American Assassination: The Strange Death Of Senator Paul Wellstone

Rating:
Summary: A funny book
Review:

The main message of this conspiracy theory is that Democrats seem to suffer more plane crashes then republicans. The backbone of the `evidence' is that a few people had Cell Phone that didn't work properly around the date of the crash. The other evidence is simply better. The FBI took two hours to get to the crash site, is this evidence that the FBI is simply lazy or that it was a conspiracy for them to take to long. Rather the book argues two hours was a short time asking the question "How did they know to be so close". Well by most standards 2 hours is a pretty long time for FBI to arrive at the scene of a dead congressional official.

Lets examine the truth. After Wellstones death the Democrats used the death to help get a Democrat elected, using the funeral service as a `bush bash'. Later 69% of the states voters believed a `conspiracy' existed. So did the death of Wellstone help or hurt the Bush administration? It hurt the bush administration by turning Minnesota more liberal and keeping the Wellstone seat in Democrat hands. So what is the conspiracy? This book could just as easily insinuate that it was a democrat conspiracy to keep the Senate seat. But instead the authors are ardent democrats who have a penchant for believing any theory.

A few more pieces of `evidence' are just as laughable. For instance `garage doors mysteriously' malfunctioned. But don't garage doors always malfunction? And better yet it is definably a conspiracy because someone from the NTSBV admitted they didn't know what caused the crash. If every plane crash where a cause is unknown is a conspiracy then that means a whole bunch of other aviation accidents are part of some massive conspiracy, perhaps a conspiracy to keep man out of the sky and on the ground? But the book if you want an insight into how convoluted and funny conspiracy theories are.

Seth J. Frantzman


Rating:
Summary: Strikes me as silly at best
Review: I had never heard of Paul Wellstone before he died. While he did hold a seat for a Democrat in a closely divided Senate, there wasn't much more reason for the Bush administration to assassinate him (and as I say to all who accuse the administration of such looney conspiracies as this -- if he is so duplicitous, why haven't we "found" WMDs in Iraq).

In any case, there are several other far more attractive candidates to be marked for assassination anyway. I'm not suggesting that that's the way to go about things, only that if you could choose between killing a liberal senator who doesn't really have a serious chance at higher office from a state that has a Democratic governor during an election or a party leader and future presidential nominee from a state with a Republican governor, who would thus be allowed to appoint a Republican senator to replace him (or her), which one would you pick? Who was the bigger threat, and whose elimination would have benefited the Republicans more. If I had had to pick a senator to assassinate in 2002, it would have been one of the junior senators from New York or Massachusetts (I am not advocating their killing, just pointing out that if you were going to assassinate someone, Wellstone wouldn't be the most logical choice when you have Clinton and Kerry to choose from).

I do, however, wish that such accusations were more well-known. Books such as this one and those claiming that President Bush knew about (or planned) the 9/11 attacks do more to help the Republican party than any disgraceful display of partisanship at a funeral ever could.

Rating:
Summary: Correction
Review: I have not yet read this book, but I would like to point out at least one innacuracy in Seth J. Frantzman's review below. After Senator Paul Wellstone died, the Republican candidate, former mayor of Saint Paul, Minnesota (and former Democrat) Norm Coleman won the Senate seat for the Republican party. Sadly, many Minnesotans (according to the media, anyway) viewed the Wellstone memorial as free advertising and took offense at DFL treasurer Rick Kahn's enthusiastic "let's win this for Paul" speech. There was an uproar and, I fear, a lot of votes cast Republican out of spite. In any event, the seat was lost to a Republican candidate, so Seth's assertion that "after Wellstones death the Democrats used the death to help get a Democrat elected" is categorically false. Wellstone's death did not hurt the Bush administration, and it made this state demonstrably LESS liberal, as the Republicans achieved many victories that year, winning the Governorship (not surprisingly), Secretary of State, State Auditor, and gaining one seat in the House.

Rating:
Summary: Authors reviewing their own books?
Review: No, I haven't read this book since as of this date (11/1/2004) Amazon states it has not been released yet.

