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Global Research The Doomsday Project and Deep Events: JFK, Watergate, Iran-Contra, and 9/11 By Prof Peter Dale Scott Global Research, November 22, 2011 Asia Pacific Journal Vol 9, Issue 47, No 2, November 21, 2011 |
“I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in
America, and we must see to it that this agency [the National
Security Agency] and all agencies that possess this technology
operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we
never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is
no return.”
– Senator Frank Church (1975) I would like to discuss four major and badly understood events – the John F. Kennedy assassination, Watergate, Iran-Contra, and 9/11. I will analyze these deep events as part of a deeper political process linking them, a process that has helped build up repressive power in America at the expense of democracy. In recent years I have been talking about a dark force behind these events — a force which, for want of a better term, I have clumsily called a “deep state,” operating both within and outside the public state. Today for the first time I want to identify part of that dark force, a part which has operated for five decades or more at the edge of the public state. This part of the dark force has a name not invented by me: the Doomsday Project, the Pentagon’s name for the emergency planning “to keep the White House and Pentagon running during and after a nuclear war or some other major crisis.”1 My point is a simple and important one: to show that the Doomsday Project of the 1980s, and the earlier emergency planning that developed into it, have played a role in the background of all the deep events I shall discuss. More significantly, it has been a factor behind all three of the disturbing events that now threaten American democracy. The first of these three is what has been called the conversion of our economy into a plutonomy – with the increasing separation of America into two classes, into the haves and the have-nots, the one percent and the 99 percent. The second is America’s increasing militarization, and above all its inclination, which has become more and more routine and predictable, to wage or provoke wars in remote regions of the globe. It is clear that the operations of this American war machine have served the one percent.2 The third – my subject today — is the important and increasingly deleterious impact on American history of structural deep events: mysterious events, like the JFK assassination, the Watergate break-in, or 9/11, which violate the American social structure, have a major impact on American society, repeatedly involve law-breaking or violence, and in many cases proceed from an unknown dark force. There are any number of analyses of America’s current breakdown in terms of income and wealth disparity, also in terms of America’s increasing militarization and belligerency. What I shall do today is I think new: to argue that both the income disparity – or what has been called our plutonomy — and the belligerency have been fostered significantly by deep events. We must understand that the income disparity of America’s current economy was not the result of market forces working independently of political intervention. In large part it was generated by a systematic and deliberate ongoing political process dating from the anxieties of the very wealthy in the 1960s and 1970s that control of the country was slipping away from them. This was the time when future Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell, in a 1971 memorandum, warned that survival of the free enterprise system depended on “careful long-range planning and implementation” of a well-financed response to threats from the left.3 This warning was answered by a sustained right-wing offensive, coordinated by think tanks and funded lavishly by a small group of family foundations.4 We should recall that all this was in response to serious riots in Newark, Detroit, and elsewhere, and that increasing calls for a revolution were coming from the left (in Europe as well as America). I will focus today on the right’s response to that challenge, and on the role of deep events in enhancing their response. What was important about the Powell memorandum was less the document itself than the fact that it was commissioned by the United States Chamber of Commerce, one of the most influential and least discussed lobbying groups in America. And the memorandum was only one of many signs of that developing class war in the 1970s, a larger process working both inside and outside government (including what Irving Kristol called an “intellectual counterrevolution”), which led directly to the so-called “Reagan Revolution.”5 It is clear that this larger process has been carried on for almost five decades, pumping billions of right-wing dollars into the American political process. What I wish to show today is that deep events have also been integral to this right-wing effort, from the John F. Kennedy assassination in 1963 to 9/11. 9/11 resulted in the implementation of “Continuity of Government” (COG) plans (which in the Oliver North Iran Contra Hearings of 1987 were called plans for “the suspension of the U.S. constitution”). These COG plans, building on earlier COG planning, had been carefully developed since 1982 in the so-called Doomsday Project, by a secret group appointed by Reagan. The group was composed of both public and private figures, including Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney. I shall try to show today that in this respect 9/11 was only the culmination of a sequence of deep events reaching back to the Kennedy assassination if not earlier, and that the germs of the Doomsday Project can be detected behind all of them. More specifically, I shall try to demonstrate about these deep events that 1) prior bureaucratic misbehavior by the CIA and similar agencies helped to make both the Kennedy assassination and 9/11 happen; 2) the consequences of each deep event included an increase in top-down repressive power for these same agencies, at the expense of persuasive democratic power;6 3) there are symptomatic overlaps in personnel between the perpetrators of each of these deep events and the next; 4) one sees in each event the involvement of elements of the international drug traffic – suggesting that our current plutonomy is also to some degree a narconomy; 5) in the background of each event (and playing an increasingly important role) one sees the Doomsday Project — the alternative emergency planning structure with its own communications network, operating as a shadow network outside of regular government channels. Bureaucratic Misbehavior as a Factor Contributing to both the JFK Assassination and 9/11 Both the JFK assassination and 9/11 were facilitated by the way the CIA and FBI manipulated their files about alleged perpetrators of each event (Lee Harvey Oswald in the case of what I shall call JFK, and the alleged hijackers Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi in the case of 9/11). Part of this facilitation was the decision on October 9, 1963 of an FBI agent, Marvin Gheesling, to remove Oswald from the FBI watch list for surveillance. This was shortly after Oswald’s arrest in New Orleans in August and his reported travel to Mexico in September. Obviously these developments should normally have made Oswald a candidate for increased surveillance.7 This misbehavior is paradigmatic of the behavior of other agencies, especially the CIA, in both JFK and 9/11. Indeed Gheesling’s behavior fits very neatly with the CIA’s culpable withholding from the FBI, in the same month of October, information that Oswald had allegedly met in Mexico City with a suspected KGB agent, Valeriy Kostikov.8 This also helped ensure that Oswald would not be placed under surveillance. Indeed, former FBI Director Clarence Kelley in his memoir later complained that the CIA’s withholding of information was the major reason why Oswald was not put under surveillance on November 22, 1963.9 A more ominous provocation in 1963 was that of Army Intelligence, one unit of which in Dallas did not simply withhold information about Lee Harvey Oswald, but manufactured false intelligence that seemed designed to provoke retaliation against Cuba. I call such provocations phase-one stories, efforts to portray Oswald as a Communist conspirator (as opposed to the later phase-two stories, also false, portraying him as a disgruntled loner). A conspicuous example of such phase-one stories is a cable from the Fourth Army Command in Texas, reporting a tip from a Dallas policeman who was also in an Army Intelligence Reserve unit: Assistant Chief Don Stringfellow, Intelligence Section, Dallas Police Department, notified 112th INTC [Intelligence] Group, this Headquarters, that information obtained from Oswald revealed he had defected to Cuba in 1959 and is a card-carrying member of Communist Party.”10 This cable was sent on November 22 directly to the U.S. Strike Command at Fort MacDill in Florida, the base poised for a possible retaliatory attack against Cuba.11 The cable was not an isolated aberration. It was supported by other false phase-one stories from Dallas about Oswald’s alleged rifle, and specifically by concatenated false translations of Marina Oswald’s testimony, to suggest that Oswald’s rifle in Dallas was one he had owned in Russia.12 These last false reports, apparently unrelated, can also be traced to officer Don Stringfellow’s 488th Army Intelligence Reserve unit.13 The interpreter who first supplied the false translation of Marina’s words, Ilya Mamantov, was selected by a Dallas oilman, Jack Crichton, and Deputy Dallas Police Chief George Lumpkin.14 Crichton and Lumpkin were also the Chief and the Deputy Chief of the 488th Army Intelligence Reserve unit.15 Crichton was also an extreme right-winger in the community of Dallas oilmen: he was a trustee of the H.L. Hunt Foundation, and a member of the American Friends of the Katanga Freedom Fighters, a group organized to oppose Kennedy’s policies in the Congo. We have to keep in mind that some of the Joint Chiefs were furious that the 1962 Missile Crisis had not led to an invasion of Cuba, and that, under new JCS Chairman Maxwell Taylor, the Joint Chiefs, in May 1963, still believed “that US military intervention in Cuba is necessary.”16 This was six months after Kennedy, to resolve the Missile Crisis in October 1962, had given explicit (albeit highly qualified) assurances to Khrushchev, that the United States would not invade Cuba.17 This did not stop the J-5 of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (the JCS Directorate of Plans and Policy) from producing a menu of “fabricated provocations to justify military intervention.”18 (One proposed example of “fabricated provocations” envisioned “using MIG type aircraft flown by US pilots to … attack surface shipping or to attack US military.”)19 The deceptions about Oswald coming from Dallas were immediately post-assassination; thus they do not by themselves establish that the assassination itself was a provocation-deception plot. They do however reveal enough about the anti-Castro mindset of the 488th Army Intelligence Reserve unit in Dallas to confirm that it was remarkably similar to that of the J-5 the preceding May – the mindset that produced a menu of “fabricated provocations” to attack Cuba. (According to Crichton there were “about a hundred men in [the 488th Reserve unit] and about forty or fifty of them were from the Dallas Police Department.”)20 It can hardly be accidental that we see this bureaucratic misbehavior from the FBI, CIA, and military, the three agencies with which Kennedy had had serious disagreements in his truncated presidency.21 Later in this paper I shall link Dallas oilman Jack Crichton to the 1963 emergency planning that became the Doomsday Project. Analogous Bureaucratic Misbehavior in the Case of 9/11 Before 9/11 the CIA, in 2000-2001, again flagrantly withheld crucial evidence from the FBI: evidence that, if shared, would have led the FBI to surveil two of the alleged hijackers, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaz al-Hazmi. This sustained withholding of evidence provoked an FBI agent to predict accurately in August, 2001, that “someday someone will die.”22 After 9/11 another FBI agent said of the CIA: “They [CIA] didn’t want the bureau meddling in their business—that’s why they didn’t tell the FBI…. And that’s why September 11 happened. That is why it happened. . . . They have blood on their hands. They have three thousand deaths on their hands”23 The CIA’s withholding of relevant evidence before 9/11 (which it was required by its own rules to supply) was matched in this case by the NSA.24 Without these withholdings, in other words, neither the Kennedy assassination nor 9/11 could have developed in the manner in which they did. As I wrote in American War Machine, it would appear that Oswald (and later al-Mihdhar) had at some prior point been selected as designated subjects for an operation. This would not initially have been for the commission of a crime against the American polity: on the contrary, steps were probably taken to prepare Oswald in connection with an operation against Cuba and al-Mihdhar [I suspect] for an operation against al-Qaeda. But as [exploitable] legends began to accumulate about both figures, it became possible for some witting people to subvert the sanctioned operation into a plan for murder that would later be covered up. At this point Oswald (and by analogy al-Mihdhar) was no longer just a designated subject but also now a designated culprit.25 Kevin Fenton, in his exhaustive book Disconnecting the Dots, has since reached the same conclusion with respect to 9/11: “that, by the summer of 2001, the purpose of withholding the information had become to allow the attacks to go forward.”26 He has also identified the person chiefly responsible for the misbehavior: CIA officer Richard Blee, Chief of the CIA’s Bin Laden Unit. Blee, while Clinton was still president, had been one of a faction inside CIA pressing for a more belligerent CIA involvement in Afghanistan, in conjunction with the Afghan Northern Alliance.27 This then happened immediately after 9/11, and Blee himself was promoted, to become the new Chief of Station in Kabul.28 How CIA and NSA Withholding of Evidence in the Second Tonkin Gulf Incident, Contributed to War with North Vietnam I will spare you the details of this withholding, which can be found in my American War Machine, pp. 200-02. But Tonkin Gulf is similar to the Kennedy assassination and 9/11, in that manipulation of evidence helped lead America – in this case very swiftly – into war. Historians such as Fredrik Logevall have agreed with the assessment of former undersecretary of state George Ball that the US destroyer mission in the Tonkin Gulf, which resulted in the Tonkin Gulf incidents, “was primarily for provocation.”29 The planning for this provocative mission came from the J-5 of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the same unit that in 1963 had reported concerning Cuba that, “the engineering of a series of provocations to justify military intervention is feasible.”30 The NSA and CIA suppression of the truth on August 4 was in the context of an existing high-level (but controversial) determination to attack North Vietnam. In this respect the Tonkin Gulf incident is remarkably similar to the suppression of the truth by CIA and NSA leading up to 9/11, when there was again a high-level (but controversial) determination to go to war. Increases in Repressive Power After Deep Events All of the deep events discussed above have contributed to the cumulative increase of Washington’s repressive powers. It is clear for example that the Warren Commission used the JFK assassination to increase CIA surveillance of Americans. As I wrote in Deep Politics, this was the result of the Warren Commission’s controversial recommendations that the Secret Service’s domestic surveillance responsibilities be increased (WR 25-26). Somewhat illogically, the Warren Report concluded both that Oswald acted alone (WR 22), . . . and also that the Secret Service, FBI, CIA, should coordinate more closely the surveillance of organized groups (WR 463). In particular, it recommended that the Secret Service acquire a computerized data bank compatible with that already developed by the CIA.31 This pattern would repeat itself four years later with the assassination of Robert Kennedy. In the twenty-four hours between Bobby’s shooting and his death, Congress hurriedly passed a statute— drafted well in advance (like the Tonkin Gulf Resolution of 1964 and the Patriot Act of 2001) — that still further augmented the secret powers given to the Secret Service in the name of protecting presidential candidates.32 This was not a trivial or benign change: from this swiftly considered act, passed under Johnson, flowed some of the worst excesses of the Nixon presidency.33 The change also contributed to the chaos and violence at the Chicago Democratic Convention of 1968. Army intelligence surveillance agents, seconded to the Secret Service, were present both inside and outside the convention hall. Some of them equipped the so-called “Legion of Justice thugs whom the Chicago Red Squad turned loose on local anti-war groups.”34 In this way the extra secret powers conferred after the RFK assassination contributed to the disastrous turmoil in Chicago that effectively destroyed the old Democratic Party representing the labor unions: The three Democratic presidents elected since then have all been significantly more conservative. Turning to Watergate and Iran-Contra, both of these events were on one level setbacks to the repressive powers exercised by Richard Nixon and the Reagan White House, not expansions of them. On the surface level this is true: both events resulted in legislative reforms that would appear to contradict my thesis of expanding repression. We need to distinguish here, however, between the two years of the Watergate crisis, and the initial Watergate break-in. The Watergate crisis saw a president forced into resignation by a number of forces, involving both liberals and conservatives. But the key figures in the initial Watergate break-in itself – Hunt, McCord, G. Gordon Liddy, and their Cuban allies — were all far to the right of Nixon and Kissinger. And the end result of their machinations was not finalized until the so-called Halloween Massacre in 1975, when Kissinger was ousted as National Security Adviser and Vice-President Nelson Rockefeller was notified he would be dropped from the 1976 Republican ticket. This major shake-up was engineered by two other right-wingers: Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney in the Gerald Ford White House.35 That day in 1975 saw the permanent defeat of the so-called Rockefeller or liberal faction within the Republican Party. It was replaced by the conservative Goldwater-Casey faction that would soon capture the nomination and the presidency for Ronald Reagan.36 This little-noticed palace coup, along with other related intrigues in the mid-1970s, helped achieve the conversion of America from a welfare capitalist economy, with gradual reductions in income and wealth disparity, into a financialized plutonomy where these trends were reversed.37 Again in Iran-Contra we see a deeper accumulation of repressive power under the surface of liberal reforms. At the time not only the press but even academics like myself celebrated the termination of aid to the Nicaraguan Contras, and the victory there of the Contadora peace process. Not generally noticed at the time was the fact that, while Oliver North was removed from his role in the Doomsday Project, that project’s plans for surveillance, detention, and the militarization of the United States continued to grow after his departure.38 Also not noticed was the fact that the US Congress, while curtailing aid to one small drug-financed CIA proxy army, was simultaneously increasing US support to a much larger coalition of drug-financed proxy armies in Afghanistan.39 While Iran-Contra exposed the $32 million which Saudi Arabia, at the urging of CIA Director William Casey, had supplied to the Contras, not a word was whispered about the $500 million or more that the Saudis, again at the urging of Casey, had supplied in the same period to the Afghan mujahedin.40 In this sense the drama of Iran-Contra in Congress can be thought of as a misdirection play, directing public attention away from America’s much more intensive engagement in Afghanistan – a covert policy that has since evolved into America’s longest war. We should expand our consciousness of Iran-Contra to think of it as Iran-Afghan-Contra. And if we do, we must acknowledge that in this complex and misunderstood deep event the CIA in Afghanistan exercised again the paramilitary capacity that Stansfield Turner had tried to terminate when he was CIA Director under Jimmy Carter. This was a victory in short for the faction of men like Richard Blee, the protector of al-Mihdhar as well as the advocate in 2000 for enhanced CIA paramilitary activity in Afghanistan.41 Personnel Overlaps Between the Successive Deep Events I will never forget the New York Times front-page story on June 18, 1972, the day after the Watergate break-in. There were photographs of the Watergate burglars, including one of Frank Sturgis alias Fiorini, whom I had already written about two years earlier in my unpublished book manuscript, “The Dallas Conspiracy” about the JFK assassination. Sturgis was no nonentity: a former contract employee of the CIA, he was also well connected to the mob-linked former casino owners in Havana.42 My early writings on the Kennedy case focused on the connections between Frank Sturgis and an anti-Castro Cuban training camp near New Orleans in which Oswald had shown an interest; also in Sturgis’ involvement in false “phase-one” stories portraying Oswald as part of a Communist Cuban conspiracy.43 In spreading these “phase-one” stories in 1963, Sturgis was joined by a number of Cubans who were part of the CIA-supported army in Central America of Manuel Artime. Artime’s base in Costa Rica was closed down in 1965, allegedly because of its involvement in drug trafficking.44 In the 1980s some of these Cuban exiles later became involved in drug-financed support activities for the Contras.45 The political mentor of Artime’s MRR movement was future Watergate plotter Howard Hunt; and Artime in 1972 would pay for the bail of the Cuban Watergate burglars. The drug money-launderer Ramón Milián Rodríguez has claimed to have delivered $200,000 in cash from Artime to pay off some of the Cuban Watergate burglars; later, in support of the Contras, he managed two Costa Rican seafood companies, Frigorificos and Ocean Hunter, that laundered drug money.46 It is alleged that Hunt and McCord had both been involved with Artime’s invasion plans in 1963.47 It was I believe no accident that the organization of Hunt’s protégé Artime became enmired in drug trafficking. Hunt, I have argued elsewhere, had been handling a U.S. drug connection since his 1950 post in Mexico City as OPC (Office of Policy Coordination) chief.48 But McCord not only had a past in the anti-Castro activities of 1963, he was also part of the nation’s emergency planning network that would later figure so prominently in the background of Iran-Contra and 9/11. McCord was a member of a small Air Force Reserve unit in Washington attached to the Office of Emergency Preparedness (OEP); assigned “to draw up lists of radicals and to develop contingency plans for censorship of the news media and U.S. mail in time of war.”49 His unit was part of the Wartime Information Security Program (WISP), which had responsibility for activating “contingency plans for imposing censorship on the press, the mails and all telecommunications (including government communications) [and] preventive detention of civilian ‘security risks,’ who would be placed in military ‘camps.’”50 In other words, these were the plans that became known in the 1980s as the Doomsday Project, the Continuity of Government planning on which Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld worked together for twenty years before 9/11. A Common Denominator for Structural Deep Events: Project Doomsday and COG McCord’s participation in an emergency planning system dealing with telecommunications suggests a common denominator in the backgrounds of almost all the deep events we are considering. Oliver North, the Reagan-Bush OEP point man on Iran-Contra planning, was also involved in such planning; and he had access to the nation’s top secret Doomsday communications network. North’s network, known as Flashboard, “excluded other bureaucrats with opposing viewpoints…[and] had its own special worldwide antiterrorist computer network, … by which members could communicate exclusively with each other and their collaborators abroad.”51 Flashboard was used by North and his superiors for extremely sensitive operations which had to be concealed from other dubious or hostile parts of the Washington bureaucracy. These operations included the illegal shipments of arms to Iran, but also other activities, some still not known, perhaps even against Olof Palme’s Sweden.52 Flashboard, America’s emergency network in the 1980s, was the name in 1984-86 of the full-fledged Continuity of Government (COG) emergency network which was secretly planned for twenty years, at a cost of billions, by a team including Cheney and Rumsfeld. On 9/11 the same network was activated anew by the two men who had planned it for so many years.53 But this Doomsday planning can be traced back to 1963, when Jack Crichton, head of the 488th Army Intelligence Reserve unit of Dallas, was part of it in his capacity as chief of intelligence for Dallas Civil Defense, which worked out of an underground Emergency Operating Center. As Russ Baker reports, “Because it was intended for ‘continuity of government’ operations during an attack, [the Center] was fully equipped with communications equipment.”54 A speech given at the dedication of the Center in 1961 supplies further details: This Emergency Operating Center [in Dallas] is part of the National Plan to link Federal, State and local government agencies in a communications network from which rescue operations can be directed in time of local or National emergency. It is a vital part of the National, State, and local Operational Survival Plan.55 Crichton, in other words, was also part of what became known in the 1980s as the Doomsday Project, like James McCord, Oliver North, Donald Rumsfeld, and Dick Cheney after him. But in 1988 its aim was significantly enlarged: no longer to prepare for an atomic attack, but now to plan for the effective suspension of the American constitution in the face of any emergency.56 This change in 1988 allowed COG to be implemented in 2001. By this time the Doomsday Project had developed into what the Washington Post called “a shadow government that evolved based on long-standing ‘continuity of operations plans.’”57 It is clear that the Office of Emergency Preparedness (OEP, known from 1961-1968 as the Office of Emergency Planning) supplies a common denominator for key personnel in virtually all of the structural events discussed here. This is a long way from establishing that the OEP itself (in addition to the individuals discussed here) was involved in generating any of these events. But I believe that the alternative communications network housed first in the OEP (later part of Project 908) played a significant role in at least three of them: the JFK assassination, Iran-Contra, and 9/11. This is easiest to show in the case of 9/11, where it is conceded that the Continuity of Government (COG) plans of the Doomsday Project were implemented by Cheney on 9/11, apparently before the last of the four hijacked planes had crashed.58 The 9/11 Commission could not locate records of the key decisions taken by Cheney on that day, suggesting that they may have taken place on the “secure phone “ in the tunnel leading to the presidential bunker – with such a high classification that the 9/11 Commission was never supplied the phone records.59 Presumably this was a COG phone. It is not clear whether the “secure phone” in the White House tunnel belonged to the Secret Service or (as one might expect) was part of the secure network of the White House Communications Agency (WHCA). If the latter, we’d have a striking link between 9/11 and the JFK assassination. The WHCA boasts on its Web site that the agency was “a key player in documenting the assassination of President Kennedy.”60 However it is not clear for whom this documentation was conducted, for the WHCA logs and transcripts were in fact withheld from the Warren Commission.61 The Secret Service had installed a WHCA portable radio in the lead car of the presidential motorcade.62 This in turn was in contact by police radio with the pilot car ahead of it, carrying DPD Deputy Chief Lumpkin of the 488th Army Intelligence Reserve unit.63 Records of the WHCA communications from the motorcade never reached the Warren Commission, the House Committee on Assassinations, or the Assassination Records Review Board.64 Thus we cannot tell if they would explain some of the anomalies on the two channels of the Dallas Police Department. They might for example have thrown light upon the unsourced call on the Dallas Police tapes for a suspect who had exactly the false height and weight recorded for Oswald in his FBI and CIA files.65 Today in 2011 we are still living under the State of Emergency proclaimed after 9/11 by President Bush. At least some COG provisions are still in effect, and were even augmented by Bush through Presidential Directive 51 of May 2007. Commenting on PD-51, the Washington Post reported at that time, After the 2001 attacks, Bush assigned about 100 senior civilian managers [including Cheney] to rotate secretly to [COG] locations outside of Washington for weeks or months at a time to ensure the nation’s survival, a shadow government that evolved based on long-standing “continuity of operations plans.”66 Presumably this “shadow government” finalized such long-standing COG projects as warrantless surveillance, in part through the Patriot Act, whose controversial provisions were already being implemented by Cheney and others well before the Bill reached Congress on October 12.67 Other COG projects implemented included the militarization of domestic surveillance under NORTHCOM, and the Department of Homeland Security’s Project Endgame—a ten-year plan to expand detention camps at a cost of $400 million in fiscal year 2007 alone.68 I have, therefore, a recommendation for the Occupy movement, rightfully incensed as it is with the plutonomic excesses of Wall Street over the last three decades. It is to call for an end to the state of emergency, which has been in force since 2001, under which since 2008 a U.S. Army Brigade Combat Team has been stationed permanently in the United States, in part to be ready “to help with civil unrest and crowd control.”69 Democracy-lovers must work to prevent the political crisis now developing in America from being resolved by military intervention. Let me say in conclusion that for a half century American politics have been constrained and deformed by the unresolved matter of the Kennedy assassination. According to a memo of November 25 1963, from Assistant Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, it was important then to persuade the public that “Oswald was the assassin,” and that “he did not have confederates.”70 Obviously this priority became even more important after these questionable propositions were endorsed by the Warren Report, the U.S. establishment, and the mainstream press. It has remained an embarrassing priority ever since for all succeeding administrations, including the present one. There is for example an official in Obama’s State Department (Todd Leventhal), whose official job, until recently, included defense of the lone nut theory against so-called “conspiracy theorists”71 If Oswald was not a lone assassin, then it should not surprise us that there is continuity between those who falsified reports about Oswald in 1963, and those who distorted American politics in subsequent deep events beginning with Watergate. Since the deep event of 1963 the legitimacy of America’s political system has become vested in a lie — a lie which subsequent deep events have helped to protect.72
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November 22, 2010 -- From the archives -- how JFK assassination conspiracy has been put on the back shelf and an UPDATE |
Te following article ran in November 2004:
ANOTHER INSULT FROM BUSH AND THE PENTAGON NEO-CONS
By Wayne Madsen Washington, DC - November 22 still has meaning for me. Although I was in elementary school on this day in 1963, I vividly remember the shock and horror of a nation that experienced the brutal murder of its young and popular president on a Dallas street. But November 22 apparently no longer means much to either George W. Bush or his neo-con cabal who are currently consolidating their dominance over the Pentagon and setting their sights on the CIA and State Department. Sign greeting those who wished to go directly to Kennedy grave site on the morning of November 22, 2004. This morning I decided to pay my respects to President and Mrs. Kennedy by doing something I don't do very often in Washington - visit a memorial. I first noticed something amiss when I walked through the main gate to Arlington National Cemetery from Memorial Drive, the same causeway that, on November 25, 1963, bore President Kennedy's horse-drawn coffin from Washington to be laid to final rest upon a hilltop overlooking the city. Roosevelt Drive, a pedestrian walk that pedestrians once took as the most direct route to the JFK Memorial was blocked by chain link fences and the iron gate was closed. Those wishing to visit the Kennedy gravesite were forced to walk over a mile out of their way, much of it uphill, to the site. For the old and infirm, the walk would have been too much. Taking the long route around to the JFK grave, it became apparent that other access routes near the memorial had also been closed, including Weeks Drive, a shortcut to Roosevelt Drive. There was no noticeable construction and the barricades prohibiting direct access to the Kennedy site were temporary in nature. For seemingly no reason, Roosevelt Drive from a spot around the corner from the Kennedy site is closed to the public on the 41st anniversary of the president's assassination in Dallas. When I finally arrived at the grave, I was not surprised to find it - for a short time - devoid of other visitors. A sole National Park Service guard stood duty. It was as if November 22, 1963 and what happened that day was some insignificant factoid of American history. Making matters worse, there is now a video game from Britain called "JFK Reloaded" in which a player can be Lee Harvey Oswald and earn points by shooting Kennedy from the Texas School Book Depository. The player loses points if he or she hits Jackie. But the Bush administration, which rails against indecency on television and radio, does not feel compelled to have the Federal Trade Commission rule against the marketing of such a game to young people in the United States. Not surprisingly, the premise of the game is that Oswald did it, alone; that's exactly what the Bush family would have us believe. But more on that later. A spokesman for Senator Edward Kennedy called the game "despicable." That word applies aptly here, too: those with the power to do so have walled off most of the easiest access routes to the Kennedy grave site. And it is probably no more despicable in having as the White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, whose father and Texas attorney, Barr McClellan, penned a book suggesting that Lyndon Baines Johnson was behind the assassination. In fact, Johnson always suspected that the CIA, whose ranks included one Texas oilman named George H. W. Bush, was somehow involved with the assassination of President Kennedy. Closed Roosevelt Drive, main access route to the Kennedy grave, from the Memorial Drive entrance to Arlington National Cemetery. Just why the Department of Defense and the Department of the Army would need to close off the major access routes to President Kennedy's grave site on November 22 is anyone's guess. Washingtonians are accustomed to barricades around our most cherished and popular monuments and landmarks, but this is a new level of symbolic aggression and contempt. The National Cemetery Administration told me that complaints about closing off the route to the Kennedy grave should be directed to the Departments of the Army and Defense. Weeks Drive, one of the direct access routes to the Kennedy grave site on the morning of November 22, 2004. It was the intention of the Kennedy family and his administration that the President be buried on federal property so the grave would be accessible to the American people. That was the wish of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara after he heard that initial plans were to bury the President in the Kennedy family's plot in Holywood Cemetery near Brookline, Massachusetts. McNamara, in his capacity as Secretary of Defense, made special plans to inter Kennedy at Arlington. The current Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, apparently saw no problem with blocking easy access to the Kennedy grave site on this 41st anniversary of the President's assassination. The Kennedy grave site on the morning of November 22, 2004. Once the scene of November 22 memorial services, today only a sole National Park Service ranger stands vigil. Perhaps the memory of Kennedy is a bit too much for the neo-cons in the Pentagon. Just consider the differences between Bush and Kennedy. One was a bona fide war hero who was beloved by the American people and the world. The other is a draft dodger who failed to show up for his required medical exams and mandatory training and duty and is hated throughout the world. One started the Alliance for Progress to create better living conditions in Latin America. The other permits his thuggish Secret Service agents to get into a fracas with Chilean security agents and creates a diplomatic incident by requiring Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation banquet guests in Santiago to go through a metal detector. One brought the world to peace from the edge of nuclear war. The other seeks to plunge the world into a series of never-ending wars. One was brutally murdered in Dallas. The other used Dallas as a base to feather his financial nest by making deals on money-losing oil exploration companies, a taxpayer-funded baseball stadium, and shady political accommodations with crooked politicians and terrorist-connected Saudis that would make the politicians of Tammany Hall uncomfortable. Three roses atop President Kennedy's grave. There is something about the name "Kennedy" that seems to make the Bushes quite upset. The USS John F. Kennedy was even dispatched on a dangerous deployment in the Persian Gulf as part of an exercise aimed primarily at future military action against Iran. Morale on board the Kennedy is at an all-time low, and in recent months its Commanding Officer and a fighter squadron commander have been relieved for cause. E-mails from Navy personnel on the ship confirm that tempers against the Pentagon and Bush are running high. But there is something else about John F. Kennedy in particular that makes the Bushes jumpy. The name "George Bush" appears much too frequently in documents, some newly released, relating to the assassination of President Kennedy. Since there is no statute of limitations on murder or accessory to murder, I can understand why Bush pere and fils may want to erase November 22, 1963 from the history books.
The document trail linking George H. W. Bush to those involved in the assassination of President Kennedy is nothing less than chilling. First is a memo dated November 22, 1963, from FBI Special Agent Graham Kitchel to the FBI Special Agent in Charge in Houston. The subject is "Unknown Subject; Assassination of President John F. Kennedy." The memo states: At 1:45 p.m. Mr. George H. W. Bush, President of the Zapata Off-shore Drilling Company, Houston, Texas, residence 5525 Briar, Houston, telephonically furnished the following information to writer by long distance telephone call from Tyler, Texas. BUSH stated that he wanted to be kept confidential but wanted to furnish hearsay that he recalled hearing in recent weeks, the day and source unknown. He stated that one JAMES PARROTT has been talking of killing the President when he comes to Houston. BUSH stated that PARROTT is possibly a student at the University of Houston and is active in political matters in the area. He stated that he felt Mrs. FAWLEY, telephone number SU 2-5239, or ARLENE SMITH, telephone number JA 9-9194 of the Harris County Republican Party Headquarters would be able to furnish additional information regarding the identity of PARROTT. BUSH stated that he was proceeding to Dallas, Texas, would remain in the Sheraton-Dallas Hotel and return to his residence on 11-23-63. His office telephone number is CA 2-0395. So we have George H. W. Bush telling the FBI that he did not know the source of the information but knew that a John Bircher named James Parrott, who was the same age as Lee Harvey Oswald (24), wanted to kill President Kennedy in Houston. Bush did not know much about Parrott but gave the name of two Republican Party officials in Houston. Of course, Bush's Zapata Off-Shore Drilling Company had been a CIA front since 1960 and had supplied the Bay of Pigs invasion (code named "Zapata") force with two of his company's ex-U.S. Navy landing craft, renamed the "Barbara J" and the "Houston." In any case, Bush's phone call to the FBI was a false lead, and Parrott was cleared. However, Bush's phone call creates more questions about him than about Parrott. First of all, there is no evidence that Bush was in Tyler when Kennedy was shot. There was no Caller ID in those days that would have allowed Special Agent Kitchel to know, for a fact, that Bush was calling from Tyler. Bush's wife, Barbara, claimed he was in Tyler but Bush once said he may have been in Port-au-Prince, Haiti that day. But Bush himself admits to the FBI that he was booked into the Sheraton Hotel in Dallas on November 22. Bush always had a keen interest in what files the government had on Kennedy's assassination. When he was CIA Director in 1976, Bush wanted to see all the agency's files on the Kennedy assassination. His memos specifically requested information on Oswald, Jack Ruby, and others linked to the assassination. In her book The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty, author Kitty Kelley writes that "Years later, when [Bush] became president of the United States, he would deny making any attempt to review the agency files on the JFK assassination… when he made this claim, he did not realize that the agency would release 18 documents [under the Freedom of Information Act] that showed he had indeed, as CIA director, requested information-not once, but several times-on a wide range of questions surrounding the Kennedy assassination." Then there is the business of the November 29, 1963 memo from the Director of the Department of State's Bureau of Intelligence and Research to J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI Director. The subject is "Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, November 22, 1963." The memo states: Our Miami, Florida, Office on November 23, 1963, advised that the Office of Coordinator of Cuban Affairs in Miami advised that the Department of State feels some misguided anti-Castro group might capitalize on the present situation and undertake an unauthorized raid against Cuba, believing that the assassination of President John F. Kennedy might herald a change in U.S. policy, which is not true. Our sources and informants familiar with Cuban matters in the Miami area advise that the general feeling in the anti-Castro Cuban community is one of stunned disbelief and, even among those who did not entirely agree with the President's policy concerning Cuba, the feeling is that the President's death represents a great loss not only to the U.S. but to all of Latin America. These sources know of no plans for unauthorized action against Cuba. An informant who has furnished reliable information in the past and who is close to a small pro-Castro group in Miami has advised that these individuals are afraid that the assassination of the President may result in strong repressive measures being taken against them and, although pro-Castro in their feelings, regret the assassination. The substance of the foregoing information was orally furnished to us, George Bush of the Central Intelligence Agency and Captain William Edwards of the Defense Intelligence Agency on November 23, 1963 by Mr. W.T. Forsyth of this Bureau. A copy of the above memo was furnished to the Director of Naval Intelligence. That is important for reasons that will be explained in the following paragraph. Not only was George H. W. Bush, a known CIA operative, in Dallas on November 22 but he was also keeping track of the stance of pro-Castroites in Miami. That would have been important because Lee Harvey Oswald, Kennedy's accused assassin was supposed to be a pro-Communist member of the "Fair Play for Cuba Committee." But he was also associated with the "Anti-Communist League of the Caribbean" and "Friends of Democratic Cuba." And his apparent control officer was FBI agent Guy Bannister, formerly of the Chicago FBI office and a former Naval Intelligence officer, whose office "Guy Bannister Associates, Inc." a CIA cut-out for training anti-Castro Cubans, was located at 544 Camp Street in New Orleans. 544 Camp was also the address used by Oswald's "pro-Communist" "Fair Play for Cuba Committee." The local Office of Naval Intelligence was across the street from 544 Camp. The Director of Naval Intelligence is made privy, as an "info addee," to the aforementioned State Department memo on the reaction of pro- and anti-Castro Cubans in Miami to Kennedy's death. Oswald, while stationed at a classified U-2 base in Japan as a U.S. Marine, would have had his security clearance adjudicated by the Office of Naval Intelligence. Bush's role as a CIA operative in the Bay of Pigs invasion, a military action in which the Office of Naval Intelligence was closely involved, suggests that the other links between Bush, ONI, and the anti-Castro Cuban exiles are not benign. George H. W. Bush has still other, more oblique links to Kennedy assassin. The Houston-based conspirator James Parrott, Guy Bannister was a fervent John Bircher. Bannister was not only associated with Oswald but also David Ferrie, the commander of a Louisiana Civil Air Patrol unit whose members included not only Oswald but also James Reynolds Bath, the future buddy and Texas Air National Guard pal of George W. Bush. According to one of Bath's former Houston business associates, Bath became a pilot through the cadet program of the Louisiana Civil Air Patrol, a known recruiting ground for future CIA agents. Six days before Pearl Harbor, the Civil Air Patrol was founded by Dallas oilman David Harold Byrd who also owned the Texas School Book Depository from the 1930s to 1972. Another supporter of the Louisiana Civil Air Patrol was Claire Chennault, the founder of China's "Flying Tigers" and the notorious "Civil Air Transport" of China that later became Air America. Chennault died in New Orleans' murky intelligence-connected Ochsner Foundation Hospital in 1958. In 1964, Byrd apparently removed the "Oswald" window pane from the fifth floor of the Texas School Book Depository and made it a souvenir fixture in his home. Another connection between Bush and the assassination is George DeMohrenshildt, an anti-Communist White Russian-émigré who befriended fellow White Russian Marina Oswald and her husband Lee upon their emigration from the Soviet Union to Texas, where DeMohrenshildt was involved in the oil business. DeMohrenshildt's son-in-law told the Warren Commission that is was likely that his father-in-law was involved with the Kennedy assassination. DeMohrenshildt had an interest in pursuing oil exploration contracts with Haitian President Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier - something that may have involved George H. W. Bush's one-time alibi that he was in Port-au-Prince on November 22, 1963. In March 1977, the House Assassinations Committee was due to interview DeMohrenshildt but just a few hours before his scheduled appearance he was found dead of a "self-inflicted" gun shot wound. When DeMohrenshildt's personal address book was discovered, it was found to contain the following entry: "Bush, George H.W. (Poppy) 1412 W. Ohio also Zapata Petroleum Midland" Number: "4-6355" From the directory entry it appeared that DeMohrenshildt, who was rumored to be with the CIA, knew George H. W. (or Poppy as his family calls him) from before 1959, when Bush moved from Midland to Houston. It is also noteworthy that while he was taking care of the Oswalds during 1962, DeMohrenshildt was in close contact with Admiral Henry Bruton, the former Director of Naval Communications, who would have played an important supporting role for Naval Intelligence's activities in the Bay of Pigs invasion. As I walked away from President Kennedy's grave site this morning - looking forward to another one mile detour around the normal direct access walkway - I pondered why the Pentagon and the White House would dishonor our 35th President in such a manner on the anniversary of his murder. But then the words of President Kennedy's Inaugural Address on January 20, 1961 sprang to my mind: "In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility - I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it-and the glow from that fire can truly light the world." The "Eternal Flame" - still casts a glow on an otherwise dark and gloomy Washington. Kennedy spoke of light. The Bushes speak of fear and gloom and they represent darkness. If he were alive today, Kennedy would agree that as with World War II and the Cold War, freedom is once again in its "hour of maximum danger" - a danger from within the United States, from within the country's own institutions of government. By closing off the roads leading to Kennedy's Eternal Flame, the Bush administration is once again showing its contempt for America's traditions, its past. But as suggested in this article, the Kennedy assassination may be something the Bushes do not want that Eternal Flame to illuminate. Ironically, on the morning of this 41st anniversary of President Kennedy's assassination, the Associated Press filed this report from Houston: A private jet that was en route to Houston to pick up former President Bush clipped a light pole and crashed Monday as it approached Hobby Airport in thick fog, killing all three people aboard. The Gulfstream G-1159A jet, coming into Houston, went down about 6:15 a.m. in an undeveloped area 1 1/2 miles south of the airport, officials said. The former president had been scheduled to travel to Ecuador for a conference. God does, it appears, work in mysterious ways. ◊◊◊◊◊◊UPDATE◊◊◊◊◊◊ UPDATE: WMR has learned from an informed CIA veteran in Texas that on the evening of November 21, 1963, the operational conspirators behind the assassination of President Kennedy met at Campisi's Egyptian Restaurant in Dallas. Present, according to our source, were Jack Ruby, aka Jacob Rubenstein; Lee Harvey Oswald, aka Alex Hidell, who, according to recently-revealed information, had infiltrated the conspirators on behalf of loyal factions within the CIA and FBI in an attempt to prevent the assassination of Kennedy; the CIA's embedded Dallas policeman J. D. Tippitt, who was allegedly shot by Oswald the next day; E. Howard Hunt, one of the clean-shaven "tramps" detained at the railroad yard behind the Grassy Knoll after Kennedy was shot; the CIA's Ted Shackley, the chief of the CIA's JM/WAVE station responsible for the Bay of Pigs invasion and multiple attempts to kill Cuban leader Fidel Castro, and Tony Poe, aka Anthony Poshepny, one of the CIA's top men in Southeast Asia and the reported inspiration for the "Colonel Kurtz" character played by Marlon Brando in the film Apocalypse Now; and several other ground personnel who made up a "Who's Who" of CIA and mafia brigands and hit men who were gathered in Dallas to help facilitate the "Big Event." The information about the assassination eve meeting at Campisi's was passed to this editor by Houston area sources close to the late CIA operative Roland "Tony" Carnaby, who was gunned down by two Houston policemen in April 2008. Carnaby was particularly close to George H.W. Bush and allegedly carried out "special tasks" for the ex-President. Perhaps President Kennedy had a clairvoyant inkling of future events. On one occasion, in the White House, Kennedy doodled on a piece of paper. He jotted "9/11" and circled it and wrote the word "conspiracy," underlining it, next to the prophetic date. Two major conspiracies -- 11/11/63 and 9/11/01 would be historical book ends around America's slide into dictatorship. One of the biggest outrages committed by President Obama was his awarding the Presidential Medal of Freedom to former President George H. W. Bush, who the historical record now amply confirms was not only present on Dealey Plaza while President Kennedy was being shot but who was involved in the conspiracy to assassinate the President.
