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Yesterday, I posted an article by Art Kevin from his website regarding Jim Garrison's case against Clay Shaw. It was a text version, with a few changes, from an article in The Assassination Chronicles, a newsmagazine from JFK Lancer: Several important points stick out about this article. Whenever I post an article from the so-called mainstream media, conspiracy theorists like James DiEugenio cry foul because he believes their journalists are all tainted. But Art Kevin was not a journalist from the mainstream media; he was a big supporter of Jim Garrison and wrote often for the L.A. Free Press, which was a big booster of Garrison. Needless to say, James DiEugenio did not like the Art Kevin article: "What is so dumb about this is that Kevin did not use any of the declassified files on the New Orleans case when he wrote this dumb article. By this time there were many of them, which as Garrison always said, would prove his case. Remember, Newman published his book before this which has a focus on New Orleans and AMSPELL, and Bill Davy had published his monograph on Clay Shaw based on the declassified record of the ARRB. Both of those pieces of work showed that what Garrison was saying was correct: Oswald was in Banister's office, Shaw was CIA, and they knew each other. Weird, if Oswald was a commie as Litwin says he was. Further, that the FBI and CIA had covered up evidence that showed the DA was right about what was happening with Oswald, Ferrie and Banister in New Orleans. So Mr. Kevin obviously was not doing due diligence, and Litwin says, hey, OK with me. What do you think, I am a real journalist or something?" Art Kevin didn't have to use any ARRB documents because he was in New Orleans speaking to Garrison and to his staff. His first-hand story is devastating, and thus DiEugenio has to ignore what he writes. For instance, Garrison also brought up the issue of homosexuality to Kevin: "Lee Harvey Oswald was dead of course but I heard constant reminders from Garrison that Oswald was likely bi-sexual which is what brought him into contact with David Ferrie. Even Jack Ruby who'd killed Oswald on national TV was allegedly gay or at the very least bi-sexual! As for Ferrie, he had been fired from a major airline for homosexual activity." This mirrors what Jim Garrison told Hugh Aynesworth, James Phelan, Merriman Smith, and Jack Anderson. It also mirrors the QUICK article that we have discussed over the past two weeks. In New Orleans, Kevin met with Jack Martin: "I also tracked down a private investigator who'd allegedly given Garrison names and "hot tips." He turned out to be an alcoholic and tried to get me to pay for his story." Kevin wasn't the first person Martin asked for money. It didn't take Art Kevin long to realize that Garrison had no case and that his witnesses were suspect: "When I pointed out to Sciambra that the witness list seemed shaky at best, he went quiet. "Why can't Russo remember without medical and psychological help?" I asked. Wouldn't his questioning under hypnosis be suspect because of the possibility of recall being implanted? Wouldn't the drug addict [Vernon Bundy] be suspected of trying to deal down for a lighter sentence? Wouldn't it seem Garrison went after Dean Andrews for perjury because Andrews refused to cooperate? And what about Andrews refusal to tie Shaw and Bertrand together as the same man? And what about the disparity of Bertrand-Shaw's physical appearance as Andrews told the WC? Sciambra, clearly looking as if a ton of bricks had come down on his shoulders, told me to take it up with Garrison. I did." He then confronted Garrison who told him he had "some things up my sleeve." All Garrison had was the Zapruder Film. Back and to the Left. Back and to the Left. Looking back, Kevin realized that the Garrison cupboard was bare: "I knew in my heart that had the Warren Commission Report been on trial, the verdict would have been "guilty." But it was Clay Shaw who was on trial and based on the evidence presented, there was no doubt he was innocent. I have often wondered if, in his heart of hearts, Jim Garrison didn't know the same thing and decided to gamble anyway?" All of this was ignored by DiEugenio. Instead, he has to fall back on this belief that the ARRB rescued Garrison's sham investigation. It didn't. Let's have a look at DiEugenio's claims. First, was Oswald in Banister's office? The only witnesses that DiEugenio presents in his book Destiny Betrayed in support of his theory are Delphine Roberts, Vernon Gerdes, and Jack Martin. Here are links that debunk each one of these witnesses: Did Vernon Gerdes See Oswald with Ferrie and Banister? Did Delphine Roberts See Oswald in Banister's Office? Did Delphine Robert See Oswald in Banister's Office? (Part Two) Did David Ferrie Introduce Jack Martin to Lee Harvey Oswald in Banister's Office? But Clay Shaw "was CIA," no? If you don't have a case against Clay Shaw, well, tie him to the CIA. That'll do, no? You can say the same about Hugh Aynesworth and James Phelan. Can't rebut their damning stories about Jim Garrison? Well just tie them to the FBI. Conspiracy theorists love this sleight of hand. The Art Kevin article included two pages from a CIA document on Clay Shaw and his role as a domestic contact: Clay Shaw was a domestic contact of the CIA, just like many other businesspeople, There's just nothing nefarious here. DiEugenio's last claim is that Clay Shaw knew David Ferrie. Over the last several months, I have systematically debunked every witness that DiEugenio claims tied Ferrie and Shaw together: Did Herbert Wagner see Shaw and Ferrie together? Did Clay Shaw's Secretary see David Ferrie in Shaw's Office? Did Sandra Anderson have a Photo of David Ferrie with Clay Shaw? Did David Ferrie Go Fishing with Clay Shaw? Did Clay Shaw Know David Ferrie? (Part One) Did Clay Shaw Know David Ferrie? (Part Two) Did Clay Shaw and David Ferrie Fly to Montreal? Did David Ferrie Fly Clay Shaw to Canada and to Cuba? Reverend Raymond Broshears Reveals the Shaw-Ferrie Link! Did Woodrow Hardy See Shaw, Ferrie and Oswald Together? Did Charles Krop Have a Recording Mentioning Shaw and Ferrie? Did David Ferrie Speak to Clay Shaw from Banister's Office? Art Kevin realized what was obvious to the Clay Shaw jury - Jim Garrison had no case.

