Posted on 07/12/2005 12:02:46 PM PDT by Richard Poe
"Could have been. I'm just as bad with screen names as I am regular names. LOL"
No problem. I'm just as bad. I meet you at CPAC, and you (already being an established freeper) were a lot busier than I was.
"I am sure you can identify with Ed Klein who is being blackballed for writing his book on her."
Interesting comment. I heard Sean Hannity's interview with Klien. Hannity said he had never before received this much pressure to cancel an interview.
Obviously, he resisted the pressure and had the interview. But I could hear the impact of the experience in his voice.
Compared to Poe's book, Klien's is a love fest.
Much as I admire Hannity, I'll admit he might not interview Poe, when it came down to it. On the other hand, he might.
One thing is for sure, we must try to set that up, somehow. Even the much smaller market of Jim Quinn (W. Pa, Eastern Ohio) would be a triumph for me, something I need to try to make happen, I suppose.
"I wish I'd known that when I wrote Hillary's Secret War!"
How about a Second Edition?
"I left out the stewardess.."
Thanks. another Second Edition item.
'I do notice, however, that Niko Junic, the airport maintenance chief, "...died of gunshot wounds three days after the crash. Officials ruled his death a suicide after a one-day investigation."'
The guy in charge of the surveillance tapes of the White House parking lot died shortly after Foster died.
Jerry Parks, associate of Foster, was gunned down shortly after Foster died.
The guy who was analyzing the tape of the Waco fire died suddenly.
Barbara Wise, associate of Ron Brown, was found nude and dead.
“Brown had a .45-inch inwardly beveling circular hole in the top of head, which is...the description of a .45-caliber gunshot wound,” Caldwell [Cogswell, per your correction] told Rudy (39). In his interview, Caldwell [Cogswell] repeatedly described the injury as “an apparent gunshot wound.” He said, “[W]hen you got something that appears to be a homicide that should bring everything to a screeching halt.” (40)
Lt. Col. Cogswell seems to be the original ur-source of the "bullet wound" story. There's only one problem:
"Cogswell acknowledged that he did not examine Brown's body."
Uh-oh. He did have some pictures, etc. from the examination that another doctor did, which the Air Force required him to turn in. He was using them in seminars (for which he was being paid).
You suggested that Lt. Col. Cogswell observed the body in situ. He did not. In fact, he never saw Ron Brown's body, not once. He first got to the crash site five days after.
Source: AP Story 5 Dec 97 at dickgregory.com.
officials had conducted a "full discussion" of Brown's injuries, including the head wound, and had ruled out the possibility of a gunshot...
...the pathologist who examined Brown's body, Col. William Gormley... discounted the gunshot possibility because the skull was not penetrated and there was no exit wound.
Erich Junger, then the institute's chief forensic scientist and who observed Gormley's examination, said he saw no evidence of a gunshot wound.
So let's review here: you and Richard believe the guy that wasn't there, but who based his conclusions on hearsay, photographs and suspicion, and the two docs that were actually there and observed this at first hand, well they are part of the cover-up. (As you suggested I was).
Look, you, and Richard, have suggested that somehow, Hillary Clinton, a large swath of people in the US Air Force, harold Ickes, and Christ knows who else conspired to whack this third-rate cabinet appointee by simultaneously shooting him and crashing the plane he was on.
It's a very farfetched scenario, and the burden of proof is on you, and slinging ad hominems on the people who won't follow logical fallacies or jump chasms of innuendo with you, doesn't relieve you of that burden.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
Wow. You have me totally and completely confused with someone else. LOL I've never been to CPAC.
"Wow. You have me totally and completely confused with someone else. LOL I've never been to CPAC"
Sorry. My confusion.
"The guy in charge of the surveillance tapes of the White House parking lot died shortly after Foster died...Barbara Wise, associate of Ron Brown, was found nude and dead."
All quite interesting. If you have not read Hillary's Secret War, I think you would enjoy it. At the same time, you might want to be in touch with Richard Poe, if he really does a second edition.
Once again. p. 168 Hillary's Secret War:
“US Army Lt. Col. Hause... personally examined a suspicious head wound on Brown's corpse while it was being examined at Dover Air Force Base. A commotion erupted on the examination table, Hause tells reporter Chris Rudy, when the head wound was first discovered. He describes how the wound “looked like a punched-out .45-caliber entrance hole...”
