WITH THE KENEDYS CHP5

CHAPTER FIVE Copyrighted

I am certain my first meeting with Marina would have gone much smoother had she understood English, or for that matter, had I understood Russian. But since neither was the case, communication was somewhat restricted.
When I entered her modest bungalow I was first struck by the picture of Czar Nicholas the Second on her living room wall. Was this a clue to her politics? If so, she was obviously quite nostalgic.

“Kack tee posh oh vayish?” she asked. Of course I had no easy response since I didn’t understand what she said. Sensing my confusion she tried a new question.
“Shto Novo Ho?”
“Look,” I said bluntly, “your husband was at the scene of an attempted political assassination. What was he doing there?”
“Lee good man,” she replied. “No kill nobody.”
“Mrs. Oswald, your husband has a rather perplexing past. He defected to your country, retuned to ours and initiated pro-Castro demonstrations. That alone, though circumstantial, makes him a prime suspect in a murder case.”
“Lee good man. No kill nobody.”
“And you, Mrs. Oswald. You are the niece of a top KGB official. How did you get out of the Soviet Union?”
“Lee good man. No kill nobody.”

It was obvious I would get nowhere with this line of questioning. I left in frustration, telling her I would return that evening. She seemed to understand my intent and kissed me on the cheek before I left.
“Mrs. Oswald,” I exclaimed. “You’re a married woman.”
“Lee good man,” she replied.
“I know,” I said. “No kill nobody.”“You know?” she asked. “Is good.”

When I got to my hotel I phoned Pierre Salinger in Washington. “Look, Mr. Salinger,” I said. “How am I supposed to discover anything when she only speaks six words of English?”
“The six words wouldn’t happen to be, “Lee good man. No kill nobody.?”
“Yes, those are the words. How did you know?”
“That’s what she’s been telling the press. We assume she knows a few more. Just keep pressing her. Use a little force if you have to.”
“What about me trying the old Mandel charm?”
There was a pause before he answered.
“If nothing else works it couldn’t hurt to try,” he replied unenthusiastically.

With Marina in the back of my mind and knowing I had permission from the top to pull all stops with her tonight, I visited Marilyn at Abe Zapruder’s dress factory. After the perfunctory greetings Marilyn kissed me on the cheek exactly where Marina had kissed me just an hour before.
“You taste like borscht,” she said.
I turned beet red and made an excuse. “Uh, yes. My baba brought that custom from the Old Country. I often wash my face in borscht.”
I could sense by her silence that she didn’t believe me. I hoped she didn’t suspect the truth.
“Norm,” she replied, “I would prefer if you stopped that superstition. What could borscht have that simple soap doesn’t?”
Yes, she accepted my story. “Non-alkaline enzymes,” I said confidently.
“Is that good for zits?”
“I never saw a zit on my grandmother’s face.”
“Maybe I’ll try it,” she said ending the issue.

I soon learned that Abe had taken a fancy to his new movie camera and had signed up for a film-making course. He had asked if Marilyn would agree to pose nude for him, but she adamantly refused.
“He wasn’t even planning to pay me,” she said in disgust. I had heard enough. I barged into Abe’s office. He was visibly distressed.
“You see what these are, Norm?” he asked holding a pile of papers. “These are returns on crinolines. For years I made the best crinolines in the southwest. Now no one wants to wear them. Not even in the little girl sizes. I’m stuck with a warehouse full of shmatas.”
“I’m sure they’ll come back into fashion,” I said trying to console him. “You know how quickly things change in the trade. They’ll start moving again in the Spring.”
“No. Corduroy is in now. Everyone’s making things in corduroy. Can you imagine corduroy dresses? Who’d have guessed? Not me, and now I can’t buy a yard of it from anyone. It’s all committed to New York. And me, I’ve got three miles of Dacron and half a barn of gabardine.”

“Look, Abe,” I said, trying to change the subject. “It’s about your movie camera.”
“The only pleasure I have in this world.”
I made my excuses and left the room.
“What’d he say?” asked Marilyn. “Is he going to pay me?”
“He said a sweet girl like you should be ashamed of herself for even thinking of agreeing to pose for his stupid camera.”
“You mean he won’t agree to the crinoline promotion?”
“No, not even that. And he said never to bring up the subject again.”

