Reed Irvine - Editor
THE TRAGEDY OF A WASHINGTON TRAGEDY
The dust jacket of A Washington Tragedy - How the Death of Vincent Foster Ignited a Political Fire Storm claims that the author, Dan E. Moldea “investigates all the details of the death of Vincent Foster and runs down all the clues and evidence. He answers all the questions that have been raised.”
Unfortunately, that is false. Moldea lists many of the discrepancies between the conclusions reached by the official reports and the underlying investigative record, but he fails to show that the official reports ignored, minimized and distorted even the most significant evidence that clashed with their conclusions about how and where Foster died. On the contrary, Moldea concludes that none of the discrepancies are of any significance, and he agrees with the official findings. His only distinctive contribution is his conclusion that the “triggering event” for Foster’s suicide “occurred within his private life, not his public career.” By that he means Foster’s marital problems, a claim alluded to in James Stewart’s Blood Sport.
Moldea fails to provide answers for any of the serious questions that have been raised about Foster’s death, but he agrees with the findings of the U.S. Park Police, special prosecutor Robert B. Fiske, Jr. and Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr that on July 20, 1993, Foster drove his car across the Potomac to Fort Marcy Park and shot himself in the mouth with the 1913 .38 Colt revolver found in his hand. Here are some of the crucial questions he fails to answer.
Why Did No One See Foster’s Car?
Three highly credible eyewitnesses have said that Foster’s car was not in the Fort Marcy parking lot between 4:30 and 5:30 p.m. The first reported sighting of a car matching the description of Foster’s in the parking lot was about 6 p.m., two to three hours after the estimated time of his death. All the official investigators disregarded this evidence that shows that Foster was dead long before his car arrived at Fort Marcy.
The witnesses are Patrick Knowlton, who stopped in the parking lot to relieve himself at 4:30, and a couple who pulled in at around 5:15. Knowlton parked next to a car with Arkansas tags. He says it was a dull rust-brown older model Honda. Foster’s car was a glossy light gray, 1989 Honda. The FBI tried in vain to get Knowlton to change his story. Failing that, they wrote misleading reports, saying he had seen a 1988-90 Honda, which he thought was brown or rusty-brown. They said he didn’t remember whether the car was a two-door or four-door or anything distinctive about it. Knowlton says that is false, that he described several important differences between the two cars. The rust-brown color he identified turned out to have been used only on 1983 and 1984 models.
The FBI reports left the impression that Knowlton was mistaken about the color and that the car he saw was really Foster’s. Moldea does nothing to correct that impression. One has to go to an end note to find that the car Knowlton saw was an “older model.” Nowhere does he cite many other differences between Foster’s car and the one Knowlton says he saw. Moldea says, “Knowlton appears never to have seen Foster’s gray Honda,” but he does not take it seriously.
The corroboration provided by the couple proves that Knowlton should be taken very seriously. According to the FBI interview reports, the only car in the lot when they pulled in was an older model brown Honda, parked where Knowlton had seen an older brown Honda.A bare-chested man was sitting in the car and another man was standing beside it with the hood up. When the couple went into the woods 15 minutes later,that car was still there.The Park Police report said that when they arrived,“there had been a small car with a man without a shirt sitting in it who left shortly after their arrival ”and that then another car “pulled in next to the deceased vehicle,”and the driver had put the hood up and gone into the woods for a while and then left.(If “deceased vehicle ”means Foster ’s car,this would put its arrival time after 5 p.m.,since the small car was the only one in the lot when the couple pulled in.)
The police either misunderstood what they had been told or they rearranged it to make it appear that Foster ’s car was one of three cars the couple had observed at that end of the parking lot.The couple made it clear to the FBI that there had only been one,the older brown Honda.
This couple returned to the parking lot by 6:30 and were questioned there by the police.Foster ’s gray 1989 Honda was now parked where the brown Honda had been an hour earlier. None of the reports say this,but the police obviously asked them if the gray Honda was the same car that they had seen in that spot at 5:30.If the answer had been yes,that would have been reported.It was obviously no.The FBI did not pressure them,as it did Knowlton,to change their story.Fiske and Starr simply ignored their description of the car that they had seen.
