Ted Kennedy had closet full of bulletproof vests

[Octafish]

Something to remember in this time of open hostility by the ultraright:

Kennedy had closet full of bulletproof vests

Teddy Jr. reveals fear his father lived with

By KENNETH HAYNES
IrishCentral.com Staff Writer
Published Saturday, September 12, 2009, 2:37 PM
Updated Saturday, September 12, 2009, 10:37 PM

Ted Kennedy Jr., the son of the late U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy , reveals that his father kept bulletproof vests in his closet.

In a CBS “60 Minutes” segment, which will air on Sunday, Kennedy talks about the anxiety he and his siblings felt every time they passed that closet during his father’s ill-fated presidential run in 1980.

“Most people keep coats and umbrellas in their coat closet. My father kept bulletproof vests in his coat closet,” he said. “Believe me, we would walk past that coat closet every day, fearful about some crazy person out there wanting to make a name for themselves, and that, I think, was in the back of our minds almost every time that my father would appear in public.”

SOURCE:

http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Ted-Kennedy-Jr-recalls-fear-for-fathers-safety-59130632.html

"...some crazy person wanting to make a name for themselves..."

[KittyWampus]

1. Totally understandable and heartbreaking.

[Octafish]

7. The right is open in their hatred, in order to inspire the like-''minded''

This image made me furious.

[TroglodyteScholar]

10. You mean in order to terrorize?

Too many victims of terrorist tactics end up joining in because that's the one way they feel "safe" from them. The MAINSTREAM right wing in this nation has always used terrorist tactics to drum up support--they just usually stop short of recorded decapitations. But in the end, it's all about fear:

they're going to take your jobs
they're going to kill your babies
they're going to decide whether granny gets a new liver
they're going to force your children believe 'Unamerican' things
etc, etc...
and ultimately, (all together now!) if you side with them, you'll go to hell

Makes calling them the 'American Taliban' seem a bit less like hyperbole when you think of all the tactics they have in common.

[WeDidIt]

2. I guarantee, there are dozens' of McVeigh wannabes out there

and every last one fo them would be willing to trade their miserable lives to be remembered as the person who killed Obama.

And the Glenn Becks of the world are pumping them up with the will to carry it out.

[AndyA]

4. +1

Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh are instigators. They don't actually want to do anything themselves, they want to whip up their psycho listeners into a frenzy, and get them to do their dirty work for them. And for the most part, they seem to be getting away with it.

Now we have people showing up at Obama functions with weapons! (And they aren't Secret Service Agents!) How long will it be before someone gets hurt or worse? There needs to be accountability, and when Glenn and Rush make comments that encourage this type of behavior, they need to be punished for those comments.

We have enough problems in the world today without creating new ones.

[Octafish]

11. Man jokes about Bush - 3 years in Prison. Man with gun threatens Obama - No Problem.

Something is seriously wrong when it's OK for ultraconservatives to flash guns within "earshot" of the President:

Man jokes about Bush - 3 years in Prison. Man with gun threatens Obama - No Problem.

Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and the rest of the rabid right are tools, on so many levels...

[Echo In Light]

3. I'm sure the Right considered scheming yet another 'lone gunner' patsy

[Octafish]

12. Abraham Bolden, the first African American Secret Service agent, got railroaded after Dallas.

Former Agent: Plot to Kill JFK in Chicago Foiled Before Assassination

More:

Ex-Secret Service agent reveals Chicago JFK plot

The great author and journalist Edwin Black broke the story, way back when (PDF):

The Plot to Kill JFK in Chicago

[Echo In Light]

14. Thanks for posting

[uncle ray]

5. but did he wear them?

i've got lots of things in my closet i don't wear.

[Octafish]

13. The Kennedys and the man who tried to protect them

This former Secret Service agent took his job seriously:

The Kennedys and the man who tried to protect them

Lots of people understand what you mean about not having a thing to wear.

[MiniMe]

6. Considering that 2 of his brothers were assassinated, it is a wise move

Especially when you are running for President.

