The National Archives has many audio recordings from the Garrison investigation. These cassettes and tapes were given to NARA by Harry Connick, Sr., as a result of legal action by the ARRB. While some conspiracy theorists claim that the FBI bugged his offices, in fact, it was Jim Garrison who was doing the taping. No doubt he forgot these tapes when he was cleaning out his files back when he left office in 1973. I am in the midst of retrieving these audio files and preparing transcripts. So, please visit my new YouTube channel. Here is a list of my blog posts related to specific audio files: Exclusive: Raymond Broshears on the Stan Bohrman Show, July 1968 Reverend Raymond Broshears was an incredible fabulist. This TV appearance was noticed by Mark Lane and Stephen Jaffe who convinced Garrison to subpoena Broshears and bring him to New Orleans for questioning. Perry Russo Talks - in Baton Rouge, Part One An audio recording of Perry Russo on WAFB in Baton Rouge. Exclusive: Perry Russo Talks in Baton Rouge, Part Two Initial statements by Perry Russo in Baton Rouge before he is taken to New Orleans. Included is a link to a recording of his third hypnosis session. Exclusive: Andrew Sciambra Phones Kerry Thornley Sciambra tries to set a date when Thornley will testify before the grand jury. Arthur Strout could have been another Perry Russo... Strout had a story to tell about conspiracy and was all set to go to New Orleans but changed his mind.. Exclusive: Jim Garrison Interviewed by the HSCA Garrison tells the HSCA that Kerry Thornley was the second Oswald. Exclusive: Jim Garrison Tells the HSCA that Kerry Thornley Impersonated Lee Harvey Oswald... Garrison tells the HSCA about the impersonation of Oswald. Exclusive: Garrison Tells the HSCA about Guy Banister Garrison tells the HSCA stories about Guy Banister. Exclusive: Jim Garrison tells the HSCA that Fred Crisman was one of the Three Tramps More on Kerry Thornley but Garrison has some startling information on one of the tramps. Upcoming: An incredible audio recording of Jim Garrison meeting with Jack Martin from December 1966.

One of the boxes from the Garrison files at NARA. I am sure there will be lot of hand-wringing over the fact President Biden has signed an order certifying compliance with the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992. As I have indicated earlier, the only withheld in full documents are IRS files and some grand jury testimony. These will probably never be released. All CIA documents have been released, albeit many still have redactions. Robert Reynolds has the full scoop on the state of the releases. He estimates that about 350 documents have redacted social security numbers -- if that person is still alive, I certainly understand why that information should not be released. Does anybody really believe these Social Security Numbers should be released? As a Canadian, I know just how insidious secrecy can be. Canada's Access to Information Act is completely broken, as noted in a series of articles in the Toronto Globe & Mail. And it isn't because Canada is hiding JFK assassination documents. It's just the way far too many governments operate -- it's easier to keep documents secret than to vet them properly for release. Of course, I want to see more JFK documents released without the redactions. However, I don't believe there is anything salient in them regarding the assassination itself. And Judge Tunheim has told us, over and over again, that there are NO bombshells in the remaining documents. I have other important concerns about JFK documents. NARA was supposed to digitize the current JFK collection. I would like to see an update to this. They were supposed to have finished in August of 2023. It appears they are far behind their schedule. And, NARA also has not yet completed their updated JFK Assassination Collection Reference System. We have to rely upon several spreadsheets to find documents. When will their new system be ready? As part of the effort to democratize access to the Collection, NARA will add digitized materials to the National Archives Catalog, develop a dynamic Next Generation Finding Aid using the NARA API, refresh existing webpages about the Collection, and provide quarterly updates regarding project status and online availability of the Collection. In December of 2022, I emailed NARA and asked them about their project. Here is their reply: Dear Mr. Litwin, Thank you for your inquiry regarding the digitization of the John F. Kennedy Assassination Collection records. Earlier this year, we conducted an assessment of the records in advance of digitization to determine the appropriate digitization equipment and archival preparation needs. We are currently in the process of interfiling records that were originally withheld or redacted that have since been released and have started to prep the records in advance of the scanning process. We plan to begin systematic scanning of the Collection, starting with the Warren Commission records, in January 2023. The digitized records will be made available in the National Archives Catalog on an ongoing basis so I encourage you to check our catalog and the National Archives website for updates. If you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to contact me. Denise Henderson Director of Digitization Digitization Division Office of Research Services I have yet to see any updates and any new digitized records. To sum up, the U. S. government needs to release more files without redactions, complete the new finding aid, and complete the digitization of the JFK collection. And I would like to see some clarity on the RFK papers at the JFK Library? Isn't it strange that people like RFK Jr., are upset at Biden and NARA, but have not pushed the JFK library to release the RFK documents in their possession. Let's see those too, please. There is also some important work to be done by private organizations. The Mary Ferrell Foundation (MFF) is an essential source for documents on the JFK assassination. I couldn't have published any of my books, or most of my blog posts, without accessing their website. It is indeed unfortunate that most HSCA documents are not in their collection. There are thousands of HSCA pages that are completely public but are not online. One of the factors that makes the MFF so important is that they provide searchable .pdf files, and so I'd love to see the HSCA material online at Mary Ferrell. Over the last three years, I have traveled across the United States conducting research at a variety of private archives. The papers of Gus Russo, Richard Billings, Irvin Dymond, Gerald Posner, James Kirkwood, Dick Russell, Patricia Lambert, and Richard Sprague contain valuable information on the assassination and most of this material is not online. I would like to see this material be put online as I am sure that other researchers could find this information useful. The New Orleans Public Library has three boxes of Garrison documents not available elsewhere. One private archive that contains hundreds of thousands of pages is the the Assassination Archives and Research Center (AARC). The archive is unfortunately closed right now, but most of its material has been digitized. It is not yet available online, and there are very important papers that cannot be accessed right now. For instance, the AARC has the papers of Zachary Sklar, the screenwriter of JFK and the editor of Garrison's book, On the Trail of the Assassins. I'd sure like to see that collection. The AARC also has many Garrison documents that are not yet available online. Who knows what other treasures are in their files? Let's get it all out, within reason, and let's get it all online. As I said in an older post: The truth of what happened on November 22 1963, lies in the millions of pages already released in full. The few remaining redactions will actually tell us little about what happened. Previous Relevant Blog Posts Redactions, Redactions, Redactions... An analysis of redactions and a good case study of how Mark Lane twisted the truth.

