The House of Rockerfeller and The Twenty-Fifth Ammendment

Section 1. In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.

Section 2. Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.

The name Rockefeller does not sit well with the American public. Some have heard how the Rockefellers, like others of the great American fortunes, piled up their loot. And it was not by merit or humanitarian ideas.

Old man John D. Rockefeller used violent methods. On occasion, he would bomb his own facilities and blame it on his competitors. He used strong-arm ways and bribery. For example, the Rockefellers "bought" the Pennsylvania State Legislature, and used it as if it were a whole owned subsidiary and rubber stamp to validate their oily business.

Early in the 20th Century, a crusader with her books and articles on the infamous Rockefellers was Ida Tarbell.

By 1911, the U.S. Supreme Court finally got around to breaking up the poisonous Standard Oil Trust. Many decades later, however, the Rockefellers in the meantime having purchased or blackmailed the U.S. Government, the bloody Standard Oil Empire was re-combined using misleading names like Amoco, Chevron, and Exxon.

In 1914, the Rockefellers ordered their henchmen to murder women and children, caught up in the midst of a strike of a Rockefeller industrial unit in Colorado. In the midst of World War Two, the Rockefellers made treasonous deals with Nazi big business, such as with the chemical giant, I.G. Farben, poison gas producers for the concentration camps, concealing and sharing profits through South American countries as go-betweens. 

["Trading With the Enemy" by Charles Higham.] 

The founder of the Kennedy fortune, old man Joseph P. Kennedy, as U.S. Ambassador to Britain, brokered a treasonous deal between the Rockefellers and Farben. In 1939, three weeks AFTER the war started, Ambassador Kennedy arranged to have the Standard Oil/Farben deal back-dated as if made PRIOR to the onset of the war. 

["The Crime and Punishment of I.G. Farben", by Joseph Borkin. And more, as to the Kennedy Family and the Nazis, Joseph P. Kennedy, a Hollywood kingpin, arranged for the movie industry not to mention the Nazi concentration camps. See the book, "Child of the Century" by Ben Hecht, Simon & Schuster, N.Y.,N.Y.,1954, page 520.]

When you are aware of all the facts, it is not so strange that during the war, the Allies did NOT bomb I.G. Farben's huge facilities in Nazi Germany. According to a documented study by a U.S. Military Officer, at the close of the war, Farben's plants were 93 per cent intact. 

["I.G. Farben", by Richard Sasuly, Boni & Gaer Publ., N.Y., N.Y., 1947.] 

Because of some mental quirk, one of the Rockefellers, Nelson A., unlike his siblings, wanted to have his face and presence well known to the public. As Governor of New York, he was always photographed smiling, even when he was taxing the nails out of the shoes of the common people of the Empire State.

The Kennedy Family has been loaded with historical contradictions. For example, as part of the military-industrial complex, the Rockefellers had an interest in the political assassination of President John F. Kennedy who opposed their role in America's conspiratorial PRIVATE central bank, the so-called FEDERAL Reserve. As documented in a book about the Dallas murder, long suppressed in the U.S. but now finally released, President Kennedy wanted to scrap the tax loop hole, fraudulently favoring the petroleum industry, the oil depletion allowance. 

[A whole chapter on oil is in the book "Farewell America", written by the French CIA under the pen-name "James Hepburn", previously since 1968, not allowed to be sold in U.S. bookstores, but finally available through some on-line booksellers, like Amazon.com]

Taking over as President after JFK was the victim of a public execution in 1963, was Lyndon B. Johnson who had been Vice President. 

[Some contend the Kennedys reluctantly put him on the Democrat ticket at the 1960 convention, after Johnson threatened to publicly finger the Kennedy Family and their Nazi links.] 

BUT, there was a defect in the U.S. Constitution. There was no provision to fill the Vice President slot vacancy except by future election. So, up to the 1964 Presidential Election, Johnson served WITHOUT a Vice President.

Scheming, on their own time-table, to put the Big Oil cabal into the White House, the Rockefeller Family championed and arranged to have enacted in 1967, the U.S. Constitution's 25th Amendment, providing by appointment for the line of succession as to the Vice Presidency.

The Rockefellers understood full well that to grab the Oval Office they first have to capture the office of Vice President as a backdoor. President Nixon's Vice President Spiro Agnew was the target. I had the distinction of uncovering the plot against Agnew six months before the oil-soaked, spy-riddled monopoly press was ready to reveal it. Censored by his bosses, a network reporter, knowing my long record of never, never revealing witnesses and sources, put it in my ear. 

[In our work over the last 40 years I have been jailed some eight times for "contempt of court" for refusing to reveal our methods of investigation, our witnesses, and our sources.]

At the time in 1973, the Watergate Affair was bubbling and boiling. I was traveling across the country, giving seminars for and speeches to, college students. I spelled out the plot starting with the expected removal of Vice President Agnew. Some students, supposedly "educated", nonetheless stupid and having no horse sense, viciously heckled me. "Mr. Skolnick, you made up the story. I read the New York Times every day. There was no such story about the Agnew bribery scandal. I think you are just a damned liar. Who invited you to this college anyway?" College newspaper editors and such had similar things to say.

No one apologized to me, nor did my ego require apologies, when the story broke, on the press whores own agenda, in October, 1973. A prosecutor in Baltimore was about to indict Vice President Spiro Agnew for bribery going back to the time Agnew was Maryland Governor. So Agnew resigned.

No end of confusion was caused by the federal prosecutor being named SKOLNIK. Not everyone noticed he spelled his name different than me and was obviously not a relative. Appointed for a while as Special Assistant to that prosecutor was Chicago U.S. District Attorney James Thompson. I saw the point right away when I bumped into Big Jim at O'Hare Airport, as he was on the way to Baltimore. I had known early on that Thompson was a stooge for Nelson Rockefeller who financed Thompson's career and later, Thompson's successful run for Illinois Governor in 1976.

Promised financial favors from the Rockefellers if he is forced to resign, Nixon appointed, under the Rockefeller-promoted 25th Amendment, Gerald Ford to be the new Vice President, without an election. Having sat on the infamous Warren Commission, and on behalf of the aristocracy proclaiming a "lone assassin" murdered JFK, Gerald Ford was clearly eligible for the high office.

In August, 1974, forced to resign by the Rockefeller-dominated U.S. Supreme Court ruling as to the Nixon tapes case, Nixon was automatically replaced by Ford, all without an election. 

[The Rockefellers rewarded Tricky Dick for going quietly. They made available to him a residence in Manhattan, a townhouse, wall to wall with David Rockefeller.] 

By these musical chairs, President Ford appointed Nelson A. Rockefeller as the Vice President. Again, all this without an election. Who paid close attention to Nelson Rockefeller during his U.S. Senate confirmation hearings? Under oath, he testified that he and the Rockefeller Family principal members, had NOT paid any INCOME TAXES for the previous eleven years. This, from a member of the world's richest family! No one in the Senate dared to ask him about massive IRS corruption favoring the Rockefellers since the fraudulently procured 16th Amendment was enacted, leading to the supposed Federal Income Tax.

With a Rockefeller then one heartbeat away from the Oval Office, President Ford in 1975 survived three genuine assassination attempts. One by "Squeaky" Fromme.. Another by Sara Jane Moore, an undercover federal operative supplied by her unit with a huge caliber weapon. A disabled vet hit her elbow just at the right moment, spoiling her dead-on aim at President Ford. Another plot was aborted by the U.S. Secret Service as to a Florida-based political assassination team, operating on the West Coast. All three attempts were in California. 

[The U.S. Secret Service took great offense to my telephone recorded message commentaries on all this. For a while they blocked all thirty of our phone message lines, arbitrarily and without any Court order.]

Infamous John D. Rockefeller's great grandson, John D. Rockefeller 4th(calling himself Jay to be cute), a supposed Democrat U.S. Senator from West Virginia, was the focus of further Rockefeller plots to put a family member into the White House. 

[Incidentally, an illegitimate great grandson is properly named William ROCKEFELLER Clinton. See the details in our website series on Wal-Mart.]

