"He was sleeping more, he hated to get up in the morning, he started having a lot of motorcycle. 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. Gary Webb was born on August 31, 1955 in Corona, California, USA. .article-native-ad strong { 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. A Celebration of Life will be . And yet, for all his Easy Rider tendencies, he was also a dedicated family man with an extraordinary appetite for researching minutiae. 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.' Webb, unlike Blum or Kerry, had to face his difficulties alone. 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. Ceppos and Garcia have long since lost any taste for public discussion of "Dark Alliance". The claim that the drug ring of Meneses-Blandn-Ross sparked the "crack explosion" has been perhaps the most criticized part of the series. 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 first article in "Dark Alliance" that discussed the failure of law enforcement agencies to prosecute Blandn and Meneses had mentioned several cases. Gary was preceded in death by his mother and father, Donna and James Webb of Carpentersville. We had been here before." 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, Up to 20% off & extra perks with Booking.com Genius Membership, $6 off a $50+ order with this AliExpress discount code, 10% off selected orders over 100 - 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 March 2023, Compare iPhone contract deals and get the best offer this March, Compare the best mobile phone deals from the top networks and brands. "I think the behaviour of the media in all of this has been amazing," says Bell. After Webb's death, a collection of his stories from before and after the "Dark Alliance" series was published. I felt weak and distressed; the whole thing was so fresh. "[38], Surprised by The Washington Post article, The Mercury News's executive editor Jerome Ceppos wrote to the Post defending the series. 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. That was just the way he was.". "[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. His father was a Marine sergeant, and the family moved frequently, as his career took him to new assignments. Gary is survived by his wife of 48 years, Beverly Webb; children Margaret . At the end of March, Ceppos told Webb that he was going to present the internal review findings in a column. But as his ex-wife told the . He told me: 'If I can't do what I want to do, what's the point?' 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 . Bell and her children helped Webb prepare 50 packages containing cuttings and his CV which they sent out to newspapers all over the US. It was published in 1998 as Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion. And when he got something in his head, he was determined to do it. Who Is Gary Webb's Wife? But the tragedy had a deeper meaning. Shortly before his death, his motorcycle had been stolen (it was recovered by his family after his death). It was accurate. [41], When the Los Angeles Times series appeared, Ceppos again wrote to defend the original series. His career ended, his livelihood was destroyed and certain games were started to be . His corpse was discovered on the seventh anniversary of his resignation from the Mercury News. [71] "The way he was acting it would be hard for me to believe it was anything but suicide," she said. He crashed and shredded his clothes, face and body on a barbed-wire fence." 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. We were dismissed as a bunch of nuts." His death was ruled a suicide by the Sacramento County coroner's office. ", In contrast, the series received support from Steve Weinberg, a former executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors. 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". She said the paper wanted to make up for what it had done in the past. He stayed home, playing computer games, and began smoking cannabis heavily. "Back then. She kept crying about how terrible it all was - by which I mean that she was, physically, crying. He was taken to hospital by air ambulance. And the importance of exposing them. His erstwhile editors on the Mercury News, meanwhile, saw their careers thrive. She was a native of Minden, LA, but a resident of Crossett for 65 years. During and immediately after the controversy over "Dark Alliance," Webb's earlier writing was examined closely. margin-bottom: 20px; My wife has kept me grounded for . In the final few months of his life, Bell says, Webb became increasingly withdrawn. 71K views 8 years ago Gary Webb's son Ian talks about the film in which Jeremy Renner plays his late journalist father. The couple got married recently in November of 2020 after dating for some time. 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. When I first heard the news, I tell Bell, I was inclined to believe the conspiracy theories that still proliferate on the internet, suggesting that Webb had been assassinated - either by one of the drug dealers he'd met while writing Dark Alliance, or by the intelligence services who were supposed to police them. 