America’s Golden Boy

On July 16, 1999, Camelot would suffer yet another tragedy when John F. Kennedy, Jr., his wife Carolyn Bessette, and her sister Lauren died in a plane crash just off Martha’s Vineyard.

As he was about to make his final approach, Kennedy’s Piper Saratoga plummeted into the ocean suddenly and with no warning. Although Kennedy had been in touch with the tower only minutes before, no distress call was ever heard.

Before the wreckage was even recovered - without having so much as a clue as to what caused the crash - authorities declared it an accident. When asked by one reporter at the news conference on Martha’s Vineyard, “Is this case being considered a crime scene?” Cape Island Assistant DA Michael Keefe sprung to the microphone and answered with an abrupt, No!... It in no way suggests that there is any investigation other than to determine the identity of the deceased.”

This was followed by Captain Robert Byrd of the Massachusetts State Police, who said, “Possession of this evidence is an arrestable offense.”[1]

This was perhaps a telling statement, considering that James Sanders, author of the book, The Downing of TWA Flight 800, had proven conclusively that the TWA 747 was the victim of a missile attack. Sanders had obtained a piece of seat fabric from TWA pilot Terrell Stacey. Intent on double checking the FBI’s dubious lab work, he sent it to an independent lab, which found traces of missile fuel, contradicting the findings of the Bureau. For his courageous attempt at telling the truth, Sanders and his wife were charged with a federal offense and faced a maximum of 10 years in prison![2*]

The compliant media followed suit. Even before the cause of the crash had been determined, the media was abuzz with stories declaring Kennedy to be an inexperienced pilot, flying in poor weather, who was likely the victim of vertigo (night-time spatial disorientation).[3]

Hugh Sprunt, an aviator tapped for his expertise by Fox-TV in Dallas, wrote the author:

In a typical disorientation scenario for someone flying over water at night in conditions of reduced visibility (the haze in the case of Kennedy, though most say it only reduced the visibility to eight miles) such that there are no visible lights on land and sea to orient the pilot (especially a low-time pilot without an IFR rating who is also not that familiar with his or her aircraft), something happens to distract the pilot from his instrument scan (especially from his artificial horizon) for a few seconds. When he returns to his instrument scan, the plane (being hand flown) is already in at least a modestly abnormal attitude. Either the pilot panics and tries to recover by correcting in the wrong direction(s) or corrects in the proper direction(s), but over-controls and loses it.[4]

According to NBC News, “Some aviation experts think radar information and weather conditions point to a terrifying descent known as the ‘Graveyard Spiral.’ The Graveyard Spiral is a series of ever-tightening turns that corkscrew a plane towards the earth. It is the leading danger when new pilots leave clear weather for clouds. Training tapes show they lose their bearings and begin to turn without even knowing it.”

“That’s why it’s so insidious,” says Michael Barr, an experienced fighter pilot and director of the aviation safety program of the University of Southern California. “If a bell went off in your head and said ‘spatial disorientation, spatial disorientation, roll wings level,’ no one would ever die.”

By the time the force of gravity begins to warn the pilot the plane is falling, the instinct to pull up only makes the spiral worse, according to experts. According to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), 83 percent of all fatal accidents happen when new pilots fly in bad weather, lose their bearings and spiral to the ground.[5]

One so-called authority, the author of several unauthorized biographies on the Kennedys, told the New York Post that he had a conversation with Kennedy in which Kennedy seemed anxious about making an extra landing at Martha’s Vineyard to drop off his sister-in-law. “I have to land twice,” said Kennedy. “I’m really not that experienced a pilot.”[6]

Other claims, often attributed to “unnamed sources,” indicated that Kennedy’s wife was afraid to fly with him.

And Richard Ebstein, an Israeli molecular geneticist, chimed in by claiming that Kennedy possessed a “Risk-Taking Gene”!

“There are very clear indications in the Kennedy family history that its members carry this gene,” Ebstein told Agence France-Presse (AFP). “If I were a Kennedy, I’d consult the best psychologists in the U.S. to discuss what normal personalities are and how to control their risk-taking urge.”

As AFP added:

There was growing speculation that John Kennedy Jr’s plane crash on Friday was the result of imprudence. He had little experience as a pilot, bought the more powerful plane he was flying only a few months ago and chose not to file a flight plan.... Kennedy also chose to fly despite poor visibility which discouraged more experienced pilots from making the same flight and was still recovering from a leg injury that could have limited his ability to control the plane.[7]

Yet Kennedy was anything but an inexperienced pilot.

“He was a good pilot and as familiar with this airport as someone of his experience could be,” his flight instructor, Arthur Marx, chief pilot for Flywright Aviation told the Boston Globe.[8]

According to Marx, “The last time I flew with him was a year ago, and I definitely did not see the kind of person who took unnecessary risks. If anything, [he was] under-confident.”[9]

According to ABC News, Kennedy had logged between 200 and 300 hours in the air, and went to one of the best private flight schools in the country.[10]

In fact, all instructors who trained Kennedy described him as an excellent pilot who was exceptionally cautious and not likely to take risks.

“He was an excellent pilot,” John McColgan of Vero Beach, Florida, told the Orlando Sentinel. “I put him through the paces, and he passed everything with flying colors.”

Kennedy had a visual pilot’s rating. A higher instrument rating allows pilots to rely on the plane’s instruments if skies are not clear. Kennedy traveled to Vero Beach last year to take a pilot’s course at the Flight Safety Academy and went to McColgan for the federally required test of his skills, the newspaper said.... He said Kennedy had a lot of flight experience for someone with a pilot’s license for 15 months. Kennedy obtained a private pilot’s license on April 22, 1998.

“He flew a lot,” McColgan said. “In fact, by now he probably has enough hours to be a commercial pilot. He had more than 100 hours when he came to me for his flight check.”[11]

McColgan said that Kennedy had begun flying 17 years before, in 1982. He noted that he had amassed even more hours of flight instruction than he had been aware of when interviewed by the Sentinel. He also said that Kennedy had just recently completed his instrument flight training and was just about to receive his instrument rating.[12]

This information was verified by the NTSB, which noted that Kennedy “had about 300 hours of flying experience, not including his time in the Saratoga (about 40 hours), which he bought in April.”[13]

According to FAA statistics, 300 hours made him a more careful pilot than one with 1000 hours, who is more complacent.

Reports that Kennedy’s wife was afraid to fly with him, again, appeared to be propaganda. According to interviews on Inside Edition, Carolyn had no problem flying with her husband and flew with him often. This account was backed up by Kennedy’s statement on NBC’s “Extra,” in which he said, “She’s right up there on the front seat [with me].”[14]

Additionally, the fact that he had two female passengers [in the seats behind him] who undoubtedly would want to converse with him (distracting him from his instrument readings)—during a night flight—would tend to indicate that he would have put the plane on auto-pilot. The auto-pilot would have automatically righted the plane had it begun an unintended change of attitude or altitude.

Yet throughout the days that followed, every major TV network in the country paraded before their listeners expert after expert who described in almost the exact same detail how an “inexperienced” pilot like Kennedy would have had major problems flying through the thick nighttime haze.

Although radar data showed substantial haze on Long Island, the region around Martha’s Vineyard showed little or no atmospheric moisture during the time Kennedy’s plane went down. The NTSB report stated that “night visual meteorological conditions prevailed.”[15]

In fact, the official FAA weather forecast was VFR (Visual Flight Rules) conditions. Visibility at the time was reported to be between 6 and 8 miles, with “clear skies.”[16]

Kennedy was 10 miles from Martha’s Vineyard’s at the time of his last radio contact. Given the intense light pollution from the island, it is unlikely that Kennedy was disoriented. This fact was supported by a letter written to the Martha’s Vineyard Gazette, entitled “Too Much Light at New Airport.”

To the Editor:

The Vineyard has taken another step towards becoming Orlando north. Last weekend, we took a late ferry back to the Vineyard after a few weeks away. When we arrived at our house south of the Edgartown/Vineyard Haven Road, turned off the car lights and stepped out of the car, I was astonished to see the sky to the north of us lit up as brightly as the Boston skyline. I drove north to discover that the new airport had apparently been opened in our absence, and there were now 60 new roadway lights in operation! Unlike the old street lights, which had their bulbs up inside a reflector where they would illuminate the ground but be shielded from the sky, these new lights are very bright and completely unshielded....[17]

Appearing to contradict the 8 mile visibility report was Marc Villa, chairman of the Martha’s Vineyard Airport Commission, himself an experienced pilot. Villa told The Martha’s Vineyard Gazette that he was forced to rely on instruments that night for a flight he took out of Martha’s Vineyard Airport.

“As soon as you took off, you lost the horizon and had to rely on instruments,” said Villa. “It happens some days; technically you have VFR, but you have to rely on instruments.”

Villa added that there was thick haze that night.

“You really had no horizon. It was not turbulent, it was just that you could not see anything.”[18*]

Kyle Bailey, who scrubbed his flight to the Vineyard that night, said that the haze that night limited visibility to about four miles. “It just seemed too hazy to go over the open water,” said Bailey.[19]

According to the preliminary NTSB report, pilots who had overflown Long Island Sound “reported that the in-flight visibility over the water was significantly reduced.”

Yet this information was contradicted by Victor Pribanic, an attorney fishing on the southeastern tip of Martha’s Vineyard that night.

“It was not really hazy,” said Pribanic, “but you have to appreciate how bad it gets out there at that time of the night. The water and the horizon are indistinct. You can’t tell the difference.”[20]

Pribanic’s information is backed up by Edward A. Meyer, an FAA Air Traffic Control Specialist at New York’s La Guardia airport, who gave the following statement:

As a specialist at the NY FSDPS, I was asked (through intermediaries) by Jane Garvey, FAA Administrator,  to create a report of the weather conditions JFK Jr. was flying in. I  created such a report.  I have the following comments to make:  Nothing of what I heard on [the] mainstream media makes any sense to me.... The weather along his flight was just fine. A little haze over eastern Connecticut. Flying over water at night will eliminate any difficulty of restriction to visibility... that is, all a pilot is going to see is pitch black outside his cockpit whether there is haze or clouds.... Last but not least, JFK Jr. was certified (therefore licensed) to fly the flight. Any mention of “daring” or “inexperience” is absolute nonsense. I don’t know why the airplane crashed, but what I heard on the media was nothing but garbage. - Ed Meyer ATCS ATP CFI-A.[21]

While Meyer conceded that flying a new aircraft can instill a certain amount of fear (although Kennedy had about 40 hours in his new plane), he noted that Kennedy had previously owned a Cessna Skylane, which Meyer called “a complex aircraft.”

