Tell Me About Yourself

Tell Me About Yourself. It may be the most difficult request to answer in your entire life. And one of the most important. It is hard enough to do in writing. But when it knifes-in out of the blue in a conversion, it can cause folks to freeze-up or begin stammering. That’s bad news if you are in a job interview, or maybe trying to get into college and are talking with a representative of the school. Or maybe you have met someone that you think might turn into someone special. Or even turn into the someone special.

That exact moment you hear these words cannot be the first time you have thought about what your answer might be. You cannot lie; they will find out, because you won’t remember the made-up details. You don’t even want to embellish. You’ll want to tailor your response to the purpose of the interview, mentioning your experiences in school, business, hobbies, or whatever the case may be. And you need to be quick. Nobody likes a droner. Try two minutes, or less, to get it done.

However, there is one other question, that can be even more difficult to answer. Tell me something interesting about yourself. Now, you are not talking about the skillsets you bring to the table; you’re discussing why you are interesting; which really translates to why should that person want to continue to associate with you; have lunch; identify common interests. In short, why you are not boring. Another way of saying, why would this person want to have a beer with you? And if you are really interesting, they’ll buy the beer!

Maybe you want to perhaps mention unique places you have visited – but not discussing fancy, expensive hotels you’ve stayed in. That sounds too much like bragging. Money is not interesting. Life is. Maybe describing some really interesting persons you have met, but not in a way that suggests name-dropping. No one truly cares if you just saw Taylor Swift on your vacation last year. If you can describe some experience which is highly-unlikely that anyone else has ever described to this person, you’re rolling.

But you can’t be long-winded. Leave the person who asked this wanting to know more.

If you asked me that question, here are a just a few answers I might throw out that describe people I’ve met and some odd places I’ve found myself. But again, it depends on the situation, and if the other person I am talking with would have any idea about the people or events, or even care about the experiences

Knew an old German Army officer who briefed Adolf Hitler in 1942 on conditions at the Russian Front and then had lunch with him.

That’s it. Not going to add what they talked about in the briefing or the other people in the room, some who were infamous and others you’ve never heard of, but were really important. Not going to add who attended lunch, what they ate, if they had alcohol. That’s reserved for future chats. He’s on the left below. The one in the center is described below. The one on the right was the son of a German army general who was executed for his roll in the attempted assassination of Hitler; his character can be seen in the movie Valkyrie. Spent an evening with them and the stories they told!!

Knew another old German Army officer who was at Hitler’s Rastenburg “Wolf’s Lair” headquarters on July 20, 1944.

That’s it. Not going to add that he was there to personally receive a high military decoration from Hitler; not going to add that earlier in the day he had sat at a dining table outside with a colonel who was actually Claus von Stauffenberg, the officer who placed the bomb in the briefing room, where it detonated almost killing Hitler. Not going to add that the Gestapo interrogated the officer later that day and night to see if he had been part of the plot (He hadn’t.)

Interviewed Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal, who was later portrayed in a novel and movie titled The Boys from Brazil, in his office in Vienna, Austria for 45 minutes.

That’s it. If you want to know what we talked about, that’s in the future.

Flew in a rickety old Russian helicopter through the Khyber Pass in Pakistan.

What I was doing there, and that we stopped off around Landi Kotal at the Khyber Rifles Officers Club and had a beer will wait till later.

Went fly-fishing one October in the high hills of Montana with an old Army buddy, and Hank saw a pile of steaming bear crap, estimating that he was 400 pounds and had been there less than 30 minutes ago.

That’s it. Want to know what happened next?

Answering these requests does two things. It portrays you as interesting, because you are. Or, if the person to whom you are talking appears bored with your answer, they are probably too boring to know or have to spend a lot of time with.

Interesting lasts forever. Have your story ready to tell. Never tell the entire story all at once. NBB. Never be boring.

Tell Me About YourselfFrench MacLean2024-07-26T11:41:06-05:00

The Final Witness

I just read — for the Second time — The Final Witness: A Kennedy Secret Service Agent Breaks His Silence After Sixty Years, by Paul Landis, a Secret Service agent not interviewed by the Warren Commission, who quit the agency in 1964, and who kept silent until recently.

Maybe if the commission had interviewed him, future US Senator Arlen Specter wouldn’t have wasted everyone’s time on the “Magic Bullet Theory”, with its mystical properties of changing direction, that enabled the conclusion that the infamous Lee Harvey Oswald was the sole shooter of President John F. Kennedy and Texas Governor John B. Connally.

Let me cut right to the chase. If you ever had, or have, a passing interest in the Kennedy Assassination or were/are a full-fledged “addict” of the most-significant crime of the 20th century, buy this book. Read this book. Underline significant passages in this book so you don’t have to waste time finding them when you read this book again; and maybe again after that.

The book had a one-month backlog on Amazon. I now not only have a copy for myself, but have also bought the book for several friends. You have a lot to read in life, but this is an easy read. The first 130 pages are about Agent Landis’ life before November 22, 1963. He writes well and you’ll blast through these so quickly it will seem like you’re skimming.

