What did Kerry know, and when did he know it? (TWA Flight 800)

If there is any one serious person in America whose prior knowledge might have affected events of Sept. 11, that person is presidential aspirant, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts.

On Sept. 11, 2001, as we have reported earlier, Sen. Kerry appeared on the Larry King Show. Kerry's honest admission to King bears scrutiny:

We have always known this could happen. We've warned about it. We've talked about it. I regret to say, as I served on the Intelligence Committee up until last year, I can remember after the bombings of the embassies, after TWA 800, we went through this flurry of activity, talking about it, but not really doing [sic] hard work of responding.

If Kerry talked about the fate of TWA Flight 800 before Sept. 11, he does not seem to have done so at the time of its destruction. However, his colleague of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Republican Orrin Hatch of Utah, did go public with his concerns.

Hatch spoke with CNN on July 19, 1996, two days after the crash. He admitted to having "various conversations" with government officials. "I won't go so far as to say it was terrorism, but there was sabotage here," said Hatch. "We're looking at a criminal act. We're looking at somebody who either put a bomb on it or shot a missile, a surface-to-air missile."

Hatch was likely telling the truth here about the limits of his own knowledge. Indeed, we have yet to identify a single civilian, including those at work deep within the investigation, who knew beyond doubt what transpired on the night of July 17, 1996.

Hatch's recommended follow-up is fully consistent with his beliefs. "The National Transportation Safety Board should now turn the investigation over to the FBI because the crash was not related to an aviation problem," added Hatch. "It's very – almost 100 percent unlikely that this was a mechanical failure [italics mine]."

If there were ever a subject for review by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, this would seem to be it. But curiously, the committee's "Special Report" that covers the period of the crash and its aftermath dedicates not a word to TWA Flight 800.

The report does detail the terrorist bombing of Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia three weeks earlier and even explores the much more questionable and controversial subject of the CIA-Contra-cocaine story that was then creating a firestorm in the left-wing media and, to a lesser degree, in the mainstream media. But the Committee's report, issued on Feb. 28, 1997, does not raise the subject of TWA Flight 800, even to dismiss it.

"After TWA 800, we went through this flurry of activity, talking about it," said Kerry on Sept. 11. Given the presence of a Democrat in the White House, Kerry would have had better access to serious talk than Hatch. Regardless, not a word of it surfaces in the public record.

Throughout the year of 1997, the CIA worked on the creation of the now-notorious video animation designed to discredit the eyewitnesses. On Nov. 18, 1997, the FBI previewed this video for a national audience. Again, one would think this a likely topic for the Intelligence Committee's next report, the one covering the period Jan. 7, 1997 to Oct. 21, 1998. But again, not a word.

These reports are well detailed. They discuss subjects of serious and obvious national import, including terrorist acts like the destruction of Pan Am 103, but they also delve into the speculative like the CIA-Contra story, Y2K and "the release of the JFK files." But not one public word about TWA Flight 800.

After Kerry's remarks to Larry King on Sept. 11, at least one person called his office for a clarification. After some back-and-forth, she was told that she must have misunderstood.

On Sept. 24,2001, there was no mistaking the meaning of Sen. Kerry's remarks. I personally watched him say the following to Chris Matthews on Hardball.

You know, we've had terrorism for a long time now. We've had the Achille Lauro, the Munich Olympics, the pipe bomb at the Olympics in Atlanta, the TWA 800, the bombing of embassies, and it's not going to disappear overnight.

As we have noted before, on Sept. 20, 2001, one mainstream newspaper broke the story of how the so-called Gore Commission failed conspicuously to address airline safety. The paper claimed that this failure "represents the clearest recent public example of the success that airlines have long had in defeating calls for more oversight."

The paper traced that failure to a series of campaign donations from the airlines to the Democratic National Committee in 1996 in the wake of the crash of TWA Flight 800, donations likely solicited by Al Gore himself. That newspaper just happened to be John Kerry's hometown Boston Globe.

Of course, it is possible that Sen. Kerry merely misspoke about a terrorist attack against TWA 800 on two occasions, and it is possible too that the Globe's entrance into the fray was merely coincidental. But given the brutal realities of Democratic presidential politics it is altogether possible that these revelations were calculated and perhaps even coordinated.

In our book, "First Strike," James Sanders and I make this arguably prophetic comment:

John Kerry seemed to have his sights on Al Gore's Achilles' heel. After the events of Sept. 11, the story of how Al Gore helped subvert the investigation into TWA 800 and undermine airport security may yet prove to be a career-killer. Kerry's "slips" may put Gore out of the race even before he gets in.

Two weeks after advanced copies of "First Strike" started circulating around Washington, Gore withdrew from the presidential race. It would be presumptuous of us to assert that these accumulating revelations caused Gore to withdraw. But if not, what did? Gore's withdrawal shocked Washington.

