Ron Brown's Body

...Before writing about Brown, Ruddy spent three years trying to promote the theory that deputy White House counsel Vincent Foster was murdered...

...I've always felt that Ron Brown's death was a murder," he said during an interview with Ruddy on WOL...

...A short time later, the Los Angeles Times ran its own page-one story entitled "History Fuels Outrage Over Crack Allegations...

...In New York, the Amsterdam News ran a Brown story on the front page...

...A DC police officer walked over to Gregory and warned he would be arrested if he did not leave the street...

...He said nothing...

...That's right...

...A few minutes later, Gregory addressed the crowd...

...she also wrote to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff requesting a military briefing for members of the caucus...

...Dick Gregory jumped in at the very beginning...

...But first, BYRON YORK is an investigative reporter with TAS...

...Undaunted, Ruddy accused Starr of a cover-up...

...And the Army public relations man was telling Thompson he was in the wrong place...

...Don't you think for one minute that the president, he might be out shopping with Chelsea, but he know...

...The story took off in the black press, talk radio, and TV...

...Trust me...

...Gregory then slowly sat down on the pavement in front of the banner...

...And the marchers, Gregory continued, were already making their presence known...

...February 1998 • The American Spectator 2 0 Gregory wanted to say a few words about their mission...

...Amen...

...Free-lance reporter Christopher Ruddy quoted an Air Force pathologist who said there was a perfectly round .45 inch hole in the top of Brown's skull...

...We see this in the ghetto," he said, pulling out a roll of yellow police tape...

...There were several problems with the story...

...And fill in the blanks they did...

...Go tell it on the mountain...

...Many Blacks Are More Likely Than Whites To Believe CIA Had Role In L.A.'s Drug Epidemic...

...But now there's word Brown had a .45 caliber bullet hole in the top of his head...

...Truth for Christmas...

...Not only to the Brown family, but an insult to all of us...

...Joe Madison was there...

...To even outline such scenarios would seem a bit crazy, so Ruddy simply laid out a suspicious-sounding set of assertions and let his readers fill in the blanks...

...Them thugs in there—yes sir—all the way down to the Pentagon—that's right—don't you think they don't know we here...

...And instead of being portrayed as Clinton-hating kooks, the accusers will likely receive sympathetic treatment in the mainstream press...

...Within days after the articles appeared, Ruddy was invited to appear on Black Entertainment Television's "Tonight" show...

...And we are right back into another one of these chasing a story that's been ginned up by people who no doubt for whatever reason hate the President of the United States....It's time to knock this stuff off...

...That's right...

...And it wasn't just a rumor...

...Joe Madison, for example, devoted thousands of hours of air time to the drug allegations—and still stands behind them, despite the lack of any solid evidence to support his case...

...My shock is the story got out...

...He knows what he's doing...

...The pathologist, Lt...

...The Brown conspiracy theorists don't seem to want to hear anything about Ruddy's questionable reporting...

...And even then, Gregory, Madison, and their followers will maintain that a massive cover-up has taken place...

...The crowd began to sing...

...I know dern good and well, had this institution here said they found enough cocaine in Ron Brown's blood and those two pilots to destroy a town, every paper would have reported it and the president would have made a statement...

...This will be a sign to you," he read...

...You want the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology—which is up Georgia Avenue, over one street, and then down Alaska Avenue...

...And a woman who talked about nuclear disarmament...

...All had gathered to demand the truth about Ron Brown's death...

...So the administration will almost certainly be forced to begin an investigation...

...But at the same time, he turned his attention to Ron Brown...

...He walked back to the gate, then back across the street, until he had run three loops across Alaska Avenue...

...He wished everyone a merry The American Spectator February 1998 WHAT'S A WHITE HOUSE TO DO...

...Mm-hmm...

...Gregory sat perfectly still...

...Yes sir, yes sir...

...Two thousand years ago, there was a bright light in the sky, followed by some wise folks," he began...

...It seemed the little rally was coming to a close when Gregory reached into his coat pocket...

...A few days later, the NAACP weighed in when president Kweisi Mfume called for an investigation...

...Meanwhile, more protesters were showing up...

...His publicist tagged along, carrying a folder full of press releases...

...At the height of the CIA/crack controversy, for example, the Washington Post ran a front-page account of the most wild-eyed speculation with the headline "Conspiracy Theories Can Often Ring True...

...As Gregory was led to a police car, Mark Thompson told the crowd it was time to go home...

...But some people, Gregory said, particularly those in high office, don't seem to want to know the truth about Ron Brown...

...William Gormley, said the hole was not actually a hole...

...Already, the Brown conspiracy leaders are saying they take the White House response as a sign of disrespect...

...And for Mfume, who called the allegations a "cancer" on the CIA...

...Finally Gregory walked up, looking gaunt and disheveled in baggy sweatpants and a rumpled overcoat...

...Thompson, a former student activist who founded the District of Columbia Umoja Party—the name means "unity" in Swahili—stalled for a while...

...Waters asked for a Justice Department investigation...

...And all were waiting for Dick Gregory...

