2 JFK week. Sylvia Browne walked into a bar, just last night. Fascinating week.
3 Never before have I had one like it, and never again will I.
4 I never before referred to it as "JFK week."
5 In fact, earlier last month I teetered about going back into the Kennedy stuff, or about playing it safe and throwing a few Sophocles' plays at my students.
6 As I prepared for both, Helene came home from visiting her Mom.
7 She brought in a dusty box containing around twelve to fifteen VHS tapes.
8 All were made by her late uncle. He was a San Francisco Police Officer for years, and knew everything one needs to know about crime, criminals, and criminal acts.
9 He and I always hit it off. He seemed to know a lot about issues beyond police work.
10 Or more precisely, parts of police work a lot of us never see.
11 He was also a mason, and had been to the Bohemian Grove a number of times.
12 He knew a lot of dignitaries, not the least of whom was former Chief Justice Earl Warren, of Warren Commission fame. For the JFK layperson, Earl Warren headed the official government investigation into the assassination of JFK.
13 Every Thanksgiving it seems that topic would come up. Discussions would often take us into the night.
14 A few weeks ago I went through his tapes, and saw that he had labeled a great many "garbage." I agreed with each label. Same page.
15 Few passed the "garbage" label, but some passed through instantly, including the excellent series The Men Who Killed Kennedy.
16 The appearance of that box moved me back to into the JFK murder, perhaps for the last time.
17 The passing last evening of Sylvia Browne reminded me of one coincidence that also served to keep me going with JFK, at least for this year. It was about a week or two ago. I was just finishing writing this stuff. I had the teevee on as usual, mainly for the noise. I looked up a few times to see what was on. It was a TCM movie about the assassination of Lincoln. It was called The Tall Target. Midway through, I heard someone ask where John Kennedy was. I peeked over the tips of my glasses delighted to see that a key character in this 1951 film was a guy named John Kennedy.
18 I had already decided to go back into the case. It is always a monstrous exercise. Each time I take it on it exhausts me.
19 Over the years I have brought it more often than I haven't, even though it requires a LOT of research and preparation.
20 I enjoy bringing it because I inevitably discover new things each year.
21 The day before yesterday I discovered that a resource I thought was completely fake all these years was absolutely not.
22 The entire testimony of Judyth Vary Baker turned on me, and became a fascinating story.
23 Serious researchers gave it a thumbs up. I had blown it off years ago because I thought it was about one of Kennedy's bimbos who got silenced. Not really huge news.
24 That's one of the toughest parts about the story: I don't always have the time to go back and check on older resources. It's all I can do just to get the basic story out there each time I do this.
25 The Baker story blew me out of the water this week. I did so much researching on it that I forgot that I was somehow going to have to present the material yesterday.
26 Short day, and I went in with guns blazing, ready and eager to share this monumental piece with my students.
27 I had to try to remember everything in precise detail AND to tell it so that it would entertain a bit.
28 The entire JFK story is a scary one to share, because to this day there are powerful people who guard its many secrets. They don't want the story told. Period. And they let people know in unkind ways that they don't want the story told. It's creepy.
29 I had listened to a more recent You Tube of Baker in the wee hours night before last. A part of her wants her story told, but it has been at a terrific sacrifice that she tells it.
30 After Oswald's death, she kept quiet about the story. She got married, had kids, and lived an otherwise normal life. But her story wasn't normal. It involved dynamic secrets about one of the most mysterious figures of the twentieth century: Lee Harvey Oswald, her lover.
31 The interview I listened to the other night had her moving away from the Oswald aspect, instead focusing more on the subject of cancer, and a government cover-up, and of tainted vaccines that gave millions of people that horrid disease. Keep in mind that she was a child prodigy in cancer research, almost a savant. She was courted by cancer experts and brought into the fold. Military people were particulary interested in developing cancer as a weapon of war, and more precisely, war on Cuba at the time. Particulary the Beard, Fidel Castro.
32 Baker now fears for her life. It is 2013. She wants to clue the world about the realities of cancer, and of how treatment is much more profitable than cure. She knows many of its government secrets, and she knows why the government wants to hide and cover up those secrets the same way they want to hide and cover up JFK's murder.
