Revealed: Gun Lost On Fatal Brown Flight
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Revealed: Gun Lost On Fatal Brown Flight
Secret Commerce Report Says Bodyguard’s Firearm Never Recovered From Crash Scene
ALL THE PRESIDENT’S SCANDALS
By Paul Sperry
© 2001 WorldNetDaily.com
January 8, 2001
WASHINGTON -- A handgun carried by a bodyguard assigned to protect the late Commerce Secretary Ron Brown "was lost and not recovered" from the wreckage of his plane, which crashed in Croatia in 1996, reveals a still-secret Commerce Department report, a copy of which was obtained by WorldNetDaily.
The internal security report was completed in March 1999 -- 15 months after an Air Force forensic pathologist disclosed that an unusual wound at the top of Brown's head could have been a bullet hole.
Jesse Jackson and other black leaders at the time called for an autopsy to find out if the hole was caused by a bullet.
"I think people have a right to know what really happened," he said in January 1998.
Jackson was joined by NAACP President Kweisi Mfume and Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters in demanding a new investigation into Brown's death.
The Air Force ruled that Brown died of multiple blunt-force injuries sustained in the crash of the Air Force jet in which he was a passenger.
On April 3, 1996, he and his bodyguard, Duane Christian, went down with 33 others traveling on a Commerce trade trip. All 35 aboard died.
But military investigators did not order an autopsy of Brown's body, and failed to recover Christian's weapon when they investigated the crash scene.
"One gun was lost and not recovered in the tragic April 1996 airplane crash in Croatia that killed 12 Commerce employees, including the secretary," found Commerce Inspector General Johnnie E. Frazier in a review of weapon and ammunition inventory.
His findings were part of a department-wide inspection of security procedures. On March 31, 1999, he delivered his 33-page report -- which still hasn't been cleared for public release -- to David Holmes, deputy assistant secretary for security.
Holmes previously had led Vice President Al Gore's Secret Service detail.
The report also says that there has been no internal accounting for the missing gun.
"Because the investigation of the crash was under the jurisdiction of the military, no OSY (Office of Security) report was needed," Frazier added on page 26 of the report.
.357 Magnum
The gun that turned up missing was a .357 Magnum, which fires a .38-caliber round (which actually measures .36 inch in diameter).
"Brown had a .45-inch inwardly beveling circular hole in the top of his head, which is essentially the description of a .45-caliber gunshot wound," Air Force Lt. Col. Steve Cogswell told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review in December 1997. At the time, he was a deputy medical examiner with the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Washington.
But another military doctor, who reviewed external examination photos, found the circular wound in Brown's head to be smaller, the Tribune-Review said.
According to Dr. Martin Fackler, former director of the Army's Wound Ballistics Laboratory in San Francisco, the hole was more consistent with a .40-caliber, or 10-millimeter, bullet -- such as the kind used by law-enforcement agencies.
Also, a ballistics expert familiar with the ammunition issued by Commerce told WorldNetDaily that the .357 bullets can flatten on impact and leave a larger hole.
"Given the right conditions," he said, "a soft-point, or hollow-point, slug could leave a .45-size hole."
In an exclusive interview with WorldNetDaily, the former primary agent on Brown's protective detail says there's nothing suspicious about the lost weapon.
He speculates that the impact from the crash may have simply ripped it away from Christian's waist holster, which has a strap that snaps shut over the hammer, and thrown it far enough from the wreckage that investigators overlooked it.
Croatian Special Forces?
"I figure either that happened or Croatian special forces guys are walking around with the weapon" after picking it up as a souvenir, said James E. Ochs, Brown's top bodyguard, who was busy deploying the secretary's motorcade at the Dubrovnik airport when the plane crashed.
Ochs says Croatian police beat U.S. forces to the mountainous crash site and may have scavenged for such items of value.
As for Brown's gunshot-like head wound, Ochs says it was more likely caused by a rivet, bolt or rod that broke free from the plane on impact and penetrated the top of his skull.
"If the plane plowed into a mountain, there would be a lot of debris flying around," he told WorldNetDaily.
Dr. Cogswell, however, says he looked for such objects at the crash site and couldn't find any that would fit the wound.
Others offer darker explanations.
"My theory is that Brown was still alive. And local Croats who came to loot didn't want anyone to see what they were doing. So they found the gun and shot him," said Accuracy in Media's Reed Irvine, who was asked to comment on the findings in the secret Commerce report. Washington-based AIM has followed the tragic story closely from the start and has argued for an autopsy.
But why in the top of the head?
"They didn't want it to be obvious, so they got down and fired the gun point-blank into the top of his head," he said. "What happened to the bullet? It went down into the body cavity. Investigators wouldn't have found it unless they did an autopsy."
The ballistics expert, however, says that even such a dense area of bone and tissue wouldn't have stopped a bullet fired by a .357 Magnum, which packs a heavy hit.
"It would have gone all the way through," he said. "There would have been a major exit wound."
No Exit Wound
No such wound was found on Brown's body -- although the forensic photographer who snapped shots of Brown's corpse when it arrived at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, says examiners failed to thoroughly inspect the buttocks and groin area where a bullet probably would have exited. Nor was she asked to take photos of that area.
"They never looked for an exit wound," said Kathleen Janoski, who was the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology's senior lab photographer then. "And I was there for the entire external examination."
A pathologist hired by the Brown family concluded there was no exit wound, she says, but he made his conclusion based on photos.
Other suspicious circumstances surround Brown's death, leading some to suspect foul play on the part of the Clinton administration.
At the time Brown died, a special prosecutor was investigating his financial dealings, including his presidential fund-raising practices. And Brown was reportedly making noises he would rat out the president -- in the middle of an election year -- if squeezed too hard.
Adding to suspicions, Brown's papers -- like the late deputy White House counsel Vincent Foster's -- were spirited away from his office shortly after he died. Some were destroyed, some were locked up in off-site storage and some were taken to other agencies by Clinton appointees.
Internal documents and testimony from Commerce officials gleaned since his death show that Brown coordinated with the Democratic National Committee and the White House to sell seats on overseas trade junkets for campaign cash.
Convicted Clinton-Gore fund-raiser and suspected Beijing agent John Huang was one of the aides who helped Brown arrange the more controversial missions to the Far East, including China. Huang's immediate boss at Commerce, Charles Meissner, also died in the Croatian plane crash.
Perhaps most chilling, though, is the way the White House rushed the examinations of the victims at the morgue, Janoski says.
"There was a lot of pressure from the White House to get the bodies out of Dover and buried," she told WorldNetDaily.
"In fact, our team leader in this -- Dr. Edward Kilbane -- was ordered to the West Wing for a meeting the Friday before the bodies came back" from Croatia on Saturday, April 6, 1996, Janoski added.
