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? In a three-part expos, investigative journalist Gary Webb reported that a guerrilla army in Nicaragua had used crack cocaine sales in Los Angeles' black neighborhoods to fund an attempted coup of Nicaragua's socialist government in the 1980s and that the CIA had purposefully funded it. 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. 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. [41], When the Los Angeles Times series appeared, Ceppos again wrote to defend the original series. 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. He cites the case of Alfred McCoy, now Professor of South East Asian Studies at the University of Wisconsin. [71] "The way he was acting it would be hard for me to believe it was anything but suicide," she said. .article-native-ad svg { After introducing the three, the first article discussed primarily Blandn and Meneses, and their relationship with the Contras and the CIA. Should these editors subsequently deem the story to have been fatally flawed, they take the consequences. Gary Webb - Lake Ridge Chapel & Memorial Designers In and out of work, he had a reputation for taking risks. [33] Golden also referred to the controversy over Webb's contacts with Ross's lawyer. [67], Webb later moved to the State Assembly's Office of Majority Services. * The agency's response was to try to prevent him from getting his doctorate, then block his advancement in the academic world. The "Dark Alliance" series remains controversial. The story offered no evidence to support such sweeping conclusions, a fatal error that would ultimately destroy Webb, if not his editors. 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. He was taken to hospital by air ambulance. 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. Join iconic brands and world-class marketing leaders at Brandweek to unlock powerful insights and impact-driven strategies. The coroner's staff concluded that the second shot hit an artery.[70]. 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. Webb, a Pullitzer prize winning journalist, exposed CIA drug trafficking operations in a series of books and reports for the San Jose Mercury News. So he blew her off. color:rgb(46,179,178); And the importance of exposing them. But the tragedy had a deeper meaning. "Because of Gary Webb's work," said Senator John Kerry, "the CIA launched an investigation that found dozens of connections to drug runners. Dr. Gary A. Webb is a geriatrician in Marco Island, Florida. To pay off his mounting debts, Webb sold the Carmichael property, where he was living alone, and arranged to move in with his mother. Gary Webb | American journalist | Britannica Part of what makes OConnors article so compelling are the candid thoughts of Webbs former wife Sue Stokes. 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. [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. Corrie had primary biliary cirrhosis, a genetic liver disease that already had. The February 2000 report by the House Intelligence Committee in turn considered the book's claims as well as the series' claims. That was just the way he was.". Film of this encounter survives. Man Donates Liver To Ex-Wife - CBS News Gary was preceded in death by his mother and father, Donna and James Webb of Carpentersville. GARY WEBB: His wife's office was burglarized. He really did believe that," she says. 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. WRITTEN IN PAIN - Los Angeles Times Some editors regarded him as stubborn to the point of insolence. I realise now he was thinking about suicide.". His own paper, the Mercury News, criticized the series in 1997 without providing many specifics. 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. After Ceppos' column, The Mercury News spent the next several months conducting an internal review of the story. When he was engaged, he worked hard. Webb, Gary Gary T. Webb, age 67, of Hamilton, Michigan, passed away peacefully surrounded by his loving family Thursday, November 11, 2021. Gary Webb on the CIA's Role in the 1980s LA Crack Epidemic - Citizen Truth It's . "Ross," his report went on, dealt "on a scale never before conceived," with "a staggering turnover" of "50 to 100 kilos of cocaine a day". Who Is Gary Webb's Wife? Webb followed up Baca's leads at the California State Library, examining Congressional records and FBI reports. 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. Blandn and Meneses were Nicaraguans who smuggled drugs into the U.S. and supplied dealers like Ross. [26] Other papers were slow to pick up the story, but African Americans quickly took note, especially in South Central Los Angeles where the dealers discussed in the series had been active. Ceppos failed to reply to one phone message and six emails. Jimmy Webb's battle with ex-wife Patsy Sullivan continues - New York Post Gary's story, however, is far from over and could never be killed by something as trivial as a material bullet. In 1996, the award-winning journalist Gary Webb uncovered CIA links to Los Angeles drug dealers. 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. ", As Webb would tell a friend, after he had been ostracised: "You have to look out, when the big dog gets off the porch.". 