Vince Foster Foolery
York, Byron
"Vince Foster Foolery" BY BYRON YORK, BYRON YORK is an investigative writer for The American Spectator. It was a steamy and sticky...
...And on that fateful afternoon, I made a promise I must keep...
...Commission...
...A promise I have spent the last year o f my life fulfilling...
...In a letter sent shortly before this article went to print, Delgaudio wrote that Wilcox had at one time worked for TAS...
...The street theater stuff is extremely valuable, and I wouldn't hesitate to make a contribution for that...
...A Conspiracy So Vast...
...But Wilcox was not available for questions, and Delgaudio offered no specifics...
...He is used a lot by people who have issues to champion but aren't willing to go to the extremes he will," says a Warner supporter who has experienced Delgaudio's attentions first-hand...
...He created RAW, or Republicans Against Warner, and held a number of protests at Warner campaign appearances...
...That's all...
...Cashing In On Vince The Foster mailing seems a step beyond Delgaudio's signature street-theater style...
...His primary activity is to stage events-comic protests with a political message...
...Sure enough, a check of the magazine's personnel records indicates he spent a brief time here in 1991 as a temporary employee entering data in the circulation department...
...In "Direct-Mail Deviltry"-a November 1994 article in TAS that stirred much controversy in conservative circles-writer Christopher Byron called some anti-Clinton direct-mail marketing "a bizarre offshoot of conservative fundraising...
...A few hours later he was dead...
...He's definitely not in it for the money," says Price, noting Delgaudio's tiny office and modest lifestyle...
...But he vowed to fight on...
...Sincerely, Ronald Wilcox...
...Pornographers Against Helms" lent its support to Michigan Democrat Carl Levin when he opposed Jesse Helms's move to ban funding leading some observers to believe that real-life pornographers really backed Levin...
...Price is a student at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va...
...And, unless you're the target, it is indeed hard to see any harm in the street theater...
...On the day it was released, the Whitewater Hearings reconvened...
...They are: July 12,1995: ten protesters organized by the Commission picketed Clinton's appearance at a high school in Vienna, Virginia...
...And, as it turns out, Ronald Wilcox is not the man in charge...
...Did Delgaudio really make that promise to Vince Foster's widow...
...Can I please count on you to send a one-time contribution of $500 or $i,ooo...
...Commission Executive Director Ronald Wilcox went on to grieve "for Vince and Lisa Foster's three beautiful children...
...he knew too much about the goings-on at Mena airport...
...22 August r 9 9 6 The American Spectator Actually, Ray earned his "honorable" by being elected to the Fairfax County (Va...
...A native New Yorker and a veteran of the conservative activist group Young Americans for Freedom, Delgaudio operates from a small office in Falls Church, Virginia...
...Your contribution will help the Commission to put Vince Foster's killer behind bars...
...But the names on the letterhead-"Hon...
...January 4, 1996: the Council of Volunteer Americans fielded a dozen volunteers to demonstrate in favor of extending the government shutdown...
...He appears to take credit, for example, for the firing of the first counsel, Robert Fiske...
...Perhaps "activist" is the wrong word to describe Delgaudio...
...23 The American Spectator August 1996...
...he's just an assistant whose name is used as a front for the real force behind both groups...
...The sen ator was said to be out raged...
...And the lurid passage quoted above was just the beginning...
...Another group that he founded, Public Advocate, took in about the same amount...
...A pre-publication copy places Price in the company of those listed above, plus Jerry Falwell, William Dannemeyer, and James Dale Davidson...
...He's communicated twice now," Delgaudio says...
...Delgaudio points to the Commission's "Report to Congress," described in the fundraising letter as "the most explosive document released in Washington since the Warren report...
...I will see to it that Vince Foster's killer goes to jail," the letter declares, "whoever he-or she-maybe...
...She's a private citizen...
...Byron said tactics employed by some of the most aggressive anti-Clintonites "play into the hands of conservatism's critics, and inevitably erode public confidence not just in the messenger, but, ultimately, in conservatism itself...
...How else could a college kid stuffing envelopes for $8 an hour become one of the key theorists in the movement to topple a president...
...A promise that will affect the very future o f our great Nation...
...When asked whether he was the "commission's" executive director, Price replied, "No, I don't think so...
...Martin Walker, are you listening...
...It's a warning that seems particularly applicable to letters like Delgaudio's Foster fundraiser...
...Among such wellknown names as Floyd Brown, Richard Scaife, and The American Spectator, there was...
...It's frustrating for people on the inside who are working at this thing day in and day out...
...He ate a meal and engaged in adulterous sexual relations with this blond...
...A copy of our financial report is available by contacting our office or the Virginia Department of Consumer Affairs...
...Walker's piece-headlined "It All Fits"-knit together the more bizarre threads of Clinton conspiracy lore: Vince Foster was the target of Israeli blackmail after the Mossad had tracked his visits to Switzerland...
...The kind o f afternoon I have come to dread here in Wash ington...
