It's a very interesting question. Both denied knowing each other. Clay Shaw's friends never saw him with David Ferrie, and David Ferrie's friends never saw him with Clay Shaw (the only exception being Perry Russo which we can discount). There is certainly a possibility they might have seen each other at various gay bars - although I am sure they hung out with different crowds. And I need not point out that there is nothing nefarious about them knowing each other. James DiEugenio in his book, Destiny Betrayed, lists some of the witnesses that claim they had seen Shaw and Ferrie together (page 209). We have already examined Jules Kimble who in his first interview with Garrison said nothing about Shaw going on the plane ride with Ferrie. We have also examined the claims of Raymond Broshears in several posts. It seems clear he did not know David Ferrie. Today, let's examine the claim above about David Logan, who was brought to the attention of Garrison by Henry Lesnick: Lesnick has talked to a number of researchers and the person he was referring to was David Logan. It's interesting to note that the above memo was written in 1969, after the Clay Shaw trial, as part of the Shaw Leads II campaign. In fact, they had already spoken to Logan almost a year earlier. Perhaps the memo writer was unaware of that fact. Here is the transcript of the interview between James Alcock and David Logan. It is interesting to note that the character Willie O'Keefe, in Oliver Stone's film JFK, was a composite character based on four people, one of which was David Logan. The scene in the film with Shaw seated at a 9-foot table is taken directly from this interview. However, it is extremely doubtful that Shaw owned such a table - his apartment was way too small. Don Carpenter, in his book Man of a Million Fragments, notes that several other details in the interview, are correct. Note that the interview directly contradicts the claim of DiEugenio. He says that Logan was introduced to Shaw by Ferrie. That is simply not true. It was only pointed out to Logan that Ferrie was at the party later on - after the party. So, Shaw and Ferrie might have been at the same party - but Logan never saw them interacting. Jim Garrison got it all wrong in his book, On The Trail of the Assassins. (page 119) Ferrie did not introduce Logan to Shaw at Dixie's. By the way, David Logan might still be alive. I've tried to locate him, but I have very few clues to go on. Stay tuned! I will be going over the other witnesses that claim Shaw knew Ferrie.

An important question is whether the FBI knew that Clay Shaw was the elusive Clay Bertrand. Here's an FBI memo from March 2, 1967 that seems to indicate they did have information that Shaw was Bertrand. We can see that one source was Aaron Kohn, head of the Metropolitan Crime Commision. But, who was the other source that Shaw was Bertrand? In an FBI Airirtel, we see that the source was informant 1309-C, which is none other than Joseph Oster, who had once worked for Guy Banister. The Airtel gives us additional information regarding the identification of Shaw as Bertrand: So, we can clearly see that Aaron Kohn's identification of Shaw as Bertrand was only based on news sources. New Orleans was a cauldron of rumor, innuendo, and gossip (Indeed, the New Orleans States-Item mentioned Clay Bertrand in a news article on February 22, 1967), and so, Kohn heard from his sources that Shaw was Bertrand. But, he had no special knowledge on that front. Indeed, I have gone through the memos he wrote for the Metropolitan Crime Commission at the National Archives, and I can ensure you that he never believed that Shaw was Bertrand. Now, about source 1309-C. Why did he believe that Shaw was Bertrand? And who was 1309-C? In an Airtel of March 3, 1967, we learn the reason for 1309-C's identification: Again, according to news sources. And, who is 1309-C? The FBI's file on 1309-C was 137-2409. File classification 137 denotes criminal informants. And, 1309-C was Joseph Oster. Joseph Oster also talked to Jim Garrison. Here is his statement to the D.A.'s office: Nothing here about knowing who Clay Bertrand was. That's because it was December 1966 and no one was talking about Bertrand. By the way, Oster had lots to say to the FBI: Note that Raymond Beck, a former special agent, was now working for Garrison, and informing on what was going on. Also, check out the third page of the memo, Oster states that Jack Martin and Joseph Newbrough [who also had worked for Banister] are "both known to him and personally regards them as mental cases." As you might know, most of Garrison's initial information in his investigation came from Jack Martin.