A Second Gun
The inspector general's report also mentions another gun missing, this one from Commerce headquarters.
"The other handgun was reported stolen or missing in HCHB (Herbert Clark Hoover Building)," the report says, "so an internal report was prepared."
It turns out that the other gun, also a .357 Magnum, also belonged to Christian, who died at 42. One day in 1995, he reported it missing from his office.
When he was tapped to accompany Brown on his mission to the Balkans, Christian had to borrow a gun from another security specialist. It was the loaner that was lost on the fateful flight, Ochs explains.
"Duane borrowed that weapon to make that trip," he said.
Ochs, a former firearms training officer for the department, says he still doesn't know the whereabouts of Christian's own gun, which mysteriously vanished from his office.
The serial numbers of both guns were reported to the National Crime Information Center.
"That's a big deal to lose a weapon," a high-level federal security official told WorldNetDaily.
Ochs, an ex-Secret Service agent, agrees.
But he explains that Brown traveled so much that it became impractical for agents to lock their guns up in the department safe when they weren't on the road guarding him. And that made it harder to keep track of them.
"With Brown, the weapons were issued to each agent," he said. "And each agent was charged with the care and well-being of that weapon, because we were always on the road."
After Brown died, Ochs says he "kept them all in a gun safe," and the department didn't have any more problems.
'Lead Snowstorm'
Dr. Cogswell, the whistleblower who left AFIP after being demoted and now works as a coroner in Shreveport, La., also cited as evidence of a possible gunshot wound initial X-rays that showed what appear to be small metal fragments in Brown's head -- similar to the "lead snowstorm" left by a slug as it breaks up in the body.
Janoski, a 23-year Navy veteran, claims that the first set of X-rays were "destroyed" because they showed evidence of a possible bullet entry.
And a second set of X-rays were taken and "deliberately" made less dense to try to diminish the lead snowstorm, she says.
How does she know? She says a Navy criminal investigator, Jeanmarie Sentelle, told her so.
Attempts to reach Sentelle were unsuccessful.
She also says Sentelle told her a gift from Brown's alleged mistress, Yolanda Hill, was ordered destroyed.
The gift -- an Indian good-luck charm consisting of a cigarette butt, a feather, turquoise stones and red beads rolled up in a shammy and tied with twine -- was found in Brown's diplomatic pouch.
"Personal effects are never destroyed," she said.
Janoski, a registered Democrat who voted for Bill Clinton and then worked as a White House volunteer, also noted that examiners did not test for gunshot residue around Brown's head wound.
Empty 9-Millimeter Clip
As body bags were unzipped at the Dover morgue, she noticed something else.
"A burnt 9-millimeter clip was thrown in with one of the bodies" by one of the crash scene workers, Janoski said.
She says that although the gun clip was charred from the plane fire, she could see that it was empty -- except for perhaps one round.
Christian's .357 Magnum was a revolver. So the presence of a clip suggests there was another gun -- a semiautomatic -- on board the plane.
Theories about what created Brown's perfectly round wound are predicated on an airborne object hitting his skull, such as a bullet or rivet, rather than his skull hitting a stationary object.
But close-ups of the hole in his skull show less a tunnel than a shallow but clean-cut indentation, or punch-out, as if Brown were thrown head-first into some kind of protrusion, such as a metal stud, connected to a hard, round surface.
In fact, the top of Brown's skull was depressed and fractured, and his scalp was torn away around the hole -- injuries not caused by just a gunshot.
Janoski allows that she probably never would have spotted the hole if the skull weren't exposed by the large laceration.
Still, she says only an autopsy could rule out a bullet.
"City coroners do autopsies on homeless people," Janoski said. "Yet here we have a dead Cabinet member with a hole in his head, and there's no autopsy."
"What they needed to do was open up the skull with a saw and take the brain out and slice it up like a loaf of bread to find out how far this wound went," she added. "Without an autopsy, we're never really going to know what happened."
Jesse Jackson agrees.
"It may only prove that he was not murdered," he said. "But that would relieve people of reasonable doubt."
Janoski, who was demoted by AFIP after she publicly complained about the cursory examination of Brown's corpse, says she told her story to Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., in a January 1998 meeting.
She said Conyers, one of the founders of the Congressional Black Caucus, taped the conversation in a recording room on The Hill and said "he wanted to look into it." But she says he never followed up.
Reno Clears Up Brown Death
"Janet Reno's Justice Department has looked into Commerce Secretary Ron Brown's death and -- surprise, surprise -- found no evidence of a crime. Aren't you relieved? Isn't it nice that they cleared all that up? I sure feel better about this story now, don't you. I'll sleep better tonight.
I heard an ABC News radio report that explained the Justice Department's findings would "put to rest" concerns about a possible gunshot wound in Brown's head. Pretty funny. If I had been relying on ABC News for my information, I wouldn't even know there had been any such concerns.
The Justice Department says it reviewed with Defense Department officials the information obtained by military pathologists after Brown and 34 others died in the 1996 crash of a U.S. military plane. Officials found no evidence of a crime "at this time," hedged head mouthpiece Bert Brandenburg. To the best of his knowledge, no crime took place. To the best of Reno's recollection, it was just a simple plane crash."
Ted Knows About Crashes
(Click On Picture)
Ron Brown - Evidence Of A Cover-Up
Experts Differ On Ron Brown's Head Wound - The Links
The Botched Ron Brown Investigation - Kathleen Janoski
The Secret Files Of Ron Brown - Ira Sockowitz
"4:00 - In the Republic of South Africa, new reports say that an attempt has been made on the life of Ron Brown’s law partner, Tommy Boggs, by unknown assailants in a staged car accident in Capetown. Later, Boggs will refuse to discuss it."
Michael A. Brown - Patton Boggs LLP Attorney
Fossella got donations, urged Clinton to visit Pakistan
"In Mrs. Clinton's case, the Todt Hill fund-raiser was not the only apparent outgrowth of the lobbying effort. Right after Clinton announced in December that he would not touch base in Pakistan, lobbyist Lanny Davis, who also the organized the Todt Hill event, staged a fund-raiser here that generated $24,000 for the first lady's Senate bid in New York. Davis is a former White House special counsel.
The earlier event was held in the offices of the influential Democratic law firm Patton and Boggs, whose senior partner is Tommy Boggs, lobbyist for the Trial Lawyers Association, a major bankroller of Democratic candidates."
Clinton apologist now lobbies for Islamabad
"In recent months, Lanny Davis has become a very effective spin master for Pakistan. And his urging -- not so much the goat curry event Hillary Clinton attended in New York and received a perfectly legal $ 50,000 contribution to her Senate race -- played a major role in Clinton's decision to stop in Pakistan before returning to Washington.
The New York fund-raiser was organized by the Pakistan Political Action Committee (Pak-Pac).
