A LETTER WORTH REPEATING
President Wm. Clinton
The President of The United States
The White House
Washington, DC
...
Re: The Faked O'Grady Rescue

Dear Mr. President,

An American President once said: “You can fool some of the people some of the time, but not all of the people, all of the time.” The so-called “picture perfect rescue” was right out of Universal Studios and the mind of Steven Spielberg.

Air Force Capt. Scott F. O’Grady’s parachute was sighted 25 miles south of Banja Luka, near the town of Mrkonjic Grad. During the CNN interview today with O’Grady he said he moved “about one and a half miles during the 6 days.” Your government officials have reported that O’Grady was plucked from “the fogbound forest near where his F-16 was shot down six days earlier.” The original broadcast of the rescue specifically claimed that he was retrieved “20 miles southeast of Bihac”—that is 60 miles away from the parachute site. You should indeed be grateful that the Serbs had the good sense not to parade O’Grady before the CNN cameras to discredit your administration more than they already have.

O’Grady did not use his radio for nearly 6 days for a good reason—the Serbs who had captured him had the radio transmitter. To imply that we send pilots up in multi-million dollar aircraft and then provide them with batteries that only last a few days amounts to a hideous lie. Plucking O’Grady from the forest within 50 yards of his hiding place might make a good movie script, but it hardly represents the truth, confirmed to me by two separate people very high in the intelligence community of the American government who are outraged by this media stunt. These sources obviously wish to remain anonymous. Gen. John Shalikashvili told a Congressional hearing that we would not go into Bosnia without the approval of Congress, while at that very moment we had dozens of American troops setting foot on Bosnian soil—indicating the depth of his deception. This is the same “American” General, who, while visiting the land of his father, asked Georgian leader Eduard Shevardnadze if he could re bury his Nazi father in the Caucasus Mountains, (AP May 24, 1995). His father was in Hitler’s brutal Waffen SS. Shalikashvili’s father emigrated to the United States in 1946 and became an American citizen. Shalikashvili, who insults the nationalism of the Serbs apparently has Nazi motives of his own!

It was the State Department that supplied CNN with the information that the Serbs had not captured the downed pilot. That is where the plot thickens.

From my contacts in Banja Luka who are at the upper most levels of the Serbian army, I had the absolute assurance that the Serbs had captured O’Grady. Apparently this “story book rescue” was a deal calculated to restore the faith of American “top guns,” to downgrade the danger that our pilots face in Bosnia and to restore what is left of your presidental credibility. My only question is, at what price to the Serbs? If O’Grady was so thirsty that he had to wring out his socks for water, why didn’t he milk the cows, who O'Grady claims “were so friendly that he even named them?”

Mr. President, you violated all human decency by not stopping the violation of the “no-fly zone” on May 1st and 2nd, 1995, in which the Croats used American made assault helicopter gunships to attack Okucani, exterminating over 1,500 Serbs. This war crime will be remembered in the historical records of this war as a deception of appalling proportion in which the United States and her NATO partners participated. Gen. John Shalikashvili in the Congressional hearing this week boasted of more than “69,000 sorties” over Bosnia. But this same Air Force seemed incapable of stopping those attacks on Okucani which were calculated to cleanse Serbs from Croatia and to serve the interest of the Croatian government with whom you had made a secret deal including secretly aiding, abetting and arming the Croatians.

Stop trying to fool all of the people, all of the time. You are beginning to act like a war criminal.

Wm. Dorich, Beverly Hills
June 10, 1995

Scott O'Grady unceremoniously left the Air Force in the months after his return and has remained in hiding since, maybe to not have any contact with a media that might want some answers?