I was reading some pages from past Socotras and I marveled at how different the world was only short years ago. Or at least it seemed so. I’m having my doubts. I have mentioned before that things began unraveling, in my humble opinion, with the horror of President Kennedy’s assassination.
I periodically revisit the era, and with the remarkable insights of our pal RADM Mac Showers, got a glimpse of some of the figures who were still around when he retired from the Navy in 1979, and joined the senior leadership at Langley.
I won’t offer any thoughts on the “who” or “why” of the whole thing. There is an entire industry that grew from the wild theories about it, and I am clearly in no place to know anything unique and unequivocally truthful.
But I do have some insight from a man who lived the experience as a serving officer. I vividly recall Mac leaning over one afternoon at The Willow, and lowering his voice to confide a great secret: “LBJ was behind it.”
He seemed mildly surprised when I laughed, after knowing exactly what event he was referring to. “Aside from motive, opportunity and towering ambition, I can’t imagine why you would say that. People have been accusing him of complicity for years.”
I don’t know why he thought it was important to convey something he clearly considered important. We went on to discuss other things, since the real truth of the ultimate mystery of the 20th Century doesn’t seem ready to pop out any time soon. Maybe it is just the way the Warren Commission said it was, a lone crazed gunman acting alone. And if it is not, well, there were certainly some times that were crazier than they are now, if you can believe it.
I recall my pal Snidely Whiplash sending me a book called “Come Retribution,” since he was of the opinion that the organized nature of Confederate spy-craft was not well known, and the echo of the “crazed lone gunman” that was the official account of the JFK murder simply wasn’t true.
William Tidwell, James Hall and David Gaddy jointly spin the tale of a series of special operations funded by the Confederate treasury intended to decapitate the United States Government. According to their analysis, many Confederates believed that Abraham Lincoln personally was responsible for the scorched earth policy against the Shenandoah Valley and Georgia. The original plan was to kidnap the President and hold him as hostage against the cessation of hostilities. The code word for this stratagem was “Come Retribution,” and the secret records of Confederate Secretary of War confirm the list of payments to the agents responsible.
In March of 1865, a kidnapping attempt near Mr. Lincoln’s summer retreat in Washington failed. Next up was an attempt to bomb the White House while the President was in residence. The last desperate attempt for Lee to evacuate Richmond and link up with Joe Johnston’s force to force a last major battle with US Gant’s Army of the Potomac.
That plan fell apart with Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, but John Wilkes Booth and his band of nine conspirators (or maybe seven, depending on who you like) resolved to carry out a last desperate act of revenge by killing the President, the Vice President and the Secretary of War.
Only the “willful, ardent” Booth succeeded that spring night in 1865. The greatest and most devastating conflict the world had seen in modern times was over, and the leader who triumphed was slain at the moment of victory. So, unlike Mr. Kennedy, the conspiracy was revealed, trials held, and hangings were conducted. Also, this was the act of an agent of a hostile power in a state of war with the United States.
That is a fine point, I grant you, and there are those who to this day maintain that the Cubans and the Russians may have been involved, for all the reasons brought to light in the revelations about The Crown jewels of covert operations conducted at the behest of the Central Intelligence Agency. I don’t know about any of that, either, but it seems clear that something changed with the victory in World War 2, and the American Empire was born. There was a willingness to take direct action overseas, sometimes against the leadership of sovereign states.
I was a servant of that, and am proud of my service and that of my comrades. I thought then and think now that Communism is a fantastically bad (and murderous) enterprise. But as I was whining about the current state of Government excess yesterday, I got feedback that I was reading too much Brietbart News and the conspiracy theories.
By that, I presume that some people think that things are not out of control in the United States, and we are not on the brink of ceasing to be a nation of laws, and becoming a nation ruled by men (and women) acting in their own self-interest.
I don’t think you need to read Breitbart to get the idea that we don’t pay much attention to law when it comes to politics. But thinking about the possibilities of what happened in Dallas all those years ago, it made me realize this has been a long time coming.
There may have been some spectacular events of lawlessness that have set the scene for the mess we have today. I don’t know.
Maybe the system will prove me wrong on that count. I hope so. The law ought to be for everyone, you know?
If that is a controversial opinion, I suspect we are already there.
Copyright 2016 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303