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Warren Commission critic Harold Weisberg played an important role in shaping Jim Garrison's thinking. Here is an excerpt from Dean Andrews' interview with NBC for their special from June 1967: Question: No, just tell the story (over Dean's laughter) what you ... what you ... Andrews: ... best as I can recall, sometime in October [1966], maybe the first part of November, I got a phone call to meet him [Garrison] in Brouss ... Question: meet him where? Andrews: Broussard's ... it's a tourist restaurant ... sometimes a less ... scratch that ... everybody eats there (laughing). So I met him there and he had a book called Whitewash and he told me that the office thought very highly of me and apparently I had some information they did not have. We generally discussed the Warren Report and the book and we met off and on since then. Here are two paragraphs from Dean Andrews' lawsuit from April 1967 against Jim Garrison: Garrison bought into a number of concepts from Whitewash, notably the belief of a second Oswald, or as Weisberg called him, the false Oswald. The Dean Andrews story about Clay Bertrand was played up by Weisberg. And Oswald's belief in communism was just a cover. Weisberg, like most conspiracy critics, was a leftist, and he not only wanted to prove the existence of a conspiracy, but he wanted it to be a right-wing plot. That mean that he had to hide Lee Harvey Oswald's interest in Marxism, which began when he was a teenager. Here is what Harold Weisberg wrote in Whitewash: (page 265 in the Dell edition) "From boyhood on, with a record in the Commission's possession going back to when he was but sixteen, Oswald was anti-Communist. When he left Russia, as even Marina makes clear, he was anti-Soviet." Let's examine the record: In early 1956, Oswald worked for the Pfisterer Dental Laboratories making deliveries. He worked with Palmer McBride who shared an interest in classical music. During Oswald's first visit to McBride's home, the discussion turned to politics: "At this time I made a statement to the effect that President DWIGHT EISENHOWER was doing a pretty good job for a man of his age and background, but that I did feel more emphasis should be placed on the space program in view of Russian successes. OSWALD was very anti-Eisenhower, and stated that president EISENHOWER was exploiting the working people. He then made a statement to the effect that he would like to kill president EISENHOWER because he was exploiting the working class. This statement was not made in jest, and OSWALD was in a serious frame of mind when this statement was made. LEE OSWALD was very serious about the virtues of communism, and discussed these at every opportunity. He would say that the capitalists were exploiting the working class and his central theme seemed to be that the workers in [of?] the world would one day rise up and throw off their chains. He praised KRUSHCHEV'S sincerity in improving the lot of the worker." In the summer of 1956, Lee Harvey Oswald, who was 16 years old, contacted William Wulf, though Palmer McBride. Wulf was the President of the New Orleans Amateur Astronomy Association. Here is an excerpt from Wulf's testimony before the Warren Commission: In March 1968, one of Garrison's investigators spoke to Wulf. Here is a brief excerpt: In October 1956, Oswald enlisted in the Marine Corps. In 1959 Oswald left the Corps and then defected to the Soviet Union. Here is an article on his defection: Ft. Worth Star-Telegram, November 15, 1959 According to the article, Oswald "told the U.S. embassy he was a devoted believer in communism and had read books on the subject since he was 15." Karl Marx's book Das Kapital "set him on the road to communism and he began to read all he could find out about it." Aline Mosby's notes can be found in Volume XXII, page 701 (CE 1385). Here are some comments: He told Mosby that he was a bookworm. What did he read? "Marx," he said, "I'm a Marxist," He became interested in Marxism when he was 15 when an "old lady handed me a pamphlet about the Rosenbergs." Then he found Das Kapital in the New Orleans library. "It was like a very religious man opening the Bible for the first time ... I continued to indoctrinate myself for five years. My mother knew I was reading books but she didn't know what they were about." He told Mosby that he continued to read Marxist books in the Marines and then made plans to go to the Soviet Union. Oswald called Mosby to complain about her coverage saying, "We weren't poverty-stricken. I am here because I believe in Marxist ideals. It's a matter only of ideology. You don't understand." Priscilla Johnson also interviewed Oswald. Here is her article from 1959: Here is her report from the Columbia Dispatch of November 25, 1963: Columbus Dispatch, November 25, 1963 Many of the same points are made by Johnson: "Lee was struck, in particular, by Marx's "Das Kapital." He concluded that, as an American, "I would become either a worker exploited for capitalist profit, or an exploiter or, since there are many in this category, I'd be one of the unemployed." Lee became a Marxist. Later, as a Marine Corps private in Japan and the Philippines, he "had a chance to watch American imperialism in action." Oswald's sojourn in the Soviet Union left him disillusioned, and he returned to the United States in 1962. He wrote: "The Soviets have committed crimes unsurpassed even by their early day capitalist counterparts; the imprisonment of their own people, with the mass extermination so typical of Stalin." But Oswald was still a man of the left. He noted that: "We have no interest in violently opposeing [sic] the U.S. government, why should we manifest opposition when there are far greater forces at work, to bring about the fall of the United States Government, than we could ever possibly muster." Here was Oswald's goal: "The emplacement of a separate, democratic, pure communist sociaty [sic] is our goal, but one with union-communes, democratic socializing of production and without regard to twisting apart of marxist communism by other powers" Oswald's interest now turned to Cuba and Fidel Castro. He started a New Orleans chapter of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. When interviewed on the radio by Bill Stuckey, he said: "You cannot say Castro is a communist at this time because he has not developed his country, his system, thus far. He has not had the chance to become a Communist. He is an experimenter, a person who is trying to find out the best way for his country." Oswald saw Cuba as a chance for that "pure communist society," and he wanted to play a part and influence Castro in the revolution. Oswald even had a picture of Castro on the mantelpiece of his apartment. "That evening, Dutz Murret stopped over at Oswald's apartment to make sure his nephew would show up for the trial which was scheduled for Monday. Seeing a picture of Fidel Castro on the mantelpiece, he asked Oswald whether he was mixed up with Communists. Oswald answered no." Here is a short excerpt of Marina Oswald's testimony: Senator Cooper: But my question is what makes you think might have talked to Mr. Paine about Cuba. Mrs. Oswald: I think, sir: because after returning from New Orleans this was his favorite subject. Cuba, and he was quite -- a little bit cracked about it, crazy about Cuba. So, he had to get to Cuba. To help him achieve his goal, he tried to infiltrate anti-Castro groups in New Orleans, where he proceeded to hand out pro-Cuba leaflets on the streets. When anti-Castro Cubans got wind of this, an altercation ensued. Oswald was arrested, and his arrest made the newspapers, and he was on the radio. New Orleans Times-Picayune, August 