The JFK "Head Shot" Paradox

The JFK “Head Shot” Paradox*

                        by Jim Fetzer
by Ralph
                 Recently by Jim Fetzer: The Place of Probability in Science

As a philosopher of science with a keen interest in the nature of scientific knowledge, I have been fascinated by the recent book by G. Paul Chambers, Head Shot: The Science Behind the JFK Assassination (2010). I have found several aspects of his discussion of interest, including his conclusion—that the fatal shot to JFK’s head seen in the Zapruder film was caused by a shot from the right-front (“the grassy knoll”)—which he affirms on the basis of his competence as a physicist.  He does not seem to notice that JFK’s brains and blood are blown out to the right-front in the Zapruder film, which he takes to be authentic and unaltered.  But that means there is a paradox in his analysis, since, if the film is authentic, the blow-out to the right-front contradicts his conclusion that the shot that caused this effect was fired from the right-front, which is founded on elementary laws of physics. This, in turn, implies that he has not taken into account all the relevant evidence and thereby violated a basic principle of scientific reasoning, which may be appropriate for politicians, editorial writers, and used-car salesmen, but not for him.

Sample bullet entry defect

Sample bullet exit defect

Indeed, it is precisely because the back-and-to-the-left motion of his body provides such a simple proof of a shot fired from the right-front that those who have written extensively about it, such as Robert Groden and Josiah Thompson, have been adamantly opposed to acknowledging that the film is a fabrication, which was recreated using original footage which was subjected to sophisticated techniques of optical printing and special effects.  A brilliant tutorial concerning how we know this was done has been presented by John P. Costella, another Ph.D. in physics with electromagnetism, the physics of moving objects and properties of light, among his areas of specialization.  Previous arguments of David Wrone and Rollie Zavada, which Chambers presents, have been refuted by the publication of Inside the ARRB (2009) by Douglas Horne, whose key arguments about the film are summarized in an article of mine for those who may not have time for all five volumes!


Chambers’ discussions of the Zapruder film, whose authenticity he endorses, and of the medical evidence, which he disregards as corrupt, are especially interesting.  Perhaps if he had read Assassination Science (1998), Murder in Dealey Plaza (2000), and The Great Zapruder Film Hoax (2003), which are devoted to taking rumor and speculation out of the case and placing its study on an objective and scientific foundation, he might have a different outlook on both.  Not the least puzzling aspect of this book is that, while his credentials as a physicist are advanced as the reason we should believe him (based upon his analysis of the motion of JFK’s head under the impact of the bullet), no one who has ever observed the film could have any serious doubt that it was fired from the right-front. The back-and-to-the-left motion of his body, which was accentuated in Oliver Stone’s “JFK”, makes that much obvious.  You don’t have to be a Ph.D. in physics to notice.

As Horne has explained, there are five physical features that distinguish the original film, which was developed in Dallas, from the film that is available to us today.  As he also remarks, the original was brought to the National Photographic Interpretation Center on Saturday, 23 November 1963, and processed by one team of experts, while a second film was brought to the NPIC the following day, Sunday, 24 November 1963, and processed by a different team of experts.  We not only know that the films are different based upon their physical properties but from the occurrence of content anomalies found in the extant film. Some the most revealing content features that indicate it is a fabrication include the driver’s head turns (looking back toward JFK and then forward after he has been killed), which, as Noel Twyman, Bloody Treason (1997), has reported, occur twice as fast as humanly possible; that no witnesses reported the back-and-to-the-left motion seen in the extant film; and that Secret Service agents were nauseated to see JFK’s brains and blood across the trunk of the limousine in Washington, which has been “tidied” up in the film.

Roderick Ryan, a Hollywood expert on special effects whom Noel consulted about the blow-out to the right-front, explained to him that it and the blood spray had been painted in.  A new group of Hollywood experts has now concluded that the blow-out itself was painted over in black to conceal the massive defect, as Horne explains in Volume IV of Inside the ARRB.  But while there are many indications that the film is a fabrication, the most important proof is the inconsistency between the impact damage to the cranium, which is the film's most stunning feature, showing brains and gore bulging out to JFK's right-front, and the medical evidence, which shows a massive defect at the back of his head just to the right of center.  Indeed, Escort Motorcycle Officer Bobby Hargis, who was riding to the left-rear, was hit so hard by the blown-out brains and debris that he though he himself had been shot.  Jackie told the Warren Commission that, from the front, he looked just fine, but that she had had a hard time holding his skull and brains together at the back of his head.  

The question thus becomes how a massive blow-out of brains and gore to the left-rear could be shown bulging out to the right-front in the film.

Recent research by another physicist, David W. Mantik, who is also an M.D. and board-certified in radiation oncology, has demonstrated that the JFK autopsy X-rays have been altered to conceal the blow-out to the back of the head. The alteration of the film and the alteration of the X-rays thus constitute mutually reinforcing deceptions complemented by the publication of frame 313 in LIFE magazine with a caption saying that the bullet had entered the back of his head and blown out the right-front—a caption that was rewritten twice after breaking the plates, an event unique in the history of American journalism—and the televised appearance by Abraham Zapruder the very evening of the assassination, during which he placed his hand to his right forehead to described a blow-out to the right-front, which did not occur. By dismissing the medical evidence as corrupt and endorsing the authenticity of the film, Chambers violated the requirement of total evidence, which insists that reasoning in science must be based upon all the available relevant evidence.

No doubt, most of us would have a difficult time mastering the use of the technique of optical densitometry, which Mantik borrowed from physics and applied to the X-rays when he studied them at the National Archives.  Since David’s report of his research, which established that the X-rays are fabrications and that there was a second shot to the head, were published in Assassination Science (1998), which Chambers cites, I have a hard time understanding why he did not discuss it in this book. He does cite Mantik twice (on pages 188 and 192), but does so in relation to his article on the Zapruder film and not in relation to his work on the medical evidence.  Rather than addressing Mantik’s work on the Zapruder film directly, as would be typical for disagreements between physicists, Chambers instead simply accepts the verdict of an historian on the work of a physicist—which may be another unique event.  He claims the medical evidence forms an “unstable data set”, which was true before Mantik sorted out the authentic from the inauthentic, as he has done in a brilliant synthesis that was published in Murder in Dealey Plaza (2000).  Indeed, there are no indications here that Chambers is familiar with the most important objective and scientific studies of the medical evidence or of the fabrication of the film, especially in The Great Zapruder Film Hoax (2003) and in Horne’s multiple volumes.

The study of the assassination has drawn the attention of physicists at least since David S. Lifton’s Best Evidence (1980).  As Lifton explains, he showed photos of Zapruder frames to Richard Feynman at CalTech in 1965, where the Nobel Prize laureate pointed out that there is forward movement from frames 312 to 313, which, when the back-and-to-the-left motion observed in the film is taken as proof of a shot from in front, implies that JFK was hit at least twice in the head—once from behind and once from in front—a double-hit that was meticulously diagrammed in Josiah Thompson’s Six Seconds in Dallas (1967). Chambers dismisses JFK’s forward movement as an effect of William Greer, the driver, slowing the vehicle.  More than 60 witnesses have reported that Greer slowed the vehicle dramatically or actually brought it to a halt, which is not seen in the film, but only he moves slightly forward at that point in time. The vehicle is shown as accelerating immediately thereafter, making it anomalous that the occupants’ bodies—Governor and Nellie Connally and the Secret Service agents—are thrown forward following frame 313.

Since we know that, if the shot was fired from the right-front, then his brains should have been blown-out to the left-rear and not to the right-front, which is what we observe in the film, the conclusion that the film has been faked clearly follows.  

