The primary readers for whom this report was written are the Members of the US Congress, particularly the Senators on the Special Whitewater Committee (see the transmittal letter to Chairman D'Amato). The author believes that an open and unfettered inquiry into the death of Vince Foster should be made by the Senate due to the constraints placed on prior investigations such as those undertaken by the US Park Police and the Office of Independent Counsel under Robert Fiske (constraints that the author believes must have existed, given the content of the record).
The report is written with that "official" goal in mind. Convincing the Senators on the Special Whitewater Committee (or the Representatives on the House Banking Committee) to conduct such an inquiry is going to be difficult for a variety of reasons that will not be discussed here, but, like anything else, "all you can do is give it your best shot." Wide knowledge of the contents of the of the official record of the Foster death investigations (contained in the Hearings Volumes) should, if acted upon by a sufficient number of individuals, may produce results.
Length Of This Report
This report, analyzing the 1994 Senate Report and Hearings Volumes concerning the death of Vince Foster that were released in January 1995, is by no means a short one, but it does selectively summarize and comment upon the entire 2726 pages in the official public record of the 1994 Senate Hearings in about one-sixteenth the number of pages that comprise the record.
Caveats: After reading this report, the author would suggest that readers consider carefully whether the author better belongs in the category of those who "know nothing and say all" or those who "know all and say nothing."
In the author's opinion, although the evidence in this report permits readers to cut through one "layer of the onion" surrounding the death of Vince Foster, there are at least two more layers yet to be pierced. This report, linked as tightly as it intentionally is to the official record, can take its readers only so far.
More tears will be shed, whether more "layers of onion" are pierced or not. The concepts "defense-in-depth" and "modified limited hang-out" also spring to mind. NaivetŽ is not a concept the author espouses, notwithstanding the contents of the official Reports concerning the death of Vince Foster.
The Privacy Concerns Of Non-Government Witnesses
The Senate volumes released to the public include the names (and sometimes the Social Security numbers, work & home phone numbers, and work & home addresses) of many of the civilian witnesses. The author has suppressed this information in order to respect their privacy, instead referring to these individual witnesses without mentioning their names or otherwise effectively identifying them (for example, "the couple in the white Nissan with MD plates," and so on).
The Record
All references in this report to "the record" are to the three Senate volumes listed on the title page. References to the "Reports" constitute a collective reference to the US Park Police Report, the Fiske Report, and the 1994 Senate Whitewater Hearings Report Volume. The Reports are a part of the record. Individual reports are cited by name.
Persons familiar with the record (rare though they may be!) and interested in amplification of the points raised in the Executive Summary should focus on the italicized analyses below and refer to the expositive plain text material in this report only when necessary.
Times In The Record
The times given in the record are sometimes witness estimates and sometimes quite precise, such as those generated by computer-driven chronological logging systems. The times in the record often are internally inconsistent. The author is aware that the times encountered in these situations are sometimes mere estimates since people are involved with doing, not taking notes and looking at their watches, especially in the early, more fluid, phases of some sort of an investigation.
As with other investigative issues, the author will make points from time to time about the times events occur if the consensus in the Reports is materially different from what the author believes the consensus should be, based on a careful reading of the raw evidence in the record. If the times provided in this report seem confusing, the author hopes that the blame can be shared with the record, because it is difficult to decipher at times! The times events occur are critical to understanding the events on July 20th, so readers should be particularly careful to challenge any estimates or conclusions of the author (or the Reports!) as they see fit regarding the time events are alleged to have occurred.
Citations To The Record
Citations in this report are to page numbers of the two 1994 Senate Whitewater Hearings Volumes [S. Hrg. 103-889, Volumes I & II] and of the 1994 Report Volume [Rept. 103-433, Volume I]. These three volumes constitute "the record." Relatively rare citations to page numbers in the Senate Report are identified by a leading "R". All times in the body of this report are Eastern Daylight Time and use a 24-hour clock (unless, of course, a time is part of a quotation). Although multiple cites to the same specific subject matter are often given, no systematic attempt has been made to provide every such citation to the record in a particular case.
Emphasis Supplied
Quite often in a quotation an author wants to emphasize a portion of the remark being quoted. To accomplish this, those words are sometimes in boldface type like this. A normal convention is to place within brackets [ ] the words "emphasis supplied" so that readers will know that the words being quoted were not in boldface in the original material.