13, 1963 When Oswald went to the Cuban embassy in Mexico City in late September 1963 to get a visa, he showed them his "dossier" to help prove his commitment to the revolution. It didn't work. The Cubans consulted the Russians, and he was turned away. He ended up having a meltdown at the Russian embassy, and he moved to Dallas a deeply bitter and angry man. Harold Weisberg ignored a lot of the evidence about Oswald's leftism and wrote that "from boyhood on ... Oswald was anti-Communist" (see above for the entire quote) and wondered if he had simply pretended to be pro-Castro. His opinion was that it was all a ruse. Oswald's activities did not make sense "except in terms of what is known in the intelligence trade as 'establishment of a cover.'" (page 268 in Oswald in New Orleans) Jim Garrison quickly picked this up as a core theme of his investigation. Here is an excerpt of an interview with the BBC: Question: Can you confirm that they were directed against Cuba, for example ... Garrison: I ... I can't ... I can't make any ... statement at this time as to what the ... as to what the objective of this apparatus was, but I will say, there was in existence in New Orleans, in 1963, an apparatus which was lethal in nature, of which Lee Harvey Oswald was a part, was assigned a role essentially as a decoy. I think I can tell you now, that, I know I feel like saying for the first time, that the Fair Play for Cuba, which he pretended to be so interested in was a cover, for the operation. Oswald was not a communist, Oswald was not pro-Castro, and, as a result of the operation, which was working here in the summer of 1963, a spin-off occurred. An unexpected change of direction occurred which, in the fall of 1963, which resulted in that lethal apparatus being turned against Kennedy and that's what happened, and that's the first time I've ever said that in public." Garrison went further in his October 1967 interview with Playboy magazine: "I don't believe there are any serious students of the assassination who don't recognize that Oswald's actual political orientation was extreme right-wing. His associates in Dallas and New Orleans -- apart from his CIA contacts -- were exclusively right-wing, some covert, others overt, in fact, our office has positively identified a number of his associates as neo-Nazis. Oswald would have been more at home with Mein Kampf than Das Kapital." All of this is quite amusing except that Garrison's beliefs had real-world consequences. He became interested in Kerry Thornley who served briefly with Oswald in the Marines in California. Garrison was convinced that Thornley had met Oswald while in New Orleans in September of 1963. In January of 1967, Garrison subpoenaed Thornley to appear before the grand jury: Some comments on this press release: The reason that the Mr. Jenner didn't go into detail about Thornley and Oswald in September 1963, is that they only overlapped in the city for about three weeks. Thornley returned to New Orleans in the beginning of September, and Oswald left in the last week of September. Had Thornley bumped into Oswald, he most certainly would have wanted to interview him about his defection, particularly since Thornley was already writing about him. Here is what Thornley wrote right after the assassination. Garrison takes exception to Thornley's description of Oswald's politics. "all of which conveniently supported the official fiction being manufactured for the American people that Oswald was a lonely, demented Marxist assassin who naturally was destined to shot at one president or another." Actually, Thornley just reported what he heard. Thornley appeared before Garrison's grand jury in February, 1968, and was immediately indicted for perjury: This press release is quite the document. Garrison says that "Inasmuch as Oswald really was never at any time a "Communist" -- nor even inclined in that direction -- and inasmuch as he was sent to Russia as an employee of the United States Government, it was necessary to have a major witness testify in great detail to create an early image as a Marxist so that there would not be too much public curiosity about the real reasons for Oswald's abrupt departure from the Marine Corps to sail to Russia." Really? There were many people who could so testify. Even if Thornley had never met Oswald, there is still a substantive amount of evidence regarding his political orientation. Garrison goes off the deep end in talking about Thornley's post office box: "Like a number of young men who have been identified as CIA employees, Thornley had a post office box in the federal building across from Banister's office. Such post office boxes are customarily used by federal employees with clandestine assignments as "message drops" as well as an acceptable excuse for regular visits into a federal building. Another of the young men having such a post office box was Lee Harvey Oswald. What this means is simply that Kerry Thornley and Lee Oswald were both part of the covert federal operation operating in New Orleans. The only difference between Oswald and the other young CIA employees was that, having performed a flamboyant Russian assignment for his country, he had a beautiful potential as a decoy in the assassination -- a potential which, as it happened, his employers did not waste." Garrison wrote a memo about the CIA usage of post office boxes here. But why wouldn't Thornley have a post office box in that building? After all, it was only a block or two from Thornley's apartment. His friend Greg Hill wrote, "nearly every writer in the French Quarter had a box in that post office, since publisher's checks sent to home mailboxes were notoriously subject to being ripped off by desperate junkies." Garrison then claims the CIA created a "Communist image for Oswald": "The Central Intelligence Agency elements which accomplished the execution of President Kennedy included, in addition to the ambush squad of presidential assassins used in Dallas, individuals working on custodial assignments and on image-creating assignments. The techniques used in creating a Communist image for Oswald were: persuading him by means of a pretext to engage in certain activities (such as handing out "Fair Play for Cuba" pamphlets), having other employees play his part in more inculpatory tableaux (such as appearing at the Mexican consul here and inquiring as to whether he could "bring a rifle into Mexico" or ostensibly receiving money being paid to him in the courtyard of the Cuban Consul [sic - consulate?] in Mexico City) and testifying, after the assassination, that Oswald was indeed a deranged Communist." However, the CIA goofed in regard to Thornley. He moved from New Orleans and he "remained on ice in Arlington, Virginia until it came time for him to testify that Oswald had been a Communist way back in their Marine days." But Thornley's move to Arlington was not suspicious. He had a standing offer from a friend to stay there and he felt it was time to get away from New Orleans. Kerry Thornley testified before the grand jury in February 1968, and so Garrison knew this. Garrison would go on and make this sound very suspicious in his book On the Trail of the Assassins: (page 76) "I later sent Andrew Sciambra to the Washington area, where he traced Thornley's path. Thornley had wound up at Arlington, a Washington suburb, and had moved into Shirlington House, a first-class apartment building where he worked as a doorman. Thornley stayed at Shirlington House for six months, until he testified before the Warren Commission. Oddly enough, his salary was less than the rent of his Shirlington House apartment." Of course, the great investigator Jim Garrison could not figure out that