<1. Preserve public perception of the safety of airline travel

Then why not cover up all terrorist incidents involving airliners? Why not cover up all mechanical failure crashes? Why not cover up all the pilot error crashes? Not even a good try. I notice that people are still flying airplanes now, if a little nervously.

2. Negate CIA culpability for SAMs in the hands of terrorists

Cute, but doesn't explain why hundreds of employees of the FAA, FBI, NTSB, Navy, and dozens of other organizations, who could give a rat's ass about the rep of the CIA, (especially the FBI) would cooperate in this. And they would have to cooperate for the Vast Conspiracy to hold up. Seeing the CIA dragged over the coals would make a LOT of people happy. Besides, it is well-known that many U.S., Soviet and Chinese weapons have been diverted to the black market. Why the CIA in particular would be blamed for one surfacing is unclear. Unless of course the terrorists held a news conference and bragged about getting the weapon directly from the CIA surplus shop.

3. Keep alive, at almost any cost, Clinton's hope of improved relationship with Iran after moderates assumed power.

This one doesn't make any sense at all.

First, what does Iran have to do with this? Iran wouldn't even have been a likely suspect in a missile attack, compared with Iraq or other terrorist organizations. And I don't recall improved relations with Iran being one of Clinton's reasons for living back then.

Check my other posts. You think really Clinton would trade improved relations with Iran with the incredible political hay he could make out of an incident like this? The plane went down four months before the 1996 elections. Look at Bush's current 90 percent approval ratings. That could have been Clinton in an election year.