Posted on 05/23/2004 5:27:07 PM PDT by Peach
Ron Brown could tell tales from the grave
By DAWN HARRIS Special to The Star
You'd think that after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, we'd have learned our lesson. We didn't.
As with JFK's murder in 1963, two recent events have been marked by conspiracy theories and bungled investigations: the crash of TWA Flight 800 and the plane crash that killed then Commerce Secretary Ron Brown.
But don't count Kansas City author Jack Cashill as a garden-variety conspiracy theorist. Although the title of his new book suggests both the conspiratorial and the partisan, Cashill bends over backward to include the most benign of explanations to a most disturbing case.
Ron Brown's Body: How One Man's Death Saved the Clinton Presidency and Hillary's Future will be like salt in wounds for many of Bill Clinton's defenders, yet not nearly salty enough for his adversaries. In it, Cashill paints a human and sympathetic portrait of Brown, Clinton's Secretary of Commerce.
Cashill depicts Brown with the help of details provided by Nolanda Hill, Brown's longtime business partner and lover, also the subject of numerous investigations related to Brown's activities. Hill seems to have poured out her heart — and her recollections — to Cashill because she became convinced that he wanted to discover what really happened to Brown and his doomed 1996 flight to Dubrovnik, Croatia.
The tale is a twisted one. At times, especially early in the work, Cashill seems to have six synapses firing at once and doesn't know which one to follow. But as the narrative unfolds, that sense gives way to riveting storytelling.
Brown made frequent trade missions to foreign countries, often with leaders of industry in tow. His aim was to smooth the way for these Americans to conduct business with other countries.
Cashill reports that the way for an American businessman to get a seat on one of those missions was to make a substantial contribution to the Democratic National Committee, which was producing ads at the time for the presidential campaign in an effort to get around campaign contribution and spending limits. Once these businessmen made such contributions, they expected something in return — something Brown was expected to deliver.
As the 1996 election approached, Brown was sent on more of these trade missions. On the ill-fated trip, he was to be accompanied by executives of Enron Corp. But those executives traveled to Dubrovnik on a plane that landed about an hour ahead of the time at which the secretary was to arrive.
He never made it. On April 3, the plane on which he was traveling with 34 other people veered off course and crashed into St. John's Peak. Investigators did not locate the wreckage until hours later, and the one woman to survive impact died on the way to the hospital.
The story might have ended there. But there was something odd about Ron Brown's lifeless body. He had suffered a circular wound in the top of his head. Some military investigators and photographers noticed what appeared to them to be a bullet hole. But strangely, no mention of the symmetrically shaped cylinder appeared in any report on the crash, and although an Air Force doctor examined Brown's body, a full autopsy was not ordered.
This is the nexus at which a conspiracy is born. Had investigators simply performed an autopsy, all the questions could have been answered. But they didn't.
Cashill has a theory about exactly what happened to Ron Brown (which I leave for the reader to discover) and why it happened. The “why” involves Brown's apparent knowledge of the Clintons' involvement in using international means, including ties with China, in what may have been blatant circumventions of campaign finance law. Cashill goes to great pains to make clear the difference between what has been documented and what he surmises from the evidence.
Cashill meticulously researched this work, consulting with experts on everything from campaign finance law to aircraft navigation systems to encryption technology to Ron Brown's life, personal and professional.
In scrupulous detail, the author chronicles Brown's life as the young lawyer made his way through Washington and became entwined in Democratic politics. He connects the dots between Brown and President Clinton. But he does not lay blame at Clinton's doorstep, as some might expect. Cashill doesn't let Brown off the hook for getting himself entangled in a life of power grabs and money lust. He does view Brown as a tragic figure, someone who had potential but who was spoiled by license and largesse.
We don't know if fate or force brought that plane down in Dubrovnik. Cashill emphasizes that it is entirely possible that what happened to Ron Brown was an accident riddled with unfortunate coincidence. But Cashill, who holds a doctorate in American studies, knows a conspiracy is hard to come by without someone acting as if someone had something to hide.
After living through the aftermath of the Kennedy assassination, one would think that, in similar circumstances, all possible leads would be followed so that the ghosts that haunt us from that fateful day in Dallas would not multiply but be cast into the light and disappear. But because of the action (or inaction) of investigators, questions linger over Brown's death.
Cashill also recently investigated the crash of TWA Flight 800, and because this book comes on the heels of that, some might dismiss him as just another too-eager conspiracy theorist. That would be a harmful oversimplification. Many others have taken issue with the official findings on Flight 800, including Cap Parlier, a respected former Navy test pilot who co-wrote a book on the crash.
As for Ron Brown's Body, the book does sound shrill notes now and again and takes a partisan shot here and there. But if half of what Cashill writes is true, all Americans, regardless of political affiliations, should demand a full investigation into Ron Brown's activities as Commerce Secretary and into the circumstances of his death.
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Cashill at Unity
Jack Cashill will discuss and sign Ron Brown's Body: How One Man's Death Saved the Clinton Presidency and Hillary's Future, at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Unity Temple on the Plaza, 707 W. 47th St. For more information call Rainy Day Books at (913) 384-3126.
wheres jfk jr. buried?
An obviously distraught Clinton after Brown's funeral.
I'll see that Barbara Wise, and raise ya a Jerry Parks! ;)
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...JUDICIAL WATCH Founder and former Chairman LARRY KLAYMAN has been telling us on Talk Radio ever since the Death of RON BROWN that the man did have a meeting with BILL CLINTON.
...In that meeting BROWN told CLINTON that he was going to cooperate with JUDICIAL WATCH's Deposition and Congressional Investigators =
ALOHA RON BROWN
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He was there to help secure a sweetheart deal for non other than.....Enron.
beat you by 3 minutes ha ha
That never should have happened and dishonored our soldiers, imo.
And why did their families not object? Payoff?
bttt
Hmm, that whole looks about the width of a cigar...
whole=hole.
Damn. Always the bridesmaid, never the bride.
bump
Fear, implied or otherwise, I don't know.
It's just truly odd that the bodies were ordered cremated.
Weird.
If they were payed off, there might be a record of some type out there.
I'm not a finance type by nature, so I'm useless in chasing that idea down, I wouldn't know where or how to look for the info much less what it would look like.
But if they were quietly payed off, there would be some odd record of it somewhere.
Yeah beyond the possible murder, inc. connection.--how about the Clinton's commerce staff maplaing patticake with Enron!!! Of all the companies to be chaufferring around part of Bosnia. and they had the gall to attack Biush about Enron. So repub politicos should have made the case that if the Clinton's had not been heaping Enron rip people off by sending poor Ron Brown off to help them make even more money---one of Anerica's "most promising black leaders" --(well that is what the liberal press woudl say) woudl still be alive today. That shoudl be touted as a Clinton admins legacy (getting great black leaders killer to help businesses steal)--a choking sentiment for the liberal press.
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It was the CLINTONS who dishonored our Hero Soldiers by burying RON BROWN right next to them at Arlington VA.
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What if he survived the plane crash? That would be the only reason to also shoot him. There were some who survived.
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