

              Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 5  Num. 72
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                    ("Quid coniuratio est?")


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EXPLOSIVE NEW FACTS REVEALED IN MYSTERIOUS DEATH OF FOSTER
[The *Spotlight*, 08/07/95]

Since the strange death of top White House aide and close, long- 
time Clinton family confidant Vince Foster, The *Spotlight* has 
been inundated with a wide variety of rumors, theories and other 
allegations regarding the circumstances of Foster's demise 
however it occurred -- whether by suicide or murder.

The *Spotlight* has never issued any formal editorial opinion 
regarding the matter, one way or another, although this newspaper 
has printed a number of stories over the past several years which 
have touched on Foster's death and its possible connection to a 
number of widely-publicized, high-level scandals including BCCI, 
Iraq-gate, Mena-Iran-contra and Inslaw, all of which have been, 
in turn, linked to one another and to both Reagan-Bush and the 
Clinton administrations.

On July 14 an explosive new theory relating to the mystery 
surrounding Foster's death was outlined on the nightly broadcast 
of The *Spotlight's* call-in talk forum, *Radio Free America*, 
with host Tom Valentine.

The guest was James Norman, a senior editor with *Forbes* 
magazine. Norman has been looking into the Foster affair for some 
time. (*Forbes* has not published Norman's work, nor is it 
expected to do so in the near future.)

At the time of Norman's appearance on RFA he was identified by 
name and as the senior editor of a well-known publication. Since 
Norman's appearance on RFA, however, his association with 
*Forbes* has been mentioned over the Internet.

A transcript of Norman's interview follows...

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TOM VALENTINE:
Your story is rather controversial. What are we going to learn?


JAMES NORMAN:
This has been the most amazing, frightening story I've ever 
worked on in my career. It's so hard to believe that it's taken a 
long time to get the facts checked and to understand it. The 
bottom line is that at the time he died, Vince Foster was under 
investigation for espionage.


TOM VALENTINE:
Who was Foster spying for?


JAMES NORMAN:
There's ample suspicion -- and this is never proven, although 
there's substantial evidence -- it is known that at the time he 
died, July 20, 1993, he was under investigation for suspicion of 
espionage involving the state of Israel.

There was a group within the CIA and the intelligence community 
-- a computer intelligence group that had been given the 
authorization to hack their way into foreign intelligence data 
bases. This is something I think that is routinely done.

This group had hacked its way into a data base of Israel's 
intelligence service, the Mossad, and found Vince Foster's name 
there, which surprised them. From there they were actually able 
to track money back to a bank in Switzerland.

These hackers are a small group of government people and they 
actually have a name. They are known as the Fifth Column. If you 
call up the CIA and ask them about it, of course, they won't tell 
you anything. However, if you talk to enough people in the 
intelligence community you will learn that yes, the group does 
exist. Yes, they do this type of thing and yes, they are armed 
with Cray super-computers.

These are probably the best and brightest computer hackers in the 
world and they are working for the U.S. government and they bust 
their way into computers.

In the case of Vince Foster they found money going to his account 
at this bank in Switzerland, a small bank right on the Italian 
border. It's called the Banca Della Svizzera Italiana.


TOM VALENTINE:
Sherman Skolnick, the investigator from Chicago, has been a guest 
on this show and he came across much of this same information, so 
it seems as though what you are saying is confirmation. And you 
are a well-known editor with a prominent publication. This is 
interesting.


JAMES NORMAN:
We put a lot of effort into this investigation. The story was so 
unbelievable. Now when you are dealing with sources in the 
intelligence community, you never quite know who you are talking 
to [in terms of their credibility or motivation in leaking 
information -- Ed.], so it took an extra amount of effort in 
checking this out. And lo and behold, the story corroborates on 
many points from a wide variety of credible and knowledgeable 
people.


TOM VALENTINE:
In short, U.S. government hackers broke into the Israeli Mossad's 
database and ran across Foster's name.


JAMES NORMAN:
Then they hacked their way into the Swiss bank computers and 
corroborated that yes, it was Vince Foster's account, and they 
were able to withdraw enough information from the Swiss bank's 
computer database so that they were able to mimic a withdrawal 
transaction.

What happened was this. On July 1, 1993 Foster bought a round- 
trip ticket to Geneva at the White House travel office, which he 
put on his American Express Card. This was reported by Ambrose 
Evans-Pritchard in the *London Sunday Telegraph* on May 21. (See 
The *Spotlight*, July 3. -- Ed.)

I think what happened was that when the CIA people saw that he 
was making these one-day trips to Geneva, which he had been doing 
periodically, they decided to withdraw the money from Foster's 
Swiss bank account at that time. I think Foster probably called 
up the bank to tell them he was on his way and the bank told him: 
"Mr. Foster, you've already withdrawn your money," and that's 
when it hit him that something very strange was going on. He 
learned that the money had actually been withdrawn and deposited 
into the U.S. Treasury.

According to my sources, that's when he became so mysteriously 
and acutely depressed and couldn't sleep and his sister tried to 
set him up with a psychiatrist. Instead, he hired a lawyer and 
apparently made some discreet inquiries around the White House 
and somebody told him: "Vince, you're under investigation for 
espionage."

This set off a chain of circumstances. There was a supposedly 
coincidental meeting on the Eastern Shore of Maryland before 
Foster's death. According to the report by Robert Fiske, the 
original special counsel on the Whitewater affair and Foster's 
death, Foster and his wife made a trip to the Eastern Shore, 
supposedly for rest and relaxation. By coincidence, supposedly, 
the Fosters met Webb Hubbell and his wife there.

At the time, Hubbell was technically the number three person at 
the Justice Department, but I think it's well understood that he 
was actually running things there and was essentially the 
nation's top legal official.

He and Foster both came out of the Rose Law Firm in Little Rock 
and both were involved in a number of cases, representing a lot 
of the same clients.

This meeting between Foster and Hubbell has been characterized in 
both the Fiske report and in the Senate hearings on Whitewater as 
a "rest and relaxation" type affair. I don't think so.

I've been told by multiple sources that this meeting was under 
surveillance and that it was a heavy-duty damage control session 
held at the estate of a fellow by the name of Michael Cardozo, 
who heads Clinton's legal defense fund. He's the son of a major 
Democratic Party fund-raiser, Nathan Landau.

There may have been other White House officials at that meeting. 
What we have been told is that there was great concern about who 
knew what and who the money could ultimately be traced to. What 
we do know is that two days later Vince Foster was dead.

I am not in the business of speculating whether he committed 
suicide or whether he was killed. I'll leave that to others. I am 
also not speculating as to who might have killed him, except to 
say that there was a serious reason for him to be very depressed 
and there's a reason why a bunch of different people wanted him 
dead.


TOM VALENTINE:
With Foster dead, would the heat be off a lot of other people?


JAMES NORMAN:
You might think of it that way.


TOM VALENTINE:
Was Hubbell's name found in any of these computer files where 
Foster's name appeared?


JAMES NORMAN:
I don't know anything about that. I wasn't investigating that. 
Both Hubbell and Foster, we've been told, by multiple credible 
intelligence sources, were both involved as behind-the-scenes 
persons on behalf of the National Security Agency for a massive 
international bank spying effort that this country has carried on 
for more than a decade now.

                   [...to be continued...]

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You may be unable to obtain a copy of the *Spotlight* via your 
local library or news dealer. To subscribe to the *Spotlight*, 
phone 1-800-522-6292 (in Maryland phone 1-301-951-6292).

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