“Thank you for coming, gentlemen. We’ve always worked to a common agenda, but it’s been a while since we’ve been united around the same mission brief.” Thomas felt a deep sense of relief as he addressed James and Sal in secure room SR19. He’d picked it for its circular table, so no one was sat at its head. “There’s a lot of reading material to plough through before we get into the discussions so feel free to enjoy the catering. I suggest we individually review the materials, work our way through systematically, then begin an integrated review. We’ll see how much progress we make by 3pm and plan from there.”
His two friends nodded in agreement. James correctly prioritised food before work. There was nostalgic comfort in the way he served them plates overloaded with breakfast items and cups filled to the brim with coffee, cream and three sugars.
“Old habits, Jimmy!” laughed Sal.
“Chow down, fellas. We’re gonna need it where we’re going. I’d say we don’t know when to expect our next meal, but then I’d be lying. That’s scheduled to arrive at 11:45 hours and it goddamn will!” James beamed back. Now balding and laden with a tall frame that had been rewarded for successful command, he gave off their air of a man full of mysterious insight buried somewhere in the light blue eyes. He had a natural inscrutability that flowed from stillness, which the others had learned to imitate once they recognised it as a key survival skill in clandestine operations. When he became animated, James was not ashamed of injecting moments of childish humour to break tension and relieve stress.
Each friend faced a daunting pile of variously thick dossiers that spanned the projects within their integrated review. They had been authorised to assess progress and how each project in its current state might relate to the others. Opportunities up and down the project chains would be identified for further consideration. The review was going to be involved and take multiple meetings before they had recommendations worthy of presenting to the Director. They had designed it that way.
SR19 was totally secure. No one could see or hear what they were doing in the room. There was nothing in the room to distract them from their task beyond themselves and the breakfast trolley. No clock, radio, TV or pictures. The walls were a tedious beige, the furniture minimalist to make bug sweeping easier. Their review meeting was a GO/NO GO gateway. If they tried to conduct business in this room and were found out and taken down, then they could never have made further progress anyway. If the room really was secure and they really were trusted to conduct the business they were authorised to, they had the means to refine the strategy and make things happen. They had achieved a lot through subterfuge but now their clandestine executive team needed some face time. Each man selected the twelfth dossier in the stack, which was one of the slimmest in the whole pile.
COATHANGER
Progress grindingly slow due to multiple constraints:
Material sciences - unable to determine molecular composition of any of the artefacts.
Language - no further development on NoVeL Comms or discovery of written languages within NETV01 - 04.
Bio-interface - physical size mismatch to humans and possible biological mismatches prevent full, knowing engagement of operational interfaces.
Research resource compartmentalisation - Secrecy prevents the use of wider skillsets and personnel in conducting investigations.
Value
COATHANGER can always be used as the ultimate enemy threat model, to which all other activity can be related and/or overridden. Overt presentation of such threats and justification is unwise and has never been necessary to date. Their capabilities and our lack of equal power is a given that is accepted at Director level. The reason why progress is slow is self-evident, but also a risk (see below) that can be countered by the promise of power. Discoveries must therefore be released at the slowest acceptable rate to ensure interest and investment is maintained but asymmetry is absolutely minimised.
Ultimate payoffs of COATHANGER are energy, defence systems, travel, power.
Risk
Aside from standard operational, expansion and investment risks, any administration or Directorship could mothball the project in favour of other priorities or subject to constraints or mandates.
S4 and wider Groom Lake expansion for this and military projects is approved for 10 years but does not guarantee interest in COATHANGER for that time.
Bridging the intellectual gap will be fundamental to this integrated review. Director needs to be convinced that COATHANGER continues to relate to direct terrestrial interests and applications, which will require political narrative….
BLUEBIRD
BLUEBIRD legacy is political and practical. Despite having ceased, BLUEBIRD links COATHANGER directly to the projects in the review, all of which are relevant to future progress. Therefore, it provides a logical and intellectual connection to the seemingly isolated and bizarre COATHANGER. Narrative must serve to remind and reinforce this at Director level in order to justify the integration as it relates to COATHANGER.
BLUEBOOK
Extensive data gathering has largely confirmed COATHANGER work but provided little direct contributory knowledge as all genuine reports did not result in a deepening of understanding of mechanisms, technologies etc. NoVeL Comms have been experienced and reported consistently on the occasions they occurred.
