After my post yesterday on Francis Fruge and the Rose Cherami story, I was challenged on Facebook by a conspiracy theorist. He believed that Cherami did have foreknowledge of the JFK assassination, and during the course of our argument, he mentioned Dr. Victor Weiss as the person who heard her talk about the assassination.
But did Dr. Weiss actually say he heard Cherami talk about the JFK assassination before it happened?
Here is how the whole Cherami business started:
This story was dormant until February 1967 when Garrison’s investigation was announced. Mr. A. H. Magruder called up Garrison’s office and provided a statement about what he had heard back in Christmas of 1963. He had just returned from a hunting trip with Dr. Victor Weiss who was then Clinical Director of the East Louisiana State Hospital in Jackson. Weiss told him that prior to the JFK assassination, state police had picked up a woman on highway 190 near Eunice, Louisiana who had apparently been thrown out of a car. The police thought she was psycho, and they brought her to the hospital where she was examined by Dr. Weiss.
Magruder said that Weiss determined that Cherami was having withdrawal symptoms. She told him she was a “dope runner” for Jack Ruby. She claimed she was forced to pick up a shipment of dope in Florida to take to Dallas. Her young child was being held by some people to ensure she brought the heroin. Along the way she got into a fight with one of her male companions and he threw her out of the car.
According to Magruder, Cherami also told Weiss that JFK and “other Texas officials” were going to be killed in Dallas. Weiss paid little attention to her ramblings until JFK was killed in Dallas. He told Magruder that the FBI came two days later to pick her up. Magruder gave Garrison investigator Frank Meloche Dr. Weiss’s contact information.
Garrison knew that he had to find Rose Cherami. He put Meloche on the case, and he seconded Lt. Francis Fruge from the Louisiana State Police and Anne Dischler, an investigator for the State Sovereignty Commission, to help with the investigation.
Dischler called Cherami’s mother who told her that she had died in 1965. Dischler also called Dr. Weiss who told her that a Dr. Don Bowers was the one who had talked to Cherami. She then called Bowers who denied talking to her. Right from the start there was confusion over what she actually said and when she said it.
Here is a page from Anne Dischler's notepad. She notes towards the bottom that the info from Weiss is that Bowers talked to Cherami. Bowers then denied talking to her.
Here is a report from Garrison investigator Frank Meloche on Cherami:
Weiss told Meloche that "he doesn't recall whether this was told to him before or after the assassination."
Here is the HSCA Outside Contact Report with Dr. Weiss:
As you can see from this report, Weiss is now more definitive, saying that he talked to Cherami after the assassination, and that he "learned she had worked for Jack Ruby."
Weiss said he heard from Dr. Don Bowers that she had made a statement prior to the assassination that JFK was going to be killed. After talking with Cherami, Weiss felt that "she did not have any specific details of a particular assassination plot."
Here is one of the few video clips of Dr. Victor Weiss:
Listen closely -- Weiss says that others heard Rose Cherami talk about the assassination. At no point does he say that he heard her talk about the assassination before it happened.
Letter from Robert Dorff regarding Rose Cherami. This page is from Michael Marcades book, Rose Cherami: Gathering Fallen Petals. Marcades is her son.
I had not until now seen Dave [Reitzes]'s take on the Cherami matter, and am very impressed by it. As I wrote a couple of days ago [in another email], my misgivings on the subject were sufficient to drop it from the 2013 edition of my book on the case -- it had previously been only a footnote.
My continuing interest in the episode had been sustained especially by Dr. Weiss' comment as to what Dr. Bowers had told him. Absent any interview with Bowers -- that I knew of - what Weiss said seemed to sustain the possibility that there was something to the overall story. Now that we have Bowers' account, that possibility seems to evaporate. I now lean towards the likelihood that - though Francis Frugé appeared forthright during his conversations with me -- he too may have fabricated or at least garbled.
I think the Cherami episode should now be consigned to the junkpile - as a red herring that one could well do without.
To sum up, both Dr. Weiss and Dr. Bowers deny that Cherami said anything to them about the assassination before it happened.
Previous Relevant Blog Posts
The medical evidence is clear that Cherami was not murdered.
An article from 1957 relates to her credibility.
No. Dr. Owens did not corroborate the Cherami story in any way, shape, form, or manner.
There is no evidence she ever worked for Jack Ruby
Joan Mellen claims Cherami was watching the motorcade on television. This is ridiculous.
He claims she told him she was going to kill JFK.
There is no firm evidence that she predicted the assassination.
No, her information was useless.
Some conspiracy theorists are admitting the Rose Cherami story is nonsense.
It is doubtful Arcacha Smith was with Cherami.