NEW YORK -- Author William Langewiesche says something secret and sorry was mixed in with the rescue, sadness and tumult of the attack on America on Sept. 11, 2001.
"The looting was shadowy, widespread..." he writes in "American Ground," referring to the less heroic actions of some firefighters, police, and later, cleanup workers.
Peter Gorman, president of the Fire Officer's Union, has organized firefighter rallies against the accusations at readings and book signings by Langewiesche.
"For him to insinuate that a firefighter got off the truck that morning and told his captain, 'I'll be right with you Cap, let me go down and grab a couple pair of jeans and I'll be right back inside,' is disgusting," said Gorman.
But as
NewsChannel 4 first reported last spring, the existence of looting at and around ground zero is undeniable.
Tourneau's marketing boss said then that his downtown inventory was wiped out, and not by toppling towers.
"There were maybe 20 watches left in the store out of a few hundred," said Andrew Block.
In the recently released, "American Ground," Langewiesche writes about a fire ladder truck recovered from the pile of fallen debris.
"Its crew cab was filled with dozens of new pairs of jeans from The Gap," he writes. "It was hard to avoid the conclusion that the looting had begun even before the first tower fell, and that while hundreds of doomed firemen had climbed through the wounded buildings, this particular crew had been engaged in something else entirely."
"These accusations are completely without merit," said Gorman. "And any looting down there I believe was minimal. Who was doing it? I have no idea, I'm not a police agency."
The widow of one of 343 firefighters who perished in the World Trade Center attack said having this book is like having one more kick in the stomach.
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Atlantic Monthly magazine calls Langewiesche an experienced and levelheaded reporter and the facts were vigorously checked and rechecked for five months before the articles came out.
Author Defends Looting Allegations The author of a new book accusing firefighters of looting ground zero after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks defended his work Monday against mounting criticism by union officials.
"I have nothing against firefighters," Langewiesche said in a telephone interview. "I'm much in admiration of firefighters."
Critics of "American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center" have focused on a passage about the discovery of dozens of new jeans from The Gap -- still tagged, folded and stacked -- inside the cab of a fire truck pulled from the rubble.
About 150 demonstrators, including off-duty firefighters and widows of firefighters killed in the attack, gathered outside a lower Manhattan museum where Langewiesche was holding a book-signing session Monday night.
The demonstrators -- some chanting "Liar! Liar!" -- distributed a letter from fire department Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta accusing the author of "tarnishing the memory of our city's heroes with foolish, absurd and unfounded accusations."
In the interview, Langewiesche defended the accuracy of his book and insisted he was not out to expose looters.
"I was writing about the dynamics on the pile," he said, referring to the mountain of debris left by the trade center attack.
Among the rubble at the 16-acre site were thousands of items from retail stores, including The Gap, that were in a concourse beneath the twin 110-story towers.
The uproar, Langewiesche added, comes as no surprise.
"I completely understand the reaction," he said. "This is very, very emotional territory."
A longtime correspondent with
Atlantic Monthly, Langewiesche was granted full access to the cleanup site, where he conducted extensive interviews over several months. His inside account describes a war zone that brought out the best -- and sometimes the worst -- of those who labored to remove bodies and debris.
One office building near ground zero was "systematically rifled for valuables," Langewiesche wrote. "Whether by errant firemen, policemen or construction workers hardly mattered. All three groups were at various times implicated in a widespread pattern of looting that started even before the towers fell, and was to peak around Christmas with the brazen theft of office computers."
Working about 50 feet below street level last fall, construction workers found the fire truck filled with jeans, the book said. The workers began jeering firefighters at the scene after concluding that that "while hundreds of doomed firefighters had climbed through the wounded buildings, this particular crew had engaged in something else entirely," it said.
Fire officials have theorized the merchandize was blown into the truck by the force of the towers' collapse.
One of the demonstrators, Chief Joseph Nardone, said that he was present when the truck was discovered and that the book's account was full of inaccuracies.
He conceded jeans were found scattered near the truck but said they were from a different store and said the crew from that truck, who died on Sept. 11, "were out to do one thing -- save people."
A Patrolmen's Benevolent Association spokesman, Al O'Leary, said the police union was "not going to dignify the book with a comment."
The book is published by North Point Press, a division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux. A version originally appeared in
Atlantic Monthly.
© 2004 by WNBC.com The Associated Press contributed to this report. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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