As for Kennedy’s Piper Saratoga, it is widely regarded as reliable and safe, according to David Learmount, safety editor at Flight International magazine. The plane was in excellent condition and outfitted with the latest in hi-tech equipment, including auto-pilot (which would have righted the plane with the simple flick of a switch) and an Emergency Locating Transmitter (ELT) that would send out a radio signal upon crash.[*]

“This is a very safe airplane that is equipped very well,” said Piper company president Chuck Suma, adding that there were over 7,500 Piper Saratogas in service around the world, with over a half-a-million hours flown every year.[22]

According to military veteran pilot Joe Jordan, “The plane is similar to the old Cherokee Six which is a very reliable aircraft. Its counterpart in a car would be a Chevy Suburban. It is a pussycat to fly and you would virtually have to force it into a stall (The radar track shows the airspeed was about 160 knots, well above stall speed).”[23*]

Adds Craig Roberts, a veteran police department pilot with over 3,000 hours in the cockpit: “I’ve flown Saratogas. You have to MAKE them crash!”[24]

Was the crash due to mechanical failure? As The Boston Globe reported, the plane was found to be structurally and mechanically sound. According to two “highly placed” aviation sources consulted by the Globe, the plane’s 300-horsepower engine was working when the plane hit the water.[25]

Still, had a mechanical failure been responsible, the fact that the plane was at a fairly low altitude over calm water would have allowed Kennedy to make a soft-water landing. Yet as Jordan notes:

There was no Mayday or voice radio communication indicating trouble. The plane had a 406 MHz satellite distress beacon which would have notified FAA at once along with exact latitude and longitude. This device must be activated by the pilot. It is not automatic.

This leads one to believe that there was a sudden and catastrophic occurrence leaving no time for calls for assistance. The fact that a severed wheel and a headrest have been retrieved indicate the airframe and cabin are disintegrated. Even if the plane had made a hard-water crash, the wings would have been torn off but the landing gear and the cabin, though crumpled, should be intact. When the [space shuttle] Challenger went down, the cabin was intact as were the bodies.[26]

In Kennedy’s case, the pattern of debris supports the likelihood of a mid-air explosion. As The Vineyard Gazette reported, the debris washed up on beaches throughout the southern part of the island—from Gay Head to Edgartown—a distance of approximately 25 miles. It is doubtful that a plane hitting the water intact would result in such a broad pattern of dispersion.

Possibly supporting the notion of mid-air destruction is the fact that radar tapes show the plane dropping 1,100 feet in 14 seconds, approximately eight times faster than the aircraft’s design limit.[27]

The NTSB released figures showing the precipitous altitude drop translates to 4,700 feet per minute. While lead investigator Robert Pearce was reluctant to characterize the rate of descent as abnormal, other experts described it as dangerously fast.

Radar tapes show that at 9:40 [pm] and 20 seconds, the plane was flying at 2,200 feet. By 9:40 and 34 seconds, the plane was flying at 1,100 feet.

“It’s a very high rate of descent. It’s excessive,” said Michael Barr, director of the aviation safety program at the University of Southern California. “Even in a fighter plane at super altitude, you’re only dropping 4,300 feet per minute.”

Another pilot, Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association spokesman Warren Morningstar, said, “It’s a very precipitous drop, considering it was that close to the ocean’s surface. It was really outside of the normal operative parameters of that airplane.”[28]

The Cover-Up

Two key events that were not widely reported by the mainstream press were that Kennedy had radioed the tower at 9:39 pm, seconds before the crash, indicating that all was well.

The other was the fact that witnesses heard and saw what appeared to be explosions, including at least one in the air.

At 9:39 p.m. Friday, Kennedy radioed the tower and said he was 13 miles from the airport and 10 miles from the coast, as reported by WCVB-TV in Boston. Kennedy said he was making his final approach, and told controllers that he planned to drop off his sister-in-law and then take off for Hyannis Airport.[29]

Moments later, radar showed the plane going into its fatal dive.[30]

In other words, Kennedy radioed the tower, indicating that he was calm, collected and completely in control of his craft. His radio contact indicated no problems or disorientation of any kind.

Seconds later his craft was plunging toward the ocean like a rock at the rate of 100 ft. Per second.[*]

This critically important information was obtained by U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer Todd Burgun from the FAA, and reported to WCVB-TV at approximately 12:35 pm on the 17th. WCVB-TV, ABC News, and UPI all mentioned this critical radio contact in their news reports the same day. Yet by the very next day, all mention of this radio contact was expunged from news accounts.

Researcher John Quinn obtained a copy of the archived tape of WCVB- TV from Corporate Media Services. As Quinn reports:

On the tape, at approximately 12:35 pm, WCVB news anchor Susan Warnick reports there is a significant new development in the case of Kennedy’s missing plane. Says Warnick: “We have been told by the Coast Guard that in fact there is now evidence of a last communication, last night, with JFK, Jr’s plane as it was on approach to Martha’s Vineyard Airport. Petty officer Todd Burgun joins us from the Coast Guard base in Boston. He is a Petty Officer and Public Information Officer.

“Thank you for being with us, sir. What can you tell us about this last communication with JFK, Jr’s plane?”

The station cuts to a live audio feed from Burgun. {He] begins speaking as follows: “All I know at this time is that it was at 9:39 pm, and it was with the FAA and it was on approach...”

Incredibly, the first archive tape received from Corporate Media Services is cut—right there! Just as Burgun begins his report on newly discovered evidence of the 9:39 pm radio call....

This tape then resumes with WCVB’s broadcast from approximately 6 pm that evening.... There is a gap of over five hours in the tape of their broadcast that day.... Any guess what the first words out of the mouth of the evening news anchor are when the tape of the broadcast resumes at 6 pm? The announcer, fidgeting, fumbling for words, looking nervous, distraught and downright upset, haltingly and stutteringly makes the following, tortuous, garbled and highly unconvincing statement: “Something that we had thought earlier (first lie—there was no ‘thought’ involved at all: rather an unequivocal official report from the Coast Guard) may not be true: that there was actually no radio communication (second lie—one moment she says “may not be true” and in the next breath says “there was no communication”) with JFK, Jr’s plane after it left New Jersey. “We had hoped that there was some radio communication of course, most recently at Martha’s Vineyard. Thiss thiss (uncomfortable pause)—last night at about nine o’clock, nine-thirty, When perhaps things started to go wrong, “we had hoped we could learn from that, but it seems that’s there’s (another uncomfortable pause)—may be no evidence because (and here’s the zinger) there may be no recording to listen to to get these details from.”

As Quinn writes: “The entire scene just reeks of someone having just been told by higher-ups to ‘get out there and lie.’ And even in the depths of this mishmash of lies and falsifications, the announcer does not—or probably can not—just state plainly and simply: ‘The Coast Guard was mistaken—there was no radio contact between Kennedy and the airport.’ Period.”[31]

Independent researcher John DiNardo (who obtained the tape supplied to Quinn) says that Corporate Media Services provided “some lame excuse” as to why the station had wanted their tape archive cut at that point.

Questions put to WCVB-TV personnel several days afterward by DiNardo were disingenuously skirted, though never outright denied. One such statement from the station was: “We don’t believe we broadcast that information.”

NTSB spokesman Paul Schlamm told this author that he was “not aware of Burgun’s statement.”

Jerry Cimisi, a reporter with Dan’s Newspapers of Long Island, also interviewed an NTSB spokesman who told him that their official position was that the radio call never happened.[32]

Instead, the information about the radio call was replaced by “new” radar data showing Kennedy changing altitude and direction somewhat erratically in the minutes preceding the crash. The implication being that Kennedy’s much-ballyhooed “inexperience” as a pilot combined with “poor weather conditions” resulted in him being in marginal control of the plane immediately prior to the crash, culminating in his final “death spiral.”

However this “new evidence,” reported on July 20, shows that Kennedy was executing these unusual maneuvers well before 9:39 pm, when he made the radio call indicating that all was well.[33]

Officials weren’t the only ones apparently involved in the cover-up. Kennedy’s former flight instructor, John McColgan, who gave a glowing report of JFK, Jr.’s had, in the words of reporter Pat Shannan, “reverted to his ‘suspicious and generally paranoid’ self when this reporter was in Vero Beach and talked ever so briefly with him. He didn’t know anything about Kennedy ‘flying since 1982’ or how many hours he had logged. ‘Mike Webb? Who is he?’ was McColgan’s response, about to terminate the conversation. When informed that Webb was a talk show host in Washington state with whom he had had a telephone interview a month earlier, McColgan quickly retorted, ‘ Never heard of him,’ and our interview was abruptly over.”[34]

The Witnesses

Also cut from the WCVB-TV tape were witness accounts of an explosion. As the New York Daily News reports:

Victor Pribanic may be the only person to have heard John F. Kennedy Jr’s airplane crash. An attorney from Pittsburgh, Pribanic was fishing Friday for striped bass off Squibnocket Point, the remote southern tip of Martha’s Vineyard, when a loud noise broke the silence of night.

“I heard an explosion over my right shoulder,” Pribanic said yesterday.... It sounded like an explosion. There was no shock wave, but it was a large bang.”

Pribanic, 45, who has spent his summers on Martha’s Vineyard for 20 years, pinpointed the source of the sound about 4 miles offshore, near Nomans Island. He said that just before hearing the noise, he noticed a small aircraft flying low over the water toward the island. But he could not say for certain if it was Kennedy's plane or if it was the source of the bang....[35]

Pribanic also said the explosion was much closer than the 17 miles out to sea that was officially reported as the crash site. As the Martha’s Vineyard Gazette reports:

Mr. Pribanic said he was concerned when he learned that the search area was 17 miles west of the Vineyard. He said he was convinced from the sound he heard that the area was much closer and within a short distance of Nomans Land.[36]

Sergeant Jeff Stone of the Massachusetts State Police said police were aware of several reports from people who reported low-flying planes or unusual noises. Although Pribanic spoke with police, as of this writing he has not been contacted by any other investigators. In fact, the NTSB went so far as to even deny any witness sightings! As the Gazette reports:

Attempts to learn whether officials with the NTSB, which is now handling the investigation, or the Coast Guard had adjusted the search recovery effort based on any of the reports, or why they did not speak with Mr. Pribanic, were unsuccessful.... Robert Pearce, the lead NTSB investigator, said there were no reports of any witnesses.[37]

Another witness, a guest staying at the Kennedy estate, who was on Philbin Beach, both saw and heard this same explosion. This witness was mentioned repeatedly by Shepherd Smith of FOX-TV on live broadcasts July 17, who identified the witness as a friend of his boss. This person was due to attend the Rory Kennedy wedding Saturday in Hyannis.[38]

Finally, a reporter for the Vineyard Gazette told WCVB-TV that he was out walking at the time of the crash and saw big white flash in the sky off Philbin Beach. When John DiNardo called the Gazette they refused to identify him. DiNardo recounts his conversation with the spokeswoman for the Gazette:

“Oh, that story was completely bogus. What really happened was that someone was shooting off fireworks on Falmouth.”

“Falmouth?” I said, “Is that an island?”

“Falmouth,” she said, “is the closest point to Martha’s Vineyard.”

I said, “But this reporter witnessed an explosion in the SKY.”

