Marion Robert Morrison was born in Winterset,
Iowa, on May 16, 1907. At age four, his family moved to Los Angeles. He was a
gifted athlete who lost his football scholarship at USC due to a body surfing
accident. Soon, he found work in small bit parts at local film studios, where
he eventually changed his name to John Wayne.
John Wayne appeared in 142 motion pictures,
often in Westerns as a heroic character, and won an Academy Award for his role
as a U.S. Marshall in the movie TRUE GRIT.
Throughout his life, John Wayne was a staunch
political conservative, opposing communism and politically liberal viewpoints
of view.
He passed on to the Great Beyond in 1979 due to
stomach cancer.
According to a book titled JOHN WAYNE -- THE MAN
BEHIND THE MYTH by Michael Munn, there were three assassination attempts on
Wayne's life.
In 1949, Joseph Stalin (communist dictator of
the USSR) learned about John Wayne's anti-communist fervor from Russian
filmmaker Sergei Gerasimov during a peace conference in New York. Stalin soon
decided Wayne should be killed.
The plot to assassinate John Wayne was also
reported by Russian filmmaker Alexei Kapler (who had been imprisoned by Stalin)
and Russian filmmaker Sergei Bondahuck, later confirmed by Gerasimov.
According to Munn's book, John Wayne's good
friend, legendary stuntman Yakima Canutt, had "saved his life" in the
early 1950s. The FBI had discovered that Russian agents were being sent to
Hollywood to assassinate Wayne and notified him of the problem. Supposedly,
Wayne told the FBI to let the agents show up and he would deal with it. Wayne
then devised a plan, with help from a screenwriter named Jimmy Grant, to dissuade
the assassins from carrying out their plans.
While the details of the incident were never
revealed to Munn, the prevailing rumor was that a group of stuntmen abducted
the agents and drove them to a beach where they staged a mock execution.
Thereafter, the agents supposedly remained in the USA and worked for the FBI.
Subsequently, Wayne rejected any FBI protection
and relocated with his family to a more secure house surrounded by a large
wall. Thereafter, a group of Hollywood stuntmen pals infiltrated communist
cells in America and learned of additional plots to kill Wayne
In 1953, another attempt on Wayne's life was
initiated in Mexico by a communist cell when Wayne was filming the movie,
HONDO. This plot also failed.
Joseph Stalin died in 1953 whereby Nikita
Krushchev became the new communist leader of the USSR.
In a private meeting in 1958, Krushchev told Wayne
that he had cancelled Stalin's orders to assassinate him. "That was a
decision of Stalin during his last five mad years. When Stalin died, I rescinded
that order."
The third attempt on Wayne's life occurred in
1966 when he was visiting U.S. troops in Vietnam. An enemy sniper who had been
captured claimed, "There was a price on John Wayne's head, put there by
Mao Tse Tung (communist leader of China).
To some John Wayne was a grand hero, emblematic
of American values. To others, he was a symbol of what was wrong with America,
as a self-righteous bully who conquered others through force.
From FEAR AND LOATHING IN AMERICA by Hunter S.
Thompson -- "John Wayne is a final, rotten symbol of everything that went
wrong with the American dream -- he is our Frankenstein monster, a hero to
millions… The brainwaves of 'The Duke' are like those of the Hammerhead Shark…
He is a ruthless stupid beast with only one instinct -- to attack, to hurt
& cripple & kill… John Wayne, a cowboy movie actor whose only real
talent was an almost preternatural genius for brainless violence. The Duke
wasn't satisfied with just killing people; he beat them into bloody, screaming
hamburger."
Love him or hate him, John Wayne was bigger than
life. He was a proud American who understood that communism was a form of human
slavery, serving the bureaucratic masters who rule the Government Plantation.
More government control means less individual
freedom. Power does not corrupt people -- position of power attract corrupt people.
Those who yearn to control others, even if they regard it as benevolence, are
simply demanding the right to create their own version of heaven on earth. The struggle
for freedom never ends.
Whether or not John Wayne was a hero is highly
debatable.
Perhaps the true heroes are those who go gently
through life treating others with tolerance, compassion and forgiveness.
___________
Quote for the Day -- "Courage is being
scared to death and saddling up anyway." John Wayne
___________
Bret Burquest is the author of 9 books. He lives
in the Ozark Mountains with a dog named Buddy Lee and where freedom is never
free.
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