.id AA18063; Tue, 18 Jul 95 15:11:27 CDT
Date: Tue, 18 Jul 1995 15:11:24 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: Vince: We Hardly Knew Ye (part 7)


Vince: We Hardly Knew Ye
Part 7

Being a recap of the death, and various ongoing investigations 
into same, of White House aide Vincent Foster, jr.

(With apologies to his family, who prefer to "let sleeping 
Fosters lie.")

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With the U.S. about to invade Bosnia in order to promote peace 
("War is peace"); with things getting a little hot in Washington 
(and not just the weather) for that big, lovable clown from 
Arkansas; with investigations heating up; with the "special 
people" beginning to panic -- how convenient for the comfortable 
classes that the situation in Bosnia should heat up just about 
now.

So that the commissar class doesn't get *too* comfortable, I 
thought I'd offer a bit of a history lesson on the death, as well 
as the on-and-off investigations into same, of Vincent Foster, jr.

 :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :

MARCH 21, 1994
==============
TABS TANGLE OVER FOSTER DEATH
By Erich Eichman
[*Wall Street Journal*, 03/21/94]

The producers of "The Paper" couldn't have timed it better. Just 
as their movie about a scrappy big-city tabloid was opening last 
week, two rival tabs in New York City went to war. The subject? 
The mysterious circumstances surrounding the death last July of 
Deputy White House Counsel Vincent Foster. "Doubts Raised Over 
Foster's 'Suicide,'" the New York Post had proclaimed in its 
opening salvo two months ago, inaugurating a series of incisive 
reports. "Case Closed," countered the Daily News last week.

Who's right? We may never know. But we certainly won't be able to 
grapple with certain crucial facts until the Justice Department 
deigns to release the police report of his death, something this 
newspaper has been calling for since last summer, when we filed 
our first Freedom of Information Act request. In the meantime, 
the war of the tabs proves that the old-fashioned art of 
enterprise journalism isn't dead.

As in the early stages of the Whitewater scandal -- a matter that 
touches on Mr. Foster -- the tabloids, unlike most of the 
establishment press, have shown a willingness to push hard on 
troublesome questions and odd details. By asking tough and 
important questions about Mr. Foster's apparent suicide, they may 
eventually force out the truth.

For the benefit of readers outside New York, here's what the two 
papers have been reporting:

Christopher Ruddy of the Post led the way, showing the enterprise 
to interview the emergency personnel who viewed Mr. Foster's 
body. In late January, Mr. Ruddy was told by paramedic George 
Gonzalez that there was something "strange" about the Foster 
death scene. Mr. Foster's body was neatly laid out, with gun in 
hand, and there was surprisingly little blood ("a thin trickle" 
near his mouth). One expert told Mr. Ruddy that in 30 years he 
had "never seen someone shoot themselves in the mouth and still 
hold the gun perfectly at his side." According to Mr. Gonzalez 
and a law-enforcement official, the gun showed no traces of 
blood.

The park maintenance worker who found Mr. Foster's body had 
described a heavy-set man in a van who had pulled over and 
alerted him to the "dead body" in the park. Mr. Ruddy wondered, 
understandably, "Who was the man in the white utility van?"

All this prompted him to ask why the FBI had been kept out of the 
investigation. He was told by former FBI head William Sessions 
(who admittedly has his own ax to grind with the Clinton White 
House) that a "power struggle" with Justice had left the 
investigation in the hands of the less experienced Park Police.

Who handled (or bungled) the investigation became important when 
Mr. Ruddy discovered, the day after his first article appeared, 
that the Park Police had ruled the Foster death a suicide without 
running a ballistics test on the gun. The police asked the 
federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to do a test only 
two days *after* the official police ruling was handed down, on 
Aug. 10.

But nothing was yet conclusive: Even the Park Police had 
questions, as it turned out. A Feb. 4 Washington Post report -- 
perhaps inspired by Mr. Ruddy's hard-hitting articles the week 
before -- confirmed the ballistics-test delay, and revealed that 
the ATF had been asked by the Park Police to look for powder 
residue on Mr. Foster's clothes as well, and to comment on the 
possible position of the gun at the time it was fired.