Then you are at the heart of the matter, lasting about 30 pages. You will either believe Agent Landis, or ascribe that he is too old to remember details, or that he has an axe to grind why he did not remain in the Secret Service, or that he just wants to make money.

Let’s quickly examine all three potential beliefs. As the author of over 15 published non-fiction works, I can tell you that Agent Landis didn’t make enough money as a first-time author to make up for the crap he is probably getting daily on social media for upsetting established “truths.” Second, as an Army officer for over 30 years, I know PTSD when I see or hear it, and while I’m not a psychologist, I know that he never got over what he experienced that day, and his resignation a year later proved that. He was right in the middle of the blood and the gore. And he couldn’t prevent it.

As to the facts, he presents so much detailed information, to include visual, audio and actually holding an intact bullet, and several bullet fragments, WHILE THEY WERE STILL IN THE PREIDENT’S LIMOUSINE.

In his book, he writes of three observations, from his position as a Secret Service agent who guarded the President’s wife and children. He started in a limo behind the President’s. Heard two shots from the rear that sounded different from one another. My take. This observation of sounding different could be a faulty memory. People remember songs well, but not exactly how individual instruments sound after the event. Two different sounds could be two different rifles, but they could also be the same weapon at changing distances and angles as the motorcade kept moving.

When they got to Parkland Hospital, Paul got into the President’s limousine while Mrs. Kennedy was in the back seat and found two bullet fragments on the seat beside her. Picked them up, looked at both quickly, and put them down where he had found them. My take. Happened as he said.

Now the last piece, and this is the big one. He helped lift JFK’s body out of the limo and on to a gurney. Then he helped Mrs. Kennedy stand up in the car, at which time he saw a completely intact bullet on top of the cushioning behind where she had been sitting. In other words, at that instant it was between the First Lady’s back and the back of her seat. My take. He was accurate, primarily because of what happened next.

Believing that the increasing crowd of people might include a souvenir-hunter, he puts the bullet into his pocket. However, he realizes in the examination room that he should not keep it, and places the bullet next to President Kennedy’s foot on the examination table. My take. Before writing this book, Paul Landis KNOWS that admitting that he took the bullet from the car will be critical of his conduct on that day. All he has to do is keep quiet and no one will ever know that. But he chooses the harder right and explains what he did and why he did it. This account rings true and accurate.

Conclusion. The intact bullet fell out of JFK’s back at some point during the shooting or the ride to Parkland. It could not have been the same “magic bullet” that supposedly went through the President, caused multiple wounds to John Connally and ended up on John Connally’s stretcher, having fallen out of Connally’s body.

It had fallen out of the President’s body, and later someone moved it from the side of the President’s foot to Connally’s stretcher — either by mistake or with intent.

Not even Arlen Specter can make a bullet go backwards and undo all the wounds it “supposedly” caused to the governor.

It also means that Oswald would have had to fire an additional shot that wounded just Connally. But he did not have time to do that.

Thank you, Paul Landis.

The Final WitnessFrench MacLean2024-07-04T09:57:05-05:00

Air Janes

While researching Dying Hard, I came across some history that I had been unaware. In World War II, thirty-eight ladies of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) perished in service to their nation piloting military aircraft, flying almost everything their brothers did including B-17 Flying Fortresses, one of which sported the feisty name of “Pistol Packin’ Mama” because the “Air Janes” were just as saucy as the guys.

Air Crew Pistol Packin’ Mama

The organization was a civilian pilots’ outfit, whose members were actually US federal service employees who became trained pilots who tested aircraft, ferried aircraft, and trained other pilots so as to free male pilots for combat roles. Some 800 completed all training. Here are some period illustrations relating to Air Janes:

Fifinella, the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) mascot, created by The Walt Disney Company

Air Jane in a P-51 Mustang

Air Janes belonged to the Air Transport Command and wore this insignia

In 2009, members of the WASP were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. There aren’t many left, so if you get to meet one, tell her thanks and see if she has a story to share with you. It’s probably a once in a lifetime opportunity to meet a real live hero.

Air Jane in the cockpit

Air JanesFrench MacLean2023-06-05T21:47:10-05:00

The Third Bullet by Stephen Hunter

The Third Bullet by Stephen Hunter

A Bob Lee Swagger Novel

Simon & Schuster, 2013

(February 14, 2023) I just re-read, for probably the fifth time because it is so well-written and a real pager-turner, The Third Bullet by Stephen Hunter. Part of the Bob Lee Swagger series, this fiction book transcends that genre, which I’ll address in a moment, and is clearly on my all-time top ten fiction book list.