In one of the scenes in Oliver Stone's film JFK, a distraught David Ferrie is put up in a hotel room, and confesses to Garrison investigator Lou Ivon. Here is the scene (page 89-91); Ferrie: I haven't slept since that shit article came out. Why'd you guys have to get me involved, Lou? Lou: Did we get you involved? Or did Shaw, Dave? Ferrie: Cocksucking faggot. He got me by the balls. Lou: What do you mean? Ferrie: Photographs, compromising stuff. He'll use them, too. Agency plays for keeps. I knew Oswald. He was in my Civil Air Patrol unit. I taught him everything. He was a wannabe, you know. No one really liked him. Thought he was a snitch. But I treated him good. He talked about his kid. He really wanted her … to grow up with a chance. But, what's this? What's going on? Don't let him in. Lou: No one's comin' in here. Ferrie: Black. Give it to me. Black. My neck is killing me. I've had cancer for years. Been working with mice to find a cure. Lou: Did you work for the CIA? Ferrie: You sound like it's a remote experience in ancient history. You don't leave the Agency. Once you're in, they got you for life. Lou: And Shaw? Ferrie: Shaw's an untouchable. Highest clearance. Shaw, Oswald, the Cubans, all Agency. Lou: Ruby? Ferrie: Jack was a pimp. A bagman for the Dallas mob. Ran guns to Castro when he was on our side. Castro was almost with us till we tried to whack him. Everybody keeps flipping sides. It's fun and games. Conspiracy books echo this scene. Here is Joan Mellen (page 104-105): Bill Davy has a similar story (page 66): But, did this really happen? Jim Garrison wrote about this in his first book, A Heritage of Stone (page 128): This certainly contradicts the scene in JFK. Here is an article from the Santa Cruz Sentinel from February 23, 1967. Note the quote in the fifth paragraph in the first column: "Ferrie was on the brink of providing information that could have been important." And, Lou Ivon in his oral history at the Sixth Floor Museum does not confirm the conspiracy scene. Here are my notes - "put up Ferrie in a hotel for a couple of days; Ferrie was very intelligent; scared for his life; he snuck off from the hotel; mentioned Oswald and pamphlets; rambled on about a lot of things." And so it is not surprising to see this note about the JFK scene in the official screenplay (page 88): "At times, however, we had to put words in Ferrie's mouth to write this scene and used our best judgment based on Ferrie's biography." Bottom line: Ferrie never confessed while at the hotel. The scene is a complete fiction.

Any student of the Garrison investigation will know of the key role played by Tom Bethell. He was hired as a researcher and he spent a lot of time in Dallas and in Washington D.C. There are many crackpot memos amongst the Garrison papers, but Bethell's memos were always intelligent and well-written. He kept an indispensable diary of his time working for Garrison, and he was the staffer who leaked a list of witnesses to Shaw's defense team. His autobiography has a terrific chapter on Jim Garrison, well worth the price of the book. Bethell spent a lot of his time writing criticizing Darwin and the theory of evolution. I think he was wrong, but that is the stuff of life. I have previously posted a Tom Bethell article on the Oliver Stone film JFK. Here is an article he wrote for National Review on Jim Garrison:

Harold Weisberg spent a lot of time in New Orleans assisting Jim Garrison and interviewing witnesses. He also spent some time with Dean Andrews, the jive-talking hip lawyer who told the Warren Commission that a Mr. Bertrand called him looking for a lawyer for Lee Harvey Oswald. In one of their conversations, Weisberg believed that Andrews admitted that Shaw was Bertrand. Here is an excerpt from Destiny Betrayed by James DiEugenio (page 388): Here is what Harold Weisberg wrote in his unpublished book. Ok, but what specifically did Dean Andrews say? Well, Joan Mellen was wondering the same thing and she wrote Weisberg a letter: And, here is his reply: So, Andrews never really came out and said that Shaw was Bertrand. He said, "If the Green Giant gets past that, he is home clear." I think that Weisberg read just a little too much into Andrews' words.