Moldea does not explain why we should disregard the mutually corroborating stories told by the only eyewitnesses who have described the cars in the Fort Marcy parking lot before 5:30 p.m.He writes:“The FBI appears completely baffled by (the couple ’s)story because,if they are correct,they,like Patrick Knowlton,appear to have never seen Vincent Foster ’s gray Honda.”(Wrong.They did see Foster ’s gray Honda,but not until 6:30.)Moldea says,“Forced to come to some conclusion about all of this,the FBI simply allows (the woman)to self- destruct as a potential witness.”
He quotes the FBI report as saying that she “continually advised interviewing agents that her recollections...were extremely weak.”(Patrick Knowlton has denounced a similar effort by the FBI agents to suggest that his memory was weak.) The accounts of these witnesses are not baffling;they are enlightening.There is not one iota of evidence that can be cited to prove that what they have said is contrary to fact.No one has come forward to say that they saw Foster ’s car in the parking lot before 5:30.
Why Didn ’t Foster Use His Own Gun?
A 1913 black .38 Colt revolver with two high velocity cartridges, one spent,was found in Foster ’s hand.It was not one of the two handguns that Foster kept in his Georgetown home —a silver revolver and a .45 semi-automatic pistol.The silver revolver,called a “cowboy gun ”by his wife,could not be located on the night of Foster ’s death and it is not clear that it has ever been found.Mrs.Foster and the children had never seen the black revolver before. The FBI claims that Foster ’s sister,Sharon Bowman,told them that her father owned a similar gun,but her interview report is one they have refused to release. Her son,Lee Foster Bowman,had fired his grandfather ’s guns. He told AIM that his grandfather owned a nice,“store-bought ” silver revolver,not the old black gun the FBI showed him.The FBI report has him saying that some characteristics of the two guns were similar —both were .38 revolvers,but they were not the same color.
Moldea transforms that into,“the gun...seemed familiar to him,but Bowman could not positively identify it.”The FBI report neither says nor implies that.The FBI somehow got Lisa Foster to say that the black gun found in Foster ’s hand was the silver gun she had packed and brought to Washington.Moldea says that Fiske went along with this deception in his reports; he neglects to note that Starr did the same.Moldea finds a simple solution to the problem:The gun must have belonged to Foster even if no one could identify it.He refers to it as an “antique ”that was part of Foster ’s father ’s collection.It was old,but it consisted of parts from two different guns.It was not a collectible.It was a typical throwaway or drop gun.
Why Did They Ditch The X-rays?
Three searches,two of them intensive searches by the FBI, failed to turn up the bullet that killed Foster.Investigator Rolla, who first noticed a wound on the back of Foster ’s head,did not recognize it as an exit wound,reporting that the skull had been fractured from the inside,not that it had been penetrated.The autopsy report described the exit wound as a 1"x 1.25"hole in Foster ’s skull.The medical examiner on the scene,Dr.Donald Haut,said he had seen more damage done by a .25 caliber bullet, and he surmised that a “low velocity weapon ”had been used. He also described the wound as mouth to neck,which conflicts with the autopsy report.Paramedic Richard Arthur reported seeing a small entrance wound in the neck,and one of the crime scene photographs shows possible trauma in the area of the wound described by Arthur.
The autopsy X-rays might clear up these conflicting reports, but they have vanished.Dr.James Beyer,the medical examiner who performed the autopsy,checked the box on the autopsy report saying X-rays were taken and told a police officer that they showed no bullet fragments in the skull.Months later,he said he didn ’t take them because the machine was not working, but it was a new machine,and no calls for servicing were made until three months after Foster died.Combine this with the evidence that the gun was not Foster ’s,that neither his fingerprints nor blood could be found on the gun,and one has to ask how the investigators could say with any certainty that this was the gun that fired the fatal shot.