Ready to use the 25th Amendment trick again, the Rockefellers in 1997 instigated stories that Vice President Albert Gore, Jr., had made improper campaign fund raising phone calls from the White House. The pressfakers played down Gore's explanation that he paid for the calls using a credit card. By 1999, considered as a candidate for President in the year 2000 Election, Gore was the target of a murder plot, to cause a Vice President vacancy to make way for Rockefeller without an election.

As the Vice President's airplane was over Chicago, air traffic controllers somehow steered three large commercial airplanes into his air space, coming within a few seconds of crashing into Gore's plane. Did someone think it symbolic to wipe out Gore right over the Democrat stronghold of Chicago, dominated by party strongman Mayor Richard M. Daley?

When Gore's plane landed, his pilot was livid, possibly wanting to punch out someone in air traffic control. Aircraft experts contend that one commercial plane vectored into the Vice President's air space is a possible accident. Two large commercial aircraft steered by ground control into Gore's air space has to be a plot. Three such planes directed into Gore's air space would have to be a well thought out conspiracy.

This occurred on Friday, July 9, 1999. Apparently only the Chicago Sun-Times ran a story about the incident. Their eleven-paragraph story was embargoed, that is delayed, until July 14, 1999. It mentioned two such planes steered into Gore's air space. Checking with those working on the story, I found out that it was actually THREE such planes.

A few days after the incident, the former head of the FAA, an expert on Air Traffic Control, Admiral Engen, was murdered. 

[More details in our website story, "Plot to Assassinate Vice President Gore?"]

A Friday after July 9, 1999, was when the Bush Crime Family benefitted from the airplane sabotage killing John F. Kennedy, Jr.(July 16, 1999). Kennedy was supposed to have kept it secret, that he was planning to announce August 1, 1999, that approaching the age similar to his late father, he was going to run for President. JFK Jr. made a mistake to inform some in the Gore campaign camp. 

[Using later a false item, Newsweek Magazine blunted this by stating that JFK Jr. was planning to run for U.S. Senator from New York.]

Some perceived Kennedy Jr. as scandal-free, charming, and likely to pull a big successful Presidential vote in 2000 [if he survived]. 

[More details in our four-part series on the web, "What Happened to America's Golden Boy?"]

Having won the popular Presidential vote nationwide in 2000 by 600,000, Gore is considered by some Americans as the ACTUAL President NOT inaugurated. And many believe that the "Gang of Five" on the U.S. Supreme Court, with serious conflicts of interest and worse, arbitrarily installed Bush as the occupant and resident of the Oval Office. The Rockefeller trick seems to be starting all over again. The Rockefeller-dominated press is pushing stories that Vice President Richard Cheney cooked the books as CEO of Halliburton 

[some believe he actually did that up to the time he was CEO right before the year 2000 Election. Like in the Agnew matter, the Rockefellers store up REAL information to use at a time and place to their benefit.].

And some in the press have mentioned that Cheney knew his firm was illegally supplying oil patch machinery to Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein, to defeat the embargo against Iraq. And that Cheney knowingly committed treason in so doing and heavily profitting from that. Cheney left Halliburton with about 36 million dollars.

If Cheney is forced to resign as Vice President, whether by medical reasons or by scandal, Jay Rockefeller under his family's instigated 25th Amendment is waiting to order the Rockefeller-stooge, George W. Bush, to appoint Jay as Vice President, without an election. And then, as with Gerald Ford in 1975, it becomes a hazard for a President to have a Rockefeller one heartbeat away from the top U.S. Executive Department position.

And, to torpedo any plans of Gore, the press whores are running stories That Gore's own party bigwigs do not want Gore again. Gore confidants confirm that his circle believes there are also various plots, as before, to physically harm him. Others are raising issues, not authorized by the U.S. Constitution, that Bush Jr., dominated by Daddy Bush, in a financial emergency, would seek to offset criticism by appointing Gore as some kind of a co-President or such. That is, an emergency coalition government to deal with the financial wreckage. 

After all, in its simplest form, 9-11, Black Tuesday, was designed by the American aristocracy to head off a financial meltdown expected for the Fall of 2001. 

And to blame it all on the Arabs who were not the principal players.

Jack Anderson: Rockefeller/Kissinger and the Arab Oil Embargo.

Please note: There WAS not Arab Oil embargo - The Shah of Iran, as a Persian, was not an Arab, nor were any of his countrymen.

The Saudis attempted unilaterally bring the oil prices back down in the absence of instructions from Washington.

On March 19, 1975, Secretary Kissinger met with King Faisal to review the Middle East peace process and bilateral relations.

On 25 March 1975, King Faisal was shot point-blank and killed by his half-brother’s son, Faisal bin Musaid, who had just come back from the United States.

Prince Faisal, who was captured directly after the attack, was officially declared insane. 

But following the trial, a panel of Saudi medical experts decided that Faisal was sane when he gunned the king down.

The nation's high religious court convicted him of regicide and sentenced him to execution. 

Despite Faisal’s dying request that the life of his assassin be spared, he was beheaded in the public square in Riyadh.

The public execution took place on 18 June 1975 at 4:30 pm—three hours before sundown—before a throng of thousands at the Al Hukm Palace (Palace of Justice).

THE SECRET HISTORY OF AIRPLANE SABOTAGE, by Sherman H. Skolnick

"THE SECRET HISTORY OF AIRPLANE SABOTAGE", Part One 

by Sherman H. Skolnick 08/6/01

In November, 1972, Richard M. Nixon was re-elected President. One month later, on behalf of the Nixon White House, America's secret political police, the American Gestapo, the FBI, and the American CIA, arranged to sabotage a commercial airplane headed for Chicago. On board were twelve Watergate figures, including Dorothy Hunt, wife of the Watergate burglar, E.Howard Hunt. They had reportedly blackmailed two million dollars out of Nixon threatening, among other things, to publicize documents they had showing Tricky Dick, along with top officials of the FBI and the CIA, had planned and carried out the political assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

We received a mysterious phone call. "You should look into the crash near Midway Airport. They murdered Mrs. Hunt and the others." From various circumstances we determined that the call came from an official in Midway Airport Tower, Chicago. We started our own investigation. In 1973, I wrote a book, "The Secret History of Airplane Sabotage". So far as I could find out, there never was an authoritative book on the subject up to that time. And even now, I know of no other such book. A sizeable book publisher undertook to publish my work. The book, however, was stopped in the print cycle and no copies became available. The book was suppressed by the Rockefellers, at the time the major owners of UAL, Inc., the parent firm of United Air Lines, with the United Air Lines crash near Midway Airport being a major section of the book.

I am posting starting as Part One excerpts from the book. In some instances, it has been updated and slightly revised to show details uncovered after 1973.

THE WATERGATE PLANE CRASH

1. THE PEOPLE. Upwards of twelve persons connected in one way or another with Watergate, boarded United Air Lines Flight 553 on the afternoon of December 8, 1972. They had something in common. That week there had been a gas pipeline lobbyists meeting as part of the American Bar Association meeting in Washngton, D.C. It was conducted by Roger Moreau. His secretary was Nancy Parker. Among those attending were Ralph Blodgett and James W. Krueger, both attorneys for the Northern Natural Gas Co., of Omaha, Nebraska. Associated with them were Lon Bayer, attorney for Kansas-Nebraska Natural Gas Co.; Wilbur Erickson, president, Federal Land Bank in Omaha. This was a belligerant group determined to blow the lid off the Watergate case. Reason Former U.S. Attorney General, John Mitchell, and his friends running the Justice Department were putting the spear into Northern Natural Gas. Some officials of that firm and its subsidiaries were indicted on federal criminal charges, September 7, 1972, in Omaha, Chicago, and Hammond, Indiana. Charge bribery of local officials in Northwest Indiana to let the gas pipeline go through. (Chicago Daily News, 9/8/72). To blackmail their way out of these charges, the Omaha firm had uncovered documents showing that Mitchell, while U.S. Attorney General in 1969, dropped anti-trust charges against a competitor of Northern Natural Gas---El Paso Gas Co. The dropping of the charges against El Paso was worth 300 million dollars. A spokesman for Mitchell belatedly claimed, in March, 1973, that Mitchell had "disqualified" himself in 1969, because Mitchell's law partner represented El Paso. The Justice Department under Mitchell, dropped the charges. Period. About the same time, Mitchell, through a law partner as nominee, got a stock interest in El Paso. Gas and oil interests, such as El Paso, Gulf Resources, and others contributed heavily to Nixon's spy fund, supervised by Mitchell.

