After my book-signing was finished, we headed out to the airport. At the time, I was smoking cigars, so they found me a restricted area outside where I could light up. It was a beautiful day in Dallas. We were all laughing and making small talk. As it came time for me to put out my cigar and board the plane, the police officer who’d been our guide all day took me off to the side.
He said, “Be very careful, governor. You are a high-profile person who might say things that certain people don’t want said.”
Well, if Oswald was indeed the lone assassin, and was the “lone nut” that they told us he was, how could my making comments about this forty years later affect anybody? In hindsight, I wish I had canceled the flight and gone to the policeman’s home that night. I wanted to ask him, “Why are you warning me about this? What do you base it on?” I had the distinct feeling from him, however, that he didn’t want to be asked.
Jack Tunheim was a Minnesota federal judge who, after Oliver Stone’s JFK film came out, was put in charge (by President Clinton) of reviewing the still-classified assassination archives for potential release. As governor, I figured I ought to have access to Tunheim. So we had dinner together one evening at the home of another federal judge. We were joined by Kathleen Blatz, who was then chief justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court. The topic of the evening was Kennedy.
Tunheim told me, in essence, that everything had now been revealed, unless it referred to a CIA undercover operative who was still alive and whose life could be put in danger. He told me that, in following up on the intelligence side, he’d encountered some of the shadiest characters that he’d ever come across. The judge told me I had great knowledge of the case, and that I was on the right track.
Well, why does it end there? This is a homicide, and there’s no statute of limitations on murder. The Warren Commission is meaningless, because it was merely an investigation supposedly done to bring everything into the light of day, and it doesn’t stand up as a court case. Why is it that so many allude to more people being involved with Oswald, but prefer to let the sleeping dog lie?
On the fortieth anniversary of the assassination on November 22, 2003, I decided to go to Dallas to pay my respects. I’d left office the previous January. I was the only elected official who spoke in Dealey Plaza that day. No one else even bothered to show up. Does our government still have a collective guilty conscience when it comes to John F. Kennedy?
Teaching at Harvard in 2004, I decided to focus my next-to-last class on the Kennedy assassination. I knew that was a gutsy move to make at the Kennedy School of Government. I hadn’t wanted to try it too soon because, if Harvard objected, I didn’t want to go through a big fight. Anyway, I got away with it. My guest speaker was David Fetzer, a University of Minnesota Duluth professor and former Marine who’s an expert on the ballistics evidence that shows it had to be more than just Oswald shooting.
I noticed there were people in my class that day whom I’d never seen before. They were too old to be students. Their sole purpose in being there was apparently to debunk any conspiracy theories. They didn’t completely disrupt the class, but they would speak out of turn and insinuate that it was un-American and undermining our great country to bring up the past and question the integrity of all those great men on the Warren Commission. Never question your government, was the message. (Kind of like what former president George H. W. Bush said at President Ford’s funeral; We know the Warren Commission is accurate because Gerald Ford said it was.) So where did these people come from? I suspect they were plants, sent in by somebody in the government.
If I ever became president, I would push for opening up every document in the National Archives after a limited number of years. Unless, as Judge Tunheim said, it was a case where someone’s life might be in jeopardy if a particular document were made public. But the moment that person died, that document would automatically become public record. I just don’t like the idea of secretive government, and we’re going in that direction more and more, by leaps and bounds. I do not believe that a democracy can survive when it’s hiding secrets.
Another sign noted in Terry’s journal: Accept Jesus as your savior and live forever. Or you will regret it forever.
Leaving the Dallas-Forth Worth area, we passed through a small town. On the outskirts, there was a huge cross. It seemed almost the size of a skyscraper, the biggest built structure in the entire area. And it wasn’t the last one we’d see.
I created a furor in 1999 when, in my interview with Playboy, I called organized religion “a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people.” Looking back on that comment today, I might be accorded prophet status.
My belief in spirituality is probably not the norm, I’ll admit. Definitely not in the United States. I don’t go to church on Sundays. I believe we all worship God in our own diverse ways. And I view organized religion as strictly a business, top to bottom, like all other businesses. I am still very frustrated over the fact that the Catholic Church is not being prosecuted under the federal racketeering laws that apply to organized crime, the RICO statute, when it comes to the rampant child abuse practices that some members of the church hierarchy knowingly allowed to take place. Nobody’s even brought that up. Apparently the church is untouchable. Well, I don’t believe that religion should be untouchable. God is untouchable—He doesn’t have to worry—but to me, religion is created by man.
I’ll also say this: If Jesus came back today, I think he’d throw up. Didn’t Jesus throw the money-changers out of the temple? By all accounts I’ve read, he was with the downtrodden, the underdog. Not with the people living in suburbia, for whom everything is going great. Or, as I like to call them, born-again Republicans.
I was the only governor out of all fifty who would not declare a National Prayer Day. I took a lot of heat for that, and my response was very simple: Why do people need the government to tell them to pray? Pray all you want! Pray fifty times a day if you desire, it’s not my business! On the counter-side, I said, Look, if I declare National Prayer Day, then I’ve got to declare National No-Prayer Day for the atheists. They are American citizens too.
