Rep. Steven Schiff challenges the military’s 1947 Roswell "weather balloon" claim, exposing destroyed records and CIA/FBI denials despite witness inconsistencies. He questions Waco hearings’ media manipulation, including a 10-year-old’s sexual assault testimony, while probing Clinton’s alleged role in the CS gas attack—ignoring Treasury warnings. Callers link Waco to broader distrust, citing Susan Smith’s case, Vince Foster’s death, and Disney’s potential media control. Bell warns of dire consequences if government transparency fails, framing Roswell and Waco as symptoms of a widening credibility gap threatening public faith. [Automatically generated summary]
Well, first, I just want to get in our one thing and hope we can get to it at some point, but this is just for listeners in New Mexico.
There was an article in the Albuquerque Journal Saturday morning written by a gentleman named Richard Parker, who's the Albuquerque Journal's Washington correspondent, about the general accounting report that I received Friday and released Friday that states my conclusion that this was a balloon, and I have never stated any conclusion.
So to say the least, this article is way off.
unidentified
So at the appropriate time, I'd like to go back and absolutely will.
And I started receiving letters from inside of New Mexico and some from outside about the Roswell incident.
Now, I've lived, I'm originally from Chicago, but I've lived in New Mexico and Albuquerque for over 26 years.
So I've heard of the Roswell incident.
And again, as you said, for listeners who might not be familiar with it, the Roswell incident was in 1947.
And there are two things that are not in dispute about it.
The first is something crashed in 1947 near Roswell.
And Roswell was located in southeast New Mexico.
The second thing that is not contested is that the Army Air Corps from, obviously now the U.S. Air Force, from Roswell Army Airfield put out a press release that day that called what crashed a flying disc.
And about eight hours after the Army Air Corps said it was a flying disc, they came out with a statement that said, oops, we made a mistake.
It wasn't a flying disc.
It was a weather balloon.
Which, of course, raises the question, can't somebody tell a weather balloon from a Flying saucer.
But those facts, as I have given them to you, are uncontested.
After that, disagreement begins.
There are many people who believe that that was really a flying saucer, and in some cases, some people believe complete with alien bodies from the crash.
There are other people who do not necessarily accept the flying saucer theory or extraterrestrial visit theory, but they don't believe the weather balloon theory either, which turned out to be, at the very least, that turned out to be appropriate thinking, because the military rejected the weather balloon theory recently.
That didn't mean they adopted an extraterrestrial visit.
And that leads to where the Albuquerque Journal story is all wrong, I think.
But I got these requests.
What the requests were were everyone who wrote said, the military is not telling us the truth about Roswell.
It is not a weather balloon.
And as I said, the military has at least conceded that point much later.
Now, it is quite clear, Art, that a number of the people who wrote believed this was an extraterrestrial visitation.
I don't think necessarily all of them did, but they all had in common that they felt that it wasn't what they were told.
It wasn't a weather balloon.
So I put the Secretary of Defense and the late Les Aspen, telling them about what people were saying who were writing to me and asking for, could you send me back an official explanation of Roswell, and then I will pass it on back to these people who are contacting me.
And as a side note, having lived in New Mexico for many years, I knew what the Roswell incident was.
I didn't know how prominent it had become.
I didn't know, for example, that a TV network was preparing a movie about it or that books had been written about it.
Actually, I viewed this as, although somewhat different, I suppose, in subject matter, otherwise a routine request.
The subject matter was a bit unusual, but people write to us in Congress and both parties regularly and say, I would like information about a certain subject.
And we go to that agency and the agency sends us information.
We send it back to the constituent.
And that literally happens day in and day out in Congress.
And I thought that this would be just as routine.
And so when I sent my request to Secretary Aspen, I thought that this would be nothing out of the ordinary.
In fact, I thought the explanation would be we've looked into it over the years and here's what it is.
And please send that to your constituent.
Now, that's what I thought was going to happen.
That is not what actually happened.
I said that I thought this was a routine request and we do this day in and day out.
But the response I got from the military was anything but routine.
You expected an answer from the Department of Defense.
Second of all, there's normally a certain protocol of offer to help when there's a congressional inquiry.
And this one basically said, you know, why is this on my desk?
We sent it over to the National Archives.
And one columnist described me as offended by that.
I wasn't offended.
I was surprised.
So I wrote again to the Secretary of Defense, and I said, is this the answer you really intend to stand from the inquiry I made?
And I got back another letter from a Special Assistant Secretary Aspen that you might say was written in more diplomatic language, but essentially said the same thing.
Go check with the National Archives.
So, okay, I can get a hint.
So I contacted the National Archives.
National Archives responded that they don't have any information about Roswell.
And there was a rather, I can find it in context humor a statement in the letter that said to me from the National Archives, you know, Congressman, we've received a lot of requests lately at the National Archives about the Roswell incident.
And I'm thinking, well, if the Defense Department is sending everybody to you, I'm not entirely surprised.
And in fact, I found out, I didn't know at the time, but a number of members of Congress had written to the Defense Department, and they also referred to the National Archives.
But I knew at the very least that I'd been given a runaround.
I mean, I knew that the military had to know, that the National Archives had no information.
So here I've written twice to the Defense Department, just saying, what happened?
Not in any hostile frame of mind.
And I get sent to an agency that has no information.
A lot of us, by the way, that write to some of you, and this is certainly not a slam, but you at all, congressmen, get very similar responses, I might add.
I was meeting with GAO officials on other subjects, and while they were in the office, I told them about this problem with Roswell.
And I said, you know, there ought to be records of what happened, no matter what they said.
I mean, here at the very least, there should have been an oh shoot memorandum.
I may have described it slightly differently to the GAO.
But at the very least, if everything happened the way the Army Air Corps said, somebody at the Roswell Army Airfield has to explain to their superiors why the best bomb group in the United States Army Air Corps, the only bomb group carrying nuclear weapons at that time, doesn't know a weather balloon from a flying saucer.
At this point, there's a lot of explaining to do, at the very least.
I said there ought to be records of all of this.
And so I asked the General Accounting Office, still in late 1993, would you be willing to do essentially a search for records?
And that's what this was all about.
It was about the General Accounting Office, at my request, trying to find what records exist, if any.
And I made the in fact, I've got to tell you, when I first got the request and decided to get into it, I took a deep breath because I knew then that you get involved anywhere near flying saucers and little green men.
And the different issue is people have a right in a free country to information about what their government is doing at all times, save only when there's an immediate security need for classification.
I think most of us would agree with that.
And it doesn't matter what the subject is.
In other words, nobody in government has the right to arbitrarily say that's such an unimportant or off-the-wall subject.
And so the GAO went off to see what they could find.
Although I have to tell you, because this was still late 1993, the reason for the delay, we're now a year and a half later, is that this is a 50-year-old incident.
And that by itself means you've got to look in some nooks and crannies.
And I told them, I cannot ask you to drop what you're doing to look for records in Roswell.
You might have more current requests pending for information from other members of Congress.
So what I ask you to do is look for it as you have time.
And so to a great extent, that explains the timeframe here.
I didn't press them to just drop everything and go looking for this.
I said, you know, if you have other requests that someone needs something about the DOD right now, go get it for them.
And that brings us to the, I suppose, to the other end now, to yesterday, as a matter of fact, or Friday, excuse me, Friday.
The GAO gave me their report.
And under their regulations, I had 30 days to keep it secret, essentially, while I, you know, to do whatever I wanted to do with it and before it became public automatically.
I didn't take the 30 days after the time that did go by.
As soon as I got it, I got it out in a couple of hours just wanted to read it first and then do a press statement just summarizing it.
Well, the big news seems to be that the records, or at least what I derived to be the big news, the records of the particular time in question, a couple of years of them, that were supposed to be permanently held records, and you stop me where I'm wrong, were unaccountably, with unknown authority, destroyed.
Although, here's where I'd like to interject the correction to the Albuquerque Journal article.
The journal article says that I personally concluded that this was a balloon.
And the balloon they're talking about, it comes this way.