Breck Wall was an entertainer in Dallas who developed, with his partner and lover Joe Peterson, a musical revue called Bottoms Up. For a while, they performed this revue at Jack Ruby's Sovereign Club, which later became the Carousel Club. Wall was one of Jack Ruby's friends, and Wall visited him in jail after he killed Oswald. Breck Wall during his oral history interview at the Sixth Floor Museum on December 28, 1993. Breck Wall testified before the Warren Commission and you can read his testimony here. On November 23rd, Wall drove to Galveston, which is fifty-one miles southeast of Houston. He wanted to get away from Dallas for a few days and visit friends. He stayed with Thomas and Nonie McKenna, a couple who had lived next to his family when he was growing up. He was always very close with them. Wall left their phone number with the Adolphus Hotel operator [he was living there] so that he could be reached, and that night at 11:44 PM, Jack Ruby called him from Dallas. He wanted some help from Wall who was then the President of the Dallas office of the American Guild of Variety Artists (AGVA). There was nothing unusual in any of this. Except that on that very evening, David Ferrie and his two buddies, Al Beauboeuf and Mel Coffey, drove to Galveston, from Houston, looking for some fun. This was part of their ice-skating trip, and they would leave Galveston on Sunday to go to Vinton, Louisiana to conduct some business for G. Wray Gill. For Jim Garrison, this was extremely suspicious. Particularly if you believe in the theory of propinquity. Here is what Garrison told reporter James Phelan (from his book Scandals, Scamps and Scoundrels, page 148). Yesterday, we posted Andrew Sciambra's memo to Garrison on his interview of Chuck Rolland, the manager of the Winterland Skating Rink. At the bottom of the memo, there was a paragraph on the homosexual conection: The homosexual angle really interested Garrison. Here is an excerpt from the February 11th diary entry of Richard Billings, an editor at Life Magazine, who was working with Garrison: You can see that Garrison described Wall as a "queer ex-roommate of Jack Ruby." Here is the diary entry for February 23rd, 1967: Does any of this make any sense? Breck Wall moved his play to Las Vegas. And so Jim Garrison decided to send William Gurvich to check it out. Here is an excerpt from Gurvich's testimony at the Christenberry Hearings: And, I found a reference to the Life Magazine photographs in the Richard Billings papers: In an interview with Patricia Lambert, James Phelan said the photographer "had a camera disguised as a cigarette package." Phelan add that "And Gurvich said, you know, I kept thinking, I'm sitting here and my photographer is standing up there holding his cigarette package up to his eyes, what are we gonna do if the bouncers come?" Breck Wall, in his oral history for the Sixth Floor Museum, said that he was followed for a week in Las Vegas by Garrison and Gurvich. He said the possibility of being named as a suspect was a "fear that I lived with." All of this was irresistible to William Turner who wrote another one of his crazy memos. Turner names Thomas McKenna as a suspect, for no apparent reason. Needless to say, this 'lead' went nowhere. And Garrison had yet another reason to be suspicious of Wall. Here is an excerpt of an undated Garrison memo on Open Dallas Leads: Yes, Breck Wall had the temerity to list Earl Cabell as a personal reference. Garrison elaborated on this at a conference in New Orleans with his investigators in September 1968. Garrison is referring to Lewis McWillie who ran casinos for the mob in Las Vegas (including The Thunderbird) and in Cuba. One could almost hear Garrison leading the cheers - "Lock him Up, Lock Him Up." Years later Breck Wall was asked about Garrison: "Garrison was a real jerk. Everyone hated him. Every day, his staff would make up absolute lies - about me, about Jack. We were never roommates. I lived at The Adolphus. And Jack Ruby never visited me there. And I never went over to Jack's apartment. I don't think Jack ever allowed anyone to to visit him at home." Breck Wall is not mentioned in Jim Garrison's book, On The Trail of the Assassins. I wonder why? Here is a good profile of Breck Wall. Breck Wall died in November 2010 at the age of 75. He was beloved in Las Vegas. Here is a Bill O'Reilly clip on Bottoms Up.

