Posted on 02/28/2002 9:31:30 AM PST by Asmodeus
AIM Report: 2002 Report # 03 - CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS IS A LIE? I CAN'T
By Reed Irvine |
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2002 Report #03 | February 25, 2002 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS IS A LIE? I CAN'T
My by-line is on this article because it involves some very sensitive conversations that I have had and opinions about them that are best discussed in the first person. I am revealing the name of the Navy master chief who last November told an acquaintance of his that on the evening of July 17, 1996, he was on the bridge of the USS Trepang, a submarine that was practically underneath TWA Flight 800 when the plane exploded and crashed into the sea. His acquaintance, whose name I wont disclose because it adds nothing to the story, had called me the night before on a line in my office that had been used to take calls for the TWA 800 Eyewitness Alliance generated by an ad placed in The Washington Times on August 15, 2000. He shared our views about the cause of the crash, and we had a good conversation. The next morning he called again to tell me that he had just run into a casual acquaintance who was a retired Navy petty officer. Because of his discussion with me the night before, he brought up TWA 800. Here is an edited partial transcript of our conversation. [H for him and I for me] H: Have you ever heard of the submarine Tripanga? I obtained Beers phone number from information and found him willing to talk. In our taped interview, he was somewhat more guarded than he had been with his acquaintance. He said he didnt want to do anything that might mess up his retirement, but nothing was said about the conversation being off the record. I told him that I was with Accuracy in Media and recommended that he visit our Web site, where he would find a lot of articles we had written about TWA 800. The following is a partial transcript of the taped interview. I did not begin taping at the very beginning of the conversation. The transcript begins where the taping started. This was Thurs., Nov. 15 at 10:00 a.m. B: I told everything, you know, when the Navy came on board with everybody else on my submarine. I called Randy again the next morning, Friday, Nov. 16. He asked me to call him back Monday morning, Nov. 19. I did, and I found myself talking to an entirely different person. The confident, courageous master chief had been transformed into a quivering moral coward. He said he had talked to his skipper over the weekend and that he had been reminded that he had signed certain papers when he retired from the Navy. Whoever it was that he had talked to had scared him to death. He feared that he was going to lose his retirement because of what he told me. He claimed he had spoken off the record, but I told him that was not so and that was very clear from the tape that I had recorded. I said I didnt want to hurt him and that there was no way the Navy could rescind his disability pension because he told the truth about what he had seen on the evening of July 17, 1996. Something had obviously gone wrong and they had successfully covered it up, but that too was wrong. It would be a scandal if they tried to deprive him of his pension because he had helped expose an illegal, immoral cover-up of a mistake that had cost the lives of 230 people. Cmdr. William S. Donaldson, who tried very hard to pin the blame on terrorists, told me several times that if it turned out that the Navy was responsible he would spearhead a demand that the officers behind it be court-martialed. I told Randy that he had a moral obligation to go public with what he knew and to help us expose the cover-up. I cited the example set by another chief petty officer, Kathleen Janoski, who was in charge of photography for the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology at Dover Air Force Base. She had found and photographed the perfectly round hole, about the diameter of a .45-caliber bullet, in the top of the head of the late Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown. She had also photographed what was called the lead snowstorm inside his skull that showed up on the head x-ray. She took photos of the x-rays that were up on a light box, and it was a good thing that she did, because the one showing the lead snowstorm was destroyed. The colonel in charge rejected recommendations of three lieutenant colonels that an autopsy be performed on Browns body. Kathleen Janoski had put her job at risk when she was still on active duty. She was relieved of her duties, and she feared she was going to be court-martialed. But she nevertheless shared her photos with Chris Ruddy who reported on the suspicious hole in the top of Ron Browns head and the lead snowstorm in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. I suggested that he ought to show as much courage as she had. Kathleen Janoski retired and is drawing her pension. Nothing I could say had any effect. He explained that he had lost his job, and although his wife was working, they would be in deep trouble if he lost his pension. I can sympathize with him, but there are whistleblowers in the government who risk their jobs by exposing wrongdoing. If we want to encourage more government employees to follow their example it would make sense to reward the whistleblowers and punish those who see the wrongdoing but seal their lips and close their eyes. I couldnt budge Randy Beers, but one of the significant things about that conversation was that he did not deny the truth of anything he had told me when we first talked. When Pierre Salinger held a press conference in March 1997 