How to Become a “Made Man” in the Media

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A late uncle of mine who flew a spotter plane for the Air Force during the height of the Vietnam War once told me that during his stint there one of our “intelligence services” tried to recruit him. He declined the offer, he told me, but only after he had gone so far as to take a required “psychological evaluation” for them. The experience, he told me, appalled him. “I could tell from the questions,” he said, “that they were looking for someone who was immoral.”

Many years later I told that story to a small group at a party in the Washington, DC, area. Among the group was a young man whose friends strongly suspect of being in the CIA. Unable to restrain himself he blurted out, “I took that test.”

I have less direct evidence for it, but I have been told that at least in the covert action field, it is common for novices to be required to perform some illegal act so that they will be compromised against turning into whistleblowers later in their covert careers.

I found myself reflecting on this sordid vetting process for members of our clandestine services as I was surfing the cable news channels the other day to see how they might be spinning the latest ceasefire in Ukraine, the one brokered by Germany and France, without U.S. participation. Who should I see there—on MSNBC, I believe it was—offering their “expert” opinions back-to-back but two journalists whose paths had crossed mine when I was following the case of the mysterious death of Deputy White House Counsel Vincent W. Foster, Jr. in the 1990s. They were David Corn and Peter Baker.

I first became aware of Corn when we both attended a press conference in Washington, DC, in the spring of 1995 in which Christopher Ruddy announced the findings of three investigators that tended to support Ruddy’s theory that Foster had not died at the place where the body had been found. Ruddy’s loudest and most aggressive antagonist at that news conference was Corn, then working for The Nation magazine. I have since come to realize that the scene I witnessed there was nothing more than a show, with Ruddy playing the rightist and Corn the leftist. The “investigation” that Ruddy was touting, I have since figured out, was little more than a charade, as I explain briefly in the recent article, “Latest Foster Cover-Up Book Not Completely Worthless.” Corn’s objections, as I recall, did not address the real weaknesses in what Ruddy was reporting, but simply amounted to the usual “conspiracy theory” denunciation.

Corn has continued to play his role of leftist Clinton-couple defender, as we see in his Mother Jones article of a year ago, “Here Come the Crazy Clinton Conspiracies of the 1990s.” Ruddy, on the other hand, has been groomed for bigger things, as I show in my article of about the same time, “Double Agent Ruddy Reaches for Media Pinnacle.” In so doing he has had to change his act in a manner that is on a par with a professional wrestler converting from villain to good guy—or vice versa, depending upon one’s ideological leanings. He has now disavowed his “crazy Clinton conspiracies of the 1990s.” How far he has gone is well captured by this quote from Business Week, cited in my article:

Ruddy’s own conservatism, despite a fervent anti-Obama streak, is far from Tea Party obstructionism. “People mellow or change or get perspective as they age,” says liberal journalist Joe Conason, often Ruddy’s foil during the Clinton battles, who now counts him as a friend. “Or most people do. He’s not this right-wing kid that he was.”

Notice that it is Conason, along with co-author Gene Lyons, and their book, The Hunting of the President: The Ten-Year Campaign to Destroy Bill and Hillary Clinton, whom Corn invokes in his Mother Jones article for a blanket denunciation of any suggestion that the Clintons might have been involved in the sort of illegal activities that Ruddy made his bones exposing.

Actually, at that 1995 press conference, Ruddy, born in 1965, was more at the stage of his career for the spook-vetting process than was Corn. Corn was already 36 years old and had written the book Blond Ghost: Ted Shackley and the CIA’s Crusades. Kevin Barrett’s assessment of Corn and that book is summed up in this passage:

Corn is obviously CIA all the way—otherwise why would he cover up Shackley’s connection to the JFK assassination? Why would he write an exhaustive “biography” of Shackley that omitted Shackley’s extensive links to CIA drug running? And most important of all, why would Corn be working overtime against 9/11 truth?

I had long since arrived at a similar evaluation of Corn, as we can see in my 1998 article, “Rotten Goulden/Corn,” in which I pair him with the obvious CIA journalist, Joseph Goulden. In sum, if there is any such thing as a journalist who works for the CIA—and if there has ever been any such thing as Operation Mockingbird—then surely Corn is one of them.

