David Fincher: Mank, The Game, Gone Girl

David Fincher’s Mank (2020) is a somewhat morbid, at times formidably cold and clinical portrayal of an empire constantly reinventing itself to stay relevant. Designed as a visual evocation of Citizen Kane itself, Fincher seems to be appealing to the specter behind Welles’ personification of Hearst, inextricable from the energies and judgement of Herman Mankiewicz (the older brother of Joseph L. Mankiewicz, screenwriter and director of All About Eve, Suddenly Last Summer, Sleuth...). “Mank” does not chronicle his fall from grace. Right off the bat he’s a lost soul. Whether with or without honor in Hollywood, he is no prophet. In an early scene of drunken besottedness, he proclaims to his wife that “The Wizard of Oz” is going to “sink” MGM. Mankiewicz’s isolation (underscored by a poignant music score by Fincher regulars Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor) gives Fincher the opportunity, in the movie’s last third, to concoct discrete narrative modules in which Mankiewicz is visited by various personages who entreat him to abandon his folly. Hearst is still a powerful man, and can ruin him. But Mankiewicz clearly doesn’t believe he can be ruined any further than he already is. Ultimately, Fincher’s revelation is more a suggestion of how the faces may have changed but the human trials and tribulations remain the same between the uneasy bedfellows of politics and celebrity. As Fincher writes Mankiewicz himself saying, “You cannot capture a man’s entire life in two hours. All you can hope is to leave the impression of one.”

Fincher’s latest is one that will surely polarize fans, which is why we’re here to make the grand and bold statement proclaiming it to be: pretty good! Mank is a chronicle of the years, rivalries, and old Hollywood exploits that went into the eponymous screenwriter completing the Citizen Kane script. But more than just being a backstory of “the greatest film ever made,” Mank is a touching tribute to those left out of the spotlight that simultaneously feels like a thriller. There isn’t necessarily a big mystery to be solved, but that doesn’t stop Fincher from exploiting all the twists and turns of history to their full dramatic effect. Characters are at once larger than life and wholly realized with nuance and humanity. Amanda Seyfried as starlet Marion Davies is an especially remarkable standout. She steals every scene she’s in with wisecracking antics and endlessly watchable charm. At the end of the day, Mank isn’t Fincher’s best, but it’s a richly enthralling film and a welcome return for the director after six years without a feature. "Mank" will premiere on Netflix on December 4th.

My go-to line when discussing Fincher with friends, family, and, frankly, anyone who will listen, is that Gone Girl isn’t his best, but it is my favorite. That’s not to say it isn’t one of the greatest films of the last decade. Gone Girl is in itself a treasure hunt for Nick Dunne and for the audience. Like Fincher’s previous thriller, The Game (one of John Kennedy Jr's favorite films), the film is predicated on a special occasion. In The Game, it's Nicholas’ (Michael Douglas) birthday. In Gone Girl, it's Amy and Nick’s anniversary. To hit the hammer over the head of the thematic string of games throughout, the film happens to open with Nick carrying a game into his bar to greet his sister Margo. Amy legitimately wants to give Nick an anniversary gift he will never forget. Nick gets the gift any narcissist would revel in: forgiveness and galvanization from the media just as long as he confesses his love for Amy on national television. What woman wouldn’t want their man to confess their love to 10 million people? In February 2015, British actress Rosamund Pike talked to Variety about her inspiration for her portrayal of the magnetic, aloof Amy Dunne in Gone Girl on the elusive Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy. Like Amy Dunne, the tragic Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy was an impossibly beautiful blonde whose personal warmth belied a puzzling remoteness. “There are quite a few photographs of Bessette,” Pike told editor Sam Kashner, “but I could find nothing of her persona in her own words.” Bessette was a celebrated minimalist fashion icon, yet somehow always, as Pike describes her, “a cipher.” Pike says she modeled her alter-ego Amazing Amy, at least in part, on Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, the alluring but somehow unknowable wife of John F. Kennedy Jr. “There’s not much out there about her. You never heard her speak in public,” Pike says, curled up on a sofa at Milk Studios in Hollywood. “You just see those pictures of her hiding her face. The mysterious way she moved... I used quite a lot of her body language and mood. She was a dream girl. That’s what Amy was for Nick. She’s the one you can’t get out of your head because she’s perfect.” Source: ew.com

Portia De Rossi characterized as Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy for the docudrama project America's Reluctant Prince (2003) by Eric Laneuville. It failed mainly due to a contrived script and Daryl Hannah's contention with the representation of her character onscreen. Laneuville seemed to take inspiration from Christopher Andersen's book "The Day John Died" (2000) and "Four Blondes" (2000) by Candace Bushnell. Apparently the chapter "Platinum" of "Four Blondes" has certain similarities to Carolyn Bessette's life. In Platinum, a former salesgirl at Ralph Lauren weds a good-looking heir who happens to be a real prince. Cecilia (the new blonde princess) disintegrates behind the doors, with paranoia and drugs becoming her calling card, but high society still wants her sitting at its table. Although Candace Bushnell was not friends with Carolyn Bessette, she knew the tabloids scene and she wrote a column for The New York Observer; Bushnell also had dated Michael Bergin (former lover of Carolyn Bessette). Bushnell implies not only CBK used cocaine, also her husband (the affable son of JFK) secretly dabbled with fractal drugs (LSD). Bushnell alludes to a tormentous yet highly passional marriage that was tainted with self-destructive traits of two bipolar personalities. John Kennedy Jr had known Carolyn Bessette since November 1992 (around the release of David Lynch's Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me) in the nightclub Rex at Soho. They officially started dating in late December 1994, and she moved to his Tribeca loft in July 1995. According to Billy Way, John Jr fell hard for Carolyn, but he felt insecure if Carolyn was ready for his political aspirations and lifestyle, and after a tumultuous courtship, they had distanced in 1993. 

