- "I've been reading about the Flight 800 cover-up
on WorldNetDaily. So far, the facts are convincing that the events did
not happen as the official explanation describes. I only have one question
though, why? Why would anyone want the people responsible to get away with
this?
-
- - A WND reader
- The question above is of the sort we hear most often:
How could a conspiracy of such magnitude occur in modern America and why
would the government and the media allow the conspirators to "get
away with this.
- A good question. The answer can be traced to two variables,
one a person, Bill Clinton, the other a date, 1996. Everything else derives
from the two. Our liberal allies in this cause would rather not hear this--and
their support is all the more honorable for its lack of political reinforcement--but
the story makes no sense without this understanding.
- In 1992, a reported 89% of Washington correspondents
voted for Bill Clinton (one of the bases of our generalizations about the
major media). If, inevitably, they did not hold him to the same standards
they would with a Republican president, they did not give him a free pass,
at least not in those first two years. The election of 1994, however, changed
all that.
- The Republican rout shook the media elite to the bottom
of their very souls. Peter Jennings referred to it on air as a "temper
tantrum. More than a few of his colleagues openly stereotyped Republican
voters as "angry white men. The anxiety within media circles was palpable
and profound. With Congress lost, the largely Democrat media reflexively
closed ranks around their remaining standard bearer, President Clinton.
Their role subtly shifted from pursuers of the truth to protectors of the
President.
- This shift became evident at Oklahoma City. As soon as
Timothy McVeigh was apprehended--just three months after Gingrich assumed
power-- the major media seized on him as the inevitable consequence of
the "Republican revolution and its primary organ, "hate radio.
- "Words have consequences, Clinton piously intoned.
The media echoed the refrain. They had little interest in finding the "others
unknown who were likely involved in the bombing. It would only obscure
the clarity of the image they had already presented to America. Their collective
failure to pursue obvious leads was as shocking and unprecedented as the
FBI,s.
- As to President Clinton, he never looked back. He proved
masterly at manipulating the victims, families and massaging his own ratings.
With the media,s help he climbed above 50% public approval at Oklahoma
City for the first time in ages and never fell below again. The Republican
revolution was buried in the rubble, and a politically revived Bill Clinton
understood how and why.
- In July of 1996, the resurgent Clinton knew he would
easily beat Bob Dole in November. Only a catastrophe could deny him the
one goal that inspired his every breath--reelection. On the night of July
17, he was presented with just such a catastrophe.
- There is no doubt that the official investigation into
the crash was compromised from the beginning and ultimately corrupted.
(Please see our previous WND articles for details). What follows is a conjecture
on the psychology of that corruption based on the facts of the case and
eight years of close observance of the Clinton White House.
- What motive, a skeptic might ask, would the White House
have to risk so epic a cover-up? From the beginning of his term, Clinton,s
greatest political vulnerability had been his tenuous grip on the role
of Commander-in-Chief. If terrorists had been able to infiltrate American
coastal waters and blow a 747 out of the sky, Bill Clinton,s re-election
would have been seriously jeopardized. If the plane had been downed by
mistake in the course of high tech war games staged close to shore to accommodate
Democratic fat cats, Bill Clinton,s political career would have ended.
- There was no "win in this situation. No Timothy
McVeigh was about to emerge from central casting. Regardless of who shot
down the plane--and White House insiders knew immediately--they had to
play for time. If the results of the investigation could be pushed back
at least until after November, Clinton would survive.
- So White House operatives moved immediately to kill the
missile story that was being broadcast on CNN and the networks. Within
24 hours, the administration line, parroted by the media, was that no one
knew for sure what caused the crash but that all leads were being pursued.
- This approach sounded prudent and reasonable. The 736
official eyewitnesses believed it. The thousands of professionals and volunteers
who labored mightily to retrieve the wreckage believed it. The victims,
families believed it. The President and Mrs. Clinton descended upon Long
Island and assuaged the anxieties of these families only the way the President
could. As at Oklahoma City, he would make them his allies and his shield.
As late as a month ago, former NTSB managing director Peter Goelz would
cite their sensitivities in his attack on the authors of this article.
So would NTSB Chairman Jim Hall when he urged the Judge to throw the book
at James and Liz Sanders in their conspiracy trial:
- ". . . this is not a so-called victimless crime
. . . . These defendants have traumatized the families with the release
of misinformation, the only plausible cause of which is commercial gain."
- In the first weeks and months, government information
control was hesitant and imperfect. Looking back at the investigation,
one sees signs of improvisation and internal struggle everywhere. It would
be a year or more before ranks closed and the story line solidified--when
insiders began to sense that they would, in fact, be able "to get
away with this.
- If White House behavior reveals a certain perverse logic,
the motives of the rank and file seem less clear. Why would so many professionals
so willingly participate in so high risk a cover-up? Again, the answer
is simpler than it might appear: they did not believe that they were doing
something wrong.
- For most participants in the investigation, the work
was so narrowly (and purposely) compartmentalized that they could pursue
it in good faith without qualm. The smaller number that could see the larger
picture were likely told that "national security demanded that information
be contained and controlled. This rationale would have justified--in their
own minds at least-- the otherwise criminal obstruction in which they participated.