In September of 1994, this is several months after I've asked the GAO to do this investigation, the Air Force issued a new report.
And the new report said that they admitted that this was not a weather balloon, which is interesting because that's what they've been saying for almost 50 years, that it was a weather balloon.
And a weather balloon, by the way, never fit the circumstances.
This doesn't mean that it had to be an extraterrestrial, but there is really, in my mind, a great deal of testimony that at the crash site, there was a high degree of military security, that the remnants of what were taken were flown on a single plane off to be examined at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base ultimately.
Now, you don't do that with a weather balloon.
You don't treat a weather balloon that way.
And so it was obvious to me that it wasn't a weather balloon.
There were a number of people who said security was stopping people on the roads going towards the crash site.
And that doesn't happen for a weather balloon.
And so that part of it didn't surprise me.
What the Air Force said the crashed vehicle was was still a balloon, but a much different balloon than a weather balloon, as they describe it.
They described it as a then classified military project to determine if the Soviets were exploding nuclear weapons in the atmosphere.
And as they described it, this balloon is greatly larger than a weather balloon because it's intended for high-altitude flight, higher than weather balloons go.
And it carried equipment different than a radar tracking device, simply, which is what a weather balloon would carry, again, as I understand it.
And in September of 1994, the Air Force said, you know, this is what it was.
It was not a weather balloon.
And just to, again, briefly state this, because I know many of your listeners are not from New Mexico, the article in the Albuquerque Journal stated that I concluded that it was this second balloon.
And the headlines is, shift the crash with a balloon.
Flat wrong.
What I did say was, and the only conclusion I've ever stated, is that I didn't believe the weather balloon story.
That is not the same as saying, therefore, I do believe the new explanation.
Well, but in addition to that, let me tell you, the headlines was Schiff colon Roswell UFO balloon, which is inaccurate, but let me read the headlines, kind of tells you what the rest of the story says.
In a nutshell, the story said that I concluded that the crashed vehicle was this new Air Force explanation of a detection device for Soviet nuclear testing.
Absolutely not true.
What I did say was I never believed the original weather balloon story, which does not convert into accepting the new story at face value.
That was the creation of the author.
Thank you for letting me get all that out there, that I have to correct that.
Now here is what is in the report.
unidentified
There were two televisions from this era that still existed.
This does not mean that the people who wrote those articles so many years ago were lying to their constituency, if you will.
It may mean that they were simply repeating what they were told when the Air Force, Army Air Corps, I'll say Air Force, but I mean Army Air Corps then, when the Air Force retracted its original flying disc story and said it was a weather balloon.
In my judgment, the most potentially significant records possible were not found.
And the military can give no explanation as to who destroyed them or under what authority.
It's my understanding the records I'm about to talk about were supposed to be permanent records, which means not destroyed by anyone.
And what I'm talking about are the outgoing messages from Roswell Army Airfield.
Messages are an internal military communication system like a telegraph.
And I told the GAO that if we were going to find something, the most likely place to find something was there because no matter what happened, there was enough national and even international interest in this that the military at Roswell would have been having to explain to all their higher-ups what's going on here.
And I said, go look, even if it was, oh my goodness, you know what we did?
We just called the weather balloon a flying saucer.
I mean, whatever the explanation was, look there.
And someone asked me, how do you know they wouldn't just use the telephone?
And that's a fair question.
The answer to me is they probably used both because there was a great deal of publicity after the Air Force, Army Air Force, said this was a flying disc.
So one advantage of a message is you can hit a number of your higher headquarters at one time.
So it could not be fairly concluded then that there simply was no paper trail at all, that there was nothing destroyed because there was nothing to destroy.
Well, the outgoing messages would have been all the messages that were sent from Roswell Army Airfield that year.
And so it seems like I just thought that'd be a good place to look for, particularly I have a military background in another life.
And the GAO reported that those records had been destroyed.
And they said that they were destroyed without proper authority.
Now, without proper authority means the military can't tell you who destroyed them or why.
The military's response on that is essentially that other records were destroyed too.
In other words, the military can't offer any explanation as to why these messages don't exist, but they said, well, the 1950-year outgoing messages from Roswell Army Airfield were also destroyed, and they were also destroyed without proper entries being made as to who destroyed them and under what authority.
Well, I can't really say this goes back before my military career.
The GAO estimated, after talking with the Air Force archivist, that the records were in fact destroyed over 40 years ago.
The records were probably destroyed before they said about 1956, so we don't know exactly when.
So I don't know how common it was to be destroying records that perhaps shouldn't have been destroyed more than 40 years ago.
A major problem, of course, is since the GAO has estimated that they were destroyed decades ago, they have really suggested no way of going further into this.
I mean, it's not as if I can just call somebody into a congressional hearing and say, why did you destroy these day before yesterday?
It appears that they were destroyed decades ago, and we don't have an answer.
The Air Force implies that the destruction of records during this era was common.
The only example they cite was Roswell for the year 1950.
And in fact, the batch these were in, the records were destroyed from late 46 to early 49.
It's my understanding by those who've studied this incident far more than I have, that, for example, the Central Intelligence Agency, which says in this report that they have no records on Roswell, was never point blank asked and responded in the past.
And so that would be an accomplishment as, for example, the Federal Bureau of Investigation was asked point blank, do they have anything?
And they have not, you know, they have their response there.
Essentially, they say no, except that they did recognize the teletype I referred to a moment ago.
I think probably the most important accomplishment was going back here to the fact that the Air Force acknowledged this wasn't a weather balloon.
And it didn't take a rocket scientist, as they say, to come to that conclusion.
But that was the first time that the military has said it wasn't what we've been saying for almost 50 years.
I mean, all I can do is put out there what the military told me, that they were destroyed, and if not according to policy, at least not malevolently is what they suggest.
But, you know, I'm part of the government, too.
And that's one reason I got into this.
As we talked about earlier, I decided that people have a right to information from their government.
No one has the right to arbitrarily sit there and decide if the subject matter is important enough within the government.
Will we bother ourselves to provide the information?
And I think to a great extent that was what the military did when they just passed me off to the National Archives when I originally went into this.
And what I do is I'm trying to get out everything I can.
But you name the subject, Whitewater, the Nixon years, even now with Waco and a million others, things, gee whiz, blank videotapes, blank audio tapes.
Rosemary Woods wasn't old enough to have had anything to do with Roswell, but I mean, it's just three out of four Americans just don't trust and believe the government, and should they?
Even if there was no cover-up here, the Air Force acted like there was a cover-up.
And that's just as bad because it puts that idea in people's minds.
In other words, when I first wrote to the military, they should have responded with whatever they were going to respond with.
And when they don't do that, when they send, in this case, me, but also a number of other members of Congress, I have since learned, to an agency, the National Archives, which has no information on this subject, what are people supposed to think?
And so there's no way I can definitively resolve the matter.
Should you trust your government?
I would tell you the government hasn't acted like it ought to be trusted.
There are a lot of people in America who believe that there is a government behind our government, behind the elected representatives, even behind the president.
I know that's a big handful of a question, but do you ever wonder about things like that yourself, Congressman?
When you guys are together in the now, no doubt, no longer smoke-filled rooms and just chatting among yourselves, is this ever a subject of conversation?
There is in London right now, in England, a man named Ray Santilli, who I had the pleasure of interviewing here not long ago.
He claims to have come up with this film of the Roswell crash.
Now, while the film is not out and won't be for a while yet for the general public, there are still photographs that are circulating that, as a matter of fact, he gave me permission to publish in our newsletter, and they are fascinating.
And I don't know what to say of them, except that when I saw them, I was shocked because instead of the typical little gray guys or green guys or whatever anybody generally in the UFO community expects to see, this thing appears to be almost human, eerily almost human.
And I know that, or I believe that you've seen some of these photographs.
An associate of Mr. Santilli, and it's my understanding that this film, which purports to be an autopsy of an alien, will be available, well, available, maybe available now in videocassette.
Well, I can't resist just one other quick aside here.
