Green in Judgement Cold in Blood

Non-Fiction Characters

I. United States

1. John F. Kennedy - President of the United States

2. Robert F. Kennedy - Brother of the President - Attorney General

3. Joseph Kennedy - Father of the President - Former Ambassador to the Court of St. James

4. Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy - Wife of the President

5. Evelyn Lincoln - JFK secretary

6. Adlai E. Stevenson - U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations

7. Allen Dulles - Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)

8. David Dean Rusk - Secretary of State

9. Robert S. McNamara - Secretary of Defense

10. Charles Pearre Cabal - Deputy Director of the CIA

11. McGeorge Bundy - Special Assistant for National Security Affairs

12. William P. Bundy - Brother of McGeorge - Assistant Secretary of Defense

13. W. Averell Harriman - Assistant Secretary of State

14. Llewllyn E. Tommy Thompson - Ambassador to the U.S.S.R.

15. Lyman Louis Lemnitzer - Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

16. Arleigh Burke - Chief of Naval Operations

17. Richard M. Bissell, Jr. - Chief Deputy to Director of the CIA

18. John Alex McCone - Director of the CIA following Allen Dulles

19. Maxwell D. Taylor - Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff following Lyman Lemnitzer

20. Earl Buzz Wheeler - General of the Army

21. Edward G. Lansdale - Head of Operation Mongoose

22. Dr. Sidney Gottlieb (né Joseph Scheider) head of CIA dirty tricks division

23. J. Edgar Hoover - Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation

24. Clyde A. Tolson - Associate Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation

25. deLesseps S. Chep Morrison - Ambassador to the Organization of American States

26. James Jimmy Riddle Hoffa - President of the Teamsters Union

27. Salvatore Momo Giancana - Chicago Mafia boss

28. Santo Trafficante, Jr. - Florida Mafia boss

29. J. D. Tippit - Dallas Policeman

30. Lee Harvey Oswald - Kennedy & Tippit's alleged assassin

31. Jack Ruby - Oswald's assassin

II. Cuba

32. Fidel Castro - Cuban leader

33. Raul Castro - Brother of Fidel Castro

34. Dr. Ernesto Che Guevara de la Serna - Revolutionary aide to Fidel Castro.

35. Morejón - Director of the Prison - Castillio del Principe

36. Manuel Barbarroja Piñero - confident of Che Guevara

37. Captain Herman F. Marks - Head Guard at Fortaleza de San Carlos de la Cabaña prison

38. José Pérez Pepe San Román - leader of brigade 2506

39. Erneido Oliva - leader of brigade 2506

III. U.S.S.R.

40. Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev - Soviet leader

41. Issa Alexandrovich Pliyev - Supreme commander of Soviet forces in Cuba.

42. Andrei Andreyevich Gromyko - Soviet Union's Foreign Minister

43. Anatoly Fyodorovich Dobrynin - Soviet diplomat, ambassador to the United States

44. Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan - 2nd most powerful man in the Soviet Union

IV. Vietnamese

45. Ngo Dinh Diem - First President of the Republic of Vietnam

46. Ngo Dinh Nhu - Brother of Diem

47. Thich Quang Duc - Buddhist Monk

48. Ho Chi Minh - Leader of Viet Minh government in the North

49. Võ Nguyên Giáp - General of North Vietnamese Army; confident of Ho Chi Minh

V. Other

50. Elisabeth Sisi von Wittelsbach, Empress of Austria-Hungary - favorite historical figure of Jacqueline Kennedy.

Fictional Characters

1. General Pierre Dubois

2. Gustav Gus Eckhardt

PROLOGUE

24 March 1945 at 0600 hours - Hamminkeln, Germany

It had rained for days. A lone man with a rifle sat perched at the opening of a church spire that dominated the landscape. He had waited there the last three days hoping to site a high ranking German officer that he could kill and fulfill his latest mission behind enemy lines. K-rations were spread around the floor and the man sighed as he consumed the last of the water supply from his civilian hunting canteen. He was not dressed like an American soldier; but was attired more like a French resistance fighter.