I want to wish everybody and their families a very Merry Christmas and a Happy Chanukah. The two holidays overlap on Sunday!

I was a guest on the Murder Sheet podcast to discuss my new book, Oliver Stone's Film-Flam: The Demagogue of Dealey Plaza. We've done a couple of episodes on the JFK assassination and decided it was time to add a new voice to the conversation. We chose to speak with Fred Litwin, a longtime assassination researcher who has a new book on the case. You can buy Fred's book — Oliver Stone's Film Flam — on Amazon. And you can find him online at onthetrailofdelusion.com In our conversation, we mentioned high resolution pictures of CE 399-- the "magic bullet." You can find those images at: https://www.onthetrailofdelusion.com/post/bombshell-jfk-destiny-betrayed-proven-wrong-on-chain-of-custody-of-ce-399 A big Thank You to Áine Cain and Kevin Greenlee for having me on their podcast.

Click here to listen. Don't miss the Viewer's Guide to JFK: Destiny Betrayed and JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass. The Viewer's Guide has now been updated! Over the past several months, I have shown in multiple blog posts how Oliver Stone's documentary series, JFK Revisited and JFK: Destiny Betrayed, misleads viewers. In fact, despite months of work, there are still many more misleading segments that need to be addressed. It's no wonder that the fact checkers of Netflix nixed the airing of the films. There is a choice between four hours of tendentious nonsense (JFK: Destiny Betrayed) and two hours (JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass). As a handy guide for viewers, here are all those posts in order of their appearance in JFK: Destiny Betrayed and JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass, preceded by some general critiques. The Viewer's Guide has now been updated to include the sources from my new book, Oliver Stone's Film-Flam: The Demagogue of Dealey Plaza. Click here to buy a copy!

