Thomas Merton, Anti-War
Hero
We like to honor our war heroes with statues,
medals, worshipful books and movies, and the like. But considering all of
the human suffering that warfare entails, shouldnÕt it make sense that
we bestow even greater honor upon people who have given their lives in an
effort to prevent the horrors of war from happening? In his book, JFK and the Unspeakable, theologian James W. Douglass makes the
case that President John F. Kennedy was one such person.
In the introduction to the book, Douglass frames
it as a question, but it is clear that he means for the question to be answered
in the affirmative:
Was John F. Kennedy a martyr, one who in spite
of contradictions gave his life as witness to a new, more peaceful humanity?
That question never occurred to me when Kennedy
died. Nor did it arise in my mind
until more than three decades later.
Now that I know more about JFKÕs journey, the question is there: Did a
president of the United States, while in command of total nuclear war, detach
himself enough from its power to give his life for peace?
His book introduction, as it turns out, is
almost as much about the Catholic monk, Thomas Merton, cloistered away at the
Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky, as it is about
JFK. Douglass begins in 1961 with
an account of how he was struck by a Merton poem, ÒChant to Be Used in
Procession around a Site with Furnaces.Ó The poem is built around the premise
of Nazi World War II atrocities that later came to be called the Holocaust,
hence the Òfurnaces,Ó and it concludes with this jarring line, ÒDo not think
yourself better because you burn up friends and enemies with long-range
missiles without ever seeing what you have done.Ó
The Unspeakable had been spoken—by the
greatest spiritual writer of our time.
I wrote him immediately.
He answered my letter quickly. We corresponded on nonviolence and the
nuclear threat. The next year
Merton sent me a copy of a manuscript he had written, Peace in the Post-Christian Era. Because his superiors had forbidden him
to publish a book on war and peace that they felt Òfalsifies the monastic
message,Ó Merton mimeographed the text and mailed it to friends. Peace in the Post-Christian Era was a
prophetic work responding to the spiritual climate that was pushing the United
States government toward nuclear war.
One of its recurring themes was MertonÕs fear that the United States
would launch a preemptive strike on the Soviet Union. He wrote, ÒThere can be no question that
at the time of writing, what seems to be the most serious and crucial
development in the policy of the United States is the indefinite but growing
assumption of the necessity of a first strike.Ó
Thomas Merton was acutely aware that the
president who might take such a fateful step was his fellow Catholic, John F.
Kennedy. Among MertonÕs many
correspondents at the time and another recipient of Peace in the Post-Christian Era was the presidentÕs sister-in-law,
Ethel Kennedy. Merton shared his
fear of war with Ethel Kennedy and his hope that John Kennedy would have the
vision and courage to turn the country in a peaceful direction. In the months leading up to the Cuban Missile
Crisis, Merton agonized, prayed, and felt impotent, as he continued to write
passionate antiwar letters to scores of other friends.
During the thirteen fearful days of October
16-28, 1962, President John F. Kennedy did, as Thomas Merton feared, take the
world to the brink of nuclear war, with the collaboration of Soviet premier
Nikita Khrushchev. Through the
grace of God, however, Kennedy resisted the pressures for preemptive war. He instead negotiated a resolution of
the missile crisis with his communist enemy by their making mutual concessions,
some without the knowledge of JFKÕs national security advisers. Kennedy thereby turned away from a
terrible evil and began a thirteen-month spiritual journey toward world
peace. That journey, marked by contradictions,
would result in his assassination by what Thomas Merton would identify later,
in a broader context, as the Unspeakable.
---
ÒThe UnspeakableÓ is a term Thomas Merton coined
at the heart of the sixties after JFKÕs assassination—in the midst of the
escalating Vietnam War, the nuclear arms race, and the further assassinations
of Malcolm X., Martin Luther King, and Robert Kennedy. In each of those soul-shaking events
Merton sensed an evil whose depth and deceit seemed to beyond the capacity of
words to describe.
ÒOne of the awful facts of our age,Ó Merton
wrote in 1965, Òis the evidence that [the world] is stricken indeed, stricken
to the very core of its being by the presence of the Unspeakable.Ó The Vietnam
War, the race to a global war, and the interlocking murders of John Kennedy,
Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, and Robert Kennedy were all signs of the
Unspeakable. It remains deeply
present in our world. As Merton
warned, ÒThose who are at present so eager to be reconciled with the world at any
price must take care not to be reconciled with it under his particular aspect: as the nest of the Unspeakable. This is what too few are willing to
see.Ó
---
In overlooking the deep changes in KennedyÕs
life and the forces behind his death, I contributed to a national climate of
denial. Our collective denial of
the obvious, in the setting up of Oswald and his transparent silencing by Ruby,
made possible the Dallas cover-up.
The success of the cover-up was the indispensable foundation for the
subsequent murders of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, and Robert Kennedy by the
same forces at work in our government—and in ourselves. Hope for change in the world was
targeted and killed four times over.
The cover-up of all four murders, each leading into the next, was based,
first of all, on denial—not the governmentÕs but our own. The unspeakable was not far away.
---
In the course of my journey into Martin Luther
KingÕs martyrdom, my eyes were opened to parallel questions in the murders of
John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, and Robert F. Kennedy. I went to Dallas, Chicago, New York, and
other sites to interview witnesses.
