Robert Parry’s Legacy and the Future of Consortiumnews
By Nat Parry
Robert Parry, editor and publisher of
Consortiumnews.com, died peacefully Saturday evening. In this moving tribute,
his son Nat Parry describes Robert’s unwavering commitment to independent
investigative journalism.
Extracts:
It is with a heavy heart that we inform Consortiumnews readers
that Editor Robert Parry has passed away. As regular readers know,
Robert (or Bob, as he was known to friends and family) suffered a stroke in
December, which – despite his own speculation that it may have been brought on
by the stress of covering Washington politics – was the result of undiagnosed
pancreatic cancer that he had been unknowingly living with for the past 4-5
years.
He unfortunately suffered two more debilitating strokes in recent weeks
and after the last one, was moved to hospice care on Tuesday. He passed away
peacefully Saturday evening. He was 68…
…we all know how devoted he was to the mission of independent
journalism and this website which has been publishing articles since the
earliest days of the internet, launching all the way back in 1995…
Bob was deeply impacted by the dirty wars of Central America in
the 1980s and in many ways these conflicts – and the U.S. involvement in them –
came to define the rest of his life and career. With grisly stories emerging
from Nicaragua (thanks partly to journalists like him), Congress passed the
Boland Amendments from 1982 to 1984, which placed limits on U.S. military
assistance to the contras who were attempting to overthrow the Sandinista
government through a variety of terrorist tactics.
The Reagan administration immediately began exploring ways to
circumvent those legal restrictions, which led to a scheme to send secret arms
shipments to the revolutionary and vehemently anti-American government of Iran
and divert the profits to the contras. In 1985, Bob wrote the first stories
describing this operation, which later became known as the Iran-Contra Affair.
Parallel to the illegal arms shipments to Iran during those days
was a cocaine trafficking operation by the Nicaraguan contras and a willingness
by the Reagan administration and the CIA to turn a blind eye to these
activities. This, despite the fact that cocaine was flooding into the United
States while Ronald Reagan was proclaiming a “war on drugs,” and a crack
cocaine epidemic was devastating communities across the country.
Bob and his colleague Brian Barger were the first journalists to
report on this story in late 1985, which became known as the contra-cocaine
scandal and became the subject of a congressional investigation…
Continuing to pursue leads relating to Iran-Contra during a period
in the late 80s when most of Washington was moving on from the scandal, Bob
discovered that there was more to the story than commonly understood. He
learned that the roots of the illegal arm shipments to Iran stretched back
further than previously known – all the way back to the 1980 presidential
campaign. That electoral contest between incumbent Jimmy Carter and challenger
Ronald Reagan…
Bob
continued his efforts to tell the full story behind both the Iran-Contra
scandal and the origins of the Reagan-Bush era, ultimately leading to two
things: him being pushed out of the mainstream media, and the launching of
Consortiumnews.com…
As all of us who lived through the post-9/11 era will recall, it
was a challenging time all around, especially if you were someone critical of
George W. Bush. The atmosphere in that period did not allow for much dissent.
Those who stood up against the juggernaut for war – such as Phil Donahue at
MSNBC, Chris Hedges at the New York Times, or even the Dixie Chicks
– had their careers damaged and found themselves on the receiving end of death
threats and hate mail.
While Bob’s magazine and newsletter projects had been
discontinued, the website was still publishing articles, providing a home for
dissenting voices that questioned the case for invading Iraq in late 2002 and
early 2003. Around this time, former CIA analyst Ray McGovern and some of his
colleagues founded Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity and a
long-running relationship with Consortiumnews was established. Several former
intelligence veterans began contributing to the website, motivated by the same
independent spirit of truth-telling that compelled Bob to invest so much in
this project.
At a time when almost the entire mainstream media was going along
with the Bush administration’s dubious case for war, this and a few other
like-minded websites pushed back with well-researched articles calling into
question the rationale. Although at times it might have felt as though we were
just voices in the wilderness, a major groundswell of opposition to war emerged
in the country, with historic marches of hundreds of thousands taking place to
reject Bush’s push for war.
Of course, these antiwar voices were ultimately vindicated by the
failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the fact that the war
and occupation proved to be a far costlier and deadlier enterprise than we had
been told that it would be…
Motivated by a desire to correct falsified historical narratives
spanning more than two centuries, Bob published his sixth and final book, America’s
Stolen Narrative: From Washington and Madison to Nixon, Reagan and the Bushes
to Obama, in 2012…
Although at the beginning of the
Obama era – and indeed since the 1980s – the name Robert Parry had been closely
associated with exposing wrongdoing by Republicans, and hence had a strong
following among Democratic Party loyalists, by the end of Obama’s presidency
there seemed to be a realignment taking place among some of
Consortiumnews.com’s readership, which reflected more generally the shifting
politics of the country.
