Lucky Strike
One unanswered question for Mad Men fans concerns itself with how the JFK assassination will be depicted in Season 3 (if at all). While it was certainly a major element in the lawn mower scene from Guy Walks Into an Advertising Agency, further foreshadowing of JFK’s assassination would seem to come from the Lee Garner Jr. character. Son of the Lucky Strike cigarette magnate, Lee’s actions cut a wide swath in Wee Small Hours.
During the television shoot, Lee Garner Jr. looks through the camera lens in a posture that mimics taking aim with a sniper’s scope. After his pass is rebuked by Sal, Lee complains to Harry Crane and so fires a salvo that adversely affects the careers of three different characters. First, of course, Sal loses his job. Second, Harry comes within an inch of getting fired himself when his indecisiveness draws Roger’s anger. Third, Don Draper is put on notice that, with two angry clients on his hands, his “golden boy” professional reputation has been slightly tarnished.
Interestingly, the name “Lee Garner Junior” has exactly the same number of letters (15) in the exactly the same places as “Lee Harvey Oswald.” Also, one the technicians in the editing room with Sal and Lee announces that he’s going to “the booth.” This could certainly be a subtle reference to another assassin of presidents with three names: John Wilkes Booth.
Pure coincidence? Probably not.
October 15th, 2009 at 9:59 am
Hmmm. It’s possible that we’re entering “Revolution 9/Paul is dead” territory here.
October 15th, 2009 at 10:02 am
Hmmm, interesting interpretation. I see from the preview for episode 10 that Burt and Roger are reminiscing about 40 years in the advertising industry. 40 years is significant. Is it possible that Burt is thinking about retiring? Is it possible that Lee Garner Jr put the bullet in SC? And if that’s so, what will happen to everyone else? Before you know it, everyone will be working somewhere else. But where? Will PPL diversify and let them go?
Looks like an opportunity for Don to get his mojo back.
October 15th, 2009 at 10:25 am
Interesting idea MM. Are you saying that Lee Jr. might be the one ultimately responsible for taking out S-C’s “golden boy?” It fits with the entire grassy/green theme we’ve see in S3 (and which you have documented well). To go further: wasn’t Don supposed to be in Dallas or Denver earlier on travel this year?
I do think as posted elsewhere that the Draper’s marriage standoff in S2 was deliberately intended to echo the buildup and stand down of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Wouldn’t put this past MW & Co.
By the way I liked your research and post on the Bowdoin Sun – fits nicely into the sun-moon thing of S3. This is a stretch but I like it – keep stretching it!
October 15th, 2009 at 10:37 am
Fabulous analogy! I also remember reading (and just confirmed) that as early as the Warren Commisssion there was speculation that Lee Harvey Oswald was a bisexual man – yet he was married. Again, Lee Garner, Jr. stated that he too was married but clearly he is a bisexual. Coincidence?
October 15th, 2009 at 10:41 am
As C.J. Cregg said on West Wing, “you’re creeping me out.”
October 15th, 2009 at 10:42 am
Here’s a question for someone in the ad biz:
How likely would it be that SC would screen a commercial for their major client without the Creative Director having seen/signed off on it first, which apparently Don hadn’t? And would he have been in the meeting too, especially as Roger was in there? I wasn’t sure about the usual protocol for these kinds of things – does anyone else know?
Just trying to figure out how much Don was letting slip by him (per Roger’s trenchant comment in his office later), or was this a usual practice in ad agency.
October 15th, 2009 at 10:58 am
Gypsy:
We do not know that Don hadn’t seen the commercial. He probably had, but didn’t necessarily need to be in the screening because a.–there was a senior creative present (Sal) and b. the most senior account guy–Roger–was there. That he wouldn’t be there is not unusual given the caliber of the rest of the firepower in the room.
October 15th, 2009 at 11:04 am
I thought when Sal told him “the ad was fine” (or whatever) it implied that Don hadn’t seen it yet and needed to be reassured that it was OK. Maybe I misinterpreted.
October 15th, 2009 at 11:25 am
No offense, but this kinda sounds like one of those conspiracy theories. Even if it was intentional, I’m not sure what it means other than a nod to that phenomenon.
October 15th, 2009 at 11:37 am
I have thought for a while that perhaps the assassination of JFK could possibly link to Roger having a fatal heart attack/death. When his daughter’s wedding invite was shown (planned for the day after the assassination), he was troubled b/c she didn’t want him at the wedding. He later questions Peggy about it, saying something about “what would it take for you to not want your father at your wedding?” and she tells him that her father is dead. Possibly foreshadowing his death just prior to the wedding? Just a thought.
October 15th, 2009 at 11:47 am
Matt — Damn! That’s a great interpretation! I gotta say, I don’t know who’s smarter…the MM writers or the people on this blog,
October 15th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
Fascinating insights!!
