CIA & Crack Cocaine – Gary Webb in his own words

In 1996, journalist Gary Webb wrote a series of articles that forced a long-overdue investigation of a very dark chapter of recent US foreign policy—the Reagan/Bush administrations protection of cocaine traffickers who operated under the cover of the Nicaraguan Contra war in the 1980s. For his brave reporting at the San Jose Mercury News, Webb paid a high price. He was attacked by journalistic colleagues at the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, American Journalism Review and even the Nation magazine. Under this media pressure, his editor, Jerry Ceppos, sold out the story and demoted Webb, causing him to quit the Mercury News. Even Webbs marriage broke up. On Friday, December 10, 2004 Gary Webb, 49, died of an apparent suicide, a gunshot wound to the head. If Gary were still with us today I have no doubt that he’d be looking into the drug running going on in Afghaistan by the CIA. Maybe the CIA knew that. Whatever the details of Webbs death, American history owes him a huge debt. Though denigrated by much of the national news media, Webbs 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. www.narconews.com Did Gary really commit suicide? www …