"They went that way!" the establishment mediameisters have compiled a proven record for concealing crimes and diverting public attention to side issues or completely fabricated stories. (Misdirection).

We are all familiar with cartoons in which Bugs Bunny or Daffy Duck throw on a quick, transparent disguise and send the pursuing Yosemite Sam or Elmer Fudd off on a wild goose chase. Politicians regularly use this ploy when caught red-handed, pointing to some supposed crisis or a scandal involving their opponents to divert attention from their own misdeeds. The press has the responsibility to expose this deception and present the facts so that the culprits can be held accountable. However, when it comes to the big stories that affect us most seriously, the elite media, more often than not, help orchestrate the misdirection, rather than expose it. The story of how the media cartel smothered "Chinagate" with "Zippergate" is a classic example of this misdirection tactic.

The impeachment of President Bill Clinton was one of the major political news stories of the 20th century. No U.S. president had been impeached since Andrew Johnson in 1868. Why did the House of Representatives impeach Bill Clinton? Ask the average man on the street, and he will tell you that President Clinton was caught lying about having sex in the Oval Office with an intern. The same man on the street will have no difficulty recalling the name of the intern: Monica Lewinsky. But you will go through quite a few man-on-the-street interviews before you find someone who recognizes names like James Riady, John Huang, Johnny Chung, Shen Jueren, Maria Hsia, Yah Lin Charlie Trie, Ted Sioeng, Ng Lapseng, Liu Chao Ying, or Pauline Kanchanalak. These are the names of some of the lead characters from the treasonous production known as "Chinagate," the Clinton-Gore betrayal that involved selling our country's most vital security secrets and military technology to Communist China. These names should be well known, but t hey are not. They were eclipsed by Monica Lewinsky, as the major media diverted public attention away from this vital national security issue involving bribery, espionage, and treason.

Media Stymied Chinagate Investigation

On July 8, 1997, Senate Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.) stunned the nation with explosive charges that Communist China's government and its intelligence services had carried out a massive bribery and subversion operation in this country. The senator charged that "high-level Chinese government officials crafted a plan to increase China's influence over the U.S. political process" that "affected the 1996 presidential race and state elections...." This was clearly an effort by a foreign power, he stated, to "subvert our election process" and "buy access and influence in furtherance of Chinese government interests." Senator Thompson added that "the FBI also told the White House about the Chinese plan in June of 1996," which "raises questions about who in the White House should have known or actually knew of the Chinese plan and how it came to be implemented."

Special hearings into the matter were quickly set up, with Senator Thompson presiding. The Senate Democrats assured the country that they were serious about cooperating with Republicans to investigate this grave threat. The heavily pro-Clinton mainstream media also claimed to be deeply concerned about the revelations. Those assurances proved false as soon as the official probe got underway. Throughout the five weeks of televised hearings, the Democrats carped, complained, objected, and provided cover for the White House, aiding the Clinton strategy of stonewalling and "running out the clock" on the investigation. They fought Republican efforts to give witnesses immunity to gain their testimony, and by their attitude encouraged other key witnesses to refuse to testify under claims of Fifth Amendment protection. And they ensured that all of the classified information they had been privy to would remain sealed in the interests of "national security." They never tried to pressure President Clinton to encourage hi s suspect donors to testify or to cooperate with congressional investigators.

The major media aided and abetted this obstruction of justice at every turn. News reporters and commentators belittled and dismissed damning evidence as irrelevant or lacking "smoking gun" status. With issues involving bribery, willful treason, and policies threatening our nation's very survival in plain view, the media diverted attention to a call for "campaign finance reform." Over and over again, the media gave voice to those insisting that the overriding issue in Chinagate was the need to overhaul our system of political fundraising, not the need to investigate criminal acts of bribery and treason. At least that's what the media said when they even bothered mentioning Chinagate.

By the time the Senate investigation concluded, the media had generally dismissed the Thompson charges as overblown partisan posturing. On September 7, 1997, New York Times reporter David E. Rosenbaum participated in the prevailing spin by reporting that "the hearings have not produced a shred of public evidence to substantiate Thompson's charge of Chinese influence." That was manifestly not true, but such trifling matters as truth have never unduly burdened the Times. Rosenbaum continued:

As for the classified material, senators from both parties who have reviewed this evidence concluded the Chinese probably did have a plan to become involved in U.S. politics and may have actually tried to carry out the plan in some congressional races.

But there is no evidence, said Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, expressing the unanimous view of Democratic members of the investigating committee, "that it was aimed at the presidential race or that it affected the presidential race."

"No evidence." That's what the Times said. There was "probably" only a "plan" by Red China, which Beijing "may have" -- or may not have -- only "tried" to implement, and then only against congressional races? This was preposterous; the Times itself had by that time published considerable evidence showing exactly what it was now claiming did not exist. THE NEW AMERICAN had been exposing the Clinton-Red China dealings since 1993 when the Clinton administration approved Most Favored Nation status for the Beijing regime and began sending it super computers and other strategic military-use technology. By the time of the Thompson hearings, evidence of bribery and treason involving the Clinton-Gore administration and the People's Republic of China (PRC) abounded. Nevertheless, the "no evidence" mantra became the media cartel's general party line.

