When Anne Dischler, a Garrison investigator, interviewed witness Andrew Dunn, he said that Shaw, Oswald and Ferrie were in the car seen in Clinton. Here is his affidavit from July 1967. The last paragraph reads: "I have looked at several pictures handed to me by Lt. Fruge of the State Police and have identified three pictures of the men in the car. He did not have a picture of the fourth man." Dunn was then questioned by Andrew Sciambra, and Guy Banister was picked out as the fourth man. Clay Shaw was the driver. A few months later, Dunn was questioned again, with different results. Now, the three people in the car are Jack Ruby, Clay Shaw, and Guy Banister - and Ruby was the driver. Andrew Dunn was on the list of prosecution witnesses, for the Clay Shaw trial, that was leaked to the Shaw defense team by Garrison staffer Tom Bethell. Here is his paragraph on Dunn from his June 1968 memo: Unfortunately, Andrew Dunn got drunk in early June, 1968, and he hanged himself with his belt. This was just before Bethell wrote the memo. Fast forward to 1971 - when there were three days of hearings before Judge Christenberry to see if the perjury charges against Shaw would go ahead - and Andrew Dunn was listed as a prosecution witness. Here's how the hearing went: Of course, William Dunn was the witness who identified Thomas Beckham as being in the car (see our post from yesterday). Of course, Clay Shaw's defense team was not given a copy of the memo that identified Jack Ruby as the driver of the car.

The Clinton witnesses were an important part of the Clay Shaw trial - they claimed that Clay Shaw, David Ferrie and Lee Harvey Oswald were together in Clinton, Louisiana in late August or early September 1963. But take a look at this Garrison memo regarding witness William Dunn. He saw Clay Shaw in the car sitting in the back, and Thomas Beckham sitting in the front. He was definite that Shaw was in the back. Thomas Beckham was the con man who Garrison called before the grand jury in 1968. From November 1962 to February 1963 he was in the mental institution in Jackson, Louisiana. Garrison never claimed that Beckham was in Clinton. In addition, Dunn said there were one=to-two other white males in the car whom he could not identify. Now, have a look at his testimony at the Clay Shaw trial. William Dunn testified that Clay Shaw was the man behind the wheel, and that there was perhaps just one more person in the car. There was no discovery in Louisiana at the time of the trial and so Shaw's lawyers did not have access to the memo above. You can imagine that it would have been mighty useful for cross-examination. Tomorrow: A Clinton witness identifies Jack Ruby as the driver of the car.

Now, here's an important lead, #1 on the list of leads. This lead came from an earlier memo: Now. what on earth do you do with this lead? What does it mean that they were "funny looking?"

Yesterday, I posted three leads from Garrison's leads memo from November 1967. Here is one more. I am dying to find out what happened with this lead. No doubt this was on the list because they found some whips when Clay Shaw's apartment was searched.

Below is the first page of a 37-page memo listing 103 outstanding leads as of November 14, 1967. I will soon be posting the entire memo. Most of the leads were nothing more than rumors - and lead #95 is no exception. Here is lead #95. Lead #58 is the same lead: The East Louisiana Hospital was a mental institution - interestingly, it keeps popping up in the Garrison investigation. This lead was followed-up. And like most of Garrison's leads, it went nowhere. From there, the trail ends. Ok, here's lead #45. I thought Oswald lived with David Ferrie, no? The Cuban doctor worked at the Mental Institution mentioned above - the same hospital that Oswald supposedly applied for work, and was the focus of the Clinton witnesses and Rose Cheramie.

Here is a telegram sent to Clay Shaw from the managers of Permindex/CMC in Rome. What on earth could this mean? Do you think the CIA paymasters of Permindex/CMC were sending Clay Shaw a coded message? Merry Christmas, everybody!

Here is yet another prisoner contacting Garrison's office with information. Oswald “appeared to be a gangster-type hustler who would bust a homosexual’s head open to get his money.” From the dates listed, Oswald would have been in the ninth grade when these parties were going on. I don’t think this was worth a trip to Atlanta. It's not surprising that Duncan Patterson did not testify at the Clay Shaw trial. Here's another memo, written just two days, later. Oswald doesn't appear to be a gay hustler in this memo. Bonus memo: Nothing to do with Oswald, but here is a Bill Turner memo that is amusing. Giesbrecht was a Canadian who claimed to have seen David Ferrie at the Winnipeg airport. Of course, Garrison took an interest in the gay angle mentioned above.

