I Am Diving — Joseph Valentinetti

The story is a fiction based on fact. My protagonist, Jack York, is an ex-sailor. He suffers from Fugue, a distinctive dissociative disorder characterized by geographical displacement and amnesia for the episodes. The misunderstanding of his condition is the reason for his dishonorable discharge from the Navy. The story concerns the events that lead Jack York to be in Dallas on November 23, 1963. The premise of the story is the Dallas tragedy was carried out by two men who had no prior knowledge of each other and different targets in mind. `There exists a type of phenomenon...which has puzzled man. The seemingly accidental meeting of two unrelated causal chains in a coincidental event which appears both highly improbable and highly significant.' Arthur Koestler The significant factor motivating Jack York is the loss of the Atomic Submarine Thresher with one hundred twenty-nine men aboard. The premise is based on letters, part of one is excerpted here. Please note the date. Letter date: August 12, 1963. Notarized and mailed/receipted August 12, 1963 To: Hon. John Connally, Governor of Texas. From: Field Engineer on Thresher. Dear Governor; A plot is underway to assassinate you. As former Secretary of the Navy you are well aware of the Submarine Thresher disaster, and how Bendix used fraudulent pressure/depth curves on equipment designed and built by Bendix for submarines of the Thresher class. An organization...Justice For The Crew Of The Thresher is being formed. Sir, I beg you, if you do visit Dallas and ride in an open car, please do not allow your loved ones to ride in an open car with you. If a sniper's bullet, meant for you, was fired from a high powered rifle by one of these disgruntled former service men... The letter's author was questioned in August 1963 by Naval Intelligence, The FBI and postal authorities. The FBI and the other investigative agencies, failed to file a report concerning this and later failed to inform the Warren Commission. The letter, send three months before the Dallas event, named the three salient factors of the crime: disgruntled ex-serviceman, high powered rifle, open car.