I'M ONLY KIDDING Confession to

Conspiracy to Assassinate JFK by

Kerry Thornley as told to Sondra
London
My answer was one he could easily have anticipated, since I was thought
odd even among the Bohemians of the French Quarter for my outspoken
devotion to free love and group marriage. This was previous to the time
when Robert Heinlein's novel, Stranger in a Strange Land, popularized
that notion among hipsters. One of my novel projects was a humorous
fictionalized account of my own unsuccessful attempts to attract
converts to join me in a group marriage.
After obtaining my enthusiastic agreement about at least that much,
Brother-in-law looked at me with a glint in his eye , and said: "I'm sure
you recall that Omar Khayyam verse about smashing this sorry scheme
of things."
That I was very much into Omar Khayyam was something else he knew.
"Yes! Something about if we could conspire to shatter this sorry scheme
of things and mold another one, nearer to the heart's desire! That's one of
my favorite quatrains."
"Kerry, how would you like to conspire with me to shatter this sorry
scheme of things?"
"Great. When do we start?"
"It's going to take years. And I can't tell you much about it, because it's
going to have to be very secretive. You are going to have to work on a
need-to-know basis, just like you did when you had a security clearance
in the Marines. You will receive only enough information to perform your

part of the work." Then he paused and looked at me and asked, "Is that
okay?"
"It's okay with me," I answered eagerly.
"I don't think jails should exist. Do you? I think society should find a more
humane way of dealing with criminals."
"Yes. I think they should be confined comfortably and studied to find out
what makes them criminals, so crime can be prevented. As Robert
Ingersoll said, 'Men do what they must do.' Everything anyone does
always seems to them like a good idea at the time. We should find out
why criminals are attracted to antisocial behavior, instead of punishing
them."
"Exactly. And don't you think it would be better if our technology were
oriented more toward the exploration of outer space than to the
production of war materials?"
"Yes," I said, not certain I was telling the truth. I hadn't thought much
about that one before.
"Now I know you agree that both forced segregation and forced
integration are wrong. What if people were allowed to form their own
communities? What if white racists could live in segregated communities
while others were free to form racially mixed communities? Black
separatists could also form their own communities. That way we
Germans could maintain our racial purity, you Beatniks could intermarry,
Malcolm X and his friends could go o and live by themselves -- and
everybody would be happy."
"That sounds like a good idea," I said. Silently, though, I wondered if he
simply wanted to divide us into neat geographically distributed categories
in order to make the job of exterminating the rest of us easier for him and

his Germans.
I agreed wholeheartedly though to the idea of free trade among nations
with no taris restricting international commerce. "Yes, that's one good
thing about our President," one of us said. "The 'Kennedy Rounds' to
negotiate the gradual reduction of taris."
"And I think we should return to a limited, Constitutional government."
"Yes," I agreed. "Government should confine itself to its proper functions:
preventing force and fraud. There should be no bureaucracies except the
police and the military. And the military should only be used to defend our
shorelines and to protect American investments abroad."
"Kerry, I don't think we should defend the foreign holdings of Americans. I
think investors should place their funds at the mercy of foreign
governments at their own risk. Otherwise there are too many excuses to
get involved in foreign wars."
We agreed to disagree on that one.
"And I think there ought to be sanctity of the home. I think a man's home
is his castle and that's the way it should be."
For a brief, mad split second I wondered why this Nazi wanted privacy
like that. What was he planning to do in his castle -- Bavarian Gothic as it
was sure to be?
Then I thought about the quartering of British troops in Colonial American
homes and the Bill of Rights and the principles of Objectivist
individualism, and I felt ashamed of allowing sinister possibilities to
distract my mind from such a refreshingly rational discussion with
Brother-in-law. For if these were his true politics, how could I take
seriously his stu about being a Nazi?

"Kerry, I think Robert Kennedy's Justice Department was wrong in jailing

and fining those business executives for Anti-Trust Law violations. Don't
you?"
"Yes. That's what Ayn Rand says in one of the Objectivist newsletters. Of
course, the Marxists are wrong, and so are the Kennedys. Punishing the
great producers of the world is not the answer to insuring adequate
production."
"Yes," he said. "And I think it would also help if we returned to a
predominantly agricultural economy."
"Certainly. Between the United States and Canada, there is enough fertile
land and right weather conditions that both countries together could feed
everyone. We could be the breadbasket of the world. Instead, our
criminal bureaucrats pay farmers not to grow things."
"And I think unions ought to be free also. If workers want to form a radical
labor union, I think that is their right."
"Yes, I can agree to that. It's in keeping with the idea of separation of the
government and the economy."
"But I don't believe in the general strike."
"What is the general strike?"
"That's where the workers take over a factory and run it themselves."
"Yeah, I don't like that idea either. Great organizational skill, perhaps
genius, is required to administer a productive corporation. Talent like that
deserves whatever rewards it cares to demand. If workers tried to run
things, they'd do it ineciently. One of the problems is most people think

'profit' is a dirty word. Kennedy is always calling on people to make

sacrifices to the national interest. According to my philosophy, that's
immoral."
"Ah yes," he said, looking at me steadily. "What if we could give the word
'sacrifice' such a bad name that no one would ever again listen to talk
like that?"
I wondered what he had in mind, but I think I was afraid to ask. "That
sounds okay, I guess."
"What do you think of local police? Don't you think it would be a good
idea to recruit local police to a revolutionary movement? They would be
in favor of local control of government institutions, of keeping political
power closer to home."
"Yes, that might work. One of our worst problems in this country is the
centralization of power in the hands of the Federal Government."