Treason and Bribery Coverup

Chinagate involved not merely a few instances in which clever foreigners sneaked illegal campaign contributions past lackadaisical or errant Clinton underlings. It concerned massive corruption and bribery in which an unprecedented, ceaseless parade of criminals and agents of a totalitarian, hostile power wended its way through the White House -- with truckloads of illegal funds in tow. And a grateful President Clinton, wantonly and willfully disregarding the obvious threat to America's vital defenses, dramatically altered U.S. foreign policy, eviscerated our security procedures, and threw open the gates to our most sensitive military secrets and technology. The ensuing flood of technological transfers has enabled the anti-American PRC to achieve stunning military advances in a few short years, including the ability to target U.S. allies -- and the U.S. itself -- with intercontinental ballistic missiles.

The following list provides only a tiny sample of the technological, financial, diplomatic, intelligence, and propaganda gifts bestowed on the Communist regime in Beijing by Bill Clinton and Al Gore:

* Export control responsibility was transferred from the Defense and State Departments to the Commerce Department, and security concerns were tossed out the window to facilitate massive sales of sensitive technology.

* Numerous transfers of military-related technology were made over the objections of Pentagon security personnel.

* Members of the China National Aero-Technology Import-Export Corp (CATIC), an arm of Chinese intelligence, were allowed to videotape classified U.S. defense production lines in operation, thereby violating federal law.

* CATIC was allowed to purchase very sophisticated five-axis machine tools and an entire production plant from McDonnell-Douglas, technology it can use to produce more advanced fighterjets, bombers, and missiles.

* Dozens of supercomputers were sent to the PRC. These supercomputers are critical to the development of nuclear weapons and other advanced weapons systems, battlefield management, satellite launch and control, etc.

* President Clinton personally intervened to place John Huang, top representative of the Indonesian Lippo Group, an agent of Red China, in a government position with access to top secret information that would help Lippo and the PRC.

* Clinton personally lobbied to turn over the former U.S. naval base at Long Beach, California to COSCO, a PRC company that is an arm of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) and Chinese intelligence, even though COSCO had been caught smuggling AK-47s to U.S. street gangs.

* The Clinton administration gave a license to Shen Jun, the son of a top Red Chinese general, allowing him to be a project manager with Hughes Space and Communications on top-secret satellite programs.

* Lt. Col. Liu Chao-ying, an intelligence agent in the PLA and daughter of one of Red China's top military and party leaders, attended a White House fundraiser, was photographed with President Clinton, and contributed handsomely to the Clinton campaign. The quid pro quo: U.S. military technology for the PLA.

* Bernard Schwartz, CEO of Loral Space Technologies and Clinton's single largest donor, won waivers from the Clinton administration allowing the transfer of satellite and missile technology that has dramatically aided PRC capabilities to strike the U.S. and U.S. allies with ICBMs.

* PLA General Chi Haotian, who killed American troops in Korea and ordered tanks into Tiananmen Square, was given full White House honors; General Chi and numerous other top PLA officers were given access to our most sensitive military facilities and weapons systems.

These and a long train of similar treacherous acts more than justified a call for impeachment on grounds of bribery and treason. But the Republican leadership, despite fiery rhetoric, was not eager to truly investigate Chinagate. Doing so would have exposed unpleasant evidence that the previous Republican administration (Bush senior) had also compromised U.S. security vis a vis Red China. It might also have drawn attention to the fact that many top GOP "wisemen" -- Henry Kissinger, Brent Scowcroft, Alexander Haig, and Lawrence Eagleburger, to name a few -- were some of China's most highly-paid lobbyists and were deeply involved in much of the high-tech transfer that congressional Republicans were decrying. Many sitting Republicans in the House and Senate were also on the take from Red China; they, obviously, had an interest in burying the issue as well.

It became increasingly clear in the summer and fall of 1997 that the congressional GOP leadership intended to drop the Chinagate issue. By that time, however, the John Birch Society had already launched a National Impeach Clinton A.C.T.I.O.N. (Activate Congress To Improve Our Nation) Committee, with a primary focus aimed at rallying the American people with facts about Chinagate, to pressure Congress to fulfill its constitutional mandate. With a nationwide petition drive, articles, and flyers detailing the evidence of bribery and treason, and speakers appearing on radio and television shows, it became apparent that the Society's impeachment drive was not going to let this important issue slide off the political radar screen.

As national support for impeachment grew, the bipartisan treason coalition was threatened with exposure. So what did the media cartel "watchdogs" do? They began baying and barking at a stray cat, instead of at the burglars who were stealing the house silver. Chinagate was relegated to oblivion as the media turned to nonstop coverage of "Zippergate." It was "All Monica, all the time," as the print and broadcast press dumped coverage of missile technology and White House payoffs for "racy" stories about Oval Office sexcapades. The congressional Republicans decided to launch their impeachment on the new Clinton sex scandal instead of the national security scandal. That was precisely what the media controllers wanted. Turning the issue from security to sex guaranteed that the big secrets would stay hidden and the biggest criminals and traitors would be let off the hook. The Clinton War Room and its media allies were soon making revelations about sex scandals involving some of Clinton's GOP congressional critics. Soon the nation was thoroughly disgusted with the whole sordid mess and the Republicans were thought by many to be as responsible as Clinton for the sorry state of affairs. The momentum for investigating the Chinagate charges was lost. The media sabotage not only let the guilty go free, but left our country's security breaches unrepaired. As a result, America remains more vulnerable than ever in a very dangerous world.