http://www.herbertwarmstrong.com/ar/AR18.htmlTHE MENGE MYSTERY
Penthouse magazine is not the kind of magazine to which we would normally refer readers, but an Ambassador Report subscriber recently brought to our attention a Penthouse article which we found extremely revealing. The thoroughly researched, lengthy article appeared in the November 1981 issue of that publication (p. 63) and was written by L. J. Davis and Ernest Volkman. While the article was ostensibly about religion superstar Jerry Falwell, it really dealt more thoroughly with the affairs of F. William Menge.
Menge was described by Penthouse as a "confidence man and convicted tax evader, sometime associate of known drug smugglers. A former Falwell ministry board member and adviser." But Falwell was not Menge's only preacher contact. Among his other religious contacts were evangelist James Robison, Pat Robertson of the "700 Club," and TV evangelist Kenneth Copeland. Other contacts included Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and top officials in Israel. But what we find most intriguing about Menge is his near acquisition of Ambassador College, Big Sandy, Texas. Here is what Penthouse wrote (p. 186) about that episode:
"Menge and [Menge associate, TV stuntman Jerry] Spicer - who had formed his own Lynchburg company, Exodus Tours - traveled to Israel. Just what happened there is a little confusing. According to an account provided for Penthouse by Spicer, Menge made contact with two Israeli gangsters who had connections with the Miami mob, but Spicer does not say what the nature of the contact was, only that he 'exposed' it.
"As usual, Menge was thinking big. He opened negotiations with El Al Airlines to move thousands of Christian tourists. He negotiated with others to purchase planes, perhaps even a small airline. It had the earmarks of turning into Menge's biggest scam yet, but there are indications that it was much worse and much stranger than that. 'It all comes around now to what all these airplanes were really going to be used for,' Spicer told Penthouse. Spicer is very cautious when speaking on the subject, but he will add one thing more. 'With the airstrip,' he says, 'Christian City would be a multibillion-dollar deal.'
"Spicer is talking about Ambassador College in Big Sandy, Tex., a campus and 5,200-foot airstrip that Menge was negotiating to purchase from the Worldwide Church of God for $10.6 million. It was Menge's plan to build a Christian city there - first, it was rumored, for Jerry Falwell, then for James Robison, and finally for the fundamentalist Brother Lester Roloff, who gave Menge $500,000 that he never saw again. (On the other hand, Roloff is reported to have raised $6 million during his unsuccessful campaign to buy the campus. If so, he is hardly in a position to kick.)
"In the end, with his empire collapsing, Menge couldn't swing the deal, and it fell through, but it is not without its features of interest. Menge first stirred serious law enforcement interest when vans were used to transport marijuana and his known associates turned out to be more than a little crooked. Menge made contact with criminals in Israel, and he allegedly had other contacts in Colombia, prime source of much of the world's cannabis. He was trying to buy some airplanes, and Spicer hints that they were not for the tour business. (Recently published reports have indicated that the mob is moving a portion of its marijuana and brown Mexican heroin operations from Florida to Texas. Big Sandy is midway between Dallas, a lucrative market, and Baton Rouge, a big mob town in a big mob state. In the back of Menge's mind was undoubtedly some use of the 5,200-foot airstrip at Ambassador College. A Christian City would be a splendid, perhaps impenetrable, cover for a major smuggling venture. Although nothing can be stated with any certainty, Spicer is entirely correct when he says that it could be a multi-billion-dollar deal.)"
As bizarre as it may at first sound, Penthouse's speculation on Menge's plans for the Big Sandy campus are well-founded. Recent newspaper articles have also alleged that Tyler, Texas (right near Big Sandy), has within the last few years become a major drug smuggling center. Some experts say that because of Tyler's proximity to the bayous of Louisiana, Tyler could soon become almost as important in drug smuggling operations as Miami and Tucson are at the present time.
The Penthouse story raises a number of interesting questions that could be put to Menge. Unfortunately, Menge can no longer answer those questions, for on Sept. 6, 1980, he was killed in a macabre accident. According to the Penthouse article:
"At about 1:30 p.m. that day, Menge decided to mow a field of grass adjacent to his bankrupt estate in Forest, Va., a suburb of Lynchburg. The reason, it is said, was that he planned to take his children to a picnic there, although people in Lynchburg remember that his children did not appear to have been home. Further, it was snake-and-chigger season in Virginia, and Menge possessed a perfectly adequate swimming pool and picnic area much closer to his house.
"His blood was later found to contain an alcoholic content of .02 percent, not unusual in itself except that Menge was not a drinking man and was not in the habit of keeping alcohol around the house.
"The instrument he chose for the task was a rotary mower called a bush hog. A wicked piece of machinery, it is towed along behind the tractor and is powered by its drive shaft. As Menge drove around the field, according to the official report, one or more of the wheels of the tractor and a blade of the bush hog are supposed to have struck some old utility poles concealed in the grass, causing Menge to bounce into the air. As he did so, the spring that supported the tractor seat is supposed to have fallen out. Menge is then supposed to have fallen back onto the springless seat and tumbled over backward without getting his feet tangled in the pedals or steering wheel, which he is also supposed to have stopped holding. Menge is then supposed to have fallen to the earth, where the bush hog ran over him, severing his left hand and right forearm, shattering and virtually severing his right leg, and fracturing his skull.
"People fall under bush hogs with depressing frequency - like many farm implements, they are not things to fool around with - but Menge's death is an unquiet one. When the tractor was found, stalled in the field, it was in high gear. A tractor in high gear will not cut a field very well, and there are many fields a tractor in high gear cannot cut at all.
"This is not to say that Menge was murdered, but there are enough unanswered questions and curious circumstances to render the official version of his death very nearly inoperable. For reasons that have never been explained, two FBI agents briefly investigated the Menge death, although there was no discernible federal jurisdiction. The FBI refuses to discuss why the agents were there."
The unwitnessed accident occurred just days after Menge was quoted as saying that he was going to "tell all" and that people were "going to go to jail." It has not been proven what he meant by those statements.
Nor has it been determined whatever became of all the money he swindled. At his death Menge was supposedly broke, but Penthouse asserts that during the last few years of his life he swindled over $9 million. Included among the many individuals, banks, ministers, and churches he conned is at least one Armstrong follower. According to the June 23, 1981, issue of The Record (of Hackensack, New Jersey): "Buck Hammer, Herbert Armstrong's son-in-law, says he's out $20,000 after investing in an invention Menge was promoting that would recycle garbage into mulch."
One person who Menge was not able to con, however, was Stan Rader. You will recall (Ambassador Report, March 1979, p. 13) that when Menge tried to purchase the Big Sandy campus in 1978-79, he lost his $500,000 deposit when he was unable to come up with the balance on the deal. As the $500,000 was contractually nonrefundable, the WCG (or persons associated with it) made an easy half-million while Menge's associate, Brother Lester Roloff, took the loss.
The Penthouse article ended with this interesting observation:
"Among others, his funeral was attended by Jerry Falwell and Mrs. Falwell. However, Falwell did not deliver a eulogy. That task was reserved for the Revered James Robison, the same Texas evangelist whom Menge had called before his death. He did not mention what, if anything, Menge had told him."
