These are the twenty-third, twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth (and concluding program) in a long series of interviews with Jim DiEugenio about his triumphal analysis of President Kennedy’s assassination and New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison’s heroic investigation of the killing.
The first interview begins with a telling editorial written for “The Washington Post” by former President Harry Truman.
Destiny Betrayed by Jim DiEugenio; Skyhorse Publishing [SC]; Copyright 1992, 2012 by Jim DiEugenio; ISBN 978–1‑62087–056‑3; pp. 378–379.
. . . . On December 22, 1963, Harry Truman wrote an editorial that was published in the Washington Post. The former President wrote that he had become “disturbed by the way the CIA had become diverted from its original assignment. It has become an operational and at times a policy-making arm of government.” He wrote that he never dreamed that this would happen when he signed the National Security Act. he thought it would be used for intelligence analysis, not “peacetime cloak and dagger operations.” He complained that the CIA had now become “so removed from its intended role that it is being interpreted as a symbol of sinister and mysterious foreign intrigue–and a subject for Cold War enemy propaganda.” Truman went as far as suggesting its operational arm be eliminated. He concluded with the warning that Americans have grown up learning respect for “our free institutions and for our ability to maintain a free and open society. There is something about the way the CIA has been functioning that is casting a shadow over out historic position and I feel hat we need to correct it.” . . . .
Former CIA Director (and then Warren Commission member) Allen Dulles visited Truman and attempted to get him to retract the statement. He dissembled about then CIA chief John McCone’s view of the editorial.
The focal point of the first two programs is the dramatic changes in U.S. foreign policy that occurred because of JFK’s assassination. Analysis in FTR #1056 continues the analysis of Kennedy’s foreign policy and concludes with riveting discussion of the striking policy undertakings of the Kennedy administration in the area of civil rights. Jim has written a marvelous, 4‑part analysis of JFK’s civil rights policy.
Discussion of JFK’s foreign policy and how his murder changed that builds on, and supplements analysis of this in FTR #1031, FTR #1032 and FTR #1033.
Lyndon Baines Johnson reversed JFK’s foreign policy initiatives in a number of important ways.
When the United States reneged on its commitment to pursue independence for the colonial territories of its European allies at the end of the Second World War, the stage was set for those nations’ desire for freedom to be cast as incipient Marxists/Communists. This development was the foundation for epic bloodshed and calamity.
Jim details then Congressman John F. Kennedy’s 1951 fact-finding trip to Saigon to gain an understanding of the French war to retain their colony of Indochina. (Vietnam was part of that colony.)
In speaking with career diplomat Edmund Gullion, Kennedy came to the realization that not only would the French lose the war, but that Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh guerrillas enjoyed great popular support among the Vietnamese people.
This awareness guided JFK’s Vietnam policy, in which he not only resisted tremendous pressure to commit U.S. combat troops to Vietnam, but planned a withdrawal of U.S. forces from Vietnam.
Perhaps the most important change made after JFK’s assassination was Johnson’s negation of Kennedy’s plans to withdraw from Vietnam.
LBJ cancelled Kennedy’s scheduled troop withdrawal, scheduled personnel increases and implemented the 34A program of covert operations against North Vietnam. Executed by South Vietnamese naval commandos using small, American-made patrol boats, these raids were supported by U.S. destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin, which were electronically “fingerprinting” North Vietnamese radar installations.
The electronic fingerprinting of North Vietnamese radar was in anticipation of a pre-planned air war, a fundamental part of a plan by LBJ to involve the United States in a full-scale war in Southeast Asia.
Destiny Betrayed by Jim DiEugenio; Skyhorse Publishing [SC]; Copyright 1992, 2012 by Jim DiEugenio; ISBN 978–1‑62087–056‑3; pp. 368–371.
. . . . Clearly now that the withdrawal was imminent, Kennedy was going to try and get the rest of his administration on board to his way of thinking. Not only did this not happen once Kennedy was dead, but the first meeting on Vietnam afterwards was a strong indication that things were now going to be cast in a sharply different tone. This meeting took place at 3:00 p.m. on November 24. . . . Johnson’s intent was clear to McNamara. He was breaking with the previous policy. The goal now was to win the war. LBJ then issued a strong warning: He wanted no more dissension or division over policy. Any person who did not conform would be removed. (This would later be demonstrated by his banning of Hubert Humphrey from Vietnam meetings when Humphrey advised Johnson to rethink his policy of military commitment to Vietnam.) . . . . The reader should recall, this meeting took place just forty-eight hours after Kennedy was killed. . . .
. . . . Therefore, on March 2, 1964, the Joint Chiefs passed a new war proposal to the White House. This was even more ambitious than the January version. It included bombing, the mining of North Vietnamese harbors, a naval blockade, and possible use of tactical atomic weapons in case China intervened. Johnson was now drawing up a full scale battle plan for Vietnam. In other words, what Kennedy did not do in three years, LBJ had done in three months.
Johnson said he was not ready for this proposal since he did not have congress yet as a partner and trustee. But he did order the preparation of NSAM 288, which was based on this proposal. It was essentially a target list of bombing sites that eventually reached 94 possibilities. By May 25, with Richard Nixon and Barry Goldwater clamoring for bombing of the north, LBJ had made the decision that the U.S. would directly attack North Vietnam at an unspecified point in the future. But it is important to note that even before the Tonkin Gulf incident, Johnson had ordered the drawing up of a congressional resolution. This had been finalized by William Bundy, McGeorge Bundy’s brother. Therefore in June of 1964, Johnson began lobbying certain people for its passage in congress. . . .
National Security Memorandum 263
. . . . Johnson seized upon the hazy and controversial events in the Gulf of Tonkin during the first week of August to begin he air war planned in NSAM 288. Yet the Tonkin Gulf incident had been prepared by Johnson himself. After Kennedy’s death, President Johnson made a few alterations in the draft of NSAM 273. An order which Kennedy had never seen but was drafted by McGeorge Bundy after a meeting in Honolulu, a meeting which took place while Kennedy was visiting Texas. . . .
. . . . On August 2, the destroyer Maddox was attacked by three North Vietnamese torpedo boats. Although torpedoes were launched, none hit. The total damage to the Maddox
was one bullet through the hull. Both Johnson and the Defense Department misrepresented this incident to congress and the press. They said the North Vietnamese fired first, that the USA had no role in the patrol boat raids, that the ships were in international waters, and there was no hot pursuit by the Maddox. These were all wrong. Yet Johnson used this overblown reporting, plus a non-existent attack two nights later on the destroyer Turner Joy to begin to push his war resolution through Congress. He then took out the target list assembled for NSAM 288 [from March of 1964–D.E] and ordered air strikes that very day. . . .
. . . . For on August 7, Johnson sent a message to General Maxwell Taylor. He wanted a whole gamut of possible operations presented to him for direct American attacks against the North. The target date for the systematic air war was set for January 1965. This was called operation Rolling Thunder and it ended up being the largest bombing campaign in military history. The reader should note: the January target date was the month Johnson would be inaugurated after his re-election. As John Newman noted in his masterful book JFK and Vietnam, Kennedy was disguising his withdrawal plan around his re-election; Johnson was disguising his escalation plan around his re-election. . . .
In addition to noting that Hubert Humphrey, contrary to popular misconception, was an opponent of Johnson’s war strategy, we note that Robert McNamara was also opposed to it, although he went along with the Commander in Chief’s policies.
After detailed discussion of the human and environmental damage inflicted on Vietnam and the strategy implemented by LBJ after Kennedy’s assassination, the discussion turns to Johnson’s reversal of Kennedy’s policy with regard to Laos.
The fledgling nation of Laos was also part of French Indochina, and Jim notes how outgoing President Eisenhower coached President-Elect Kennedy on the necessity of committing U.S. combat forces to Laos.
Again, Kennedy refused to commit U.S. ground forces and engineered a policy of neutrality for Laos.
Destiny Betrayed by Jim DiEugenio; Skyhorse publishing [SC]; Copyright 1992, 2012 by Jim DiEugenio; ISBN 978–1‑62087–056‑3; p. 54.
. . . . At his first press conference, Kennedy said that he hoped to establish Laos as a “peaceful country–an independent country not dominated by either side.” He appointed a task force to study the problem, was in regular communication with it and the Laotian ambassador, and decided by February that Laos must have a coalition government, the likes of which Eisenhower had rejected out of hand. Kennedy also had little interest in a military solution. He could not understand sending American troops to fight for a country whose people did not care to fight for themselves. . . . He therefore worked to get the Russians to push the Pathet Lao into a cease-fire agreement. This included a maneuver on Kennedy’s part to indicate military pressure if the Russians did not intervene strongly enough with the Pathet Lao. The maneuver worked, and in May of 1961, a truce was called. A few days later, a conference convened in Geneva to hammer out conditions for a neutral Laos. By July of 1962, a new government, which included the Pathet Lao, had been hammered out. . . .
Whereas JFK had implemented a policy affording neutrality to Laos–against the wishes of the Joint Chiefs, CIA and many of his own cabinet, LBJ scrapped the neutralist policy in favor of a CIA-implemented strategy of employing “narco-militias” such as the Hmong tribesmen as combatants against the Pathet Lao. This counter-insurgency warfare was complemented by a massive aerial bombing campaign.
One of the many outgrowths of LBJ’s reversal of JFK’s Southeast policy was a wave of CIA-assisted heroin addicting both GI’s in Vietnam and American civilians at home.
LBJ also reversed JFK’s policy toward Indonesia.
In 1955, Sukarno hosted a conference of non-aligned nations that formalized and concretized a “Third Way” between East and West. This, along with Sukarno’s nationalism of some Dutch industrial properties, led the U.S. to try and overthrow Sukharno, which was attempted in 1958.
