The following is brought to you thanks, in part, to the kind assistance of CyberNews and the fine folks at Cornell University.
("Quid coniuratio est?")
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An Apology and Good-bye
by J. Orlin Grabbe
Well, too much of a good joke becomes tiresome, so I've decided to make my apologies and to say good-bye. The many skeptics are correct. There never was a Fifth Column. The Angel of Death (AOD) is a myth created by Charles Hayes and myself for our own amusement: We've had a great many laughs watching Jim Norman struggle to create stories from the concept. But in fact none of those more than fifty politicians who have resigned this year have resigned because they received packets of information from any Fifth Column-- packets detailing their personal financial shenanigans like the taking of bribes, kickbacks, and payoffs--not even Toby Roth of Wisconsin (and Roth certainly was never a member of any pedophile ring). No, their resignations have all been due to the reasons stated: to spend more time with their families, or because it's no longer fun being a politician here at the close of the Twentieth Century.
Bill Clinton was never a CIA agent, as I claimed in the Vince Foster series, part 10, and again in part 29. I just made this up, and the story got so out of hand that Roger Morris repeats this canard in his new book Partners in Power. Cord Meyer did not recruit Bill Clinton for the CIA, and I have not spent hours talking with Clinton's subsequent CIA controller.
To all those who have written me letters of support, let me say: What a bunch of suckers! You people are going to be stuck with four more years of Bill Clinton, so get used to it, rubes. The Fifth Column hasn't been helping out Kenneth Starr--Starr got all those documents, including the ones on Jim Guy Tucker, from David Hale. Well, Hale's documents have run out, and there ain't going to be no more convictions. Starr's star has fizzled. (Starr was bought and paid for long ago. After all, he didn't even bother to answer Debra von Trapp's letter on the Oklahoma bombing.) Some of you I told privately about that Clinton cocaine tape Starr has, and maybe one or two others about those bonds Hillary has stashed in Luxembourg. Jesus, you guys are gullible.
Poor Vince Foster. I am truly sorry about besmirching his name, especially about those tales about turning over U.S. secrets to the Israelis. The very idea that Israelis would spy on the U.S., or wouldn't be able to get such secrets for free! Foster never did anything wrong in his life, except perhaps for hiring Bob Livingstone: Foster died because he was too good for Washington, too good for public life. Both Jim Norman and I knew from the beginning that Bob Bartley of the Wall Street Journal killed him. But here is how the story of Hillary's and Foster's Mossad contacts came about. Mike McCurry of the White House calls me once a week to discuss strategy and to tell me how to proceed, and we simply lifted the story from Jim Norman's original memo to the White House. We figured we would suck in all those anti-semitic right-winger militia types before we let them crash and burn. But we were wrong. Apparently someone discovered that my brother Lester was the author of the standard two-volume research handbook Judaism from Cyrus to Hadrian. They apparently were able to determine that I was secretly sucking up to the Mossad all along.
And of course we were hindered also because Ambrose Evans-Pritchard was a relentless critic of Jim Norman's Fostergate story. I've told numerous friends that AEP's lack of objectivity comes from his being consumed by jealousy over Jim Norman's research and sources. But the truth is the reverse: Jim Norman has always been consumed with jealousy over AEP, even when AEP was getting all that disinformation from Clarence Harp: Norman was jealous he hadn't found Harp first.
And Colby? That Colby ever heard of Norman or myself is a totally ridiculous idea. I just wanted to aggrandize the two of us, by placing us at the center of a conspiracy involving every little newsworthy incident that managed to evoke a little mystery. Get real, right-wingers! Colby was an old man and fell off his boat and drowned. He was also a noble patriot who had tried to right much of what is wrong with this country, and would certainly be a candidate for the head of the Fifth Column if any such group actually existed.
And you Republicans are stuck with Bob Dole, who is going to lose the election for you! Ha, ha, ha! Except of course if he gets Colin Powell to run with him. Dole got a Fifth Column packet that induced him to resign from the Senate? Ridiculous! Of course he would resign the majority leadership to better run a campaign everyone assumes he can't win. He's consumed with the desire to be President, damn it! And Powell, Powell get a packet? Hell, he's the hero of the Gulf War! He's an example for every black man in America! The notion that Colin Powell might be filled with greed enough to sell out his country is a subversive Communist thought, and anyone who believes he might be capable of such a thing should be ashamed of himself.
Then there is Bush. That little blurb about George Bush in Some Observations on the Non-News was a lot of fun. Mike McCurry and I laughed our heads off about that. We made it up with the intention of showing that the Fifth Column's activities were about political corruption, not about partisan politics, and that no one of either party--no matter how high up --was exempt. Well, it served that purpose, but also smeared a Republican! Nope, George Bush never had a $75 million account at the Union Bank of Switzerland to be cleaned out in the first place. I mean, do you idiots really think George Bush is rich? Bush deal in arms? Bush deal in drugs? Let's get real: ex-Presidents don't do those things.
The very idea of drugs in Montana! The nearest thing seen to drugs in Montana recently is some teenagers who tried to get high smoking horse manure. Well, how about it you dumb right-wingers? You haven't seen the Governor of Montana indicted yet, have you? Hell, if it didn't happen in a day or two, that should have told you there was nothing to the story! But the bigger the lie the bigger the Con: I got all sort of letters from Montana after posting Some Observations on the Non-News claiming that the body count was approaching Mena proportions, claiming that this or that local official or police department was running drugs. It demonstrates the P.T. Barnum effect: Just make up anything, and even the people concerned will believe it. Montana is full of paranoid schizophrenics, not to mention right-wing nuts.
The whole Montana charade was an attempt on my part to divert attention from the Mena operation, to help out the CIA and the Mossad. But it hasn't seemed to do any good. No matter how hard I try, John Deutch still won't offer me a job. I'm sorry about those bad things I said about you, John, but that was supposed to be part of my cover. You know, give me credibility by attacking the CIA like those journalists you have on stipend? I'm sorry I didn't make it clear. And you mislead me on that Ron Brown thing. You told me there was a bomb on board. Well, the Air Force issued its report, and there weren't no bomb. And we know the Air Force, unlike the CIA, never lies. So you can keep your old job--I'm no longer interested.
Poor Jackson Stephens. Stephens is one of the finest billionaires this country has ever produced, and the notion that he would hire assassins is ludicrous. But I had some rubes going there for a while. And Richard Mellon Scaife. Hell, the Sarah Scaife Foundation donates to the CATO Institute, a libertarian think tank I have supported for a decade and a half. You think I was serious about Scaife's goons messing with the car Charles Hayes, Jim Norman, and I were riding about in Pittsburgh? Well, we were actually coming back from a dinner with Marianne Gasior, who is noted for helping get Kennametal convicted for money laundering and dealing with Iraq during the Gulf War. I just made up the story to feed her paranoia that elements of the Pittsburgh nuclear network were following her.
I also want to apologize to other friends I've mislead (though you deserve it, for being so stupid). These are too numerous to mention. Like that secret Pentagon report about which I said I personally knew both bomb experts involved, and that there were five bombs in the Oklahoma City bombing. I just took General Partin's report of four bombs, and threw in an extra one to take care of column B3, and sucked some people in who thought it accorded more with the laws of physics than with the veracity of government witnesses. And it is not, repeat not, true that subpoenas are out for the two experts to appear at the OK bombing trial.
Well, that's enough confession. If you believed anything I posted, it was your problem, your desire to believe.
Yes, better get used to it. Things never change. You right-wingers (and left ones too) are going to be stuck with the Clintons for four more years. And I myself am looking forward to it, or else nothing in this article is true.
June 26, 1996
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