Gary Webb and the Dark Alliance Scandal

Mysteriously found with two gunshot wounds to the head in his own home in Carmichael, California, Gary Webb, one of the U.S.’s most assertive dissenting reporters was dead at 49.

Whether or not Webb did indeed kill himself still remains in question, however, Webb was likely in a difficult position in the face of the notoriety he acquired through his pioneering and highly controversial journalism.

Webb’s troubles began some eight years prior when his then employer, the San Jose Mercury News published a groundbreaking, three-part investigation called “Dark Alliance: The Story Behind the Crack Explosion”.

Webb essentially reported that the CIA-backed Contra rebels in Nicaragua who were fighting a proxy war for the U.S. government, were also involved in trafficking cocaine into the U.S. in order to fund their own counter-revolutionary campaign against the Sandinista government.

The smuggling of Contra drugs into the U.S. resulted in an explosion of crack cocaine abuse that devastated vulnerable black neighborhoods in Southern California.

Webb’s coverage, although initially well received, would eventually lead to a personal crisis for the journalist.

Initially well received by the media, the Dark Alliance series of articles became a PR disaster for the CIA.

What was perceived by the CIA as a “genuine public relations crisis” was eventually conveniently rescued as leading publications of the mainstream media including the New York Times, LA Times and other leading corporate newspapers slowly discredited Webb in a manner that was inconsistent with the greater truth of what Webb wrote.

This subsequent backlash eventually cost Webb his career in journalism.