Icons and Killers as Children

Born innocent. Maybe? Probably?

This thread is an outcome of idle curiosity. I saw an image of Henry Kissinger as a child and wondered if there was any foreshadowing of his future whilst a child? Did he or his parents have any inkling that he would become an international influence. He's to become more than a footnote in someone else's biography...there's a good chance that 'war criminal' will be his epithet. Whatever our opinions of the man, he has the shared blood of thousands on his hands. Here he is, just a small boy, smiling in the midday sun of Germany 1938...

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Henry's bottom front left

Out of morbid curiosity I looked for the childhood images of some of the 20th Century's most powerful leaders and notorious killers. Whatever drove this curiosity, I don't know...probably the paperwork I still need to be doing. In a way, it was looking into an innocent face and searching for a 'Mark of Cain,' some dark aspect in the gaze or symptom of madness. In reality there doesn't seem to be any physical signs that a baby or child will become a force of darkness in the lives of others.

Are they born that way? Are they raised that way? Are their consciences chipped away by their experiences and justifications for their deeds?

What soon became apparent is how interconnected all these lives are. If I was able to find images of more of our 20th Century icons in their youth it'd be clearer. Nevertheless, an idle hour led to 'joining the dots.' Not in the typically ATS way, but in the acute awareness of how so many lives are bound by the actions of so few. In this thread you'll see references to webs, ties, bonds, threads and links...all terms of connections.

In the case of Lee Harvey Oswald, it's unlikely he knew he was caught in the web until hours before his death. In looking at these historical images, it's hard to overlook that each of these individuals have been washed along by the tides of history. They and their actions haven't existed in a vacuum. Human nature, corruption and politics are key factors. The families of most of them were dysfunctional...several never knew their fathers.

Anyway, not all these kids look exactly like angels. This one right here grew to be responsible for millions of deaths. He literally spent evenings authorising hundreds of death warrants with his signature. Conservative estimates for the number of dead begin at 15 million...torture and starvation victims are unknown. Looking at his sweet little face, there's a certain foreboding there....unless he was having a bad afternoon!

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Joseph Stalin: Died 5th March 1953 suspected poison

This little Stooge lookalike needs no introduction, but perhaps a couple of snippets of information? I once read that Hitler was 'three times a charm' for his mother who lost her previous children in childbirth. Adolf's father beat him and he beat his sister...in this image he's just a little baby. How does 15lb of baby fat become an adult that history will forever condemn? Beating him as a child probably helped to form the man. As a man he's competing with Stalin for blood spilt...there's a lot of debate about the figures. We can safely say it's in the millions...

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Cute little genocidal icon

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Top centre looking like he rules Germany
Adolf Hitler died from poison in abject defeat

Next up was these two guys. Different backgrounds and wholly different upbringings. Oswald didn't know his dad. From the moment they were born, their lives were threaded together and bound up in their own deaths. JFK and Lee Harvey Oswald...

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Shot dead by Jack Ruby before seeing a Court Room

These two happy examples of the joyous relationship between father and son are still alive. History is furiously making notes in the margins and sticking post-its up where she'll be able to see them later. By which, I mean the jury is still out on the effects these two have had on the lives of others and the deaths they are partially responsible for. It's the Bush Family...

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Two Gulf Wars, a War on Terror, War on Drugs, War in Afghanistan, a Cyber War, a Cold War with Iran...possible connections to 9/11. Election fraud? Friends with Mr Kissinger and a family relationship with the CIA. The potential for a large chapter in the history books is only as good as the information surviving. The ultimate death toll is a work in progress...

The judgement is already in for this young boy...and it isn't good. Responsible for decades of killings and torture. His life was inextricably bound to the the young Bush and his father...Saddam Hussein

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Saddam Hussein died at the end of a rope for crimes against humanity...or getting caught link


Arguably, all the above have blood on their hands...JFK included. They've made massive impacts on 20th Century history that will see the ejecta landing somewhere in future decades. Undoubtedly, the people involved in future conflicts and deaths will be able to follow a thread...a connection...back to these people and their actions. Like a spider's web, one tap on the thread sends vibrations through all of it...

The next child is a shy one, his young face is almost absent from the public domain and the jury is out on his deeds...if not his character. From early age, he was a fairly unpleasant person. Convicted for murder...some see evidence of a cover-up. The man he's convicted of killing is unlike the others. Not through lack of drive, vision or personality. They all have these qualities. Where this guy is different is he died as a consequence of being a man of peace....

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Dr Martin Luther King with wife and children 1963...7 months before Oswald's death

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James Earl Ray: Convicted killer of MLK

The children here have been a part of the same web that connects us all in some subtle way. This is our world and we share it. The connections experienced by the stars of this thread run deeper. Events in history and family ties have bound them together. What ever process turns the bright-eyed kids into culpable killers is lost on me. Their endings are violent in either a real or symbolic sense. In some peculiar way, I'm reminded of small stones rattling around the same old can. I've drawn heavily on the web metaphor and I apologise for that. The thing is that reading about these people it's hard to overlook the connections that bind them...or what the hell creates them...