According to the daily Washington Times, Davis who works for the DC law firm of Patton and Boggs, represents Pak-Pac, the political arm of the Association of Pakistani Physicians of North America on a $ 22,500-a-month contract."
Thomas Hale Boggs Sr.
Thomas Hale Boggs Sr. was born in Long Beach, Mississippi on February 15, 1914. He attended the public and parochial schools of Jefferson Parrish Louisiana. Hale graduated from Tulane University in 1935 and from the Law department of the same university in 1937. Within the same year he was admitted to the bar and commenced practice in New Orleans. He was elected as a Democrat to the 77th Congress on January 3, 1941, but was an unsuccessful candidate for re-nomination in 1942. Out of work, Hale decided to resume the practice of law in New Orleans. He then enlisted in the United States Naval Reserve. In November 1943 he was commissioned ensign and attached to the Potomac River Naval Command and the United States Maritime service until he was elected as a Democrat to the 18th and the thirteen succeeding Congresses. Boggs would later be described as a "fiercely determined man, an ear-shattering orator, a masterful politician, [and] a sternly partisan Democrat." In January 1971, he rose to the position of House Majority Leader. However, in October 1972, while on a political trip to Alaska, he lost his life in a plane crash. Neither the plane nor his body has ever been found. He was survived by his wife, Lindy, and three children, Thomas Hale Boggs Jr., Barbara Sigmund, and Mary Martha Corinne Morrison Claiborne Roberts (better known as Cokie Roberts, the nationally known television journalist).
In honor of this great politician many buildings and other public sites across the Southeast have been dedicated and named after him.
Positions Held and Accomplishments:
Majority Whip
Youngest Man in Congress (age 26 in 1946)
Member of the House Ways and Means Committee
Solved the Highway Funding Puzzle
[End of Transcript>
Here's the rest of the story. I don't believe this has been on ABC:
Just When You Thought You Had Heard Everything
The Political Digest
12/3/97
This little tidbit from Bob Harris, a lecturer who talks about JFK assassination, government abuse, big business, and has helped put together a CD entitled "Encyclopedia of the JFK Assassination". This little information came in form of a question off the CD(I also heard it at his lecture). Hale Boggs, congressman(D-La) was a member of the highly acclaimed Warren Commission. He did not agree with the committee's findings, and thought that a more thorough investigation should have been done. But to the point. In 1972 Hale Boggs boarded a plane destined for Alaska. The plane disappeared, and no remains have ever been found. The authorities determined that the plane crashed. The question that was posed on the CD and the lecture was "Who drove Hale Boggs to the airport that day in his limousine?" Answer: William Jefferson Clinton.
Note: Leading cause of death in Arkansas. Knowing Bill Clinton.
[End of Transcript]
Cokie Roberts Bans The Internet
"As for Cokie Roberts, she is the daughter of Hale Boggs, a former Democratic House Whip who was the product of a corrupt Louisiana political machine that dates back to Huey Long. Interestingly, Boggs was made a member of the Warren Commission that investigated the death of JFK. According to John H. Davis, author of The Kennedy Contract, a book that explores a possible Mafia connection in the assassination, Boggs "could be relied upon to...see to it that his principle financial backer, and behind-the-scenes power in the state government, Carlos Marcello, would not be mentioned in the commissions deliberations, which, as it turned out, he never was."
Marcello was the Gulf-Coast Mafia boss who some observers believe was involved in the JFK assassination, although this was never proven. I will not go into the Boggs family's present connections with the corrupt Clinton administration, which were described in some detail in the Washington Weekly article.
The point of all this is that covering up government corruption must seem like pretty old hat to Cokie Roberts -- nothing really out of the ordinary. The more things change, the more they stay the same -- until that distant day when public awareness of what has been done to our country in the interest of going along in order to get along finally reaches critical mass and the citizens reclaim their government -- and their history.
Published in the May 12, 1997 issue of The Washington Weekly
Copyright 1997 The Washington Weekly (http://www.federal.com)
Reposting permitted with this message intact
[End of Partial Transcript]
"We in the press have an enormous obligation to help the voters understand the...morality and the character of the people who want to be President."
Steve Roberts - Reporting concerning George W. Bush.
Carlos Marcello: Big Daddy in the Big Easy - The Unholy Trinity
By 9am that morning, the federal courthouse was full. The case of The United States v Carlos Marcello had attracted spectators and members from both of the families that made up the universe of Marcello. Judge Herbert W. Christenberry presided over a case that charged Carlos and his brother Joe with "conspiracy to defraud the United States government by obtaining a false Guatemalan birth certificate" and "conspiracy to obstruct the United States government in the exercise of its right to deport Carlos Marcello." The case had opened twenty-one days earlier and by November 22, defense attorney Jack Wasserman and U.S. Attorney Louis La Cour were delivering closing arguments.
At 1.30pm, just as the judge was handing the case over to the jury, he was passed a note by the court bailiff. With a shocked expression on his face, he announced that President Kennedy had just been shot in Dallas and was dead. As the courtroom erupted, Carlos walked slowly out of the room, his face an impassive mask. At 3.15pm, the jury returned a verdict of "not guilty" on both charges, against both defendants. Carlos and Joe hugged each other, shook hands with their lawyer and walked out of the courtroom. Just thirty-eight minutes before, Air Force One had taken off from Dallas Love Airport to carry the dead and terribly mutilated body of President Kennedy back to Washington, D.C.
The courts, however, were not yet finished with Carlos. On October 16, 1964, he was indicted in connection with jury tampering at his trial for the forged birth certificate. He eventually came to trial on this charge on August 17, 1965, but once again the jury found in his favour. It was his third consecutive victory against the Justice Department. There now would seem little chance that he would ever be deported.
Free of the impending charges that had hung over him like some Damocles sword, Carlos devoted all his energies into consolidating and building up his Mafia family, and the innumerable business interests that its power had allowed him to develop over the past eighteen years. Dun and Bradstreet, for example, estimated that 50% of New Orleans hotels were financially backed by the Marcello organization.
His political connections linked him into the powerful Long family. Carlos owed a lot to these people. It was after all, Huey Long who had introduced him to Frank Costello and the booming slot machine business that had helped spearhead his rise to power. Carlos maintained close ties with Earl, Huey’s brother, and also son Russell, who became one of Carlos’ principal contacts in the U.S. Senate. Louisiana politician, Congressman Hale Boggs, House Majority Leader, who became a member of the Warren Commission investigating the killing of Kennedy, was also financed into Capital Hill via Marcello. Jim Garrison, the flamboyant New Orleans District Attorney, famous for his involvement in the Kennedy investigation, was on exceptionally good terms with Marcello. Although he had a reputation as a tough prosecutor, he would go out of his way not to bring charges against any of the Marcello organization. During the mid to late 1960’s, he dismissed eighty-four cases brought against Carlos’ men, including one for attempted murder, three for kidnapping and one for manslaughter.
