";s:4:"text";s:29394:"[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. It was good that his story forced those reports to come out, but part of what made that happen was based on misleading information. [73], On the other hand, many of the writers and editors who worked with him have had high praise for him. [51], The editors met with Webb several times in February to discuss the results of the paper's internal review and eventually decided to print neither Carey's draft article nor the articles Webb had filed. It was an amazing scoop - but one that would ruin his career and drive him to suicide. Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? "They had him writing obituaries," she said. The passing of Gary ends more than 50 years with his best friend and loving wife, Marilyn J. He is from United States. ", As Webb would tell a friend, after he had been ostracised: "You have to look out, when the big dog gets off the porch.". [43] He did this in a column that appeared on November 3, defending the series, but also committing the paper to a review of major criticisms. 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. "The cause of death was determined to be self . He had sold his house the week before his death because he was unable to afford the mortgage.[71]. 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. [6], Webb first began writing for the student newspaper at his college in Indianapolis. His former wife, her voice lowered to a whisper, explains that Webb missed with the first shot (which exited through his left cheek). The first effect of the onslaught was to ease the pressure on the CIA. 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. Gary was born Sept. 4, 1947, to Percy and Pauline (Haas) Webb. This did not happen in Webb's case. He was preceded in death by his wife, Melody Webb; parents and three brothers, Albert, Duane and Ronald. Shortly before I left for Sacramento, Moreira, who knew Webb, had shown me unbroadcast footage which shows the French reporter making a phone call to a media commentator in the US, asking him about Webb's 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. His erstwhile editors on the Mercury News, meanwhile, saw their careers thrive. ", She pauses: "That said, he did sleep with a gun under his bed.". Webb put in a call to Robert Parry. And yet, for all his Easy Rider tendencies, he was also a dedicated family man with an extraordinary appetite for researching minutiae. He was sentenced to life in prison, though the sentence was shortened on appeal and Ross was released in 2009. The complete lack of desire to ask the difficult questions makes me want to scream. Cleveland Plain Dealer film critic Clint OConnor had a solid featurethe other day about Kill the Messenger, the journalism true-tale movie opening Friday with Jeremy Renner starring as the late Gary Webb. It's . Actor Jeremy Renner portrays Webb.[83]. Jeremy Renner as Gary Webb How Kill the Messenger Will Vindicate Investigative Journalist Gary Webb Melinda Welsh September 29, 2014 This one has all the ingredients of a dreamed-up Hollywood. [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. It sounds like a Tom Clancy novel, right? 71K views 8 years ago Gary Webb's son Ian talks about the film in which Jeremy Renner plays his late journalist father. A 1985 series, "Doctoring the Truth," uncovered problems in the State Medical Board[12] and led to an Ohio House investigation which resulted in major revisions to the state Medical Practice Act. ", The report called several of its findings "troubling." 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. [21] This artwork proved controversial, and The Mercury News later removed it. He died on December 10, 2004 in Carmichael, California, USA. He was born at Emmanuel Hospital in. The collection, The Killing Game: Selected Stories from the Author of Dark Alliance, was edited by Webb's son, Eric. 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. "He rang me up that day. [3], Webb was born in Corona, California. His career ended, his livelihood was destroyed and certain games were started to be . line-height:1.5; The article discussed Webb's contacts with Ross's attorney and prosecution complaints of how Ross's defense had used Webb's series. His death was ruled a suicide by the Sacramento County coroner's office. [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. 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". The Mercury News reporter came under sustained attack from the weightier US newspapers such as The New York Times, The Washington Post and, especially, the Los Angeles Times, infuriated at being scooped, on its own patch, by what it saw as a small-town paper. The second article described Blandn's background and how he began smuggling cocaine to support the Contras. Gary Webb was a journalist of outsized talent. Should these editors subsequently deem the story to have been fatally flawed, they take the consequences. Webb worked for several newspapers including The Kentucky Post and Cleveland Plain Dealer. Gary-Webb TL, Walker EA, Realmuto L, Kamler A, Lukin J, Tyson W, Carrasquillo O, Weiss L. Translation of the National Diabetes Prevention Program to Engage Men in Disadvantaged Neighborhoods in New York City: A Description of Power Up for Health. Dec. 13, 2004. [20] The website artwork showed the silhouette of a man smoking a crack pipe superimposed over the CIA seal. } [28] Maxine Waters, the representative for California's 35th district, which includes South-Central Los Angeles, was also outraged by the articles and became one of Webb's strongest supporters. [45], The Post's response came from the paper's ombudsman, Geneva Overholser. Some editors regarded him as stubborn to the point of insolence. With hindsight, Bell says, "the signs were there. There is a CIA connection and I can demonstrate it.'". [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. "As a PhD student, McCoy went to Vietnam and built an absolutely damning case about the CIA's involvement with trafficking heroin. 