BaC: Read the book. I don't have it on me (won't until my roommate finds the books he checked out on my card and I can return them) so I can't post his evidence. And frankly, I don't care to, since I don't judge books on litmus tests.
Well, since you folks insisted, I dropped by the library and located a copy of the Aaronovitch book. It's copyright is 2010, so it is hot off the press. And, sadly, I must question the skepticism of many JREF posters who recommended the book and even made claims like it "shreds" the Vince Foster conspiracy.
Aaronovitch does discuss the Vince Foster death, on pages 321 - 324 and pages 327 - 328. However, not one of the facts I listed as concerns earlier are mentioned. Instead, Aaronovitch does same the dance that all Foster debunkers I've met do … make absolutely misleading and sometimes downright false claims, and do a lot of non-evidence based handwaving. In other words, act like a 9/11 Truther.
Here in a nutshell is Aaronovitch's logic regarding the Foster case. Since the police, FBI, two "separate" investigations by two "independent" prosecutors ("both republicans", he notes) and a "republican chaired" Senate Oversight committee all concluded it was a suicide … because Foster was depressed … so it must have been one.
Now the first part of that statement is true. All those groups did indeed label it a suicide, but the conclusion doesn't necessarily follow from that. Because afterall, this is a conspiracy. Members of the police, the FBI, and both so-called "separate" and "independent" prosecuters are all implicated by the list of facts that I noted earlier (some of which I will discuss further below). And the Senate Oversight Committee did little more than listen to what they were told by these same groups. For the most part, they heard no evidence from anyone outside who was challenging the claim of suicide. Plus, they had political motivations of their own for not stirring the pot. So it isn't all that surprising that they would parrot the same conclusions as the others did.
Now what follows is a description of just some of the facts that Aaronovitch completely ignores in his book. As I've demonstrated on other Vince Foster threads, I can support every claim of fact I'm about to list. I've taken care in each case to note anything that Aaronovitch said regarding a particular topic, and indeed quoted the full extend of his fact-based arguments in the book. Everything else Aaronovitch says in those few pages on Foster … his clear expressions of distaste for certain named conspiracists who covered the story, his mention and then handwaving away of some of the concerns that were raised about the Foster case, his attempts to link the Foster case to other far less credible allegations of murder (the Clinton Body Count), his ridicule of the notion of "conspiracy" in general, the connections he notes of some of the media outlets that carried the story to people who he considers "right-wing" … is simply irrelevant because none those arguments address the actual facts of the case. The following facts (which all are verifiable) stand on their own, point to their own conclusion, and it's these facts that Aaronovitch should have focused on if he really wanted to address the validity of allegations of foul play. He didn't do that because he couldn't. Because the facts point to a clear coverup by the very organizations that Aaronovitch says he trusts implicitly.
(1) Starr's report states "Foster had called a family doctor for antidepressant medication the day before his death." Aaronovitch just accepts the claim that Foster was severely depressed. But he cites very little evidence to support the claim other than to write that Foster "confided that he was depressed" to his sister, Sheila Anthony, and that he was "sent antidepressants by his own physician in Little Rock, but had not taken them". I'll deal with those two claims in a moment (and Starr's), but first, let's look at what the people close to Foster said at the time about his mental state.
What Starr's report and Aaronovitch don't mention is that Park Police and FBI agents stated in their notes and under oath (when questioned later by the Senate) that when Lisa Foster (Vince's wife), his friends and his relatives were questioned the night of Foster's murder, ALL said that Vince showed absolutely no sign of depression. The investigators point blank asked them the question "did you see any sign of depression" and got back nothing but negative answers. That's what their interview notes specifically state. Not one of those interviewed claimed or even implied that Foster was depressed or seem troubled. In fact, the three *key* witnesses who Fiske/Starr later used to claim Vince was depressed -- specifically Lisa Foster, Sheila Anthony and Beryl Anthony (Sheila's husband, a former Democrat Congressman from Arkansas and a former President of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee) -- emphatically denied, that night and in the days that followed, that Vince had been depressed. For example, in an interview on July 22 (2 days after the death), when asked if Foster had been depressed during the two weeks prior to death, Beryl is quoted saying: "There is not a damn thing to it. That's a bunch of crap."
