David Mignery

The following is a shameless plug but here goes: I have written a political conspiracy novel called “Small Spiders” (written under the name J.T. Conroe) which is based to a large extent on information gathered from the Education Forum and Spartacus Educational, and which I hope might be both entertaining and interesting to some of the members. The plot is tied closely to verified and alleged facts surrounding the CIA’s MK Ultra program, the assassination attempt against George Wallace, the Watergate break-in, and the crash of United Flight 553. It is definitely a work of fiction, but I have attempted to produce a reasonably plausible scenario for the interlinking of these events. The main characters are Michele Clark, Howard Hunt, Arthur Bremer, Dennis Cossini, and Dorothy Hunt. Dr. William J. Bryan, Harold Metcalf, Richard Nixon, Frank Stanton, and “the girl in the polka-dot dress” also play important roles. Although my novel “proves” nothing, I am hoping it will provoke some renewed interest in and scrutiny of the criminal behavior of the Nixon administration. It is available from Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/Small-Spiders-J-T-Conroe/dp/1490352651/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1370953740&sr=1-1&keywords=

The following is a shameless plug but here goes: I have written a political conspiracy novel called “Small Spiders” (written under the name J.T. Conroe) which is based to a large extent on information gathered from the Education Forum and Spartacus Educational, and which I hope might be both entertaining and interesting to some of the members. The plot is tied closely to verified and alleged facts surrounding the CIA’s MK Ultra program, the assassination attempt against George Wallace, the Watergate break-in, and the crash of United Flight 553. It is definitely a work of fiction, but I have attempted to produce a reasonably plausible scenario for the interlinking of these events. The main characters are Michele Clark, Howard Hunt, Arthur Bremer, Dennis Cossini, and Dorothy Hunt. Dr. William J. Bryan, Harold Metcalf, Richard Nixon, Frank Stanton, and “the girl in the polka-dot dress” also play important roles. Although my novel “proves” nothing, I am hoping it will provoke some renewed interest in and scrutiny of the criminal behavior of the Nixon administration. It is available from Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/Small-Spiders-J-T-Conroe/dp/1490352651/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1370953740&sr=1-1&keywords=

The following is a shameless plug but here goes: I have written a political conspiracy novel called “Small Spiders” (written under the name J.T. Conroe) which is based to a large extent on information gathered from the Education Forum and Spartacus Educational, and which I hope might be both entertaining and interesting to some of the members. The plot is tied closely to verified and alleged facts surrounding the CIA’s MK Ultra program, the assassination attempt against George Wallace, the Watergate break-in, and the crash of United Flight 553. It is definitely a work of fiction, but I have attempted to produce a reasonably plausible scenario for the interlinking of these events. The main characters are Michele Clark, Howard Hunt, Arthur Bremer, Dennis Cossini, and Dorothy Hunt. Dr. William J. Bryan, Harold Metcalf, Richard Nixon, Frank Stanton, and “the girl in the polka-dot dress” also play important roles. Although my novel “proves” nothing, I am hoping it will provoke some renewed interest in and scrutiny of the criminal behavior of the Nixon administration. It is available from Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/Small-Spiders-J-T-Conroe/dp/1490352651/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1370953740&sr=1-1&keywords=

Concerning Arthur Bremer: does anyone know in what form was the diary that was found in Bremer's car shortly after he was arrested? Was it bound? If so how? Was it handwritten or typewritten? Thanks.

I'd like to jump in with some questions. Howard Hunt in his biography said he ordered Alfred Baldwin to load McCord's van with the Watergate surveillance equipment and dispose of it. He never said what finally happened to it. One of Hunt's sons said in an interview that he helped his father dump the equipment in the river. Does anyone know what really happened?

