A P. Good Book

The people in charge of figuring out how to stop the bad guys from doing bad things to bad people (us) are pretty stupid and kinda nuts. That's according to journalist Tim Weiner (I'll wait til you get it out of your system) in a pretty thorough and interesting book that we'll call Legacy of Ashes.

Once again it's a non-fiction book. Get used to it you fiction-loving hussy. But in terms of non-fictionalityness, this book is pretty out there. Weiner does a great job of mixing interviews with the CIA's secret (now declassified, mostly) history, and the result is a slurry of crazy shit and failure, also known as a mocha.

Tracing its origins back to the OSS, Weiner shows how we were outfoxed from the beginning. Foreign spy agencies were able to infiltrate us routinely, and when they couldn't we telegraphed our moves like retards. And then we began to trust charlatans or frauds for our intelligence on matters ranging from Cuba to Korea to China to the Iron Curtain, and all the places in between (read: everywhere but Hoboken).

When Ike (Eisenhower, not Turner, though Ike Turner would play a critical role* in the CIA) put the agency together, he intended it to be just intelligence, but when you get a bunch of spies together, crazy shit is bound to happen, like causing coups, digging tunnels under Soviet embassies and trying to kill Castro by killing THE BEARD. Ninety-five percent of our shit failed, in some ways spectacularly. And where we succeeded, we killed a lot of people for no real reason.

If you're interested in Soviet-American relations and the history between the two, and ostensibly you are, you might want to glance at this. The recurring theme is misunderstanding. Whether it was deliberate (as with the Team B-oids) or accidental, the yanks thought the Soviets were about 50x more powerful than we were and about 10.6x crazier, when that wasn't always true. Paranoia was the name of the game at the agency.

As for Weiner's narrative, he mostly explains things in interesting detail. He's a bit dry but he tries to pace the CIA like a spy novel, introducing all sorts of nutty characters and including a bunch of interesting details. Though in some cases he is sparse with details when we'd like to know more. It's interesting how thick the book is in some sections but so devoid of any compelling facts, but that is a rare occurence in this book.

Overall I recommend it if you want to know what kind of people were spying on our enemies, real and imaginary, and what kind of psychos we had calling the shots. It's also a book every American should read (after "The Butter Battle Book") to gain an understanding as to how stupid the Cold War was even though it produced a bunch of cool Bond films and one great Rocky film and probably some other cool shit. Oh, yeah, the sickle and hammer. Dope logo, Ruskies!!

* Ike Turner actually had little to do with the CIA outside of "Operation: Beat Tina."

A Mystery for the Ages: Who Killed Kennedy? WHO GODDAMMIT?

There are lots of mysteries throughout history, namely King Tut, the Maoi Statues, the identity of the man who thought the CueCat was a good idea... But the grand daddy of them all is the Kennedy assassination.

No other event in modern history, except maybe 9/11, has affected Americans more, and just like 9/11, it still resonates with us today, but not in a good way. In a hilarious way. You're probably aware that conspiracy and mystery surrounds it. Officially, he was shot by Lee Harvey Oswald, a lone nut acting on his own volition. In other words, Kennedy was just another victim of street crime. Sorta. But yeah.

That's not a very comforting thought, though. It's bad that the leader of the free world (tm) can be gunned down by just anyone. It's too random and it places humanity in the role of helpless victim. But, if Lee Harvey was acting at someone's behest, or if he wasn't the only shooter, now all of a sudden it's acceptable because it wasn't random. That's basic paranoid psychology 101 for you.

The U.S. is nothing if not fucking crazy, so we couldn't leave well enough alone. But is there anything to these conspiracy theories? Now, for the first time, we will go over the most likely suspects and try to unravel the mystery that has baffled historians, crazy guys and toddlers for decades.

WHO. DID. KENNEDY. ?.

