Kill the Messenger-The tragic death of Gary Webb

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Kill the Messenger-The tragic death of Gary Webb

Postby bvonahsen » Tue Oct 10, 2006 8:21 pm

<!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.citypages.com/databank/27/1348/article14773.asp">Kill The Messenger</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br><br>The tragic death of one of America's most important investigative journalists<br>Kill the Messenger<br><br>by Nick Schou<br>October 4, 2006<br><br>Editor's Note: A college dropout with twenty years of reporting experience and a Pulitzer Prize on his resume, Gary Webb broke the biggest story of his career in August 1996, when he published "Dark Alliance," a three-part series for the San Jose Mercury News that linked the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency to America's crack-cocaine explosion via the Nicaraguan contras, a right-wing army that aimed to overthrow the leftist Sandinista government during the 1980s.<br><br>Many reporters had written about the CIA's collusion with contra drug smugglers, but nobody had ever discovered where those drugs ended up once they reached American soil. "Dark Alliance" provided the first dramatic answer to that mystery. But in the months following its publication, the story was subjected to ferocious attacks by the nation's biggest newspapers—the New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times—and soon Webb found himself out of a job. After being assigned to a tiny regional bureau, Webb quit the paper and never worked in daily journalism again.<br><br>Nick Schou's new book, Kill the Messenger: How the CIA's Crack Cocaine Controversy Destroyed Gary Webb, examines the tragic unraveling of one of America's most talented yet enigmatic investigative journalists. The following excerpt is being printed with the permission of Nation Books. All rights are reserved.<br>Advertisement<br><br> <br><br>After days of unrelenting winter rain from a powerful Pacific Storm, the clouds moved east and the skies cleared above the Sacramento valley. The snowcapped peaks of the western range of the Sierra Nevada glowed pink in the glinting early morning sun. On days like this, Gary Webb normally would have taken the day off to ride his motorcycle into the mountains.<br><br>Although it was a Friday morning, Webb didn't need to call in sick. In fact, he hadn't been to work in weeks. When his ex-wife garnished his wages seeking child support for their three kids, Webb asked for an indefinite leave from the small weekly alternative paper in Sacramento where he had been working the past four months. He told his boss he could no longer afford the $2,000 mortgage on his house in Carmichael, a suburb 20 miles east of the state capital.<br><br>There was no time for riding. Today, December 10, 2004, Webb was going to move in with his mother. It wasn't his first choice. First, he asked his ex-girlfriend if he could share her apartment. The two had dated for several months, and continued to live together until their lease expired a year earlier, when Webb had bought his new house. They had remained friends, and at first she had said yes, but she changed her mind at the last minute, not wanting to lead him on in the hope that they'd rekindle a romance. Desperate, Webb asked his ex-wife, Sue, if he could live with her until he regained his financial footing. She refused.<br><br>"I don't feel comfortable with that," she said.<br><br>"You don't?"<br><br>Sue recalls that her ex-husband's words seemed painfully drawn out.<br><br>"I don't know if I can do that," she said. "Your mother will let you move in. You don't have any other choice."<br><br>Besides losing his house, Webb had also lost his motorcycle. The day before he was to move, it had broken down as he was riding to his mother's house in a nearby retirement community. After spotting Webb pushing the bike off the road, a helpful young man with a goatee and a spider-web tattoo on his elbow had given him a lift home. Webb arranged to get a pickup truck, but when he went back to retrieve his bike, it had disappeared.<br><br>That night, Webb spent hours at his mother's house. At her urging he typed up a description of the suspected thief. But Webb didn't see much point in filing a police report. He doubted he'd ever see his bike again. He had been depressed for months, but the loss of his bike seemed to push him over the edge. He told his mother he had no idea how he was going to ever make enough money to pay child support and pay rent or buy a new home.<br><br>Although he had a paying job in journalism, Webb knew that only a reporting gig with a major newspaper would give him the paycheck he needed to stay out of debt. But after sending out 50 resumes to daily newspapers around the country, nobody had called for an interview. His current job couldn't pay the bills, and the thought of moving in with his mother at age 49, was more than his pride would allow. "What am I going to do with the rest of my life?" he asked. "All I want to do is write."<br><br>It was 8 p.m. by the time Webb left his mother's house. She offered to cook him a dinner of bacon and eggs, but Webb declined, saying he had to go home. There were other things he had to do. She kissed him goodbye and told him to come back the next day with a smile on his face. "Things will be better," she said. "You don't have to pay anything to stay here. You'll get back on your feet."<br><br>The next morning, Anita Webb called her son to remind him to file a police report for the stolen bike. His phone rang and rang. She didn't bother leaving a message, figuring the movers already had arrived. They had. It's possible they heard the phone ringing. As they approached his house, they noticed a note stuck to his front door.<br><br>"Please do not enter," it warned. "Call 911 for an ambulance. Thank you."<br><br>When her son failed answer the phone for more than an hour, Anita Webb began to panic. Finally, she let the answering machine pick up. "Gary, make sure you file a police report," she said. Before she could finish, the machine beeped and an unfamiliar voice began to speak: "Are you calling about the man who lives here?"<br><br>It is normally the policy of the Sacramento County Coroner's office not to answer the telephone at the scene of a death, but apparently the phrase "police report" startled the coroner into breaking that rule. At some point early that morning, Gary Webb had committed suicide.<br><br>The coroners found his body in a pool of blood on his bed, his hands still gripping his father's 38-caliber pistol. On his nightstand were his social security card—apparently intended to make it easier for his body to be identified—a cremation card and a suicide note, the contents of which have never been revealed by his family. The house was filled with packed boxes. Only his turntable, DVD player, and TV were unpacked.<br><br>In the hours before he shot himself in the head, Webb had listened to his favorite album, Ian Hunter Live, and had watched his favorite movie, the Sergio Leone spaghetti western, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. In a trashcan was a poster Webb had saved from his first journalism job with the Kentucky Post. The poster was an open letter to readers from Vance Trimble, Webb's first editor. Decades earlier, Webb had clipped it from the pages of the paper. Although he had always admired its message, something about it must have been too much to bear in his final moments. Trimble had written that, unlike some newspapers, the Kentucky Post would never kill a story under pressure from powerful interests. "There should be no fetters on reporters, nor must they tamper with the truth, but give light so the people will find their own way," his letter stated.<br><br> <br><br>That morning, Sue Webb was at home in Folsom, just minutes away from Carmichael, when her cell phone started ringing. She was about to walk out the door to bring her 14-year-old daughter Christine to school. Because Sue was running late for a business meeting in Stockton, she didn't answer. But when she recognized the number of the caller as Kurt, her ex-husband's brother, she began to worry. "I was standing in the bathroom, and when I saw that number, I knew something had happened," she says. "I kept saying, 'No, this is not happening, this is not happening.'I was afraid to pick up the phone."<br><br>Thoughts raced through her mind. Two days earlier, Webb had taken Christine to a doctor's appointment. At the doctor's office, there was a copy of Dr. Seuss' Green Eggs and Ham, which Webb had loved reading to her years earlier. He jokingly asked her if she wanted him to read it aloud to her. When he dropped Christine off at Sue's house later that day, Christine said her father made a special point of walking up to the door to kiss her goodbye. "He told her to be good to her mom," Sue says. "And he handed her some little bottles of perfume and said 'I love you.' When she asked him if he wanted to come in, he said no."<br><br>Sue put her daughter in the car and drove a few blocks to the entrance of the middle-class neighborhood of tract houses where she lives on a wooded hillside on the outskirts of town. "I couldn't stand it anymore, because the phone kept ringing," she says. "It was Anita, and she was just sobbing. And I said, 'Is he gone?' and she said 'Yes.'And I just pulled off the road and started crying and said 'Christine, your daddy's dead.' We had to get out of the car and we sat on the grass together and just started crying. I don't even know how long we sat there."