Have you read the NTSB report on it's investigation of the crash of Dorothy Hunt's flight? http://libraryonline.erau.edu/online-full-...ts/AAR73-16.pdf They determined the most likely cause to be "pilot error". Read page 39, it shows the captain and crew to be competent and extremely experienced. The 737-200 was only four years old, with less than 8000 hours on the airframe and even less hours on each of it's two engines. There were 18 survivors of the crash, out of 53 souls on board. If the CIA selected that flight and crew, and was able to engineer a last minute abort landing and fly around order from the tower to that flight; records show it was due to landing congestion.....and, successfully kill the intended passenger, and obtain the crash investigation outcome it desired, then killing Castro, JFK, or anybody else, while leaving no trace back to the CIA, should have been a piece of cake operation. Most likely is that Colson was a nut, stressed to the max after arrest, trial, a looming prison sentence, and the implosion of his leader, Nixon. Colson "went to Jesus", as a result of his experiences. ....And, if your reaction is to chalk this post as coming from someone who does not have an open mind, consider that I have written; http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...st&p=161072 ...about the suspicious deaths of back to back, former US Secretaries of War, Patterson and Forrestal. The Willicutts report on the death of Forrestal was buried for 55 years, and the 1952 crash of Patterson's airline flight in Newark, NJ, killed all aboard, and no cause for the crash was ever determined. Consider that those two suspicious deaths, even shrouded as they are behind a buried inquiry result....the press did not even cover the FOIA forced release of the Willicutts report, and the very rare, lack of determination of cause of the 1952 Newark crash that killed Robert Patterson, resulted in not a ripple of concern from the public, or....on the surface, from the government. The circumstances of the crash and NTSB findings related to the death of Dorothy Hunt, do not rise near to the level of suspicion related to the circumstances of the deaths in my two other examples. IMO, there are more promising leads to investigate, than Dorothy Hunt's death and Charles Colson's rantings. Tom, Thanks for leading me to the NTSB report. It was very interesting. Since I am primarily interested in Richard Nixon's presidency, the deaths of the two Secretaries of War back in the 40s and 50s don't seem particularly relevant to my area of reseach, unless you know of some particular connection.

I am sorry to see that interest in this thread has pretty much expired. I am wondering if any new facts have emerged since the death of Howard Hunt.

Thanks for the response. I have another question. Was there any perceived connection at the Nixon White House between Michele Clark and Dorothy Hunt? (never mind the $10,000) I am, however, still of the opinion that there may have been a few executives at CBS News who might have made an attempt to stand up to the Nixon White House, otherwise, the White House would not have felt the need to apply pressure. Colson says as much in his letter to Haldeman. Ultimately, CBS Corporate may have caved but I am sure that there were a few people at CBS News who resented the pressure, remembered their journalistic heritage, and tried to hold on to their self-respect by fighting back against the most dangerous man in American political history.

Interesting questions. Have you any information that will help answer these questions? John, My questions were in response to your Watergate informant's invitation. They are not based on any inside information but it seems probable that if Dorothy Hunt (a former CIA agent married to another CIA agent with decades of involvement in the CIA's most sensitive operations) were making threats to reveal damaging information sufficient to "blow the White House out of the water", she would have been under some kind of surveillance. If Hunt intended to pass documents to Clark on the plane in exchange for $10,000, they probably had several clandestine meetings beforehand to work out the details. Making the surreptitious exchange on a plane might have seemed like a good idea at the time. Both women probably would have assumed that they were being watched and would have taken precautions to keep their meeting and the exchange secret. Even so, the White House may well have been aware of the meetings. They may not have known their substance, but they could certainly make a good guess. By that time, (even if nothing was going on between the two women) if Dorothy Hunt was spotted getting on a plane with a 60 Minutes reporter, an alarm would have been sounded by someone. If there was sufficient concern by the White House about the Hunts and Michele Clark, dispatching the FBI in force to the Chicago airport to arrest both Hunt and Clark (and possibly Congressman Collins) before they could do any damage seems like a logical thing to do. I include Collins because it seems likely that the White House would assume that the two Black Chicagoans with leftist backgrounds and positions of importance to the Black community could be working together on the Watergate scandal. I continue to believe that the airplane crash was an accident. Bad as Nixon was, I don't think that he would have ordered the sabotage of a commercial airliner just to silence a blackmailer. If he was that ruthless, it would not have been such a hit-or-miss crash. It would have been staged in such a way to ensure that there would be no survivors. Also. murdering Dorothy Hunt would have been too risky as it would have turned the hitherto loyal Howard Hunt into a dangerous foe. Intimidating CBS into silence, however, was certainly not beyond the limits of Nixon's power or scruples.

Questions: 1. Was there any concern at the White House or CIA about the possibility that Dorothy Hunt and Michele Clark of 60 Minutes were in touch with each other? 2. Did it set off alarms at the White House or CIA when Hunt and Clark got on the same plane? 3. Would that explain why 50(?) FBI agents were waiting for the flight in Chicago? 4. Could the $10,000 in Hunt's possession have come from CBS through Michele Clark?

