DB Cooper

[snowmman 3]

It is to be expected that many things seem unrelated.
That's fine.
I expect many readers would say "I don't see the relationship".

Remember, many FBI agents have said the same thing about many things.

The key to not being found, is having people not see relationships.

So: that's a good thing. I'd like to hear more from people who think "no way". Explain why.

A couple of other thoughts:
FBI Special Agent Larry Carr created the lie of a citizens investigation group, and passed it on to the national media.

A person named using the assumed name Tom Kaye helped promote that lie. For unknown reasons.

If anyone wants to get worked up, get worked up about that.

[snowmman 3]

It's interesting to muse if the overwhelming emphasis on statistics during the Vietnam War flew directly from McNamara. I guess so.

It's interesting how some things don't change though.

I thought this picture was interesting.

Taken in Afghanistan, 2008.
The two guys in green are wearing US shoulder patches.
The other guys (who appear overweight to me) are wearing the new Afghan National Army shoulder patches.

you can see the patch design here
http://www.mod.gov.af/

Problem is, they're not Afghan! look to be US contractors to me.

2nd photo is cool. Pickup trucks with machine guns (technicals).
Toyota? I wonder. (you can see the Afghan National Army little pennant if you look hard, flying on the truck)

(edit) From a McNamara obit:
"McNamara admitted in his book that the U.S. government had never answered key questions that drove its war policy, such as whether the fall of Vietnam would lead to a communist Southeast Asia and if such an occurrence would really have posed a grave threat to the West. "It seems beyond understanding, incredible, that we did not force ourselves to confront such issues head-on," he wrote. "

[Orange1 0]

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This DB Cooper thread is the most adult ADD thread I've read. Can we go in any more tangents? I say end this thread and then start one that has a meaningful title, i.e. Covert Operations or Black ops or What's the best knife to gut someone with?

There is a group of posters here who think it very likely that Cooper had exposure of some sort to the 727 airdrop tests in SE Asia. This puts him in the milieu of jumpers in Asia during the war (or wars, considering his age would have made him eligible for Korea too) which naturally leads on to the discussion of operations such as SOG, Air America etc. I don't view it as a tangent. Sure, sometimes the discussion on what should be "background" gets a little detailed, but most people (at least those who post) appear to find the stuff incredibly interesting. And a thread this long is bound to get thread drift occasionally

I'm sure some people do view the Asian war/SF/etc connection as a tangent, and those will be people with completely different ideas as to who Cooper was ...and I would view their contributions as tangents. But we're all stuck in the same thread so we can either live with it, or ignore it.

PS Seeing as Cooper didn't actually knife anyone (at least on the plane), I would consider your last suggestion to be a tangent

Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

[snowmman 3]

There's actually a lot to talk about, if we want to talk about knives.

I found a good history from the mid-60's designer of the oft-talked about SOG/CISO Recon Knife. (Ben Baker)

It actually was made in Japan. They talk about "sterile" which meant not traceable to any country of manufacture (think covert).

The article is big, so I can't post (maybe I can compress)

In any case, a more pertinent discussion would be around the MC-1 switchblade, which was standard issue to Vietnam parachutists (and actually still made)

It was a switchblade, orange. Non-serrated blade.
But it came with a hook knife for cutting chute lines.

The RT teams typically carried folding knives, along with a big knive that was more weapon-sized.

I suspect the folding knives varied a lot.

I've also attached the instructions that came with the Tropical Rucksack and some more pics of it

But the MC-1 is interesting to think about, since Cooper cut parachute lines.
picture attached of vietnam era MC-1

Also just a curiosity, I repeated an apparently erroneous mention of uppers a long time back. I've attached the list of items inside a SOG survival kit from the era, along with a picture of a survival kit. Dextroamphetamine Sulfate was on the list. Funny. Maybe that's where someone got poetic license.

(edit) detail history on the Tropical Rucksack here:
http://www.vietnamgear.com/kit.aspx?kit=453
two pics attached from there.

[snowmman 3]

Sorry about the last post. took me a while to get it right.
so started another.

I've contrasted the CIDG (indigeneous) and the Tropical Rucksack.
here's some more on the CIDG rucksack from
http://www.vietnamgear.com/kit.aspx?kit=557

It was actually copied from a captured NVA rucksack. The guys said "why can't we have something like this?"


