{"id":65394,"date":"2026-05-25T17:09:39","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T21:09:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/?p=65394"},"modified":"2026-05-25T17:09:21","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T21:09:21","slug":"as-always-opposition-to-the-vietnam-war-was-the-primary-cause-of-this-odious-assassination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/?p=65394","title":{"rendered":"<h2><b>As usual, &#8220;Opposition to the Vietnam War&#8221; was the primary cause of this odious assassination.<\/b><\/h2>"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1><strong>Was America\u2019s Outspoken Catholic Priest and Best-Selling Author, Thomas Merton, \u201cEliminated\u201d Because of His Outspoken Opposition to the Vietnam War?<\/strong><\/h1>\n<p><!--more-->By David Martin and Hugh Turle<br \/>\nCovertAction Magazine<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery columns-2 is-cropped wp-block-gallery-1 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\">\n<ul class=\"blocks-gallery-grid\">\n<li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\">\n<figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-31088 td-animation-stack-type0-2\" src=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/the-modern-monkhood-of-thomas-merton-or-the-new-yor.jpeg\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1807px) 100vw, 1807px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/the-modern-monkhood-of-thomas-merton-or-the-new-yor.jpeg 1807w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/the-modern-monkhood-of-thomas-merton-or-the-new-yor-221x300.jpeg 221w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/the-modern-monkhood-of-thomas-merton-or-the-new-yor-755x1024.jpeg 755w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/the-modern-monkhood-of-thomas-merton-or-the-new-yor-768x1042.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/the-modern-monkhood-of-thomas-merton-or-the-new-yor-1132x1536.jpeg 1132w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/the-modern-monkhood-of-thomas-merton-or-the-new-yor-1509x2048.jpeg 1509w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/the-modern-monkhood-of-thomas-merton-or-the-new-yor-150x204.jpeg 150w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/the-modern-monkhood-of-thomas-merton-or-the-new-yor-300x407.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/the-modern-monkhood-of-thomas-merton-or-the-new-yor-696x944.jpeg 696w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/the-modern-monkhood-of-thomas-merton-or-the-new-yor-1068x1449.jpeg 1068w\" alt=\"The Modern Monkhood of Thomas Merton | The New Yorker\" width=\"1807\" height=\"2452\" data-id=\"31088\" \/><figcaption class=\"blocks-gallery-item__caption\">Thomas Merton [Source:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/books\/under-review\/thomas-merton-the-monk-who-became-a-prophet\">newyorker.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/li>\n<li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\">\n<figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-31089 td-animation-stack-type0-2\" src=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/the-seven-storey-mountain-by-thomas-merton.jpeg\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 304px) 100vw, 304px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/the-seven-storey-mountain-by-thomas-merton.jpeg 304w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/the-seven-storey-mountain-by-thomas-merton-192x300.jpeg 192w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/the-seven-storey-mountain-by-thomas-merton-150x234.jpeg 150w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/the-seven-storey-mountain-by-thomas-merton-300x469.jpeg 300w\" alt=\"The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton\" width=\"304\" height=\"475\" data-id=\"31089\" \/><figcaption class=\"blocks-gallery-item__caption\">[Source:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/book\/show\/175078.The_Seven_Storey_Mountain\">goodreads.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/figure>\n<p><em>[This article continues CAM\u2019s series into suspicious deaths and political assassinations. Today marks the 80th anniversary of Thomas Merton\u2019s entry into the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance (O.C.S.O.), also known as the Trappist Order, at the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani near Bardstown, Kentucky.\u2014Editors]<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"has-drop-cap\">The Trappist monk Thomas Merton might well have been the most significant Roman Catholic thinker and writer of the 20<sup>th<\/sup>\u00a0century. His 1948 autobiography,\u00a0<em>The Seven Storey Mountain<\/em>, sold more than 600,000 copies in its original hardcover edition and, in one version or another, has remained continuously in print. Its Kindle edition as of this writing has 803 customer reviews, with an average rating of 4.6 out of 5 stars.<\/p>\n<p>Merton was a prolific writer. The Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University in Louisville, Kentucky, lists 106 books that he authored, 42 of which were published before his mysterious, violent death on December 10, 1968, while he was attending a monastic conference near Bangkok, Thailand.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-31090 td-animation-stack-type0-2\" src=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/the-writer-thomas-merton-nyc.jpeg\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/the-writer-thomas-merton-nyc.jpeg 1000w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/the-writer-thomas-merton-nyc-240x300.jpeg 240w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/the-writer-thomas-merton-nyc-819x1024.jpeg 819w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/the-writer-thomas-merton-nyc-768x961.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/the-writer-thomas-merton-nyc-150x188.jpeg 150w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/the-writer-thomas-merton-nyc-300x375.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/the-writer-thomas-merton-nyc-696x871.jpeg 696w\" alt=\"The Writer \u2014 Thomas Merton NYC\" width=\"1000\" height=\"1251\" \/><figcaption>Thomas Merton [Source:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thomasmertonnyc.org\/about-merton\/explore\/2016\/7\/5\/the-writer\">thomasmertonnyc.org<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Merton\u2019s writings, until the 1960s, had been almost all of a spiritual nature. In 1960, however, he wrote to a fellow Catholic priest and confidante, \u201cIt seems to me that it is very necessary to take a political stand in these times and I have been, I regret to say, foolishly apolitical.\u201d<sup><a id=\"post-31086-endnote-ref-1\" href=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/2021\/12\/13\/was-americas-outspoken-catholic-priest-and-best-selling-author-thomas-merton-eliminated-because-of-his-outspoken-opposition-to-the-vietnam-war\/#post-31086-endnote-1\">[1]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n<p>His primary concern at that time was the danger of a nuclear war. His fear would be heightened by the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962. He had to circulate his powerful treatise\u00a0<em>Peace in the Post-Christian Era\u00a0<\/em>in mimeograph form, though, because the Abbot Primate of his order in France had forbidden his publishing any book dealing with questions of war and peace as political writing inappropriate for a Catholic monk.<\/p>\n<p>He also had an extensive and influential mailing list, including Attorney General Robert Kennedy\u2019s wife Ethel, whose family, the Skakels, were major benefactors of Our Lady of Gethsemani Monastery, where Merton had resided since late 1941.<sup><a id=\"post-31086-endnote-ref-2\" href=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/2021\/12\/13\/was-americas-outspoken-catholic-priest-and-best-selling-author-thomas-merton-eliminated-because-of-his-outspoken-opposition-to-the-vietnam-war\/#post-31086-endnote-2\">[2]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0Moreover, his writings carried a lot of weight because of the power of his prose and his great moral authority.<sup><a id=\"post-31086-endnote-ref-3\" href=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/2021\/12\/13\/was-americas-outspoken-catholic-priest-and-best-selling-author-thomas-merton-eliminated-because-of-his-outspoken-opposition-to-the-vietnam-war\/#post-31086-endnote-3\">[3]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-31091 td-animation-stack-type0-2\" src=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/a-picture-containing-tree-outdoor-sky-forest-d.jpeg\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1068px) 100vw, 1068px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/a-picture-containing-tree-outdoor-sky-forest-d.jpeg 1280w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/a-picture-containing-tree-outdoor-sky-forest-d-300x225.