One hazard of this avocation is that bloggers become typecast. Right now, I find myself cast as the guy researching the Wilkes/Cunningham mysteries. Not a bad position to be in: Those mysteries deserve attention, and I am happy to shine my small spotlight upon them.
Some of you have asked anxiously: "So when is the next installment?" I had hoped to publish something this week, but shall have to put it off.
You see, the most original area of research open to me concerns Horizon Sports Technology, a firm which sued the many Wilkes companies in the first part of 2005. The San Diego court docket system does not reveal what the suit concerned -- merely that such a case existed.
Now, this matter is of broader public interest for a couple of reasons:
1. The FBI used Horizon Sports Technologies to investigate shady firms dealing in composite materials useful to the defense department. Basically, HST provided FBI agents with cover.
2. Group W Advisors -- the Wilkes lobbying firm -- represented a firm called Optimum Composite Design, a name which immediately struck my ears as redolent of the tale of HST-and-the-FBI.
3. Reader John Dean looked into the matter further and found that Horizon Sports and Optimum Composite Design have the same address.
4. Optimum Composite has a pseudo-website which is registered to PerfectWave, one of Wilkes' more notorious subfirms. (I still doubt that PerfectWave actually does anything, although the SDUT claims that this firm has made use of an acoustical technology developed by Scripps.)
Confused? Are the gears of your mind making a rattling sound?
Let me "bottom line" the ramifications. Here's one possible scenario:
Maybe the FBI has been targeting Wilkes for a year -- or longer.
What if the feds smelled something fishy about the ADCS operations long before the San Diego papers published their first exposure of Duke Cunningham? What if the FBI used Horizon Sports Technology to get the goods on Wilkes -- a probe which extended to Cunningham, to MZM, and to God-knows-where else?
Yes, I read that Josh Marshall column in which he lays out how reporter Marcus Stern first discovered Duke's shennanigans. But what if that isn't the full story? What if Stern called a friend at the FBI (reporters have been known to do that sort of thing)? And what if said friend told him: "Hey, you don't know the half of it. If you promise to leave the Bureau out of what you write, I'll tell you a story about Cunningham that'll make your hair curl..."
Such a dialogue would explain how some very obscure and difficult-to-obtain information found its way into print.
Can I prove this scenario? No. Am I persuaded of this scenario? Hardly. Are there alternative explanations regarding the Horizon Sports connection? Of course.
That's why I've been trying to reach someone who can fill me in.
I have a name. I know who to talk to. But I learned today that I won't be able to speak to this person until next week.
Those of you who have been asking me "Where's the new story on Wilkes, the one you've been promising?" -- well, now you know where things stand.
In the meantime... I've incurred the antipathy of some because I praised Cunningham's war service, even while denouncing his horrible latter-day decisions.
Let me first stipulate that we should not disrespect the military virtues. Although more than half a century has passed since the last "good" war -- by which I mean a war against a foe who truly sought global domination -- we may see such a conflict again. We may even see it within this generation. Bush has weakened our nation economically, and weak nations invite aggression. One day we will once again ask brave young men to defend this country, not to wage an overseas war of theft and aggression.
Now as in the Vietnam era, our anger should be directed at the men who engineered a foolish war, not at those who fight it.
That said...
It turns out that, contrary to the History Channel version of the event, Cunningham may not have battled North Vietnamese Air Ace "Colonel Tombs" on May 10, 1972. In fact, "Colonel Tombs" is almost certainly fictional.
That said, Cunningham (in his History Channel interview) never directly stated that his opponent was "Tombs" -- merely that he believed he had fought Tombs. And whatever happened on May 10, 1972, I'm sure it was frightening as hell.
6 comments:
You're doing some good work, so one doesn't like to carp, but I wish to god you'd leave the Cunningham hero narrative in the trash.
We could argue from here to the next invasion about the respect due "military values". Unfortunately, the civilian leadership and the military itself don't share that respect: that leadership is far more likely to drum honorable people out of the service these days, than celebrate them. This is inevitable, when the entire enterprise is at heart criminal.
There are no virtuous wars, and the fate of the U.S. is not in the hands of future Duke Cunninghams. Nor was it in Vietnam, except in a perverse sense: he helped destroy the country, which was the real objective of the U.S. invasion of Vietnam.
I don't know the source of this fixation on Duke's heroism, but it does you no good to keep indulging it in these pages, given the man's crimes.
Thanks John -- I agree completely. I should also add that the dramatist in me is FASCINATED by the idea of Duke Cunningham as the hero who fell from grace.
The purely evil villain belongs to melodrama. The villain who has (or once had) the stuff of greatness within him belongs to drama.
That's why Bush is so unsatisfactory as an antagonist: The man has no interesting or redeeming qualities. In essence, the Bush administration forces us to live within a really bad melodrama. By contrast, the Cunningham story, when judged AS a story, is much more complex and interesting.
If you live in Los Angeles, you're forced to learn a little about drama and melodrama. You must have an unproduced screenplay in your dresser drawer by the age of 30, or the mayor's office will revoke your residency permit.
I would like to add my 2 cents worth. I think the fact that he was a war hero IS important. If for no other reason than it's a platform that many decide to use as their backbone for say... a campaign. It is an important aspect of a persons’ character, how they deal with pressure under fire (literally or even not as literally).
I grew up in San Diego, a military town. My Father was military. This kind of grace under fire is imbued into the very nature of a persons being. It is not something that can be learned or bequeathed. It is inherent. I grew up with the name “Duke” Cunningham (as well as names like Hedgecock).
Actually, I am very sad about the reputation that San Diego has right now. Corrupt mayors, corrupt congress members, what’s next, Shamu’s actually a porpoise? Or maybe The La Jolla Cove seals are man eating illegal aliens?
Thanks for the heads up Joe. I do enjoy reading your musings regularly. It's essential reading IMHO! We'll be waiting patiently for more of your research. Thank you and keep up the good work.
Sorry, but I can't find the stuff of tragedy in the downfall of Duke. This is a guy who sold out the country for a Rolls-Royce. Not exactly Shakespearean in scope. A possible explanation for this miserable devolution of his is that his military service wasn't what it's made out to be, that heroism, in the Homeric sense, the noble Hector, etc., was never present in the first place. Either an over-hyped record, or just a post-adolescent hothead who was lucky.
That said, I agree with Joseph: Bush has absolutely no redeeming qualities, so his dishonesty, ignorance and crimes against humanity are of absolutely no interest from the dramatic point of view. It's just an unbeliveably bad very movie we all have to sit through.
But onward, there are more vital questions to argue about....
Joeseph--
I think you're right on with your FBI speculation. Keep in mind that Sibel Edmonds reportedly has said that while she was at the FBI, she was part of a MASSIVE governmental investigation into fraud, corruption, etc. by certain semi-legitimate businesses and organizations like Wilkes' companies. She was concentrating apparently on the American Turkish Council (which intringuingly enough, Plame's Brewster Jennings might have been looking into as well), but she seemed to hint that she was just one part of a larger investigation.
Would it were true! But I find it hard to believe that even a dedicated team of investigators at the FBI and prosecutors like Fitzgerald would be long for this world in an Abu Gonzalez led DoJ.
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