<br><br>A woman driving by pulled over and asked what was wrong. Sue gave her the number of the healthcare company where she worked as a sales agent. She asked the woman to call and let them know she wouldn't be able to keep her appointments that day. Then she called her twenty-year-old son Ian and Eric, her 16-year-old, who was already at school, to tell them to meet her and Christine at Anita's house. "I had to tell them on the phone what had happened because they wouldn't let me hang up," she says.<br><br>When she arrived at Anita's house, Ian was sitting on the front lawn, tears streaming down his face. "The police had already left," she says. "I told him not to go inside." A block away from the house was a bench with a view of a duck pond. The tranquil scene seemed surreal, dreamlike, frozen in time. "I remember feeling this sense of loss. It was the weirdest thing in the world. I had moved to California to be with Gary and had left my family behind and suddenly I felt alone. And I knew almost immediately that he had killed himself."<br><br>That afternoon, Sue met Kurt at the coroner's office. "They took us into a room and the coroner came in and told us that Gary had shot himself and what gun he had used," she says. "It was his dad's gun that he had found when he was a security guard at a hospital in Cincinnati. Some patient had left it there and his dad had kept it. He used to keep it under the bed. I'd get mad because we had kids and he'd stick it in the closet."<br><br>Kurt asked the coroner if he was certain it was a suicide. "There's no doubt in my mind," he answered. He added that sometimes, people who shoot themselves have bruises on their fingers from squeezing the trigger. Apparently the will to live is so strong that suicide victims often grip the gun so tightly and for so long they lose blood circulation in their hands. "Gary had bruises on his fingers," Sue says.<br><br>A few days later, four letters arrived at Sue's house, one each for her and the three kids. Webb had mailed them before he died. He sent a separate letter to his mother, and a last will and testament to his brother Kurt. He told his children that he loved them, that Ian would make a woman happy someday, and that he didn't want his death to dissuade Eric from considering a career in journalism. His will divided his assets, including his just-sold house, between his wife and children. His only additional wish was that his ashes be spread in the ocean so he could "bodysurf for eternity."<br><br> <br><br>While it was Gary Webb who pulled the trigger, the bullet that ended his life was a mere afterthought to the tragic unraveling of one of the most controversial and misunderstood journalists in recent American history. "Dark Alliance" was the first major news exposé to be published simultaneously in print and on the Internet. Ignored by the mainstream media at first, the story nonetheless spread like wildfire through cyberspace and talk radio. It sparked angry protests around the country by African-Americans who had long suspected the government had allowed drugs into their communities. Their anger was fueled by the fact that "Dark Alliance" didn't just show that the contras had supplied a major crack dealer with cocaine, or that the cash had been used to fund the CIA's army in Central America—but also strongly implied that this activity had been critical to the nationwide explosion of crack cocaine that had taken place in America during the 1980s.<br><br>It was an explosive charge, although a careful reading of the story showed that Webb had never actually stated that the CIA had intentionally started the crack epidemic. In fact, Webb never believed the CIA had conspired to addict anybody to drugs. Rather, he believed that the agency had known that the contras were dealing cocaine, and hadn't lifted a finger to stop them. He was right, and the controversy over "Dark Alliance"—which many consider to be the biggest media scandal of the 1990s—would ultimately force the CIA to admit it had lied for years about what it knew and when it knew it.<br><br>In the wake of "Dark Alliance," the series and Webb himself was subjected to unprecedented attacks in the mainstream media, which took advantage of the story's most serious flaw—implying but failing to prove the CIA helped spark the crack epidemic—to assert that the CIA had no ties whatsoever to the drug ring Webb expose.<br><br>The attacks continued even after Webb's death. The L.A. Times published an obituary that ran in newspapers across the country which summed up his life by claiming he was author of "discredited" stories about the CIA. The paper would later publish a lengthy feature story revealing that Webb had suffered from clinical depression for more than a decade—even before he wrote "Dark Alliance." Titled "Written in Pain," it painted Webb as a troubled, manic-depressive man who had repeatedly cheated on his wife, and a reckless "cowboy" of a journalist.<br><br>Such a portrait offers only a misleading caricature of a much more complicated man. Interviews with dozens of Webb's friends, family members and colleagues reveal that Webb was an idealistic, passionate, and meticulous journalist, not a cowboy. Those who knew him before "Dark Alliance" made him famous and then infamous say he was happy until he lost his career. His colleagues, with the exception of some reporters and editors at the Mercury News who found him arrogant and self-promoting, almost universally loved, respected and even revered him.<br><br>The controversy over "Dark Alliance" was the central event in Webb's life, and the critical element in his eventual depression and suicide. His big story, despite major flaws of hyperbole abetted and even encouraged by his editors, remains one of the most important works of investigative journalism in recent American history. The connection Webb uncovered between the CIA, the contras and L.A.'s crack trade was real—and radioactive. Webb was hardly the first American journalist to lose his job after taking on the country's most secretive government agency in print. Every serious reporter or politician that tried to unravel the connection between the CIA, the Nicaraguan contras and cocaine, had lived to regret it.<br><br>Senator John Kerry investigated it through congressional hearings that were stonewalled by the Reagan administration and for this, he was alternatively ridiculed and ignored in the media. Journalists like the AP's Bob Parry quit their jobs after being repeatedly shut down by their editors. Some reporters, working on the ground in Central America, had even been subjected to police harassment and death threats for pursuing it. Webb was simply the most widely and maliciously maligned of these reporters to literally die for the story.<br><br>The recent history of American journalism is full of media scandals, from the fabulist fabrications of The New Republic's Stephen Glass and the New York Times's Jayson Blair to Judith Miller's credulous and entirely discredited reporting on Saddam Hussein's nonexistent weapons of mass destruction for the New York Times, which helped pave the way for the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Webb, despite his stubborn refusal to admit his own errors, hardly deserves to be held in such company. What truly distinguishes his fate is his how he was abandoned by his own employer in the face of unprecedented and ferocious attacks by the nation's major newspapers, the likes of which had never been seen before or occurred since.<br><br>The controversy over "Dark Alliance" forced Webb from journalism and ultimately led him to take his own life. Besides Webb, however, nobody else lost a job over the story—nobody at the CIA certainly, and not even any of Webb's editors, who happily published his work only to back away from it under withering media attacks before getting on with their lives and receiving promotions. Gary Webb's tragic fate, and the role of America's most powerful newspapers in ending his career, raises an important question about American journalism in an era where much of the public perceives the fourth estate as an industry in decline, a feckless broadcaster of White House leaks with a penchant for sensationalized, consumer-driven tabloid sex scandals.<br><br>Webb spent two decades uncovering corruption at all levels of power, at the hands of public officials representing all ideological facets of the political spectrum. Indeed, his very fearlessness in taking on powerful institutions and officials was an ultimately fatal character trait that nonetheless embodies the very sort of journalistic ethic that should be rewarded and celebrated in any healthy democratic society. In 2002, Webb reflected on his fall from grace in the book Into the Buzzsaw, a compendium of first-person accounts by journalists whose controversial stories ultimately pushed them from their chosen profession. His words are worth remembering now more than ever.<br><br>"If we had met five years ago, you wouldn't have found a more staunch defender of the newspaper industry than me," Webb concluded. "And then I wrote some stories that made me realize how sadly misplaced my bliss had been. The reason I'd enjoyed such smooth sailing for so long hadn't been, as I'd assumed, because I was careful and diligent and good at my job... The truth was that, in all those years, I hadn't written anything important enough to suppress." <p></p><i></i>
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1996-2000

