JOHN KEEL NOT AN AUTHORITY ON ANYTHING

Here’s another curiosity from John’s files: a description of his life in Hollywood, from 1965. Given the references in the introduction, my guess is that it was written for the Perry Herald. A couple of notes: Bed of Nails was the working title for Three Women. Robert Q. Lewis was the host of the TV show Play Your Hunch, which John wrote for back then. Here’s a picture of the two of them. And I’ll post the second part next week.

This letter was published in Gray Barker’s Newsletter, #6, April-May-June 1976. A few footnotes: Jennings Frederick claimed an alien contact in Fairmont, WV, in July 1968: a “vegetable man” who hypnotized him and took his blood. The Frank Gorshin movie was Invasion of the Saucer Men, from 1957. Jerome Eden was a ufologist and Reichian. James Moseley was one of John’s favorite targets: Coral Lorenzen was the head of APRO (Aerial Phenomena Research Organization), and may indeed have fallen out with Moseley; Joe Pyne was a TV host who specialized in ridiculing his guests, one of whom was Moseley. J. Allen Hynek was a prominent ufologist, known particularly for his role in Project Blue Book. Stendek, or Stendec, was a popular word among UFO buffs: it was the last word sent by the airliner Kashima-shi Star Dust before it crashed in the Andes in 1947.

As the second (and last) chapter of John’s unfinished spy story concludes, secret agent Al Mercy and his contact, Gerda Feldstein, wrestle naked for her Luger, before settling for naked kissing. Damn this war!

As the second chapter of John’s unfinished spy story continues, the reader learns more about Al Mercy’s mission and background. Unfortunately, Gerda Feldstein has her suspicions, as well as a gun…

In the first chapter of John’s unfinished and untitled spy story, WW2 secret agent Al Mercy parachuted into a nudist colony on a Scandinavian island. As the second (and last) chapter begins, he discusses his mission with his contact, the beautiful and naked Gerda Feldstein. Assassination, mutual suspicion, and sexual tension lie ahead…

The exciting serial of Al Mercy continues! In the rest of the first chapter, Al Mercy, an American secret agent in World War 2, after having parachuted into a Scandinavian nudist colony, meets his contact.

For those of you just joining us, John wrote two chapters of an untitled spy story, which I’m posting here. I have no idea what he meant to do with it.

John apparently started this spy novel in the late ’60s, judging from the other papers in the folder. Maybe it was a first attempt at Love That Spy, maybe not. At any rate, he wrote two chapters, in which secret agent Al Mercy parachutes onto a nudist colony on a Scandinavian island in World War 2. There he joins forces with the beautiful Gerda Feldstein to find and kill General Hans Von Passel. It’s pretty silly, but you may welcome some diversion in these troubled times. John didn’t give it a title, so I’ll just call it after its dashing hero.

Also in the spring and summer of 1968, a satirical monthly called Caricatour debuted and died. It was published by Art Pottier; Googling tells me he contributed to early issues of Cracked. Caricatour featured some fine cartoonists, including Jules Feiffer, Charles Rodrigues, Sid Harris, and Ed Harris, as well as pages of rather mild jokes about politics. It apparently lasted only three issues, from June to August. At any rate, John picked up the first issue, and wrote a jocular response, in the persona of an outraged conservative, which was published in the second issue.

And here’s the cover, featuring H. Rap Brown by the Argentine caricaturist Narciso Bayón.

This is the last letter I’ll post from John’s correspondence with Lynn Catoe. Their relationship was not easy, complicated by their differences: she went to the Sorbonne, he was a high school dropout; she grew up with servants, he came from a farm; she was black, he was white (all of these run through their letters). This last letter is not about their relationship, and mostly not about ufology. Ms. Catoe reports on the riots in Washington, D. C. following the assassination of Martin Luther King, on April 4. She also mentions some racial issues in NICAP, and a visit from J. Thomas Ratchford (of the Air Force Office of Scientific Research) and someone from the Secretary of the Air Force Office of Information; Ratchford tells her Keyhoe claimed contact with space brothers. Finally, she enclosed two clippings: one a report of an early appearance by Stanton Friedman, later an active ufologist; the other a column by Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson, about dead sheep and rumors of germ warfare and mutated viruses. Riots, racism, and viruses, all from 1968.

At this point, the Keel-Catoe correspondence becomes less frequent and more devoted to their relationship. I assume they were talking more on the phone or in person; John also may have written letters but not kept carbons. However, I’ll post a few excerpts from Ms. Catoe’s letters that concern John’s research and the murky world of ufology in 1968.

In this excerpt, Ms. Catoe is baffled about Gray Barker’s interest in whether she has a copy of the Varo edition. (The Varo edition, for readers new to it, was a copy of M. K. Jessup’s book The Case for the UFO, annotated by a certain Carl Allen, and published by a Texas company called Varo for the Office of Naval Research; it caused quite a stir at the time.) She also writes about her interest in the Kaspar Hauser case, recommends that John contact the British ufologist John Cleary Baker, and, most curiously, wants to know how to tell John from his rumored double.