In the interim, John was always asking about Carolyn's whereabouts through mutual friends. Richard Wiese had tried to hook him up with models Amber Norman and Ashley Richardson, short flings with little success. John and Carolyn re-encountered each other in a Calvin Klein event and this time John, not having got over his feelings for Carolyn, decided to reanudate their relationship. Despite the usual up and downs, the couple's closest friends (Sasha Chermayeff, Robert Littell, John Perry Barlow, Carole Radziwill, Rose Marie Terenzio) deny they had serious problems in their marriage. Indeed, they knew of their intention of becoming parents soon, and John had revealed he preferred Flynn as a name for a son and Fleur for a daughter. Carolyn had confided to Jessica Weinstein (no relation to Harvey Weinstein) she was taking prenatal vitamins. Source: variety.com

David Lynch: Wisteria, Laura Palmer

Rumors have been swirling lately that David Lynch is at work on a new television series for Netflix. It would mark the first original series for the filmmaker since Twin Peaks debuted in 1990. But is Wisteria actually an original program? Or is it really another Twin Peaks series? Lynch’s projects are always super secretive. So there’s a good chance we won’t know what Wisteria is until it appears on our TV screens. But there are a few clues that point to this possibly being a continuation of Twin Peaks. And it might just center on a character we met in the show’s final episode. A character named Carrie Page, who is actually an alternate reality Laura Palmer. Here’s some speculation about Wisteria, the mysterious new David Lynch project, and why it could be another Twin Peaks story. During a Q&A at the Theatre at ACE Hotel in Los Angeles, David Lynch said he was interested in continuing Carrie Page’s story. It’s possible Showtime, the network that aired The Return, was nervous about pouring money into another long, esoteric season of TV. Either way, Carrie’s story is still largely untold. Even there is a street in Odessa, Texas called Wisteria. In Twin Peaks: The Return‘s final episode, Part 18, Dale Cooper attempts to prevent Laura Palmer’s murder. In doing so, he winds up traveling through a portal and into another reality. There, he meets a diner waitress named Carrie Page, who lives in Odessa, Texas and looks identical to an adult Laura Palmer. He attempts to convince her that she’s actually Laura, and desperate to leave Odessa, Carrie agrees to travel with Cooper back to Twin Peaks. They drive to the town and arrive at Laura Palmer’s house, which is now owned by a strange woman who doesn’t recall the Palmers. As they’re about to leave, Carrie hears Laura’s mother Sarah call out her name from the house. Suddenly aware that she is, indeed, Laura Palmer, Carrie screams into the night and everything plunges into darkness. Source: nerdist.com

Laura Palmer’s revealed “sins” required, by the moral logic of American mass entertainment, that the circumstances of her death turn out to be causally related to her sins. We always knew Laura was a wild girl, the homecoming femme fatale who was crazy for cocaine and screwed roadhouse drunks for the sheer depravity of it, but the movie is finally not so much interested in the titillation of that depravity as in her torment, depicted in a performance by Sheryl Lee so vixenish and demonic it's a tour de force. Her fit of the giggles over the body of a man whose head has just been blown off might be an act of innocence, of damnation, or [get ready] both. This is what Lynch is about in this movie: both innocence and damnation; both sinned-against and sinning. Laura Palmer in Fire Walk with Me is both “good” and “bad,” and yet also neither. The Globe and Mail called the film "A disgusting, misanthropic movie." This transformation of Laura from object to subject was actually the most morally ambitious thing a Lynch movie has ever tried to do—and it required complex and contradictory and probably impossible things from Sheryl Lee, who in my opinion deserved an Oscar nomination just for showing up and trying. —"David Lynch Keeps His Head" (1996) by David Foster Wallace

In 2017, Vice called James Hurley (Laura Palmer's secret boyfriend) “the original sad lad”. Hurley is clearly meant to be a walking cliche, a cypher of American masculine teenage rebellion a la James Dean: you can tell because he wears a biker jacket and shades, and drives a motorcycle. Spooner points to Hurley’s biker jacket as an item that operates symbolically. Reprising his guitar playing for the new series, the jacket was noticeably absent – perhaps because a middle-aged man wearing one might spell something different, namely a mid-life crisis. James’ love for Laura was sincere. But it’s unclear whether Laura’s love for him was equally authentic. On an audiotape sent to Dr Jacoby Laura says “God, James is sweet, but he’s so dumb, and right now I can only take so much of sweet.” In the end James Hurley was too much of a sweet boy to really understand Laura’s world. He couldn’t control her dark thoughts or protect her from the things she was involved with. “I remember this one night when we first started seeing each other. She was still doing drugs then. We were in the woods when she started saying this scary poem, over and over, about fire.” Source: visittwinpeaks.com

When she first walked into the offices of Random Ventures in 1995, John Kennedy Jr's assistant Rose Marie Terenzio recalls how Carolyn Bessette looked like a model, effortlessly perfect in an unstudied yet elegant outfit, carrying a velvet purse that had belonged to Jackie Kennedy, with an aura of mystery like Laura Palmer from Twin Peaks. John Perry Barlow: John wanted to maintain a platonic relationship with Carolyn until he and Daryl Hannah had broken up. In fact, there were not many women in his life that he took seriously. And there were even fewer that he took casually. In this regard John was anything but a Kennedy. It's kind of goofy to say, but he was like a Norman Rockwell character. I didn't meet Carolyn until the fall of 1994. At once, I found her to be as charismatic as John was. "Charisma" was once a theological term meaning "grace." She had that quality. I was also impressed with the fact that she was more than a little eccentric. She was not conventional in any sense. I think she was actually some kind of angel. But like many angels, her empathy was her main enemy. She was too raw to the pain of others. She felt it as deeply herself. John was ecstatic in Carolyn's company. John told us they'd barely left the hotel room during their honeymoon. John was truly a monogamous guy. And he was a loyal guy. And it wasn't just loyalty amongst guys. It wasn't like he was just a great pal with men and not with women. He respected women probably more than he did guys. —NY Fix News interview by Sheila Tasco (2004)

Happy 60th Anniversary, John Kennedy Jr!