"We went through this flurry of activity, talking about it, but not really doing [sic] hard work of responding," said Kerry on Sept. 11. The shameful thing is that, even today, Sen. Kerry and his colleagues continue to play political games with a subject that is not at all amusing – the very survival of our nation.

What about that Egyptian pilot who flew his plane nose-first into the water ? Could that have been a thwarted act of terrorism?

Of course, the story we were fed was that he was upset that his girlfriend dumped him and this was his way of committing suicide. I never bought that story because the flight recorder taped his last words as being something like, "Allah be praised". Or whatever phrase they use.

wow--this is huge. somebody better send this to limbaugh or hannity. this needs maximum exposure. gore getting out because of this is probably true. gore knew that the dnc didn't want him and that they (and their media hacks) would destroy gore. his last hope is 2008, he hopes 9-11 will be a non-factor in that election.(good luck, albert!)

*** mr. john f. kerry has much explaining to do.

more terrorist threats than we realized on Bubba's ignoble record. god, his smug face (always spewing advice not worth a turd) makes me want to puke!!! do you think anybody will ask bubba about this...never. the liberal media will bury it--no surprise there. when is the toxic clinton government in exile gonna finally get theirs.

I have said it before, and I'll say it again: An on-board bomb (first shoe bomb?) or a surface to air missle brought TWA-800 down, not a spontaneous center fuel cell explosion.

There is just nowayinhell a fuel cell is going to explode without a primary incendiary event trigger.

I believe it was done by Muslim terrorists. I further believe that the Clintoon administration suppressed that evidence because had it become known that the Clintoon gang had no clue about what to do with terrorist activity in the US, they would have not won the election in Nov.

And winning re-election is all that miserable low-life sonofabitch cared about, that and sex.

"Allah be praised"... to me, this would sound similar to a Christian saying, right before a crash, "Jesus, help me!" Now, you could read this meaning into that... "Help me, because I am scared, I just made a horrific mistake, the plane is going to crash, and I am going to die." Praising Allah, doesn't mean you are necessarily guilty of anything. And to me, it would be the most natural thing to say under the circumstances.

I believe it was "I put my fate in Gods hands" wasnt that plane full of Isreali army officials or something, there was something odd going on there. I dont buy the girlfriend story either. I think there was an Al Qeda connection to that pilot. It is odd though that you never hear of that story, it died very quickly.

True. On the other hand, he could've flown the plane into the water on purpose. Hard as it may to be to believe, terrorists have been known to do such things.

That may be true but, the guy pushed the elevator controls down right after he said that, then they heard the voice of the copilot saying something like, "what the hell are you doing" its pretty clear the guy did it intentionaly.

I have said it before, and I'll say it again: An on-board bomb (first shoe bomb?) or a surface to air missle brought TWA-800 down, not a spontaneous center fuel cell explosion.

I agree on the shoe bomb. There was just enough residue on the seats to be detected. During the trial of Reid, the shoe bomber, the prosecution blew up a 747 with a shoe bomb. I also said after 9/11 that the downing of Egyptian Air was a test for the hijackers and the person at the controls was not a crew mmber.

Intersting...the first shoe bomb...some freeper here a month or two ago advised me that an Islamic terrorist group did, in fact, claim credit for TWA800. The press, or couse, ignored it, not wanting to lose a chance for an invitation to a state dinner at the CLINTON WHITE HOUSE.

There have been some extensive discussions on FR about TWA Flight 800, and after all of the evidence I've seen I concluded that the aircraft WAS shot down, but not by terrorists. The most likely culprit appears to be a U.S. Navy ship that was taking part in live-fire exercises off the coast of Long Island that night.

The copilot shouted at the pilot to "work with him" ie, stop trying to push the controls down while he was trying to pull up. I always felt the copilot must have thought it was a malfunction, right up to the end, but it's clear the pilot deliberately crashed the plane. I hadn't thought about that since long before 9-11, now it seems like this must have been an act of terrorism, not just some kook who wanted to take a bunch of people with him when he checked out.

You bring up an interesting point about the prosecution in the Reid case releasing the video of a shoe bomb exploding in a 747. The only problem is that the video was not shot specifically for this case, it was done years earlier.
So, why would the government run an experiment about shoe bombs on 747s without it ever happening before? God knows there are plenty of terrorist scenario's possible and of course they don't test them all just to see what would happen. So maybe that experiment was testing the very plausible hypothesis of a shoe bomb bringing down Flight 800... Ok, I'll take off my tin hat now:)

wasnt there a report of egyptian officials on the twa 800 flight? i seem to remember something like that. can anybody clarify?
koz.

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