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The Character Assassination of Gary Webb Pt. 2 · Conspiracy! The Show

0:10
Speaker 1: Welcome to Conspiracy The Show, the world's most trusted conspiracy
0:16
Speaker 1: dairy podcast, with your hosts Adam Todd Brown and Olivia Hidar.
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Speaker 2: Hey, everybody, welcome to Conspiracy the Show. I'm Adam Todd
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Speaker 2: Brown and I'm Olivia Hidar. Keeping Olivia on her toes.
0:43
Speaker 2: I know, how's it going.
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Speaker 3: It's not bad, it's not bad. I'm kind of in
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Speaker 3: like one of my hyped up liminal states because I'm
0:52
Speaker 3: about to go see Nope later, and so that's like,
0:55
Speaker 3: that's just kind of on my mind at all times. Yeah,
0:58
Speaker 3: very excited.
1:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was going to go see it this evening,
1:02
Speaker 2: but where I live, the timing coincides with the January
1:08
Speaker 2: sixth Committee probably lying vociferously to the American public in
1:14
Speaker 2: primetime tonight about the events of January sixth, twenty twenty one. Yeah,
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Speaker 2: that's I'm going to watch that horror movie first and
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Speaker 2: then I will go see Nope in the morning.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's gonna be interesting. Are we gonna do an
1:29
Speaker 3: episode on that? I mean we did one back like
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Speaker 3: in January eighth, I remember we did an episode about
1:36
Speaker 3: the whole thing.
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Speaker 2: But yeah, probably wouldn't be a bad idea. I very
1:40
Speaker 2: uncharacteristically have not been watching most of the January sixth testimony.
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Speaker 3: It just it seems like such a bummer.
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Speaker 2: It does. And also, like, what what's happening tonight is
1:53
Speaker 2: what I want? I just want to hear, like I
1:56
Speaker 2: want the summary.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, cliff notes please.
2:00
Speaker 2: Of it coincided with Wimbledon, and I'm a big tennis guy,
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Speaker 2: so I was getting up five o'clock in the morning
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Speaker 2: to watch Rafael and Nadal.
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Speaker 3: Of course he's going to get your wimble on, yeah,
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Speaker 3: before you can.
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Speaker 2: Get my wimble on at Wimbledon. So we are back
2:15
Speaker 2: to talking about Gary Webb. This is we're doing two
2:19
Speaker 2: free episodes in a row because it just made more sense.
2:22
Speaker 2: On next week's bonus episode, we're reviewing the movie version
2:26
Speaker 2: of this story, which is twenty fourteen's Kill the Messenger
2:31
Speaker 2: starring Jeremy Renner. Unlikely leading man Jeremy Renner, but he's
2:37
Speaker 2: such a good actor.
2:38
Speaker 3: Yeah, Jerry Renner. You might know him from the Renner app.
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Speaker 2: Yes, exclusively. Well, I know it mostly as a musician.
2:45
Speaker 2: I was surprised to see him. Yeah, take up acting
2:48
Speaker 2: in this film exactly. We're talking about that next week.
2:52
Speaker 2: As for this week, we're getting back to the Gary
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Speaker 2: Webb story, and now we're really getting into the conspiracy
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Speaker 2: part of the story, I would argue, which is the
3:02
Speaker 2: mainstream media response to this, which was insane. Yes, it
3:09
Speaker 2: was a disservice. Basically, like, this was such a huge story.
3:13
Speaker 2: Even if Gary Webb didn't exactly nail every detail, maybe
3:17
Speaker 2: if he employed a little hyperbole, Sure, all of those
3:20
Speaker 2: things happened, but also the things he's talking about in
3:23
Speaker 2: this story happened.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the thing. Like, we're gonna this is something
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Speaker 3: we'll dig deeper into as we talk about it. But like,
3:31
Speaker 3: one of the biggest takeaways from the reaction to the
3:36
Speaker 3: Dark Allion series is that none of the rebuttal pieces
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Speaker 3: really ever investigated his allegations. It was all about criticizing
3:49
Speaker 3: his investigation, not looking into the actual things that he
3:54
Speaker 3: was investigating.
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Speaker 2: Right as we get into each outlet's individual reaction, there's
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Speaker 2: some cases where there were reporters at that outlet who
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Speaker 2: were like, actually, this is something there's like parts to
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Speaker 2: this that we should follow up on, and some of
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Speaker 2: those outlets just ignored that, And we're like, but would
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Speaker 2: the CIA lie to us? It's like the CIA will
4:15
Speaker 2: lie to anyone all the time.
4:18
Speaker 3: Absolutely never trust the CIA.
4:20
Speaker 2: Speaking of the CIA, will link to two different articles
4:23
Speaker 2: in the show notes that both do a really good
4:27
Speaker 2: job covering the media response to this story. One of
4:31
Speaker 2: them is a nineteen ninety seven article by a writer
4:33
Speaker 2: named Peter Cornblue writing for the Columbia Journalism Review, and
4:38
Speaker 2: that article came out about five months after Dark Alliance,
4:42
Speaker 2: so it's everything is still fresh in American minds when
4:47
Speaker 2: that article is written, and it's one of the few
4:50
Speaker 2: from I mean Columbia Journalism Review. It's not The New
4:52
Speaker 2: York Times, but it's also not nothing, and they were
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Speaker 2: one of the first outlets to not only point out
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Speaker 2: that web's accusations or allegations in the story we're worth exploring,
5:04
Speaker 2: but also to kind of take to task the media
5:07
Speaker 2: response to it. So that's an interesting article. Also very
5:11
Speaker 2: interesting a twenty fourteen article by The Intercept Yes, which
5:17
Speaker 2: will link to both of those. In September twenty fourteen,
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Speaker 2: the CIA released a bunch of documents about various operations
5:25
Speaker 2: from the three previous decades, and one of those documents,
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Speaker 2: which is the basis of this Intercept article, was a
5:34
Speaker 2: previously unreleased six page article from the agency's in house
5:39
Speaker 2: journal called Studies and Intelligence. Just the fact that this
5:43
Speaker 2: thing exists. Yeah, Like it's hard to think about the
5:47
Speaker 2: CIA like that they're so secretive. But also there's like
5:50
Speaker 2: a fucking popular mechanics for the CIA that you can
5:53
Speaker 2: subscribe to if you work there.
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Speaker 3: I wonder if you can get a subscription to this journal.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I wonder how many they've released, because
6:04
Speaker 2: there was for a long time this magazine that was
6:09
Speaker 2: basically just a critique of the CIA. It was a
6:12
Speaker 2: former CIA agent who put it out, and at one
6:15
Speaker 2: point the CIA just put all of those issues of
6:18
Speaker 2: that magazine up on their website.
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Speaker 3: I yeah, I remember, We've talked about.
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Speaker 2: That, which is such a brazen move. But there is
6:26
Speaker 2: the one the one issue. Did I call them episodes
6:30
Speaker 2: last time? I don't know, But there is the one
6:33
Speaker 2: issue of that magazine that they have still kept classified.
6:38
Speaker 2: And I remember I found it on a website on
6:41
Speaker 2: the internet where you can just like read it. You
6:43
Speaker 2: can check it out for an hour. If that gives
6:45
Speaker 2: anyone a hint as to where to find it. But
6:47
Speaker 2: I was like, should I have been able to find this? Yeah?
6:50
Speaker 2: Is this legal? But it's also not interesting enough to
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Speaker 2: do an episode about. So I don't give a fuck.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, I feel like, yeah, a lot of these things,
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Speaker 3: like they sound like there should be a lot of
7:02
Speaker 3: meat there, but it's really just a lot of smoke
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Speaker 3: screen and kind of you know, boring shit in there.
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Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, the CIA is still a workplace. At
7:11
Speaker 2: the end of the day. There's gonna be like bulletins
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Speaker 2: about potlucks and shit. I don't care whose birthday it is.
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Speaker 3: No, you can't. You can't have birthdays in the newsletter
7:21
Speaker 3: that's classified, well.
7:23
Speaker 2: The birthdays, but they're still redacted, right, these three black
7:26
Speaker 2: squares slash these data. So this in house journal it's
7:33
Speaker 2: called Studies and Intelligence. The article in it is called
7:36
Speaker 2: Managing a Nightmare CIA Public Affairs and the drug conspiracy story.
7:44
Speaker 2: And one of the saddest things it reveals is that
7:49
Speaker 2: the CIA didn't have to do all that much to
7:51
Speaker 2: put this story down. They already had pre existing relationships. Yeah.
