The Legacy

by Stephen W. Frey

  “Right.” Bennett finished chewing and swallowed. “About a week after your father married Andrea in front of a justice of the peace, he and I were approached by members of something called the Defense Intelligence Agency. They wanted us to join the agency immediately.”

  “What is the Defense Intelligence Agency?” Cole asked.

  “Exactly what it sounds like. An intelligence group contained within the Department of Defense and established in 1961 to serve the Joint Chiefs of Staff and coordinate intelligence operations of the different service branches. The DIA employs mostly civilians and is rarely operational, meaning that it isn’t involved in anything clandestine or covert. It operates primarily as an analytical group, although the DIA director, who is always a three-star general or admiral, also has reporting responsibilities to the director of Central Intelligence.”

  “Does the DIA still exist?”

  “Oh yes.”

  “I’ve never heard of it.”

  “Surprisingly, not many civilians have. It doesn’t grab the headlines the way the CIA does.”

  Cole started to take another bite of his sandwich, then hesitated. Suddenly Jim Egan’s lifetime absence might be somewhat justifiable. He could feel the weight of the bitterness and resentment lift slightly. “My father was with the DIA?”

  “Yes. He and I joined a month after being approached by DIA officials. Our superiors on the Dallas police force recommended strongly that we agree to join. It was almost as if we wouldn’t have had a job with the police force anyway if we had refused. We always found that a little odd.”

  “What happened after that?”

  “We went through thirty-six months of intensive training, then went on our first mission. Ten of us slipped into Cambodia to rescue four Navy A-6 pilots. Our information was that they were being held in a jungle prison just across the border from North Vietnam. It was a top secret mission. We were never officially there. If we hadn’t come back out, no one would have come looking for us.”

  “But, Bennett, you just told me the DIA isn’t involved in covert operations.”

  “Officially not, which makes it a wonderful platform from which to conduct those kinds of missions.”

  “My father was an intelligence agent for the federal government,” Cole said aloud. He liked the sound of that.

  “Yes, and a damn fine one.” Bennett wanted Cole to be proud of his father and to understand. “So fine he didn’t have time to raise a child when his wife died. Son, they sent your father and me on some very important and dangerous missions. He and I went into Cuba, East Germany, even the Soviet Union. A lot of people are safe today because of things your father accomplished. You really were better off having your aunt and uncle, and the country was better off having him.”

  “Did my father kill people?” Cole’s voice was calm as he asked a difficult question.

  “Intelligence can be a nasty occupation,” Bennett said.

  Cole had his answer and didn’t want to dwell on it. “My mother. How did she die?” His aunt and uncle had known she was dead, but had no idea from what or how.

  This would hurt, Bennett realized, but Cole had asked and he would get his answer. “She and your father were living near Fort Dix, New Jersey, in 1970. Your father and I were away on a top secret mission. One night while we were gone, some hippies hopped up on drugs broke into the house to rob it. They must have thought the house was empty. Your mother surprised them and they killed her. Fortunately, they didn’t harm you.”

  Cole closed his eyes and shook his head. He’d never get to know either of his parents.

  “They didn’t inform your father of Andrea’s death until he arrived home a month later,” Bennett continued. “You were only a year old, and one of the army wives on the base took care of you until your father returned. When he did, he took you to your aunt and uncle.” Bennett saw the bitterness on Cole’s face. “You shouldn’t blame your father for what happened to you, Cole. He was in a tough situation. They were difficult circumstances for both of you. His sister was the only option he had. He knew it wouldn’t be like having your real parents, and he felt very guilty about that. He blamed himself enough for both of you.”

  “I never blamed him,” Cole said halfheartedly.

  “I’m glad to hear that.”

  Cole glanced up at Bennett. “You said taking me to my aunt and uncle’s was the only option my father had.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Why didn’t he take me to my mother’s parents?”

  Bennett bit his lower lip for a moment before answering. “He told me that your mother and her father didn’t get along very well. He never met the man, but he didn’t like what Andrea had told him. On the other hand, he trusted his sister completely. He said she was a wonderful woman, so the choice was pretty easy for him. I think it seemed more natural for him to take you to his side of the family.”

  Cole nodded and glanced at the river rushing past. His aunt was a wonderful woman. “Thanks for telling me all this, Bennett. And thanks for saving my life the other night, too. I should have said that before.”

  Bennett waved. “I just wish I had gotten there sooner. Then you’d still have your Dealey Tape.” He smiled as if he was still amused that Cole named things the same way his father had.

  Cole sighed. “I guess that tape was my inheritance.”

  “Yes, and a very valuable one.”

  “Do you think so?”

  “Does it really show a shooter behind the fence on the grassy knoll?”

  “Absolutely. It’s very clear. The picture bounces around a bit at first, as if my mother was running alongside the limousine as she was filming. But the picture becomes still well before the killing shot. It’s obvious where the bullet comes from. You can see the rifle over the fence and the puff of smoke from the barrel. Then the president’s head explodes.”

  “You have no doubt that the footage is authentic?” Bennett asked.

  “None at all. There’s no way anyone could have recreated what was on that tape.”

  “Then I’d say it’s worth millions.”

  For a few moments they sat in silence, pondering what might have been. Finally Cole spoke up. “Do you think my father ever told my mother he had the Dealey Tape?”

  Bennett wiped crumbs from his lips with the back of his hand. “That’s a good question. I don’t know. I doubt it, now that I think about it. He never told me, and I spent more time with him than anyone, including your mother. Of course, she probably always suspected.”

  “I still don’t understand why my father would marry Andrea Sage so quickly after she had accused him of confiscating the movie camera and lying about it. Bennett, he doesn’t sound like a man who did things rashly.”

  “He wasn’t,” Bennett agreed. “And why would the DIA come looking for your father and me so specifically?”

  Cole looked up. He had heard an ominous tone in Bennett’s voice. “Are you saying—”

  “I’m not saying anything.” Bennett took another bite of his sandwich but kept talking. “A little while ago you asked me who those other people in Manhattan were, the woman and the man who took the Dealey Tape from you, and I said I didn’t know.”

  “But you said you had an idea.”

  “Yeah.” Bennett gazed at Cole, as if trying to decide whether or not to provide any more information. After almost a minute he pushed a piece of bread from the gap between his lower teeth using his tongue, then began. “There were rumors about an ultrasecret operation buried deep within the DIA. Supposedly members of the operation could be identified by a brand beneath the fingernail of their left index finger, but that was probably just a crock of shit. Anyway, the objective of the operation was to make absolutely certain no one ever proved that a conspiracy had existed in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.”

  Cole’s eyes narrowed. “So
people in the operation knew that in fact a conspiracy had existed?”

  Bennett shook his head. “No, listen carefully to what I’m saying. They were to make certain no one ever proved a conspiracy existed.”

  “How did you set out to prove something didn’t exist if you didn’t know whether it actually did?” This was crazy.

  “You assume it did, then create so much noise around the events that in time all facts become bogged down or lost in a haze of half-truths and outright lies. Actively disseminate so much disinformation and propaganda that no one can make sense of anything. It’s classic political strategy. Also make certain that anything that is absolute proof of a conspiracy and could pierce the haze of half-truths and lies you have created never makes it to the public’s attention. Something like your Dealey Tape.”

  Cole saw where Bennett’s explanation was leading. “People in the operation concocted phony stories and fabricated evidence with respect to the assassination. Is that right?”

  “That was the rumor.” Bennett’s eyes were burning. “Think how easy it would have been to implicate the Mafia by paying a few people to swear they saw Lee Harvey Oswald with David Ferrie and other known associates of organized crime. Or implicate the FBI by claiming they saw Oswald take a package from an agent in a parked FBI car in New Orleans a few months before the assassination. Or throw suspicion on your own defense establishment by aggressively reminding everyone through the press that one of Lyndon Johnson’s first official directives as president was to reverse JFK’s order to bring the troops home from Vietnam.” Bennett was becoming animated, waving his arms in the air as he talked. “Their objective was supposedly to create so many conspiracy theories that no one could really put credence in any single theory, and to quietly make certain everyone understood the motivations of each of the entities implicated in the assassination. Why each one would want JFK dead.”

