4) The series "created impressions that were open to misinterpretation" through "imprecise language and graphics. Gary was born May 5, 1954, to his parents Worley and Margaret Webb, who preceded him in death as well as his brother, David Webb. This did not happen in Webb's case. So, this is not something you really make a career out of, nor would you want to. Webb followed up Baca's leads at the California State Library, examining Congressional records and FBI reports. Part of what makes OConnors article so compelling are the candid thoughts of Webbs former wife Sue Stokes. Moreira - a senior news producer for Canal Plus - has established a reputation for courage and independence of mind in his own foreign reporting, and was recently described by Le Monde as "the Che Guevara of news media". "The first story he had to file was about a police horse which had died of constipation.". "To get back at his editors?". I believe that we fell short at every step of our process: in the writing, editing and production of our work. Save 50% with early-bird passes. 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. And when he got something in his head, he was determined to do it. 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. 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. 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. 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. [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. We are in the living room of Bell's house just outside Sacramento, California. His former wife, her voice lowered to a whisper, explains that Webb missed with the first shot (which exited through his left cheek). He also stated "the series presented dangerous ideas" by suggesting "crimes of state had been committed" (i.e. [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". In the final few months of his life, Bell says, Webb became increasingly withdrawn. A revised version was published in 1999 that incorporated Webb's response to the CIA and Justice Department reports. He received his medical degree from American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine and has been in practice for more than. She was a native of Minden, LA, but a resident of Crossett for 65 years. He was a former member of Bethlehem . The story they printed was just awful. He went into the bedroom, and picked up a .38 that had belonged to his father. The claim that the drug ring of Meneses-Blandn-Ross sparked the "crack explosion" has been perhaps the most criticized part 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. [15], In 1988, Webb was recruited by the San Jose Mercury News, which was looking for an investigative reporter. With Baca's encouragement, he started to investigate a large-scale Nicaraguan cocaine dealer named Oscar Danilo Blandn. Jeff Leen, assistant managing editor for investigative reporting at The Washington Post, wrote in a 2014 opinion page article that "the report found no CIA relationship with the drug ring Webb had written about." Gary Douglas Webb of Radnor, PA, passed away on October 19, 2021. "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.". By Sam Stanton Bee Staff Writer Published 2:15 am PST Wednesday, December 15, 2004. . Two years later, he was promoted to Vice President of Knight Ridder, the Mercury News's parent company; he retired from this position last month. GARY WEBB: His wife's office was burglarized. By William Kennedy / Jan. 22, 2023 12:00 pm EST. They were outraged by the series's charges.[27]. During and immediately after the controversy over "Dark Alliance," Webb's earlier writing was examined closely. padding-bottom: 20px; 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. After the series's publication, the Northern California branch of the national Society of Professional Journalists voted Webb "Journalist of the Year" for 1996. "[82], Kill the Messenger (2014) is based on Webb's book Dark Alliance and Nick Schou's biography of Webb. [81], Peter Kornbluh, a researcher at George Washington University's National Security Archives, also does not agree that the report vindicated the series. 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. Gary Webb, 64, Oroville, Wash., died Oct. 30, 2021. Do something else with your life," the voice urges. 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. Newsweek called Kerry a "randy conspiracy buff". "He told me, not long before he died, that he didn't want to get up in the mornings," she says. [60], The House Intelligence Committee issued its report in February 2000. 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. [39] The Post refused to print his letter. "The government side of the story is coming through the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Washington Post", he stated. [29] Waters urged the CIA, the Department of Justice, and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to investigate. Webb's ex-wife, Stokes, now remarried and still living in Sacramento, had heard it all before, too. [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. Webb's series was published on the Mercury News's fledgling website, but it wasn't exactly an instant sensation. It was an amazing scoop - but one that would ruin his career and drive him to suicide. Gary Stephen Webb (August 31, 1955 December 10, 2004) was an American investigative journalist. "[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." Meneses, an established smuggler and a Contra supporter as well, taught Blandn how to smuggle and provided him with cocaine. [67], Webb later moved to the State Assembly's Office of Majority Services. Shortly before his death, his motorcycle had been stolen (it was recovered by his family after his death). '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. Poor Gary Webb. There were no offers. Unfortunately, the railroading of Gary Webb had begun and he was run over. And yet, for all his Easy Rider tendencies, he was also a dedicated family man with an extraordinary appetite for researching minutiae. Webb came home and put his belongings in order, dropping his Kentucky Post poster in the bin. It was just more than he could take.". 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. color: #ddd; 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. Gary Webb sums up the story in his last major interview just days before his death. His was the story of a man who gains information of wrongdoing, then, attempting to act in the public interest, seeks protection from his superiors, and the forces of law, and does not receive it. 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. [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. 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. 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. Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? He crashed and shredded his clothes, face and body on a barbed-wire fence." n 1996, journalist Gary Webb wrote a series of articles under the title "Dark Alliance" for the suggesting a CIA connection between anti-government contras in Nicaragua and monies raised from. 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." The new movie Kill the Messenger, based in part on a 2006 book by a former student of mine, eulogizes Webb . Gary Webb was a journalist of outsized talent. 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. In the six years he worked at its Sacramento office, he won the HL Mencken award, for a story exposing corruption in California's drug enforcement agency, and his Pulitzer prize - won jointly, as part of a Mercury News team covering the 1990 Loma Prieta earthquake. [60], It found no information to support the claim that the agency interfered with law enforcement actions against Ross, Blandn or Meneses. But the report was correct. "Report on Alleged Involvement: Findings" 43. The first detailed article on the series's claims appeared in The Washington Post in early October. [65], After leaving The Mercury News, Webb worked as an investigator for the California State Legislature. 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. Emma Lee Webb, age 75, of Crossett, AR passed away Monday February 27, 2023, in her home surrounded by her family. His death was ruled a suicide by the Sacramento County coroner's office. 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. There was no coffin, casket or tombstone. [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. 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 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. . 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. In a long review of the series' claims in The Baltimore Sun, Weinberg said "I think the critics have been far too harsh. When Ross discovered the market for crack in Los Angeles, he began buying cocaine from Blandn. To pay off his mounting debts, Webb sold the Carmichael property, where he was living alone, and arranged to move in with his mother. For instance, he published an article on racial profiling in traffic stops in Esquire magazine, in April 1999. "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.". 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. 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. "[64] Webb's longest response to the controversy was in "The Mighty Wurlitzer Plays On," a chapter he contributed to an anthology of press criticism: .mw-parser-output .templatequote{overflow:hidden;margin:1em 0;padding:0 40px}.mw-parser-output .templatequote .templatequotecite{line-height:1.5em;text-align:left;padding-left:1.6em;margin-top:0}, If we had met five years ago, you wouldn't have found a more staunch defender of the newspaper industry than me And then I wrote some stories that made me realize how sadly misplaced my bliss had been. Watkins and Debbie (John) Foutch; grandchildren, Makenzie and Ashlynn Fogg. "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 . The passing of Gary ends more than 50 years with his best friend and loving wife, Marilyn J. By the autumn of 1997, on medication for clinical depression, he was given leave of absence from the paper. "Everyone got out and left the person who had made the noise - issued the report - alone. Webb chose the second option. OR was he like Epstein? It was accurate. 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. 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. [44], Ceppos' column drew editorial responses from both The New York Times and The Washington Post. But, Ceppos wrote, the series "did not meet our standards" in four areas. "Do not quote me. The drugs went to South Central LA. [17] The Mercury News's coverage of the earthquake won its staff the Pulitzer Prize for General News Reporting in 1990. Family and friends will gather to celebrate his life of 59 years at 10 a.m. on Thursday, March 7, 2019, at Lamesa Continue Reading Leave a Message, Share a Memory There has been speculation that he may have met with foul play because he had received two gunshot wounds to the head, The Sacramento Bee reported Wednesday. He wrote well. With hindsight, Bell says, "the signs were there. Ricky Donnell "Freeway Rick" Ross (born January 26, 1960) is an American author and convicted drug trafficker best known for the drug empire he established in Los Angeles, California, in the early to mid 1980s. When Gary originally broke this mind blowing story, the arrogant authority's assumed they could simply ignore him and hope he'd go away. 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. 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. His father was a Marine sergeant, and the family moved frequently, as his career took him to new assignments. "I had to warn Gary that what he was looking at was probably true, but that he would run very big risks," Parry recalls. When Webb wrote another story on the raid evidence in early October, it received wide attention in Los Angeles. Gary's family found that old, storied, ("priceless to us," as his ex-wife, Susan Bell, described it to me) CDROM among his possessions. [33] Golden also referred to the controversy over Webb's contacts with Ross's lawyer. His victory in the event last year gave him . 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." He was born June 18, 1943, in Appleton, son of the late Wilford and Helen (Hauskey) Webb. 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. In February last year he was laid off by the State Legislature. On Dec. 9, 2004, the 49-year-old Webb typed out suicide notes to his ex-wife and his three children; laid out a certificate for his cremation; and taped a note on the door telling movers, who were . Views on Webb's journalism have been polarized. In 1986, Webb wrote an article saying that the Chief Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court, Frank D. Celebrezze accepted contributions from groups with organized crime connections. He was so depressed. "Back then. In August of 1996, investigative journalist Gary Webb broke the biggest story of his life. If the antagonism of competing publications was predictable, what happened to Webb within his own newspaper was not. 3) The series oversimplified how the crack epidemic grew. After Ceppos' column, The Mercury News spent the next several months conducting an internal review of the story. "[2], Ceppos noted that Webb did not agree with these conclusions. [13] Webb then moved to the paper's statehouse bureau, where he covered statewide issues and won numerous regional journalism awards. The series ran from October 2022, 1996, and was researched by a team of 17 reporters.