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Although the
court case on evolution was interesting, there was a lot of technical information on
biochemistry, cell biology and so on being given within a fairly short time frame, and I
found keeping up with it somewhat difficult. It was like being given a crash course in
numerous branches of modern biology.
In addition,
my mind and emotions kept flashing back to Ken and Pamela. Consequently, I found my
conentration swerving in an out of the proceedings of the trial, like some drunken driver
who is pretending, unsuccessfully, that he or she is in control of the vehicle which is
careening through traffic. Naturally, this made following the thread of the discussion
even more problematic than the technical nature of the proceedings of the mock trial.
I had known
Ken for about thirty years, and, yet, in many ways I never really knew him. I always had
known him to be a very private person, keeping lots of thoughts and feelings to himself.
At the same
time, he was an extremely generous person who gave of his time, energy, talents, and money
to whomever was lucky enough to come into contact with him. He was a wonderful friend who
accepted people for whom and what they were, without trying to change them - yet, he was
always ready to help them to be better human beings.
He knew me
better than I knew myself. He understood Vietnam would destroy me psychologically and
spiritually if I were to have gone, as it would destroy so many young people who did go -
some physically and some emotionally.
He had been
the one who argued with me in order to get me to leave the country. Yet, he had decided to
stay and go to Vietnam.
He never
talked about what he experienced or witnessed while engaged in his tour of duty. One
didn't know what pain may have been locked up deep inside of him.
He was too
sensitive a person for it not to have affected him in some way. However, whatever the
costs had been, they went in silence with him to his grave.
I never
really understood why he went to Vietnam. He was deeply opposed to the war from the
beginning.
He was far
more politically aware than I had been, and, to a large extent, still am. He had been
following events in Indochina since high school, and he had seen the quagmire coming from
a long way off.
He had known
the Gulf of Tonkin incident was a fabrication, just as the incubator-baby killings had
been a fabrication in the second Gulf war. He knew that lying came second nature to all
too many government officials.
Ken realized
the government in South Vietnam was as corrupt as they come. He had known that, from a
very early period, US advisors to South Vietnam were engaged in a program to help the duly
constituted forces of government in South Vietnam to oppress and terrorize large segments
of the Vietnamese population in order to protect a variety of vested Western interests.
How he came
by a lot of his information, I never found out. Yet, long before the media picked up on
it, he had been telling me about the program of chemical warfare that was being
implemented by the US in Vietnam on scales which would make the Iraqi gassing of the Kurds
seem like child's play.
Somehow, he
had learned from someone in the know that the CIA was running drug smuggling operations
throughout Southeast Asia. He also knew that many young Americans, while observing their
tours of duty in Vietnam, had been turned into drug addicts with the assistance of a
knowing, but uncaring, indifference by some of the people in authority, including the
euphemistically-labeled 'intelligence community'.
In fact,
during this period of time, Ken had informed me that the CIA had been involved in a series
of drug experiments which took place in a variety of places, including Montreal, Canada.
The foreign nationals of another country, a supposed ally, had unknowingly been given
massive doses of LSD in order to see its effects on mental stability.
The lives of
many of the unwitting participants of these experiments were destroyed, physically,
socially, and psychologically, as a result of such studies. Only grudgingly, and after
subjecting the families of the victims to a further twenty to thirty years of additional
suffering, did the United States, if only in a limited fashion, admit complicity in the
matter and express a reluctant willingness to grant some, small amount of financial
compensation to the families.
Similarly,
under a variety of code names, the Defense Department had arranged, during this same,
general period of time to give LSD to a substantial number of graduate students on
different campuses across America as part of a related series of studies. This time the
students knew - sort of - what they were getting, and when the idea of ingesting LSD began
to spread like wild fire among the youth of America, the authorities were very public in
expressing their horror and outrage at the lack of moral fiber of the future leaders of
our great nation that government officials, themselves, had set in motion.
Ken had
known about the illegal bombings in Cambodia. He had known that thousands of innocent
Cambodians were being killed by this policy.
He was aware
of massacres at places like My Lai. People lower down the chain of command were the ones
being held accountable, but people higher up the chain of command were really responsible,
but never held accountable, for creating the mentality and conditions out of which such
tragedies arose.
Ken had
ridiculed the domino theory from the time it had left the lips of self-serving advocates
who were trying to rationalize policies that spread death, destruction and political chaos
whenever and wherever they were deployed. He had known the difference between a fight for
national liberation by left-leaning insurgents and some insidious plot dreamed up in
Washington which attempted to claim that all of Southeast Asia would fall to communism if
America did not stand shoulder-to-shoulder with its South Vietnamese allies.
