Fax broadcast of 19 October 1997 to embassies in Washington and missions to the UN in New York City and to US government officials concerning the unsolved 1985 murder case of Arab-American Peace Advocate Alex Michel Odeh:   

    STEPHEN M. ST. JOHN
    POST OFFICE BOX 449
    ROCKEFELLER  CENTER
    NEW YORK, NY  10185

TEL/FAX: 212 534 5024
(The contact information above is no longer current.)

                                  19 October 1997

AN APPEAL TO THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY TO REDOUBLE EFFORTS TO COMBAT TERRORISM IN  ALL  OF  ITS  FORMS

    Last week’s news reports about Mossad assassins posing as Canadian tourists in Amman, Jordan, revive memories of journalist Steve K. Walz’s mysterious reference to some kind of connection between the 1988 murder of Khalil Al Wazir in Tunis and a series of explosions at Jewish institutions in Argentina years later.  If the Amman incident is any indication of a regular modus operandi, then it is only fair to suggest the possibility that the Wazir “hit team” took the guise of Argentineans on tour.

    Mr. Walz, a friend and supporter of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, writes a regularly featured column, “Informed Sources,” for the Brooklyn-based weekly newspaper, The Jewish Press.  Other featured columnists include New York City Mayor Rudolf Guiliani, New York State Governor George Pataki and Bar Ilan University Professor Paul Eidelberg, whose call for revolution, as justified by Torah “when the laws of the state violate the laws of G-d,” was on the newsstands in the United States and Israel three days before the Rabin assassination by a former Bar Ilan University student.  The maximum sentence meted out in this instance is a disclaimer:  “Views expressed on this page are not necessarily those of the publisher.”

    When such clearly expressed incitement to violence against a Prime Minister whose policies the writer found objectionable not only goes unpunished but does not even elicit comment anywhere in the news media, it is unfortunate indeed for democracy.  One also wonders to what extent the news media encourages extremists.

    Take for example the assassination of Alex Odeh on 11 October 1985 in Santa Ana, California.  Alex was a displaced Palestinian who became an outspoken advocate of his people’s cause.  Circumstances led to his appearance on a local Los Angeles TV station where he had the unenviable task of explaining what people did not want to hear:  the PLO was not behind the Achille Lauro hijacking but instead helped to end it.  The next morning a bomb exploded as Alex opened the door to his office; his secretary, a Syrian national named Hind Baki, was usually the first to arrive each morning, but an errand saved her life.  Strangely, only a week before, the name “Baki” appeared in an ominous and surreptitious manner in the Hearst Corporation’s now defunct Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, in an editorial page cartoon whose provenance certainly deserves rigorous investigation.  The proper authorities appear to be uninterested.  

Letters of 14 and 16 December 2001 sent to California Congressman Darrell Issa in which I remind him of the unsolved 1985 Alex Odeh murder case after one of the suspects in the Odeh case was arrested in a plot to bomb Issa's office:

    STEPHEN M. ST. JOHN
    POST OFFICE BOX 449
    ROCKEFELLER  CENTER
    NEW YORK, NY  10185
    TEL/FAX: 212 534 5024
    MOBILE:  917 519 2905
(The contact information above is no longer current.)



    14 December 2001
Representative Darrell Issa
United States Congress
1725 Longworth Building
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Congressman Issa,

