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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.

Thank you for adding this excellent links. It is a fascinating story. Do you intend to write up anything on Michele Clark?

Is it true she was working on the Watergate story at the time she was killed. Is there any evidence that she had discovered something important about the case. What do you think of Sherman Skolnick's theory that there were other targets on board that aircraft? (The Secret History of Airplane Sabotage, 8th June, 2001).

Upwards of twelve persons connected in one way or another with Watergate, boarded United Air Lines Flight 553 on the afternoon of December 8, 1972. They had something in common. That week there had been a gas pipeline lobbyists meeting as part of the American Bar Association meeting in Washngton, DC It was conducted by Roger Moreau. His secretary was Nancy Parker. Among those attending were Ralph Blodgett and James W. Krueger, both attorneys for the Northern Natural Gas Co., of Omaha, Nebraska. Associated with them were Lon Bayer, attorney for Kansas-Nebraska Natural Gas Co.; Wilbur Erickson, president, Federal Land Bank in Omaha. This was a belligerent group determined to blow the lid off the Watergate case. Reason Former US Attorney General, John Mitchell, and his friends running the Justice Department were putting the spear into Northern Natural Gas. Some officials of that firm and its subsidiaries were indicted on federal criminal charges, September 7, 1972, in Omaha, Chicago, and Hammond, Indiana. Charge bribery of local officials in Northwest Indiana to let the gas pipeline go through. To blackmail their way out of these charges, the Omaha firm had uncovered documents showing that Mitchell, while U.S. Attorney General in 1969, dropped anti-trust charges against a competitor of Northern Natural Gas - El Paso Gas Co. The dropping of the charges against El Paso was worth 300 million dollars. A spokesman for Mitchell belatedly claimed, in March, 1973, that Mitchell had "disqualified" himself in 1969, because Mitchell's law partner represented El Paso. The Justice Department under Mitchell, dropped the charges. Period. About the same time, Mitchell, through a law partner as nominee, got a stock interest in El Paso. Gas and oil interests, such as El Paso, Gulf Resources, and others contributed heavily to Nixon's spy fund, supervised by Mitchell.

Pipeline official Krueger was carrying the Mitchell-El Paso documents on the plane. He had told his wife that he had in his possession irreplaceable papers of a sensitive nature. For months after the crash, his widow demanded, to no avail, that United Air Lines turn over to her his briefcase. It later came out in the pipeline trial in Hammond, that Blodgett had been browbeating federal officials, to drop the criminal charges just prior to the crash. (Our investigation uncovered that most of the local officials, to be government witnesses against the pipeline, were murdered just prior to trial. In all, some five Northwest Indiana officials.)

Dorothy Hunt, Watergate pay-off woman, who offered executive clemency directly on behalf of Nixon to some of the Watergate defendants, was seeking to leave the US with over 2 million dollars in cash and negotiables that she had gotten from CREEP, Committee to Re-Elect the President. (She was so concerned about these valuables, she purchased a separate first class seat next to her on the plane for this luggage.) She and her husband, E. Howard Hunt, the Watergate conspirator, were a "C.I.A. couple", two agents "married" and living together. Early in December, 1972, both were threatening to blow the lid off the White House if (1) he wasn't freed of the criminal charges; (2) Nixon didn't pay heavy to suppress the documents they had showing he was implicated in the planning and carrying out, by the FBI and the CIA, of the political murder of President Kennedy; and (3) Dorothy and Howard Hunt didn't both get several million dollars. Some of these details are in the Memo of Watergate double-agent, James McCord, a CIA official in charge of the Agency's physical security; details before the Senator Ervin Committee. Hunt claimed, according to McCord, to have the data necessary to impeach Nixon. McCord said matters were coming to a head early in December, 1972. Mrs. Hunt was unhappy with her job of going all over the country to bribe defendants and witnesses in the bugging case. She wanted out.

Mrs. Hunt was on the way to arrange to take her money out of the country, possibly Costa Rica, to link up with international swindler Robert Vesco who was there at the time; through Harold C. Carlstead, whose wife was Mrs. Hunt's cousin. Carlstead reportedly did accounting and tax work for mobster-owned businesses in the Chicago area. He operated two Holiday Inn motels in Chicago's south suburbs - at 174th and Torrence, Lansing, Illinois and at 171st and Halsted, Harvey, Illinois. Carlstead's motel on Torrence was reportedly a favorite hang out for gangsters and dope traffickers such as apparently "Cool" Freddie Smith, Grover Barnes, and the late Chicago mobster Sam DeStefano (who aided the American CIA in bloody tricks and was snuffed out to silence him), to name a few. Mrs. Hunt had (1) Ten Thousand Dollars in untraceable cash; (2) Forty Thousand Dollars in so-called "Barker" bills, traceable to Watergate spy Bernard Barker; and (3) upwards of Two Million Dollars in American Express money orders, travelers checks, and postal money orders. (As shown by testimony before the National Transportation Safety Board, re-opened Watergate plane crash hearings, June 13-14, 1973. Hearings reopened as a result of my lawsuit claiming sabotage covered up by the N.T.S.B.) Carlstead issued a fake "cover" story that had (only) Ten Thousand Dollars with Mrs. Hunt. A story swallowed up by the Establishment Press.