In talking about these scenes, I was reminded of something that puzzled me about this episode — I haven’t seen it discussed yet…
What was with Pete’s coughing fit after the Lucky Strike? Have we not seen Pete smoke a cigarette before?
In a storyscape notorious for rampant smoking, this seemed drastically significant, but I’m not sure how. Foreshadowing? Might it be connected to the Don/Suzanne affair — consequences for actions that had previously gone unpunished? Or does it add to the speculation of S-C’s downfall, with unquestioned addictions starting to take a toll on the company’s health?
It also seems noteworthy that Pete said, “It’s bad for me,” and LGJ basically forced the cigarette on him.
October 15th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
And Salvatore Romano has the same number of letters as Lee Harvey Oswald, too. Elizabeth Draper also has the same number. Unfortunately Peter Dyckman Campbell is 1 short of same number of letters as John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
I think you’re really stretching. It’s sounds like some theory about Lost almost.
October 15th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
@12: Thank you Sarah M!
October 15th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
#1 – okay, maybe the Booth reference was too much.
#2, 3 and 12 – After Don ended up in bed with Farrell, I stopped making predictions
. But, I can’t see the season ending happily (and before anyone else says it: DUHHH!).
#4 – In some of the literature on the JFK assassination there’s talk about Oswald having been bisexual. But I’m honestly not sure if that was confirmed. The only comparison I’d make between the two “Lees” is their sociopathy.
#12 – Regarding Pete and smoking– maybe like the Admiral campaign, he’s just ahead of the curve.
#13 – Golly. Given that so much of this season has been building up to the JFK assassination, I just can’t imagine a character named “Lee” is an accidental. BTW, I see that “Smitty Smith” shows up in ep 10. Sirhan Sirhan perhaps? — okay, I’m kidding now
October 15th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
#1 & 5, you crack me up.
Matt: Lee Garner Jr. was there in Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, so I can’t attribute the name as being on purpose. Just can’t. But I love the side-by-side photos a lot.
October 15th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
Hey Deb. It’s not hard to imagine them coming up with a “Lee” for season 1 knowing that the arc of the show would end up in 1963. And they made a point of saying his 3 names more than once. But, the real clincher for me is still the shot of him looking through the camera lens.
October 15th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
Here’s my all time list of fictional Southern villains:
5. Forrest Gump from Forrest Gump
4. Leatherface from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre
3. Zed & Maynard from Pulp Fiction
2. The Hillbillies from Deliverance
1. Lee Garner Jr.
BTW – if you slow down the park/pay phone scene, you’ll see the Gimp hiding in one of the bushes.
October 15th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
Matt!
When my husband told me about your post this morning, I made a head-exploding gesture and accompanying sound effect (PFFFFKKKT!!)
Yeah. I AM a conspiracy theorist. Wanna make something of it?
If you’ve read one of Don DeLillo’s two best novels — Libra — you know that in it, he follows a lonely Lee Harvey Oswald, a perpetual castoff, as he (almost by accident) finds his own terrible place in history.
The great and maddening thing about the book is that DeLillo actually does introduce all the elements of the conspiracy. He sets them in maddening proximity with Oswald. But he places the character of Oswald, at every point, as if he could go either way. The conditions of Oswald’s life vary from the unbearably annoying to just unbearable, but every choice is ultimately his own.
DeLillo, in a letter to a fellow writer after he published Libra, revealed his own thoughts about the assassination. This too blew my mind, because it offered how far into the character of Oswald DeLillo had actually gone:
“I don’t think Oswald would have walked a block and a half to shoot at Kennedy. The President had to come to him …”
And the President did. What an awful, exquisite moment of change 1963 represented — and not just for people in power in America. For petty fools like Oswald, as well.
A guy who believed in a simple turn of fate, who thought a visit from the President meant it was time for him to become famous for something?
It was HIS time, too.
Nice work, Matt!
Men with secrets tend to be drawn to each other, not because they want to share what they know but because they need the company of the like-minded, the fellow afflicted. — Don DeLillo
October 15th, 2009 at 1:55 pm
Forrest Gump?
October 15th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
Sorry, meant to write George W Bush. Typical writer’s disconnect between fingers and brain.
October 15th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
Phew. OK Frank. I was doing a quick mental run down of everything I could remember from Forrest Gump, thinking, wow, I missed the ENTIRE point of that movie.
October 15th, 2009 at 2:05 pm
Frank, LOL.
However … isn’t that the Gimp on the grassy knoll in the Zapruder film …?
October 15th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
It’s Betty. Disguised in a fedora. She’s been practicing on the pigeons.
October 15th, 2009 at 2:13 pm
I wouldn’t put this connection past the MM writers at all. It’s been said by Allison Brie (Trudy) that the season finale will ‘blow you away’ — I’m already preparing for the worst! Hope the actions of this character won’t cause the eventual passing of any of our favorite characters (especially Don!). Man!