In April 1967, Garrison's office received a letter with a statement. Here is the letter: And, here is the statement that was enclosed: Now, had I received such a letter and statement, I would have tossed it into the garbage. Not so in this case - this was a lead that must be investigated. And that was the end of a tantalizing lead.

On March 9th, 1967 the press started reporting that a Dallas taxicab driver, Raymond Cummings, claimed to have driven Lee Harvey Oswald and David Ferrie to Jack Ruby's nightclub. William Gurvich interviewed Cummings in Dallas. Here is his report. Raymond Cummings then flew to New Orleans to meet with Garrison and his staff. Cummings was then given a lie detector test. For whatever it's worth, the lie detector test showed Cummings was not telling the truth. In the meantime, Shaw's defense team had to look into Cummings. Here is their internal report. One would hope that Garrison's investigators would have dug up the same information. The Dallas police were also looking into Cummings. Now, the whole story gets interesting. Ten years after the whole incident, Jim Garrison must have been reviewing his files (perhaps for his upcoming book) and marked up the Gurvich memo on Cummings. Here are two of his notations: Here is what Garrison wrote: 9/9/77 Caveat: I have no way to evaluate the veracity of Raymond Cummings’ statement. It may be quite true – or it may be false. We internally were surprised by his apparent truthfulness in the telling the story, as I recall, and by some of his details. However, when he came to New Orleans – as he had volunteered – and took the lie detector test, the investigative service which provided the test reported to our office that he had “shown deception” with regard to substantive details of his story. This caused us to put this report on the back shelf. (Subsequently,) however, we learned that this “[investigative service] which was “helping” the office – had produced lie detector reports for 'deception’ whenever we sent anyone to them – particularly if the subject had any probative information for the JFK case. Consequently, this report should be regard as unconfirmed and requiring further inquiry - but until such further inquiry or possible collateral corroboration, should not be totally dismissed out of hand." He also added a notation to the file folder: The lie detector test had been organized by William Gurvich's firm - Gurvich ultimately defected from Garrison's staff in June 1967. Now Garrison thinks that Cummings is a "possibly good lead," but that it was "torpedoed" by the lie detector test. This would all be comical if it were not repeated in Joan Mellen's book, A Farewell to Justice (page 112). Garrison did not use Cummings in his book On The Trail of the Assassins, but Joan Mellen had no problem with rehabilitating the lead - even claiming that Garrison "regretted" his head not used Cummings as a witness. In any investigation with a ton of publicity, a lot of people will come forward. In this case, Raymond Cummings had a story that was very appealing to Garrison. With little investigation, Shaw's defense team knew there was nothing to this story - and yet it's still in one of the major books on the case.

In November 1967, Garrison sent Stephen Jaffe, a part-time investigator from Los Angeles, on a mission to Dallas. Here is the letter that Jaffe sent to Garrison - all 16 pages of it. This letter convinced Garrison that JFK was shot from a sewer on Elm Street. On page 2, Jaffe writes that "I now believe, without reservation, that it was possible for the storm sewer to have been used in the murder of President Kennedy. I also believe that there is a strong possibility that the fatal shot was fired from this position." He noted that "a car passing in front of the opening of this drain, at approximately 11 m.p.h. is seen for approximately two seconds. Time enough to aim carefully and fire with a rifle or other type of short-range weapon." Garrison then issued a press release. Here is a UPI report (unfortunately I don't have his actual press release). Here is the headline from the LA Free Press: And, here is the headline from the New York Times: Here are the three photographs that Garrison released to the press: Original caption: New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison has released this first of three photos to support this theory that a shot was fired from a storm sewer during the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Here, an investigator steps into one of the entrances into a sewer complex under Dealey Plaza. Original caption: New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison released these two of three pictures to support his theory that a shot was fired from a sewer during the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The top picture is a sewer opening on the north side of Elm Street, which can reached from tunnels under Dealey Plaza. The bottom photo was taken from the sewer as a convertible passed by. Does any of this make any sense? George Lardner of the Washington Post talked to Josiah Thompson on January 2, 1968 and asked him. Here is his reply from Lardner's notes: Garrison's theory could never hold much water. "Most of the sewers beneath Dealey Plaza are only 15 inches in diameter, leading to a search for what reporters have called "the mini-midget." Jerry Dealey is an expert on the TSBD and Dealey Plaza. His Great Granduncle was George Bannerman Dealey, the founder of The Dallas Morning News, and for whom Dealey Plaza was named. He has published a very good article on the TSBD and the sewer system. Here are three pages from his paper. Here is his complete paper. Oh, and if you are in Dallas, Jerry gives the best tours of Dealey Plaza. Update A letter from Tom Bethell to Sylvia Meagher about the possible motivation of Stephen Jaffe:

