Murder Tales: The JFK Conspiracies Page 3

  So just how, you might ask, did these affairs remain secret? Well there were two reasons, firstly; it was a different age of news media, when the public weren't interested in the sexual dalliances of their leaders, put simply sex didn't shift papers. The press believed the public didn't care about Kennedy's sexual exploits, as it didn't impact on his ability to lead, as reporter Nick Bryant put it, 'being a lousy husband did not necessarily make you a lousy President'. Secondly; President Kennedy smoozed the press, counting key and influential reporters among his closest friends, regularly having them over to stay at the Whitehouse, having them befriend both him and Jackie. This made them reluctant to damage the ‘special’ friendship they had with President, or to upset and break the heart of the ever lovely Jackie Kennedy. There was also the fear amongst reporters and academics that if they were to speak out about the President; and level any criticism at him; whether professionally or personally, then this could be seen as an indication of un-American activities. The ever present shadow of the red menace still loomed large in the sixties, and any whiff of Communism lingering around a person meant professional death. If the Kennedy administration got wind of any reporter wanting to report on the President’s sexploits then all it would take would be a whisper from one of President Kennedy's aids into the right ear; and that reporter would find themselves painted red and as a consequence unemployable. So Kennedy was allowed to have sex indiscriminately with whomever he liked, at any time he chose, and he didn't have to worry about it turning up the next day on the front page of a tabloid shock sheet. Indeed President Kennedy seemed to engender extreme loyalty from the women he bedded. Out of the alleged hundreds he slept with; very few have come forward to talk about their experiences, even ones who have been ousted by others in the years following the President’s assassination, most decided to go to their graves with their secrets intact, despite offers of eye-watering amounts of cash from journalists and publishers. I think more than anything this loyalty, this love, tells you more about the man than the actual bedroom activities he entered into.

  President Kennedy's stance on Civil Rights was, like his foreign policy, Mafia relationship; and sex life, complicated. You see, back when he had been a senator, Jack Kennedy hadn't had the best record on Civil Rights, indeed he had voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1957, the first real attempt to address the black and white divide since the American Civil War. Yet he hadn't tried to defeat the bill for any ideological reason, in fact in his heart of hearts he agreed with the bill; and wanted it to pass through both houses smoothly, but he had voted against it for political reasons. At the time Jack Kennedy knew that he was going to run for President in 1960, and therefore if he came across as being too strong on civil rights; he would lose the support of his southern party members. Therefore Jack Kennedy had to appear to be staunchly anti-civil rights in order to win the Primary's and get on the Presidential ticket. Once inaugurated, President Kennedy flipped like a light-switch, making it clear that he was pro-civil rights, that people should be allowed to vote no matter what colour, that the colour of your skin shouldn't determine where you could pee or sit on a bus or even sleep at night. Unlike Nixon, Kennedy was not scared to openly support the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King when he was imprisoned for taking part in a simple civil rights march. Yet during his first year in office; Kennedy dithered on civil rights, doing absolutely nothing with the smouldering political hot potato. Oh, he was quick to counter the argument that he didn't care about civil rights; by saying that his healthcare reforms and battle for a minimum wage were civil rights issues in their own right, and that his domestic attention would be focused on these for the benefit of all American's and not just one group, but the central civil rights problem wasn't going away. To help matters in the short term he had a drive to employ more African Americans in the civil service, this affirmative action had little effect. As an example, by the end of this ethnic recruitment drive; the FBI employed only forty-eight black employees across the whole of the country, none of whom held a position above working in the carpool. In response to this cavalier attitude to his orders; President Kennedy began to hit government funded bodies were it hurt, by pulling their funding. If they didn't employ black staff, they wouldn't get money full stop. When this economic blackmail didn't work either, he set up the Commission on Equal Employment Opportunities (CEEO) a body created with a mandate to investigate government bodies; and ensure that people of all races had equal promotional opportunities.