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John-F-Kennedy.net Mossad And The JFK Assassination |
"Israel need not apologize for the assassination or destruction of those who seek to destroy it. The first order of business for any country is the protection of its people." Washington Jewish Week, October 9, 1997 John-F-Kennedy.net Message Board Post | Read In March, 1992, Illinois Representative Paul Findley said in The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, "It is interesting - but not surprising - to note that in all the words written and uttered about the Kennedy assassination, Israel's intelligence agency, the Mossad, has never been mentioned." Considering that the Mossad is quite possibly the most ruthless and efficient intelligence agency in the world, it is peculiar that they have never been scrutinized in relation to the Kennedy assassination, especially when practically every other entity in the world (short of Elvis impersonators) has been implicated. But that all changed in January, 1994 with the release of Michael Collins Piper's Final Judgment. In this book, Piper says, "Israel's Mossad was a primary (and critical) behind the scenes player in the conspiracy that ended the life of JFK. Through its own vast resources and through its international contacts in the intelligence community and in organized crime, Israel had the means, it had the opportunity, and it had the motive to play a major frontline role in the crime of the century - and it did." Their motive? Israel's much touted Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, who ruled that country from its inception in 1948 until he resigned on June 16, 1963, was so enraged at John F. Kennedy for not allowing Israel to become a nuclear power that, Collins asserts, in his final days in office he commanded the Mossad to become involved in a plot to kill America's president. Ben-Gurion was so convinced that Israel's very survival was in dire jeopardy that in one of his final letters to JFK he said, "Mr. President, my people have the right to exist, and this existence is in danger." In the days leading up to Ben-Gurion's resignation from office, he and JFK had been involved in an unpublicized, contentious debate over the possibility of Israel getting nuclear capabilities. Their disagreement eventually escalated into a full-fledged war of words that was virtually ignored in the press. Ethan Bronner wrote about this secret battle between JFK and Ben-Gurion years later in a New York Times article on October 31, 1998, calling it a "fiercely hidden subject." In fact, the Kennedy/Ben-Gurion conversations are still classified by the United States Government. Maybe this is the case because Ben-Gurion's rage and frustration became so intense - and his power so great within Israel - that Piper contends it was at the center of the conspiracy to kill John Kennedy. This stance is supported by New York banker Abe Feinberg, who describes the situation as such: "Ben-Gurion could be vicious, and he had such a hatred of the old man [Joe Kennedy, Sr., JFK's father]." Ben-Gurion despised Joe Kennedy because he felt that not only was he an anti-Semite, but that he had also sided with Hitler during the 1930's and 40's. [We will touch upon this aspect of the story in an upcoming article entitled The CIA and Organized Crime: Two Sides of the Same Coin]. Anyway, Ben-Gurion was convinced that Israel needed nuclear weapons to insure its survival, while Kennedy was dead-set against it. This inability to reach an agreement caused obvious problems. One of them revolved around Kennedy's decision that he would make America his top priority in regard to foreign policy, and not Israel! Kennedy planned to honor the 1950 Tripartite Declaration which said that the United States would retaliate against any nation in the Middle East that attacked any other country. Ben-Gurion, on the other hand, wanted the Kennedy Administration to sell them offensive weapons, particularly Hawk missiles. The two leaders thus engaged in a brutal letter exchange, but Kennedy wouldn't budge. Ben-Gurion, obsessed by this issue, slipped into total paranoia, feeling that Kennedy's obstinance was a blatant threat to the very existence of Israel as a nation. Piper writes, "Ben-Gurion had devoted a lifetime creating a Jewish State and guiding it into the world arena. And, in Ben-Gurion's eyes, John F. Kennedy was an enemy of the Jewish people and his beloved state of Israel." He continues, "The 'nuclear option' was not only at the very core of Ben-Gurion's personal world view, but the very foundation of Israel's national security policy." Ben-Gurion was so preoccupied with obtaining nuclear weapons that on June 27, 1963, eleven days after resigning from office, he announced, "I do not know of any other nation whose neighbors declare that they wish to terminate it, and not only declare, but prepare for it by all means available to them. We must have no illusions that what is declared every day in Cairo, Damascus, and Iraq are just words. This is the thought that guides the Arab leaders … I am confident … that science is able to provide us with the weapons that will serve the peace and deter our enemies." Avner Cohen, in Israel and the Bomb, published by Columbia University Press, reinforces this sense of urgency by writing, "Imbued with lessons of the Holocaust, Ben-Gurion was consumed by fears of security … Anxiety about the Holocaust reached beyond Ben-Gurion to infuse Israel's military thinking." He further adds fuel to this point by pointing out, "Ben-Gurion had no qualms about Israel's need for weapons of mass destruction," and "Ben-Gurion's world view and his decisive governing style shaped his critical role in instigating Israel's nuclear progress." Kennedy, on the other hand, was adamant in his refusal to promote Israel's ascension to the nuclear stage. Avener Cohen, in Israel and the Bomb, stresses, "No American president was more concerned with the danger of nuclear proliferation than John Fitzgerald Kennedy. He was convinced that the spread of nuclear weapons would make the world more dangerous and undermine U.S. interests." Cohen continues at the end of this passage, "The only example Kennedy used to make this point was Israel." Realizing that Kennedy would not change his mind, Ben-Gurion decided to join forces with Communist China. Both countries were greatly interested in creating nuclear programs, and so began their secret joint dealings. Working in unison through intermediary Shaul Eisenberg, who was a partner of Mossad gun-runner and accountant Tibor Rosenbaum, Israel and China proceeded to develop their own nuclear capabilities without the knowledge of the United States. If you find this scenario improbable, I strongly urge you to read Gordon Thomas' excellent book, Seeds of Fire, where he exposes how the Mossad and CSIS (Chinese secret service) have conspired on many occasions to not only steal American military secrets, but to also doctor U.S. intelligence programs such as the Justice Department's PROMISE software. This instance, I am afraid to say, is but the first where echoes of the JFK assassination can still be felt today reverberating through our post 9-11 world. The danger of Israel developing the Bomb in unison with China became a highly volatile situation, and was closely monitored by the CIA. Intent on pursuing this path, the Israeli's constructed a nuclear facility at Dimona. When Kennedy demanded that the U.S. inspect this plant, Ben-Gurion was so incensed that he erected another PHONY facility that held no evidence of nuclear research and development. (Does this scenario sound eerily familiar to the game we're playing with Saddam Hussein in Iraq right now?) Fully aware of their shenanigans, though, JFK told Charles Bartlett, "The sons of bitches lie to me constantly about their nuclear capability." Avner Cohen, in Israel and the Bomb, reiterates this claim by saying that Ben-Gurion had taken the nuclear issue so closely to heart that he, "concluded that he could not tell the truth about Dimona to American leaders, not even in private." Dr. Gerald M. Steinberg, political science professor at Bar-Ilan University's BESA Center for Strategic Studies in Tel Aviv, weighs in by saying, "Between 1961 and 1963, the Kennedy administration placed a great deal of pressure on Ben-Gurion in the effort to pressure for acceptance of international inspection of Dimona and Israeli abdication of their nuclear weapons. This pressure apparently did not alter Israeli policy, but it was a contributing factor to Ben-Gurion's resignation in 1963." To convey how serious this situation had become in modern terms, look at what is happening in Iraq with United Nations security teams inspecting the royal palaces and bunkers for nuclear weapons and materials. This matter is so urgent that our nation is on the verge of war. Forty years earlier, the heat that JFK was placing on Ben-Gurion was equally as strong as what George Bush is laying on Saddam Hussein today. In Israel and the Bomb, Avner Cohen reinforces this point. "To force Ben-Gurion to accept the conditions, Kennedy exerted the most useful leverage available to an American president in dealing with Israel: a threat that an unsatisfactory solution would jeopardize the U.S. government's commitment to, and support of, Israel." The pressure on Ben-Gurion was so immense that he ended up leaving office. But Kennedy, in true pit-bull style, didn't let up on Ben-Gurion's successor, Levi Eshkol, as Avner Cohen reports. "Kennedy told Eshkol that the U.S. commitment and support of Israel 'could be seriously jeopardized' if Israel did not let the U.S. obtain 'reliable information' about its efforts in the nuclear field. Kennedy's demands were unprecedented. They amounted, in effect, to an ultimatum." Cohen concludes this thought by asserting, "Kennedy's letter precipitated a near-crisis situation in Eshkol's office." In the end, as we're all aware, Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963; but less known is that China conducted its first nuclear test in October, 1964. What makes this event more profound is Piper's claim that even though Israel said its first nuclear tests took place in 1979, they actually occurred in October, 1964 along with the Chinese! If this is true, other than August, 1945 when the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, October 1964 may possibly be the most dangerous month in 20th century history. Let's return, though, to JFK's assassination and the direct results of it in regard to the Jewish lobby, American foreign policy, and the militarization of Israel. To understand how powerful the Israeli lobby is in this country, venerable Senator J. William Fulbright told CBS Face the Nation on April 15, 1973, "Israel controls the U.S. Senate. The Senate is subservient, much too much; we should be more concerned about U.S. interests rather than doing the bidding of Israel. The great majority of the Senate of the U.S. - somewhere around 80% - is completely in support of Israel; anything Israel wants; Israel gets. This has been demonstrated time and again, and this has made [foreign policy] difficult for our government." Do you hear what Senator Fulbright said? This isn't a crazy conspiracy theorist or a KKK anti-Semite. It's a much-respected U.S. Senator saying that about 80% of the Senate is in Israel's hip pocket. Adding clout to this argument is Rep. Paul Findley, who was quoted in The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs in March, 1992, "During John Kennedy's campaign for the presidency, a group of New York Jews had privately offered to meet his campaign expenses if he would let them set his Middle East policy. He did not agree … As the president, he provided only limited support of Israel." To understand how important Kennedy's decisions were during his short-lived presidency, we need to look at the issue of campaign finance. Considering how influential the Israeli lobby is in the U.S. Senate (hearkening back to the words of Senator Fulbright), they had to have been enraged when President Kennedy genuinely wanted to cut the knees out from under the current campaign finance methods because it made politicians so reliant upon the huge cash inlays of special-interest groups. Regrettably, Kennedy did not have the time to implement this program, and to this day our political system is still monopolized by lobbyists from the very same special-interest groups. One can only imagine what changes would have occurred in regard to our foreign policy had Kennedy eradicated these vipers and blood-suckers from the halls of Congress. Tragically, Kennedy's ideas never came to fruition, and his heated battle with Prime Minister Ben-Gurion over whether Israel should be allowed to develop a nuclear program was ultimately lost. The reason why is that Lyndon Baines Johnson, who Kennedy intended to drop from his ticket in 1964 due to his extreme dislike for, had a complete reversal in foreign policy. As you will see, not only did Israel's nuclear program move ahead unchecked; they also became the primary beneficiary of our foreign aid. But this absolute turnaround would not have occurred if Kennedy would not have been assassinated. Up until LBJ became president, Kennedy dealt with the Middle East in a way that most benefited the U.S. His primary goal - and one which would most keep the peace - was a balance of power in the Middle East so that each and every nation would be secure. This decision adhered to the Tripartite Declaration which the U.S. signed in 1950. But under the Johnson administration, this fragile balance was overturned, and by 1967 - only four years after Kennedy's assassination - the U.S. was Israel's main weapons supplier, and OUR best interests were put well behind those of Israel! As Michael Collins Piper writes: "The bottom line is this: JFK was adamantly determined to stop Israel from building the nuclear bomb. LBJ simply looked the other way. JFK's death did indeed prove beneficial to Israel's nuclear ambitions and the evidence proves it." Reuven Pedatzer, in a review of Avner Cohen's Israel and the Bomb, in the Israeli Newspaper Ha'aretz on February 5, 1999 wrote, "The murder of American president John F. Kennedy brought to an abrupt end the massive pressure being applied by the U.S. administration on the government of Israel to discontinue their nuclear program." He continues, "Kennedy made it quite clear to the Israeli Prime Minister that he would not under any circumstances agree to Israel becoming a nuclear state." Pedatzer concludes, "Had Kennedy remained alive, it is doubtful whether Israel would today have a nuclear option," and that, "Ben-Gurion's decision to resign in 1963 was taken to a large extent against the background of the tremendous pressure that Kennedy was applying on him concerning the nuclear issue." If you're still not convinced; how about some numbers? In Kennedy's last fiscal budget year of 1964, Israeli aid was $40 million. In LBJ's first budget of 1965, it soared to $71 million, and in 1966 more than tripled from two years earlier to $130 million! Plus, during Kennedy's administration, almost none of our aid to Israel was military in nature. Instead, it was split equally between development loans and food assistance under the PL480 Program. Yet in 1965 under the Johnson administration, 20% of our aid to Israel was for the military, while in 1966, 71% was used for war-related materials. Continuing in this same vein, in 1963 the Kennedy administration sold 5 Hawk missiles to Israel as part of an air-defense system. In 1965-66, though, LBJ laid 250 tanks on Israel, 48 Skyhawk attack aircrafts, plus guns and artillery which were all offensive in nature. If you ever wondered when the Israeli War Machine was created, this is it! LBJ was its father. According to Stephen Green in Taking Sides: America's Secret Relations with a Militant Israel, "The $92 million in military assistance provided in fiscal year 1966 was greater than the total of all official military aid provided to Israel cumulatively in all the years going back to the foundation of that nation in 1948." Green continues, "70% of all U.S. official assistance to Israel has been military. America has given Israel over $17 billion in military aid since 1946, virtually all of which - over 99% - has been provided since 1965." Can you see what's happening here? Within two years of JFK's assassination, Israel went from being a weak, outmatched member of the volatile Middle Eastern community that was not allowed to develop nuclear weapons to one that was well on its way to becoming a undeniable military force on the world stage. John Kennedy adamantly put his foot down and refused to allow Israel to develop a nuclear program, while LBJ bent over backward to facilitate and bolster them. Or, as Seymour Hersh wrote in The Samson Option, "By 1968, the president had no intention of doing anything to stop the Israeli bomb." The result of this shift in focus from the Kennedy to Johnson administration is, in my opinion, the PRIMARY reason behind our current troubles in the Middle East which culminated in the 9-11 attacks and our upcoming war with Iraq (and beyond). I have a great deal of confidence in this statement, for as Michael Collins Piper points out, here are the results of John F. Kennedy's assassination: 1) Our foreign and military aid to Israel increased dramatically once LBJ became president. 2) Rather than trying to maintain a BALANCE in the Middle East, Israel suddenly emerged as the dominant force. 3) Since the LBJ administration, Israel has always had weaponry that was superior to any of its direct neighbors. 4) Due to this undeniable and obvious increase in Israel's War Machine, a constant struggle has been perpetuated in the Middle East. 5) LBJ also allowed Israel to proceed with its nuclear development, resulting in them becoming the 6th largest nuclear force in the world. 6) Finally, our huge outlays of foreign aid to Israel (approximately $10 billion/year when all is said and done) has created a situation of never-ending attacks and retaliation in the Middle East, plus outright scorn and enmity against the U.S. for playing the role of Israel's military enabler. In Israel's, and especially David Ben-Gurion's eyes then, what were their alternatives - to remain weakened (or at least balanced) in relation to their neighbors and handcuffed by JFK's refusal to bow to their will, or KILL the one man standing in their way to becoming dominant in the Middle East, the recipient of huge amounts of military aid, and one of the premier nuclear forces in the world? It's something to think about. Also, while these thoughts are running through your head, ask yourself this question. If Kennedy, LBJ, and all subsequent administrations would have adhered to the 1950 Tripartite Declaration and did everything in their power to maintain balance in the Middle East instead of pushing Israel to the forefront, would our Towers have been attacked on 9-11, 2001, and would we be on the verge of a possibly catastrophic war today? It's certainly something to ponder.
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Wikipedia John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories |
President John F. Kennedy, Jackie Kennedy, Nellie Connally, and
Governor John Connally, shortly before the assassination. The
circumstances surrounding the assassination of U.S. President John F.
Kennedy on November 22, 1963 quickly spawned suspicions of a conspiracy.
These suspicions were mitigated somewhat when an official investigation
by the Warren Commission concluded the following year that there was no
conspiracy. Since then, doubts have arisen regarding the Commission's
findings. Critics have argued that the Commission, and even the
government, covered-up crucial information pointing to a conspiracy.
Subsequent official investigations confirmed most of the conclusions of
the Warren Commission. However, the United States House Select Committee
on Assassinations (HSCA) concluded that Kennedy's assassination was
likely the result of a conspiracy, with "...a high probability that two
gunmen fired at [the] President."[1] No person or organization was
identified by the HSCA as being a co-conspirator of Lee Harvey Oswald.
Most current theories put forth a criminal conspiracy involving parties
as varied as the CIA, the KGB, the American Mafia, the Israeli
government, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, sitting Vice President Lyndon
B. Johnson, Cuban President Fidel Castro, anti-Castro Cuban exile
groups, the Federal Reserve, or some combination of those entities.
Contents [hide] 1 Background 1.1 Public opinion 2 Possible evidence of a
cover-up 3 Allegations of witness tampering, intimidation, and foul play
3.1 Witness intimidation 3.2 Witness deaths 4 Allegations of evidence
suppression, tampering, and fabrication 4.1 Suppression of evidence
4.1.1 Ignored testimony 4.1.2 Confiscated film and photographs 4.1.3
Withheld documents 4.2 Tampering of evidence 4.2.1 The "backyard" photos
4.2.2 The Zapruder film 4.2.3 Kennedy's body 4.3 Fabrication of evidence
4.3.1 Murder weapon 4.3.2 Bullets and cartridges 5 Allegations of
multiple gunmen 5.1 Number of shots 5.2 Origin of the shots 5.2.1
Testimony of eyewitnesses 5.2.2 Physical evidence 5.2.3 Film and
photographic evidence 5.2.4 Acoustical evidence 5.2.5 Medical evidence
5.3 Oswald's marksmanship 5.4 Role of Oswald 5.5 Alternative gunmen 5.6
Three tramps 6 Allegations of other conspirators 6.1 E. Howard Hunt 6.2
J.D. Tippit 6.3 Bernard Weissman 6.4 Roscoe White 6.5 Unnamed accomplice
or accomplices in the murder of J. D. Tippit 6.5.1 Allegations regarding
witness testimony and physical evidence 6.5.2 Allegations regarding
timeline 7 Conspiracy theories 7.1 New Orleans conspiracy 7.2 CIA
conspiracy 7.3 Shadow government conspiracy 7.4 Military-industrial
complex 7.5 Secret Service conspiracy 7.6 Cuban exiles 7.7 Organized
crime conspiracy 7.8 Lyndon B. Johnson conspiracy 7.9 Cuban conspiracy
7.10 Soviet conspiracy 7.11 Israeli conspiracy 7.12 Federal Reserve
conspiracy 7.13 Decoy hearse and wound alteration 8 Other published
theories 9 See also 10 Notes 11 References 12 External links [edit]Background
Handbill circulated on November 21, 1963, one day before the assassination of John F. Kennedy. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated as he traveled in an open-top car in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas on Friday at 12:30 pm,CST (1:30 pm EST) November 22, 1963; Texas Governor John Connally was also injured. Within two hours, Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested for the murder of Dallas policeman J.D. Tippit and arraigned that evening. At 1:35 am Saturday, Oswald was arraigned for murdering the President. At 11:21 am, Sunday, November 24, 1963, nightclub owner Jack Ruby shot and killed Oswald as he was being transferred to the county jail. Immediately after the shooting, many people suspected that the assassination was part of a larger plot.[2] Ruby's shooting of Oswald compounded initial suspicions.[2] Mark Lane has been described as writing "the first literary shot" among conspiracy theorists with his article in the December 19, 1963 edition of the National Guardian, "Defense Brief for Oswald".[3] Published in May 1964, Thomas Buchanan's Who Killed Kennedy? has been credited as the first book alleging a conspiracy.[4] In 1964, the Warren Commission concluded that Oswald acted alone and that no credible evidence supported the contention that he was involved in a conspiracy to assassinate the president.[5] The Commission also indicated that Dean Rusk, the Secretary of State; Robert S. McNamara, the Secretary of Defense; C. Douglas Dillon, the Secretary of the Treasury; Robert F. Kennedy, the Attorney General; J. Edgar Hoover, the Director of the FBI; John A. McCone, the Director of the CIA; and James J. Rowley, the Chief of the Secret Service, each independently reached the same conclusion on the basis of information available to them.[6] In 1979, the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) agreed with the Warren Commission that Oswald assassinated Kennedy, but concluded that the Commission's report and the original FBI investigation were seriously flawed. The HSCA ruled that at least four shots were fired with a "high probability" that two gunmen fired at the President, and that a conspiracy was probable. The HSCA stated that "the Warren Commission failed to investigate adequately the possibility of a conspiracy to assassinate the President."[7] The Ramsey Clark Panel and the Rockefeller Commission both supported the Warren Commission's conclusions, while New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison unsuccessfully prosecuted Clay Shaw for conspiring to assassinate Kennedy. [edit]Public opinion According to John McAdams: “The greatest and grandest of all conspiracy theories is the Kennedy assassination conspiracy theory.”[8] Others have frequently referred to it as "the mother of all conspiracies".[9][10] The number of books written about the assassination of Kennedy has been estimated to be in the range of one thousand[11][12] to two thousand.[2] According to Vincent Bugliosi, 95% of those books are "pro-conspiracy and anti-Warren Commission".[11] Kennedy assassination enthusiasts have been described as belonging to "conspiracy theorists" on one side and "debunkers" on the other.[8] The great amount of controversy surrounding the event has led to bitter disputes between those who support the conclusion of the Warren Commission and those who reject it or are critical of the official explanation, with each side leveling accusations of "naivete, cynicism, and selective interpretation of the evidence" toward the other.[10] Public opinion polls have consistently shown that a majority of Americans believe there was a conspiracy to kill President Kennedy. However, on the question of a government cover-up, different polls show both a minority and majority of Americans who believe the government engaged in one.[13] These same polls also show that there is no agreement on who else may have been involved. A 2003 Gallup poll reported that 75% of Americans do not believe that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.[14] That same year an ABC News poll found that 70% of respondents suspected that the assassination involved more than one person.[15] A 2004 Fox News poll found that 66% of Americans thought there had been a conspiracy while 74% thought there had been a cover-up.[16] [edit]Possible evidence of a cover-up Numerous researchers, including Mark Lane,[17] Henry Hurt,[18] Michael L. Kurtz,[19] Gerald D. McKnight,[20] Anthony Summers,[21] and others have pointed out what they characterize as inconsistencies, oversights, exclusions of evidence, errors, changing stories, or changes made to witness testimony in the official Warren Commission investigation, which they say could suggest a cover-up. Michael Benson wrote that the Warren Commission received only information supplied to it by the FBI, and that its purpose was to rubber stamp the lone gunman theory.[22] James H. Fetzer took issue with a 1998 statement from Federal Judge John R. Tunheim, the Chair of the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB), who stated that no "smoking guns" indicating a conspiracy or cover-up were discovered during their efforts in the early 1990s to declassify documents related to the assassination. Fetzer identified 16 "smoking guns" which he claims prove the official narrative is impossible, and therefore a conspiracy and cover-up occurred. He claims that evidence released by the ARRB substantiates these concerns. These include problems with bullet trajectories, the murder weapon, the ammunition used, inconsistencies between the Warren Commission's account and the autopsy findings, inconsistencies between the autopsy findings and what was reported by witnesses at the scene of the murder, eyewitness accounts that conflict with x-rays taken of the President's body, indications that the diagrams and photos of the President's brain in the National Archives are not the President's, testimony by those who took and processed the autopsy photos that the photos were altered, created, or destroyed, indications that the Zapruder film had been tampered with, allegations that the Warren Commission's version of events conflicts with news reports from the scene of the murder, an alleged change to the motorcade route which facilitated the assassination, an alleged lax Secret Service and local law enforcement security, and statements by people who claim that they had knowledge of, or participated in, a conspiracy to kill the President.[23] [edit]Allegations of witness tampering, intimidation, and foul play [edit]Witness intimidation Richard Buyer wrote that over 500 witnesses were interviewed by the Warren Commission and many of those whose statements pointed to a conspiracy were either ignored or intimidated.[24] Bill Sloan wrote in his 1992 biography of Jean Hill, JFK: The Last Dissenting Witness, that Hill said Arlen Specter, then an assistant counsel for the Warren Commission, attempted to humiliate, discredit, and intimidate her into changing her story.[25] According to Sloan, Hill also indicated she had been abused by Secret Service agents, harassed by the FBI, and was the recipient of death threats.[25] In his book Crossfire, Jim Marrs gave accounts of several people who claimed they were intimidated by FBI agents, or anonymous individuals, into altering or suppressing what they knew about the assassination, including Richard Carr, Acquilla Clemmons, Sandy Speaker, and A. J. Millican.[26] Marrs also wrote that Texas School Book Depository employee Joe Molina "...was intimidated by authorities and lost his job soon after the assassination,"[27] and that witness Ed Hoffman was warned by an FBI agent that he "might get killed" if he revealed what he had observed in Dealey Plaza on the day of the assassination.[28] [edit]Witness deaths Allegations of mysterious or suspicious deaths of witnesses connected with the Kennedy assassination originated with Penn Jones, Jr.[29][30][31] and were brought to national attention by the 1973 film Executive Action.[29][30] Jim Marrs later presented a list of 103 people he believed died "convenient deaths" under suspicious circumstances. He noted that the deaths were grouped around investigations conducted by the Warren Commission, New Orleans D.A. Jim Garrison, the Senate Intelligence Committee, and the House Select Committee on Assassinations.[32] Marrs pointed out that "these deaths certainly would have been convenient for anyone not wishing the truth of the JFK assassination to become public."[33] Vincent Bugliosi has described the death of Dorothy Kilgallen—who claimed she had been granted a private interview with Jack Ruby, which if true, would have been his only private interview—as "perhaps the most prominent mysterious death" cited by assassination researchers.[34] According to Jerome Kroth, Mafia figures Sam Giancana, John Roselli, Carlos Prio, Jimmy Hoffa, Charles Nicoletti, Leo Moceri, Richard Cain, Salvatore Granello, and Dave Yaras were murdered to prevent them from revealing their knowledge.[35] According to Matthew Smith, others with some tie to the case who have died suspicious deaths include Lee Bowers, Gary Underhill, William Sullivan, David Ferrie, Clay Shaw, George de Mohrenschildt, four showgirls who worked for Jack Ruby, and Ruby himself.[36] Another oft-cited "suspicious death" was that of Rose Cherami. Louisiana State Police Lieutenant Francis Fruge traveled to Eunice, Louisiana on November 20, 1963—two days before the assassination—to pick up Cherami, who had sustained minor injuries after she was hit by a car.[37][38] Fruge drove Cherami to the hospital and said that on the way there, she "...related to [him] that she was coming from Florida to Dallas with two men who were Italians or resembled Italians." Fruge asked her what she planned to do in Dallas, to which she replied: "...number one, pick up some money, pick up [my] baby, and ... kill Kennedy."[39] Cherami was admitted and treated at State Hospital in Jackson, Louisiana for alcohol and heroin addiction. State Hospital physician, Dr. Victor Weiss later told a House Select Committee investigator that on November 25—three days after the assassination—one of his fellow physicians told him "...that the patient, Rose Cherami, stated before the assassination that President Kennedy was going to be killed."[40] Dr. Weiss further reported that Cherami told him after the assassination that she had worked for Jack Ruby and that her knowledge of the assassination originated from "word in the underworld."[41] After the assassination, Lt. Fruge contacted Dallas Police Captain Will Fritz regarding what he had learned from Cherami, but Captain Fritz told him he "wasn't interested".[42] Cherami was found dead by a highway near Big Sandy, Texas on September 4, 1965; she had been run over by a car.[43] Another "suspicious death" cited by Jim Marrs of someone purporting foreknowledge of the assassination was that of Joseph Milteer, Director of the Dixie Klan of Georgia. On November 9, 1963, Milteer was secretly taped-recorded by Miami police informant William Somerset as he spoke of Kennedy's coming visit to Miami on November 18th: Somerset: "I think Kennedy is coming here on the 18th to make some kind of speech. I imagine it will be on TV." Milteer: "You can bet your bottom dollar that he [JFK] is going to have a lot to say about the Cubans, there are so many of them here." Somerset: "Yeah, well, he'll have a thousand bodyguards. Don't worry about that." Milteer: "The more bodyguards he has, the easier it is to get to him." Somerset: "Well, how in the hell do you figure would be the best way to get him?" Milteer: "From an office building with a high-powered rifle." Somerset: "Do you think he knows he's a marked man?" Milteer: "Sure he does." Somerset: "Are they really going to kill him?" Milteer: "Oh, yeah, it's in the works. Brown [Jack Brown, Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan] himself, Brown is just as likely to get him as anybody in the world. He hasn't said so, but he's tried to get Martin Luther King, Jr."[44][45] Milteer died in 1974 when a heater exploded in his house.[46] The House Select Committee on Assassinations reported in 1979 that while the information on the alleged threat to the president "was furnished the agents making the advance arrangements before the visit of the President" to Miami, "the Milteer threat was ignored by Secret Service personnel in planning the trip to Dallas." Robert Bouck, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Secret Service's Protective Research Section "...testified to the committee that threat information was transmitted from one region of the country to another if there was specific evidence it was relevant to the receiving region."[47] [edit]Allegations of evidence suppression, tampering, and fabrication According to Bugliosi, allegations that the evidence against Oswald was planted, forged, or tampered with is a main argument among those who believe a conspiracy took place.[48] [edit]Suppression of evidence [edit]Ignored testimony Some assassination researchers assert that witness statements indicating a conspiracy were ignored by the Warren Commission. In 1967, Josiah Thompson stated that the Commission ignored the testimony of seven witnesses who saw gunsmoke in the area of the stockade fence on the grassy knoll, as well as an eighth witness who smelled gunpowder at the time of the assassination.[49] In 1989, Jim Marrs wrote that the Commission failed to ask for the testimony of witnesses on the triple overpass whose statements pointed to a shooter on the grassy knoll.[27] [edit]Confiscated film and photographs Other researchers report that witnesses who captured the assassination in photographs or on film had their cameras and/or film confiscated by police or other authorities. Jim Marrs gives the account of Gordon Arnold who said that his film of the motorcade was taken by two policeman shortly after the assassination.[28] Another witness, Beverly Oliver, came forward in 1970 and said she was the "Babushka Lady" who is seen, in the Zapruder film, filming the motorcade. She said that after the assassination she was contacted at work by two men who she thought "...were either FBI or Secret Service agents." According to Oliver, the men told her that they wanted to develop her film and would return it to her within ten days, but they never returned the film.[50][51] [edit]Withheld documents Richard Buyer and others have complained that many documents pertaining to the assassination have been withheld over the years, including documents from the Warren Commission investigation, the House Select Committee on Assassinations investigation, and the Church Committee investigation.[24] These documents at one time included the President's autopsy records. Some documents are still not scheduled for release until 2029. Many documents were released during the mid-to-late 1990s by the Assassination Records Review Board under the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992. However, some of the material released contains redacted sections. Tax return information, which would identify employers and sources of income, has not yet been released.[52] The existence of large numbers of secret documents related to the assassination, and the long period of secrecy, suggests to some the possibility of a cover-up. One historian noted, "There exists widespread suspicion about the government's disposition of the Kennedy assassination records stemming from the beliefs that Federal officials (1) have not made available all Government assassination records (even to the Warren Commission, Church Committee, House Assassination Committee) and (2) have heavily redacted the records released under FOIA in order to cover up sinister conspiracies."[53] According to the Assassination Records Review Board, "All Warren Commission records, except those records that contain tax return information, are (now) available to the public with only minor redactions."[54] In response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by Jefferson Morley, the CIA stated that it had approximately 1,100 JFK assassination-related documents, about 2,000 pages in total, that have not been released for reasons of national security.[55] [edit]Tampering of evidence Among the items of physical evidence alleged by various researchers to have been tampered with are the "single bullet", also known as the "magic bullet" by critics of the official explanations, various bullet cartridges and fragments, the limousine's windshield, the paper bag in which the Warren Commission said Oswald carried the rifle within, the so-called "backyard" photos which depict Oswald holding the rifle, the Zapruder film, the photographs and radiographs obtained at Kennedy's autopsy, and Kennedy's body itself.[56] [edit]The "backyard" photos Among the evidence against Oswald are the photographs of Oswald posing in his backyard with a Carcano rifle—the weapon identified by the Warren Commission as the assassination weapon. Some researchers, including Robert Groden, assert that these photos are fake.[57] However, the House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded that the photographs of Oswald are genuine[58] and Oswald's wife, Marina says that she took them.[59] [edit]The Zapruder film The House Select Committee on Assassinations described the Zapruder film as "the best available photographic evidence of the number and timing of the shots that struck the occupants of the Presidential limousine."[60] The Assassination Records Review Board said it "is perhaps the single most important assassination record."[61] According to Vincent Bugliosi, the film was "originally touted by the vast majority of conspiracy theorists as incontrovertible proof of [a] conspiracy" but is now believed by many assassination researchers to be a "sophisticated forgery".[62] Among those who believe the Zapruder film has been altered are John Costello,[62] James H. Fetzer,[62] David Lifton,[62] David Mantik,[62] Jack White,[62] Noel Twyman,[63] and Harrison Livingstone, who has called it "the biggest hoax of the twentieth century".[62] In 1996 Roland Zavada, a former product engineer for Kodak, was requested by the Assassination Records Review Board to undertake a thorough technical study of the Zapruder Film.[64] Zavada concluded that there was no detectable evidence of manipulation or image alteration on the Zapruder in-camera original.[65] David Lifton wrote that the Zapruder film was in the possession of the CIA's National Photographic Interpretation Center, the night of the assassination.[66] Jack White, researcher and photographic consultant to the House Select Committee on Assassinations, claimed that there are anomalies in the Zapruder film, including an "unnatural jerkiness of movement or change of focus ... in certain frame sequences."[67] [edit]Kennedy's body In his 1981 book Best Evidence, David Lifton presented the thesis that President Kennedy’s body (i.e., the "best evidence") had been altered between the Dallas hospital and the autopsy site at Bethesda for the purposes of creating erroneous conclusions about the number and direction of the shots.[68] [edit]Fabrication of evidence [edit]Murder weapon The Warren Commission found that the shots which killed Kennedy and wounded Connally were fired from the Mannlicher-Carcano 6.5-millimeter Italian rifle owned by Oswald.[69] Deputy Sheriff Eugene Boone and Deputy Constable Seymour Weitzman both initially identified the rifle found in the Texas School Book Depository as a 7.65 Mauser. Weitzman signed an affidavit the following day describing the weapon as a "7.65 Mauser bolt action equipped with a 4/18 scope, a thick leather brownish-black sling on it".[70][71] Deputy Sheriff Roger Craig claimed that he saw "7.65 Mauser" stamped on the barrel of the weapon.[72] Dallas District Attorney Henry Wade told the press that the weapon found in the Book Depository was a 7.65 Mauser, and this was reported by the media.[73] But investigators later identified the rifle as a 6.5 Italian Mannlicher Carcano.[74] [75] According to Mark Lane: "The strongest element in the case against Lee Harvey Oswald was the Warren Commission's conclusion that his rifle had been found on the 6th floor of the Book Depository building. Yet Oswald never owned a 7.65 Mauser. When the FBI later reported that Oswald had purchased only a 6.5 Italian Mannlicher-Carcano, the weapon at police headquarters in Dallas miraculously changed its size, its make and its nationality. The Warren Commission concluded that a 6.5 Mannlicher-Carcano, not a 7.65 German Mauser, had been discovered by the Dallas deputies."[76] In Matrix for Assassination, author Richard Gilbride suggested that both weapons were involved and that Dallas Police Captain Will Fritz and Lieutenant J. Carl Day might have been conspirators.[77] Addressing "speculation and rumors", the Commission identified Weitzman as "the original source of the speculation that the rifle was a Mauser" and stated that "[p]olice laboratory technicians subsequently arrived and correctly identified the weapon as a 6.5 Italian rifle."[78] [edit]Bullets and cartridges The Warren Commission determined that three bullets were fired at Kennedy: one of the three bullets missed the vehicle entirely, one hit Kennedy, passed through him and struck Governor John Connally, and the third bullet was the fatal head shot to the President. The weight of the bullet fragments taken from Connally and those remaining in his body, some claim, totaled more than the missing mass of the bullet found at Parkland Hospital on Connally's stretcher—dubbed by critics of the Commission as the "magic bullet". However, witness testimony seems to indicate that only tiny fragments, of less total mass than was missing from the bullet, were left in Connally.[79][clarification needed] [edit]Allegations of multiple gunmen Dealey Plaza in 2003. The Warren Commission concluded that "three shots were fired [from the Texas School Book Depository] in a time period ranging from approximately 4.8 to in excess of 7 seconds."[80] Some assassination researchers, including Anthony Summers, dispute the Commission's findings and point to evidence that brings into question the number of shots fired, the origination of those shots, or the ability of Oswald to accurately fire three shots in a short amount of time, suggesting the involvement of multiple gunmen.[81] Governor Connally, seated in the limousine's jump seat directly in front of Kennedy, testified before the Warren Commission that "...the thought immediately passed through my mind that there were either two or three people involved, or more, in this—or someone was shooting with an automatic rifle."[82] [edit]Number of shots Based on the "consensus among the witnesses at the scene" and "in particular the three spent cartridges", the Warren Commission determined that "the preponderance of the evidence indicated that three shots were fired".[80] In 1979, the House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded there were four shots, one coming from the direction of the grassy knoll.[83] The Warren Commission, and later the House Select Committee on Assassinations, concluded that one of the shots hit President Kennedy in "the back of his neck", exited his throat, continued on to strike Governor Connally in the back, exited Connally's chest, shattered his right wrist, and embedded itself in his left thigh.[84] This conclusion came to be known as the "single bullet theory". Mary Moorman said in a TV interview immediately after the assassination that there were three or four shots close together, that shots were still being fired after she took her photograph of the President being hit, and that she was in the line of fire.[85] In 1967, Josiah Thompson concluded that four shots were fired in Dealey Plaza, with one wounding Connally and three hitting Kennedy.[49] [edit]Origin of the shots The wooden fence on the grassy knoll. The Warren Commission cited that the "cumulative evidence of eyewitnesses, firearms and ballistic experts and medical authorities", including onsite testing as well as analysis of films and photographs conducted by the FBI and Secret Service, pointed to the sixth-floor window at the southeast corner of the Texas School Book Depository as the origination of the shots.[80] In 1979, the House Select Committee on Assassinations agreed to publish a report from Warren Commission critic Robert Groden, in which he named "nearly [two] dozen suspected firing points in Dealey Plaza".[86] These sites included multiple locations in or on the roof of the Texas School Book Depository, the Dal-Tex Building, and the Dallas County Records Building, as well as the railroad overpass, a storm drain located along the north curb of Elm street, and various spots near the "grassy knoll".[86] Josiah Thompson concluded that the shots fired on the motorcade came from three locations: the Texas School Book Depository, the area of the grassy knoll, and the Dal-Tex Building.[49] [edit]Testimony of eyewitnesses According to some assassination researchers, the grassy knoll was identified by the majority of witnesses as the area from where shots were fired.[28][87] In March 1965, Harold Feldman wrote that there were 121 witnesses to the assassination with 51 indicating that the shots that killed Kennedy came from the area of the grassy knoll.[87] In 1967, Josiah Thompson examined the statements of 64 witnesses and found that 33 of them thought that the shots emanated from the grassy knoll.[88] In 1966, Esquire magazine credited Feldman with ""advanc[ing] the theory that there were two assassins: one on the grassy knoll and one in the Book Depository."[89] Jim Marrs also wrote that the weight of evidence suggested shots came from both the grassy knoll and the Texas School Book Depository.[28] Lee Bowers operated a railroad tower that overlooked the parking lot on the north side of the grassy knoll. He reported that he saw two men behind the picket fence at the top of the grassy knoll before the shooting. The men did not appear to be acting together and did not appear to be doing anything suspicious. After the shooting, Bowers said that one of the men remained behind the fence. Bowers said that he lost track of the second man whose clothing blended into the foliage. When interviewed by Mark Lane, Bowers noted that he saw something that attracted his attention, either a flash of light, or maybe smoke, from the knoll, leading him to believe "something out of the ordinary" had occurred there. Bowers told Lane he heard three shots, the last two in quick succession. Bowers opined that they could not have come from the same rifle.[90] William and Gayle Newman were standing at the curb on the north side of Elm St. with their two children. Mr. Newman said that a shot was fired from behind him (from the knoll) and that it was the shot that hit Kennedy in the head. Jesse Price was the building engineer for the Terminal Annex Building, located across from the Texas School Book Depository on the opposite side of Dealey Plaza. On November 22, 1963, Price viewed the presidential motorcade from the Terminal Annex Building's roof. In an interview with Mark Lane, Price said that he believed the shots came from "just behind the picket fence where it joins the underpass."[91] He claimed to have seen a "...man run towards the passenger cars on the railroad siding after the volley of shots."[92] Numerous witnesses reported hearing gunfire coming from the Dal-Tex Building, which is located across the street from the Texas School Book Depository and in alignment with Elm Street in Dealey Plaza.[citation needed] Several conspiracy theories posit that at least one shooter was located in the Dal-Tex Building.[93] [edit]Physical evidence According to L. Fletcher Prouty, the position of James Tague when he was injured by a fragment is not consistent with the trajectory of a missed shot from the Texas School Book Depository, leading Prouty to theorize that Tague was instead wounded by a missed shot from the second floor of the Dal-Tex Building.[94] Some assassination researchers state FBI photographs of the limousine show a bullet hole in its windshield above the rear-view mirror, and a crack in the windscreen itself. When Robert Groden, author of The Killing of a President, asked for an explanation, the FBI responded that what Groden thought was a bullet hole "occurred prior to Dallas".[95] [96] [edit]Film and photographic evidence Film and photographic evidence of the assassination have led viewers to different conclusions regarding the origin of the shots. In the Zapruder film, the President's head and upper torso move backwards after the last, fatal shot—an indication to many that a bullet was fired from the front. However, close inspection of frames 312 and 313 show Kennedy's head moving forward by as much as 2.3 inches, before his head moves backwards.[97] Researchers, including Robert Groden and Cyril Wecht, state that the film is evidence of a "double hit" to Kennedy's head.[98][99] Wecht believes that the film depicts the President's head being "struck twice in a synchronized fashion, from the rear and the right front side."[99] Paul Chambers argues that Frame Z313 shows multiple jets of blood, bone and brain matter exiting just above Kennedy's right ear and claims this is consistent with a high velocity (approx. 4,000 ft/sec) rifle rather than the medium velocity (2,000 ft/sec) Mannlicher-Carcano.[100] Chambers also claims that analysis of the Zapruder film at normal speed shows the President's limousine comes to a complete stop moments before the final fatal head shot.[101] [edit]Acoustical evidence According to the House Select Committee on Assassinations, a Dictabelt recording of the Dallas Police Department radio dispatch transmissions from November 22, 1963 was analyzed to "resolve questions concerning the number, timing, and origin of the shots fired in Dealey Plaza".[102] The Committee concluded that the source of the recording was from an open microphone on the motorcycle of H.B. McLain escorting the motorcade[103] and that "the scientific acoustical evidence established a high probability that two gunmen fired at President John F. Kennedy."[104] The acoustical analysis firm hired by the committee recommended that the committee conduct an acoustical reconstruction of the assassination in Dealey Plaza to determine if any of the six impulse patterns on the dispatch tape were fired from the Texas School Book Depository or the grassy knoll. The reconstruction would entail firing from two locations in Dealey Plaza—the depository and the knoll—at particular target locations and recording the sounds through numerous microphones. The purpose was to determine if the sequences of impulses recorded during the reconstruction would match any of those on the dispatch tape. If so, it would be possible to determine if the impulse patterns on the dispatch tape were caused by shots fired during the assassination from shooter locations in the depository and on the knoll.[105] An article which appeared in Science & Justice, a quarterly publication of Britain's Forensic Science Society, found there was a 96% certainty, based on analysis of audio recordings made during the assassination, that a shot was fired from "the grassy knoll" in front of and to the right of the President's limousine.[106][107] On August 20, 1978, members of the Dallas Police Department Police Pistol Team, including Officer Jerry Compton, Officer Tom Knighten, and Officer Rick Stone participated in the acoustical reconstruction by firing both rifles and pistols from the locations selected by the researchers. During the acoustical reconstruction performed for the committee in August, the Dallas Police Department marksmen in fact used iron sights and had no difficulty hitting the targets.[105] [edit]Medical evidence Some assassination researchers have pointed to testimony or medical evidence suggesting that at least one of shots fired at President Kennedy came from a location other than the Book Depository.[citation needed] Roy Kellerman, the Secret Service agent seated next to the driver in the presidential limousine, testified that he saw a 5-inch-diameter (130 mm) hole in the back right-hand side of the President's head.[108] Clint Hill, the Secret Service agent who sheltered the President with his body on the way to the hospital, said: "[A] portion of the President's head on the right rear side was missing."[109] Later, in a National Geographic Channel documentary, he described the wound as a "gaping hole above his right ear, about the size of my palm."[110] Robert McClelland, one of the Parkland Hospital doctors who attended to Kennedy, testified that the back right part of Kennedy's head was blown out, with posterior cerebral tissue and some cerebellar tissue missing.[citation needed] He indicated that the wound was an exit wound, and that a shooter on the grassy knoll delivered the fatal head shot.