The October 1967 issue of Playboy Magazine contained the longest interview in their history - 20,000 words from Jim Garrison. About 5 million copies were printed and Playboy organized a press tour for Garrison. You can read the whole interview here. Here is Playboy's press release for their interview: Warren Commission critic Sylvia Meagher did not much like the Garrison interview and she wrote Playboy a 3-page letter. For the first time ever, here is her letter: As you can see above, Meagher wrote that "without intending levity on matters as grave as these, I have to admit that Garrison's theory of men on the grassy knoll whose sole function was to catch the cartridges as they were ejected from the assassins' rifles' strikes me as comical." Garrison had more information to tell Playboy, but he didn't want it in print. And so he confided in Eric Norden, the Playboy interviewer, and he wrote several memos to the editors of Playboy. Edward Jay Epstein has written about these memos, but they are not available anywhere. I found them in the Papers of Elmer Gertz, the lawyer for Gordon Novel, who sued Garrison for libel because of the Playboy interviews. Here is the first memo of secret information: This is one insane memo. None of this stuff panned out - it's no wonder that Garrison didn't disclose this publicly. For instance, the Reverend Clyde Johnson {it wasn't Alvin} was a complete fraud (I have the full story on him in my book); the Shaw-Ruby connection was never mentioned in court; Raymond Cummings never had any credibility and Garrison quickly forgot about him; the "New York accountant of good reputation" turned out to be a total crank, etc. You can see that the Clinton story still wasn't fleshed out, and that Garrison knew about the Permindex/CMC story (more about this to come). Tomorrow, another secret Playboy memo. Stay tuned. Update Here is an excerpt from a letter that Sylvia Meagher wrote to Tom Bethell in which she mentions the Playboy interview:

http://wtracyparnell.blogspot.com/2020/10/book-review-on-trail-of-delusion.html Great review of my book, On The Trail of Delusion by Tracy Parnell. "Fred Litwin has written a book that will be warmly welcomed by anyone who enjoys cold war era history and even long-time students of the Garrison saga will find fresh material here. Novices to the case will no doubt be shocked by the homophobia in both Garrison’s original investigation and Stone’s film and by Prouty and Stone’s anti-Semitic remarks. Undeniably, all but the most credulous Garrison acolytes will be appalled by the demonstrable miscarriage of justice against Clay Shaw and others documented by Litwin in this fine book."

Jim Garrison had a lot of power. And he was determined to use his powers to achieve hjs goals. One of his biggest was his power of subpoena. One of his favorite techniques was to subpoena you to appear before the grand jury, and then charge you with perjury. Once charged, you would have to get a lawyer, and you would have all sorts of other problems - like getting a job, bank loans, etc. Garrison would often dismiss the charges right before trial. And he had the power to subpoena you with just the stroke of a pen. He just had to sign a piece of paper. Here is a document from the early part of the Garrison investigation. While in office, the law changed an Garrison could subpoena you just to appear in his office for questioning. Not surprisingly, people were fearful of his power. Check out this headline. As I detail in Chapter 1 - The Taking of New Orleans 1-2-3, of my book On The Trail of Delusion, Garrison discovered and used other powers. He bragged to Richard Billings, an editor of Life Magazine: "I won't take no for an answer. I've not gonna let somebody lie to me in this case; they lied to the Warren Commission, they lied to the FBI, they're not gonna lie to me. I'm gonna use every legal form of power I have at my disposal. I have the right to made the decision. I have the power available, and I'm gonna use it. If they don't like the way I use the power, then the solution is for them not to elect me next time. But until the next election comes up, I have it and I'm going to use it as effectively as possible; and I'm going to use it in new ways, perhaps ways that haven't been used before, and with imagination and if neccessary with aggressiveness and audacity in order to get people who have concealed the truth previously, to tell the truth." I have a lot more about how Garrison yielded his power in my book.

Clearly, my title explains the truth about Jim Garrison - that he was chasing a delusion. A mythical belief in a JFK conspiracy....and since he could never actually find it, he had to make one up. And, in the process, he ruined lives. The subtitle, The Great Accuser, comes from Harry Connick, Garrison's successor as District Attorney of New Orleans. He came up with it - here's an article from the Times-Picayune. And, where did Harry Connick get it from. Well from the New Testament. From 1 Peter 5:8 Curb every passion, and be on the alert. Your great accuser, the Devil, is going about like a roaring lion to see whom he can devour.

Please bookmark this page. I will be posting every day on this blog - pictures, documents, articles, and commentary about Jim Garrison and his investigation into the assassination of JFK. My book, On The Trail of Delusion, is now available in Kindle format. It will soon be available in print format, and you will also be able to shortly find it on Kobo, iTunes, and a variety of other platforms.

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