Moldea reports the evidence that X-rays were made and the evidence that exposes the falsity of Beyer ’s claim that they were not made because the machine was not working.He fails to connect the dots between the disappearance of the X-rays and the controversy over the location and size of the bullet wounds. The X-rays are crucial to determination of whether Foster shot himself with the gun found in his hand or whether he was shot with a smaller caliber weapon,but Moldea steers clear of raising such doubts.
Any Proof He Died In The Park?
There was no forensic evidence to prove that Foster died where his body was found.There was none of the bloody mess that one would expect from a large caliber bullet wound in the head. Rolla said he saw blood on the ground beneath Foster ’s head, but there was none spattered on the abundant vegetation near the body.Dr.Haut saw a small amount of blood matted at the back of Foster ’s head,but he did not mention seeing any on the ground.No bone or tissue from the head was found in the park. Foster ’s body was lying perfectly straight,face-up,with his arms at his sides and the gun barrel partially underneath his right thigh.The absence of blood spatter on the vegetation alone is strong evidence that the shot that killed Foster was not fired there.There are several homes near the spot where the body was found,including the well-guarded residence of the Saudi Arabian ambassador,but no one reported hearing a gunshot.
Kenneth Starr hired Dr.Henry Lee as a consultant on forensic evidence,and in 1996 Lee is said to have advised that another search be made for the bullet,because without it there was no forensic evidence to prove that Foster died in the park.The search was made in September-October 1996,lasting seven weeks.All the vegetation except the tall trees was cut to facilitate a thorough search of the area where the bullet might have fallen using metal detectors,but it could not be found. Lacking the bullet,the resourceful Lee proceeded to find forensic evidence that no one had found before and that no one has verified since.
He claimed that spots on some of the leaves shown in Polaroid photos could be blood,but investigator Renée Abt told Moldea she had examined the leaves carefully and there was no blood. She said there were some spots,which she believed were a leaf disease.That should have been right alongside Lee ’s claim,but Moldea put it in an end note,showing his reluctance to question the validity of any of Lee ’s remarkable “discoveries.” These include finding (1)traces of soil on Foster ’s shoes that the FBI crime lab could not discover;(2)droplets of blood on the lenses of Foster ’s glasses even though the Park police and the FBI lab could find no trace of any blood;(3)unburned but distorted gunpowder-like particles of undeterminable age in the soil where the body was found.
Lee ’s claim to have found evidence that Foster carried the revolver from his house to his car by concealing it in a large oven mitt found in the glove compartment is especially absurd. Walking out of the house carrying an oversized oven mitt would have been a great attention-grabber,but his wife saw him leave carrying only his briefcase.She surmised that was where the gun was.His oldest son and daughter,who rode in the car with him,are nowhere reported to have said they saw their father carrying an oven mitt and stuffing it in the glove compartment.Nevertheless,Moldea mentions this ridiculous scenario on the first page of his book.
The official investigators claim that there is no evidence that the body was moved to the park,but that is false.No one has been able to explain how Foster ’s eyeglasses ended up 13 feet downhill from his feet.Gunpowder on the glasses indicates that they were on or near his face when the shot was fired.The official investigators say the glasses tumbled or rolled downhill, but tests have shown that they would not have “tumbled ”more than a few feet.Their being found 13 feet below Foster ’s feet is strong evidence that he didn't die where his body was found. Dr.Lee couldn't solve that problem and neither could Moldea. How Foster could have walked over two hundred yards without getting dirt on his shoes was easier to answer.Moldea simply accepts Dr.Lee's claim that he found dirt that no one else had been able to find.
Why Did They Lie About The Time?
The reports of the Park Police,the Secret Service and White House officials about the time the White House was notified of Foster ’s death reveal a pattern of deceit that appears to have been designed to conceal the fact that President Clinton and his top aides learned of Foster ’s death two to three hours earlier than they claim.FBI agents,confronted with wildly inconsistent statements from Park Police,Secret Service officers and White House officials about the time of notification,made no independent effort to determine when senior officials were first notified of Foster ’s death and why they had lied about it.
There is evidence that the Secret Service was notified of Foster ’s death before 7 p.m.,but the Park Police stretched this to 7:30 and the Secret Service stretched it to 8:30.White House officials close to the President claim they were not told until around 9 p.m.and they claim they didn ’t tell the President until after the Larry King show ended at 10 o'clock.Chris Ruddy reported that Rose Procopio told the FBI that while she was applying the President ’s makeup for his Larry King interview at 9 o ’clock that night,a man entered the map room and reported to Clinton and Chief of Staff McLarty that “a note or document ”had been found in Foster ’s office.A secret search of Foster ’s office and concealment of what was found would constitute obstruction of justice.That would explain the incredible claim that Clinton and his top aides were unaware of Foster ’s death before 9 p.m.They were creating an alibi.This was ignored by the official investigators,and Moldea has done nothing to reconcile the conflicting claims or expose the lies.
Sgt.Cheryl Braun claims she found Foster ’s White House photo I.D.in his car at 7 p.m.and that her shift commander,Lt. Patrick Gavin was informed 30 minutes later that Foster was a White House employee.Gavin claims he notified the Secret Service within five or ten minutes of getting this information. But Moldea has Gavin notifying the Secret Service at 8:30 p.m. because that is what a Secret Service memo says.
Moldea found new evidence showing that the police were not that slow and inefficient.He buries this extremely important discovery in an end note in which he reveals that investigator Renée Abt told him that she realized Foster was with the White House when she saw the letters WHCA on the pager found on his body.She knew that stood for White House Communicat- ions Agency.She no doubt called this to Rolla's attention.His notes show that one of the first things he did after his arrival was jot down Foster's name and Little Rock address,which had been obtained by running a check on the license plates of his car. He then wrote,"Lt.Walter 395-4366,"followed by Foster's Washington address and phone number.If you call 395-4366, you get the Uniformed Division of the Secret Service.Rolla's agitated reaction when asked about Lt.Walter by Senate lawyers suggests that he wasn't supposed to admit that he made that call earlier than anyone had acknowledged,probably after learning that Foster was carrying a White House pager.
Moldea buys the story that the police didn't know Foster was White House until 7 p.m.and the Secret Service was not told until 8:30.He hides Abt's revelation about the pager in a note on p.393. In a note on p.396,he says Rolla had written the name of "a Lt. Walter,who was with the Secret Service,"but he overlooks the phone number followed by Foster's address.Moldea does not connect the dots,and his book's index does not list these end notes under Abt,pager,WHCA or Walter.
Was Foster Clinically Depressed?
All of the White House staff who worked with Foster have said that his behavior was perfectly normal. Consulted by phone,his f physician in Little Rock had concluded that Foster was suffering from mild “situational ”depression and prescribed medicine to help him sleep better.Foster did not exhibit the multiple symptoms required for a diagnosis of clinical depression.The depression line surfaced about the same time the White House claimed to have discovered a torn-up note supposedly written by Foster that expressed unhappiness about the way people are treated in Washington.This note became the main pillar of support for the theory that Foster took his life because he was depressed.
The official investigators didn ’t question the note ’s dubious provenance and authenticity.Steven Neuwirth,the assistant counsel who claimed he found the note in Foster ’s briefcase six days after Foster ’s death,said the scraps of paper fell out of the briefcase when he turned it on its side.That's demonstrably impossible,but Neuwirth ’s story went unchallenged.No questions were asked about the comment,“Far happier if disc.,if someone other than Bernie,”that was apparently made by Hillary Clinton when she was secretly shown the note.The finders treated the note as if they feared it would be exposed as a forgery. They delayed giving it to the police,and refused to release photocopies or allow independent experts to examine originals of the note and of Foster ’s handwriting.Three reputable indepen- dent experts,using photocopies,said the note was a forgery. Moldea reports their finding,but he accepts the note as evidence supporting the depression theory without rebutting any of the evidence that challenges its authenticity.
