Richard Clark: According to my reading of your Citizen's Independent Report (CIR), the two EMS personnel who reported seeing some kind of wound on Foster's neck were quite vague about what they saw, and their reports were far from being completely consistent. In your recent email, you make it seem otherwise.
Hugh Sprunt: My specificity comes from having read the FBI handwritten interview notes which came out early in March 1996. The latest CIR is 10/8/95. The CIR needs to be updated and when I do that I will include a verbatim transcript of these handwritten interview notes as well as much else. I hope to do this by July.
Also, there is a small handwritten annotation, on those interview notes, which I missed or forgot when putting together the CIR last spring/summer/fall; it refers to a newsperson's source telling her that he heard, at the White House, that Foster had two gunshot wounds, or at least two wounds, one of which was through the mouth and head, the other one probably on the side of the neck, just under the jaw line. One was the official wound; the other one has never been officially discussed. This other one was described as being something that might have been made by a relatively small-caliber gun, say a .22 semi-auto. It was said to be located in the same general region that was indicated by the two paramedics. [At our request, the White House person who reported this (who is no longer employed at the White House) recently confirmed the info that he had originally gave this newslady soon after Foster's death.]
By the way, this newslady was unaware, until we talked with her several months ago, that the early report she received from her source inside the White House (to the effect that there was a second wound on the right side of the jaw/neck) was subsequently confirmed by the FBI interviews with the two EMS personnel in the spring of 1994. This rocked her a bit since she had always assumed the "second wound" stuff she had been told about was just a mistake or some early-on screw up in rumors, etc.
Another thing: Fiske certainly knew of the jaw/neck wound report since it had been officially reported by two of the EMS personnel. (One of them remembered it as being in a slightly different spot than the other guy.) (Both men agreed that it was somewhere on the right side of Foster's head/neck, but remembered the exact position differently.) Fiske handled these reports by telling reporters that the two EMS personnel must be mistaken since they were in disagreement with the official autopsy report.
Richard Clark: I vaguely recall a report that Miquel Rodriguez made about what certain photos showed. I'm referring to the ones he went to great pains to have developed, after the FBI said the negatives were worthless.
Hugh Sprunt: If Miquel Rodriguez has made any public statements (official or otherwise) about what any pictures of the death scene showed, this is news to me. I know Chris Ruddy has written some articles on this point citing sources within the investigation.
Richard Clark: That's where I read the report, in Ruddy's book. In fact Ijust searched it. Take a look at page 99 of The Ruddy Investigation where there is a reprint of a Ruddy's column in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review of June 16, 1995. There you will find the following text:
"Photographic evidence unavailable to Fiske's pathology team may have lead them to a different conclusion. Rodriguez and other prosecutors reviewed the original Polaroids never used by the Fiske investigation. These originals were enhanced by a specialized lab outside the FBI. One enhanced Polaroid showed what 'appears to be a wound, puncture, or other trauma' to the right side of Foster's neck, the source said. Two emergency rescue workers, trained in the identification of wounds and other trauma, said the neck appeared to have suffered trauma when they first arrived on the scene. Fairfax County EMS technician, Richard Arthur, who was present on the night of Foster's death, told the FBI last year that 'he noted what appeared to be a small caliber bullet hole in Foster's neck, on the right side, just under the jaw line, about half way between the ear and the top of the chin.' Arthur has told the same story to Starr's investigators."
(Readers wishing to check this report should go to: http://tribune-review.com/trib/ruddy/rud1995.html.)
Hugh, please correct me if I'm mistaken on either of the points which follow, but it seems to me that nowhere in your writing have you really said that Lisa Foster specifically said, "The silver gun was missing from my house the night Vince died," or anything else as specific as that.
Hugh Sprunt: Not quite that specific. All I've said is what she told the FBI; that is, her words, as reported by the FBI in her interview report. According to what she said here, the night of the death she went to where she expected the silver gun to be in her Georgetown rental home on Cambridge, and could not find it.
She did, however, find another gun the in house (in the same
closet where she thought the silver gun would be?). That gun is
described in the FBI report only as
Looking for the silver gun and not finding it probably
reinforced Lisa's idea that since she had been told that Vince had
shot himself, it probably was with the silver gun. Thus, it is quite
logical that when the Park Police showed her a blown-up picture of the
gun (presumably the black Army Colt .38 special) on July 29, 1993, she
"could not identify it" and told the USPP investigator that it was
"not the gun she thought it must be, mentioning a "silver six gun
with a large barrel," almost in the same breath.
