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Bob (1927-1983) and his younger brother Walt (currently Chairman of SCORE Div.10 in Northern Calif.) are the sons of Theodore "Ted" Kaffke, World War I veteran of Kaiser Willie's shoe shine brigade...born near Dusseldorf, in Duisberg on the Rhine. Grampa brought his spit and polish to San Francisco in 1925. Employed as an ironworker and boilermaker during the Great Depression, he helped build the Golden Gate Bridge. The above photo shows him on the span circa 1936. FAMILY
I dedicate my spirit, Mother
in a poetic message rather than material wealth; Entombed in everlasting lines of love and blood to brother and father, in a song of the soul. With the rapidity of the locomotive racing to infinity my blood bursts To Felipe, Alejandro, Avra, Mike, Adelita, Tomas, Susana, Chelo, Michelle, Arjans, the Dominicanos, Hanna, and all the rest of those dear ones...Wilma, Walter, Arturo, Dad, Mother, Manole.
But especially to my son Kenny, in the hopes he will be very careful in surveying methods for change. Dynamism is not necessarily realism. Just as running down the street shouting "Revolution" is not necessarily revolutionary! But to be a brother to all men; to use wisdom rather than smartness, etc.
-Roberto Kaffke
Click cursor on photos to enlarge.
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Reflections on Decadence
Sitting in a green slithering biting Hell. Doing NOTHING. Waiting. Sitting. Time passing, going dead. Trapped, hoping. Prime of life, slipping, going. Thinking back to days in Paris, Madrid, Cologne, Palma, New York, Toronto, Ottawa, San Francisco and the High Sierra.
To gentle breezes under the Golden Gate, a quiet fog over Twin Peaks, the scent of burning pine up on the Sierra ridges.
All memories. Russian River, Tahoe, the Ganges and Richardson's Bay. Waste. Excretions, breathing, masticating.
Sun, Mexico. Riding across the caņones. Ruins in the Yucatan, corridas in the Plaza de Toros.
Do you think Life is a man lying on top of a woman? Life is being kicked by a cop, going to a toilet that doesn't flush. Walking across the Buttes at sunset. Catching a trout in some quiet stream. Smiling at a friend, a knowing nod from a loved one. The wind blowing across sanddunes. Walking a picket line protesting a just cause. Smashing through an offensive line on the grid iron. A lightning jab in the ring. Tight Levis and a v-neck sweater. A pair of good boots, like Dad's.
Eating, sweating, dying. Life. Reading; Camus, Dostoevesky, Sartre, Hesse, Neitzsche, Kafka, and Rilke. Van Gogh. Painting, Lorca, writing poetry. Smiling. Walking in the city of St. Francis. Cruising in an open car through shaded valleys of Palo Alto. The sun coming over the Berkeley hills. Strolling down Telegraph. Up through Marin, San Geronimo, Bolinas, Tennessee Valley. Making camp in a meadow just off the John Muir trail on the way to Mt. Whitney. Solitude and quiesance. Ones own thoughts, ones own mistakes, ones own gratifications. Ones own fuck-ups. from DAYS OF RAGE - Roberto Kaffke
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Kaffke became fluent in his Nicaraguan mother's native Spanish, traveling to Mexico and Latin America many times. He actively challenged the ban on US citizens traveling to Cuba. Aren't we supposed to be free to travel anywhere? He led 59 college students to Havana in 1963, where they met Che Guevara and played table tennis with a bare-chested Fidel Castro. When he returned, the SF Examiner blasted the story on the front pages. Practically whipped into action by Citizen Hearst, a New York grand jury subpoenaed Mr. Kaffke. Robert Kaffke was being singled out in the yellow dog tradition of the flagship Hearst paper. The SF Examiner was apparently much more interested in my Father's every move than the Chronicle as a quick browse through the archives reveals. Hearst was hell-bent on zeroing in on post-graduade protesters who were talking out of school, making careers out of stirring up students into acts of civil disobedience. In the aftermath of Kaffke's apparent lead role in organising the forbidden flight to Havana, it must have really rankled the Hearst while Comrade Kaffke's entire travel expenses for the Fall of 1963 were picked up in advance courtesy of the State of NY. Yes though after all, Kaffke was suddenly expected to take a large degree of the heat for flaming another Spanish-American crisis of conscience and