Kennedy assassination

November 22, 1963

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Sixty-two years ago I was up unusually late in my Arlington, Massachusetts home as my parents, my younger sister and I watched the coverage of that day’s nation-shattering event, the assassination, in Dallas, of President John F. Kennedy.

Like everyone else in my generation, much of that day is vivid in my memory, literally as if it were yesterday. My friend Paul Connolly and I were were walking home a little after 3:00 from Junior High West when Charlene Lamberis, a classmate, shouted out of her mother’s car as they passed us on the street, “The President has been shot! The President has been shot!” I had recently lost the election for president of the 8th grade, so my mind was still on my rival. I turned to Paul and said, “Who would want to shoot Marty Toczylowski?” (Marty is alive, well, and thriving today as an executive recruiter. I just checked.) Paul set me straight on what Charlene was referring to, and he pulled out his transistor radio. Soon a solemn voice announced that the President of the United States was dead, and that they would return to the station’s regular programming, whereupon wildly cheerful country fiddle music took over. It was so inappropriate we both couldn’t help laughing.

My friend came home with me and joined my mother, who was already in front of our old Capehart black-and-white TV console. TV news had never covered anything this important; all three networks and PBS were hustling trying to find new angles, scoops and people to interview. I’ll never forget that Paul, who was a brilliant kid, turned to me and said, with his face like a death mask, “Richard Nixon will be the next President.” It took five years and many twists and turns including a self-mocking cameo on “Rowen and Martin’s Laugh-in” (“Sock it to me?”), but Tricky Dick indeed was indeed the next President after Lyndon Johnson, sworn in as POTUS that day.

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A “Nah, There’s No Deep State!” Spectacular: The Hidden JFK Assassination Files

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

I have spent far too much time over the course of my life reading and thinking about the Lincoln assassination and the various conspiracy theories surrounding it. It was not until 1983 that I found a single source that attempted to explain why there is so much uncertainty surrounding Honest Abe’s death in a book I bought at The Smithsonian, “The Lincoln Murder Conspiracies.” There has always been trivia game of collecting the “amazing” parallels between the Lincoln assassination and the death of President Kennedy in Dallas in 1962, but one parallel is undeniable: government incompetence, inefficiency, bureaucratic stubbornness and deliberate defiance of law created the fertile soil for conspiracy theories to thrive regarding both events.

In part propelled by his “Odd Couple” ally Robert Kennedy, Jr., President Trump has ordered all of the information, papers and materials related to JFK’s assassination released: after all, it’s only been 61 years since Lee Harvey Oswald sent a bullet through his brain. That release still hasn’t happened, and if past experience holds, it won’t this time either.

The FBI just discovered about 2,400 records tied to President Kennedy’s assassination that were never provided to the Warren Commission or a later board charged with determining once and for all why Kennedy was killed and who was responsible. The records were discovered among the 14,000 pages of documents the FBI found when they undertook to obey Trump’s order, which I’m sure some of my Trump-Deranged Facebook friends will claim is illegal. (If Trump does it and it undermines progressive power, it is illegal by definition.)

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Recipe for Confusion: Take A Trump Ad-lib, Spoon in a Measure of Tucker Carlson Demagoguery, and Mix Both into JFK Assassination Conspiracy Hysteria

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Again, I must invoke Curmie’s versatile “Oh bloody hell!”

I have been studying Presidential assassination history and conspiracy theories since before I had to shave, and I have little patience with those who misrepresent, distort or exploit these events. Just two days ago, I was pointing out that the much-admired Stephen Sondheim musical “Assassins” was a blight on the culture despite my belief that entertainment should have a wide margin for creative license. The musical—the songs aren’t bad—is based on the absurd premise that John Wilkes Booth’s motivation for his decision to assassinate Lincoln is a mystery, and that, like other POTUS assassins and attempted assassins, he was trying to make a difference in a society that had ignored and marginalized him. That’s just crap for most of the historical killers and wackos portrayed in the show, but especially Booth. “Was it bad reviews, Johnny?” a balladeer croons. Of course not, you idiot: no assassin ever made his motivations clearer than John Wilkes Booth.

He was a dedicated Confederate partisan; he blamed Lincoln (correctly) for not letting the South go its own way, he was crushed that the South was headed for defeat, and believed that if the Union government could be decapitated (the plot was to kill Lincoln, Vice-President Johnson, Secretary of State Seward and General Grant in a single night) the South might yet prevail—and his plan might have worked. No mystery! But our history is constantly misrepresented to the historically ignorant and illiterate, that is to say, most of the public, often for the selfish purposes of rumormongers and worse.