Kennedy understood Sukarno’s point of view, and had planned a trip to Indonesia in 1964 to forge a more constructive relationship with Sukharno. Obviously, his murder in 1963 precluded the trip.
In 1965, Sukarno was deposed in a bloody, CIA-aided coup in which as many as a million people were killed.
Of particular interest in connection with Indonesia, is the disposition of Freeport Sulphur, a company that had enlisted the services of both Clay Shaw and David Ferrie in an effort to circumvent limitations on its operations imposed by Castro’s Cuba:
Destiny Betrayed by Jim DiEugenio; Skyhorse publishing [SC]; Copyright 1992, 2012 by Jim DiEugenio; ISBN 978–1‑62087–056‑3; pp. 208–209.
. . . . In Chapter 1, the author introduced Freeport Sulphur and its subsidiaries Moa Bay Mining and Nicaro Nickel. These companies all had large investments in Cuba prior to Castro’s revolution. And this ended up being one of the ways that Garrison connected Clay Shaw and David Ferrie. This came about for two reasons. First, with Castro taking over their operations in Cuba, Freeport was attempting to investigate bringing in nickel ore from Cuba, through Canada, which still had trade relations with Cuba. The ore would then be refined in Louisiana, either at a plant already in New Orleans or at another plant in Braithwaite. Shaw, an impressario of international trade, was on this exploratory team for Freeport. And he and two other men had been flown to Canada by Ferrie as part of this effort. More evidence of this connection through Freeport was found during their investigation of Guy Banister. Banister apparently knew about another flight taken by Shaw with an official of Freeport, likely Charles Wight, to Cuba. Again the pilot was David Ferrie. Another reason this Freeport connection was important to Garrison is that he found a witness named James Plaine in Houston who said that Mr. Wight of Freeport Sulphur had contacted him in regards to an assassination plot against Castro. Considering the amount of money Freeport was about to lose in Cuba, plus the number of Eastern Establishment luminaries associated with the company–such as Jock Whitney, Jean Mauze and Godfrey Rockefeller–it is not surprising that such a thing was contemplated within their ranks. . . .
LBJ reversed Kennedy’s policy vis a vis Sukarno. It should be noted that Freeport had set its corporate sights on a very lucrative pair of mountains in Indonesia, both of which had enormous deposits of minerals, iron, copper, silver and gold in particular.
Destiny Betrayed by Jim DiEugenio; Skyhorse publishing [SC]; Copyright 1992, 2012 by Jim DiEugenio; ISBN 978–1‑62087–056‑3; pp. 374–375.
. . . . Shortly after, his aid bill landed on Johnson’s desk. The new president refused to sign it. . . .
. . . . In return for not signing the aid bill, in 1964, LBJ received support from Both Augustus Long and Jock Whitney of Freeport Sulphur in his race against Barry Goldwater. In fact, Long established a group called the National Independent Committee for Johnson. This group of wealthy businessmen included Robert Lehman of Lehman Brothers and Thomas Cabot, Michael Paine’s cousin. . . . Then, in early 1965, Augustus Long was rewarded for helping Johnson get elected. LBJ app[ointed him to the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. This is a small group of wealthy private citizens who advises the president on intelligence matters. The members of this group can approve and suggest covert activities abroad. This appointment is notable for what was about to occur. For with Sukarno now unprotected by President Kennedy, the writing was on the wall. The Central Intelligence Agency now bean to send into Indonesia its so called “first team.” . . . .
. . . . Suharto now began to sell off Indonesia’s riches to the highest bidder. Including Freeport Sulphur, which opened what were perhaps the largest copper and gold mines in the world there. . . . Freeport, along with several other companies, now harvested billions from the Suharto regime. . . .
Yet another area in which JFK’s policy outlook ran afoul of the prevailing wisdom of the Cold War was with regard to the Congo. A Belgian colony which was the victim of genocidal policies of King Leopold (estimates of the dead run as high as 8 million), the diamond and mineral-rich Congo gained a fragile independence.
In Africa, as well, Kennedy understood the struggle of emerging nations seeking freedom from colonial domination as falling outside of and transcending stereotyped Cold War dynamics.
In the Congo, the brutally administered Belgian rule had spawned a vigorous independence movement crystallized around the charismatic Patrice Lumumba. Understanding of, and sympathetic to Lumumba and the ideology and political forces embodied in him, Kennedy opposed the reactionary status quo favored by both European allies like the United Kingdom and Belgium, as well as the Eisenhower/Dulles axis in the United States.
Destiny Betrayed by Jim DiEugenio; Skyhorse publishing [SC]; Copyright 1992, 2012 by Jim DiEugenio; ISBN 978–1‑62087–056‑3; pp. 28–29.
. . . . By 1960, a native revolutionary leader named Patrice Lumumba had galvanized the nationalist feeling of the country. Belgium decided to pull out. But they did so rapidly, knowing that tumult would ensue and they could return to colonize the country again. After Lumumba was appointed prime minister, tumult did ensue. The Belgians and the British backed a rival who had Lumumba dismissed. They then urged the breaking away of the Katanga province because of its enormous mineral wealth. Lumumba looked to the United Nations for help, and also the USA. The former decided to help, . The United States did not. In fact, when Lumumba visited Washington July of 1960, Eisenhower deliberately fled to Rhode Island. Rebuffed by Eisenhower, Lumumba now turned to the Russians for help in expelling the Belgians from Katanga. This sealed his fate in the eyes of Eisenhower and Allen Dulles. The president now authorized a series of assassination plots by the CIA to kill Lumumba. These plots finally succeeded on January 17, 1961, three days before Kennedy was inaugurated.
His first week in office, Kennedy requested a full review of the Eisenhower/Dulles policy in Congo. The American ambassador to that important African nation heard of this review and phoned Allen Dulles to alert him that President Kennedy was about to overturn previous policy there. Kennedy did overturn this policy on February 2, 1961. Unlike Eisenhower and Allen Dulles, Kennedy announced he would begin full cooperation with Secretary Dag Hammarskjold at the United Nations on this thorny issue in order to bring all the armies in that war-torn nation under control. He would also attempt top neutralize the country so there would be no East/West Cold War competition. Third, all political prisoners being held should be freed. Not knowing he was dead, this part was aimed at former prime minister Lumumba, who had been captured by his enemies. (There is evidence that, knowing Kennedy would favor Lumumba, Dulles had him killed before JFK was inaugurated.) Finally, Kennedy opposed the secession of mineral-rich Katanga province. . . . Thus began Kennedy’s nearly three year long struggle to see Congo not fall back under the claw of European imperialism. . . . ”
In the Congo, as in Indonesia, LBJ reversed JFK’s policy stance, and the corporate looting of the Congo resulted under General Joseph Mobutu, himself a beneficiary of the piracy.
Destiny Betrayed by Jim DiEugenio; Skyhorse Publishing [SC]; Copyright 1992, 2012 by Jim DiEugenio; ISBN 978–1‑62087–056‑3; pp. 372–373.
. . . . But in October and November [of 1963], things began to fall apart. Kennedy wanted Colonel Michael Greene, an African expert, to train the Congolese army in order
to subdue a leftist rebellion. But General Joseph Mobutu, with the backing of the Pentagon, managed to resist this training, which the United Nations backed. In 1964, the communist rebellion picked up steam and began taking whole provinces. The White House did something Kennedy never seriously contemplated: unilateral action by the USA. Johnson and McGeorge Bundy had the CIA fly sorties with Cuban pilots to halt the communist advance. Without Kennedy, the UN now withdrew. America now became an ally of Belgium and intervened with arms, airplanes and advisers. Mobutu now invited Tshombe back into the government. Tshombe, perhaps at the request of the CIA, now said that the rebellion was part of a Chinese plot to take over Congo. Kennedy had called in Edmund Gullion to supervise the attempt to make the Congo government into a moderate coalition, avoiding the extremes of left and right. But with the Tshombe/Mobutu alliance, that was now dashed. Rightwing South Africans and Rhodesians were now allowed to join the Congolese army in a war on the “Chinese-inspired left.” And with the United Nations gone, this was all done under the auspices of the United States. The rightward tilt now continued unabated. By 1965, Mobutu had gained complete power. And in 1966, he installed himself as military dictator. . . . Mobutu now allowed his country to be opened up to loads of outside investment. The riches of the Congo were mined by huge Western corporations. Their owners and officers grew wealthy while Mobutu’s subjects were mired in poverty. Mobutu also stifled political dissent. And he now became one of the richest men in Africa, perhaps the world. . . .
In FTR #1033, we examined JFK’s attempts at normalizing relations with Cuba. That, of course, vanished with his assassination and the deepening of Cold War hostility between the U.S. and the Island nation, with a thaw of sorts coming under Barack Obama a few years ago.
There is no more striking area in which JFK’s murder reversed what would have been historic changes in America’s foreign policy than U.S.-Soviet relations.
JFK had implemented a ban on atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons, bitterly opposed by the Pentagon, In a June, 1963 speech at American University, JFK called for re-evaluating America’s relationship to the Soviet Union, and cited the U.S.S.R’s decisive role in defeating Nazi Germany during World War II.
JFK was also proposing joint space exploration with the Soviet Union, which would have appeared to be nothing less than treasonous to the Pentagon and NASA at the time. After JFK’s assassination, the Kennedy family used a backchannel diplomatic conduit to the Soviet leadership to communicate their view that the Soviet Union, and its Cuban ally, had been blameless in the assassination and that powerful right-wing forces in the United States had been behind the assassination.
