Shortly before his death, his motorcycle had been stolen (it was recovered by his family after his death). [4] When Webb's father retired from the Marines, the family settled in a suburb of Indianapolis, where Webb and his brother attended high school. 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. [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. Ross, currently serving life, was already infamous; he had been profiled in the LA Times in December 1994, by writer Jesse Katz, at a time when Ross was at liberty and in penitent mood. Webb's condition exacerbated his natural recklessness. "Report on Alleged Involvement: Findings" 43. Snowfall is an American crime drama television series set in Los Angeles in 1983. He was previously married to Sue Bell. Webb resigned from The Mercury News in December 1997. It was just more than he could take.". Army. Hired by the San Jose Mercury News, Webb contributed to the paper's Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake. 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. 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. 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. One time he called me and he said: 'I have this plan that will benefit us both.' Investigative journalist Gary Webb wrote a series of stories in 1996 for the San Jose Mercury News that documented the US-government-backed Contra insurgents' drug pipeline into Los Angeles. Her husband began his career on The Kentucky Post, and rapidly proved himself to be the sort of character who can be a secretive agency's worst nightmare: a full-blooded provocateur who liked to put the hours in at the library. [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. 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. "[77], Webb's reporting in "Dark Alliance" remains controversial. The CIA Inspector General's report, commissioned in response to the allegations in "Dark Alliance", was published in the autumn of 1998. The first shot went through his face, and exited at his left cheek. Am J Mens Health, 2018 Mar 1:1557988318758788. doi: 10.1177/1557988318758788. GARY WEBB was an investigative reporter who focused on government and private sector corruption and who won more than thirty journalism awards. ", Many of these are in the series archive at. [60], The House Intelligence Committee issued its report in February 2000. A revised version was published in 1999 that incorporated Webb's response to the CIA and Justice Department reports. Occupation: Machine Operators, Assemblers, and Inspectors Occupations. [54] Editors at the paper, on the other hand, felt that Webb had failed to tell them about information that contradicted the series's claims and that he "responded to concerns not with reasoned argument, but with accusations of us selling him out. In a 2013 article in the LA Weekly, Schou wrote that Webb was "vindicated by a 1998 CIA Inspector General report, which revealed that for more than a decade the agency had covered up a business relationship it had with Nicaraguan drug dealers like Blandn. He began his career working for newspapers in Kentucky and Ohio, winning numerous awards, and building a strong reputation for investigative writing. '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. ", Webb had already been cremated and his ashes scattered in the bay off Santa Cruz two weeks before. [51] After discussions with Webb, the column was published on May 11, 1997.[53]. He accepted Christ at an early age. But ultimately, the responsibility was, and is, mine.". "I am scared," the voice replies. Poor Gary Webb. Gary Stephen Webb(August 31, 1955 - December 10, 2004) was an American investigative journalist. Contemporary discussions of the series are discussed in the section on, Webb 2011, "Caltrans Ignored Elevated Freeway Safety. 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." Do not quote me on anything.". Gary Webb's "Approach Split" in the atrium of 20 Triton Street London. [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. Gary Webb, friends say, was a far more combative character than either the Mercury News's executive editor Ceppos or page editor Garcia. It also examined "how CIA handled and responded to information regarding allegations of drug trafficking" by people involved in Contra activities or support. Few reporters I've known could match his nose for an investigative story. "Allow Gary Webb to be there [in the CIA investigation]," a heckler shouts. 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. His career ended, his livelihood was destroyed and certain games were started to be . Vivian Corrie, a part of his liver in a life-threatening operation. An investigative journalist, Webb became interested in the covert activities of the Central Intelligence Agency. Their explosive report, which appeared in 1989, was either ignored, or marginalised, by the American press. [71] When asked by local reporters about the possibility of two gunshots being a suicide, Lyons replied "It's unusual in a suicide case to have two shots, but it has been done in the past, and it is in fact a distinct possibility." Gary-Webb TL, Walker EA, Realmuto L, Kamler A, Lukin J, Tyson W, Carrasquillo O, Weiss L. Translation of the National Diabetes Prevention Program to Engage Men in Disadvantaged Neighborhoods in New York City: A Description of Power Up for Health. The new movie Kill the Messenger, based in part on a 2006 book by a former student of mine, eulogizes Webb . One of his last articles examined America's Army, a video game designed by the U.S. He was born August 27, 1968 in Saginaw, Michigan to Taylor Jr. and Loretta Webb. By 1997, Bell tells me, Webb - whose 30-year career had earned him more awards than there is room for in her study - had been reassigned to the Mercury News's office in Cupertino. Webb took a modestly paid, low-profile job as an investigator with the California State Legislature. GARY WEBB OBITUARY Gary Frank Webb Sept. 27, 1944 - Oct. 23, 2022 Gary passed away peacefully of complications following cardiovascular surgery. [55] Webb eventually chose Cupertino, but was unhappy with the routine stories he was reporting there and the long commute. He wrote well. He was taken to hospital by air ambulance. George Webb and Paul Cottrell have begun a weekly series on CoronaVirus now, Mondays at 5PM, EST on paul Cottrell's Rumble Channel. "I think the behaviour of the media in all of this has been amazing," says Bell. Some editors regarded him as stubborn to the point of insolence. He died by suicide on December 10, 2004. 