And I want to tell you that this was really not bashed the Albuquerque Journal Week with me.
I've worked with these people for many years.
But I just have to tell you again from my New Mexico constituents who listen that the Albuquerque Journal heard I saw this film.
And a couple weeks after the fact, they called and asked me about it, and then did a front-page story about my looking at this film, and then proceeded to poke good-natured little fun at me for looking at films about aliens.
And what rankled me just a little bit, though they were good-natured, is they made it sound like this was a 100% obsession with me without ever telling their readers that they're the ones that went after me for the story.
I didn't do a press release on it.
They heard about it and they were dying for a story.
So if there was an obsession with Little Green Men, it was all on their side.
Right, but they don't tell anyone it's on their part.
They don't tell anyone that they're the ones that generate the story.
I saw the movie and went on with my work.
The idea of a story came when they called me.
Anyway, this is what the film shows.
And once again, it's like the GAO report.
People, I think, will have access to it shortly and can make up their own minds.
And I'm not trying to persuade anybody one way or the other.
But in essence, the film purported to be an autopsy of an alien.
And what you saw were, I believe it was two people who appeared to be doctors, I think maybe even the third one, behind a glass door.
And they were completely covered head to toe in protective garb.
And of course, if there really was an alien, and you remember what smallpox did to the Native American population, that's exactly what they should do so that an alien smallpox doesn't get loose here.
But anyway, again, they proceeded to be doing an autopsy in this alien and removing certain organs and examining them.
And I only have one conclusion at this time.
If this was a hoax, it took some degree of planning.
In other words, this was not a matter of two people having too much to drink at a party and saying, let's pull out the video cam and all pretend that we're aliens and do this.
If it was a hoax, somebody had to sit down and plan out how they were going to put this together and how they were going to get all the props and so forth.
And it could be a hoax.
The British who own it, Mr. Santilli and his associates, understand that it could be a hoax.
They have told me that they are endeavoring to verify its authenticity.
And I told them that I would inquire around our government, which I've started to do, about whether there's a government agency that might assist them, although they're going to some private sources that they think have sufficient technology.
Well, that's what originally it's supposed to have been.
According to the British, this film originated with someone who said he was a military photographer and took the photos, the movie rather, live at the time.
But the individual will not permit his identity to be revealed.
Committee, yesterday, I guess it was yesterday, the co-chair of that committee, Bill Zelliff, went after the White House, accused the president of ordering the CS gas attack.
Can I just say first, very quickly, once again, the main purpose of the WACO hearings is to bring in all the testimony we possibly can so that the American public can make up its own mind.
And we may have individual conclusions.
I'm sure we will as members of Congress.
But really, the testimony there, and I hope people who have had the maximum opportunity to watch it live or rebroadcast, it's there really for the public to make up its own mind.
With respect to Bill Zellef's conclusion, I've listened to Bill and I've heard about this White House response, And I don't know if they're all talking about the same thing.
I think what maybe they are, but the most that Bill has said, Bill Zella from New Hampshire, co-chairman of these hearings, is that he believes that this was such an important matter at the time, such a touchy matter, for legitimate reasons.
Janet Reno was brand new as Attorney General of the United States, that the President would want to be involved in some way in the final decision.
I say, assuming this is true, I'm not sure exactly why that's a negative, why that's an accusation.
The White House has talked about, excuse me, not the White House, but the witnesses have been testifying about the President has been asked to be kept continually informed, as if to say the President listened or the information got to the President and he just stoically sat there and said nothing at all about it.
So the witnesses confirmed that the White House made an individual request to people, keep the President directly informed.
And there are witnesses who did that without going through the Attorney General, Webb Hubble, who's, of course, a former personal associate of the President and later became briefly, I think, the number three person at the Justice Department, said he would call the White House, not necessarily talk to the President directly, but call the White House and tell them what was going on.
So I'm not altogether sure how different what Congressman Zelif is saying is from what the White House is saying.
Now, the Attorney General will testify in person at 10 o'clock in the morning.
Yes, let me just interrupt and say that over the weekend on one of the weekend Sunday shows, Meet the Press, Representative Zellif was asked what is the most important question she's going to be asked at the hearings.
He responded, why did she approve the plan to gas almost 90 Americans?
And I think they've become the focus of where we are at the hearings at this point.
And I assume, of course, I've heard the Attorney General in the past on this.
Let me tell you where I think the crux is as far as the Attorney General goes.
The Attorney General will say that she believed that there was no chance that David Koresh and the people in the compound would come out voluntarily, and that she was informed that the FBI plan for a gradual insertion of this gas was the least menacing way to try to persuade people to come out of the compound.
That's what the Attorney General will say, I'm sure, because that's what she said in the past.
I think the question there will be, what were you told on those subjects by the people who briefed you from the FBI?
What were you told about the fact that no surrender was possible?
What were you told about the possible use of this gas and effects of this gas on children and infants and so forth?
And I think that's where the key questions will come there.
Well, clearly, there was a decision made at some point because the FBI was coming out almost on a daily basis, as you recall, and saying, we have patience.
We can wait till the hell freezes over if we have to.
A Mr. Jamar, who was in charge of the combined FBI operation, I say combined because they had negotiators and action people, if you will, on the scene said at one point, I would have waited a year if I had something to hang that on.
So that's been their testimony all along, that they went forward when they believed that there was no alternative and they felt that they needed to take action for a number of reasons.
And they felt that this was the most benign way under the circumstances of approaching it.
They're going to say they believe that CS gas did not cause any permanent disabilities of any kind, and a gradual insertion would, in their opinions, kind of nudge people out.
That was their plan.
Their plan lasted four minutes, according to the testimony.
They were hitting the building from all different sides at once, and insertion of gas all over.
And that's another question.
The FBI had this contingent plan that if one tank inserting gas in one place in this building was fired upon, was shot at, that then they would bring in everything at once.
And I've never quite figured out why this second plan was written the way it was.
They talked about, well, we need to protect the people in the first vehicle.
Why not just withdraw the first vehicle?
I don't know why you had to bring in everything literally at that time.
Why couldn't you have withdrawn it if you met armed opposition, which was certainly possible?
I would find it most troubling if the president, and I say this as a statement, not an accusation, I would be most troubled if the president didn't tell us the truth about what he did, whatever that was.
The fact of the matter is, it seems to me that there would be nothing inappropriate about the president keeping closed tabs on this situation.
Of course, if what Congressman Zelif said is true, that the president wanted to be more than kept informed, he wanted to have a hand in what was done before it was done, given the risks involved and be very frank about it with Yard, given the publicity that was involved, that doesn't shock me.
So I don't know why, you know, if that happened, I don't know why there'd be all this resistance from the White House.
In fact, I find it a little difficult to believe, and I don't have any evidence behind this.
We'll see tomorrow, but it's hard to believe the President would just say thank you for the information and then turn around and go do something else.
Yes, I'm a member of, actually, I happen to be the only member of the hearings who's on both subcommittees.
I'm on Congressman Zello's subcommittee from what is now called the Government Reform and Oversight Committee, and I'm on Congressman McCollum's subcommittee on crime and criminal justice.
Virtually, I believe the wording was, of actually ordering the gas attack to occur, and then, as you pointed out, the more troubling aspect of it, seemingly denying it.
Secretary of State was on a couple of weeks ago, refused to answer whether the president had any involvement or not.
Well, but the president, excuse me, once again, I misspoke.
The witnesses have stated that the president wanted to be kept individually informed, which means that all of the president's briefings did not come from Attorney General Janet Reno.
Webb Hubble testified that he called the White House, not, didn't talk to the president directly, but talked to White House staff to keep them advised of what was happening here.
And the point is, we may all be talking about the same thing, And I don't find anything in the president asking to be kept informed, let's just start there, that by itself causes me any concern.
And if the president was more involved, I don't know why that would be a negative in and of itself.
It's the reaction that is making us all very curious, if not suspicious, from the White House.
And they're just really, apparently this morning angry.
Also, Altman, you might want to comment on this, apparently wrote a memo to Secretary Benson on 15 April, four days before all this, saying in four days there's going to be a catastrophe.