LEE HARVEY OSWALD

The obvious answer is Lee Harvey. A disgruntled ex-communist, fresh from an expatriotic trip to Russia (perhaps... an expatriotic chronicle? No, that would be extremely gay), with a bone to pick with the country that birthed him. Of course Oswald did it with the Carcano rifle in the Texas Book Repository, in between chapters of "Gone with the Wind." The Warren Commission concluded as much, so as far as everyone else ought to be concerned, it's an open and shut case.

LYNDON BAINES (BANES?) JOHNSON (JONSON?) (LYNDON IS A GIRL'S NAME. ALMOST.)

If you're not satisfied with that answer, there's the popular alternative, that Johnson, in cohoots with American businessmen and the CIA, took out Kennedy so he could be king and order a royal backrub. Or something.

Why would Johnson really do such a thing, though? There are several theories. One is that he was under the impression that slaying Kennedy would allow him to marry Jackie, but unfortunately that law was repealed in 1946. The other opinion, as depicted in Oliver Stone's seminal work on the subject, "Alexander," is that he killed Kennedy to escalate the Vietnam War for the sake of American big business.

Whatever the reason, there are a lot of questions surrounding the assassination, and Johnson's subsequent behavior after the assassination have led many crazy folks to point fingers at him. And as we all know, that's good enough to have this be printed factually in our textbooks. God bless the U.S.A.

JACK RUBY

Picture this: You are a short, balding mobster. You live in Texas. You have cancer or something. You're not long for this world, so what's an interesting thing to add to your "bucket list?" (named after the hit motion picture starring Jack Nicholson and introducing Morgan Freeman) Why, a presidential assassination! That's what Ruby did.

There's only one problem: Nobody knows you did it. Ruby, planning things out much more than he normally does, bought the rifle under an alias and snuck into the book repository. He took out Kennedy, then went downstairs to surrender to the police. Except, the police are after the trail of a crazy guy named Lee Harvey Oswald. Despite your protestations, nobody believes that you killed Kennedy, and it's unlikely you'll get another chance to check "presidential assassination" off your list! And this also won't be made into a wacky movie!!

Angry that he had been upstaged and unable to accept the personal knowledge that he carried out the attack, Ruby shoots Oswald in revenge. If only he had settled for "presidential assassin assassination" on his bucket list...

GOVERNOR JOHN CONNALLY

A less obvious suspect is Gov. Connally. Connally has had a rough life up to this point, this point being the moment that Kennedy is shot. His name is mispelled, he's the governor of Texas, and his comically small head is unable to handle the weight of a 10-gallon hat. So what do you do? Why you kill the president, who likes to mouth off about how stupid your name sounds.

But wait a second, you ask. How did he kill Kennedy when he was sitting in the very same car as him? Well it's easy, dumbass. First Connally had Oswald fire at Kennedy from the book depository, the best place to awkwardly shoot at someone going through Dealey Plaza. That should have been enough, but it turns out that Oswald was a lousy shot.

When the first shot missed and hit the pavement, Connally realized that Oswald couldn't hit shit if he fell in a toilet. When he saw the second shot coming in, he clearly deflected the bullet with his own wrist, knocking it into Kennedy and preventing him from escaping. Fortunately for him, Oswald hit Kennedy on the third shot, dispensing the need for Connally to apply the more difficult ankle-knee-hip-ribcage-chin bullet deflection maneuver.

With Kennedy out of the picture, Connally was able to fill out the rest of his term, where he's known for bucking cowboys off his back in contests known as rodeos.

LEE HARVEY OSWALD'S EVIL TWIN, JOE EARNEST

It's tough being the twin of a psychotic Marine. It's even tougher when you look like this goofy shit. All his life, Joe Earnest was living in his brother's shadow. He didn't even try to join the Marines, instead opting for a life of being a book depository keeper.

Then one day you hear that your brother is in town... and so is the President! You decide to get back at your successful (relatively speaking) brother by playing a little prank, as twins are wont to do. So you grab a rifle and take a couple of pot shots at the president just as your brother's nearby. Then you let yourself be spotted.

