2 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC • DECEMBER 2013 · 2013-12-03 · 4 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC • DECEMBER 2013...

1 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC • DECEMBER 2013

VOL. 224 • NO. 6 NATIONALGEOGRAPHIC

“Kennedy money bought the White

House and the Presi-dency. I had the crazy idea I wanted to stop Kennedy from being

President.”Page 07

December 2013

05 Letters

07 The Kennedy Assasination Attempt You Probably Never Heard Of

10 The History Of Religion: Explained

10On the Cover Richard Paul Pavlick tried an assasination attempt on Presi-dent Kennedy in 1960 when he was just elected president.

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EDITOR’S NOTE

John F. KennedyDo you remember where you were

when John Kennedy was assasin-

ated? A lot of us still remember that

fateful day as if it were yesterday.

November 22, 1963 will

forever remain an important day in

American history. But have you heard

of an assassination attempt on him in

1960 before he ever took office? A lot

of you probably haven’t, so to com-

memorate the 50th anniversary of the

Kennedy Assassination we bring you

a story about a man by the name of

Richard Paul Plavick who tried to kill

President John Kennedy 3 years be-

fore Kennedy really was. What could

have happened if Plavick was suc-

cessful and Lyndon Johnson ended

up becoming president before 1963

remains in speculation. You are in

for a treat with this wonderful article!

John F. Kennedy remains one of my

most favorite presidents, and I enjoy

reading anything about him, and when

I first heard about this story, I was

astounded. I think you will enjoy it as

well!

This month we also bring you

a very interesting short book review

of a book about the history of religion.

Whether you are christian, jewish,

muslim, or don’t believe in anything at

all you are in for a treat with this spe-

cial piece, and it sounds like this book

might even be an awesome read!

So sit back, kick those shoes off and

have a cup of coffee, and read on!- CHRIS JOHNS - Ediitor In Chief

KENNEDY IMAGE COURTESY OF GOOGLE IMAGES


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LETTERS

ObesityAfter reading your article about sugary foods, I heard a story about this woman in the Dakotas who was going to give kids who appeared obese a bad note for there mother. What gives her the right to do this? What is this world coming to?

-JOE B. CONSERVATIVE -Springfield, Missouri

If we would teach our kids to eat right and have them exercise for a change, and quit depending on the government to tell us what to do, we wouldn’t have this problem

-BOBBETTE-Georgia

You know what’s causing all this obesity? Think about it. High Fructose Corn Syrup. It replaced real sugar about 20 years ago, the same time obesity started becoming an issue.

-MIKE-New York City, New York

More More More government control! Come on people! Ban the sodas - espi-cally the 24oz or larger! Ban all the places that provide fattening foods and ban all the candy makers! We need more laws for this to work people!

-JULIA A. LIBERAL-San Francisco, California

Props To National GeographicI got to give props to you guys for coming up with such a won-derful magazine. Where else could I go for interesting history articles, safaris, art, science and art?

-FREDDY STONE -Paris, Texas

John F. KennedyHello. I’m a big John Kennedy fan. I have read every book about him and his assassination. With what he stood for, I sometimes think he was the best president but what do I know? Will there be any articles to commemorate the 50 anniversary of his shooting?

-SEY MOURE CONSPIROCEES-Dallas, Texas

Sey Moure:Yes there will be! Please check out this month’s article on the as-sasination attempt you probably never heard of. A lot of us here at National Geographic never heard of this one. You are in for a special treat with this special article!

-Editors-


THE KENNEDY ASSASINATION ATTEMPT YOU PROBABLY NEVER HEARD OF

By Bob Greene, CNN Contributor


Much will be made of the fact that half a century has passed. Photographs of the young president and his family will be republished, retrospective essays will be written. Inevitably, as the Kennedy years are freshly examined, the name of the assassin Lee Harvey Oswald will be mentioned in the context of what might have been, if only Kennedy’s path and Oswald’s never had intersected.

But there is another name that you have likely never heard: a man who might have changed history as drastically and irrevocably as Oswald did. Kennedy was elected in November 1960; a month later, this man came very close to mak-ing sure that Kennedy never served a single day in office.

His name was Richard Pavlick.

From an Associated Press dispatch, December 16, 1960, dateline West Palm Beach, Florida:

“A craggy-faced retired postal clerk who said he didn’t like the way John F. Kennedy won the election is in jail on charges he planned to kill the president-elect.

“Richard Pavlick, 73, was charged by the Secret Service with planning to make himself a human bomb and blow up Kennedy and himself.”

Pavlick came much closer to killing Ken-nedy than most news reporters realized at the time. He was arrested in Palm Beach on December 15, 1960, in a car loaded with sticks of dynamite. Ken-nedy; his wife, Jacqueline; his daughter, Caroline; and his son, John Jr., were staying in the Kennedy family mansion in Palm Beach, preparing for the inaugu-ration the next month.

Because Pavlick didn’t get near Ken-nedy on the day he was arrested, the

story was not huge national news. The announcement of his arrest coincided with a terrible airline disaster in which two commercial planes collided over New York City, killing 134 people, and that was the story that received the ban-ner headlines and led the television and radio newscasts.

It wasn’t until later that the complete story of a first Pavlick assassination at-tempt, a few days earlier, began to get out. It was that first one that might have changed American history.

Pavlick, who had lived in New Hamp-shire, spent much of his time writing enraged and belligerent letters to public figures and to newspapers. He resided in Belmont, New Hampshire; Belmont was at one time called Upper Gilmanton, and Gilmanton itself, four miles away, was reputed to be the model for the New England town in Grace Metalious’ scandalous 1950s novel “Peyton Place.” Thus, Time magazine, in its report of Pavlick’s arrest in Florida, headlined the story: “The Man From Peyton Place.”

