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." 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. "Gary was given the choice of relocating either to San Jose," says Bell, "or to Cupertino". Gary is survived by his loving wife of 41 years, Barbara; their son, Jeff; his nephew, Christopher (Stephanie) Webb; niece, Sara (Gary) Dugan; and . 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 . It was an amazing scoop - but one that would ruin his career and drive him to suicide. "Like enjoy it.". The Los Angeles Times and other major papers published articles suggesting the "Dark Alliance" claims were overstated and, in November 1996, Jerome Ceppos, the executive editor at Mercury News, wrote about being "in the eye of the storm". 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. Webb, according to Bell, was a man who, more than most, found that his mood and self-esteem fluctuated in accordance with his professional fortunes. When Attorney General Janet Reno determined that a delay was no longer necessary, the report was released unaltered. padding-left: 10px!important; When they married, she was aged just 21. It was truthful. In 1997 Ceppos was awarded the US Society of Professional Journalists' National Ethics Award. He was a writer, known for Kill the Messenger (2014), Filming in Georgia (2015) and Crack in America (2015). 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. He made that very clear. News coverage noted that there were widespread rumors on the Internet at the time that Webb had been killed as retribution for his "Dark Alliance" series, published eight years before. For two years, Blum and Kerry supervised the interrogation of dozens of witnesses who described CIA-related drug deals in central America. 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. Webb took a modestly paid, low-profile job as an investigator with the California State Legislature. 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. "[58], It also concluded that "the claims that Blandn and Meneses were responsible for introducing crack cocaine into South Central Los Angeles and spreading the crack epidemic throughout the country were unsupported." Attorneys' Offices. Webb disagreed with this conclusion.[1][2]. But Webb had one huge blind side: He was fundamentally a man of passion, not of fairness. 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. 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. Ceppos and Garcia have long since lost any taste for public discussion of "Dark Alliance". [21] This artwork proved controversial, and The Mercury News later removed it. In 1996, investigative journalist Gary Webb wrote a series of stories exposing the connection between the CIA and the crack cocaine that was being sold in So. The CIA admits used the media to ruin his career. 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 was born Sept. 4, 1947, to Percy and Pauline (Haas) Webb. At the end of March, Ceppos told Webb that he was going to present the internal review findings in a column. "The second bullet," adds Bell, who has worked for more than 20 years in the area of respiratory therapy, "struck his carotid artery. American racer Cooper Webb is married to his wife named Mariah Williams Webb. Gary Webb's wife, Sue Webb (now Sue Stokes), said that he had been depressed for years due to his inability to get hired at a daily newspaper. But Ian Webbknows all too well the emotions that come with that experience. Taken during the London Open House 2014 event. Despite some hyped phrasing, "Dark Alliance" appears to be praiseworthy investigative reporting."[47]. Contemporary discussions of the series are discussed in the section on, Webb 2011, "Caltrans Ignored Elevated Freeway Safety. He is from United States. Hired by the San Jose Mercury News, Webb contributed to the paper's Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake. [51] After discussions with Webb, the column was published on May 11, 1997.[53]. Webb chose the second option. A flood of inquiries about Gary Webb's shooting death prompts statement. The couple got married recently in November of 2020 after dating for some time. 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. Tomac is used to good feelings when it comes to Daytona. font-weight:500; As a result, some major US newspapers ignored its findings completely, while others relegated a brief summary to their inside pages. Snowfall is an American crime drama television series set in Los Angeles in 1983. Gary Webb was born in Corona, California, in 1955. 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. Then, on 10 December, he resigned. "He rang me up that day. The first effect of the onslaught was to ease the pressure on the CIA. Gary's story, however, is far from over and could never be killed by something as trivial as a material bullet. 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. ", Webb had already been cremated and his ashes scattered in the bay off Santa Cruz two weeks before. The reports rejected the series's main claims but were critical of some CIA and law enforcement actions. [68], In August 2004, Webb joined the Sacramento News & Review, an alternative weekly newspaper, where he continued doing investigative writing. "The government side of the story is coming through the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Washington Post", he stated. Gary's documentation is awesome and his work ethic is unbelievable. "[25] It also found disparities in the treatment of Black and White traffickers in the justice system, contrasting the treatment of Blandn and Ross after their arrests for drug trafficking. Webb followed up Baca's leads at the California State Library, examining Congressional records and FBI reports. Ross was a major drug dealer in Los Angeles. I ask Bell. Newsweek called Kerry a "randy conspiracy buff". [34], The Los Angeles Times devoted the most space to the story, publishing a three-part series called "The Cocaine Trail." He was preceded in death by his wife, Melody Webb; parents and three brothers, Albert, Duane and Ronald. 