“Killing a Lind(h)”
By Jonathan Dale Rapoport
Son of Roger Dale Rapoport and Margaret Ruth Lind
17 September 2003
California Department of Forestry Butte Fire Academy
Oroville, California, The United States of America
“There is no truth because history is written by assassins.”
-Variously Attributed
Forward
The first part of this piece may seem at first to be bit tangential.
I ask my readers to read the entire piece and I promise that at the end of you will see the relevance of the first portion of this piece.
Main Body
The news of the assassination of Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh reached me on this amazing compound in the foothills of the California Sierra Nevada Mountains more than a week after the tragedy occurred.
After Professor Wren, Ph.D. allowed me to enroll in the most challenging course in this internationally reputed fire academy I had to devote all of my time to learning.
The course on exothermic reaction chemistry and physics is normally reserved only for those who will become captains of fire engine companies that protect facilities with hazardous material that have the potential to cause extreme exothermic reactions.
Examples include the fire departments at nuclear weapons research, design, engineering and testing facilities such as Ernest Orlando Lawrence National Laboratory in Berkeley, California, the nearby Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.
I paid a call of Professor Wren today during office hours to discuss my interest in gaining a scientific understanding of how the extreme exothermic reaction caused by the highly malleable plastic explosive Semtex occurs.
My own interest in Semtex was sparked by the horrific bombing of the Sbarro Italian Restaurant in downtown Jerusalem at 14:08 on 9 August 2001. I arrived on the scene of the bombing shortly after it happened. The two beautiful young Israeli girls who were the front end cashiers were incinerated. They were both causal acquaintances of mine.
Some of my photographs which Reuters decided not to purchase can be viewed by visiting the following link:
http://www.zapotec.org/sbarrophotos1.htm For more information of Semtex visit the following link:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1780549.stm Professor Wren explained that while plastic explosives will be a component of the course, he recommended that I contact his colleagues down at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) near Los Angeles.
Caltech is best known for being the home of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and for training America’s best nuclear weapons engineers.
Caltech is also known for a former member of its faculty, a German Jew by the name of Professor J. Robert Oppenheimer.
The best physicists in the world would ride the rails on the Southern Pacific Railways “California Daylight” between Los Angeles Union Station and Berkeley China Station as Oppenheimer alternated between his office at Caltech and his office in LeConte Hall on the campus of the University of California at Berkeley where Oppenheimer could work more closely with his colleague Professor Ernest Orlando Lawrence, Ph.D.
I told Professor Wren that Oppenheimer had been so involved in his studies that he didn’t hear about the great stock market crash of 1929 and the bankruptcy of the government of United States of America until three months after it had happened.
Professor Wren chuckled and said, “Yes, when you are at Caltech you do tend to develop quite an ivory tower complex.”
“I imagine these colleagues of yours at Caltech are very, well, elite,” I said delicately.
Professor Wren nodded in agreement.
“But you know,” I continued. “Members of the elite are actually quite approachable. I had a five minute chat with the Swedish Prime Minister this past summer. I just walked right up to him on the pedestrian mall in downtown Stockholm.”
A somber look came over Professor Wren’s face.
“You may find that Swedish politicians are not so easily approachable anymore.”
He took a deep breath and said, “The foreign minister was assassinated last week.”
My heart sunk into my stomach.
My legs felt like rubber.
“They killed Anna Lindh?” I managed to ask.
“Yes. I believe that was her name.”
“Excuse me professor,” I said as I put my Ray-Ban sunglasses on. “I need to go log in.”
Professor Wren looked like an undertaker and said nothing as I left.
As I walked over to the computer center I pushed my Ray-Ban sunglasses closer to my eyes.
Tears were forming around my eyes.
Lind is my name too.
It is my mother’s maiden name and I am of Swedish heritage.
I love the Kingdom of Sweden and the Swedish people.
I have lived in their little corner of the world for almost two years.
I speak, read and write some of their language.
I entered the computer center and logged in to the Associated Press (AP) newswire using my account.
Through my Ray-Bans I could only read the section heading above the index to a string of countless stories on the AP newswire.
“Murder of Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh”
I walked out of the computer center.
I didn’t know what to think.
I don’t know what to write.
She was a great humanitarian at the start of her career.
She went on a diplomatic mission to AIDS and famine ravished southern Africa this past year when nobody else would go.
She developed extremely innovative ideas to help protect and promote human rights and peace in the Middle East.
She would have gone on to become a UN humanitarian diplomat.
The best of the UN’s humanitarian diplomats, Brazil’s one and only Sergio, had just been assassinated in the bombing of the UN Compound in Baghdad. I visited that compound a week before the bombing occurred.
The BBC has reported that Brazilian Intelligence has released a statement that concludes that the bombing of the UN Compound in Baghdad was an inside job and the Sergio was the primary target.
“How long shall they kill our prophets, while we stand aside and look?
Some say it’s just a part of it.
We’ve got to fulfill the book.”
-Bob Marley
One can be a great humanitarian in this world but cannot live a long life.
Anna Lindh had no personal protection officers (PPOs), known in layman’s terms as bodyguards.
She was not afraid.
Neither was the greatest humanitarian that our world has ever seen.
He also had no PPOs.
The night before he was assasinated, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke the following words which he co wrote with his chief speechwriter, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel.
It was the evening of 3 April 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee.
Dr. King, his wife and his four children were scheduled to spend the upcoming Jewish holiday of Passover, which celebrates the exodus of the Jews from Egypt, with Rabbi Heschel and his family.
“Early morn’
April 4
Shot rings out in the Memphis sky
‘Free at last’ they asked with your life
Still they could not take your pride.”
-Bono, The Edge and Brian Eno of the Irish rock musical group U2
Dr. King’s final words:
“I left Atlanta this morning, and as we got started on the plane, there were six of us, the pilot said over the public address system,
‘We are sorry for the delay, but we have Dr. Martin Luther King on the plane.
And to be sure that all of the bags were checked, and to be sure that nothing would be wrong with the plane, we had to check out everything carefully.
And we've had the plane protected and guarded all night.’
And then I got to Memphis.
And some began to say the threats, or talk about the threats that were out.
What would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers?
Well, I don't know what will happen now.
We've got some difficult days ahead.
But it doesn't matter with me now.
Because I've been to the mountaintop.
And I don't mind.
Like anybody, I would like to live a long life.
Longevity has its place.
But I'm not concerned about that now.
I just want to do G-d's will.
And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain.
And I've looked over.
And I've seen the Promised Land!
I may not get there with you.
But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land.
And I'm happy, tonight.
I'm not worried about anything.
I'm not fearing any man.
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”
-30-
THE WORDS OF BOB MARLEY ARE CONTROLLED BY ISLAND RECORDS IN NEW YORK CITY AS MANAGER FOR THE MARLEY ESTATE.
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