Ambrose Evans-Pritchard Leaves Washington with a Warning to America: "Rouse and Guard your Liberty!"

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, the London Telegraph Washington Reporter who arrived an admirer of Bill and Hillary Clinton, became their nemesis and target, leaves Washington with a word of warning to the American people.

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard's tireless investigative reporting which began shortly after Bill Clinton was inaugerated as president in 1993 was a constant thorn in the side of the Clinton Administration His factual reports became so upsetting to the White House that, now that he is leaving, according to Evans-Pritchard the White House told George magazine, published by the son of Democrat president John F. Kennedy, ""That's another British invasion we're glad is over. The guy was nothing but a pain in the ass."

Ambrose-Pritchard, in the Sunday London Telegraph, took that as a compliment, as he has the White House's 300 page report in which he was singled out as some sort of nefarious source for negative stories about the Clintons.

"Good," he commented about the White House's crude comment, and then made what may very well become a landmark farewell address to the people of America with a warning that should be re-printed in every newspaper in the country:

" Let me state for the record that I was not sent to Washington as part of a British government plot to destabilize the Clinton Administration in revenge for US meddling in Ulster. Or at least, I don't think I was. Contrary to assertions made in a Congressional hearing, I have never worked for British military intelligence, or MI5, or MI6, or for that matter MI7.5 - the fabled Welsh branch!

No, I found my own way into a spitting match with President Clinton. It was the last thing I expected upon arriving in Washington, for I had succumbed to the Clinton charm years before at a meeting of the Democratic Leadership Council. As for Hillary, I was rather taken by her image of flinty altruism.

Disappointment was swift, however. I was stunned when the new President - barely installed in the White House - repudiated his campaign promise for a tax cut. It was downhill from there.

The Clintons look good from a distance. As Yale Law School graduates they have mastered the language and style of the mandarin class. It is only when you walk through the looking glass into the Arkansas underworld they came from that you begin to realise something is horribly wrong.

You learn that Bill Clinton grew up in the Dixie mafia stronghold of Hot Springs, and that his brother, Roger, was a convicted drug dealer who was once taped during under-cover surveillance saying "got to get some for my brother, he's got a nose like a vacuum cleaner". You learn about sworn testimony that links Clinton to cocaine smuggling in the early 1980s. You learn that Clinton's chief of security in Little Rock was gunned down in 1993 by assassins who seem to be enjoying immunity.

Oh, yes, and let us not forget the allegation that Bill and Hillary helped empty a bank called Madison Guaranty - but I will leave that to the special prosecutor, Kenneth Starr.

Bill Clinton is not the first president with the skeletons of the mob in his closet. Harry Truman, for instance, was a protege of the Pendergast crime machine in Kansas City. All you have to know about Bill Clinton is that he chose Patsy Thomasson - top lieutenant of convicted cocaine dealer Dan Lasater - to be his White House chief of personnel.

Once that has sunk in, you can start to understand how seriously this president has been compromised, and how much of a threat he could pose to the democratic system if allowed to get away with incremental abuse at a national level.

The Clintons wasted little time taking charge of the US Justice Department. All US Attorneys were asked to hand in their resignations. It was a move of breath-taking audacity, one that gave the Clintons control over the prosecutorial machinery of the federal government in every judicial district in the country.

They then set about eliminating the Director of the FBI, William Sessions, who was known for his refusal to countenance White House interference in the affairs of the Bureau. The post of FBI Director is supposed to be a 10-year appointment that puts it above politics. But Sessions was toppled in a Washington putsch, without a murmur of protest from America's press, and replaced by the hapless errand boy Louis Freeh. And I almost forgot, the Clintons installed their friend Webster Hubbell as "shadow" Attorney General - until Hubbell was jailed for Arkansas crimes.

When you are living through events day by day it is hard to know whether you are witnessing a historic turning point, or just mistaking the usual noise of politics for something meaningful. But there is no doubt that strange things have been going on in America.

The Clinton era has spawned an armed militia movement involving tens of thousands of people. The last time anything like this occurred was in the 1850s with the emergence of the southern gun clubs. It is easy to dismiss the militia as Right-wing nuts: it is much harder to read the complex sociology of civic revolt. At the very least the militias reveal the hatred building up against the irksome yuppies who run the country.

It is under this president that domestic terrorism has become a feature of life in America, culminating in the destruction of the Oklahama federal building on April 19, 1995. What set the deadly spiral in motion was the Waco assault two years before, and the cover-up that followed.

No official has ever lost a day's pay for precipitating the incineration of 80 people, most of them women and children, in the worst abuse of power since Wounded Knee a century ago. Instead of shame and accountability, the Clinton administration accused the victims of setting fire to themselves and their children, a posthumous smear that does not bear serious scrutiny. It then compounded the injustice by pushing for a malicious prosecution of the survivors.

Nothing does more to sap the life of a democracy than the abuse of power. Public trust is dangerously low. According to polls, barely a quarter of the American people now feel that they can count on the federal government to do the right thing.

A majority refuse to accept that Vincent Foster committed suicide, and they have good reason for their doubts. The paramedics and crime scene witnesses in Fort Marcy Park on July 20, 1993, tell a story that flatly contradicts the official findings. A police Polaroid shows a .22 calibre bullet wound in Foster's neck that the autopsy somehow failed to note. Are Americans to believe that Hillary Clinton's closest friend shot himself twice, with two different guns?

The Washington press corps has chosen not to report on this sort of thing, of course, because it always gives more weight to the utterings of an "official" source, with a title, than it does to the testimony of a common citizen. It has the matter backwards, in my opinion, because the "official" usually has the greater interest in lying.

Even so, the truth is getting out. Unauthorised stories are reaching the public through the samizdat links of the Internet and talk radio. From there it disseminates by word of mouth, spreading a thick layer of cynicism across the country.

Of all the bad things that Clinton has done to America, the worst is turning the FBI into a federal replica of the Arkansas State Police. Whether it is the persecution of dissident investigators in the air disasters of Pan Am 103 and TWA 800, or allowing the White House to peruse the secret files of political opponents, or the alledged intimidation of key witnesses in the Foster case, the FBI is starting to look like the enforcement arm of a police state.

The latest shocker is the decision to punish Frederic Whitehurst, the whistle-blower who first came forward with tales of corruption at the FBI crime labs. An internal inquiry has conceded that the lab tilted evidence "to incriminate the defendants" and cooked up the theory that a fertiliser bomb blew up the Oklahoma federal building after it found fertiliser at the house of a suspect, Terry Nichols. But the Justice Department seems more interested in denigrating Whitehurst, the lone hero of this sorry tale, than flagellating itself.

Look at the treatment of Carol Howe, the undercover informant who tracked the early stages of what appears to be the Oklahoma bombing conspiracy. The moment she surfaced as a threat to the "lone bomber" case against Timothy McVeigh, this January, she was indicted on criminal charges.

The FBI claims that she was dropped as an informant months before the bombing, but debriefing reports show the Bureau continued to receive her intelligence weeks after the blast. They also show that she named members of a neo-Nazi terrorist cell who had cased the Oklahoma federal building in December 1994 with the intention of bombing it. Yet the FBI did not follow up her reports. It conducted 26,000 witness interviews, most of them irrelevant, but could not find time to pursue the suspects who were specifically named by a paid informant.

This leaves the nasty suspicion that the FBI is shielding this neo-Nazi group in order to cover its own tracks. If it turns out that the bombing was a bungled sting operation by the FBI, as some of the victims are now alleging, the only fit response is to send bulldozers down Pennsylvania Avenue to flatten the Hoover Building once and for all.

A monument should be raised on the rubble of the FBI headquarters that reads Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes? (Who Shall Guard the Guards?) as a warning to free-born Americans of the next millennium.

Is Bill Clinton to blame? Of course he is. Degradation spreads from the top down. Four years were damaging enough. Another four, if Clinton lasts, will do real harm to the institutions of the US federal government.