October 15th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
Back, and to the left. Back, and to the left. Back, and to the left.
October 15th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
#18 Frank … you can add to that Simon Legree from Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Best villian in all of literature, IMO.
October 15th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
It used to be right there on the bottom of every pack– L.S.M.F.T.
Lee Surely Means Fearful Times!!!!11!!!
October 15th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
That’s a fake picture of Oswald.
October 15th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
Well, that’s two JFK watchers (and Oliver Stone fans), and counting …
I preferred the Seinfeld version. “That is one magic loogie.”
October 15th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
And maybe he’s not quite a full-fledged villain but Forrest Gump ruined a date night for me.
Hey Anne B! Loved Libra. Is White Noise the second?
October 15th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
less of me,
I loved White Noise too. And the fact that there’s now a band called “Airborne Toxic Event” — that’s just, I don’t know. The book geek in me chokes up a bit each time I think of that.
What knocked White Noise down to #3, for me, was Falling Man. I could not believe the mastery of the guy, hitting the tone of universal and particular reactions to 9/11 that well, that soon after the event.
And the parallel to Libra was intense. In both novels, the actors of choas (Oswald in the first, the terrorists in Falling Man) persist in this half-self-protective belief that the terrible thing they are planning will never really happen.
Of course, someone will stop us. The CIA.
The recurrence of that subtheme, that almost willed innocence, plants a seed in the mind of the reader. It gets in there. Then it grows.
Guy is brilliant, really. I also loved Underworld, but White Noise was my starter DeLillo. Fantastic read!
October 15th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
(sorry for italics gone mad, there.)
October 15th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
Annie & Gypsy: I am sure you both know the phenomena. I saw “W” in my mind; I meant to type “George W” and then as if I am Linda Blair, I am typing Forrest Gump. The subconscious mind is a powerful thing.
So it was Betty who shot the “magic BB” that they found on Governor Connelly’s gurney. I had no idea a Daisy BB gun could do so much damage. I thought they were only good for shooting your (sic) younger brother’s eye out. Gypsey & Smiler G may be onto something.
October 15th, 2009 at 3:08 pm
Don’t you see, Frank? Betty has to kill Kennedy. And Goldwater too. That’s the only way she can ensure that Rockefeller is elected in ‘64, so that Henry Francis moves up in the political food chain and becomes a proper 2nd husband for her. Of course, that’s after she engineers Don’s “suicide,” busting open his desk drawer with an ax and scattering his old family photos around his writhing body (I think we all know what part of his anatomy she aimed for with that shotgun).
That’s why she’s encouraging Carla to take all those “days off,” and she’s “running the bathtub” and doing all the laundry herself (doesn’t she pay Carla to do that?)
It all makes perfect sense.
October 15th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
Are we sure it wasn’t Forrest Gump on the grassy knoll?
October 15th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
@Anne B…interesting stuff. I’ll have to check out Libra now. Oswald was a piece of work alright. That an insignificant mediocrity had such an impact on the very fabric of society is mindboggling (which I’m sure leads many to look for conspiracies).
This is OT but your’s and some other comments reminded me of it. Regarding Olivier Stone’s JFK and tying it in with the homophobia depicted in Wee Small Hours — one of the lesser known facts about the real Jim Garrison (played by Kevin Costner) is that he viewed the motive of the JFK assassination by conspirators Clay Shaw, Dave Ferrie, Oswald, and Jack Ruby as, and these are his words, a “homosexual thrill-killing”
From James Phelan’s “Scandals, Scamps, and Scoundrels”:
“They had the same motive as Loeb and Leopold, when they murdered Bobbie Franks in Chicago back in the 20s,” Garrison said. “It was a homosexual thrill-killing, plus the excitement of getting away with a perfect crime. John Kennedy was everything that Dave Ferrie was not a successful, handsome, popular, wealthy, virile man. You can just picture the charge Ferrie got out of plotting his death.”
October 15th, 2009 at 3:34 pm
Anne B,
A friend fed me *High Treason* by ? somewhere back up the highway around 1990. And I chased it down with *Libra*. I thought the two would complement each other but I remember getting lost in a dust-up of fact, theory and narrative. You have me thinking re-reading Libra (and maybe White Noise too) might work in well with our MM story arc. I skimmed conflicting reviews of *Falling Man* but never got around to reading it, but I believe you’ve sold me.
Just Gazoogled Airbourne Toxic Event -hee, hee! they have a web site. I’m going to listen.
One more jab at Matt though,
I love the enthusiasm but you might be staring at the sun too long.
October 15th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
Next time, put a box over your head.
October 15th, 2009 at 3:46 pm
Wasn’t Don trailing his fingers through the grassy knoll? Hmmmmm?
