cockpit, something clicked in Slayton’s mind.
Scapegoats!
Unlike Hitler, Johnny Lee Rogers was a cool
Führer
. They were shepherds of madness in two different eras. Hitler needed to be hot, as his appeal had to be made in the beer
halls and in the great rotundas, in person. Rogers was a product of television, the cool medium.
Hitler’s scapegoats had to be obvious. Rogers would have to be more subtle.
Adolf Hitler surrounded himself with layers of protection, his own personal SS, his own changing command. He failed to learn
the lesson he himself taught, that to remove the rights of any part of a society was to remove everyone’s rights. In other
words, everyone would have to be a scapegoat for all the ills that the
Führer
and the
Führer
alone could solve.
The burning of the Reichstag, and before that, the night of the long knives; Adolf Hitler’s own duplicity in acts of sabotage
against his nation
…
Slayton’s thoughts came rapidly now. If he was correct, Johnny Lee Rogers might provide the world with an even greater malignancy
than that of Hitler.
Chapter Six
NEW YORK CITY
The Secret Service agent left standing outside the street after the unloading of the station wagon spotted the mailman as
he turned from Lexington Avenue east onto 65th Street.
The mailman was a short, somewhat pudgy man, dressed in summer-issue shorts, a short-sleeved shirt, and the customary U.S.
Postal Service safari hat. He pushed a cart bulging with letters and parcels.
The Secret Service agent would not move on the mailman immediately. There was to be no sign of alarm, no activity out of the
ordinary at The Residence.
In a few minutes, the mailman was making his way to the Nixon house, an arm filled with mail he was going over.
The T-man wouldn’t let him pass.
“I’ll take those,” he said to the mailman.
The mailman was confused, then suspicious. He gathered up his full height—all five feet, six inches—and said to the man in
a business suit and sunglasses:
“S’posed to take ‘em right into that door, mac. I can only deliver these to… wait, you can’t take ‘em—”
The agent had grabbed six envelopes from the mailman’s hands. Then he removed his billfold from a breast coat pocket and waved
his Secret Service credentials in the mailman’s face. “Now let go,” he said, as the mailman made a futile grab for the mail
he’d lost.
The mailman removed his safari hat, scratched his perspiring head, and whined, “I don’t know, I guess it’s okay.”
The agent turned on his heel and walked through the door of the first-floor command post of The Residence. When he had reached
the second large room, he laid out the six envelopes on the table. The men who had earlier arrived with the steel cases were
waiting.
“Okay, what do we got?” the one who seemed to be in charge said.
“Wait,” his partner said. “Look at those envelopes. See something missing?”
Five of the envelopes were stamped “Clear, U.S. Postal Service Special Investigations Unit.” All mail sent to former Presidents,
whether they live in Palm Springs or Plains or New York, has to go through the special detection procedures necessary to clear
up any question of letter bomb or poison processing.
The sixth letter was not so stamped.
“How the hell did this get through?” the man in charge asked. “We’re not set up for this.”
He was speaking of bomb and poison detection techniques. The steel cases contained all manner of forensic examination materiel—fingerprint
dusting powder in the event of latent prints, ultraviolet light lamps to indicate areas of skin oil or perspiration deposits
on envelope or letterhead paper, microscopes to help in the determination of handwriting analysis characteristics, electronic
calipers to record the thickness of bond used, and thereby to break down into categorical possibilities the purchase point
of the stationery, a variety of chemicals for
Scapegoats!
Unlike Hitler, Johnny Lee Rogers was a cool
Führer
. They were shepherds of madness in two different eras. Hitler needed to be hot, as his appeal had to be made in the beer
halls and in the great rotundas, in person. Rogers was a product of television, the cool medium.
Hitler’s scapegoats had to be obvious. Rogers would have to be more subtle.
Adolf Hitler surrounded himself with layers of protection, his own personal SS, his own changing command. He failed to learn
the lesson he himself taught, that to remove the rights of any part of a society was to remove everyone’s rights. In other
words, everyone would have to be a scapegoat for all the ills that the
Führer
and the
Führer
alone could solve.
The burning of the Reichstag, and before that, the night of the long knives; Adolf Hitler’s own duplicity in acts of sabotage
against his nation
…
Slayton’s thoughts came rapidly now. If he was correct, Johnny Lee Rogers might provide the world with an even greater malignancy
than that of Hitler.
Chapter Six
NEW YORK CITY
The Secret Service agent left standing outside the street after the unloading of the station wagon spotted the mailman as
he turned from Lexington Avenue east onto 65th Street.
The mailman was a short, somewhat pudgy man, dressed in summer-issue shorts, a short-sleeved shirt, and the customary U.S.
Postal Service safari hat. He pushed a cart bulging with letters and parcels.
The Secret Service agent would not move on the mailman immediately. There was to be no sign of alarm, no activity out of the
ordinary at The Residence.
In a few minutes, the mailman was making his way to the Nixon house, an arm filled with mail he was going over.
The T-man wouldn’t let him pass.
“I’ll take those,” he said to the mailman.
The mailman was confused, then suspicious. He gathered up his full height—all five feet, six inches—and said to the man in
a business suit and sunglasses:
“S’posed to take ‘em right into that door, mac. I can only deliver these to… wait, you can’t take ‘em—”
The agent had grabbed six envelopes from the mailman’s hands. Then he removed his billfold from a breast coat pocket and waved
his Secret Service credentials in the mailman’s face. “Now let go,” he said, as the mailman made a futile grab for the mail
he’d lost.
The mailman removed his safari hat, scratched his perspiring head, and whined, “I don’t know, I guess it’s okay.”
The agent turned on his heel and walked through the door of the first-floor command post of The Residence. When he had reached
the second large room, he laid out the six envelopes on the table. The men who had earlier arrived with the steel cases were
waiting.
“Okay, what do we got?” the one who seemed to be in charge said.
“Wait,” his partner said. “Look at those envelopes. See something missing?”
Five of the envelopes were stamped “Clear, U.S. Postal Service Special Investigations Unit.” All mail sent to former Presidents,
whether they live in Palm Springs or Plains or New York, has to go through the special detection procedures necessary to clear
up any question of letter bomb or poison processing.
The sixth letter was not so stamped.
“How the hell did this get through?” the man in charge asked. “We’re not set up for this.”
He was speaking of bomb and poison detection techniques. The steel cases contained all manner of forensic examination materiel—fingerprint
dusting powder in the event of latent prints, ultraviolet light lamps to indicate areas of skin oil or perspiration deposits
on envelope or letterhead paper, microscopes to help in the determination of handwriting analysis characteristics, electronic
calipers to record the thickness of bond used, and thereby to break down into categorical possibilities the purchase point
of the stationery, a variety of chemicals for
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