The Mammoth Book of Cover-Ups

by Jon E. Lewis

  For over 70 years people agreed the Titanic disaster was a concantenation of fate (the iceberg) and folly (she was governed by maritime legislation which required her to carry lifeboats for only 1,178 people), but then Oxford plasterer Robin Gardiner published “Titanic”: The Ship that Never Sank? (1998). Gardiner’s thesis – elucidated also in his books The Riddle of the Titanic (1997) and The Titanic Conspiracy (1998; with Dan Van der Vat) – is that the Titanic disaster was, well, a titanic insurance fraud. According to Gardiner it was not the Titanic which left Southampton on 10 April but her older sister ship, the Olympic. This had been damaged by a Royal Navy ship, rendering her worthless. The cash-strapped White Star Line, owner of both ships, faced bankruptcy . . . until someone hit on the idea of switching the Olympic for the Titanic, then sinking the “Titanic” in mid-Atlantic and claiming oodles of insurance money. To pass off the Olympic as the Titanic was easy, since they were near-identical. All that was required was a week in a Belfast dry dock for a paint job that included a change of name.

  The fraudsters, however, weren’t heartless: they arranged for the SS Californian and other rescue ships to be nearby in the middle of the Atlantic when the sea cocks of the false Titanic were opened . . . but the plan went awry when the Titanic hit a rescue vessel placed on station by White Star and sank sooner than expected, with the loss of many lives.

  Gardiner picks up some oddities in the official Titanic saga, chiefly the suspicious behaviour of the Californian, which lurked 20 miles (32km) from the Titanic’s death-site on the fatal night. Owned by financier J.P. Morgan, the Californian was carrying an unusual cargo: 3,000 woollen blankets and jumpers. Morgan was a co-owner of White Star. He had been booked to travel on the Titanic but had cried off at the last minute.

  In Olympic and Titanic Steve Hall and Bruce Beveridge sought to sink Gardiner’s insurance-con theory by referencing the Titanic debris found on the Atlantic seabed by Professor Robert Ballard. A propeller numbered 401 (the Titanic’s number) and the straight-faced wheelhouse both definitely identify the debris as belonging to the Titanic.

  Unless the propeller and wheelhouse were among the cosmetic changes made to the Olympia in dry dock . . .

  RMS Titanic was replaced by sister ship in insurance fraud: ALERT LEVEL 3

  Further Reading

  Robin Gardiner, “Titanic”: The Ship That Never Sank?, 1998

  Steve Hall and Bruce Beveridge, Olympic and Titanic: The Truth Behind the Conspiracy, 2004

  TRILATERAL COMMISSION

  The Trilateral Commission was founded in 1973 by banking titan David Rockefeller as an invitation-only think-tank. Rockefeller had the bucks, the organizational skills and the contacts, but the Trilateral Commission’s philosophy was provided by Columbia university professor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, author of Between Two Ages: America’s Role in the Technetronic Era (1970). This was a prophetic look at a future “shaped culturally, psychologically, socially, and economically by the impact of technology and electronics – particularly in the area of computers and communication”. Explaining that “National sovereignty is no longer a viable concept”, Brzezinski foresaw “movement toward a larger community by the developing nations” funded by “a global taxation system”. However, since this end-goal of “world government” was some way off, an initial “attainable” step should be closer trilateral co-operation between the nations of America, Europe and Asia, in the latter instance specifically Japan.

  Membership of the Trilateral Commission was limited to 300 (later expanded to 450), and early participants included Time, Inc. editor-in-chief Hedley Donovan, British politician Reginald Maudling, FIAT president Giovanni Agnelli, and former French premier Raymond Barre. Among the more recent members are Alan Greenspan of the American Federal Reserve, Dick Cheney, Enron’s Ken Lay, Paul Wolfowitz and George H. W. Bush . . . in other words, the Trilateral Commission is stuffed full of exactly the same sort of mondo politicians and businessmen who sit on the plush chairs at the Bilderberg Group and Council for Foreign Relations. Naturally, then, the Trilateral Commission comes in for the same critical fire as those two – that is, it’s attempting to covertly instal a shadow global government run by its members. They must be busy boys and girls, these Trilateralists, because they’ve also been accused by über-conservative Lyndon LaRouche of running the drugs trade, been denounced by black rappers Public Enemy for organizing Zionist plots, fingered as agents of the Illuminati by fundamentalist-conspiracist Texe Marrs, and marked by evangelist Pat Robertson for promoting Satanism.

