, in all those years, I hadn't written anything important enough to suppress. 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? Work with a bunch of drug dealers to run guns? He went into the bedroom, and picked up a .38 that had belonged to his father. [49], The paper also gave Webb permission to visit Central America again to get more evidence supporting the story. When Attorney General Janet Reno determined that a delay was no longer necessary, the report was released unaltered. 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. The series ran from October 2022, 1996, and was researched by a team of 17 reporters. Born in Corona, California, son of a conservatively minded Marine, he met Bell, whose father was a university lecturer, at high school in Indianapolis. "If there was an eye to the storm," Katz wrote, "if there was a mastermind behind crack's decade-long reign, if there was one outlaw most responsible for flooding LA's streets with mass-marketed cocaine, his name was Freeway Rick. OR was he like Epstein? And the importance of exposing them. The Mercury News reporter came under sustained attack from the weightier US newspapers such as The New York Times, The Washington Post and, especially, the Los Angeles Times, infuriated at being scooped, on its own patch, by what it saw as a small-town paper. "They use the giant corporate press rather than saying anything directly. Garry Webb wrote the 1996 "Dark Alliance" series for the San Jose. On the last day Webb was alive, his motorbike broke down while he was moving to his mother's house. Webb put in a call to Robert Parry. In February, Gary Webb gave his ex-wife. } 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. With Baca's encouragement, he started to investigate a large-scale Nicaraguan cocaine dealer named Oscar Danilo Blandn. Both Gary's ex-wife Susan and his brother Kurt viewed the body and they confirmed the location of the wounds to me when I met them. "Allow Gary Webb to be there [in the CIA investigation]," a heckler shouts. ", In contrast, the series received support from Steve Weinberg, a former executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors. Unfortunately, the railroading of Gary Webb had begun and he was run over. Within weeks, the site was attracting up to 1.3m hits per day. Poor Gary Webb. Eli Tomac on track during Media Day at Daytona International Speedway, Friday, March 3, 2023. They were outraged by the series's charges.[27]. Working in San Jose would have meant daily contact with what Bell describes as "people he did not want to be with". . "[76] Scott Herhold, Webb's first editor at The Mercury-News, wrote in a 2013 column that "Gary Webb was a journalist of outsized talent. Age 43 years. He also had this inherent belief that the truth could not harm him. He made that very clear. A perceptive, engaging woman of 48, she has turned an adjoining study into a small shrine to her late husband, who would have celebrated his 50th birthday five weeks ago. [52] Webb was allowed to keep working on the story and made one more trip to Nicaragua in March. "People told me that," she says. Call 911 for assistance. font-size: 34px; [67], Webb later moved to the State Assembly's Office of Majority Services. Like Schou, Corn cites the inspector general's report, which he says "acknowledged that the CIA had indeed worked with suspected drugrunners (sic) while supporting the contras. She and Gary were married from 1979 to 2000 and had three children. He is the oldest son of Pulitzer Prize-winninginvestigative journalist Gary Webb, the subject of the 2014 film "Kill the Messenger," starring Hollywood heavyweight Jeremy Renner. After the series's publication, the Northern California branch of the national Society of Professional Journalists voted Webb "Journalist of the Year" for 1996. reports. When his medical insurance expired, he stopped taking his antidepressants. She kept crying about how terrible it all was - by which I mean that she was, physically, crying. When they married, she was aged just 21. Webb's condition exacerbated his natural recklessness. The film broadened the debate which led to the decriminalisation of . And he finallyyou know, they finally left the country. He is from United States. 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. Few reporters I've known could match his nose for an investigative story. GARY WEBB: His wife's office was burglarized. padding:0!important; Webb's then-wife Sue remembers coming home from the shops and finding her. Cooper Webb Wife Name Revealed. By the time Webb began researching Dark Alliance, Bell was 38 and they had three children. 