Gary Webb: Suicide or Example?

[nattyreb]

GARY WEBB: SUICIDE OR EXAMPLE?

[Col. Writ. 1/2/05] Copyright 2005 Mumia Abu-Jamal

Gary Webb, former investigative reporter for the
*Mercury News* newspaper, and award-winning journalist
who uncovered the nefarious CIA links to the burgeoning
cocaine and crack epidemics of the '90s, was found
dead in his suburban Sacramento home recently,
reportedly of a suicide. Webb, 49, also wrote the
best-selling book, *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras
and the Crack Cocaine Explosion*, which told the
sordid story of how the U.S. government, through the
CIA, allowed its assets in the Nicaraguan Contras
to smuggle in cocaine to Los Angeles, to fund the
Contra wars against the Sandanista government in
Managua.

Webb's body was found on Friday, Dec. 10th,
2004, about 8:20 a.m., when a moving company arrived
at his home. According to published reports, a note
was posted on the front door reading: "Please do not
enter. Call 911 and ask for an ambulance."

Webb's expose of the CIA-crack connection, which
began as a *Mercury News* exclusive, resulted in a
flood of criticisms from the nation's major papers,
including the *New York Times*, the *L.A. Times*,
and the *Washington Post*. Indeed, after a time,
even the editors of the *Mercury News* critiqued
some parts of the story, but, over time, many, if not
most of the facts brought to light by his earth-
shattering series have been either admitted by the
CIA itself, or supported by other sources.

Webb's resignation from the newspaper about a
year and a half later, marked the power of the press
to discipline one of its own for committing an
unpardonable sin: uncovering the actions of the
powerful, in this case, the nation's intelligence
agencies.

Once again, the media ate its own, to protect
power and privilege.

It may very well be true that Webb committed
suicide: but it seems, at the very least, odd to post
a note on one's door before doing so.

Recently, in a book sharing the contributions
of a wide range of American reporters, Webb
penned an essay sharply critical of what he called,
the "Mighty Wurlitzer", or the media machine that
serves as an accompaniment to those of means
or power. His words give a stark picture of the
so-called 'free press':

Do we have a free press today? Sure we
do. It's free to report all the sex scandals
it wants, all the stock market news we can
handle, every new health fad that comes down
the pike, and every celebrity marriage or
divorce that happens. But when it comes
to the real down and dirty stuff -- stories
like Tailwind, the October Surprise, the
El Mozote massacre, corporate corruption,
or CIA involvement in drug trafficking --
that's where we begin to see the limits of
our freedoms. In today's media
environment, sadly, such stories are
not even open for discussion.
Back in 1938, when fascism was sweeping
Europe, legendary investigative reporter
George Seldes observed (in his book, *The
Lords of the Press*) that "it *is* possible
to fool all the people all the time -- when
government and press cooperate." Unfortunately, we have reached that point.
[From: Gary Webb, "The Mighty
Wurlitzer Plays On", in Borjesson, Kristina,
ed., *Into the Buzzsaw: Leading Journalists
Expose the Myth of a Free Press* (Amherst,
N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2002), pp. 309-310.]

We haven't the faintest idea whether Webb died
through suicide or intrigue. We don't pretend to know.
What we do know is that the media elites in the nation's
big cities, pointed their big guns at a colleague, and
blew away his career, for what now seems to be little
more than professional jealousy. For years, scholars
have shown how intelligence agencies (especially
the CIA!) have planted people *within* the U.S.
media to protect their agencies. Many an 'editor'
in New York and Washington began his 'career'
in Langley, Virginia, and not at journalism school.
We know that Webb got it mostly right; a) the CIA-
created Contras *had* been selling cocaine to finance
their 'dirty war' against the Sandanistas; b) the
Contras *had* sold coke in L.A. ghettoes, and
they supplied the area's biggest crack dealer;
c) people in the U.S. government knew about it
at the time, and did nothing; d) these sales fueled
and powered the first major crack cocaine market
in the U.S.; and, finally e) this crack explosion
fueled the growth and national expansion of the Crips
and the Bloods, as crews, to push the crack game
across the nation. In Webb's words: "It wasn't
so much a conspiracy that I had outlined as it
was a chain-reaction--bad ideas compounded
by stupid political decisions and rotten historical
timing." [id., 298].

Copyright 2005 Mumia Abu-Jamal

[Check out Mumia's latest: *WE WANT FREEDOM:
A Life in the Black Panther Party*, from South
End Press (www.southendpress.org); Ph.
#1-800-533-8478.]
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