Posted on 05/23/2004 5:27:07 PM PDT by Peach
Ron Brown could tell tales from the grave
By DAWN HARRIS Special to The Star
You'd think that after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, we'd have learned our lesson. We didn't.
As with JFK's murder in 1963, two recent events have been marked by conspiracy theories and bungled investigations: the crash of TWA Flight 800 and the plane crash that killed then Commerce Secretary Ron Brown.
But don't count Kansas City author Jack Cashill as a garden-variety conspiracy theorist. Although the title of his new book suggests both the conspiratorial and the partisan, Cashill bends over backward to include the most benign of explanations to a most disturbing case.
Ron Brown's Body: How One Man's Death Saved the Clinton Presidency and Hillary's Future will be like salt in wounds for many of Bill Clinton's defenders, yet not nearly salty enough for his adversaries. In it, Cashill paints a human and sympathetic portrait of Brown, Clinton's Secretary of Commerce.
Cashill depicts Brown with the help of details provided by Nolanda Hill, Brown's longtime business partner and lover, also the subject of numerous investigations related to Brown's activities. Hill seems to have poured out her heart — and her recollections — to Cashill because she became convinced that he wanted to discover what really happened to Brown and his doomed 1996 flight to Dubrovnik, Croatia.
The tale is a twisted one. At times, especially early in the work, Cashill seems to have six synapses firing at once and doesn't know which one to follow. But as the narrative unfolds, that sense gives way to riveting storytelling.
Brown made frequent trade missions to foreign countries, often with leaders of industry in tow. His aim was to smooth the way for these Americans to conduct business with other countries.
Cashill reports that the way for an American businessman to get a seat on one of those missions was to make a substantial contribution to the Democratic National Committee, which was producing ads at the time for the presidential campaign in an effort to get around campaign contribution and spending limits. Once these businessmen made such contributions, they expected something in return — something Brown was expected to deliver.
As the 1996 election approached, Brown was sent on more of these trade missions. On the ill-fated trip, he was to be accompanied by executives of Enron Corp. But those executives traveled to Dubrovnik on a plane that landed about an hour ahead of the time at which the secretary was to arrive.
He never made it. On April 3, the plane on which he was traveling with 34 other people veered off course and crashed into St. John's Peak. Investigators did not locate the wreckage until hours later, and the one woman to survive impact died on the way to the hospital.
The story might have ended there. But there was something odd about Ron Brown's lifeless body. He had suffered a circular wound in the top of his head. Some military investigators and photographers noticed what appeared to them to be a bullet hole. But strangely, no mention of the symmetrically shaped cylinder appeared in any report on the crash, and although an Air Force doctor examined Brown's body, a full autopsy was not ordered.
This is the nexus at which a conspiracy is born. Had investigators simply performed an autopsy, all the questions could have been answered. But they didn't.
Cashill has a theory about exactly what happened to Ron Brown (which I leave for the reader to discover) and why it happened. The “why” involves Brown's apparent knowledge of the Clintons' involvement in using international means, including ties with China, in what may have been blatant circumventions of campaign finance law. Cashill goes to great pains to make clear the difference between what has been documented and what he surmises from the evidence.
Cashill meticulously researched this work, consulting with experts on everything from campaign finance law to aircraft navigation systems to encryption technology to Ron Brown's life, personal and professional.
In scrupulous detail, the author chronicles Brown's life as the young lawyer made his way through Washington and became entwined in Democratic politics. He connects the dots between Brown and President Clinton. But he does not lay blame at Clinton's doorstep, as some might expect. Cashill doesn't let Brown off the hook for getting himself entangled in a life of power grabs and money lust. He does view Brown as a tragic figure, someone who had potential but who was spoiled by license and largesse.
We don't know if fate or force brought that plane down in Dubrovnik. Cashill emphasizes that it is entirely possible that what happened to Ron Brown was an accident riddled with unfortunate coincidence. But Cashill, who holds a doctorate in American studies, knows a conspiracy is hard to come by without someone acting as if someone had something to hide.
After living through the aftermath of the Kennedy assassination, one would think that, in similar circumstances, all possible leads would be followed so that the ghosts that haunt us from that fateful day in Dallas would not multiply but be cast into the light and disappear. But because of the action (or inaction) of investigators, questions linger over Brown's death.