[Octafish]

15. Henry J. Rybka -- The Secret Service Agent who asked: ''Why?''

Video from Love Field shows Secret Service agent Henry Rybka and another agent ordered OFF the bumper of the President's limousine:



Video: http://www.metacafe.com/watch/171830/secret_service_jfk/

Afterward, in William Manchester's book, Death of a President, we see the "official story" of what happened:

"Kennedy grew weary of seeing bodyguards roosting behind him every time he turned around, and in Tampa on November 18 (1963), just four days before his death, he dryly asked Agent Floyd Boring to 'keep those Ivy League charlatans off the back of the car.' Boring wasn't offended. There had been no animosity in the remark." (1988 Harper & Row/Perennial Library edition, pp. 37-38)

The thing is PRESIDENT KENNEDY NEVER SAID THAT.

Not until 35 years later do we learn the truth, though, when the great investigator Vincent Palamara asked the Secret Service agents who were there what happened in 1963:

Agents Go On Record

[Cleita]

8. Wasn't he the only brother who died a natural death?

I believe one brother lost his life in WWII and the other two were assassinated. If there was another brother, who is he?

[MiniMe]

9. You are correct

[Octafish]

16. Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. died on a secret mission, Project APHRODITE / ANVIL.

Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., the oldest of the four Kennedy brothers, was the one being groomed for a life in politics by Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. A very brave and conscientious young man, he was a delegate at the 1940 Democratic convention where he cast his vote for an opponent to FDR -- because that's how he had pledged. Here's a little bit about his wartime service:

After completing two tours as pilot of a US Navy PB-4Y (modified B-24 Liberator) on anti-submarine warfare patrol over the North Atlantic from 1943-44, Joe, Jr. volunteered for a top-secret mission in which he would pilot an experimental remote-control version of the 4-engine bomber. Code named APHRODITE, the program required state-of-the-art science, engineering, and warfare yet required most of all the highest degree of bravery imagineable.

The objective was to knock out NAZI submarine pens and the V-2 sites along the western coast of Europe. At the time, the V-2 -- history's first ballistic missiles, developed by Werner von Braun and his team at Peenemünde -- were almost unstoppable as they delivered their deadly payloads to London. The allies were worried that if the Nazis continued developing their super-weapons, the V-2’s descendants could soon be delivering bombs — possibly atomic — to New York City. APHRODITE / ANVIL was to stop the rockets at their source.

Joe Kennedy’s plane was among a dozen or so Liberators and B-17 Flying Fortresses modified for a very early version of remote control flight. The aircraft, basically, became history's first guided missiles. Their entire fuselages were stuffed with TNT, Torpex and gelignite. The Army Air Force flew B-17s and the Navy were in the Liberators, which IIRC were to be armed by a rather elaborate, if not negligently dangerous, electronic arming panel.

Like something out of Buck Rogers, the Navy equipped the airplane with a primitive 2-channel remote-control pilot. One radio signal could make the stick move forward and backward to make the plane dive and climb; another signal could make the stick move left and right to make the plane bank towards one or another direction. In some of the aircraft, an early video camera would send an image to technicians in the Mother Ship, where the remote pilot sat before a tiny TV monitor.

Kennedy’s job as pilot was to get the ship airborne from its airfield in Great Britain, point it toward Europe, help arm the flying bomb, and bail out over the English countryside. Sounds simple, but it was anything but. Once aloft, Kennedy and the other volunteer pilots and bombadiers were to turn on the radio-guidance controls, arm the flying bomb, and bail out at about one thousand feet. The Mother Ship would follow two miles or so back and then fly it over the English Channel and guide it down into the rocket launch sites.

The tragedy was that the Navy ship used a rather primitive arming panel. FWIW, the co-pilot refused to fly and instead the Navy sent aloft the engineer who designed or installed the system. Over the English countryside, the ship exploded, killing the two flyers and changing American political history.

Joe's younger brother John Fitzgerald Kennedy then became the heir to the family's political ambitions. Robert Francis Kennedy served as Attorney General of the United States and as a Senator devoted to ending war in Vietnam. Edward Moore Kennedy served as a Senator of the United States for 47 years, taking an active role in progressive and liberal legislation.

History shows JFK made an outstanding President. He saved the world from nuclear annihilation during the Cuban Missile Crisis. He stretched mankind’s reach to the moon, never living himself to see the impossible accomplished. He even used the NAZI rocket scientist who developed the V-2 to do so, the same von Braun who the allied air command sent his lost brother, Joseph, to destroy.

[Dramarama]

17. nvm

[Flabbergasted]

18. Wow. I don't think I could do it. nt

[Skittles]

19. could hardly blame him

[Raine]

20. Poor guy, what a way to live

but he wanted to help are those who needed help so he continued inspite of his fear ... that's real courage. :patriot: