Monday, December 13, 2004

         Reporter Who Examined CIA-Contra-Cocaine Link Dies

    AP reported this weekend that "Gary Webb, a Pulitzer Prize-winning
investigative reporter who wrote a controversial series of stories linking the CIA to crack cocaine trafficking in Los Angeles, has died at age 49...of an apparent suicide."

    AP wrote: "Webb's 1996 series in the Mercury News alleged that Nicaraguan drug traffickers had sold tons of crack cocaine in Los Angeles and funneled millions of dollars in profits to the CIA-supported Nicaraguan Contras during the 1980s." The Mercury News backed away from the series and Webb resigned from the paper. Webb went on to write the book "Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion" which laid out his case in more detail.

ROBERT PARRY, secrecyprivilege@aol.com, http://www.consortiumnews.com
Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek; he and Brian Barger broke the story of contra-cocaine smuggling for AP in December 1985. He is author of the book "Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth.'" Today he wrote the article "America's Debt to Journalist Gary Webb." Parry said: "Webb's editor at the Mercury News sold out the story and demoted Webb, causing him to quit the paper. Even Webb's marriage broke up.... Webb's contra-cocaine series prompted internal investigations by the Central Intelligence Agency and the Justice Department, probes that confirmed that scores of contra units and contra-connected individuals were implicated in the drug trade. The probes also showed that the Reagan-Bush administration frustrated investigations into those crimes for geopolitical reasons."

Parry's latest book is "Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty
from Watergate to Iraq."

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For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167