On the evening of November 22, 1963 David Ferrie drove to Houston with two of his young friends, Al Beauboeuf and Mel Coffey. His boss, attorney G. Wray Gill, had just won a court case for his his client Carlos Marcello, and Ferrie deserved a holiday. But he also had some business to conduct. The business related to an appeal that Gill was working on - that of Marion James "Buster" Johnson, who had been convicted on a perjury charge related to some payoffs on slot machines. Ferrie needed Johnson to pay for a transcript of a hearing that had just been held on some new evidence that would help with his appeal. Johnson lived in Vinton, Louisiana, which is about 123 miles east of Houston, and they would all stop there on the way back. Beauboeuf was a champion roller skater and he wanted to try his hand at ice skating. At the time, there were no ice-skating rinks in New Orleans. Here is an excerpt from his statement to Garrison from December 15, 1966. They arrived in Houston in the wee hours of Saturday, November 23rd and stayed in a hotel. Later that day they went ice skating. Ferrie was also interested in learning more about ice rinks - he had told Layton Martens that "if he won the case, he might be interested in purchasing a skating rink." The Winterland Skating Rink in Houston Naturally, conspiracy authors believe there was more to this trip than just ice skating. James DiEugenio writes in Destiny Betrayed that the trip was "strange," and that "Ferrie spent two hours near a pay phone. When it rang, he answered. After he hung up, he left with his two companions." (page 176) Jim Garrison wrote in his book, On The Trail of the Assassins, that "Later we would learn that at the skating rink he had never put on ice skates but had spent all his time at a pay phone, making and receiving calls." (page 8) He then includes what the good Reverend Raymond Broshears told him about the ice skating trip - or should I say, what Broshears claimed Ferrie told him. (page 121) Raymond Broshears told a number of stories to Garrison's investigators. You can read more, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. He had no credibility whatsoever. The Carlos he mentions in the second paragraph was supposed to be one of the assassins. So what did happen at the ice rink? Well, they just skated, and then Ferrie tried to reach G. Wray Gill. The reason he stayed near the pay phones was that he, like many people in those days, had probably given Gill the number and was waiting for a call back. He never did get ahold of Gill, and he tried again when they got back to the hotel. Let's start with what David Ferrie told the FBI back in 1963 (RIF# 124-10371-10039): Chuck Rolland, the manager of the rink, was interviewed by the FBI (Commission Document 301): The major point of difference is whether Ferrie discussed with Rolland the cost of operating an ice rink. They certainly did talk about skating rinks. Here is what Mel Coffey said: Here is Garrison's memo about their interview of Charles Rolland in 1967: Note that Rolland was not there when the three of them arrived. That is when Ferrie did some skating. Stephen Roy writes, in his unpublished manuscript, Perfect Villain: David Ferrie and the JFK Mystery, that "Initially, all three men took to the ice, but Ferrie found himself terribly out-of-practice and left the boys to skate." Ferrie did chat with Rolland noting that there were no ice rinks in New Orleans. But also note that "Rolland said he was busy with his other duties and after his initial contact with Ferrie, he didn't pay much attention to him." Rolland told Sciambra that Ferrie was a "phony." Stephen Roy writes that "One gets the impression that the melodrama then surrounding the late David Ferrie may have caused Rolland to elevate a mundane encounter to something more conspiratorial." Perhaps Ferrie's wig and fake eyebrows played a role. What I find strange is the almost mandatory discussion of homosexuality in a Garrison memo - note the last paragraph. I'll be posting more on that tomorrow. Charles Rolland testified at the Clay Shaw trial. Not surprisingly, he wasn't asked about any of the homosexual connections. Here are some excerpts from his testimony: Now. here is the stuff of conspiracy: Ok, so David Ferrie was a bit of a pest. What did Ferrie actually say? Rolland was at the rink when they arrived, so he never saw if Ferrie went ice skating. But, he saw Beauboeuf and Coffey skating: Ferrie used the public telephone. He was trying to reach G. Wray Gill to tell him that he was in Houston. They were there on a Saturday which was the busiest day for the rink. Rolland didn't really pay that much attention to Ferrie. When they were leaving, Ferrie said goodbye. As for Mel Coffey and Al Beauboeuf, here is what they had to say. First, an excerpt from an interview between Coffey and John Volz and John Alcock on February 18, 1967: Alcock and Volz mixed up Houston and Dallas. And, the roller skating pro, Al Beauboeuf, found that ice skating wasn't that simple. I spoke to Beauboeuf last year, and he confirmed that he was an expert roller skater and that he really wanted to try ice skating. So, there you have it. Ferrie, Beauboeuf and Coffey went ice skating. End of story.