I'm through here, he thought aloud. I ain't seen a real German officer since I got here. I seen plenty old men and young boys; but no high rankin' Germans. As soon as the British and Americans land, I got to get the hell out-a-here. The Krauts will scramble for the high ground and this here is the highest ground around.

The man picked up his meager supplies and stowed them in his backpack. The captain told him the Allies would cross the Rhine River sometime today, and he would be taken back to England once they got there.

He heard the drone of airplanes far overhead and his crystal blue eyes searched the surrounding area, as he planned his escape to more friendly battle lines. It was then that he saw hundreds of gliders begin their descent several miles from his steeple location. Jesus Christ. I guess they do want to get across that river, he whispered, as he witnessed thousands of paratroopers jump from the high flying delivery planes.

In the field next to the town he saw a low-ranked German officer prod his men forward to meet the attackers. The thin line of malnourished soldiers belied their reputation as the premier fighting unit of the 20th Century. The Army of the Blitzkrieg, that cut its teeth on banquets of Czechoslovakia and Poland and gnawed its way across the steppes of Russia to the gates of Moscow, was now reduced to an unsophisticated and poorly armed rabble; without tanks, without air cover, and without artillery to boost their spirits. Their fate was sealed, and they knew it. Still, like obedient marionettes, they moved forward at their officer's command.

High above the man in the steeple, flying in a tight formation, five-hundred forty American Dakota aircraft carrying five British, one Canadian, and six American parachute battalions wended their way to the drop zone. The Dakotas towed thirteen hundred gliders carrying additional troops that slowed their progress considerably. The mission was dubbed Operation Varsity by some army wit who undoubtedly was not flying to war that day. He was tucked safely behind the lines in an English pub, regaling his fellow dart throwers about what a clever fellow he was. This morning's crossing of the Rhine signaled the final act to Hitler's Götterdämmerung.

Allied military brass expected the Germans to defend their motherland with a zeal absent in their retreat across the fields of France. This prognostication was validated by the heavier than usual flack surrounding the fleet of aircraft as they approached the rim of the Rhine River.

Aboard one of the Dakota's, snuggly packed between two fellow soldiers, was a handsome country boy, J. D. Tippit, whose stomach reflected an unnatural flutter prior to his first parachute mission against an enemy steeled by four years of ground fighting. No one talked. Several sat with eyes closed, muttering a quick prayer.

The young soldier heard the explosions of adjacent planes struck by enemy anti-aircraft fire. He wished they were over the target so he could take his chances on the ground, rather than sit helplessly strapped onto the inside skin of this deathtrap. There was an ambivalent sigh of relief when the light above the exit door flashed red indicating their approach to the landing target. He rose with the others, checked the straps on his parachute for the last time, and mumbled a speedy prayer. The green light flashed on and off while the jump siren blared at these young boys barely out of puberty. The jump coordinator pulled opened the door and the wind whistled in their faces. The first boy in line was pushed out to greet the morning dew, as the line stumbled forward, and the process was repeated until the last jumper was gone.

J. D. hung in space for only a few seconds and sighed in relief when he heard the pop of his chute as it bloomed out against the gray-blue sky. He glanced through the guy wires, and visualized his first feelings of what it's like to be an active participant in a war. It was not a friendly sight. Many of the Dakotas were down and several gliders were struck and falling. Soldiers inside the gliders did not have parachutes; their war was over before they could fire a shot.

J. D. realized that he had drifted too far to the east and was falling some distance from the designated drop zone. One admonition that he remembered from last night's briefing was, If you find yourself getting too far to the east, try to maneuver back across the Rhine. The young man was taught that the maneuverability of his chute was minimal, but nevertheless, he pulled on the left wires in a futile attempt to strike closer to the prescribed landing zone.

He glanced around and saw other soldiers drifting slowly toward the ground. I'm not going to make it. At least some of our troopers are going to be with me, he said. He struck hard and rolled to his right when he hit, just as he was taught at the Fort Benning jump school. He unhooked his parachute as swiftly as he could, picked up his M-1 rifle, and ran toward the other men who had landed near him.