[citation needed][111] Some critics skeptical of the official "single bullet theory" state that the trajectory of the bullet, which hit Kennedy above the right shoulder blade and passed through his neck (according to the autopsy), would have had to change course to pass through Connally's rib cage and wrist.[112][113][page needed] Kennedy's death certificate located the bullet at the third thoracic vertebra—which some claim is too low to have exited his throat.[114] Moreover, the bullet was traveling downward, since the shooter was in a sixth floor window. The autopsy cover sheet had a diagram of a body showing this same low placement at the third thoracic vertebra. The hole in back of Kennedy's shirt and jacket are also claimed to support a wound too low to be consistent with the "single bullet theory".[115][better source needed][116][117][better source needed] On the day of the assassination, Nellie Connally was seated in the presidential car next to her husband, Governor John Connally. In her book From Love Field: Our Final Hours, Nellie Connally said that she believed that her husband was hit by a bullet that was separate from the two that hit Kennedy.[118] There is conflicting testimony about the autopsy performed on Kennedy's body, particularly as to when the examination of his brain took place, who was present, and whether or not the photos submitted as evidence are the same as those taken during the examination.[119] Douglas Horne, the Assassination Record Review Board's chief analyst for military records, said he was "90 to 95% certain" that the photographs in the National Archives are not of President Kennedy's brain. Supporting Horne is Dr. Gary Aguilar who stated: "According to Horne’s findings, the second brain—which showed an exit wound in the front—allegedly replaced Kennedy's real brain—which revealed much greater damage to the rear, consistent with an exit wound and thus evidence of a shot from the front."[120] Paul O'Connor, a laboratory technologist who assisted in the autopsy of President Kennedy, claimed that the autopsy at Bethesda Naval Hospital was conducted in obedience to a high command.[121] O'Connor stated: There were kind of mysterious civilian people, in civilian clothes—were there [at Bethesda]. It seemed like they commanded a lot of respect and attention—sinister looking people. They would come up and look over my shoulder, or look over Dr. Boswell's shoulder, and run back, and they'd have a little conference in the corner. Then all at once the word would come down: "Stop what you're doing and go on to the other procedure." And that's the way it was all along. We just jumped back-and-forth, back-and-forth. There was no smooth flow of procedure at all.[122] In his book JFK and the Unspeakable, James Douglass cites Dr. Pierre Finck’s testimony at the trial of Clay Shaw as evidence that Finck was "...a reluctant witness to the military control over the doctors' examination of the president's body": Question: "Was Dr. Humes running the show?" Finck: "Well, I heard Dr. Humes stating that—he said, 'Who is in charge here?' and I heard an Army General, I don't remember his name, stating, ' I am.' You must understand that in those circumstances, there were law enforcement officers, military people with various ranks, and you have to co-ordinate the operation according to directions." Question: "But you were one of the three qualified pathologists standing at that autopsy table, were you not, Doctor?" Finck: "Yes, I am." Question: "Was this Army General a qualified pathologist?" Finck: "No." Question: "Was he a doctor?" Finck: "No, not to my knowledge." Question: "Can you give me his name, Colonel?" Finck: "No, I can't. I don't remember."[123][124] [edit]Oswald's marksmanship The Warren Commission examined the capabilities of the Carcano rifle and ammunition, as well as Oswald's military training and post-military experience, and determined that Oswald had the ability to fire three shots within a time span of 4.8 to 5.6 seconds.[125] According to their report, an army specialist using Oswald's rifle was able to duplicate the feat and even improved on the time. The report also states that the Army Infantry Weapons Evaluation Branch test fired Oswald's rifle 47 times and found that it was "quite accurate", comparing it to the accuracy of an M-14 rifle. Also contained in the Commission report is testimony by Marine Corps Major Eugene Anderson confirming that Oswald's military records show that he qualified as "sharpshooter" in 1956. But this is confronted with more detailed record of his shooting abilities. According to official Marine Corps records Oswald was tested in shooting, scoring 212 in December 1956 (slightly above the minimum for qualification as a sharpshooter - the intermediate category), but in May 1959 scoring only 191 (barely earning the lower designation of marksman - the lowest category). He never even approached the highest marksmanship category in the Marine Corps - the Expert. Conspiracy theorists such as Walt Brown and authors such as Richard H. Popkin contend that Oswald was a notoriously poor shot, his rifle was inaccurate, and that no one has ever been able to duplicate his ability to fire three shots within the time frame given by the Warren Commission.[126][127] FBI marksman Robert Frazier who tested the rifle in two sets of tests testified to the Warren Commission that he could not reach the 5.6 second mark for firing three shots and all his shots fired five inches high and five inches to the right due to an uncorrectable deficiency in the telescopic sight.[128] [edit]Role of Oswald Assassination researchers differ as to the role of Oswald in the assassination of President Kennedy. Some researchers believe that Oswald was an uninvolved patsy, while other believe he was actively involved in a plot. Oswald's ability to move to Russia, then return as an avowed communist to the United States with help from the State Department – who gave him a repatriation loan of $435.71[129][130] – has led some theorists to speculate that he was working for the CIA and/or the FBI.[131][132] Oswald contacted the FBI twice in 1963. After being arrested on August 9 in New Orleans for disturbing the peace, Oswald asked to speak with an FBI agent. Agent John Quigley arrived and spent over an hour talking to Oswald.[133] Also, Oswald visited the Dallas FBI office about 7 to 10 days before the assassination and asked to see Special Agent James Hosty[134] Jim and Elsie Wilcott, former husband and wife employees of the Tokyo CIA Station, told the San Francisco Chronicle in 1978: "It was common knowledge in the Tokyo CIA station that Oswald worked for the agency.... Right after the President was killed, people in the Tokyo station were talking openly about Oswald having gone to Russia for the CIA. Everyone was wondering how the agency was going to be able to keep the lid on Oswald. But I guess they did."[135] Marguerite Oswald [Lee Oswald's mother] "...frequently expressed the opinion that her son was recruited by an agency of the U.S. Government and sent to Russia in 1959."[136] Senator Richard Schweiker, who was a member of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, stated: "We do know Oswald had intelligence connections. Everywhere you look with him, there're fingerprints of intelligence."[137] Richard Sprague, interim staff director and chief counsel to the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations, said: "If he had it to do over again, he would begin his investigation of the Kennedy assassination by probing Oswald's ties to the Central Intelligence Agency."[138] In 2003, Robert Blakey, staff director and chief counsel for the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations, stated: "I no longer believe that we were able to conduct an appropriate investigation of the [Central Intelligence] Agency and its relationship to Oswald."[139] According to Richard Buyer, Oswald never fired a shot at the President.[140] James W. Douglass described Oswald as "a questioning, dissenting CIA operative who had become a security risk" and "the ideal scapegoat".[141] According to Josiah Thompson, Oswald was in the Texas School Book Depository during the assassination, but it is "quite likely" he was not the shooter on the sixth floor.[49] [edit]Alternative gunmen In addition to Oswald, Jerome Kroth has named 26 people as "Possible Assassins In Dealey Plaza".[142] They include: Orlando Bosch[142], James Files[143][142], Desmond Fitzgerald[142], Charles Harrelson[144][142], Gerry Hemming[142], Chauncey Holt[142], Howard Hunt[142], Charles Nicoletti[144][142], Charles Rogers[142], Johnny Roselli[142], Lucien Sarti[144][142], and Frank Sturgis[142]. Vincent Bugliosi provides a "partial list of assassins...whom one or more conspiracy theorists have actually named and identified as having fired a weapon at Kennedy" on pages 1495-1498 of "Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy". [edit]Three tramps Main article: Three tramps The three tramps are three men photographed by several Dallas-area newspapers under police escort near the Texas School Book Depository shortly after the assassination. Since the mid-1960s, various allegations have been made about the identities of the men and their involvement in a conspiracy to kill Kennedy. Records released by the Dallas Police Department in 1989 identified the men as Gus Abrams, Harold Doyle, and John Gedney.[145] [edit]Allegations of other conspirators [edit]E. Howard Hunt The theory that former CIA agent and Watergate burglar, E. Howard Hunt, was a participant in the assassination of Kennedy garnered much publicity from 1978 to 2000.[146] Separately, he denied complicity in the murder of JFK while accusing others of being involved.[citation needed] Others have suggested that Hunt was one of the men known as the three tramps who were arrested and then quickly released shortly after the assassination. In 1976, a magazine called The Spotlight ran an article accusing Hunt of being in Dallas on November 22, 1963, and of having a role in the assassination. Hunt won a libel judgment against the magazine in 1981, but this was thrown out on appeal, and the magazine was found not liable when the case was retried in 1985 in Hunt's libel suit against Liberty Lobby.[147] During that suit, defense attorney Mark Lane introduced doubt as to Hunt's location on the day of the Kennedy assassination through depositions from David Atlee Phillips, Richard Helms, G. Gordon Liddy, Stansfield Turner, and Marita Lorenz, plus a cross-examination of Hunt.[148][a] Former KGB archivist Vasili Mitrokhin indicated in 1999 that Hunt was made part of a fabricated conspiracy theory disseminated by a Soviet "active measures" program designed to discredit the CIA and the United States.[149][150] According to Mitrokhin, the KGB created a forged letter from Oswald to Hunt implying that the two were linked as conspirators, then forwarded copies of it to "three of the most active conspiracy buffs" in 1975.[149] Mitrokhin indicated that the photocopies were accompanied by a fake cover letter from an anonymous source alleging that the original had been given to FBI Director Clarence Kelley and was apparently being suppressed.[149] [edit]J.D. Tippit Dallas Police Officer J. D. Tippit has been named in conspiracy theories as a renegade CIA operative sent to silence Oswald[151][152] and as the "badge man" assassin on the grassy knoll.[152] According to some Warren Commission critics, Oswald was set-up to be killed by Tippit, but that Tippit was killed by Oswald before he could carry out his assignment.[153] Others critics doubt that Tippit was killed by Oswald and assert he was shot by other conspirators.[151][153] (See section below.) Some critics have alleged that Tippit was associated with organized crime or right-wing politics.[151] [edit]Bernard Weissman Advertisement in the November 22, 1963, Dallas Morning News, placed by Bernard Weissman and three others. According to the Warren Commission, the publication of a full page, paid advertisement critical of Kennedy in the November 22, 1963, Dallas Morning News, which was signed by "The American Fact-Finding Committee" and noted Bernard Weissman as its chairman, was investigated to determine whether any members of the group claiming responsibility for it were connected to Oswald or to the assassination.[154] The Commission stated that "The American Fact-Finding Committee" was a fictitious sponsoring organization and that there was no evidence linking the four men responsible for the genesis of the ad with either Oswald or Ruby, or to a conspiracy to assassinate Kennedy.[154] During the Commission's hearings, Mark Lane testified that an informant whom he refused to name told him that Weismann had met with Tippit and Ruby eight days before the assassination.[154][b] In Rush to Judgment, Lane disputed the government's findings and indicated that the source of his information was reporter Thayer Waldo of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. [147] [edit]Roscoe White In 1990, Ricky Don White claimed that his father, Roscoe White, was one of three people ordered by the CIA to assassinate Kennedy.[156] According to the son, Oswald, who was involved in the plot but did not fire any shots, was picked up after the assassination by Roscoe White and J.D. Tippit to be transported to Red Bird Airport.[156] Ricky White stated that Tippit, who had no knowledge of the assassination or plot, became suspicious after Oswald panicked and got out of the car.[156] He indicated that his father shot Tippit after Tippit indicated that he would need to take Oswald to police headquarters for questioning.[156] Jack Shaw, Roscoe White's pastor, said that Roscoe White had spoken to him about the assassination on several occasions and was "killed by a witness elimination team activated after Kennedy's death."[156] According to Shaw, Roscoe White's wife, Geneva, said to him she had overheard conversations between White and Jack Ruby in which White would "take care of" Kennedy and Tippit and that Ruby would "take care of Oswald".[156] The allegations were denied as "ludicrous" by a CIA spokesman.[156] The FBI released a statement indicated that they had investigated the allegations in 1988 and determined that the information was not credible.[156] [edit]Unnamed accomplice or accomplices in the murder of J. D. Tippit Dallas Police Officer J.D. Tippit The Warren Commission concluded that Oswald "...killed Dallas Police Officer J. D. Tippit in an apparent attempt to escape."[157] The evidence that formed the basis for this conclusion was: "(1) two eyewitnesses who heard the shots and saw the shooting of Dallas Police Patrolman J. D. Tippit and seven eyewitnesses who saw the flight of the gunman with revolver in hand positively identified Lee Harvey Oswald as the man they saw fire the shots or flee from the scene, (2) the cartridge cases found near the scene of the shooting were fired from the revolver in the possession of Oswald at the time of his arrest, to the exclusion of all other weapons, (3) the revolver in Oswald's possession at the time of his arrest was purchased by and belonged to Oswald, and (4) Oswald's jacket was found along the path of flight taken by the gunman as he fled from the scene of the killing."[158] Some researchers have alleged that the murder of Officer Tippit was part of a conspiracy to kill President Kennedy. Jim Marrs hypothesized that "the slaying of Officer J.D. Tippit may have played some part in [a] scheme to have Oswald killed, perhaps to eliminate co-conspirator Tippit or simply to anger Dallas police and cause itchy trigger fingers."[159] Researcher James Douglass said that "...the killing of [Tippit] helped motivate the Dallas police to kill an armed Oswald in the Texas Theater, which would have disposed of the scapegoat before he could protest his being framed."[160] Harold Weisberg offered a simpler explanation: "Immediately, the [flimsy] police case [against Oswald] required a willingness to believe. This was proved by affixing to Oswald the opprobrious epithet of 'cop-killer.'"[160] Jim Garrison alleged that evidence was altered to frame Oswald, stating: "If Oswald was innocent of the Tippit murder the foundation of the government's case against him collapsed."[161] Some critics doubt that Tippit was killed by Oswald and assert he was shot by other conspirators.[151][153] They allege discrepancies in witness testimony and physical evidence which they feel calls into question the Commission's conclusions regarding the murder of Tippit. According to Jim Marrs, Oswald's guilt in the assassination of Kennedy is placed in question by the presence of "a growing body of evidence to suggest that [he] did not kill Tippit".[162] Others say that multiple men were directly involved in Tippit's killing. Conspiracy researcher Kenn Thomas has alleged that the Warren Commission omitted testimony and evidence that two men shot Tippit and that one left the scene in a car.[163] William Alexander—the Dallas assistant district attorney who recommended that Oswald be charged with the Kennedy and Tippit murders—later became skeptical of the Warren Commission's version of the Tippit murder. He stated that the Commission's conclusions on Oswald's movements "don't add up," and that "certainly [Oswald] may have had accomplices."[164] According to Brian McKenna's review of Henry Hurt's book, Reasonable Doubt, Hurt reported that "Tippit may have been killed because he impregnated the wife of another man" and that Dallas police officers lied and altered evidence to set-up Oswald to save Tippit's reputation.[165] [edit]Allegations regarding witness testimony and physical evidence The Warren Commission identified Helen Markham and Domingo Benavides as two witnesses who actually saw the shooting.[166] Conspiracy theorist Richard Belzer criticized the Commission for, in his description, "relying" on the testimony of Markham whom he described as "imaginative".[167] Marrs has also taken issue with Markham's testimony, stating that her "credibility ... was strained to the breaking point".[162] Joseph Ball, senior counsel to the Commission, referred to Markham's testimony as "full of mistakes," characterizing her as an "utter screwball."[168] The Warren Commission addressed concerns on her reliability as a witness and concluded: "However, even in the absence of Mrs. Markham's testimony, there is ample evidence to identify Oswald as the killer of Tippit."[166] Domingo Benavides initially said that he did not think he could identify the assailant and was never asked to view a police lineup,[169] even though he was the person closest to the killing.[170] Benavides later testified that the killer resembled pictures he had seen of Oswald.[171] Other witnesses were taken to police lineups. However, critics have questioned these lineups in that they consisted of people who looked very different from Oswald.[170][172] Additionally, witnesses who did not appear before the Commission identified an assailant who was not Oswald. Acquilla Clemons saw two men near Tippit’s car just before the shooting.[173] After the shooting, she ran outside of her house and saw a man with a gun whom she described as "kind of heavy." He waved to the second man, urging him to "go on."[174] Frank Wright emerged from his home and observed the scene seconds after the shooting. He described a man standing by Tippit’s body who had on a long coat and who ran to a parked car and drove away.[175][176] There have also been concerns about ballistic evidence and finger print evidence on the police car that seemed to make it less likely that Oswald was the killer.[citation needed] Critics have questioned whether the cartridge cases recovered from the scene were the same as those that were subsequently entered into evidence. Two of the cases were recovered by witness Domingo Benavides and turned over to police officer J.M. Poe. Poe told the FBI that he marked the shells with his own initials, "J.M.P." to identify them.[177] Sergeant Gerald Hill later testified to the Warren Commission that it was he who had ordered police officer Poe to mark the shells.[178] However, Poe's initials were not found on the shells produced by the FBI six months later.[177][179][180] Testifying before the Warren Commission, Poe said that although he recalled marking the cases, he "couldn’t swear to it."[179][181] The identification of the cases at the crime scene raises more questions. Sergeant Gerald Hill examined one of the shells and radioed the police dispatcher, saying: "The shell at the scene indicates that the suspect is armed with an automatic .38 rather than a pistol."[182] However, Oswald was reportedly arrested carrying a non-automatic .38 Special revolver.[175][183] [edit]Allegations regarding timeline The Warren Commission also investigated Oswald's movements between the time of the assassination and the shooting of Tippit, to ascertain whether Oswald might have had an accomplice who helped him flee the Book Depository.[184] According to their final report, Oswald was seen by his housekeeper leaving his rooming house shortly after 1:00 pm and had enough time to travel nine-tenths of a mile to the scene where Tippit was killed around 1:16 pm.[185][186][c] The Commission reported that the time of the shooting was determined by police tapes that logged Domingo Benavides' use of the radio in Tippit's car.[187] Tippit's squad car on E. 10th Street in Dallas shortly after his shooting. Some Warren Commission critics believe that Oswald did not have enough time to get from his house to the scene where Tippit was killed.[151] The Commission’s own test and estimation of Oswald’s walking speed demonstrated that one of the longer routes to the Tippit shooting scene took 17 minutes and 45 seconds to walk.[188] No witness ever surfaced who saw Oswald walk from his rooming house to the murder scene.[189] Conspiracy researchers Anthony Summers and Robert Groden believe that Tippit's murder may have occurred earlier than the time given in the Warren Report.[190][191] They note that the Commission established the time of the shooting as 1:16 pm. However, Benavides testified that he did not approach the car until "a few minutes" after the shooting, because he was afraid that the gunman might return.[192] He was assisted in using the radio by witness T.F. Bowley who testified to Dallas police that he arrived at the scene after the murder, and that the time was 1:10 pm.[190][193] Witness Helen Markham initially told the FBI that the shooting occurred "possibly around 1:30 pm,"[194] but she later told the Warren Commission: "I wouldn't be afraid to bet it wasn't 6 or 7 minutes after 1."[195][196] In an unpublished manuscript titled When They Kill a President, Deputy Sheriff Roger Craig stated that when he heard the news that Tippit had been shot, he noted that the time was 1:06 pm.[197] However, in a later statement to the press, Craig seemed confused about the time of the shooting.[198] Warren "Butch" Burroughs, who ran the concession stand at the Texas Theater where Oswald was arrested, told author James Douglass in 2007 that Oswald came into the theater between 1:00 and 1:07 pm, which if true would make Oswald's alleged 1:16 pm shooting of Officer J.D. Tippit impossible.[199] This was a claim that Burroughs had made earlier in the documentary, The Men Who Killed Kennedy.[200] [edit]Conspiracy theories According to researchers, conspiracy theorists consider four or five groups, alone or in combination, to be the primary suspects in the assassination of Kennedy: the CIA[201],[202] the military-industrial complex[201],[202] organized crime[201],[202][203] the government of Cuba,[202][203] and Cuban exiles.[202] Other domestic individuals, groups, or organizations implicated in various conspiracy theories include Lyndon Johnson[204],[202][203] George H. W. Bush,[202][203] Sam Giancana[204], J. Edgar Hoover,[203] Earl Warren[204], the Federal Bureau of Investigation,[202] the United States Secret Service,[202][203] the John Birch Society,[202][203] and far-right wealthy Texans.[202] Some other alleged foreign conspirators include Fidel Castro[204], the KGB and Nikita Krushchev[204],[202] Aristotle Onassis,[203] the government of South Vietnam,[205] and international drug lords[202] including a French heroin syndicate.[205] [edit]New Orleans conspiracy Further information: Trial of Clay Shaw, People involved in the trial of Clay Shaw, and David Ferrie Soon after the assassination, allegations began to surface of a conspiracy between Oswald and persons with whom he was or may have been acquainted, while living in New Orleans. On November 25, 1963, New Orleans attorney Dean Andrews told the FBI that he received a telephone call three days earlier (the day of the assassination) from a man named Clay Bertrand, asking him to defend Oswald. Andrews would later repeat this claim in testimony to the Warren Commission.[206] David Ferrie (second from left) and Lee Harvey Oswald (far right) in a group photo of the New Orleans Civil Air Patrol in 1955 (click to enlarge) Also, in late November 1963, an employee of New Orleans private investigator Guy Banister named Jack Martin began making accusations of possible involvement in the assassination by fellow Banister employee David Ferrie.[207] According to witnesses, in 1963 Ferrie and Banister were working for lawyer G. Wray Gill on behalf of Gill's client, New Orleans Mafia boss Carlos Marcello.[208] Ferrie had also attended Civil Air Patrol meetings in New Orleans in the 1950s that were also attended by a teenage Lee Harvey Oswald.[209] In 1966, New Orleans D.A. Jim Garrison began an investigation into the assassination of President Kennedy. Garrison's investigation led him to conclude that a group of right-wing extremists, including David Ferrie and Guy Banister, were involved in a conspiracy to kill Kennedy.[210] Garrison also came to believe that New Orleans businessman Clay Shaw was part of the conspiracy and that Clay Shaw used the pseudonym "Clay Bertrand".[211] Garrison further believed that Shaw, Banister, and Ferrie conspired to set up Oswald as a patsy in the JFK assassination.[212] On March 1, 1967, Garrison arrested and charged Shaw with conspiring to assassinate President Kennedy. On January 29, 1969, Clay Shaw was brought to trial on these charges, and the jury found him not guilty. In 2003, Judyth Baker—whose employment records show that she worked at the Reily Coffee Company in New Orleans at the same time Oswald did—appeared in an episode of Nigel Turner's documentary television series, The Men Who Killed Kennedy.[213] Baker claimed that in 1963 she was recruited by Dr. Canute Michaelson to work with Dr. Alton Ochsner and Dr. Mary Sherman on a clandestine CIA project to develop a biological weapon that could be used to assassinate Fidel Castro. According to Baker, she and Oswald were hired by Reily in the spring of 1963 as a "cover" for the operation.[214] Baker further claimed that she and Oswald began an affair, and that later Oswald told her about Merida, Mexico—a city where he suggested they might begin their lives over again.[215][216] According to John McAdams, in the years since Baker first made her allegations public, she has failed to produce hard evidence that she was acquainted with Oswald,[217] and the research community has widely dismissed her claims.[218] However, other researchers, including Jim Marrs and James Fetzer, have concluded the opposite—that Baker's claims are credible. [edit]CIA conspiracy Main article: CIA Kennedy assassination conspiracy theory The House Select Committee on Assassinations reported that "[t]here was no indication in Oswald's CIA file that he had ever had contact with the Agency" and concluded that the CIA was not involved in the assassination of Kennedy.[219] Gaeton Fonzi, an investigator for the House Select Committee on Assassinations, wrote that investigators were pressured not to look into the relationship between Lee Harvey Oswald and the CIA. He stated that CIA agent David Atlee Phillips, using the pseudonym "Maurice Bishop", was involved with Oswald prior to the Kennedy assassination in connection with anti-Castro Cuban groups.[220] In 1995, former U.S. Army Intelligence officer and National Security Agency executive assistance John M. Newman published evidence that both the CIA and FBI had deliberately tampered with their files on Lee Harvey Oswald both before and after the assassination. Furthermore, he found that both had withheld information that might have alerted authorities in Dallas that Oswald posed a potential threat to the President.[221] Subsequently, Newman has expressed a belief that James Angleton was probably the key figure in the assassination. According to Newman, only Angleton, "had the access, the authority, and the diabolically ingenious mind to manage this sophisticated plot." However the control of the cover operation was not under James Angleton, but under Allen Dulles (the former CIA director who had been dismissed by Kennedy after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion). Among senior government officials, only James Angleton continued expressing his belief that Kennedy assassination was not carried out by a lone gunman.[222][page needed] [edit]Shadow government conspiracy One conspiracy theory suggests that a secret or shadow government including wealthy industrialists and right-wing politicians ordered the assassination of Kennedy.[223] Peter Dale Scott has indicated that Kennedy's death allowed for policy reversals desired by the secret government to escalate the United States' military involvement in Vietnam.[224] [edit]Military-industrial complex Some conspiracy theorists have argued that Kennedy planned to end the involvement of the United States in Vietnam and was therefore targeted by those who had an interest in sustained military conflict, including the Pentagon and defense contractors.[225] Former Texas Senator Ralph Yarborough in 1991 stated: "Had Kennedy lived, I think we would have had no Vietnam War, with all of its traumatic and divisive influences in America. I think we would have escaped that."[226] According to author James Douglass, Kennedy was assassinated because he was turning away from the Cold War and seeking a negotiated peace with the Soviet Union.[227] Douglass argues that this "was not the kind of leadership the CIA, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the military-industrial complex wanted in the White House."[228] In his farewell speech, President Dwight D. Eisenhower had warned, "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted."[229] Oliver Stone's 1991 movie JFK explored the possibility that Kennedy was killed by a conspiracy involving the military-industrial complex.[230] L. Fletcher Prouty, Chief of Special Operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President Kennedy, and the person who inspired the character "Mr. X" in Stone's movie, wrote that Kennedy's assassination was actually a coup d'état.[231] [edit]Secret Service conspiracy The House Select Committee on Assassinations reported that it investigated "alleged Secret Service complicity in the assassination" and concluded that the Secret Service was not involved.[219] However, the HSCA declared that "the Secret Service was deficient in the performance of its duties."[232] Among its findings, the HSCA noted: that President Kennedy had not received adequate protection in Dallas; that the Secret Service possessed information that was not properly analyzed, investigated, or used by the Secret Service in connection with the President's trip to Dallas; and finally that the Secret Service agents in the motorcade were inadequately prepared to protect the President from a sniper.[233] The HSCA specifically noted: No actions were taken by the agent in the right front seat of the Presidential limousine [ Roy Kellerman ] to cover the President with his body, although it would have been consistent with Secret Service procedure for him to have done so. The primary function of the agent was to remain at all times in close proximity to the President in the event of such emergencies.[234] Some argue that the lack of Secret Service protection occurred because Kennedy himself had asked that the Secret Service make itself discreet during the Dallas visit.[235] However, Vince Palamara, who interviewed several Secret Service agents assigned to the Kennedy detail, disputes this. Palamara reports that Secret Service driver Sam Kinney told him that requests—such as removing the bubble top from the limousine in Dallas, not having agents positioned beside the limousine's rear bumper, and reducing the number of Dallas police motorcycle outriders near the limousine's rear bumper—were not made by Kennedy.[236][237][238] In The Echo from Dealey Plaza, Abraham Bolden—the first African American on the White House Secret Service detail—claimed to have overheard agents say that they would not protect Kennedy from would-be assassins: [President Kennedy] alienated Southerners and conservatives around the country, most of whom were already suspicious of him. In this, the Secret Service reflected the more backward elements of America. Many of the agents with whom I worked were products of the South.... I heard some members of the White House detail say that if shots were fired at the president, they'd take no action to protect him. A few agents vowed that they would quit the Secret Service rather than give up their lives for Kennedy.[239] Questions regarding the forthrightness of the Secret Service increased in the 1990s when the Assassination Records Review Board—which was created when Congress passed the JFK Records Act—requested access to Secret Service records. The Review Board was told by the Secret Service that in January 1995, in violation of the JFK Records Act, the Secret Service destroyed protective survey reports that covered JFK's trips from September 24 through November 8, 1963.[240][241][relevant? – discuss] [edit]Cuban exiles The House Select Committee on Assassinations wrote: "The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that anti-Castro Cuban groups, as groups, were not involved in the assassination of President Kennedy, but that the available evidence does not preclude the possibility that individual members may have been involved".[219] With the 1959 Cuban Revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power, thousands of Cubans left their homeland to take up residence in the United States. Many exiles hoped to overthrow Castro and return to Cuba. Their hopes were dashed with the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion in 1961, and many exiles blamed President Kennedy for the failure.[242] The House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded that some militant Cuban exiles might have participated in Kennedy's murder. These exiles worked closely with CIA operatives in violent activities against Castro's Cuba. In 1979, the committee reported: President Kennedy's popularity among the Cuban exiles had plunged deeply by 1963. Their bitterness is illustrated in a tape recording of a meeting of anti-Castro Cubans and right-wing Americans in the Dallas suburb of Farmer's Branch on October 1, 1963.[243] Holding a copy of the September 26 edition of The Dallas Morning News, featuring a front-page account of the President's planned trip to Texas in November, the Cuban exile vented his hostility: CASTELLANOS ...we're waiting for Kennedy the 22d, [the date Kennedy was murdered] buddy. We're going to see him in one way or the other. We're going to give him the works when he gets in Dallas. Mr. good ol' Kennedy. I wouldn't even call him President Kennedy. He stinks.[243] Author Joan Didion explored the Miami anti-Castro Cuban theory in her 1987 non-fiction book Miami.[244][245] She discussed Marita Lorenz' testimony regarding Guillermo Novo, a Cuban exile who was involved in shooting a bazooka at the U.N. building from the East River during a speech by Che Guevara. Allegedly, Novo was affiliated with Lee Harvey Oswald and Frank Sturgis and carried weapons with them to a hotel in Dallas just prior to the assassination. These claims, though put forth to the House Assassinations Committee by Lorenz, were never substantiated by a conclusive investigation. [edit]Organized crime conspiracy The House Select Committee on Assassinations wrote: "The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that the national syndicate of organized crime, as a group, was not involved in the assassination of President Kennedy, but that the available evidence does not preclude the possibility that individual members may have been involved".[219] Documents never seen by the Warren Commission have revealed that some Mafiosi worked with the CIA on assassination attempts against Cuban leader Fidel Castro.[246] CIA documents released in 2007 confirmed that in the summer of 1960, the CIA recruited ex-FBI agent Robert Maheu to approach the West Coast representative of the Chicago mob, Johnny Roselli. When Maheu contacted Roselli, Maheu hid the fact that he was sent by the CIA, instead portraying himself an advocate for international corporations. He offered to pay $150,000 to have Castro killed, but Roselli declined any pay. Roselli introduced Maheu to two men he referred to as "Sam Gold" and "Joe." "Sam Gold" was Sam Giancana; "Joe" was Santo Trafficante, Jr., the Tampa, Florida boss and one of the most powerful mobsters in pre-revolution Cuba.[247][248] Glenn Kessler of the The Washington Post explained: "After Fidel Castro led a revolution that toppled a friendly government in 1959, the CIA was desperate to eliminate him. So the agency sought out a partner equally worried about Castro—the Mafia, which had lucrative investments in Cuban casinos."[249] In his memoir, Bound by Honor, Bill Bonanno, son of New York Mafia boss Joseph Bonanno, disclosed that several Mafia families had long-standing ties with the anti-Castro Cubans through the Havana casinos operated by the Mafia before the Cuban Revolution. Many Cuban exiles and Mafia bosses disliked President Kennedy, blaming him for the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion.[250] They also disliked his brother, the young and idealistic Attorney General Robert Kennedy, who had conducted an unprecedented legal assault on organized crime.[81][251] This was especially provocative because several Mafia "families" had allegedly worked with JFK's father, Joseph Kennedy, to get JFK elected,[citation needed] and there was speculation about voting irregularities during the 1960 election.[relevant? – discuss] Both the Mafia and the anti-Castro Cubans were experts in assassination—the Cubans having been trained by the CIA. Bonanno reported that he recognized the high degree of involvement of other Mafia families when Jack Ruby killed Oswald, since Bonanno was aware that Ruby was an associate of Chicago mobster Sam Giancana.[252] Some conspiracy researchers have alleged a plot involving elements of the Mafia, the CIA and the anti-Castro Cubans, including Anthony Summers who stated: "Sometimes people sort of glaze over about the notion that the Mafia and U.S. intelligence and the anti-Castro activists were involved together in the assassination of President Kennedy. In fact, there's no contradiction there. Those three groups were all in bed together at the time and had been for several years in the fight to topple Fidel Castro."[253] Carlos Marcello allegedly threatened to assassinate the President to short-circuit his younger brother Bobby, who was serving as attorney general and leading the administration's anti-Mafia crusade.[254][255] Information released in 2006 by the FBI has led some to conclude that Carlos Marcello confessed[to whom?] to having organized Kennedy's assassination, and that the FBI covered-up this information which it had in its possession.[256][dead link] James Files has claimed to be a former assassin who worked for both the Mafia and the CIA. He has further claimed to have participated in the JFK assassination, along with Johnny Roselli and Charles Nicoletti, at the behest of Sam Giancana.[257] He is currently serving a 30-year jail sentence for the attempted murder of a policeman. Judith Campbell Exner has alleged that she was President Kennedy's girlfriend and was also Sam Giancana's mistress. Exner was interviewed by Maria Shriver (daughter of Eunice Kennedy and Sargent Shriver) on ABC's Good Morning America. Asked if she ever carried messages between JFK and Giancana, Exner replied "no" saying, "Sam would never write anything down."[citation needed] David E. Kaiser has also suggested mob involvement in his book, The Road to Dallas.[258] Investigative reporter Jack Anderson concluded that Castro worked with organized crime figures to arrange the JFK assassination. In his book Peace War and Politics, Anderson claimed that Johnny Roselli gave him extensive details of the plot. Anderson said that although he was never able to independently confirm Roselli's entire story, many of Roselli's details checked out. Anderson said that Oswald may have played a role in the assassination, but that more than one gunman was involved.[citation needed] The History Channel program, The Men Who Killed Kennedy presented additional evidence for organized crime involvement.[259] Christian David was a Corsican Mafia member interviewed in prison. He said that he was offered the assassination contract on President Kennedy, but that he did not accept it. However, he said that he knew the men who did accept the contract. According to David, there were three shooters. He provided the name of one—Lucien Sarti. David said that since the other two shooters were still alive, it would break a code of conduct for him to identify them. When asked what the shooters were wearing, David noted their modus operandi was to dress in costumes such as official uniforms. Much of Christian David's testimony was confirmed by former Corsican member, Michelle Nicole who was part of the DEA witness protection program. The book Ultimate Sacrifice, by Lamar Waldron and Thom Hartman, synthesizes these theories with new evidence. The authors argue that government officials were (unwillingly) obliged to help the assassins cover up the truth, because the assassination conspiracy had direct ties to American government plots to assassinate Castro. Outraged at Robert Kennedy's attack on organized crime, mob leaders had President Kennedy killed to remove Robert from power. However, a government investigation of the plot was thwarted, because it would have revealed evidence of mob participation in the government's plot to kill Castro.[260] [edit]Lyndon B. Johnson conspiracy A 2003 Gallup poll indicated that nearly 20% of Americans suspected Lyndon Johnson of being involved in the assassination of Kennedy.[261] Critics of the Warren Commission have accused Johnson of plotting the assassination because he hated the Kennedys and feared being dropped from the Democratic ticket for the 1964 election.[262] With his 1968 book The Dark Side of Lyndon Baines Johnson, Joachim Joesten is credited as being the first conspiracy author to accuse Johnson of having a role in the assassination.[263] According to Joesten, Johnson "played the leading part" in a conspiracy that involved "the Dallas oligarchy and... local branches of the CIA, the FBI, and the Secret Service".[263] Other assassination authors who have indicated there was complicity on the part of Johnson include Jim Marrs,[263] Ralph D. Thomas,[263] J. Gary Shaw,[263] Larry Harris,[263] Walt Brown,[263] Noel Twyman,[263] Barr McClellan,[263] Craig Zirbel,[31] Penn Jones, Jr.,[31] and Madeleine Brown.[264] In 2003, researcher Barr McClellan published the book, Blood, Money & Power[265] McClellan claims that Lyndon Johnson, motivated by the fear of being dropped from the Kennedy ticket in 1964 and the need to cover up various scandals, masterminded Kennedy's assassination with the help of his friend, Austin attorney Edward A. Clark. The book suggests that a smudged partial fingerprint from the sniper's nest likely belonged to Johnson's associate Malcolm "Mac" Wallace, and that Mac Wallace was, therefore, on the sixth floor of the Depository at the time of the shooting. The book further claims that the killing of Kennedy was paid for by oil magnates, including Clint Murchison and H. L. Hunt. McClellan states that the assassination of Kennedy allowed the oil depletion allowance to be kept at 27.5 percent. It remained unchanged during the Johnson presidency. According to McClellan, this resulted in a saving of over 100 million dollars to the American oil industry. McClellan's book subsequently became the subject of an episode of Nigel Turner's ongoing documentary television series, The Men Who Killed Kennedy. The episode, entitled "The Guilty Men", drew angry condemnation from the Johnson family, President Johnson's former aides, and ex-Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter following its airing on The History Channel. The History Channel assembled a committee of historians who concluded the accusations in the documentary were without merit, and The History Channel apologized to the Johnson family and agreed not to air the series in the future.[266] Madeleine Brown, who alleged she was the mistress of Lyndon Johnson, also implicated Johnson in a conspiracy to kill Kennedy. In 1997, Brown said that Johnson, along with H. L. Hunt, had begun planning Kennedy's demise as early as 1960. Brown claimed that by its fruition in 1963, the conspiracy involved dozens of persons, including the leadership of the FBI and the Mafia, as well as prominent politicians and journalists.[267] In the documentary The Men Who Killed Kennedy, Madeleine Brown and May Newman (an employee of Texas oilman Clint Murchison) both placed J. Edgar Hoover at a social gathering at Murchison's mansion the night before the assassination.[268] Also in attendance, according to Brown, were John McCloy, Richard Nixon, George Brown, R. L. Thornton, and H. L. Hunt.[269] Madeleine Brown claimed that Johnson arrived at the gathering late in the evening and, in a "grating whisper," told her that the "...Kennedys will never embarrass me again—that's no threat—that's a promise."[269][270][271] In addition, Brown said that on New Year's Eve 1963, Lyndon Johnson confirmed the conspiracy to kill Kennedy, insisting that "the fat cats of Texas and [U.S.] intelligence" had been responsible.[272] Brown reiterated her allegations against Johnson in the 2006 documentary, Evidence of Revision. In the same documentary, several other Johnson associates also voiced their suspicions of Johnson. Johnson was also accused of complicity in the assassination by former CIA agent and Watergate figure E. Howard Hunt.[273] Shortly before his death in 2007, Hunt authored an autobiography which suggested that Johnson had orchestrated the killing with the help of CIA agents who had been angered by Kennedy's actions as President.[274][275] Hunt repeated these claims in deathbed confessions to his son, published in a 2007 edition of Rolling Stone magazine. Hunt implicated CIA agents David Atlee Phillips, Cord Meyer, Bill Harvey, Frank Sturgis, and David Sánchez Morales, as well as a French gunman, Lucien Sarti, who purportedly shot at Kennedy from the grassy knoll.[276][dead link][277][278] Suspicions that Johnson was involved in covering-up facts about the assassination were supported by Parkland Hospital doctor Charles Crenshaw. (Dr. Crenshaw had worked to save Oswald's life at Parkland after he was shot by Jack Ruby, just as Crenshaw had worked to save President Kennedy's life two days earlier.) While treating Oswald, Crenshaw said he received a phone call from the new U.S. president, Lyndon Johnson. Crenshaw gave his account of the phone conversation in his book Trauma Room One: Johnson: "Dr. Crenshaw, how is the accused assassin?" Crenshaw: "Mr. President, he's holding his own at the moment." Johnson: "Would you mind taking a message to the operating surgeon?" Crenshaw: "Dr. Shires is very busy right now, but I will convey your message." Johnson: "Dr. Crenshaw, I want a death-bed confession from the accused assassin. There's a man in the operating room who will take the statement. I will expect full cooperation in this matter." Crenshaw: "Yes, sir." Dr. Crenshaw said that he relayed Johnson's message to Dr. Shires, but that Oswald was in no condition to give any statement.[279][280] Historian Michael L. Kurtz wrote that there is no evidence suggesting that Johnson ordered the assassination of Kennedy.[281] According to Kurtz, Johnson believed Fidel Castro was responsible for the assassination and that Johnson covered-up the truth because he feared the possibility that retaliatory measures against Cuba might escalate to nuclear war with the Soviet Union.[281] [edit]Cuban conspiracy The Warren Commission reported that they investigated "dozens of allegations of a conspiratorial contact between Oswald and agents of the Cuban Government" and that they found no evidence that Cuba was involved in the assassination of President Kennedy.[282] The House Select Committee on Assassinations also wrote: "The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that the Cuban Government was not involved in the assassination of President Kennedy".[219] Conspiracy theories frequently implicate Fidel Castro as having ordered the assassination of Kennedy in retaliation for the CIA's previous attempts to assassinate him.[251] In the early 1960s, Clare Booth Luce, wife of Time-Life publisher Henry Luce, was one of a number of prominent Americans who sponsored anti-Castro groups. This support included funding exiles in commando speedboat raids against Cuba. In 1975, Clare Luce said that on the night of the assassination, she received a call from a member of a commando group she had sponsored. According to Luce, the caller's name was "something like" Julio Fernandez and he claimed he was calling her from New Orleans.[283][284] According to Luce, Fernandez told her that Oswald had approached his group with an offer to help assassinate Castro. Fernandez further claimed that he and his associates eventually found out that Oswald was a communist and supporter of Castro. He said that with this new-found knowledge, his group kept a close watch on Oswald until Oswald suddenly came into money and went to Mexico City and then Dallas.[285] Finally, according to Luce, Fernandez told her, "There is a Cuban Communist assassination team at large and Oswald was their hired gun."[286] Luce said that she told the caller to give his information to the FBI. Subsequently, Luce would reveal the details of the incident to both the Church Committee and the HSCA. Both committees investigated the incident, but were unable to uncover any evidence to corroborate the allegations.[287] President Lyndon Johnson informed several journalistic sources of his personal belief that the assassination had been organized by Castro. Johnson claimed to have received in 1967 information from both the FBI and CIA that in the early 1960s: the CIA had tried to have Castro assassinated, had employed members of the Mafia in this effort, and that Attorney General Robert Kennedy had known about both the plots and the Mafia's involvement.[288] On separate occasions, Johnson told two prominent television newsmen that he believed that JFK's assassination had been organized by Castro as retaliation for the CIA's efforts to kill Castro. In October, 1968, Johnson told veteran newsman Howard K. Smith of ABC that "Kennedy was trying to get to Castro, but Castro got to him first." In September, 1969, in an interview with Walter Cronkite of CBS, Johnson said that in regard to the assassination he could not, "honestly say that I've ever been completely relieved of the fact that there might have been international connections." Finally, in 1971, Johnson told Leo Janos of Time magazine that he, "never believed that Oswald acted alone". In 1977, Castro was interviewed by newsman Bill Moyers. He denied any involvement in Kennedy's death, saying: It would have been absolute insanity by Cuba.... It would have been a provocation. Needless to say, it would have been to run the risk that our country would have been destroyed by the United States. Nobody who's not insane could have thought about [killing Kennedy in retaliation].[289] Lyndon Johnson also implicated the CIA in the assassination. According to a FBI document released in 1977, Johnson's postmaster general, Marvin Watson told the FBI "...that [President Johnson] was now convinced there was a plot in connection with the assassination. Watson stated the President felt the CIA had something to do with this plot."[290][291][292][293] [edit]Soviet conspiracy The Warren Commission reported that they found no evidence that the Soviet Union was involved in the assassination of President Kennedy.[6] The House Select Committee on Assassinations also wrote: "The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that the Soviet Government was not involved in the assassination of President Kennedy".[219] According to some conspiracy theorists, the Soviet Union, with Nikita Khrushchev motivated by having to back down during the Cuban Missile Crisis, was responsible for the assassination.[251] According to a 1966 FBI document, Colonel Boris Ivanov—chief of the KGB at the time of the assassination—stated that it was his personal opinion that the assassination had been planned by an organized group, rather than a lone individual. The same document stated, "...officials of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union believed there was some well-organized conspiracy on the part of the 'ultraright' in the United States to effect a 'coup.'"[294] Much later, the highest-ranking Soviet Bloc intelligence defector, Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa said that he had a conversation with Nicolae Ceauşescu who told him about "ten international leaders the Kremlin killed or tried to kill": "László Rajk and Imre Nagy of Hungary; Lucreţiu Pătrăşcanu and Gheorghiu-Dej in Romania; Rudolf Slánský, the head of Czechoslovakia, and Jan Masaryk, that country's chief diplomat; the Shah of Iran; Palmiro Togliatti of Italy; American President John F. Kennedy; and Mao Zedong." Pacepa provided some additional details, such as a plot to kill Mao Zedong with the help of Lin Biao organized by KGB and claimed that "among the leaders of Moscow's satellite intelligence services there was unanimous agreement that the KGB had been involved in the assassination of President Kennedy."[295] [edit]Israeli conspiracy This theory alleges that the Israeli government was displeased with Kennedy for his pressure against their pursuit of a top-secret nuclear program at the Negev Nuclear Research Center (commonly called "Dimona")[296] and/or the Israelis were angry over Kennedy's sympathies with Arabs.[297] Gangster Meyer Lansky[298] and Lyndon B. Johnson often play pivotal roles in this conspiracy theory as organizing and preparing the hit, thus bleeding into and possibly catalyzing many of the other conspiracies as well.