History would be a wonderful thing, if only it were true.

- H. L. Mencken

§ § §

Bush-JFK

I’m not what you would call a ‘conspiracy theorist’ - that term is colloquially reserved for nutbars, wingnuts and those with a tendency towards wearing tinfoil hats. No, I’m more of a ‘conspiracy factualist’ I think.

Conspiracies, by and large, are based in truth: THIS happened - THIS is what, or what may have, caused it. People argue, several options are debated, a conclusion is reached, and eventually a decision is rendered that satisfies almost no one. A conspiracy is born.

The question, ‘Do you believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone?’ presupposes that he acted at all and lies at the heart of the mother of all conspiracies - the assassination of John F. Kennedy. It’s the murder that won’t die.

It seems there’s rarely been a week or a month that’s gone by in the last forty-three years where someone, somewhere hasn’t weighed-in on the events of November 22, 1963. Who really did it? Why did they do it? How did they get away with it? I’m sure there’s a website dedicated to the ‘theory’ that Kennedy didn’t really die at all and is in fact holed-up somewhere in the tropics with Elvis drinking Bud Light and schmoozing the ladies. Apparently Jimmy Hoffa was spotted just before Christmas outside a Dairy Queen in Nashville trying to get change for a hundred… an OLD hundred (nudge, nudge, wink, wink!)

Occasionally, though, something serious does crop up. Sometimes it’s nothing but a tidbit - a line in an otherwise unrelated newspaper story. A comment from a former high-ranking official who just happened to be in Dallas that day; a long-forgotten photograph found in an attic steamer trunk; or a death-bed confession revealing new details. It’s all happened over the years. Each piece of ‘new’ information adding to the already Byzantine puzzle that has become a cottage industry.

That all being said, the release in Washington last week of a few interesting documents could generate renewed scrutiny of a man that has been on the periphery of the assassination dialogue from the beginning, and a family that can scarcely abide more controversy. This could be a ticking time bomb.

The documents in question pertain to certain oil business shenanigans concerning George Herbert Walker Bush (Bush Sr.) and a former CIA operative. Their documents’ release has raised some fascinating questions about the veracity of the elder Bush’s life story, and renewed a debate that has raged since the mid-60s.

Some backstory…

There’s this terrific little book called “Fortunate Son” that details the history of the Bush family dating back to the First World War. It tells a primarily sordid tale of how the two Bushes that we now know — George Sr., the 41st president of the United States, and George W., the 43rd president of the United States — got to where they are today. While delving into the lives of George Sr. and his pedigree, it is a book primarily about George W. It’s subtitle is, ‘The Making of a President’. It may just as easily have been called ‘The UNmaking of a President’ since it holds within its pages the first ‘official’ reporting of Dubya’s alleged arrest on cocaine charges in 1972.

The book has been hailed and pilloried in equal measure over the years since it was announced in 1999 and you can find reviews and comments about it espousing both viewpoints scattered across the Internet. What is less well-known and almost completely unreported however, is how the book came to be written and published in the first place.

James Hatfield, the author, actually secured the cooperation of many of the Bush family friends and business cronies to write a biography about the Bush clan. It was only after he started digging a tad too deeply that the family cut him loose, told everyone not to talk to him and essentially hung him out to dry.

The advance publicity for the book then became so hot, that its publication was being considered a serious thorn in the side of George W. and his candidacy for president.

Then suddenly, one day, St. Martin’s Press, the publisher, ceased the book’s publication, recalled all the outstanding copies (it was by this time a New York Times bestseller) and announced they were going to burn them along with the original printing plates. It seems the author had some of his own secrets that he was less than forthcoming about and the publisher got cold feet. Or, as some have put it, were ‘MADE to have cold feet’. Conspiracy theories aside (but only for a moment), the book quickly disappeared only to rise from the ashes through the tenacity of a small pulp press and once again see the light of day.

This part of the story is wonderfully, if not tragically told through an award-winning film documentary entitled, “Horns and Halos”. Worth a look.

But what about the “newly released documents”…?

Part of “Fortunate Son” looks at Bush Sr.’s early career as an oil man and speculates on the business of his first real company, Zapata Petroleum, that was supposedly started with a former CIA agent. Nothing could be proved at the time of publication and of course Bush Sr. and his associates, both in and out of politics, denied there was any connection. Though the CIA man wasn’t named in the book, rumours and speculation hovered around this mysterious person’s identity.

That’s where the release of the new documents comes in.

Thomas Devine, a former covert CIA operative, has now been ‘outted’ as that man, and internal U.S. intelligence documents prove the connection existed all along.

What does this have to do with the assassination of JFK…?

I’m not going to enter into any conspiracy theory conjecture or supply a list of websites that go into the connections, serious or otherwise. Just type ‘JFK+bush‘ into any search engine and you’ll have more than enough reading to keep you occupied for awhile.

But here’s the thing that got my attention…

The story that the new documents are attached to contains a quote from a eulogy Bush Sr. gave last week for former president Gerald Ford. The line in question created a small snicker throughout the assembled dignitaries in the church and garnered a couple of mentions in the national press, but not much else. It had to do with the Kennedy assassination which is odd because Bush has rarely mentioned it in the past - he’s well-aware of all the controversy surrounding him and the subject matter.

Gerald Ford was the only surviving member of the “Warren Commission” - the federal committee set-up by President Lyndon Johnson when he appointed Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren to investigate the assassination of JFK.

After almost ten months of investigation and deliberation, Ford and the other commissioners made a few changes to the final text of the draft commission report before it was published. However, none of those changes were more polarizing or controversial than a small edit Gerald Ford made regarding the location and direction of one particular bullet that struck the president and Texas governor John Connally.

Gerald Ford ostensibly gave birth to one of the greatest debates in history when he created what became known as the ’single bullet theory’. In so doing, that tiny textual edit became the hook on which the ‘Lee Harvey Oswald as lone gunman’ debate has hung these many years.

From Bush Sr.’s eulogy:

After a deluded gunman assassinated President Kennedy, our nation turned to Gerald Ford and a select handful of others to make sense of that madness. And a conspiracy theorist can say what they will, but the Warren Commission report will always have the final definitive say on this tragic matter. Why? Because Gerry Ford put his name on it and Gerry Ford’s word was always good.

If there is a God, and he is, as some suggest, ‘in the details’, then perhaps these few new details added to the whole, will continue to illuminate the debate.

And so it goes….