Postby robertdreed » Tue Oct 10, 2006 11:18 pm

What I'm going to say will be ironic, in view of my recent posts that evince pronounced skepticism of fellow RI forum poster Hugh Manatee's choice of various examples that he interprets as evidence of "keyword hijacking" and "headline hijacking" due to a pervasive media conspiracy. <br><br>But back in the 1990s, as I observed the protracted monomaniacal focus by the news media on the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky affair, week after week, month after month, year after year- it occurred to me more than once that the continuing episodes of Monicagate quite possibly amounted to a concerted effort by the large media outlets of the U.S.A. to knock Gary Webb's story out of the pages of any newspaper and off of the television screens and the radio broadcast waves, and to keep it off, to bury it, and to deny it any follow-up. <br><br> I had already been witness to the sideshow known as "Whitewater", a fake scandal conveniently designed to take the place of the real one- big-time cocaine/arms smuggler Barry Seal's link to the Contra training camp and resupply airport at Mena, Arkansas, directed by Oliver North on orders from George Bush, and hosted by then-Governor Bill Clinton. There were enough Arkansans and other Americans who had been exposed to some of the blowback from that operation that it made a sort of inevitable sense that some sort of investigation would eventually unfold, as a way of mollifying them, to reassure them that the system works...<br><br>( Pay attention, you Clinton Democrats: Mena is real. I'm not part of any "right-wing conspiracy" to discredit Bill Clinton. I think he's the Benedict Arnold of American progressivism.)<br><br>...and then, to watch the Whitewater scandal turn into some string-along over nothing...<br><br>There was just enough needling innuendo by the Republicans to allow Clinton to cry foul- and, in the context of what was revealed, Whitewater did in fact amount to little more than petty harrassment. It was a food fight. No one was up for a real investigation into any part of the Whitewater evidence trail that led to Mena. <br><br>And then Gary Webb showed up. Gary Webb knew about the allegations surrounding Mena, and referenced it in his writing- not in the stories that he wrote for the <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>SJ Mercury-News</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->, but in the book he wrote afterward, Dark Alliance. (Award-winning biographer Roger Morris, who wrote the most balanced and revealing biography of the Clintons, Partners In Power, devoted a an entire chapter to Mena in his book. To judge from my personal reading, the Morris book is the most under-reviewed of all of the Clinton biographies- although I'd have to do some library reference book checking in a periodical index of book reviews, note the publications, and read all of the listed reviews of Partners In Power, to make certain of that objectively.)<br><br>In the strangely placid 8-year interregnum between Bush eras known as the Clinton Era, Webb's Dark Alliance series was the only domestic news story of national importance that carried any unpredictable impact. In fact, in retrospect it was perhaps the biggest ingress of novelty to breach the facade of American politics since the Church Committee hearings. <br><br>In the era following Watergate and the Church hearings, there have been only two stories ever covered by the American media that have come close to pulling the lid off and revealing a pattern of ongoing government misconduct and political corruption at the highest levels- Iran-Contra, and <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>Dark Alliance</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->. And the <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>Dark Alliance</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> series basically amounted to a renewed exploration of the most damning aspects of the Iran-Contra affair, which had been whitewashed by "investigating committees" of both houses of the Congress back in the 1980s. <br><br>And it got replaced by All Monicagate, All The Time. For years on end. A nonsensical sideshow, predictable from the outset- as if the large media outlets of the country were united in their determination to do anything to keep from covering real news, and anything to avoid considering questions that might prove embarrassing or troubling- or worse- to the pillars of political power in this country. <br><br>Not only that, but they told the American people that their saturation coverage of the story was due to popular demand, that Americans were so utterly enthralled by every minute update in the case that it had to remain the lead-off storyon every network for weeks and months and years on end. <br><br>In actuality, most Americans simply found themselves surrounded by the story, blaring from every popular media channel. After the first few revelations, it even lacked prurient appeal. It was neither titillating or salacious. It was merely ubiquitous. Even after tedium, repetition, and ennui set in, it was still ubiquitous. It was a trivial personal scandal, and the conclusion was foregone. Anyone who could count should have seen from the outset that the pretentious, saber-rattling inquisition mounted by the Republicans could never have successfully removed Clinton from office. Every iota of breathless suspense in the Monicagate reportage rang hollow. <br><br>And for roughly the entire last four years of Clinton's term in office, the implict message from the major media was that there wasn't a single more newsworthy story in the entire country than that petty partisan pillow fight between the Democratic legions enlisted by Clinton to stand by his lying ass, and the Republican Inquisition led by Prosecutor Ken Starr, who incidentally also held the official position most able to pursue a Federal inquiry into whether there might have been anything worth investigating about some mysterious goings-on during the 1980s at a little old airfield in Mena, Arkansas.<br><br>I found the timing suspicious. <br><br>Remember Gary Webb. <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=robertdreed>robertdreed</A> at: 10/10/06 11:07 pm<br></i>
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Re: 1996-2000

