Vol 3, No 14.Jpg

IULY 16-:11, 1996 Ken Silverstein & Alexander Cockburn VOL. 3, NO. 14

• IN THIS ISSUE Oil in Its Hours of Triuniph

robed by public interest groups, drop inc.endiary bombs and burn o£fthe Special Summer the Democratic candidate for the sliclc, hopefully before the goop fetches Reading Issue Ppresidential nomination agrees up on · the shores of the Mak.ah and that he will: Quinault Indian reservations. • Break up the oil cartel, dominated Billed by proud government flacks as The Murder of Mary by the Seven Sisters, ;,.hose Ameri an enviro wargame, this mad exercise Meyer: A Mystery · . ·' -· ·can members are Texaco, Chevron, actually represents unconditional sur from Babylon's Past Mobil, Exxon, and ARCO. render to the oil industry . What ,re have • Prohibit oil and gas companies here is taxpayer money underwriting in • A Killing on the from simultaneously controlling dustry efforts to persuade the public .Canal Towpath . ~ther energy sources such as coal (which maintains .a healthy loathing for and natural gas. Big Oil) that drilling in the most ecologi • Nationalize the development 0£ all cally sensitive areas is just line, and that • A Nod and a Winlc oil and gas reserves on federally even the worst disaster can be swiftly Did Joseph Kennedy owned, public lands. cleaned up. Order Her Death? • Curb corporate profits from public There is every reason for the public to leases, particularly oil companies be skeptical of the oil companies' good • Hijinks on the High Seas: drilling on the outer continental intentions. An independent counsel who JFK and Mrs. Niven shelf. investigated the Department of Interior's • Oppose deregulation 0£ the oil and oil leasing practices put together a report gas industry. in 1994 which was recently excavated by Oil Uber Alles The candidate, obviously, was not Bill the DC-based Project on Government Clinton . But this check list is no £antasy. Oversight. • How Big Oil Made the We have in our possession, held by a It emerges that ten companies extract World Safe for Itself CounterPunch editor in his files for 20 ing oil and gas from federal lands in years, the statement 0£ intent of candi California have underpaid the US Treas • Babbitt Okays Petro date and nominee Jimmy Carter, re ury by at least $1.5 billion in royalties Lords' Rip-Off of leased by the Carter Campaign in June of and accumulated interest dating back to California Schools 1976, answering a questionnaire sent by 1960. The companies are: Texaco, Shell, the Energy Action Committee. Note that Mobil, ARCO, Chevron, Exxon, UNO in 1976 Carter was among the·most con CAL, Phillips, Santa Fe and .Oryx. By Plus: servative of the candidates, yet he too felt federal law, one quarter of this money it expedient to vow to bring the titans of should have been returned to the state of • Upsizing, Beltway Style: American capitalism to their knees. California's desperately underfunded The Soaring Pay of Now move the clock forward 20 years. school system, which has thus been Public Interest CEOs This £all the US Department of the shorted $375 million by the oil compa Interior and the Environmental Protec,. nies. The remainder should have been tion Agency plan to spill eleven thousand • Morris Dees Seeks deposited in the Land and Water Conser gallons of crude oil of£ the coast of Wash vation Fund, a federal account used to Protection Money ington state's Olympic peninsula . EPA acquire public lands for parks and wild scientists , clad in full body condoms, will life reserves . • I'll Scratch Your Back ... : monitor the flow of the oil slick as it Did the US Interior Department, bas The Washington Times passes over a marine mammal sanctuary tion of Babbitt the Magnificent, take ac and the GOP containing some of the best orca whale tion after reading this report? It did no habitat in the Pacific. Then, Coast Guard such thing . It proposed instead a simple helicopters will swoop onto the scene to (continued on p. 7) 2/COUNTERPUNCH JULY 16-31, 1996

,benefits . The Project has six staffers whose combined salaries total roughly $225,000, Doing Well By Doing Good all hut $25,000 of the outfit's revenues. orporate executives have long while the Environment.al Defense Funds Fighting poverty can also be a lucra lined their pockets at the expense Fred Krupp talres home $210,T74. tive career here in Washington. David Cof workers . Now, a Counter It's interesting to compare green sala Liederman of the Child Welfare League Punch survey of salaries in the public ries with the pay of CEOs of energy indus of America makes $138,075 crusading interest sector shows that many advocacy try trade associations. The compensation for the underdog; Robert Greenstein, groups seem to have taken a page from package of Michael Baly III of the Ameri president of the Center on Budget and the handbook. of corporate greed. In can Gas Association ($343,780) topped Policy Priorities, gets $105,000 (1996) deed, in some cases the gulf between the that of all of the wildlife defenders listed and Edward C.OOneyof the Food Research upper echelons and the toilers at such and Action Center, a puny shop dedicated groups appears to mimic the income dis to eradicating hunger, makes $84,246. parities found at Fortune 500 firms. (The Pay at conservative and liberal civil figures cited below, culled from annual The head of the Petroleum rights groups is also interesting . Wayne filings to the IRS and a variety of publish Marketers Association LaPierre of the National Rifle Associa ed source~ include benefits and are from . tion takes