Dr. Jacobs obvioulsy has read the book, since under the nom de plume "Four Arrows" he is listed as co-author.

Rating:
Summary: OBSERVATIONS
Review: The authors draw from a vast amount of researched documentation and using a scientific model refute the official findings with extraordinary depth and clarity. Relying also upon first person accounts and interviews with people who give a different perspective than the mainstream mush; the authors establish that more likely than not Wellstone was murdered. The enemies of Wellstone were many, some of whom were hardly mentioned.

Rating:
Summary: Abundant and Compelling Evidence
Review: The authors of this important book argue that Senator Paul Wellstone's death, 10 days before the 2002 elections, was an assassination, most likely ordered by the Bush administration.

Directly confronting the widespread tendency to reject all "conspiracy theories," the authors point out that "the idea that every theory that implies the existence of conspiracy ought to be rejected out of hand" is no more rational than the idea that every such theory should be accepted. Rather, "each case has to be evaluated on the basis of the evidence that is relevant and available in that case." On that basis, they argue, if we look at ALL the relevant evidence and employ the scientific method of inference to the best explanation, we must conclude that the theory that Wellstone was assassinated is far more probable than the official theory, according to which his airplane crash was an accident.

The evidence includes several facts suggesting that the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) colluded with the FBI in a cover-up:

1. FBI agents from Minneapolis arrived at the crash site within 2 hours after the crash, even though the trip from Minnesota to Duluth to the crash site would have taken at least 3 hours--so they must have departed before the plane crashed.
2. When asked for the times at which private flights had arrived in Duluth that morning, the FAA said the records had been destroyed.
3. Considerable disinformation about weather conditions was quickly given to the press.
4. Although regulations called for the investigation to be carried out by the NTSB, not the FBI (because the crash site was not designated a crime scene), the FBI agents were there for 8 hours before the NTSB team arrived.
5. The FBI, even though there illegally, prevented the local "first responders" from taking photographs.
6. Although it was the NTSB's responsibility to determine the cause of the crash and although the FBI's prior presence was illegal, the NTSB leader publicly accepted the FBI's declaration, made before the NTSB's investigation, that there was no evidence of terrorism.
7. When the NTSB team finally carried out its own investigation, it was unable to find either the cockpit recorder, which it assumed the plane had had, or the black box.
8. The NTSB held no public hearings, claiming that it was not a sufficiently "high-profile" case.
9. The NTSB's final report concealed the fact of the FBI's participation.
10. The NTSB investigation was headed by Acting Director Carol Carmody, a Bush appointee who had earlier ruled that there was no foul play in the small airplane crash in 2000 that took the life of Governor Mel Carnahan of Missouri, the Democratic candidate for the Senate who was killed 3 weeks before his expected victory (over John Ashcroft).

The evidence also includes some facts strongly suggesting the falsity of the NTSB's official conclusion, which was that the plane crashed because the pilot failed to maintain proper speed, causing the plane to stall.

1. The plane would have stalled only if it slowed to below 70 knots, yet it was equipped with a device that emitted a loud warning at 85 knots.
2. The plane was being flown by two experienced and fully certified pilots, a fact--obfuscated in the NTSB report-that makes this kind of pilot error very unlikely.
3. The NTSB's theory fails to explain why, about two minutes before the crash, all communication was abruptly terminated and the plane began going off course.

The evidence also includes facts suggesting that the plane was instead brought down by an EMP (electromagnetic pulse) weapon:

1. The plane's fuselage burned, although it was separated from the wings, which contained the fuel.
2. The plane's electrical system, which would be affected by an EMP, was in the fuselage, and the fire from the fuselage gave off blue smoke, which is indicative of an electrical fire.
3. An EMP could explain why the plane simultaneously went off course and lost its radio about two minutes before the crash.
4. At the same time, cell phones and garage doors in the area behaved in a way consistent with the occurrence of an EMP.
5. An NTSB spokesman professed ignorance about the existence of EMP weapons that could have brought down the plane, although the existence of such weapons had been known for several years.

