Earlier in the day the weather had been so very Southern California that I hadn’t noticed it, as I ran around arranging everything I would need for the mission. However, when I was ‘installing’ the Bronco, once again, in between the giant beach cleaning machines at the lifeguard headquarters, I noticed that the wind was rising, and pretty dramatically. There was no precipitation, however, and the wind coming in out of the southwest meant that it swept in, then up and over the mountains, stringing along the entire southern California coast. It was no threat to me or the mission, not that I could see.
When Gularte and I headed north on the Pacific Coast Highway, however, the fact that we were riding in a flat-bottomed little car weighing in at little more than 1600 lbs. made the trip itself something of an adventure. The rising wind beat across the top of the ocean waves to strike the vertical face of the cliffs that lined the eastern side of the PCH. The trapped wind roiled about invisibly, of course, and then played hell when it tried to lift the front of the Volks off the surface of the road if we moved at more than forty miles per hour.
“Good thing you’re going under the water and not on top of it,” Gularte laughed while holding the ‘sissy bar’ mounted up near the right side of his head over the door with one hand while gripping the handhold on the dash with his left hand. I only had the steering wheel and my seat belt to depend on as we bounced around a bit as we made our way to Dana Point Harbor.
It was a relief to get off the road by pulling into the entrance to the Marina. I slowly approached the ramp from the east and stopped. There was nobody there or around that I could see, although it would be full dark in a matter of minutes. The sky had grown overcast so there would be no moonlight to speak of or see by, but then the mission was very simple.
I parked the car and reached back for the equipment I would need, noting to myself that there was still a full pound of C-4 in the passenger footwell behind where Gularte sat. Given that the detonators and supplementary charges were in a special container in a bag in the other footwell didn’t give me much comfort. I had to get rid of that stuff as quickly as I could get around to it. That the armory didn’t want it back wasn’t nearly so surprising as the armory denying it had ever issued it in the first place.
I handed the big unwieldy but highly effective underwater light to Gularte, grabbed the goggles, adjusted them to slip over my head, and dangle from the rubber strap that would hold them to my head when I climbed into the water.
The tapes were another matter. I’d left them on the seat and they hadn’t moved about with the bobbing and weaving of the Volks navigating through the wind. There was no bag or cover for them. I carefully set them into the web of my left hand and they fit snuggly there. I was glad that a bigger set of reels hadn’t been used, but then I knew nothing of the size of tape-recording reels or any of that. I had to deal with what I had. I got out of the car, glad that this dive would be only a second-long affair. I didn’t take my sweatshirt off as I wouldn’t be doing any swimming. Gularte stood over the west end of the ramp where the Porsche had gone so silently and easily into the harbor and straight to the bottom. I knew that, if the Volkswagen was sent down the ramp it would take a long time to sink, but the Porsche wasn‘t built that way.
I walked the short distance to where Gularte stood, irritating the bottoms of both feet because the freshly laid and little worn serrated surface of the ramp was sharp and very pointed in some places.
I adjusted my goggles to cover my eyes comfortably; grabbed the light from Gularte’s outstretched hand, and walked down to the water’s edge. I looked at the water and was put off a bit. It was swirling about and surging, the water pushing up and down the angle of the ramp several feet every few seconds. I looked back up at Gularte but couldn’t see him well enough through the lenses and in the darkening night to make out any expression he might have about the situation.
The light weighed about ten pounds, I guessed. I wouldn’t need fins or any assistance, even from my tied-up hands as the light could simply take me gently straight to the bottom. I eased into the cold water, not shivering but feeling like I should be. I took some huge breaths to overcharge my system with oxygen, then submerged to my shoulders, while kicking off a bit from the edge of the ramp and letting the light do its job, making sure I had a solid grip on the tapes I carried in my left hand. It was dark, and the water was moving. I suddenly felt a chill, not from the water temperature, but from fear. The conditions were nothing like the first dive and I hadn’t been alone that time, but everything else had been so similar that it was eerie, even the weather, although there was at least no rain.
The light pulled me down as I expected. I knew the fear I felt would also sap my air supply much faster than if I was relaxed, but I couldn’t help that. I had no time for Relaxation techniques. After what felt like ten seconds but could have been a few more or less, I flipped the light switch to ‘on,’ glad that the switch was integrated into the handhold on the cylinder’s top.
The world around me exploded, but not with a cascade of penetrating light in order to guide me on my short journey. I was suddenly inside what gave every appearance of being a big incandescent lightbulb. Instantly, I knew that the water was filled with sediment to the point where the light couldn’t penetrate it, so it simply diffused.
I lost my orientation and felt dizzy. The light was going to be no help to me I realized as I recovered from my panic, but was unable to tell up from down inside the white cloud the light created inside the water. I switched the light off, and let its weight pull me down. I oriented again. Down was the direction I was headed and therefore up was the other way. I was slowly headed for the bottom but probably not exactly where I wanted to be because of the swirling currents which were strong enough to let me know they were not only there, but much more powerful than I was in my situation.
My feet hit bottom and I bounced a bit, more from the effects of the current than anything else. I didn’t know where the Porsche was in the total darkness and I was running out of air. I could resurface, I knew, but then would not be able to swim anywhere with the tapes clutched in one hand and the ten-pound light in the other, which I could not let sink to the bottom and remain there like a beacon for any future investigator, in the other. I took a few seconds to think, before releasing the tapes. Even if I was only marginally close to the car the tapes would be strewn by their fall around the area, as if they’d been forced out of the frunk by the strong, or even not so strong, currents. I could swim with the light, even though it would partially disable me, but not to the point where I couldn’t make it to the nearby shore.