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. 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. 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 . Both sides were left angry and disappointed. 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. A secret deal allowed drugs to go unreported by the DCI. They failed because the climate was more sceptical then. [61] According to the report, it used Webb's reporting and writing as "key resources in focusing and refining the investigation." "He told the guys with him he was fine," she recalls, "got back on the bike, then passed out, half an hour later. And this is not a happy story - or," she adds, "a little one.". "He told me, not long before he died, that he didn't want to get up in the mornings," she says. He wrote well. "He had six in a short period of time." [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. A Celebration of Life will be . GARY WEBB was an investigative reporter who focused on government and private sector corruption and who won more than thirty journalism awards. 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. ", "After Gary died," she says, "a reporter from the LA Times came here. He was previously married to Sue Bell. He kept saying that he would never get another job in journalism.". [41], When the Los Angeles Times series appeared, Ceppos again wrote to defend the original series. He became an investigator for the California State Legislature, published a book based on the "Dark Alliance" series in 1998, and did freelance investigative reporting. 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. Call 911 for assistance. [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 also had this inherent belief that the truth could not harm him. By: E&P Staff The death of investigative reporter Gary Webb has been confirmed as a suicide, according to a coroner's statement. Occupation: Machine Operators, Assemblers, and Inspectors Occupations. 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 first story he had to file was about a police horse which had died of constipation.". . ". The story offered no evidence to support such sweeping conclusions, a fatal error that would ultimately destroy Webb, if not his editors. [52] Webb was allowed to keep working on the story and made one more trip to Nicaragua in March. The third article discussed the social effects of the crack trade, noting that it had a disparate effect on African-Americans. There were no offers. 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. [65], After leaving The Mercury News, Webb worked as an investigator for the California State Legislature. And it was ignored by the US media, for all of those reasons. The reports rejected the series's main claims but were critical of some CIA and law enforcement actions. [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. He was found dead on Friday morning in what the police said was an apparent suicide. 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. 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). The Department of Justice Inspector-General's report was released on July 23, 1998. [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." His. Webb, unlike Blum or Kerry, had to face his difficulties alone. 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. *, 'Dark Alliance: The CIA, The Contras and the Crack Cocaine Explosion' is published in the UK by Seven Stories Press, priced 11.99, Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies. He was so depressed. Gary E. Webb, a dedicated husband, dad, pappy, coach, mentor, teacher, supporter, hero, and best friend, was called home by the Lord while surrounded by family. I ask Bell. Critics view the series' claims as inaccurate or overstated, while supporters point to the results of a later CIA investigation as vindicating the series. He stayed home, playing computer games, and began smoking cannabis heavily. 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. Cooper and Mariah were engaged before they finally tied the knot. He accepted Christ at an early age. But, Ceppos wrote, the series "did not meet our standards" in four areas. According to Schou, the investigation "confirmed key chunks of Webb's allegations." 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. 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. The feeling was that with other news outlets calling for Webb's head, the paper's credibility depended on their joining in on the attacks. "He thought I was being cowardly. 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. 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 - whose article had never alleged that the CIA deliberately targeted any ethnic group - became a national celebrity. 