I first heard about Webb eight years ago, I tell Bell, from the Paris-based journalist Paul Moreira. But the biggest loss he had was the writing. The story had little immediate impact. He really did believe that," she says. He died on December 10, 2004 in Carmichael, California, USA. 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. Blandn and Meneses' high-volume supply of low-priced high-purity cocaine "allowed Ross to sew up the Los Angeles market and move on. Gary's family found that old, storied, ("priceless to us," as his ex-wife, Susan Bell, described it to me) CDROM among his possessions. Shortly before his death, his motorcycle had been stolen (it was recovered by his family after his death). The truth was that, in all those years, I hadn't written anything important enough to suppress. The story they printed was just awful. His erstwhile editors on the Mercury News, meanwhile, saw their careers thrive. Occupation: Machine Operators, Assemblers, and Inspectors Occupations. Webb's then-wife Sue remembers coming home from the shops and finding her. "[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." Gary Webb | American journalist | Britannica Why bring up old white people atrocities against black people now? [42] The extent of the criticism, however, convinced Ceppos that The Mercury News had to acknowledge to its readers that the series had been subjected to strong criticism. Celebrezze eventually sued the Plain Dealer and won an undisclosed out of court settlement. 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 . Can these things possibly be? Gary Douglas Webb of Radnor, PA, passed away on October 19, 2021. .article-native-ad { 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. "[55] In June 1997, The Mercury News told Webb it was transferring him from the paper's Sacramento bureau and offered him a choice between working at the main offices in San Jose under closer editorial supervision, or spot reporting in Cupertino; both locations were long commutes from his home in Sacramento. The Open Mic: A Few Words with Cinematographer Ian Webb Even 10 years after his tragic death, the media refuse to let him rest. By William Kennedy / Jan. 22, 2023 12:00 pm EST. Kill the Messenger True Story vs. Movie - Real Gary Webb In the final few months of his life, Bell says, Webb became increasingly withdrawn. "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". Am J Mens Health, 2018 Mar 1:1557988318758788. doi: 10.1177/1557988318758788. [29] Waters urged the CIA, the Department of Justice, and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to investigate. By this stage, he was prepared to work as a jobbing reporter. Eighteen Years Ago Today, Journalist Gary Webb Was Murdered After 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. By Sam Stanton Bee Staff Writer Published 2:15 am PST Wednesday, December 15, 2004. . . ", The report called several of its findings "troubling." Gary Webb | Obituary | The Daily Item Webb's ex wife, Susan Bell told reporters that she believed Webb had died by suicide. The series examined the origins of the crack cocaine trade in Los Angeles and claimed that members of the anti-communist Contra rebels in Nicaragua had played a major role in creating the trade, using cocaine profits to finance their fight against the government in Nicaragua. 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. "This is an appalling charge," says a tense-looking Deutch. Occupation: Machine Operators, Assemblers, and Inspectors Occupations. My wife has kept me grounded for . 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. ", The significant legacy of the Webb case, "the reason this whole affair remains so significant today," Blum says, "is this: the knowledge that, if one individual dares raise such serious issues, they risk confronting a tremendous apparatus that is prepared to whack them hard, and there is very little they can expect by way of support. Jimmy Webb's battle with ex-wife Patsy Sullivan continues - New York Post Gary Webb was a journalist of outsized talent. Webb's corpse was found in the bedroom, with two gunshot wounds to the head. And yet, for all his Easy Rider tendencies, he was also a dedicated family man with an extraordinary appetite for researching minutiae. They were outraged by the series's charges.[27]. Then, on 10 December, he resigned. Gary Webb photos on Flickr | Flickr Webb was born in Corona, California. Dec. 13, 2004. The first effect of the onslaught was to ease the pressure on the CIA. If the antagonism of competing publications was predictable, what happened to Webb within his own newspaper was not. Gary Douglas Webb of Radnor, PA, passed away on October 19, 2021 Born January 3rd, 1943 in Montreal, Quebec, he was the son of the late John Douglas Webb and the late Jeannie (Penny) Hardie. His corpse was discovered on the seventh anniversary of his resignation from the Mercury News. During and immediately after the controversy over "Dark Alliance," Webb's earlier writing was examined closely. 4) The series "created impressions that were open to misinterpretation" through "imprecise language and graphics. Despite some hyped phrasing, "Dark Alliance" appears to be praiseworthy investigative reporting."