Perhaps JFK’s greatest contribution was one that has received scant notice. In 1961, the Joint Chiefs were pushing for a first strike on the Soviet Union–a decision to initiate nuclear war. JFK refused, walking out of the discussion with the disgusted observation that “We call ourselves the human race.”
In FTR #‘s 876, 926 and 1051, we examined the creation of the meme that Oswald had been networking with the Cubans and Soviets in the run-up to the assassination. In particular, Oswald was supposedly meeting with Valery Kostikov, a KGB official in charge of assassinations in the Western Hemisphere.
This created the pretext for blaming JFK’s assassination on the Soviet Union and/or Cuba. There are indications that JFK’s assassination may well have been intended as a pretext for a nuclear first strike on the Soviet Union.
JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters by James W. Douglass; Touchstone Books [SC]; Copyright 2008 by James W. Douglas; ISBN 978–1‑4391–9388‑4; pp. 242–243.
. . . . As JFK may have recalled from the National Security Council meeting he walked out of in July 1961, the first Net Evaluation Subcommittee report had focused precisely on “a surprise attack in late 1963, preceded by a period of heightened tensions.” Kennedy was a keen reader and listener. In the second preemptive-war report, he may also have noticed the slight but significant discrepancy between its overall time frame, 1963–1968, and the extent of its relatively reassuring conclusion, which covered only 1964 through 1968. . . .
. . . . In his cat-and-mouse questioning of his military chiefs, President Kennedy had built upon the report’s apparently reassuring conclusion in such a way as to discourage preemptive-war ambitions. However, given the “late 1963” focus in the first Net Report that that was the most threatening time for a preemptive strike, Kennedy had little reason to be reassured by a second report that implicitly confirmed that time as the one of maximum danger. The personally fatal fall JFK was about to enter, in late 1963, was the same time his military commanders may have considered their last chance to “win” (in their terms) a preemptive war against the Soviet Union. In terms of their second Net Report to the President, which passed over the perilous meaning of late 1963, the cat-and-mouse game had been reversed. It was the generals who were the cats, and JFK the mouse in their midst.
The explicit assumption of the first Net Report was “a surprise attack in late 1963, preceded by a period of heightened tensions.” The focus of that first-strike scenario corresponded to the Kennedy assassination scenario. When President Kennedy was murdered in late 1963, the Soviet Union had been set up as the major scapegoat in the plot. If the tactic had been successful in scapegoating the Russians for the crime of the century, there is little doubt that it would have resulted in “a period of heightened tensions” between the United States and the Soviet Union.
Those who designed the plot to kill Kennedy were familiar with the inner sanctum of our national security state. Their attempt to scapegoat the Soviets for the President’s murder reflected one side of the secret struggle between JFK and his military leaders over a preemptive strike against the Soviet Union. The assassins’ purpose seems to have encompassed not only killing a President determined to make peace with the enemy, but also using his murder as the impetus for a possible nuclear first strike against that same enemy. . . .
With the GOP and Trump administration openly suppressing voting rights of minorities, African-Americans in particular, the stellar efforts of JFK and the Justice Department in the area of civil rights is striking. JFK’s civil rights policy was exponentially greater than what had preceded him, and much of what followed.
The conclusion of the discussion in FTR #1056 consists of Jim’s discussion of his marvelous, 4‑part analysis of JFK’s civil rights policy.
House Select Committee on Assassinations Assistant Counsel Jonathan Blackmer: “. . . . ‘We have reason to believe Shaw was heavily involved in the Anti-Castro efforts in New Orleans in the 1960s and [was] possibly one of the high level planners or ‘cut out’ to the planners of the assassination.’ . . . .”
This is the twenty-first in a planned long series of interviews with Jim DiEugenio about his triumphal analysis of President Kennedy’s assassination and New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison’s heroic investigation of the killing.
This program undertakes examination of the House Select Committee on Assassinations.
The HSCA coalesced after a showing of the Zapruder film on television cued a dramatic increase in people who were interested in the JFK assassination. Representative Tom Downing of Virginia was instrumental in realizing the project.
Ultimately, respected Pennsylvania prosecutor Richard Sprague became the committee’s Chief Counsel, recruiting skilled aides like the late Gaeton Fonzi and Robert Tanenbaum. Networking with, among others, Pennsylvania Senator Richard Schweiker, Sprague, Tanenbaum, Fonzi et al quickly concluded that the Warren Commission was covering up the assassination and highlighted the ridiculous nature of CE399–the so-called “Magic Bullet,” which is the evidentiary core of the Warren Commission’s thesis.
Initially, the HSCA began doing some serious work, investigating and analyzing the New Orleans connections that Garrison investigated. In addition to the Shaw, Banister, Ferrie Oswald relationships, the role of David Phillips, aka “Maurice Bishop,” became a substantive focal point of their work.
Gaeton Fonzi’s work for the committee focused on:
1.–CIA officer Bernardo DeTorres’ professional career, including his work with Mitchell Werbell.
2.–David Phillips/“Maurice Bishop.”
3.–The Rose Cheramie foreshadowing of the assassination.
4.–Sergio Arcacha Smith’s numerous links to the assassination, including his possible work running guns with Jack Ruby and CIA contract agent Tomas Eli Davis.
5.–Freeport Sulphur, its networking with both Clay Shaw and David Ferrie and its ownership by the Eastern Elite.
6.–The role of Jock Whitney in Freeport Sulphur.
The publisher of The New York Herald Tribune, Whitney worked late into the evening of 11/22/1963, apparently on an editorial that featured the book The Assassins, which claimed that America’s assassinations were the work of “crazed individuals.” The book was later distributed to members of the Warren Commission by none other than Allen Dulles.
The program goes into the discovery made by researcher John Hunt of the handling of the Magic Bullet, CE399.
Destiny Betrayed by Jim DiEugenio; Skyhorse Publishing [SC]; Copyright 1992, 2012 by Jim DiEugenio; ISBN 978–1‑62087–056‑3; p. 345.
. . . . And the proof is that both the Warren Commission and the HSCA signed onto the ludicrous Single Bullet Theory. A theory that has been rendered even more risible today than it was in the sixties and seventies. For researcher John Hunt has proven with declassified documents that the so-called Magic Bullet was at the FBI lab in Washington at 7:30 p.m. on the night of the twenty-second. But how could this be if that bullet was not turned over by the Secret Service to FBI agent Elmer Lee Todd until 8:50 p.m.? In other words, lab technician Robert Frazier had booked CE399 into his reords one hour and twenty minutes before it was given to him by agent Todd. But further, Todd’s initials were said by the FBI to be on this bullet he dropped off with Frazier that night. Hunt saw the blow up photos of the entire circumference of CE 399 at the National Archives. The FBI lied on this key issue. For Todd’s initials are not on the bullet.
All one needs to know about the efficacy of the HSCA is that it never took the time to do what John Hunt did. . . .
Eventually, the collaborationist mainstream media began an assault on Richard Sprague and the work of the committee. The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post began the assault, which quickly drew blood. . . .
Guy Banister employee Tommy Baumler: ” . . . . whatever happens, the Shaw case will end without punishment for him [Shaw], because federal power will see to that.”
This is the seventeenth of a planned long series of interviews with Jim DiEugenio about his triumphal analysis of President Kennedy’s assassination and New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison’s heroic investigation of the killing.
In this program, we proceed into New Orleans’ DA Jim Garrison’s actual trial of Clay Shaw.
Before going into the trial, per se, we highlight the “turning” of The New Orleans States-Item. This “turning” features one of the principal infiltrators into Garrison’s office, William Gurvich.
Destiny Betrayed by Jim DiEugenio; Skyhorse Publishing [SC]; Copyright 1992, 2012 by Jim DiEugenio; ISBN 978–1‑62087–056‑3; p. 275.
. . . . From this interview [with Tommy Baumler], what appears to have happened is that the CIA sent someone into New Orleans to impact public opinion about Garrison. This may have been occasioned by a letter forwarded to CIA HQ to Lloyd Ray of the local New Orleans office. . . . William Gurvich, now working with Shaw’s lawyers, visited the offices of The New Orleans States-Item. Ross Yockey and Hoke May had been seriously investigating the Shaw case. And they had been doing that in a fair and judicious manner. They had uncovered some interesting facts about how Gordon Novel’s lawyers were being paid. After Gurvich’s visit, the States-Item pulled Yockey and May from the Garrison beat. When this author interviewed Yockey in 1995, he said that after this, he was then assigned to covering high school football games. With the States-Item now neutralized, the coverage in New Orleans now became imbalanced. . . .
Jim titled the chapter dedicated to the trial “Anti-Climax.” It was indeed an anti-climax after Garrison was subjected to the irresistible engine of the synthesis of: the intelligence community, their lone-wolf operators infiltrating his office, those infiltrators’ networking with the intelligence community’s media hatchet men dedicated to smearing Garrison publicly, Clay Shaw’s defense team and the Justice Department.
Garrison’s investigation was subjected to an onslaught, including outright, state-sponsored terror directed at witnesses.
A synoptic overview of the witnesses and their significance:
1.–Richard Case Nagell–A U.S. intelligence operative infiltrated into Soviet intelligence, and then assigned by KGB to assassinate Oswald, whom they knew was to be a patsy in an assassination plot against JFK for which they would be blamed.
2.–Reverend Clyde Johnson–A right-wing activist who was witness to Clay Shaw and a “Jack Rubion” networking together against JFK.
3.–Aloysius Habighorst–A good New Orleans cop who was the booking officer for Clay Shaw, when Shaw volunteered that he used the alias “Clay Bertrand.”
4.–Edwin McGehee–One of the witnesses connecting Clay Shaw to Oswald and David Ferrie in Clinton, Louisiana.
