The Lethal Little House on the Prairie

Once again, Jack Cashill drops a giant bombshell.

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The Lethal Little House on the Prairie

by Jack Cashill

On Saturday morning, April 2, in full Hardy Boys mode, I found myself sitting in front of 109 South Second Street, a cracker box of a house in a flyspeck of a town called Herington, Kansas.

That Herington once chose to divide itself into streets of “north” and “south” speaks of some sweeping vision sadly unfulfilled. And yet for all its modesty, this vacant little house in this weary little town sits at the nexus of the great, untold story in recent American history. A little background on how I came to be there.

March 1

Gregory Scarpa, Jr. calls Stephen Dresch and informs him that a jailmate at the Florence, Colorado, Super Max has made him aware of a cache of explosives possibly to be used in an act of domestic terrorism. Scarpa is a New York Mafiosi; Dresch is a high-level forensic economist. Dresch informs the FBI. He is worried. Terry Nichols is serving time in that same prison.

March 2

Dresch informs me of the terrorist threat. This was not necessarily welcome news. I was flying to LA that night. I had first talked to Dresch in researching my book on former Commerce Secretary Ron Brown. An insurance company had hired him to investigate the 1996 Croatia plane crash that killed Brown. He knows a lot.

March 3

The FBI comes to Colorado to interview Scarpa. Having been burned once before—and more on this later—Scarpa insists on a cooperation agreement in writing before he talks.

March 4

An FBI polygraph expert claims that Scarpa is lying.

March 5

I have my first ever “Hollywood lunch.” The subject is TWA Flight 800, which long has interested the producer who invited me. So “Hollywood” is this restaurant that the cheapest salad on the lunch menu is $24 and Brad Pitt dines at the next table. Yes, he looks just like he does in the movies. No, Angelina Jolie was not with him.

March 10

Dresch meets with Scarpa in Colorado at Scarpa’s request. Scarpa shows him Nichols’ notes, which provide a detailed description of the bomb material.

March 11

After working out an arrangement with a contact in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Dresch passes along an offer to Scarpa. Scarpa reveals the location of the cache.

March 12

Dresch drives to where Scarpa directed him—yes, Herington, Kansas—and sees that the house on South Second Street is vacant and for sale.

March 17

I receive an anonymous letter at the Ingram’s office, purportedly from an employee of the cryptic NSA. He relates that on July 18, 1996, the day after TWA Flight 800 crashed, the NSA received a tape from the FBI and was asked to translate it. The language proved to be Baluchi. The translation: “What had to be done has been done, TWA 800 (last two words unintelligible).”

March 18

I email the letter to Peter Lance, a former ABC cor-respondent and five-time Emmy winner, who has covered this story. As Lance reported, Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the first World Trade Center bombing, was on trial in New York the summer of 1996 for Operation Bojinka, a plan to use planes as bombs to attack America. How’s this for chutzpah: on the day after the destruction of TWA Flight 800, Yousef, representing himself, deman-ded a mistrial because of the now prejudicial environment against people who blow up airplanes. He was denied.

March 19

Lance calls. Yousef was a native Baluchi speaker, he reminds me. In 1996 the FBI had put a mob informant in the cell next to Yousef. The informant promised to use his mob connections to place Yousef’s calls to the Middle East and elsewhere. Yousef took him up on the offer. In fact, the calls were routed through the FBI. Alas, the FBI could not translate the calls quickly enough. Worse, some went to Yousef’s uncle, Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, the 9/11 mastermind. After TWA Flight 800 went down, the Justice Department had to wonder what unwitting role it played in the plane’s destruction. In any case, there was to be no reward for the informant. Au contraire. Justice buried him for a hard 40 in Florence, Colorado, on a non-lethal RICO charge. The informant’s name—Gregory Scarpa, Jr.

March 24

Concerned that the house in Herington still sits idle, Dresch notifies Congressman Dana Rohrabacher.

March 31

Terry Schiavo dies in the morning. The Pope hovers near death. With all media attention diverted, the Justice Department makes its move, as the FBI visits the little house on the prairie.

April 1

The FBI returns for another day of de-bombing the neighborhood with the Topeka bomb squad in tow. I call Jeff Lanza of the Kansas City FBI office, asking whether the Scarpa info led to the bust. He has yet to get back to me. Lanza tells the Junction City paper, as paraphrased, “the FBI received the information during an investigation.”

April 2

I visit the house, but there is no one to be seen, no media, no police, no one.

April 4

Dresch and Lance spend the day trying to interest the major media in the Scarpa story. The media can’t be bothered. I contact The Kansas City Star. Neither can they.

April 5

Dresch learns of a “continuing imminent threat” that involves Nichols’ connection with Abu Sayaff, the Philippine wing of Al Qaeda, whose master bomber is the now-incarcerated Ramzi Yousef. As Lance has reported, Terry Nichols took multiple trips to the Philippines, including a late 1994 sojourn in which he and Yousef were both staying in Cebu City, a hotbed of Islamic fundamentalism, at the same time. “We do know that Nichols’ bombs did not work before his Philippine stay,” writes Richard Clarke in Against All Enemies, “and were deadly when he returned.” Dresch worries for Scarpa’s safety.

April 14

The AP “breaks” a story confirming the entire Scarpa-Nichols-Herington account that you just read. Says the AP’s Mark Sherman “The FBI refused to comment on the delay.” The General Counsel for the FBI is a multi-tasker by the name of Valerie Caproni. As a New York U.S. Attorney in the late 1990s, she managed the FBI’s eavesdropping on Yousef, prosecuted Scarpa and pulled the NTSB off the TWA 800 investigation. If I were a big-time re-porter, and not a mere conspiracy nut, my first call would go to Valerie Caproni.

And to answer your last question, it’s called “institutional stability,” and it ain’t good for the Republic, no matter who’s keeping the lid on.

Jack Cashill is Ingram’s Executive Editor and has affiliated with the magazine for 26 years. He can be reached at jackcashill@yahoo.com. The views expressed in this column are the writer’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of Ingram’s Magazine.