and declared that TWA Flight 800 had been shot down accidentally by a U.S. Navy missile, this former presidential press secretary, U.S. Senator and ABC News correspondent, was mercilessly attacked by his former colleagues in the media. They accused him of peddling unsubstantiated Internet gossip. Salinger said that his information had been confirmed by a source who had a friend whose son was in the Navy. The son was said to have called home and told his family that we shot down the airliner. Salinger said the father did not want to be identified, fearing his son would suffer retaliation for disclosing information the Navy wanted to keep hidden. That, of course, was dismissed as hearsay. We succeeded in verifying that Randy Beers was a chief petty officer on the Trepang and that he was the ships corpsman. We verified that Lt. Michael Leitner, with whom he drank Diet Pepsi on the Trepangs bridge on the evening of July 17, 1996, was also a member of the crew. What Beers said about the Navy ships in the area that night and the exercise that was being conducted confirmed what we already knew from the radar data obtained by the Flight 800 Independent Research Organization, FIRO, and what Jim Kallstrom had told me about the three Navy vessels on a classified maneuver. I wrote a column about what Randy Beers had revealed, but I did not include in it his name or the name of his submarine. Finding someone in the Navy who was willing to talk as freely as he did was an important breakthrough. He was the answer to those who were sure that the Navy could not have been responsible for shooting down TWA 800 because it would have been impossible to keep a secret like that when so many Navy personnel would have known about it. In the five and a half years since TWA 800 was shot down we heard stories about Navy personnel who had told family or friends that the Navy did it, but we were never able to make contact with them. The response to the column was encouraging even though it did not get the attention of the big media. I was persuaded by the e-mail I received that we should reveal Randy Beers name and the name of his submarine. The Navy had claimed that the Trepang was 117 miles from the TWA 800 crash site. The exposure of that lie and the fact that it took so long for someone on the sub to expose it should have shaken up those who have so confidently insisted that a secret like that could not remain hidden for long. However, I was surprised to get a few responses from individuals who completely missed this important lesson. The claim that the Navy couldnt have done anything wrong because someone would have revealed it, dies hard. My last conversation with Randy Beers was on February 5. I wanted to tell him that I was going to reveal his name, and I left a message saying it was important that he call me. He did. He first asked me if I was recording the call. I wasnt and I said so. He then said that he was so upset that he had experienced trouble sleeping for two months. But he had found a solution to his problem. He told me that he was notorious for telling tall tales and that all that he had said about where the Trepang was and what he had seen was false. He claimed he just made it up. He said the submarine was at its homeport in Groton, Connecticut that night, not beneath TWA Flight 800 when it was blown out of the sky. He said he didnt know anything about any exercise that was taking place and he had never heard of W-105, the large area off Long Island that is regularly used by the military for testing and training. He said at least twice that this was his story and he was sticking to it. That is a gag line that says, in effect, I am lying but dont expect me to admit it. The transcripts of his conversations with his acquaintance and me have been printed out because they are the best evidence that he was not lying. He had no reason to lie to either one of us. What he says and the way he says it has the ring of truth. It is consistent with what we know from other sources. I asked him for references who would attest to his propensity to lie. He gave me one name, someone who had served on the Trepang. He doesnt know where he is now. The office manager of the firm where he worked for over a year attested to his honesty. The fact that he was worried sick when we had our second conversation and was virtually begging me not to report what he said shows that the idea of claiming that he had told tall tales had not yet occurred to him. If he were a habitual liar, he would not lose a lot of sleep worrying about his lies. Unfortunately his stratagem casts a cloud over his credibility, giving the media an excuse for ignoring anything he says. We are printing a list of the officers and petty officers who were on the Trepang in 1996. We will try to locate and question them and FOIA their FBI 302s (interview reports). Your help is invited. PARTIAL SHIP'S ROSTER, U.S.S TREPANG (SSN-674), 1/12/96
AND LEADING PETTY OFFICERS
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What a bunch of crap! It's called continuing a lie. Covering up a lie is complicity! That is the exact opposite of "CLASS"!
Obviously, our government cannot admit that fact, because it can paralize air travel, as well as shake our security. Of course, I have no proof, only speculation. It was obvious to me after hundreds of eye witnesses testified that they seen a flame going up from the sea to hit the plane, and made the explosion. The government said all of them were unreliable? thus a cover up started.
Still peddling the cargo door conspiracy theory.
How many government officials have to be lying for this conspriacy theory to be true? (any less than the missile theory?)