BLUEBOOK’s major legacy is the solidification of narrative control techniques in multiple channels. This is out of scope but will continue, grow and likely become standard operating procedure.
BLUEBOOK planned to wind down. Air Force resources and networks will become inaccessible for this direct purpose unless replaced…
MK Project Suite
MK projects represent the only current manifestations of COATHANGER derivatives that have Agency and wider applications and therefore cannot be abandoned. Methods and origins of those methods are contradictory and antithetical to values of the administration, constitution and to project leadership who do not have the luxury of selecting tools. Legal justifications for MK work do not exist. Sponsorship is Director level on results basis with minimal method oversight.
MK methods are unrecoverable due to direct sponsorship subject to zero executive oversight. Minority actors are self-contained in budget and control. FARMHAND operates on a results need to know basis and can acquisition resources directly. Scope of methods indicated by Fort Detrick ULTRA reports into lethality research are profound:
“The dose required to achieve the fatal effects of sarin gas in humans now confirmed is not dependent upon age.”
Project integration could serve to re-contextualise MK work and also use or apply findings to shift progress of NoVeL Comms or other COATHANGER fields…
Each man studiously mapped their personal thoughts on legal pads as they worked through the dossier. After an hour, their pencils came to rest.
“Initial thoughts?” asked Thomas.
James maintained his pensive look. He let out a voluminous belch through a wide open mouth that gave him a momentary third chin. They all burst into laughter that had been waiting decades to be released.
“I was hoping you’d say that!” said Sal as he pushed his empty plate back across the table. “Bacon, egg and sausage roll.” Sal refilled their coffee. James reloaded the plates as though they were running out of time before their return to the battlefield.
“Margaret’s got me on a fucking diet,” James said over his shoulder as he built Sal’s order. “If only she knew the operational demands we were under. I was thinking I could justify a Q clearance for her on the basis of the need for me to maintain my operational performance. This brain doesn’t run on salad.”
“Buddy, if I can’t get a reliable supply of French cheese, wine and patisseries into this place then you haven’t got a hope in hell. And that’s before you factor in budget cutbacks.” Thomas’ love of French cuisine had developed during his wartime efforts to help the resistance establish encrypted radio communications with the Brits. It was after his return to Blighty following Liberation that he’d met Sal and started his journey from Signals Intelligence Service into OSS proper.
"Roll on lunch,” said Sal. He had a nostalgic surprise on the way. He had requested Eszter make a pot of Hungarian goulash. His military skills hadn’t died and he had taken extreme care to maintain good relationships with Agency catering. Eszter was a second generation Hungarian immigrant who had inherited her culinary skills from her mother. Thomas and Sal’s first mission together had been a parachute insertion into Poland with an encryption machine to establish a Central European communications network. When they had finished training the locals in practises and protocols, they had quick footed it into Hungary to establish another communications node amongst the fractious Hungarian resistance. Together they had developed an appreciation for the local cuisine and bone structure. Food would drive reminiscence and that was a useful delay tactic that would extend their integrated review. Between them they had enough foreign and domestic experience to continue making such demands of the Agency kitchen staff and thereby conduct a round-the-world tour from the comfort of SR19, a soundproof, windowless box within a box.
COATHANGER was Thomas’ area. Despite being deputy chief, he exercised primary control. His boss, Walter DeVille, was being groomed for transfer to NSA and Thomas would rise accordingly. It was the most bizarre and exotic of the Agency’s interests. COATHANGER harboured the non-human or extremely foreign artefacts and entities that it had acquired over the two decades since the event in New Mexico in 1947. While the Agency was still in dunce mode on COATHANGER, it remained at the top of their project hierarchy because it told the Agency two fundamental things: that there was more to the Earth or beyond that it did not understand; that the administration was not in control of its nuclear arsenal and likely nor were the Soviets in control of theirs. COATHANGER hinted at power that would change the globe if it could be understood, harnessed and wielded so it could not be ignored. The three comrades agreed that it was the source of a high level control narrative to which all other work needed to be directly or indirectly related. It gave them the tools of persuasion and fear that they needed to exercise control over their superiors and the Agency, without them having any such formal power.
