Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson suggested on-air that American operatives assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to stop his country from becoming "a launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism."

To some this may sound like an unwarranted attack by religious zealots and pass it off as nothing other than his opinion. But for those that follow Robertson and his "born again" movement it is anything but.

A story of my brief encounter with a Robertson supporter and his born again movement follows.

During the early Spring of 1983 while awaiting a security clearance with the U.S State Department, and feeling unwelcome in a house hold of a CIA (SI I Ate) Agent, Jewels Romignoli, alias (While watching "The Assasination of Jesse James" last evening I noticed I had spelled my CIA friend's name wrong it was "Jules Rominoli", and I hang all of my awards, certificates and degrees upside down) who was in turmoil with his spouse, I answered an ad in the Washington Post for a boarding room near where I worked. The ad read something like this.

"Fairfax County Police Officer has room for rent. Officer works nights so house renter will share equally ½ all expenses and have use of the house on an equal basis."

I answered the ad and interviewed with Mr. Wayne Hirst, Jr., a Fairfax County patrolman. The house was located in a very good neighborhood in Burke, Va., Fairfax County and I was accepted to share the house with this gentleman. As I said I was awaiting a security clearance and I thought this might be the best opportunity to account for my whereabouts while working nearby my place of residence. He was confident that I could be trusted in the house alone, evidently and I obliged his trust in me but did not appreciate his dishonesty about the situation into which I had moved.

I told Mr. Hirst that the likelihood of my remaining there more than a year was unlikely, as I would be moving to the District, once my clearance was complete, for training. He understood and said he would give me a six-month contract and even a month to month contract if needed. Little did I know the reason why I was getting such a deal from this young man.

After I paid the gentleman a month’s rent in advance he informed me that his parents were living in the finished downstairs and would be staying there for a month or so until they found a place in the area. He had not informed me of this in the beginning but I thought that since the house was large enough to accommodate it should present no problem and I agreed to stay.

I met Mr. Wayne Hirst, Sr. and his wife Carolyn shortly thereafter and thought they seemed like a very nice couple. He introduced himself as a born again Christian and a lay minister with the Pat Robertson foundation, headquartered in Virginia Beach, VA. He said he often made trips there for sabbaticals. He also said he was an unemployed contractor and had at one time been one of the biggest contractors in the Northern Virginia area but had fell upon bad times and his company had had to file bankruptcy.

My work in Newington, Va. was very demanding and I was physically worn out at the end of each day. I did very little other that shower, watch the evening news, eat dinner and go to bed. After the first month at the house Wayne and Carolyn Hirst were still living there. Their son Wayne, Jr. usually drove his patrol car home and did patrol mostly at night. He had asked if I wanted to ride with him on several occasions during the weekend but I had told him no. I had applied and been accepted on a conditional basis to the graduate program at George Mason University. I had taken a Kaplan study course and applied after transferring all my credits from Lincoln Memorial University, where I had completed my undergraduate work in 1978.

After about six months at this house Wayne, Jr. came to me and said he had decided to rent out another room in the upstairs of the house. I should have moved then but had become quite accustomed to the convenience of the house to my work and stayed.

For a week during the middle of the summer of 1983 my niece Alisa, who had moved to Arizona with my brother, her father and family called me. She was I learned traveling to Washington to meet with a friend of hers from Johannesburg, South Africa, who had been invited to go rafting with the Kennedy family. Alisa asked if she could stay with me and I agreed saying I could take up residence on the couch. My niece Alisa was and always has been one who was never embarrassed about whom she met or what she said to people. There is a long story to what happened after my niece came to visit and that alone would take up another page. But to make a long story short, Alisa ended up staying at the Kennedy house with Senator Robert Kennedy’s family, getting into an argument with Carrie Kennedy, calling me to come get her, calling me back to say that Ethel, Bobby Kennedy’s widow had resolved whatever the differences between Alisa and her daughter were (something to do with horses), and being invited along with the family to attend the memorial service for her late husband at Arlington National Cemetery, where Alisa’s father too now rests. I lent my niece my car in hopes of getting to meet the Kennedy family and missed them, from what my niece said by minutes at Union Station when picking up my car and Alisa to return to Tucson. Sometimes I wonder if her story was true or not, but I lean more to it being true as not. One great fear of mine has always been the fact that my niece sometimes used her father's job as Special Agent to "twist the arm" of people to get what she wanted. I did fear that Alisa could have held some ungodly act perpetrated by the group on the rafting trip to get her way with the Kennedy clan. That being said I would surely hope she wouldn't stoop that low, the use of BLACKMAIL to get something she wanted. I do know that the boy from South Africa seemed very important to her.

Alisa's Official Story from 2009 - "Had a good friend visit me from South Africa - he was supposed to come to Canada where I had just arrived for my college summer break, but he met Kerry Kennedy in NYC and she invited him to go rafting in West VA with some family and friends, so he asked if he could bring me. It was a really fun trip - we camped, partied and had 3 awesome days of ... Read Morerafting on at least 2 different rivers. At the end of our trip we spent a few days at the Kennedy's home in VA and I met Ethel. My friend got sick and I wasn't the best Nurse to him which made Kerry a little angry with me - no fight - just her opinion that I was taking care of my friend like she thought I should. It was also the 15th anniversary of her father's death - so I think she was feeling down from that. My friend and I left and spent a few days visiting some of my friends in VA and the sights in D.C. Also on the trip were Michael and Chris Kennedy and some of their friends. Michael had a great personality and was a lot of fun!"