home $184,708 while Ralph 1993 unless otherwise stated.) makes less than Reed of the Christian Coalition makes It will not surprise CounterPunch many Beltway greens. $122,556. Nestled comfortably in be readers that the highest paid do-gooder tween is Arthur Kropp, president of Peo executives head Beltway environmental ple for the American Way (1994), who groups. Jay Hair, who was finallyforced above, butCEOs Lawrence Hobart ol the makes $147,760. Note that the revenues out of the National Wildlife Federation American Public Power Association of the latter group stand at about $6 last year, had been ra.k:ingin a salary and ($207,029) and Phillip Chisolm ol the million, less than half of the Christian benefits package worth $298,876. Hair's Petroleum Marketers Association of Coalition's $14.6 million and about five counterpart at the Nature Conservancy, America($171,528)wouldhavedonejust percent of the National Rifle Associa John Sawhill, pulls in $202,118 a year fine financially by moving into a post at tion's $121.4 million. Seven other people a DC green organization. on the People for the American Way staff Sharing the same tax bracket are ex make more than $65,000 per year. Editors ecutives at conservative and liberal think Members of the right-wing groups cer KEN SILVERSTEIN ·tanks. Edward Crane, who oversees the tainly get their money's worth for their ALEXANDER CocJCBURN deregulation boosters at the Cato Insti contributions. The same can't be said of tute, makes $160,000 (1994) while Bruce backers of People for the American Way, Co-writers MacLaury ol the Brookings Institution, a the supposed defender of civil rights JEFFREYST. CLAm Democratic think tank, easily tops that ANM'SSHIN which was too cowardly to oppose the with $227,981. Morton Abramowitz of Antiterrorism Act recently signed by the Carnegie Endowment for Interna President Clinton . Production tional Peace earns $181,688 annually The bloated salaries paid to public TERRYALLEN while the hawkish head of Georgetown's advocates present obvious problems. Center for .Strategic and International "Non-profit public interest groups should Counselor Studies, David Abshire, nets $232,646. not reflect the huge disparities in society BENSoNNENBERG It's no surpfise ' that the Heritage and the corporate world," Bill Goodfel Foundation's Edwin Feulner tops the low, a director of the Center for Interna Design chart in this sector with a pay package of tional Policy, a human rights group, says. DEBORAH THOMAS $433,611 or that Al From, the head of the "We're supposed to be critics of the estab Democratic Leadership Council who has lished order and if you make as much Published twice monthly except made a career (and a fortune) demand money as people in the establishment, August, 22 issues a year: ing sacrifice from the rest of the popula you will be very reluctant to rock the $40 individuals, tion, ta1reshome $225,000. boat." Goodfellow is one of the few public $100 institutions, Pay at the liberal Institute for Policy interest advocates who can make this $25 student/low-income Studies is fairly modest. Its highest paid statement in good conscience : he makes CounterPunch. staffer for 1995 was Marcus Raskin, who $43,080. Goodfellow says that the direc All rights reserved. made $75,000 (and benefits of $5,780), tors of public interest groups have little CounterPunch welcomes all tips, this after more than three decades of difficulty in extracting big pay packages information and suggestions. employment. In the same Dupont Circle from their boards of directors: "Very sel Please call or write our offices. area building as the Institute is a relative dom do boards resist increasing top sala CounterPunch newcomer, the Demilitarization for De ries. The reason is that most hoard P.O. Box 18675, mocracy Project, whose director, Dr. members are rich and they have a hard Washington, DC 20036 Caleb Rossiter, makes the same salary as time aslcing their executives to accept 202-986-3665 (phone/fax) Raslcin and $3,500 more than Raskin in modest salaries." • JULY 16-31; 1996 COUN'n:RPUNCH/3

struck by a car and killed as he ran across ·the street in front of the family home. The A Death in Georgetown Meyers' marriage, troubled for several years, dissolved in 1957. ·The Unsolved Killing of Mary Meyer Af.te_r the divorce, Mary moved from McLean, Virginia, where she was neigh There are some stories in Babylon that lead a fitful existence, neverfu/.ly lai,d to rest. bors with Robert and Ethel Kennedy, to One such tale isflurryi,ng into life again, the saga of Mary Meyer. This woman, murdered a townhouse _on "N" Str~et in George- · thirty years ago, is to be the subject of a new book and hcu come under scrutiny in a town . Among Mary's neighbors were her number of recent magazine stories. Many Americans are entirely unfamiliar with the sister, Toni, who was married to Ben Meyer story and we thought that as we head into our annual monthly recess, we'd send Bradlee, then Washington editor at our readers off with this mystery. Newsweek. John and Jaclcie lived just he was so strilcingly attractive a Jackie . "It's an extraordinary story and down the block . woman that the -first detective at one the American people are totally igno Mary took a number of lovers, includ Sthe scene of her murder later said rant of," Davis says. "When I tell people ing the abstract painter Kenneth Noland . she "even looked beautiful with a bullet that every time Jackie left the White She was a painter herself, good enough in her head" . Mary Pinchot Meyer was House, Mary Meyer wallc.ed in, they're to have several shows in Washington, in shot and killed on October 12, 1964, two shocked." cluding one at the Corcoran gallery. days shy of her 44th birthday, during an Meyer's romantic involvement with afternoon stroll along a footpath flank JFK was first revealed in 1976 by James ing the old Chesapeake and Ohio barge An automobile mechanic Truitt, a oµe-time vice president of The canal in Georgetown. She was an artist named Henry Wiggins Washington Post who along with his wife, and socialite, a woman who, according to :Anne, was a close friend of Mary's. Ac a front-page story on her death in The heard a woman screani cording to Trnitt's story, which appeared Washington Post, had "a hundred thou for help. There was a in the Nati.anal Inquirer and has never sand friends." been disputed, JFK first propositioned Something the Post didn't report, and gunshot and, moments Mary at a White House party in early what wasn't known publicly until more later, a second one. 1961, when he urged her to stay behind than a decade after her murder, was that after the other guests departed . Then still Meyer had been the mistress of President involved with Kenneth Noland, Mary re John F. Kennedy until his assassination . ary Pinchot hailed from one of fused . A month later, JFK called her at She was also an intimate of Jacqueline America's wealthiest and most home and urged Meyer to meet him at the Kennedy as well as a close companion of M prominent families. Her father, White House. Having won her consent, LSD gum Timothy Leary . Her ex-hus Amos Pinchot, was a lawyer and close . Kennedy dispatched a limousine driven band was Cord Meyer, Jr., a CIA "dirty friend of President Teddy Roosevelt and by a Secret Service agent to bring her to tricks" specialist . her uncle, Gifford Pinchot, a two-term the White House. Thus began their love Police arrested a suspect whom they governor of Pennsylvania was the foun affair, which included some 40 visits to charged with the murder of Mary Meyer, der of the US Forest Service. the White House when Jaclcie was travel suggesting that she had been the victim Mary went to Vassar, where she first ing or at the Kennedy country estate in of a bungled robbery or attempted rape. met John Kennedy, then at Harvard . Af. Middleburg, Virginia . But when the man was tried the following ter graduation from college and a brief This was Camelot and the city swirled year, a jury unanimously acquitted him. career as a journalist, she married Cord with black-tie gatherings, embassy par- The case, closed ever since, remains offi Meyer in 1945. Her husband's family cially unsolved . had grown rich in the sugar business and For the past thirty years, some have Cord's father, well connected in Demo insisted that Mary Meyer was the target cratic Party circles, served as a diplomat He-e-e-re' s of a conspiracy, murdered because she in Cuba, Italy and Sweden . was a woman who knew too much . But Cord served in the military during Babylon no one has yet produced any evidence to World War II - he lost an eye during the Washington Babylon, our new American attack against Japanese forces hack up such an assertion . book intimately detailing the cor Now John H. Davis, Jacqueline Ken on Guam - and in 1951 signed up with ruption of the political establish nedy's first cousin, is worlcing on a new the CIA. He worked closely with the hook - tentatively titled A Tale of Two Agency-backed Congress for Cultural ment, has just hit the book stores. Murdered Lovers: Mary Pinchot Meyer Freedom in Europe, which funneled In biparti-san fashion, we savage and John F.Kennedy- that he hopes will money to Cold War intellectuals, and Republi.oons and Democrats alike. solve the case. In addition to examining later coordinated the infiltration of the We are offering Washington Meyer's death, Davis also promises ex US National Student Association . Babylon to CounterPunch sub plosive material about her romance with Mary and Cord had three sons, scribers for $16.40 (includes post the President, which Davis says was seri Quentin, Mark and Michael. In Decem age), a di-scount of20 percent. ous enough to threaten JFK's marriage to ber of 1956 nine-year-old Michael was 4/COUNTERPUNCII JULY 16-31, 1996

ties, Georgetown dinners. Mary some a painting . She walked a few blocks, acci~ental meeting [between the killer times attended the same affairs as JFK, crossed the foot bridge that leads to the and Meyer] but I .don Jt think ~o." though Jackie accompanied the Presi canal and stepped onto the towpath, Roundtree told CountcrPunch during a dent and Mary generally came with the which runs alo_ng a wooded slope that talk at her law offices in a poor area of Bradlees. She was there for a Potomac drops away to the Potomac river. Washington. "It was broad daylight and cruise on May 29, 1963 with, among oth Not long after Meyer entered the tow there was a lot ol foot traffic along the ers, Robert and Ethel Kennedy, David path, an ai:.ttomobiie me~hanic named canal . You'd have to be a fool to kill Niven and his wife Hjordis, Senator George Henry Wiggins was working on a car that someone th~re unless that was what .you Smathers and his wife Rosemary, and had stalled on a bridge overlooking the were there for in the first place." · · socialite Fifi Fell. canal. He heard a woman scream for The police maf have blocked off the Jackie arranged the cruise to com help. There was a gunshot and, a few five offidal exits from the canal area, but memorate JFK's birthday, his last as it moments later, a second