[Earlier, I had spoken out about the apparent bribery of Mitchell as Attorney General by El Paso which caused him to proceed to prosecute on my charges, Chicago Federal Appeals Judge Otto Kerner, Jr., for bribery. The highest level sitting federal judge sent to jail for bribery in U.S.history.]

Pipeline official Krueger was carrying the Mitchell-El Paso documents on the plane. He had told his wife that he had in his possession irreplaceable papers of a sensitive nature. For months after the crash, his widow demanded, to no avail, that United Air Lines turn over to her his briefcase. It later came out in the pipeline trial in Hammond, that Blodgett had been browbeating federal officials, to drop the criminal charges just prior to the crash. (Chicago Tribune, 5/18/73.) [Our investigation uncovered that most of the local officials, to be government witnesses against the pipeline, were murdered just prior to trial. In all, some five Northwest Indiana officials.]

Dorothy Hunt, Watergate pay-off woman, who offered executive clemency directly on behalf of Nixon to some of the Watergate defendants, was seeking to leave the U.S. with over 2 million Dollars in cash and negotiables that she had gotten from CREEP, Committee to Re-Elect the President. [She was so concerned about these valuables, she purchased a separate first class seat next to her on the plane for this luggage.] She and her husband, E. Howard Hunt, the Watergate conspirator, were a "C.I.A. couple", two agents "married" and living together. Early in December, 1972,both were threatening to blow the lid off the White House if (a) he wasn't freed of the criminal charges; (b) Nixon didn't pay heavy to suppress the documents they had showing he was implicated in the planning and carrying out, by the FBI and the CIA, of the political murder of President Kennedy; and (c) Dorothy and Howard Hunt didn't both get several million dollars. Some of these details are in the Memo of Watergate double-agent, James McCord, a CIA official in charge of the Agency's physical security; details before the Senator Ervin Committee. (N.Y. Times, 5/9/73.) Hunt claimed, according to McCord, to have the data necessary to impeach Nixon. McCord said matters were coming to a head early in December, 1972. Mrs. Hunt was unhappy with her job of going all over the country to bribe defendants and witnesses in the bugging case. She wanted out.

Mrs.Hunt was on the way to arrange to take her money out of the country, possibly Costa Rica, to link up with international swindler Robert Vesco who was there at the time; through Harold C. Carlstead, whose wife was Mrs. Hunt's cousin. Carlstead reportedly did accounting and tax work for mobster-owned businesses in the Chicago-area. He operated two Holiday Inn motels in Chicago's south suburbs---at 174th and Torrence, Lansing, Illinois and at 171st and Halsted, Harvey, Illinois. Carlstead's motel on Torrence was reportedly a favorite hang out for gangsters and dope traffickers such as apparently "Cool" Freddie Smith, Grover Barnes, and the late Chicago mobster Sam DeStefano (who aided the American CIA in bloody tricks and was snuffed out to silence him), to name a few. Mrs. Hunt had (a) Ten Thousand Dollars in untraceable cash; (b) Forty Thousand Dollars in so-called "Barker" bills, traceable to Watergate spy Bernard Barker; and (c) upwards of Two Million Dollars in American Express money orders, travelers checks, and postal money orders. (As shown by testimony before the National Transportation Safety Board, re-opened Watergate plane crash hearings, June 13-14, 1973. Hearings re-opened as a result of my lawsuit claiming sabotage covered up by the N.T.S.B.) Carlstead issued a fake "cover" story that had (only) Ten Thousand Dollars with Mrs. Hunt. A story swallowed up by the Establishment Press.

Mrs. Hunt got on Flight 553 with Michele Clark, CBS Network newswoman, going to do an exclusive story on Watergate. Mrs. Hunt, Mitchell, Nixon---the story could have destroyed Nixon at the time. Ms Clark had lots of insight into the bugging and cover-up through her boyfriend, a CIA operative. In the summer of 1972, prior to any major revelations of Watergate, Ms Clark tried to pick the brains of Chicago Congressman George Collins, regarding the bugging of the Democratic headquarters. Ms Clark was sitting with Cong. Collins on the plane. (Testimony 6/14/73, of Cong. Collins' public relations director.)

After the crash, Michele Clark's employer, CBS Network News, ordered and demanded that the body be cremated by the southside Chicago mortician handling the matter---possibly to cover up foul play. Later, the mortician was murdered in his business establishment, an unsolved crime. (We interviewed close confidants of her family who informed us of the details how CBS applied tremendous pressure and offered large sums for silence on the crash details and having her body cremated contrary to her family's wishes.)

Also on the plane were four or more people who knew about a labor union that had given a large "donation" to CREEP to head-off an criminal indictment of a Chicago labor union hoodlum(at the time of the book, 1973, actively investigated by us).

For many years, like clockwork, one Chicagoan went to Washington, D.C. on Monday and came back Friday afternoon on Flight 553 or its equivalent Lawrence T. O'Connor, Apt. 5-C, 999 North Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, Illinois. On Friday, December 8, 1972, he received a call from someone he knows in the White House, telling him not to take Flight 553 but to go instead to a special meeting.

My long-time friend, political activist Dick Gregory, informed me that there had been strenuous efforts to steer him that same afternoon onto United Air Lines Flight 553. Luckily, he had changed his mind.

Also getting on Flight 553 was a reputed "hit-man", pursuing Mrs. Hunt and others, and going under the "cover" of being a top Narcotics official with DALE (Drug Abuse Law Enforcement). He used the name Harold R. Metcalf. He is an unusual "narc"; he worked directly for Nixon. Metcalf told the pilot he was packing a gun, and so Metcalf was assigned seat B-17, near the stewardesses' jump seat and also near the food galley and the rear door of the plane. After the crash, he walked out of the cracked open fuselage of the pancaked plane wearing a jumpsuit. A former Military Intelligence investigator, who used his credentials to get into the crash site, identified the person posing as "Harold Metcalf" as an overseas CIA parachute spy. (Investigator's testimony at re-opened N.T.S.B. hearings, 6/14/73). Also see Metcalf's statement about being a "narc" and his gun on the plane. (N.T.S.B. Docket SA-435, Exhibit 6- B, p. 17, surviving passenger statements). Metcalf evidently supervised certain foul play, possibly cyanide, directed at certain passengers, but he didn't know of the over all sabotage plan. One of our staff investigators confronted Metcalf about a week after the crash.

(a) Metcalf, supposedly a government narcotics bigshot, knows nothings about dope. (b) in response to our question, "Did you know the plane was sabotaged?", he blurted out half a sentence, "It was not supposed to....", turning purple, he then left the room. Evidently, he was a double cut-out, an espionage term for an operative to be himself eliminated by someone else. His survival was an oversight. (N.T.S.B. testimony, 6/13-14/73).

More details from the suppressed book in further parts of this story.

"THE SECRET HISTORY OF AIRPLANE SABOTAGE", Part Two 

by Sherman H. Skolnick 08/9/01

We called it the Watergate Plane Crash. As our private investigation continued, the National Transportation Safety Board, N.T.S.B., set public hearings for February, 1973. Conducted in a large meeting hall in one of the very large motels near O'Hare Airport, Chicago. They started with the witness list. After some of the witnesses testified, we were able to interview some of them in the hallway.

One witness was a former four-motor military bomber pilot with loads of aircraft and air-tower experience. Retired from the military, he worked for a firm that supplied materials for the paving of parking lots. By a strange coincidence (or on purpose?) someone at his firm told him to measure the parking lot starting at 2 p.m., Friday afternoon, December 8, 1972, which turned out to be right under the in-coming flight path of United Air Lines Flight 553. He observed some things which fit in with our probe that it was sabotage.