It would probably not spoil the book, which I have carefully stored in our hide-away in Puerto Rico so that I may read it every year when we are down there, if I mentioned that it is about the John F. Kennedy assassination in Dallas in 1963. Kennedy’s picture is on the front dust jacket of the hard cover edition of the Simon & Schuster book (while Lee Harvey Oswald’s picture is on the back dust cover.) On the front title page is a photograph of the murder weapon, the infamous Mannlicher-Carcano Model 38 carbine with its cheap and poorly attached Japanese-made scope, and on both the front and rear inside of the hard cover are detailed sketches of Dealey Plaza – which probably has no significance for 99% of all Americans except for being the site of JFK’s murder.

The book begins with the hit-and-run death of an author (a “gun-guy” that wrote about snipers and weapons,) which being a writer myself obviously caught my undivided attention. The man’s widow does not believe it was an accident, so she contacts Bob Lee Swagger, who had been a sniper in Vietnam, who has had additional gun-related escapades in his later years, and whose body has so many old bullet wounds that it makes Swiss cheese look solid.

I will leave the story there and apologize to Mr. Hunter if I have said too much already.

Reviewer Lee Child (Jim Grant, Jack Reacher series) said of the book, “it might even be true,” while noted author Vince Flynn – who died shortly after The Third Bullet was published – opined that the book “answers the question ‘What if?’ in astonishingly plausible detail,” so if my modest writing skills remain unimpressive, at least you know that those two literary heavyweights liked Hunter’s book as well.

From Mark Lane (Rush to Judgment,) almost immediately after the assassination, to tomes published to this day fifty years later, authors have attempted to show that this group or that – with or without Lee Harvey Oswald’s participation – brought off the crime of the century, and some would say the most significant crime in the entire history of the United States. Most of these books, while they add bits and pieces to the general body of knowledge surrounding the assassination, often fall short in two areas: the technical capabilities of the firearm (maybe more than one, you’ll have to read the book) and bullets in question, and that the route of the presidential motorcade did not become known until a short few days before the event. Large, complex organizations do many things well, but doing them quickly is usually not a characteristic of the ponderous, as the author shows.

In short, after reading and re-reading Hunter’s work, one quickly concludes that the author truly understands firearms in all their complexity – and sometimes simplicity, such as a tour-de-force description of what the Mannlicher-Carcano was originally designed to do when developed in 1891 – as well as a consummate ability to leave no loose ends in the theory at the heart of the story.

However, there is another level to the novel that I mentioned earlier. Later in the work, the main character, Bob Lee Swagger, is informed by several literary experts that people who loved to read great literature often develop a sense of how they could insert puzzles and clues in their work (be that writing or espionage, etc.) that some people might find, while others miss them; some of these puzzles – which were key to understanding “who done it” – were in plain sight, while others had multiple layers of detail and nuance; some of them followed a clichéd formula, while others are undramatic and small.

Why is this dialogue important? Because the discussion is really not a focal point of finding “who done it.” That revelation is already known in the first third of the book.

No, I believe that Stephen Hunter slid this conversation of literary puzzles into the book intentionally for someone to find much later in reading The Third Bullet – maybe decades from now after Hunter and I and those of us who were living in 1963 are long gone – and conclude:

“This story is not total fiction. In fact, it is probably 70% true, maybe even more, and the author stumbled across it and promised his source that he would portray the book (‘Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination…’, humma, humma, etc.), as PURE fiction, when it is anything but a work of fiction at its heart.”

Read The Third Bullet yourself and see what you think. Is it simply a work of fiction that is so well-conceived and adroitly written that Stephen Hunter hit it out of the park, or is it something more?

The Third Bullet by Stephen HunterFrench MacLean2023-08-08T12:36:18-05:00

My Friend Eric Paternoster

My friend and West Point classmate, Eric Paternoster, died about three weeks ago. We had known each other since 1970 when we entered the US Military Academy and were assigned to Company A-2. Attended his Celebration of Life ceremony in Cincinnati last Friday and wrote down some of my thoughts on him.

A Man for All Seasons

As we look back at Eric Paternoster, it would be quite understandable to call him a “Renaissance Man” – someone with extraordinarily broad and comprehensive knowledge, and with expertise in multiple disciplines. That was certainly true for Eric, who graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1974, served as an airborne, ranger, infantry officer, earned a graduate degree from the University of Cincinnati, and worked as a senior consultant with Accenture, followed by Ernst & Young, and finally with Infosys as the CEO of Infosys Public Services. A “Renaissance Man”? Certainly.

Sir Thomas More

But Eric was much more. Five-hundred years ago, author Robert Whittington coined the phrase “A Man for All Seasons” describing Sir Thomas More, venerated in the Catholic Church as Saint Thomas More, an English lawyer, judge, social philosopher, author, and statesman – and perhaps most importantly a man who stood up to King Henry VIII, and for this offense was beheaded. It is said that the executioner was so distraught that he begged for More’s pardon before carrying out his grim task. To Whittington, “A Man for All Seasons” was a person ready to take on whatever life threw at him; a person suited for all occasions; who does not get flustered easily, but keeps a calm, efficient demeanor; a person who has proven to be extremely reliable and trustworthy; acts with grace and aplomb, but never demands to be the center of attention; and perhaps most importantly, follows their conscience, and acts correctly even when others may choose a less honorable path.