[297] In July 2004 Israel's nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu claimed in the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper that the state of Israel was complicit in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Vanunu, a former technician at the Dimona plant who was jailed for 18 years for revealing its inner workings to Britain's Sunday Times in 1986, made the statement after his 2004 release. He claimed there were "near-certain indications" Kennedy was assassinated in response to "pressure he exerted on Israel's then head of government, David Ben-Gurion, to shed light on Dimona's nuclear reactor."[299] [edit]Federal Reserve conspiracy Jim Marrs speculated that the assassination of Kennedy might have been partially motivated by Kennedy's issuance of Executive Order 11110.[300] The order, which was not officially repealed until the Reagan Administration, authorized the Secretary of the Treasury to print additional silver certificates, up to the maximum previously set by Congress. Since the President himself already possessed the same authority, the order did not endanger the careers of anyone working at the Federal Reserve.[301][clarification needed] This theory was further explored by U.S. Marine sniper and police officer Craig Roberts in the book, Kill Zone.[302] Roberts theorized that the executive order was the beginning of a plan by Kennedy to permanently do away with the Federal Reserve, and that Kennedy was murdered by a cabal of international bankers determined to foil this plan. According to actor and author Richard Belzer, the plot to kill Kennedy was a response to a postulated attempt by the President to shift power from the Federal Reserve to the U.S Treasury Department.[303] [edit]Decoy hearse and wound alteration David Lifton presented a scenario in which conspirators on Air Force One removed Kennedy's body from its original bronze casket and placed it in a shipping casket, while en route from Dallas to Washington. Once the presidential plane arrived at Andrews Air Force Base, the shipping casket with the President's body in it was surreptitiously taken by helicopter from the side of the plane that was out of the television camera's view. Kennedy's body was then taken to an unknown location—most likely Walter Reed Army Medical Center[304]—to surgically alter the body to make it appear that he was shot only from the rear.[305][306][307][308] Part of Lifton's theory comes from a House Select Committee on Assassinations report of an interview of Lt. Richard Lipsey on January 18, 1978 by committee staff members Donald Purdy and Mark Flanagan. According to the report, Lt. Richard Lipsey said that he and General Wehle had met President Kennedy's body at Andrews Air Force Base. Lipsey "...placed [the casket] in a hearse to be transported to Bethesda Naval Hospital. Lipsey mentioned that he and Wehle then flew by helicopter to Bethesda and took [the body of] JFK into the back of Bethesda." Lipsey said that "a decoy hearse had been driven to the front [of Bethesda]."[309] With Lipsey's mention of a "decoy hearse" at Bethesda, Lifton theorized that the casket removed by Lipsey from Air Force One—from the side of the plane exposed to television—was probably also a decoy and was likely empty.[310][311] Laboratory technologist Paul O'Connor was one of the major witnesses supporting another part of David Lifton's theory that somewhere between Parkland and Bethesda the President's body was made to appear as if it had been shot only from the rear. O'Connor said that President Kennedy's body arrived at Bethesda inside a body bag in "a cheap, shipping-type of casket", which differed from the description of the ornamental bronze casket and sheet that the body was wrapped in at Parkland Hospital.[308] O'Connor said that the brain had already been removed by the time it got to Bethesda,[308] and that there were "just little pieces" of brain matter left inside the skull.[312] Researcher David Wrone dismissed the theory that Kennedy's body was surreptitiously removed from the presidential plane, stating that as is done with all cargo on airplanes for safety precautions, the coffin and lid were held by steel wrapping cables to prevent shifting during takeoff and landing and in case of air disturbances in flight.[307] According to Wrone, the side of the plane away from the television camera "was bathed in klieg lights, and thousands of persons watched along the fence that bent backward along that side, providing, in effect, a well-lit and very public stage for any would-be body snatchers."[307] [edit]Other published theories Appointment in Dallas (1975) by Hugh McDonald suggests that Oswald was lured into a plot that he was told was a staged fake attempt to kill JFK to embarrass the Secret Service and to alert the government of the necessity for beefed-up Secret Service security. Oswald’s role was to shoot at the motorcade but deliberately miss the target. The plotters then killed JFK themselves and framed Oswald for the crime. McDonald claims that, after being told the "truth" about JFK's death by CIA agent Herman Kimsey in 1964, he spent years trying to locate a man known as “Saul.” Saul was supposedly the unidentified man who was photographed exiting the Russian embassy in Mexico City in September 1963, whose photos were subsequently sent to the FBI in Dallas on the morning of November 22, 1963 (before the assassination), and mislabelled "Lee Harvey Oswald". McDonald claims to have finally tracked Saul down in London in 1972 at which time Saul revealed the details of the plot to him. Reasonable Doubt (1985) by Henry Hurt, who writes about his Warren Commission doubts. Mr. Hurt pins the plot on professional crook Robert Easterling, along with Texas oilmen and the supposed Ferrie/Shaw alliance. ISBN 0-03-004059-0. Behold a Pale Horse (1991) by William Cooper alleges that Kennedy was shot by the Presidential limousine's driver, Secret Service agent William Greer. In the Zapruder film, Greer can be seen turning to his right and looking backwards just before speeding away from Dealey Plaza. This theory has come under severe criticism from others in the research community.[313] ISBN 0-929385-22-5. Mark North's Act of Treason: The Role of J. Edgar Hoover in the assassination of President Kennedy, (1991) implicates the FBI Director. North documents that Hoover was aware of threats against Kennedy by organized crime before 1963, and suggests that he failed to take proper action to prevent the assassination. North also charges Hoover with failure to work adequately to uncover the truth behind Kennedy's murder. ISBN 0-88184-877-8. Mortal Error: The Shot That Killed JFK (1992) by Bonar Menninger (ISBN 0-312-08074-3) alleges that while Oswald did attempt to assassinate JFK and did succeed in wounding him, the fatal shot was accidentally fired by Secret Service agent George Hickey, who was riding in the Secret Service follow-up car directly behind the Presidential Limousine. The theory alleges that after the first two shots were fired the motorcade sped up while Hickey was attempting to respond to Oswald's shots and he lost his balance and accidentally pulled the trigger of his AR-15 and shot JFK. Hickey's testimony says otherwise: "At the end of the last report (shot) I reached to the bottom of the car and picked up the AR 15 rifle, cocked and loaded it, and turned to the rear." (italics added).[314] George Hickey sued Menninger in April 1995 for what he had written in Mortal Error. The case was dismissed as its statute of limitations had run out. Who Shot JFK? : A Guide to the Major Conspiracy Theories (1993) by Bob Callahan and Mark Zingarelli explores some of the more obscure theories regarding JFK's murder, such as "The Coca-Cola Theory." According this theory, suggested by the editor of an organic gardening magazine, Oswald killed JFK due to mental impairment stemming from an addiction to refined sugar, as evidenced by his need for his favorite beverage immediately after the assassination. ISBN 0-671-79494-9. Passport to Assassination (1993) by Oleg M. Nechiporenko, the Soviet consular official (and highly placed KGB officer) who met with Oswald in Mexico City in 1963. He was afforded the unique opportunity to interview Oswald about his goals including his genuine desire for a Cuban visa. His conclusions were (1) that Oswald killed Kennedy due to extreme feelings of inadequacy versus his wife’s professed admiration for JFK, and (2) that the KGB never sought intelligence information from Oswald during his time in the USSR as they did not trust his motivations. ISBN 1-55972-210-X. Norman Mailer's Oswald's Tale: An American Mystery (1995) concludes that Oswald was guilty, but holds that the evidence may point to a second gunman on the grassy knoll, who, purely by coincidence, was attempting to kill JFK at the same time as Oswald. "If there was indeed another shot, it was not necessarily fired by a conspirator of Oswald's. Such a gun could have belonged to another lone killer or to a conspirator working for some other group altogether."[315] ISBN 0-679-42535-7. The Kennedy Mutiny (2002) by Will Fritz (not the same as police captain J. Will Fritz), claims that the assassination plot was orchestrated by General Edwin Walker, and that he framed Oswald for the crime. ISBN 0-9721635-0-6. JFK: The Second Plot (2002) by Matthew Smith explores the strange case of Roscoe White. In 1990, Roscoe's son Ricky made public a claim that his father, who had been a Dallas police officer in 1963, was involved in killing the president. Roscoe's widow Geneva also claimed that before her husband's death in 1971 he left a diary in which he claims he was one of the marksmen who shot the President, and that he also killed Officer J. D. Tippit. ISBN 1-84018-501-5. David Wrone's The Zapruder Film (2003) concludes that the shot that killed JFK came from in front of the limousine, and that JFK's throat and back wounds were caused by an in-and-through shot originating from the grassy knoll. Three shots were fired from three different angles, none of them from Lee Harvey Oswald's window at the Texas School Book Depository. Wrone is a professor of history (emeritus) at the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point. ISBN 0-7006-1291-2. The Gemstone File: A Memoir (2006), by Stephanie Caruana, posits that Oswald was part of a 28-man assassination team which included three U.S. Mafia hitmen (Jimmy Fratianno, John Roselli, and Eugene Brading). Oswald's role was to shoot John Connally. Bruce Roberts, author of the Gemstone File papers, claimed that the JFK assassination scenario was modeled after a supposed attempted assassination of President F.D. Roosevelt. Roosevelt was riding in an open car with Mayor Anton Cermak of Chicago. Cermak was shot and killed by Giuseppe Zangara. In Dallas, JFK was the real target, and Connally was a secondary target. The JFK assassination is only a small part of the Gemstone File's account. ISBN 1-4120-6137-7. Joseph P. Farrell's LBJ and the Conspiracy to Kill Kennedy (2011) attempts to show multiple interests had reasons to remove President Kennedy: The military, CIA, NASA, anti-Castro factions, Hoover's FBI and others. He concludes that the person that allowed all of these groups to form a "coalescence of interests" was Vice President Lyndon
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Bush / Clinton Suspicious Death List intro: The editors and staff at NewsFollowUp.com are finally realizing that we are uncovering one of the most incredible political stories of modern history. It best can be described by getting out the idea of 'limited hangout' and applying it to the past 25 years of Bush / Reagan / Clinton administrations. Bill and Hillary Clinton are still in the process of hoodwinking the world including Democrats, Republicans and Progressives. The Clinton impeachment was just a smokescreen to launch the neo-con PNAC agenda 'under the radar'. The Clinton's are / were an integral part of the neo-con operation. Osama bin Laden is their creation. They (Cheney and Israel) piggy-backed their operation on top of bin Laden's 9/11 mission; it all went very smoothly. The Clinton healthcare initiative, OJ Simpson trial, Iraq sanctions, and countless media tricks were all necessary parts of the decades-long run-up to the invasion of Iraq. Countless duped Republicans like Falwell, Limbaugh, fell into the trap and were unwitting coconspirators. The lists of names on this page are just a few of the people who got in the way and had to be 'taken care of'....all very fascinating and tragic. ....New York Times Crazy Clinton, 1997, and file | |||||||||||||||||||
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Vincent Foster White House Counsel died: 7/21/93 - Found
dead in Ft. Marcy Park in Washington, DC, of a supposed suicide by
gunshot. A suicide note was supposedly found a few days later, torn into
several pieces, in his briefcase, after his office had been entered by
White House staff and materials removed. The gun which he supposedly used
to kill himself was reported to be still in his hand, but the person who
first found the body reports that there was no gun at that time. Many
irregularities surround the death and the investigation of it. - Foster
was also from Hope, Ark., like Clinton, and also worked for the Rose Law
firm. Foster had intimate knowledge of the Clintons' personal
finances.
Foster was involved in an investigation of their finances, and reportedly
made a phone call to Hillary Clinton, in Little Rock, just hours before
his death. websites
Wikipedia Wikipedia
PBS Frontline Rose Law firm billing records, CNN
Rotten.com
Fair MediaMatters
AND 42inc
see PROMIS, INSLAW below
continued Charles Ruff Charles Ruff was one of Clinton's attorneys during the impeachment trial and was known to have inside information on the White House emails scandal as well. Original reports were that he died in an accident in his home although no details were given. Then the report changed to claim that he was found in his bedroom unconscious, then declared dead on arrival at the hospital. The authorities will provide no details other than the usual (and quite premature) assurances that there was no foul play involved New York Times, Spiritually Smart Wikipedia continued and see John Millis research file Scoop and Hitz Report William Colby : Retired CIA director was found dead on May 6,1996 after his wife reported him missing on April 27,1996. Apparently, Colby decided to go on a impromptu canoeing excursion and never returned. Colby who had just started writing for Strategic Investment newsletter, worried many in the intelligent community. Colby's past history of divulging CIA secrets in the past were well known. Strategic Investor had covered the Vince Foster suicide and had hired handwriting experts to review Foster's suicide note. and see research on William Colby John DeCamp relationship in the Franklin Scandal Omaha NFU research pages, and Etherzone, AmericanRetiredPersons see also , John DeCamp JJRaymond Wikipedia James McDougal American Retired Persons Jim McDougal was serving his three-year sentence for bank fraud at the Fort Worth Federal Medical Center in Texas, a facility operated by the federal Bureau of Prisons for inmates who need medical attention. ... Just prior to another round of testimony before Kenneth Starr's grand jury, McDougal, while in solitary confinement, suffered a heart attack that may have been brought on by diuretics forced on him. Wikipedia, New York Times, Salon New Yorker, and see David Hale, continued Mary Mahoney .White House ... Intern died 7/97 An attractive 25 year old woman, Mary was a former White House Intern for Bill Clinton working as the Assistant Manager at a Starbuck's Coffee shop in Georgetown. In the pre-trial publicity surrounding Paula Jones lawsuit, and mere days after Newsweek's Mike Isikoff had dropped hints that a "former White House staffer" was about to go public with her story of sexual harassment at 1600 Pennsylvania, gunmen entered the Starbuck's while the crew was cleaning up after closing. Mary's two associates were taken to a room and shot. Mary herself had five bullets in her. No money was taken. Washington Post continued Eric Butera An informant in the murder of White House intern Mary Mahoney. Assigned by DC police to make an undercover drug buy and was beaten to death. Prorev The Secret Service told Dallas police to stop screening for weapons while people were still arriving at a campaign rally for Barack Obama, Dead Bodyguards go to index MORE Maj. Gen. William Robertson Deputy Commanding General, V Corps, Europe websites Col William Densberger V Corps Chief of Operations and Plans Col. Robert Kelly V Corps Chief of Intelligence Spec. Gary Rhodes Crew Chief died: 2/23/93 - All were killed when their helicopter crashed in Weisbaden, Germany. No cause was ever determined. - V Corps figured prominently in the US Bosnia-Serbia peacekeeping operations, along with the carrier Roosevelt. These men, and 8 others associated with Clinton's visit to the Roosevelt all died within 4 months of each other. websites MORE Steve Willis ATF Agent & Former Clinton bodyguard Jeremiah Project Robert Williams ATF Agent & Former Clinton bodyguard Jeremiah Project Conway LeBleu ATF Agent & Former Clinton bodyguard Jeremiah Project Todd McKeehan ATF Agent & Former Clinton bodyguard, died: 2/28/93 - "executed" by gunfire in the Waco, Texas assault on the Branch Davidians. - All four were examined by a "private doctor" and died from nearly identical wounds to the left temple, so-called execution style. According to Linda Thompson, videotapes and other evidence indicates that none died from guns fired by Branch Davidians. continued Jeremiah Project MORE Staff Sgt. Brian Haney Clinton bodyguard Marine Sgt. Tim Sabel Clinton bodyguard Maj. William Barkley Clinton bodyguard websites Capt. Scott Reynolds Clinton bodyguard died: 5/19/93 - All four men died when their helicopter crashed in the woods near Quantico, Va. - Reporters were barred from the site, and the head of the fire department responding to the crash described it by saying, "Security was tight," with "lots of Marines with guns." A videotape made by a firefighter was seized by the Marines. All four men had escorted Clinton on his flight to the carrier Roosevelt shortly before their deaths. MORE C. Victor Raiser II National Finance Chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), and the finance chairman for the Middle Atlantic States in Clinton for President Campaign websites New York Times He was affiliated with the Washington law firm of Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue and was chairman of the American Mobile Satellite Corporation of Washington and vice chairman of the Mobile Telecommunication Technologies Corporation of Jackson, Miss. ... died in a plane crash near Dillingham, Alaska. New York Times topics Bill Clinton Montgomery Raiser Son of C. Victor Raiser II died: 7/30/92 - Both men died in a private plane crash in Alaska, en route to a fishing expedition. No cause was ever determined. Five others not connected to Clinton died with them. - DeeDee Meyers described Raiser as a "major player" in the Clinton organization. Victor raiser was also chairman of Mobile Telecomm Technologies Corp., whose subsidiary, SkyTel Corp. is an international paging company used by federal police agencies such as the= FBI. Hershell Friday - Attorney and Clinton fund raiser died March 1, 1994 when his plane exploded. Paul Tully Democratic National Committee Political Director died: 9/24/92 - Found dead in a hotel room in Little Rock Arkansas of "unknown causes." No autopsy allowed. - Described by Clinton as a "dear friend and trusted advisor. Tully authored several key strategies for Clinton and the party. websites Ed Willey Real Estate Attorney, Clinton Fund Raiser died: 11/30/93 - Died of gunshot to the head. Body found in deep woods in Virginia. Ruled a suicide, no note was found, nor was any motive identified. - Intimately involved in several Clinton fund raising events. Ruled a suicide, no note was found. Died on the same day his wife was allegedly sexually accosted in the White House by Bill Clinton. Intimately involved in several Clinton fund raising events. Wikipedia Salon see Linda Tripp
James Bunch Influential Texan died: ??? - Died from a gunshot suicide, similar to Vince Foster. - Was discovered to have a "little black book" containing the names of many influential persons in Texas and Arkansas who visited certain prostitutes. Jeremy "Mike" Boorda, President Clinton's former Chief of Naval Operations allegedly committed suicide by shooting himself in the chest with a .38 caliber pistol on his front lawn in May 1996. The unauthorized wearing of valor pins was the alleged reasoning behind the suicide. By 1998 this reasoning was proved false after the Navy issued a report that said Boorda earned the right to wear the pins after all. John Wilson Former Washington DC Council member died: 5/18/93 - Found dead from an apparent hanging suicide - Suicide appears suspicious due to an unusual number of reports made to the media concerning his "depression". Was reported, but not proven, to have ties to the Whitewater affair. websites Will Oliver Stone make a movie about a GOP assassination of Obama? Actually it was David Ehrenstein of the LA Times that coined the 'magic negro' label. no racism or racists here? but he is young and charismatic. Where's the Clinton 'hit squad'? Is this a conspiracy? And how does it compare to Robert Kennedy? or Martin Luther King assassination? Bill Shelton Arkansas state trooper and fiancee of Kathy Ferguson died: 6/94 - allegedly committed suicide by shooting himself at the gravesite of his fiancee - Officer Shelton was the fiancee of Kathy Ferguson, who was the ex-wife of Trooper Danny Ferguson. Kathy Ferguson also committed "suicide" 6/94 when she shot herself in her living room. Oddly, next to the body were her packed bags, as if she was expecting to be going somewhere. Danny Ferguson is a co-defendant along with Bill Clinton in Paula Corbin Jones's sexual harassment suit. His ex-wife was reported as a corroborating witness for Ms. Jones. Paul Olson A federal witness in investigations to drug money corruption in Chicago politics, Paul had just finished two days of FBI interviews when his plane ride home crashed, killing Paul and 130 others on Sept 8, 1994. The Sept. 15, 1994, Tempe Tribune newspaper reported that the FBI suspected that a bomb had brought down the airplane. websites Wounded or attempted murder: go to index Gary Johnson : Not dead, but beaten near death and left for dead. Had videotapes of Clinton breaking into Gennifer Flowers' apartment. His tapes were taken. Dennis Patrick : Court clerk. Had millions of dollars laundered through his accoun t at Lasater & Co without his knowledge. Four attempts on his life. websites L.J. Davis : Reporter investigating Clinton scandals. Attacked at his hotel room in Little Rock. His notes were stolen. Larry Nichols : Former official at ADFA and author of "The Clinton Chronicles." The man who broke many of the Clinton scandal stories. Several attempts on his life Steve Dickson-Sally Perdue, one of Clinton's "regulars", was offered a $60,000/year federal job to keep her mouth shut; or she would have her legs broken. When she did come forward, she received a series of threats; but luckily for her, the American press mostly ignored her. Betty Currie The night before White House secretary, Betty Currie, was to testify before the Campaign Finance hearing, her brother, Theodore Williams, Jr., was severely beaten and hospitalized (see Oregonian January 29, 1998 Page A9). Then within one month of her testifying in the Lewinsky Grand Jury her sister was killed in a car "accident" in December 1997. Michael Galster The controversial story involving tainted plasma from Arkansas prisoners that was shipped to Canada in the 1980s while Bill Clinton was state governor continued Could the GOP blame their assassination of Obama on a Palestinian terrorist? Who are their heroes? Surely their not paranoid left-wing nutbags. No, Blackwater (created in 1997) did not take out RFK. But Scott Hinckley, brother of John W. Hinckley Jr., who allegedly shot Reagan, dined in Denver at the home of Neil Bush. Alan Standorf An employee of the National Security Agency in electronic intelligence. Standorf was a source of information for Danny Casalaro who was investigating INSLAW, BCCI, etc. Standorf's body was found in the backseat of a car at Washington National Airport on Jan 31, 1991. Etherzone 42inc NFU Jackson Stephens research Larry Guerrin Was killed in February 1987 while investigating the INSLAW case. Etherzone 42inc and NFU Jackson Stephens research Dennis Eisman An attorney with information on INSLAW. Eisman was found shot to death on April 5, 1991. Etherzone 42inc NFU Jackson Stephens research Ian Spiro Spiro had supporting documentation for grand jury proceedings on the INSLAW case. His wife and 3 children were found murdered on November 1, 1992 in their home. They all died of gunshot wounds to the head. Ian's body was found several days later in a parked car in the Borego Desert. Cause of death? The ingestion of cyanide. FBI report indicated that Ian had murdered his family and then committed suicide. Etherzone 42inc NFU Jackson Stephens research websites Waco / Mena drug running go to index and see The Henry Ives deaths Carlos Ghigliotti 42, was found dead in his home just outside of Washington D.C. on April 28, 2000. There was no sign of a break-in or struggle at the firm of Infrared Technology where the badly decomposed body of Ghigliotti was found. Ghigliotti had not been seen for several weeks. ... Ghigliotti, a thermal imaging analyst hired by the House Government Reform Committee to review tape of the siege, said he determined the FBI fired shots on April 19, 1993. The FBI has explained the light bursts on infrared footage as reflections of sun rays on shards of glass or other debris that littered the scene. ... "I conclude this based on the groundview videotapes taken from several different angles simultaneously and based on the overhead thermal tape," Ghigliotti told The Washington Post last October. "The gunfire from the ground is there, without a doubt." ... Ghigliotti said the tapes also confirm the Davidians fired repeatedly at FBI agents during the assault, which ended when flames raced through the compound. About 80 Branch Davidians perished that day, some from the fire, others from gunshot wounds. ... Mark Corallo, a spokesman for the congressional committee chaired by Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., said that police found the business card of a committee investigator in Ghigliotti's office. Corallo said Ghigliotti's work for the committee ended some time ago. Etherzone websites Mega.nu Clinton deaths, Stephanopolis. continued 76 deaths as a result of the government siege on the Branch Davidians compound at Waco Texas. [Wikipedia Public Action search Janet Reno Judy Gibbs (along with her sister Sharon) appeared in the December 1979 issue of Penthouse, and later worked at a bordello near Mena, Arkansas which also ran a blackmail operation with photos taken of the customers with their girls. According to the Gibbs family, Bill Clinton was a regular customer of Judy. While cooperating with law enforcement in a drug investigation, Judy was burned alive when her house burned down. In a sworn statement, Clinton bodyguard Barry Spivey related how he had been with the governor when the governor's plane had flown over Judy Gibb's house and Clinton had shown Judy's penthouse photos on the plane and pointed out the house. WhatReallyHappened notes: Delaughter, Clinton, Arkansas, The Chief of Police in Arkansas at that time, Doc Delaughter, said he had gathered information from many persons in Lasater's surroundings, how he smuggled drugs and abused young girls sexually. During those investigations Doc was harassed by persons from his own police department, paid by Clinton. It was about the Regan-Bush administration and an alleged effort to delay the freeing of the hostages being held at the time by Iran in order to do damage to President Jimmy Carter's reelection bid. Casolaro was told that as a part of the effort, drugs and weapons were being flown into and out of the airport at Mena, Arkansas. Bill Clinton was governor at the time and there have been numerous questions about whether Clinton was in any way involved in any of the activities connected with Mena or protected those who were involved CraigsList see Children Franklin Scandal Omaha Barry Seal Wikipedia Adler Berriman Seal, or "Barry Seal" (July 16, 1939–February 19, 1986) was a pilot with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and an drug smuggler (again, with the help of the CIA) turned Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) informant. After a 1984 arrest in Fort Lauderdale, Florida for money laundering and Quaalude smuggling, Seal negotiated a plea bargain that included him becoming an informant for the DEA and testifying against his former Colombian employers websites Spartacus Seal also offered to provide information to the DEA implicating federal officials in the Iran-Contra scandal. This included Richard Ben-Veniste, a Watergate prosecutor who played a crucial role in the successful fight to secure the secret Richard Nixon White House tapes. Ben-Veniste represented both Barry Seal and Bill Clinton in the early 1980s. Ben-Veniste served as chief counsel to the Senate Whitewater Committee. However, the authorities were not interested in this information. websites Russell Welch, an Arkansas State Police Investigator, was stricken with what his doctor called "military- grade" anthrax poisoning during his probe of Mena drug operations. Welsh did recover, thanks to a very astute doctor. Of course, Mena drug running has long been rumored to be connected with Clinton. StewWebb Salon Wall Street Journal Mena Coverup file MORE Robert Bates Barry Seal's aircraft mechanic at Mena (name unknown as of this time) died March 21, 1995 of an "overdose of mouthwash". Regarded by local authorities as an obvious homicide. Company executives go to index Charles W. Miller - Was executive vice president and member of the board of directors for a company called Alltel and was deeply involved in his own software engineering company. Alltel is the successor to Jackson Stephens' "Systematics", the company that provided the software for the White House's "Big Brother" data base system and that was behind the administration's plan to develop the secret computer "Clipper" chip to bug every phone, fax and email transmission in America. Found dead of a gunshot wound to the head on November 17, 1998 in a shallow pit about 300 yards from his ranch house near Little Rock. Police found a Ruger .357-caliber revolver submerged in water. Investigators concluded the Rugerwas the weapon used by Miller to kill himself. Yet, two rounds in the handgun's cylinder had been spent. World Net Daily MORE notes
Vincent Foster White House Counsel died: 7/21/93 - Found dead in Ft. Marcy Park in Washington, DC, of a supposed suicide by gunshot. A suicide note was supposedly found a fews days later, torn into several pieces, in his briefcase, after his office had been entered by White House staff and materials removed. The gun which he supposedly used to kill himself was reported to be still in his hand, but the person who first found the body reports that there was no gun at that time. Many irregularities surround the death and the investigation of it. - Foster was also from Hope, Ark., like Clinton, and also worked for the Rose Law firm. Foster had intimate knowledge of the Clintons' personal finances. Foster was involved in an investigation of their finances, and reportedly made a phone call to Hillary Clinton, in Little Rock, just hours before his death. websites NFU Jackson Stephens research, 42inc Neil Moody: Died -August 25, 1996 Following Vincent Foster's murder, Lisa Foster married James Moody, a judge in Arkansas, on Jan 1, 1996. Near the time Susan McDougal first went to jail for contempt, Judge Moor's son, Neil died in a car crash. There were other reports that Neil Moody had discovered something very unsettling among his stepmother's private papers and was threatening to go public with it just prior to the beginning of the Democratic National Convention. He was alleged to have been talking to Bob Woodward of the Washington Post about a blockbuster story. Witnesses said they saw Neil Moody sitting in his car arguing with another person just prior to His car suddenly speeding off out of control and hitting a brick wall. Etherzone NFU Jackson Stephens research, 42inc ......................................... Bill Clinton (demo-con) quieted a political opponent who was making
allegations that he had fathered a mulatto child of a Little Rock hooker
named Bobbi Anne Williams. NewsMax FAS Federation of American Scientists Walsh Report, Iran-Contra John Glasgow Yahoo / AP Clinton Library Builder's CFO Vanishes, Leaving Questions, No Clues. Police say no evidence of foul play, ... Company: CDI Contractors LLC, Little Rock, owned by Dillard's and the estate of Bill Clark, who built or remodeled many of the 300-plus department stores, and built the Clinton Library, ... other terms: options, shares, audit, accounting scandal, clean books, tracking dogs may have found something, Petit Jean Mountain, Volvo SUV, Conway County, FindJohnGlassgow.com .... NFU: this is a huge stretch to any connection to Clinton death lists but mentioning it on this page may help the search. The information is very smelly and stinky and should not be ignored. side note: Huffington Post Clinton Library, Bill Bradley ... Obama supporter, former senator, called into question of Bill Clinton Library financial backers, quid-pro-quos, Hillary is a flawed candidate, won't release the names of the people who contributed to the Clinton presidential library. ... terms: favors, pardons, investigations squelched, contracts awarded, business cash advance, regulations delayed, effect on run against John McCain, notes: and in a bizarre twist in the 2008 campaign, Bill Clinton accused Barack Obama of putting out a "hit job"on him. Clinton has been accused of fanning racial issues in the campaign, Clinton said that was a total myth and mugging. Suzanne Coleman : Had affair with Clinton when he was attorney general. Died of "suicide" with gunshot wound to the back of her head. No autopsy performed. Was pregnant at time of her death. Some say it was Clintons. websites Paula Grober Clinton's speech interpreter for the deaf died: 12/9/92 -Died in a one-car accident with no known witnesses. Her body was thrown 33 feet from the car. A very attractive women, Paula traveled extensively with Clinton from 1978 until her death. Jan Kopold Shortly after Clinton's return to America and his first meeting with Hillary Rodham at Yale Law School, his friend, Jan Kopold, died. One report said it was from a fall off the roof of a building while vacationing in Turkey, but Oxford’s magazine reported it was from a mountain climbing fall. continued
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Iran
transfer of arms to Bosnian Muslims
go
to index John Millis "Knowledge of the Iran-Contra Affair may also be the true cause of the essentially unpublicized June 3, 2000 alleged "suicide" of John Millis, Staff Director of House Intelligence Committee. In 1996, Millis had investigated and uncovered the Clinton administrations’ role in helping Iran transfer arms to Bosnian Muslims. New York Times file.... The suspicious nature of the death of Millis and the lack of media coverage continued at notes. news: Gunderson Educate Yourself WMR, Disinfo, and Salon and file (Larry Nichols, Iran Contra, Arkansas, FAS Federation of American Scientists Walsh Report, Iran-Contra continued Brattleboro petition AP go to Sudan, Bill Clinton, advancing neo-con schemes in the 90's more A Hillary Clinton presidency means war in the Balkans more Gary Webb : ,Suicide .. TruthNews L.A. Times had never acknowledged that Webb was substantially correct in his reporting about the Nicaraguan contras’ role in smuggling cocaine into the United States in the 1980s. Online Journal more That decision by the L.A. Times – when combined with the abusive treatment Webb received from other major news outlets and his betrayal by his own editors at the San Jose Mercury News – had sent Webb’s life into a downward spiral that ended with him shooting himself with his father’s handgun. New York Times New York Times Consortium News New York Times concedes Contra CIA drug operations true ... more search terms: Dark Alliance, San Jose Mercury News Milosevic, Slobodan MediaMatters On March 11, Milosevic died in his prison cell in The Hague, Netherlands. A preliminary autopsy report cited a heart attack as the cause of death. The Associated Press reported on March 13 that Dutch toxicologist Donald Uges said "he found traces of an unprescribed drug in Slobodan Milosevic's blood earlier this year that may have reduced the effectiveness of other medications he was taking." ... Wikipedia, PrisonPlanet Antiwar Shao Yunhuan, of Xinhua News Agency, Xu Xinghu and his wife, Zhu Ying, reporters at Guangming Daily. (NATO bombed the Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia) God save Obama from assassination. Search terms: Bert Lance, Jackson Stephens, Abdullah Taha Bakkhsh, BCCI Hong Kong, Mochtar Riady, Aga Hassan Abedl, National Bank of Georgia, Gaith Pharoan, defense contracts, Stephens Inc. (bond investors) Arkansas Development Finance Authority, Worthen Bank. FAS Federation of American Scientists Walsh Report, Iran-Contra Oklahoma City Bombing go to index Kenny Trentadue A Salt Lake city lawyer searching for the truth behind his brother's death has uncovered a wealth of new information that could implicate the FBI in the Oklahoma City bombings. The documents he dug up suggest the FBI knew about the plot to bomb the Alfred P. Murrah federal building in advance but did little to prevent it. Jesse Trentadue's brother Kenney Trentadue was found dead in his prison cell in Oklahoma City in August 1995. The FBI calls it a suicide but Jesse maintains Kenney was beaten to death during an interrogation. Clinton Administration go to index Jeremy "MIKE" Boorda, President Clinton's former Chief of Naval Operations allegedly committed suicide by shooting himself in the chest with a .38 caliber pistol on his front lawn in May 1996. The unauthorized wearing of valor pins was the alleged reasoning behind the suicide. By 1998 this reasoning was proved false after the Navy issued a report that said Boorda earned the right to wear the pins after all. continued Arlington Cemetery (page misspelled) websites SMHAI Paul Tulley - Democrat National Committee Political Director found dead in a hotel room in Little Rock, Arkansas September 24, 1992, Described by Clinton as a "Dear friend and trusted advisor". websites , McLaughlin.com NewsMeat continuedKathy Ferguson Ex-wife of Trooper Danny Ferguson died: circa 5/94 - Died of a supposed gunshot suicide in her living room. There was a suicide note found by the body. However, friends were surprise at having noticed nothing wrong previously. And even more curious, found nearby were several packed suitcases, as if she expected she was going somewhere. She was the former wife (since changed her name) of Trooper Danny Furguson, who is the Arkansas State Trooper alleged to have escorted Paula Corbin Jones to the hotel room for her alleged episode of sexual harassment by then-Governor Clinton. Ferguson's wife was reported as a possible corroborating witness for Ms. Jones. Branscum, Herby Arkansas bankers Herby Branscum and Robert Hill were tried on charges in connection with Clinton's 1990 gubernatorial campaign. They were acquitted on some, but a mistrial was declared on others. Branscum subsequently killed in a suspicious auto accident. continued New York Times Prorev Gandy Baugh Attorney representing Mr. Lasater in a case concerning alleged financial misconduct. died: 5/94 - Died in an alleged suicide by jumping out of a window of a multi-story building. - Mr. Lasater was a close associate of Gov. Clinton, and was later indicted on drug related charges, among other things. search Lasater, Roger Clinton, Arkansas Development Finance Authority, Rose Law firm, Webb Hubbel, Hillary Clinton. see NewsMax Dan Lasater New York Times American Thinker (Arkansas State Police Radio Network) and Time file WayneMadsenReport and Salon FAS Federation of American Scientists Walsh Report, Iran-Contra continued Dr. Ronald Rogers Dentist from Arkansas killed in plane crash as he was on his way to an interview with a "London Sunday Telegraph" reporter to reveal some Clinton dirt. continued websites If Obama is elected President will Blackwater or Halliburton assassinate him, NewsBusters wonders about Huffington Post blogger who mentioned this. Is he another Kennedyesque candidate? Does he have the greatness? Bill Shelton: Shelton was an Arkansas police officer and was found dead as an apparent suicide on Kathy Ferguson's grave (Kathy was his girl friend), on June 12, 1994. This "suicide" was the result of a gunshot wound to the back of the head. Etherzone HillaryProject Slate file websites Stanley Huggins Partner in Memphis law firm investigating Madison Guaranty. His 300 page report has never been released. Jeremiah Project Florence Martin Accountant subcontracting to CIA related to the Barry Seal case. Dead of three gunshot wounds to the head. websites and see Florence Martin, accountant subcontracting to the CIA , found dead in 1994 in Mabell, Texas, the victim of three gunshot wounds to the head. Ms. Martin had the documents and paperwork, including the PIN number for an account that had been set up in the name of Barry Seal for $1.5 million at the Fuji Bank in the Cayman Islands. Oddly enough, following her death, the money was transferred to the Guaranty Bank in the Cayman Islands and then to another bank in the Virgin Islands. Jim Wilhite, associate of Mack McClarty's former firm. Many remember the sleezy McClarty from Clinton's first administration. Planetquo Jim Wilhite Wilhite was an associate of Mack McClarty's former firm. Wilhite died in a skiing accident on December 21, 1992. websites Sleeping Indian Mountain C-130 crash, Secret Service agent and 9 crew members text file continued Is Obama a threat to Dyncorps ... will they assassinate him? Limbaugh called him the 'magic negro', if he's elected the Right wing Christian Erik Prince will lose big time. Will it be a Secret Service inside job? Who's Palmero, Dead Investigators go to index Jerry Parks Head of Clinton's Gubernatorial security team in Little Rock. died: 9/26/93 - Gunned down in his car at a deserted intersection outside Little Rock. - His family reported that shortly before his death, they were being followed by unknown persons, and their home had been broken into. Parks had been compiling a dossier on Clinton's illicit activities. The dossier was stolen. also mentioned as Luther Parks, FAS Federation of American Scientists Walsh Report, Iran-Contra websites Paul Wilcher Washington attorney investigating government corruption died: 6/22/93 - Found dead on a toilet in his Washington apartment. No cause of death was ever determined. - At the time of his death, he was investigating connections between the "October surprise" during the 1980 federal election campaign and drug and gun-running out of Mena, Arkansas, as well as the BATF assault on the Waco, Texas Branch Davidians. Was planning on producing a television documentary on his findings. He had delivered a 99-page affidavit to Janet Reno three weeks before his death. websites Jon Parnell Walker RTC investigator Mysteriously fell to his death from an apartment balcony. The same apartment which was alleged to have been a secret getaway which Foster may have visited. also: Jon Walker, an investigator for the Resolution Trust Corporation, mysteriously "fell" to his death from Lincoln Towers, in Arlington, VA. In March 1992, Walker contacted the Kansas City RTC office for information concerning the ties between Whitewater and the Clintons. He reportedly was looking into a 50 million dollar transfer from an RTC fund in Chicago to Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan to cover up a 47 million dollar embezzlement. StewWebb Consortium and file Darlene Novinger - Former FBI operative, January 23rd, 2003. Novinger was known to hold sensitive information on the Clinton and Bush I administration's drug operations. Her husband murdered March 1987 when she went public with initial reports. Her father died July 8, 1993 four hours after Darlene was a guest on the Tom Valentine show. Suffered retaliation after reporting discussions by government protected drug smuggler who described contacts with Vice President George Bush and his son, Jeb Bush. UofM, KPThomas, no mention in Wikipedia, MORE Luther Parks Head of Clinton's security team in Little Rock. Died Sept. 26, 1993 Gunned down in his car at the intersection of Chanaul Parkway and Cantrell Road, near Jacksonville, Arkansas, (near Little Rock). Parks was shot through the rear window of his car. The assailant then pulled around to the driver's side of Park's car and shot him three more times with a 9mm pistol. His family reported that shortly before his death, they were being followed by unknown persons, and their home had been broken into (despite a top quality alarm system). Parks had been compiling a dossier on Clinton's illicit activities. The dossier was stolen. When news of the discovery of Vincent Foster's body was reported, Parks is reported to have said, "Bill Clinton is cleaning house." websites John Hillier - video journalist and investigator. He helped to produce the documentaries "Circle of Power," and "The Clinton Chronicles." He mysteriously died in a dentist's chair for no apparent reason. You Tube and full length Tony Moser: 41, was killed as he crossed a street in Pine Bluff, Ark on on June 10, 2000. Killed 10 days after being named a columnist for the Democrat-Gazette newspaper and two days after penning a stinging indictment of political corruption in Little Rock. NoHillary08 Steve Francis, author of NewsFollowUp.com ... just kidding. no relation to th famous basketball player ... of the Houston Rockets ... no assassination, assassinated, suicided, oft, etc. Commerce Department deaths go to index Ron Brown Former Chairman, DNC; Commerce Secretary died: 5/3/96 - Ron Brown died along with 39 other people when the T-43 (a converted 737 used by the Air Force) carrying the group on a trip to Bosnia crashed while approaching the Dubrovnik airport. On the verge of being indicted and having stated publicly his willingness to make a deal with prosecutors, Ron Brown's death brought to an end the investigations into the Commerce Department. (NOTE: Also belongs under dead fundraisers) Wikipedia Ron Brown, YouTube, Clinton 'crying' Judicial Watch Conservative (Chinagate) Wikipedia Chinagate WhatReallyHappened, CraigsList Barbara Wise Commerce Department Staffer died: 11/29/96 -As the scandals continued to swirl around the Commerce Department, and most of all about John Huang, one of Huang's associates, Barbara Wise, was found dead in her locked office at the Department of Commerce, partially nude and covered with bruises. No cause of death has ever been announced. Oddly enough, following the discovery of her body, Bill Clinton made an unscheduled return to the White House from Camp David, claiming he needed a book of poetry in order to complete his inauguration speech. Wikipedia John Huang 1996 fund raising scandal, John Huang, 1996 fund raising scandal, campaign finance scandal, PRC, People's Republic of China, influencing U. S. domestic politics. Taiwan replaced with 'New China Lobby', promoted by Kissinger, Shultz, Vance, Eagleburger, Haig, Scowcroft. see Charlie Trie, became citizen and owned restaurant in Little Rock, convicted on Fed finance campaign laws, ... then Wang Jun, investor, Poly Technologies, PRC front company, smuggle AK-47s, met with Bush 41, Ron Brown, and invitation to meet from Hillary Rodham Clinton. ... and Johnny Chung, Liu Chaoying and General Ji ... the White House, illegal campaign contributions ... etc. ... back to John Huang, and employee of of Indonesian company Lippo Group's Lippo Bank, and its owners Mochtar Riady and James Riady, raised millions for DNC, held Commerce Dept position, continued Charles Meissner Assistant Secretary of Commerce for International Economic Policy. died: UNK - Following Ron Brown's death, John Huang was placed on a Commerce Department contract that allowed him to retain his security clearance by Charles Meissner. Shortly thereafter, Charles Meissner died in the crash of a small plane. What about Israel and the Mossad and an Obama assassination? they are highly skilled at this. We pray that Obama is safe from this. How to protect Obama. Protecting Obama will be difficult. this page is proof of what can happen. Jerkuic, Niko Chief Niko Jerkuic, technician in charge of the radio beacons used during the fatal Ron Brown flight committed suicide May 6, 1996. Christopher Ruddy and Hugh Sprunt wrote, "Brown's plane was probably relying on Croatian ground beacons for navigation. In the minutes before Brown's plane crashed, five other planes landed at Dubrovnik without difficulty, and none experienced problems with the beacons. But additional questions about the beacons and the crash will remain unanswered because, as the Air Force acknowledges, airport maintenance chief Niko Junic died by gunshot just three days after the crash and before he could be interviewed by investigators. Within a day of his death, officials determined the death was a suicide." Prorev Shelly Kelly was the flight attendent on Ron Brown's ill fated flight (April 3, 1996) James Nugent of the Wall Street Underground wrote, "Four hours and 20 minutes after the crash, the first Croatian Special Forces search party arrives on the scene and finds only Ms. Kelly surviving. They call for a helicopter to evacuate her to the hospital. When it arrives, she is able to get aboard without assistance from the medics. But Kelly never completes the short hop. She dies enroute. According to multiple reports given to journalist/editor Joe L. Jordan, an autopsy later reveals a neat three-inch incision over her main femoral artery. It also shows that the incision came at least three hours after her other cuts and bruises." Prorev Ron Miller investigated by authorities over the sale of his company, Gage Corp. to Dynamic Energy Resources, Inc. was the man who tape-recorded Gene and Nora Lum and turned those tapes (and other records) over to congressional oversight investigators. The Lums were sentenced to prison for campaign finance violations, using "straw donors" to conceal the size of their contributions to various candidates. Indeed, Dynamic Energy Resources, Inc. had hired Ron Brown's son Michael solely for the purpose of funneling $60,000 through him to the Commerce secretary, more The Henry Ives deaths (drug running victims) go to index Kevin Ives & Don Henry Initial cause of death was reported to be the result of falling asleep on a railroad track in Arkansas on August 23, 1987. This ruling was reported by the State medical examiner Fahmy Malak. Later it was determined that Kevin died from a crushed skull prior to being placed on the tracks. Don had been stabbed in the back. Rumors indicate that they might have stumbled upon a Mena drug operation. websites A 1988 Saline County grand jury determined the boys were murdered and their bodies afterwards laid on the tracks Keith Koney Keith had information on the Ives/Henry deaths. Died in a motorcycle accident in July 1988 with unconfirmed reports of a high speed car chase. Keith McKaskle McKaskle has information on the Ives/Henry deaths. He was stabbed to death in November 1988 at his home and In August 1989, Ronald Shane Smith was sentenced to ten years for the 10 November 1988 murder of Keith McKaskle. McKaskle had earlier expressed fears for his life, linking them to his knowing something about "the railroad track thing". Smith may have been paid to kill McKaskle, as a prison inmate said he had been approached and offered $4,000 to kill McKaskle himself. Gregory Collins Greg had information on the Ives/Henry deaths. He died from a gunshot wound to the face in January 1989. Jeff Rhodes He had information on the deaths of Ives, Henry & McKaskle. His burned body was found in a trash dump in April 1989. He died of a gunshot wound to the head and there was some body mutilation, leading to the probably speculation that he was tortured prior to being killed. websites In July 1989 Frank Pilcher was arrested for the April 1989 murder of Jeffrey Rhodes. Rhodes had earlier told his father he feared for his life because he'd witnessed a narcotics transaction. James Milan Milam had information on the Ives & Henry deaths. He was decapitated. The state Medical examiner, Fahmy Malak, initially ruled death due to natural causes. Milam? Remember that Arkansas medical examiner, the one I said wasn't always the most conscientious investigator on God's green earth? Yep, we're about to see him again. Fahmy Malak listed James Milam's cause of death as a perforated ulcer, adding that Milam's small dog afterwards ate the dead man's head, accounting for Milam's headless condition. Richard Winters Winters was a suspect in the deaths of Ives & Henry. He was killed in a "robbery" in July 1989 which was subsequently proven to be a setup. Jordan Kettleson Kettleson had information on the Ives & Henry deaths. He was found shot to death in the front seat of his pickup in June 1990. websites Mike Samples Ives/Henry witness ... The Wall Street Journal 4/18/96 Micah Morrison "…Mike Samples - Murdered June 1995 - Mike was another grand jury witness for Don and Kevin. He was reported as knowing a great deal about the deaths of Ives and Henry. Sources say he had been involved with picking up drugs that were dropped out of planes at the Mena drop sites. He was shot to death in the head and was not found for some time…." Boonie Bearden Ives/Henry Witness, disappeared The Wall Street Journal 4/18/96 Micah Morrison "…Boonie Bearden - Murdered under mysterious circumstances March 1989 - He was a friend of both Greg Collins and Keith Coney. He "vanished" without a trace. It was rumored he knew exactly what had happened at the tracks. An anonymous caller said he knew where he had been murdered. The police found a piece of a shirt, nothing more. His body has never been recovered…." notes:In a 25 May 1990 hearing before U.S. Magistrate Henry Jones Jr., Katherine Brightop said her ex-boyfriend Paul William Criswell told her he and three other men were involved in the teenagers' deaths. Brightop said Criswell told her the boys tried to steal cocaine from Callaway's home and they were caught and beaten to death before their bodies were placed on the tracks.