She countered, “Well, they were shooting rockets up in the air, or something like that.”

Fearing that I might scare her off if I continued along this line of inquiry, I asked, “May I speak with the reporter who witnessed this?”

“Oh, no,” she replied nervously, “we can’t do that.”

I said, “Oh, that’s strange. What would be the problem with speaking to a reporter?”

She repeated, “We can’t permit that.”

I said, “Okay, can you at least give me his name?”

“No, we can’t do that, either,” she persisted.” Then she added, “He no longer works for us,” almost as if she were making it up, just to turn me away.

And then when I responded in a surprised “Ohhh,” she suddenly realized that that comment made matters worse, and, in a jolt of vexation, she sputtered, “Oh, no, no—it has nothing to do with that incident; he went back to school.” (Back to school? This conversation occurred in early August.)

“Oh,” I said, “so is he a journalism student?”

After an answerless pause, I thanked her and said goodbye. I think she was relieved.[39]

TWA-800: Parallel Cover-Up

As was the case when TWA-800 was shot down, the Navy took control of the crash site, while the wreckage was recovered and taken to nearby Otis Air National Guard base. NTSB spokesman Paul Schlamm told this author the five-mile no-fly zone, ordered by FAA, is standard for accidents.

Yet according to Commander William S. Donaldson (USN, retired), a founder of the Association of Retired Aviation Professionals (ARAP), an independent investigator probing the TWA-800 explosion, the Navy had “absolutely no business” handling a civilian crash.

The CIA, surprisingly enough, was also involved in the search.

By noon, the Air Force had turned to the intelligence community, asking the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, which reports to the director of Central Intelligence, to pull the CIA into the search. Intelligence sources tell Newsweek that three advanced KH-11 photographic satellites in a standard polar orbit were in position to pass over the entire search area at different times. “It’s not a common occurrence” to use intelligence satellites for search-and-rescue missions involving civilians, said Jeff Richelson, an intelligence expert....[40]

Yet the government took over, just as they had done in the Kennedy case, precluding civilian involvement.[41] As Donaldson told the New American magazine:

“A company known as Weeks Marine Inc. operates the largest and most capable marine salvage equipment along the eastern shore of the United States. The Coast Guard requested assistance from this firm within an hour of the incident. By chance, the company happened to have its huge revolving crane salvage barge in the area. By dawn of the next day, this vessel was ready to operate. But it was never permitted to do so, and Navy salvage vessels were tapped to do the job.

“Also, AT&T had a state-of-the-art cable-laying ship at the site within 24 hours. This vessel was equipped with high-tech underwater surveillance gear and even had a robot salvage submarine. But it too was pushed aside and never used. That strange decision delayed the recovery of bodies, black boxes, and debris six days waiting for the Navy to get on scene!”[42]

The monopoly press, hell bent on explaining the death of Kennedy and his wife, created an infinite variety of computer simulations in a desperate attempt to explain away the mysterious crash in exactly the same fashion that they worked the TWA-800 story. As Donaldson states:

“The NTSB, and inexplicably the CIA, produced video simulations of the aircraft’s flight path after the last secondary radar return, which is assumed to be when the initial explosion occurred.  The CIA produced an animated video, which was broadcast over national television in November 1997. It purported to demonstrate that the [TWA] plane was destroyed as a result of an explosion occurring in the empty center fuel tank. But the video was withdrawn after a single day when aviation professionals and eyewitnesses to the incident scoffed at its contents. The video is now mockingly referred to as the ‘CIA’s cartoon.’ It claims that the center fuel tank exploded, the plane kept flying for a short period of time, the nose fell off, and the remainder of the plane climbed 3,000 feet before plunging into the sea. Let me say categorically that this preposterous explanation defies the laws of physics, aerodynamics, and jet engine mechanics.”[43*]

Although somewhat bizarre, it is not surprising that the CIA (an agency that consistently claims it only involves itself in foreign intelligence matters and does not have a domestic charter) would be the agency to produce and distribute such a video. The CIA was the agency that covertly provided the Stinger missiles to the Afghani Mujahadeen guerrillas, who later sold them to international terrorists. When the Mujahadeen attempted to have the U.S. buy back the missiles, the U.S. declined. These are the same Afghan guerrillas financied and trained by the CIA with the help of international terrorist Osama Bin Laden—later accused by the U.S. of crashing two jetliners into the World Trade Center, killing over 4,000 people.

Given the terrorist “blowback” that the CIA is directly responsible for, it is easy to see why the Agency was so intent on proving that a Stinger missile didn’t bring down the plane.

The NTSB also produced a video simulation purporting to show flight 800’s fuel tank exploding.  Yet they failed to mention that they had to use a highly explosive mixture of hydrogen and propane to make the tank blow. They could not make it explode with aviation fuel![44*]

As Donaldson states in a press release:

The videos are clearly designed to try to explain away 96 eyewitnesses who saw a streak of light rising from the surface and intersect with Flight 800.[45*]

It’s ironic that the media, trying to explain away the Kennedy crash, would make comparisons to flight 800, which went down in the same area three years prior, on July 17, 1996—one day apart, considering that over 100 eyewitnesses, including several airline and military pilots, testified that they saw the Boeing 747 take a hit from a surface-to-air missile.[46*]

To hide this fact, the NTSB put forward the preposterous theory that the center fuel tank blew up because of a “spark,” while they, the FBI and the Navy suppressed all eyewitness testimony.

As Donaldson states: “Flight 800 was shot down by one or more shoulder-fired missiles.... The FBI, the Justice Department and the [Clinton] Administration knew this from the beginning and spent the last two-and-a-half years trying to contain that fact.”[47*]

As an ARAP press release states:

Donaldson produced physical evidence that proves the NTSB and FBI have been lying to the American public about their investigation. While the NTSB was telling the public the trawling operation was designed to recover every last piece of the aircraft and all human remains, the documents he submitted to the [House] Aviation Subcommittee prove the operation was specifically designed to find and hide missile parts. The Dredging was centered around the last radar return at a distance that was the suspected range of a Stinger missile. Most of the area dredged did not have aircraft parts and most of the area containing the aircraft parts was not in the dredging area.[48]

The Trawling Map (the version provided to the trawler captains and obtained by Donaldson), which states: “Possible Missile Launch Zone,” shows that the trawling effort was specifically coordinated to cover what the FBI thought was the radius of the maximum range of a Stinger missile: 2.7 nautical miles. 

When Donaldson overlaid the map of the dredged area with the Islip Radar contacts, it showed the 30 knot radar contact (the unexplained large boat that was seen on radar speeding away from the crash site) was within the radius of the Stinger when the plane exploded.

“It is clear that the dredging operation was for the purpose of recovering the missile evidence and the last [missile] scavenge pump,” says Donaldson.[49*]

In the case of the Kennedy crash, the search area was extended to 17 miles out to see, eventhough witness Victor Pribanic said the explosion he heard was much closer and the actual wreckage was found some seven miles from shore. Furthermore, civilian rescue and recovery ships that were already in the area and willing to assist with the recovery operation, were, as in the TWA case, cast aside in favor of the Navy, which took days to arrive.

Were they searching the larger area for a missile? Did the government or the military use the delay to rearrange the crash debris to make it appear more consistent with an accident?

As UPI reported, a voice recording device that was in the cockpit was retrieved but had been destroyed by impact.[50]

How convenient.

According to the NTSB, preliminary examination of the wreckage showed “no evidence of in-flight structural failure or fire.” This was the very same lie the NTSB told about the Gander, Newfoundland crash of an Arrow Air DC-8 on December 12, 1985 in which 248 U.S. servicemen and women died. Gene Wheaton, a former Air Force OSI and Army CID investigator who investigated the crash, believes the plane was blown up by Iranians, irate at being stiffed in an arms deal by Lt. Col. Oliver North. In that case, the NTSB’s laughingly ludicrous lie was that the explosion resulted from “ice on the wings.” The U.S. Government bulldozed the wreckage, as they would do in the case of Night Hawk One Eight (See Chapter XX), and FBI Agent Oliver “Buck” Revell (a crony of North’s) was conveniently on hand to keep legitimate investigators at bay.[51*]

Freelance journalist Pat Shannan doesn’t buy the NTSB’s story. As Shannon states: “I have talked to one of the investigators, whose name and agency I cannot mention.... This investigator has told me that he was there when they raised the plane. The tail was obviously blown out and the inside of the fuselage was charred and blackened and so were the bodies. He said there was no doubt about it that the plane was blown up in the air and all of the people were dead before the plane hit the water. He also said the plane was raised from where it really went down (that is, where the debris washed up, which would confirm Victor Pribanic’s report about hearing an explosion there). The plane was not recovered seven miles northward as the officials claimed.”[52]

What really should cause any thinking person to question the Kennedy crash is that the same NTSB team that labeled the missile attack upon TWA-800 as a “spark in the fuel tank,” was brought in to investigate the Kennedy crash. Has the NTSB (and other government agencies) been directed to create another cover-up? They have a proven legacy of lying.[53]

In spite of a law requiring the NTSB to report its findings in writing and make those findings available to the public, to this day no official witness report of the TWA shoot-down has ever been publicly revealed.[54]

_______________________________________________

Air Crashes, Black Boxes, and Unsafety Boards:

EgyptAir Flight 990, More of the Same?”

Sherman Skolnick’s Report, 1999.

(edited for length)

The National Transportation Safety Board, NTSB, and its predecessor federal agencies, have a long, sorry history of covering up foul play involved in some aircraft disasters. The word “sabotage” is a dirty, forbidden word to them and the airline industry. How can they sell tickets if passengers are haunted by the idea that some planes are put down by bombs, missiles, or other bloody work? Some NTSB panel members, in the past, have been suspected of concealing that some of their family members and cronies have financial interests, if not actual stock ownership, in the airline travel business.

There is, in short, nothing safe about the Safety Board.

About 1965 a commercial plane was enroute to Chicago. Just offshore of the Windy City, the plane blew up and fell in relatively shallow water of Lake Michigan. Early news accounts in some of the newspapers said a bomb was suspected. Later editions, like with political assassinations, cleaned up the messy details. Further stories dismissed the crash as merely some kind of “accident.”

One night a diver went down to the wreckage and apparently stole one of the “black boxes,” that records various parameters of the plane’s operations or records voices in the cockpit. Also removed were apparently certain items in the wreckage. What was that all about? According to some news reports, it was some kind of an unsolved mystery. Left out of reports in the monopoly press were that one of the passengers was a disgruntled top official of the American CIA. He was on the way to meeting a prominent journalist in Chicago. He was going to turn over documents showing that there had been a high-level cabal implicated in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. (Not the only time key witnesses were snuffed out on the way to meet with reporters)....

These details I had confirmed to me from two reliable sources. One of them was a federal aircrash inspector. Unlike some of his colleagues, he had several times endangered his job and career demanding the truth be told about some crashes. BUT, his superiors always told him to “shut up.”

The facts were simple. To silence a top espionage official an entire plane was put in the drink killing all onboard.