October 15th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
I pulled this from another Mad Men site:
There were three gunmen in Dallas on that fateful day in November. Oswald was supposed to shoot and miss the President so that the American public would blame Castro for the failed assassination attempt (Shot 1). Shot 2, the so-called “Magic BB” (the shot that passed through Kennedy’s throat, went through his wrist and hit Governor Connelly) was fired from a Daisy BB gun. No one knows who this gunman is but I suspect a certain Ossining housewife suffering from post-partem depression and a dislike of pigeons. The third and final shot came from the grassy knoll. Because of the cost cutting measures of Lane Pryce, all non-principal employees of the firm are not allowed to travel via air. Pete Campbell and Harry Crane hitch a ride on a freight train headed for Dallas and arrive just in time to see the Presidential motorcade. Pete, who doesn’t go anywhere without his trusted .22, mistakenly leaves a round in the chamber. Harry, who has never handled a fire arm, asks to see the weapon while they are waiting. He inadvertently hits the safety and discharges the weapon, resulting in the kill shot captured on the Zapruder film. The following is a transcript of their dialog:
Harry: Oh my God! What have I done? I think I killed the President!
Pete: A thing like that!
Pete and Harry hand the rifle in its case to a Dallas police officer, simply stating, “We think somebody left this.” Harry has to call his wife so they high tail it to the closest building. As they enter the School Book Depository building, they pass Oswald and ask him “Where’s the pay phone?”
October 15th, 2009 at 3:53 pm
KBH,
Why don’t you and Frank play a nice game of double solitaire? …
less of me, I normally read Libra every couple of years, just to remind myself of what DeLillo called “the magnificent obsession”. It’s a very American novel.
DeLillo has joined other people of note in calling for the Warren Commission’s report/investigation to be reopened. So I guess even he is rethinking that lone-nut idea he had of Oswald in the late 1980’s.
And Matt, our gracious author: you will recognize much of what’s in Libra as Oliver Stone’s source material. He borrowed liberally from it.
October 15th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
Harry: Oh my God! What have I done? I think I killed the President!
Pete: A thing like that!
Harry, you jerk … you jacked Lois’s line!
Thanks for the laugh, Frank.
October 15th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
@Frank Next time, put a box over your head.
If I could share it with Suzanne (I likes my women crazy).
@Anne B It still sounds like a good read. My problem with Stone was that when it came out, he talked about JFK like it wasn’t fiction (and made a hero out of a jackass like Garrison).
October 15th, 2009 at 4:03 pm
When someone is “just picturing” the “charge” that someone else is getting, there is little doubt that he himself is the one with the actual
woodycharge.October 15th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
@ 19 Anne B- I’m a JFK conspiracy person too. In fact, I’m the only one of my group of friends my age who believes in a conspiracy. For the record, I don’t think that Oliver Stone and Garrison got it right. It drives me nuts when friends my age think believing in a conspiracy means agreeing with Oliver Stone.
You can’t see it from the picture posted above, but the picture of Oswald is fake. I was so creeped out the first time I realized that.
October 15th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
I guess anything’s possible on Mad Men.
I mean, before Season 3 got underway, I wondered what might unfold in 1963 on the show – though I certainly didn’t foresee Peggy & Duck bumping uglies or some guy’s foot being mangled by a John-Deere mower, right in the S-C offices!
Now, about Jim Garrison – Sure, he was pompous and, at times, a horse’s ass, but some of the jurors, after the Clay Shaw trial, said that the evidence presented led them to believe that there was a conspiracy. They just weren’t convinced that Shaw was involved.
Just because Garrison was wrong in some respects about the JFK assassination, doesn’t negate his being right about some things, too.
If the Warren Commission in the 60s and the House Select Committee in the 70s, had been as diligent and eagle-eyed as the Basketcases usually are, the case would’ve been closed years ago!
I have no idea how Matt will close the season out, but Season 3 has been all about chaos and change, and how it affects the Mad Men characters. I’m sure we’ll all be either pleasantly surprised or somewhat disappointed, with some plot points that were resolved and others that weren’t.
Last season, I remember an exchange between Don and Duck. Don asks, “Who am I in this story?”.
The same is often asked by many of us. Who are we in this story?
Maybe the greatest thing about Mad Men is how it’s not only an amazing television drama about fascinating people, but how it so engages the audience.
October 15th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
This might be stupid, but is Lee Garner actually a real person who was affiliated with Lucky Strike?
October 15th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
I think I remember Oliver Stone something like “My movie might be the truth, but it’s way more plausible than anything the Warren Commission told us.” The biggest evidence for all the conspiracy theories was the “lone gunman” conclusion. Based on JFK’s wounds and the footage we have, it’s impossible that LHO managed to make those shots w/in that time…he would have had to have teleportation powers.
Lee Harvey Oswald connections aside, I think we’re seeing the beginning of the end of SC in S3, especially with the Lee-Sal incident. Whereas we’ve seen a lot of personal drama, but SC has been okay. There’s some office drama and shenanigans, but we’ve never seen SC losing money or failing to make a profit. That might end soon. SC is running a very old fashioned company, run by old fashioned hard-drinking, misogynist, racist, antisemitic men with wayyy too big expense accounts. This might work for 1960 or even 1964, but when 1968 rolls around, I can see SC collapsing completely, especially with the rise of Los Angeles as a major player advertising center.
