It’s not just teens in horror films – like the new remake of I Know What You Did Last Summer – who try and hide their mistakes. It’s more likely to be the people in charge…
It’s not too far-fetched to think teenagers might cover up a fatal accident. That’s what makes the new remake of I Know What You Did Last Summer, out in cinemas tomorrow, so terrifying.
In the movie, starring Madelyn Cline and Chase Sui Wonders, a mysterious killer shows up to punish the youngsters for their mistake. Which is harsh when you consider history’s real-life cover-ups – most of which involved people who really should have known better.
Here MEG JORSH unearths some of the most shocking botched efforts…
Water palaver
Richard Nixon set the gold standard for cack-handed coverups in June 1972. The then-US president knew he was in hot water when five burglars were arrested at the Watergate hotel and office complex in Washington.
They had been trying to place listening devices in the offices of the Democratic National Committee – and one of them, Bernard Barker, had a $25,000 cheque from Nixon’s campaign in his bank account.
An FBI probe found it was part of a huge offensive of political spying and sabotage on the Republican’s behalf. But Nixon, who somehow won re-election by a landslide that November, dug his heels in.
His team refused to hand over secret tapes of White House meetings and even fired Archibald Cox, the special prosecutor hired to investigate the scandal. But with evidence – and impeachment bids – mounting against him, he was finally forced to step down in July 1974.
Stubbed out
We all know smoking is bad for us these days. There’s no scientist on earth who would try and convince us otherwise. Right?
Well, back in 1950 the tobacco industry was still pretty relaxed about killing off its customers. So when researcher Dr. Ernst Wynder published his landmark study linking smoking to lung cancer, they weren’t going down without a fight.
In January 1954, the Tobacco Institute Research Committee took out full-page ads in 400 US newspapers. They stated “eminent doctors and research scientists have publicly questioned the claimed significance of these experiments.”
Behind the scenes, their own research had proven that smoking was a killer. But they kept up the ruse for decades. A 1972 industry memo described “creating doubt about the health charge, without actually denying it”.
They were finally rumbled in 1998, when attorneys-general from 46 US states joined together in a lawsuit against the industry. Tobacco firms agreed to pay a staggering $10billion annually to make up for the damage they had caused.
Delayed reaction
However experienced you might be at hiding things, an exploding nuclear power plant seems ambitious. Even before the blast, Chernobyl’s Reactor No.4 was housed in a building the equivalent of 20 storeys high.
So when it malfunctioned in April 1986, causing a massive explosion, people would definitely have noticed. Two workers died immediately, while 28 went on to perish from radiation poisoning.
For 10 days afterwards, massive amounts of radioactive gas and debris were left spewing into the atmosphere from the Ukrainian site, then part of the Soviet Union. But officials said nothing until Swedish scientists raised the alarm.
It took then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev an astonishing three weeks to even mention the accident in public. He claimed the Kremlin did not get the whole story and “realised the entire drama only later.”
It led to a worldwide outcry so huge, Gorbachev felt compelled to lift information restrictions on Soviet government misdeeds.
Why spy?
Back in 1894, the French government was lurching from crisis to crisis.
What they needed was a scapegoat – and when an army janitor found papers indicating a sneaky French officer was spying for the Germans, it seemed they had found one.
The army picked out Jewish officer Capt. Alfred Dreyfus as the perfect fall guy, relying on widespread antisemitism to back up their claims. He was sentenced to life in prison at Devil’s Island in South America.
Then in 1896, intelligence chief Lt. Col. Georges Picquart identified Maj. Ferdinand Walsin-Esterhazy as the real spy. His superiors swung into action – and had Picquart fired.
When writer Émile Zola condemned the affair in his famous open letter J’Accuse, he was convicted of libel and forced to flee the country.
It later emerged that forged documents had been planted with the evidence used to convict Dreyfus of treason. But despite a confession from the forger, a military court found him guilty again.
Dreyfus was ultimately pardoned in 1899 and in 1906 was awarded the Legion of Honour.
READ MORE: Child killer who ‘may kill again’ begs for social media access so he can meet a women
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