In a week where John F. Kennedy Jr. would have celebrated his 60th birthday (on 25th November), his friends are lamenting that the world never got to see what the dashing presidential son would have become. His death marked the latest big loss in a family that has experienced much of it over the generations. "His legacy was really about who he would've become," friend Brian Steel, a former assistant district attorney in Manhattan with Kennedy, said to Today News. "But I just think America and also the world would have been a better place. Now you look back, and you think of what might have been." This past Sunday marked the 57th anniversary of his father's assassination. John Kennedy Jr. had been mulling over a foray into politics, the stock in trade of his famous family, but had not yet made the leap. He had become a New York City fixture as one of the most debonair bachelors before marrying Carolyn Bessette in a fairy tale wedding in 1996. A run for high-profile political office in New York was most likely in his future with an eye on one day returning the Kennedy family to the White House. "There's no doubt he was thinking about running for governor," Steel said. "We had that discussion a couple times in the months before he passed away. He also had given sort of fleeting thought for running for that Senate seat in 2000. The White House could have been his destiny." "I think anytime you go into politics, you have to make sure the rest of your life will accommodate that decision," John Kennedy Jr. told NBC's Tom Brokaw in 1995. "There is a whole generation that has now grown up without knowing Kennedy Jr. as a public figure, but his memory lives on. I mean, there was no one that compared in the world to John," Steel added. "Everything that he did with his power, his fame, it was all about some greater good," Rose Marie Terenzio (his former executive assistant at George magazine) said. "He's truly missed for the way that he gracefully took that mantle of responsibility and lived an honorable life full of integrity—and he's missed for what we all want, which is somebody to look up to and to be proud of." 

JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette had been married for less than three years when they were killed in a plane crash on July 16, 1999, but their romance remains the stuff of legend. According to America's Reluctant Prince by historian Steve Gillon, Carolyn's mother, Ann Freeman, had openly questioned during her wedding toast whether John Kennedy Jr was the right man for her daughter. Anthony Radziwill tempered the awkwardness with his best man toast. "We all know why John would marry Carolyn," he said. "She is smart, beautiful and charming... What does she see in John? Well, some of the things that I guess might have attracted Carolyn to John are his caring, his charm, and his very big heart of gold." Carolyn had become increasingly involved with George magazine, much to the consternation of John's partner, Michael Berman, who ended up selling his half of the magazine in 1997 after exchanging some bitter arguments. Incidentally, Carolyn had left her own career, but she wasn't sure what she wanted to do next. According to Stephen Styles, a friend of John and Carolyn, in April 1997, a female reporter attended a luncheon at the Robin Hood Foundation, and tried to pry into Bessette's plans: "As for the job prospects Carolyn might have considered, she shook her head and simply said 'I can`t comment on that.' John then interrupted this conversation to say with his peculiar brand of humor: 'I won't let her work!' Asked  by the reporter about his seemingly dominance, John shrugged it off, and Carolyn laughed while rolled her eyes in amusement." 

Carolyn loved John, but in what would become a point of contention for the rest of their lives, she didn't particularly enjoy going to spend holidays with his sprawling family on the Cape, formally presided over by matriarch Ethel Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy's widow, and the Kennedy men, who with their touch football games and clambakes seemed lifted from a Ralph Lauren ad. John had officially met Carolyn in 1994 at a Calvin Klein-hosted event and was instantly smitten. "Early on, he would be frustrated with Carolyn," attorney Brian Steel, who met John when they both worked in the Manhattan District Attorney's office, recalled. "He would say, 'I called her and she hasn't called me back.' And John did not like that." Gustavo Paredes told People magazine that "Carolyn didn't think he was serious. And he couldn't believe she had turned him down. It had never happened to him before." "She was exactly the kind of girl I imagined would date someone like John Kennedy Jr.," Rose Marie Terenzio recalled in her 2012 memoir Fairy Tale Interrupted, "she actually intimidated the hell out of me." When she first met Carolyn, Terenzio realized Carolyn "was different from the typical trendy girls you see around Manhattan. She wasn't trying too hard to be cool. She wasn't trying at all." 

Although numerous issues would plague John and Carolyn's relationship in the years to come, by all accounts infidelity wasn't one of them—though, according to some rumors, Carolyn would hint John during their fights that she was thinking of seeing her ex-boyfriend. Her friends didn't think she would actually cheat on John, though. "Carolyn, more than anyone who John had been with, would stand up to him, and confront him, and I think that John to an extent needed that," historian Steven M. Gillon, a classmate of John's at Brown University who was later a contributing editor at George, told InStyle in 2019. That being said, John was still a headstrong Kennedy, and sometimes possessed an explosive temper that wasn't usually mentioned in the usual accounts—though his friends and ex-girlfriends knew better. "I knew that John had a temper and that Carolyn was no shrinking violet," Richard Blow recalled in American Son:A Portrait of John F. Kennedy Jr. "But the violence and their rage of the video presented a harsh contrast to the tenderness I'd seen between them. John was a nice, compassionate and warm guy." Ted Kennedy delivered the eulogy after the plane crash at a memorial service held on July 23 at the Church of St. Thomas More, New York City: "John was a devoted son and brother, and he was a husband who adored the wife who became his perfect soul mate," the senator, who later died in 2009, said. "John's father taught us all to reach for the moon and the stars. John did just that in all he did—and he found his shining star when he married Carolyn Bessette—the new pride of the Kennedys. We loved John and Carolyn. The Bessettes and Freeman families will always be part of ours." In Ted Kennedy's assessment, Carolyn had always fit right with the Kennedy clan. And that's certainly how John had wanted her to feel. Source: www.today.com

Style Icons: Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, Pam Courson (Love Her Madly)

 

Most people would jump at the chance to spend any time at all at the Kennedy compound with one of America’s most prominent families. But Carolyn Bessette was not like most people. According to The Kennedy Heirs by J. Randy Taraborrelli, John F. Kennedy Jr.’s wife resisted visiting his relatives in Hyannis Port often when the topic was broached. Taraborrelli described Bessette’s reluctance to visit the compound and Kennedy’s insistence that she do so as the “recurring argument” the couple “just couldn’t seem to settle no matter how many times they tried.” Part of the reason Bessette objected to these visits was because she didn’t feel that she fit in with the athletic Kennedy crew. But perhaps the more pressing reason she wanted to avoid the Cape compound was to avoid the paparazzi. Bessette and Kennedy were hounded by the photographers almost constantly, and Carolyn was deeply affected by the invasion of privacy. Though at first she thought the Kennedy compound was a hideaway from the media, she changed her mind after seeing a photographer shoot her from the pier one day. “Now she felt she had to put on an act for public consumption, which added a new level of angst to going to the compound,” Taraborrelli wrote. “She was taking antidepressant pills just to get through it, she confided in her friends.” 