one . Wiggins ran there ~re plenty of ~arked paths by turned out. With both his wife - five to the other side of the bridge, looked which the murderer could have escaped, months pregnant at the time - and his down, and saw a man placing an object Roundtree remembered . And wpy-"did mistress aboard, the President snuck be into the pocket of a light windbreaker, the police, who searched the woods and low deck with Niven's wife. "He came then dash for the woods. On the pathway river for days, never £ind the murder hack about ten minutes later," Senator lay a woman . weapon?Because, she says, the killer took Smathers, who JFK had appointed to it with him . distract Jackie during his absence, later Decisive at Crump's trial was told the writer Kitty Kelley. "It was like a Though both Jackie and Roundtree's discrediting of the testi rooster getting on top of a chicken real mony of Henry Wiggins and of another fast and then the poor little hen ruffled his ·mistress were aboard, witness, Air Force Lieutenant William her feathers and wonders what the hell JFK managed to sneak be Mitchell. The latter had been jogging on happened to her ." low deck for ten minutes the towpath shortly before the murder Despite such shortcomings, Mary was and passed Mary Meyer and, trailing be clearly enchanted with JFK and at times with David Niven's wife. hind her, a man he later identified as found it difficult to conceal her feelings . Crump . Both men described Meyer's kil At a dinner party hosted by Carey Fis ler as about 5 '8 and Mitchell estimated cher, Mary went on at such length about Wiggins ran to a nearby gas station his weight at 185 pounds. But Crump was the difficulties of the President's life in and called police, who quickly sealed off just 5'5 and weighed 145 pounds, "a the White House, including the problem the canal area. About twenty minutes shrimp of a man", Roundtree says . of getting decent diaper service, that one later an officer took into custody Ray For her final argument - "the best I guest finally cut her off by complaining mond Crump, Jr., who had been found ever gave and I have given a few that have that the minutiae of JFK's domestic af walking along the abandoned railroad moved mountains" - Roundtree told fairs were of no interest to anyone. tracks. He was dripping wet., explaining the jury : "[Raymond Crump] is your Ex During this same period Mary struck that he had been fishing and fallen into hibit A. You can remember everything, up a friendship with Timothy Leary. the water when he dozed off. Crump said these mountains of evidence presented Leary, who recently died of prostate can his fishing pole, which was nowhere to be by [the prosecutor] Mr. Alfred Hantman cer, has claimed that Meyer told him the found, must have gone in with him . . .. Well, then you must make him grow government was studying · ways to use The victim carried no identification . and you must fill him out in dimensions drugs for espionage and asked him for The only due was a glove found near her which simply do not exist. I say to you that instructions on how to use l.SD for brain body with the name Meyer faintly visible this and this alone is sufficient for you to washing sessions . According to James on the inside. After checking all the Mey find ... that Mr . Hantman and these hills Truitt, Mary and JFK experimented with ers in the phone book and getting no of evidence did not prove that the person drugs on at least one occasion. In July of answer at her Georgetown home, police who killed this poor lady was Raymond 1962, they smoked marijuana on his contacted Ben Bradlee, whose name Crump , Jr." White House bed. After the third joint neighbors had given them . Eight hours After five hours of deliberation, the JFK begged off, saying "No more. Su:ir after her death, Bradlee identified Mary jurorssentanotetothejudgethattheywere pose the Russians did something now." Meyer's body at the morgue . deadlocked, 8 to 4, though no indication He also promised to get Mary cocaine, a In July of 1965, Raymond Crump was given as to which way they were lean pledge apparently never honored, and went on trial, represented by Dovey ing. The judge ordered the panel to con joked about getting stoned at the White Roundtree, who in addition to being a tinue its deliberations and the following House, which was soon to host a major very skillful lawyer is an ordained minis morning Raymond Crump was acquit conference on narcotics . ter in the African Methodist Episcopal ted . That same evening he got on a bus Church. Roundtree - now 82, legally and left Washington forever, heading South ary Meyer's last walk was blind but still practicing law - never be where the Crump family had relatives. meant to be a brief one . It was lieved that Crump killed Mary Meyer. Roundtree didn't know that Mary M about noon when she closed Whoever did - and Roundtree thought Meyer had been JFK's mistress until the the door to her Georgetown studio, hav initially that it was a scorned lover - had story broke in 1976. But a curious thing ing first turned on an electric fan to dry set out to do so. "It could have been an happened during Crump's trial. One JULY 16-31, 1996 COUN'rnRPUNCJI/~ night she received . an· anonymous ·call eluding Ben Bmdlee - have revealed vir who believes that JFKwas contemplating fromia m~ who told her that .Mary Meyer tually nothing about what was in it. · leaving Jackie for Mary after he leh office. ha _d kept a diary and that it contained Davis feels sure that Raymond Crump information that would be helpful to the r