Chapter Fourteen: Who is Luciano?

The year was 1962. As he sat in the living room of his plush Texas home, Jerry flicked through the Royse City newspaper, sent to him by an old friend and casually glanced over the music section. A new group, with what was being called a "Mersey beat" was finding big success back in Liverpool, England. Jerry wasn't at all interested in modern music, but anything in U.S. newspapers about Great Britain always caught his interest. He smiled at the thought of Liverpool. Many times he and Connie had driven there and sat in the cold wooden stands, with cups of warm coffee and an even warmer crowd, and cheered on their favorite soccer team. He put the paper on his lap and licked his lips at the thought of English fish and chips, with salt and vinegar. He grinned that just the thought of them made his mouth water.

Then he continued reading the item. According to the article, the new group was named, "The Beatles." Decca, a major British recording studio, had rejected them, saying,

"We don't like their sound. Groups of guitars are on the way out." Jerry glanced across to the other page and mumbled,

"Well, they should know what . . . "

On the opposite page he saw another item that immediately caught his attention and stopped him in mid-sentence. His hands began to shake as he read the piece. It was headed, "Israel Hangs Eichmann for Death Camp Acts," and read:

"Inside a fog‑enshrouded Israeli prison, a noose was place around the neck of Adolf Eichmann just before midnight tonight. His last appeal for mercy had been rejected. Eichmann's ankles and knees were tied. He said a few last words and then a black trap door sprang open in the floor. Eichmann, the man who sent millions of Jews to their deaths in Nazi Concentration Camps, was dead.

"'Long live Germany. Long live Argentina,' Eichmann said before he was executed.

"’But to sum it all up,’ wrote Eichmann in his memoirs, ‘I must say that I regret nothing...Hitler was somehow so supremely capable that the people recognized him. And so with that...I recognize him joyfully and I still defend him. I will not humble myself or repent in any way...No, I must say truthfully that if we had killed all the 10 million Jews that statisticians originally listed in 1933, I would say, 'Good, we have destroyed an enemy.' "Argentina was the country where he hid until he was kidnapped by Israeli security agents. 'I had to obey the rules of war and my flag. I am ready,' were the mass murderer's final words. In denying Eichmann's appeal for mercy, the Israeli Supreme Court said he had shown no repentance for his crimes. It was reported that he had committed them with 'genuine joy and enthusiasm.' The Justices also called the death sentence 'inadequate compared to the millions of deaths in the most diverse ways he had inflicted on his victims."'

To be continued...