DATE: Friday, March 14, 1997                TAG: 9703140614

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A6   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY EARL SWIFT, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:  113 lines

TWA MISSILE CONJECTURE BUILDS FBI CONTINUES TO DENOUNCE THEORIES, SOME OF WHICH IMPLICATE THE NAVY.

Renewed speculation that a missile shot down TWA Flight 800 reached a frantic level Thursday, when former presidential spokesman Pierre Salinger released papers and photographs that he said proved the U.S. military felled the airliner off the Long Island, N.Y., coast last July.

His remarks came in the wake of a Williamsburg writer's claim that he had proof that the Boeing 747 was shot down by a missile; of two military pilots' report that they saw an airborne object streak toward the doomed jet; and of an explosion of theories on the Internet suggesting a far-reaching government conspiracy to mask the incident.

The FBI denounced Salinger and his paperwork, repeating its conclusion that the U.S. military did not cause the explosion that killed all 230 people aboard the Paris-bound aircraft.

And the Navy reluctantly began to come to grips with the notion that no matter how much it insists it had no role in the disaster, and no matter how completely the government backs up that assertion, some Americans may forever view the seagoing service with suspicion.

``It's clear that no matter what we say, it doesn't make any difference,'' a Navy officer at the Pentagon said Thursday, ``because some people are going to say that we're keeping something secret.

``The bottom line is that some people are going to believe there is a conspiracy.''

Salinger, a former TV newsman and press secretary to President John F. Kennedy, said at a Paris news conference that the 747 was downed by a missile fired during a ``super-secret'' Navy exercise in the Atlantic.

He and an associate said that the weapon, either a model meant to explode near its target or a type designed to penetrate with great force, was supposed to destroy a Tomahawk cruise missile, but instead homed in on the TWA jet.

``We have now reached the point,'' Salinger said, ``where we are totally sure what we are saying is true.''

He also unveiled photographs of radar images - which he said were taken from the air traffic control screens at John F. Kennedy International Airport at the time of the explosion. A blip on the screen ``completely confirms'' that a missile is responsible, Salinger said.

The newsman became an object of scorn among government investigators probing the explosion when he announced last year that the U.S. military had shot down the plane. His proof turned out to be a document widely distributed on the Internet - and containing an abundance of questionable detail.

Crash investigators provided Thursday's press conference a similar reception. In an interview with The Associated Press, FBI Assistant Director James Kallstrom called Salinger's claims ``ridiculous,'' the product of a ``so-called investigative team'' and ``so-called witnesses - most of whom deny what he claims they said to him.''

Navy officials at the Pentagon, meanwhile, prepared a point-by-point refutation of Salinger's findings. The document stressed that the Navy had fired no missiles, that it had no ships in position to do so, and that the service had cooperated fully in the federal investigation into the tragedy.

It also suggested that any ship accidentally firing a missile could not return to its homeport - or go anywhere else, for that matter - without a tip-off to the media from a crew member or a crew member's spouse.

``The news media who cover the areas we live in and operate from would know almost immediately if we had shot down an aircraft,'' it read.

Salinger's news conference brought a peak to several days of hurly-burly over the missile theory, which has been a favorite among Internet conspiracy buffs since shortly after the plane's crash.

The week's most visible exponent of the theory, besides Salinger, is a Williamsburg man - James Sanders, a former California police officer and self-described freelance journalist who has written two books on whether American prisoners of war remain in Vietnam.

In interviews with The Virginian-Pilot, Sanders, 51, said he had ``irrefutable proof'' that a missile hit the plane, ``and I have the government's own documents that show the missile path, and I have the government's own documents showing how they are planning on covering it up.''

Sanders' theory, which has been championed by at least one California newspaper, holds that either an inert-warhead missile or one that failed to explode struck the jet's fuselage just in front of its right wing, and passed through the plane below the passenger cabin's floor.

``It loosened the seats and residue started coming up into the passenger cabin and sticking to the seats in rows 17, 18 and 19,'' Sanders said. ``When it exited, it created a big hole in the left side of the plane.

``A tremendous amount of stuff was sucked out through that. You could see it in the debris field.''

Sanders declined Tuesday to say exactly who fired the missile, explaining that he is writing a book on the subject. He was to leave this week for California to take up that project, he added.

An already-busy week for conspiracy theories was made busier by several smaller events related to Flight 800's destruction.

On Monday, Aviation Week & Space Technology magazine published a report from two New York Air National Guard pilots that they saw an unidentified object streak through the air last July 17, then spotted an explosion that proved to be the disintegrating TWA plane.

The pilots, flying a helicopter about 12 miles north of the crash site, disagreed on what they saw, including the direction the object traveled.

On Tuesday, the FBI seized a videotape of radar images, purportedly depicting the missile, from the home of a retired United Airlines pilot in Florida. That pilot, Richard Russell, authored the Internet-borne document on which Salinger's 1996 pronouncements about the tragedy were based.

And investigators warned that Sanders could face charges. The writer told The Pilot that he had samples of residue left by a missile on the plane's seats and had submitted the material to laboratory analysis. The Associated Press quoted unnamed investigators as saying that Sanders could feel the government's ire, in court, if he obtained the material improperly.

Investigators have described the residue as a glue used in the cabin's seats. MEMO: The Associated Press contributed to this report. ILLUSTRATION: Photo

Ex-broadcaster Pierre Salinger said that the 747 was downed by a

missile fired during a Navy exercise in the Atlantic. KEYWORDS: ACCIDENT PLANE TWA FLIGHT 800

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