Thornley's room and board were part of his doorman gig. All he had to do was to ask Thornley. In the spring of 1964, Kerry Thornley testified before the Warren Commission. "... Thornley testified not only that he had been a "Marxist" but that he "had a persecution complex", "was emotionally unstable" and "wanted a place in history". Inasmuch as the defendant had already safely been executed -- the standard fate of the decoy in presidential assassination -- these works now became part of the official picture of Lee Oswald and his years as a CIA employee were buried with him." Garrison included an addendum to his press release which listed other Marines who knew little about Oswald's Marxist beliefs. This is not surprising since Oswald largely kept to himself while in the Marines. Garrison goes to write: "It is thought provoking that the only one of Oswald's former Marine comrades who testified that he was a "Marxist" -- one of the star witnesses for the Warren Commission -- is also the only one who was in personal association with Oswald in New Orleans in 1963 just before he returned to Dallas before the assassination." None of this was true. Thornley did not meet Oswald in New Orleans in the fall of 1963. But, more importantly, other Marines got a glimpse of Oswald's political beliefs. For some reason, Garrison missed them in the 26 volumes of the Warren Report. Here is a sampling: Nelson Delgado: (Volume VIII) Mr. Liebeler: Did you mention to the FBI the fact that Oswald had a copy of Das Kapital? Mr. Delgado: Yes. Mr. Liebeler: You mentioned that in your testimony previously too? Mr. Delgado: Yes. Oswald talked to Delgado about going to Cuba, even after it was starting to become clear that Castro was heading in the wrong direction: Their friendship began to wane because of Castro: Oswald did talk to Delgado about socialism: (Volume VIII) John Donovan: (Volume VIII) James Botelho: (Volume VIII) Paul Murphy: (Volume VIII) Richard Dennis Call: (Volume VIII) Erwin Donald Lewis: (Volume VIII) And, of course, there is the testimony of Kerry Thornley, who probably talked to Oswald more than most other Marines. You can read his testimony here. There is no question that Lee Harvey Oswald was a man of the left. It is true that he became disillusioned with Soviet communism after his defection. Harold Weisberg drew the wrong conclusion to say that Oswald was an anti-communist. He was anti-Leninist. But he was still a Marxist. James DiEugenio continues in the same vein as Jim Garrison. But he has added a twist. Here is a paragraph from his book, The JFK Assassination: (page 178) "For if Oswald was really a communist, why would he be associated with both Ferrie and Banister?" Of course, Oswald never associated with either Ferrie or Banister. Here are some posts about David Ferrie's and Guy Banister's supposed links to Lee Harvey Oswald: Did David Ferrie Know Lee Harvey Oswald? Did Lee Harvey Oswald Have David Ferrie's Library Card? Did a Cabbie take Oswald and Ferrie to Ruby's Nightclub? Did Vernon Gerdes See Oswald with Ferrie and Banister? Did David Ferrie Introduce Jack Martin to Lee Harvey Oswald in Banister's office? Did Delphine Roberts see Oswald in Banister's Office? Did Delphine Roberts See Lee Harvey Oswald in Banister's Office? (Part Two) Jean Davison, author of Oswald's Game (which I heartily recommend), considered Garrison's hypothesis that Oswald's beliefs were part of a ruse: (page 285) "How can we be certain, even so, that Oswald wasn't working for American intelligence or a similar group all along? I return to the principle that, in order to be plausible, a theory must fit the available evidence into a reasonable chronology of events. As we have seen, Oswald was capable of playing a double role for his own purposes and of risking his life for his beliefs. This inner-directedness gives us no reason to think that he would have staked his life for the beliefs of anyone else. To argue, as some critics have, that Oswald was merely posing as a leftist from the time he was 16 until, literally, the day he died, one must unravel the story of his life presented in this book and attempt to rewrite it into an entirely new pattern. I can't say that it is impossible to do so, but thus far it hasn't been done." For anyone to claim that Oswald was a man of the right, well, they have their work cut out for them. Update: Here is an excerpt from an FBI report on Nelson Delgado:

John Corbett discusses the JFK assassination on the JFK assassination forum. You will find that his posts are intelligent and that he really knows the case. It was a pleasure to talk with him. Previous Episodes of On the Trail of Delusion: Episode 1 My first guest was Robert Reynolds who is an expert on the JFK assassination files. Episode 2 Robert A. Wagner discusses his new book, JFK Assassinated. Episode 3 Gerald Posner discusses the JFK assassination and conspiracy theories. Episode 4 Dr. Martin J. Kelly, Jr. discusses conspiracy theories and the medical evidence in the JFK assassination. Episode 5 Steve Roe discusses the life of General Edwin Walker and Oswald's attempt to kill him. Episode 6 Gus Russo discusses his participation in the PBS Frontline documentary on Lee Harvey Oswald. Episode 7 Dave Perry tells some great stories about debunking JFK conspiracy nonsense. Episode 8 Nick Nalli explains some of the science behind the assassination. Episode 9 Alecia Long discusses Jim Garrison and his non-existent case against Clay Shaw. Episode 10 Don Carpenter discusses the life of Clay Shaw. Episode 11 Bill Brown discusses the murder of Officer J. D. Tippit. Episode 12 Eric Dezenhall discusses the relationship between the mob and JFK. Episode 13 Nick Nalli discusses the acoustics evidence and the Zapruder Film. Episode 14 Scott Maudsley discusses Lee Harvey Oswald's antisocial personality disorder. Episode 15 Document expert Robert Reynolds discusses what to expect in the upcoming JFK assassination file releases. Episode 16 A panel discussion on the document releases with Fred Litwin, Gus Russo, Robert Reynolds, Larry Haapanen, Mark Allen, and Steve Roe. Episode 17 An interview with author Michel Gagné about conspiracy theories. Episode 18 An interview with Phil Tinline about his book, Ghosts of Iron Mountain. Episode 19 An interview with Janet Banister, grand-niece of Guy Banister. Episode 20 The Marina Oswald Tapes. Episode 21 Dr. Chad Zimmerman discusses JFK's autopsy X-rays and photographs. Episode 22 Tour guide Daniel Evans talks about his years of researching the JFK assassination. Episode 23 Adam Gorightly discusses Fred Crisman, Thomas Beckham, Raymond Broshears and Kerry Thornley. Episode 24 A fun interview with Larry Haapanen who discusses the Garrison investigation, and his involvement with Project Blue Book. Episode 25 Dale Myers discusses the Tippit shooting and shows us some nifty animation. Episode 26 Brian Roselle discusses the timing of the first shot. Episode 27 Dr. Martin J. Kelly, Jr. talks about the psychology of Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby. Episode 28 Gus Russo talks about what happened to Lee Harvey Oswald in Mexico City. Episode 29 John-Paul Pagano discusses conspiracy theories, conspiracism and antisemitism. Episode 30 Dr. Robert Vitt talks about conspiracy theories, the early JFK researchers, and how to evaluate evidence. Episode 31 Josh Sundloff discusses conspiracy theories and his TikTok channel. Episode 32 A panel discussion of the single-bullet theory with Dr. Martin Kelly, Dr. Nick Nalli, Fred James and Scott Maudsley. Episode 33 Ernest Kearney discusses conspiracy theories and how to evaluate evidence. Episode 34 Steve Barber discusses the acoustics evidence and his visits with Robert Groden.

