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From: georgina@easynet.co.uk [Georgina Bruni]
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 21:30:40 +0000
Fwd Date: Sat, 24 Jan 1998 17:03:53 -0500
Subject: William Birnes Interview

William Birnes Interview - August 1997 - Georgina Bruni

The William J Birnes Interview

William J. Birnes has a CV as long as your arm and his literary works are
too numerous to mention, but what is important to ufologists is his latest
best seller. A fascinating inside story co-authored with retired US Army Lt.
Col. Philip Corso, titled THE DAY AFTER ROSWELL. Corso, a former Pentagon
official who was Chief of the Army's Foreign Technology Division, claims he
was responsible for stewarding retrieved alien artifacts (found at the
Roswell crash site) to American industries in a reverse engineering project
which led to today's technology. I managed an interview with William who is
currently writing another book with Philip Corso, THE DAY AFTER DALLAS:
INSIDE THE WARREN COMMISSION.

Georgina Bruni: William, you have stated that Corso believes he's part of
the "Disclosure".  Can you elaborate on this?  I'm confused, if he believes
he's part of the "Disclosure" how did he come to that conclusion?

William J. Birnes: First, since the publication of THE DAY AFTER ROSWELL,
there has been only silence from the US Government - no official denials, no
statements to the effect that Corso has misspoken or is wrong, or is out of
line. In fact, the Pentagon has ordered the book for its bookstore as well
as bookstores at military bases around the US. Also the Navy has ordered the
book for some of its stores.  I take this to be a tacit Government
endorsement of Corso's book and what he says. Therefore, the Gov't seems to
be using him as part of a disclosure by default, a disclosure that doesn't
damage anyone's reputation. Phil himself believes that because of his
relationship with the late Arthur Trudeau, he had the ability and probably
an indirect green light from the powers that be inside the US military, to
tell the story of what the army did with the Roswell material.

Georgina Bruni: There as been much controversy surrounding Senator Strom
Thurmond's denial that he did not know he was writing a foreword for THE DAY
AFTER ROSWELL, but believed it was for a memoir about Corso's career in
military intelligence. Corso is said to have spoken to Thurmond and
requested a new foreword for the Roswell book, for which you claim to have
copies of both, as well as a signed release to use the new foreword. As yet
no one seems to have seen this evidence, is there any chance of researchers
having a copy of this signed release?

William J.Birnes: I will ask the publisher if I can be allowed to scan the
release and senator's cover letter so that it can be published publicly on
the Internet.

Georgina Bruni: Earlier this year Senator Thurmond attended a Washington
ceremony were he received the Pentagon's highest civilian honour.  "No
American has done more for America's security than Sen Strom Thurmond" said
Defense Secretary William Cohen.  Do you think this is a good enough reason
for Thurmond to deny he wrote the Roswell book foreword, and could it be
that this was a staged government production to honour him in exchange for
his co-operation in debunking Corso's claims?   Didn't Thurmond state "I
know of no such cover-up and do not believe one existed."

William J.Birnes: The statement about "No such cover-up" never came from
Thurmond but from his staff.  I think the award ceremony for Thurmond was
genuine and probably well deserved.  It had nothing to do with the foreword
to the book.  However, Thurmond's staff was genuinely surprised and
distressed that the Senator had agreed to write the foreword for Phil Corso
and immediately moved to snuff it out.  They were unsuccessful.

Georgina Bruni: In the book Corso mentions he saw the body of a dead alien
and that he couldn't tell whether its grey skin was real because it looked
like a thin one-piece head to toe fabric covering the creatures flesh. I
have heard similar reports of aliens bearing this kind of skin covering.  A
New Zealand abductee who claims he was in contact with an alien race, tells
an amazing story of a machine that manufactures these coverings.  The alien
steps into the tube shaped machine and is sealed from head to toe, rather
like we seal our frozen meat.  The skin covering is supposed to protect them
from our atmosphere and from radiation. Another experiencer from Sweden says
he has been in contact with aliens covered from head to toe in a second
skin. Does Col. Corso know if the US Government experimented with this fibre
found on the dead alien?

William J.Birnes: Corso says that the Government tried for years to reverse
engineer an atomically aligned fabric similar to the one that covered the
alien as a kind of second skin.  I think they gave a research grant to the
University of Colorado (I'm not 100% sure of this) to come up with a kind of
fabric based on the way a spider spins its web.  The idea of shrink-wrapping
or weaving the skin around the alien (and probably around the craft) is
correct. That's probably the way it happened.

Georgina Bruni: A British conspiracy researcher alleges that Corso was a
member of the Shickshinny Knights of Malta, a right wing group which
provided a base for dissident retired military officers who were
dissatisfied with the CIA's internationalism.  Can you comment on this.

William J.Birnes: I've never actually asked Col Corso whether he was a
member of any right wing sympathy group.  I do know that the British
researcher probably got his or her information from a book called "The Man
Who Knew Too Much" which refers to Corso as one of the people promoting a
"Two-Oswald" theory after the JFK assassination. In fact, Corso continues to
believe that there were two "Oswalds" and that the CIA covered up its
relationship with Oswald (Allen Dulles himself admitted to this shortly
before he died. Lee Rankin said that given what Dulles withheld from the
Warren Commission, the commission should have said that there really was a
conspiracy to murder the President). It's also true that Corso among a
number of military officers were dissatisfied with the CIA's
internationalism. In this he was joined in his opinion by British Military
Intelligence, where he was trained during WWII.  The split between the CIA
and the military grew out of tensions between the military and the OSS
during WWII and continued right through the 1980s.

Georgina Bruni: I understand Media UFO researcher, George Knapp has had the
Corso story for five or six years.  Corso apparently did a recorded video
interview with him were he revealed two close encounters with ETs in White
Sands, sketched pictures of an alien, and talked about animal mutilations,
Zecharia Sitchin and the Sumarians. Have you seen this video ?

William J.Birnes:  No I've not seen the video, but the Col and I have
discussed the story as the subject of a future book.