  “But why, Bennett? Why go to all that trouble?”

  Bennett laughed. “You’re too young, aren’t you?”

  “What do you mean?” Cole was too fascinated to be insulted by Bennett’s condescending tone.

  “The term Iron Curtain never scared you, did it?” Bennett didn’t wait for Cole’s answer. “You were born after the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Bay of Pigs. You may have read about them, but you didn’t live through them. You never practiced the duck-and-cover maneuver beneath your desk at school in the asinine hope that it would save you from an all-out atomic war. None of that rings a bell, does it?”

  “No,” Cole admitted. “President Reagan was calling the Soviet Union the evil empire when I was in school, but none of us really paid attention to him. In fact, we thought it sounded pretty silly.”

  “Exactly.” Bennett nodded. “But you must understand that the communist specter was a constant concern in 1963, a damn huge preoccupation with the public at that time. In fact, it was a potential time bomb. After President Kennedy’s assassination, senior government officials knew that if enough sentiment was whipped up by conservatives against the Russians or the Cubans, all hell might break loose. They realized that if Russia or Cuba could be linked directly to the assassination, we might have a full-scale atomic war on our hands. Communists were red devils at that point. People in this country were absolutely convinced that the Soviet Union really was an evil empire trying to destroy the American way of life at any cost. By using Cuba as their base ninety miles from the U.S. border. And by using Lee Harvey Oswald and others to assassinate the president. Remember, Oswald had spent time in Minsk and was the only member of the Dallas Fair Play for Cuba Club.” Bennett articulated the word “club.” “He had corresponded and conspired with many known communists. That was truth.” Bennett paused. “When President Johnson approached Chief Justice Earl Warren about heading the commission to review the Kennedy assassination, he warned Warren that if a hurricane of public sentiment whipped up against Khrushchev and Castro, there could be war. Johnson actually called the Atomic Energy Commission to obtain an estimate of how many people could be killed in an atomic attack launched by the Soviets. The AEC told him forty million Americans an hour would die. That blew him away. It scared the shit out of him.” Bennett’s eyes narrowed. “The Warren Commission was the official response to the assassination. The DIA propaganda operation was the unofficial one, and the more important one.”

  “People in this DIA operation found individuals who would make up stories about the assassination and then tell…who?” Cole asked hesitantly.

  “Newspaper reporters and writers.” Bennett smiled wanly. “This country loves conspiracy theories It always has and always will. The members of the operation would have known this and would have taken advantage of it. Supposedly, they actively promoted the Mafia theory immediately to divert attention from Cuba and Russia as fast as they could. It would have been the easiest one to play up, because Bobby Kennedy was going after organized crime very hard at his brother’s urging. Oswald and Ruby were known to have ties to the Mafia. This theory effectively took the spotlight away from Cuba and the Soviets. As the weeks and months passed, the operation then promoted other theories as well. By the time the House Select Committee met in 1978 to study both the John Kennedy and Martin Luther King assassinations, there were more theories going around than anyone could possibly get a handle on. If you look at the witnesses who came before that committee to testify with respect to the Kennedy killing, many of them had never testified to the Warren Commission. But, poof, all of a sudden they can remember minute details fourteen years later. And many of the ones who had originally testified changed their stories drastically the second time around. The reporters and writers really picked up on the whole conspiracy phenomenon. Look how many books have been written over the years implicating everyone from the Joint Chiefs to J. Edgar Hoover. Christ, some of them accuse space aliens of the assassination—and some people believe it. One of the best breaks anyone trying to create propaganda got was Jim Garrison, that New Orleans district attorney who tried to frame a local businessman in the conspiracy. Garrison was a certifiable nut case, and he muddied the waters forever.”

  “I thought from what I’ve read that Garrison actually unearthed a lot of useful information.”

  Bennett shook his head violently. “His allegations were all trash.”

  “Maybe he worked for the operation,” Cole speculated.

  “I think that’s unlikely.”

  “How the hell do you know so much about the operation?” Cole asked suspiciously, glancing at Bennett’s left index finger.

  Bennett folded his arms across his chest, suddenly aware of how agitated he had become over the last few minutes. “I don’t know anything. I told you, I’m just guessing about all of this. Your father and I worked for the DIA, but not in that operation. We just heard rumors from others at the agency. What I’m telling you is our own speculation, nothing else.”

  “Were you and my father part of that operation?” Cole looked directly into Bennett’s eyes. He wanted to see the other man’s reaction to the question.

  “No, I told you,” Bennett answered firmly. He stared straight back at Cole as he gave his answer.

  “Is that why my father confiscated Andrea Sage’s movie camera?” Cole asked. “Because he knew the film inside might prove conspiracy?”

  “Think, Cole.”

  “What do you mean?” Cole was instantly irritated with himself because Bennett seemed disappointed, as if Cole had somehow let him down. Suddenly Cole didn’t want to disappoint Bennett Smith.

  “If your father had taken the camera from your mother because he was part of the operation, that would imply that the operation was in place before the assassination, and that there was prior knowledge of it,” Bennett pointed out. “That in fact the operation was part of the assassination. In my heart I’ve always believed there was more than one gunman in Dealey Plaza that day, and that a conspiracy did exist. But I never have, and
still don’t, believe the federal government or any law enforcement agency was involved in the actual killing. I could be convinced that the government was involved in an operation to cover up what happened, but not in the assassination itself.”

  “But—”

  Bennett held up a large hand. “I know what you’re going to say, that I’m naive to think our government couldn’t have been involved. I assure you, son, I’m not naive. But if you don’t agree with me, consider this. Why would your father give you that tape if he had dedicated the last thirty-five years of his life to suppressing what that tape showed? If in fact he was involved with the operation to disseminate propaganda, and therefore the assassination?”

  “Because we aren’t worried so much about Russia anymore,” Cole answered. “The tape no longer carries that provocative power. And for obvious reasons, he couldn’t be alive when the tape became public. The senior people at the DIA wouldn’t have taken kindly to that, so he waited until he died.”

  Bennett smiled. “Maybe you aren’t worried about Russia anymore, but plenty of people within the Department of Defense and the CIA still are, including me. You’re naive if you think Russia is no longer a legitimate threat.”

  “That’s not the point,” Cole argued. “The point is that the Dealey Tape wouldn’t cause a world war anymore, even in the unlikely event it led to proving Russia was involved with Kennedy’s assassination.”

  “You aren’t understanding my point, son. You don’t work for thirty-five years to suppress something, then suddenly go against your training.”

  Cole was unconvinced. “Then why did my father take the movie camera from Andrea Sage, and why didn’t he turn the film over to his superiors on the Dallas police force immediately?”

  Bennett shook his head. “I honestly don’t know. Until this afternoon I wasn’t certain he had actually taken the film from her. I thought Andrea might have made the whole thing up, as everyone else thought she had.” Bennett shrugged. “Maybe your father realized the dire implications of that film instantly and felt it was better held in his hands than anyone else’s. Maybe in the hours immediately following the assassination he viewed it and realized how valuable it could become and wanted to profit from it. Or—and this is what I really think—he fell in love with your mother the second he saw her, and he was trying to protect her, knowing that she could be in danger if people thought she really had made the film. Remember how many people connected with the assassination met with mysterious and violent deaths afterward. There was the hooker who was babbling in a hospital about someone wanting to kill the president a few days before the assassination. They found her dead on a lonely road. And there was Bowers, the guy who was up in the train tower overlooking the area behind the grassy knoll the day of the assassination. He died in a suspicious car accident. Maybe your father anticipated the danger. His ability to instantly grasp a situation and understand its long-term implications was incredible. He was a very intelligent man.”