INTERVIEW WITH DEBRA VON TRAPP -- JUNE 26, 1995 I spoke by phone with Debra von Trapp in the early evening of June 26, 1995. What follows is an abbreviated transcript of that interview. The entire interview will appear in the August 1995 issue of the Conspiracy Nation Newsletter (see info below).
By way of introduction, Debra von Trapp was featured on a recent segment of the NBC Dateline "News" program. Said segment dealt with alternative, non-official views as to who was behind the tragic Oklahoma City bombing. Ms. von Trapp claims to have inside knowledge as to who was actually behind the bombing and why it was done.
Note that, as always, I neither necessarily agree nor disagree with either all or parts of the following.
-- Brian Francis Redman, Editor-in-Chief
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CONSPIRACY NATION:
How are things developing these days? Your interview with Sherman
Skolnick was well-received, at least in some quarters. What's
been the upshot of it?
DEBRA VON TRAPP:
Well just the exposure and people, I think, attempting harder to
get some answers regarding what's going on in Oklahoma City.
Because it's notable that the mainstream media has virtually
buried this story. There's hardly any coverage on the west
coast of it. And really, the only reason we're hearing anything
about it right now is because of Stephen Jones bringing Tim
McVeigh forward to do his interview with Newsweek and with CNN.
Otherwise, the FBI has virtually remained silent on it up to this
point because their story has fallen apart.
What I expect is, people come to understand that the FBI will not be successful with their cover story: there will be no evidence to connect McVeigh; that, forensically, it will be concluded that there was no "Ryder truck" or "fertilizer bomb" in front of the building. And, in fact, forensically, it will be proven that there were multiple devices inside the building.
CONSPIRACY NATION:
Do you see... Supposedly, there's some kind of deadline coming
up, on Wednesday [June 28th], with a looming trade war with Japan
where they're gonna be having these huge duties on Japanese
luxury cars. I don't know how to ask this, but is that like a
"bubble" floating to the surface? I mean, you've got all this
stuff going on beneath the surface. And you have a "bubble" that
floats to the surface, that everybody can see: suddenly, there's
this tension between Japan and the United States, where there's a
looming trade war.
DEBRA VON TRAPP:
The trade war was looming back on September 28th! And my
communication with Mondale and the American Embassy in Tokyo was
September 27th. And essentially, this went off-the-table and
became a behind-the-scenes negotiation between the Japanese and
the American government.
I see it happening two ways: either to simply, quietly go off- the-table again, or conversely, the Japanese will accept the sanctions -- and they have good reason to do so. It allows them to gracefully exit from a situation that has been extremely uncomfortable for them already. The Japanese government is losing a tremendous amount of money. And the Japanese companies that are actually manufacturing luxury cars here have been operating at a loss.
Clinton actually handed them a graceful way out, a way to save face, if, in fact, they accept the sanctions. Because then it gives them an excuse to gracefully exit the market. They can be looked on as not being the "bad guys" by suddenly pulling the plug on the financial dealerships and the people that are employed in that part of the industry that will be affected here. And, at the same time, they now have already begun (which they have failed to discuss publicly) to re-tool the same manufacturing facilities that have been manufacturing the luxury vehicles, are now being re-tooled (and have been, for months past) to manufacture cars in the under $35,000 class.
Therefore, they've been given a graceful way to exit, re- introduce the cars being manufactured at these same facilities at a lower price point, and they [the sanctions on Japanese luxury cars] won't have any effect, essentially. Because they won't be taking a loss on luxury cars; they'll be increasing the sales of mid-sized and mid-priced cars and, on the other hand, they gain the advantage of having the U.S. look like they've done something terrible to the Japanese!
CONSPIRACY NATION:
That's an interesting analysis.
DEBRA VON TRAPP:
It's a very well-documented fact that, when you look at the
numbers, and you look at the manufacturing facilities, that those
two events have been taking place: that they have lost heavily
on the luxury car markups, and additionally, that for months
prior to the sanctions they had already started re-tooling to
manufacture mid-priced cars.
It's something that the mainstream media, that is covering the trade sanctions, has not bothered to tell the American public about.
CONSPIRACY NATION:
Well, they're pretty much of a disaster. And speaking of them, I
saw you on Dateline, I guess it would have been last week. And
I sat down with the starting sense that, "Well... Whatever they
say, don't trust them." And with that as the groundwork, I wasn't
too bothered by a lot of the slanted things that I felt they
did on the show. And yet, a lot of truth was able to get through;
where they couldn't censor you totally. They were able to get,
allow you to "say your say". But then they, you know, kind of
"did their thing" on it.