In December, 1972, one month after President Nixon was re-elected, a commercial plane was headed from Washington’s National Airport, set for a stop in Chicago. Among the passengers were twelve WATERGATE figures, including Mrs. E. Howard Hunt, wife of the Watergate burglar. She was nervous about her luggage. So, she bought an additional first class seat ticket for her baggage right near her. Why? Well, contained therein was two million dollars of “hush” money, that her husband reportedly blackmailed out of Nixon. Both Mr. and Mrs. E. Howard Hunt were long-time CIA officials. Both reportedly knew about the role of Tricky Dick implicated in the political assassination of President Kennedy. The two million dollars in valuables were to be “parked” apparently with her Chicago-area relatives, one of whom reportedly owns a sizeable accounting and motel operation some say is tied to the “boys”, the traditional mafia.

Some of the passengers perished when the United Air Lines plane pancaked just short of Midway Airport. Sooner than the police and fire departments, 150 FBI agents were already in the crash zone keeping local authorities away from the smoldering plane (similar to what the FBI would do in the Pan Am 103 bombing and what FBI Agent Oliver “Buck” Revell would do in the Gander crash. - ed.). The FBI headquarters is 12 miles away. How did that many FBI get there that soon, ahead of the fire and police? (exactly the same question asked by Scottish officials in the Pan Am case) The FBI apparently were already in the vicinity of the airport waiting to take Mrs. Hunt and some of the other Watergators into custody, to be charged with extortion, that is, shaking down a federal official, namely President Nixon. It was supposed to result in a secret “national security” federal criminal prosecution with the court records sealed.

From all the details we uncovered, we knew Mrs. Hunt and some of her confederates survived the pancaked air plane and were poisoned later by the FBI.

We arranged to “liberate” the entire 1300 pages of documents and pictures of the NTSB, showing sabotage. The NTSB did NOT intend to release THOSE documents in the form they had them. Without telling the NTSB we had their file, we sued the NTSB, claiming sabotage cover up. A local crooked judge, however, put us out of Court without any formal hearing. Because of the lawsuit, the NTSB re-opened their public investigation later. Because of talk radio at the time we had caused a commotion and United Air Lines, likewise unaware we had the complete suppressed file, demanded we be questioned and silenced by the NTSB.

At the start of two full days of special public hearings, I grilled the NTSB panel members on their conflicts of interest, because they were financially tied to the airline industry and United Air Lines. They refused to answer my questions and threatened to remove me from the special hearing where dozens of Establishment reporters had gathered from all over.

I opened up several suitcases containing THEIR records. In front of numerous national reporters and spectators, about 250 in all, I defied the NTSB panel to then and there arrest me for having THEIR file. They ordered me as the subpoenaed witness together with my other witnesses to proceed. I demonstrated it was most likely a fraud that the NTSB claimed the “black box” from the rear of the plane, the Flight Recorder, had been supposedly “jammed” and no recording made of the technical features of the flight. I showed THEIR transcript of the Cockpit Voice Recorder, proving the airport “Outer Marker,” a key navigation instrument, had been turned off ONLY for the Watergate plane. Another key landing instrument device, according to the documents, was turned off for this flight as well. Result: the plane was falsely steered into the ground, and the plane pancaked short of the airport.

I showed THEIR own documents proving the electrical system of the plane had been sabotaged. I put into their faces THEIR own report showing the bodies of Mrs. E. Howard Hunt and her group had an unexplained high-level of cyanide.

I put on the witness stand two witnesses regarding a federal espionage operative who, in a jumpsuit, escaped from the tail of the plane. In an interview, he had blurted out that it was NOT SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN, meaning the pancaking of the plane was not to have occurred. Mrs. Hunt and the others with her were supposed to have been arrested by the FBI when they were to have gotten off the plane at Midway Airport.

I had the documents and pictures all spread out on a large table in front of the NTSB panel. During a recess, a reporter for the Hearst Newspaper chain said to me, “You have not proved, Mr. Skolnick, there was a bomb on that plane. Without that, you don’t have anything.” Angry, I replied, “Look, friend, not every plane put down by sabotage is because of a bomb onboard.” He said, “I don’t care. I am not reporting anything from here unless you prove there was a bomb.”

The Chicago Tribune photographer and a reporter took a picture of me at the huge table full of suppressed NTSB documents and pictures. In their newspaper, however, they chopped off part of the picture showing the table with the pictures and documents laid out there, and only showed a picture of me. Their story alongside their phony picture, said “Skolnick has no documents of any kind to prove his charges of sabotage.”

After a long, full day of testimony, I made a joke. “I do categorically admit that I have no proof whatever that President Nixon and his crony the President of United Air Lines got on that plane and ever shot Mrs. E. Howard Hunt with a 38 caliber gun.” In a screaming headline, the Chicago Sun-Times blasted me, turning my joke against me, stating “Skolnick admits No Proof Whatever of Sabotage.” I was sore and when I again saw the reporter I said to him, “Friend, this wheelchair is an uninsured, unlicensed vehicle. So if I run you over and put YOU in a wheelchair, well, it is perfectly legal.”

To their credit, Associated Press, on their national wire, ran a story, “Chicago legal researcher Sherman H. Skolnick today has presented to a special hearing of the National Transportation Safety Board a heavily documented case of sabotage in a plane crash in which Mrs. E. Howard Hunt and others perished.” Only one newspaper, being in the State of Washington, used the AP story. The rest, catering to United Air Lines’ owners, the Rockefeller Family, were silent. The Rockefellers own all three major news networks, then and now.

Later, in the so-called “Final Report,” the NTSB said it was “pilot error” that caused the crash. As part of the whitewash, they released a falsified version of the transcript of the Cockpit Voice Recorder, covering up details tied to the other documents we had showing sabotage. Since I had the transcript before it was falsified by them, I had proof they were rotten liars. If the documents and pictures were widely publicized, which they were not, United Air Lines, then the largest U.S. airline, would have or could have lost their certificate to fly, putting them out of business for covering up airplane sabotage killing 12 Watergate figures, among other passengers.

Soon thereafter, I wrote a book, “The Secret History of Airplane Sabotage.” It was a favorite device, I noted, for Adolph Hitler to get rid of his opponents. The book was stopped in the printing cycle by the Rockefeller Family lawyers. Alas, no copies are available....

I mention all this because it seems we are to suffer more of the fraud by the commercial-airline-dominated National Transportation Safety Board....

_______________________________________________

As John R. Prukop, an Airline transport pilot, writes about the crash of Alaska Airlines flight 261, which would follow TWA-800 four years later:

... NTSB Chairman James Hall, the same man who LIED and COVERED-UP the 1996 crash of TWA-800 is still LYING to us today.... That James Hall is STILL at the helm as Chairman of the NTSB, speaks loads to the present deception being employed in the investigation of Alaska FLT 261. He should be let out to pasture, then indicted and tried as a criminal for Misprision of Felony Homicide. Strong words? YES!...[55]

Understanding the actions of the NTSB is a little easier when you consider that the chairman of the NTSB, James Hall, was former Vice President Al Gore’s finance chairman in Tennessee when Gore was running for the presidential nomination in 1992.

“[Hall] was given his job because of political connections and has no expertise in safety or crash inspection” says Donaldson.[56]

The Autopsies

As soon as the bodies of Kennedy, his wife and her sister were recovered from the waters off of Martha’s Vineyard, they were taken to the Medical Examiner’s Office in Pocasset, Massachusetts. State law requires that autopsies be conducted on all accident victims, a process that usually takes 12 to 24 hours. Doctors look at every possible contributing factor, including drug and alcohol abuse, noxious fumes and toxins which could contribute to disorientation, and evidence of powder burns, suggesting an explosion or an onboard fire.[57]

Yet the autopsies were performed unusually quickly pathologists said. Dr. Kirschner, a medical examiner close to the case, told the Boston Globe that the haste of the autopsies might raise questions about the investigation’s thoroughness. The timing of the investigation, Kirschner said, made it unlikely that pathologists performed autopsies on the Bessette sisters.

“You can’t possibly do three investigations in four hours, he said.[58]

It was also rumored that Carolyn was pregnant at the time of the crash. As the Boston Globe reports:

When John F. Kennedy Jr’s plane plunged into the Atlantic, the crash did more than take the lives of the three aboard the doomed flight. It also dashed any serious notion of the Kennedys as a continuing political dynasty.[59]

David Heymann

As if the specious actions of the government and the military weren’t enough, the attempt by David Heymann and Joel Katzavman—two former Israeli citizens—to plant false information in the media, circumstantially proves a cover-up.

Heymann—a self-professed former Mossad agent and author of several unauthorized biographies on the Kennedys—contacted New York Post gossip columnist Cindy Adams immediately after the crash and related a supposed phone conversation he had with Kennedy just prior in which Kennedy seemed anxious about making an extra landing. The piece, splashed across the front page of the Post’s July 19 edition, was titled: “He Did Not Want To Fly.” Adams reported the conversation according to Heymann, in which Kennedy allegedly said: “I don’t even want to go to Martha’s Vineyard...”

“Why,” asked Mr. Heymann.

“Unfortunately, I have to take my sister-in-law with us. She’s going to

Martha’s Vineyard. My wife insists I take her there. I don’t want to do

that. I told her I didn’t want to do that. I said I’d rather fly straight to

Hyannis... but my wife’s insisting.”[60]

By fostering this tale, Heymann attempts to bolster the theory which claims that Kennedy was a seriously under-trained pilot with poor flying skills. As Andrew Goldman writes in the New York Observer:

Ms. Adams did not question Mr. Heymann’s tale, which essentially portrayed the Bessette sisters as demanding women who unintentionally led Mr. Kennedy to his death, nor did she question why Mr. Kennedy would be having a friendly chat with the man who in 1989 published a salacious biography of Mr. Kennedy’s mother, A Woman Named Jackie, and last year penned RFK: A Candid Biography of Robert F. Kennedy, which claimed that the late Senator had been physically intimate with Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis as well as with dancer Rudolph Nureyev. Ms. Adams, who said she has known Mr. Heymann for 20 years, said she made no attempt to check the facts. “With whom?” she said. “John? He was dead.”[61]

After publishing the story, Adams publicly regretted it. As Adams says: “My Kennedy insiders subsequently tell me they doubt this conversation he reportedly had with John. They say his name’s not down in any JFK log books, and John’s appointment secretary hasn’t him in any listing.”[62]

Sources at George magazine corroborated this for The Observer, informing Goldman that “if Mr. Heymann was acquainted with Mr. Kennedy, they did not know about it.”

And a source with knowledge of Lauren Bessette’s travel plans told The Observer “that she did not ask Mr. Kennedy for a ride to the Vineyard until Monday, July 12—five days after Mr. Kennedy purportedly complained to Mr. Heymann about having to bring her along.”