C ourtesy of the Malcolm Blunt Archive . The document is contained in the CIA folder within the Garrison folder. Here is a link to the actual document. The document is referenced on the last page of a just-released unredacted CIA chronology of Mexico City. See the last page. That comment can be more conveniently seen in of the searchable copies released earlier. Note written by COS: This guy GARRISON is so far gone that would not be acceptable in any luny [sic] bin!! "COS" evidently refers to the Chief of Station in Mexico City. The Chief of Station of Mexico City at that time was Win Scott. Previous Relevant Blog Posts about Garrison's Interview in Playboy Garrison's Playboy Interview - What Couldn't Be Printed Eric Norden, the journalist who interviewed Garrison, wrote a memo to Playboy Magazine with information from Garrison that could not be printed Garrison's Playboy Interview - More Secret Information Garrison also wrote a memo to Playboy with additional information and Norden wrote a second memo with secret information. Perry Russo's First Lie Detector Test... Garrison lied in his Playboy interview about lie detector tests given Perry Russo and Vernon Bundy. Jim Garrison (and others) on Rose Cherami Garrison mangles the story of Rose Cherami in Playboy

In July and August 1977, Jim Garrison was interviewed by staff members of the House Select Committee on Assassinations. I have five tapes of his interviews and, over the next several weeks, I will be publishing them here for the first time ever. Here is page one of the HSCA memo on the interviews: Here is the first of five tapes. And guess what? It's Jim Garrison at his craziest: This was not the first tape - it was recorded towards the end of the week with Garrison. Here is a Word document with the transcript: Here is a .pdf file: The "Watch on Youtube" link points to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tA0-m2bwf6E . The auto-generated closed-caption transcript there is less accurate, but it can be searched, and includes time stamps which are live links to the audio. Here are the highlights: Thornley lied before the New Orleans grand jury when he said he was not in New Orleans when Oswald lived there in spring-summer of 1963. Neighbors would see him with Marina Oswald. (see below for one such document) Garrison saw Thornley at Georgia State University in the mid 1970s and thought he was on drugs. Garrison called him "a beatnik of the lowest order." In 1976 Thornley had a friend give Garrison a 50-page affidavit in which Thornley says he briefly met Guy Banister (to discuss his book) and David Ferrie in the early 1960s. Here is the affidavit. Thornley is Garrison's candidate for the second Oswald. Garrison is flummoxed by Thornley's description of Oswald's height. Garrison claims that both men were 5'11" and that Thornley said Oswald was only 5'5" tall. To Garrison this is proof that Thornley was trying to "disassociate" himself from Oswald. Garrison believes that it is Thornley's body in the Oswald backyard photographs. The FBI interviewed Thornley for a long time the day after the assassination. Garrison claims that their interviews are usually short, so why was this one so long? Thornley left after the assassination for Alexandria, Virginia, even though he still had ten days left on his lease before his rent was due. The landlord found his apartment in disarray with papers everywhere, and some of papers had been watered so that you could not read them. NBC offered Thornley a lot of money for the last chapter of his book, The Idle Warrior. Garrison tries to create an issue with when Thornley started and finished his book. Garrison brings up the statement of Harvey Wade who claimed he saw Oswald at the Carousel Club in Dallas. He might have seen the second Oswald. Discussion Garrison seems totally off his rocker. He makes a huge deal out of Thornley's description of Oswald's height. Garrison doesn't realize that Oswald was not 5'11" but was 5'9". The fact that Thornley described him as being shorter than he himself was is actually correct. Garrison makes a big deal out of the interview with his landlord, John Spencer. Here is the Spencer document: Garrison had Thornley testify before the grand jury on February 8, 1968. He could have asked Thornley about why he left his apartment with 10 days left in the month and why the apartment was such a mess. He didn't. The reason was simple. Thornley had a messy breakup with his girlfriend. He changed the locks, but she broke and in damaged a bunch of stuff. Here is what Thornley says about that: (page 59 in Caught in the Crossfire: Kerry Thornley, Lee Oswald and the Garrison Investigation , by Adam Gorightly) "When I moved out of the place after the assassination I was having a full-scale war with Jeanne, who was drawing money (it was turning out) of our joint checking account faster than I (working 12 hours a day under enormous strain as a waiter at Arnaud's) could put it in, without telling me, and Jeanne had just come by and broken in and stolen back her things (which I was keeping as ransom until she paid back some of what she owed me) and so when I left the apartment it looked like a hurricane had struck it. And although I had been planning the move for about a week, for some reason or other I did not tell (my landlord), so I just left him a note apologizing for the mess and telling him he could keep whatever was valuable in the stuff I left behind, as a cleaning fee. So it APPEARED as though I had cleared out in a sudden panic ..." There was no mystery about Thornley leaving New Orleans. He had a standing offer from a friend to stay at his place in Virginia and he felt it was time to get away from New Orleans. And Garrison knew this because Thornley discussed this with the grand jury. Garrison made a huge deal in his interview about Thornley telling the Warren Commission that Oswald was 5'5", when, in fact, they were both 5'11". Of course, he is wrong - Oswald was only 5'9". Here is his exact testimony before the Warren Commission : Does that sound nefarious to you? This is where Garrison got the height nonsense from: Garrison believed he found some witnesses who claim that Thornley was seen with Marina. It's interesting that when Thornley testified before the grand jury, Marina was also there, and they didn't recognize each other. Here is a fun document about Thornley and Marina: Here is the only other document I could find that mentions the Oswalds and Kerry Thornley: For some reason, Mrs. LaSavia never gave a statement, nor did Garrison call her before the grand jury. Garrison had a complete list of people who lived on the 4900 block of Magazine street and yet he couldn't find anybody to give a statement about seeing the Oswalds with Kerry Thornley. Harvey Wade brought out more craziness from Garrison. Click here for an entire blog post on Mr. Wade and his allegations. During his interview, Garrison told the HSCA that Thornley's father was a photo engraver. Perhaps he retouched the backyard photographs? A week after his interview, Garrison sent the HSCA a memo about this. Jim Garrison was delusional when it came to Kerry Thornley. He charged Thornley with perjury for denying he met Oswald in New Orleans in September 1963. Here is the HSCA conclusion about Thornley: "Thornley firmly denied contact with Oswald at 544 Camp Street in New Orleans or at any time since his Marine Corps Days. His statements have been corroborated and no evidence has been found to contradict him." I am working on four more Garrison tapes. I hope to put one tape a week online. Previous Relevant Blog Posts on Kerry Thornley Was the New Orleans Post Office a CIA Front? Garrison believed that people like Kerry Thornley had a post office box at the main post office because it was a CIA front. Was Kerry Thornley the Second Oswald? A crazy memo that Jim Garrison sent to the HSCA about Kerry Thornley Jim Garrison's Memo on the Military Industrial Complex Garrison's crazy memo on the military industrial complex with information on Kerry Thornley. Kerry Thornley writes Sylvia Meagher Sylvia Meagher realized that Garrison's charges against Thornley were ridiculous. They exchanged many letters - I present a five-page letter he wrote Meagher along with her reply. Did RFK Tell Garrison that there were guns between him and the White House? Kerry Thornley debunks Mark Lane Jim Garrison's Fascination with Odd (and Old) Churches... Was there a link between Kerry Thornley and the Jewish Civic Press? Reverend Raymond Broshears Makes a Startling Revelation! The good Reverend claims he met Thornley in a gay bar. Was Thornley the Second Oswald? Yes, Again! More proof that Thornley was the second Oswald! Kerry Thornley on Oswald right after Assassination Kerry Thornley's article on Lee Harvey Oswald just a few days after the assassination. Was Jim Garrison Napoleon or Rasputin? Another Sylvia Meagher letter to Kerry Thornley. Jim Garrison Writes to Arch Kimbrough... Why did Kerry Thornley leave New Orleans for Virginia? Was Lee Harvey Oswald a Man of the Right? Jim Garrison claimed that Oswald was a man of the right. But was he?