Carlos Marcello was a man with many friends in high places: state and federal judges, governors, senators, labour leaders, the list went on. 98% of the Louisiana legislature would accept bribes, according to Peter Hand, a close friend of Governor Earl Long. Carlos also controlled the head of the Louisiana State Police, Roland Coppola. He had a lock on the State Department of Revenue, the agency that collected all state taxes. They once assessed his $159,000 home in Marrero at only $8,000 for revenue purposes. He also had friends in other places.
Although he always denied any association with the Mafia, he was close to many top bosses. His compadre or closest friend was Santo Trafficante Jr., who ran Tampa and West Florida with an iron fist. Carlos was also on close terms with Joseph "Joey Doves Aiuppa, boss of Chicago, and Kansas City mob leader, Joe Civella. He did business with Dominick Brooklier, who headed up the Mafia in Los Angeles. Carlos was tight with Angelo Bruno, powerful head of the Philadelphia family, and of course for many years he was a good friend and business partner of Frank Costello, who had run what is now known as the Genovese family until 1957.
Carlos also had strong ties to the Dixie-Mafia, an inchoate bunch of loosely connected criminals, some of who traced their history back into the days of Prohibition. That network which did not have an organized hierarchy like the American Mafia specialised in armed robbery, scams, burglaries, safe-cracking, murder-for-hire and drug trafficking. Dangerous in the first degree, these hoodlums would kill anyone who got in their way. As someone described them: "…what makes them dangerous is they don’t think, they just act." Carlos was long connected to one of this group, LeRoy Hobbs, Sheriff of Harrison County in Mississippi, a man so crooked and corrupt, it was said of him, "he is easily influenced by anyone with money, and a good-looking woman."
When it came to women, Carlos was somewhat of an enigma. Although he seemed a faithful husband and father, and in fact remained married to Jacqueline until the day he died, like many of his peers, he would stray from time to time. A report from the New Orleans Crime Commission indicated that Lillian Ropplo, the wife of one of his closest friends who was also a capo in his family, might well have been Marcello’s mistress. He was undoubtedly well known to Virginia Hill, the leggy, voluptuous glamour girl of the mob. Longy Zwillman, the Jewish hood who ran much of New Jersey criminal action, once described Virginia thus, "She didn’t look as if she would be hard to know." In her address book, among a host of well known mobsters, investigators found the name of Carlos Marcello and a contact telephone number. Apart from her obvious assets, it is thought that she also worked as a courier for the mob, helping to move money around the country. So it is conceivable that her relationship with Carlos was purely a business one.
The Marcello control of people at all levels was significant to his control of the Louisiana [Mafia]. He ruled this as a despot, with an independence and insularity that was unique across the twenty-four or so other criminal groups that made up the national syndicate of American-Italian mob families. Joseph Valachi, a former soldier in the Genovese family of New York, was the first "made" ’member of any Mafia family to turn informant and publicly testify as to the inner working of the Mafia in America. When he was asked at the McClellan Hearing what he knew about Marcello, he replied, "Louisiana? I don’t know a thing except they don’t want visitors. Once I was going to see the Mardi Gras and I checked it out with Vito, which I was supposed to do if I took a trip. He said, 'Don’t go.' No explanation, just 'Don’t go.' They didn’t want anybody there. And I was told if I ever had to go to Louisiana, Genovese would have to call ahead and get permission. Genovese himself had to get permission. It was an absolute rule."
Although he was in a federal prison, serving time on drug trafficking charges, Vito Genovese was at this time, arguably, the most powerful mob boss in America. Yet even he would tip his forelock in deference to "The Little Man’ in New Orleans."
By 1966, Carlos Marcello had been the chief executive of his criminal dynasty for almost twenty years. Through bribery, corruption, intimidation and an inherent ability to control situations, he was probably the wealthiest and most influential Mafia leader in the United States. He had succeeded in getting his way, and getting away with everything, all his life. His political acumen was only matched by his public relations savvyness. He once gave a cheque for $10,000 to a prominent society woman who was raising money for the Girl Scouts of America. He told her: "Don’t mention my name. I don’t want any publicity about this." The gift was news all over New Orleans in two days.
He had manipulated the unholy trinity of politics, crime and business like no gangster ever had.
In the fall, he went to New York for lunch, and then on his way home, he socked the wrong man in the face....
[End of Partial Transcript]
This is important to remember about Senator Boggs.
JFK Assassination
Letter of Transmittal
September 24, 1964
The President
The White House
Washington, D.C.
Dear Mr. President:
Your Commission to investigate the assassination of President Kennedy on November 22, 1963, having completed its assignment in accordance with Executive Order No. 11130 of November 29, 1963, herewith submits its final report.
Respectfully,
Earl Warren, Chairman
Richard B. Russel
John Sherman Cooper
Hale Boggs
Gerald R. Ford
Allen W. Dulles
John J. McCloy [ See paragraph #10 and #26 ]
Tommy Boggs and the death of health care reform
The Lobbyist, 60 Minutes
"Mr. GIACOMO: When Tommy walks in, Republicans, Democrats, everybody looks up. I mean, he is--he's number one without a doubt. He knows everybody and everything.
Hale Boggs and Thomas Hale Boggs Jr.; footage of Lindy, Thomas Hale Boggs Jr. and others; Thomas Hale Boggs Jr. in office; MCI sign on building; Mobil sign; Haiti; flag of Turkey; Mitsubishi sign; Bank of New York building; bank building; German flag; pills being poured on counting tray; M&M's on conveyor belts; man chewing tobacco; residents of United Arab Emirates; list of Boggs' clients; President Clinton; George Bush)
SAFER: (Voiceover) He's been at it for 30 years, born with connections: his father, Hale Boggs, was an influential congressman from Louisiana; his mother Lindy the current ambassador to the Vatican; his sister, Cokie Roberts, part of the Washington journalistic establishment. He and his company have represented MCI, Mobil, Haiti, Turkey, Mitsubishi, big banks, little banks, German banks, Bristol-Myers, M&M's, chewing tobacco, the Arab Emirates, you name it. His list in the lobbying bible is twice as long as the next longest. But what about the promise of his good buddy who, back in '92, spelled out the difference between himself and George Bush?"
[End of partial Transcript]
The Buying of Congress - Thomas Hale Boggs Jr.
Cokie Roberts - daughter of Hale Boggs and Lindy Boggs
Cokie Roberts
Award-Winning Journalist and Author
Cokie Roberts, who co-anchors the ABC News program "This Week" with Sam Donaldson, covers politics, Congress and public policy issues for the network. In addition, Roberts is a senior news analyst for National Public Radio (NPR), where she was the congressional correspondent for more than 10 years.