The weight of evidence is, I'd like to come back to Secretary Benson in the memo in a second, but the weight of evidence is that the fire started inside and perhaps in two or three different places almost simultaneously.
The evidence is not that the FBI started the fire.
The fact that it started inside and the fact that it started in three different places would give the most logical idea that somebody on the inside deliberately set the fire.
But that's not quite the only explanation.
There was a government expert on this said, well, this fire had to, this is an arson expert who said this had to start with a match.
Well, no, it didn't.
It had to start with a flame.
And you do have the fact that these people were heating and lighting with lanterns because their electricity had been cut off.
Sure.
And is it possible that either all these vehicles coming at the building at one time or the ensuing panic, I'm trying to picture what it must have been like inside the building, even if some members inside fired shots at the first vehicle?
I think that's a possibility.
It doesn't mean everybody inside was armed and ready to start shooting.
And certainly the children weren't.
And so is it out of the range of possibility that all of the commotion, that sounds like a weak word to me at the moment, but vehicles ramming the building, people running for cover, that lanterns couldn't have been spilled.
I can't rule that out completely, but the evidence does rule out the idea that the FBI started the fire.
So you can say, if you will, in the total context, that's a finding in the government's favor against that accusation.
But let me go back to the issue you asked me about.
It has to be remembered here that you're dealing with two agencies in two separate departments.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, which did the original raid on February 28th, is under the Treasury Department.
And after that raid failed and we had, in essence, a siege, the FBI under the Department of Justice took over the responsibility.
But the Treasury Department, through ATF, had begun it all.
And Roger Altman, who was then the number two person at the Treasury Department, on April 15th, wrote a memo to his boss, Secretary Benson, saying that the FBI plan for a gas insertion had been explained to him, and he was worried about it.
He said, I think the word he used was a tragedy could ensue.
And Secretary Benson, whom I greatly admire in many respects, but his testimony, I was astounded by it.
His testimony was when he got that memo, he did absolutely nothing.
I mean, just did nothing.
Essentially threw it away.
And the reason he gave was it wasn't our problem anymore.
I mean, this had been turned over to the Department of Justice, and it was no longer a Treasury responsibility.
Now, that's sort of like the proverbial waiter saying, that's not my table.
Secretary Benson is entirely correct when he says that the Treasury Department was out of responsibility and the Justice Department had taken it over.
But this is all one government.
And at the very least, what Secretary Benson should have done was pick up the telephone to the Attorney General and say, my number two person has some concerns here.
Perhaps he should come over and talk with you or talk with somebody on your staff.
If the Attorney General had decided to proceed anyway, which he had the authority to do, then Secretary Benson certainly could do nothing about that.
But to get a warning like that and to just sit on it, I think that's inexplicable.
Janet Reno, shortly after the Waco incident, tragedy, offered to resign.
In retrospect, knowing what we now know, and maybe it's a little ahead of time since you'll be on the stand tomorrow, in effect, in front of you, should the President have accept, you know, with regrets or whatever, accepted that resignation?
Well, people are going to have to answer that for themselves.
It depends on what conclusions people come to.
If the conclusions are that this was a mess and that caused by the government and Janet Reno is responsible, then I guess you could say the president should have accepted a resignation.
If, to turn it completely around, the government had an impossibly difficult situation, at least at the time the siege began, and all decisions were risky and Janet Reno acted in good faith and made the best possible choice, then there'd be no reason for such a resignation.
Now, we'll all hear from the Attorney General tomorrow.
I want to say again that I think the crux of the Attorney General's decision was what information were you given that it was based upon?
In other words, what I think is starting to come out of the hearings is that the FBI discounted the possibility that David Koresh would come out by himself.
The question is, when they briefed the Attorney General, did they eliminate the possible counter scenarios of David Kresch coming out because they didn't believe it?
Or did they explain everything?
In other words, when they went to Janet Reno, did they just say, well, there's no hope for any kind of peaceful surrender, therefore, we've got to just do something here, without ever telling the Attorney General all of the possibilities.
It seems to me that they had an obligation to explain all of the possibilities.
Even if they didn't believe that David Koresh would come out, I think they had an obligation to tell the Attorney General what was going on.
And I hope, among other things, we'll find out tomorrow if that was done.
One of the things that I heard the other day that I actually found chilling was the Attorney General was asked by somebody, and she responded about Waco that given similar circumstances today, she would have and would make the same exact decision.
And that scares me.
That actually scares the hell out of me because it tells me there could be, and with the number of militias that we've got building all over the place and people who say, well, I don't believe in the 16th Amendment.
It was never passed.
I won't pay taxes or whatever.
There's going to be some little spark somewhere again.
And I fear that with Janet Reno still in office, there could be another Waco.
But later this morning, we will hear the testimony.
If I can talk about Waco a little bit more here, I want to say that once again, the main purpose of the hearing is people can get their own information and make their own decisions.
I've come to some conclusions, but that doesn't mean that I think everybody should come to the same conclusion I have because they're free to listen to the same testimony.
I think that I'm going to pick one of each, meaning one that favors what the government has explained and one that shows a serious problem.
I think the government had originally enough information that somebody in the compound, David Koresh or whomever, were illegally converting semi-automatic weapons to automatic weapons, which is illegal, that there was a proper government interest in what may have been going on there with respect to firearms.
In other words, I don't think that the government went out of its way to look for a group with an unpopular religious view or a other reason to.
The original fire investigator for the BATF, who said the fire was set from the inside, was in fact someone who had done work for the BF before and in fact had shared offices with the BATF somewhere in Texas.
Is this the same guy that testified before your committee?
Well, the person I think you are referring to, now with the Houston Fire Department, apparently at some past time had some kind of association with the BATF.
However, there were also other individuals who've looked at this, investigated the fire, and combined with the hearing, which suggested that the fire started inside the compound at about three different locations simultaneously.
As indicated earlier, when I first was asked about the Roswell incident and decided to get involved, I took a deep breath because obviously it was a subject matter that at least potentially opened up anyone for ridicule.
My view is people have a right to information on any subject and not subject to someone else's arbitrary view of whether it's important or not.
To answer your specific question, the GAO was unable to find any other records.
And they've said they've exhausted all the possibilities they have.
And so when you say, is there something and is it being guarded somewhere, I can't prove a negative.
I can't say something isn't the case.
I can only say that the GAO, I think, did a very thorough search for records.
And as I've indicated, perhaps the most important thing they found were destroyed, and no one can tell you why or by whom.
But that's where we're at.
So I can't, if there's something still in existence, there is no paper trail the GAO can find to lead you there.
Seems to me there's some things we're never going to know about.
I said the other day on the air, if somebody today came up with a film showing a rifleman on the grassy knoll taking his shot at Kennedy, it would be just one more piece of evidence for people to doubt.
It's like the Roswell film.
Nearly anything can be done, faked.
It can turn up to be a fraud.
And after a while, like with the Kennedy conspiracy, there becomes so much that if the absolute truth were presented by somebody such as yourself, who stood up on the congressional floor, it would be just one more theory.
I was wondering, Congressman Schiff, if you saw the FBI agent today testimony saying that he was one of the on driving the CEV or Bradley, I think.
And he says he did see someone lighting a fire inside.
And also, I was thinking that if they hadn't done the raid when they did, and a couple days later, the Davidians came outside holding children and firing, people would then look at Roger Altman's memo and say, why did you let him stop you from doing something Let's hold it there.
I don't remember him being that absolute about it, but the testimony does appear to be that the fire started inside.
And the most reasoned then conclusion is that it was deliberately set inside.
I think that's the preponderance of the evidence.
I just have not quite ruled out the possibility that since electricity was cut off and there were lanterns all over and this massive assault started on the compound just a few minutes after one vehicle went forward, another possibility.
But I agree that's where the majority of evidence certainly lies.
With respect to Roger Altman's memo, you raise a very good point about what were the alternatives and what were the risks.