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. American racer Cooper Webb is married to his wife named Mariah Williams Webb. Webb joined the Mercury News in 1988, via the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Webb's corpse was found in the bedroom, with two gunshot wounds to the head. This drug ring "opened the first pipeline between Colombia's cocaine cartels and the black neighborhoods of Los Angeles" and, as a result, "The cocaine that flooded in helped spark a crack explosion in urban America."[23]. When she got indignant," she adds, "he went to meet her.". Even 10 years after his tragic death, the media refuse to let him rest. Webb became a staff reporter for the San Jose Mercury News in 1988. [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. She acted opposite Dirk Bogarde in the groundbreaking film Victim (Basil Dearden, 1961), as the unsuspecting wife of a barrister who is a closet homosexual. They were outraged by the series's charges.[27]. It also examined "how CIA handled and responded to information regarding allegations of drug trafficking" by people involved in Contra activities or support. "Do not quote me. My wife has kept me grounded for . [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. 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. 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. [8] In 1979, Webb married Susan Bell; the couple eventually had three children. "[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. But you say - dear God. "It sounds crazy," says Bell, "but having his motorbike stolen was the last straw. Attorneys' Offices. Garcia responded by email but declined to speak on the record about the editing process of Webb's series. Webb's experience came as no surprise to Jack Blum, senior prosecutor for the Kerry Committee. Webb strongly disagreed with Ceppos's column and, in interviews, was harshly critical of the paper's handling of the story. And "we really didn't do anything to advance his work or illuminate much to the story, and it was a really kind of tawdry exercise. "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.". Nobody who heads a government agency can let such an allegation stand.". "[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. padding:0!important; "To get back at his editors?". . Webb may indeed be physically dead, but his research is more alive today than ever before, and continues to haunt the shadow government and snowball into a monster that will undoubtedly have its eventual revenge. Dr. Gary A. Webb is a geriatrician in Marco Island, Florida. 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. After introducing the three, the first article discussed primarily Blandn and Meneses, and their relationship with the Contras and the CIA. After his resignation from The Mercury News, Webb expanded the "Dark Alliance" series into a book that responded to the criticism of the series and described his experiences writing the story and dealing with the controversy. Bell and her children helped Webb prepare 50 packages containing cuttings and his CV which they sent out to newspapers all over the US. "[2], Ceppos noted that Webb did not agree with these conclusions. Webb had become, as somebody put it, "radioactive". Who Is Gary Webb's Wife? }. One of his last articles examined America's Army, a video game designed by the U.S. The response from the American press took two months to arrive. But ultimately, the responsibility was, and is, mine.". Save 50% with early-bird passes. We were dismissed as a bunch of nuts." When his medical insurance expired, he stopped taking his antidepressants. [32], The New York Times published two articles on the series in mid-October, both written by reporter Tim Golden. [29] Waters urged the CIA, the Department of Justice, and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to investigate. 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? But Webb had one huge blind side: He was fundamentally a man of passion, not of fairness. Gary Webb, Into the Buzzsaw, CH 13, Prometheus Books. We are in the living room of Bell's house just outside Sacramento, California. In addition, Gary left multiple suicide notes to family members which were confirmed to be in his own hand by them. 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. 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. Like the CIA and Justice Department reports, it also found that neither Blandn, Meneses, nor Ross were associated with the CIA. Thank you." Snowfall is an American crime drama television series set in Los Angeles in 1983. But the report was correct. "But that," pointed out Blum, who is now a Washington attorney, "in no way - in no way - diminishes the wrongness of what these bastards did. Gary Webb (304) 778-2546: Jamie Webb (304) 778-2546: Status: Homeowner. A jury awarded the plaintiffs over 13 million dollars and the case was later settled. In city after city, local dealers either bought from Ross or got left behind."[24]. He is survived by his loving wife, Wendie, of Elgin; grandmother, Eileen Carrier of Elgin;. 