And many other people in Foster's circle of friends and associates were interviewed or made statements in the following days regarding his mental state. This includes President Clinton (who had a 20-25 minute phone conversation with Foster the night before he died), Marsha Scott (aide to the President, who had a long meeting with Foster the day before he died), David Watkins (Assistant to the President for Management and Administration, who saw Foster every day), Betsy Pond (White House Counsel Nussbaum's secretary), Nancy Hernreich (Deputy Assistant to the President), Beth Nolan (Associate White House Counsel), Bernard Nussbaum (White House Counsel), and Web Hubble . Every single one of them said they saw nothing to make them think he was depressed. For example, three secretaries in the White House Office of Legal Counsel were interviewed by the Park Police two days after the death (according to Park Police notes). Here is what the notes recorded: "There was nothing unusual about his emotional state. In fact, over the last several weeks she did not notice any changes, either physically or emotionally. She noticed no weight loss." "Mr. Foster's demeanor seemed normal to her." "She stated that she did not note any unusual behavior by Mr. Foster on [the day he died]". That last was Foster's personal secretary. One would think she'd have notice major depression. In an interview with Federal agents in 1994, Web Hubbell recalled vacationing with Foster on the last weekend of his life. The agents wrote: ''Hubbell said that he was not aware that Foster was experiencing any type of stress." "Hubbell answered no to all questions concerning any noticeable changes in Foster's appearance, physical ailments, headaches, loss of appetite or any kind of stomach trouble.'' And Starr mentioned none of these witness statements in his report.
In fact, the claims of depression only surfaced over a week after the death, following a closed door meeting in the Whitehouse that both Lisa and Vince's sister, who worked in the top echelon of the Clinton Administration, attended. This is a meeting that Starr showed no interest in investigating despite the fact that then, suddenly, Lisa, Sheila and Sheila's husband all changed their stories 180 degrees. Suddenly they knew Foster had been depressed. You don't have to be very bright to put two and two together here. Fiske and Starr completely ignored these facts ... because they were clearly intent on building a case that Foster was depressed. They were inconvenient facts so they were left out of the "official" story. Aaronovitch also never mentions these facts, some of which clearly suggest witness tampering, either because he simply isn't competent or because he's a tool being used to keep the Foster allegations from resurfacing. It's one or the other.
(2) Now I mentioned above that Starr said "Foster had called a family doctor for antidepressant medication the day before his death" and that Aaronovitch claims Foster was "sent antidepressants by his own physician in Little Rock, but had not taken them". Both statements are deceptive and not even accurate. Here's the whole story … the story that Aaronovitch either missed or deliberately ignored. The proof that Starr lied.
The handwritten notes of the investigators from the night of Foster's death state that Lisa Foster told the investigators "he was fighting prescription". Yet that phrase ended up being reported as "he was fighting depression" in the typed FD-302 interview report included in the final Starr report. This is clear evidence of tampering by the FBI and Fiske/Starr, and Aaronovitch completely ignores it. And this is no small matter since the entire official scenario rests on making people believe that Foster was depressed enough to kill himself.
And what did Lisa Foster mean by "fighting prescription"? Well this is what FBI agents wrote in their interview notes the night of Foster's death: "FOSTER complained to LISA FOSTER that he was suffering from insomnia, but he did not want to take sleeping pills because he was afraid that he would become addicted to them." That Foster was worried about becoming addicted to sleeping pills was reported in various mainstream media including Time and the Washington Post. Furthermore, the FBI notes show that Vince's doctor, Dr Watkins, told them that Foster complained of "insomnia" and he gave Foster a drug to help him "start sleeping better." So Starr lied in his report when he stated that "Foster had called a family doctor for antidepressant medication." He did not do that. He called about insomnia and it was the doctor's decision to prescribe whatever medication was prescribed. Because Foster was concerned about becoming addicted to the sleeping pills he'd previously been prescribed for insomnia, the doctor prescribed a non-addictive drug that was commonly used for insomnia at the specific dosage the doctor prescribed. It just happens to be an anti-depressant, but the literature clearly states that when its purpose is to fight depression, that medicine should be prescribed at a much higher dosage than Foster received. The facts clearly show that it was prescribed to fight insomnia but avoid addiction, not to "fight depression."
