[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 112 (Friday, August 12, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 12, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
              WHATEVER IT IS, BILL CLINTON PROBABLY DID IT

                                 ______


                        HON. ANDREW JACOBS, JR.

                               of indiana

                    in the house of representatives

                        Friday, August 12, 1994

  Mr. JACOBS. Mr. Speaker, I insert the following article from the U.S. 
News & World Report, August 8, 1994 edition.
  It should be noted that the politics of personal attack is, in its 
essence, character assassination. Character assassination like physical 
assassination can be effective, that is, it can destroy if someone is 
willing to stoop to it.
  One more conspiracy for the Merchants of Venom to contemplate: who 
slipped in that commandment on Moses, the one that says, ``Thou shalt 
not bear false witness against thy neighbor.''
  Violent and destructive words are akin to violent and destructive 
deeds. They will inspire violence on the part of others. Here is how 
Kipling said it:

     . . . And sure it keeps their honor clean
     The learned court believes
     They never gave a piece of plate
     To murderers or thieves
     They never told the ramping crowd
     To card a woman's hide
     They never marked a man for death
     What fault of theirs he died?

     They only said intimidate
     And talked and went their way
     By God, the boys who did the work
     Were better men than they.

           [From the U.S. News & World Report, Aug. 8, 1994]

               Whatever it is, Bill Clinton Likely Did It

                (By Greg Ferguson and David Bowermaster)

       Sitting in a cozy parlor and wearing a red cardigan, Larry 
     Nichols looks into the camera like an earnest Mr. Rogers and 
     tells of ``countless people who mysteriously died'' after 
     having run-ins with Bill Clinton. Nichols, an Arkansas state 
     employee fired in 1988 for making hundreds of calls to the 
     Nicaraguan Contras from his office, says it's all part of 
     Clinton's ``evil society.''
       So goes ``Bill Clinton's Circle of Power,'' a video made 
     earlier this year by Citizens for Honest Government, a 
     California-based conservative group headed by television 
     producer Pat Matrisciana. The video is filled with dark 
     suggestions that as president and governor, Clinton was 
     connected to the murders and beatings of several people, 
     including political opponents. The Rev. Jerry Falwell 
     promoted the video during a month of TV infomercials, and it 
     has sold more than 100,000 copies, according to its makers. 
     They hope its sequel, ``The Clinton Chronicles,'' which 
     repeats the charges at greater length, might outsell the 
     first, even without Falwell's help.
       Beyond last week's congressional Whitewater hearings and 
     the ferment over Paula Corbin Jones' sexual harassment 
     lawsuit, attacks against Clinton have taken a decidedly 
     sinister turn. Televangelists, conservative talk-show hosts, 
     political opponents and some computer bulletin-board 
     aficionados are suggesting that Clinton could be tied to 
     dozens of deaths, from a pneumonia case in Delaware to three 
     of the four federal agents killed in the raid on the Branch 
     Davidian compound in Waco, Texas.