I released the tapes and let them fall, hoping against hope that the tapes were wound to the reels tight enough, plus the clear plastic of the reels was sufficiently dense enough to allow them to sink and therefore not rise to the surface. The first mistake of the second mission had already been committed. I should have checked for buoyancy before ever committing to the mission, as it would have been a problem if it existed, that could have been solved easily, but certainly not now in the situation I was in.
I frog-kicked to the surface with no way to check to see what had happened to the fake tapes rewound inside the real reels, only to discover that the wind, as my head and upper body rose up, was now whipping across the water. I breathed in and out several times before orienting myself. I’d stayed down longer than I’d thought, my fear and disorientation holding off the normal lung pain caused by my enforced near-self-induced asphyxiation. I was facing blackness, so I swirled my body around. I saw the very dim string of lights that hung over the ramp, glowing in the night for whatever reason. The light wasn’t strong enough to see Gularte standing nearby but he had to be. I noticed that I wasn’t exactly over the Porsche, which didn’t come as much of a disappointment. I already knew I wasn’t because when I landed on the harbor bottom I hadn’t landed on the body of the vehicle itself.
I paddled in, dragging the light below me, fighting to keep it from pulling me down again. I was almost totally exhausted. Once at the edge of the ramp I hauled the light up and shoved it onto the serrated concrete; pulled my goggles off and eased myself out of the water. I knew the second mistake of the mission was not bringing Bob Elwell to partner with me. I’d heard that single-person lone diving was an invitation to disaster, and I’d almost proven it.
“How’d it go?” Gularte said, his voice penetrating the darkness and my own strange sphere of remote consciousness. I breathed in and out some more before getting ready to answer him.
“We’ve got company,” he said before I could fully get myself together and reply.
“Not again,” I breathed out, picturing the image of an angry Haldeman sitting inside his limo yelling at everyone within earshot.
I staggered to my feet and looked to see where the car was, but there was no vehicle nearby, at least no distinctive Lincoln from the compound.
“Where?” I asked, as Gularte grabbed the light and goggles and made it toward the Volks, which sat nearby, rocking slightly in the swirling wind.
“He walked in,” Gularte said over his shoulder, heading for the car, “by Butch’s place.”
I had no towel and wasn’t going to move to the Volks to get one. Sopping wet I made my way toward Butch’s, the place only visible because he had a single small light bulb lit near the closed door. I didn’t see the man until I was almost there. I shook the water off of me as best as I could and rubbed my hair and face to be dry as much as possible using the gusting and still heavy wind for the possible confrontation. But there was no confrontation.
“Evening sir,” the staff sergeant from the compound said, dressed in casual civilian attire for the first time, “not the best night for a dip in the ocean, or so I’d assume anyway, sir.”
“Staff Sergeant,” I replied, ignoring the man’s accurate but out-of-place humor.
“The rest of this I don’t care about, never happened,” the staff sergeant said, waving his arm out toward the area Gularte and I’d come out of.
I waited, not liking the sound of the rather obvious fact that I needed his secrecy about anything. I waited, expecting the worst.
“I’m looking for Mrs. Hunt,” the sergeant said.
He hadn’t asked a question, so I simply rubbed my hair some more and waited, my mind racing, however. Helen was the money person between Washington and the Western White House, and therefore she was a vital player in almost everything, or so I thought. I had all kinds of questions that I wanted to ask the man but decided not to. I waited some more.
“Where is she?” the staff sergeant finally asked.
I was surprised. The fiber and seriousness of the staff sergeant’s tone were disturbing. It was like he had become the commanding officer and I his servant. I didn’t know where Helen Hunt was but assumed that if she wasn’t in D.C. and not at the compound or residence she was staying on either Cobb’s or Richard’s yacht. Cobb would be my first guess, but I wasn’t going to guess unless I knew more.
“Who’s looking for her?” I asked, “And don’t bother telling me it’s you.”
“She’s got some loose ends to tie up with some powerful private business people, so they asked me to find you since you might know her location.”
Private businessmen. I pondered the statement for a bit until it came to me. “There are only two private businessmen who ever come to the residence,” I said, “and those would be Abplanalp or Rebozo, so which one is it?”
“More businessmen come to the compound than you likely know since you’re seldom there, sir,” the staff sergeant replied.
“Thanks for that, and I presume that you’re seldom here,” I quickly replied, “but the question remains.”
I waited, my irritation growing over the fact that whenever I was doing something at the marina, no matter what the hour, someone knew and was watching. The staff sergeant was just another example of the extent of the compound’s surveillance, which extended a long way out from the Western White House.
“Don’t play this game, sir, not this night,” he replied, his tone lightening up as he figured out that I wasn’t going to be either stupid or forthcoming unless there was a good reason.
“Well, staff sergeant?” I asked, growing impatient with the exchange, as well as being forced to be in such an exposed position following the mixed success of the dive.
The compound wasn’t likely the only interested party in knowing what I was doing, and maybe not the potentially most dangerous.
“It would seem,” the staff sergeant started out before pausing as if to choose his words most carefully, “that Mr. Rebozo and Mrs. Hunt had some financial dealings that he wasn’t done discussing before she departed.”
