Who Was Philip Merrill (Levine)?Career and philanthropyBorn Philip Merrill Levine, he was a graduate of Cornell University and Harvard Business School. He was president and CEO of Capital-Gazette Communications, Inc., which publishes Washingtonian magazine, the Annapolis Capital, and five other Maryland newspapers. His wife, Eleanor, succeeded him as publisher.
Merrill served as counselor to the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy from 1981 to 1983; as a member of the Defense Policy Board from 1983 to 1990; and as assistant Secretary General of NATO in Brussels from 1990 to 1992 under President George H. W. Bush. He was appointed to head the Export-Import Bank of the United States by George W. Bush, serving from 2002 to 2005.
In 1988, he received the Medal for Distinguished Service from the Secretary of Defense.In 2001, Merrill donated $10 million to the College of Journalism at the University of Maryland, College Park, which now bears his name. He also donated $4 million in 2003 to create the Center for Strategic Studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, headed by neoconservative scholar Eliot Cohen. <1>
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Merrill Apparently Shot Himself On the BayBy Eric Rich
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 21, 2006; A01
Philip Merrill, the prominent publisher and former diplomat whose body was found floating in the Chesapeake Bay on Monday, apparently took his own life after struggling with a heart condition for more than a year, his family said last night.
Merrill, 72, was found with a small anchor tied around one or both ankles and what investigators believe was a shotgun wound to the head, according to a source familiar with the investigation. The source said Merrill had bought a shotgun in recent weeks."Obviously, he took his own life," the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation remains open. "This is not an accident."
The development was a startling turn in a tragedy that began June 10, when Merrill's boat, the Merrilly, was found under full sail but with no one aboard, drifting in a stiff breeze near Plum Point. A recreational boater found his body Monday near Poplar Island, more than 11 miles from where the Merrilly was discovered.
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From the moment the boat was recovered, authorities said they did not suspect foul play. Although Merrill's expertise as a sailor contributed to speculation that an accident was unlikely, confirmation of an apparent suicide left some of his former associates stunned.
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Chuck Conconi, who worked alongside Merrill for 15 years as Washingtonian's editor at large, said: "It is the most improbable thing I could conceive of. From everything I could determine, he loved his life."
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Recast as an apparent suicide, his death strikingly parallels that of John A. Paisley, a former high-level CIA employee. In 1978, Paisley disappeared while sailing across the bay. His body was found with a fatal gunshot wound a week later near Solomons Island in what was ruled a suicide.
The loss also recalls the death of former CIA director William E. Colby, who died from drowning and exposure in 1996 after apparently falling from a canoe off Charles County. His body was recovered more than a week later, and authorities said he probably had a stroke or heart attack before the accident.
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Late yesterday, the family said that the "anger and shame" they felt on hearing the news had given way to "sadness and grief."
"It's impossible for us to imagine that the father and husband that we knew and loved was capable of this act," the relatives said. "Everyone who knew Phil had no doubt that he loved life and lived it to the fullest.
Staff writers Annys Shin and Elizabeth Williamson contributed to this report.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/20/AR2006062001476_pf.html-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Who killed Philip Merrill?Washington GOP insider Philip Merrill's body was dragged from Chesapeake Bay on Monday, 11 miles from where his sailboat was found last week, an anchor tied around his ankles and his head disfigured from a shotgun blast.
It now appears the multimillionaire publisher who held top Bush Family appointments at NATO and the Pentagon mysteriously "committed suicide" in exactly the same fashion as CIA-Watergate operative and JFK-assassination figure John Paisley.
Paisley "committed suicide" in 1978 on a solo sailing trip, also on the Chesapeake Bay. Like Merrill, Paisley's corpse was found with weights tied around his ankles and a gunshot wound to the head. His abandoned sailboat was loaded with top secret CIA files on various clandestine operations, despite Paisley's official retirement four years earlier.
Former CIA chief William Colby suffered a similar fate in 1996, when he allegedly took a nighttime canoe trip, leaving his house unlocked, computer turned on, and a half-made dinner in the kitchen. Colby's canoe was found floating upside down near his house.
Despite a major search effort by multiple agencies, his body didn't turn up for more than a week. And when it was found, it was a few feet away from where the canoe had been discovered. Colby was fired from the CIA by Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld back in 1975 and replaced with George H.W. Bush.
Merrill vanished on June 10; his 41-foot sailboat was found by jet-skiers that Saturday evening.
On Tuesday, the family claimed in a statement that the 72-year-old Merrill was distraught over a heart condition -- so he bought a shotgun, took his beloved boat out on a sunny Saturday, tied the anchor around his feet, took his wallet out and left it inside the boat, shot himself in the face with a shotgun, and managed to neatly fall out of the craft and float for 11 miles and 11 days, upstream, with the anchor of a 41-foot-long sailing vessel tied to his ankles and dozens of search-and-rescue teams scouring the bay for his body.
http://www.sploid.com/news/2006/06/who_killed_phil.php------------------------------------------------------------------------
Merrill Not First VIP to Perish on Southern Maryland Waterways Posted on June 16, 2006:
Philip Merrill was not the first VIP to perish in the waters of southern Maryland. At least two other prominent people with ties to the federal government have met their demise in the area's waterways since 1978. Mr. Merrill was reported missing Saturday, June 10, after his sailboat was found near Breezy Point in Calvert County.
The most recent was former CIA director William Colby. Mr. Colby maintained a house at Rock Point on Cobb Island in Charles County. Mr. Colby went missing from his home on April 27, 1996. His body was recovered on May 6, 1996 from the Wicomico River where it was found underwater. The official story is that he fell from his canoe and drowned. A Washington Post article on May 11, 1996, attributes the authorities with the explanation that “William E. Colby died from drowning and exposure to chilly Southern Maryland waters after he fell from his canoe, probably having suffered a stroke or heart attack before the accident.”
Mr. Colby was perhaps best known for his stint as CIA Director. He was nominated to the post by President Nixon on May 10, 1973. He assumed the position officially on Sept 4, 1973 and held it until Jan 30, 1976. He was fired from the position for political reasons in late 1975 by President Ford who replaced him with George H. W. Bush.
Mr. Colby's death has been marred with conspiracy theories. Rather than illuminate them here, we leave that research to the reader. A Google search for the terms “william colby conspiracy” will give you insights to most of the theories.
Another notable death that occurred in our waterways was that of John A. Paisley. Mr. Paisley was an important employee of the CIA who was involved in highly covert activities and had loose ties to the JFK Assassination. According to an investigative report by Tad Szulc titled “The Missing C.I.A. Man” that appeared in the New York Times on Jan 7, 1979, Mr. Paisley set sail from Solomons Island in his sloop, named Brillig, on the night of Sept. 23, 1978. The next day, a state park ranger from Point Lookout notified the coast guard station at St. Inigoes that recreational boaters had reported that a boat under full sail went ashore on Point Lookout. Investigators found no one on-board and there were no prints in the sand.
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