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. An editorial in the Times, while criticizing the series for making "unsubstantiated charges", conceded that it did find "drug-smuggling and dealing by Nicaraguans with at least tentative connections to the Contras" and called for further investigation. Blandn and Meneses were Nicaraguans who smuggled drugs into the U.S. and supplied dealers like Ross. Film of this encounter survives. He is from United States. (Strawser) Webb. Thank you." Relationships with other women ended badly. But the biggest loss he had was the writing. . "[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. The series revolves around the first crack epidemic and its impact on the culture of the city. "[74] Mary Anne Sharkey, Webb's editor at The Plain Dealer, told writer Alicia Shepard in 1997 that Webb was known as 'the carpenter' "because he had everything nailed down. [49], The paper also gave Webb permission to visit Central America again to get more evidence supporting the story. 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 . After the series's publication, the Northern California branch of the national Society of Professional Journalists voted Webb "Journalist of the Year" for 1996. "But Gary thought that if something was true, it should be told. 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. Gary Webb, Into the Buzzsaw, CH 13, Prometheus Books. "Do not quote me. Emma Lee Webb, age 75, of Crossett, AR passed away Monday February 27, 2023, in her home surrounded by her family. "They had him writing obituaries," she said. 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. Garry Webb wrote the 1996 "Dark Alliance" series for the San Jose. [39] The Post refused to print his letter. [67], Webb later moved to the State Assembly's Office of Majority Services. He then transferred to nearby Northern Kentucky University. 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 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. When he told me, I said it sounded crazy. He was assigned to its Sacramento bureau, where he was allowed to choose most of his own stories. Then, on 10 December, he resigned. The article suggested this was in retribution for Ross' testimony in the corruption case. "You do not understand the power of these people," he adds, referring to the US intelligence services. In August of 1996, investigative journalist Gary Webb broke the biggest story of his life. After Ceppos' column, The Mercury News spent the next several months conducting an internal review of the story. When facts didn't fit his theory, he tended to shove them to the sidelines. He placed his keys and ID cards on the kitchen table, together with a cremation certificate he had purchased for himself. 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. Instead, he found work in 1978 as a reporter at the Kentucky Post, a local paper affiliated with the larger Cincinnati Post. 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. The reports of the three federal investigations into the claims of "Dark Alliance" were not released until over a year after the series's publication. 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? He recently told the American Journalism Review (whose scrupulously researched piece, by Susan Paterno, is the only serious documentation of the Webb case I could find anywhere in the orthodox American media) that Webb's critics in rival newspapers, "quoted these CIA guys - who had a tremendous amount to hide - as though they were telling the truth. .article-native-ad { It was accurate. After the publication of "Dark Alliance," The Mercury News continued to pursue the story, publishing follow-ups to the original series for the next three months. [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. [69], Webb was found dead in his Carmichael home on December 10, 2004, with two gunshot wounds to the head. 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 . 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. "The first story he had to file was about a police horse which had died of constipation.". He cites the case of Alfred McCoy, now Professor of South East Asian Studies at the University of Wisconsin. When Gary originally broke this mind blowing story, the arrogant authority's assumed they could simply ignore him and hope he'd go away. padding:0!important; 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." 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. At the end of March, Ceppos told Webb that he was going to present the internal review findings in a column. 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 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. But you say - dear God. ", In contrast, the series received support from Steve Weinberg, a former executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors. Look at the way the US press reports on Iraq. 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. Gary was born Sept. 4, 1947, to Percy and Pauline (Haas) Webb. 3) The series oversimplified how the crack epidemic grew. color: #ddd; I mean - please.". Gary Webb, 64, Oroville, Wash., died Oct. 30, 2021. Webb disagreed with this conclusion.[1][2]. Video courtesy of documentary FREEWAY: CRACK IN THE SYSTEM premiering on Al Jazeera America in early 2015. 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 . Corrie had primary biliary cirrhosis, a genetic liver disease that already had. .article-native-ad strong { The article resulted in a lawsuit against Webb's paper which the plaintiffs won. 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. Webb - whose article had never alleged that the CIA deliberately targeted any ethnic group - became a national celebrity. Webb established incontrovertible links * between Ricky Ross and Blandn who, two years later, would betray Ross to the authorities. The three articles in the series were written by four reporters: Jesse Katz, Doyle McManus, John Mitchell and Sam Fulwood. 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. He said: 'No. The complete lack of desire to ask the difficult questions makes me want to scream. There were no offers. 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. On the last day Webb was alive, his motorbike broke down while he was moving to his mother's house. [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. We're well aware that they/it (the cia) did do it. [37], In 2013, Jesse Katz, a former Los Angeles Times reporter, said of the newspaper's coverage "As an L.A. Times reporter, we saw this series in the San Jose Mercury News and kind of wonder[ed] how legit it was and kind of put it under a microscope, and we did it in a way that most of us who were involved in it, I think, would look back on that and say it was overkill. }. But they underestimated the paradigm shifting power of the internet, and the intelligence of Webb, who not only listed the explosive story online . Even 10 years after his tragic death, the media refuse to let him rest. He stayed home, playing computer games, and began smoking cannabis heavily. Osborn, Barbara Bliss (MarchApril 1998). 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). Both sides were left angry and disappointed. When Webb wrote another story on the raid evidence in early October, it received wide attention in Los Angeles. Gary is survived by his wife of 48 years, Beverly Webb; children Margaret . He was the much-loved father of Lindsay (Stephen . He really did believe that," she says. [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. Some might consider it an inappropriate assignment for a man with responsibilities. 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. Within weeks, the site was attracting up to 1.3m hits per day. 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. 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. Webb's ex-wife, Stokes, now remarried and still living in Sacramento, had heard it all before, too. "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. 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. Webb had become, as somebody put it, "radioactive". The whole business, I suggested to Blum, has echoes of a classic Alfred Hitchcock plot. Webb may indeed be physically dead, but his research is more alive today than ever before, and continues to haunt the shadow government and snowball into a monster that will undoubtedly have its eventual revenge. But the report was correct. 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. Eli Tomac on track during Media Day at Daytona International Speedway, Friday, March 3, 2023. "Look at what happened to Gary Webb. 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 feeling was that with other news outlets calling for Webb's head, the paper's credibility depended on their joining in on the attacks. "He started having motorcycle crashes," Bell says. . 1) It presented only one interpretation of conflicting evidence and in one case "did not include information that contradicted a central assertion 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. font-weight:500; "He had six in a short period of time." It was truthful. When his medical insurance expired, he stopped taking his antidepressants. [72] A New York Times profile of Webb in June 1997 noted that two of his series written for the Cleveland Plain Dealer had resulted in lawsuits that the paper had settled. "The government side of the story is coming through the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Washington Post", he stated. 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. In 1996, the award-winning journalist Gary Webb uncovered CIA links to Los Angeles drug dealers. [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. 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. Webb joined the Mercury News in 1988, via the Cleveland Plain Dealer. In and out of work, he had a reputation for taking risks. That was just the way he was.". "That's right," says Blum. [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. "He definitely was depressed. 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. He went into the bedroom, and picked up a .38 that had belonged to his father. margin-top: 10px; "Everyone got out and left the person who had made the noise - issued the report - alone. * The agency's response was to try to prevent him from getting his doctorate, then block his advancement in the academic world. 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. He also defended the series in interviews with all three papers. "Gary didn't take her seriously," says Susan Bell, "because he was always getting calls alleging weird stuff about the CIA. He was preceded in death by his wife, Melody Webb; parents and three brothers, Albert, Duane and Ronald. 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. 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.' Gary Webb sums up the story in his last major interview just days before his death. The drugs went to South Central LA. color:rgb(46,179,178); 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. As a result, some major US newspapers ignored its findings completely, while others relegated a brief summary to their inside pages. He made that very clear. The truth was that, in all those years, I hadn't written anything important enough to suppress. Webb's series was published on the Mercury News's fledgling website, but it wasn't exactly an instant sensation. When he was engaged, he worked hard. "As a PhD student, McCoy went to Vietnam and built an absolutely damning case about the CIA's involvement with trafficking heroin.