Haslam-Baker Dr. Mary's Monkey

[Jack White]

In Garrison's interview in Playboy, I think he says the Sherman case was unsolved. And he implies that there was a shroud of mystery and secrecy around it.

Haslam shows in his book that this was certainly the case. THe investigation was shut down, the public announcements were turned off, and then the veil of secrecy descended. This is after the first reports in the press called it a murder. This was based on repeated stab wounds.

Ed had to go through a real obstacle course to get the autopsy report. Which is interesting as hell. It was kept under wraps for something like three decades.

The final police report on her death was not composed until ten weeks later. Then there was a supplementary report five days after that.

As per the mice in cages, Nicky Chetta, the coroner's son said his father saw them also. (Halsam, p. 46)

Now please note the difference here between what Chetta and Garrison said they smelled and saw vs what Baker says Ferrie was into.

Jim...since you believe Haslam, do you also support Baker?

Jack

[Stephen Roy]

Jim DiEugenio:

Sometimes people of roughly equivalent experience in a field can agree on many things, but disagree on a few others. I agree with much you have to say, but respectfully disagree on a few points.

In the broadest sense, I strongly disagree with you on the Haslam thesis. He raises questions in his books but fails to provide any verifiable evidence that Ferrie knew Sherman, that they were engaged in a project together, that some of it took place in his apartment, and that it was a government project. If I am missing such evidence in his books, I would stand corrected.

On the research mice (in the Louisiana Avenue Parkway apartment), I simply cannot find any person who ever saw them or any other evidence to support it. Faced with the conflict between what people who knew Ferrie said and what Garrison said, I can only speculate. The Gurvich memo to Garrison is what it is. He said that he investigated a theft involving a friend of Ferrie (Mike Wakeling) in 1957 (at a different Ferrie home), he saw mice in cages, and Ferrie said he was looking for a cure for cancer.

I have communicated with many who knew Ferrie. Some were friends, but some were acquaintances, some who liked Ferrie and some who did not. I am savvy enough to distinguish between self-interest and useful information. I'm not sure why or how people who knew Ferrie might all be telling similar false stories after all these years.

On the aftermath of Ferrie's death, should I disregard the contemporaneous police and coroner's reports, the photos (which I can see with my own eyes) and the recollections of the officers and others, in favor of what Haslam says Chetta's son says his father told him?

I wouldn't jump the gun on the Sherman murder, either. There is a lot of unpublished information coming up on that matter.

Based on the evidence or lack therof, I simply cannot put my imprimatur on Haslam's main thesis. I guess we disagree on this.

Edited March 30, 2011 by Stephen Roy

[Stephen Roy]

On the Sherman investigation:

A 3 page report was submitted the day after the murder; A 4 page report was submitted the next day; for the next week, 1-3 page daily reports were submitted; and a supplementary report was submitted in October. How can there be a final report on an unsolved murder?

[Guest James H. Fetzer]

Jim,

In my opinion, this is an excellent post--you at your finest! I have long been troubled by Stephen Roy's practice of making sweeping claims while offering very little or even no evidence to substantiate them. He claims you cannot prove a negative, but you can prove there is no elephant in your living room by going there now and observing no elephant present and you can prove that not all ducks are white by observing a non-white duck. I think you are taking the right approach by looking for contemporaneous indications about Ferrie and Garrison's investigation. I also agree that Roy is too disposed to believe whatever he is told that offers even tenuous support for his claims. So I commend you for this. And, in relation to Michael Hogan, DR. MARY'S MONKEY is jam packed with documents, records, and photographs, just as is the case for ME & LEE. Both of them are exceptional in that regard as books intended for the general reader. Why he wants to deny something that obvious is beyond me.

Jim

First: Mike, Ed Haslam told me about his attempts to get in contact with his old girlfriend.

Second, Garrison mentions the mice in both his Playboy interview and the cages in his book. Its pretty clear that Garrison had decided to reinvestigate the Sherman murder when he discovered the things Ferrie was doing, plus the treatise he had in his posession. The treatise is kind of fascinating since Ferrie could not have written it. It was much too sophisticated.

So to say that somehow Garrison screwed up a document pertaining to 1957, with 1967, is a real stretch. And what Stephen actually means by this is elusive: I mean did Gurvich know Ferrie in 1957? Or is the source for the year 1957, Ferrie himself.

Further, to say that Gurvich is controversial is an understatement. There is little doubt in most objective minds that Gurvich was an infiltrator in Garrison's camp, as so many others were. And from private sources I developed, there is little doubt at all he was CIA. Garrison came to look askance at everythigng he did afterwards, when he defected to Sheridan and Shaw's lawyers with munificent copies of Garrison's files. So if this is Ferrie filtered through Gurvich, the info is, to put it mildly, suspect.

I also find it odd that Stephen would beleive Ferrie's buddies. They have all been faithful to Ferrie and were all to eager to attack Garrison, especiailly when Sheridan and Aynseworth came in and swooped up people like Layton Martens and Al Beabouf. I mean all you have to do is look at what they told Gus Russo for his pathetic book.

Speaking of which, Russo covered up one of Ed's most powerful discoveries which showed why these guys could not be trusted: When the secret war against the Contras began in the eighties, Martens and Butler joined up forces for local rightwing talk radio in support of it. Ed did some PR for them and discovered that Butler had boxes of Guy Banister's files in his office. Interesting to speculate how he got them and if he shipped them to California when he learned Garrison was on his and Ochsner's trail in 1968.

Finally Chetta's son is also on record here. I find Chetta much more credible than the police department who, as Garrison said, he did not have a brotherly relationship with due to his crackdown on their kickbacks in the French Quarter B girl scandals. In fact, you can see this in how Garrison went over them and he requested State Trooper help from McKeithen, and also how the city police helped Shaw's lawyers during Shaw's trial.

Stephen's reliance on these kinds of sources worries me. If you go all the way with these people then why not go into Shaw's lawyer's records and offices? There you will learn things like Garrison never tried a case when he was an assistant DA and the CIA never helped Shaw's defense. These are both provable lies. But this is what his lawyers told me. You will also hear the same from Ferrie's buddies, and Russo printed it.

[Stephen Roy]

Jim Fetzer, with whom I battled some months back, is entitled to believe what he wants. I still don't think Haslam provides evidence for the most basic claims of his book: That Ferrie knew Sherman, worked on a project with her, that it took place (in part, at least) in his apartment, and that it was a government project. None of the "documents, records and photographs" go to these claims.

