Kerry Thornley: A New Look

[Paul Jolliffe]

1 hour ago, James DiEugenio said:

Paul:

I have a lot of respect for you and your work.  I think you are one of the most valuable posters here.  But I disagree with this interpretation.

The key for me is the fact that Bringuier got out the Castro/Oswald broadsheet within 24 hours via CIA funding, and Butler was in Washington that weekend, at Dodd's request. And their video of the debate is at WDSU, with Kerry waiting to be interviewed.

That afternoon, the films of the lonely Oswald leafleting in the streets of New Orleans are broadcast to the nation.  And then the whole background story comes through that afternoon on a call by Seth Kantor to Hal Hendrix, nicknamed the spook.  Then that call gets scrubbed from the log sheet, and it turns out that one of the handlers for Hendrix was Phillips.

I have talked to reporters about this.  And they said, it  surprised them how fast the entire background on Oswald got out there since, relatively speaking, he was  an obscure person. That scene in the film JFK, with Mr X in New Zealand, that was not at all a false pattern or was it exaggerated.  People are still trying to figure out where that picture came from.

The point is, by the morning  of the 23rd, Oswald is guilty in the public's mind, he did it and he did it for a communist cause. It got so bad that Castro had to give a speech explaining how no, he was not behind the assassination. And most of that imputation was done by his actions in New Orleans.

The helpers, were of course Ruth and Michael Paine, who were oh so eager to go on TV.

Jim,

Thank you for the kind words and the clarification.

We completely agree that the film and tape of "Oswald" in New Orleans was used at lightning speed after the assassination to support the view that he was a goofy, half-assed Marxist who couldn't think straight and therefore (somehow) he must be guilty of (what exactly?) . . .

We completely agree that the CIA had its media assets all lined up to frame "Oswald" as soon as his name was announced on Friday afternoon, and we agree that the CIA made tremendous use of all that New Orleans footage which portrayed "Oswald" as a looney leftist.

We also agree (I think) that all that footage smeared "Oswald's" political stance on just about everything. (Which I believe was his handlers original strategy in the summer of 1963.)

 

However, my point was simple: in none of that New Orleans footage was "Oswald" portrayed as a potential assassin. In exactly none of that coverage did he come across as violent or murderous. Surely the New Orleans crew (Bannister, Shaw, Ferrie, Thornley, the Cubans, etc.) would have had "Oswald" do something violent if they knew then and there (Summer 1963) that he was to be the assassination patsy later in the year!

But they didn't have him do anything violent. Instead, "Oswald", in every public appearance about which we know, came across as non-violent:  debating, speaking, leafletting, discussing, lecturing, registering to vote, etc. He wouldn't even use his fists when punched by Bringuier!

"Oswald" in New Orleans was the exact opposite of a violent, murderous, would-be assassin.

His handler/s (certainly some of the above, if not others) would have had him do some violent things in New Orleans if they knew then what was yet to happen on 11/22/63.

 

Now, did some of those same of the New Orleans crew (Bannister, Shaw, Thornley, Ferrie, the Cubans, etc.) learn LATER - say in October or November - what was planned for both President Kennedy and "Oswald"?

Possibly (or maybe even probably) some of them did - your speculation about Shaw creating an alibi by flying to San Francisco is pretty good. If David Ferrie didn't know in advance of 12:30 pm what was to happen on 11/22, he sure got his marching orders in a hurry as he made his 400 mile dash from New Orleans to Houston. Did Bannister know in advance? Maybe, but I wonder then why he hadn't already destroyed his files from the summer, certainly before Jack Martin started poking around. 

Did Thornley know in advance? Maybe, but we'd need some evidence.

Did Carlos Bringuier know in advance of 11/22? I don't know, but I kind of suspect he would have been kept out of the loop because he was a hothead who couldn't be trusted to keep his mouth shut. 

What about the other Cubans, say Celso Hernandez or Carlos Quiroga or Sergio Arcacha Smith? I would expect from the CIA's standpoint, the fewer who knew what was to happen, the better. 

Anyway Jim, you and I agree that the New Orleans media coverage was used to great effect and at warp speed to cement in the public's eye the view that "Oswald" was a lefty nut, which also then could be blurred into the implication that (somehow) he was guilty of murder. 

