- Gus W. Weiss, 72, adviser to four presidents on top secret
policy matters, died violently in Washington, DC, on November 25, 2003,
but his death was not reported by The Washington Post until December 7,
2003, in the obitiuary section at the bottom of page C12. His home town
newspaper, The Nashville Tennessean, was only a week late in reporting
his death, but at that late date all they could say was, "The circumstances
surrounding his death could not be confirmed last night."
-
- Readers of The Tennessean http://www.tennessean.com/obits/archives/03/11/43368774.
- shtml?Element_ID=43368774 might have had their suspicions
aroused not only by the delay in the reporting of this important man's
death, but also by the very next sentence in the article: "Friends
of Mr. Weiss expressed shock at his death."
-
- But the article is not at all clear as to why that might
have been the case. The man was already two years past our allotted three
score years and ten, after all. Subsequent passages in the article only
heighten the mystery:
-
- "Driven by an insatiable intellectual curiosity
and a desire to solve foreign policy problems, Mr. Weiss devoted his life
to his career, friends recalled. He served as assistant to the secretary
of defense for space policy and on the Pentagon Defense Science Board and
the U.S. Intelligence Board under President Carter. Mr. Weiss was a foreign
affairs officer and member of the National Security Council under Presidents
Nixon, Ford and Reagan."
-
- "Mr. Weiss...was involved in numerous intelligence
projects, and friends said there were many aspects of his career he could
never discuss with them."
-
- '''He was wired into the intelligence community, and
there were a lot of mystical secrets we weren't privy to,' said Harris
Gilbert, a Nashville attorney who had been friends with Mr. Weiss since
childhood. 'He was very interested in diplomatic strategy and was VERY,
VERY OPPOSED TO THE IRAQ WAR. It was the first military action he ever
opposed, but he believed we shouldn't go to war in the Middle East without
knowing what we were getting into.''' (emphasis added)
-
- Might it not appear that if one is sufficiently connected
to power, strong opposition to our ongoing naked aggression in the fertile
crescent could well be fatal?
-
- Let's see if The Post's belated obituary
- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42132-2003Dec6.html
- clears matters up, or muddies the waters further:
-
- Gus W. Weiss, 72, a former White House policy adviser
on technology, intelligence, and economic affairs, died Nov. 25 of a fall
from the Watergate East residential building in the District. The D.C.
medical examiner ruled his death a suicide.
-
- A spokesman for the D.C. police said that officers found
his body at a service entrance to the apartment cooperative. Dr. Weiss
lived in the building.
-
- Dr. Weiss was a graduate of Vanderbilt University in
his native Nashville. He received a master's degree in business from Harvard
University and a doctorate in economics from New York University, where
he also taught.
-
- He served on the staff of the National Security Council
under Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan. In the
Ford administration, he was also executive director of the White House
Council on International Economic Policy.
-
- Much of his government work centered on national security,
intelligence organizations and concerns over technology transfers to communist
countries. As an adviser to the Central Intelligence Agency, he served
on the Pentagon's Defense Science Board and the Signals Intelligence Committee
of the U.S. Intelligence Board.
-
- During the Carter administration, Dr. Weiss was assistant
for space policy to the secretary of defense.
-
- His honors included the CIA's Medal for Merit and the
National Security Agency's Cipher Medal. He was awarded the French Legion
of Honor in 1975 for helping resolve national security concerns over a
joint venture between General Electric's aircraft engine division and a
French jet engine company.
-
- Since 1992, Dr. Weiss had been a guest lecturer at George
Washington University, where he spoke about his experiences in the government.
He was also adviser to the dean of arts and sciences and established a
cash prize awarded to a top physics student.
-
- His interests included piano and history.
-
- There are no immediate survivors. (end obituary)
-
- In other words, if we may paraphrase The Post: "Would
you believe it was a suicide?"
-
- On what basis did the medical examiner rule that it was
a suicide? On what basis could any mere medical examiner so rule, particularly
when someone has died from a fall, presumably from a high altitude? All
a medical doctor is qualified to do is to determine the cause of death.
That, we are told, was "a fall from the Watergate East residential
building." How does the medical examiner know what caused the fall?
-
- Even in the case of the May 1949 death of former Secretary
of Defense James Forrestal, the official investigation of his death concluded
only that Forrestal died from wounds inflicted by a fall from the 16th
floor of the Bethesda Naval Hospital, but it remained agnostic on the cause
of the fall. In this instance we are not told even approximately how far
the victim fell or precisely where he fell from, but the medical examiner,
for some unstated reason, is certain it was a suicide.
-
- Interestingly, The Post doesn't even name the medical
examiner. It doesn't even name the police spokesman who did no more than
tell us approximately where the body was found.
-
- I'm sorry, but all this sounds more than a bit suspicious
to me.
-
- DC Dave
-
- Author, "Who Killed James Forrestal?"
- "America's Dreyfus Affair, The Case of the Death
of Vincent Foster"
- "Upton Sinclair and Timothy McVeigh" "Seventeen
Techniques for Truth Suppression"
- <http://www.thebird.org/host/dcdave>http://www.thebird.org/host/dcdave
- News group: alt.thebird
|
