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[7] After transferring to Northern Kentucky, he entered its journalism program and wrote for the school paper, The Northerner. "[75], Jonathan Krim, The Mercury News editor who recruited Webb from The Plain Dealer and who supervised The Mercury News internal review of "Dark Alliance," told AJR editor Paterno that Webb "had all the qualities you'd want in a reporter: curious, dogged, a very high sense of wanting to expose wrongdoing and to hold private and public officials accountable." "This is an appalling charge," says a tense-looking Deutch. Twitter. Webb worked for several newspapers including The Kentucky Post and Cleveland Plain Dealer. "He thought I was being cowardly. In February last year he was laid off by the State Legislature. The series ran from October 2022, 1996, and was researched by a team of 17 reporters. "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. "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". In 1996, the award-winning journalist Gary Webb uncovered CIA links to Los Angeles drug dealers. The CIA Inspector-General's report was issued in two volumes. Last December Webb committed suicide. In 2015 Gary Webb, from Gatehouse of Fleet in Dumfries and Galloway . Then, in August the same year, the first of three instalments of "Dark Alliance" appeared. It concluded, however, that these problems were "a far cry from the type of broad manipulation and corruption of the federal criminal justice system suggested by the original allegations.". The story was picked up by black talk-radio stations. [49], The paper also gave Webb permission to visit Central America again to get more evidence supporting the story. Do not quote me on anything.". A revised version was published in 1999 that incorporated Webb's response to the CIA and Justice Department reports. The series revolves around the first crack epidemic and its impact on the culture of the city. Webb was put under pressure most certainly from the CIA under John Deutch for his reporting. They failed because the climate was more sceptical then. ". Webb's continuing reporting also triggered a fourth investigation. Garcia is deputy director of the John S Knight Fellowships in Journalism at Stanford University. Before his death, John Singleton maintained that Snowfall is its own account of how the crack epidemic began on the West Coast . He leaves behind the love of his life and adoring wife of 41 years, Anne Michelle Phillips. The article discussed Webb's contacts with Ross's attorney and prosecution complaints of how Ross's defense had used Webb's series. 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. [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. "He walked in one day," Bell recalls, "and said, 'You are not going to believe what I just found out.' When Webb's body was discovered last December, Bell says, this last item had been dumped in the trash. 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. She was born July 22, 1964 in Jellico, Tennessee. Webb is best known for his "Dark Alliance" series, which appeared in The Mercury News in 1996. "I told Gary not to go near this story," his source replies, in an emotional voice. There is a CIA connection and I can demonstrate it.'". Yes. "Do not quote me. The Department of Justice Inspector-General's report was released on July 23, 1998. He concluded, "How did these shortcomings occur? Critics view the series' claims as inaccurate or overstated, while supporters point to the results of a later CIA investigation as vindicating the series. [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 told me: 'If I can't do what I want to do, what's the point?' Webb chose the second option. 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. Wlaf1450. "[77], Webb's reporting in "Dark Alliance" remains controversial. Within weeks, the site was attracting up to 1.3m hits per day. Ceppos and Garcia have long since lost any taste for public discussion of "Dark Alliance". He had a tight circle that included almost no one from the Mercury News, says his former wife, Susan Bell, and a sensitive side he rarely showed outside the bounds of his close friends and family. By the autumn of 1997, on medication for clinical depression, he was given leave of absence from the paper. [citation needed], Views on Webb's journalism have been polarized. He is survived by his loving wife, Wendie, of Elgin; grandmother, Eileen Carrier of Elgin;. He was the much-loved father of Lindsay (Stephen . 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, Bell explains, had written four letters explaining what he was about to do - one to her, one to each of their three children - and mailed them immediately before he killed himself. [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. He died on December 10, 2004 in Carmichael, California, USA. Webb joined the Mercury News in 1988, via the Cleveland Plain Dealer. 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. His former wife, her voice lowered to a whisper, explains that Webb missed with the first shot (which exited through his left cheek). "I am scared," the voice replies. "I believe that Americans, as a nation, are mainly concerned with living their happy little lives. 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. Born January 3rd, 1943 in Montreal, Quebec, he was the son of the late John Douglas Webb and the late Jeannie (Penny) Hardie Penman. 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. He was no villain: He genuinely believed his thesis about the CIA. Webb resigned from The Mercury News in December 1997. 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. Some editors regarded him as stubborn to the point of insolence. Gary Stephen Webb (August 31, 1955 - December 10, 2004) was an American investigative journalist. [34], The Los Angeles Times devoted the most space to the story, publishing a three-part series called "The Cocaine Trail." [21] This artwork proved controversial, and The Mercury News later removed it. The CIA denied the charges, and every major newspaper in the country . 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. "I had to warn Gary that what he was looking at was probably true, but that he would run very big risks," Parry recalls. WEBB, Gary T. - Age 55, of Goodrich, died Thursday, May 15, 2003 at his residence. [11], In 1983, Webb moved to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, where he continued doing investigative work. Webb's corpse was found in the bedroom, with two gunshot wounds to the head. Gary and Karla James Webb married and blended their families on January 7, 1989 in O'Donnell, Texas. I realise now he was thinking about suicide.". Gary Webb was born in Corona, California, in 1955. 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. The men were identified as 29-year-old Gary Webb and 24-year-old Jacob Gipson. 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 Crack Explosion." ", Many of these are in the series archive at. 