9/11 Commission: The Absence of 9/11 Family Members

posted by ewing2001 on Wednesday December 10, @09:44AM

The telltale hat in a sea of suits at 9/11 hearing

Up now: C|Span- Clips from the Press Conference

NJ.com -Wednesday, December 10, 2003

...Robert McIlvane, Class of 1997.

Killed Sept. 11, 2001. A young executive with Merrill Lynch, he was at the World Trade Center for a conference. His body was one of the first 10 found and identified. He was 26.

His father's presence at the latest public hearing of the 9/11 Commission stood out for a reason other than the hat. He was the only family member of a victim to attend the session Monday.

Actually, the only family member of a victim other than Ellie Hartz, a 9/11 widow who is now on the staff of the panel formally known as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. Her job is to stay in touch with the family members. Liaison.

"I guess it was the weather," said Hartz.

For a while, before McIlvane showed up and after he left, no family members were present in the audience at the sixth session of a commission the very existence of which is owed the lobbying of family members.

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It was the weather, sure, but it was something else.

"You know, it's just getting so hard to arrange for baby sitters and get down there in time," said Kristen Breitweiser of Middletown, probably the most vocal member of the Family Steering Committee, the organization of survivors that lobbied Congress for the panel's creation.

"And for what? We're not learning anything. The commission is not coming up with anything new."

She is one of what has been informally called the "four widows from New Jersey" who somehow managed to overcome the objections of President Bush to persuade legislators to create the commission.

Since the panel's first meeting last March in New York, at least one of those four widows -- usually all four -- have attended every session, often accompanied by their children.

Their absence Monday was obvious. Kean noticed it and remarked, "That's troubling."

In recent weeks, they have become the commission's severest critics, complaining about its deal with the White House for access to CIA briefings; about its failure to have more sessions in New York; about the panel's methods for obtaining information and interviewing witnesses.

"We want it to succeed," said Breitweiser, whose name had been pushed by some groups as a possible replacement for Max Cleland, the former Georgia senator who's resigning from the commission.

"It's just that we don't see too much hope for it now."

McIlvane, the father, isn't involved in all that. He's been to most sessions, doesn't say much to anyone. Just sits in the audience and listens.

"It's so hard to believe I'm the only family member here," says McIlvane, who lives in Oreland, Pa., a Philadelphia suburb. He was a special education teacher at a school for kids with psychiatric problems. Until he was laid off, just a few weeks after his son was killed.

Now, at 58, he's retired, and spends his time working with peace organizations, including Peaceful Tomorrows, a group of 9/11 family members that protest the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

He's not critical of other family members who didn't show. Says he understands why they wouldn't come and, while he doesn't even know Breitweiser and the other New Jersey widows, he says he understands their anger.

"You come here and it breaks your heart thinking about it all again -- and you don't get any answers."

Even if McIlvane didn't wear Bobby's hat, he would have stood out. No, he didn't carry a picture or wear a pin as many family members do. He didn't seek out the press to offer his two cents on the commission's work.

But, at one point during the hearing, when a witness named Stewart Baker, former general counsel to the National Security Agency, was testifying, you could see McIlvane lean forward on his chair.

Baker was describing how an FBI agent came close to arresting two of the 9/11 hijackers. He said he thought the agent had had a shot at breaking up the whole conspiracy.

McIlvane listened closely and, even in the shadow of Bobby's Princeton hat, you could see a tear run down his father's cheek.