By Sabina Clarke
Bob McIlvaine, a resident of Oreland, PA believes his son Bobby was murdered by the U.S. government. In his presentation at the Treason in America conference in Valley Forge, PA held on the weekend of March 6th he opens with, “The United States government orchestrated and facilitated the murder of my son.”
Bob McIlvaine | photo © Katharine Gilbert
Robert George McIlvaine, 26 years-old, a graduate of Upper Dublin High School and Princeton University was assistant vice president of media relations for Merrill Lynch when he died on the 106th floor of the North Tower, building #1 of the Twin Towers. He didn’t report to work that day, instead deciding to attend a mini-seminar run by a Merrill Lynch executive.
On the morning of 9/11, Bob McIlvaine Senior was not too concerned about his son since he knew he didn’t work in the Twin Towers. Still, he tried calling Bobby and was unable to reach him, “His cell phone was taking messages but he wasn’t answering.” When Merrill Lynch told him that his son hadn’t reported to work that day, he worried.
Still unable to reach his son, on September 12th, both he and his 22year-old son, Jeff went to New York to search for Bobby. They scoured the city going to different hospitals, hoping that Bobby was alive and maybe unconscious.
On September 13th the search was over. Bobby’s body was found; identification was made through his dental charts.
McIlvaine gets all choked up as he talks about how wonderful Mayor Giuliani was at the Command Center and how he talked with him for an hour about Bobby. He appreciates that kindness even though he does not like what Giuliani did after 9/11 and even has some suspicions about how Giuliani might be involved in the cover-up.
On Friday morning, September 15th, he took Bobby home and buried him the following Monday. McIlvaine describes finding Bobby’s body as the “closest you get to closure” adding that “there is never really closure.” He says that compared to other families who never recover the bodies of their loved ones, this is “a step up the ladder of grief.”
After his son’s death he joined a group called Families for Peaceful Tomorrows because he strongly objected to the U.S. Army going into Afghanistan in October 2001. He calls it “criminal,” and believes “all wars are insane.” He was arrested for demonstrating against the Iraq War.
He became active after he attended the 9/11 Commission Hearings in Washington, D.C. and discovered what he feels is the government’s cover-up of the facts of 9/11. He was particularly outraged after hearing former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice testify and essentially say nothing. That is when he realized that the 9/11 Commission was a sham. He feels that the country is too complacent and that there are obvious questions that people should be asking.
He admits that there is an information overload and says that “Even though I could teach a college course on the subject, I limits myself to two impossibilities: the three buildings that came down—building #1, building #2 and building # 7 (which was not even hit by a plane) all came down in free fall. This has been proven by architects and engineers to be scientifically impossible. They all came down due to controlled demolition. The second impossibility is that no planes were intercepted in two hours—which is not credible in a country with the greatest military. It is standard operating procedure to intercept a plane that is even off-course.”
He believes that Vice-President Cheney is involved and cites Cheney giving the order to do nothing when informed of the situation in the White House Command Center. Cheney denies being there or saying this—even though it was reported otherwise.
McIlvaine refused compensation from the government only because he says that he didn’t need it, “Merrill Lynch took care of everything.” For those who did take money from the government, the only condition was that they agree not to sue the government or the airlines.
Now McIlvaine is working with a group called New York City Can, planning to meet with every New York City councilman to talk about World Trade Center building
# 7 that was not part of the 9/11 Commission investigation. Building #7 which was not
hit by an airliner; fell into its own footprint in six seconds at 5:20 P.M. – exactly the way the Twin Towers buildings # 1 and # 2 fell.
The collapse of building #7 may be the key to exposing the lie championed by NIST, National Institute of Standards and Technology, a government agency working for the U.S. Commerce Department and under the control of the White House just as the 9/11 Commission was controlled by the White House. (In his latest book, The Mysterious Collapse of World Trade Center 7, David Ray Griffin, retired professor of religion and theology and the leading author in the 9/11 Truth Movement refers to the “the politicization of science” in the NIST report.)
Every year, the English Department of Princeton University, awards a scholarship in Bobby McIlvaine’s name.