                               weird era

       Even at a time of great national anxiety and confusion, the 
     intense, fecund and often bizarre charges leveled against 
     Clinton are startling. He has unusually high negative ratings 
     in many polls, but even that fails to explain fully the 
     extreme nature of the charges leveled at him. ``These attacks 
     have reached a level of inventive and viciousness that is 
     unparalleled,'' complained White House counsel Lloyd Cutler 
     during last week's Whitewater hearings. ``There are a great 
     many people who would like to bring President Clinton down 
     who will stop at practically nothing.''
       No episode seems beyond Clinton's reach in the world of 
     conspiracy buffs. A Wall Street Journal editorial in March 
     chastised the ``respectable press'' for showing ``little-to-
     no appetite for publishing anything about sex and violence'' 
     in Whitewater-related matters. It proceeded to report that 
     while working on a story for the New Republic about 
     incestuous relationships between business leaders and 
     politicos in Arkansas, writer L.J. Davis opened the door to 
     his Little Rock hotel room and remembered next awakening face 
     down on the floor with a hefty bump on his head and 
     ``significant'' pages of his notes missing. The implication 
     was that some sinister elements had tired to quash Davis' 
     piece. But Davis soon admitted drinking at least four 
     martinis that night. No pages were missing from his notebook, 
     and he had no idea how he ended up on the floor. ``I 
     certainly wasn't about to conclude that somebody cracked me 
     on the head,'' Davis said at the time.
       Even the most serious charges are characterized by serious 
     deficiencies in corroborating evidence. In a letter to 
     congressional leaders, former Rep. William Dannemeyer lists 
     24 people with some connection to Clinton who have died 
     ``under other than natural circumstances'' and calls for 
     hearings on the matter. On Dannemeyer's list is James 
     Wilhite, a friend of White House adviser Thomas ``Mack'' 
     McLarty who suffered fatal head injuries in December 1992 
     when he skied into a tree in Colorado. Clinton was nowhere 
     near the scene. Dannemeyer also mentions Paul Tully, a chain-
     smoking, overweight Democratic strategist who, according to 
     Little Rock police spokesman Lt. Charles Holladay and the 
     Pulaski County coroner's report, died of a heart attack in 
     1992. Next is Jon Walker, an administrator in the Resolution 
     Trust Corp. office probing Madison Guaranty; Walker died last 
     year when he jumped from Northern Virginia apartment 
     building. Tom Bell, a detective with the Arlington, Va., 
     police says Walker was a ``particularly clear case of suicide 
     because there was a witness.''
       Others on the Dannemeyer list are more curious but 
     completely lack evidence implicating Clinton. In March, a 
     plane piloted by 72-year-old Herschel Friday, head of a 
     prestigious Little Rock law firm, crashed on approach to a 
     private runway near Friday's home. Friday served on Clinton's 
     presidential campaign finance committee, and his widow, Beth, 
     says the Clintons were ``good friends.'' However, rumors 
     about a link between Whitewater and Friday's death began 
     circulating soon after the crash. The National Transportation 
     Safety Board has not issued its final report on the crash, 
     but so far investigators have given the family no indication 
     the plane had mechanical problems. Mrs. Friday is confident 
     her husband's death was ``purely an accident.'' Dannemeyer 
     admits that Clinton may have had no involvement in Friday's 
     death and some of the others, but he insists that the 
     ``number goes beyond coincidence.'' He says he merely wants 
     them investigated.


                         the clinton body count

       Dannemeyer's list of ``suspicious deaths'' is taken largely 
     from one compiled by Linda Thompson. She is an Indianapolis 
     lawyer who in 1993 quit her one-year-old general practice to 
     run her American Justice Federation, a for-profit group that 
     promotes pro-gun causes and various conspiracy theories 
     through a shortwave radio program, a computer bulletin board 
     and sales of its newsletter and videos. Her list, called 
     ``The Clinton Body Count: Coincidence or the Kiss of Death?'' 
     and updated biweekly, now contains 34 names of people she 
     believes died suspiciously and who had ties to the Clinton 
     family. Thompson admits she has ``no direct evidence'' of 
     Clinton killing anyone. Indeed, she says the deaths were 
     probably caused by ``people trying to control the president'' 
     but refuses to say who they were. Thompson says her 
     allegations of murder ``seem groundless only because the 
     mainstream media haven't done enough digging.''
       Earlier this year, Thompson released two videotapes and a 
     folksy music video purporting to show that the February 1993 
     shootout in Waco, Texas, was a conspiracy in which three 
     agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms were 
     ``executed'' in the Branch Davidian's armory by their own men 
     because of what they might have witnessed as Clinton's 
     bodyguards. Though the men did help the Secret Service guard 
     Clinton a few times, the Treasury Department's report in the 
     Waco standoff refutes the charge: ``Contrary to some publicly 
     disseminated accounts, none of the agents that entered the 
     armory was killed.'' According to the report, the men were 
     killed in different locations around the compound. ATF 
     spokesman Les Stanford says, ``Her videos are replete with 
     falsehood and errors.''
       Of the ``suspicious deaths'' listed by Thompson and 
     endorsed by Dannemeyer, many victims have only the most 
     tenuous ties to Clinton--four members of Marine Helicopter 
     Squadron One, for example. The unit is responsible for 
     transporting the president. The four marines died in May 1993 
     when the Blackhawk helicopter they had taken out for a 
     maintenance-evaluation flight crashed. According to a Marine 
     spokesman, Chief Warrant Officer Robert Jenks, faulty 
     installation of a spindle pin allowed the helicopter's 
     engines to produce too much power until an overspeed 
     protection device shut them down. There was no evidence of 
     sabotage. Clinton had set foot in the aircraft on only one 
     occasion, two months before, when he traveled from the White 
     House to the USS Theodore Roosevelt. Thompson concedes, ``I 
     don't know what Clinton's motive was.'' But she speculates 
     that they ``could have been privy to information about 
     Clinton's plan for Bosnia.''