Instead, I declared “Indivisible Day” one Fourth of July. The proclamation went like this: “WHEREAS: The unique feature of this nation at its founding was its establishment of a secular Constitution that separated government from religion—something never done before; and WHEREAS: Our secular Constitution has enabled people of all worldviews to coexist in harmony, undivided by sectarian strife; and WHEREAS: President James Madison made clear the importance of maintaining this harmony when he said, ‘The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the endless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries’; and WHEREAS: The diversity of our people requires mutual respect and equal protection for all our citizens, including minority groups, if we are to remain ‘One nation, indivisible’; and WHEREAS: It is the unfettered diversity of ideas and worldviews that has made our nation the strongest and most productive in the world; and WHEREAS: Eternal vigilance must be maintained to guard against those who seek to stifle ideas, establish a narrow orthodoxy, and divide our nation along arbitrary lines of race, ethnicity, and religious belief or nonbelief. NOW, THEREFORE, I, JESSE VENTURA, Governor of Minnesota, do hereby proclaim that Thursday, July 4, 2002, shall be observed as: INDIVISIBLE DAY in the State of Minnesota.”
For me, the lines between church and state seem to become more blurred by the day. The First Amendment protects freedom of speech, thought—and religion. Nowhere is it mandated that we’re the Christian States of America. As Thomas Jefferson once said, “Religion is a matter which lies solely between a man and his God. . . . he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship.” Who you pray to, in other words, is none of the government’s business.
That’s made us, I think, a stronger and more democratic nation. If you look at history, religious belief can be a powerful tool in the hands of the corrupt. Remember the Inquisition of the Mi
ddle Ages? It’s abundantly clear that our Founding Fathers wanted to prevent our government from establishing a “national church.” Today, though, if the Religious Right has its way, you either believe wholeheartedly in Jesus cleansing you of all sin—or you’re destined to rot in hell. Be prepared to succumb to the fiery furnace while all the true believer zealots get wafted into heaven on a glorious, rapturous cloud come Armageddon. They’re waiting with open arms for the Apocalypse. Woe be unto you if you happen to be a Hindu or, worst of all, a Muslim.
To me, this attitude is an absurd abdication, a retreat from trying to make a difference and fight for a better world, for the sake of future generations on the only planet human life exists upon, as far as we can know.
I’d like to see organized religion’s tax-exempt status removed. Churches receive the same benefits as you and I—they get fire and police protection, and their streets plowed. That’s what your local taxes pay for. How come they get off the hook? It would be one thing if they weren’t political, but even local churches are political nowadays.
Back in 1981, Gary North, one of the leaders of a Christian Reconstructionist movement, made this statement: “Christians must begin to organize politically within the present party structure, and they must begin to infiltrate the existing institutional order.”
Today, televangelist Pat Robertson boasts about having 150 graduates of Regent University, which he founded, in the Bush administration. And we wonder why Christianism dominates the political agenda?
“The interesting thing about you,” Terry is saying as my religious rant winds down, “is that your great hero in life is a Muslim.”
As we roll onto Highway 20 heading west, I’m remembering when I came to the stage on election night to give my acceptance speech. After thanking my supporters, I’d said this: “You know, it was back in ’64 that a hero and an idol of mine beat Sonny Liston. He shocked the world.... Well, now it’s 1998 and the American dream lives on in Minnesota ’cause we SHOCKED THE WORLD!”
Muhammad Ali, then Cassius Clay, had been that hero and idol of mine growing up. I was at the impressionable age of twelve or thirteen, and naturally boxers are the epitome of toughness. Along came Muhammad, who broke the mold, reciting his poetry and predicting in what round he would win. Up until then, athletes were supposed to be modest people who were blessed by the Lord for having these wonderful physical bodies. Now here was this flashy, charismatic young black man proclaiming how pretty he was. Black men in America had never been pretty!
The big fights weren’t on pay-per-view then, but all heavyweight title bouts were broadcast live on the radio. My brother and I occupied the upper part of our little house in south Minneapolis, and whenever a heavyweight fight happened, my dad would come up and sit with us. All three of us would be glued to the play-by-play on the radio. When Sonny Liston knocked out Floyd Patterson in the first round, that “family experience” lasted all of about fifteen minutes.
When the Clay-Liston bout was about to happen, I’d actually been predicting that Clay would win. Even though nobody got past a few rounds with the “Big Ugly Bear,” and the “Louisville Lip” wasn’t given a chance. I had Clay’s record album, I Am the Greatest! I’d memorized it.
So I was ecstatic when Liston failed to come out for the eighth round. I always remembered Clay screaming, “We shocked the world!” after the fight, and that’s all I could think of when I went out for my acceptance speech. Not long after this, I was in the transition office of the Capitol when on my schedule appeared the name Harvey Mackay. He’s a prominent businessman who wrote the book Swim with the Sharks. Harvey came walking in with a big gift-wrapped box, and I was thinking, “What the heck could this be about?” Setting the box down, he said, “You’d better open that, governor.”