testify in court over a period of several business days. He needed a fellow traveIer this time out for the long journey into the jurisdiction of Judge Murphy (the NY anti-comic book crusader). Who but myself was ready and able to fill that little niche? Most irregular yet happily for me, a 5th grader, who was also being watched closely for the slightest misbehavior, was excused from the mind-numbing institution. Argonne (aptly named after one of the worst battles of WWI) was guarded by my oppressive Principal Mrs. Ann Huddert, who was later acknowledged by the Board of Education to be unfairly disciplining me... Mrs. Huddert was on my case almost every other day, no doubt the Principal had a subscription to the, yep, SF EXAMINER! So I joined my Father to witness a rather fascinating moment in history. The two week trip included a junket to Mexico City. That side-trip would itself soon raise controversy. A bizarre eyewitness account published in the 22 vol. Warren Report misidentified Lee Harvey Oswald as Robert Kaffke. Though only portions of this story are known so far, the events are described in detail in manuscripts including "59 to Cuba" and "The Kennedy Thing" which Kaffke wrote with the help of Mark Lane and Hal Verb. Luria Castell is pictured with Kaffke (center) in the Hearst daily above (click images on this page to view enlarged). Luria soon after became a founding member with Chet Helms and friends, of The Family Dog.
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Bill Kelly wrote:
The FBI interviewed the Acting Director of the Casa de Los Amigos, Von Peacock, who speculated that the "unknown American" may have been Robert Kaffke of San Francisco, who had been one of 59 students who made an illegal trip to Cuba in the summer of 1963. While it was determined that Kaffke was not registered at the Casa De Los Amigos until Oct. 25, 1963, weeks after
Oswald had left, he was familiar to the FBI since he was also an undercover informant of the San Francisco FBI office. He was not however, any longer suspected as being the "unknown American" seen with Oswald in Mexico City.
Kaffke told the FBI that when he stayed at the Casa de Los Amigos in late October 1963 the residents were still talking about Oswald's visit. When Oswald was there he had "a lot of money" and "persons at Casa de Los Amigos are really scared when the name of Oswald is mentioned." [Note that they were scared Before the assassination].
Talked with Hal Verb for the first time since 11/23/98 in Dallas where we met with Gary Mack at the 6th Floor museum. I had also quoted him in my COPA abstract on the North American Newspaper Alliance and in an article I wrote on the Event that Didn't Happen - "You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you mad!"
Hal thought a lot of your father, and you should be proud of him. My father was a Camden policeman for 47 years who I am also proud of.
We're still trying to locate more information on "Steve Kennan" a "Quaker from Philadelphia" who stayed at the Casa de los Amigos and ferried Oswald around Mexico City on the back of his motorcycle. Any help you can give us in locating this person or more information about him would be greatly appreciated. Have you contacted the Casa or the American Friends Service Committee who ran it to see if they have any records of interest?
All the best,
Bill Kelly
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I was with my Father at the Casa de Los Amigos in Fall 1963. I was allowed to take leave of Argonne Elementary school where I was hardly learning anything anyway at the time. In New York City in the Fall of '63, a few blocks from Bob Dylan playing small venues, Kaffke and son stayed at a divorcee's bohemian apartment filled with all sorts of books was as fine an education as any for my 9 year old mind. Her daughter was my age and very friendly! Dad let me wander by myself in the big city. One day I returned with the new MAD magazine. Too bad it wasn't the issue (#82) with Fidel on the cover smoking a fat Havana. He might have liked MAD's complimentary portrait of Fidel - though I imagine he would have thought I was making fun of him if he had noticed Alfred covering his ears, and the caption "you'll get a bang out of this issue!" Instead I returned with MAD #83, with the word "SEX" boldly printed on the cover. In front of his lady friend, Dad smiled and asked me "Kenny, what is sex?" - and I went "uh, hmmm, uh...
