(Background: I belong to a loose-knit group in Nashville named the "L" (for Liberal) Club. We get together once a month to share food and updates on progressive activity in middle Tennessee, and to hear a guest speaker. Last night, the guest speaker was Bill Carter, a former Secret Service agent during the Kennedy/Johnson era who became an entertainment lawyer representing the Rolling Stones, among many others. It was an interesting, though very disturbing presentation.
Fortunately, Mr. Carter's presentation was preceded by the introduction of a Hispanic "guest worker" who had recently escaped from indentured slavery with a local landscaping company and had gone public with his story. Here's a link to that story:
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20100812/NEWS01/100812049/Nashville-area-company-accused-of-abusing-Mexican-worker What follows is my letter to the "L" Club president and to a number of members I am close to. It is my way of trying to make sense of what I heard, from one of the servicers of our nation's secrets. Mr. Carter has really had an interesting career and I will append his bio sketch to the end of my note since, in truth, what he has to say about himself is much longer than what I have to say about him. As usual, thanks for the chance to share this experience with my DU 'hood.)
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In the Service of Secrets
Last night's "L" club meeting was enjoyable and, as it is so often, inspiring. To be in the presence of the Hispanic worker who stood up to fight the slavery that (as Jerry Lee pointed out) is often the reality of being a legal guest worker in this country these days was very humbling. I would have really enjoyed hearing from him – I am sure he could remind us all what hard work looks and sounds like (since so few of us would recognize that any more as we speed by in our air-conditioned SUVs) and what strength and courage it takes to throw off the chains of oppression. That was our country's function as a role model for the planet in the 18th century. Today, not so much.
However, it was a bit embarrassing to be sitting near people who seemed peeved and put-out that the guest speaker's presentation was being (quietly) translated for that hero. If the one or two "L"s who kept turning around to stare at the translator had deigned to open their mouths, I would have bitch-slapped them to the carpet. Thankfully, my own macho was allowed to remain in check.
Bill Carter, our main speaker, was certainly interesting, even though he filled perhaps three times the usual allotted speaking time at an "L" club meeting with stories of a full and serendipitous career. However, there was nothing new in his remarks about the Kennedy assassination. We have all been exposed to the sanitized view of that well-orchestrated tragedy for four decades now, and the last person I would expect to tell us anything different about that day in Dallas would be a Secret Service agent. As pleasant and erudite as Mr. Carter was, I became increasingly uncomfortable with the inherent contradictions in his role. Certainly, he would likely be an enjoyable conversationalist to share a beer with. (If I still drank)
That is the purpose of this quick reflection on last evening. When you have lived as many lives as Mr. Carter has lived, just where do your loyalties lie? To the truth, to the law, to the country or to the secrets that remain bottled up still out of reach of the citizenry, in the National Archives and elsewhere, not to be opened in their entirety for another seven years -- 54 years after the Kennedy assassination? Who knows – it's a secret. For fun, as we wait seven more years for the full record of JFK's assassination to be unsealed, you just might want to Google "Woody Harrelson father JFK" for an alternate view of that history, in the voice of one of the two other shooters in Dallas that day whose last names were not Oswald.
My guess is that once a servicer of secrets, always a servicer. I am unaware of any Secret Service agent who has ever revealed a variation on the accepted version of our nation's corporate media-sanitized history without being labeled as an alcoholic or mentally ill (if they lived long enough for those labels.) Having loose lips, or loyalty to something bigger than the Big Boss Man, would not seem to be sensible criteria for Secret Service employment. I would not expect it to be. There are many hours in the White House day when the affairs of state demand the ability to remain silent as our President conducts delicate negotiations on a myriad of state affairs. Without that secrecy, it is clear that our President's job would be difficult, if not impossible. (Witness the problems caused by the innumerable leaks that accompany every administration, leaks that likely never come from Secret Service agents, but that often serve a higher good. Like the truth.)
First and foremost, Secret Service agents are there to protect the lives of our leaders. They are not there to insure that our leaders adhere to the rule of law as embodied in our Constitution, or that they hew closely to their enumerated responsibilities. They are there to keep the President breathing. I am glad they do. But to sit there last night and expect validation for the credible evidence of any wrongdoing committed against our Presidents, or by them, is to expect too much of the men and women who service our secrets.
There are many questions I would like to ask people like Mr. Carter who have protected other Presidents. Right now, I am (un)anxiously awaiting President Bush the lessor's (or, as I like to refer to him, Dim Son's) book, Decision Points, due out in the fall. In advance reviews of the book, we are told that Dim Son (or, more likely, his ghost writer) starts with a chapter that details Dim Son's decision to quit drinking as the first step in his slouch to our White House.
