27 years ago today .... The Challenger Explosion .... thanx to St. Ronald Reagan

[Coyotl]

38. Both WRONG and COVER-UP story too.

Ronald Reagan could have talked all he wanted about a teacher in space before the launch, so forget that angle. Actually, don't forget that angle, because it would not be needed if it were not that a really awful reason DOES need to be covered up.

The timing of all this and the "need" to not cancel the launch is most interesting from the Central America perspective, where V-P Bush is committing crimes, giving 100 million dollars of aid to the Contras in violation of the Boland Amendment. This is a few months before the Iran-Contra scandal becomes public, a year before American Ben Linder is assassinated in Nicaragua by the guys Bush covertly funded. If the launch was scrubbed, Bush in Central America would have been the big news focus instead. The Challenger schedule and the decision to not alter it was more likely linked to Central America crimes than Reagan's words. Reagan could say just about the same thing either way, in space or going to be in space in a few days.

The real need of the moment was keeping the Iran-Contra scandal under wraps. There was plenty to keep covered up and away from press focus, the assassination gone wrong in Costa Rica murdered an American journalist, the 10 million dollar mistake by Ollie North to fix, the cocaine connections and the Noriega problem, plus Bush was adding to the litany of crimes in real time. The White House basement crew knew what a horrible position they were in when this decision came down. The Challenger explosion was even better better cover-up/distraction than the launch, and it took until Fall for the story to finally break. Proof of the role of Bush's crimes in the schedule remain unproven.

Today the context of the decision in not so obfuscated that we should believe your fairy tale meme about the State of the Union speech! For those of us involved in this story, in Central America and writing about it then, the underlying relationships and reasons were already as clear as that cold morning in Florida. What was also very clear to journalists by that time that the murder of an American journalist was being covered up along with the illegal support going to Reagan's not-so-secret mercenary army. A couple of days later, this journalist barely survived nine stab wounds, in my view more evidence of the gravity of the story I was penning.