I was sad to learn today that Milton Brener, author of the essential The Garrison Case: A Study in the Abuse of Power, died on Christmas, 2022, at the age of 92. His book deserves a wide audience and should be in any JFK assassination collection. I really didn't know much about this book until I was writing I was a Teenage JFK Conspiracy Freak. I wanted to learn more about Clay Shaw and Garrison's exploitation of homosexuality, and I thought that Brener's book might be helpful. Regretfully, his book was out of print, and I had to order it second-hand. The Garrison Case is an eye-opener. Brener worked for Garrison in his early days as a District Attorney and then he left to work as a defense attorney. And so, he knew quite a bit about Garrison and about how the New Orleans D.A.'s office worked. He also had a good understanding of the grand jury system. Brener was the attorney for several people involved in the case (like Layton Martens), and so he had intimate knowledge of what was going on. Brener wrote his book right after Shaw was acquitted, and so he does not deal with Garrison's charges of perjury against Clay Shaw and the subsequent quashing of those charges. This hardly matters as his account of Garrison's investigation is just superb. Because Brener was so involved in the case, there is an 'inside baseball' feel to his book. He clearly had access to a lot of Garrison documents and he talked to all the important characters. I find myself continually referring to his book because he is so comprehensive. James Kirkwood, in his book American Grotesque, also gets close to the key people in the case (like Clay Shaw), but he seems to be on the outside looking in. Both books are worthy accounts of the Garrison debacle. I spoke to Brener once on the telephone. He told me the story of Pershing Gervais, who was Garrison's chief investigator in the beginning of his term as D.A.. Gervais would go around to all the Assistant District Attorneys and find out which cases were not going to be prosecuted. Before the potential defendants would be notified, Gervais would bribe them - he told them he could get their case dismissed if he got paid. Of course, he knew they weren't going to be prosecuted, but they didn't know that. He raked in quite a bit of cash. Here is a review of The Garrison Case from the New York Times of November 30, 1969: Money quote: "The Garrison Case" might have been subtitled, "The Demagogue as D.A.," or "Joe McCarthy in Prosecutor's Clothing." It is a cautionary tale, and a terrifying one. It will send shivers up your spine, and thus performs a great public service. Update Here is a comment from Tom Bethell (who worked in Garrison's office) on Milton Brener's book, taken from a letter to Sylvia Meagher: Here is Meagher's reply:

The headline from the Spanish newspaper El Diario says: "Oliver Stone: The United States is like a Doberman, a methodical killer with too much money." Stone has been merciless and has described the U.S. to a small group of journalists as "a Doberman, a methodical killer animal with a lot of money, too much money." He goes on to say: Oliver Stone has never hidden his sympathy for Vladimir Putin or for Russia. In fact, he made a documentary series in which he interviewed the Russian president in depth. He has not seen him for three years, and that is why he does not dare to say what he is like now, but he does believe that "the press has been irresponsible calling him crazy, saying that he is Hitler and Stalin." “That definition has nothing to do with the man I knew. A rational, calm, thoughtful man. He is a son of Russia. There is a very big distinction to be understood. The difference between patriotism and nationalism”, Stone has opined. Of course, Stone believes the Ukrainians have no agency at all: He has stressed that the US was the one who provoked this conflict, because what it did was "a coup in Ukraine to restore a pro-Western government." “Ukraine had been neutral until then, and that is important to remember. Suddenly, Russia was the enemy and, since then, the world has not been the same”, he said and recalled that for the US it is a strategic country: “Ukraine is part of the American plan. She always has been. Ukraine was always what they wanted and it is what they wanted in 2014 with that coup. They got what they wanted, which was to pit them against Russia. They want to change the regime in Russia, remove Putin and put in another Yeltsin and go to Russia's resources at a certain price." And this is the great political strategist who brought us JFK and JFK Revisited? Here is how everybody can help the people of Ukraine. And a reminder: JFK Supported Ukrainian Independence Previous Blog Posts on Oliver Stone's Politics Has Oliver Stone Gone Mad? Oliver Stone Said Vladimir Putin is "very bright" and "wise" Oliver Stone's 'Bromance' with Vladimir Putin Oliver Stone Blames the United States for Putin's Invasion of Ukraine Celebrities Who Have Been Friendly with Putin Oliver Stone Says Vladimir Putin Fell into an American Trap The Day Vladimir Putin Fooled Oliver Stone with a Doctored Video Oliver Stone Watches Dr. Strangelove with Vladimir Putin Oliver Stone is Vladimir Putin's Mouthpiece Oliver Stone Says that Putin was Provoked... Will Oliver Stone Blame Kazakhstan Unrest on the United States? Is Oliver Stone Becoming a Lackey for China? Oliver Stone said the CIA may have injected cancer into Hugo Chavez's rectum... Oliver Stone Sides with Cuba's 'Repressive Dictatorship Two Views on Oliver Stone's Love Affair with Nazarbayev... Oliver Stone Fêtes Another Dictator Relevant Links on Oliver Stone's Politics Oliver Stone's Disgraceful Tribute to Hugo Chavez Is the director's latest film soft on Castro? Oliver Stone defends himself After Calling Russian Anti-LGBTQ Law ‘Sensible’ Hollywood Movie Director Oliver Stone praises Putin for Syria intervention on trip to Saudi Arabia Oliver Stone: Jewish Control of the Media is Preventing Free Holocaust Debate Oliver Stone's Latest Dictator Suckup Oliver Stone’s Latest Piece of Pro-Putin Propaganda May Be His Most Shameless Move Yet ‘The Putin Interviews’: Oliver Stone’s Wildly Irresponsible Love Letter to Vladimir Putin Has Oliver Stone Ever met a Dictator He Doesn't Admire? Oliver Stone's 'Empathy' for Hitler Iran's Fajr Film Festival grabs headlines with Oliver Stone