more than five years Leo Damore did not murder Meyer. The autop~-y;he defense. Then the caller hung up. nvestigated Mary Meyer's mur- says, dearly indicates that the . murder The next morning, Roundtree marched der . By early 1995 Damore - was the work of a professional : "There into court and told the judge that she had author of the bestseller, Senatori,a/ Privi was one shot to the brain and one to the learned of a diary kept by Meyer and lege: The Chappaquiddick Cover-Up, aorta. These weren't random shots. They demanded to see it. Both the judge and which demolished Ted Kennedy's alibi hit the most vital organs of the human prosecutor Hantman denied any knowl regarding the accident that killed Mary body and induced her immediate death ." edge of such a journal. "I was stuck be Jo Kopechne - told friends that he was So who killed Mary Meyer? I)avis is cause I didn't have any proof that there nearing a breakthrough. Then, in Octo ·exploring two theories. Through ~er con truly was a diary," Roundtree says. ber of 1995, Damore, despondent over tacts in the CIA, Mary knew of the Agency's his divorce, shot himself at home in front efforts to kill Cuban leader Fidel Castro. ut there was indeed a diary, one of a visiting health worker. She was known to be voluble, she smoked that Mary Meyer kept until her Damore's lawyer, James Smith, is a marijuana and she used LSD. "The plots Bdeath and which is said to have long-time friend of John Davis. At against Castro were the CIA's deepest recorded all of her visits to the White Smith's suggestion, Damore 's son turned secret at the time and someone may have House. Inhis 1995memoirs,A Good Life, over his father's research to Davis, a lead worried that she would reveal her knowl Ben Btadlee says that Anne Truitt called ing chronicler of Camelot. He recently edge," Davis says. "I wouldn't put any him from Tokyo on the day of Meyer's completed Jaqueline Bouvier: An Inti thing past the CIA during that period . It murder . Truitt told him that Meyer had mate Memoir and has previously written was one of the most evil organizations on asked her to secure the diary in the event Mafia Kingfish: Carlos Marcello and the the face ofthe earth." of her death . Bradlee and his wife went Assassination of John F. Kennedy, which His second theory is that someone to Mary's home to look for the diary only alleges that Marcello had JFK eliminated close to Robert Kennedy - running for to £ind the notorious molehunter James because of his administration's battles the Senate in the state of New York when Angleton, having picked the lock, already with organized crime. Meyer was killed - may have ordered a inside. Angleton and his wife, Cicely, JFK, of course, had many lovers. In hit . "It's conceivable that someone in his were i~timates of Mary Meyer and of the addition to well known partners like Mar political machine or one of his handlers Bradlees. Mary's diary was not in plain ilyn Monroe and Judith Campbell Exner, was mortally afraid of what would hap sight and the CIA man, equipped with who simultaneously was involved with pen to Bobby's image if it came out that white gloves and a drill, led the search . the mobster Sam Giancana, there were Mary Meyer was the lover of the martyred They looked in the furnace, out in the "Fiddle" and "Faddle", the code _name president," Davis says. It's even conceiv garden; they tapped on walls looking for given by the Secret Service to two young able, Davis adds portentously, that the a secret hiding place, all to no avail. White House staffers; Pamela Turnure, man who put a contract on Meyer's head Ben and Toni Bradlee later went to Jackie's 23-year-old secretary; and a string was family patriarch Joseph Kennedy. Meyer's studio, where they found the di of call girls who ministered to him in his ary in a lockbox. They turned the journal suite at the Carlyle Hotel . mericans love a good conspiracy over to Angleton, who said he would de None of this seems to have greatly yarn, especially one that involve,5 stroy it at'CIA headquarters. Years later, disturbed the First Lady. But Davis says A JFK . But was there indeed a plot Toni asked Angleton about the diary and Jackie knew of her husband's affair with to kill Mary Meyer? he admitted he still had it. He then re Mary Meyer and was furious about it. The man who has probed most deeply turned the journal to Toni, who de "Jackie and Mary Meyer were friends, into her murder is the New York writer stroyed it. and she knew how intelligent and charm Ron Rosenbaum. Two decades ago he Bradlee's account has been disputed ing Mary was," he says. "She was more on and a colleague, Philip Nobile, set out by Cicely Angleton and Anne Truitt, who his wavelength than Jackie. She was a looking to find evidence of a conspiracy . claim that James Angleton never broke painter, an extremely able conversational But their account., published in the now into Meyer's home and that Mary had ist and very sexy." Davis has interviewed defunct New Times magazine in 1976, specifically requested that the CIA man people who witnessed altercations between found no such proof. "All the evidence in safeguard her diary. They agree that Toni JFKand Jackie when the First Lady spotted . the case suggests that it was a random act turned the journal over to Angleton and Mary at official functions. He says Jackie of violence," Rosenbaum says today . that she burned it (in the presence of Anne sought to strike Meyer from invitation lists "There is no evidence, zero, to indicate a Truitt) after Angleton returned the diary. whenever