Chambers cites work by Wrone and Zavada that has been refuted in books with which he should be familiar, but does not report that proof of something wrong with the film is present in the film itself.  It occurred to me that those who were falsifying the film might have paid so much time and attention to the head shot and its effects—as we see them now in frames 313-316—that they might have overlooked the head wound in later frames.  And, indeed, I found that it is visible in frame 374, among others, where its cashew-nut-like shape corresponds very closely to “Area P” (for “patched”) in Mantik’s analysis of the lateral cranial X-ray, as I have explained and demonstrated in “Dealey Plaza Revisited: What Happened to JFK?”

Perhaps if he had read more of Assassination Science (1998), which he cites, Chambers might have learned that Robert B. Livingston, M.D.—a world authority on the human brain and also an expert on wound ballistics, having supervised an emergency medical hospital for injured Okinawans and for Japanese prisoners of war during the Battle of Okinawa—had concluded that the diagrams and photographs of the brain stored at the National Archives cannot be authentic photographs and diagrams of the brain of John F. Kennedy.  He compared the multiple reports from experienced physicians at Parkland Hospital of cerebellar as well as cerebral tissue extruding from the blow-out at the back of the head with the photographs and diagrams at the National Archives—the brain itself is mysteriously missing—which show a wholly intact cerebellum.  Since Chambers does not know the medical evidence any better than he knows the photographic, he precluded drawing inferences about those who were involved in the cover-up and the crime itself.

The Mafia, for example, could not have extended its reach into Bethesda Naval Hospital to falsify X-rays that were under the control of medical officers of the US Navy, agents of the Secret Service, or the president’s personal physician. Neither pro- nor anti-Castro Cubans could have substituted another brain for that of JFK.  And the KGB, which may have had an ability to fabricate films comparable to that of the CIA and of Hollywood, would have had no opportunity to gain access to the original Zapruder film.  Once we know the breadth and depth of the cover-up, which was implemented in great detail to effect mutually-reinforcing forms of deception, we begin to appreciate that those who had the motive, the means and the opportunity to bring them about were at the highest levels of our own government, as James Douglass, JFK and the Unspeakable (2008), explains.

It not only troubles me profoundly that Chambers violates a basic principle of scientific reasoning and that evidence internal to the extant film refutes his presumption that the film is authentic but that Jefferson Morley endorses the book with the following claim:  “He dismantles the bad science at the core of Vincent Bugliosi’s flabby Reclaiming History [2007] and politely punts the fantasy that the Zapruder film was altered.” While I agree that Bugliosi’s work is indefensible, to the best of my knowledge, Morley has never studied the film and is not in a position to know whether it is authentic or not.  This is not the first time Morley has proven to be unequal to the demands of serious research about the assassination of one of the Kennedys.  Science, as we have seen, can enable us to sort out authentic from inauthentic evidence, but we have to think things through and not let ourselves be misled by pseudo-science masquerading as genuine in the search for truth.

* Thanks to David W. Mantik, John Costella, and Morgan Reynolds for their feedback.

Jim Fetzer, a former Marine Corps officer who earned his Ph.D. in the history and the philosophy of science, is McKnight Professor Emeritus at the Duluth campus of the University of Minnesota.  He co-edits assassinationresearch.com with John Costella.

####

"The Echo From Dealey Plaza" -- an interview with Abraham Bolden

After an outstanding career in law enforcement, Abraham Bolden was appointed by JFK to be the first African American presidential Secret Service agent, where he served with distinction. They met by chance when JFK used the men's room to which he had been assigned as security. Bolden was a crucial part of a the Secret Service effort that prevented an attempt to assassinate JFK in Chicago, three weeks before Dallas.

But the dream quickly turned sour when Bolden found himself regularly subjected to open hostility and blatant racism. More of a concern was the White House team’s irresponsible approach to security. While on his tour of presidential duty, Bolden witnessed firsthand the White House agents’ long-rumored lax approach to their job. Drinking on duty, abandoning key posts—this was not a team that appeared to take their responsibility to protect the life of the president particularly seriously.

Soon after the assassination, he received orders that hint at "an effort to withhold, or at least to the color, the truth." He discovered that evidence was being kept from the Warren Commission and when he took action, found himself charged with "conspiracy to sell a secret government file" and imprisoned for more than five years, mostly in the psychiatric ward of the Springfield Medical Center for Federal Prisoners. In September 1969, after a short stint at a prisoncamp in Alabama, Bolden was finally granted parole.

Nearly 45 years later, Abraham Bolden has come forward to tell his story. A gripping memoir substantiated by recently declassified government documents, The Echo from Dealey Plaza is the story of the terrible price paid by one man for his commitment to truth and justice, as well as a shocking new perspective on the circumstances surrounding the death of JFK. It was an honor for me to feature him as a guest on "The Real Deal" and to have this opportunity to present aspects of his personal experiences to the public.

Abraham Bolden has received The 2008 Baker Street Tankard Award for "Pursuance of Truth and Justice", The 2008 Black Excellence Award for "Outstanding achievement in non fiction literature", The 2009 Alpha Phi Alpha Presidential Inaugural Award for "Exemplary leadership, service, and commitment and courage", The 2009 Carter G. Woodson "Living Black History Award", The 2009 St. Louis Gateway Classics "Walk of Fame" inductee, The Sodexo Lifetime Achievement Award for " Excellence and outstanding service", and the 2009 Citation from The Honorable United States Senator Roland W. Burris for courage in challenging injustice.

JFK & the Secret Service - Abraham Bolden interviewed on "The Real Deal" with Jim Fetzer (28 December 2009)

The Echo From Dealey Plaza - Abraham Bolden interviewed on "The Night Fright Show" (25 November 2009)

Short interview with Abraham Bolden

Abraham Bolden, the author of "The Echo From Dealey Plaza" (2009)

(1) How did your dream turn into a nightmare when you tried to inform the Warren Commission of previous attempts to assassinate JFK?

  After completing my assignment to the White House Detail in July of 1961, the laxity and the cavalier attitude toward their duty in regards to the protection of President Kennedy. I observed that some of the agents surrounding the president were highly racist, overconfident, and disrespectful in their comments regarding Kennedy. Moreover, the agents' disagreement with the president over his handling of the civil rights issues that were prevalent during the early 1960s infected their ability to carry out the protective duties assigned. Comments were made to the effect that if attempts were made to assassinate the president, there would be no immediate response by some members of the detail.

  After the president was in fact assassinated, it was evident to me that the Secret Service supervisor, Maurice G. Martineau, was engaged in a cover up of serious conspiracies to assassinate Kennedy that had surfaced in Chicago. This cover up gained momentum after visits were made to the Chicago office of the Secret Service by Inspector Kelly and SAIC Burke, who had been involved in the interrogation of Oswald after his arrest.

  Investigations that occurred prior to the assassination of the President were redated to a date in December which would make the investigation unrelated to the assassination of the president on November 22, 1963. Documents, notes and materials pertaining to several threats against the president that occurred in October and November 1963 were ordered to be turned in to SAIC Martineau for disposition.

  In the 1st week of January 1964 Secret Service commission books were ordered to be turned in by SAIC Martineau with the understanding that new and updated commission books were to be issued at a later date. I viewed this as a cover up of an incident that occurred immediately after the president was assissinated in that a Dallas Police Officer was shown what he stated was a secret service commission book by a man whom he encountered behind a fence in Dealey Plaza.

  Feeling that the Warren Commission was being deprived of the above important information, it was my determination to get this information before them so that the commission could evaluate the conduct of those responsible for the protection of the president.