For his part, Heymann told The Observer that Kennedy had asked him to write about his experiences in the Mossad during the ‘80s. But Kennedy’s associates at George had no recollection of his ever mentioning the alleged former Mossad agent. Elizabeth Mitchell, Executive Editor at George from 1996 to 1999, told The Observer: “As far as all the time I knew John, he never had talked to Heymann. Perhaps he did in the last five months of his life or so. But I can assure you that he never came up in conversation before then.”

As Goldman reports:

Another close associate of Kennedy’s at George found no listing of Mr. Heymann in Mr. Kennedy’s personal Rolodex, and a source with access to Mr. Kennedy’s phone records at George stated that there was no record to indicate that Mr. Heymann had ever called Mr. Kennedy at the magazine. Mr. Kennedy was reportedly scrupulous about having all of his meetings, lunches, saunas, drinks, and dinners arranged and scheduled through a third party at the magazine. But a person with access to Mr. Kennedy’s schedule book found no meeting scheduled between Mr. Heymann and Mr. Kennedy for Wednesday, July 21, which is the date Mr. Heymann said they had agreed upon to meet about the Mossad piece.[63]

Although Heymann said he tape-recorded his conversations with Kennedy, He declined to play the tapes for The Observer.

And a double-date Heymann claims to have had with Kennedy and his wife Carolyn was likewise disputed by witnesses. Employees at the Madison Pub and the Right Bank Cafe, where Heymann claims to have socialized with the Kennedys, could not remember the well-known couple ever visiting the restaurants. Renci Serranos, the nighttime cook and daytime waiter at the Madison Pub, who has worked there usually seven days-a-week, 10 am to closing for the past five years, told The Observer that he had never seen Carolyn Bessette there, and that if she had come in while he was in the kitchen, he would have known about it.

“I think with a person like this, people know,” he said.

A manager at the Right Bank Cafe likewise said that Kennedy hadn’t been through their doors in at least two years. The 14-year long manager, who also said he normally works seven days-a-week, told The Observer: “When you get a guy like him, the whole place stands still. Believe me. And especially the couple. You wouldn’t hear the end of it....”

Goldman, who wrote the piece for The Observer, meticulously investigated Heymann’s claims, including the credibility of several of his books. He reports that Hugh Kenner, a scholar from Johns Hopkins University, questioned the authenticity of Heymann’s book entitled Ezra Pound: The Last Rower. As Kenner told Goldman, “I demonstrated [that an interview that Heymann said he had done with Pound] was a wholesale fake. I found the book from which he had lifted the Q-and-A, a book published in Venice and done with an Italian interviewer.”[*]

Another of Heymann’s books, Poor Little Rich Girl: The Life and Legend of Barbara Hutton, also cast doubt on his credibility. Heymann said he interviewed the ailing heiress “a dozen” times in the year before she died. “He said he had some of Hutton’s notebooks and her signature giving him permission to use the materials as he wished,” writes Goldman.

[Yet a few weeks after its publication] Random House recalled the book because a Beverly Hills doctor who Mr. Heymann claimed had over prescribed drugs to Hutton, pointed out that in the year Mr. Heymann had him drugging Hutton, he was only 14 years old. The print run of 58,000 copies of the book was shredded, and Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morganthau’s office investigated Mr. Heymann for fraud.[64]

Nevertheless, since the crash, Heymann-the-former-Mossad-agent appeared on NBC’s “Extra,” CNBC’s “Hardball with Chris Matthews,” and with ABC’s Bill Beutel and Roz Abrams, giving his account of his “10-year relationship” with JFK, Jr.[65]

Yoel Katzavman

Limo driver Yoel Katzavman, another Israeli, had driven the Kennedys just 48 hours before their crash. Employed by Empire Limousine Service, Katzavman was often called to drive John and Carolyn. In an interview in Israel’s Yediot Ahronot newspaper, Katzavman recalled his last ride with the couple.

He was called to pick up the Kennedy couple from their apartment in  Manhattan and take them to the George magazine headquarters. “It was the  first time since Kennedy had broken his heel two months before, that he  could was wearing both shoes, but he was still on crutches,” Katzavman  recalls. “He could barely step down with his foot and couldn’t get out of  the car on his own. His wife and I had to help him. I held his crutches and  lifted him out. He had to hold onto the door to straighten up. His wife  accompanied him inside as he clung to his crutches.”  

“How could he have flown that plane with a broken leg? It was really  suicidal?” said Katzavman.

Katzavman has shed new light on JFK Jr’s condition before entering his  Piper Saratoga. Until now people have reported that his condition improved  after the cast was removed. Flight experts have explained that to fly a Saratoga, both legs are required. 

Katzavman can also tell how John Jr. broke his leg, precisely. “After  Carolyn returned to the limousine, I took her on a shopping trip. On the way  she explained that John had broken two bones in his leg after an accident in  his ultra-light plane. Carolyn reported that her husband was frustrated and depressed because he hadn’t played sports in a long time.” 

Katzavman drove Kennedy only during the recent period of his injury.  Previously he rode his bike or the subway. He described Kennedy as a generous, courteous, pleasant man. “I drive lots of important people but he was special, really friendly. When he stopped by the kiosk near his home to  buy a paper, he’d always ask me if I wanted anything. He’d always ask permission before putting his hurt leg on the seat. He was polite without making any special demands.” 

Katzavman refuses to discuss his relationship with Carolyn. “I can only say  she spoke of him like he was angel,” he said. “During their last  conversation they spoke about going to a family wedding, though he didn’t say anything about flying. She wanted to know what to wear at a Jewish wedding (Rory Kennedy was to be married in a Jewish service) and worried  that a bare shoulder would be inappropriate. He assured her it would be fine.” 

When Katzavman returned Carolyn home, she paid and gave him a $50 tip. “It was the biggest tip of my life,” he says. 

Israeli reporter Barry Chamish, the best-selling author of Who Murdered Yitzhak Rabin?, casts doubt on Katzavman’s story. As Chamish says: “I don’t like this story. I don’t like it at all. Why on  earth would Carolyn fork over $50 to Katzavman? Until then, Katzavman sounded just like Yitzhak Rabin’s final driver, Menachem Damti, when he gave his guilt-ridden version of events to the media. He doth extol too much. The $50 tip is way too much extolling.

“Instinctively, I don’t feel comfortable with Katzavman’s version. His information is vital evidence of the inability  of JFK Jr. to fly his plane, of a previous plane accident, of a depressed state of mind and yet, and yet, he, and only he that I am aware of, reported this information. Perhaps because he and only he, was primed to do so....”[66] 

But why would two Israelis—including a former Mossad agent who’s story was proven to be a fraud—go out of their way to publicize almost identical tales purporting to explain why JFK, Jr. “killed” himself?

Motive

In 1993 Kennedy quit his job with the New York City DA’s office, and two years later started up a political magazine called George. Subtitled “Not Just Politics as Usual,” George took a slightly askew look at government and at those who govern.[67]

In March of 1997, George published a 13-page article on the assassination of Israeli Prime Minster Yitzhak Rabin. It is rumored that Kennedy was about to meet with high-ranking Mossad officers on the subject of the Rabin assassination.[*]

Barry Chamish believes that Rabin was assassinated by Barak’s rival, Shimon Peres, with operational guidance from the French secret service. The Council on Foreign Relations—the New World Order Think Tank of which George Bush and Bill Clinton are members—decided to keep Rabin ignorant of the French plot against him, for his failure in bringing the CFR/George Bush/Bill Clinton “New World Order” version of “peace” to the Middle East.[68*]

“The day it happened I wrote that JFK Jr. was doing more than any other American media figure to get to the bottom of the Rabin assassination truth,” writes Chamish. “I suggested that this was a brave but risky stand.

“[Israeli Prime Minister] Barak was in Washington, meeting with Clinton at the time of Kennedy’s death,” observes Chamish. “That Barak had an interest in preventing Kennedy from finding out the truth of Rabin’s murder... [and that] the chauffeur was in a position to plant a bomb in JFK Jr’s luggage.”[*]

But was Kennedy’s alleged dalliance with the Rabin assassination plotters sufficient motive to get him killed?

In 1999 Kennedy’s interest in politics took a more abrupt turn when NBC “Dateline” hinted at a possible run for a New York Senate seat—then assumed to be the property of Hillary Clinton.

After the crash, the Newsweek issue which “Dateline” reported was set to announce Kennedy’s candidacy, was yanked from distributors and destroyed. As Newsweek reported:

Young Kennedy was routinely asked by NY Democrats to be a candidate for public office, a close friend confided to Newsweek after his accident, that Kennedy was quietly exploring a campaign for the U.S. Senate seat in 2000 before the 1st Lady expressed interest. “It was only a matter of time before he ran for something.”[69]

Had Kennedy become caught up in a power struggle between the patriotic Israeli Orthodox faction, which wants no part of the Middle East “peace” plan, and the Liberal “New World Order” faction, represented by CFR flunky Ehud Barak (and formerly Benjamin Netanyahu)? 

As political commentator Joel M. Skousen writes in World Affairs Brief:

JFK Jr. was a victim of a war between conspiring factions. While there is growing central control over the dark side of government, there are various factions below the top levels trying to vie for recognition and power.

The CIA is the “enforcement arm” of the dark side of government and often uses Israeli Mossad agents both to facilitate international drug operations (for a cut in the take) and to carry out assassinations the U.S. doesn’t want to handle.

The Kennedy killing appears to be one of them.

Here is how it may all connect together: The Clinton team is the lead ball carrier for NWO (New World Order) leaders in the U.S., but this dark side of government has had to maintain liaisons with dozens of political and criminal syndicates, both to consolidate and hold onto its power base. NWO leaders could never have gained the upper hand without the initial cooperation with old guard democratic machines who have long controlled power in New York, Chicago, LA, and Miami, etc.

The democratic machine in New York is controlled by the Wagner group, who has close ties with the orthodox Jewish sector and is very pro-Israel, although liberal. This old-line democratic party machine has been battling the Clinton team’s attempt to shove Hillary Clinton down their throats in NY. The radical feminist section of the NWO group (backing the Clintons) has big plans to launch Hillary onto the world political stage through her carpetbagging move to NY, but the Democratic party machine in NY will have none of it.

The Wagner group, according to one Democratic insider, countered Hillary’s intrusion by approaching JFK Jr. to run against her in the primary (His uncle, Robert F. Kennedy, had been the U.S. Senator from New York). They even offered monetary support for Kennedy’s faltering George magazine to sweeten the pie.