Postby Hugh Manatee Wins » Wed Oct 11, 2006 12:06 am

HTML Comments are not allowed <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=hughmanateewins>Hugh Manatee Wins</A> at: 10/11/06 12:24 am<br></i>
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2001-2025

Postby robertdreed » Wed Oct 11, 2006 12:40 am

Another thing to remember is that there's a basic bias in most all of the members of the established political power elite to consider the collective citizenry- "the masses"- as nothing but a source of instability and disruption.<br><br>According to projections by the U.S. Census Bureau and other demographers, the United States is on track to add <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>another 100 million people in the next 20-30 years.</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->.<br><br>Correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I've been able to determine, there isn't even a hint of anything like the massive upgrading of infrastructure required to take on that many people and maintain a First World standard of living for this nation. I'm talking about mass transit, water works, power plants, bridge and tunnel maintenance and renovation, soil conservation, energy conservation, health care facilities, child care, nursing and assisted care homes and living situations, maintaining literacy, educational opportunity, a healthy job climate without a huge surplus population of unemployed or poverty wage workers...the only program I know of that targets infrastructure is Bush's huge multi-billion highway upgrade bill. Which I don't doubt is needed...but what about the rest of the items I listed? <br><br>Instead, what appears to pass as their proposed solution to the problems of a USA with a population of 400 million is...a security state. A police state, with a military authorized to act as an organized armed force to deal with the disruptive forces that they view as inevitable. And, given the denial and neglect of the infrastructure, and the failure to raise and spend the revenue needed to refurbish and maintain it- between the tax cuts and overseas wars and military occupations, there isn't enough to maintain a decent infrastructure for the people here already over the next 20 years, to say nothing of the anticipated extra 100 million- I'd say that their projections of civil disruption make perfect sense. <br><br>Perfect Crackpot Realist sense, given that it's their refusal to build for the future that is putting parts of the USA on track for a spectrum of calamities ranging from another Dust Bowl to urban shanty towns rife with paramilitary criminal gangs. And if the sea levels rise to the point where salt water begins getting into the water mains and plumbing of New York City- run a search on terms like "salt water intrusion" and "New York City" some time- the Hurricane Katrina disaster will look like an upscale summer camp in comparison. <br><br>Thus far, the answer of the Establishment think-tankers (most all of them owning at least 2 "summer residences", in addition to the homes near their places of professional communing) appears to be- more armed guards. And fewer rights for that looming menace, "the common people." <br><br>The Terrorist Threat is a mere pretense, to accumulate the police powers that they're sure that they'll need in order to deal with a neo-feudalized, 3rd World U.S.A. For which they'll blame "immigrants", of course. They'll encourage native-born Americans to blame them, too. <br><br>Personally, I want much stricter controls on immigration. It's best for all concerned- because continued uncontrolled immigration will only lead to the increased stresses that will allow acceptance of a police state. Except that I don't think Mexicans count as immigrants. They're bi-nationals. Nothing against the rest of you- any citizen already here can stay. But no more bringing in entire families with "chain immigration." It's a matter of simple ecology. <br><br>That's me, tacking to the Right. If you're an ideologue, that is. Myself, I'm a pragmatist. Adding another 100 million people to this country in the next 20 years isn't likely to increase the quality of life for any American, whether native-born or fresh off the boat- except for those whose ideas of "increased quality of life" revolve around accumulating political power and control over "the masses." <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=robertdreed>robertdreed</A> at: 10/10/06 11:00 pm<br></i>
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Re: 2001-2025

Postby Dreams End » Wed Oct 11, 2006 1:14 am

rdr, that was an eloquent post about Webb. And no worries about the Clinton comment. There was never a progressive bone in his body...any true progressive knows this.<br><br>I was a bit curious about this article, however. I was surprised, for example, that despite the large number of details surrounding Webb's death, the seemingly interesting detail that there were two shots and not one, was left out. <br><br>And the odd comment from the coroner that he was sure it was suicide because there were bruises on the fingers. That also seemed odd to me. Wouldn't powder residue be more conclusive? Has anyone else heard of these "will to live" bruises before?<br><br>And he didn't want his suicide to discourage his son's pursuit of a career in journalism? Given his life experiences, that almost sounded like a sick joke. I lost my job, lost my career and ended my life because of it...but besides that, journalism is a heckuva career.<br><br>I also wonder if in the book, Schou at least addresses concerns by fans of web that this was an assassination. Has anyone read it?<br><br>I found this in an earlier piece by Schou at the Orange County Weekly. I also found it odd. <br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>That was creepy. Creepier still was discovering from Webb the story of reporter Danny Casolero. In 1991, Casolero was investigating Iran-contra-era covert operations in California. Among his potential contacts were Lafrance and one of the ex-spooks with whom I’d spoken. Casolero never got to put his story to bed: he was discovered dead in the bathtub of a West Virginia hotel room in 1991. Noting several deep wounds in Casolero’s forearms, the coroner ruled it suicide. But then as now, widespread speculation of CIA hitmen followed. It was easier for some to believe a tale of assassination than to accept the more mundane possibility of a struggling freelance writer, doggedly pursuing the story of his life, now reaching the end of his dwindling financial and psychological resources.<br><br>As far as I know, Webb didn’t have an opinion on Casolero’s death. But he thought it noteworthy the covert operations Casolero had chased led to some of the same characters I had interviewed about Lister—a weird coincidence Webb would mention in his 1998 book, Dark Alliance. But Casolero’s wasn’t the only odd suicide involving Webb’s story. Back in the late 1980s, a federal prosecutor probing the Dark Alliance drug ring in Los Angeles had been found in his car, apparently after shooting himself. Shortly after leaving the San Jose Mercury News, Webb asked me to run up to LA to find and mail him the death certificate, just to make sure it described the agent’s gunshot wound as self-inflicted. It did.<br><!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.ocweekly.com/news/news/kill-the-messenger/19320/">link</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br><hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>Anyone else finding these articles odd? <p></p><i></i>
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Re: 2001-2025

