Jim Garrison Investigation

[Peter McGuire]

TOTAL BULL****!!!!!! Read Joan Mellen's excellent book A Farewell to Justice, Potomac Books 2005 for an 'case-closed' death blow to those kinds of dis-information, continue-the-cover-up claims. This is from the same dark forces that penetrated and twarted Garrison's investigation and trial. All complex, but laid-out clearly and convincingly and with paragraph by paragraph references to all in Mellen's book. Too complex to really do justice to here in a post. Garrison was on to the right persons. Even with all the infiltrators in his staff, dirty tricks, lies and more done to him he kept on a self-correcting course toward the right persons involved and who was behind them - the CIA [to say it in shorthand] and those the CIA works for and with. Garrison was NOT involved with nor did he protect the Mafia nor any in it. That lie was invented to stop his persuit of the truth...the thing the CIA and those they work for fear the most and constantly invent counters to.

Garrison was clearly a flawed human - he ran his mouth in public, he was too quick to endorse wacky theories. But he propelled the investigation forward by light years and he opened up numerous lines of inquiry that we are still following today.

Well put. Garrison dedicated his life investigating an unpopular truth in a time when very few really knew what really happened. We can now clearly see that shots were fired from many different directions and that the Secret Service abandoned Kennedy. In Garrison's time, very few had the resources to understand these basic facts.

Edited January 1, 2010 by Peter McGuire

[Daniel Meyer]

As I mentioned a while back on the "Carlos Marcello" thread, the New Orleans Times-Picayune has been doing a series of local history articles. The articles are generally not particularly high quality (and too often poorly researched). The accompanying selection of photos they've pulled out of their archives, on the other hand, are often interesting.

Here's their one on Garrison and the Clay Shaw trial:

http://www.nola.com/175years/index.ssf/2011/12/1968_the_clay_shaw_trial_in_jf.html

[Terri Williams]

Due to the malicious nature of some of the members, I have removed my comment.

Edited December 11, 2012 by Terri Williams

[John Simkin]

Terri, I have reposted your post here:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=19783

[Terri Williams]

Rereading this thread, I was kind of shocked as to what was on it at the beginning.

The show that Davis describes never actually existed. What I think he is doing is conflating two shows.

And the question at the end was not about the Garrison case but about the JFK case in general.

The whole concept about Garrison 1.) Ignoring the Mafia as a suspect, or 2.) Being somehow part of a paid smokescreen away from Marcello, this was completely discredited many years ago by Bill Davy and myself. (See Let Justice be Done pgs 149-167)

Garrison did suspect the Mafia played a part in the plot. And he actually wrote a memo about this. But he never actually thought they were the locomotive driving the train. Therefore he did not think he could solve the crime that way. IN fact, one of his achievements that I actually left out of the book was that he originated the whole CIA-Cuban exiles-Mafia triangle as the locus of the conspiracy. Many people, including myself, usually credit Tony Summers and his book Conspiracy with doing this. But if you look at the interview DIck Russell did with Garrison in 1976 for Harper's, this is the idea he announced at that time. Which was really before the HSCA was up and running. (Destiny Betrayed, Second Edition, p. 212)

Also, the idea that somehow Garrison did not have a case against Shaw, or somehow was tricked into indicting him is also wrong. Garrison did have a case against Shaw. In fact, the CIA knew this also. This is why at the first meeting of the Garrison Group at Langley, Ray Rocca announced that if Garrison were allowed to proceed, he "would indeed obtain a conviction of Shaw for conspiring to assassinate President Kennedy." (ibid, p. 270) Rocca should know since he has accumulated the largest databank on the Garrison investigation anyplace. This was part of Angleton's intelligence gathering on the DA.

Therefore, Helms wanted to know what the implications of what Garrison was doing would be for the CIA in "New Orleans before, during and after the trial of Clay Shaw." (ibid) Therefore a series of counter measures were taken to sabotage Garrison and stop him from convicting Shaw. These went on for months on end from the summer of 1967 through the Shaw trial and actually beyond it.

Because of the ARRB we can now delineate this effort in detail. It was quite extensive and multi leveled. So much so that it takes me four chapters to describe it all.

I really don't know much about the Garrison investigation other than what I saw in the movie JFK, by Oliver Stone. I do know that Dr. Joel Garrett Brunson had helped buy arms for the boys in my area to practice with in Louisiana, to invade Cuba. They were all real pissed off when the weapons were confiscated.

Brunson had the property that faced onto Tank Road and Midway Road (southeast corner), southwest outside of Terry Mississippi. If you check the google maps for that area, you will see a property that faces onto both roads (surrounding the corner lot), that has a lot of forest on it. There is an area in the middle of the forest where lynchings were carried out.

Albert Lee Lewis lived south down Midway road and held Klan rallies on a piece of land, also surrounded by forest, opposite from my great grandparents house. I only know this because I heard all the screaming at night, both from the klan members and their victims. They had many rallies there in the 50's and 60's that I know of. Albert Lee Lewis and Doc had a hand in many atrocities that went on in the south back then, including the bombing of a church on Midway Road north of Tank Road, in '58 or '59.

I also know that a man named Bannister was a guest speaker at the klan rallies in the summer of '63, at Mr Lewis' property and in Byram, possibly at Doc place as well. Bannister arranged for our town to get a new green Ford pick-up truck for free that year. The town night marshal used it.

Edited December 10, 2012 by Terri Williams