Conrad 'Ben' Baker of the Counterinsurgency Support Office (CISO) designed the indigenous rucksack after being asked by Special Forces in Vietnam if something similar to the VC 'ditty bag' could be produced for CIDG troops. Approximately 350,000 rucksacks where procured by CISO at a cost of $2.80 each, as opposed to $14.90 for a U.S. issue Lightweight Rucksack.

Made from water resistant rubberised cotton canvas, the CIDG pack had a thin waist strap and featured three outside front pockets in addition to the main storage compartment. It also boasted a rear pocket that was often used to carry a map, a machete or to hold foam padding. Though designed for indigenous personnel and their advisors, the rucksack was also popular with SOG and LRP teams.


I've attached 2 pictures of a NVA/VC rucksack also

Made from cotton canvas, this North Vietnamese rucksack boasts three outside front pockets in addition to the main pack. Each of the outside pockets have tie fasteners whilst the pack flap is secured by two buckled straps. The rucksack also features a rear map pocket and a thin wast strap. The CISO produced Indigenous Rucksack was based on a captured pack of this type.


(edit) I guess some things aren't clear to all folks, so to be specific: The Vietnam HALO jumps, we have info that at least one rucksack was lost on a jump. It's interesting to understand what rucksacks they might have carried, how they attached them (apparently under the chest reserve), and how familar someone would be with the term "rucksack" or "knapsack" and dealing with soft bag attach on a jump.

The preference for the soft (non-framed) CIDG rucksack is important, I think.

[snowmman 3]

This is a good article for people interested in the story of the classic '60s era SOG/CISO Recon knife design (there were other knives, too, and a lot of replicas)

Seems authoritative.

I compressed it and split the pages, for easier download. Should still be readable.

From the magazine "Fighting Knives" Fall 1991

Death by knife was not uncommon, apparently, in Vietnam. Although many other purposes (cutting wood, brush, whatever). So your knife (s) choice was probably important.

Some had a redesigned bolo knife that was a shortened machete, apparently.

[snowmman 3]

I just had a thought.
Thru the years, there have been a lot of folks talking about the Cooper money bag attach, suggesting it was not around the waist but on the floor, attached to line, to his waist, like paratroopers do with heavy gear. (edit) I guess they drop the load below them, before landing, so the shock of landing with a heavy load, isn't on the jumper.

We know that is apparently wrong. Cooper apparently did a waist attach of some kind.

The mythbusting is around what the Vietnam jumpers did, though.

I just realized, some of the stuff I posted, showed there were no loose dangling bags when they jumped (for the jumps discussed)...i.e. they did a tight attach of their rucksack below the chest reserve.

Be interesting to discuss this more. I find it fascinating that previous discussion about possible dangling moneybag being used to imply SOG, would be just wrong..and that the Cooper attach was around the waist, and still is actually closer to the known Vietnam SF HALO jump gear setup.

Of course the reserve issue is always there.

[snowmman 3]

We like radar.

This is a shot of the Air Force guys running the show at Tan Son Nhut airport, which we've discussed before.
They evidently tracked stuff on see thru plastic there (you can see the plastic has the map of Vietnam)

Nice view of the radar scope in the room.

"American Air Force specialists directing missions from command center using transparent maps and electronic surveillance & tracking equipment at Tan Son Nhut airport during the Vietnam War. (Saigon).

Hey and it was a bitch getting everything set up again after 377's visit. Everything back in place now (2nd pic)

[377 22]

I mapped Snow's land mines using an autonomous GPS equipped mini rover with a magnetometer, but his genius dogs probably have them all relocated by now.

This info on SOG bag attachment practices is very interesting. Just goes to show how we can make possibly incorrect assumption about Cooper's practices/actions being 100% whuffo.

Although I prefer radios to knives, the knife stuff is interesting. There is a non switchblade USAF/USN version of that orange hook knife that is drastically cheaper on eBay. The military knife collectors pay big bucks for the one Snow posted. The non switchblade version is a FANTASTIC skydiving hook knife. Buy one before word gets out and prices (now $11) soar. It will cut where others clog up, try it on some bunched up old suspension lines and you will see what I mean.

http://buy.ebay.vn/buying/en/display/200324221260_USNUSAF-ORANGE-HOOK-KNIFE-SURVIVAL-VEST

377

2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

[snowmman 3]

nothing interesting, but since we're talking about knives, I'll post the video snap I did that shows a closeup of the cut lines on the reserve.