Serbia -Baltics, war go to index Tens of thousands of children in Iraq. Dr. Stanley Heard Chairman of the National Chiropractic Health Care Advisory Committee died with his attorney Steve Dickson in a small plane crash. Dr. Heard, in addition to serving on Clinton's advisory council personally treated Clinton's mother, stepfather and brother. If this unlucky chiropractor treated Clinton's brother, it is likely he accidentally stumbled on to some of the drug operation in which the Clintons were involved. websites and NTSB StewWebb Steve Dickson - Counsel to Mr. Heard died: 9/10/93 - Both died in a plane crash outside Dulles airport, after their aircraft, rented after Heard's personal craft developed troubles, crashed while attempting an emergency landing after reporting a fire on board. - Heard, in addition to serving on Clinton's advisory council, also personally treated Clinton's mother, stepfather, and brother. Jim Wilhite Vice Chairman, Arkla, Inc. died: 12/21/92 - Died in a one-person skiing accident. - Wilhite had extensive ties with Clinton and Mack McLarty, with whom he visited by telephone just hours before his death. websites Johnny Lawhorn Jr. - Mechanic, found a check made out to Clinton in the trunk of a car left in his repair shop. Died when his car hit a utility pole. (Johnny Lawhon) Florence Martin - Accountant subcontractor for the CIA related to the Barry Seal Mena Airport drug smuggling case. Dead of three gunshot wounds. Hume, Sandy : On Sunday, February 22nd, 1998, Sandy Hume, the 28 year old son of journalist Britt Hume, was reportedly found dead in his Arlington, Virginia home. Aside from the statement that this was an "apparent" suicide, there remains in place a total media blackout on this story, possibly out of concern that the actual facts will not withstand public scrutiny. Worked for Hill magazine, about Congress for Congress. websites Lance Herndon: Herndon a 41 year old computer specialist and a prominent entrepreneur who received a presidential appointment in 1995 died August 10, 1996 under suspicious circumstances. He appeared to have died from a blow to the head. Police said no weapons were found at his mansion, adding that Mr. Herndon had not been shot or stabbed and there was no evidence of forced entry or theft. Etherzone Doug Adams: Died January 7, 1997- A lawyer in Arkansas who got involved trying to help the people who were being swindled out of their life savings. Adams was found in his vehicle with a gunshot wound to his head in a Springfield Mo. hospital parking lot. Etherzone websites |
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John Fitzgerald Kennedy An internal FBI memo reported
that on November 22 a reputed businessman named George H. W. Bush reported
hearsay that a certain Young Republican had been talking of killing the
President when he came to Houston. The Young Republican was nowhere near
Dallas on that date. According to a 1988 story in The Nation, J. Edgar
Hoover said in a memo that Mr. George H. W. Bush of the CIA had been briefed on
November 23rd, 1963 about the reaction of anti-Castro Cuban exiles in
Miami to the assassination of President Kennedy. George H. W. Bush has
denied this, although he was in Texas and cannot account for his
whereabouts at the time. YouTube This
is Robert Gaylon Ross interview with Lyndon Johnson’s mistress,
Madeleine Duncan Brown. She claims that LBJ told her that he had John F.
Kennedy killed. ...& You
Tube Wikipedia
Warren Commission, Rolling
Stone ( The Last Confessions of E. Howard Hunt), JFK.net
Tarpley JFK
Murder Solved AssassinationScience
JFK
Assination Source George H. W. Bush
... and (enlarge)
New
York Times 'Bush in the CIA-1963) file
and pic
.... and Bush in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963) below photo from compiled from Flocco
enlarge and Amazon.com
The Men Who Killed Kennedy (1988) Starring: Hilary Minster, Robert J.
Groden Director: Nigel Turner
memo
and YouTube,
or MORE and
more on Zapruder film John F. Kennedy Jr. On July 16, 1999, at the age of 38, John F. Kennedy Jr. was killed along with his wife and his sister-in-law, Lauren Bessette, when the aircraft he was piloting crashed into the Atlantic Ocean Great Dreams Murder by Plane Crash ... John F. Kennedy Jr. . Wikipedia YouTube FAA, final approach, 2500 ft., 100 ft, low altitude, 5 minutes, Hillary Clinton "When she decided to run (for Senator NY), Clinton and her husband purchased a home in Chappaqua, New York, north of New York City in September 1999." Wikipedia Michael Kennedy died in skiing accident January 2, 1998 Sonny Bono Sonny Bono, Wikipedia On January 5, 1998, Bono died of injuries after striking a tree while skiing on the Nevada side of the Heavenly Ski Resort near South Lake Tahoe, California. He was 62 years old. Bono's death came just days after Michael Kennedy died in a skiing accident. Governor Mel Carnahan Missouri's former Democratic governor, Mel Carnahan, who lost his life in 2000, three weeks before Election Day, during his Senatorial race against John Ashcroft. Carnahan went on to become the first dead man to win a Senatorial race, humiliating and defeating the unpopular Ashcroft posthumously. Ashcroft, despite his unpopularity, went on to be appointed Attorney General by George W. Bush. Investigators determined that Carnahan's plane went down due to "poor visibility." Alternet sweb continued William Colby On April 27, 1996, Colby died in an apparent boating accident near his home in Rock Point, Maryland, see above William Casey Hours before Casey was scheduled to testify before Congress about his knowledge of Iran-Contra, he was reported to have been rendered incapable of speech, and was later hospitalized. In his 1987 book, Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA 1981-1987, Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward, who had interviewed Casey on numerous occasions, said that he had gained entry to Casey's hospital room for a final, four-minute long encounter — a claim that was met with disbelief in many quarters, and adamant denial by Casey's wife, Sofia. According to Woodward, when he asked Casey if he knew about the diversion of funds to the Nicaraguan Contras, "His head jerked up hard. He stared, and finally nodded yes." Death Casey died of brain cancer in 1987. Cooperative Research FAS Federation of American Scientists Walsh Report Senator Paul Wellstone see NewsFollowUp.com Wellstone plane crash /murder page and ... Alternet, the only Progressive in the Senate, Great Dreams Murder by Plane Crash ... John F. Kennedy Jr. ... Paul Wellstone continued Rafiq Hariri Prime Minister, Lebanon, assassinated in bomb blast. U. S. and Israel gained the long sought removal of Syrian armed forces from Lebanon. Global Research, Independent.uk, Robert-Fisk.com SDS2000, World Socialist Website, and NFU Middle East, Haj Ali Razmara Wikipedia search terms: oil, Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, Standard Oil of New Jersey, Aramco Michael Todd AP A city police chief who led an investigation into charges that Britain cooperated with secret CIA flights to transport terrorism suspects without formal proceedings has been found dead, ... Manchester Chief Constable Michael Todd, 50, was found dead in Snowdonia .... see NFU 'war on terror' page
Plame outing death list go to index Lewis B. Miskell WMR Murdered Canadian diplomat another possible victim of Valerie Plame Wilson/Brewster Jennings disclosure. On May 26, Italian police discovered the badly decomposed body of Canadian diplomat Lewis B. Miskell in a Naples sewer. Miskell, 49, had been stabbed in the abdomen. Intelligence sources report that Miskell, who assigned to the Canadian embassy in Vienna, Austria, was the attache responsible for liaison to UN specialized agencies in Vienna Bush Went AWOL Bodies go to index Sid Adger Mr. Adger, a Houston oil supply company executive and Bush family friend, died in 1996 of unknown causes. Adger was the mysterious businessman who approached General James Rose and asked him to help George W. Bush avoid Vietnam by recommending him for a pilot position with the National Guard. websites General James Rose General Rose recommended George W. Bush for a pilot position with the Texas National Guard. He died of unknown causes in 1993. He was immediately buried and no autopsy was performed. websites Lt. Colonel William Harris, Jr. Lt. Col. William Harris was one of two commanding officers who could not perform George W. Bush's annual evaluation covering the year from May 1, 1972 to April 30, 1973. They stated in their filing that "Lt. Bush has not been observed at this unit during the period of this report." Fortunately for George W. Bush, Lt. Col. Harris is not here to verify his 1973 statement. He's dead. Lt. Colonel Jerry B. Killian Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian, another George W. Bush's commanding officer. He cannot testify, he's dead. James Downing Aalund Mr. Aalund's name is the first on a long list of young Texans who died in Vietnam. No Texas Air National Guard connections. J. Clifford Baxter Found dead in his car, shot in the head. Mr. Baxter was vice chairman of Enron Corp. when he resigned in May 2001. Enron has been hot copy lately with the revelation that they were the largest campaign contributors for George W. Bush. Was J. Clifford Baxter a potential witness to Bush foreknowledge of their wrongdoings? His death was ruled a suicide. Charles Dana Rice He was the senior vice president and treasurer of El Paso Corp., an energy corporation swept up in the recent energy scandal. Two months after the "suicide" of Enron executive Clifford Baxter, in the midst of questions about the accounting practices of El Paso Corp., Charles Rice was found dead of a gunshot wound to the head. His death was ruled a suicide. James Daniel Watkins His body was found on December 1, 2001 in the Pike National Forest in Colorado, a gunshot wound to the head. Mr. Watkins was a consultant for Arthur Andersen, the accounting firm for Enron. He disappeared on November 13 after he left work. He was described as a devoted family man who always called home if he were going to be late. Officials initially said that the death was suspicious, but have changed their tune and have ruled his death a suicide. Jake Horton He was the senior ice-president of Gulf Power, a subsidiary of Southern Company, a cohort of Enron in the energy industry, and a major contributor to the Bush agenda. According to reporter Gregory Palast and Guardian, Horton knew of the company's appalling accounting practices, and "... had no doubt about its illegal campaign contributions to Florida politicans - he'd made the payments himself. In April of 1989 Horton decided to come clean with state officials, and reserved the company jet to go confront company officials. Ten minutes after takeoff the jet exploded. Kennedy Assassination Bodies go to index Hale Boggs He sat on the Warren Commission, which concluded that President Kennedy was slain by a lone assassin. Later, in 1971 and '72, Boggs said that the Warren Report was false and that J. Edgar Hoover's FBI not only helped cover up the JFK murder but blackmailed Congress with massive wire-tapping and spying. He named Warren Commission staff member Arlen Specter as a major cover-up artist. Congressman Boggs' plane disappeared on a flight to Alaska in 1972. The press, the military, and the CIA publicly proclaimed the plane could not be located. Investigators later said that was a lie, that the plane had been found. On the plane were Nick Begich, a very popular Democratic Congressman, and Don Jonz, an aide to Mr. Boggs. All were killed. Wikipedia continued George de Mohrenschildt A rich Russian oilman, he was described with his wife as being the two people friendliest to Oswald at the time of the assassination. De Mohrenschildt was the man who moved Oswald to Dallas. In the late 1970's, shortly before the first meeting of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, de Mohrenschildt started seeing a new doctor in town. He quickly became mentally unstable, at which time his wife convinced him to stop seeing the doctor. They moved away and left a false forwarding address. On the same day that the Committee tried to contact him about testifying, he was found dead of a gunshot wound. In his personal address book was the entry Bush, George H.W. (Poppy) and Zapata Petroleum Midland (the oil company owned by George H.W. Bush). Mrs. E. Howard Hunt In December 1972, while George H. W. Bush was at the Republican National Convention, a United Airlines flight carrying Mrs. Dorothy Hunt, CIA operative and wife of Howard Hunt, (CIA operative and suspect in the Kennedy assassination) crashed. Believed to be carrying $25,000 in "hush money", she died in this crash. Wikipedia E. Howard Hunt George H.W. Bush / Reagan Bodies go to index Gary Caradori He was investigating Lawrence E. King, Jr., a very influential black Republican who was also a friend of George H.W. Bush. King was director of the Franklin Community Credit Union in Omaha, Nebraska, and was suspected of embezzling $40 million . The Nebraska Senate questioned child prostitutes, who accused King of running a child prostitution ring. One of these children said that she saw George H.W. Bush at one of King's parties. Orlando Letelier He was torn to bits by a car bomb on the streets of Washington DC just before he was to testify against the Chilean dictator Pinochet. After the bombing, CIA Director George H. W. Bush told the FBI that there had been no Chilean involvement whatsoever. In 1991 the post-Pinochet Chilean Supreme Court asked George H. W. Bush if he would submit to questioning. BUSH REFUSED. and continued and see Wikipedia and what Wikipedia fails to mention: Global Policy, Third World Traveler Ronni Moffit She was Letelier's assistant. She and her husband were riding in the car with Letelier when the bomb exploded. Mr. Moffit survived. Ronni didn't. Jack Delaney and Ted White These young men were killed when pilot George H. W. Bush abandoned his plane when it was hit by enemy fire. Much has been made of this story - Malcolm BaldridgeMalcolm Baldridge: Commerce Secretary May 1987. Baldridge was familiar with the Bush family ties to the Communist Chinese. He died in a mysterious rodeo horseback riding accident. New York Times Wikipedia The ForbiddenKnowledge Hunter Thompson ... Hunter Thompson (renowned journalist,Wikipedia) Thompson died at his self-described "fortified compound" known as "Owl Farm" in Woody Creek, Colorado, at 5:42 p.m. on February 20, 2005, from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. ... and see Flocco Rusty Nelson was allegedly employed by a former Republican Party activist to take pictures of current or retired U.S. House-Senate members and other prominent government officials engaging in sexual criminality by receiving or committing sodomy and other sex acts on children during the Reagan-Bush 41 administrations. Flocco, and DailyKOS, see Franklin Scandal Omaha MORE NFU research Wikipedia Hunter Thompson, CNN transcripts, and New York Times and continued White House Call Boy Scandal, 1989, NBC, Tom Brokaw and below: Hunter Thompson ... "He'd been working on a story about the World Trade Center attacks and had stumbled across what he felt was hard evidence showing the towers had been brought down not by the airplanes that flew into them but by explosive charges set off in their foundations" Wikipedia and go to NewsFollowUp.com Franklin Scandal Omaha, and 9/11 Investigation page Panamanian General Omar Torrijos working in 1981 thumbed his nose at the Reagan/Bush administration and threatened to destroy the Panama Canal in the event of a U.S. invasion. Torrijos died shortly thereafter when the instruments in his plane failed to function upon takeoff. Panamanians speculated that the U.S. was involved in the death of the popular dictator, who was replaced by a U.S. intelligence operative, Manuel Noreiga, who previously worked with George Bush Senior. Alternet, Wikipedia continued Pres. Jaime Roldós Aguilera President of Equador, 1981. He died (shortly after Reagan took office) in an airplane crash later in 1981 when his Air Force plane (variously identified as either a Beechcraft King Air or an Avro turboprop) crashed in heavy rain near the Peruvian border ... Many Ecuadorians claimed that Roldós' death was actually an assassination carried out by the United States since he has refused international proposals for oil exploitation. Wikipedia continued Office of Naval Intelligence, Pentagon, 911 go to index 911Research The attack was at 9:40, about one and a half hours after the attack first started to unfold. Yet the Pentagon was left undefended, despite its close proximity to Andrews Air Force Base, which had two combat-ready fighter wings on duty on 9/11/01. The attack plane approached Washington DC from the northwest, but instead of diving into the portions of the Pentagon housing the top brass like Donald Rumsfeld, the plane executed a 320-degree spiral dive to approach the vast building from the southwest side and strike a portion of Wedge One that was undergoing renovations. While crashing into other portions of the Pentagon would likely have killed thousands, the precision maneuver limited fatalities in the building to under 200. The final approach of the attack plane was so low and fast that the wings clipped lamp-posts on the adjacent highway and damaged objects in the construction yard in front of the building. The crash embedded the plane almost entirely in the first floor, wiping out most of the personnel in the Office of Naval Intelligence, that had recently been moved into the newly renovated section. Pilots doubt that even the most skilled fighter pilots could have executed such a precise surgical strike, particularly with such a large plane. Physical evidence of the attack was systematically suppressed by the authorities. Instead of releasing video seized by the FBI from adjacent businesses, authorities leaked five frames of video from a Pentagon CCTV camera, which show clear signs of forgery. list below Franklin Scandal Omaha go to index and MORE NFU research Gary Caradori He was investigating Lawrence E. King, Jr., a very influential black Republican who was also a friend of George H.W. Bush. more and see NFU Franklin Scandal Omaha Craig Spence a number of Reagan White House Craig Spence, a high-ranking aide in the Office of the International Trade Advisor; Stanley Tapscott, an official in the director's office at the Office of Personnel Management; and Reginald deGueldre, a member of the Uniformed Division of the Special Service -- were found to have hired a number of gay male escorts (including boys as young as 13) from Professional Services, Inc. (well-known D.C. gay escort business). Private midnight tours of the White House were given to a number of the boys, after which homosexual orgies were alleged to have occurred in offices in the New Executive Office Building across the street. Spence later told associates and family members he had many more secrets to reveal. But he committed suicide in a Boston hotel room in 1990 after being indicted on weapons, drug and child rape charges." go to NewsFollowUp.com Franklin Scandal Omaha research. Johnny Gosch see NFU Franklin Scandal Omaha one of about 70 kids sexually abused by the power elite of Omaha Nebraska from 1980 to the early 90's... probably still occurring. Theresa Duncan see NFU Franklin Scandal Omaha and Alex Constantine, Blacklist Robert Wadman, Warren Buffet. Craig Spence Alex Constantine, Blacklist White House Call Boy Scandal, 1989, NBC, Tom Brokaw Franklingate Franklin Scandal Omaha, deaths: Aaron Owen, brother of Alisha Owen; Shawn Boner, brother of Troy Boner, both dead. Bill Baker, Newt Copple, Clare Howard, Mike Lewis, Joe Malek, Charlie Rodgers, Dan Ryan, Curtis Tucker, Harmon Tucker, GodLikeProductions MORE keywords: super-classified, terminals, SCI, Sensitive Compartmented Information, Special Access Program, need-to-know, downed flight 93, Gen. John Jumper, Sept 6, PEOC, Norman Mineta,, 9:25, 9/11 Commission, 50 miles out, "do the orders still stand", Boeing E-4 Advanced Airborne Command Post, DIA, NORAD, COCOMM, STO, US Central Command, SecDef, IJSTO, assassination, Milosevic, Habyarimana, Ntaryamira, General Wesley Clark, SIPRnet, JWICS, NIPRnet, Canada, Australia, UK, JSSG, SIGINT, IVY Bells, covert technical operations, Balkans, Rwanda, September 11, 2001
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Brigadier General David Wherley WMR On that particular morning, an exercise was being conducted that resulted in the two stand-by F-16s being flown without their heat-seeking missiles. When it was determined that the planes had to be pulled from exercise status to a real-time actual threat situation, they landed at Andrews and were dispatched immediately to the skies over Pennsylvania. WMR has previously reported that the two F-16s engaged United Flight 93 over Shanksville and shot it down. Eyewitnesses who lived in the Mount Vernon, Virginia area reported hearing loud explosions over the Potomac River during the morning of 9/11. These explosions may have been caused by the F-16s from Andrews breaking the sound barrier over the area south of Washington during their flight to Pennsylvania to intercept United 93. ... The Commander of the 113th Air National Guard fighter unit at Andrews on 9/11 was then-Brigadier General David Wherley. Wherley and his wife Ann were killed in the crash of a Red Line Metro train on June 22 of this year. It was Wherley who ordered the F-16s off of exercise status and into attack mode on the morning of 9/11. Wherley is reported to have been aware of who in the chain of command ordered the F-16s into exercise status and disarmed. Geronimo AP HARTFORD, Conn. – Geronimo's descendants have sued Skull and Bones — the secret society at Yale University linked to presidents and other powerful figures — claiming that its members stole the remains of the legendary Apache leader decades ago and have kept them ever since. ... The federal lawsuit filed in Washington on Tuesday — the 100th anniversary of Geronimo's death — also names the university and the federal government. ... Geronimo's great-grandson Harlyn Geronimo said his family believes Skull and Bones members took some of the remains in 1918 from a burial plot in Fort Sill, Okla., to keep in its New Haven clubhouse, a crypt. The alleged graverobbing is a longstanding legend that gained some validity in recent years with the discovery of a letter from a club member that described the theft. file Mike Connell WMR December 20-21, 2008 -- Karl Rove now a possible suspect in murder conspiracy Former George W. Bush political guru Karl Rove, as a result of a plane crash that killed his top computer consultant, Mike Connell, has come under new suspicions, since Rove, as reported by WMR, threatened Connell if he provided testimony to Ohio officials investigating the 2004 GOP theft in the presidential election. ... Bath Township, Ohio police reported that on the evening of December 19, a single-engine Piper Saratoga piloted by Connell crashed next to a vacant house in Uniontown, Ohio, near Akron, and exploded in flames. Connell was killed. The plane was approaching Akron-Canton airport and was three miles from the runway when it crashed. Taylor Fano, who lives two doors from the crash site, told the Akron Beacon-Journalthat the plane "blew up." Another neighbor, Julie Hufstetler, told the paper she heard an "explosion." Connell's plane was en route to Akron-Canton from College Park, Maryland. Connell had flown from Akron-Canton airport on December 18 to College Park, a suburb of Washington, DC. A Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) official told the Beacon-Journal that the investigation of the crash may take "weeks and even months or longer to complete." MORE Dr. Bruce Ivins Wayne Madsen Report Bruce Ivins, a microbiologist at the US Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) at Fort Detrick, Maryland, reportedly committed suicide after ingesting prescription-strength Tylenol and codeine, as the FBI prepared to charge him in the anthrax attacks that took place weeks after the 9/11 attack in 2001. ... Ivins was part of the FBI team that investigated the anthrax sent in letters to the Senate's Democratic leadership. more search terms: Jean Carol Duley, Judith Miller, Woolsey, Dark Winter, Anser Institute, homeland security, Ames strain, Fort Detrick, Patriot Act, Dugway, Brian Ross, Bioreparat, Hadron, PROMIS, Herbert Abrams, BioPort, El-Hibri, Lansing, Michigan, Emergent Biosystems, Daschle, Project Jefferson, Battelle, Alibekov, Alibek, acetominephen overdose, Hadron Advanced Biosystems, Carlyle Group, Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather, Leahy, Cipro, Citicorp, Crowe, Rubenstein, D'Aneillo, Conway, Genetics Institute, Hoescht, Farben, Institute for Genomic Research, Merck, Dr. Thomas Monath, National Veterinary Services Lab, Syntek, Oravax, Phrma, PortonDown, kappa kappa gamma, Tylenol, codeine, bentonite, biological weapons, USAMRIID, Laurie Mylroie, Rupert Murdock, Engler, Clear Vision, Dugway Lifesciences Division, Michigan Biologic Products, BioThrax, David Kelly, Joint Vaccine Acquisition Program Cliff Baxter suicide, WTC victims see NFU 911 investigation Deborah Jeane Palfrey WMR suicide more at NFU Dr. Brandy Britton 43, an Associate Professor at the University of Maryland Baltimore Campus who used the escort name "Alexis," was found hanging in her Ellicott City, Maryland home in January 2007. It is not known if the Justice Department prosecutors had pressured Britton into testifying in the Palfrey case before her alleged "suicide." Britton's identity was made known to Howard County, Maryland police after an "anonymous" tip was received in a phone call to the department. Wayne Madsen Report and more at NFU and NFU John O'Neill John O'Neill - FBI Asia Times Remember John HereInReality UofMichigan John McWethy Feb 2008, Former ABC News national security correspondent John McWethy was killed in a skiing accident in Colorado. McWethy was at the Pentagon on 9/11 and covered the attack live. McWethy had a number of good sources within the intelligence Riad Hamad community. In a June 2005 WMR report: "WHY NSA IS THE FORT KNOX OF THE U.S. INTELLIGENCE ESTABLISHMENT" that covered the effect of outsourcing on the diminishing security of sensitive U.S. communications intelligence sources and methods, a major story first reported by McWethy. WMR continued and see Africa McWethy suspicious death. and Flight 77 research NFU more at Stellar Wind Riad Hamad see Middle East street war raging between CIA / FBI and Mossad / Russian / Israeli mob ... WMR Roland Carnaby see Middle East street war raging between CIA / FBI and Mossad / Russian / Israeli mob ... WMR Smith, Phil Americans. Domestic spying, Amdocs On April 27, 2002, Solly, 53, died of a sudden heart attack at his Silver Spring, Maryland home shortly before he was to anchor a newscast. WJLA news director Phil Smith also succumbed to a heart attack within three weeks of Solly's sudden death. search terms: FISA, Amdocs, AIPAC, surveillance, telecom immunity, Israeli Art Students, 911, wiretaps, T2S2, HIDTA, WMR Solly, Dale Americans. Domestic spying, Amdocs Solly, 53, died of a sudden heart attack at his Silver Spring, Maryland home shortly before he was to anchor a newscast. WJLA news director Phil Smith also succumbed to a heart attack within three weeks of Solly's sudden death. Jane Harman, AIPAC, Steny Hoyer, investigation, WMR Political Assassination Team March 12-13, 2009 -- Sy Hersh says Bush White House operated assassination network New Yorker investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reported in a speech March 11 at the University of Minnesota that an "executive assassination ring" operated under the direct command of Vice President Dick Cheney. Hersh reported that Task Force 121, part of the Joint Special Operations Command, carried out assassinations. Afghanistan has been mentioned as one country where the assassination team was particularly active. search terrms: Rafik Hariri, explosion-by-wire bombing authorized by Bush, Sharon, Likud, rogue Syrian intelligence agents, Lebanese Christian, Elie Hobeika, testify, Sabra, Chatilla, Karl Rove authorization, Elliot Abrams, political assassinations. file
Minot / Barksdale nuclear transfer go to index WMR has obtained previously "sealed" documentation that there was a "plan" afoot by at least four personnel at Minot, two including 91st Security Forces Group military security personnel charged with guarding Minot's Minuteman III silos, that involved the warehousing of military equipment, including flash bang and smoke grenades, battlefield trauma kits, gas masks, and chemical gloves, off base for an unknown operation more Cpt. John Frueh WMR The involvement of Tyndall and Eglin Air Force bases in REX REDUX is significant. A little over a week after the Minot-Barksdale nuclear weapons incident, the body of US Air Force Captain and Major-selectee John Frueh, assigned to "Operations Weather" at Hurlburt Field, adjacent to Eglin, was found near is rental car, near Badger Peak in Washington state. Frueh was in Portland to attend his best friend's wedding. Frueh's last phone call to his family in Florida was from a pay phone at Portland International Airport on August 30, the very same day the B-52 flew with the loose nuclear missiles from Minot to Barksdale. more Katrina Hurricane deaths go to index Peter Hartmann CNN Central Figure in cemetery probe found dead ... Peter Hartmann Raw Story FEMA, La. Outsource Katrina body count to firm implicated in body-dumping scandals. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has hired Kenyon International to set up a mobile morgue for handling bodies in Baton Rouge, Louisiana following Hurricane Katrina, RAW STORY has learned. Kenyon is a subsidiary of Service Corporation International (SCI), a scandal-ridden Texas-based company operated by a friend of the Bush family. Recently, SCI subsidiaries have been implicated in illegally discarding and desecrating corpses. MORE Silent Voices Bodies go to index Bertha Champagne The kidnapping of Mrs. Judd Greg, wife of Senator Judd Gregg came just two days after the mysterious death of Bertha Champagne. She was crushed to death by her own vehicle in the driveway of Marvin Bush the brother of George W. Bush. The house was on Fort Hunt Road in Alexandria, Virginia. According to the Fairfax police she was retrieving a videotape of "her and the President" to show to Marvin. The car went out of gear and crushed her to death. The kidnapping story effectively overshadowed Champagne's death. Two men were convicted: Michael Pierre and Christopher Forbes. Michael Corbin Radio talk show host found dead in car. He hosted "A Closer Look", WMR in 2003 his radio studio was firebombed. Corbin investigated top Republicans in child prostitution and sex slavery rings, also the political prosecution of Alabama Democratic Governor Don Siegelman. Wayne Madsen interviewed him in on the 2004 election corruption stories. He worked closely with Jimmy Rothstein on the Franklin Scandal Omaha, also interviewed Rothstein on Watergate burglar Frank Sturgis after JFK assassination. Also worked on 9/11, big oil land grabs in Utah, Colorado, and foreign ownership of North American Super Highway. He interviewed Daniel Elsberg, Gary Webb, Ralph Bunche, Malachi Martin, Carlo Calvi, (see Vatican Bank, Balckfriar's Bridge, P-2 Masonic scandal, Italy. continued Jonathan Luna WMR DiBiagio was the first US Attorney fired by George W. Bush's Justice Department after the November 2004 election. On December 3, 2003, DiBiagio's Assistant US Attorney, Jonathan Luna, was found in a creek off the Pennsylvania Turnpike in Lancaster, east of Harrisburg, stabbed to death 36 times. Police investigators entertained the theory that Luna stabbed himself with his own pen knife. Luna was reportedly investigating Ehrlich and GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff for being clients of the Pamela Martin escort agency at the time of his death. Leona McConnell McConnell also claims to have firsthand knowledge that Bush had an affair in the mid-1980s with Victor Ashe, the former mayor of Knoxville, Tenn., who has served as the Bush's ambassador to Poland since 2004. Is feared MISSING Dr. Don C. Wiley Mysterious deaths, disappearances of microbiologists since 911. The body count of infections disease experts continues to climb. Connections to weapons research began to surface. ... As many as 14 world-class microbiologists died between 9/11/1 and 3/2/2, and on 6/24/2 yet another microbiologist was added to the list. Still the US Government acted as if nothing was amiss, as silent on the question of dead microbiologists as they are on the question of the Israeli spies and their connection to 9-11. In fact, the official silence on the question of how so many top experts in infectious diseases could die in such a short time span is deafening. WhatReallyHappened Rense Steve Kangas His web site, Liberalism Resurgent, was meticulously researched and presented such a problem to the "real boss" of George Bush, Richard Scaife, that he hired a private detective to look into Kangas' past. Steve Kangas was found in a 39th-floor bathroom outside of Scaife's offices at One Oxford Centre, in Pittsburgh, an apparent suicide. Post Gazette continued Maria DiBiase WMR has learned from UN sources that the 19th Floor from which UN employee Maria DiBiase plunged to her death in the early morning of February 17, houses the Department of Peace-keeping Operations/Field Administration and Logistics Division (DPKO/FALD). The offices also house the code machines used for the encrypted fax machines used for DPKO activities in addition to a spare set of code machines used for DPKO rapid response teams. New York Daily News more search terms: Austrian national, IAEA, Conference Services, UNSCOM, Saadam Hussein wmd database, Iraq invasion, black market nuclear suppliers, A Q Kahn, Libya , Turkey, Pakistan, Marc Rich, Sibel Edmunds, 'black bag' operation. WMR and see NFU Plamegate continued Gus W. Weiss, former White House policy adviser on technology, intelligence, and economic affairs, highly significant player in Reagan / Bush Sr. execution of Soviet downfall, Wikipedia file, "Weiss had declared himself to be against the war in Iraq a short while before his "suicide". It is interesting to note that 18 days before Weiss' death, another Bush government analyst also committed suicide -John J. Kokal (58 years old) on November 7, 2003. This man leapt to his death from an office in the State Department where he worked. Kokal (see below) was an intelligence analyst for the Department of State in matters dealing with Iraq. search terms Farewell Dosier, Directorate T, Line X, Kokal RenewAmerica, Rense continued and Reagan Cold War End file Charles Wilbourne Miller, 63, was found dead of a gunshot wound to the head on November 17, 1998 in a shallow pit about 300 yards from his ranch house near Little Rock. Police found a .410 gauge shotgun near Miller's body and a Ruger .357-caliber revolver submerged in water. Investigators concluded the Ruger was the weapon used by Miller to kill himself. Yet, two rounds in the handgun's cylinder had been spent. He had long served as executive vice president and member of the board of directors for a company called Alltel and was deeply involved in his own software engineering company until the day he died. Alltel is the successor to Jackson Stephens' Systematics, the company that provided the software for the White House's "Big Brother" data base system and that was behind the administration's plan to develop the secret computer "Clipper" chip to bug every phone, fax and email transmission in America. Prorev Colin McMillan - Bush nominee for Navy secretary Truthout Don Holland - (D)SC - U.S. Senator - (10/05/03) TheState J. CLIFFORD BAXTER - ENRON WSWS convenient death, CBSNews Michael Holton - UN security guard Foxnews Salem bin Laden Rense Paul Sanford, Paul Sanford, making waves as the first reporter to ask then-White House press secretary Scott McClellan whether the leaking of CIA agent Valerie Plame's name might be considered an act of treason. In what police describe as a "probable" suicide leap, a prominent Monterey Bay Area attorney fell at least nine floors to his death at the Embassy Suites Hotel Monterey Bay in Seaside the morning before Christmas. He joined the White House Press Corps in 2005, Monterey Herald John Kokal - State Department Employee - Intelligence Div. highly significant player in Reagan / Bush Sr. execution of Soviet downfall, Global Free Press, From the Wilderness, RenewAmerica, Foxnews, News8 continued James Hatfield Mr. Hatfield was the author of Fortunate Son, an unauthorized biography of George W. Bush. The book detailed Bush's cocaine use and cover up of a cocaine arrest. He was found Wednesday, July 18, in a motel room, an apparent suicide. Wikipedia continued Don McCoy: Mr. McCoy had agreed the day before to turn state's evidence in an FBI investigation that threatened some of El Paso's most prominent business leaders. On February 19, 1988, he took off from El Paso International Airport Famous Texans Margie Schoedinger woman who filed sexual lawsuit against George W. Bush in '02 search terms, rape, Texas UofMissouri ThoughtCrimes Evan Hunziker the man held three months by North Korea for alleged spying, was found dead in a Tacoma motel, apparently a victim of suicide. ... a single gunshot wound to his head. He was 26 years old. Hunziker returned to the United States on November 27 after spending three months in the hands of North Korean authorities on suspicion of espionage. He was freed after New Mexico Rep. Bill Richardson traveled to North Korea and negotiated his release. ……" Alamo Girl Gabriel Ferez and Laurent Bonomo see Archive Headline Rosa Fuentas Reuters Masked gunmen killed the leader of Honduras' largest union group in an attack authorities said was a robbery attempt, but fellow unionists said she was targeted because of her job. Prescott Bush Bodies go to index William S. Farish He was one of Prescott Bush's partners in business deals with Adolph Hitler. He was devastated by the intense grilling he received from the Senate about his dealings with Nazis, and while Prescott Bush skated free, Farish collapsed and died on November 29, 1942. James Forrestal He was U.S. Secretary of Defense, and become a problem for Prescott Bush when he proposed racial integration of the Armed Forces. On March 28, 1949, he was forced out of office and flown on a military plane to Jupiter Island in Florida. From there he was taken to Walter Reed Army Hospital, where he was given insulin shock treatments. He was shielded from all visitors except his estranged wife. From "George Bush, the Unauthorized Biography": On May 22, Forrestal's body was found, his bathrobe cord tied tightly around his neck, after he had plunged from a sixteenth-story hospital window. The chief psychiatrist called the death a suicide even before any investigation was started. The results of the Army's inquest were kept secret. Forrestal's diaries were published, 80 percent deleted, after a year of direct government censorship and rewriting. Wikipedia Majestic 12 Texas Justice Bodies go to index Famous Texans Karla Faye Tucker She was executed in spite of enormous protest from the public, even those religious groups that advocate the death penalty.... continued Famous Texans David Wayne Spence David Wayne Spence was executed in Texas in 1997 in spite of compelling evidence of his innocence. Two of the State's witnesses were co-defendants who testified to avoid the death penalty, one of whom changed his story three times in response to discrepancies. continued Famous Texans Gary Graham Gary Graham was convicted of the robbery and murder of a white man in 1981. Nearly two weeks after the crime, the state's prime witness could not pick Gary's picture out of a photo line-up. Mr. Graham was arrested with a 22 caliber pistol. Iran-Contra deaths, S&L, BCCI go to index William Casey Hours before Casey was scheduled to testify before Congress about his knowledge of Iran-Contra, he was reported to have been rendered incapable of speech, and was later hospitalized. In his 1987 book, Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA 1981-1987, Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward, who had interviewed Casey on numerous occasions, said that he had gained entry to Casey's hospital room for a final, four-minute long encounter — FAS Federation of American Scientists Walsh Report, Iran-Contra continued Amiram Nir: He was a former Israeli agent who was in Jerusalem with George Bush during Iran Contra. He went under the assumed name of Pat Weber. Nir was scheduled to testify to the Senate subcommittee and it was feared he would reveal the truth. He perished, following the shooting-down of his aircraft with missiles from the helicopter of a man called Gene Tatum, 25-year CIA deep cover agent. FAS Federation of American Scientists Walsh Report, Iran-Contra Cooperative Research Danny Casolaro He was working on a book that tied together the scandals surrounding the presidency of George H. W. Bush. He told his friends he was going to "bring back" the head of the Octopus. Instead, his body was found in a hotel in Martinsburg, West Virginia, on August 10, 1991, an apparent suicide. ............. and see It was about the Regan-Bush administration and an alleged effort to delay the freeing of the hostages being held at the time by Iran in order to do damage to President Jimmy Carter's reelection bid. Casolaro was told that as a part of the effort, drugs and weapons were being flown into and out of the airport at Mena, Arkansas. Bill Clinton was governor at the time and there have been numerous questions about whether Clinton was in any way involved in any of the activities connected with Mena or protected those who were involved CraigsList Sen. John Tower : He was appointed by the Reagan/Bush Administration to chair the bipartisan committee to investigate the Iran/Contra scandals. He directed the Tower Report and had all the Iran Contra documents and knew the inside of the story. He was killed in an uninvestigated airplane crash later in Georgia in 1991. Also killed was his daughter, Marian. Cooperative Research Wikipedia, Iran Contra, FAS Federation of American Scientists Walsh Report, Iran-Contra Mark Lombardi He was an accomplished conceptual artist who, while chatting on the phone with a banker friend about the Bush savings and loan scandal, started doodling a diagram and was inspired to create a complex series of drawings and sketches that charted the details of the scandal. According to the New York Times, "He was soon charting the complex matrices of personal and professional relationships, conflict of interest, malfeasance and fraud uncovered by investigations into the major financial and political scandals of the day; to keep facts and sources straight, he created a handwritten database that now includes around 12,000 3-by-5-inch cards." On the evening of March 22, 2000, Mark Lombardi was found hanging in his loft, an apparent suicide. Olaf Palme Olof Palme: He was the prime minister of Sweden, assassinated in 1986. Oliver North, the golden boy of the Bush/Reagan machine, had met with Mr. Palme to discuss the possibility of obtaining false end-user certificates for the plethora of weapons that were being purchased, so that they would seem to have come from a country other than the U.S. Mr. Palme refused to participate, after the plan was presented to him. He was dead within weeks. continued Wikipedia Timeline 1986 Rumormill News Modern History Project (Iran Contra) Mohammed Zia al-huk Dictator of Pakistan, and knew all about Iran/Contra, the training, funding, and arming of narco-terrorists like Osama bin Laden. In August 1988, the same day George Bush got the Republican nomination, his plane crashed into the ground with all engines running. The Pakistanis kept the bodies around (in violation of Islamic custom) for weeks, awaiting US experts. They showed up three weeks later and never checked the bodies. Why? BBC |
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go to Franklin Scandal Omaha and Johnny Gosch and ... Craig Spence, Notes: a number of Reagan White House officials -- including Charles Dutcher, presidential personnel manager of the White House staff; Paul Balach, Sec. of Labor Elizabeth Dole's political liaison to the White House; Todd Blodgett, the presidential press aide who prepared the daily news briefing; Craig Spence, a high-ranking aide in the Office of the International Trade Advisor; Stanley Tapscott, an official in the director's office at the Office of Personnel Management; and Reginald deGueldre, a member of the Uniformed Division of the Special Service -- were found to have hired a number of gay male escorts (including boys as young as 13) from Professional Services, Inc. (well-known D.C. gay escort business). Private midnight tours of the White House were given to a number of the boys, after which homosexual orgies were alleged to have occurred in offices in the New Executive Office Building across the street. Spence later told associates and family members he had many more secrets to reveal. But he committed suicide in a Boston hotel room in 1990 after being indicted on weapons, drug and child rape charges."
