"This office does not know of or have any files or records on . . . the artificial creation of viruses that attack the human immune system," the Army's June 14 letter stated.
In an act of what could be called "double-speak, the letter went on to say ". . . there are thousands of documents potentially responsive to your request as it is currently written. We request that you refine your request and become more specific, to allow a better search to be made."
After carefully reviewing the Segal material, on September 11. 1990 a very specific new FOIA request was sent to General Del Rosso's office.
The response, dated September 24, was signed by General Del Rosso himself. It stated that the modified FOIA request "has been forwarded to the National Institutes of Health as the cognizant federal agency for direct response to you."
One of the more striking unanswered questions of this investigation may be: why was an inquiry to one of this country's leading biowarfare facilities eventually passed on to the National Institutes of Health (NIH)?
A response from the NIH was finally received in mid-December, 1990 - and no records were forthcoming. In a letter dated December 14, NIH Freedom of Information Specialist Mary Flint stated, 'We have conducted a search of the minutes of the Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee and the records of the NIH Biosafety Committee and could find no mention of such experiments. These committees would have been involved in approving any experiment of this nature. We also queried several scientists who are familiar with work in the P-4 facility and they could not recall any such work.
This latest development in this search for the true origin of the AIDS virus must be viewed in light of a particularly ominous statement made by Anthony Fauci, who coordinates AIDS research at NIH.
Writing in the September 1, 1989 edition of The AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science) Observer, Fauci stated, "Scientists need to get more sophisticated about expressing themselves. But the media have to do their homework. They have got to learn the issues and the background. And they should realize that their accuracy is noted by the scientific community. Journalists who make too many mistakes, or who are sloppy, are going to find that their access to scientists may diminish."
Compelling Evidenced Warrants Investigation
In a signed statement, a former Washington State Supreme Court Justice has recognized "compelling evidence" surrounding the case for the artificial origin of the AIDS virus and has declared it warrants an immediate official investigation.
In September, 1990, retired Justice William C. Goodloe of Seattle was confronted with much of the material cited in the accompanying article, "AIDS: Biowarfare Experiment Out of Control" Goodloe declared in his written statement: "I have heard and seen reports of the possible artificial origin of the AIDS virus, but until this report have not seen such compelling evidence of its truth. Mr. MacKenzie has assembled a remarkable documentation of heretofore unpublished data . . ."
Goodloe ended with the statement ". . . an immediate governmental investigation at the highest level should be commenced."
It is significant that Justice Goodloe used the word "evidence" in his: statement. When asked in a telephone conversation if the documents cited in the article could qualify as circumstantial evidence, he replied, "Certainly!"
In a court of law, Justice Goodloe said, circumstantial evidence carries as much weight as direct evidence. For example, fingerprints and eyewitness testimony placing a suspect at the scene of a crime, though circumstantial, are considered as important as if the suspect had admitted committing the crime.
Justice Goodloe's comments seem to support the contention of Jack Carpenter, the marketing associate of Dr. Robert Strecker and Dr. Alan Cantwell.
"we have more evidence on the manmade nature of the AIDS virus than the State of California has on some death-row prisoners," Carpenter has said.
STRANGE EVENTS AND BIZARRE COINCIDENCES
People involved in tracking down the two origins of the AIDS viruses have been subjected to inexplicable occurrences in their lives; others have died under strange circumstances.
In 1988, Jack Carpenter, marketing agent for Dr. Robert Strecker and Dr. Alan Cantwell, formed a production company with two partners to put together a film documentary about an alternative theory behind the AIDS epidemic. One of Carpenter's partners, through his connections in the film industry, contacted a person on the east coast who come up with seed money for the documentary. "We were offered $200,000 in cash," Carpenter told this writer. "We were told up front that it was foundered drug money, so we turned it down." Carpenter shortly afterwards contacted his attorney, who told him the aborted cash deal had been a setup.
This feeling was echoed by a woman who had been stated to produce the documentary, Carpenter sold. The woman contacted a friend within the Federal Bureau of Investigation to alert that agency to the $200,000 in drug money. That friend later contacted the Los Angeles office of the bureau, and it was his understanding that an agent would investigate the matter. "I called the FBI," Carpenter said, "each time leaving a detailed message for the agent. We were totally ignored, so we just let it slide by. What really got me was that the FBI never followed up on it the drug money!" It is quite possible that had Carpenter and his associates accepted the cash, few people today would have heard of Strecker or Cantwell or the other side of the AIDS story. Asked to provide some insight into this strange tale, L. Fletcher Prouty, a retired Air Force Colonel with extensive familiarity with covert operations, told the offer of illegal cash to Carpenter was "a formula set-up".
Under the headline "AIDS Made in lab Shack", the London Sunday Express of October 26, 1986 reported that East Berlin professor Jakob Segal, Author of the report quoted extensively in the accompanying article received two special visitors apparently not long after his report was released.
"Sunday Express investigations have revealed that two U.S. Embassy officials made a two-hour visit to Professor Segal at his home two weeks ago, questioning him about what he knows, what he thinks. where he got his information from, and what he intends doing with his report," the Express article stated. "The Professor said: "The two men showed me their credentials. One said he was a historian and the other said he was a political consul. But I am positive they were from the CIA and that they were deeply concerned that the cover-up over the origin of AIDS was going to be exposed. I told them everything I knew and believed."
Cont ...