I Shot JFK Read online

  I Shot JFK

  by

  Jake Aaron

  Copyright © 2016 Jake Aaron. Except as provided by the Copyright Act of 1998, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This book is dedicated to Michael R. Nawrosky, United States Military Academy Class of 1964. Below is an excerpt from the Academy’s Association of Graduates records:

  Michael R. Nawrosky 1964

  Cullum No. 25041 Jul 06, 1968 Died in Vietnam

  Interred in West Point Cemetery, West Point, NY

  He was promoted to Captain in June 1967 and volunteered for active duty in Vietnam where he was awarded the Bronze Star Medal. During his nine months there as company commander in the First Cavalry Division, he lost only three men until the battle at Khe Sanh where he was severely wounded trying to aid one of two other injured men. Unable to speak, he continued to lead his men by writing his orders on paper. Three months later, while at Walter Reed General Hospital for surgery to restore his voice, Mike departed to join many others who had also given their last full measure of devotion to their Country. His parents were posthumously awarded their son's Silver Star and Purple Heart at ceremonies conducted 15 February 1969, at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey.

  Prologue

  I am about to change the course of history for the United States and the world.

  It is Friday — approaching half past noon. What started out as a rainy morning became a nice sunny day in Dallas. It is 67 degrees Fahrenheit, they tell me. I estimate the wind to be 15 mph — my lucky number. I hear the rustling of leaves through the open window.

  I am on the sixth floor of a seven-story red-brick warehouse. The overhead lights are off so we aren’t visible from the outside. A slim guy named Lee is standing by the window. He is watching for the approaching presidential motorcade. He is edgy and intrusive.

  I have to order him out of my way.

  I move out of the background. He hands me an Italian rifle with a mounted 4X telescope. I take it with a port-arms grab, my right hand on the grip and left eleven inches above. “RIPOSO!” I direct — stand easy, in Italian, referring to the original rifle manufacturing country.

  Lee utters, “Huh?” with a blank stare.

  The Carcano rifle feels familiar. I have practiced with it. It appeared magically in my apartment last week, as promised. Then it disappeared after several days, until now, as expected. This operation appears to be well coordinated but thinly staffed.

  I choose not to acquire the jumpiness that Lee shows. Too much adrenaline coursing through his body, I guess. If I catch that contagion, I won’t be able to do my job. He would not be my first choice of operatives for this team. He has an exaggerated sense of his own importance, and I can read that — even though I’ve only been around him for minutes. From what I can tell, I’m far more important to the operation than he is.

  I move to the window and prepare. I instinctively watch the flutter of the tree leaves to update my assessment of wind direction and speed. I estimate the distance to where the procession will be when I will fire. I consciously control my breathing, feeling each motion of my diaphragm.

  I expect that Lee will remain quiet. I remind him just in case.

  He has assured me that no one will be coming into the room, “That has been worked out. We will be alone. I made sure of that. Don’t worry about the exit strategy. I’ve got that handled, too!”

  No worries, I am very stable under pressure. I sight the rifle in and concentrate on my role. I overlook the megalomania and jangled nerves of Lee. Anyone else but me would be thrown off by this guy’s obsession and visible emotionality. One reason I was chosen is that I can overlook those. I am here to fulfill a contract.

  Did I mention it’s November 22, 1963?

  PAST

  Early Childhood

  In looking back, I wonder how I would have ever faced my future if I’d known what was coming — the life-changing events and the fateful tragedies. To be fair, I wonder whether knowledge of future high points could offset the dread of the coming downsides. I’ll let you be the judge.

  In any case, I was born November 22, 1940, exactly twenty-three years before that life-changing Dallas day. Most people are walking, talking contradictions. The difference between me and most people is that I know it.

  The biggest contradiction I live with is I. I am prone to great swings in purpose. While I, Alex, am very different from my brother, we are — or were — also very much alike in other ways. You see, we were twins. Gunnar was born first, but our formative years were much the same. Nature or nurture? I feel very strongly both ways. So, our birthday was November 22, 1940.