Peter Baker

That brings us to current New York Times White House correspondent Peter Baker. This sentence from his Wikipedia page tells you that he is at the very heart of the U.S. media establishment: “Baker is a regular panelist on PBS's Washington Week and a frequent guest on other television and radio programs.” (If they will just write what’s expected, they can be handsomely paid.)

I don’t recall ever having seen his name until it appeared on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the death of Vince Foster. To my knowledge, it was the first time he had ever written on the subject. His ignorance and his mal-intent showed. He would have been 30 or 31 years old at the time, and it looked to me like this was his baptism in the cauldron of corruption that our press has become:

“Do your part to further the cover-up of this murder, young man, and you will go places.”

He did, and he did. It worked for two members of Kenneth Starr’s cover-up team, John Bates and Brett Kavanaugh, who were made federal judges by President George W. Bush, and it worked for Baker.

Here, in its entirety, is Baker’s Foster-debut article and how I reacted to it the time. Those familiar with my subsequent work will notice that I let one of Baker’s biggest and most important whoppers go right by me. I still had—and still do have—quite a bit to learn:

Post Propaganda on Foster

Would they have to write such simple-minded propaganda pieces as this if there were not a major cover-up going on? Look for my parenthetic comments.

One Death Altered Path of Presidency

Five Years Later, Clinton White House Still Facing Aftermath of Foster Suicide

By Peter Baker

Washington Post Staff Writer

Monday, July 20, 1998; Page A01

After a cheeseburger lunch at his desk, Vincent W. Foster Jr. left his office around 1 p.m., saying he would be back. Five hours later, his lifeless body was found next to a Civil War cannon in a Virginia park. (Neither The Post nor anyone else in the press has ever had the first question about the preposterous story about the finding of the body.) As his compatriots at the White House struggled to absorb the shock, one senior official told a colleague, "I don't know that it'll ever be the same after this."

Few statements have been so prescient. Five years ago today, the man who grew up with President Clinton (No he didn't. Clinton moved away from Hope after kindergarten.) and practiced law with Hillary Rodham Clinton drove across the Potomac River, shot himself at Fort Marcy Park and ultimately altered the course of a presidency.

What was certainly a personal tragedy for his friends and family became a defining event for a young administration, one that robbed any remaining innocence (Now there's a good one. What about the Waco massacre and the sordid Arkansas past?) from the fresh-faced crew that had arrived in Washington brimming with optimism just six months earlier, one that permanently colored how the nation's leader looks at its capital and its culture, and one that spawned an enduring climate of suspicion and a cottage industry of conspiracy theories. (It's always a theory when it's the government. When you're the girl friend of a drug dealer, it's twenty years to life.)

Even now, five years removed, the aftermath of Vince Foster's suicide continues to ripple through the Clinton White House, whether it be a new book examining the events surrounding his death (I would heartily recommend "The Secret Life of Bill Clinton," by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard.) or a ruling by the Supreme Court just a few weeks ago setting a national precedent on the bounds of attorney-client privilege.

"It was a deep cut," said Thomas F. "Mack" McLarty, the former White House chief of staff who grew up in Hope, Ark., with Clinton (Tell a lie often enough and maybe people will believe it.) and Foster. "It clearly had a tremendous impact."

Just how tremendous would be hard to overestimate. Foster became a symbol of the travails of the Arkansas circle around the Clintons. He became a cult figure among some of the same people obsessed by the John F. Kennedy assassination and Roswell UFOs. (Truth Suppression #5) But there are those looking back now who believe that had Foster lived, the story of the Clinton presidency would have been different in tangible ways—albeit for vastly divergent reasons.

"I thought his death changed history in some respects," Bernard Nussbaum, who was White House counsel and Foster's immediate boss at the time, said in an interview last week. (Now there's a good, discredited person to interview. Why not interview the witness, Patrick Knowlton, who is sure Foster's car was not at the park, when his body was?)