  Kennedy's action in the James Meredith incident clearly showed that Kennedy; whilst not moving quickly; did ultimately want absolutely change. Meredith was a black ten year veteran of the United States Air-Force, who had been refused permission to enrol in the University of Mississippi to complete a doctorate, simply because of the colour of his skin. The university was ordered to admit Meredith, and when riots broke out when he turned up at the university campus to enrol, and two hundred state Marshall's were hospitalised in the ensuing racist chaos; Kennedy acted federally, calling in heavily armed Federal Marshall's to ensure that Meredith was allowed to bravely complete his doctorate at the university of his choosing. Kennedy then repeated this move at other southern university campuses, sending Federal Marshall's to seats of learning and forcing them to enrol African American students at the barrel of a gun. Yet President Kennedy also faced failure on some civil rights fronts, his Department of Urban Affairs Bill, which was designed to ensure a minimum standard of living for the 57% of African Americans who lived in 'unacceptable' housing and poverty, was roundly defeated. This meant that these African Americans were forced to continue living in what was tantamount to squalor for the remainder of his administration. Kennedy's actions also damaged his own standing, by the time he was murdered his support in the southern states had nearly halved; due to his being seen as a supporter of the civil rights movement, and there was a real danger that due to this he would lose his party’s nomination to run for a second term in office. It was partly due to this situation that he ended up in Dallas on the day he died. Despite the alienation; President Kennedy was determined to move the civil rights movement forward, on Tuesday the 11th of June 1963, President Kennedy gave his 'Civil Rights Address' to the nation. This laid out the staunch and unequivocal stance that President Kennedy would take on civil rights from that moment on. It was brought about by descent within his own party, the democratic Governor of Alabama, George Wallace, should have been singing from the same hymn sheet as President Kennedy, but instead he made a rabble rousing speech that promised his voters, 'segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever'. Wallace had followed this up by refusing to allow two black students the right to study at the University of Alabama. Vivien Malone and James Hoods plight left President Kennedy furious by the sheer aggravating defiance shown by a member of his own political party. Once again President Kennedy was force to call in the National Guard to protect two young people who only wanted the opportunity to better themselves. So that evening, after ordering the armed soldiers to occupy the university, President Kennedy gave his legendary speech; which even today packs a powerful political punch, asking the country to examine its conscious:

  ‘This nation was founded by men of many nations and backgrounds, it was founded on the principle that all men are created equal, and that the rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened... and it ought to be possible for American citizens of any colour to register and to vote in a free election without interference or fear of reprisal. It ought to be possible, in short, for every American to enjoy the privileges of being an American without regard to his race or his colour...every American has a right to be treated as he wishes to be treated, as one would wish his children to be treated, but this is not the case. The Negro baby born in America today regardless of the section of the state in which he is born has about half as much chance of completing high school as a white baby, born in the same place on the same day, one third as much chance of completing college, one
third as much chance as becoming a professional man, twice as much chance of becoming unemployed...a life expectancy which is seven years shorter...we are confronted primarily with a moral issue, it is as old as the scriptures, and is as clear as the American constitution... One hundred years of delay have passed since President Lincoln freed the slaves, yet their heirs, their grandsons are not fully free, they are not yet freed from the bonds of injustice, they are not yet freed from social and economic oppression, and this nation for all its hopes and all its boasts, will not be fully free until all its citizens are free. We preach freedom around the world, and we mean it, and we cherish our freedom here at home, but are we to say to the world, and much more importantly, to each other that this is the land of the free except for the Negroes... Now the time has come for this nation to fulfil its promise... A great change is at hand, and our task, our obligation, is to make that revolution, that change, peaceful and constructive for all... Those who do nothing are inviting shame’.

  It was in that speech that President Kennedy laid out the foundation for what was to become the Civil Rights Act of 1964, this would legally enshrine protection from discrimination in voting qualification tests, outlaw discrimination in hotels and motels and restaurants and theatres, allow the Attorney General to prosecute schools that segregated black from white pupils, and make it illegal for businesses to discriminate against black people. The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jnr was so moved by the sincerity of President Kennedy’s address; he went on record as saying, ‘It was one of the most eloquent profound and unequivocal pleas for justice and freedom for all men ever made by any President’. President Kennedy forced America to take those first faltering steps on the road to equality, first steps on a journey he would be unable to finish, first steps which as an unfortunate by-product led him to Dallas on Friday the 22nd of November 1963.

  J. D. Tippit

  J. D. (despite some claims the initials weren't an abbreviation of any particular names) Tippit was born on Thursday the 18th of September 1924, in the small town of Clarksville, in Red River County, Texas. Clarkesville was the type of small friendly town the state of Texas has become famous for. J. D’s father; Edgar Lee, and mother; Lizzie Mae, were farmers of a devoutly religious bent. J. D. had a hard up bringing; in a remote farmhouse that had no mod-cons; even water had to be derived from a local well. The farm didn't use tractors, it used horses hardily pulling behind them the cultivators and haying equipment. The farm house was six miles from the town, sat unobtrusively at the end of a long and remote dirt track. His siblings; Don, Wayne, Christine and Joyce, remembered an idyllic upbringing, spending hours running and playing in the fields and prairies that surrounded their home. Occasionally J. D. would go hunting with his Uncle George Rush, he became an adept horseman and fisherman, and he was of course obligated to do his chores on the farm, such as cutting firewood and mucking out the horses, but J. D. enjoyed these trappings of a healthy country lifestyle.