Duty, Honor, Country

In 1970, after completing Beast Barracks at West Point, Eric and roughly thirty other classmates reported to their new home, Company A of the 2nd Regiment Corps of Cadets. One of their first orders of business was to elect their class honor code representative who would instruct and lead them over the next four years in a code of conduct that simply states: “A cadet will not lie, cheat or steal, or tolerate those who do.” The penalty for failing to follow the code was equally simple; a cadet could be expelled from the Corps. Eric firmly believed in the honor code and believed all should follow it. Eric also believed it was his duty to explain the code fully to all cadets and to also fight for any cadet that Eric – following his conscience – believed did not willfully commit an honor violation.

Regulations were another matter. Eric was of the belief that the new Monday Night Football program was almost a Constitutional right to watch – even if the end of that game came after Taps, and thus there were numerous occasions when he was apprehended in the company dayroom, game on and lights off. And more than once, when Eric was caught in this abhorrent transgression, he refused to divulge who might or might not have been watching the game with him, but who had scampered behind a large couch and avoided apprehension, while Eric took the rap.

National boundaries could not contain this “Man for All Seasons.” With Infosys Public Services, Eric helped fuse American and Indian knowhow, culture and intellect – along with expertise from personnel of several other nations – to forge boundaryless public sector synergies. Eric would leave no stone unturned and once his vision included taking a large number of company employees to the Gettysburg Civil War Battlefield in southern Pennsylvania. However, rather than simply describing a military engagement from some 159 years ago – the technology and tactics having little to do with today – Eric used the past to stimulate a day-long examination of the future for Infosys: who in the organization was monitoring the technology of present and future competitors? How does an organization train, develop and retain quality employees and prepare them to be future leaders? How do leaders transmit and ensure understanding of their vision of success to the entire organization?

And like every person for all seasons, Eric would be the first to credit others for his own success: his West Point classmates; his Army comrades; his business associates all along the way; his beloved University of Cincinnati; his family; and most of all his wonderful wife Diana Paternoster (nee Coleman).

Eric, we miss you in so many ways. But we also thank God for the opportunity of having you in our lives. Pride of the Corps. As for everyone who never met Eric, I would submit this old poem by Rudyard Kipling that captured our friend in so many ways. It is called If.

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;

If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

My Friend Eric PaternosterFrench MacLean2023-02-14T18:00:09-06:00

The Man Who Killed Kennedy: The Case Against LBJ

The assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas, November 22, 1963. It is the greatest historical mystery in my lifetime; I was eleven years old when it occurred. Who did it? Lee Harvey Oswald, an ex-Marine, married to a Russian woman, and who had lived in Russia for a couple of years? Fidel Castro‘s men? As payback for the Bay of Pigs invasion? The Mafia? They had helped him get elected in 1960, but now his brother, Bobby Kennedy, the US Attorney General, was making life hard on the Cosa Nostra. Jack had fired Allen Dulles, the head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) after the Bay of Pigs. Maybe rogue CIA agents had a hand in the President’s death? Or perhaps the crafty J. Edgar Hoover, longtime boss of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) played a role? Reportedly Kennedy was going to ease Hoover out of the top FBI job.

Starting in 1963, and continuing to this day, it has become fashionable to disparage everyone who takes an alternative view about an historical event by calling them “A Conspiracy Nut,” or words to that effect. But always remember, just because something is a conspiracy theory doesn’t mean it didn’t actually happen.

If you are one of those that believe everything a network talking head, reading off a teleprompter, tells you, or you blow with the winds of popular thought, or who couldn’t follow a line of florescent dots on the floor leading to the bathroom even if you had rampant diarrhea, you need to know that generally if you can reason, think logically, and can connect dots to solve difficult puzzles, you will generally do better in life than if you are unable, or worse unwilling, to do so.

Because that often translates into being a pawn for those who will take advantage of you. I hope that I have some small ability to “connect the dots” to find out what really happened in history, especially involving significant mysteries. And to show you that you can connect dots as well, and not be anyone’s pawn.

Part of that stems from serving in the Army, during which I was lucky enough to carry out a tour as an Inspector General for the United States Army Europe – often investigating situations that involved complex facts and human behavior, which often follows patterns of great repetition. I also have been flat lucky enough to run into evidence and documents that for whatever reason should have been in the public domain, but were not – the most significant of I was able to turn into a book, The Fifth Field: The Story of the 96 American Soldiers Sentenced to Death and Executed in Europe and North Africa in World War II. If you have followed this website even briefly, you know this work deals with how 96 American soldiers in Europe and North Africa were tried by American General Courts-Martial, convicted by military juries, sentenced to death, executed and buried in an obscure, secret plot at an American military cemetery in France.

While after the book was published, the court-martial records were transferred from a closet to the National Archives, it still appears that one needs a special permission to actually visit the section at the Oise-Aisne American Cemetery and Memorial outside Seringes-et-Nesles, France. If you visited there, and were given permission to see the special field where these men are buried, please email me with that information, and I shall include that.

