Sarah McClendon
1911-2003
YOU WILL BE MISSED! THE FIRST TIME I TALKED
WITH SARAH MCCLENDON
By Rayelan Allan, Publisher Rumor Mill News
The first time I talked with Sarah McClendon is etched on my mind like the scratches a diamond makes on glass.
An attempt had just been made to kill Gunther. Several of his friends died in the accident that was meant to kill him. Shortly after the accident, all hell broke loose, both in our lives and in Washington D.C.
Unknown to me, Gunther called his friend, author Rodney Stich within an hour of the accident. Gunther had Rodney record a statement. Gunther told Rodney not to release it unless his enemies were successful and killed him.
Rodney thought about it for about 5 minutes, and decided that the best thing he could do is make Gunther’s statement public. He called his friend Harry Martin, the publisher of the Napa Sentinel and played Gunther’s tape for him.
Harry wrote up the story and published it in his newspaper the next day.
Before I really knew what was going on, I had been invited to be a guest on Tom Valentine’s Radio Free America. Within days, Harry Martin was on the same show, and the following Monday a Washington DC based newspaper published Harry’s story on their front page.
BUSH MADE DEAL WITH IRANIANS, PILOT SAYS
Navy flier testifies he flew Bush to Paris for deal to block release of hostages
By Harry V. Martin
EXCLUSIVE TO THE NAPA SENTINEL
A BAC 111 aircraft, which had been reconfigured to carry a sufficient amount of fuel to travel 3,600 miles, left Andrews Air Force Base in the late afternoon of October 19, 1980. The aircraft's destination: Paris, France. The Passengers aboard the aircraft included the command pilot U.S. Navy Captain Gunther Russbacher, Richard Brenneke and Heinrick Rupp, on the flight deck; and in the cabin was William Casey, soon to be the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency; Donald Greggs, soon to be the ambassador to South Korea; and George Bush, the future Vice President and President of the United States and former director of the Central Intelligence Agency. There were also Secret Service agents aboard the aircraft.
Shortly after Harry’s story made the front page, several things happened in an incredibly short amount of time. After years of refusing to hold October Surprise hearings, Congress convened a Taskforce to investigate the charge that the Reagan Campaign made a deal with Iran to delay the release of the hostages. Most historians agree that it was the Iranian hostage crisis that caused Jimmy Carter to lose the election to Ronald Reagan.
The next surprising event saw the abrupt resignation of the Director of the CIA, William Webster! I had met Webster about two years earlier on Offutt Air Force Base. I could tell by the way he and Gunther interacted that they were close friends.
It was within these trying times that I first met Sarah McClendon. Ever since Harry had published the article, my phone had been ringing constantly. I had been on many radio shows and I had been attacked unmercifully. I later found out that the CIA had fielded an operation to discredit everything I tried to say about Gunther, his bona fides, and the October Surprise. Most of the shows were so painful for me that I sat and cried after each one.
Sarah McClendon called out of the blue one day. I still have NO idea where she got my telephone number. If you have ever heard Sarah’s voice, it is something you are not likely to forget. She began interrogating me like Nazi SS trooper. She wouldn’t allow me to fully explain things before she attacked what I said and told me that it couldn’t be true!
My heart was breaking. I still hadn’t seen Gunther since the attempt on his life. I didn’t know if there were going to be more attempts. I didn’t know if I would ever see him alive again. And Sarah McClendon was yelling at me over the telephone that my story was the wildest tale she had ever been told. My hopes of convincing her that we were telling the truth crashed and I was so hurt that all I wanted to do was hang up and die.
I was silent for a long time. So was Sarah. My cheeks were still wet from all the tears I had cried while telling my story. My nerve endings were raw. All I wanted to do was hang up and go in my closet and cry! Out of the silence Sarah said, “Mrs. Russbacher. I believe you! Now what can I do to help you keep your Captain alive.”
I was so stunned I could not speak! And quite frankly, I don’t remember much about the rest of the call except that somehow I mentioned that my cousin was Cordell Hull. That sidetracked Sarah and she told me about coming to Washington in the 30s. She said that the men in government were brutal to her. Most refused to talk to a woman reporter. But Secretary of State Cordell Hull was different. When she called him for an appointment, he agreed. My cousin Cordell was her first interview with a Washington insider. She said that after he agreed to see her all the doors were open. I often have wondered if Sarah would have treated me and Gunther as kindly as she did, if Cordell Hull had refused to do an interview with her.
It was through Sarah McClendon that Paul Wilcher became involved in our lives. Paul was a lawyer who attended Sarah’s Tuesday night get-togethers. Insiders from Washington were always at Sarah’s Tuesday night gatherings. People like William Sessions, the Director of the FBI, and Jerome Zeifman, Hillary’s boss during the Watergate hearings, were guests. Shortly after hearing about Gunther from Sarah, Paul decided he would come to Missouri and thoroughly debrief him. He did so with Sarah’s blessings.
One of the other people that became interested in Gunther’s story was Ross Perot. I expect that I am the only person alive who has had Sarah McClendon yelling at them in one ear, and Ross Perot yelling in the other. They are both from Texarcana, Arkansas and their accents were identical!
Sarah wrote many articles about Gunther and talked about him many times when she was on the radio. She was the first major reporter to take our story seriously. I am certain that Gunther and I both owe our lives to Sarah.
There will never be another Sarah McClendon. They broke the mold when they made her. I hope that tonight she is looking down on all of us and mad as hell at what is going on in our government. Hopefully Sarah will treat God the same way she treated Presidents, and let HIM know that he had better start doing some miracles here on earth before the stupid fools destroy it!
Here are three of the stories that Sarah wrote.
SARAH MCCLENDON: THE DEATH OF MY FRIEND PAUL WILCHER
SARAH MCCLENDON: I BELIEVE GUNTHER RUSSBACHER
SARAH MCCLENDON: MISTREATMENT OF RUSSBACHER IN PRISON
Sarah McClendon Didn't Let Go of a Question Until It Was Good and Answered
By Richard Leiby
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, January 9, 2003; Page C01
"Her voice will be missed at news conferences," Bill Clinton said yesterday, mourning the death of journalist Sarah McClendon, who hectored him and a half-century of other presidents. And what a voice it was: loud and shrill, ringing out like a lonely cry from somewhere on a desolate Texas prairie.
Some said it could curdle milk. It certainly could rankle the most powerful men in the world. And amuse those TV viewers at home enjoying the discomfiture of both presidents and the highly self-regarded press corps.
"She never held back," Clinton recalled. "She didn't just ask questions. She demanded answers."
Sarah McClendon, Veteran Washington Reporter, Dies at 92
By Adam Bernstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 8, 2003; 12:23 PM
Sarah McClendon, 92, a reporter covering Washington politics since the 1940s whose blunt questions made her a loud, unruly and often refreshing presence at what she considered choreographed press conferences, died Jan. 8 at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Washington. She had pneumonia and congestive heart failure.
