Will Hollywood Give Him Last Word Against the CIA’s Media Apologists? The Resurrection of Gary Webb

[Judi Lynn]

7. Journalist Gary Webb Gets the Last Word in "Kill the Messenger"

Journalist Gary Webb Gets the Last Word in "Kill the Messenger"

Jeff Cohen from Park Center for Independent Media at Ithaca College says Webb exposed how the CIA supported the right-wing Contras in Nicaragua by trafficking cocaine, leading to an epidemic of crack use in major US cities - October 10, 14

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COHEN: Well, the important issue is that big elite newspapers and magazines had suppressed the Contra story beginning from its eruption back in 1985 during the Contra War, when the CIA, under Reagan, had organized and funded, supervised a Contra army, a right-wing army to try to overthrow the socialist government of Nicaragua, the Sandinista government.

And beginning in 1985, Brian Barger and Bob Perry at Associated Press had exposed that some of the Contras and their allies were engaging in drug trafficking. And the big newspapers wouldn't pick it up. Move to 1987, where Congressman Rangel, the head the House Narcotics Committee, does a preliminary investigation of whether the CIA's Contras or their allies are trafficking in cocaine. And Congressman Rangel says, we need a more serious investigation. The Washington Post distorted that. He said, here's a letter to the editor that corrects the record, and The Washington Post refused to publish it.

That same year, 1987, Time magazine, two reporters have worked up this story linking the CIA's Contras or their associates to drug trafficking, and they can't get it into the magazine. And one of the reporters is pulled aside by an editor and says, look, Time magazine--this is a word-for-word quote--Time magazine "is institutionally behind the Contras. If this story were about the Sandinistas and drugs, you'd have no trouble getting it in the magazine."

So you could go on and on. Senator John Kerry did an investigation. He found that Contra allies were engaged in drug trafficking, and they apparently were protected by reasons of so-called national security. That was in 1989. So the mainstream media has--and when that happened, by the way, Newsweek called Senator Kerry a "randy conspiracy buff."

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