On February 18, 1999, it finally seemed that the miscreant would at long last be brought to book for the crime he had committed against a helpless woman more than 20 years ago. The offender is a singularly slippery specimen, well connected to both the radical counterculture and the Establishment elite. A veteran of the anti-war movement and the drug culture, our subject insists that the charges against him are the product of a vast conspiracy, and he has persuaded those who have the power to remove him from his current residence that he is the victim of malicious prosecution by “right-wing extremists.”
Over the course of several decades, his personal magnetism attracted scores of women to him, and he felt no compunctions about using them shamelessly. Sex “was an addiction” for him, one of his longtime friends told Time magazine: “If he was interested in a woman, that was the only thing that existed.” The key to his appeal was his ability to empathize. As another friend pointed out, women were drawn to him because “he feigned he cared” about them. But female groupies were not the only ones who fell for this predator’s “I feel your pain” routine. Corporate leaders, foundation heads, well-placed political brokers, and other Insiders lavished money and fame upon him. He never held a legitimate job, living off the corporate patronage of the Establishment – even getting a position as a fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Govermment.
Guru Without Portfolio
In 1979, he informed a gathering in London, “I was very surprised recently when I was approached by the Rockefellers and offered whatever amount of money I wanted to run for public office.” When his audience expressed puzzlement as to why the Rockefellers would make such an overture, he explained that “they need a front…. They’re constantly hunting for people.” Since he had already dabbled in electoral politics and found it less than fulfilling, he declined the Rockefellers’ offer. “I felt I had a lot more power doing what I was doing,” he told his listeners, referring to his work as a “guru without portfolio” on behalf of various drug culture and new age causes.
So Ira Einhorn returned from London to Philadelphia, where he would shortly be arrested for the murder of Holly Maddux. And the Rockefeller-led elite continued to cultivate another promising graduate of the 1960s counterculture – a young sociopath named William Jefferson Clinton, who was then in the first year of his first term as governor of Arkansas.
On Febru ary 18 [1999], ju st a day before Juanita Broaddrick publicly disclosed that Bill Clint on had raped her in 1978, a French court agreed to extradite Ira Einhorn to the United States. History sometimes displays mischievous synchronicity, and the convergence of these two events offers an opportunity to examine the remarkable parallels between the “Man from Hope” and the “Unicorn” from Philadelphia. Perhaps “parallels” is the wrong expression: The individual stories of Bill Clinton and Ira Einhorn intersect in some fascinating ways, the most astounding of which is the role of Arlen Specter in helping both of them elude justice. In any case, it is reasonable to believe that, had circumstances been changed just slightly, Bill Clinton may have been Ira Einhorn, and vice-versa. Most importantly, this tale of two sociopaths lays bare the unimaginable corruption that characterizes our political Establishment, particularly as veterans of the 1960s counterculture begin to achieve cultural hegemony.
Hobnobbing With the Powerful
By the late 1970s, Ira Einhorn’s network of influence, wrote Steven Levy in his 1988 book The Unicorn ‘s Secret: Murder in the Age of Aquarius, included “Uri Geller, the shah [of Iran], the family who owned Seagram liquors, the vice president of AT&T, top NASA officials, Timothy Leary, [theosophical luminary] Krishnamurti, [and] the Trilateral Commission….” In his work as a free-lance counterculture guru, Einhorn rubbed shoulders with many who would become influential figure s in Clinton -era America.
Just shortly before he was arrested for the murder of Holly Maddux, for example, Einhorn met with the Congressional Clearinghouse on the Future , a bipartisan New Age caucus created by “futurist” Alvin Toffler. Among Toffler’s early recruits was a “conservative” Republican Congressman from Georgia named Newt Gingrich, who would probably have been in Einhorn’s audience; the same is true of Tennessee Congressman Al Gore, a former chairman of the Clearinghouse and future U.S. Vice President.
Einhorn – who, translating his German -Jewish surname, preferred to call himself the “Unicorn” – may very well have been what Bill Clint on is now, but for two things. First of all was the fact that, unlike the current resident of the White House, Einhorn could not dissimulate regarding his drug use: A chief guru of Philadelphia’s drug culture, Einhorn ‘s name is inseparably associated with those of Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Allen Ginsburg, and the rest of that despicable lot. In the late 1960s, Einhorn was a frequent visitor at the Esalen Institut e in Big Sur, California, where he hobnobbed with the drug culture elite – including LSD priestess Jean Huston, who decades later would guide First Lady Hillary Clinton through seances in the White House solarium..
Einhorn’s deep entanglement in hard drugs was only one insurmountable political obstacle. His second insuperable difficulty relates to the events of March 28, 1979, the day police Detective Michael Chitwood served a search warrant on Einhorn’s apartment in Philadelphia’s Powelton Village. Chitwood was searching for 30-year-old Holly Maddux, an erstwhile girlfriend of Einhorn who had disappeared in September 1977.
Murderous Pacifist
Einhorn’s neighbors had noticed a pungent odor emanating from his apartment. By itself this was only mildly peculiar, since the Unicorn, who regarded personal hygiene to be a bourgeois affectation, always emitted an unpleasant bodil y funk. However, when a foul-smelling viscous liquid began seeping through the floor of Einhorn ‘s second-story apartment, the occupants of the adjoining first-story room notified the police.
Holly Maddux, at the time of her relationship with Einhorn. To see what was left of her afterwards, look below.
Chitwood eventually found Holly’s desiccated remains locked in a steamer trunk in the Unicorn ‘s closet.
“We found the body,” Chitwood remarked to Einhorn. “It looks like Holly’s body.”
Einhorn stolidly replied, “You found what you found.”
An autopsy conducted on the body – which had shriveled to 37 pounds – found at least a dozen skull fractures. One of the blows had broken off her lower jawbone and forced it into her mouth. Einhorn had killed Holly in a violent rage after she had begun a relationship with a more stable man. Einhorn had a previous history of violence against women following a breakup. In two previous instances, noted the Houston Chronicle, Einhorn “had choked the women intounconsciousness and, in one, he had struck the woman from behind with a Coke bottle.”
“Of all the people in the City of Brotherly Love,” wrote Steven Levy, “Ira Einhorn had been the one most closely associated with nonviolence, conciliation, pacifism, and the Love Generation. Was it really plausible that he would commit such a brutal act? And compound the deed with the Gothic touch of retaining the corpse?”
Cert ainly the political Establishment, both in Philadelphia and across the nation, did not want to admit the possibility. Einhorn had carved out a niche as a “peacemaker,” and had been one of the cofounders of Earth Day in 1970. His network was vast and influential, and it produced a remarkable stream of high-profile character witnesses at his April 1979 pre-trial bail hearing. Corporate leaders, renowned attorneys, clergymen – all of them took the stand to hymn Einhorn’s virtues as a man of peace, tolerance, compassion, and character, creating what Levy described as “a daisy chain of accolades that seemed to have no end.”
Savior Specter
Einhorn scored a remarkable coup in retaining as defense counsel a former Philadelphia district attorney who would shortly be elected to the Senate – “moderate” Republican Arlen Specter, who 20 years later would play a pivotal role in saving Bill Clinton’s Presidency by being one of the first Republican senators publicly to oppose convicting the impeached President.
Underscoring the calculated brutality of the murder for which Einhorn stood accused, prosecuting attorney Joe Murray asked for $100,000 bail. Specter protested that the amount was excessive, insisting that the state had no “direct evidence” that Einhorn had committed the crime. Stunned by Specter’s absurd claim, Judge William Marutani asked, “Isn’t it a little unusual to have a dead body in a trunk in one’s own residence? Doesn ‘t that raise some eyebrows?”
Specter, who would latr invoke Scottish law to justify his vote not to convict Bill Clinton, buried the judge beneath obscure and largely irrelevant – legal precedents. He insisted that the violence of the crime committed upon Holly Maddux should not determine bail for Einhorn. He also argued, wrote Levy, that “Ira Einhorn, on the basis of who he was and his extraordinary accomplishments, was entitled to ‘a great many presumptions.’” Reasonable bail, Specter contended, would be $5,000. Judge Marutani set bail at $40,000 , which meant that Einhorn and his supporters would have to post $4,000 cash bond. Barbara Bronfman, then-wife of Seagram Liquor magnate Charles Bronfman , eagerly ponied up the cash bond, leaving Einhorn’s parents to assume liability for the remaining $36,000 when he fled.
“Einhorn, never at a loss to explain the mysteries of the universe, calmly assured his minions he had been framed and relished the chance to prove it at his murder trial,” recalled the September 27, 1997 issue of Time. Prefiguring the Clinton White House’s refrain in the immediate aftermath of the Lewinsky revelations, Einhorn’s approach could be described as promising “more rather than less, sooner rather than later.” In an interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer, Einhorn dropped tantalizing hints that he was the victim of a dark plot by covert intelligence agencies and American neoNazis.
In 1980, shortly before he jumped bail, Einhorn told some of his friends in the “progressive” press that Fred Maddux, Holly ‘s father, was “a high officer in the American Nazi Party,” recalled Steven Levy in The Unicorn ‘s Secret. As the tale was spun by Einhorn, Maddux – supposedly inspired by his bigotry and “reactionary” political views, killed Holly and framed Einhorn for the crime. To this day, a “biography” compiled by Einhorn and distributed to the press identifies the late Fred Maddux as a “prominent Neo-Nazi”- a contemptible smear of a man who fought in Europe with the 508th Parachute Regiment and served as a bodyguard for both Eisenhower and Patton.