You know, like Tucker Carlson.

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When Too Late Is Unethical: The Strange Case Of JFK Assassination Witness Paul Landis

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

Paul Landis, one of the Secret Service agents near John F. Kennedy when he was assassinated in Dallas in 1963, has suddenly decided to reveal relevant actions and observations from that terrible day 60 years ago. His new perspectives, as the New York Times puts it, may “rewrite the narrative of one of modern American history’s most earth-shattering days in an important way,” and “encourage those who have long suspected that there was more than one gunman in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, adding new grist to one of the nation’s enduring mysteries.” The appropriate responses to Landis’s sudden urge to tell all are 1) “What took you so long?” and 2) “Oh, shut up.”

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Monday Morning Ethics Warm-Up 1: Rittenhouse-Free Zone Edition

/ Jack Marshall / 29 Comments

JFK assassination

President Kennedy was assassinated on this date in 1963, easily my most vivid memory of any national event in my lifetime. I am not an admirer of Jack Kennedy as a President or a human being, but it is hard to imagine a more wrenching disruption of the nation’s course, spirit, fate and future than what occurred that day in Dallas.

We watched everything unfold for the rest of the week on our black and white TVs, from Walter Cronkite’s somber announcement that the President of the United States was dead, to the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald, through to the D.C. funeral procession and John-John’s salute.

The day still represents traumafor me, and I am sure to many others of my generation: when Grace and I were planning our wedding in 1980 and November 22 was suggested as the most convenient date, I insisted on the 23rd instead. This is also the date that kicks off the dreaded holiday season, stuffed with milestones good and bad (I count seven between now and New Years), periods of anxiety, nostalgia and anticipation in between, and too much longing and memories of loss to bear.

I hate it.

1. Yes, it’s an unethical Christmas tree. In the town of Grimsby in North East Lincolnshire, the official Christmas tree has been taken down from the town center after a local uproar declaring the 10 foot, conical artificial tree a “national embarrassment.” It also cost a thousand pounds. The town’s explanation was, shall we say, confusing, with Councillor Callum Procter claiming,

There are great plans for celebrating the start of the Christmas period next week. Unfortunately, the Christmas Market tree was installed too early, and we understand that people were confused and thought this was our civic tree. The tree has been removed temporarily today and our contractors are reinstalling again, for free, ahead of the market next week. I’m looking forward to seeing people enjoying the illuminations, the market, and the revamped St James’ Square with the civic tree and the special lighting on the Minster as part of the Christmas experience.

Wait…the town is going to put the same tree back up, and everyone will like it because it won’t be “too early”? I am dubious. Here’s the tree:

bsd tree

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Thanksgiving Day Ethics Warm-Up, 11/22/2018: Turkeys And Vampire-Slayers

/ Jack Marshall / 28 Comments

Happy Thanksgiving!

Now don’t let any “turkeys,” related or not, spoil it for you. This is a uniquely American holiday, celebrating our history, journey, values and culture, remembering the value of family, and extolling  qualities that Americans should all try to embrace in their daily lives: generosity, empathy, charity, loyalty, perspective, respect and gratitude. Once it was regarded as a religious holiday, but as the culture has gradually rejected religion, for better or worse, and not without the full complicity of organized religions whose conduct would repel anyone, the holiday has struggled to find new moorings. Its value as a yearly ethical touchpoint makes that struggle worth continuing.

1. Speaking of Thanksgiving “turkeys”...A helpful Twitter-user compiled these shots from various progressive websites and blogs:

Nice.

One of the things I have long been thankful for was the excellent training I received at our family dinner table from my proudly iconoclastic father, who could argue any side of any issues, and did, just to teach his kids that they better have a firm grasp of facts, logic, language, and critical thinking before making any assertion, lest they be made to look like fools. He also taught the value of an open mind, and resisting lazy conventional wisdom without foundation, like, say “Trump is a racist.”

2. This one is Obama’s fault. Though heated political arguments were always a potential part of family gatherings, it was Obama’s administration and his allies that made the disgusting decision to weaponize the holidays, commanding their human drones to arrive at gatherings ready to argue the benefits of the Affordable Care Act, and providing brochures and videos to help them accomplish the mission. (Bulletin from Justice Roberts: “There are no Obama Thanksgivings or Trump Thanksgivings!”) Continue reading →

Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 11/22/17: Uber, Thanksgiving Hate, Accountability, Trump’s Unavoidable Choice, And Ruing The Day That Changed Everything

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

Good Morning.