As he approached the closest cluster of fellow warriors, he saw several of them fall heavily to the ground, their faces pressed to the surface. A new sound whistled above his head. His introduction to enemy fire was terrifying as some rounds found their mark. The first casualties of his war were the men he had known for only a few months. The Georgia parachute school turned them out to face the Huns as fast as they could. It was certainly perplexing to this young country boy, when he saw several other jump-school friends lying face down in German mud. J. D. looked for an officer to direct him, saw none, but his instincts told him that he had to get out of the open field and behind some protection or his face would likewise be pressed against this foreign soil.

The incoming rounds increased, and more of his confreres were either struck or were frozen down into a prone shooting position. The paratroopers attempted to return enemy fire, but were pinned down by a barrage of mortar and machinegun fire from well hidden German soldiers perched above on a small ridge. He frantically looked around and noticed the spires of a medieval community in the distance. If he could make it there, he could wait for the advancing army to catch up with him. If he remained where he was, his war was over. He remembered, from his hunting days in the Texas Hill Country, that an animal on the move is infinitely more difficult to kill than one grazing in an open field. J. D. also suspected that it was easier to go toward his prey and circle around behind it, rather than remain where he was, or even retreat back to the Rhine River - which would show a cowardice he did not possess.

He made his decision and bolted as low and as fast as he could towards the town, careful not to expose any more of his body than was necessary.

The man in the steeple saw J. D. enter the town from the surrounding field and immediately recognized him as a fellow American. One thing that struck him was that the young soldier was not paralyzed by fear, but was actually moving with a purpose. His eyes roamed the narrow street as he switched from checking the doorways to surveying the top windows of buildings bordering the path to the church. The steeple man sensed that he could not call out to his fellow citizen, lest he attract attention to himself from an enemy that he sighted earlier milling about the town.

As the young man neared the church, he carefully analyzed the street in front of him, but did not look up. Hidden above in a two storied building, were two old Germans, who watched the American soldier from the top window to see if there were others of his ilk lurking at his rear.

The American sniper in the steeple had been watching the old German men all morning and calculated that they were merely anticipating the arrival of Allied troops so they could surrender. They could then sit out the war, eat good GI food, with no threat of being ordered to the frigid Russian front. He believed they were not a danger to him and therefore, why should he kill them and attract attention to himself? But this was a different situation. They were waiting for this boy to pass them so they could shoot him in the back, and camouflage their personal cowardice.

The sniper snatched up his special Remington M1903A4 rifle, quickly sighted through his top mounted scope, and squeezed off a round, striking the first old German in the neck. Immediately, he maneuvered the bolt-action, spit out the spent shell, and fired a second round, placing the bullet between the eyes of the second German soldier before he could react.

The country boy lifted his rifle and aimed it up at the steeple, as though the sniper were shooting at him. Come on up, boy, the shooter sounded out from the church spire. I hope you got some food with ya. I'm starved.

If this were a German talking in English to him, the young boy would be just another dead American soldier, as his naiveté forced him to lower his M1 rifle and stare up into the steeple.

When the sniper saw him lower his rifle, he stepped into the window and called to him a second time. It's okay soldier. I'm alone up here. His Texas twang sang out above the ancient town. I just saved yo' ass. He pointed to the uppermost window. Them two Krauts up there was gonna drill a hole in the back of yo' pretty new shirt.

How do I know you're not a German? the young man shouted up at the sniper.

Because if I was, your Texas ass was going to be on my bar-b-cue pit by now.

The soldier now seemed fairly sure that the man in the window was not his enemy. How do you know I'm from Texas?

Because I'm from there and you sound jus' like every other cowboy in that place.

The soldier entered the church from a side door and mounted the staircase to the steeple hideout. When he cautiously entered the room, the sniper laid down his rifle and stuck out his hand, Gustav Eckhardt; call me Gus. What's yours?

J. D. Tippit.

Gus pointed to the window where the corpses of the two dead Germans were experiencing the onset of rigor mortis. Well, J. D. Tippit. You owe me a big one.