San Francisco Chronicle, December 29, 1967

In March 1967, Frank Manning, chief investigator for Louisiana Attorney General Jack Gremillion, was attending the Midyear Meeting of the National Association of Attorneys General. He informed H. L. Edwards of the FBI that he was concerned about "the activities of New Orleans District Attorney Garrison." Here is an unredacted copy of the FBI memo written about Manning's concerns: [hat tip Malcolm Blunt] The FBI had little interest in investigating: I don't think anybody wanted to rattle the cage of Jim Garrison: There was no investigation into Manning's allegations, despite the fact that letters like this were sent to the U.S. Attorney General, Ramsey Clark: The Department of Justice sent this to the FBI: The FBI sent it to Frank Manning: You won't find any of this in James DiEugenio's Destiny Betrayed . In fact, when reading this in my book, DiEugenio's reaction was to giggle! "At the beginning of Chapter 2, Litwin prints an FBI memo. It originates with someone in Louisiana state Attorney General Jack Gremillion’s office. It strikes the same chord that Stuckey does above: Garrison was somehow doing a shakedown operation with homosexuals in New Orleans. Gremillion’s office wanted the FBI to do something about it. I had to giggle while reading this. For two reasons. First of all, back in 1967, who would go to J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI on such an issue? If the point was genuine one would go to an agency like the ACLU. Or, since the state AG was above the local DA in New Orleans, why not pursue the case oneself? Which leads to my second reason for chuckling. Jack Gremillion was one of the most reactionary state AG’s there was at the time. Considering the era, that is really saying something (go here and scroll down). If there was a Hall of Shame for state AG’s not standing up for minority groups, he would be in it." The allegation didn't just originate with "someone in Louisiana state Attorney General Jack Gremillion's office." It originated with Frank Manning, his chief investigator. Clearly, he felt that Gremillion, because of past skirmishes with Garrison, would do nothing about the allegation. In fact, the memo notes that "After the Garrison case was reversed on appeal, Attorney General Gremillion washed his hands of any further efforts to "get" Garrison, and therefore, Manning's file on Garrison was closed." And so Manning decided to go to the FBI. Because Manning did not go to the ACLU, DiEugenio can dismiss the allegations, and even giggle. Shame on Frank Manning for not handling it like James DiEugenio. Of course, the ACLU only became supportive of homosexuality in 1966. They issued a major statement about homosexuality in August 1967 , well after Manning contacted the FBI. It's telling that the major issue to James DiEugenio is not the allegation but how it was handled by Manning. In any event, Manning's allegations were never investigated. Here is another example of a gay person being shaken down in New Orleans : For some reason, I don't find myself giggling. If you want more information on the Garrison investigation and homosexuality, please read Alecia Long's important new book, Cruising for Conspirators: How a New Orleans DA Prosecuted the Kennedy Assassination as a Sex Crime .

This is from a partial transcript of a discussion between Mark Lane and James Phelan. I don't have an exact date for this discussion, but it was probably in 1967. Phelan refers to Breck Wald, who was Breck Wall, an entertainer whom Ruby phoned on the evening of November 23d. Garrison believed he ordered Ruby to kill Oswald. The idea that homosexuals were "used" was also mentioned by Garrison to journalist Jack Anderson. A paragraph from On the Trail of Delusion: (page 78) "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 the homosexual ring, including Ferrie and Ruby in Dallas." At this point, Garrison thought the plot was to assassinate Castro, but "when Oswald was refused his visa to Cuba, the conspirators then turned around and decided to assassinate Kennedy. They used Oswald as a patsy. He was the only non-homo member of the ring. They figured he was so mentally disturbed, and so at odds with the world, that he could be used as the fall guy." Further corroboration comes from Merriman Smith: And where did these people go after they left the camp? According to Garrison, they went to Dallas. Here are some notes from journalist Hoke May: More about Theodore Brent here.