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/a-picture-containing-tree-outdoor-sky-forest-d-1024x768.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/a-picture-containing-tree-outdoor-sky-forest-d-768x576.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/a-picture-containing-tree-outdoor-sky-forest-d-150x113.jpeg 150w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/a-picture-containing-tree-outdoor-sky-forest-d-696x522.jpeg 696w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/a-picture-containing-tree-outdoor-sky-forest-d-1068x801.jpeg 1068w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/a-picture-containing-tree-outdoor-sky-forest-d-265x198.jpeg 265w\" alt=\"A picture containing tree, outdoor, sky, forest Description automatically generated\" width=\"1068\" height=\"801\" \/><figcaption>Our Lady of Gethsemani Monastery in Kentucky. [Source:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Abbey_of_Our_Lady_of_Gethsemani#\/media\/File:The_Abbey_of_Our_Lady_of_Gethsemani.jpg\">wikipedia.org<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>As the 1960s wore on and the Vietnam War heated up, his attention turned more toward opposition to President Lyndon Johnson\u2019s futile pursuit of victory in that horribly destructive war. The prominent anti-war Jesuit priest Daniel Berrigan, who looked up to Merton for guidance, was one of his most frequent correspondents.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-31092 td-animation-stack-type0-2\" src=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/a-picture-containing-text-person-person-wall-d.png\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 954px) 100vw, 954px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/a-picture-containing-text-person-person-wall-d.png 954w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/a-picture-containing-text-person-person-wall-d-300x205.png 300w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/a-picture-containing-text-person-person-wall-d-768x524.png 768w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/a-picture-containing-text-person-person-wall-d-150x102.png 150w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/a-picture-containing-text-person-person-wall-d-218x150.png 218w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/a-picture-containing-text-person-person-wall-d-696x475.png 696w\" alt=\"A picture containing text, person, person, wall Description automatically generated\" width=\"954\" height=\"651\" \/><figcaption>Daniel Berrigan, left, and Thomas Merton, right, at a retreat Merton hosted on spiritual roots of protest in November 1964. [Source:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncronline.org\/news\/people\/new-biography-jesuit-fr-daniel-berrigan-outlines-his-activism-exile\">ncronline.org<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Although the general public might not have been aware of Merton\u2019s anti-war activities, they could hardly have escaped the attention of our clandestine community. A passage from Phillip F. Nelson\u2019s review of\u00a0<em>The Martyrdom of Thomas Merton<\/em>\u00a0could well be telling:<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote is-style-solid-color\">\n<blockquote><p><span class=\"has-inline-color has-black-color\">A document I recently obtained, from Lyndon Johnson\u2019s White House files\u2014apparently kept in his well-known \u201cmean letters folders\/file cabinets\u201d\u2014was a letter dated February 20, 1965, from Rev. Thomas Merton.\u00a0 I believe it is but one document that might have caused the name of Thomas Merton to be added to other lists, both within the White House and those being maintained farther up, and across the opposite side, of the Potomac River, in Langley, Virginia.\u00a0 For Merton to have written Johnson, challenging his use of \u201csheer force\u201d to contain \u201cthe spread of Communism in Asia . . . seems to me immoral and unjust, when they are used without wisdom\u201d would be to question not only Johnson\u2019s morality and wisdom, but probably his manhood as well.\u00a0 There were certain boundaries that could not be crossed with Lyndon B. Johnson, and those three would have represented, to him, three strikes.<sup><a id=\"post-31086-endnote-ref-4\" href=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/2021\/12\/13\/was-americas-outspoken-catholic-priest-and-best-selling-author-thomas-merton-eliminated-because-of-his-outspoken-opposition-to-the-vietnam-war\/#post-31086-endnote-4\">[4]<\/a><\/sup><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p>We should be reminded that in December of 1968, the year in which Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated, even though Nixon had won the election in November, Johnson was still the president.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignwide\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-31093 td-animation-stack-type0-2\" src=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/a-picture-containing-person-person-outdoor-posi.jpeg\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 432px) 100vw, 432px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/a-picture-containing-person-person-outdoor-posi.jpeg 432w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/a-picture-containing-person-person-outdoor-posi-300x199.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/a-picture-containing-person-person-outdoor-posi-150x100.jpeg 150w\" alt=\"A picture containing person, person, outdoor, posing Description automatically generated\" width=\"432\" height=\"287\" \/><figcaption>Thomas Merton with the young Dalai Lama before the former\u2019s death. [Source:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/2008\/12\/thomas-merton-40-years-on.html\">beliefnet.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>As with all such questionable events in our history, there is a great deal to be learned from examining the earliest reports on Thomas Merton\u2019s death. To begin, we found three missing historic documents from Thailand, a doctor\u2019s certificate, the death certificate, and the Foreign Service Report on the Death of an American Citizen.<sup><a id=\"post-31086-endnote-ref-5\" href=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/2021\/12\/13\/was-americas-outspoken-catholic-priest-and-best-selling-author-thomas-merton-eliminated-because-of-his-outspoken-opposition-to-the-vietnam-war\/#post-31086-endnote-5\">[5]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0The Thai officials concluded that sudden heart failure was the cause of Merton\u2019s death. The prevailing belief, to the contrary, is that Merton was accidentally electrocuted as he emerged wet from a bath or shower.<\/p>\n<p>Archbishop Rembert Weakland, O.S.B., who presided over the monastic conference in Thailand where Merton died and was Abbot Primate of the Benedictine Confederation at the time of the conference, provided the death certificate and doctor\u2019s certificate to us. He had obtained these documents in Thailand before leaving. We found additional copies of these reports and the Foreign Service Report at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland. All of the documents have a stamp of authenticity from the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-31094 td-animation-stack-type0-2\" src=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/text-letter-description-automatically-generated-1.jpeg\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1068px) 100vw, 1068px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/text-letter-description-automatically-generated-1.jpeg 1298w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/text-letter-description-automatically-generated-1-229x300.jpeg 229w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/text-letter-description-automatically-generated-1-783x1024.jpeg 783w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/text-letter-description-automatically-generated-1-768x1005.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/text-letter-description-automatically-generated-1-1174x1536.jpeg 1174w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/text-letter-description-automatically-generated-1-150x196.jpeg 150w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/text-letter-description-automatically-generated-1-300x392.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/text-letter-description-automatically-generated-1-696x910.jpeg 696w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/text-letter-description-automatically-generated-1-1068x1397.jpeg 1068w\" alt=\"Text, letter Description automatically generated\" width=\"1068\" height=\"1397\" \/><figcaption>Doctor\u2019s certificate, English translation. [Source:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.themartyrdomofthomasmerton.com\/documents.html\">themartyrdomofthomasmerton.