Mrs. Hunt got on Flight 553 with Michele Clark, CBS Network newswoman, going to do an exclusive story on Watergate. Mrs. Hunt, Mitchell, Nixon - the story could have destroyed Nixon at the time. Ms Clark had lots of insight into the bugging and cover-up through her boyfriend, a CIA operative. In the summer of 1972, prior to any major revelations of Watergate, Ms Clark tried to pick the brains of Chicago Congressman George Collins, regarding the bugging of the Democratic headquarters. Ms Clark was sitting with Collins on the plane.

After the crash, Michele Clark's employer, CBS Network News, ordered and demanded that the body be cremated by the southside Chicago mortician handling the matter - possibly to cover up foul play. Later, the mortician was murdered in his business establishment, an unsolved crime. (We interviewed close confidants of her family who informed us of the details how CBS applied tremendous pressure and offered large sums for silence on the crash details and having her body cremated contrary to her family's wishes.)

Also on the plane were four or more people who knew about a labor union that had given a large "donation" to CREEP to head-off an criminal indictment of a Chicago labor union hoodlum (at the time of the book, 1973, actively investigated by us).

For many years, like clockwork, one Chicagoan went to Washington, D.C. on Monday and came back Friday afternoon on Flight 553 or its equivalent Lawrence T. O'Connor, Apt. 5-C, 999 North Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, Illinois. On Friday, December 8, 1972, he received a call from someone he knows in the White House, telling him not to take Flight 553 but to go instead to a special meeting.

My long-time friend, political activist Dick Gregory, informed me that there had been strenuous efforts to steer him that same afternoon onto United Air Lines Flight 553. Luckily, he had changed his mind.

Also getting on Flight 553 was a reputed "hit-man", pursuing Mrs. Hunt and others, and going under the "cover" of being a top Narcotics official with DALE (Drug Abuse Law Enforcement). He used the name Harold R. Metcalf. He is an unusual "narc"; he worked directly for Nixon. Metcalf told the pilot he was packing a gun, and so Metcalf was assigned seat B-17, near the stewardesses' jump seat and also near the food galley and the rear door of the plane. After the crash, he walked out of the cracked open fuselage of the pancaked plane wearing a jumpsuit. A former Military Intelligence investigator, who used his credentials to get into the crash site, identified the person posing as "Harold Metcalf" as an overseas CIA parachute spy. Metcalf evidently supervised certain foul play, possibly cyanide, directed at certain passengers, but he didn't know of the over all sabotage plan. One of our staff investigators confronted Metcalf about a week after the crash: (1) Metcalf, supposedly a government narcotics bigshot, knows nothings about dope. (2) in response to our question, "Did you know the plane was sabotaged?", he blurted out half a sentence, "It was not supposed to....", turning purple, he then left the room. Evidently, he was a double cut-out, an espionage term for an operative to be himself eliminated by someone else. His survival was an oversight.

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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.

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While I do believe that the downing of the jet was an intentional act, I have some problems with a post above.

Re: "the late Chicago mobster Sam DeStefano (who aided the American CIA in bloody tricks and was snuffed out to silence him)"

I cannot believe that any government agency would have anything to do with 'Mad Sam' Destefano, who was so crazy that other mobsters were afraid of him. There is a great deal of evidence that he was killed by the outfit because:

A. He was too crazy even for them.

B. He would cause huge disturbances in court and the government was after him big time.

C. There was concern that he would talk if convicted.

Re: "For many years, like clockwork, one Chicagoan went to Washington, D.C. on Monday and came back Friday afternoon on Flight 553 or its equivalent Lawrence T. O'Connor, Apt. 5-C, 999 North Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, Illinois. On Friday, December 8, 1972, he received a call from someone he knows in the White House, telling him not to take Flight 553 but to go instead to a special meeting"

There is no 999 Lake Shore Drive! LSD only has even numbered addresses at that location, the odd side of the road is a park.

Yeah, I know,..... picky, picky, picky.