I left with mixed emotions after agreeing to meet her at the club when it closed. Arriving in the evening at Marina’s home, the burden of responsibility dawned on me. Someone had tried to kill my President, and I would find out if it was this Oswald creep.

I was mildly surprised to see Marina had prepared me a romantic candlelight dinner. The candles were placed in rather bulky holders of either zinc or nickel, and the white wine turned out to be vodka, but I had a nice time despite the peculiarities of custom.
“Do you like potatoes and cream cheese?” she asked.
“Da,” I answered.
“And perhaps some borscht with it?”
“Nyet,” I answered. I hate borscht.”
“Then we make toast together.”
She poured the vodka into paper cups, lifted hers in the air and said, “Pravda.” I repeated the process also toasting, “Pravda.” After swallowing the contents in one gulp she crumpled the cup and threw it in the wastebasket.
I couldn’t swallow a cup of vodka like that without gagging, but I covered my weakness by asking, “What is Pravda?”
“Truth,” she answered.

Propriety forbids me providing a detailed description of our after dinner activities, but I will hint that her bra had eight hooks in it. In the afterglow of what is known as necking and getting to first base, I asked her what her husband would say if he found out.
“Vladimir never find out. Never see me no more.”
“I was thinking more of Lee.”
“Lee not my husband. Lee bad man. Maybe shoot somebody.”At last I had broken through. The story that followed the confession, however, I assumed to be a lie. Before I left her place she kissed me deeply on the cheek.

When I arrived at my hotel I washed my face for several minutes and applied several coatings of Aqua Velva to my right cheek. Then I phoned Pierre. He was happy to hear from me.
“How’d it go?”
“I think terribly. I got some strange information from her.”
“Like what?”
“Like Glad Bags.”
“Like what?”
“Glad Bags. She says it’s America’s greatest invention. She says Soviet housewives have to take the garbage out in heavy cans. This is a major technological breakthrough, and she asked me for the formula. Do you have any disinformation on Glad Bags?”

“Forget that. What about her husband?”
“I don’t know if it’s worth telling you.”
“Try me.”
“You sure?”
“Just spill it, will you?”
“Promise not to laugh.”
“I promise.”
“Okay, I’ll hold you to that. Lee Harvey Oswald never went to Russia. She married someone else there, and before she arrived in America Lee traded places with him.”
“Come on. Honest?”
“That’s what she said.”
“But why?”
“She refused to say. That’s as far as I could get with her.”
“Okay, we’ll check it out.”

I later arrived at the Carousel Club expecting to pick Marilyn up. Jack Ruby seemed genuinely exhilarated to see me.
“I let Marilyn off early tonight. She’ll expect you for drinks at her place later. Some doll, that Marilyn.” He jabbed me playfully in the upper arm and added, “You’ve got a real winner there, Norm.”

He jerked his head to the left twice and said, “My club has been honored once again by the visit of your employer. Why don’t you sit down and have a drink with him?”
I saw Mr. Hoffa nursing what appeared to be a glass of bourbon. What an honor it was to be visited by my benefactor!
“Sit down, Mandel,” he almost barked. I obeyed instinctively for reasons I barely understood.
“You recognize these people,” he asked while handing me a photograph. Of course I recognized them.
“They’re my parents. Where did you shoot it?”
“This time we shot it with a camera yesterday. Someday we could shoot it with something more lethal.”
“What do you mean?”

“Let me explain to you what I mean. You see, this here Bobby Kennedy is out to crucify me. You understand that the Union invests its dues in projects that will pay dividends come retirement. And we’re good investors. We’ve arranged some enviable pensions for our members. You know that.”
“What’s that got to do with Mom and Dad?”

“Please, allow me to go on. You see this Bobby creep has the whole apparatus of the Justice Department and the FBI at his disposal. And he’s attacking me like I was poison.”
“Then I’ll speak to him about it. If you’ve been subjected to illegal harassment I will bring it to the highest…”

“Mandel, will you shut up? Some of my investments are going to get me ten years in the can, and nothing can stop that unless Bobby is snuffed permanently. And you’re going to do it or your parents will be in the next world a bit early.”
“You don’t mean that?”
“I do. You’re going to poison our illustrious Attorney General at the first convenient moment before I’m convicted. After that things are taken care of.”

