PARIS - A former US presidential spokesman, Mr Pierre Salinger, returned to a controversy yesterday over the crash last year of a TWA jumbo jet, presenting what he called proof it was shot down by a US naval missile.
The evidence, dismissed in advance by US investigators, consisted mostly of radar images Mr Salinger said backed a theory that the navy accidentally shot down TWA flight 800 off New York on July 17th, killing all 230 people aboard.
Mr Salinger and a journalistic team headed by Dr Mike Sommers, an investigative reporter, compiled their allegations in a 69-page report he said proved their ease. The images were published simultaneously in the French news magazine Paris Match.
"That [radar] tape done by the air traffic control completely confirms that a missile fired down TWA 800," Mr Salinger told a news conference. "We have now reached the point where we are totally sure that what we are saying is true."