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In 2017, we sent copies of these documents to Dr. Paul Pearson, the Director of The Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University, which is a general repository of Merton documents. Pearson told us he had never seen them before, and he noticed something peculiar. The doctor\u2019s certificate states that Merton\u2019s body was \u201cbrought to the hospital for the purpose of an autopsy.\u201d In fact, the body was not brought to the hospital, and no autopsy was performed. In sum, the official \u201cheart failure\u201d conclusion had been reached in the absence of an autopsy, but the official Thai documents lied about it.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignwide\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-31095 td-animation-stack-type0-2\" src=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/a-person-wearing-glasses-and-a-suit-description-a.jpeg\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/a-person-wearing-glasses-and-a-suit-description-a.jpeg 500w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/a-person-wearing-glasses-and-a-suit-description-a-300x300.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/a-person-wearing-glasses-and-a-suit-description-a-150x150.jpeg 150w\" alt=\"A person wearing glasses and a suit Description automatically generated with medium confidence\" width=\"500\" height=\"500\" \/><figcaption>Paul M. Pearson [Source:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ndbooks.com\/author\/paul-m.-pearson\/\">ndbooks.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Doctor\u2019s Certificate<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>The doctor\u2019s certificate exists in three versions, the one in the original Thai language and two others in English translation. Curiously, they are not in complete agreement with one another. Dr. Luksana Nakvachara completed and signed the doctor\u2019s certificate, dated December 10, 1968, the day of Merton\u2019s death.<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Nakvachara wrote in English on the Thai language document that the death had been caused by, \u201cFainting\u2013due to acute cardiac failure and electric shock due to accidental falling against the fan to the floor.\u201d Dr. Nakvachara made no mention of the bleeding wound in the back of Merton\u2019s head, observed by witnesses.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-31096 td-animation-stack-type0-2\" src=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/text-letter-description-automatically-generated-2.jpeg\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1068px) 100vw, 1068px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/text-letter-description-automatically-generated-2.jpeg 1318w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/text-letter-description-automatically-generated-2-235x300.jpeg 235w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/text-letter-description-automatically-generated-2-803x1024.jpeg 803w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/text-letter-description-automatically-generated-2-768x979.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/text-letter-description-automatically-generated-2-1205x1536.jpeg 1205w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/text-letter-description-automatically-generated-2-150x191.jpeg 150w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/text-letter-description-automatically-generated-2-300x382.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/text-letter-description-automatically-generated-2-696x887.jpeg 696w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/text-letter-description-automatically-generated-2-1068x1361.jpeg 1068w\" alt=\"Text, letter Description automatically generated\" width=\"1068\" height=\"1361\" \/><figcaption>Doctor\u2019s Certificate; English translation with note by \u201cConsular Officer,\u201d located at the National Archives. [Source:\u00a0<a href=\"file:\/\/\/Users\/jeremykuzmarov\/Downloads\/Doctor's%20Certificate%20%20English%20translation%20%20with%20note%20by%20Consular%20Officer%20%20from%20the%20%20National%20Archives\">themartyrdomofthomasmerton.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Near the bottom of the English translation of the document that we found at the National Archives, it states:<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote is-style-solid-color\">\n<blockquote><p><span class=\"has-inline-color has-black-color\">Remarks: The patient died outside Samutprakarn Hospital. The remains were brought to the Hospital for the purpose of a post mortem by medical doctors and investigation authority as prescribed by law.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Below these remarks, at the bottom of the State Department translation copy of the doctor\u2019s certificate, one finds a comment from an anonymous American Embassy consular officer that states:<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote is-style-solid-color\">\n<blockquote><p><span class=\"has-inline-color has-black-color\">* (CONSULAR OFFICER\u2019S NOTE \u2013\u00a0<strong><em>NOT A PART OF TRANSLATION<\/em><\/strong>): As will be noted from the copy of the original form, the comments under remarks are pre-printed on the form. In this case the remarks are not applicable even though correction was not made. The remains of Father Merton were released to the consular officer following post-mortem examination by Thai medical and investigating authorities at the place of death. [Emphasis added.]<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p>The post-mortem at the hospital prescribed by law\u2014that is to say, the autopsy\u2014was \u201cnot applicable\u201d in the death of Thomas Merton, according to the U.S. Department of State. The anonymous consular officer said, in effect, that what is written on the doctor\u2019s certificate is not true.<\/p>\n<p>The consular officer did say that Merton\u2019s body had a \u201cpost mortem examination by Thai medical and investigating authorities at the place of death.\u201d Whatever was done at the place of death\u2014and was done there only\u2014did not satisfy the eyewitness observers, many of whose letters we also discovered. They were deeply puzzled by the death scene and fully expected that a meticulous autopsy would be done to determine the cause of death.<\/p>\n<p>Archbishop Weakland supplied another English translation of the doctor\u2019s certificate to us. His copies bear a stamp and signature of authenticity from the U.S. Embassy. Weakland\u2019s copy of the doctor\u2019s certificate is almost identical to the State Department translation, with the exception of this note under the Remarks:<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote is-style-solid-color\">\n<blockquote><p><span class=\"has-inline-color has-black-color\">The patient died outside Samutprakarn Hospital. The remains were brought to the Hospital for the purpose of an autopsy by medical doctors and investigation authority in accordance with law.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Fr. Weakland\u2019s translation copy and the original Thai language document, it should be emphasized, do not include the consular officer\u2019s \u201ccorrection\u201d to the document, leaving the impression that a standard formal autopsy was performed at the hospital.<\/p>\n<p>It is quite clear that no autopsy was done in \u201caccordance with law\u201d by Thai authorities. Dr. Nakvachara signed the doctor\u2019s certificate that falsely stated Merton\u2019s body had been brought to the hospital for an autopsy. Proper official procedures were not followed in the case of Merton\u2019s death, even though paperwork made it appear that they were.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignwide\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-31097 td-animation-stack-type0-2\" src=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/text-description-automatically-generated.jpeg\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/text-description-automatically-generated.jpeg 620w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/text-description-automatically-generated-300x160.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/text-description-automatically-generated-150x80.jpeg 150w\" alt=\"Text Description automatically generated\" width=\"620\" height=\"330\" \/><figcaption>[Source:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/culture\/books\/thomas-merton-the-hermit-who-never-was-his-young-lover-and-mysterious-death-1.2422818\">irishtimes.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Death Certificate<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>The death certificate, dated December 11, 1968, declared flatly that the cause of death was \u201cacute cardiac failure.\u201d There are two English-version translations of the death certificate. The U.S. Embassy certified each as a true copy of the original. The National Archives translation of the death certificate also includes a translation of the police investigator\u2019s note on the back of the death certificate.