In Mexico City, my Dad had another girlfriend who took us to the University and Chapultapec Park. The trip was not the itinerary of an introvert! My Dad was a happening guy, in step with his times. Ironically, we briefly stopped over in Dallas on route to Mexico City (from Toronto). There was a clean-cut tough guy in a white Stetson-type hat at the airport kinda givin' us the eye as we waited to depart.
On the train back to the States from Mexico City, I walked from the 1st class cars in search of a sandwich vendor all the way back to the campesino/3rd class cars that had been linked up... I was suddenly aware of entering the (third) world of back-breaking toil and real hunger. It was quite an education without one word being spoken... I knew they knew I was a... what? For the first time, I felt uncomfortable in my own skin.
Father never tried to make me accept his political beliefs, though he brought me along to some very left of center events when I was ready to think and decide for myself. He began tossing challenging questions at me on that 1963 trip.
Robert Kaffke was an independent JFK-assasination researcher working briefly with notable JFK scholars Mark Lane and Hal Verb.
Writer and JFK researcher Hal Verb reported that in the National Archives of Cuba, the permanent collection includes "59 to Cuba".
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WANTED!
Roberto Kaffke archive materials:
Art, audio tapes, film footage and photos. The rare Cuban edition of 59 TO CUBA.
Missing from the SF Main Library Newspaper microfilm files, apparently rippped from the page of the library's bound volume of News Call-Bulletin, is a choice item: the June 1943 "Army life is swell" article! It's Kaffke's first press conference, undeservingly relegated to a forgotten footnote of the War. The photo at the top of the page captured a grinning 15 year old Bob Kaffke on his way home from Europe - days before becoming the youngest American soldier to enter the Mediterranean theatre!
WANTED! The Pat Michaels Show (KTVU, April 10 1968) Originally aired in color, is even a b+w kinnescope extant in the vaults of KTVU? I have a complete transcript of the snappy repartee between Instructor Kaffke and Pat Michaels.
I don't have any recordings of my father's voice and that is one aspect sorely lacking. If anyone has any tapes, art, slides, or views featuring Roberto - please call, or drop an email! You would be given credit or anything you require.
With help from family and friends I have assembled a sizable selection of my Father's manuscripts; rare one-of-a-kind prints (hand-stamped on the back with the names of the photographers & studios; newspaper articles about his Golden Gloves boxing events, Kaffke's experimental college seminars at SFSU, and his last days on the Sausalito Waterfront.
From the KRON investigative series Assignment Four, I salvaged a few moving frames of the 1964 Cadillac demonstration featuring Kaffke in plain view.
I also found footage of Kaffke in the midst of "The Squaresville Tour", the 1959 beatnik counter-invasion of Union Square.
WANTED!
I'd like to hear from Brian Dixon, Annie Hallot, Dianea Karasik, Terry Chambers, Katie Phillips, Chris Phillips, Lloyd Davis, Carole Barknecht, Ernie Barry, Phil Garlington Jr., Robin Miguel, Diane Johansen, Donna Ottosen, Tom Sanders, Tex Dobkins, Sue Helenius, Eileen Brandt, Scott Rovzau, Bob Fries, Terrence Hallinan, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Fidel Castro.
I was contacted recently by Hank Harrison, Gregory Pontecorvo & Natasha Eisenstein, Ray Furey, Helen Kaffke, Walter Kaffke, Phil Kay, Hal Verb and Roger Kotila.
This is a shout-out for the friends of Roberto Kaffke... WHERE ARE YOU?
Roberto Kaffke was an original, a real bohemian. Roberto lived a poet's life, filling myriad scraps of paper, diaries, notebooks and pages with scrawls and sketches. He stayed in contact with friends and loved ones, regularly sending postcards and letters from abroad. He was happy to earn enough money for travel to Mexico, Mendocino, Paros, Paris, Peru and elsewhere. He only ate candy as needed to offset the insulin injections. He was some kind of a man.
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