Gary Webb

In 1996, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist GARY WEBB (1955-2004) wrote a shocking series of articles for the San Jose Mercury News exposing the CIA's link to Nicaraguan cocaine smuggled into the US by the Contras, which had fueled the widespread crack epidemic that swept through urban areas. Webb's bold, controversial reporting was the target of a famously vicious media backlash that ended his career as a mainstream journalist. When Webb persisted with his research and compiled his findings in the bookDark Alliance, some of the same publications that had vilified Webb for his series retracted their criticism and praised him for having the courage to tell the truth about one of the worst official abuses in our nation's history. Others, including his own former newspaper and the New York Times, continued to treat him like an outlaw for the brilliant and courageous work he'd done. Webb's death on December 10, 2004, at the age of 49, was determined to be a suicide.