The Mammoth Book of Cover-Ups

Dr Berman concluded that Mr Foster’s «last 96 hours show clear signs of crisis and uncharacteristic vulnerability.» Dr Berman stated, furthermore, that «[t]here is little doubt that Foster was clinically depressed … in early 1993, and, perhaps, sub-clinically even before this.» Dr Berman concluded that «[i]n my opinion and to a 100 per cent degree of medical certainty, the death of Vincent Foster was a suicide. No plausible evidence has been presented to support any other conclusion.»

In sum, based on all of the available evidence, which is considerable, the OIC agrees with the conclusion reached by every official entity that has examined the issue: Mr Foster committed suicide by gunshot in Fort Marcy Park on July 20, 1993.

Bill Clinton aide killed to prevent him blabbing about president’s illegal land deal: ALERT LEVEL 3

Further Reading

Christopher W. Ruddy, The Strange Death of Vincent Foster, 1997

Kenneth Starr, Report on the Death of Vincent W. Foster, Jnr, by the Office of the Independent Counsel, 1998

Freemasons

The whipping boys of conspiracy, the Freemasons have been blamed for every «evil» from the French Revolution to the Jack the Ripper murders, from Bolshevism to the death of Princess Diana. Their least, but most extensive, alleged crime is furtherance of their own interests against those of the «cowans» (non-Masons). Persecuted by Hitler and condemned by the Papacy in no fewer than seven bulls and encyclicals, the world’s five million Freemasons not only deny any malevolent wrongdoings but claim to be charitable workers whose only desire is, as the Scottish Rite puts it, «the guarantee of equal rights to all people everywhere». Far from being a secret society, the Freemasons are, they say, merely a society with secrets.

Eccentric bunch of patriarchal do-gooders or sinister agents of satanic forces? If the history of Freemasonry is examined, there is no doubt that the Freemasons are closer to the truth than their detractors.

According to Freemasonry’s own mythology, its origins lie in Biblical times, with the building of the Temple of Solomon by the master architect Hiram Abiff. After Abiff’s murder, Solomon ordered that his coffin be opened so that the secrets of the building genius might be known. The first thing that was found was Hiram’s hand. Thereafter a handshake became the secret sign by which Freemasons recognized themselves.

The Masonic authors Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas pursued the history of Freemasonry even further back in time, to Pharaonic Egypt, where Hebrew slaves learned the secrets of pyramid construction and Egyptian symbolism, later using this wisdom to build the wondrous Temple of Solomon. In Knight and Lomas’s bestselling The Hiram Key, Jesus himself was apprised of the Masonic secrets of Hiram, which were passed to the modern age by the Knights Templar when they stumbled upon the Temple during the Crusades.

Knight and Lomas are far from alone in identifying the Templars as the «missing link» between the masons of antiquity and modern Freemasonry. Chevalier Andrew Ramsay had done so in an oration to the Grand Lodge of Paris in 1737, further suggesting that the prevalence of Freemasonry in Scotland was attributable to Templar refugees who washed up there.

Freemasons and conspiracists alike have a vested interest in claiming a long pedigree for the Brotherhood. For Freemasons a foundation in ancient times suggests esotericism, for conspiracists the longevity of the Brotherhood is proof of its malignant power. Disappointingly for the Brotherhood and the anti-Masons alike, there is no proof that Freemasonry was founded in Ancient Egypt, even in Biblical times. In fact, there is not even evidence of a link between the medieval guilds of «free masons» (that is, stone masons who worked with «free» stone, the sort used in windows and façades of cathedrals and other grand buildings) and «speculative» Freemasonry. The first records of Freemasonry appear in the 17th century; on 20 March 1641 Sir Robert Moray was initiated into an Edinburgh Masonic lodge; five years later the antiquarian Elias Ashmole, founder of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, and the soldier Colonel Henry Mainwaring were initiated as Freemasons in the Warrington Lodge.

Moray, Ashmole and Mainwaring were entirely typical recruits to Freemasonry: they were gentlemen. Freemasonry became a fad amongst the 17th- and 18th-century squirearchy, who found the craft an enticing mix of conviviality, in-crowd elitism, daring occultism — and Enlightenment philosophy: Masons were asked to believe in a «Grand Architect of the Universe», a concept which suggested Rationalism.