\u00a0 It states:<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote is-style-solid-color\">\n<blockquote><p><span class=\"has-inline-color has-black-color\">(Reverse Page): The remains may be removed through the area of Amphurmuang, Samutprakarn Province and they may be allowed to pass through other areas as a post-mortem examination has already been made in accordance with the law.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"has-inline-color has-black-color\">(Signed) Pol Lt. Boonchob Cheongvichit, Investigator<br \/>\nDecember 11, 1968<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p>The handwritten note on the death certificate therefore agrees with the boilerplate on the doctor\u2019s certificate that an autopsy had been performed in accordance with the law. This additional note by a police officer that a regular autopsy had, in fact, been done strongly suggests that something beyond mere inadvertence is involved here. The record of all witnesses at the scene reveals clearly that the body was not taken to a hospital because it never left the conference center before the U.S. military removed it and took it to a nearby U.S. military hospital.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>The U.S. Embassy Report<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>The only U.S. government document regarding Merton\u2019s death is the Report on the Death of an American Citizen by the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok, Thailand, and it repeats the official Thai death certificate conclusion that \u201cacute cardiac failure\u201d was the cause of death. It makes no mention of the \u201celectric shock due to accidental falling against the fan to the floor\u201d that is in the doctor\u2019s certificate.<\/p>\n<p>On December 27, 1968, the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok sent Merton\u2019s monastery, the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani in Kentucky, a letter, a copy of which we discovered in the collection of the papers of authorized Merton biographer Michael Mott at Northwestern University. That letter refers to enclosed copies of the doctor\u2019s certificate, the death certificate with a translation, letters from participants at the conference who found or examined Merton\u2019s body, and its own Report on the Death of an American Citizen. Those enclosures were not with the letter and Brother Lawrence Morey, the archivist for the abbey, informed us that they no longer have any of those crucial documents.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>The Police Report<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>When we got in touch with Dr. Pearson, we found that the Thomas Merton Center did already have a copy of the Thai Police Report but, if we were to rely solely upon the American press to tell us, there might as well have been none. The cover letter of transmission to Abbot Flavian Burns of the Gethsemani Abbey is dated July 30, 1969. It would appear to end all ambiguity as to what they concluded was the cause of death. After saying that they had examined the fan and that it was defective and potentially lethal, they write:<\/p>\n<p>However, the Investigating Officer questioned Dr. Luksana NAKVACHARA, whose views were that Reverend Thomas Merton died because of:<\/p>\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Heart failure,<\/li>\n<li>And that the cause mentioned in 1. caused the dead priest to faint and fall into the stand fan located in the room. The fan had fallen onto the body of Reverend Thomas Merton. The head of the dead priest had hit the floor. There was a burn on the body\u2019s skin and on the underwear on the right side which was assumed to have been caused by electrical shock by the fan.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Although it might be clear that, according to the investigating Thai police, the doctor had concluded that it was heart failure alone that had caused Merton\u2019s death, it\u2019s obviously unsatisfactory. How does a dead person faint? How could the doctor reach such a conclusion on the spot without conducting a formal autopsy? And what an enormous coincidence it had to be for a person to die of natural causes, fall into a curiously mis-wired fan that could have killed him had he not been dead already, and somehow the fan he had fallen into would end up lying across his body with the body lying perfectly straight with the arms by its side!<\/p>\n<p>Furthermore, like the doctor\u2019s and death certificates, it makes no mention of the bleeding wound in the back of Merton\u2019s head, though perhaps it makes a slight nod in that direction by telling us that his head had hit the floor.<\/p>\n<p>As it happens, Dr. Nakvachara tipped his hand early to key witness Fr. Celestine Say, OSB, who was one of the three monks to enter Merton\u2019s room to see his dead body with the fan lying across it. He told Fr. Say that they were going to reach the natural death conclusion to avoid \u201cproblems.\u201d The witnesses had been so troubled by what they had seen that they decided to photograph the body just as they found it to share with the investigating police. But, then, Fr. Say was so disturbed by what the Thai doctor had told him that he decided not to tell the police about his photographs for fear that they would just confiscate his film, which happened to have a lot of other photographs on it that he treasured.<\/p>\n<p>Fr. Say had taken two photographs of the body from different angles using different shutter speeds. In due time, he sent a print and the two negatives to the Gethsemani Abbey. Only one of the negatives could be made into a photograph with the technology available at the time. We would discover those negatives\u2014with no identification\u2014among the papers of the first authorized biographer of Merton, John Howard Griffin, at the library of Columbia University. The library was able to develop both photographs for us and thanked us for identifying what was on the negatives.<\/p>\n<p>We were surprised to learn that the Thomas Merton Center actually had a copy of that one print but had hardly recognized its significance because, in his 1984 authorized biography,\u00a0<em>The Seven Mountains of Thomas Merton<\/em>, Michael Mott tells us that Say took \u201cseveral photographs\u201d but falsely states that he took them later in the sequence of events than he did.<sup><a id=\"post-31086-endnote-ref-6\" href=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/2021\/12\/13\/was-americas-outspoken-catholic-priest-and-best-selling-author-thomas-merton-eliminated-because-of-his-outspoken-opposition-to-the-vietnam-war\/#post-31086-endnote-6\">[6]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0Mott works hard to convince readers that Merton was wet from a shower when he encountered the faulty fan. Say took his photographs, Mott strongly suggests, after the pajama shorts he is seen wearing in the photograph had been put on the body for modesty\u2019s sake. With access to the same witness letters that we have read, and surely even more, Mott had to have known that what he was writing was not true.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>The Press<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>As far as American press coverage of Merton\u2019s death is concerned, they have gone with two very sketchy initial reports that appeared in the nation\u2019s newspapers on December 11, 1968, and have added hardly anything to them as the years have passed. Though the reports might have been very unsatisfactory in their sketchiness and the fact that they are not in complete agreement with one another, they seem to have been sufficiently satisfactory for the press that they have felt no obligation to investigate further.<\/p>\n<p>The first is by John Wheeler of the Associated Press, with a dateline of Bangkok. His opening sentence is, \u201cThomas Merton, the Trappist monk who wrote \u2018The Seven Storey Mountain\u2019 and other best sellers was electrocuted Tuesday when he moved an electric fan and touched a short in the cord, local Catholic sources reported.\u201d He doesn\u2019t identify the sources, and they must not have been very good sources, because the third paragraph reads:<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote is-style-solid-color\">\n<blockquote><p><span class=\"has-inline-color has-black-color\">Merton\u2019s body was found late in the afternoon on the floor of a room he was occupying during a visit to Bangkok. A doctor who was summoned says the monk\u2019s heart failed after the electric shock.