In order to save himself the trouble of typing "[emphasis supplied]" dozens of times, this author is putting the reader on notice that he has entered in boldface all such words within quotation marks in this report.
Boldfaced material that is not in quotation marks is simply text written by the author that he wishes to stand out. Italicized words identify material that is primarily of an analytical, rather than expositive, nature (cites to the record are also a part of the italicized analysis where appropriate).
Sometimes, in a frenzy of attention-seeking, the author will both boldface and italicize analytical material that he thinks is particularly noteworthy. [Like many amateur report-writers who survived grammar school before the advent of word processing software and PCs, your author is somewhat font-happy. Though not apparent, restraint was exercised].
Use of Headings and Sub-headings
Each Comment is prefaced by a short underscored sub-heading arranged in approximate chronological order under a large boldfaced heading. Voluminous citations are provided in the Comments to the appropriate page number(s) of the record.
This approach permits an efficient review of the report in conjunction with the Hearings and Report Volumes themselves and allows the reader to see how intimately the expositive material in this report is in fact linked to the record.
Repetition
A certain amount of repetition is necessary in this report to tie together the various factual threads. For example a reader, interested in learning about the activity of Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department and US Park Police personnel near the body immediately after it was discovered, and another reader, curious about the precise location of the body at Fort Marcy Park, will both need to know some of the same information.
Although the author would prefer that all readers study this report with the care with which he believes it was written, he expects that many users will initially just read the Executive Summary and then skim the rest of the report for individual topics that attract their eye, rather than study the report carefully (that assessment might be optimistic!). A certain amount of repetition across Comments, including the titles of officials, is therefore necessary in order to be fair to the former group, so the indulgence of serious readers is requested.
Government Agencies Present At Fort Marcy Park
The two primary agencies present at Fort Marcy Park, per the record, are represented by 1) the uniformed and plainclothes officers of the US Park Police and 2) by personnel from the Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department (The FCFRD includes both firefighters and emergency medical services workers employed by Fairfax County, Virginia).
Although the fire-fighters and the emergency medical services personnel are all employees of the FCFRD, persons operating fire-fighting vehicles are sometimes identified in this report as FCFRD workers, as in "FCFRD Smith," and persons operating emergency medical service vehicles and providing emergency medical services are often identified as EMS, as in "EMS Jones," in an attempt to make the reader more aware of their roles late on the afternoon of July 20, 1993, when Mr. Foster's body was found at Fort Marcy (persons operating fire equipment also often have some EMS training).
If readers become confused about who is who, they should refer to the Table of Principal Persons in Appendix VII.
The Purpose Of This Report
Like all tools, this report has at least one purpose. The author, of course, would like the report to be the "Swiss Army Knife" of Foster reports analyzing the 1994 Senate Whitewater Hearings documents. Like a Swiss Army knife, folded within this report are many "devices" intended to make it "all purpose," at least within the limitations imposed by basing this report only on the official record.
The primary purpose of this report, drawn almost exclusively as it is from documents published by the US Senate (the major exceptions: the publicly available data in Appendix I, Homes Nearest Mr. Foster's Body and the three maps in Appendix II), is to delineate what the author believes are material errors, inconsistencies, omissions, and curiosa latent in the record waiting for all to discover (assuming everyone had the inclination and the time to study the 2726 pages).
The primary audience is intended, as stated previously, to be the members of the "Special Whitewater Committee" of the US Senate. The secondary audience is intended to be the Members of The House Banking Committee (and certain officials within the Executive Branch).
This report is also designed for the use of anyone who has been at least mildly curious about the "official facts" surrounding the death of Vince Foster. Use it to learn more about his death. Take the information herein and build on it intelligently. This report is intentionally subtle at times. In general, it adapts a "lead the horse to water" approach in the hope that readers will, as a result, read this report with care.
Many individuals have strong feelings that the death of Vince Foster was just a "simple" suicide. Others believe it was something else and (unlike the author) also claim to know the "ultimate" reason for his death. Sadly, in many instances members of both groups have relatively little knowledge of the raw data in the record itself. Analyses aside, one function of this report is to extract (and cite) information from the record and present it in more usable form.