In the months after Foster died, as the controversy over Whitewater bloomed into a full-fledged Washington scandal, Nussbaum was the lone voice in the upper ranks of the White House resisting the call for the appointment of a special prosecutor, arguing that it would lead to a never-ending search for crimes where they did not exist.

Nussbaum lost the fight. Clinton reluctantly agreed to an investigation into his real estate dealings back in Arkansas, leading to the appointment of special counsel Robert B. Fiske Jr. and his successor, Kenneth W. Starr, and the resulting years of subpoenas, indictments and court battles that touched on everything from FBI files to Foster's death to Clinton's alleged sexual adventures. ("Please don't throw me in the briar patch," said Br'er Rabbit. The revelation by Dan Moldea that [Washington Times reporter] Jerry Seper lied about his Park Police sources for the news that Whitewater documents were removed from Foster's offices gives away the game. This was a White House leak to cause a Special Prosecutor to be appointed to perform the cover-up duties in the Foster case. The Park Police report with all of its curious, indefensible redactions would have never done the job.)

"If Vince had been around to support that position, if I hadn't been the only one among his senior aides to take that position, he would have had a big impact," Nussbaum said. "I really believe if Vince had lived, the president would not have sought the appointment of an independent counsel, and history would have been different."

A former investigator who looked into many of those issues has reached the same conclusion from another vantage point.

The way the White House seemed to stand in the way of the Justice Department and others investigating Foster's death and the belated discovery that Whitewater files had been removed from his office—described by a subsequent Senate report as a "pattern of stonewalling" –generated a brush fire of speculation that there must be something the Clintons were hiding. (Who could imagine such a thing of the Clintons or The Post?)

"I don't think the suicide per se was the significant thing," said the investigator, who declined to be identified for fear it might affect his current business. (Another way of saying, "We're making up a source here to shovel out the propaganda line you are supposed to swallow.") "I think the handling of the Department of Justice by the White House counsel's office in the days after the suicide ignited Whitewater. Had that not happened, the whole thing might never have triggered all the interest in Congress and ultimately the independent counsel."

Foster came to Washington after the 1992 election with no experience in the hothouse world of national politics. A tall, slender lawyer known for his handsome face and gracious though reserved manner, (A Davidson gentleman, as we liked to say back then.) Foster was a lifelong friend of the president (We previously pointed out that, for what it is worth, this statement is not true.), but really was closer to Hillary Clinton (No kidding), who playfully called him "Vincenzo" and palled around with him and their fellow partner at Little Rock's Rose Law Firm, Webster L. Hubbell (to the point of being joint beneficiaries to an annuity), who would join them in Washington as associate attorney general.

Foster's six months as deputy White House counsel were marked by unaccustomed controversy—failed nominations for attorney general, challenges to the secrecy of the first lady's health care task force and, finally, the travel office affair in which longtime employees were fired while business was steered to the president's allies. (Oh yes, there was the matter of the immolation of all those offbeat Christians at Waco. It's easy for a Christian-bashing paper like The Post to forget such things, I guess.)

He took the criticism far more seriously than many and in words that effectively became his epitaph, he wrote in a note found ripped up after his death that while neither he nor anyone in the White House violated any law, "the public will never believe the innocence of the Clintons and their loyal staff. . . . I was not meant for the job or the spotlight of public life in Washington. Here ruining people is considered sport." (But the note was obviously forged and planted.)

His reaction to that had no parallel in modern U.S. history. Foster was the first person at the top echelon of government to kill himself since James V. Forrestal committed suicide in 1949 shortly after being replaced as defense secretary. And the bitter sentiment of Foster's note struck a nerve in a highly political, fiercely partisan city.

"His death, I think, really made people think," said William Kennedy, another Rose partner who served as associate White House counsel (who hastened over to the morgue along with Craig Livingstone to identify Vince's already well-identified body. After the visit, the keys that had not been found in a previous search of Foster's pants pockets were "found" by Park Police.) but returned to Little Rock after an unhappy time in the capital. "And I think it was one of those events that for once made people in Washington stop and seriously examine what they were doing –how they approach things, what their values were, what they should be doing. And from that perspective, it was a sea change. It did force that reexamination."