It couldn't have been.
On July 17, 1996, in New York, sunset occurred at 7:24 PM. Flight 800 exploded at 8:31 PM.
While the aircraft might have still been in direct sunlight because of its altitude (and thus clearly visible from the ground), how much daylight would you expect there to be at ground level 67 minutes after sunset?
No, I don't have any data illustrating what overpressure from exploding ordnance would look like on an FDR tape, and it doesn't matter anyway because the FDR data has been tampered with.
So I guess there is no point in discussing any conclusions anyone has taken from the FDR data. Now maybe we can resume a discussion on the questionable source quoted in Irvine's article ironically published on his AIM site.
You're safe! There's not a whole lot of room for passengers in my jet.
Well, that's a different take from the typical conspiracy approach favored by the likes of Rivero et al. I am surprised this has become an obsession for you, because I think you are on a road to nowhere. You basically trust none of the investigation data, but it is exactly that data that most of the folks you listed as trusted sources rely on. Garbage in equals garbage out, and I'm not sure you are ever going to find something that measures up to your standards. What is your desired outcome in all your personal effort? You have a contract with dead French students? Is that a personal vow or a formal contract? And I'm not sure what citizen duty you hope to accomplish "exposing" me. I'll save you some trouble and invite you to visit me whenever you chose. I live in Madison Wisconsin. Come on up and I'll buy you some cheese curds and a beer. I think you'll find the cheese curds a lot more exciting then anything you'll learn about me.
Some other interesting questions arise out of the following:
Reed Irvine states as follows about his first telephone discussion with Randy Beers: I obtained Beers phone number from information and found him willing to talk. In our taped interview, he was somewhat more guarded than he had been with his acquaintance. He said he didnt want to do anything that might "mess up" his retirement, but nothing was said about the conversation being off the record. I told him that I was with Accuracy in Media and recommended that he visit our Web site, where he would find a lot of articles we had written about TWA 800. The following is a partial transcript of the taped interview. I did not begin taping at the very beginning of the conversation. The transcript begins where the taping started. This was Thurs., Nov. 15 at 10:00 a.m. [emphasis added]
B: I told everything, you know, when the Navy came on board with everybody else on my submarine.
Reed Irvine states as follows about a later telephone discussion with Randy Beers: I called Randy again the next morning, Friday, Nov. 16. He asked me to call him back Monday morning, Nov. 19. I did, and I found myself talking to an entirely different person. The confident, courageous master chief had been transformed into a quivering moral coward. He said he had talked to his skipper over the weekend and that he had been reminded that he had signed certain papers when he retired from the Navy. Whoever it was that he had talked to had scared him to death. He feared that he was going to lose his retirement because of what he told me. He claimed he had spoken off the record, but I told him that was not so and that was very clear from the tape that I had recorded. [emphasis added]
Reed Irvine states as follows about a still later telephone discussion with Randy Beers: "My last conversation with Randy Beers was on February 5. I wanted to tell him that I was going to reveal his name, and I left a message saying it was important that he call me. He did. He first asked me if I was recording the call. I wasnt and I said so. He then said that he was so upset that he had experienced trouble sleeping for two months. But he had found a solution to his problem. He told me that he was notorious for telling tall tales and that all that he had said about where the Trepang was and what he had seen was false. He claimed he just made it up.
He said the submarine was at its homeport in Groton, Connecticut that night, not beneath TWA Flight 800 when it was blown out of the sky. He said he didnt know anything about any exercise that was taking place and he had never heard of W-105, the large area off Long Island that is regularly used by the military for testing and training. He said at least twice that this was his story and he was sticking to it. That is a gag line that says, in effect, I am lying but dont expect me to admit it." [emphasis added]
Note: Everyone should obtain competent legal advice and guidance before making any decisions about taping conversations. Applicable law today, yesterday, last week or last year may be different tomorrow, next week or next year.
http://www.rcfp.org/taping/
[quote][emphasis added]
At first, the question of whether or not to tape record a phone call seems like a matter of personal preference. Some journalists see taping as an indispensable tool, while others dont like the formality it may impose during an interview. Some would not consider taping a call without the subjects consent, others do it routinely.
However, there are important questions of law that must be addressed first. There are both federal and state statutes governing the use of electronic recording equipment. The unlawful use of such equipment can give rise not only to a civil suit by the "injured" party, but also criminal prosecution.