Roberts first served as a panelist on "This Week with David Brinkley" in 1987, and was named a regular panelist to the program in 1988. She was named co-anchor, with Donaldson, of "This Week" in November 1996.
Along with her husband Steven V. Roberts, a George Washington University professor, Roberts writes a weekly column syndicated by United Media that appears in newspapers around the country. Her op-ed columns have appeared in The New York Times and The Washington Post. She also has written for The New York Times Magazine and The Atlantic.
While working for NPR, Roberts won numerous awards, including the highest honor in public radio, the Edward R. Murrow Award. She also was the first broadcast journalist to win the prestigious Everett McKinley Dirksen Award for coverage of Congress. In 1991, she was awarded an Emmy for her contribution to the ABC News special, "Who is Ross Perot?"
Before joining ABC News in 1988, Roberts was a contributor to PBS-TV's "MacNeil/Lehrer Newshour" (now The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer"). Her coverage of the Iran/Contra affair for that program won her the Weintal Award in 1987.
She also has worked as a reporter for CBS News in Athens, Greece; served as a co-host for "The Lawmakers," a weekly public television program on Congress; and produced and served as a host for a public affairs program on WRC-TV in Washington. She is former president of the Radio and Television Correspondent's Association.
In 1998, she published the book We Are Our Mothers' Daughters, which is part memoir and part social history and was on The New York Times Bestseller List for several weeks. Roberts is the daughter of two members of Congress: Hale Boggs, the Louisiana congressman who died in a plane crash in Alaska, and Lindy Boggs, who is now ambassador to the Vatican.
A 1964 graduate in political science from Wellesley College, Roberts received a 1985 Distinguished Alumnae Achievement Award in recognition of "excellence and distinction in professional pursuits." She is the recipient of 12 honorary degrees. She and her husband are the parents of two grown children.
[End of Transcript]
Corinne (Lindy) Claiborne Boggs - Senator Hale Bogg's Wife
Corinne (Lindy) Claiborne Boggs
U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See (Vatican)
Lindy Boggs was appointed by President Clinton in 1997 as U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See (Vatican). She was the first woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Louisiana and in 1976, the first woman to chair a national political convention, presiding over the nomination of President Jimmy Carter.
At 24, Boggs came to Washington, DC from Louisiana with her newly elected husband, Congressman Hale Boggs. She emerged as an influential force in American politics -- running her husband's congressional campaigns, managing his Capitol Hill office and chairing numerous organizations such as John F. Kennedy's and Lyndon Johnson's inaugural ball committees.
At the same time she raised three children who would come into prominence in their own right; in the words of her youngest child, NPR and ABC-TV's Cokie Roberts, "Politics is our family business."
In 1972, Congressman Boggs disappeared in a small plane over Alaska. His successor was his wife, who served in Congress for nine terms, from 1973 to 1990. Boggs served on the Appropriations Committee, was instrumental in creating the Select Committee on Children, Youth and Families and chaired the Crisis Intervention Task Force. She spearheaded legislation on issues ranging from civil rights to credit access and government service pay equity for women.
Boggs has since served as board member or director of the National Archives, the U.S. Botanical Gardens and the U.S. Capitol Commission. In 1994, she published her autobiography, Washington Through a Purple Veil: Memoirs of a Southern Woman.
[End of Transcript]
C-Span Booknotes Transcript - Richard Cohen and his book "Rostenkowski: The Pursuit of Power and the End of the Old Politics."
LAMB: You--you write that it was emceed that night by Cokie Roberts.
Mr. COHEN: Indeed, it was.
LAMB: Why would she do that?
Mr. COHEN: Well, that's a good question. Maybe you should ask her. But her father, Cokie Roberts--Arb Roberts of ABC--her father--her late father was Hale Boggs, was a member of Congress. He was a member of the Ways and Means Committee, died in an airplane crash in Alaska in 1972 when he was the majority leader. Cokie, from--from the public record, we know that she was raised as a kid in Washington. Her father was a member of Congress. And even as a kid, she was very well connected to the world of--the House of Representative and she was friendly with members, including with Dan Rostenkowski. So he--and obviously she's become something of a media celebrity and she enjoys, I gather, emceeing various events on Capitol Hill.
LAMB: Why would you need a bicentennial celebration commemorating the Ways and Means Committee?
Mr. COHEN: You don't need it. He wanted to do it to make the
committee look--and the members of the committee feel a sense of
history, feel important. And, frankly, to--it was a way of--for
Rostenkowski to show his importance to others and was a
way--and--and--and I say this more positively, he felt good about the
committee. And he wanted to bring many of its--its current members
and its--and former members together. Among the former members of the
committee who attended that dinner in July of 1989 was the then
president of the United States, George Bush, who as a friend--good
friend of Rostenkowski's."
[End of Partial Transcript]
Burton in the Snake Pit
"When Mrs. Bhutto returned to power in 1993, Siegel returned, too, although his firm, International Public Strategies, shared the lobbying duties with other firms. One was the Washington powerhouse Patton, Boggs & Blow. (The Boggs is Tommy Boggs, son of the late Hale Boggs, whose Louisiana congressional seat was taken over at his death by his widow, Tommy's mother, who now has been nominated by the administration to be ambassador to the Vatican. Tommy's sister is Cokie Roberts of ABC, who is married to the journalist Steve Roberts. Everyone in Washington knows one another.) Patton, Boggs signed a contract with Pakistan in November 1994 stating it "will closely coordinate its activities with International Public Strategies Inc., subject to the overall supervision of the ambassador of Pakistan to the United States." The ambassador, Maleeha Lodhi, signed the contract for Pakistan. Lanny Davis, then a partner in the firm, signed for Patton, Boggs. Davis is now White House special counsel, and his only duty is to protect the Clintons against the media, Kenneth Starr, and whomever, this last being a category that includes Dan Burton."
DISAPPEARANCE
"I remember how, almost twenty years ago, Alaska's only congressman, Nick Begich, and House Democratic leader Hale Boggs of Louisiana disappeared in the same area. And I know in the intervening twenty years there has been a long list of others. Usually the plane is never found. The area is too large, the crevasses and the snow too deep, the waters too quick and too cold. Often the search is over quickly, the names of the disappeared forgotten or never known."
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 Hale Boggs, the only dissenting member of the Warren Commission who refused to sign the Warren Report until just before it was submitted. 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. Warren Commission member Congressman Hale Boggs did not believe the single bullet theory and said, "I had strong doubts about it." In a speech in 1971, Boggs accused the FBI of tapping his phone... and publicly denounced the Bureau's "gestapo tactics".
DATE: 10/16/1972
TIME: c 09:00
LOCATION: Off the Alaska coast
AIRLINE: Private
FLIGHT:
ROUTE:
AC TYPE Cessna 310
REG:
MSN/LN
ABOARD: 4
FATAL: 4
GROUND: 0
DETAILS: The plane was on a flight from Anchorage to Juneau when it
disappeared as it was approaching the Chugach Mountain range. Louisiana
Congressman and House Majority Leader Hale Boggs, Alaska Congressman Nick
Begich and his aide killed. Cause unknown.
Begich leans on political savvy, experience
"Mark Begich has spent a dozen years in public life as a city employee or as a member of the Anchorage Assembly. He's been a small-business man and property manager for more than 20 years. This spring, he's making his second run at being elected mayor.
Begich is 37 years old. Dawdling is not in his nature.
In three Assembly terms, Begich became known as an adroit politician. Colleagues say he was a master at pulling votes together, steering legislation and deciphering the city's annual budgeting process.
"Mark knows government inside out and backward," said former Assemblyman Bill Faulkner, who took the Assembly's helm during Begich's first year in office. Even then, Faulkner said, Begich was an effective ally.
..Longtime Alaskans know Begich as the son of former Congressman Nick Begich, a Democrat who vanished with U.S. House Speaker Hale Boggs in a 1972 Southeast Alaska airplane crash. More recent arrivals know him as the 9 1/2-year Assembly member, a buttoned-down politician who has polished his speaking skills."
"I am too old to go to jail,"
Brown loudly proclaimed. "If I
go down, I'll take everyone
else down with me."
Loose Lips Seal His [Brown's] Fate
The Fall of the Republic
I don't know. It is interesting to read, but why would someone (the
rescue people, perhaps) shoot Ron Brown in the head?
Who benefits? It is a stretch to say that the plane crash or
"mysterious" death of Ron Brown is tied to Clintoon.
Hehehe. You think this is unusual?
Why would someone shoot Brown in the head? Because he was about to be indicted by an Independent Counsel, and he told Clinton a week earlier that if he went down he would take clinton down with him.
The evidence that Chris Ruddy turned up on the bullet wound was absolutely convincing. There's really no doubt that he was executed. And a stewardess who survived the crash, Shelly Kelley, was also executed. The rest died in the plane crash. And the Serb airport technician who misdirected the plane into the ground conveniently committed suicide a couple of days later.
Nasty business, much worse than the Vince Foster affair. And Jesse Jackson knew it, but he was bought off.
Larry Klayman's petition to continue the Ron Brown investigation
ping
Thanks for the heads up!
This is not new.
Absolutely amazing post, Uncle Bill. Thank you.
Thank you so much! BTTT.
What Is Missing In The Cox Report?
It's a quiz!
(Need help? Bought this research paper on the net for next to nothing!)
What Ron Brown Said
"The missiles-for-cash deal manifested itself in the persona of Wang Jun. A notorious gunrunner and Chinese government agent, Jun came to the United States in 1996. He became a guest of President Clinton for a White House coffee fundraiser on Feb. 6, 1996.
Before going to the White House, however, Jun met with Commerce Secretary Brown. Both meetings were set up by Charlie Trie, the former Little Rock, Arkansas restaurateur who dropped off a wad of cash totaling $640,000 for Wag-the-Dog’s legal expense fund.
Brown knew Jun was an arms dealer and that he represented the military. Brown’s role was to give a signal to the Chinese Communist government.
That same day, President Clinton signed a lucrative waiver allowing the top contributor to the DNC, Loral Space and Communications Co., to use a Chinese rocket to launch one of its satellites into space. This was about the time China was also terrorizing Taiwan with missile tests.
Brown’s business partner and confidante Nolanda Hill told me -- in the course of dozens of interviews beginning in April 1996 – about the significance of the Wang Jun meetings.
“Ron said his role as a cabinet official was to signal to the Chinese government that they were going to get more than just waivers,” Hill said. “They were going to get a policy change on encryption. We discussed how this was all perilously close to sedition.”
Brown shared his concerns with then Secretary of State Warren Christopher, Clinton’s boyhood pal Mac McLarty and former Chief of Staff Leon Panetta, according to Hill.
“The waiver signature and the meeting with Ron happening the same day was significant – it was no coincidence,” Hill said. “Ron assured Clinton he had taken care of Charlie Trie’s people. That is the real story."
bttt
Wecht: Autopsy needed in Brown case
"One of the nation's most prominent forensic pathologists says there was "more than enough" evidence to suggest possible homicide in the death of Commerce Secretary Ron Brown, and an autopsy should have been conducted on his body.
Allegheny County Coroner Cyril Wecht reached these conclusions after reviewing photographs of Brown's body, photo images of X-rays of Brown's head and body, and the report of the forensic pathologist for the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology who examined the corpse. The Pittsburgh pathologist's findings - including his identification of what may be more evidence suggesting homicide - bolster the statements by Air Force Lt. Col. Steve Cogswell and Army Lt. Col. David Hause, both AFIP forensic pathologists."
Military photo shows the inside rear cabin, including the jump seat where Shelley Kelly and Cheryl Turnage were seated.
..
"Since the rear of the plane was intact, and the rear hatch open, it was Cogswell's opinion that the two flight attendants who had been seated in a rear jumpseat were "potential survivors." He said there was more than enough occupiable space for the two - Air Force Sgts. Shelley Kelly and Cheryl Turnage - to have lived. Items in the plane would have been thrown forward and should not have hit them, and the G-forces of deceleration were relatively low.
In fact, Kelly did survive for several hours and was found alive by Croatian rescuers. "Depending on who you talked to, Kelly was found near her seat, on the floor of the plane or outside the plane," Cogswell recalled. Croatian rescuers said she died while being transported for medical assistance. Autopsies conducted at Dover indicate Kelly died of a broken neck, and Turnage of "multiple blunt force injuries."
Bttt
"Autopsies conducted at Dover indicate Kelly died of a broken neck, and Turnage of "multiple blunt force injuries."
Wasn't there a report that Kelly bled to death as a result of a cut femoral artery - several hours after he crash?
"Wasn't there a report that Kelly bled to death as a result of a cut femoral artery - several hours after he crash?"
Yes, I believe that came from here.
"Crash site. 7:20 P.M.:
Four hours and 20 minutes after the crash, the first Croation Special Forces search party arrives on the scene. They fund only stewardess Kelly surviving. They call for a helicopter to evacuate her to the hospital. When it arrives, Kelly is able to get on board without assistance from the medics.
But Kelly never completes the short hop. She dies an route. 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 the incision came at least three hours after all her other cuts and bruises.
This creates in your mind a horrifying scene in the back of the chopper, as one Special Forces operative holds down the struggling woman while another slice her leg."
Look what they did to the Vince Foster autopsy. It was a joke.
