Richard Paul Pavlick
From The Black Vault Encyclopedia Project
Richard Paul Pavlick (died November 11, 1975) was a retired postal worker who attempted to assassinate President-elect John F. Kennedy on December 11, 1960 in Palm Beach, Florida.
Pavlick, 73 years old at the time of the attempt, had previously lived in the small town of Belmont, New Hampshire with no family. He became known at local public meetings for his angry political rants, which included complaints that the American flag was not being displayed appropriately, and also criticized the government and disparaged Catholics, focusing much of his anger on the Kennedy family and their wealth. On one occasion, Pavlick's anger erupted when he met the supervisor of the local water company at his home with a gun, which was then confiscated.
Pavlick's enmity toward Kennedy boiled over after the close 1960 U.S. Presidential election, in which Kennedy defeated Republican Richard Nixon by just 118,000 votes. He then turned over his run-down property to a local youth camp, and disappeared after loading his meager possessions into his 1950 Buick. After his arrest, Pavlick said, "Kennedy money bought the White House and the presidency. I had the crazy idea I wanted to stop Kennedy from being President."
After Pavlick left, Thomas Murphy, the 34-year-old postmaster of Belmont, began receiving bizarre postcards from Pavlick that stated the town would hear from him soon "in a big way." Murphy soon noticed that the postmarked dates coincided with visits by Kennedy to the respective cities and called the local police. They, in turn, contacted the Secret Service, who interviewed locals and learned of his previous outbursts. In the midst of these conversations, they also found out that Pavlick had purchased dynamite.
During his travels, Pavlick had visited the Kennedy compound at Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, photographing the Kennedy home while also checking out the compound's security.
Shortly before 10 a.m. on December 11, 1960, as Kennedy was preparing to leave for Sunday mass at St. Edward Church in Palm Beach, Pavlick waited in his dynamite-laden car. Ready to crash his car into Kennedy's vehicle to cause a fatal explosion, Pavlick then changed his mind after seeing Kennedy with his wife, Jacqueline, and the couple's two small children.
While waiting for another opportunity over the next few days, Pavlick visited the church to learn its interior, but the Secret Service had informed local Palm Beach police to look for Pavlick's automobile.
Four days after the attempt, Palm Beach police officer Lester Free spotted Pavlick’s vehicle as he entered Palm Beach via the Royal Poinciana Bridge. Police immediately surrounded the car (which still contained 10 sticks of dynamite) and arrested him.
On January 27, 1961, Pavlick was committed to the United States Public Health Service mental hospital in Springfield, Missouri, then indicted for threatening Kennedy's life seven weeks later.
In a tragically ironic twist, charges against Pavlick were dropped on December 2, 1963, ten days after Kennedy's assassination in Dallas. Judge Emmet C. Choate ruled that Pavlick was unable to distinguish between right and wrong in his actions, but kept him in the mental hospital. The federal government also dropped charges in August 1964, and Pavlick was eventually released from the New Hampshire State Mental Hospital on December 13, 1966.
Pavlick died at the age of 88 on November 11, 1975 at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Manchester, New Hampshire.
Copyright
"Original data received from Wikipedia on April 21, 2006. Credit given to original authors can be seen Here."
