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January 29, 2018

Longtime Investigative Journalist Robert Parry Dies at 68
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The longtime investigative journalist Robert Parry has died at the age
of 68. As a reporter at the Associated Press in the 1980s, he helped
expose how the Reagan administration was secretly sending arms to Iran
in what became known as the Iran-Contra scandal. Parry also revealed the
role of the U.S.-backed Nicaraguan Contras in drug trafficking here in
the United States.

Robert Parry: "The Contras became involved in drug trafficking in the
1980s. It was done partly to help raise money for themselves. They were
in a very unique position, working with the United States government on
one side, and then also becoming a way for South American drug dealers
to move their supplies, their material, their contraband, up into the
United States. So, because the Contras became an intermediary for that,
they also had some protection, because they were working for the U.S.
government, and the U.S. government was very hesitant to blow the
whistle on them."

Thats Robert Parry speaking on Democracy Now! in 2006. Since 1996, Parry
ran the news website Consortium News.com. In 2015, he received the I.F.
Stone Medal for Journalistic Independence from the Nieman Foundation.


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