  I was unaware that the Acting Attorney General Katzenbach had indicated to the FBI and Secret Service officials that it would be in the best interest of the country if it were decided that Lee Oswald was the lone gunman.

  The high officials of the Secret Service knew that I was disgruntled over the lack of sufficient protection that the president was getting as I had discussed my dissatisfaction to Chief U. E. Baughman, Inspector Kelly, Harry Geighlein, Maurice G. Martineau and a host of other low level agents. I was very verbose in my critism of the lack of a standard procedure to be followed in case of an attack against the President of These United States.

  It was due to my attempts to contact the Warren Commission when I arrived in Washington, D. C. on May 17, 1964 that I was escorted out of Washington by Inspector McCann and returned to Chicago where I was charged with committing a federal crime.

  When I went to trial in July 1964 (64-CR 324), the trial judge J. Sam Perry instructed the jury that in his opinion, the evidence sustained a verdict of guilty and that the jury should continue to deliberate based upon the instruction that he had given. The trial ended in a hung jury. The Assistant Attorney General Richard Sikes went before the press and lamented that the government would have obtained a conviction were it not for a Negro woman who was the lone holdout.

  Denying defense motions for a change of venue or a substitution of trial judge, Judge J. Sam Perry heard a second trial before an all white jury.

  The second trial ended on August 12, 1964. During the deliberation of the second jury, the trial judge ordered the courtroom cleared under the pretense of closing the court for the day. All spectators, me, my attorney, and other non governmental personnel were removed from the court room whereupon we were locked out of the building under the direction of Assistant U.S. Attorney Arthur Dunne. Later on the evening of the 12th after I and my legal representative had been removed, the jury reached a verdict.

  After having been found guilty, on January 20, 1965, government witness Joseph Spagnoli, while testifying in his own trial, admitted under oath, that he had committed perjury in both of my trials. Spagnoli further stated that his perjury was suborned by government prosecutor Sikes. Spagnoli offered documentary proof of his allegations in the form of a handwritten paper that he "took/stold" stole from the U. S. Attorney's office. Spagnoli subsequently telephoned my trial attorney, George Howard, and stated that he (Spagnoli) and Frank William Jones concocted the case against me with the help of the office of the U. S. Attorney and the Secret Service. Spagnoli stated that he would name the nemes of those persons who were involved in framing me.

  During oral arguments before the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, Attorney Sikes was questioned in open court concerning the allegations of Spagnoli at which time attorney Sikes stated that he would not answer the question on the basis that his answer might tend to incriminate him. In spite of Sikes' refusal to deny the allegations of Spagnoli and the trial judge's refusal to grant a hearing into Spagnoli's allegations, the conviction was confirmed by the Court of Appeals and in June, 1966, the Supreme Court of the United States refused a grant of certiorie.

  Knowing full well that some high official in the government was seeking to have me discredited, I braced for what I knew was sure to come. I was not dealing with a government of the people, for the people and of the people as the framers of our constitution had set out ......it was all too apparent that there was working within the government those who were possessed of a facist attitude. I knew from history that one of the prevelant methods of governments outside of the U.S. in dealing with "whistle blowers" was to place their sanity in question.

  And so it happened. On July 6 1967 while I was incarcerated in the prison camp in The Federal Medical Center, at Springfield, Missouri, I was aroused from sleep in the middle of the night and escorted to the 2-1 East psychiatric section of the Center. While locked tightly in a unit there, I was forced to ingest psychotropic drugs. Knowing full well that a federal inmate who is classified as being under psychiatric treatment could be held an indeterminate of amount of time pending his return to sanity, I knew that I had to find a means and method of keeping the institutional drugs out of my system. The method that I chose proved successful and I was able to remain free of any effects from the drug. After a 30 day stay in prison psychiatric units, I was returned to the prison camp in August, 1967.

  I was paroled from custody on September 25, 1969 and returned to Chicago, IL and to my wife and three children.

(2) What kind of response should have occurred during the shooting in Dealey Plaza, had the agents responded appropriately?

  The Secret Service detail riding in the followup car behind the president should have immediately jumped from the running boards of that vehicle and onto the built-in running board of the presidential limosine. There is no excuse for looking in the other direction as the bullets were fired toward the presidential vehicle. Saying that there was information that President Kennedy did not want agents on the back of his limosine does not square with any order that I heard or read during my tenure as an agent. The conduct of the agents bordered upon criminal in that they failed to even attempt to do the job that was demanded of them. It was the lack of training, which I brought to the attention of supervisors, that played a great part in the successful murder of our president.

(3) What are your thoughts about the reasons for the assassination, say, in relation to James Douglass' JFK AND THE UNSPEAKABLE?

  I am in complete agreement with author Jim Douglass as to the reasons that may have led to the assassination of President Kennedy. However, I believe that the foremost reason was Kennedy's relationship with Cuba and the Bay of Pigs fiasco. The motive for the assassination, in my opinion, was to create a more favorable situation that would enhance the dissident's efforts to make war against Castro and overturn the government of Cuba.

(4) Why have presidents since LBJ ignored your case, which appears to be perfect for a complete and unconditional pardon? Do they simply lack the power?  Should not Barack Obama be considering your case?

 My treatment by the government can be classified as egregoiusly wrong and outside the restraints and guarantees of our US Constitution. In order to grant a pardon or other action, the government would have to first decide what type of action to take. All evidence points to a government conspiracy against an agent of the U.S. Government as well as a citizen of America. That fact is difficult to admit by the president or attorney general.

  All of the circumstances of my unlawful arrest, trial and incarceration have been on the record since 1964. It is clear that my Constitutional Rights were disregarded. The question is, how can this have happened in America? The government has to ask itself whether a pardon would solve the issue or ignite further embarrassing publicity. Would it be better if no official attention be given to my case in hopes that all references to it will subside after my death? These are questions that must be decided before anyone with the authority to recommend relief will act.

Mr. Bolden has provided extracts from his book for publication here.

Introduction, page 1

I knew John Kennedy. I shook his hand and looked into his eyes, and served, for a brief but critical time, at his side. I sensed in my heart, as many people did, that he understood the troubles of the common man, and shared the pain of all downtrodden and oppressed people. He labored to make the promises of a better country a reality for all Americans. Born into great wealth and privilege, he did this not for any personal gain, but simply because he knew it was the right thing to do. He wanted to do his best to foster equality of opportunity for all the citizens under his charge, and even those beyond our borders. John F. Kennedy entrusted me with his life, making me the first African-American to serve on the Secret Service White House Detail. No one can ever take that honor away from me.

Chapter 1, page 3

I came into the Secret Service in 1960, after a number of years in law enforcement, first for the Pinkerton Detective Agency, and then as an officer in the Illinois State Police. It was in that capacity that I first encountered Special Agent in Charge (of the Springfield, IL, office) Fred Backstrom of the United States Secret Service. John Kennedy was on his way to Peoria for a campaign stop, and I had been assigned to escort SAIC Backstrom around Peoria, to help make security preparations.

As we rode along one of the intended motorcade routes, I turned to Agent Backstrom. "Are there any Negroes in the Secret Service now?" I asked.

Backstrom and I had worked together before, and were on friendly terms. "I don't think so, Abraham, but I'm not sure. I heard that there may be one in New York or New Jersey, but I've never met him," he replied. "I can tell you this: We are looking for new agents and if you're interested, I don't see any reason why you shouldn't apply. I can send you an application in the mail, and the civil service administration will guide you along he way." He volunteered to send me an application.