5.–Reeves Morgan–Another of the witnesses connecting Clay Shaw to Oswald and David Ferrie in Clinton, Louisiana.
Destiny Betrayed by Jim DiEugenio; Skyhorse Publishing [SC]; Copyright 1992, 2012 by Jim DiEugenio; ISBN 978–1‑62087–056‑3; p. 294.
. . . . Before and during the trial, Garrison’s witnesses were being surveilled, harassed, and physically attacked. For instance, Richard Case Nagell had a grenade thrown at him from a speeding car in New York. Nagell brought the remains of the grenade to Garrison and told him he did not think it wise for him to testify at Shaw’s trial. Even though Garrison had spirited Clyde Johnson out of town and very few people knew where he was, the FBI’s total surveillance eventually paid off. He was brutally beaten on the eve of the trial and hospitalized. Aloysius Habighorst, the man who booked Shaw and heard him say his alias was Bertrand, was rammed by a truck the day before he testified. After he testified, Edwin McGehee found a prowler on his front lawn. he called the marshal, and the man was arrested. At the station, the man asked to make one phone call. The call he made was to the International Trade Mart. After he testified, Reeves Morgan had the windows shot out of his truck. What makes all this violent intimidation more startling is what Robert Tanenbaum stated to the author in an interview for Probe Magazine. He said that he had seen a set of documents that originated in the office of Richard Helms. They revealed that the CIA was monitoring and harassing Garrison’s witnesses. . . .
The violent harassment of the witnesses may be viewed against the backdrop of Tom Bethell and Sal Panzeca.
Shaw attorney Sal Panzeca received a list of Garrison witnesses from Garrison office infiltrator Tom Bethell.
Destiny Betrayed by Jim DiEugenio; Skyhorse Publishing [SC]; Copyright 1992, 2012 by Jim DiEugenio; ISBN 978–1‑62087–056‑3; p. 290.
. . . . Tom Bethell had been one of the DA’s key investigators and researchers . . . . Since Garrison had designated him as his chief archivist, he had access to and control of both Garrison’s files and his most recent witness list. . . . Secretly, he met with Sal Panzeca, one of Shaw’s attorneys, and gave him a witness list he had prepared, with summaries of each witness’s expected testimony for the prosecution. . . .
Exemplifying the effective neutralizing of witnesses is the drumbeat of discreditation and intimidation of Perry Russo, a witness to Shaw and Ferrie discussing plans to assassinate JFK. By the time of Clay Shaw’s trial, Russo relented and assented to the canard that the Shaw/Ferrie assassination planning was just a “bull session.”
CIA’s Expert on the JFK Assassination Ray Rocca: ” . . . . Garrison would indeed obtain a conviction of Shaw for conspiring to assassinate President Kennedy. . . .”
House Select Committee on Assassinations Assistant Counsel Jonathan Blackmer: “. . . . ‘We have reason to believe Shaw was heavily involved in the Anti-Castro efforts in New Orleans in the 1960s and [was] possibly one of the high level planners or ‘cut out’ to the planners of the assassination.’ . . . .”
This is the fifteenth of a planned long series of interviews with Jim DiEugenio about his triumphal analysis of President Kennedy’s assassination and New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison’s heroic investigation of the killing.
This interview begins with an excerpt from the book that encapsulates the synthesis of the intelligence agencies, infiltrators into Garrison’s investigation, media hatchet men designated to destroy Garrison’s reputation and Clay Shaw’s defense team.
Destiny Betrayed by Jim DiEugenio; Skyhorse Publishing [SC]; Copyright 1992, 2012 by Jim DiEugenio; ISBN 978–1‑62087–056‑3; pp. 228–229.
. . . . About Oswald, [Bernardo] DeTorres said he knew he had not killed Kennedy because DeTorres knew the people who were actually involved–and they were talking about it before it happened.
I have detailed the DeTorres penetration at length since it is important in order to understand what really happened to Jim Garrison. And also to reveal just how much was at stake for suspects like Bernardo DeTorres and his allies. As [HSCA investigator Gaeton] Fonzi notes in his book, as the author found out from an interview, when Victor Marchetti was executive assistant to CIA Director Richard Helms, Helms would run staff meetings about Agency operations. During these meetings, Marchetti would take the official notes. At times, Helms would indicate he wanted certain things not taken down. At other times, something would come up, and Helms would cut off any follow-up by waving his hand. He then would add that this subject would be pursued further in his office, with Marchetti not there to take notes. Marchetti said that the Garrison inquiry and the Shaw trial came up more than once. Each time, Helms would ask what they were doing to help the defense. Fonzi later found out that DeTorres’s penetration was only the inception of the CIA’s effort to torpedo Garrison. For the HSCA later discovered through CIA documents that there were nine undercover agents at one time or another in Garrrison’s office. So, in addition to what Mr. King had warned Garrison about, that is the negativity of the media which would now plague him until the end, there was something that King left unsaid. But after he left, assistant Andrew Sciambra noted it to Garrison. He said, “Well, they offered you the carrot, and you turned it down. You know what’s coming next don’t you?”
What we are about to describe in this chapter and the next is something that neither Garrison nor Sciambra could have likely imagined at the time. But with the aid of extensive interviews, plus declassified documents, for the first time we will now outline a three stage program to deconstruct Garrison’s case and to make sure Shaw would be acquitted. This first stage began very early with DeTorres, a man who–while working with Mitch Werbell–may have been involved with Kennedy’s murder. But it will continue with certain other “singleton” penetrations by people like William Gurvich and Gordon Novel. The second stage of the effort will center around the wider efforts of former National Security Agency officer Walter Sheridan in alliance with the CIA and NBC. That effort was coupled with the work of intelligence assets/journalists James Phelan and Hugh Aynesworth. When Garrison would still not give up, a third phase set in with two prongs to it. James Angleton’s office took over in September of 1967, and, as we have previewed, Angleton’s endeavor was then allied to, and expanded all the way up to Director Richard Helms in 1968 and 1969. With operations that could even be discussed in public or for the record. But which, as we shall see, HSCA Deputy Counsel Bob Tanenbaum saw certain documents about. . . .
Continuing and overlapping analysis from the last program, we return to the subject of veteran intelligence operative Gordon Novel, whom we have spoken of in past interviews. In FTR #1044, we synopsized Novel’s activities as a spook and as an infiltrator into Garrison’s investigation: “One of the most important infiltrators was Gordon Novel, a veteran CIA officer, brilliant electronics expert and operational associate of many of the people involved in Garrison’s probe. Novel had been involved with the Bay of Pigs and an arms burglary at a Schlumberger facility, some of the loot from which was stored at a racing business owned in part by Novel. Operating at the direction of Allen Dulles, he infiltrated Garrison’s investigation and bugged his office for the Agency. He also networked with the FBI to monitor Garrison’s probe. Novel also used his position inside Garrison’s probe to smear Garrison in public statements to the media. Novel was able to draw on large financial reserves, the source of which is–technically speaking–opaque. At one point, he had five attorneys working on his behalf. That, in and of itself, would have required more money than Novel appeared to have at his disposal. Most significantly, Novel worked in tandem with Walter Sheridan, a veteran intelligence operative who produced an altogether “special” for NBC about the Garrison investigation. . . .”
In this program, we noted Novel’s work with the FBI, as well as CIA. Noting a bunch of apparent “hangers-on” around his residence, Novel realized that they were FBI. They were interested in having him monitor Garrison for the bureau, which he did. Jim notes that the Wackenhut Corporation (formerly Southern Research) was also monitoring Garrison’s communications. It was an outgrowth of the FBI.
Supplementing analysis of CIA Garrison infiltrator William Martin (also highlighted in FTR #1044), we set forth Martin’s work for Guy Banister.
An important part of the discussion features expanded analysis of both Hugh Aynesworth and James Phelan, both of whom were prominent media hatchet men who helped defame Garrison. (They, too, were highlighted in FTR #1044.)
Key points of discussion about Aynesworth.
1.–Prior to the assassination of President Kennedy, Aynesworth had networked with J. Walton Moore, in charge of CIA operations in Dallas, Texas. Aynesworth was applying for membership in the assassination.
2.-He was involved with attempted sale of Oswald’s “diary.”
3.–Was networked with Marina Oswald, helping to disseminate the official lie about the assassination, and concocting a preposterous story about Marina saying Oswald had planned to kill Nixon.
4.–Worked with people associated with CIA’s anti-Castro Cuban milieu in conjunction with Life Magazine’s “re-investigation” of the JFK assassination. Henry Luce’s Life and other publications had a history of working with the intelligence community.
5.–Disseminated disinformation about Garrison/JFK for “Newsweek.”
6.–He informed for both the FBI and Lyndon Johnson about Garrison’s inquest.
7.–Disseminated disinformation about David Ferrie’s associate Alvin Beauboeuf. This disinformation ran parallel to Walter Sheridan’s disinformation efforts in this regard.
8.–Was instrumental in frustrating Garrison’s attempts at interviewing CIA Cuban operative Sergio Arcacha Smith.
9.–Aynesworth networked with Clay Shaw’s defense team.
Key points of discussion about Phelan include:
1.–Review of his hit piece on Garrison published by The Saturday Evening Post.
2.–His networking with intelligence agencies in conjunction with his journalistic activities.
3.–His professional association with Robert Loomis, who had a long career publishing disinformation books covering-up this country’s major assassinations. (Gerald Posner’s notorious “Case Closed” is a prominent example.