  J. D. was sent to Fulbright High School, where he acquired the nickname Uncle Fudge, which J. D. quite liked; and he even began to refer to himself by this peculiar nom de plume. J. D. left school at sixteen without graduating; he believed at this time that it was his destiny to follow in his father’s footsteps; and work the land, therefore formal qualifications weren’t much use to him. J. D. had no ideations of greatness, no desire to go out into the world and leave a mark; a small town life in the back of beyond; working in the fields he loved; would be good enough for him. Then World War II broke out and everything changed.

  Edgar Lee Tippit left the farm to do his bit; working in a munitions factory, leaving J. D. in charge of the farm. For a young man in his teens it was a big responsibility, his hard work was now responsible for feeding the entire family, consequently the farm work stopped being fun all of a sudden; suddenly it had become a worrisome burden. Things changed even more, when in the autumn of 1943; Lizzie Mae Tippit discovered that Edgar Lee had been having an affair, this destroyed the marriage; and Lizzie left the family farm to live with her sister in Oklahoma. Lizzie never returned to the farmhouse. Suddenly J. D. began to talk about how he was going to leave himself; he was going to go some place, to discontentedly chinner about how his family would miss him when he was gone. Perhaps he was feeling under-appreciated in the midst of all the upheaval and change. In 1944; as J .D’s best friend, Jack Christopher, signed up to take part in the final push to rid the world of the evil Nazi menace, J. D. decided that he too would put an end to his call-up deferments. Being a farmer meant J. D. didn’t have to go to war, his work on the farm being essential to the home front. The decision to defer his call-up played heavily upon J. D’s mind, one day after spending the day ploughing a field with a team of horses; he travelled into town, and enlisted. He left his family and the farm behind to go to Camp Wolters and complete his basic training. The Army top brass saw something in the plucky and determined young farmer, and he was picked to join the elite 17th Airborne Division, a division of mean paratroopers who lived by the terribly macho motto 'Thunder From Heaven'. In January 1945; J. D. Tippit left his homeland for the first time, and travelled around the world to the war torn bloodied fields of France. The D-Day landings had already taken place; and J. D. was part of the replacements for the soldiers who had died valiantly fighting on the advance to Berlin. J. D. was quickly awarded the Purple Heart; one of America's highest military honours, for his bravery in battle. He refused the honour, candidly admitting that he did not deserve the medal, as he hadn’t actually been injured in battle, he’d hurt his foot falling when under fire; and had bashed himself with his heavy machine-gun. This was typical of Tippit; he was despite his protestations quite clearly a brave and bold soldier, going on to receive the Bronze Star for his bravery in combat during Operation Varsity. This was a daring mission that took place in March 1945; it involved dropping American paratroopers into Northern Germany; and ordering them to cross the Rhine in an attempt to tie up the German military machine as much as they could, so that in a separate prong of attack British troops could advance across Europe to Berlin.

  A year after Operation Varsity, with Hitler defeated and the war ended, J. D. was demobbed from the Army. He returned to the family farm, and he quietly forgot the terrors he had seen, and got on with the arduous task of running the farm again. Upon his return home J. D. also rekindled a romance with his high school sweetheart, Maria Frances Gasway. Wrapped up in the joie de vivre of life having survived the horrors of war, J. D. like many others of his generation did not wait to see how the relationship went once finding a woman he was attracted to, and the couple married on Boxing Day 1946. Realising that a life on a remote farm with no amenities was not a life his new bride wanted, J. D. made his apologies to his family and left Clarksville for Dallas. After living with his sister for a few months, as he looked for work, a placement in the Dearborn Stove Company meant that J. D. and Maria could secure their own little apartment.

  Unfortunately the job with Sears didn't work out; and in 1949 J. D. decided to return to Red River County and return to working on the land once more. It was whilst the couple worked on a new farm, and J. D. took extra classes in mechanics at a local community college, that their first child, Charles Allan, was born on New Year’s Day 1950. Things changed in 1952, it had been a bad year for crops, it started with a heat wave and ended in a flood that washed away what little produce had grown. Exasperated with events J. D.'s neighbour, Basil Robinson, Jacked in farming altogether, he moved to Dallas and became a police officer. J. D. and Robinson stayed in touch, and Robinson told J. D. all about his exploits in the police force. Robinson's stories intrigued J. D. and finally in June 1952; the Tippit's gave in the farming life once and for all; and moved back to Dallas; where J. D. enlisted in the local police force, becoming Patrol Officer Number 848.