Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 2 Num. 27

("Quid coniuratio est?")

L.J. DAVIS INTERVIEW

L.J. Davis, author of an article offering a good look beneath the surface of Arkansas politics ("The Name of Rose", The New Republic, April 4, 1994), was interviewed by phone by David Inge of the local PBS-connected radio station on August 4, 1994. What follows is my transcription of that interview.

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CALLER #2:
Well he [Brouton] does talk about CIA connections. It is in the title. I forget...

L.J. DAVIS:
He does talk about CIA connections, and about... (sighs) I didn't want to get on to this, but he too discovered some airports that the CIA was apparently using -- one at Iron Mountain.

CALLER #2:
That's what I wanted to get to, was the Mena situation...

DAVIS

Ah! The big "M" word.

CALLER #2:
Yeah. Um-hmm [affirmative]. The under-reported story, I think, as well as some of these details, is the... and one that annoys me most about this "new Democrat" we have, is his willingness to aid in the Contra war and wink at a lot of stuff that was going on.

Apparently the Gennifer Flowers revelation came from a guy who was disgruntled because he was "cut loose" and "left to twist in the wind" because he was in charge of the National Guard liaison with Oliver North's operation. {1}. Is that your understanding?

-+- Larry Nichols -+-

DAVIS

I think the person who brought out Gennifer Flowers was a guy named Larry Nichols, who was an official at a rather peculiar bonding agency, set up by Bill Clinton and Webb Hubbell, called ADFA [Arkansas Development Finance Authority]. And he was "sacked" from the job because he made... He tells various stories on this. He's told me one story; he's told other people other stories. In fact, I can't quite tell... Mr. Nichols is not exactly the kind of Arkansan who is such a, has such a fast and loose way with the truth that he has to hire somebody to call his dog! But he... He's something of a moving target in terms of his accusations. Sometimes (and I was cautioned by some highly reliable people in Arkansas, people whose information and insights proved to be invaluable), sometimes, however, you'd better listen to Larry Nichols. Because he knows something. And then sometimes you shouldn't. {2}. You know they're currently going off on the mortality rate of the people around Bill Clinton, which I regard as a completely false line of inquiry. {3}.

-+- Another "Good 'Ol Boy" -+-

Now what was goin' on at Mena, basically, was a cocaine operation being run by a guy, by a fat guy, named Barry Seal. Not the Black Panther [i.e. Bobby Seale] but another "good 'ol boy" who had once been one of the most talented pilots in TWA and the youngest man ever to certify to fly a 747.

And he was operating out of Mena under very considerable surveillance, interestingly, by the Arkansas State Police and the County Sheriff! The question we have to ask there is, whatever was going on at Mena (and we know that drugs were), once again -- How could the Governor of the state allow something like this to occur on his watch?? We've been talking about these complicated financial peccadillos and suspicious circumstances. They're a little hard to follow, but that's what I happen to specialize in. Here's a fairly simple and straightforward situation with C-123 cargo planes flying out at all hours of the night and bringing in all sorts of strange cargo!

CALLER #2:
And going down with arms, too. Right?

DAVIS

Well, you remember the plane that Eugene Hasenfus was caught on?

CALLER #2:
Flew out of Mena, right?

DAVIS

It came out of Mena, yeah.

CALLER #2:
[Unclear] is it my recollection that you were roughed up? Who do you attribute that to, if that's the case?

-+- Man Gets Lump On Head -+-

DAVIS

Uh, well I don't know. We did not... We weren't gonna talk about that. I mean, let's say the magazine and I weren't gonna talk about that, largely because -- it sounds self-serving, but -- because when you get knocked on the head by "whatever", as hard as I got knocked, you sometimes suffer a period of amnesia. And I just happened to have done so. I don't know what happened. I've certainly enjoyed the ratcheting that my reputation has taken ever since that, then. But I can remember goin' into the room, and the next thing I knew I woke up on the floor with a concussion over my left ear.