With his help and that of others including witnesses, we compiled a list of details showing that the NTSB panel were carefully evading from going into. I went home and began quickly putting together a lawsuit against the Safety Board for covering up airplane sabotage. We filed the lawsuit in Cook County Circuit Court and arranged with the County Sheriff to have one of his deputies accompany us as we together went to the NTSB hearings in session. I had prepared over a hundred copies of the lawsuit, all suitably stamped with the Clerk's Office markings just like the original filed copy. The deputy sheriff had a copy of the lawsuit together with a summons commanding the NTSB officials to appear in court.

As we arrived, the Safety Board panel was already proceeding with testimony. "How do you want me to do this" the deputy sheriff whispered to me. I instructed him, "Go right up to the stage on which the Safety Board panel of five is sitting. Do not wait for a recess. Serve the papers, as provided by law, on the woman in the middle, the Chairperson." That is what he did. As he approached her with the court papers, she asked him "What is this?" He politely answered, "It is for you, ma'm." The minute the Safety panel boss looked at the court papers, she was alarmed. She abruptly recessed the hearing. Most of those in the large meeting room spilled out into the hallway.There we handed out copies of the lawsuit to whosoever seemed interested. The Safety Board's general counsel came up to me, "I have to have a private talk with you away from this crowd, Mr. Skolnick."

We went down the hall to be alone. "How much do you want?" he barked at me. "If it is within reason, we'll take care of it today. It'll be cheaper than litigating this. You have to sign an agreement not to further divulge any of this."

I must have had an angry look on my face when I responded. "Hey, where did you get the idea that my charges of sabotage are a shake-down?" And I began hollaring, "Listen you mouthpiece, your job is to show up in court to answer our charges. I AM NOT FOR SALE. Go back to the panel and tell them. SKOLNICK IS NOT FOR SALE! You're not going to buy me like some crooked judge."

Thereafter another lawyer sat down and talked to me in the motel restaurant. "Mr. Skolnick, I represent the families of those who died in that crash. We have pending claims against United Air Lines. Your assertions of air sabotage tend to let United Air Lines off the hook. Please for the sake of these families, drop your lawsuit. You are undermining our multi-million dollar claims and that is not fair."

I responded, "Are you saying I should also be part of this cover up? Our motto is, 'Let the truth be told, though the Heavens crumble'. Do you realize that United Air Lines is part of covering up the sabotage of one of their own planes? One of Nixon's closest pals is the head of United Air Lines. The cover up included Mrs. E. Howard Hunt's documents showing Nixon was part of an FBI/CIA plot to assassinate President John F. Kennedy. You want me to shut up about all that? No way. I am sorry."

The lawyer took a narrow view as if he did not understand any of that. As if he were suddenly stupid. "I do not want to know anything about all that. I simply want to push our claims against United Air Lines. Can we somehow make it up to you?" He said. Miffed, I replied, "Hey, hey, don't start offering me a piece of your deal in return for my silence."

In Chicago my discussions about air sabotage and the Watergate Plane Crash caused some student groups to invite me to speak at their college or university. As a result, persons showed up at such meetings who later spoke to me privately.

"Here. Look at my credentials. I drive an ambulance for one of the hospitals. On the afternoon of the crash, I was sent to the crash zone. Hey, but get this. They did not allow me to approach the burning airplane. I was on a mission of mercy and these strange types stopped me. There were about 150 to 200 of them. They refused to show me their credentials." That is what one eyewitness told me. He continued, "Friends of mine in the fire and police departments told me also they were not allowed to approach the airplane. These apparent federal types were there on location ahead of both the fire and police."

After the crash, we made public statements that 200 FBI and Defense Intelligence Agency, DIA, operatives, refusing to show their credentials, had taken over the crash zone, coincident with the crash or even shortly BEFORE. We were called "liar". Then, on June 13, 1973, Chairman John Reed, of the National Transportation Safety Board, told the House Government Activities Subcommittee, that he sent a letter to the FBI, that (a) never in living memory had the FBI acted as in the Flight 553 crash. Reed said 50 FBI agents came into the crash zone shortly after the crash; (b) one FBI agent proceeded into Midway Control Tower and took over the tape relating to Flight 553, without asking permission; (c) before the N.T.S.B. investigation could do so, the FBI conducted 26 interviews, including of surviving flight attendants. The FBI interviews were completed within 20 hours of the crash.

For 6 months, they claimed we were "liars" when we said 200 FBI and DIA agents were in the crash site concident with the crash. Thereafter, the FBI admitted that 50 were there.

How is that possible? The Chicago Fire and Police Department people responded in a couple of minutes. The FBI and DIA headquarters is downtown Chicago. Even if they immediately after the crash took a helicopter, they could not have arrived, as they somehow did, AHEAD OF THE FIRE AND POLICE. We took up this angle with a member of Congress who quizzed the FBI about this. Back came a letter that the FBI had apparently been surveilling the plane and had jurisdiction because of what they termed federal statutes relating to "Air Piracy". This was in a letter signed by the Acting Director of FBI [this was about a year after Director J. Edgar Hoover had been poison murdered in his home, May, 1972, just as the Watergate matter was about to occur].

FBI having jurisdiction because of AIR PIRACY? Did someone on the plane, radio the FBI that someone else on that plane was either trying to steal Mrs. Hunt's two million dollars of "hush money", in negotiables, she and her husband got from the Nixon White House. Was someone trying to steal her baggage enroute to Chicago; containing documents proving Nixon was part of a FBI/CIA plot to assassinate President Kennedy? Mrs. Hunt, worried about her valuables, bought a separate first class seat right near her on which she piled her luggage. So AIR PIRACY was one way the FBI had of trying to explain away why upwards of 150 of their agents were already waiting in or near Midway Airport that afternoon, for the in-coming flight with the Watergate 12.

>From various sources we found out that the FBI and the DIA were under Nixon White House "national security" orders to arrest Mrs. Hunt and others on the plane for being part of a plot to blackmail Nixon. That is how and why the FBI/DIA was already there ahead of the local authorities.

A Chicago Fire Department official we interviewed told us, "Nobody explained to us how and why the FBI was able to keep us out of the crash site. The plane had pancaked on top of one or more residences and was smoldering."

In an interview, a supervisory offical of the Chicago Police Department informed us, "I was told to assemble my men in Marquette Park which is several blocks away from where the plane crashed. We were forbidden by our brass from approaching the crash site. The higher ups said it was upon orders of the FBI and the DIA and the White House. Someone mumbled something to me about 'national security' ".

Saturday, the day after the crash, parts of the airplane fuselage were quickly buried in a city dump. An official of the city department told us, "The orders came from the top. Someone of authority did not want parts of flight 553 to be examined at all. We came with heavy equipment, a special select crew, pledged to silence, and buried deep parts of the plane in a city dump. I am in trouble if you ever use my name."

A few months after the crash, at a United Air Lines company meeting, one of their stewardesses got up and began loudly complaining the company bosses were covering up sabotage in the Flight 553 crash near Midway Airport. She was quickly hooted down. Security people shoved her out of the meeting. Later, she was fired.

So the air sabotage cover up pieces were one by one falling to place. On Decemnber 9, 1972, one day after the crash, Nixon White House aide Egil (Bud) Krogh, Jr., also involved in the Ellsberg burglary caper, was appointed Undersecretary of Transportation, supervising the National Transportation Safety Board and The Federal Aviation Administration, F.A.A., the two agencies supposedly going to "investigate" the crash of Flight 553.

On December 19, 1972, White House deputy assistant to Nixon, and secretary to the Cabinet, Alexander P. Butterfield, was appointed as the new head of the FAA. Butterfield, an air officer for 20 years, was also CIA aviation liason. (See, for example, Jack Anderson's column, Chicago Daily News, 5/8/73.) During the Senate Watergate Committee hearings, summer of 1973, Butterfield as a witness suddenly blurted out that Nixon had everything occurring in or near the Oval Office taped. These tapes, which Nixon originally refused to disclose, became the subject of a U.S. Supreme Court decision against Nixon, as well as part of the Nixon impeachment matters resulting in ihis resignation, August, 1974.