I studied critical government documents in each of their cases. Eventually I came to see all four of
them together as four versions of the same story. JFK, Malcolm, Martin, and RFK were four
proponents of change who were murdered by shadowy intelligence agencies using
intermediaries and scapegoats under the cover of Òplausible deniability.Ó
Beneath their assassinations lay the evil void of responsibility that Merton
identified as the unspeakable.
But what about Thomas Merton, with his huge
audience, his moral authority, and his vast mailing list that included a great
many influential people? WasnÕt he
the biggest proponent of all for change away from the warfare state, and wasnÕt
he the most perceptive exposer of all of the workings of what has now come to
be called the Deep State, including the press? Is there not a mystery surrounding his
death as well?
In answering that question—still in the
introduction—Douglass, for some inexplicable reason, seems to take leave
of all the good sense that he had demonstrated up to that point:
MertonÕs understanding and encouragement
sustained many of us through those years, especially in our resistance to the
Vietnam War. As MertonÕs own opposition
deepened to the evil of that war, he went on a pilgrimage to the East for a
more profound encounter. He was
electrocuted by a fan at a conference center in Bangkok on December 10, 1968,
the conclusion of his journey into a deeper, more compassionate humanity.
Say what?
How, one must wonder, does Douglass know that Merton was shocked to
death by a fan? When did fans start
jumping on people and electrocuting them? (Merton was found lying on his back,
his arms by his side, with a floor fan lying diagonally across his body.) Let the killer be an obvious patsy, and
Douglass is all over it, but make the killer a rogue fan and suddenly heÕs all
in. Maybe he would have bought
suicide if they had told him that.
They wouldnÕt even have needed a corrupt autopsy doctor as in the Vince Foster case. How about no autopsy at all? ThatÕs what we had with Merton.
Where is the James Douglass who studied
documents and interviewed witnesses in those other suspicious death cases? Maybe he finds persuasive the reasons
(pick one) that authorized Merton biographer, Michael Mott, gives for no
autopsy. This is from endnote 466
of his account in The Seven Mountains of
Thomas Merton, the one to which adherents to the killer-fan thesis cling:
On the vexed question of why no autopsy was
performed, there have been a number of answers. [Conference leader] Abbot [Rembert] Weakland has said he was
satisfied the cause of death seemed clear, the facilities in Bangkok for an
autopsy were few, and he lacked the authority to order one. [Gethsemani
Abbot] Dom Flavian Burns understood that if an
autopsy were performed in Thailand, either the body would be greatly delayed in
getting to the United States or Merton might have to be buried in Thailand.
Could it be that Douglass has chosen one of
these explanations as credible because he finds Mott, himself, to be generally such
a credible fellow? Take, for
instance, what Mott says about why nobody around there would have wanted to
kill Merton, which is really all that he has to offer against the murder
possibility:
No convincing motive has come to light. Robbery can be dismissed: nothing was
taken, though there was an expensive camera and a wallet in the room. In 1968, MertonÕs death would have
furthered the political ends of no group.
Those who felt some animosity toward the stands he had taken on various
issues were not in Bangkok. Only
the letters of 1967 in which he spoke of his desire to become an intermediary
for peace remain to trouble an absolute certainty. By December 1968, at any rate, Merton
was not an obvious target in Bangkok for either reasoning or unreasoning
assassins.
This book, mind you, was runner-up for the
Pulitzer Prize in 1984.
The simple fact of the matter is that there was no autopsy, the various reasons
proffered for why there wasnÕt one are flimsy in the extreme, and the Deep
State motive for murder was as strong as its means were ample. Just on its face, MertonÕs death has
been fairly screaming murder for going on 50 years now, and it should be
treated as such until some more convincing evidence has been presented than anyone
has put forth up to now. If someone
is willing to present a case for the killer fan, IÕm willing to listen, but if
they havenÕt done it in a half-century, the chances that they will do so now,
IÕd say, are pretty small.
Douglass admits that heÕs not exactly a quick
study:
I was slow to see the Unspeakable in the
assassination of John Kennedy.
After JFK was killed, for more than three decades I saw no connection
between his assassination and the theology of peace I was pursuing. Although I treasured MertonÕs insight
into the Unspeakable, I did not explore its implications in the national
security state whose nuclear policies I rejected.
In the interests of the survival of the planet and in DouglassÕs own
interests, time is running out for him to get his
brain in gear with respect to the Merton assassination. Douglass was born in 1937.
Should he finally decide to direct his
considerable intellectual capacity to the question of MertonÕs death, perhaps
he can join me in starting a movement to honor the heroes who have given their
lives in the cause of peace. A couple of other nominees I would like to propose
are James Forrestal and Pat Tillman. Tillman had not yet gone public in
protest of the war in Afghanistan.
He was killed before he got the chance.
David Martin
January 29, 2018
Comment on Facebook at 1040 for Peace.
Addendum
Another name has come to my attention that
deserves a very prominent place on the list of anti-war heroes. That is Dale Noyd. A decorated Air Force pilot, he was
dishonorably discharged from the service for refusing to train pilots for what
Merton had called the Òoverwhelming
atrocityÓ of the Vietnam War.
David Martin
February 18, 2018
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