[David McLean]

Having just read Me and Lee and re-read Dr. Mary's Monkey, it is apparent that both books begin with first person recollections, in the nature of sworn testimony, and in Judyth's case virtual diary entries. Their critics on the other hand rely on what can only be described as hearsay, supported at times by some documentation, but hearsay nonetheless. Having spent a lunch-hour with Ed Haslam at the Lawrence in Dallas in November 2009, it appeared to me his overriding motive was to answer questions about his own and his father's direct experiences in and around Tulane and the whole monkey business. No more, no less. As Judyth Vary Baker, her antecedents in cancer research preceed and recommend her, as Stephen Roy "stipulates". One must doubt she moved to NO to work at Reilys and the benefit of that doubt supports her presence in NO to do cancer research under Dr Mary Sherman and go to Tulane Medical School as promised by Alton Ochsner. Her book is emotional but irrefutably her story of personal and national tragedy-an epidemic of increasing disease and undiscovered cures and incidentally the death of her president. What did bother me about Me and Lee was her cavalier dismissal of the implications of John Armstrong's well-documented work re Harvey/Lee, Harvey'spossible Hungarian background, Lee's driving and marksmanship.

[David McLean]

Some more observations on Dr. Mary's Monkey and Me + Lee I would like to share-

To do research on SV-40 mutations thereof either to cleanup the Salk/Sabin vaccine or build a bioweapon, required just such a team of plausibly deniable expendables as Dave Ferrie, Lee Oswald and Judyth Vary Baker, the insertion of Dr Mary Sherman is made possible with JVB as an unwitting cutout;

The circular network of labs with 3225 to house the infected mice, 3330 La Ave Parkway to kill, dissect tumours and dispose dead mice(all in one day),Dr Mary's for microscope work, the US Public Health Service accelerator to enhance (or render harmless) the cancers, and back to 3225 to reinfect new mice-sound tradecraft;

Judyth's discussion of 4905 and 4907 Magazine Street makes sense+seems to be coroborated by the Jose Rivera/Adele

Edisen story, especially Dr Rivera's NIH and bioweapon links and his firsthand knowledge of NO;

Overlapping concentic circles of conspiracy seem to provide both necessary and sufficient conditions to explain known events-e.g LBJ-Murchison-Ochsner, Ochsner-INCA-Somoza, Oswald-Bannister-Cubans, DRE-Joannides-Phillips-Oswald,

Ruby-Oswald-Marcello-CIA.

On the other hand I find JVB's description of Dave Ferrie's relationship with the lovers unconvincing, as is her rationale motivating her and Dr Mary Sherman to build a bioweapon to kill Castro to save Kennedy. Ed Haslam's final speculation that LHO's secret sponsor was RFK is intriguing and as with other aspects of these two stories, make plausible things often denied, and not merely by Lone Nutters. Finally Jydth's description of the trip to the Hospital to confirm the condition of the "volunteer" on August 31 and events to a last phone call on November 20,seem

less solid than her account preceding that date.

[Michael Hogan]

Jim, let me begin by saying I appreciate your many valuable contributions to the EF. My comments below are not meant to be contentious. During the long course of the JVB threads, I had great difficulty in getting Jim Fetzer to answer any of my questions about Haslam's book. So please take my comments in the spirit in which they were intended.

Mike:

I can't answer your question about why Ed did not include the thing about his girlfriend in his book. IMO he should have.

Certainly Haslam should have mentioned attempts to contact his ex-girl friend. The party was one of the make or break aspects

of Haslam's book, and he should have attempted to obtain corroboration. Why do you think Haslam made no attempt to contact

classmates that attended that party? As I wrote, Jim Fetzer recently asked Haslam if he ever made an attempt to locate

people that were at the party. Haslam blew the question off with a glib, condescending and nonsensical single sentence.

There was a perfect opportunity for Haslam to mention his attempt to contact his ex-girlfriend. Fetzer's lack of a follow-up

question smacked of collegiality.

I don' t know if it was actually RFK who called Chetta. It may have been an assistant. But with what we know about RFK and his brother's murder through Talbot, I don't doubt it.

If Chetta Jr is on record, why is there ambiguity as to whether it was RFK or an assistant? Why didn't Haslam cite the record in his footnotes? Haslam reports it as Senator Kennedy himself, not an assistant.

The treatise I think is a key piece of evidence here. I mean, I didn't know how credible Garrison' s interview was about this until the great archives researcher Peter Vea discovered that. And the point is, Ferrie could not have written it.

Evidence of what? I don't understand what this has to do with what I wrote.

I thought my review of Ed's book was not an all out endorsement. What I said was that it is something that can never be fully solved. But Ed gave us the best alternative: a private citizen's own odyssey in trying to find out what happened to Mary Sherman. I thought his work on the particular aspect of the burnt part of her body was really important. And its something that the police obviously tried to cover up.

I didn't refer to it as an all out endorsement, I said I thought you gave Haslam too many passes. Your praise was effusive and your criticisms few and muted, in my opinion.

My questions about Haslam's book have not been about his research into Sherman's death.

I mean I give Ed credit for making a very provocative theory. I don't buy everything in it since we will never know since the authorities clearly did not want to pursue it. And Garrison began to suspect something much bigger later on. In this regard, I should add that Ochsner chaired a secret committee in New Orleans of the local Power Elite who ran their own operations and media barrages against JG.

To the best of my knowledge, I've never commented on Haslam's research on Mary Sherman or his research on Ochsner.

I've raised specific, certain questions about Haslam's research as it pertains directly to President Kennedy's murder.

Finally, anyone who knows me knows I do not buy Judy Baker. And this is why I pointed out the difference between what Garrison and Chetta reported vs. what she says happened.

I know you do not buy Judyth Baker. Not many rearchers do. So much of Haslam's provocative theory as you call it depends on her. Even Haslam admits this. And yet your review scarcely contained a sentence about Baker. This was your conclusion:

"On the negative side, I believe Haslam puts too much stock in Judyth Baker. And his epilogue about Oswald entitled "The Perfect Patsy", is both superfluous and shallow.

