Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 5 Num. 35

("Quid coniuratio est?")

INTERVIEW WITH DEBRA VON TRAPP -- JUNE 26, 1995 I spoke by phone with Debra von Trapp in the early evening of June 26, 1995. What follows is an abbreviated transcript of that interview. The entire interview will appear in the August 1995 issue of the Conspiracy Nation Newsletter (see info below).

By way of introduction, Debra von Trapp was featured on a recent segment of the NBC Dateline "News" program. Said segment dealt with alternative, non-official views as to who was behind the tragic Oklahoma City bombing. Ms. von Trapp claims to have inside knowledge as to who was actually behind the bombing and why it was done.

Note that, as always, I neither necessarily agree nor disagree with either all or parts of the following.

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[...continued...]

DEBRA VON TRAPP [continues]:
They [Dateline "News"] never suggested that they were doing a theory piece. They never suggested that they were going to cover this in any way that they did. And, in fact, there're a couple of things that they totally misrepresented. They said I said the Japanese did it. That's not what I said. I said, "The Japanese government, through Matsushita and MCA Universal, provided the money to a team of U.S. federal employees, that were acting outside the U.S. government's authority, that contracted that bombing on behalf of the Japanese government." Our own U.S. government employees, and most specifically, Robert Goetzman, actually conducted that bombing.

Additionally, they represented that I said that I had been, for some reason, contacting my local police department with conspiracy theories. I have never, ever, discussed anything, politically, with anyone. I'm known for not doing it. I have never advanced a theory, regarding the government, in any political situation, to the Irvine Police Department or anyone else. There is no person at the Irvine Police Department that is designated as a liaison to speak with me. I have no idea where they got that statement. But if you listen to the careful wording, they said I had been trying to "connect the dots". And in that kind of careful wording, they leave a lot to the imagination.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
That [i.e. "connect the dots"] was by Chip Berlet, who's...

DEBRA VON TRAPP
Chip Berlet is a well-known CIA... operative, I guess would be the best word to describe him as. He's been known as that for, roughly, 18 or 20 years.

You'll also notice on the piece that they said that they didn't get my documents, that I wouldn't give them to them. However they tried to represent to the audience that they had Chip Berlet review my documents! I have never spoken with Chip Berlet. (He's really John Foster Dulles Berlet.) I've never spoken with him. I've never given him my documents. However, I did give Dateline all of my documents. And in the actual, live recording (which I video- and audiotaped that meeting with them), they, in fact, on camera and on audio... Chip Hanson(sp?) admits, and even prefaces a question to me, by saying, "Well, Debra. We have all of your documents." What I'm going to counter that mis-representation by Dateline is that I have created an audiotape of the live interview [with Dateline] and have offered that to anyone who would like to purchase it, to cover the cost of this...

CONSPIRACY NATION:
How much does it cost?

DEBRA VON TRAPP
Fifteen dollars. Two dollars shipping and handling. It's a seventeen dollar tape. If they send that to my address, PO Box 208, Irvine, California 92650. {1}. And in California they need to include $1.16 for sales tax. What they get back is an audio tape of the actual, live interview with me and Chip Hanson -- which is vastly different from anything Dateline represented.

And additionally, just to end the discussion over whether or not these are factual documents, factual information: at the end of that live interview I have included one of the federal agents telephone call conversations with me, which I recorded, in which he directly says to me that they will kill me if I talk about the Embassy of Japan or the Executive Office.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
And how long does this tape run?

DEBRA VON TRAPP
What we've done is taken out all of the interim, set-up video that we have, and the duplication of questions, and it's a 90- minute tape.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Okay, so it's an audio? Or is it video?

DEBRA VON TRAPP
It's an audio tape.

But it's clear: everyone introduces himself. You know you're listening to me and Chip Hanson. And you'll be able to hear all of the questions that he asks and all the factual information that was given to him -- including, they asked me if I'd give them my video and audio tape of these agents and the people: the Japanese Matsushita director that was across the street from my house that, on tape, admitted killing 20 babies in Oklahoma City. All of that information is offered during the interview. They refused to pick it up from me!

CN

What about, they closed that Dateline segment with, you supposedly left a voice mail?