But my point was that had his New Orleans handlers known back in August what was to be "Oswald's" fate in November, they would have had him take some violent actions then and there so that no such blurring would later be necessary.

 

 

 

[James DiEugenio]

Paul:

There is one major point you leave out.  

The last step of the Clinton/Jackson incident.  Which would be Oswald's visit to the hospital.

But I will grant you  that Shaw and Ferrie did not necessarily know what that was about.

[John Butler]

21 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

The Jones printing episode is described by Weisberg in his book Never Again.

I have several of Weisberg's books, but not that one.  Thanks for the info.  I have mostly the Whitewash books and I think Oswald in New Orleans (I'll have to dig that one out to be sure) 

 

19 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

If I am recalling this correctly, the Jones Printing episode did not occur in the fall, it was the early summer, in May.

That would be strange.  Print the Leaflets and wait to late summer to hand them out.

IMO, there is just enough hints out there to say Kerry Thornley was a player in what was happening in New Orleans that summer.  But, his record was obscured so we don't know for sure what else he did there.  I know people get bent out of shape when Judith Baker is mentioned.  True or not, I believe she mentioned that Thornley was visiting Marina while Oswald was out with her. 

That brings up the question who was monitoring Marina while she was in New Orleans?  Agent Hosty supposedly had that job in Dallas.  So, who in Dallas? 

On ‎7‎/‎10‎/‎2020 at 1:53 AM, James DiEugenio said:

Even if you go for the lower height on Oswald, that is about 5' 91/2".  What the heck is Thornley talking about?

I mean, everyone knows he had seen Oswald in New Orleans, even Jenner.

 

He was doing what used to be called "shucking and jiving" so that he would appear to be a low intel who just made stupid remarks like he was not in New Orleans during the summer of 1963 and therefore shouldn't be held to any perjury charges.

[Paul Jolliffe]

6 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Paul:

There is one major point you leave out.  

The last step of the Clinton/Jackson incident.  Which would be Oswald's visit to the hospital.

But I will grant you  that Shaw and Ferrie did not necessarily know what that was about.

But Jim, even the late August/early September "Oswald" trip to the East Louisiana State Hospital (ostensibly to get a job to allow "Oswald" to register to vote in the Clinton/Jackson area) did NOT involve any violent, menacing or threatening behavior on "Oswald's" part that could later be construed as evidence that he was a potential assassin.

How do we know that?

Because the Warren Commission and FBI would certainly have told us if they could have found any sign that "Oswald" was violent on that trip -  instead, they buried the whole thing!

(I think you and I agree  they buried it because any close look at what was going on out there would have focused on Shaw and Ferrie, and that was way too risky for the CIA. So the whole trip was suppressed from investigation back in 1964.)

Now, you suspect that the whole "voter registration/job at the hospital" thing may have been part of a discontinued attempt to portray "Oswald" as nuts. Perhaps it was, but even so, there is no indication that this (false) depiction of "Oswald" involved a potentially dangerous violent streak. (Personally, I think this late August/early September episode was likely part of a soon-to-be-terminated attempt to stir up opposition to  JFK's Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. To wit: only "nuts" would be in favor of banning the bomb!)

At the end of the day, we both agree that on 11/22/63 the CIA used the media coverage of "Oswald" in New Orleans to great effect - in the public's mind, since "Oswald" seemed to be a looney leftist, well (in some vague way) then he must be guilty of something . . . 

 

We also agree that Jim Garrison's focus on David Ferrie was very dangerous to the  assassination conspirators. Ferrie may not have known about the assassination in advance of 12:30 on 11/22/63, but he sure was a part of immediate aftermath - he was ordered (by whom?) to make that 400 mile trip non-stop from New Orleans to Houston to do . . . what, exactly?

Through Ferrie, a direct connection could be made to someone involved in the conspiracy - the same person who ordered Ferrie to get to Houston. From there, who knows where an honest investigation might lead?

No wonder the FBI shut down the Ferrie link so publicly on 11/25/63 - they were in full cover-up mode, not "let justice be done, though the heavens fall" mode!