But outside of that, this is quite an interesting, well-organized, and crafted book. Because he was an ordinary citizen working many years after the actual crime, Haslam could not actually solve the mystery of the death of Mary Sherman. But what he has given us is the next best thing: a documented, insightful, and arresting alternative to the unsatisfactory, or missing, official story. Except in this case, that alternative may have huge implications down to the present day. His work deserves attention and accolades."

In essence Jim, in that long review, your comments about Haslam's treament of Baker are understated to the point of being unfair to the reader. Your critcal comments about his book took up all of two sentences.

Jim, at the risk of redundancy let me ask you:

1) If Haslam's ex-girlfriend wouldn't talk to him, why didn't he attempt to find some of the classmates that attended the party?

2) Do you believe Haslam's account of meeting a different Judyth Vary Baker and attending her party in 1972?

3) Do you believe Haslam presents compelling evidence of a linear particle accelerator located at the Children's Hospital?

4) Do you believe as Haslam does: Lou Ivon knows about the Ferrie/Sherman relationship?

When you met Haslam in 1992 he "made it clear to you that he was not all that interested in the JFK case." Things sure seemed to change after 60 Minutes made him aware of Judyth Baker.

[Pamela Brown]

Jim Fetzer, with whom I battled some months back, is entitled to believe what he wants. I still don't think Haslam provides evidence for the most basic claims of his book: That Ferrie knew Sherman, worked on a project with her, that it took place (in part, at least) in his apartment, and that it was a government project. None of the "documents, records and photographs" go to these claims.

With all due respect, in your view did Ferrie know anyone connected to the assassination?

[Stephen Roy]

Jim Fetzer, with whom I battled some months back, is entitled to believe what he wants. I still don't think Haslam provides evidence for the most basic claims of his book: That Ferrie knew Sherman, worked on a project with her, that it took place (in part, at least) in his apartment, and that it was a government project. None of the "documents, records and photographs" go to these claims.

With all due respect, in your view did Ferrie know anyone connected to the assassination?

It depends on who you define as "connected to the assassination." He had met Oswald, but some argue whether or not Oswald was connected to the assassination. He certainly knew people like Banister and Arcacha, Bringuier and Quiroga, but beyond them being involved in the opposition to Castro, it's harder to define a specific connection to the assassination for most of them.

Let me be blunt: This supposed Sherman connection started with one short reference in a Playboy interview. While no such evidence of an actual Ferrie-Sherman association has emerged from Garrison's files, or his former ADAs and investigators, or from any other verifiable source, Ed Haslam has presented it as fact, with no evidence to back it up. No evidence of such a relationship emerges in a Ferrie background investigation, or in a Sherman background investigation. I profoundly disagree with those who think such a relationship is supported by the evidence.

[Stephen Roy]

Baker has a new post up on Fetzer's blog, where she takes me to task. My reply was not accepted, so here is, first, her post, and next, my reply:

DAVID FERRIE: WHY HE IS IMPORTANT IN THE KENNEDY ASSASSINATION -- AND EFFORTS BEING MADE TO HIDE IT

Judyth Vary Baker

David made a joke about me and Mary Sherman and himself when we three met for the first time. “Dr. Mary, Dr. Ferrie, and Dr. Vary!” he laughed. He repeated “Mary, Ferrie and Vary” a few more times that summer. It was an example of Dave’s wit and affability.

Today, efforts are being made to erase all traces of David Ferrie as an active anti-Castro CIA asset in 1963 who knew many details about who killed John F. Kennedy, and why. Almost desperate means are being used on the Internet, in rigged computer re-enactments, and in media statements of “fact” to train the public to believe that Lee Harvey Oswald killed the president and that our government had nothing to do with it. Most of those who fight the truth emerged after the film "JFK" revived America’s attention concerning Lee Oswald’s innocence or guilt.

Hundreds of thousands of documents have been forced from government files since then. I have always said “Time is on my side” since I spoke out in 1999 that Lee tried to save Kennedy’s life. Today, we have Abraham Bolden and James Douglass and Douglas Horne and Edward T. Haslam and any number of other intrepid writers/witnesses who stand with me on that fact and others, that were initially mocked or discarded when I first asserted them.

The role of David Ferrie was important in the Kennedy assassination. Efforts to recreate David Ferrie into a dumbed-down version – one who never knew Lee Oswald or me – have been strenuous and persistent and ongoing to this day.

I KNEW DAVID WILLIAM FERRIE

Lee and I both thought it interesting that “David” was our favorite male name, while “William” was my father’s middle name and “Ferrie” rhymed with “Vary” (my maiden name). We saw it as a kind of confluence of coincidences – a confluence that extended broadly into our daily lives in other directions, as well. Certainly, David Ferrie was not someone who could easily be mistaken for anybody else.

David W. Ferrie is probably best known today through his portrayal by Joe Pesci in Oliver Stone’s film "JFK". Ferrie was taller and had a deeper voice, but Pesci did a good job of showing Ferrie’s level of high energy, his intelligence, and his feelings. I know, because I knew David Ferrie.

There are some people in New Orleans who knew him, too. One “Ferrie expert” claims that, since these men (most of whom were homosexuals) did not see me with Ferrie, therefore I am to be dismissed as a witness. As I pointed out long ago, when this was not a generally known fact, Ferrie was bisexual, though his proclivity to seduce teen-age boys is what’s best known about him – except for his sometimes alarming looks, due to how he tried to handle his alopecia problem. Alopecia is a hair loss condition that can be recurrent or permanent. The hair loss can extend to all parts of the body, including even eyelashes.

Dave didn’t lose all of his hair, but for all practical purposes, he was bald enough to need to wear a wig. I saw an old wig that was much smaller than the one he usually wore in 1963. I concluded from our talks that Dave had not one, but several bouts with alopecia, where some hair grew back again before he finally lost most of it. None of his wigs looked natural. As for his eyebrows, they did not exist: his “made up” eyebrows were thickly penciled in. On many occasions, bits of fuzz were carefully stuck on these drawn-on eyebrows in an attempt to look more natural. It was a futile attempt.

But appearances meant little to me compared to being in his presence and soaking up what he had to say. He was a true “Renaissance man” with considerable knowledge in a wide range of fields. His success for a considerable time in the role of leading and teaching teen-aged boys in the Civil Air Patrol deserves to be emphasized, since efforts have been made to downplay Dave’s charismatic qualities. A now-famous photo shows Ferrie and Lee Harvey Oswald in the same camp-out.