Great story ... if only it were true.
Anyone who knows anything about drunken behavior (and, believe me, I know what that looks like, having been a drunk once myself) would have recognized it in Dim Son's actions in Germany (groping the German Chancellor), or Peru (hanging all over one of the wives of our Southern hemisphere neighbors' leaders) or at the Chinese Olympics (where it took several servicers of secrets to keep Dim Son upright as he flipped and flopped all over everyone near where he was seated, smiling with a drunken idiot's grin as he waved our flag upside down and backward, perhaps unaware that this presentation of our flag is a universal sign of distress. Lordy, that is, in truth, the only honest display of our flag with that (p)Resident that I've ever seen.
For photographic evidence of Dim Son's drunken behavior as described above, visit this thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8497298 So should we expect a book by one of Dim Son's protectors for Christmas season, stating how many times they found the fool in a passed-out pile in the second floor residence, or cleaned up his pilsner-flavored puke from the Oval Office rug? Should we expect them to confirm what has already appeared in print, that Dim Son's blood alcohol level exceeded .20 (almost three times the legal intoxication limit in DC) the day he "choked on a pretzel", according to lab technicians at Walter Reed? I think not. It would be refreshing but it would not be in keeping with the mission of our servicers of secrets. It would also not match the manufactured history of our nation that we are fed (like patriotic pablum) from every orifice of the corporate media these days, from Faux to NPR. That pablum may help explain why, even though our high school and college students now rank low on every measure of intellectual capacity and skill these days, we rank first in "confidence".
USA!! USA!! USA!!
So thanks again, "L"s, for an entertaining evening in the Twilight Zone that is today's America. It was a fitting complement to the early announcement last evening that Mike McWherter, the anti-gay, anti-progressive tax, inexperienced, clueless creationist, is "our guy" in November's gubernatorial race. I'm sorry, but Big Daddy Junior is not my guy. He is, instead, a bell-weather for how far removed from our state's own progressive history we have strayed in Tennessee, a history that includes breaking Jim Crow in Nashville lunch counters, or insuring equal and proportionate voting rights via Baker v. Carr, or protecting the sanctity of the ballot box at the (first) Battle of Athens.
What it will take to right our own Big Orange ship of state remains unclear. (Hell, it may remain unreachable from this point forward). But it may start with the truth that, in Tennessee today, having a "D" behind your name on a ballot is no sure indication of anything, other than a desire to get into a rigged game. I, for one, will vote Green this November, not because I believe Howard Switzer would be a good Governor any more than Basil Marceaux (who got my vote in the primary), but because Tennessee Democrats can do so much better. But first we need a transfusion of courage from our Hispanic role-models.
And we need to re-learn how to tell the truth. Peace out.
PS: When Mr. Carter talked about how Rolling Stones concert-goers in the 90s were cleaner-cut and less enveloped with cannabis smoke – in contrast to their 60s and 70 counterparts – it doesn't necessarily mean they weren't using drugs. More likely they were fried on alcohol and cocaine, drugs that are not known for bestowing contact highs or encouraging sharing. Sometimes, like our history, appearances can be deceiving.
PPS: If I had asked Mr. Carter any questions last night, these two come to mind:
"Why do you believe there are two sets of laws in this country, one for the connected, moneyed classes and the other for the rest of us?"
and
"Why do you believe the laws of nature don't seem to apply to Keith Richards?"
BTW, I do look forward to reading Mr. Richards' book this fall, particularly since Mr. Carter said that Keith is one of the most honest writers he's ever read. Who knows, maybe it's the drugs.
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Bill Carter's Biography:
How do you pin a label on a man who has enjoyed as many careers as Bill Carter? Attorney, Secret Service agent, politician, lobbyist, security consultant for famous rock 'n' rollers, artist manager, television producer-they all fit, but they don't begin to describe the man. Former Rolling Stone journalist Chet Flippo probably captured the definitive Bill Carter in his chronicle of the Rolling Stones, aptly titled On The Road With The Rolling Stones. The man depicted in Flippo's book is a far cry from the young man growing up in rural Arkansas at the dawn of World War II.
Bill left his home in Rector, Arkansas immediately after graduating from high school, heading for a railroad job in St. Louis. His supervisor wanted to send him to college, but Bill joined the Air Force instead. After serving in the U.S. Air Force from 1953-57, he entered Arkansas State University in Jonesboro, eventually earning a B.S. degree in economics. He later attended law school at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville.