Furthermore, Starr and company claimed over and over that Foster had "clinical" depression. Yet the FBI notes of the interview with Dr Watkins states "He did not think that Foster was significantly depressed nor had Foster given the impression that he was 'in crisis.'" He told them "Foster's condition sounded mild and situational." Mild depression is not "clinical" depression, the word that Fiske and Starr used repeatedly in their reports. Clinical depression refers to major depression. Aaronovitch couldn't possibly be unaware of all this if he'd spent even a modicum of time reviewing the facts in this case. So again, we are either left with the conclusion that Aaronovitch is incompetent or he was deliberately ignoring and distorting the facts in his book.
Plus, the night of the death, when asked by the Park Police and FBI if her husband had been taking any medication, specifically any anti-depressant medication, Lisa emphatically said "NO". In fact, she didn't mention the word depression until 9 days later ... in a session with Park Police in her attorney's office that occurred two days after the meeting that she and her attorney attended in the Whitehouse. She then told Park Police that Foster had taken Trazodone [Desyrel] the night before he died. When asked how she knew this, the investigator's notes say "LF [Lisa Foster] told VF [Vince Foster] to take one and she also saw him take it." (Which, by the way, completely contradicts Aaronovitch's claim that he didn't take the medication the doctor prescribed.) In his deposition, the officer who conducted the interview said "You know, we didn't have to question her a whole lot." He said the widow gave more of a verbal statement than an interview. He thought "she had gone over it with her lawyer so many times she had it down pat. ... I don't think we ever asked her a direct question." Again, you don't have to be a genius to connect the dots and see what was going on here. Aaronovitch is either a terribly incompetent investigator or a tool of those trying stop any further examination of Foster's death.
(3) Now let's look at Aaronvitches claim that in Foster's "wallet were the names and numbers of three psychiatrists given to him by his sister, in whom he had confided he was depressed." That sounds convincing, right? But what isn't Aaronovitch telling you?
Well first of all, if Sheila had this concern about her brother, then why, when she was specifically asked by investigators the night of his death about depression, did she not tell them? She only voiced this claim for the first time a week later, after the meeting in the Whitehouse. Then she claimed that she spoke with Dr Hedaya (one of the psychiatrists) four days before Foster's death. According to the FBI, Dr Hedaya told them that on July 16th she called and said Foster was working on "Top Secret" matters at the White House and "that his depression was directly related to highly sensitive and confidential matters". But Park Police lead investigator, John Rolla, filed a report in which he said he called each of the 3 psychiatrists names, and Dr Hedaya made no mention of Sheila's call. You’d think Dr Hedaya would have responded to the inquiring policeman, “No, Mr. Foster didn’t call me, but his sister did and she mentioned he was depressed.”
Also odd is that the Starr report says Foster's wallet was found in his car (why Foster would have left it in the car and not had it in his possession when his body was found is not explained). But in any case, that means the note would have been in found in the car. But the first indication in the press that there was a note was seven days after Foster's death (after that Whitehouse meeting) when NBC news reported that a document had been found in Foster's office that indicated that he was depressed and had been seeking medical treatment. Douglas Jehl in the New York Times reported the same thing. Michael Isikoff of the Washington Post reported the next day that "White House official searching the office of Vincent Foster, Jr. last week found a note indicating the 48 year-old deputy White House counsel may have considered psychiatric help shortly before he died". It was not till two days later that a Washington Post article finally said a note was found in Foster's automobile at Fort Marcy Park.