As it turned out, the ATF's conclusions were consistent with 
suicide, but the procedural confusion left Mr. Ruddy wondering 
about the integrity of the entire investigation. He was not alone 
in such musings. Special Counsel Robert Fiske has announced his 
intention to re-examine the entire Foster episode. In short: What 
else was there to know? And why has the official report -- 
including photographs, autopsy results, and pieces of a suicide 
note -- not been made public, to clear up the mystery and end the 
speculation?

The answer to that question is still incomplete, and the legal 
complexity surrounding Mr. Fiske's efforts may even add to the 
delay. But in last Monday's Daily News, Mike McAlary managed to 
push the story further toward openness.

Mr. McAlary got a chance to "review" the Park Police report 
"once" (it was made available, we may presume, to counter the 
Post's stories), and talked to unnamed investigators. His 
conclusion: Vincent Foster's death was "a simple story from a 
police blotter" -- decidedly *not* something that would confirm 
the "ranting of some conspiracy theorist," whoever that might be.

The chief forensic investigator at the death scene found little 
blood on the *front* of Mr. Foster's body, but there was plenty 
in the back, where the bullet had exited his skull. Mr. Foster's 
right thumb was stuck in the trigger guard, Mr. McAlary reported, 
accounting for the gun's still resting in his hand when the body 
was discovered. Powder burns were found on Mr. Foster's palate 
and tongue, and on his right hand. The lack of disturbance to the 
dead man's "blood pools" suggested, as one investigator said, 
that Mr. Foster "died right on the hill where he was sitting."

All in all, Mr. McAlary concluded, there was no mystery left to 
this part of the story. Even the man in the white van turned out 
to lead nowhere: He was the invention of the park worker, who 
apparently embroidered his account to cover up a midday respite. 
Mr. McAlary triumphantly announced that Mr. Fiske and his chief 
Foster investigator had "accepted" the conclusions of the Park 
Police about Vincent Foster's death.

The Post fired back on Wednesday in an article by Thomas Ferraro. 
He cited mistakes that Mr. McAlary had made: the date of the 
suicide and the first name of Mr. Fiske's deputy, *Roderick* 
Lankler. More important, Mr. Lankler denied to the Post that he 
or Mr. Fiske had reached any conclusions about the Foster death. 
"Foster Suicide Probe Still Wide Open" the Post trumpeted. That 
lasted 24 hours -- until the News's next salvo. "The Real News on 
Post Mortem," quipped the paper's headline writers on Thursday. 
On page two, they dropped the news that the Park Police confirmed 
that "the case is closed."

But it isn't, really. Despite Mr. McAlary's heroic effort to 
refute Mr. Ruddy, and despite the persuasiveness of his account, 
too much remains hidden about the entire Foster affair. After 
all, the Park Police report is still locked away -- as are the 
Foster office papers. Mr. McAlary presents a vivid account of the 
scene in Mr. Foster's office the day after the suicide. Furious 
FBI agents and Park Police officials were forced by Mr. Nussbaum 
to sit 15 feet away from Mr. Foster's desk as he rummaged through 
papers, saying repeatedly "We can't show you this, this is 
personal."

That scene, of course, suggests the possibility that secret, 
politically sensitive, truths lie behind Mr. Foster's actions. 
Such a suggestion also emanates -- rightly or wrongly -- from the 
"overlooked" suicide note that a White House aide found in Mr. 
Foster's briefcase five days after the Park Police had not seen 
it there. Mr. McAlary interestingly reports that, because Mr. 
Foster called the FBI liars in his note, the Park Police had one 
of their own sergeants do the handwriting analysis.

Obviously, until everything is made public and properly 
explained, a cloud of doubt will hover over the Foster affair. In 
the meantime, we owe a debt of gratitude to the aggressive and 
consequential fact-finding missions of tough tabloid reporters.


 Brian Francis Redman    bigxc@prairienet.org    "The Big C"
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    Coming to you from Illinois -- "The Land of Skolnick"        
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