“I can’t. I haven’t got it in me.”
Hoffa called Ruby over and said, “Sure you do. We all do. Tell him about it, Jack.”
“Well, you see,” said Ruby humbly, “I began my career as a messenger for Al Capone in Chicago. I was a good messenger and word got out. In time, my enthusiasm and ambition carried me to the vice-presidency of the local Wastehandlers Union. One year our president began some reforms that were detrimental to the interests of our members. So I had to kill him. It was easy and actually quite a lot of fun. Needless-to-say, the Union took very good care of me, and no one was the wiser for it. In time I was given an important, though unpublicized position in Dallas, and as they say, ‘the rest is history.”

“Jack, you have the right personality for the job. I’m squeamish. I don’t have the stomach for murder. Get someone else to do it, and don’t tell me about it. I don’t want to know.”
“Norm, Norm, Norm,” Ruby repeated. “We’re from the same tribe, remember? I know what your parents went through. And I know you want the best for them. Believe me, I understand suffering. I cry every time one of my dogs gets sick. You couldn’t make your parents suffer any more. Not after what they’ve been through.”

Hoffa pulled a package the size of a matchbox from his suit pocket. “A little powder in his coffee. You pick the place. If there’s any trouble we’ll have the FBI personally escort you to the airport with a new passport and a ticket to a place where a million bucks is in your bank account. You’ll love Honduras. The broads, (kissing the tips of his thumb and forefinger), mwah! All of ‘em honeys.”

In a fog I walked into Marilyn’s apartment building. I knocked on her door. She opened the door, and I saw her face was all red. Her hands tried to cover the odd completion.
“How could you, Norman? I washed my face in borscht like you said, and the stuff doesn’t come out.”

ECC12
12 And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.
13 Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.
14 For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.

WITH THE KENEDYS CHP4

CHAPTER FOUR
Copyrighted

My flight to Washington was proof of the miracles of the Jet Age. I was greeted at the White House, not by the President but by his Press Secretary, Pierre Salinger, and by the Chairman of his Party, Larry O’Brian. They invited me to sit down and then let me in on my purpose.
“People tried to kill our President, and we don’t know who they are or why they did it. But it looks like a broad conspiracy. The way to unravel it is to find out who Lee Harvey Oswald is.”
“Don’t you know who he is?”
“That’s just it,” said Salinger. “He’s really nobody or lots of people. He joins the Marines, learns Russian and defects. We don’t believe that’s possible. Then the Russians house him in Minsk, a highly sensitive military city. We don’t understand it. Then they let him emigrate to America with his wife, Marina, the niece of a top KGB commissar.”

“And it gets stranger,” added O’Brian. “He sets up a committee for Fair Play For Cuba in the same building as a CIA anti-Castro storefront. They had to be in contact with him. We have to know, who is he and what was he doing in Dealey Plaza? We know this much…he wasn’t shooting anybody. We checked his Marines’ record. He couldn’t hit a barn with a baseball.”

“So how do I fit in?” I asked.
“You are going to have to testify against him,” said O’Brian. “Marina refuses to believe her husband was involved but you are implicating him. She has agreed to speak to you hoping you’ll forget you saw him with the cardboard box.”
“What do I ask her?”
“You’ll be briefed. It’s only a few days’ work, then you’ll get down to speechwriting and image boosting for five more years, I expect.”

I wasn’t certain I wasn’t being used. But this obviously was important work, and my President personally asked me to take on the assignment. What greater honor is there? At supper I met him. Brother Robert joined us after the meal for coffee and conversation. It was a dream, really, sitting with the two most charismatic figures in America. Both as brimming with youth and attractiveness even at close quarters. The President’s hair, I noticed, was turning grey, yet his demeanor underaged his looks by twenty years.
“Bob, Mr. Mandel is quite charming. He’ll be a fine addition to our team.”
“And do you, Mr. Mandel,” said Bobby, “approve of your first assignment?”
“It sounds very important?”

“It’s vital,” answered the Attorney General. “Somebody, or some group attacked our whole system of democracy. We have to find out who they are or they’ll try it again.”
“But why Marina?” I asked.
“Because,” continued Bobby, “Her husband isn’t saying anything. And there’s reason to believe he doesn’t know anything. Yet what are the odds of such a character just being in Dealey Plaza? Not likely, I’m afraid.”
“Norman,” added the President, “If you find something interesting, you’ve done a great service. That will be two I’ll owe you. I repay my debts, Norman.”