The final potential audience for this report are those (apparently the great majority, if one believes the mainstream media) who believe that the prior official investigations demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Foster died by his own hand at the spot where he was found in Fort Marcy Park and that anyone with the temerity even to question the official consensus is by definition totally incorrect and either 1) deranged or otherwise suffering from some sort of mental impairment or 2) a political nut case.
The author believes that no one reading this report with an open mind (even if some of the analytical material in italics below is rejected) will come away thinking that the record brooks nothing less than a substantial uncertainty that the death was a suicide committed a few feet in front of the barrel of the second cannon at Fort Marcy. The author may be foolish to think that his readers will decide the official Reports are indeed fatally flawed, but he is an optimist at heart.
Relevant Data Not Yet Available To The Author (Or To Any Other Private Party)
The author states that he has had no access to the wealth of information that has presumably been developed by various official entities involved with the Foster death investigation and simply not yet released to the public (though the second anniversary of the death has arrived).
The author expects that some, if not most, of the issues raised below could be resolved (albeit at great political cost to the two current major political parties) by public access to this as yet unreleased material. Unreleased materials, of which the author is aware, are listed in the transmittal letter to Senator D'Amato.
Performance of Officials
Should any of the basic expositive material or analyses in this report appear to impugn the professional reputation or performance of any public official, it is the explicit and implicit position of the author that shortcomings, if any, can be accounted for and reconciled only by a thorough understanding of the de facto chain-of-command and the broader context of the events surrounding the death of Vince Foster.
The present record does not provide this context. This is one of its greatest failures: the unjust and incomplete treatment of the Fairfax County Fire & Rescue Department and US Park Police personnel (particularly the latter) who responded to the scene so quickly after 911 was dialed.
The author believes that the US Park Police, the Fairfax County Fire & Rescue Department, and other Fairfax County personnel who are discussed in this report were adequately trained for their duties and made an effort to perform those duties under what rapidly became extremely trying circumstances (for a variety of reasons that are not mentioned in the record).
The author believes the underlying reason that so many errors, omissions, inconsistencies, and curiosa are latent in the record can not be laid at the feet of the US Park Police, the Fairfax County Fire & Rescue Department, or other Fairfax County personnel. The author believes the reason can only be discovered by looking elsewhere. Now is the time to do so.
Every Potential Issue Re The Death of Vince Foster Is Not Addressed Herein
Although numerous issues are the subject of Comments below, they were selected by the author and no attempt has been made to raise every potential issue submerged in the record. Additional releases of the report may well introduce other issues drawn from the official record. As described above, this report in general adopts a "lead the horse to water approach" and to that extent is "optimized" use by thirsty horses.
The author hopes that at least a few of this report's addressees will realize they "could really use a drink!"
If the author had had access to a sophisticated relational database, an optical scanner, and a high-end workstation, he is certain that this report would be both somewhat longer and certainly more unsettling than it already is. Perhaps this procedure will be adopted for both the 1994 and 1995 Senate Hearings documents when the latter documents are officially released.
With very limited exceptions, no background information external to the Senate Volumes is assumed that cannot be gleaned from a so-called US "newspaper of record" (The Table of Homes Nearest Mr. Foster's Body in Appendix I contains straightforward, publicly-available, geographical and property ownership data, not in the record, that was gathered by the author, as do the maps in Appendix II).
Reasonable People Do Not Always Agree.
This is a truism for the author but, sadly, a concept rejected by many of those on both sides of the debate who have chosen to comment openly upon the death of Vince Foster ("A simple suicide, the man was obviously clinically depressed" versus "This was a suspicious death, something is not right").
All of us should remember that reasonable people make different evaluations constantly. Everyone will not give the same factors the same weight for many reasons, but it is not therefore legitimate to infer that a particular individual is unreasonable per se. Regrettably, there is too much of this sort of thing going on in our country today.
A simple example shows how common it is for reasonable people to differ: if everyone valued a product and its sales price equally, no markets of any kind would exist. The person selling some bread for $3 values the $3 he will receive more than the bread he will give up. The person purchasing the bread values the bread he will receive more than the $3 he will have to part with. We do not make a habit of condemning bread-purchasers and bread-sellers as money-grubbing nut cases or bread-crazed fanatics (and for good reason).