Dwight L. Chapin, Nixon's appointment secretary, became, five weeks after the crash, a top executive of United Air Lines. Chapin reportedly had no prior business experience. At the original NTSB crash hearings in February, 1973, he reportedly threatened media people with reprisals if they mentioned sabotage; reprisals such as using Clay Whitehead, Nixon's communications czar, to seek the break-up of the networks on anti-trust charges. Remember- in the 1970s, the Rockefelles were the largest stockholder of UAL, Inc., parent of United Air Lines. Further, in the 1970s, the Rockfellers owned all three major news networks, CBS, NBC, and ABC. To an extent even now, the Rockefelles still have a heavy presence in the ownership of the major networks.

Even before the crash, Herbert W. Kalmbach, Nixon's personal attorney, was the lawyer for United Air Lines and Marriot Corp., which at the time had an airplane in-flight food catering service.

So, if I was right about Flight 553 and United Air Lines, at the time, largest air carrier in the U.S., they could have lost their certificate to fly. The Rockefellers orchestrated the media against our investigation. This was long before the era of internet, long bbefore TV on the web through video streaming, long before more open-minded radio talk shows, and many years before public access Cable TV used by some like us to get around the press whores. [Our one hour weekly public access Cable TV Show, "Broadsides", cablecast within Chicago, reaches some 400,000 viewers each week, on a public access Cable TV system that is the largest in the U.S. Portions of our show, on video streaming, are on our website.] The latest technology and changes like that, for the moment, help the underdogs tell the awful truth. Such as about a forbidden subject, "The Secret History of Airplane Sabotage".

"THE SECRET HISTORY OF AIRPLANE SABOTAGE", Part Three 

by Sherman H. Skolnick 08/15/01

The original hearings of the National Transportation Safety Board, N.T.S.B., into the crash of United Airlines Flight 553, near Midway Airpport, were in February, 1973. From that point to May of that year, I as the spokesperson of our investigation and research group, was numerous times on late-night radio talk shows, by phone hook-up. Several sizeable stations throughout the nation had me on the air. To use me as their punching bag, some moderators purposely put me on the air, so they could holler me down that I had no proof of airplane sabotage. It was a way of limiting what I could say between commercials, thus using up the time. It prevented me from going into too many details. I mentioned, or vainly tried to mention, the substance of our numerous interviews with witnesses, without divulging their names, to avoid risking our eyewitnesses.

Since I am an independent and not one of the media "favorites", they persistently heckled me, "Where are your documents?" In that period, I never publicly divulged that we had already "liberated" and had in our possession, a copy of the entire original file of the N.T.S.B. on Flight 553. It consisted of some 1300 pages of documents and reports and pictures. [Months later, the N.T.S.B. to try to down me, released a censored, sanitized version of their original file. We were in a position to show they were using fraud to cover up airplane sabotage, a forbidden subject. BUT, at that point, the monopoly press did not permit me to be further heard on radio talk-shows and such.]

In that period up to May, 1973, the American CIA, through their front, Katharine Graham, supposed head of the Washington Post, dispatched to Chicago the Post's super-duper expert on CIA matters, Ronald Kessler. We picked him up at O'Hare Airport and went with him to a reassonably nearby restaurant. After an interview of only a few minutes, Kessler said he wanted to be driven back to the airport. He said he wanted to be back in the District of Columbia. I asked him why he had come such a distance and yet only talked to me for a couple of minutes. He did not explain.

Kessler wrote a two-part series about me that ran on the front page of the Washington Post. It condemned me for having no details of the sabotage. Savvy folks, however, from all over North America, called me, stating, "Sherman, you must really have something for the Post to have you on the front page twice, heckling you for your investigations of the Watergate plane crash."

[For more about the Washington Post and Ronald Kessler, visit our website story, "The Late Grand Dragon of The Washington Post".]

In the 1970s, the major owner of UAL, Inc., parent of United Air Lines, were the Rockefellers and they also owned all three news networks (and to this day, still have a large ownership), of CBS, NBC, and ABC. The bosses of United Air Lines were getting increasingly disturbed by my public statements. So, in May, 1973, the general counsel of the air lines, sent a letter of demand to the N.T.S.B., contending that Sherman H. Skolnick had no proof whatever of sabotage. United Air Lines demanded that N.T.S.B. subpoena me to take my deposition. This would prove, they contended, that I was making unfounded statements. [The various wire services ran the letter of demand of United Air Lines.] After being served with the subpoena, I arranged with the Safety Board, and they agreed, that I was going to represent myself and supply and direct the testimony of others.

The Safety Board panel figured that the way to handle this was through the subpoena. They arranged for re-opened public hearings at the same large motel meeting room in Chicago, as in February, 1973. They set two full days for my deposition, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., with very short recesses for lunch, for June 13 and 14,1973.

On the scheduled time and day, I rolled in with my wheelchair, with a large suitcase. Accompanying me were eight of my eyewitnesses. As the hearings began before the five-person N.T.S.B. panel, I informed them I have two preliminary matters to bring to their attention. First, I demanded that three of the Safety Board panel disqualify themselves because they and/or their immediate family are substantial stockholders in various air lines that have a joint interest that air sabotage remain a secret, forbidden subject. That they have an interest to hem me in to prevent the truth from coming out.

Without referring to federal statutes, administrative proceedures, or reasons, to support her ruling, the Chairperson proclaimed, "Mr. Skolnick, your motion to disqualify, is denied." Then, with the assistance of my associates, I opened up the large suitcase and spread out on a good-sized table in front of myself and the Safety Board panel, the entire N.T.S.B. file we had "liberated".

I stated to the panel, "Secondly, I am telling you straight in front, that I have the possession of a copy of your entire original file on Flight 553. I admit responsibility of purloining your records. I challenge you to now arrest me for so doing. Arrest me right here, in front of this audience of mostly reporters from all over the world." The audience was estimated at 250 persons.

The woman chairperson, with as much shock on her face as when we had a deputy sheriff serve her a copy of my lawsuit against her in the midst of a Safety Board hearing in February, said only one word in a low voice, "Proceed".

The CBS Network as well as their local TV station, WBBM-TV, Channel 2 Chicago, was by close circuit videoing and observing the entire proceedings. It was primarily to immediately inform the Rockefellers and other bigshots, of what is being presented. The network did NOT use any of the video on the air. Their local TV station used only a meaningless, sanitized few seconds of the proceedings, revealing almost nothing.

I started out by stating, "I will show from your own records that all the air tower and airport instruments for guiding in Flight 553, which I call the Watergate plane, were turned off just as that plane approached. They were all turned back on, the moment after the plane was steered falsely into the ground short of the designated runway at Midway Airport. Contrary to established rules and procedures, Midway tower steered a small private plane to go right in front of Flight 553 as Flight 553 was on the path of in-coming, thus obstructing the commercial plane. The flight recorder in the tail of the plane was arranged to stop at a key point, censoring all that happened to Flight 553 as it was on the flight-path for landing. The electric buss bar of the plane was arranged to short out, burning out key instruments, and the plane was coming in dark, as shown by your own pictures, records, and reports and by a witness. The altimeter was sabotaged, so the pilot and co-pilot were at a lower altitude than they should have been, causing the plane to pancake on top of some residences, killing some onnoard and some on the ground. Persons in Midway Control Tower as well as those in charge of the hand-off signals from O'Hare, caused false and erroneous signals to be relayed to Flight 553."

[During the hearings, I mentioned that the small private red plane, according to our investigations, which was falsely steered in front of Flight 553, had onboard known mafioso from Indiana and had let loose right in front of 553 a blizzard of thin metal chaff to screw up 553.]

With a series of enlarged charts, documents from the original N.T.S.B. file, and supporting eyewitness testimony, I step by step began to present the proof of air sabotage. [The specific technical details will be in a later part of this series.]

During a short lunch break, the national correspondent of the Hearst Publication chain stopped me in the hallway. "Mr. Skolnick, you don't have anything", he contemptuously proclaimed. Puzzled, I answered, "What? Were you watching everything I was presenting or were you asleep?"