[377 22]

A rigger might be able to tell us something useful from that close up, but I can't other than it looks like perhaps that Cooper's knife wasnt very sharp.

377

2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

[BruceSmith 3]

Does the conditions of the cut cords tell us anything about how they were cut, and what kind of knife was used?

Snowmman - excellent work here, sir, on these many pages of Vietnam, SOG, Billy Waugh postings.
Thank you, immensely.

[snowmman 3]

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A rigger might be able to tell us something useful from that close up, but I can't other than it looks like perhaps that Cooper's knife wasnt very sharp.

377

the nylon could have fuzzed out in storage/thru handling also.

All the evidence in the Cooper case was poorly handled.

There might be pictures taken from when the reserve was recovered as evidence. That would be much better.

But the FBI isn't really investigating anything, so they don't release info.

Remember when the video showed that Tom Kaye got to see better FBI pictures of the initial money find and dig, that Larry Carr didn't provide to us?

Larry Carr might be a nice guy to bowl with, but I still can't understand why Jerry Thomas, who apparently has met him, said he was a good agent. And I can't understand why Tom Kaye said there was an FBI investigation that was good, while providing no data to us that showed that.

It's great how funny the whole thing is.
I think the FBI likes to think that it's different than it was back then.

I suspect not, though. How can you explain Larry Carr?

[snowmman 3]

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Does the conditions of the cut cords tell us anything about how they were cut, and what kind of knife was used?

Snowmman - excellent work here, sir, on these many pages of Vietnam, SOG, Billy Waugh postings.
Thank you, immensely.

Hey run with it Brucie. You're holding the fort down on conspiracy angles here.

Me, I just think in terms of probabilities and profiles, which should be obvious.

It's really interesting to muse, if over the years, when knowledge of Vietnam SF activities became more widely known to FBI, whether the investigation was given low priority because someone decided it was better not to know, or to reveal Vietnam data.

'71 and the '72 withdrawal was a troubling political time.

I think though, that lots of detailed info about Vietnam SF has only become available in say the last 10 years. The web has helped a lot, with firsthand reports and photos. Easy web posting for old guys from Vietnam, would have started circa '99 or so.

So I think we are exchanging info that has only become public in the last 10 years or so.

So lots to think on.

(edit) I've not done a bibilography of when the "good books" on Vietnam SF were first published. But not everyone bought/read the books. I think also, there's this quaint notion the FBI holds on to, that they "know" Cooper was inexperienced.

It's like a belief system. Like they want to believe the initial DZ was around SEA.

Everyone has to believe in something, I guess. Anything's possible, though, I guess. Better to believe in "anything is possible", I think.

(edit) Oh ps. Billy apparently broke his ankle many times on jumps. I doubt risk of another broken ankle would have bothered him.

If he was here, we could ask him about some of his broken ankles!

[BruceSmith 3]

Snow,

Would you please elaborate on your views of Tom Kaye. Thanks.

A few posts back you inferred that Tom Kaye might not be exactly who he says he is. What creates that doubt for you?

I'm not defending him, I'm just curious. Here's what I know:

The Burke Museum at the UW in Seattle does not have any Tom Kaye in their staff directory. However, the Museum's director told me in an email that Kaye is a part-time contracting paleontologist for the Museum and currently on a dig.

My subsequent email to Tom Kaye was quickly replied to, and in it Kaye said he was on a dig in Wyoming. He also said that the citizen sleuth thing had gone "black," whatever that means. I assumed from the context that he meant "dormant" and not necessarily black ops, undercover, etc. But.........?

What say you?

[377 22]

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It's really interesting to muse, if over the years, when knowledge of Vietnam SF activities became more widely known to FBI, whether the investigation was given low priority because someone decided it was better not to know, or to reveal Vietnam data.

I don't think the FBI would have hesitated to go after anyone they thought was Cooper, even if he was a Nam hero involved in classified special ops.
McCoy was a vet and they sure had no problems pursuing him, literally to death. They have had no problem going after their own when espionage is suspected. Of course we don't know what investigations were squelched or hidden.

