Plausible deniability

Il 30 Marzo 1981 sparano al presidente Reagan. Se l'aggressore armato fosse riuscito nel suo intento sarebbe diventato presidente l'ex capo della Cia George H.W. Bush, che dovrà attendere fino al 1988. Il folle "killer solitario" si chiama John Hinckley e così giustifica il suo gesto:

Dear Jodie:

There is definitely a possibility that I will be killed in my attempt to get Reagan. It is for this very reason that I am writing you this letter now.

As you well know by now I love you very much. Over the past seven months I've left you dozens of poems, letters and love messages in the faint hope that you could develop an interest in me. Although we talked on the phone a couple of times I never had the nerve to simply approach you and introduce myself. Besides my shyness, I honestly did not wish to bother you with my constant presence. I know the many messages left at your door and in your mailbox were a nuisance, but I felt that it was the most painless way for me to express my love for you.

I feel very good about the fact that you at least know my name and how I feel about you. And by hanging around your dormitory, I've come to realize that I'm the topic of more than a little conversation, however full of ridicule it may be. At least you know that I'll always love you. Jodie, I would abandon the idea of getting Reagan in a second if I could only win your heart and live out the rest of my life with you, whether it be in total obscurity or whatever.

I will admit to you that the reason I'm going ahead with this attempt now is because I cannot wait any longer to impress you. I've got to do something now to make you understand, in no uncertain terms, that I'm doing all of this for your sake! By sacrificing my freedom and possibly my life, I hope to change your mind about me. This letter is being written only an hour before I leave for the Hilton Hotel. Jodie, I'm asking you to please look into your heart and at least give the chance, with this historical deed, to gain your love and respect.

I love you forever,

John W. Hinckley

Questa lettera è indirizzata non ad una Jodie sconosciuta, ma all'attrice Jodie Foster, da cui Hinckley è ossessionato; parlerà addirittura di una relazione con lei, che la Foster però nega.

Mmmm...tutto questo mi ricorda qualcosa...vediamo..

Travis è disgustato da quello che considera il degrado morale che lo circonda e quando Iris (Jodie Foster), una prostituta di 13 anni (nella versione inglese 12), entra una notte nel suo taxi cercando di fuggire dal suo pappone, Travis diventa ossessionato dall'idea di salvarla dal suo destino. La ragazza però non sembra affatto intenzionata a farsi aiutare [...]
Travis, sempre più solo e disperato, decide di comprare delle pistole e con queste di uccidere il senatore Palantine durante un comizio all'aperto: perché egli rappresenta tutta l'ipocrisia della società americana, i nemici che ha sempre tentato di combattere e che non ha mai avuto il coraggio di affrontare.

Ma guarda un pò le coincidenze nella vita!!! Ovviamente non finisce mica qui; c'è un lancio d'agenzia della Associated Press curioso:

AP, March 31/81. La famiglia dell'uomo che ha tentato di assassinare il presidente Reagan è conoscente della famiglia del vicepresidente George Bush e ha fatto generose contribuzioni alla campagna elettorale di questo. Scott Hinckley, fratello di John Hinckley che avrebbe sparato al presidente, doveva cenare stasera a Denver in casa di Neil Bush, uno dei figli del vicepresidente. Neil Bush ha vissuto a Lubbock, Texas, per quasi tutto il 1978, ossia nella stessa città dove Hinckley ha vissuto dal 1974 al 1980.

Ovviamente il Post o il Ny Times non hanno mai pubblicato questa quantomeno curiosa agenzia. Certo che è pieno di killer solitari in America, e hanno tutti amicizie altolocate. Fortuna che c'è la Cia a proteggere il popolo Americano!!*

E Jodie Foster? Dopo il primo film, a 14 anni, viene mandata a Yale. Una ragazza che non sa nemmeno chi è suo padre, cresciuta in una baracca e con una madre pochissimo rispettabile, assolutamente senza denaro, ammessa nell'università dell'Establishment. Perchè Yale?

