It would be an understatement to say my framework for orienting myself in the world has been upset since November 5.
That would include my notion of what I might have to contribute to our understanding of the murder of JFK. I have been vexed by the conundrum that goes like this. It is possible there was a coup in 1963. What do I write? It is certain that there is a coup happening today. What do I do?
Do those two questions have a common answer? I believe they do and can find a common path right here.
How do I know a coup is happening? Well I spent a lot of time in college studying Germany in the twentieth century. If there is one thing worth understanding about Hitler, aside from how evil he was (we are getting a real-time rerun of much of that), and how he appealed to the worst in the worst people, it is his insistence as the National Socialists marched to power that there be NO violent challenge to the Weimar Republic. Rather the party would gain power through the election process and then use that power to dismantle all democratic institutions until all power had been legally concentrated in him and the National Socialists.
I have been watching the parallels between Trump and Hitler since 2016. Aside from a few details they are a pretty close fit. It has been a relentless frustrating grind of convergence.
At the same time I have been wondering about one of the prime suspects in the story of a plot to murder president Kennedy, ex-CIA director Allen Dulles and wondered whether I could find any parallels between lessons he learned during his time in Bern Switzerland as envoy/intelligence agent during WW2 and the shape of the plot to kill JFK.
What might Dulles have learned from his time in Bern? A lesson from failure, how not to overthrow a leader. For Allen Dulles was heavily involved in supporting efforts of the German resistance plot to assassinate Hitler particularly in the person of Hsns Gisevius who as a member of German Military Counterintelligence was a major participant in a series of military plots from 1938 to 1944 to overthrow Hitler.
It all ended in failure as a bomb attempt misfired, Hitler survived and about 200 plotters were executed. Gisevius survived, and with Dulles’ help, escaped to Switzerland and told his tale of the plots in his memoir.
Did Allen Dulles form any opinions as to how not to do a coup? This is the question I am pondering.
To do that one needs to learn about the German resistance to Hitler. I have at times read the memoir of the pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer who was one of those who participated and was executed. Now I am reading a book by Juergen Bollmeyer “Traitor Patriots”, a pretty straightforward narrative of the succession of plots.
I have come to form much admiration for the Abwehr officer Hans Oster, another figure in military counterintelligence and probably the most persistent of the plotters .
If I were to take away a lesson it would be this simple one. Don’t make any lists.
There were no lists in 1963 that we know of. Not a strong indicator, but I make the observation.
(of course that’s what Elon Musk is doing right now, accessing all the lists.)
What’s the thread from Hitler to Kennedy to Trump today ? There ARE conspiracies; there ARE dictators. There is EVIL. There are people who make moral judgements. That’s a pretty broad set of questions to explore in the context of today, of 1963, and of 1934-1944.
So I will continue this Substack, the White Gloves Legend and find a way to synthesize the questions of fact and the questions of morals that these three periods raise. And hopefully provide some insight for us today as every framework I know of in my life is being knocked down. Not for something better but for something far worse.
As I stated in my last communication I have a problem with a moral choice being made within the JFK community which I can call nothing less than collaboration.
This regime is evil. You don’t collaborate with evil; you resist it.
My last day of subscription to JFK facts was Tuesday. I took a last look at recent posts and found a dark musing entitled something like Epitaph for the Republic that appeared to take satisfaction that the institutions of our government were being smashed and some more documents re JFK would emerge in the rubble.
This is not the way I choose to seek truth or to honor the memory of my fallen president, happy that Trump is washing it away in some golden shower that will make him all-rich and all-powerful.
I left the following comment.
“Deal with the devil and you wind up in hell. Angleton awaits”.
-Robert
Ps. What’s next . My own musings as I pursue the questions above, some releases of excerpts from the novel and screenplay, AND, this is just a distant wish at the moment, I hope to broaden the readership and introduce my readers to some friends I have made on this journey who have labored under the memory of their lost president for much longer than I have.
Credit: Wikipedia: