Mrs. Kay Griggs on How the Government Works

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Re: Mrs. Kay Griggs on How the Government Works

Postby admin » Tue Feb 13, 2018 4:54 am

David Cox: An outspoken Marine is found murdered
by unsolved.com
Accessed: 2/12/18

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David Cox

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David Cox

CASE DETAILS

Audiences lined up to see Jack Nicholson and Tom Cruise in the hit movie, “A Few Good Men”. But not many were aware that it was based on a true story, one that may have led to the murder of a courageous former Marine.

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Skeleton was discovered 5 miles away

David Cox joined the Marine Corps straight out of high school and was stationed at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. One day, while on duty, David became aware of a problem. Another platoon member, PFC William Alvarado, had written to his senator complaining about Marine misconduct.

David’s former squad leader, Christopher Valdez, explains how Alvarado was targeted for a “Code Red,” or hazing:

“We didn’t actually decide to have a Code Red for Alvarado on our own. Our platoon commander had given us an implied order that if we were good Marines, something should happen. Saturday night we went into Alvarado’s room. We blindfolded him and gagged him and then dragged him off of his bed. Dave (Cox) started shaving his head, and within five minutes, he had stopped struggling.


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Theory: murder

David Cox convinced his platoon to stop the hazing. When they removed the gag and untied Alvarado, he was unconscious.

Alvarado was rushed to the hospital. He recovered, but his 10 attackers, including David Cox, were brought up on charges. Cox was going to be charged with attempted murder. But he said he was just following orders.

Don Marcari was appointed to defend David Cox:

“I told David, that this was a defense – obedience to orders – that had not been successful at Nuremberg, had not been successful for Lt. Calley at My Lai. And plus, we had a colonel denying he ever gave an order.”


David claimed the Code Red started with implied orders from his superior officers. For Don Marcari, that meant an even more uphill battle loomed:

“We had the additional burden of now saying he was following an implied order. And it was a very difficult case to win, and I told David that. He decided he wanted to fight it because he believed in his heart that he didn’t do anything wrong.


At his trial, David was convicted of simple assault. He was sentenced to time already served in the brig. He then completed his duty and received an honorable discharge. He returned to civilian life in his hometown near Boston.

Years later, “A Few Good Men” was released. David felt that the filmmakers had stolen his story. David Cox’s girlfriend, Elaine Tinsley, recalls at the time:

“He was stunned. Here was this movie company that was making tons of money off of his story, and if it weren’t for him, the story never would have existed in the first place.”


David and some of the other Marines involved in the Code Red, sued the movie production company. While they waited for a ruling, David spoke out about his case on radio talk shows.

By January 1994, David was living with Elaine and hoping his temporary job with UPS would become permanent. The night before he was supposed to get the good news, David’s back was giving him trouble, so he spent the night on the couch. The next morning, Elaine left at about 8:30, and then called home at about noon. David didn’t answer, but there was a message for him on the machine: UPS wanted to hire him. Elaine was happy David would be getting his wish:

“I was like, cool, Dave’s gonna get this job and he’s gonna be so excited. Then I called back again at 1:00 to check the messages, and that message was still there, and the UPS guy had called again, too.”


At 5:30 pm, Elaine returned home:

“When I came into the house that night after work, I realized right away that the doors to all the rooms were open, and our rabbit, who we usually just kept in the kitchen, was hopping all over the place.”


David’s truck was still in the driveway, with the keys in the ignition. His un-cashed paycheck was on the dashboard and his 9-millimeter gun was in the glove box. But David was gone. Elaine didn’t know what to make of the situation:

“As the days went on and there was no news from him – we checked his bank account. There was no activity on his bank account. You start to believe that, you know, maybe something did happen, but why?”


The answer came with the spring thaw. The body of David Cox was discovered on the banks of a river in Medfield, Massachusetts, about five miles from his apartment.

Sgt. Kevin Shea of Massachusetts State Police, describes the manner of death:

“He was shot, according to the ME, four times – once at the base of the rear of the neck and three times in the left side torso area.”


It was clear that robbery was not the motive. David’s cash and his credit cards were still in his wallet. And police ruled out a random attack.

Sgt. Shea believes David left home with someone he knew:

“It’s our belief that he got in the car willingly, that he knew who was coming to pick him up, and that he went to this area and walked into the woods with this person. I think that if it was somebody that was just holding a gun on him or something like that, that they would do it within the first 30 or 40 yards into the woods. David was found almost three-quarters-to-a-mile walk into the woods.”


David’s attorney, Donald Marcari, thinks the murder was somehow related to the military:

“I don’t know why David was killed. I personally believe it had something to do with the military. He was taken out of his house without signs of struggle, he was wearing his Marine Corps jacket, which he never wore. He was found between two hunting ranges where gunshots would not be unusual, and he was murdered execution style.”


But what was the motive?

After the release of “A Few Good Men,” David gave an interview on the radio. He was quite vocal about his story and the U.S. activities in Cuba. David’s mother worried that he had been too outspoken:

“After I heard that interview on the radio, I spoke to him, and I said, ‘I don’t like what you’re doing. I think what you’re doing is dangerous.’ I think he felt far too free to just speak his mind.”


David’s brother, Steve, had a different theory suggesting another possible scenario. He thought that perhaps the murder was connected to David’s job at UPS:

“A couple of months before Dave disappeared, he’d mentioned to me that he had come upon a supervisor and one of the drivers involved in some type of activity, what he believed to be was theft.”


According to Sgt. Kevin Shea, nothing has been ruled out and the investigation is still open:

“It’ll remain open until we solve it. Again, we’ll follow any leads that come through vigorously, and do that until it is solved.”
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Re: Mrs. Kay Griggs on How the Government Works

Postby admin » Tue Feb 13, 2018 5:20 am

Ex-Marine who felt 'A Few Good Men' maligned him is mysteriously murdered
by Bill Glauber
Baltimore Sun
April 10, 1994

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NEEDHAM, MASS. — A photo accompanying an article in Sunday's Sun about the murder of an ex-Marine whose experiences were the basis for the movie "A Few Good Men" misidentified the man's attorney. His name is Don Marcari.

The Sun regrets the errors.

FOR THE RECORD - CORRECTION


NEEDHAM, Mass. -- They are apparently unrelated flashes of violence, framing the final eight years of David Cox's life, from the front lines of the Cold War in Cuba to a muddy river bank in suburban Boston.

The most traumatic incident of his military tour in Cuba would inspire a movie that left him indignant, his and his comrades' service careers altered to quench Hollywood's desire for drama.

But just when Mr. Cox's life appeared to be coming together, when he was on the verge of securing his first steady and lucrative civilian job, when he had finally decided to join a lawsuit against the makers of "A Few Good Men," he mysteriously disappeared Jan. 5.

For nearly three months, police searched for him as his family prayed for him, even consulting with psychics in futile attempts to contact him.

And then, April 2, a canoeist on the Charles River spotted a single white sneaker that led to a discovery in a wooded area.

Under branches ripped from nearby trees lay the body of Mr. Cox.

There were three bullet wounds in the torso and one wound behind the neck.

"It doesn't make any sense," said Elaine Tinsley, Mr. Cox's girlfriend. "I want to find out what happened."

So do the police. They have few clues, no suspects and no motive in the apparent execution-style murder.

But overshadowing all is the story of Mr. Cox, a 27-year-old ex-Marine who saw part of his life spread across a movie screen and who wanted to retrieve his good name.

David Cox and Jay Steeves were best friends, growing up together in Needham, a town of neat homes, manicured lawns and lush parks.

When they graduated from high school in 1985, they made a pact, enlisting in the U.S. Marine Corps under the "buddy system" that guaranteed they could go through basic training together on Parris Island, S.C.

The night before they left home, they even called a local radio station and requested their favorite song, Bruce Springsteen's "Born In The USA."

"The two of us always said, the things we learned in the Marine Corps, you could never learn in any college," Mr. Steeves said. "He loved the Marines. He loved the discipline."

Gung-ho Marine

David Cox, brush-cut strawberry blond hair, blue eyes and thick muscles spread across his 5-foot-11, 170-pound frame, was gung-ho Marine all the way.

He was the perfect candidate for one of the Marine Corps' tougher assignments, manning the perimeter at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

It's a lonely, pressure-filled job at the base they nickname Gitmo. Hour after hour the Marines on the guard line stand watch, sometimes less than 600 yards from Cuban soldiers. It is a frozen standoff in searing heat, a last vestige of the Cold War.

For about six months, Mr. Cox was part of Rifle Security Company, Windward Side, 2nd Platoon, a group of 30 men who lived by a fierce code of honor.

"We were the most gung-ho of the gung-ho Marines," said Christopher Lee Valdez, the platoon leader and Mr. Cox's best friend on the base.

July 1986 was a tough time for Mr. Cox's comrades at Gitmo. According to interviews and published reports, they had a man they perceived as a malingerer among them, Pfc. William Alvarado.

They believed that he had informed about a Marine firing shots into Cuba.


'Code Red'

One night, while watching a videotape of the movie "Animal House," the other Marines decided to take action, calling a "Code Red," jargon for a hazing, to teach Private Alvarado a lesson.

Ten Marines blindfolded him, stuffed a rag in his mouth, pummeled him and gave him a haircut.

It was Mr. Cox who handled the shears and who apparently first noticed that Private Alvarado's face was turning blue.

The incident had gone awry. Private Alvarado's lungs filled with fluid, he spit up blood and passed out.

"We didn't beat him to death," Mr. Valdez said.

Private Alvarado was taken off the island for emergency care in Miami. Eventually, he recovered from the assault.


But the Marines at Gitmo would also suffer wounds.

The commanding officer, Col. Sam Adams, was shipped out.

Seven of the attackers accepted "other than honorable" discharges. And of those, only Mr. Valdez would get his discharge upgraded to honorable.

Three men stood their ground, refusing the Corps' offer of a military plea bargain. They would take their chances in a full-blown court martial.

Would fight Corps

Mr. Cox was prepared to fight the Corps he believed in.

The first time Don Marcari met Mr. Cox was in the brig at Gitmo.

Mr. Marcari was a Navy attorney preparing to take his first case to trial. And Mr. Cox was his client.

"I had on my little white uniform and stuck out at Guantanamo Bay," Mr. Marcari said. "I'm going through this brig, and here I see this kid standing at attention. I gave him a little wink and he gave me a smile, and I guess he knew then that I wasn't that bad a guy."

By turning down the deal for an "other than honorable discharge," Mr. Cox faced a general court-martial and a potential 20-year sentence at Leavenworth. So Mr. Marcari wanted to be sure his client understood the stakes.

Mr. Marcari recalled, "David told me, 'I have nothing else. All I want to be is a Marine.' I said, 'David, you could take this deal and go home.' And he again said, 'No, I want to be a Marine.' "

So attorney and client fought the Marines. And they got the best victory they could in a four-day court-martial at Guantanamo.

Mr. Cox was found not guilty of aggravated battery but guilty of simple assault, a misdemeanor that carried a 30-day jail sentence. But because he had already served 38 days in the brig, the sentence was waived.

And Mr. Cox was free to resume his Marine career, serving out the final two years in places as diverse as South Korea, Panama and North Carolina.

When he was discharged in 1989, Mr. Cox held the rank of corporal.


He had served his country. And now, the blemish of his career seemingly behind him, he prepared to return home to settle down, to find work, to start a career.

'Back to square one'

"The kids who had gone to college were going on to $60,000-a-year jobs," Mr. Steeves said. "And we were back to square one. You don't have a skill for the civilian world. David was a scout sniper. But that leaves you nothing."

Steven Cox remembers his younger brother David this way:

"He was warm-hearted. Compassionate. Outgoing. The kind of guy who would yell at a baseball game. But also the kind of guy who broke down and cried for two hours the day [Boston Celtics' star] Reggie Lewis died.

"And my brother also worked hard," Steven Cox said.

David Cox always had one kind of job or another.

He hauled trash, pumped gas, worked with Mr. Steeves in a home improvement business, worked a year for a rug shampoo company, attended bartender school, even received a two-year paralegal degree.

But Steven Cox also said this about his brother: "In his heart, he remained a Marine."

His friends and family say that David Cox was not embittered by his Marine experience. Talk of the court-martial died down long before he returned home. It was forgotten, even.

And then, "A Few Good Men," a play written by Aaron Sorkin that opened on Broadway in 1989 and ran for 14 months, was turned into a movie that was released in the winter of 1992-1993.

"That's when all hell broke loose," Steven Cox said.


Life on screen

They clasped hands in the darkness of the movie theater. They whispered. And they watched.

As the story of two Marines facing a court-martial unfolded in the film "A Few Good Men," Elaine Tinsley remembers David Cox fidgeting in his seat.

In the movie, there was an accidental murder, a tight little cast of characters led by Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson and Demi Moore and dishonorable discharges for the two fictional Marines, Harold Dawson and Loudon Downey.

But in real life, the life Mr. Cox led, nobody died, and no one was dishonorably discharged.

"For me, it was just a movie," Ms. Tinsley said. "But for him, it was his life. He went through that."


Mr. Cox was apparently outraged. He gave a February 1993 interview with a local newspaper, the Natick Bulletin, in which he said, "If I hadn't known the truth, it probably would've been the best movie I've ever seen in my life."

Mr. Cox said he was struck by the similarities between the events of his life and the movie.

The fictional setting was Guantanamo Bay.

The victim's name in the movie is William Santiago, who, like the real-life William Alvarado, wrote a letter to officials to complain of illegal firing into Cuban territory.


Following orders

And, as in Mr. Cox's court martial, the key element of the defense was that the Marines were following implied orders from their superiors.

"Mostly, he didn't like the outcome -- that the two Marines were relieved of duty and dishonorably discharged," Steven Cox said. "The whole thing ended up rotten in the end."

A spokesman for Castle Rock Entertainment, a Beverly Hills-based company co-owned by the film's director, Rob Reiner, declined to comment.

Repeated attempts to reach Mr. Sorkin's California-based agent also were unsuccessful.

"David wanted to see fairness," Steven Cox added. "He felt they [the filmmakers] were going to make millions with this movie, a movie that was based on some of his experiences. David and some of the other guys said, 'Jeez, this is an invasion of privacy. And then, they portray us as killers.' "

David Cox was mad, all right.

Mad enough to sue.

Mad enough to contact his former attorney, Mr. Marcari, now in private practice in Virginia Beach, Va., the pair writing the first chapter of a planned book that would set the record straight.


But Mr. Cox never got a chance to complete his plans.

Something was wrong

Elaine Tinsley arrived in the apartment she shared with David Cox in Natick at 5:30 p.m. Jan. 5.

She knew something was terribly wrong because the pet rabbit named Lenny that he gave her on her 21st birthday was hopping wildly in the kitchen.

A few glasses were tipped over, and David Cox's 1988 Ford truck was still parked in the driveway.

There was no sign of David.

Frantically, she began to call family and friends to see where he was. No one knew. The next day, she filed a missing person report with the Natick police.

"It wasn't like David just to leave without telling anyone," she said.

Days turned to weeks, turned to months, and still no sign of David.

Nothing added up.

For the first time in his life, he was poised to embark on a profession. During the Christmas season he worked part-time as a driver for United Parcel Service. On the day of his disappearance, Mr. Cox's supervisor called to tell him he had been hired full-time.

After much deliberation, Mr. Cox told his girlfriend that he was ready to join a suit against those who made "A Few Good Men." But he had yet to do so when he disappeared.


Movie maker sued

Five of his fellow Marines, including Mr. Valdez, had filed suit in federal District Court in Houston against Castle Rock Entertainment and others, for, among other things, invasion of privacy, civil conspiracy and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

The plaintiffs say the filmmakers "stole [their] real life story, changed a few names and passed it off as their own creation."


But for now, the Cox family has put aside all thoughts of pending litigation.

During the first thaw of a New England spring, Mr. Cox's decomposed corpse was discovered along the riverbank near Medfield, 17 miles southwest of Boston.

Investigators are piecing together what few clues they have.

* Three 9 mm shell casings.

* The camouflage jacket, dungarees and sneakers Mr. Cox wore.

* And the site itself, remote, a half-mile from the nearest road, yet strategically located between two gun clubs.

Four shots fired, even in the middle of the day, would elicit little surprise.

"We're really starting from ground zero," said Peter Casey, the assistant district attorney for Norfolk County, where Medfield is located.

Mr. Casey said "there is no indication," that the murder was tied to drugs, to Mr. Cox's well-known passion for gambling at race tracks and with local bookmakers, or to the litigation over "A Few Good Men."

"He was well thought of," Mr. Casey said. "He seems to have been a pretty good guy."

The search for an ex-Marine's murderer continues.

And a family grieves.

During the months that he was missing, David's family and his girlfriend consulted with psychics.

"They said that he was surrounded by water and that he was in a warm and safe place," Steven Cox said. "But my brother wasn't warm. And my brother wasn't safe."
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Re: Mrs. Kay Griggs on How the Government Works

Postby admin » Tue Feb 13, 2018 5:36 am

A Few Good Men: The True Story with Don Marcari
by coldtraces.com
October 22, 2017

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In today’s episode, we hear from Don Marcari (view his law firm’s website here – NC, SC, and VA) who was David Cox’s lawyer in Gitmo after he was involved in the hazing of a fellow marine. David and the other marines involved in the incident were charged with attempted murder and faced decades in jail. But there was an offer on the table – David could take an other than honorable discharge and go home. It sounds like an easy decision, but David said he was simply following orders and he decided to fight the charges in court.

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DON MARCARI (PHOTO CREDIT: DON MARCARI)

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DAVID COX

This story became the inspiration for the hit movie ‘A Few Good Men.’ After the movie was released, David was outspoken about the differences between the movie and what really happened in Gitmo and he was planning to file a lawsuit against the filmmakers. But before he could do so, David was murdered. He was shot from behind once in the base of the neck and three more times in the left side of his torso.

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BASE IN GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA 1986 (PHOTO CREDIT: DON MARCARI)

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ATTORNEYS FOR THE CASE. DEBBIE SORKIN, SECOND FROM LEFT, THE SISTER OF AARON SORKIN, WHO WROTE “A FEW GOOD MEN,” AND DONALD MARCARI, FAR RIGHT. (PHOTO CREDIT: DON MARCARI)

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WATCH TOWER IN GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA 1986 (PHOTO CREDIT: DON MARCARI)

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PART OF WILLIAM ALVARADO’S LETTER COMPLAINING ABOUT THE SITUATION ON THE BASE (FROM UNSOLVED MYSTERIES SEGMENT)

David’s article, ‘Art Imitates Life: Natick resident sues over plot of the movie “A Few Good Men”‘ from the Natick Bulletin, February 1993:

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NATICK BULLETIN PAGE 1

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NATICK BULLETIN PAGE 2

Despite the above article, David was not a part of the lawsuit because he was murdered before it could come together. The lawsuit was filed by five of the other marines involved in the incident after he went missing:

February 1994 (David disappeared January 5th 1994)

VALERIE KUKLENSKI United Press International

A FEW GOOD LAWYERS: A few not-so-good Marines have taken legal action in Texas against Castle Rock Entertainment, writer Aaron Sorkin, director Rob Reiner and others over the Tom Cruise-Jack Nicholson hit movie ”A Few Good Men,” which the Marines contend was based on their own court-martial for the hazing of a young recruit. The ex-Marines — Kevin Palermo, Ronald Peterson Jr., Brett Bentley, Dennis Snyder and Christopher Lee Valdez — claim Lt. Debra Sorkin, the attorney who defended one of them, later told her brother Aaron about the case. Attorney Gary Patterson noted that unlike the character in the movie, the hazing victim in the real 1986 Guantanamo Bay incident survived. ”The profits made from this movie and subsequent video rentals (are) mind-boggling,” the lawsuit said. ”However, plaintiffs did not give permission to defendants to make public what is a very private event.” Now that their little secret has been blown, the ex-Marines want $10 million in damages.
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Re: Mrs. Kay Griggs on How the Government Works

Postby admin » Tue Feb 13, 2018 6:28 am

Art Imitates Life: Natick Resident Sues Over Plot of the Movie “A Few Good Men”
by Dan Phelps
Natick Bulletin
February 4, 1993

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When David Cox saw the movie “A Few Good Men” recently, he was so nervous that he had his first cigarette in three years.

It’s not often you watch a major event from your life being acted out on the big screen by famous actors.

That’s how Cox feels about “A Few Good Men.”

The Natick resident and two fellow ex-Marines have filed a lawsuit against Castle Rock Entertainment, the maker of the popular film, claiming the film is based on a real-life event in which Cox and the other two men were involved.

“I was a wreck watching the movie,” Cox said in a recent interview. “I quit smoking about three years ago, but I had my first cigarette during that movie.”

The movie, which carries a disclaimer that the events depicted in it are fictional, is about the trial of two Marines accused of killing a fellow Marine. The Marines, named Harold Dawson and Loudon Downey, are charged with murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and conduct unbecoming an officer.

The movie centers around an incident in which the two Marines, while stationed at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, admittedly bound and gagged another Marine who had written to the Naval Intelligence Service to complain about members of his platoon illegally firing into Cuba.

The lawyer assigned to defend the two Marines uses the defense that the Marines were merely following orders from their commanding officers to “train” the other Marine for disobeying the chain of command and going against the Marines’ code of working out problems within the unit.

In the movie, the Marines are found by a Navy jury to be innocent of murder and conspiracy to commit murder but guilty of conduct unbecoming an officer.

For Cox, Christopher Valdez of Sarasota, Fla., and Dennis Snyder of California, that scenario is a little too real to be fictional.

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David Cox, a Natick resident, feels the movie ‘A Few Good Men’ hits a little too close to home.

Cox, who has lived in Natick for three years, said after he joined the Marines in September 1985, he was sent to Guantanamo Bay as his first duty station.

There, he said, at the age of 19, he was chosen by commanding officers to join a select group of Marines called “The 10.”

“They only let the best Marines in, the most loyal ones, the ones in the best physical condition, the ones who could keep their mouths shut,” said Cox, now 26.

“We worked directly under the base colonel and company captain. We were out there on the fence lines every day, shooting at Cubans, trying to instigate a war. The physical training (for The 10) was totally against the Uniform Code of Military Justice. We’d go out when it was 110 degrees and do five-mile runs along the fence lines with our helmets and flak jackets on.”

Cox said that as part of the initiation into The 10, the Marines had to, among other things, shoot at their “mirror,” the Cuban soldier stationed directly across the lines from them, which was illegal. They also had to hang from their hands from a 60-foot tower for 60 seconds.


“It’s not as hard as it sounds,” he said. “You just can’t slip.”

Cox claims a Marine named William Alvarado was caught writing letters to his congressman, telling him of some of the illegal activities of some of his platoon mates.

While one ranking officer decided it would be best to transfer Alvarado to another site so the other Marines wouldn’t seek revenge against him, Cox claims – and another officer, Capt. David Robb, testified in court – that the colonel, Samuel Adams, ordered that Alvarado remain in camp.


Cox claims the order came down through the chain of command that Alvarado should be taught a lesson. “Our platoon commander pulled us aside and said, ‘Don’t take him up to the roof and throw him off and kill him, but if he were to fall down the stairs in the middle of the night, oh well,’” Cox said.

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Cox (right) and his lawyer, Donald Marcari, 1986.

At about 1:30 a.m., one Sunday in September 1986, according to Cox, he and the nine other members of The 10 went into Alvarado’s room, tied him up, forced a rolled-up pillowcase into his mouth, and started to cut Alvarado’s hair off.

Cox said that during the attack, in which his job was to cut Alvarado’s hair, he noticed that Alvarado had stopped breathing and his face was turning purple. Alvarado was taken to the medical facility at the base, and the next morning The 10 Marines admitted their involvement and were placed under arrest and put into the brig.


A key difference from the movie’s plot is that Alvarado lived, whereas the character of Santiago died.

Cox’s story is supported by Donald Marcari, the Navy lawyer who successfully defended Cox.

“I think the movie is clearly based upon the trial,” Marcari said this week from his office in Virginia Beach, Va. “There’s a lot of dramatization – it’s probably 50 percent fact and 50 percent fiction. But it’s based on the trial. I don’t think there’s any doubt that it was based on the trial.”

The 10 Marines were each appointed a lawyer and were told they could either accept an other-than-honorable discharge or go to trial on charges of attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder.

Seven of the Marines chose to take the other-than-honorable discharge. Cox and two others decided to fight it, faced with a possible 40-year jail sentence if convicted. Marcari was assigned to defend Cox.

At a preliminary hearing, the charges against the three were reduced to aggravated battery.

In the trial, Cox, who didn’t want to turn in his commanding officers, said he was nonetheless forced to testify that he and the other Marines were given an implicit order to teach Alvarado a lesson.

“We were so brainwashed and so pro-unit – we didn’t want their asses to burn,” he said. “They were our mentors. But as time went on and it was the third or fourth week in the brig, we started realizing what they’d done. We decided it was time to start singing like canaries.


“We were willing to give them a chance to step forward. We waited as long as we could.”

According to Marcari, during the trial, Col. Adams, who is now retired, denied ever giving an order for the Marines to discipline Alvarado, but Capt. Robb said the order was implied.

“One of them was lying,” he said.

In the end, Marcari successfully defended the case on the grounds that the Marines were merely following the orders of superior officers.

They were found not guilty of aggravated battery but guilty of simple assault, a misdemeanor. That crime carried a 30-day jail sentence, but since Cox and the other two had already served 38 days in the brig awaiting trial, they were set free and allowed to keep their ranks.

“One of the jurors told me the only reason they found (Cox) guilty of anything was that someone got hurt. But he felt like he just followed implied orders,” said Marcari, now a partner in the law firm of Kershner, Hawkins and Marcari in Virginia Beach, Va.

Cox went on to serve 2-1/2 more years in the Marines, and he said he was involved in the first action of Operation Just Cause, the U.S. military operation in Panama that resulted in the arrest of President Manuel Noriega.

He left the Marines in September 1989 and returned to Massachusetts. Cox, who grew up in Needham, settled in Natick.

“A Few Good Men” is a box-office success and is considered to be a candidate for the Academy Award for best picture. Its director, Rob Reiner, is also considered a candidate for the award for best director.

The movie stars Tom Cruise as Navy lawyer Daniel Kaffee (a role Cox feels is patterned after Marcari), Jack Nicholson as Col. Nathan Jessup (the role of Col. Samuel Adams, according to Cox) and Demi Moore as a Navy lawyer who assists Kaffee.

A spokesman for Castle Rock Entertainment, a Beverly Hills-based film company partly owned by Reiner, said this week the company has no comment on the lawsuit.

A disclaimer at the end of the movie states that the “characters and incidents portrayed and names used herein are fictitious” and that any similarity to real incidents or names “is purely coincidental.”

Another aspect of the story is that Aaron Sorkin, the man who wrote both the play and the movie on which it was based, is, according to Marcari and Cox, the brother of Deborah Sorkin, the lawyer assigned to one of the Marines who opted to take an other-than-honorable discharge rather than go to trial.

They believe Sorkin got the story from his sister and turned it into the script.


Attempts to reach Aaron Sorkin and his agent, Creative Artists Agency, were unsuccessful. Both have unlisted phone numbers in New York City.

Indeed, the similarities between the incident depicted in the movie and the 1986 incident that involved Cox are striking. They include:

* Not only were the Marines in the movie based on Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, they were based in the same location and in the same division as Cox and his fellow Marines;

* The victim’s name in the movie is William Santiago. In the real-life incident, it was William Alvarado.

* In the movie, one of the Marines says, “We were only going to cut his hair.” Cox said the purpose of disciplining Alvarado was to cut his hair into the shape of a checkerboard to teach him a lesson.

* In the movie, Santiago writes a letter to the Naval Investigative Service to complain of some of the members of his platoon firing illegally into enemy territory. In the real-life incident, Alvarado wrote a letter to his congressman to tell him of illegal activities within his platoon, including illegally firing rifles into enemy territory.

* In the movie, the cloth used to gag Santiago is believed to have been dipped in poison, thus causing him to hemorrhage. In the real-life incident, the possibility that poison was on the rag was introduced in the trial but was dismissed.

But despite the similarities, two major differences between the movie and the real-life incident bother Cox even more. Ironically, it’s those two differences that may hinder the success of his current lawsuit against Castle Rock.

The first difference is that, in the movie, Santiago died, while in the real-life incident, Alvarado lived.

The other major difference is that the two Marines in the movie, while found not guilty of murder and conspiracy to commit murder, were found guilty of conduct unbecoming an officer and were dishonorably discharged.

In real life, Cox and the other two Marines that went to trial were found guilty only of simple assault and remained in the Marines, even keeping their ranks.

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David Cox on Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, 1986

Cox and Valdez, one of the Marines who took an other-than-honorable discharge instead of going to trial, feel that since the movie is obviously based on the incident that involved them, the movie unfairly portrays them as murderers who were dishonorably discharged.

But Marcari, Cox’s lawyer then but not in the current lawsuit against the film company, feels those differences between the script and what really happened, as well as other fictionalized dramatizations in the movie, may be enough to protect Castle Rock if the case goes to court.

“It’ll be a tough case,” Marcari said. “Any trial is a matter of public record. They changed it sufficiently to protect (themselves). But it’s definitely based on what happened.

“I don’t think (the lawsuit) will be successful, but that’s just my opinion, and I don’t practice in that area of the law,” he added.

Another aspect of the movie that Cox is angry with is the portrayal of the Marines on trial.

“We were typically portrayed as dumb 19-year-old robots in the movie,” he said. “But we knew exactly what we were doing. We knew what we were up against.

“I don’t regret what I did. I regret the fluke results that came about,” he added. “If I had to do it all over again, I would. I’d just use a different gag.”

Valdez, the former Marine who is a co-plaintiff with Cox in the lawsuit against Castle Rock, reached this week at his home in Sarasota, Fla., said he has no doubt the movie’s script was drawn from the real-life incident in which he was involved.

“But the way they portrayed us is disturbing,” he added. “They left out some of the facts. They said we actually killed this guy, when we didn’t. Obviously, the reason I’m disturbed is that they did portray us in a false light. We have enough proof.”

Calls to Cox’s lawyer in Brighton and Valdez’s lawyer in Florida were not returned.

Cox received his honorable discharge from the Marines in August 1989 after serving out his four-year stint.

With a paralegal degree, he may go on to law school in the future. He still keeps in touch with Marcari. In fact, he and Valdez are meeting with Marcari this weekend to start discussing the possibility of writing a book about the incident.

Marcari said he feels bad about what happened to Cox and the other Marines and that the only thing they were guilty of was being good Marines.

“They were all good officers. That’s the sad thing,” he said. “If they said, ‘Take that hill,’ they’d take that hill. They were clearly the 10 best Marines down there.

“The Marine Corps teaches them to take care of their own,” he added. “If there are any problems, handle them within the platoon.”

And he said Cox was a victim just as much as Alvarado, a victim of commanders who gave an order that shouldn’t have been given.

“He’s a great guy,” he said of Cox. “He’s loyal. He’s a good Marine, and he probably would have made a great Marine if he stayed with it. He felt like he was following orders. He loved the Marine Corps, and he wanted to stay in. And I think he would have stayed in if this didn’t happen. I think it kind of soured it for him.”

Cox said he and the other two Marines are pursuing the lawsuit because they feel they’ve been unfairly portrayed.

He said he and Valdez even contacted Sorkin when they heard the movie was in the works and offered to help out, but Sorkin never called them back.

“All they had to do was call us,” Cox said. “I would have been glad to take a leave of absence to go out there and tell the real story.”

But how does he feel about the movie?

“If I hadn’t known the truth, it probably would’ve been the best movie I’ve ever seen in my life.”
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Re: Mrs. Kay Griggs on How the Government Works

Postby admin » Tue Feb 13, 2018 6:45 am

Clayton J. Lonetree
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 2/12/18

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Clayton J. Lonetree (born 1961), son of a Winnebago father and Navajo mother,[1] served nine years in prison for espionage.[2] During the early 1980s, Lonetree was a Marine Corps Security Guard stationed at the Embassy of the United States in Moscow.

Lonetree is the first U.S. Marine to be convicted of spying against the United States.[3] Lonetree, who was stationed in Moscow as a guard at the U.S. Embassy in the early 1980s, confessed in 1987 to selling documents to the Soviet Union. Lonetree was seduced by a 25-year-old female KGB officer named "Violetta Seina"[4][5] in that year. He was then blackmailed into handing over documents when he was assigned to Vienna, Austria. These documents included the blueprints of the U.S. Embassy buildings in Moscow and Vienna and the names and identities of U.S. undercover intelligence agents in the Soviet Union. He was tried in a military court in Quantico, Virginia and convicted of espionage on August 21, 1987.

In May 1991, Lonetree filed an appeal, asking that his conviction be overturned because he had never learned the identity of one accuser, but this was denied. He initially received a 30-year sentence with a reduction in rank from E-5 to E-1, a fine of $5,000, the loss of all military pay and allowances, and a dishonorable discharge. The Commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. Alfred M. Gray, Jr., recommended to the Secretary of the Navy that Lonetree's sentence be reduced from 30 to 15 years in a letter written in 1989 that said that the effect of Private Lonetree's actions "was minimal." In addition, he said, the Marine's motivation "was not treason or greed, but rather the lovesick response of a naive, young, immature and lonely troop in a lonely and hostile environment." His sentence was reduced to 15 years, but he was released in 1996 after serving only nine years at the United States Disciplinary Barracks.

According to Time magazine:[6]

Marine Sergeant Clayton Lonetree, 25, was so highly regarded at his job as security guard at the U.S. embassy in Moscow that in November 1985 he was detached for special duty at the Reagan–Gorbachev summit in Geneva. Last week Lonetree sat in a brig at the Marine base at Quantico, Va., suspected by his superiors of helping the Soviet KGB filch classified U.S. documents from diplomatic offices in Moscow and Vienna. Lonetree, authorities said, had an affair with a female KGB agent who was reportedly working as a translator at the embassy.


He revealed the names of CIA personnel, detailed the work habits of embassy staff, and sketched the layout of the Moscow and Vienna embassy offices. The harsh sentence was given due to serious security breaches at the embassy, some of which later were found to have been the result of the Aldrich Ames case.[7]

In 2001, Lonetree testified as an expert witness at the trial of former United States Army Reserve Colonel George Trofimoff, who was charged with spying for the KGB. After remorsefully describing his own recruitment by the Soviet State, Lonetree publicly sobbed on the witness stand.[8] Colonel Trofimoff was subsequently convicted of espionage and sentenced to life imprisonment.

References

• Rempel, William C. (14 April 1987). "Lonetree Seeks Civilian Trial, Doubts Military Fairness". Los Angeles Times.
• R. C. S. Trahair (2004). Encyclopedia of Cold War Espionage, Spies, and Secret Operations. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 171. ISBN 0-313-31955-3.
• "On This Day: August 21". The New York Times. Retrieved 20 August 2011.
• "Clayton Lonetree". spymuseum.com.
• Franklin, Ben A. (19 August 1987). "Marine Weeps as He Hears of K.G.B. Seductions". New York Times. Retrieved 1 October 2017.
• "Semper Fie". Time. January 26, 1987. Retrieved 2011-05-15.
• An Assessment of the Aldrich H. Ames Espionage Case and Its Implications for U.S. Intelligence 1994
• Andy Byers, The Imperfect Spy: The Inside Story of a Convicted Spy, Vandamere Press, (2005). Pages 157–159.

****************************************************************

Caught in a Honeypot – Marine Clayton Lonetree Betrays His Country
by Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training
Accessed: 2/12/18

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Marine Security Guard Clayton Lonetree was seduced by a Russian woman, “Violetta Seina,” at the annual Marine Corps Ball in November 1985. She worked as a telephone operator and translator for Embassy Moscow but lived a double life as a KGB agent. Lonetree was so highly regarded that he was chosen to be part of the Marine unit assigned to provide security for the 1985 summit between Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev and President Ronald Reagan. However, despite the strict non-fraternization (“no frat”) policy imposed on all MSGs in such parts of the world, Lonetree and Seina began a relationship soon after they met. She introduced him to her “Uncle Sasha,” KGB operative Aleksey Yefimov, who asked Lonetree to become a “friend of the Soviet Union.”

Lonetree was soon convinced to turn over confidential information, including embassy floor plans. After he was transferred to Embassy Vienna in 1986, he passed on blueprints of that embassy and burn bags with top secret cables, including on U.S. arms reduction. On December 14, 1986, Lonetree came forward to the CIA station chief in Vienna and confessed. He was immediately turned over to the Navy Intelligence Service (NIS) and placed under arrest, charged with espionage.

Lonetree was convicted on multiple counts of turning over classified information, was court-martialed in 1987 and sentenced to 30 years in prison. He was the first U.S. Marine Corps member ever convicted of espionage. Because of his cooperation with authorities, his sentence was reduced to 25 years of which he served nine before being released in February 1996.

Chaos ensued as this scandal began to unfold. Secretary of State George Shultz phoned Ambassador to Thailand Bill Brown, in the middle of the night. Brown was a former Marine who had served in Moscow and was considered a useful resource. As Brown notes in his oral history, when the Secretary of State “asks you to do something, you do it.” Brown went straight to Washington to help remedy the problem. What was initially supposed to be a quick fix turned into an ordeal that took a decade for everyone involved to get over. Embassy Moscow was assumed to have been so infiltrated that staff took to using children’s “magic slate” writing pads to pass messages back and forth, while the new embassy building was discovered to be “one huge, KGB radio station.” Brown was interviewed by Charles Stuart Kennedy beginning in November 1998.
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Re: Mrs. Kay Griggs on How the Government Works

Postby admin » Tue Feb 13, 2018 7:06 am

Patriotism, A Menace to Liberty -- EXCERPT
by Emma Goldman
From Emma Goldman's Anarchism and Other Essays. Second Revised Edition. New York & London: Mother Earth Publishing Association, 1911. pp. 133-150.

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Considering the evil results that patriotism is fraught with for the average man, it is as nothing compared with the insult and injury that patriotism heaps upon the soldier himself,-- that poor, deluded victim of superstition and ignorance. He, the savior of his country, the protector of his nation, -- what has patriotism in store for him? A life of slavish submission, vice, and perversion, during peace; a life of danger, exposure, and death, during war.

While on a recent lecture tour in San Francisco, I visited the Presidio, the most beautiful spot overlooking the Bay and Golden Gate Park. Its purpose should have been playgrounds for children, gardens and music for the recreation of the weary. Instead it is made ugly, dull, and gray by barracks, -- barracks wherein the rich would not allow their dogs to dwell. In these miserable shanties soldiers are herded like cattle; here they waste their young days, polishing the boots and brass buttons of their superior officers. Here, too, I saw the distinction of classes: sturdy sons of a free Republic, drawn up in line like convicts, saluting every passing shrimp of a lieutenant. American equality, degrading manhood and elevating the uniform!

Barrack life further tends to develop tendencies of sexual perversion. It is gradually producing along this line results similar to European military conditions. Havelock Ellis, the noted writer on sex psychology, has made a thorough study of the subject. I quote: "Some of the barracks are great centers of male prostitution.... The number of soldiers who prostitute themselves is greater than we are willing to believe. It is no exaggeration to say that in certain regiments the presumption is in favor of the venality of the majority of the men.... On summer evenings Hyde Park and the neighborhood of Albert Gate are full of guardsmen and others plying a lively trade, and with little disguise, in uniform or out.... In most cases the proceeds form a comfortable addition to Tommy Atkins' pocket money."

To what extent this perversion has eaten its way into the army and navy can best be judged from the fact that special houses exist for this form of prostitution. The practice is not limited to England; it is universal. "Soldiers are no less sought after in France than in England or in Germany, and special houses for military prostitution exist both in Paris and the garrison towns."

Had Mr. Havelock Ellis included America in his investigation of sex perversion, he would have found that the same conditions prevail in our army and navy as in those of other countries. The growth of the standing army inevitably adds to the spread of sex perversion; the barracks are the incubators.


Aside from the sexual effects of barrack life, it also tends to unfit the soldier for useful labor after leaving the army. Men, skilled in a trade, seldom enter the army or navy, but even they, after a military experience, find themselves totally unfitted for their former occupations. Having acquired habits of idleness and a taste for excitement and adventure, no peaceful pursuit can content them. Released from the army, they can turn to no useful work. But it is usually the social riff-raff, discharged prisoners and the like, whom either the struggle for life or their own inclination drives into the ranks. These, their military term over, again turn to their former life of crime, more brutalized and degraded than before. It is a well-known fact that in our prisons there is a goodly number of ex-soldiers; while, on the other hand, the army and navy are to a great extent plied with ex-convicts.

Of all the evil results I have just described none seems to me so detrimental to human integrity as the spirit patriotism has produced in the case of Private William Buwalda. Because he foolishly believed that one can be a soldier and exercise his rights as a man at the same time, the military authorities punished him severely. True, he had served his country fifteen years, during which time his record was unimpeachable. According to Gen. Funston, who reduced Buwalda's sentence to three years, "the first duty of an officer or an enlisted man is unquestioned obedience and loyalty to the government, and it makes no difference whether he approves of that government or not." Thus Funston stamps the true character of allegiance. According to him, entrance into the army abrogates the principles of the Declaration of Independence.

What a strange development of patriotism that turns a thinking being into a loyal machine!

In justification of this most outrageous sentence of Buwalda, Gen. Funston tells the American people that the soldier's action was "a serious crime equal to treason." Now, what did this "terrible crime" really consist of? Simply in this: William Buwalda was one of fifteen hundred people who attended a public meeting in San Francisco; and, oh, horrors, he shook hands with the speaker, Emma Goldman. A terrible crime, indeed, which the General calls "a great military offense, infinitely worse than desertion."

Can there be a greater indictment against patriotism than that it will thus brand a man a criminal, throw him into prison, and rob him of the results of fifteen years of faithful service?