Starting to shout at me, he blurted out, "Nowhere have you demonstrated that there was a bomb aboard that plane. No bomb. No proof. Period."

Trying to contain my own anger, I said "Where did you get the idea that the only way to sabotage a plane is to plant a bomb onboard?" He quickly retorted, "No bomb. No proof. No sabotage." I rapidly responded, "And that is what YOU are going to report for YOUR chain of publications?" He dismissed me, "That's right. You have mislead the public."

Toward the end of the day, during a short recess, the Chicago Tribune Transportation Editor, Tom Buck, arranged to photograph me sitting at the table with all the N.T.S.B.'s documents, reports, and pictures there spread out. Guess what? The Tribune later ran his story stating that Chicago legal researcher Sherman Skolnick (which is what they called me in those years) has shown no proof whatever to support his allegations that a United Air Lines plane crashed last December near Midway Airport because of sabotage. With the story, they ran a picture showing me only head and shoulders. The part of me sitting at the table with all the documents, reports, and pictures of the N.T.S.B. was cropped out. [The Rockefeller Family, at the times owners of United Air Lines, were also major owners of Tribune Company, parent firm of the Chicago Tribune.]

After a long day, later in the hearings, to sort of relieve the tension in the air, I told what I thought would be a little joke. I referred to United's general counsel, Mr. Streit, as Mr. Alley, as if I had made a Freudian slip. I quickly said I am sorry. Then I said, "I am here to categorically ADMIT that I have no proof whatever that Richard Nixon and the head of United Air Lines were on the plane with guns and shot dead Mrs. E. Howard Hunt, the Watergate bag-lady." Guess what? Donald Schwartz, covering the hearings for the Chicago Sun-Times, under his byline later ran a story with a big headline, "SKOLNICK ADMITS HE HAS NO PROOF WHATEVER". The story went on to state that Sherman Skolnick at a Safety Board hearing into the crash last December of a United Air Lines plane near Midway Airport, said he categorically admits he has no proof whatever of sabotage.

[At that time, the Chicago Sun-Times was owned by Field Enterprises, owned by a combination of the Marshall Field Family and the Rockefellers.]

After the publication of that fraudulent story, when I next saw Donald Schwartz, I did not restrain myself. "Look, I am going to take my metal crutch and twist it around your neck, you lying crook." He just smiled and walked away.

On the other hand, the wireservice, Associated Press, to their credit, in a Chicago date-lined story stated that Chicago legal researcher Sherman Skolnick in a heavily-documented presentation of sabatoge has appeared before a re-opened hearing of the National Transportation Safety Board inquiring into the crash last December of a United Air Lines plane near Midway Airport, Chicago. This story ran on AP's "A" wire, their national and international wire. Guess what? Only ONE newspaper in the United States ran this story. A newspaper in Seattle, Washington. All the other press outlets, print, radio, and television ignored the AP's straight forward, factually correct story. All the rest of the monopoly press went with a combination of the false stories of the Tribune and the Sun-Times and the Hearst Publications.

Several news outlets overseas, however, did use the Associated Press story. Following up on that was Swedish National Television, their major network. They sent a film crew to Chicago and arranged to meet me in the crash site, right where several residences were destroyed by the pancaking Flight 553 coming down. They interviewed me again at a later date. It was made into a 90-minute documentary with me talking in English, and below my picture, Swedish subtitles. I became a volunteer, unpaid consultant to the project which was quite a sensation in parts of Europe.

In later years, a highly-skilled journalist, Tom Valentine, started and ran a magazine exposing the real stuff, called REEL-NEWS. It was successfully distributed, some 150 thousand copies each issue, at places like airports. Then they printed an issue with the usual press-run, about the story of the sabotage of Flight 553 with references to the specific technical details. By a strange combination of events, the magazine was blocked in the printer's warehouse and was not distributed. It became the death warrant of the magazine which then went under.

[Please note, a very skilled writer with a long background in aviation, Rodney Stich, has written and privately published a book, "The Unfriendly Skies" which details the incompetence and blundering of the airlines. He also has books of his documented work in exposing high level fraud in the government.]

The next part of this series will deal with the specific details of sabotage. Stay tuned. 

"THE SECRET HISTORY OF AIRPLANE SABOTAGE", Part Four 

by Sherman H. Skolnick 08/17/01

Several situations motivated the National Transportation Safety Board, N.T.S.B., to re-open their hearings into the crash of United Air Lines Flight 553. And to set two full days, June 13 and 14, 1973, for what we publicly called the crash of the Watergate Plane. My pending lawsuit in the local state court against the N.T.S.B., claiming air sabotage cover up, was arbitrarily removed to the federal court in Chicago.

The Rockefeller-owned United Air Lines knew that the Banker-Judges in Chicago U.S. District Court would not allow my lawsuit to be heard on the facts. A judicial cover-up. It was a reality understood by the Safety Board panel, made up primarily of those directly or through their immediate families, major owners of airline shares. And the unwritten policy of the airlines, and their substantial owners, is to block all public discussion of airplane sabotage, a secret and forbidden subject.

Another factor was the way I was informing the public, as best I could, through late-night radio talk shows and college and university speeches on the Watergate plane crash. And further, United Air Lines and the Safety Board had no prior knowledge that we had "liberated" the entire Safety Board original file of Flight 553.

I proceeded with my own testimony as to our investigation, with the Safety Board documents and pictures, together with our interviews including the presence at the re-opened hearings of eight eyewitnesses.

As stated earlier, #1 was THE PEOPLE. #2, THE AIRPLANE. To do a proper job in sabotaging a plane, an art and science in itself, is to know its weaknesses. This particular Boeing 737, N9031U, had chronic trouble in the month preceding the crash, with its Captain's altimeter and its air data computer---two of the most important instruments on the plane. [N.T.S.B. Docket SA-435, Exhibits 11A, 11B, 11C, maintenance data.] The Captain's altimeter {how far he is above ground level] MUST operate at 28 volts D.C. [Exhibit 9C, page 7.] An increase in amperage or voltage in the electrical system would cause the instruments to malfunction.

The plane was delayed in departure by about 10 to 15 minutes. [Later investigations and sources convinced us the tubes in the front of the plane, leading to the air speed indicator, were drilled out, to give false readings.] This was enough time for a skilled person to strip down the bus bar at a certain point and install a device [as was done] that shorts out UPON DESCENT of the plane [a sort of barometric controlled sabotage device]. In the last 15 minutes of Flight 553, circuit breakers began popping in the cockpit, causing the Flight Recorder, in the tail, the air data computer, and other instruments to short out and malfunction. The N.T.S.B. Transcripts of the sole surviving record, the tape of the Cockpit Voice Recorder, shows this from the Intra-Cockpit, inside the cockpit, discussion. [Exhibit 12A.]

The pilot had a prophetic name, Captain Whitehouse. By the way, he was one of the most skilled pilots at United, with a prior background in aviation air shows and precision flying.

Captain- "Sounds to me a circuit breaker, perhaps." 2nd Officer- "Huh?" [Unidentified voice, apparently unlawfully deleted by the FBI/DIA.] Capt.-"Yeah, I just meant, I thought you'd better check EVERYTHING, ah." (Emphasis added.) [N.T.S.B., Exhibit 12A, page 7 of Transcript.] The Cockpit Voice Recorder was found and removed by the FBI, first on the scene in the crash zone. Remember what the Chairman of the Safety Board told a Congressional Committee in Washington on the same day as the re-opening of the Safety Board hearings in Chicago---about the strange doings of the FBI in the crash zone. [See Part Two of this series.]

Flight 553 needed its instruments. Visibility was 1 to 2 miles. Ceiling varied from 400 to 600 feet. [Exhibit 5-K.] With some low clouds as low as 100 feet. As for the National Weather Service, their RUNWAY VISUAL RANGE RECORDER WAS TURNED OFF AND NOT WORKING. [Exhibit 5-K.]