I wish to say without equivocation that Dave Ferrie would not have forgotten that Lee was in this small group, even if an incident had not occurred between them that at first soured, but eventually secured, their mutual respect and friendship.

Much has been said by anti-Oswald “Ferrie experts” that Ferrie was involved in CAP with over a thousand teen-aged boys and had not known him personally; David, of course, denied ever knowing Lee when questioned by authorities after the assassination. Moreover, Ferrie’s friends, in general, gave untrustworthy testimonies (and those who are alive probably still do) rather than have the whisper of suspicion that they might have been associated with somebody who could have been involved in a plot to kill the President. It is highly unlikely that any of Ferrie’s friends would ever change their stories and thus prove they had committed perjury or lied to government officials. They will stick to their original stories.

In my case, however, I am pledged to telling exactly what the situation was. I don’t care how many “Ferrie experts” come out of the woodwork declaring that Ferrie’s friends never saw any mice (which were used as subjects in our bio-weapon research), or never knew about the technical scientific research that Dave was conducting in 1963. I even remember quite clearly asking Dave, at the only party I attended at his apartment, “Where are the mice?”

“I don’t want anybody messing with my mice,” he replied.

He had moved them – probably a block down the street – where hundreds (perhaps thousands) of mice were being inoculated with a cancer-causing monkey virus that had been roasted with deadly radiation. I saw a “crusty old rat” that Dave had in his apartment the first few times I visited there. Later, I saw cages, too, housing about 50 mice. These mice were all white, with red eyes – lab mice – and they were quite young. They were actually being killed and replaced constantly but, since they all looked alike, nobody would have guessed.

Mr. Stephen Roy (who calls himself "David Blackburst" in the John McAdams’ newsgroup, where all kinds of anti-Oswald mischief is carried on) has presented himself as a person who has been deeply interested for decades in David Ferrie. One might ask why, since Mr. Roy has absolutely nothing in common with Ferrie – except the ability to play music. Mr. Roy has recently declared that Lee Oswald had probably killed Kennedy, following in the footsteps of several others in McAdams’ newsgroup, who remind me of Gary Mack (someone who wants all my readers to know that he does NOT make a six-figure salary as the Curator of The Six Floor Museum).

Mr. Roy has been busy compiling statements from Dave’s former friends and accumulating data, purportedly for a long-awaited biography of him. For years now, he has not wavered in his efforts to create the impression of a David Ferrie who was very different from the man I knew, a man whom Mr. Roy never met.

Mr. Roy’s David Ferrie is described as a broken man in 1963 who had lost his dream job with Eastern Air Lines, and whose life and prospects had deteriorated to a point of no return. His considerable past activities in the anti-Castro movements had all but ceased, according to Mr.Roy. All he was interested in was getting his job back and piloting flights for the godfather, Carlos Marcello. He had moved into a crummy little apartment and was going nowhere with his life. His life had come to a screeching halt, to hear Mr. Roy tell it.

To consider Ferrie as intelligent enough to do cancer research or to be involved in plots to kill Castro or Kennedy or, for that matter, to have any interest whatsoever in his former pursuits, is, according to Mr. Roy, not remotely plausible, since Ferrie’s former – and, by the way, always un-named – friends all deny. Mr. Roy concedes that Ferrie once ‘did’ have lots of mice, though he doubts that they were used for research: apparently the same man who had a human skeleton set up with its own electrified circulatory system (a teaching tool for young cadets) would keep hundreds of mice merely as pets!

When I spoke out as a witness in 1999, I immediately identified David Ferrie – just as Jim Garrison had done so some 30 years earlier – as a primary figure in the case. Efforts to discredit me have often rested on disagreeing with what I’ve said about David Ferrie concerning his considerable medical expertise. I have spoken out that David Ferrie was actively involved in cancer research activities in the summer of 1963. Mr. Roy has stated that Ferrie’s friends have claimed they saw “nothing” that remotely seemed like cancer research going on and that they never saw me.

Forget the fact that Dave worked daily for Marcello’s attorney downtown and that I was regularly in his apartment several afternoons a week – and knew how to “clean up and put away.“ I have described the kind of work that was being done at his apartment and how much of the equipment would not have seemed special to untrained eyes, such as a Waring blender and what looked like a pressure cooker – an autoclave that they would never have identified as such, because of their lack of technical knowledge.

Microscopes and science paraphernalia were also present, which “Ferrie’s friends” supposedly saw. At the very least, however, we have a description of Ferrie’s activities that summer as filtered through Dr. Isadore Yager and reported by Australian researcher Greg Parker, who wrote – in July 2003 – about David Ferrie and his activities with regard to the medical arts in 1963:

“Dr. Isadore Yager was the representative of the local medical association. In 1961, David Ferrie came to his attention due to reports of Ferrie practicing medicine without a license, in particular, members of his "Falcon Squad", which I believe was a quasi-CAP group he had formed.

"Dr Yager, in recalling his discussion with Ferrie before the Grievance hearing held by Eastern Airlines in Miami during July, 1963, stated: "He told me he had several Ph.D.s and that he was on the faculty at the Tulane Medical School and he was doing some research in the department of physiology of a very highly secretive nature, that if this works out well, it would really help us in all sorts of fields of medicine, and this went on for something like 30 minutes."

Thirty minutes in 1963 – or even today – would be a considerable time to discuss something that, according to Mr. Roy, David Ferrie wasn't doing in 1963, which he claims to know because “Ferrie’s friends" said so. Indeed, about 15 years later, the HSCA would report, contrary to Mr. Roy's insinuations, that,

"Ferrie spent considerable time studying medicine and psychology,(28) especially the techniques of hypnosis which he frequently practiced on his young associates.(29) Ferrie had even set up a laboratory over his garage, (30) where he claimed he lost his hair, alternately attributing it to a radiation experiment, chemical explosion, and cancer research experiments.(31) He listed his name in the telephone book as "Dr." David Ferrie;(32) many friends did erroneously believe he was a medical doctor and a psychologist. (33) This veneer of respectability and achievement could be the reason Ferrie referred to his Ph.D. degree as his 'most prized possession.'(34)".

The committee based these findings on statements by John Johnson, Robert Morrell, Karl Koster, John Irion, Al Landry, Landry's father, Larry Adams, and Dr Yager, whom its members regarded as reliable sources.