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. Webb's condition exacerbated his natural recklessness. Both sides were left angry and disappointed. . 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. Born January 3rd, 1943 in Montreal, Quebec, he was the son of the late John Douglas Webb and the late Jeannie (Penny) Hardie Penman. Pictured as a teenage fan: Gary Numan with Gemma, his now wife, getting his autograph in 1985 years before they got together Gary was 600,000 in debt, and on the verge of going under in. Poor Gary Webb. Gary Stephen Webb(August 31, 1955 - December 10, 2004) was an American investigative journalist. [8] In 1979, Webb married Susan Bell; the couple eventually had three children. [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." "[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. In city after city, local dealers either bought from Ross or got left behind."[24]. The claim that the drug ring of Meneses-Blandn-Ross sparked the "crack explosion" has been perhaps the most criticized part of the series. He concluded, "How did these shortcomings occur? "By the end of his life he was just in a lot of pain," said Webb's ex-wife, Susan Bell. 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. And when he got something in his head, he was determined to do it. 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. Gary Webb Obituary (2011) - Saginaw, MI - Saginaw News on MLive.com The CIA/MSM Contra-Cocaine Cover-up - Consortium News I felt weak and distressed; the whole thing was so fresh. After the announcement of federal investigations into the claims made in the series, other newspapers began investigating, and several papers published articles suggesting the series' claims were overstated. 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. "[79], Writing after Webb's death in 2005, The Nation magazine's former Washington Editor David Corn said that Webb "was on to something but botched part of how he handled it." For instance, he published an article on racial profiling in traffic stops in Esquire magazine, in April 1999. The third article discussed the social effects of the crack trade, noting that it had a disparate effect on African-Americans. Obituary | GARY HAYS WEBB of Neenah, Wisconsin | WESTGOR FUNERAL HOMES . Gary Numan's superfan wife had 'body lift' and exploding breasts 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.' 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. 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). By William Kennedy / Jan. 22, 2023 12:00 pm EST. [60], It found no information to support the claim that the agency interfered with law enforcement actions against Ross, Blandn or Meneses. "He thought I was being cowardly. Gary Webb Obituary (1944 - 2022) - Portland, OR - The Oregonian Gary Webb's son on new movie "Kill the Messenger" - YouTube [81], Peter Kornbluh, a researcher at George Washington University's National Security Archives, also does not agree that the report vindicated the series. Webb 'Suicide' Looking More Like Murder - rense.com The story had little immediate impact. In a three-part series published in the San Jose Mercury News, "Dark Alliance," Webb alleges that not only was the CIA aware cocaine sold in the U.S. during the 1980s was funding the Nicaraguan Contras, they were complicit in its distribution. [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. I ask Bell. What he found, he wrote later, "nearly knocked me off my chair". If you work through friendly reporters on major newspapers, it comes off as The New York Times saying it and not a mouthpiece of the CIA. 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. She was a homemaker and a member of Hunters Chapel Baptist Church. 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. Gary Webb - Wikispooks Lynn Rd, Ranger WV - Rehold Address Directory His assignments included investigating racial profiling by the California Highway Patrol and charges that the Oracle Corporation had received a no-bid contract award of $95 million in 2001. But once the flak really started to fly, from the nation's grandest newspapers, Ceppos - having come under exactly what form of pressure it is difficult to know - printed a retraction which Webb dismissed as spineless. Why bring up old white people atrocities against black people now? But the biggest loss he had was the writing. Start your Independent Premium subscription today. The Warning in Gary Webb's Death - Consortium News But the report was correct. Gary Stephen Webb (August 31, 1955 December 10, 2004) was an American investigative journalist. Ricky Ross (drug trafficker) - Wikipedia }. Webb - whose article had never alleged that the CIA deliberately targeted any ethnic group - became a national celebrity. According to Schou, the investigation "confirmed key chunks of Webb's allegations." The first detailed article on the series's claims appeared in The Washington Post in early October. 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. "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 . 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.
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