Dear Criminal Number 18F:
You raise a valid point.
Anyone who has looked seriously and objectively at the Ron Brown case finds the alleged bullet-hole in his head baffling, for all the reasons you state. In my book, I did not even attempt to resolve this problem, but focused instead on the cover-up.
Obstructing a death investigation is a crime, even if the death turns out to be accidental. Moreoever, such obstruction raises the question of motive on the part of the obstructors. Maybe Ron Brown wasn't murdered. Maybe the hole in his head was not a bullethole. But, if he wasn't murdered, then there was something else about that plane crash that the Clintons did not want people to know, because the investigation was not handled properly. It was obstructed.
This was the point I made in my book — nothing more, nothing less.
That said, let me offer a theory — informally, between you and me — which I did not suggest in my book.
It has been reported that a stewardess survived the crash and died in an ambulance en route to the hospital. It has also been reported that Brown's body was found relatively intact. So evidently the force of the crash was not sufficient to kill everyone onboard nor did it suffice to destroy all the bodies.
Suppose Brown was alive when the Croatian rescue team found him. Or suppose whoever found him was not sure if he was alive or dead, did not have time to find out, and so pulled out his side-arm and quickly delivered the coup de grace, just to make sure.
As you note, firing a bullet straight down through the crown of the head seems like an unusual way to shoot someone. However, Christopher Ruddy noted that firing a bullet into a body from that angle would ensure that the bullet traveled the longest possible route from one end of the body to the other, during which process the bullet would disintegrate into tiny particles, and would leave no exit wound. According to Ruddy, X-rays of Brown's body showed a spray pattern of opaque particles consistent with such a wound.
Most people would not be aware of the advantage of shooting a person through the crown of the head, but a trained assassin would probably know this.
I would be interested in hearing your evaluation of this theory.
P.S. Please allow me to clarify something regarding strategofr's prior remarks. Strategofr is a young, excitable fellow. I met him briefly while signing books at CPAC. While I very much appreciate his enthusiasm for my book, he was wrong to call you an idiot and I apologize on his behalf. Please don't confuse strategofr's attitude with mine. I have the greatest respect for your knowledge and experience, and find your remarks helpful, even when I don't agree with them.
P.S. Why on earth do you call yourself Criminal Number 18F?
JANOSKI: No, the injury was at the very top of Ron Brown's head. So if it was a bullet, the bullet probably would have went through the body and would have exited around the buttocks or the groin area. Well that area was never examined thoroughly at all. Nor was I told to take photographs to show either the presence or the absence of any injury down there at all.
JANOSKI: Well, what happened was - we have a Naval criminal investigative agent who's assigned to our office. And about six months after the crash she told me that the first set of x-rays were deliberately destroyed because they showed a "lead snowstorm." And a second set of x-rays were taken and they were deliberately made less dense to try to diminish or eradicate that "lead snowstorm." A Naval criminal investigative agent assigned to my office told me this.
Criminal Number 18F, you told strategofr that he owed the investigators an apology for accusing them of a cover-up. I guess that applies to me too.
But I'm wondering, doesn't that cut both ways? If we believe the four whistleblowers — all respected members of the AFIP forensic team — then we cannot help but cast doubt on the findings of the other investigators. Likewise, if we accept the official story, we must necessarily cast doubt on the findings of the four whistleblowers.
Plainly, it is not helpful to allow concern for people's hurt feelings or reputations to influence our judgement in this case, since feelings will be hurt and reputations damaged no matter which group of AFIP pathologists we choose to believe.
Wouldn't you agree?
Obstructing a death investigation is a crime, even if the death turns out to be accidental. Moreoever, such obstruction raises the question of motive on the part of the obstructors.
I guess the question becomes, more or less as you put it, whom do we believe? The hierarchy of the AFIP, including the physician who actually examined him, pooh-poohs the bullet idea. Four AFIP connected individuals, two of them physicians, one of whom had seen the body, and another one a photographer who was present for the official guy's examination, say it was, or could have been, a bullet hole.
I am at a bit of a disadvantage here because I haven't read your book. I promise to rectify that as soon as I get my hands on a copy and a little time. I am currently reading a Joseph Finder suspense story -- Normally my reading is 90% + non-fiction, but Joe is an interesting guy and writes good books. So I will queue Hillary's Secret War up for when I finish Company Man.