...But other Republicans- not to mention his liberal targets-find his behavior out of bounds...
...In recent A CONSERVATIVE ACTIVIST IN NORTHERN VIRGINIA DOUBLES AS A DIRECT MAIL COMEDIAN, TRACKING DOWN VINCENT FOSTERS KILLER ON BEHALF OF THE SO-CALLED CLINTON INVESTIGATIVE COMMISSION...
...That man is Eugene Delgaudio, a long-time Republican activist in northern Virginia...
...One day, according to Price, Delgaudio approached him...
...The fine print at the bottom of the letter says the Clinton Investigative Commission is an "authorized program" of something called the Council of Volunteer Americans...
...Your contribution will help the Commission to put Vince Foster's killer behind bars...
...The Fundraising Cycle There is no evidence that Delgaudio is getting rich off the antiClinton business...
...We stand by the letter...
...Thus it's possible much of Delgaudio's money is simply being plowed back into fundraising in a vicious cycle characteristic of the business-fundraising to support more fundraising...
...Lately Delgaudio has latched onto the Foster issue, not only with the Clinton Investigative Commission but with a memorable bumper sticker: IF VINCE FOSTER HAD A GUN, HE WOULD BE ALIVE TODAY...
...What Commission...
...He also says he has delivered about ioo,ooo petitions calling for full disclosure in the Foster case...
...But that doesn't mean his direct-mail appeals don't bring in money...
...He claimed he worked so hard on his investigation of Foster's death that sometimes he went for days without sleep...
...Delgaudio did not respond to repeated telephone calls...
...Eugene is not your typical guy who aspires to the normal conservative movement organization," says Ron Robinson, president of the Young America's Foundation and a man who has known Delgaudio since both were in Young Americans for Freedom in the early 1970's...
...The Council is "a non-profit organization recognized under section 501 (c) (4) of the Internal Revenue Code," the note reads...
...But it may be that fundraising consumes much more of the budget than Delgaudio says...
...Republicans in Washington might remember one a few years ago, when the "Ted Kennedy Swim Team" marched from La Brasserie, one of the Massachusetts senator's favorite hangouts, to the Capitol...
...Wilcox's letter also claims a critical role for the Commission in the independent counsel's investigation of Whitewater...
...The facts speak for themselves...
...Most of those petitions, he says, have gone to congressional offices...
...Pornographers Against Helms" turned out to be Delgaudio's handiwork...
...But it is actually an iipage photocopied mix of previously reported facts and rumors concerning Foster's death...
...David C. Ray, Chairman" and "Andrew M. Price, Executive Director"-are unfamiliar...
...And it was just one more step to believe that the anti-Clinton right is bigger, better organized, and more intimidating than it actually is...
...An interesting crew," writes Walker...
...Walker apparently thought so much of Price's work that this year he has included him-again among the key conspiracy theorists of the right- in his upcoming book The President We Deserve: Bill Clinton, His Rise, Falls, and Comebacks (1996, Crown Publishers, Inc...
...Is there a danger in what he does...
...It invites questions: one might ask, for example, if it is actually true...
...Hot, humid, and wet...
...When organizations haven't done anything and they claim to have, that's wrong," says a veteran Whitewater investigator...
...Walker told readers that Price "runs the Clinton Investigative Commission, which is raising funds for an `Impeach Clinton' campaign...
...Delgaudio says the letter does not specifically say there was a direct cause-and-effect connection...
...Specifically, just what is the Clinton Investigative Commission doing to put Vince Foster's killer behind bars...
...Delgaudio says about 70 to 75 percent of that money goes to "programs...
...He referred further queries to Eugene Delgaudio, who is in the direct mail business and stages political events...
...Experts in direct mail say it's a common practice to count some fundraising costs under the category of "programs...
...Most of the rest goes to fundraising costs...
...But the direct mail is another matter...
...He declared the probe had led to threats against his own life, as well as "the vandalism of my car...
...That was Delgaudio, too...
...Not long after, Price took a job stuffing envelopes for Delgaudio at $8 an hour...
...That's the last I heard of it until Novak called," Price says...
...Andrew Price...
...Price says he agreed reluctantly, and that's how he became executive director of the Clinton Investigative Commission...
...It's not hard to guess where all this is leading...
...And then, as if he couldn't resist just one more word, Wilcox offers up this tid-bit about Vince Foster's last day alive: "On that gruesome afternoon, Vince Foster was with a mysterious blond (his wife, Lisa, is a brunette...
...It's hardly the kind of record touted in the Commission's fundraising appeal -a fact that irritates some of those who are working on legitimate investigations of the Clintons...
...The next day, Fiske was fired...
...With the smell o f the swamp Wash ington is built on coming up through the sewers...
...February 8,1996: a group called the Truth in Voting Coalition (founder: Ronald Wilcox) organized ten picketers to protest recent decisions by the Fairfax County, Virginia school board...
...Look," he says, "you're reading a direct mail letter...
...Stories like those, Walker wrote, were kept alive "by a band of dedicated and hostile conservative journalists and activists...