An Overheard Conversation

Researcher Robert Harris, who has some unusual theories himself, has had some wise words to say about Mr. Roy, too, which bear repeating, since they involve a sighting of David Ferrie in Canada. I was present when Dave Ferrie, a Latino, a man called “Lambert” [whom I knew to have been Clay Shaw] and Lee flew early one evening at sunset to Toronto, so there is no doubt in my mind that David Ferrie might have been seen in Winnipeg, Canada, at some later date. In regard to how Mr. Roy handled the idea of Ferrie being involved in the assassination (which, according to Mr. Roy, he was not), Harris has written:

April 27, 2010 11:49 pm

By far, the most powerful indictment of David Ferrie was his identification by a fellow named, Giesbrecht, in Winnipeg, Ontario.

For years, David [blackburst-Roy] told people that Ferrie was at his uncle's funeral on the day that he was allegedly spotted at the Winnipeg airport, but during our discussion on that, I made a phone call to the Cleveland Plaindealer and confirmed that the funeral was not Feb. 13th, but on the 14th, which means that Ferrie was at the airport at precisely the right time to catch a plane to Cleveland to be at the funeral the next day, and even attend the open casket showing that evening.

Mr. Roy subsequently conceded this point and replied, "I stand corrected. I was working from rough notes and memory, and got the date wrong."

Mr. Roy has also claimed that he has spoken to one of Ferrie's associates who had told him that he drove Ferrie to Cleveland that day, but he refuses to divulge the man's name or even his story. He even states that he made no effort to take notes or record his conversation with this guy, which is a strange way to research a book. But he did say that he would contact the man for permission and then report back. That was about 7 months ago and he hasn't said another word about it.

For those who are unfamiliar with this issue, Giesbrecht, who was an extremely credible witness, as even Mr. Roy has acknowledged, overheard a conversation among several men at the airport in Winnipeg, in which a man with the "oddest eyebrows" – he also called them "streaky" – he had even seen was going on and on about his fears that, if Oswald told his wife about the conspiracy, then she might tell the Warren Commission about it.

He also stated that he believed that at least two of the men, including the one he would later identify as Ferrie, were homosexuals. Giesbrecht had no idea who the men were, until two years later, when he saw a photo of Ferrie in the newspapers and immediately recognized him. So, not only did Mr. Roy's "alibi" for Ferrie fall apart, but the man Giesbrecht identified as Ferrie was in exactly the place he needed to be in order to catch a flight to Cleveland in time to attend the viewing of his uncle's body that night as well as his funeral the next day.

Interestingly, he also heard Ferrie say that he "wondered why he got involved with someone so 'psycho' as Oswald." That's exactly how Marcello had described Oswald when he told an FBI informant that Ferrie introduced him to the alleged assassin during a meeting at his brother's restaurant.

The Giesbrecht incident is probably the most underrated issue in the JFK case. Because of Ferrie's unique physical appearance, it amounts to solid proof of conspiracy. And even if someone were so deeply in denial that he could convince himself that Giesbrecht overheard someone other than Ferrie, we would still have proof that persons other than Oswald had been involved. Yet Mr. Roy insists on hiding both the identity of a source who might have information about this as well as his significant story. Like too many others, Mr. Roy demonstrates the irresponsible consequences of taking a position of blind advocacy rather than simply searching for the truth.

Robert Harris

Mr. Roy also replied (in part): "Are you asserting that Ferrie WAS in Winnipeg?"

To Harris’ statement, “Because of Ferrie's unique physical appearance, it amounts to rock solid proof of conspiracy”, Mr. Roy replied, “I disagree.” He added,

“I found the info about the funeral, and passed it along to Peter Whitmey, among others, which places Ferrie, at least, 'up north', and not at home running his gas station. A guy, a community leader who doesn't want to be associated with 'the homosexual stuff' went with him, and doesn't remember him being absent for any period of time (some 30 years earlier). This was for a biography, not an assassination evidence book. I have been upfront with all comers, and graciously accepted his pinpointing of the exact day of the funeral. Robert is spinning this all into 'coo-coo land'."

Mr. Harris came back with a solid list of problems with Mr. Roy’s position:

“And he had the strangest hair and eyebrows he had ever seen.” Why did an

objective guy like you, just happen to forget that?

"David, there is no room for denial here. Alleging that *someone else*

with srange, 'streaky' eyebrows who was a homosexual, and was

paranoically shrieking about his fears that Marina would blow the

conspiracy is just crazy.

"And if you actually believe that, then you have someone other than

Ferrie, confirming conspiracy in the JFK case.

"Somewhere along the line, you have to do what you guys always wind up

having to do - call the witness a xxxx or delusional.

"If you don't, then how could you remain the LN advocate that you are?

Yes, and that 'one day' just happened to be the difference between a

perfect alibi and a perfect match with Ferrie being at the airport, just

in time to make it to Cleveland to attend both the viewing of the corpse

and the funeral the next day."

Mr. Roy replied: “It didn't seem to make sense to me that Ferrie would

somehow travel from New Orleans to Winnipeg, be seen at the airport,

fly 1882 miles to Cleveland for the wake and funeral, and not have his

absence noticed by his traveling companion.”

Harris: “Of course it does. He flew to Winnipeg and called in while he

was there to check on his uncle's condition. When he was told the man

died, he caught a plane, right on schedule to be there when he had to.

I cannot in my wildest imagination, understand how that wouldn't make

sense to you:

> David also claims that he has spoken to one of Ferrie's associates who

> told him that he drove Ferrie to Cleveland that day, but he refuses to

> divulge the man's name or even his story.”

Mr. Roy replied: “He doesn't want to be identified by name at this time,

because of the position he holds.”

Harris: “Uh huh.

But when you told him you were writing a book, he was eager to give you

a detailed story.

> He even states that he made no effort to take notes or record his

> conversation with this guy, which is a strange way to research a book.

Mr. Roy: “The guy put me up in a room in his home for several days on a research trip for a BIOGRAPHY of Ferrie. I didn't carry a tape recorder or note pad 24/7.”

Harris: “Damn! If only the guy had some paper in his house!

And I guess you can't remember his story either, right?

> But he did say that he would contact the man for permission and then

> report back. That was about 7 months ago and he hasn't said a word.