Inside was a pair of red Everlast boxing gloves and, written in magic marker on one of them was: “To Governor Jesse Ventura—You Shocked the World. Muhammad Ali.” I was stunned. Harvey told me that Muhammad was watching TV the night I won.
Harvey then set it up for us to go visit Muhammad on his farm in Berrien Springs, Michigan. Four state troopers accompanied us—my two security guys from Minnesota, one from Indiana, where our plane landed, and another from Michigan. We spent a whole afternoon with Muhammad. It was a dream come true for me to be sitting on a couch with the Champ, creating a friendship. His wife, Lonnie, told me that he’d barely slept the night before, he was so excited I was coming. I was awestruck—Muhammad Ali, excited to see me?
As the world knows, Muhammad suffers today from Parkinson’s disease. So you do most of the talking, and he answers more with his eyes. We walked out to his gym and got in the ring together. They took some photos of us boxing, as well as my putting him in a headlock. It was there that Harvey talked me into reciting “I Am the Greatest” from the record album.
“This is the legend of Cassius Clay, the most beautiful fighter in the world today, who talks a great deal and brags indeedy, of a muscular punch that’s incredibly speedy. The fistic world was dull and weary, with a champ like Liston things had to be dreary. Then someone with color, someone with dash, brought fight fans a-runnin’ with cash. . . .”
I hadn’t heard that album for thirty years, but I did the whole thing from memory. Muhammad was standing next to me and, when I finished, I could see a tear in his eye.
Isn’t it ironic that a white kid from south Minneapolis would have a black Muslim for a hero? Some people have said to me, “How can you, being a Vietnam veteran, look up to a guy like him who refused induction into military service?” My response is, “Because Muhammad is a man who gave up everything for his convictions. He was willing to sacrifice the greatest title in the world for his beliefs.” You know damned well that Ali would never have seen Vietnam. He’d have done his boxing exhibitions on the military bases. But he wasn’t going to play that game. I have tremendous respect for that.
Something I noticed when I walked into his home: On a shelf in his living room, in equal prominence, are the Koran and the Bible. Obviously, they both carry a deep meaning for him. I imagine he reads both. For people who don’t believe that Ali truly believes, they’re wrong. Like I said, he’s a man of conviction. Always has been, and always will be.
Muhammad is also big into magic. While we were there that day, somebody said to him, “Muhammad, do you feel strong enough to levitate today?” He gave a nod and moved slowly along the tiled floor to the center of his kitchen. What I saw next remains one of the most astonishing moments of my life. I watched both of his feet raise two inches off the floor, stay there for a period of about thirty seconds, and then go back down.
When we left an hour later, my companions and I sat looking at each other in the car, and I said: “Now—who saw something different?” None of us could say otherwise. So, if it was a magical trick, I tip my hat because Muhammad does it exceptionally well, having fooled a governor and four state troopers.
And if it wasn’t a trick, then I really believe that Muhammad Ali is “The Greatest.”
CHAPTER 4
Thinking Politics in Bush Country
“I like to tell people, Laura and I are proud to be Texas—own a Texas ranch, and for us, every day is Earth Day.”
—President George W. Bush
Traveling across West Texas on Interstate 20, after you pass by Abilene and Big Spring, before long the big oil derricks loom on the horizon. Every direction you look, the landscape is all scrubby desert and completely flat—except for the endlessly rocking motion of the black pumps. And as you close in on Midland, the dusty air is permeated by a propane smell. There’s no escaping it, even inside the camper.
I turned to Terry and said, “I really don’t see how people can live in this. But I imagine, like anything else, you become accustomed to it.”
“They have my deepest sympathies,” Terry said.
“This is about the last place on the planet I’ve seen that I’d want to live,” I said.
I didn’t remember until
later that this was Bush Country. The elder George had come to Midland for the first Permian Basin oil rush in the fifties. George W. grew up here, and later came back just in time for the second oil boom in the 1970s. Midland was his wife Laura’s hometown, and this was where they met. It’s where the younger George declared himself a candidate for Congress in 1977, when his dad was running the CIA. And Midland is where George W. has expressed a wish to someday be buried.
My first impression of him had been a positive one. After the Supreme Court awarded Bush the 2000 election, his people approached me to be part of his transition team. I sat in on three or four conference calls. I thought, this guy’s going to be all right. He was very personable, a man it seemed like you could go out and drink a few beers and go fishing with.
Not too long after his inauguration, Terry and I went to Washington for the annual National Governors Convention. On a Sunday night, there’s always a huge party in the White House. You’re dropped off at a side entrance, and your security team goes to the basement and waits down there with the Secret Service until it’s over. When it’s your time to go into the ballroom, a military man in full dress uniform greets you. Your wife takes his arm, he escorts her, and you follow right behind. You stand in a line with all the other governors and their wives, waiting to meet the president and the First Lady.
I watched as the governors’ names were announced and they shook hands, exchanged a greeting, and talked for a moment. Well, as the line progressed, President Bush glanced over and saw that Terry and I were up next. Before they could even say—“Governor and Mrs. Jesse Ventura, Minnesota”—Bush, with a big smile on his face, blurted out in front of everyone: “I have to meet the most patient woman in America.”
Don't Start the Revolution Without Me! Page 7