  That day, Dad had just got back from an “academic” conference in England. Gunnar and I were born several weeks before Mom’s due date in a Chicago hospital, setting the stage for being precocious. Dad had earned a PhD in physics from MIT and had taught at the University of Chicago after that. Mom had a PhD in mathematics from MIT. She did some pioneering work on making math more understandable to high schoolers.

  Soon after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Dad volunteered for national service. Self-deprecating, he always laughed, “It was like getting out of the way of an oncoming locomotive, The draft would have swept me up anyway.” After a short indoctrination, he was commissioned as an officer in the Army. In weeks, we moved to Washington, DC, where he worked at the Pentagon. To its credit, the Army knew what it was doing. My genius pop was infinitely more valuable as an idea man than a grunt in the field, as you’ll see. Mom stayed more than busy with her exceptional twins, I say without modesty. Dad told us she did some part-time consulting for the Pentagon in cryptography, breaking several ultra-secret enemy codes.

  I remember bits and pieces of driving to our new home in 1943. The black sedan we rode in took four days to get from DC to Los Alamos, NM. Four miserable days in a black 1941 Packard Clipper without air conditioning. I distinctly remember the steam coming out of the overheated engine of our stopped car somewhere along the way — and Dad holding a red-stenciled desert radiator water bag. I can still see the car engine’s steam rising wispily around the propped up hood of the car. I also remember having to get out of the auto twice for tire changes. To this day I can still recall the feel of the hot desert sand and rocks on my bare feet. I remember being in the backseat alone because Gunnar got car sick and had to ride up front on Mom’s lap most of the time. I loved the trip anyway. That trip was the first time I remember Dad asking me why the sky was blue — and then explaining. It was the beginning of a continual stream of challenges both parents threw at us to stimulate thinking in our developing minds.

  What I remember of 1944 foretold destiny. A future medical student, I asked, “Mommy, who washes the soap?”

  “I do, dear,” she told me.

  Future master-of-many-things Gunnar then asked, “Who washes you?”

  *****

  In the summer of 1945, Dad took a trip to Alamogordo, NM, about 250 miles away from home. When he left, I remember Mom kissing him goodbye and tearing up. In retrospect, I now know he was part of the scientific team working on the Manhattan Project. The first atomic bomb was detonated July 16, 1945. When he returned from Alamogordo a few days after that, he seemed very happy, but somewhat wistful, too.

  In August of that year, Dad had to go away for a long time to the Pacific. August 6,1945, a United States B-29 dropped an atomic
bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. Three days later, another B-29 dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki. I remember the angel food cake with chocolate icing Mom made to celebrate when Japan surrendered. Days later Dad came home. He was more joyous than I’d ever seen him. He had seen the detonations. “It’s over,” he rejoiced. “It’s finally over! Now we can get on with our lives.”

  Mom let loose a cascade of tears. They hugged and kissed. To this day, I can’t explain how I understood the adult emotional scene at that early age unless it was some kind of inherited social DNA from my ancestors. Gunnar asked me, “Why is Dad happy and Mom sad?” At some level, I already understood, but I also appreciated my brother’s ability to verbalize his lack of understanding. As my dad said, “Behind Gunnar’s question is a healthy curiosity about how the world works.” Dad’s explanation of complex behavior to Gunnar involved Dad charting emotions with Cartesian coordinates: sad on the x-axis and happy on the y-axis.

  Dad thought Gunnar understood, but I could read Gunnar better. At that early age, he could make people believe what he wanted them to believe.

  I remember Mom saying, “Good job, Dad, but you’re in my territory!” By that, of course, she meant her mother role and her world of mathematics. For an academic, Dad would have surprised you with his appreciation of the double meaning of Mom’s words— very clever in a worldly sense. I understood completely — and I don’t know how.