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Jesse Ventura 63 Documents the Government Doesn't Want You To Read. |
Jesse Ventura's new book excerpt: what the "government doesn't want
you to read" Jesse Ventura is a guest tonight on "Piers Morgan Tonight,"
and the wide-ranging interview touches on foreign policy, American
politics and conspiracies – a subject he speaks passionately about
during the hour and on his TruTV show. Ventura also discusses his new
book, out today, "63 Documents the Government Doesn't Want You to Read."
During the hour (9pmET/PT) you'll see Ventura and Piers Morgan square off over the validity of some of the conspiracies Ventura believes, but below – check out an exclusive excerpt from Ventura's new book (the full introduction): “There is little value in insuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it. And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment.” – John F. Kennedy. This book is titled 63 Documents the Government Doesn’t Want You to Read, lest we forget that 1963 was the year that claimed the life of our 35th President. The conspiracy that killed JFK, and the cover-up that followed, is the forerunner for a lot of what you’re going to read about in these pages. In fact, the idea behind this book came out of writing my last one, American Conspiracies. There I presented a close look at whether or not our historical record reflects what really went on, based on facts that most of the media have chosen to ignore – from the Kennedy assassination through the tragedy of September 11th and the debacle on Wall Street. In poring through numerous documents, many of them available through the Freedom-of-Information Act (FOIA), I came to realize the importance of the public’s right to know. And I decided to see what new picture might be revealed if you laid out certain documents that the powers-that-be would just as soon stay buried. Everything in this book is in the public domain and, for the most part, downloadable from the Internet. I’m not breaking any laws by putting these documents in book form, although some of them were classified “Secret” until WikiLeaks published them. I’ll get to my view on WikiLeaks in a moment, but let me begin by saying how concerned I am that we’re moving rapidly in the direction President Kennedy tried to warn us about. According to a recent article in the Washington Post, there are now 854,000 American citizens with Top Secret clearances. The number of new secrets rose 75 percent between 1996 and 2009, and the number of documents using those secrets went from 5.6 million in 1996 to 54.6 million last year. There are an astounding 16 million documents being classified Top Secret by our government every year! Today, pretty much everything the government does is presumed secret. Isn’t it time we asked ourselves whether this is really necessary for the conduct of foreign affairs or the internal operation of governments? Doesn’t secrecy actually protect the favored classes and allow them to continue to help themselves at the expense of the rest of us? Isn’t this a cancer growing on democracy? After Barack Obama won the 2008 presidential election, I was heartened to see him issue an Open Government Initiative on his first full day in office. “I firmly believe what Justice Louis Brandeis once said, that sunlight is the best disinfectant,” Obama said, “and I know that restoring transparency is not only the surest way to achieve results, but also to earn back the trust in government without which we cannot deliver changes the American people sent us here to make.” After eight years of Bush and Cheney’s secretive and deceitful ways, that sounded like a welcome relief. Obama ordered all federal agencies to “adopt a presumption in favor” of FOIA requests and so laid the groundwork to eventually release reams of previously-withheld government information on the Internet. Well, so far it hasn’t turned out the way Obama sketched it out. An audit released in March 2010 by the non-profit National Security Archive found that less than one-third of 90 federal agencies that process FOIA requests had changed their practices in any significant way. A few departments – Agriculture, Justice, Office of Management and Budget, and the Small Business Administration – got high marks for progress. But the State Department, Treasury, Transportation, and NASA had fulfilled fewer requests and denied more in the same time period. “Most agencies had yet to walk the walk,” said the Archive’s director Tom Blanton. Things went downhill from there. In June 2010, the New York Times carried a Page One story detailing how Obama’s administration was even more aggressive than Bush’s in looking to punish people who leaked information to the media. In the course of his first 17 months as president, Obama had already surpassed every previous president in going after prosecutions of leakers. Thomas A. Drake, a National Security Agency employee who’d gone to the Baltimore Sun as a last resort because he knew that government eavesdroppers were squandering hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on failed programs, is today facing years in prison on ten felony charges including mishandling of classified information. An FBI translator received a 20-month sentence for turning over some classified documents to a blogger. And the Pentagon arrested Bradley Manning, the 22-year-old Army intelligence analyst, who for openers had passed along to WikiLeaks the shocking video footage of a U.S. military chopper gunning down Baghdad civilians. Then, in September 2010, the Obama Justice Department cited the so-called “state secrets doctrine” in successfully getting a federal judge to throw out a lawsuit on “extraordinary rendition” (a phrase that really means we send suspected terrorists to other countries to get held and tortured). In fact, Attorney General Eric Holder was hell-bent on upholding the Bush administration’s claims in two major cases involving illegal detention and torture. Also in September, the Pentagon spent $47,300 of taxpayer dollars to buy up and destroy all 10,000 copies of the first printing of Operation Dark Heart, a memoir about Afghanistan by ex-Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) officer Anthony A. Shaffer. We first interviewed Lt. Colonel Shaffer for American Conspiracies, because his outfit (Able Danger) had identified Mohammed Atta as a terrorist threat long before he became the supposed lead hijacker on 9/11. With Operation Dark Heart, publishing executives and intel outfits couldn’t remember another instance where a government agency set out to get rid of a book that was already printed. Some months earlier, the Army reviewers who’d asked for and received some changes and redactions said they had “no objection on legal or operational security grounds” to the final version. But when the DIA saw the manuscript and showed it around to some other spy operations, they came up with 200-plus passages that might cause “serious damage to national security.” By that time, several dozen copies of the book had already gone out to reviewers and online booksellers. (Those went on sale on eBay for between $1,995 and $4,995.) So Operation Dark Heart was hastily reprinted with a number of paragraphs blanked out and, guess what?, it became a best-seller. Here are a few of the things that got canned, which the New York Times first pointed out. Everybody’s known for years that the nickname for the NSA headquarters at Fort Meade is “the Fort.” Censor that one! Another big secret – the CIA training facility is located at Camp Peary, Virginia. You can find that on Wikipedia but not anymore in this book! And did you know that Sigint stands for “Signals Intelligence?” You don’t see that anymore in Operation Dark Heart. (I can’t wait for the censors to pull my book from the shelves for revealing all this). Oh, and they removed a blurb from a former DIA director who called Shaffer’s “one terrific book.” Shaffer has now gone to court looking to have the book’s complete text restored when the paperback comes out. To Obama’s credit, early in November 2010 he issued an Executive Order establishing a program to manage unclassified information that rescinded a Bush-era order designed to keep still more documents away from public scrutiny by putting new labels on them (“For Official Use Only” and “Sensitive But Unclassified.”) But soon thereafter came WikiLeaks’ release of 250,000 secret State Department cables. This followed the group’s disclosures earlier last year of 390,136 classified documents about the Iraq War and 76,607 documents about Afghanistan. As everybody knows, the politicians and the media commentators went ballistic over the cables being in the public domain – even though the New York Times, among others, was running front-page stories every day about their contents. Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, was for a moment our biggest bogeyman since Osama. Sarah Palin says he’s “an anti-American operative with blood on his hands” who should be pursued “with the same urgency we pursue al Qaeda and Taliban leaders.” She stopped short of saying he should be hunted down like the caribou she shoots in Alaska. Hillary Clinton calls what he’s done “an attack on the international community.” (I’ve never known Palin and Clinton to be this cozy in the same bed, so to speak). Mike Huckabee called for the execution of whoever leaked the cables to WikiLeaks. Newt Gingrich referred to Assange as an “enemy combatant.” Joe Biden described him as “closer to being a hi-tech terrorist” than a whistleblower, and some liberal democrats would like to see Assange sent to prison for life. He’s also been labeled an old-fashioned anarchist, mastermind of a criminal enterprise and, at best, a control freak and a megalomaniac. This smacks of worse than McCarthyism – we’re in a lynch mob moment, folks. Didn’t Thomas Jefferson say that “information is the currency of democracy” and that, if he had to choose between government and a free press, he’d take the latter? Ron Paul is one of the only folks to have spoken up on Assange’s behalf. Paul made quite a statement on the floor of the House, when he asked his colleagues what had caused more deaths – “lying us into war or the release of the WikiLeaks papers?” He added, “What we need is more WikiLeaks….In a free society, we’re supposed to know the truth. In a society where truth becomes treason, then we’re in big trouble. And now, people who are revealing the truth are getting into trouble for it.” Paul’s point is important. Nobody has died as a result of Wikileaks’ disclosures, but maybe we’ve forgotten that the whole Iraq war was based on fake evidence manufactured by the Bush-Cheney White House and the Brits, resulting in 4,430 American troops dead and about 32,000 wounded as of early December 2010. In Afghanistan, the toll is climbing fast – close to 1,500 Americans dead and almost 10,000 wounded. This doesn’t take into account, of course, the hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties. Do you think it’s possible, as one Internet columnist has written, that Julian Assange is the scapegoat for arrogant American officials who’d rather point the finger at someone else than admit the blood on their own hands? Personally, I think Julian Assange is a hero. It’s a classic case of going after the messenger. Our diplomats get caught writing derogatory remarks and descriptions of foreign leaders, then turn around and accuse WikiLeaks of putting our country in danger. WikiLeaks is exposing our government officials for the frauds that they are. They also show us how governments work together to lie to their citizens when they are waging war. Here are a few things we’ve learned from WikiLeaks’ document releases that we didn’t know before: The CIA has a secret army of 3,000 in Afghanistan, where the U.S. Ambassador in Kabul says there’s no way to fix corruption because our ally is the one that’s corrupt (one Afghan minister was caught carrying $52 million out of the country). In Iraq, there are another 15,000 civilian casualties that haven’t been brought into the light, and our troops were instructed not to look into torture tactics that our Iraqi allies were using. U.S. Special Operations forces are in Pakistan without any public knowledge, and our Pakistani “allies” are the main protectors of the Taliban in Afghanistan! I mean, let’s face it: WikiLeaks exists because the mainstream media haven’t done their job. Instead of holding government accountable as the “fourth branch” the founders intended, I guess the corporate media’s role today is to protect the government from embassassment. Assange has pioneered “scientific journalism” (his term) – a news story is accompanied by the document it’s based upon and the reader can make up his own mind. WikiLeaks’ small team of reporters has unveiled more suppressed information than the rest of the world press combined! Assange is the publisher, not the one who revealed the “classified information.” That’s apparently Private Bradley Manning, who somehow found a security loophole and now is being held in solitary confinement at our Quantico, Virginia base facing up to 52 years in prison. Are we surprised that the United Nations’ special investigator on torture is looking into whether Manning has been mistreated in custody? As for Assange, how our government wants to try him under the Espionage Act of 1917 is beyond me. Come on, he’s an Australian citizen and his Internet domain is in Switzerland. (By the way, he also received the Sam Adams Award for Integrity in 2010, and the Amnesty International Media Award in 2009). And what about these cyberspace sabotage attacks against WikiLeaks that are being carried out across national borders by our government? As far as I can determine, these are illegal under both U.S. law and international treaties. Meantime, it blows my mind that students at Columbia and Boston University and probably other institutions of “higher learning” are being warned not to read any of these documents if they want to get a government job in the future. The Office of Management and Budget sent out a memo that forbids unauthorized federal employees and contractors from accessing WikiLeaks. The Library of Congress has blocked visitors to its computer system from doing the same. The Air Force started blocking its personnel from using work computers to look at the websites of the New York Times and other publications that had posted the cables. Instead, a page came up that said: “ACCESS DENIED. Internet Usage is Logged & Monitored.” Over in Iraq, our troops who’d like to even read articles about all this get a “redirect” notice on their government network telling them they’re on the verge of breaking the law. And a lot of these same soldiers have security clearances that would have allowed them to see the cables before they were leaked. Given the close ties between the government and large corporations, I can’t say I’m surprised that Amazon, PayPal, Mastercard, Visa and Bank of America took action to make sure that WikiLeaks could no longer receive any money through their channels. And I can’t say I’m upset that a group of young “hacktavists” calling themselves Anonymous have taken retaliatory action against some of those same companies. They call it Operation Payback. “Websites that are bowing down to government pressure have become targets,” a fellow named Coldblood posted. “As an organization we have always taken a strong stance on censorship and freedom of expression on the internet and come out against those who seek to destroy it by any means. We feel that WikiLeaks has become more than just about leaking of documents, it has become a war ground, the people vs. the government.” More than 500 “mirror sites” now possess all the cables, and Assange has said we ain’t seen nothin’ yet if he meets an untimely demise. As I write this a couple of weeks before the New Year in 2011, he’s living in a friend’s mansion in England and fighting extradition charges. I’m sure a whole lot more will have developed by the time this book is published. I say let the chips fall where they may as WikiLeaks puts the truth out there. If our State Department is asking diplomats to steal personal information from U.N. officials and human rights groups, in violation of international laws, then shouldn’t the world know about it and demand corrective action? Maybe if they know they’re potentially going to be exposed, the powers-that-hide behind a cloak of secrecy will think twice before they plot the next Big Lie. I agree with Daniel Ellsberg, the former military analyst who leaked the Pentagon Papers during the Vietnam War. He faced charges, too, back in 1971, but they were thrown out by a judge. He’S called Private Manning a “brother” who committed “a very admirable act” if he’s the one who provided the documents to WikiLeaks. “To call them terrorists is not only mistaken, it’s absurd,” Ellsberg said. The book you’re about to read is undertaken in the same spirit. I’ve divided the book into five parts, starting out first to show links between deeds our government perpetrated in the past and what’s going on today. If you don’t know your own history, you’re doomed to repeat it. You’ll come across documents on some pretty scandalous behavior, including: • The CIA’s secret assassination manual and experiments to control human behavior with hypnosis, drugs, and other methods. • The military’s Operation Northwoods, a chilling attempt by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to stage a terror attack on our own citizens and make it look like Cuba was behind it – using a hijacked airliner, no less! • After President Kennedy was trying to get our troops out of Vietnam, the military faked the Gulf of Tonkin attacks in order to expand the war. • Our chemical and biological warfare capability back in 1969, leading you to wonder about the real origin of things like AIDS and lyme disease. Part two delves into a series of government, military and corporate secrets, opening with excerpts from two recent reports on how our military and intelligence outfits put Nazi war criminals to work after World War Two. From there, you’ll see some eye-opening documents including: • The CIA’s “Propaganda Notes” designed to shore up the Warren Commission’s lone-gunman conclusion. • How Oliver North collaborated with Panama’s drug-running dictator Manuel Noriega. • What America knew, and ignored, about the genocide happening in Rwanda in the mid-1990s. • How we still turn a blind eye to Gulf War Illness and our veterans. • The frightening background for our military to intervene in domestic affairs, set up “emergency relocation facilities” for our citizens, and establish a Civilian Inmate Labor Program. • How failed inspections and ignored science are impacting our food supply and our bees, while we push to promote Monsanto’s biotech agenda. • What our military really knows about the dangers of climate change. • How companies like CitiGroup and Koch Industries promote their “plutocracies” at the expense of the rest of us. Part Three I’ve called Shady White Houses, starting with “Tricky Dick” Nixon and his astounding plan to bring peace to Vietnam by pretending to nuke the Soviet Union! You’ll also learn about: • How the Bush White House stole the presidential elections in 2000 and again in 2004. • The Obama State Department’s call for our own diplomats to spy on the United Nations. • Whether “cybersecurity” could mean the end of the Internet as we know it. Part four focuses in on a subject I’ve explored a great deal in recent years, and that’s whether we’ve been told the truth about the terrible events of September 11, 2001. • A think tank called the Project for a New American Century anticipating “a new Pearl Harbor” to promote its agenda for “Rebuilding America’s Defenses.” • Clear warnings the Bush Administration ignored that something was coming. • The “Stand Down” order that kept our military from responding on 9/11. • Evidence that Building 7 was taken down by a controlled demolition. • The role of insider stock trading in advance of 9/11. And finally, part five examines the so-called “war on terror” and the terrible price we’re paying in terms of our liberties and the lives being lost in Iraq and Afghanistan. You’ll first read excerpts from a long memo by Bush’s Justice Department that subverts the Constitution by shredding a number of civil rights, followed by Bush’s justification for America’s torture of “unlawful combatants.” * The “Media Ground Rules” that keep the truth hidden at Guantanamo. • The torture techniques, and medical experiments, being conducted there and the paper trail on the CIA’s destruction of 92 torture videos. • Decapitation of a detainee in Iraq, by our own troops! • How the CIA “spins” the war in Afghanistan, and the fact that drugs are fueling that country’s economy. • The State Department’s revelation that Saudi Arabia is actually “a critical source of terrorist funding.” • A report by the Rand Corporation showing that military force has never worked in combating terrorism. Following the 63 documents, you’ll find an Epilogue of Internet resources to use in your own pursuit of the truth about what’s going on behind-the-scenes. Here’s what should concern us all: if you look back at the US Patriot Act that Congress passed almost unanimously in the wake of 9/11, the Bill of Rights was already in peril. Let me offer a brief outline of how things changed: The First Amendment is about freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and the right to assemble. The Patriot Act says that the government is free to monitor religious and political institutions without any suspicion of criminal activity. The government can also prosecute librarians or the keepers of any other records (including journalists) related to a “terror investigation.” The Fourth Amendment speaks to our right to be secure “against unreasonable searches and seizures.” The Patriot Act says the government can search and seize Americans’ papers and effects without probable cause. The Sixth Amendment entitles anyone accused of a crime to “a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury.” The Patriot Act says the government can jail Americans indefinitely without a trial. The Sixth Amendment says an accused person has “compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.” The Patriot Act says the government can monitor conversations between attorneys and clients in federal prisons and even deny lawyers to Americans accused of crimes. The Sixth Amendment also says an accused criminal must “be confronted with the witnesses against him.” The Patriot Act says Americans can be jailed without even being charged, let alone face any witnesses. What troubles me more than anything is how Congress can simply vote to supersede the Constitution. They’re not allowed to do that, to vote in new rules arbitrarily. Changing the Constitution requires you to go through many hoops. How can we allow this kind of unprecedented change to happen? At the same time, it’s recently been reported that our government is building up a huge domestic spying network to collect information on us all, involving local police, state and military authorities feeding information into a database on people who’ve never been accused of wrongdoing. Homeland Security has given billions of dollars in grants to state governments since 9/11, and there are now more than 4,000 organizations in the domestic apparatus. The FBI keeps the ultimate file, with profiles on tens of thousands of Americans reported to be “acting suspiciously.” (I’m sure I’m one of them.) Also the technologies we’ve developed for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are now being used by law enforcement agencies at home – hand-held fingerprint scanners, biometric data devices, unmanned aircraft monitoring our borders with Mexico and Canada. In other words, we the taxpayers are funding our own government to keep tabs on what we do! This is outrageous, but it’s been a long time coming. Our tax dollars have paid for mind control experiments and assassination attempts and fake attacks to draw us into war. Our tax dollars have funded drug runners and “extraordinary rendition” of detainees. And they’ve not been used in places where they should be going – like to help our veterans cope with Gulf War Syndrome and to keep the nation of Rwanda from mass genocide. What right does the government have to abuse our money like that? This is diabolical! I’ve put together this book because it’s become crystal-clear that our democracy has been undermined from within and it’s been going on for a long time. We the people have got to wake up and start demanding accountability! Let’s never forget the words of Patrick Henry: “The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.”
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AN INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATION OF 9-11 AND THE WAR ON TERRORISM by unknown to us blame me </news/?author=unknown+to+us+blame+me&comments=yes> Sunday November 03, 2002 at 06:57 PM <mailto:> There are surely good reasons for blocking fact finding investigations on the 2 biggest events since bush2 came to power. Enron and hundreds of billions stolen, then 9-11 so timely planned to keep our minds off our money and turned in anger toward the billion people to whom Islam is a religious choice. http://www.nerdcities.com/guardian/STF/stranger-than-fiction.htm AN INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATION OF 9-11 AND THE WAR ON TERRORISM The link is to this lengthy study. Links are shown below to let one see the effort put into this work. It starts with an extensive look at Zionism.
Even in the face of this mountain of facts, there will still be those who will go into denial and casually dismiss this whole case as just another silly "conspiracy theory". But the funniest "conspiracy theory" of all is the theory that some Saudi caveman and his "network" of Arab students managed to elude US investigators and pull off the most sophisticated intelligence operation in world history. You can continue to believe that fairy tale if it makes you sleep better at night (and if your sense of credulity can stand the burden!) Or, you can muster the moral and intellectual courage to free your mind from Zionist bondage and face the ugly truth for what it is. You can join the "extremists" and make a commitment to share the horrible truth with others, or, you can smirk, roll your eyes, and "pooh-pooh" everything you’ve just read. Go back to your controlled TV news, pretend this problem doesn’t exist, and let Messrs. Rather, Brokaw, and Jennings do your thinking for you while the world goes to hell in a Zionist hand-basket.. The choice is yours. History and posterity will judge your actions accordingly. To borrow a line from the Maximus, hero of the film Gladiator: "What we do in life, echoes in eternity." A CLOSING STATEMENT FROM THE FATHER OF OUR COUNTRY "A passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one nation the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained, and by exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld. And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens who devote themselves to the favorite nation, facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding, with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation." - George Washington 191 (emphasis added) THE END FOOTNOTES AND KEY SEARCH WORDS FOR YAHOO OR <http://WWW.GOOGLE.COM>1. Athens Banner-Herald December 22, 2001. Google users enter these words:
university chicago poll americans cried 85.Ha’aretz. (Israel) At least two Israelis dead in Tower attack .By Mazal Mualem and Shlomo Shamir Google users enter: daniel lewin elite commando 86. CNN. Investigators Arrive at Payne Stewart Crash Site. October 26,1999. Google users enter: CNN payne stewart crash 87. Forward. Defensive Saudis Lash Out at 'Zionist' and U.S. Critics . By Marc Perelman. December 28,2001. Google users enter: perle zionist defense policy board 88. Newsweek. Bush: We're at War. By Evan Thomas and Mark Hosenball. September 24, 2001. Google users enter: newsweek bush evan thomas we're at war 89. UPI United Press International. Sep. 26, 2001 Interview with General Gul Google users enter: hamid gul upi interview 90. Press release from Law Firm of Baum, Hedlund, Aristei, Guilford & Schiavo. April 11, 2002 Google users enter: family members lawsuit huntleigh 9-11 91. Ibid 92. Hoover’s Online. The Business Information Authority. Google users enter: hoover online icts 93. Associated Press. Experience, Reputation Make Israelis Hot Commodities for Homeland Security. By John P. Mcalpin. March 21, 2002. Google users enter: mcalpin experience reputation make israelis 94. Ha’aretz. (Israel) Hackers using Israeli 'net site to strike at Pentagon. By Nitzan Horowitz. July 30 1999 Google users enter: Israel hackers pentagon 95. US Department of Justice Press Release. March 18, 1998 Google users enter: israeli citizen arrested israel hacking 96. Jerusalem Post. WTC Architect: Collapse "Unbelievable". By Michael Meyer and Stuart Winer. September 12, 2001. Google users enter: swirsky collapse unbelievable 97. American Free Press. Eyewitness Reports Persis Of Bombs At WTC Collapse. By Christopher Bollyn. December 12, 2001. Google users enter: bollyn bombs lee robertson 98. Albuquerque Journal. ABQjournal.com. Explosives planted in towers,N.M. Tech Expert Says. By Oliver Uyttebrouck. September 11, 2001. Google users enter: romero explosives planted tower 99. Albuquerque Journal. ABQjournal.com. Fire, Not Extra Explosives, Doomed Buildings, Expert Says. By John Fleck. September 21, 2001. Google users enter: van romero fire not explosives 100. People Magazine. People.com United in Courage. September 12, 2001. Google users enter: people louie cacchioli 51 101. Reuters News Service. World Trade Center Scrap Sails for India, China. By Pete Harrison and Manuela Badawy .January 21, 2002. Google users enter: world trade center scrap sails 102. Chinese Radio International. January 2002. Google users enter: cri online world centre trade scrap 103. New York Daily News. Firefighter Mag raps 9/11 Probe. By Joe Calderone. January 4, 2002. Google users enter: joe calderone firefighter mag raps 104. Ibid 105. New York Times. Experts Urging Broader Inquiry In Towers’ Fall. December 25, 2001. Google users enter: times experts urging broader inquiry into towers fall 106. Ibid 107. Ibid 108. News India. Census of Sept. 11 Victims by Birthplace. April 26, 2002. Google users enter: census of sept. 11 victims by birthplace 109. Jerusalem Post. Thousands of Israelis missing near WTC, Pentagon. September 12, 2002. Google users enter: jerusalem post thousands israelis missing 110. New York Times. Bush speech to US Congress. September 22, 2001. Google users enter: nor will we forget more than 130 israelis 111A. CNN. September 11. A Memorial. Google users enter: cnn september 11 memorial 111B. NY Times. September 22, 2001 112. Newsbytes/Washington Post. Instant message to Israel warned of WTC attack. September 27, 2001. By Brian McWiliams Google users enter: instant messages Israel warned attack 113A. Jerusalem Post Digital Israel. Zim Workers Saved By Cost-Cutting Measures. November 12, 2001. Google users enter: zim workers saved if removed try: zim saved by move to virginia zim Israel navigation 113B Bible Light International. Zim saved by a Move to Virginia. June 2001 Google users enter: zim israel navigation world trade center Virginia 114A Jerusalem Post Digital Israel. Zim Workers Saved By Cost-Cutting Measures. November 12, 2001. Google users enter: zim workers saved if removed try: zim saved by move to virginia zim Israel navigation 114B. Bible Light International. Zim saved by a Move to Virginia. June 2001 Google users enter: zim israel navigation world trade center Virginia 115A. Jerusalem Post Digital Israel. Zim Workers Saved By Cost-Cutting Measures. November 12, 2001. Google users enter: zim workers saved if removed try: zim saved by move to virginia zim Israel navigation 115B. Bible Light International. Zim saved by a Move to Virginia. June 2001 Google users enter: zim israel navigation world trade center Virginia 116A. India Reacts. India in anti-Taliban military plan. June 21, 2001. Google users enter: india anti taliban military plan 116B. Jane’s International Security News. (England) India joins anti-Taliban coalition. By Rahul Bedi. March 15, 2001 Google users enter: india joins anti-taliban coalition Rahul Bedi 117. Der Erste.(Germany) Monitor. Aired December 20, 2001. Translated by Craig Morris. Google users enter: bin laden translation manipulated for German original transcripts enter: monitor bin laden video restle sieker 118. Ibid 119. Sam Lacey. More Osama Video Analysis . Google users enter: more osama video analysis 120. The New York Times. Pentagon Considers Using Lies. By James Dao & Eric Schmitt. February 18,2001. Google users enter: new york times simon worden osi 121. Zionist Organization of America Press Release. October 13, 1997 Google users enter: Zionist organization america feith award 122. The Times (England). FBI Fails to Expose al-Qaeda networks. By Daniel McGrory. March 11, 2002. Google users enter: FBI Fails Expose al-Qaeda networks 123. Sydney Morning Herald. (Reprinted from Los Angeles Times) The Plot thins as FBI hunts for evidence. May 1, 2002 Google users enter: plot thins as FBI hunts evidence 124. Newsmax. Scandal inside the FBI: Why did G-Men Miss the Boat on 9-11? By Wes Vernon. March 14, 2002 Google users enter: robert wright fbi 125. Time Magazine. Time.com. Coleen Rowley's Memo to FBI Director Robert Mueller. May 21, 2002. Google users enter: time rowley memo mueller 126. Ibid 127. The Washington Post. 2 FBI whistleblowers Allege Lax Security, Possible Espionage. By James V. Grimaldi. June 18, 2001 Google users enter: sibel edmonds john cole 128. Ibid 129. Ibid 130. Los Angeles Times. Inquiries of Intelligence failures Hits Obstacles. By Greg Miller. Google users enter: times inquiry intelligence failures hits 131.<http://www.fbi.gov> FBI Major Speeches. Anti-Defamation League's 24th Annual National Leadership Conference. Washington, DC May 7, 2002 Google users enter: Mueller fbi adl speech 132. Arab News. ADL Found Guilty Of Spying By California Court . By Barbara Ferguson. Arab News Correspondent. April 27, 2002. Google users enter: barbara Ferguson adl guilty 133. Ibid 134. The Hartford Courant. Turmoil in a Perilous Place. Angry Scientists Allege Racism at Bio-warfare Lab. By Lynee Tuohy & Jack Dolan. December 19, 2001. Google users enter: courant assaad zack anthrax 135. Ibid 136. FBI. <http://www.fbi.gov> Google users enter: anthrax letters 137. Ibid 138. The Hartford Courant. Turmoil in a Perilous Place. Angry Scientists Allege Racism at Biowarfare Lab. By Lynee Tuohy & Jack Dolan. December 19, 2001. Google users enter: courant turmoil perilous place. And also anthrax downs zack 139. Ibid 140. Ibid 141. Hartford Courant. Anthrax Missing from Army Lab. By Jack Dolan & Dave Altimari. January 20, 2001. Google users enter: courant anthrax missing army lab 142. Ibid 143. See footnotes 138 and 141. 144. Globe and Mail. (Canada). On the Trail of an Anthrax Killer. By Paul Koring. March 6, 2001. Google users enter: globe mail trail anthrax killer 145. Seattle Times. Deadly specimens disappeared from Army research lab in '90s. Reprinted from Hartford Courant. January 21, 2002 Google users enter: seattle times anthrax zack 146. Insight Magazine. Media Manufacture Cloud of Suspicion Over Hatfill. August 14, 2002. By Nicholas Stix Google users enter kristof hatfilll 147. The Times of Trenton. Expert: Anthrax Suspect ID’d. By Joseph Dee. February 19, 2002. Google users enter: rosenberg hatfill 148. Insight Magazine. Media Manufacture Cloud of Suspicion Over Hatfill. August 14, 2002. By Nicholas Stix Google users enter kristof hatfilll 149. Washington Post. Ex Army Scientist Denies Role in Anthrax Attacks. August 2002. Google users enter: rosenberg hatfill 150. Washington Times. Scientist Says FBI asked About Setup. By Gus Taylor. August 3, 2001. Google users enter: hatfill fbi passed lie detector test 151. The Mercury (Philadelphia area newspaper) 2 Found with Video of Swears Tower. By Michelle Mowad. October 17, 2001 Google users enter: Mercury 2 found video sears tower 152. Ibid 153. Ibid 154. Ibid 155. Diario de Mexico. Bomba en San Lazaro. October 11, 2001. Google users enter: action report visual proof mexico and also mossad terrorists mexico 156. Mexican Department of Justice. (PGR) Press Bulletin. October 12, 2001. Bulletin 697/01 PGR bulletin can be viewed in Spanish, Google users enter: Mossad terrorists penetrate Mexican congress 157. Diario de Mexico. Bomba en San Lazaro. October 11, 2001. Google users enter: action report visual proof mexico and also mossad terrorists mexico 158. Mexican Attorney General Releases Zionist Terrorists. La Voz de Aztlan. By Ernesto Cienfuegos. October 15, 2001 Google users enter: mossad zionist terrorists mexico 159. Ibid 160. Jerusalem Post. FBI suspect Israelis of Nuclear Terrorism. November 1, 2001. Go to: <http://www.jpost.com/Editions/2001/11/01/LatestNews/LatestNews.37390.html> (Case sensitive. enter lower case and upper case letters exactly as shown. ) or Google to: Jerusalem post FBI suspect israelis nuclear 161. Ibid 162. Miami Herald. Nuclear plants tighten security FBI seeking 6 men seen in Midwest . By Martin Merzer, Curtis Morgan, & Lenny Savino. October 3, 2001. Google users enter: miami herald israelis nuclear power plans 163. The Times (England) FBI Fury as Men with Nuclear Plan Escape. By Katty Kay in Washington. November 1, 2001. Google users enter: katty kay fbi nuclear plan israeli 164. Los Angeles Time. Militant JDL Members Arrested by FBI. By Linda Deutsch. December 12, 2001. Google users enter: jdl bomb rubin issa 165. FOX News. Police Seize Rental Truck with TNT Traces. By Carl Cameron. May 13, 2001 Google users enter: fox bomb sniffing Israeli truck 166. Ha’aretz. (Israel) 2 Israelis wanted in US After Traces of Explosives Found in Their Truck. May 18, 2002 Google users enter: american police arrested two Israelis gear shift 167. FOX News. Massive Israeli Spy Operation2 Discovered in US. Carl Cameron Investigates. Four Part series. December 2001. Google users enter: israeli spy carl cameron investigates 168. Washington Post. 60 Israelis on Tourist Visas detained Since Sept. 11. By John Mintz. November 23, 2001. Google users enter: washington post 60 Israelis detained 169. FOX News website. Carl Cameron Investigates. This Story No Longer Exists. December 21, 2001. View this very strange posting. Google users enter: carl cameron this story no longer exists <http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,40684,00.html> 170. FOX News. Massive Israeli Spy Operation2 Discovered in US. Carl Cameron Investigates. Four Part series. December 2001. Google users enter: israeli spy carl cameron investigates 171. KHOU, Channel 11 (Houston) Federal Buildings Could be in Jeopardy - in Houston and Nationally October 10, 201. Google users enter: israeli art students federal buildings 172. Ibid 173. Ibid 174. FOX News. Massive Israeli Spy Operation Discovered in US. Carl Cameron Investigates. Four Part series. December 2001. Google users enter: Israeli spy carl cameron 175. See footnote # 51 176. See footnote # 122 177. FOX News. Massive Israeli Spy Operation Discovered in US. Carl Cameron Investigates. Four Part series. December 2001. Google users enter: Israeli spy carl cameron 178. Executive Intelligence Review. Lyndon Larouche. January 2001. Google users enter: larouche middle east war implications 179. Arizona Daily Star. .WWIII Is Coming 'Whether They Like It Or Not' - Top Sharon Aide By Stephanie Innes, April 27, 2002. Google users enter: gissin world war coming like or not 180. CNS News. Israel to US: Don't Wait To Attack Iraq, Report Says. August 2002. Google users enter: peres iraq attack 181. New York Post. Today We are All Americans. By Benjamin Netanyahu. September 21, 2001. Google users enter: netanyahu today we all americans 182. ABC News20/20. ABCNews.com, June 21,2001.Google users enter : white van Israeli spies 183. New York Times. Spilled Blood is Seen as Bond That Draws 2 Nations Closer. By James Bennet. September 12, 2001. Google users enter: new york times spilled blood bond draws 184. CNN. Sharon Compares Incursions to U.S. War on Terror. CNN.com. May 7, 2002. Google users enter: Sharon speech adl 185. The Jerusalem Post.Jewish leaders stress Palestinians' support of attacks. By Melissa Radler. September 13, 2001. Google users enter: radler jewish congress jack rosen 186. Telegraph. (England) Bush will act alone if need be, says Perle. By Toby Harnden in Washington, August 9, 2002. Google users enter: perle bush will act alone 187. The obscure goat story of 9-11. ecclesia.org. Google users enter: obscure goat story bush and also card bush turned somber reading 188. Day of Deceit. By Robert Stinnett. (Simon and Schuster 2001) Google users enter: robert stinnett pearl harbor 189. Time Magazine. How George Bush Earned His Summer Vacation. By James Carney and John Dickerson. August 5, 2001. Google users enter: longest vacation in presidential history 190. CBS News. Tariq Azis interview with Dan rather. August 20,2002 Google users enter: tariq aziz dan rather 191. Washington's Farewell Address. Google users enter: washington's farewell address www.nerdcities.com/guardian/STF/stranger-than-fiction.htm <http://www.nerdcities.com/guardian/STF/stranger-than-fiction.htm>
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Wikipedia Iran Contra |
he Iran–Contra affair (Persian: ایران-کنترا, Spanish: caso Irán-contras),
also referred to as Irangate, Contragate or the Iran-Contra scandal, was
a political scandal in the United States that came to light in November
1986. During the Reagan administration, senior Reagan administration
officials secretly facilitated the sale of arms to Iran, the subject of
an arms embargo.[1] Some U.S. officials also hoped that the arms sales
would secure the release of hostages and allow U.S. intelligence
agencies to fund the Nicaraguan Contras. Under the Boland Amendment,
further funding of the Contras by the government had been prohibited by
Congress. The scandal began as an operation to free seven American
hostages being held by a group with Iranian ties connected to the Army
of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution. It was planned that Israel
would ship weapons to Iran, and then the U.S. would resupply Israel and
receive the Israeli payment. The Iranian recipients promised to do
everything in their power to achieve the release of the U.S. hostages.
The plan deteriorated into an arms-for-hostages scheme, in which members
of the executive branch sold weapons to Iran in exchange for the release
of the American hostages.[2][3] Large modifications to the plan were
devised by Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North of the National Security
Council in late 1985, in which a portion of the proceeds from the weapon
sales was diverted to fund anti-Sandinista and anti-communist rebels, or
Contras, in Nicaragua.[4][5] While President Ronald Reagan was a
supporter of the Contra cause,[6] no conclusive evidence has been found
showing that he authorized the diversion of the money raised by the
Iranian arms sales to the Contras.[2][3][7] To this day, it is unclear
exactly what Reagan knew and when, and whether the arms sales were
motivated by his desire to save the U.S. hostages.[8] After the weapon
sales were revealed in November 1986, Reagan appeared on national
television and stated that the weapons transfers had indeed occurred,
but that the United States did not trade arms for hostages.[9] The
investigation was impeded when large volumes of documents relating to
the scandal were destroyed or withheld from investigators by Reagan
administration officials.[10] On March 4, 1987, Reagan returned to the
airwaves in a nationally televised address, taking full responsibility
for any actions that he was unaware of, and admitting that "what began
as a strategic opening to Iran deteriorated, in its implementation, into
trading arms for hostages."[11] Several investigations ensued, including
those by the United States Congress and the three-man, Reagan-appointed
Tower Commission. Neither found any evidence that President Reagan
himself knew of the extent of the multiple programs.[2][3][7] In the
end, fourteen administration officials were indicted, including
then-Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger. Eleven convictions
resulted, some of which were vacated on appeal.[12] The rest of those
indicted or convicted were all pardoned in the final days of the
presidency of George H. W. Bush, who had been vice-president at the time
of the affair.[13] Contents [hide] 1 Background 2 Arms sales to Iran 2.1
First arms sale 2.2 Modifications in plans 2.3 Subsequent dealings 3
Discovery and scandal 4 Tower Commission 5 Aftermath 5.1 Indictments 6
Reports & documents 7 See also 8 Footnotes 9 References 10 External
links [edit]Background
Contra militants based in Honduras waged a guerilla war to topple the then-Marxist government of Nicaragua.[14][15] The Contras' form of warfare was "one of consistent and bloody abuse of human rights, of murder, torture, mutilation, rape, arson, destruction and kidnapping."[16][17] The "Contras systematically engage in violent abuses... so prevalent that these may be said to be their principal means of waging war."[18] A Human Rights Watch report found that the Contras were guilty of targeting health care clinics and health care workers for assassination; kidnapping civilians; torturing and executing civilians, including children, who were captured in combat; raping women; indiscriminately attacking civilians and civilian homes; seizing civilian property; and burning civilian houses in captured towns.[19] Direct funding of the Contras insurgency had been made illegal through the Boland Amendment,[7] the name given to three U.S. legislative amendments between 1982 and 1984 aimed at limiting US government assistance to the Contras militants. In violation of the Boland Amendment, senior officials of the Reagan administration continued to secretly arm and train the Contras and provide arms to Iran, an operation they called "the Enterprise".[20] [edit]Arms sales to Iran Michael Ledeen, a consultant of National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane, requested assistance from Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres for help in the sale of arms to Iran.[21][22] Having been designated a State Sponsor of Terrorism since January 1984;[23] Iran was in the midst of the Iran–Iraq War and could find few Western nations willing to supply it with weapons.[24] The idea behind the plan was for Israel to ship weapons through an intermediary (identified as Manucher Ghorbanifar)[2] to the Islamic republic as a way of aiding a supposedly moderate, politically influential faction within the regime of Ayatollah Khomeni who were believed to be seeking a rapprochement with the United States;[25] after the transaction, the U.S. would reimburse Israel with the same weapons, while receiving monetary benefits. The Israeli government required that the sale of arms meet high level approval from the United States government, and when McFarlane convinced them that the U.S. government approved the sale, Israel obliged by agreeing to sell the arms.[21] In 1985, President Reagan entered Bethesda Naval Hospital for colon cancer surgery. While the President was recovering in the hospital, McFarlane met with him and told him that representatives from Israel had contacted the National Security Agency to pass on confidential information from what Reagan later described as the "moderate" Iranian faction opposed to the Ayatollah's hardline anti-American policies.[25] According to Reagan, these Iranians sought to establish a quiet relationship with the United States, before establishing formal relationships upon the death of the octogenarian Ayatollah.[25] In Reagan's account, McFarlane told Reagan that the Iranians, to demonstrate their seriousness, offered to persuade the Hezbollah terrorists to release the seven U.S. hostages.[26] McFarlane met with the Israeli intermediaries;[27] Reagan claims that he allowed this because he believed that establishing relations with a strategically located country, and preventing the Soviet Union from doing the same, was a beneficial move.[25] Although Reagan claims that the arms sales were to a "moderate" faction of Iranians, the Walsh Iran/Contra Report states that the arms sales were "to Iran" itself,[28] which was under the control of the Ayatollah. Following the Israeli-U.S. meeting, Israel requested permission from the U.S. to sell a small number of TOW antitank missiles (Tube-launched, Optically-tracked, Wire-guided) to Iran, claiming that this would aid the "moderate" Iranian fraction,[26] by demonstrating that the group actually had high-level connections to the U.S. government.[26] Reagan initially rejected the plan, until Israel sent information to the U.S. showing that the "moderate" Iranians were opposed to terrorism and had fought against it.[29] Now having a reason to trust the "moderates", Reagan approved the transaction, which was meant to be between Israel and the "moderates" in Iran, with the U.S. reimbursing Israel.[26] In his 1990 autobiography An American Life, Reagan claimed that he was deeply committed to securing the release of the hostages; it was this compassion that supposedly motivated his support for the arms initiatives.[2] The president requested that the "moderate" Iranians do everything in their capability to free the hostages held by Hezbollah.[30] A BGM-71 TOW anti-tank guided missile The following arms were supplied to Iran:[31][32] August 20, 1985. 96 TOW anti-tank missiles September 14, 1985. 408 more TOWs November 24, 1985. 18 Hawk anti-aircraft missiles February 17, 1986. 500 TOWs February 27, 1986. 500 TOWs May 24, 1986. 508 TOWs, 240 Hawk spare parts August 4, 1986. More Hawk spares October 28, 1986. 500 TOWs [edit]First arms sale On August 20, 1985, Israel sent 96 American-made BGM-71 TOW antitank missiles to Iran through an arms dealer named Manucher Ghorbanifar, a friend of Iran's Prime Minister, Mir-Hossein Mousavi.[citation needed] Hours after receiving the weapons, the Islamic fundamentalist group Islamic Jihad released one hostage they had been holding in Lebanon, the Reverend Benjamin Weir.[21] [edit]Modifications in plans Reagan meets with (left to right) Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, Secretary of State George Shultz, Attorney General Ed Meese, and Chief of Staff Don Regan in the Oval Office Pro-Contra propaganda by the US Office of Public Diplomacy, National Security Council. Asks readers to "Send democracy around the world" by giving money to the Contras, exlaiming "Only 53 cents a day will support a Nicaraguan freedom fighter". Robert McFarlane resigned on December 5, 1985,[33] citing that he wanted to spend more time with his family;[34] he was replaced by Admiral John Poindexter.[35] Two days later, Reagan met with his advisors at the White House, where a new plan was introduced. This one called for a slight change in the arms transactions: instead of the weapons going to the "moderate" Iranian group, they would go to "moderate" Iranian army leaders.[36] As the weapons were delivered from Israel by air, the hostages held by Hezbollah would be released.[36] Israel would continue to be reimbursed by the United States for the weapons. Though staunchly opposed by Secretary of State George Shultz and Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, the plan was authorized by Reagan, who stated that, "We were not trading arms for hostages, nor were we negotiating with terrorists."[37] Now retired National Security Advisor McFarlane flew to London to meet with Israelis and Ghorbanifar in an attempt to persuade the Iranian to use his influence to release the hostages before any arms transactions occurred; this plan was rejected by Ghorbanifar.[36] On the day of McFarlane's resignation, Oliver North, a military aide to the United States National Security Council (NSC), proposed a new plan for selling arms to Iran, which included two major adjustments: instead of selling arms through Israel, the sale was to be direct, and a portion of the proceeds would go to Contras, or Nicaraguan guerilla fighters opposed to communism, at a markup. North proposed a $15 million markup, while contracted arms broker Ghorbanifar added a 41% markup of his own.[38] Other members of the NSC were in favor of North's plan; with large support, Poindexter authorized it without notifying President Reagan, and it went into effect.[39] At first, the Iranians refused to buy the arms at the inflated price because of the excessive markup imposed by North and Ghorbanifar. They eventually relented, and in February 1986, 1,000 TOW missiles were shipped to the country.[39] From May to November 1986, there were additional shipments of miscellaneous weapons and parts.[39] Both the sale of weapons to Iran, and the funding of the Contras, attempted to circumvent not only stated administration policy, but also the Boland Amendment.[7] Administration officials argued that regardless of the Congress restricting the funds for the Contras, or any affair, the President (or in this case the administration) could carry on by seeking alternative means of funding such as private entities and foreign governments.[40] Funding from one foreign country, Brunei, was botched when North's secretary, Fawn Hall, transposed the numbers of North's Swiss bank account number. A Swiss businessman, suddenly $10 million richer, alerted the authorities of the mistake. The money was eventually returned to the Sultan of Brunei, with interest.[41] On January 7, 1986, John Poindexter proposed to the president a modification of the approved plan: instead of negotiating with the "moderate" Iranian political group, the U.S. would negotiate with "moderate" members of the Iranian government.[42] Poindexter told Reagan that Ghorbanifar had important connections within the Iranian government, so with the hope of the release of the hostages, Reagan approved this plan as well.[42] Throughout February 1986, weapons were shipped directly to Iran by the United States (as part of Oliver North's plan, without the knowledge of President Reagan) and none of the hostages were released. Retired National Security Advisor McFarlane conducted another international voyage, this one to Tehran; bringing with him a gift of a bible having a handwritten inscription by Ronald Reagan;[43][44] and, according to some, a cake baked in the shape of a key.[43] He met directly with the "moderate" Iranian political group that sought to establish U.S.-Iranian relations in an attempt to free the four remaining hostages.[45] This meeting also failed. The members requested concessions such as Israel's withdrawal from the Golan Heights, which the United States rejected.[45] [edit]Subsequent dealings In late July 1986, Hezbollah released another hostage, Father Lawrence Martin Jenco, former head of Catholic Relief Services in Lebanon. Following this, William Casey, head of the CIA, requested that the U.S. authorize sending a shipment of small missile parts to Iranian military forces as a way of expressing gratitude.[46] Casey also justified this request by stating that the contact in the Iranian government might otherwise lose face, or be executed, and hostages killed. Reagan authorized the shipment to ensure that those potential events would not occur.[46] In September and October 1986 three more Americans — Frank Reed, Joseph Ciccipio, Edward Tracy — were abducted in Lebanon by a separate terrorist group. The reasons for their abduction are unknown, although it is speculated that they were kidnapped to replace the freed Americans.[47] One more original hostage, David Jacobsen, was later released. The captors promised to release the remaining two, but the release never happened.[48] [edit]Discovery and scandal North's mugshot, after his arrest After a leak by Iranian Mehdi Hashemi, the Lebanese magazine Ash-Shiraa exposed the arrangement on November 3, 1986.[49] This was the first public reporting of the weapons-for-hostages deal. The operation was discovered only after an airlift of guns was downed over Nicaragua. Eugene Hasenfus, who was captured by Nicaraguan authorities, initially alleged in a press conference on Nicaraguan soil that two of his coworkers, Max Gomez and Ramon Medina, worked for the Central Intelligence Agency.[50] He later said he did not know whether they did or not.[51] The Iranian government confirmed the Ash-Shiraa story, and ten days after the story was first published, President Ronald Reagan appeared on national television from the Oval Office on November 13 stating: "My purpose was... to send a signal that the United States was prepared to replace the animosity between [the U.S. and Iran] with a new relationship... At the same time we undertook this initiative, we made clear that Iran must oppose all forms of international terrorism as a condition of progress in our relationship. The most significant step which Iran could take, we indicated, would be to use its influence in Lebanon to secure the release of all hostages held there."[9] The scandal was compounded when Oliver North destroyed or hid pertinent documents between November 21 and November 25, 1986. During North's trial in 1989, his secretary, Fawn Hall, testified extensively about helping North alter, shred, and remove official United States National Security Council (NSC) documents from the White House. According to The New York Times, enough documents were put into a government shredder to jam it.[38] North's explanation for destroying some documents was to protect the lives of individuals involved in Iran and Contra operations.[38] It was not until years after the trial that North's notebooks were made public, and only after the National Security Archive and Public Citizen sued the Office of the Independent Council under the Freedom of Information Act.[38] During the trial North testified that on November 21, 22, or 24, he witnessed Poindexter destroy what may have been the only signed copy of a presidential covert-action finding that sought to authorize CIA participation in the November 1985 Hawk missile shipment to Iran.[38] US Attorney General Edwin Meese admitted on November 25 that profits from weapons sales to Iran were made available to assist the Contra rebels in Nicaragua. On the same day, John Poindexter resigned, and Oliver North was fired by President Reagan.[52] Poindexter was replaced by Frank Carlucci on December 2, 1986.[53] In his expose Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA 1981–1987, journalist Bob Woodward chronicles the role of the CIA in facilitating the transfer of funds from the Iran arms sales to the Nicaraguan Contras spearheaded by Oliver North.[54] Then Director of the CIA, William J. Casey, admitted to Woodward in February 1987 that he was aware of the diversion of funds to the contras confirming a number of encounters documented by Woodward.[55] The admission occurred while Casey was hospitalized for a stroke. On May 6, 1987 William Casey died the day after Congress began its public hearings on the Iran-contra affair. [edit]Tower Commission On November 25, 1986, President Reagan announced the creation of a Special Review Board to look into the matter; the following day, he appointed former Senator John Tower, former Secretary of State Edmund Muskie, and former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft to serve as members. This Presidential Commission took effect on December 1 and became known as the "Tower Commission". The main objectives of the commission were to inquire into "the circumstances surrounding the Iran-Contra matter, other case studies that might reveal strengths and weaknesses in the operation of the National Security Council system under stress, and the manner in which that system has served eight different Presidents since its inception in 1947."[2] The commission was the first presidential commission to review and evaluate the National Security Council. President Reagan (center) receives the Tower Commission Report in the White House Cabinet Room; John Tower is at left and Edmund Muskie is at right, 1987 President Reagan appeared before the Tower Commission on December 2, 1986, to answer questions regarding his involvement in the affair. When asked about his role in authorizing the arms deals, he first stated that he had; later, he appeared to contradict himself by stating that he had no recollection of doing so.[56] In his 1990 autobiography, An American Life, Reagan acknowledges authorizing the shipments to Israel.[57] The report published by the Tower Commission was delivered to the President on February 26, 1987. The Commission had interviewed 80 witnesses to the scheme,[2] including Reagan, and two of the arms trade middlemen: Manucher Ghorbanifar and Adnan Khashoggi.[56] The 200 page report was the most comprehensive of any released,[56] criticizing the actions of Oliver North, John Poindexter, Caspar Weinberger, and others. It determined that President Reagan did not have knowledge of the extent of the program, especially about the diversion of funds to the Contras,[2] although it argued that the President ought to have had better control of the National Security Council staff.[2] The report heavily criticized Reagan for not properly supervising his subordinates or being aware of their actions.[2] A major result of the Tower Commission was the consensus that Reagan should have listened to his National Security Advisor more, thereby placing more power in the hands of that chair.[2] The Democratic-controlled United States Congress issued its own report on November 18, 1987, stating that "If the president did not know what his national security advisers were doing, he should have."[3] The congressional report wrote that the president bore "ultimate responsibility" for wrongdoing by his aides, and his administration exhibited "secrecy, deception and disdain for the law."[58] It also read in part: "The central remaining question is the role of the President in the Iran-contra affair. On this critical point, the shredding of documents by Poindexter, North and others, and the death of Casey, leave the record incomplete."[7] [edit]Aftermath The Nicaraguan government sued the United States before the International Court of Justice, which in the case The Republic of Nicaragua v. The United States of America ruled in favor of Nicaragua mandating the payment of compensation, which the United States refused to do. Compliance proved futile as the United States, a permanent member of the Security Council, blocked any enforcement mechanism attempted by Nicaragua.[59] Reagan expressed regret regarding the situation during a nationally televised address from the White House Oval Office on March 4, 1987 and two other speeches;[60] Reagan had not spoken to the American people directly for three months amidst the scandal.[61] President Reagan told the American people the reason why he did not update them on the scandal: "The reason I haven't spoken to you before now is this: You deserve the truth. And as frustrating as the waiting has been, I felt it was improper to come to you with sketchy reports, or possibly even erroneous statements, which would then have to be corrected, creating even more doubt and confusion. There's been enough of that."[61] He then took full responsibility for the acts committed: "First, let me say I take full responsibility for my own actions and for those of my administration. As angry as I may be about activities undertaken without my knowledge, I am still accountable for those activities. As disappointed as I may be in some who served me, I'm still the one who must answer to the American people for this behavior."[61] Finally, the president stated that his previous assertions that the U.S. did not trade arms for hostages were incorrect: "A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that's true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not. As the Tower board reported, what began as a strategic opening to Iran deteriorated, in its implementation, into trading arms for hostages. This runs counter to my own beliefs, to administration policy, and to the original strategy we had in mind."[61] To this day Reagan's role in the transactions is not definitively known; it is unclear exactly what Reagan knew and when, and whether the arms sales were motivated by his desire to save the U.S. hostages. Oliver North wrote that "Ronald Reagan knew of and approved a great deal of what went on with both the Iranian initiative and private efforts on behalf of the contras and he received regular, detailed briefings on both.... I have no doubt that he was told about the use of residuals for the Contras, and that he approved it. Enthusiastically."[62] Handwritten notes by Defense Secretary Weinberger indicate that the President was aware of potential hostages transfers with Iran, as well as the sale of Hawk and TOW missiles to what he was told were "moderate elements" within Iran.[8] Notes taken on December 7, 1985, by Weinberger record that Reagan said that "he could answer charges of illegality but he couldn't answer charge [sic] that 'big strong President Reagan passed up a chance to free hostages.'"[8] Domestically, the scandal precipitated a drop in President Reagan's popularity as his approval ratings saw "the largest single drop for any U.S. president in history", from 67% to 46% in November 1986, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll.[63] The "Teflon President", as Reagan was nicknamed by critics,[64] survived the scandal, however, and by January 1989 a Gallup poll was "recording a 64% approval rating," the highest ever recorded for a departing President at that time.[65] Internationally the damage was more severe. Magnus Ranstorp wrote, "U.S. willingness to engage in concessions with Iran and the Hezbollah not only signaled to its adversaries that hostage-taking was an extremely useful instrument in extracting political and financial concessions for the West but also undermined any credibility of U.S. criticism of other states' deviation from the principles of no-negotiation and no concession to terrorists and their demands."[66] In Iran Mehdi Hashemi, the leaker of the scandal, was executed in 1987, allegedly for activities unrelated to the scandal. Though Hashemi made a full video confession to numerous serious charges, some observers find the coincidence of his leak and the subsequent prosecution highly suspicious.[67] [edit]Indictments Caspar Weinberger, Secretary of Defense, was indicted on two counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice on June 16, 1992. [1]. Weinberger received a pardon from George H. W. Bush on December 24, 1992 before he was tried.[68] William Casey, Head of the CIA. Thought to have conceived the plan, was stricken ill hours before he would testify. Reporter Bob Woodward reported Casey knew of and approved the plan.[69] Robert C. McFarlane, National Security Adviser, convicted of withholding evidence, but after a plea bargain was given only 2 years probation. Later pardoned by President George H. W. Bush[70] Elliott Abrams, Assistant Secretary of State, convicted of withholding evidence, but after a plea bargain was given only 2 years probation. Later pardoned by President George H. W. Bush[71] http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/summpros.htm. Alan D. Fiers Chief of the CIA's Central American Task Force, convicted of withholding evidence and sentenced to one year probation. Later pardoned by President George H. W. Bush Clair George Chief of Covert Ops-CIA, convicted on 2 charges of perjury, but pardoned by President George H. W. Bush before sentencing.[72] Oliver North, member of the National Security Council convicted of accepting an illegal gratuity, obstruction of a congressional inquiry, and destruction of documents, but the ruling was overturned since he had been granted immunity.[73] Fawn Hall, Oliver North's secretary was given immunity from prosecution on charges of conspiracy and destroying documents in exchange for her testimony.[74] Jonathan Scott Royster Liaison to Oliver North was given immunity from prosecution on charges of conspiracy and destroying documents in exchange for his testimony.[75] John Poindexter National Security Advisor, convicted of 5 counts of conspiracy, obstruction of justice, perjury, defrauding the government, and the alteration and destruction of evidence. The Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that overturned these convictions.[76] Duane Clarridge An ex-CIA senior official, he was indicted in November 1991 on 7 counts of perjury and false statements relating to a November 1985 shipment to Iran. Pardoned before trial by President George H. W. Bush.[77][78] Richard V. Secord Ex-major general in the Air Force who organized the Iran arms sales and Contra aid. He pleaded guilty in November 1989 to making false statements to Congress. Sentenced to two years of probation.[79][80] Albert Hakim A businessman, he pleaded guilty in November 1989 to supplementing the salary of North by buying a $13,800 fence for North with money from "the Enterprise", which was a set of foreign companies Hakim used in Iran-Contra. In addition, Swiss company Lake Resources Inc., used for storing money from arms sales to Iran to give to the Contras, plead guilty to stealing government property.[81] Hakim was given two years of probation and a $5,000 fine, while Lake Resources Inc. was ordered to dissolve.[79][82] Oliver North and John Poindexter were indicted on multiple charges on March 16, 1988.[83] North, indicted on 16 counts, was found guilty by a jury of three felony counts. The convictions were vacated on appeal on the grounds that North's Fifth Amendment rights may have been violated by the indirect use of his testimony to Congress which had been given under a grant of immunity. In 1990, Poindexter was convicted on several felony counts of conspiracy, lying to Congress, obstruction of justice, and altering and destroying documents pertinent to the investigation. His convictions were also overturned on appeal on similar grounds. Arthur L. Liman served as chief counsel for the Senate during the Iran-Contra Scandal.[84] The Independent Counsel, Lawrence E. Walsh, chose not to re-try North or Poindexter.[85] In total, several dozen people were investigated by Walsh's office.[86] During his election campaign in 1988, Vice President Bush denied any knowledge of the Iran–Contra affair by saying he was "out of the loop." Though his diaries included that he was "one of the few people that know fully the details," he repeatedly refused to discuss the incident and won the election.[87] On December 24, 1992, nearing the end of his term in office after being defeated by Bill Clinton the previous month, Bush pardoned six administration officials, namely Elliott Abrams, Duane Clarridge, Alan Fiers, Clair George, Robert McFarlane, and Caspar Weinberger.[88] In Poindexter's hometown of Odon, Indiana, a street was renamed to John Poindexter Street. Bill Breeden, a former minister, stole the street's sign in protest of the Iran-Contra Affair. He claimed that he was holding it for a ransom of $30 million, in reference to the amount of money given to Iran to transfer to the Contras. He was later arrested and confined to prison, making him, as satirically noted by Howard Zinn, "the only person to be imprisoned as a result of the Iran-Contra Scandal."[89] [edit]Reports & documents The 100th Congress formed a joint committee and held hearings in mid 1987. Transcripts were published as: Iran-Contra Investigation: Joint Hearings Before the Senate Select Committee on Secret Military Assistance to Iran and the Nicaraguan Opposition and the House Select Committee to Invesitgate Covert Arms Transactions with Iran (US GPO 1987-88). A closed Executive Session heard classified testimony from North & Poindexter; this transcript was published in a redacted format.[90] The joint committee's final report was Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair With Supplemental, Minority, and Additional Views (US GPO Nov 17 1987) [91] The records of the committee are at the National Archives, but many are still non-public.[92] Testimony was also heard before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and can be found in the Congressional Record for those bodies. The Senate Intelligence Committee produced two reports: Preliminary Inquiry into the Sale of Arms to Iran and Possible Diversion of Funds to the Nicaraguan Resistance (February 2, 1987) and Were Relevant Documents Withheld from the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair? (June 1989).[93] The Tower Commission Report was published as the Report of the President's Special Review Board. US GPO Feb 26 1987. It was also published as The Tower Commission Report, Bantam Books, 1987, ISBN 0-553-26968-2 [94] The Office of Independent Counsel/Walsh investigation produced four interim reports to Congress. Its final report was published as the Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters.[95] Walsh's records are available at the National Archives.[96]
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Wikipedia 9/11 'Conspiracy Theories' |
9/11 conspiracy theories are conspiracy theories that disagree with
the widely accepted account that the September 11 attacks were
perpetrated solely by al-Qaeda,[1] without any detailed advanced
knowledge on the part of any government agency.[2] Proponents of these
conspiracy theories claim there are inconsistencies in the official
conclusions, or evidence which was overlooked.[3] In a 2008 global poll
of 16,063 people in 17 countries, majorities in only nine countries
believe al Qaeda was behind the attacks. 46% of those surveyed believed
al-Qaeda was responsible for the attacks, 15% believed the U.S.
government was responsible, 7% believed Israel was and another 7%
believed some other perpetrator, other than al Qaeda, was responsible.
The poll found that respondents in the Middle East were especially
likely to name a perpetrator other than al-Qaeda.[4] The most prominent
conspiracy theory is that the collapse of the Twin Towers and 7 World
Trade Center were the result of a controlled demolition rather than
structural failure due to fire.[5][6] Another prominent belief is that
the Pentagon was hit by a missile launched by elements from inside the
U.S. government[7][8] or that a commercial airliner was allowed to do so
via an effective standdown of the American military.[9][10] Possible
motives claimed by conspiracy theorists for such actions include
justifying the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq as well as geostrategic
interests in the Mideast, such as pipeline plans launched in the early
1990s by Unocal and other oil companies.[11] Other conspiracy theories
revolve around authorities having advance knowledge of the attacks and
deliberately ignoring or helping to assist the attackers.[3][12][13] The
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and media outlets
such as Popular Mechanics have investigated and rejected the claims made
by 9/11 conspiracy theories.[14][15] The civil engineering community
accepts that the impacts of jet aircraft at high speeds in combination
with subsequent fires, not controlled demolition, led to the collapse of
the Twin Towers.[16] Contents [hide] 1 Terminology 2 History 3 Types of
conspiracy 3.1 Causes to be determined 4 Theories 4.1 Foreknowledge
4.1.1 Suspected insider trading 4.1.2 Air defense stand down theory
4.1.3 Israeli agents 4.2 World Trade Center 4.3 The Pentagon 4.4 Flight
93 4.5 Hijackers 4.6 Foreign governments 4.6.1 Israel 4.6.1.1
Antisemitism in conspiracy theories 4.6.2 Saudi Arabia 4.7 No-planes
theory 5 Cover-up allegations 5.1 Cockpit recorders 5.2 Bin Laden tapes
5.3 Hide CIA recruitment efforts 6 Motives 6.1 Pax Americana 6.2
Invasions 6.3 New World Order 7 Suggested historical precedents 8
Proponents 9 Media reaction 9.1 In popular culture 10 Criticism 11 In
politics 12 Legal Cases 13 See also 14 Notes 15 Bibliography 16 External
links Terminology
Within the context of 9/11 conspiracy theories, the terms "mainstream account", "official account" and "official conspiracy theory" all refer to: The reports from government investigations – the 9/11 Commission Report (which incorporated intelligence information from the earlier FBI investigation (PENTTBOM) and the Joint Inquiry of 2002), and the studies into building performance carried out by the Federal Emergency Management Agency[17] (FEMA) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Investigations by non-government organizations that support the accepted account – such as those by the National Fire Protection Association, and by scientists of Purdue University and Northwestern University.[18][19][20] Articles supporting these facts and theories appearing in magazines such as Popular Mechanics, Scientific American, and Time. Similar articles in news media throughout the world, including The Times of India,[21] the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC),[22] the BBC,[23] Le Monde,[24] Deutsche Welle,[25] the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC),[26] and The Chosun Ilbo of South Korea.[27] U.S. President Barack Obama's June 2009 speech to the Muslim world where he said "I am aware that some question or justify the events of 9/11. But let us be clear: al-Qaeda killed nearly 3,000 people on that day."[28] These sources concluded that al-Qaeda crashed United Airlines Flight 175 and American Airlines Flight 11 into the twin towers of the World Trade Center, and crashed American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon. The impact and resulting fires caused the collapse of the Twin Towers and the destruction and damage of other buildings in the World Trade Center complex. The Pentagon was severely damaged by the impact of the airliner and the resulting fire. The hijackers also crashed a fourth plane into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania after the passengers and flight crew attempted to regain control of the aircraft.[29][30][14][15] The 9/11 Commission Report concluded that pre-attack warnings of varying detail of the planned attacks against the United States by al-Qaeda were ignored due to a lack of communication between various law enforcement and intelligence personnel. For the lack of interagency communication, the report cited bureaucratic inertia and laws passed in the 1970s to prevent abuses that caused scandals during that era. The report faulted the Clinton and the Bush administrations with "failure of imagination."[31] History Since the attacks, a variety of conspiracy theories have been put forward in Web sites, books, and films. Many groups and individuals advocating 9/11 conspiracy theories identify as part of the 9/11 Truth movement.[32][33][34] Within six hours of the attack, a suggestion appeared on an Internet chat room suggesting that the collapse of the towers looked like an act of controlled demolition. "If, in a few days, not one official has mentioned anything about the controlled demolition part," the author wrote, "I think we have a REALLY serious problem."[35] The first theories that emerged focused primarily on various perceived anomalies in the publicly available evidence, and proponents later developed more specific theories about an alleged plot.[11] One allegation that was widely circulated by e-mail and on the Web is that not a single Jew had been killed in the attack and that therefore the attacks must have been the work of the Mossad, not Islamic terrorists.[11] The first elaborated theories appeared in Europe. One week after the attacks, the "inside job" theory was the subject of a thesis by a researcher from the French National Centre for Scientific Research published in Le Monde. Other theories sprang from the far corners of the globe within weeks.[36] Six months after the attacks, Thierry Meyssan's 9/11 exposé L'Effroyable Imposture topped the French bestseller list. Its publication in English (as 9/11: The Big Lie) received little attention, but it remains one of the principal sources for "trutherism".[37] 2003 saw the publication of The CIA and September 11 by former German state minister Andreas von Bülow and Operation 9/11 by the German journalist Gerhard Wisnewski; both books are published by Mathias Bröckers, who was at the time an editor at the German newspaper Die Tageszeitung.[11] While these theories were popular in Europe, they were treated by the U.S. media with either bafflement or amusement, and they were dismissed by the U.S. government as the product of anti-Americanism.[38][39] In an address to the United Nations on November 10, 2001, United States President George W. Bush denounced the emergence of "outrageous conspiracy theories [...] that attempt to shift the blame away from the terrorists, themselves, away from the guilty."[40] The 9/11 conspiracy theories started out mostly in the political left but have broadened into what New York Magazine describes as "terra incognita where left and right meet, fusing sixties countercultural distrust with the don’t-tread-on-me variety".[41] By 2004, conspiracy theories about the September 11 attacks began to gain ground in the United States. One explanation is that the rise in popularity stemmed more from growing criticism of the Iraq War and the newly re-elected president George W. Bush than from any discovery of new or more compelling evidence or an improvement in the technical quality of the presentation of the theories.[11] Knight Ridder news theorized that revelations that weapons of mass destruction did not exist in Iraq, the belated release of the President's Daily Brief of August 6, 2001, and reports that NORAD had lied to the 9/11 Commission, may have fueled the conspiracy theories.[11] Between 2004 and the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks in 2006, mainstream coverage of the conspiracy theories increased.[11] Reacting to the growing publicity, the U.S. government issued responses to the theories, including a formal analysis by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) of the collapse of the World Trade Center[42] and a revised 2006 State Department webpage to debunk the theories.[43] A 2006 national security strategy paper declared that terrorism springs from "subcultures of conspiracy and misinformation," and that "terrorists recruit more effectively from populations whose information about the world is contaminated by falsehoods and corrupted by conspiracy theories. The distortions keep alive grievances and filter out facts that would challenge popular prejudices and self-serving propaganda."[44] Al-Qaeda has repeatedly claimed responsibility for the attacks, with chief deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri accusing Shia Iran and Hezbollah of denigrating Sunni successes in hurting America by intentionally starting rumors that Israel carried out the attacks.[45][46][47][48][49][50] Some of the conspiracy theories about the September 11 attacks do not involve representational strategies typical of many conspiracy theories that establish a clear dichotomy between good and evil, or guilty and innocent; instead, they call up gradations of negligence and complicity.[11] Matthias Bröckers, an early proponent of such theories, dismisses the official account of the September 11 attacks as being itself a conspiracy theory that seeks "to reduce complexity, disentangle what is confusing," and "explain the inexplicable".[11] Just before the fifth anniversary of the attacks, mainstream news outlets released a flurry of articles on the growth of 9/11 conspiracy theories,[51] with an article in Time stating that "[t]his is not a fringe phenomenon. It is a mainstream political reality."[12][52] Several surveys have included questions about beliefs related to the September 11 attacks. An August 2007 Zogby poll commissioned by 911Truth.org[53] found that 63.6% of Americans believe that Arab fundamentalists were responsible for 9/11 while 26.4% believed that "certain elements in the U.S. government knew the attacks were coming but consciously let them proceed for various political, military and economic reasons" and 4.8% believe that "certain U.S. Government elements actively planned or assisted some aspects of the attacks".[54] In 2008, 9/11 conspiracy theories topped a "greatest conspiracy theory” list compiled by The Daily Telegraph. The list was ranked by following and traction.[55][56] A study conducted by journalist Elizabeth Woodworth for the Center for Research on Globalization concludes that the increased presence in mainstream media reflected an improved professional approach within the 9/11 Truth movement.[57] In 2010, the "International Center for 9/11 Studies," a private organization that is said to be sympathetic to conspiracy theories,[58] successfully sued for the release of videos collected by NIST of the attacks and aftermath.[58][59][60] According to the German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the videos which were published shortly before the ninth anniversary of the attacks provide "new food for conspiracy theorists." Many of the videos show images of 7 World Trade Center, a skyscraper in the vicinity of the WTC towers that also collapsed on September 11, 2001.[59] Eyewitnesses have repeatedly reported explosions happening before the collapse of both of the towers, while experts consider these theories to be unreasonable.[58] 9/11 truth figures Steven E. Jones and Mike Berger have further added that the death of Osama bin Laden[61] did not change their questions about the attacks, nor provide closure.[62] Since Bush left office, the overall number of believers in 9/11 conspiracy theories has dipped while the number of people who believe in the most "radical" theories has held fairly steady.[63] Types of conspiracy The most prominent conspiracy theories can be broadly divided into two main forms: LIHOP ("Let it happen on purpose") – suggests that key individuals within the government had at least some foreknowledge of the attacks and deliberately ignored them or actively weakened America's defenses to ensure the hijacked flights were not intercepted.[3][12][13] MIHOP ("Make/Made it happen on purpose") – that key individuals within the government planned the attacks and collaborated with, or framed, al-Qaeda in carrying them out. There is a range of opinions about how this might have been achieved.[3][12][13] Causes to be determined Other critics of the accepted account of the September 11 attacks are not proposing specific theories, but try to demonstrate that the U.S. government's account of the events is wrong. This, according to them, would lead to a general call for a new official investigation into the events of September 11, 2001. According to Jonathan Kay, managing editor for comment at the Canadian newspaper National Post[64] and author of the Among the Truthers: A Journey Through America's Growing Conspiracist Underground,[65] "They feel their job is to show everybody that the official theory of 9/11 is wrong. And then, when everybody is convinced, then the population will rise up and demand a new investigation with government resources, and that investigation will tell us what actually happened."[66] Theories Foreknowledge Main article: September 11 attacks advance-knowledge debate See also: U.S. military response during the September 11 attacks and United States government operations and exercises on September 11, 2001 It has been claimed that action or inaction by U.S. officials with foreknowledge was intended to ensure that the attacks took place successfully. For example, Michael Meacher, former British environment minister and member of Tony Blair's Cabinet has stated that the United States knowingly failed to prevent the attacks.[67][68] Author David Ray Griffin alleges that the 9/11 conspiracy was considerably larger than the government claims and that the entire 9/11 Commission Report "is constructed in support of one big lie: that the official story about 9/11 is true."[69] Suspected insider trading Just before 9/11 there was an "extraordinary" amount of put options placed on United Airlines and American Airlines stocks. Authorities believed, and some conspiracy theorists continue to maintain, that trading insiders may have known in advance of the coming events of 9/11 and placed their bets accordingly. An analysis into the possibility of insider trading on 9/11 concludes that: A measure of abnormal long put volume was also examined and seen to be at abnormally high levels in the days leading up to the attacks. Consequently, the paper concludes that there is evidence of unusual option market activity in the days leading up to September 11 that is consistent with investors trading on advance knowledge of the attacks.[70] —Allen M. Poteshman, The Journal of Business On the days leading up to 9/11, two airlines saw a rise in their put to call ratio. These two airlines were United Airlines and American Airlines, the two airlines whose planes were hijacked on 9/11. Between September 6 and 7, the Chicago Board Options Exchange saw purchases of 4,744 "put" option contracts in UAL versus 396 call options. On September 10, more trading in Chicago saw the purchase of 4,516 put options in American Airlines, the other airline involved in the hijackings. This compares with a mere 748 call options in American purchased that day. No other airline companies saw anomalies in their put to call ratio in the days leading up to the attacks.[71] American Airlines however, had just released a major warning about possible losses.[72] Insurance companies saw anomalous trading activities as well. Citigroup Inc., which has estimated that its Travelers Insurance unit may pay $500 million in claims from the World Trade Center attack, had about 45 times the normal volume during three trading days before the attack for options that profit if the stock falls below $40. Citigroup shares fell $1.25 in late trading to $38.09. Morgan Stanley, which occupied 22 floors at the World Trade Center, experienced bigger-than-normal pre-attack trading of options that profit when stock prices fall. Other companies that were directly affected by the tragedy had similar jumps.[73] Raytheon, a defense contractor, had an anomalously high number of call options trading on September 10. A Raytheon option that makes money if shares are more than $25 each had 232 options contracts traded on the day before the attacks, almost six times the total number of trades that had occurred before that day.[citation needed] The initial options were bought through at least two brokerage firms, including NFS, a subsidiary of Fidelity Investments, and TD Waterhouse. It was estimated that the trader or traders would have realized a five million dollar profit. The Securities and Exchange Commission launched an insider trading investigation in which Osama Bin Laden was a suspect after receiving information from at least one Wall Street Firm.[74] Air defense stand down theory A common claim among conspiracy theorists is that the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) issued a stand down order or deliberately scrambled fighters late to allow the hijacked airplanes to reach their targets without interference. According to this theory, NORAD had the capability of locating and intercepting planes on 9/11, and its failure to do so indicates a government conspiracy to allow the attacks to occur.[72] The Web site emperors-clothes.com argues that the U.S. military failed to do their job. StandDown.net's Mark R. Elsis says, "There is only one explanation for this .... Our Air Force was ordered to Stand Down on 9/11."[75][76] In September 2001, NORAD generals said they learned of the hijackings in time to scramble fighter jets. Later, the U.S. government released tapes claiming to show the Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) did not tell the military about the hijackings until three of the four planes had crashed, a fact that would indicate that the FAA repeatedly lied to other U.S. government agencies.[77] Phil Molé of Skeptic magazine has explained that it is neither quick nor easy to locate and intercept a plane behaving erratically, and that the hijackers turned off or disabled the onboard radar transponders. Without these transponder signals to identify the airplanes, the hijacked airplanes would have been only blips among 4,500 other blips on NORAD’S radar screens, making them very difficult to track.[72][75] According to Popular Mechanics, only 14 fighter jets were on alert in the contiguous 48 states on 9/11. There was no automated method for the civilian air traffic controllers to alert NORAD.[75] A passenger airline had not been hijacked in the U.S. since 1979.[78] "They had to pick up the phone and literally dial us," says Maj. Douglas Martin, public affairs officer for NORAD. According to Popular Mechanics, only one civilian plane was intercepted in the decade prior to 9/11, which took one hour and 22 minutes.[75][dubious – discuss] Rules in effect at that time, and on 9/11, barred supersonic flight on intercepts. Before 9/11, all other NORAD interceptions were limited to offshore Air Defense Identification Zones (ADIZ). "Until 9/11 there was no domestic ADIZ," says FAA spokesman Bill Schumann. After 9/11, the FAA and NORAD increased cooperation. They set up hotlines between command centers while NORAD increased its fighter coverage and installed radar to watch airspace over the continent.[75] According to The Eleventh Day: The Full Story of 9/11 and Osama bin Laden, a book about the attacks published in 2011, the longest warning NORAD received of the hijackings was some eight minutes for American Airlines Flight 11, the first flight hijacked. The FAA alerted NORAD to the hijacked Flight 175 at just about the same time it was crashing into the World Trade Center's South Tower. The FAA notified NORAD of the missing – not hijacked – Flight 77 three minutes before it struck the Pentagon. NORAD received no warning of the hijack of United Flight 93 until three minutes after it had crashed in Pennsylvania.[79] Israeli agents See also: September 11 attacks advance-knowledge conspiracy theories: Israel It has been claimed that Israeli agents may have had foreknowledge of the attacks. Four hours after the attack, the FBI arrested five Israelis who had been filming the smoking skyline from the roof of a white van in the parking lot of an apartment building, for "puzzling behavior". The Israelis were videotaping the events, and one bystander said they acted in a suspicious manner: "They were like happy, you know ... They didn't look shocked to me. I thought it was very strange."[80][81][82] While The Forward, a New York Jewish news magazine, reported that the FBI concluded that two of the men were Israeli intelligence operatives, a spokesperson for the Israeli Embassy in the United States said that they had not been involved in any intelligence operation in the United States.[80] The FBI eventually concluded that the five Israelis had no foreknowledge of the attacks.[83] World Trade Center See also: World Trade Center controlled demolition conspiracy theories Criticism of the reports published by NIST on the destruction of the World Trade Center buildings plays a central role in theories about an alleged controlled demolition. The picture shows the simulated exterior buckling of 7 WTC during the collapse. The plane crashes and resulting fires caused the collapse of the World Trade Center. Controlled demolition conspiracy theories say the collapse of the North Tower, South Tower, or of 7 World Trade Center was caused by explosives installed in the buildings in advance. Demolition theory proponents, such as Brigham Young University physicist Steven E. Jones, architect Richard Gage, software engineer Jim Hoffman, and theologian David Ray Griffin, argue that the aircraft impacts and resulting fires could not have weakened the buildings sufficiently to initiate a catastrophic collapse, and that the buildings would not have collapsed completely, nor at the speeds that they did, without additional energy involved to weaken their structures. In the article "Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe", which appeared in the Open Chemical Physics Journal, authors Niels Harrit of the University of Copenhagen's Department of Chemistry, Jeffrey Farrer of Brigham Young University's Department of Physics and Astronomy, Steven E. Jones, and others state that thermite and nanothermite composites in the dust and debris were found following the collapse of the three buildings, which they conclude to be proof that explosives brought down the buildings. The article contained no scientific rebuttal and the editor in chief of the publication subsequently resigned.[84][85][86][87] Jones has not explained how the amount of explosive needed to do this could have been positioned in the two buildings without drawing attention, but mentioned efforts to research the buildings' maintenance activity in the weeks prior to the event. Federal investigators at the National Institute of Standards and Technology state that enormous quantities of thermite would have to be applied to the structural columns to damage them, but Jones disputed this, saying that he and others were investigating "superthermite".[85] Brent Blanchard, author of "A History of Explosive Demolition in America",[88] who corresponded with Jones, states that questions about the viability of Jones' theories remain unanswered, such as the fact that no demolition personnel noticed any telltale signs of thermite during the eight months of debris removal following the towers' collapse. Blanchard also stated that a verifiable chain of possession needs to be established for the tested beams, which did not occur with the beams Jones tested, raising questions of whether the metal pieces tested could have been cut away from the debris pile with acetylene torches, shears, or other potentially contaminated equipment while on site, or exposed to trace amounts of thermite or other compounds while being handled, while in storage, or while being transferred from Ground Zero to memorial sites.[89] Jones also stated that molten steel found in the rubble was evidence of explosives, as an ordinary airplane fire would not generate enough heat to produce this, citing photographs of red debris being removed by construction equipment, but Blanchard stated that if there had been any molten steel in the rubble any excavation equipment encountering it would have been immediately damaged.[85] Other sampling of the pulverized dust by United States Geological Survey and RJ Lee did not report any evidence of thermite or explosives. It has been theorized the "thermite material" found was primer paint.