And John wasn’t always understanding of Carolyn’s objections. According to Taraborrelli, Kennedy once brought up their recurring disagreement at dinner with friends, telling her, “Fine. Don’t come with me, hell if I care.” When she began to cry, he told her, “You’re crying because you don’t want to have fun on the beach with my family? I don’t understand you, Carolyn.” He thought she’d at least appeared to be having a good time during their family trips. Other friends think another reason was the resistance of Carolyn to accept the future role in politics his husband would have adopted at last. The most improbable source of their rows was romantic jealousy - although some not very credible acquaintances insisted Carolyn was very jealous of John's former girlfriend Julie Baker, whom she forbade of visiting their apartment. In fairness, Baker had been disrespectful when she was seen sitting one evening on John's lap in a quite inappropriate way. Longtime friends Sasha Chermayeff and Santina Goodman found Julie Baker's behaviour rude. On the other hand, the mere mention of Michael Bergin's name could unearth intense rage from John, according to these same anonymous friends. Source: www.instyle.com

John Kennedy Jr and Carolyn Bessette were married at a Baptist church illuminated by candlelights, so dim inside that the Reverend Charles J. O’Byrne of Manhattan’s Church of St. Ignatius Loyola, where Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’s funeral was held, had to read the service by flashlight. John’s cousin and closest friend, Anthony Radziwill, served as best man (as John had served as best man at Anthony’s wedding to Carole Ann Radziwill), and at the end of the ceremony John turned to Anthony to tell him that he had never been happier in his life. The man who could have had many women of high caliber had chosen as his bride one who was not rich or famous or ennobled by family background or particularly distinguished by any professional accomplishment. What Carolyn Bessette had were certain charismatic qualities—remarkable beauty, a unique sense of style, and a sharp intelligence. The media played the marriage as a Cinderella story, casting Carolyn as the commoner who had found true love with Prince Charming. —"The Newest Kennedy, the Stylish Carolyn Bessette" (September 29, 1996) by Elisabeth Bumiller 

In Love Her Madly, Jim Morrison, Mary, and Me, author Bill Cosgrave talks about the summer he spent hanging out with the future Lizard King a couple of years before The Doors achieved stardom. “He was so shy you would not believe it was the same guy who would romp and scream around the stage,” Cosgrave remembers. “He was a gentle, lovely human being.” The “Mary” the title of the book refers to is Mary Werbelow. “I left home when I was 15 [and] ended up in Clearwater, Florida. I was staying with some friends. Mary was three years older than me. Long story short, I couldn’t get my eyes off her,” explains Cosgrave. Fast forward a few years and Mary lures him away from college in Montreal and out to Los Angeles where she’s living with her then-fiancé. “An hour later, Jim walked in. And we became fast friends.” Soon Mary would throw Jim out of their shared Venice apartment and he ended up sleeping under the Santa Monica Pier. When he wasn’t doing that, he was hanging out with Cosgrave or another pal, Dennis C. Jakob. A couple of years go by, Bill is in Canada in the travel business, and Jim is world-famous. “Without Mary Werbelow, let’s face it, you wouldn’t have The Doors,” he says. “He wrote The End, one of his most famous songs, about his break-up with Mary. I was particularly in love with Mary. She was my dream girl,” he admits. “I spent many years trying to find her and I did find her 43 years later. In 1965, I was totally OK with our platonic relationship, because there was no other option. Which isn’t to say that I didn’t find her unbearably desirable. Jim Morrison was a welcoming, kind, and open person. He was courteous, respectful, and very polite with Mary. We clicked, we quickly bonded. I think that Jim was particularly open to me because Mary and I were good friends. After his break-up with Mary, he had met a wild child named Pam Courson. I know the official version of Jim's death is he died of a heart attack. But there are many theories for how he ended up in that bathtub. One theory is that he mistook Pamela’s heroin for cocaine, and that the heroin killed him." Source: www.forewordreviews.com 

Once Pam Courson and I left Jim Morrison and his ex-girlfriend Mary Werbelow alone for awhile, and Pam said something I will never forget: “I feel sorry for Mary.” I knew it meant she was not threatened by the emergence of Mary. I knew that something had long been settled between her and Jim. Their relationship was deeper than either one of them had ever had before. I’d begun to suspect that something had been settled between the two of them – something unbreakable except by death itself. —"Summer with Morrison: The Early Life and Times of James Douglas Morrison, A Memoir" (2011) by Dennis C. Jakob

57th Anniversary of JFK's death, "Who We Are: America's Fight for Universal Progress, from Franklin to Kennedy" (2020) by Anton Chaitkin

 

James Murray (22 November, 2020): The terrible event was captured by Abraham Zapruder on a Super 8 Movie Camera. It was a moment that for millions of people the world seemed to stop. People remembered for the rest of their lives where they were when they heard the news of the shooting of President Kennedy and Texas Governor John Connally. It is also a moment when the sheer horror of the event changed history. The Irish-American President’s death has spawned many conspiracy theories on exactly who was involved, and who was interested in killing the President. Even today, years later, and after the release by President Trump of many of the previously sealed documents still has many Americans doubting the findings of the Warren Commission the official report and investigation into the assassination. The shooting happened in Dallas, and the alleged assassin arrested a short time later was a disaffected former Marine, Lee Harvey Oswald. A majority of people in the United States believe President Kennedy was killed as a result of a conspiracy. Oliver Stone’s JFK pointed to involvement by the CIA and the Military Industrial Complex. Despite all the documents which have been released, with all the time that has passed, it is difficult to say if the full story will ever be told. President Kennedy was only in office for about 1000 days. But it was an era that changed America and changed the world. Many wonder what our world would have been like today had the assassination in Dallas never happened. The world will never know. What we do know is that our world did change that day. The death of President John F. Kennedy was seen by many observers as the end of a shining era. Source: www.netnewsledger.com