While Einhorn’s neo-Nazi conspiracy theory is an act of inventive lunacy, it is only marginally more demented than the notion, generated by the Clinton smear apparatus and picked up by the press and “progressive” Democrats in Congress, that the impeachment campaign was hatched by white supremacists angry with Clinton over civil rights issues. With the same pathological composure Bill Clinton would later display in his finger-wagging denial of “sexual relations with that woman,” Einhorn would often look directly in the eyes of his supporters and say, “I did not kill Holly” – which, by any measure, was a much more serious offense than sexually exploiting a young intern and abusing the authority of the presidency to cover up that misbehavior.
But as his 1981 trial date approached, Einhorn began to sense that he was fighting a rearguard battle against the truth. Friends and supporters who once embraced him on the streets now pretended not to notice him, or avoided him in public. As the shunning began to take its toll, Einhorn – who once could seduce nearly any woman he desired, and receive a corporate subsidy in nearly any amount upon request – complained to his friend George Keegan, “I’m not going to be able to be Ira Einhorn now.”
It was then, Keegan told Time, that “I realized he was a selfish, arrogant bastard .”
Shortly before his trial was to commence, the Unicorn fled the jurisdiction.
On the Lam
Ira Einhorn’s plentiful international contacts, and occasional infusions of cashfrom the Seagram dynasty, helped the fugitive elude an international dragnet for 16 years. The turning point in the pursuit of Einhorn came in 1988, when Levy published The Unicorn’s Secret, which found its way into the hands of Barbara Bronfman (who had by then divorced Charles). Sickened by what she read, she stopped sending money to Einhorn. Then she provided the key clue to Richard DiBenedetto, an investigator in the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office, who had pursued Einhorn across five countries: She told him to find a woman in Sweden named Annika Flodin. Following up on the lead, investigators nearly nabbed Einhorn in Ireland and in Stockholm, only to see him wriggle out of the trap.
In 1993, while DiBenedetto continued to pursue his murderous quarry, Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham used a newly passed state law to convict Einhorn in absentia; the jury, after hearing two weeks’ worth of evidence, delivered its verdict in less than two hours. Some of the most compelling exhibits for the prosecution were excerpts from Einhorn’s 63 personal journals, which had been collected by DiBenedetto.
“Sadism sounds nice – run it over your tongue – contemplate with joy the pains of others,” read a typical entry. “To beat a woman – what joy,” enthused another. Yet another passage reads like a confession of the Maddux murder: “The violence that flowed through my being tonight . . could result in the murder of that which I seem to love so deeply.”
Beginning of the End
The law finally caught up with the Unicorn on June 13, 1997, when a brigade ofFrench national police surrounded a village in Champagne-Mouton, where the convicted murderer lived, under the alias of Eugene Mallon, with Annika Flodin (whom he had married). French Judge Michel Arrighi conducted an extradition hearing six months later, during which Einhorn, his wife, and his legal team depicted the convicted murderer as a political dissident, pitilessly pursued by the legal system of a barbaric nation in which the death penalty was still used (although Einhorn does not face execution when he is returned to the United States).
“The reason I want to be released is because of what prison does to me,” whined Einhorn at his extradition hearing . “It has ruined my life.” (Since Einhorn somehow managed to live for 18 months with the constant stench of Holly Maddux’s decaying corpse, it’s difficult to see how prison could hold many horrors for him.) His wife complained that the attempt to extradite Einhorn was “a legal attempt to kidnap my husband.” Einhorn ‘s French attorney, Dominique Tricaud, playing to Gallic anti-Americanism, urged the judge not to extradite the killer to prove that “France is not a banana republic, bowing to U.S. pressure.” Judge Arrig hi released Einhorn on the condition that he report to local police once a week.
The slender rationale for Einhorn’s release was a provision in French law that forbids extradition of criminals tried in absentia. The Pennsylvania legislature removed that obstacle by passing a measure permitting a new trial for Einhorn. Thus , on December 1st of last year, the aging Unicorn found himself once again appearing before an extradition hearing in Bordeaux.
When asked to testify on his own behalf, Einhorn – as if in conscious mimicry of Bill Clinton’s defiant, finger-wagging denial of the Lewinsky affair – wagged his finger at the presiding judge and declared, “One thing: I did not kill Holly. C’est tout [that's all].”