I think that, frankly, the Attorney General had risks under any possible decision that were made.
My point about the memo was when you get that, do you throw it away or do you put your number two person in your department, which started this whole situation, they're not just bystanders, into touch with the Justice Department.
I'm saying that the Treasury, Secretary of the Treasury, should have passed on the memo to the Attorney General.
If the Attorney General wanted to then discount it in her responsibility to make a decision here, then that I think she had the authority to do it, but to just stop it.
And it may well be that with all the information available at that time, the Attorney General would have gone forward anyway.
I'm just saying that there is no justification for stopping information from getting over to the Justice Department, which is what the Treasury Department did.
With, I guess, beginning back, gee, with the Kennedy assassination or the Nixon problems, one after another of our government institutions have sort of fallen in the eyes of the American people to the degree now where three out of four people don't trust the American government.
Hopefully, hearings like these hearings on AWACO would restore some of that.
And I think one of the purposes of the WACO hearings is the idea that Congress as part of the government is going to let everything it possibly can hang out there.
And so, again, people then can come to their own conclusions.
As you've already heard, people will come to different conclusions.
unidentified
That's one thing I can say about the television media is that, you know, we have these live hearings.
As far as everything else, the news and everything else, I think it's pretty much worthless to trust the media, the television in particular.
I think they do everything they can to distort things or just spend things the way they want.
Well, let me tell you, I hope that people have had the opportunity to watch these hearings as much as possible in live form or word-for-word form.
And that's because I think that there was a deliberate intention to manipulate the media in this particular case.
And Art, I've got an example or two if I've got time here.
One is the constant bringing up of the National Rifle Association.
The National Rifle Association, apparently, one individual who was investigating this matter in some relation with the National Rifle Association, misrepresented herself to potential witnesses as being associated with the Congress.
There were a number of officials in the White House, Congressman, who expressed worry prior to the hearings that these hearings would be used as an agenda to hurt gun control.
Well, but the point is, this testimony is available for everyone to see.
Nobody has indicated, assuming that this misrepresentation occurred, and it sounds like it to me, no one has explained how that has anything to do with the actual hearing in terms of witnesses testifying with their own testimony.
No one has been able to relate.
Although, speaking of accusations, the accusations have been made because of that incident, the hearings are tainted.
Nobody has ever explained logically how, assuming that incident occurred, how that has at all affected the witnesses who've testified.
And the purpose of that is to get the news media to focus on the National Rifle Association rather than on the WACO hearings, which might show additional failures of the government on the government side of this.
I can give you a more, in my mind, heart-rending example.
But on the very first day, certain members of Congress brought in a young lady, still a child, really, to testify that she had been sexually assaulted, raped by David Koresh.
At 10.
And at 10, that's right.
And I found her testimony believable, but the point is, why was it there?
David Koresh was not being investigated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms for child rape, outrageous as that offense is.
The BATF was investigating him and was putting together this search warrant and this raid for firearms violation.
And I believe that testimony was introduced, and particularly with no effort made to conceal the child's identity, which is normally the case in a child abuse trial, I think, to dominate the media.
and it worked like a charm.
I'm sorry the media was so predictable, but the headlines...
NBC did a big show on Waco that I thought Unbalance was quite pro-government.
And so there was a big media drive and a very, I must actually, in a way, compliment the Democrats for getting that young lady up there from a public relations point of view.
The headlines in a certain Washington paper that's supposed to be a respectable paper, the front page headlines talked about David Koresh's lust.
This is not one of the tabloids now.
Another national newspaper on the following Monday summarized three days of testimony, but really only summarized the sexual assault on this child.
And all of that was calculated, in my judgment, to keep other information from getting into the news media.
Like, for example, the child abuse caseworker from the state of Texas, who was familiar with the Davidians, who had been out there, testified that this raid was a fatal mistake.
And her words, I reviewed them enough, and I think I can quote them.
When I saw on television ladders going up at the compound, I knew children were going to die.
Now, that's testimony that's far more related to this actual incident and what was being investigated by the BATF.
Either way, Congressman, most people, I think, would say whether it was firearms or whether it was child molestation, nothing for 90 people or more to die for.
Well, the issue is how did they handle the case when they got the case?
And given the fact that it's being stated that a lot had to be done for the benefit of the children, you have to ask, from the beginning raid to the final attempt to end the siege with tear gas, was this really done with the idea of protecting children i mean although there's all these claims that We're doing it for the children.
Well, the bottom line for the children was it couldn't have been much worse for them the way it came out.
I don't think the hearings will necessarily change anyone's view.
I can tell you that all of us doing these hearings are getting a great deal of mail and phone calls.
And I think people's basically preconception about whatever it might be about Waco will stay the same.
I think, though, that the Congress has shown that if there is a subject of immense interest in the public and of legitimate concern, that we're going to make sure that everything possible comes out.
As the Congressman said he was with regard to the Roswell film.
I couldn't possibly recount all he's got to say, but the upshot of it is there are records missing, permanent records, that would have told us what went on at Roswell, mysteriously missing records covering a two-year period of outgoing messages from Roswell.
So we spent an hour on that.
Then we turned our attention in the second hour.
You see, Congressman Schiff is also on the Waco committee.
And the Congressman, of course, is in Washington, where it is now a little after 4 o'clock.
He's going to have a rough day.
And we talked about Waco for an hour.
And those of you that heard that interview are welcome to comment.
Those of you who did not, you might recall that beginning at 4 a.m. Pacific Time, in other words, a little less than three hours from now, we will repeat those two hours of interview with Congressman Schiff.
So if your radio station carries the repeat hour or two, you will get it.
If not, I'm sorry you missed it.
We'll try to repeat it soon.
Now, welcoming KVNA AM in Flagstaff, Arizona.
Welcome to the network.
Good to have you on board.
They're a big one, 10,000 watts, 600 on the dial in Flagstaff.
WAZLAM in Hazleton, Pennsylvania.
Welcome.
Good to have you along.
They are 1,000 watts on 1490 in Hazelton, Pennsylvania.
And one other, and a big one at that.
WARA AM in Attleboro, Massachusetts, transmitting over very nicely, thank you, to Providence, Rhode Island.
So now you're about to learn what our program really is.
Interviews are rare.
We do have them when they are relevant.
Congressman Schiff was certainly relevant.
I'm going to hold my East of the Rockies line open for this hour, at least this hour, for people in Hazelton, Pennsylvania, or listening to a WARA in Attleboro, Massachusetts.
The East of the Rockies number is 1-800-825-5033.
So, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, anybody listening in that area or our other new affiliate in Hazleton, we will hold the East of the Rockies line open for your listeners.
Now, one other announcement.
This is a big one.
This is an important one.
Listen to me very carefully, please.
We, by special permission of Ray Santilli, the man who possesses the alleged Roswell film, we are in possession of five very special photographs.
They are to be published in the newsletter.
I told you the deadline for ordering to get the issue with the Roswell photographs was coming.
I got the following memo from the network today.
Quote, We are so swamped with newsletter orders that we need to cut off the September issue very soon in order to get it out on time.
I know you've been warning the people about this.
The final cutoff for Visa or MasterCard orders will be 6 a.m.
West Coast Time Wednesday morning when your tape replays go off the air.
That's it.
When you go off the air around the country, the deadline is passed for getting the September issue.
So, which goes out, of course, in early August.
So, that's it, folks.
That's the deadline.
If you want to order our newsletter, and we've got all five of these photographs, and by the way, I was told earlier today, they're going to devote four of them, the four best photographs, a half page each in the newsletter.
This is going to be a collectible.
You know, in the end, whether this turns out as the congressman suggested, he said, well, if it's a hoax, it's the best one I've ever seen.
And I absolutely agree with that.
It's going to be a giant story.
Either way, if it's a hoax, it's the biggest and best ever done.
If it's not, these are pictures of an alien being.
If you would like our newsletter, oh, by the way, next month, I'm going to stick in a picture of Max the Crystal Skull.
You're not going to want to miss that.
And my, well, I think I'll put a picture of my studio in there.