I phoned Marilyn and told her I was coming back for a few days to lease my apartment and prepare to move to Washington. She met me at Dallas Airport, and we drove back in her late model Studebaker. She seemed cheerful and asked what the President was like and how I felt meeting him. I tried to act inconspicuously, but perhaps she detected some new reticence to communicate on my part. What if she found out I was seeing Marina Oswald? Would she understand that it was in the line of duty or misinterpret the whole thing? I would see her when I could, but Marina was the real reason I was in Dallas.

ECC12
12 And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.
13 Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.
14 For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.

WITH THE KENEDYS CHP3

CHAPTER THREE
Copyrighted
At twelve forty-five I arrived at the Carousel Club to meet Marilyn. I had made a decision in the car that Marilyn had to quit her job at the club. Ruby’s comment the day before had led me to the conclusion that he was of unstable character. But I couldn’t ask her to quit unless I had something better to offer. I knew she loved her work with Zapruder, but I felt the enriching life of Washington, the people she would meet, the overwhelming sense of playing a role in history, could persuade her to leave. Of course, I would have to ask her to marry me.

“She greeted me as I entered. “Norm, there’s someone here to see you.”
“Harry Olsen?”
“No, not Harry Olsen. Look at the back wall.”
After gazing through the smoke I saw Jimmy Hoffa sitting alone at a table for two. Did he come just to see me? It didn’t make immediate sense. I walked to the table.
“May I join you, Mr. Hoffa?”
“Enough of this mister stuff. You’re on the Presidential staff. That earns you the right to call me Jimmy. Pull up a chair, cowboy.”
Jimmy offered me a cigar. Though I don’t smoke I felt obliged to accept. When I read the label I saw it was Cuban.
“There are still a few around,” he explained.

I felt so intimidated, so overwhelmed by his presence, that I opened with the dumbest clicheיin the book. “To what do I owe this great honor, Jimmy?”
“No, no. The honor is mine. You are the only Teamster on the White House staff. You outrank me in some quarters. Some very safe quarters. Look, Norman, you on the staff is good for the Kennedys. It proves they got nothing against Teamsters, just against me personally.”
“I can’t believe that expedience had anything to do with my appointment. I have just been honored by a grateful President.”
“Right. Have it your way.

Just remember this, you’re an employee of the Teamsters on an approved leave of absence. Someday there may be a conflict of interest. If that day comes.”
“I assure you, if that day comes, I’ll resign.”
“No, you won’t. You’ll use your influence to clear our good name and mine in particular.
“How could I do that?”
“Because you’ll be in the inner circles of the White House with access to information that…”
“I would never betray…”
“The Teamsters. That’s who you’d never betray. Your first oath is to us. Now that little wimp, Bobby, is getting in my way. And if it wasn’t for you…”
“What’s that?”
“Oh, never mind. Just be a source of pride to all Teamsters. Do your job with dignity as I do mine.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now get lost. Go somewhere with your broad.”

I walked away as Ruby approached the table.
“Mr. Hoffa, sir,” he said. “It would be a great honor if you signed a photo and added how much you enjoyed your visit to my club.”
“MANDEL,” Hoffa screamed. “You’re still our PR Chairman till Monday. Arrange a nice photo for Mr. Ruby here, and get the guy who does my signature to write a personal note to Mr. Ruby here. You still know how to do these things, right?”
“Yes, sir. I’ll have it done before I fly to Washington.”

I sat with Marilyn in the car. She looked lovely, yet she fidgeted like at Dealey Plaza. I decided marriage would have to wait. I yearned for her with a great lust but satisfaction would have to be delayed. Suddenly she brightened up and said, “You won’t believe it. This is wild. Mr. Zapruder took his film in to be developed, and I picked it up tonight. He overexposed the whole roll. Nothing came out.”

ECC12:12 And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.
13 Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.
14 For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.

WITH THE KENNEDYS CHP2

I was supposed to go out tonight, unfortunately my windscreen is freezing up and it is too dangerous to drive, -9 the car temperature guage said. I am reading "WITH THE KENEDYS" instead. Here is chp 2.CHAPTER TWO
Copyrighted

The horrible irony is that the President succeeded in what he set out to accomplish in Dallas. Mrs. Connally was rushed to Parkland Hospital and pronounced dead at one thirty in the afternoon. Senator Yarborough requested Vice-President Johnson’s intercession and received a moment with the governor to express his condolences and promised his close cooperation in the future. All former wounds were sincerely healed with a touching embrace by the two previous adversaries.

