24-02-2011, 10:49 PM
I hate to make light of it, but Sergeant Vinson's encounter has unavoidable humor involved with it that can't be ignored.
Douglass put a comprehensive explanation on the Vinson episode but added something comical I hadn't realized. Vinson ended up inside the double Oswald evacuation operation from Dallas by comical coincidence. Thanks to a well-meaning Air Force dispatcher's effort to help Vinson hitch a ride Vinson ended-up on a secret CIA plane on a very sinister mission. I'd imagine the CIA flight had to file a flight plan that the helpful dispatcher saw at the last minute and called Vinson on the base loudspeaker to inform him of.
This would be an almost hysterical sit-com type comedy if it wasn't so evil. The reason the two pilots in unmarked CIA coveralls rushed right by Vinson and didn't do any small-talk with him was because they thought he was a CIA officer placed on the flight to watch them as part of the mission. The reason they rushed right by him was because they thought they were impressing him with their following strict orders of silence. This is something that never dawned on me until Douglass explained it. So Vinson then shuts-up and maintains military decorum by not asking any questions and just taking the ride he was lucky to get.
The pilots announce on the intercom in dry unemotional terms "The president was shot at 12:29pm". They break the order of silence because they figure this is something their assumed CIA monitor, Vinson, would want to know. The CIA C-54 aircraft then makes a hard left bank for Dallas.
The black comedy resumes when the CIA double Oswald and his Latin-looking friend get on the plane in Dallas by the surreptitious runway on the highway under construction. They also rush by the unknown CIA officer (Vinson) and up to the front of the plane where they maintain orders of silence and don't talk at all, not even to each other.
As Douglass does throughout the Unspeakable he has a remarkable ability to put the correct interpretation on previously uninterpreted conspiracy evidence. He imagines the inevitable CIA debriefing where the four silent operators told the debriefer that everybody followed orders, including your man on board. You can imagine the shock in the CIA debriefer when he asked them "what man"?
CIA exposed itself when they then finally located the manifest at Andrews and found Sergeant Vinson's data. They then sent FBI out to question Vinson's neighbors about what kind of person he was and, especially, what he spoke to them about. They then attempted to coopt Vinson by offering him a CIA job. After all, he had shut-up. Who knows what jungle Vinson would have disappeared into without ever being heard of again had he accepted that job? In the end Vinson was kept prisoner by giving him a top secret CIA airbase job within the Blackbird program. Probably, the only reason we are talking about him today is because, like others who lived to tell their tale, he kept quiet for decades.
A black comedy that isn't so funny when you think of it...
Douglass put a comprehensive explanation on the Vinson episode but added something comical I hadn't realized. Vinson ended up inside the double Oswald evacuation operation from Dallas by comical coincidence. Thanks to a well-meaning Air Force dispatcher's effort to help Vinson hitch a ride Vinson ended-up on a secret CIA plane on a very sinister mission. I'd imagine the CIA flight had to file a flight plan that the helpful dispatcher saw at the last minute and called Vinson on the base loudspeaker to inform him of.
This would be an almost hysterical sit-com type comedy if it wasn't so evil. The reason the two pilots in unmarked CIA coveralls rushed right by Vinson and didn't do any small-talk with him was because they thought he was a CIA officer placed on the flight to watch them as part of the mission. The reason they rushed right by him was because they thought they were impressing him with their following strict orders of silence. This is something that never dawned on me until Douglass explained it. So Vinson then shuts-up and maintains military decorum by not asking any questions and just taking the ride he was lucky to get.
The pilots announce on the intercom in dry unemotional terms "The president was shot at 12:29pm". They break the order of silence because they figure this is something their assumed CIA monitor, Vinson, would want to know. The CIA C-54 aircraft then makes a hard left bank for Dallas.
The black comedy resumes when the CIA double Oswald and his Latin-looking friend get on the plane in Dallas by the surreptitious runway on the highway under construction. They also rush by the unknown CIA officer (Vinson) and up to the front of the plane where they maintain orders of silence and don't talk at all, not even to each other.
As Douglass does throughout the Unspeakable he has a remarkable ability to put the correct interpretation on previously uninterpreted conspiracy evidence. He imagines the inevitable CIA debriefing where the four silent operators told the debriefer that everybody followed orders, including your man on board. You can imagine the shock in the CIA debriefer when he asked them "what man"?
CIA exposed itself when they then finally located the manifest at Andrews and found Sergeant Vinson's data. They then sent FBI out to question Vinson's neighbors about what kind of person he was and, especially, what he spoke to them about. They then attempted to coopt Vinson by offering him a CIA job. After all, he had shut-up. Who knows what jungle Vinson would have disappeared into without ever being heard of again had he accepted that job? In the end Vinson was kept prisoner by giving him a top secret CIA airbase job within the Blackbird program. Probably, the only reason we are talking about him today is because, like others who lived to tell their tale, he kept quiet for decades.
A black comedy that isn't so funny when you think of it...