The name Rebozo sent a shiver through me. The mafia guy. Everyone said the same thing about him, and nobody could understand not only why he was Nixon’s friend but why he was even allowed in or near the residence. Mrs. Nixon was rumored to want nothing to do with the man so he was never invited to formal events where he might encounter her in a receiving line. If Rebozo was looking for someone like Helen Hunt, who obviously didn’t want to be found, then there was an element of danger there that I felt at my core more than thought about. I knew it was an A Shau thing. I sensed an ambush but had to know more about whatever it was in order to decide if after knowing, any action was to be taken.
“No idea,” I replied to his statement, going back to the original question.
I turned to walk away.
“This may be one of those life-or-death things,” the staff sergeant said to my departing back.
I stopped and turned.
“Like that would be a stranger to me?” I asked but didn’t bother to wait for his response.
Was what he said a clue, I wondered. Was Rebozo looking to cause harm to the woman? Why else would such a man be involved?
Gularte and I got in the Volks and headed back to the lifeguard headquarters. With the mission over, and the letdown that was following all I wanted to do was go home and listen to a tape as I sat somewhere by myself. The secrets that were being kept and the knowing of them that might keep me and my family alive, were on those tapes, or so I was convinced.
We got to the headquarters where Bob Elwell had the duty and stood guard over the Bronco. I discussed my problem with Bob while I changed back into my uniform.
“Let me take the shift?” Bob suddenly asked. “I didn’t get to go on the dive, but I can do this much. You know the guards used to run a beach patrol here years back and it was all staffed by them alone. Before my time, but I always liked the idea.”
I thought about what the loyal and very capable man said. It was against all policy, but then the policy of the beach patrol was unwritten. The department manual had nothing to say about the beach patrol except that the officers assigned to it were all sworn California Peace Officers, which Bob was obviously not. If Bob went out and something happened it would be hell to pay. I started laughing out loud as I thought about the size of the violation Bob and I were contemplating.
I’d just dived on the Porsche after sinking it in the harbor in the first place. I’d substituted materials that were beyond any classification above Top Secret, and I was about to go home and listen to what I’d stolen.
“You’re on,” I replied, since my only out had been to call Richard and I didn’t want to do that.
There were enough questionable characters in play right now, and besides, I just knew he had a whole lot to do with the surveillance I was experiencing the effects of.
I talked to Gularte and let him know what I wanted to do. As usual, Gularte was all in.
“I’ll show him the ropes, and, if someone is drowning, I don’t have to get wet or risk myself.”
“Risk yourself?” I asked, and we both started laughing. We’d both been risking ourselves since we first met, as I’d drawn him into all the stuff going on at the Western White House and around it.
I got home to find Mary watching television and Julie already in bed. I went up to the master bedroom, changed clothes, and hauled out the tapes and the strange little, almost toy-like, tape deck. I got down on the floor and threaded the first tape, the one I’d hand-labeled “Jackie Kennedy/Richard Nixon,” and worked it through its first few inches before turning the simple switch on.
I listened intently, as the tape played, and knew immediately that I was going to need earphones. The little tape deck allowed for a microphone or an external speaker and the inadequate little instruction manual I’d been ‘lucky’ enough to get with it said that the speaker indication jack ‘might’ also allow headphones. There was nobody upstairs, except Julie asleep in the next bedroom, for my first attempt at listening to a tape, except for Bozo and he wasn’t much of a talker. I went downstairs and pulled out the headphones I’d bought when I got the console television and stereo. My wife ignored me, not even asking what I wanted the headphones for since there was no stereo upstairs. I’d never plugged them into the console machine simply because nobody ever seemed to mind when I played any of our record collection.
The headphone plug matched the speaker output jack. I plugged it in, adjusted the earphones, and turned on the machine again. I picked up a woman’s voice, scratchy with lots of ‘snow’ but distinct enough to be understood.
“Thank you for seeing me, Richard,” the woman’s voice said.
A chill went through me. The tape I’d chosen, hoping it would be the least revealing of the lot, was the Jackie Kennedy/Richard Nixon tape. It was Jackie’s voice; I just knew it.
“Please don’t call me that,” a male voice replied, and there was no failure on my part to identify that voice, at least not here in this place.
“There’s no one else here, Richard,” the smooth elegant voice replied.
There was a short silence, as the tape merely hissed away. I wondered if I was missing something because of saltwater damage to the iron oxide.
“Why have you come?” Nixon finally asked, ignoring her continued use of his first name, which ran in all opposition to protocol.
“You were there,” the voice whispered as I strained to hear, my head so close to the machine that it was nearly touching. “You were in Dallas. You were there when they killed Jack.”
Another silence ensued. I waited impatiently but didn’t move from my position. Nixon was in Dallas at the time of the assassination. The news, if it was true, astounded me. I’d never heard a word about such a possibility.
“Yes, they did kill him,” Nixon replied. “I was in Dallas, but my plane left while your own was flying in.”
“And you don’t find that at all coincidental, to say the least?” Jackie asked, although her expression didn’t make it sound like she was looking for an answer.
“Yes, I was there for a Pepsi thing with Joan Crawford.”
“It begins to make less and less sense, Richard,” Jackie replied. “They killed my husband and they’re going to kill you unless you quit. You have a family. Quit. It’s not worth it.”
“But why have you come?” Nixon asked.