- Dr. David Mayer comes to mind here. Those who have seen
the video Silenced know him as the preening, obsequious NTSB staffer (A
"sniveling sycophant in the memorable words of one observer) responsible
for discrediting the eyewitness testimony. Although his every utterance
was tortured and disingenuous, Mayer seems to have blinded himself to the
mischief he was sowing. He labored sincerely at his work and literally
beamed when praised by his superiors.
- As testament to the seductive powers of "blindness,
recall how many otherwise intelligent staffers--the Secretary of State
among them--chose to believe and spread Clinton,s painfully obvious lies
about Monica Lewinsky. (A story that broke one month after the first NTSB
hearing) Some, like Sidney Blumenthal, risked their freedom and their fortunes
to preserve the illusion of truth. Some others, like Vernon Jordan, knew
it all to be a fraud but found themselves in too deep to extricate themselves.
- If there is a Vernon Jordan in the TWA 800 affair, it
would have to be FBI agent-in-charge Jim Kallstrom. With his boss, Louis
Freeh, nowhere to be seen--Freeh,s superiors may not have trusted him enough
to involve him--Kallstrom ran the show. But one senses in Kallstrom, unlike
Mayer, a consciousness of the enormity of this undertaking and a deep unease
about his own role in it.
- Indeed, according to Marge Gross, whose brother died
in the crash, Kallstrom confided in her that a missile had in fact brought
down the plane. "But, he reportedly added, "If you quote me,
I,ll deny it. One can only guess what pressure was exerted upon Kallstrom
to make him honor the party line, but the moment the FBI quit the case,
Kallstrom quit the FBI.
- As to Jim Hall, Bill Clinton did not name him chairman
of the NTSB without reason. If the Washington Post believed Hall,s best
qualification to be "his driver,s license, Bill Clinton knew it to
be his loyalty. In a pinch, this Gore crony from Tennessee could be trusted.
In the Flight 800 affair, preposterous as it might seem, Hall would play
much the role Ken Starr did with Lewinsky--the chief investigator. But
Hall was not about to find the "semen-stained dress of this investigation.
This loyal good-old-boy knew enough not to look.
- Still, it is highly unlikely that Hall or Kallstrom or
Mayer or Mayer,s boss, Bernard Loeb, orchestrated the cover-up. That agent
had to come from either the White House or the Justice Department, a political
operative with the power, inherent or imparted, to force the FBI on the
NTSB, the CIA on the FBI, and the military out of the picture altogether.
This was the one person who could not deceive himself--or herself--that
the misdirection of the investigation was "a matter of national security.
- But surely someone who could see what was going on would
break ranks? 747 pilot and manager Terry Stacey, TWA,s number two man on
the investigation, certainly tried to. He leaked information to investigative
reporter James Sanders who promptly and fairly reported it. The Feds arrested
them both for their troubles, as well as Sanders, wife Liz, and convicted
the Sanders on a bogus conspiracy rap. As to the major media--the ones
who had made a hero out of Daniel Ellsberg a generation earlier for a much
graver breach of security--they stood by mutely and watched.
- If workers at the Calverton Hangar on Long island needed
instruction in the ways of Clinton Justice, the Stacey incident provided
it. The FBI had reportedly warned them that to even talk about the explosion
with outsiders was to risk prosecution, and now no one doubted the FBI.
Investigators found their phones bugged for a year after they had left
the hangar.
- As to the military, if it had been in any way responsible
for the crash--a big if--the pressure brought to bear on witnesses to the
truth would have been greater still. As would become evident, Defense Secretary
Bill Cohen had a high tolerance for White House-inspired illegalities.
This he would prove in his conspicuous failure to punish those staffers
responsible for the criminal release of Linda Tripp,s confidential files.
Top military must have known this about him.
-
- Besides, if a witness did wish to talk, who would listen?
Major Fritz Meyer stared the explosion in its face from his National Guard
helicopter and has never hesitated to tell what he saw. The major networks
have ignored him or slighted him. Christine Negroni, reporter and author
of Deadly Departure, went further still, suggesting that Meyer was a right
wing whack job and, in a stunningly low blow, inferred that he might even
be a Holocaust denier. One senses in her a willingness to defame the other
735 witnesses if she,d had to.
-
- Negroni and fellow establishment reporter, Pat Milton,
each had major publishers for their TWA 800 books, big time talk show bookings,
and respectful reviews in The New York Times. Like most of the network
reporting, these books hewed to the government line with a doggedness that
would make Edward R. Murrow squirm in his grave. Said The New York Times
review in perfunctory praise of Milton,s In The Blink of An Eye, it "avoids
the pitfalls of conspiracy mongering.
-
- From the perspective of the major media, to seek the
truth about the Clinton administration was to monger conspiracy. They would
leave this unpleasant task to the alternative media and reject all evidence
short of DNA. Indeed, in their cynicism and passivity, it was they, Bill
Clinton,s media friends, who undid his presidency. Had they ever shamed
him into honoring his office, he might have become the president they once
thought he could be.
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