I guess it comes down to, "What would you do?"
Tom Jefferson is a Korean war ex-POW. Upon release, he is sent to a hospital in Japan to recover, meets up with a stunning caretaker, courts her, marries her, and takes her to the states. They settle in Miami where she finds work in the state democratic party helping get JFK elected. He works as a consultant doing what he learned in the army.
He was a sniper.
And one of his best clients is organized crime. They are not happy that Castro has sent them all packing in the name of a socialist state. That puts the mob in the uncomfortable position of siding with the FBI and CIA in wanting Cuba back the way it was. The mob hires Tom to assassinate Castro.
The Chicago mob is working hard to deliver Illinois for Kennedy, who is widely known for his bedding most any woman with a heartbeat, especially Marilyn Monroe. To make sure that Kennedy fulfills his campaign 'promise' to the mob for delivering Illinois, the mob has numerous audiotapes of the future president bedding any number of star struck ladies. While Tom is conducting his research on Castro, his mob contact takes Tom to his place to listen to a tape, maybe even a tape of JFK and Monroe. They have some drinks, get the tape recorder ready to run, and listen to JFK getting it on with an unknown woman.
Tom's wife.
Who ends up dead a few days later.
If you were a trained sniper and found out just who was shagging your now dead wife, what would you do?
Tom goes to ground, walks out on the Castro hit and changes his target to the president-elect. Using some former contacts, he learns of Kennedy's schedule up until the inauguration and starts to scout out locations. The mob ain't happy about him stiffing them on the Castro hit and sets a retired FBI agent and his team on Tom's trail.
Tom's best bet is Kennedy's visit to Harvard just after the new year. With the help of a couple of pro Castro ladies, they manage to spirit 2 freshmen out of their dorm room for a ski weekend and then set out to wait for Kennedy's visit.
(I'm going to guess that most readers aren't going to rush right out to get this 1999 copyright - that's code for SPOILER ALERT).
Tom and his partner, another pro Castro sympathizer, set up for the shot. They open the window, Tom sights the bridge of Kennedy's nose, pulls the trigger and 'click' as the firing pin strikes nothing. That's because the only shooting that day is with a film camera.
They easily walk out of the dorm amongst the crowd, leaving their equipment hidden in the dorm room to be found later by some government types. The film finds it's way to Cuba where Castro's security chief packages it up with a letter to the head of the CIA telling him that they got close once and if the US invades, they will get even closer the next time.
Interesting concept and reasonably plotted. But I found this clever story to plod along far too slowly for my tastes. Halfway through, I knew this was going to be a lesson in discipline. The only thing that kept me going was to see how Tom was going to nail Kennedy for nailing his wife. Kerr has a pretty substantial body of work, but I'm not very likely to venture back. But consider that the Bay of Pigs did occur, it offers a different take on Nov 22, 1963. Oliver Stone would be proud.
East Coast Don
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