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignright size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-31110 td-animation-stack-type0-2\" src=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/unnamed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"196\" height=\"234\" \/><figcaption>John Wheeler [Source:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ap.org\/ap-in-the-news\/2013\/former-ap-correspondent-wheeler-dies-at-88\">ap.org<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>One should have expected someone based in Bangkok to have been a bit more precise about where Merton died and what the man was doing there. The Catholic monastic conference that Merton was attending was at the Sawang Kaniwat Red Cross conference center in the town of Samutprakarn a few miles to the south of Bangkok proper.<\/p>\n<p>Wheeler\u2019s very next sentence reads, \u201cA priest at the Church of St. Louis said Merton was not missed when he failed to show up for lunch.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Church of St. Louis is a Catholic church in the Bangkok area, but this was a conference for monks, and it is unlikely that this anonymous priest was even in attendance. If, perchance, he had been there, he would have surely known that Merton did eat lunch with the group after completing a morning presentation that he had given. Wheeler appears not to be giving us the true source of his information. He is correct to say that the doctor said that Merton\u2019s heart failed, but by writing \u201cafter the electric shock\u201d right after that he leaves the impression that the Thai authorities had concluded that the shock caused Merton\u2019s heart to fail, supporting his \u201celectrocution\u201d assertion, and, as we have seen, that is not accurate.<\/p>\n<p>The report by Israel Shenker of\u00a0<em>The New York Times\u00a0<\/em>adheres more closely to the known facts at the time, as sketchy as they might have been. He tells us that Merton was attending a congress of Roman Catholic monks of the Benedictine and Trappist (or Cistercian) orders 10 miles south of Bangkok, that there were 33 monks in attendance, and that the general topic was \u201cproblems of monasticism in the Far East.\u201d Then Shenker writes, \u201cMerton was found in his room at 4 P.M, badly burned by the standing electrical fan that had toppled over on him. The cause of death was officially listed as heart failure.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Before that Shenker had written that a cable from the American Embassy in Bangkok with the news of Merton\u2019s death had arrived at the Gethsemani Abbey, and one gathers that it is from that cable that Shenker had gleaned his information, by way of the abbey. Like the report on the official cause of death, Shenker\u2019s report on the time of the discovery of the body would prove to be accurate.<\/p>\n<p>He did not say flatly that Merton\u2019s \u201cheart failure\u201d was caused by the shock that he had received from the fan, but he subtly leaves the impression that that was the case. Even so, the editors at the<em>\u00a0Times\u00a0<\/em>apparently thought that Shenker had reported too many details. The Israel Shenker article that was carried by the New York Times News Service that went out to newspapers around the country clipped out the sentence that begins with the time of the body\u2019s discovery. Instead, we have these two sentences: \u201cA spokesman for the abbey said a cable with the news had arrived from Bangkok. There was no indication of cause of death.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The\u00a0<em>Times\u00a0<\/em>editors, in short, simply falsified Shenker\u2019s report in one key aspect for the larger national audience.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-31098 td-animation-stack-type0-2\" src=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/a-picture-containing-text-person-indoor-person.png\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 989px) 100vw, 989px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/a-picture-containing-text-person-indoor-person.png 989w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/a-picture-containing-text-person-indoor-person-210x300.png 210w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/a-picture-containing-text-person-indoor-person-717x1024.png 717w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/a-picture-containing-text-person-indoor-person-768x1097.png 768w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/a-picture-containing-text-person-indoor-person-150x214.png 150w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/a-picture-containing-text-person-indoor-person-300x429.png 300w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/a-picture-containing-text-person-indoor-person-696x994.png 696w\" alt=\"A picture containing text, person, indoor, person Description automatically generated\" width=\"989\" height=\"1413\" \/><figcaption>[Source:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thomasmertonnyc.org\/\">thomasmertonnyc.org<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>As one might expect, the newspapers nearest to the Gethsemani Abbey did not rely upon the Associated Press or\u00a0<em>The New York Times\u00a0<\/em>for their information about Merton\u2019s death. In a long front-page article on December 11, Joan Riehm of the Louisville\u00a0<em>Courier Journal<\/em>, after saying that Merton had died\u00a0<em>in Bangkok<\/em>, wrote, \u201cSpokesmen for the Gethsemani Abbey in Trappist, Ky., near Bardstown, did not know the cause of death.\u201d Bardstown is 41 miles south of Louisville.<\/p>\n<p>Since the abbey\u2019s source of the news of Merton\u2019s death was that cable from the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok that also said the official cause of death was heart failure, which\u00a0<em>The New York Times\u00a0<\/em>had reported, it appears that what the abbey told the\u00a0<em>Courier-Journal<\/em>\u00a0is not true.<\/p>\n<p>Sixty-three miles to Bardstown\u2019s east, in Kentucky\u2019s capital city, the\u00a0<em>Lexington Leader\u00a0<\/em>and the\u00a0<em>Lexington Herald\u00a0<\/em>both ran John Wheeler\u2019s AP story stating flatly that Merton was electrocuted as he attempted to move a faulty fan and that he had missed lunch.<\/p>\n<p>Bardstown, the county seat of Nelson County, with a population of 11,700 as of 2010, has a newspaper,\u00a0<em>The Kentucky Standard.<\/em>\u00a0It is a daily that did not report Merton\u2019s death until the next day, December 12. In a front-page article without a byline, the first sentence reads, \u201cThomas Merton, the Trappist monk with a worldwide reputation as an author and philosopher, died Tuesday, in Bangkok, Thailand.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Considering the fact that they had an extra day to get things right\u2014or the abbey had an extra day to formulate what they wanted to get out to the public\u2014the article\u2019s third paragraph is most intriguing:<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote is-style-solid-color\">\n<blockquote><p><span class=\"has-inline-color has-black-color\">Spokesmen at the Trappist monastery at Gethsemane [sic], Nelson County, said it would be several days before they would have any information as to cause of death, or arrival of the body in the United States.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p>The plot thickened with an article that appeared in\u00a0<em>The Kentucky Standard\u00a0<\/em>exactly a week later when a Requiem Mass was held for Merton upon his arrival at the abbey. It begins this way. \u201cThe body of Thomas Merton, known in monastic life as Father Louis, now lies in its final resting place.\u201d Ten paragraphs into the article we have this:<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote is-style-solid-color\">\n<blockquote><p><span class=\"has-inline-color has-black-color\">Father Louis was accidentally electrocuted while visiting in Thailand. His body was found late in the afternoon, December 10, in his room at Sawangke Vivas, 15 miles south of Bangkok. He was lying on the floor with an electric fan on top of him. His body had several cuts and burns. Apparently he picked up a fan in the shower room to bring it into the bedroom.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"has-inline-color has-black-color\">The body was flown in an Army plane to Travis Air Force Base, near San Francisco, Calif., on Sunday. An autopsy was performed in Oakland, Calif. before the body was flown by commercial plane to Louisville Standiford Field arriving about noon.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"has-inline-color has-black-color\">One of the monks went to California to accompany the body home and to facilitate arrangements.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p>The article reads very much as though it were written by the folks at the abbey. This was the local small-town daily that was a day late in reporting Merton\u2019s death, after all, and when it did it even misspelled \u201cGethsemani,\u201d using the popular spelling for the Biblical garden. This article, also lacking a byline, seems to overcompensate in its concern for Church niceties, referring to Merton seven times in a short article as \u201cFather Louis,\u201d his given Catholic name upon his joining the monastery, and telling us that \u201cLouisville Archbishop Thomas J. McDonough, dressed in crimson robes, sat nearby [principal celebrant Abbot Flavian Burns], allowing the Abbot, whom he outranked ecclesiastically, to have the honor.