Qui il mio piccolo romanzo - ovviamente sto lavorando di fantasia - si complica. Bisognerebbe addentrarsi nelle trame di una delle società (una volta) più segrete d'America, in riti esoterici di stampo gnostico che hanno origine secoli fa. Skull and Bones. Un lavoro lungo, troppo per oggi (un'idea di come si svolgano tali riti, o meglio, del rito di iniziazione la fornisce proprio Robert De Niro nel suo recente film The Good Shepherd; la versione di De Niro è ovviamente più soft; il film racconta, guarda caso, la storia della Cia). Mi limito a fornire una lista, vera ancorchè incompleta, di alcuni celebri "bonesmen" - in grasseto quelli più conosciuti. (è il bello della libertà di stampa: le notizie non sono nascoste, ma coperte dal rumore):

• William Huntington Russell (1832), Connecticut State Legislator; cousin of Samuel Russell who allegedly established Russell and Company for the "purpose of acquiring opium in Turkey and smuggling it to China"
• Alphonso Taft (1832), U.S. Attorney General (1876–1877); Secretary of War (1876); Ambassador to Austria-Hungary (1882) and Russia (1884–1885); father of William Howard Taft

List of Notable Members

Athletics

• Walter Camp (1880), Founder of American Football
• Amos Alonzo Stagg (1888), One of the all-time Winningest college football coaches
• George W. Woodruff (1889), College Hall of Fame football coach, Acting Secretary of the Interior and Pennsylvania state attorney-general
• Clint Frank (1938), 1937 Heisman Trophy winner

Business

• Pierre Jay (1892), First chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York
• Harry Payne Whitney (1894), Husband of Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney; investment banker
• Frederick E. Weyerhaeuser (1896), Heir to the Weyerhaeuser Paper Co.
• Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt (1898), Son of Cornelius Vanderbilt II; brother of Gertude Vanderbilt Whitney
• Frederick Baldwin Adams (1900), Chairman of the West Indies Sugar Corp.
• Percy Rockefeller (1900), Director of Brown Brothers Harriman, Standard Oil, and Remington Arms

• Harold Stanley (1908), Founder of investment house Morgan Stanley
• Alfred Cowles (1913), Founder of the Cowles Commission
• E. Roland Harriman (1917), Businessman; railroad executive; president of American Red Cross
• H. Neil Mallon (1917), CEO of Dresser Industries where Prescott Bush served on the Board for 22 years along with E. Roland Harriman; gave George H.W. Bush his first job in 1948; namesake for Bush's son Neil Mallon Bush; "tried to be helpful to Allen Dulles in the CIA, especially in the procurement of individuals to serve in that important agency"
• Artemus Gates (1918), President of New York Trust Company, Union Pacific Railroad, TIME-Life, and Boeing Company
• Henry P. Davison Jr. (1920), Senior partner at JP Morgan Guaranty Trust Company
• George Herbert Walker, Jr. (1927), Financier and co-founder of the New York Mets; uncle to President George Herbert Walker Bush
• Dean Witter, Jr. (1944), Son of the founder of investment house Dean Witter Reynolds
• Robert Gow (1955), Business associate of George H. W. Bush; president of Bush's Zapata Oil
• Frederick W. Smith (1966), Founder of FedEx
• Stephen A. Schwarzman (1969), Co-founder The Blackstone Group
• Edward S. Lampert (1984), Founder of ESL
• Jedediah Hessfeld (1999) , Founder of What the Frog