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While I do believe that the downing of the jet was an intentional act, I have some problems with a post above.

Re: "the late Chicago mobster Sam DeStefano (who aided the American CIA in bloody tricks and was snuffed out to silence him)"

I cannot believe that any government agency would have anything to do with 'Mad Sam' Destefano, who was so crazy that other mobsters were afraid of him. There is a great deal of evidence that he was killed by the outfit because:

A. He was too crazy even for them.

B. He would cause huge disturbances in court and the government was after him big time.

C. There was concern that he would talk if convicted.

Re: "For many years, like clockwork, one Chicagoan went to Washington, D.C. on Monday and came back Friday afternoon on Flight 553 or its equivalent Lawrence T. O'Connor, Apt. 5-C, 999 North Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, Illinois. On Friday, December 8, 1972, he received a call from someone he knows in the White House, telling him not to take Flight 553 but to go instead to a special meeting"

There is no 999 Lake Shore Drive! LSD only has even numbered addresses at that location, the odd side of the road is a park.

Yeah, I know,..... picky, picky, picky.

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?

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Tony Ulasewicz was selected by Richard Nixon to pay off the Watergate burglars. He told the story in The President's Private Eye (1990)

At first, she (Dorothy Hunt) told me that she had lost her job over the Watergate scandal including her medical benefits. She said somebody had to take care of those. She started calculating everybody's needs and came up with a minimum figure of $3,000 a month, but as she didn't want to worry about a monthly delivery from the post man, it was better, she said, to get a big chunk up front to relieve the pressure on everybody. "So let's start with $10,000 or $15,000 apiece to get this thing off the ground," she said. She wanted the advance to cover five months of living expenses. She said Barker, Sturgis, Gonzales, and Martinez needed at least $14,000 apiece and that Barker needed another $10,000 for bail, $10,000 more under the table, and $3,000 for "other expenses." Twenty-five grand apiece were needed for Sturgis, Gonzales, and Martinez's attorneys. I told Mrs. Hunt to slow down. Now she was talking about $400,000 or maybe $450,000. That wasn't even close to the amount Dean had told Kalmbach to raise when they met in Lafayette Park.

When I told Mrs. Hunt that I had no room to negotiate and that it was pointless to present me with a shopping list of who needed what, she said people were starting to get desperate. They felt they were being abandoned. She added a new name when she told me that one of those who needed money was a guy named Liddy. He was involved in the break-in along with the "writer" but hadn't yet been charged with anything. That was news. Hunt's name had been found in an address book kept by one of the Watergate burglars. So had the name Colson. Now Mrs. Hunt was adding another name to the stew. I was a stranger to Mrs. Hunt, and yet she was telling me something that proved Hunt's connection to Colson in the White House. With Liddy in the picture the ring of involvement was widening, and I was learning more than I wanted to know. That was the first time I heard the name Liddy. The way she spoke about him, however, made me feel that she was looking for a way to deal him out of the game as quickly as she could. Liddy had to get some of the money, but just one payment and that was it, she said. Others had to be covered, lots of others whom she said were more important than Liddy. Living expenses were high for all these other people. Money was needed over and under the table. (I doubted many people in Washington really knew the difference.) She said that her husband and the other defendants wouldn't have to go to jail for very long because meetings were going on about that and about pardons and immunity.

The pressure that was building behind the scenes for the payment of increasingly large sums of money to those connected directly and indirectly to the Watergate break-in was turning this "one-shot deal" into a multiheaded tapeworm. It had some appetite, and to feed it, I had to meet Kalmbach on four different occasions to pick up additional sums of money. The first installment was the $75,000 I took out of the Statler Hilton in a laundry bag. The next dump in my lap was at the Regency Hotel in New York where I walked out with $40,000. The third course of the burglars' meal, $28,900, was again given to me at the Statler Hilton in Washington. Kalmbach gave me the last amount off the menu as we sat in a car outside the Airporter Motel at the Orange County Airport in California. It consisted of $75,000 in cash.

I delivered a total of $154,000 to Dorothy Hunt in four separate installments: $40,000, $43,000, $18,000 and $53,000. She was never satisfied with the amount of money I gave her. She never believed that 1 didn't have (and didn't want) the power to determine the breadth of financial support she said was necessary to keep things afloat. Neither Kalmbach nor I knew whether she was delivering what those involved were supposed to receive. She kept telling me about Barker's problems down south; that he needed a lot of cash to keep the lid on things in Miami. Again, she talked about Liddy as if she was trying to give him the shaft. She told me she was worried that Liddy's wife might crack under the strain. Mrs. Liddy was a school teacher and was frightened that she might lose her job if it was discovered that her husband was involved. Dorothy Hunt seemed to want to help Liddy's wife and yet get rid of her at the same time.

