Thomas Beckham was a con man who had lived in New Orleans in the early 1960s. He tried his hand in the music business with Jack Martin as his short-lived manager. He liked costumes and regularly wore a priest's collar. Here are some of our other blog posts on Thomas Beckham: Why Did Jim Garrison Want to Speak with Thomas Beckham? The above post looks at Beckham's con. Did Thomas Beckham Know Lee Harvey Oswald? Thomas Beckham's Book, Remnants of Truth, Part One The above tw

Here is a letter that Jim Garrison wrote Jonathan Blackmer of the HSCA in July of 1977: Here is my transcription of Garrison's letter: "Dear Jonathan: Enclosed herewith are the random Morgan City and Lafayette materials I mentioned. You will at once perceive an absence of depth of inquiry and a lack of follow-up, with regard to these two statements which I am now marking "A" + "B") but that was because we didn't know what to do with these, except put them on a shelf off to th

Jim Garrison claims he asked for a preliminary hearing on the Clay Shaw prosecution because of fairness. Here is what he says in his book, On The Trail of The Assassins : (page 151) "In this case I made the motion out of fairness to Shaw because of the extraordinary seriousness of the charge. My application requested that a panel of three judges then determine whether the charges should be dismissed or Shaw held over for trial. This was the first time in the history of Louisi

Merriman Smith was the UPI journalist in the press car in the motorcade who first reported that shots were fired at JFK. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1964 for his coverage of the assassination. He also wrote about Jim Garrison. He interviewed Garrison in late February 1967, and before he wrote his article, he called the FBI to tell them what he had learned: This is a good early view of Garrison's thinking. You can see the homosexual angle played up where Garrison claims a

Here is yet another insane memo from Steve Jaffe. There you go - Dudnick is "almost too neurotic to be credible," and yet there is some value in what he had to say. Harold Weisberg didn't think much of Jaffe and Dudnick. Here is a short Weisberg memo on Jaffe - second to last paragaraph is on Dudnick: Weisberg also thought the confidential stamp was amusing:

Yup, a conspiracy here too (New Orleans Times-Picayune , June 10, 1972, not June 7 as marked):

Here are some excerpts from a memo written by Aaron Kohn, head of the Metropolitan Crime Commission of New Orleans, on May 31, 1967. On May 2, 1967 Kohn met with Walter Sheridan, who was in New Orleans working on the NBC documentary on Garrison, who had a question: Hufft [the FBI spelt his name as Huff] had already informed the FBI: Clearly, this fell under the jurisdiction of the FBI as it was a federal crime. But, the FBI was cowed by Garrison, and just wouldn't proceed wi

John Manchester said in his statement to Jim Garrison that the black Cadillac, seen in Clinton, was identified as being with the International Trade Mart. Here is his statement: Here is a very telling memo written by Jonathan Blackmer of the HSCA: Donald Carpenter, in his book Man of a Million Fragments , writes that: (page 365-366) "Shaw testified at trial that the International Trade Mart had never owned any vehicles. A review of balance sheets and other financial records f

My copy of Josiah Thompson's new book, Last Second in Dallas , finally arrived from Amazon. Glad to see he agrees with my views on Garrison (page 112): There is another mention of Garrison on page 135: "As for the assassination underground, what in the 1960s had been a selfless community of inquiry became in the 1970s a swamp of competing conspir­acy theories and warring factions. Sylvia Meagher and I remained friends, but I drifted away from the others. The collapse of the G

Here is a good example of the pressure Garrison was putting on people in the gay community. You can find this document here. Informant No. 949-C is Betty Parent a.k.a. Parrot, who also provided information to Garrison. She will be turning up in an upcoming blog post. Here is a report on Bill McKenzie from Shaw's investigators. In the second page, McKenzie says that Sciambra has driven a lot of business away from his bar. and that "many of the homosexuals are lying low during

Here's a letter that Dr. Cyril Wecht sent to Harold Weisberg in 1992: So, in private, Wecht said that "I certainly do not subscribe to Garrison's conspiracy theories." Has he ever said this publicly? Wecht feels it is "unfortunate" that "Stone evidently felt constrained to go along with all of that in the movie." Stone wasn't 'constrained,' he made a conscious choice! Remember, the bottom line, as Wecht says, is that the film will generate interest in the JFK assassination. S

