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But the biggest loss he had was the writing. To Read the Full Story Become an Adweek+ Subscriber. 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. [28] Maxine Waters, the representative for California's 35th district, which includes South-Central Los Angeles, was also outraged by the articles and became one of Webb's strongest supporters. "I think Kerry learnt a lesson from all this," reporter Robert Parry says. padding-left: 10px!important; Webb chose the second option. When Attorney General Janet Reno determined that a delay was no longer necessary, the report was released unaltered. Emma Lee Webb. 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. Webb, according to Bell, was a man who, more than most, found that his mood and self-esteem fluctuated in accordance with his professional fortunes. It was also posted on The Mercury News website with additional information, including documents cited in the series and audio recordings of people quoted in the articles. An investigative journalist, Webb became interested in the covert activities of the Central Intelligence Agency. 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 series examined the origins of the crack cocaine trade in Los Angeles and claimed that members of the anti-communist Contra rebels in Nicaragua had played a major role in creating the trade, using cocaine profits to finance their fight against the government in Nicaragua. She kept crying about how terrible it all was - by which I mean that she was, physically, crying. I first heard about Webb eight years ago, I tell Bell, from the Paris-based journalist Paul Moreira. ", She pauses: "That said, he did sleep with a gun under his bed.". Gary Hays Webb, 78, passed away on Monday May 9, 2022, at ThedaCare Regional Medical Center, Neenah. 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 . [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. He leaves behind the love of his life and adoring wife of 41 years, Anne Michelle Phillips. His. The Los Angeles Sheriff's Department began its own investigation into the "Dark Alliance" claims.[30]. 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. Webb began to shift from cynicism to curiosity. By a fortunate coincidence of timing, the report was released on a day when the Monica Lewinsky scandal dominated every front page in the country. [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. Newsweek called Kerry a "randy conspiracy buff". Because the gentile (european caucasian, lepers, fake jews) or white folks agenda has always been to destroy the black man, ever since pharaoh tried to murder Christ by murdering Hebrew babies, until now. Gary Webb's "Approach Split" in the atrium of 20 Triton Street London. The first effect of the onslaught was to ease the pressure on the CIA. 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. Then, in August the same year, the first of three instalments of "Dark Alliance" appeared. "The cause of death was determined to be self . The film broadened the debate which led to the decriminalisation of . "To get back at his editors?". It was just more than he could take.". To pay off his mounting debts, Webb sold the Carmichael property, where he was living alone, and arranged to move in with his mother. He was found dead on Friday morning in what the police said was an apparent suicide. At the commemorative service for Webb, held at the Doubletree Hotel in Sacramento, Bell read out the letter Webb had written to his son Eric, now 17. 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 "Dark Alliance" series remains controversial. [11], In 1983, Webb moved to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, where he continued doing investigative work. We're well aware that they/it (the cia) did do it. "Because of Gary Webb's work," said Senator John Kerry, "the CIA launched an investigation that found dozens of connections to drug runners. "He told me, not long before he died, that he didn't want to get up in the mornings," she says. Join iconic brands and world-class marketing leaders at Brandweek to unlock powerful insights and impact-driven strategies. Within weeks, the site was attracting up to 1.3m hits per day. "[78], While finding this part of the series unsupported, Schou said that some of the series's claims on CIA involvement are supported, writing that "The CIA conducted an internal investigation that acknowledged in March 1998 that the agency had covered up Contra drug trafficking for more than a decade." One article, dealing mostly with the response of the Los Angeles Black community to the stories, described the series's evidence as "thin". [48] Despite the controversy that soon overtook the series, and the request of one board member to reconsider, the branch's board went ahead with the award in November. He stayed home, playing computer games, and began smoking cannabis heavily. By Sam Stanton Bee Staff Writer Published 2:15 am PST Wednesday, December 15, 2004. . [60], The House Intelligence Committee issued its report in February 2000. He told me: 'If I can't do what I want to do, what's the point?' We had been here before." The passing of Gary ends more than 50 years with his best friend and loving wife, Marilyn J. A Celebration of Life will be . [39] The Post refused to print his letter. "[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]. "He started having motorcycle crashes," Bell says. Gary Webb passed away on March 2, 2019. The third article, by Mitchell and Fulwood, covered the effects of crack on African-Americans and how it affected their reaction to some of the rumors that arose after the "Dark Alliance" series. [69], Webb was found dead in his Carmichael home on December 10, 2004, with two gunshot wounds to the head. Nobody who heads a government agency can let such an allegation stand.". 