For almost sixty years, I felt guilty for the death of JFK. Guilty to a degree of interest, maybe obsession, to understand the machinations surrounding that November day. My interest is personal and motivated by an emotional struggle between guilt, deflection, and the truth. The following story is my recollection of that day. I have a vivid memory of that day, but it is through the eyes of a young boy. 

‘God will punish you’ were words that I heard often. My very secular Roman Catholic mother connects happenstance with the will of God; when something good happened, God was rewarding you, and when something bad happened, God was punishing you. At 10 years in 1963, it was imprinted that behavior determined outcome; today, at 72 years old, it still resonates. On November 22, 1963, my life and history changed. My President was executed in Dallas, as I committed a crime in Plymouth, Ma. Realistically, the two were not connected; however, with the unsophisticated logic of a ten-year-old, they were.

Miss Maguire and her 5th-grade Willard School class took a field trip to Plymouth, Ma. Our class visited Plymouth Plantation, Plymouth Rock, and the Mayflower. The day was sunny, warm, and clear.  Ironically, such a beautiful, balmy day in late autumn that we sons and daughters of Pilgrims call an Indian summer day. Our first stop was Plymouth Plantation. That is where I perpetrated my crime, in the Plantation gift shop. I knowingly walked out the door with a few trinkets that I had slid into my pocket.

I might have been confused by a lesson I learned earlier that day when a Plantation official explained the traditional Native American goods exchange process. Clearly, I misunderstood the difference between barter and theft. After all, my ancestors came ashore in the 1630s, so I had been indoctrinated with the Pilgrim version of market exchange, stealing stuff from the indigenous. However, I was uncomfortable embracing the spirit of the Pilgrims with the voice of my mother repeating, ‘God will punish you.’ 

We left Plymouth Plantation for our final destination, Plymouth Harbor. There we boarded the Mayflower and walked throughout the vessel. From the ship, we walked to Plymouth Rock, an old, cracked rock with sand on all sides. Skeptical of the logistics and the process that identified that rock as the first stepped upon by the Pilgrims was beyond my comprehension. Historically naive and gullible, I accepted most of the questionable narratives presented that day. We ended our field trip with a harbor-side picnic, eating the home lunches we packed. We finished eating, picked up after ourselves, and boarded the bus to take us back to Quincy. Knowing that I pulled off the biggest caper since the Dutch stole Manhattan, I awaited the punishment from God. 

When we returned to Willard School, we remained sequestered on the bus. My thoughts ran rampant. I pondered the possibility that Plymouth Plantation authorities had called ahead to inform Mr. Bini, the Willard School principal, of my heist. ‘God will punish you’ was amplified and becoming a reality. We waited for what seemed an eternity. Mr. Bini boarded the bus with a solemn look. I awaited his public condemnation, but it never came. Instead, came my punishment from God. Mr. Bini announced that JFK, my President, was shot in Dallas and died. My guilt was immense if I had not stolen those trinkets; my President would still be alive, and the world would be a better place. Later that day, when I got home, I immediately dug a shallow hole and buried the evidence, but I could not bury my guilt. 

My search for an accurate account and reason for executing the President of the United States began five years after my heist during my sophomore year. Mr. Tatro, a first-year teacher, taught a unit critical of the Warren Report; he presented a JFK Conspiracy narrative. I became hooked, and it began my journey down a rabbit hole I continue to travel. The information learned has led me to several conclusions. Since 1949, the U.S. Government has transitioned from a democratic republic to a security state. Lee Harvey Oswald was indeed a pasty, as he claimed. The shot that killed Kennedy came from the grassy knoll area. The assassin behind the fence was only one of several gunmen in Dealy Plaza that day.

Leading up to the Kennedy assassination, the Security State, initiated by the National Security Act of 1949, had been involved in other successful political coups. At the international level, they had orchestrated several. (Iran, Guatemala, Congo) Kennedy would be their domestic project. On that infamous day, in Dallas, JFK, enemy #1 of the security state, was executed and removed from the Presidential office, and was replaced by a servant to their demands.

In 1960, Kennedy financed his Presidential campaign from the Kennedy family coffers. Not beholden to special interest powers, JFK was the new sheriff in town. He had amassed a dangerous list of outlaws. The list included: the CIA (Allen Dulles) over the Bay of Pigs fiasco; the Joint Chiefs of Staff over the handling of the Cuban Missle Crisis; powerful Mafia figures over Attorney General, RFK, double-cross; Israel over his ultimatum concerning its nuclear bomb development; the Texas Oil conglomerate angered by his proposal to eliminate the oil depletion allowance; the Military Industrial Complex for his intended withdrawal for Vietnam; and LBJ for his pursuit to find a new VP running mate in 1964. 

On November 22, 1963, the U.S. Constitution and the democratic process suffered a fatal blow. The power of an elected President would be forever compromised. It began the metastasis of a new security state. A governmental cancer that usurped the constitutional powers given to the Executive Branch. The Bill of Rights, guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution, began to wane. It has taken 62 years to come to terms with my role in the JFK killing. The CIA, JCS, the Mafia, Israel, the Texas oil conglomerate, the Military Industrial Complex, LBJ, and the FBI cover-up never did. Pin-pointing the event that derailed the Constitutional balance of power is essential. To reconstruct a democratic republic free from the grips of a rogue security state empire, what happened in Dealy Plaza must be exposed. 

Can we recover, or are we beyond the point of return? Are we at the crossroads described by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence? ‘Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government.