I knelt, facing the tape deck I’d set on the floor. I was stunned, as only more ‘snow’ and unbroken hissing passed to my headphones. There was nothing else even barely intelligible on the tape. Obviously, the tape was a tape of another tape that was probably a lot longer. Who were the ‘they’ she was talking about and whom he seemed to understand? My assumption of the President’s fear of his own vice president, if indeed LBJ had been responsible for Kennedy’s assassination, was going right out the window. I turned the machine off when the tape was played out and the reel that held what had passed over the head simply pattered away going around and around, like my thinking. The little machine had no automatic shut off and neither did I.
I unplugged the headphone wire and headed downstairs to replace them in the console storage drawer, again with no seeming notice from Mary. I went into the downstairs bathroom and stared at myself in the mirror. I knew that if my wife had bothered to look at me she’d have wanted to know why my face was white as a sheet. I’d not pulled myself out of harm’s way in the least but merely sunk myself in a little bit deeper.
I went back upstairs, replaced the tapes in my shoebox, put the recorder on the closet floor, and again stuffed it into its strange box. My first entry into playing the tapes had proven to be both a success and a failure. I looked over at Bozo, sitting on the side table, assuming his usual and quite successful imitation of a porcelain cat statute, only blinking once in a while to prove he was really alive at all.
“The tapes are real and, so far, the voices recoverable,” I told the stoic cat. “But do I want to go any further? For the first time, I have some strange feelings about the President. Is he really afraid of being assassinated like Kennedy or is he afraid that he will be caught having been a part of the whole thing? LBJ was a Democrat. Nixon a Republican. The scales of justice would have the balance bar tipping toward an opponent wanting the leader out rather than a fellow traveler in the same party.”
Bozo didn’t answer any of my questions.
“Do I continue with this, since it’s not likely I’ll ever be able to tell anybody anything without getting myself killed or in prison for life, or do I just dump this mess back into the ocean where I so accidentally submerged it in the first place?”
I didn’t bother looking at Bozo for an answer to that one either. The only fact I’d discovered, and it had to be a fact, as there was almost no way in hell that Jackie Kennedy had gone to the trouble of visiting the President to lie to him and have him confirm it.
What might be discussable was Nixon’s presence in Dallas at the time of the assassination, or his having already left only moments before. I could bring that up to the Dwarfs but to what satisfaction and how was I to answer the question that no doubt would be asked: “How did you find this out?”
Mary wasn’t likely to be much interested in Nixon’s whereabouts at the time of the assassination. Julie was the only one strangely transfixed whenever there was anything on the television about him. The ten-year anniversary of Kennedy’s death had been all over the TV, in the news, and with special shows being done, almost none of them about any investigation into his death. Most of the shows were pageantry related to when he was in office. Julie, Mrs. Beasley, and Bozo never missed any of them, but my wife wasn’t so taken.
I called Pat Bowman at home from the phone next to our bed in order to organize a meeting of the Dwarfs. I needed counsel on what I’d learned from the tape, particularly from Hoodoo, our police detective. He’d be able to find out if Nixon really was in Dallas at the time of the assassination. I also wanted to share Bebe Rebozo’s interest in Helen Hunt and how strangely I’d been approached.
I went downstairs but my wife was fully taken up with whatever show she was watching. I sat down beside her on the couch but no words were exchanged for a full ten minutes.
“You listened to the first tape,” she finally whispered, without looking at me. “Was there anything on it?”
I knew I should have known all along. The apartment was large but not to her. She knew every inch of it and what always happened inside it. I’d been about as secretive as a bear going through a garbage can located near the back door.
I didn’t answer because I wasn’t ready for the question, although I knew I should have been.
“Which tape?” she asked, not giving up.
I sighed, there would be no stopping her, I knew and I was nearing total exhaustion.
“Jackie,” I said, knowing I didn’t have to go any farther. My hiding place in the shoebox was about as secretive as my ability to listen to the tapes without her figuring it out.
“So, was Nixon involved?” she said, her eyes glued to the television.
I was shocked again. She didn’t need a tape. She somehow just kind of knew things that I didn’t and couldn’t fathom how she did.
“Next tape has to be the Marines, where this all began since you hear what’s on them with your silly little children’s recorder.”
I didn’t want to go there. I didn’t want to listen to that tape, not in my current condition, but I knew she’d never let me sleep unless I did. I was also afraid of what might be on it and how much was I placing on my wife just by confirming her suppositions even though I was giving her almost nothing.
I sighed and went back upstairs. I sat on the end of our bed, looking at the closet door. Bozo remained where he was as if he knew all along that I’d be back for round two. The mission and the first tape had almost knocked me out and I had no time to recover. I got up and moved to the closet door, opened it, and stared up at the secret shoebox hiding place.
I’ve been one of your devout readers since I first found Thirty Days Has September. I have occasionally commented, instead of letting others do the online editing and opinion sharing.
I am highly intrigued by the direction that the COWARDLY LION is going and your personal involvement in the events of the time. I regularly do a Google search on your characters to find out more background, since being born in ’68 left me behind the live events that you were living in.
I am interested in your reaction to the upcoming release of “Four Died Trying”, the series that will explore the extraordinary lives and calamitous deaths of President John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy.
Without revealing your upcoming chapters, I would just like to know if your writings will reveal any previously unknown or classified information.
My contact with people who were in any way involved with high level assassinations started with JFK and ended
with JFK.
