This Void of Silence Six Seconds in Dallits - Hood College

[Pages:4]February 1, 1968.

Page Seven

.11s11?sss?s?s??s??=

Josiah Thompson

talking with Tink, I watched a tv program on the local drug scene. The report was titled "Is

per, hippies, incense, long hair, and bells. After the tv show ended, during the station break, - a

V/L-1-4 6

/C

Six Seconds in Dallits:

Dallas Turned On?" and the an- disembodied male voice announcswer was affirmative. Acid, ed. solemnly, "It's 10 p. m. Do

grass, amphetamines, and glue - you know where your children

This Void of Silence

sniffing are widespread, the last alarmingly so among sub-teens.

Someday, should we survive,

are?" The -temptation was to laugh and think that could only happen in Texas. But, back in

someone may do a sociological New York, public service post-

by A. D. Coleman

one show I came out after Paul

I sat In the lobby of New York's

Anka. You know . . . 'And here he is, ladies and gentlemen, Thsk

Drake Hotel, waiting for philosophy professor Josiah Thompson,

Thompson, with his Kennedy As. sassination ACt!'" He shrugged,

author of two just-publisheft echo- grinning. The mirror tabletop,

larly treatises, ."The Lonely reflecting light upward onto his

Labyrinth: . Kierkegaard's ',Pseudonymous Works," end "Six

face, carved deep shadows, an effect reminiscent' of kids holding

Seconds in Dallas," a scientific flashlights beneath their chins to

investigation ot the Kennedy ae- create fearsome masks. It turn-

sasslnation. Suddenly, en elfin- ed Tink impishly satanic, a fi-

faced young man was vigorously gure stepped from a : Tiepolo

pumping my hand. "Hi," he said etching. "I'm outgrowing Camila

earnestly. "I'res Tink Thompson." and Klerkegaard," he responded

Heading for the bar, we made to a question about his other

small talk until, recovering from book. "They're for the young. I

the shock and giving him a want to do some work on Niet-

slow once-over, I aired, "Say, zsche."

how old are . you anyhow?" He

?? ?

study on the link between Kennedy's murder and the sudden surfacing and growth of drug use among the yolmg. In retrospect, it seems obvious. The college-educated segment of the Now Generation grew up worshipping two versions of the romantic hero: the idealistic man of action (Camus) and the poetmystic (Kierkegaard). For many young people, Kennedy's death marked the end of the first ro-

mantic dream. (By this I do not mean to imply that the dream was shattered; on the contrary, that it was fulfilled. Both romantic dreams, after all, demand r`le premature, sacrificial death

ers on the subway were playing a game-called Guilt, Guilt, Who's Got the Guilt? "Don't help a good boy go bad," they Warned us. "Take your cast keys -with you." A finer line-drawer than than my shaky-handed self is needed to distinguish between those two.

* ? ?

Tink and his wife, Nancy (to whom he dedicates "Six Seconds

in Dallas"), drove down to Washington for Kennedy's funeral. bescribing the experience, a stinging note of deep and painful Borrow echoed in his voice, end, behind that, an unstated pang of personal loss. Did Kennedy re-

present anything to him, and did

winced, the grimace of those who Heading toward Dallas by will all their lives be asked to plane, I realized that. I very

-show their identification. -Thir- much wanted Texas to be difty-two. I know," he added, "I ferent. Partly because I had

look 16." Which he does. "I simply assumed that it would

would have guessed you were in be (accepting the eastern preju-

your Middle 20," I lied. 'rink-- dice against the Southwest, and there is no affectation in his especially against Texas, where nickname, he wears it unselicorsr our dream died and our night-

sciously -- appears a most un- mare was born). Partly, too, be-

likely metaphysician.

cause the diagnostician in me

In New York for - several yearned to point a clinical fin-

weeks to publicise "Six Seconds ger at the cancer: there it is, the

in Dallas," he had been making source of disease; slice it out,

the rounds of radio and television leave no trace, all will be well.

talk shows. The experience had But Texas is no different. No,

not left him gruntled. "It's' like different at all.

charades," he complained. "On In Dallas, a week before I eat

of the hero as the only, satisfying climax.) Once the endgame of the first dream had been played out, the only remaining eithernative for symbolic action was the role of poet - mystic, and drugs were the quickest ticket into the Magic Theatre. Conse,quently, the drug scene, rela-

tively contained and paranoically clandestine prior to the assassination, burgeoned within a scant year.

So much so that now, four years later, even Dallas is turned on. Aside from drugs, the city also 'has 'rock clubs, light shows, mini-skirts, an . underground pa-

? Combated on secret page

Continued from preceding page

he find Kennedy's death symbolic? Thompson's tone altered, hard sophistication (imitation Bogart unsentimentality) attempting to cover what he felt "Yes;

1 it was the death of taste, style, perception, wit, ideals -- all that mass media stuff . . . is that what you mean?" The challenge in Tink's words was unmistakeable; he was daring me to

charge him with emotional involvement in the event. Touched, I let the gauntlet lie.

