Who was Vincent Walker Foster and why should anyone care how he died? When he died on Tuesday July 20, 1993, he had been deputy White House Counsel for seven months. He was also the boyhood friend of President Bill Clinton and a former Rose Law firm colleague of Hillary Rodham Clinton. He died an ugly, violent death which was promptly ruled a suicide. His passing was officially investigated three times, with the second  (by Robert Fiske) and the third (by  Kenneth Starr) never having probed more deeply than the first by the U.S. Park Police which assumed suicide almost immediately, signs to the contrary notwithstanding.

Vincent Foster was a high ranking government official who died a violent death during official working hours.  That is why journalist Christopher Ruddy in his recent book THE STRANGE DEATH OF VINCENT FOSTER: AN INVESTIGATION thinks the public should care.The Foster case also  matters critically because of the reluctance or unwillingness of the official investigators to treat the case properly." (p. 19)

Christopher Ruddy's book is soberly written, one reviewer comparing its style and structure to that of St. Mark's Gospel for its sobriety and
sticking to the chronology. The book has a good maps, photographs, time lines, massive detail. It is the product of long, serious research and assists any reader who wants first  a quick overview followed by some sense of how a credible investigation might be conducted even at this late date.

Vincent Foster  was born in 1945 in Hope Arkansas. His next door neighbor and childhood friend Bill Clinton is now President of the United States. The family was actively Presbyterian and Vincent was graduated from North Carolina's Presbyterian-related Davidson College. In 1971 he took top honors in his class at the University of Arkansas Law School. He then went to work for Little Rock's Rose Law firm. He became the firm's chief commercial litigator. He was quietly but intensely civic-minded but no backslapper. He was handsome, reminded one friend of Cary Grant. He looked distinguished and organized his life and work elegantly and meticulously.

In 1993 Foster accepted President Clinton's invitation to join his
administration as deputy White House counsel. He was soon swept up in theWhite House Travel Office firings. He died July 20, 1993 hours after the President announced the nomination of Louis Freeh to replace the just fired William Sessions as director of the FBI.

Christopher Ruddy's book, THE STRANGE DEATH OF VINCENT FOSTER: AN EXAMINATION, puts beyond dispute the fact that  three official investigations were badly done. If truth is to be served, it is not too late for a fourth official probe, one starting with  a clean slate and an open mind, that is, no instant assumption that Foster killed himself on the spot where his body was found.

Perhaps, he did commit suicide. Certainly, Vincent Foster died an ugly violent death. We know that his body was found on the afternoon of Tuesday July 20, 1993 in Fort Marcy Park on the Virginia side of the Potomac River, near Chain Bridge. There is confusion, however, as to where precisely in the park the body was found. Eye witnesses of the corpse differed as to whether he had a gun in his hand. There were no grass stains found on his shoes. The story grows more and more confusing. Relatively few people were ever interviewed under oath. 

The official conclusion seemed to be suicide even before the body was autopsied. Photographs were lost. Those which were found were interpreted variously. The "suicide" note found in tatters in Mr. Foster's suitcase was declared an obvious fraud by three experts. Stories changed. Memories of keen-witted people grew vague. Consider New York lawyer and Clinton friend, Helen Thomases, famed for her iron will and attention to detail.  In the summer of 1995 when grilled by a U.S. Senate committee , "Thomases had a 'memory lapse' 178 times during her four days of Senate testimony..." (p. 126).

Late in 1995 New York TIMES columnist Maureen Dowd reported on  a letter written by Washington attorney James Hamilton. Ms. Dowd interpreted Hamilton's advice to the White House, in essence, simply to act "like Nixon without looking like Nixon," (p. 139) in handling the death of Mr. Foster. Hamilton recommended that the White House "should say as little and produce as few documents as possible to the press." (p. 140)

Mr. Ruddy's book has at least two "heroes," Miguel Rodriguez, who briefly worked in the Kenneth Starr investigation and witness Patrick Knowlton who has now brought suit against the government for misrepresenting his testimony. But by and large the behavior of White House officials and investigators does not create confidence that we know where and, more importantly why, Mr. Foster was killed: whether he did it himself or whether someone else did it.

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For Asheville TRIBUNE