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-31134 td-animation-stack-type0-2\" src=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/image-1.png\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 456px) 100vw, 456px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/image-1.png 456w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/image-1-300x274.png 300w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/image-1-150x137.png 150w\" alt=\"\" width=\"456\" height=\"416\" \/><figcaption>[Photo courtesy of Hugh Turley]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>This hardly seems to be what the person who wrote that first\u00a0<em>Kentucky Standard\u00a0<\/em>article would have written. It reads like something for Church people from Church people. It\u2019s also quite unlikely that any regular newspaper reporter in an American newspaper would have described the airplane that transported Merton back to the United States as an \u201cArmy plane.\u201d Such transport planes were the responsibility of the Air Force.<\/p>\n<p>Considering the very great likelihood that this article was composed by the abbey, the other \u201cinformation\u201d in the passage is very interesting. The cuts on the body are mentioned in a supposed early letter from the remaining Trappists at the conference to the Gethsemani Monastery that we have identified in our book as an almost certain fabrication. We provide a number of reasons for our presumption of inauthenticity, one of which is that the abbey cannot produce the original of the letter. No other reports mention any such cuts, and none is visible in either of the photographs of the body.<\/p>\n<p>There were burns on the body and the fan was, indeed, on top of Merton\u2019s body, but the notion that he might have picked up the fan to move it from the shower room to the bedroom is purely fanciful, stated nowhere else to our knowledge in any publication or in the entire body of evidence.<\/p>\n<p>The closest thing to it is the statement by the very unreliable John Wheeler of the AP who said he was electrocuted while attempting to move the fan. This subsequent version is really absurd on its face. No one on the record mentions the fan ever having been in the shower room, and there is no reason for it to have been there. Merton would have had to unplug the fan to move it, so the fact that it had previously been in the shower room is irrelevant to the supposed electrocution. The writer of the article appears to be working overtime to somehow squeeze a shower into the Merton electrocution picture and has really botched the job of doing it.<\/p>\n<p>The story of an autopsy having been performed by somebody somewhere in Oakland is also unique to this article, never seen before or since. It does not come right out and say that a formal autopsy confirmed the electrocution story that is being peddled, but that was apparently its purpose. Like the story of the fan in the shower room, it is almost certainly not true, and it is highly unlikely that it was invented by anyone at\u00a0<em>The Kentucky Standard.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>For what it is worth, this is also the only report we have encountered of a Gethsemani monk having gone to California to accompany Merton\u2019s body home and we cannot think of any purpose that it would have served except, perhaps, as a display of solicitude, done just as well in writing as in fact, and at much less expense.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>The Abbey<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>The fact that not just\u00a0<em>The New York Times<\/em>\u00a0but also the Gethsemani Monastery backed away from its earliest report on the \u201cheart failure\u201d cause of death coming from the U.S. Embassy in Thailand, in effect, lying to the Kentucky newspapers about what information it had, is quite incriminating. It gets much worse for them with that hokey story about the supposed moving of the fan from the shower room to the bedroom and the autopsy that probably never took place.<\/p>\n<p>From the beginning, going on very little information, the abbey as much or more than the American news media, seemed to be greatly interested in selling the story that Merton had been electrocuted by a faulty fan, even going so far as to plant the idea that the fan had been in the shower room, thereby bringing water into the picture, which is a well-known conductor of electricity.<\/p>\n<p>It would get much worse for the abbey in 1973 with the publication of\u00a0<em>The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton<\/em>, a compilation of Merton\u2019s written observations during his travels before his arrival at the Red Cross conference center in Thailand.<sup><a id=\"post-31086-endnote-ref-7\" href=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/2021\/12\/13\/was-americas-outspoken-catholic-priest-and-best-selling-author-thomas-merton-eliminated-because-of-his-outspoken-opposition-to-the-vietnam-war\/#post-31086-endnote-7\">[7]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0Merton\u2019s secretary, Brother Patrick Hart, wrote a postscript in which he stated that he had read all of the official reports and statements of witnesses and then he reconstructed the events based upon what he had learned.<sup><a id=\"post-31086-endnote-ref-8\" href=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/2021\/12\/13\/was-americas-outspoken-catholic-priest-and-best-selling-author-thomas-merton-eliminated-because-of-his-outspoken-opposition-to-the-vietnam-war\/#post-31086-endnote-8\">[8]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0He described Merton returning to the cottage after lunch and tells us in a matter-of-fact way that Merton \u201cproceeded to take a shower.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-31099 td-animation-stack-type0-2\" src=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/a-person-wearing-glasses-description-automaticall-2.jpeg\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 943px) 100vw, 943px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/a-person-wearing-glasses-description-automaticall-2.jpeg 943w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/a-person-wearing-glasses-description-automaticall-2-236x300.jpeg 236w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/a-person-wearing-glasses-description-automaticall-2-805x1024.jpeg 805w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/a-person-wearing-glasses-description-automaticall-2-768x977.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/a-person-wearing-glasses-description-automaticall-2-150x191.jpeg 150w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/a-person-wearing-glasses-description-automaticall-2-300x382.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/a-person-wearing-glasses-description-automaticall-2-696x886.jpeg 696w\" alt=\"A person wearing glasses Description automatically generated with low confidence\" width=\"943\" height=\"1200\" \/><figcaption>Brother Patrick Hart, 1955. [Source:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.trappists.org\/2019\/02\/23\/br-patrick-hart-passes-away\/\">trappists.org<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>He had to have known that that was not true, because he knew that there was no mention of a shower in the official reports or witness statements and that the key witness, Fr. Celestine Say, who was within a few feet of the shower room in a bedroom with a permeable screen instead of a wall and had heard no shower running had said in a letter that Merton looked as though he might have been getting ready to take a shower. Br. Hart also confirmed to us that he had no actual evidence for his declarative assertion.<sup><a id=\"post-31086-endnote-ref-9\" href=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/2021\/12\/13\/was-americas-outspoken-catholic-priest-and-best-selling-author-thomas-merton-eliminated-because-of-his-outspoken-opposition-to-the-vietnam-war\/#post-31086-endnote-9\">[9]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n<p>Probably because it mentions the possibility that Merton had taken a shower, the book published for the first time what it had only sent out to its very limited mailing list eight days after Merton\u2019s death, the aforementioned questionable letter by the remaining six Trappists at the conference as its Appendix VIII. That letter speaks of Merton being found lying on his back with a tall floor fan lying across his chest. The published version, though, omits three words without providing an ellipsis to show that words are missing. They are \u201cin his pajamas.