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The Kennedy Myth of Camelot: The commonly accepted portrayal of President John F. Kennedy's 34 months in office is the Jack and Jackie Myth of Camelot. This Camelot Myth has been and continues to be widely and regularly reinforced by books, television, film and media pundits. When polled, most Americans pick John F. Kennedy (JFK) as their most loved president. These same folks readily embrace and perpetuate the misty Once Upon a Time Kennedy Fairytale mystique of magnetically handsome King John and elegantly beautiful Queen Jacqueline reigning for that “one brief, shining moment that was known as Camelot.”

John was no handsome king and Jackie no beautiful queen. Being rich and famous makes a person neither a king or a queen nor handsome or beautiful. However, being rich on Daddy Joe's money does permit buying the services of people who are skilled in image making and public relations. When John's schoolboy chums laid eyes on him they nicknamed him Ratface. So how was and who made over and transformed a not-so-handsome Boston Irish Prince nicknamed "Ratface" into a "handsome King of Camelot?"

The answer: Team Camelot! There are professionals who for a price can, as the old saw goes, "turn a sow's ear into a silk purse" or a ratfaced prince into a handsome king. They were and are Team Camelot Myth.

Eye-to-Eye with the Other Eye of the One-Eyed Jack of Camelot: The political traditions of my family are that of hard-core, FDR worshipping, Great Depression Democratics. All my family member role models loved FDR, Truman, Stevenson and Kennedy. I was born in the same Chicago Southside ethnic neighborhood that Chicago's Mayor Richard J. Daley called home. Chicago's King Richard resided just blocks away and was our City Alderman before being elected Mayor of Chicago. When Democrat Adlai Stevenson, The Man From Libertyville, ran against IKE, my family lived in the Libertyville, IL area of the Chicago Suburbs. They loved The Man From Libertyville.

In spite of my formative cradle-to-puberty immersion in things Democrat, I was never caught up in the 1960's Kennedy Mystique of Camelot. Maybe it's because, as a teenager I saw the other eye of the One-Eyed Jack of Camelot when he reneged on his promise to the Cuban counter-revolutionaries on the Bay of Pigs [Bahia de Cochinos], when I was living in the Florida Straits just 90 miles from Cuba and. Over night at the eleventh hour on April 17, 1961, King Jack turned his royal back and placed a blind eye on the Bay of Pigs counter-revolutionary exiles Invasion Force.

Maybe it's because I saw Jack Kennedy up close and in the flesh. I got to look into both of his eyes from two military paces away as he met and greeted England’s Prime Minister Harold MacMillan deplaning at U.S. Naval Air Station Boca Chica Field, Florida in 1961 for a meeting at the Little White House in Key West.

As the fates would have it, in 1961 I was an off-duty teenaged sailor boy snoozing in my upper bunk in Barracks 626 at NAS Boca Chica. I was sleeping during the daytime because I was working Night Check (2nd Shift) down at the squadron. Sailors are known to say, "If you snooze, you loose." Well, that fatefull day the Chief Master at Arms woke me out of REM sleep to press-gang me into last minute service as one of the ceremonial side boys stationed at the foot of the aircraft ground ramp stairs for the arriving Prime Minister.

This up-close-and-personal ceremonial side boy duty gave me a very close look at both men, as President Kennedy met and greeted the disembarking British Prime Minister MacMillan. They greeted each other at the foot of the aircraft ramp stairs in world leader style, pausing together as they shoke hands and smiled for the gathered crowd and to give the Press a photo-op.

It wasn’t JFK who impressed me. It was MacMillan. I saw no sign of the fabled aura of magnetic charisma around Kennedy. When I viewed both from my two paces Navy side boy distance away, it was the 67 year old First Earl of Stockton who was awe-inspiring. Super Mac looked Super and carried and comported himself in the English gentleman style of Masterpiece Theatre’s Alistair Cooke. Super Mac had steely eyes, a silvery shock of gray hair and a clear, healthy and near translucent skin complexion. My wife would give her eye-teeth for the translucent skin complexion that MacMillan had.

44 year old Kennedy was some 20 years younger then MacMillan, but the President appeared very unhealthy, very thin and looked pedestrian. He looked nothing like his official Whitehouse portraits-photos, portrait depictions, TV-News Film portrayals or how he was made to appear to look to the Nation on National Television with the help of TV makeup. History records that when JFK won the Kennedy-Nixon Debates he was cosmetically enhanced with TV pan makeup by one of the country's best makeup artists.

Jack Kennedy did have a fully rooted, thick shock of brown Irish hair, but it wasn’t the remarkably reddish auburn brown color depicted in most of his portraits. I viewed JFK at midday in bright Florida sunshine, and did not see the reddish auburn hair color depicted in portraits and in enhanced colored imagery of him. In the bright sunlight from my six feet away, his facial skin appeared severely weathered and very unhealthy looking. This apparently was the result of a lifetime of poor health and over exposure to the sun.

The look and coloration of the King of Camelot, wasn't that of the attractive masculine bronzed-weathered Madison Avenue Marlborough Man. Rather JFK's skin had a sun-damaged, freckled, liver-spotted light yellowish brown to grayish brown leathery look and color that hinted at jaundice. The skin surface was textured all over with many small micro-wrinkles that brought to mind the skin texture found on the bellies of Key West's geckos.

The glowing, magnetic charisma JFK was reportedly famous for imparting and radiating to bystanders wasn’t irradiating me at my two military paces stand-off distance.

I realize that this personal experience data point of mine flies in the face of the mental imagery most people have of Jack and Jackie. JFK polls as America's most loved and adored President. So I know that my contrarian view is probably viewed by Kennedy worshippers as heretical and blasphemous.

I once shared some of these same personal experience based views of Jack and Jackie Kennedy's Camelot, in an e-discussion on a Washington Post e-Forum. The next day I found I was LOCKED OUT from LOGGING-ON to the washingtonpost.com Website using my assigned WPForum Username-Password that had worked the day before. Apparently the Inside-the-Beltway Kennedy Myth Preservation-Content Corps at WPO IP 63.210.58.XXX WPForum banished my Username-Password and purged all the JFK related postings associated with it from Camelot's Washington Post e-Protectorate because my Contrarian views on Kennedy's Camelot were judged to be heretical.

Clearly, my life experience doesn't align with the media's Once Upon a Time...Kennedy Gospel misty fairytale image of a charismatic, magnetically handsome King John and his elegantly beautiful Queen Jacqueline who reigned for that "one brief, shining moment that was known as Camelot"

I trust these opening paragraphs fired up your interest and/or your Kennedy Irish, as applicable. My intent is not to expostulate the Kennedy true-believers in their beliefs about JFK because I know that true Kennedy believers truly believe the Kennedy Myth. I only want to collegially share my single All-American Blue Jacket's data point about the John F. Kennedy I saw and experienced for "one brief, shining moment..." there at on the tarmac ramp at Boca Chica Field.

These remembrances and musings of mine about Cuba of the late '50s and early '60s, President Kennedy and the Kennedy-Johnson Administration and JFK’s Vietnam legacy are drawn from my personal mémoire and supported by historical facts.

My brief, shining Camelot Odyssey may not marry up with the commonly accepted generously heroic, royal and gentlemanly portrayal of Jack and Jackie's Camelot, but it happened to me as I've reported here. It is this rag hatted All American Bluejacket sailor's view of JFK's Camelot and Vietnam Legacy as I lived and remember them during that one brief, shining moment when I got a peek at the Other Eye of the One-Eyed Jack of Camelot.

The Albatross of JFK’s Vietnam War Plans & Defense Team: The flywheel effect of FDR’s 1930’s Depression Era Democratic-Socialism continued into and through the wartime and post-war 1940’s into the transitional 1950’s with Truman. Truman was followed by Eisenhower. After Truman’s 1953 Korean Police Action ruffled the citizenry so much, U.S. citizens Liked IKE so much they made him President and let the good General get us into advising, policing and taking over the failed French Indo-China (Vietnam) War from the Colonial French in 1959. Yes, it was ole Likeable IKE who, by sending a couple hundred advisers into Vietnam, stuck OUR collective toe into the Communist Domino Swamp created by the Colonial French. He did this ostensibly to assist the democracy inclined South Vietnamese and the French in draining it.

John F. Kennedy’s Camelot of the revolutionary early 1960’s was highlighted by:

President Kennedy and Secretary of Defense McNamara’s secret, stealth Vietnam war escalation plans developed after taking office. These secret war plans were keyed to significantly escalating our involvement in Vietnam directly after John F. Kennedy ran for president and won his second term in the 1964 Elections;

President Kennedy approved the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion directly after being sworn in to Reign over Camelot, only to renege upon his promise a few months later in the Invasion's Eleventh Hour;

President Kennedy's Cuban Crisis nuclear brinkmanship war games with Khrushchev, after which Kennedy blinked first, and had the U.S. agree to remove their forward deployed ballistic missiles from Turkey with Russia removing their missiles from Cuba.

After Senator John Kennedy won the 1960 Election and was sworn into office, he escalated U.S. involvement in Vietnam from IKE’s hundreds of Military Advisors to JFK’s tens of thousands Combat Unit troop levels. President Kennedy's military escalation immersed our collective derrières ever deeper into the communist swamp that was teaming with NVA-VC alligators. This war escalation action of our most loved president caused us to forget that ole Likable IKE’s original intention was only to advise and assist the South Vietnamese in draining the communist swamp using Special Forces military advisors, not to fight the war for them.

Directly after taking office in January 1961, the Kennedy-McNamara Defense Team escalated our involvement in Vietnam and went to work developing a Post 1964 Election Follow-On Vietnam War Escalation Plan. 34 months later, as a result of JFK’s Assassination, LBJ inherited JFK’s Vietnam War Escalation "Albatross" consisting of JFK’s Department of Defense and State Team, and the SECRET Kennedy-McNamara Post-1964 Election, Follow-On Vietnam War Escalation Plan. To his later regret, President Lyndon Johnson decided to accept, embrace and directly execute implemention of this Follow-On Vietnam War Escalation Plan developed by Kennedy, McNamara and Rusk.

LBJ juggled the Kennedy Vietnam War Escalation "Hot Potato" as he continued raising troop levels to the hundreds of thousands called out in the Kennedy-McNamara Vietnam War Plan. LBJ’s embracing and implementation of JFK’s Vietnam War Plan is what got us deeply immersed in the military muck and mire of that communist domino swamp teaming with NVA-VC alligators.

By 1968 there were over 500,000 troops in the Vietnam combat theater. Not the original Likeable IKE style swamp draining military advisors solution, but rather multiple hundreds of thousands of teenager and 20-Something Camelot alligator hunters delivering multiple mega-tonnage of ordnance to the NVA-VC bullet-by-bullet, mortar-by-mortar and bomb-by-bomb. President Eisenhower's original swamp draining advisor approach was clearly supplanted by the JFK-McNamara Get-a-Bigger-Ball-Bat, full-scale war escalation plans being followed chapter and verse by LBJ.

The failed results from the fatally flawed Get-a-Bigger-Ball-Bat Kennedy-McNamara War Plans, that LBJ inherited and Johnson-McNamara implemented, caused the incumbent Johnson to sit out Election 1968. Johnson’s decision not to run set up Nixon’s election win over Vice President Humphrey. Nixon wasn't able to beat Kennedy in 1960, but the legacy of the King of Camelot's own Vietnam War Plans led to Johnson bowing out resulting in Nixon winning the 1968 and 1972 Elections.

On January 23, 1973, three days after his second inauguration, Republican Nixon went forward initialing-signing the Paris Peace Accords which ended American combat in Vietnam. The U.S. military draft ended four days later with a cease-fire going into effect the day after that, on January 28. Five months later, on July 1, 1973, Nixon signed the Democrat Congress crafted legislation that gave birth to the exploitive, non-egalitarian U.S. All-Volunteer Military (AVM) war-fighting organization we live with today.

These are the down-the-slope Vietnam War tailings of King John's Camelot. John Kennedy and his war plan legacy escalated our involvement in Vietnam from Eisenhower's few hundred CIA and Special Forces military and political advisors in 1960, to multiple hundreds of thousands of Regular Combat Armed Forces in the field a few years later. The 15+ year military action was finally formally brought to a dishonorable rather than an honorable end under President Ford, twelve years after Kennedy's death. This event occurred on April 29, 1975, at the precise moment the wheels of U.S. Ambassador Martin’s helicopter lifted off the roof of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon. The very next day, Saigon fell to the Communist and became Hồ Chí Minh City.

While I recognize that the flesh & blood Jack Kennedy only spent 34 months as USCINC, JFK's spectre and his Team Camelot Departments of Defense and State carried forth his Vietnam War Plans and Legacy into and through the Johnson Administration. Johnson's Secretaries of Defense and State, McNamara and Rusk, were Kennedy's Camelot Cabinet Faithful. Even after Kennedy's death, they continued serving their King of Camelot in those same Cabinet-level roles throughout the Johnson Administration until the Kennedy-Johnson-McNamara-Rusk Administration ended in 1968.

In 1968 U.S. Combat Armed Forces troop strength was approaching ~540,000

with 14,000+ Americans killed in combat and 150,000 wounded that year.

Kennedy-Johnson-McNamara's macho, Get-a-Bigger-Ball-Bat, war plans caused us to wade derrière deep into the black-water communist domino swamp for the eight years of 1960-1969. In 1969, Nixon-Kissinger commenced their Give-Away-the-Store Desert & Depart Defense Policy and back-pedaled us out of Vietnam in a bit less then eight more. However, my personal Bushido Code causes me to become sickened each time I view the History Channel or other historic news footage showing the teaming, scurrying and terror-stricken South Vietnamese and Cambodian masses of civilian families Nixon, Congress and the majority Citizen Herd left flapping in the breeze in 1973-1975.

To me there there’s no personal or national honor in abandoning defenseless civilians and comrades-in-arms to NVA-VC alligators.

Now Hear This! Now Hear This! All "Rag Hats" Lay Down To Personnel: By a SECRET Mid-Summer 1963 military message nominally addressed TO: All [High IQ/GCT-ARI] Hands, FROM: U. S. Commander-In-Chief JFK, SUBJ: Volunteers For Inter-Service Transfer; JFK covertly tried to get me and my Twenty Something Hi-IQ Navy Rag Hat Shipmates to volunteer to do an Inter-Service Transfer from the Navy into the Army to be trained as pilots to fly the King of Camelot's Army Air Cavalry helicopters in Vietnam.

This was an early integral element of JFK’s overall stealth war expansion plans to rapidly escalate the Vietnam War, directly after his expected landslide reelection in November 1964. John Kennedy wanted to be sure he was ready to hit the ground running when he was inaugurated in 1965. This Inter-Service Transfer (from Navy to Army) approach permitted JFK to shift existing head-count, in-service, proven G.I. human asset inventories between services to get a quick 18-24 month pilot training turn-around. Using this approach, JFK planned to rapidly expand the U.S. Army’s Air Cavalry/Air Mobility capability Just-in-Time to put the war-escalation-pedal-to-the-metal following his second inauguration in January 1965.

Use of this stealth, in-house approach permitted JFK to fly-under-Congress’-radar during the pre-1964 Election Cycle. This kept him from having to go to Congress to request increases in military head-counts, extra funding and to get their permission to raise active duty troop strength ceilings. No increased recruiting and draft quotas were required using stealthy Jack's in-house, Inter-Service Transfer approach.

Any public announcement of increasing the number of draftees or build-up of troop strengths during the 1964 Election Cycle, would have drawn much political flack from the general voting public and the Republicans.

JFK’s back-channel recruiting was not the highly publicized Ask Not What Your Country Can Do For You, But Ask What You Can Do For Your Country Public Peace Corps P.R., so heavily touted by Camelot myth-lovers. Rather, it was a SECRET solicitation of in-inventory, active duty volunteers to create a Stealth War Escalation Corps so:

JFK Can Do With You What He Wants For The Country, While You Get “Do’ed” For Your Country.

The Camelot myth-building electronic and print media have left these aspects of JFK’s Vietnam War escalation actions and legacy un-reported, just like their Good Ole Boys Club wink and a nod cover up of his various serial adulterous affairs.

Rock, Paper, Scissors…Forget It…Estrogen Overrides Testosterone: I was a freshly turned Twenty Something, and had just celebrated one year of husband-hood. As an invincible minded, naïve young man with a testosterone marinated brain, I felt the Red, White and Blue silk scarf of AIR CAV/AIRMOBILE combat aviation flapping in my face. I petitioned my young bride saying, “Darling, please let me volunteer for this. It will mean a five level promotion, and a lot more money.” Now my Bride-For-Life has never been one to turn up her nose at mo' money, but the prospect of my five-level elevation in rank to Army Warrant Officer, and its attendant five grade level pay increase did nothing to entice or sway my wise and estrogen-enriched young Lady of the Manor who has always been wise beyond her years in such matters.

She quickly responded, “NO, I WON’T PERMIT IT!!!” I tell you, when that woman says, “NO!!!” she really means “NO!!!” No amount of testosterone launched But Honey, Come Ons, could have overridden such an Estrogen Edict. My young Bride of one year had spoken, and that was that.

Thanks to my young Bride, my Aunties Atropos, Clotho and Lachesis, Chief Hatuey of NAS GITMO and later on through the good graces of my benevolent Nautilus King Neptune on Terra Firma, Hymie Rickover, I was spared to live, think, get well educated and fight in the Vietnam War another Navy day.

If I had answered JFK’s mid 1963 Camelot Call-to-Arms, the 18-24 month advanced Army combat and flight training cycle would likely have landed me in Vietnam as a new shave-tail Army AIR-CAV helicopter pilot plank owner in the 1st Cavalry Division [Airmobile]. 1st Cavalry Division [Airmobile] was offically activated on July 1, 1965. They formally moved their colors onto the field at Doughboy Stadium at Fort Benning, Georgia, July 3rd 1965. Main units of the 1st CAV AIRMOBILE arrived at Qui Nhon-Cam Rahn Bay by sea 12 - 13 September 1965, some 24 months after I had read the SECRET CINCJFK INTER-SERVICE TRANSFER ALL HANDS message.

My 1965 arrival in Vietnam would have been JIT: Just in Time for Death from the Sky Flying and Fighting over, through, in and around garden spots like: Ia Drang Valley, Pleiku, Suoi Ca and Duc Co. These locales are where some of Vietnam’s bloodiest Airborne-Ground Battles were fought, and would have made me a prime, high-probability candidate for:

*Camelot*Cannon*Fodder* or Body Bag ~ Booty Duty.

Reflecting on these events two score plus a few more years later, I now clearly see what my young June Bride saw back then through her young estrogen enriched eyes. Namely, what the TRUE meaning of the term INTER-SERVICE TRANSFER in JFK’s 1963 Camelot Call-to-Arms message really was.

JFK’s INTER-SERVICE TRANSFER didn’t really mean my INTER-SERVICE TRANSFER between Armed Forces, as my testosterone saturated brain-ware incorrectly computed back then. Rather, it was really an invitation to volunteer for the chance to be INTERRED, with full military ceremonial honors and religious rites and SERVICES, followed by a flag covered TRANSFER into a G.I. sized burial plot in GEN Lee's front lawn. Looking back on it today, I say, “HOO-AH!!! Watashi, that sure was a close one for you in 1963.”

INTER-SERVICE TRANSFER: On our first Honeymoon night together at the Thunderbird Motel, I whispered a lover's whisper "Darling, you're my Lucky Charm," into the ear of my maiden June bride.

At the time, I didn’t know the flawless Diamond Gem Quality Level of Charmed Luck my new bride would bring me in just 12 months. Even my three Fateful Moirae Aunties were impressed with her fate assessment and management skills.

As things turned out, I can thank my lucky stars that a Star-Crossed Team headed by my June-Bride-For-Life with my Aunties Atropos, Clotho and Lachesis as assisting X-X members, and my GITMO shipmate Chief Hatuey: Cacique of Cuba’s Taíno Tribe. Chief Hatuey was the team's lone X-Y consultant-rep. He was there to supply the estrogen-fueled Star-Crossed Team Poliakon any needed counterbalancing testosteronal cubano ingles.

In 1961, I was a teenaged Petty Officer assigned to the Air Group on the USS Randolph (CVS-15). CVS-15 Rando Cando was tied up in Guantanamo Bay for some On-Base-GITMO Crew Liberty. Being a red-blooded All American Bluejacket, I took advantage of the liberty opportunity and hit-the-beach. I chose to enjoy my on-base-liberty by relaxing and recreating at the Acey Duecey Club located on a point that overlooked the bay near the Guantanamo [GTMO] Bay base's air field. It was the bartender at that club who formally introduced me to Chief Hatuey, Cacique of Cuba’s Taíno Tribe, for the very first time.

After greeting me with "Hola marinero," the next thing the good Chief said was "Un Indio y dos canoas" [translated - an Indian and two canoes]. This is because the proper and traditional way to order a Hatuey (Indian) is with two glasses (canoes) so that it can be shared with a shipmate.

This one-eyed Salvaje cubano became my drinking buddy there at that breezy point located bayside on Guantanamo Bay. We enjoyed Happy Hour priced, 20¢ a bottle, chilled Cerveza cubana india as we sat behind a growing pile of expired brown-amber glass Taíno Tribesmen, and watched glowing purple-orange sunsets descending down the backside of black silhouetted ridges across GITMO Bay. I became the good Chief's Kemo Sabe and Shipmate-For-Life there at GITMO, and he became mine. Years later, in 1963, he would prove himself to be the truest and most loyal Kemo Sabe Shipmate this sailor ever had.