Home > A Hidden Story Behind Sept. 11? One Man’s Ad Campaign Says So

A Hidden Story Behind Sept. 11? One Man’s Ad Campaign Says So

by Open-Publishing - Friday 12 November 2004
14 comments

Attack-Terrorism USA

By Ian Urbina

Republished from The New York Times

The New York Times covers the 9/11 Truth movement...

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.”

http://www.gnn.tv/headlines/headline.php?id=163

Forum posts

  • So what, blah blah...the best thing about 9/11 was that it brought our country together, if that is what it takes to unite this wonderful country then who cares? 3,000 people is a small number to sacrifice and if these "families" could look past their self interests for one minute they would realize that bringing this country back under one goal was a noble sacrifice no matter how it happened.

    • the above comment echoes my worst fears: extreme nationalism under the guise of national unity is how the nazis rose to power

    • I WONDER IF THAT IS WHAT BUSH THOUGHT WHEN SACRIFICING THEM.I DOUBT IT.

    • well you are gay. FAGET

    • SUCK MY DICK YOU SLUT MONKEY

    • Dude, don’t you have to pay first? Also, there really isn’t much going on down there is there?

    • President Bush is a good Christian man. He cares about you, dude. He loves democracy, freedom, Amerikkka, and guns. And Jesus. Amen. Oh, and he’s a good Christian with a Jesus-approved message of death and destruction. God Bless Amerikkka.

    • Bush hates his enemy and does not want to know the reason why a friend becomes an enemy. Bush does not have the love of Jesus. He makes his own way. In his eye, God is just a tool for him to use. He got 95% God’s law and 5% Sadan’s law. He will be the anti-Christ in the book of Revelation of Bible.

    • u have the gall to talk in such a patronising tone. You would not utter these same words if it were one of ur own family members had died in this tragedy
      You are a patheic person.

  • So what that 3,000 people died you SOB? Stuff you bogus "national unity" where the sun don’t shine, ’cause there is EXTREME national dis-unity and another fake attack is not going to divert it this time.

  • CNN covers 9/11 Truth Movement, own Poll: 90% believe in Cover-up

    Image Hosted by ImageShack.us
    Image Hosted by ImageShack.us
    (Graphic below: Final screenshot, 6:17 PM EST (11/11), after CNN closed the poll and also started to remove cached files)

    ad_building7.jpgImage Hosted by ImageShack.uszogby911_vv3.jpg

    (Poll-Update 11/11, 2:20 PM EST, Continue to VOTE at the cached Poll-mirror)

    November 10

    U.S. Mainstream continues to reflect 9/11 truth activism.
    Tonight, Anderson Cooper/CNN covered the 9/11 Truth Movement, including an Interview with Jimmy Walter (reopen911.org) and others.
    Meanwhile, on the left wing airwaves, Dave v. Kleist appeared today in an Interview on Air America, joined again by Jimmy Walter and John Hankey, creator of "JFK II – The Bush Connection", "a documentary that connects George Herbert Walker Bush to the assassination of John F. Kennedy.." Report continues...

    On CNN, Walter was confronted with author Gerard Posner.
    From the Transcript (REPEAT: 11/11, 4 PM/4:30 PM EST):

    "...Also tonight, 9/11 conspiracy theory. Have you seen this guy’s one, one man’s multimillion-dollar ad campaign? Tonight, we’re going to separate facts from fiction. We’re going to get to the bottom of it all...

    Tonight we want to look very closely at a conspiracy theory that is exploding on the Internet and on the airwaves. A California millionaire has spent a lot of money running TV ads, suggesting that we don’t really know the full facts of what happened on 9/11. Why World Trade Center building number 7 collapsed even though it wasn’t hit by a plane. Why the hole in the Pentagon was so small.

    In a moment you will meet the man behind the ads, an investigators who says there are answers to all those questions. But first here’s Deborah Feyerick with a look at the ads, and the allegations.

    (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

    DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The two ads suggest a government conspiracy and coverup, raising questions like why did a building two blocks from the World Trade Center Towers seem to implode?

    UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was not hit by aircraft. It had no significant fire and no explanation for its collapse has been given...

  • Wonderful to see a patriot out there getting some great information to the people. It is not even a question that there is a massive coverup going on.

    We have so many unanswered questions with the sham of a 911 commision. A counting of some of this information is found at the following article, with many valuable links to further information.

    http://www.awakeandarise.org/911coverup.htm

  • EXTRA! EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT! CAVEMAN COMBAT KILLS!
    A caveman from the other side of the world penetrated the greatest strategic military and intelligence defenses the world has ever known and slaughtered more than 3,000 people on our own soil with only 20 recruits!
    WOW!
    If that’s true, then we’re all in big trouble, people, and in order to survive, we must get rid of present failed leadership, eliminate the lies and liars—the traitors—among us and help our patriots kill the caveman, and elect wise and brave and truthful patriots to lead us.
    If that’s not true, then we’re all in BIG trouble, people, and in order to survive, we must get rid of present failed leadership, expose and kill the leadership that killed our 3,000 people and eliminate the lies and liars—the traitors—among us, and elect wise and brave and truthful patriots to lead us.
    If a caveman from the other side of the world penetrated the greatest strategic military and intelligence defenses the world has ever known and slaughtered more than 3,000 people on our own soil with only 20 recruits, imagine what a modern foreign military force of 2 million recruits would do: With present failed leadership, a modern foreign military force of 2 million recruits would wipe out our entire American population of 300 million!
    A once revered and honored war leader assured us long ago, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself,” so present failed leadership prioritized, categorized and colorized all our fears for us – but how do we know who and what to fear the most first? Should it be:
    A caveman from the other side of the world who penetrated the greatest strategic military and intelligence defenses the world has ever known and slaughtered more than 3,000 people on our own soil with only 20 recruits?—OR the modern foreign military force of 2 million recruits that would wipe out our entire American population of 300 million?—OR present failed leadership that allowed a caveman from the other side of the world to penetrate the greatest strategic military and intelligence defenses the world has ever known and slaughter more than 3,000 people on our own soil with only 20 recruits.
    Wake up and wise up, people!
    Stop believing lies and liars!
    Stop fearing those who fear us!
    Stop honoring cowards who dishonor us!
    Stop defending leaders who fail to defend us!
    Stop excusing failures of present failed leadership!
    Stop enabling hypocrites who worship only mammon!

  • Which of the following statements is true?

    1) Santa Claus is coming to town.

    2) On impact, one of Flight 93’s massive engines was propelled 600 yards from the crash site.

    Answer: 1