Tony Ulasewicz was a key figure in the Watergate Scandal. He had been organizing Nixon's dirty tricks campaign since 1969. Jack Caulfield was very frank with the Sam Ervin Senate Watergate Committee and told them about Ulasewicz. Ulasewicz expected to be given a bad time by the Senate Watergate Committee. Instead, while interviewing Ulasewicz they acted very much like the Warren Commission:

Neither (Howard) Baker nor any other Senator asked me about the specifics of any of my investigations, although they must have known about them because (Terry) Lenzner had made a list of them for the committee. My financial records, including receipts for all my travel and lodging expenses, were also turned over to the committee. I was never asked about my trip to check out the offices of the DNC at the end of May, who asked me to go there, or who was behind that request. Caulfield's call to me the afternoon after the Watergate break-in was never explored, although John Dean was the man who had ordered the call to be made. I expected to be asked about my meeting with Dean when Caulfield was clearing out his office in the Executive Office Building. Again I wasn't. Dean, I concluded, was obviously being protected for star billing as a witness. No one asked me if I had any documents or White House memos about any of my investigations. While I had no intention of playing cute with anybody, I wasn't going to volunteer information unless I was asked for it. I wasn't asked about meeting "Mr. George" or hearing his off-the-wall intelligence plans for the campaign, or about Colson and the Brookings Institution, or about Simmons in Wisconsin. I didn't mind not being asked; I just didn't understand why I wasn't....

Baker asked me in general what my arrangement had been under the agreement I made with Ehrlichman in 1969, but when he asked me "of whom and about what" did I investigate, I didn't get a chance to open my mouth before Baker said, "Let me say this, Mr. Chairman. It is my understanding that Mr. Ulasewicz will once again return for further testimony in another category of testimony." I affirmed Baker's assumption and said, "That's correct." Baker then cut off the inquiry and said, "So we will abbreviate this inquiry at this point, with the full understanding that we can pursue that aspect of it later." Senator Weicker said. He wanted Baker to continue the line of questioning he started, but Baker responded that Committee Chairman, Senator Sam Ervin, whispered in his ear that "if we don't get on with this hearing, we'll still be here when the last trembling tones of Gabriel's trumpet fades into ultimate silence."

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Tony Ulasewicz was selected by Richard Nixon to pay off the Watergate burglars. He told the story in The President's Private Eye (1990)

At first, she (Dorothy Hunt) told me that she had lost her job over the Watergate scandal including her medical benefits. She said somebody had to take care of those. She started calculating everybody's needs and came up with a minimum figure of $3,000 a month, but as she didn't want to worry about a monthly delivery from the post man, it was better, she said, to get a big chunk up front to relieve the pressure on everybody. "So let's start with $10,000 or $15,000 apiece to get this thing off the ground," she said. She wanted the advance to cover five months of living expenses. She said Barker, Sturgis, Gonzales, and Martinez needed at least $14,000 apiece and that Barker needed another $10,000 for bail, $10,000 more under the table, and $3,000 for "other expenses." Twenty-five grand apiece were needed for Sturgis, Gonzales, and Martinez's attorneys. I told Mrs. Hunt to slow down. Now she was talking about $400,000 or maybe $450,000. That wasn't even close to the amount Dean had told Kalmbach to raise when they met in Lafayette Park.

When I told Mrs. Hunt that I had no room to negotiate and that it was pointless to present me with a shopping list of who needed what, she said people were starting to get desperate. They felt they were being abandoned. She added a new name when she told me that one of those who needed money was a guy named Liddy. He was involved in the break-in along with the "writer" but hadn't yet been charged with anything. That was news. Hunt's name had been found in an address book kept by one of the Watergate burglars. So had the name Colson. Now Mrs. Hunt was adding another name to the stew. I was a stranger to Mrs. Hunt, and yet she was telling me something that proved Hunt's connection to Colson in the White House. With Liddy in the picture the ring of involvement was widening, and I was learning more than I wanted to know. That was the first time I heard the name Liddy. The way she spoke about him, however, made me feel that she was looking for a way to deal him out of the game as quickly as she could. Liddy had to get some of the money, but just one payment and that was it, she said. Others had to be covered, lots of others whom she said were more important than Liddy. Living expenses were high for all these other people. Money was needed over and under the table. (I doubted many people in Washington really knew the difference.) She said that her husband and the other defendants wouldn't have to go to jail for very long because meetings were going on about that and about pardons and immunity.