Postby bvonahsen » Wed Oct 11, 2006 1:37 am

<!--EZCODE FONT START--><span style="color:maroon;"><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>"The U.S. government should seek to have the legal authorities and the capability to monitor—physically and electronically—any group and their potential state sponsors that might justifiably be considered to have a motive and capability to use weapons of mass destruction. The U.S. government should be able to do all that can reasonably be done to detect any use or deployment of such weapons anywhere in the world, by utilizing remote sensing technology and by strengthening and evaluating worldwide sources of information. These would include clandestine collection, open sources such as foreign newspapers and journals or the Internet, and would include better-organized exchanges with key allies and other like-minded states.<br><br><br>And here these spooks tell themselves that Americans would be perfectly happy with a police-state."</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--></span><!--EZCODE FONT END--><br><br>It says nothing of the kind Hugh. You see what you want to see in this. All they are talking about is "strengthening and evaluating worldwide sources of information". They are not talking about turning the US into a police state. You are misreading it. I am sure that they considered the FISA courts to be more than adequate, most people then did. In fact, none of the passeges you cite say what you want them to say. You are inserting your own issues into this document and seeing things that are not there.<br><br>Nor is it surprizing that they could foresee an attack like 9-11. Just about everyone with a brain could see that another attempt on the US was inevitable. Alarms were going off all across the government during the summer of 2001. They could tell something was comming. It was the asshats in the Bush admin, especially Ashcroft, who ignored the warning signs. <p></p><i></i>
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Re: 2001-2025

Postby chiggerbit » Wed Oct 11, 2006 1:37 am

<!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>I was a bit curious about this article, however. I was surprised, for example, that despite the large number of details surrounding Webb's death, the seemingly interesting detail that there were two shots and not one, was left out.</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> <br><br>I've seen the disfiguration that is possible with attempted suicide gone wrong involving gunshot to the head/mouth. It happens.<br> <p></p><i></i>
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Re: bvonahsen's magical comment

Postby Hugh Manatee Wins » Wed Oct 11, 2006 2:07 am

<!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>You are misreading it. <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>I am sure that they </strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END-->considered the FISA courts to be more than adequate<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>Oh. You "are sure" of what they considered, ay? Well then!<br><br>Don't just skim a few excerpts. Read the whole thing and put it in in context.<br><br>Silly me for actually reading the whole damn thing and noting their barely euphemistic beaurocratic language <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>for what they actually did three years later, shred the Constitution and commence mass domestic surveillance.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br>Why do you suppose they noted a disillusionment with civic government and a reverence for the military at the same time they are saying 'we really need to go all Robo-cop' on Americans with total surveillance and 'adjustments' in civil rights?<br><br>The creation of consensus for the (un)Patriot Act was steam-rolling along well before Clinton mortally wounded habeas corpus in 1996. <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>And these people were making up justifications for altering the fundamental nature of our country just because something was bound to go boom.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br>What a build up of false-flag terror was the 1990s:<br>>The FBI's patsy terror of the 1993 WTC bombing, <br>>the inside job of the 1995 OKCity bombing, <br>>the 1996 'friendly fire' cover-up of shooting down TWA800 >followed rapidly by the very-likely 'friendly-fire' Atlanta Olympics bombing to cover for TWA800.<br><br>The writing was on the wall. Someone was going to "rid them of this priest" and they were following their script as only they only could not knowing whether the Big One would be done by friend or foe.<br><br>But they were acting on the clear message that the Constitution was 'fair game' now. I don't see how you can read WHO these people are and what they are saying out loud to each other and publishing in the CFR's journal (you do know what the CFR is, right?) and not see that.<br><br> <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=hughmanateewins>Hugh Manatee Wins</A> at: 10/11/06 12:14 am<br></i>
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Re: 2001-2025

Postby Dreams End » Wed Oct 11, 2006 2:08 am

It may happen, but then again, so do single shots to the head. My point was that he left it out of the article. He did refer to it in the other article, talking about the "conspiracy mill". We are SO wacky!<br><br>I can't find any reference to an L.A. prosecutor who shot himself in the eighties. be curious if anyone knew anything about this. <p></p><i></i>
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Re: 2001-2025

Postby rain » Wed Oct 11, 2006 2:22 am

hugh, look it's alright hun.<br>if they can't read the words, <br>they can look at the pretty pictures.<br><br><!--EZCODE IMAGE START--><img src="http://www.anomalous-images.com/DVADER.JPG" style="border:0;"/><!--EZCODE IMAGE END--><br><br>happy, happy,<br>joy, joy.<br> <p></p><i></i>
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Re: 2001-2025

Postby Dreams End » Wed Oct 11, 2006 2:40 am

Anyone seen the Gary Webb thread? It was around here someplace...I'm sure of it... <p></p><i></i>
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Re: The tangled Webb thread

