SHOT IN THE DARK?

By Richard Lacayo

One thing about Pierre Salinger, he doesn't mind telling you what he thinks. For years the former ABC News correspondent has argued that the terrorist bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 was not sponsored by Libya, as most investigators long ago concluded, but was jointly the work of Iran and Syria. And Washington is still talking about the incident last year in which Salinger, 71, who was John F. Kennedy's press secretary, cornered George Bush at a conference on a cruise ship off the Florida coast. During dinner Salinger rose from his table and went unbidden to the former President's, where he aggressively offered Bush his view that the Gulf War could have been avoided if the U.S. had sent Saddam Hussein a clearer message of its intention to defend Kuwait. Witnesses say that eventually Salinger had to be coaxed away from Bush.

Salinger's newest theory isn't original, but it's catnip to conspiracy buffs. Earlier this month he went before television cameras in France to announce that he had been given a document by an unnamed French intelligence agent offering "very, very strong proof" that TWA Flight 800 had been destroyed accidentally by a missile test-fired from a U.S. naval vessel. One problem: Salinger's "secret document" had been on the Internet for weeks and had already been picked apart in the press.

When reporters pointed that out to him, Salinger seemed startled but was undeterred. Last week he claimed that on the evening of the crash an Air France pilot flying in the same area had made an abrupt in-flight maneuver, then announced that someone was firing missiles in the area. Salinger says his source was a passenger on the flight. FBI agents who interviewed Salinger soon after say he did not furnish the name of the passenger or the flight number. Federal investigators claim they interviewed the crews of all known flights in the area that night and got no such report.

Federal agents thought they had deep-sixed the friendly fire story when it first emerged in September. "It's based on third- and fourth-hand gossip and hearsay," says James Kallstrom, the FBI's investigator. The Navy says its nearest vessel was 180 miles away, far out of missile range. The FBI says it has independently verified the Navy's account and that the plane wreckage recovered so far shows no signs of a missile blast. Salinger has also made much of a photograph, published in France by the magazine Paris Match, which was taken on the outdoor deck of a Long Island restaurant on the evening of the crash, which shows a bright blip in the evening sky. A missile? But reporters and federal investigators determined that the picture was taken facing north, away from the sea where the plane eventually fell. Above all, the exasperated federal agents say, the friendly fire theory would require a conspiracy in which hundreds of sailors, flyers, Navy divers and government officials were in on the secret, but not one felt moved to come forward.

But gossip abhors a vacuum. After weeks of investigation, the FBI and the National Transportation Safety Board still cannot say for certain whether Flight 800 was brought down by a bomb, a missile or a mechanical malfunction. In the absence of a conclusive explanation, the Internet has whipped facts, factoids and un-facts into a froth of conspiracy theory. In a piece published in the Nov. 17 issue of the New York Times Magazine, authors Jonathan Vankin and John Whalen trace the strange progress of the friendly fire theory across the Net. One variant: the bombing was a hit. Henry Kissinger was the intended victim because he was supposed to be on the flight--except that, oops, he was never supposed to be on it.

As for the Internet posting Salinger thought was his scoop, it was reported weeks ago to be the work of Richard Russell, 66, a retired United Airlines pilot living in Florida. Writers Vankin and Whalen say Russell sent his memo as an E-mail to about a dozen other investigators, but it somehow found its way onto the Net and from there into reporters' questions to government investigators in September. Russell says he still believes the story, but, like a lot of people in this one, won't reveal his source.

In the waters off the coast of Long Island, around-the-clock dredging of the crash site is just about finished. Last week boats also discovered the remains of another of the 230 dead, leaving 15 still unaccounted for. Salinger says the FBI has encouraged him to continue his investigation. If he's wrong about the missile theory, he says, it would be "the first mistake I've made since the 1930s or early 1940s." One hopes the official investigators on the case are driven by a more humble attitude.

--Reported by Thomas Sancton/Paris, Elaine Shannon and Adam Zagorin/Washington

With reporting by THOMAS SANCTON/PARIS, ELAINE SHANNON AND ADAM ZAGORIN/WASHINGTON