The pressure that was building behind the scenes for the payment of increasingly large sums of money to those connected directly and indirectly to the Watergate break-in was turning this "one-shot deal" into a multiheaded tapeworm. It had some appetite, and to feed it, I had to meet Kalmbach on four different occasions to pick up additional sums of money. The first installment was the $75,000 I took out of the Statler Hilton in a laundry bag. The next dump in my lap was at the Regency Hotel in New York where I walked out with $40,000. The third course of the burglars' meal, $28,900, was again given to me at the Statler Hilton in Washington. Kalmbach gave me the last amount off the menu as we sat in a car outside the Airporter Motel at the Orange County Airport in California. It consisted of $75,000 in cash.

I delivered a total of $154,000 to Dorothy Hunt in four separate installments: $40,000, $43,000, $18,000 and $53,000. She was never satisfied with the amount of money I gave her. She never believed that 1 didn't have (and didn't want) the power to determine the breadth of financial support she said was necessary to keep things afloat. Neither Kalmbach nor I knew whether she was delivering what those involved were supposed to receive. She kept telling me about Barker's problems down south; that he needed a lot of cash to keep the lid on things in Miami. Again, she talked about Liddy as if she was trying to give him the shaft. She told me she was worried that Liddy's wife might crack under the strain. Mrs. Liddy was a school teacher and was frightened that she might lose her job if it was discovered that her husband was involved. Dorothy Hunt seemed to want to help Liddy's wife and yet get rid of her at the same time.

Tony Ulasewicz was a key figure in the Watergate Scandal. He had been organizing Nixon's dirty tricks campaign since 1969. Jack Caulfield was very frank with the Sam Ervin Senate Watergate Committee and told them about Ulasewicz. Ulasewicz expected to be given a bad time by the Senate Watergate Committee. Instead, while interviewing Ulasewicz they acted very much like the Warren Commission:

Neither (Howard) Baker nor any other Senator asked me about the specifics of any of my investigations, although they must have known about them because (Terry) Lenzner had made a list of them for the committee. My financial records, including receipts for all my travel and lodging expenses, were also turned over to the committee. I was never asked about my trip to check out the offices of the DNC at the end of May, who asked me to go there, or who was behind that request. Caulfield's call to me the afternoon after the Watergate break-in was never explored, although John Dean was the man who had ordered the call to be made. I expected to be asked about my meeting with Dean when Caulfield was clearing out his office in the Executive Office Building. Again I wasn't. Dean, I concluded, was obviously being protected for star billing as a witness. No one asked me if I had any documents or White House memos about any of my investigations. While I had no intention of playing cute with anybody, I wasn't going to volunteer information unless I was asked for it. I wasn't asked about meeting "Mr. George" or hearing his off-the-wall intelligence plans for the campaign, or about Colson and the Brookings Institution, or about Simmons in Wisconsin. I didn't mind not being asked; I just didn't understand why I wasn't....

Baker asked me in general what my arrangement had been under the agreement I made with Ehrlichman in 1969, but when he asked me "of whom and about what" did I investigate, I didn't get a chance to open my mouth before Baker said, "Let me say this, Mr. Chairman. It is my understanding that Mr. Ulasewicz will once again return for further testimony in another category of testimony." I affirmed Baker's assumption and said, "That's correct." Baker then cut off the inquiry and said, "So we will abbreviate this inquiry at this point, with the full understanding that we can pursue that aspect of it later." Senator Weicker said. He wanted Baker to continue the line of questioning he started, but Baker responded that Committee Chairman, Senator Sam Ervin, whispered in his ear that "if we don't get on with this hearing, we'll still be here when the last trembling tones of Gabriel's trumpet fades into ultimate silence."

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As promised I will give a link to the Namebase site for each of these characters:

http://www.namebase.org/main1/Dorothy-Hunt.html

Colodny, L. Gettlin,R. Silent Coup. 1992 (222-3, 241)

Constantine, A. Psychic Dictatorship in the U.S.A. 1995 (169)

Covert Action Quarterly 2001-#70 (25)

Fensterwald, B. Coincidence or Conspiracy? 1977 (504)

Groden,R. Livingstone, H. High Treason. 1990 (324-5)

Hougan, J. Secret Agenda. 1984 (4, 125)

Lane, M. Plausible Denial. 1991 (130, 144-5, 175-6)

McCord, J. A Piece of Tape. 1974 (42-3, 141)

Myerson, M. Watergate: Crime in the Suites. 1973 (138-9)

New York Magazine 1976-08-16 (45)

Oglesby, C. The Yankee and Cowboy War. 1976 (226)

Petrusenko,V. A Dangerous Game: CIA and the Mass Media. 1977 (118)

Scott, P.D. Deep Politics. 1993 (306)

Scott, P.D... The Assassinations: Dallas and Beyond. 1976 (403)

Stich, R. Defrauding America. 1994 (22-4)

Thomas, K. Popular Alienation: A Steamshovel Press Reader. 1995 (278)

Weissman,S. Big Brother and the Holding Company. 1974 (127-30, 140-1, 155)

Zeifman, J. Without Honor. 1995 (107)

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  • 1 year later...