We went back to our duties, but a few weeks later, I received the application in the mail, just as Agent Backstrom had promised. In the early fall of 1960, I drove down to Springfield, where I was escorted from the Secret Service headquarters to take the civil service test. I learned several weeks later that I had just missed passing the test, but the next time SAIC Backstrom came through Peoria, in early September 1960, about a month before Kennedy was to visit, he stopped by my house. Backstrom suggested that I could enter the Secret Service under a Schedule A appointment, meaning that my previous experience would qualify me to become a probationary agent.

Chapter 1, pages 4, 5

I first saw John Kennedy when he came through Peoria on a campaign swing in October, 1960. I was assigned to traffic control, and caught a glimpse of the young Senator sitting perched atop the back seat of a big white Lincoln convertible as his motorcade came in from the airport. I watched Kennedy hop down from the car about fifty feet away from me to shake hands with locals crowded along the side of the road. As his car stopped, agents from the convertible directly behind and fanned out to protect him as he waded into the excited crowd.

The following spring, John Kennedy was now President, and I myself had been through training at the Department of the Treasury, under which the Secret Service resides. The President was scheduled to visit Chicago on April 28th, for a thank-you dinner with Mayor Daley at McCormick Place. Daley's political machine had helped deliver a victory to Kennedy, through means not everyone considered legitimate. An advance detail of Secret Service agents worked with the local office to plan security, and assigned the Chicago field agents to protective various duties and protective positions. While some agents got the coveted spots inside the McCormick Place banquet room near the President, my assignment was to guard a basement restroom that had been set aside for Kennedy's exclusive use while he was there. I searched the bathroom and the surrounding area, and when I was satisfied that it secure, I quietly took up my post.

At about 8:30, a half-hour after the event was scheduled to begin, I heard a sudden commotion at the top of the stairs near the restroom.

Before I knew it, John F. Kennedy was striding toward the restroom, surrounded by an impressive entourage, including Mayor Daley, Governor Otto Kerner, Senator Paul Douglas, Congressman William Dawson, and a handful of prominent local politicians. As he got to the door, the President surprised me by stopping directly in front of me and looking me in the eye with a slight smile creasing his lips.

"Are you a Secret Service agent or one of Mayor Daley's finest?" he asked, causing the Mayor to chuckle lightly.

Collecting myself, I replied, "I'm a Secret Service Agent, Mr. President."

"He's assigned to the Chicago office," a more senior agent offered. "His name is Abraham Bolden."

Kennedy nodded slightly in acknowledgment and continued on in his crisp Boston accent. "Has there ever been a Negro agent on the Secret Service White House Detail, Mr. Bolden?"

"Not to my knowledge, Mr. President."

"Would you like to be the first?" Kennedy asked, his lights twinkling under the bright hotel lights.

I didn't try to hide my enthusiasm. Smiling broadly and nodding my head, I answered, "Yes, sir, Mr. President." Moments later, the band struck up "Hail to the Chief." The air in McCormick place was charged with flashing cameras and the halls echoed with thunderous applause as the proud young President entered the hall.

Chapter 5, pages 37, 38

Agents were breaking out the drinks. Henderson sat on the living-room couch, opened a beer and leveled a cold, hard stare at me, which I did my best to ignore. He kept it up through two or three quick beers, until he suddenly spoke.

"Bolden."

"Yeah, Harvey?"

"I'm going to tell you something, and I don't want you ever to forget it." The sound of the South was heavy in his voice.

"You're a nigger. You were born a nigger, and when you die, you'll still be a nigger. You will always be nothing but a nigger. So act like one!" Henderson spaced the words out slowly for emphasis, but his voice was rising.

The words hung in the room, as every agent stared silently at Harvey Henderson. He had moved his body to the edge of couch. His feet were flat on the floor and he was clutching his beer bottle. You could hear him breathing hard through his nostrils. He was like an animal, poised to spring forward if I made any move toward him.

If I had ever doubted that Henderson had planted that memo and cartoon back in the White House, I knew it for certain now, as surely as I knew that he was baiting me, trying to lure me into a fight. Thoughts of Jackie Robinson raced through my mind. I do not mean to equate myself with a hero of Robinson's stature, but in that moment, I thought about the years of locker-room taunts that he had endured, and the many times his white teammates had tried to pick fights with him, just so that they could humiliate him. I'd dealt with racism my entire professional life, once even having to pull my gun on a motorist who refused to be ticketed by a "nigger." But here I was faced with a representative of my own nation's government, the acting head of our President's personal guard.. my supervisor. And I'm sure he wanted nothing more than to beat me bloody, but he also wanted me to disgrace myself by losing control. I eyed Harvey Henderson-a big, powerful man, drunk and full of hatred-and knew that if we were to go at it, there could be no mercy. I would have to send him to his God before he sent me to mine.

I looked him squarely in the eyes. "I love you, too, Harvey," I said, and walked out to the porch.

"You shouldn't have said that, Harvey," said agent Tucker,, who then followed me outside.

"Don't pay any attention to him, Abe," Tucker told me. "He gets like that when he's drinking." Tucker went back into the cottage. I kept on walking for a long while. When I got back to the cottage, I sat a while longer on the porch steps, weary in body and soul, and realized that I was ready to go back to Chicago. My mother had taught me not to remain where I was clearly not wanted.

11/22/2007 ABC I-Team: Kennedy Assassination Thwarted
Weeks Before His Death - interview by Chuck Goudie

Chapter 12, page 161

Now, suddenly, Judge Perry rose from his seat. He stood behind his bench and raised his arms as if to make some kind of benediction.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” he said, scowling. “I will now exercise a prerogative that I have as a Judge that I seldom exercise. I will express to you and comment upon the evidence. In my opinion, the evidence sustains a verdict of Guilty on counts one, two and three of the indictment.”[i] His face grew red, and his breath came hard and fast, as if he were exerting himself.

The Judge told the jury that they could disagree with him if they chose to do so.

“Now, with that in mind, ladies and gentlemen, you may now retire and reconsider the evidence in light of this Court’s instructions,” the Judge ended.[ii]

I turned quickly to George Howard to ask what was going on, but Judge Perry glowered at us, his face contorted with rage. It was clear to every soul in that courtroom that this Federal District Judge wanted me convicted. He sent the jury back into their room, from which we could hear shouting, and even some crying, for the next hour, until they returned and the foreman once again announced that they were still deadlocked, eleven-to-one for conviction. The lone juror, Mrs. Anna B. Hightower, sat still and quiet, her jaw clenched and her arms folded across her chest.
[i] U.S. v Bolden, 1st trial, Jury Deliberation, (Tr page 6) July 11, 1964,
[ii] U.S. v Bolden, 1st trial, Jury Deliberation, (Tr page 6) July 11, 1964,

Chapter 14, pages 198, 199

On re-direct, Oliver asked Spagnoli if had ever committed perjury in a Federal Criminal trial in the past and Spagnoli acknowledged that he had. They then produced a piece of paper that had been torn out of a legal pad and had it marked as an exhibit. Spagnoli testified that he had been in Sikes’ office when Sikes drew up the document.

“What was the purpose that he gave you for writing up such a document?” Oliver asked.

“So I would remember what to say in the Bolden trial,” Spagnoli answered.[iii]

The record showed that Sikes leaped to his feet and objected, but got nowhere. Judge Perry allowed Oliver to rebut the accusations about Spagnoli’s credibility.

Oliver continued, “After he wrote it up, did he give it to you?”

“No.”[iv]

At this point, Judge Perry interrupted and asked Spagnoli directly, “How did you come into possession of it, if he did not give it to you?”

“I took it.”[v]

“What was the purpose of your studying the document?” Oliver now asked.

“To remember the lies in there,”[vi] Spagnoli answered bluntly.