  That’s when Dad smiled, “Right you are, dear. Speaking of territory, did I mention we’re moving to the big city? Albuquerque, look out; here we come!” Mom, of course, already knew; Gunnar and I did not. Dad was remarkable at transitions in conversation. Again, something you wouldn’t necessarily expect from a scientist.

  Then Mom poured him a drink of whiskey. He asked to be alone for a while. He wanted to think about the implications of the atomic bomb for mankind. Wistful again. I understood as if I’d seen the play before.

  *****

  The move to Albuquerque was around one hundred miles on the road physically but figuratively a thousand miles. Los Alamos was a small, quiet town in the high, pined mountains. Albuquerque was a good-sized, modern city resting on a high desert plain with scant vegetation. In Albuquerque, Dad worked at Sandia Base for what would become the Atomic Energy Commission a year later.

  After we moved, Dad started insisting that we go to Sunday church services at the base chapel. The base chaplains occasionally came to our house for supper. Gunnar and I both thought we went to base services, instead of nearby community ones, because Dad liked the chaplains. We were partly right. Mom later explained that Dad and the chaplains shared experiences from the war. I think what he saw at Hiroshima and Nagasaki shadowed his soul every day. He wouldn’t talk about it to us except to comment on how devastating nuclear weapons could be. Dad particularly liked to discuss philosophy with the military priest, drinking scotch and listening to the Glenn Miller Orchestra playing “Stardust” on the record player.

  We lived in the Ridgecrest subdivision of the southeast heights, a newer section of Albuquerque. Gunnar and I attended Whittier Elementary School. The school was only a few walkable blocks away from our home. Of course, we both could read before first grade and knew how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide before we started school. The only problem we presented to our teachers at first was keeping us busy. Inevitably, Gunnar and I were moved to a corner of the school room and given a more advanced text than the rest of the class was studying. I should mention, the principal had decided the first day we would always be in separate classes.

  What I remember most from that fall in first grade was the crisp, cool desert air in the mornings. Gunnar inevitably had the layered look — a Scottish-clan patterned long-sleeve, flannel shirt that he would shed at morning recess, revealing his underlying plain colored T-shirt. I learned that fall also meant the excitement and smells of the annual state fair. There we also learned the meaning of enough. One bite of a candied apple was enough. One taste of cotton candy was enough. One ride on a tilt-a-whirl was enough — for me, not Gunnar.

  That winter, every Sunday after church, Dad led us on his personal quest for “the best Mexican food in the world.” Sadie’s, on the corner of Second Street and Osuna, won in 1946. Dad raved about their hot, spicy homemade salsa. At the time, it was okay for Mom, but too spicy for Gunnar and me; however, Gunnar matched Dad spoonful for spoonful to show him how tough he was. I kicked his shoe with mine underneath the restaurant table to let him know I knew what was up. He fought off an imminent grin with tightened jaws. What he could not hide were the hot-pepper induced tears and beads of sweat on his forehead.

  That spring I also remember the sweet morning air, smelling of roses and morning glories. It cooled our nostrils as we rode the gentle hills of Ridgecrest on our 22-inch Schwinn bicycles. Car traffic was minimal on the back streets of the residential area. Predictably, Gunnar had engineered a piston sound on his bike by fastening clothes pins to the frame of his bike to hold playing cards that extended into the spokes. Mom explained that the putt-putt sound was directly proportional to Gunnar’s speed. Dad counseled that the long-term effect of cards plucking the spokes, would be weakening of the supports for the wheel.

  *****

  In second grade, I inadvertently shot out a neighbor’s window pane while Gunnar was playing tetherball in the backyard. I didn’t miss. I hit the tin can on our concrete block wall I was aiming at with my pellet gun, but the projectile ricocheted. While I hid from the angry neighbor in pursuit, Gunnar stepped forward to take responsibility. He apologized to the neighbor, paid for the repair, and sat confinement in his room for a week. I did take him cookies and milk. He then brought me cookies and milk the following week when I was confined. The guilt over Gunnar’s punishment eventually got the best of me. He was the good twin.