  For a supposed “secret society”, the Trilateral Commission is disappointingly open: its membership can be viewed at its website, www.trilateral.org/. Meetings are held in camera, but it would be a wonder if globalism weren’t a frequent fixture on the agenda – after all, world order was the raison d’être for the creation of the Commission. Many Trilateralists represent big business – the likes of Exxon, Mobil, Goldman Sachs – which finds the nation state inimical to its interests and consequently seeks to extend the remit of transnational institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

  So is the Trilateral Commission, as feared by the American far right, the executive board of the New World Order? The Commission does not have its hands on the surreptitious levers of global power for a simple reason: there aren’t any. International politics and economics are more complex than the instrumentalist philosophy of far-right conspiracists realize.

  Indeed, focusing on the Trilateral Commission’s international agenda-setting carries the risk of blindness to its interesting role in the US. One early member of the Commission was a down-home Southern Democrat by the name of Jimmy Carter. According to former Republican Senator Barry Goldwater, the Trilateral Commission eased Carter into the White House in 1973 by mobilizing “the money power of the Wall Street bankers, the intellectual influence of the academic community . . . and the media controllers”. With Mr Carter to Washington went fellow Trilateralists Walter Mondale as V.P. and old Zbigniew Brzezinski as National Security Advisor. Anthony C. Sutton and Patrick M. Wood, authors of Trilaterals Over Washington (1979), commented: “If you are trying to calculate the odds of three unknown men [Carter, Mondale and Brzezinski], out of 60 [Trilateral] Commissioners from the US, capturing the three most powerful positions in the land, don’t bother. Your calculations will be meaningless.”

  Carter, Mondale and Brzezinski weren’t the only Trilateralists to get their feet in the door of the Carter administration: Secretary of State Cyrus R. Vance, Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher, Director Paul Warnke of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, Undersecretary of the Treasury Anthony Solomon, Undersecretary of Economic Affairs Richard Cooper and Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke were among nearly 20 Trilateralists to hold prominent positions in the government. Then Carter selected banker Paul Volcker to head the American Federal Reserve; Volcker was the chair of the North American branch of the Trilateral Commission. So dominating were the Trilateralists that even the normally supine Beltway press took notice, with the Washington Post calling the Trilateralist influence “unsettling”.

  Being in power enabled pet projects of the Commission to come to pass. One will serve in evidence. A 1975 Commission task-force paper, The Crisis of Democracy, by Harvard academic Samuel P. Huntington, proposed that democracy was inadequate in the face of national emergencies; appointed to Carter’s National Security Council, Huntington prepared the Presidential Review Memorandum which created the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

  Of course, the Trilateral Commission can’t be all-powerful, since it was unable to stop Jimmy Carter from being electorally ejected from the White House. As consolation, the Commission found another good ol’ Southern Democrat to join their ranks. Few Americans then knew his name, but they would later.

  Bill Clinton.

  The Trilateral Commission is the board of directors of New World Order Inc.: ALERT LEVEL 4

  The Trilateral Commission is
the executive committee of the US: ALERT LEVEL 8

  Further Reading

  Jim Marrs, Rule by Secrecy, 2000

  James Perloff, The Shadows of Power, 1988

  Anthony C. Sutton and Patrick M. Wood, Trilaterals Over Washington, 1979

  TWA FLIGHT 800

  At 8.31 on 17 July 1996, 12 minutes after take-off from New York’s JFK airport, a catastrophic explosion caused TWA Flight 800 to disintegrate over the Atlantic. All 212 passengers and 18 crew aboard the Boeing 747-131 were killed.

