218 lines
10 KiB
Plaintext
218 lines
10 KiB
Plaintext
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Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 7 Num. 67
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======================================
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("Quid coniuratio est?")
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Interview With Harold May -- February 16, 1996
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==============================================
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I spoke with Dr. Harold May, a scientist who worked for 30 years
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at the Argonne National Laboratory near Lemont, Illinois. Dr.
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May received his Ph.D. from Northwestern University and is an
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expert in the field of radiation physics, particularly human
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reactions to whole body radiation.
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-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
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CONSPIRACY NATION: You belong to the Seventh Day Adventist
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Church, right?
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HAROLD MAY: That's right.
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CONSPIRACY NATION: In Dick Reavis' book [The Ashes Of Waco], he
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goes into the religious background of the Branch Davidians. The
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name "Branch" Davidian would mean that they're a branch of the
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Adventist church -- is that right?
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HAROLD MAY: Well, I think it's a little more remote than that:
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they were a branch of what primarily came to be called
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"Shepherd's Rod".
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CONSPIRACY NATION: So maybe they're a branch of a branch?
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HAROLD MAY: That's more like it. Yeah.
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CONSPIRACY NATION: Is the Seventh Day Adventist Church, or
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portions of it... to your knowledge are they taking a special
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interest in the Waco tragedy and its aftermath?
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HAROLD MAY: Actually, the official church tried to have as
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little to do with it as possible; they acted as if they were
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terribly embarrassed, and they didn't want to have their name
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mentioned in the same sentences or anything. They went out of
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their way to disassociate the church. But individual members did
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not like that attitude. They thought that it was rather
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hypocritical that, if you accept the literal teachings of Jesus
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to forgive your brother, to look to the needy without any
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reservations as to why they got themselves into that fix -- then
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I think that you act more like a real Christian. So there's
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rather a sharp division.
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CONSPIRACY NATION: So you're, maybe, saying that the hierarchy
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of the church wanted to disassociate themselves from this...
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HAROLD MAY: Exactly.
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CONSPIRACY NATION: ...but the people within the church... there
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was a kind of grassroots opposition to that; that they thought
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that they should protest against it.
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HAROLD MAY: Yeah. There probably are three actual reactions:
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the two that you've mentioned, and a large, probably a majority
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of people in the middle who took [the Waco tragedy] like any
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other news: namely, as hot for a few days and then it's
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forgotten.
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CONSPIRACY NATION: The way that I had some idea as to what was
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really going on at the time was, I was connected to the Internet
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and I was getting news reports that were telling me things that I
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wasn't getting from the mainstream media.
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HAROLD MAY: Oh sure!
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CONSPIRACY NATION: How were you able to see through the official
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story about what was going on, to see that there was more going
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on here?
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HAROLD MAY: Well, first of all I collected from databases a lot
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of articles quite distinct from what the mainline media carried
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-- the "mainline media" being the big-circulation papers and the
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TV. I think the New York Times had some fairly decent editorial
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comments. The Washington Times had a great deal of good
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comments. There were articles in places like The New Republic,
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Christian Century.....
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CONSPIRACY NATION: More specifically, why is it that you
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bothered to ask questions, to look more deeply into things, and
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other people just accepted what they were told?
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HAROLD MAY: [Laughs] That's a very good question.
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There's an old saying, you know: "Trivial minds are
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concerned with people. Many minds are concerned with what
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happened, the happenings. And truly inquisitive and truly
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intelligent minds ask the 'why' questions: 'What's behind it?
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Why did this happen? What are the implications?'"
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I think that separates the general reading public from those
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who decided some things are truly important and others aren't. I
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personally think that this case says a great deal more about our
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justice system than the O.J. Simpson business does -- but compare
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the amount of publicity they got. (I'm thinking now more about
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the trial of the Waco survivors, the trial down in San Antonio,
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than I am about the lurid happenings at Waco.)