 

Jim, make your best guess: who forced Ferrie to make that trip on the afternoon of 11/22 and what was Ferrie's role in Houston? Why did he go? 

Personally, I think old drunk Jack Martin just might have been on to something: maybe, just maybe Ferrie was to be a backup getaway pilot for conspirators. But I really don't know, and I'd like your opinion.

 

 

[Dr. Gregg Wager]

One thing that I learned my first year in law school that appears to confuse a lot of people about Jim Garrison's case against Clay Shaw: there are different types of criminal conspiracies, and in a "chain" conspiracy, one group of people might not know exactly what another group of people are planning or doing. All Jim Garrison had to do was prove that Shaw, Oswald and others had entered into an agreement to commit a crime, and Shaw would be liable for all crimes committed by Oswald and the other conspirators that were "reasonably related" to that agreed-upon crime. That's why "conspiracy" is called the "darling of the prosecutor." The criminal purpose that Shaw, Oswald, Banister, Ferrie, Thornley, and anyone else all entered into an agreement for during the summer of '63 did not have to be the assassination of JFK for all these people to share liability in it. That's also probably why Garrison emphasized the Schlumberger burglary.     

 

[Ron Bulman]

Paul, regarding "Ferrie's role in Houston".  I just read a bit about this a week or so ago In Garrison's On Trail of the Assassins.  If we might believe Raymond Broshears, who, Garrison says he had statements taken from three times and there was "little variation in detail from one to the next" then Ferrie was to fly two members of the assassination team out of Houston.

To summarize Broshears said after knowing Ferrie for a few months he would talk about the Houston trip but only when he was drunk.  He says he didn't believe Ferrie initially but after hearing the same story multiple times he came to realize he was not making it up.  Ferrie told him a Carlos, a Cuban exile he knew from New Orleans who knew how to fly a single engine plane was to fly himself and another from Dallas to Houston.  Ferrie was to fly them on a longer trip, to a never named destination, in a twin engine plane Carlos was not qualified to fly.  "It developed there had been a last-minute change in the departure plans of these two particular members of the assassination team".  pgs. 120-124.

[James DiEugenio]

To John Butler:

As Newman notes in his book, Oswald was involved in two leafleting programs.  One was undercover, this was likely in June and July. Then he breaks into the public in August.  Therefore the Jones incident was likely related to the undercover phase.

To Paul:

I really do not know why Ferrie took that excursion to Texas.  His excuse was so stupid as to defy description. And I also do not really know who told him to do it. If I had to guess, that is all it would be is guessing.  Which I do not like to do at this stage of the game.

But Dr. Wager makes a good point.

[John Butler]

11 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

To John Butler:

As Newman notes in his book, Oswald was involved in two leafleting programs.  One was undercover, this was likely in June and July. Then he breaks into the public in August.  Therefore the Jones incident was likely related to the undercover phase.

To Paul:

I really do not know why Ferrie took that excursion to Texas.  His excuse was so stupid as to defy description. And I also do not really know who told him to do it. If I had to guess, that is all it would be is guessing.  Which I do not like to do at this stage of the game.

But Dr. Wager makes a good point.

Thanks for this info.  I didn't know Oswald made two distributions let alone 3.  Harold Weisberg in Oswald in New Orleans P. 55 says, well the way he put it one can calculate August 16 as the date, but not where.  He said "Two weeks after his arrest from the handbill distribution- on August 22, only 6 days after his third and last operation...."

This then becomes:

1. May 29- 1000 FPCC handbills ordered (Tracy Parnell timeline)

2. June 16- Distributed on Dumaine St.

3. August 9- Canal Street

4. August 16- ?

I just found out there was an earlier CIA printing of leaflets, July 29, 1961,  concerning "Crimes against Cuba".  At the time Oswald was in Russia.  Oswald in New Orleans, had a copy of this printing from 1961 in his possession when arrested on August 9, 1963.

Oswald had lots of strange things in his possession at one time or another, this leaflet "Crimes against Cuba, a recent copy of Hungarian poetry in Hungarian, a minox camera, brother Robert's camera, and weapons he didn't buy.