Yet another conspiracy film - production is due to start in Vancouver in September: Oscar winner Al Pacino (The Godfather), Oscar nominee Viggo Mortensen (Green Book), Oscar nominee John Travolta (Pulp Fiction), BAFTA winner Shia LaBeouf (Honey Boy), NBR Award winner Rebecca Pidgeon (Heist) and Golden Globe nominated singer and actress Courtney Love (The People vs. Larry Flynt) are set to star in the thriller Assassination, we can reveal. The film, which Arclight is launching for the Cannes market, is to be directed by Pulitzer Prize-winner and Oscar nominee David Mamet (Wag the Dog) from a script he co-wrote with Nicholas Celozzi. Assassination will retell the fateful murder of John F. Kennedy from the mob’s point of view, reimagining his death as a hit ordered by Chicago mob kingpin Sam Giancana as payback for JFK’s attempt to undermine the mob after they helped get him elected (that thread formed a big part of Oliver Stone’s JFK). Mamet co-wrote the script with Nicholas Celozzi, who is Sam Giancana's grand-nephew. Mamet is quoted in this article: The mob theory was part of what director Oliver Stone presented in the film JFK, which focused on findings by New Orleans DA Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner) that contradicted the lone gunman conclusion by the Warren Commission. When Celozzi’s script was sent to Mamet, it reawakened the writer-director’s own skepticism that he felt a decade ago when he was going to direct a movie about inconsistencies in the Zapruder film, the only known visual chronicle of Kennedy’s final moments. “I wrote a really good script based on the Zapruder film about 10 years ago, Cate Blanchett was going to do it and we were all ready to start shooting it and then the money guy pulled out,” Mamet told Deadline, who acknowledges the difficulty of definitively declaring what actually happened that tragic day. “There was a wonderful physicist named Richard Fynman who said the great discoveries in science aren’t when someone says, ‘Eureka I have found it,’ but when the scientist says, ‘Hey, that’s funny.’ I was inspired to get into the Zapruder film for the idea that several of the frames were missing, which they are. One of the frames had actually been altered. Why has the film been altered, that’s funny. When you look at the secret panel on assassinations, their secret findings were held and were supposed to be released last year. But they said, we’re holding some of them back. I said to myself, that’s funny. What does it mean, I don’t know, but it means something. James DiEugenio saw an early copy of the script: The story was about a young woman who has a mysterious source of funds that comes her way each month. After she had a minor family crisis with her son, she decided to try and find out where the money is coming from. This is the main action of the film. It turns out her father was part of a top secret photographic alteration department in a large corporation. She finds out that this department worked on UFOs. But she later also finds out that they worked on the Zapruder film. It turns out that the real film showed Oswald outside during the parade. With Allen Dulles in the crowd. Wow - Zapruder film altertation! I wonder is that will stay in the final script. Celozzi previously was the producer of Momo: The Sam Giancana Story. Here is an excerpt from a transcript: (starting at 1:26:52) Arthur Lurigio: The theories abound and we talk about organized crime's connection to the Kennedy assassination. Sam's name comes up. John J. Binder: The outfit despised the Kennedys going back to the McClellan Committee hearings. Arthur Lurigio: Organized crime certainly had a motive. They certainly had the means and they had an opportunity. Narrator: According to Pepe Giancana, Sam told his brother of his own complicity in the events of November 22nd 1963 in his Oak Park basement. According to this account, Lee Harvey Oswald was recruited by Carlos Marcello as a patsy. One of Oswald's uncles was Marcello's lieutenant, but more importantly, Oswald had deep ties to Cuba and Castro would be blamed. The actual shooters were supplied by Giancana - Richard Cain, Chuckie Nicoletti, and Milwaukee Phil Aldericio. Mr. X - Outfit Soldier: Oswald, I don't think could figure out how to wrap a gumball machine, let alone to be positioned to this. It had up come from people that, you know, know how to kill is like tying their shoes. Narrator: It was Richard Cain, according to Sam's brother, who fired the shot that killed John Kennedy. Interesting guy, this Richard Cain. He was a Chicago cop on Sam's payroll. both an FBI informant and a made member of the outfit. He had also worked with the CIA, Sam, Roselli, and Ruby on the whole Cuban fiasco. FBI agent Roemer always claimed that no way could Sam have been involved in the Kennedy assassination, because the FBI surveillance would have picked it up, but the guy he had watching Sam was FBI informant Richard Cain, and in 1963, Roemer and the FBI had no idea that Cain was actually working for Sam. So, there were things that the feds didn't know. To make certain that Oswald would never talk, Sam got his old helper Jack Ruby to get two Dallas policeman, J.D. Tippit and Roscoe White ,who were secretly on his payroll, to shoot Oswald. Dave Perry has debunked the Roscoe White story. I hope Mr. Celozzi is smart enough to take that out of his upcoming movie. Mr. Celozzi wasn't the first member of the Giancana family to cash in mobster Sam. Daughter Antoinette Giancana wrote a book, JFK and Sam: The Connection Between the Giancana and Kennedy Assassinations, in 2005: Mel Ayton wrote a short review of JFK and Sam: Ginacana’s book resurrects the same old myths about the assassination, including Grassy Knoll "witnesses," discredited photo analyst Robert Groden’s purported photographic "proof" of Grassy Knoll gunmen and the alleged physical evidence which "proves" Oswald’s innocence. A central weakness in Giancana et al’s book is the heavy reliance on so-called conspiracy witnesses whose outrageous tall tales have been investigated by the JFK assassination research community and found to be bogus. Their reliance on Madeleine Brown alone, a purported mistress of Lyndon Johnson, renders their overall thesis untenable. Brown’s story was investigated by Gary Mack and Dave Perry who exposed her outrageous lies. Another major weakness is the authors’ belief in the confessions of alleged assassin James Files. Again, the authors simply haven’t bothered to fully research Files’s background as a reputed conman or the inconsistencies in his story. Files’s story was fully researched by acclaimed JFK assassination writers Martin Shackleford, Dave Perry, John Stockwell, Edward Bell and Edward J. Epstein and found to be bogus. Indeed, here are a few pages from the photo section which feature James Files: James Files' story has been debunked. Here are the supposed shooting positions: And Madeline Brown also features: (pages 21 - 22) JFK researcher David Perry has debunked a variety of nonsense regarding Madeline Brown and the supposed party in particular. I guess David Mamet was not happy with Oliver Stone's myth about the JFK assassination, and now he wants his own.