    As a follow-up to my conversation today with your courteous and attentive aide, Mr. Anthony Gostanian, I send to you in this fax transmission an item that relates directly to the 11 October 1985 assassination of my friend and colleague on the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, Alex Odeh, which became part of the news story about the arrest of Jewish Defense League leader Irving David Rubin according to The New York Times (13 December 2001, page 22).  With reference to the Bill Schorr cartoon that appeared exactly one week before the assassination in the 4 October 1985 edition of the The Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, I point to the letters B-A-K-I which are printed on the side panel of a truck that makes up part of the background of this cartoon.  This is the name of Hind Baki, the administrative assistant of the ADC’s southwest regional office headquarters in Santa Ana, which Alex headed.  As Mr. Gostanian said it best: “How weird!”  What to me is even more telling about this cartoon is the FBI’s apparent willingness to avoid this piece of evidence in the murder and conspiracy investigation.  As I said to Mr. Gostanian, a signal carried surreptitiously by a cartoon via the editorial offices of a major daily newspaper suggests an intelligence operation.  And in a deposition of G. Gordon Liddy in a case pertaining to the JFK assassination, Liddy mentions CIA use of cartoonists in its repertoire of methods.  Anyway, the story of Alex’s death runs deep and there is more that I can say.  I hope you are interested.  I’d like to see justice done to whomever was behind the assassination of Alex Odeh, directly or indirectly.

    STEPHEN M. ST. JOHN
    POST OFFICE BOX 449
    ROCKEFELLER  CENTER
    NEW YORK, NY  10185
    TEL/FAX: 212 534 5024
    MOBILE:  917 519 2905
(The contact information above is no longer current.)



    16 December 2001
Representative Darrell Issa
United States Congress
1725 Longworth Building
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Congressman Issa,

    As a follow-up to my conversation last Friday with your courteous and attentive aide, Anthony Gostanian, I again send to you in this fax transmission an item that relates directly to the 11 October 1985 assassination of my friend and colleague on the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, Alex Odeh, which became part of the news story about the arrest of Jewish Defense League leader Irving David Rubin according to The New York Times (13 December 2001, page 22).

    With reference to the Bill Schorr cartoon that appeared exactly one week before the assassination on the editorial page of the 4 October 1985 edition of the Hearst Corporation publication, The Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, I point to the letters B-A-K-I which are printed on the side panel of a truck that makes up part of the background of this cartoon.  B-A-K-I is the surname of Hind Baki, the administrative assistant of the ADC’s southwest regional office in Santa Ana, California, where Alex was killed.  As Mr. Gostanian said it best: “How weird!”  I ask, how on earth can this cartoon be explained?

    What to me is even more telling about this cartoon is the FBI’s apparent willingness to avoid this piece of evidence in the murder and conspiracy investigation.  As I said to Mr. Gostanian, a signal carried surreptitiously by a cartoon via the editorial offices of a major daily newspaper suggests an intelligence operation.  And in a deposition of G. Gordon Liddy for a January 1985 trial pertaining to the JFK assassination (80-1121-Civ-Hon. James W. Kehoe, Federal District Court, Miami, FL 33128-7796), Liddy mentions CIA use of cartoonists in its repertoire of methods.  However, investigators who value their jobs and careers are not very likely to put 2 and 2 together here.  Don’t forget: this was - and still is - the FBI milieu of “Abscam” and not of “Jewscam”!

    Anyway, the story of Alex’s death runs deep and there is more that I can say.  I hope you are interested in using your office to prod the FBI to get to the bottom of this matter.  I’d like to see justice done to whomever was behind the assassination of Alex Odeh, directly or indirectly.

    Again, how can this Bill Schorr cartoon be explained?  In 1989, I put this question to William Randolf Hearst, Jr..  He did not respond but within a week after my query he had shut down the  Herald-Examiner for good!  So the question remains:  how on earth can this Hearst cartoon be explained?  Do you understand my rage?  Inasmuch as your office, if not you yourself, was reportedly an intended target of Mr. Rubin, I hope you do understand how I feel.

    Our zeal for Zionism has caused us to foresake international law and treaty obligations mandated by the Constitution of the USA.  And here we have an instance wherein the murder of a citizen of the USA of Palestinian Arab origin and an activist for the just cause of his people is being covered up in a grotesque perversion of justice.  Zionism has rotted our institutions from the inside out.  11 September does not compare!

Letter of 20 February 2002 in which I seek legal representation from lawyer & Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz: