Tonya Harding Shot JFK

Tonya Harding is Lee Harvey Oswald

Tonya Harding assassinated John F. Kennedy in her previous life as Lee Harvey Oswald. Both Oswald and his victim, President Kennedy, have returned in this life as figure skaters Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan.

Consider the evidence of reincarnation. Both Tonya Harding and Lee Harvey Oswald have the letters "Har" in their names. Both of their victims were Irish Catholics from Massachusetts whose last names began with the letters "Ke": John F. Kennedy and Nancy Kerrigan, and both were attacked in cities beginning with the letter "D": Dallas and Detroit. Time magazine also saw a connection in the assaults on Kerrigan and Kennedy. Margaret Carlson wrote in the February 21, 1994 issue, "The videocam verite of the clubbing [of Kerrigan] provides the same gritty realism that the Zapruder footage brought to Oliver Stone's JFK."

Harding and Oswald came from poor dysfunctional families and learned to use a rifle. Both were about the same age when they became infamous: Lee at 24, Tonya at 23. And they have similar facial features. Kennedy doesn't look like Kerrigan, but Kerrigan looks a bit like Jackie Kennedy. Perhaps God's joke is that JFK, the womanizer, should return in a body resembling his own wife.

The coincidences linking the assaults on Kerrigan and Kennedy will seem familiar to those who recall the coincidences between the deaths of Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln. Both were shot in the head from behind while sitting next to their wives. Lincoln was shot in Ford's Theater. Kennedy was shot in a Lincoln Continental made by Ford. Both had Vice Presidents named Johnson, etc. This synchronicity (meaningful coincidences) shows that the trail of reincarnation goes farther back in history. In an earlier previous life, Tonya Harding, as John Wilkes Booth, assassinated Abraham Lincoln.

Oksana is Nikita  Nancy and Tonya aren't the only reborn performers in the skating rink. The 1994 Winter Olympics was literally a Cold War, but this time a reborn Nikita Khrushchev prevailed as gold medalist Oksana Baiul, narrowly beating Kennedy/Kerrigan, who took the silver.

Milestones in the lives of Nikita and Oksana are linked by identical months and days. On March 14, 1953, Khrushchev succeeded Malenkov as secretary of the Communist Party. On March 14, 1993, Baiul won the Worlds Ladies Figure Championship in Prague. On February 25, 1956, Khrushchev denounced Joseph Stalin in a speech before the Communist Party Congress in Moscow. On February 25, 1994, Oksana earned her gold medal.

In a profile of Baiul in the April 1996 issue of Esquire magazine, Michael Angeli wrote that Oksana's mirth "reminds me of the way we all liked Khrushchev to be happy." Khrushchev saved Ukrainians from starvation after World War II, even defying Stalin's orders to divert food to other parts of the Soviet Union. Perhaps it is karma that Khrushchev returned in the body of a Ukrainian ice princess. Many Russians have nostalgia for Khrushchev and the more prestigious era of the Soviet Union, an aspiration that has been corrupted by that thug, Vladimir Putin. Oksana should consider reclaiming her power, perhaps returning to Moscow as the czarina of a restored monarchy. I can easily picture her face on stamps and coins.

What other world leaders came back at the 1994 Winter Olympics? Surya Bonaly finished fourth. She was that black woman from France renowned for her athletic style. She may have been Charles DeGaulle doing a back flip and landing on one skate.

Feminists  The entire feminist movement might be explained by the possibility that more men are returning as women. Feminists may simply be women who were men in their immediate past life and they intuitively don't want to give up the power and freedom they recently enjoyed. (One should qualify that generalization; There are plenty of men who have neither power nor freedom.)

The dates of death and rebirth are also instructive:

John F. Kennedy d. Nov. 22, 1963         Nancy Kerrigan b. Oct. 13, 1969
Lee Harvey Oswald d. Nov. 24, 1963     Tonya Harding b. Nov. 12, 1970
Charles de Gaulle d. Nov. 9, 1970           Surya Bonaly b. Dec. 15, 1973
Nikita Khrushchev d. Sept. 21, 1971      Oksana Baiul b. Nov. 16, 1977

These dates, if typical of reincarnation, reveal that people spend between three to seven years on "the other side" before being reborn. The rebirth gap suggests that there is no point in using a spiritualist to speak to the dead if that person has been gone for more than seven years. The dearly departed has already returned in another body.

The trail of events from Lincoln to Kennedy to Kerrigan brings to mind the observation of Karl Marx that history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce. The evidence that famous people have returned as figure skaters suggests that many of us are "performers" following a "program." Shakespeare knew as much when he wrote, "All the world's a stage. And all the men and women merely players." (As You Like It). God writes the story and the story of Tonya Harding proves the existence of God.

