Webb followed up Baca's leads at the California State Library, examining Congressional records and FBI reports. 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. "You sound very scared," Moreira remarks. "Report on Alleged Involvement: Findings" 43. Call 911 for assistance. It also examined "how CIA handled and responded to information regarding allegations of drug trafficking" by people involved in Contra activities or support. 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". "I think the behaviour of the media in all of this has been amazing," says Bell. 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." 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". "They tried to make us look like crazies," says Blum. [35] The second article, by McManus, was the longest of the series and dealt with the role of the Contras in the drug trade and CIA knowledge of drug activities by the Contras. 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. "They had him writing obituaries," she said. line-height:1.5; 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 . But "Dark Alliance" was also posted on the Mercury News's website, with the image of a crack smoker superimposed on the CIA badge. His victory in the event last year gave him . He is survived by his loving wife, Wendie, of Elgin; grandmother, Eileen Carrier of Elgin;. "[77], Webb's reporting in "Dark Alliance" remains controversial. By: E&P Staff The death of investigative reporter Gary Webb has been confirmed as a suicide, according to a coroner's statement. So, how much is Gary Webb worth at the age of 49 years old? I first heard about Webb eight years ago, I tell Bell, from the Paris-based journalist Paul Moreira. Webb - whose article had never alleged that the CIA deliberately targeted any ethnic group - became a national celebrity. Gary Webb (304) 778-2546: Jamie Webb (304) 778-2546: Status: Homeowner. Maxine Waters found a govt employee ran the South Central LA drug ring & The DOJ removed that section of the report : r/conspiracy 3 yr. ago Posted by shylock92008 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. 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. "He rang me up that day. Gary Webb, (born August 31, 1955, Corona, California, U.S.died December 10, 2004, Carmichael, California), American investigative journalist who wrote a three-part series for the San Jose Mercury News in 1996 on connections between the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the U.S.-backed Contra army seeking to overthrow Nicaragua's leftist "[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." 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. "By the end of his life he was just in a lot of pain," said Webb's ex-wife, Susan Bell. But Webb had one huge blind side: He was fundamentally a man of passion, not of fairness. Gary Douglas Webb of Radnor, PA, passed away on October 19, 2021 Born January 3rd, 1943 in Montreal, Quebec, he was the son of the late John Douglas Webb and the late Jeannie (Penny) Hardie. The story offered no evidence to support such sweeping conclusions, a fatal error that would ultimately destroy Webb, if not his editors. This did not happen in Webb's case. WEBB, Mr. Gary Lee, our beloved son, husband, father, grandfather, brother and uncle went home with his heavenly Father Monday, August 29, 2011 at University of Michigan Hospital. By William Kennedy / Jan. 22, 2023 12:00 pm EST. Thank you." That wouldn't have happened if he hadn't been willing to stand up and risk it all.". But as Krim told Webb's biographer Nick Schou, "The zeal that helped make Gary a relentless reporter was coupled with an inability to question himself, to entertain the notion that he might have erred. He concluded, "How did these shortcomings occur? Asking why crack became so prevalent in the Black community of Los Angeles, the article credited Blandn, referring to him as "the Johnny Appleseed of crack in California. 'Dark Alliance' - both as journalism and as a book - is a convoluted narrative, but the crucial link it establishes is between the "agricultural salesman" Oscar Danilo Blandn, a Contra sympathiser with close CIA links, and his best customer, an LA drug dealer known as "Freeway" Ricky Ross. "He was crying. 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 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. Webb worked for several newspapers including The Kentucky Post and Cleveland Plain Dealer. [52] Webb was allowed to keep working on the story and made one more trip to Nicaragua in March. [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. [81], Peter Kornbluh, a researcher at George Washington University's National Security Archives, also does not agree that the report vindicated the series. 71K views 8 years ago Gary Webb's son Ian talks about the film in which Jeremy Renner plays his late journalist father. He leaves behind the love of his life and adoring wife of 41 years, Anne Michelle Phillips. Within weeks, the site was attracting up to 1.3m hits per day. He said: 'No. I felt weak and distressed; the whole thing was so fresh. Gary's story, however, is far from over and could never be killed by something as trivial as a material bullet. In 1996, investigative journalist Gary Webb wrote a series of stories exposing the connection between the CIA and the crack cocaine that was being sold in So. "Do you think that a part of him did this out of revenge?" The coroner's staff concluded that the second shot hit an artery.[70]. He was born August 27, 1968 in Saginaw, Michigan to Taylor Jr. and Loretta Webb. [60], It found no information to support the claim that the agency interfered with law enforcement actions against Ross, Blandn or Meneses. "He definitely was depressed. .article-native-ad { in Central America", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gary_Webb&oldid=1138520387, This page was last edited on 10 February 2023, at 03:36. [39] The Post refused to print his letter. His career ended, his livelihood was destroyed and certain games were started to be . According to Bell, Webb had been unhappy for some time over his inability to get a job at another major newspaper. 