COATHANGER was the source of Non-human, non-Verbal, Language independent communications (NoVeL Comms). Only Thomas had experienced it directly but their efforts to integrate project workstreams could lead to access for James and Sal. NoVeL Comms was the name given to how the entities communicated with humans: wordless speech that occurred directly within the mind, with varying degrees of emotional influence and the ability to project visions into the mind’s eye. How it was done was unknown and not under their control, which was an ongoing source of fear and wonder. The one entity that remained communicated on a one-sided basis and was unwilling to reveal knowledge or techniques. It had been careful to reveal to them that, despite its confinement, it knew of at least some of the activities in the S4 base, especially their investigations into the artefacts and the other entities. The dominant emotion it had communicated was an acceptance of the inevitability of human choices to dissect and study the entities, rather than some form of anger or pain. It was because of the Agency’s lack of understanding of the true power of the remaining entity and fear that it harboured unknown capabilities that kept interrogation off the table. No one had a defence against the entity’s way of communicating, so the idea that inducing pain by prodding it with a stick might lead to other outcomes beyond their control kept them at a distance. Behaviourally, there had been little to fathom as well. It did not eat, expressed no issues with its captivity and had few overt demands. Periodically, it had demanded entry to its vehicle, which they had denied until they realised that there was some form of existential link between it and the craft. The longer they denied it proximity or access, the greater its periods of pseudostasis became. It had presented them with a rational assessment of their own circumstances: their actions or choices could lead to a certain outcome - the death of the last remaining entity, but beyond that they would not be able to envisage other outcomes. To prevent such an outcome, they had to capitulate to its request for access to the vehicle, which implied the entity’s possible escape. Damage to the craft, it told them, made that impossible, but they had to trust that was the case. It was able to demonstrate that human interaction with it was transparent. It reflected their anger, frustration, curiosity and possible intentions back to them, which they took as a warning not to try to force or coerce the entity, leaving them in a protracted stand off. The Agency generally interpreted the entity’s ability as telepathy and mind reading, which compounded fear and fuelled curiosity.
Thomas and Walter had come to agree a possibility that further slowed investigation: the entity could be a form of probe, and its contact with the craft its means for survival and communication back to its species. If that were the case, limiting its human exposure to the bare minimum was a sensible option in order to limit its access to information. This had direct consequences on the project’s operations. Only guards with clearance but no significant knowledge of value would be allowed to interact with the entity and take it to its vehicle. Periods up to pseudostasis would be tolerated for as long as possible, which they established was nearly a year. This non-hostile confinement might, over time, lead to it attempting to expand its interaction with humans in order to further its intel gathering, should that be its purpose or agenda. This strategy fitted with the Agency’s need to limit security issues that stemmed from the entity’s acquisition of information from humans via its NoVeL Comms ability, while at the same time testing their triggering theory over what they accepted could be a long period of time. Their painfully slow observation of the entity was paired with calculated attempts to trigger its communication around controlled stimulus and interactions. They introduced items that were as carefully curated as could be, to engage the entity and observe its behaviour. Deciding what items to introduce was laborious as they had designed a lengthy protocol to assess every item. They had ruled out, for example, all information transmissions and most books because they feared the lack of context would give rise to misinterpretation. Certain children’s books in multiple languages had been introduced. The Bible had been ruled out straight away.
The asymmetry of the situation bred a paranoia that pervaded COATHANGER and aspects of Agency culture. Their assumption that the entity could read minds meant that it had some degree of access to any guard’s mind, which was bound to give it access to massive amounts of personal and cultural information. That, in itself, could be all that a non-human probe was seeking to access. Interaction was impossible past a certain point without human exposure, but was utterly minimised nonetheless. Guards fulfilling the role were young, given no other project access or knowledge and selected for their minimal wider relationships, which served another and much darker security protocol known to no one but the project leadership. This requirement had been requested by CIA Director, Alan Dulles, and was a reflection of his personal mentality that manifested in BLUEBIRD, which served to betray Dulles’ wider attitude and agenda. By employing guards of limited experience and capability with whom its contact was minimised, the entity’s source of information about the human race might be limited. It was accepted that its level of advanced capabilities meant that it must already have extreme amounts of external knowledge that they could not determine, so there was no point in starving it of models of the globe or objects of practical use. It was not confined to an empty concrete box deep underground at S4. Its environment was slowly furnished to ape a relatively normal human apartment so the project could observe contextual behaviour and also potentially trigger communications. These efforts did little to turn the tables. COATHANGER’s study was reversed and the guards became the focus of investigation. They were carefully questioned about their interactions and communications with the entity in the hope that NoVeL Comms could come to be understood by proxy. This meant that, in Dulles’ eyes, the job of guard was a time limited, one-way street.