An important part of the authors' case is the fact that the Bush administration would have had several motives:

1. Wellstone's defeat would return control of the Senate to the Republicans.
2. Wellstone's death 10 days before the election meant that $700,000 in the Republican campaign chest could be transferred, the very next day, to the (successful) effort to defeat Max Cleland in the Senate race in Georgia.
3. Wellstone was the biggest obstacle in the Senate to several Republican policies, such as those involving Iraq, Colombia, the SEC, tax cuts, and Homeland Security, and he was the strongest voice in Congress calling for a full investigation into 9/11.
4. Two days before his death, Wellstone reported that Cheney had told him: "If you vote against the war in Iraq, the Bush administration will do whatever is necessary to get you."
5. Wellstone had developed a 7-point lead in the polls over Norm Coleman, the Bush administration's hand-picked candidate.

Finally, with regard to the question whether the Bush administration would commit such a heinous act, the authors argue that an administration that "compounded lie upon lie to . . . send hundreds of thousands of young American men and women into harm's way [in Iraq] is not an administration that would hesitate to kill a single senator."

The authors conclude that the evidence shows beyond reasonable doubt that Wellstone was assassinated. They have, in my view, made a convincing case.

David Ray Griffin, author of "The New Pearl Harbor" and "The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions & Distortions"





Rating:
Summary: Block by Block
Review: The thought that two major investigative Bureaucracies of one's own government would conspire together to obfuscate the facts of a fatal plane crash and prevent the public from knowing of the murder of a US Senator is so foreign and so outrageous to most citizens that they cannot even consider the possibility that this could occur. That these two US Gov't agencies could and would knowingly feed the major media untrue sound-bites to be fed to and consumed by the public as facts is tacitly unbelievable for most average Americans who know nothing of covert operations and "wetwork". The public consumption of these false sound-bite as facts builds a wall of psychological denial for these average citizens which is extremely difficult to abridge. Professors Four Feathers and Fetzer remove these bricks of denial one at a time by their presentation of definitive, easy to verify facts until this wall of denial dissolves into a pile of dust. Brick #1> bad weather; Brick #2 > crash caused by pilot error; Brick #3 > bad, tired, careless, criminal pilot, etc., etc. Drs. Four Feathers and Fetzer remove these bricks one at a time until the media wall that it was "an accident" just isn't there any more. All that remains is evidence which demands and supports the only other remaining alternate conclusion which is "the crash WAS NOT an accident". And not being an accident means that it was MURDER! This book proves two things to me, both proven by impeccable logic and easily verifiable facts: Senator Wellstone and the other passengers were murdered; and the fbi and ntsb knowingly conspired to obfuscate and coverup the facts of the crash site and their own tainted roles in the investigation, all the while being knowingly or unknowing aided by a media willing to regurgitate their "official sound-bites" with no critical investigative reporting or even simple questions. The good doctors do not claim to know who ordered or enacted the hit, although it is obvious that they view the situation as suggestive of who might have done it (eg republican power brokers). I can't go there without additional who-done-it evidence. A lot of folks had much to gain by Senator Wellstone's death (and his wife's death too). The words from Ike's last speech in office where he cautioned about the undue influence of the "industrial military complex" eg "shadow gov't" came to mind while I was reading the book. The book has a few what I would call extraneous "liberal based" remarks which I ignored, being that I am a conservative republican and voted accordingly in this election. But the bottom line is this, no reasonable person can read this book carefully and still believe Senator Wellstone's death was an accident. Distasteful and horrible as this raw truth may be, that is what is left when you are finished reading and understanding Drs. Four Feather's and Fetzer's book. Like it or not (and I don't like it) this is the way it is. You better get yourself a copy of this book asap while you can. Any book this good which reveals covert ops of the "shadow gov't" is likely to quickly disappear into a black hole never to be heard of or seen again, like Bradley Ayer's excellent book, the War That Never Was (a treatise on jmwave, the secret war against castro in the 60's--try to find this one in any library!). Hat's off to these two Professors for a great job of investigative reporting and perfect logic.

Rating:
Summary: Garbage
Review: There was no assassination of Senator Paul Wellstone.

