Red Shift Book Jacket

Time travel might not be of a nature that would confine us to observation only. We might be able to participate in the times we visit.

Isaac Asimov, On Science Fiction.

I told my readers to consider time travel a risky venture. Jim Cahill finds himself on time's cusp, within the Bay of Pigs battle in April, 1961.

Fidel Castro and Cuban Soldiers
at The Bay of Pigs

I was just a boy when the Kennedy administration, utilizing anti-Castro Cubans, launched an ill-fated attack against the regime of Fidel Castro. I don't recall the Bay of Pigs, but I remember John F. Kennedy.

Victory has a thousand fathers
but defeat is an orphan.

John F. Kennedy,
reacting to the Bay of Pigs failure

Forever fixed in my mind is the handsome, vigorous man with thick, cropped hair and his stunning wife.

President and Mrs. Kennedy

I felt the sense of purpose exuded by Kennedy and his generation who came of age fighting World War II.

PT 109 Skipper

And to power in the 1960's.

January 20, 1961

1963 State of the Union

Video

Last days videos-1

Last days videos-2

I was at a school dance on the afternoon of Friday, November 22, 1963. Half an hour into the dance the music was abruptly cut and our principal walked on stage. Through his glum expression he choked out the words that President Kennedy had just been killed in Dallas, Texas and he asked us to pray for Jackie.
On my way home I crunched the sidewalk's fallen autumn leaves and soberly realized I had never experienced death before.
I was numb in front of a black and white TV as Bobby Kennedy held Jackie's hand as she disembarked the plane; her dress still bloodied. The coffin containing the body of President Kennedy was slowly lowered and transported to a light colored, waiting hearse. How could this be happening?

November 22, 1963

The slow cadence of the riderless horse, the world dignitaries marching through Washington's fall air...

...A young son's sudden salute to his fallen father, a flickering eternal flame, and taps. We all shared a certain kinship with President Kennedy and now he was gone.

The alternate history in Red Shift is something I would have gladly anticipated. John F. Kennedy, years after retiring from eight years of his presidency, now uses his journalistic credentials of the past in a current forum: a nationally syndicated talk radio show.

The Airwaves

Given the opportunity I would devote an entire book to revitalizing JFK, but I had to be careful. I edited back nine pages to just a few. A little speculation and playing with history goes a long way.

Cahill's traveling back to that era brings us to the central theme of post World War II: Encroaching power from both the Soviet Union and the United States met at flash points such as Korea, Berlin, and Viet Nam. Cuba was a flash point close to home and eventually the Soviet presence led to a near nuclear catastrophe. Red Shift's nuclear holocaust occurred years after the Bay of Pigs.

We all like to think how idyllic things would be if Lincoln survived the assassin's bullet or how much better the world would have been had Adolf Hitler never been born. A time line has an innate complexity and an almost infinite combination of players and possibilities.
The destruction of the World Trade Center towers and the unwarranted loss of life on September 11, 2001 demonstrates the vulgarity of terrorism. I do not possess a prescient view as to what would have happened in varying historic scenarios, nor can I say what would have evolved had President Kennedy lived. I only wanted to contrast time's fragile facade. In Red Shift some of the operatives on the Cuban side of the Bay of Pigs emerged later and destroyed the United States in targeted nuclear explosions. This is a horrific irony, but not to be accepted as fact. In the book's final alternate history Kennedy is killed. Time travel is indeed a risky venture.

What kind of peace do we seek? Not a 'Pax Americana' enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of a slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children-not merely peace for Americans, but peace for all men and women; not merely peace in our time, but peace for all time.

John F. Kennedy, 1963

Red Shift Book Jacket

Further Reading