October 15th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
Apropos of the Kennedy assassination, my theory is that we’re going to see Don experiencing a perfect storm of Divorce+Sterling Cooper Disaster+Connie Hilton Turnaround+Bunny Boiling Mistress at the same time as the Dallas murder, so that we see both Don and America’s pain and distress – and then possibly their reinvention. I mean, Don’s done it before.
October 15th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
Actually, Empress Rouge, numerous tests and reenactments have shown that it’s entirely plausible that Oswald was the lone gunman. (In fact, there was a show on it last night on the History Channel! I saw part of it.) So while there are still questions and puzzling details about the assassination, it’s not correct to say the lone gunman theory is “impossible.”
October 15th, 2009 at 5:53 pm
Page 29 of the 1963 annual report of American Tobacco (Lucky Strike manufacturers) shows no Garners on the board, Lee or otherwise.
October 15th, 2009 at 5:54 pm
http://bit.ly/3TYi23
Sorry, here’s the link.
October 15th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
we’re going to see Don experiencing a perfect storm of Divorce+Sterling Cooper Disaster+Connie Hilton Turnaround+Bunny Boiling Mistress at the same time as the Dallas murder
The title of the last episode “Shut the Door. Have a Seat” has that written all over it, doesn’t it? It could be any number of people saying it to any number of other people. I strongly suspect that one of them is Don however.
October 15th, 2009 at 6:05 pm
# 51 – “it’s not correct to say the lone gunman theory is ‘impossible’”
The so-called ‘magic bullet’ (upon which the ‘lone gunman theory’ rests) left more lead fragments remaining in Gov. Connally, than were supposedly lost from the bullet itself.
No matter who did the shooting on 11-22-63, the physical impossibility of Commission Exhibit #399’s (the ‘magic bullet’s’) loss of more lead than was missing from the bullet, negates the ‘lone gunman’ claim.
http://www.jfk-info.com/fragment.htm
October 15th, 2009 at 11:05 pm
[...] Basket of Kisses offers crackpot theories of the popular television program. Oh, and/or The Atlantic regarding the same [...]
October 16th, 2009 at 12:29 am
No, Pete doesn’t smoke. In the commentary on the S1 DVD, Vincent Kartheiser and Alison Brie both say they are relieved that their characters don’t have to smoke, because they’re not smokers themselves. (Pete is a blueblood; it would make sense that he wouldn’t have had a cigarette before, because men of the old-money milieu in which he was raised would have preferred expensive cigars or even pipes if they smoked at all.)
This does seem to be a harbinger of things to come. We’re not far from the Surgeon General’s 1964 report, after all. Garner might well become increasingly more desperate and demanding in the years to come, as sales begin to suffer.
October 16th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
Nothing personal but I just have to . . .
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/sbt.htm
Single bullet theory –* Now with 40% more science!! *
Plus there are many computer simulations based on the actual geometry and physics, also a Discovery Channel special where they very successfully nearly duplicate all the wounds with one “pristine” bullet.
“Perpetuation of a myth serves not mankind.”
October 16th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
McAdams can whip up all the computer simulations he wants, but he still can’t explain how the so-called “magic bullet” lost more lead than is actually missing from the bullet itself.
Sorry, but testimony of medical witnesses and these exhibits from the Warren Commission Report carry more weight than some after-the-fact computerized ‘recreation’.
Here it is. You can read it, if you don’t believe me …
http://www.jfk-info.com/fragment.htm
Also, McAdams recently did a four-part webcast debate on the JFK Assassination, and he didn’t come off too well.
There’s even a segment in the debate about how the company that did the computerized recreation, produced two versions – one that supported the ’single bullet theory’ and a version that didn’t.
McAdams offers lots of opinion and obfuscation, but he’s really short on facts and documentation – as you can readily hear in this debate webcast …
Part 1 – http://www.blackopradio.com/black442a.ram
Part 2 – http://www.blackopradio.com/black442b.ram
Part 3 – http://www.blackopradio.com/black443a.ram
Part 4 – http://www.blackopradio.com/black443b.ram
Debate Transcripts, here …
http://www.blackopradio.com/archives2009.html
October 16th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
# 58
McAdams can whip up all the computer simulations he wants, but he still can’t explain how more lead fragments from the so-called “magic bullet” were taken from Gov. Connally (or, now remain in his interred body) than are actually missing from the bullet itself.
The testimony of medical witnesses and the photographic exhibits from the Warren Report actually confirm this and anyone who chooses to do so, may read it for themselves …
http://www.jfk-info.com/fragment.htm
October 16th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
Also, McAdams recently participated in a four-part webcast debate on the JFK Assassination. He didn’t fare too well. Lots of obfuscation and opinion, but he was short on facts and documentation.
You can listen to the debate, here …
Part 1 – http://www.blackopradio.com/black442a.ram
Part 2 – http://www.blackopradio.com/black442b.ram
Part 3 – http://www.blackopradio.com/black443a.ram
Part 4 – http://www.blackopradio.com/black443b.ram
You can read the debate transcripts, here …
http://www.blackopradio.com/archives2009.html
October 16th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
# 58
Also, McAdams recently participated in a four-part webcast debate on the JFK Assassination. He didn’t fare too well. Lots of obfuscation and opinion, but he was short on facts and documentation.
You can listen to the debate & read the debate transcripts,, here …
http://www.blackopradio.com/archives2009.html
October 16th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
@ 47 SmilerG- I think Garrison got some stuff right too, just not all of it. It’s so strange to think that in one year, every document (at least, those documents still left) is going to be released.
Back to Mad Men:
Someone, I can’t remember who, suggested a really great idea for how to deal with the assasination on the series. Don’t show 11/22/63, but instead show Thanksgiving, which could include preperations for the holiday. It should be an episode like “My Old Kentucky Home.” Check in with all of the characters. See what’s happening at the Drapers, the Olsen’s, Sal and Kitty, Joan, and others.
October 16th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
#59 SmilerG – I don’t think we’re in the right forum to debate the issue.
And Suzanne is much more mysterious anyway.
My only point here is the NAA and the actual geometry demonstrate that the mythical “magic” bullet didn’t really have to be all that magical to plausibly cause all the damage. Then I break out Occam’s Razor and move on.
And personally, I think Duck looks more like Oswald.
(PS- only had time to read the first link; I’ll check out the radio transcripts at home later. I’ll let you know if I’m swayed. Thanks.)
October 16th, 2009 at 5:58 pm
#63 – “I think Garrison got some stuff right too, just not all of it. It’s so strange to think that in one year, every document (at least, those documents still left) is going to be released.”
It’s interesting that this item showed up on the NY Times webpage this afternoon. I mean, nearly 46 years after the event, and information about the Kennedy assassination is still trickling out (except, of course, when it isn’t) …
C.I.A. Is Still Cagey About Oswald Mystery
Is the Central Intelligence Agency covering up some dark secret about the assassination of John F. Kennedy?
Probably not. But you would not know it from the C.I.A.’s behavior.
For six years, the agency has fought in federal court to keep secret hundreds of documents from 1963, when an anti-Castro Cuban group it paid clashed publicly with the soon-to-be assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald. The C.I.A. says it is only protecting legitimate secrets. But because of the agency’s history of stonewalling assassination inquiries, even researchers with no use for conspiracy thinking question its stance.
The files in question, some released under direction of the court and hundreds more that are still secret, involve the curious career of George E. Joannides, the case officer who oversaw the dissident Cubans in 1963. In 1978, the agency made Mr. Joannides the liaison to the House Select Committee on Assassinations — but never told the committee of his earlier role.
That concealment has fueled suspicion that Mr. Joannides’s real assignment was to limit what the House committee could learn about C.I.A. activities. The agency’s deception was first reported in 2001 by Jefferson Morley, a journalist and author who has doggedly pursued the files ever since, represented by James H. Lesar, a Washington lawyer specializing in Freedom of Information Act lawsuits.
“The C.I.A.’s conduct is maddening,” said Mr. Morley, 51, a former Washington Post reporter and the author of a 2008 biography of a former C.I.A. station chief in Mexico. After years of meticulous reporting on Mr. Joannides, who died at age 68 in 1990, he is convinced that there is more to learn.
“I know there’s a story here,” Mr. Morley said. “The confirmation is that the C.I.A. treats these documents as extremely sensitive.”
Mr. Morley’s quest has gained prominent supporters, including John R. Tunheim, a federal judge in Minnesota who served in 1994 and 1995 as chairman of the Assassination Records Review Board, created by Congress to unearth documents related to the case.
“I think we were probably misled by the agency,” Judge Tunheim said, referring to the Joannides records. “This material should be released.”
- more here …
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/17/us/17inquire.html
October 16th, 2009 at 6:02 pm
@Less of me and SmilerG…I agree that there are entire forums dedicated to the JFK “conspiracy”…so I’ll only comment on this once.
I was a “conspiracy” believer when the Zapruder film was made available to the public in the 70’s and stayed one well into the ’90s. However, the more I’ve read over time, the more convinced I’ve become that Oswald acted alone.
Gerald Posner’s “Case Closed” and Vincent Bugliosi’s “Reclaiming History” are two books that make excellent cases for the lone assassin theory. Walter Cronkite, Dan Rather, Peter Jennings (none of them “establishment” types) have each hosted documentary shows in the past 3 decades and each of them supported the Warren Comission conclusions (including the “single bullet” theory). Same for the History Channel.
On the other hand, a lot of the conspiracy stuff is all over the map and easily descredited. For instance, Mark Lane (“Rush to Judgement”) and David Lipton (“Best Evidence”) both claim that wounds on Kennedy’s body were altered (while in the airplane ride to Bethesda according to Lipton) so as to conform with shots from behind. However, the ER doctors who were at at Parkland (in Dallas), to a man, refuted that.
I could go on and on, but I won’t. As you say: “break out Occam’s Razor and move on. ”
No hard feelings for those that disagree: Peace
October 16th, 2009 at 6:27 pm
To all the Basketcases:
I really don’t mean to monopolize this thread, but this case is something that had a profound effect on me, as a nine-year-old, living just outside of DC in 1963.
When the Warren Report paperback edition came out in Sept. ‘64, something about it just didn’t ring true to me – even as a little kid. I’ve read or seen just about all the written and video material that has come out since.
The original investigation in ‘63-’64 (Warren Commission) and then the House Select Committee investegation in ‘76-’79, resulted in two different conclusions. And, as we learn from this latest item today from the NY Times, both investigations were hampered by actions and/or inaction, by the FBI and CIA.
I apologize for the duplicated posts today. For some reason, they didn’t post right away when I submitted them and when I attempted again, it resulted in the duplicate entries.
To less of me: This case is as complex a case as you’re likely to find! I’m glad that you’re willing to keep an open mind and look at/listen to the linked info, as you seek the truth! : )
To RetroGirl (or anyone else) who’d like to compare ideas, etc. about the case outside of the BoK pages, drop me a line. sdcafunnyguru@gmail.com
Finally, to Deborah & Roberta: Thanks for letting me ramble about this on the BoK pages. As fans of Mad Men, we all appreciate how historically accurate the show is. My intention here, was to bring a similar level of accuracy and integrity to the portion of the conversation, pertaining to the events of 11-22-63.
October 16th, 2009 at 10:44 pm
Props to Matt: Name of Client: Lucky Strike (read: Magic Bullet). Coincidence? I think not.
Just a personal aside W/R/T JFK. I was born 5 days after the assassination, but my mother says my due date was 11/23/63. She claims I was born late because she, and the rest of the country/world were riveted by the unfolding story, which if you include Oswald’s murder, Jack Ruby, and the funeral, covers at least 3 days. She says anyone with access to a TV set was watching almost non-stop as the drama unfolded .
I wonder if MM writers, if the season goes beyond this date, will reflect the impact television had in reaching the country.
Could this have been the first huge news story to be televised? I know there was Bay of Pigs, etc, but perhaps this event made TV what it is, for better or worse, with regard to breaking news coverage.
And now, in 2009, we get “balloon boy”. Sheesh.
October 16th, 2009 at 11:59 pm
I wish the Mythbusters would do the Kennedy Assassination, but they’re probably too smart to get in all that hot water. I do remember Penn & Teller doing a bit shooting melons wrapped in duct tape of fibreglass or whatever that showed how it always jumps towards the gun, but perhaps we’re done with “back, and to the left.”
October 17th, 2009 at 12:33 am
my one jfk assassination post.
Jefferson Morley, writing for Playboy.com, looks at various issues and, to me, is more objective than a lot of things out there.
Since Robert Baer outed Operation Northwoods, who knows, who can know, who might have been playing whom. I mean that literally. Nevertheless, the sun comes up every day and we make our ways to work.
and – just to say- YES to Don DeLillo. both White Noise and Libra. bathos and pathos – wonderfully written.
October 17th, 2009 at 12:54 am
From The Museum of Broadcast Communications: The network coverage of the assassination and funeral of John F. Kennedy warrants its reputation as the most moving and historic passage in broadcasting history. On Friday 22 November 1963, news bulletins reporting rifle shots during the president’s motorcade in Dallas, Texas, broke into normal programming. Soon the three networks preempted their regular schedules and all commercial advertising for a wrenching marathon that would conclude only after the president’s burial at Arlington National Cemetery on Monday 25 November. As a purely technical challenge, the continuous live coverage over four days of a single, unbidden event remains the signature achievement of broadcast journalism in the era of three network hegemony. But perhaps the true measure of the television coverage of the events surrounding the death of President Kennedy is that it marked how intimately the medium and the nation are interwoven in times of crisis.
http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/K/htmlK/kennedyjf/kennedyjf.htm
But other stories had been televised earlier. Hurricane Carla swept through Texas in 1961–the first hurricane to be shown “live.” Young Houston newsman Dan Rather caught the eyes of the country by being the first guy to ever stand outside with a microphone, buffetted by the hurricane force winds & rain.