4.–Phelan also networked with Clay Shaw’s defense team, helping to introduce into the trial testimony the preposterous “jet effect” syndrome with regard to the head shot that sealed Kennedy’s fate. This preposterous concoction maintains that the violent tossing of JFK’s body to the back and to the left by the fatal head shot was because the shot (supposedly from behind) created a tunnel in JFK’s head which, when it channeled the blood and flesh torn from Kennedy by the bullet, created a “jet” that propelled Kennedy backward.
The program concludes with a partial reading of a 2016 Huffington Post story based, in part on Phelan’s disingenuous reporting on the JFK assassination. One of the features of the article is that it casually dismisses Jim Garrison’s investigation as baseless, and suggests that Garrison felt the homosexual Shaw was involved with the assassination as part of a “homosexual thrill killing.”
CIA’s Expert on the JFK Assassination Ray Rocca: ” . . . . Garrison would indeed obtain a conviction of Shaw for conspiring to assassinate President Kennedy. . . .”
House Select Committee on Assassinations Assistant Counsel Jonathan Blackmer: “. . . . ‘We have reason to believe Shaw was heavily involved in the Anti-Castro efforts in New Orleans in the 1960s and [was] possibly one of the high level planners or ‘cut out’ to the planners of the assassination.’ . . . .”
This is the thirteenth of a planned long series of interviews with Jim DiEugenio about his triumphal analysis of President Kennedy’s assassination and New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison’s heroic investigation of the killing.
This broadcast highlights the infiltrators into Jim Garrison’s investigation: how they subverted his inquest, networked with intelligence elements implicated in the assassination, networked with media hatchet men who lambasted Garrison publicly and also Clay Shaw’s defense team.
Discussion begins with a Denver oil man named John King, who made an oblique offer of an appointment to the Federal Bench, an apparent carrot to persuade Garrison to drop his probe into the Kennedy assassination. As a Garrison aide noted, the stick would follow.
A synoptic overview of the infiltrators, what they did and with and for whom:
1.–William Martin, who infiltrated Garrison’s team, apparently on behalf of CIA.
2.–Bernardo DeTorres, a Bay of Pigs veteran and CIA operative with connections to Mitchell Werbell, a silenced weapons expert best known as the inventor of the Ingram Mac 10 and Mac 11 silenced machine pistols. DeTorres was filing reports on Garrison with the CIA’s JM/Wave station in Miami and was apparently in Dealey Plaza on 11/22/1963. CIA operative Eladio Del Valle–David Ferrie’s case officer on some missions–was found dead shortly after Ferrie. Del Valle was found tortured, shot through the heart and with his head split open with a machete. The corpse was a short distance from DeTorres’ apartment. DeTorres was also allegedly involved with the assassination of Orlando Letelier.
3.–William and Louis Gurvich, two “private investigators” who infiltrated Garrison’s office and, among other things, began channeling information about Garrison’s probe to Walter Sheridan, about whom we will have more to say later. William stole Garrison’s investigative file and gave it to Clay Shaw’s defense team. William Gurvich continued to work with Clay Shaw’s defense through 1971 (Shaw was charged with perjury). Gurvich may well have worked for CIA. His work with Shaw is in keeping with a Richard Helms directive summarized in item #6 below.
4.–Bill Boxley worked to steer Garrison’s investigation into dubious areas. When Garrison’s team visited Boxley’s apparent place of residence, it appeared not to have ever been occupied by Boxley. Boxley carried a number of briefcases with him when working with Garrison, growing larger with time. It appeared that he was purloining documents from Garrison’s office. Eventually, he called Garrison, warning that “we” are coming to get you.
5.–Tom Bethell, an Englishman and an assassination expert, met with Sal Panzeca, one of Clay Shaw’s attorneys and gave him a list of Garrison’s witnesses and summaries of what each was expected to say.
6.–Pershing Gervais was recruited to ensnare Garrison in a purported scandal after the Clay Shaw trial, in keeping with Richard Helms’ directive that the CIA take steps to neutralize Garrison and any effect that he might have before, during and after the Clay Shaw trial. He decamped to Canada, to be beyond Garrison’s legal reach, working at a job at General Motors secured for him by The Powers That Be. Later, he admitted his perfidy.
7.–One of the most important infiltrators was Gordon Novel, a veteran CIA officer, brilliant electronics expert and operational associate of many of the people involved in Garrison’s probe. Novel had been involved with the Bay of Pigs and an arms burglary at a Schlumberger facility, some of the loot from which was stored at a racing business owned in part by Novel. Operating at the direction of Allen Dulles, he infiltrated Garrison’s investigation and bugged his office for the Agency. He also networked with the FBI to monitor Garrison’s probe. Novel also used his position inside Garrison’s probe to smear Garrison in public statements to the media. Novel was able to draw on large financial reserves, the source of which is–technically speaking–opaque. At one point, he had five attorneys working on his behalf. That, in and of itself, would have required more money than Novel appeared to have at his disposal. Most significantly, Novel worked in tandem with Walter Sheridan, a veteran intelligence operative who produced an altogether “special” for NBC about the Garrison investigation. We will discuss Sheridan at greater length in our next interview.
The heavy handedness of the pressure placed on those who cooperated with Garrison is illustrated by the experience of Marlene Mancuso, Novel’s estranged wife. Note the coordination of operations between CIA officer Novel and people working with Walter Sheridan, as well as Sheridan himself.
Destiny Betrayed by Jim DiEugenio; Skyhorse publishing [SC]; Copyright 1992, 2012 by Jim DiEugenio; ISBN 978–1‑62087–056‑3; pp. 239–240.
. . . . Marlene Mancuso was Novel’s estranged wife. She had been talking to Garrison. He had detailed knowledge of Gordon’s Agency activities with people like Ferrie and Sergio Arcacha Smith. Plus she was fully informed about the transfer of arms from the Schlumberger bunker for the Bay of Pigs. In May of 1967, [Rick] Townley found her working as a cashier in the [French] Quarter at a place called Lucky Pierre’s. Townley told her bluntly that Garrison was going down. They wanted her to say, on camera, that the DA had coerced her into giving him testimony about the Schlumberger munitions transfer. When that did not work, a friend of Gordon’s called and warned her about facing federal perjury charges if she did not turn on Garrison. Finally, Sheridan showed up in person. He also said that Garrison was going down the drain, and she was going with him. But if she would talk to him, he would get her a job at NBC. This also failed. So Sheridan started following her around. Once he followed her to church. His excuse was that he wanted to say a prayer inside. One day, both Sheridan and Townley showed up at her front door. They said they were looking for Gordon. The net day, Townley called her and said if she did not get away from Garrison, she could get killed. Mancuso did not turn on Garrison. She signed a statement for the DA revealing the threats and extortion by Townley and Sheridan. . . .
CIA’s Expert on the JFK Assassination Ray Rocca: ” . . . . Garrison would indeed obtain a conviction of Shaw for conspiring to assassinate President Kennedy. . . .”
House Select Committee on Assassinations Assistant Counsel Jonathan Blackmer: “. . . . ‘We have reason to believe Shaw was heavily involved in the Anti-Castro efforts in New Orleans in the 1960s and [was] possibly one of the high level planners or ‘cut out’ to the planners of the assassination.’ . . . .”
This is the twelfth of a planned long series of interviews with Jim DiEugenio about his triumphal analysis of President Kennedy’s assassination and New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison’s heroic investigation of the killing.
In this program, we continue with analysis of Clay Shaw’s intelligence connection, beginning with review of his work for the Domestic Operations Division.
A fascinating intelligence involvement of Shaw’s is his work with Permindex.
Destiny Betrayed by Jim DiEugenio; Skyhorse Publishing [SC]; Copyright 1992, 2012 by Jim DiEugenio; ISBN 978–1‑62087–056‑3; pp. 385–386.
. . . . The next step in the CIA ladder after his high-level overseas informant service was his work with the strange company called Permindex. When the announcement for Permindex was first made in Switzerland in late 1956, its principal backing was to come from a local banker named Hans Seligman. But as more investigation by the local papers was done, it became clear that the real backer was J. Henry Schroder Corporation. This information was quite revealing. Schroder’s had been closely associated with Allen Dulles and the CIA for years. Allen Dulles’s connections to the Schroder banking family went back to the thirties when his law firm, Sullivan and Cromwell, first began representing them through him. Later, Dulles was the bank’s General Counsel. In fact, when Dulles became CIA director, Schroder’s was a repository for a fifty million dollar contingency fund that Dulles personally controlled. Schroder’s was a welcome conduit because the bank benefited from previous CIA overthrows in Guatemala and Iran. Another reason that there began to be a furor over Permindex in Switzerland was the fact that the bank’s founder, Baron Kurt von Schroder, was associated with the Third Reich, specifically Heinrich Himmler. The project now became stalled in Switzerland. It now moved to Rome. In a September 1069 interview Shaw did for Penthouse Magazine, he told James Phelan that he only grew interested in the project when it moved to Italy. Which was in October 1958. Yet a State Department cable dated April 9 of that year says that Shaw showed great interest in Permindex from the outset.
One can see why. The board of directors as made up of bankers who had been tied up with fascist governments, people who worked the Jewish refugee racket during World War II, a former member of Mussolini’s cabinet, and the son-in-law of Hjalmar Schacht, the economic wizard behind the Third Reich, who was a friend of Shaw’s. These people would all appeal to the conservative Shaw. There were at least four international newspapers that exposed the bizarre activities of Permindex when it was in Rome. One problem was the mysterious source of funding: no one knew where it was coming from. Another was that its activities reportedly included assassination attempts on French Premier Charles De Gaulle. Which would make sense since the founding member of Permindex, Ferenc Nagy, was a close friend of Jacques Soustelle. Soustelle was a leader of the OAS, a group of former French officers who broke with De Gaulle over his Algerian policy. They later made several attempts on De Gaulle’s life, which the CIA was privy to. Again, this mysterious source of funding, plus the rightwing, neo-Fascist directors created another wave of controversy. One newspaper wrote that the organization may have been “a creature of the CIA . . . set up as a cove for the transfer of CIA . . . funds in Italy for legal political-espionage activities.” The Schroder connection would certainly suggest that. . . .
