He was found a, short time later, beaten to death. They were first put on the market in 1965, but during the first few years. one of the first jets designed and built specifically for business flying. Not so lucky was Pennsylvania Senator John Heinz III, a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that investigated Iran-contra and one of Tower's supporters in the confirmation vote for Secretary of Defense. Member, American Bar Association . . The pieces of wreckage were strewn all over a two-acre stretch of ground. One of the dinner guests managed to escape, and call for help. WHEN MINNESOTA SENATOR ERNEST LUNDEEN WAS KILLED IN A PLANE CRASH over Virginia on August 31, 1940, the Republican governor was able, according to the rules, to appoint a fellow Republican to fill the senator's seat. Nancy Beck Young, a historian specializing in 20th century American politics at the University of Houston who is featured in the podcast, said Viereck was on the lookout for members of Congress who were susceptible to his pitch, which included splitting the money Berlin was paying for the operation. 4) A ring jewel within the mechanism was installed off center. The doomed plane reported all well at 2:31 p.m., then headed into a squall. Weather conditions that day were reported as "scattered clouds at 400 feet, measured ceiling 800 feet overcast, visibility seven miles, thunderstorms and light rain showers, wind at ten knots." board to walk away without injury. The podcast describes an event in which angry constituents pushed Lundeen into a refrigerated rail car. Lovettsville is located in the northern tip of Loudoun county, Virginia, about five miles from Harpers Ferry, W. Va., and conceded by pilots to be one of the trickiest areas on the Washington Pittsburg run. Both men were, in the wrong place, at the wrong time. Walter Reuther was characterized as a Communist mole within the labor movement. Mrs. Ridgeway, who was born in the area and moved to the farm with her late husband in 1950, said they found evidence of the violent crash years later. It was only three sentences long. This letter was distributed to political leaders, corporate. Senator Ernest Lundeen from Minnesota killed. Mourns. Detroit Free Press. As progressives in the AFL-CIO try to rally their forces, they would do well to remember those few especially dedicated and gifted union leaders who understood the broader social and political dimensions of the labor struggle. Why. But it landed short of the airport, and crashed into 50-foot elm trees. Telegraph-Herald - Sep 1, 1940 Milwaukee Journal. Brand-new Douglas DC-3. As a member of the, UAW, I now enjoy many of the same benefits that Reuther obtained for its, There are some who believe that Reuther was murdered, most especially his. .The report noted "the fact that all-metal airplanes are frequently struck by lightning with no injurious results, and that the character of the lightning discharge, as well as its effect on the airplane and crew, in the present instance must be regarded as an extremely unusual occurrence." The accident, investigators said that the twin jet engines of the plane that carried, Walter Reuther and five others to their deaths had flamed out after striking, trees before the crash. He felt the United States had become a great power because it maintained its independence and wasnt constrained by alliances, said Ostermeier. They don't put them in Lear Jets. The jet Walter Reuther was on had been initially assigned a ferry job from Columbus to Akron, Ohio. NIXON called this "submission to blackmail.". He was an extraordinarily effective proponent of socioeconomic equality and an outspoken critic of the military-industrial complex, the arms race, the CIA, the national security state, and the Vietnam war. MinnPost's in-depth, independent news is free for all to access no paywall or subscriptions. NAS holds out the possibility the anthrax producer may have gotten it from somewhere else, that it was possible to get similar genetic results from other means (that is, suggesting thats not the only way to have produced the samples found in the letter). Right after her husband died in the crash, Norma Lundeen traveled to Washington, D.C. to remove a file that contained all the correspondence between Lundeen and Viereck from her husbands Capitol Hill office. After talking to a scheduler for the Wellstone campaign, however, he reversed his decision and took off for Eveleth with Senator Wellstone and 7 others aboard. The resulting report warned of radical right elements inside the military and urged the president to dismiss generals and admirals who engaged in rightist political activities. If you have questions, emaileditors@minnpost.com. He was replaced by Joseph Ball, a 34-year-old St. Paul newspaper reporter appointed by Gov. Lawyer ; Judge, Missouri St. Louis Court of Appeals, 1916-40; defeated, 1940; mayor of St. Louis, Mo., 1941-43; died in office 1943. The MSM is already handling that assignment, and they're doing a heck of a job. Victor Reuther named CIA labor operatives and CIA-founded unions. The four members of the crew killed included Pilot LOWELL SCROGGINS, the Airlines oldest pilot in point of service, who was at the controls of the first ship dispatched from Washington by the company thirteen years ago. newspapers: Christian Science Monitor (CSM), Detroit Free Press (DFP), Detroit News (DN), Michigan Chronicle (MC), and New York Times (NYT). The altimeter, however, had only been partially