Cashill also recently investigated the crash of TWA Flight 800, and because this book comes on the heels of that, some might dismiss him as just another too-eager conspiracy theorist. That would be a harmful oversimplification. Many others have taken issue with the official findings on Flight 800, including Cap Parlier, a respected former Navy test pilot who co-wrote a book on the crash.
As for Ron Brown's Body, the book does sound shrill notes now and again and takes a partisan shot here and there. But if half of what Cashill writes is true, all Americans, regardless of political affiliations, should demand a full investigation into Ron Brown's activities as Commerce Secretary and into the circumstances of his death.
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Cashill at Unity
Jack Cashill will discuss and sign Ron Brown's Body: How One Man's Death Saved the Clinton Presidency and Hillary's Future, at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Unity Temple on the Plaza, 707 W. 47th St. For more information call Rainy Day Books at (913) 384-3126.
"BTW, my aunt is a high school principal in Washington, DC and as committed a leftist as I've ever met..."
Whoo boy! My own beloved aunt is a yellow dog dem, but her husband is such a kool-aid drinker it is awful. He wrote in Mario Cuomo in the primary the first time Clinton ran, but by the end Bill had won him over.
but.........but........when Brown's plane went down, I'm sure I heard Brokaw (broke-jaw?) say it was "the biggest storm in 10 years....
You're right.
Freepers do better research than most reporters and authors.
I noticed that X42 ordered the cremation of all victims in this plane crash. Obviously he did so he has the authority but, I do know that if that was me there would be literally be hell to pay. The Orthodox Church does not believe in cremation, I am surprised that no one raised hell about that.
I'm with you. B Wise may have been involved w/ the commerce dept, but this "conspiracy" case is especially weak.
Much was made in the media about the "bad weather" Brown's plane tried to land in--that it had been terrible all day. An earlier report of the accident I read checked the weather available to air traffic that day, and it was actually a pretty good day for that area--even this article mentions that Enron's execs arrived in their own plane an hour earlier. I wish I could remember who put the report out--I am terrible about keeping a file on things. It came from a conservative source as one of several reports given for subscribing, and it just laid out the facts like the weather; the cylindrical hole in Brown's head and the refusal of further investigtion; the "suicide" of the Croatian guy in charge of the landing signal the plane came in on on the very day he was to be questioned about why the landing beam seemed to be lined up directly with the mountain.
The media blitz at the time also made a big deal about the plane using a compass to come in for a landing, but it was new and modern and planes don't depend on a compass. The plane was also observed to make a desperate last minute effort to turn from the mountain and the actual crash was caused by the wing tip hitting because of the extreme banking--it had been following the
landing beam coming directly from the mountain, and got close enough to visually see where it was heading.
I don't see conspiracy everywhere, but darned if there aren't some things where there just has to be one of some kind--Waco, OKC bombing, Vince Foster, Brown's death (incidently, his law partner was murdered in Africa (unsolved) the same day Brown's plane crashed) and then the death of the young woman in the Commerce building-also unsolved or not even investigated.
vaudine
Duke: "I'll see that Barbara Wise, and raise ya a Jerry Parks!" ;)
I'll see both of those and raise ya Admiral Borda and his suicide.
"The “why” involves Brown's apparent knowledge of the Clintons' involvement in using international means, including ties with China, in what may have been blatant circumventions of campaign finance law."
there really aren't that many REAL professional killers out there - plenty of thugs with guns, though.
multi-millions of dollars transferred into one's re-election coffers AND legal defense fund from the communist Chinese, as payment for totally illegal transfers of weapons and industrial technology...
see, that's what I call a motive.
Wise worked closely with Ron Brown and John Huang. She died November 29, 1996, her bruised, nude body found locked in her office at the Department of Commerce.
Her death was attributed to "natural causes."
While Clinton was in office, that pretty much was "natural causes."
I'm not saying Brown wasn't murdered, but the above statement is patently false. There are lots of cases where autopsies were performed and yet questions still persist.
We KNOW Jerry Parks was assassinated.
Post 21 ping
Thank you for the post.
Like hell he does! Those were not soldiers or even all Government employees. What the hell gives him ANY rights to order bodies cremated. Show me the law! That right belongs to the next of kin, exclusively.
I'll see your Borda and raise you a Bill Colby.
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