Standing in front of the stunned onlookers in the courtroom, Oliver pointed at the document in his hand and kept probing. “Mr. Spagnoli, I call your attention to certain dates enumerated on this exhibit. I call your particular attention to the fourth line down, a date, Wednesday, 5/13. Do you see the notation that follows that Wednesday, 5.13, ‘Call from Martineau?’” Did that call occur on that day?”

“No.” [vii]

Just reading it made me shout out loud, “Dammit!” Finally, the facts that I knew to be true were coming to the surface.

When Oliver moved on, and began asking if Spagnoli had ever given testimony contrary to testimony he gave in this case that he gambled for a living, Richard Sikes strenuously objected, on the grounds that Oliver was “impeaching his own witness.”

[iii] U.S. v D’Antonio, 64 CR 300, (Tr page 6269), dated January 20, 1965
[iv] Ibid, page 6272
[v] Ibid, page 6272
[vi] Ibid, page 6272
[vii] Ibid, page 6274

Chapter 15, page 215

“Well, it has been brought to this court’s attention, during the oral arguments of the case, that one of the witnesses against the defendant has accused you of soliciting perjured testimony that was given in the trial. I called you here so that you may personally answer the accusation. The counsel for this defendant has stated in his brief, and during oral argument, that you have failed to answer this serious question that reflects negatively on the United States Government.” Hastings dramatically emphasized this last piece. “Now I ask you, did you solicit perjured testimony by one witness, Joseph Spagnoli, in any of the Bolden trials in the court below?”

Sikes shifted his weight from one foot to another nervously. “Your Honor, I want to say—“

“That question can be answered yes or no,” Hastings interrupted. “Either you did or you did not. This question needs to be answered now so that this court can make a fair ruling concerning this issue on appeal. I ask the question again: Did you solicit perjured testimony by Joseph Spagnoli in any of the Bolden trials before the court of District Judge J. Sam Judge Perry?”[viii] Sikes swallowed hard. He glanced over his shoulder at his colleagues Crowley and Hanrahan.

“Your Honor,” he finally answered, “I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that my answer might tend to incriminate me.”[ix]

“You are refusing to answer on the grounds of self-incrimination?” the Chief Judge asked in a loud voice.

“Yes, sir, Your Honor,” said Sikes, lowering his eyes.

“Very well, then. We will look into this matter and depending on what this court finds, someone might go to prison. We are going to get to the bottom of this,” Hastings declared to the shocked spectators in the courtroom. He turned to Attorney Smith and asked, “Based upon the allegations of Joseph Spagnoli, do you think that the assistant government attorney should be prosecuted and incarcerated?”

[ix] No Transcript of the proceedings before the U.S. Court of Appeals (14907) could be located; However on June 29, 1966, U. S. v Bolden, 64 CR 324, Motion to Reconsider the Sentence under Rule 35 page 8, Attorney Smith told the Court, “ We also have in this case, Your Honor, the fact. And I point out once again that it is Spagnoli that made this statement..that he accused the Government of subornation in this case, and the fact remains that to this day, two appeals to the Supreme Court, there is a question by the Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals that..that charge by Spagnoli has never been denied, and we have this as another cloud over the case.”

Chapter 15, pages 227, 228

Judge Perry was done, and brought the hearing to a close. I saw Barbara quietly confer with Ray Smith, who then turned to talk to one of the Deputy Marshals. The Deputy led me down the corridor to the elevator, which we took to a small, clean holding cell, oddly situated behind a row of offices on one of the upper floors. The cell stood in a larger holding area, into which the guard brought Barbara. He left the two of us alone, separated only by the cold steel bars.

I reached through the bars to take her hand, in that instant felt finally overwhelmed by the terrible sadness of my fate. My whole body shook with rage and tears.

Barbara looked me in the eye. “If we’re going to make it through this, you’re going to have to be strong. You don’t have to worry about me and the children. I’m not going to let this break up our family. I saw what happened in court and how they treated you. I’ll be here when you come home. You don’t have to worry about that.” Barbara’s words were both consoling and reassuring. “You have to be strong because we are all counting on you to come back home to us. Nothing is going to happen out here, and I’m going to work and keep things together.”

Barbara came close and we kissed through the bars. “No matter what happens, be strong,” she said again. “I love you and the children love you. We will be waiting for you to return home to us. Be strong.”

When the guard finally led Barbara away, I washed my face and resolved to do exactly as Barbara said. From earliest childhood I had been told that grown men don’t cry, and I decided then that I was finished with crying, and that I would in fact be as strong as any man could be.

When they brought me back to the county jail, one of guards took me down to a basement cellblock. Four cells sat separated and secluded from the rest.

“This is what they call ‘Death Row,’” the guard told me. “Someone decided to keep you down here until you’re shipped out to a penitentiary.” He handed me over to the kindly looking black guard who stood watch there, saying, “This is Abraham Bolden. He used to be a government FBI man.”

An excerpt from "Conspiracy Files: The JFK Assassination",
Discovery Channel, 5/11/06

Excerpt Chapter 17, pages 257, 258, 259

One day, I had just finished washing dishes and pots and was preparing to clean up the floor in my area, by filling a mop bucket with hot water, when I heard a voice behind me.

“What the fuck are you doing with my bucket?”

I turned around to see Kenny glaring at me. There were two mop buckets in our area of the prison that were plainly different from each other, and I was using Kenny’s regular bucket.

“Oh, is this the bucket you use?” I asked, knowing it wasn’t but trying to placate him.

“You know that that’s my goddamned bucket!” Kenny shouted. “Why you keep fucking with me?”

I could see that Kenny was either delusional or trying to start a fight with me, so I kept trying to make peace.

“I’m not fucking with you,” I said. “This is the bucket I’ve been using, but if you want it, I’ll go get the other one—“

“Why you keep fucking with me?”

Kenny stood blocking the door. As he took a step toward me, I saw that he was holding a long knife against his leg. Instantly, I lifted the bucket of hot water and drew it back, as if to throw it.

“What the hell is the matter with you, man?” I shouted back at him. “If you take another step toward me, I’m going to throw this fucking hot water in your face and burn all of the skin off your body.” He stopped, but the commotion had attracted several other inmates, and Mr. Angland, who ran the kitchen.

“What the hell is going on here?” Angland demanded. He looked first at me, saying, “Put that bucket down!”

“Kenny’s got a knife,” I protested. “He came at me with a knife. I’m not going to put this bucket down until you take that knife from Kenny.”

Angland reached his hand out, and said, “Kenny, give me that knife.” Kenny did as he was told. He also obeyed Angland’s order to return to his ward, but not without first shooting me a menacing look.

Angland turned back to me. “I want to see you in my office, Bolden.”

When we sat down in his office, Angland started in on me. “Bolden, you know that you can’t threaten the patients around here. You know better.”

“He came at with me with a knife. What am I supposed to do? Just stand there and not defend myself because he’s a patient?”

“The way I saw it, the two of you were threatening each other,” Angland said. “You had the bucket of water and he had the knife. The two of you threatened each other and that’s what I saw.”

“But you didn’t see the whole thing,” I insisted. “I was in the back room doing my work and suddenly this guy is standing in the doorway talking about a mop bucket. I know that he’s a patient, but I’m going to protect myself. He first came at me with the knife and that’s when I picked up the bucket of hot water to throw on him.”

“Well, you can’t discipline these patients. You should have come to me. You can’t threaten these patients. I’m going to have to write you up for it,” He stated angrily.

“You can write me up all you want to, but I’m not going to stand there and let any of these patients stab or butcher me with a knife. If I could have gotten out of the room, I would have come to you, but Kenny had the door blocked, and he was talking out of his mind about a mop bucket.”

