ANOTHER BODY FLOATS TO THE TOP
By Marc E. Fisher (Dateline: 12/28/97)
In a July 23 [1997] article, Do You Smell Smoke?, I outlined the grounds upon with a solid conspiracy theory has been built over the suspicious death of former Deputy White House Counselor Vince Foster in 1993. The list of loose ends left behind by Foster's murderers is impressive. Most importantly, it casts a long and grim shadow across the Clinton Administration. The tendrils of involvement extend deep into international money laundering and Columbian cocaine cartels. The whole barrel of fish leaves a stench all the way down Pennsylvania Avenue.
And now there's more.
On April 3, 1996, Commerce Secretary Ron Brown and 34 other Americans died in the crash of a US Government aircraft in the mountains near Dubrovnik, Croatia. News reports at the time attributed the crash to poor visibility and "the worst storm in years". Evidence which has leaked since then refutes those assumptions, however, and threatens to expose Brown's death as a professional and expertly planned hit.
I submit these facts for you to ponder:
- IFOR-21 (the Air Force designation for Brown's plane) did not carry a "Black Box". This plane had carried Hillary and Chelsea Clinton and Defense Secretary William Perry just the week before, and was essentially "Air Force Two". What's more, the Croatian Ministry of Transport announced soon after the crash that they had the black boxes. One and half days after the crash, Croatian TV (plus Russian and French TV) announced that the FDR (flight data recorder) and the CVR (cockpit voice recorder) were safely in the hands of U.S. Marines. The U.S. European Command in Stuttgart, Germany, also stated that a black box was on board.
Later, the Pentagon brass disputed all this, stating that there were no black boxes aboard. Government regulations require all aircraft carrying officials to also carry the flight recorder instruments.
- Weather: At the time of the plane crash (approximately 3:00 pm local time) the weather at Cilipi airfield (Brown's destination) showed a visibility of 8 kilometers (5 miles), winds still at 14 mph, all flights arriving normally.
- Survivors: Four hours after the crash the first Croatian search party arrives on the scene and finds only Ms. Kelly surviving. They call for a helicopter to evacuate her to the hospital. When it arrives, she is able to get aboard without assistance from the medics.
But Kelly never completes the short hop. She dies en route. According to multiple reports given to journalist/editor Joe L. Jordan, an autopsy later reveals a neat three-inch incision over her main femoral artery. It also shows that the incision came at least three hours after all her other cuts and bruises.
Further necropsies will not happen. Clinton has ordered the cremation of all victims. It is hard to perform autopsies on ashes.
- Mysterious Suicide: Maintenance Chief Niko Jerkuic was the man in charge of the NDR (Non Directional Radio beacon) equipment which guides approaching aircraft. Speculation has it that Jerkuic turned off his NDR beacon at the critical moment under duress or bribe from unseen forces. True or not we'll never know. Three days after the crash, Jerkuic is found with a bullet through the chest, just shortly before he is scheduled to be grilled by the U.S. Air Force accident investigation team.
Jerkuic's death is immediately labelled a suicide even though there's no evidence. A chest wound is a rather rare cause. The quick official reason given for bachelor Jerkuic's death is despondence over romantic troubles. Neighbors and friends deny this and agree that he was not depressed.
- Motives: Ron Brown was going to prison and had threatened to bring Bill Clinton down with him. He was up to his neck in numerous major scandals: Whitewater, the Denver airport mess, Mena, the Keating Five, Lillian Madsen and her Haitian prostitutes, John Huang's campaign finance activities and more.
Twenty-two Congressmen wrote Clinton in February of 1995 demanding that he fire Brown. At the time of his murder, Brown was under investigation by: a special prosecutor in the Justice Department; the FDIC; the Congressional Reform and Oversight Committee; the FBI; the Energy Department; the Senate Judiciary Committee; and even his own Commerce Department Inspector General.
In January 1994, on the personal instructions of Ron Brown, John Huang was given top-secret security clearance without background checks by the FBI or the state department's Office of Security- a strict requirement for somebody born in a foreign country.
This gave him access to vital American intelligence. Six months later, he was given a post in the commerce department and went with Brown on a trade mission to Peking.
In the commerce department, Huang had access to much of the intelligence delivered daily to the department by the CIA that relates to economic and trade secrets gathered around the world. He also received weekly intelligence briefings from the CIA.
All of this, of course, was about to be revealed to the public. Four days before the crash, the FBI and the IRS subpoenaed as many as 20 witnesses for a serious new grand jury probe of Brown in Washington. When Daniel Pearson was appointed special prosecutor and given carte blance by Janet Reno to investigate anything he deemed necessary, Brown began threatening to take the entire Clinton Administration down with him. At that moment his death warrant was signed.
The Government coverup lasted about a year, but at this writing a number of reputable investigative sources have enough hard leads to take up the pursuit. If they take it far enough, it may have far-reaching implications for Bill Clinton, the White House and for our country.