Shameful Treatment of Gary Webb’s Reporting

I thought your obituary coverage of Gary Webb was shameful (Dec. 12). Regardless of how much The Times and other papers trashed Webb’s series on the CIA-Contra-crack connection, subsequent disclosures by the CIA inspector, Frederick Hitz, confirmed much of Webb’s reporting in the San Jose Mercury News on this extremely important, and extremely under-covered, issue. The failure to adequately cover this story is now compounded by your scurrilous trashing of Webb in his obituary. The Times should have focused on the import of Webb’s work instead of spending so much effort to discredit his story.

Jonathan Taylor

La Habra