When it did, beginning with The Washington Post, it shocked Webb's critics as much as his many admirers. 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. After being reassigned to the Mercury News's office in Curpertino, where they had him writing death notices, Gary Webb resigned and fell into depression. 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. Gary Webb's son Ian talks about the film in which Jeremy Renner plays his late journalist father. For two years, Blum and Kerry supervised the interrogation of dozens of witnesses who described CIA-related drug deals in central America. "He told me, not long before he died, that he didn't want to get up in the mornings," she says. Webb's condition exacerbated his natural recklessness. Jeremy Renner plays Gary Webb in "Kill the Messenger." (Chuck Zlotnick/Focus Features) Webb resigned and wrote a book defending his reporting. Gary Webb's painstaking investigation and the incindiary conclusions he drew from it were based mostly on public records, as detailed in the "notes on sources" section in "Dark Alliance", including: undercover audio tapes, declassified government documents from the CIA, DEA, FBI, L.A. Sheriff's Department, files from the Iran-Contra . 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. Survivors include his wife, Karla Webb; their children, Kimberly Ware and husband, Kyle, Laci Higgins and husband, Wesley, Kenna Logan and Heath Webb and . 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. He told me: 'If I can't do what I want to do, what's the point?' In . This support "was not directed by anyone within the Contra movement who had an association with the CIA," and the Committee found "no evidence that the CIA or the Intelligence Community was aware of these individuals support. He said: 'No. Garcia responded by email but declined to speak on the record about the editing process of Webb's series. "Do not quote me. Few reporters I've known could match his nose for an investigative story. Webb undeniably made mistakes of detail and emphasis in the newspaper version of "Dark Alliance". Gary Webb was born in Corona, California, in 1955. Should these editors subsequently deem the story to have been fatally flawed, they take the consequences. The Pariah. In 1997 Ceppos was awarded the US Society of Professional Journalists' National Ethics Award. [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. His. He was found dead on Friday morning in what the police said was an apparent suicide. It would have been our 25th wedding anniversary," Bell recalls. 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. [39] The Post refused to print his letter. But the biggest loss he had was the writing. Unto his romantic life, Gary married Gemma O'Neil in 1997. She was born July 22, 1964 in Jellico, Tennessee. 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. The first effect of the onslaught was to ease the pressure on the CIA. "He was crying. In an unprecedented move, the then CIA director John Deutch was dispatched to address community leaders in the Watts district of LA. [21] This artwork proved controversial, and The Mercury News later removed it. By the time Webb began researching Dark Alliance, Bell was 38 and they had three children. [32], The New York Times published two articles on the series in mid-October, both written by reporter Tim Golden. [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." [60], It found no information to support the claim that the agency interfered with law enforcement actions against Ross, Blandn or Meneses. "Because of Gary Webb's work," said Senator John Kerry, "the CIA launched an investigation that found dozens of connections to drug runners. Webb's series was published on the Mercury News's fledgling website, but it wasn't exactly an instant sensation. George Webb and Paul Cottrell have begun a weekly series on CoronaVirus now, Mondays at 5PM, EST on paul Cottrell's Rumble Channel. Some editors regarded him as stubborn to the point of insolence. 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. He was born in Jacksonville, Texas, on March 13, 1954, to Carroll and Waldine Webb, the younger brother of Diane Webb. "[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." Ceppos initially defended Webb, and reportedly showed up at an in-house party wearing a military helmet. 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.' [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. And when he got something in his head, he was determined to do it. Born in Corona, California, son of a conservatively minded Marine, he met Bell, whose father was a university lecturer, at high school in Indianapolis. "This is an appalling charge," says a tense-looking Deutch. The Sad Saga of Gary Webb. To show this, the series focused on three men: Ricky Ross, Oscar Danilo Blandn, and Norwin Meneses. Webb followed up Baca's leads at the California State Library, examining Congressional records and FBI reports. This did not happen in Webb's case. 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. The drugs went to South Central LA. She said the paper wanted to make up for what it had done in the past. "You sound very scared," Moreira remarks. 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." According to a description of Webb's injuries in the Los Angeles Times, he shot himself with a .38 revolver, which he placed near his right ear. That wouldn't have happened if he hadn't been willing to stand up and risk it all.". 