Kennedy (another fine, objective authority to interview) paused as he thought about this. "But," he added, "and I say this with a great deal of sadness, nothing seems to have changed."

The president appears to share that judgment. It was after Foster's suicide that he began talking about the culture of poison in Washington, (gag me with a spoon) a recurring theme for the last five years and the main thing he said at his second inauguration in 1997 that he wanted to cure.

As recently as Saturday night, while not mentioning Foster, Clinton on a weekend trip home to Little Rock referred to Washington as "a completely different culture."

"There are times when I wake up in our nation's capital, and I deal with people day in and day out, and they say one thing one day, and then the next day they're trying to basically say that I'm the worst thing since Joe Stalin," Clinton said.

But even in the midst of his latest controversy, the investigation into his ties with Monica S. Lewinsky, Clinton assured his fellow Arkansans that he will survive. "I mean, I don't know what you all expected," he said Saturday night at a fund-raiser. "Did you think they'd wheel me in here in a gurney tonight? Listen, you prepared me well. This is no big deal."

Some aides said the Foster suicide did have some salutary effects within the White House. It served, they said, as a wake-up call highlighting the importance of balancing a workaholic schedule with personal life.

"Even considering how pressurized and intense the work is here," said presidential counselor Douglas B. Sosnik, "this is a very family friendly workplace in which we're constantly reminded of what's most important in your life, which is your family." (It's dry-heave time)

Perhaps the chief irony of Foster's death is that a man who so hated the spotlight will forever be remembered by some as the center of a bizarre conspiracy in the mode of the JFK killing. (Could anything be more bizarre than the suicide story they are peddling? Well, perhaps the magic bullet is.) No matter that every investigation that has looked at the case—including the Park Police, two congressional inquiries, Fiske and, finally last year, Starr –came to the same, unequivocal conclusion that Foster died at his own hand in Fort Marcy Park. (This is why they had to get a special prosecutor appointed, to personalize the cover-up. Truth Suppression #7) There will always be people convinced that Foster was murdered in a safe house in Northern Virginia. (Now you know for sure that's not how it happened. This is obvious misdirection.) That his body was rolled up in a carpet and moved to the park. That he had been involved in a CIA-sponsored drug-smuggling operation. (Now they're even making me wonder if that's why he was killed.)

In retrospect, according to some people close to him and the White House, the fuel for that fire resulted from the confluence of three factors—speculation about Foster's relationship with Hillary Clinton, the Whitewater connection and the seemingly hurried initial investigation hindered by White House-erected obstacles.

The White House search of Foster's office the night of his death continues to cause mystery. During the formal search two days later, Nussbaum insisted on looking through all the papers himself, contrary to an earlier agreement, while angry Justice Department and police investigators looked on and were shown only what the White House counsel deemed relevant.

The White House did not disclose the discovery of the torn-up note until days later, after notifying Foster's family. (How do we know this? Could it be they hadn't yet forged it when they said they had discovered it?) Five months later, the White House acknowledged that Foster had a file on Whitewater. Two years after his death, the White House produced handwritten notes in which Foster wrote that Whitewater was "a can of worms you shouldn't open." (Probably forged as well.) In January 1996, the White House discovered and turned over long-missing Rose firm billing records last thought to be in Foster's possession.

Nussbaum remains convinced he made the right decision to protect sensitive White House documents and personal papers unrelated to Foster's death. "If I make a mistake, I have a history of admitting a mistake," he said. "But what happened there was the right way . . . for a lawyer to act in that circumstance. The only regret I have is not talking more publicly, defending myself more publicly."

But critics said the incident provided the first major evidence of what would become a pattern of the Clinton White House: exacerbating political and legal trouble by not being as forthcoming as it should. (Truth Suppression #9)

"Every single incident since Vince Foster, the same issues keep coming up," said Robert J. Giuffra Jr., who was chief counsel to the Senate Special Whitewater Committee. "History keeps repeating itself. . . . Many of the same things they're being criticized for in the Lewinsky matter are things they were criticized for in the handling of Foster's office."

