("Quid coniuratio est?")
As mentioned in Conspiracy Nation, Volume 5 Number 45, the Washington Post of July 4, 1995 had a front page story which covered CN and Sherman Skolnick. Besides questioning the credibility of Mr. Skolnick and Conspiracy Nation, the article also went after other critics of the official version of the death of White House aide Vincent Foster, jr.
One of those criticized in the Washington Post article was Ambrose Evans-Pritchard of the London Telegraph newspaper. Here is Evans-Pritchard's response.
(Thanks to D.S.O. for helping maintain communications between the U.S. and Great Britain.)
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The Electronic Telegraph Monday 10 July 1995 World News
America's top newspaper has pointed the finger at our man in Washington. Now it's his turn.
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard has been accused of 'conspiracy theorism' over the death of the White House aide, Vincent Foster. Keeping silent, he says, is even worse.
Whitewater plot theory over death of aide 'a fantasy'
MY STRAITJACKET is buckled tight. The foam is wiped off my mouth. A
bottle of sedatives sits at hand. I am cool, calm and ready to answer on
behalf of all "conspiracy theorists". And I say to the powers of the
Washington Post: "J'accuse."
Last week the Washington Post attacked the Sunday Telegraph in a frontpage
article on the "Foster conspiracy theorists". It was an unflattering
piece on the tiny band of critics who have raised questions about what is
increasingly looking like the cover-up of the 1993 death of Vincent
Foster.
In normal circumstances it would be inappropriate to dispute this, but
weighty matters are in the balance here and the Washington Post has quasimonopoly
power - a duopoly, perhaps, shared with the New York Times - in
setting the political agenda for the entire American media.
Foster, the deputy White House counsel, was the highest-ranking official
to die in violent circumstances since President Kennedy. He was also the
intimate friend of both Bill and Hillary Clinton and looked after their
personal finances at the White House. The decision by the Washington Post
to run such a piece at this late stage - in the face of overwhelming
suspicions of foul play - comes perilously close to complicity in a coverup.
The argument has nothing to do with ideology. The Washington Post ceased
to be a newspaper of liberal activism a long time ago, if it ever really
was. "Its anti-establishment image is one of the most absurd myths in
journalism today," said Jeff Cohen, from Fairness and Accuracy in
Reporting in New York, a liberal group that monitors the Post closely and
accuses it of an incestuous relationship with the governing elite. "It
has been an instrument of state power for many years."
The question is whether the Washington Post is sitting on the stories that really matter
The team that led the fight against the Nixon Administration and turned
the Post into the most fashionable newspaper in the world is mostly gone.
Kay Graham, the Queen Bee, retired in 1991 after 28 years in charge of
the family heirloom. Ben Bradlee, immortalised in All The President's Men
as the swashbuckling and incorruptible captain of Watergate, is now a
semi-detached editor at large. Both, incidentally, have regrets about
their role in the great regicide. Neither want to see the same thing
happen again in their lifetime.
There is talent, still. The coverage of the US occupation of Haiti, by
Douglas Farah, has been outstanding. The editorial pages have the finest
mix in the business. The Style section is beautifully written. But the
question is whether the Washington Post is sitting on the stories that
really matter, just as the Mexican daily, El Excelsior, a vibrant and
authentic newspaper to the untutored eye, serves - wittingly or
unwittingly - as a mouthpiece and a subtle tool of disinformation for the
ruling regime.
Allegations of drug use, sexual shenanigans and misuse of state
resources were there for the plucking during Bill Clinton's presidential
campaign in 1992. Yet the Post's inquiries only skimmed the surface of
the charges. Admittedly, it is hard to get people to talk about these
things in Arkansas. But not that hard. The Post has subsequently refused
to make amends. Instead, it has insisted on ever-higher standards of
"proof" or, alternatively, down-played the importance of the accusations.