My discovery, however, of what really happened in those significant events pales in comparison to The Man Who Killed Kennedy: The Case Against LBJ, by Roger Stone. Now, let us address the obvious: if you do not like Roger Stone, you may use that bias to disbelieve anything and everything he writes or says. That would be unfortunate for you.

I believe that Stone would never claim to be a professional author, even though he has written six other books, writing has not been his life’s primary work; to make sure he obtained the correct flow, sequencing, level of support documentation and so forth, he enlisted Mike Colapietro, who not only is an excellent writer, but also had practical law enforcement, serving in the Office of the Chief of Staff at the Broward Sheriff’s Office in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Meanwhile Stone, the consummate political insider, talked to numerous government officials during his career beginning in 1972. Fascinated by the assassination – as were a lot of people our age (Roger is 70; I am 71 and np, I have never communicated with him) since about 1972, he would always ask guys about it, as he did favors for them, including some really high guys. One “suggested” he not put anything in writing until the 50th anniversary, 2013, when all the folks talking would be dead by then!!!

Stone and Colapietro began this story with a time-tested truism for a murder investigator’s first question, cui bono (who benefits)? In most cases, that may come to be a life insurance policy with the killer is the beneficiary, or killing a spouse to avoid alimony payments, or the killing of a witness by a defendant in another criminal case so that person cannot testify against the perpetrator.

Stone and Colapietro then expanded that to: who had the most to gain from Kennedy’s death at this moment in 1963?

Then they asked themselves: who had the most to lose by a second John F. Kennedy presidential term beginning in 1965? The answers soon became obvious, and maybe you already know the following:

Vice-President Lyndon Johnson wanted to become President, hopefully running in 1968 after John Kennedy’s second term in office. However, Johnson became convinced that Kennedy was planning to dump him from the ticket prior to the election in 1964. Even worse, law enforcement was closing in on Johnson for several instances of graft and bribery – charges that might go public and lead to an indictment before the end of 1963. After Johnson assumed the Presidency, the charges went away. Cui bono?
President Kennedy had informed the chief of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), J. Edgar Hoover, that he would face mandatory retirement from that position in 1965. Hoover joined the Justice Department in 1917 and was named director of the Department’s Bureau of Investigation in 1924, which later became the FBI. Hoover wanted to remain in the job, but was not supported in that request by his immediate boss, Robert F. Kennedy, the U.S. Attorney General and the President’s younger brother. Vice-President Johnson supported Hoover as FBI chief, and Hoover remained in that position until 1972. Cui bono?
The Mafia provided valuable support at the request to Joe Kennedy, John F. Kennedy’s father, especially in West Virginia and Illinois, in the 1960 election of Kennedy. However, after assuming office, not only did President Kennedy not turn a blind eye toward Mafia activities, he appointed his younger brother Robert as U.S. Attorney General. Bobby was an existential enemy of the Mafia. In 1962 alone, Robert Kennedy touted the fact that prosecutions for racketeering by his Organized Crime Section in the Justice Department rose by 300 percent above 1961 and convictions of organized criminals grew by 350 percent. Kennedy left the Attorney General position just ten months after his brother was killed. Cui bono?

Using that as a guidepost, the authors concluded that in the end, Vice-President Lyndon Johnson leveraged his personal connections in Texas; and from nationwide organized crime (the Mafia,) and from the federal government – specifically the FBI and the CIA – to form a conspiracy to murder President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. And he used his influence to personally select the subsequent Warren Commission that would cover up the participants in that crime.

But you don’t have to just take my word for it. Here are some other comments. Because far too many people pre-judge a person’s opinion based on political leanings, race, creed, religion or other characteristic, I have omitted names and used only titles.

“A consummate political insider, Roger Stone views the JFK assassination through the prism of a murder investigator’s first question, cui bono (who benefits)? Stone’s shocking answer is that the primary suspect has been hiding in plain sight for 50 years: LBJ. A riveting account.” – Former U.S. Attorney

“Any serious student of politics or history should read Roger Stone’s stunning new book The Man Who Killed Kennedy.” – Judge

“Roger Stone nails LBJ for JFK murder!” – Journalist, Filmmaker

“Stone’s book will change American history forever!” – Historian

Do yourself a favor that will change your viewpoint, because the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963 fundamentally changed this country, and not for the better. Read The Man Who Killed Kennedy: The Case Against LBJ.

The Man Who Killed Kennedy: The Case Against LBJFrench MacLean2024-07-04T09:59:29-05:00

Is Dr. Anthony Fauci Really a Dr. Josef Mengele?

Josef Mengele

A new book The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., says that Dr. Anthony Fauci is America’s Joseph Mengele for what he did to poor orphan minority kids in the 1980s, specifically that Dr. Fauci tested harsh chemotherapy drugs on orphan children in order to determine their potential for AIDS treatments; that he got control of foster homes in 7 states that served as sources for the youngsters; that these children were denied guardians and any kind of legal protector; that most of the children did not have HIV/AIDS, they were just used as guinea pigs to see if they could survive the harsh drug regimen; and that as a result, at least 85 children died as part of these experiments.