Perhaps it is impolite for a London newspaper to say such things about a president of the United States. Many people think so. Clinton is not so bad, the argument goes. He is running a pretty good economy. The planes are flying on time. But you could have said the same about Benito Mussolini. A lot of people did, in fact, much to their regret later.

Critics tell me that I have invested too much emotion in my quarrel with the Clintons. To that I plead guilty. It comes from befriending so many of their victims. I am content to be blacklisted as the "mad scribbler" - as the Washington Post called me this week - for I am confident that one day historians are going to view Clinton as a the last great cad of the 20th century, or worse.

To the American people I bid a fond farewell. Guard your liberties. It is the trust of each generation to pass a free republic to the next. And if I know you right, you will rouse yourself from slumber to ensure exactly that.

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), February 20, 1999

Answers

AMBROSE EVANS-PRITCHARD ARCHIVES here

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), February 20, 1999.

This is great Andy. All those tired of pro wrestling..have a look.

How many are surprised? How many think "their" politician is a real person without power-brokering and its inherent loss of integrity and honesty?

Duas tantum res anxius optat, Panem et circenses. The people long eagerly for two things -- Bread and ciruses. Juvenal, Roman rhetorician, c.60-140 A.D

-- Donna Barthuley (moment@pacbell.net), February 20, 1999.

From the Mike Reagan Show:

Mike Reagan: Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, who is leaving Washington to return to England wrote an article day before yesterday (April 21, 1997) for the London Telegraph called "Goodbye and Good Riddance" he gave a warning to America, "Rouse and Guard Your Liberty!"

I have Ambrose Evans Pritchard on the line. Ambrose, why?

Evans-Pritchard: Good to be with you! Just let me say it wasn't ME saying "good riddance" to America. The idea is that Bill Clinton was saying good riddance to me.

Reagan: You say that in your article because you have been attacked profusely by this administration. You were named in the documents coming out of the White House - the 330 pages that came out You were the one that was the source of information - it goes to London Telegram, and then it goes to the Talk Shows, etc.

They were giving you a lot of credit for uncovering a lot of information while at the same time they were trying to step on you.

But, how in the world did they make that decision to get you out. How did they get the London Telegraph to bring you home?

Evans-Pritchard: Well, there is nothing sinister or mysterious about it. It was a four year posting. And, in fact, they extended at Christmas a little bit so that my children could finish their school year. It just naturally came to an end. Both I and my wife have family reasons for going back.

We didn't have our visas revoked. We didn't have any problems with the State Department. It was nothing like that.

Reagan: Nothing like that, but you wrote an article in which you warned America. Why don't you share with people what that warning was about.

Evans-Pritchard: Well, one of my observations about the four years I have been here is that Bill Clinton has enormously politicized the Justice Department and the FBI. He has installed his people in key positions and requested the resignations of all of the U.S. Attorneys so he could install his own hands in every judicial district in the country.

And, I think you are beginning to see a real degradation now of both the federal institutions of law enforcement agencies. We've seen just lie, after lie, after lie in the Vince Foster case, the Oklahoma bombing case, and a number of other cases that I mention.

I think there comes a point when people have to start saying, "Now, are we sliding or are you sliding into kind of a Latin American style Democracy. There is a danger of that.

You know, the founding fathers gave you a free Republic, but they didn't guarantee it would stay that way.

Reagan: No, they did not.

Evans-Pritchard: People need, I think, to be alert to the dangers here. I mean, it's all very well to say that Bill Clinton is a charming fellow, a bit of a rogue, he's got this great appetites, but otherwise he is pretty harmless. I just don't see it that way. I believe he had some sort of situation with organized crime back in the '70s and '80s and he have never really shaken that off.

Reagan: Let me ask you a question. You've been here for four years...

Evans-Pritchard: Four and a half years.

Reagan: Four and a half years. I want to know. When you were told originally, four and a half years ago, that you were going to become the bureau chief for the London Sunday Telegraph in Washington, D.C. , I want to know what baggage you came here with, what you were looking for when you came here and what has changed for you after four and a half years now that you are going home.