“You go back to the dormitory now. You’ll be off tomorrow. When you come in Wednesday, you, me, and Kenny will get together and straighten out this problem,” Angland concluded.

Chapter 17, pages 265, 266

A guard poked me awake with his flashlight in the early morning, told me to get dressed, and marched me deep into what seemed like the bowels of the prison. We ended up in a corridor lined on both sides with heavy steel doors. The only windows visible were the tiny viewing windows above the tray slots in each of the doors. An awful stench, and the sounds of muffled screams and sobbing, filled the corridor. I knew where I was without anyone ever telling me: the dreaded 2-1 East, the psychiatric ward.

I shot questions at the guards-Why was I there? Had I been re-classified? Did anybody seriously think there was something wrong with me? But nobody would answer my questions, telling me to talk to the doctor when he came by. The guards took my belt and my shoelaces, and put me in a small, dark cell. Amazingly, this cell was actually a physical improvement over the isolation cell; it had a window that I could open to let in fresh air and its own washroom facilities.

The door to my cell slammed shut, leaving me alone with my thoughts. The only thing I knew for certain was that I had to let Barbara and my attorney, John Hosmer, know what had happened to me. There was no way I could sit quietly while the government locked me away interminably in some kind of asylum. The situation seemed ominous.

Before long, the prison added something new to my routine. Four uniformed officers entered my cell. One of them, a particularly burly guard, carried a tray filled with tiny white paper cups.

"Medication time," he said, holding out a little cup in his big, meaty hand.

I felt suddenly weak and dizzy, as if I were caught in some terrible dream. I couldn't move or speak.

"Come on, boy. We ain't got all day," he drawled.

"There's got to be some mistake," I said. "I'm not a patient. There's got to be a mistake."

"We ain't makin' no mistake, boy. The doctor ordered this to calm you down, I guess."

Chapter 17, page 270

In the morning, as I was washing up, I smelled a faint odor of smoke. I could see no sign of fire outside my window, but through the small viewing window in the door, I thought I detected a slight haze in the air of the corridor. Suddenly, a guard rushed down the corridor, shouting “Fire! Fire in the cell block!” I heard another officer shout that one of the rooms at the end of the block was on fire, and then heard another answer that those rooms were unoccupied. Another odd and inexplicable circumstance.

The guards opened our cell doors and evacuated all of us to the dayroom. I felt so happy to be out of my little room—free, if you want to call it that, for the first time in over a week—that I didn’t react to the grotesque sight of so many drugged and possibly deranged men, dragged from their beds in various states of undress, draped over the tables and chairs. The fire was extinguished quickly, but I was allowed to linger in the dayroom for a while. As I looked around the room, I suddenly found myself staring into a familiar face. A man was gazing back at me intently, and purposefully. He didn’t seem to be over-medicated or crazy; he seemed to recognize me. It was the man who had stabbed the other inmate to death in the elevator in the basement by the officers’ kitchen.

He rose and walked to my table. I could see that he had gained some weight, and wore his hair cut much closer to his head, but it was definitely the same man.

“Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?” he asked as he sat down across from me.

“I don’t think so.”

“My name is James. What’s yours?”

Chapter 17, pages 277, 278

On September 25, 1969, with just four months to go before I would have completed my entire sentence and been freed from any further obligation to the government, I was granted parole. Of course, by paroling me, the government could keep me under their jurisdiction for another two years.

It was 3:30 in the morning when my Greyhound bus pulled into the station near Clark and Randolph Streets in Chicago. I could see the figure of a beautiful young woman, her form illuminated by the headlights of the bus, almost glowing in the fresh night air. I climbed down the steps of the bus and fell into Barbara’s arms. That embrace told me, finally, that my ordeal had come to an end.

My wife drove us south on Clark Street, crossing over to Michigan, steering us home. I remember opening the back door of my house, my own house, and being met by the happy squeals of my children, already awake and expecting me, bouncing all over the house, giggling with joy and shouting, “Daddy’s home! Daddy’s home!”

Daddy was home.

Thom Hartmann talks to Abraham Bolden, the first
African American presidential Secret Service agent.
(Part 2, Part 3)

James Douglass, JFK AND THE UNSPEAKABLE

Among the vast number of books that have been written about the death of JFK, perhaps none has been as successful at explaining why he was taken out as James Douglass, JFK AND THE UNSPEAKABLE (2008). This superb volume traces JFK's evolution from a cold warrior to a man of peace in a gripping, effortlessly readable study of admirable scholarship. In my estimation, this is the single best volume to understand why he died and why it matters. A review of the book that has appeared in Global Research Canada was included in my blog “Dealey Plaza Revisited: What Happened to JFK?” Another excellent review--this time, by James DiEugenio--can be found here. James Douglass, incidentally, was my guest on "The Real Deal" on 15 April 2009, just as Jim DiEugenio was my guest on 16 December 2009. The archives for these interviews on this internet radio program may be found at radiofetzer.blogspot.com.

JFK AND THE UNSPEAKABLE - James Douglass interviewed on "The Real Deal" with Jim Fetzer (15 April 2009)

Jim Garrison and Vincent Bugliosi on JFK - Jim DiEugenio interviewed on "The Real Deal" with Jim Fetzer (16 December 2009)

Interview with Jim Douglass recorded in early 2000 while
researching his current book "JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He
Died and Why It Matters"

JFK and the Unspeakable
James W. Douglass

INTRODUCTION

When John F. Kennedy was president, I was a graduate student struggling with the theological dimensions of the same question he grappled with more concretely in the White House: How could we survive our weapons of war, given the Cold War attitudes behind them? At the time I wrote articles seeking a way out of an apocalyptic war, without realizing that Kennedy–at great risk–was as president seeking a genuine way out for us all.

At that critical moment in history, Thomas Merton was the greatest spiritual writer of his generation. His autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain, was seen as the post-World War II equivalent of The Confessions of Saint Augustine. Merton had gone on to write a series of classic works on prayer. However, when he turned his discerning writer's eye in the early sixties to such issues as nuclear war and racism, his readers were shocked–and in some cases, energized.

I first wrote Thomas Merton in 1961, at his monastery, the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky, after reading a poem he had published in the Catholic Worker. Merton's poem was really an anti-poem, spoken by the commandant of a Nazi death camp. It was titled: "Chant to Be Used in Processions around a Site with Furnaces." Merton's "Chant" proceeded matter-of-factly through the speaker's daily routine of genocide to these concluding lines: "Do not think yourself better because you burn up friends and enemies with long-range missiles without ever seeing what you have done."[1]

When I read those words, I was living in the spiritual silence that in 1961 surrounded the threat of a nuclear holocaust. The reality underlying Cold War rhetoric was unspeakable. Merton's "Chant" broke the silence. The Unspeakable had been spoken–by the greatest spiritual writer of our time. I wrote him immediately.

He answered my letter quickly. We corresponded on nonviolence and the nuclear threat. The next year Merton sent me a copy of a manuscript he had written, Peace in the Post-Christian Era. Because his superiors had forbidden him to publish a book on war and peace that they felt "falsifies the monastic message," Merton mimeographed the text and mailed it to friends. Peace in the Post-Christian Era was a prophetic work responding to the spiritual climate that was pushing the United States government toward nuclear war. One of its recurring themes was Merton's fear that the United States would launch a preemptive strike on the Soviet Union. He wrote, "There can be no question that at the time of writing what seems to be the most serious and crucial development in the policy of the United States is this indefinite but growing assumption of the necessity of a first strike."[2]

Thomas Merton was acutely aware that the president who might take such a fateful step was his fellow Catholic, John F. Kennedy. Among Merton's many correspondents at the time and another recipient of Peace in the Post­Christian Era was the president's sister-in-law, Ethel Kennedy. Merton shared his fear of war with Ethel Kennedy and his hope that John Kennedy would have the vision and courage to turn the country in a peaceful direction. In the months leading up to the Cuban Missile Crisis, Merton agonized, prayed, and felt impotent, as he continued to write passionate antiwar letters to scores of other friends.