As to the plane he was on, radar track and other evidence showed the flight crew failed to maintain an appropriate course and speed for the approach and did not properly configure the airplane at the start of the approach, making the later stages of the approach more difficult. During the last moments of the approach, the flight crew failed to monitor the airplane's airspeed and allowed it to decrease to a dangerously low level -- as low as about 50 knots below the company's recommended approach airspeed -- and to remain below the recommended approach airspeed for about 50 seconds. The flight crew failed to recognize that a stall was imminent, said the investigators, and then allowed the airplane to enter a stall from which they did not recover.

dont believe this nonsense.

Rating:
Summary: Well researched with good sources
Review: When Paul Wellstone's plane went down I immediately smelled a rat. I reviewed the many plane crashes after Watergate and in Panama and I know the spooks prefer 'accidenting' their victems with plane crashes. This may seem like extreme language but you only have to wade ankle deep into the 9-11 Commission Report to see a blatant cover-up. [...[

This book raises many questions about the initial press reports and the susequent NTSB 'investigation'. Many recall the press and official reports seemed to focus on the pilot(s) being unreliable, indebted, inexperienced and otherwise likely to veer off course and smash a plane into a swamp. With diligent and lucid reporting these authors methodically go through the last hours of the ill fated plane, the timely appearance of the FBI at the crash site (a little too timely readers will learn) and the odd link between the plane pilot, the area FBI agents and accused terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui.

Interesting mention is made of other questionable MTSB air crash investigations.

In the case of Paul Wellstone one has to ask why the press did such a lousey job? Why didn't they ask all the questions the public was asking? We all know who profitted immensely from his death and we know the death of his family meant no spouse could run on the ticket in his stead like in the case of the Mel Carnahan of Missouri (whose wife beat John Ashcroft for the senate seat).

For additional information the book cites some good websites with more details on similar assassinations.

I hope the second edition of this book will include an index for quicker referral.

Rating:
Summary: Points to some important questions, but ultimately...
Review: You know what's said about the unintended consequences of faint praise. Tweaking the phrase a bit, I think this book might show what can happen to ideas given faint support.

I want to say first, that I think there is a strong psychological inclination on the part of many to WANT to believe that Wellstone was assassinated. Wellstone's death had a lot of horrific consequences, and it would be easier to come to terms with his death were something other than just a terrible, terrible accident. If it had meaning in some way. If he were a martyr.

Well, he may have been. But I sure don't think that this book is going to convince too many people. One thing that I found maddening is the way that the text is couched in the language of "rigorous" scientific inquiry. We are repeatedly lectured about hypothesis testing and standards of evidence, and subjected to forms of logical notation (see especially pages 139-145), as if merely repeating the words and the form lends credence to the arguments in the book. But the truth is, this book is something short of critical inquiry and careful scientific deliberation. It is meandering, unfocused, and extremely repetitive, and frankly includes a lot of speculation and unsubstantiated assertion.

I was especially perplexed by what I found to be an almost perfectly inverse relationship between the level of controversy or difficulty of a given argument, and the level of treatment it is given in the book. For a book that is only 157 pages including epilogue, advancing a controversial argument that runs contrary to the overwhelming consensus, the authors spend an awful lot of time just talking about how Wellstone was good and the Bush administration is bad. (This is ostensibly in order to establish motive and support the claim that the Bush administration WOULD [as opposed to COULD] assassinate a senator if it suited them). Well, I was not in need of convincing on these points, and even in the case of those who are, it is probably beyond the power of this book to do so. What this book needed to demonstrate was that the official explanation of an accident is unsatisfactory, and that the explanation of an assassination is satisfactory, given the evidence.

That being said, the book does raise questions that have not been satisfactorily answered by the investigation into Wellstone's death. I think it's important that those questions be addressed. To the extent that this book being published and read might result in those questions being answered, I am glad that it was written. And I do encourage people to read it. Treat this book as a starting point. It includes notation and points to sources that you can read and evaluate for yourself.

I am hoping for a better book about Wellstone's death, but for now, this will have to do.