Work with a bunch of drug dealers to run guns? Cuts and amendments were made at the request of Ceppos, executive editor of the Mercury News, and Webb's immediate editor Dawn Garcia, among others. Gary Webb sums up the story in his last major interview just days before his death. [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. Shortly before his death, his motorcycle had been stolen (it was recovered by his family after his death). 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. One instalment of the LA Times's 18,000-word rebuttal of Webb's piece, published in October 1996, sought to minimise the importance of his key witness, Ricky Ross. 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. But, Ceppos wrote, the series "did not meet our standards" in four areas. The normal process is, or should be, that a reporter files a story and is robustly challenged by his paper's lawyers and editors - who, if satisfied that the report is accurate - publish, then defend the writer to the hilt. Gary was born Sept. 4, 1947, to Percy and Pauline (Haas) Webb. 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 is survived by his loving wife, Wendie, of Elgin; grandmother, Eileen Carrier of Elgin;. 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. In 2004, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Gary Webb was found dead from an apparent suicide, as Democracy Now! After Ceppos' column, The Mercury News spent the next several months conducting an internal review of the story. Film of this encounter survives. Instead, he found work in 1978 as a reporter at the Kentucky Post, a local paper affiliated with the larger Cincinnati Post. "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". Few reporters I've known could match his nose for an investigative story. 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. I believe that we fell short at every step of our process: in the writing, editing and production of our work. "It says the CIA helped introduce poison into our children. .article-native-ad p { 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. Part of what makes OConnors article so compelling are the candid thoughts of Webbs former wife Sue Stokes. Age 43 years. [32], The New York Times published two articles on the series in mid-October, both written by reporter Tim Golden. He was laid off in February 2004 when Assembly Member Fabian Nez was elected Speaker. "Gary Webb was left to fend for himself. But the biggest loss he had was the writing. 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. [60], The House Intelligence Committee issued its report in February 2000. The coroner's staff concluded that the second shot hit an artery.[70]. "He thought I was being cowardly. The response from the American press took two months to arrive. [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." He also defended the series in interviews with all three papers. [51] After discussions with Webb, the column was published on May 11, 1997.[53]. Jack Blum, who was the lead investigator for Senator John Kerry's Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations, which produced a highly damning 1989 report on drug-smuggling in the guise of national security, is one of several commentators to have questioned aspects of Webb's original reporting. 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. [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." With hindsight, Bell says, "the signs were there. By the late spring of 1996, Webb was ready to publish. 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. Webb established incontrovertible links * between Ricky Ross and Blandn who, two years later, would betray Ross to the authorities. padding-bottom: 20px; Webb's research took a year, in the course of which he received death threats. 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. font-weight:500; By Sam Stanton Bee Staff Writer Published 2:15 am PST Wednesday, December 15, 2004. . Then, on 10 December, he resigned. Nick Schou, a journalist who wrote a 2006 biography of Webb, has claimed that this was the most important error in the series. 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. At the end of March, Ceppos told Webb that he was going to present the internal review findings in a column. Webb's continuing reporting also triggered a fourth investigation. The Department of Justice Inspector-General's report was released on July 23, 1998. He told me: 'If I can't do what I want to do, what's the point?' "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.". 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. On the last day Webb was alive, his motorbike broke down while he was moving to his mother's house. 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. 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. Gary Webb, 64, Oroville, Wash., died Oct. 30, 2021. The character reporter Irene Abe is said by fans of the show to be a stand in character for the real life Gary Webb. 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? There were no offers. While working at the legislature, Webb continued to do freelance investigative reporting, sometimes based on his investigative work. [49], The paper also gave Webb permission to visit Central America again to get more evidence supporting the story. ", She pauses: "That said, he did sleep with a gun under his bed.". The first article in "Dark Alliance" that discussed the failure of law enforcement agencies to prosecute Blandn and Meneses had mentioned several cases. 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 was the much-loved father of Lindsay (Stephen . He concluded, "How did these shortcomings occur? Sue remarried two years ago. A perceptive, engaging woman of 48, she has turned an adjoining study into a small shrine to her late husband, who would have celebrated his 50th birthday five weeks ago. 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. Ceppos failed to reply to one phone message and six emails. }. So, this is not something you really make a career out of, nor would you want to. When Attorney General Janet Reno determined that a delay was no longer necessary, the report was released unaltered. [69], Webb was found dead in his Carmichael home on December 10, 2004, with two gunshot wounds to the head. 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. Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in, Please refresh your browser to be logged in, Extra 20% off selected fashion and sportswear at Very, Up to 20% off & extra perks with Booking.com Genius Membership, $6 off a $50+ order with this AliExpress discount code, 10% off selected orders over 100 - eBay discount code, Compare broadband packages side by side to find the best deal for you, Compare cheap broadband deals from providers with fastest speed in your area, All you need to know about fibre broadband, Best Apple iPhone Deals in the UK March 2023, Compare iPhone contract deals and get the best offer this March, Compare the best mobile phone deals from the top networks and brands. Their explosive report, which appeared in 1989, was either ignored, or marginalised, by the American press. But you say - dear God. Contemporary discussions of the series are discussed in the section on, Webb 2011, "Caltrans Ignored Elevated Freeway Safety. Gary's story, however, is far from over and could never be killed by something as trivial as a material bullet. But Ian Webbknows all too well the emotions that come with that experience. The drugs went to South Central LA. 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. When Ross discovered the market for crack in Los Angeles, he began buying cocaine from Blandn. We were dismissed as a bunch of nuts." By the autumn of 1997, on medication for clinical depression, he was given leave of absence from the paper. [14] In 1984, Webb wrote a story titled Driving Off With Profits which claimed that the promoters of a race in Cleveland paid themselves nearly a million dollars from funds that should have gone to the city of Cleveland. Born January 3rd, 1943 in Montreal, Quebec, he was the son of the late John Douglas Webb and the late Jeannie (Penny) Hardie Penman. Critics view the series' claims as inaccurate or overstated, while supporters point to the results of a later CIA investigation as vindicating the series. Although he attended Northern Kentucky for four years, he did not finish his degree. A series of expose articles in the San Jose Mercury-News by reporter Gary Webb told tales of a drug triangle during the 1980s that linked CIA officials in Central America, a San Francisco drug . He had sold his house the week before his death because he was unable to afford the mortgage.[71]. [34], The Los Angeles Times devoted the most space to the story, publishing a three-part series called "The Cocaine Trail." It's . Gary Webb, friends say, was a far more combative character than either the Mercury News's executive editor Ceppos or page editor Garcia. Webb became a staff reporter for the San Jose Mercury News in 1988. Webb took a modestly paid, low-profile job as an investigator with the California State Legislature. [39] Carey's critique appeared in mid-October and went through several of the Post's criticisms of the series, including the importance of Blandn's drug ring in spreading crack, questions about Blandn's testimony in court, and how specific series allegations about CIA involvement had been, giving Webb's responses. And when he got something in his head, he was determined to do it. A passing motorist - a heavily tattooed young man - gave him a lift home, then returned and stole the motorcycle, which police recovered from him three days after Webb's death. When facts didn't fit his theory, he tended to shove them to the sidelines. George Webb and Paul Cottrell have begun a weekly series on CoronaVirus now, Mondays at 5PM, EST on paul Cottrell's Rumble Channel. "He told the guys with him he was fine," she recalls, "got back on the bike, then passed out, half an hour later. 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. That was just the way he was.". Views on Webb's journalism have been polarized. To pay off his mounting debts, Webb sold the Carmichael property, where he was living alone, and arranged to move in with his mother. padding-left: 10px!important; Webb put in a call to Robert Parry. 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. A revised version was published in 1999 that incorporated Webb's response to the CIA and Justice Department reports. 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". [46] Overholser was harshly critical of the series, "reported by a seemingly hotheaded fellow willing to have people leap to conclusions his reporting couldn't back up." "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 . 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's then-wife Sue remembers coming home from the shops and finding her. Nobody who heads a government agency can let such an allegation stand.". Ross was a major drug dealer in Los Angeles. [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. 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. Gary's documentation is awesome and his work ethic is unbelievable. 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. . The other article, citing interviews with current and former intelligence and law-enforcement officials, questioned the importance of the drug dealers discussed in the series, both in the crack cocaine trade and in supporting the Nicaraguan Contras' fight against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. "[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. [45], The Post's response came from the paper's ombudsman, Geneva Overholser. 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. margin: 0 45px; Famously known by the Family name Gary Stephen Webb, was a great Engineer.He was born on August 31, 1955, in Carmichael, California.Carmichael is a beautiful and populous city located in Carmichael, California United States of America.. Gary Webb Early Life Story, Family Background and Education. His erstwhile editors on the Mercury News, meanwhile, saw their careers thrive. 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. She and Gary were married from 1979 to 2000 and had three children. Many writers discussing the series point to errors in 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. The CIA admits used the media to ruin his career. "[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." I'm glad that I didn't dissuade him, because it was important to get the truth out but for Gary Webb, there was a very high price to pay." His wife is Sue Webb (m. 1979-2000) Gary Webb Net Worth His net worth has been growing significantly in 2021-2022. It was also posted on The Mercury News website with additional information, including documents cited in the series and audio recordings of people quoted in the articles. 