One of the most interesting parts of E. Howard Hunt’s book, The American Spy, is when he discusses the death of his wife Dorothy Hunt.

Hunt denies that she was carrying “hush-money” with her when the plane crashed. However, he does admit that they were very short of money at the time and were unable to pay their lawyers.

Hunt’s story is that they decided to invest what little they had ($10,000) in a company controlled by Hal Carlstead, who operated two Holiday Inns in Chicago. Hunt writes: “Our investment was obviously small, but it was a bit of a Hail Mary pass, as I hadn’t drawn a paycheck in six months and, after all this negative publicity, did not feel as if my prospects for future employment could be described as anything but grim. The investment, we hoped, would lead to a paying position after my trial.”

Hunt does not provide a good reason why Dorothy Hunt had to personally deliver this money. Despite the so-called shortage of funds, Dorothy buys a first-class plane ticket to Chicago so she can hand this money over to Hal Carlstead.

Before she gets on the plane, Dorothy, according to Hunt: “apparently as an afterthought, she bought $250,000 in accident insurance from an airport vending machine”. It is this money that according to Hunt, paid his legal fees.

Hunt admits that all his children blamed him for Dorothy’s death. In fact, this is the thing that permanently damaged his relationship with his four children. It would seem that they did not believe him either.

Has anyone got any explanation for these events?

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One of the most interesting parts of E. Howard Hunt’s book, The American Spy, is when he discusses the death of his wife Dorothy Hunt.

Hunt denies that she was carrying “hush-money” with her when the plane crashed. However, he does admit that they were very short of money at the time and were unable to pay their lawyers.

Hunt’s story is that they decided to invest what little they had ($10,000) in a company controlled by Hal Carlstead, who operated two Holiday Inns in Chicago. Hunt writes: “Our investment was obviously small, but it was a bit of a Hail Mary pass, as I hadn’t drawn a paycheck in six months and, after all this negative publicity, did not feel as if my prospects for future employment could be described as anything but grim. The investment, we hoped, would lead to a paying position after my trial.”

Hunt does not provide a good reason why Dorothy Hunt had to personally deliver this money. Despite the so-called shortage of funds, Dorothy buys a first-class plane ticket to Chicago so she can hand this money over to Hal Carlstead.

Before she gets on the plane, Dorothy, according to Hunt: “apparently as an afterthought, she bought $250,000 in accident insurance from an airport vending machine”. It is this money that according to Hunt, pays his legal fees.

Hunt admits that all his children blamed him for Dorothy’s death. In fact, this is the thing that permanently damaged his relationship with his four children. It would seem that they did not believe him either.

Has anyone got any explanation for these events?

I don't find EHH's story about hs wife credible. I first read Skolnick's work on this matter in 73 and found it to be very credible. I wonder how many other times in Dorothy's life she bought insurance before flying. Whether Nixon had the plane brought down- or the CIA- it was sabotage. And Nixon saw to it that it was covered up. Interestingly though, one of the three who helped cover up- Alex Butterfield -would later be Nixon's undoing with the disclosure of Nixon's taping system.

Recall that the crash was 12/8/72. On 12/9 Watergate plumber Egil Krogh suddenly became an underetary for the Dept. f Transportation, investigating the crash. Dec. 19 Butterfield was appointed administrator of the FAA. Less than a month later Nixon's appointment secty. Dwight Chapin joined the staff at United Air Lines.

And since when do 50 FBI agents show up for any plane crash?

Dawn

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While I don't have any info on the death of Dorothy Hunt, your profile of her fails to mention a key fact from "American Spy."

Hunt: "As we conversed on our single Wasington date, she proved to be witty and intelligent, and told me that she spent the war years in Bern employed by the Treasury Department's Hidden Assets Division, which investigated concealed Nazi assets abroad...."

It would be hard to believe that Dorothy de Goutiere lived in Bern during the war and didn't socialize with other government employed Americans - Allen Dulles, Mary Bancroft, Frank Wisner,...et al.

BK

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While I don't have any info on the death of Dorothy Hunt, your profile of her fails to mention a key fact from "American Spy."