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". He really did believe that," she says. Ceppos initially defended Webb, and reportedly showed up at an in-house party wearing a military helmet. Dr. Gary A. Webb is a geriatrician in Marco Island, Florida. Ross was a major drug dealer in Los Angeles. The review was conducted primarily by editor Jonathan Krim and reporter Pete Carey, who had written the paper's first published analysis of the series. He celebrated his 62nd birthday in 2020. He stayed home, playing computer games, and began smoking cannabis heavily. '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 had six in a short period of time." [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. "[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." The mainstream press, now known as the legacy. Gary Webb became, quite unfairly, the victim of one of the most extraordinary examples of piling on by the mainstream press, ever.". When Ross discovered the market for crack in Los Angeles, he began buying cocaine from Blandn. He had sold his house the week before his death because he was unable to afford the mortgage. Carey ultimately decided that there were problems with several parts of the story and wrote a draft article incorporating his findings. 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). Bell and her children helped Webb prepare 50 packages containing cuttings and his CV which they sent out to newspapers all over the US. Almost. 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. [65], After leaving The Mercury News, Webb worked as an investigator for the California State Legislature. "Which was that, if he wanted a future within the political establishment of the United States, then he should concentrate on other aspects of life.". 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. He was born at Emmanuel Hospital in. When his medical insurance expired, he stopped taking his antidepressants. [45], The Post's response came from the paper's ombudsman, Geneva Overholser. Gary Webb's Ex-Wife Set to Attend New York Premiere By Richard Horgan October 8, 2014 Cleveland Plain Dealer film critic Clint O'Connor had a solid feature the other day about Kill the. Did Gary Webb really stray from his wife? [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. Contemporary discussions of the series are discussed in the section on, Webb 2011, "Caltrans Ignored Elevated Freeway Safety. Gary Webb, friends say, was a far more combative character than either the Mercury News's executive editor Ceppos or page editor Garcia. Webb, unlike Blum or Kerry, had to face his difficulties alone. "You sound very scared," Moreira remarks. Family (1) But his central thesis - that the CIA, having participated in narcotics trafficking in central America, had, at best, turned a blind eye to the activities of drug dealers in LA - has never been in question. Both sides were left angry and disappointed. ", She pauses: "That said, he did sleep with a gun under his bed.". 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. [15], In 1988, Webb was recruited by the San Jose Mercury News, which was looking for an investigative reporter. One article, dealing mostly with the response of the Los Angeles Black community to the stories, described the series's evidence as "thin". [41], When the Los Angeles Times series appeared, Ceppos again wrote to defend the original series. And it ruined that reporter's career. "I think the behaviour of the media in all of this has been amazing," says Bell. He was born in Jacksonville, Texas, on March 13, 1954, to Carroll and Waldine Webb, the younger brother of Diane Webb. Webb put in a call to Robert Parry. When facts didn't fit his theory, he tended to shove them to the sidelines. 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." Webb began to shift from cynicism to curiosity. [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. Gary was born Sept. 4, 1947, to Percy and Pauline (Haas) Webb. What he found, he wrote later, "nearly knocked me off my chair". Can these things possibly be? In interviews after leaving The Mercury News, Webb described the 1997 controversy as media manipulation. His father was a Marine sergeant, and the family moved frequently, as his career took him to new assignments. And yet, for all his Easy Rider tendencies, he was also a dedicated family man with an extraordinary appetite for researching minutiae. I believe that we fell short at every step of our process: in the writing, editing and production of our work. The collection, The Killing Game: Selected Stories from the Author of Dark Alliance, was edited by Webb's son, Eric. Work with a bunch of drug dealers to run guns? 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. "Gary didn't take her seriously," says Susan Bell, "because he was always getting calls alleging weird stuff about the CIA. It also stated that the Contras may have acted with the knowledge and protection of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The passing of Gary ends more than 50 years with his best friend and loving wife, Marilyn J. He received his medical degree from American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine and has been in practice for more than 20 . . The article resulted in a lawsuit against Webb's paper which the plaintiffs won. We were dismissed as a bunch of nuts." Webb was a man of passion, not of fairness. "[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]. Five years ago, a tragedy occurred in American journalism: Investigative reporter Gary Webb - who had been ostracized by his own colleagues for forcing a spotlight back onto an ugly government scandal they wanted to ignore - was driven to commit suicide. 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. "The cause of death was determined to be self . While working at the legislature, Webb continued to do freelance investigative reporting, sometimes based on his investigative work. The claim that the drug ring of Meneses-Blandn-Ross sparked the "crack explosion" has been perhaps the most criticized part of the series. 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. It also examined "how CIA handled and responded to information regarding allegations of drug trafficking" by people involved in Contra activities or support. George Webb and Paul Cottrell have begun a weekly series on CoronaVirus now, Mondays at 5PM, EST on paul Cottrell's Rumble Channel. Webb came home and put his belongings in order, dropping his Kentucky Post poster in the bin. ", The significant legacy of the Webb case, "the reason this whole affair remains so significant today," Blum says, "is this: the knowledge that, if one individual dares raise such serious issues, they risk confronting a tremendous apparatus that is prepared to whack them hard, and there is very little they can expect by way of support. , Gary T. - Age 55, of Elgin ; grandmother, Eileen Carrier Elgin... The drug ring of Meneses-Blandn-Ross sparked the `` crack explosion '' has amazing. From the paper is its own account of how Ross 's defense had used Webb reporting... Face his difficulties alone our process: in the bedroom, with gunshot... 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