As you might know, Garrison indicted Clay Shaw for perjury after his acquittal on conspiracy charges. He claimed Shaw lied when he denied knowing David Ferrie and Lee Harvey Oswald. Garrison told his staff to go out and find new leads to help prove his perjury case. Garrison had strict instructions on the maintenance of this file: There are many memos of Shaw Leads II. Most of the leads are nothing more than rehashed rumors or stale leads that were of no interest when first reported. Needless to say, none of the leads panned out. Here is one of the first memos: Regarding Lead I, they interviewed Guzman in May 1969, who said he never worked for Banister. He never saw Oswald at Thompson's cafe, and said he knew nothing about Shaw or Oswald. I am glad that Al Clark is "allegedly a respectable homosexual." They followed up with Clark who was not certain that he had been introduced to Oswald. Perhaps it had been Gordon Novel. This is all craziness. 96 people were arrested at the 'fag ball' in 1962. So what on earth does have to do with Clay Shaw? They combed the list of arrestees looking for friends of, or people who lived near, Clay Shaw. This is all pure Garrison propinquity theory - in particular, the "long shot special." By the way, Clay Shaw was not one of the people arrested. You can read more about the "fag ball" here. Dr. Martin Palmer was Clay Shaw's physician, and he was also gay. Why that lead is relevant is beyond me. Because of the persecution of Clay Shaw, Palmer moved to Alaska, and he died in 2009. The James Lawrence lead was important - they were desperate to find someone to rebut Lloyd Cobb's testimony at the Clay Shaw trial that Shaw was extremely busy during the months of July - October 1963 - they were finalizing the financing of the International Trade Mart. Cobb was in contact with Shaw every day - and testified that Shaw only left town once, in that period, to go see his mother in Hammond, Louisiana. The Beard-Sohr lead is also insane - both subjects are in Angola prison. There is a previous memo from September 1967 that said a Mr. John Smith was playing pinball on Canal Street when Oswald walked into the Penny Arcade. Lead XI refers to David Gentry - a friend of Clay Shaw's who identified Shaw's friends to Garrison. Lee Harvey Oswald was seen all over the French Quarter in various gay bars. Here he was playing pool on five occasions. The Mattachine Society was an early gay rights group. Once again, Oswald is seen with homosexuals - this time at a straight coffee house. Garrison did talk with Delphine Roberts - she worked for Guy Banister - but she said nothing about ever seeing Lee Harvey Oswald in Banister's office.