I don't want to be an apologist for Carr, but this was never a REAL FBI assignment, it was always sort of an extra credit after school project. Once he got dinged by superiors because of a complaint from someone he was interacting with on this forum, I can see why he just stopped putting energy into this and focused on chasing bank robbers, which he seems to be pretty good at. Its all about playing the odds. The chances of Carr or us finding Cooper is low, yet his involvement here could hurt his career. So why spend time in a high risk low reward situation? Just put it on a far back burner and concentrate on the stuff that gets the Seattle FBI office great publicity, apprehending bank robbers. Thats what "G Men" are expected to do.

The citizen sleuth thing sounded good until it got messy and eroded the traditional isolation between the FBI and people who cold be thought of as kooks. After that, its potential for good FBI PR was diminished substantially. They made a few closing PR splashes with Tom K, trying to show that citizen scientists were involved, and then it faded away.

I just have this nagging hunch that Cooper knew about or was involved in paradrop activities in SE Asia.

Wish Billy W would post here and add his knowledge.

377

2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

[snowmman 3]

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Snow,

Would you please elaborate on your views of Tom Kaye. Thanks.

A few posts back you inferred that Tom Kaye might not be exactly who he says he is. What creates that doubt for you?

I'm not defending him, I'm just curious. Here's what I know:

The Burke Museum at the UW in Seattle does not have any Tom Kaye in their staff directory. However, the Museum's director told me in an email that Kaye is a part-time contracting paleontologist for the Museum and currently on a dig.

My subsequent email to Tom Kaye was quickly replied to, and in it Kaye said he was on a dig in Wyoming. He also said that the citizen sleuth thing had gone "black," whatever that means. I assumed from the context that he meant "dormant" and not necessarily black ops, undercover, etc. But.........?

What say you?

No, you're getting too conspiratorial. Tom is just misrepresenting himself and allowed himself to get sucked in by Carr. Carr is using him. So it's a symbiotic relationship. Both think they're getting something from the other/using each other. But they're both just assholes.

Or maybe they just like to bowl together?

377 just pm'ed me on this issue. I'll snip my replies to him here.
If I'm wrong on anything I say below, I invite correction. His web site is http://www.tomkaye.com Some people are apparently impressed when they read it. I think that says more about the reader, than about investigating the Cooper case.
------------
Tom Kaye is a fake.
He's not a scientist.
He doesn't even have a college degree.

He's a fake.
He acts like a scientist, and let's/leads people to believe he's a scientist.

He's not.
-----------------
Larry Carr is unskilled for the job at hand.

How did Larry Carr rationalize anything he did? I don't know.

Tom Kaye is easier to figure out, once you realize he's fake.
------------------
I say Tom Kaye is useless because he is.
He has produced nothing. Therefore useless.

Everyone has the possiblity of being useful in the future. That doesn't mean anything.

There's no reason to believe Tom Kaye will be more useful than a random person off the street.

You've just got wishful thinking.

Would you jump with Tom Kaye on a RT mission in Vietnam in 1971? No, because you know he's unskilled. You wouldn't say "maybe he'll pull it off".

[snowmman 3]

Mentioning McCoy reminds me.

Carr had held out McCoy as an example of how an "expert" would do it.

Are we all in agreement now that McCoy was not a freefall expert, and only had a couple months freefall experience...i.e. that McCoy showed how a novice would do it?

I'd like feedback. It's a good example of how broken the FBI thinking is, and how myths are still held as truth, even when obviously false.

I posted the dates/months when McCoy started freefall (I think his friend provided some info about their club too? from the McCoy book).

[377 22]

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You've just got wishful thinking.

Would you jump with Tom Kaye on a RT mission in Vietnam in 1971? No, because you know he's unskilled. You wouldn't say "maybe he'll pull it off".

Sometimes wishful thinking is a good thing.

I was very low on RW skills in the 70s when I somehow got onto a big (15?) way jump at Elsinore jumping from their DC 3. I had never hooked up with more than two other people before and it took thousands of feet and many tentative approaches.

Well, I pulled it off thanks to a lot of help from others and got my SCR award.

Was I qualified for the jump? NO WAY. It was strictly a "maybe he'll pull it off" situation and I got lucky.

377

2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

[BruceSmith 3]

My primary fascination with SOG, Vietnam, Air America, etc. is what the FBI did with this element of the DBC case. To whit:

How extensive was it, who conducted the inquiries, how were they received by Charlie Farrell, J. Edgar and whomever else was running the Cooper case? And, ultimately, what was done about it?

But, being that the FBI hasn't been that chatty with me, I'm sifting through the stuff that you and the rest of the DZ crew have been so diligent in providing.