Only last month what may be the last of the legal issues arising from Foster's death was resolved. Starr tried to subpoena three pages of notes taken by a lawyer Foster consulted nine days before killing himself. But the attorney, James Hamilton, persuaded the Supreme Court that attorney-client privilege persists after a client's death, setting a binding precedent that will have major impact on the legal profession across the country. That was an unforeseen legacy that Foster, the lawyer's lawyer, would have liked.

Others around Foster have moved on. His wife, Lisa, moved back to Arkansas and married a federal judge, James Moody. His oldest son has become an investment banker, his youngest just graduated from college. (And The Post, along with the entire news media, swallowed the story that the Park Police never interviewed the sons, not even about the ownership of the gun, because the Foster family lawyer wouldn't let them do it.)

Last month, his alma mater, the University of Arkansas law school, created a professorship in his name.

The Clintons, too, have gone on. They do not talk about Foster often, according to their friends, but they probably think about him. (Now if those pesky Burketts, whose "suicided" son had the same autopsy doctor as Foster, would just "go on.")

"This is just an ache in their heart that will just never go away," said Diane Blair, a close confidant of Hillary Clinton from Arkansas.

David Martin

July 21, 1998

Did you catch that big overlooked lie? “Foster was the first person at the top echelon of government to kill himself since James V. Forrestal committed suicide in 1949 shortly after being replaced as defense secretary.” I did not write my debut article on that subject until more than four years later.

Unfortunately, the penultimate paragraph is also out of date. Like the corrupt coroner, Dr. James C. Beyer, who jimmied up both the autopsy of their murdered son, college student Tommy Burkett, and the murdered Foster, both Burkett parents have “gone on” to the afterlife. They died of cancer within a couple of years of one another, and their web site thepacc.org, has literally gone to the dogs. It stood for Parents against Corruption and Cover-up. It has since been taken over by People against Canine Cruelty (to cats?). In this update I have replaced the old link to “Burketts” above with an original from the Internet archives of the WayBack Machine.

Returning to Baker, one of the benefits of selling out to Mister Big is that you get promoted and you get to publish books and have them promoted by your employers. We have seen it in spades with David Von Drehle, who was given a “book leave” by his Washington Post employer after the yeoman work that he did on the Foster murder cover-up and was made the editor of their Style section upon his return. For his part, Baker and his wife Susan Glasser were sent off to Moscow to cover Russia and Vladimir Putiin. How they covered it and the “expert” opinion that he can be expected to furnish on the TV news programs these days can be found in the predictable book that resulted from their time there. I have not read their Kremlin Rising: Vladimir Putin’s Russia and the End of Revolution, but from all that I have seen of Baker and the Post, and his current Times employer as well, this critical customer’s review of the Kindle edition sums it up pretty well:

If you are looking for Russophobic propaganda, this book will do nicely. The anti-Putin, and frequently anti-Russian bias is pervasive throughout its pages. Of actual scholarship and research there is almost none. It is clear that the authors started writing this book having already reached two conclusions: (1) Everything in Russia is horrible, and (2) It's all Putin's fault. The book has many flaws, but it turns simply disgusting when the authors delve into the subject of terrorism. The quasi-apologist attitude and the lack of serious condemnation were strongly offensive. Apparently, when a group of individuals is murdering defenseless women and children "over there", they are not terrorists, but cute and cuddly resistance fighters. Disgusting.

In conclusion, I would like to recommend an alternative for anyone interested in a much more unbiased and scholarly perspective. The book is "Putin: Russia's Choice", by Richard Sakwa. Dr. Sakwa is the Head of the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Kent. His book is available on Amazon.com: Putin: Russia's Choice

My local Fairfax County (VA) system has five copies of the Baker-Glasser book in its various libraries. They have no copies of the Sakwa book, apparently offering no alternative to the mainstream news propaganda of Baker and his cohorts. I have no plans to read any books by either Baker or Corn, and when their faces appear on the TV screen, my first impulse will be to go for the clicker.

David Martin

February 18, 2015

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