> For those who are unfamiliar with this issue, Giesbrecht, who was an

> extremely credible witness, which even David has admitted…”

Blackburst-Roy: “He may have heard such a conversation. I am not convinced it was Ferrie. “

Harris: “Of course you aren't convinced, David. A DNA test and a confession by Ferrie, signed in blood, wouldn't be convincing to you."

- - - - - - - - - - -

Mr. Roy describes his book as a biography and not as an “assassination evidence book” – and I have to agree that Mr. Roy is likely to exclude anything that might even remotely connect David Ferrie with the Kennedy assassination.

What would that mean?

Those who would read the biography he is writing would surely wonder why David Ferrie was ever considered to have been involved in the assassination. If they don’t find ‘evidence’ in the biography, they may falsely believe that it doesn’t exist, since so much other data will be there.

But if potentially “false data” is collected – such as if a former “Ferrie friend” refuses to allow his name to be made public but asserts that he drove David to Cleveland – if this is in the biography without any mention of his having been sighted in Winnipeg – that witnesses had observed a person who looked like Ferrie who had talked about involvement in the assassination – then the possibility that Ferrie was in Winnipeg has been removed by stealth, which is not an honest practice for someone posing as a biographer of Ferrie’s life. Unless he addresses the data he wants to discount, the author would have to be suspect as a shill for the official account of the death of JFK.

The problem is that Mr. Roy has decided whom to choose as “Ferrie’s friends.” He has chosen some who are not in the record, as he himself admits, since he refuses to disclose their names. But he has also refused to include me as a witness. Despite his stating that I “refused to meet" with him, a claim he later changed to indicate that I would if I had a car available (which is also untrue), everyone who knows me knows that I have been willing to travel great distances to see Gerry Hemming, for example, among others. Mr. Blackburst (as I knew him at the time) simply didn’t have time for me.

When I offered to send Mr. Blackburst copies of notes I made in May 1963 – of two lectures given to me and Lee by David Ferrie – he ignored the offer. He has also done other things that he should not have with regard to me. He has written that, to “test” me as having been in Dave’s apartment, I ought be able to describe an object hanging between the dining room and the living room on the door jamb. Try as I might, I could remember nothing hanging there, and told him so. Mr. Roy then announced to a newsgroup that I 'failed his test’ – since a toy monkey had been hanging there and that I should have remembered such an object. He claimed a photo existed showing the monkey hanging there. I have a photographic memory. I can remember where everything was in Dave’s living-room and dining room. There was no monkey. Then the photo was published on the Internet:

The “monkey photo” shows a toy monkey

The “monkey photo” was made the day David Ferrie died – on February 22, 1967. Mr. Roy knew that. He also knew that the last time I had been inside David Ferrie’s apartment was at the end of August 1963 – three-and-a-half years before! This is the kind of contrived – better, rigged! – “test"’ that Mr. Roy used on me and then announced to the newsgroup that I had failed. He dishonestly did not mention the date that the photo had been taken.

Mr. Roy has also claimed that nobody noticed any mice in Dave’s apartment when he had his birthday party there in 1963. Dave’s birthday was March 28, 1918. He was born the same year as my father, so the date is easy for me to remember. But the part of the project involving the ring of secret labs – which also included Dave’s house and a house nearby – did not start until April 1963, as I explained in my book, ME & LEE. Mr. Roy asserts that only Garrison’s aide, Gurvich, who was later discovered to be corrupt, had reported mice – in 1957 – with which Dave had been working.

Mr. Roy reiterates often that no mice were seen anywhere in 1963. But that has meant that he also has to claim that Jim Garrison was lying – or, at the very least, had a seriously distorted memory – when Garrison wrote this in his book, ON THE TRAIL OF THE ASSASSINS:

Garrison states that he was at Ferrie’s apartment the same day Ferrie was found dead, but that the body was gone. When Mr. Roy had asked me, back in 1999, "What was the first thing noticed on entering Dave’s apartment?", I had told him at once: the smell! The smell of animals – mice – in Dave’s apartment! Mr. Roy alleged that Ferrie’s friends reported no such smell. But Jim Garrison had also noticed it. Years later, in 2011, Mr. Roy posted this:

“Having spoken with many people who knew Ferrie (and some who spent a great deal of time at the Louisiana Avenue Parkway apartment), I have not been able to find anyone who recalls seeing mice THERE in 1963 or any other time. Some say there were never any at that apartment, to their knowledge. The police and coroner's reports and pictures from the time of Ferrie's death, as well as interviews with some of the officers, show no indication that there were mice there on February 22, 1967.”

So if what Mr. Roy is asserting is true, then Garrison is a xxxx. And if what Garrison is saying is true – which I know on the basis of having been there – then the one perpetrating the deception is Mr. Roy, who appears to be employing the method of selection and elimination: selecting the evidence that agrees with a predetermined point of view and eliminating the rest!

The “established local doctor” whom Jim Garrison mentions, by the way, was Dr. Mary Sherman. Mr. Roy claims no witness has ever stated that Ferrie and Sherman knew each other. That is false, since I have made that assertion; but Mr. Roy accepts only certain witnesses. Jim Garrison has as well, but Mr. Roy accepts only certain people’s statements. Author John Davis has, but Mr. Roy accepts only certain authors. Davis mentions that Ferrie and Sherman knew each other in MAFIA KINGFISH on page 372. (Davis’ book is also loaded with important information about how the Mafia was being used by the CIA.)

Ferrie’s Car

Mr. Roy has inspired the members of two newsgroups to conclude that I had lied when I had said that David Ferrie "owned" a car during the time I knew him (late April-early September 1963). It’s another instructive example of how my simple and honest statements have been distorted and then described as “lies.” Mr. Roy, in contrast, has told everyone that Dave Ferrie had NO car during the period I knew him:

"She vividly describes she and Oswald being driven all over the

New Orleans area during the summer months in Ferrie's car. Not a

rental or a loaner, but Ferrie's owned car, which she describes in

colorful terms. But primary research shows that Ferrie did not have a

car that summer. He had a car repossessed (sic) in March 1963 and

he did not have another until he purchased one in November."

(http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showuser=2230&tab=posts)

The truth is that I never thought to ask David if he owned the car or not. The car was there and he and Lee used it. Mr. Roy initially stated that Dave Ferrie “had no car that summer” and the reader is left to think that he had no access to one at all. That made me look bad. But later, Mr. Roy acknowledged that a “neighbor” had lent Ferrie a car. Why should I have been expected to have ASKED Dave Ferrie if the car belonged to him when he was using it? People don’t do that. The fact is, Mr. Roy falsely implied that Dave Ferrie had NO ACCESS TO A CAR at the time I said he was using a car, which was his basis for implying that I had lied.

