Tag: politics

Turns out I’m not crazy…almost!

Within hours of the assassination, how did Jack Ruby know to correct D.A. Henry Wade on Oswald’s connection to the Fair Play for Cuba Committee? 

I’ve been a victim of ‘assassination fascination’ since 1972, when, through a magnifying glass, I first saw the dent in the chrome on the interior windshield trim of JFK’s death car, the Lincoln Continental, GG 300. So much so that I authored the 2023 novel, Ask Not!, and have appeared on scores of podcasts and many broadcast hits on the subject.  But for years, I have been looking for a specific clip from Dallas County District Attorney Henry Wade’s news conference on 11/22/1963 in the basement of the Dallas Police Department. The smoking gun in this clip, as I remembered, was when one of the horde of clamoring newsmen, jammed into the basement, asked Wade, “Was Oswald a member of any extremist groups?” Hoping for a damning right wing, John Birch, type association answer, their hopes were dashed when Wade went the other way. He announced that Oswald was a member of a group that supported communist dictator Fidel Castro. Then Wade bobbled the name of the organization. He stumbled through a few versions of “Fairness for Cuba” or “The Cuban Fairness Committee.” 

Now, here’s the incredible part that has made me doubt my sanity for the last 10 years. Again, as I remembered it, a voice from the gaggle calls out to correct him, “Fair Play for Cuba!” Wade turns towards the voice and says, “Thanks, Jack.” The camera then quickly pans over to Jack Ruby, pen and pad in his hand, amongst the newsmen.  Yes, the same Jack Ruby who would kill Oswald in that building a day and a half later!

In forums and internet searches, I was constantly directed to another video on the internet from the “Midnight Press Conference.” Unfortunately, that was not the Kinescope clip that I had been searching for. However, in that clip, Wade does refer to being corrected earlier. That “Earlier” (press conference) is exactly what I have been searching for.  So, as with so many things about the Gordian knot that is the Kennedy Assassination, I gave up, chiding myself that it must have been a figment of my imagination. 

But as with everything JFK, eventually, some other shoe drops. I just watched, for the third time in 50 years, Mark Lane’s 1966 film, “Rush to Judgment.” And lo and behold, at 1 hour 25 minutes in, the following exchange happens on the kinescope they inserted into that motion picture.

You can view the actual clip here: https://youtu.be/ZjKd7JHhuoA

Okay, so even while this is not the clip I thought I imagined, it is possibly a clue pointing to the one I seek’s existence. 

Why am I so doggedly trying to track down this clip where Jack Ruby is correcting District Attorney Henry Wade on the name of Oswald’s affiliation with the Fair Play for Cuba Committee? 

Because within hours of the assassination, Jack Ruby, who would later kill Oswald in the very same jailhouse, fed the correct “cover story” to Wade. How did Jack Ruby, the Dallas Night Club owner, have knowledge of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, or remember that it had anything to do with Oswald? It was only mentioned on New Orleans local TV news during a single story on Oswald that only aired locally months before.

I tell ya, this assassination fascination keeps coming back at ya!

61 Years of JFK: What If? and Maybe?

Shocking Statement follows: There are only two things we will ever know for sure about the Kennedy assassination, one, the president is dead, and two, Ruby shot Oswald – Period!

Furthermore, crucial evidence that could have put an end to the longest-running open-case crime story in American history was eradicated before JFK was laid to rest. My next installment will feature videos on many of these “lost forever” evidentiary clues. But the rumors, conspiracies, alternate realities, and “experts” never rested. I call this Assassination Fascination. To some, an unspeakable crime, to others an impossibility that one little man could rob history of a great man, and still others are fascinated by all the possibilities and dangling threads like all the things you can make out of a few Legos.

With the release last year of my Historically Based Thriller, “Ask Not!,” I created a companion piece to satisfy the cravings of people who just love to delve into and parse every millisecond of those 8 seconds in Dallas on November 22nd, 1963, and dissect every minute before and after, looking for the elusive smoking gun, or evil cabal that had to be behind such a monumental change in the flow of history.

So to feed the unabated Assassination Fascination that has endured for 61 years now and created a multi-million dollar cottage industry, I have made a short, easy-to-read, 14-page FREE mini book, Tom’s Top Ten JFK Conspiracy Theories. It’s chock full of things that make you go, “Hmmm” or “Nah”

Just email me, (or click on this link) and I’ll send you your own copy. Tom@Author.nyc

To take a deep dive into Ask Not! click here: ASKNOT!

Beyond the Grassy Knoll

What lies beyond the grassy knoll? If any part of that sentence resonates with you then you are aware of the controversies surrounding the Kennedy assassination. So, I will skip the obligatory, remedial recitation of the facts and suspicions in, or not, in evidence. 

In my research for a 1993 screenplay, and more recently for my new blockbuster thriller, “Ask Not,” I refreshed my files on the “alternate theories” of what happened that day, November 22nd 1963, in Dealey Plaza.  