Over fifty years later and we are still waiting.

Dean Andrews was in the hospital in New Orleans from November 20, 1963 until November 29, 1963 being treated for double pneumonia. Conspiracy theorists like to claim that Andrews was not under sedation when he received the supposed phone call from Clay Bertrand to represent Lee Harvey Oswald. They believe this is an important point because it makes it more likely that Andrews would remember an actual phone call. Here is an excerpt from James DiEugenio's Destiny Betrayed: (page 181) "As per Andrews being under sedation at the time of the call, this is false. The FBI discovered that Andrews did receive sedation on that day, November 23. But it was at 8:00 PM in the evening. The call from Bertrand came in four hours earlier." DiEugenio's source is Bill Davy's book, Let Justice Be Done, on page 52: "This still leaves open the question of whether Andrews was heavily sedated at the time of the call. A check of the hospital records would certainly resolve that issue and the FBI did just that. On December 5th, Special Agent Richard Bucaro reviewed Andrews' medical record. It clearly states that on November 23rd Andrews did not receive any sedation until 8:00 PM." Here is the source for Davy's paragraph: Other reports provide a more complete picture. Here is an excerpt of his testimony before the Warren Commission: On many occasions, he said that he was under heavy sedation. And... And ... Andrews was asked at the Clay Shaw trial about talking to FBI agent Regis Kennedy: And Andrews' doctor also said he was under sedation for the first four days of his stay at the hospital: As Jerry Shinley notes: Can anyone point out to me where this clearly STATES that Andrews did NOT receive any sedation UNTIL 8:00 PM? Andrews was in the hospital from November 20th until November 29th. No one in their right mind could think that his entire hospital chart could be reported in just one paragraph. And, even if his first dose of sedation was at 8 PM, it is quite possible that it could distort his memory of what had happened earlier.

My friend Michel Gagne has just had an excerpt from his new book, Thinking Critically About the Kennedy Assassination: Debunking the Myths and Conspiracy Theories, published on the Quilllette website. Michel's article is well worth reading. And, please don't forget to buy a copy of his book: Michel also has a terrific podcast.