LEONARD
BERNSTEIN AND JFK -
"We don't dare confront the implications."
Just as
JFK’s 100 birthday was celebrated in 2017, Leonard Bernstein’s 2018 centennial
is being recognized and celebrated, and should reflect his feelings on JFK and
his assassination.
As one
of America’s premier composers and conductors, Bernstein was not only a contemporary of
JFK at Harvard, but a New York City neighbor, acquaintance and personal friend who dined often together.
Among
other things, Bernstein composed the music for the hit Broadway play and movie West
Side Story, that featured Natalie Wood and actor Richard Beymer.
Beymer figures
prominently in the recently released records under the JFK Act as someone who
associated with Syliva Duran, the Mexican national who worked at the Cuban
embassy in Mexico City and dealt with both Beymer and the accused assassin of
President Kennedy, both of whom wanted visas to Cuba.
Wood and
Beymer played a contemporary Romeo and Julet in the movie, and while Wood’s
suspicious death is being reinvestigated today, Beymer was a subject of CIA records recently released under the JFK Act - CIA phone taps of the Cuban embassy, where he called after the assassination
seeking information on Syliva Duran.
Beymer
was one of the two American Gringos who reportedly attended a Twist Party
hosted by Duran where Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused assassin of the President,
was said to have been encouraged to kill JFK by those from the Cuban embassy.
While Duran knew the name of the American film actor, when she was interviewed by reporters she
suspected he was still alive and refused to identify him to protect him.
From the
government records recently released under the JFK act, CIA wiretap documents
identify Beymer. When contacted recently Beymer acknowledged being in Mexico
for a film festival, and visiting the Cuban embassy in an attempt to get a visa
to Cuba, but he said he doesn’t recall attending a Twist Party or meeting
Oswald, though attending a Twist Party is something they would have done, being
two footloose Americans below the border.
Who was
Beymer’s companion? The other Gringo, Beymer said, was Bradley Pierce, then a
New York City bar owner who is now a Catholic priest.
Father
Bradley Pierce recalls being in Mexico City on the day of the assassination,
exiting the elevator in a hotel lobby to learn that the president had been
killed, but he doesn’t recall a Twist Party or meeting the accused assassin.
Since they were only in Mexico a few weeks, and were there at the time of the
assassination, they weren’t there when Oswald was there in late September and
early October.
While
Beymer said he didn’t remember Sylvia Duran, a CIA wiretap report indicates he
knew her well enough to call the Cuban embassy and ask for her by name, and
inquire as to how she was, indicating he knew she had been violently
interrogated by Mexican police after the assassination.
There
are reports that under interrogation Duran confessed to meeting Oswald outside
the Cuban embassy and having an intimate relation with him. A friend of Duran
said that she met Oswald at Sanborn’s restaurant, near the American embassy,
where others said they saw Oswald leave the restaurant on the back of a motorcycle
on the way to the Cuban embassy to try to get a visa to Cuba.
Another unsubstantiated
report has Duran taking Oswald to a more fancy restaurant where they met the
Cuban ambassador to Mexico, a story repeated by a doctor who treated the CIA
backed Cuban refugees in Florida for Catholic Welfare, an organization
supported by the CIA’s Catherwood Foundation.
While it
is unlikely Duran had a sexual affair with Oswald, she most certainly did have
an affair with Carlos Lechuga, the Cuban ambassador at the UN who was the key
intermediary in the back channel negotiations between JFK and Castro at the
time of the assassination. It is possible she also had an intimate affair with Richard
Beymer, the American film actor who she tried to protect, and who may be trying
to protect her.
But what
are they protecting? Their infidelities? Or something more?
Beymer
was the on screen lover of Natalie Wood in the contemporary adaption of Romeo
and Juliet, that had a music scored by Leonard Bernstein, a personal friend and
associate of President Kennedy.
In 1962
Leonard Bernstein introduced seven year old Chinese cellist Yo-Yo Ma, in a
concert attended by President Kennedy. A year later JFK was dead and Bernstein was greatly affected by his murder.
As
explained by the official New York Philharmonic history: the Death of the
President The Philharmonic and Leonard Bernstein Respond: News of President John F. Kennedy's assassination reached the New York
Philharmonic during an afternoon subscription concert led by George Szell.
Following Beethoven's Leonore Overture No. 3, the Orchestra's manager Carlos
Moseley broke the news to the audience and canceled the rest of the program.
The remaining concerts that weekend replaced the overture with the funeral
march from Beethoven's Symphony No. 3, Eroica, performed without applause.
On November 24, Leonard Bernstein
conducted Mahler's Symphony No. 2, Resurrection, in a televised tribute to
President Kennedy. Not only was it the first time the complete symphony was
televised, but performing Mahler for an event of this nature was unprecedented.
At the United Jewish Appeal Benefit the next day, Bernstein explained his novel
decision to program this work rather than the expected Eroica or a requiem....
Since the tribute to JFK, Mahler
symphonies have become part of the standard repertoire for national mourning.
In
explaining why he chose to play that hopeful music rather than a funeral durge,
Bernstein quoted Kennedy as saying, “America’s leadership must be guided by
learning and reason.”
“Learning
and reason: precisely the two elements that were necessarily missing from the
mind of anyone who could have fire that impossible bullet. Learning and reason:
the motto we here tonight must continue to uphold with redoubled tenacity, and
must continue, at any price, to make the basis of all our actions.”
In 1980,
Bernstein was booed and hissed on stage when he said:
"We
don't dare confront the implications. I think we've all agreed there was a
conspiracy to kill President Kennedy, and we just don't want to know the
complete truth. It involves such powerful forces in what we call high places
that if we do know, everything might fall apart. We don't dare confront the implications."
Everything
fell apart, and now we must confront the implications.
Bernstein upon learning of JFK's murder
2 comments:
Bill, a great, great piece of writing. Bernstein sure summed up the assassination and this nation's continued denial response about the who, what and why of it all.
What a great Bernstein quote! Can't wait to see the new movieout about him!
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