TWA 800: 25 Years of Deep State Deception

On July 17, 1996, TWA Flight 800, a Paris-bound 747 out of JFK, blew up off the coast of Long Island. It seemed somehow fitting that James Kallstrom, the public face of the FBI investigation into the plane’s destruction, would die two weeks before the 25^th anniversary. As a patriot, a Vietnam vet, and an outspoken critic of all things Clinton, Kallstrom once held promise as the insider most likely to come clean. He never did.

As to my own involvement with this story, until the evening of February 23, 2000, I was as naïve as a CNN anchor. Before that evening, I would have dismissed out of hand anyone who dared suggest that elements of the FBI and CIA would conspire with the White House and the New York Times to cover up the cause of so public a disaster.

February 23, 2000, was the night my education began.

Earlier that evening I had listened with some interest at a Kansas City country club as investigative reporter James Sanders spoke about his inquiry into the 747’s fate. At a dinner afterward, I found myself sitting next to James’s wife, Elizabeth. A sweet and soft-spoken woman of Philippine descent, she filled me in on the personal details. At the time of the disaster, she was a trainer for TWA. She had been a flight attendant for some years before that.

Of the 230 people killed on that ill-fated flight, 53 were TWA employees, many of them Elizabeth’s friends. At one of the numerous memorial services, Elizabeth introduced James to Terry Stacey, a 747 manager, and pilot who was working on the investigation.

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