Maybe Ron Brown wasn't murdered.
Well, that depends on how you feel about military units getting casual about procedures. A bunch of heads rolled (figuratively speaking) over this prang.
Maybe the hole in his head was not a bullethole.
I would say that it is not impossible but it's highly unlikely.
But, if he wasn't murdered, then there was something else about that plane crash that the Clintons did not want people to know, because the investigation was not handled properly. It was obstructed.
OK, here you're making a logical leap. Two actually. One is that the investigation was obstructed. What we actually have is two groups of investigators with disparate opinions on that. The ones who deny obstructing the investigation, imply that the reason that they landed hard on one of those guys was that he took examination data and then made it public by using it in seminars.
The second logical leap is that, if the investigation was obstructed, it was the doing of the Clinton crime family. They are certainly logical suspects, but it's far from a lock.
Back to our seminar-presenting pathologist, you will note that, he had done this before with non-celebrity cases, and he says (and I believe him) that other AFIP physicians did the same thing with other cases. The difference is the celebrity status and political juice of the decedent in this case. Nothing makes military brass hinky like civilian brass that outranks them -- and Ron Brown, at least when he was alived, nominally outranked every man and woman in uniform, as a Cabinet secretary. He wasn't in their direct chain of command, but he was juiceful (to coin a word) enough that they were all walking on eggshells. SO then Doctor-Colonel X finds out that Doctor-Lt. Col. Y has documents from the ultra-sensitive case -- that's why the SPs were sent to pick up the papers from his house, and his OERs turned him from a water walker to a septic tank swimmer overnight, IMHO.
In other words, his "crime" was a tin ear to the different pitch that a celebrity/political case gets. The military denies handling celebrity cases differently, but we all know it's bullshit. (Remember JFK Jr? Think if I went in the drink they'd send half the navy to scrape the bits of my plane off the bottom of the sea and give me a proper burial instead of being Purina Crab Chow? Ain't gonna happen).
This was the point I made in my book — nothing more, nothing less.
Like I said, if I'm going to engage with you on this matter I really have to read your book, or I will look like a fool. I am many things, but I do try not to be a fool.
That said, let me offer a theory — informally, between you and me — which I did not suggest in my book.
It has been reported that a stewardess survived the crash and died in an ambulance en route to the hospital.
Well, she was reported live on the scene and DOA at the hospital, this is true. Not uncommon in plane crashes. Like I said, survivors in CFIT accidents are uncommon.
It has also been reported that Brown's body was found relatively intact.
Eh, so was Princess Diana's but she suffered unsurvivable deceleration trauma. Brown is also reported to have suffered secondary impact injuries (this is when you smash into stuff because the airplane stopped moving and your inertia has to go somewhere). That implies that either he was not strapped in (a common conceit of high rollers traveling by personal jet) or the forces were sufficient to break his seat belt. I'll have to pull up the files again.
I would suspect you have moved on from Ron Brown, but if it still interests you, I'd urge you to FOIA the accident report, which is multiple volumes. The AF will whine and resist releasing it, not because they are covering up, but because their safety culture is that we are perfectly frank in safety reports, and we can be because no one outside the fraternity will see them. You would get the same pushback on any other mishap, especially fatal ones. But make 'em go through the motions.
So evidently the force of the crash was not sufficient to kill everyone onboard nor did it suffice to destroy all the bodies.
Just so you understand, the amount of energy that kills a human by deceleration trauma is much lower than the amount of energy that disarticulates bodies. In general, most or all the parts of the pilots and pax are still attached. I believe this crash was non-survivable for most on board (a mortally injured person hanging on for an hour is a testimony to the human will to live), especially for anyone who was unrestrained.
Suppose Brown was alive when the Croatian rescue team found him.
And the odds that they knew hin from Adam...? It's one thing to bring down a plane, it's another to pick where you bring it down.
Or suppose whoever found him was not sure if he was alive or dead, did not have time to find out, and so pulled out his side-arm and quickly delivered the coup de grace, just to make sure.
If you're that ready to kill him that you'll crash an airline-size Air Force plane and kill scores (possibly hundreds, if this thing had hit Dubrovnik), are you really so belt-and-suspenders determined to kill him that you have a shooter prepositioned with each rescue squad that might go out?
