Re: "Techno-Paranoia in the White House" by David S. Bennahum
- letter from Allan J. Favish to The New York Times, posted to the Internet January 25, 1997

January 25, 1997


Editor
The New York Times
Letters to the Editor
229 West 43d Street
New York, NY  10036

        Re: "Techno-Paranoia in the White House" by David S. Bennahum


Dear Editor:

In "Techno-Paranoia in the White House" (Jan. 25), David S. Bennahum
writes that "the Republican Party deserves criticism for trumpeting the
Vincent Foster rumors in the mainstream press and calling for
hearings."  He further denounces journalists who fail to read Internet
material with a "more active, adversarial form of reading, akin to
detective work."

While I hope Mr. Bennahum can demonstrate that Mr. Foster's death was
just a suicide in Fort Marcy Park, I wonder what detective work has lead
Mr. Bennahum to reach that conclusion?

Mr. Bennahum's advice for reading Internet material is equally good
advice for reading former Independent Counsel Robert Fiske's report on
Mr. Foster's death and the publicly available U.S. Government documents
that comprise much of the investigative record in the case.
Given Mr. BennahumÕs conclusions perhaps he has resolved a little
problem I've had with the official documents in the case.

As Mr. Bennahum probably knows, these documents show that the official
death-scene gun was black (more precisely, very dark blue).

They also show that Mr. Fiske's FBI agents showed Mr. Foster's widow,
Lisa, a gun that the FBI characterized as the official death-scene gun. 
According to the FBI, Mrs. Foster believed that the gun shown to her was
silver, not black or dark, and that it may be Mr. Foster's silver gun.

Finally, the documents show that Mr. Fiske used Mrs. Foster's tentative
identification of a gun she believed was silver to tell his readers that
Mrs. Foster made a tentative identification of the official death-scene
gun.  Mr. Fiske did this without telling his readers that the official
death-scene gun was black (or dark blue) and that Mrs. Foster's
tentative identification was based on her believing the gun shown to her
was silver.

Can Mr. Bennahum explain to me why it appears that somebody deliberately
misled Mrs. Foster into identifying a gun that was not the official
death-scene gun and then used her identification to make it appear she
had identified the official death-scene gun?


Sincerely,



Allan J. Favish
Attorney at Law


P.S.  I enclosed the official government documents and a long article I
wrote (as yet unpublished) that will document the factual assertions I
made above and help Mr. Bennahum easily solve my problem.


Enclosures:     Copies of Official Government Documents
                ABC-TV photo from TIME
                Long Foster Article with citations


-- 
Regards,

Allan J. Favish