Memo to Diane

Diane, whenever two events happen simultaneously pertaining to the same object of  inquiry, we must always pay strict attention!

                                                -- Special Agent Dale Cooper, Twin Peaks

Sharp-eyed readers of this site have noticed a confluence of events has taken place in the last week that bears closer scrutiny.

I’ll be brief.

A few days ago, it was reported in the Los Angeles Times that the sons of the late convicted Watergate Plumber and CIA agent, E. Howard Hunt, revealed that their father admitted that there had been a conspiracy to assassinate President John F. Kennedy.  According to their statement, Hunt had been approached by a “rogue element” within the CIA that wanted to kill Kennedy during a stopover in Miami.  Hunt declined to participate, but he evidently did not warn anyone about the plot.  Hunt, due to his involvement with the failed Bay of Pigs operation and his close friendship with many prominent anti-Castro Cubans in Miami, hated Kennedy and was probably not too sorry to learn of his assassination.  Many conspiracy theorists, in fact, insist that Hunt was in Dallas that day and, indeed, Hunt had always been somewhat vague as to his actual whereabouts that afternoon.

Readers of Sinister Forces will remember that Hunt had written several occult novels and one in particular that was a thinly-disguised attack on the Kennedy family.  Readers of Sinister Forces may also recall the name Charles Harrelson.

Charles Harrelson was the convicted and imprisoned assassin of a US District Court Judge in 1979, in a case that made national headlines.  He is the father of actor Woody Harrelson (of Cheers fame, among many other appearances on television and in film).  Charles Harrelson, shortly after his arrest for the murder of Judge Wood, admitted his involvement in the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963, stating that he was the shooter on the infamous Grassy Knoll.  He later retracted that statement and would say no more about it.

Charles Harrelson died in prison on March 15 at the age of 69, evidently of natural causes, although his death was not reported until today, March 21. 

That both of these events – the revelations about Hunt and the death of Harrelson – would take place in the same week raises eyebrows.  As I have written extensively in Sinister Forces, this type of coincidence may be evidence of the operation of deeper, darker forces at work in history and behind the flimsy screen of reality.  And the fact that this is all taking place against the backdrop of what is now taking place in Washington, DC and with the bizarre reincarnation of Watergate counsel Fred Fielding taking the legal reins at the White House, indicates to lovers of dietrologia that, as Inspector Clouseau would say, “Sinister forces are at work!”. 

Ladies and gentlemen, we live in dangerous times.  The future of our Republic is at stake, as I’m sure most of you already realize.  The excesses of the present administration concerning the abuse of the Patriot Act, illegal wiretapping, and prisoner abuse and torture, all lead us to consider that what is going on today in Washington is, as former White House counsel John Dean has written, “worse than Watergate”.  My initial response – in learning that Charles Harrelson had died on virtually the same day that the Hunt sons had revealed their father’s pre-knowledge of the Kennedy assassination – was to suspect foul play.  As Hunt’s family came forward – I thought – they got rid of the one man who claimed, with some credibility since he was already a convicted political assassin, that he had been the shooter on the Grassy Knoll.  Tying up a loose end. 

And it all takes place in the open, albeit not on the network news programs swamped as they are with the far more important speculation concerning the paternity of Anna Nicole Smith’s child.  There are times when I feel like Mel Gibson’s character in Conspiracy Theory, clipping newspaper articles and showing how seemingly disparate information is related. 

In the immortal words of Edward R Murrow (and Keith Olbermann):  Good night, and good luck.