  After 90 per cent of the plane’s remains were dredged from the Atlantic, an investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board concluded that the explosion had been caused by an electrical short circuit near the centre wing fuel tank. The NTSB issued 15 safety recommendations, mostly covering fuel tank and wiring-related issues, notably the development and installation of fuel inerting systems. “The 230 men, women and children on board TWA800,” said the NTSB, “lost their lives not as result of a bomb or missile or some other nefarious act but the result of a tragic accident.”

  Note the word “missile”. No fewer than 38 witnesses had come forward to say they’d seen missile(s) streaking towards the plane just before it exploded. (Another 220 had seen a “streak of light”, variously characterized as a shooting star, a flare, or something similar near the TWA800.) The witnesses even formed themselves into an action group, running full-page ads in national US newspapers: “We the eyewitnesses know that missiles were involved . . . for some reason our government has lied and tried to discredit us.”

  If it was a missile, who fired it and why? In The Downing of TWA Flight 800 (1997), journalist James Sanders proposed that the Boeing was shot down by a Stinger missile from a US Navy cruiser on a training exercise nearby; instead of locking on to a Navy drone, the missile mistakenly locked on to the Boeing. Sanders further claimed that the FBI suppressed Federal Aviation Administration radar records which showed “an unexplained blip” near TWA800. Sanders’s book has photographs of reddish residue, supposedly of missile fuel, on retrieved seats. When the NTSB began its public hearings into the TWA800 disaster, FBI deputy director James Kallstrom requested that the residue not be discussed.

  Led by William Donaldson, a retired naval officer, a number of conspiracy theorists have proposed that TWA Flight 800 was downed by terrorist action. In the “Interim Report on the Crash of TWA Flight 800 and the Actions of the NTSB and the FBI” (1998) Donaldson stated that TWA800 was struck by two missiles, and subsequently the FBI, NTSB and Justice Department covered up the fact to save the Clinton administration embarrassment. Donaldson noted: “In the history of aviation, there has never been an in-flight explosion in any Boeing airliner of a Jet-A Kerosene fuel vapor/air mixture in any tank, caused by mechanical failure.” Another former US military man, Colonel Robert Patterson, speculated in Dereliction of Duty (2003) that TWA800 had been downed by a US Navy Stinger – but that the Stinger had been launched to intercept a terrorist (read Iraqi) missile heading towards the plane. In yet another variant of the terrorist-attack theory, Peter Lance concluded in Cover Up: What the Government is Still Hiding About the War on Terror (2004), that TWA800 was blown up by a bomb with the intention of disrupting the trial of terrorist Ramzi Yousef for conspiring to blow up US airliners.

  As of 2007, the NTSB, the Senate and the FAA all maintain that TWA Flight 800 crashed due to some form of mechanical or electrical failure. But can 38 independent witnesses all be wrong? Witnesses that even the FBI calls “credible”?

  TWA Flight 800 crashed due to “friendly fire”: ALERT LEVEL 7

  TWA Flight 800 crashed due to terrorist attack: ALERT LEVEL 5

  Further Reading

  Peter Lance, Cover Up, 2004

  Robert Patterson, Dereliction of Duty, 2003

  James Sanders, The Downing of Flight 800, 1997

  WACO

  If the results had not been so tragic, the story of the Siege of Waco could be rewritten as a routine for circus clowns.

  On 28 February 1993 the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms raided the ranch compound of the Branch Davidians at Mount Carmel, near Waco, Texas. Led by self-appointed Messiah David Koresh, the Branch Davidians were an offshoot of the Seventh Day Adventists and had been based at Mount Carmel since the 1950s. More recently, Texan newspapers had rumoured that Koresh was a polygamist and even a child-abuser; the BATF had become interested in him and his sect for firearms violations, including the converting of semi-automatics to full automatics and the manufacture of grenades. Since the Branch Davidians were legal dealers of weaponry (indeed, gun-dealing was one of the sect’s most significant money-making activities), the violations were relatively minor infractions.