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. When she got indignant," she adds, "he went to meet her.". It would have been our 25th wedding anniversary," Bell recalls. Film of this encounter survives. Webb's condition exacerbated his natural recklessness. "Gary was 18 and I was 16 when we first met and started dating in Indianapolis," said Sue Stokes. Bell and her children helped Webb prepare 50 packages containing cuttings and his CV which they sent out to newspapers all over the US. Webb put in a call to Robert Parry. It sounds like a Tom Clancy novel, right? Blandn and Meneses were Nicaraguans who smuggled drugs into the U.S. and supplied dealers like Ross. The couple got married recently in November of 2020 after dating for some time. We are in the living room of Bell's house just outside Sacramento, California. With Baca's encouragement, he started to investigate a large-scale Nicaraguan cocaine dealer named Oscar Danilo Blandn. He was so depressed. 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. 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." [3], Webb was born in Corona, California. Ceppos and Garcia have long since lost any taste for public discussion of "Dark Alliance". 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. "But Gary thought that if something was true, it should be told. We're well aware that they/it (the cia) did do it. Gary Webb was born in Corona, California, in 1955. By the late spring of 1996, Webb was ready to publish. 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. [65], After leaving The Mercury News, Webb worked as an investigator for the California State Legislature. 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. E&P Staff. What was new about Webb's reports, published under the title "Dark Alliance" in the Californian paper the San Jose Mercury News, was that for the first time it brought the story back home. 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. Gary Webb became, quite unfairly, the victim of one of the most extraordinary examples of piling on by the mainstream press, ever.". 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. [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." He was the much-loved father of Lindsay (Stephen . She was a homemaker and a member of Hunters Chapel Baptist Church. Do something else with your life," the voice urges. The third article discussed the social effects of the crack trade, noting that it had a disparate effect on African-Americans. Gary was born Sept. 4, 1947, to Percy and Pauline (Haas) Webb. It was written by Jesse Katz, the same reporter who, less than two years earlier, had described Ross's conglomerate as "the Wal-Mart of crack dealing". The second volume, "The Contra Story," was issued in a classified version on April 27, 1998, and in an unclassified version on October 8, 1998. "[58], It also concluded that "the claims that Blandn and Meneses were responsible for introducing crack cocaine into South Central Los Angeles and spreading the crack epidemic throughout the country were unsupported." 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. 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. 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? She acted opposite Dirk Bogarde in the groundbreaking film Victim (Basil Dearden, 1961), as the unsuspecting wife of a barrister who is a closet homosexual. The character reporter Irene Abe is said by fans of the show to be a stand in character for the real life Gary Webb. Dec. 13, 2004. "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. 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. Connie Webb (304) 778-2546: Status: Homeowner. 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. 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]. Walter Bogdanich, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who worked with Webb on The Plain Dealer, told American Journalism Review editor Susan Paterno "He was brilliant; he knew more about public records than anybody I've ever known. Vivian Corrie, a part of his liver in a life-threatening operation. "The cause of death was determined to be self . [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. A Celebration of Life will be . 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. Gary Webb, friends say, was a far more combative character than either the Mercury News's executive editor Ceppos or page editor Garcia. "He told the guys with him he was fine," she recalls, "got back on the bike, then passed out, half an hour later. 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. Born in Corona, California, son of a conservatively minded Marine, he met Bell, whose father was a university lecturer, at high school in Indianapolis. "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". Webb's reports prompted three official investigations, including one by the CIA itself which - astonishingly for an organisation rarely praised for its transparency - confirmed the substance of his findings (published at length in Webb's 1998 book, also entitled Dark Alliance). Age 43 years. The truth was that, in all those years, I hadn't written anything important enough to suppress. 4) The series "created impressions that were open to misinterpretation" through "imprecise language and graphics. Webb's ex wife, Susan Bell told reporters that she believed Webb had died by suicide. Taken during the London Open House 2014 event. He had also lost his house the week before his suicide. [73], On the other hand, many of the writers and editors who worked with him have had high praise for him. "He told me, not long before he died, that he didn't want to get up in the mornings," she says. She kept crying about how terrible it all was - by which I mean that she was, physically, crying. Garry Webb wrote the 1996 "Dark Alliance" series for the San Jose. [31] In their front-page article, reporters Roberto Suro and Walter Pincus wrote that "available information" did not support the series's claims and that "the rise of crack" was "a broad-based phenomenon" driven in numerous places by diverse players. The complete lack of desire to ask the difficult questions makes me want to scream. Eli Tomac on track during Media Day at Daytona International Speedway, Friday, March 3, 2023. Gary Webb passed away on March 