This interview is from 1976 and contains some really ridiculous stuff: There's no shortage of crazy material in this interview. Whereabouts of Shaw and Ferrie on November 22nd. Q: But I think that the charge against you, more specifically, was that you failed to show any real link between Clay Shaw and the Kennedy assassination. A: We showed his connection with Lee Harvey Oswald and we had him in specific conversation about the assassination, even up to such details as where he would spend the day when it was going to happen. Ferrie said that he would go to a university -- he had one in mind -- and sure enough that's where he ended up. Shaw said that he would made arrangements to make a speech -- and sure enough, he did schedule a speech at the World Trade Center, I think that's the approximate name, in San Francisco, for noon on the 22nd of November. So I contacted the Center in the course of this case and asked them how the date had been selected. They informed me that a friend of Shaw's wrote them and said that Shaw (managing director of the Trade Mart in New Orleans) was going to be in the vicinity about that time and would be happy to speak to businessmen if they would set it up. I asked them if they would send me a copy of the letter and, to my surprise, they did. And the letter's got a beautiful phrase in it. It says, "My friend Clay Shaw will be in San Francisco between Nov. 21 and Nov. 23rd." Have you ever heard anybody describe a date like that? In other words, he can't say Nov. 22. You speak about a Freudian problem, a block ... it merely confirmed what we had been able to develop earlier. I never understood why two people who live in New Orleans need to go out of town or to a University to establish an alibi. Garrison gets his facts wrong about Ferrie, who was in New Orleans on Friday, November 22, 1963. He spent most of the day in a courtroom. In the early evening, he drove to Houston and Galveston and didn't come back until the 24th. Upon arrival at his apartment, Ferrie could see there was a commotion and he drove out to Southeastern Louisiana College to visit his friend Thomas Compton. arriving at about 5 AM. Is that supposed to be some sort of alibi? Here are the letters about Clay Shaw's trip that Garrison refers to: Does this sound suspicious to you? Garrison pats himself on the back for protecting Clay Shaw's rights. A: These people who make these criticisms of me simply don't have the facts; they don't know what they're talking about. A person criticizing me (Garrison asked us not to mention names when he discussed his disagreement with other Commission critics) has got some incredible smears in one of his New Times articles. He said that all I seemed to have developed down there was the fact that Shaw was a homosexual. This is the same guy who admits later on (in a recent book on the Kennedy assassination) that a lot developed out of the Shaw trial. As a matter of fact, my instructions to my staff, in keeping with the policy of our office, was that no evidence of any kind would be introduced in front of a jury that indicated that Clay Shaw was a homosexual. I thought that was his own business and had nothing to do with the case. And I didn't want a conviction if we had to prejudice it. I could have probably gotten one if I had wanted to, but I wouldn't let anything in like that and I never did. I don't expect a parade to be held in my honor, because that should be the normal procedure for a district attorney to protect the rights of a defendant. This is standard operating procedure for Garrison - to feign indignation about the issue of homosexuality. In this case, the interviewer did not even bring it up. Jim Garrison Feigns Indignation at the Mention of Clay Shaw's Homosexuality Of course, Jim Garrison told several journalists (Hugh Aynesworth, James Phelan, Merriman Smith, Lawrence Schiller, and Max Lerner) that there was a homosexual conspiracy. Garrison also told Jerome Footlick that Oswald and Ruby were "co-operating homosexuals." Well, who was the at the heart of that conspiracy? Clay Shaw aka Clay Bertrand. Check out the entire series on QUICK Magazine. And, while Garrison didn't directly bring up homosexuality in the Shaw trial, does he really believe the jurors did not know that Shaw was gay? Homosexuality was brought up several times in the trial -- notably in the reading of Andrew Sciambra's memorandum on Perry Russo. But there may have been a reason why Garrison avoided the topic directly. Here is an excerpt from an interview of Irvin Dymond, one of Shaw's attorneys, by author James Kirkwood: Dymond : I had a little secret weapon. Kirkwood: Well, what about—what was the secret weapon? Can you tell me? Dymond : I don’t want to put it on tape. BREAK IN TAPE Dymond : And I let them know that we were prepared to use that. We'll never know exactly what information Dymond possessed. The "incredible smears" in New Times Magazine. Cover of New Times, April 18, 1975, with story by Robert Sam Anson Here is what Anson wrote about Garrison: Garrison was also more than just a little paranoid: Q: But many of your strongest detractors are Commission critics. Are you saying that these people might possibly be part of a CIA-inspired discreditation operation? A: Oh, no. I don't think there's any serious origin there. I'm not paranoid. I've spent too much time dancing with the agency. I think a lot of it, though, is too orchestrated, too steady and too strong. It's fed the free-lance investigators, and then they write a story. That's all. But again, I've been through so many battles with these people (CIA), why give in now, especially after I've accomplished a major gain. To hell with 'em. I've got to be extra careful. I know them (CIA) well enough to know that ... well, I don't think I have the problem to the extent that I had when I was DA when they created a series of problems I won't go into because it takes too long to explain. But when I go to my hotel tonight, I'll stay there, just to keep things simple. Because, after all, I'm still the only one pounding away at the CIA's involvement. Now, maybe if a few other people would join me, I'll feel a little more freedom to go out on my own when I'm away from home. Q: You don't go out at night when you're on the road? A: Well, I do from time to time, but I kinda minimize it; because I know how they operate. Q: You believe there's a possibility that the CIA might still find it necessary to kill you? A: Not probably, but possible. Once I [...] probable (sic). Was Jim Garrison Jealous of Clay Shaw? Q: How do you deal with Commission critics who still label your investigation in New Orleans a hoax? A : Well, if that's the case, I think I deserve some kind of prize, because if that was a political hoax ... keep in mind that it was nine years ago this February that I said that an element of the CIA was involved in Jack Kennedy's murder. Now within the last 24 months, Victor Marchetti, the former right-hand man of (CIA) director Richard Helms, has announced in the most specific of terms that Clay Shaw was a former (CIA) agent. So, that right there would seem to answer the question. What a longshot that charge is, that I have a hoax, that I'm craving conspiracy. So I seek this man here (Clay Shaw), this poor fellow (sarcastically) -- he was a member of the establishment! He had been patting wealthy ladies' behinds for years, he was on the cocktail circuit, invited to places I never was! I wasn't the establishment's man, he was. When I grabbed him, I knew I'd start hearing everybody screaming. If I was going to hoax, I'd pick some raggedy-ass guy and they'd say 'Fine, Hooray,' You know, some poor fellow with no money. Then everything would be hunky-dory. Rosemary James also made the point that Garrison might have been jealous of Clay Shaw in an article in the Advocate . "There are any number of theories as to why Garrison singled Clay out, but I don't pretend to know what goes on in the mind of someone who I think needs psychiatric help. You have to remember this was the '60s, and things were not as open as they are now in regard to sexual preference. It was widely known that Clay was homosexual. He didn't flaunt it; he was very discreet in his personal life. At the same time, he led a very active social life. Some people felt that Garrison was actually jealous of Clay's success and the fact that he lived as a homosexual without any repercussions."