I disagree with both these points. I cannot see why Huck Look would lie about this. What would be his motivation for telling this false story? Leo Damore points out that Look was reluctant to make a fuss about this once he knew Edward Kennedy’s account differed from his. The authorities eventually decided to go with Kennedy’s story rather than believe Look. However, Kennedy lied about other aspects of the case. Might he also have lied about the time of the accident. Maybe Kennedy was not in the car when the accident took place. It is possible that Mary Jo was in the car with two other men. Look’s times had to be right as he was a special police officer at the Edgartown Yacht Club Regatta dance from 8 o'clock to 12:30 on that Friday night. His identification of the car certainly fits the one that Kennedy was using that weekend. Police officers were unable to trace any other car that was on that road at that time. It was not surprising that Look approached the cottage. Several people in the area heard the noise of the music coming from the party (it was normally a very quiet area). Anyway, Look’s story was later confirmed by the two people he talked to that night. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I did not say that Huck Look lied and I do not believe that he did. There is no mention in the quoted excerpt that he went to the Lawrence Cottage or that he said he went there. If he did go there, I have yet to find anything about it from any other web site which is why I'm curious about what really occurred. I'm sure he encountered two men and a woman doing a conga just as he said but he didn't recognize them and he only has a vague impression of the car they were in. I have since read at another site that the two car sightings were separate incidents and that the conga dancers were three other persons from the Lawrence Cottage party, not Mary Jo and Ted Kennedy. None of that is clear in the quoted excerpt. I have become convinced that Ted Kennedy's story contains several falsehoods but why he told the lies he did remains a mystery to me. A man so cold blooded as to appear perfectly relaxed and jovial the next morning after such an experience would surely have behaved with more intelligence immediately after the crash and would have come up with a better story than the one he finally told. Is he the reprehensible spoiled rich kid that is usually portrayed or the victim of a frame-up and coercion intended to keep him from ever reaching the White House? I wish I knew.

Here is the relevant passage from Leo Damore's book, Senatorial Privilege : The Chappaquiddick Cover-Up (1983): Domininick Arena had to be reminded by reporter Ed Crosetti of The Boston Record-American, "Chief, you better talk to 'Huck' Look." Arena had neglected to question the deputy sheriff in the confusion of events on Saturday. Look's comments at Dike Bridge hadn't seemed critical.Whether the accident occurred at 11: 15 a .m. as Kennedy said in his report, or after Look saw the car, didn't make much difference insofar as a leaving-the-scene charge was concerned. Arena said, "The question of time only became an issue after the press picked up inconsistencies in Kennedy's report." A husky man with the high color of the outdoors, and a plainspoken, country-boy manner, Look was reluctant to retell his story officially for the record in view of the Senator's published account of the accident. Look regretted having blurted out information before he realized its significance. Look had seen a dark car between 12:40 a.m. and 12.45 a.m., Saturday morning approaching the bend on Chappaquiddick Road at the center of the intersection of Dike Road. Arena noted, "He is positive there was a man driving and that there was someone next to him. He 'thinks there may have been someone else in the back seat but he's not sure." The car appeared "unsure or lost." Look stopped, and started to walk toward the car, but the driver had sped off down Dike Road. Look's story sounded OK to Arena. "The thing that bothered me about it was, 'Huck' was so adamant about his time. I did believe he saw this particular thing, but I was between a stone and a hard place because I couldn't disprove Kennedy's time." Look was more closely interrogated by George Killen and Bernie Flynn when the two detectives arrived in Edgartown around noon.... Killen knew "Huck" Look as a reliable and responsible court officer from cases he'd prosecuted in Edgartown. Look agreed to accompany the police officers to Chappaquiddick to reenact his encounter with the "Kennedy car." Look had worked as a special police officer at the Edgartown Yacht Club Regatta dance from 8 o'clock to 12:30 on Friday night. Brought to Chappaquiddick in the yacht club's launch, Look got into his car parked at the landing and headed home. He had seen the headlights of a car coming toward him near the curve at the intersection. "Knowing the road, I slowed down, because there's a sharp corner that people usually will cut too close," Look said. "I wanted to make sure I didn't get sideswiped." Look came almost to a complete stop. A black sedan passed in front of his headlights. "There was a man driving, a woman in the front seat, and either another person or some clothing, a sweater, or a pocketbook in the back seat - what appeared to be a shadow of some kind." The car went off the pavement into the private, dirt Cemetery Road. By this time Look had proceeded around the corner a little bit, he said. "I observed in my rear view mirror that the car was parked. And it looked like they are going to back up. I thought they wanted information, that they were lost or something." Look got out of his car and walked toward the other vehicle. He was 25 to 30 feet away when the car started backing up toward him, tail lights showing all over the deputy sheriff uniform he was wearing. Look believed the driver must have seen him, as the lights glanced off the badge and whistle on his shirt. He started to call out an offer of help, but the car took off down Dike Road in a cloud of dust. He observed a Massachusetts registration letter "L", he said. "And I did sort of a photostatic thing in my mind that it had sevens in it, at the beginning and the end." Look returned to his car. A short distance from the intersection he saw two women and a man doing a snake dance down the middle of the road, "like a conga line." He stopped to ask if they needed a lift. The tall girl of the trio said, "Shove off, buddy. We're not pick-ups." The man in the group apologized. "Thank you, no," he said. "We're just going over there to our house." <{POST_SNAPBACK}> <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Judging from this, Look did not go to the Lawrence Cottage nor is it likely that the car he encountered was Kennedy's.