As always, a good way to start is a deep dive into the 1600 pages that comprise the 26 volumes of the Warren Commission Report. A painstakingly assembled collection of documents, photos, and testimony that was ordered by LBJ shortly after the assassination. The “shorthand” report was itself, a hefty 888 pages. 

If you can’t sleep at night because you don’t believe the Warren Commission, then you are like a huge percentage of Americans who express doubt to this day about who killed Kennedy. Which is why it is the “setting” for my latest novel.  But parts of the very report that claims there was only one lone gunman, three shots, and no conspiracy, can lead you to suspect that there was possibly another shooter.

Here’s one example of what can be extrapolated from the Warren Report. The Police radio logs reprinted within the 1600 pages that contain quirky little nagging facts like this: At the time of the shooting of the president at 12:30 in the afternoon, the police dispatchers were sending cops to the railroad track area. That order was logged in at 12:30 p.m. and 40 seconds. 

The railroad track area? But…but the president was just shot! Why are you sending every cop you have to the the railroad track area?

What lies beyond the grassy knoll? The railroad track area. 

Right behind the wooden fence. The fence just to the front and right of the spot where Kennedy’s limo was when he was fatally shot. The exact spot the “Grassy Knoll Types” maintain the fatal bullet came from.

Interestingly enough, the transcripts show us that it wasn’t until 12:49 or so, almost 20 minutes from the moments the shots rang out, that the first mention of the Texas School Book Depository was broadcast over police radios.

What followed immediately was a description of a man, said to still be in the building, was dispatched. (Later we learned that at that moment, Oswald was on a city bus and then took a cab back to his rooming house.) But they gave a description! If Oswald wasn’t there, then who were they describing? 

Of course, none of this is proof of anything, first reports of traumatic events are often inaccurate, and chaos and confusion reign supreme over witnesses and even some police.  But if you are looking for a way out of the morass of randomness and senselessness that the lone nut theory has created in people for the last 60 years, then there is some great fertilizer here in which to plant your conspiracy theory. 

Coming in at slightly less than the 1600 hundred pages of the Warren Commission Report, is my new thriller, Ask Not! Which lands on the desk at a very digestible 275 pages.

Most novels are set in a place, a location. The setting for my murder mystery is the entire universe of conspiracy theories and public doubt over JFK’s murder. The Kennedy assassination still engages, enthralls, and endures 60 years later, in most part because of these conspiracy theories that keep it alive. I call that, America’s Assassination Fascination.

My main character, airline pilot Hank Larson, could care less about who killed Kennedy and was perfectly happy with the Warren Commission’s conclusions, and then never thought of it again. Until his brother is murdered, and he is set on a path. One which brings him right in front of the Grassy Knoll. With a target on his head. Right in the crosshairs of nefarious, powerful, and ruthless men who wish to keep secret whatever the hell did happen that day. 

Getting Buzz

I was recently on The Business Buzz with host Jeff Sherman and Marty Keena to discuss aspects of writing a novel including character and plot.

 

Calling Anthony …Anthony…Carlos Danger

From the public files of, “It’s Only Fiction `til It Happens…”

The master of intelligent suspense, author Linda Fairstein, was recently on the radio discussing her new book, Death Angel, when she related a story to the show’s host that in her first draft she had created a character that was a New York political type who had gotten mired in a Sexting scandal. Her agent pushed for and succeeded in getting her to remove the character from the manuscript because it was, and I am paraphrasing, “too unbelievable” or some such expression of, ‘far fetched’… it should be noted that Linda Fairstein was chief of the Sex Crimes Unit of the district attorney’s office in Manhattan for more than two decades as well as a brilliant author!

Welcome Anthony Putz:

In case you haven’t heard, here in New York, we got a guy from Brooklyn running for Mayor, Anthony Wiener.  He’s a freak of the highest order. His ego knows no limits, matrimonial or legal.  He practices a form of “electioneering” that takes all the wrong lessons from our political past and combines them into one very ugly new paradigm.  He’s a object lesson of why sometimes technology in the wrong hands, his hands pointing back at himself, doesn’t deliver on the promised utopia it might otherwise had achieved. Continue reading “Calling Anthony …Anthony…Carlos Danger” →

The God Particle Versus The Pope

god_particle, higgs boson, big bang, science, cern, lhc,

Have you read the papers, heard the news, know what is happening?

If you answered yes to any or all of the above questions, then you’ll know why I feel like I just missed The last copter out of Hanoi, The last train from Gunhill, The last song I’ll ever write for you, The last chance to save and save like never before!

Both Science and Religion had BIG NEWS this week. The God Particle was found within hours of a new Pope being found. Here are two news stories, one each from traditionally opposing forces existing in the same moment of time. Science had maybe a tad more edge on the angle because, although the new Pope is a huge story, and an issue that has impact on 1 billion or so Catholics around the world, the Church has had 226 Popes throughout history. But there is only once, so far this mankind, that Science has found the God Particle.