                             foster's death

       The starting place for all Clinton murder theorists seems 
     to be Vincent Foster, the deputy White House counsel whose 
     death last year unleashed a torrent of speculation. Jerry 
     Falwell, Pat Robinson, Rush Limbaugh and others have 
     suggested that Foster was probably murdered. On the 
     anniversary of Foster's death, July 20, Foster's family made 
     a public appeal to end the speculation. The death has been 
     ruled a suicide in two separate investigations. Foster's 
     family says they fully accept that verdict. That hasn't 
     stopped Clinton's attackers, however. Many have dismissed the 
     report by Whitewater investigator Robert Fiske Jr., a former 
     U.S. attorney for New York under Presidents Ford and Carter 
     and highly respected private attorney, calling Foster's death 
     a suicide. In rejecting more macabre theories about Foster, 
     these critics say, Fiske--a Republican--was simply doing 
     Clinton's bidding. ``Fiske was appointed by Janet Reno at the 
     suggestion of Bernard Nussbaum,'' says Falwell. ``It's like 
     putting Hillary Clinton in there.'' Testifying last week 
     before Congress, Nussbaum said he never mentioned Fiske or 
     anyone else to Reno as a potential special counsel.
       There are other suicides that the conspiracy buffs tie to 
     Clinton. In May, Sherwood, Ark., police officer Bill Shelton 
     found his live-in girlfriend, Kathy Ferguson, slumped on the 
     couch in his apartment, dead from a self-inflicted gunshot 
     wound. A month later, Shelton was found on Ferguson's grave, 
     a bullet hole through his head, a gun by his side and a 
     suicide note in his truck.
       Less than a week before Ferguson's death, her ex-husband, 
     Danny, was named as a codefendant in Paula Jones's lawsuit 
     against the president. Rumors began swirling that her death--
     and later Shelton's--was tied to the president's alleged 
     infidelities. But police have found no reason to think so. 
     The relationship between Ferguson and Shelton had reportedly 
     fallen on hard times, and Ferguson's daughter told police her 
     mother had been upset about a note from Shelton. The only 
     people hinting at ties to Bill Clinton are in the media, 
     police say. ``It's like they want me to say something [about 
     a connection],'' says Sherwood Police Department spokesman 
     Ray Snider. ``It was suicide, period.''
       Luther ``Jerry'' Parks's death last September is almost as 
     disputed as Foster's. Indeed, Parks's case is the only murder 
     on Dannemeyer's list that law enforcement authorities do not 
     consider solved. Parks's security company guarded Clinton's 
     campaign headquarters in 1992. His son, Gary, asserts in both 
     ``Circle of Power'' and ``The Clinton Chronicles'' that his 
     father collected a secret file of the president's alleged 
     indiscretions. Shortly before the elder Parks was shot to 
     death while driving his car, Gary says, the file was stolen. 
     Lieutenant Holladay says there is no evidence of such a file, 
     nor any evidence that Clinton had anything to do with Parks's 
     death. Gary, he says, ``is grasping at straws. We have found 
     his allegations to be baseless.'' Jerry Parks reportedly had 
     many enemies after he was fired from two Arkansas police 
     departments and after a bitter falling out with a business 
     partner. Still, Larry Nichols says he is helping Gary Parks 
     bring a wrongful death suit against ``someone close to 
     Clinton who doesn't have presidential immunity.''
       One recent death is that of Stanley Huggins, who died in 
     June. In 1987, Huggins examined the loan practices of the 
     thrift, Madison Guaranty, at the center of the Whitewater 
     storm. His 400-gage report has never been made public. But 
     Dr. Richard Callery, Delaware's top medical examiner, says 
     Huggins died of viral myocarditis and bronchial pneumonia. 
     Lt. Joel Ivory of the University of Delaware police says his 
     ``exhaustive'' investigation of Huggins's death turned up 
     ``no sign at all of foul play.''
       The flood of accusations shows no sign of abating. And to 
     all conspiracy buffs, official sources are suspect. Falwell 
     asks how the Arkansas police could investigate the deaths: 
     ``The police in Arkansas brought Clinton's girlfriends to 
     him.'' He also says that guilty or innocent, Clinton 
     encourages suspicion: ``He's trying to get the courts to 
     postpone his sex harassment suit. If he gets by with that, 
     O.J. Simpson should run for president.''

                          ____________________