The selection ramp at Auschwitz. The column on the left will head directly to the gas chambers. The column on the right will enter the camp and be worked to death. Mengele is the officer in the right-center. He is looking for twins.

I do not know how true these allegations are, but I do know who Dr. Josef Mengele was and you should know about him also or this comparison means nothing.

Josef Mengele, also known as the “Angel of Death,” was a German Waffen-SS captain and physician during World War II. For decades after the war, and continuing today in some circles, the fable has remained alive that the SS personnel who served in the concentration camps were somehow different from their honorable brethren, who fought at the frontline in the Waffen-SS, in units. Thus, those in the combat units have earned a pass from some historians, who believed the former Waffen-SS General Paul Hausser story Soldaten wie andere auch (Soldiers Like Any Other.)

But Hausser was incorrect. As The Camp Men demonstrates with irrefutable proof from the official SS personnel file for each officer, almost half of the concentration camp officers also served in Waffen-SS combat divisions. Mengele served in the 5th Waffen-SS Division in Russia.

But the real shocker is how many physicians, like Mengele, in Germany supported the Nazi Party. More than 38,000 doctors, nearly half of all the physicians in Germany, joined the Nazi Party. None were forced to join; they saw it as an opportunity to advance their careers. At least 316 doctors served in the concentration camps, as well as at least 57 dentists.

Before the war, Mengele had received doctorates in anthropology and medicine, and began a career as a researcher. He joined the Nazi Party in 1937 and the SS in 1938. In early 1943, assigned to the Auschwitz concentration camp, he saw the opportunity to conduct genetic research on human subjects. His experiments focused primarily on twins, with no regard for their health or safety; many died. Mengele later served at the Gross-Rosen concentration camp. But don’t take it from me; here are a few quotes from The Angel of Death:

“It would not be humanitarian to send a child to the ovens without permitting the mother to be there to witness the child’s death.” The ovens here refer to the crematoria at Auschwitz, where the dead were burned.

“I don’t have anything to hide. Terrible things happened at Auschwitz, and I did my best to help. One could not do everything. There were terrible disasters there. I could only save so many. I never killed anyone or hurt anyone.”

“Scientists have always been able to study twins after they have been born together. But only in the Third Reich can Science examine twins who have died together.”

SS-Hauptsturmführer Josef Mengele; Mengele served in the 5th Waffen-SS Division Wiking, winning the Iron Cross 1st Class, before transferring to Auschwitz and subsequently Gross-Rosen.

Josef Mengele drowned in 1979 after suffering a stroke while swimming off the coast of Bertioga, Brazil and was buried under the false name of Wolfgang Gerhard. Dozens of Nazi doctors did not escape justice and were hanged after the war for Crimes Against Humanity. You can read about some of them in American Hangman.

Maybe Anthony Fauci had nothing to do with the orphans and AIDS experiments on children at all; if so, Mr. Kennedy owes him an immense apology. Maybe Dr. Fauci did play a role, but believed that their suffering, and the death of many of them, would do a greater good for mankind as a whole. But as the International Military Tribunal (IMT) in Nuremberg, Germany showed after the war, their are limits to medical experimentation covered in Crimes Against Humanity. And if the allegations in Kennedy’s book are accurate, in my opinion those experiments were clearly in in violation of that category.

If you have any actual information about the New York experiments, you can stand up for these kids — who could not stand up for themselves. If you are reluctant to contact Children’s Health Defense at 1227 North Peachtree Pkwy, Suite 202 in Peachtree City, GA 30269 at 202-618-2477, contact this website and I’ll forward your evidence.

Is Dr. Anthony Fauci Really a Dr. Josef Mengele?French MacLean2022-02-16T18:27:21-06:00

Simon Wiesenthal

I was just reorganizing my desk and found some photographs almost twenty years old. One was a picture from July 2002 when I was fortunate enough to meet Mr. Simon Wiesenthal in his office in Vienna.

Simon Wiesenthal (above in his later years) was born on December 31, 1908, in Buchach, in the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, which was then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. His father was a wholesaler, who had left Russia in 1905 to escape the anti-Jewish pogroms. The elder Wiesenthal was called to active duty in 1914 in the Austro-Hungarian Army at the start of World War I; he was killed in action on the Eastern Front in 1915. Simon, his younger brother and his mother fled to Vienna, when the Russian Army overran Galicia. In the ebb and flow of war, the family returned to Buchach in 1917, after the Russians retreated. Simon attended the Czech Technical University in Prague, where he studied from 1928 until 1932. After graduating, he became a building engineer, working mostly in Odessa in 1934 and 1935. The next six years are unclear, concerning Wiesenthal’s life; he married in 1936, when he returned to Galicia.