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. "I believe that Americans, as a nation, are mainly concerned with living their happy little lives. 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. Gary Webb passed away on March 2, 2019. "That's right," says Blum. 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. What he found, he wrote later, "nearly knocked me off my chair". American racer Cooper Webb is married to his wife named Mariah Williams Webb. [71] "The way he was acting it would be hard for me to believe it was anything but suicide," she said. 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. Tara Becker-Gray Lee News Network Jan 17, 2019 0 1 of 2 C. Webb The body found at a house fire at 13308 95th Ave. in rural Blue Grass on Thursday night has been identified as Cynthia Webb, 59.. That wouldn't have happened if he hadn't been willing to stand up and risk it all.". } She was a homemaker and a member of Hunters Chapel Baptist Church. 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. His. Occupation: Machine Operators, Assemblers, and Inspectors Occupations. He cites the case of Alfred McCoy, now Professor of South East Asian Studies at the University of Wisconsin. In an unprecedented move, the then CIA director John Deutch was dispatched to address community leaders in the Watts district of LA. 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. } font-size: 34px; '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 was found dead on Friday morning in what the police said was an apparent suicide. Join iconic brands and world-class marketing leaders at Brandweek to unlock powerful insights and impact-driven strategies. "Because of Gary Webb's work," said Senator John Kerry, "the CIA launched an investigation that found dozens of connections to drug runners. Garcia responded by email but declined to speak on the record about the editing process of Webb's series. padding:0!important; Despite some hyped phrasing, "Dark Alliance" appears to be praiseworthy investigative reporting."[47]. Webb made his early reputation as a reporter with the Plain Dealer before going on to fame and turmoil at the San Jose Mercury News. [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. They failed because the climate was more sceptical then. He received his medical degree from American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine and has been in practice for more than. 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. "[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. By this stage, he was prepared to work as a jobbing reporter. After examining the investigations and prosecutions of the main figures in the series, Blandn, Meneses and Ross, it concluded that "Although the investigations suffered from various problems of communication and coordination, their successes and failures were determined by the normal dynamics that affect the success of scores of investigations of high-level drug traffickers These factors, rather than anything as spectacular as a systematic effort by the CIA or any other intelligence agency to protect the drug trafficking activities of Contra supporters, determined what occurred in the cases we examined. But they underestimated the paradigm shifting power of the internet, and the intelligence of Webb, who not only listed the explosive story online . [56] He resigned from the paper in November 1997. The three articles in the series were written by four reporters: Jesse Katz, Doyle McManus, John Mitchell and Sam Fulwood. [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. It also examined "how CIA handled and responded to information regarding allegations of drug trafficking" by people involved in Contra activities or support. In city after city, local dealers either bought from Ross or got left behind."[24]. An investigative journalist, Webb became interested in the covert activities of the Central Intelligence Agency. Working in San Jose would have meant daily contact with what Bell describes as "people he did not want to be with". "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". 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. Last edited on 10 February 2023, at 03:36, 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. He began his career working for newspapers in Kentucky and Ohio, winning numerous awards, and building a strong reputation for investigative writing. [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". It was an amazing scoop - but one that would ruin his career and drive him to suicide. 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. "[77], Webb's reporting in "Dark Alliance" remains controversial. 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 rang me up that day. When he told me, I said it sounded crazy. GARY WEBB OBITUARY Gary Frank Webb Sept. 27, 1944 - Oct. 23, 2022 Gary passed away peacefully of complications following cardiovascular surgery. It sounds like a Tom Clancy novel, right? He was a former member of Bethlehem . But the report was correct. 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". "Looking back," she says, "I think Gary had been obsessed with suicide for some time. Gary Hays Webb, 78, passed away on Monday May 9, 2022, at ThedaCare Regional Medical Center, Neenah. By the time Webb began researching Dark Alliance, Bell was 38 and they had three children. When they married, she was aged just 21. [21] This artwork proved controversial, and The Mercury News later removed it. The story was picked up by black talk-radio stations. According to Schou, the investigation "confirmed key chunks of Webb's allegations." And he finallyyou know, they finally left the country. He began his career working for newspapers in Kentucky and Ohio, winning numerous awards, and building a strong reputation for investigative writing. 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 . He said: 'No. He died on December 10, 2004 in Carmichael, California, USA. 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.

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