HEAD OF STATE

A presidential brain goes missing—it was the first of many.


Rampage finally gets one right on the cover of this issue that appeared on newsstands today in 1973—John F. Kennedy’s brain really did go missing. It happened in 1966. Well, better to be right late than never. To this day there’s no official explanation for what happened to JFK’s brain, which had been stored at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. after his autopsy. The most credible theories center on family members ordering it taken to conceal evidence that Kennedy was sick or on medication. Amazingly, later presidential brain removals occurred while their hosts were still alive. No signs of cognition were present in these men, yet they walked, talked, and in zombielike trances signed laws written by corporations and billionaires.

Something else that’s missing is a chunk of this Rampage. Where did it go? We have no idea, but we roundly reject theories one person was the culprit—it was clearly a group that committed the deed. Though it’s a partial paper, we bought it anyway because it was only a dollar. And it was worth it. Inside, we learned that kissing won’t spread colds, but does shorten life spans; we were introduced to ambitious stripper Sandy O’Hara, who may be the first of her profession to debut in tabloids and later achieve her ambition of appearing in movies; and we learn Cher is on the verge of jettisoning Sonny. Scans below, and more from Rampage in our tabloid index.

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

1901—McKinley Fatally Shot

Polish-born anarchist Leon Czolgosz shoots and fatally wounds U.S. President William McKinley at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. McKinley dies September 12, and Czolgosz is later executed.

1939—U.S. Declares Neutrality in WW II

The Neutrality Acts, which had been passed in the 1930s when the United States considered foreign conflicts undesirable, prompts the nation to declare neutrality in World War II. The policy ended with the Lend-Lease Act of March 1941, which allowed the U.S. to sell, lend or give war materials to allied nations.

1972—Munich Massacre

During the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany, a paramilitary group calling itself Black September takes members of the Israeli olympic team hostage. Eventually the group, which represents the first glimpse of terrorists for most people in the Western world, kill eleven of the hostages along with one West German police officer during a rescue attempt by West German police that devolves into a firefight. Five of the eight members of Black September are also killed.

1957—U.S. National Guard Used Against Students

The governor of Arkansas, Orval Faubus, mobilizes the National Guard to prevent nine African-American students known as the Little Rock Nine from enrolling in high school in Little Rock, Arkansas.

1941—Auschwitz Begins Gassing Prisoners

Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest of Nazi Germany’s concentration camps, becomes an extermination camp when it begins using poison gas to kill prisoners en masse. The camp commandant, Rudolf Höss, later testifies at the Nuremberg Trials that he believes perhaps 3 million people died at Auschwitz, but the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum revises the figure to about 1 million.

This awesome cover art is by Tommy Shoemaker, a new talent to us, but not to more experienced paperback illustration aficionados.
Ten covers from the popular French thriller series Les aventures de Zodiaque.
Sam Peffer cover art for Jonathan Latimer's Solomon's Vineyard, originally published in 1941.

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