A half century ago, the Anglo-American Establishment reversed the policies that made America rich, powerful, and humane. They erased our former way of thinking from public memory. They took away from us our original national mission: gaining scientific control over nature to uplift mankind. They falsely inserted their own goals, so that no remedy from our real heritage seemed possible. This new book by the masterful investigative historian Anton Chaitkin, restores that stolen American legacy. The secret to modern history is the great breakthroughs in technology were deliberate projects for the improvement of humanity. Chaitkin takes you behind the scenes, to see the two sides struggling to control American policy: nationalist statesmen and industrial innovators, versus the British empire, Wall Street and the southern slave owners. Who We Are: America's Fight for Universal Progress, from Franklin to Kennedy Volume 1: 1750s to 1850s by Anton Chaitkin has been published on November 19, 2020. Some startling details from Who We Are: Benjamin Franklin guides his friends in England who develop the steam engine, canals, and steelmaking—and discover biochemical laws of nature. Franklin and his close allies guide America’s revolt against the empire, write the Constitution, and strategize for a strong industrial nation-state. Lord Shelburne’s British Intelligence system acts to prevent other countries from acquiring the new technical powers, by fake insurrections and the “free trade” dogmas. Alexander Hamilton’s founding development program is sabotaged by Shelburne. The British turn the French Revolution to anarchy and mass bloodshed. America’s founding program remains blocked, until a new generation of nationalist leaders fight the British again and start industrialization. Finally, in the 1820’s, acting as a team in government and the military, an idealistic core group builds U.S. canals, coal and iron industries, and railroads. They bring on modern times, and actively aid other countries’ industrial progress—all this against the violent opposition of the British imperial interests. Volume 1 takes us to the Civil War. Volume 2 (planned for 2021) carries the story of progress versus empire, from Abraham Lincoln to John F. Kennedy.

Historian and investigative journalist Anton Chaitkin was the History Editor for Executive Intelligence Review. For 40 years, he has made groundbreaking discoveries about the intentions of those pioneers who fought for the US citizens improvement, and of their imperial opponents. His 1985 book {Treason in America: from Aaron Burr to Averell Harriman} documented from "blue-blood" family archives the takeover of U.S. policy making by agents and allies of the British empire. This classic with 100,000 copies sold, long out of print, is now in a Kindle edition. His father, a New York attorney, fought in the courts to break Wall Street and London sponsorship of Adolf Hitler's dictatorship in Germany. Many of the lawsuits were against international Nazi interests managed by Prescott Bush, father and grandfather of the two Bush Presidents. The author comments, "The only people who can seriously criticize the real evils of America today, are those who seriously appreciate what America—uniquely—did right in the past. That's the purpose of the book." Source: www.amazon.com

JFK Jr: Cover-Up and Conspiracy

As Richard Salant, Former President of CBS News stated, the media's job is to feed the public what media thinks the public ought to know. Anything that happens that the media doesn't think the public needs to know about will simply not be reported. Previously, I discussed Operation Mockingbird, a secret, joint CIA-press-disinformation apparatus which successfully managed to cover-up the JFK-assassination conspiracy. Operation Mockingbird was co-founded and run by Cord Meyer, Allen Dulles, Richard Helms, Frank Wisner, and Philip Graham. Caught by his handwritten notes uncovered in the National Archives, Warren Commission member Gerald Ford admitted that the Warren Report altered the official location of the entry wound in JFK's back. While the admission seemed trivial in the media, a moment's consideration reveals that this confession triggers some critical consequences. The few times the media has appeared to expose government wrongdoing has later been revealed in historical hindsight as one faction using the media against another camp. For those issues, which all factions agree must hide from the public, the press operates with total unanimity. Fulfilling the disinformation role was the FBI’s COINTELPRO program, the harsh reality behind the polished public image. Originally started back in the 60s to sabotage opposition to the war in Vietnam, the FBI's COINTELPRO operation was exposed in the 70s and led to Congressional Hearings. The official story of JFK Jr.’s plane crash evolved and was suspect. Initially, UPI (United Press International) reported that JFK Jr. approached Martha’s Vineyard in 8-mile visibility, made radio contact with the ground, and said he intended to drop off a passenger. He was then going to go on to Hyannis airport. ABC News later claimed that JFK Jr.’s plane suddenly went into a steep dive and crashed. Now in fairness, various media sources often differ in reporting news stories for innocent reasons such as differing eyewitness testimony, misunderstandings, and changing conditions. But before the wreckage was found, the news stories were already changing. The reported radio conversation with ground personnel between JFK Jr. and the local airport was gone. The NTSB said JFK Jr. had not used the radio at all. Also missing was the report that there was an 8-mile visibility. The media then pounded away that Martha’s Vineyard was blanketed with a blinding haze, which was so heavy that pilots flying in would be visionless and dependent on an instrument landing. Yet as the conflicting stories were broadcast, they began to crumble as not credible to astute observers. When JFK Jr. radioed controllers on the Cape (as reported on Boston TV News) to announce his approach to Martha's Vineyard, radar showed him not to be just lost and at the correct altitude for the airport approach. JFK Jr.'s conversational tone on the radio reveals that he was calm. Was he disoriented? He didn't ask for directions. He didn't indicate he had any problem at all. He was confident he was going to find the airport and land. He was lined up with the main runway at Martha's Vineyard airport. The fact that the radar was getting useful data from his encoding altimeter proves his instruments were operating. Several reporters, among them Cindy Adams at the New York Post, and Andrew Goldman at the New York Observer had cause to suspect they had been lied to. Interviews with individuals directly familiar with JFK Jr.'s flying ability shown on Inside Edition confirmed that he was a highly skilled and careful pilot. His total experience was about 300 hours, more than enough to qualify him for a commercial pilot's license. According to FAA statistics, 300 hours made him a more careful and safer pilot than one with 1000 hours, who may be more complacent. Kennedy’s plane had autopilot, capable of flying itself to within 100 feet of the airport. All a “cautious and methodical” pilot had to do was sit back and let the plane fly itself.  In his final approach message, WCVB-TV said Kennedy told controllers at the airport that he planned to drop off his wife's sister and then take off again between 11 PM and 11:30 PM for Hyannis Airport.  Kennedy's family then called Hyannis Airport - around 2:15 AM, reports say - when he failed to arrive. The airport then checked with the Martha's Vineyard airport, and the search began. The plane took off from Essex County Airport in Caldwell, N.J., at 8:38 PM Friday and lost contact with the FAA on its final approach to Martha's Vineyard, Mass., said Coast Guard spokesman Steve Carleton. 