Postby Hugh Manatee Wins » Wed Oct 11, 2006 3:02 am

I think it is damn odd that Webb didn't out the Mockingbird press when it turned on him. He should've known what it was and pecked right back citing the Church committee and Bernstein's 10/20/77 Rolling Stone article.<br><br>In a Webb speech he muses on how IranContra was worse than Watergate yet is puzzled by how the press refused to cover it.<br><br>Webb even tells the audience of how Robert Parry was hushed by a Newsweek editor and a general when he made the faux pas of bringing up the ongoing IranContral hearings over dinner. Webb says that Parry was brought into line and told "Some thing's are best for the public not to know" with nods all around the spooky elites.<br><br>So when the NYT, WP, LAT, all stayed silent for weeks and then chewed him up he should've known exactly what the 'mainstream media' was. It was the same people who run the drugs and knock over other countries.<br><br>Why didn't Webb get that? Exposing that would've had huge consequences for the public's perception of how they are controlled that dope-smuggling just doesn't impart. <p></p><i></i>
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Re: The tangled Webb thread

Postby bvonahsen » Wed Oct 11, 2006 3:58 am

<!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Why didn't Webb get that?<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>Because it's not real. Your perceptions of "what is" are mistaken. Not everything of course, just the all emcompassing paranoia you have that every single bit of culture, every movie and every TV show and every bit of music and every radio program and every newspaper article and every internet post is manipulated and controlled by the CIA. <br><br>It's an illness Hugh, you need help. <p></p><i></i>
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Re: Lisa Pease' account of Webb's funeral and suicide