DEBRA VON TRAPP:
They didn't accurately represent what I'd said at all! They took
a few moments of a clip of me, out of about a two-and-a-half hour
interview, and completely misrepresented what I said to them.
They contacted me. I never contacted them. They came to me and told me that they were doing a piece on the Oklahoma bombing and were interviewing people that had factual information to offer regarding it.
They never suggested that they were doing a theory piece. They never suggested that they were going to cover this in any way that they did. And, in fact, there're a couple of things that they totally misrepresented. They said I said the Japanese did it. That's not what I said. I said, "The Japanese government, through Matsushita and MCA Universal, provided the money to a team of U.S. federal employees, that were acting outside the U.S. government's authority, that contracted that bombing on behalf of the Japanese government." Our own U.S. government employees, and most specifically, Robert Goetzman, actually conducted that bombing.
Additionally, they represented that I said that I had been, for some reason, contacting my local police department with conspiracy theories. I have never, ever, discussed anything, politically, with anyone. I'm known for not doing it. I have never advanced a theory, regarding the government, in any political situation, to the Irvine Police Department or anyone else. There is no person at the Irvine Police Department that is designated as a liaison to speak with me. I have no idea where they got that statement. But if you listen to the careful wording, they said I had been trying to "connect the dots". And in that kind of careful wording, they leave a lot to the imagination.
CONSPIRACY NATION:
That [i.e. "connect the dots"] was by Chip Berlet, who's...
DEBRA VON TRAPP
Chip Berlet is a well-known CIA... operative, I guess would be
the best word to describe him as. He's been known as that for,
roughly, 18 or 20 years.
You'll also notice on the piece that they said that they didn't get my documents, that I wouldn't give them to them. However they tried to represent to the audience that they had Chip Berlet review my documents! I have never spoken with Chip Berlet. (He's really John Foster Dulles Berlet.) I've never spoken with him. I've never given him my documents. However, I did give Dateline all of my documents. And in the actual, live recording (which I video- and audiotaped that meeting with them), they, in fact, on camera and on audio... Chip Hansen admits, and even prefaces a question to me, by saying, "Well, Debra. We have all of your documents." What I'm going to counter that mis- representation by Dateline is that I have created an audiotape of the live interview [with Dateline] and have offered that to anyone who would like to purchase it, to cover the cost of this...
CONSPIRACY NATION:
How much does it cost?
DEBRA VON TRAPP
Fifteen dollars. Two dollars shipping and handling. It's a
seventeen dollar tape. If they send that to my address, PO Box
208, Irvine, California 92650. And in California they need to
include $1.16 for sales tax. What they get back is an audio tape
of the actual, live interview with me and Chip Hansen -- which is
vastly different from anything Dateline represented.
And additionally, just to end the discussion over whether or not these are factual documents, factual information: at the end of that live interview I have included one of the federal agents telephone call conversations with me, which I recorded, in which he directly says to me that they will kill me if I talk about the Embassy of Japan or the Executive Office.
CONSPIRACY NATION:
And how long does this tape run?
DEBRA VON TRAPP
What we've done is taken out all of the interim, set-up video
that we have, and the duplication of questions, and it's a 90-
minute tape.
CONSPIRACY NATION:
Okay, so it's an audio? Or is it video?
DEBRA VON TRAPP
It's an audio tape.
But it's clear: everyone introduces himself. You know you're listening to me and Chip Hansen. And you'll be able to hear all of the questions that he asks and all the factual information that was given to him -- including, they asked me if I'd give them my video and audio tape of these agents and the people: the Japanese Matsushita director that was across the street from my house that, on tape, admitted killing 20 babies in Oklahoma City. All of that information is offered during the interview. They refused to pick it up from me!
CONSPIRACY NATION:
What about, they closed that Dateline segment with, you
supposedly left a voice mail?
DEBRA VON TRAPP:
No. In fact, you know what that was? If anyone has that recorded,
and they listen to it carefully, and... They did a very clever
thing. They took two dash marks, on the screen, and two messages.
And the second part of that alleged statement [i.e., her voice
mail] is actually a question. And that voice mail was left in
response to an NBC affiliate, in Ponca City, Oklahoma, putting
out an erroneous report, on air, that Edye Smith {1} had, in
fact, stated that she was fully satisfied that the investigation
was complete, that she knew everything she had to know from the
ATF, that no one had not shown up to work [at the Murrah
Building], that she and her mother believed that the fact that
they [ATF personnel] had survived was the "will of God" -- when,
in fact, Edye never said any of those things and, in fact, Edye
emphatically denies those things.
And they'd even asked me that on-camera, and I had told them that, and they basically called me a liar. And I said, "Look. I have Edye Smith's phone number. I can call her and talk to her about this." And I, in fact, did that. I called Edye. Edye was kind enough to discuss it with me. I faxed a copy of the documents to her father's fax machine. I read it to her, over the telephone. And Edye emphatically said, "I never said that. I didn't say that. They've completely just given an erroneous report."
And so, I followed up with a phone message to Benno Schmidt, at Dateline, and left him a voice mail. And I said, "How could Ted Phillips(?), the producer of your affiliate, NBC in Ponca City, put this out and then not give a retraction? Because what it does is, it leaves the impression that NBC could be the front for..." And that is the rest of that message. The CIA -- it was a question! And they completely mis-represented the quote, and spliced two voice mail messages together. And if you listen to them, you can hear the intonation is different. The intonation on that last part of that statement is actually a question. And they mis-represented it, simply because they know this information is true.
When this information comes out, as people understand that NBC came after Edye Smith and then came after me, what they're going to ultimately understand is, Benno Schmidt, jr., on behalf of NBC, the CIA, and his daddy [former Yale University president], came after two mothers that were victims of this operation.
CONSPIRACY NATION:
Okay.
To recap your interview with Sherman Skolnick, the way I understand it is the actual bombing was contracted from Japan with MCA the reported distributor of the funds, and, allegedly, Goetzman actually arranged the bombing with a Special Ops team out of an Air Force base in Alabama. Is that substantially correct?
DEBRA VON TRAPP:
I'm going to leave it as "a base" in Alabama. I had never
designated it as Air Force. I designated it as a base in
Alabama.
CONSPIRACY NATION:
Okay. 'Cuz I might have... Talkin' with Sherman, I think Sherman
might have uh, he guessed that it might have been Gunther Air
Force Base.
DEBRA VON TRAPP:
And I have never, I have never designated the military
designation of the base. However, I am on record as saying that
Goetzman and I and others were on a national network
surveillance project reporting in to Gunther, and we
specifically were reporting to persons reporting to the base
personnel that were killed on the downed Lear Jet. {2}.
CONSPIRACY NATION:
Going back to this interview with Sherman Skolnick {3}: you had
said that Hillary, according to your information, had been
indicted on April 16th. And what Sherman says (he substantially
agrees that she was indicted), he says it was on the 17th. But he
basically agrees with you. And according to what he says, that
there was an alleged defect in the indictment and it was quashed.
Is that what your information is also?
DEBRA VON TRAPP:
I've been given no information that it was quashed.
CONSPIRACY NATION:
Okay. Because Sherman's sayin' that they're about to re-indict
Hillary; that they, indeed, did indict her but they challenged
the indictment, sayin' that there was some kind of a technical
defect, and so it was quashed, but that she's gonna be re-
indicted in the near future.
DEBRA VON TRAPP:
Well I can check that. Because my sources on that information are
entirely separate from Skolnick's sources. We just happened to
have the same information the same day.
CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah. And that's why it would be helpful. Because then you would
have corroboration as far as tryin' to get some idea of what's
goin' on.
Okay. I'm fairly well convinced that there's no way that this thing was done by a "fertilizer bomb". Would you say, basically, that "No way was this a 'fertilizer bomb'"?
DEBRA VON TRAPP:
I've been on-record since the morning of April 19th: there was no
Ryder truck in front of that building. Tim McVeigh had nothing to
do with this operation. There was no "fertilizer bomb".
There were three devices, to the best information that I have been given firsthand, there were three devices inside that building. I don't know how many were detonated. I have been under the impression, between a report I've seen from Ted Gunderson, that if, in fact, it was the device that he's describing, that it would have had a double reading that showed on the graph. That would mean that one device detonated. I know for a fact that the Oklahoma City Fire Department recovered one device with military markings on it. I don't know what kind of device it was. I don't know what happened to the third device.
So, it could be if, two devices, described as Ted Gunderson describes them, were simultaneously set, you could have two simultaneous double attacks on his graph [i.e., two seismographic "events" registered], and still have one device left over.
But my firsthand information is that there were three devices inside the structure.
