Prime Time Replay:
William J. Birnes
Co-author of The Day After Roswell
MsgId: *high_strangeness(77)
Date: Tue Sep 2 22:07:36 EDT 1997
From: Dennis At: 206.127.4.209
Out guest tonight is William J. Birnes, co-author with retired Col. Philip Corso of the "Day After Roswell." The latter is no in its 6th printing and I understand was briefly on the NY Times bestseller list. Could you tell us how you got involved with this project? Did Corso approach you or vice versa?
MsgId: *high_strangeness(78)
Date: Tue Sep 2 22:09:45 EDT 1997
From: Bill At: 207.217.12.193
I was originally retained by a motion picture company to interview Col. Corso about the missing prisoners of war issue in Korea and Vietnam. Through the course of our discussions, Col. Corso and I began talking about military history, especially as it regards the end of World War II and the German scientific advances in flight and weaponry. Gradually our discussions focused on Roswell and the role of Army R&D.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(80)
Date: Tue Sep 2 22:11:28 EDT 1997
From: Dennis At: 206.127.4.209
And so how did the subject of UFOs and Roswell come up? Whose idea was the book? Did Corso hesitate at that time because Gen. Trudeau was still alive?
MsgId: *high_strangeness(82)
Date: Tue Sep 2 22:14:31 EDT 1997
From: Bill At: 207.217.12.193
Finally, Col. Corso dropped the bombshell, preceded by his sending me articles from the Army about the technological development of lasers, irradiated food, directed particle beam weapons and the like. He said, "You know, don't you, that a famous German scientist Hermann Oberth said that 'We were helped,' and me meant helped by extraterrestrials?" I was astonished. Then he began to explain, making a long story very short, what the role of Army R&D had and how the Foreign Technology worked. That's it. From there we decided to begin a book on Roswell and the publisher suggested we do the Roswell book first.Corso began writing his memoirs in 1993, shortly after Gen. Trudeau died. He began writing as a way of keeping the records straight, but partly at the suggestion of the now deceased General Trudeau who had encouraged Corso to keep a running record and to publish it after Trudeau died. So that'w what Corso began. He worked on it for two years until 1995, and then we began assembling his memoirs into five separate manuscripts, one of which was the Roswell book.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(85)
Date: Tue Sep 2 22:16:53 EDT 1997
From: Dennis At: 206.127.4.209
You're aware of the ensuing controversy over the Forward by senator Strom Thurmond, who later retracted same when he learned the book was about UFOs. What's your side of the story?
MsgId: *high_strangeness(86)
Date: Tue Sep 2 22:18:17 EDT 1997
From: Bill At: 207.217.12.193
Here's my side of the story:
MsgId: *high_strangeness(87)
Date: Tue Sep 2 22:27:43 EDT 1997
From: Dennis At: 206.127.4.209
Yes?
MsgId: *high_strangeness(88)
Date: Tue Sep 2 22:28:32 EDT 1997
From: Bill At: 207.217.12.193
Col. Corso worked for the Senator after he left the Army, and the two had become friends. To make a very long story short, the Col. and the Senator had worked together during the Warren Commission and thereafter. Thus in 1993, the Col. asked Senator Thurmond to write the foreword for a book entitled "I WALKED WITH GIANTS," and Strom Thurmond agreed.However, very early this year, Pocket Books, seeing Thurmond's previous foreword for a different book, asked Phil Corso if he could impose upon the Senator to write a new foreword. Corso agreed to ask, and flew to DC to meet with Thurmond. At that meeting, the senator agreed wholeheartedly to write the new foreword. And Col. Corso promised to send him back the original foreword. Senator Thurmond added one element that Col. Corso didn't ask for. The senator said that Col. Corso could use the foreword for any book he wanted. Not just a book on Roswell. You see, the Col. had explained to the senator that "THE DAY AFTER ROSWELL" was about alien technology. So when Strom Thurmond agreed to write the foreword, it was for this book.
So the senator told Phil to use the foreword any way he wanted, and he signed the publisher's release. However, apparently, the senator never told his staff who, when they saw the press release, hit the ceiling. As a result, they denied the senator knew what he was writing or what he was writing for. But the publisher hung tough, refused to pull the book, and the senator agreed to settle for the foreword's being removed from editions after the first. That's It.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(94)
Date: Tue Sep 2 22:36:47 EDT 1997
From: Dennis At: 206.127.4.209
How did the writing process between the two of you work? Did you interview him on audio or videotape? Did he ever supply any original documents that would confirm his rather remarkable story?