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Nice thread. The problem we have with this is that we see a picture of them as a kid and we project what we think of them as adults into it. So its no real value this technique.

But its definitely a nice thread. Minority report technology does not work, as like the film shows, you still have a choice.

Even if someone was meant to be someone, the government and police and community could wreck them as a person, so they do not turn out like that. But the dog eat dog attitude of society brings the scum to the top, so maybe alot of others would be leaders who do not want to be psychopaths would have been better leaders, but they where destroyed by society.

There has probably been better leaders being destroyed by society of dog eat dog, so we will never know, what leaders could of been, or who we are destroying, in this game theory world.

If you get what i mean.

I note Kissinger is the only one brave enough to wear a fake Hitler mustache, is this an early childhood manifestation of a reckless bold streak that in later life went bad.

reply to post by andy1033
I get what you mean. People also say we get the leaders we deserve...a painful idea.

Well.. no extremely biased views in this thread! lol
but very well put together I have always found it interesting to see baby pictures of anyone..celebs, serial killers, dictators..its strange looking at their eyes in baby pics and knowing what we know now in regards to how they actually grew up and the beings they became as adults..
nice post

Originally posted by Kandinsky
reply to post by andy1033

 

I get what you mean. People also say we get the leaders we deserve...a painful idea.

Exactly, maybe the leaders we never got where the better ones, as society destroyed them.

reply to post by Full_Vision
Thanks for the reply...I aspire to being a galactic benign dictator...there's nothing wrong with having an ambition

Here's a couple more images that have turned up...

'Tricky Dicky' Richard Millhouse Nixon 1917 age 4
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Eisenhower 1907 age 17
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Barrack Obama 1965
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Note the Terminator cyborg in the background wielding a cunningly disguised laser rifle.

Image source: Presidents in Their Young Age

Interesting post. I would have to say that we are all predisposed with certain character attributes that can lead us to behave a certain way. This has been proven with alcoholics, smokers, people with anger management issues ect. It's also been shown with twins who were separated at birth--who have very similar lifestyles.

However, the wild card is the up bringing we have and the people of influence in our lives. I think for every personality that became a Hilter there is another one that did end up pursuing art successfully.

Its a mixture of nature and nurture, with nurture molding the clay to a great degree.

Norman Mailers last novel "The Castle in the Forest" chronicles the life of young Adolf Hitler until 1915 I think. His theory on the genesis of "the most interesting person since Jesus" was that evil forces held sway over his developement since a very early age having intimations that several factors, including being the product of incest and excessive mother-love as an infant, would produce the historical monster we all know. So, apart from nature and nuture, he would say demonic influences ex nihilo produce your Stalins and Hitlers.

[edit on 16-5-2010 by AProphet1233]

[edit on 16-5-2010 by AProphet1233]

Depends on your definition of "demonic influences." I do think that all these psychos and loons had serious disfunctionality in their familes and backgrounds. Although, from the outside it can be hard to see.

I find it funny that every time a nut bar cuts loose, there is a quote in the paper from neigbours that says "He was a quiet, well behaved man, never caused any problems etc"

Of course he was! Otherwise he would have been carted away long ago.

Familes can appear very normal on the outside, but, be laying the foundations for serious psychological problems down the road.

Hi Kandinsky.

Awesome post man ! Maybe... in the future a u2u would be great. This thread would have at least one more reply if you send my one...


Reply to post by a prophet1233

His theory on the genesis of "the most interesting person since Jesus" was that evil forces held sway over his developement since a very early age having intimations that several factors, including being the product of incest and excessive mother-love as an infant, would produce the historical monster we all know. So, apart from nature and nuture, he would say demonic influences ex nihilo produce your Stalins and Hitlers.

I do not believe Hitler was nearly a demonic as you give him credit for.

Yes... He did have a troubled youth and experienced some unforgettable stuff, but... So did millions and maybe even billions of others. The situation effected his actions more then his youth IMO.
Any other head of state before and those heads of state from the same time period have all got blood on their hands, like the bombing of Dresden is a perfect example.

I think that we are only told the halve truth and Hitler happened to be the loser and so scape goatfrom all the others...

PS
I'm not claiming Hitler never committed the crimes they say he did. I'm saying that he got demonized and got all the blame as a reward for losing the war.

reply to post by Sinter Klaas
Thanks for the compliments. I enjoyed writing this thread and it bombed as usual. Re-reading the OP, I should've spent more time writing to make it clearer. Sometimes a thread is worth the trouble whether people read it or not.

Writing the thread gave me an eerie sense of 'destiny' and the patterns of time.

reply to post by Kandinsky


I agree...

Everything is so delicately related that I would think there is someone pulling some strings.... Eerie indeed.