Kennedy was reportedly set to announce his candidacy on Labor Day. For this, he had to be eliminated, and insiders say the CIA got the Mossad to plant the altitude triggered bomb in the tail section of the plane.[70]

As Chamish says, Barak was put into office by the CFR and Bill Clinton, who successfully deposed Prime Minister Netanyahu. As Chamish writes:

[Netanyahu] played ball early in his new administration but he got a little too guilt-ridden and stubborn by the middle. It was like pulling teeth getting him to cooperate in Israel’s suicide. Still, by the end, he and the longtime leftist plant in the Likud, Ariel Sharon did acquiesce at the Wye Plantation, owned by the Aspen Institute, a sister organization of the CFR. However, the CFR found the process too nerve-wracking with Netanyahu and they decided to send their finest team of brainwashers to Israel to get him out of power and Barak in. Their primary strategy was for Barak to keep his mouth shut during the campaign and let them turn Netanyahu into Satan.[71*]

John Broder writes in the May 17, 1999 New York Times that “The Clinton Administration] has made little effort to conceal its interest in a victory for Ehud Barak.”[72]

As Sarah Kohning adds in the July 30 Jerusalem Post:

Bill Clinton can now begin to rake in the tangible rewards of his hefty investment in Mr. Barak.... Hillary Clinton will be helped in winning Jewish votes in her upcoming U.S. Senate race in New York. Much good can accrue from Barak’s visit.[73]

Was there additional good, or was it evil, to accrue from Barak’s visit to the White House? Did Barak owe the Clinton/CFR/Bush/New World Order coterie a favor?

There is little argument that the charming, handsome Kennedy, America’s “Golden Boy,” would have made a very strong political candidate, easily overpowering Hillary Clinton. One can readily see this in the national outpouring of emotion surrounding his death.

Yet it is believed that Kennedy was more than just a potential threat to Hillary. It was also rumored that Kennedy was going to announce a bid for the Presidency. In that case, he would have been running neck to neck with the leading contender in that race at the time: George Bush, Jr.

Considering that several respected assassination researchers assert that ex-CIA agent (and later director) George Bush, Sr. was directly involved in the murder of Kennedy’s father, such a race would create an intriguing and highly dangerous situation for America’s Golden Boy.

What motivation Kennedy had for beginning a series of articles on political assassinations in George magazine isn’t clear, though the assassination of his own father would appear to be a logical motive. What is clear is that such a path would ultimately lead right to George Bush’s front door—exposing his involvement not only in the murder of Kennedy’s father, but his involvement in the S&L debacle, in Iran-Contra and the continued importation of drugs into this country, including his involvement with rogue elements of the Mossad.

As Paul Kangas writes in the Summer, 1991 issue of The Realist:

A newly discovered FBI document reveals that George Bush was directly involved in the 1963 murder of President John Kennedy. The document places Bush working with the now-famous CIA agent, Felix Rodriguez, recruiting right-wing Cuban exiles for the invasion of Cuba. It was Bush’s CIA job to organize the Cuban community in Miami for the invasion. The Cubans were trained as marksmen by the CIA. Bush at that time lived in Texas. Hopping from Houston to Miami weekly, Bush spent 1960 and ‘61 recruiting Cubans in Miami for the invasion. That is how he met Felix Rodriguez.

You may remember Rodriguez as the Iran-Contra CIA agent who received the first phone call telling the world the CIA plane flown by Gene Hasenfus had crashed in Nicaragua. As soon as Rodriguez heard that the plane crashed, he called his long-time CIA supervisor, who was now Vice President, George Bush. Bush denied being in the Contra loop, but investigators recently obtained copies of Oliver North’s diary, which documents Bush’s role as a CIA supervisor of the Contra supply network.

In 1988, Bush told Congress he knew nothing about the illegal supply flights until 1987, yet North’s diary shows Bush at the first planning meeting August 6, 1985. Bush’s ‘official” log placed him somewhere else. Such double sets of logs are intended to hide Bush’s real role in the CIA; to provide him with “plausible deniability.” The problem is, it fell apart because too many people. Like North and Rodriguez, have kept records that show Bush’s CIA role back to the 1961 invasion of Cuba.[74]

That is exactly how evidence was uncovered placing George Bush working with Felix Rodriguez when JFK was killed. A memo from FBI head J. Edgar Hoover was found, stating that, “Mr. George Bush of the CIA” had been briefed on November 23rd, 1963 about the reaction of anti-Castro Cuban exiles in Miami to the assassination of President Kennedy.[75]

On the day of the assassination, Bush was in Texas, but he denies knowing exactly where he was.... Several of the Cubans he was supervising as dirty-tricks teams for Nixon, were photographed in the Zapruder film....[76]

George Bush claims he never worked for the CIA until he was appointed Director by former Warren Commission director and then president Jerry Ford, in 1976. Logic suggests that is highly unlikely. Of course, Bush has a company duty to deny being in the CIA. The CIA is a secret organization. No one ever admits to being a member. The truth is that Bush has been a top CIA official since before the 1961 invasion of Cuba, working with Felix Rodriguez.[77]

Craig Roberts, author of Kill Zone: A Sniper Looks at Dealey Plaza adds that “dozens [of researchers] have mentioned or written that George Bush was part and partial to the JFK assassination.” Roberts says the evidence not only includes the above memo stating that “Mr. George Bush of the CIA” was briefed on the ongoing investigation of the assassination, but that “Bush owned Zapata Off Shore Drilling out of Houston, and they would have probably gotten the drilling contracts around Cuba if Castro was outsted; two ships on the Bay of Pigs Cuba invasion (the CIA planned invasion of Cuba) force were renamed: Houston and Barbara (Bush’s wife is named Barbara, and Bush lives in Houston); and the operation was codenamed Operation Zapata.”[78*]

Michael Collins Piper, author of Final Judgment, also argues for the Mossad’s involvement in the death of JFK.

And as Barry Chamish observes:

Kennedy infuriated Israeli Prime Minister David Ben Gurion by demanding an end to Israel’s nuclear program. He equally infuriated organized crime by promising to end American involvement in Viet Nam, and thus cutting off its major source of raw opium (imported into the US by Ted Shackley and George Bush, et. al.). Even though he frightened many in the CIA with his declarations that the organization had to be replaced, and by his refusal to bring down Castro, that was not a prime motive in the assassination.

The CIA (Bush was director in 1976) was involved because its top gun James Angleton was an Israeli agent. His duty was to prepare the patsy and plant “false flags” in the Cuban exile community. In fact, even the alleged involvement of Italian Mafia leaders was a deliberate false flag as well. The real killers were OAS-employed Corsican hitmen, or at least one was for certain, and they were recruited by the Mossad’s European chief assassin, Yitzhak Shamir.

I would dismiss the whole thing as a fantastic yarn, except four years ago I began researching the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, and I independently discovered too many facts in common with Piper’s. The most uncanny is that I also conclude that French intelligence provided the operational guidance behind Rabin’s murder..... I see the Kennedy assassination in the same terms.

Oswald had been trained to be a stooge by American military intelligence from 1957, before the foundation of the Dimona Nuclear Reactor was even laid. Indeed, Ben Gurion could have been so angered by Kennedy’s insistence on the dismemberment of Dimona that he agreed to contribute Mossad expertise to his assassination. However, the assassination’s core plot was American and its genesis predated any possible Israeli involvement.... The latest Kennedy to die violently was the only American editor to expose the true conspiracy behind Rabin’s assassination. He did it in grand style in a 13 page article in the March 1997 issue of his magazine George. And he had every intention of continuing his exposes until he got to the bottom of the matter.[79]

As a friend of Kennedy’s—a stock broker and former business partner who had attended college with JFK, Jr. and played football with him—told the Examiner in the weeks before the crash, Kennedy had begun the “biggest project of his life,” telling people: “I want to know who killed my father. I want there to be absolutely no doubt.”

The article states that Kennedy had begun talking to investigative reporters and other investigators about becoming part of a team to re-examine the assassination.

“Johns’ magazine, George, was about to open up a can of worms, a volatile and potentially dangerous move that could suddenly earn him some powerful, rich and ruthless enemies,” said the family friend.

“The crash investigators believe he’d received some cryptic warnings—and finally some actual threats—about letting sleeping dogs lie and what might happen if he didn’t. But John refused to back down.

“And the very next day, he died in what should have been a simple plane ride. There are some major questions to be answered.”[80]

As with his father and uncle, the motives for assassinating John F. Kennedy, Jr. are numerous. Whether exposing the international crime syndicate/CIA “Octopus” through George magazine, or via the Senate or the Oval Office, Kennedy, like his father before him, was too great a risk to the powers that be.

Described as the sexiest man in the world by People magazine, the successor to Camelot was too attractive an opponent for the Establishment to let live and have to eventually face in a presidential election. If JFK and RFK weren’t immune to assassins’ bullets, there’s no reason to believe that JFK, Jr. would not be either if they considered him a political threat.[81*]

“And so, the wheels were set in motion to put the brakes on JFK, Jr.  before he could announce his candidacy to the world,” writes researcher John DiNardo, “for the task of his demise would have been EXTREMELY problematic had they waited until the American people would be awakened to the reality that Kennedys are ALWAYS killed when they set their sights on the White House.”[82]

Only JFK Jr’s sister, Caroline Kennedy-Schlossberg, has made any public indications that all may not be right with the official story.

As reporter Pat Shannon states: “This investigator told me that he had personally talked with Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg and indeed she is well aware of what happened to her brother. She knows that the ‘spin’ is in and she is terrified of being killed herself.”

On his “Profile in Courage Award,” established by JFK and Caroline, Kennedy said: “I’d like to see it become what the Oscars are to the film industry or the Nobel Prize to peace and economics. The single award that recognizes achievement and acts of courage in public life.”[83]

As Vogue magazine reported:

It was his ability to handle life’s misfortunes that drew the admiration of so many, including the late Princess Diana, who said before she died that she hoped her eldest son would emulate the son of President John F. Kennedy. Said the princess, “I want William to be able to handle things as well as John does.”[84]

Six years later, both Princess Diana and JFK, Jr. would wind up dead—both killed in highly suspicious accidents.

---

[1]. “Anthony J. Hilder, “A Hint of Homicide,” Radio Free World, 7/28/99.

[2]. James Sanders, interview with author; Robert E. Kessler, “Feds Indict 2 in TWA Theft,” New York Newsday, 1/8/99.

[*] Fortunately, the judge did not agree with the DoJ, and gave Sanders 50 hours of community service.

[3]. An hour before John F. Kennedy Jr.’s plane crashed into the ocean, his Piper Saratoga came close enough to an American Airlines plane that a radar traffic controller alerted the airline crew. The National Transportation Safety Board confirmed the incident but it was not clear how close the planes came to each other, according to a Wednesday report of The Providence Journal. The planes were close enough to prompt the traffic advisory to the commercial plane, but there was “no apparent risk of collision,” according to NTSB spokesman Paul Schlamm. Such advisories are not rare, Schlamm said. He said the incident was not serious enough to require a course adjustment. (Associated Press, 8/19/99.)