Richard Clark: But why in heaven's name would the FBI show Lisa a silver gun, when they must have known that the gun found in Foster's hand was a black gun? Were they really confident that the actual color of the
gun found could forever be kept a secret from the American people, and
that all 20 people at the death scene that night would keep their
mouths shut? This, frankly, strains credibility badly, in the opinion
of my journalist friends. They and many others believe the entire
allegation that Foster was murdered founders on this one point.
Hugh Sprunt: While only speculation, I would say the explanation that
makes the most sense out of the known facts.... is that the gun was
planned to have been found in Foster's hand that night was either the
exact same silver handgun that Lisa remembered bringing up from Little Rock or
one so close to it that Lisa would say it certainly looked like the
gun with which she was familiar.
Consider this carefully: Lisa Foster was shown whatever gun she was
shown by the FBI, roughly ten months after her husband's death. As
far as is publicly known, this was her second interview re: her
husband's death. Her first interview, with the USPP, took place on
7/29, just a few days after the death, and had produced a major
"problem" for the official "suicide verdict" --- namely, that the
man's wife could not identify the official death weapon. (The Park
Police interview report is quite clear on this point). Not a
"fatal" problem for the official suicide verdict, but a troublesome
one, which I believe someone decided to correct.
Lisa was interviewed in her attorney's office on 5/9/94 (a couple of
days before the FBI tried to get Pat Knowlton to change his story
about the car parked to his left at Fort Marcy Park on 7/20/93) An
unnamed person (probably FBI agent) was also present, as was Rod
Lankler of the Fiske Office of Independent Counsel, who asked the
questions.
The handwritten notes can be interpreted as including both Mr.
Hamilton's clarifications and various comments on what Lisa had to
say. This is by no means certain, but it does appear from the notes
that he amplified on her comments from time to time, presumably based
on his knowledge of what she knew (from having talked with her
previously, etc.).
I originally did not think the "Lisa Was Shown A Silver Gun By The
FBI" scenario was as strong as I do now. I now believe I was too
charitable to the FBI re: the chronology of the report. This approach
was consistent with the general approach I used with the CIR ---
generally I tried to favorably "slice" everything I thought I
reasonably could (in favor of the conclusions found in the government
investigative Reports.
The way the typed FBI FD-302 is done, if you assume it is
chronologically written (that is, follows a logical thread all the way
through with no carts being put in front of any horses), then one
conclusion (though also controversial) that could be drawn is that
Lisa was so "out of it" that she didn't realize the inconsistency of
being shown a black gun (that she was told was the gun that Vince used
to shoot himself) and later opining in the same interview (after
having discussed the silver gun that she brought up from Little Rock) that the
gun that her husband used to kill himself was the silver gun she
brought up from Little Rock.
However, if Lisa was indeed that "out of it" one would have thought
that Mr. Hamilton, Rod Lankler, or the unnamed FBI agent (or one of
the other unnamed people present, if any) would have corrected her on
this rather fundamental point. But there is no such correction in the
official text. This is a key point, since the investigators clearly
would have liked to have "tied" the death gun to Foster and the
Foster family if they could possibly do so. However, I reiterate:
there is no indication whatsoever that they corrected Lisa on this
crucial point. So this bald question stares us in the face: Why not?
After all, everyone there saw a (presumably) black gun being shown to
a witness who is asked if she can ID it. The witness then discusses a
silver gun she brought up from Little Rock --- something that makes no
sense whatsoever, given she was just shown a black gun and told it was
the death weapon. But notice that it does make a lot of sense if she
had been shown a silver handgun, and then opines that the gun that her
husband used to kill himself was in all probability the silver handgun she brought up from Little Rock. In all likelihood, if the gun
presented to Lisa had been black, and she (in response) had then
made the comment about the silver gun being the one she surmised was
used, it not only would certainly have been noted in the official
written record of the meeting, it probably would have brought everyone
out of their chairs. No comment made by her could possibly have been
of greater significance.
Lisa did not say, yeah, that was it --- the silver gun you showed me at
the beginning of the interview is (certainly) the one that was missing
from our house. But this is not surprising (even if you assume she
was shown a silver handgun) since Lisa would definitely not be
expected to be able to specifically, and without question, ID the gun
she was shown.... as the silver gun she remembered. She didn't know
the serial number, probably had never handled the gun or examined it
closely prior to Foster's death, etc. Thus the failure to ID that
specific silver gun (assuming she was shown one) as the one the had
been in Little Rock, and that she had brought up to DC, does not surprise me.
In addition: You have to remember that I don't think there was a good
official or even semi-official description of the gun that had been
released as of the time all this took place in May of 1994. The Fiske
Report was not yet out. The Park Police Report was not yet public.
