From: b645zaw@utarlg.uta.edu (Stephen Tice)
Subject: Re: The 'Missing' Pages -- Evidence of Media Collusion.  
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: The University of Texas at Arlington
Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1992 04:00:00 GMT

Or how the story bounces from the NY Times, to the LA Times, 
and to the Dallas Morning News. 

wdstarr@athena.mit.edu (William December Starr) writes...
> 

>pswanson@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Paul Swanson) said:
>> 

>> > ...why are there three (or however many) pages missing
>> > regarding passport documents?


>> Let me answer this by excerpting two paragraphs from a New York
>> Times article today (Sat. Oct. 10)
>> 
>>       What happened was this, say several officials.  When news
>>       organizations sought Mr. Clinton's file under the Freedom of
>>       Information Act, a clerk in a records warehouse in suburban
>>       Maryland opened his files and discovered staple holes on copies
>>       of his passport applications and assumed it meant part of the
>>       file had been pilfered.
>> 
>>       With that, a State Department Inspector General summoned Federal
>>       agents.  They determined that the holes in the application forms
>>       were probably left when a photograph or check stapled to the
>>       document was removed during processing.

>Likewise, the Los Angeles Times (reprinted in the 10/10/92 Boston
>Globe at p.7) reported:
> 
>      WASHINGTON -- The FBI said yesterday is had found "no evidence"
>   that Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton's passport files had been tampered
>   with, ending an investigation that had fueled Republican attacks on
>   the patriotism and credibility of the Democratic presidential
>   candidate.
> 
>      The FBI announced the conclusion of its inquiry in a statement
>   that also said that the agency contemplated no further involvement
>   in the matter.
> 
>      Sources said the bureau believes that the items missing from the
>   file that caused a State Department official to become suspicious
>   were a bank check that paid the passport fee, a copy of a birth
>   certificate and a passport photograph -- all routine items that are
>   part of the passport application process.

Dallas Morning News (Oct. 10) p.9A 

"FBI: Nothing amiss in Clinton passport file"

****FROM WIRE REPORTS*****

	Sources told the Los Angeles Times that the FBI found
	that documents  --  which a State Department official
	believed were suspiciously missing  --  actually were
	a bank check, a copy of a birth certificate and a pass-
	port photograph, all routine parts of the passport 
	application process.

	Officials pulled the file after news organizations filed
	requests to review if for clues about Mr. Clinton's 
	visit to the Soviet Union in 1969 and whether he ever
	considered applying for citizenship in another country
	to avoid the Vietnam draft.

The first paragraph almost verbatim from LA Times. Must be nice to
take your stories straight out of the wire. The second paragraph, 
which was apparently not quoted from NYT or LAT, is more interesting, 
since it didn't offer the name of the news organizations.

Maybe there's a clue here:

The Washington Times (Oct. 5th) p1:

"Travel records may have been altered"

	...

	The allegations surfaced when three news organizations
	sought the documents after repeated but unsubstantiated
	rumors that Mr. Clinton, anguished about the Vietnam
	War and the possibility of being drafted, sought to 
	renounce his citizenship in favor of a British passport.

	Newsweek, one of the organizations that requested the 
	State Department records through the Freedom of Informa-
	tion Act, reported in todays edition that State Department
	officials pulled the file and noticed that several pages
	appeared to have been ripped out.

Anybody got an original quote from newsweek?

I wonder who the other two News organizations are? 
And where those "renounce citizenship rumors" started? 

>> Case closed.
> 
>Looks that way.  Wonder what the Slime-o-matic'll come up with next...

About the file, yes. 

About whether the media creates Slime, it's been
the same since the genesis of News in wayfaring gossip. 

So anybody got another clue as to the source?


>-- William December Starr <wdstarr@athena.mit.edu>

-- Stephen Tice    Arlington Texas    10-10-92