In a television documentary, America Rebuilds,  Mr. Larry Silverstein made a statement which has been the source of great fascination for 9/11 researchers:

 

I remember getting a call from the Fire Department commander, telling me they were not sure they were going to be able to contain the fire.  I said, you know, 'We've had such terrible loss of life, maybe the smartest thing to do is just pull it.'  And they made that decision to pull and we watched the building collapse.

 

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http://www.911blogger.com/files/video/wtc7_pbs.WMV

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Why is it of such interest? The answer is because of it's ambiguity, which allows it to be interpreted in two completely different ways:

 

1) I told them to demolish the building.

 

2) I told them to withdraw from the building.

 

Although the meaning of the words is semantically ambiguous, the meaning communicated in the actual interview (you really need to watch it) seems to be number 1. This is the meaning, I suggest, that many viewers would have taken from it.  This interpretation is reinforced by that fact that, at another point in the documentary, we hear a construction worker say 'we're getting ready to pull [ie. demolish] building six'.

 

The line 'maybe the smartest thing to do is just pull it' is delivered with such casualness that the viewer may be lulled into thinking that imploding a building is really a very straightforward and easy operation that could be organised in a few hours, whereas infact it is a highly complex and dangerous operation which usually requires several weeks of preparation.

 

It seems to me from watching and listening that Silverstein's statement was scripted, and that the double meaning is intentional, designed to implant an idea in the viewer's mind in such a way as to preempt questions or doubts. 

 

The next statement from Silverstein comes 2 years later. On September 9, 2005, Mr. Dara McQuillan, a spokesman for Silverstein Properties, issued the following 'clarification':

 

Seven World Trade Center collapsed at 5:20 p.m. on September 11, 2001, after burning for seven hours. There were no casualties, thanks to the heroism of the Fire Department and the work of Silverstein Properties employees who evacuated tenants from the building.

 

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) conducted a thorough investigation of the collapse of all the World Trade Center buildings.  The FEMA report concluded that the collapse of Seven World Trade Center was a direct result of fires triggered by debris from the collapse of WTC Tower 1.

 

In the afternoon of September 11, Mr. Silverstein spoke to the Fire Department Commander on site at Seven World Trade Center.  The Commander told Mr. Silverstein that there were several firefighters in the building working to contain the fires.  Mr. Silverstein expressed his view that the most important thing was to protect the safety of those firefighters, including, if necessary, to have them withdraw from the building.

 

Later in the day, the Fire Commander ordered his firefighters out of the building and at 5:20 p.m. the building collapsed.  No lives were lost at Seven World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

(U.S. State Department)

 

Notice how Silverstein's PR spokesman protects Silverstein by paraphrasing rather than quoting him:

 

Mr. Silverstein expressed his view that the most important thing was to protect the safety of those firefighters, including, if necessary, to have them withdraw from the building.

 

This, I suggest, is also carefully crafted. None of these statements could ever be interpreted as clear evidence of either denial or complicity.