 

Edited July 13, 2020 by John Butler

[Paul Jolliffe]

13 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

Paul, regarding "Ferrie's role in Houston".  I just read a bit about this a week or so ago In Garrison's On Trail of the Assassins.  If we might believe Raymond Broshears, who, Garrison says he had statements taken from three times and there was "little variation in detail from one to the next" then Ferrie was to fly two members of the assassination team out of Houston.

To summarize Broshears said after knowing Ferrie for a few months he would talk about the Houston trip but only when he was drunk.  He says he didn't believe Ferrie initially but after hearing the same story multiple times he came to realize he was not making it up.  Ferrie told him a Carlos, a Cuban exile he knew from New Orleans who knew how to fly a single engine plane was to fly himself and another from Dallas to Houston.  Ferrie was to fly them on a longer trip, to a never named destination, in a twin engine plane Carlos was not qualified to fly.  "It developed there had been a last-minute change in the departure plans of these two particular members of the assassination team".  pgs. 120-124.

Thanks, Ron. I read Garrison’s book years ago and had long been aware of Broshear’s allegations, but I’d forgotten the bit about “Carlos” and the other unnamed conspirator.

That is a likely explanation: nothing else would have compelled Ferrie to race to Houston from New Orleans. As I recall, Ferrie left the NO courthouse (where he was assisting G. Wray Gill’s defense of Carlos Marcello) around 3:30 pm.

Ferrie picked up  the two boys before he left, and it was a 400 mile drive, so he couldn’t have arrived much before 11 pm at the earliest.

Obviously Ferrie’s phone calls at the ice rink were the actions of a man desperate to know what to do next.

Ferrie’s piloting skills were real, so this presumed role fits well.

Nothing else really explains his haste on that Friday afternoon.

 

[Paul Jolliffe]

Going further here for just a moment:

 

There is a credible argument that Ferrie did not leave New Orleans for Texas until 9:00 pm. If true, then that would seem to be evidence that Ferrie was unaware of his pending Houston trip until shortly before he left. That strikes me as a sign that Ferrie's role - whatever it was - was a hasty spur-of-the-moment improvisation on someone's part. While this might seem to undermine the "backup getaway pilot" theory of Ferrie's curious trip,  I am not so sure. 

According to the National Weather Service, there really were storms, rain and thunder throughout Friday afternoon and into the evening in Louisiana and eastern Texas. If (as Broshears alleged), Ferrie's job was to meet two conspirators flying in from Dallas in a single engine plane and then to fly them to an unknown destination in a twin-engine airplane, it's possible that the weather really did force some late changes to the getaway plans. (A Dallas departure on Friday afternoon/early evening may have been OK, but a Houston arrival for "Carlos" and the other conspirator may have been a problem. And apparently, the Dallas conspirators never got to Houston. But Ferrie, instead of returning immediately to New Orleans, instead drove to Galveston and spent the night of the 23rd there. So on Saturday evening, was it possible there were still some conspirators who might have needed a flight out of Texas and that Ferrie might still have been the getaway pilot from Galveston?)

The twin-engine detail got me curious, and according to this quote from AOPA "There’s no denying the fact that flying over vast expanses of trees, mountains, and water—especially at night—is basically a no-brainer in a twin. Any pilot of a single who isn’t worried when flying over such terrain is delusional or still possesses the mind of a teenager" then the twin-engine detail meant that Ferrie was to make a night flight to . . . where? 

https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2013/june/pilot/dogfight-twin-versus-single

 

 

 

[Paul Jolliffe]

4 hours ago, John Butler said:

Thanks for this info.  I didn't know Oswald made two distributions let alone 3.  Harold Weisberg in Oswald in New Orleans P. 55 says, well the way he put it one can calculate August 16 as the date, but not where.  He said "Two weeks after his arrest from the handbill distribution- on August 22, only 6 days after his third and last operation...."

This then becomes:

1. May 29- 1000 FPCC handbills ordered (Tracy Parnell timeline)

2. June 16- Distributed on Dumaine St.

3. August 9- Canal Street

4. August 16- ?

I just found out there was an earlier CIA printing of leaflets, July 29, 1961,  concerning "Crimes against Cuba".  At the time Oswald was in Russia.  Oswald in New Orleans, had a copy of this printing from 1961 in his possession when arrested on August 9, 1963.