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Now to go back to your initial question: I wanted to find
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out why the Adventist Church acted like it did and why most
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Adventists really didn't pay much attention. And so I began
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reading extensively (as I mentioned). And then I went down to
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Waco to see the second memorial service [April 19, 1995] and I
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met Dick Reavis, who's written a good book. (I was impressed by
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Dick. Dick is a journalism graduate who won a very prestigious
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fellowship: the Nieman Fellowship.) And I had quite a talk with
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Dick, at Waco. And I think that, as much as anything, convinced
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me that there was much, behind the scenes.
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CONSPIRACY NATION: As an aside: for me, I just kind of had an
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awakening -- that, during the Gulf War, I just felt something was
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wrong; that the story that I was being told by the major media
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just didn't make sense. It seemed like there had to be more
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there.
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So would you say, did you have sort of an awakening, that
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something was wrong; where you used to trust the media, and
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then...
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HAROLD MAY: Oh definitely. Definitely. Sure.
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CONSPIRACY NATION: So there's kind of a sharp juncture there.
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HAROLD MAY: That's right.
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It's interesting that you mention the Gulf War, because the
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former Attorney General, Ramsey Clark, has also written a book
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about the Gulf War and the misuse of power in the Gulf War. But
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Ramsey Clark and some others have a lawsuit coming up sometime
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soon in Houston -- not against the FBI or ATF people, but going
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after some of the very higher-ups. I don't know who all the
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defendants are, but I know that Lloyd Bentsen and Ann Richards
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are amongst the defendants.
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CONSPIRACY NATION: Yeah. Carol Moore, in her book [The Davidian
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Massacre], talks about this lawsuit.
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When we had talked before, you talked about that you had
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talked to some policeman, or policemen, and that they told you
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about this use of CS gas.
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HAROLD MAY: Yeah. That's a very interesting portion of it
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because, being a scientist, I picked up on the CS gas business
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quickly and wanted to know more about it.
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I talked to the head of the Cook County SWAT team. The day I
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got in touch with him, I was down at the Cook County Coroner's
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Office, looking at some of the forensic literature on CS gas and
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getting some references out of stuff that they had in their
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library. And there was a squad car parked in the parking lot,
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and I discovered that it was a member of the Cook County SWAT
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team. And he referred me to their leader, and this guy told me
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all about their experiences with CS gas... [And] the leader of
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the Cook County SWAT team said, quite casually, "Oh yes. We
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killed a man with CS gas a couple of years ago." He was very
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matter-of-fact, very cavalier about it.
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CONSPIRACY NATION: And you're still continuing to look into the
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Branch Davidian massacre? Slowly digging up whatever information
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you can?
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HAROLD MAY: Very much so. There's a fellow in Maine who is
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quite active in maintaining archives. You can obtain from him
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complete transcripts of the Senate hearings, complete transcripts
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of the 911 tape (that was recorded at the time that the people
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inside the compound were talking with the sheriff and trying to
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get him to call off the ATF.)
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Regarding CS gas: This was the gas used by the FBI on April 19,
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1993 against the Branch Davidians at the now burned-down Mount
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Carmel Center. The United States is one of 100 countries that
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has signed an agreement banning the use of this gas in war.
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According to Justice Department outside expert Alan A. Stone,
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M.D., "It is difficult to believe that the U.S. government would
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deliberately plan to expose twenty-five children [present at
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Mount Carmel on April 19th], most of them infants and toddlers,
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to C.S. gas..." [qtd. in Moore, 293-294] The manufacturers of CS
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specifically warn against its being used indoors. And, "In a
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June 1, 1988, report Amnesty International claimed that CS gas
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had contributed to or caused the deaths of more than forty
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Palestinians -- including eighteen babies under six months of age
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-- who had been exposed to tear gas in enclosed spaces." [Moore,
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294-295]
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Works cited
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-----------
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Moore, Carol. *The Davidian Massacre* (Best is to order directly
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from Moore; phone (202) 986-1847 for more info; or order from Gun
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Owners of America.)
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Reavis, Dick J. *The Ashes Of Waco*. New York: Simon &
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Schuster, 1995. ISBN: 0-648-81132-4
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Aperi os tuum muto, et causis omnium filiorum qui pertranseunt.
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Aperi os tuum, decerne quod justum est, et judica inopem et
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pauperem. -- Liber Proverbiorum XXXI: 8-9
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