Postby Hugh Manatee Wins » Thu Oct 12, 2006 4:28 am

(bvonahsen, I'll start another thread on CIA and media. You've utterly misrepresented my views. Utterly. That's a straw man and a waste of bandwith tantrum. But back to Webb.)<br><br>The question of whether Webb died at his own hand or someone else's has divided people for some time. Here's the most complete account of Webb's funeral I've found. It is someone else's posting of a Lisa Pease essay from her own website, Real History Archives.<br><br>Lisa says that what Webb's own familiy told her convinced her that it was suicide. Very specific notes to his kids, stuff like that.<br>Eric Hufschmid wrote a very accusative essay accusing Lisa Pease and Mike Ruppert of being 9/11 infiltrators and disruptors based on their views of Webb's death as being suicide.<br><br>Pease describes the two-shot scenario as being a first non-fatal shot through jaw and cheek followed by a shot through the brain.<br>Nasty but entirely possible. Pease is definitely on our side and her opinions seem genuine to me.<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.thiemeworks.com/blog/archives/2004/12/lisa_pease_desc.html">www.thiemeworks.com/blog/..._desc.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>December 23, 2004<br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Lisa Pease Describes Gary Webb's Memorial Service</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://realhistoryarchives.blogspot.com/">realhistoryarchives.blogspot.com/</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>Gary Webb's Memorial Service<br><br>This past Saturday, I woke at 6 AM and drove six hours through dense fog to reach Sacramento to attend the memorial service for Gary Webb.<br><br>I can’t put into words what Gary meant to me. In my lifetime, there have been only a few people I have truly admired and loved with all my heart. Gary was one of those people. But I knew what was important about him. He was a truth teller in the best tradition. He spent his life writing major exposes of government corruption long before his famous and, if I can say it, fatal Dark Alliance series.<br><br>I won’t rehash here the details of his research and the forces he challenged with that story. As most of you know, when I heard he had committed suicide, like so many, I found that nearly impossible to believe. I had met the guy twice, and he struck me as a lion of a man, with a huge, fighting spirit. I knew I had to attend the memorial, to hear from those closest to him what happened. I knew I’d have doubts if I didn’t. I had to see for myself.<br><br>I arrived about an hour early and headed for the room where the service was to be held. I did a double-take as I passed the elevator. A man who conveyed the essence of Gary Webb stood there, casually dressed. I kept moving so I wouldn’t stand and stare. I would see him again.<br><br>When I got to the door of the room where the service was to be held, I paused, not sure if I should enter yet or not. A few people were just starting to set up tables. I wasn’t even 100% sure I was in the right place. But then I saw Mike Ruppert, who had gotten there just ahead of me, and said hello. A lovely, delightful woman approached me and said she was Gary’s sister-in-law Diana Webb. I started to say something - who knows what, and even as I opened my mouth I started to cry. I apologized, saying I had promised myself I wouldn’t lose it, and Diana instantly made me at ease saying something like, don’t worry - everyone will be losing it today.<br><br>Diana asked for my name. When I told her, she said, “Lisa Pease! I loved your Emperor’s New Clothes piece!” I was both shocked and thrilled that she knew who I was. I had sent the family a condolence the night before, with a link to my blog, and Diana and Gary’s ex-wife Susan Bell had both read and loved my little satire. They felt it captured in a nutshell all that happened in that story. People who didn’t follow the unfolding attack on Gary won’t understand the piece. But they had lived through it, and recognized every nuance and reference. Diana told me excitedly that they had put memorial binders together of articles about Gary, and mine was the top piece, right in the front. I can’t tell you how moved I was by that. Other pieces in the binder were from Mike Ruppert, Peter Dale Scott, and several others.<br><br>I offered to help set up. I wanted to do what I could. His children had put together a couple of folding board displays of pictures of Gary from all parts of his life, including his book cover and their favorite magazine article, “The Pariah,” by Charles Bowden in Esquire. There were lovely arrangements of flowers that people had sent. And the awards. Gary had won so many awards over his career, from various organizations at various different newspapers. The biggest prize was a Pulitzer he shared with the rest of the San Jose Mercury News team for their coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake.<br><br>As I stood there, surrounded by reminders of his greatness, I felt all the more sad. It wasn’t just a fluke. It wasn’t my imagination. He had spent his whole journalistic career doing what all journalists should do, and so few EVER do, seeking out and telling not just truth, but really important truths, the kind of truths that could change people’s lives for the better. That’s who he was.<br><br>Along with the pictures and article references, there were some cartoons and other humorous pieces too. There was this little propaganda poster from a Kentucky paper he had once worked for, saying how they’d NEVER kill a story. There were Tom Tomorrow cartoons. But front and center, everywhere you looked, were the references to the Dark Alliance series. That was the key moment in his life. The moment after which everything he held dear slowly slipped away from him.<br><br>As I helped set up, I used that as my little personal time to honor the man, soaking up every last image, reading each award, conducting my own silent prayer for the soul of this lost man.<br><br>Suddenly, Susan Bell, Gary’s ex-wife, entered. She was a beautiful woman, remarkably pulled-together under the circumstances. She exuded calm at the moment. When Diana said “This is Lisa Pease,” Susan also recognized my name immediately. She thanked me for a condolence message I had e-mailed the night before, which she had read and appreciated so much she forwarded it to others. She asked me if I would read the Emperor’s New Clothes piece at the ceremony because she thought it told the story and might add a little levity to the ceremony. All his family at some point mentioned something about Gary’s great sense of humor. I remember when I first wrote it, I had sent a copy to Gary, and he had very much appreciated it. Of course I said yes.<br><br>The next person I met was the man I had passed at the elevator: Kurt Webb, Gary’s younger brother. They were only 13 months apart in age hence the resemblance. They don’t look that much alike, but the essence is there.<br><br>As each new person entered, Mike Ruppert quietly and quite delicately, I’ll add, asked all the appropriate questions, and pointed out the rumors that had been floating on the Internet. Each family member in turn confirmed yes, suicide, no question. Yes, there were two gunshots, but the first one so missed the brain that Gary had to shoot again. Yes, Gary had left a suicide note. When Ruppert mentioned some suggested the suicide note was a forgery, Susan’s eyes flew wide with shock, as she said there’s NO way that was a forgery. She said he had written each of his children a personal note. He had sent boxes to his Mother’s house, but she thought that was just temporary because he was moving. But he sent her things like his baby shoes, and so forth. He knew he wasn’t moving. He had had his motorcycle stolen, something he really loved, just prior. Sadly, the motorcycle was recovered, but Gary was not around to see it.<br><br>Kurt said early on and more than once, there’s nothing we can do or say now to bring him back. I’m sure the family all wonders why they didn’t see the signs, why they didn’t do more. But as Kurt described it to me, it was as if Gary was sinking into a vortex; there was nothing any of them could do to bring him back. From what I heard, Gary was seriously, perhaps even clinically depressed, but he never wanted to burden his family with that and would always put on a good show for them. He was a proud man who didn’t want to ask for help. But, as Diana said when she spoke about him, he was always there for others. When she had a cancer scare in her family, she had asked Gary to help her find out whatever he could. And like the true journalist he was, he went to the library and gave them the best information he could find.<br><br>I wish so much I had known he was hurting. I would have tried to help. I’m sure all of us who knew him or cared about him would have tried to help. And maybe all our help wouldn’t have been enough. We’ll never know.<br><br>Many people started arriving. Diana came in with a fax from Robert Parry. She said they had asked him to come and he said of course, but he had not allowed enough time to clear security and missed his flight. Instead, Parry sent a moving statement, which I had a copy of but may have left at work. He said that Gary Webb’s story was a tragic reminder that information is not a birthright. It has to be fought for, and sometimes even died for. It was incredibly powerful and eloquent and short, a miraculous combination. I’ll try to get another copy and will post on my blog for all to see.<br><br>One man came in who had never met Gary Webb or any of his family. He was one of the many who came solely because he wanted to honor the memory of the journalist who stood up and told the truth. I talked to him for a while, and when he asked my name, again it was, “Lisa Pease!” Turns out he had read the book Jim DiEugenio and I had put together, The Assassinations. The man had talked to his children about how unreliable the press was, and told me he had put together a list for them of “truthworthies” - those who could be trusted to tell the truth. He told me Gary and I were both on that list, which I took as a tremendous honor. I told his story to another man, a friend of Gary Webb’s that I talked to afterwards at the reception downstairs. That man asked, how can you tell who is reliable and who isn’t? I told him, learn any one really big and important news story in depth. Find out who is telling the truth and who is not. Then follow those people. People who tell the truth about the important stories tell the truth about other stories. People who lie about one important story will lie on another, and so on. He said, so it’s really about the people doing the reporting? Yes, I said. Another person standing by said, that’s really a good way to go about it. I hope people start paying attention to bylines. There are good people out there working to tell the truth, and then there are the others who are working to gain and preserve their position, which usually means not telling the truth.