I know and knew nothing about the passing of RFK, King or Malcolm. I only happened on the Kennedy stuff in the
way you read this chapter by chapter.
There is nothing classified I am revealing as none of this stuff reach as level of people knowing who could afford to classify it, and therefore give it credence and some accountability. The very highest and best held secrets in government are those that are never classified because then others would know.
I don’t know either, if ‘the four died trying,’ as this is the common refrain of all leaders seeking the highest levels of power.
What can be believed of true intent when the rise to such fame is the most powerful drug a human being can ever be exposed to…and addicted to almost instantly.
Thanks for researching so much. Sometimes I wish I had more time to dive into the Internet and learn more too, but I don’t.
I just keep on writing away to get all this down because I have fully come to believe that I was, indeed, living history and making some of it, all the while I thought I was just trying to survive and get by.
Semper fi, and thanks for a really interesting and great comment.
Jim
Wow !, we think we understand history and then we don’t. We are fed bits and pieces allowing us to come to a “conclusion” of what transpired. Even when we “live” events we don’t always know the depth of what happened. I still recall vividly in ’62 when our family was living in remote northern BC and the Cuban Missile crisis was unfolding. My dad was deployed to a remote SAC base to help gaurd the B-52’s that had been armed and deployed to remote northern bases. We were scared knowing the soviet bombers could appear over the horizen at any minute. Our little world was thrust into the moment and we only had the TV news to be informed. Who knew the soviet submarine officer Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov refused to arm a nuclear torpedo to destroy the US carrier group and that Kruschev kept secret the removal of US missiles from Turkey making it seem the Soviets backed down unilaterally. Sooooo much behind the scenes far back from the headlines we don’t and often won’t know.
This glimpse you give us from the shadows of history is facinating and completely captivating! BZ on the writing and the story of the shadow warriors that arrainged the affairs of the powers of the day.
The S/Sgt. is a force directed by behind the veil persons of influence who think you needed to be warned and controlled. That they have connections to contractors that don’t carry a badge or agency affiliation. With the ability to track you so evident, how did they not know what you were doing?
The angle the story takes, given the actions of the players is not at all the public performance played out through the investigations and hearings. I am beyond enticed by the story asolutely consumed is a better discription. I had come to my own conclusions based on the published version of events. I am now captivated about how the players interact and what the real concerns of the day were. The deaths of the Marines… ? who, what, when, where, why, and how ! inquiring minds need to know!
Now, that’s one helluva comment! Interesting and revealing about your life and mindset as well as
being fascinated by the ‘back story’ about some things that went on, and probably still go on in
and around the powerful players on the planet. Hoepfully, this chapter you will find pretty
revealing, although every time something is revealed it usually uncovers something else of great
import. Thanks for the compliment of your writing and the trust displayed to reveal something of
your own inner thinking and self.
Semper fi,
Jim
Mr. Strauss, Sir,
HOLY S*** !!!
Keith, what as great two word compliment. Laconic but effective. Thanks for that this night….
Semper fi,
Jim
Just when you need some support- Bozo didn’t answer any of my questions. !!!!
I don’t know of anyone in your group could at that time, although it seems your wife always had a keen intuition about things.
Still don’t trust the Ssgt, as his true role seems to be hidden in the confines of the WWH.
Great captivating read LT., keep ’em coming 😉
Thanks fo much SgtBob for starting my morning out right! Nice to read your words
and the depth to which you dive into the work on such a regular basis. Thanks so much!
Semper fi,
Jim
Just today got news in the mail that you had a small car incident. Someone is looking out for you!!
Thanks Jim, for the care and the comment with respect to out getting through that one with only car damage, really.
A person driving on a country road at night with no moon and without lights on. Who would have believed that one?
I am back in the saddle again and got off the Thanksgiving letter. Much appreciate your existence upon occasion on here
and also, of course, in my life.
Semper fi, my friend,
Jim
That Marine Sargent is more than just a Marine Sargent isn’t he?
Of course, as he has so ably demonstrated from time to time, just like I was no longer a ‘real’ lieutenant
in the Corps but I had valid I.D. to prove otherwise if called upon.
Thanks for the surmising curious and accurately written comment.
Semper fi,
Jim
We’re getting to a 30 Days level of anticipation here.
Thanks for the neat compliment Tim…and yes, the suspense is indeed building.
Semper fi,
Jim
this may be the best writing of the series so far
I am struck by your incredible stupidity, trying to make the dive alone. Anyone raised in Hawaii I don’t know about swimming with a buddy I will let that run.
I find it interesting that the sergeant as he has called, showed up to talk back to him too many Marines, believe this stuff about the NCOs, being the backbone of the core and the true heroes in every battle we ever fought there are fabulous men who were NCO but they are not super human. They are not infallible, and they only walk on water if they know where the rocks are.
question the question is so fire out of the scope of all that’s happened to date struck me, is very odd, or too observant to have missed a piece, but I wonder if the sergeant is perhaps working for two sides in this tale?
if you look at the old US MC officers guide, it will describe enlisted men in less than flattering terms, calling them, conmen and trying to get away with something
of course, that is a great exaggeration, but I have a distrust of people who operate like the sergeant, even knowing who he is operating for
I cannot wait for the tail to continue
Well, Rich, my friend, sometimes the information one is dealing with of a clandestine nature is so sensitive that there must
be severe limits on who is involved. Many people on the planet, without experience, have no idea that some information is
secret from them to protect them as well as others. The way missions spin out requires rapid adaptivity and Bob had to be left
at the headquarters and Gularte was no diver and I needed the lookout, as well. What can one do? I don’t know. I didn’t always
make the right decisions at the time. Thanks for the great comment, as usual.
