Nerve Endings Firing Away

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The other day I revisited the Watergate scandal when I finally watched All the President’s Men starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman essaying the roles of the journalists, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. These two journalists at Washington Post kept focus on the Watergate burglary slowly tracing the link back to the Justice Department and the White House. The extent of crimes committed and the subsequent cover-up was shocking and it was fortuitous that the guilty were punished leading up to the resignation of Richard Nixon. Given the powerful men involved, the chances of the conspiracy unraveling were very slim and if the truth hadn’t been uncovered, no one would have believed that the White House was capable of pulling off such a deed.

One of the key men involved in the burglary that kicked off the scandal was E Howard Hunt, a CIA agent who was purportedly in communication with the burglars via walkie-talkie during the burglary. He was eventually tracked down and sentenced to prison. He was the classic embodiment of an American spy who worked in the secretive alleys of the CIA to overthrow unfriendly foreign governments during the Cold War. The Bay of Pigs, apart from the Watergate scandal was their lowest point. Recently, Rolling Stone’s Erik Hedegaard spoke to E. Howard Hunt’s son, St. John who revealed much about his father’s secretive ways and even offered confirmation on the long-unsolved mysteries of modern times - the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

That time in Miami, with saint by his bed and disease eating away at him and him thinking he’s six months away from death, E. Howard finally put pen to paper and started writing. Saint had been working toward this moment for a long while, and now it was going to happen. He got his father an A&W diet root beer, then sat down in the old man’s wheelchair and waited.

E. Howard scribbled the initials “LBJ,” standing for Kennedy’s ambitious vice president, Lyndon Johnson. Under “LBJ,” connected by a line, he wrote the name Cord Meyer. Meyer was a CIA agent whose wife had an affair with JFK; later she was murdered, a case that’s never been solved. Next his father connected to Meyer’s name the name Bill Harvey, another CIA agent; also connected to Meyer’s name was the name David Morales, yet another CIA man and a well-known, particularly vicious black-op specialist. And then his father connected to Morales’ name, with a line, the framed words “French Gunman Grassy Knoll.”

So there it was, according to E. Howard Hunt. LBJ had Kennedy killed. It had long been speculated upon. But now E. Howard was saying that’s the way it was.

Of course, the news didn’t make any mainstream news outlets as they were involved with establishing Anna Nicole Smith’s kid’s parentage and hauling up Don Imus for his racist remarks. And of course, the JFK assassination always has had its share of conspiracy theories, countless books, and even an Academy Award-winning movie to its credit. If we were to believe Hunt’s son that his father really knew the truth although he had testified to the contrary, there is no conclusive evidence to that fact.

But does it seem plausible? Sure, it does. Even in the ficticious-yet-could-be-realworld of 24, the President is often shown to be undermined by those under him. In this season, the Vice-President makes a grab for power by trying to overthrow the President after an unsuccessful assassination attempt orchestrated by powers within the government. Sure, LBJ and his cronies may not have agreed with JFK who largely stood for diplomatic resolution and had successfully averted a possible World War III through deft handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Soon after JKF was assassinated, United States upped its involvement in the Vietnam War and we all know how that went.

So while everything might not be true, there is definitely some element of truth. But we’ll never know for sure, will we?

by Patrix | on Friday, April 13th, 2007 at 5:47 pm | Politicking, United States . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.