…But 54 years ago it seemed like a beautiful morning in Dealey Plaza…

1 “President Kennedy is dead…” I heard those word over my little black transistor radio that I mostly used to listen to Red Sox games. Let’s see how many news stories take note of the historical significance of today: the anniversary of the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy in Dallas. It is the date when a disturbed crypto-Communist radical took the fate and future of an entire nation and culture in his hands, and squeezed them to pulp—one of the three or four most unethical acts in U.S. history. As readers here know, I am not a Jack Kennedy admirer. Nonetheless, in “Back to the Future II” terms, it’s impossible to imagine what 2017 America would be like had Lee Harvey Oswald not shot the top of JFK’s head off in 1963, but it’s easy to imagine that we would be better. The assassination created a violent shift in the time/space continuum, and we never got back on track.

2. Bye-Bye Uber, you’re also dead to me. Uber is untrustworthy and unethical, and anyone who trusts the company going forward is a fool as well as an enabler of corporate misconduct. This is signature significance: the company revealed that hackers stole 57 million driver and rider accounts last year, yet Uber withheld that fact from the public until now after paying a $100,000 ransom to the hackers. Ethical, competent, trustworthy companies don’t operate this way.

It wasn’t just the company’s juvenile and piggish former CEO and co-founder Travis Kalanick. The company he created inherited his ethical deficits like a lethal gene. Any company is obligated to reveal hacks of personal data to members of the public who might be harmed by them immediately.

If you use Uber after this, you’re an idiot. You’re also sending the message that an epic breach of trust by a corporation will be shrugged off via one or twenty rationalizations, like 19. The Perfection Diversion: “Nobody’s Perfect!” or “Everybody makes mistakes!”

Keep sending that message, and pretty soon they’ll be using 1. The Golden Rationalization, or “Everybody does it.”

3. More Tales of the Anti-Trump Deranged: This essay in the virulent Trump-hating CG is meant humorously, but also is serious in its nastiness. Joe Berkowitz’s call to good little resistance members and Hillary bitter-enders to “ruin thanksgiving” as their “civic duty” stands as a self-indictment of the ugly, divisive mindset that so much of the Left has descended into over the past year. In fact, with just a few tweaks, it could have been written by a conservative satirist—if there were such things.

One aspect of Trump’s election turning the U.S. into a “Nation of Assholes” that I did not see coming was progressives and Democrats feeling liberated to go full-asshole themselves. This article shows the phenomenon. In particular, Berkowitz demonstrates how the Left can no longer distinguish between legitimate policy disagreements and what should be a matter of non-partisan consensus. His argument for using Thanksgiving to punish Trump supporting relatives by turning a celebration of faith and family into a table-top Gettysburg goes like this:

They can’t stand idly by while President Deals tramples every other American tradition and yet somehow expect that Thanksgiving will be normal too. [Note: Supporting the elected President is one of those traditions, and a crucial one.]…Here are a few suggestions for how to ruin Thanksgiving, arranged by ascending order of righteous fury:

Don’t show up. For some parents, your absence will speak louder than any sodden arguments over the density of pumpkin pie. If you can’t even look them in the eye, they’ll know you mean business. [Note: Is he joking? I know many families who are eschewing family gatherings for exactly this reason. Yes, I put most of this on the Angry Left and Barack Obama, aided and abetted by late night TV comics and the news media. They have set out to divide the nation by race, gender, age, class and party, seeking to build metaphorical walls where once there were divisions that could be forgotten or ignored during recreation and the shared commonality of citizenship. .]

Show up and be kind of an asshole. No hugs; only stiff, formal handshakes. During the football game, talk about police brutality nonstop. Take any opportunity to emphasize just how much Bruce Springsteen and the entire E Street band loathes Trump….[Note: See?]

