So what does a two-headed turtle have in common with John Fitzgerald Kennedy? Is it as ridiculous as the fact that when abbreviated (THT and JFK) both have three letters? And that when spelled out ”“ Cuban two-headed turtle and John Fitzgerald Kennedy ”“ both contain 21 letters (or 23 if you count a single space between each word)? Is it possible that a Cuban assassin fled from Havana to the Florida everglades and was recruited to kill JFK and was never caught by police; whereas THT escaped the Florida everglades only to be captured by Cuban police on the riverbank in the Havana City Forest? OK, enough of this absurdity, for the short version skip to the last paragraph – but you’ll miss a shocking possibility if you do!
Recently, a small turtle was discovered on a riverbank in the City Forest in Havana, Cuba. The small member of the animalia kingdom (another strange coincidence since man is also a member of that kingdom of binomial classification) was reportedly retrieved from the bank of one of the world’s most polluted rivers by a Cuban police officer. The river empties into the Gulf of Mexico. (See News http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_4290000/newsid_4293500/4293576.stm)
Less than 10 miles south of the Havana City Forest, based on current satellite photos (download Google Earth http://earth.google.com/ and search for Havana, Cuba), is an area that strongly resembles the Soviet ABM sites photographed by the U2 flights over Cuba in 1962. The ABM’s would have been placed to protect both the city and the missile silos. Although not confirmed, nuclear contamination of the river from this site 43 years ago would be one cause of the mutations being seen in wildlife in the locality today.
The history should be well known but here is a short refresher. In April 1961 (See CIA: Bay of Pigs http://www.foia.cia.gov/bay_of_pigs.asp ) the United States attempted a clandestine military operation to overthrow the regime of Fidel Castro, who installed himself as dictator in 1959 after his own coup. The reasons for its failure were many but key to this article is that the plan was directly authorized by John F. Kennedy, the recently elected U.S. President. Following this bungled operation, the U.S.S.R. approached and convinced Cuba to permit the placement of Soviet intermediate range nuclear missiles with protective anti-ballistic missile (ABM) sites on the island of Cuba for protection from another such attack by the United States. With the exchange of threats between the U.S. and Soviet governments from May through October of 1962, the world teetered more closely on the brink of Armageddon than at any other time in its history before or since. (See Library of Congress: Cuban Missile Crisis http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/archives/colc.html and National Security Archives of the George Washington University http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nsa/cuba_mis_cri/photos.htm ). The crisis was resolved in late October of 1962 when Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev agreed to dismantle the Soviet missile systems based on President John F. Kennedy’s promise that the United States would not plan or execute another attack against the small island of Cuba. This event would lead to later attempts of conspiracy theorists to claim that the assassination of JFK was a Soviet KGB (roughly the pre-1989 equivalent of the U.S. C.I.A.) operation. As a potentially significant side-note, Robert (Bobby) Kennedy was one of the key people in this crisis as he frequently represented his brother, the president, in briefings on the status of the situation when John was otherwise engaged and could not attend. In addition, Bobby had left the U.S. Department of Justice to work in his brother’s political campaigns beginning with JFK’s first run for Senator.
Lee Harvey Oswald’s trips to the Soviet Union leant credibility to the theory that the Soviet KGB was instrumental in the JFK assassination, either by training Oswald or perhaps “programming” him to kill (the Manchurian candidate hypothesis). While there is not doubt in my mind that Oswald was a gunman on the fateful day in November, 1963, most of the evidence reported by various sources since then certainly precludes him from being the ONLY gunman. So who else besides the Soviet and Cuban governments had possible motives to orchestrate such a crime?
There was off course any number of disgruntled spouses or lovers of those with whom JFK was rumored to have had extramarital affairs. Beyond that, there have been many implications that organized crime was a very silent partner in support of JFK’s 1960 presidential election campaign. Robert Kennedy left little of a legacy of his own but was very vocal and public in his efforts as Attorney General, appointed of course by his brother, to eliminate organized crime. Viewing this as betrayal would certainly provide a motive for organized crime. Jack Ruby reportedly had such connections and his motive for killing Lee Oswald has never been logically explained ”“ perhaps Mr. Ruby was the “cleaner”.
Although it has been relatively easy to make these associations, connecting the dots between groups has proved to be a bit more elusive. Not to mention, the ballistic and forensic evidence that suggests there was at least one other gunman ”“ possibly two.
Is it possible that there were 3 coordinated plots all hatched for execution on the same day but all oblivious to the other plots? This would explain the failure to directly connect any two of the three prime suspects ”“ the mob, the KGB, and Fidel Castro ”“ to any of the others.
U.S crime statistics indicate that the vast majority of murders, and an assassination is indeed a murder, is perpetrated by someone who is close to the victim ”“ more often than not a relative by blood or marriage.
After JFK’s death, Vice President Lyndon Johnson became the Commander-in-Chief. While this certainly provides him with a motive, Robert Kennedy’s resignation from his post as Attorney General in 1964 so that RFK could pursue a campaign for his own presidential bid would give Bobby an even stronger motive.
Is it possible that the three gunmen in Dallas in November of 1963 were operative elements of 3 completely separate efforts to insure success of their designated missions? If so, who would have had the motive, means, and opportunity to organize such plans? And who, in addition to all of this, had access to the President’s schedule and personal plans well in advance? Perhaps it was an Attorney General who was an insider and confidante of President Kennedy during the Cuban missile crisis.
Robert Kennedy would meet all of the criteria. He was a blood relative and with his role in the Cuban missile crisis, he had direct contact with key counterparts of the Cuban and Soviet governments. In his role as Attorney General, at the very least he knew who the key elements of organized crime were that could get such a task done, or perhaps cleaned up after the fact if anyone got caught. Seeking the presidential nomination would certainly speak to his motive. So what went wrong with his ultimate plan? Robert became the victim of another conspiracy ”“ a topic for another day.
So what do the two-headed turtle and JFK have in common? At the moment, not a lot – but in the end, both will have suffered a premature demise – probably at the hands of both the collapsed Soviet Union and the State of Cuba.