Buwalda gave to his country the best years of his life and his very manhood. But all that was as nothing. Patriotism is inexorable and, like all insatiable monsters, demands all or nothing. It does not admit that a soldier is also a human being, who has a right to his own feelings and opinions, his own inclinations and ideas. No, patriotism can not admit of that. That is the lesson which Buwalda was made to learn; made to learn at a rather costly, though not at a useless price. When he returned to freedom, he had lost his position in the army, but he regained his self-respect. After all, that is worth three years of imprisonment.
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Re: Mrs. Kay Griggs on How the Government Works

Postby admin » Wed Feb 14, 2018 8:42 pm

Walt Whitman Rostow
by http://walt-rostow.biography.ms/

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Walt Whitman Rostow (also known as Walt Rostow or W.W. Rostow) (1916-2003) was an American economist and political thinker prominent for his staunch opposition to Communism and belief in the efficacy of capitalism and free enterprise. Rostow served as an adviser on national security affairs under John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson administrations. He supported American military involvement in the Vietnam war, believing it possible and desirable to halt the advance of Communism by force if needed. In his later years he taught at Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas in Austin. He wrote extensively in defense of free enterprise economics, particularly in developing nations.

Walt Rostow was born in City of New York in a Russian immigrant family. His name is a reference to Walt Whitman, an American poet. Rostow attended Yale University, graduating at age 19 and completing Ph.D. dissertation in 1940. He also won the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship to study at University of Oxford. After completing his education he started teaching economics at Columbia University.

During World War II he served in the OSS under William Donovan. Rostow became Assistant Chief of the German-Austrian Economic Division in the United States State Department in Washington D.C. immediately after the war. From 1946 to 1947, he returned to Oxford to teach as the Harmsworth Professor of American History. Rostow became the Assistant to the Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Europe, in 1947 and was involved in the development of the Marshall Plan. He spent a year in 1949 at Cambridge University as the Pitt Professor of American History. Rostow was Professor of Economic History at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1950 to 1961 and a staff member of the Center for International Studies, MIT from 1951 to 1961. In 1958, he became a speech writer for President Dwight Eisenhower.

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy appointed Rostow Deputy Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs reporting to McGeorge Bundy. Late in 1961, he was then appointed as counselor of the Department of State and Chairman of the Policy Planning Council, Department of State. Rostow wrote President Johnson's first state of the union speech and was appointed by Johnson in May 1964 United States Member of the Inter-American Committee on the Alliance for Progress (CIAP).

In early 1966, he was named special Assistant for National Security Affairs (the post now known as National Security Advisor) where he was a main figure in developing the government's policy in the Vietnam War, and where he remained until February 1969. His pro-war and pro-free-enterprise views made him highly unpopular in the social sciences sector of the American academia that was staunchly left wing at the time. However, he was able to get an academic position at Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas in Austin the Rex G. Baker, Jr. Professor Emeritus of Political Economy. He continued to teach history and economics until his death in 2003 at the age of 86.

Rostow developed the Rostovian take-off model of economic growth, one of the major historical models of economic growth. The model argues that economic modernization occurs in five basic stages of varying length - traditional society, preconditions for take-off, take-off, drive to maturity, and high mass consumption. He received the Order of the British Empire (1945), the Legion of Merit (1945), and the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1969).
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Re: Mrs. Kay Griggs on How the Government Works

Postby admin » Wed Feb 14, 2018 8:46 pm

Walt Whitman and homosexuality
by Wikipedia

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Walt Whitman, 1884.

Another topic intertwined with Whitman's life and poetry is that of homosexuality and homoeroticism, ranging from his admiration for 19th-century ideals of male friendship to outright masturbatory descriptions of the male body ("Song of Myself"). This is in contradiction to the outrage Whitman displayed when confronted about these messages in public, praising chastity and denouncing onanism. He also long claimed to have a black female paramour in New Orleans, and six illegitimate children. Modern scholarly opinion believes these poems reflected Whitman's true feelings towards his sexuality, but he tried to cover up his feelings in a homophobic culture. In "Once I Pass'd Through A Populous City" he changed the sex of the beloved from male to female prior to publication.

During the American Civil War, the intense comradeship (which often turned sexual) at the front lines in Virginia, which were visited by Whitman in his capacity as a nurse, fueled his ideas about the convergence of homosexuality and democracy. In "Democratic Vistas", he begins to discriminate between amative (i.e., heterosexual) and adhesive (i.e., homosexual) love, and identifies the latter as the key to forming the community without which democracy is incomplete:

It is to the development, identification, and general prevalence of that fervid comradeship (the adhesive love, at least rivaling the amative love hitherto possessing imaginative literature, if not going beyond it), that I look for the counterbalance and offset of our materialistic and vulgar American democracy, and for the spiritualization thereof.

In the 1970s, the gay liberation movement made Whitman one of their poster children, citing the homosexual content and comparing him to Jean Genet for his love of young working-class men ("We Two Boys Together Clinging"). In particular the "Calamus" poems, written after a failed and very likely homosexual relationship, contain passages that were interpreted to represent the coming out of a gay man. The name of the poems alone would have sufficed to convey homosexual connotations to the ones in the know at the time, since the calamus plant is associated with Kalamos, a god in antique mythology who was transformed with grief by the death of his lover, the male youth Karpos. In addition, the calamus plant's central characteristic is a prominent central vein that is phallic in appearance.

Whitman's romantic and sexual attraction towards other men is not disputed. However, whether or not Whitman had sexual relationships with men has been the subject of some critical disagreement. The best evidence is a pair of third-hand accounts attributed to fellow poets George Sylvester Viereck and Edward Carpenter, neither of whom entrusted those accounts to print themselves. Though scholars in the field have increasingly supported the view of Whitman as actively homosexual, this aspect of his personality is still sometimes omitted when his works are presented in educational settings.
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Re: Mrs. Kay Griggs on How the Government Works

Postby admin » Wed Feb 14, 2018 8:47 pm

Eugene Victor Debs
by Wikipedia

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Eugene Victor Debs from a pamphlet during his 1912 presidential candidacy
Born November 5, 1855 Terre Haute, Indiana
Died October 20, 1926 Elmhurst, Illinois

Eugene Victor Debs (November 5, 1855 – October 20, 1926) was an American labor and political leader and five-time Socialist Party of America candidate for President of the United States

Rise to prominence

Debs was born in Terre Haute, Indiana (where he lived most of his life), to middle-class immigrant parents, from Colmar, Alsace. At the age of fourteen, he left home to work on the railroads, becoming a fireman. He returned home in 1874 to work as a grocery clerk, and the next year was a founding member of a new lodge of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen. He rose quickly in the Brotherhood, becoming first an assistant editor for their magazine and then the editor and Grand Secretary (in 1880). At the same time, he became a prominent figure in the community and was elected to the Indiana state legislature (as a Democrat).

The railroad brotherhoods were comparatively conservative unions, more focused on providing fellowship and services than in collective bargaining. Debs gradually became convinced of the need for a more unified and confrontational approach. After stepping down as Grand Secretary, he organized, in 1893, the first industrial union in the United States, the American Railway Union (ARU). The Union successfully struck the Great Northern Railway in April 1894, with most of its demands met.

Pullman Strike

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National Guard fires on Pullman strikers, from Harper's Weekly (1894)

He was jailed later that year for his part in the Pullman Strike, which grew out of a strike by the workers who made Pullman's cars and who appealed to the ARU at its convention in Chicago, Illinois for support. Debs tried to persuade the ARU members who worked on the railways that the boycott was too risky, given the hostility of both the railways and the federal government, the weakness of the ARU, and the possibility that other unions would break the strike. The membership ignored his warnings and refused to handle Pullman cars or any other railroad cars attached to them.

The federal government did, in fact, intervene, obtaining an injunction against the strike on the theory that the strikers had obstructed the railways by refusing to show up for work, then sending in the United States Army on the grounds that the strike was hindering the delivery of the mail. That provoked a violent reaction from strikers in what had otherwise been a relatively peaceful strike. The strike was broken and the ARU destroyed.

Socialist leader

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Campaign poster from his 1912 Presidential campaign. Debs was a frequent Socialist candidate for President in the early 1900s

The experience radicalized Debs still further. He was a candidate for President of the United States in 1900 as a member of the Social Democratic Party. He was later the Socialist Party of America candidate for President in 1904, 1908, 1912, and 1920, the final time from prison.

Debs was, however, largely dismissive of the electoral process: he distrusted the political bargains that Victor Berger and other "sewer socialists" had made in winning local offices and put much more value on the organization of workers, particularly on industrial lines. Yet Debs was equally uncomfortable with the apolitical syndicalism of some within the Industrial Workers of the World. While he was an early supporter of the IWW, he was later appalled by what he considered the IWW's irresponsible advocacy of direct action, especially sabotage.

Although Debs criticized the apolitical "pure and simple unionism" of the railroad brotherhoods and the craft unions within the American Federation of Labor, he practiced a form of pure and simple socialism that underestimated the lasting power of racism, which he viewed as an aspect of capitalist exploitation. As Debs wrote in 1903, the party had "nothing specific to offer the negro, and we cannot make special appeals to all the races. The Socialist party is the party of the working class, regardless of color—the whole working class of the whole world". Yet Debs was more advanced on this issue than many others in the Socialist Party: he denounced racism throughout his years as a socialist, refusing to address segregated audiences in the South and condemning D.W. Griffith's "Birth of a Nation".

Debs was a charismatic speaker who called on the vocabulary of Christianity and much of the oratorical style of evangelism—even though he was generally disdainful of organized religion. As Heywood Broun noted in his eulogy for Debs, quoting a fellow Socialist: "That old man with the burning eyes actually believes that there can be such a thing as the brotherhood of man. And that's not the funniest part of it. As long as he's around I believe it myself."

Debs himself was not wholly comfortable with his prowess as a speaker. As he told an audience in Utah in 1910:

I am not a Labor Leader; I do not want you to follow me or anyone else; if you are looking for a Moses to lead you out of this capitalist wilderness, you will stay right where you are. I would not lead you into the promised land if I could, because if I lead you in, some one else would lead you out. You must use your heads as well as your hands, and get yourself out of your present condition.


Return to prison

Image
Debs giving his speech at Canton

On June 16, 1918 Debs made an anti-war speech in Canton, Ohio, protesting World War I, and was arrested under the Sedition Act of 1918. He was convicted and sentenced to serve ten years in prison and disenfranchised for life, losing his citizenship.

Debs made his best-remembered statement at his sentencing hearing:

"Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free."

Debs appealed his conviction all the way to the United States Supreme Court. In its ruling on Debs v. United States, the Court examined several statements Debs had made regarding WWI. While Debs had carefully guarded his speeches in an attempt to comply with the Espionage Act, the Court found he still had the intention and effect of obstructing the draft and recruitment for the war. Among other things, the Court cited Debs's praise for those imprisoned for obstructing the draft. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes stated in his opinion that little attention was needed since Debs' case was essentially the same as that of Schenck v. United States, where the Court upheld a similar conviction.

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Debs in the Atlanta Penitentiary

He went to prison on April 13, 1919. While in prison in Atlanta, Georgia, he ran for president in the 1920 election. He received 913,664 votes (3.4%), the most ever for a Socialist Party presidential candidate in the U.S. and slightly more than he had won in 1912, when he obtained six percent of the vote. This stint in prison also inspired Debs to write a column deeply critical of the prison system, which appeared in sanitized form in the Bell Syndicate and was collected into his only book, Walls and Bars, with several added chapters (published posthumously).

On December 25, 1921, President Warren G. Harding released Debs from prison, commuting his sentence to time served. Debs, however, never recovered his health from that time in prison and died 5 years later at the age of 70 in Elmhurst, Illinois.

In 1976 Debs's citizenship was restored posthumously.
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Re: Mrs. Kay Griggs on How the Government Works

Postby admin » Wed Feb 14, 2018 8:49 pm

The Trail of the Octopus (EXCERPT)
by Donald Goddard with Lester Coleman

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"The octopus had had him in its sights for so long that the security vetting should have been a formality, but a month went by without a word. And that was the first thing Coleman learned about the Defense Intelligence Agency: it never knowingly took chances. It would sooner not employ him than take an unnecessary risk, said McCloskey. He had known them junk a whole operation that had taken hundreds of people months to put together just because there was an outside chance that if anything went wrong the DIA might break cover.

McCloskey was unperturbed by the delay. This wasn't the CIA, he said. The CIA was a showboat civilian agency. These were the professionals, the military, the combined intelligence arms of the United States Army, the United States Navy and the United States Air Force. Together, they formed the largest and most discreet intelligence agency in the world; 57,000 people operating out of Arlington Hall, Virginia, and Bolling Airforce Base, Washington, D.C., on a budget five times bigger than the CIA's. No restrictions, no oversight -- and nobody even heard of it. Why? Because it didn't make mistakes. And because the director reported to the joint chiefs of staff, who didn't tell anybody anything they didn't have to know. And that included the Secretary of Defense.

But wasn't that dangerous? asked Coleman. To have a covert agency that big and powerful, and not directly accountable to anyone? Not even to the President of the United States? Their commander in chief?

The White House leaked like a colander, McCloskey said. It was full of politicians, and politicians came and went. Same thing with Congress. The military had never trusted politicians. It didn't trust civilians. Period. The military was America's backbone, its power and its honor. It didn't take sides. It didn't have to make promises it couldn't keep or gamble with the national interest to get elected. You could count on the military to see things straight, to see things through and to do things right. The DIA was only dangerous to the nation's enemies.

But where did the CIA fit in? And the National Security Agency? Didn't the DIA have to share these responsibilities?

The National Security Agency took care of the electronic and satellite stuff, McCloskey replied. And all that was filtered through the DIA before it went to Langley. The NSA did an important, technical job. As for the CIA, its main use as far as the military was concerned was as cover, as a front operation. While Congress, the media and the whole world watched the CIA, America's real spy shop could get on with its work the way it was supposed to -- in secret. Everybody knew about the CIA. It was good for a scandal a year at least because it leaked from top to bottom. It was a public agency, pinned down by White House directives and Congressional committees. It's director was a public figure. Everybody knew about William Colby, Richard Helms, George Bush, William Casey, William Webster, Robert Gates -- but who even knew the name of the DIA director?

'Not me,' said Coleman.

'Damn right,' said McCloskey. 'Not that I guess you'll ever get to meet him anyhow. Or even see the inside of Arlington Hall, come to that. The only DIA personnel you're ever likely to meet will be your handler and maybe a couple of agents you'll work with. (And he was right. It was only after the DIA froze him out that Coleman finally learned that the name of his boss, the agency's director of operations, was Lt General James Kappler.)"
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