His involvement with Permindex places him in the transnational corporate milieu that spawned fascism and Nazism. Key observations about Permindex and Shaw’s participation in it:
1.–Shaw was part of the deep political orbit of the Dulles brothers and Sullivan & Cromwell.
2.–The Permindex operational link to the Schroder Bank places it in the same milieu as the Himmler Kreis, the industrialists and financiers who financed the workings of the SS through an account in the Schroder Bank.
3.–Shaw was a friend of Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schacht, who became the finance minister of the Third Reich and was very close to the Dulles brothers.
4.–Permindex was apparently involved with the OAS efforts to assassinate De Gaulle. This places Shaw in a network including: Banister investigator Maurice Brooks Gatlin, who boasted of having transferred money to the OAS from the CIA; Rene Souetre–an OAS operative who was expelled from Dallas/Ft. Worth the day of the assassination of JFK.
5.–As discussed in FTR #‘s 1031 and 1032, JFK was an early critic of the French policy in Algeria, criticizing it on the floor of the Senate in 1957.
The conclusion of the broadcast focuses largely on the CIA’s intense interest in the Garrison investigation. This interest was manifested through an agency conclave informally named “The Garrison Group.”
“Destiny Betrayed” by Jim DiEugenio; Skyhorse Publishing [SC]; Copyright 1992, 2012 by Jim DiEugenio; ISBN 978–1‑62087–056‑3; p. 270.
. . . . Helms wanted the group to “consider the possible implications for the Agency” of what Garrison was doing in “New Orleans before, during, and after the trial of Clay Shaw. It is crucial to keep in mind the phrase: before, during, and after. As we will see, the effective administrator Helms was thinking not just of some short term fix, but of formulating a strategy for the long haul. According to the very sketchy memo about this meeting, [CIA General Counsel Lawrence] Houston discussed his dealings with the Justice Department and the desire of Shaw’s defense to meet with the CIA directly. [Ray] Rocca then said something quite ominous. He said that he felt “that Garrison would indeed obtain a conviction of Shaw for conspiring to assassinate President Kennedy.” This must have had some impact on the meeting. Since everyone must have known that Rocca had developed, by bar, the largest database on Garrison’s inquiry at CIA. . . .
We note that House Select Committee on Assassinations assistant counsel Jonathan Blackmer wrote the following:
“Destiny Betrayed” by Jim DiEugenio; Skyhorse Publishing [SC]; Copyright 1992, 2012 by Jim DiEugenio; ISBN 978–1‑62087–056‑3; p. 332.
. . . . “We have reason to believe Shaw was heavily involved in the Anti-Castro efforts in New Orleans in the 1960s and [was] possibly one of the high level planners or ‘cut out’ to the planners of the assassination.” . . . .
The program concludes with analysis of Clay Shaw’s close relationship to the Stern family of WDSU. In addition to carrying staged interviews between Oswald and Carlos Bringuier, the broadcast outlet pilloried Jim Garrison and his trial of Clay Shaw.
This is the eleventh of a planned long series of interviews with Jim DiEugenio about his triumphal analysis of President Kennedy’s assassination and New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison’s heroic investigation of the killing.
In this broadcast, we explore the association of David Ferrie and Clay Shaw in the context of the planning of assassination plots against JFK, as well as Shaw’s involvement with the intelligence community.
NB: In our previous interview, Mr. Emory mistakenly linked “The Bomb” to Clay Shaw and to a plot to assassinate JFK. Shaw was, according to credible testimony involved with Ferrie in another, probably connected, association to discuss killing Kennedy.
David Ferrie had a desk in the office of C. Wray Gill, a lawyer for Carlos Marcello. When another of Gill’s clients–a woman named Clara Gay–was in the office, she witnessed another Ferrie assassination schematic on November 26, 1963:
Destiny Betrayed by Jim DiEugenio; Skyhorse publishing [SC]; Copyright 1992, 2012 by Jim DiEugenio; ISBN 978–1‑62087–056‑3; p. 217.
. . . . Clara looked over at Ferrie’s desk and she saw what looked like a diagram of Dealey Plaza: it was a drawing of a car from the perspective of an angle from above, the car was surrounded by high buildings, reminiscent of Dealey Plaza. After the secretary threw it out, Clara retrieved it. She said it should be given to the FBI or Secret Service. The secretary took it back and a pulling contest ensued. The secretary eventually won, but not before Clara saw the words “Elm Street” on the diagram. She later reconstructed this experience for Garrison. She said she came forward because she considered herself a good citizen, and Ferrie must have been something evil . . . .
After discussion of the Ferrie Dealey Plaza assassination schematic, the discussion turns to a conversation witnessed by Perry Russo, one of Garrison’s most important witnesses.
Key points of information about what Russo witnessed:
1.–Present at the meeting where the discussion took place were: Clay Shaw, David Ferrie, Lee Harvey Oswald and several Cubans.
2.–Shaw was using one of his most common aliases–“Clay Bertrand.”
3.–Ferrie became increasingly agitated and highlighted “triangulation of crossfire” as necessary to assure a kill shot on Kennedy.
4.–Ferrie and Shaw discussed the necessity of being somewhere else, to give themselves “cover.” This led Russo to conclude that the plans were concrete not theoretical.
5.–Ferrie said he would be in Hammond, LA., on the campus of Southeastern Louisiana. He was, in fact, there on the day of the assassination.
6.–Shaw said that he would be on the West Coast. He was, in fact, at the San Francisco Trade Mart, where he was to give a talk. When news of of the assassination reached Shaw and his host, Shaw seemed remarkably detached. When asked if he thought the talk should go forward in light of the news, Shaw said yes. This struck those around him at that time as curious.
The issue of Shaw’s aliases is an important one. The day after the assassination of JFK, New Orleans attorney Dean Andrews got a call from “Clay Bertrand,” requesting that he represent Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas. Andrews had previously encountered Shaw using the same alias when seeking legal representation for some gay Latinos.
Key aspects of Andrews’ contact with Shaw/Bertrand:
1.–Andrews feared for his life if this came to light. He claimed to have been told, after calling Washington D.C., that he might get a bullet in the head if he talked.
2.–After Andrews changed his testimony, Garrison charged him with perjury, eventually gaining a conviction.
3.–Andrews’ statements about Shaw/Bertrand were bolstered by someone at the VIP lounge at the Eastern Airlines terminal at New Orleans airport, who knew Shaw to sign in under that alias.
4.–Numerous people in bars and bistros–particularly in the French Quarter–knew that Shaw used that alias. Because of Garrison’s crackdown on organized crime-related operations in New Orleans, his potential informants remained silent.
When being booked, Shaw actually stated that he used the alias “Clay Bertrand.”
Shaw was booked by a New Orleans police officer named Aloysius Habighorst–who had an excellent record. When being booked, Shaw stated that he used the alias “Clay Shaw.” Before testifying at Shaw’s trial, Habighorst’s car was rammed by a yellow truck, and he was injured.
At Shaw’s trial, Judge Haggerty refused to admit Shaw’s admitted alias as evidence.
The concluding portion of the broadcast deals with Clay Shaw’s intelligence connections. Key points of information in that regard:
1.–Shaw’s intelligence connections date to World War II, when he worked as a aide-de-camp to General Charles Thrasher. This placed him in the Special Operations Section, a branch of military intelligence and one which was involved with recruiting some of the Paperclip personnel to work for the U.S.
2.–After the war, he became involved with International House, a Rockefeller-linked operation deeply involved with the transnational corporate community.
3.–His work for the International Trade Mart followed logically on the heels of his work for International House.
4.–Shaw also worked with the Mississippi Shipping Company, which did a lot of work with the CIA.
5.–His “Y” file indicated that Shaw’s work for CIA involved conferring with the agency before traveling to Latin America, not after he returned as was the case for most informants.
6.–At least one of Shaw’s files with the CIA was destroyed.
One of the most important elements of Shaw’s intelligence career was uncovered by researcher Peter Vea, whose disclosures were supplemented by some interesting commentary by Victor Marchetti.
Destiny Betrayed by Jim DiEugenio; Skyhorse publishing [SC]; Copyright 1992, 2012 by Jim DiEugenio; ISBN 978–1‑62087–056‑3; p. 385.
. . . . Peter Vea discovered a very important document while at the National Archives in 1994. Attached to a listing of Shaw’s numerous contacts with the Domestic Contact service, a listing was attached which stated that Shaw had a covert security approval in the Project QKENCHANT. This was in 1967 and the present tense was used, meaning that Shaw was an active covert operator for the CIA while Garrison was investigating him. When William Davy took this document to former CIA officer Victor Marchetti, an interesting conversation ensued. As Marchetti looked at the document, he said, “That’s interesting . . . . He was . . . He was doing something there.” He then said that Shaw would not need a covert security clearance for domestic contacts service. He then added, “This was something else. This would imply that he was doing some kind of work for the Clandestine Services.” When Davy asked what branch of Clandestine Services would that be, Marchetti replied, “The DOD (Domestic Operations Division). It was one of the most secret divisions within the Clandestine Services. This was Tracey Barnes’s old outfit. They were getting into things . . . Uh . . . exactly what, I don’t know. But they were getting into some pretty risky areas. And this is what E. Howard Hunt was working for at the time.” And in fact, Howard Hunt did have such a covert clearance issued to him in 1970 while he was working at the White House. . . .