We need to explain the reluctance of both Republicans and Democrats to investigate the highly suspicious death of Ron Brown. My working hypothesis is that Clinton, having decided Brown had to go because he was threatening to squeal, persuaded some elements in the national security establishment to assist in his death as a traitor. Maybe they actually killed him, maybe they merely facilitated a killing by a convenient foreign force like the Bosnian Muslims. But, whatever happened, we do need to explain why neither side seems willing to investigate.
Interesting reading. Does everyone who reads this type of thread get dubbed a conspiracy theorist?
WND's ballistics analysis is extremely weak. Yes, a .357 slug CAN flatten on impact as opposed to passing through the body--but only if Ron Brown's skull was filled with cement...
And the .40 cal figure is doubtful, in my mind. It's the first I've heard that figure, and it's only when the missing firearm was radically off the caliber involved.
Does everyone who reads this type of thread get dubbed a conspiracy theorist?
Only if you "bookmark" it.
Uh-oh. Better check my bookmarks!
But, whatever happened, we do need to explain why neither side seems willing to investigate
There are some questions that haven't even been asked:
1. Why was Cengic, a moslem radical, suddenly running Bosnia at the time due to an "illness" on the part of Izetbegovic?
2. Why was the trade mission sent in the first place? Agencies in DC considered the mujahideen a hazard. A terrorist training camp had been found in Bosnia six weeks before the mission, and IFOR was still discovering anti-aircraft weapons there on the day of the mission. Further, the mission was meant to bribe Izetbegovic into kicking the mujahideen out.....four months after they were supposed to leave.......This was the condition for the $200 million due to legislation sponsored by Bob Dole.
3. Why was DC so adamant on Cengic being removed in late 1996 by the Bosnian government? The next year the a State Dept press release stated that Cengic was running an Iranian intelligence operation in Bosnia.
Besides the crash investigation, an investigation was also launched into the involvement of Galbraith, Holbrooke, and Talbott in the transfer of military hardware from Iran to Bosnia- a violation of the embargo. The RINO's figured out an innocuous way to assign blame, and it was all forgotten.
The klintoon administration was up to their eyeballs in all of this. So was Dole. It was 1996, and both were running for president. An actual investigation into this mess was not in the interest of either campaign.
Thats why I keep them in my favorites file : )
i don't have near the insight Hamiltonian does but I'll give my $.02
Hamiltonian mentions Brown's trip as having bi partisan aspects Re: Dole, the established view is it's a crash, the first word on it was it was caused by inclement weather. We know that is BS. Is the bad weather story still the cover ?? let's say it was not just a crash, what happened ? Who did it ? Who do we blame ? Osama Bin Ladin, again ? We can't allow our trade representatives to be shot down, we are America. There is just no upside for it to be anything else but a crash, just like TWA 800, there is no other option.
One thing that is concerning me about this, was there anything in the coroners report which could prove/disprove whether the head trauma with the metal fragmentation was pre or post mortem? The location (if it was a bullet) would indicate that someone stood over the body and fired vertically down into the apex of the skull. My reasoning is that it would be logical to have happened after the crash, because if it occurred prior, then the person(s) involved would have been in the aircraft, and presumably perished in the accident. Could it have been a object lesson for public consumption and a lesson to those who might think about talking, administered to a body already dead?. Frankly I can't think of anything other than a bullet that would leave that fragment pattern, an ice ax (a la Trotsky) wouldn't have done the fragment bit, although it would have left a round entrance wound. The reason I brought this up is a rescue team would have some tools for entry, which would include either an ice ax or a halligan tool, which also has a pointed end.
I am just trying to fill in some blanks here
Keep the Faith
Greg
I'll bump this one again to invite you to check my own "tin foil alert" thread, The Establishment by Name.
One thing that is concerning me about this, was there anything in the coroners report which could prove/disprove whether the head trauma with the metal fragmentation was pre or post mortem?
Christopher Ruddy showed copies of the x-rays and photos to Pittsburgh coroner Dr. Cyril Wecht, one of the nation's foremost forensic pathologists. Wecht, a democrat, said "I'll wager you anything that you can't find a forensic pathologist in America who will say Brown should not have been autopsied." Wecht said the identification of almost half a dozen "tiny pieces of dull silver- colored" material embedded in the scalp on the edge of the wound "suggest metallic fragments". He said "little pieces of metal can be found at, or near, an entry site when a bullet enters bone." If the metal is from a bullet, he said the array of fragments would indicate a shot fired BEFORE the crash. Don't ask me how he can tell this from the evidence.
Frankly I can't think of anything other than a bullet that would leave that fragment pattern, an ice ax (a la Trotsky) wouldn't have done the fragment bit, although it would have left a round entrance wound.
I suspect it is very difficult to make a perfectly round hole in bone with a low velocity impact (like an ice ax).
My suspicion is that they knocked out communication with the plane by doing something to the plane when it was still 8 miles from the airport (loss of transponder signal, "suicide" of the air traffic controller and loss of the airport tower tapes which would have indicated a problem well before landing), then used a portable beacon to guide the plane into a mountain to make it look like an accident (missing beacon from airport, "suicide" of person in charge of beacon). Note that the rear door of the airplane was found open so perhaps someone on board knocked out communications and shot Brown, then parachuted out.
It is worth noting that there was an Associated Press report which stated that the first Croatians on the scene were met by 3 unidentified Americans on the ground ... yet the official U.S. report says that Croatians were the first to arrive at the crash site. Clean up squad? That might explain the death of the stewardess and the other unnamed survivor (the Christopher timeline item from Sockowitz).
Why neither party wants to investigate?....
Someone on another thread said it well, they are two wings of the same predatory bird.
Thanks for this excellent compilation. Re: the bullet hole and murder weapon, there is another possibility that hasn't been mentioned. Brown could have been shot with a .44 magnum with shotshells, instead of a bullet. This might explain why there is no exit wound. The metallic specks in the x-ray might be shot, instead of bullet fragments. But I don't know if shot would have made such a perfectly round entrance wound.
Can anyone confirm that the specks would have to be metallic, as Cogswell says? Another assassination method involves using wood or fiberglass bullets, because the murder weapon can't be identified by matching the rifling marks on the projectile.
Can anyone confirm that the specks would have to be metallic, as Cogswell says? Another assassination method involves using
wood or fiberglass bullets, because the murder weapon can't be identified by matching the rifling marks on the projectile.
Another possibility: prefragmented ammunition [and very available in .45 caliber from Glaser and other manufacturers] in which the bullet core is a dense lead shot or *dust* rather than a solid slug, mnaking it far less likely that a solid bullet will exit the body of a human target. Indeed, the marketing name for the things is *Glaser Safety Slug*.