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. I believe that we fell short at every step of our process: in the writing, editing and production of our work. Gary Webb's income source is mostly from being a successful . But Webb had one huge blind side: He was fundamentally a man of passion, not of fairness. The consensus, insofar as one exists, is that he probably overstated both the amount of drug money made by Ross and Blandn, and the percentage of those profits diverted to the Contras. The legendary civil-rights activist Dick Gregory was arrested while he protested outside the CIA's headquarters; Gregory began referring to the organisation as "Crack in America". I felt she really trashed me. Webb, whose plans to become a journalist had begun when he was 13, but never included equine death notices, resigned from the Mercury News a few months later. He died by suicide on December 10, 2004. He was born at Emmanuel Hospital in. "[25] It also found disparities in the treatment of Black and White traffickers in the justice system, contrasting the treatment of Blandn and Ross after their arrests for drug trafficking. We are in the living room of Bell's house just outside Sacramento, California. He also stated "the series presented dangerous ideas" by suggesting "crimes of state had been committed" (i.e. } [71] "The way he was acting it would be hard for me to believe it was anything but suicide," she said. Even 10 years after his tragic death, the media refuse to let him rest. [69], Webb was found dead in his Carmichael home on December 10, 2004, with two gunshot wounds to the head. [13] Webb then moved to the paper's statehouse bureau, where he covered statewide issues and won numerous regional journalism awards. Much of the article highlighted the failure of law enforcement agencies to successfully prosecute them and stated that this was largely due to their Contra and CIA connections. "You sound very scared," Moreira remarks. Gary is survived by his wife of 48 years, Beverly Webb; children Margaret . "It sounds crazy," says Bell, "but having his motorbike stolen was the last straw. For two years, Blum and Kerry supervised the interrogation of dozens of witnesses who described CIA-related drug deals in central America. He really did believe that," she says. It found that Blandn received permanent resident status "in a wholly improper manner" and that for some time the Department "was not certain whether to prosecute Meneses, or use him as a cooperating witness." But while calling the flaws in the series "unforgivably careless journalism," Overholser also criticized the Post's refusal to print Ceppos' letter defending the series and sharply criticized the Post's coverage of the story. Unable to get work from any major US newspaper, he spent the four months before his death writing for * a free-sheet covering the Sacramento area. *, 'Dark Alliance: The CIA, The Contras and the Crack Cocaine Explosion' is published in the UK by Seven Stories Press, priced 11.99, Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies. Webb - whose article had never alleged that the CIA deliberately targeted any ethnic group - became a national celebrity. But "Dark Alliance" was also posted on the Mercury News's website, with the image of a crack smoker superimposed on the CIA badge. He began his career working for newspapers in Kentucky and Ohio, winning numerous awards, and building a strong reputation for investigative writing. [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. Taken during the London Open House 2014 event. But, Ceppos wrote, the series "did not meet our standards" in four areas. Gary is survived by his loving wife of 41 years, Barbara; their son, Jeff; his nephew, Christopher (Stephanie) Webb; niece, Sara (Gary) Dugan; and . border-bottom: 1px solid #ddd; Gary Webb (304) 778-2546: Jamie Webb (304) 778-2546: Status: Homeowner. But they underestimated the paradigm shifting power of the internet, and the intelligence of Webb, who not only listed the explosive story online . The whole business, I suggested to Blum, has echoes of a classic Alfred Hitchcock plot. Views on Webb's journalism have been polarized. It was just more than he could take.". Do something else with your life," the voice urges. ". Army. "[82], Kill the Messenger (2014) is based on Webb's book Dark Alliance and Nick Schou's biography of Webb. The three articles in the series were written by four reporters: Jesse Katz, Doyle McManus, John Mitchell and Sam Fulwood. Blandn and Meneses were Nicaraguans who smuggled drugs into the U.S. and supplied dealers like Ross. "He was crying. We had this huge team of people at the L.A. Times and kind of piled on to one lone muckraker up in Northern California." ", Webb had already been cremated and his ashes scattered in the bay off Santa Cruz two weeks before. It was good that his story forced those reports to come out, but part of what made that happen was based on misleading information. During and immediately after the controversy over "Dark Alliance," Webb's earlier writing was examined closely. I remain astounded by the editorial decisions they made.". When it did, beginning with The Washington Post, it shocked Webb's critics as much as his many admirers. "He had six in a short period of time." Webb worked for several newspapers including The Kentucky Post and Cleveland Plain Dealer. [65], Within "The Mighty Wurlitzer Plays On" essay Webb stated he believed there was an active "collusion between the press and the powerful" to report freely on inconsequential matters, "but when it comes to the real down and dirty stuff We begin to see the limits of our freedoms". The drugs went to South Central LA. There has been speculation that he may have met with foul play because he had received two gunshot wounds to the head, The Sacramento Bee reported Wednesday. The reports rejected the series's main claims but were critical of some CIA and law enforcement actions. By Sam Stanton Bee Staff Writer Published 2:15 am PST Wednesday, December 15, 2004. . Because Blandn cooperated with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), he spent only 28 months in prison, became a