7:57
Speaker 2: The author of the article, Nicholas Duomovich, who was a
8:00
Speaker 2: CIA staffer at the time, calls it quote a ground
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Speaker 2: base of already productive relations with journalists and quote, and
8:09
Speaker 2: that alone really tempered the reaction to this story. There
8:14
Speaker 2: were just some outlets that were like, yeah, I trust
8:16
Speaker 2: the CIA when they say this didn't happen, so we're
8:20
Speaker 2: not going to touch this story. Cool, which I mean,
8:25
Speaker 2: this is nineteen ninety six when this happened. There's no
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Speaker 2: way that's not still happening.
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Speaker 3: Right, No, absolutely not, No, this is I don't get
8:34
Speaker 3: the sense that anything has changed from time, you know,
8:40
Speaker 3: if anything, it's gotten worse since nine to eleven.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, the two examples I use all the time from
8:46
Speaker 2: recent history that I don't know if we've even covered
8:50
Speaker 2: either of them on this podcast, which is weird. I
8:52
Speaker 2: know we've talked about them on Pops. But there were
8:54
Speaker 2: two different stories. One was almost exclusively reported by Yahoo
9:00
Speaker 2: News and not at all followed up by The New
9:04
Speaker 2: York Times, Washington Post, any of them. But it was
9:06
Speaker 2: a story about how the US Postal Inspection Service one
9:10
Speaker 2: of the things they do now is monitor social media
9:14
Speaker 2: accounts for inflammatory posts or things that could, you know,
9:20
Speaker 2: turn into a problem.
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Speaker 3: Cool, And people hear that and the first.
9:23
Speaker 2: Thing they think is the US Postal Inspection Service? Who
9:27
Speaker 2: is that? The Post Office has cops And they're good,
9:29
Speaker 2: They're really good. They are one of our better intelligence
9:33
Speaker 2: agencies and they're one of their main roles now is
9:37
Speaker 2: monitoring your social media and that was only reported by
9:41
Speaker 2: Yahoo News, which is nuts. Yeah, And then there was
9:44
Speaker 2: another story about how the Department of Defense, over the
9:48
Speaker 2: past I think like ten years or so, has been
9:51
Speaker 2: compiling this network of American spies that are spying on Americans,
9:59
Speaker 2: like they're setting up fake personas online and infiltrating industries,
10:05
Speaker 2: like I guarantee some of them are La comics. There's
10:07
Speaker 2: no fucking way that's not the case. And there's something
10:12
Speaker 2: like thirty thousand of them, which is more undercover operatives
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Speaker 2: than the CIA has. Yeah, and they're all operating domestically,
10:19
Speaker 2: And that was only reported by Newsweek, right, How is
10:22
Speaker 2: that not? And it's not like it wasn't a Gary
10:26
Speaker 2: Web thing where they where Newsweek heard about this from
10:30
Speaker 2: a dude in a prison in Nicaramua, right right, right,
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Speaker 2: like they had proof of this, Like this was just
10:37
Speaker 2: a thing that leaked, right and no one touched it
10:41
Speaker 2: but Newsweek and that, Like again, I say it all
10:45
Speaker 2: the time, they're not necessarily the enemy of the people.
10:49
Speaker 2: But the mainstream media also doesn't do us a ton
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Speaker 2: of favors in situations like this.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, it was, especially when it comes to American intelligence agencies.
11:02
Speaker 2: American intelligence agencies or American corporations that spread around a
11:07
Speaker 2: lot of advertising money.
11:09
Speaker 3: Yeah.
11:10
Speaker 2: McDonald's, for example, McDonald's the target of the first me
11:14
Speaker 2: too action against an American corporation. Remember hearing about that
11:18
Speaker 2: in the mainstream news. No didn't get reported.
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Speaker 3: No, And like, you know, then we'd have things like
11:26
Speaker 3: the story that inspired the movie The Insider about the
11:29
Speaker 3: you know, the tobacco companies like that, that was like
11:32
Speaker 3: a whole controversy. Like these these things are easy to swing,
11:36
Speaker 3: you know, like it's easy. There's there's a vested interest
11:40
Speaker 3: in a lot of these institutions to keep certain things
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Speaker 3: from public.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, And it seems like in the case of Gary Webb,
11:50
Speaker 2: when it wasn't just straight up government boot licken, a
11:53
Speaker 2: lot of the response came down to jealousy. Yeah, because
11:57
Speaker 2: this was the San Jose Mercury News, which which I
12:00
Speaker 2: mean San Jose is not the smallest city. They have
12:03
Speaker 2: a hockey franchise, for fuck's sake.
12:06
Speaker 3: It's a very large local daily newspaper. But it's still
12:11
Speaker 3: a local daily newspaper. It's not the La Times, it's
12:16
Speaker 3: not you know, it's not even the Sacramento be It's
12:19
Speaker 3: it's like much smaller.
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Speaker 2: Yeah. And when you think about how it was published,
12:25
Speaker 2: the La Times especially got scooped in their own backyard,
12:29
Speaker 2: Like this story happened in La La and San Francisco
12:32
Speaker 2: and they got scooped. But also, if you were on
12:37
Speaker 2: Jeopardy right now and the question came up, what California
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Speaker 2: news outlet was the first to simultaneously publish a major
12:46
Speaker 2: investigative piece online and in print, your answer would probably
12:51
Speaker 2: be the La Times if you were guessing.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, or like the New York Times or something like.
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Speaker 2: I said, California, Olivia. Pay attention to the question.
13:00
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
13:01
Speaker 2: This is why you're not gonna win in Final Jeopardy.
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Speaker 3: You're right, we've been over this. It's actually exactly why.
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Speaker 2: But you would think it would be the La Times
13:12
Speaker 2: that would be on the cutting edge of some shit
13:13
Speaker 2: like ours, But they got scooped in that way too.
13:16
Speaker 2: It was the San Jose Mercury News. And Yeah, to
13:20
Speaker 2: quote Gary Webb at the time, you don't have to
13:23
Speaker 2: be the New York Times or the Washington Post to
13:25
Speaker 2: bust a national story anymore. Yeah, And this is the
13:30
Speaker 2: first story that proved that, and they did not take
13:34
Speaker 2: kindly to it at all.
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Speaker 3: No, yeah, no. And the other big thing is he
13:38
Speaker 3: published his sources online as well, which refuge that nobody
13:43
Speaker 3: had literally no one had ever done that before, and
13:46
Speaker 3: no one really knew how to react to that. And yeah,
13:49
Speaker 3: there just was very quickly a kind of concerted effort
13:54
Speaker 3: to discredit these stories without really much considered for whether
14:01
Speaker 3: or not they might be true.
14:02
Speaker 2: Right, And you're right that it happened very quickly, but
14:06
Speaker 2: only after these outlets were kind of forced to respond. Yeah,
14:12
Speaker 2: because the first thing that happens, if you read the
14:15
Speaker 2: Columbia Journalism Review article, the first thing it mentions is
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Speaker 2: that Gary Webb was really surprised by how little attention
14:23
Speaker 2: this story got at first, Like it was, as we
14:26
Speaker 2: mentioned on the last episode, like African American media outlets
14:31
Speaker 2: right really latched onto it for obvious reasons, but beyond that,
14:36
Speaker 2: like The Washington Post, New York Times, things like that,
14:40
Speaker 2: they didn't really pay attention to it. They were just
14:43
Speaker 2: eventually forced.
14:44
Speaker 3: To write because the people who were most affected by
14:49
Speaker 3: the contents of the story were rightly outraged by what
14:53
Speaker 3: they were reading and kind of made it a bigger
14:56
Speaker 3: deal than it otherwise might have been.
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Speaker 2: Right, And so then they finally swing into action, and
15:03
Speaker 2: like we've mentioned, instead of following up on Gary Webb's claims,
15:07
Speaker 2: they just one writer for The La Times described it
15:11
Speaker 2: as the get Gary Webb team. Yes, the La Times
15:14
Speaker 2: assembled a team of seventeen people just to look into
15:19
Speaker 2: his reporting, not to look into the claims he reported on.
15:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, which is wild.
15:26
Speaker 2: That's insane.