...His reporting was devastatingly refuted last fall with the release of Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth Starr's final report, which laid out an extensive body of evidence showing conclusively that Foster killed himself...

...That's right...

...The perception that a possible assassination of a cabinet officer does not merit the vigorous attention of Con5 1 G-400 15 Ina wS6 15A M P am um ai4 ••••^ 15A gress because that cabinet officer is black," Keyes said, "reinforces lingering suspicions...that, even at the highest levels, black life is cheap in America...

...The story took on a bi-partisan cast when another black radio host, former Republican presidential candidate Alan Keyes, joined the group calling for an investigation...

...When he got out, he began a Ron Brown hunger strike...

...Then Gregory took the microphone...

...No more hypocrisy...

...A few days later, Ruddy published a second story quoting another pathologist, one who had actually glimpsed the Commerce Secretary's body...

...No more arms sales by United States profiteers," she chanted...

...As it turned out, Gregory did manage to stay in jail through Christmas (by refusing to post a $25 bond...

...Gregory's words got wider play a few days later when Louis Farrakhan's Final Call newspaper quoted him extensively in a story headlined "Was Ron Brown Murdered...

...Left unanswered and unresolved, they raise serious questions...

...Mm-hmm...

...Gregory stared at the asphalt...

...Beyond that, Ruddy did not suggest any scenario in which Brown might have been shot...

...The NAACP is very concerned about the ramifications of these allegations," Mfume wrote in a letter to Reno...

...04 53...

...The same goes for Waters, who has said she has no doubt that the crack rumor is true...

...And credence is only given to those reports by entities associated with Richard Mellon Scaife...

...It's a no-win situation...

...We were told by people with the government that there might have been reasons for an autopsy or an investigation...

...History Feeds Blacks' Mistrust...

...A few Umoja Party members...

...What went virtually unnoticed amid all the investigation talk was the issue of Ruddy's credibility...

...No more American dead in Bosnia...

...Willie Wilson compared the Brown questions to Biblical times when, he said, the public was "being deluded, and lied to, and lied on, and lied about and deceived...

...In addition, full-body x-rays did not reveal the presence of a bullet in the body...

...It was Christmas Eve, and Thompson, dressed in black with short-cropped dreadlocks, Malcolm X glasses, and a gilt-edged Bible, had come to the entrance of Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington to protest the government cover-up of the "assassination" of Commerce Secretary Ron Brown...

...It was the nuclear disarmament woman...

...A few minutes later, the officer came back with a second warning...

...0 0 been so silent...

...And whatever kind of probe the White House conducts, it will surely be denounced as inadequate, which will result in calls for a more extensive second investigation...

...That's right...

...Because now, there is a powerful racial element in play: It is one thing for the president to call his Whitewater critics right-wing nuts, but quite another for him to cavalierly dismiss the concerns of black supporters...

...Yes, yes...

...And Gormley found no exit wound to suggest that a bullet had passed through the body...

...that is, it did not fully penetrate the skull...

...A couple of representatives from the Nation of Islam...

...Yes...

...He's gonna try to spend Christmas there," Thompson said, "but I don't know if they're gonna keep him or not...

...You will find a baby wrapped in cloth and lying in a manger...

...I know they somewhere now planning a trick investigation," he said...

...Thompson walked over to meet them and confer on the location mix-up...

...It was, rather, a circular indentation in the top of the skull...

...Oh yeah...

...David Hause, said he was working on a body a short distance away from Brown's when he heard people talking about the circular hole in the skull...

...Mark Thompson opened his Bible...

...Thompson seemed worried that Gregory's jailers at the Fourth Police District might not hold Gregory as long as he hoped...

...Hause told Ruddy he went over to Brown's body and took a look...

...We're gonna shut this street down...

...Did a suicide killer — perhaps a stowaway, or maybe even someone who was authorized to be on the plane—shoot Brown during the flight and then somehow cause the crash in order to cover the crime...

...Then the booming voice of Mark Thompson picked up the tune...

...Bill Clinton may find it's tougher dealing with his conspiracy-minded friends than with his enemies...

...Gregory told his followers to beware a government plot to cover up the true circumstances of Brown's death...

...So was Walter Fauntroy, a local civil-rights figure who struck a slightly jarring note when he thanked God "that technology and science make it possible to exhume bodies and to examine them for the truth...

...Mm-hmm...

...The media exposure brought quick political reaction...

...ROUSING THE RABBLE After their Christmas Eve protest got off to a shaky start, Gregory and his group of about 5o supporters finally made their way to the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, a windowless, coffin-like structure on the western side of the Walter Reed grounds...

...We don't know if a crime been committed, but we're gonna tie this around the gate and declare this a crime scene...

...So we're going to stage an impromptu march to the pathology institute...

...All right...

...We want the government to know that this is just one day...

...Gregory probably has a plan, he told the Army flack...

...We wonder why the president have been so silent...

...Go tell it on the mountain...

...This is absolutely an insult," Joe Madison said of McCurry's comments...

...The hospital doesn't have anything to do with this, the PR man said...

...Mm-hmm, yes...

