The Voice of Abulafia

"Jacopo Belbo was not crazy; he had simply, through his game, hit upon the truth." - Foucault's Pendulum

In the aftermath of the "German Guy" flap, I expressed my suspicion that both he and TBRNews.org's "Voice of the White House" sprang from the same counterfeit well, and were possibly the work of the pseudonymous "Gregory Douglas." Whether that's true or not, I'm persuaded "The Voice" is a hoaxer, though there's no denying he knows how to deftly tie together a wild assortment of loose threads. While that makes it tempting to believe he's a genuine insider, to me it also explodes his credibility, because rarely in real life do loose threads tie up so handsomely. (And even though to many of us it may not seem like it much of the time, our subject remains real life.)

I think the Voice is still worth reading, if read as speculative non-fiction, which puts me in mind of Jacopo Belbo and his computer - nicknamed Abulafia, after a 13th century cabalist - in Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum. Belbo collated disparate data into bizarre linkages to create "the Plan": a Grand Unified Conspiracy Theory covering thousands of years of civilization. Unfortunately for Belbo the Plan, which he began as a joke, was too close to the truth as understood by a secret society of diabolical elites, who killed him for his secret knowledge. Which, in fact, wasn't much of anything; he just got lucky. Or rather, unlucky. ("Believe there is a secret and you will feel like an initiate. It costs nothing," Belbo wrote to himself. But because others believed him to be an initiate, it cost him his life.)

The latest Voice pulls together Jeff Gannon, stolen intelligence, and the death of Edward von Kloberg. As usual, I ask myself whether if, through his game, he may have hit on the truth. Regardless, the story deserves some reflection, though without the presumption of "inside" knowledge.

"Tyrants' Lobbyist, Flamboyant to the End" is The Washington Post's headline for von Kloberg's apparent suicide last week by "flinging himself" from a tower of Rome's Castle St. Angelo. The Post neglects to mention that found in his pocket was a 1997 issue of Prime Magazine, featuring a cover photo of von Kloberg and George Herbert Walker Bush.

Even though, as we've noted, the CIA's declassified assassination manual advises that "the most efficient accident, in simple assassination, is a fall of 75 feet or more onto a hard surface," it's possible von Kloberg jumped. (He left a note for Italian police, which claimed he was despondent over his former boyfriend's refusal to resume their relationship.) But it's also likely that von Kloberg had made many enemies over the course of his peculiar career. And it is possible some powerful enemies were made fairly recently.

The Voice brings Gannon into the mix with the suggestion that dates of leaked Presidential Daily Briefings matched his visits to the White House, and suggests he passed them to von Kloberg "to impress the latter with both his knowledge and connections. Von Kloberg in turn was passing this knowledge on to his clients in exchange for money and political influence." The result was von Kloberg had a great fall.

I don't know. It's conceivable, but because I doubt the provenance of the Voice, I won't take his word for it. What I find most provocative is the symbology that von Kloberg carried to his death an eight-year old magazine bearing the image of GWH Bush. What was intended by such a gesture? A nod to the glory days of his past? But von Kloberg enjoyed many honours, both from his international clients and from Washington society. It's hard to believe an old magazine would mean so much. Besides, his note claimed his broken relationship as the reason for his suicide. So why carry a picture of Bush to his death, rather than a portrait of his former boyfriend? Was he sending some other message, or - if it was an assisted suicide - what message were his killers transmitting?

The Voice claims to be an insider, so his answers presume to be non-speculative. (If he truly were, I believe his shattered body would have hit the ground long before von Kloberg's.) But the conceit invites us, the outsiders, to adopt his constructs as fact. As much as I'd like to - and as much as I used to - I won't do that now. Open questions aren't as satisfying as answers, because they don't provide the sense of being initiated into a secret. But that's more like real life, isn't it? And sometimes they leave us closer to the truth.


By the way, on the suggestion of several readers I've added a "sustaining membership" button to the sidebar, that provides a convenient method of supporting Rigorous Intuition. This button accepts donations of $10 a month, for six months, with no recurring billing.

And thanks for the support and all the encouragement that makes this possible.