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Now many people find God, but not so much with the science crowd. So their acknowledgement (at least casually) of anything ‘God’ connected to science is, in and of itself, a first.  And… we are not just talking of some token attribution; we are talking the center of science here, the key to everything, the point of origin for all existence, the glue that holds all of creation together. Imagine that which is no longer an elusive bit of theory, but the first, smallest piece of reality, has been hailed as a Particle of God.

Well, actually, any real physicist will deny they found the God Particle, they will however, cop to the more secular moniker, “Higgs-Boson.” But nobody swears to Higgs-Boson, prays to Higgs-Boson in foxholes or screams that name during sex, so…

If you are still reading this, and not bored out of your skull, let me tell you what was NOT discovered this week.

The God Particle.  No that’s not a typo I am referring to my book, entitled, The God Particle. It has science and religion going at it pretty good. It has Popes vs. Scientists vs. Politicians, all swinging for the seats. It has drama treachery, love, geeks and kidnapping and murder.  (hmmm a ‘Geek Tragedy’??? Better save that one.)

It also has missed the bus, missed the perfect storm of events, the once in a lifetime (of a universe) convergence of a new Pope and the discovery of the ‘Particle’ his boss created 6-billion years ago in the first instance of existence.

How great would it have been if somewhere in New Hollywood York City, some gruff, fire and brimstone emitting head of a house, a salt and peppered icon in Publishing, Movies or Television, were to do a spit take of his Soy Mocha latte Machiato, with a shot of wheat grass, all over the New York Times piece reporting on the discovery of the God Particle. Yelling clear down the hallway, reverberating off every cubicle wall plastered with pictures of kids and company softball picnics,

“Somebody get me that manuscript that was here the other day, the God thing!  The God Principle??? The God Particible??? Damn, just somebody get me that, right now!  Found out who wrote it and get him in here 5 minutes ago.”

Of course, if Justin Bieber, or Lindsay Lohan had found the God Particle, the story would live for 100 news-cycles. But alas, since the Eureka moment of all time (literally of all – Time) was brought to us by Technosapiens, not Thespians, it will quickly recede, like the background radiation noise of the Big Bang, to somewhere far out beyond the galaxy of news.  In two weeks, the TMG list of things people really care about will have the item ‘God something or other’ down around 126,234th on their list. And my book, The God Particle, will not be the beneficiary of any lift from the news.

Unless of course they find a way to make the God Particle enhance your sex life, make you feel younger, re-grow hair and make aches and pains, and that annoying belly fat, disappear. Then maybe I’ll get another shot.

It’s Only Fiction til it Mappens!!!

Avitabile, It's Only Fiction til it MappensI am blessed to have a first class mastermind group which guides me in my writing. Experts from many fields who help me stay within the lines as I color the with science in my books. The early warning tip I received on a government initiative to map the human brain, which follows the plot of my first book, The Eighth Day, was something I didn’t report because it was told to me in confidence from someone inside. I only released it when a small announcement was made in NY Times on Feb 17 2013. Today, the President is announcing the multi-million dollar program at the White House. So I thought I could re-map the original blog below, because as you have seen, It’s Only Fiction ‘Til It Happens.
From the book, The Eighth Day:

Doctor Janice Tyler-Hiccock to the President of the United States, James Mitchell:

“No, Sir, but I am talking about the total remapping of the human brain to a level and specificity that, yesterday, I would have told you was two to three centuries away. … The creator of this program has the ultimate blueprint and can go anywhere and do anything inside the human brain.”

“That’s a frightening prospect, Doctor.”

From the New York Times Feb. 17, 2013, the current President of the United States.

“Obama Seeking to Boost Study of Human Brain”

Once again, “It’s only Fiction ‘til it Happens” is confirmed. In my first book, The Eighth Day, the mapping of the human mind presented a very frightening series of consequences.  This recent Presidential initiative, the “Brain Activity Map” project, a national effort, like the Race to the Moon, will only bring more energy to the quest.

Of course, the novelist in me, back when I first ‘made this up’ and now that it’s being seriously considered needs to ask, “What of the unintended consequences?”

In Eighth Day, the first test of the Mapping and subsequent mind control it lead to, was the subliminal slanting of a Presidential Election!  Hmm?   Nah!

Even if the “Brain Activity Map” project is totally benign in its intent, can we be sure the human minds that attain that knowledge will be equally benign? How much data will be shared with other governments and factions around the world who might like a shorter distance between indoctrination and devotion. And don’t get me started with Madison Avenue.

Those who have read Eighth Day might be quick to point out, “Oh Tom, you’re just reaching here. In your book it was a machine. Here, in real life, it’s just a study!” To those who point that out I say, “Yes, you’re right.”

Or… maybe not. Especially when you read later on in the Times Article,

‘The Obama initiative is markedly different from a recently announced European project that will invest 1 billion euros in a Swiss-led effort to build a silicon-based “brain.” The project seeks to construct a supercomputer simulation using the best research about the inner workings of the brain.’

Okay, now, even I’m scared… and I “wrote the book!”

Click here to watch a video or click here to read more about this wonderful new initiative.