A major radio navigational instrument is the airport outer marker, also called by the street name its on. The outer marker at Midway Airport is in the vicinity of 87th & Kedzie, and is called by some, the Kedzie localizer. THE MIDWAY AIRPORT OUTER MARKER STOPPED WORKING JUST AS FLIGHT 553 APPROACHED IT AND WENT BACK ON JUST AFTER FLIGHT 553 CRASHED.

Captain-"Is Kedzie localizer off, off the air, is that it?" 2nd Officer-"I beg your pardon." Captain-"Is Kedzie localizer off the air, there's an inbound on---ah---there's an inbound on 31---what's that? (referring to JET RUNWAY 31 LEFT, and a small propeller plane reportedly falsely steered right in front of 553 as it was preparing to land. The small plane was coming in right ahead of them on the same runway. Propeller planes are supposed to land on RUNWAY 31 RIGHT.) [N.T.S.B. Exhibit 12A, page 3.]

Captain's altimeter would NOT work below 3400 feet. [Exhibit 9C, page 8.] A retired aviation expert, with experience as a 4-motor bomber pilot and loads of control tower experience, as earlier stated, mysteriously was directed by his firm to be outside measuring a parking lot just at the same time Flight 553 was in-coming. That was William J. Simonini. At the re-opened hearings, he testified that he saw Flight 553 at about 450 feet near 73rd and Kedzie, TO THE FAR RIGHT OF THE OUTER MARKER. At the original Safety Board hearings in February, 1973, the Safety Board tried to conceal this data by improper questions of THEIR witness, Simonini. He later became OUR witness. [N.T.S.B. re-opened hearings, Simonini testimony, 6/13/73.] At the outer marker, Flight 553 was supposed to be at about 889 feet above the ground. [Exhibit 2J, Chart 11-2.]

SOME OF THE INTENTIONAL BLUNDERS ON THE GROUND. (a) In the last 15 minutes of Flight 553, its speed was erratic. [Exhibit 3-F.][Remember, we later found out about the sabotage of the tubes to the air speed indicator on Flight 553.] It was being watched by some of the most highly sophisticated radar equipment and computer in the world, at that time, ARTS III. Yet, although they claim they told him to slow down, after 21 sweeps of the radar he was still going 210 knots per hour. It was being watched by Chicago Approach Control, O'Hare Airport. (15 radar sweeps per minute.) (b) The approach controller later admitted he had forgotten to give 553 approach clearance. [Exhibit 3A, page 9.] The Flight 553 crew were led to believe they were in a holding pattern. [Exhibit 12A, page 9.]

(c) The Midway Tower steered a small propeller plane, Aero Commander N309VS, right in front of 553 as 553 was coming in for a landing. [Through later investigations, we uncovered a mystery. The pilot of that small propeller plane was a skilled pilot of a 4-motor plane. It was the same as finding out the Captain of the huge ship the "Queen Mary" was somehow now in charge of a two-man rowboat.] This doing by the Tower caused 553 to drastically close the gap between them and the small plane. That small plane, to screw up 553, dropped a blizzard of thin metal chaff right in front of 553.]

(d) They stopped watching 553 from O'Hare TOO SOON (called a premature hand-off). At the time, Midway did not have precision radar. [Exhibit 3C, page 13.] This violated O'Hare-Midway Letter of Agreement. [Exhibit 3G, page 3, paragraph 4.]

(e) They did not tell 553 that their plane was too far right of the Midway outer marker, a dangerous situation.

(f) In violation of regulations, they were working two planes for the SAME runway at the same time, Flight 553 and the Aero Commander.

(g) Although there was only about a 6 mile an hour wind, they told 553 to go to JET RUNWAY 31 LEFT, HAVING NO GLIDESLOPE, an important navigational aid giving altitude and azimuth. [Intra-Cockpit Voice discussion, Exhibit 12A, page 13.] Runway 13R, the other end, has glideslope.

(h) Within a few seconds, Midway told a different thing to O'Hare than it did to Flight 553. [Exhibit 12A, page 13,compared to Transcriptions of Chicago Approach Control, Exhibit 3C, page 14.]

OTHER INTENTIONAL BLUNDERS AND SABOTAGE. The Air Traffic Controllers paid no attention to the fact that 553 had too much velocity and was on too fast of a descent, and was far off-course. With circuit breakers clicking [from the barometrically-triggered sabotage devices], and instruments malfunctioning, the cockpit crew of 553 tried to switch to standby power. [As shown by comparing Intra-Cockpit discussion, Exhibit 12A, pages 10-11, with B-737 Flight Manual language, Exhibit 2F, page 4E.] ELEVEN WITNESSES ON THE GROUND SAID FLIGHT 553 HAD NO LIGHTS. [Exhibit 4B, statements of witnesses.] Also, eyewitness testimony of Simonini.

In the first five minutes and last five minutes of flight, the pilot is supposed to be flying the plane. BUT, in the last few minutes before the crash, the co-pilot (1st Officer) and the 2nd Officer were flying. This supports our contention that the pilot was dead or disabled, such as from cyanide poisoning. [See later discussion as to high-level of CYANIDE, such as in bodies of some of the Watergate 12. We also interviewed the former head of a laboratory that made devices for the CIA, to go off in the cockpit of planes, and causing cyanide to disable those in the cockpit. He said that although he thought he was supplying these devices to be used against Eastern Bloc "Enemy" civilian airplanes, he heard that some of his devices were used domestically, in the U.S.] Also, to be compared as to pilot at beginning and end of flight, there is a comparison between the Intra-Cockpit Discussion [Exhibit 12A, pages 13-15] with the Flight Manual challenge-respond language [Exhibit 2F, page 41.]

Eyewitness William J. Simonini, a retired aviation expert, said how the FBI was tormenting him ever since they found out he saw the Watergate plane shortly before it crashed. He said the FBI was tormenting him in various ways, day and night. AND, that they arranged to frame-up and jail two of his sons to cause him further anguish.

As a result of the Watergate Affair, Nixon White House aide Chuck Colson was sent to prison. After getting out, he said he is a new person and devoted to promoting good deeds. He spoke at a meeting in Chicago. Afterwards, I interviewed him.

Skolnick-"What happened to Mrs. E. Howard Hunt, wife of the Watergate burglar?"

Colson-"She was murdered by the FBI and the CIA."

Skolnick-"Can you tell us more? Having been in the Nixon White House you seem to know a lot."

Colson "I have already said too much."

Did some of the Watergate 12 actually survive the pancaked plane but were murdered on the ground? And what happened to Mrs. Hunt's luggage for which she bought another first class seat ticket? The crash of Flight 553 and what happened on the ground were clearly overkill directed against the Watergate figures among the onboard passengers.

Correction Earlier in this series,on some websites, through a typo, Channel 2 TV was incorrectly identified. It is WBBM-TV, Chicago.

More coming. Stay tuned. 

CARTER, REAGAN, BUSH, CLINTON, BUSH, AND BCCI

The BCCI affair

CARTER, REAGAN, BUSH, 
CLINTON, BUSH, AND BCCI

THE GREATEST FINANCIAL scandal in history -- the BCCI affair -- left American participants virtually untouched. The media covered the scandal poorly even though, according to one investigative journalist, up to a hundred Washington politicians and lawyers might have been criminally liable.

As a result -- much like Clinton and the Dixie Mafia -- Americans have but the vaguest notion of what happened. In fact, the two stories overlap. And like many contemporary sagas of corruption, the two stories reached deep into both the major parties. In fact, if George W. Bush is elected, we will be entering our fifth consecutive presidential administration (two Democratic and three Republican) with direct ties to leading figures in the biggest financial scandal of all time.

This time line suggests some of the interplay of individuals and parties:

1975
National Bank of Georgia president Bert Lance, whom former Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter described as being like a brother and was Carter's chosen but defeated successor, meets with Jackson Stephens, a Naval Academy classmate of Carter. Stephens Inc. arranges public offering of NBG stock. Stephens would later be described by the New York Post as the man who was to "Clinton what Bert Lance was to candidate Jimmy Carter."

1976
Both Stephens and Lance help Carter in his race for the White House. Carter uses the NBG corporate plane without disclosing it. Campaign is later fined.