And I remember, back in the 50’s, my mother spending all day watching the dullest TV show in the world. We’d just moved from South Dakota–where there was no TV. But this show was just a bunch of guys in suits, sitting at big tables & talking. Later, I realized it was the McCarthy hearings. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army%E2%80%93McCarthy_hearings
Back to Our Show: Still don’t know how It will be depicted. The ill-starred wedding might be a chance for all our characters to get together & exchange impressions. Will someone smuggle a TV into the reception? Will the Open Bar inspire everybody to say a bunch of things that needed to be said? Or things better not said?
October 17th, 2009 at 8:00 am
One brief addition to my overly verbose last post: Harry’s reaction to the unprecendented TV coverage of the First Kennedy Assassination?
“They’re not showing any of our commercials!”
Clueless dweeb….
October 17th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
@ 72 not_Bridget-
When I first read 71, I had the same thought. Harry is going to throw a fit. He’s not clueless about his job. Harry does his actual job, at least the way it’s written on paper, well. We’ve never heard a client complain about, “how dare you ran that ad of mine after that scene.” Where Harry fails is office politics, basically anything to do with people.
I’m so torn between wanting to see Sterling Cooper react to 11/22/63 as it happens, and wanting to see the reactions a few days later.
October 17th, 2009 at 7:25 pm
Okay, I guess this qualifies as another post on that subject, but in the context of history and Mad Men seasons.
Did anyone ever write about the United Fruit connections when Mad Men did the Kennedy-Nixon campaign?
That’s really part of America’s “lost history.” Our overthrow of democratically-elected officials in Latin America continues to this day. Those are not the actions of a democracy. John Ashcroft refused to let workers for Chiquita sue when company stooges forced people to work at gunpoint. Forced labor is also not the action of a democracy. Of course, these undemocratic actions are not limited to republicans, since Kermit Roosevelt oversaw the overthrow of Mossedegh in Iran in the 1950s. But Eisenhower had to sign off on it, just as he signed off on the Latin American coups.
And tying back to the Kennedy-centered season 3, another big part of America’s “lost history” was the coup plot planned by members of the J.P. Morgan co. (big bail out winners recently, unsurprisingly), a member of the Du Pont family and the “America league” a right-wing fascist organization in the U.S. that opposed the New Deal.
Time Magazine tried to undermine General Smedley Butler, the man the right wingers contacted to be the coup figurehead (he also stood with the Bonus Army marchers who camped out in D.C. when Patton and MacArthur tried to kill U.S. troops who demanded the money they had been promised to them as soldiers during WWI) but finally had to admit that the U.S. House of Representatives did find that Butler’s testimony to them was true.
So, conspiracies to kill or overthrow the president of the United States did not start with Kennedy. Nor were attempts by the media powers in the U.S. to ridicule the truths of these treasonous actions by rich and powerful people.
Henry Ford, at that time, also wrote The International Jew, which was a fascist screed against Jewish people. He’s rarely if ever presented as the anti-semitic asshole that he was.
Conrad Hilton reminds me of these people with his talk of manifest destiny and his association with the rise of Goldwater and, eventually, Reagan and his enfranchisement of the southern theocrats, followed by the neo-conservatives using these same theocrats to get elected for foreign policy goals… on to now and the monster that this has created in this nation.
I don’t think the allusion arising from the Hilton character is accidental, as MW’s passing remark about United Fruit demonstrates he is aware of much of America’s “lost history” as well.
When the show brought on the “death vish” woman, I thought that was another nod to Bernays and his use of advertising/public relations for social control.
Don’s dismissal of Freudian concepts, to me, demonstrated he was both behind and ahead of his time since Freud was so obviously bound to his Victorian cultural mileu he couldn’t even imagine what women want and had to pretend they wanted a penis, when in fact women wanted the autonomy and power that a simple accident of birth had conferred upon men for centuries.
Men never had to a damn thing to have privileged status because they had simply been born into a culture with centuries of religious and social belief that conspired to maintain this power over females. The same could be said about inherited or accumulated wealth and its power over democratic processes. Those are the sorts of conspiracies that are really pernicious because they are rarely labeled as such because they have become part of the ideology of a culture and then conflate power with democracy when the two are artificially constructed.
October 17th, 2009 at 11:50 pm
@ 72 not_Bridget: Yes!! I was thinking the same thing about Harry and the commercials!
October 18th, 2009 at 12:00 am
not_Bridget: thanks also for the post from the broadcasting museum. That described to a tee what I was wondering with regard to the assassination being televised. My mother’s memory is spot-on!
October 18th, 2009 at 11:46 am
Didn’t know where else to put this, and I figured this would be the best post.
The History Channel is showing a special, JFK: 3 shots that changed America. It does sort of a timeline and uses newsreels and personal video clips to show what was happening at different important times. They show people saying where they were & what they were doing when they heard the president was shot. They also show the aftermath… All the wild ideas about Oswald having ties to political organizations, Russian influence, etc.
It is well done, and can help provide a window into what it was like to have been alive when that happened.