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The reason I'd enjoyed such smooth sailing for so long hadn't been as I had assumed

because I was careful and diligent and good at my job.

The truth was that in all those years I hadn't written anything important enough to suppress.

This was journalist Gary Webb in his 2002 memoir into the buzz saw.

Two years later, he was dead of suicide.

Webb's claim to fame, an infamy among the U.S. government and its media allies, was his

1996 San Jose Mercury News Bombshell Dark Alliance, which detailed the

CIA's complicity in the crack epidemic that devastated black communities in the United

States. As detailed in a 2014 Intercept piece by Ryan Devaro, the CIA's backlash to Web

Scoop was swift and personal, using mainstream outlets like the Los Angeles Times and

the Washington Post to smear Webb's reputation, aided by friendly reporters motivated by professional jealousy.

Webb's factual though imperfect reporting was quickly relegated to the conspiracy theory

bin and his career would then spiral downward into oblivion.

But the evidence remains convincing as shown in the congressional record

that the CIA enabled the flow of narcotics and money that polluted urban neighborhoods

with crack cocaine in the 1980s,

destroying lives via drug dependency and prison time. in the at an upscale bakery spin-off of David Chang's momofuku.

...