Hence, my gratitude.

Of course, further down the road there's another side to this: were any of the warriors in SOG, et al. recruited for really special ops, like MKULTRA or J WAVE, or know-knows-what-else.

On a personal note, I don't think MSG Billy Waugh is Danny Boy. Jumping out of a commercial jetliner twenty minutes out of Sea-Tac seems like too-small a potato. But, somebody who knew him, like a cousin or a neighbor, and heard the stories and how he did it,.......ah, that might be the ticket.

On another personal note, Snow, judging from what I've read here over the past six months I have a lot of help in holding down the conspiratorial fort. (smile).

[snowmman 3]

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You've just got wishful thinking.

Would you jump with Tom Kaye on a RT mission in Vietnam in 1971? No, because you know he's unskilled. You wouldn't say "maybe he'll pull it off".

Sometimes wishful thinking is a good thing.

I was very low on RW skills in the 70s when I somehow got onto a big (15?) way jump at Elsinore jumping from their DC 3. I had never hoodked up with more than two other people before and it took thousands of feet and many tentative approaches.

Well, I pulled it off thanks to a lot of help from others and got my SCR award.

Was I qualified for the jump? NO WAY. It was strictly a "maybe he'll pull it off" situation and I got lucky.

377

You don't understand.
You're viewing it from your perspective.
If the other guys had a goal of really really needing to make the RW for some reason, you wouldn't have been allowed in on that jump.

If there was a high chance others would die unless you were perfect, you wouldn't get in. In fact, if part of skydiving is just rolling the dice with unskilled folks and drinking beer when the dice roll your way, that's pretty funny!
That jump didn't matter so much. That's why you got in. (edit) Or maybe there was no one else available that was a better choice.

Different scenario.

There was no goal for your jump, other than to have fun. The goal actually was probably improved by you being there, since if successful, it was a big thing for you.

Skydiving is as much a social thing as anything else. The social thing is part of the goal.

[377 22]

Gee Snow, I thought these Elsinore hotshots saw raw talent where others saw a low skills wannabe RW flyer. You popped my balloon. Just kidding...

I think they picked me cause they knew if I qualified for the SCR award I was buying beer and it was a sunset jump.

When I came back to my home DZ with an SCR patch, people who knew me wondered if I had swiped it from a real RW jumper.

377

2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

[BruceSmith 3]

My inclination is that the FBI did not pursue the links to Vietnam, SOG, Air American, etc.

And they still don't. Note how Larry Carr makes a link from his Dan Cooper comic book to suggesting that Danny Boy must have been stationed in Belgium, where they speak French in half the country (and certainly in the neighborhoods around NATO HQ in Brussels.) Or perhaps DBC had a connection to French Canada.

But, Ckret never mentions the fact that the french-connection might have been in French Indochina! What? Larry doesn't have any Vietnam vet buddies or watch Vietnam flix, where speech is peppered with phrases like, "Beaucoup VC." ?

Why not put the French comic book hero, Dan Cooper, and his fans (and readers) in Dien Bien Phu? They sure could have used him in 1954.

[BruceSmith 3]

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Mentioning McCoy reminds me.

Carr had held out McCoy as an example of how an "expert" would do it.

Are we all in agreement now that McCoy was not a freefall expert, and only had a couple months freefall experience...i.e. that McCoy showed how a novice would do it?

I'd like feedback. It's a good example of how broken the FBI thinking is, and how myths are still held as truth, even when obviously false.

I posted the dates/months when McCoy started freefall (I think his friend provided some info about their club too? from the McCoy book).

Quote

That's my read too, Snow, that McCoy shows how a desperate, determined, fearlesss-to-the-point-of-reckless (re: his Vietnam chopper rescues) skydiver with only a few free-falls in practice can do the Cooper jump successfully.

I'd also like to add that Tosaw writes that McCoy was also admitted to a psychiatric hospital for Vietnam-related "stress" during the time he was learning how to free-fall.

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[BruceSmith 3]

I just have this nagging hunch that Cooper knew about or was involved in paradrop activities in SE Asia.

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I have the same nagging hunch, Three-Seven-Seven. And it ain't going away.

Also, I share your nagging hunch that the find at Tena's Bar was a plant by somebody. If Momma Nature had done it, I would expect a recognizable plume-field of 20 dollar bills, with shards of different shapes and sizes across the beach.

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