A few potential Comments were omitted because the author considered them too peripheral. Some other potential Comments were deleted during the editing process because the author considered them too controversial -- that is, the author believed they were inappropriately speculative (one of those value judgments), given the nature and extent of the data in the record (another value judgment) supporting the particular hypothesis.
The reader is again cautioned that reasonable people constantly differ when it comes to making such judgment calls. All of us learn from experience, ideally with objective reality as our constant coach.
As indicated above, a few of the analyses in this report may appear to be something of a "stretch," but were retained because the author believed they remained within the "reasonable range" and constituted the best explanation the author could produce, given the data in the record. The people who enjoy being branded a "kook" are few and far between, and the author is no exception!
No Attempt Is Made Here To Discover The "Real" Reason For Mr. Foster's Death
The author has intentionally not attempted to divine the "real" or "ultimate" reason for Vince Foster's death in this report. There are many theories out-and-about in the land, the great majority of which the author considers too bizarre for words.
For this reason, the author has concentrated here on reporting and analyzing the officially true and genuine material contained in the record published by the United States Senate. The author does not rule out one or more sequels, however.
The Analyses In This Report -- Active Involvement Of The Reader's Mind Is Sought
The great majority of the analyses in this report is quite straightforward and the author expects most readers will readily agree with much that is in the italicized analytical statements within the Comments below without finding them particularly controversial (although, of course, the mere discovery that many material inconsistencies and apparent errors in the record exist will come as a shocking surprise to almost everyone reading this report).
Other analyses in this report are less straightforward and doubtless will be more controversial. These analyses usually involve the author's attempt to reconcile a complex set of conflicting data in the record by putting forward one or more hypotheses that the author believes have good potential to contribute to a better understanding of the events in and near Fort Marcy Park on July 20, 1993.
Reasonable people will differ. In fact, any effort to fashion a realistic acceptance of the conflicts and ambiguities within the particular record released by the US Senate virtually ensures that different reasonable interpretations of the events described therein will exist. In this context, otherwise reasonable people would be unreasonable if they did not differ! The author endorses further investigation to reduce the substantial uncertainties he believes the current record fosters.
The first rule of any investigation is a healthy intellectual skepticism coupled with an emotional appreciation that when you probe the unknown, by definition, you do not know what you will find. There is a widespread tendency today, when probing the unknown, to decide up-front what will be discovered and then examine the evidence only for data that support one's a priori conclusion. This attitude makes for bad science, defective engineering, naive public policies, and irresponsible journalism. In the author's opinion, the Reports of the Foster death investigations are guilty of this particular sin against logic, as well as other contemporary philosophical failings.
For this reason, notwithstanding the statements in the official Reports, there is strong evidence in the record that Vince Foster's death was considered a suicide from the get-go and evidence was gathered, analyzed, and, in some cases, ignored with a view toward supporting the "suicide verdict."
Since there is no reason to believe the officials involved 1) lacked the requisite intelligence or 2) did not have the fundamental substantive knowledge critical to carry out their duties, the author believes the reason the record contains as many material errors, omissions, inconsistencies, and curiosa must lie elsewhere.
The author is the first to admit that some readers may find some of the analyses herein to be less than totally convincing. Why? Reasonable people can differ!
Readers are welcomed to construct hypotheses of their own that more clearly reconcile the raw data in the record in a less-controversial or non-controversial manner whenever they balk at a particular interpretation proffered by the author. Perhaps our government can help us with this effort if it so chooses.
If a novel and substantial "breakthrough" in understanding is achieved by any reader, please let the author know what has been discovered. Obviously, the same request is made if any reader finds an error was made when the author extracted any of the contents of this report from the record!
Before getting into the body of this report, the reader should ask "What variety and volume of irregularities in a death investigation would cause me to question its conclusions?" After finishing this report, the reader should decide if such irregularities were present in the Foster death investigations conducted to date.
Those who insist the conclusions in the official Foster Reports must be correct, because of the large number of co-conspirators required by any other theory, miss the point. In the author's opinion, this report contains overwhelming evidence that major differences in witness statements exist! Those providing information to the investigation often differ in fundamental ways from the consensus officially reported to the public in the Reports.
The author questions the results of the Foster death investigations to date, not because the detailed information provided by witnesses demonstrates such a clear-cut consensus that the conclusions reached could have been achieved only via a conspiracy of silence, but precisely because the record is so extremely inconsistent that it bespeaks the fundamental rejection of a monolithic conspiracy, not the creation of one.
