THE FLIGHT FROM DALLAS

I've always been pretty fascinated with the JFK assassination and, really, the U.S. as a whole during the 1950's and 60's.

James Ellroy wrote a couple of books about that era that I count as some of my favorites (L.A. Confidential, American Tabloid, The Cold Six Thousand, etc.). Lately there have been a few really good long-form articles popping up that become a bit of an obsession for a few days.

Earlier this year, The Memphis Commercial Appeal published a story called Six : 01 - The Last 32 Hours of Martin Luther King, Jr. and it was just fantastic. It was the 45th anniversary of his assassination and it's just a really well written, well-researched article.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy and Chris Jones - a writer that I've always admired and loved - has a great story in this month's Esquire. It's about the 6 hours inside Air Force One from the time the shooting happened to when the plane touched down in Washington, D.C. with Lyndon B. Johnson as the new President.

I hadn't really paid much attention to LBJ, so I didn't really understand how much the Kennedy inner circle disliked him. It's pretty much consumed my entire morning. I'm beginning to understand how there are so many people still obsessed with this story 50 years later. There was a lot going on back then and a lot of it seemed pretty shady.

But those are the things that make a great story, which is why it's still a prime candidate for use across all different forms of media.

Anyway, Chris Jones does a great job connecting a lot of what's been collected before into a single narrative. I didn't know that Jackie refused to change her clothes or clean herself up because she wanted the world "to see what they did" and no idea how desperate LBJ was to be sworn in before he left Dallas so that no one could change their mind about how it should go.

Also, LBJ was so powerless in the Kennedy administration that he and his wife lived in a house that only had a commercial phone line. That was replaced with something more secure as the plane was in the air bound for Washington. Johnson didn't want to sleep in the White House that night because it would seem disrespectful.

You should read it. It's online now, but Esquire sometimes only makes things available to look at for a certain amount of time before they put it behind a pay wall. Read it online now, or pick up the new issue when it hits stands.

Here's a little snippet:

2:34 P.M.

Marie Fehmer palms the typewritten oath to Judge Hughes. But they still need a Bible. Larry O'Brien, excusing himself to Jackie, finds a Catholic missal in the bedroom's nightstand drawer. It is in a small box, still wrapped in cellophane. It is possibly a gift, something that somebody, somewhere, had thrust into Kennedy's hands, perhaps even on this last trip to Texas. Now O'Brien tears open the box and hands the book to Judge Hughes.

Ken O'Donnell follows O'Brien into the stateroom. Johnson sees him: "Would you ask Mrs. Kennedy to come stand here?" He wants her to stand beside him.

"You can't do that!" O'Donnell shouts. "The poor little kid has had enough for one day, to sit here and hear that oath that she heard a few years ago! You just can't do that, Mr. President!"

"Well," Johnson says, "she said she wanted to do it."

"I just don't believe that," O'Donnell says, even as he heads toward the bedroom. He paces in the hallway, his hands on his head—hysterical is the word he later uses to describe himself. Finally he walks into the bedroom. Jackie is combing her hair.

"Do you want to go out there?" O'Donnell asks.

"Yes," Jackie says. "I think I ought to. At least I owe that much to the country."

2:37 P.M.

Jackie Kennedy comes out of the bedroom. The room falls silent. She has taken off her single bloody glove, but she has not changed her clothes or made use of the blue towels.

Read the rest at Esquire.com

THE BEGINNING OF THE END

Everyone loves a good conspiracy theory, right?

Well, the CIA and the mob teaming up for the assassination of JFK was half a century ago and 9/11 as an inside job has lost a lot of steam since George W. Bush stopped playing dress-up 5 years ago, so we’re in desperate need of something new and exciting to set the Internet on fire.

There are those loons that think Sandy Hook was a plot organized and staged by the government to take your/their/our guns, but those are just shitty people. JFK and 9/11 conspiracy nuts are kind of fun, because you can just smile and nod along with what they’re saying. The Sandy Hook Truther douchebags are just reprehensible people.

That’s why we’re here to celebrate a little bit of a lighter, somewhat outlandish yet not entirely impossible conspiracy theory that popped up a few days ago.

Ready for it?

Okay, an anonymous letter was delivered to the website Hip Hop Is Read a few days ago, supposedly written by a former “decision making” employee of one of the major record labels from the heyday of music. This was the late 80s/early90s, when record labels had more power than even they thought possible.

The gist of the letter was this:

Back in the early 90s, all the major record labels made huge investments in the privatization of prisons across America. The more inmates those prisons housed and the longer they stayed full, the more money the investors would get from the government. The labels, none of which were named, gathered together a group of 25-30 people, all high-level development execs at a private residence on the outskirts of Los Angeles. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss how they were going to be asked to start pushing gangster rap and other music that promoted criminal behavior.

If everyone that was present for this secret meeting – all of whom were asked to sign a confidentiality agreement and did – helped make this plan into a reality, they would all be given the opportunity to invest in some of these prisons they were going to help fill. Essentially, “you put people in prison; we’ll put some money in your pocket.”

Not entirely impossible, right? Well, the guy that wrote the letter quit the record industry a few years later, because he was sick about what had transpired. He only knew a few other people at the meeting and never searched anyone else out. He stayed quiet all this time and refuses to name anyone else, but his hope is that everyone sees this letter, realizes what’s transpired over the past few years and does something about it.

Like, possibly building a time machine to go back and not let impressionable kids listen to N.W.A. and Ice T.

All in all, this makes total sense and it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if it turns out to be true. But come on, this guy is 25 years removed from having anything to do with the record industry and won’t own up to it? In the letter, he states that the confidentiality agreement he signed would result in termination if he broke it. Well, he quit the industry two years after the meeting and moved back to Europe.

Just spill the details already and let’s see what happens. I’m guessing that any and all record execs that had something to do with this plan are either out of work, dead, in jail or broke because very few of those guys actually survived the total collapse of the record industry a few years back.

Might as well call them on their shit and see what they have to say about it. They’ll probably admit the whole thing. Nothing they did was illegal, per se. It was merely frowned upon.

But I guess naming names would only lead to these same guys making more money with book deals and talk show appearances, so maybe he’s actually doing them more harm by not coming clean.

Either way, it’s a pretty good story, right?

I love a good conspiracy theory.

You can read the entire letter over here. I didn't read the comments, but I'm sure they're awful, so you probably shouldn't either.

*source - Hip Hop Is Read

*UPDATE* - A friend of mine—Dan Fletcher, the guy that lives on my couch—works with a guy at an ad agency here in SLC that, once upon a time, worked for one of the above mentioned record labels. Dan asked him about this and got a "definitely not true" response. That's not the end of this by any means, so let's keep spreading this and see what happens.