After the Nazi invasion of Russia in 1941, Wiesenthal’s mother came to live with him and his wife in Lvov. Wiesenthal, a Jew, was detained by German authorities on July 6, 1941, but was saved from an Einsatzgruppe firing squad by a Ukrainian man, for whom he had previously worked. German police deported Wiesenthal and his wife in late 1941 to the Janowska labor and transit camp and forced to work at the Eastern Railway Repair Works. Every few weeks the Nazis would conduct a selection of Lvov Jewish Ghetto inhabitants unable to work. In one such deportation, Wiesenthal’s mother was transported by freight train to the Belzec extermination camp and killed in August 1942. On April 20, 1943, Wiesenthal avoided execution at a sand pit by firing squad, when at the last moment a German construction engineer intervened, stating that Wiesenthal was too skilled to be killed.

On October 2, 1943, the same German warned Wiesenthal that Janowska and its prisoners were about to be liquidated. Wiesenthal was able to sneak out of camp and remained free until June 13, 1944, when Polish detectives arrested him in Lvov. With Russian troops advancing, the SS moved Wiesenthal and other Jews by train to Przemyśl, 135 miles west of Lvov, where they built fortifications for the Germans. In September 1944, the SS transferred the surviving Jews to the Płaszów concentration camp in Krakow. One month later, Wiesenthal was transferred to the Gross-Rosen concentration camp. While working at a rock quarry there, Wiesenthal was struck on the foot by a large rock, which resulted in the amputation of the large toe on his right foot. The advancing Russian Army forced the evacuation of Gross-Rosen; Wiesenthal and other inmates marched by foot to Chemnitz. From Chemnitz, the prisoners were taken in open freight cars to Buchenwald. A few days later, trucks took the prisoners to the Mauthausen concentration camp, arriving in mid-February 1945. When the camp was liberated by American forces in May 1945, Wiesenthal weighed 90 pounds.

Wiesenthal dedicated most of his life to tracking down and gathering information on fugitive Nazis. His goal was to bring as many conspirators to the “Final Solution” as possible to justice for war crimes and crimes against humanity. In 1947, Simon Wiesenthal co-founded the Jewish Historical Documentation Center in Linz, Austria, in order to gather information for future war crime trials. He later opened the Jewish Documentation Center in Vienna. Wiesenthal was instrumental in the capture and conviction of Adolf Eichmann.

Visiting Mr. Wiesenthal in Vienna, 2002

The author interviewed Simon Wiesenthal at his small office in the Jewish Documentation Center in central Vienna in July 2002. During the visit, Mr. Wiesenthal said that there was one thing wrong with his book, The Camp Men. Dismayed, French waited for the explanation. “You were born 50 years too late. You found how to look through their officer files to prove they had been in the camps, while I had to rely on eye-witnesses. If you had been there to help me back then, I would have found more. But you weren’t born yet!”

Wiesenthal wrote The Sunflower, which describes a life-changing event he experienced when he was in the camp. He died in Vienna on September 20, 2005; his remains are buried at Herzliya, Israel.

Simon WiesenthalThe Fifth Field2021-12-24T11:02:23-06:00

Dare to Dream

Luis Ángel Colón World Record Cuatro

Sometimes you run across a person with a special talent, and even if you don’t know that individual well, you want success for them. Such is the case of Luis Ángel Colón, whom I met while researching for maybe a new novel on Puerto Rico. He lives in a modern, wooden house high on a hill outside Barranquitas. He built the house because that is what Luis does – build incredible things with wood. Not only houses, he may be the best craftsman currently constructing the Cuatro Puertorriqueño. Known as a Cuatro for short, it is Puerto Rico’s most popular melodic instrument, and is played in both secular and religious music. It sort of looks like a violin, or more accurately a violin-shaped guitar. The Cuatro originally had four double-strings (hence cuatro for four) but at the end of the nineteenth century a fifth was added as its popularity rose on the island.

Cuatro by Luis Ángel Colón

Luis’ Cuatros are wonderful instruments, but don’t take my word for it. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City [Accession Number: 2003.216.1] has one of Luis’ creations. An artist himself, Luis is proud when Cuatro-players around the island tell him what a great instrument he has made for them.

But like almost all artists, Luis dreams big and at first that meant creating the world’s largest-playable Cuatros, which he did several years ago. The result was a 30 foot-long, Puerto Rican cuatro that weighs 1.4 tons. Up to 15 people can fit inside Luis’ giant instrument, which you can actually tune, and play its chords with a giant guitar pick. However, Luis is not finished. In addition to building a second house, crafting exquisite regular-size Cuatros, and also producing the Guiro Clásico Puertorriqueño, Guiro, a hollowed out gourd, about sixteen inches long, that has been dried and treated so that it can be used as an instrument. Notches are carved on one side of the gourd, and the musician uses a stick or tines to create various raspy tones. Johnny Pacheco was a famous Guiro player. Janis Joplin was a famous singer who tried to play the Guiro, they key word being tried.