Today, the
US is busy seeking to establish all manner of trade links with the very people who were
once said to be part of the great domino scare of the period extending from the 1950s
through the 1970s. And, the people who had helped arrange the deaths of some fifty
thousand Americans and millions of people in Southeast Asia are too busy trying to make a
profit to feel much regret for what they had set in motion so many years before.
Despite
knowing all of these things, Ken had gone and fought. I guess he felt the only way of
being able to stop such events from occurring again was to try to earn his accreditation
as a patriot and to trade on such a process of certification later on by becoming an agent
of change within government and the body politic - an agent of change that might be
accepted because of having served his country and put his life on the line for America.
He had loved
his country deeply, passionately. Yet, because America has a very short memory about whom
does what for it, Ken's plan had never quite worked out the way in which he had hoped.
Now, he was
dead. Unfortunately, his country could care less about the sacrifices he had made.
The country
no longer needed Ken. It had millions of others who could be cajoled, misled and
indoctrinated into killing the designated enemy of the hour whose terrible evil must be
stopped in order to protect the vested interests of the few.
Cuba,
Vietnam, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Lebanon, Grenada, Panama, Libya, the Gulf ... who would
become the next beneficiaries of US foreign aid? People are very sadly mistaken if they
think the killing has stopped. Times of peace are merely the world's way of preparing for
the next round of genocide.
I returned
from my most recent round of reveries and flashbacks as Judge Arnsberger's gavel landed
with a bang to mark the end of the court proceedings for the afternoon. While engaged in a
sort of walkabout in search of a place to eat, I had begun to think more about some of
what Ken had been discussing with me during my trip to Washington.
He felt
there were too many coincidences, for his liking, that had been going on in my life
recently. First, Beth shows up on my doorstep with a story out of the Twilight Zone.
I go to
visit her brother in prison. A few days later, he disappears.
The FBI
drops by for a little tete-a-tete because I seem to be at the top of their list of
possible co-conspirators in Brian's apparent prison escape. Beth is unavailable for
comment.
I get an
invitation from the Bettinger Foundation for a lucrative position as an external
consultant in matters of terrorism. I go and listen to Rachel Donaldson respond to some
questions about the Gulf War as well as terrorism, and I begin to have a few questions of
my own about the job offer.
I call Ken
to see if he is open to the idea of my coming down. Shortly, thereafter, Beth shows up in
a dazed and confused state.
Enter
Jennifer. Jennifer uncovers one kind of abduction which isn't and one kind of abduction
which is.
I go to
Washington and speak with Ken about the whole situation. I come back and turn down the job
offer from the Bettinger Foundation.
Several days
later, Ken and Pam are dead. In addition, the FBI is back on my case because now I'm the
only common link connecting two, seemingly disparate events.
In the
meantime, I've had a close encounter of the worst kind with my own would-be abductors. If
not for Rip's timely intervention, who knows what would have happened.
Presently,
I'm in Chicago attending a symposium waiting to make contact with person, or persons,
unknown who will be of assistance somewhere down the line. I really have no idea what is
going on, but whatever it is, I seem to be in the middle of it.
Just before
I had left Ken, he had mentioned two leads that he was going to pursue and let me know
what, if anything, he might have uncovered. One lead concerned a possible religious angle
of some sort with respect to the Futures Unlimited group or organization which stood
behind the Bettinger Foundation.
The other
lead involved some sort of research facility in northern Maine. The kind of research going
on at this facility was unknown, at least to me, but something about it seemed to pique
Ken's curiosity and interest.
I was
rapidly coming around to Ken's way of thinking about my situation. There were far too many
coincidences to be coincidental.
At the same
time, there were too many pieces missing from the puzzle. Furthermore, my resources and
ability to discover the missing ingredients were extremely limited.
However, one
possibility did occur to me. When my mother and sister had been killed in a terrorist
incident, I had come into contact with a journalist, Mary Streeter, who was covering the
story for the Boston Planet.
Subsequently,
we had become friends. From time to time, we would meet, talk, have dinner or lunch, and,
occasionally, take in a movie together.
I didn't
know what her time commitments or schedule were like at the present time, but she might be
prepared to devote a little effort to helping me out. I felt pretty confident her sources
and contacts were likely to be a lot better suited to investigating the problems
confronting me than anything I might be able to contribute to the situation.
Maybe, if I
promised her an exclusive on whatever juicy scandal or conspiracy into which I might have
blundered, then, this might entice her to become involved. I couldn't imagine a newspaper
person walking away from the intriguing possibilities that seemed to be swirling about the
current chain of events in my life.
As I
returned to the courtroom for the evening session, I continued to reflect upon recent
occurrences. By the time I settled in a seat awaiting the reconvening of the trial, I had
decided to call Mary, either later in the day or sometime tomorrow, and ask for her
assistance.
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