possible. conspiracy ." So Crump was definitely the Whatever the true story, persistent ru JFKwas known to be appalled by the killer? "Hhe wasn't., it was likely someone mors that Meyer's diary is secretly hidden First Lady's wild extravagances, especially who looked like him and who managed away at CIA headquarters seem un shopping sprees during which she'd run to escape." founded. And it's impossible to know up bills of tens of thousands of dollars on Of course, this will hardly be convinc what information Dovey Roundtree's mys clothing alone. "Jack liked the fact that ing to the conspiracy crowd . Nor will he terious caller was referring to because the Mary had her own money and that she the protests of Mary Meyer's friends and few people who have read the diary- in- wouldn't be a golddigger," says Davis, acquaintances, who unanimously and an- 6/COUNTERPUNCII JULY 16-31, 1996 grily insist that her killer got off back in his house on the day of the murder with 1965 . Cord Meyer, Mary's former hus out his only fishing pole, which pol,ice Dees Watch band, says Raymond Crump "was guilty later found at his home. . . as hell". He calls the conspiracy theory When he was being interrogated at the e latest mailshot generated ·by "the craziest idea I ever heard" - an police station by Detective Bernard Morris Dees Southern Poverty Law opinion which can only heighten the sus Crooke~ the man so struck by Meyer's 11Center is the "Security Fund Ap picions of the conspiracy buffs . Alter all, beauty at the death scene - Crump peal", an annual communication which they see the CIA as a chief suspect in broke down when an officer returned portrays in lurid terms the immense per Kennedy's murder. from a search of the canal area with a sonal perils faced by the intrepid Dees light-colored windbreaker similar to the and his staff as they go about their daily ut though skeptics abound, all one described by witness Wiggins. It had business (which, as CounterPunch read the signs indicate that Mary been fished from the river and contained ers know, consists almost entirely of coax BMeyer was the victim •Of nothing a pack of Pall Malls, Crump' s brand of ing dollars out of liberal pockets) . more than a common crime . If the CIA cigarettes. Crooke, who died a few years After reporting that the Center is "in had wanted to eliminate Meyer, it would ago, told Rosenbaum that upon seeing the process of spending $1.5 million in have been far simpler to quietly kill her the jacket, Crump exclaimed, "It looks sophisticated security equipment and at her studio rather than risk a hit in like you got a stacked deck" and then highly-trained personnel", De~s con broad daylight. And if the mastermind of began to cry. cludes with a postscript to the effect that the plot was someone from Robert Ken And while Wiggins was off in his physi "We will be signing a contract to purchase nedy's camp, that person must have cal cal description of Crump, he was far a portion of our new ... security package culated, bizarrely, that exposure of JFK's enough away from the suspect that the before August 1st. Our security consult affair with Meyer would have been more discrepancy seems plausible. At the close ing firm is urging us to move ahead embarrassing to Bobby than the poten quickly with this work. Please rush your tial exposure of Bobby's own involve special gift as soon as possible." ment, even if indirect, in Meyer's murder . Crump claimed that he Those visualizing a hard-hearted se Joseph Kennedy, the man Davis says may went to the canal to go curity consulting firm demanding cash have ordered the hit on Meyer, was inca on the barrel before foiling the advancing pacitated by a stroke at the time of her fishing, but when police Militia-men can relax. Though unmen death, capable of little more than nod searched his home they tioned in his fundraising letter, Dees has ding his head yes or no in response to $68 million in the bank. The $1.5 million questions (according to Rose Kennedy, found his only fishing expenditure for the security equipment he often was so confused that he nodded pole in a closet. is about the same as Dees spends annu yes when he meant no). ally for legal work, though the Center The circumstances surrounding pulls in many times more than that with Meyer's murder are more consistent with of the trial, Hantnlan dramatically pro its hysterical direct mail campaigns . an attempted assault than with a profes duced the shoes Crump was wearing Another of Dees' current money-mak sional hit . John Davis suggests that th~ when he was arrested. They had a two ing schemes involves the church burn killer crept up from behind and swiftly inch he.el, which accounts for much of the ings across the south. Back in January, executed her, but in fact Meyer fought for difference between Wiggins's estimate Dees told The New York Times that the her life. Her jacket and trousers were and Crump's actual height. burnings were no organized effort . "This torn, her left knee was scraped and, as Even if it seems a simple matter, how is deer hunting season and you have a lot Wiggins' testimony indicates, she had ever, that's never going to hold anyone of hunting clubs up there, and a lot of time to cry out for help. back. Davis's forthcoming book will he drunk white boys who might he angry at Police found Meyer 's blood on a tree, snatched up by all conspiracy lovers, by not getting a deer," he told the newspa which she apparently had latched onto Camelot watchers and by those who sim per. "It's still bigoted, insensitive