Oswald had lots of strange things in his possession at one time or another, this leaflet "Crimes against Cuba, a recent copy of Hungarian poetry in Hungarian, a minox camera, brother Robert's camera, and weapons he didn't buy.

 

John,

All good points.

The CIA bought 50 copies of the 1961 edition of the "Crimes Against Cuba" pamphlet, but I've never read that they printed the thing.

At the time of "Oswald's" arrival in New Orleans in the late spring of 1963, that edition was no longer available commercially. This, of course, meant that "Oswald" got his copy from someone else, someone who was in the United States in 1961.  Predictably, the Warren Commission had no interest in learning from whom or how "Oswald" got his copy of that edition. (Because that unnamed person would probably have been a path to possible conspirators, the WC did NOT want to know anything more!)

Edited July 13, 2020 by Paul Jolliffe

[James DiEugenio]

The thing is, Newman describes the early undercover leafleting at places like Tulane, and a liberal anti nuke group.

One of the students at Tulane recalled the name Hidell on the handbill. (p. 311)

Also, in the later open phase, there was the ITM incident.  Where Oswald hired a coupe of other people from the UE office and the handbills were  delivered to him by Quiroga.

[John Butler]

21 hours ago, Paul Jolliffe said:

The CIA bought 50 copies of the 1961 edition of the "Crimes Against Cuba" pamphlet, but I've never read that they printed the thing.

Paul,

This comes from David Josephs' very valuable timeline.  I use it all the time.  Tracy Parnell has a great timeline also.  I use both to check for things happening at certain times.  Tracy's timeline has just the events of a single Lee Harvey Oswald.  David's breaks down those events into a Harvey and a Lee.  Between those two and whatever else I can put my hands on I am creating my own timelines.  I'm just about to finish Oswald in Russia.  Then I am going to move on to New Orleans.  My timelines are less valuable because they are to hold my speculations on the events the timeline is concerned with.  For instance I am firmly convinced that Mae Brussells is correct when she said Oswald was sent to Russia to help bring down the U2 and disrupt peace talks between the US and USSR.  This is what I concluded from looking at Oswald's military service.  It all had to do with the U2.

[John Butler]

16 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

The thing is, Newman describes the early undercover leafleting at places like Tulane, and a liberal anti nuke group.

One of the students at Tulane recalled the name Hidell on the handbill. (p. 311)

Is this from Oswald and the CIA?  I have a copy boxed up.  Guess I need to dig that out.  I didn't like the book because (if my memory is valid) Newman said something to the effect that he was following the paper trail of the man rather than the man.  I may have misread this, but I believe that he had Oswald in Mexico City.  I don't think he was there and follow David Josephs reasoning and evidence that says he was not there.

[Paul Jolliffe]

On 7/13/2020 at 5:59 PM, James DiEugenio said:

The thing is, Newman describes the early undercover leafleting at places like Tulane, and a liberal anti nuke group.

One of the students at Tulane recalled the name Hidell on the handbill. (p. 311)

Also, in the later open phase, there was the ITM incident.  Where Oswald hired a coupe of other people from the UE office and the handbills were  delivered to him by Quiroga.

The "Hidell" name might really have been on a handbill on Tulane's campus. The Secret Service asked Mr. M.E. Lapham, the Provost at Tulane, about the handbills and requested a check on names, including "Alek James Hidell".  The name check came back negative "after a careful check of all students, faculty members and employees of the university . . ." (Yeah right. I'll bet that was a "careful" check.)

What is more interesting to me is Dean Andrew's statement that "Oswald" confessed to him that he, "Oswald", received $25 a day to pass out the literature. Big money, in other words. To a guy later making $1.25/hour at the TSBD, the days of passing out flyers for $25 must have seemed like a gold mine. "Oswald" was specifically asked by Lt. Francis Martello about payment for leaflet distribution and he denied it ("just enjoyed doing it.")

The WC did not want to pursue possible evidence that "Oswald's" pamphlet/flyer/literature distribution was at the behest of other, unnamed parties. Parties who were paying "Oswald" big money for an easy job.

WC Exhibit 3904, p. 467

https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh26/html/WH_Vol26_0371a.htm