I wrote about JFK's homophobia in my book, On The Trail of Delusion - Jim Garrison: The Great Accuser, where I transcribed several of the scenes in his film. A quick summary: Oswald is painted as a "fruitcake," members of the "homosexual underworld" discuss the JFK assassination at David Ferrie's apartment, David Ferrie and Clay Shaw engage in an S&M orgy, and then David Ferrie tells Jim Garrison he is being blackmailed by "cocksucking faggot" Clay Shaw. I am not the first person to talk about the film's homophobia. Here is an article from The Advocate - a major LGBT publication - from early 1992. I love the cutline above, but it's slightly inaccurate - they weren't pinkos. The gay community was not happy with JFK. Here is a report from the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD). I don't always agree with GLAAD, but in this case I think they have a point. And, there were meetings with Oliver Stone. After gay activists saw the film, they issued this letter. Other film critics noticed the problem. Here is an article that originally appeared in the Chicago Tribune. Here is the relevant paragraph from the above review:

Yesterday was the 29th anniversary of the opening of Oliver Stone's film JFK. I thought it would be interesting to see what people in New Orleans thought about his film Pershing Gervais, who was Garrison's chief investigator in the early 1960s, wrote this letter to the editor on May 6, 1991. Here is an article written by journalist Rosemary James written on June 20, 1991, several months before the opening. To be fair, here is Oliver Stone's reply from a week later. And, here is a reply to Oliver Stone, from July 19, 1991.. Right before the film opened, the Times-Picayune looked back at the Garrison case. When the film opened, The Times-Picayune talked to Rosemary James, Irvin Dymond [Clay Shaw's trial attorney] and Pershing Gervais to get their opinion. And, as a bonus, here's a cartoon from the Times-Picayune.

Garrison gets it all wrong on Martin Armstrong, but of course, "in time" he will soon see patterns that are now not discernible. Here is the excerpt from CD #7 on Newton Armstrong. Garrison did believe in mysterious deaths. Here is a short CIA memo: And, of course, even Shaw's death was mysterious, no? This article ran in True Magazine in April 1975. Garrison couldn't leave this alone and he wrote about it in his book, On The Trail of The Assassins, on page 274. Here is what Cynthia Wegmann, daughter of Edward Wegmann, one of Clay Shaw's lawyers, told author Gus Russo for his book, Where Were You?: America Remembers The JFK Assassination: I hope you will read my book, On The Trail of Delusion - Jim Garrison: The Great Accuser. It is dedicated the victims of Jim Garrison. .

On May 19, 1991, journalist George Lardner published an article, "On The Set in Dallas in Wonderland," in the Washington Post that was quite critical of Oliver Stone's yet-to-be-released film JFK. Oliver Stone wrote a reply, which you can read here. Lardner then wrote a memo to Ben Bradlee, Editor of the Washington Post, and Meg Greenfield, who was the Editorial Page Editor, which was turned into an article. Here is his memo:

George Lardner of the Washington Post was the last person to speak to David Ferrie before he died of a berry aneurysm. Lardner would go on to cover Jim Garrison, and he worked with Harold Weisberg in exposing Oliver Stone's film JFK. When going through Harold Weisberg's Archive, I was surprised to learn that they had plans to write a book together. Here is the outline that Lardner submitted to a publisher. Alas, it was not to be. Weisberg, prickly at the best of times, immediately sent a letter to Lardner with a variety of objections, and the project was off. Fortunately, a lot of the material that Weisberg would have provided to the project is still in his archives. My book, On The Trail of Delusion - Jim Garrison: The Great Accuser, makes great use of his documents - in particular, chapter 16, "Arsenic and Old Perrin." This is referenced in VI above in which Garrison wanted to charge a dead man with being a grassy knoll assassin. Only a staff revolt stopped Garrison.