The Washington Post article, however, also said the note contained the name of two psychiatrists (not three), and they listed the two names. Neither name was Dr. Hedaya's. Isn't it curious that they'd leave out the name of the one person who actually does admits talking to Sheila. And here's another curious fact. During the Senate Banking Committee's investigation, a photocopy of the note with the list of psychiatrists was filed as evidence. And the first name on the list is Dr. Robert Hedaya, but it's written in block letters, while the other two names are written in cursive. Odd. Also odd is that the note with the list of names was not on the official list of items found in Foster's car that was compiled by police immediately after Foster's death.
So given all the above facts … none of which Aaronovitch felt necessary to mention, is it beyond the realm of possibility that this conversation between Sheila and Dr Hedaya never actually occurred and this list is another fabrication added after the fact to explain Foster's death? Is it beyond the realm of possibility that Sheila, the psychiatrist, and even Rolla were pressured in some way to make up and support this claim? That seems to be the only way to fit all of these facts together in a logical manner.
(4) Then there's the matter of the oven mitt. Aaronovitch writes "In his car an oven mitt was discovered, which forensics established had carried the revolver." Starr claimed in his final report that the reason the gun did not have Foster's fingerprints on it is that it was carried to Fort Marcy Park inside this oven mitt that Starr claimed was found in the glove compartment of Foster's car. Sounds pretty convincing right?
Now, never mind that Foster would likely have gotten fingerprints on the gun carrying it from the car to the location where he supposedly shot himself. The real problem here is that Starr provides as proof of this oven mitt, a photo which shows a big green oven mitt occupying most of the space in the glove compartment of Foster's car. And in that photo, the floor of the car below the glove compartment is absolutely clean ... sans any debris. But other photos from that day show there was debris on the floor. According to Park Police records, Detective Braun emptied the glove box of all items PRIOR to detective Smith removing the debris from the passenger seat floor. Records show Braun emptying the glove box at 6:35 AM July 21st. Detective Smith's paperwork indicates he cleaned off the passenger side floor after noon on July 21st. Furthermore, Detective Braun's inventory of the glove compartment as items were removed did NOT record an oven mitt ... something that would be very hard to miss and unusual enough to have surely been listed. Thus, a photograph showing the glove compartment with items in it over a clean passenger floor flatly contradicts the Park Police records. Such a photo (a photo which was never mentioned by Fiske in his report, by the way) can only have been staged … by Starr to explain away an inconvenient detail … the lack of fingerprints on the supposed suicide weapon. Again, this clearly indicates tampering but again Aaronovitch ignores all this, blindly accepting whatever the Starr report claimed. Aaronovitch is at best a hack.
(5) Starr's report claimed there was an inch diameter hole in the back of Foster's head. Aaronovitch makes note of this when he writes "The autopsy revealed a wound from his mouth to an exit point in his head." But that claim is on quicksand, too. Because not one of the eyewitnesses to the body said they saw that wound, except the pathologist who described it in his autopsy (and I'll discuss him, shortly). In fact, many of the eyewitnesses instead said they saw an exit wound in Foster's neck, which the autopsy and Starr reports specifically ruled out, saying (as Aaronovitch notes) "there were no other marks on the body". One of those many eyewitnesses was Dr Donald Haut, the only doctor to see Foster's body at the scene, and he described the wound as "mouth-to-neck". Curiously enough, Dr. Haut’s report was not included in the documents released by the government on the Foster case. It was discovered in June 1997 at the National Archives by Patrick Knowlton, a eyewitness in the case who published a report on inconsistencies in the government version that the court ordered be attached to the Starr report when it was released (which Starr did not do, by the way).
A second doctor, Julian Orenstein of the FairFax County Morgue, who examined Foster's body before it reached the pathologist who did the autopsy, also said he saw no head wound. In his FBI statement it says he lifted the body in order "to locate and observe the exit wound on the decedent's head." Notice that it doesn't actually say he saw the exit wound ... but you might think he did reading that. But he didn't. Contacted later, he admitted "I never saw one directly." And a copy of the handwritten notes of the FBI interviews, which were obtained via a FOIA lawsuit against the Office of the Independent Counsel does not even mention Orenstein trying to locate an exit wound. Apparently, that was added to his statement after the fact. Again, more tampering with the evidence by the IOC to bolster this fiction they concocted.
Four of the rescue workers testified under oath in secret before the Whitewater grand jury that they saw trauma to the side of Foster’s head or neck … information that was submitted to Starr in a memorandum from his top investigator, Miquel Rodriguez, summing up the proceedings of the Whitewater grand jury. But again, Starr never mentioned any this in his official report.
And one more fact. The photos of Foster's body were very tightly controlled, with the government fighting every single attempt to get them released, even internally within the investigation. (In fact, they've never stopped fighting efforts to get them released. As a result, photos of the head have never been seen by the public.) Even Miquel Rodriguez, Starr's lead investigator, was blocked from access to them. One of the surviving polaroid photos (yes, photos did disappear) apparently shows Foster's head (or at least his neck). According to Rodriguez, when he finally did get hold of the original of this polaroid, he had the Smithsonian institution blow it up. He says the blowups show a dime-sized wound on the right side of Foster’s neck about half way between the chin and the ear. A wound consistent with the report by Dr. Donald Haut, the only doctor to visit the crime scene, as well as a half dozen other eye witnesses. A wound never mentioned by Fiske or Starr in their reports or in the autopsy report. A wound that Aaronovitch only mentions in passing "Some people who saw the body didn't see the gun, or thought they saw a wound in the neck", and then simply dismisses. Isn't it clear by now that someone is lying? Isn't it clear that Aaronovitch is either incompetent or possibly aiding a coverup?
(6) Dr. James C. Beyer is the pathologist who claimed there was a inch diameter hole in the back of Foster's head and no other wounds. On January 20, 1994, in an interview six months after Foster's death, Dr Beyer said that an FBI agent, a Secret Service and Park Police were present when he conducted his autopsy. Yet later, the Park Police admitted that only their officers were present and the FBI admitted none of theirs were present. But the really funny thing here is that the Starr report claims there are no x-rays of Foster's head. Yet, the Supplemental Criminal Incident Record of the U.S. Park Police states "Dr. Beyer stated that X-rays indicated there was no evidence of bullet fragments in the head." That would certainly suggest x-rays were taken. Indeed, the X-ray box on the autopsy report filled out by Dr Beyer himself was checked "yes," indicating x-rays were taken. But, curiously, in testimony before the Senate Banking Committee, Dr. Beyer said that he had been planning to take X-rays but never did. He claimed the equipment was broken and had been for weeks. However, the Knowlton appendix to the official report on the Foster death contains maintenance records that indicate the X-Ray machine was, in fact, fully operable at the time the Foster autopsy was conducted. The first call to service his brand new machine was made over three months AFTER Foster’s death. In short, Dr Beyer lied. And by the way, Starr’s investigators, and presumably Starr himself, knew that the claim that the x-ray machine was not working was false because the record of that first service call on Oct. 29 was included among the documents AIM obtained from the OIC. So you still think Aaronovitch is justified in simply trusting the IOC's conclusions?
(7) Then there is the so-called "suicide note" that was discovered in Foster's briefcase. Aaronovitch in his book briefly mentions this torn up note, writing that it "indicated that he [Foster] was struggling in his job, felt he had made mistakes, and thought he was being pursued by newspaper reporters concerned only with creating scandal and destroying people, not with telling the truth." That all fits in nicely with the suicide angle, doesn't it? But here again, Aaronovitch leaves out the really interesting parts of the story. Like ...
- the fact that Foster's briefcase was searched the night of the death (turned upside down, in fact, according to the testimony of Bernard Nussbaum) and was no note was found. The brief case was empty. Do you know that during Senate hearings in 1995, Senator Frank Murkowski tore up a note into twenty-eight pieces and placed it in the bottom of a briefcase that had been lent to him by the IOC's office as a match for Fosters? He then turned it over and the notes fell out. It is implausible that Nussbaum overlooked the note when he emptied the briefcase in the same manner in front of Park Police the night of Foster's death.