It was not until mid June 2006 that I got a chance to meet one of the Kennedy’s. I had flown to Washington to interview with the Library of Congress and had taken the subway down to Union Station. I had decided to spend the afternoon before my interview acquainting myself with Capitol Hill, the Supreme Court Buildings and the Library of Congress where I was to interview. While walking along in front of the House Office Buildings I came face to face with Patrick Kennedy. Irish immigrants who were marching on the Capital in hopes of getting changes to the immigrations law surrounded him. I could not help but wait just to shake his hand. I did say that my brother had once served on details for both his Uncle Robert and Uncle John and he seemed to acknowledge that he might have recognized the name. His father Edward spoke later that day in the Ball Room of the Holiday Inn where I was staying along with all the Irish Immigrants that had marched that day. This was in June 2006 and noticed that no matter where I turned, even sitting next to the Building and Construction Trades Department AFL-CIO Representative from Knoxville on the plane, that Trade Union people were also all over the nations Capital. Late the night before my interview in the lobby restaurant I had a long talked with the International Vice President of the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen. I of course am not at all a fan of Labor and Trades Unions but I can tell you one thing these gentlemen believe that without them this nation would have reverted over to the Russians years ago. It is my opinion that next to Big Oil that Labor and Trade Unions are the biggest lobbyist group in the U.S. today and responsible for the shape we are in, "recession". I listened to all of their speeches with interest.

Now to explain what this all has to do with Pat Robertson and the born again Christian movement. The Hirsts had invited me on several occasions to their Church and I had refused. Wayne, Sr. had shown me pictures of a house he had built in the Northern Virginia area that was in his words, "the largest house in that area, even bigger than the Kennedy mansion in Hickory Hills, near McLean, Va." I saw pictures of the house and it was huge. Mr. Hirst had used this house as a Church for his congregation of loyal followers, which numbered in the thousands. The Hirsts had visitors from Virginia Beach during my visit and a young lady who had accompanied his visitors was intended to become Wayne, Jr.’ date for a concert at Agape Farms in Southern Pennsylvania for a Christian Rock concert. Evidently Wayne Jr. and this young lady did not "hit it off" all that well. Instead I was asked to go to the concert with this young lady and accepted.

She had just been through a divorce and her ex-husband, a police officer, had been abusive. We had gone to Manasas Battleground on one date before traveling with the rest of the group to Agape Farm, Pennsylvania for the concert. The concert was like nothing I had ever been to. The one act I remember the most was an old Indian woman who actually handled snakes and talked in "tongues". We only stayed one night and returned home early without the rest of the group. I had to have rest before my Monday work at the Diplomatic Mail and Pouch Center.

This is when I learned of what had happened to Wayne and Carolyn Hirst and their large house in Fairfax County, Va. The young lady told me the story that made my skin crawl having lived among these people for over seven months. It seems that Wayne’s general contractor’s license had been revoked and that he had lost all his wealth including his house because his wife Carolyn had been caught embezzling in excess of one million dollars from the bank she worked for in Fairfax County. The couple had put all the funds from her embezzlement into their Church and the born again Christian movement. According to this young lady the couple had fled the area and were caught and extradited back to Fairfax County. Wayne had not been charged with any crime but Carolyn was facing a hearing soon in Fairfax County Court for her crime of embezzlement. Well, after hearing of this I was both shocked and amused at the same time. Here I had been living with a police officer and family who were going through God knows what in local court and I was facing terrible problems with my clearance and working grueling hours at a facility far behind times in security and working conditions. What a year it had been.

I was further convinced of what the young lady had told me when one evening after work I turned on the news and heard the broadcaster give details of what had taken place in court that day in Fairfax County, Va.

Carolyn had been sentenced to one year in jail and many hours of community service for embezzling over one million dollars from the bank. I was very surprised that her punishment was not more severe but after having known and lived with the family for almost a year could see that they had suffered a great deal already for their crime. Somehow it seemed fair enough. Wayne finally confessed to me all his transgressions and he and Carolyn apologized for not telling me sooner and for living there the entire time of my stay. He said that they had returned to Fairfax County on their own before charges were placed and confessed. This was a factor that weighed heavily in their favor.

I never got my clearance and did return back home to Tennessee very late in 1983 but will never forget that year and all it’s happenings, both good and bad. The official reason for my not staying with the Diplomatic Mail and Pouch Center was, as you can see on my SF-50 was that my job had been ABOLISHED. I think probably it had more to do with my filing a grievance because of the poor working conditions at the facilty that I worked. As far as the Hirst family with which I lived, I can only hope that Wayne, Sr., Carolyn and Wayne, Jr. are all well and happy and that they somehow no longer follow the Pat Robertson, born again Christian movement. And I hope that no one takes Pat Robertson seriously enough to think that our government would send a group of "operatives" to Venezuela to assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez