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Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is

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Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or

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Speaker 1: learn the stuff they don't want you to know. M Hey, guys,

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Speaker 1: I love the podcast and I'm usually a huge fan

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Speaker 1: of your work, but I have to say I just

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Speaker 1: listened to the Cryptos of Australia episode and I was

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Speaker 1: very disappointed. At the beginning you mentioned that you did

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Speaker 1: the Cryptic Math. I can't believe no one took this

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Speaker 1: opportunity to say you did the Monster Math. I expect better.

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Speaker 1: That wasn't dad joke, missed opportunity those from Devin. My

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Speaker 1: name is Matt, my name is Nol. They call me Ben.

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Speaker 1: We are joined with our super producer Paul Decktt. Most importantly,

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Speaker 1: you are you. You are here that makes this stuff

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Speaker 1: they don't want you to know. Matt, that was new?

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Speaker 1: Was that? Was that? It in sometow just messing around.

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Speaker 1: It's like a cold open kind of in a weird way,

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Speaker 1: unrelated entirely, just you know, calling us out for not

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Speaker 1: doing the Monster Math. It's cool. Well, also calling us

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Speaker 1: out for maybe not doing our due diligence, which is

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Speaker 1: something that's going to come up a lot in this

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Speaker 1: episode in particular. Right, you can say all sorts of things,

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Speaker 1: but can you prove them? I don't know. Let's maybe

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Speaker 1: let's start this way. So the four of us live

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Speaker 1: and record in the Atlanta area. In Atlanta in a

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Speaker 1: in a huge burst of good news, has a tremendous

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Speaker 1: drug problem. Yeah, Like, as we're recording, and be sarcastic,

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Speaker 1: but as we're recording this, not more than three or

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Speaker 1: four hundred yards away from the studio we're in right now,

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Speaker 1: there is more than likely someone on a backstreet doing

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Speaker 1: a hard drug of some sort, and maybe on a

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Speaker 1: main street. They're also probably several people on street corners

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Speaker 1: in the same vicinity selling these drugs. And if you

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Speaker 1: live in a large American city, areas of your local

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Speaker 1: metropolis almost definitely have areas where drug problems are endemic

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Speaker 1: and they're they're they're huge issues. Were trying to address it.

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Speaker 1: But here's the big question, where does all of this

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Speaker 1: come from? You know what I mean? The local corner

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Speaker 1: drug dealer is almost certainly not flying to the Golden

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Speaker 1: Triangle or flying to South America on a weekly basis

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Speaker 1: to sell somebody like heroin or cocaine, at ten bucks

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Speaker 1: a pop. It's just the plane tickets too expensive and

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Speaker 1: economically doesn't make sense. Yeah, and and that person or

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Speaker 1: group of people selling drugs on the corner aren't also

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Speaker 1: on those flights purchasing the large quantities of cocaine or whatever,

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Speaker 1: then flying all of that stuff back to the United States,

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Speaker 1: then processing it into let's say, crack cocaine, which is

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Speaker 1: a process, and then like you said, selling it for

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Speaker 1: that left low amount of money. Right. And there's an

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Speaker 1: excellent study that Freakonomics did a while back. Were big

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Speaker 1: fans of freakonomics, Uh, that busted the myth the drug

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Speaker 1: dealers make tons and tons of cash. Actually you would be,

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Speaker 1: and you might be incredibly surprised by how little drug dealers,

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Speaker 1: most drug dealers actually make. It kind of reminds me

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Speaker 1: of that thing we talked about ben Off Mike about

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Speaker 1: how little money bank robbers probably make. You know, it's

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Speaker 1: this notion that they're just cleaning it up, but in fact,

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Speaker 1: banks don't keep that much money on hand. And to

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Speaker 1: make a decent living, like even like a relatively decent living,

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Speaker 1: you would have to your success, right, it would have

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Speaker 1: to be a hundred percent and you would have to,

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Speaker 1: you know, do a certain amount of hes every year

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Speaker 1: with a certain amount of people, with amount of people.

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Speaker 1: Not that that's related one to one, but you'd think

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Speaker 1: that drug dealers, you know, there's this cliche notion that

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Speaker 1: they're breaking in the cash. But I'm interested in your stats, Ben, Well, yeah,

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Speaker 1: there's a there's the article from l A Times that

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Speaker 1: it's literally titled why drug dealers live with their moms,

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Speaker 1: and it goes into what you're talking about here, how

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Speaker 1: very little most of the people actually selling the drugs make.

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Speaker 1: Now I don't want to. I can toot my own

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Speaker 1: horn a little bit on the bank haist thing to

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Speaker 1: which I think they are related, Uh, mainly because I

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Speaker 1: wrote the video, but I think someone else appeared in it.

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Speaker 1: We did a brain stuff video way back in the

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Speaker 1: day about why you shouldn't rob a bank and you

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Speaker 1: can find the bank stats there. But there they're sobering

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Speaker 1: and somber, and we see the same thing with drug dealers.

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Speaker 1: There's a quick excerpt we could read here the top

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Speaker 1: one and twenty men on the Black Disciples pyramid. That's

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Speaker 1: the hierarchy of the gang. Right, we're paid very well,

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Speaker 1: but the pyramid they sat a top was gigantic. So

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Speaker 1: if you use this franchise from a guy named JT.

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Speaker 1: They mentioned earlier in the article, Uh, the franchise had

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Speaker 1: three officers and fifty foot soldiers. That were about five thousand,

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Speaker 1: three hundred people working for those one d and twenty

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Speaker 1: bosses at the top of the pyramid. And then there

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Speaker 1: were twenty thousand unpaid rank and file members, most of

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Speaker 1: them who we're just vuying to become a foot soldier.

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Speaker 1: And how well did that foot soldier dream job pay

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Speaker 1: a foot soldier job that these people want three dollars

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Speaker 1: and thirty cents an hour, but you don't have to

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Speaker 1: pay taxes. And again this is written in UM two

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Speaker 1: thousand five, and this is I believe that's when they

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Speaker 1: were out actually speaking with these people. Yeah, so two

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Speaker 1: thousand five dollars so clearly not enough for regular international travel.

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Speaker 1: Where does this stuff actually come from? How does cocaine

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Speaker 1: enter the US? How just heroin into the U s

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Speaker 1: and then on and on with these other drugs, especially

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Speaker 1: when Uncle Sam ostensibly spends billions and billions of dollars

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Speaker 1: just trying to stop the drug trade. How does it

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Speaker 1: get here? One person thought he found the answer, and

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Speaker 1: he was an investigative journalist named Gary Webb. So Gary

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Speaker 1: Webb was born in August thirty first, nineteen in Corona, California,

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Speaker 1: and he wanted to be a writer from a very

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Speaker 1: early age, where for the student newspaper at his college

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Speaker 1: in Indianapolis. UM. He ended up getting married to him

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Speaker 1: and named Susan Bell, and they went on to have

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Speaker 1: three kids together. UM. And he first started getting into

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Speaker 1: investigative reporting UM when a piece appeared in the Kentucky

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Speaker 1: Post nineteen eighty called The Coal Connection. It was a

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Speaker 1: massive series, a seventeen part series that he collabed on

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Speaker 1: with a guy named Thomas Chefe that looked at um, ben,

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Speaker 1: you might know more about this conspiracy surrounding a coal company.

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Speaker 1: So he was already kind of early on into whistle

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Speaker 1: blowing and kind of like this sort of deep dive

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Speaker 1: truth telling, trying to expose the ills of society, right right,

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Speaker 1: similar to the that wonderful journalist we interviewed a while back,

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Speaker 1: Mark Paris Kia I believe his name was correct, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: who did some fantastic work on the US government's arrangements

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Speaker 1: with spies and the era of civil rights. This guy

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Speaker 1: was a small town reporter who was breaking big stories,

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Speaker 1: and in this that was a big deal, specifically about

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Speaker 1: the the assassination or the murder of a president of

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Speaker 1: this coal company, and how this guy perhaps had some

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Speaker 1: or he did have ties to organized crime. Like that's

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Speaker 1: that's no small thing. You don't write about that and

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Speaker 1: then not worry about writing about that. And and as

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Speaker 1: our friend Mark established earlier, the thing about being an

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Speaker 1: investigative journalist that's worth your salt is that so much

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Speaker 1: of the actual work is just verifying and triple checking

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Speaker 1: every single syllable of every single sentence that is fit

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Speaker 1: to print, and you have to do it before it

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Speaker 1: goes out to the masses. It turned out that Gary

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Speaker 1: Webb seemed to have a gift for this, and that

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Speaker 1: was just the beginning. His major work, the one that

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Speaker 1: most of us listening and probably familiar with, is something

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Speaker 1: called The Dark Alliance. And over the years, several people

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Speaker 1: have kind of muddied the water of his research and

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Speaker 1: what he actually claimed. So it's very important for us

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Speaker 1: to look at what he did do and then also

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Speaker 1: look at what he did not do precisely. So here's

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Speaker 1: here's the gist in Gary Webb writes a series of

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Speaker 1: three articles for The Mercury News, which I believe is

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Speaker 1: out in San Jose. So in these these three articles

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Speaker 1: are pretty lengthy, and later they're all collected into a

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Speaker 1: book named The Dark Alliance. This it's difficult to explain

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Speaker 1: how much of an impact this made, so let's just

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Speaker 1: go with what he says. In this series of articles.

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Speaker 1: Gary Webb alleges and claims that Nicaraguan contras are responsible

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Speaker 1: for the Los Angeles c cocaine epidemic of the nineteen eighties.

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Speaker 1: To bold claim, well, yeah and yeah, that they're responsible,

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Speaker 1: but they are a bunch of other hands involved. To right,

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Speaker 1: they're not working alone. He claims that the US is

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Speaker 1: Central Intelligence Agency, your CIA knew this was going on,

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Speaker 1: knew there was an active, uh and elaborate and very

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Speaker 1: very robust drug traffic and network there. And at the

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Speaker 1: very least, he says, the CIA ignored it. At worst,

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Speaker 1: he says they may have helped them actively covered up

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Speaker 1: the crimes, met with the drug lords, provided transportation, provided transportation.

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Speaker 1: Shout out to what America, that's the one. So these

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Speaker 1: allegations were pretty pretty harsh, as you said, a bold claim.

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Speaker 1: But the thing is they weren't far fetched. In South

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Speaker 1: and Central America, it's not unusual for these separatist or

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Speaker 1: revolutionary groups to turn to the drug trade as a

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Speaker 1: way to raise some cash. Other groups have done it too,

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Speaker 1: like FARC or the Shining Path, and actually met FARC

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Speaker 1: representatives who were very much against that that process. So

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Speaker 1: l goes back to documentation, right, Gary Webb builds this

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Speaker 1: case and you argues, somehow, as opposed to all the

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Speaker 1: other drug running operations on that continent, somehow the contrasts

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Speaker 1: are able to get cocaine into the US and then

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Speaker 1: most importantly, get cash out with a lot less of

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Speaker 1: a hassle than other cartels or drug runners. Well, yeah,

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Speaker 1: so they're they're saving a ton of money somehow in

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Speaker 1: this whole process in the transportation, right, and what that's

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Speaker 1: allowing them to do. And this is where it gets

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Speaker 1: really bad for people who live in the United States.

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Speaker 1: This allows these groups to sell their product at a

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Speaker 1: much much lower price than their competitors, right, So you

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Speaker 1: can't it's it's like what a mom and pop store

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Speaker 1: is try to compete with a huge, big box chain

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Speaker 1: grocery store. They have the economy of scale that allows

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Speaker 1: them to sell an apple for fifty cents, whereas the

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Speaker 1: mom and pop store has to sell it for a dollar.

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Speaker 1: And why would you buy your apple for a dollar

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Speaker 1: when you know you can get it for fifty cents.

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Speaker 1: Maybe it's a more delicious apple, it's the exact same apple,

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Speaker 1: my friends, I don't know. Maybe if you pay more

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Speaker 1: for it, if it tastes better. It's true. They're just

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Speaker 1: study with wine that absolutely proves that. Yeah, that is true,

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Speaker 1: calling out all Somalia's Well, we'll go ahead and maybe

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Speaker 1: publish that study on wine on Here's where it gets

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Speaker 1: crazy later. But what if you're addicted to apples? Addicted

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Speaker 1: to apples, are you're still going to pay a dollar? Well?

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Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean it depends, right, Like, are

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Speaker 1: you a connoisseur of apples or you're just eating like

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Speaker 1: any old crab apple to scratch that unscratchable itch. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: there's different layers, there's different um, there's there's a hierarchy

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Speaker 1: of addiction. Right, I'm gonna go out on a limb

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Speaker 1: and say the crack epidemic probably was going more towards

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Speaker 1: the crab apples. Yeah. Yeah, Also, just an unnecessary point here,

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Speaker 1: I feel like Red Delicious Apple is like a terribly

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Speaker 1: ironic name because those are terrible apples. I don't like

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Speaker 1: him either, They're kind of mushy, you know. I don't

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Speaker 1: get it. Fuji apples all day. For me, it's Granny Smith.

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Speaker 1: Granny Smith. I would not have figured you for a

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Speaker 1: fan of tartness. That's my favorite, you know that? Mean, man,

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Speaker 1: it's a it's a tart apple. No, I know, But

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Speaker 1: why would you? Why would you not think that Matt

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Speaker 1: was a fan of of tartness Because Matt's Matt's palette

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Speaker 1: runs more towards spicy. He's exploring extremes. That's exactly what

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Speaker 1: it is. Interesting. My favorite tart is a Carl tart.

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Speaker 1: Though it's well done, well done, it's cute, but uh word,

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Speaker 1: but the character the argument still stays the same, right,

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Speaker 1: Like he says, obviously this, obviously someone is influencing the

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Speaker 1: game that the cartels are playing down there, and I

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Speaker 1: have he says, proof that the CIA is either again

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Speaker 1: either ignoring it, maybe helping it, has met with cartel

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Speaker 1: leaders and so on. But what before we get too far,

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Speaker 1: let's ask ourselves what he actually did not do. After

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Speaker 1: a word from our sponsors. We're back. So the one

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Speaker 1: thing that Gary Webb did not do by discussing these

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Speaker 1: things in his three part series that would become The

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Speaker 1: Dark Alliance. What he didn't do is break this story.

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Speaker 1: He wasn't the first person to talk about America's crack

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Speaker 1: coming from other places, perhaps the contras and like specifically

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Speaker 1: the Nicaraguan Contras, with perhaps the CIA's approval. This was

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Speaker 1: something that had already been kind of floating around. It

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Speaker 1: was a theory in a way. He was just backing

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Speaker 1: up these beliefs with some facts, or at least with

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Speaker 1: as close to facts as he could get, kind of

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Speaker 1: fleshing out the picture, right, Yeah, he's given you the details.

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Speaker 1: He's zooming in with the camera a little bit there

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Speaker 1: we go. I like that he never claimed to have

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Speaker 1: evidence that the CIA engineered the entire thing, only that

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Speaker 1: they knew something was going on, they tacitly approved of it,

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Speaker 1: and that they met with contra leaders and funders to

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Speaker 1: talk about the money. Yeah. The fact of the matter

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Speaker 1: is that there were a lot of kind of wild

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Speaker 1: theories that shot off from this reporting. Um, and I

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Speaker 1: know we'll get into some little bit more. But Webb

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Speaker 1: was sort of discredited and then sort of vindicated, and

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Speaker 1: he's been a very divisive figure in terms of like

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Speaker 1: how rigorous his fact checking was for some of this stuff.

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Speaker 1: There's a piece and op ed in the Washington Post

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Speaker 1: by named Jeff lean From, who was their assistant managing editor,

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Speaker 1: and he basically, you should read it for yourself. It's

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Speaker 1: very interesting. But he kind of goes through in shreds

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Speaker 1: Web in terms of his abilities as a investigative reporter

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Speaker 1: and said that he makes all of these incredible claims,

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Speaker 1: and that in order to make incredible claims like that

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Speaker 1: as a journalist, you have to have incredible evidence, and

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Speaker 1: he doesn't exactly well. And then also, what what role

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Speaker 1: do the editors play in the I'm glad you mentioned,

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Speaker 1: because that's an important year. But let's let's get to

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Speaker 1: the reaction of the initial publication too. So the media

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Speaker 1: does conflate what Web is saying, as as we mentioned,

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Speaker 1: they say that webs saying the CIA did it did

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Speaker 1: it all smoking gun caught red handed. It was the

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Speaker 1: CIA with the crack cocaine in the living room, as

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Speaker 1: though they invented the substance for some nefarious purpose to

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Speaker 1: try to manipulate in the population into behaving a certain

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Speaker 1: way or to incarceerate black men unfair. Right, The biggest

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Speaker 1: thing is that they were saying that Webb was saying.

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Speaker 1: The news is saying that Webb is saying that the

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Speaker 1: c i A Is literally the drug dealer, which he

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Speaker 1: did not. He did not say that. I totally get that.

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Speaker 1: And it's and and there. You know, it's kind of

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Speaker 1: what we're experiencing now with the quick turnaround of like

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Speaker 1: internet reporting, where it's very easy to conflate something in

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Speaker 1: a properly research story and turn it into something else

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Speaker 1: for your own purposes. Wouldn't have thought that would have

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Speaker 1: been happening quite to this degree back then, But here

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Speaker 1: we are. This was this is back when the news

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Speaker 1: was all made by like organic meatbags called humans rather

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Speaker 1: than butts and button nets, you know what I mean,

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Speaker 1: and organic meatbacks the day then the days before deep fakes,

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Speaker 1: which is a scary thing, right, Yes, so you're absolutely right, guys,

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Speaker 1: he he did get conflated. Now, well, and there's a

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Speaker 1: whole other thing we're going to talk about in there

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Speaker 1: about Gary Web sources and the people he was talking

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Speaker 1: to that he actually cite as being the source because

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Speaker 1: they were so off the record, and then also on

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Speaker 1: a related thing that we have to get to maybe

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Speaker 1: in the future episode. It's pretty easy to prove that

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Speaker 1: on some level, the federal government, through multiple agencies, has

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Speaker 1: been targeting the black community for a long time. I mean,

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Speaker 1: the same amount of cocaine and the same amount of

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Speaker 1: crack cocaine carry wildly different uh minimum mandatory incarceration terms. Right,

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Speaker 1: why would that be? M hmm. Matt's making sort of

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Speaker 1: a smushed up face right now. It's very that's your

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Speaker 1: Charlie Day in front of the conspiracy law chain spoking accusation.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's It's a good question though, and the

