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. He later picked the surname 'Numan' from an . 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. Gary was preceded in death by his mother and father, Donna and James Webb of Carpentersville. 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. But the tragedy had a deeper meaning. With hindsight, Bell says, "the signs were there. When he was engaged, he worked hard. Gary Webb was an investigative reporter, focusing on government and private sector corruption and winning more than 30 journalism awards. Look at the way the US press reports on Iraq. "[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. And it ruined that reporter's career. ", "After Gary died," she says, "a reporter from the LA Times came here. 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. Carey ultimately decided that there were problems with several parts of the story and wrote a draft article incorporating his findings. But, Ceppos wrote, the series "did not meet our standards" in four areas. Take it from someone who knew him well. 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. "I had to warn Gary that what he was looking at was probably true, but that he would run very big risks," Parry recalls. On December 10th, 2004 Gary Webb was found dead of two (allegedly self inflicted) gun shots to the head. The series provoked outrage, particularly in the Los Angeles African-American community, and led to four major investigations of its charges. It's . 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]. Webb's corpse was found in the bedroom, with two gunshot wounds to the head. 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. Despite some hyped phrasing, "Dark Alliance" appears to be praiseworthy investigative reporting."[47]. 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. In August 1996, Gary Webb published in the San Jose Mercury News a 20,000 word, three-part series entitled "Dark Alliance".The articles detailed the nexus between a California coke kingpin, CIA officials and assets and the Nicaraguan Contra army, whose . And yet, for all his Easy Rider tendencies, he was also a dedicated family man with an extraordinary appetite for researching minutiae. His behavior became increasingly unpredictable and he embarked on a series of affairs, eventually divorcing from his wife Sue in 2000. . His. 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. Garry Webb wrote the 1996 "Dark Alliance" series for the San Jose Mercury News. "[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." We are in the living room of Bell's house just outside Sacramento, California. [52] Webb was allowed to keep working on the story and made one more trip to Nicaragua in March. He began his career working for newspapers in Kentucky and Ohio, winning numerous awards, and building a strong reputation for investigative writing. But ultimately, the responsibility was, and is, mine.". * The agency's response was to try to prevent him from getting his doctorate, then block his advancement in the academic world. He died on December 10, 2004 in Carmichael, California, USA. 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, Get up to 10% off using the Booking.com app, $6 off a $50+ order with this AliExpress discount code, 10% off selected product with this 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 April 2023, Compare iPhone contract deals and get the best offer this April, Compare the best mobile phone deals from the top networks and brands. "Report on Alleged Involvement: Findings" 43. The whole business, I suggested to Blum, has echoes of a classic Alfred Hitchcock plot. His wife is Sue Webb (m. 1979-2000) Gary Webb Net Worth His net worth has been growing significantly in 2021-2022. 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. . [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. [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. This is why Webb's "Dark Alliance" series is an essential source, a primary text that every journalism student should study. Blandn and Meneses were Nicaraguans who smuggled drugs into the U.S. and supplied dealers like Ross. And the importance of exposing them. Noting that most of the activities discussed in the report had nothing to do with the people Webb reported on, Kornbluh told Schou, "I can't say it's a vindication. [39] The Post refused to print his letter. According to Schou, the investigation "confirmed key chunks of Webb's allegations." Numan's real name is Gary Anthony James Webb, and he was born on March 8, 1958. "[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." 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. Gary Webb, friends say, was a far more combative character than either the Mercury News's executive editor Ceppos or page editor Garcia. 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". He had a tight circle that included almost no one from the Mercury News, says his former wife, Susan Bell, and a sensitive side he rarely showed outside the bounds of his close friends and family. When his medical insurance expired, he stopped taking his antidepressants. That wouldn't have happened if he hadn't been willing to stand up and risk it all.". "The second bullet," adds Bell, who has worked for more than 20 years in the area of respiratory therapy, "struck his carotid artery. When it did, beginning with The Washington Post, it shocked Webb's critics as much as his many admirers. GARY WEBB OBITUARY. Gary Webb was born on August 31, 1955 in Corona, California, USA. (Gary is Adult Ministries Pastor at the church.) And he finallyyou know, they finally left the country. [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 real Gary Webb talks about his 1996 story "Dark Alliance," which criticizes the CIA's involvement (or lack thereof) with regard to the cocaine coming into the U.S. during the 1980s. 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. Such a case normally would have sparked little notice. 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. At the end of March, Ceppos told Webb that he was going to present the internal review findings in a column. The article discussed Webb's contacts with Ross's attorney and prosecution complaints of how Ross's defense had used Webb's series. Both sides were left angry and disappointed. Do not quote me on anything.". Instead, he found work in 1978 as a reporter at the Kentucky Post, a local paper affiliated with the larger Cincinnati Post. "They use the giant corporate press rather than saying anything directly. "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 . His erstwhile editors on the Mercury News, meanwhile, saw their careers thrive. Like the CIA and Justice Department reports, it also found that neither Blandn, Meneses, nor Ross were associated with the CIA. 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. The article resulted in a lawsuit against Webb's paper which the plaintiffs won. 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. "Back then. He received his medical degree from American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine and has been in practice for more than 20 . 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." [29] Waters urged the CIA, the Department of Justice, and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to investigate. 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. Gary Webb, Into the Buzzsaw, CH 13, Prometheus Books. [citation needed], Views on Webb's journalism have been polarized. Webb undeniably made mistakes of detail and emphasis in the newspaper version of "Dark Alliance". 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. ", In contrast, the series received support from Steve Weinberg, a former executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors. The third article discussed the social effects of the crack trade, noting that it had a disparate effect on African-Americans. He went into the bedroom, and picked up a .38 that had belonged to his father. 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. One of his last articles examined America's Army, a video game designed by the U.S. 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. 1) It presented only one interpretation of conflicting evidence and in one case "did not include information that contradicted a central assertion of the series." ", Webb had already been cremated and his ashes scattered in the bay off Santa Cruz two weeks before. "He told the guys with him he was fine," she recalls, "got back on the bike, then passed out, half an hour later. Did Gary Webb really stray from his wife? Webb became a staff reporter for the San Jose Mercury News in 1988. The three articles in the series were written by four reporters: Jesse Katz, Doyle McManus, John Mitchell and Sam Fulwood. Suzette is preceded in death by: Mother: Geneice Taylor Thomas. This did not happen in Webb's case. By this stage, he was prepared to work as a jobbing reporter. "I believe that Americans, as a nation, are mainly concerned with living their happy little lives. The drugs went to South Central LA. When Ross discovered the market for crack in Los Angeles, he began buying cocaine from Blandn. Thank you." Webb was put under pressure most certainly from the CIA under John Deutch for his reporting. I remain astounded by the editorial decisions they made.". The response from the American press took two months to arrive. [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. [41], When the Los Angeles Times series appeared, Ceppos again wrote to defend the original series. 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