The Diaries of Tom Bethell and Richard Billings
- Fred Litwin
- Sep 6, 2023
- 2 min read
Updated: Sep 6, 2023
Tom Bethell was a Garrison staffer and Richard Billings was an editor at Life Magazine. They both kept diaries of the Garrison investigation and, on my documents page, you can download a document with both diaries.
My document collects the Bethell entries from the late John McAdams’ site and the Billings entries from David Reitzes’ site.
In April, Hood College uploaded the Sylvia Meagher archives. There is a folder of her correspondence with Tom Bethell and a folder with documents he sent her.
I noticed that several of Bethell's documents contain additional diary entries. I decided to add these pages to my Bethell-Billings document. Here is a summary of the additions:
Beginning of Diary, 23 additional pages
Entries beginning June 1, 1967, 13 pages
January 17, 1968, one insert
After April 4, 1968, 2 pages
Last entries to the diary, 11 pages
I have added an additional 50 pages to his diary.
Here are the complete Bethell-Billings diaries (PDF)
Here are the complete Bethell-Billings diaries in Word format:
If anybody has some good ideas on how I can easily convert this document into text, let me know.
Previous Relevant Blog Posts
Additional information about a meeting with Perry Russo and James Phelan.
Tom Bethell wrote Sylvia Meagher details about a meeting he had with Richard Billings in which they discussed Perry Russo and James Phelan.
Bethell sat through the Shaw trail and he wrote Meagher about what happened.
Tom Bethell had lots to say about Mark Lane's usage of Jim Garrison's files.
An article by Tom Bethell from the Washington Monthly of March 1976.
A tribute to Tom Bethell and an article he wrote for the National Review.