15:27
Speaker 3: That's like, that's kind of hard to even fathom. Like,
15:32
Speaker 3: seventeen people all working to discredit this one story is
15:38
Speaker 3: kind of insane. And like most of these outlets, like
15:42
Speaker 3: the Washington Post, I think was the first place to
15:44
Speaker 3: really push back, and you know, so much of their
15:48
Speaker 3: claim is like, well, his sources are like criminals and
15:52
Speaker 3: these shitty dudes, like no one who's really like reputable,
15:58
Speaker 3: but all of their sources are the fucking Yeah. I
16:01
Speaker 3: don't understand how that when you're talking about a story
16:04
Speaker 3: that puts the CIA in a negative light. I don't
16:09
Speaker 3: understand how a CIA source has more credibility on this subject.
16:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the same thing that came up in the
16:18
Speaker 2: Ruth Payne episode about JFK conspiracy theorists and the people
16:24
Speaker 2: on the Warren Commission. It's like, well, yeah, they're conspiracy theorists,
16:29
Speaker 2: but the people on the Warren Commission are the people
16:31
Speaker 2: that everyone thinks did it. Like of course, no one
16:36
Speaker 2: fucking trusts them, right, And yeah, with the Washington Post especially,
16:42
Speaker 2: they're one of the outlets where at least one of
16:43
Speaker 2: their reporters was like, there's something here we should look into, Like, right,
16:48
Speaker 2: it's not nothing. I think they even got a couple
16:51
Speaker 2: of like backup sources. And the Washington Post like the
16:56
Speaker 2: person in charge of making the decision was like, yeah,
16:58
Speaker 2: but I got the CIA tell me it's not true, right,
17:02
Speaker 2: And it's like you respect the CIA that much.
17:05
Speaker 3: Well, you know, we gotta maintain our relationship with Langley,
17:08
Speaker 3: Like that's like such a huge especially in Washington, that's
17:13
Speaker 3: like such a huge meal ticket.
17:15
Speaker 2: And it's like, no, you don't. You should have no
17:18
Speaker 2: relationship that's with the CIA, absolutely, like absolutely, but yeah,
17:25
Speaker 2: that that was the course of action the Washington Post took.
17:28
Speaker 2: They just went with the CIA denials, and they were like, yeah,
17:31
Speaker 2: you're gonna believe a bunch of criminals. You're gonna believe
17:33
Speaker 2: the CIA and it's like they're all criminals. Like that's
17:38
Speaker 2: that's a say trick question, sir. Right. Yeah, So The
17:44
Speaker 2: LA Times ends up writing more words about Gary Webb's
17:48
Speaker 2: reporting than Gary Webb wrote about the CIA selling crack
17:53
Speaker 2: in Los Angeles. Yeah, which is gonna be a huge bummer.
17:56
Speaker 3: Yes, it's an absolute bummer. He definitely. I mean, you know,
17:59
Speaker 3: maybe you should have written more words. I mean, but also,
18:02
Speaker 3: like those three articles basically cover the whole thing. Yeah,
18:07
Speaker 3: you know, he basically said all he needs to say.
18:08
Speaker 3: But yeah, no, like and they're you know, that's place
18:11
Speaker 3: that had the massive team, and it really was it
18:16
Speaker 3: just seemed personal for the especially for the LA Times.
18:19
Speaker 3: They really seem like you rarely get the sense of
18:23
Speaker 3: a publication being embarrassed, but that's kind of the sense
18:27
Speaker 3: you get when you read their takedowns.
18:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they should have been embarrassed, Yes, absolutely, Like
18:34
Speaker 2: there's there's no reason they shouldn't have picked up this story.
18:37
Speaker 3: Because they didn't give a shit about what was happening
18:41
Speaker 3: in their own town, because it was happening to the
18:43
Speaker 3: people that they didn't care about.
18:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, this CIA in house publication brings up how obviously
18:50
Speaker 2: helpful all of this was because it Again, it's not
18:55
Speaker 2: like it wasn't being covered by anyone, it's just the
18:58
Speaker 2: outlets that mattered were covering it, and then when they
19:01
Speaker 2: finally did, they covered it from the angle of, oh, well,
19:04
Speaker 2: this is bullshit. And in some circles that's still the opinion.
19:08
Speaker 2: I think that is still the overall opinion is that
19:11
Speaker 2: Gary Webb's reporting, like the story itself, was completely discredited, right,
19:17
Speaker 2: And that's just not true, No, not true at all
19:20
Speaker 2: if you dig into it. This is a quote from
19:22
Speaker 2: that CIA publication. They're talking about the Washington Post here.
19:26
Speaker 2: Because of the post national reputation, it's articles especially, were
19:31
Speaker 2: picked up by other papers, helping to create what the
19:34
Speaker 2: Associated Press called a firestorm of reaction against the San
19:39
Speaker 2: Jose Mercury News and quote, and it also notes that
19:43
Speaker 2: within two months, the entire tone of the coverage of
19:47
Speaker 2: the story changed. It went from what Gary Webb reported
19:52
Speaker 2: to Gary Webb exactly, and it became all about him,
19:56
Speaker 2: which is.
19:56
Speaker 3: What again, what happens so often with not just with reporters,
20:01
Speaker 3: but with whistleblowers and that sort of thing, Like it's
20:04
Speaker 3: such a common tactic.
20:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, and as we mentioned before, a lot of this
20:09
Speaker 2: stuff was covered in media outlets previously, but it was
20:13
Speaker 2: most significantly covered by that huge Carry Committee investigation. They
20:19
Speaker 2: ultimately released an eleven hundred page report about US intelligence
20:24
Speaker 2: looking the other way when it comes to drug trafficking,
20:27
Speaker 2: and that was essentially Gary Webb's story too exactly. But
20:31
Speaker 2: I guess if you're the Washington Post in this case,
20:34
Speaker 2: it's clearly coming from a more reputable source, like right
20:38
Speaker 2: one you trust more than Gary Webb. But the response
20:41
Speaker 2: from those three outlets to that story. The Washington Post
20:45
Speaker 2: ran a story on the twentieth page that focused mostly
20:49
Speaker 2: on the infighting within the committee. The New York Times
20:52
Speaker 2: ran a very short article on the eighth page of
20:55
Speaker 2: their paper, and the LA Times dedicated five hundred eighty
21:00
Speaker 2: nine words WHOA to an eleven hundred page report about
21:05
Speaker 2: US intelligence ignoring drug smuggling operations that were funding what
21:10
Speaker 2: they were doing in South America, like a word for
21:13
Speaker 2: every other page. Yeah, and again, Like, I think that
21:18
Speaker 2: speaks to those relationships the CIA has with these media outlets. Absolutely,
21:24
Speaker 2: Like they can explain away why they didn't take Gary
21:28
Speaker 2: Webb's version of the story seriously. But what's the explanation
21:32
Speaker 2: for not taking the Carry investigation seriously, right.
21:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, like it was. There was a lot of
21:39
Speaker 3: I think vindication within that report. You know, maybe not
21:43
Speaker 3: explicitly of the exact same situations that Webb was talking about,
21:47
Speaker 3: but it reveals a trend, right, a trend of how
21:51
Speaker 3: the organization works. Yeah, that you can easily apply to
21:56
Speaker 3: the Dark Alliance controversy.
21:58
Speaker 2: Yeah. Again, these three outlets, they wrote over thirty thousand
22:02
Speaker 2: words just about Gary Webb's reporting, and almost none on
22:08
Speaker 2: these allegations. Yeah, it is a dark moment in American history,
22:13
Speaker 2: and it's an underrated dark moment in American history. Like absolutely,
22:18
Speaker 2: this kind of became the government's strategy. Like it seems
22:23
Speaker 2: like this is how the government fights news it doesn't
22:27
Speaker 2: want printed. It just goes to the biggest outlets and
22:31
Speaker 2: says something. We don't know what, Yeah, but they say something,
22:36
Speaker 2: and these stories don't get covered, whether there's a Gary
22:40
Speaker 2: Web involved or not. Right, And yeah, it seems like
22:44
Speaker 2: the only reason they had to go after gary Web
22:47
Speaker 2: is because the Internet was involved, and it allowed the
22:50
Speaker 2: story to spread exactly, didn't let the story die.
22:54
Speaker 3: It wasn't contained in the way that something that would
22:57
Speaker 3: have been only on the pages of the San Jose
23:00
Speaker 3: Mercury News you know might have.
23:02
Speaker 2: Been Yeah, and the Columbia Journalism Review article that will
23:07
Speaker 2: link to again us from nineteen ninety seven, just a
23:10
Speaker 2: few months after the Dark Alliance stories were published, and
23:13
Speaker 2: it gets more into the specifics of each of the
23:16
Speaker 2: Big three outlets response to that story. It notes that
23:20
Speaker 2: CIA drug trafficking connections were historically a thing mainstream outlets
23:25
Speaker 2: treated like a non story.
