In the early part of his investigation, Jim Garrison believed that a homosexual conspiracy was behind the JFK assassination. Yesterday's blog post included an article from QUICK Magazine supposedly written by Jim Garrison that discussed just such a conspiracy.
I decided not to include the QUICK article in my book, On The Trail of Delusion. I just couldn't be sure the article was legitimate. However, upon reflection it was clear that there was a lot of information in the article that only Garrison would know.
In fact, the article resembled the early stories that Garrison told journalists about the case - in particular, Hugh Aynesworth and James Phelan. Garrison's office helped staffer Joel Palmer write his Confidential Magazine article on the "Homosexual Ring That Killed Kennedy."
But wait, there's more:
Muckraker Jack Anderson, the partner of syndicated columnist Drew Pearson also spent some time talking to Garrison. According to Pearson's March 24, 1967, diary entry, Garrison told Anderson:
"The CIA definitely had a plot to assassinate Castro and had approached Clay Shaw, a reputable, wealthy homosexual businessman, as a man who could execute the plot. Shaw was part of a homosexual ring, including Ferrie and Ruby in Dallas."
And journalist Merriman Smith interviewed Garrison in late February, 1967. Here is a letter he wrote to the FBI, mentioning Garrison's focus on "high-status fags":
There are three other references to homosexuality/S&M in the QUICK article that point directly to Garrison.
1. "The sexually abnormal conspirators had a model for their deed from American criminal history: the Leopold and Loeb case from Chicago. This is my theory."
The reference to the Leopold and Loeb murder of Bobby Franks in 1924 is pure Garrison. Richard Billings made this notation in his journal from March 3, 1967:
Search of Shaw home produces whips, chains, robe, etc. . . . Giant now convinced it was a sadist plot . . . Has read Marquis de Sade . . . Says sadists escalate from whipping to killing . . . "Shaw is a Phi Beta Kappa sadist," Giant surmises . . . Cuban plot now subsidiary . . . But it provided guerrilla team . . . Ferrie was a butch fag who hired Cubans instead of ex cons . . . Whips give away . . . Leopold Loeb key to whole thing . . . Giant convinced.... . . "I am going to talk to a good psychiatrist -- Bob Heath -- and I will make sadism relevant . . . I'll develop expert testimony that a sadist would have motivation for a Presidential assassination." "He's a sadist, not a masochist . . . The robe and hood prove it . . ." . . . "When he came in yesterday he said nothing, knew no one . . . We asked if he'd take truth serum, and he said he would if he could go home and rest . . . I suspect he wanted to destroy the evidence of sadism . . ."
And, Garrison had Assistant D. A. John Volz talk to Dr. Heath:
2. "He led me to Clay Shaw. And what kind of homosexual this man is has never been in any newspaper before. In his apartment, we found whips and chains, and there was blood on the whips and chains."
Blood on the whips. Here is an excerpt from a March 3, 1967 entry in the Richard Billings journal:
Garrison plans to use sadism evidence found in Shaw's apartment to rebut defense contention of good character . . . And if defense contends he's a peaceful, law-abiding citizen, Garrison will show human blood on whips (?) . . .
Garrison wrote about this in his book, On The Trail of The Assassins: (page 147)
"Also found by our investigators at Shaw's luxuriously appointed carriage house in the French Quarter were a few more novel items, including five whips, several lengths of chain, and a black hood and matching black cape. The whips had on them what appeared to be dried blood."
I am not sure when this first hit the press, but I believe that few people knew about this supposed fact. (And it was never demonstrated that dried blood was indeed found.) In fact, I cannot find one contemporaneous report that dried blood was found.
3. "His 'male girlfriends' called him Pinky. Ruby was so serious about his homosexual tendencies that he had a vagina tattooed under his left upper arm."
James Phelan wrote in the May 6, 1967 issue of the Saturday Evening Post that Jim Garrison told him that Jack Ruby and Lee Harvey Oswald were lovers and that Ruby's nickname was Pinky. He claims that Garrison told him this on March 5, 1967. Richard Billings also mentions the Pinky nickname, in an entry for March 3, 1967, but sources it to Aynesworth.
Giant mentions talking to [Hugh] Aynesworth, who "knows a lot about Dallas." . . . "He knew Ruby for ten years, and he gave me information that he was a faggot, and that his name among faggots was Pinky."
It appears that the nickname "Pinky" might have come from Clyde Limbaugh, who told the FBI that he had previously worked for Ruby.
Limbaugh had visited Garrison's office on March 2, 1967, and was promptly thrown out of the office.
Of course, we don't know everything that Limbaugh told the D. A.'s office. But when he emerged from Garrison's office, he told Washington Post reporter George Lardner that "a queer ring" was behind the assassination.
In mid-March, the first reports were coming in to the office about Rose Cherami. A March 13, 1967 memo indicated that she had told Lt. Francis Fruge that Oswald and Ruby were "bed partners."
There is no reference to Ruby's nickname in that memo. The next reference to "Pinky" comes from a memo that Lt. Francis Fruge wrote on April 4, 1967:
The date of the memo is April 4, 1967 which is one or two days after the QUICK article appeared on German newsstands.
It seems more than likely that Limbaugh was the origin of the story. He visited Garrison's office on March 2, 1967, and Garrison then told James Phelan on March 5, 1967. I certainly don't believe that Rose Cherami came up with the nickname - most likely, Francis Fruge was just eager to please his boss.
In any event, Garrison heard it from Limbaugh, or perhaps Fruge, and it ended up in QUICK.
Perhaps Jim Garrison heard this from Mort Sahl, who knew both Paul Krassner and Lenny Bruce. It's a ridiculous claim since no homosexual, serious or denying, would do such a thing.
Do the above elements prove that Garrison wrote the QUICK article? Well, no, in fact, it seems likely that Garrison gave an interview which ended up, probably with his consent, as a first-person narrative. But who conducted that interview?
Tomorrow: Additional proof that Garrison was behind the QUICK article.