BLUEBIRD was the inevitable spin off of COATHANGER that sought to investigate the possibility of mind control that stemmed from NoVeL. The logic was obvious, as were the justifications and the way in which political context and ambition could justify the project. Put very simply, if anyone could gain power over the human mind and exert control over it in any way approaching that displayed by the entity then power and security gains or losses would result. In the context of war, empire and politics, it was an easy sell. The notion of North Korean abilities to brainwash prisoners of war was amplified within the Agency as a means to pursue BLUEBIRD’s objective and provide a cover justification should the project ever come to light. The operational reality was that Dulles was direct sponsor and his activities served to protect himself and his ambitions via the Agency’s remit to protect the nation. By instigating the BLUEBIRD remit in the way that he did, Dulles betrayed his desire to grow power and reduce accountability.
From the inside, the Agency was lying to itself. It was not possible to justify BLUEBIRD to any significant Agency or administration audience on the basis that an entity in COATHANGER was exercising some form of mind control over humans. To do so was to admit COATHANGER’s existence to people who were never going to know. That truth had to be disguised. This required the invention of a story. The broadcast statements of US POWs held by the North Koreans were spun as evidence that NK forces appeared to have brainwashed the POWs. That was sufficient pre-text to explain to agents in BLUEBIRD why the project existed without revealing its origins in COATHANGER. Just this one lie had far-reaching ramifications for general perception that spun on down through the Agency and into society, like an unreliable boomerang. This technique was par for the course but the scale of the lie was huge. The truth of the POWs was very, very simple. In the face of ill treatment and sufficient torture, all men have their breaking point. Signing a paper or making a statement is an inevitability. Some of the POWs had been permanently psychologically damaged by their treatment, but none of them were brainwashed in the sense that was peddled by the Agency’s cover story.
The day Thomas became aware of BLUEBIRD was the day that his ordinary motivations began to die. It marked his transition from a slightly romantic pragmatist into an increasingly hardened and quieter realist. That was the point he should have left the Agency, but it was already too late. He had learned too much, had too great a level of natural curiosity and still clung to notions of duty to God and Country. He decided to remain and do what he could to influence operations from the inside. What he could not fathom was the price that would have to be paid to attempt to counterbalance the desires of small men.
BLUEBOOK was officially the Air Force’s long running, far-reaching investigation in to UFO and weird phenomena. It was actually a joint USAF and Agency project that directly fed into COATHANGER. By they time of their meeting in SR19, BLUEBOOK was slated for closure. BLUEBOOK had delivered two things: contributory information to COATHANGER that reinforced aspects of pre-existing knowledge; the concerted means to control wider narrative, perception and discourse through information channels. Much of BLUEBOOK’s material was invented by the BLUEBOOK team and was propaganda to be used widely with multiple audiences. Success in this arena morphed into generalised efforts to control information that emboldened Dulles and the Agency beneath him. This paved the way for the pursuit of more extreme work, including the MK projects and the widening of domestic and foreign propaganda techniques to non-military matters.
MK projects were some kernel of method that had quickly been consumed by madness. The trouble was that the madness had degrees of value to the Agency and other interested parties. Questions about exactly what needed to have happened to deliver such value were not asked, on purpose. Plausible deniability, lack of oversight and zero public awareness bred the perfect environment for the Agency to develop and peddle its distasteful wares.
BLUEBIRD’s objective of exploring human mind control had spawned increasingly granular Investigations, Practises and Applications through its MK child projects. Dulles had empowered Sidney Gottlieb to run free in his use of biological and chemical agents to exercise control over subjects. Thomas, James and Sal between them had deep insight into the MK results but zero control over method. To attempt to intervene was to run up against the Director and that would result in their loss of position or control with all that entailed. They would be considered enemies and threats instead of boxed-in servants of the Director, and that was the biggest mistake they could make.