When J. D. Tippit returned from the war, he searched all the phone books of communities in the Texas Hill Country for the name Gustav Eckhardt. He found several close to that name, but none was the man who had saved his life in Hamminkeln, Germany. Eckhardt had told him that his family was of German extraction, lived in the hill country, and he was a sniper assigned to a special army unit. Tippit wanted to reunite with him, if for no other reason than to thank him properly for killing two old German soldiers before they could kill him.

Finally, he stumbled across the phone book for the town of Schulenburg, Texas, looked up the name and number, and dialed it. The phone was answered on the second ring.

Gustav Eckhardt, please, J. D. said, repeating his line from many other disappointing calls.

A gruff voice answered, This is Gustav Eckhardt.

Are you the Gustav Eckhardt who was in a steeple in Germany a couple of years ago, and saved a poor ole country boy's ass?

Are you that poor ole country boy?

I sure am, you son-of-a-bitch. Tippit's elation spilled out over the phone line. You made it.

Yeah, and I see you made it, too.

Tippit was so excited about finding his savior, he almost forgot what he wanted to say to him. Finally he said, Gus, I'm a hunter. I assume that you do a little hunting of animals instead of people; am I right?

When I can.

Well Mister Sniper. I'm taking you hunting.

The men became friends, periodically getting together for hunting trips, generally planned by J. D. Each had begun a family and that, along with their time-consuming jobs and physical distance, kept them increasingly apart.

On one of their infrequent encounters, J. D. asked Gus, When can I repay you for my life, Mr. Sniper?

Don't joke, Mr. Dallas policeman. That day may come sooner than you think.

CHAPTER I

In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility - I welcome it.

John F. Kennedy; Inaugural Address: 1/20/1961

McGeorge Bundy gently closed the door to the oval office as he exited into the outer chamber. His Dexter school-buddy, Jack, was in residence, and he couldn't be happier. He allowed his mind to drift back several months to his Dean's office at Harvard, where he sat and received a call from the newly elected President of the United States.

Mac, it's Jack. I need you to do a great favor for me.

McGeorge replied, Anything, Jack. He immediately regretted the terseness of his answer and added, Sorry Jack. You caught me napping.

I need you to head up a new Security Department in my cabinet. When can you come to Washington and discuss it?

Bundy was stunned by this request and for a brief moment he sat at his desk staring while the president-elect held on at the other end of the phone line. Jesus, Jack, he finally blurted out.

You shouldn't use those two names in the same sentence, Mac, Kennedy shot back. A large toothy grin splayed across his suntanned face. I can hear those Bundy wheels churning through this phone. Now get your ass up here. We've got things to do.

That's all it took for McGeorge Bundy to board the Kennedy express, and in his mind, he sat immediately behind the conductor. He had access to the most powerful man in the world anytime he wanted, and through osmosis, he absorbed all the overflow juices emanating from the oval office.

McGeorge loved the new pace of his life. A life that progressed from the staid ivy-covered walls of his Cambridge job site, where all conversation was conducted in suitably academic tones, to the frenetic pace of Washington D.C., where one had to scream to be heard. The loudest screamer oft-times prevailed. Bundy was ecstatic. Mac Bundy had arrived. He was a broker of power, and in Washington D.C., power was all that mattered. Finally, his political theories would be heard and obeyed.

His father had drilled into the Bundy brothers the evils of an encroaching communism that he observed first hand as aide to Henry Stimson, Roosevelt's Secretary of War. Mac's brother, Bill Bundy already heeded his father's admonitions and, for the last ten years, was doing something to combat this country's aggressively expanding autocratic government as a member of the Central Intelligence Agency's upper echelon. Now it was McGeorge's turn to shine and he wasn't going to let the ole' boy down.

It was brother Bill who first showed him the Cuba Plan (renamed Zapata), conceived at the CIA under Eisenhower. But it was McGeorge who introduced it to the newly appointed cabinet members and to his friend, the President of the United States. A twinge of guilt swirled inside his stomach every time he reflected on the fact that his new boss was being cajoled into blindly accepting a doomed strategy without having the next stages of the operation explained to him. It was sort of like a surgeon telling his uninformed and naive cancer patient that he was only going to make a little cut and look around; failing to disclose that he was more likely going to remove most of his interior, once inside.

