Eladio del Valle

[B. A. Copeland]

When Ferrie mentions that Del Valle was his "CIA Paymaster"......do we just ignore or count such claims as irrelevant especially given the context and nature of not only Del Valle's death but also Ferrie and a myriad of other LA-based witnesses?

My original response was only to two narrow points from John's article. Where does Ferrie himself allege any relationship with del Valle?

I think sometimes there's a tendency to pile-on Ferrie, to believe any accusation without any attempt to verify the source. Ferrie was an interesting guy with some interesting real connections, but we should be careful about weaker ones.

Its certainly weak with no "stone ground proof" (then again....this is the JFK murder, nothing is as concrete as it should be here and there) but just based on just one source. I actually mean to put that quote as from Stone's film but I am not aware of Ferrie actually saying that to even Garrison as the film depicts. Ultimately its not something I'd say for sure was a certainty but worth looking into (as you seem to have already). It wouldn't surprise me one bit if it were ever revealed as a fact however.

Edited December 29, 2013 by B. A. Copeland

[Stephen Roy]

Correct, it does say "almost every day." Ferrie's flight schedule is from EAL records obtained through ARRB, at NARA but not online. In essence, Ferrie made numerous flights from New Orleans (by 1960, he was a senior pilot) and couldn't have been in Miami almost every day. I have asked his surviving friends about del Valle, but none recognize the name, description or picture.

When I started researching Ferrie, I looked to try to verify stories like this. I noticed that every published account tracked back to the Tendedera story. The seeming conflict of the "almost every day" with the work schedule made me want to seek another source to verify the Tendedera article. I haven't been able to verify it, so I personally put it in the "maybe, maybe not" column. So as I said above, it's never been proven from any reliable source.

[Stephen Roy]

When Ferrie mentions that Del Valle was his "CIA Paymaster"......do we just ignore or count such claims as irrelevant especially given the context and nature of not only Del Valle's death but also Ferrie and a myriad of other LA-based witnesses?

My original response was only to two narrow points from John's article. Where does Ferrie himself allege any relationship with del Valle?

I think sometimes there's a tendency to pile-on Ferrie, to believe any accusation without any attempt to verify the source. Ferrie was an interesting guy with some interesting real connections, but we should be careful about weaker ones.

Its certainly weak with no "stone ground proof" (then again....this is the JFK murder, nothing is as concrete as it should be here and there) but just based on just one source. I actually mean to put that quote as from Stone's film but I am not aware of Ferrie actually saying that to even Garrison as the film depicts. Ultimately its not something I'd say for sure was a certainty but worth looking into (as you seem to have already). It wouldn't surprise me one bit if it were ever revealed as a fact however.

If proof emerges that Del Valle paid Ferrie for flights, so be it. If proof fails to emerge, so be it. Look, there's no doubt that Ferrie had an active period as an anti-Castro fighter, one which led him to imply to friends that he had a CIA connection. I'm trying to nail down details, names, places, times. It doesn't make a huge difference if some details prove true, others do not.

[James Richards]

At the time of his death, Eladio Del Valle was the commander of an anti-Castro group called The Anti-Communist Civilian and Armed Forces (FAYCA). He formed the group in 1959 and they were tasked with getting men and supplies into Cuba, also with getting prominent Cubans out who would serve the anti-Castro movement well.

The group operated with little fanfare but were well supplied and funded.

[Michael Clark]

On 12/28/2013 at 11:05 PM, Don Jeffries said:

Stephen,

The important point here is that, no matter what you or I think, Jim Garrison regarded del Valle as one of his most important witnesses, and he wound up dead. Shot and with a hatchet through his head dead. Those kinds of very, very unnatural deaths are all too familiar to those of us who research the JFK assassination and similar cases. Combined with Ferrie's own unnatural death, it defies credulity to believe there was no connection to the Garrison investigation.

Someone must have thought Garrison was on the right track, because his witnesses were either dying before they could help him, or being denied extradition in unprecedented, uncooperative actions by Governors like Ronald Reagan and John Connally.

It wasn't mentioned in this thread, so I'll add that Eladio del Valle and David Ferrie died within hours of each other.

Cheers,

Michael