I need not remind my readers that I became an overnight hero. I have considered what heroics involve, and everyone from Billy Mitchell to Sergeant York was right. A hero is someone who does the only thing possible in a situation he accidentally walks into.
That night I went to my temple and saw Jack Ruby praying. He approached me and said, “What are you praying for, Norm?”
The question took me by surprise. “Well, Jack,” I answered, “If I was a better man, Mrs. Connally would be alive today.”
“No,” he answered, “If you were a better man, John Kennedy would be dead today.”
Then he walked away. To Ruby I was clearly no hero. However he seemed unique in his opinion.

The next morning Vice-President Johnson appeared at my door without advance warning. I was dressed in a bathrobe and felt self-conscious. Is this what they meant by the Kennedy administration’s informality?
“I’m sorry I disturbed you, Mr. Mandel.”
“You could have called first,” I answered, and then realized who I was talking to. “But since it was you,” I feebly recovered, “There was no real need.”
“Mr. Mandel, may I be seated?”
I invited him in, he apologized for disturbing my Sabbath and then came right to the point.
“President Kennedy is extremely grateful to you, has been briefed on your writing and promotional talents and requests that you join our team as a speech writer and image builder.”

It took me a few moments to formulate my response. “Is the President aware that I work for the Teamsters?”
“Of course. That’s why we have a Secret Service.”
“You could have fooled me yesterday.”
“Yesterday is too complicated to talk about yet. You can be assured that you are classified as a loyal citizen, not a security risk, despite your employers.”
“Tell the President that I am deeply honored and will accept if my employers offer me a leave of absence. That, I can assure you, is not a certainty.”
“Yes, it is, Mr. Mandel. We contacted Mr. Hoffa personally and have received his blessings on your appointment. Welcome to the team.”

The Vice-President left, and I sat down to contemplate my fate. Why was I always among the favored few? I was only a good student of journalism at Wayne State, not a great one, yet as soon as I graduated I was offered the Dallas position in the Teamsters’ organization. And if it were not for Marilyn, I would never have been in the position to save a President’s life. Was I blessed, lucky, or was someone greater than I watching over me and sending me headlong towards greatness?

I turned on the television hoping there would be news about the assassins. The dauntless reporters came up with information that made no real sense to me. The young man with the curtain rods was one, Lee Harvey Oswald, a former defector to the Soviet Union. One of the assassins actually worked for the CIA and was involved in the training of Cuban refugees who were later slaughtered at the Bay of Pigs. The other two were known Mafia hitmen with twenty-four acknowledged hits between them. Could such a motley group actually have formed a conspiracy somehow? Either that, or by a grand coincidence, hoods, communists, and anti-communists had all gathered at the same spot, at the same time, to do the same thing.

I turned off the set and began thinking. Did I really want to work for Kennedy? Certainly I had voted for him in 1960 believing him to be more pro-Labor than Nixon, but my employers supported Nixon as less of a threat. Still, I was swept into the Kennedy fold by the youth of the man, the glamour of his wife and the intelligence of his advisors. He seemed right for the times, an era where monkeys traveled in space, and some television shows were being broadcast in color.

Kennedy seemed an optimistic choice, and I am by nature an optimist. There was no reason not to be. I had a first rate career, my country was the greatest in the world, possibly in history, and there was no end in sight to our accomplishments. We were the greatest cultural force on earth, and our great artists such as Lucille Ball and Frankie Avalon were heroes to the world, and no country, big or small, could ever defeat us militarily.

Yet I had some doubts. Could Kennedy stand up to the communists like Nixon did in the Kitchen Debate? Would he have the nerve to tell Kruschev where to get off? I feared he admired some things about the socialist way of life and was soft on Communism.
When he let those gallant fighters bleed to death on the beaches of Cuba my worse fears were confirmed. He had not sent in our Marines to rescue those brave Latin democrats, and I knew in time Castro would come to haunt him. I didn’t know how soon after the haunting would begin.
But, in my mind, Kennedy redeemed himself during the Missile Crisis. Any man who would offer a nuclear showdown on behalf of American security, had guts. Clearly, he was not soft on Communism, just a true liberal. Yes, I admired him, true with some misgivings, but I would be proud to work with him.

ECC12:12 And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.13 Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.
14 For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.

