Robert Parry (journalist)

Robert Parry (born June 24, 1949) is an American investigative journalist best known for his role in covering the Iran-Contra affair for the Associated Press (AP) and Newsweek, including breaking the Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare (CIA manual provided to the Nicaraguan contras) and the CIA and Contras cocaine trafficking in the US scandal in 1985. He was awarded the George Polk Award for National Reporting in 1984. He has been the editor of Consortium News since 1995.

Career

Parry joined the AP in 1974, moving to its Washington bureau in 1977. After the 1980 presidential election he was assigned to its Special Assignment (investigative reporting) unit, where he began working on Central America.^[1] In 1982 Parry noted the treatment received by The New York Times' Raymond Bonner, who was vilified and pushed out after reporting on the El Mozote massacre, an incident deeply unhelpful to the US government's effort to support the El Salvador government.^[1]

Parry was awarded the George Polk Award for National Reporting in 1984 for his work with the Associated Press on Iran-Contra, where he broke the story that the Central Intelligence Agency had provided an assassination manual to the Nicaraguan Contras (Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare).^[2][3] In mid-1985 he wrote the first article on Oliver North's involvement in the affair, and, together with Brian Barger, in late 1985 he broke the CIA and Contras cocaine trafficking in the US scandal,^[4] helping to spark Senator John Kerry's interest in investigating Iran-Contra.^[5] The Associated Press had refused to publish the drug trafficking story, and only relented when its Spanish-language newswire service accidentally published a translation.^[3] Barger and Parry continued to press their investigation of North even as most of the media declined to follow it up, eventually publishing a story in mid-1986, based on 24 sources, which led to a Congressional committee asking questions of North. After North denied the allegations, Barger was pushed out of the Associated Press, and Parry was unable to publish any further follow-ups to the story until after Eugene Hasenfus' plane (Corporate Air Services HPF821) was shot down in Nicaragua in October 1986.^[1] After finding out that his boss had been "conferring with [Oliver] North on a regular basis", Parry left AP in 1987 to join Newsweek.^[3] At Newsweek an early story concerned United States National Security Council staff being ordered by the White House to cover up aspects of the Iran-Contra affair, which Newsweek, under great political and media pressure, asked Parry to retract, despite his source holding firm. Parry refused, and he eventually left in Newsweek in 1990.^[6]

In August 1990 PBS' Frontline asked Parry to work on the October Surprise conspiracy theory,^[1] leading to Parry making several documentaries for the program,^[6][7][8] broadcast in 1991 and 1992. He continued to pursue it after a Congressional investigation had concluded the story was untrue, turning his Frontline research into a book published in 1993,^[9] and in 1994 he unearthed "a treasure-trove of government documents" supporting the theory,^[6] "showing that the [Congressional] task force suppressed incriminating CIA testimony and excluded evidence of big-money links between wealthy Republicans and Carter's Iranian intermediary, Cyrus Hashemi".^[3] In 1996 Salon.com wrote about his work on the theory, saying that "his continuing quest to unearth the facts of the alleged October Surprise has made him persona non grata among those who worship at the altar of conventional wisdom."^[6]

When journalist Gary Webb published his newspaper series Dark Alliance in 1996 alleging that the Reagan administration had allowed the Contras to smuggle cocaine into the US to make money for their efforts, Parry supported Webb amidst heavy criticism from the media.^[10]

Consortium News

The Consortium for Independent Journalism (CIJ) is a non-profit US-based independent news service founded in 1995 by Robert Parry, which publishes consortiumnews.com. Contributors besides Parry, who (as of 2013) remains its editor, include Norman Solomon,^[11] David Swanson^[12] and Martin A. Lee.^[13]

History

Parry launched consortiumnews.com in 1995, using funds derived from his retirement from Newsweek. In 1999 the Consortium for Independent Journalism was founded as a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization to provide an institutional foundation for the news service. However the organization attracted limited funding, and in 2000 Parry was forced to take the service part-time, taking an editing job at Bloomberg News, before quitting in 2004. With George W. Bush's second term from 2004, CIJ "began developing what might be regarded as unlikely relationships with former CIA analysts, such as Ray McGovern, Peter Dickson, Melvin Goodman and Elizabeth Murray".^[14]

Funding

In 2011 CIJ's budget was around $120,000 a year.^[14] A non-profit 501(c)(3), it takes donations via its website.^[15] In 2013 CIJ received $10,000 from the Park Foundation.^[16]

Books

• Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, The Press & Project Truth (1992)
• Trick or Treason: The October Surprise Mystery (1993)
• The October Surprise X-Files: The Hidden Origins of the Reagan-Bush Era (1996)
• Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq (2004)
• Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush (2007)
• America's Stolen Narrative: From Washington and Madison to Nixon, Reagan and the Bushes to Obama (2012)

References

External links

• Consortium News
• Robert Parry at the Internet Movie Database