Yes, and for $25,000 "Mr. Candy" would deliver information that would tie Clay Shaw with Jack Ruby. Here is Mark Lane's letter to Jim Garrison: I don't think Garrison met "Mr. Candy." Anybody with a modicum of intelligence would have told him to get lost. But, not Mark Lane. He actually wanted to set up a meeting. And, what a missed opportunity for a Mark Lane book about the Jim Garrison investigation! It would have been a blast. Of course Lane would have written an honest ap

I was born in Montreal and so I am fascinated by the amount of times the city comes up in Garrison documents. In the 1960s it was the largest city in Canada, but was soon overtaken by Toronto. But it was a glorious time to be a Montrealer - Expo '67 was an incredible world's fair; the Montreal Expos became Canada's first major league baseball team in 1969, and, of course, the Montreal Canadiens were perennial winners of the Stanley Cup. A major part of the Garrison conspiracy

Once Raymond Broshears returned to Long Beach, he wrote up his New Orleans experiences in his newsletter. On the last page, Broshears repeats his allegation that Kerry Thornley's body is in the Oswald backyard photos. But, have a look at how Harold Weisberg described Broshears in a letter to fellow researcher Hal Verb: Sounds like Broshears was having some fun in New Orleans. I'd like to know more about his arrest. And, a few months later, Broshears turned up again - this tim

Yesterday, I posted Jim Garrison's memo to the HSCA regarding Fred Crisman and Thomas Beckham. The memo included two pages describing several exhibits Garrison included: Here is my transcription of these two pages. There are still a few words that I cannot make out, so if you have an idea, please let me know. Now, here are the exhibits: Exhibit 1: Beckham's Arrest Record This was his rap sheet from 1968 - there was more to come... Exhibit 2: Anonymous Letter A I've already p

In July 1977, Jim Garrison submitted a memo to the HSCA regarding Fred Crisman and Thomas Beckham. Both men had testified before the New Orleans' grand jury and Garrison believed they were important suspects. Here is the handwritten memo (a typed version is below). If anybody notices any transcription errors, please let me know. Here is a transcription of this memo. The first part was taken from the JFK Lancer disk of Crisman/Beckham material; the last part is my transcriptio

Both Jack Martin and David Ferrie were clergy in the Orthodox Old Catholic Church of North America. It was an "odd sect" which drew the attention of Jim Garrison, thinking that perhaps there was some CIA connection. Making it all the more suspicious, there was a rumor that Oswald had tried to seek refuge in the Abundant Life Temple, after killing officer J.D. Tippit. He hadn't, but he probably ran through the alleyway next to the Temple. And so Garrison had investigator Bill

This is an excerpt from an interview with Tommy Lee Jones in Film Comment Magazine from Jan-Feb 1994. I find this interview astounding. Jones meets Garrison and says "He opened the first meeting by assuring me he could tell me more about Shaw than Shaw's mother ever knew." Really? For God's sake, Garrison believed Shaw conspired to kill JFK! It gets worse - "These guys, especially Ferrie [Joe Pesci] were also fascists, in love with the idea of fascism." This is pure slander

In the lawsuit to stop Garrison's perjury charges, Judge Herbert Christenberry held three days of hearings in January of 1971. Jim Garrison, still the District Attorney, was forced to take the stand and was examined by Clay Shaw's attorneys - Edward Wegmann and Irvin Dymond. John Volz and William Alford were the lawyers for Garrison. Here are some of the highlights of Garrison's testimony: Right off the bat, Garrison is confused about how many times he asked Clay Shaw in for

Charles Ward ran against Jim Garrison In the Democratic Primary for District Attorney in 1969. He had served in the D.A.'s office for a number of years as an Assistant District Attorney. Garrison won the November primary, and served another term as D.A. Here is a transcript of a speech Charles Ward gave to the Young Men's Business Club of Jefferson Parish. Clearly Ward has his biases, but I think this is an important document in terms of understanding Garrison, his office, an