In December 1967, Jim Garrison released several pictures to the press which he believed proved that Kennedy was shot by a .45 caliber bullet. Here is a UPI article on his theories: Garrison also believed that this shot was fired from a sewer, or a storm drain, on Elm Street. Here is an excerpt from an interview with Jim Garrison on December 9, 1967: Martin : You said a moment ago you would show us or tell us where you think that bullet was fired from, that the man was picking up from the grass there. Where do you think it was fired from? Garrison : Well ... this is going to be the first time I've ever shown this, but we've gotten a little tired of hearing people like Earl Warren and Ramsey Clark, who ought to know better, saying repeatedly, that they've seen nothing new. Well, I'm going to show them something new. I think we just showed something new in this 45 caliber bullet because they've never mentioned it in 26 volumes. Right next to where the President was killed, just a little bit in front of where the President was killed, there is a sewer opening. Underneath Dealey Plaza there is a drainage system. Dealey Plaza used to have a bunch of houses and they were taken down to make the plaza. You have a surface drainage system with pipes through which men can crawl. The small ones are 15 inches wide, and the large ones are 30 inches wide. One of the assassins went, got his, made his exit through the subsurface drainage system. The one who went through the drainage system was the man who killed the President, who fired the 45 from the right by the side of the car and tore the President's head off. Now we went into the sewer one morning early in Dallas, got in in the dark, put the top down and we found a man fits in there very easily, we also found that after shooting from it it's easy to crawl under the street through the 15 inch pipe, when you're in a 30 inch sewer which leads out of Dealey Plaza to another part of the town. Entrance can be gained through two ways to the sewer area. I don't have a picture of the sewer here but you can take pictures in Dallas. Entrance can be gained directly above the sewer through a manhole. Martin : Behind the grassy knoll? Garrison : Well, no, that's another place but it can be entered above it by removing the cover of the manhole. You remember about an hour before there was a truck parked over the pavement which Julia Mercer saw but there can also be entrance behind the picket fence through a 3x3 grating down by the overpass which lifts up, you get in and you crawl through the 15 inch tunnel and you'll end up, there's only room for one man in the manhole but he can stand up in the manhole and when he gets in there he has a clear view of the occupants of a convertible from the chest up. In other [...] we didn't know until we put a man in there in the dark hours of the morning and waited until the sun came up and took photographs that you could see so clearly to the occupants inside the car, but you can. Martin : All right, when you are inside the vantage point, from inside, where is that in relation to where the man was picking up something from the grassy areas across the street? Garrison : Well, it's in a cattycorner kind of way. It's opposite, actually this is the proper way. The shooting was not due South it was towards the car as it approached diagonally slightly and if the line continues that's where the bullet ended up with the pieces of the President's head surrounding it. This is the bullet that disappeared as soon as the federal ... got its hands on it. The 45 caliber bullet from a handgun which was fired from the sewer. Martin : Mr. Garrison, do you believe you have the identity of the person who was in that sewer? Garrison : I would, I would not be accurate if I said I had the identity of the man in the sewer. We now have a number of names of individuals who apparently were at the operating level. I'd say four but there were so many more that I'd rather not speculate which one was standing where, so in all honesty, I'd have to say the identity of that particular man, no. Here are a couple of pictures of the sewer opening (storm drain) on Elm Street: That is how it looked back in March 2020 when I visited Dallas. Here is the picture Garrison released in 1967, and it doesn't appear there is a manhole cover on the storm drain: The notion of a shot from the storm drain is just ridiculous. You would have about 2 seconds to fire a weapon and you would be aiming up at the limousine. If you go to my first post about a sewer shot, you will see some photographs that Garrison released from the storm drain. Not to mention the problems of a person squeezing through those very narrow pipes. Here is an entrance to the sewer system near the triple underpass. Previous Relevant Blog Posts Was JFK Shot From a Sewer? My original blog post on the shot from the sewer. Was Jim Hicks the Communications Man in the JFK Assassination? When Jim Hicks testified before the grand jury, Garrison discussed the shot from the sewer.

Shortly after Jack Ruby gunned down Lee Harvey Oswald, Dean Andrews told his story of being contacted by Clay Bertrand to represent Oswald. The FBI and the Secret Service tried hard to find the elusive Bertrand to no avail. I have blogged about this here. James DiEugenio took exception to what I wrote in my book about the search : "On page 39 he writes that the FBI and Jim Garrison were trying to find Clay Bertrand in late 1963. He then repeats this on page 41. The obvious question is: How could Garrison be looking for Bertrand in 1963 if he did not know about him? As noted above, Garrison had not studied the Commission volumes at that time, for the good reason that they would not be published until a year later. The only way I could explain this Twilight Zone temporal confusion is that Litwin is so hellbent on trying to show that Garrison was bereft of any reason to suspect anything about either Shaw or Ferrie, that he mixed the two elements together. He then minimized what had really happened or just cut it out." On page 38 of my book, I wrote that "The FBI, the Secret Service, and Garrison spent several days looking for Bertrand with no success." On pay 39, I wrote a caption, "The FBI and the District Attorney's office tried to find 'Clay Bertrand' in late 1963, but to no avail." And on page 41, I wrote that "In the meantime, Garrison's men scoured the French Quarter looking for Bertrand, but to no avail." So, what really happened? The FBI and the Secret Service talked to the following organizations and people about Clay Bertrand: The New Orleans Police Department Identification Division. The New Orleans Police Department Records Division. The New Orleans Police Department Intelligence Division. Various informants like Betty Parrot New Orleans Credit Bureau New Orleans Public Library Louisiana State Employment Service Tulane University New Orleans Retailers' Credit Bureau New Orleans Police Department Bureau of Identification New Orleans Police Department Vice Squad I am sure that that is not an exhaustive list. The FBI also talked to Dean Andrews' secretary and to Prentiss Davis, his chief investigator. They couldn't help in the search, and even Dean Andrews was phoning around. Here's the kicker: Dean Andrews contacted Raymond Comstock who was an investigator in Garrison's office. Comstock was no ordinary investigator -- he was part of the inner circle within the D. A.'s office investigating the JFK assassination. Comstock couldn't help Dean Andrews. Given the fact that Andrews was known to have a very active mouth, it seems clear that he would have provided Comstock with all the pertinent details about "Clay Bertrand" and why it was important to find him. Comstock then called the FBI to discuss the matter. Surely, more information must have been exchanged. After all, they were all cooperating in the David Ferrie matter. It seems far-fetched to me that Raymond Comstock would not say anything to his boss about the search for Clay Bertrand. As the inner circle met to discuss the JFK assassination investigation, it beggars belief that they would decide to keep Jim Garrison in the dark. And it wasn't just Raymond Comstock who knew. The FBI and the D.A.'s office shared many of the same informants. New