Scorched Earth. Not even a handshake; just stare, disgustedly, at their outstretched arms….[Note: Among the  inarguable outrages that the essayist claims justifies such treatment: not supporting an increase in the minimum wage, refusing to uncritically accept climate change propaganda, and the President speaking “almost exclusively in racist dog whistles and ‘locker room talk.'” You know, racist dogwhistles like opposing the tearing down statues of Robert E. Lee,  correctly stating that a white nationalist group has the same rights to assemble and protest as anyone else without being attacked,  or objecting to NFL players inflicting an incoherent protest on their captive audience. ]

I was asked for ethics advice regarding looming political disputes during Thanksgiving, and here it is: It is rude and unkind to raise a topic you know is emotional and painful for people at the table. So don’t do it, just as you wouldn’t (I hope) deliberately raise such topics as Cousin Cecile’s abortion, Jim Jr.’s arrest, or Uncle Ethan’s IRS problems. Continue reading →

JFK’s Death, Hanlon’s Razor, And How Truth Gets Buried Forever

/ Jack Marshall / 104 Comments

JFK Hickey

I am a student of Presidential assassinations (as you might guess by the posts on McKinley and Garfield), and have been most of my life, ever since I saw a TV special called “Web of Conspiracy” when I was 10, about the Lincoln murder. That led me to read the  best-selling book the special was based on, an 800 page, sensational analysis of the mysteries behind Lincoln’s death, by mystery writer Theodore Roscoe, who dabbled in history. The book’s theories and insinuating style are more convincing to a ten-year-old than an adult (I read the book many years later, and it drove me crazy), but the book still has a lot of fascinating tales and theories in it. I was hooked.

Oddly, the one Presidential assassination that has interested me least in recent years is the one I lived through, the assassination of President Kennedy. Blame Oliver Stone, Kevin Costner and Jim Garrison: “JFK” was the most dishonest movie I had ever watched (still is) and I walked out of it when its lies and distortions got too much for me about a third of the way through. Even before Stone’s brilliantly directed piece of crap. I was sick of the conspiracy theories, though Stone manufacturing a link to Lyndon Johnson was the final straw. Yes, the bitter Vietnam veteran really got back at LBJ; I hope it made him feel better. I, however, was soured on the whole topic.

I should have been paying more attention. Netflix is showing a documentary with the generic conspiracy theory title of “JFK: The Smoking Gun,” which was shown on cable two years ago. I missed it; if I had been aware of the film, the title and the subject matter—Oh, who’s behind it now? The Mafia? Nixon? Woody Harrelson’s father?—would have kept me away. But while I was on the road for a couple days doing ethics seminars for VACLE, my wife watched the documentary, and when I returned, sleep deprived, weak and submissive, she made me watch it.

Fascinating. And troubling. Continue reading →

Kaboom!*: Will All Those Who Deny The Existance Of An Anti-Conservative Bias In The Mainstream Media Explain….

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

"Hey, he killed the President---he was a Teabagger, right?"

“Hey, he killed the President—he had to be a Teabagger, right?”

…how it is that both the Washington Post and the New York Times, in the days before  the anniversary of President Kennedy’s assassination, ran essays that link right-wing, radical, anti-liberal sentiment in 1963 Dallas with today’s conservative political positions? The Post, doing explicitly what the Times does slyly, even makes the connection direct. Its essay is called “Tea party has roots in the Dallas of 1963”—as in the implicit innuendos, ‘people like those in today’s tea party killed JFK’ and thus ‘the people who think like that probably want to kill this President too.’

We’re seeing a lot of liberal despair, nastiness and desperation these days, aren’t we? The instinct seems to be to lash out. Of course, one would think that competent, responsible  and fair editors of the two most prestigious U.S. dailies would read this tripe, hand it back to the authors and say, “Hey, go home, have a drink, and take a nap. It’s not so bad, really. Obamacare may be all right. We’ve got Obama’s back. Now, I’m going to do you a favor and forget you wrote this.”

But no. Continue reading →

Grassy Knoll Ethics: How Deception Breeds Distrust

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

UmbrellaMan2

We once again must squarely face the hoary  quote from Walter Scott’s epic poem Marmion: “Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.” It is hoary because it is true, and this month’s Smithsonian Magazine reminds us of how true it is, recounting how well-intentioned deceptions by the news media regarding evidence in the assassination of President Kennedy helped create a conspiracy theory that will not die, and that may have begun the slow, relentless deterioration of America’s trust in its own government that has reached dangerous proportions today.

Frame 313 of Abraham Zapruder’s accidental record of one of the pivotal moments in U.S. history gave him nightmares, and when he sold the rights to his amateur movie to Life Magazine, he insisted that frame be withheld from the public, and not published. “We like to feel that the world is safe,” documentary maker Errol Morris explains in the article.“Safe at least in the sense that we can know about it. The Kennedy assassination is very much an essay on the unsafety of the world. If a man that powerful, that young, that rich, that successful, can just be wiped off the face of the earth in an instant, what does it say about the rest of us?” I understand, but withholding the truth is not the way to make the world seem safer. As the story of the conspiracy shows, it is how we end up trusting no one. Continue reading →