...We didn't dream up some misinformation," Gregory said, as people in the crowd responded with murmurs of "that's right" and "yes sir...

...With that, the little group fell into line for the march up Georgia Avenue...

...Then the disarmament woman barged in on the scene...

...Thompson kept reading...

...That doctor, Army Lt...

...All right...

...A couple of cars coming up the street came to a halt, the drivers looking a bit quizzical...

...The American Spectator • February 1998 The talk was largely confined to black radio until early December, when the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, the newspaper owned by Richard Mellon Scaife, published a story headlined "Experts Differ on Ron Brown's Head Wound...

...No, no...

...We asking for an independent investigation...

...Steve Cogswell, had not seen Brown's body, but provided Ruddy with photos and X-rays he said pointed to the possibility that the hole was a gunshot wound...

...Go tell it on the mountain...

...So as we march, understand today is our day to shop for truth and justice...

...Kufihatted followers of the Reverend Willie Wilson (best known as Mayor Marion Barry's spiritual guru and substance abuse adviser...

...We wonder why the major white press have 52 February 1998 • The American Spectator Christmas and walked over to chat with Gregory's publicist...

...A couple of protesters brought the banner to the center of the street...

...And I'm not going to talk about this further or take any further questions on the subject...

...About the same time, former mayoral candidate and Tawana Brawley adviser Al Sharpton got in the act, suggesting that Brown's death was treated like those of others who have been "marginalized by society...

...On December 17, White House spokesman Mike McCurry was asked whether he gave any credence to the Brown-wasshot stories: Absolutely none...

...No more liar Clinton...

...While Thompson recruited volunteers to carry a banner calling for a Brown investigation, a faint voice began to sing...

...Gregory tied the tape to the gate of the Institute, then slowly walked across the road and looped it around a telephone pole...

...All right...

...We thank God for another bright light in the form of Lt...

...Sure enough," he told Ruddy, "it looks like a gunshot wound to me, too...

...still no reaction...

...That's right...

...At least one official of the Lyndon LaRouche organization...

...It appears we're in the wrong place, he said...

...A couple of people joined in...

...It's not going to work because we've got us a committee, of ya'll all...

...We want the truth to be told...

...While the tactic has been enormously successful against legitimate questions about issues from Travelgate to Filegate to Whitewater to campaign finance, it probably won't work against the baseless accusations of the Ron Brown story...

...Make it plain, make it plain...

...And it's not gonna stop here," Gregory continued...

...He also made the rounds of black talk radio, appearing on Joe Madison's syndicated program and on WOL radio in Washington, the station that has become a clearinghouse for Brown conspiracy information...

...By December zo, the Washington Afro-American was also on the case...

...it was coming from sources inside the government...

...To top it off, Ruddy's story paid scant attention to Brown's other injuries, which included a broken pelvis, burns, and severe head lacerations...

...Maxine Waters, chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, wrote a letter to Attorney General Janet Reno saying the Brown allegations had "sparked a firestorm of inquiries" to her office...

...At this time, you are under arrest," the officer said, slipping handcuffs on Gregory while the cameras rolled...

...Camera crews moved in closer, but Gregory did not acknowledge them...

...Now, Gregory said, the time has come to demand action...

...During a recent program on WOL, a caller challenged Ruddy's work, saying he was a "right-winger" who had pushed false conspiracy theories about Foster's death...

...But the man who was supposed to lead the demonstration, activist, diet-peddler, and former comedian Dick Gregory, hadn't shown up...

...Cogswell, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Christopher Ruddy, and the black press...

...Finally, a third warning...

...Indeed, nearly all of the people who are now fanning the flames on the Brown story were also involved in promoting the CIA/crack theory...

...And not just any investigation—remember what Gregory said about a "trick" inquiry...

...Last year the government claimed Ron Brown died when his plane crashed into a hillside in Croatia...

...Over the hills and everywhere...

...McCurry's words were familiar to anyone who has followed the White House's smear-the-accuser response to allegations of Clinton wrongdoing...

...The quick spread of the Brown allegations began to resemble another story that had raced through black media just a year earlier: accusations, first published in the San Jose Mercury News, that the CIA had introduced crack into black neighborhoods of Los Angeles...

...We don't know what will come out of this—that's right—but we know one thing...

...Mm-hmm...

...First, the pathologist who actually examined Brown's body, Air Force Col...

...Was Brown shot before the flight and his body loaded onto the plane —without the knowledge of the 34 staffers and business figures who accompanied him—and then the plane crashed accidentally...

...We're gonna get the truth out of this one...

...THE NEW VINCE FOSTER From April 3, 1996, the day that Ron Brown's jet slammed into a mountainside in Croatia, there have been rumors that the Secretary of Commerce —the highest-ranking African-American in the Clinton administration—might have been murdered...

...The radio host nearly shouted the man down and moved on to the next believer...

...The army flack watched from inside the gates...

...Local TV crews had assembled a makeshift microphone stand, and Mark Thompson introduced the speakers...

...Did Brown survive an accidental or intentional crash, only to be finished off by someone at the crash site...