If there is a divine plan, what good can be found in all this murder and mayhem? The assault on Nancy Kerrigan created a huge public interest in figure skating and elevated the sport to a major televised event. The Nancy/Tonya drama also provided an opportunity for me to "fill in the blanks" of history and prove my divinely inspired ability to discover new patterns of reality. The assassination of Lincoln turned a conqueror into a martyr and softened the hearts of many embittered Southerners.

But why kill Kennedy? Aside from creating a nuclear test ban treaty and initiating a drive to put a man on the moon, John F. Kennedy was a president of few accomplishments. He criticized Martin Luther King, Jr. for his impatience in demanding equality. Only Kennedy's successor, Lyndon Johnson, had the political will and muscle to force important civil rights legislation through Congress.

A popular misconception was that the assassination stopped Kennedy's plan to withdraw from Vietnam. However, his public statements gave no hint of this new policy. In a television interview September 2, 1963 with CBS's Walter Cronkite, Kennedy said, "I don't agree with those who say we should withdraw. That would be a great mistake . . . I know people don't like Americans to be engaged in this kind of effort. Forty-seven Americans have been killed in combat with the enemy, but this is a very important struggle even though it is far away."

Seven days later, in an interview with NBC's Chet Huntley, Kennedy repeated his position: "What I am concerned about is that Americans will get impatient and say, because they don't like events in Southeast Asia or they don't like the government in Saigon, that we should withdraw. That only makes it easy for the Communists. I think we should stay. We should use our influence in as effective a way as we can, but we should not withdraw."

Warmonger  In the book The Secret War Against Hanoi, Richard H. Shultz Jr. documented how Kennedy in 1961 ordered the CIA to conduct covert armed attacks against North Vietnam. In President Kennedy: Profile in Power, political journalist Richard Reeves discovered a Kennedy anxious to prove his machismo after being outperformed by Khrushchev in their first summit meeting in Vienna. Kennedy said, "(Khrushchev) thinks I have no guts . . . We have to confront them. The only place we can do that is Vietnam."

Author Gore Vidal reported having a disturbing conversation with Kennedy in which JFK noted that all great presidents had great wars.

Kennedy's in-your-face foreign policy, coupled with his use of amphetamines and other mood-altering drugs to cope with his Addison disease, would have led to catastrophe had he not been assassinated. Picture a mentally unstable Kennedy blockading North Vietnam to prevent Russian freighters from delivering weapons. If it worked during the Cuban Missile Crisis, why shouldn't it work in Vietnam?

But this time the Russians refuse to be humiliated and counter with a new blockade of Berlin. A ship tries to run the blockade of Vietnam and is sunk by the US Navy. The Soviets strike back by shooting down an American plane trying to bring supplies to Berlin. War breaks out in Europe. Unexpectedly, one side is quickly overwhelmed and compensates by resorting to nuclear weapons. Missiles fly between the Soviet Union and the US. Vietnam, the unclear war, becomes the nuclear war.

Culture predicts reality. Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, a movie about a mad general who starts a nuclear war between the US and the Soviet Union, was scheduled to premiere on November 22, 1963 but the screening was delayed because of the assassination on that day. Thus, the shooting of JFK "prevented" a nuclear war.

The November 23 premiere of Doctor Who started a few minutes late because of news coverage of the assassination. The British science fiction series depicted a superior being who travelled through time and space to defeat the plots of various evildoers. Perhaps the broadcast delay meant that a real Time Lord was knocked off schedule by a competing Time Lord meddling with history.

Unsung hero  Lee Harvey Oswald saved millions of American lives by assassinating John F. Kennedy. He is the Great American Hero and his spirit lives on in the body of Tonya Harding. We should honor Oswald by adding his profile to Mount Rushmore. As for Tonya, I shall become President of the United States and make her my First Lady. She who slew Lincoln and Kennedy shall dwell in the White House.

I would expect the First Lady to serve as my liaison with Congress. Tonya and her bodyguards would escort uncooperative lawmakers to my office, where I would persuade them to support the legislation I need. Before they arrive, I would put drop cloths on the floor. We might be sharing a pizza and I wouldn't want any tomato sauce to spill on the area rug.

The rule of Robert and Tonya will be celebrated in song: Their house is a museum, where people come to see 'em.

Dream Date  In a dream, I bring Tonya Harding home from a date. She asks me to wait in the living room. I can hear her in another room talking loudly with several people. I had hoped for a more intimate evening. Impatient, I look for her. I find her talking excitedly to friends and relatives about her meeting with E.T., the extraterrestrial. She seems to have forgotten about me. After waking, I realize I am E.T.: the person "sent from the heavens" to enlighten humanity.