First Strike: TWA Flight 800 and the Attack on America

As a person that worked as a mechanic for TWA for almost 35 years, I can say that the US Government's explanation of the cause for TWA 800 to fall from the sky is highly suspect. I worked on the aircraft in question; 17119, 100's of times and many times on the systems that the government claims to have malfunctioned. It did not happen the way the government claims. How it did happen is spread before you like a fictional mystery novel by the author in "First Strike". It is tragic that it is not fiction, because once again, our elected government has seen fit to lie to the electorate. If the truth had been released about TWA 800, maybe 911 could have been averted. We will never know. I do know some things: More than a hundred people saw the missiles headed for TWA 800 and airplanes do not gain altitude after being blown up. The government's case relies on saying that all those people had simultaneous illusions of rising streaks of light and then asks you to suspend physics in order to make their case plausible. The authors of "First Strike" tell you what really happened.

I don't know if their theory holds up, but one thing I can say - the abundance of fact and eyewitness testimony the authors cite do reveal a startling confluence of incompetence, political calculation trumping honesty, and seemingly purposeful mishandling or concealment of inconvenient data on the part of the Clinton administration ... the sum total of which might explain the former president's incessant, wrongminded bloviating during this time of war on terror: once more, seeking to lay the blame on someone else.Also troubling is the failure of the major newspapers to ask hard questions, interview relevant witnesses and experts, and apply more skepticism to the proclamations issuing from the administration - a failure not likely to redeem their image as the bastions of leftism. Their sloppy journalism has allowed a selfish delusion to be perpetrated on the American public until now.From the first interview until the last, many of knowledgeable witnesses with military experience, from the first surprising fact until the final revelations, you will be shocked at how much was kept hidden from public view in our present age of information. What you make of these facts is up to you.

This book is a must-read. You simply will not believe the amount of corruption and cover-up involving TWA 800 that existed in the Clinton-Gore White House, FBI, CIA, NTSB, and Justice Department. This cover-up makes Watergate look like child's play, and the fact that Bubba had a "D" after his name (for "Democrat") made his amen choir in the New York Times, et al, blindly complicit in the schemes. The current civil lawsuits against all the major corrupt players at the FBI, NTSB, and Justice Department will finally bring some justice in this sordid travesty. Interesting, one of these players deeply involved in this criminal cover-up (and the book describes his misdeeds) ... He won't sue the authors for slander because the ultimate defense in a slander suit is TRUTH. Read this excellent, well-written and documented book and be prepared for the shocking truth of what happended to TWA 800 & why 3,000 of our fellow citizens did not have to die on 9/11 if Bill Clinton had the guts to tell us what really happened in July 1996!

While hundreds of Long Island residents prepared for their evening cookout with friends, and some were enjoying those last few hours out on the water before dark, the passengers and crew of TWA Flight 800 were boarding for a routine flight to Paris. Little did the residents of Long Island or the passengers and crew of Flight 800 know that their lives would become inexorably entwined on the evening of July 17, 1996. Their story and the case against the federal investigatory process are the subjects of a new book, First Strike.For the record, First Strike is not a conspiracy book. It is, first and foremost, a book about people: What they saw, what they did and what they didn't do.In a perfect world - where everyone does the right thing - this book would not have needed to be written. But, because of the people involved, it had to be written.Authors Jack Cashill and James Sanders expertly fill in the blanks of the massive disaster that befell the passengers and crew of Flight 800. The evidence presented against the Clinton administration and the federal authorities- whose job it was to find and then tell the truth to the American people -is factually detailed in a dispassionate orderly fashion. Important as well is the authors skill in placing the reader into the lives of the defenseless: the victims and their surviving families, the eye witnesses, and the technical experts that - still to this day - challenge the government's conclusions.Without question, airplane disasters are not pretty. They are grisly, painstakingly detailed work that should have one goal in mind: to find out what happened.But in the case of Flight 800, the investigation (and the investigators) and the subsequent government conclusions were missing a key element - the truth. Moreover, they went out of their way to invent new ones to explain away what was obvious to most.For example, a FAA radar tape is usually a useful tool in the investigatory process of airline crashes. Usually. "When Ron Schleede of the NTSB first saw the data, he exclaimed, 'Holy Christ, this looks bad.' He added later, 'It showed this track that suggested something fast made the turn and took the airplane.'"That was Schleede's reaction on the night of July 17, 1996. On July 18, the New York Times reported that an "unnamed government official revealed that air traffic controllers did pick up a mysterious blip that appeared to move rapidly toward the plane just before the explosion. The officials and the Times linked the radar to eye-witness sightings to a missile attack.However, "By July 19, the government had gotten its story straight." In the end, what was obvious to everyone (radar experts, eye-witnesses and even the New York Times) was explained away.Throughout the book the authors use of federal investigator's own words, official reports, and the curious behavior of administration operatives draws the reader into the political maze of the Clinton administration's refusal to publicly acknowledge what i

The weight of evidence is overwhelming that the official version of what happened to TWA 800 is beyond belief. The authors make a compelling case that evidence supportive of a missile (physical, radar, satellite, voice recorder, data recorder, eye-witness) was routinely "lost", classified or destroyed. I find it a shame that these facts are not more widely reported. The national media have certainly not done a very good job of dispassionately analyzing the crash. By and large they have reported the official version which, as the book makes clear, is completely contrary to aerodynamics, the history of 747's and eyewitness accounts. I highly recommend this book because it is a well-researched, footnoted, convincing case that the accepted version of what happened on July 17, 1996 is bunk. I have some faith that the major media will one day tackle the issues raised in this book, but it seems most people (journalists and readers) have forgotten or no longer care about the suspicious nature of the crash. Buy this book, the more people are aware of the documented facts about TWA 800, the more likely that mainstream journalists will revisit what exactly happened back in 1996.