David Dawson was settling in for the evening, looking forward to tonight’s Jeopardy. He usually knew the answers, and for the last month running he had gotten Final Jeopardy every time. If his buzzer skills were sharper, his one month’s winnings would be over $300,000.
Fortunately the signaling device was a flashing light because Dr. Dawson had grown a bit deaf. Still, he had no complaints, he was retired in Petaluma, living with his wife nicely on his pension and the royalties from the forensic cost accounting textbooks he had authored.
His time on the Warren Commission staff was a distant memory. Thank god that had settled.
A cell phone rang.
“Honey your phone is ringing.”
Dawson muttered, not for the first time,
“Damn! Can’t hear that thing.”
The phone scraped the table as he picked it up; his throat scraped too as he cleared it to speak.
“Dawson here.“
There was a dark void in cell phone space; he heard no sound, but he felt a strange throb, almost as if his phone was on vibrate as it carried a deep dark mysterious voice.
“David Dawson? This is James Angleton.”
“Angleton? Counterintelligence? You’re dead.”
He had known James Angleton, the chief of CIA Counterintelligence who saw moles everywhere, except the one under his nose, Kim Philby. After that incident Angleton spent the rest of his career laying traps for moles in and out of the CIA, mounting investigations, setting up illegal mail opening program HTLINGUAL and pretty much drinking himself to death, not the only agent of his generation to do so.
As he exited this life he predicted he would join the rest of his colleagues in Hell.
He is calling from there now.
“Yes David, dead. But not at peace David, not at peace. We last spoke fifty years ago. You were going to renew efforts to find the president’s killers. The Church Commission. The House Select Committee on Assassinations. How did that go?”
Dawson had time to think, and make a conscious decision to engage the darkness at the other end of the line. Final Jeopardy could wait.
“Not well. Everybody lied and everyone has died - almost. The trail has grown cold.”
That was not good enough for Angleton. Somehow, Hell had made him righteous.
“Well it’s pretty hot where I am and I can find no peace until the truth is found. “
This was almost too much for Dawson. Urgency from Angleton??! Among his other duties at the CIA, Angleton had been responsible for stonewalling the Warren Commission investigators. Every request for a document, a name, a reference, even a bathroom break, had been dragged out, misplaced, sent back for reconfirmation, and dribbled out almost completely redacted. It was then up to staff to clear every black smear on the page word by word knowing that time was not on their side.
This was Angleton’s strategy. Wait them out. Made a lot easier because his former boss at CIA, Allen Dulles, was the most active member of the Warren Commission, its guide to dealing with the Community.
Dulles’ ballsiest move was to tell the Commission that there was no point in calling Agency personnel to testify because, if confronted with the choice of telling the truth to the Commission or revealing any CIA “secret”, they would flat out lie to the Commission under oath to serve what they saw as their higher duty to the Agency.
With gatekeepers at either end of the field the CIA made sure that any points Dawson could score would just be own goals.
“Why would you help? You are one of the prime suspects.”
The next words he heard were nothing he ever expected.
“Conscience, David. ....
...... It burns, it tears, it throbs. Fifty years of that gets old fast. I see no end.”
Dawson was torn between hope and skepticism. The image of Charlie Brown trying to kick a field goal rose in his head. Cost accounting was safer. It always added up. Debits on the left, credits on the right, it always balanced.
“Well, how can you help?”
“There are clear signs, David, that only fools would miss. But indeed everyone was fooled.”
The voice continued; the phone wanted to jump out of his hand; or was it the tremor that he had been denying?
“I will help you with a legend, David. That’s all the Warren Commission did. They fed you a legend, a story that served their interests. Based on some facts, mind you, but a careful selection of the facts they liked. I will tell you a truer story based on facts that got buried, ignored, and twisted.”
Dawson felt more than a tremor; now he was rattled. He was tempted to hang up. He drew a deeper breath.
“I worked for that Commission, are you accusing me???”
There seemed to be a chuckle coming from the depths of hell.
“Well David, either I fooled you completely or you were complicit. I want to think it was the former, but I want out, and I know that fools only get fooled by what they want to believe. Yes David, you were complicit, you believed what you wanted to believe. You stopped searching for the truth even though that was your job. But just as I hope there is redemption for someone like me, I am confident it is there for you too.”
Dawson mastered his tremor, which was now a mix of guilt, shame, anger and curiosity, and held onto his phone.
“So what’s the answer? Who did it “
Back came a reply that only the master of mirrors could craft.
“A mansion has many rooms, David. I am not privy to who killed John. But I do know who did not, because I made him. If we get that out of the way, maybe we can move forward to the truth, even if all the murderers of our president are dead.”
He continued.
“I will tell you a better, truer legend. Let’s try one that serves the truth. One that makes sense. “
Final Jeopardy was over, but Dawson held his phone tight to his ear, hoping to hear the next clue.
----
Next: more clues.
I will begin publishing my novel , “The White Gloves, Legend “. Here. Monthly drops of the novel will be sent to paid subscribers; the weekly updates of my journey will continue for all.