33 Bone-chilling stuff.
34 What will probably keep her safe is that her story is SO compelling that I held it in disbelief. I saw it all as garbage for the past few weeks. I don't anymore.
35 If she stays alive, her story will reach very few people. Nobody cares what happened fifty years ago. But it is a crazy story, as well as a love story. If someone turns it into a film starring some glamorous actors, it might take off.
36 It would need to be done well, and by an intelligent director. Would I like to see Oliver Stone deal with it?
37 Stone's JFK to me is a monumental work. It opened files that were never going to be open.
38 The information is now everywhere. I won't go deep here.
39 I did get a chance yesterday to watch yet another riveting piece. It was an interview with L. Fletcher Prouty, a member of the Joint Chiefs whom JFK trusted, and who was an eyewitness to many of the larger events that took place at that time.
40 His behind-the-scenes story about the Bay of Pigs had interesting angles, lots of names, and amazing clarification on how it all went down.
41 To keep it painfully short, when Eisenhower was President these CIA guys planned a supposed small, clandestine operation to invade Cuba with the idea of getting rid of Castro.
42 Eisenhower never okayed an invasion. A military invasion of a sovereign state would be unacceptable. Spy stuff was different, but the line was drawn pretty thin between what constituted a clandestine operation and an outright military invasion.
43 The second JFK was elected the CIA took troops from as far away as the Philippines and trained them. It was supposed to be an operation of no more than thirty.
44 It wound up with over 2000 troops involved, and a massive invasion at Zapata Beach in the Bay of Pigs.
45 The plan was to take out the fleet of seven Cuban planes, but three had gone to Santa Ana the night before.
46 When they invaded, JFK understood what needed to be done, even though he didn't like it. He approved of taking out the planes, giving the ground troops easy access to move in.
47 Critical to the invasion was taking out those last three Cuban planes before invading. Any planes available to the Cubans would spell disaster, as they could go in and disable our entire fleet.
48 JFK approved of using our own air support to do that, contrary to popular opinion. Somewhere in the night, orders were given to wait for the three planes to come in and land, and then take them out.
49 This never happened. As a result, many of our invasion force were killed, and the Bay of Pigs went down in history as a "disaster."
50 Prouty became eloquent towards the second part of the documentary, talking about National Security Action Memorandum (NSAM) 263, a detailed plan to stay out of Vietnam, and to have all troops out by 1966.
51 As things moved closer to November 22, 1963 Johnson had already drawn up a National Security memo 273 reversing that policy. This was before JFK was assassinated!
52 Prouty's talk kept me focused. He was the character called X in JFK, the part played by Donald Sutherland.
53 I knew about the Vietnam reversal, which LBJ signed on the Sunday after Friday's assassination.
54 It is mind boggling to think that had JFK not been killed, there never would have been American involvement in the war in Vietnam.
55 I talked with my Dad on Saturday about this. He said, "Can you imagine how different the world would have been had he lived?"
56 Indeed.
57 I'm going in today in hopes of being able to show my classes the story of Judyth Vary Baker. I tried telling them yesterday, but didn't do well in one class. I had a few people wearing headphones as I reported my greatest breakthrough since Garrison.
58 I stopped. "Please take off the headphones and put your cell phones away," I pleaded. I waited. I went on with the story.
59 Within thirty seconds the same people had their phones back on in an incredible show of disrespect. I again said, "Put the headphones away." I tried explaining how knowledge of this will help them understand the importance of keeping a vigilant eye on the real news, and not the news that is controlled by corporate America.
60 I lost a few of them. I understand this. I'll try to get those ones back.
61 And I'll need to pass this candle on. I'll get that point across, if not right away, certainly by the end of the school year.
62 Yesterday hurt. That one class didn't anger me so much as it saddened me.
63 So it goes. For this year, I'll keep fighting.
64 Tomorrow will be solemn. It should be. I may even light a flame.
65 Whew. That's a lot. Have a good day.
66 See you again.
67 Peace.
~H~
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