It reported:

“One day last month Richard Pavlick decided to do something worthy of inclu-sion in ‘Peyton Place’: he made up his mind to kill a president-elect. He took ten sticks of dynamite, some blasting caps and wire, and began to shadow Jack Kennedy. He cased the cottage in Hyannisport, sized up the house in Georgetown, headed south for Palm Beach.” The magazine quoted Pavlick: “The Kennedy money bought him the White House. I wanted to teach the United States the presidency is not for sale.”Here is what was not reported at the time, and was disclosed later by a top U.S. Secret Service official:

On December 11, 1960 -- four days before he was arrested -- Pavlick drove his car to the Kennedy home in Palm Beach. He held a switch wired to the dynamite, which, according to the Secret Service official, was “enough to blow up a small mountain.” His plan was to wait for Kennedy’s limousine to leave the house for Sunday Mass, then to ram it and blow up both the president and himself.

What stopped him?

Kennedy did not leave the house alone. Instead, he came out the door with Jac-queline, Caroline and John Jr.

Pavlick later told law enforcement of-ficials that he did not want to hurt Mrs. Kennedy and the children. He only wanted to kill Kennedy himself.

So he waited a few days. A postmaster back in New Hampshire, troubled by some postcards that Pavlick had sent, alerted the Secret Service. That is how notification of the license plate of Pav-lick’s car made it down to Florida -- and that is why he was stopped and arrested on December 15. “I had the crazy idea I wanted to stop Kennedy from being president,” he told reporters from his jail cell.

What if Pavlick had gone ahead with his plan on that first day -- what if the sight of Mrs. Kennedy and the two children had not dissuaded him?

As reporter Robin Erb, writing in The (Toledo, Ohio) Blade years later, put it:

“Had Pavlick been successful, [the as-sassination by Lee Harvey] Oswald and his murder by Jack Ruby would never have occurred. Had Mr. Kennedy been killed, Lyndon B. Johnson would have been sworn in as president in January, 1961. How would he have handled U.S.

involvement in Vietnam, the Cuban mis-sile crisis, or the civil-rights movement in the South?”

Next month a book about Kennedy’s Se-cret Service detail in Dallas on Novem-ber 22, 1963, co-written by a member of that detail, is scheduled to be published; advance publicity for the book has cen-tered on the events surrounding that day in Dallas. It will be interesting to see if the Richard Pavlick story is mentioned, and, if so, if any new light is shed on the events in Florida in December of 1960.

As it was, Pavlick was ordered to be confined to a government mental-health facility. He would die in 1975.

And the Kennedy family remained in Florida during those final weeks of 1960. Allowed to live, they prepared for Christ-mas. United Press International reported that the tree in their home was donated by the West Palm Beach Optimist Club. The president-elect received, from his family, gifts of cigars and hand-knitted socks. All seemed safe and right in their world.



The History Of Religion: Explained

A book review by Scott Berkun


I have a fascination with religious his-tory. It’s a fantastic lens on the history of civilization. I’ve never had much faith, but the history of it, and the details of various scriptures have held me fasci-nated for years. The way the roots of all religions wind together mythology, his-tory, culture, selfishness, compassion, wisdom and ignorance is an amazing way to understand our species.

A few weeks ago I visited Israel. I spent three amazing days in Jerusalem. On returning, my passion for history was rekindled and many books I’ve read since I returned were about religion and religious history.

The prize gem of this research has been one book: Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths by Karen Armstrong. It focuses on religions that trace back to Abraham, so there is no coverage of Hinduism, Buddhism, or other beliefs, but many of the lessons I learned from Armstrong have clear applications to any system of belief. The book is short, powerful and well written.

The book uses the city of Jerusalem, a central place in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, as the focal point for history of all three faiths. From the shift from paganism to early Judiasm of the Old testament, to the birth of Christ and the diaspora of the Jews, to the rise of

Islam, and the centuries of fights over a very small piece of land, many of the questions you’ve had are answered here.

Armstrong focuses on history, not faith. She clearly has knowledge of all three religions, as those are discussed, but her intent is to provide a balanced view not dependent on a particular belief. The book has been criticized by some for it’s lack of balance, but I found her view, as someone with little at stake, impres-sively fair . Her main bias seems to be towards compassion and against vio-lence, as she critiques everyone when they fall short of their own scripture in this regard.

Some of the facts I enjoyed most were:

Early Christians used the fish as their sign (a symbol of peace and miracles). After the Roman’s codified the religion, the cross became the sign, a sign Con-stantine associated with war (Hey, he was a Roman.)

The Christian focus on the cross, and crucifixion, began only around 400 A.D with the ‘discovery’ of the true cross. This returned the focus of the religion back to Jerusalem, and began the waves of pilgrims that would eventually lead to the Crusades.

Jerusalem has been destroyed over 40 times, and has changed hands as many times.

There were many other gospels. The Romans and church leaders decided which to include and reject under Con-stantine in 325 A.D.

There have been periods of peace and tolerance by each faith somewhere in the history of Jerusalem, including between Jews and Muslims (tolerance of other faiths is supported by all three scriptures).

Powerful leaders in all the faiths have been incredibly petty at times, some-times horribly cruel, contradicting the compassion in their faith.

The core tenets of all three faiths are incredibly similar, a reflection of the deri-vation from the same source stories.

I’ve always wished every citizen of the world had to take a short course in comparative religion. It would stop a lot of violence. This book would make a fantastic start. If you have any curiosity about the links between faiths, I highly recommend this book.


Hurry up and do it already! My friends and I are tired of roll-ing in our graves!!!

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