[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 112 (Friday, August 12, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[Congressional Record: August 12, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
WHATEVER IT IS, BILL CLINTON PROBABLY DID IT
______
HON. ANDREW JACOBS, JR.
of indiana
in the house of representatives
Friday, August 12, 1994
Mr. JACOBS. Mr. Speaker, I insert the following article from the U.S.
News & World Report, August 8, 1994 edition.
It should be noted that the politics of personal attack is, in its
essence, character assassination. Character assassination like physical
assassination can be effective, that is, it can destroy if someone is
willing to stoop to it.
One more conspiracy for the Merchants of Venom to contemplate: who
slipped in that commandment on Moses, the one that says, ``Thou shalt
not bear false witness against thy neighbor.''
Violent and destructive words are akin to violent and destructive
deeds. They will inspire violence on the part of others. Here is how
Kipling said it:
. . . And sure it keeps their honor clean
The learned court believes
They never gave a piece of plate
To murderers or thieves
They never told the ramping crowd
To card a woman's hide
They never marked a man for death
What fault of theirs he died?
They only said intimidate
And talked and went their way
By God, the boys who did the work
Were better men than they.
[From the U.S. News & World Report, Aug. 8, 1994]
Whatever it is, Bill Clinton Likely Did It
(By Greg Ferguson and David Bowermaster)
Sitting in a cozy parlor and wearing a red cardigan, Larry
Nichols looks into the camera like an earnest Mr. Rogers and
tells of ``countless people who mysteriously died'' after
having run-ins with Bill Clinton. Nichols, an Arkansas state
employee fired in 1988 for making hundreds of calls to the
Nicaraguan Contras from his office, says it's all part of
Clinton's ``evil society.''
So goes ``Bill Clinton's Circle of Power,'' a video made
earlier this year by Citizens for Honest Government, a
California-based conservative group headed by television
producer Pat Matrisciana. The video is filled with dark
suggestions that as president and governor, Clinton was
connected to the murders and beatings of several people,
including political opponents. The Rev. Jerry Falwell
promoted the video during a month of TV infomercials, and it
has sold more than 100,000 copies, according to its makers.
They hope its sequel, ``The Clinton Chronicles,'' which
repeats the charges at greater length, might outsell the
first, even without Falwell's help.
Beyond last week's congressional Whitewater hearings and
the ferment over Paula Corbin Jones' sexual harassment
lawsuit, attacks against Clinton have taken a decidedly
sinister turn. Televangelists, conservative talk-show hosts,
political opponents and some computer bulletin-board
aficionados are suggesting that Clinton could be tied to
dozens of deaths, from a pneumonia case in Delaware to three
of the four federal agents killed in the raid on the Branch
Davidian compound in Waco, Texas.
weird era
Even at a time of great national anxiety and confusion, the
intense, fecund and often bizarre charges leveled against
Clinton are startling. He has unusually high negative ratings
in many polls, but even that fails to explain fully the
extreme nature of the charges leveled at him. ``These attacks
have reached a level of inventive and viciousness that is
unparalleled,'' complained White House counsel Lloyd Cutler
during last week's Whitewater hearings. ``There are a great
many people who would like to bring President Clinton down
who will stop at practically nothing.''
No episode seems beyond Clinton's reach in the world of
conspiracy buffs. A Wall Street Journal editorial in March
chastised the ``respectable press'' for showing ``little-to-
no appetite for publishing anything about sex and violence''
in Whitewater-related matters. It proceeded to report that
while working on a story for the New Republic about
incestuous relationships between business leaders and
politicos in Arkansas, writer L.J. Davis opened the door to
his Little Rock hotel room and remembered next awakening face
down on the floor with a hefty bump on his head and
``significant'' pages of his notes missing. The implication
was that some sinister elements had tired to quash Davis'
piece. But Davis soon admitted drinking at least four
martinis that night. No pages were missing from his notebook,
and he had no idea how he ended up on the floor. ``I
certainly wasn't about to conclude that somebody cracked me
on the head,'' Davis said at the time.