Little did you (or Joe Earnest) know is that what you thought were three quick, unaimed shots actually were two fatal ones. Well only one was really fatal, but yeah. Boy was Joe Earnest's face red when he found out what had happened! But as a good little scamp, he stuck with the gag until the bitter end, whenever that was.

Joe Earnest lived out a quiet life in the book depository, the only person aware of his super awesome practical joke.

DR. SAM BECKETT (OR BECKET IF YOU ONLY SAW THE LAST EPISODE)

Imagine this: You've just changed a crippled scientist's life for the better and helped him see the beauty of all things when you leap... into the body of Lee Harvey Oswald??? Maybe it happened. Only Ziggy knows for sure.

If you've seen the show, you know that Dr. Beckett's job is to "make things right" in history, or something. I'm sure he was very confused when he leapt into the man holding the rifle on the 35th (I think) President of the U.S.A. He had the opportunity to put the rifle away, or at least shoot someone who deserved it (that shithead Umbrella Man, for instance). But by doing so, he would change time... for the worst!

So on a very special episode, Dr. Beckett had to go through with it. Even though he was in Lee Harvey's body at the time, it was still his possibility. But Beckett didn't get away with it. As punishment, he next leapt into a sitcom co-starring Ray Romano. No good deed goes unpunished...

JOHN FITZGERALD KENNEDY... FROM THE FUTUR!

JFK was nothing if not ambitious. In his youth, he let his heart move him, sometimes to dark, seedy places. But he never looked back with regret... until his 80th birthday, when the Terminators came.

The timeline we live in now is not the original timeline. Beforehand, Kennedy's parade in Dallas that fateful November day was pulled off without a cinch. Indeed, Kennedy went on to win re-election and have a prestigious post-presidential retirement.

But before he left office, he approved a controversial research program called SkyNet. He didn't know it at the time, but he set in motion events that would doom humanity to fighting SkyNet's demonic creations, the Terminators, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Eddie Furlong.

With the world steeped in nuclear war, ironically the kind of war Kennedy helped to prevent, he realized that the only way to stop it was to go back in time... and shoot himself. Well that wasn't the only way but he was hopped up on barbituates at the time and that was the only thing he could think of doing.

John Connor sent JFK back in time, being the only person left who knew the parade route. Then Kennedy lurched up the depository and used an old rifle that just happened to be lying around to fire on his past self. That action saved billions of people from certain doom while inalterably changing the future... That is, until Miles Dyson finds the bits of the Terminator from the first movie. WAIT, no what am I saying, until SkyNet is founded by someone else oh fuck it, Kennedy's a hero.

As for Oswald, well at the moment Future Kennedy killed Past Kennedy, he disappeared, which explains why there's no good explanation as to what happened. Oswald shot Officer Tippett in a completely unrelated circumstance, and the cops, pressed to name a shooter, fingered Oswald. And the rest is history. Our history. From our timeline. And get your head out of the gutter, this is serious history.

SALVATORE CARCANO

Poor Italy. Four hundred years ago, you were atop the world as the Roman empire. And then a bunch of fucking German tourists sacked Rome and have occupied it ever since.

Italy's shitty track record in war (they couldn't even beat the Austrians for God's sake) has been abysmal since the last emperor got sent to his room by Odoacer. It's in this climate that Salvatore Carcano steps in, a riflemaker who makes his magnum opus: the M91. And what a piece of shit that was.

The rifle was not very fit for service, and after Italy's humiliating performance in WWII, it was discontinued. The M91 (commonly referred to as the Mannlicher-Carcano) would vanish to obscurity... until it was wielded by Lee Harvey.

Or did he wield it? Not necessarily. Carcano didn't agree that his rifle was shit. As he famously said, "The M91 is big. It's the Italians that got small." I think he said that. It sounds like something an Italian guy would say, at least.

Determined to prove that his rifle was in fact good, he decided to test it out on a busy Dallas street one November morning. And boy did he prove it! Carcano left the book depository a satisfied man after shooting what he thought was a misshapen pumpkin traveling in a car for some reason (Carcano never understood American customs).