paid government informant, and received permanent resident status. "Everyone got out and left the person who had made the noise - issued the report - alone. Gary Webb, 64, Oroville, Wash., died Oct. 30, 2021. E&P Staff. ", "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. .article-native-ad { "[72] California Representative Maxine Waters, who was Webb's strongest supporter in Congress after the "Dark Alliance" controversy broke, issued a statement after Webb's death calling him "one of the finest investigative journalists that our country has ever seen. He was so depressed. What he found, he wrote later, "nearly knocked me off my chair". "Look at what happened to Gary Webb. This drug ring "opened the first pipeline between Colombia's cocaine cartels and the black neighborhoods of Los Angeles" and, as a result, "The cocaine that flooded in helped spark a crack explosion in urban America."[23]. Thank you." Nick Schou, a journalist who wrote a 2006 biography of Webb, has claimed that this was the most important error in the series. Gary's ex-wife Susan Bell states: "The way he was acting it would be hard for me to believe it was anything but suicide." An interesting OPINION, but she supplies no convincing evidence to illustrate what she means by this. After Webb's death, a collection of his stories from before and after the "Dark Alliance" series was published. Tara Becker-Gray Lee News Network Jan 17, 2019 0 1 of 2 C. Webb The body found at a house fire at 13308 95th Ave. in rural Blue Grass on Thursday night has been identified as Cynthia Webb, 59.. 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. His own paper, the Mercury News, criticized the series in 1997 without providing many specifics. Webb came home and put his belongings in order, dropping his Kentucky Post poster in the bin. News coverage noted that there were widespread rumors on the Internet at the time that Webb had been killed as retribution for his "Dark Alliance" series, published eight years before. Gary Webb became, quite unfairly, the victim of one of the most extraordinary examples of piling on by the mainstream press, ever.". Should these editors subsequently deem the story to have been fatally flawed, they take the consequences. Webb took a modestly paid, low-profile job as an investigator with the California State Legislature. [15], In 1988, Webb was recruited by the San Jose Mercury News, which was looking for an investigative reporter. There was no coffin, casket or tombstone. The first shot went through his face, and exited at his left cheek. The Department of Justice Inspector-General's report was released on July 23, 1998. To show this, the series focused on three men: Ricky Ross, Oscar Danilo Blandn, and Norwin Meneses. Am J Mens Health, 2018 Mar 1:1557988318758788. doi: 10.1177/1557988318758788. It reads: "There should be no fetters on reporters, nor must they tamper with the truth, but give light so the people will find their own way." Steven Webb . Gary Webb passed away on March 2, 2019. [41], When the Los Angeles Times series appeared, Ceppos again wrote to defend the original series. We're well aware that they/it (the cia) did do it. He leaves behind the love of his life and adoring wife of 41 years, Anne Michelle Phillips. There were no offers. Gary Hays (304) 778-7090: Webb became a staff reporter for the San Jose Mercury News in 1988. The CIA admits used the media to ruin his career. Gary's family found that old, storied, ("priceless to us," as his ex-wife, Susan Bell, described it to me) CDROM among his possessions. [20] The website artwork showed the silhouette of a man smoking a crack pipe superimposed over the CIA seal. . Dec. 13, 2004. He died on December 10, 2004 in Carmichael, California, USA. 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. [51] After discussions with Webb, the column was published on May 11, 1997.[53]. Webb's series was published on the Mercury News's fledgling website, but it wasn't exactly an instant sensation. His former wife, her voice lowered to a whisper, explains that Webb missed with the first shot (which exited through his left cheek). Gary Douglas Webb of Radnor, PA, passed away on October 19, 2021. When Webb pressed the Mercury News to allow him to investigate the LA connection further, his own newspaper issued a retraction which earned its editor, Jerry Ceppos, wide praise from rival publications, but effectively disowned Webb, who then suffered the kind of corporate lynching that reporters are usually expected to dispense rather than endure. 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. Video courtesy of documentary FREEWAY: CRACK IN THE SYSTEM premiering on Al Jazeera America in early 2015. For instance, he published an article on racial profiling in traffic stops in Esquire magazine, in April 1999. "This is an appalling charge," says a tense-looking Deutch. GARY WEBB OBITUARY Gary Frank Webb Sept. 27, 1944 - Oct. 23, 2022 Gary passed away peacefully of complications following cardiovascular surgery. He was the much-loved father of Lindsay (Stephen . "If I had one dream for you," he wrote, "it was that you would go into journalism and carry on the kind of work I did - fighting, with all your might, the oppression and bigotry and stupidity and greed that surrounds us. [3], Webb was born in Corona, California. Every year since investigative journalist Gary Webb took his own life in 