The tenth of a planned long series of interviews with Jim DiEugenio about his triumphal analysis of President Kennedy’s assassination and New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison’s heroic investigation of the killing.
In this broadcast, we delve into operational links between U.S. intelligence agent David Ferrie–the first target of Garrison’s investigation–and Clay Shaw, who was tried by Garrison.
One of the operations in which Ferrie and Shaw participated was an effort to bolster Freeport Sulphur.
Destiny Betrayed by Jim DiEugenio; Skyhorse publishing [SC]; Copyright 1992, 2012 by Jim DiEugenio; ISBN 978–1‑62087–056‑3; pp. 208–209.
. . . . In Chapter 1, the author introduced Freeport Sulphur and its subsidiaries Moa Bay Mining and Nicaro Nickel. These companies all had large investments in Cuba prior to Castro’s revolution. And this ended up being one of the ways that Garrison connected Clay Shaw and David Ferrie. This came about for two reasons. First, with Castro taking over their operations in Cuba, Freeport was attempting to investigate bringing in nickel ore from Cuba, through Canada, which still had trade relations with Cuba. The ore would then be refined in Louisiana, either at a plant already in New Orleans or at another plant in Braithwaite. Shaw, an impressario of international trade, was on this exploratory team for Freeport. And he and two other men had been flown to Canada by Ferrie as part of this effort. More evidence of this connection through Freeport was found during their investigation of Guy Banister. Banister apparently knew about another flight taken by Shaw with an official of Freeport, likely Charles Wight, to Cuba. Again the pilot was David Ferrie. Another reason this Freeport connection was important to Garrison is that he found a witness named James Plaine in Houston who said that Mr. Wight of Freeport Sulphur had contacted him in regards to an assassination plot against Castro. Considering the amount of money Freeport was about to lose in Cuba, plus the number of Eastern Establishment luminaries associated with the company–such as Jock Whitney, Jean Mauze and Godfrey Rockefeller–it is not surprising that such a thing was contemplated within their ranks. . . .
One of the most important, compelling links between Ferrie and Shaw was their appearance with Lee Harvey Oswald in Clinton, Louisiana. Key points of information about this event:
1.–The three men–Ferrie, Shaw and Oswald–were in Clinton to register Oswald to vote.
2.–In the event, their arrival placed them in the middle of a large voter-registration drive for local African-Americans, part of the civil rights movement of the early ’60’s.
3.–The three men were very conspicuous at this event, not only because of their race, but because the large, black Cadillac driven by Shaw attracted considerable attention.
4.–Many of those in attendance at the voter registration drive, as well as the local sheriff, identified the three men.
5.–Ferrie, in particular, manifested a striking appearance. He was afflicted with an ailment that caused all of the hair on his body that to fall out. To cover up his affliction, Ferrie wore a garish red wig and matching, penciled-on eyebrows.
6.–Oswald was apparently at the voter registration event to register to vote in that area, in order to gain employment at the nearby East Louisiana State Hospital, an institution with strong links to Tulane Medical Center and Alton Ochsner, as well as to the MK Ultra experiments going on at that time.
7.–Two people Oswald apparently cited as references were Malcolm Pierson and Frank Silva. Not only did both men work at the hospital, but they both had interesting CV’s.
Of the back grounds of Pierson and Silva, Jim writes:
Destiny Betrayed by Jim DiEugenio; Skyhorse publishing [SC]; Copyright 1992, 2012 by Jim DiEugenio; ISBN 978–1‑62087–056‑3; p. 93.
. . . . The obvious question then becomes: How did Oswald know the names of these men? Or if he did not, how did Shaw or Ferrie know them? One possibility is this: According to Cuban intelligence, Silva was active in the anti-Castro cause in the New Orleans area. Silva was Cuban-born and from an upper-class family. He was actually associated with Tulane Medical Center at the time. Tulane was located in New Orleans. Dr. Alton Ochsner, who was on the board of, and Chief of Surgery at, Tulane Medical School, was a friend of both Shaw and Banister. In fact, at the New Orleans Public Library, there is a photo of Shaw sitting at a small table with Ochsner.
Another way that Oswald could have known these names was through a mutual acquaintance of Shaw and Ferrie, Sergio Arcacha Smith. Both Cuban intelligence and Garrison’s investigators discovered that there was a connection between the two Cuban refugees. Dr. Robert Heath, Chairman of Tulane University Medical School’s Department of Neurology and Psychiatry, became infamous for using LSD and electrode implantation in his research. Many of the people he worked on came from East Louisiana State Hospital, where an entire ward was dedicated to his work. East doctor Alfred Butterworth (whom this author interviewed shortly before his death) told the author that he had seen both Ochsner and Silva while he was there. Butterworth also revealed that Tulane University had a special psychiatric unit at the hospital, where they secretly administered LSD. This is important background to the following information. During his inquiry, Jim Garrison came across a witness who had attended a gathering at Dr. Heath’s home. Thee, the following event occurred: Dr. Silva introduced the man to the former local representative of Howard Hunt’s CRC, Sergio Arcacha Smith. Pierson was a former narcotics offender, who, according to HSCA subpoenaed records, listed Silva as a reference in his job application. It is hard to believe that, left to his own devices, Oswald would have known that either of these men worked at the hospital. If either of these more logical options is accurate, it gives the incident even more scope and depth. . . .
The program concludes with discussion of what a Garrison investigator called “The Bomb”–an apparent plan, with detailed schematics, to assassinate JFK. NB: Mr. Emory mistakenly links Clay Shaw to “The Bomb.” Shaw was, according to credible testimony involved with Ferrie in another, probably connected, association to discuss killing Kennedy.
“The Bomb” will be analyzed at the beginning of our next interview.
The ninth of a planned long series of interviews with Jim DiEugenio about his triumphal analysis of President Kennedy’s assassination and New Orleans DA Jim Garrison’s heroic investigation of the killing.
In this interview, we proceed into the substance of New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison’s investigation into the JFK assassination. Garrison’s inquiry began immediately after the assassination when former Guy Banister investigator Jack Martin gave information to him about one of his cronies in the “detective agency.”
David Ferrie was a veteran intelligence officer with a long CV. Ferrie’s intelligence resume and behavior with regard the JFK assassination includes:
1.–His work with a Civil Air Patrol unit that included Lee Harvey Oswald, as well as Barry Seal, another future CIA operative who became a major player in the Iran-Contra drug traffic.
2.–Ferrie’s CAP unit’s profound relationship with the military, permitting his unit to operate at Keesler Air Force Base in Mississippi and to fly on military aircraft. This indicates strong gravitas on Ferrie’s part within the national security establishment.
3.–His strange trip to Texas on the day of the assassination, driving all night through a heavy rainstorm to–take your pick–go ice skating and/or go goose hunting. The manager of the skating rink stated that Ferrie did not go ice skating but stayed by a pay phone all of the time he spent there. His companions stated that they did not bring guns on the trip. Ferrie spent his time in Galveston (a Texas port city) in a hotel overlooking the sea.
4.–Ferrie marketing his untenable ice skating/goose hunting story to the FBI–an act of perjury on his part.
5.–Ferrie also stated that he didn’t know how to fire a rifle, a claim fundamentally at odds with Ferrie’s work as a paramilitary commando trainer at the CIA camps at LaCombe, Louisiana.
6.–Immediately after the assassination, Ferrie frantically sought to recover any photographs of him with Lee Harvey Oswald in his CAP unit.
7.–Immediately after the assassination, Ferrie worried that his library card might be in Oswald’s possession. Oswald knew about “microdots,” a technique developed by German intelligence in World War II permitting the reduction of an intelligence communication to microscopic size, thus enabling its insertion into a period or comma in a sentence. Some researchers have opined that the library card may have involved some use of microdot technology in the Ferrie/Oswald intelligence relationship.
8.–Ferrie, Oswald and Guy Banister were all deeply involved with the CIA’s anti-Castro Cuban effort in New Orleans. Banister’s office was a front for many of the weapons used by Ferrie and company at the LaCombe camp and other facilities. As discussed previously, Oswald’s one man Fair Play For Cuba Committee (New Orleans chapter) was housed in the same Newman building that housed Banister’s operation.
9.–Ferrie had operational connections with both Eladio Del Valle and Sergio Arcacha Smith, two of the CIA’s primary anti-Castro Cuban operatives.
10.–Against the background of JFK’s Cuban policy, including JFK’s actions vis a vis the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban Missile Crisis, his impending diplomatic rapprochement with Castro and the Justice Department’s closing down of the LaCombe camp and others like it, Ferrie began making increasingly violent statements about JFK.
11.–Ferrie began openly talking about killing Kennedy. His violent anti-JFK statements were one of the reasons he was dismissed from Eastern Airlines, for whom he worked as a pilot.
Destiny Betrayed by Jim DiEugenio; Skyhorse publishing [SC]; Copyright 1992, 2012 by Jim DiEugenio; ISBN 978–1‑62087–056‑3; p. 116.
. . . . As Mongoose began to dwindle down, Ferrie, and others, now grew even more resentful of Kennedy. For the first time, Ferrie mentioned to a young protege a design to do away with JFK. But he never included himself in the plans. He talked about it in the second or third person. Sometimes, he went further and said that Kennedy “ought to be shot.” This was also echoed by Guy Banister who had been a CIA conduit of funds for the training camps. In 1963, Banister bitterly complained to a colleague that “someone should do away with Kennedy.” Banister’s fascist ideology was conducive to such things. . . .