The darkest irony was that intelligence work required agents to penetrate enemy structures, operate behind enemy lines and, where necessary, blend in with the enemy in order to extract intel that would be used for noble purposes. The ultimate safeguard was the notion that one’s ultimate purpose or goal was somehow justifiable and righteous in the eyes of those who could judge. Now those lines were totally blurred. Operation PAPERCLIP had imported senior Nazis into the USA to further its supremacy across a broad spectrum of capabilities. Weapons, medicine, psychology, social control were just some of the areas where the enemy’s ideology had found a foothold in American society. This was the start of the madness. MK projects were just an extension of that.
Gottlieb’s agenda built on and aped Nazi experimentation on humans, beginning with prisoners, moving through service personnel and eventually drawing subjects from domestic and international citizenry. No stone was left unturned in his attempts to erase and reprogram the human mind using all manner of drugs, natural and synthetic, and invasive techniques that he and his small team invented. The original scope had been to determine whether it was possible to exert control over a person to the point that truth could be reliably extracted. Then it turned towards the possibility of making people into drones, mules and assassins. In parallel, the biological and chemical arsenal was being expanded via Gottlieb out of Fort Detrick. The three friends had no choice but to maintain cover and observe the madness while enduring the torment of having no handler to whom they could report their findings or concerns. Worst of all, they could not intervene. Gottlieb would have to burn himself out. He was everyone’s fall guy, so long as sufficient distance and deniability was maintained. The documentation made that tricky but that would change should sufficient threat present itself to Dulles. If Dulles cleaned house, likely they all would be spared. If they caught wind of a burn, they knew what needed to disappear.
“Well, fellas, what’s our gut feelings?” Sal asked.
“We’re where we’ve always been,” replied James. “In the hornet’s nest, only this time home is a twenty minute drive. We’ve secured the intel feed and acquired the view. The question is how we build the means to act, and what our purpose should be. What’s different now is that we are our own masters, in some sense. That’s probably the most daunting thing.” James alluded to the irony of intelligence work. To many, they were already part of the monster. To them, it was the choices they would make from this point onwards that would determine what they were.
“The way I look at it, the only way to stay clean is to dive further into the shit,” was Sal’s reply. He spun his pad towards his friends to show them his notes. “If we combine our top level hierarchy with this…” He pointed to two boxes marked COINTELPRO and CHAOS. “…what do we get?”
“More than dinner for three,” quipped Thomas, although they knew he was right - they were continuing to bite off more than most could chew. Sal nodded.
“Yep. These projects get us the intel on political dissident activity and the inside track on what a dissident is and to whom. So, we get a live view of power and we can monitor the Agency, the Feds and the administration through that lens. But that’s not the bad bit.”
“It’s acting that’s the bad bit.” said James. “Or rather, how we act.” He let out a small laugh of almost disbelief. “The only way we can act is totally off the books. To achieve that, we have basically got to become everything that we have ever fought against.”
“Jimbo, we crossed that line - technically - years ago,” replied Thomas. “If acting is the only way we can make a difference and interrupt this madness, then we have to do it in a way that ensures we don’t get caught out. Standard Operating Procedure. The only difference between us now and us when we ran around Europe dodging bullets and the clap is that the size of the map and our view of the horizon has grown. That means - when it comes to equipping ourselves with the means to act - learning from the best and the worst. Privilege gives us that opportunity. The question is whether we are already corrupt and, if not, whether we can remain uncorrupted, despite our chosen methods.”
“God and Country?” James asked.
“God’s still a possibility, irrespective of what COATHANGER might mean for God,” Sal said. “As for Country, that’s now an ideal and not really a reality. The country is defined by the worst of its actions, and we have the proof that it’s in a slow spiral downwards. If the Director doesn’t push up against some kind of equal and opposite force, or any degree of opposing force, we know how this plays out. The - any - administration becomes irrelevant. BLUEBIRD and MK are direct attempts at usurpation. If any of those projects succeed and can be covertly applied to domestic targets, politics leads us into the Fourth Reich. If you can dose anyone and take control, all positions of authority are fair game to the puppet master.”