opened by crash events and the rocking shaft in question was still shielded by the altimeter's case. He was on his way to address an all-state picnic of Minnesota Townsend Clubs when his career ended abruptly in an airplane crash near Lovettsville, Virginia, in August 1940. Steven Spielbergs production company, Amblin Entertainment, has recently purchased the movie rights to Maddows podcast. The sensational charges prompted the Senate to order an investigation into the crash a month later, even though FBI director J. Edgar Hoover denied that the two agents killed in the crash had Lundeen under surveillance, and a coroners inquest in the county where the crash occurred concluded it was the result of a violent thunderstorm, a possible lightning strike on the plane, and possibly pilot error. Aside from the fact it had no past, there were many other strange things about the captain's altimeter: A report from the Barfield Instrument Corporation dated May 19, 1970, stated: "One of the set screws was out of the rocking shaft, allowing the calibration arm assembly to be loose in the shaft. Ernest Lundeen Memorial. I visited the site of the Lundeen plane crash some 36 miles west of Washington on Aug. 25 and spoke with 82-year-old Phyllis Ridgeway, who lives on a 60-acre farm across the road from the crash site. That is not what my research has, proven. Maddow: The widow of Senator Ernest. Having succeeded in partnering with Lundeen, Viereck eventually enlisted another two dozen or so U.S. Senate and House members to help him establish a mass-mailing Nazi propaganda effort run out of the U.S. Capitol. Senator: Near Lovettsville, Virginia: Pennsylvania Central Airlines Douglas DC-3 NC21789 cn:2188: Flying through a thunderstorm in turbulence the plane nosed over and plunged to earth. ..Indication that the pilot. The altimeter looked intact, even though it had been tampered with. (WTC 7 collapse comes to mind as a similar official determinationunprecedented event). JOSEPH J. PESCI, 213 W. Market St., Blairsville, proctor at Duquesne university, Pittsburgh. What good is a dollar an hour more in wages if your neighborhood is burning down? All of these types were essentially military." He elaborated: "Walter Reuther became a dove in the middle of the Hubert Humphrey - NIXON election. Victor Reuther: "My brother came out against it and that opposition persisted through the Johnson years. On May 11, 1970 (two days after the fatal crash), the DN set itself apart from all four, of the other papers, when an article was printed asking: What caused the, crash of Reuthers jet? It is frequently swept by wind and rain driven in cross currents through the Shenandoah mountains that loom on either side. On the evening of May 9, 1970, Reuther, along with his wife. Again, there was no indication from the crew over the radio that any problem, Officials at Executive Jet Aviation in Columbus, Ohio, where the jet was, based, said Evans was probably one of the most experienced Lear Jet pilots. Senator John Heinz (R-Pa.) which collided in the air with a helicopter and crashed to the . This second son of, a German immigrant couple was born on September 1, 1907, in Wheeling, West, Virginia. Trevor Lawrence threw four interceptions (one short of a Nathan Peterman) and the Chargers took a . The Detroit Police claimed that neighbors had been, complaining about his barking dog. The speech written for Sen. Ernest Lundeen by a paid Nazi agent. Lundeen doesnt do any of these things. Washington The death of 128 persons in Saturday's tragic two-plane crash points up weaknesses in the nation's 21-year-old air traffic control system. You said you don't know much about the crash and think the report contradicted itself but I see no sign you actually read the report even though I posted a link to it several days ago. 12 May 1970. At Pittsburgh, headquarters of the Pennsylvania Central, http://www2.dailyprogress.com/lifestyles/cdp-lifestyles/2009/mar/01/1940_air_crash_took_a_toll_not_soon_forgotten-ar-67718/, http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/11/01/fbis-robert-mueller-still-engaging-in-an-anthrax-cover-up/, http://www.webcorp.com/civilrights/malcomx.htm, http://libraryonline.erau.edu/online-full-text/ntsb/aircraft-accident-reports/AAR71-03.pdf, http://karws.gso.uri.edu/Marsh/Bay_of_Pigs/nodule23.htm. What good is another $100 pension if the world goes up in atomic smoke?" Airport, Pellston, Michigan, May 9, 1970, Report No. (Equally ironic is the fact that Rep. Larry McDonald, the Georgia Democrat who headed the anti-communist John Birch Society, was killed on Sept. 1, 1983, along with 268 others whentheir Korean Air jetliner was shot down by Soviet interceptors after it strayed into Soviet air space enroute to Seoul from Alaska. I decided to focus my research on May 9, 1970 (the day of Reuthers death), through the end of that month. His father, Valentine, a socialist, trained. The captain's altimeter showed a reading of 1400 feet M.S.L. David O. Norris, a private detective hired by Elizabeth Reuther Dickmeyer, youngest daughter of Walter Reuther, discovered evidence to the contrary: "Just hours after the crash a reporter from the Detroit News talked to the night dispatcher at Butler Aviation who said he knew that Walter Reuther was on the plane." The link pin of the same rocking shaft was incorrect. That afternoon a Pennsylvania CentralAirlines DC-3 transport dived full speed into a field near Lovettsville, Virginia. The report also faulted J. Edgar Hoover for exaggerating "the domestic Communist menace at every turn" thus contributing "to the public's frame of mind upon which the radical right feeds. LUNDEEN TOOK VIERECK DATA; Former Secretary to Senator Testifies That Widow "Stripped' Files of Records TELLS OF SPEECH-WRITING Witness Asserts Joint Effort Produced Anti-British Attack -- Viereck Paid by Nazi February 25, 1942, Wednesday http://query.nytimes.com/beta/search/query.