Back                                                     Sandy Burger                                                         Back to honesty

Days before the 9/11 Commission report was to be released. Someone leaked information that the former national security advisor Sandy Berger was being investigated for mishandling classified terrorism documents.

He was asked to review the documents for presentation to the commission & he said he had taken notes, which he had placed in his briefcase, and inadvertently took some of the documents that he had set aside to review later, as they were quite extensive. He claims he set them on some of the notes he had already taken, placed other notes on the pile then when he was ready to leave stuck them all into his briefcase.

Nobody at the time called him on taking these documents, even though several people saw him "shoving them into his jacket and paints pockets", not to mention that someone supposedly said that they saw him hiding documents in his socks.

Come on, I may not be a genius, but I'm not stupid ether. Number one if he could just walk out with his briefcase, why would he take a chance of being seen sticking documents in his coat or especially his socks? Number two why would someone who worked for the National Archives allow anyone, even the President, to walk out with classified documents? They would know the rules and would have stopped him before he got ten feet. Number three, if they had let anything like that happen, would they later tell anyone that they had neglected to do their job?

I'd also like to know, if they had seen him doing those things, why they didn't realize that they (the documents) were missing for at least a couple of days. Remember they called him to ask if he had the missing documents.

The F. B. I. plus the 9/11 Commission have stated that they had access to all of the documents that he had supposedly stolen. So if the commission had already seen the documents, which were by the way copies, what was the motive?

The F. B. I. hasn't pressed charges, and the investigation has been going on since Oct. of 2003.

Funny thing. Sandy Burger had been critical of President Bush. Oh! my God. wasn't there a leak to Robert Novak that former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife was a C. I. A agent? Hadn't he also been critical of the President's handling of the lead up to 9/11? No! I'm probable just imaging things.

I do know that because of the mistakes made by Sandy Burger and the fact that the Republicans & the Far Right are going to make it political, we may have lost a very knowledgeable and effective man in the war against terrorism. He has since resigned as John Kerry's anti-terrorism advisor.

Suggestion! Any documents or copies of documents that are seen by anyone in the National Archives should be checked out and checked back in before the person using those documents is allowed to leave the Archives. Commonsense after 9/11.

Update July 31st 2004: CNN news  No documents are missing & no charges will be filed against Sandy Burger this from an F. B. I. official. Why is it that people who leak information that seems harmful to someone don't bother worrying about whether or not it's true or important & why is that the original leak gets more press then the end result?