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". On December 10th, 2004 Gary Webb was found dead of two (allegedly self inflicted) gun shots to the head. Webb discusses the "Dark Alliance" controversy, including the government's refusal to respond to his story and the media's desire to kill it. "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 complete lack of desire to ask the difficult questions makes me want to scream. Webb, unlike Blum or Kerry, had to face his difficulties alone. [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. [19] The series was published in The Mercury News in three parts, from Sunday, 18 August 1996 to 20 August 1996, with a first long article and one or two shorter articles appearing each day. According to Corn, Webb "was wrong on some important details, but he was, in a way, closer to the truth than many of his establishment media critics who neglected the story of the real CIA-contra-cocaine connection." [5], After high school, Webb attended an Indianapolis community college on a scholarship until his family moved to Cincinnati. At the end of March, Ceppos told Webb that he was going to present the internal review findings in a column. [66] Gary was born Sept. 4, 1947, to Percy and Pauline (Haas) Webb. The CIA Inspector-General's report was issued in two volumes. Ceppos and Garcia have long since lost any taste for public discussion of "Dark Alliance". So, how much is Gary Webb worth at the age of 49 years old? Gary Webb was a US Pulitzer prize-winning reporter who broke the story of the CIA involvement in the importation of cocaine into the U.S. He is from United States. Call 911 for assistance. "You do not understand the power of these people," he adds, referring to the US intelligence services. "He had six in a short period of time." In 2004, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Gary Webb was found dead from an apparent suicide, as Democracy Now! The coroner's staff concluded that the second shot hit an artery.[70]. "[80], Not all writers agree that the Inspector-General's report supported the series's claims. 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". Webb's ex-wife, Stokes, now remarried and still living in Sacramento, had heard it all before, too. Twitter. Webb chose the second option. Garcia is deputy director of the John S Knight Fellowships in Journalism at Stanford University. 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. The 20,000-word series enraged black communities, prompted Congressional hearings, and became one of the first major national security stories in history to blow up online. [81], Peter Kornbluh, a researcher at George Washington University's National Security Archives, also does not agree that the report vindicated the series. He began his career working for newspapers in Kentucky and Ohio, winning numerous awards, and building a strong reputation for investigative writing. He was born January 28, 1950 in Middletown, OH to Paul and Dorothy (Hawkins) Webb. Bell and her children helped Webb prepare 50 packages containing cuttings and his CV which they sent out to newspapers all over the US. Webb was a man of passion, not of fairness. Irene's character a reminder of an old controversy about Gary Webb. When she got indignant," she adds, "he went to meet her.". Gary's documentation is awesome and his work ethic is unbelievable. As a result, some major US newspapers ignored its findings completely, while others relegated a brief summary to their inside pages. It also sparked an . The CIA denied the charges, and every major newspaper in the country . He was the much-loved father of Lindsay (Stephen . 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. [45], The Post's response came from the paper's ombudsman, Geneva Overholser. Webb's continuing reporting also triggered a fourth investigation. His behavior became increasingly unpredictable and he embarked on a series of affairs, eventually divorcing from his wife Sue in 2000. . 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. '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. in Central America", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gary_Webb&oldid=1149653447, This page was last edited on 13 April 2023, at 15:41. 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. "If there was an eye to the storm," Katz wrote, "if there was a mastermind behind crack's decade-long reign, if there was one outlaw most responsible for flooding LA's streets with mass-marketed cocaine, his name was Freeway Rick. After divorcing his wife, being unable to obtain work from newspapers and facing increasing debts, Gary was forced to sell his home. If he could have chosen his own epitaph, it might have been a line from the letter he posted to Bell, immediately before he killed himself: "I do not regret," Webb told her, "anything that I have written." 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. The story they printed was just awful. In interviews after leaving The Mercury News, Webb described the 1997 controversy as media manipulation. We had been here before." 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. "[76] Scott Herhold, Webb's first editor at The Mercury-News, wrote in a 2013 column that "Gary Webb was a journalist of outsized talent. The CIA Inspector General's report, commissioned in response to the allegations in "Dark Alliance", was published in the autumn of 1998. With hindsight, Bell says, "the signs were there. Gary Stephen Webb (August 31, 1955 December 10, 2004) was an American investigative journalist. Gary divorced from his wife in 2000, though the two remained close during his final years. They failed because the climate was more sceptical then. 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." "[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. "[77], Webb's reporting in "Dark Alliance" remains controversial. E&P Staff. . "Do you think that a part of him did this out of revenge?" Do not quote me on anything.". "He was sleeping more, he hated to get up in the morning, he started having a lot of motorcycle. Instead, he found work in 1978 as a reporter at the Kentucky Post, a local paper affiliated with the larger Cincinnati Post. Ross was a major drug dealer in Los Angeles. Thank you." Webb disagreed with this conclusion.