Cindy Adams said deliberate false information was planted with the media before the wreckage of the airplane had been found. C. David Heymann was Cindy's source for the early story that JFK was worried about landing at Martha's Vineyard but reckless enough to try it. After the 1984 Democratic Convention in San Francisco, Kennedy returned to New York. He earned $20,000 a year in a position at the Office of Business Development, where his bosses reflected that he'd worked "in the same crummy cubicle as everybody else. I heaped on him the work and was always pleased with the results." From 1984 to 1986, JFK Jr worked for the New York City Office of Business Development. He served as deputy director of the 42nd Street Development Corporation in 1986, conducting negotiations with city developers and agencies. The report of the NTSB came out on August 8, 2000, 13 months after the plane crash of JFK Jr. It contradicts many of the lies or assumptions pushed in the media. For example, the L.A. Times reported: “An inexperienced pilot caused the accident that killed JFK Jr. the NTSB concluded in its final report." The NTSB report shows that Kennedy was highly experienced (he had more than enough hours for an instructor’s license), he was described by his trainers as “excellent,” “methodical,” and “very cautious.” The media say the visibility was poor. But the NTSB quotes the Tower manager at Martha’s Vineyard, where the plane went down, meaning that there were “stars out” and visibility was “between 10 and 12 miles.” Why did the media lie? Why have they always lied about the murder of his father? Kennedy’s plane had a black box. I think he knew they wanted to kill him, and he tried to make it hard for them. The NTSB, said the battery had been removed, destroying all records of conversation in the cockpit. All planes have an Emergency Locator Transmitter (ELT), which sends out a beacon signal in case of a crash. It took five days to locate Kennedy’s plane. Why? Was it missing? Disabled? The report says nothing. According to the NTSB report, the fuel valve had been turned to off. This valve had a safety device on it so that it could not accidentally be turned to off. Turning it off during flight would be suicide since, at top speed, the engine will die in 45 seconds! Because the results are potentially deadly, the valve cannot be turned by accident. A safety release button must be pushed down and held while turning the valve. This piece of evidence is the smoking gun. It is definite proof of foul play. Was Kennedy committing suicide? If he wasn’t, there could scarcely be any question but that he was murdered. So, who turned the valve? That's the key mystery.

Besides Kennedy’s flight logbook was missing. This is critical because the logbook would have recorded the presence of a flight instructor on the plane. The media talked about a “graveyard spiral” and various forms of disorientation. The NTSB report describes Kennedy’s plane making two mild explainable maneuvers, and then the plane plunged drastically to the right and plummeted straight down, crashing 2600 feet in 45 seconds. It sounds like someone grabbed the controls and suddenly shoved the aircraft into the water. But this description of a suicide plunge is consistent with the “suicide” position of the fuel valve. The flight instructor: All of the early reports said there was a flight instructor on the plane. Then the flight instructor disappeared from the news. Kennedy very rarely flew at night without a flight instructor. His father, John F. Kennedy, in his own very unique way, made an enemy of mobsters, CIA operators, and military-industrial power-players. By acting according to his conscience, Kennedy was destined to turn these men into his arch enemies. That is the way it was meant to be. Victor Lazlo, the JFK-like character in the movie “Casablanca,” aptly describes the predicament that Jack Kennedy found himself in during the tumultuous early 1960s which led to the inescapable fate that he suffered. “Each of us has a destiny. For good or evil.” Unfortunately for Jack Kennedy as well as the nation, the highest levels of the U.S. Government included some evil and psychopathic men. And didn’t this huge psyop give rise to precisely the type of herd mentality which now predominates throughout the USA? Who has not been exposed to the barrage of false news reports, to the ever-growing number of alleged liaisons that JFK purportedly had with the beautiful women in his life? Why would the CIA and MSM relentlessly introduce fictitious news stories about these non-existent affairs over the past 50 years?  

JFK took up the torch of civil rights in a way that no other President did throughout the 20th century. His embrace of the Civil Rights Movement drew close to him many who would try to sabotage his efforts “by all means necessary”. As the Great White Hope, JFK and RFK were considered to be a threat to those who would divide and rule through stoking racial hatreds. The Deep South was, therefore, a conducive environment to stage the assassination, just as southerners murdered Abraham Lincoln post-Civil War. JFK had enemies such as: Lyndon B. Johnson; J. Edgar Hoover; Allen Dulles; Dean Acheson; and the US Military Industrial Complex. Roswell Gilpatric, who was the Deputy Secretary of Defense from 1961 to 1964 was considering writing a book which would have focused on a conspiracy to assassinate Jack Kennedy in Dallas in November 1963. He told me the story of why the president was murdered. I wanted to hear what happened from his viewpoint because he had been an insider, adviser to President Kennedy, and was aware of national security issues. Roswell was Under Secretary of the Air Force from 1951 to 1953. He was brought in because he had the experience to advise McNamara and President Kennedy. When JFK became president in January 1961, there were 600 military advisers in Vietnam. When he was killed in November 1963, 16,000 combat troops were being prepared. On the night of New Year’s Eve, December 31st, 1963, at the Driskill Hotel in Austin, TX, Lyndon Johnson and Madeleine Brown, a longtime mistress and the mother of his only son, Steven, had an interesting conversation. LBJ told her: it had been Dallas, TX oil executives and renegade intelligence agents who were behind the JFK assassination. LBJ later also told his chief of staff, Marvin Watson, that the CIA was involved in the murder of John Kennedy. Lyndon Johnson would often stay at the Driskill, and his presidential schedule confirmed LBJ as being present at the Driskill Hotel the night of December 31st, 1963. Evelyn Lincoln (JFK’s secretary for 12 years) observed one day Jack Kennedy sitting in the chair in her office. JFK said to her, “I am going to advocate changing some of the out of date regulations in the Congress, such as the seniority rule. To do this, I will need as a running mate in 1964 a man who believes as I do.” He spoke in a slow-solemn voice. Mrs. Lincoln went on to write, “I was fascinated by this conversation and wrote it down verbatim in my diary.” She asked, “Who is your choice as a running mate?” He looked straight ahead, and without hesitating, he replied, “At this time, I am thinking about Governor Terry Sanford of North Carolina. But it will not be Lyndon.” Jack Kennedy also planned to end U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War in 1965 after the election. 