Take the case of Paula Jones, who accused Clinton of sexual harassment
when he was Governor of Arkansas. In early 1994 the Washington Post was
given exclusive access to Jones and to other witnesses who could
corroborate parts of her story. The newspaper went through her background
with a toothcomb.
Weeks went by. The lead reporter, Mike Isikoff, found her claims to be
credible and wanted to run the story. The editors refused. In the end
there was a shouting match in the newsroom between Isikoff and the
national editor, Fred Barbash. Isikoff was suspended for two weeks and
later left the newspaper.
The Post never ran the original story. I emphasise this point because
the paper is now trying to claim that it was just waiting for the
appropriate moment. The Post was overtaken by events. Paula and Steve
Jones were so disgusted by the failure of the paper to publish that they
decided to file a sexual harassment suit against the President, forcing
the issue into the news pages.
Failure to report the news is one thing. Active disinformation is another
It is worth noting too that the Washington Post ignored the series of
well-researched pieces by the American Spectator alleging that Bill
Clinton used Arkansas state troopers to solicit women on a routine basis,
and then played rough to silence leaks.
One might choose to treat that as unimportant. A private matter. Beneath
the Post. But what about the story of gun-running and drug-smuggling
through the Mena airport in Arkansas in the 1980s? As reported by The
Sunday Telegraph in January, the managing editor, Robert Kaiser,
intervened at the last moment to spike a story by Sally Denton and Roger
Morris that was backed by an archive of 2,000 documents.
The story had been cleared by the lawyers. It was typeset and ready to
go to the printers. Since then there have been fresh developments in this
story. Sworn testimony taken from a court case in Arkansas has linked
Bill Clinton directly to this cloak-and-dagger operation, which has
possible ties to US intelligence. Not a word about these depositions has
been written in the Washington Post.
But failure to report the news is one thing. Active disinformation is
another. Last week's article in the Post insinuated that The Telegraph
had fabricated a story about clandestine trips to Switzerland by Vince
Foster. The author, Susan Schmidt, who is the Post's full-time reporter
on Whitewater, said that sources "with access to Foster's American
Express receipts say they show no purchase of airline tickets to
Switzerland".
But when confronted, she admitted that her sources did not in fact have
access to information - that The Telegraph did have - about the two
flights Foster made to Geneva in 1991 and 1992. Furthermore, she had no
credit card numbers and she did not know which of Foster's American
Express cards may have been involved. Nor did she have any records from
the airlines. "These records are closely guarded," she said, by way of
explanation.
You bet they are, and Ms Schmidt failed to get them. The only
information she had, it turns out, referred to a single purchase in July
1993 conducted through the White House travel office. We would surmise
that her "sources" (plural) are in the Clinton White House. We rest our
case.
Is the newspaper that broke Watergate now, intentionally or not, aiding and abetting a cover-up a generation later?
Ms Schmidt called me before she wrote her piece and asked what I thought
about some of the wild allegations being made that Vince Foster had ties
to Israeli intelligence and was under investigation by the CIA for
espionage.
I told her that it sounded pretty far-fetched and was not consistent
with what I knew about Foster. She ignored this. In her article she
implied that The Telegraph was advancing such claims. But this, broadly,
is the method that has been deployed by the Washington Post to muddy the
waters and discredit anybody who has been asking legitimate questions
about the death of Foster.
Is the newspaper that broke Watergate now, intentionally or not, aiding
and abetting a cover-up a generation later?
As for key developments in the Foster case over the past few months, the
Post has been silent. It failed to report that Miquel Rodriguez, the lead
prosecutor looking into the death, had resigned in March because the
highly politicised investigation was being obstructed.
It does not seem to be aware of enhanced photographs showing that the
gun found in Foster's hand was moved around after his death, and that
Foster had a wound on his neck that the authorities had tried to cover up.
Ms Schmidt, however, says that the Post is doing a terrific job. "The
Washington Post has broken every story about Whitewater," she said. "At
least every story that's been true."
I encourage distribution of "Conspiracy Nation."
Coming to you from Illinois -- "The Land of Skolnick"