(Fiske's report wasn't available until June 30, '94 and the USPP
report wasn't made available until July or August. Finally, the 1994
Senate Whitewater hearings, that spent two days on the facts and events
surrounding Foster's death, had not yet taken place.)
My point is that in the environment that existed at the time of the
May FBI/OIC interview, the folks conducting it probably thought they
were going to be in control of how all this played out. If they
showed her a silver gun, they probably thought they could finesse the
outcome. Indeed, even after the release of the Fiske Report, the Park
Police Report, and the Senate Whitewater hearings volumes, wouldn't you say
that everyone who has had the temerity to question some aspect of the
official "suicide verdict" has had a hard time getting anyone in the
mainstream to even look at some of these contradictions? Certainly
the FBI could anticipate this tendency, and probably decided they
could bank on it.
Assuming they did show her a silver gun, I think that in May 1994
"they" thought the "silver gun" problem was controllable. One
other aspect of this thread of reasoning is that since a variety of
problems have been called to Ken Starr's attention, including this
one, the Ken Starr Office of Independent Counsel (OIC) is sitting on a
major hot potato here. Perhaps that is why we're coming up this
August on two years of Ken Starr's operation and yet he has said
nothing of substance re: the Foster death! We just keep hearing that
the operation is ongoing, and that various people have entered into
the OIC and/or left it.
Richard Clark: On another matter: To suppose that when the first official arrived there was no gun in Foster's hand, and that then someone
placed an automatic in his hand, and then someone removed that and
placed a revolver in his hand, with all those various people standing
around --- well, this certainly does strain credibility. No wonder mainstream
journalists avoid this story.
How could the perpetrators of this crime be so sure that all
20 of those people were going to keep their mouths shut about what was
done?
Hugh Sprunt: That's a good question. What I'm going to say in reply is
certainly not a definitive answer; but have you ever been in the
military or worked for a federal police intelligence agency? Cops
tend to keep intra-organizational secrets well.
Richard Clark: I guess an example of that would be the outrageous police corruption in New York City that went on for years and years, without
anybody ratting. Also, I recall the way COINTELPRO was successfully
kept covered by the FBI for so many years. And look at the way the
FBI covered up Hoover's protection of the Mafia all those years.
But muggings happen every day in Washington, DC. If someone wanted
Foster dead, why didn't they just have someone hit him over the head,
take his wallet, slit his throat, and leave him in his car? No one
would have ever known what the real motive was.
Hugh Sprunt: This is a reasonable question --- I say so because I have asked myself the same thing off and on for many months. I would point out
that the decision that Foster had to be eliminated may well have come
rather quickly. There may not have been enough certainty that he
could be apprehended in a place where there were no witnesses, and
then dispatched as you suggest.
Richard Clark: Perhaps his killers could be confident of only one thing, that he could be lured to a particular house or apartment. But perhaps
they couldn't bloody him up, there, because of the possible blood
trails and blood evidence on his person, which would have told the
tale of what happened. One scenario I've considered is that they
rendered him unconscious with a Taser and then stuck an ice pick into
his brain through a point somewhere beneath his right jaw line and
below his ear, to kill him. Then, after plugging that tiny puncture
wound, they transported him, bloodlessly, to a remote location (in the
park), where they opened his mouth and put a bullet through his brain,
using a .22 with a silencer on it, and then planted the .38 in his
hand.
You're right: Bopping him over the head and slitting his throat while he was in his car would have been far more risky. Fibers from his car
could have been traced. Had it obviously been a murder, in another
location, top-notch police investigators would have been all over this
case. Making it look like a suicide, in a place like Fort Marcy
Park, had the very considerable benefit of assuring the murderers that
there would in all likelihood be no homicide investigation.
Hugh Sprunt: While, on balance, I think he was murdered, I do not
completely rule out the possibility he committed suicide.
In order of decreasing confidence, here are various opinions of mine:
A. The "death scene" at Fort Marcy Park was, for reasons unknown,
in some way(s) "interfered with."
B. The body was moved within the park and/or the official location
given for the body was not the actual location in which it was
found --- again for reasons unknown.
C. The body was moved to the park from another location --- the
location in which Foster died, either by his own hand or by another.
D. The official death weapon (the black Army Colt Special .38
Revolver described in the official record) was not the cause of death.