In 1962, Carter entered the U.S. Secret Service and worked as a special agent during the Kennedy administration. Ironically, he was completing his advanced training in Washington the day Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. He was immediately assigned to President Johnson during the four days of the funeral, but he also accompanied the slain President's body to the Capitol, the funeral and Arlington Cemetery. On Thanksgiving day 1963, he was assigned to Dallas as part of the team of federal agents investigating the assassination, even accompanying Lee Oswald's family to testify before the Warren Commission. He served during the early part of the Johnson administration, and was assigned to the White House detail briefly before resigning in 1966 to return to the University of Arkansas Law School, where he obtained his degree in 1967.
The young attorney established a practice in Little Rock, specializing in civil and criminal law. A political activist in Arkansas, Carter was appointed to the Arkansas Law Enforcement Academy Commission in 1969 by Republican Governor Winthrop Rockefeller. In that position, which he held until 1972, he co-authored a book on criminal procedures and spoke to law enforcement officials throughout the state.
In 1969, Carter became involved with Memphis entrepreneur Fred Smith and his then-fledgling Federal Express and worked with the Civil Aeronautics Board in Washington for three years while establishing that company. It was during this time, through political contacts, that Carter made one of the most propitious associations of his life, and the one which would, ultimately, seal his already skyrocketing reputation.
For it was in 1973 that powerful Arkansas Congressman Wilbur Mills asked for Carter's assistance with a sticky immigration matter involving the biggest stars in rock 'n' roll music. This was to be a career builder. His new client was the Rolling Stones. The Stones had been banned from ever appearing in the United States after the riots which surrounded their 1972 U.S. concert tour, and the State Department had taken administrative action against them, alleging they advocated civil disobedience, open drug use and were a menace to the youth of America.
Although the Stones' representatives had been unable to get the State Department to budge from their position, Carter entered a proposal on behalf of the Stones which included a crowd control plan, patterned after a Secret Service presidential visit advance plan. In 1974, the State Department reversed its decision on the condition that Carter personally implement the plan for the Stones' 1975 tour of the U.S. The security used on that tour became a role model for the music industry. His involvement also included the Stones' 1978 and 1981 tours. Carter's involvement in another Rolling Stones' benchmark-Keith Richards' arrest for heroin trafficking in Canada-is also entertainingly detailed in Flippo's book, On The Road With The Rolling Stones. Carter continued his representation of the Stones, particularly Keith Richards, until 1990.
Carter's negotiating skills were again put to the test when actor Steve McQueen died in Mexico in 1980, and the Mexican authorities refused to release the body. Carter intervened, and within six hours the body was returned to the U.S. for burial. During 1980, Carter and prominent Little Rock attorney, William R. Wilson, also co-managed Senator Ted Kennedy's presidential campaign in Arkansas.
Because his involvement in the music industry had increased to such a degree, and with the encouragement of producer Jerry Crutchfield, Carter decided to open a Nashville law office in 1981. In 1983, Carter was approached by representatives of rocker David Bowie to negotiate an HBO special and book publishing deal, which resulted in Carter serving as executive-in-charge of Bowie's Serious Moonlight show on HBO.He also served as executive producer of the Asia In Asia live MTV special in 1983, the first international live broadcast of a music show.
It was also in 1983 that fate again intervened in Carter's career, and it took another unexpected turn. That year, he began representing Reba McEntire, and the next year she asked him to serve as her personal manager. Carter guided the redhead through the five most crucial and groundbreaking years of her career, leading her eventually into international superstardom. Over the next 17 years, he successfully represented such country music luminaries as Lonestar, Waylon Jennings, Lari White, Rodney Crowell, Carlene Carter, Shenandoah, Jo-El Sonnier, Rick Vincent, Philip Claypool, J.P. Pennington, Tim Ryan, and TV/radio personality Ralph Emery.
In 1995, Carter was approached by gospel music legend Bill Gaither about selling his burgeoning "Homecoming" series to The Nashville Network. Carter was responsible for establishing the Gaither Gospel Hour on TNN later that year, and serves as executive producer on the majority of the Gaither Homecoming specials on PBS and more than a dozen networks. Gaither Television Productions has produced more than six dozen Homecoming videos, as well as seven country music Homecoming-style specials, an Elvis Presley gospel collection, a Billy Graham Music Homecoming, and a Gospel Bluegrass Homecoming special. A special video biography of Billy Graham, produced by Gaither Film Productions, will be released in April, 2006. His memoirs, Get Carter: Backstage in History from JFK's Assassination to the Rolling Stones was published by Fines Creek Publishers in early 2006.
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