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Speaker 1: reaction is immense. This is actually one of the first

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Speaker 1: national security stories to really blow up online to get people,

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Speaker 1: uh in the normal mainstream America intensely interested. It's twenty

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Speaker 1: thousand words long. It enrages black communities who are wondering,

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Speaker 1: why are these epidemics happening? Why does it seem like

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Speaker 1: there's more um government punishment and harassment of the community

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Speaker 1: rather than government assistance of a community in trouble. And

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Speaker 1: then there are congressional investigations. Excuse me, congressional hearings, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: congressional hearings, but some of the biggest, at least most

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Speaker 1: widely seen hearings or seen on television, occur just within

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Speaker 1: smaller communities within l A and other cities like that,

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Speaker 1: where there are people filling a room, a huge room,

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Speaker 1: and they're just asking people, how how long have you

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Speaker 1: known about the CIA dealing drugs? Like did you know

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Speaker 1: that CIA was dealing drugs? And they're asking their city

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Speaker 1: officials and they're asking uh, big names who are supposed

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Speaker 1: to be in charge of things. And again web is

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Speaker 1: in his you can see interviews with him as well,

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Speaker 1: where he essentially says that he doesn't think the CIA

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Speaker 1: was like ringing its hands Monty Burne style and saying, oh,

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Speaker 1: you know what I mean. He says instead that they

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Speaker 1: just really wanted money, and they wanted off the book's

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Speaker 1: money anyway, Like if it hadn't been this would have

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Speaker 1: been something else. They couldn't officially use the government's money

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Speaker 1: to pay for what they were trying to do, because

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Speaker 1: that's back when that kind of policy or law actually

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Speaker 1: stopped people from doing that sort of thing. Have we

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Speaker 1: talked much about the what the Contra affair was and

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Speaker 1: why they were interacting with these militants who are like

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Speaker 1: they were kind of like rogue militants. Basically, what was

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Speaker 1: the what was the benefit there? Mentioned in a previous episode,

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Speaker 1: I think you're right, we should go ahead and just

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Speaker 1: just give you the quick and dirty. Right. It's also

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Speaker 1: called iron Gate, which is interesting, but here in the

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Speaker 1: US we usually call it, uh like the Thomas Crown affair. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so essentially, what are the contrast, man, Well, they were

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Speaker 1: they were a group in Nicaragua, and their whole point,

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Speaker 1: or at least for the United States purposes, they were

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Speaker 1: going to at least attempt to overthrow the Sandinista government,

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Speaker 1: which was socialist. Exactly. These are right wing rebel groups. So, um,

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Speaker 1: the US government tends to support right wing insurgents much

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Speaker 1: more often than say left wing or anti capitalist insurgents. Basically,

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Speaker 1: people are pro resource extraction tend to historically, I'm not

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Speaker 1: saying now, but tend to historically get more support from

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Speaker 1: the US government. And and it's one of those things

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Speaker 1: if everyone, if everyone in a country is getting to

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Speaker 1: kind of share the wealth in a more you know,

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Speaker 1: sometimes communist sometimes socialist structures that occurs where everyone gets

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Speaker 1: a little piece. It's not so great when you could

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Speaker 1: just control it from top down. Man. Of course, the

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Speaker 1: top down approach, of course, the infamous top down So

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Speaker 1: that sounds weird when you see it that way. It's

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Speaker 1: in this top down but alright, So the Iran contra

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Speaker 1: affair occurs when the National Security Council of the US

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Speaker 1: gets involved in secret weapon transactions and other activities that

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Speaker 1: are prohibited by Congress. So Ronald Reagan, the Reagan administration,

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Speaker 1: that's probably a better way to say that. The Reagan

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Speaker 1: administration at the time is very concerned that communism will

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Speaker 1: spread throughout Central America and challenge the capitalist, neo liberal hierarchy,

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Speaker 1: that is, you know, challenge the hegemonic status. So the

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Speaker 1: people of Nicaragua are particularly the Satin easta liberation movement

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Speaker 1: they mentioned earlier in nineteen seventy nine, they overthrow the

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Speaker 1: president who is actually a dictator. And now the Reagan

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Speaker 1: administration is having their come to Jesus moment, as they

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Speaker 1: would say in the South. So he thought this would

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Speaker 1: eventually threaten the security of the United States. Remember we're

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Speaker 1: still in the Cold War era at this time, and

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Speaker 1: so the Reagan administration pushed huge amounts of military aid

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Speaker 1: into not just Nicaragua, but other governments and other places

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Speaker 1: that have civil wars and guerilla fighting in hopes of

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Speaker 1: preventing a left wing government. And in the case of Nicaragua,

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Speaker 1: they wanted to destabilize that government and engineering overthrow. So

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Speaker 1: why is Iran in there? Right? Yeah? How's it? How

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Speaker 1: does it wrong? Iran? So they sold anti tank and

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Speaker 1: anti aircraft missiles to Iran, believing that they sold the

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Speaker 1: missiles to Iran, Iran through its proxy his blah would

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Speaker 1: allow hostages in Lebanon. To be least, this is already

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Speaker 1: very rupe goldberg S so and so a portion of

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Speaker 1: the money that Iran paid for was diverted and then

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Speaker 1: given to the contrast, A lot of this occurred under

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Speaker 1: the supervision of a man who's very familiar to everyone,

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Speaker 1: Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North. You may remember him from that

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Speaker 1: famous hearing. Yeah it wasn't a hearing. I don't even

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Speaker 1: know exactly what it was. But you can see video

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Speaker 1: of him just admitting to this stuff and feels like

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Speaker 1: he did the right thing to stop the the ultimate

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Speaker 1: war of ideology between the West and UH the communist countries.

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Speaker 1: So the problem with this stuff is that while they're

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Speaker 1: raising this money for the contrast, they're violating something called

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Speaker 1: the Bowland Amendment b O, L, A, and D, a

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Speaker 1: law that was passed in that banned direct or indirect

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Speaker 1: military aid to the contrast. So they're moving money in

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Speaker 1: a sleazy way, but they think they're doing the right thing.

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Speaker 1: It's just a different kind of shell game. It's kind

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Speaker 1: of like, Yeah, it's kind of like the idea that

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Speaker 1: the ends justify the means, or that there is a

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Speaker 1: difference between what is legal and what is morally correct,

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Speaker 1: and they felt like they were doing the moral thing. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so that's right. Does that yeah, man, Yeah it does.

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Speaker 1: And I knew some of that, but not all of that.

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Speaker 1: But it sounds to me like the accusation here is

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Speaker 1: they would go to any means necessary to prop up

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Speaker 1: this militant group that was potentially going to do good

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Speaker 1: for our government in deposing this kind of pesky regime

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Speaker 1: that was in place, that was inconvenient regime, right absolutely,

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Speaker 1: and that would extend as far as webs concerned, to

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Speaker 1: funneling drugs into the United States knowingly in order to

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Speaker 1: funnel some of that money into this cause. That needed

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Speaker 1: to be off books money right, right, black budget stuff. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and so this accusation, uh lights a flame under the

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Speaker 1: American public and in a strange, not unprecedented let's call

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Speaker 1: it that not unprecedented show of solidarity, various papers of

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Speaker 1: note excoriate Web, the Washington Post before, like back when

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Speaker 1: this was released, the Washington Post is saying, they're there

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Speaker 1: are huge problems with the reporting, they're huge errors. Why

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Speaker 1: can't you cite who said that? Why can't you prove

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Speaker 1: this claim that you're making. And then Web would go

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Speaker 1: back and say, why I didn't make that claim? But

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Speaker 1: he can't compete with New York Times. And in turn,

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Speaker 1: Jerry teppos cepos I believe, who was the executive editor

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Speaker 1: of The Mercury News, um the paper that this piece was,

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Speaker 1: the series of pieces were published and kind of threw

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Speaker 1: Web under the bus, and he said, quote, we oversimplify

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Speaker 1: the complex issue of how crack epidemic in America grew

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Speaker 1: through imprecise language and graphics. Because there are a lot

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Speaker 1: of infographics in this piece as well, we created impressions

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Speaker 1: that were open to misinterpretation. And that's the kicker, because

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Speaker 1: it was that missing interpretation maybe Web didn't go quite

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Speaker 1: as far as as some people might think if you

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Speaker 1: actually read the work. But there's some quotes in here

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Speaker 1: I want to I want to throw out to to

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Speaker 1: see what you guys think. But it was those other

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Speaker 1: more quick to jump on a hot story news outlets

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Speaker 1: that kind of really just kind of made stuff up

428
00:26:18,440 --> 00:26:21,879
Speaker 1: from whole cloth. Right, you can't defend yourself against the

429
00:26:21,920 --> 00:26:24,360
Speaker 1: claim that you did not make other than saying you

430
00:26:24,400 --> 00:26:27,000
Speaker 1: did not make that. And if you don't have a

431
00:26:27,320 --> 00:26:31,400
Speaker 1: large enough microphone or platform, you're you're just not going

432
00:26:31,480 --> 00:26:34,119
Speaker 1: to get your rebuttle out there. I mean, rebuttals and

433
00:26:34,160 --> 00:26:38,280
Speaker 1: corrections are some of the most seldom read parts of

434
00:26:38,359 --> 00:26:41,359
Speaker 1: any newspaper. In this most of this is occurring in

435
00:26:41,440 --> 00:26:44,040
Speaker 1: newspapers at the time. Although Web was pressing into enough

436
00:26:44,280 --> 00:26:48,480
Speaker 1: to put his work online real quick, he made a website.

437
00:26:48,800 --> 00:26:51,760
Speaker 1: He did surrounded these pieces like early on, which was

438
00:26:51,880 --> 00:26:54,520
Speaker 1: which is not as much of a thing back then. Right,

439
00:26:54,560 --> 00:26:56,280
Speaker 1: it was very as you said, he was very much

440
00:26:56,320 --> 00:26:59,840
Speaker 1: an early adopter. And the communities that needed to find

441
00:27:00,000 --> 00:27:02,159
Speaker 1: out about this, and he actually drove a lot of

442
00:27:02,200 --> 00:27:05,080
Speaker 1: them online. People who ordinarily wouldn't have cared about this

443
00:27:05,440 --> 00:27:08,960
Speaker 1: found it as a safe way to arrive at information

444
00:27:09,000 --> 00:27:11,639
Speaker 1: they felt the government was trying to hide. It turns

445
00:27:11,640 --> 00:27:14,359
Speaker 1: out I want to go just quick to back to

446
00:27:15,800 --> 00:27:21,400
Speaker 1: where the Washington Post republished or they published another UM criticism,

447
00:27:21,400 --> 00:27:23,280
Speaker 1: which I think is the op ed you're gonna read

448
00:27:23,280 --> 00:27:26,080
Speaker 1: from the UM. The CIA, at the same year, on

449
00:27:26,080 --> 00:27:31,040
Speaker 1: September eight, released a ton of documents spanning thirty years,

450
00:27:31,119 --> 00:27:36,720
Speaker 1: three decades, and a lot of it confirmed confirmed stuff.

451
00:27:36,760 --> 00:27:41,199
Speaker 1: Gary Webb had argued, Uh, they show at least that

452
00:27:41,240 --> 00:27:46,040
Speaker 1: there was collusion too, in the in backstage, smoky room

453
00:27:46,119 --> 00:27:50,199
Speaker 1: style collusion to try to suppress the story. One of

454
00:27:50,200 --> 00:27:53,959
Speaker 1: the things that was released, this is one of the

455
00:27:53,960 --> 00:27:56,120
Speaker 1: things that was released, was an article that was six

456
00:27:56,160 --> 00:28:00,000
Speaker 1: pages long titled Managing a nightmare c I A Public

457
00:28:00,040 --> 00:28:04,280
Speaker 1: affairs and the drug Conspiracy story. So this and you

458
00:28:04,320 --> 00:28:08,160
Speaker 1: can find this online. This looks at how the CIA

459
00:28:08,720 --> 00:28:11,439
Speaker 1: reacted to what it saw as a a huge public

460
00:28:11,480 --> 00:28:17,080
Speaker 1: relations crisis or catastrophe, and then showing that the agency

461
00:28:17,160 --> 00:28:20,959
Speaker 1: actually didn't have to do much to extinguish the public

462
00:28:21,000 --> 00:28:25,560
Speaker 1: outcry to suppress the story, because you see, as we said,

463
00:28:25,600 --> 00:28:28,919
Speaker 1: as I said, there are moments of not unprecedented solidarity

464
00:28:29,240 --> 00:28:32,280
Speaker 1: among papers of note, at least here in the US,

465
00:28:32,320 --> 00:28:35,639
Speaker 1: probably in your country as well. Sometimes that happen, not

466
00:28:35,720 --> 00:28:38,640
Speaker 1: all the time, but sometimes that happens because they have

467
00:28:38,720 --> 00:28:41,840
Speaker 1: a relationship behind the scenes that you as the public

468
00:28:41,840 --> 00:28:46,040
Speaker 1: will never see with intelligence agencies in that country. So

469
00:28:46,200 --> 00:28:51,120
Speaker 1: the CIA essentially contacts there. They are higher ups in

470
00:28:51,160 --> 00:28:54,400
Speaker 1: the world of media and publishing, and they say, look,

471
00:28:55,480 --> 00:29:00,640
Speaker 1: let's all vultron up together, everybody, Like in JFK Assassination.

472
00:29:00,840 --> 00:29:03,520
Speaker 1: Can I read a quote from Webbs pieces before you

473
00:29:03,560 --> 00:29:06,960
Speaker 1: do that? Just noting in that same year, that's when

474
00:29:06,960 --> 00:29:10,280
Speaker 1: the Jeremy Renner movie Kill the Messenger comes out. That's

475
00:29:10,280 --> 00:29:13,400
Speaker 1: all about Gary the Gary Webs. Did you guys see that? Yes,

476
00:29:13,480 --> 00:29:16,400
Speaker 1: I hadn't even heard of it. Oh it's good. I

477
00:29:16,440 --> 00:29:18,240
Speaker 1: really liked it, but only because we had done a

478
00:29:18,320 --> 00:29:21,040
Speaker 1: video on it in the past. The story getting a

479
00:29:21,040 --> 00:29:25,320
Speaker 1: lot of a lot of push I mean it's I

480
00:29:25,640 --> 00:29:28,880
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed it. Built in audience, Yeah, fair enough. Um,

481
00:29:29,160 --> 00:29:31,240
Speaker 1: I just want to play out a couple of these, uh,

482
00:29:31,640 --> 00:29:33,600
Speaker 1: some of these claims that that I think are interesting

483
00:29:33,600 --> 00:29:35,880
Speaker 1: when you read them in one place. From Gary Webb's

484
00:29:35,960 --> 00:29:40,760
Speaker 1: Dark Alliance trilogy of articles that ultimately became a book quote,

485
00:29:40,760 --> 00:29:43,360
Speaker 1: thousands of young black men are serving long prison sentences

486
00:29:43,400 --> 00:29:46,760
Speaker 1: for selling cocaine, a drug that was virtually unobtainable in

487
00:29:46,800 --> 00:29:50,600
Speaker 1: black neighborhoods before members of the CIA's army started bringing

488
00:29:50,600 --> 00:29:53,400
Speaker 1: it into South Central in the nineteen eighties at bargain

489
00:29:53,440 --> 00:29:58,120
Speaker 1: basement prices. So I mean, and it's hyperbolic as hell.

490
00:29:58,440 --> 00:30:00,160
Speaker 1: And and the guy who wrote this op ed. The

491
00:30:00,160 --> 00:30:05,160
Speaker 1: guy was talking about earlier the anyway, Jeff Leen, who

492
00:30:05,240 --> 00:30:07,560
Speaker 1: was the assistant managing editor for The Washington Post. He

493
00:30:07,600 --> 00:30:10,400
Speaker 1: calls that a nutgraph, which I had never heard of.

494
00:30:10,640 --> 00:30:13,840
Speaker 1: And I love this. And this is how he sums

495
00:30:13,880 --> 00:30:16,160
Speaker 1: that up. What a nutgraph is He he says, this

496
00:30:16,280 --> 00:30:18,280
Speaker 1: is one of the most difficult things for a reporter

497
00:30:18,360 --> 00:30:22,360
Speaker 1: to write, because you have to summarize some very outlandish,

498
00:30:22,400 --> 00:30:27,320
Speaker 1: outrageous facts and synthesize, you know, the truth behind it

499
00:30:27,360 --> 00:30:35,520
Speaker 1: and somehow, you know, paint in the often contradicting notions

500
00:30:35,560 --> 00:30:40,240
Speaker 1: behind it. A blurb before the story. He's telling the audience,

501
00:30:40,240 --> 00:30:43,200
Speaker 1: why should I read this exactly? But it's also you know,

502
00:30:43,400 --> 00:30:45,880
Speaker 1: he he says, this is kind of where Webb went

503
00:30:45,920 --> 00:30:48,920
Speaker 1: off the rails and went a little too far. And

504
00:30:49,600 --> 00:30:53,720
Speaker 1: he ultimately resigned from his position and was never hired

505
00:30:53,760 --> 00:30:57,640
Speaker 1: again by any mainstream newspapers of note. And he just

506
00:30:57,680 --> 00:30:59,360
Speaker 1: kind of went rogue and did his own thing. But

507
00:30:59,400 --> 00:31:01,280
Speaker 1: he already kind of set the tone for doing that

508
00:31:01,440 --> 00:31:03,600
Speaker 1: by making that website. Now he had this book, and

509
00:31:03,600 --> 00:31:08,120
Speaker 1: he obviously had people that believed him and probably had

510
00:31:08,120 --> 00:31:11,560
Speaker 1: a following outside of the mainstream press. Yeah, and also,

511
00:31:11,720 --> 00:31:13,800
Speaker 1: you know, if the Internet had been more prominent at

512
00:31:13,840 --> 00:31:16,280
Speaker 1: the time, things might have gone differently for him. He

513
00:31:16,320 --> 00:31:20,080
Speaker 1: was also notoriously stubborn and at times difficult to work with.

514
00:31:20,720 --> 00:31:24,440
Speaker 1: He he started blaming his editors pretty quickly, so things

515
00:31:24,480 --> 00:31:30,160
Speaker 1: became acrimonious between the Mercury editors and himself. But it

516
00:31:30,200 --> 00:31:36,320
Speaker 1: did lead directly to a Senate subcommittee hearing where John

517
00:31:36,400 --> 00:31:39,720
Speaker 1: Kerry was a senator at the time, investigated the apes

518
00:31:39,800 --> 00:31:43,240
Speaker 1: findings from the Associated Press and they released in nine

519
00:31:44,080 --> 00:31:48,400
Speaker 1: nine a a report that was more than one thousand pages.

520
00:31:48,600 --> 00:31:51,560
Speaker 1: It said it found quote considerable evidence that the Contras

521
00:31:51,560 --> 00:31:53,880
Speaker 1: were linked to running drugs and guns and the US

522
00:31:53,960 --> 00:31:57,240
Speaker 1: government knew about it. So that would mean that on

523
00:31:57,240 --> 00:32:01,280
Speaker 1: on that base level, some of web is saying is true,

524
00:32:01,320 --> 00:32:05,200
Speaker 1: but the way that he's using these very um highly

525
00:32:05,320 --> 00:32:10,160
Speaker 1: dramatic phrases like calling the contras the CIA's army, you

526
00:32:10,160 --> 00:32:14,239
Speaker 1: know what I mean. That's that for a lot of investigators,

527
00:32:14,280 --> 00:32:19,320
Speaker 1: that makes it tougher to believe these other claims. So

528
00:32:19,400 --> 00:32:22,160
Speaker 1: you're probably wondering why we're speaking about Gary Webb in

529
00:32:22,200 --> 00:32:24,840
Speaker 1: the past tense. And I know we're we're jumping around

530
00:32:24,960 --> 00:32:27,360
Speaker 1: a lot right now. I guarantee you that previously we

531
00:32:27,440 --> 00:32:30,320
Speaker 1: had we had a nice little timeline, were painting the story.

532
00:32:30,320 --> 00:32:33,240
Speaker 1: We've got a picture here, Uh, were talking about Gary

533
00:32:33,240 --> 00:32:37,880
Speaker 1: Webb in past tense because after all this stuff is occurring,

534
00:32:38,080 --> 00:32:40,880
Speaker 1: he is largely considered to have failed his profession. He's

535
00:32:40,960 --> 00:32:44,480
Speaker 1: essentially blacklisted from many job that he would want, uh,

536
00:32:44,520 --> 00:32:48,320
Speaker 1: and he's dire need of money, his characters being attacked

537
00:32:48,320 --> 00:32:51,800
Speaker 1: and stuff. In December tenth of two thousand and four,

538
00:32:51,960 --> 00:32:54,720
Speaker 1: he was found dead with two thirty eight caliber gunshot

539
00:32:54,720 --> 00:32:57,800
Speaker 1: wounds to his head in his home in Carmichael, California,

540
00:32:58,000 --> 00:33:00,280
Speaker 1: which he had just had to put on the market

541
00:33:00,280 --> 00:33:02,320
Speaker 1: because he couldn't afford the mortgage. Right, because he couldn't

542
00:33:02,320 --> 00:33:05,240
Speaker 1: afford the mortgage. Now, the coroner ruled that this death

543
00:33:05,320 --> 00:33:08,640
Speaker 1: was a suicide and Webb's ex wife, remember we noted

544
00:33:08,680 --> 00:33:11,960
Speaker 1: her earlier, Susan Bell. She said that he had been

545
00:33:12,040 --> 00:33:15,040
Speaker 1: very depressed after a falling out with his former employers

546
00:33:15,120 --> 00:33:18,960
Speaker 1: at the Mercury, and a lot of people believe that

547
00:33:19,600 --> 00:33:24,200
Speaker 1: being professionally discredited drove him to suicide, and that his

548
00:33:24,400 --> 00:33:29,440
Speaker 1: claims and the dark Alliance were at the very least exaggerated,

549
00:33:29,680 --> 00:33:32,680
Speaker 1: if not made up. So the question is you know

550
00:33:32,760 --> 00:33:35,480
Speaker 1: what happened? Did he break ethical boundaries? Did you false

551
00:33:35,520 --> 00:33:38,280
Speaker 1: fie information or to sell a juicy story. Could he

552
00:33:38,320 --> 00:33:41,480
Speaker 1: not prove his claims his professional failure lead him to

553
00:33:41,520 --> 00:33:44,600
Speaker 1: take his own life? Or is there more to the story.

554
00:33:45,080 --> 00:33:46,680
Speaker 1: And we're going to talk about that right after a

555
00:33:46,720 --> 00:33:55,560
Speaker 1: quick word from our sponsor. Here's where it gets crazy.

556
00:33:56,720 --> 00:33:59,719
Speaker 1: Oh they're not really because we we had established this

557
00:34:00,000 --> 00:34:03,600
Speaker 1: to jump ahead. It's okay. But um so, Gary Webb

558
00:34:03,720 --> 00:34:07,480
Speaker 1: was right. He was correct at least partially but probably

559
00:34:07,560 --> 00:34:10,839
Speaker 1: but probably not all the way correct because, as Lean

560
00:34:10,960 --> 00:34:14,720
Speaker 1: says in that post OpEd you have mentioned nol, Gary

561
00:34:14,760 --> 00:34:17,799
Speaker 1: Webb was no journalism hero despite what killed the messenger says.

562
00:34:18,040 --> 00:34:20,560
Speaker 1: As Lean pointed out, there are a lot of things

563
00:34:20,600 --> 00:34:22,960
Speaker 1: that are hyperbolic or a lot of things he can't support.

564
00:34:23,360 --> 00:34:26,719
Speaker 1: But we have to mention not only was he at

565
00:34:26,760 --> 00:34:30,200
Speaker 1: least partially right, but despite the hoop law and the

566
00:34:30,239 --> 00:34:34,919
Speaker 1: controversy and character assassination, everybody knew that he was right

567
00:34:34,960 --> 00:34:38,920
Speaker 1: beforehand because two other journalists had figured this out in

568
00:34:40,120 --> 00:34:43,040
Speaker 1: like more than a decade before the Dark Alliance, journalist

569
00:34:43,160 --> 00:34:48,160
Speaker 1: Robert Perry and Brian Barger or Barger found improved the

570
00:34:48,200 --> 00:34:53,000
Speaker 1: contract groups were trafficking cocaine to help finance the war

571
00:34:53,000 --> 00:34:56,719
Speaker 1: in Nicaragua, which the US also wanted to happen. And

572
00:34:56,760 --> 00:35:02,600
Speaker 1: then after they came out with that, Reagan administration launched

573
00:35:02,600 --> 00:35:06,640
Speaker 1: a behind the scenes campaign to assassinate their character, remove

574
00:35:06,719 --> 00:35:10,120
Speaker 1: their credibility as journalists. And it was an attempt to

575
00:35:10,200 --> 00:35:14,200
Speaker 1: discredit any reporting on contrast and drugs. And there's an

576
00:35:14,280 --> 00:35:17,040
Speaker 1: article by a guy named Peter Kornblow was writing for

577
00:35:17,040 --> 00:35:22,640
Speaker 1: the Columbia Journalism Review from n who says whether the

578
00:35:22,680 --> 00:35:27,360
Speaker 1: campaign was the cause of this suppression or not, coverage

579
00:35:27,360 --> 00:35:30,600
Speaker 1: of the story was minimal, But it did happen, It

580
00:35:30,680 --> 00:35:33,839
Speaker 1: was it didn't and it's crazy to think about this now.

581
00:35:33,920 --> 00:35:40,719
Speaker 1: But on March four seven, the then President Reagan came

582
00:35:40,760 --> 00:35:43,040
Speaker 1: out after not speaking to the American people for a

583
00:35:43,040 --> 00:35:46,759
Speaker 1: long time during this whole Iran contra, just scandal, I

584
00:35:46,760 --> 00:35:49,000
Speaker 1: guess is what you would call it. Uh. He came

585
00:35:49,000 --> 00:35:52,240
Speaker 1: out and he gave a speech, and let's just listen

586
00:35:52,280 --> 00:35:55,640
Speaker 1: to one tiny little piece of that. First. Let me

587
00:35:55,680 --> 00:35:59,200
Speaker 1: say I take full responsibility from my own actions and

588
00:35:59,280 --> 00:36:02,680
Speaker 1: for those of my administration. As angry as I may

589
00:36:02,719 --> 00:36:06,759
Speaker 1: be about activities undertaken without my knowledge, I am still

590
00:36:06,800 --> 00:36:10,920
Speaker 1: accountable for those activities. As disappointed as I may be

591
00:36:11,120 --> 00:36:13,680
Speaker 1: and some who served me, I am still the one

592
00:36:13,760 --> 00:36:16,560
Speaker 1: who must answer to the American people for this behavior.

593
00:36:17,320 --> 00:36:20,800
Speaker 1: And as personally distasteful as I find secret bank accounts

594
00:36:20,800 --> 00:36:24,760
Speaker 1: and diverted funds, others the Navy would say, this happened

595
00:36:24,760 --> 00:36:27,840
Speaker 1: on my watch. Let's start with the part that is

596
00:36:27,880 --> 00:36:31,279
Speaker 1: the most controversial. A few months ago, I told the

597
00:36:31,320 --> 00:36:35,200
Speaker 1: American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My

598
00:36:35,320 --> 00:36:38,160
Speaker 1: heart and my best intentions still tell me that's true,

599
00:36:38,760 --> 00:36:41,400
Speaker 1: but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not.