Hunt: "As we conversed on our single Wasington date, she proved to be witty and intelligent, and told me that she spent the war years in Bern employed by the Treasury Department's Hidden Assets Division, which investigated concealed Nazi assets abroad...."

It would be hard to believe that Dorothy de Goutiere lived in Bern during the war and didn't socialize with other government employed Americans - Allen Dulles, Mary Bancroft, Frank Wisner,...et al.

BK

From my page on Dorothy Hunt:

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKhuntD.htm

Dorothy Wetzel was born in Ohio on 1st April, 1920. She became an employee for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) after the Second World War and was stationed in Shanghai, China, where she met her future husband, E. Howard Hunt.

After the war Dorothy worked for the CIA in Paris. She was liaison between the American Embassy and the Economic Cooperation Administration (a CIA front).

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I know there is a lot of speculation regards the unfortunate death of Mrs. Hunt. I can’t seem to raise my suspicion level up about this issue though. A plane crash in which 18 people survive is more then a bit of an “iffy” way to perform an assassination. Not that I believe that the powers that be would care one whit about the collateral damage. But the chances of Mrs. Hunt surviving the crash seem pretty good. If there was murder in mind, there are about a million other more sure fire ways to perform it then leaving it to the uncertainties of a plane crash in which there are 18 survivors. I would be more inclined to believe that something was up if there were zero survivors. As for anyone on the plane overseeing the administering of cyanide to the pilot that is even more unlikely to me. It would be awful hard to get someone to volunteer to perform that duty. I think that the crash was just what it seems. A tragic accident. Don’t get me wrong, I am a suspicious guy but the hairs on the back of my neck are not raised but this event, unlike others. However the ensuing actions of law enforcement agencies are suspicious to me but only in that I would suspect that they were trying to find and dispose of any pertinent information that apparently many of the players who were on the plane may have had in their possession at the time. Now to demonstrate the type of action (although it’s way off topic) that raises those back-of-neck hairs of mine, here is a prime example:

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I know there is a lot of speculation regards the unfortunate death of Mrs. Hunt. I can’t seem to raise my suspicion level up about this issue though. A plane crash in which 18 people survive is more then a bit of an “iffy” way to perform an assassination. Not that I believe that the powers that be would care one whit about the collateral damage. But the chances of Mrs. Hunt surviving the crash seem pretty good. If there was murder in mind, there are about a million other more sure fire ways to perform it then leaving it to the uncertainties of a plane crash in which there are 18 survivors. I would be more inclined to believe that something was up if there were zero survivors. As for anyone on the plane overseeing the administering of cyanide to the pilot that is even more unlikely to me. It would be awful hard to get someone to volunteer to perform that duty. I think that the crash was just what it seems. A tragic accident. Don’t get me wrong, I am a suspicious guy but the hairs on the back of my neck are not raised but this event, unlike others. However the ensuing actions of law enforcement agencies are suspicious to me but only in that I would suspect that they were trying to find and dispose of any pertinent information that apparently many of the players who were on the plane may have had in their possession at the time.

The logic of this theory is that all assassinations are carried out exactly to plan. It is of course impossible to discover if Dorothy Hunt was murdered. However, why Hunt's children never forgave him was their belief that Hunt knew she was in danger. How else do you explain why "she bought $250,000 in accident insurance from an airport vending machine”. Hunt claims it was an "afterthought" on her part and had nothing to do with him.

Bob, do you have any idea why she had to take the $10,000 to Chicago? Going first-class by plane when it could be sent in other ways seems strange when according to Hunt he was desperately short of money at the time.

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Now as for the children blaming Howard, I think that the blame and guilt is rarely logical when familys are involved. To the children, no matter how the you look at it, their idiot Father put their Mom in this danger. He got her into this, only him. If she were in an accident on the way to the airport, whatever, it would be that selfish jerks fault to them. What a user. Even used his own son to dispose of the evidence from the burglary. Scumbag. The kid could have been charged with who knows how many criminal counts just for that. Did he care? He needed help and used whatever was available at the time, even his own son for God’s sake. User. What a lowlife. It doesn’t surprise me how much things fell apart for them after she died. The poor boys took the brunt of his lack of their father’s manhood. I think boys always suffer the most from fathers’ weaknesses. Oh yeah, sure, he was tough guy, a real man...but not tough enough and not enough of a man to live his life for his family. It was always and only, all about Howard.