Accordingly, it is critical that journalists know the statutes that apply and what their rights and responsibilities are when recording and disclosing communications.
Although most of these statutes address wiretapping and eavesdropping -- listening in on conversations of others without their knowledge -- they usually apply to electronic recording of any conversations, including phone calls and in-person interviews.
Federal law allows recording of phone calls and other electronic communications with the consent of at least one party to the call. A majority of the states and territories have adopted wiretapping statutes based on the federal law, although most have also extended the law to cover in-person conversations. Thirty-eight states and the District of Columbia permit individuals to record conversations to which they are a party without informing the other parties that they are doing so. These laws are referred to as "one-party consent" statutes, and as long as you are a party to the conversation, it is legal for you to record it. (Nevada also has a one-party consent statute, but the state Supreme Court has interpreted it as an all-party rule.)
Twelve states require, under most circumstances, the consent of all parties to a conversation. Those jurisdictions are California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Washington. Be aware that you will sometimes hear these referred to inaccurately as "two-party consent" laws. If there are more than two people involved in the conversation, all must consent to the taping.
It shouldnt need to be said, but it is illegal in all states to record a conversation to which you are not a party, do not have consent to tape, and could not naturally overhear.
Federal law and most state laws also make it illegal to disclose the contents of an illegally intercepted call or communication.
At least fifteen states have laws outlawing the use of hidden cameras in private places. Be warned, however, that the audio portion of a videotape will be treated under the regular wiretapping laws in any state. Also, many of the statutes concern unattended hidden cameras, not cameras hidden on a person engaged in a conversation. And regardless of whether a state has a criminal law regarding cameras, undercover recording in a private place can prompt civil lawsuits for invasion of privacy.
This guide provides a quick reference to the specific provisions of each jurisdictions wiretap law. It outlines whether one-party or all-party consent is required to permit recording of a conversation, and provides the legal citations for wiretap statutes. Some references to case law have been provided in instances where courts have provided further guidance on the law. Penalties for violations of the law are described, including criminal penalties (jail and fines) and civil damages (money that a court may order the violator to pay to the subject of the taping). Instances where the law specifically includes cellular calls and the wireless portion of cordless phone calls are also noted, but many laws are purposely broad enough to encompass such calls without specifically mentioning them.
Sidebar articles throughout the guide address specific issues related to taping. Note that these are general discussions, and you will have to consult the state entries to see how these issues apply in particular states.
Still have questions about how the laws affect you? Journalists can always call the Reporters Committees hotline at 800-336-4243 for further information. [end quote]
The legality or illegality of recording your discussions with another person without their knowledge and consent, whether face to face or on the phone, is dependent on the then applicable law(s) under the circumstances.
Its only common sense that if you obtain the consent of another person to record your discussion with them, its in your own self interest to document it after returning your recorder on and thereby avoid the possibility of a later swearing match.
Reed Irvine has publicly stated that Randy Beers claimed he had spoken off the record, but I told him that was not so and that was very clear from the tape that I had recorded.
Is it logical that Randy Beers would state to Reed Irvine that their earlier discussion was off the record if he had known it was being recorded?
Where is the rest of the recording transcript? Will it be "very clear" to objective observers from the complete transcript and tape that Randy Beers knew it was being recorded?
What is clear is that Randy Beers recanted his first story, that he thereby demolished his own credibility and that his recanted comments didnt even come close to being "shootdown" evidence anyway.
See also: The missile theory myth.
"It could take a couple of minutes."
Falltime of the Massive Fireball to the surface was only about 7-10 seconds. Sources
By the way, there is a "submarine witness" interview report:
Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 22:43:41 -0500
Reply-To: Flight 800 discussion list FLIGHT-800@HOME.EASE.LSOFT.COM
From: Tom Stalcup stalcup@MAGNET.FSU.EDU
Organization: Florida State University
Subject: More Witnesses
[excerpt][quote][emphasis his] BARBARA PACHOLK had an AMAZING story. She saw two objects rise from the water or land. The first object exploded near the tail and the second near the nose. She also saw a black submarine and its periscope. According to Ms. Pacholk, the periscope was looking in the direction of the plane, rotated about a 3/4 turn and saw her, then left the area. She believes that it is possible that at least one missile came from this sub. She also notice two large navy vessels in the ocean. One of which quickly left the area after the tragedy.[end quote]
Stalcup was referred to by Bill Donaldson during his congressional testimony, the transcript of which was earlier posted in this thread.
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