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When the first letter was sent out, the story that Merton was wet from a shower had not yet been concocted and it was therefore okay to reveal that the body was clad in short pajama bottoms. With the conscious deletion of those three words, as co-editor of the book, Hart had lied again in furtherance of the fiction that Merton was wet from a shower when he came into contact with the fan.<\/p>\n<p>In addition, Hart knew that the fan was not across Merton\u2019s chest because he had certainly seen Say\u2019s crucial photograph with the fan lying across Merton\u2019s pelvis, where it would have been much less likely to cause heart failure. More than likely, the fan was not the same one that had been running quite well and shocking no one for a couple of days into the conference. Rather, it was most likely a rigged prop that would cause a mild shock while not causing a fuse to blow as a normally short-circuited appliance would have, giving the superficial impression that it had caused Merton\u2019s death. A proper investigation would have settled these questions but, as we shall see, even Merton\u2019s official biographer conceded that there was no proper investigation.<\/p>\n<p>Because he was writing the\u00a0<em>authorized\u00a0<\/em>biography of Merton, which means everything he wrote was approved by the abbey, Michael Mott\u2019s conscious falsification of the chronology of Fr. Say\u2019s photographing of the body so as to leave open the possibility that Merton was naked upon just emerging from a shower also must be laid at the lap of the leadership of the abbey.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-31100 td-animation-stack-type0-2\" src=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/a-picture-containing-person-sky-outdoor-person.jpeg\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1068px) 100vw, 1068px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/a-picture-containing-person-sky-outdoor-person.jpeg 1947w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/a-picture-containing-person-sky-outdoor-person-274x300.jpeg 274w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/a-picture-containing-person-sky-outdoor-person-935x1024.jpeg 935w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/a-picture-containing-person-sky-outdoor-person-768x841.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/a-picture-containing-person-sky-outdoor-person-1402x1536.jpeg 1402w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/a-picture-containing-person-sky-outdoor-person-1869x2048.jpeg 1869w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/a-picture-containing-person-sky-outdoor-person-150x164.jpeg 150w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/a-picture-containing-person-sky-outdoor-person-300x329.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/a-picture-containing-person-sky-outdoor-person-696x762.jpeg 696w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/a-picture-containing-person-sky-outdoor-person-1068x1170.jpeg 1068w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/a-picture-containing-person-sky-outdoor-person-1920x2103.jpeg 1920w\" alt=\"A picture containing person, sky, outdoor, person Description automatically generated\" width=\"1068\" height=\"1170\" \/><figcaption>Michael Mott [Source:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wagesandsons.com\/obits\/michael-mott\/\">wagesandsons.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The abbey shares responsibility for Mott\u2019s deceptions about Merton\u2019s death with the group that appointed him, the Merton Legacy Trust. That group, nominally established by Merton himself in 1967 with a three-member board of trustees that apparently conducted all its meetings at the Gethsemani Abbey, is responsible for, among other things, disposition of the substantial proceeds from all of Merton\u2019s books. Two of the first three trustees, ostensibly chosen by Merton, were employees of major New York City publishing companies and, through the years, their replacements would seem to have more connections to what has come to be called the Deep State than to the Catholic Church.<sup><a id=\"post-31086-endnote-ref-10\" href=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/2021\/12\/13\/was-americas-outspoken-catholic-priest-and-best-selling-author-thomas-merton-eliminated-because-of-his-outspoken-opposition-to-the-vietnam-war\/#post-31086-endnote-10\">[10]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n<p>Curiously, although Mott sells the shower story hard, he makes no reference to Br. Patrick\u2019s flat assertion 11 years before that Merton had, indeed, taken a shower. Rather, he engages in conjecture, saying \u201cWhat seems like the most likely reconstruction is that Merton came out of the shower either wearing a pair of drawers or naked.\u201d<sup><a id=\"post-31086-endnote-ref-11\" href=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/2021\/12\/13\/was-americas-outspoken-catholic-priest-and-best-selling-author-thomas-merton-eliminated-because-of-his-outspoken-opposition-to-the-vietnam-war\/#post-31086-endnote-11\">[11]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0He never explains why he would seem to take the Merton shower as a given, when all the evidence is to the contrary.<\/p>\n<p>Mott, probably to neutralize it should it come to light like he neutralized Say\u2019s photograph, even has the same full quote from the Thai police report that we have provided above in which the conclusion is reached that Merton\u2019s heart failed and the \u201cdead priest\u201d fainted and fell into the fan in his room. He virtually concedes that the Thai police engaged in a cover-up but without calling it that: \u201cThe police investigation had not inspired much confidence,\u201d he understates, \u201cMany felt electrocution was deliberately played down to protect the reputation of the conference center. It may have been so.\u201d<sup><a id=\"post-31086-endnote-ref-12\" href=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/2021\/12\/13\/was-americas-outspoken-catholic-priest-and-best-selling-author-thomas-merton-eliminated-because-of-his-outspoken-opposition-to-the-vietnam-war\/#post-31086-endnote-12\">[12]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n<p>Mott fails to tell us that there were much deeper pockets involved had the monastery taken the course of action that any other surviving \u201cfamily\u201d (which the abbey, in effect, was) likely would have taken and filed a lawsuit. The fan was manufactured by Hitachi (which we learned only from witness letters) and the conference center was run by the International Red Cross, after all.<\/p>\n<p>There is some irony in the fact that Mott suggests that the Thai police posited natural causes as the cause of death to cover up an accidental electrocution when, with his outright lies and equivocations, only a couple of which we have addressed, Mott posits accidental electrocution to cover up what was almost certainly a murder.<sup><a id=\"post-31086-endnote-ref-13\" href=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/2021\/12\/13\/was-americas-outspoken-catholic-priest-and-best-selling-author-thomas-merton-eliminated-because-of-his-outspoken-opposition-to-the-vietnam-war\/#post-31086-endnote-13\">[13]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n<p>What is most likely is that Mott and the Thai police were engaged in the same cover-up, and it was not done for anything so relatively benign as protecting the reputation of the local conference center. We would never gather from Mott what a corrupt organization the Thai police were or what corrupt associations they had, going back many years:<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote is-style-solid-color\">\n<blockquote><p><span class=\"has-inline-color has-black-color\">During the 1950s, Thai police, the Nationalist Chinese army, the French military, and the CIA adopted policies that allowed Southeast Asia\u2019s mass opium addiction to survive and even thrive.<sup><a id=\"post-31086-endnote-ref-14\" href=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/2021\/12\/13\/was-americas-outspoken-catholic-priest-and-best-selling-author-thomas-merton-eliminated-because-of-his-outspoken-opposition-to-the-vietnam-war\/#post-31086-endnote-14\">[14]<\/a><\/sup><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignwide\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-31101 td-animation-stack-type0-2\" src=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/the-thai-police-aerial-reinforcement-unit-paru-1.jpeg\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 421px) 100vw, 421px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/the-thai-police-aerial-reinforcement-unit-paru-1.jpeg 421w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/the-thai-police-aerial-reinforcement-unit-paru-1-300x292.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/the-thai-police-aerial-reinforcement-unit-paru-1-150x146.jpeg 150w\" alt=\"The Thai Police Aerial Reinforcement Unit (PARU) 1954 \u2013 1974\" width=\"421\" height=\"410\" \/><figcaption>Thailand Police Aerial Reinforcement Unit (PARU). [Source:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/juleswings.wordpress.com\/2021\/03\/28\/the-thai-police-aerial-reinforcement-unit-paru-1954-1974\/\">juleswings.wordpress.