It's too risky to tell him, McGeorge's brother Bill said. You have to keep it among those who need to know or maybe those who are smart enough to see through the ruse. Right now Jack's up to his ass in alligators. He's learning his job. If he figures it out, tell him, but otherwise, only show it to friendly eyes. And for Christ's sake, don't show it to Bobby. Even if he asks to see it.

Bundy reflected on this conversation as he swung down the hall and into the main conference room for his 10:00 a.m. meeting with the power-elite. As he entered, the nine other assembled men ceased their murmuring and greeted him perfunctorily. All realized that the mediator had arrived, had just left The Man, and in D.C., that was sanitized power.

Bundy assumed his position at the head of a fifty-foot ebony conference table. He ignored feeble inquiries from the other nine participants. Let's get started, he said too quickly, revealing a tension that permeates the air of all top-level political meetings. First of all, he bought the entire plan.

The sigh of relief that followed could have been cut with a Japanese samurai sword. Several of the seated simultaneously shouted at the moderator, ranking their questions above all others in terms of importance.

Hold it fellows, Bundy counseled. Let's do it by the numbers. I'm turning on the tape recorder now, and the first thing we do is call the roll. He punched the button at the base of the table.

Allen Dulles?

Here.

Dean Rusk?

Here.

Robert McNamara?

Here.

Charles Pearre Cabell?

Yes sir.

Lyman Louis Lemnitzer?

The man merely nodded his presence. Bundy glanced up and continued.

Arleigh Burke?

Aye aye, sir.

Richard Bissell?

Here.

Sidney Gottlieb?

Bundy waited for an answer and hearing none, slowly let his eyes drift from the briefing book in front of him to the end of the table where the CIA's infamous dirty tricks artist sat. Dr. Gottlieb. Are you here?

Y...es, y...es. I'm sorrrrrry Dean Bundy. My mind must have drif...drif...drifted, the man stuttered, then quickly shook his head in self-rebuke. For some unknown reason, Gottlieb referred to McGeorge in this manner. It was as if he attempted to gather in the academic aura exuded by the prenom, Dean.

Bundy ignored this reply and for the first time observed a stranger seated between the Chief of Staff, General Lemnitzer and CIA Director, Allen Dulles. Who is this esteemed gentleman? The question carried with it an implied statement that whoever it was possessed an inferior intellect.

I'm General Pierre Dubois, Mr. Bundy, the contrite general whispered. He was honored, and probably overawed, to be in the company of such powerful men.

Hell of a name, General. Hell of a name, said McGeorge with a smile. Why are you here?

CIA Director, Allen Dulles, immediately shot back at Bundy. He works for Lemnitzer and me, as though this answer was sufficient coming from such a powerful source.

Bundy started to reply, thought better of it, and proceeded with the meeting, following Robert's Rules of Order. Old business anyone?

Cabell's hand shot up without waiting to be recognized. The troop movements we suspected by the Soviets into Czechoslovakia and Hungary have stopped. We do not expect any more troops to be infiltrated than are already there.

Anyone comment on that? Bundy asked the room. No. Then that concludes this meeting. His hand reached under the ebony conference table and switched off the tape recorder.

Bundy looked around the table, and in almost a whisper, said, Okay, fellows. Let's begin the meeting. Who wants to start?

Major General Pierre Dubois' appearance belied his fifty-two years. He stood ramrod stiff, hands cupped behind him, and glanced out the window up Pennsylvania Avenue toward the White House. The late season snowstorm had finally abated somewhat, and the remaining flakes drifted gently across this glass-paned panorama.

He had been in the United States Army for as long as he could remember. His father placed him in a military school when he was barely able to fend for himself. In high school he had excelled in football and baseball. His father demanded a rigorous athletic curriculum for his son and the school's oft-stated policy supported this position. Pierre had minimal contact with his mother, since his father made every decision in his life; from birth until the time of his father's premature death some twenty years previous. Little Pierre would never have returned home unless he could flaunt his outstanding academic achievements, which were lauded equally as much, or more, than his athletic trophies.

You're going to be a general someday, Pierre, his blue-collar father reminded him with alarming regularity, every time they were thrust together in adulthood. Pierre never forgot his father's prodding and, in his own way, solemnly pledged to himself that one day he would have the coveted stars pinned to his epaulettes.

The first step to becoming a general in the U.S. Army is to get an appointment to the United States Military Academy situated at West Point, New York. His father, and consequently Pierre, was distantly related to Eddie Hébert, who was on the Committee on the Armed Forces, in the House of Representatives. At least once each year his father visited Representative Hébert and also sent him the obligatory Christmas card, reminding him of his son's prowess on the athletic field and in the classroom. When Pierre was a senior at Cumberland Military Academy, Representative Hébert received a copy of his complete transcript, along with glowing recommendations from the high school faculty, and his appointment to West Point was secured.

Pierre loved West Point, as he suspected he would. It even exceeded his childhood dreams of what constituted the life of a cadet. What others might consider hazing by upperclassmen, Pierre merely took in stride, joking and laughing with his fellow disciplinees. It was during his junior year when Pierre transferred his love of West Point to the love of everything the army stood for; discipline, strength, courage, and honor. It was that same year Adolph Hitler stopped rattling his saber and began thrusting it, invading every country around him, sealing his epitaph as the ultimate overachiever.

When Pierre graduated, he was commissioned a second lieutenant, as was his entire class, and he embarked on a career that he had anticipated as far back as his memory permitted. The bombing of Pearl Harbor only quickened his heartbeat, for now he was going to be able to test all those war theories meticulously drilled into his skull by West Point instructors. His fervor and skills did not go unnoticed by his superiors. It was about this time the U.S. Army realized how woefully inadequate their intelligence gathering abilities were and a young Pierre was singled out as one of the candidates to be trained for a select group known as counter-intelligence.

Everything about the intelligence field fascinated Lieutenant Pierre Dubois. He inhaled the verbal instruction as if it were his love partner, and the escaping fumes it created was salve for the pain he endured on the obstacle courses. He drove himself harder and longer than any of his contemporaries, with a general's star perpetually floating far out on the horizon.

Upon graduation from the hastily formed intelligence school, he immediately was assigned to a unit whose mission was to penetrate into the bowels of Europe and recover whatever tactical information it yielded. Pierre actually led several forays onto the continent and his bravery was cited by each of the surviving members of his unit who were not killed or captured. His reward was a promotion to the rank of captain and an assignment as leader of a marksman group singled out for special missions, and fondly known as The Hit Squad.

By war's end, Pierre was a major in rank, and at the start of the Korean Conflict, five years later, he had risen in rank to lieutenant colonel, several steps ahead of his West Point contemporaries. This engine was on track and chugging along toward those general's stars and nothing but death in combat was going to derail it.

Of course, his death in combat was practically impossible, since Pierre no longer had to prove his bravery in action; for he possessed a chest full of combat medals that silently emitted the odor of a hero. In Korea, he was relegated to the rear guard, running security traps for his men, making sure they were well versed on the next assassination mission. From the Inchon landing to the 38th parallel and beyond, Pierre had his fingerprints all over the intelligence gathering side of the war and was known to every general in that conflict as courteous, efficient, and most importantly, accurate.

When General MacArthur tried to blame the CIA (still called the OSS by most in those days) for his dearth of intelligence about the manpower of the Chinese army pouring across the Yangtze River, it was Pierre who, in a top secret memo, briefed President Truman about the truth of this issue. Indirectly, it was Pierre who toppled the most powerful dictator the United States Army had ever known. Even when MacArthur was an old soldier, slowly fading away, he never discovered what Pierre's memo revealed to Truman.

In 1953, when Allen Dulles was anointed to head the Central Intelligence Agency, he requested that Pierre Dubois be a liaison between the Army and him. This single act gained Pierre access to the exclusive boardrooms of the powerbrokers that established all the rules on how the international game of politics was being played. It also insured