Semper fi,
Jim
It is getting exciting now , more people to wonder about where they will show up in the story ! Great chapter.
Thanks William, as the story developed back in the time…well, seems a lot more exciting than it did to really’ live it.
I guess I was ‘not quite right’ after the Nam.
Semper fi, and thanks,
Jim
My my my, but the rabbit hole gets deeper and deeper!! Please tell me your support is still up above feeding the rope, ready and willing to pull you back out. The tapes are the key to it all!! I’m gonna turn blue waiting for the next chapter, don’t make us pass out Lt!!.Semper fi sir!
Yes, Bob, it somehow has all come down to the tapes and what might be, or is, on them, just like the rest of Watergate spun
around the D.C. tapes. Thanks for the compliment of your wanting more and waiting patiently to get it.
Semper fi,
Jim
Once again, LT, my pulse is racing. Every. Single. Chapter. You are an amazing writer. I think I will re-read, yet again, my copy of “30 Days”.
The beat goes on…the drums keep pounding a rhythm to the brain…
Thanks for the great compliment Hagar, and I will hope to keep meeting your expectations.
Semper fi,
Jim
That Marine Sargent is more than just a Marine Sargent isn’t he?
No question Tony, and more will come out about that as we go along.
Thanks for coming on here and asking the question.
Semper fi,
Jim
Is danger on the horizon because you have revealed the tapes were not destroyed? Did Mardian steal the tapes and then hide them in his son’s car thinking that would be that last place anyone would ever look in trying to find them? Would explain why he was not upset when he learned the car was under water and why he wanted it blown up. The staff sergeant didn’t just happen to wonder by and he’s not looking for Hunt. He’s watching you for someone at WWH.
Some of the mysteries, a couple of which you have brought up here in the comment section, there is no resolution I can
offer. In my place as non-person, of sorts, or a nobody, as Mardian called me, I could only react and then make
plans from, during and after reactions. I was in no position to ask questions of anyone in power or change the course
of events except in the field where I ran free…or sort of free.
Thanks for the intensity and depth of your interest and support.
Semper fi,
Jim
James, There’s always several ways to convey meaning. Here’s an alternative suggested change to what I already posted.
Original: I knew it was an A Shau thing. I sensed an ambush but had to know more about whatever it was in order to do about it if after knowing, any action was to be taken.
New suggestion: Add “anything” before “about”
Comma after “it”
I knew it was an A Shau thing. I sensed an ambush but had to know more about whatever it was in order to do anything about it, if after knowing, any action was to be taken.
Previous suggestion: Substitute “decide,” for “do anything about it”
I knew it was an A Shau thing. I sensed an ambush but had to know more about whatever it was in order to decide, if after knowing, any action was to be taken.
I send best wishes to your trio of silent witnesses: Julie, Bozo, and Mrs. Beasley.
DanC, what a pleasure to once gain receive a refinement of the work that would never be picked up by me
in going back through it…which I do, but miss so much that you catch. The trio is a duo now, although Bentley has
stepped in from Bozo, then Harvey and so on. Julie and Mrs. Beasley are very much with us in the house I live in now.
Thanks for the great and, as usual, most helpful modifications.
Semper fi, my friend,
Jim
In light of th 60th anniversary of the assignation this is block buster news!Considering there are 5 more tapes I’m full of anticipation! I’m pretty sure Reiner and Baldwin and the upcoming podcast and documentary would be very interested in this information. You’re writing continues to astound James, to the point that at times I’m intimidated to respond! Thank you for continuing to dig so deep! I’m privileged to read and enjoy your amazing story! Thank you!
Thanks so much Jack. I have found that such information distributing operations, such as news and history podcasts, even television specials, have
mostly ‘transmit’ buttons and no ‘receive’ button whatever…so to speak. I don’t have credibility with such producers and, in general, they are’
anything but avid readers of almost anything. They take waht’s brought to them, process it, and voila! Besides, I’m not on here to get famous
or rich. I’m here to tell stories based on a body of life experience very few on the planet might get to enjoy (or maybe not enjoy so much so many times!).
Thanks for the thought. Joe Rogan reached out but there’s no way I’m going there. I don’t need to embarrassed in public by people who make their living
doing just that to other people…or have television dish trucks out in front of my house. I’m here for the audience that you are a part of and you see gathered
around. We are sitting around a small wood fire in the forest of life, together, like the Boy and Girl Scouts of old. Enjoy the stories, even if the word story would
give some hint that the stuff discussed isn’t as real as it certainly is. But then, you have to be the judge of that.
Thanks for the great comment, as usual.
SEmper fi, my friend,
Jim
Man I certainly didn’t want to imply that you were writing more for monetary reasons than peace of mind James. I know better. I was merely alluding to the possibility of a resolution to the Kennedy case thru collaboration!