Two Indonesian billionaires come to Arkansas. Mochtar Riady and Liem Sioe Liong are close to Suharto. Riady is looking for an American bank to buy. Riady's agent is Jackson Stephens.

1977
Lance comes to Washington as director of the Office of Management and Budget. He quickly comes under investigation for his past financial dealings and in September resigns. His lawyer is Clark Clifford, later embroiled in the BCCI case.

1978
Hillary Clinton, the Arkansas governor's wife, is getting considerable business from Stephens Inc.

George W. Bush begins operations of his oil firm, Arbusto Energy. He assembles several dozen investors in a limited partnership including Dorothy Bush (a friend of BCCI figure Robert Altman), Lewis Lehrman, William Draper, and James Bath, a Houston aircraft broker who bought several planes from Air America, a CIA front. Bath's firm appears to be owned by Saudi investors. He also was a part-owner of a Houston's Main Bank, along with a couple of BCCI figures.

Stephens brokers the arrival of BCCI to this country, and steers BCCI's founder, Hassan Abedi to Bert Lance.

Stephens Inc tries to sell Riady stock in the National Bank of Georgia. The Washington Post quotes a US banker suggesting that Riady is working for Suharto, who is trying to butter up Carter: "They think of this country like a 'regime' similar to their own and they just don't realize that such a ploy wouldn't work." There's no deal. Lance's bank will eventually be taken over by a BCCI front man -- Ghaith Pharaon. Pharaon later sells his bank to First American. Pharaon will be fined $37 million by the Federal Reserve Board and become a fugitive. 

Abedi moves to secretly take over First American Bankshares -- later the subject of the only BCCI-connected scandal to be prosecuted in the US.

1979
Mochtar Riady and Stephens Inc set up Stephens Finance Ltd. In Hong Kong.

Lance is indicted on charges of violating federal banking laws. Clifford's partner, Robert Altman, represents Lance who eventually achieves a hung jury.

During this same period, Stephens is, according to Peter Truell and Larry Gurwin in "False Profits," playing "a crucial role in BCCI's penetration of the US market."

1984
Mochtar Riady buys a stake in the Worthen holding company whose assets include the Stephens-controlled Worthen Bank. Price: $16 million. Other Worthen co-owners will eventually include BCCI investor Abdullah Taha Bakhish. Deal handled by C. Joseph Giroir II. Giroir is the Rose law firm chair who hired Hillary Clinton. Giroir will continue to be a deal-maker for the Riadys.

1985
Arkansas state pension funds -- deposited in Worthen by Governor Bill Clinton -- suddenly lose 15% of their value because of the failure of high risk, short-term investments and the brokerage firm that bought them. The $52 million loss is covered by a Worthen check written by Jack Stephens in the middle of the night, an insurance policy, and the subsequent purchase over the next few months of 40% of the bank by Mochtar Riady. Clinton and Worthen escape a major scandal. Mochtar's son James comes back to Arkansas to manage Worthen as president.

Worthen is investigated by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency for improper loans to companies owned by the Riadys and Stephenses.

1986
George W. Bush and partners receive more than $2 million of Harken Energy stock in exchange for a failing oil well operation, which has lost $400,000 in the prior six months. After Bush joins Harken, the largest stock position and a seat on its board is acquired by Harvard Management Company. The Harken board gives Bush $600,000 worth of the company's publicly traded stock, plus a seat on the board plus a consultancy that pays him up to $120,000 a year. When Harken runs short of cash it hooks up with Jackson Stephens, who arranges a $25 million stock purchase by Union Bank of Switzerland. Sheik Abdullah Bakhsh, who joins the board as a part of the deal, is connected to BCCI.

1988
Stephens' wife Mary Ann runs George Bush's campaign in Arkansas. He is a member of Team 100 -- individuals who have given $100,000 to the Republican party.

A few days before the supposedly surprise arrest of five BCCI officials, some of the world's most powerful drug dealers quietly withdraw millions of dollars from the bank. Some government investigators believe the dealers were tipped off by sources within the Reagan administration.

1989
Bahrain officials suddenly break off offshore drilling negotiations with Amoco and decide to deal with Harken Energy, George W. Bush's firm. Harken has had a series of failed ventures and no cash, so the Bass brothers are brought in to finance Harken's efforts at a cost of $50 million. Harken's investment banker is the same firm that helped in BCCI's acquisition of First American. Among the other BCCI-connected figures that help the deal: Bahrain's prime minister.

1990
Bush's attorney general, Richard Thornberg, is warned about BCCI but does nothing.

1991
Stephens Inc gives $100,000 to a Bush dinner committee.

With Stephens, Mochtar Riady buys BCCI's former Hong Kong subsidiary from its liquidators.

A former top aide to White House Chief of Staff John Sununu goes to work for a prominent figure in the BCCI scandal less than a month after leaving the Bush administration. Edward Rogers Jr. signs a $600,000 contract to give legal advice to Sheik Kamal Adham, an ex-Saudi intelligence officer who is being investigated for his role in BCCI's takeover of First American Bankshares.

The Miami acting US Attorney is reportedly rebuffed by the Justice Department in his efforts to indict BCCI and some of its principal officers on tax fraud charges. Justice Department later denies this occurred.

1992
Ronald Reagan is introduced at the GOP convention by former senator Paul Laxalt, whose law firm represented BCCI in a drug money case. The chair of the convention, Craig Fuller, has been the number two official of Hill & Knowlton which was involved in the BCCI-First American case. Bush's campaign press representatives has done PR for a Saudi sheik accused of involvement in the BCCI affair, earning $200,000 in fees in just two months.

Employees of Stephens Inc. give more money to the Clinton campaign than those of any other firm except Goldman, Sachs and the NY law firm of Wilke, Farr & Gallagher.

Stephens' Worthen Bank gives Clinton a $3.5 million line of credit allowing the cash-strapped candidate to finish the primaries. Little Rock Worldwide Travel provides Clinton with $1 million in deferred billing for his campaign trips. Without the Worthen and Worldwide largess, it is unlikely that the cash-strapped candidate could have survived through the later primaries.

1995
Webster Hubbell, a former Rose law firm partner -- although not known for skill in Asian trade matters -- goes to work for a Lippo Group affiliate after being forced out of the Clinton administration and before going to jail. Hubbell represented both Worthen and James Riady during the 1980s.

1998
With the settlement of civil fraud charges against Clark Clifford and Robert Altman, the puny and often diverted investigation into the American branch of the BCCI scandal effectively comes to an end. Under the deal, the pair will have to surrender $5 million in stock in First American Bankshares, which had been illegally controlled by BCCI. They will, however, get to keep $10-15 million in proceeds obtained during their tenure as First American attorneys.

*****

The BCCI scandal cheated depositors out of over $10 billion worldwide. Many of these were lower income people now being paid off at 15 and 25 cents on the dollar for damage done by a illegal operation willingly used not only by hundreds of drug dealers and other criminals from various countries but by the intelligence services of five nations (including the CIA) and at least one government, Pakistan, seeking to finance its nuclear weapons development.

Things always moved a little too smoothly in the BCCI investigation, leaving scores of unanswered questions and, so far as can be determined, hardly anyone to blame. One exception, Swaleh Naqvi, BCCI's number two man, was given a mild sentence -- over the objections of Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau. He later told prosecutors that he had never explained to Altman and Clifford who really owned First American.

Naqvi's plea bargain with Justice appeared to have been what the Wall Street Journal called "sweetheart justice." Said the Journal: "When drugs and money laundering arrive, political corruption cannot be far behind. If we had an explanation of how BCCI got away with its illegal purchase of First American, we could afford to dismiss such ambiguous connections as lawyer-client relationships. But we have no such answer, and are left to speculate why, in the Naqvi plea-bargain, the Justice Department does not seem to be pressing for one."

The American media has studiously downplayed the story to the end. The New York Times, for example, put the Altman-Clifford settlement on its business page.

But while the story has disappeared not all the characters connected to this saga have. One, for example, is still president and another is ahead in the polls.

[The best book on the BCCI scandal is False Profits]

http://prorev.com/bush2.htm#bcci