by Peg Tyre
A former Newsday and CNN reporter, Tyre is a free-lance writer who covers criminal justice issues.

It's the story that won't quite die, the so-called conspiracy to cover up the real cause of the 1996 crash of TWA Flight 800. The theory runs like this: a missile (or missiles) fired by terrorists (or even U.S. warships) hit the plane (or exploded nearby), bringing it down and killing the 230 people inside. The sixteen-month investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Transportation Safety Board, goes the theory, was nothing more than an X-Files-style cover-up.

Even after Pierre Salinger proclaimed and then abjectly backed off his "proof" of a missile attack, the conspiracy theory has continued to bubble through publications like the Press-Enterprise, a mainstream daily in Riverside, California, and New York's Village Voice, and on radio call-in shows around the country. It has become a staple on the Internet, and ABC's entertainment division ordered up -- then cancelled -- a segment on the missile/conspiracy theory to be produced by none other than Oliver Stone.

What's going on here? Two factors have allowed the missile theory to flourish as a kind of subterranean legend. First, the high level of secrecy about the federal investigations into the crash has provided a fertile breeding ground for unchecked speculation. Second, that speculation is being stoked largely by political conservatives who claim that the "truth about TWA" would destroy the Clinton administration. Though they differ about whether their missile came from terrorists or "friendly fire," the conspiracy believers reason that in either circumstance the federal government failed to protect the flying public. Thus the Clinton administration, the logic goes, had reason to engineer a massive cover-up. The mainstream media, say these true believers, are nothing more than lapdogs for the feds.

For the record, the government has not officially determined what caused TWA's Boeing 747 to explode off Long Island on July 17, 1996, despite long investigations that included a painstaking reassembly of the plane. In November 1997, the FBI announced that the crash was not caused by a bomb or a missile, and that it would leave the case open but inactive. As close as investigators can figure, vapors in the plane's center fuel tank exploded. Faulty or frayed wiring is a likely culprit. Jim Hall, chairman of the NTSB, says his agency hopes to pinpoint the cause soon, but acknowledges that 100 percent certainty may not be possible.

To date, the FBI and the NTSB have been extremely slow to release information, even after the criminal probe was put on a back burner. In November 1997, after sixteen months of investigation, the FBI put out a slick CIA-produced videotape to explain why many witnesses thought they saw a missile-like object arching into the sky, followed by an explosion. (Many of them saw the plane itself, shooting skyward after the initial explosion, according to the tape, followed by the distance-delayed sound of the explosion.) Yet the witnesses' statements have not been made public -- as they eventually must be under a federal court order stemming from civil suits against Boeing. And when their statements are finally released, the NTSB says the names will be redacted.

Into this information void have jumped independent "researchers" like William S. Donaldson, a retired Navy commander, and writer James Sanders, author of The Downing of TWA Flight 800 (Zebra, 1997). In the book, Sanders accuses the Navy of accidentally shooting the plane out of the sky. His evidence includes a seat fragment from the plane that he contends shows traces of missile fuel. (The FBI says the substance is glue.)

Sanders developed his story with David Hendrix of the Press-Enterprise (circulation 161,000), which has printed 106 stories mentioning the missile theory. He also attracted the interest of the Justice Department, which has charged Sanders with conspiring to steal evidence, the seat fragment.

Who is paying for Sanders's legal counsel and raising money for his defense? It is Accuracy in Media (AIM), the conservative watchdog organization founded by Reed Irvine. Since the 1970s, Irvine has made a career out of battling what he calls "left-wing bias" in the media. At 76, he's still AIM's chairman.

Around the time Sanders's book was published, Irvine also hooked up with Donaldson, a decorated Navy veteran with some experience in crash investigation. Donaldson had complained about the NTSB to Congressman James Traficant, an Ohio Democrat. "Planes like that just don't blow up," he says.

Traficant assigned an aide to work with Donaldson in preparing a critique of the NTSB, but they had a falling out. Traficant's office issued a report concluding that Donaldson's charges -- that Flight 800 was hit by two sea-launched anti-aircraft weapons -- were unfounded. Donaldson, in turn, sees that report as part of the big cover-up. By the time it was released, he had been taken under the wing of Reed Irvine.

Irvine soon enlisted the support of retired admiral Thomas Moorer, the former chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff who would become a player in the CNN/Tailwind saga. Moorer and others formed an organization for Donaldson called the Associated Retired Aviation Professionals, supported primarily by AIM. The group has held press conferences, set up a toll-free number, bought a full page ad in The New York Times outlining its efforts, and created a ten-minute videotape of its own to counter the FBI/CIA production. "We want bring certain facts to the attention of the people that the media won't give them," Irvine says.

Since we're talking conspiracy, where does AIM get its money? The group's 10,000 members pay an annual $35 membership fee, Irvine says. The rest of his $1.5 million budget comes from individuals and private foundations, including the Carthage Foundation and the Sarah Scaife Foundation, both of which are philanthropic arms for conservative billionaire and Clinton enemy Richard Mellon Scaife, as well as others Irvine declines to name.

Irvine's Flight 800 theory dovetail's with his interest in the death of Vince Foster, another cover-up, as he sees it. "Why would the [FBI] cover up?" he asks rhetorically. "They are getting orders to cover it up. They are getting orders from the top." Donaldson doesn't feel that AIM's conservative bent damages his group's credibility. "I'd take support from the devil to get this out," he says.

The missile theory buzz got a little louder in November after ABC announced Oliver Stone's Declassified. Network executives first argued strenuously that the audience would understand that the segment was entertainment, not a news product, but then cancelled it citing fears of just such confusion. ABC News journalists had complained, as had some of the relatives of the crash victims.

Peter Goelz, managing director of the NTSB, says his organization has worked hard to inform the missile theorists, but that they choose to ignore "a mountain" of evidence.

Meanwhile, a "culture clash" between the FBI and the NTSB on the Flight 800 investigation -- the FBI hoarded the witnesses, for one thing, according to The Washington Post -- will be explored in a Senate subcommittee hearing this winter.

The conspiracy theory will continue to thrive, according to Christine Negroni, a veteran reporter who covered the investigation for CNN and is writing a book about the crash. She discounts the missile theories, but notes that many Americans do not. "There were a thousand little missteps and errors in the coordination between the FBI and the NTSB," she says. "Compound that with the secrecy the FBI insisted on, long after investigators thought it was a criminal act, and you have two agencies who have undermined the credibility of their own investigation. The facts have been polluted."

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