During the thirteen fearful days of October 16-28, 1962, President John F. Kennedy did, as Thomas Merton feared, take the world to the brink of nuclear war, with the collaboration of Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev. Through the grace of God, however, Kennedy resisted the pressures for pre­emptive war. He instead negotiated a resolution of the missile crisis with his communist enemy by their making mutual concessions, some without the knowledge of JFK's national security advisers. Kennedy thereby turned away from a terrible evil and began a thirteen-month spiritual journey toward world peace. That journey, marked by contradictions, would result in his assassination by what Thomas Merton would identify later, in a broader context, as the Unspeakable.

In 1962-64, I was living in Rome, studying theology and lobbying Catholic bishops at the Second Vatican Council for a statement condemning total war and supporting conscientious objection. I knew little of John Kennedy's halting spiritual journey toward peace. I did feel there was a harmony between him and Pope John XXIII, as would be confirmed later by journalist Norman Cousins. When I met Cousins in Rome, I learned of his shuttle diplomacy as a secret messenger between the president, the pope, and the premier. I had no sense in those years that there may have been forces lining up to murder Kennedy. Thomas Merton did, as shown by a strange prophecy he made.

In a letter written to his friend W. H. Ferry in January 1962, Merton assessed Kennedy's character at that point in a negative, insightful way: "I have little confidence in Kennedy, I think he cannot fully measure up to the magnitude of his task, and lacks creative imagination and the deeper kind of sensitivity that is needed. Too much the Time and Life mentality, than which I can imagine nothing further, in reality, from, say, Lincoln. What is needed is really not shrewdness or craft, but what the politicians don't have: depth, humanity and a certain totality of self-forgetfulness and compassion, not just for individuals but for man as a whole: a deeper kind of dedication. Maybe Kennedy will break through into that some day by miracle. But such people are before long marked out for assassination."[3]

Merton's skeptical view of Kennedy allowed for a grain of hope and a contingent prophecy. As the United States moved closer to nuclear war, the monk undoubtedly prayed for the president's unlikely but necessary (for us all) conversion to a deeper, wider humanity–which, if it happened, would before long mark him out for assassination. As measured by the world, it was a dead-end prayer. But in terms of faith, such a sequence and consequence could be seen as cause for celebration.

In the next twenty-two months, did Kennedy break through by miracle to a deeper humanity?

Was he then marked out for assassination?

The Men Who Killed Kennedy 7 of 9 - The Smoking Guns

John F. Kennedy was no saint. Nor was he any apostle of nonviolence. However, as we are all called to do, he was turning. Teshuvah, "turning," the rabbinic word for repentance, is the explanation for Kennedy's short-lived, contradictory journey toward peace. He was turning from what would have been the worst violence in history toward a new, more peaceful possibility in his and our lives.

He was therefore in deadly conflict with the Unspeakable.

"The Unspeakable" is a term Thomas Merton coined at the heart of the sixties after JFK's assassination–in the midst of the escalating Vietnam War, the nuclear arms race, and the further assassinations of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, and Robert Kennedy. In each of those soul-shaking events Merton sensed an evil whose depth and deceit seemed to go beyond the capacity of words to describe.

"One of the awful facts of our age," Merton wrote in 1965, "is the evidence that [the world] is stricken indeed, stricken to the very core of its being by the presence of the Unspeakable." The Vietnam War, the race to a global war, and the interlocking murders of John Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, and Robert Kennedy were all signs of the Unspeakable. It remains deeply present in our world. As Merton warned, "Those who are at present so eager to be reconciled with the world at any price must take care not to be reconciled with it under this particular aspect: as the nest of the Unspeakable. This is what too few are willing to see."[4]

When we become more deeply human, as Merton understood the process, the wellspring of our compassion moves us to confront the Unspeakable. Merton was pointing to a kind of systemic evil that defies speech. For Merton, the Unspeakable was, at bottom, a void: "It is the void that contradicts everything that is spoken even before the words are said; the void that gets into the language of public and official declarations at the very moment when they are pronounced, and makes them ring dead with the hollowness of the abyss. It is the void out of which Eichmann drew the punctilious exactitude of his obedience . . ."[5]

In our Cold War history, the Unspeakable was the void in our government's covert-action doctrine of "plausible deniability," sanctioned by the June 18, 1948, National Security Council directive NSC 10/2.[6] Under the direction of Allen Dulles, the CIA interpreted "plausible deniability" as a green light to assassinate national leaders, overthrow governments, and lie to cover up any trace of accountability-all for the sake of promoting U.S. interests and maintaining our nuclear-backed dominance over the Soviet Union and other nations.[7]

I was slow to see the Unspeakable in the assassination of John Kennedy. After JFK was killed, for more than three decades I saw no connection between his assassination and the theology of peace I was pursuing. Although I treasured Merton's insight into the Unspeakable, I did not explore its implications in the national security state whose nuclear policies I rejected. I knew nothing of "plausible deniability," the unspeakable void of responsibility in our own national security state. That void of accountability for the CIA and our other security agencies, seen as necessary for covert crimes to protect our nuclear weapons primacy, made possible the JFK assassination and cover­up. While I wrote and acted in resistance to nuclear weapons that could kill millions, I remained oblivious of the fact that their existence at the heart of our national security state underlay the assassination of a president turning toward disarmament.

By overlooking the deep changes in Kennedy's life and the forces behind his death, I contributed to a national climate of denial. Our collective denial of the obvious, in the setting up of Oswald and his transparent silencing by Ruby, made possible the Dallas cover-up. The success of the cover-up was the indispensable foundation for the subsequent murders of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, and Robert Kennedy by the same forces at work in our government–and in ourselves. Hope for change in the world was targeted and killed four times over. The cover-up of all four murders, each leading into the next, was based, first of all, on denial–not the government's but our own. The unspeakable is not far away.

Martin Luther King's assassination awakened me. When King was murdered, I was a thirty-year-old professor of religion at the University of Hawaii. I had a seminar entitled "The Theology of Peace" with a dozen students. At our first class after Dr. King was killed, several of the students failed to show up on time. When they came in, they made an announcement to the class. They said that in response to the assassination of King, who had given his life for peace and justice, they had held an impromptu rally on campus. They had burned their draft cards, thereby becoming liable to years in prison. They said they were now forming the Hawaii Resistance. They asked if I would like to join their group. It was a friendly invitation, but it bore the implication: " Put up or shut up, Mr. Professor of Nonviolence." A month later, we sat in front of a convoy of trucks taking the members of the Hawaii National Guard to Oahu's Jungle Warfare Training Center, on their way to the jungles of Vietnam. I went to jail for two weeks–the beginning of the end of my academic career. Members of the Hawaii Resistance served from six months to two years in prison for their draft resistance or wound up going into exile in Sweden or Canada.