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>At the time of Merton\u2019s death, the Thai government was also closely cooperating with the U.S. military in its prosecution of the nearby Vietnam War, which included the mass assassination campaign known as the Phoenix Program, in which the CIA was also deeply involved. One troublesome American monk would be just one more obstacle to victory in Vietnam to be removed, and there he was, right next door, far removed from scrutiny back home.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-19341 td-animation-stack-type0-2\" src=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/CAM-logo-circular-20210506b-300.png\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 20px) 100vw, 20px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/CAM-logo-circular-20210506b-300.png 300w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/CAM-logo-circular-20210506b-300-298x300.png 298w, https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/CAM-logo-circular-20210506b-300-150x151.png 150w\" alt=\"\" width=\"20\" height=\"20\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-css-opacity\" \/>\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li id=\"post-31086-endnote-1\">Roger Lipsey,\u00a0<em>Make Peace Before the Sun Goes Down: The Long Encounter of Thomas Merton and His Abbot, James Fox\u00a0<\/em>(Boulder, CO: Shambhala Publications, 2015), p. 159.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/2021\/12\/13\/was-americas-outspoken-catholic-priest-and-best-selling-author-thomas-merton-eliminated-because-of-his-outspoken-opposition-to-the-vietnam-war\/#post-31086-endnote-ref-1\">\u2191<\/a><\/li>\n<li id=\"post-31086-endnote-2\">\u201cThe collection of Merton\u2019s correspondence at the Thomas Merton Studies Center at Bellarmine, still far from complete, contains letters to over eighteen hundred correspondents, and some folders hold more than two hundred items.\u201d Michael Mott,\u00a0<em>The Seven Mountains of Thomas Merton<\/em>\u00a0(Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1984), p. xvii.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/2021\/12\/13\/was-americas-outspoken-catholic-priest-and-best-selling-author-thomas-merton-eliminated-because-of-his-outspoken-opposition-to-the-vietnam-war\/#post-31086-endnote-ref-2\">\u2191<\/a><\/li>\n<li id=\"post-31086-endnote-3\">See David Martin, \u201cThomas Merton, Anti-War Hero\u201d, January 29, 2018. https:\/\/www.dcdave.com\/article5\/180129.htm and \u201cMerton\u2019s Message Resonates as Nuclear Holocaust Looms, April 5, 2018 https:\/\/www.dcdave.com\/article5\/180405.htm.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/2021\/12\/13\/was-americas-outspoken-catholic-priest-and-best-selling-author-thomas-merton-eliminated-because-of-his-outspoken-opposition-to-the-vietnam-war\/#post-31086-endnote-ref-3\">\u2191<\/a><\/li>\n<li id=\"post-31086-endnote-4\">\u201cThe Mysterious Death of Thomas Merton, March 22, 2018, https:\/\/www.lewrockwell.com\/2018\/03\/phillip-f-nelson\/the-mysterious-death-of-thomas-merton\/.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/2021\/12\/13\/was-americas-outspoken-catholic-priest-and-best-selling-author-thomas-merton-eliminated-because-of-his-outspoken-opposition-to-the-vietnam-war\/#post-31086-endnote-ref-4\">\u2191<\/a><\/li>\n<li id=\"post-31086-endnote-5\">The documents cited in this article can be found at http:\/\/www.themartyrdomofthomasmerton.com\/documents.html.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/2021\/12\/13\/was-americas-outspoken-catholic-priest-and-best-selling-author-thomas-merton-eliminated-because-of-his-outspoken-opposition-to-the-vietnam-war\/#post-31086-endnote-ref-5\">\u2191<\/a><\/li>\n<li id=\"post-31086-endnote-6\">Mott, p. 566.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/2021\/12\/13\/was-americas-outspoken-catholic-priest-and-best-selling-author-thomas-merton-eliminated-because-of-his-outspoken-opposition-to-the-vietnam-war\/#post-31086-endnote-ref-6\">\u2191<\/a><\/li>\n<li id=\"post-31086-endnote-7\">Thomas Merton,\u00a0<em>The Asian Journal of Thomas\u00a0<\/em>Merton (New York: New Directions Books, 1973) [Patrick Hart, James Laughlin, and Naomi Burton Stone, editors].\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/2021\/12\/13\/was-americas-outspoken-catholic-priest-and-best-selling-author-thomas-merton-eliminated-because-of-his-outspoken-opposition-to-the-vietnam-war\/#post-31086-endnote-ref-7\">\u2191<\/a><\/li>\n<li id=\"post-31086-endnote-8\">Merton,\u00a0<em>The Asian Journal,<\/em>\u00a0pp. 344-347.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/2021\/12\/13\/was-americas-outspoken-catholic-priest-and-best-selling-author-thomas-merton-eliminated-because-of-his-outspoken-opposition-to-the-vietnam-war\/#post-31086-endnote-ref-8\">\u2191<\/a><\/li>\n<li id=\"post-31086-endnote-9\">In a response to his telephone query by voicemail as to what evidence he had for his shower assertion, Br. Hart responded on May 31, 2017, at 2:14 p.m., to Hugh Turley that he had no direct evidence, but that it was hot, and Merton\u00a0<em>must\u00a0<\/em>have taken a shower.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/2021\/12\/13\/was-americas-outspoken-catholic-priest-and-best-selling-author-thomas-merton-eliminated-because-of-his-outspoken-opposition-to-the-vietnam-war\/#post-31086-endnote-ref-9\">\u2191<\/a><\/li>\n<li id=\"post-31086-endnote-10\">See David Price, \u201cThe CIA Book Publishing Operations,\u201d\u00a0<em>Orinoco Tribune,\u00a0<\/em>September 13, 2020, https:\/\/orinocotribune.com\/the-cia-book-publishing-operations\/.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/2021\/12\/13\/was-americas-outspoken-catholic-priest-and-best-selling-author-thomas-merton-eliminated-because-of-his-outspoken-opposition-to-the-vietnam-war\/#post-31086-endnote-ref-10\">\u2191<\/a><\/li>\n<li id=\"post-31086-endnote-11\">Mott, p. 567.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/2021\/12\/13\/was-americas-outspoken-catholic-priest-and-best-selling-author-thomas-merton-eliminated-because-of-his-outspoken-opposition-to-the-vietnam-war\/#post-31086-endnote-ref-11\">\u2191<\/a><\/li>\n<li id=\"post-31086-endnote-12\">Mott, p. 566.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/2021\/12\/13\/was-americas-outspoken-catholic-priest-and-best-selling-author-thomas-merton-eliminated-because-of-his-outspoken-opposition-to-the-vietnam-war\/#post-31086-endnote-ref-12\">\u2191<\/a><\/li>\n<li id=\"post-31086-endnote-13\">For a more comprehensive analysis of the shortcomings of Mott\u2019s treatment of Merton\u2019s death, see David Martin and Hugh Turley, \u201cWhat We Know about Thomas Merton\u2019s Death,\u201d a paper delivered to Thomas Merton: Prophecy and Renewal, a Benedictine symposium in Rome, June 12-15, 2018. http:\/\/www.themartyrdomofthomasmerton.com\/ewExternalFiles\/What%20We%20Know.pdf.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/2021\/12\/13\/was-americas-outspoken-catholic-priest-and-best-selling-author-thomas-merton-eliminated-because-of-his-outspoken-opposition-to-the-vietnam-war\/#post-31086-endnote-ref-13\">\u2191<\/a><\/li>\n<li id=\"post-31086-endnote-14\">Alfred W. McCoy,\u00a0<em>The Politics of Heroin: Complicity in the Global Drug Trade\u00a0<\/em>(Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, an imprint of Chicago Review Press, 2003), p. 17.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/2021\/12\/13\/was-americas-outspoken-catholic-priest-and-best-selling-author-thomas-merton-eliminated-because-of-his-outspoken-opposition-to-the-vietnam-war\/#post-31086-endnote-ref-14\">\u2191<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>____<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/2021\/12\/13\/was-americas-outspoken-catholic-priest-and-best-selling-author-thomas-merton-eliminated-because-of-his-outspoken-opposition-to-the-vietnam-war\/\">https:\/\/covertactionmagazine.com\/2021\/12\/13\/was-americas-outspoken-catholic-priest-and-best-selling-author-thomas-merton-eliminated-because-of-his-outspoken-opposition-to-the-vietnam-war\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Was America\u2019s Outspoken Catholic Priest and Best-Selling Author, Thomas Merton, \u201cEliminated\u201d Because of His Outspoken Opposition to the Vietnam War?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=65394"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65394\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65397,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65394\/revisions\/65397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=65394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=65394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=65394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}