Education

• Henry Coit Kingsley (1834), Yale Treasurer 1862–1887; Daniel Coit Gilman's uncle
• Timothy Dwight V (1849), Yale acting Treasurer 1887–1889, Yale President 1886–1899
• Daniel Coit Gilman (1852), Studied at the University of Berlin (1854–1855) under Karl Von Ritter and Friedrich Trendelenderg; attache to the American legation at St. Petersburg; 2nd President of the University of California; 1st President of Johns Hopkins University; President of the Carnegie Institution
• Andrew Dickson White (1853), Co-founder and first President of Cornell University
• William H. Welch (1870), dean of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
• Arthur T. Hadley (1876), Yale acting Treasurer 1909–1910,; Yale President 1899–1921
• Charles Seymour (1908), President of Yale 1937–1951
• Lawrence G. Tithe (1916), Yale Treasurer 1942–1954; Director/Partner Brown Brothers Harriman
• Charles Stafford Gage (1925), Yale Treasurer 1954–1966; member of Bones family firm Mathiesson Chemical
• John E. Ecklund (1938), Yale Treasurer 1966–1978; Partner in Bones-dominated New Haven law firm Dana & Wiggin
• R. Inslee Clark, Jr. (1957), Director of Undergraduate Admissions who helped Yale become coeducational; former Headmaster of Horace Mann School

Government and Politics

• William Maxwell Evarts (1837), U.S. Secretary of State; Attorney General; Senator; grandson of Roger Sherman
• Morrison R. Waite (1837), U.S. Supreme Court Justice
• Augustus Brandegee (1849), Speaker of the Connecticut State Legislature in 1861
• William Henry Gleason (1853), Lt. Governor of Florida; founder of Eau Gallie, Florida; lawyer and land speculator
• Chauncey Depew (1855), U.S. Senator (R-New York 1899–1911)
• William Bissell, Governor of Illinois (1857–1860); brother of Richard M. Bissell, Jr.)
• Simeon Eben Baldwin (1861), Governor and Chief Justice, State of Connecticut; son of Roger Sherman Baldwin
• William Collins Whitney (1863), U.S. Secretary of the Navy; New York City financier
• William Howard Taft (1878), 27th President of the United States; Chief Justice of the United States; Secretary of War; son of Alphonso Taft
• Edward Baldwin Whitney (1878), New York Supreme Court Justice
• Frank Bosworth Brandegee (1885), U.S. Representative (R-Connecticut 1902–1905); U.S. Senator (R-Connecticut 1905–1924)
• Gifford Pinchot (1889), First Chief of U.S. Forest Service
• Lee McClung (1892), Yale Treasurer 1904–1909; U.S. Treasurer 1909–1912
• Robert A. Taft (1910), U.S. Senator (R-Ohio 1939–1953)
• Averell Harriman (1913), U.S. Ambassador and Secretary of Commerce; Governor of New York; Chairman and CEO of the Union Pacific Railroad, Brown Brothers & Harriman, and the Southern Pacific Railroad; wife Pamela Churchill Harriman helped fund Bill Clinton's presidential campaign
• Prescott Bush (1916), Father of George H.W. Bush, grandfather of George W. Bush
• Howard M. Baldridge (1918) - U.S. Representative (R-Nebraska 1931–1933)
• F. Trubee Davison (1918), Director of Personnel at the CIA
• Robert A. Lovett (1918), Partner of Prescott Bush at Brown Brothers Harriman; Secretary of Defense; "Father of the CIA"
• John Sherman Cooper (1923), U.S. Senator (R-Kentucky 1946–1949, 1952–73); member of the Warren Commission
• William Jorden (1925), U.S. Ambassador to Panama; National Security Council
• H. J. Heinz II (1931), Heir to H. J. Heinz Company; father of H. John Heinz III
• Hugh Cunningham (1934), Rhodes Scholar; CIA
• Jonathan Brewster Bingham (1936), U.S. Representative (D-New York 1965–1983); Council on Foreign Relations
• Potter Stewart (1936), U.S. Supreme Court Justice
• William P. Bundy (1939), State Department liaison for the Bay of Pigs invasion
• McGeorge Bundy (1940), Special Assistant for National Security Affairs; National Security Advisor; Professor of History
• Richard Dale Drain (1943), CIA; co-authored early paper proposing the Bay of Pigs invasion, "A Program of Covert Action against the Castro Regime"
• James L. Buckley (1944), U.S. Senator (R-New York 1971–1977)
• Howard Weaver (1945), CIA
• John Chafee (1947), U.S. Senator; Secretary of the Navy and Governor of Rhode Island; father of Lincoln Chafee
• George H. W. Bush (1948), 41st President of the United States; 11th Director of Central Intelligence; son of Prescott Bush; father of George W. Bush
• Charles Edwin Lord (1949), U.S. Comptroller of the Currency
• William Henry Draper III (1950), Chair of United Nations Development Programme and Import-Export Bank of the United States
• Evan G. Galbraith (1950), Ambassador to France; managing director of Morgan Stanley
• Dino Pionzio (1950), CIA Deputy Chief of Station during Allende overthrow
• William H. Donaldson (1953), former chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission; co-founder of DLJ investment firm.
• Winston Lord (1959), Chairman of Council on Foreign Relations; Ambassador to China; Assistant U.S. Secretary of State
• David Boren (1963), Governor of Oklahoma, U.S. Senator, President of the University of Oklahoma
• John Kerry (1966), U.S. Senator (D-Massachusetts 1985–present); Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts 1983–1985; 2004 Democratic Presidential nominee
• Victor Ashe (1967), Tenn. State House (1968–1975); Tenn. State Senate (1976–1984); Mayor of Knoxville, Tenn. (1988–2003); appointed Ambassador to Poland (2004–Present) by George W. Bush
• Roy Leslie Austin (1968), Appointed ambassador to Trinidad and Tobago by George W. Bush
• George W. Bush (1968), 43rd President of the United States; 47th Governor of Texas
• Robert McCallum, Jr (1968), Ambassador to Australia
• Hyder Akbar (Abdulhaq, also just "Haq") (2007), Implicated in US flag-burning on an American home; posted bail. Wrote best-selling book about his experiences in the reconstruction of Afghanistan

