The Day John Fitzgerald Kennedy Past. Welby Thomas Cox, Jr.

looking documents and had been recruited by Mick Flynt to play a major role on the team.

      Ray Ray Beltray, the most dangerous man on the team was the “go to guy” when the order called for violence with Knife, hand guns of any make or model, rifle with or without scope and he was an expert with the use of explosives. It is said that the infamous role of Dirty Harry was replicated in real life by Ray Ray Beltray. Ray Ray knew the men who could be trusted in the ring of fire and he often tested them until they made the grade, or he sent them home to Mama. All Ray Ray required to mold the perfect shooter, was Flynt’s design of the hit man or should I say “miss man”. He knew that Mick wanted a ‘real lifer’ with name, face and the psychological profile of a would be assassin. Flynt had come with the brilliant strategy that one of the shooters must be politically active in a fringe group. One who often sought access to high level government officials in support of leftist causes and visa related issues for exiles. This man would come to be known, behind his back, as “the patsy”. He would take the heat for any foul-up. He would be easy to train, a man who enjoyed the rigors of hand-to-hand combat.

      Two other shooters would be trained to vanish like heavy dew in the sun…poof, just like it was never there…nor were they. They would be the kind of men who would leave no trace for investigators or any association with an attempt on the life of the President. All would speak Spanish and would be veterans of the Cuban invasion at the Bay of Pigs. The patsy provides more of the essential detail like a phony job at a company in New Orleans which grinds coffee. He would maintain an address book of those he recruited as Fidel Castro sympathizers’. Utilizing these recruits to hand out pro-Castro literature, this job or one like it would give the patsy a cover for being at this sight and certain to be isolated from the other shooters and therefore required to fend for himself in the event that he is trailed like a coon, treed by the dogs and possibly killed by the police or some over-zealous freak like himself.

      Whatever the MO, this shooter will be an expert with his weapon of choice. He will be a relative unknown in criminal circles with only a record for political activity related to scuffles with agitators while trying to distribute his Castro literature.

      Ray Ray could visualize the profile, around six feet tall, this at 155 pounds, close cropped military hair-cut, clean shaven, neatnik wearing a pressed shirt and pants with creases. He would be quick to smile, quick to anger. Ray Ray would find the man; he had to find this man, the missing link for a date with destiny in Miami.

      Ray Ray knew well that time was running short and he had the responsibility to train these shooters to fire a shot at the President’s limo and to make certain they missed the President. Certain to be the most profound and expensive miss by a trained marksman in the limited attempt on the life of a world leader.

      Mick Flynt sat waiting for his wife. He sipped on a gin and tonic and admired his garden. It had taken them several seasons to get the sedums from small plants, integrated with the English ivy along the natural pathway, the privet had taken hold miraculously thickly flocked and pruned at precisely forty inches. Of course there was no grass back here; Mick had planned it that way. There was a small pool at the edge of the house on the north, perfectly situated for the morning to mid­afternoon sun and protected from the sun in the afternoon by the house. All of this pointed to the main focal point of the garden an ornate brass sprinkler with oscillating features and colored lights for a dazzling display in the evening as the family sat in the screened-in porch to enjoy the night.

      This was the place where he did most of his serious planning, knowing that the Cubans and most of the committee wanted any planned event to take place in Miami, But Mick had a bad taste for the location. Of course it was convenient for most of the exiles...but most of all Mick did not want the Cubans involved but it did provide ample cover where the Cuban exiles lay in wait for another chance to invade Cuba and put Castro in his grave.

      Mick had found that most Latinos where very emotionally charged as a culture. They had a wealth of energy, spoke with a rapid fire tongue and in a loud fashion as though every conversation contained an element of an emergency. They were much like the blacks, standing next to each other screaming and laughing in these phony high pitched laughs which started and stopped on a dime. He knew that this was a learned element of life in a large family where a child had to scream in order to get the attention he needed. But knowing the reason did not provide sufficient cause for Mick to try to avoid being around this insanity. He was very laid back, highly educated, enjoyed classical music, the opera, quiet discussions on world affairs, books...especially historical fictions and he never watched the television, not even for the world news because he knew of the media bias and he had the job requirement to shape his own views from the secret dispatches received by the company as they occurred.

      Miami was closest to becoming a third world city and it was this very flammability which caused him to be determined to keep the plan secret from the anti-Castro exile leaders. Kennedy had been in Miami only a few months before this planned visit, and just as he and Jacquelyn had been the guest of honor on the Aristotle Socrates Onassis yacht, The Christina. Mick knew the file inside and out on this Greek and was prepared with the intelligence to present an offer Onassis could not refuse.

      Onassis was an ass kisser of the highest order, an economic whore who would pay any price to get what he wanted or to extract revenge. This misfit was surely known to Kennedy, as he sipped the costly wine, knowing he should ‘beware of Greeks bearing gifts,’a historical legacy. It is reported Kennedy, whose wit was renown among friends and foes, is said to have made the statement in his famous twang..."Tell Onassis his gifts are acceptable so long as they do not include a wooden horse."

      Kennedy knew as well of the bitterness between his brother, Robert, the Attorney General, who had denied a license for the illegally acquired Onassis fleet to enter the harbors of the United States. Onassis had attempted every political trick and spent millions without gaining the proper avenues which had always been open to him. It has been reported, Kennedy's wrath had been traced to Onassis's characterization of Bobby Kennedy as Bugs Bunny...and after a few drinks he was known to entertain his guest with his favorite impression of Bobby..."Da, Da what’s up doc?" It was a costly laugh for Onassis who would get the last laugh in the end by arranging the murder of both Kennedy’s.

      Mick knew the President loved south Florida, he and his siblings had grown up at the spacious Kennedy compound at Palm Beach, just a few miles from Miami. Eighty-five thousand people showed up in a football stadium for his last visit. They came to see the President who had garnered the status of a rock star and to be treated to a rare greeting from Mrs. Kennedy in fluent Spanish...with her own French twist. The Latino’s lavishing them with affection, enough to turn the head of any politician. Many of the revelers had just been released from prison in Cuba, causing the event to become an emotional reunion.

      The moment for reconciliation...the day when the Catholic President went into the confession and admitted failure on the Cuban invasion, without mentioning his culpability and his very own responsibility for the deaths of thousands there on Blue Beach when he chose not to provide the air cover he had promised. The promise preceding the promise he had made to the Russians that he would never invade Cuba.

      There, he was for one-hundred-seventy-thousand ears to hear, and pass judgment. Seven Our Fathers and Seven Hail Mary's and a good Act of Contrition would not be sufficient for this crowd.

      All the files withheld, sent now to the media where Michael Flynt had sat watching from the La Moderne Hotel. But the event failed to renew the cause of the exiles, the dedication to freedom from another despot from tyranny through the rule of weapons. Flynt saw it now as pure public relations, the kind of spectacle made for television.

      Flynt's wife arrived and he went out to the car to help with the grocery shopping. He took the heavy bags leaving the smaller ones for her. There was a slight chill in the air, maybe a rain coming in to cleanse the pollution and nourish the plants in Mick's garden. He watched himself in a corner of his mind, just an average stiff on a quiet street, helping his wife do a domestic thing with no thought of being watched.

      Joyce handed him the groceries as he stood inside the spacious pantry. The recessed lights where not up to the task as he hunted for the canned mushrooms. It annoyed him he had forgotten to replace the bulbs and last year’s