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With 9/11 Film, Kean Finds Tough Critic in Hamilton

Lee Hamilton, right, and Thomas Kean appear at a forum in connection with the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. Hamilton, who worked with Kean on the 9/11 panel, strongly criticized the ABC film Kean helped produce.
Lee Hamilton, right, and Thomas Kean appear at a forum in connection with the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. Hamilton, who worked with Kean on the 9/11 panel, strongly criticized the ABC film Kean helped produce. (By Manuel Balce Ceneta -- Associated Press)
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Next door, in the John Peter Zenger Room, a group of 9/11 families were touting a new documentary, "9/11: Press for Truth," which promises that "the coverup" will be "exposed by the 9/11 families."

Kyle Hence, the documentary's producer, used Kean's role in the ABC film as his opening. "The consensus seems to be that this verges on propaganda; it distorts what happened," he said. "We'd like to put forward '9/11: Press for Truth' as a counternarrative, as a true documentary, not a dramatization, not a distortion of the truth."

An hour later in the press club's ballroom, Kean professed to being puzzled by the conspiracy crowd.

"It seems every time there's a traumatic event in American history, it spawns conspiracy theories," he said with a laugh. "I mean, people still think that John Wilkes Booth got away and hid somewhere in the South. As for the 9/11 conspiracy theories, he said, "I don't know what to do about them."

Kean saw no link between the conspiracists and his work in the docudrama trade. When the ABC question was put to him, Kean declared himself mystified by the criticism.

"I've been confounded by this whole controversy," he said innocently. He said that the film's creators are "serious people who wanted to do the best job possible," that it "was a responsible project" and that "I thought they did a good job."

His one attempt at distancing himself was halfhearted. "I was not the producer or director or the author or the writer or whatever else," said co-executive producer Kean.

Hamilton, a tireless Kean booster, answered with some rare public criticism of his partner. "They didn't ask me to participate in this," he said acidly, adding that complaints from Clinton officials were "accurate in their criticisms of ABC." As for the "docudrama" format, the no-nonsense Hoosier said: "I don't like the ring of that."

Spontaneous applause followed Hamilton's criticism.

If Kean was surprised by the scolding, he shouldn't have been. Even before the ABC question came, Hamilton volunteered some stern remarks about the importance of truth. "Facts are not Republican and they're not Democrat," he said. "They're not ideological. Facts are facts."

On this point, Kean was silent.


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