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Poisoned Fruit of JFK's Assassination

By John Ketwig (reviewer)

Certainly, the most heinous crime of the twentieth century was the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, on November 22, 1963. Officially, the murder of the President was investigated by a select group of distinguished men. Headed by Chief Justice Earl Warren, the Warren Commission included the former head of the CIA, Allen Dulles, who had been fired by Kennedy following the Bay of Pigs disaster. Dulles was known to have exerted a great amount of influence over the Warren Commission, steering it away from any investigation of a possible conspiracy, often in direct contradiction with the evidence. The final disposition of the investigation(s) into the President's murder had been established from the moment the first bullet hit the President, or even before. However, such a momentous crime, or crimes if you include the subsequent murder of the supposed shooter Lee Harvey Oswald, left too many bits and particles of evidence to be swept away completely.

One of those pieces was the President's wristwatch, a Cartier that had been a gift from his wife Jacqueline. A nurse at Parkland hospital removed it and put it in a pocket as she was working to insert an IV into the President's arm. The watch had been splattered with a heavy coating of gore from the President's wounds. Earlier that morning, Vice President Johnson had ordered all of the President's personal metal items removed during a routine inspection of them by the Secret Service. These items included a St. Christopher money clip the President always kept in his breast pocket, a Catholic medal he wore on a chain around his neck, his cufflinks, and his watch. In short, anything metal that might deflect a bullet from its course. However, after his items had been removed, Jacqueline Kennedy gave the second watch to the President on the airplane as they traveled to Dallas. She had recently had the prized watch repaired for him and it was in her purse, so it was not anticipated that he would be wearing it at the moment of the assassination. The nurse gave the gore-encrusted watch to a hospital security person, and it made its way to the President's brother, Robert F. Kennedy.

The Secret Service had been instructed to gather up all of the President's belongings prior to the day's activities, but they had missed the watch. The President had raised his left hand when the first bullet struck, and when the second hit his right temple the rear of his head was blown away and the watch was covered with blood and brain material. This was incontrovertible evidence that he had been shot from the front. The official story was that Lee Harvey Oswald had been the only shooter, and any evidence of the second shooter was immediately disappeared.

Bobby Kennedy was devastated by his brother's death, and he was determined to discover who had ordered and performed the terrible deed. At one point, he confronted President Johnson face-to-face and held the watch in his left hand for LBJ to see. Johnson was shaken and had the House of Representatives pass a bill requiring that all evidence in the assassination had to be turned over to the government to be secured and classified until the year 2039. RFK was determined to achieve a level of responsibility in the future that would allow him to start another, more balanced investigation. He gave the cleaned watch to President Kennedy's personal secretary, Evelyn Lincoln, for safekeeping. Ultimately, after she had died, the watch came up for sale. It was purchased by Christopher Fulton, a successful contractor who was living and working in Vancouver, British Columbia. Almost immediately, he came under pressure to turn in the watch to the American government.

In August 1998, still in Canada, he was arrested. The warrant had come from the US, where he was informed that he was on the Top Ten Most Wanted list, and considered armed and dangerous. This book is mostly about the horrors he encountered throughout nine long years in a variety of prisons. He was not allowed to contact his wife, and she died before he was finally released. The moral of the story is that it doesn't pay to defy the United States government. It is a chilling story. The reader wants it to end within the first hundred pages, but there are more than 500 altogether, including an array of documentation at the end. The back cover of the book displays the following warning: Christopher's roller coaster ride of discovery intertwines the JFK legacy and tragedy with his own…and indeed with the fate of America itself. The Inheritance reveals the true intentions of Bobby Kennedy and Evelyn Lincoln, as well as Christopher's secret pact with John F. Kennedy, Jr. This history must be uncovered in order for us to understand what is happening today. Although this is Christopher Fulton's story, it is really about all of us. A wide selection of other books provide ample evidence that the Vietnam War would never have happened if President Kennedy had not been killed. To those of us who wonder what really happened even after all these years, this book offers many invaluable pieces of the puzzle.

I must admit that Trine Day is the publisher of my latest book. I don't feel that my opinion of this very important book was influenced in the slightest by that coincidence. However, after reading this book, I was able to ask the publisher, "You have spoken to the author. Do you really believe this story is true?" Without hesitation, he answered, "Yes." It is a frightening horror story far beyond the chill of Frankenstein or Dracula. Of course, much of our country's history since November 22, 1963, has been scary. I highly recommend this book.

John Ketwig is the author of …and a hard rain fell: A G.I.'s True Story of the War in Vietnam, which remains in print after 34 years and 27 printings (Macmillan, 1985). A new book, Vietnam Reconsidered: The War, the Times, and Why They Matter was published in June 2019. John is a lifetime member of Vietnam Veterans Against the War.