E. Foster did not kill himself---he was murdered.
I could add in some other opinions in the above "hierarchy" on other
matters in which I differ from the official "party line," but I
think the ones above will give you a good idea. Just how sure am I
that Foster was murdered? If I knew that all the facts, beyond any
shadow of a doubt, were to be released tomorrow, I would probably be
willing to bet a $100 that Foster was murdered, even if the odds were
such as to allow me to win jut $25, i.e. get my 100 back plus another
$25. However, I probably would not be willing to bet on it if the
odds were less --- say having to risk $100 in order to win back that 100
plus an additional 10. Based on my reading of the record, I think the
actual decision to kill Foster was made within 48 hours prior to his
death. I believe there was a very limited amount of fully reversible
contingency planning that was able to take place.
If this is true, the murderers could not be sure that Foster would
make himself available, in a suitable location, in time to kill him,
in a mugging-style hit, before he had his scheduled meeting with the
President on Wednesday or before he had his scheduled meeting with Jim
Lyons on Wednesday.
I have taken some advice on the "mugging" scenario as an alternative
to the "faked suicide" and the consensus that I'm getting (don't ask
me for my sources; just consider the merits of the argument) is that
such a killing would not be preferred.
Obviously a public killing with 30 random citizens in the vicinity was
out of the question. It would have had to have been a mugging that
takes place in a reasonable location at a reasonable time for the
person to be there. This is a necessity if you do not want to arouse
suspicion re: the authenticity of the "mugging."
Note that if you have a mugging-type killing, it means a homicide-type
investigation will occur, as opposed to the Park Police Investigators
deciding that the death was in all likelihood a suicide, before they
even saw the body --- the lead USPP investigator said under oath that
she and the other USPP Investigator at the Park that night in fact
decided before even seeing the body!
Given Foster's high-level position (and the criticisms, especially
early-on in the Administration, that Clinton was softer on crime than
the Republicans), a broad range of the body politic would have
expected a vigorous investigation. The statute that gave the FBI
primary jurisdiction over the death would have come into play, and the
Bureau would have been on the investigation from the get go.
As you know, the FBI jurisdiction was finessed in the Foster death
precisely because the case was given the veneer of a suicide early on.
Suicides do not require the FBI to take primary jurisdiction under the
statute governing the deaths of high officials, as you know. I
reiterate: Fort Marcy was an ideal venue from the point of view of
having U.S. Park Police jurisdiction.
Richard Clark: The Park Police are known to be somewhat incompetent in
matters such as this, and could certainly be depended upon to be
tractable, according to what I've read.
Hugh Sprunt: The only downside, along those lines, was the Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department (FCFRD) involvement --- something that
probably would have been avoided if all had gone according to the
timetable. I would guess that Foster was not supposed to have been
found until 9 to 10 PM or so. The USPP would have reported the empty
Honda when the park was closed at sunset. The White House ID in the
Honda would have brought immediate White House involvement. My guess is that
Craig Livingstone (or someone like him) would have been the person to
find the body --- a body that was obviously stone cold and lifeless --- no
need to even call the FCFRD into it.
Richard Clark: In other words, no one counted on "CW" wandering through the woods, 700 feet from the parking lot, at that particular hour, and
coming upon Foster's body, before they'd even had a chance to plant
the gun in his hand.
Hugh Sprunt: Right. And if Foster's body had been found anywhere else,
and/or if it did not appear to be a suicide, the case might have been
carefully investigated by someone with a lot of homicide experience.
Such a person might well not be as "politically attuned" as the Park
Police, and this could have presented major problems. Politically, it
would then have been damaging not to find the perpetrator! It would
also be difficult to "set up" a fake perp and have him "go down"
for the crime.
A murder investigation is vastly different from a suicide
investigation in many many respects. Murder demands an answer. A
suicide is less strident and more likely to muzzle the people who
would howl the most in the event of a murder, i.e. the victim's close
friends, the victim's immediate and extended family, etc., etc. The
newspaper interest in a suicide is much much less than in the case of
a murder, especially when the victim is famous, politically prominent,
etc. Some of these problems can be addressed in the planning phase
of the operation, if you have the time. But I do not think "they"
had the time. And some of these problems just won't go away, even if
you have a lot of time to plan.
Bottom line: Simulating suicide is the preference of professional hit
persons in many cases.
Richard Clark: This is well established and has been written about by a
leading criminologist, the author of a well known criminology text
book.
Hugh Sprunt: One other benefit of the "suicide" motif (the flip side of
an argument mentioned above): Assuming the Administration did not
order his death (and it would not surprise me if it did not), you
could nevertheless rely on the Administration to help you cover up a
faked suicide (the help will come "naturally" on many levels; in
most cases, if not all, it will not be conscious overt help). On the
other hand, it is much less likely that the Administration would be
able to do as good a job helping you cover up a murder (a real
murder, but a murder for reasons other than the one made to appear).