Guiro by Luis Ángel Colón

“Do It Again,” by Steely Dan, has prominent Guiro tones, as does “Don’t You Worry ‘Bout a Thing,” by Stevie Wonder. If you are a Santana fan, you know all about this instrument; “I Ain’t Got Nobody That I Can Depend On” is a great one, as is “Guajira.”

Luis’ Dream — A Cuatro Museum and Restaurant

However, Luis has his sights set higher…much higher. He has begun to organize architectural drawings of an entire building shaped as a Cuatro, possibly solar powered, here in Puerto Rico, that might be able to serve as a combination Cuatro museum and restaurant (with dishes named after parts of the Cuatro) in a unique fusion of music and food. Luis Colón just might have an idea for you.

Create your own dream by checking out Luis’s dreams. If you are a guitar player, broaden your horizons with your own Cuatro, maybe even one built by him. Play along with Stevie, or Carlos and Jorge Santana with your own Guiro – you can get a good one for a very reasonable price.

Or just maybe you want to spend some quality time down in the Caribbean and want to open a one-of-a-kind restaurant.

Dare to DreamFrench MacLean2021-09-04T16:54:41-05:00

West Point, Class of 1974

1974

Admitted

1967 – 1

1968 – 1

1969 – 12

1970 – 819

Graduated – 833

Time at West Point:

Upon arriving at West Point in the summer of 1970, the question every new cadet tacitly pondered was whether they would serve in Vietnam at some point during their time in service.

The country was deeply divided over the war, and nationwide anti-war demonstrations came to a tragic climax with the killing of four and wounding of nine other unarmed Kent State University students by the Ohio National Guard on May 4, 1970.

Despite division over the war, 1377 new cadets entered the Academy out of over 6,000 applicants. On his way to perform for the troops in Vietnam, Bob Hope and his entourage, stopped at West Point on December 15, 1970, for a special Christmas show. And on May 29, 1971, President Nixon visited the academy with a message of assurance that no graduates from the Class of 1974 would be deployed to Vietnam, although this news was a little late for our future First Captain Jack Pattison, who had fought on Hamburger Hill in that conflict as an enlisted man, before attending the Prep School and subsequently West Point.

French & Dad at Graduation; it had been a LONG way from Summer School for Chemistry

While most of the class members were on summer leave, a few to summer school, army orientation training, or airborne school, a federal appeals court ruled on June 30, 1972, that mandatory chapel was unconstitutional, thus ending a years-long tradition at West Point. On July 1, 1973, President Nixon fulfilled a re-election promise by ending the draft and ushering in the era of an all-volunteer army.

Distinguished scholars among the 833 graduates included Andrew Green and Thomas Downar recognized with the Hertz Foundation Award; Dwight Helton and Willis Marti awarded the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship; Kerry Pierce awarded the Rhodes Scholarship; and Michael Reopel awarded a White House Fellowship. French was not distinguished, attending summer school in 1972 for Chemistry, and graduating number 724 of 833!

Dave Petraeus and fiancée at graduation

Environment upon Graduation:

The Class of 1974 entered a peacetime Army divided between draftees and enlistees who served in Vietnam, and volunteers who had no combat experience. Graduates were immediately challenged to address post-war issues such as low morale, racial tensions, and unit readiness as the Army transitioned from the Vietnam war to more defensive missions in Western Europe and South Korea. The class also provided exemplary leadership regarding the integration and development of women into combat support units. Missions and training broadened to include desert warfare in anticipation of conflicts in the Middle East.

Receiving Diploma from Superintendent, Lieutenant General William Knowlton. The “Supe” was probably more surprised than I was!

Career Highlights:

Members of the Class of 1974 served in assignments around the globe and played a key role in providing frontline combat leadership in the Gulf War (1990-1991), the Iraq War (2003-2011), and the Global War on Terror. No members of the Class were killed in action or died while in captivity. Twenty-five members of the Class became General Officers, including four 4-star generals, three 3-star, eleven 2-star, and seven 1-star. Completing over forty years of active service, GEN Martin “Marty” Dempsey served as the 18th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from October 1, 2011, until September 25, 2015. GEN Keith Alexander, serving in the United States Army for nearly forty years, served as director of the National Security Agency, chief of the Central Security Service, and commander of the United States Cyber Command. GEN David “Dave” Petraeus served as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency after serving 37 years in the United States Army. Highlighting nearly thirty-seven years of service in the United States Army, GEN Walter “Skip” Sharp last served as the Commander, United Nations Command, Commander, ROK-US Combined Forces Command and Commander, U.S. Forces Korea. After retiring as a Colonel, Matthew S. “Matt” Klimow (who was Keith Alexander’s roommate at West Point) went into the U.S. State Department; his career there culminated as the U.S. Ambassador to Turkmenistan. Keith Alexander, Marty Dempsey, and Skip Sharp were each awarded the USMA Distinguished Graduate Award in 2016, 2017, and 2019, respectively.

West Point, Class of 1974French MacLean2023-06-21T15:00:52-05:00

Visit the Hidden Side of History with French L. MacLean

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