From bigxc@prairienet.orgFri Jan 20 07:19:54 1995
Date: Mon, 16 Jan 95 07:06:53 CST
From: Brian Redman <bigxc@prairienet.org>
To: Multiple recipients of list <conspire@prairienet.org>
Subject: Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 3 Num. 50


              Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 3  Num. 50
             ======================================
                    ("Quid coniuratio est?")
 
 
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The Crash of United Flight 553
[Excerpted from *Defrauding America* by Rodney Stich]
 
 
A United Boeing 737 crashed into a Chicago residential area 
(December 8, 1972) during an approach, killing everyone on board, 
including the wife of Watergate figure E. Howard Hunt. She was 
reportedly carrying money to silence Watergate witnesses, and 
carried papers implicating President Richard Nixon in the 
coverup. A Chicago public-interest group, know as the Citizens 
Committee [to Clean Up the Courts] {1} believed that Justice 
Department personnel played a role in the crash of United flight 
553, and that they wanted key individuals on flight 553 
exterminated. Twelve of the people who boarded United Flight 553 
had something in common relating to questionable Justice 
Department and Watergate activities.
 
There had been a gas pipeline lobbyist meeting as part of the 
American Bar Association in Washington, D.C., conducted by Roger 
Morea. Among the lobbyists attending were attorneys for the 
Northern Natural Gas Company of Omaha; attorneys for Kansas- 
Nebraska Natural Gas Company; and [the] president of the Federal 
Land Bank in Omaha. The Citizens Committee portrayed these people 
as a group determined to blow the lid off the Watergate case.
 
For many years Chicago resident Lawrence O'Connor boarded flight 
553 like clockwork. He had no Watergate connections, but he had 
friends in the White House. On this particular Friday, O'Connor 
supposedly received a call from someone he knew in the White 
House, strongly advising him not to take flight 553. The caller 
advised him to go to a special meeting instead of taking that 
flight {2}. Whether this was coincidental or to save his life is 
unknown to me [i.e. author, Rodney Stich], although the Citizens 
Committee considers it significant.
 
U.S. Attorney General John Mitchell, later indicted and sent to 
federal prison, and the Justice Department were putting pressure 
on Northern Natural Gas. The firm had subsidiaries that the 
federal government indicted on federal criminal charges in Omaha, 
Chicago, and Hammond, Indiana. (September 7, 1972.) Justice 
Department charges included bribery of local officials in 
Northwest Indiana and Illinois, to get clearance for installing 
the pipeline through their state. {3}.
 
Allegedly to blackmail the Justice Department and cause them to 
drop the charges, the Omaha firm uncovered documents showing that 
Mitchell, while attorney general in 1969, dropped antitrust 
charges against a competitor of Northern Natural Gas -- El Paso 
Natural Gas Company. Just before the crash, Carl Kruger, an 
official with Northern Natural Gas Company, had been browbeating 
federal officials to drop the criminal charges. {4}.
 
The Citizens Committee alleged that dropping these charges saved 
the utility 300 million dollars. Simultaneously, Mitchell 
purchased through a law partner a stock interest in El Paso 
Natural Gas Company. Gas and oil interests, including El Paso, 
Gulf Resources, and others, contributed heavily to Nixon's spy 
fund supervised by Mitchell. The Citizens Committee reported that 
Kruger had previously been warned he would never live to reach 
Chicago. Kruger carried these revealing documents on United 
Flight 553, telling his wife that he had irreplaceable papers of 
a sensitive nature in his possession. For months after the crash 
Kruger's widow demanded that United Airlines turn his briefcase 
over to her.
 
CBS news reporter Michelle Clark travelled with Mrs. Hunt, doing 
an exclusive story on Watergate. Ms. Clark had already gained 
considerable insight into the bugging and coverup through her 
boyfriend, a CIA operative. Others knew of this exclusive 
interview, including the Justice Department.
 
According to some media articles, Dorothy Hunt conveyed offers of 
executive clemency with the financial payoffs to some of the 
Watergate defendants. Mrs. Hunt reportedly also sought to leave 
the United States with over two million dollars in cash and 
negotiables that she obtained from CREEP (Committee to Re-Elect 
the President).
 
Early in December 1972, Dorothy Hunt and her husband threatened 
to blow the lid off the White House if Hunt wasn't freed of the 
criminal charges and if they both didn't get several million 
dollars. {5}. Hunt claimed, according to McCord, to have evidence 
necessary to impeach Nixon. McCord said matters were coming to a 
head early in December 1972. Dorothy Hunt was unhappy about 
bribing defendants and witnesses, and wanted out of the mess.
 
The Citizens Committee to Clean Up the Courts reported that over 
a hundred FBI agents were inexplicably in the area when the plane 
crashed, and that the FBI kept a medical team out of the crash 
zone. One member of the medical team said he heard someone in the 
crashed plane screaming for help. {6}. Witnesses near the airport 
reported that the FBI agents were there before the fire 
department arrived. Something highly irregular appeared to be 
going on, involving the Department of Justice.
 
