In 2000, the House Intelligence Committee grudgingly acknowledged that the stories about Reagan's CIA protecting Contra drug traffickers were true. The committee released a report citing classified testimony from CIA Inspector General Britt Snider (Hitz's successor) admitting that the spy agency had turned a blind eye to evidence of Contra-drug smuggling and generally treated drug smuggling through Central America as a low priority.
"In the end the objective of unseating the Sandinistas appears to have taken precedence over dealing properly with potentially serious allegations against those with whom the agency was working," Snider said, adding that the CIA did not treat the drug allegations in "a consistent, reasoned or justifiable manner."
The House committee -- then controlled by Republicans -- still downplayed the significance of the Contra-cocaine scandal, but the panel acknowledged, deep inside its report, that in some cases, "CIA employees did nothing to verify or disprove drug trafficking information, even when they had the opportunity to do so. In some of these, receipt of a drug allegation appeared to provoke no specific response, and business went on as usual."
Like the release of Hitz's report in 1998, the admissions by Snider and the House committee drew virtually no media attention in 2000 -- except for a few articles on the Internet, including one at Consortiumnews.com.
Unrepentant Press
Because of this misuse of power by the Big
Three newspapers -- choosing to conceal their own journalistic failings
regarding the Contra-cocaine scandal and to protect the Reagan
administration's image -- Webb's reputation was never rehabilitated.
After his original "Dark Alliance" series was published in 1996,
Webb had been inundated with attractive book offers from major
publishing houses, but once the vilification began, the interest
evaporated. Webb's agent contacted an independent publishing house,
Seven Stories Press, which had a reputation for publishing books that
had been censored, and it took on the project.
After Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion was published in 1998, I joined Webb in a few speaking appearances on the West Coast, including one packed book talk at the Midnight Special bookstore in Santa Monica, California. For a time, Webb was treated as a celebrity on the American Left, but that gradually faded.
In our interactions during these joint appearances, I found Webb to be a regular guy who seemed to be holding up fairly well under the terrible pressure. He had landed an investigative job with a California state legislative committee. He also felt some measure of vindication when CIA Inspector General Hitz's reports came out.
However, Webb never could overcome the pain caused by his betrayal at the hands of his journalistic colleagues, his peers.
In the years that followed, Webb was unable to find decent-paying
work in his profession -- the conventional wisdom remained that he had
somehow been exposed as a journalistic fraud. His state job ended; his
marriage fell apart; he struggled to pay bills; and he was faced with a
move out of a modest rental house near Sacramento, California.
On Dec. 9, 2004, the 49-year-old Webb typed out suicide notes to his ex-wife and his three children; laid out a certificate for his cremation; and taped a note on the door telling movers -- who were coming the next morning -- to instead call 911. Webb then took out his father's pistol and shot himself in the head. The first shot was not lethal, so he fired once more.
Even with Webb's death, the big newspapers
that had played key roles in his destruction couldn't bring themselves
to show Webb any mercy. After Webb's body was found, I received a call
from a reporter for the Los Angeles Times who knew that I was one of Webb's few journalistic colleagues who had defended him and his work.
I told the reporter that American history owed a great debt to Gary
Webb because he had forced out important facts about Reagan-era crimes.
But I added that the Los Angeles Times would be hard-pressed
to write an honest obituary because the newspaper had not published a
single word on the contents of Hitz's final report, which had largely
vindicated Webb.
To my disappointment but not my surprise, I was correct. The Los Angeles Times
ran a mean-spirited obituary that made no mention of either my defense
of Webb, nor the CIA's admissions in 1998. The obituary was
republished in other newspapers, including the Washington Post.
In effect, Webb's suicide enabled senior editors at the Big Three
newspapers to breathe a little easier -- one of the few people who
understood the ugly story of the Reagan administration's cover-up of
the Contra-cocaine scandal and the U.S. media's complicity was now
silenced.
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