“You always were a master of understatement, Sal. Reminds me of the time you said it was just flesh wound.” Thomas looked down in the direction of Sal’s leg.
“No gangrene, no broken bones, and I could still move. It was a flesh wound. I had that thoroughly confirmed by Lenke, and she was an extremely skilled nurse.”
“What other information do we need?” James was ready to append their answers to Sal’s diagram.
“Street level technique. Sources of resources. Means to divert them, hide them and use them. A primary team, a secondary team or set of assets,” Thomas said.
“Not all at once, Tommy.” Sal cautioned. “We learn the technique. Then we build some structure. Then we divert the resource and let it build up. Don’t do anything else. we’ll have our hands full learning all of that, establishing the cover and seeing if it draws attention.”
“OK, what’s the best source for technique?”
“Us plus law enforcement. Both of those are risky moves. Bart could take a first look.” Bart Cranforth had been promoted from Thomas’ aide to an upper middle desk in Project CHAOS, the CIA’s partner project to the FBI’s long running COINTELPRO operation in to domestic dissent. In a few years he would rise to become senior and could begin to direct resources and actions. In the meantime, he could start to penetrate the Feds and find out what they knew about the best (and worst) in class of criminal enterprises and the techniques they used to move, launder and safely spend money. Other big police departments would have that knowledge as well. The CIA were expert in it too but breaking down another internal wall needed careful execution and it was too close to home for the time being.
“Funds-wise, I’ve got a funny feeling,” Thomas mused. “We might end up back in the war game.” Tapping government funds via military contracts was an obvious and lucrative practise. President Eisenhower had told the whole nation in his farewell speech that this was rife and had inadvertently grown the practise even faster, instead of slowing it. “Oh yeah, I digress, but I’m wondering about COATHANGER. I could do with throwing the bosses a tidbit on it. Shall we tell them about the windows or the frequency generation?”
“Windows, definitely,” was James’ preference. “That’s a contained issue for small minds. The frequency generation suggests communications and more. Hold back on that, otherwise there’ll be a fucking ray gun on the MK ULTRA list as well.”
It was 10:30. The breakfast trolley was empty and coffee was at 30%. There was an art to going slow.
“Gents, can I direct your attention to solo file F7, codenamed COUCOU?” Thomas slid a red folder into the centre of the table. Sal reached over and flicked it open. “Some historical photographic intel that requires your analysis and assessment, please.”
The first photograph in the file was of the three of them in uniform, on an airfield. Next to Jimbo was a BSA Goldstar motorcycle. Sal leaned on a crutch. Tommy, in between the two, had his arms around their necks. All of them beamed smiles.
“Ah yes… Good assets,” went Sal’s assessment. “Dangerous, mostly reliable and trustworthy to the bitter end.”
It had been his best day in the office that he could recall. Likely it would get better as they strung out their review. They had legitimate reason for extended social contact as well and the seniority and shared history to bull out questions about professionalism. They’d have to book dinner and bring the ladies as well. Harriett would be over the moon at the thought of a reunion and he would be able to give her a glimpse of his old self.
He found her in the lounge, and joined her on the sofa as she watched the news.
I have bad news for you, for all of our fellow citizens, and people who love peace all over the world, and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and killed tonight.
Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice between fellow human beings, he died in the cause of that effort.
In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it is perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in. For those of you who are black--considering the evidence there evidently is that there were white people who were responsible--you can be filled with bitterness and with hatred and a desire for revenge. We can move in that direction as a country, in greater polarization - black people amongst blacks, white people amongst whites - filled with hatred toward one another.
Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand and to comprehend, and replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand, compassion and love.
For those of you who are black and are tempted to be filled with hatred and distrust of the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I can only say that I feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man. But we have to make an effort in the United States, we have to make an effort to understand, to go beyond these rather difficult times.
My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He wrote: "In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God."
What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness; but is love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black.
We can do well in this country. We will have difficult times; we've had difficult times in the past; we will have difficult times in the future. It is not the end of violence; it is not the end of lawlessness; it is not the end of disorder.
But the vast majority of white people and the vast majority of black people in this country want to live together, want to improve the quality of our life, and want justice for all human beings that abide in our land.
Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.
Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people.
That she had begun to cry told him that he had married the right woman.