Describing Artifacts from the 1960s

The five items found in the time capsule are: 1) a 1964 record by Nina Simone called “Wild is the Wind,” 2) A Time magazine from 1964, with a painting of the face of Lee Harvey Oswald on the cover and a banner saying: “The Warren Commission: No Conspiracy, Domestic or Foreign,” 3) a photograph of Lyndon Johnson and Mathilde Krim 4) the original Orville Nix film of John F. Kennedy’s assassination, and 5) the 1969 mugshot photograph of Sirhan Bishara Sirhan, alleged assassin of Bobby Kennedy.
The record by Nina Simone includes the song “Wild is the Wind,” which represents a powerful marriage between classical piano and blues/jazz. Nina’s rich vocals and deep voice give the song a melancholy that couples with resonating romanticism. It is just one song on the record; others are: “Black is the Color of My True Love’s Hair,” “Either Way I Lose,” and “Break Down and Let It All Out.” With this record Nina reflects a cultural shift in America at the 1960s, moving beyond the traditional parameters of life and music and embracing a new frontier. It also embraces some of the racial tension evident in the culture at the time and describes a soulful need for love in the community and love among people. When compared to the other artifacts in this time capsule, it represents a still, meaningful glance into a human heart that is beating and yearning for love while the world spins out of control into chaos all around it.

That chaos is represented in the time capsule in a number of ways: first, the Time magazine cover representing Oswald as the lone assassin of JFK. The Warren Commission has since been discredited, notably by the House Select Committee on Assassinations (JFK Assassination Records, 2016). The magazine plays up the story that Oswald acted alone and uses the Warren Commission (which was filled with persons who had a clear conflict of interest in the investigation—such as fired CIA Director Alan Dulles). This artifact is important in defining the era of the 1960s because it focuses on probably the most significant event of the decade—the assassination of the President—and upholds the official narrative of “who did it”—namely that Oswald acted alone and was not in fact the “patsy” he claimed to be.

Then there is the photograph of Lyndon Johnson with Mathilde Krim. On the night the USS Liberty was attacked by Israeli fighters, Krim was sleeping in the Johnson White House. Krim was a former Irgun member and had been married to an Irgun agent. She was, in other words, an Israeli agent—and she was intimately close to Johnson. Johnson dismissed the attack on the Liberty and it was never investigated. Johnson, needless to say, was on much better footing with the Israelis than his predecessor had been. Kennedy had been trying to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons in the Middle East (particularly in Israel) just prior to his assassination. Johnson reversed most of Kennedy’s plans (including the plan to leave Vietnam) and Israel ending up expanding its borders significantly during the Six Day War in 1967. The fact that Johnson had also been a frequent visitor at Jack Ruby’s club in Dallas and that Ruby shot and killed Oswald (the supposed lone gunman) before the latter could have a fair trial raises more questions about the chaotic nature of the times and just who was involved in killing the president and why (Piper, 2005).

The fourth artifact is the Orville Nix film which went missing at some point in the 1960s. Orville Nix recorded the last few moments of the Kennedy assassination from the opposite perspective of the Zapruder film. It shows Kennedy’s car coming to a near crawl just before the final head shot is delivered and indicates a startling lack of protocol on the part of the Secret Service driver who never should have allowed the car to slow to that speed—especially with the sound of shots being fired. Its disappearance represents the suppression of evidence consistent with the times.

The fifth artifact is the mugshot of Sirhan Sirhan—a Palestinian who was said to have killed RFK. RFK surely would have gone on to win the White House. It is interesting to note that Sirhan has no recollection of the incident (Associated Press, 2011) and his mugshot suggests that he is indeed not in possession of his faculties. Could he have been the victim of an MK-ULTRA plot driven by the CIA? The photo raises more interesting questions about the assassination and suggests that there is more to meets the eye than the official narrative describes. The film The Manchurian Candidate already made it seem possible that government forces could use mind control. Perhaps this was a real-life example of such.

In conclusion, the major lesson that can be learned from the 1960s was that it was a very turbulent era where major disruptive events were happening and where their causes were hidden from the public awareness. Instead, the public was spoon fed disinformation and the true nature of relationships took many years to be fully revealed. In spite of this era of lives and manipulation, there was a steady voice from people within the culture, calling for something more—some compassion, some loving spirit, some spirit of truth and stillness. Nina Simone’s voice represents that call, but of course there were many others—like her friend Malcolm X (also assassinated)—and other artists and writers who were disturbed by what was happening. There era was truly one in which too many problems were occurring and a solution needed to be found that was just out of reach, though the human soul clearly yearned for it.

References
Associate Press. (2011). Convicted RFK assassin Sirhan Sirhan says girl in polka-dot
dress manipulated him. Retrieved from http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2011/04/convicted_rfk_assassin_sirhan_sirhan_girl_polka-dot_dress.html
JFK Assassination Records. (2016). Summary of findings. Retrieved from
https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/select-committee-report/summary.html
Piper, M. C. (2005). Final Judgment. DC: American Free Press.