While this is happening Christopher Look comes across Kennedy’s car (12.45 am.). Look sees three people in the car (Mary Jo and the two men). The car drives off. Look then goes to Lawrence Cottage where he talks to Ray LaRosa, Nance Lyons and Mary Lyons. What prompted Christopher Look at this point to go to the Lawrence Cabin? What did he talk about? Presumeably no one yet knew about Mary Jo's disappearance.

Lawrence O'Connor doesn't factor into my script but since you seem to know a lot about Chicago, can you provide any biographical information about Michele Clark?

I am writing a script that will be a work of fiction based as much as possible on verifiable fact. Michele Clark is a main character. I intend to include Arthur Bremer, Dennis Cossini, Harold Metcalf, Dorothy Hunt and her husband as central figures. The "real-life" Cossini and Metcalf characters are obviously the most elusive. The MKULTRA program is a background factor. The only evidence I have that Michele Clark was working on Watergate is based on what Sherman Skolnik wrote. The other possible targets on United Flight 553 are not included within the scope of what I am writing but I have no reason to doubt what he wrote about them. I have difficulty believing that Nixon or others in the White House (as corrupt as I believe they were) would deliberately crash a passenger plane just to eliminate one or two troublesome individuals who could easily be hit elsewhere. Or, if they were that evil, that they would botch the sabotage of the aircraft to the extent that there would be any survivors. I am working on the assumption that Michele Clark was the target of a hit that was arranged at the last minute when she and Dorothy were seen about to board the same plane. The hit itself went wrong, distracting the pilot and causing him to lose control of the aircraft at a critical moment during the landing. I don't want to reveal what I am going to write at this time but I believe that I have developed a scenario that plausibly explains what could have happened with respect to United Flight 553, taking into consideration all of the known facts.

An interview with television reporter Carole Simpson is at http://npc.press.org/wpforal/sim4.htm. She talks about the crash of United Flight 553 which she covered for a Chicago TV station and she also talks about Michele Clark.

A reporter named Michele Clark is mentioned several times in Ray Mungo's 1970 memoir titled "Famous Long Ago" which is available on line at http://sunrisedancer.com/radicalreader/lib...uslongago05.asp He was a co-founder of the Liberation News Service which provided material about the activities of various radical groups during the 1960s. He apparently knew her while living in New York and Washington DC but first met her in Cuba. He says she was married to a New York film maker. Can anyone expand on this?

Is there any documented evidence concerning the following questions: 1. That Michele Clark spent time in Milwaukee in late 1971 or early 1972? 2. That she was investigating the RFK assassination prior to her work on Watergate? 3. That she spent time in Cuba? 4. That she had any contact with Dennis Cossini? 5. That Dennis Cossini was a journalism student at Marquette University in 1971 or 1972? 6. That she had ever had any contact with Dr. William J. Bryan? 7. That Arthur Bremer's brother worked with Sirhan Sirhan at a Santa Anita racing stable? 8. That the stable in question had any connection with Dr. Bryan? 9. How exactly did John J. McCleary of Sacramento "drown in the Pacific Ocean" and who was he? 10. What was the nature of the friendship between Arthur Bremer and Dennis Cossini? From the opposite side, is there any evidence that the premise of any of the above questions is false?

I am an architect and writer living in Austin, Texas. I am interested in joining IEF because I am writing a screenplay based on the intersecting careers of Arthur Bremer, Dennis Cossini, Michele Clark and E. Howard Hunt.