MsgId: *high_strangeness(95)
Date: Tue Sep 2 22:39:37 EDT 1997
From: Bill At: 207.217.12.193
Videotape! Prior to beginning the manuscript, we interviewed Col. Corso on video, fourteen hours of which exist at the movie studio. Thereafter, I worked from Col. Corso's copious notes, documents that he provided, and material that he requested from Army sources. If I had specific questions, I'd ask them. Then, the colonel and I met and went over the manuscript in draft form. He made changes, corrections, revisions, etc.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(96)
Date: Tue Sep 2 22:43:03 EDT 1997
From: Dennis At: 206.127.4.209
Several instances in the book seem to be direct quotes from the report Corso reportedly wrote for Gen. Trudeau, also direct quotes from Trudeau's own unpublished autobography. Do either of these documents exist?.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(97)
Date: Tue Sep 2 22:44:11 EDT 1997
From: Bill At: 207.217.12.193
There were some documents to confirm the story, but they tracked the history of the technological development of lasers, for example, to show how the Army helped spur the research and development. Nothing, of course, mentioned UFOs.Yes, Col. Corso's reports exist as to Trudeau's memoirs. The reports are exactly as they are set forth in the book. They were never meant for attribution or distribution beyond Gen. Trudeau.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(99)
Date: Tue Sep 2 22:47:05 EDT 1997
From: Dennis At: 206.127.4.209
As you're no doubt aware, Corso's version of Roswell differs from what has been previously published. For example, he has Jesse Marcel at a crash site where bodies were recovered, something Marcel never mentioned, despite the numerous times he was interviewed.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(100)
Date: Tue Sep 2 22:49:17 EDT 1997
From: Bill At: 207.217.12.193
The book's version of Roswell is simply a compilation of Roswell stories as a background to what happened later. In fact, it was added at the very end because the publisher believed that not enough readers were familiar with the basic story. So I imagine there are hundreds of disagreements between the story in the first chapter and other versions of the story. But is meant to be only the most general of introductions.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(101)
Date: Tue Sep 2 22:52:28 EDT 1997
From: Dennis At: 206.127.4.209
Virtually everyone else has testified that any material was flown to Wright Field in Dayton, which makes sense. Corso has it coming through Fort Riley, Kansas, via truck. Charles Moore has recently pointed out that Fort Riley was 200 miles off the beaten path back then.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(102)
Date: Tue Sep 2 22:54:51 EDT 1997
From: Bill At: 207.217.12.193
I asked Col. Corso about this and he said that some of the material was indeed flown -- other eyewitnesses have told me the same thing -- and some of it was trucked. Back then, according to Col.Corso, Fort Riley would have been the natural stopping off point for Army truckers to spend the night.Again, Col. Corso makes sense when he says that the way the Army does business is to rely on redundancy. So they trucked some of the material, flew some of the material.
I don't know who or where, but there was another source that I encountered who seemed amazed that I had learned, from the colonel, that some of the crash debris was loaded on trucks and driven to Ohio. END
MsgId: *high_strangeness(104)
Date: Tue Sep 2 22:58:33 EDT 1997
From: Dennis At: 206.127.4.209
Final question: Corso's military record has recently been posted on the Internet. His final Pentagon assignment apparently lasted only 90 days, instead of the two years implied by the book. That's a pretty brief amount of time in which Corso claims to have changed the course of modern history, not only saving us from alien invasion, but leading directly to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(106)
Date: Tue Sep 2 23:02:41 EDT 1997
From: Bill At: 207.217.12.193
I recently saw the record as well and have forwarded a copy to Col. Corso. Whatever the record that turned up on the Internet says, it says. I can only respond that I've seen Col. Corso's secret Senate testimony transcripts about the CIA's penetration by the KGB, and the transcripts IN 1962 identify Col. Corso as the Deputy Director of Army R & D. So unless there's some code in the record as it appears on the Internet that I don't understand, the Col. was in R & D for two years from 1961 through early 1963 when he went to the Senate Internal Government Security Investigations Subcommittee.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(107)
Date: Tue Sep 2 23:04:28 EDT 1997
From: Dennis At: 206.127.4.209
Bill, I want to thank you for taking the time to speak with us. For Omni Online this is Dennis Stacy. Goodnight!
MsgId: *high_strangeness(108)
Date: Tue Sep 2 23:05:32 EDT 1997
From: Bill At: 207.217.12.193
Dennis, thanks for having me and goodnight.
Bill Birnes
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