Thanks for that Jack. No, I didn’t take it the way you thought I might take it. You are true blue and you enjoy my
completed trust and friendship. The Kennedy, and other mysteries, head toward conclusion…and let the chips fall where they may!\
Semper fi,
Jim
James, I am absolutely stunned by the detail you go through. Tom Thorkelson’s comment sums it up for me
Tom was a player back in the day, and one hell of an intellect and caring man. I was tough to have as an employee, especially since
I didn’t tell him much about any of what was really going on down the coast from where his office and home were (Newport Beach). HE also
understands that the stuff is history lived through and not th figment of my over-energized imagination. The story of what happened back then
is easy to tell, but very hard to tweak and get it right. i have it all in my head but sometimes I get confused about timing or which character
really did what. I am working on all that all the time…egven this night.
Thanks for the great comment.
Semper fi,
Jim
As I picked up the tapes seem to be excerpts and spiced….does this mean they are part of someone who is gathering evidence? You can almost hear Jackie meeting with Nixon….”Richard” is the regal way she would address him! Amazing for all we have heard about the assassination, Nixon being in Dallas has never been mentioned! Fascinating….where is my spot on the parapets.
Colonel, I found out only at the writing and right after, the fact that Nixon was in Dallas is not a secret, just overlooked. That Jackie Kennedy seemed to
give every indication that she didn’t believe he departed before her husband was killed was as blatant and revealing at the time as it is this day. Before writing The Cowardly Lion I had dropped all of this so many years back as it seemed like it could only cause trouble because of my careers in the Corps and the CIA. But here I am now, plagued with this humongous memory bank. Hearing the tape again is eerie because
Jim, you have led a very complicated life, but certainly not of your own choosing until you joined the Company. And thank goodness that you have come through it all relatively unscarred. At least to those that only look at the package, and not at the inside. Not even going to try to guess all of that. You and your readers know that your psyche is at least as beat up as your body.
As my Dad would have said, a good man for his time. Unlike many, a man with a conscience – which is rarer now than it was 40+ years ago. And an excellent recall of events.
As a reader, I thank you for putting it into print in a manner that captures one’s imagination and attention.
But write faster, dammit! Sometimes I think that you’ll never get to the bottom before I pass on to the next world.
Blessings be upon thee – Semper Fi.
Craig, well I certainly hope that you are not anywhere close to passing on yet. I still need you as the
more than dependable fan you are. I am writing at a pretty good clip here, as I have not failed to get one
chapter out a week for almost a year now. Doing my job. The story, however, has almost a mind of its own
and how and when it gets ‘outed’ so to speak. Thanks for the compliment of your wanting more faster.
Semper fi,
Jim
Jim,
Thank you for sharing another chapter of the riddles.mysteies/enigmas of this Cowardly Lion part of your life.
Anxiously awaiting the NEXT episode.
The Walter Duke, pipes in. Thanks for your usual uplifting comment Walter. I much appreciate the continuance of
your long time support and confidence and the compliments that alway come with it.
Semper fi, my friend,
Jim
Oh my! Where does it go from here? Is this fiction?
Tom, Batman, this is fictionally written, covering those areas where my memory is not totally accurate
in recalling exactly how what happened happened. This is now as truthful as I can make it and all this
stuff was not only there but with ne today The tapes are real. My place in the Western White House was real
as well as what happened afterwards. I didn’t get into the CIA in a high field team leader because I applied
for any position with them. They showed up at may door because of what they knew about what I had gone through.
Semper fi, my friend,
Jim
It was great to talk to you on the phone Tom. It’s rather definitive that the National Archives has
evidence interest in some of the materials, in the gentlest way possible. I have yet to decide if
I should communicate with them at all.
To what point?
The story continues as long as I am able to write it.
Semper fi, my old friend,
Jim
Batman: Over advice from everyone against it, I have written my books using the real name of the real people all along, from the Gunny and Homan in Vietnam, to
you, Chuck Bartok, Bob Elwell, Gularte, Herberich, Gates, Cobb, Hunt, Richard, Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Ronstadt, Brown, and so many more. I have done that and exposed myself to some
liability, I presume, for credibility purposes. I have not lived a believable life…so these characters being real and many of them commenting, add a patina of truth my word would never be able to do that the characters, like yourself, only knew bits and pieces of the giant mosaic of life back then is typical of almost all adventures in real life unless they are served up on the silver screen. Thanks for your steadfast support and liking the work to the point that you do.
I much enjoy having one of my real life mentors comment from time to time.
Semper fi,
Jim
“Next tape has to be the marines”
My thoughts exactly! Intrigued as to their relevance in all this.
Thanks Phil, for putting so much thought into the next moves in the story.
Great motivation.
Semper fi,
Jim
After reading the last two entrys i go to look at yahoo news and what do i see? articles about Kennedys killing. I get the feeling i am still reading something you wrote.
Yes, Joel, it is kind of strange to me to see articles on the Kennedy assassination mentioning stuff that only I have
been revealing, like the existence and work of Cobb and Nixon’s presence in Dallas at the time of the event.
I am unknown famous in my own right. And none of these ‘sources’ ever approach me for data or anything else!
Which is find, by the way. I really don’t know what I would tell them, other than the National Archives whom I’m
ignoring unless they get more strident in their strange request.
Thanks for the compliments in your writing of your comment here.
Semper fi,
Jim
WOW@!! WTF?
Wonderful laconic compliments!!!!
Semper fi,
Jim (and thanks, of course)
Looks like an unintended paragraph at the 7th and 8th ones.
Once more you have me straining to recall “current events” of that time.