I've been mulling that over.
I think I will do it the next month.
So we are, our newsletter is getting bigger, better, at a very rapid pace.
To order our newsletter, it is now too late to order it by mail.
So you must call, and I recommend you do it beginning now.
All right, a little bit of the news.
Hurricane Aaron.
Seems strange.
That would be ABCDE, the fifth hurricane of the year already.
Arguably just a category one hurricane, very wet, 10 inches of rain, 75 mile-an-hour winds.
All of that may increase.
It is headed straight for the Florida Keys.
Tens of thousands of people are evacuating.
It will hit as late, perhaps as midnight tomorrow.
Actually, the sooner the better, frankly, since the more time it spends over warm water, the more energy it's going to be able to collect.
I've got a feeling this is going to be an awful hurricane season.
And this is only the beginning, I'm sorry to say.
I believe that our weather is in the process of a change.
Wonder how many of the rest of you believe that.
Now, Waco.
We just spent an hour on this.
Hot stuff.
The co-chair of the hearings, Congressman Bill Zelif, accused President Clinton of ordering the CS gas attack and then covering up his role.
This is a damn serious accusation.
The White House is very angry.
They have reacted very angrily to it.
Janet Reno will be testifying before the Waco hearings later on this morning, before a no doubt bleary-eyed Congressman Schiff and others.
I know he's going to be bleary-eyed.
And it should be quite a day.
Representative Zelif was asked over the weekend on Meath Press, what is the most important question she, Janet Reno, is going to be asked.
His response was, why did she approve the plan to gas almost 90 Americans?
What information was she given?
Who did she share the decision with?
There are going to be some very critical questions asked in the morning.
Very critical.
There will come a moment where she's going to have to look them in the eye and tell them whether or not she told the president, whether she was communicating at all with the president, or made the decision unilaterally, hard to believe, as the congressman said, she was there two weeks.
She was brand new.
Would she take such a decision all on her own?
Is she going to fall on her sword in the morning?
What do you expect her to say?
And then, as I asked the congressman, what troubles you more?
To find out the president knew, in fact, was very much part of the decision-making at Waco, or that he didn't know a thing about it?
Was, what's the old expression, out of the loop.
You think he was out of the loop?
And if he was, that is troubling.
If he has knowledge of what went on, if he, in fact, ordered the attack, and he is covering it up, then the congressman said, and I agree, that's probably the more serious of the two.
It makes the two of them, Mickey Mouse and ABC CapCities coming together will make them the Number one entertainment company in the world.
ABC stock went up $22 a share.
People made fortunes overnight.
All of this done on a golf course.
The deal, I guess, was cut on a golf course.
Amazing.
ABC programming, they say, will not change dramatically.
They own a lot of TV and radio stations, in fact, ones I broadcast on.
But a lot of the ABC television affiliates will have, through their network now, more access to programming, Disney programming.
So it is but the latest and the biggest of a lot of takeover bids, a lot of rumors out there, Westinghouse wants CBS.
You know, Ted Turner wants CBS.
Westinghouse is said to be ready to offer about $5 billion in a bid, trying to get CBS.
We'll see.
The revolution is well underway.
There is in the background the telecommunications bill winding its way through Congress, a threatened veto, I might add now, by the President.
You think he'll really veto this?
Billions of dollars are at stake.
It's all about virtually a connection to all American homes.
AT ⁇ T said they've got their whole company on the line.
The bill would deregulate entire industries, cable, for example.
It would allow all phone companies to compete in nearly every category with each other.
It would allow networks like ABC to buy more stations, television and radio.
Now, there are two views to take about what's going on, about the merger, about the bill winding through Congress.
One view would be that there'll be more choice, more competition, and that's good for you, that's good for me.
That means we get more choice, competitive pressure increases, prices fall.
That would be my view.
Another would be that, oh no, America's communications is consolidating into the hands of a few very powerful people who will now, more than ever, control the flow of information to all of us.
I personally take the first view.
It's the same reason I oppose any return to some so-called fairness doctrine.
The very diversity of broadcasting in America, television and radio, precludes the need for any kind of further regulation and cries out for less.
The less regulation we have, the more diversity we will have.
And with that diversity, it makes any thoughts of a so-called fairness doctrine ridiculous.
That's my view.
You may want to argue that.
If you do, you're welcome to.
Last week, House Speaker Newt Gingrich said he thinks Vincent Foster did not commit suicide.
Quite a thing to say.
Which means, of course, he thinks Vince Foster was murdered.
So you have to imagine, he imagines a cover-up.
Let me tell you what William Safire of the New York Times said over the weekend on Meet the Press.
Thought it was good.
He said, Vince Foster's suicide was related to Whitewater.
The files on that were taken the night Vince Foster, in quotes, committed suicide.
If he did, something is being hidden or not, but nobody ever says this.
This is the question, quoting William Sapphire, quote, did Governor Clinton take a bribe?
Then did he, as president, obstruct the investigation into it?
End quote.
That's a damn good question.
Do you believe our president took a bribe?
And did he then further obstruct the investigation into that?
But Sapphire went on to say exactly what I told you last week.
This won't, he said, or will not, lead to impeachment.
The Republicans want Bill Clinton there to run against.
Both of these, if true, would be horrible indictments of everything that we are and think we believe we are.
And as Congressman Schiff said, let people laugh.
You know, there are a lot of people out there who ridicule his efforts to, you know, try to find out what really went on at Roswell.
And anytime you mention UFOs or any of the rest of it, it makes it easy for the talking heads out there to laugh and say, oh, isn't that ridiculous and all the rest of it?
But as he pointed out, we do have this thing called the First Amendment.
And he believes, and I believe, the American people have the right to know whether it concerns Roswell or Waco or Whitewater and the Vince Foster death, we've got a right to know.
But look at what this story is saying.
It's saying that there is something here, William Sapphire, saying, yes, this is very serious.
And the question is whether the President of the United States took a bribe, then obstructed the investigation into that.
If he did, that's an impeachable offense.
Clearly, impeachable.
But then Sapphire is going on to say, but there's not going to be Any impeachment because the Republicans want him there to run against.
My God, that's really a terrible indictment when you consider it of both possibilities, isn't it?
One, that we've got a president that committed a cover-up, the allegation, that would be equivalent to or even greater than in importance what Richard Nixon did.
But we're not going to do anything about it because we're worried that he'd be impeached or he'd have to resign and go back to Arkansas or wherever it is that he would go.
And it wouldn't be used because the Republicans want to win the election.
Now, that's pretty damning, no matter which way you look at it.
All right, we're going to break here at the bottom of the hour.
I've got new affiliates in Attleboro, Massachusetts, and Hazelton, Pennsylvania.
And so, everybody else, hold off on the east of the Rockies line and let them get through.
Calling Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, 1-800-825-5033 is the number 1-800-825-5033.
unidentified
You're listening to Art Bell, Somewhere in Time, on Premier Radio Networks.
Tonight, an encore presentation of Coast to Coast AM from July 31st, 1995.
Coast to Coast AM from July
Coast to Coast AM from July 31st, 1995.
31st, 1995.
Coast to Coast AM from July 31st, 1995.
Premier Radio Networks presents Art Bell Somewhere in Time.
The night's program originally aired July 31st, 1995.
There's a big survey today showing three out of four Americans do not trust the government.
And I'm afraid that's increasing all around us.
I don't know what we do about it.
Congressman Schiff was wise enough to say that after the Waco hearings, he doesn't think that it's going to change a lot of minds on either side.
And cynicism in America that is dangerous.
I believe, thank you for the call, that it is absolutely dangerous.
Where it's going, I don't know.
You're listening to live talk radio because whatever radio station you're listening to is nice enough to put it on for you at this time of the morning.
Well, actually, faxing is cheaper than almost anything else you can do because you can disgorge a fax across the country at this time of the morning in about 15 seconds.
So the price of a one-minute call across the country early in the morning is very, I mean, it's pennies.
unidentified
Right, well, one morning I was trying it, like I got off work, and I tried it at 6.20, and I was just trying for about five minutes, and I was surprised.