Moldea ’s book fails to answer any of the questions raised by serious critics of the official Foster investigations.He is described on the dust jacket as “a pro cop liberal,”and his book reflects the confidence that he places in what law enforcement officers have said or written.He interviewed all the Park Police officers involved in the Foster investigation.There are over 100 entries for them by name in the index,and he appears to believe nearly everything they told him,even when it was contradictory and patently incorrect.He made no comparable effort to interview the critics of the official findings.The two he cites most often are Chris Ruddy and Reed Irvine.
His main criticism of Ruddy centers on his insistence that Foster ’s body was found by the cannon nearest to the parking lot,not a second cannon 270 feet further north,which is what some rescue workers and a police officer told Ruddy. Ruddy believes that the Park Police had put up crime scene tape and left rubber gloves at the second cannon to make it appear that the body had been found there,perhaps to protect the actual site by steering reporters and the curious to the second cannon.
Ruddy has never said the police moved Foster ’s body from the first to the second cannon,but Moldea repeatedly says this is what he believes.He even accuses Reed Irvine of supporting this.Irvine says the idea is absurd.Moldea also says that I "annihilated"the first-cannon theory by pointing out that Ruddy had made an error in the directions he used on a map. The directions on the map had no bearing on whether the body was found by the first or second cannon.
Moldea should have known better.He had sought AIM ’s help and had received the full cooperation of Reed Irvine and Joe Goulden.Irvine thought that Moldea,like Philip Weiss, would be impressed by the evidence against the theory that Foster killed himself in Fort Marcy Park.Weiss,a liberal journalist who writes regularly for The New York Observer, had an article in The New York Times Magazine in February 1997 with my photo on the cover.It was titled,“The Clinton Crazies.”Moldea refers to this article,but he doesn ’t report that Weiss,after thoroughly researching the Foster case, realized that all those who question the official findings are not “crazies ”or conspiracy nuts.
Weiss saw that the leading critics had analyzed the evidence with far greater care than any of the defenders of the official investigations.Like Prof.Allen Weinstein,who started to write a book that would prove the innocence of Alger Hiss and ended up writing Perjury ,the book that proved Hiss's guilt,Philip Weiss began writing articles critical of the official findings in the Foster case.The tragedy of A Washington Tragedy is that Dan Moldea,unlike Allen Weinstein and Philip Weiss,didn ’t allow the evidence to show him the error of his original premise.
Send the enclosed cards or your own cards or letters to Don Hewitt,the executive producer of 60 Minutes,and to Mike Wallace.
AIM Report NOTES FROM THE EDITOR'S CUFF
ON MAY 17, 60 MINUTES CELEBRATED ITS 30 th ANNIVERSARY WITH A TWO-HOUR SPECIAL edition featuring excerpts from the many notable stories that it has aired over the years. Executive Producer Don Hewitt deserves high praise for having originated the TV magazine format and for producing programs that have informed, educated and entertained hundreds of millions of viewers. They have exposed wrongdoing and have sometimes succeeded in righting cases of injustice. I applaud them for that. But lost in all the self-congratulation was the fact that 60 Minutes has also aired a number of inaccurate and unfair programs. Three stand out—the two infamous programs attacking Alar, the chemical growth regulator, in 1989 and the 1995 segment attacking reporter Christopher Ruddy’s investigative work on the death of former White House deputy counsel, Vincent W. Foster Jr.
THE ATTACK ON CHRIS RUDDY, WHICH WAS FIRST AIRED ON OCTOBER 8,1995 AND WAS repeated on July 28,1996, was severely criticized by AIM and a video titled “The 60 Minutes Deception.” Evidence that the producers intended to do a hatchet job on Ruddy from the very start has now been revealed in Dan Moldea’s new book on the death of Vincent Foster, which is reviewed in this AIM Report. As Hugh Sprunt’s review points out, Moldea was prone to believe nearly everything he was told by the police, and his account of how 60 Minutes handled the Ruddy interview is based on what he learned from Kevin Fornshill, the U.S. Park Police officer who found Foster’s body in Fort Marcy Park, and his attorney Philip Stinson. Stinson was representing Fornshill in a lawsuit he had filed against Ruddy and the Western Journalism Center, which had helped publicize Ruddy’s work on the Foster case.