Besides speaking to Garrison's Assistant D.A.'s, Ferrie also spoke to press before he died. One common element of all the stories is the fact that David Ferrie was sick. He told reporters that he was suffering from encephalitis - although Lardner writes emphysema. The third article below, by David Snyder, adds a lot of color - and is similar to an earlier dispatch I posted. David Ferrie in better days... The first article to quote Ferrie was the New Orleans States-Item of February 18, 1967: Here is an excerpt of the New Orleans Times-Picayune story (section on Ferrie starts on the left three paragraphs down) from of February 19,1967: I love Ferrie's response to being told he will become a national celebrity - "What will being a national celebrity get me? Thirty-five cents and being a national celebrity will get you a hamburger. I want to be left alone to my flying." Here is an article from the New Orleans States-Item from February 23, 1967, the day after David Ferrie died. Interestingly, Ferrie wanted to arrange for a lie detector test in case he was arrested. George Lardner, a reporter for the Washington Post, was the last person to see David Ferrie alive. Here is his in-depth report. George Lardner was also questioned by William Gurvich, an investigator for Jim Garrison:

David Ferrie was questioned twice by Garrison D.A.'s. Ferrie was subpoenaed to appear before the grand jury in December 1966 but was instead brought up to the D.A.'s office and questioned by John Volz. the last sentence is garbled. The last sentence reads "There was a big mess for a few days, I have been sort of speculating why I am here and I think I..." Ferrie did not say he didn't ever meet Oswald, he said he did not remember him, and others told him that Oswald was in CAP for a short period. I like his quote about Jack Martin- "Martin gets to be near the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral." Note at the end that Ferrie offers to take a polygraph test and to "submit to truth serum." Right after the interview, Ferrie went to visit the Secret Service. I believe he wanted copies of his previous interviews in 1963 with the FBI and the Secret Service to help refresh his memory. Here is part of a Secret Service memo: Ferrie was then interviewed in his apartment by Louis Ivon and Andrew Sciambra on February 18, 1967, just a few days before he died. Here is their memo: The beginning of the first sentence reads "apartment on Louisiana Avenue Parkway so that he could go up-stairs..." A few things stand out. Right on the first page, they note that Ferrie is quite sick, although they think it is an act. Ferrie told them he had encephalitis. On the second page, it is clear that Ferrie called them for an interview because of rumors about the investigation. And, Ferrie wanted to speak to Garrison directly, and "look him in the face." At the end of the conversation, Ferrie denies knowing Clay Shaw and Clay Bertrand, and says that "Dean Andrews might tell you guys anything. You know how Dean Andrews is."

Some conspiracy books claim that while Clay Shaw was acquitted, the jury also believed there was a conspiracy in the JFK assassination. It's a bit of a nonsensical question since the jury were not asked to make any determination of a conspiracy in the assassination. And, while Garrison might have put the Warren Report on trial, Shaw's defense team was focused only on getting a 'not guilty' plea. They had neither the time, the resources, or the interest in putting on a defense of the Warren Report. Here is what two of the conspiracy books say about this issue. Bill Davy, in his book Let Justice Be Done (on page 173), says that "interviewed after the trial, some jurors felt Garrison had proved a conspiracy but he had not adequately linked it to Shaw or provided a motive." There is no source for that statement. Joan Mellen, in her book, A Farewell to Justice (on page 318), says "The jury told Mark Lane they had agreed that there had been a conspiracy, with the United States government a participant." Her source for that was an interview with Mark Lane. Here is a little excerpt from the LA Free Press of March 14-21, 1969. But, there was no such article in the next issue. Here is what Lane told Muhammad Speaks in September 1969: These claims are very definitive. Was the jury convinced that Garrison had "destroyed the Warren Report"? One of the few people to actually speak to jurors was James Kirkwood, author of American Grotesque. Here are some pertinent excerpts from his book: Sidney Hebert, the jury foreman. He told Kirkwood that "He [Lane] never talked to any juror that I know of." He did make one comment on the Warren Report - "In fact, I didn't think too much of the Warren Report either until the trial. Now I think a lot more of it than I did before this trial." Oliver Schultz Kirkwood: Do you think Mr. Garrison in his closing remarks wanted to use Mr. Shaw to get at the Warren Report. Schultz: I think like he thinks. I think somebody higher up had more to do with that and what I thought that he was trying to do was bring him to say - you know, bring out some more names or something, you know? So he could convict these other ones, bring them down here and convict them. I thought this whole case was - trying to get the higher-ups. And I still say it's the higher-ups that had more to do with it than just the fellow that shot him, you know." David Powe David Powe was contacted by Mark Lane, and in his interview with Kirkwood wondered "How did his name [Clay Shaw] get in the hat to be pulled out? This frankly is the question that is being asked. If he's not guilty, why pick Clay Shaw? Why not pick someone else?" Larry Morgan "I asked Larry Morgan what he thought the weakest part of the state's case was, and he said, "Well, the whole thing. I was surprised, I just couldn't picture the type of case the state put on. The caliber of witnesses was really unbelievable for the seriousness of the case. That's my opinion ... After it was all over, it was like - wow, what happened! What - that's it? We just couldn't imagine the state had brought up a case against Clay Shaw - absolutely nothing!' That being said, Morgan also said that "There's something still to this and whether Clay Shaw's involved in it, I don't know. I'm sure myself that there's more to this than anyone knows about." Charles Ordes "I kept waiting for the state to present a case. I don't think they had enough to get this far. I was surprised that it was even presented on this evidence. I was just waiting for something to happen. I just kept waiting, you know, something's gonna come up. I just can't see where they had a case. I feel the grand jury should have stopped them. As for conspiracy, Ordes said this about Shaw, "I think maybe he could have been involved in the conspiracy had there been one. But none of this has ever been proved. The possibility's always been there." Clay Shaw's defense team put together a document with comments from various jurors taken from the press: Given the above document, and the quotations from the Kirkwood book, there is no way that Mark Lane's statement that all the jurors believed in a conspiracy can be sustained. A few did, but most had quite ambiguous feelings - and their attention was clearly focused, as it should have been, on the guilt of Clay Shaw.