Even the most serious charges are characterized by serious
deficiencies in corroborating evidence. In a letter to
congressional leaders, former Rep. William Dannemeyer lists
24 people with some connection to Clinton who have died
``under other than natural circumstances'' and calls for
hearings on the matter. On Dannemeyer's list is James
Wilhite, a friend of White House adviser Thomas ``Mack''
McLarty who suffered fatal head injuries in December 1992
when he skied into a tree in Colorado. Clinton was nowhere
near the scene. Dannemeyer also mentions Paul Tully, a chain-
smoking, overweight Democratic strategist who, according to
Little Rock police spokesman Lt. Charles Holladay and the
Pulaski County coroner's report, died of a heart attack in
1992. Next is Jon Walker, an administrator in the Resolution
Trust Corp. office probing Madison Guaranty; Walker died last
year when he jumped from Northern Virginia apartment
building. Tom Bell, a detective with the Arlington, Va.,
police says Walker was a ``particularly clear case of suicide
because there was a witness.''
Others on the Dannemeyer list are more curious but
completely lack evidence implicating Clinton. In March, a
plane piloted by 72-year-old Herschel Friday, head of a
prestigious Little Rock law firm, crashed on approach to a
private runway near Friday's home. Friday served on Clinton's
presidential campaign finance committee, and his widow, Beth,
says the Clintons were ``good friends.'' However, rumors
about a link between Whitewater and Friday's death began
circulating soon after the crash. The National Transportation
Safety Board has not issued its final report on the crash,
but so far investigators have given the family no indication
the plane had mechanical problems. Mrs. Friday is confident
her husband's death was ``purely an accident.'' Dannemeyer
admits that Clinton may have had no involvement in Friday's
death and some of the others, but he insists that the
``number goes beyond coincidence.'' He says he merely wants
them investigated.
the clinton body count
Dannemeyer's list of ``suspicious deaths'' is taken largely
from one compiled by Linda Thompson. She is an Indianapolis
lawyer who in 1993 quit her one-year-old general practice to
run her American Justice Federation, a for-profit group that
promotes pro-gun causes and various conspiracy theories
through a shortwave radio program, a computer bulletin board
and sales of its newsletter and videos. Her list, called
``The Clinton Body Count: Coincidence or the Kiss of Death?''
and updated biweekly, now contains 34 names of people she
believes died suspiciously and who had ties to the Clinton
family. Thompson admits she has ``no direct evidence'' of
Clinton killing anyone. Indeed, she says the deaths were
probably caused by ``people trying to control the president''
but refuses to say who they were. Thompson says her
allegations of murder ``seem groundless only because the
mainstream media haven't done enough digging.''
Earlier this year, Thompson released two videotapes and a
folksy music video purporting to show that the February 1993
shootout in Waco, Texas, was a conspiracy in which three
agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms were
``executed'' in the Branch Davidian's armory by their own men
because of what they might have witnessed as Clinton's
bodyguards. Though the men did help the Secret Service guard
Clinton a few times, the Treasury Department's report in the
Waco standoff refutes the charge: ``Contrary to some publicly
disseminated accounts, none of the agents that entered the
armory was killed.'' According to the report, the men were
killed in different locations around the compound. ATF
spokesman Les Stanford says, ``Her videos are replete with
falsehood and errors.''
Of the ``suspicious deaths'' listed by Thompson and
endorsed by Dannemeyer, many victims have only the most
tenuous ties to Clinton--four members of Marine Helicopter
Squadron One, for example. The unit is responsible for
transporting the president. The four marines died in May 1993
when the Blackhawk helicopter they had taken out for a
maintenance-evaluation flight crashed. According to a Marine
spokesman, Chief Warrant Officer Robert Jenks, faulty
installation of a spindle pin allowed the helicopter's
engines to produce too much power until an overspeed
protection device shut them down. There was no evidence of
sabotage. Clinton had set foot in the aircraft on only one
occasion, two months before, when he traveled from the White
House to the USS Theodore Roosevelt. Thompson concedes, ``I
don't know what Clinton's motive was.'' But she speculates
that they ``could have been privy to information about
Clinton's plan for Bosnia.''