23:26
Speaker 3: Go figure, I love cares.
23:30
Speaker 2: I love this example. They cite a nineteen eighty seven
23:35
Speaker 2: press conference where the government's final report on the Iran
23:39
Speaker 2: Contra affair was released. An investigative journalists stood up and
23:44
Speaker 2: asked the lead investigator if they'd found any connection between
23:48
Speaker 2: the contras and drug smuggling, and when he did, a
23:52
Speaker 2: New York Times reporter screamed, why don't you ask a
23:55
Speaker 2: serious question?
23:57
Speaker 3: Like cool? Fuck you, bub baly jesus, what the hell
24:02
Speaker 3: like that's just I mean, that's just a professional or
24:06
Speaker 3: anything like come on, man.
24:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's like how much of a government boot liquor?
24:11
Speaker 2: Are you right? Like that? You would like that mad
24:16
Speaker 2: at someone questioning the CIA? Fuck you are you like
24:20
Speaker 2: in the CIA? Bitch?
24:22
Speaker 3: Was he? Like saying it with like a clown nose
24:24
Speaker 3: on and like squeaky shoes it, like, you know, maybe
24:28
Speaker 3: it made it seem like a not serious question to
24:31
Speaker 3: ask about the CIA's relations to drug dealers.
24:34
Speaker 2: I don't know.
24:36
Speaker 3: Otherwise seems like a pretty straightforward serious question.
24:39
Speaker 2: Did it in a wacky accent?
24:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was actually Borat who got up at the
24:47
Speaker 3: press conference. People were like, come on, man, he's like,
24:50
Speaker 3: no doing real journalism for Kuzzikhstan.
24:54
Speaker 2: So it stands to reason that when the mainstream outlets
24:57
Speaker 2: got hold of this story, they pay no attention to
25:00
Speaker 2: the drug trafficking connections. Again, right, the Washington Post. Again,
25:05
Speaker 2: they were the first to respond. Their opinion basically boils
25:08
Speaker 2: down to available information does not support the conclusion that
25:12
Speaker 2: the CIA backed contrast, or Nicaraguan's in general, played a
25:17
Speaker 2: major role in the emergence of crack as a narcotic
25:21
Speaker 2: in widespread use across the United States. End quote. That
25:26
Speaker 2: is a very weird flex because Gary Webb's article was
25:29
Speaker 2: about crack in California. Right, Why that's like the horse
25:33
Speaker 2: that doesn't support that.
25:35
Speaker 3: This is the whole thing, Like there's so much putting
25:38
Speaker 3: words in the article's mouth that aren't there making saying
25:43
Speaker 3: that it's making claims that it's not making. It is
25:46
Speaker 3: very depressing. Available information does not support. Yeah, well this
25:50
Speaker 3: is new information, like you know, this is of course
25:54
Speaker 3: not like this is the first time it's being reported on.
25:57
Speaker 2: So you know, in our files we would know the end.
26:01
Speaker 3: Yes, our CIA liaison said that this is all bullshit,
26:06
Speaker 3: and so we trust that guy. We go golfing with
26:08
Speaker 3: him every weekend.
26:09
Speaker 2: And the other thing is we mentioned this a little
26:11
Speaker 2: bit at the end of the last episode, but the
26:14
Speaker 2: Washington Post and all of the other outlets engaged in
26:17
Speaker 2: the exact kind of thing. They were accusing Gary Webb
26:21
Speaker 2: of doing. One of the things Gary Webb was accused of,
26:25
Speaker 2: they're well not even accused of. It's a thing Gary
26:28
Speaker 2: Webb did. In the Dark Alliance articles, he leans on
26:31
Speaker 2: a court document about Denilo blandone that says, quote, he
26:36
Speaker 2: will admit that he was a large scale dealer in cocaine,
26:39
Speaker 2: and there is no additional benefit to any defendant to
26:42
Speaker 2: inquire as to the Central Intelligence Agency end quote, and
26:46
Speaker 2: without any other context. That sounds like someone's being told
26:50
Speaker 2: to not bring up the CIA, right, But he left
26:55
Speaker 2: out a few other sentences that make it clear that
26:58
Speaker 2: what the prosecution was said saying is that they thought
27:02
Speaker 2: he was bringing that up to scare them away from
27:04
Speaker 2: even going forward with the case, and that like, you
27:07
Speaker 2: can bring it up all you want, We're still going
27:09
Speaker 2: to go forward with the case. And that's definitely an
27:13
Speaker 2: error in Gary Webb's reporting that is worth calling out.
27:17
Speaker 2: But then the Washington Post does the exact same thing
27:19
Speaker 2: in their reporting. They lean on this one bit of
27:23
Speaker 2: court testimony that makes it seem like Denilo blandone's drug
27:28
Speaker 2: activity only benefited the Contras up until nineteen eighty two,
27:35
Speaker 2: which for the purposes of Gary Webb's story, does not
27:38
Speaker 2: fit the timeline and it would legitimately discredit everything Gary
27:43
Speaker 2: Webb said. But there is other evidence available to Gary
27:48
Speaker 2: Webb and anyone else who researched this that Denilo blandone's
27:52
Speaker 2: drug smuggling actually benefited the Contras deep into nineteen eighty six,
27:58
Speaker 2: and in that case, Gary Webb's story still works, of course,
28:02
Speaker 2: But the Washington Post just ignored that part and said,
28:05
Speaker 2: ce in court, he said he only helped the concerce
28:08
Speaker 2: until nineteen eighty two, and that's exactly what they were
28:10
Speaker 2: accusing Gary Webb of doing exactly.
28:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's that selective, you know, editing. It's really it's
28:17
Speaker 3: really annoying. And yeah, like there is so much hypocrisy
28:22
Speaker 3: at play in a lot of these rebukes.
28:25
Speaker 2: The Washington Post is also the outlet that coupled their
28:29
Speaker 2: story with an article about why black people are so
28:32
Speaker 2: susceptible to believe in conspiracy theory, which again speaking to
28:38
Speaker 2: the CIA's point about how helpful that must have been for.
28:42
Speaker 3: Them, right, yeah, they're like, wow, we didn't even ask
28:44
Speaker 3: for this, that's great, thanks guys going above and beyond.
28:48
Speaker 2: Like just throwing that whole racial wedge in their tea
28:52
Speaker 2: hop it all off.
28:54
Speaker 3: That's just so gross gross.
28:56
Speaker 2: The New York Times they were also pretty dismissive, but
29:00
Speaker 2: they weren't quite as mean about it. But it wouldn't
29:03
Speaker 2: have mattered because their article came out the same day
29:06
Speaker 2: as the LA Times article. I think the LA Times
29:10
Speaker 2: actually put out a couple oh yeah multiple And again,
29:14
Speaker 2: as mentioned before, the LA Times writes more words about
29:18
Speaker 2: Gary Webb than he wrote about the CIA, Which is
29:23
Speaker 2: not me criticizing Gary Webb. It's me criticizing them, because
29:28
Speaker 2: that would stand to reason if a lot of those
29:31
Speaker 2: words were also about the CIA and their crack connections,
29:34
Speaker 2: and then stuff about Gary Webb. But no, it was
29:37
Speaker 2: just all Gary Webb and none of the CIA stuff.
29:41
Speaker 2: They also fall into those same traps. This is the
29:44
Speaker 2: example we brought up at the end of the last episode.
29:47
Speaker 2: Jesse Katz, he was an LA Times reporter. He's the
29:51
Speaker 2: one who took issue with Gary Webb claiming that Ricky
29:55
Speaker 2: Ross was a huge drug dealer who helped kickstart the epidemic.
30:01
Speaker 2: This is one of his quotes about that in his
30:03
Speaker 2: criticisms about Gary Webb. Even on the best day Ricky
30:07
Speaker 2: Ross had, there was way more crack cocaine out there
30:11
Speaker 2: than he could ever control. And he also quoted a
30:14
Speaker 2: narcotics detective as saying this how the crack epidemic reached
30:18
Speaker 2: that extreme on some level had nothing to do with
30:21
Speaker 2: Ross before, during, and after his reign. A bewildering roster
30:26
Speaker 2: of other dealers and suppliers helped fuel the crisis.
30:30
Speaker 3: Quote.