and in in a desperate attempt to keep from being ply enjoy a good mystery from Babylon. timidating, but it's not organized." dragged into the woods . In his closing For like the famous Zapruder film, the That was before Dees realized that he arguments, Prosecutor Hantman said Mary Meyer case is replayed over and could malce big bucks off the issue. Alter that Mary Meyer held on to the tree "for over again by people searching for clues learning that the Center for Constitu her life. She didn't want to lose sight of that in all likelihood don't exist. About a tional Rights was planning to file a civil the people; and he was attempting to pull year ago, placards mysteriously ap rights lawsuit against hate groups be her down behind the canal. He shot her peared along the canal towpath with her lieved to he involved in some of the once and she resisted. She broke away photograph and the words "Remember church burnings, Dees suddenly decided from him . She ran across the towpath . Mary Meyer." • a massive conspiracy was afoot. He She fell. She was alive and he had to shoot swiftly filed a pre-emptive lawsuit of his her again so she couldn't identify him ." Jason Vest's name was inadvertently own (in much the same way that he stole The circumstantial evidence against omitted from the masthead of the last the chain gang issue from the American Raymond Crump was compelling. He'd issue. He contributed the story on Civil Liberties Union) and is now extract clain1ed to have gone to the canal to go DNA databases. ing money from donors by inflating the fishing but a neighbor saw Crump leave Center's role in this campaign . • JULY 16-31, 1996 COUN'IERPUNCH/7

(Oil, continued from p. 1) tional royalties due, including interest sources. They can now be assured that write-off of the non-payment as an ac and criminal penalties, if any, and initi they can expect timely closure of audits .." counting loss, with a reform of the regu ate collection procedures". To top it off, Babbitt wants the future lations to ensure that no oil company will Berman probably expected his recom valuation of crude oil prices to be left for again face the embarrassment of being mendations to be acted upon, given the the oil companies to set. called derelict in its payment practices. fact that the head of his Interior Depart Babbitt's desire to have the oil compa Big Oil engineered this colossal theft ment was no industry hack, hut an im nies police themselves came only a lew from the California school system and port from the green movement in the weeks before the cartel managed to hike the conservation fund in the following form of Brooks Yeagar, whose previous pump prices across the United States and fashion. In 1960, the oil companies su~ perch in Washington had been at the about the same time that federal Judge mitted a joint bid for the outer continen National Audubon Society. H. Russell Holland of the US District tal shelf reserves on the southern After remitting this memo, the naive Court in Anchorage accused Exxon of California coast. Because the companies Bennan dabbled in hope for thirteen being part of "an elaborate ruse" to ma colluded on their bid, the price paid for months. The actionless period was so nipulate a federal jury and avoid paying these lucrative deposits was a fraction of $5 billion in punitive damages resulting their real value. Wells sprang up and the from the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince companies - acting as a cartel - pr& William Sound in 1989. "Public J>9licy,:,r vented any independents from getting The oil companies Holland wrote in his savage decision, into the action. engineered a colossal "will not allow Exxon to~ a~~i'J;J ' These big oil companies are all "verti to undercut the jury system, the. court's , cally integrated" producers and the car theft from the California numerous orders upholding thepurutive tel has a stranglehold on pricing. · For school systelll.and state verdict, and society's goal . in punishing example, the cartel can artificially d& Exxon's recklessness." When is the last press the .price of crude oil at the well conservation fund, time you heard a politician attack the oil head in order to drive independents out a scheme now endorsed cartel with such anger and disgust? of the action and to reduce its own royalty by Bruce Babbitt. Baclcin 1976,candidateJimmyCarter payments to the federal government. pledged to divorce oil companies from Such royalty payments are based on the their holdings in other energy sources. price of crude. But the cartel can easily This was termed "horizontal divesti prolonged that even the Department of recoup its losses by simply running up ture" : In the early 1970s, the US senate Commerce grew nervous and dispatched the price of oil and gas at the refinery or had a vote in which a bill mandating such a memo to Babbitt, saying, "It seems that at the pump. · vertical divestiture failed ·by only three all we have seen to this point clearly es By law, the federal government is su~ tablishes that there is a problem . The posed to assess royalties off the market companies themselves testified that value .of crude oil. In practice, however, SUBSCRIPTION INFO posted values did not represent actual federal royalties have been assessed on values. (Ihe Department of Interior's) the so-called "posted price" that the int& Enter/renew subscription here: Mineral Management Service needs to grated companies charge themselves for do something now to avoid creating the their own crude oil. Thus the companies D One year