Posted on 10/06/2007 7:05:26 AM PDT by Liz
December 12, 1997
At 10:30 on Thursday morning at Arlington National Cemetery, a team of gravediggers quietly dug up the remains of Larry Lawrence and carted away his granite tombstone, which was engraved with lies. Chiseled in stone were claims that Lawrence, the late millionaire businessman who became an ambassador, had served in the U.S. merchant marine and had earned the designation of “S1C,” the Navy abbreviation for seaman, first class, which would not have been given to a merchant mariner anyway.
Neither claim was true.
During his 69-year lifetime, Lawrence fabricated his World War II heroics, his education, how he made his fortune before buying and restoring the Hotel del Coronado near San Diego, one of America’s most beautiful hotels, even the history of the hotel itself.
His fantastic war story symbolized the love-hate relationship that he had with the military, say people who know him well. He bristled when Navy jets roared over his hotel, demanding more than once that the Navy change its flight paths.
Lawrence’s second wife, Michala, insists that he was in the merchant marine because she said she had seen a scar he described as a war wound. But a former aide to Lawrence said in an interview that years ago, he had asked her to research the merchant marine and its role in World War II.
Before he died of a blood disease in January 1996, Lawrence’s misrepresentations went undetected by almost everyone, including President Clinton, who considered him a friend. The president rewarded Lawrence — who gave $200,000 to the Democrats in 1992 and raised millions more — with an ambassadorship to Switzerland and eulogized him at his funeral service at Arlington, the nation’s hallowed resting place for its most cherished heroes.
Clinton told the mourners how Lawrence had suffered a serious head injury when he was thrown overboard from his ship, the S.S. Horace Bushnell, after it was hit by a German torpedo in the last days of World War II. The president said Lawrence had “showed the same courage and resolve he had shown as a young merchant marine during World War II.” It was not until last weekend that it became known that on the day the Bushnell was torpedoed, Lawrence was in his native Chicago, attending classes at Wilbur Wright College.
Now there are regrets and soul-searching. The White House and Army wish that Lawrence had never been given a waiver to be buried at Arlington. The State Department has begun an investigation into how it overlooked discrepancies in his background during its vetting process. Congressional critics say Lawrence is an extreme example in the abusive tradition of rewarding financial supporters with ambassadorships.
And his stunned family and friends lament the fact that Lawrence will be remembered more for the lies he told than the things he did. “Though there is much that I still do not understand about recent events, I and those who knew my husband remember a life that, although not perfect, was indelibly marked by kindness, compassion and love for his community and country,” his widow, Shelia Davis Lawrence, wrote to Clinton earlier this week. Maurice Larry Lawrence grew up poor and got rich as a real-estate developer, amassing a $300 million fortune at his death.
He gave generously to Jewish charities and to Democratic candidates, lending his ocean-front Tudor mansion in Coronado, across the bay from San Diego, to celebrities, politicians and even Clinton. He held Gatsby-style parties, with carnival rides and fireworks displays over the Pacific. Yet as friends and relatives tell it, Lawrence may have made good but never felt good enough. So he set out to reinvent pieces of his past.
In hunting for a possible motive, some neighbors wonder whether he had harbored a need to measure up to the many genuine war heroes who live and work around the San Diego Navy base. “We have so many Purple Hearts here and on every corner we have real, real heroes,” said Carol Cahill, a 70-year-old Coronado resident. “My next door neighbor was a four-star admiral. Maybe he just figured — merchant marine, you can’t trace it, no one will ever know.” For years, Lawrence struggled to fit in in the heavily military, heavily Republican world of San Diego. He loved to tell friends that he had “three strikes” against him: he was “a liberal, a Jew, a Democrat.”
The military both appealed to him and infuriated him. “This town is full of narrow-minded admirals,” a former colleague quoted him as saying often, particularly when the city fathers blocked his requests for building permits. One day in the early 1980s, Lawrence asked Norma Nicolls, who worked as his assistant for 15 years, to research the history of the merchant marine during World War II.
“One day he said, ‘I want you to quietly do something and don’t look at me as if I’m crazy,”’ recalled Ms. Nicolls, who agreed to an interview only because she had already been interviewed by congressional investigators. “’Find out about all the merchant marine ships in the Western Pacific in World War II.”’