30:31
Speaker 2: And it's like, no one's saying rick Ross did it
30:33
Speaker 2: all on his own, right, No, that's.
30:36
Speaker 3: Just taking one thing and blowing it totally out of proportionate.
30:40
Speaker 3: It also makes the narcotics detective. Sound like he's describing
30:45
Speaker 3: Batman's robes gallery a bewildering roster of other dealers, suppliers.
30:53
Speaker 2: Shut up, dork, We know how drug dealing works, like.
30:56
Speaker 3: A penguin man and what was like a fucking no,
31:00
Speaker 3: they're just like dude selling crack.
31:02
Speaker 2: And people listen and you'll know. The only point they're
31:06
Speaker 2: taking issue with is how big of a drug dealer
31:09
Speaker 2: Rick Ross was. Not whether his connections had connections to
31:13
Speaker 2: the CIA, none of that, just just the adjectives used
31:17
Speaker 2: to describe Rick Ross. Right, That's the.
31:21
Speaker 3: CIA thing isn't important here. We need to talk about
31:24
Speaker 3: how much crack Rick Ross actually sold.
31:28
Speaker 2: Right. And this is the part that I mentioned at
31:31
Speaker 2: the end of the last episode, and I think this
31:33
Speaker 2: quote deserves being revisited on this one. This was Jesse Katz,
31:38
Speaker 2: that same reporter two years earlier in nineteen ninety four,
31:42
Speaker 2: writing about Rick Ross for the La Times. Here goes,
31:47
Speaker 2: if there was an eye to the storm, if there
31:49
Speaker 2: was a criminal mastermind behind cracks decade long rain, if
31:53
Speaker 2: there was one outlaw capitalist most responsible for flooding Los
31:59
Speaker 2: Angeles with mass marketed cocaine, his name was Freeway Rick Ross,
32:06
Speaker 2: Ricky Donell Ross did more than anyone else to democratize crack,
32:11
Speaker 2: boosting volume, slashing prices, and spreading disease on a scale
32:16
Speaker 2: never before conceived end quote. But now two years later
32:20
Speaker 2: he's like, Ricky Ross wasn't that big?
32:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it's very funny that there is such
32:25
Speaker 3: an explicitly like direct hypocrisy there, Like, that's just very funny.
32:32
Speaker 2: And with the team of seventeen writers, how do you
32:36
Speaker 2: put that quote in that guy's hands? Like that sloppy
32:41
Speaker 2: work on the La Times part not realizing, Oh, the
32:44
Speaker 2: guy that we're having call into question how big of
32:47
Speaker 2: a figure Ricky Ross was Just two years ago he
32:50
Speaker 2: said rick Ross was the biggest. Just shift him to
32:53
Speaker 2: another position in that seventeen man roster, right like you
32:58
Speaker 2: fucking no wonder you got? Oh he scooped on this
33:01
Speaker 2: story income poops cats.
33:03
Speaker 3: He's our only guy who works the crack ring. He's
33:07
Speaker 3: the only one who can write about Rick Ross.
33:10
Speaker 2: Was he selling crack like.
33:13
Speaker 3: To Jesse Katz to his very very very minor credit.
33:20
Speaker 3: I would like to say, I just think it needs
33:23
Speaker 3: to be said that in twenty thirteen, he's basically one
33:26
Speaker 3: of the only reporters who actually worked on any of
33:30
Speaker 3: these stories that we're talking about, these backlash stories. He's
33:34
Speaker 3: one of the only people who has come forward and
33:37
Speaker 3: been like, yeah, that was probably a little much. He
33:41
Speaker 3: has a quote where he says, as an LA Times reporter,
33:44
Speaker 3: we saw this series in the San Jose Mercury News
33:47
Speaker 3: and kind of wondered how legit it was and kind
33:49
Speaker 3: of put it under a microscope. And we did it
33:51
Speaker 3: in a way that most of us who were involved
33:54
Speaker 3: in it, I think would look back on that and
33:56
Speaker 3: say it was overkill. We had this huge team of
33:59
Speaker 3: people at the LA Times and kind of piled on
34:02
Speaker 3: to one loan muckraker up in northern California. We really
34:06
Speaker 3: didn't do anything to advance his work or illuminate much
34:09
Speaker 3: the story, and it was a really kind of tawdry exercise,
34:13
Speaker 3: and it ruined that reporter's career.
34:15
Speaker 2: Here's the thing cool, Like, it's cool that he admits that,
34:18
Speaker 2: but I don't need that motherfucker to confirm that for me,
34:21
Speaker 2: Like that's like it's obvious from reading what he wrote. Absolutely,
34:25
Speaker 2: of all the people, he's the one who should be
34:28
Speaker 2: apologizing because he most blatantly and intentionally did not do
34:33
Speaker 2: his job.
34:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, like he shouldn't.
34:36
Speaker 2: He should have lost his fucking job over there. I agree.
34:39
Speaker 3: I absolutely, I absolutely agree. I Look, I don't think
34:43
Speaker 3: that this statement absolves him of any responsibility whatsoever. I
34:49
Speaker 3: just think like it's important to note that he is
34:53
Speaker 3: at least publicly kind of remorseful about it. Like I
34:57
Speaker 3: think that's that's good. But like you know, he said
34:59
Speaker 3: this in twenty thirteen years after the man died, so
35:03
Speaker 3: the damage had kind of already been done.
35:06
Speaker 2: And I think there is a Washington Post reporter out
35:08
Speaker 2: there also, like the one here, yeah, who wanted them
35:11
Speaker 2: to run a story at least kind of looking into
35:15
Speaker 2: the allegations. I think he's come out also and been like, man,
35:17
Speaker 2: that's a lot.
35:19
Speaker 4: Huh y.
35:21
Speaker 3: There's been a couple, but like not very much considering
35:24
Speaker 3: there were seventeen people on the La Times. Yeah, Gary
35:27
Speaker 3: Webb task force.
35:29
Speaker 2: I just want to sure them all standing around with
35:31
Speaker 2: fucking nineties mustaches like an anchorman going with that escalated quickly.
35:39
Speaker 3: Wow, you killed that guy with the stridents.
35:44
Speaker 2: Twice twice with in the head. That's a reference.
35:50
Speaker 3: That's a fun little pop culture reference to the end.
35:52
Speaker 2: Of this Fanboy moment for the people who know this story.
35:57
Speaker 2: So that's the first La Times god their second brutal
36:05
Speaker 2: article about Dark Alliance had similar problems. It didn't call
36:09
Speaker 2: any of the connections into question. Those were real. It
36:13
Speaker 2: just took exception to the dollar amounts they claimed the
36:17
Speaker 2: operation generated. In Dark Alliance, the claim was that Blandone
36:21
Speaker 2: and Meneses sent millions to the Contras, but the La
36:26
Speaker 2: Times talked to three unnamed associates of Blandone who said
36:30
Speaker 2: the figure was closer to fifty thousand. But again, they
36:33
Speaker 2: were drawing this based exclusively on the idea that Blandone's
36:38
Speaker 2: connections to the contrast ended in nineteen eighty two and
36:42
Speaker 2: ignoring that evidence that it carried on until eighty six.
36:46
Speaker 3: Right, And they're also like the either engaging in this
36:49
Speaker 3: same sort of hypocritical shit, were like, how are these
36:53
Speaker 3: two sources who are close to blandone and Menaces, how
37:01
Speaker 3: are they a more reputable source than the actual people
37:05
Speaker 3: that that Gary Webb talked to, Like, I don't understand
37:09
Speaker 3: how you're not they're not making a case for their
37:12
Speaker 3: sources being stronger or they're just relying on their papers
37:18
Speaker 3: greater reputation.
37:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, they didn't even know. They didn't even name the sources. No,
37:23
Speaker 2: And in the end, you know, it didn't really matter
37:26
Speaker 2: because they won, Like the Big three won this argument.
37:30
Speaker 2: The Mercury News did stick with Gary Webb for a while.
37:34
Speaker 2: Executive editor Jerome Seppos wrote a letter to The Washington
37:38
Speaker 2: Post defending the series. They refused to publish it, which
37:43
Speaker 2: that is highly shady. And that's the thing if you
37:46
Speaker 2: dig deeper into this, there were people at the Washington
37:49
Speaker 2: Post who were like, fuck that that is not cool,
37:52
Speaker 2: but they still didn't. They never published it, which is nuts.
37:56
Speaker 3: It really is, like, this is just it's so disrespectful.
38:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, and he also did interviews. Jerome Zeppos did interviews
38:04
Speaker 2: with all three outlets and defended the stories. But eventually
38:08
Speaker 2: the pressure got to be too much, and after a
38:12
Speaker 2: bunch of articles where San Jose, Mercury basically had one
38:17
Speaker 2: of their reporters investigate the claims made against Gary Webb, yeah,
38:23
Speaker 2: in terms of his reporting, and then they published that
38:27
Speaker 2: and eventually they just wrote an article saying that it
38:30
Speaker 2: didn't meet our standards.
38:32
Speaker 3: Right, and again, none of these are investigating the actual
38:37
Speaker 3: claims made within Dark Alliance. They are investigating the claims
38:42
Speaker 3: about Gary Webb made by these other outlets.
38:47
Speaker 2: Right, and what everyone ignored when it came to the
38:51
Speaker 2: San Jose Mercury's response is Gary Webb was a reporter.
38:55
Speaker 2: He wasn't an editor. So he wrote this story and
38:58
Speaker 2: then slid it across the to someone else whose job
39:02
Speaker 2: it was to make sure it met.
39:03
Speaker 3: Those standards exactly.
39:05
Speaker 2: And now here was those same people going, oh, Gary
39:08
Speaker 2: Webb really fucked up and got this in under our nose.
39:11
Speaker 2: And it's like, no, he didn't, like you know how
39:14
Speaker 2: much work he put into this, like you signed off
39:17
Speaker 2: on the work. And so much of it comes down
39:20
Speaker 2: to him not having a CIA source. And it's like,
39:24
Speaker 2: why would you ask the CIA about this? What are
39:27
Speaker 2: they gonna say.
39:29
Speaker 3: Like, what's there to gain from that other than just
39:32
Speaker 3: having someone say no comment or what?
39:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, And then people can just point and go, well
39:37
Speaker 2: the CIA said it didn't happen. It's like, of course
39:39
Speaker 2: they're not going to be like, oh, you got me
39:42
Speaker 2: what how did you find that out come on? So
39:45
Speaker 2: he eventually resigned from the paper in November nineteen ninety seven. Yeah,
39:50
Speaker 2: and he was never able to get another job with
39:54
Speaker 2: a major publication. YEP. And from there. One of the
39:58
Speaker 2: things that happened in response to Dark Alliance is Maxine
40:03
Speaker 2: Waters especially was so vocal about the need for this
40:06
Speaker 2: to be investigated that three different government investigations were launched
40:11
Speaker 2: into this. But also like, if the New York Times
40:14
Speaker 2: isn't going to be honest about it, you can't really
40:16
Speaker 2: expect the government to be super honest about it either, right, Right,
40:20
Speaker 2: But there were some references in the CIA report that
40:26
Speaker 2: were very interesting, and the CIA report it seems unlikely
40:32
Speaker 2: that the CIA report would be the most honest, But
40:36
Speaker 2: you have to take into account how the CIA works.
40:39
Speaker 2: They're a very secretive outfit, very compartmentalized, Like just because
40:44
Speaker 2: you work at the CIA doesn't mean you know what
40:47
Speaker 2: the other person who works at the CIA is doing.
40:51
Speaker 2: So sometimes there are actual investigations that come out of
40:56
Speaker 2: the CIA where they're like, what the fuck, guys, Like,
40:59
Speaker 2: it's a big organ. Not everyone is going to be
41:01
Speaker 2: pure evil, right. There will be some people who are,
41:06
Speaker 2: you know, like the McCartney of the group, making sure
41:09
Speaker 2: the outlandish stuff gets you know, tampered down just a
41:12
Speaker 2: little bit. Like once you go solo, you can do
41:14
Speaker 2: all the crazy.
41:14
Speaker 3: Shit, but exactly every CIA team needs a ringo exactly.
41:20
Speaker 2: And the CIA report does have a lot of very
41:24
Speaker 2: interesting details that I'm sorry they do seem like they
41:27
Speaker 2: confirm Gary Webb's story. Yes, the problem is it was
41:31
Speaker 2: released in the thick of the Bill Clinton Monica Lewinsky scandal. Yeah,
41:36
Speaker 2: so classic did not care whatsoever. But here's some of
41:42
Speaker 2: the things from that CIA report. There's one paragraph that
41:45
Speaker 2: described a cable from the CIA's Directorate of Operations dated
41:49
Speaker 2: October twenty second, nineteen eighty two, that was all about
41:52
Speaker 2: a prospective meeting between contra leaders for quote, an exchange
41:57
Speaker 2: in the United States of narcotics for arms which then
42:00
Speaker 2: our ship to Nicaragua end quote, And that meeting was
42:04
Speaker 2: going to be attended by two different contra groups, US
42:08
Speaker 2: arms dealers and a lieutenant of a drug ring that
42:11
Speaker 2: imported drugs from Latin America to the US West Coast.
42:15
Speaker 2: The lieutenant trafficker was a contra. The CIA knew this
42:18
Speaker 2: arms for drugs deal was happening, didn't do anything to
42:21
Speaker 2: stop it. That is from the CIA's own report, And
42:24
Speaker 2: that's essentially what Gary Webb was.
42:26
Speaker 4: Saying, Yeah, I will, you know, but like he didn't
42:30
Speaker 4: say this exact thing he was talking about the different
42:35
Speaker 4: shady operation.
42:36
Speaker 3: That the CIA may have been involved in.
42:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, they were doing it in eighty six, it was
42:41
Speaker 2: eighty two. Oh yeah, yeah, Well fuck Gary Webb.
42:43
Speaker 3: Then he can't he can't just say that just because
42:48
Speaker 3: the CIA definitely has done this sort of thing before
42:54
Speaker 3: that it did it in this case.
42:56
Speaker 2: There's also a mention of an incident where the CIA
43:00
Speaker 2: requested that the DEA return thirty six thousand dollars seized
43:05
Speaker 2: from a member of the Manessees drug ring quote to
43:09
Speaker 2: protect an operational equity ie a contra support group in
43:13
Speaker 2: which it had an operational interest end quote. And it's
43:18
Speaker 2: like that, what other confirmation do you need? Like the
43:21
Speaker 2: CIA is never gonna get in front of the American
43:24
Speaker 2: public and be like, yes, we did what Gary Webb said, right,
43:27
Speaker 2: But this is also the CIA getting in front of
43:30
Speaker 2: the American public and going, yeah, we kind of did
43:32
Speaker 2: what Gary.
43:33
Speaker 3: Webb said, right, we did stuff like what Gary Webb said.
43:38
Speaker 3: That's the whole thing, Like, that's the weaslely thing that
43:42
Speaker 3: is going on. Here is just so much of people
43:45
Speaker 3: going yeah, they're like sure, there was a lot of
43:49
Speaker 3: stuff like that with a lot of the same people,
43:54
Speaker 3: but it wasn't this exact thing.
43:57
Speaker 2: It also includes quotes from a DEA agent who says, quote,
44:01
Speaker 2: his attempts to investigate Contra drug smuggling were stymied by
44:05
Speaker 2: DEA management, the US Embassy in El Salvador, and the
44:09
Speaker 2: CIA end quote. And then six weeks after that report
44:13
Speaker 2: was published, Inspector General Frederick Hits testified before a House
44:18
Speaker 2: Congressional committee and said this about the claims in Dark Alliance.
44:23
Speaker 2: This is kind of a long quote. Bear with me, listeners.
44:25
Speaker 2: Here goes as I said earlier. We have found no
44:28
Speaker 2: evidence in the course of this lengthy investigation of any
44:31
Speaker 2: conspiracy by CIA or its employees to bring drugs into
44:36
Speaker 2: the United States. However, during the Contra era, CIA worked
44:41
Speaker 2: with a variety of people to support the Contra program.
44:44
Speaker 2: These included CIA assets, pilots who ferried supplies to the Contras,
44:49
Speaker 2: as well as Contra officials and others. Let me be
44:53
Speaker 2: frank about what we are finding. There are instances where
44:56
Speaker 2: CIA did not, in an expeditious or consistent fashion cut
45:01
Speaker 2: off relationships with individuals supporting the Contra program who were
45:05
Speaker 2: alleged to have engaged in drug trafficking activity or to
45:09
Speaker 2: take action to resolve the allegations. End quote who that's
45:14
Speaker 2: literally Gary Webb's story, yep. Is that the CIA knew
45:19
Speaker 2: and didn't do anything. It's not that the CIA intentionally
45:22
Speaker 2: sold crack in the United States, it's just that they knew.