I never said any such thing. I said – in the unauthorized book published by Harrison Livingstone – that David had complained that he “deserved better” than the car he was using. At my young age, I had no idea if the car belonged to him or not. I simply knew he had a car. At no time did I say that he owned a car. I describe the car’s mechanical problems in ME & LEE and David’s prayer to get the engine started, for example; but again, I did not know if the car belonged to him. I simply assumed it, as anybody might.

Mr. Roy says that he told me in early 2000 that David's car had been repossessed. But he did no such thing. This was a man that told me very little. I was offering him information, while he was tight-lipped. At any rate, Mr. Roy has finally acknowledged that David had had access to a neighbor’s car. I was surprised to see the comment sent to me under a heading of “Judyth's Lie About Ferrie's Car”, when I should have been commended instead as a witness for remembering that Dave had access to a car as proof I had been there that summer, rather than condemned, as later Blackburst-Roy would acknowledge that Dave had had access to a neighbor’s old car. I described Dave driving an old car four times, as I recall, and Lee driving it once.

The Final Word

Jim DiEugenio is a good researcher who does not believe my testimony (but he has never met me personally). I hold no grudges against a researcher simply because of that. I feel that if he met me, he’d be persuaded otherwise. DiEugenio, who published DESTINY BETRAYED: JFK, CUBA, AND THE GARRISON CASE in 1992, has rather important things to say about Blackburst-Roy’s methodology, especially concerning composing a biography about Ferrie that takes Ferrie’s friends’ words at face value. Here is what he has to say:

Garrison mentions the mice in both his Playboy interview and the cages in his book. Its pretty clear that Garrison had decided to reinvestigate the Sherman murder when he discovered the things Ferrie was doing, plus the treatise he had in his posession. The treatise is kind of fascinating since Ferrie could not have written it. It was much too sophisticated.

So to say that somehow Garrison screwed up a document pertaining to 1957, with 1967, is a real stretch. And what Stephen actually means by this is elusive: I mean did Gurvich know Ferrie in 1957? Or is the source for the year 1957, Ferrie himself.

Further, to say that Gurvich is controversial is an understatement. There is little doubt in most objective minds that Gurvich was an infiltrator in Garrison's camp, as so many others were. And from private sources I developed, there is little doubt at all he was CIA. Garrison came to look askance at everything he did afterwards, when he defected to Sheridan and Shaw's lawyers with munificent copies of Garrison's files. So if this is Ferrie filtered through Gurvich, the info is, to put it mildly, suspect.

I also find it odd that Stephen would believe Ferrie's buddies. They have all been faithful to Ferrie and were all too eager to attack Garrison, especiailly when Sheridan and Aynseworth came in and swooped up people like Layton Martens and Al Beabouf. I mean all you have to do is look at what they told Gus Russo for his pathetic book.

Speaking of which, Russo covered up one of Ed's most powerful discoveries which showed why these guys could not be trusted: When the secret war against the Contras began in the eighties, Martens and Butler joined up forces for local rightwing talk radio in support of it. Ed did some PR for them and discovered that Butler had boxes of Guy Banister's files in his office. Interesting to speculate how he got them and if he shipped them to California when he learned Garrison was on his and Ochsner's trail in 1968.

Finally Chetta's son is also on record here. I find Chetta much more credible than the police department who, as Garrison said, he did not have a brotherly relationship with due to his crackdown on their kickbacks in the French Quarter B girl scandals. In fact, you can see this in how Garrison went over them and he requested State Trooper help from McKeithen, and also how the city police helped Shaw's lawyers during Shaw's trial.

Stephen's reliance on these kinds of sources worries me. If you go all the way with these people then why not go into Shaw's lawyer's records and offices? There you will learn things like Garrison never tried a case when he was an assistant DA and the CIA never helped Shaw's defense. These are both provable lies. But this is what his lawyers told me. You will also hear the same from Ferrie's buddies, and Russo printed it.

This post has been edited by Jim DiEugenio: 31 March 2011 - 02:44 AM

Although Jim Fetzer, who has edited three books on the death of JFK, has had differences with Jim DiEugenio across a spectrum of issues, he received DiEugeio's commentary in this matter very warmly and responded to it with the following remarks:

Jim,

In my opinion, this is an excellent post – you at your finest! I have long been troubled by Stephen Roy's practice of making sweeping claims while offering very little or even no evidence to substantiate them. He claims you cannot prove a negative, but you can prove there is no elephant in your living room by going there now and observing no elephant present and you can prove that not all ducks are white by observing a non-white duck. I think you are taking the right approach by looking for contemporaneous indications about Ferrie and Garrison's investigation. I also agree that Roy is too disposed to believe whatever he is told that offers even tenuous support for his claims. So I commend you for this. And, in relation to Michael Hogan, DR. MARY'S MONKEY is jam packed with documents, records, and photographs, just as is the case for ME & LEE. Both of them are exceptional in that regard as books intended for the general reader. Why he wants to deny something that obvious is beyond me.

Jim

I greatly appreciate their observations about Mr. Roy and his methods, which includes attempts to distort the available evidence about David Ferrie up to and including not only my own position but even that of Jim Garrison. Robert Harris and the HSCA witnesses have highlighted a crucial aspect of the divide that separates us, which seems to me to cast light upon Roy's dupicitous methodology, where I would like to believe that those who read and understand the issues dealt with here will gain a deeper appreciation of the convolutions of JFK research and of the necessity to exercise one's critical faculties in appraising sources who may not be what they seem.

MY RESPONSE:

To begin, I don’t believe that you ever knew David Ferrie.

Because you don’t appear in any Ferrie files, and because a number of people with PROVEN relationships with Ferrie do not recall you ever associating with him, you find it necessary to try to discredit proven witnesses in favor of your unproven claims.

You show the picture of Ferrie and Oswald, among others, at a Civil Air Patrol SARCAP exercise (not a “camp out”), but you don’t inform readers that it was taken in August 1955, 8 years before the assassination, when Oswald was 15 years old. From the day of his arrest, Ferrie always conceded that Oswald may have served in the same CAP squadron.