"Six Seconds in Dallas" achieved book form by accident. Struck by discrepancies in the Warren -- Commission Report, Think began investigating on his own, and put his findings into publishable form only after meeting the editor-in-chief of Bernard Geis Associates, who pressed him to do so. He felt no disparity betWeen < his work as ? a philosophy lecturer and as a detective. "It was part of me, Ea, tural," he said of the book. "You know Noarn. Chomsky's essay on the responsibility of the intellechial? Well, there. you are. The duty of the intellectual is always to tell the truth, especially in times of crisis." He did not'questkni this as a .modus operandi; while he talked; there was no differentiation between the idealistic and the pragmatic, though he

is quick to separate pragmatism

from opportunism. (It is hard to 'desoribe Tink,

and ? I sit. here wondering if I am conveying any inkling of the man. He looks absurdly young, talks brilliantly, has a quiet but sharp sense of humor. He is very Midwestern in his earnestness; he holds what is now considered an almost-naive conviction, that there is knowable truth which can be determined. What is most ?puzzling about him, I suspect, is not so much the sseiming naivete but that he is aware that others may react negatively to it and doesn't care. Not only doesn't he care; it amuses him tremendous, ly on a metaphysical plane. Yet there is no trace of smugness or self-satisfaction . . .)

? ??

reigns, I would cry a killer's name: Your false king wears robes his knives once tone. Yea, we . heroes drop your

8.17118,

-

And we scholars close your

books:. Now we minstrels slip out through your door. We've nothing left to offer any-

more.

Over-the past year, I have met

few people who do not suspect

that. Lyndon. Baines Johnson is implicated in the plot to kill Kennedy, either before the act or ex

posit facto. "MacBird !" ran to

overflow audiences for many

months. Some critics of the War-

ren Commission Report have

hinted at the possibility. The

Garrison investigation pursues its

steady course despite hysterical attempts to discredit it, and in

the latest . tame of Ramparts, Garrison 'himself states that

Johnison has been of notable help

in covering up evidence. Paul

,..Krasarer nrsn. .flotititv excerpt

fiom the

;botitt..,-l-

Metastasis:. the transfer of disease from one part of the body to another with development of the characteristic lesion in the new location, as in cancer.

Almost two /ears ago, when I was playing and singing in a now-defunct San Francisco electric band, our lead guitarist I composed gentle, melaniegaTf ballad in an Elizabethan

This was the last stanza: In this void where silence

which, Johnson fucked Kennedy's ?rorpse through the 'throat wound, and people believed *it

The speculation is widespread. It makes top-notch cocktail party conversation. But it goes no further. No . one is outraged. No one really cares, one way or the

other. . . * ? .?

Tink Thompson does not be-

lieve it. His opinion of Johnson is

low, but he cannot . conceive, of

his being involved in? the asses-

sination.? At any rate, such un-

scientific speculations are irre-

levant to his goals and purposes

as an investigator and author.

"Six Seconds in Deltas" is what

he, and his publishers, describe

as a "micro-study" of the assas-

sination. " ("I'm proud " of

that title," Tink said of "Six

Seconds in Dallas." "Thought it

up myself. That's all the book is

about--what happened in those

six seconds.")

?

The title, like his argument, is

concise and accurate. Concen-

trating lucidly on the six see-

onds during which the fatal shots

were ,,fired, using 'existing evi-

dence and no speculaton, Thomp-

son proves that those shots were

fired by three gunmen. He

proves no more--and no less. For

the validity 'of his 'argament dis-

credits the very foundation of

the Warren Commission Report,

based as it is on the thoery that

Oswald acted' alone. Thompson's work.' unlike that

'of his predecessor's,' le not speculative: he 10 not theoilsing. "Six Seconds in Dallas" does not concern itself at all with the who and why of the act: Pink Thompson was after truth, scientific, factual truth, since he feels that is the only basis from which answers to the other -qUestions can be deduced. So he eliminated from his investigation all but the definable moments of truth: the six- seconds in which the act was committed. Using strictly scientific methods--analyses of the timing of the shots, trajectories, anglee of bullet-entry, effects of impact--and working primarily from the evidence recorded by film, he proves beyond question

? ? Continued on page ll

...41

,1968

Six Seconds In Dallas

'Since the single-bullet .theory-- necessary to support the loneassassin argument--is vital to the Warren Commission's con-' elusion, actual photographic proof to the contrary shatters the structure of that? report coin-

pletely.

Continued from pegs,8

that the shots were fired by

three assassins.. His conclusions

atirceanl ocot ibnacsieddenocnefsl.imTshyeyhyaproetdhee-rived from the recorded evidence

--much filrn--by

of it in the application

Zapruder of the fun-

"When I saw Life's original of the Zapruder film," Tink told me, "I knew the oase was broken right then,and there. So I called Don Preston, executive editor at Geis, and told him to forget the book, Life -would be breaking the story. That was in

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Si* Seconds in Dallas

Continued from page 11

good question."- Then I asked him to autograph my review copy of the book, which he did with a childish delight, and walked out into New York and the winter street, leaving Tank in ?the lobby, collecting his messages at the front desk.

? ? ??

DOWZIOW11 Dallas is.much like downtown Flan Francisco and downtown New York. There is more brooding violence in the East Village. In downtown Dallas, at a restaurant called the Cattleman, I ate the best steak I had ever tasted--perfect meat, superbly cooked; meat which had been understood. The diners around mar were dressed in fashionable clothes, tasteful and sedate. Their necks were not red. They were the norm; the walking Marlboro ads I spotted occasionally appeared more and more anomalous as the week wore on

After dinner I walked to Dealey Plaza. It was a chill, clear night, bright and crisp. The Texas School Book Depository, the overpass, the 'grassy knoll, stood moonlit in silence. They were invested with no magic, no flickering aura of evil, no looming atmosphere of histor'icSty. It was all merely, disappointingly, there. NO tears cone. I Walked back to my hotel.

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