  (5.67a/IDA-1.5 for conspire-post@firefly.prairienet.org); Wed, 28 Sep 1994 08:51:20 -0500
Subject: Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 2 Num. 27


              Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 2  Num. 27
             ======================================
                    ("Quid coniuratio est?")
 
 
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L.J. DAVIS INTERVIEW
 
L.J. Davis, author of an article offering a good look beneath the 
surface of Arkansas politics ("The Name of Rose", *The New 
Republic*, April 4, 1994), was interviewed by phone by David Inge 
of the local PBS-connected radio station on August 4, 1994. What 
follows is my transcription of that interview.
 
 +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +
 
[...continued...]
 
CALLER #2:
Well he [Brouton] does talk about CIA connections. It is in the 
title. I forget...
 
 
L.J. DAVIS:
He does talk about CIA connections, and about... (sighs) I didn't 
want to get on to this, but he *too* discovered some airports 
that the CIA was apparently using -- one at Iron Mountain.
 
 
CALLER #2:
That's what I wanted to get to, was the Mena situation...
 
 
DAVIS:
Ah! The big "M" word.
 
 
CALLER #2:
Yeah. Um-hmm [affirmative]. The under-reported story, I think, as 
well as some of these details, is the... and one that annoys me 
most about this "new Democrat" we have, is his willingness to aid 
in the *Contra* war and wink at a lot of stuff that was going on.
 
Apparently the Gennifer Flowers revelation came from a guy who 
was disgruntled because he was "cut loose" and "left to twist in 
the wind" because he was in charge of the National Guard liaison 
with Oliver North's operation. {1}. Is that your understanding?
 
                  -+- Larry Nichols -+-
 
DAVIS:
I think the person who brought out Gennifer Flowers was a guy 
named Larry Nichols, who was an official at a rather peculiar 
bonding agency, set up by Bill Clinton and Webb Hubbell, called 
ADFA [Arkansas Development Finance Authority]. And he was 
"sacked" from the job because he made... He tells various stories 
on this. He's told me one story; he's told other people other 
stories. In fact, I can't quite tell... Mr. Nichols is not 
exactly the kind of Arkansan who is such a, has such a fast and 
loose way with the truth that he has to hire somebody to call his 
dog! But he... He's something of a moving target in terms of his 
accusations. Sometimes (and I was cautioned by some highly 
reliable people in Arkansas, people whose information and 
insights proved to be invaluable), sometimes, however, you'd 
better listen to Larry Nichols. Because he knows something. And 
then sometimes you shouldn't. {2}. You know they're currently 
going off on the mortality rate of the people around Bill 
Clinton, which I regard as a completely false line of inquiry. 
{3}.
 
               -+- Another "Good 'Ol Boy" -+-
 
Now what was goin' on at Mena, basically, was a cocaine operation 
being run by a guy, by a fat guy, named Barry Seal. Not the Black 
Panther [i.e. Bobby Seale] but another "good 'ol boy" who had 
once been one of the most talented pilots in TWA and the youngest 
man ever to certify to fly a 747.
 
And he was operating out of Mena under very considerable 
surveillance, interestingly, by the Arkansas State Police and the 
County Sheriff! The question we have to ask *there* is, 
*whatever* was going on at Mena (and we know that drugs were), 
once again -- How could the Governor of the state allow something 
like this to occur on his watch?? We've been talking about these 
complicated financial peccadillos and suspicious circumstances. 
They're a little hard to follow, but that's what I happen to 
specialize in. *Here's* a fairly simple and straightforward 
situation with C-123 cargo planes flying out at all hours of the 
night and bringing in all sorts of strange cargo!
 
 
CALLER #2:
And going down with arms, too. Right?
 
 
DAVIS:
Well, you remember the plane that Eugene Hasenfus was caught on?
 
 
CALLER #2:
Flew out of Mena, right?
 
 
DAVIS:
It came out of Mena, yeah.
 
 
CALLER #2:
[Unclear] is it my recollection that you were roughed up? Who do 
you attribute that to, if that's the case?
 
               -+- Man Gets Lump On Head -+-
 
DAVIS:
Uh, well I don't know. We did not... We weren't gonna talk about 
that. I mean, let's say the magazine and I weren't gonna talk 
about that, largely because -- it sounds self-serving, but -- 
because when you get knocked on the head by "whatever", as hard 
as I got knocked, you sometimes suffer a period of amnesia. And I 
just happened to have done so. I don't know what happened. I've 
certainly enjoyed the ratcheting that my reputation has taken 
ever since that, then. But I can remember goin' into the room, 
and the next thing I knew I woke up on the floor with a 
concussion over my left ear.
 
Now we did not report this because (1) we haven't got anything to 
report. Uh, "Man Gets Lump On Head. Cannot Remember How It 
Happened." That's not news. Somehow it got out anyway, and the 
whole situation was complicated when the *Wall Street Journal* 
mis-reported that four pages from my notebook were missing. Four 
pages from my notebook were not, and are not, missing.
 
 
CALLER #2:
At least you don't remember they were.
 
 
DAVIS:
No! They're not missing.
 
 
CALLER #2:
[Chuckles] Well, if you had amnesia it's hard to say, I suppose 
though!
 
 
DAVIS:
No I know what's *exactly* in my notebook! Some of the pages are 
partially detached, but as I pointed out to the *Wall Street 
Journal*, I could've done *that* when I stuffed the damn thing 
back in my shoulder bag.
 
 
CALLER #2:
Well, I appreciate your work. And do be careful and...
 
                  -+- A Base Calumny -+-
 
DAVIS:
Well it *was* regrettable that the incident was made, uh so much 
was made of that incident!
 
I do, I'd like to go on record here in Illinois, however, as 
saying that I consider a *base* *calumny* has been uttered 
against me: it's been suggested that I can possibly get drunk on 
4 drinks. That is to say, so drunk that I would go upstairs and 
hit myself over the head!
 
 
DAVID INGE:
And you want to deny that, categorically.
 
 
DAVIS:
I want to deny categorically that a *mere* *4* *drinks*... Why, 
heavens to Betsy! I mean, my reputation has been blackened in 
another way here.
 
 
INGE:
We have a little bit less than 10 minutes left. Our guest is L.J. 
Davis. He's a contributing editor to *Harper's* magazine. And 
we're talking about Arkansas politics. And this is something, 
again, if you would like to read the article that we have been 
talking about -- this appeared in *The New Republic* in April of 
this year. So you'll probably have to go down to the library. But 
certainly it's something you could find if you wanted to take a 
look at.
 
 
DAVIS:
You'll *have* to go down to the library! We sold out!
 
 
INGE:
All right. Well you'll *have* to go down to the library. But we 
found it in the library so I'm sure other people can if they 
wanted to read it.
 
And we have 2 other people here we'll try to get to in the time 
that we have remaining. 333-WILL. 800-222-WILL.
 
Our next caller is on line number 2, in Eureka. Hello.
 
 
CALLER #3:
Good morning. Given the fact that politics seems to be an inter- 
related web of mutual self-interests and that the media often 
times emphasizes such "specks" and small little items -- Could it 
be that there is *more* legitimate corruption that Mr. Clinton 
(as you were just talking about in that story about Mena) has 
engaged in that's not even come to the fore or will never even 
get reported?
 
 
DAVIS:
Well I'm not suggesting that Mr. Clinton was at all corruptly 
*involved* in what was going on in Mena.
 
 
CALLER #3:
Well you were talking... Or say, the Stephens family and some of 
the other shennanigans going on there.
 
 
DAVIS:
Right. Well he's possibly standing by while it's all going on. 
And... well yeah. For example, for *Harpers* magazine right now 
I'm doing a major piece on (it's by definition "major", it's in 
*Harpers* magazine), on medical insurance fraud. And it is 
startlingly pervasive. I mean, even I was startled by the... And 
I thought I knew something about the subject before I began 
researching it.
 
                    [...to be continued...]
 
--------------------------<< Notes >>----------------------------
{1} Caller #2 seems to have a *composite* of Larry Nichols *and* 
Terry Reed (and possibly other(s)) in mind when he makes this 
statement. The person he attempts to describe has aspects of Reed 
("liaison with Oliver North's operation") and Nichols ("the 
Gennifer Flowers revelation"). No blame to caller #2 for being 
confused, given the shoddy news coverage of Mena, etc. The fact 
that he even *knows* "the 'M' word" speaks well of him.
 
{2} Regarding Larry Nichols: I personally find him to be quite 
credible and have found nothing to make me think otherwise.
 
{3} With all respect to Mr. Davis, I think he is wrong here when 
he doubts the significance of the mortality rate (a.k.a. "body 
count") around Clinton. I think, at the least, it is 
statistically significant. You may recall a movie called 
"Executive Action". That movie, with a similar situation, hired 
an actuary to examine the statistical significance of so many 
deaths of potential witnesses related to the JFK assassination.
   Note also that Mr. Davis does not tell us *why* he considers 
it a false line of inquiry. Is it perhaps because it is an area 
that gets a bit *scarey* to consider? With all respect to Mr. 
Davis, is he perhaps *afraid* to really look at it?
 
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Aperi os tuum muto, et causis omnium filiorum qui pertranseunt.
Aperi os tuum, decerne quod justum est, et judica inopem et 
  pauperem.                    -- Liber Proverbiorum  XXXI: 8-9 

 Brian Francis Redman    bigxc@prairienet.org    "The Big C"
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"Justice" = "Just us" = "History is written by the assassins."
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