In *Secret Agenda*, author Jim Hougan makes reference to this 
intrigue and the request to the FBI by Michael Stevens (who 
supplied bugging devices to James McCord, allegedly under 
authority of the CIA) for protection. Stevens claimed he was to 
receive part of the money Mrs. Hunt was carrying, that his life 
had been threatened, and that he believed Mrs. Hunt's death had 
been a homicide.
 
               -+- More Political Intrigue? -+-
 
The day after Flight 553 crashed, the White House appointed White 
House aide Egil (Bud) Krogh, Jr. to the post of Under-Secretary 
of Transportation, which controlled the FAA [Federal Aviation 
Administration] role in the investigation. His qualifications? 
Krogh was involved in the Ellsberg burglary caper and was part of 
the White House Plumbers group. In his new position Krogh had an 
important safety role supervising, or muzzling, the NTSB 
[National Transportation Safety Board] and the FAA. He could 
exert political influence over the NTSB investigation through the 
politically appointed NTSB Board members who establish the 
official probable cause of the crash.
 
Further control over the air safety process was demonstrated ten 
days later. On December 19, 1972 the White House appointed 
Nixon's deputy assistant and secretary to the Cabinet, Alexander 
Butterfield, former CIA aviation liaison officer, to head the 
FAA. {7}. The officials controlling the FAA, the NTSB, and the 
Department of Transportation had political loyalties to the White 
House. At the initial NTSB crash investigation hearings (February 
1973), White House Appointment Secretary Dwight Chapin reportedly 
threatened media people with reprisals if they mentioned 
sabotage. These political appointees could influence matters 
affecting the nation's air safety.
 
           -+- United's Connections In Government -+-
 
Five weeks after the crash, Nixon's appointment secretary, Dwight 
Chapin, became a top executive with United Air Lines in the 
Chicago home office, even though he had no previous business 
experience. Before the crash, Herbert Kalmbach, Nixon's personal 
attorney, had been an attorney for United Air Lines.
 
Those federal officials were capable of carrying out reprisals 
against the news media through Clay Whitehead, Nixon's 
communication czar. The breakup of the networks on antitrust 
charges was always lurking in the wings. Threats of IRS 
harassment, Justice Department prosecution for vague federal 
offenses, fabricated charges, and news handouts, all played a 
part in government control of the news media.
 
                -+- Never In Living Memory -+-
 
Supporting the fact that these irregular actions occurred, NTSB 
chairman John Reed testified before the House Government 
Activities Subcommittee on January 13, 1973, concerning Justice 
Department interference with the NTSB's investigative duties. 
Reed testified that he sent a letter to the FBI, claiming that 
never had the FBI acted as they had in this crash. Reed said 
fifty FBI agents came into the crash zone shortly after the 
crash, assuming the duties assigned by law to the NTSB.
 
The FBI confiscated the Midway Control Tower tape relating to 
Flight 553, interfering with the NTSB investigation. The FBI 
conducted twenty-six interviews, including the surviving flight 
attendants, obstructing the NTSB's safety responsibilities.
 
At the original NTSB accident hearings, Board members refused to 
consider the documentation and testimony provided by the Citizens 
Committee relating to suspicious FBI activities. The NTSB 
reopened the hearings after the [Citizens] Committee sued the 
NTSB (June 13, 14, 1973). Over thirteen hundred pages of 
documentation were produced by the group and many witnesses were 
brought forward, establishing the obstruction of the accident 
investigation by the FBI. The final NTSB report ignored the 
[Citizens] Committee's testimony and evidence.
 
The Citizens Committee alleged that a gang known as the Sarelli 
group came into possession of the highly sensitive documents 
carried by Mrs. Hunt. This discovery was made after the arrest of 
gang members on January 12, 1973, for an unrelated robbery. {8}. 
The Nixon Strike Force in Chicago prosecuted the case against the 
Sarelli mob. What they didn't know was that their star witness 
against the gang was a staff investigator on the Citizens 
Committee, Alex Bottos, Jr.
 
[...]
 
--------------------------<< Notes >>----------------------------
{1} Citizens Committee to Clean Up the Courts, 9800 South 
Oglesby, Chicago, Illinois  60617.
{2} Report by Citizens Committee.
{3} *Chicago Daily News*, September 8, 1972.
{4} *Chicago Tribune*, May 18, 1973.
{5} See Memo of Watergate spy, James McCord, before the Ervin 
Committee. (*New York Times*, 5/9/73).
{6} Testimony offered at the NTSB (National Transportation Safety 
Board) hearing on June 13 and 14, 1973.
{7} Jack Anderson's column, *Chicago Daily News*, 5/8/73.
{8} U.S. Magistrate Balog's records, 72-41, U.S. Courthouse, 
Chicago.
 
 +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +
 
You may be unable to obtain a copy of Rodney Stich's book, 
*Defrauding America*, at your local library or via your local 
bookseller. If that is so, call 1-800-247-7389 for info on how to 
order the book.
 
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Aperi os tuum muto, et causis omnium filiorum qui pertranseunt.
Aperi os tuum, decerne quod justum est, et judica inopem et 
  pauperem.                    -- Liber Proverbiorum  XXXI: 8-9 

 Brian Francis Redman    bigxc@prairienet.org    "The Big C"
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    Coming to you from Illinois -- "The Land of Skolnick"        
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