Current events of that time are probably a lot like those of today, except I was there to
forever memorize and then memorialize them in my writings so many years later. Maybe only after so
much time has gone by and such powerful people have passed can such things be written and allow the
writer to survive, if not thrive.
Semper fi,
JIm
What an eye opener!! Can’t wait for the next chapter, the whole conspiracy thing makes sense with reading this, now to reveal why this all took place!!
Yes, Peter, the time is coming when all these may make sense to you, if not in some standard way that you
are used to. I don’t really know your life, or that of almost any of my readers, but I’m willing to bet that
it probably doesn’t include hanging around a ‘palace’ to collect all the latest gossip and news.
Thanks for your continued support and the compliment of your writing on here like you do.
Semper fi,
Jim
James, Interesting that the Staff Sergeant is being provided enough information to track you; yet info is compartmentalized enough that he doesn’t know that Richard and Cobb are at the marina. (Or so it seems.) I assume he knows there is some linkage between Hunt and Cobb.
Good one on the photo. Not the “real” Jackie but someone (NP) playing her.
Can you just burn the C-4 to get rid of it?
Keep the chapters coming. Keep we the readers guessing what is next.
Some minor editing suggestions follow:
slip over my head, and dangled from the rubber strap
Maybe “dangle” instead of “dangled”
Drop comma after “head”
slip over my head and dangle from the rubber strap
bobbing and weaving the Volks navigating through the wind
Either Drop “the” before “Volks”
bobbing and weaving Volks navigating through the wind
OR add “of” before “the Volks”
bobbing and weaving of the Volks navigating through the wind
Volkswagen was sent down the ramp it would be a long time to sink
Maybe “take” instead of “be”
Volkswagen was sent down the ramp it would take a long time to sink
walked the short distance
Add “I” before “walked”
I walked the short distance
serrated surface of the ramp was shot and very pointed
Maybe “sharp” instead of “shot”
serrated surface of the ramp was sharp and very pointed
I adjusted my goggles to cover my eyes comfortably, grabbed the light from Gularte’s outstretched hand, and walked down to the water’s edge.
A bit better to use semicolons instead of commas in a list of actions.
I adjusted my goggles to cover my eyes comfortably; grabbed the light from Gularte’s outstretched hand; and walked down to the water’s edge.
Relaxation techniques I had no time for
Maybe change word order
I had no time for relaxation techniques.
glad that the switch was integrated into the handhold on the cylinder’s top until the light went on.
/Seems glad until the light went on – but that doesn’t fit in sentence./
EITHER Reword into two sentences.
glad that the switch was integrated into the handhold on the cylinder’s top. Then the light went on.
OR drop “until the light went on.”
glad that the switch was integrated into the handhold on the cylinder’s top.
light couldn’t penetrate it so it simply diffused
Maybe add comma after first “it”
light couldn’t penetrate it, so it simply diffused
white cloud the light that had been created inside the water
Drop “that” & “been”
white cloud the light had created inside the water
tapes clutched in one hand and the ten-pound light, which I could not let sink to the bottom and remain there like a beacon for any future investigator, in the other.
Move “in the other” after “ten-pound light”
tapes clutched in one hand and the ten-pound light in the other which I could not let sink to the bottom and remain there like a beacon for any future investigator.
Once at the edge of the ramp I hauled the light up and shoved it onto the serrated concrete, pulled my goggles off, and eased myself out of the water.
Could substitute semicolons for commas
Once at the edge of the ramp I hauled the light up and shoved it onto the serrated concrete; pulled my goggles off; and eased myself out of the water.
Volks, which sat nearby, rocking slightly away in the swirling wind
“away” seems extra.
Volks, which sat nearby, rocking slightly in the swirling wind
Abpalnnap
Real spelling is Abplanalp
Do you wish to change it or leave it “as is?”
extended a long way out from the Western White House
Add period at end.
extended a long way out from the Western White House.
I sensed an ambush but had to know more about whatever it was in order to do about it if after knowing, any action was to be taken.
Maybe change “do about it” to “decide,”
I sensed an ambush but had to know more about whatever it was in order to decide, if after knowing, any action was to be taken.
I plugged the speaker wire connector in. The jack was the same.
Maybe reword
The headphone plug matched the speaker output jack.
identify that voice, at least not here in this place.”
No need for closing quote
identify that voice, at least not here in this place.
blinking once and a while to prove he was really alive at all
Change “and” to “in”
blinking once in a while to prove he was really alive at all
LBJ was a Democrat. Nixon a republican.
Seems capitalize “Republican”
LBJ was a Democrat. Nixon a Republican.
Kennedy’s death had been all over the T.V. in the news
No need for periods in “TV”
Kennedy’s death had been all over the TV in the news
as secretive as a bear growing through a garbage can
Maybe “going” instead of “growing”
as secretive as a bear going through a garbage can
where this all began since you get what’s on them with your silly little children’s recorder
Maybe “hear” instead of “get”
where this all began since you hear what’s on them with your silly little children’s recorder
how much I was risking my wife just by confirming her suppositions
Maybe add “telling” before “my wife”
how much I was risking telling my wife just by confirming her suppositions
OR totally different meaning
how much risk I was placing on my wife just by confirming her suppositions
Blessings & Be Well
Thanks for all your work, once again to make he story better..which you certainly do.
The Cobb Hunt thing will work itself out in the coming chapter.
Semper fi, my friend,
Jim