You claim there were white mice and a medical lab in Ferrie’s apartment at 3330 Louisiana Avenue Parkway in 1963, with you and Dr. Mary Sherman in attendance, but people who were there in 1963 don’t remember seeing the mice, the lab, you or Sherman.

You try to raise sinister sounding overtones to my feelings about Oswald’s role in the assassination. What I have actually said is that I find it hard to believe that Oswald was completely uninvolved in the assassination.

The fact is that I know much more about David Ferrie than you claim to. It is a fact that he was riding high in 1961: He had a nice home, a good job as an airline pilot, an influential role in an anti-Castro group and a self-created CAP-style group called the Falcons. But when he was arrested in August 1961 for improper relations with underage boys (and subsequent intimidation of witnesses), he lost his home, his job, his influence with the Cubans and the Falcons. This is Ferrie’s own description.

Yes, Ferrie was interested in medicine (self-taught), and he did teach CAP cadets about rudimentary medicine. He did have a skeleton with pumps, tubes and lights in the late 1950s, nicknamed Jonathan. I posted this, for the first time ever, on the Education Forum on January 25, 2005. As for the conversation with Dr. Isadore Yager, you have the dates all mixed up. Yager was the head of the local medical association and received a complaint that Ferrie was practicing medicine without education or a license on CAP cadets (cold medications, VD medications, setting broken bones, etc.) and he called Ferrie in to warn him to cease and desist such activity. This was in 1961, not 1963 (specifically on August 8, 1961 at 1:30pm). I have the full records and other info on this incident. Dr. Yager testified about this at a 1963 hearing. Yager made clear that Ferrie was completely unqualified to practice medicine in any way.

It is true that I told researcher Robert Harris about Ferrie’s trip north for a funeral in February 1964, when Harris thinks he was meeting in Winnipeg with a man named Giesbrecht. I originally found this information {about the funeral, not the whole Giesbrecht incident}, and I passed it along to others for their continued research. Bob Harris, who can be of strong opinion, thinks I should have pursued it in greater detail. At the time, I didn’t think it was necessary, as I spoke with the man who accompanied Ferrie, and who didn’t notice him being absent long enough for a 3764 mile round trip between Cleveland and Winnipeg. For these and other reasons, I’m not very confident about the Giesbrecht account, but I do give it 3 closely-spaced pages in my manuscript.

I did decline to receive from you (Baker) the alleged notes of an alleged Ferrie lecture. As they are in your handwriting, they prove nothing, and COULD be fabricated.

You note that Jim Garrison claimed to smell mice in Ferrie’s apartment after the latter’s death. How could the smell linger for 3 ½ years? How could it be distinguished as mice, and not the dog Ferrie kept?

You quote John Davis as claiming a Ferrie-Sherman relationship. Does he present evidence of it, or was he repeating what he read from Garrison and/or Haslam? For that matter, can you cite ANY evidence, beyond your claims, of a Ferrie-Sherman relationship? A man I know is working on a Sherman project: He, too, says that there is no trace of Ferrie (or you) among the documents he has collected or the interviews he has done.

As for Ferrie’s car, I didn’t do the “Judyth’s Lie…” title. I posted that you said you rode in Ferrie’s car; I posted that he didn’t own one at that time. Of course, anybody can rent or borrow a car, but his neighbors said (in 1963) that he didn’t have a car and used a motorcycle all summer.

I understand that Jim DiEugenio (who doesn’t believe your story) is leery of believing Ferrie’s friends, as far as evidence goes. I interviewed them for a biography, and I told DiEugenio that I am savvy enough to be able to filter self-serving stuff from useful information. He also indicated that he finds the Ferrie-Sherman story plausible, but I alerted him that new information may raise further doubts about it. (Somebody else’s project, not mine.)

I also understand that Jim Fetzer congratulated DiEugenio on his post, but Fetzer is also strong of belief, and he clearly praises those who agree with his ideas and attacks those who disagree. He’s just wrong about this.

I had a feeling that this would eventually come. I’ve tried to keep my reservations about your story to a relatively small circle of researchers, not to post on Amazon and affect book sales. But you now feel that, since I can’t support your account and even challenge it, I must be discredited. I’m sorry you feel that way. The only objective is truth.

Edited April 11, 2011 by Stephen Roy

[Glenn Viklund]

Stephen,

This is just another example of Judyth Baker's true character. She has now researched enough about you to start her character assassination campaign, as she always does with those who expose her fantasies. She tried this with me a year ago - enthusiastically supported by Fetzer - and now you're up for the same kind of treatment.

It's Judyth Baker at her best; nasty, vindictive and unscrupulous.

Edit: Spelling.

Edited April 11, 2011 by Glenn Viklund

[Pamela Brown]

Jim Fetzer, with whom I battled some months back, is entitled to believe what he wants. I still don't think Haslam provides evidence for the most basic claims of his book: That Ferrie knew Sherman, worked on a project with her, that it took place (in part, at least) in his apartment, and that it was a government project. None of the "documents, records and photographs" go to these claims.

With all due respect, in your view did Ferrie know anyone connected to the assassination?

It depends on who you define as "connected to the assassination." He had met Oswald, but some argue whether or not Oswald was connected to the assassination. He certainly knew people like Banister and Arcacha, Bringuier and Quiroga, but beyond them being involved in the opposition to Castro, it's harder to define a specific connection to the assassination for most of them.

Let me be blunt: This supposed Sherman connection started with one short reference in a Playboy interview. While no such evidence of an actual Ferrie-Sherman association has emerged from Garrison's files, or his former ADAs and investigators, or from any other verifiable source, Ed Haslam has presented it as fact, with no evidence to back it up. No evidence of such a relationship emerges in a Ferrie background investigation, or in a Sherman background investigation. I profoundly disagree with those who think such a relationship is supported by the evidence.

In other words, "no".

[Jack White]

A really sick woman. But a very smart one. She should have been a novelist.

[Pamela Brown]

What exactly is the origin of the Creation myth here - that Ferrie kept lab mice and bragged of cancer experiments? If it's Garrison's book, I'd like to check it out again and read the original reference.

Where was Garrison's office in the Mary Sherman murder investigation?

As I recall, maybe wrongly, Mary Sherman's death was never ruled a murder...maybe even an accident.

Does anyone know? I think it is Haslam who has turned her death into a murder.

Jack

How else do you explain a burned and mutilated body lying on a perfectly normal bed?