James Files, who worked for the CIA from 1960 until 1977, was asked why Vince Foster and John F. Kennedy Jr. were murdered. James Files replied: “When you’re in the game against an intelligence organization, you’re never safe from anyone. There are times when no one can protect you. As for Vince Foster  (Deputy White House Counsel) and John F. Kennedy Jr., they both died for different reasons. Foster, because he knew too much about the Clintons, and JFK Jr. because he was thinking about politics and had he run against Hillary Clinton, he would have won with a landslide. She would have had no chance at all to win, and everybody knows that.” -"JFK Jr. Murdered - Cover-Up and Conspiracy" (2018) by Dr. Paul Dawson

Inigo Thomas: I had worked for John Kennedy Jr as an editor on his magazine, the glossy and terrifically good George magazine, after Michael Berman left in mid 1997. John was a great guy, a very polite man who came to symbolize hope and reconciliation against all odds. His main passions were to serve the people of USA, his lovely wife Carolyn (she was his bedrock in more ways than the obvious) and his wish for social unity. John was afraid than America would devolve into a kakistocracy, into acute despair and resentment. I think resentment toward the rich in a society obsessed by wealth and how to get it at all cost is not a new phenomenon in the US, but it’s adopted Schadenfreude levels now. Right-wing presenters on Fox TV, such as Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly, make fortunes every year by complaining about the perceived flaws and sins from the liberal faction. One reason their rhetoric works is the Kennedys were in favour of almost everything Beck, Hannity and O’Reilly say they are against. ‘For five decades,’ Barack Obama said the day the senator Ted Kennedy died, ‘virtually every major piece of legislation to advance the civil rights, health and economic well-being of the American people bore his name and resulted from his efforts.’ Conservatives, when they’re being philosophical, say they believe in human imperfections and that no government measure can change that. The problem is they tend to leave themselves out of their own philosophy, and see only the imperfections in others. The Kennedys were of course imperfect but that doesn’t mean that they weren't, overall and generally, a force for good. Source: www.lrb.co.uk 

JFK's Quest for Peace, The Road to Dallas

James Harmon (2013): There is a very fine distinction between top general officers within the Department of Defense (with and without the Chiefs of Staff), that wished for an actual winner-take-all war against the Soviet Union and those who wished for a Cold War against the hated "Godless communists." Many general officers, at the conclusion of World War II and even in the 1960's were convinced that we were going to be engaged in a shooting war against the "Red Hoard" and thus it would be better to "get it over with" while Allied victory was a certainty. However, the peace seekers held great influence before World War II and in most years since. The "doves" have long been the bane of the "hawks" of our society, as they are regarded as "sell outs," "communist placators," "traitors" and "communists' infiltrators." Since 1945, there have been many individuals akin to Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Cheney who ignorantly see the vast United States army as the ultimate punisher against those who disagree with Americana. Yet, there have been many soldiers, many housewifes, even many wealthy professionals, who have understood the ultimate suffering caused by war and choose to seek peace and global co-existence rather than world domination. Now, if you are a top ranked, influential general, who has risen to rank (such as World War II, Vietnam, or Iraq), then it also makes sense to maintain that economic and political influence by maintaining a war. As well, if you are a billion dollar weapons manufacturer that has seen its profitability soar due to the same bloated manufacturing and purchasing levels due to an engaged war, then it makes sense to do whatever is possible to maintain that wealth and political influence, by maintaining a war (hot or cold.) Why would such influential people want peace, when peace would mean their lost power status? The truth is business leaders will engage in fraud, politicians will lie to constituents, and some billionaires would rather see a world die rather than surrender their socio-economic status. [Purdue Pharma just got fined $8 billion, and forced to dissolve on 3 federal charges for its role in the opioid epidemic.] Thus, since 1945, the United States has maintained an armed force of global proportions unlike any nation in history (not even the Roman legion can compared to the deadliness of our modern warfare machine.) We have maintained that war fighting machine, as a direct response to the purported threat of the Soviet empire and then once that collapsed, assorted international terrorists.

The first president to show direct effort to oppose the continuation of the Cold War was assassinated; a lone assassin was accused but could never be tried. Almost every president since Harry S. Truman has had incredibly tense relations with one or more of the leading intelligence agencies. An intelligence operative like Ruth Paine never would ask why she would be ordered to secure a job for Lee Harvey Oswald, or why she would be ordered to offer her home to his wife, as all she needed to know is that it is ordered by her superiors on the basis of "national security." Lee Harvey Oswald's dedication to his country would lead him to be a faithful servant, even in the face of illegalities and unethical activities. He could be ordered into events without ever knowing who else would be involved or why he was involved. He only needed to know that he is serving in the interests of "National Security" and that his wife and family would be proud of his unflinching service. Even high level intelligence officials are compartmentalized and excised from any access to information immediately upon routine reassignment. If an operator talks or complains, they are threatened. They are manipulated into capitulation and obedience. The Joint Chiefs of Staff need not be united in desire to eliminate a president, for such an event to occur. Just as a politician determines allies and enemies before presenting a bill before Congress, a Cassius or a Brutus communicates only with like-minded "Senators" to plot the demise of a Caesar. They all consider themselves honorable and have convinced themselves that their deeds are for the best for their country. They cannot see the long-term ramifications of their misdeeds.