WITH THE KENNEDYS

Dealy Plaza

A friend has written a book, this is the first chapter, what do you think? Much better than anything you would read in The Sunday World, The Monday World or the Belfast Lundyletter!

WITH THE KENNEDYSThis is copyrighted

CHAPTER ONE
It was on November 22 of 1963 that my association with the Kennedys began. The night before I picked my girlfriend, Marilyn Sitzman, up at the Carousel Club, and she insisted I take lunch hour off and see the Presidential parade with her and her daytime boss, Abraham Zapruder.
I liked Marilyn and admired her devotion and initiative. Two years before she badly needed work, and family connections directed her to a bustling dress factory owned by Zapruder. He hired her as a receptionist and paid her fairly. But two bad seasons in a row had cut into Zapruder’s profits and he told her he might have to let her go.

Marilyn was certain the factory would get back on the right track and liked Zapruder personally. So she agreed to take a cut in salary and sought a second job to make ends meet. Turning to her family again she was told to see Jack Ruby. He offered her work at his night club.

I was less than enthused about her night time place of work. It was a dingy hangout for creeps, in fact a strip joint. Ruby offered Marilyn a waitressing job, which she accepted. Later she found out the strippers made twice as much as she did and requested such a position at the club. Everyone opposed the idea; I thought it was demeaning, Ruby would not allow a Jewish girl to take off her clothes in public, and the strippers themselves objected—Marilyn was quite lovely, noticeably shapely, and they didn’t want the competition.

Whatever compunctions I may have had about Ruby were slowly dissipated when I saw his crowd included many of Dallas’s finest. Clearly Ruby had nothing to fear from the police, since they frequented his club on their off hours. And Ruby himself offered his hospitality and friendship in return for their welcome patronage. It was an amicable arrangement.

Ruby and I had only one thing in common, but it was strong enough to create a bond. Neither of us remember our real parents. I was raised by victims of the Nazi Holocaust who had lost their own children in Poland. Ruby was raised in foster homes when early in his life the city of Chicago declared his own parents unfit to raise children. He viewed us as fellow orphans though I resisted belonging to the fraternity. I never viewed the wonderful couple who raised me as anything but my true parents. I was proud of my lineage, he was obviously ashamed of his.

Marilyn was an insistent girl, and she was positive the Presidential parade would be memorable. So certain was she that she purchased Abe Zapruder a Bell and Howell 8mm camera to record the event. Abe had never used a movie camera before and was certain he had no talent for filmmaking. But why look a gift horse in the mouth? He’d try his hand at it if his receptionist insisted. Maybe, she told him, he’d get some good shots and make some money selling them later on. Ridiculous, he thought.

I was also a reluctant parade witness. My job at the Teamsters local consumed a great deal of time, and I usually ate at the office. Previously I organized public relations for the Teamsters, but a few months earlier I was given the added task of editing and pretty well writing the entire local newsletter. I was good at the task and was receiving citations from within the Union. I felt driven to give my all to my work after I heard rumors that I was being considered for the position of national PR director of the Teamsters. I had even received a phone call from the big Boss, Mr. Hoffa, congratulating me on my good work.

At noon I met Marilyn and Abe beside a bridge overlooking Dealey Plaza. I was in a sour mood. Why did Marilyn pick such an out-of-the-way post to view the parade? She could have found something a bit closer to both our places of employment. But she prepared a box lunch and had a thermos full of lemonade. That was welcome on such a hot, muggy day.
The conversation was dull. Abe asked what temple I’d chosen for the upcoming high holidays, and Marilyn fidgeted nervously and seemed aloof from the discussion. At twelve ten I saw an acquaintance walking down the street below. He was Police Officer Harry Olsen who came to the Carousel Club at closing time to pick up his girlfriend, a talented exotic dancer named Kay Coleman.
“Hey,” I said to Marilyn. “There’s Kay’s boyfriend, Harry.”
Marilyn looked down, saw him and said, “He’s supposed to be there. He’s on duty.”
“I’m going to go down for a second and say hello.”
“Don’t bother him, Norm. He’s on duty.”
“Oh, it’s just for a second. I’ll be right back.”
I started to leave and Marilyn grabbed my sleeve and pulled me back.
“Norman, please. Don’t go down there. Please.”
I yanked my sleeve hard and her grip loosened. She then grabbed it again.
“What’s the matter the matter with you, Marilyn? I’m sure he won’t mind, and if he sees us he’ll be a little hurt I didn’t say hello.”
“You barely know him. He doesn’t want to see you.”
“Come on. Half the time I pick you up at club, he’s there waiting for Kay. We’ve had drinks a dozen times together already. I like him, and I’m going to say hello.”
“Then I’m coming, too.”
“Look,” said Zapruder. “You dragged me here so the least you can do is keep me company. I don’t know why the place is so empty now but if a crowd comes we’ll lose each other.”