Publications and Writing

• F. O. Matthiessen, Historian; literary critic
• Archibald MacLeish (1915), Poet and author
• Donald Ogden Stewart (1916), Author; screenwriter; Academy Award winner for The Philadelphia Story
• Briton Hadden (1920), Co-founder of Time-Life Enterprises
• Henry Luce (1920), Co-founder of Time-Life Enterprises
• Russell Davenport (1923), Editor of Fortune magazine; created Fortune 500 list
• Amory Howe Bradford (1934), General manager for the New York Times; CIA
• William F. Buckley, Jr. (1950), Founder of National Review; author; CIA
• David McCullough (1955), U.S. historian; two-time Pulitzer Prize winner
• Dana Milbank (1990), political reporter for The Washington Post
• Nicholi Patterson (2001), Political Prisoner

Science and Engineering

• John Rockefeller Prentice (1928), Grandson of John D. Rockefeller; pioneer of artificial insemination in farm animals as a means of improving their genetic pool

The Arts

• Evarts Tracy (1890), President of Tracy and Swartwout, architectural firm responsible for the cloister garden within the Skull & Bones Tomb. Also constructed Missouri State Capitol, St. Johns Cathedral in Denver. Nephew of Bonesman William Maxwell Evarts.[1]

Main article: Skull and Bones#Architecture

• Paul Giamatti (1989), actor; son of former Major League Baseball Commissioner A. Bart Giamatii.
• James Whitmore, American Actor.

E adesso fate una bella ricerchina sul concetto di Plausible deniability, da bravi :-D.

(I)

*Kennedy licenzia Allen Dulles dal posto di capo della Cia, e minaccia di smantellare quest'ultima, a suo avviso troppo potente e poco trasparente. Qualche mese dopo Kennedy viene assassinato e chi troviamo nella commissione Warren - quella incaricata di indagare, pochissimo, sull'omicidio del presidente? Allen Dulles.