<br><br>The room could only hold about 300 people. It was packed - I’m sure we represented a fire hazard. People were lining the walls and sitting in the aisles, with more gathered in a herd just outside the side doors at the front and back of the room. As the crowd was gathering, I was off in a side hallway with a copy of the Emperor’s piece, reviewing it since I hadn’t read it in years. I noticed Gary’s brother standing nearby, looking so completely sad, so completely alone. I went over to him and said, I think you could use a hug. He answered, I think I could and I threw my arms around him and just held him. I felt his energy rush out of him like water running up the beach, but I kept holding him and his energy regathered, like water flowing back to the sea, and we broke and he regained his composure. He even was able to make a wry comment when I asked if he was the older or younger brother. He’s younger, by 13 months.<br><br>Kurt opened the ceremony. He talked of his brother as first, foremost, and always, a writer. He talked about how as kids they had gotten a play mimeograph machine, with rubber type blocks you could put in it to print out pages. Kurt wasn’t that into it, but Gary loved it, and put together little pages of print that he’d then proudly show to his parents. Gary knew his calling from the start. He wanted to be a reporter. In High School, he wrote up an editorial for his school paper criticizing the drill team for putting women in military uniforms and changing their batons to guns and flags. The cheerleaders were outraged, and Gary’s newspaper advisor suggested he apologize. Why should I apologize for expressing an opinion, Gary had asked. He never did apologize.<br><br>He was nearly through school when he had to drop out, but managed to get a mentor at a local paper and learned the ropes from the inside. He threw himself into his work, not content to just be a stenographer, but to seek out the story behind the story. All he ever wanted to be was a writer. And above all, Kurt said, Gary always wanted to seek out and tell the truth.<br><br>When Gary worked on the Dark Alliance story, he spent months working nights and weekends, staring at pages deep into the night, going to libraries, talking to people. He was tenacious and persistent. He knew this was an important story. He never gave a second thought to whether this was a good use of his time. This was what he was born to do, and he did it.<br><br>As Kurt wrapped up, he asked that people refrain from any political statements, that people could talk about that below. But in a few minutes, he found himself lashing out at the Los Angeles Times for their horrible obituary of Gary Webb. The whole family, at various points while I was there, expressed their pain at that story. It was as if the LA Times just had to try to prove themselves right again by proving Webb wrong. But they aren’t, and they can’t. Never could.<br><br>Susan Bell spoke next. She spoke very briefly, and was clearly overcome with emotion. I had seen her at the start of the day where she was remarkably calm. But not long before the ceremony began, she told me she had just seen Gary’s parents for the first time since his death, and all the emotion just came flooding back.<br><br>The children spoke next. Ian, the oldest at 21, spoke first. I don’t remember his comments because I was so caught up in the pain I felt for his loss. Eric, the second one, spoke next. In Gary’s note to Eric, he said he hoped he would be the one to follow in his footsteps. I do remember a part of 16 year-old Eric’s statement. Eric said he had never realized what an important man his father was, what he had meant to so many people. Christine, the youngest of his children, read a poem she had written to her father. I remember something from the last line, something like, you were right there in the car, in the seat next to me a moment ago. I can’t believe you’re gone. It was utterly heartbreaking.<br><br>Diana Webb spoke next, talking about Gary the brother-in-law, the friend who was always there for others. Diana also read Parry’s moving statement which I simply must find again.<br><br>Mike Ruppert was next, with statements from Peter Dale Scott, Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, and others. He movingly spoke of how Gary Webb’s stories had essentially saved his own life, how he had at one point stuck a gun in his own mouth, but had felt so vindicated and revived by Gary’s outing of the whole CIA-drugs connection that it gave him renewed vigor. “It was as if Gary took the gun out of my mouth and put it in his.” At the end of his presentation, he talked of how, in Central America revolutionary movements, when a comrade falls, and roll is called, all who remain call out “presente” when the dead man’s name is called to signify his presence and to scare the oppressors. He asked the crowd to join him. He called Gary’s name, and the crowd yelled back, loudly and firmly, “PRESENTE.”<br><br>I spoke next. I opened by saying when I go to fill out forms, there’s always that spot where they ask for religious affiliation. I always want to check the box that isn’t there, the one marked simply, “truth.” The truth is my religion, and I said Gary Webb had just become a saint in my church. I then went on to read the Emperor’s New Clothes story. It got a few chuckles and a few people came up to me afterwards to say they enjoyed that.<br><br>After I spoke, a Chinese FBI-CIA man spoke in a rambling way about having done things he wasn’t proud of, but how Gary Webb had saved his life. Others spoke beautifully of various aspects of Gary. One woman, a fellow reporter, said, what we haven’t talked much about here yet was Gary the man. He was the smartest person I knew. He could do ANYTHING. He could take a $500 computer and upgrade it to a $3000 one. He could take a car apart and put it back together again. He could do ANYTHING.<br><br>Another woman introduced herself as a screenwriter from Los Angeles who had been working on a script for Dark Alliance. She, as were most of the speakers, was barely able to talk through her tears, saying he was her hero and she was devastated by his loss, and that his story needs to be told. I had thought the same thing on my long drive up from Los Angeles - his is truly a moving, compelling story of a genuine hero. The story needs to be told.<br><br>One young man got up to say, Webb was the first reporter to get up and speak for his community (he was African American), and how grateful he was, and how surprised and thrilled he had been to see a big-time reporter take up the fight on his behalf.<br><br>Another man was a hockey friend of his, and said that Gary didn’t know how to put on the brakes when skating, or in life. Whatever he did, he did it full out. He never could put on the brakes.<br><br>The ceremony ended with a video presentation the children had put together on the computer, projected onto a screen. It had music and pictures and headlines, summing up the too short, amazing, sweet and sorrowful life of their father.<br><br>At that, the ceremony adjourned, and everyone moved to a reception hall on the floor below. I met up there with fellow Kennedy researcher Doug DeSalles, who lives in Sacramento and who had interviewed Gary Webb for his radio show in years past. Doug had planned to interview him again the following week until he found out the shocking news of Gary’s death.<br><br>A woman in a lovely hat came up and introduced herself. It was Virginia McCullough, keeper of the Mae Brussell files! I told her the Walter Pincus “How I Traveled Abroad On CIA Subsidy” article I gave Gary in the early days after Pincus’ attack came from Mae’s files. I had never met Virginia in person, although we knew of each other, had many friends in common, and had talked on the phone once. She became the recipient of the files shortly after my visit to them. She’s still trying to find a home for the amazing collection but most places want to break it up and she wants someone to take it all as one big piece. It was really nice to finally meet her. She was there with her husband and a friend who I think was a publicist - all nice people. By then I felt literally faint and realized it had been about six hours since I had eaten anything, so I grabbed some food. But I still felt just horrible. I’d been crying for hours and my face just hurt. Diana Webb had invited me to join the family in the bar, but I just needed to lie down and let the swelling from the tears subside for a bit. (Decongestants help, I discovered.) I had told Doug it was my birthday and he offered to buy me dinner on the occasion. That was nice. I needed a break from all the sorrow and Doug is always interesting.<br><br>So that was it. I returned to my hotel room (I stayed at the Doubletree, where the ceremony was held) and then rose and drove the six hours home the next day.<br><br>I hear there’s going to be another memorial service right here in Los Angeles. I hope anyone who can possibly make it here will show up for that. He was one of a nearly extinct breed - a true journalist. He deserves all the honor we can shower upon him.<br><br>Lisa Pease<br>12/21/04<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://realhistoryarchives.blogspot.com/">realhistoryarchives.blogspot.com/</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--> <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=hughmanateewins>Hugh Manatee Wins</A> at: 10/12/06 2:31 am<br></i>
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Re: Lisa Pease' account of Webb's funeral and suicide

Postby Dreams End » Thu Oct 12, 2006 3:18 pm

That's an awfully convincing account from someone who seems, from all I can find out, to be trustworthy. (I'm referring to the "it wasn't suicide" part). I still say that Ruppert's outrage that anyone would question this motive was disingenuous...of course we would question. <br><br>And also, even if Gary did pull the trigger...and even if he wasn't intentionally provoked to do so...he was still a victim. <br><br>Still, I will keep an open mind. I imagine our intel folks are pretty adept at making a suicide look quite real..that would be the point, wouldn't it. Sure, they are sometimes sloppy...as with David Kelly...(though it didn't matter), but I quoted from another article by schou that mentioned a Prosecutor involved in Dark Alliance stuff who also shot himself in the head. Looks like no one questioned that except Gary Webb himself, who asked for a copy fo the death certificate.<br><br>Other takes on this? Is this case closed on Webb as far as direct assassination?<br> <p></p><i></i>
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