In
particular, the U.S. media’s approach to Russia and related issues, such as the
violent ouster in 2014 of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, became
“virtually 100 percent propaganda,” Bob said.
He
noted that the full story was never told when it came to issues such as
the Sergei Magnitsky
case, which led to the first round of U.S. sanctions against Russia,
nor the inconvenient facts related to the Euromaidan protests that led to
Yanukovych’s ouster – including the reality of
strong neo-Nazi influence in those protests – nor the subsequent conflict in
the Donbass region of Ukraine.
Bob’s
stories on Ukraine were widely cited and disseminated, and he became an
important voice in presenting a fuller picture of the conflict than was
possible by reading and watching only mainstream news outlets…
Bob regretted that, increasingly,
“the American people and the West in general are carefully shielded from
hearing the ‘other side of the story.’” Indeed, he said that to even suggest
that there might be another side to the story is enough to get someone branded
as an apologist for Vladimir Putin or a “Kremlin stooge.”…
To be clear, neither
Consortiumnews nor Robert Parry ever “supported Trump,”… Something
interesting, however, did seem to be happening in terms of Consortiumnews’
readership in the early days of the Trump presidency, as could be gleaned from
some of the comments left on articles and social media activity.
It did appear for some time at least that a good number of Trump
supporters were reading Consortiumnews, which could probably attributed to the
fact that the website was one of the few outlets pushing back against both the
“New Cold War” with Russia and the related story of “Russiagate,”…
An Untimely End and the
Future of Consortiumnews
My dad’s untimely passing has
come as a shock to us all, especially since up until a month ago, there was no
indication whatsoever that he was sick in any way. He took good care of
himself, never smoked, got regular check-ups, exercised, and ate well. The
unexpected health issues starting with a mild stroke Christmas Eve and
culminating with his admission into hospice care several days ago offer a stark
reminder that nothing should be taken for granted.
And
as many Consortiumnews readers have eloquently pointed out in comments left
on recent articles
regarding Bob’s health, it also reminds us that his brand of
journalism is needed today more than ever.
* “We
need free will thinkers like you who value the truth based on the evidence and
look past the group think in Washington to report on the real reasons for our
government’s and our media’s actions which attempt to deceive us all,” wrote,
for example, “FreeThinker.”
* “Common
sense and integrity are the hallmarks of Robert Parry’s journalism. May you get
better soon for you are needed more now then ever before,” wrote “T.J.”
* “We
need a new generation of reporters, journalists, writers, and someone always
being tenacious to follow up on the story,” added “Tina.”
As
someone who has been involved with this website since its inception – as a
writer, an editor and a reader – I concur with these sentiments. Readers should
rest assured that despite my dad’s death, every effort will be made to ensure
that the website will continue going strong.
Indeed,
I think that everyone involved with this project wants to uphold the same
commitment to truth telling without fear or favor that inspired Bob and his
heroes like George Seldes, I.F. Stone, and Thomas Paine.
That
commitment can be seen in my dad’s pursuit of stories such as those mentioned
above, but also so many others – including his investigations into the
financial relationship of the influential Washington Times with the Unification
Church cult of Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the truth behind the Nixon campaign’s
alleged efforts to sabotage President Lyndon Johnson’s Paris peace talks with
Vietnamese leaders in 1968, the reality of the chemical attack in Syria in
2013, and even detailed examinations of the evidence behind the so-called
“Deflategate” controversy that he felt unfairly branded his favorite football
team, the New England Patriots, as cheaters.
Reviewing
these journalistic achievements, it becomes clear that there are few stories
that have slipped under Consortiumnews.com’s radar, and that the historical
record is far more complete thanks to this website and Bob’s old-fashioned
approach to journalism.
But
besides this deeply held commitment to independent journalism, it should also
be recalled that, ultimately, Bob was motivated by a concern over the future of
life on Earth.
As someone who grew up at the height of the Cold War, he
understood the dangers of allowing tensions and hysteria to spiral out of
control, especially in a world such as ours with enough nuclear weapons to wipe
out all life on the planet many times over.
As
the United States continues down the path of a New Cold War, my dad would be
pleased to know that he has such committed contributors who will enable the
site to remain the indispensable home for independent journalism that it has
become, and continue to push back on false narratives that threaten our very
survival.
Thank
you all for your support.
(Nat Parry)
In lieu of flowers, Bob’s family asks you to please consider making a
tax-deductible donation to the Consortium for
Independent Journalism.
Bob Parry: “There’s a special pain when your
colleagues in your profession turn on you, especially when you’ve done
something that they should admire and should understand,” he said.
“To do all
that work and then have the New York Times and the Washington
Post and the Los Angeles Times attack you
and try to destroy your life, there’s a special pain in that.”
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