one worried sonofabitch with a few million dollars turns to the others.  with a few million dollars.  and says something pretty direct like.
so calls are made. down to washington. all over the world. they start talking about it. a few people here, there. just conversations, nothing more.
generals, admirals, cia people, and probably some people on the inside of kennedy's staff - young, brilliant judases, ready to go to war in southeast asia.
and maybe a vice-president getting separate memos from vietnam, eager to get his backers the billions of dollars in contracts for southeast asia.
kennedy, like caesar, is surrounded with enemies. something is underway but it has no face. yet everyone in the loop knows.
money is at stake. big money. a hundred billion. the kennedy brothers target voting districts for defense dollars. they give tfx fighter contracts only to the counties that are going to make a difference in '64. these people fight back. their way. one day another call is made.
maybe to somebody like my superior who's been running the "mongoose" program out of florida and who has no love for kennedy.
everything's cellurized. no one has said "he must die," there's been no vote, there's nothing on paper, there's no one to blame. it's as old as the crucifixion: the mafia firing squad, one blank, no one's guilty because everyone in the power structure who knows anything has a plausible deniability. there are no compromising connections except at the most secret point. but what's paramount is that it must succeed. no matter how many die, how much it costs, the perpetrators must be on the winning side and never subject to prosecution for anything by anyone. that is a coup d'etat.
i knew the man 20 years. that's him. the way he walked.  arms at his side, military, the stoop, the haircut, the twisted left hand, the large class ring. what was he doing there? if anyone had asked him, he'd probably say "protection" but i'll tell you i think he was giving some kind of "okay" signal to those hoboes - they're about to get booked and he's telling 'em it's gonna be okay, they're covered. and in fact they were - you never heard of them again.
and that was the day vietnam started.