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. 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." Am J Mens Health, 2018 Mar 1:1557988318758788. doi: 10.1177/1557988318758788. The response from the American press took two months to arrive. 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." ", The report called several of its findings "troubling." border-bottom: 1px solid #ddd; I felt she really trashed me. The truth was that, in all those years, I hadn't written anything important enough to suppress. Gary's family found that old, storied, ("priceless to us," as his ex-wife, Susan Bell, described it to me) CDROM among his possessions. When Ross discovered the market for crack in Los Angeles, he began buying cocaine from Blandn. [52] Webb was allowed to keep working on the story and made one more trip to Nicaragua in March. [81], Peter Kornbluh, a researcher at George Washington University's National Security Archives, also does not agree that the report vindicated the series. After Webb's death, a collection of his stories from before and after the "Dark Alliance" series was published. Family (1) "[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. Gary Webb was a journalist of outsized talent. 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. He was born August 27, 1968 in Saginaw, Michigan to Taylor Jr. and Loretta Webb. He was laid off in February 2004 when Assembly Member Fabian Nez was elected Speaker. 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. When facts didn't fit his theory, he tended to shove them to the sidelines. 4) The series "created impressions that were open to misinterpretation" through "imprecise language and graphics. It's . When his medical insurance expired, he stopped taking his antidepressants. He concluded, "How did these shortcomings occur? He also stated "the series presented dangerous ideas" by suggesting "crimes of state had been committed" (i.e. [29] Waters urged the CIA, the Department of Justice, and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to investigate. In the column, Ceppos defended parts of the article, writing that the series had "solidly documented" that the drug ring described in the series did have connections with the Contras and did sell large quantities of cocaine in inner-city Los Angeles. 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." Dec. 13, 2004. There is a CIA connection and I can demonstrate it.'". .article-native-ad strong { Some might consider it an inappropriate assignment for a man with responsibilities. Look at the way the US press reports on Iraq. Blandn and Meneses' high-volume supply of low-priced high-purity cocaine "allowed Ross to sew up the Los Angeles market and move on. 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." Gary Hays (304) 778-7090: "Looking back," she says, "I think Gary had been obsessed with suicide for some time. "I'd get discouraged," she said, "but I never really gave up hope." Back in 1997, SN&R brought the controversy about Gary Webb to readers with "Secrets and Lies," a cover story about why the mainstream media attacked . With Baca's encouragement, he started to investigate a large-scale Nicaraguan cocaine dealer named Oscar Danilo Blandn. When Webb wrote another story on the raid evidence in early October, it received wide attention in Los Angeles. 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." After his resignation from The Mercury News, Webb expanded the "Dark Alliance" series into a book that responded to the criticism of the series and described his experiences writing the story and dealing with the controversy. When his body was found, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly was on the DVD machine, and his favourite CD, Ian Hunter's live album Welcome to the Club, was in the CD player. I believe that we fell short at every step of our process: in the writing, editing and production of our work. The first article in "Dark Alliance" that discussed the failure of law enforcement agencies to prosecute Blandn and Meneses had mentioned several cases. "You sound very scared," Moreira remarks. When Webb's body was discovered last December, Bell says, this last item had been dumped in the trash. Both sides were left angry and disappointed. His death was especially traumatic to the family since - as the coroner said - it could not be established whether he died instantly, or bled to death. ". My wife has kept me grounded for . After introducing the three, the first article discussed primarily Blandn and Meneses, and their relationship with the Contras and the CIA. The three articles in the series were written by four reporters: Jesse Katz, Doyle McManus, John Mitchell and Sam Fulwood. "He walked in one day," Bell recalls, "and said, 'You are not going to believe what I just found out.' 