MOLDEA SAYS THAT ON LEARNING THAT 60 MINUTES WAS WORKING ON A SEGMENT ON THE Foster case, Stinson faxed Executive Producer Don Hewitt a Western Journalism Center mailing that indicated it was working with 60 Minutes on the Foster story. Moldea writes, “According to Stinson, Hewitt was furious. Almost immediately, Stinson received a call from an associate producer, who allegedly told him, among other things, “We just want to nail Ruddy.” Moldea says that producer Robert Anderson and his unnamed associate met with Stinson and Fornshill, concocting a plan to accomplish that objective. He says that arrangements were made for Mike Wallace to interview Ruddy in a Manhattan hotel suite. Fornshill and Stinson were to be in the next room. “At some point in the interview,” Moldea writes, “Wallace was going to ask Ruddy, ‘What questions do you have for Fornshill? And if you had the opportunity to talk to him, would you talk to him?’ When Ruddy replied that he would, Fornshill was going to emerge from the room with his attorney and confront Ruddy.”
BUT INSTEAD OF BEING PLACED IN ANOTHER ROOM, THE TWO WERE SEATED IN A BATHROOM where they could eavesdrop on the interview. Moldea says, “Wallace started buying into what Ruddy was saying about the problems with the Foster case. For over two hours, Fornshill and Stinson listened with stunned disbelief as Ruddy appeared to be persuading Wallace, who, according to Stinson, seemed ‘confused and unprepared.’” When they broke for lunch, Moldea says, producer Robert Anderson told Stinson and Fornshill, “It’s not going well. The story’s dead. I can’t believe this: Mike is blowing it.” He says Anderson asked Stinson and Fornshill to put together some talking points for Wallace. They then met with Wallace, but when they started to prep him, “Wallace stopped them with such questions as: ‘Why is there no soil on Foster’s shoes?’ Moldea writes: “After a lengthy conversation, Wallace relented and agreed with Anderson to ask Ruddy the hardball questions Fornshill and Stinson had prepared.”
“WHEN THE INTERVIEW WITH RUDDY RESUMED,” MOLDEA WRITES, “WALLACE WAS obviously more aggressive with him—even though Fornshill and Stinson were upset by Wallace’s lack of good follow-up questions. But in the end, it was enough. The drama of seeing Fornshill and Stinson emerge into the room where Ruddy was being interviewed never became necessary. It was a shoe-string catch, but at Ruddy’s expense.” He says that the segment as aired was “unprofessional, heavy-handed and vindictive.” In an end note, Moldea writes: “Ruddy told me that Wallace, who ‘didn’t know very much about the case at all,’ had agreed with him that mistakes had been made by the Park Police and in the Fiske Report, which Ruddy was led to believe would become a major theme during the segment. Clearly, Ruddy was misled and lured into a trap.”
WHEN I ASKED MIKE WALLACE TO COMMENT ON THIS,HE AT FIRST SAID HE DIDN ’T remember Fornshill and his attorney being present,but he would find out.After checking,he said,“Fornshill and his attorney were indeed next door...It wasn ’t being fed to them.They were waiting to be interviewed.”I asked if it was true that he had been impressed by Ruddy in the morning,he said,“I was impressed by Ruddy in the morning.I was impressed by Ruddy later.I was obviously--”At that point it occurred to Mike that I was probably taping the call. He asked if I was,and I said,“Sure.You know my habits.”I never found out what he “was obviously.”He changed course,saying,“His mind was not open.His mind was made up,and nothing that I could say could persuade him that anything was different.”That is probably a more damning answer than the one he started to give.Why should he,as a journalist doing an interview,try to get the interviewee to change his mind?