Now we did not report this because (1) we haven't got anything to report. Uh, "Man Gets Lump On Head. Cannot Remember How It Happened." That's not news. Somehow it got out anyway, and the whole situation was complicated when the Wall Street Journal mis-reported that four pages from my notebook were missing. Four pages from my notebook were not, and are not, missing.

CALLER #2:
At least you don't remember they were.

DAVIS

No! They're not missing.

CALLER #2:
[Chuckles] Well, if you had amnesia it's hard to say, I suppose though!

DAVIS

No I know what's exactly in my notebook! Some of the pages are partially detached, but as I pointed out to the Wall Street Journal, I could've done that when I stuffed the damn thing back in my shoulder bag.

CALLER #2:
Well, I appreciate your work. And do be careful and...

-+- A Base Calumny -+-

DAVIS

Well it was regrettable that the incident was made, uh so much was made of that incident!

I do, I'd like to go on record here in Illinois, however, as saying that I consider a base calumny has been uttered against me: it's been suggested that I can possibly get drunk on 4 drinks. That is to say, so drunk that I would go upstairs and hit myself over the head!

DAVID INGE:
And you want to deny that, categorically.

DAVIS

I want to deny categorically that a mere *4* drinks... Why, heavens to Betsy! I mean, my reputation has been blackened in another way here.

INGE

We have a little bit less than 10 minutes left. Our guest is L.J. Davis. He's a contributing editor to Harper's magazine. And we're talking about Arkansas politics. And this is something, again, if you would like to read the article that we have been talking about -- this appeared in The New Republic in April of this year. So you'll probably have to go down to the library. But certainly it's something you could find if you wanted to take a look at.

DAVIS

You'll have to go down to the library! We sold out!

INGE

All right. Well you'll have to go down to the library. But we found it in the library so I'm sure other people can if they wanted to read it.

And we have 2 other people here we'll try to get to in the time that we have remaining. 333-WILL. 800-222-WILL.

Our next caller is on line number 2, in Eureka. Hello.

CALLER #3:
Good morning. Given the fact that politics seems to be an inter- related web of mutual self-interests and that the media often times emphasizes such "specks" and small little items -- Could it be that there is more legitimate corruption that Mr. Clinton (as you were just talking about in that story about Mena) has engaged in that's not even come to the fore or will never even get reported?

DAVIS

Well I'm not suggesting that Mr. Clinton was at all corruptly involved in what was going on in Mena.

CALLER #3:
Well you were talking... Or say, the Stephens family and some of the other shennanigans going on there.

DAVIS

Right. Well he's possibly standing by while it's all going on. And... well yeah. For example, for Harpers magazine right now I'm doing a major piece on (it's by definition "major", it's in Harpers magazine), on medical insurance fraud. And it is startlingly pervasive. I mean, even I was startled by the... And I thought I knew something about the subject before I began researching it.

[...to be continued...]

--------------------------<< Notes >>---------------------------- {1} Caller #2 seems to have a composite of Larry Nichols and Terry Reed (and possibly other(s)) in mind when he makes this statement. The person he attempts to describe has aspects of Reed ("liaison with Oliver North's operation") and Nichols ("the Gennifer Flowers revelation"). No blame to caller #2 for being confused, given the shoddy news coverage of Mena, etc. The fact that he even knows "the 'M' word" speaks well of him.

{2} Regarding Larry Nichols: I personally find him to be quite credible and have found nothing to make me think otherwise.

{3} With all respect to Mr. Davis, I think he is wrong here when he doubts the significance of the mortality rate (a.k.a. "body count") around Clinton. I think, at the least, it is statistically significant. You may recall a movie called "Executive Action". That movie, with a similar situation, hired an actuary to examine the statistical significance of so many deaths of potential witnesses related to the JFK assassination.

Note also that Mr. Davis does not tell us why he considers it a false line of inquiry. Is it perhaps because it is an area that gets a bit scarey to consider? With all respect to Mr. Davis, is he perhaps afraid to really look at it?

I encourage distribution of "Conspiracy Nation."

Brian Francis Redman bigxc@prairienet.org "The Big C"

"Justice" = "Just us" = "History is written by the assassins."