Though a conventional copper bullet jacket is used to contain the charge in the cartridge case, a simple plastic nosecap holds it in the loaded round. I don't think it'd be any great problem for such rounds to be modified to use a filler material other than lead, such as granulated bone or fiberglass dust, either of which might be expected to be found in an air crash victim's injuries.
And, of course, at the time of Rod Brown's convenient death, with the possibility of exposure of milkitary accomplices in the *Operation Linebacker* scandal regarding the disposition of US military equipment left behind in Vietnam, the Special Operations community had just adopted the Mk23 pistol for *special operatives*, complete with silencer and nightlight module that would be particularly convenient in dealing with stunned crash survivors in the dark and confusion of their surprise landing. What a nice opportunity to test the new pistol and some specialty ammunition all at the same time!
Thanks for that post, I had forgotten about the Glaser. That or some similar exotic round does sound like a distinct possibility.
BTTT
Bill Clinton drove Hale Boggs to the airport to catch the lost/fatal flight in 1972? Please confirm the specifics.
Jesse Jackson and other black leaders at the time called for an autopsy to find out if the hole was caused by a bullet.
"I think people have a right to know what really happened," he said in January 1998.
Am I the only one who finds it odd that the Monica scandal broke at exactly the right time to distract America from the Ron Brown story?
I can remember Black journalists frothing at the mouth about this, just days before the "I did not have sex speech."
FWIW, here's a cached copy of the original FR thread:
BTTT. Hi Nita!
'Afternoon, Uncle Bill! Are we having fun yet?!
Thanks- I just stuck a link to this in my DUBOB ( Dark Underbelly of the Beast ) post.... more stuff the Media Jackals would just rather not even mention, and God Forbid! you ask them about it!
Well, it could be better, I've been waiting to read the Sinkspur Spin News Daily.
Miami Herald, The
December 23, 1992
NOMINEE WAS LOBBYIST FOR DUVALIER'S HAITI ROLE MAY BE CONFIRMATION ISSUE
FRANK GREVE And PAMELA CURTIN Herald Washington Bureau
While Haiti's Jean Claude Duvalier ruled the hemisphere's poorest country in the mid-1980s, the regime's top Washington lobbyist was Ron Brown, now the Democratic Party chairman.President-elect Bill Clinton has nominated Brown as secretary of commerce -- and Brown's lobbying activities could become an issue during his confirmation hearings.
During the campaign, Clinton criticized "high-priced lobbyists and Washington influence peddlers." He has since banned his appointees from ever serving as agents of foreign governments. Brown was paid a retainer of $12,200 a month to represent Haiti between October 1983 and July 1986. Opinion is split on what he accomplished for his client.
By some accounts, Brown helped to convince Duvalier that the Reagan administration had serious concerns about human rights in Haiti and persuaded him to tolerate Haiti's fledgling labor movement.
But others say Brown gave legitimacy to despotic leaders who deposited about $86 million in private overseas accounts while he was working for them, according to investigators seeking to recover the money. The sum includes millions skimmed in the processing and distribution of U.S. food aid.
In the end, many Haiti specialists who were lobbied by Brown in Washington and Port-au-Prince concluded that he brought integrity, energy -- maybe even naive idealism -- to an ultimately unsuccessful task.
"Ron tried to persuade us to give Haiti a second chance, and he thought he could really do something to help Haiti, but he fooled himself," says an aide to the congressional Black Caucus, whose members took a special interest in Haiti. The aide asked not to be identified.
"It wasn't Ron's fault; it was the client," says Stephen Horblitt, a Haitian expert who worked for former District of Columbia Delegate Walter Fauntroy, the leader in Congress on U.S.-Haiti relations in the 1980s.
According to documents filed with the Justice Department's foreign agents registration section, Brown pleaded Haiti's case about 60 times a year, principally with members and staff of the Black Caucus, the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and liberal Democrats.
In addition, Brown conferred with members of the Select Committee on Narcotics who were concerned about Haiti's role as a trans-shipment point for cocaine from Colombia.
Brown's main lobbying goals were to increase U.S. aid to Haiti, promote U.S. investment, minimize U.S. tariffs on imported Haitian goods, and improve Haiti's image, particularly with regard to human rights, according to Justice documents.
Brown could not be reached for comment on his representation of Haiti. Democratic National Committee press aide Ginny Terzano said he was "just too swamped."
In a 1989 National Press Club appearance, after his promotion from deputy to chairman of the Democratic Party, Brown said he had represented Haiti's foreign ministry, not the Duvalier regime.
But "to represent Haiti in those days was to represent the Duvalier government," says Anthony P. Maingot, a Florida International University sociologist who has written extensively on Haiti and the Duvaliers.
In addition, Brown told his press club audience that "humanitarian aid during those years was increased threefold, the Peace Corps went into Haiti for the first time, and Haiti was certified for participation in the Caribbean Basin Initiative. So I have no apologies to make for that service."
But State Department records show no growth in the roughly $50 million in annual U.S. government aid to Haiti between 1983 and 1986. Only after the Duvaliers fled in February 1986 did U.S. aid jump to $99.5 million. By then Haiti's successor government was seeking a new Washington lobbyist.
Former U.S. Ambassador to Haiti Clayton E. McManaway Jr., who served from January 1984 until August 1986, praised Brown as "very helpful and genuinely interested in a better Haiti." But McManaway did not recall Brown having "anything to do with bringing the Peace Corps in."
McManaway said Brown used his access to convey to Duvalier U.S. concern about respect for human rights and the rights of workers to organize. McManaway's predecessor, Ambassador Ernest H. Preeg, does not recall Brown playing any role in securing Haiti's participation in the Caribbean Basin Initiative. Preeg, like McManaway, went out of his way to laud Brown as "a very professional, straightforward guy."
Jocelyn Macala, executive director of the National Coalition for Haitian Refugees, based in New York, says Brown's legitimacy was part of the problem.
"Mr. Brown reinforced the notion within the Reagan Administration and Congress that Duvalier may have been an S.O.B., but he's our S.O.B.," reasons Macala. "Did that help the Haitian people?" he asks. "Absolutely not."
Haiti was the first big client Brown brought to Patton, Boggs & Blow, the aggressive Washington law firm known for lobbying on behalf of unpopular clients. Fauntroy and the Black Caucus had urged Haitian officials to drop white lobbyists then handling the account and hire a black lobbyist, according to congressional aides.
week end re read bump
Thanks for the bump, thinden. I may have to be careful where I post from now on. Yesterday I was told on a completely unrelated thread that my opinion was invalid because I hung out on "CIA Conspiracy" threads. Oh, well....
Jesse and Kwasi are good "house boys" of the Democratic Party and will NEVER push this issue and upset their massa's.
"CIA Conspiracy" threads??????
when the board is loaded with "breaking news" threads on gary condit. shame shame.
p.s. pass the reynolds wrap.
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