The Hunts lived large, kids in private schools, nice house, nice neighborhood, etc. Dorothy was a mom before anything else and she knew how much was riding on this latest venture that “Goofball” had gotten them into. She also knew full well the kind of people they were dealing with. Animals. But I don't think that figured into her thinking. I know, that if I was taking that flight, the debt I was in, the risk to the family, the legal bills, fines, etc that they were going to have to come up with, that they may lose there house, kids would have to leave there nice schools. That was what was important to her. Her family. She was, I’m sure, a damn fine woman. Just made bad choices about men, nothing new there either, not the only smart beautiful woman to make a bad pick. Ultimately they were looking at about $800,000.00 in legal bills but she didn’t know that then or she would have got a million dollars in flight insurance. The family was what was important to her. Think about it from a good Mom’s perspective, because that is what Dorothy Hunt was before anything else. If there ever there was a time to but flight insurance, it would be then. My concern as a parent wouldn't be Nixon, the CIA, and my impending doom. It would be for my family, keeping the kids in school, keeping their lives unchanged. They lived large but could have saved money. They could have sent the kids to public school, but they didn't, she didn't. I'll bet if it were up to Howard they would have. Then was these wads of cash they were dealing with. May not sound like a lot today but back then...a lot of cash. Unchecked, untaxed, unaccountable. Dorothy probably didn’t enjoy this task that Goofball was having her do. The need to do it right was such that how else could the get the money there? Western Union? One of knucklehead Howards "relible" friends? He didn’t have any. More scumbags like him. Any honest way to get the money there would have left a paper trail, straight to the taxman. Trusting one of Howies "buddies" left open the possibility that the money could have been absconded with leaving them with no recourse. Hey, D.C. police, the idiot my husband sent “x” grand of hush money to Chicago with his scumbag friend and he stole the money! Can you go arrest him and give us the money back? Oh, and by the way, don't mention this to the press or God forbid, the IRS. Whatever the deal was that they had going, poor Dorothy wasn't going to let that money out of her sight. It may have been an afterthought to Howard, buying insurance; I suspect Howard wouldn't have thought of it at all. His brain would have said, "Hey, if I die, who cares what happens then...I'm dead!” He sounds like a totally self absorbed, selfish kind of character like so many in this world and so many of these guys become fathers and husbands. Go figure. Maybe I have too much regard for the gentler sex, but from the sounds of this family, Dorothy was the one with her head screwed on right. I think if this happened to my Mom when I was a child, and my Mom was the only one who ever really gave a crap about my family, I would blame my idiot Dad too. I wouldn’t care if it made sense or not. Mom wouldn't have been on the plane at all if it wasn't for Goofball. So, from the children’s perspective, it would always be his fault, no matter what actually happened. Accident or not. Mom should have been home taking care of the family like she would want to be. And as for her going first class, Dorothy was flying all over the country on this fool missions that Howard had gotten into. She was apparently negotiating and coordinating the payments to the principals. I would imagine she spent a lot of time on it. She certainly deserved a fee for it, cut out of everyone’s share. In that case traveling first class on their nickel seems to me not too surprising. From my readings into this, Slotnick and to Oglesby both seemed to have massaged the facts somewhat, and I didn’t dig too deep to notice that. Nixon and Ruckelshaus seemed very concerned with covering their own ugly arses, no big surprise there either. I think if you want to find integrity in this story some places to look are the members of the NSTB board investigating the accident and A.J. Weberman who after an obviously deep perusal (no doubt another “all nighter”) of the NTSB board transcripts could only find few one oddities, Aluminum Oxide on some of the instrument connections, some misettings on the altimeter. Something that should be looked into more by a competent person. It seemed that one of the Bord members wanted the alumnium oxide mentioned into the record and another member could have been tryig to cut him off. What this mens is unknown to me. Another place to look for integrity, I think, is the Dade County Coroner Office. Horrible for me to even speculate about this..There’s the off chance one of his kids might read this. I just want them to know if they do that it's definitely not my intention to cause them any more pain. In fact, I hope they would see me as sticking up for them and especially for their Mom, who was like a million other Mothers, the real saint of that family.

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NTSB_Report.doc

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It seems the first paragraph of my reply didn't make it to my post for whatever reason. probably a poor cut and paste job by me, nothng new there. You'll have to jump around a little but this was it:

John, if you mean that assassinations rarely go according to plan because a third of the folks onboard survived, then I agree with you. As I said, if there were no survivors, I would be more inclined to suspect that something was amiss. But again I think that a crash in which 18 survived leaves too much to chance to have been deliberate. And there is nothing more certain then a bullet in the brain, as everyone in this forum knows. Muggings, robberies, auto accidents, etc., etc. happen every day. There were plenty of opportunities with Dorothy traveling around. D.C. and Chicago. These cities are not known for their low crime rate.

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