45:25
Speaker 2: So the CIA did kind of confirm it. And I
45:29
Speaker 2: don't know how, it's not in the notes here. But
45:32
Speaker 2: as far as these claims, like the Washington Post saying, well,
45:36
Speaker 2: there's no available evidence that the CIA worked with drug smugglers,
45:41
Speaker 2: another thing that comes up in the CIA report is
45:43
Speaker 2: that around the time the Iran Contra scandal was kicking off,
45:48
Speaker 2: the CIA put a new rule in place where if
45:50
Speaker 2: you were an agent working out in the field, drug
45:53
Speaker 2: smuggling and drug dealing was no longer one of the
45:55
Speaker 2: crimes you had to report that your operatives were engaging
45:59
Speaker 2: in they murdered someone, yeah, but if they were just
46:02
Speaker 2: selling drugs for some reason, you didn't have to report
46:05
Speaker 2: that anymore. So, of course there are no I don't
46:09
Speaker 2: know CIA memos that say working with a drug dealer
46:13
Speaker 2: because they didn't have to tell anyone anymore.
46:15
Speaker 3: Right, Well, and like, I just don't understand the mindset
46:18
Speaker 3: that thinks that those sorts of things would even be
46:21
Speaker 3: documented in a way that would conform to your expectations. Yeah,
46:26
Speaker 3: you know, like you're not gonna get that sort of
46:30
Speaker 3: blatant admission of illegal activity. It's all gonna be obscured
46:35
Speaker 3: in this sort of double talk. This sort of like
46:38
Speaker 3: very elaborate, Like this quote is like very confusing if
46:45
Speaker 3: you're just kind of reading it, and you don't if
46:48
Speaker 3: you're not looking for specifically a connection to this scary
46:52
Speaker 3: web thing. It's a lot of talking around the actual
46:56
Speaker 3: issue without actually saying much of substance. It's difficult for
47:02
Speaker 3: me to even think of this as a quote unquote conspiracy. Yeah,
47:08
Speaker 3: because like there is a conspiracy obviously, but like there's
47:13
Speaker 3: a conspiracy in the same way that conspiracies happen all
47:16
Speaker 3: the time in lots of different ways, in that people
47:19
Speaker 3: are you know, especially in intelligence, are being secretive. But
47:23
Speaker 3: like this is it's just that we kind of saw
47:27
Speaker 3: a little bit of how the sausage was made, and
47:30
Speaker 3: Gary Webb was kind of reporting on it and that
47:33
Speaker 3: was dangerous to the way the CIA wanted to operate.
47:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean he reported it in a way that
47:40
Speaker 2: made it matter to people living in the United States
47:44
Speaker 2: exactly because the stories always ended with cocaine being smuggled
47:48
Speaker 2: into the United States. Again, this is the fucking Miami
47:51
Speaker 2: Vice era. So your picture and Crockett and Tubs, you know,
47:55
Speaker 2: hunting down Phil Collins. I don't remember if he was
47:57
Speaker 2: a criminal or a cop on that show, but he
47:59
Speaker 2: was certainly on it.
48:01
Speaker 3: Phil Collins.
48:02
Speaker 2: Phil Collins was very much on Miami Vice. Look it up, everybody, like,
48:05
Speaker 2: not a regular, but he was on it more than once.
48:09
Speaker 3: I mean I knew, I knew his music was and uh.
48:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, Gary Webb was the first one who was like, no, no, no, no, no,
48:16
Speaker 2: that's going to black neighborhoods, right, it is causing the
48:20
Speaker 2: disproportionate incarceration of people of color, and it is wrecking
48:25
Speaker 2: communities of color. And that was Gary Webb's crime was
48:28
Speaker 2: pointing that part out. I feel like you're looking up
48:31
Speaker 2: Phil Collins on my advice.
48:35
Speaker 3: I am, I am No, I mean, like it's really
48:39
Speaker 3: the whole Gary web thing is just it's so depressing.
48:42
Speaker 2: Like yeah, and we've already touched on how this story ends.
48:47
Speaker 2: Like he was never able to get another job with
48:51
Speaker 2: a major publication. He still did investigative journalism and like
48:54
Speaker 2: he worked, but he wasn't able to make the kind
48:58
Speaker 2: of money that working for one of those outlet that's provided.
49:01
Speaker 3: Well, it's the kind of scandal that haunts you as
49:06
Speaker 3: a journalist.
49:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, because the CIA and the mainstream media did such
49:12
Speaker 2: a good job discrediting Gary Webb as a reporter. Yeah,
49:16
Speaker 2: that from then on, if he did get a job
49:19
Speaker 2: with a major publication, you know, most of America was
49:23
Speaker 2: just going to see him as that guy that lied
49:24
Speaker 2: about the CIA, right exactly, And it wrecked his life
49:28
Speaker 2: and he lost everything and eventually took his own life,
49:34
Speaker 2: depending on who you believe. I still think, against all
49:37
Speaker 2: odds that he probably did kill himself, even though he
49:41
Speaker 2: shot himself twice. Yes, unlikely, but I guess it happens.
49:46
Speaker 3: It does happen in like, Look, I don't know, it's
49:52
Speaker 3: impossible to say. It's one of those things where there's
49:56
Speaker 3: just we're just not going to know for sure. But like,
50:00
Speaker 3: you know, it's suspicious that he fucked with the CIA
50:04
Speaker 3: and then got shot twice in the head and it
50:06
Speaker 3: was ruled a suicide. But also these things do happen.
50:10
Speaker 3: They're not unheard of, and you know, it's a tragedy
50:15
Speaker 3: and yeah.
50:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, I still like your theory from last week that
50:18
Speaker 2: maybe that first shot was controlled the CIA and make
50:22
Speaker 2: it look like they.
50:22
Speaker 3: Can right, Yeah, that would be good.
50:25
Speaker 2: I mean I would like that. I think in retrospect,
50:28
Speaker 2: he maybe could have fired a shot into the crown
50:30
Speaker 2: molding or something that missed and then you've done it, sure,
50:33
Speaker 2: and then they'd be like, why is that second bullet?
50:35
Speaker 2: I don't know. I'm not questioning his methods. It's very
50:40
Speaker 2: sad that Gary Webb, I do think, took his own life.
50:43
Speaker 2: My main reasoning for it is, again, two thousand and
50:48
Speaker 2: four is so late into this game for the CIA
50:51
Speaker 2: to decide, all right now, not only are we going
50:54
Speaker 2: to kill this guy, but we're going to break in
50:56
Speaker 2: his house and shoot him in the head twice.
50:58
Speaker 3: Right in Like the fact that it was seven years
51:01
Speaker 3: to the day that he resigned from the Mercury News, like,
51:08
Speaker 3: it all points to suicide and it makes sense and
51:11
Speaker 3: I don't necessarily doubt it. It just is that it's
51:15
Speaker 3: just one of those kappers to a story like this
51:20
Speaker 3: like that. You couldn't really make up that this guy
51:23
Speaker 3: who was hounded by the CIA and major news outlets
51:28
Speaker 3: then killed himself by shooting himself twice in the head.
51:31
Speaker 3: Like that's just one of those weird details that makes
51:36
Speaker 3: it seem a little larger than life.
51:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is. It's definitely an odd detail. The only
51:43
Speaker 2: other thing that I think speaks to it being suicide
51:46
Speaker 2: is there are interviews with his family and friends from
51:50
Speaker 2: the time, and he was in a very bad place.
51:53
Speaker 2: He was also clinically against for it. I mean, most
51:56
Speaker 2: adult life, that obviously isn't going to help. So yeah,
52:01
Speaker 2: it's you know, it seems like the response to this
52:03
Speaker 2: just pushed him over the edge. Very sad ending to this,
52:08
Speaker 2: and yeah, I mean, I think the only silver lining
52:11
Speaker 2: is I think we've hit a point where most people
52:14
Speaker 2: I bet if you did a poll of Americans now
52:18
Speaker 2: and we're like, you think the CIA ever sold drugs,
52:21
Speaker 2: I bet that's that's going over fifty percent now.
52:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, it seems like a fairly mainstream opinion. Yeah, as
52:29
Speaker 3: far as these things go, as far as any political
52:32
Speaker 3: opinion could be mainstream in America in twenty twenty two, Like, yeah,
52:37
Speaker 3: it feels like the CIA's involvement in the cracket epidemic
52:41
Speaker 3: is basically settled history at this point.
52:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, So Yeah, that's the sad end to the Gary
52:49
Speaker 2: Webb story as opposed to all those happy peaks in
52:51
Speaker 2: the middle right.
52:53
Speaker 3: So it really is like all of the fallout from
52:57
Speaker 3: this article is such a major bummer, Like it's so sad,
53:01
Speaker 3: like just from start to finish, it's just the story
53:05
Speaker 3: of a bunch of powerful interest groups dismantling a man's
53:10
Speaker 3: life in it, and it's sad.
53:13
Speaker 2: It really is a valid reason to examine your relationship
53:18
Speaker 2: with the mainstream media like the New York Times, the
53:22
Speaker 2: LA Times, Washington Post. They seem like the liberal outlets
53:26
Speaker 2: a lot.
53:26
Speaker 3: Of times, especially since Trump.
53:29
Speaker 2: After Trump, it feels very much like our side and
53:32
Speaker 2: their side, right, But it's never been that black and
53:35
Speaker 2: white with the American media, especially when it comes to war,
53:40
Speaker 2: like the media is gonna side with the government when
53:43
Speaker 2: we go to war. The American media sides with the
53:47
Speaker 2: government most of the time. I still maintain there's never
53:50
Speaker 2: gonna be another Watergate. I swear to god.
53:54
Speaker 3: I just saw a fucking article from David from about
53:58
Speaker 3: how fucking great it was that we got into wars
54:02
Speaker 3: in Iraq in Afghanistan. Like, there's so many mainstream reporters
54:07
Speaker 3: who are total hawks and will just wave the flag
54:12
Speaker 3: for whatever military action are wants to take.
54:15
Speaker 2: And that's not to say no good reporting comes out
54:18
Speaker 2: of those outlets or that every person who works there
54:21
Speaker 2: is a government stooge.
54:23
Speaker 3: Absolutely not. Like there's a lot, like a lot of
54:26
Speaker 3: great people working at all three of these newspapers that
54:29
Speaker 3: we've been talking about.
54:30
Speaker 2: But you do have to ask yourself why some stories
54:34
Speaker 2: just don't end up getting that mainstream attention when it
54:38
Speaker 2: involves the government. I'll link to the Newsweek and Yahoo
54:41
Speaker 2: News articles I mentioned earlier. Go read them and fucking
54:47
Speaker 2: hit me up in the comments if you think that's
54:49
Speaker 2: not a thing that should have been front page New
54:52
Speaker 2: York Times News. It's such a huge scandal, and those
54:56
Speaker 2: outlets he trust so much aren't going to tell you
54:58
Speaker 2: about it.
54:59
Speaker 3: Nope, they're not there. It's you know, there's a there's
55:02
Speaker 3: an agenda, you know. And I don't necessarily think that
55:05
Speaker 3: it's a oh yeah, it was about shinzo Abbe. That
55:08
Speaker 3: was the that was the where he was like, shinzo
55:11
Speaker 3: Abbe made the world better. David from David from shut
55:15
Speaker 3: the fuck up, you fucking warhawk.
55:17
Speaker 2: That's so gross. Yeah, it's the same thing with Navalney.
55:20
Speaker 2: Whenever people are like going to bat for Alexi Navalney,
55:24
Speaker 2: it's like that guy is an actual Nazi, right, and
55:29
Speaker 2: you're like Russia's great hope against Putin. It's like you
55:32
Speaker 2: want that guy running Russia? Right? Are you out of
55:35
Speaker 2: your fucking minds?
55:37
Speaker 3: It's ridiculous. Yeah, so yeah, the it's so sad. I
55:42
Speaker 3: think I think the biggest takeaway from all of this
55:45
Speaker 3: is that Phil Collins was on one episode of Miami Bikes.
55:50
Speaker 2: But he was on.
55:51
Speaker 3: He was, he was, and of course his you know
55:55
Speaker 3: in the air tonight was featured in the pilot episode.
55:58
Speaker 3: It was like a groundbreak moment in television history. But
56:02
Speaker 3: I'm sorry he was not a recurring character on Miami.
56:05
Speaker 3: I was like, there's no fucking way.
56:09
Speaker 2: Fine, fine, And you know what, that does seem like
56:13
Speaker 2: the appropriate place to end. On next week's bonus episode,
56:18
Speaker 2: we are going to talk about Kill the Messenger, which
56:21
Speaker 2: is a twenty fourteen film about Gary Webb and the
56:26
Speaker 2: Dark Alliance series. Yep, you can rent it. It's out there,
56:30
Speaker 2: It's very available. It is got a solid cast, Baby,
56:35
Speaker 2: Jeremy Renner, Mary Elizabeth Winstead.
56:39
Speaker 3: I mean, we're going to get into it in the
56:41
Speaker 3: episode that's like easily the thing to talk about. But like, yeah,
56:45
Speaker 3: you can rent it. It is surprisingly not available on
56:50
Speaker 3: any streaming service or like of the thousands of Amazon channels.
56:55
Speaker 3: That's not available with a free trial there, so you
56:58
Speaker 3: do have to shell out a little bit for it.
57:00
Speaker 3: But it's worth it's good, it's good.
57:02
Speaker 2: It's cheap, so yeah, go go watch it ahead of
57:05
Speaker 2: time if you don't want it spoiled. I mean, we
57:08
Speaker 2: just did two whole podcast episodes about what it's about,
57:11
Speaker 2: so it's been effectively spoiled for you. Yeah.
57:14
Speaker 3: I was gonna say, like, I think we've already talked
57:16
Speaker 3: for longer than the movie is about this, So I
57:20
Speaker 3: don't know that you gotta worry about spoilers.
57:23
Speaker 2: Really, we're really la times in this. What we're doing.
57:28
Speaker 3: This is way fewer words than the well, actually it
57:30
Speaker 3: might not be than the three original Dark Alliance, but
57:34
Speaker 3: we're you know, we're on his side. I'm on Gary webside.
57:36
Speaker 3: I like, it's it's so it's just so sad.
57:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think that is probably the actual point
57:45
Speaker 2: to end on is I believe Gary Webb and absolutely
57:49
Speaker 2: I acknowledge that there were some flaws in his reporting.
57:54
Speaker 2: M M. I also though, think some people went into
57:58
Speaker 2: it looking to discredit claims that didn't actually make.
58:01
Speaker 3: Right, and a lot of the flaws with the reporting
58:04
Speaker 3: are things that are inherent to the type of subject
58:08
Speaker 3: that he was reporting on. Like, you know, at a
58:10
Speaker 3: certain point you have to be a little bit more
58:14
Speaker 3: forgiving of your sources because you only have access to
58:19
Speaker 3: a certain type of source for a story like this.
58:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, so yeah, that's it. We did it. Do we
58:26
Speaker 2: have anything to plug before we get out of here?
58:30
Speaker 3: Going back? Yes, the Lost Rewatch podcast.
58:34
Speaker 2: The second episode is up on the Patreon and cast
58:39
Speaker 2: and in your Spotify apps this week Thursday.
58:42
Speaker 3: Hell yeah, it's and I'm having a lot of fun
58:45
Speaker 3: with that.
58:47
Speaker 2: It's great.
58:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's so much fun. Loss is great.
58:50
Speaker 2: Almost zero actual government malfeas it's involved. It's very relaxing
58:55
Speaker 2: and lost Yes, Lost Watch podcast very little.
58:59
Speaker 3: They're on this island and you know, so like there's
59:02
Speaker 3: not a lot going on with the c I A.
59:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, I haven't looked at a single government document recording.
59:08
Speaker 2: It's like a vacation, it really is. It really is,
59:11
Speaker 2: so yeah, check that out. Episodes will be out publicly
59:15
Speaker 2: soon once we're once we're done with the first season.
59:18
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you can follow me on Twitter at high
59:20
Speaker 3: There hydr. If you want to only see retweets of
59:24
Speaker 3: these episodes. That's it for me right now. On Twitter.
59:30
Speaker 2: You can follow me on Twitter and Instagram at Adam
59:32
Speaker 2: Todd Brown. Follow the show at Conspira Pops on Twitter
59:36
Speaker 2: and Instagram. Must swear we'll start using it more soon.
59:40
Speaker 2: And I think that's it. Let's get out of here,
59:44
Speaker 2: Olivia say goodbye bye, goodbye, everybody. We love you. People
59:53
Speaker 2: of a
1:00:02
Speaker 1: Instant Stress, Instill streng the entat pot of stro