Holly ‘s surviving siblings – three sisters and a brother – had flown to France to witness the hearing. Of Einhorn’s ourtroom denial , Elisabeth Hall , Holly ‘s younger sister, told the Houston Chronicle: “He was smirking as he said it. It was a clear attempt to provoke some kind of outburst. He’s a pitiful character, and he knows exactly what he’s done.”
Einhorn’s smirk was a particularly Clintonesque touch. As is so often the case when a smirk descends upon the face of Mr. Clinto n, Einhorn ‘s self-satisfied expression conveyed his arrogant assurance that he was simply too intelligent, too adroit , to be caught, no matter how compelling the evidence against him. However, the smirk was wiped off Einhorn ‘s face on February 18th, when the three-judge panel in Bordeaux announced a “favorable decision for the request of extradition.”
Einhorn was eventually extradited. In October 2002, he was convicted of murdering Holly Maddux and sentenced to life in prison. Bill Clinton, who committed his most serious crimes — including mass murder — under the color of presidential “authority,” receives a lavish pension and round-the-clock Secret Service protection. As an ex-president, Clinton is considered a statesman and a moral leader, rather than a squalid criminal who evaded punishment for his crimes — not merely the relatively trivial dalliance with an intern young enough to be his daughter, but his offenses against the rights and property of innocent people both here and abroad.
Dueling Sociopaths
“I know now who he is, what he is,” Jesse Jackson said of Bill Clinton in 1992. “There’s nothing he won’t do. He’s immune to shame. Move past all the nice posturing and get really down in there in him, you find absolutely nothing . . . nothing but an appetite.” This diagnosis applies with equal accuracy to both Bill Clinton and Ira Einhorn.
Both Clinton and Einhorn displayed messianic delusions as well. “Einhorn charmed many into believing the planet was warping into new frontiers and only the Unicorn could lead them into the Age of Aquarius,” noted Time magazine. Bill Clinton anointed himse lf the “walking apostle of hope and progress,” and never missed an opportunity to remind us that he is our living “bridge to the twenty- first century.”
Both Ira Einhorn and Bill Clinton were carried into the political “mainstream” on the currents of what Steven Levy calls “the American Ganges that was the rich flow of the sixties.” It is worth recalling that the Ganges, one of the earth’s filthiest rivers , is utterly choked with human feculence.
In the aftermath of Juanita Broaddrick’s belated disclosure , this question urges itself upon us: What if, after being raped by Bill Clinton 21 years ago, she had immediately gone to the authorities? According to her accoun t, Bill Clinton , with the physical expertise of a practiced rapist , bit her lip (a tactic used by rapists to force women to open their legs), leaving her with a visible injury. After using her, he calmly adjusted his clothing, donned his sunglasses, and said : “You’d better put some ice on that.”
Broaddrick told the February 22nd New York Post, “If my husband had his way at the time he would have killed” then-Arkansas Attorney General Clinton . Had Broaddrick gone public with her account, it is almost certain that Bill Clinton ‘s political career would have been over.Rather than defiling the White House, Mr. Clinton might well be in prison, an ex-convict, or a fugitive like Ira Einhorn.
Toby Hall, a student of Celtic paganism who knew Einhorn under an alias during the Irish phase of the murderer’s exile, was untroubled by the Unicorn ‘s past: “To me, he was a positive person . I’ve never met a more useful person for society. As far as the United States is concerned, they could do with a guy like that for President.” Unfortunately, at the time of Einhorn’s extradition, our current President was indeed “a guy like that.”
Like Einhorn , Bill Clinton has displayed a pattern of violence against women.To Broaddrick’s account can be added those of Kathleen Willey, Paula Jones, and perhaps others still unknown. But unlike Einhorn, Bill Clinton can summon the services of a team of smear artists- some of whom receive tax-funded paychecks who will defame , harass, and intimidate his victims and their supporters.
One other grim fact must be acknowledged. Einhorn was convicted of a single murder. However, in his politically motivated military strikes against Iraq, Afghanistan, and Sudan – all launched in transparent efforts to manipulate the impeachment process — Bi1ll Clinton has established his credentials as a serial killer. Scores, perhaps hundreds, of innocent human beings have been massacred as a result of Bill Clinton’s use of military strikes as a form of political spin control. Bill Clinton’s acquittal on impeachment charges illustrates that for America’s ruling elite, criminal behavior is consecrated by political power. The subsequent revelation that Bill Clinton is a rapist adds a new, and even more troubling, dimension to the elite’s philosophy of government: We are now expected to believe that there is nothing amiss in handing control over the world’s most powerful military and law enforcement apparatus to a sociopath.
(A version of this essay was originally published in the March 29, 1999 issue of The New American magazine. This updated version was published with the author’s permission.)