- the fact the note was only *discovered* days later. Then, as Philip Heymann of the Whitehouse testified, "a number of pieces of the note fell down on the floor and there was a scramble to pick them up." He went on to add that "by the time it had been reassembled, the fingerprints of everybody in the Whitehouse were on it." So why does Starr's report claimed there were no fingerprints on the note? Were all the people at the Whitehouse wearing gloves?
- the fact that the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee concluded that Hillary was one of the first persons to see the alleged note and that it was her instructions that Bill Clinton NOT be informed of its existence and that the note NOT be turned over to law enforcement. And it wasn't, until about 28 hours later (4 hours after Bill learned about the note anyway). And note that a number of Clinton staffers swore under oath that the first lady had no role whatsoever in the handling of Foster's note. Yet a memo was discovered, written by White House lawyer Miriam Nemetz, who quotes then-White House chief of staff Mack McLarty saying Mrs. Clinton "was very upset and believed the matter required further thought and the president should not yet be told".
- the fact that the government refused to release photocopies of the reconstructed note and fought efforts by The Wall Street Journal to obtain a copy under the Freedom of Information Act. Eventually, however, a copy was leaked to the WSJ who published it. Then, three noted and independent handwriting experts looked at the published note. All were board certified and all three declared the note an obvious forgery.
- the fact that the IOC had declared the note authentic, based on the opinion of Sergeant Larry Lockhart, the U.S. Capitol Police handwriting expert. But Reed Irvine (of AIM) later met with Sergeant Lockhart and gave him in a blind authentication test run in the same way the other three handwriting experts had investigated the matter … i.e., comparing enlargements of words from the note to enlarged words from known samples of Foster handwriting. This was done without Lockhart knowing that he was reexaming the Foster case. And Lockhart concluded that "very possibly" and "probably" the words were not written by the person who wrote the samples. In other words, he unknowingly reversed the opinion he gave the Park Police. When he was told that, he acknowledged that he had not used any enlargements for his 1993 analysis.
Shouldn't Aaronovitch have shown some interest in an apparently forged note that was found by Clinton staff in Vince Foster's briefcase? But he doesn't.
(8) Then there is Dr Alan Berman … the psychological *expert* that Starr called on to bless his suicide theory … the one who wrote in a 21 page report that to "a 100% degree of medical certainty the death of Vince Foster was a suicide." So let's look at how Berman came to that astounding conclusion. This is the ghist of it: "No plausible evidence has been presented to support any other conclusion." Tell me folks, knowing all we already have learned about the case so far, is that a believable statement?
The fact is that Berman only worked with the evidence provided by Starr. Interviews with Berman long after the event (
http://www.aim.org/aim-report/aim-report-dr-alan-bermans-loud-silence/) show that Starr told him only selected (and often false) facts, and left out most of what I've noted so far. Furthermore, Berman's methodology itself is highly suspect. Here's what another expert in suicide thought of Berman's conclusion in the Foster case (
http://www.aim.org/aim-report/aim-report-critiquing-bermans-report-on-foster/ "Dr. Berman fell victim to the petitio principii fallacy [begging the question] in that he assumed suicide and then fit all of his state-of-the-mind conclusions into this assumption. … snip … Dr. Berman did not discuss the many protective factors in Mr. Foster's life. By not accounting for these matters he overstated the possibility of suicide."
And you want a further example of Dr Berman's dishonesty or incompetence? His book "Comprehensive TextBook of Suicidology", published in 2000, has a brief mention of Foster (much like Aaronovitch's). In it he claims that the so-called suicide note was a list of complaints that Lisa Foster asked him to write out about a week before his death. He too completely ignores all the expert statements that the note was a forgery. And I can find no statement by anyone else that Lisa prompted Foster to write this list. He made this up. He also claims Foster was prescribed an antidepressant and "took one 50 mg pill (only a third the recommended dosage) that night and went to bed." But as already noted, the doctor said the prescription was for insomnia and 50-150 mg, starting with 50 mg, is indeed the recommended dose for treating that complaint. In fact, the pharmacist who filled Foster's order said the instructions were to take between "1-3 pills at bedtime". When trazondone is prescribed for depression, it's in "divided doses", not just at bedtime, and it is prescribed in dosages where the starting amount is 150 mg per day ramping up to as much as 400 mgs over 3 or 4 day.
