The earlier commentator was James Kallstrom, former head of the NY FBI office. He said, "It [the downing of TWA800] sure looked like a terrorist act." In fairness, an implication of his statement was that "subsequent to that, we became persuaded of the now-official story," but by then, the "cat was out of the bag" that one may reasonably consider that the evidence shows it was a terrorist act--that is, that it was a shoot-down.
HF