600
00:36:42,239 --> 00:36:45,240
Speaker 1: So this was a big deal in Americans minds. People

601
00:36:45,320 --> 00:36:48,200
Speaker 1: knew about it. The President is going on television and saying, hey,

602
00:36:48,239 --> 00:36:51,080
Speaker 1: I didn't know this was happening. It was happening, but

603
00:36:51,320 --> 00:36:55,239
Speaker 1: I didn't know it was happening. Uh where Everybody's cool, Okay,

604
00:36:55,239 --> 00:37:00,000
Speaker 1: we'll just move forward, like plausible deniability or genuinely sincerely

605
00:37:00,120 --> 00:37:04,400
Speaker 1: saying this occurred without my knowledge. Either way, he is

606
00:37:04,440 --> 00:37:07,640
Speaker 1: already telling you in this is happening, and it's kind

607
00:37:07,640 --> 00:37:10,240
Speaker 1: of It's interesting. I really appreciate you play that clip

608
00:37:10,280 --> 00:37:14,920
Speaker 1: because it's it's something that is somewhat plausible because if

609
00:37:14,960 --> 00:37:18,800
Speaker 1: you're if you're at that high level, if you're the president,

610
00:37:19,120 --> 00:37:22,800
Speaker 1: then a lot of things that you say are directives

611
00:37:22,840 --> 00:37:26,080
Speaker 1: that are well what sometimes in corporate jargon we refer

612
00:37:26,160 --> 00:37:29,200
Speaker 1: to as the forty foot view. It's like saying, well,

613
00:37:29,440 --> 00:37:36,200
Speaker 1: make sure that communism doesn't spread in South and Central America.

614
00:37:36,440 --> 00:37:39,000
Speaker 1: That sounds good, but you haven't if you if you

615
00:37:39,080 --> 00:37:41,880
Speaker 1: leave all the details up people, you have no idea

616
00:37:42,000 --> 00:37:44,520
Speaker 1: what they're going to do. You have maybe a reasonable

617
00:37:44,560 --> 00:37:47,600
Speaker 1: expectation that they will obey the law, but other than that,

618
00:37:48,000 --> 00:37:51,680
Speaker 1: it's give me results. How badly does that person want

619
00:37:51,800 --> 00:37:55,399
Speaker 1: to prove? Like do what you want them to do

620
00:37:55,719 --> 00:37:58,480
Speaker 1: and make make themselves look good in your eyes as

621
00:37:58,520 --> 00:38:01,759
Speaker 1: the president, because you just you don't know where that

622
00:38:01,800 --> 00:38:04,359
Speaker 1: line is for everybody. It's different for everyone, And this

623
00:38:04,480 --> 00:38:07,480
Speaker 1: leads to a question that I think a lot of

624
00:38:07,520 --> 00:38:10,480
Speaker 1: people are still debated. We said, we said that his

625
00:38:10,560 --> 00:38:14,960
Speaker 1: death was ruled as suicide, right, we know that, Uh,

626
00:38:15,080 --> 00:38:17,440
Speaker 1: we know that he died from two gunshot wounds to

627
00:38:17,440 --> 00:38:20,080
Speaker 1: the head. A lot of people even today believe that

628
00:38:20,120 --> 00:38:23,960
Speaker 1: Gary Webb was actually murdered and then his death was

629
00:38:24,000 --> 00:38:27,360
Speaker 1: portrayed as a suicide to cover up further research he

630
00:38:27,440 --> 00:38:29,200
Speaker 1: might have published. I mean, what do you guys think

631
00:38:29,200 --> 00:38:31,480
Speaker 1: about that you've been reading this. Yeah, there were a

632
00:38:31,480 --> 00:38:35,400
Speaker 1: lot of rumors that he was perhaps working on another piece,

633
00:38:35,440 --> 00:38:41,000
Speaker 1: another story, something bigger. Those are almost all rumors, almost

634
00:38:41,000 --> 00:38:44,680
Speaker 1: all of them. And then everything you hear from his wife,

635
00:38:44,920 --> 00:38:47,880
Speaker 1: and specifically from his wife at the time, just about

636
00:38:47,920 --> 00:38:50,840
Speaker 1: the deep depression that he was suffering from in those

637
00:38:50,880 --> 00:38:55,680
Speaker 1: moments right right before he died, It does make you

638
00:38:55,719 --> 00:39:00,120
Speaker 1: think perhaps this was a suicide. It just points to it.

639
00:39:00,560 --> 00:39:03,880
Speaker 1: But let's just take a moment and put ourselves in

640
00:39:04,000 --> 00:39:08,520
Speaker 1: his shoes. Imagine that you're a journalist. You're being contacted

641
00:39:08,600 --> 00:39:14,120
Speaker 1: by people varying people of varying levels of involvement within

642
00:39:14,160 --> 00:39:17,879
Speaker 1: the United States government and or clandestine organizations. They are

643
00:39:17,920 --> 00:39:21,640
Speaker 1: telling you stories about things that have occurred. They're giving

644
00:39:21,640 --> 00:39:25,080
Speaker 1: you specifics about stuff that's already in the public domain.

645
00:39:25,880 --> 00:39:29,880
Speaker 1: It's stuff that's known, but they're giving you the full story.

646
00:39:30,000 --> 00:39:33,520
Speaker 1: And simultaneously they're telling you you cannot publish my name

647
00:39:33,960 --> 00:39:36,000
Speaker 1: you No one can ever know that I'm talking to you.

648
00:39:36,320 --> 00:39:40,239
Speaker 1: This cannot happen. And you are publishing these stories out

649
00:39:40,239 --> 00:39:42,480
Speaker 1: because this is your big break. This is something that

650
00:39:42,520 --> 00:39:46,280
Speaker 1: feels very important. There are there are thousands and thousands

651
00:39:46,280 --> 00:39:50,120
Speaker 1: of lives being affected by what this These people are

652
00:39:50,120 --> 00:39:53,200
Speaker 1: telling you, right, it is an important story to tell.

653
00:39:53,680 --> 00:39:56,440
Speaker 1: The pressure that Gary Webb was feeling and must have

654
00:39:56,440 --> 00:39:59,719
Speaker 1: been feeling to to put those stories out that would

655
00:39:59,719 --> 00:40:03,120
Speaker 1: become and dark alliance. I cannot fathom what that must

656
00:40:03,120 --> 00:40:05,799
Speaker 1: have felt like, but I know for sure that it

657
00:40:05,840 --> 00:40:08,480
Speaker 1: was heavy. It was a heavy burden to bear for him,

658
00:40:08,560 --> 00:40:13,200
Speaker 1: and it affected his family life and if it affected

659
00:40:13,200 --> 00:40:15,200
Speaker 1: his mental health and in some way, are there any

660
00:40:15,239 --> 00:40:17,279
Speaker 1: indications that he got death threats and things? I mean,

661
00:40:17,280 --> 00:40:19,720
Speaker 1: I would just assume so with being that that public

662
00:40:19,760 --> 00:40:23,640
Speaker 1: and such a divisive anti government story, that's a good

663
00:40:23,719 --> 00:40:26,760
Speaker 1: question depending on who you believe. If you watch the movie,

664
00:40:27,040 --> 00:40:30,920
Speaker 1: is definitely portrayed a lot, but well also in the movie,

665
00:40:30,960 --> 00:40:33,680
Speaker 1: in the film Killing the Messenger, it's I heard it

666
00:40:33,719 --> 00:40:38,279
Speaker 1: described in a review as it's a retelling of the

667
00:40:38,400 --> 00:40:40,840
Speaker 1: Gary Webb story in a place where everyone in the

668
00:40:40,960 --> 00:40:42,959
Speaker 1: in a universe where everyone in the world is wrong

669
00:40:43,120 --> 00:40:46,760
Speaker 1: except for Gary Webb. Everybody believes Gary. Yeah, exactly exactly

670
00:40:46,760 --> 00:40:50,000
Speaker 1: where Gary Webb is is right. Um, but but just

671
00:40:50,160 --> 00:40:53,880
Speaker 1: from in I just I'm trying to identify with him,

672
00:40:54,080 --> 00:40:58,440
Speaker 1: maybe a little more than I should, but I can

673
00:40:58,480 --> 00:41:02,400
Speaker 1: imagine a place where being discredited after having such strong

674
00:41:02,440 --> 00:41:06,479
Speaker 1: feelings about it being real and being important, would take

675
00:41:06,520 --> 00:41:09,000
Speaker 1: a huge toll on not only your self esteem and

676
00:41:09,000 --> 00:41:12,239
Speaker 1: self worth, but your ability to continue on. And one

677
00:41:12,280 --> 00:41:15,040
Speaker 1: thing that a lot of people see as a smoking

678
00:41:15,080 --> 00:41:19,040
Speaker 1: gun here is the the fact that he died from

679
00:41:19,040 --> 00:41:23,160
Speaker 1: not one, but two shots to the head. You might

680
00:41:23,200 --> 00:41:28,400
Speaker 1: be surprised by how many people who attempt that sort

681
00:41:28,560 --> 00:41:32,200
Speaker 1: of process do end up giving themselves ultimately a non

682
00:41:32,280 --> 00:41:35,719
Speaker 1: fatal injury. But you know, it's never it's never gonna

683
00:41:35,719 --> 00:41:38,560
Speaker 1: be pretty. But one of one of the gun shots

684
00:41:38,600 --> 00:41:42,239
Speaker 1: was through his cheek, so they believe that maybe he

685
00:41:42,400 --> 00:41:47,880
Speaker 1: missed and then went for a second shot. But because