Mainstream media has basically taken this event out of the newspapers and tried to support a fabricated cover story by the FBI. I've assured them that people like Ted Gunderson and myself are not going to allow them to dissuade us from bringing the truth of the matter to the American public. And with people like yourself assisting, and making sure that the communication stays open by continuing to post on the Internet -- that's what keeps us all going.
Stay tuned for Edye's father and the victims of Oklahoma being able to publicly announce that they have been empaneled, along with some state senators, to investigate this bombing and have subpoena power to do so. And that should be the next big step that we can make in the progress of getting to the heart of what actually happened here, when they have the ability to subpoena myself and Ted Gunderson to speak publicly, unedited, on-record, in front of the citizens of Oklahoma and tell them what we know.
---------------------------<< Notes >>---------------------------
{1} Edye Smith: background info. Below is a non-official transcript of a CNN broadcast which will help explain the context of Debra von Trapp's mention of Edye Smith.
CNN
SHOW: NEWS 8:29 am ET
May 23, 1995
HEADLINE: Victims' Mother Asks Why No ATF Were Killed in Bombing
GUESTS: ANDREA ARCENEAUX, Anchor; EDYE SMITH, Victims' Mother (LIVE);KATHY GRAHAM-WILBURN, Victims' Grandmother (LIVE);GLEN WILBURN, Victims' Grandfather (LIVE)
BYLINE: GARY TUCHMAN; ANDREA ARCENEAUX
ANDREA ARCENEAUX, Anchor: Watching among spectators were some of the victims' family members. CNN's Gary Tuchman joins us now from Oklahoma City with an update as well as some interviews we understand, Gary, with some of the victims' family members.
GARY TUCHMAN, Correspondent: That's right, Andrea and Bob....
[...]
With us right now is Edye Smith. Edye was the mother of three-year-old Chase and two-year-old Coulton, two little boys who perished when this building exploded. And standing next to Edye are Chase and Coulton's grandparents. Thank you, all three of you, for joining us.
[...]
Edye, at this point you're very busy. You've been talking to people like us, you've been talking to police officials, you've been with your family. But in the next couple of months when things start to get quieter here in Oklahoma City, do you think it will begin getting tougher for you?
EDYE SMITH: Yeah, but I don't think things are going to start getting very quiet, you know? There's a- there are a lot of questions that have been left unanswered, a lot of questions we don't have answers for, we're being told to keep our mouths shut, not talk about it, don't ask those questions, and I think things are going to get a lot busier.
GARY TUCHMAN: What kind of questions have people been telling you to keep your mouth shut about?
EDYE SMITH: Well, we've- just from the very beginning, we, along with hundreds and thousands of other people, want to know just- and we just innocently ask questions, you know - where was ATF? All 15 or 17 of their employees survived, and they live- they're on the ninth floor. They were the target of this explosion, and where were they? Did they have a warning sign? I mean, did they think it might be a bad day to go in the office. They had an option to not go to work that day, and my kids didn't get that option, nobody else in the building got that option. And we're just asking questions, we're not making accusations. We just want to know, and they're telling us 'Keep your mouth shut, don't talk about it.'
[...]
{2} Regarding the downed Lear Jet, from Skolnick's May 5, 1995 interview with von Trapp:
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Yeah. In other words, a day-and-a-half before, on Monday, April
17th, 1995, there was a high-level military group on a military
Lear Jet, that crashed -- apparently... Well, the story in the
press said that they were on their way from Andrews Air Force
Base to San Antonio. But, apparently, the plane blew up, or
something happened to it, as they were over Alabama.
DEBRA VON TRAPP:
Yes. Because the same, the Special Ops team that was under
Goetzman, contracted by he and his team, and paid for with
Japanese government funds through MCA Universal and
administered through the Embassy of Japan, in Washington...
Some members of a Special Ops team out of Alabama are
responsible -- both for the downing of that craft, and for
taking down the Oklahoma federal building.
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Well first of all, you believe that that plane was, crashed and
killed everybody, because of sabotage.
DEBRA VON TRAPP:
Yes. And it was specifically set to be downed over Alabama so
as to be recovered within that state.
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
I noticed that one of those on board had previously been on the
National Security Agency advisory board, also on the Army
Security advisory board. So that was a top-level espionage
person that died in that crash.
DEBRA VON TRAPP:
Right. And also, the person in charge of technical acquisition
for the Air Force, out of Alabama, out of the same base that
Goetzman and I reported into on the national...
{3} Sherman Skolnick's May 5, 1995 interview with von Trapp is available online. (1) telnet prairienet.org (2) logon as "visitor" (3) go citcom (4) sub-menu Oklahoma Bombing.
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