A Hidden Story Behind Sept. 11? One Man's Ad
Campaign Says So
By IAN URBINA
Published: November 8, 2004
New York Times
WASHINGTON, Nov. 7 - The grainy 30-second commercials are eerie and
cryptic, and they suggest a government cover-up of the Sept. 11, 2001,
attacks. One implies that no plane flew into the Pentagon. The other
suggests that 7 World Trade Center, which collapsed late in the
afternoon that day, was detonated from within.
The advertisements, which ran repeatedly here and in New York between
Oct. 20 and Nov. 2 on several cable networks, including CNN, Fox News
and ESPN, offer a Web site, an address and a phone number but give
little indication who is behind them.
The ads are the latest salvo from James W. Walter, a millionaire from
Santa Barbara, Calif., who over the years has financed programs
promoting voter registration in low-income neighborhoods and prison
reform. Recently he has taken a growing interest in the investigation of
the Sept. 11 attacks. The television commercials, as well as ads in
magazines and newspapers, including The New York Times, The Wall Street
Journal and The Daily News, are part of a $3 million national campaign
paid for by Mr. Walter in an effort to press for the reopening of the
investigation by the independent Sept. 11 commission.
"It just isn't possible that 19 screw-ups with box cutters pulled this
whole thing off," Mr. Walter said in a telephone interview Friday as he
traveled from Florida to California by train. He has traveled by train
since Sept. 11, 2001, he said, because he has been too scared to fly.
"We've never gotten solid answers on why Tower 7 collapsed when it was
two full blocks away from where the planes hit," he said. "We've also
never received an answer for how such a large plane left such a small
hole in the side of the Pentagon."
The independent commission, which issued its final report in July,
disputed some commonly held beliefs about the attacks but not the
general conclusion, that 19 young terrorists hijacked planes and flew
them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
For Mr. Walter, though, what started as a hunch about official
negligence has blossomed into a full-blown conspiracy theory involving
government officials looking for a pretext to send troops into
Afghanistan and Iraq.
Mr. Walter has tapped into a long tradition in which national tragedies
- from the assassination of President John F. Kennedy to the downing of
Trans World Airlines Flight 800 - inflame the most feverish
imaginations.
But in New York, the ads may have found a particularly receptive
audience.
A Zogby poll of New Yorkers' opinions about the 9/11 investigation,
released last month, indicated that 49 percent of New York City
residents and 41 percent of New York state residents believed that some
federal officials "knew in advance that attacks were planned on or
around September 11, 2001, and that they consciously failed to act." The
poll also found that 66 percent of New York City residents and 56
percent of state residents wanted a fuller investigation of the "still
unanswered questions."
Using the poll findings to make their case, relatives of victims of the
attacks and others skeptical of the commission's investigation have
asked Eliot Spitzer, the New York attorney general, to open an
investigation into what they said were unanswered questions.
Glenn P. Corbett, a professor of fire science at John Jay College of
Criminal Justice who is part of an investigation into the collapse of
the World Trade Center towers by the National Institute of Standards and
Technology, said that he was not surprised by the lingering speculation
about the attacks, but that there were clear answers to most questions
raised by Mr. Walter's ad campaign.
The hole left by the attack on the Pentagon was not bigger, Mr. Corbett
said, because the wings were lighter than most other parts of the plane
and probably disintegrated on impact with the ground and the building.
The reason 7 World Trade Center collapsed straight down, he said, was
most likely the large amounts of diesel fuel stored in the building's
lower levels. The fuel was meant to power emergency generators.
"The conspiracy theorists fail to recognize that there was structural
damage in Building 7 caused by flying debris after the first two towers
collapsed," Mr. Corbett said. "This led to fires that burned for several
hours which eventually collapsed Building 7, too."
One skeptic who wants Mr. Spitzer to open an investigation is W. David
Kubiak, who lives in Kennebunkport, Maine, and runs a Web site called
911Truth.org. He said that not all doubters had gone as far as Mr.
Walter in their conspiracy theories. Most people in his group, he said,
including families of 9/11 victims, simply want more of an explanation
why there were so many problems that day involving emergency
communication and the chain of command.
"I guess I'm one of the few people with the wherewithal to push the
issue," said Mr. Walter, who says he is worth about $7 million, most of
which he inherited from his father's building materials company in
Tampa, Fla. Besides making financial donations to various causes, Mr.
Walter, 57, also founded Walden Three, a nonprofit group in Santa
Barbara that researches futuristic ideas for environmentally friendly
urban development. Much of his time, Mr. Walter said, is spent working
on a science fiction novel that he hopes to publish to promote utopian
visions for city planning.
"Sometimes Jimmy gets a little carried away with his own ideas," said
Assia Mortensen, who works occasionally as an editor for Walden Three.
"But at root, he's an eccentric sweetheart with a lot of money and he
shares it with a lot of important groups."
Mr. Walter said he was no stranger to adversity, having overcome an
addiction to cocaine. He also has Tourette's syndrome, he said.
"I have a hard time not speaking up when I see something that doesn't
seem right," Mr. Walter said. "I guess that is just the way I am."
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