There is a woman who lives down in our area – I’ve spoken with her on the phone but would not know her if I hit her with my shopping cart at Kroeger’s. The circumstances of the conversation aside, she is a writer, and “ghost” writes. She named one book that she had written for a prominent psychiatrist, but said that if she named another, she would get in deep financial trouble. Confidentiality agreements on ghost written books can be strictly enforced.
The audacity of pretending to write a book.
Still, any damned fool can see that politicians do not write their own books – JFK did not write Profiles in Courage, Nixon ditto on Six Crisis, and Obama did not write either Audacity of Hope or Dreams of My Father. Some public figures seem smart enough to write their own stuff, Obama and Bill Clinton, for example, but there is no need to go through that grueling effort when it can easily be hired out. It’s not like they don’t have input – I imagine that Clinton and his ghost writer worked closely on My Life. However, books “written” by aspiring presidential candidates are likely done in boiler rooms by financial backers with only cursory consultation with the “authors.”
Books by athletes, television news anchors, radio talk show hosts and other pop culture figures are obviously ghosted – one exception, the classic Ball Four by Jim Bouton – he really did write it.
________________
I bring this up because a “news” man, Bill O’Reilly is “writing” a whole series of books on various bits of white bread history, Lincoln, Jesus, and JFK. The books are heavily promoted and written for a dumbed down audience. The JFK book is being put in an edition for children, which I assume only means merely adding pictures. It will also be made into a movie, probably for Saturday morning cartoon viewing, as our leaders have had quite enough of people doubting the magic bullet story. They want our kids to live cradle to grave having never been exposed to the truth of that day.
George de Mohrenschildt was a petroleum geologist who traveled about the world in search of oil. That was his cover story, anyway. He was a CIA agent. He was on the-periphery of the JFK assassination, not directly involved, but assigned the task of babysitting Harvey Oswald while in Dallas. They formed an odd pair, Oswald with his Russian wife and ability to speak fluent Russian – de Mohrenschildt was a white Russian immigrant. They carried on conversations in their native tongue on matters like Russian literature and political philosophy. Harvey Oswald was no intellectual lightweight. (His doppelganger, Lee Oswald, was.)
The job of a baby sitter is to keep the patsy out of trouble and ready when they day comes for him to stand center stage. The babysitter does not need to know what the big event will be, which is why I think de Mohrenschildt innocent of involvement in the JFK murder. Like so many of Russian extraction of that time, he was dedicated to the cause of anti-communism, which meant his CIA service was likely a matter of personal conviction.
George de Mohrenschildt was called to testify before the House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1977. He was either murdered or committed suicide one day before – either way can be managed by the “wet” people at CIA, so even if a real suicide, it could have been forced upon him by a psychological assault.
Caught in a lie, but no worries.
Bill O’Reilly claims in his JFK book, Killing Kennedy – The End of Camelot, and on TV, that he stood outside the man’s door and heard the gunshot that killed de Mohrenschildt. That’s a big lie. He was in Dallas that day say those who worked with him. Ordinarily, a tall tale like that would cost a man his credibility. But not in our Empire of Lies – he hasn’t been harmed in the least by being caught in a gross and deliberate distortion do the truth.
That is par for the course in our late-stage empire-in-decline. Truth has no value, liars are exalted, truth-tellers scorned, moved to the margins, even murdered.