DT

No. In fact, you know what that was? If anyone has that recorded, and they listen to it carefully, and... They did a very clever thing. They took two dash marks, on the screen, and two messages. And the second part of that alleged statement [i.e., her alleged voice mail] is actually a question. And that voice mail was left in response to an NBC affiliate, in Ponca City, Oklahoma, putting out an erroneous report, on air, that Edye Smith {2} had, in fact, stated that she was fully satisfied that the investigation was complete, that she knew everything she had to know from the ATF, that no one had not shown up to work [at the Murrah Building], that she and her mother believed that the fact that they [ATF personnel] had survived was the "will of God" -- when, in fact, Edye never said any of those things and, in fact, Edye emphatically denies those things.

And they'd even asked me that on-camera, and I had told them that, and they basically called me a liar. And I said, "Look. I have Edye Smith's phone number. I can call her and talk to her about this." And I, in fact, did that. I called Edye. Edye was kind enough to discuss it with me. I faxed a copy of the documents to her father's fax machine. I read it to her, over the telephone. And Edye emphatically said, "I never said that. I didn't say that. They've completely just given an erroneous report."

And so, I followed up with a phone message to Benno Schmidt, at Dateline, and left him a voice mail. And I said, "How could Ted Phillips(?), the producer of your affiliate, NBC in Ponca City, put this out and then not give a retraction? Because what it does is, it leaves the impression that NBC could be the front for..." And that is the rest of that message. The CIA -- it was a question! And they completely mis-represented the quote, and spliced two voice mail messages together. And if you listen to them, you can hear the intonation is different. The intonation on that last part of that statement is actually a question. And they mis-represented it, simply because they know this information is true.

[...to be continued...]

---------------------------<< Notes >>--------------------------- {1} I'm not 100 percent certain on the spelling; it may be spelled E-r-v-i-n-e, but my bet is that the correct spelling is, indeed, I-r-v-i-n-e.

{2} Edye Smith: background info. Below is a non-official transcript of a CNN broadcast which will help explain the context of Debra von Trapp's mention of Edye Smith.

                              CNN
                      SHOW: NEWS 8:29 am ET
                          May 23, 1995

HEADLINE: Victims' Mother Asks Why No ATF Were Killed in Bombing

GUESTS: ANDREA ARCENEAUX, Anchor; EDYE SMITH, Victims' Mother (LIVE);KATHY GRAHAM-WILBURN, Victims' Grandmother (LIVE);GLEN WILBURN, Victims' Grandfather (LIVE)

BYLINE: GARY TUCHMAN; ANDREA ARCENEAUX

BODY

BOB CAIN, Anchor: The visible monument to the terror of April 19th disappeared from the Oklahoma City skyline today about half an hour ago.

ANDREA ARCENEAUX, Anchor: Watching among spectators were some of the victims' family members. CNN's Gary Tuchman joins us now from Oklahoma City with an update as well as some interviews we understand, Gary, with some of the victims' family members.

GARY TUCHMAN, Correspondent: That's right, Andrea and Bob....

[...]

With us right now is Edye Smith. Edye was the mother of threeyear -old Chase and two-year-old Coulton, two little boys who perished when this building exploded. And standing next to Edye are Chase and Coulton's grandparents. Thank you, all three of you, for joining us.

[...]

Edye, at this point you're very busy. You've been talking to people like us, you've been talking to police officials, you've been with your family. But in the next couple of months when things start to get quieter here in Oklahoma City, do you think it will begin getting tougher for you?

EDYE SMITH: Yeah, but I don't think things are going to start getting very quiet, you know? There's a- there are a lot of questions that have been left unanswered, a lot of questions we don't have answers for, we're being told to keep our mouths shut, not talk about it, don't ask those questions, and I think things are going to get a lot busier.

GARY TUCHMAN: What kind of questions have people been telling you to keep your mouth shut about?

EDYE SMITH: Well, we've- just from the very beginning, we, along with hundreds and thousands of other people, want to know just- and we just innocently ask questions, you know - where was ATF? All 15 or 17 of their employees survived, and they live- they're on the ninth floor. They were the target of this explosion, and where were they? Did they have a warning sign? I mean, did they think it might be a bad day to go in the office. They had an option to not go to work that day, and my kids didn't get that option, nobody else in the building got that option. And we're just asking questions, we're not making accusations. We just want to know, and they're telling us 'Keep your mouth shut, don't talk about it.'

[...]

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

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