  Dad was secretly proud that we looked after each other — something he and Mom had stressed since we were toddlers. From the pellet gun experience, I knew that Mom and Dad took the right measure of us. Gunnar had more character than I. I had enough character, but Gunnar was, well, Gunnar. When I paid Gunnar back for the window, he laughed the whole thing off. “You would have done the same for me,” he said. No, I wouldn’t. At least, not then.

  Dad didn’t overreact. He liked to turn lemons into lemonade; he had a plan to teach us gun safety. He took Gunnar and me to the wide-open, sun-baked east mesa of Albuquerque to fire our new .22 rifles at empty soda cans on many a Saturday afternoon. Giant dead tumbleweeds were the best prop for the targets to sit on. Dad got to teach us responsible marksmanship. Gunnar and I got to compete. We constantly vied with each other on almost everything. It was not long before Gunnar was a better shot than Dad, but by then, I was better than either of them. You couldn’t rule out Mom; she sometimes beat Dad but never me.

  So it was that one Saturday Dad was not surprised when I dropped a jackrabbit at 200 yards without a telescope. At that distance I could barely make out its ears. Trust me, I had the bravado down. I totally hid my surprise. I basked in the aura of the new family legend, but I knew I had a one-in-four chance of repeating the shot. It didn’t hurt that everyone in the family had 20/10 vision. Mom used to joke that we were related to test pilot Chuck Yeager, who had that trait. Dad said he had met that first pilot to break the sound barrier.

  I’m sure the Yeager factor contributed to Gunnar’s building a new plastic model plane every week. He was good at it, but when it was time for assembling small parts and applying decals, he always called on me. I inherited Mom’s fine-motor skills and steadiness of hand. Gunnar inherited the concentrated heart and soul of a dozen ancestors.

  Anytime we were outside playing was more stimulus for Gunnar’s fascination with aircraft. At the time, he enjoyed seeing P-51 Mustang aircraft “pitch out” over our house near Kirtland Air Force Base, also in the southeast quadrant of Albuquerque. Gunnar explained that meant the pilot flew straight down the runway around 1500 feet above the ground, rolled into 60 degrees of bank pulling 2g’s of
force, paralleled the runway in a reverse direction, and then banked 30 degrees to rollout on final approach to land.

  The arrival of the giant 300,000-pound B-36 bombers had an equal fascination for him. He was intrigued by their six rearward facing propellers and four jet engines. Whenever they were overhead, our whole house would reverberate. Gunnar claimed he could tell how far away a B-36 was by the amount of vibration he felt in a window pane. For Gunnar, it was like having his own flying circus.

  *****

  Back down on earth, I remember Gunnar getting caught throwing snowballs in third grade and having to repeatedly write, “I will not throw snowballs at school,” on the blackboard. When Dad got home from work, Gunnar cowered when Mom showed Dad the teacher’s note. As usual, Dad surprised us. He dramatically put Vaughn Monroe’s hit, “Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow,” on the phonograph and opened up the living room windows. The whole family went out in the front yard and had a world-class snowball fight. Of course, that was after Mom laid down the rules: “No rocks and no ice in the snowballs!”

  I didn’t throw snowballs at school. I preferred shooting spitballs with my ruler from the back of the classroom. I waited until everyone had his or her head down in a book, including the teacher. I did a quick, careful scan of the class. I was silent and I was quick. The biggest challenge was staying expressionless. That was not easy! Whenever I think of Rebecca reaching for her long thick, curly brunette hair after I fired, it still cracks me up. Her gazing around the room several times afterward was my encore. I learned to tighten my jaws to prevent a grin. I could do that with it showing. I was good. I never got caught.