[47]. }. The CIA, the drug dealers, and the tragedy of Gary Webb - The Telegraph Relationships with other women ended badly. That wouldn't have happened if he hadn't been willing to stand up and risk it all.". Herhold: Thinking back on journalist Gary Webb and the CIA He was preceded in death by his wife, Melody Webb; parents and three brothers, Albert, Duane and Ronald. border-bottom: 1px solid #ddd; Meneses, an established smuggler and a Contra supporter as well, taught Blandn how to smuggle and provided him with cocaine. This emotive last phrase refers to Webb's experience in the immediate aftermath of publication of his three lengthy articles, in the summer of 1996. "If I had one dream for you," he wrote, "it was that you would go into journalism and carry on the kind of work I did - fighting, with all your might, the oppression and bigotry and stupidity and greed that surrounds us. Eli Tomac on track during Media Day at Daytona International Speedway, Friday, March 3, 2023. "To get back at his editors?". Age 43 years. With Baca's encouragement, he started to investigate a large-scale Nicaraguan cocaine dealer named Oscar Danilo Blandn. [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. To show this, the series focused on three men: Ricky Ross, Oscar Danilo Blandn, and Norwin Meneses. "Because of Gary Webb's work," said Senator John Kerry, "the CIA launched an investigation that found dozens of connections to drug runners. 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. On Dec. 9, 2004, the 49-year-old Gary Stephen Webb, Pulitzer prize-winning US investigative journalist, typed out suicide notes to his ex-wife and his three children; he laid out a certificate for his cremation; he taped a note on the door telling movers - who were coming the next morning to move him out of his rental house near Sacramento - to (Strawser) Webb. After Webb's death, a collection of his stories from before and after the "Dark Alliance" series was published. Chasing Corona - by George Webb A secret deal allowed drugs to go unreported by the DCI. 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". 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. 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. "[38], Surprised by The Washington Post article, The Mercury News's executive editor Jerome Ceppos wrote to the Post defending the series. The second volume, "The Contra Story," was issued in a classified version on April 27, 1998, and in an unclassified version on October 8, 1998. "He started having motorcycle crashes," Bell says. [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. Webb resigned from The Mercury News in December 1997. 71K views 8 years ago Gary Webb's son Ian talks about the film in which Jeremy Renner plays his late journalist father. Gary Webb: Vindicated - Narco News "[77], Webb's reporting in "Dark Alliance" remains controversial. Gary Stephen Webb was a Pulitzer prize winning American investigative reporter who exposed cocaine trafficking by the CIA.He wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, which initially backed his articles but later dropped him.Webb was put under pressure most certainly from the CIA under John Deutch for his reporting. His own paper, the Mercury News, criticized the series in 1997 without providing many specifics. [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. And this is not a happy story - or," she adds, "a little one.". Attend in Miami or virtually, Sept. 1114. Some might consider it an inappropriate assignment for a man with responsibilities. [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." The drugs went to South Central LA. This did not happen in Webb's case. 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. How Gary Webb Linked The CIA To The Crack Epidemic - All That's Interesting The "Dark Alliance" series remains controversial. 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." I believe that we fell short at every step of our process: in the writing, editing and production of our work. 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. 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. Working in San Jose would have meant daily contact with what Bell describes as "people he did not want to be with". To Read the Full Story Become an Adweek+ Subscriber. In 1996, the award-winning journalist Gary Webb uncovered CIA links to Los Angeles drug dealers. He said: 'No. As it turned out," she adds, "that was not their intent.". He began his career working for newspapers in Kentucky and Ohio, winning numerous awards, and building a strong reputation for investigative writing. "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 . Webb, unlike Blum or Kerry, had to face his difficulties alone. The Warning in Gary Webb's Death - Consortium News Gary's story, however, is far from over and could never be killed by something as trivial as a material bullet. When facts didn't fit his theory, he tended to shove them to the sidelines. .article-native-ad svg { 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. The Man Who Exposed The Crips, Bloods & CIA Connection to - YouTube The complete lack of desire to ask the difficult questions makes me want to scream. "Like enjoy it.". 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. 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.
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