Front Page, Miami News, March 5, 1968, story by Bill Barry That is a headline that will catch anybody's eye! This is the story of James T. Mays who had his moments of fame in March 1968. He had a story to tell, and he wanted to cash out. Here is an FBI document that goes over the story. After getting nowhere with Thompson, Mays talked with Bill Barry of the Miami News. He told him that "if Thompson did not have the money, he wanted his letters sent to Jim Garrison." A telephone call was then arranged between Mays and someone in Garrison's office. Here is Mark Lane's memo to Jim Garrison. You gotta love the instructions on page two - Garrison's representative would be carrying a copy of Rush to Judgment. Garrison sent investigator Bill Boxley to Florida and he first met with Mays and reporter Bill Barry of the Miami News on Saturday, March 2nd. The meeting lasted several hours and Boxley received Mays' social insurance number and his driver's license. Being an on-the-ball investigator, Boxley also took the beer glass Mays had used so he would have his fingerprints. All quotations below are from Barry's two front-page stories in the Miami News (March 5th and March 6th). "After Mays was dropped off downtown, Boxley considered what he had learned. He did not believe that Mays had told him the whole truth. Some string of items in the story seemed to be plausible but the overall story was too simple. Boxley thought that perhaps somebody had implanted the story in Mays' mind. But he didn't know if the purpose was to perpetrate a con game or some more subtle fraud." Mays told the story that Oswald offered his friend $75,000 to help kill Kennedy - "Oswald said he was looking for a shooter to back up the main gun - the backup shooter would be paid $25,000." His friend offered Mays the job of the back up shooter behind the picket fence on the grassy knoll - while he would firing from the TSBD. Oswald was supposed to smuggle the gun into the building and then remove the rifle after the shooting. Mays didn't take the offer but decided he now wanted the money he missed out on. Garrison came to Miami on Sunday, March 3rd. Boxley told him what had happened - and Garrison thought it "sounded like a bunch of garbage. But, he still told Boxley to pursue the Mays story further. "It was possible that Mays' buddy had actually met a man using the name Oswald. That would fit something in Garrison's puzzle." On Sunday, March 3rd, Boxley and Mays met again at 4 PM. Mays pressed for an answer from Boxley about the money. Boxley wanted more information. He then told Mays he wanted him to take a lie detector test. Mays then pulled out a subpoena from his pocket - he was a witness in a murder trial that was to begin the next day. Mays promised to call the next day about the test. Garrison and Boxley flew back to New Orleans on Monday. Mays did not show up at the murder trial and disappeared. The disappearance worried Boxley, "Every other witness in the case is going to know that he disappeared while he was talking to Garrison's men." On March 7th, the Miami Herald ran a very good story on James Mays. Mays was an army deserter, and had been living in a "cheap room in a transient hotel annex." He claimed to be an airplane mechanic for United Airlines but this was denied by the airline. I don't know what happened to Mays. But, I did find this article in a Las Vegas newspaper from April 27, 1988. I don't know if it is him, but the age is correct. What to make of this story? Well, I would not have sent Boxley to Miami. The idea of Oswald offering his friend $75,000 for the assassination was preposterous. But not to Mark Lane or Jim Garrison.