2, 2019. And when he got something in his head, he was determined to do it. The drugs went to South Central LA. When Attorney General Janet Reno determined that a delay was no longer necessary, the report was released unaltered. "Gary was given the choice of relocating either to San Jose," says Bell, "or to Cupertino". Gary Webb was a journalist of outsized talent. One of his last articles examined America's Army, a video game designed by the U.S. "It was like someone had made a terrible noise, or a terrible smell, in a small room," recalls Jonathan Winer, Kerry's chief senate staff investigator . "[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. His wife is Sue Webb (m. 1979-2000) Gary Webb Net Worth His net worth has been growing significantly in 2021-2022. Jack Blum, who was the lead investigator for Senator John Kerry's Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations, which produced a highly damning 1989 report on drug-smuggling in the guise of national security, is one of several commentators to have questioned aspects of Webb's original reporting. Noting that most of the activities discussed in the report had nothing to do with the people Webb reported on, Kornbluh told Schou, "I can't say it's a vindication. 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. Webb took a modestly paid, low-profile job as an investigator with the California State Legislature. 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. Gary Hays (304) 778-7090: "[2], Ceppos noted that Webb did not agree with these conclusions. It was accurate. Army. At the end of March, Ceppos told Webb that he was going to present the internal review findings in a column. An investigative journalist, Webb became interested in the covert activities of the Central Intelligence Agency. Gary was preceded in death by his mother and father, Donna and James Webb of Carpentersville. ", "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. They were outraged by the series's charges.[27]. When Gary originally broke this mind blowing story, the arrogant authority's assumed they could simply ignore him and hope he'd go away. 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. [44], Ceppos' column drew editorial responses from both The New York Times and The Washington Post. [8] In 1979, Webb married Susan Bell; the couple eventually had three children. Hired by the San Jose Mercury News, Webb contributed to the paper's Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake. "He thought I was being cowardly. Newsweek called Kerry a "randy conspiracy buff". But, Ceppos wrote, the series "did not meet our standards" in four areas. "For the better part of a decade," it began, "a San Francisco drug ring sold tons of cocaine to the Crips and Bloods street gangs of Los Angeles and funnelled millions in drug profits to a Latin American guerrilla army run by the US Central Intelligence Agency.". One article, dealing mostly with the response of the Los Angeles Black community to the stories, described the series's evidence as "thin". "Looking back," she says, "I think Gary had been obsessed with suicide for some time. We had been here before." "Back then. He also stated "the series presented dangerous ideas" by suggesting "crimes of state had been committed" (i.e. In city after city, local dealers either bought from Ross or got left behind."[24]. Few reporters I've known could match his nose for an investigative story. Many writers discussing the series point to errors in it. 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. What he found, he wrote later, "nearly knocked me off my chair". [46] Overholser was harshly critical of the series, "reported by a seemingly hotheaded fellow willing to have people leap to conclusions his reporting couldn't back up." "Because of Gary Webb's work," said Senator John Kerry, "the CIA launched an investigation that found dozens of connections to drug runners. While working at the legislature, Webb continued to do freelance investigative reporting, sometimes based on his investigative work. The CIA Inspector General's report, commissioned in response to the allegations in "Dark Alliance", was published in the autumn of 1998. [7] After transferring to Northern Kentucky, he entered its journalism program and wrote for the school paper, The Northerner. Osborn, Barbara Bliss (MarchApril 1998). Occupation: Machine Operators, Assemblers, and Inspectors Occupations. He is from United States. He told me: 'If I can't do what I want to do, what's the point?' 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'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 . "This is an appalling charge," says a tense-looking Deutch. His. "That's right," says Blum. I felt she really trashed me. Some might consider it an inappropriate assignment for a man with responsibilities. [71] "The way he was acting it would be hard for me to believe it was anything but suicide," she said. [67], Webb later moved to the State Assembly's Office of Majority Services. Views on Webb's journalism have been polarized. 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 . He cites the case of Alfred McCoy, now Professor of South East Asian Studies at the University of Wisconsin. When Webb's body was discovered last December, Bell says, this last item had been dumped in the trash. It noted that Blandn and Meneses claimed to have donated money to Contra sympathizers in Los Angeles, but found no information to confirm that it was true or that the agency had heard of it. He also had this inherent belief that the truth could not harm him. Webb's research took a year, in the course of which he received death threats. To show this, the series focused on three men: Ricky Ross, Oscar Danilo Blandn, and Norwin Meneses. . [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. Look at the way the US press reports on Iraq. [42] The extent of the criticism, however, convinced Ceppos that The Mercury News had to acknowledge to its readers that the series had been subjected to strong criticism. Webb's corpse was found in the bedroom, with two gunshot wounds to the head. Webb chose the second option. The CIA admits used the media to ruin his career. 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.