First Strike: TWA Flight 800 and the Attack on America (Hardcover)

~ (Author), James Sanders (Author) "Only those who live by the sea know how mesmerizing the sea can be..." (more)
Key Phrases: center wing tank, residue trail, wing tank explosion, White House, Long Island, New York Times (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

For conspiracy buffs and skeptics alike, Cashill and Sanders' reconstruction of the investigation into the July 1996 explosion of TWA Flight 800 is a real page-turner. The authors, who also produced the video Silenced: Flight 800 and the Subversion of Justice, contend that the U.S. government, from the White House to the NTSB, FBI and CIA, systematically tried to obscure the real cause of the explosion with a false theory of mechanical failure. The cover-up, the authors maintain, was motivated by then-incumbent President Clinton, who decided that "only a catastrophe...could prevent his reelection in November. He would not let Flight 800 be that catastrophe." Cashill and Sanders make use of evidence from FBI witness summaries, transcripts of agency meetings and reports, conflicting press coverage, scientific data and their own interviews with witnesses and experts to conclude that TWA Flight 800 was brought down by a Navy missile, whose intended target was a terrorist plane on a collision course with the passenger aircraft. Throughout the book, the authors make much of what they cast as the mainstream media's collusion with government agencies in parroting the official (read: Democratic) party line on the investigation, such that "no newsroom more influential than the Riverside, California, Press-Enterprise would dare to look beneath the surface." But Cashill and Sanders are by no means above politics, and often cannot conceal their contempt for Clinton and his sympathizers: "Two decades spent abusing the power with which Clinton had been entrusted had permanently corroded his character," they write. Whether such sentiments enhance or detract from the authors' argument depends on the personal leanings of the reader, of course. But sadly, whatever one's political views, in a post-9/11 world, a terrorist-related theory regarding Flight 800 sounds much less far-fetched than it may have to many in the comparatively innocent days of 1996.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Description

September 11, 2001, did not represent the first aerial assault against the American mainland. The first came on July 17,1996, with the downing of TWA Flight 800. This book looks in detail at what people saw and heard on this fateful night.

First Strike explains how a determined corps of ordinary citizens worked to reveal the compromise and corruption that tainted the federal investigation. With an impressive array of facts, Jack Cashill and James Sanders show the relationship between events in July 1996 and September 2001 and proclaim how and why the American government has attempted to cover up the truth.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: WND Books (March 5, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0785263543
• ISBN-13: 978-0785263548
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #500,755 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

41 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent!, March 13, 2003

By	Joyce Mucci (Kansas City, Missouri United States) - See all my reviews

While hundreds of Long Island residents prepared for their evening cookout with friends, and some were enjoying those last few hours out on the water before dark, the passengers and crew of TWA Flight 800 were boarding for a routine flight to Paris. Little did the residents of Long Island or the passengers and crew of Flight 800 know that their lives would become inexorably entwined on the evening of July 17, 1996.

Their story and the case against the federal investigatory process are the subjects of a new book, First Strike.

For the record, First Strike is not a conspiracy book. It is, first and foremost, a book about people: What they saw, what they did and what they didn't do.

In a perfect world - where everyone does the right thing - this book would not have needed to be written. But, because of the people involved, it had to be written.

Authors Jack Cashill and James Sanders expertly fill in the blanks of the massive disaster that befell the passengers and crew of Flight 800. The evidence presented against the Clinton administration and the federal authorities- whose job it was to find and then tell the truth to the American people -is factually detailed in a dispassionate orderly fashion.

Important as well is the authors skill in placing the reader into the lives of the defenseless: the victims and their surviving families, the eye witnesses, and the technical experts that - still to this day - challenge the government's conclusions.

Without question, airplane disasters are not pretty. They are grisly, painstakingly detailed work that should have one goal in mind: to find out what happened.

But in the case of Flight 800, the investigation (and the investigators) and the subsequent government conclusions were missing a key element - the truth. Moreover, they went out of their way to invent new ones to explain away what was obvious to most.

For example, a FAA radar tape is usually a useful tool in the investigatory process of airline crashes. Usually.

"When Ron Schleede of the NTSB first saw the data, he exclaimed, 'Holy Christ, this looks bad.' He added later, 'It showed this track that suggested something fast made the turn and took the airplane.'"

That was Schleede's reaction on the night of July 17, 1996. On July 18, the New York Times reported that an "unnamed government official revealed that air traffic controllers did pick up a mysterious blip that appeared to move rapidly toward the plane just before the explosion. The officials and the Times linked the radar to eye-witness sightings to a missile attack.

However, "By July 19, the government had gotten its story straight." In the end, what was obvious to everyone (radar experts, eye-witnesses and even the New York Times) was explained away.

Throughout the book the authors use of federal investigator's own words, official reports, and the curious behavior of administration operatives draws the reader into the political maze of the Clinton administration's refusal to publicly acknowledge what it knew about the demise of Flight 800.

Equally important, the book brings home the message that qualified experts (decorated war pilots, honest law enforcement personnel and experienced mariners) are not to be trusted where politics and approval ratings reign supreme.

In the end, the politics of the day dictated how an airplane disaster of this magnitude was to be investigated. The truth about Flight 800 was secondary to expediency, and the surviving families derived little comfort from the far-fetched explanations of the federal government. The authors come to the entirely damning conclusion that had Clinton told the truth on July 17, 1996, September 11, 2001 would have been just another day.

First Strike is the tale of the people who perished, of the people who watched them perish and of the people who refused to acknowledge the truth.

It was, after all, an election year.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another JFK type Cover-up?, December 1, 2005

By	Freddie Venezia (Port Saint Lucie, Florida) - See all my reviews

As a person that worked as a mechanic for TWA for almost 35 years, I can say that the US Government's explanation of the cause for TWA 800 to fall from the sky is highly suspect. I worked on the aircraft in question; 17119, 100's of times and many times on the systems that the government claims to have malfunctioned. It did not happen the way the government claims.

How it did happen is spread before you like a fictional mystery novel by the author in "First Strike". It is tragic that it is not fiction, because once again, our elected government has seen fit to lie to the electorate.

If the truth had been released about TWA 800, maybe 911 could have been averted. We will never know. I do know some things: More than a hundred people saw the missiles headed for TWA 800 and airplanes do not gain altitude after being blown up. The government's case relies on saying that all those people had simultaneous illusions of rising streaks of light and then asks you to suspend physics in order to make their case plausible.

The authors of "First Strike" tell you what really happened.

41 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fusillade of facts ... now what?, April 18, 2003

By	Grimmy "Grimmy" (MD USA) - See all my reviews

I don't know if their theory holds up, but one thing I can say - the abundance of fact and eyewitness testimony the authors cite do reveal a startling confluence of incompetence, political calculation trumping honesty, and seemingly purposeful mishandling or concealment of inconvenient data on the part of the Clinton administration ... the sum total of which might explain the former president's incessant, wrongminded bloviating during this time of war on terror: once more, seeking to lay the blame on someone else.

Also troubling is the failure of the major newspapers to ask hard questions, interview relevant witnesses and experts, and apply more skepticism to the proclamations issuing from the administration - a failure not likely to redeem their image as the bastions of leftism. Their sloppy journalism has allowed a selfish delusion to be perpetrated on the American public until now.

From the first interview until the last, many of knowledgeable witnesses with military experience, from the first surprising fact until the final revelations, you will be shocked at how much was kept hidden from public view in our present age of information. What you make of these facts is up to you.