individual, $40 impression that these events have not are in the pleasant position of setting the D One year institution, $100 occurred." price by which the royalties are calcu D One year srudmt/low-inoome,$25 Brooks and Babbitt quicldy decided lated. The cartel has exploited this loo~ D Pleasesendbaclrissue(s) that the best way to ensure that the events _____ ($.3/issue) hole with relish. Crude oil prices between had indeed "not occurred" was to make 1960.and 1993 posted by the producers D I am enclosing a separate sheet an administrative ruling that there was for oil they extracted from the outer con for giftsubscriptions "no clear evidence" that the oil compa tinental shelf in California have been 20 nies had underpaid their royalties. They Name,______percent lower than crude oil prices from also declared that there was "no convinc the rest of the country. At the same time, ing evidence" that the California oil mar Address.______however, refined oil products sold in Cali ket was non-competitive. fornia at a rate that was marginally Then Babbitt and Co. drafted an ex City/State/Zip. ______higher than the national one . ecutive order for President Clinton's sig The US Department o{ the Interior is nature that would exempt the oil fully aware of this 33-year scam, having companies from ever being audited for been many times apprised of the fix by underpayments that occurred prior to its own investigators . On the most recent Payment must accompany order . 1990. The executive order rationalizes occasion, Bob Berman of the Interior Add $10 for foreign subscriptions. this extraordinary billion dollar gift to Department's Office of Policy Analysis Ma1iecheclcs payable to: CounterPunm. the oil companies by stating, "this will reported on Big Oil's frugal payments Return to: CountcrPunm. provide greater certainty to the minerals and urged that the Interior Department P.O. Box 18675 industry who are developing federal r& calculate "the exact amount of addi- Washington, DC 20036 8/COUNTERPUNCH JULY 16-31, 1996

votes. Today, integration is not regarded Near the end of July one of the largest As noted, the US Senate narrowly as the tool of oligopoly hut as an emhlem utilities in the Pacific Northwest, Port failed to approve breakup of the oil com of efficiency, much touted by a coalition land General Electric, was bought by En panies in the early 1970s. Jim Aboureszk stretching from the Heritage Foundation ron, the huge natural gas concern ol South Dakota, a US senator at the time to the Natural Resources Defense Coun headquartered in Texas . Having run and cruel sponsor ol the hill, recently told cil and the Pew Charitable Trusts to the utilities in Indonesia, China and Guate us that Texaco immediately threw big White House. mala, Enron felt ready for investment in money into a public relations campaign, In Minnesota. a prime issue for citizens the US market. This purchase of a public one which continues to this day. Yet no is the cost of keeping warm in the hitter utility by an oil and gas giant with an politician, no mainstream newspaper, winters. But as the utilities become appalling international reputation raises a murmur about the oil compa aroused almost no public comment, not nies' rampages . Does anything more even from Peter DeFazio, Oregon's vocal trenchantly disclose the political temper In the name of efficiency, progressive Democrat. ol our times? • 100,000 poor families could go without heat this winter in Minneapolis. The GOP's Pravda ne o{ the sillier myths taught in Journalism 101 is that reporters are deregulated, they have hastened to objective professionals, see.king merely to provide unbiased information shuffle off any commitment to keep poor 0 while allowing the public to reach its own conclusions. Of course, journal people warm if they can't pay the rising ists have plenty of biases, amply reflected in their work. costs of their hills. The argument adclres. So we at CounterPunch salute The Washington Times for candidly admitting efficiency: help the poor and others that its pages are at the service 0£the Republican Party. On July 8, Richard Nordin, wrongly pay more. Also of social the Times's "National Advocacy Manager", sent a letter to potential advertisers obligation: why should a utility have any urging them to buy space in the newspaper's upcoming advertising supplement, responsibility to the community it serves to he published in conjunction with the GOP's convention in San Diego. Accom beyond the cash nexus. While the utilities panying Nordin's letter was a note from Haley Barbour, chairman of the Repub enunciate this· barbaric commercial lican National Committee, urging recipients to "take advantage of this opportunity philosophy, the federal government, to share in the excitement 0£ our Convention through your participation and headed by Bill Clinton, echoes the stance inclusion in this special supplement". by cutting hack savagely on heating "With Republican majorities in the House o{ Representatives and the U.S. assistance programs for the poor. This Senate and the White House once again within our grasp, the eyes of the nation winter Minneapolis, according to Pam will he focused on the GOP's agenda and our Convention," Barbour wrote, Marshall at Energy/CENTS, may see as perhaps overstating the nation's interest in his party's upcoming hash in San many as 100,000 poor families go without Diego. "An informed public is the Republican Party's greatest ally." • heat as the temperature drops to 50 below.

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