A number of experts and prominent figures who provided apparently candid opinions on the events of 9/11/01 later changed their public pronouncements to be consistent with the official story. We review four examples involving apparent damage control for observations about the Twin Towers' collapses made by the following individuals:

Van Romero
Mark Loizeaux
Ronald Hamburger
Peter Jennings

There are examples of retractions in regard to aspects of the attack other than the desruction of the Twin Towers. One involves statements by scientist Won-Young Kim.

Van Romero

The most noted example is the retraction by explosives expert Van Romero who was quoted on the day of the attack saying the collapses were "too methodical" to be the result of the aircraft collisions and ensuing fires.

Mark Loizeaux

A similar example involves Mark Loizeaux, the president of Controlled Demolition Inc., a key company in the Ground Zero cleanup operation. An article published two days after the attack quotes demolitions expert Loizeaux mischaracterizing the collapse of the South Tower (whose top only began to topple like a tree, but then rapidly disintegrated) and expressing perplexity at the way the North Tower's top telescoped down.

Observing the collapses on television news, Loizeaux says the 1,362-ft-tall south tower, which was hit at about the 60th floor, failed much as one wouldlike [sic] fell a tree. That is what was expected, says Loizeaux. But the 1,368-ft-tall north tower, similarly hit but at about the 90th floor, "telescoped," says Loizeaux. It failed vertically, he adds, rather than falling over. "I don't have a clue," says Loizeaux, regarding the cause of the telescoping. ¹

Later, in an interview published in New Scientist magazine, Loizeaux suggested that he knew from the beginning that the towers would pancake straight down.

When I saw what hit, that it was an airliner, that it was loaded with jet fuel, I remembered the long clear span configuration from the central skin to the outer skin of the World Trade Center from the report I did. And we had just taken down two 40-storey structures in New York.

I still had some cellphone numbers so when the second plane hit I said: "Start calling all the cellphones, tell them that the building is going to come down."

...

And I sat there watching, I picked up the phone and and I called a couple of people on the National Research Council Committee involved in assessing the impact of explosives. They said "What do you think this is, that they're going to fail, that they're both going to fail?" The expression around was they're going to pancake down, almost vertically. And they did. It was the only way they could fail. It was inevitable. ²

Ronald Hamburger

Structural engineer Ronald Hamburger, like Van Romero and Lozeaux, initially thought that charges had brought down the Twin Towers.

"It appeared to me that charges had been placed in the building," said Mr. Hamburger, chief structural engineer for ABS Consulting in Oakland, Calif. Upon learning that no bombs had been detonated, "I was very surprised," said Mr. Hamburger. The buildings "certainly did not do as well as I would have hoped." 3

Hamburger may not have retracted this statement, but he went on to co-lead the ASCE/FEMA investigation, which avoided even considering the possibility of demolition, and apparently failed to look for evidence of explosives. Hamburger is listed as an author on the two Chapters of the FEMA Report covering the Twin Towers: Chapter 1 and Chapter 2.

Peter Jennings Mis-Speaks

Seconds after the collapse of the South Tower, ABC News anchor Peter Jennings began to speculate about the cause of the collapse on the live network broadcast, noting:

If you wish to bring ah .. anybody who ever watched a building being demolished on purpose knows .. that if you're going to do this you have to get at the .. at the under infrastructure of a building and bring it down.

Reporter Don Dahler immediately jumped in to correct Jennings. This transcript of the exchange and analysis of it is very revealing.

Won-Young Kim Yields to the Commission

There are examples of retractions of statements about aspects of the attack other than the collapse of the skyscrapers in New York City. One is the retraction by the scientist Won-Young Kim, who co-authored a 2002 paper with Gerald R. Baum establishing the time of the crash of Flight 93 at 10:06 AM.

References

1. Massive Assault Doomed Towers, Construction.com, 9/13/01 [cached]
2. Baltimore Blasters, NewScientist.com, 7/24/04
3. Top Structural Engineers to Do Autopsy On Twin Towers to Assess Why They Fell, The Wall Street Journal, 9/19/01 [cached]

page last modified: 2007-01-16