RUDDY PROVIDES A THIRD PERSPECTIVE ON THIS SLEAZY EPISODE.HE SAYS WALLACE WAS being quite adversarial during the morning but had softened up considerably by the time they broke for lunch.When they resumed,Wallace told him he had spoken with his 60 Minutes colleague,Andy Rooney,who had told him that he accepted the suicide finding,but there was something about the way Foster ’s death was handled that smelled. Ruddy said the questioning was actually less adversarial after lunch than it had been before and that most of the footage used on the air was from the morning session.Furthermore,he was eventually told that Fornshill and Stinson were nearby and was asked if he would be willing to participate in a joint interview.Ruddy said he would have to consult with his lawyer about that.He says that when the producer pressed him to agree,Wallace told him to drop it.
JOE FARAH OF THE WESTERN JOURNALISM CENTER OFFERS YET ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE IN a scathing review of Moldea ’s book on his Web site,WorldNetDaily.He writes,“Moldea faults Wallace for hatchet journalism.I know something about this,because it was Mike Wallace ’s producer who called me,heaping praise on the Western Journalism Center and Ruddy for pursuing this story against all the odds.It was a lie.Interestingly,when I met Moldea,he made a similar approach.In two brief conversations Ruddy had with Moldea,Ruddy recounts that Moldea ’s praise was effusive,describing him repeatedly as a ‘hero.’”
I FIRST MET MOLDEA AFTER HE HAD BEEN GIVEN A CONTRACT BY REGNERY-GATEWAY TO write a book on the Foster case.He came to AIM looking for any help that we could give him on this project.Moldea had once been associated with the far-left Institute for Policy Studies,and he still leans in that direction.He told me that it was his opinion that Foster had committed suicide,but intended to study the evidence and go wherever it led him.I took him at his word.We opened up our files to him and gave him copies of the articles and ads we had written about the Foster case.We lent him our extra set of the out-of-print Senate Banking Committee Hearings,an indispensable source for anyone working on the Foster death investigations.We had done the same for Philip Weiss when he was working on his New York Times Magazine article on the so-called “kooks ”who think that Clinton has been involved in assorted crimes.The White House was putting out the line that there was a right-wing conspiracy to disseminate the charge that Foster had been murdered and that Clinton was somehow involved.
WEISS WAS AN HONEST LIBERAL AND A CAREFUL RESEARCHER.HE INTERVIEWED BOTH THE critics and the defenders of the official Foster investigations.He was especially impressed by Hugh Sprunt,who wrote and published the “Citizen ’s Independent Report ”on the Foster death.Hugh,a tax-accountant and lawyer,is a graduate of MIT and Stanford Law School.He became interested in the Foster case because he was in the house when his terminally ill grandfather shot himself in the head with a .38 revolver.He was intrigued by the contrast between what he saw then and the reports of a virtually bloodless scene where Foster allegedly did the same thing.Sprunt carried no political baggage and could not be tagged as part of any conspiracy or as one who had any selfish motive. He didn ’t market his excellent report.He gave it to copy shops where anyone could get it by paying the copying fee. Phil Weiss became convinced that the evidence showed that the findings of the official investigations were wrong.He knew he couldn ’t say that in his New York Times Magazine cover story,but he has written several columns for The New York Observer suggesting that the skepticism about the Foster case is better founded than the official line.He has credited his change of mind mainly to two things:The stunning level of corruption and the regular use of intimidation and political violence that he encountered in Arkansas,and what he learned about the Foster case from Hugh Sprunt. I asked Hugh to review Moldea's book for the AIM Report for two reasons.His command of the facts is unsurpassed and his enormous contribution to our understanding of the flaws in the Foster investigations was virtually ignored by Moldea,while mine was overstated.I have exercised my editorial prerogative to cut Hugh ’s submission to fit the space available and to shape it to fit the AIM Report style,with his approval.