686
00:41:48,000 --> 00:41:51,440
Speaker 1: of that, because of the idea that two gunshot wounds

687
00:41:51,520 --> 00:41:55,200
Speaker 1: the head um seemed unusual to a lot of people,

688
00:41:56,239 --> 00:42:00,880
Speaker 1: the majority of whom are not forensic investigators. Obviously. Uh

689
00:42:01,000 --> 00:42:05,000
Speaker 1: there there's this huge outcry and local reporters end up

690
00:42:05,000 --> 00:42:09,120
Speaker 1: going to Sacramento County and they say, okay, what go

691
00:42:09,200 --> 00:42:12,400
Speaker 1: on record, tell us what is this? And the coroner

692
00:42:12,440 --> 00:42:14,920
Speaker 1: at the time, a guy named Robert Lyon, said, it

693
00:42:15,080 --> 00:42:18,120
Speaker 1: is unusual. It is a suicide. It's unusual in a

694
00:42:18,160 --> 00:42:20,640
Speaker 1: suicide case to have two shots, but it's been done

695
00:42:20,680 --> 00:42:24,719
Speaker 1: in the past. It's in fact a distinct possibility. So

696
00:42:24,760 --> 00:42:27,800
Speaker 1: he's saying it's definitely a suicide. This has happened before,

697
00:42:28,280 --> 00:42:31,400
Speaker 1: and that explanation is not good enough for people who

698
00:42:31,760 --> 00:42:33,719
Speaker 1: I thought there was more to the story, you know

699
00:42:33,760 --> 00:42:38,080
Speaker 1: what I mean? Yeah, well there there are. You can

700
00:42:38,160 --> 00:42:41,479
Speaker 1: hear versions of this story or read them online. Where

701
00:42:41,560 --> 00:42:44,680
Speaker 1: he was attempting to leave, he was trying to get away,

702
00:42:44,800 --> 00:42:46,479
Speaker 1: he was trying to sell his house, he was trying

703
00:42:46,480 --> 00:42:49,520
Speaker 1: to leave, and he was cocked before he could leave

704
00:42:49,680 --> 00:42:53,280
Speaker 1: by whatever in afarious forces. These claims have his zero

705
00:42:53,320 --> 00:42:57,759
Speaker 1: evidence to back them up, but it you know, it's

706
00:42:57,800 --> 00:43:00,359
Speaker 1: it's tough for me to completely discount them, but at

707
00:43:00,360 --> 00:43:04,279
Speaker 1: the same time it seems a lot less plausible than

708
00:43:04,360 --> 00:43:08,520
Speaker 1: the official story. So here's yeah, and here's another question,

709
00:43:09,080 --> 00:43:12,799
Speaker 1: just to show both sides here. If it was some

710
00:43:12,920 --> 00:43:15,640
Speaker 1: sort of murder and if it was related to his

711
00:43:15,719 --> 00:43:20,520
Speaker 1: investigations in the Dark Alliance, then why did they wait

712
00:43:20,600 --> 00:43:25,279
Speaker 1: eight years after the publication of the book for him to,

713
00:43:25,600 --> 00:43:27,560
Speaker 1: you know, to take him out of the picture. The

714
00:43:27,640 --> 00:43:32,319
Speaker 1: timeline is just strange. Yeah, the claims I've seen were

715
00:43:32,320 --> 00:43:35,000
Speaker 1: that he was working on something else outside of the

716
00:43:35,080 --> 00:43:38,560
Speaker 1: Dark Alliances, which is why it got him killed. And

717
00:43:38,680 --> 00:43:43,480
Speaker 1: this argument and this discussion, this controversy continues in the

718
00:43:43,560 --> 00:43:48,640
Speaker 1: modern day in eighteen as we record this in one

719
00:43:48,719 --> 00:43:52,239
Speaker 1: of many of the American cities that still battle drug problems.

720
00:43:53,239 --> 00:43:55,879
Speaker 1: Where is it all coming from? Is someone helping them out?

721
00:43:56,680 --> 00:44:01,000
Speaker 1: Both sides of the argument um. A lot of prominent

722
00:44:01,000 --> 00:44:05,480
Speaker 1: papers do continue to attack Gary Webb's claims, or attack

723
00:44:05,600 --> 00:44:07,960
Speaker 1: is a strong word. They take it, they take it apart,

724
00:44:08,080 --> 00:44:11,640
Speaker 1: piece by piece and say you didn't prove this. This

725
00:44:11,760 --> 00:44:14,600
Speaker 1: is as you said earlier in all the hyperbolic statement.

726
00:44:15,120 --> 00:44:17,560
Speaker 1: And on the other side of this, and these are

727
00:44:17,560 --> 00:44:21,839
Speaker 1: great valid points too, But on the other side, continuing

728
00:44:21,920 --> 00:44:27,640
Speaker 1: releases of government documents keep supporting aspects of what he

729
00:44:27,680 --> 00:44:32,319
Speaker 1: has said, small little pieces. So it's there's no two

730
00:44:32,320 --> 00:44:34,440
Speaker 1: ways about it, no bones about it. It's old beans

731
00:44:34,480 --> 00:44:36,719
Speaker 1: to say it, but we should admit the Dark Alliance

732
00:44:36,880 --> 00:44:41,560
Speaker 1: does have several several prominent errors that could be critical

733
00:44:41,640 --> 00:44:44,040
Speaker 1: to you know, like a critical wound to the argument

734
00:44:44,040 --> 00:44:47,240
Speaker 1: in the book, But CIA documents released from the agency

735
00:44:47,239 --> 00:44:50,120
Speaker 1: at least confirmed chunks of it. No one is arguing

736
00:44:50,160 --> 00:44:55,640
Speaker 1: that the CIA showed often a very strange disinterest in

737
00:44:55,680 --> 00:44:59,200
Speaker 1: the drug trade. But how involved or not involved were they?

738
00:44:59,719 --> 00:45:03,680
Speaker 1: Will future declassified documents vindicate Webb from beyond the grave?

739
00:45:04,640 --> 00:45:10,240
Speaker 1: Did the was the murder something more indirect by ending

740
00:45:10,440 --> 00:45:14,400
Speaker 1: his career? You know, it's like, did the CIA commit

741
00:45:14,440 --> 00:45:16,640
Speaker 1: the murder and it was Gary Webb that pulled the trigger?

742
00:45:17,120 --> 00:45:19,360
Speaker 1: M hmm, it's I mean, it's a different way to

743
00:45:19,440 --> 00:45:21,480
Speaker 1: look at it. But well, something you think about because

744
00:45:21,880 --> 00:45:27,640
Speaker 1: that strategy of um disinformation by giving a lot of

745
00:45:27,760 --> 00:45:32,680
Speaker 1: a lot of information to someone where almost all of

746
00:45:32,680 --> 00:45:34,440
Speaker 1: it is true, but a couple are not true, or

747
00:45:34,440 --> 00:45:36,160
Speaker 1: almost all of it is untrue, but a couple of

748
00:45:36,160 --> 00:45:39,560
Speaker 1: things are true, right that and it what makes you

749
00:45:39,560 --> 00:45:43,200
Speaker 1: wonder if the way, especially if you look at it

750
00:45:43,280 --> 00:45:46,319
Speaker 1: with the large chunks of unsupported claims that are in there,

751
00:45:46,320 --> 00:45:48,080
Speaker 1: it makes you wonder if he's speaking to one or

752
00:45:48,120 --> 00:45:50,160
Speaker 1: two people out of the groups of people, who is

753
00:45:50,200 --> 00:45:55,200
Speaker 1: giving him incorrect information on purpose in order to in

754
00:45:55,239 --> 00:45:57,919
Speaker 1: the future discredit him, which, like you said, Ben would

755
00:45:57,920 --> 00:46:04,600
Speaker 1: then eventually lead to two gunshots to the head. What

756
00:46:04,640 --> 00:46:06,680
Speaker 1: do you what do you think? And it's it's it's

757
00:46:06,719 --> 00:46:10,600
Speaker 1: very suspicious circumstances. I I really, you know, it's like

758
00:46:10,680 --> 00:46:14,640
Speaker 1: Kobine level suspicious circumstances. You know, I don't know, I

759
00:46:14,680 --> 00:46:18,320
Speaker 1: don't care for it. It's definitely it definitely has something

760
00:46:18,640 --> 00:46:21,200
Speaker 1: something off about it. But the thing is as well,

761
00:46:21,719 --> 00:46:25,239
Speaker 1: if you are the central intelligence agency, wouldn't you have

762
00:46:25,320 --> 00:46:29,120
Speaker 1: the wherewithal to make a death look like an accident? Yeah?

763
00:46:29,320 --> 00:46:32,479
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? Well maybe then And here's

764
00:46:32,480 --> 00:46:35,400
Speaker 1: the other thing. If you're taken out by let's say,

765
00:46:36,360 --> 00:46:40,160
Speaker 1: portions of the narcotics world, so higher ups in the

766
00:46:40,239 --> 00:46:43,040
Speaker 1: drug you know, the the drug I don't want to

767
00:46:43,080 --> 00:46:46,839
Speaker 1: call them companies, what do you call organizations? These narcotics organizations.