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. margin: 0 45px; The truth was that, in all those years, I hadn't written anything important enough to suppress. The first shot went through his face, and exited at his left cheek. He was laid off in February 2004 when Assembly Member Fabian Nez was elected Speaker. To show this, the series focused on three men: Ricky Ross, Oscar Danilo Blandn, and Norwin Meneses. [50] By January, Webb filed drafts of four more articles based on his trip, but his editors concluded that the new articles would not help shore up the original series's claims. Gary Hays Webb, 78, passed away on Monday May 9, 2022, at ThedaCare Regional Medical Center, Neenah. Webb, one of the boldest and most outstanding reporters of his generation, was the journalist who, in 1996, established the connection between the CIA and major drug dealers in Los Angeles, some of whose profits had been channelled to fund the Contra guerrilla movement in Nicaragua. His father was a Marine sergeant, and the family moved frequently, as his career took him to new assignments. Eli Tomac on track during Media Day at Daytona International Speedway, Friday, March 3, 2023. 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." 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. 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." In 2004, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Gary Webb was found dead from an apparent suicide, as Democracy Now! Cooper Webb Wife Name Revealed. 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. 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. 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. "I told Gary not to go near this story," his source replies, in an emotional voice. He said: 'No. that the "federal government bore some responsibility, however indirect, for the flood of crack that coursed through black neighborhoods in the 1980s"). } In May 1997, after an internal review, Ceppos stated that, although the story was right on many important points, there were shortcomings in the writing, editing and production of the series. Gary is survived by his wife of 48 years, Beverly Webb; children Margaret . "As a PhD student, McCoy went to Vietnam and built an absolutely damning case about the CIA's involvement with trafficking heroin. With Baca's encouragement, he started to investigate a large-scale Nicaraguan cocaine dealer named Oscar Danilo Blandn. One of his last articles examined America's Army, a video game designed by the U.S. Webb's continuing reporting also triggered a fourth investigation. When Ross discovered the market for crack in Los Angeles, he began buying cocaine from Blandn. I mean - please.". "He definitely was depressed. Webb was an assertive figure who drove fast cars and powerful motorcycles, hung heavy metal posters in his office and, at certain times in his life, smoked a fair amount of cannabis. Occupation: Machine Operators, Assemblers, and Inspectors Occupations. He stayed home, playing computer games, and began smoking cannabis heavily. "[80], Not all writers agree that the Inspector-General's report supported the series's claims. A revised version was published in 1999 that incorporated Webb's response to the CIA and Justice Department reports. "Because of Gary Webb's work," said Senator John Kerry, "the CIA launched an investigation that found dozens of connections to drug runners. If the antagonism of competing publications was predictable, what happened to Webb within his own newspaper was not. [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. His victory in the event last year gave him . So, how much is Gary Webb worth at the age of 49 years old? Few reporters I've known could match his nose for an investigative story. . [81], Peter Kornbluh, a researcher at George Washington University's National Security Archives, also does not agree that the report vindicated the series. On the last day Webb was alive, his motorbike broke down while he was moving to his mother's house. [3], Webb was born in Corona, California. "[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. 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. 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. 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. Some might consider it an inappropriate assignment for a man with responsibilities. [15], In 1988, Webb was recruited by the San Jose Mercury News, which was looking for an investigative reporter. 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. } According to Bell, Webb had been unhappy for some time over his inability to get a job at another major newspaper. 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. [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. "He started having motorcycle crashes," Bell says. "[77], Webb's reporting in "Dark Alliance" remains controversial. Every year since investigative journalist Gary Webb took his own life in 2004, I have marked the anniversary of that sad event by recalling the debt that American history owes to Webb for his. "Do not quote me. Webb undeniably made mistakes of detail and emphasis in the newspaper version of "Dark Alliance". [7] After transferring to Northern Kentucky, he entered its journalism program and wrote for the school paper, The Northerner. Part of what makes OConnors article so compelling are the candid thoughts of Webbs former wife Sue Stokes. 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. Sue remarried two years ago. His corpse was discovered on the seventh anniversary of his resignation from the Mercury News.
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