Re: 'Is Trump connected to the twin towers?' [Village News Letter, 11/14/19]

I couldn’t resist responding to the Nov. 14 Opinion article by Ann Harter. Her description of the structural design of the World Trade Center Twin Towers falls in the category of completely “Fake News.”

She states that there were no structural steel “beams” (misnomer- should have said columns) on the outside perimeter of the structures is totally false information. The structural design of both Twin Towers was a structural steel frame utilizing long span steel truss members spanning from the interior steel framing to the exterior steel framing.

The towers were designed by the prominent architectural firm of Minoru Yamasaki and Structural Engineers, Worthington, Skilling & Jackson. The entire structural design was developed using an IBM 1620 super computer with all calculations conforming to advanced issues of the 1968 NY Building Code.

The “aluminum beams” on the outside perimeter referred to in her article are not structural elements but merely the exterior aluminum “skins” used to cover the structural steel framing and form the finished building façade. These aluminum facings had no involvement whatsoever in the structural support of the building loads.

Her article goes on to infer that perhaps it was this so called “inferior” design that caused the terrorists to select the towers as targets, because of “Trump’s bragging about how he was able to put up Trump Towers at a low cost.” Again, “Fake News” meant to criticize and demean our President.

The Twin Towers were developed and owned by the NY Port Authority and were designed in the late 60s. President Trump had nothing to do with the Trade Center buildings which were constructed between 1970 and 1972, long before what Ann Harter accuses President Trump of ” bragging with oligarchs of other nations about how he economized his 'Trump Towers' construction."

As a matter of interest, it could be said that when each tower building was struck by an airplane like a 90,000 pound full fuel loaded Molotov cocktail subjecting the building to intense heat well beyond anything ever conceived and no structure could withstand that the unique design of the buildings caused them to collapse in a vertical direction rather than a tilting/lateral direction, therefore lessening the collateral damage to the surrounding buildings, people and improvements.

President Trump has enough "Fake News" being thrown at him every single day without some wild accusation that he might be the cause for the terrorist's targeting of the World Trade Center Towers. May God bless him in his continuing effort to Make America Great Again!

Chuck Tillotson