And again, reminding you, holding open for about another 20 minutes our East of the Rockies line for people who are listening to WAZL in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, and WARA in Attleboro, Massachusetts.
1-800-825-5033.
As usual, it is clogged up with people who aren't hearing me, and so they can't get through.
I sure would like to let them get through.
I try to do this for new affiliates from time to time as sort of a way to celebrate their arrival.
Now, the Packwood hearing.
The Senate Ethics Committee decided today it's not going to hold public hearings, so we're not going to hear about it.
Hmm, wonder what prompted that.
Barbara Boxer is trying to throw it all open.
I don't think she's going to do it.
A lot of it would embarrass a lot of people, and so they're going to do it behind closed doors.
But they promised to release all the information.
You've got to wonder if it'll come through a relative of the guy who dealt with the information down at Roswell.
O.J. Simpson.
Marcia Clark now saying she can prove the bloody gloves worn by the killer belong to none other than O.J. Simpson.
That they've got pictures from football games of years past showing O.J. wearing, what else?
Those very gloves.
I've got a lot on Susan Smith this morning as well, and we'll get to that.
Wildcardline, you're on the air.
Good morning.
unidentified
Arbell?
Yes.
Yes, I'm calling to say that your format is getting too plain.
In my region, I don't get your afternight, you know, your other show.
And you don't talk more about adverse things like aliens and stuff like that.
If he is listening, you do get into many diverse things, but it just happens to be that there are a lot of political things that are of much relevancy right now.
Now it's to the point where about half the time they'll fight, but the other half of the time he'll sit there and let her lick his face.
So we're kind of at that stage now.
But I'm being very careful.
I mean, can you imagine what it's like?
I got the 16-pounder on my lap, and the little one who loves the death, just loves people, doesn't care two cents and will come crawling over and crawl up on my neck while the big one's on my lap.
That's really not, that's like a rocket ship ready to go.
unidentified
Well, I think it's really something how you found Shadow, how it just came right up and, you know, right on your shoulder.
That's the whole idea of live talk radio, or at least my version of live talk radio.
Now, I'm in the middle of writing a book right now, and I appreciate Rush.
And you know how much of a political animal I am.
So we talk about a lot of that, whatever happens to be going on.
But there is more to life than that.
And so there is more to this show than that.
And I like the open format.
I am convinced that those talk hosts, unnamed for the moment, who criticize openline talk radio would be well served themselves by trying it, giving it a shot.
Wouldn't hurt them a bit.
They could probably do it.
Those with enough talent could handle varied subjects, and I think should.
And I think it is the direction that we will force eventually talk radio to go into.
But they can't get in because everybody else is trying to get in.
So let me try one last time here.
I may have to give up on this idea of letting affiliates try to get through when they're new because there are too many people out there.
Nevertheless, once more, he says, if you're listening to WARA in Attleboro, Massachusetts on 1320 or WAZL in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, and only if you're listening to those, call us now at 1-800-825-5033.
It is a free call.
We're trying to celebrate your affiliates joining us, but that line is jamming up with other people who just aren't listening.
The number is 1-800-825-5033.
West of the Rockies, you're on the air.
Hi.
unidentified
Hi.
I was calling to share my view on the death sentence.
Shouldn't, because of the fact that she did something, as malicious as it may be, was not really a danger to society as a whole.
And I think someone that proves himself to be a danger to society as a whole, say Charles Manson, would deserve the death sentence because you're protecting society and its existence.
I also did not think under the circumstances, and there were mitigating circumstances for the sentence, I mean, she did the crime, but generally in murder, pre-planned, pre-thought, premeditated, cold-blooded murder, I am a believer in the death sentence.
However, not in that case.
And that takes a lot of explanation.
I appreciate your call, sir.
East of the Rockies, you are on the air.
Hello there.
unidentified
Hello.
Actually, I'm calling on request.
I have a near and dear friend of mine who lives in Phoenix, Arizona, who called me up all frantically and insisting that I call you because I live in Rhode Island.
Live, unscreened, talk radio, all night long, from the high desert to the nation and well beyond.
I might add, dear Art Bell, the whole point as well as the, this is in quotes now, success, end quote, of Waco, was to establish the position of, hey, you Christians, don't mess with us.
Be afraid as well, and don't own guns.
Dave, in San Diego.
Think that was the message?
Certainly many have received it that way.
And this.
Art, of course, we're all wondering of what religious belief you adhere to.
Sometimes it seems obvious until you deny as well as distance yourself from any commitment from the topics heard on your show.
Michael Reagan says he's a Christian.
What shall we say of art?
A religious moderate?
A believer in Art Bellism?
Yes, Kate, in Love's Park, Illinois, it's true.
I have a religion, I call it the religion of the mirror.
And I go in and I chant at my own reflection in the mirror.
I, Kate, I have no structured religion to answer your question.
I don't mind answering it straight out.
I believe in a Maker.
I believe in our God.
I believe in Jesus.
I guess that makes me a Christian, eh?
But I am a privately religious person, Kate.
I was baptized a Lutheran.
I went to Sunday school when I was a kid.
I have doubts and concerns and worries and hopes and dreams and curiosities about our Maker and about religion, but I have no specific religion, Kate.
I spent a lot of my life searching, investigating many religions, some of them odd, some of them mainstream.
And I never settled on any, Kate, so I don't know what that makes me.
Anybody ask Congressman Schiff said, and there are a lot of small, narrow minds out there who can do nothing but criticize.
And because a certain subject is not of interest to them, they act quickly to jump and make fools of those who would come and tell the story as this young man just did.
I appreciate it.
I would not try to make a fool of you, sir, and I don't do that on this program.
These are open lines, and I'll listen to everybody fairly.
About three weeks ago, old Charlie Shermer was on the TV, and he was talking about the CS gas they used in the Waco compound.
And he mentioned a chemical called methylene chloride.
So I called my brother, the chemist, and the statement that Shermer was making that he said, well, you know, people are accusing us of using flammable liquids in there.
And he says, as a matter of fact, methylene chloride would be a flame retardant.
Well, I think today is going to be the day when we either get down to the truth of what happened at Waco or we find out we're never going to.
unidentified
I want to have a quick thing, too, on that Vince Foster of him committing suicide or not.
Thing that people just don't seem to want to comment on is the fact of his frequent flyer miles to Switzerland, those jet trips he was making over since the late 80s.
And what was he doing there for an hour than coming back to the United States?
The fact that there's obviously more in the Vince Foster case, that the allegations are it may involve a very serious charge against the president.
And the conclusions by many are that even if it's found, it won't be used because of political reasons.
I hate the whole thing.
I hate the whole thing.
And I'm going to say it again.
If Americans don't begin to perceive that they're getting the truth from our government pretty soon, there are going to be dire, dangerous consequences to be paid.
And also, they still haven't asked any of these agents about the missing infrared video, the missing audio recordings, and the missing ATF video.
Also, why a Parkland hospital was notified at 6 o'clock in the morning how many burn units they had in their hospital, yet there weren't any fire trucks there.
One thing that really bothers me, and I haven't heard anybody really comment on it, maybe I've just missed it, but I get very angry and tired of hearing the cop-out by Doc Democrat and people such as that saying, well, Janet Reno didn't know what the gas was all about.
Why?
I mean, this is a lady that is the top decision maker, and they are going to allow, whether it be Congress or anyone else, to use a cop-out.
I didn't know what it was.
And then they keep referring to the fact that her biggest concern was molestation of the children.
That would have been a concern of mine had I been the proper law enforcement agency that should have been looking into that.
But that is not a federal offense that feds crossed the line.
That would have been the Texas Rangers or the police officers within that area, which had checked on it and had found no sign of it.
But even whether you're talking about allegations of child abuse or you're talking about possible weapons violations, none of it, none of it justifies all the people killed.
unidentified
Not a thing.
That's the point.
And I do not agree with David Koresh.
I don't know him well enough to disagree.
All I know is the way our government handled it was, in my opinion, very improper.
They're using cop-outs, very cheap cop-outs that the Republicans seem to be allowing them to get away with, which I don't understand being a Republican myself, a moderate to conservative person, I'm very disappointed in the whole process.
I don't really truly understand what's going on here.
If there was no intention of ever getting to the truth, they should not have put the American people through this, allowing them to believe that the truth was going to come out.
Now, I listened to you prior to the hearing starting, and you were a man that sounded very excited that now America is going to know the truth.
I shared that same feeling, Art.
I thought it's time.
But as we've watched the hearings, it's one of the largest farces I've seen pulled on the American people.
And even though I am a moderate conservative Republican, I am so disappointed in the actions of most of the Republicans involved that I don't see what hopes they have for next year as far as another sweep such as we had in the United States.
I'm starting to care a lot less about them, the Republican hopes, the Democrat hopes, than I am for America.
Is that a non-partisan expression for you?
Or what?
I have hopes too, and I share a lot of conservative ideology.
But I'm frankly scared to death of where we're headed right now.
I really mean that.
It scares the hell out of me.
If we're not going to get the truth on Roswell, Wago, Whitewater, if everything has come to the point in America now, we're going to cover up, erase tapes, missing records.
In other words, you know, we have freedom.
Supposedly, freedom of information.
As Congressman Schiff said, the American people have a right to know.
But I think it is fair to ask whether we're going to know anymore.
And I keep coming back to the same point.
The gulf between government and the people is getting nothing but wider.
And if these hearings end with no clear answers, without the truth having been laid out, then the degree of danger goes up about three notches.
I got to thinking, 27 little pieces of unsigned paper also indicating a depressed state of mind are given to us as Vince Foster's suicide note unquestioned.
Somebody was kind enough to fax me a copy of the London Observer.
The Roswell film Autopsy film is making big news now all over the world.
It's entitled Scientists Puzzled by Space Alien Autopsy.
London.
It is either the science story of the century or the greatest hoax since Pilldown Man.
Either way, television footage of the dissection of two aliens to be screened worldwide late next month is expected to stir considerable controversy.
The film was allegedly made in the wake of the Roswell incident, an event famed among ufologists who believe extraterrestrials were indeed found after a flying saucer crashed at Roswell, New Mexico in 1947, and that's just a bit of it.
It's beginning to make big headlines.
Art, read this on the air.
I have just downloaded the Roswell Autopsy photos.
For those who are serious about UFO research, this is a must-have.
They had better get your newsletter if they're not active computer users so they can see these photos immediately.
I agree.
Art Bell, what do the four dead BATF agents have in common?
The last caller was also right.
They tried to kill a lot of birds with a stone at Waco.
He was surprised at Janet Reno refusing to accept any blame for this, acting like she didn't do anything wrong, and she would, you know, that didn't surprise me one little bit.
I'm not saying it's because of Janet Reno, but because anybody who has had any experience in fighting the federal government, I mean high-level bureaucrats, is going to tell you that bureaucrats have gotten to the point they think they're little gods, and they never admit doing anything wrong.
I mean, that's just their mindset.
You know, what they do is right because they do it because they can't do wrong.
They are incapable of doing anything wrong.
I'm sorry, that's just the way things have gotten.
Well, it's to a point now I care much less about them than I do the relationship between the American people and what they perceive as their government.
It's getting dangerous.
unidentified
Well, Paul, I think it'd be a lot more dangerous if people sat around thinking that they had a government they could trust when they don't.
I mean, it's a lot better if they know the truth, if they have a realistic appraisal of what the government is, and if they sit around.
As long as there aren't any easy alternatives, you know, I mean, the point is, are people going to sit around and let themselves be turning into robots, little puppets, or are they going to do something about it?
Now, the alternative may be unpleasant, but what choice do you have?
I can tell you that I would not allow that, nor would a lot of Americans of my generation.
Now, of the next generation?
I don't know.
The one that follows that?
I don't know.
I really don't know.
Maybe they will follow along like so many modern sheep.
I don't know.
I just know that somehow we have got to narrow this credibility gap that is between the people and their government.
And if we don't, and if it continues to widen, and if Waco just pushes it further, and after a while we just take them to be liars, know that we're lied to by everybody that would say they would lead us, that something awful is going to happen.
Really awful.
Ease to the Rockies.
You're on the air.
unidentified
Good morning, Art.
This is Brett and KC listening to Radio with Attitude, KCMO.
I think that she committed a double murder, killed two people, and that just out of strict punishment, not out of vengeance or, you know, we could discuss reform or protecting society or using her for an example or prevention of this ever happening again, and we can discuss all of these different things, but the actual punishment to fit the crime would be the death penalty.
600 mothers who kill their own children every single year.
Do you think giving Susan the death penalty would have deterred even one of them?
I favor the death penalty as a deterrent.
I favor it as the Bible suggests an I should be given for an I. But only under the worst circumstances.
And to me, I'm going to say it again.
There was a difference between some guy who runs into a 7-Eleven, points a gun at a cashier, says, give me all your money.
The guy opens up, gives him all the money.
The guy starts to leave and then thinks no and puts a bullet through the guy's head.
A lot of that going on these days.
That's a mindless, premeditated murder in the commission of a felony.
that deserves the death penalty however However awful the circumstances early in her life, they don't mitigate the crime for one second.
But when I finally got down to assessing whether or not the death penalty was appropriate for this 23-year-old girl, mother, ex-mother, I did look at her life.
And I think that at the time she committed the crime, she was nuts.
And I think a lot of people contributed to that condition.
And do I think we should execute people who are really mentally deranged?
No.
I guess I don't.
And I think there was sufficient testimony to mitigate the sentence portion of the trial, not the crime itself, but the sentence portion of the trial.
She's going to lead a horrible life.
Try and imagine 30, 40, 50 years, her entire life, no doubt, in prison, thinking about what she has done.
You seem to want to get that in a little too many times for my taste.
Thank you very much.
There's a lot of people in prison who slit your throat.
You commit a crime against children.
You molest a child, you go to prison.
Your chances of getting out are not real good.
They will hold Susan Smith without question in isolation.
And as I said, it'll be hell on earth for however many years, unless she does commit suicide, and she may, she's got hell.
What could be more hellish than to be behind bars for your adult life, thinking about what you did?
Truly hellish.
Wild Carline, you're on the air.
unidentified
Yeah, thanks for taking my call, Art.
As far as Roswell goes, two quick topics.
What would be wrong with having the GAO look into the communications of other major UFO sightings that the UFO clubs and watch groups all have very well documented emails?
The Albuquerque Journal, as the Congressman will tell you here in a few moments, if you get to hear the repeat, got things way out of context.
And the big story should have read GAO discovers two years of records that would have told us the truth about Roswell to be missing, to have been destroyed without proper authorization by who?
By nobody knows who.
Two years of records of communications that would have told us the truth.
Gone.
now what is a mother to think West of the Rockies, you're on the air.
And that's that the result at Waco didn't really have to happen.
We had 52 days where we could have gotten together 20,000 people who believe in the right to free speech, the right to practice religion, the right to keep them barearmed, pack them onto buses, get them down there, run them through the lines all at the same time, and have them stand there waiting for the tanks, just like Tenement Square.
Well, it also could have been pointed out, sir, that the tanks knocked down the stairwells that would have allowed the people to go downstairs, to go out the conveniently opened holes by the tanks.
unidentified
Well, I'd like to say that Doc Dumbell and Charlie Chump, I'd like to see them experience the CS and see what they think and what they have to say about it after that.
If you're lucky and you get a repeat of the next hour or two, you will hear New Mexico Congressman Stephen Schiff first spend one hour on the subject of Roswell.
He's the expert.
Then, in the second hour, you will hear a frank, open discussion of Waco.
He's on the Waco committee that within hours, about three hours here, will get underway with testimony by Janet Reno.
It should be quite a day, and the next two hours are worth hearing.
Either way, I thank you from the high desert.
Don't forget, deadline for the newspaper from the high desert.