My mind-blowing election escape in 2016

Living as I do in a heavily Democratic neighborhood, I have made it a practice these last several election cycles to vote absentee and leave town.

The yard signs are bad enough. I would rather not know how mindless my neighbors are. But worse is the threat of spontaneous celebration, especially the bullets shot skyward just a few blocks east that occasionally come down a few blocks west.

After 2012, I said enough is enough. To avoid the noise around the 2016 election, which seemed doomed after the release of the Access Hollywood tapes in early October, I went to France.

To justify this seeming self indulgence, I signed up for a two-week French remedial immersion program in the home of a professor. Wanting to be someplace warm in November, I chose the city of Nice on the French Riviera.

Before leaving, however, a PI friend gave me the home address of Jim Kallstrom, the head of the FBI investigation into the July 2016 crash of TWA Flight 800. I had just written a book on plane’s destruction, “TWA 800: The Crash, the Cover-Up, and the Conspiracy,” my second on the subject.

Kallstrom had been appearing on Fox News as a national security expert. In that role he did not shy from expressing his contempt for the Clintons. In fact, he went so far as to endorse Donald Trump.

I sent Kallstrom a registered letter. I told him that family members of those killed on TWA 800 contacted me after his appearances to express disgust at his failure to come clean about the real cause of the crash.

They believed, as I did, that Kallstrom helped cover up the fact that the aircraft had been downed not by mechanical failure – the official explanation – but my missiles.

I told him if he really wanted to hurt Hillary, he would tell the truth that it was Bill Clinton who orchestrated the cover-up in large part to get himself re-elected. After sending the letter, I forgot about it.

About a week before the election, I was sitting on a bench overlooking the Mediterranean at sunset when my cellphone rang. The screen face said “Connecticut.” I picked it up.

“Jack Cashill?” said a gruff voice on the other end.

“Yes, this is he,” said I, always a stickler for good grammar.

“Kallstrom here.” I had heard that Kallstrom was a profane bully. Did he lived up to his reputation? Did he ever. Without taking a breath, he let the F-bombs drop as though I were 1945 Tokyo and he Gen. Curtis LeMay.

He was particularly appalled about my claim that the family members had turned against him. He was sure they loved him. They didn’t.

As a former Marine, he questioned my military service. I was about to say, “Does ROTC count?” but I thought better of it and let him rant.

As Kallstrom’s energy waned, I reminded him we were on the same side in this presidential election, and he eased up a bit.

“Are you one of those people who think terrorists shot down the plane?” he asked more or less calmly, if incredulously.

“I wish that were the case,” I answered. “But I have come to the inescapable conclusion that we did it, our Navy, accidentally.”

That did it. Kallstrom exploded. I had to hold the phone a foot from my ear. The half-dozen people who shared this long bench turned to look at me.

Even if they didn’t speak English, they understood an F-bomb when they heard one. I hoped none of them was CIA.

“You sound just like f-ing Pierre Salinger,” said Kallstrom referring to JFK’s legendary press secretary and Francophile. “He held an f-ing press conference on the f-ing French Riviera to say the same bulls–t.

A loyal enough Democrat, Salinger waited until two days after the Nov. 4, 2016, presidential election to share the intelligence he had gathered from American and French sources.

He spoke at an aviation conference in the French resort city of Cannes, about an hour west of Nice. There, Salinger told the assembled executives that he had “very important details that show the plane was brought down by a U.S. Navy missile.”

Salinger added the obvious: “If the news came out that an American naval ship shot down that plane it would be something that would make the public very very unhappy and could have an effect on the election.”

I remember thinking at the time, “Thank God I didn’t tell Kallstrom I was on the Riviera.” If I had, we might have gone to war with France. Our call ended without resolution.

A day or two later, Nov. 1, I was at an evening mass for All Saints Days when my phone vibrated. Mass or no, I had to take this call. The screen face said, “Connecticut.”

This was it, I thought. After reflection, Kallstrom had decided to open up and tell the truth – to me – about arguably the most successful military cover-up in American peacetime history.

“Who is this?” said Kallstrom. He sounded drunk.

“Jack Cashill,” I said.

“Sorry,” he said. “Butt dial.”

Those were the last words we ever spoke. In 2021, Kallstrom took his secrets to the grave.

Note: Jack Cashill’s “TWA 800: The Crash, the Cover-Up, and the Conspiracy” is still selling well in all formats.