foster's death
The starting place for all Clinton murder theorists seems
to be Vincent Foster, the deputy White House counsel whose
death last year unleashed a torrent of speculation. Jerry
Falwell, Pat Robinson, Rush Limbaugh and others have
suggested that Foster was probably murdered. On the
anniversary of Foster's death, July 20, Foster's family made
a public appeal to end the speculation. The death has been
ruled a suicide in two separate investigations. Foster's
family says they fully accept that verdict. That hasn't
stopped Clinton's attackers, however. Many have dismissed the
report by Whitewater investigator Robert Fiske Jr., a former
U.S. attorney for New York under Presidents Ford and Carter
and highly respected private attorney, calling Foster's death
a suicide. In rejecting more macabre theories about Foster,
these critics say, Fiske--a Republican--was simply doing
Clinton's bidding. ``Fiske was appointed by Janet Reno at the
suggestion of Bernard Nussbaum,'' says Falwell. ``It's like
putting Hillary Clinton in there.'' Testifying last week
before Congress, Nussbaum said he never mentioned Fiske or
anyone else to Reno as a potential special counsel.
There are other suicides that the conspiracy buffs tie to
Clinton. In May, Sherwood, Ark., police officer Bill Shelton
found his live-in girlfriend, Kathy Ferguson, slumped on the
couch in his apartment, dead from a self-inflicted gunshot
wound. A month later, Shelton was found on Ferguson's grave,
a bullet hole through his head, a gun by his side and a
suicide note in his truck.
Less than a week before Ferguson's death, her ex-husband,
Danny, was named as a codefendant in Paula Jones's lawsuit
against the president. Rumors began swirling that her death--
and later Shelton's--was tied to the president's alleged
infidelities. But police have found no reason to think so.
The relationship between Ferguson and Shelton had reportedly
fallen on hard times, and Ferguson's daughter told police her
mother had been upset about a note from Shelton. The only
people hinting at ties to Bill Clinton are in the media,
police say. ``It's like they want me to say something [about
a connection],'' says Sherwood Police Department spokesman
Ray Snider. ``It was suicide, period.''
Luther ``Jerry'' Parks's death last September is almost as
disputed as Foster's. Indeed, Parks's case is the only murder
on Dannemeyer's list that law enforcement authorities do not
consider solved. Parks's security company guarded Clinton's
campaign headquarters in 1992. His son, Gary, asserts in both
``Circle of Power'' and ``The Clinton Chronicles'' that his
father collected a secret file of the president's alleged
indiscretions. Shortly before the elder Parks was shot to
death while driving his car, Gary says, the file was stolen.
Lieutenant Holladay says there is no evidence of such a file,
nor any evidence that Clinton had anything to do with Parks's
death. Gary, he says, ``is grasping at straws. We have found
his allegations to be baseless.'' Jerry Parks reportedly had
many enemies after he was fired from two Arkansas police
departments and after a bitter falling out with a business
partner. Still, Larry Nichols says he is helping Gary Parks
bring a wrongful death suit against ``someone close to
Clinton who doesn't have presidential immunity.''
One recent death is that of Stanley Huggins, who died in
June. In 1987, Huggins examined the loan practices of the
thrift, Madison Guaranty, at the center of the Whitewater
storm. His 400-gage report has never been made public. But
Dr. Richard Callery, Delaware's top medical examiner, says
Huggins died of viral myocarditis and bronchial pneumonia.
Lt. Joel Ivory of the University of Delaware police says his
``exhaustive'' investigation of Huggins's death turned up
``no sign at all of foul play.''
The flood of accusations shows no sign of abating. And to
all conspiracy buffs, official sources are suspect. Falwell
asks how the Arkansas police could investigate the deaths:
``The police in Arkansas brought Clinton's girlfriends to
him.'' He also says that guilty or innocent, Clinton
encourages suspicion: ``He's trying to get the courts to
postpone his sex harassment suit. If he gets by with that,
O.J. Simpson should run for president.''
____________________