Thirty-one years later I learned much more about King's murder. I attended the only trial ever held for it. The trial took place in Memphis, only a few blocks from the Lorraine Motel where King was killed. In a wrongful death lawsuit initiated by the King family, seventy witnesses testified over a six-week period. They described a sophisticated government plot that involved the FBI, the CIA, the Memphis Police, Mafia intermediaries, and an Army Special Forces sniper team. The twelve jurors, six black and six white, returned after two and one-half hours of deliberation with a verdict that King had been assassinated by a conspiracy that included agencies of his own government.[8]

In the course of my journey into Martin Luther King's martyrdom, my eyes were opened to parallel questions in the murders of John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, and Robert F. Kennedy. I went to Dallas, Chicago, New York, and other sites to interview witnesses. I studied critical government documents in each of their cases. Eventually I came to see all four of them together as four versions of the same story. JFK, Malcolm, Martin, and RFK were four proponents of change who were murdered by shadowy intelligence agencies using intermediaries and scapegoats under the cover of "plausible deniability." Beneath their assassinations lay the evil void of responsibility that Merton identified as the unspeakable.

The Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

The Unspeakable is not far away. It is not somewhere out there, identical with a government that became foreign to us. The emptiness of the void, the vacuum of responsibility and compassion, is in ourselves. Our citizen denial provides the ground for the government's doctrine of "plausible deniability." John F. Kennedy's assassination is rooted in our denial of our nation's crimes in World War II that began the Cold War and the nuclear arms race. As a growing precedent to JFK's assassination by his own national security state, we U.S. citizens supported our government when it destroyed whole cities (Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki), when it protected our Cold War security by world-destructive weapons, and when it carried out the covert murders of foreign leaders with "plausible deniability" in a way that was obvious to critical observers. By avoiding our responsibility for the escalating crimes of state done for our security, we who failed to confront the Unspeakable opened the door to JFK's assassination and its cover-up. The unspeakable is not far away.

It was Thomas Merton's compassion as a human being that drew him into his own encounter with the Unspeakable. I love what Merton wrote about compassion in The Sign of Jonas: "It is in the desert of compassion that the thirsty land turns into springs of water, that the poor possess all things."[9]

Compassion is our source of nonviolent social transformation. A profoundly human compassion was Merton's wellspring for his encounter with the Unspeakable in the Holocaust, the Vietnam War, and nuclear annihilation. Merton's understanding and encouragement sustained many of us through those years, especially in our resistance to the Vietnam War. As Merton's own opposition deepened to the evil of that war, he went on a pilgrimage to the East for a more profound encounter. He was electrocuted by a fan at a conference center in Bangkok on December 10, 1968, the conclusion of his journey into a deeper, more compassionate humanity.

"The human being" was Jesus' name for himself, literally "the son of the man," in Greek ho huios tou anthropou.[10] Jesus' self-identification signified a new, compassionate humanity willing to love our enemies and walk the way of the cross. Jesus told his disciples again and again about "the human being," meaning a personal and collective humanity that he identified with himself. Against his followers' protests, he told them repeatedly that the human being must suffer. The human being must be rejected by the ruling powers, must be killed, and will rise again.[11] This is the glory of humanity. As he put it in John's Gospel, "The hour has come for the human being to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit" (John 12:24 ).

What Jesus was all about, what we as human beings are all about in our deepest nature, is giving our lives for one another. By bearing that witness of martyrdom, he taught, we will come to know what humanity really is in its glory, on earth as it is in heaven. A martyr is therefore a living witness to our new humanity.

Was John F. Kennedy a martyr, one who in spite of contradictions gave his life as witness to a new, more peaceful humanity?

That question never occurred to me when Kennedy died. Nor did it arise in my mind until more than three decades later. Now that I know more about JFK's journey, the question is there: Did a president of the United States, while in command of total nuclear war, detach himself enough from its power to give his life for peace?

From researching JFK’s story, I know much more today than I did during his life about his struggle to find a more hopeful way than the Cold War policies that were about to incinerate the United States, the Soviet Union, and much of the world. I know now why he became so dangerous to those who believed in and profited from those policies.

But how much of his future was John Kennedy willing to risk?

Kennedy was not naive. He knew the forces he was up against. Is it even conceivable that a man with such power in his hands could have laid it down and turned toward an end to the Cold War, in the knowledge he would then be, in Merton's phrase, marked out for assassination?

Let the reader decide.

I will tell the story as truthfully as I can. I have come to see it as a transforming story, one that can help move our own collective story in the twenty­first century from a spiral of violence to a way of peace. My methodology is from Gandhi. This is an experiment in truth. Its particular truth is a journey into darkness. If we go as far as we can into the darkness, regardless of the consequences, I believe a midnight truth will free us from our bondage to violence and bring us to the light of peace.

Whether or not JFK was a martyr, his story could never have been told without the testimony of risk-taking witnesses to the truth. Even if their lives were not taken–and some were–they were all martyrs in the root meaning of the word, witnesses to the truth.

The belief behind this book is that truth is the most powerful force on earth, what Gandhi called satyagraha, "truth-force" or "soul-force." By his experiments in truth Gandhi turned theology on its head, saying "truth is God." We all see a part of the truth and can seek it more deeply. Its other side is compassion, our response to suffering.

The story of JFK and the Unspeakable is drawn from the suffering and compassion of many witnesses who saw the truth and spoke it. In living out the truth, we are liberated from the Unspeakable.

[1] Thomas Merton, "Chant to Be Used in Processions around a Site with Furnaces," in The Nonviolent Alternative, edited by Gordon C. Zahn (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1980), p. 262.

[2] Thomas Merton, Peace in the Post-Christian Era (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 2004 ), p. 119. Merton's forbidden book was finally published by Orbis Books forty-two years after it was written. If we simply substitute "terrorist" for "communist" in Merton's text, Peace in the Post-Christian Era is as relevant today as when it was written.

[3] From Thomas Merton's January 18, 1962, letter to W. H. Ferry, in Letters from Tom: A Selection of Letters from Father Thomas Merton, Monk of Gethsemani, to W. H. Ferry, 1961-1968, edited by W. H. Ferry ( Scarsdale, N.Y.: Fort Hill Press, 1983), p. 15.

[4] Thomas Merton, Raids on the Unspeakable (New York: New Directions, 1966), p. 5 (Merton's emphasis).

[5] Ibid., p. 4.

[6] Peter Grose, Gentleman Spy: The Life of Allen Dulles (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1994) p. 293.

[7] William Blum, Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions since World War II (Monroe, Me.: Common Courage Press, 1995).

[8] James W. Douglass, "The King Conspiracy Exposed in Memphis," in The Assassinations, edited by James DiEugenio and Lisa Pease (Los Angeles: Feral House, 2003 ), pp. 492-509. Also available at Probe magazine Web site. The trial transcript for the wrongful death lawsuit of the Martin Luther King Jr. family versus Loyd Jowers "and other unknown co-conspirators," held in Memphis, November 15-December 8 , 1999, is online at www.thekingcenter.com.

[9] Thomas Merton, The Sign of Jonas (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Company, 1953), p. 334.

[10] As biblical scholars John L. McKenzie and Walter Wink have pointed out, the excessively literal translation "the son of the man" for Jesus' Aramaic phrase was as meaningless in Greek as it is in English. The Aramaic idiom Jesus uses eighty-two times in the Gospels to identify himself, bar nasha, means humanity, personally and collectively. What he says about himself as "the human being," he says also about humanity. His story is meant to be our story. See John L. McKenzie, The New Testament without Illusion (Chicago: Thomas More Press, 1980), pp. 114-24; James W. Douglass, The Nonviolent Coming of God (Mary­knoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1991), pp. 29-59; and Walter Wink, The Human Being: Jesus and the Enigma of the Son of the Man (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003).

[11] Mark 9:31; 10:32-34; Matthew 17:22-23; 20: 17-19; Luke 9:22; 9:44; 18:31-33.