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]. [67], Webb later moved to the State Assembly's Office of Majority Services. 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. Carey ultimately decided that there were problems with several parts of the story and wrote a draft article incorporating his findings. When facts didn't fit his theory, he tended to shove them to the sidelines. [7] After transferring to Northern Kentucky, he entered its journalism program and wrote for the school paper, The Northerner. Webb's condition exacerbated his natural recklessness. (Gary is Adult Ministries Pastor at the church.) 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 also defended the series in interviews with all three papers. "Everyone got out and left the person who had made the noise - issued the report - alone. [13] Webb then moved to the paper's statehouse bureau, where he covered statewide issues and won numerous regional journalism awards. He cites the case of Alfred McCoy, now Professor of South East Asian Studies at the University of Wisconsin. "Allow Gary Webb to be there [in the CIA investigation]," a heckler shouts. But while Webb overreached, some key findings in "Dark Alliance" were on target-and important. "To get back at his editors?". The first detailed article on the series's claims appeared in The Washington Post in early October. 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. 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. In an unprecedented move, the then CIA director John Deutch was dispatched to address community leaders in the Watts district of LA. The CIA denied the charges, and every major newspaper in the country . His behavior became increasingly unpredictable and he embarked on a series of affairs, eventually divorcing from his wife Sue in 2000. . In August 1996, Gary Webb published in the San Jose Mercury News a 20,000 word, three-part series entitled "Dark Alliance".The articles detailed the nexus between a California coke kingpin, CIA officials and assets and the Nicaraguan Contra army, whose . Webb's research took a year, in the course of which he received death threats. The Pariah. The story had little immediate impact. . [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". He received his medical degree from American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine and has been in practice for more than 20 . His wife is Sue Webb (m. 1979-2000) Gary Webb Net Worth His net worth has been growing significantly in 2021-2022. "I believe that Americans, as a nation, are mainly concerned with living their happy little lives. It was published in 1998 as Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion. [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. He also had this inherent belief that the truth could not harm him. ", "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. Managed by: Pam Wilson (may be slow to respond) Last Updated: 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. By the autumn of 1997, on medication for clinical depression, he was given leave of absence from the paper. Webb followed up Baca's leads at the California State Library, examining Congressional records and FBI reports. Webb strongly disagreed with Ceppos's column and, in interviews, was harshly critical of the paper's handling of the story. "[80], Not all writers agree that the Inspector-General's report supported the series's claims. Edmund Webb: Birthdate: estimated between 1751 and 1805 : Death: Immediate Family: Son of Edmund Webb and Nancy Webb Husband of Milly Clark Brother of Daniel Gary Webb; Nancy Lester; Polly Webb; John Webb; Elizabeth "Betsey" Webb and 1 other. Webb worked for several newspapers including The Kentucky Post and Cleveland Plain Dealer. "Looking back," she says, "I think Gary had been obsessed with suicide for some time. "He had six in a short period of time." It was just more than he could take.". He died on December 10, 2004 in Carmichael, California, USA. George Webb and Paul Cottrell have begun a weekly series on CoronaVirus now, Mondays at 5PM, EST on paul Cottrell's Rumble Channel. 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." When Gary originally broke this mind blowing story, the arrogant authority's assumed they could simply ignore him and hope he'd go away. 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. Both sides were left angry and disappointed. 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. Meneses, an established smuggler and a Contra supporter as well, taught Blandn how to smuggle and provided him with cocaine. Gary Webb, friends say, was a far more combative character than either the Mercury News's executive editor Ceppos or page editor Garcia. The truth was that, in all those years, I hadn't written anything important enough to suppress. He was previously married to Sue Bell. [56] He resigned from the paper in November 1997. Gary Webb, a hero of authentic journalism, an inspiration to truth-seekers around the world, a friend to all of us at Narco News, but now an unemployable outcast in the world of commercial newspapers, took his own life on December 10, 2004. Peter Kornbluh, senior analyst with the George Washington University's National Security Archive, was one of the first to suggest that Webb had overplayed his hand in the Mercury News version of "Dark Alliance". Webb came late to the. The drugs went to South Central LA. 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. He leaves behind the love of his life and adoring wife of 41 years, Anne Michelle Phillips. Age 43 years. 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. "[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. He was laid off in February 2004 when Assembly Member Fabian Nez was elected Speaker. His father was a Marine sergeant, and the family moved frequently, as his career took him to new assignments. From the outset of his career, Webb distinguished himself by uncovering official malfeasance, winning national . Webb was put under pressure most certainly from the CIA under John Deutch for his reporting. [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. Gary Webb was born on August 31, 1955 in Corona, California, USA. Furthermore, the duo has been blessed with two daughters, Persia Numan and Raven Numan. It found that CIA officials ignored information about possible Contra drug dealing; that they continued to work with Contra supporters despite allegations that they were trafficking drugs, and further asserted that officials from the CIA instructed Drug Enforcement Agency officers to refrain from investigating alleged dealers connected with the Contras. If the antagonism of competing publications was predictable, what happened to Webb within his own newspaper was not. But "Dark Alliance" was also posted on the Mercury News's website, with the image of a crack smoker superimposed on the CIA badge. "Because of Gary Webb's work," said Senator John Kerry, "the CIA launched an investigation that found dozens of connections to drug runners. [81], Peter Kornbluh, a researcher at George Washington University's National Security Archives, also does not agree that the report vindicated the series. By the end of September, three federal investigations had been announced: an investigation into the CIA allegations conducted by CIA Inspector-General Frederick Hitz, an investigation into the law enforcement allegations by Justice Department Inspector-General Michael Bromwich, and a second investigation into the CIA by the House Intelligence Committee. It would have been our 25th wedding anniversary," Bell recalls. [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." As we now know today thanks to Gary's . It was truthful. "[2], Ceppos noted that Webb did not agree with these conclusions. Video courtesy of documentary FREEWAY: CRACK IN THE SYSTEM premiering on Al Jazeera America in early 2015. Webb - whose article had never alleged that the CIA deliberately targeted any ethnic group - became a national celebrity. He is survived by his loving wife, Wendie, of Elgin; grandmother, Eileen Carrier of Elgin;. Sue remarried two years ago. 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. After Ceppos' column, The Mercury News spent the next several months conducting an internal review of the story. "Gary was 18 and I was 16 when we first met and started dating in Indianapolis," said Sue Stokes. She and Gary were married from 1979 to 2000 and had three children. ", Webb had already been cremated and his ashes scattered in the bay off Santa Cruz two weeks before. 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. [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. This is why Webb's "Dark Alliance" series is an essential source, a primary text that every journalism student should study. Gary Webb's income source is mostly from being a successful . 2) The series's estimate of the money involved was presented as fact instead of as an estimate. In addition, Gary left multiple suicide notes to family members which were confirmed to be in his own hand by them. 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