Orleans was a den of rumor, gossip, and innuendo. Given Garrison's interest in David Ferrie, would not someone have mentioned Dean Andrews and the mysterious Clay Bertrand? And Raymond Comstock was a policeman - it was quite common for officers to be assigned to the District Attorney's office. And so Raymond Comstock probably had a very good idea that the police were assisting in the search for Clay Bertrand. Here is what I think happened. It didn't take long for the FBI and the Secret Service to determine that Bertrand was a figment of Dean Andrews' imagination. Here is an excerpt of an FBI report from December 6, 1963: The search for Clay Bertrand ended. Regardless of whether you believe the story has merit or not, the word, amongst official circles, was that it was made up. No doubt Garrison heard this too. Fast forward to October 1966. Books on the JFK assassination are talk of the country, and Jim Garrison reads Harold Weisberg's Whitewash . He noticed that his old friend, Dean Andrews, pops up on page 66: "Entirely by surprise the Commission received and the Report neglects the most reasonable and probative testimony on marksmanship from one of the witnesses heard with least enthusiasm. New Orleans attorney Dean Andrews was called because he reported Oswald's connections with Cuban groups to the Secret Service, by phone, while hospitalized. He caught the Commission entirely by surprise by saying Oswald had not and could not have killed President Kennedy. He emphasized the point that the Commission had never asked all the experts quoted: Marksmanship is a skill that requires a high degree of coordination and practice. (11H330-1)" However, that section is about marksmanship, and doesn't even mention Clay Bertrand. There is also a second section in Whitewash about Dean Andrews, on pages 271-274. Clay Bertrand is mentioned in this section, mostly in relation to the alleged visits of Oswald to his office: "Andrews' link with this element was a semi-mysterious Clay Bertrand, whom he described as "as a lawyer without a briefcase." (11H337). Bertrand frequently phoned him on behalf of his homosexual clients "either to obtain bond or parole for them." and "Further testifying about the Mexican, Andrews injected a detective-story note, saying "There's three people I'm going to find, one of them is the real guy that killed the President; the Mexican; and Clay Bertrand." Weisberg ends his section with this: "These clear evidences of a "False Oswald," the connections of the real or false one with Cuban refugee groups and the attempts establishment of a "cover" in New Orleans are totally ignored by the Commission in its exhaustive inquiry into Oswald's trip to Mexico City, from September 26 until October 3, 1963 (R299-311, 658-9, 730-6)" Not surprisingly, when Garrison first met Dean Andrews, he discussed a variety of topics with him, one of which was the Clay Bertrand story. Here is an excerpt from Dean Andrews' lawsuit against Jim Garrison: Garrison's discussions with Dean Andrews. over the course of three months, were wide-ranging. Clay Bertrand was just one of many topics. Now have a look at the way Jim Garrison describes that meeting in his book On the Trail of the Assassins : (page 80) "After some nights of reading Andrews's testimony before the Warren Commission, I had arranged for him to meet me for lunch here at Broussard's Restaurant. That was back in early 1967, when I was still frustrated with our futile search for Kerry Thornley. Based on the Warren Commission testimony, I thought Andrews might lead us to an even more important witness." Garrison describes the lunch as if the conversation was only about the identity of Clay Bertrand. He goes on to threaten Dean Andrews: (page 82) "I leaned forward. 'Read my lips,' I said. I spoke with careful deliberation. 'Either you dance in to the Grand Jury with the real moniker of that cat who called you to represent Lee Oswald, or your fat behind is going to the slammer. Do you dig me?'" And yet Garrison did not call Andrews before the Grand Jury until March 1967, over four months after their initial conversation. I believe that Dean Andrews' version of what happened is closer to the truth. At his trial for perjury, Dean Andrews asked Jim Garrison about this meeting: New Orleans Times-Picayune, August 10, 1967 Dean Andrews was also asked about his first meeting with Garrison on the June 1967 NBC documentary, "The JFK Conspiracy: The Case of Jim Garrison." [this section is from the full interview available at NARA] Andrews says that they "generally discussed the Warren Report and the book [ Whitewash ]." Garrison did not have a copy of the Warren Commission volumes: Here is another excerpt from Andrews' lawsuit: And so Garrison borrowed a copy of Andrews' testimony in November 1966. He borrowed a copy because he had not yet purchased the 26 volumes of testimony and exhibits of the Warren Report. Perhaps that is why he changed the date of their meeting to early 1967 -- by then he did have a copy of the 26 volumes -- and he could claim the entire meeting was called to discuss Clay Bertrand. And Garrison didn't have to share the glory with Harold Weisberg. David Chandler confirmed to James Kirkwood that Garrison did not have a copy of the Warren Report: "In this period, after Garrison had already decided on Shaw, and Ferrie, and made some sort of conspiracy theory, he had not -- not only didn't have or own any sort of digest or copy of the Warren Report, he hadn't read any digest. And to my knowledge the first one he got was loaned to him by Billings." I don't believe Garrison knew, before reading Whitewash , that Dean Andrews had repeated the discredited Clay Bertrand story to the Warren Commission. After all, the FBI and the Secret Service believed that Andrews had just made up the story. Dean Andrews might have been surprised that Garrison was bringing up a story he had hoped had been forgotten. And it was during one of their meetings in late December 1966 that Garrison brought up the name Clay Shaw: It was only after the death of David Ferrie and the arrest of Clay Shaw that Garrison really put the pressure on Dean Andrews. Garrison's description of their first meeting is a fiction. The search for Clay Bertrand in 1963 and Dean Andrews's testimony before the Warren Commission were two separate events. Garrison certainly knew about the first but was surprised by the second.

The diary of Arthur Bremer is, of course, very suspicious: "It is my considered judgment that the diary left behind by Arthur Bremer, while undoubtedly written by his hand, is an example of the deception customarily used by intelligence agencies. It serves as an arrow pointing in the wrong direction. It serves to help make a highly meaningful act appear meaningless -- just as did so much of the "evidence" gratuitously left behind after the assassinations of John Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Robert Kennedy." This wasn't the first time Garrison discussed the Wallace shooting. New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 10, 1972 Gore Vidal was also suspicious of Bremer's diary. Tom Bethell writes in his article " Was Sirhan Sirhan on the Grassy Knoll?" from the Washington Monthl y, March 1975. "Vidal, in his discussion of E. Howard Hunt's writings, demonstrates this tendency. At one point he argues that Arthur Bremer's diary was not written by Bremer because it is too literate. Awkward fact that, because much of the diary is illiterate. That, of course, is all a part of the scenario: "they" did that, too. Thus both literacy and illiteracy tend to confirm the theory. What, then, could disprove it?"

The famous clairvoyant predicts the future! I thought I would have some fun with this post. It's hard to believe that Jeanne Dixon was hired to speak at these luncheons. New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 4, 1967 Jeanne Dixon said that Jim Garrison was on the "right track." Here is your absolute proof that all of this stuff was nonsense. She was back in September. New Orleans Times Picayune, September 18, 1967 About Jim Garrison, Dixon said that "it is apparent that sources outside of the United States are attempting to discredit him." I guess she missed the CIA/FBI disinformation campaign!