...Then there is the Whitewater investigation on Capitol Hill...
...Sent to thousands of people across the country, the steamy missive arrived courtesy of the Clinton Investigative Commission, a Virginia-based group that says it has proof "beyond all shadow of a doubt" that the late White House Deputy Counsel Vincent Foster was murdered...
...Maybe it's better to call him a clever but small-time practitioner of the art of political guerrilla theater...
...What about the description of the firing of Robert Fiske -the part that says Fiske was canned the day after Wilcox went public with his accusations...
...VINCE FOSTER FOOLERY BY bYRON YORK i...
...Beyond that, the Commission's activities have been decidedly small potatoes...
...How else could "executive director" Andrew Price, a college kid stuffing envelopes for $8 an hour, become one of the key theorists in the move ment to topple a president...
...When Bob Fiske turned out to be a stooge for Bill Clinton, I knew he had to go," Wilcox writes...
...According to figures supplied by Delgaudio, the Council of Volunteer Americans collected $1,036,186 in 1995...
...I went public, and attacked Fiske for his refusal to find out the truth about Bill and Hillary Clinton...
...I t was an extraordinary letter, even by the overheated standards of direct-mail fundraising appeals...
...Wilcox supplied four press releases which he said described "recent Clinton Investigative Commission-sponsored events...
...Perhaps the Commission's Foster mailing -professionally done, with an official-sounding name, a chairman, and an executive director-contributed to the odd sense of paranoia that per vaded Walker's analysis, as well as those of others in the mainstream press...
...And Vince Foster's death was the main topic...
...Since Walker obviously didn't check out the Clinton Investigative Commission, apparently it was easy for him to see it as a powerful, well-funded, well-oiled conspiracy machine...
...He said he had some sort of form he had to fill out to start this group," Price recalls...
...And what about all the work that caused Ronald Wilcox to go for days without sleep...
...The letter asks for the money "to fund our investigation" of the Clintons...
...Price, the college student, says he was introduced to Delgau dio by a friend in the Fairfax County Republican Party...
...There is no evidence of the "significant investigations" claimed on behalf of the Commission.' Delgaudio says he sent out about a thousand copies of the report to television viewers who called after it was listed as an information resource on a Christian Broadcasting Network hotline...
...August 8,1995 the Commission received a permit to picket at the Rayburn House Office building in support of House Whitewater hearings...
...I'm not going to go into the details of that," he says...
...If a letter like Delgaudio's - filled with hyperbole and at times downright sillycan cause a Washington bureau chief to mistake a minor-league political provacateur for a dangerous cabal determined to bring down the president, then perhaps journalists should take another look at the subject...
...Can I please count on you to send a one-time contribution of $500 or $1,o0o...
...But the greatest danger posed by his "creative political public relations" may be to the liberal press...
...As I write to you, the Commission's bank accounts are drained," Wilcox writes...
...On that steamy afternoon, I promised Vince Foster's widow: "I will not rest until your husband's killer is in prison...
...It's creative political public relations," Delgaudio says...
...All they have to do is wind him up and point him in a certain direction...
...Soil and Water Conservation Board...
...As you know," Wilcox boasts, "my Report to Congress caused a huge uproar in Washington...
...21 The American Spectator August 1996 months Delgaudio was heavily involved in the unsuccessful drive to defeat Virginia Senator John Warner...
...His role as "executive director" took a serio-comic turn last summer with the publication of an article in the Guardian by Martin Walker, the British paper's Washington bureau chief...
...The Clinton Investigative Commission attracted its only national notice two years ago, when-with a different cast of characters -it sent out a Vince Foster mailing that caught the eye of columnist Robert Novak...
...It was a steamy and sticky Washington afternoon when I made my promise to Vince Foster's widow...
...he was the victim of professional hit men hired by the White House and was paid with money funneled into a Swiss bank account...
...By law, I am not allowed to make a conclusion here...
...He described it this way: Principal Republican contributors, including big-time Washington lobbyists, were confused last week to receive a form letter (addressed to "Dear Special Friend") appealing for up to $1,ooo from a hitherto unknown group: the Clinton Investigative Commission...
...That was Delgaudio...
...In a sidebar to the piece, Walker listed the "key conspiracy theorists" behind the anti-Clinton movement...
...A few months later came the "Barney Frank Housesitting Squad," a crusade to create a "hooker-free zone" around the gay congressman's house in case a male prostitute again tried to do business there without Frank's knowledge...
...And he said, `Can I stick your name on there?' I said I didn't want to do it, but he said he only needed it for a couple of days until he could get somebody else to do it...
...And then there was "Pornographers Against Helms," a group formed during the congressional battle over federal funding for obscene art projects...
...On that day, my Report to Congress blasted the lid off the entire Vince Foster cover-up...
...But the state of Virginia has no record of either the Clinton Investigative Commission or the Council of Volunteer Americans...
...Delgaudio says that Wilcox did...
Vol. 29 • August 1996 • No. 8