It was only later that he found out what had happened. He intended to turn himself in, proclaiming the glory of the M91's greatness, but nobody would believe that he was capable of shooting anything, much less mobile presidents. The cops settled on Oswald instead.

Carcano died vindicated, though he was personally humiliated. His legacy of course is zip because M91s are still considered shit and no amount of lucky Yankee shooters will whitewash that debacle. Sorry, Sal!

THE GRASSY KNOLL

One of the questions that has dogged the investigation into the assassination is the presence of a second shooter. The most common belief is that someone was hiding in the grassy knoll that the President was heading towards. It's a much easier shot from there than from the depository, and many surmise that the fatal shot came from the knoll. It looks perfect, and as Jim Garrison said in the hit movie "JFK" (playing the role of Kevin Costner), Kennedy's head goes back, and to the left. Back, and to the left. Back, and to the left. Back, and to the left. Everything you own, is in the box to the left.

Nobody ever found a second shooter on the grassy knoll, though. That's because they weren't looking closely enough. What if the grassy knoll itself shot Kennedy?

It makes perfect sense if you consider it. Grassy knolls are some of the most violent and unpredictable earth formations on the planet (literally). Only buttes are more dangerous. Somehow, the grassy knoll found a rifle, probably on loan from some hillock gangbangers, and decided that to get some street cred, it was gonna cap it a president.

It just so happens that Lee Harvey was also trying to assassinate the president that day. In the most remarkable coincidence since Hitler downed some pierogies while invading Poland, the two would-be assassins took shots at Kennedy at the same time. But as the grassy knoll had the better shot, he got the kill shot (and +50 for a headshot).

Unfortunately for the knoll, Oswald took all the credit. That grassy knoll is still out there today, hiding, or perhaps living under an assumed identity. We may never know where the knoll wound up, but if you see a rifle lying on a hill somewhere, you better fucking book it.

MERLIN

Conspiracy researchers have often been so flummoxed by the circumstances around the assassin that they have been known to yell out "MAYBE A WIZARD DID IT!!" in frustration. How little do they realize how close to the truth they are...

The physics behind Kennedy's assassination are baffling. The bullets that struck Kennedy (well, only the first one) took such improbable paths that nobody can believe that they came from the book depository. Indeed, the first ever use of the term "magic bullet" came from the Warren Commission, by none other than ARLEN!! Specter.

Specter actually knew the truth. The bullet, which also emerged in pristine condition despite hitting about 500 different bones and shit, was magical, and not in the Barbie Dreamhouse way. That means only one thing: Merlin did Kennedy. Not Gandalf or Dumbledore, though. Those guys are NOT real.

Why would Merlin shoot Kennedy with a magic bullet? It's hard to say. The most probable theory is that Merlin, waking up from a 1300-year hangover, heard that Kennedy was in charge of Camelot. Believing Kennedy the Irishman to be a usurper, and with Arthur nowhere in sight (and not in theaters for quite a while, at least), he took it upon himself to slay the villain and restore someone to the throne. And so he did.

It was only later that he realized that he had shot up the wrong Camelot. But these things happen when you wake up the next morning to 30 different texts and the police knocking at your door. NOT THAT I KNOW.

I actually don't that's just an educated guess.

What was I talking about? Oh yeah. So after Merlin found out what happened, he used a magic charm or something to wipe everyone's memory. I think he used a red balloon. WAIT, no...

There was only one catch to his plan: the charm didn't work completely on Specter, him also being a sorceror of some power. Specter was able to remember the deadly magic bullet, but fortunately for Merlin, not the shooter's identity. Oswald himself was just caught up in the fervor, leaving Merlin to disappear quietly and go on another bender, where he promptly passed out. Expect him to wake up and shoot the president again in 3268. Oh that wacky Merlin!!!

Any one of these theories could be the real answer. We may never know for certain, not until all the documents surrounding the case are declassified and unsealed for public viewing. Until then, we must speculate on and on. And on.