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". Depressed, he became increasingly unpredictable in his behaviour and embarked on a series of affairs; he was divorced from Bell in 2000, though he remained close to her throughout his life and lived in a house in nearby Carmichael. Webb, a Pullitzer prize winning journalist, exposed CIA drug trafficking operations in a series of books and reports for the San Jose Mercury News. Webb's pieces were not dealing with nameless peasants slaughtered in some distant republic, but demonstrated a clear link between the CIA and the suppliers of the gangs delivering crack to the ghetto of Watts, in South Central Los Angeles. 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. The film broadened the debate which led to the decriminalisation of . "[78], While finding this part of the series unsupported, Schou said that some of the series's claims on CIA involvement are supported, writing that "The CIA conducted an internal investigation that acknowledged in March 1998 that the agency had covered up Contra drug trafficking for more than a decade." He concluded, "How did these shortcomings occur? "By the end of his life he was just in a lot of pain," said Webb's ex-wife, Susan Bell. 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. Gary's story, however, is far from over and could never be killed by something as trivial as a material bullet. padding-bottom: 20px; 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 . I realise now he was thinking about suicide.". When removal men arrived, on the morning of 10 December 2004, they found a sign on his front door, which read: ''Please do not enter. [34], The Los Angeles Times devoted the most space to the story, publishing a three-part series called "The Cocaine Trail." On one road trip, in 2001, he came off the motorcycle and split his helmet open. "I had to warn Gary that what he was looking at was probably true, but that he would run very big risks," Parry recalls. Film of this encounter survives. Gary Webb, 64, Oroville, Wash., died Oct. 30, 2021. The first shot went through his face, and exited at his left cheek. Poor Gary Webb. Because Blandn cooperated with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), he spent only 28 months in prison, became a paid government informant, and received permanent resident status. Watkins and Debbie (John) Foutch; grandchildren, Makenzie and Ashlynn Fogg. In August of 1996, investigative journalist Gary Webb broke the biggest story of his life. Regarding issues raised in the series's shorter sidebar stories, it found that some in the government were "not eager" to have DEA agent Celerino Castillo "openly probe" activities at Ilopango Airport in El Salvador, where covert operations in support of the Contras were undertaken, and that the CIA had indeed intervened in a case involving smuggler Julio Zavala. [60], The House Intelligence Committee issued its report in February 2000. She said the paper wanted to make up for what it had done in the past. 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.". Newsweek called Kerry a "randy conspiracy buff". He received his medical degree from American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine and has been in practice for more than. One article, dealing mostly with the response of the Los Angeles Black community to the stories, described the series's evidence as "thin". A January 1997 article in American Journalism Review noted that a 1994 series Webb wrote had also been the subject of a Mercury News internal review that criticized Webb's reporting. Gary Hays Webb, 78, passed away on Monday May 9, 2022, at ThedaCare Regional Medical Center, Neenah. [67], Webb later moved to the State Assembly's Office of Majority Services. "I told Gary not to go near this story," his source replies, in an emotional voice. "The second bullet," adds Bell, who has worked for more than 20 years in the area of respiratory therapy, "struck his carotid artery. 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. Although he attended Northern Kentucky for four years, he did not finish his degree. Born January 3rd, 1943 in Montreal, Quebec, he was the son of the late John Douglas Webb and the late Jeannie (Penny) Hardie Penman. [66] ", "Reporter's suicide confirmed by coroner", "Repercussions From Flawed News Articles", "Herhold: Thinking back on journalist Gary Webb and the CIA", Ex-L.A. Times Writer Apologizes for "Tawdry" Attacks, "Gary Webb was no journalism hero, despite what 'Kill the Messenger' says", "Jeremy Renner's 'Kill the Messenger' Gets Fall Release Date", The CIA-Contra-Crack Cocaine Controversy: A Review of the Justice Department's Investigations and Prosecutions, United States Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General, Report of Investigation Concerning Allegations of Connections Between CIA and The Contras in Cocaine Trafficking to the United States, Central Intelligence Agency Office of the Inspector General, United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, "Secrecy, Conspiracy, and the Media During the CIA-Contra Affair", Freeway Rick Ross: The Untold Autobiography, "Inside the Dark Alliance: Gary Webb on the CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion", 'A NATURAL STORY': Tribute to 'Dark Alliance' and Journalist Gary Webb, San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center, Archive of Gary Webb stories at Sacramento News and Review, "Frontline: Cocaine, Conspiracy Theories & the C.I.A. 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