  Koresh could easily have been arrested on one of his weekly visits to Waco, but the BATF chose instead to launch a full-scale raid on the sect’s compound. On the morning of Sunday 28 February 1993, BATF agents moseyed up to the compound, hiding in cattle trailers. Unfortunately, the element of surprise was lost thanks to a large black BATF helicopter circling overhead, not to mention the accidental discharge of a gun by a BATF agent which killed a fellow BATF besieger. Believing themselves under fire, the Branch Davidians returned fire. In the ensuing gun battle, five Branch Davidians died, as did four BATF agents – all of the latter probably victims of “friendly fire” – before the government agency beat a hasty retreat. To the embarrassment of the BATF and the White House, the whole fiasco had been caught by news cameras.

  Pride dictated that the falling low of the US government be made good. The Waco operation was handed over to the FBI, who settled down to besiege the Branch Davidian compound with the methods of psych-warfare. Bradley fighting vehicles and helicopters endlessly encircled the compound, while taped loops – which included the sound of rabbits dying, Tibetan chants, bagpipes and Nancy Sinatra singing “These Boots are Made for Walking” – were broadcast at deafening volume. Noise torture had worked to flush out Panamanian leader General Noriega some years before, but the Koresh sect were made of tougher stuff. For 51 days the Branch Davidians withstood the governmental goliath, until Attorney General Janet Reno approved a final, all-out assault after being told of child abuse in the compound.

  On the morning of Monday 19 April the Feds smashed into the compound with Bradley fighting vehicles and M-60 tanks. Still Koresh and his followers refused to surrender. Suddenly, at around noon, the compound erupted into flames. Nine occupants emerged alive. The body of David Koresh and 79 other Branch Davidians, including 23 children, were found in the smouldering ashes. Koresh and many of the others had been shot in the head.

  Much of the subsequent controversy over Waco hinges on responsibility for the fatal fire at high noon. In October 1993 the Justice Department determined from its investigation that Koresh had ordered the fire in order to facilitate a mass suicide à la Jonestown; bugging devices planted by the FBI in the compound recorded cult members spreading fuel around. According to the Justice Department, Koresh was a brainwashing, sex-addicted guru who wanted martyrdom. The Wacko from Waco.

  To this day, the FBI continues to blame Koresh for the conflagration. It’s not a claim that has stood the test of time unscathed. As the Academy Award-nominated Waco: The Rules of Engagement (1997) by maverick film-maker William Gazecki forced the FBI to admit, they fired and sprayed CS tear-gas into the compound for six hours. CS gas is highly flammable, frequently containing kerosene or methyl chloride. A bullet is sufficient to ignite dense CS vapour in a confined space, and the FBI’s own aerial infrared recordings seemingly confirm that the Bureau fired weapons into the compound after the CS barrage. The FBI also fired pyrotechnic grenades at Waco, though the Bureau adds that the grenades were launched “in a direction far away from the compound” – which has caused critics to wonder why they were fired at all. Some of the dead children at Waco were found in postures strongly suggestive of cyanide poisoning caused by ignited CS gas. Even if the Bureau did not deliberately set Waco alight, it may have caused the fi
re by accident; according to surviving Branch Davidians, the FBI’s tanks knocked over the kerosene lamps the sect was using for lighting after the G-men had cut off their electricity supply.

  Then there is the mystery of why the Waco blaze, however it started, was not extinguished by the waiting firefighters. Initially, Branch Davidian snipers were blamed for keeping the fire department at bay; later the FBI agreed that it had ordered the fire department to hold back from the compound because of the danger of exploding ammunition. This claim does not square easily with the Bureau’s own order to bulldoze the Waco remains – while the debris was still flaming. As in the Oklahoma City Bombing, the FBI’s proclivity to order in the bulldozers destroyed potentially vital evidence.

  For many right-wing conspiracy theorists, the siege of Waco was stage one in the plan for the New World Order, in the guise of the United Nations, to take over the US. Waco, according to this perspective, was provoked by the Feds in order to justify a clampdown on gun ownership, leaving Joe Public unable to bear arms when the guys in the blue hats came. One of those who blamed the FBI for the bloodshed at Waco was an ex-soldier called Timothy McVeigh who, on the second anniversary of Waco, expressed his rage by carrying out the Oklahoma City Bombing. McVeigh wasn’t the only one to blame the Feds: a poll taken in 1999 found that 66 per cent of Americans believed the Waco fire was deliberately caused by the FBI.