State Department investigators twice tried to verify the account offered by Lawrence, but each time the Coast Guard said it had no record that he was on board the Bushnell. Still, the State Department recommended to the White House that the nomination go forward, concluding that the inability to verify Lawrence’s war record was “not relevant, the senior official said.
Lawrence probably would have stayed at Arlington forever if it were not for a group of congressional Republicans led by Rep. Terry Everett of Alabama, who last summer began investigating whether the Clinton White House had sold burial plots to generous campaign contributors. After Insight Magazine reported last month that said several unnamed donors had paid their way into Arlington, White House officials angrily accused the press of publishing falsehoods. But Republican investigators pressed their search and found no mention of Lawrence in records on the merchant marine, the Coast Guard or on the Bushnell. The White House finally changed its tone after State Department investigators learned last Friday that Lawrence was attending college when he claimed to have been in the merchant marine. Richard Holbrooke, the former assistant secretary of state who wrote a detailed letter recommending Lawrence to be buried at Arlington, said on Thursday:
“The irony is Larry did a good job as ambassador. He didn’t need to invent parts of his past in order to be respected in the present. It is a tragedy.” After Lawrence’s death, his three grown children and Mrs. Lawrence argued in Bern for three days about where he would be buried, family members said. She wanted Arlington. The children all wanted him to be buried near San Diego, where his parents are buried. But his widow prevailed.
In addition, less than three weeks before his death, Lawrence changed his will to give the bulk of his estate to his wife and sharply reduced the amount for his children, family members said. At the funeral ceremony in Arlington, Mrs. Lawrence and members of her family sat in the front row with Clinton; Lawrence’s three children sat in the rows behind.--SNIP--
This is a old story. Funny how the MSM kind of over looked this.
The clintons are all about the cash, anything for cash. They would sell their own souls for money.
We cannot let Hilary become Prez. I dont care who on the GOP is running. I would walk barefoot over broken glass to vote against her.
Nice people. (/sarc)
More Phony Soldiers in the Clinton Chinese Mafia, what a coincidence.
Pray for W and Our Troops
God forbid that Rush would call this jerk a phoney soldier.
Well, at least he was a Clinton appointment that didn't screw things up...did he? We haven't had a recent war with Switzerland, have we??
Just another phony soldier. Funny how the Democrats who ‘loathe’ the military make up stories about their own stellar service. They don’t loathe as much as they envy. They attempt (with lies) to claim a piece of the glory.
To Switzerland? How do you screw that up?
Yeah, this and a bunch of other stories. Wouldn't you just love the opportunity on a live, televised debate, to stand up and ask Hillary: "Did you, your husband, or someone acting on your behalf, murder Vince Foster?" 10-to-1 the question would never see the light of day, let alone get an honest answer.
I’ll give Clinton, who was the biggest phony soldier of all times (commander and chief) for buring the guy in Arlington. We tend to believe someone who served in WWII, when it comes to their military record. I believe all of those who fought in WWII are heros.
We do know that like other Presidents, he did trade cash for an ambassoders appointment.
You have to wonder how the family is telling their friends and family why they(spin, they wanted him closer to their home) moved old pappy out of Arlington.
The Clintons corrupt everything they touch...everything.
Did Clinton send cash stuffed in diplomatic pouches to Lawrence to be deposited in a Swiss bank account?
Then let me ask you - directly - a hard question:
If Rudy ends up the nominee, will you vote for him?
I will support and vote for the Republican nominee.
- John
He must have read “The Great Gatsby”.
I’ll say it: phoney sailor.
The Clinton pimps have already sold their souls- that’s why neither one of them has one anymore.
And they haven’t stopped shipping us chocolate. Man that clinton was a Great President!
Pray for W and Our Troops
Doesn’t suprise me one bit. I would almost bet that Hildabeast will have military cemetaries moved to use the real estate for some other purpose. That’s about how much respect she has for us.
I wonder how the marine guards will take it if (God forbid) she is elected? If it were me, I’d asked (even beg) to be reassigned.
And, dollars to doughnuts, he was only a Jew by accident of birth.
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