GRAND JURY PROBES FOSTER DEATH Kenneth Starr, the independent counsel appointed last July to investigate Whitewater and related matters, has reopened the investigation of the death of former White House deputy counsel Vincent Foster. Foster was found dead in a park on the banks of the Potomac with a gunshot wound in his head a year ago last July. The investigation was left to the inexperienced Park Police. Finding a revolver in Foster's right hand, they jumped to the conclusion that he had shot himself. Their "investigation" was guided by that assumption.
Investigative reporter Chris Ruddy challenged the Park Police finding that Foster shot himself in Fort Marcy, a little-known Civil War fort whose main attraction was two Civil War cannons. Ruddy found that some of the rescue personnel who were sent to the park to find the body were struck by how little blood there was and by the fact that the body was laid out as if it was in a coffin. The fact that the gun was still in Foster's hand was actually more ground for suspicion than proof of suicide, since the gun usually flies out of the hand when a person shoots himself.
Two rescue workers told Ruddy they found Foster's body 10 to 20 yards from the cannon nearest to the parking lot. But when the Park Police report was finally made public last July, it said officer Kevin Fornshill had found the body about a hundred yards further north, about five yards in front of the second cannon. The rescue workers, who had been ordered not to talk to the media after Ruddy's stories appeared in The New York Post, changed their story to agree with the Park Police Report.
But Dr. Donald Haut, the medical examiner who had been summoned to the scene to declare Foster dead and authorize the movement of his body, told us that it was lying near the first cannon, just where the rescue personnel had said originally. He drew a very precise map showing the location. He said he had never seen the second cannon. He could not have missed it had the body been where Officer Fornshill claimed it was.
It appears that the independent counsel is looking into these discrepancies. The rescue workers were summoned to give their testimony under oath before a grand jury and then Officer Fornshill and other Park Police personnel were called to testify. Fornshill, who was at the crime scene for about 30 minutes was grilled for five hours. His attorney protested the aggressive questioning.
Press reports said these personnel were being questioned about a briefcase that two rescue workers claimed they saw in Foster's car. The police deny there was a briefcase. After his first interrogation, Fornshill was overheard telling a juror that he would bring a map with him when he returned the next day. That suggests that he was being questioned about the location of the body. We don't know why the police would falsify that, but if they did, the next step will be to find out who ordered them to do it and why.....
Although both the Park Police and Robert Fiske, the independent counsel that Starr replaced, ruled Foster's death to be a suicide, serious unanswered questions remain.
The earlier investigations did not require witnesses to testify under oath before a grand jury. Some witnesses, such as Foster's secretary, were questioned in the presence of their superiors, a circumstance that could discourage honest answers. Mrs. Foster wasn't questioned until nine days after her husband s death. In those nine days the explanation for his suicide underwent a dramatic change.
For the first five days, all the family, friends and co-workers were reported to be mystified as to why Foster would kill himself. Then the word was put out that Foster was depressed and that this explained his suicide. Mrs. Foster, who reportedly had called the White House several times seeking some explanation for her husband's action, fell into line. It was depression brought on by Travelgate and three critical editorials in The Wall Street Journal.
The establishment media accepted this without question. They ignored the unanswered questions that remained after the Fiske Report declared the case closed. They wouldn't even report their existence, much less try to find the answers. Word that Kenneth Star was reopening the investigation should have been big news. The Associated Press put a good story on the wire, but The New York Times used only 64 of the AP's 750 words. Instead of reporting the news provided by the AP, the Times loaded the story with a description of the conclusions reached by Starr's predecessor. It then said, "There is no indication that Starr's conclusions would be any different than those reached by the earlier inquiries".
The Times has not yet told its readers that the prosecutor grilled Kevin Fornshill, the officer who claimed to have discovered Foster's body, for five hours. It has not reported that Fornshill's attorney and Park Police officials were so upset by the aggressive questioning that they lodged a protest and sought assurances that the police were not a target of the investigation. This is probably related to the conflict between the police report on where the body was found and the reports of medical and rescue personnel that placed it at an entirely different spot about a hundred yards away.
Finally, New York Times readers got a hint of what is going on from William Safire's column of January 23 in which he said: "Starr is apparently not taking the suicide theory as gospel; Park Police witnesses have been complaining about the severity of their examination by prosecutor Miguel Rodriguez before a grand jury. No bullet or skull fragments were found, suggesting the body may have been moved. If Starr finds that the Park Police falsified the location of Foster's body, he will have exposed obstruction of justice that will make Watergate look pale by comparison."