As you note, firing a bullet straight down through the crown of the head seems like an unusual way to shoot someone. However, Christopher Ruddy noted that firing a bullet into a body from that angle would ensure that the bullet traveled the longest possible route from one end of the body to the other, during which process the bullet would disintegrate into tiny particles, and would leave no exit wound.
Ruddy's a bit off plumb here. Someone trying to do that would have to be ultra careful so as not to produce an exit wound in the base of the skull, below the jaw, etc. Doesn't take much angle off to fail at this. On the other hand, if the bullet was .45 calibre, penetration is not that big a concern.
According to Ruddy, X-rays of Brown's body showed a spray pattern of opaque particles consistent with such a wound.
It would be a most unusual .45 calibre round that devolved into a spray of particles. Most of them don't even deform significantly.
Most people would not be aware of the advantage of shooting a person through the crown of the head, but a trained assassin would probably know this.
Not being a trained assassin, I'm not sure what they know (secretive bunch, them), but I am a veteran of combat arms and a graduate of the old Special Forces Light Weapons School, so I know a little about shooting people and how guns perform. I don't think Ruddy does.
P.S. Please allow me to clarify something regarding strategofr's prior remarks.
Nothing taken as offence there. He and I are both anonymous here, which tends to bring out the beast in a guy.
With respect to my screen name, it's an in joke that people who have had experiences like mine sometimes "get." I have promised to "out" myself on FR when I can, which means when I hang the uniform up for the last time.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
I appreciate your interest. However — as much as I love selling books — I cannot tell a lie. You won't find much about the forensics of Ron Brown's death in Hillary's Secret War — no more than a couple of pages — and most of that is cited from Chris Ruddy's reportage in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, just about all of which is available online.
My book is mainly concerned with media suppression during the Clinton years and how certain individuals, such as Chris Ruddy, Joe Farah, Matt Drudge, Jim Robinson and others outmaneuvered the Clintons by taking to the Internet.
The Ron Brown coverup comes into the story mainly because it was a big scoop for Chris Ruddy which was suppressed by mainstream media. In Hillary's Secret War, I really focus more on the media coverage of the case than the actual forensics of it. Whether or not the whistleblowers were right, their story was suppressed. They were not given the same sort of sympathetic and even admiring coverage accorded to the likes of Richard Clarke, Joe Wilson and Mark Felt. The double standard is telling.
So, if media suppression and propaganda interests you, by all means, buy my book. But don't expect exhaustive analysis of the Ron Brown crash. I more or less followed Ruddy's findings on that.
Please blame me for any errors in the above posts. I was writing off the top of my head and misremembered some things.
Christopher Ruddy is well-versed in the forensics of homicide investigations. I am not. In my above post, I'm afraid I misstated certain aspects of Ruddy's reportage concerning the ballistics of the hypothetical bullet-hole in Ron Brown's head. The error is mine, not Ruddy's.
When I wrote my response to you, I remembered that Ruddy had cited Chief Petty Officer Kathleen Janoski's testimony regarding the "lead snowstorm" in Brown's x-rays. However, because I had not read this material in some time, I forgot Janoski's additional statement that the bullet would have exited Brown's body in the groin or buttocks area, and remembered only the point about the "lead snowstorm."
Writing off the top of my head on this message board, and, not being well-versed in ballistics, I erroneously assumed that the "lead snowstorm" would have been all that remained of the .45 caliber round, and extrapolated from there.
However, that is not what Ruddy reported nor is it what the AFIP whistleblowers said. Again, that was just my extrapolation based upon an imperfect memory of the facts.
In writing Hillary's Secret War, I was more careful. I did not delve deeply into contentious technical issues, but instead focused on the media and White House reaction to the AFIP whistleblowers — that is, on the fact that these whistleblowers were not given a fair hearing, but instead were suppressed.
In my book, I drew no conclusions about Ron Brown's death, other than to note that the investigation was handled in an irregular and suspicious manner; that the White House had a strong motive for wanting Brown silenced; that the major media blacked out the story of the four AFIP whistleblowers; and that the troubling aspects of Ron Brown's death only received coverage thanks to the efforts of Chris Ruddy, Matt Drudge and innumerable citizen journalists on the Internet.
bttt
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