[1][2]. "The way he was acting it would be hard for me to believe it was anything but suicide," she said. On December 10th, 2004 Gary Webb was found dead of two (allegedly self-inflicted) gunshots to the head. [37], In 2013, Jesse Katz, a former Los Angeles Times reporter, said of the newspaper's coverage "As an L.A. Times reporter, we saw this series in the San Jose Mercury News and kind of wonder[ed] how legit it was and kind of put it under a microscope, and we did it in a way that most of us who were involved in it, I think, would look back on that and say it was overkill. 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. When Ross discovered the market for crack in Los Angeles, he began buying cocaine from Blandn. Furthermore, the duo has been blessed with two daughters, Persia Numan and Raven Numan. [citation needed], Views on Webb's journalism have been polarized. The Department of Justice Inspector-General's report was released on July 23, 1998. He also defended the series in interviews with all three papers. Webb's research took a year, in the course of which he received death threats. 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 took a modestly paid, low-profile job as an investigator with the California State Legislature. The Real Housewives of Atlanta The Bachelor Sister Wives 90 Day Fiance Wife Swap The Amazing Race Australia Married at First Sight The Real Housewives of Dallas My 600-lb Life Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. Did Gary Webb really stray from his wife? "Look at what happened to Gary Webb. "Back then. [68], In August 2004, Webb joined the Sacramento News & Review, an alternative weekly newspaper, where he continued doing investigative writing. 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. Like the CIA and Justice Department reports, it also found that neither Blandn, Meneses, nor Ross were associated with the CIA. A jury awarded the plaintiffs over 13 million dollars and the case was later settled. 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. [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. [51] After discussions with Webb, the column was published on May 11, 1997.[53]. But ultimately, the responsibility was, and is, mine.". 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 and Gary were married from 1979 to 2000 and had three children. 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? It sounds like a Tom Clancy novel, right? Working in San Jose would have meant daily contact with what Bell describes as "people he did not want to be with". 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. Webb's ex wife, Susan Bell told reporters that she believed Webb had died by suicide. The first shot went through his face, and exited at his left cheek. I mean - please.". He was no villain: He genuinely believed his thesis about the CIA. It found that "the allegations contained in the original Mercury News articles were exaggerations of the actual facts." "I think Kerry learnt a lesson from all this," reporter Robert Parry says. "I told Gary not to go near this story," his source replies, in an emotional voice. As it turned out," she adds, "that was not their intent.". GARY WEBB OBITUARY Gary Frank Webb Sept. 27, 1944 - Oct. 23, 2022 Gary passed away peacefully of complications following cardiovascular surgery. [6], Webb first began writing for the student newspaper at his college in Indianapolis. Funeral service will be held at 11 a.m. on Monday, May 19, 2003 at Goodrich United Methodist Church, 8071 S. State Rd., Goodrich, Pastor Karl Zeigler will officiate. Webb worked for several newspapers including The Kentucky Post and Cleveland Plain Dealer. 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. The collection, The Killing Game: Selected Stories from the Author of Dark Alliance, was edited by Webb's son, Eric. Carey ultimately decided that there were problems with several parts of the story and wrote a draft article incorporating his findings. What he found, he wrote later, "nearly knocked me off my chair". [11], In 1983, Webb moved to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, where he continued doing investigative work. Much of the article highlighted the failure of law enforcement agencies to successfully prosecute them and stated that this was largely due to their Contra and CIA connections. 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. It was just more than he could take.". She kept crying about how terrible it all was - by which I mean that she was, physically, crying. He was so depressed. (Strawser) Webb. "The cause of death was determined to be self . On one road trip, in 2001, he came off the motorcycle and split his helmet open. 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 thought I was being cowardly. 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. His former wife, her voice lowered to a whisper, explains that Webb missed with the first shot (which exited through his left cheek). The story was picked up by black talk-radio stations. 4) The series "created impressions that were open to misinterpretation" through "imprecise language and graphics. 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. When Attorney General Janet Reno determined that a delay was no longer necessary, the report was released unaltered. [61] According to the report, it used Webb's reporting and writing as "key resources in focusing and refining the investigation." "[72] California Representative Maxine Waters, who was Webb's strongest supporter in Congress after the "Dark Alliance" controversy broke, issued a statement after Webb's death calling him "one of the finest investigative journalists that our country has ever seen. 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. The response from the American press took two months to arrive. [69], Webb was found dead in his Carmichael home on December 10, 2004, with two gunshot wounds to the head. I ask Bell. 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