[4]. Hugh Sprunt, e-mail to author, 11/27/99. “If the plane ends up in a partially or fully nose-down attitude during this process, as is common, the pilot will often pull back on the stick or control column in an attempt to bring the nose up (without first making sure the wings are level—indeed, the plane can be nearly inverted in a nose down attitude when he tries to initiate his second recovery). Since (in this scenario) the wings are not level, pulling back on the stick/control column tends to produce an extremely rapid descent (a dive, that pulling back on the stick—in a misguided attempt to level the nose—only exacerbates). The high rate of descent quickly causes the aircraft to go beyond its do-not-exceed-speed in a steep dive if the out-of-control maneuver starts while the plane is more than a thousand or two feet above the ground. Everything I have digested re the K-Crash makes me think some general version of this scenario is the correct one.”

[5]. Jim Avila, “Deadly danger: Graveyard spiral,” NBC NEWS, 7/21/99.

[6]. “JFK Jr, The Mossad, and Heymann’s Fairy Tales,” Newshawk, date unknown.

[7]. AFP, 7/9/99. Ebstein, currently working at Jerusalem's Herzog Hospital, said his research showed that bearers of a gene complex known as the dopamine D-4 receptor and seotonin transporter promoter seek out strong sensations and are more likely than other persons to become addicted to drugs. “We have carried out numerous statistical surveys and found that more than 50 percent of impulsive behavior can be explained by genetic factors,” he said.

[8]. Newshawk, 1999. “In support of this assessment of Kennedy’s abilities and safety-mindedness, The Toronto Star reported that Kennedy used a copilot when he flew to that city earlier this month. ‘Kennedy had felt the need to fly with a co-pilot since breaking his ankle in a paraglider crash three weeks earlier, and he had told acquaintances he was happy to fly solo again after having a cast removed from his ankle the day before last Friday’s flight. It is now established Kennedy was not wearing a foot cast as in weeks preceding the disaster - it came off the day before the fatal flight.’”

[9]. Boston Globe, 7/18/99.

[10]. Buck Wolf, ABCNEWS.com, 7/20/99.

[11]. CNN, 1999.

[12]. Seattle talk show host Mike Webb, interview with John McColgan, 7/26/99. Kennedy had completed his written test for his instrument flight rating and had completed his training for the in-flight instrument rating test only several months before his death. Kennedy just hadn’t taken the in-flight test.

[13]. “In One Piece: Kennedy Plane Found to Be Intact When it Crashed,” Associated Press, 7/30/99.

[14]. Extra rebroadcast, 1/1/00.

[15]. NTSB Identification: NYC99MA178, initial report.

[16]. Ibid., “ Hopes Fade for Missing Kennedy Plane,” UPI, 7/17/99; The NTSB said that Kennedy had received a weather forecast via the Internet for his flight about 6:30 p.m. on July 16. The report, issued about two hours before takeoff, was for good VFR conditions, with 6 to 8 miles visibility. No weather warnings were issued to pilots flying Kennedy’s route. (“In One Piece: Kennedy Plane Found to Be Intact When it Crashed,” Associated Press, 7/30/99.)

[17]. Letter from Peter Jones, Belmont and Edgartown, Martha’s Vineyard Gazette, date unknown.

[18]. Nelson Sigelman, “Huge Search Finds Bodies, Plane,” Martha’s Vineyard Gazette, 7/22/99.

[*] As an “aviation expert” interviewed by MSNBC claimed that Kennedy would have lost his artificial horizon if the vacuum pump failed in the aircraft. However there is a backup vacuum system in the pitot assembly of that craft.

[19]. Sharon Begley, “Lost in the Deep: A Desperate Search at Sea,” Newsweek, 7/26/99.

[20]. Dave Saltonstall And Bill Hutchinson, “Angler May Have Heard Crash,” New York Daily News, 7/21/99.

[21]. Edward A. Meyer <eamnq@erols.com>  Edward A. Meyer FAA Air Traffic Control Specialist NY FSDPS (NY Flight  Service Data Processing System) Certified Pilot, Weather Briefer  Facilities: NY Automated Flight Service Station La Guardia Air Traffic  Control Tower, NY TRACON, La Guardia Sector, Airline Transport Pilot, Certificate Commercial Pilot Certificate, Certified Flight Instructor, 3000 Hours Total Flying Time 2000 as Flight Instructor. 8/12/99, quoted in FAA Specialist: Weather Conditions “Just Fine,” Prevailing Accounts on Cause of Crash “Garbage,” Newshawk, date unknown.

[*] Satellites monitor for the ELT “bleep” and it sets of an alarm at the FAA towers in the area. Search planes can home in on the tone, which sounds like an intermittent electronic siren with a repetitious rising squall. It also had a transponder that showed radar where the plane was and identified it with an assigned four digit code, or with the VFR code of 1200. (Craig Roberts)

[22]. E-mail from Joe Jordan, POW Strike Force.

[23]. NTSB Identification: NYC99MA178, initial report; Memo from Joe Jordan, posted on Internet. Jordan’s credentials mailed to author.

[*] Jordan adds that “the Textron/Lycoming 6-cylinder engine has had some trouble with wrist pin caps coming loose and taking out the engine in flight. Even if it did, the plane could have gone into a slow glide and made a soft-water landing.” According to data released by the FAA there have been 59 fatalities in that type of plane, but it was unknown how many actually corresponded to the specific, updated model that Kennedy was flying. According to the reports, there were at least 27 instances that included electrical failure, and at least 16 instances involving engine failures or problems. Nose and landing gear problems were a factor in 35 of the accidents or incidents, while some facet of pilot error accounted for at least 34, according to the documents. More than a dozen of the incidents were attributed to weather conditions.

[24]. Craig Roberts, e-mail to author. Fixed wing: Commercial pilot, single engine land and sea, 900 plus hours. Helicopter: Commercial pilot, rotorcraft, 2500 plus hours, mostly turbine (jet). Total pilot time: appx 3450 hrs.

[25]. “JFK Jr.’s Plane Had No Malfunctions,” Reuters, 7/28/99.

[26]. E-mail from Joe Jordan, POW Strike Force.

[27]. Nelson Sigelman, “Squibnocket Fisherman Heard Crash,” The Martha’s Vineyard Times, 7/22/99.

[28]. Joe Haberstroh, Lauren Terrazzano and Stephanie Saul, “Plane’s Perilous Fall: NTSB says craft fell 1,100 feet in seconds,” Reuters, date unknown.

[29]. Coast Guard Press Release no: 065-99, “Missing Kennedy Aircraft,” 7/17/99.

[30]. “ Hopes Fade for Missing Kennedy Plane,” UPI Spotlight, 7/17/99; “Kennedy Plane Made 1,200-foot Dive,” UPI Spotlight, 7/17/99; “Coast Guard searching for missing Kennedy aircraft,” US Coast Guard Press Release No: 065-99, 7/17/99.

[*] The last radar contact with Mr. Kennedy’s plane was recorded at 9:40:29 pm.

[31]. John Quinn, “Hard Evidence Obtained of Conspiracy, Cover-Up in JFK, Jr. Death,” 10/9/99.

[32]. Paul Schlamm, interview with author. Jerry Cimisi, interview with author.

[33]. “JFK, Jr. - The Facts,” NewsHawk, 1999.

[34]. Pat Shannan, “JFK, Jr.’s Crash Still a Mystery,” Media Bypass, April, 2000.

[35]. Dave Saltonstall And Bill Hutchinson, “Angler May Have Heard Crash,” New York Daily News, 7/21/99.

[36]. Nelson Sigelman, “Squibnocket Fisherman Heard Crash,” The Martha’s Vineyard Times, 7/22/99.

[37]. Ibid.

[38]. John Quinn, “Hard Evidence Obtained of Conspiracy, Cover-Up in JFK, Jr. Death,” 10/9/99; UPI 7/17/99.

[39]. “ Hopes Fade for Missing Kennedy Plane,” UPI, 7/17/99; John DiNardo jdinardo@idt.net, 8/6/99.

[40] Sharon Begley, “Lost in the Deep: A Desperate Search at Sea,” Newsweek, 7/26/99.

[41]. William S. Donaldson (USN, retired), interview with author.

[42]. “TWA 800 Shootdown,” New American, 10/25/99.

[43]. Ibid.

[*] “In all versions they show the aircraft climbing several thousand feet after losing the front 1/3 of the airplane. Not only is this aerodynamically impossible, it doesn’t fit with available primary radar data, eyewitness reports or a simple ballistic trajectory from the last secondary radar return.” (Donaldson press release)

[44]. Association of Retired Aviation Professionals, press release (www.twa800.com). The Associated Retired Aviation Professionals, formed in early 1997. Its members are former military, civilian, and aviation professionals who organized to independently investigate the downing of TWA Flight 800.

[*] As Donaldson states: “The government’s case is built on the claim that Jet-A fuel is explosive. The truth is that it cannot even be lit with a match until it is heated to over 127° Fahrenheit. Early in 1997, I extracted some Jet-A fuel from a 747 that had been running for about the same amount of time that TWA 800 had been operating when it was hit. This fuel’s temperature was 68°.... Yet this is the fuel that, under the very same temperature conditions, supposedly exploded because of some mysterious spark and brought the plane down. Impossible! Even if you heat the fuel beyond 127° and stick a match in it, you’ll get fire but no explosion. The government has also claimed that vaporized fuel will explode if ignited, which is true. But this fuel forms vapor six times heavier than air. It won’t vaporize without a great deal of energy being applied. Also, the government claims that faulty wiring may have caused the spark that ignited vapors in the admittedly empty center tank. But there is no wiring inside the fuel tank in a 747 and, as we’ve already mentioned, there were no vapors to ignite.” ⁽“TWA 800 Shootdown,” New American, 10/25/99.)

[45]. Association of Retired Aviation Professionals, press release (www.twa800.com). The Associated Retired Aviation Professionals, formed in early 1997. Its members are former military, civilian, and aviation professionals who organized to independently investigate the downing of TWA Flight 800.

[*] At least 183 witnesses interviewed by the FBI reported seeing a streak of light and 102 provided information on the origin of the streak. The report stated 96 witnesses said it rose from the surface. (Aviation Week, 12/15/97.)

[46]. “Anthony J. Hilder, “A Hint of Homicide,” Radio Free World, 7/28/99.

[*] “First of all, TWA 800 was the 27th transportation aircraft worldwide to be brought down by a man-portable anti-aircraft missile. What happened to this Boeing 747 was far from unique when you consider that numerous other planes have suffered a similar fate. Just last year, a Boeing 727 was downed in Africa, the 28th victim of this type of attack. Just this month [September] a Lufthansa cargo jet was fired on and missed at low altitude near the Karachi airport overseas.” (Donaldson interview, “TWA 800 Shootdown,” New American, 10/25/99.)

[47]. William Donaldson is a retired U.S. Navy pilot with more than 24 years of experience in virtually all phases of naval aviation. Pertinent portions of his expertise include graduation from the Navy’s Postgraduate Aviation Safety School in Monterey, California, where he completed the long course in aviation safety and crash investigation. He served as a safety officer and crash investigator at both the Squadron and Air Wing levels, and was qualified as a maintenance check pilot in six models of prop and jet aircraft. Also, he is a qualified air traffic controller and served for two years as a Carrier Controlled Approach Officer.