Evans-Pritchard: Well, I had spent some time here before. But, I came with a rather neutral view toward Bill Clinton. In fact, I had come across him before in the 80s and rather liked him. I thought he was a rather promising young man. I can even remember saying to a leading Democrat that is they could get him selected as a candidate that he would probably win the presidency back for the party.

So, I certainly was not prejudiced against him. I would just completely stunned by one thing after another that he did.

The first thing that he did was to renege on his pledge to cut taxes for the middle class. It wasn't just a minor pledge. It was one of the central planks, if not THE central plank of his campaign. For him to renege on that immediately after the election with no change in the economic circumstances of the country just struck me as utterly opportunistic.

It was clear that he lied all the way through the campaign. And, I just thought, "Good grief!" And then, when I started going to Arkansas! I just couldn't believe what I was being told by people It was really like going to a Latin American state.

The stories that people were telling me were just outlandish, the kind of corruption, the kind of intimidation and violence that had been used on people who died. But, after awhile it became clear that really bad things HAD been going on. One couldn't just ignore it.

Certain things that have happened in his Presidency have arisen out of this background before he was president.

Reagan: In your article, I'm just going over your article again as we talk, you said in the article, "You learn that Bill Clinton grew up in the Dixie Mafia stronghold of Hot Springs, and that his brother, Roger, was a convicted drug dealer who was once taped during under- cover surveillance saying "got to get some for my brother, he's got a nose like a vacuum cleaner". You learn about sworn testimony that links Clinton to cocaine smuggling in the early 1980s. You learn that Clinton's chief of security in Little Rock was gunned down in 1993 by assassins who seem to be enjoying immunity."

And you go on, and on and on about all about all of these issues. Are you concerned about America that all of this seems to be going on , all this information is out there, and yet nobody seems to care?

Evans-Pritchard: Well, it does concern me, actually. I wouldn't say "nobody cares." There is a small block of the population that has been exposed to some of this essentially through Radio Talk and through the Internet, and they do care.

But, there is a very large kind of suburban, middle class that just doesn't know anything about this. I live in one of those communities and nobody around me knows anything about this.

Reagan: Of course, if they watch only the TV nightly news shows this is not covered.

Evans-Pritchard: It's not covered and the whole sense it that this is just a normal presidency.

Reagan: What happens now that you are going back to London. What will you be doing back there?

Evans-Pritchard: Actually, I'll be writing for the Daily Telegraph covering economic affairs and the European monetary union, which is what I was doing before.

Oh well, I'm sure Dan Rather and Larry King and the Crossfire team will take up the reins...

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), February 20, 1999.

"Guard your liberties. It is the trust of each generation to pass a free republic to the next."

From a Brit, no less! ;-) I wonder what Thomas Jefferson would think of that! (kidding----) How the world changes.

Thanks for posting this.

Let us hope, " you will rouse yourself from slumber to ensure exactly that. "

As Willy Nelsen sung: Mamas don't let your babies grow up to be illiterate, Let 'em read Jefferson and Paine & such.

OKAY THIS IS TOO SILLY!! STOP! STOP THIS SILLINESS! THIS IS WAY OUT OF HAND...

-- Deborah (trulylive@usa.com), February 20, 1999.

Ah yes, Thomas Paine, everyone should read his little book called "Common Sense."

-- bardou (bardou@baloney.com), February 20, 1999.

Andy, do you have a link? The one you gave has expired.

-- Ned (entaylor@cloudnet.com), February 20, 1999.

Either click here to get ... The Ambrose Evans-Pritchard Archive:

http:// www.telegraph.co.uk:80/et?ac=000152003558122&rtmo=qMeRxqM9&atmo= 99999999&pg=/et/98/12/22/wamb.html

Or ... search the Electronic Telegraph archives at ...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/et?ac=000152003558122& rtmo=0GeRiReq&atmo=99999999&P4_FOLLOW_ON=/ixsearch.html&pg=/et/ ixsearch.html

You need to enter the name (not Evans or youll pull up sports hits too):

Ambrose Pritchard

And select Find then a list of hits will be displayed.

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), February 21, 1999.

Thanks Diane!

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), February 21, 1999.