768
00:46:47,160 --> 00:46:49,800
Speaker 1: It's probably also not going to be that clean of

769
00:46:49,800 --> 00:46:53,440
Speaker 1: of a murder. Perhaps that there's that it could be

770
00:46:53,480 --> 00:46:56,239
Speaker 1: maybe sending a message, but it could have just been

771
00:46:56,640 --> 00:46:59,920
Speaker 1: a suicide. Again, going back to this make it look

772
00:47:00,000 --> 00:47:03,640
Speaker 1: like an accident thing. It's a tragic truth that fatal

773
00:47:03,719 --> 00:47:08,120
Speaker 1: car accidents happen multiple times every single day in this

774
00:47:08,200 --> 00:47:13,160
Speaker 1: country and in in most countries with dense populations and

775
00:47:13,200 --> 00:47:17,799
Speaker 1: pedestrians and vehicles. So I'm still in decided. I know

776
00:47:17,880 --> 00:47:20,759
Speaker 1: that the official story says that it was a suicide.

777
00:47:21,400 --> 00:47:24,520
Speaker 1: Is ex spouse said it was a suicide. It is

778
00:47:24,560 --> 00:47:28,640
Speaker 1: possible to shoot yourself twice in the act of committing this,

779
00:47:29,160 --> 00:47:33,399
Speaker 1: But I don't know. I wanna let's what do you think,

780
00:47:33,520 --> 00:47:38,040
Speaker 1: fellow conspiracy realists to tell us, tell us your your

781
00:47:38,120 --> 00:47:41,520
Speaker 1: take on this. It just makes you And here's my

782
00:47:41,600 --> 00:47:44,480
Speaker 1: plea to anyone listening to this who wants to be

783
00:47:44,520 --> 00:47:49,120
Speaker 1: an investigative journalist or is an investigative journalist. Um, if

784
00:47:49,520 --> 00:47:53,040
Speaker 1: if you're working on anything that becomes highly important ever

785
00:47:53,080 --> 00:47:57,359
Speaker 1: in your life, please whatever the circumstances are, No, it's

786
00:47:57,400 --> 00:48:00,000
Speaker 1: never bad enough to where you need to take your

787
00:48:00,040 --> 00:48:02,839
Speaker 1: own life. Just know that it's never going to get

788
00:48:02,880 --> 00:48:07,000
Speaker 1: that dark. It cannot you You are worth it, stick

789
00:48:07,040 --> 00:48:11,520
Speaker 1: around and these kind of claims won't have to be

790
00:48:11,880 --> 00:48:13,799
Speaker 1: looked at in the future. And of course, I mean

791
00:48:13,800 --> 00:48:17,640
Speaker 1: if you are feeling even remotely in that way, there

792
00:48:17,640 --> 00:48:20,320
Speaker 1: are people that can help. I mean, there's the suicide

793
00:48:20,320 --> 00:48:24,400
Speaker 1: Prevention Hotline, you can find a social worker or some

794
00:48:24,520 --> 00:48:26,040
Speaker 1: kind of group where you can talk to people that

795
00:48:26,040 --> 00:48:28,279
Speaker 1: are going through similar things than you. I mean, with

796
00:48:28,320 --> 00:48:30,600
Speaker 1: at the risk of sounding cheesy and hyperbolic, I mean,

797
00:48:30,640 --> 00:48:32,960
Speaker 1: you're never as alone as you might think. And I

798
00:48:33,000 --> 00:48:36,080
Speaker 1: say that as someone who's dealt with suicide in my

799
00:48:36,160 --> 00:48:40,040
Speaker 1: life and people with suicidal ideations, and it's absolutely not

800
00:48:40,160 --> 00:48:42,279
Speaker 1: the end all be all, even if it feels that way.

801
00:48:42,880 --> 00:48:45,400
Speaker 1: Well said, and I don't think that's hyperbolic or cheesy

802
00:48:45,400 --> 00:48:48,160
Speaker 1: at all. I think that was very well said. And

803
00:48:48,360 --> 00:48:51,520
Speaker 1: if you ever feel like reaching out, if you ever

804
00:48:51,680 --> 00:48:55,160
Speaker 1: just want someone to chat to, we are all over

805
00:48:55,200 --> 00:48:59,480
Speaker 1: the internet. Yeah, you can find us conspiracy stuff on Twitter,

806
00:48:59,520 --> 00:49:03,480
Speaker 1: conspiracy stuff showing Instagram, Facebook conspiracy stuff. You can find

807
00:49:03,520 --> 00:49:06,279
Speaker 1: us there. Join our Facebook group if you're interested in

808
00:49:06,360 --> 00:49:07,680
Speaker 1: you like the show, you want to talk to other

809
00:49:07,760 --> 00:49:11,120
Speaker 1: like minded people who can have just fantastic discussions. We've

810
00:49:11,120 --> 00:49:13,600
Speaker 1: been having a lot this past week with everyone there.

811
00:49:14,120 --> 00:49:17,040
Speaker 1: It's called Here's where It Gets Crazy. That's our Facebook group.

812
00:49:17,120 --> 00:49:18,319
Speaker 1: Find it and all you have to do to be

813
00:49:18,360 --> 00:49:21,240
Speaker 1: a member is name the three hosts of the show,

814
00:49:21,680 --> 00:49:24,600
Speaker 1: and occasionally are amazing moderators will send the screenshots of

815
00:49:24,640 --> 00:49:27,719
Speaker 1: some really funny ones and here's here's the latest. Uh So,

816
00:49:27,760 --> 00:49:29,640
Speaker 1: who are the hosts of the podcast? Stuff they don't

817
00:49:29,640 --> 00:49:34,320
Speaker 1: want you to know? Answer? Benjamin Bowtie bowling for soup Bowling, Matteis,

818
00:49:34,480 --> 00:49:38,120
Speaker 1: fred Trump was the Lizard King, Frederick Noel take me

819
00:49:38,160 --> 00:49:42,839
Speaker 1: down to Funkytown Brown. Wow, that's great. Who was a

820
00:49:42,880 --> 00:49:47,600
Speaker 1: guy named Tristan? Tristan McNeil, now different trist Okay? Yeah

821
00:49:47,680 --> 00:49:50,960
Speaker 1: that I mean, that's true, isn't it? Like? No that? Honestly,

822
00:49:52,120 --> 00:49:54,879
Speaker 1: if we think an answer is funny enough, the mud

823
00:49:55,080 --> 00:49:58,640
Speaker 1: MUD's while you're listening, I apologize cat Z Act Sam Coop.

824
00:49:58,960 --> 00:50:02,879
Speaker 1: If if we think there's something funny enough, then we'll

825
00:50:02,920 --> 00:50:07,480
Speaker 1: probably let it in. Yeah, that's definitely my policy. And

826
00:50:07,600 --> 00:50:09,719
Speaker 1: while we're on the While we're on the feel good

827
00:50:09,719 --> 00:50:13,440
Speaker 1: train here, we would like to give a big shout

828
00:50:13,520 --> 00:50:18,919
Speaker 1: out to our youngest fan, I believe Eliza and Ray,

829
00:50:19,160 --> 00:50:22,359
Speaker 1: who was born to Nicholas Ray and his wife just

830
00:50:22,440 --> 00:50:25,880
Speaker 1: a few days ago as we record this, and so

831
00:50:26,000 --> 00:50:29,600
Speaker 1: congratulations Ray family. You asked us for a shout out,

832
00:50:29,680 --> 00:50:33,680
Speaker 1: and uh, remember you promised one day you would play

833
00:50:33,719 --> 00:50:38,400
Speaker 1: this episode for your kid. Yeah, told Gary Web story.

834
00:50:38,520 --> 00:50:41,839
Speaker 1: Why do I have to do that? Why do I playing? Yeah,

835
00:50:41,960 --> 00:50:44,759
Speaker 1: just play at the end, just waiting until she's waiting

836
00:50:44,800 --> 00:50:47,640
Speaker 1: until she's an adult, or if people still listen to

837
00:50:47,680 --> 00:50:50,000
Speaker 1: podcasts at that time. But no, I mean, we're funny

838
00:50:50,040 --> 00:50:53,279
Speaker 1: with you. You don't have to absolutely, absolutely do not

839
00:50:53,280 --> 00:50:55,960
Speaker 1: feel obligated to play this for but we just wanted

840
00:50:55,960 --> 00:50:59,680
Speaker 1: to say congratulations. Absolutely, And if you don't want to

841
00:50:59,719 --> 00:51:01,759
Speaker 1: con tacked us in any of those ways, you can

842
00:51:01,800 --> 00:51:04,319
Speaker 1: give us a call. We are one eight three three

843
00:51:04,920 --> 00:51:09,080
Speaker 1: d w y t k oh. That's the phone number.

844
00:51:09,200 --> 00:51:11,080
Speaker 1: Leave us a message you could get on the air.

845
00:51:11,120 --> 00:51:13,160
Speaker 1: We're gonna have another one of those coming up at

846
00:51:13,200 --> 00:51:16,840
Speaker 1: some point. She got so many great messages from from

847
00:51:16,880 --> 00:51:19,440
Speaker 1: so many of you. It's hard to choose. Honestly, I

848
00:51:19,520 --> 00:51:22,719
Speaker 1: like the weird ones. That's my favorite. And uh, if

849
00:51:22,719 --> 00:51:23,920
Speaker 1: you don't want to do any of that stuff, you

850
00:51:23,960 --> 00:51:25,960
Speaker 1: can send us a good old fashioned email. We are

851
00:51:26,160 --> 00:51:47,719
Speaker 1: conspiracy at how stuff works dot com.