Where to buy the very good 1992 British documentary on the assassination of RFK

[Jan Klimkowski]

Fellow Conradian,

Read both, find both fascinating - if horrible - but was left with a nagging feeling that I was missing the pre-history: Do you know if Brit spookery had a look at this subject in the mid-to-late nineteenth century? This is just a hunch - I defer to your greater knowledge of the subject.

The terrain is littered with clues - some lead to Kansas, others to Maeterlinck's "bird that is blue". A few lead to Manchuria...

Scottish Rite Freemasonry... the search for the essence of schizophrenia - literally a liquid, chemical, schizophrenia... medical & occult investigations into the consequences of severe trauma...

Anthony Burgess' "A Clockwork Orange" was apparently based on his knowledge of real (and still classified) mind control & behaviour modification experiments conducted in Fort Bliss - home to many of the Paperclip Nazi scientists. Burgess did of course work for both British military intelligence & the Colonial Service...

A further puzzle to me: Why use a hypno-programmed pseudo-assassin (Sirhan) when the job could just as easily have been undertaken by a conventional patsy - I typed "pasty" initially, which error was not without a certain surreal charm - bumped off, a la LHO, post-hit? This has long perplexed me. Sirhan, after all, required after-care. Was it just a case of they had the technology, so they deployed it?

It's a good question and one that always needs to be asked - even if it can't be answered with absolute certainty.

Here are some observations - no more than that.

If there's a highly meticulous, multi-shooter, assassination playing out, a patsy can be seen as a vital part of the operation. The patsy - especially if highly visible like Sirhan - provides a distraction enabling the real assassins to escape. The patsy also enables Official Story #1 (and maybe a few more layers of the onion skin) to be spoonfed to a press desperate for certainty and answers.

So, why use a hypno-programmed patsy?

They're probably more reliable - eg they won't have second thoughts and run away at the crucial moment.

They're more incoherent when captured - Sirhan being a perfect example.

Dr Louis Jolyon West, godfather of MK-ULTRA, spent a lot of time with Sirhan in his cell, and was quite possibly marvelling at the "technology". I think there was huge arrogance amongst the black doctors (with Ewen Cameron epitomising this). And a sense that they were essentially untouchable.

I always think of the US Navy psychologist, Lt Commander Dr Thomas Narut, in this context. In 1975, at a NATO conference in Oslo, Narut casually briefed assembled military correspondents about a secret Navy (almost certainly ONI) programme to identify suitable subjects who could be turned into programmed hitmen and assassins. He said there were hundreds of such subjects.

The story was published in the (London) Times, subsequently denied by military sources, and Narut never surfaced again (to my knowledge). But the fact a military shrink would so talk so willingly about such a subject is, imo, a sign of the arrogance and sense of invulnerability of the deep black doctors.