And I could go on and on lists facts that Aaronovitch either misrepresents or completely ignores in his so-called *expert* treatment of the Foster case. I'll leave you with just one more.
(9) Aaronovitch writes "photographs shot at the scene showed the gun under his hand, with the thumb trapped by the trigger." There's a good story here, too, one that Aaronovitch apparently doesn't want his readers to hear. It's very long so I'll tell you only the best parts that pertain to the position of the gun. Although think about the fact that the IOC claimed were no fingerprints on the gun. The gun was in his hand, and there were no fingerprints on the gun. Explanation? The FBI said they "probably" … get this, "melted off in the heat."
Starr's report report claims "the descriptions provided by the first two persons to observe the gun, as well as numerous others, are consistent with the gun retrieved from the scene." But this is not true. Firefighter Todd Hall was one of the first two people to observe a gun and he's on record stating that he couldn't tell what kind of gun it was, nor could he say whether a hand was gripping the gun. Paramedic George Gonzalez is the other of the "first two persons to observe the gun". He testified in the summer of 1994 that the position of the gun he saw at the park, before Sergeant Edwards had been alone with the body, was different than the position of the gun as it was photographed in Mr. Foster's hand at the park. He also stated he didn't know the size of the gun nor the type of gun. Yet the IOC claimed that their "description … [is] consistent with the gun retrieved from the scene." In other words, the IOC relies on these two witnesses to claim that the description of witnesses matched the gun retrieved at the scene, when in fact neither witness actually said that.
Park Police Office Franz Ferstl photographed the body on site with a polaroid camera. (Note that all of his pictures curiously disappeared.) The FBI report claimed that during an interview in May 1994 he said he saw a gun in the right hand. That's curious given that the Incident Report that Ferstl himself filed after photographing the body did not mention seeing any gun. Then there is paramedic Richard Arthur, who wasn't interviewed by the FBI in the immediate aftermath of the death, even though he was only 2 to 3 feet from Foster's body. He was interviewed four times over the next couple years however. He not only testified that he saw a neck wound (contrary to the official version), he described the gun as being a .45 automatic. In interview after interview he stated his conviction that the gun had the shape of an automatic, not a revolver. He even went so far as to draw the shape of the gun he saw. It didn't match the gun the government claimed was the suicide weapon.
But most damning of all is the testimony of the Confidential Witness, identified as "CW" in his FBI interviews and deposition. He's the one who first found Foster's body. According to his testimony, he approached the body to within 18 inches of Foster's head and says he looked very carefully. He is absolutely adamant that Foster did NOT have a gun in either hand and, moreover, that the position of the hands/arms was different than that reported in the IOC report and shown in the photo published by the IOC. He testified under oath before US Congressmen, that when he found Foster, both hands were palm up with the thumbs pointed out away from the body. Both claims are inconsistent with the photos released by Fiske and Starr ... photos whose legitimacy was even questioned by Starr's own top investigator after he quit in disgust. And the IOC report completely ignores this testimony. So does Aaronovitch. Now how could Aaronovitch not have heard of this witness? Isn't it interesting that Aaronovitch, the *great conspiracy debunker* showed no interest whatsoever in any of the above details regarding this case? And there is no possible way he could have investigated the Foster matter without discovering them.
So let's summarize. Aaronovitch has clearly missed the boat in his description and debunking the Foster allegation. Whether it is through sheer incompetence or a deliberate attempt on his part to further silence allegations of foul play in this case, I'd have to judge his book is probably not worth the paper it's printed on. So no, I won't bother reading whatever else he had to say about all the other conspiracies he highlighted. In his reporting of the Foster case, he discredited himself. And I would hope that those who post at JREF can take what's noted here and be equally skeptical. Call it a litmus test for JREF poster skepticism. 
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