[90] Dave Thomas of Skeptical Inquirer magazine, noting that the residue in question was claimed to be thermitic because of its iron oxide and aluminum composition, pointed out that these substances are found in many items common to the towers. Thomas stated that in order to cut through a vertical steel beam, special high-temperature containment must be added to prevent the molten iron from dropping down, and that the thermite reaction is too slow for it to be practically used in building demolition. Thomas pointed out that when Jesse Ventura hired New Mexico Tech to conduct a demonstration showing nanothermite slicing through a large steel beam, the nanothermite produced copious flame and smoke but no damage to the beam, even though it was in a horizontal, and therefore optimal position.[91] The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) concluded the accepted version was more than sufficient to explain the collapse of the buildings. NIST and many scientists refuse to debate conspiracy theorists because they feel it would give these theories unwarranted credibility.[92] Specialists in structural mechanics and structural engineering accept the model of a fire-induced, gravity-driven collapse of the World Trade Center buildings without the use of explosives.[93][94][95] As a result, NIST stated that it did not perform any test for the residue of explosive compounds of any kind in the debris.[42] Soon after the day of the attacks, major media sources published that the towers had collapsed due to melted steel.[96][97] Knowledge that the burning temperatures of jet fuel would not melt the steel support structure of the WTC contributed to the belief among skeptics that the towers would not have collapsed without external interference (something other than the planes). NIST does not claim that the steel was melted, but rather that the weakened steel, together with the damage caused by the planes' impacts, caused the collapses.[42] NIST reported that a simulation model based on the assumption that combustible vapors burned immediately upon mixing with the incoming oxygen showed that "at any given location, the duration of [gas] temperatures near 1,000 °C was about 15 to 20 [minutes]. The rest of the time, the calculated temperatures were 500 °C or below."[98] The Pentagon Security camera footage of Flight 77 hitting the Pentagon.[99] The Pentagon, after collapse of the damaged section. Airplane debris scattered near the Pentagon on the day of the attack. According to some conspiracy theories, the U.S. administration deliberately chose not to shoot down a plane that was heading for the Pentagon,[100] while others contend that no plane hit the Pentagon at all.[101] Others reject claims that anything other than Flight 77 hit the Pentagon, but do believe that the World Trade Center towers were destroyed by controlled demolition, such as Jim Hoffman, whose website, 911review.com, cites key errors of the "no Boeing" claims.[102] Political activist Thierry Meyssan and filmmaker Dylan Avery claim that American Airlines Flight 77 did not crash into the Pentagon. Instead, they argue that the Pentagon was hit by a missile launched by elements from inside the U.S. government. Reopen911.org says that the holes in the Pentagon walls were far too small to have been made by a Boeing 757: "How does a plane 125 ft. wide and 155 ft. long fit into a hole which is only 60 ft. across?" Meyssan’s book, L’Effroyable Imposture (published in English as 9/11: The Big Lie) became an instant bestseller in France and is available in more than a dozen languages. When released, the book was heavily criticized by both the mainstream French and American press, and later, from within the 9/11 Truth Movement by researchers such as Jim Hoffman[103] and websites such as oilempire.us.[104] The French newspaper Liberation called the book "a tissue of wild and irresponsible allegations, entirely without foundation."[105][106][107] In response to the conspiracy theorists claim of a missile hitting the Pentagon, Mete Sozen,[108] a professor of civil engineering at Purdue University argues that: "A crashing jet doesn't punch a cartoon-like outline of itself into a reinforced concrete building. When Flight 77 hit the Pentagon, one wing hit the ground and the other was sheared off by the Pentagon's load-bearing columns."[105][109] According to ArchitectureWeek, the reason the Pentagon took relatively little damage from the impact was because Wedge One had recently been renovated.[110] (This was part of a renovation program which had been begun in the 1980s, and Wedge One was the first of five to be renovated.[111]) Evidence contradicting some conspiracy theorists' claim of a missile's hitting the Pentagon have been described by researchers within the 9/11 Truth Movement, such as Jim Hoffman, in his essay "The Pentagon Attack: What the Physical Evidence Shows",[112] and by others broadly refuting the role of other conspiracies in the attacks. The evidence refuting missile claims includes airplane debris including Flight 77's black boxes,[113] the nose cone, landing gear,[114] an airplane tire,[115] and an intact cockpit seat[116] were observed at the crash site. The remains of passengers from Flight 77 were indeed found at the Pentagon crash site and their identities confirmed by DNA analysis.[117] Many eyewitnesses saw the plane strike the Pentagon. Further, Flight 77 passengers made phone calls reporting that their airplane had been hijacked. For example, passenger Renee May called her mother to tell her that the plane had been hijacked and that the passengers had been herded to the back of the plane. Another passenger named Barbara Olson called her husband (U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson) and said that the flight had been hijacked, and that the hijackers had knives and box cutters.[8][105][118][119] Some conspiracy theories say the phone calls the passengers made were fabricated by voice morphing, the passengers' bodies disposed of, and a missile fired at the Pentagon.[120][121][122] The public interest group Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act request on December 15, 2004 to force the government to release video recordings from the Sheraton National Hotel, the Nexcomm/Citgo gas station, Pentagon security cameras and the Virginia Department of Transportation. On May 16, 2006 the government released the Pentagon security camera videos to Judicial Watch.[123][124] Judicial Watch reports that the video shows American Airlines flight 77 crashing into the Pentagon.[124] The image of American Airlines Flight 77 which appears in the videos has been described as "[a] white blob" and "a white streak" (by the BBC),[125] "a thin white blur" (by The Associated Press),[126] and "a silver speck low to the ground" (in The Washington Post).[127] A sequence of five frames from one of the videos already appeared in the media in 2002.[128] Some conspiracy theorists believe the new video does not answer their questions.[129] Flight 93 Flight 93 crash site The fourth plane hijacked on 9/11, United Airlines Flight 93, crashed in an open field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after the passengers revolted. Out of the four planes hijacked on that day, Flight 93 was the only one not to reach its target.[130] One of the popular conspiracy theories surrounding this event is that Flight 93 was actually shot down by a U.S. fighter jet. David Ray Griffin and Alex Jones say that large parts of the plane including the main body of the engine landed miles away from the main wreckage site, too far away for an ordinary plane crash. Jones says that planes usually leave a small debris field when they crash, and that this is not compatible with reports of wreckage found farther away from the main crash site. A posting on Rense.com claimed that the main body of the engine was found miles away from the main wreckage site with damage comparable to that which a heat-seeking missile would do to an airliner.[105][130][131] According to some theories, the plane had to be shot down by the government because passengers had found out about the alleged plot.[76] According to Phil Molé of Skeptic magazine, "[this] claim rests largely on unsupported assertions that the main body of the engine and other large parts of the plane turned up miles from the main wreckage site, too far away to have resulted from an ordinary crash. This claim is incorrect, because the engine was found only 300 yards from the main crash site, and its location was consistent with the direction in which the plane had been traveling."[132] Michael K. Hynes, an airline accident expert who investigated the crash of TWA Flight 800 in 1996, says that, at very high velocities of 500 mph or more, it would only take a few seconds to move or tumble across the ground for 300 yards.[105][132] Reports of wreckage discovered at Indian Lake by local residents are accurate. CNN reported that investigators found debris from the crash at least eight miles away from the crash site, including in New Baltimore.[133] However, according to CNN, this debris was all very light material that the wind would have easily blown away, and a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article from September 14, 2001 describes the material as "mostly papers", "strands of charred insulation", and an "endorsed paycheck". The same article quotes FBI agent Bill Crowley that, "Lighter, smaller debris probably shot into the air on the heat of a fireball that witnesses said shot several hundred feet into the air after the jetliner crashed. Then, it probably rode a wind that was blowing southeast at about 9 m.p.h."[134] Also, the distance between the crash site and Indian Lake was misreported in some accounts. According to the BBC, "In a straight line, Indian Lake is just over a mile from the crash site. The road between the two locations takes a roundabout route of 6.9 miles—accounting for the erroneous reports."[130] Some conspiracy theorists believe a small white jet seen flying over the crash area may have fired a missile to shoot down Flight 93.[135][dubious – discuss] However, government agencies such as the FBI assert this small plane was a Dassault Falcon business jet asked to descend to an altitude of around 1,500 ft to survey the impact.[136] Ben Sliney, who was the FAA operation manager on September 11, 2001, says no military aircraft were near Flight 93.[137] Some internet videos, such as Loose Change, speculate that Flight 93 safely landed in Ohio, and a substituted plane was involved in the crash in Pennsylvania.[138] Often cited is a preliminary news report that Flight 93 landed at a Cleveland airport;[139] it was later learned that Delta Flight 1989 was the plane confused with Flight 93, and the report was retracted as inaccurate. Several websites within the 9/11 Truth Movement dispute this claim, citing the wreckage at the scene, eyewitness testimony, and the difficulty of secretly substituting one plane for another, and claim that such "hoax theories... appear calculated to alienate victims' survivors and the larger public from the 9/11 truth movement".[131][140] The editor of the article has since written a rebuttal to the claims.[141] Valencia McClatchey, a local woman who took the only photograph of the mushroom cloud from the impact of Flight 93 seconds after it hit the ground, says she has been harassed over the telephone and in person by conspiracy theorists, who claim she faked the photo. The FBI, the Somerset County authorities, the Smithsonian, and the National Park Service’s Flight 93 National Memorial staff have all examined the photograph as well as the film negatives and they consider the photo to be authentic.[142] While some conspiracy theorists have claimed that passengers of Flight 93 and/or Flight 77, were murdered or that they were relocated, with the intent that they never be found,[76] others within the 9/11 Truth Movement, such as Jim Hoffman[143] and Scholars for 9/11 Truth & Justice, refute such claims. Hijackers See also: Hijackers in the September 11 attacks and Blocked al-Qaeda investigations During the initial confusion surrounding the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the BBC published the names and identities of what they believed to be some of the hijackers.[144] Some of the people named were later discovered to be alive, a fact that was seized upon by 9/11 conspiracy theorists as proof that the hijackings were faked.[144][145][146] The BBC explained that the initial confusion may have arisen because the names they reported back in 2001 were common Arabic and Islamic names.[144] In response to a request from the BBC, the FBI stated that it was confident to have identified all nineteen hijackers, and that none of the other inquiries had raised the issue of doubt about their identities.[144] The New York Times also acknowledged these as cases of mistaken identity.[147] According to John Bradley, the former managing editor of Arab News in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, the only public information about the hijackers was a list of names issued by the FBI on September 14, 2001. When the FBI released photographs four days after the cited reports on September 27, the mistaken identities were quickly resolved. According to Bradley, "all of this is attributable to the chaos that prevailed during the first few days following the attack. What we're dealing with are coincidentally identical names." In Saudi Arabia, says Bradley, the names of two of the allegedly surviving attackers, Said al-Ghamdi and Walid al-Shari, are "as common as John Smith in the United States or Great Britain."[145] According to Thomas Kean, chair of the 9/11 Commission, "Sixteen of the nineteen shouldn't have gotten into the United States in any way at all because there was something wrong with their visas, something wrong with their passports. They should simply have been stopped at the border. That was sixteen of the nineteen. Obviously, if even half of those people had been stopped, there never would have been a plot."[148] Khalid al Mihdhar and Nawaf al Hazmi had both been identified as al-Qaeda agents by the CIA, but that information was not shared with the FBI or U.S. Immigration, so both men were able to legally enter the U.S. to prepare for the 9/11 attacks.[149] Five of the alleged hijackers may have received training at U.S. military facilities.[150] The Defense Department confirmed that three of the hijackers, Mohamed Atta, Abdulaziz al-Omari and Saeed al-Ghamdi, "have the same names as alumni of American military schools." A Mohamed Atta attended the International Officers School at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama; an Abdulaziz al-Omari went to the Aerospace Medical School at Brooks Air Force Base in Texas; and a Saeed al-Ghamdi was at the Defense Language Institute at the Presidio in Monterey, California.[151] Foreign governments See also: Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda link allegations and Foreign government foreknowledge There are allegations that individuals within the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) may have played an important role in financing the attacks. There are also claims that other foreign intelligence agencies, such as the Israeli Mossad, had foreknowledge of the attacks, and that Saudi Arabia may have played a role in financing the attacks. General Hamid Gul, a former head of ISI, believes the attacks were an “inside job” originating in the United States, perpetrated by Israel or neo-conservatives.[152] Francesco Cossiga, former President of Italy from 1985 until his 1992 resignation over Operation Gladio, said that it is common knowledge among the Italian center-left that the 9/11 attacks were a joint operation of the CIA and the Mossad.[153] Subsequent reports indicated that he did not actually believe this.[154][155] Israel See also: 9/11 advance-knowledge debate: Israel A conspiracy theory documented by the Anti-Defamation League, Thom Burnett and others is that the state of Israel was involved in the attacks, and may have planned them. A variety of motives are suggested, including: to cause the United States to attack enemies of Israel; to divert public attention away from Israel's treatment of Palestinians; to help Zionists take control of world affairs; and to persuade Americans to support Israel. Variants of the theory contend that the attack was organized by Ariel Sharon, Mossad, or the government of Israel.[156][157] Kevin Barrett a former lecturer at the University of Wisconsin is a leading advocate for the theory that Mossad orchestrated the attacks.[158] Some proponents of this believe that Jewish employees were forewarned by Israeli intelligence to skip work on September 11, resulting in no Jewish deaths at the World Trade Center. According to Cinnamon Stillwell, some 9/11 conspiracy theorists put this number as high as 4,000 Jewish people skipping work.[159] This was first reported on September 17 by the Lebanese Hezbollah-owned satellite television channel Al-Manar and is believed to be based on the September 12 edition of the Jerusalem Post that stated "The Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem has so far received the names of 4,000 Israelis believed to have been in the areas of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon at the time of the attacks."[160] The number of Jews who died in the attacks is variously estimated at between 270 and 400.[160][161][162][163] The lower figure tracks closely with the percentage of Jews living in the New York area and partial surveys of the victims' listed religion. The U.S. State Department has published a partial list of 76 in response to claims that fewer Jews/Israelis died in the WTC attacks than should have been present at the time.[160][164] Five Israeli citizens died in the attack.[165] Antisemitism in conspiracy theories In 2003, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) published a report attacking "hateful conspiracy theories" that the 9/11 attacks were carried about by Israelis and Jews, saying they had the potential to "rationalize and fuel global anti-Semitism." It found that such theories were widely accepted in the Arab and Muslim world, as well as in Europe and the United States. The ADL's report found that "The Big Lie has united American far-right extremists and white supremacists and elements within the Arab and Muslim world". It asserted that many of the theories were modern manifestation of the 19th century Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which purported to map out a Jewish conspiracy for world domination.[157][166] The ADL has characterized the Jeff Rense website as carrying anti-Semitic materials, such as "American Jews staged the 9/11 terrorist attacks for their own financial gain and to induce the American people to endorse wars of aggression and genocide on the nations of the Middle East and the theft of their resources for the benefit of Israel".[167] Saudi Arabia British investigative journalists Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan claimed in their 2011 book The Eleventh Hour that the Saudi Royal Family provided material and financial support to the hijackers and that the Bush Administration covered this up as well as their own incompetence. The authors claim the 9/11 Truth movement helped this coverup by deflecting attention away from these actions.[168] In September 2011 a "Lloyd's insurance syndicate" began legal action against Saudi Arabia demanding the repayment of £136m it paid out to victims of the 9/11 attacks. A number of prominent Saudi charities and banks as well as a leading member of the al-Saud royal family were accused of being "agents and alter egos" for the Saudi state that "knowingly" provided funding to Al Queda and encouraged anti Western sentiment.[169] No-planes theory The "no plane theory," promoted by internet-only videos like 911 Taboo,[170] asserts that this shot of the second impact, taken from a news helicopter, depicts a video composite of a Boeing 767 accidentally appearing from behind a Layer Mask. Nico Haupt and former chief economist within the Labor Department under the Bush administration, Morgan Reynolds, argue that no planes were used in the attacks. Reynolds claims it is physically impossible that the Boeing planes of Flights 11 and 175 could have penetrated the steel frames of the Towers, and that digital compositing was used to depict the plane crashes in both news reports and subsequent amateur video.[171] "There were no planes, there were no hijackers," Reynolds insists. "I know, I know, I'm out of the mainstream, but that's the way it is." According to David Shayler, "The only explanation is that they were missiles surrounded by holograms made to look like planes," he says. "Watch footage frame by frame and you will see a cigar-shaped missile hitting the World Trade Center." Truth movement veterans have repeatedly refuted the "no-plane" claims.[76][172][171] Discussion of no plane theories has been banned from certain conspiracy theory websites and advocates have sometimes been threatened with violence by posters at other conspiracy theory websites.[173] Cover-up allegations Conspiracy theorists say they detect a pattern of behavior on the part of officials investigating the September 11 attack meant to suppress the emergence of evidence that might contradict the accepted account.[174][175][176][citation needed] Paul Zarembka, in his book, The Hidden History of 9/11, states that the debris from ground zero was removed without a proper forensic investigation.[177][178] Cockpit recorders According to the 9/11 Commission Report, the cockpit voice recorders (CVR) or flight data recorders (FDR), or "black boxes", from Flights 11 and 175 were not recovered from the remains of the WTC attack; however, two men, Michael Bellone and Nicholas DeMasi, who worked extensively in the wreckage of the World Trade Center, stated in the book Behind-The-Scenes: Ground Zero[179] that they helped federal agents find three of the four "black boxes" from the jetliners:[180][181] At one point I was assigned to take Federal Agents around the site to search for the black boxes from the planes. We were getting ready to go out. My ATV was parked at the top of the stairs at the Brooks Brothers entrance area. We loaded up about a million dollars worth of equipment and strapped it into the ATV. There were a total of four black boxes. We found three.[182] The cockpit voice recorder from Flight 77 was heavily damaged from the impact and resulting fire. According to the 9/11 Commission Report, both black boxes from Flight 77 and both black boxes from Flight 93 were recovered. However, the CVR from Flight 77 was said to be too damaged to yield any data. On April 18, 2002, the FBI allowed the families of victims from Flight 93 to listen to the voice recordings.[183] In April 2006, a transcript of the CVR was released as part of the Zacarias Moussaoui trial.[184] Bin Laden tapes Main article: Videos of Osama bin Laden A series of interviews, audio and videotapes were released in the years following the 9/11 attacks that have were reported to be from Osama bin Laden. In the first of these the speaker denied responsibility for the attacks.[185] In a tape released in December 2001 known as 'the Jalalabad tape' the speaker is alleged to have foreknowledge of the attacks. The Central Intelligence Agency claimed the tape was probably from Osama bin Laden. [citation needed] Some observers, especially people in the Muslim world, doubted the authenticity of the tape.[186] On December 20, 2001, German TV channel "Das Erste" broadcast an analysis of the White House's translation of the videotape. On the program Monitor, two independent translators and an expert on Oriental Studies found the White House's translation to be both inaccurate and manipulative, stating, "At the most important places where it is held to prove the guilt of bin Laden, it is not identical with the Arabic", and that the words used that indicate foreknowledge can not be heard at all in the original. Prof. Gernot Rotter, professor of Islamic and Arabic Studies at the Asia-Africa Institute at the University of Hamburg, said "The American translators who listened to the tapes and transcribed them apparently wrote a lot of things in that they wanted to hear but that cannot be heard on the tape no matter how many times you listen to it."[187] Some members of Scholars for 9/11 Truth believe that the man in this videotape is not Osama bin Laden at all, citing differences in weight and facial features, along with his wearing of a gold ring, which is forbidden by Muslim law, and writing with his right hand although bin Laden was left-handed.[188] In an audiotape released in November 2007, Bin Laden claimed responsibility for the attacks and denied the Taliban and the Afghan government or people had any prior knowledge of the attacks.[189][190][191] In an interview with al-Jazeera, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Ramzi bin al-Shibh, two al-Qaeda masterminds of the attacks, also confessed their involvement in the attacks.[192] Hide CIA recruitment efforts Richard Clarke who headed the government's anti terrorism efforts in 2001 theorized the CIA director George Tenet ordered the agency to withhold information about Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar from the rest of the government in an effort to cover up the agency's recruitment of the two. George Tenet released a statement denying the agency deliberately withheld information about the pair and noted that Clark himself said he had no proof.[193] Motives Pax Americana Main article: Pax Americana In 2006, members of the group Scholars for 9/11 Truth argued that a group of US neo-conservatives called the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), which included Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, set on US world dominance and orchestrated the 9/11 attacks as an excuse to hit Iraq, Afghanistan and later Iran.[194] In September 2000 the PNAC released a strategic treatise entitled Rebuilding America's Defences. David Ray Griffin in his 2004 book The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions About the Bush Administration and 9/11 argued that the treatise may have been the blueprint for 9/11 attacks. Specifically the language in the paper that read "the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor" was describing an alleged motive.[195][196][197] The Defense Planning Guidance of 1992, was drafted by Paul Wolfowitz on behalf of then Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney. This was described as "a blueprint for permanent American global hegemony" by Andrew J. Bacevich in his book American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of U.S. Diplomacy.[198] Matt Taibbi argued in his book The Great Derangement that conspiracy theorists have taken what is written in the paper "completely out of context", and that the "transformation" referenced in the paper is explicitly stated to be a decades-long process to turn the Cold War-era military into a "new, modern military" which could deal with more localized conflicts.[199] He stated that, for this to be evidence of motive, either those responsible would have decided to openly state their objectives, or would have read the paper in 2000 and quickly laid the groundwork for the 9/11 attacks using it as inspiration.[199] Invasions Conspiracy theorists have questioned whether The Oil Factor and 9/11 provided the United States and the United Kingdom with a reason to launch a war they had wanted for some time, and suggest that this gives them a strong motive for either carrying out the attacks, or allowing them to take place. For instance, Andreas von Bülow, a former research minister in the German government, has argued that 9/11 was staged to justify the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.[200] Former Malaysian premiere Mahathir Mohamad was quoted as saying that there was "strong evidence" that the attacks were faked so the United States could go to war against Muslims.[201] New World Order Main article: New World Order (conspiracy theory) Alex Jones and other personalities hold that 9/11 was initiated by a disparate variety of banking, corporate, globalization, and military interests for the purpose of creating a globalist government. Such New World Order conspiracy theories predate 9/11.[63] Suggested historical precedents Conspiracy theorists often point to Operation Northwoods as a model for the 9/11 attacks, theorizing the attacks were carried out by the U.S. government as a false flag operation and then blamed on Islamic extremists.[11][202][203][204] Operation Northwoods was an unimplemented, apparently rejected, plan approved by the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1962. One proposal in the plan suggested that covert operatives commit multiple acts of terrorism in U.S. cities and blame Cuba thus providing a pretext for invasion.[205] Time magazine contrasted events which inspired past conspiracy theories with those that inspire 9/11 conspiracy theories such as the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Time called the public assassination of Kennedy a "private, intimate affair" when compared with the attack on the World Trade Center, which was witnessed by millions of people and documented by hundreds of videographers; and stated, "there is no event so plain and clear that a determined human being can't find ambiguity in it."[52] Proponents Main article: 9/11 Truth movement Many individuals and organizations that support or discuss 9/11 conspiracy theories consider themselves to be part of the 9/11 Truth movement. Prominent adherents of the movement include, among others, theologian David Ray Griffin, physicist Steven E. Jones, software engineer Jim Hoffman, architect Richard Gage, film producer Dylan Avery, former Governor of Minnesota Jesse Ventura, former member of the U.S. House of Representatives Cynthia McKinney,[206] actors Daniel Sunjata, Ed Asner, and Charlie Sheen, political science professor Joseph Diaferia and journalist Thierry Meyssan.[77][207][208] Adherents of the 9/11 Truth movement come from diverse social backgrounds.[209][210][211] The movement draws adherents from people of diverse political beliefs including liberals, conservatives, and libertarians.[211][212][213] Among the organizations that actively discuss and promote such theories are Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, a group that focuses on the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings; 9/11 Truth, founded in 2004; Scholars for 9/11 Truth, founded in 2005, and Scholars for 9/11 Truth & Justice, a group that split from Scholars for 9/11 Truth in 2007 and runs the online publication Journal of 9/11 Studies; 9/11 Citizens Watch, which was already formed in 2002; and the Hispanic Victims Group. Several of these groups have collected signatures on petitions asking for further investigation of the September 11 attacks.[214][215][216] In 2004, John Buchanan ran for president on a 9/11 Truth platform.[217][218] 9/11 Conspiracy theory critic Jonathan Kay asserts that for the most part proponents are not out for financial gain and in some cases have left lucrative careers to become activists.[219] Media reaction While discussion and coverage of these theories is mainly confined to Internet pages, books, documentary films, and conversation, a number of mainstream news outlets around the world have covered the issue. The Norwegian version of the July 2006 Le Monde diplomatique sparked interest when they ran, on their own initiative, a three page main story on the 9/11 attacks and summarized the various types of 9/11 conspiracy theories (which were not specifically endorsed by the newspaper, only recensed).[220] The Voltaire Network, which has changed position since the September 11 attacks and whose director, Thierry Meyssan, became a leading proponent of 9/11 conspiracy theory, explained that although the Norwegian version of Le Monde diplomatique had allowed it to translate and publish this article on its website, the mother-house, in France, categorically refused it this right, thus displaying an open debate between various national editions.[221] In December 2006, the French version published an article by Alexander Cockburn, co-editor of CounterPunch, which strongly criticized the alleged endorsement of conspiracy theories by the U.S. left-wing, alleging that it was a sign of "theoretical emptiness."[222][223] Also, on the Canadian website for CBC News: The Fifth Estate, a program titled, "Conspiracy Theories: uncovering the facts behind the myths of Sept. 11, 2001" was broadcast on October 29, 2003, stating that what they found may be more surprising than any theories.[224] On November 27, 2009, The Fifth Estate aired a documentary entitled The Unofficial Story where several prominent members of the 9/11 Truth Movement made their case.[225][226] An article in the September 11, 2006 edition of Time magazine comments that the major 9/11 conspiracy theories “depend on circumstantial evidence, facts without analysis or documentation, quotes taken out of context and the scattered testimony of traumatized eyewitnesses”, and enjoy continued popularity because “the idea that there is a malevolent controlling force orchestrating global events is, in a perverse way, comforting”. It concludes that “conspiracy theories are part of the process by which Americans deal with traumatic public events” and constitute “an American form of national mourning.”[227] Australian newspaper The Daily Telegraph published an article titled "The CIA couldn't have organised this..." which said "The same people who are making a mess of Iraq were never so clever or devious that they could stage a complex assault on two narrow towers of steel and glass" and "if there is a nefarious plot in all this bad planning, it is one improvised by a confederacy of dunces". This article mainly attacked a group of scientists led by Professor Steven E. Jones, now called Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice. They said "most of them aren't scientists but instructors... at second-rate colleges".[228] The Daily Telegraph also published an article in May 2007 that was highly critical of Loose Change 2, a movie which presents a 9/11 conspiracy theory.[229] Doug MacEachern in a May 2008 column for the Arizona Republic wrote that while many "9/11 truthers" are not crackpots that espouse "crackpot conspiracy theories", supporters of the theories fail to take into account both human nature and that nobody has come forward claiming they were participants in the alleged conspiracies.[230] This view was seconded by Timothy Giannuzzi, a Calgary Herald op-ed columnist specializing in foreign policy.[231] On June 7, 2008, The Financial Times Magazine published a lengthy article on the 9/11 Truth Movement and 9/11 conspiracy theories.[232] Charlie Brooker, a British comedian and multimedia personality, in a July 2008 column published by The Guardian as part of its "Comment is free" series agreed that 9/11 conspiracy theorists fail to take in account human fallacies and added that believing in these theories gives theorists a sense of belonging to a community that shares privileged information thus giving the theorists a delusional sense of power.[233] The commentary generated over 1700 online responses, the largest in the history of the series.[234] In a September 2009 piece, The Guardian were more supportive of 9/11 conspiracy theories however, asking, "when did it become uncool to ask questions? When did questioners become imbeciles?"[235] On September 12, 2008, Russian State Television broadcast in prime time a documentary made by Member of the European Parliament Giulietto Chiesa entitled Zero, sympathetic to those who question the accepted account of the attacks according to Chiesa. According to Thierry Meyssan in conjunction with the documentary, Russian State Television aired a debate on the subject. The panel consisted of members from several countries including 12 Russians who hold divergent views. The motive of Russian State Television in broadcasting the documentary was questioned by a commentator from The Other Russia who noted that Russian State Television had a history of broadcasting programs involving conspiracy theories involving the United States government.[236][237][238] Nasir Mahmood in a commentary printed by the Pakistan Observer wrote favorably about a 9/11 truth lecture and film festival held in California and quoted a Jewish speaker at that festival who said that none of the 19 suspected hijackers had been proven guilty of anything and compared racism against Muslims resulting from what he called false accusations to the racism against Jews in the Nazi era.[239] On November 10, 2008, ITN broadcast a story summarizing various 9/11 conspiracy theories.[240] The emergence of the birther movement in 2009 has led to comparisons between that movement and the 9/11 Truth movement, with both movements seen in a very negative light. Moon Landing conspiracy theories have also been compared to the birther and 9/11 conspiracy theories. James Borne, a journalist for The New York Times who covered the September 11 Attacks, described his assignment covering a 9/11 truth meeting "Perhaps the most intellectually scary assignment I have had in recent years".[241][242][243][244] On August 31, 2009, the National Geographic Channel aired the program 9/11 Science and Conspiracy, in which the Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center tested some of the claims frequently made by those who question the accepted 9/11 account. Specifically, the experiments concluded that burning jet fuel alone can sufficiently raise the temperature of a steel support column to the point of structural failure, that a controlled demolition using conventional techniques would leave clear evidence that was not found at Ground Zero, that using thermite is not an effective technique to melt a steel column, and that even if thermite chemical signatures were found, it would be impossible to tell if thermite was actually used or if the traces came from the reaction of aircraft aluminum with other substances in the fire. The testing also concluded that the type of hole found at the Pentagon was consistent with the standard scenario, and that damage from a bombing or missile attack would differ from the damage that occurred. In the program, several prominent 9/11 conspiracy theorists viewed rough edits of the experiments, and expressed their disagreement with the findings.[245][246] The British left wing magazine New Statesman listed David Ray Griffin as the 41st most important person who matters today. The magazine said that Griffin's "books on the subject have lent a sheen of respectability that appeals to people at the highest levels of government". The publication listed 9/11 conspiracy thories as "one of the most pernicious global myths".[247] Griffin's book The New Pearl Harbor Revisited was chosen by Publishers Weekly as a "Pick of the Week" in November 2008.[248] Denver public television KBDI-TV has aired 9/11 truth documentaries several times. The stations spokesperson claimed airing these documentaries has been a boon for the stations fund raising efforts.[249] Glenn Beck, television and radio host, said of the allegations: "There are limits to debasement of this country, aren't there? I mean, it's one thing to believe that our politicians are capable of being Bernie Madoff. It's another to think that they are willing to kill 3,000 Americans. Once you cross that line, you're in a whole new territory."[250] In March 2010 The Washington Post editorialized against Yukihisa Fujita, a prominent Japanese politician who has espoused 9/11 conspiracy theories. They described Fujita as a man "susceptible to the imaginings of the lunatic fringe". It went on to say that the U.S.-Japan alliance would be "severely tested" if Fujita's party continued to tolerate these kinds of comments.[251] For the ninth anniversary of the attacks the Egyptian daily Almasry Alyoum published an article questioning the US government story and promoting conspiracy theories. The senior analyst for the semi-official Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies and a member of Parliament from the Muslim Brotherhood was quoted.[252] Gordon Farrer, the technology editor for The Age, theorized in a November 2010 column for the Sydney Morning Herald that the popularity of 9/11 conspiracy theories was a result of two main factors. One revolved around the personality traits of the theorists themselves (cynical, anxious, belief that they are free thinkers). The second revolved around the high internet search ranking 9/11 conspiracy theories receive leading to a false air of authority to the theories. Speaking of the theorists Farrer wrote that "when politicians and media don’t give them voice they feel more threatened, more suspicious, cornered, helpless; and so they go on the attack".[253] Geraldo Rivera, the host of Geraldo At Large, a news magazine run by Fox News Channel, expressed openness towards claims that question the causes of the collapse of 7 World Trade Center.[254] Andrew Napolitano, a legal analyst for Fox News and former judge at the New Jersey Superior Court, voiced support for scepticism about the collapse of the high-rise building, and for Rivera investigating the event.[254] Other media, such as Newsbusters and Media Matters, criticized the comments made by both journalists.[254] Alex Jones was fired by 70 radio stations when he began espousing 9/11 conspiracy theories, but by 2011 was espousing these and other conspiracy theories on morning TV shows and was the subject of lengthy magazine profiles[41][255] On August 29, 2010 the BBC Two broadcast a program entitled The Conspiracy Files: 9/11 – Ten Years On.[90] On September 5, 2011 The Guardian published an article entitled, "9/11 conspiracy theories debunked". The article noted that unlike the collapse of World Trade Centers 1 and 2 a controlled demolition collapses a building from the bottom and explains that the windows popped because of collapsing floors. The article also said there are conspiracy theories that claim that World trade Center 7 was also downed by a controlled demolition, that the Pentagon being hit by a missile, that the hijacked planes were packed with explosives and flown by remote control, that Israel was behind the attacks, that a plane headed for the Pentagon was shot down by a missile, that there was insider trading by people who had foreknowledge of the attacks were all false.[256] Toure Neblett, who has Tweeted his suspicions about the attack on the Pentagon, is one of the hosts of the MSNBC program The Cycle, which debuted on June 25, 2012.[257] In popular culture In June 2005 the popular German public broadcaster ARD murder mystery program Tatort ran an episode in which a woman who claims the 9/11 attacks were instigated by the Bush family for oil and power is targeted by FBI and CIA hitmen after her roommate is found dead. The roommate was trained to be one of the 9/11 hijackers, but was left behind. The episode, viewed by 7 million people, ended with detectives who were investigating the death believing her story and the woman escaping to an unnamed Arab country.[258] In season 10 of the animated show South Park, the episode "Mystery of the Urinal Deuce" centers around 9/11 conspiracy theories. After Eric Cartman, a main character in the show, blames Kyle Broflovski for causing 9/11, Kyle and his friend Stan Marsh end up in the White House, where they are told that the government did in fact cause the 9/11 attacks. They escape, and eventually it is revealed that the government wants people to think that they caused 9/11, so that they think the government has more power than it does.[259] A Rescue Me episode featured a character played by actor Daniel Sunjata (who is a 9/11 conspiracy theorist) explaining to a French journalist that the 9/11 attacks were a “neoconservative government effort” to create a new Pearl Harbor to control oil and increase military spending.[260][261] According to Denis Leary, major plot lines in the first 10 episodes of the show's season 5 revolved around reinvestigation and conspiracy theories surrounding the 9/11 attacks.[262] The plot for a comic book entitled The Big Lie, released in September 2011, revolves around a scientist going back in time to the day of the attacks with the intention of preventing it, in the process finding out that the official story is false.[263] Criticism Critics of these conspiracy theories say they are a form of conspiracism common throughout history after a traumatic event in which conspiracy theories emerge as a mythic form of explanation.[264] A related criticism addresses the form of research on which the theories are based. Thomas W. Eagar, an engineering professor at MIT, suggested they "use the 'reverse scientific method'. They determine what happened, throw out all the data that doesn't fit their conclusion, and then hail their findings as the only possible conclusion." Eagar's criticisms also exemplify a common stance that the theories are best ignored. "I've told people that if the argument gets too mainstream, I'll engage in the debate." According to him, this happened when Steve Jones, a physics professor at Brigham Young University, took up the issue.[265] Michael Shermer, writing in Scientific American, said: "The mistaken belief that a handful of unexplained anomalies can undermine a well-established theory lies at the heart of all conspiratorial thinking. All the evidence for a 9/11 conspiracy falls under the rubric of this fallacy. Such notions are easily refuted by noting that scientific theories are not built on single facts alone but on a convergence of evidence assembled from multiple lines of inquiry."[266] Scientific American,[266] Popular Mechanics,[267] and The Skeptic's Dictionary[268] have published articles that rebut various 9/11 conspiracy theories. Popular Mechanics has published a book entitled Debunking 9/11 Myths that expands upon the research first presented in the article.[269] In the foreword for the book Senator John McCain wrote that blaming the U.S. government for the events "mars the memories of all those lost on that day" and "exploits the public's anger and sadness. It shakes Americans' faith in their government at a time when that faith is already near an all-time low. It trafficks in ugly, unfounded accusations of extraordinary evil against fellow Americans."[270] Der Spiegel dismissed 9/11 conspiracy theories as a "panoply of the absurd", stating "as diverse as these theories and their adherents may be, they share a basic thought pattern: great tragedies must have great reasons."[271] Journalist Matt Taibbi, in his book The Great Derangement, discusses 9/11 conspiracy theories as symptomatic of what he calls the "derangement" of American society; a disconnection from reality due to widespread "disgust with our political system".[199] Drawing a parallel with the Charismatic movement, he argues that both "chose to battle bugbears that were completely idiotic, fanciful, and imaginary," instead of taking control of their own lives.[199] While critical, Taibbi explains that 9/11 conspiracy theories are different from "Clinton-era black-helicopter paranoia", and constitute more than "a small, scattered group of nutcases [...] they really were, just as they claim to be, almost everyone you meet."[199] Historian Kenneth J. Dillon argues that 9/11 conspiracy theories represent an overly easy target for skeptics and that their criticisms obfuscate the underlying issue of what actually happened if there was not a conspiracy. He suggests that the answer is criminal negligence on the part of the president and vice president, who were repeatedly warned, followed by a cover-up conspiracy after 9/11.[272][undue weight? – discuss] This was expanded upon by columnist Matt Mankelow writing for the online edition of the British Socialist Worker. He concludes that 9/11 truthers while "desperately trying to legitimately question a version of events" end up playing into the hands of the neoconservatives they are trying to take down by creating a diversion. Mankelow noted that this has irritated many people who are politically left wing.[273] David Aaronovitch, a columnist for The Times, in his book entitled Voodoo Histories: The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History that was published in May 2009, claimed that the theories strain credulity.[76] Aaronovitch also charged that 9/11 conspiracy theorists have exaggerated the expertise of those supporting their theories, and noted that 9/11 conspiracy theorists including David Ray Griffin cross cite each other.[274] Harvard Law professor Cass Sunstein co-authored a 2009 paper which used members of the 9/11 Truth movement and others as an examples of people who suffer from “crippled epistemologies,” to public trust and the political system. He wrote that "They do not merely undermine democratic debate...In extreme cases, they create or fuel violence. If government can dispel such theories, it should do so.”[41] In June 2011 the Royal Institute of British Architects was criticized for hosting a lecture by Richard Gage, president of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth. Rick Bell, the director of the American Institute of Architects New York chapter, who was a witness to the 9/11 attacks, said that “no amount of money” would persuade him to allow the group to talk at his headquarters and stated that Gage lacks credibility among the professional community. Eugine Kohn, former spokesperson for the American Institute of Architects, said Gage's theories were "ridiculous", "There were no explosives planted”, and “The buildings were definitely brought down by the planes". The decision to host the event was also criticized by the former president of the Royal Institute of British Architects and the founding president of the American Institute of Architects United Kingdom chapter. Gage has been warned by the AIA against giving a false impression that he has a relationship with them. A July article in the organizations magazine criticized Gage for continuing to intimate that he has an association with them and claimed there were no architects at a Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth screening held in an American Institute of Architects boardroom [275] The Royal Institute of British Architects released a statement saying the perception that the group endorses events held in its buildings is "regrettable", and said they would review policy on "private hire" of its buildings.[276] Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan offer scathing criticism of many of the above theories in The Eleventh Day, their 2011 investigation of the attacks.[277]. U.S. representative Peter T. King, chairmen of the House Homeland Security Committee, said 9/11 conspiracy theorists "trivialize" the "most tragic event to affect the United States" and that "People making these claims are disgraceful, and they should be ashamed of themselves".[278] In politics Former Canadian Liberal Party leader Stéphane Dion forced a candidate from Winnipeg, Lesley Hughes, to terminate her campaign after earlier writings from Hughes surfaced in which Hughes wrote that U.S., German, Russian and Israeli intelligence officials knew about the 9/11 attacks in advance.[279][280] Earlier, Peter Kent, Deputy Editor of Global Television Network News and Conservative Party candidate in the 2008 Canadian election, had called for Hughes's resignation saying that the 9/11 Truth movement is "one of Canada’s most notorious hatemongering fringe movements" composed of "conspiracy theorists who are notorious for holding anti-Semitic views."[281] On June 16, 2009, Hughes sued Kent, the Canadian Jewish Congress, the B'nai B'rith of Canada and four senior members of the two organizations alleging the antisemitic allegations were untrue and defamatory and ruined her career.[282] Later another Conservative Party candidate called for the leader of the New Democratic Party to fire a candidate for her pro 9/11 truth views.[283] Zijad Delic head of Canada's largest Muslim advocacy organization, the Canadian Islamic Congress is trying to remove 9/11 conspiracy theorists from the board of the organization, in an effort to what he describes as purifying within and totally canadianize the organization.[284] In 2008 calls for the resignation of Richard Falk, the special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories for the United Nations, were partially based on his support investigating the validity of 9/11 conspiracy theories.[285] In 2011 Falk praised a book by David Ray Griffen. Falk was condemned for his remarks by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and United States ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice.[286] In February 2009, Aymeric Chauprade (fr), a professor of geopolitics at CID military college in Paris, was fired by French Defence Minister Hervé Morin for writing a book entitled Chronicle of the Clash of Civilizations that espoused 9/11 conspiracy theories.[287] In September 2009 Van Jones, an adviser to US President Barack Obama, resigned after his signature on a 2004 petition calling for an investigation into whether government officials deliberately allowed the 9/11 attacks to occur and other controversial statements came to light drawing criticism. Van Jones said he was a victim of a smear campaign, adding that he does not currently, nor ever has agreed with that theory.[288] 9/11 conspiracy theorist critic David Aaronovitch claims the popularity of 9/11 conspiracy theories has hurt the War on Terror. According to Aaronovitch, because a significant portion of educated Pakistanis believe that George W. Bush brought the towers down, dealing with the Taliban is difficult “because they actually don't believe the fundamental premise on which the war against terror was waged”.[289] The 9/11 truth movement became an issue in the 2010 Texas Gubernatorial Republican primary when candidate Debra Medina replied when asked by Glenn Beck about US government involvement in the 9/11 attacks: "I think some very good questions have been raised in that regard, there are some very good arguments, and I think the American people have not seen all of the evidence there, so I have not taken a position on that." After being criticized for the remarks by opposing candidates, Medina stated that she has never been a 9/11 truth movement member and believes the twin towers were attacked by Muslim terrorists.[290][291] On September 23, 2010 Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a speech to the United Nations said that "The majority of the American people, as well as other nations and politicians, believe...some segments within the U.S. government orchestrated the attack to reverse the declining U.S. economy and its grips on the Middle East in order also to save the Zionist regime". The remarks prompted the United States delegation as well as others to walk out.[292] U.S. President Barack Obama criticized Ahmadinejad's remarks before the United Nations General Assembly on the following day, saying, "For him to make a statement like that was inexcusable" and called the remarks "offensive" and "hateful."[293] Previously Ahmadinejad had described the 9/11 attacks as a "suspect event"[294] and suggested that the Bush Administration was involved in 9/11.[295][296] The Iranian president repeated his claims in 2011 and was criticized in an article appearing Al Queada's magazine. The article claimed Ahmadinejad was jealous of Al Queada.[297] Legal Cases Army specialist April Gallup filed suit claiming that Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and other Bush administration officials orchestrated the 9/11 attacks and the Pentagon was hit by an attack ordered by Cheney. The suit was dismissed in 2010 by Judge Denny Chin, who said the claim was "the product of cynical delusion and fantasy". Her lawyers filed an appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals which in April 2010 issued a show cause order why the lawyers and Gallup should not be sanctioned for filing a frivolous lawsuit. Her lawyers asked that the judges on the Court of Appeals recuse themselves because their emotions made them prejudge the case and abuse their power. On October 14, 2011 the judges sanctioned her lawyers $15,000 each for both the frivolous lawsuits and the accusations of prejudice. Gallup was not fined because of her unfamiliarity with the
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