At Bottom, A Detective Story
Putting aside the extremely significant human and, in the author's opinion, political, tragedy that the death of Vince Foster represents for a moment, please remember that the record contains the raw data of any good detective story. The body of this report first provides background information concerning events in the final weeks of Vince Foster's life. Next, the pace picks up considerably when the body is found at Fort Marcy and evidence concerning the death is described.
Some mysteries within the overall story are more easily solved than others. Examining the data with an open mind and striving to construct workable hypotheses that have real explanatory value is the essence of all detective work. The data is in this report. Readers are invited to give it "their best shot," too. In return, the author guarantees that this report contains subtleties that will reward discerning readers. Generally, the trend has been to make each subsequent release of this report less subtle, but careful readers should continue to reap the benefits of being "led to water" as opposed to being "made to drink."
This report provides a huge amount of "worm's-eye level" evidence straight from the record, but it has been organized in a way that is much easier for the reader to cope with, while providing voluminous citations directly to the record. The author would not wish multiple readings of the undigested evidence in the Hearings Volumes upon anyone, having done that (and more) himself!
Oops!
Given its length, the author would be astounded if there are not a few factual errors remaining herein (all made in good faith). The reader is cautioned not to allow a factual error or a given analysis that the reader believes is a "stretch" ipso facto to taint either the rest of the analyses or the routine expositive information in this report. The author assembled and wrote this report in the evenings over 4-5 weeks, staying up until one and two AM (running on hot showers and cold lemonade) after handling the requirements of his day job, so modest mistakes of some kind are virtually guaranteed!
Along these lines, the author is not exactly a fantastic typist (excuse me, keyboarder), so there are going to be some typos and similar mistakes made in this report that the author and his loyal spell-checking software did not catch.
Subsequent releases of this report will strive to eliminate any remaining typos and grammatical errors and generally to improve the readability of this report while also adding new substantive material. If were the author a superb proofreader, this entire Comment could have been eliminated!
A Gift
This report on the death of Vince Foster unlike other non-governmental efforts, in books, newsletters, or on video tapes, is a gift, at least to its official readers, to many of those in the media and to a few unofficial readers. Some readers obtained the report for the cost of duplicating and shipping it simply because the author could not afford to duplicate and ship a copy to everyone who wanted the report (paying for 200 of these reports to date was painful enough!).
As the reader will remember from the letter transmitting this report to Chairman D'Amato, the author has significant personal reasons why he would like to discover the truth about the death of Vince Foster. There's more to it than that, though, also per the transmittal letter. "Truth, Justice, and the American Way." Remember them? It's not baseball: one-hit-in-three-at-bats is not a decent average.
Supplemental Printings
The author found the first printing of this report, dated July 20, 1995 (the second anniversary of Mr. Foster's death) to be useful in an "up-by-your-own-bootstraps" manner when he reread the first print himself. For that reason, and due to the volume of material in the record, the author intends to update this report from time-to-time, in an attempt to improve the grammar and the writing style, decrease the number of spelling errors, and to add substantive material and additional references to the record that are useful in understanding the death of Mr. Foster.
On the occasions when a new print is released, the supplemental print number will appear on the Title Page and in the Summary Table of Contents. A printing history will appear in this Comment. This release is the fourth supplemental printing [S-03] dated October 8, 1995. The prior formal release, dated August 31, 1995, was the second supplemental release and that dated July 31, 1995, was the first supplement. The release dated July 20, 1995, was the original print.
The third release, dated September 30, 1995, was triggered by rumors that Reporter Chris Ruddy (and others?) would be the subject of a so-called "take-out" piece on an October segment of "60 Minutes." Chris Ruddy (and others) are the author's co-belligerents vis ˆ vis the death of Vince Foster, not necessarily his allies. Readers are reminded that everyone seeking to re-open the investigation into the death of Vince Foster does not have the same motivation and are not reading the same script!
For example, it should be noted that the first time the author of this report contacted Chris Ruddy (directly or indirectly) was in January 1995 in connection with problems this author had with the sketch map of Fort Marcy Park contained in the July 18, 1994, "Special Report on the Fiske Investigation of the Death of Vincent W. Foster, Jr."