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. Views on Webb's journalism have been polarized. I have also followed up on key topics raised by Paul Cottrell will leading industry experts like Dr. Peter McCollough on the Tommy Carrigan Show, weekly in 2021 and 2022. To pay off his mounting debts, Webb sold the Carmichael property, where he was living alone, and arranged to move in with his mother. According to Schou, the investigation "confirmed key chunks of Webb's allegations." [52] Webb was allowed to keep working on the story and made one more trip to Nicaragua in March. 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. ", "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. 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. [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. [8] In 1979, Webb married Susan Bell; the couple eventually had three children. Gary Webb was born in Corona, California, in 1955. Then, in August the same year, the first of three instalments of "Dark Alliance" appeared. He was assigned to its Sacramento bureau, where he was allowed to choose most of his own stories. Few reporters I've known could match his nose for an investigative story. "They had him writing obituaries," she said. When Gary originally broke this mind blowing story, the arrogant authority's assumed they could simply ignore him and hope he'd go away. "Because of Gary Webb's work," said Senator John Kerry, "the CIA launched an investigation that found dozens of connections to drug runners. [39] Carey's critique appeared in mid-October and went through several of the Post's criticisms of the series, including the importance of Blandn's drug ring in spreading crack, questions about Blandn's testimony in court, and how specific series allegations about CIA involvement had been, giving Webb's responses. They failed because the climate was more sceptical then. He had sold his house the week before his death because he was unable to afford the mortgage.[71]. Webb's research took a year, in the course of which he received death threats. In city after city, local dealers either bought from Ross or got left behind."[24]. After a local newspaper reported that Webb had died from multiple gunshots, the coroner's office received so many calls asking about Webb's death that Sacramento County Coroner Robert Lyons issued a statement confirming Webb had died by suicide. In February, Gary Webb gave his ex-wife. "Gary was given the choice of relocating either to San Jose," says Bell, "or to Cupertino". The article suggested this was in retribution for Ross' testimony in the corruption case. ", She pauses: "That said, he did sleep with a gun under his bed.". }. "It was like someone had made a terrible noise, or a terrible smell, in a small room," recalls Jonathan Winer, Kerry's chief senate staff investigator . Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in, Find your bookmarks in your Independent Premium section, under my profile. Webb joined the Mercury News in 1988, via the Cleveland Plain Dealer. [36] McManus wrote that Blandn's and Meneses's contributions to Contra organizations were significantly less than the "millions" claimed in the series, and stated there was no evidence that the CIA had tried to protect them. By this stage, he was prepared to work as a jobbing reporter. Unfortunately, the railroading of Gary Webb had begun and he was run over. The Los Angeles Sheriff's Department began its own investigation into the "Dark Alliance" claims.[30]. GARY WEBB OBITUARY Gary Frank Webb Sept. 27, 1944 - Oct. 23, 2022 Gary passed away peacefully of complications following cardiovascular surgery. The coroner's staff concluded that the second shot hit an artery.[70]. Gary Webb's family says his death was Suicide. Emma Lee Webb, age 75, of Crossett, AR passed away Monday February 27, 2023, in her home surrounded by her family. This did not happen in Webb's case. Webb strongly disagreed with Ceppos's column and, in interviews, was harshly critical of the paper's handling of the story. We are in the living room of Bell's house just outside Sacramento, California. The new movie Kill the Messenger, based in part on a 2006 book by a former student of mine, eulogizes Webb . After the publication of "Dark Alliance," The Mercury News continued to pursue the story, publishing follow-ups to the original series for the next three months. 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. 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 . 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. . 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. By the time Webb began researching Dark Alliance, Bell was 38 and they had three children. Blandn and Meneses' high-volume supply of low-priced high-purity cocaine "allowed Ross to sew up the Los Angeles market and move on. Webb worked for several newspapers including The Kentucky Post and Cleveland Plain Dealer. Am J Mens Health, 2018 Mar 1:1557988318758788. doi: 10.1177/1557988318758788. Gary Douglas Webb of Radnor, PA, passed away on October 19, 2021. Occupation: Machine Operators, Assemblers, and Inspectors Occupations.