I walked away unimpeded. On the way to meet Harry I passed the Texas School Book Depository. I had never understood its purpose. Were there really so many spare books in Texas that a ten-story warehouse was needed to store them? I saw a hawk-faced young man walk towards a side entrance holding a long cardboard box. That aroused my suspicions enough to yell to him, “Hey, what you got there?”
“Curtain rods,” he yelled back.
I thought to myself, why would someone bring curtain rods into a warehouse? I caught up to Harry in an uncertain mood.
“Hey, Norm,” he said, “How ya doin’, buddy?”
“Fine. Listen, Harry…”
“Whadya think of this little parade, huh? Why d’ya think Kennedy came?”
“You know, the bickering between Connally and Yarborough, show of unity and all that. Listen, Harry, I have to change the subject. I just saw a guy walk into the book depository with a long box. It could have been a rifle. Can you check it out?”
“Just your imagination, buddy.”
“All the same, better safe than sorry.”
Harry seemed agitated and said, “I’ll let you talk to my superior here.”

As he walked away I saw a man standing curbside across the street that also aroused my attention. He was wearing a raincoat and had opened an umbrella, then closed it again. It was 83 degrees in the shade, and though it rained in the morning, there was no threat of it now. Was he hiding something under the raincoat?

I thought to myself, what is going on? I’m not a suspicious person by nature. Why am I seeing subterfuge wherever I look? The confusion became unbearable when I looked in the direction of a rolling piece of grassy tract, which later became known as the grassy knoll.
If I may diverge for a moment, I never understood how the term knoll became accepted to describe the site. Very few people use the word knoll in any context anymore and fewer even know what it means. Yet, through I testified to the area being a patch of grass, the term grassy knoll was what stuck.

At the back of the knoll a white Rambler was parked. One man was seated in the driver’s seat and started up the engine. The other was leaning against the car body, caressing a black metal pipe.
Observation and memory are now unfathomable to me. Though I could be so perceptive as to think that looks like a rifle silencer, although I had never actually seen one other than on television, I had not noticed that the Rambler was a station wagon. Yet that is what the others, who were drawn to the scene for whatever reasons, swore they saw.
Harry came back with two policemen who I later learned were Sergeant Gerald Hill and Officer Paul Bentley. Hill said to me, “You got a problem, buddy?”
“Look, officer,” I replied, “I’m not a nut or some kind of loony tune. But I swear something’s funny around here.”
“Like what?”
“Like a guy wearing a full-length raincoat in 80 degree weather.” I pointed to the man and continued, “Like a guy carrying a long box into a perfect ambush site and claiming he was carrying curtain rods. And like those two over there beside the Rambler. What’s that he’s got in his hands?”
“Looks like an ordinary pipe,” said Bentley.
“Yup. That’s what it looks like to me,” agreed Hill.
“You mean, neither of you are even going to go see what it is?”
Hill lifted his walkie-talkie and spoke into it.
“Control. Yeah, Hill here. Get Tippet away from that theatre and have him come to the Plaza plain clothed. Tell him to make it pronto. We got a little trouble here.”
As I backed away I said, “Look, officers, I’m no troublemaker. I was just trying to be a good citizen. I guess I was wrong about everything.”

When I reached the next street corner I ran for the nearest phone. I saw no public phone anywhere so I ran into a novelties store. On the shelves were displayed such ingenious items as lava lamps, crystal radios and singing yo-yos. I thought to myself, when this is over I must come here just to browse leisurely.
I ran up to the main counter and said to the clerk (or owner, perhaps), “Please let me use your phone. Someone is trying to kill the President.”
“Ah, come on,” he replied, “That gag went out with the whoopee cushion.”
“I’m not kidding. There’s four of them. Two of them, at least, have rifles.”
“You think I was born yesterday? I’ve been in the business a long time. I single-handedly brought the hula hoop to Dallas.”