2004, I have marked the anniversary of that sad event by recalling the debt that American history owes to Webb for his. "The second bullet," adds Bell, who has worked for more than 20 years in the area of respiratory therapy, "struck his carotid artery. Although he attended Northern Kentucky for four years, he did not finish his degree. He received his medical degree from American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine and has been in practice for more than. But Ian Webbknows all too well the emotions that come with that experience. Gary Webb was born in Corona, California, in 1955. On Dec. 9, 2004, the 49-year-old Gary Stephen Webb, Pulitzer prize-winning US investigative journalist, typed out suicide notes to his ex-wife and his three children; he laid out a certificate for his cremation; he taped a note on the door telling movers - who were coming the next morning to move him out of his rental house near Sacramento - to [10] The series, which examined the murder of a coal company president with ties to organized crime, won the national Investigative Reporters and Editors Award for reporting from a small newspaper. On Dec. 9, 2004, the 49-year-old Webb typed out suicide notes to his ex-wife and his three children; laid out a certificate for his cremation; and taped a note on the door telling movers, who were . line-height:1.5; [59], The first volume of the report found no evidence that "any past or present employee of CIA, or anyone acting on behalf of CIA, had any direct or indirect dealing" with Ross, Blandn, or Meneses or that any of the other figures mentioned in "Dark Alliance" were ever employed by or associated with or contacted by the agency. As a result, some major US newspapers ignored its findings completely, while others relegated a brief summary to their inside pages. [66] 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. He was a former member of Bethlehem . 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. margin-bottom: 20px; [61] According to the report, it used Webb's reporting and writing as "key resources in focusing and refining the investigation." "Like enjoy it.". Webb disagreed with this conclusion.[1][2]. When removal men arrived, on the morning of 10 December 2004, they found a sign on his front door, which read: ''Please do not enter. The February 2000 report by the House Intelligence Committee in turn considered the book's claims as well as the series' claims. But the report was correct. According to Bell, Webb had been unhappy for some time over his inability to get a job at another major newspaper. [60], It found no information to support the claim that the agency interfered with law enforcement actions against Ross, Blandn or Meneses. Then, in August the same year, the first of three instalments of "Dark Alliance" appeared. 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. Begun 1996, the divorce and battle over cash of Grammy winner Jimmy Webb age 75, father of six, wed 22 years to Patsy, 64, daughter of late actor Barry Sullivan is getting longer. Garcia responded by email but declined to speak on the record about the editing process of Webb's series. [7] After transferring to Northern Kentucky, he entered its journalism program and wrote for the school paper, The Northerner. 4) The series "created impressions that were open to misinterpretation" through "imprecise language and graphics. And yet, for all his Easy Rider tendencies, he was also a dedicated family man with an extraordinary appetite for researching minutiae. Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? But the tragedy had a deeper meaning. Although Blandn's cartel was undoubtedly one of the first to bring crack to LA, Webb was almost certainly suffering a rush of blood when he described the group as "the first pipeline" into the city. Gary Webb famously died of two gun shot wounds to the head and his death that was ruled a suicide, is the common sense notion that this was clearly assassination true? "[62] It also found no evidence to support Webb's suggestion that several other drug smugglers mentioned in the series were associated with the CIA, or that anyone associated with the CIA or other intelligence agencies was involved in supplying or selling drugs in Los Angeles.[62]. Osborn, Barbara Bliss (MarchApril 1998). [57], The report covered actions by Department of Justice employees in the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the DEA, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and U.S. Occupation: Machine Operators, Assemblers, and Inspectors Occupations. In a long review of the series' claims in The Baltimore Sun, Weinberg said "I think the critics have been far too harsh. ", The significant legacy of the Webb case, "the reason this whole affair remains so significant today," Blum says, "is this: the knowledge that, if one individual dares raise such serious issues, they risk confronting a tremendous apparatus that is prepared to whack them hard, and there is very little they can expect by way of support. At that time, Webb (pictured) was best known for the controversial three-part CIA 1996 expose he wrote the San Jose Mercury News called "Dark Alliance: The Story Behind the . 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. 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." padding-left: 10px!important; 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.