Ronald Goldfarb (The Washington Post, 1993): The link between Carlos Marcello and the murder of John F. Kennedy is based on more than idle speculation. Robert Kennedy's chief and abiding interest as attorney general was organized crime. As soon as he took office, he sought legislation and resources to wage an unprecedented legal war on racketeers. He set up a special organized crime section in the criminal division and recruited an elite staff of lawyers to fight the battle. The Kennedy Justice Department was not the first to target Marcello. The U.S. government had been trying to deport him as an undesirable alien since 1952 because of a conviction for a drug violation. Italy eventually agreed to admit him, but Marcello arranged to get phony proof of citizenship in Guatemala. A Marcello intermediary, Carl Noll, negotiated a deal with a local fixer to enter Marcello's birth in the ledger of a small Guatemalan village. This information was tracked down in Guatemala by Diuguid, who recalls that he was followed by Marcello associate David Ferrie. If Marcello was going to be tough and ingenious, Kennedy would be the same. In 1961, Kennedy moved to deport Marcello as a Guatemalan -- a decision carried out in a highly questionable manner. On April 4, 1961, Marcello was arrested, handcuffed, whisked away to the New Orleans airport, not allowed to call anyone, and flown to Guatemala City on a government plane. He had been shanghaied -- denied notice or hearing. Within two months, Marcello worked and paid his way back to the United States through Central America; he said it cost him more in Guatemalan payoffs than he ever paid in the United States. In October 1961, after Marcello had returned to the United States, he and his brother Joseph were indicted in the federal court in Louisiana for perjury and for conspiring to defraud the IRS. In a plea-bargain arrangement, the government had gotten Noll to testify about his work obtaining the false Guatemalan birth certificate. In effect, Marcello had defrauded three governments -- Italy, Guatemala and the United States -- by creating the phony document, relying on it and disclaiming it to suit his purposes, in different courts at different times. Marcello's base of operations was a room in the Town and Country Motel in Jefferson Parish, New Orleans. During Marcello's trial, his associate David Ferrie was often in the courtroom. The same David Ferrie who was charged by New Orleans D.A. Jim Garrison for have been involved in the events leading up to the Kennedy assassination. On Nov. 22, 1963, the day Marcello was acquitted and Kennedy was killed, Ferrie and two unidentified friends drove 400 miles to Houston, Texas, supposedly on a hunting trip. Ferrie (a memorable character in Oliver Stone's "JFK") died in February 1967. In the end, Marcello fell in the flukiest way -- he threw a punch at an FBI agent who had made a provocative personal remark. Marcello ended up serving six months for assaulting a federal officer. In 1981, Marcello was convicted in California of a racketeering conspiracy to bribe a federal judge. There is no question Marcello hated Robert Kennedy's persistency and commitment to fight hard. In 1979 the House Select Committee on Assassinations disagreed with the Warren Commission's official history and concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald had not acted alone. The Committee report stated that Marcello, along with Tampa mobster Santos Trafficante and Teamster leader Jimmy Hoffa, "had the motive, means and opportunity to plan and execute a conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy." 

An FBI informant in 1976 said Trafficante had told him Kennedy was "not going to make it to the election. He was going to be hit." When this FBI informant later recanted; in 1978, he was murdered. Three former senior members of the National Security Agency waited until their retirement to divulge their severe concerns over violations of civil rights of American citizens by the Patriot Act intelligence practices. All three were widely ignored by the media and the public, although two were threatened with accusations of treason. Only a currently serving NSA employee was able to obtain copies of these files. Only when the actual documents could be read and published by the media, did the American public listened to the illegal conduct of the various intelligence agencies. As a political leader, one only needs to understand that any presented opposition to proposed or funded counter-terrorism efforts will be met with widespread, coordinated effort to be ridiculed as a "traitor". Both Democrats and Republicans will coordinate their funds and operations in effort to have the oppositional politician defeated in the "best interests" of "the American way." Subservience is built into our socio-economic structure, to never tell the truth about the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and others. After all, ignorance is not only blissful; it is secure from threats of death. Whether a supporter of or one who opposed Dan Rather as a news reporter... consider what happened to him after his News Magazine television report about George W. Bush's Air National Guard service in which Dan Rather reported what many surmised as being nepotism and favoritism that maneuvered him to avoid being transferred to Vietnam and even to terminate his commitments without completing his service. Dan Rather was vilified and was forced out from CBS for his report (as it came at the height of militarism after the invasion of Iraq)... and his forced retirement was because of an "unauthenticated report" in which of the 1300 documents revealed, only one single document was not proved as being authentic and was questionable evidence. But Dan Rather incurred the wrath of the Military Industrial Complex at the highest level and was forced into silence... and he was one of the most powerful news reporters in the country. The MOSSAD does not rule our government, instead the opposite is true. MOSSAD cannot operate too far away from America's power elite, or else the US government will clamp down on Israel and its MOSSAD (see Jonathan Pollard spy case). Mossad did not assassinate John Kennedy. The CIA controls Mossad, not the other way around. The mayor of Dallas's brother was one of three top CIA officials that JFK had fired the year before. But the Cold War was essential to support the Military-Industrial complex and Kennedy was attempting to wind that down by his approaches to Khrushchev. What Mr Posner doesn't mention is that Oswald was seen by Depository secretary Carolyn Arnold in the lunchroom at 12:25. FBI altered her statement to 12:15 when they realized it exonerated Oswald. This is exactly where Dallas Police officer Baker saw Oswald 90 seconds after the shots. He was there the whole time as his paraffin test at the Dallas Police station proved. That test showed that Oswald had no gunpowder nitrate residue on his cheek. FBI agent Turner proved that it was impossible to fire the notoriously-leaky Carcano rifle and not get heavy deposition of nitrate residue on your cheek. Lastly, Depository employee Victoria Adams was on the staircase Oswald allegedly used to flee from the 6th floor. She never saw or heard Oswald on that creaky staircase. RFK Jr's endorsement of James Douglass' book JFK and the Unspeakable on two national TV shows resulted in one of the shows not airing and the other show being entirely cancelled. (PBS Charlie Rose Show taped in Dallas Jan. 11, 2013) and MSNBC's show hosted by Alec Baldwin, whose show was eliminated while Baldwin was taping a special scheduled for 11-22-14, featuring RFK, Jr, the author, and Daniel Ellsberg of the Pentagon Papers who also endorsed JFK and the Unspeakable. Source: www.washingtonpost.com