&submit=sub SIDELIGHTS OF THE WEEK . When the investigation was complete, two scenarios were provided for the most likely cause of the crash. The unit was exposed to 10,000 ft. pressure altitude, then the return scale error readings were recorded.". It had never had a fatal crack-up in 13 years of operation. The lawmakers involved with Viereck all lost their seats in their next election. Dorothy M. Beer 24 Feb 1913 - 31 Aug 1940. . Braden was born in Dubuque, Iowa, on February 22, 1918. The investigators recovered an altimeter believed to be the pilot, s and took it back to Washington, DC for analysis.12, The DFR, DN, MC, and NYT all printed the initial findings of the National, Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), but the final report that was released, on December 22, 1970 was totally ignored. addressed the possibility that he may have been murdered. The FAA/NTSB found "no indication of sabotage." CRASH KILLING 25 LAID TO LIGHTNING; CAA Reports Bolt Disabled Pilots of Plane Carrying Senator Lundeen DISCOUNTS TURBULENT AIR Jump-Seat Occupant, Thrown Into Control Cockpit, Might Have Disrupted . While the AFL-CIO was proclaiming its support for Nixon's escalation of the war and his anti-ballistic missile program, the ALA was lobbying hard against both. But the prosecutor, John Rogge, went on to collect new information about the conspiracies in Germany after the U.S. military obtained control of Nazi government documents. Nixon's invasion of Cambodia and the killing of four students at Kent State University prompted Reuther-the day before his death-to send a telegram to the White House condemning the war, the invasion, and "the bankruptcy of our policy of force and violence in Vietnam?' In the . I didn't come here to be insulted. Steve Schlossberg told this researcher: "It's not my field. He felt that, violence towards those that would do him and his supporters harm was, 3) Martin Luther King was murdered on April 4, 1968. Heinz, 52, was in his third term in the U.S. Senate. time (of the crash). But Rogges continued warnings of the fascist threat to the United States had an impact. The crew was experienced: Captain Evans with 7760 flight hours and his copilot, Karaffa, with 6533. that it is basically the same environment that allowed the deaths of JFK, Malcolm X, RFK and MLK. in Episode one, features Senator Lundeen, the plane crash, and more. union in America provided him with many resources to promote his agenda. 10) The News in Brief. Christian Science Monitor. Others residents in the district and the tiny town five miles from the confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac rivers said they had heard the plane circling for a time before the crash. But in court last week, Hill admitted that: He had served as handy man of a propaganda ring managed by Viereck and Prescott Dennett, Washington publicist. Does false consciousness exist? All 25 on board were killed, including US Senator Ernest Lundeen of Minnesota. He ran unsuccessfully for the United States Senate in the 1922 election and the 1923 special election. Chuck Grassley asked Mueller several questions about the anthrax investigation. Lundeens secretary, who was tasked with driving the senator to the airport for that ill-fated trip, testified to the FBI that she found Lundeen in his Capitol Hill office crying inconsolably. However, the Civil Aeronautics Board, created only a year earlier after Sen. Bronson Cutting of New Mexico was killed in a plane crash ironically, Lundeen pushed for the legislation that created it raised further doubts in November when it issued an 87-page report of its investigation into the accident, even while concluding that the accident probably was caused by an extraordinary lightning effect., The report noted the fact that all-metal airplanes are frequently struck by lightning with no injurious results, and that the character of the lightning discharge, as well as its effect on the airplane and crew, in the present instance must be regarded as an extremely unusual occurrence. It added, Nothing within the ordinary range of experience and no combination of events of which the occurrence could be regarded as at all likely, would have sufficed to have produced this accident., Whatever the actual cause of the accident, Lundeens death had far-reaching political repercussions, just as Wellstones death did when Republican Norm Coleman defeated former Vice President Walter Mondale, who was a last-minute stand-in for Wellstone just 12 days before the election, and led eventually to Colemans defeat by Democrat Al Franken last November after a marathon vote recount. A South Dakota native who graduated from Carleton College and the University of Minnesota Law School, Lundeen had a passion for politics. He added that he believed the altimeter had been tampered with during the earlier plane crash, and that the two accidents were related. When we plowed our garden, we found pieces of the airplane and even a human tooth, she said. 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