[*] “The FBI eventually contracted with the Navy’s China Lake [California] Naval Air Weapons facility to study recovered debris. When the China Lake experts recommended in their report that missiles be fired into 747 fuel tanks in order to replicate the damage found on TWA 800, the FBI not only ignored this report but immediately shut down its investigation.” (“TWA 800 Shootdown,” New American, 10/25/99.)

[48]. Association of Retired Aviation Professionals, press release (www.twa800.com). The Associated Retired Aviation Professionals, formed in early 1997. Its members are former military, civilian, and aviation professionals who organized to independently investigate the downing of TWA Flight 800.

[49]. Ibid.

[*] At a press conference on July 20, 1998 where Donaldson’s report was presented, Dr. Vernon L. Grose, a former Board Member of the NTSB and former commentator for CNN stood up and declared that he could no longer support the center fuel tank theory and that there was sufficient new evidence that a missile could have shot down the plane. He joined Donaldson in calling for full Congressional Hearings. (“TWA 800 Shootdown,” New American, 10/25/99.)

[50]. Reuters, 7/30/99.

[51]. See: Hearings Before The Subcommittee On Crime of the Committee On The Judiciary, House Of Representatives, 101st Congress, 2nd Session, December 4 and 5, 1990.

[*] As Accuracy Systems Ordinance Corporation’s Chuck Byers wrote to Rep. Portor Goss, Chairman of the House Intelligence Oversight Committee: “Specifically, I wish to bring your attention to a device that Sgt. Arleigh McCree, the renowned head of the Los Angeles Police Bomb Squad Unit, felt certain was the device responsible for blowing up the U.S. Army chartered ARROW AIR DC-8 passenger transport that crashed in Gander, Newfoundland December 12, 1985.... Our firm designed and manufactured the responsible device exclusively for, and sold it only to, the Central Intelligence Agency.” (Letter from Charles M. Byers to Chairman Portor Goss, 2/14/98.)

[52]. Pat Shannan, interview on Tom Valentine Radio Show, The Spotlight, web version, no date provided; Pat Shannan, interview with author.

[53]. “Anthony J. Hilder, “A Hint of Homicide,” Radio Free World, 7/28/99.

[54]. Public Law 93-633.

[55]. John R. Prukop, quoted in Newshawk, 2/9/00. John Prukop has been a certificated pilot since 1968. He flew for United Express/Mesa Airlines as a First Officer on the Beechcraft twin-engine turboprops (BE-1300/HDC & BE-1900). In 1991 he founded Citizens For a Constitutional Washington.

[56]. “TWA 800 Shootdown,” New American, 10/25/99.

[57]. Dr. Steve Salvatore, “Answers Sought From Kennedy, Bessette Autopsies, CNN 7/21/99; “JFK Autopsy Rushed,” Boston Globe, 7/24/99.

[58]. Boston Globe, 7/23/99.

[59]. Scot Lehigh, “A Kennedy Dynasty Comes to an End,” Boston Globe, 7/25/99.

[60]. Andrew Goldman, “Kennedy ‘Expert’ C. David Heymann: Do His JFK, Jr. Stories Hold Up?” New York Observer, 1999.

[61]. John Quinn, “JFK Jr, The Mossad, and Heymann’s Fairy Tales,” Newshawk, 1999.

[62]. Ibid.

[63]. Ibid.

[*] Through his lawyer, Mr. Heymann denies Mr. Kenner’s claims, and chalked up the professor’s snub to a negative review Mr. Heymann had written for The Saturday Review about Kenner’s book, The Pound Era.

[64]. Andrew Goldman, “Kennedy ‘Expert’ C. David Heymann: Do His JFK, Jr. Stories Hold Up?” New York Observer, 1999. “Hutton’s friends, among them ex-husband Cary Grant, came forward claiming that they had never seen her keep any notebooks. And in 1984, handwriting expert Charles Hamilton, who had helped determine that the recently-published Hitler diaries were fake, told reporters that he believed the Hutton notebooks and letter of authorization provided by Mr. Heymann were not authentic. Mr. Wulf disputed Mr. Hamilton’s contentions, and offered the fact of the book’s eventual success, and its adaptation as an NBC TV miniseries, as vindication of Mr. Heymann’s work.”

[65]. Andrew Goldman, “Kennedy ‘Expert’ C. David Heymann: Do His JFK, Jr. Stories Hold Up?” New York Observer, 1999.

[66]. “He Could Barely Walk, How Did He Fly?” Yediot Ahronot, date unknown, quoted in Barry Chamish, “Interview with JFK Jr.’s Driver,” The Camelot Killings, Free World Alliance, 1999. Barry Chamish is the author of Who Murdered Yitzhak Rabin.

[67]. Bruce Kennedy, “JFK Jr.: Reluctant crown prince of America’s ‘royal family’,” CNN, 1999; Fred Kaplan, “JFK Jr. Kept His Charitable Work Private, but Helped Thousands,” Boston Globe, 7/21/99.

[*] It was also rumored that Kennedy was in the process of setting up an interview with Attorney General Janet Reno, and had recently submitted a request to the “Justice” Department. Considering the innocent blood on the hands of Reno and her bosses in the White House, a serious investigation into Reno’s criminal actions such as the Waco massacre may well have been the straw that broke the camel’s back.

[68]. “Barak and the Americans sabotaged Peres’s election campaign through a combination of deliberate incompetence, suicide bombers and a mini-war in Lebanon which cost Peres the Arab vote. Peres loses and millions of dollars are funneled to Barak’s successful campaign to take over the leadership of the Labor Party. The price was Netanyahu’s victory and immediately a campaign of scandal mongering begins to force him from power. Netanyahu survives the scandals, and freezes the Golan withdrawal, until the Americans invest their money and talents to assuring Barak's election in May, 1999.” (Chamish)

[*] In October of 1995, Rabin flew to Washington and oversaw the passage of two Congressional bills which effectively neutralized the Oslo process. One bill declared that Jerusalem would never be divided, the other cut off American aid to the PLO if it declared a state. (Chamish)

[*] Barak promised a total Golan withdrawal if he became Prime Minister. He spent his March-June, 1995 trip to Washington “planning his accession to power and understanding his role as envisioned by the Council On Foreign Relations. He held meetings with CFR executives Henry Kissinger, Lawrence Tisch and Edgar Bronfman. They vowed to finance his campaign. Barak announced that the triumvirate agreed to finance his new ‘business’ career to the tune of $30 million.” (Barry Chamish, “The Human Price Of Rabin’s Truth,” Truth in Media’s GLOBAL WATCH Bulletin, no date provided.)

[69]. Pat Shannan, “JFK, Jr.’s Crash Still a Mystery,” Media Bypass, April, 2000.

[70]. Joel M. Skousen, “JFK, Jr. Assassination,” World Affairs Brief, 8/22/99. Joel Skousen is a political scientist specializing in the philosophy of law and Constitutional theory.  He was a Marine Corps fighter pilot during the Vietnam era. He served as the Chairman of the Conservative National Committee in Washington DC, and as Executive Editor of Conservative Digest. For two years, he published a newsletter entitled the World Affairs Brief, and served as a Senior Editor of Cogitations, a quarterly journal on law and government. He is the author of four books:  One on law and government, and three on his special design innovations in security architecture.

[71]. Barry Chamish, “It’s Your Last Chance, Stupid Jews!” posted on Internet, 1999.

[*] The latest U.S. budget, which was approved in November following a lengthy battle between Bill Clinton and Congress, earmarked more than $4 billion for Israel, according to a November 21, 1999 Ha’aretz report. Israel will receive $1.92 billion in military aid from us, $1.2 billion for implementing the Wye accord, and $900,000 in civilian aid. (Barry Chamish, “Israel Stabs America in the Back, Sells AWACS Technology to Red China,” Truth in Media’s GLOBAL WATCH Bulletin, 12/7/99)

[72]. David Bar-Illan, “Why Bibi Fell,” The Maccabean Online, June, 1999.

[73]. Sarah Kohning, “Betrayed,” Jerusalem Post, 7/30/99.

[74]. The Washington Post, 7/10/90.

[75]. The Nation, 8/13/88.

[76]. “In 1959 Rodriguez was a top cop in the Cuban government under Batista. When Batista was overthrown and fled to Miami, Rodriguez went with him, along with Frank Sturgis and Rafael Quintero. Officially, Rodriguez didn’t join the CIA until 1967, after the CIA invasion of Cuba, in which he participated, and the assassination of JFK. But records recently uncovered show he actually joined the CIA in 1961 for the invasion of Cuba when he was recruited by George Bush. That is how Rodriguez claims he became a “close, personal friend of Bush.” The “official” Rodriguez claims he quit the CIA in 1976, just after he was sent to prison for his role in the Watergate burglary. However, according to Rolling Stone reporters Kohn & Monks (Nov. 3, 1988), Rodriguez still goes to CIA headquarters monthly to receive assignments and have his blue 1987 bulletproof Cadillac serviced. Rodriguez was asked by a Rolling Stone reporter where he was the day JFK was shot, and he claims he can’t remember.” (Kangas)

[77]. Paul Kangas, “The Role of Richard Nixon and George Bush in the Assassination of President Kennedy,” The Realist, Summer, 1991.

[78]. Craig Roberts, e-mail to author.

[*] As former OSS officer Russell S. Bowen writes: “According to a longtime operative in Agency operations in the Caribbean and South America, Bush’s company, Zapata Oil, was one of the key suppliers of oil to Cuba under Batista.” (The Immaculate Deception: The Bush Crime Family Exposed [Carson City, NV: America West Publishers, 1991], p. 30.)

[79]. Barry Chamish, “A Zionist Looks at Final Judgment,” posted on Internet, no date provided. Chamish’s most recent three books are Traitors And Carpetbaggers in the Promised Land, Who Murdered Yitzhak Rabin and Israel Betrayed. They can be acquired from the Zionist Book Club by writing perkins@netvision.net.il or by calling toll free 1-877-RABINYY. Please visit www.webseers.com/rabin.

[80]. Tom Kuncl, “Did JFK Jr. Die Because He Was Investigating Dad’s Murder?” Examiner, 8/31/99; Tom Kuncl, interview with author.

[81]. “Anthony J. Hilder, “A Hint of Homicide,” Radio Free World, 7/28/99.

[*] Kennedy’s uncle, Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy, had narrowly escaped death in 1964 when the private plane he was in crashed. Senator Kennedy was also involved in a suspicious car crash in which a female companion died.

[82]. John DiNardo, “Mossad/Clinton: JFK Jr. Plane Sabotage,” The Camelot Killings Website, Free World Alliance, 8/7/99.

[83]. Bruce Kennedy, “JFK Jr.: Reluctant crown prince of America’s ‘royal family’,” CNN, 1999.

[84].Vogue, 1993, quoted in: “A Man in Full: JFK Jr.’s Life Spanned Worlds of Politics, Celebrity,” ABCNews.com, 7/19/99.