Time was running too short. I looked for some sort of weapon to force him to give me the phone. The first thing that caught my eye was a slinky. No threat there. Then a Davey Crocket fur hat. Of no use. Maybe the Crocket rifle. Was I losing my judgment? Finally I did something new to me. I punched him as hard as I could in the jaw. As he lay stunned on the floor I said, “If you try and get up you get it again. I’m sorry but national security is at stake now.”

I must digress at this point. Because of my PR position with the Teamsters, I was acquainted with a few top-ranking law enforcement officials. Attorney General Robert Kennedy had, I believed then, falsely accused my personal president, Mr. Hoffa, of misusing union funds and consorting with elements of organized crime. As a result, I was spending more time clearing his and our good name in the press than attending to the urgent business of an all-inclusive membership drive. The police and FBI had ransacked our offices on three separate occasions, and I had to deal with them personally and the press after. Usually I would charge the police with illegal entry and harassment.

I called Jesse Curry, Chief of Police.
“Mr. Curry, it’s Norman Mandel.”
“What do you want? We haven’t raided you in weeks and don’t plan to for another month.”
“I’m at Dealey Plaza. They’re going to kill the President when he passes here.” There was a long pause. “Do you hear me? Kill the President.”
“I hear you, Mandel, and this time you’re going too far.”
“I’m not going anywhere. You have to stop the motorcade. Reroute it. Do anything, just don’t let it pass Dealey Plaza. Then get some men into the book depository and to the little park on Elm Street. He’ll be here in less than ten minutes.”
“And when he gets there, wave to him for me.”
Curry banged down the phone.

I immediately phoned the FBI number of Inspector James Hosty.
“Mr. Hosty, it’s Norman Mandel. I’m at Dealey Plaza, and this is no joke. I saw assassins ready to shoot the President.”
“Mandel, this is the most perverse PR stunt you’ve ever pulled.”
“Please, don’t argue. Gamble, and if I’m wrong, expose me in the press. I don’t care what you do, just get here with some armed men.”
“Why didn’t you call the police? There are hundreds of them along the parade route.”
“They don’t believe me.”
“Okay. I know a cop who might. Stand in front of the book depository and wait for Lieutenant Jack Revill.”
“How long will he take to get there?”
“Fifteen minutes if you hang up now.”

I thought, there isn’t enough time. I looked at the owner’s Mickey Mouse watch. Only seven minutes to go. I ran out of the shop and back to the Plaza. Crossing the street against the light, I was almost run over by a souped-up Edsel. I ran to the raincoated man and said, “The whole thing’s off. The FBI is onto us.”
“I thought they were in on it,” he said.
“Not everyone. Now run to the book depository and call them off. I’ll take care of the Rambler.”
Slowly and confidently, he lowered his umbrella and sauntered to the depository. I went up to the crew cut man leaning on the Rambler and told him the plan was off.
“Who are you?” he asked menacingly.
“Man…Mann of the FBI. The Bureau found out. We’ll get him next time. If we try this time all the work has been for nothing.”

The President’s limousine approached. The crew cut was handed a rifle by his partner in the driver’s seat and placed the silencer on it. He lifted the rifle butt against his shoulder and took aim.
“I don’t care,” he said. “I want him, and I’ve got him in my sights.”
I yanked the barrel downward as he shot. Mrs. Connally grimaced, then screamed as she was hit.
“I SAID IT WAS OFF AND I MEAN IT,” I screamed.
He pushed me hard to the ground and applied what I assume was some sort of karate chop. Helplessly I watched him aim, and then I heard a shot. He crumpled to the ground as Hosty and Revill arrived.
“Cutting it pretty close, aren’t you?” I mumbled to Hosty.
“Shut up. Where are the others?”
“Book depository.”

They ran towards the building and I forced myself to follow them. At the cafeteria drinking a coke was the man I saw with the curtain rods. “That’s him,” I told Revill.
“Oh yeah, well how was he going to kill the President, splatter him with soda?”
“I don’t know. Just believe me. If it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t have found out about the others.”
Revill handcuffed him, and we heard shots from somewhere in the building. Soon after we learned that Hosty was shot dead with an obsolete Italian combat rifle in a firefight that resulted in the death of two and the arrest of one attempted assassin.

ECC12:12 And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.13 Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.
14 For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.