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. One time he called me and he said: 'I have this plan that will benefit us both.' There was no coffin, casket or tombstone. "This is an appalling charge," says a tense-looking Deutch. So, this is not something you really make a career out of, nor would you want to. Garry Webb wrote the 1996 "Dark Alliance" series for the San Jose. "People told me that," she says. 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. In 1996, the award-winning journalist Gary Webb uncovered CIA links to Los Angeles drug dealers. ", Many of these are in the series archive at. 71K views 8 years ago Gary Webb's son Ian talks about the film in which Jeremy Renner plays his late journalist father. Jeremy Renner as Gary Webb How Kill the Messenger Will Vindicate Investigative Journalist Gary Webb Melinda Welsh September 29, 2014 This one has all the ingredients of a dreamed-up Hollywood. "They had him writing obituaries," she said. 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. Webb, unlike Blum or Kerry, had to face his difficulties alone. The CIA Inspector-General's report was issued in two volumes. Few reporters I've known could match his nose for an investigative story. [3], Webb was born in Corona, California. His wife is Sue Webb (m. 1979-2000) Gary Webb Net Worth His net worth has been growing significantly in 2021-2022. By the late spring of 1996, Webb was ready to publish. [16] As part of The Mercury News team that covered the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, Webb and his colleague Pete Carey wrote a story examining the causes of the collapse of the Cypress Street Viaduct. 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. The article discussed Webb's contacts with Ross's attorney and prosecution complaints of how Ross's defense had used Webb's series. If he could have chosen his own epitaph, it might have been a line from the letter he posted to Bell, immediately before he killed himself: "I do not regret," Webb told her, "anything that I have written." [36] McManus wrote that Blandn's and Meneses's contributions to Contra organizations were significantly less than the "millions" claimed in the series, and stated there was no evidence that the CIA had tried to protect them. that the "federal government bore some responsibility, however indirect, for the flood of crack that coursed through black neighborhoods in the 1980s"). In city after city, local dealers either bought from Ross or got left behind."[24]. Leen, who covered the cocaine trade for the Miami Herald in the 1980s, rejects the claim that "because the report uncovered an agency mindset of indifference to drug-smuggling allegations", it vindicated Webb's reporting. 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? Gary's story, however, is far from over and could never be killed by something as trivial as a material bullet. Writing on the Los Angeles Times opinion page, Schou said, "Webb asserted, improbably, that the Blandn-Meneses-Ross drug ring opened 'the first pipeline between Colombia's cocaine cartels and the black neighborhoods of Los Angeles,' helping to 'spark a crack explosion in urban America.' California senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein also took note and wrote to CIA director John Deutch and Attorney General Janet Reno, asking for investigations into the articles' allegations. 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. The room is decorated with his trophies: a Pulitzer prize hangs next to his HL Mencken award; also on the wall is a framed advertisement for The Kentucky Post. Webb's condition exacerbated his natural recklessness. 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 . During and immediately after the controversy over "Dark Alliance," Webb's earlier writing was examined closely. The other article, citing interviews with current and former intelligence and law-enforcement officials, questioned the importance of the drug dealers discussed in the series, both in the crack cocaine trade and in supporting the Nicaraguan Contras' fight against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. 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. But you say - dear God. 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. [43] He did this in a column that appeared on November 3, defending the series, but also committing the paper to a review of major criticisms. 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. [19] The series was published in The Mercury News in three parts, from Sunday, 18 August 1996 to 20 August 1996, with a first long article and one or two shorter articles appearing each day.

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