After Garrison indicted him, Ferrie began publicly attacking Garrison’s credibility, ridiculing any notion of his own guilt in the assassination. In private, Ferrie began expressing fear for his life. As it developed, Ferrie’s fears were well founded. His naked corpse was found in his apartment, allegedly felled by a berry aneurism at the base of his brain. A sheet was pulled up over his face, and there were two typed suicide notes, with his name typed, not signed.
There are a number of considerations in connection with Ferrie’s death:
1.–If his death was natural, why were there two typed suicide notes?
2.–If it was suicide, how did he die?
3.–There were marks in Ferrie’s mouth, clearly revealed in autopsy photos. Might they have indicated that drugs been forced down his throat? Ferrie had been taking proloid, which might well have produced the lethal reaction Ferrie experienced in the event of an overdose. He had ordered thyroid pills, which were gone when his body was discovered.
4.–Journalist George Lardner had interviewed Ferrie, and claims he was with Ferrie until 4am, the last possible time that Ferrie’s death could have occurred. If Lardner was right, the killers must have entered within minutes of his departure.
5.–Decades later, Lardner, working for the CIA-linked Washington Post, went to Dallas to shadow Oliver Stone’s filming of “JFK,” based on Garrison’s book On the Trail of the Assassins. Lardner then wrote a hit piece on Stone’s film before it was released.
The contents of Ferrie’s apartment were unusual. Recall that he had stated that he didn’t know how to fire a rifle.
Destiny Betrayed by Jim DiEugenio; Skyhorse publishing [SC]; Copyright 1992, 2012 by Jim DiEugenio; ISBN 978–1‑62087–056‑3; p. 225.
. . . . The contents of Ferrie’s apartment at the time of his death were unusual for a private investigator. They included a blue, 100-pound aerial bomb, a Springfield private investigator. They included a blue, 100-pound aerial bomb, a Springfield rifle, a Remington rifle, an altered-stock, .22 rifle, 20 shotgun shells, two Army Signal Corps telephones, one bayonet, one flare gun, a radio transmitter unit, a radio receiver unit, 32 rifle cartridges, 22 blanks, several cameras, and three rolls of film. . . .
Shortly after Ferrie’s death, his close associate Eladio Del Valle was found murdered, near the apartment of Bernardo De Torres, Bay of Pigs veteran and U.S. intelligence veteran. Del Valle had been tortured, shot through the heart and his head had been split open with a machete.
The eighth of a planned long series of interviews with Jim DiEugenio about his triumphal analysis of President Kennedy’s assassination and New Orleans DA Jim Garrison’s heroic investigation of the killing, this program continues analysis of the development of the legend (intelligence cover) of Lee Harvey Oswald.
(Listeners can order Destiny Betrayed and Jim’s other books, as well as supplementing those volumes with articles about this country’s political assassinations at his website Kennedys and King. Jim is also a regular guest and expert commentator on Black Op Radio.)
The discussion begins with review of the deep state intelligence connections of Ruth and Michael Paine, who took over the handling of the Oswalds from George De Mohrenschildt:
1. Michael Paine was a Cabot and drew from trust funds bequeathed by both the Cabot and Forbes families, both members of the “Boston Brahmins.” His mother was Ruth Forbes Young.
2. Michael’s cousin Thomas Cabot was a director United Fruit.
3. Thomas’s brother John was–like Thomas–a State Department veteran, who was exchanging information with Guy Banister employee Maurice Brooks Gatlin about the impending CIA overthrow of Guatemalan president Jacobo Arbenz, who was pursuing policies detrimental to United Fruit’s feudal monopoly in that unfortunate nation.
4. During the early sixties, Thomas was president of the Gibraltar Steamship Company, a Honduran-based front that owned no ships but operated Radio Swan, a CIA radio station used in the Bay of Pigs, among other operations.
5. Before relocating to the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, Michael Paine had worked for the Franklin Institute, a CIA conduit.
6. Michael Paine also was apparently posing as a leftist to infiltrate and catalog, Castro sympathizers, not unlike the work Guy Banister was doing in New Orleans in conjunction with, among others, Lee Harvey Oswald.
7. His step father was Arthur Young, married to Ruth Forbes Young. Arthur Young was a devotee of “The Nine” and became a major figure at Bell Helicopter. Arthur got Michael a job at Bell.
8. Ruth Forbes Young was best friend with Mary Bancroft, Allen Dulles’s subordinate and long-time mistress while he worked for OSS, America’s World War II intelligence service.
9. Ruth Paine’s father was William Avery Hyde, an insurance executive who had worked for the OSS in World War II and later went to work for the Agency for International Development, a frequent CIA cover.
10. Ruth’s father, like George De Mohrenschildt, worked for the International Cooperative Alliance.
11. In the summer of 1963, Ruth traveled cross-country and visited her sister Sylvia Hyde Hoke, who was a CIA psychologist.
12. Sylvia’s husband John Hoke also worked for the Agency for International Development.
13. In the 1980s, Ruth Paine was apparently infiltrating and cataloging anti-“Contra” activists with regard to the attempts at overthrowing the Sandinista forces in Nicaragua.
The Paines–Ruth in particular–played a decisive role in the shaping of the circumstances leading to Lee being framed for the JFK assassination.
Among the operations performed by the Paines:
1. Ruth separated Lee and Marina, bringing a pregnant Marina back to Dallas while Lee was in New Orleans and then facilitating Lee’s stay at a rooming house after he returned to Dallas.
2. Ruth got Lee his job at the Texas School Book Depository, despite the fact that Lee had actually received a better job offer. It was Lee’s employment at the TBSD that was the foundation for framing him for the assassination.
3. Ruth may well have been the person who got the phone call communicating the better-paying job offer to Lee. It does not appear that she told Lee about the offer.
The disinformation used to frame Oswald for the assassination stemmed in considerable measure from what we might call “Ruth Paine’s garage sale.”
Many of Oswald’s effects were stored in Ruth Paine’s garage after his return to Dallas from New Orleans. Ruth Paine’s garage eventually yielded:
1. The ludicrous picture of “Oswald” posing with two Communist magazines and the weapons he supposedly used to kill JFK and Dallas Police officer J.D. Tippitt. The shadows under “Oswald’s” chin and behind his body go in different directions, indicating that Oswald’s head had been superimposed on the body posed for the picture. In addition, “Oswald’s” body tilts in a ludicrous fashion. (See the photo at right.) This photo did much to convince a naive public that Oswald had been the assassin.
2. The cameras found in Ruth Paine’s garage were not consistent with the film used to take the “Leaning Tower of Oswald” photograph.
3. Ruth Paine’s garage sale yielded the “evidence” that Oswald–who supposedly killed a liberal President–had also tried to kill the right-wing General Walker. This included an apparently forged note incriminating Oswald, which had neither Lee’s nor Marina’s fingerprints on it.. This was spun in such a way as to neuter any notion that Oswald was a politically motivated killer. In this program, Jim recapitulates some of the facts that negate the hypothesis that Oswald fired at Walker, including eyewitness accounts of two men firing and driving away (Oswald didn’t drive), the fact that the marksmanship required to hit a seated Walker would have been far less difficult than the matchless firing skill required to have done what Oswald had allegedly done in Dallas and discrepancies in the ballistics and munition evidence in the Walker shooting.
4. A silver bracelet supposedly purchased by Oswald in Mexico City which provides supporting “physical evidence” of Oswald’s alleged presence in the important Mexico City visit.
5. There was a package found in Ruth Paine’s garage, addressed to Oswald and from George Bouhe, one of the White Russians involved with the handling of the Oswalds in the Dallas area. There was an address sticker pasted on the package, and yet the FBI made no effort to determine the address under the sticker. Why? Furthermore, the package contained wrapping paper consistent with the paper the Warren Commission said Oswald used to bring the Mannlicher/Carchano into the Texas School Book Depository. Had Oswald opened the picture and handled the paper, he would have left fingerprints which would have corroborated the official cover-up.
6. In the context of the previous item, it is noteworthy that George Bouhe lived next door to, and shared a swimming pool with, Jack Ruby!
Next, the program pivots to New Orleans DA Jim Garrison and his investigation of the JFK assassination.
One of the calumnies used to discredit Garrison is the allegation that he engaged in his investigation of David Ferrie, Clay Shaw et al in order to further his career–that he was ambitious. And yet, as Jim notes, Garrison TURNED DOWN opportunities to become Lieutenant Governor (of Louisiana), Attorney General, a Senator and also to acquire lucrative banking interests. All of those goals were forsaken so that Garrison could pursue his investigative career, including and especially the JFK assassination.
Another lie that has been used to discredit Garrison is the allegation that he highlighted the CIA’s role in the JFK assassination in order to eclipse the Mafia’s role in it and, in so doing, protect what are said to be his Mob associates.
Destiny Betrayed destroys that allegation as well, chronicling the fact that Garrison vigorously prosecuted organized crime figures in New Orleans and was known to have factored Mob participation in the JFK assassination in his investigation.
Mr. Emory read into the record a passage which not only refutes the Mafia smearing of Jim Garrison, but provides an interesting peek into the account of the trial to come. After noting racketeer influence on judges who had obstructed Jim Garrison’s activities, Jim writes:
Destiny Betrayed by Jim DiEugenio; Skyhorse publishing [SC]; Copyright 1992, 2012 by Jim DiEugenio; ISBN 978–1‑62087–056‑3; p. 171.
. . . . The insinuation about racketeer influences had some underpinning. Two of Garrison’s assistants had drinks with one of the judges, Judge Haggerty, who would preside over the Clay Shaw trial. Haggerty introduced them to Francis Giordano. Giordano was a Carlos Marcello associate. He complained to them that when Dowling took away their illegal gaming machines, he returned them. Garrison did not. “How Come,” Giordano asked? . . . .