Jim Garrison and the Cuban Operation

[Lynne Foster]

It seems to me, in November of 1963, when J. Edgar Hoover determined that David Ferrie's testimony would be sealed and classified a national security concern, Hoover was trying to hide his involvement in the Cuban Operation, the covert, illegal effort to send equipment and arms to Cuba, to overthrow Fidel Castro.

This alliance explains why Jim Garrrison did not try to destroy the Marcello organization. Those who supported covert operations in Cuba were in a position to blackmail J. Edgar Hoover and Jim Garrison, but blackmail was probably not even a concern because the alliance between the Mafia and corrupt officials was evidently voluntary.

That would explain J. Edgar Hoover and Jim Garrison's reluctance to recognize organized crime -Hoover and Garrison recognized the covert, Cuban Operation to destroy Castro and that was evidently their priority concern.

I think this is a good link about Jim Garrison's new Orleans.

[Lynne Foster]

Garrison's New Orleans was a hotbed of illegal, covert paramilitary operations where corruption, disguise and deception had produced an intelligence cottage industry. In the 1960's, it was the city where the Mafia, anti-Castro exiles and self-styled intelligence spooks joined hands to celebrate what they called their patriotic bonds and to condemn their common enemies -Castro, Communists, Liberals... Entrenched interests dominated the order of the day. In particular, New Orleans was a mature organized crime haven, where political campaign contributions and outright bribery insulated Mafia bosses like Carlos Marcello. In the final analysis, the power source of the city that made its own rules and regulations as it went along, was the cozy relationship between Mob Lords like Carlos Marcello and high ranking law enforcement officials like Jim Garrison. In retrospect, the fact that the city where evasion and denial was honed to a science, came to dominate the Kennedy assasination investigation, is not at all surprising.

Unaccountable corruption is probably the most common feature of the politics of the 1960's in New Orleans. Mobsters like Carlos Marcello relied upon "the Fix" or the working relationship between public officials and the Mafia and they were accustomed to sharing power. The sheer audacity of "the Fix" is absolutely astounding. When the Kennedy Justice Department targeted Jimmy Hoffa, the Mafia responded through the Governor of Louisiana, who set up a meeting where the mob offered the key prosecution witness one million dollars to change his testimony. It was a desperate, foolish bribe which was prompted and ultimately exposed because a series of dynamite explosions fortunately failed to murder targeted witness. In the face of such violent, blatant corruption the fact that powerful Mafia Bosses like Carlos Marcello survived criminal prosecution in the 1960's, is astounding and illuminating. In 1967, Life printed the following account of the Mob Lord: "He [Marcello] operates through a complex of political Fixes which enable him to control the makers and enforcers of law at every level of state govenment."2 Friends in high places were clearly responsible for the lapse in American justice, which saw the power of Marcello grow despite press scrutiny and astute Louisiana newcomers like Aaron Kohn identified the peculiar flavour of New Orleans "politicking" when he said: "After about a year, I began to realize something about the system here. In Chicago, people were generally on one side of the fence or the other -honest or crooked. But in Louisiana there just isn't any fence".3 Jim Garrison, who was elected District Attorney in 1962, embodied the fact that "the fence" had been dismantled when he claimed that the Mafia did not exist despite his association with Marcello's henchmen. A frequent guest of Mafia assets like Marcello's lieutenant, Mario Marino, who operated the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas, Garrison accepted the hospitality of the Mafia and instead of cutting off his indebtedness, he said: "I may be naive -this is my first public office -but I don't see what's wrong with it".4Frequent meetings between Garrison investigator Pershing Gervais and Carlos Marcello, further cemented the fact that in New Orleans, business was transacted in cooperation with the Marcello Mafia. Like J. Edgar Hoover, Jim Garrison responded to Life Magazine disclosures by using the power of his office to manufacture the impression that organized crime did not exist. His tactics may have been more flamboyant, but the end result was the same. Assuming both the solemnity of a Benedictine monk and the pomposity of Al Capone, Garrison solemnly declared: "If organized crime is found [through Grand Jury] to be flourishing, I will resign as district attorney".5 By 1967, the fact that the power and influence of organized crime was flourishing was not in dispute, but Jim Garrison knew that he could easily persuade a Grand Jury into believing whatever he wanted it to believe, and that is exactly what he did.

Favour and bribery were the currency of the corruption that had penetrated the State of Louisiana. After being entertained at the Sands in Las Vegas, Aubrey Young, Governor McKeithen's aide, who, like Garrison, accepted the hospitality of Marcello associate Mario Marino, was seen passing $100 bills to chorus girls when he was supposedly in debt.6 Young had direct, personal contact with Marcello and admitted to having set up the meeting where a one million dollar bribe was offered to silence a witness. Jim Garrison always maintained the battle to pervert the truth and instead of admitting anything, he directed a succession of Grand Jury inquiries and manipulated them to the point where they all payed homage to the contention that there was no evidence of organized crime in New Orleans. In the final analysis, Jim Garrison was essentially a Hoover "ditto" on the state, as opposed to the federal level. Like Hoover's public relations schemes, Garrison cultivated an image of law and order through highly publicized, honky-tonk and strip-joint raids, to create the impression that he was fulfilling his law enforcement responsibilities. But while Garrison targeted independent strip-joints and honky-tonks and put them out of business to demonstrate what he termed his "war on vice", the assets of Carlos Marcello were selectively spared.

From 1965 through 1969, Garrison obtained just two convictions and five guilty pleas in police cases brought against Marcello's gangsters. He elected not to prosecute 84 such cases, including 22 gambling charges, one for attempted murder, three for kidnapping and one for manslaughter. Garrison even managed to hush up the fact that last June a Marcello bagman, Vic Carona, died after suffering a heart attack during a political meeting held in Garrison's own home.7

Perhaps, the most peculiar and quixotic character who was invariably well acquainted with Jim Garrison was fellow pilot David Ferrie. Ferrie was a Cold War legend who was allegedly responsible for everything from secret bombing raids over Cuba to secretly whisking Marcello back to the United States after his unceremonious deportation by Robert Kennedy. Ferrie's violent, anti-Communist ideology established the predictable dimension of his enigmatic life. Clearly, in the absence of his consistent, conspiratorial zeal to fight Communism, it is difficult if not impossible to "get a handle" on David Ferrie: He was a gifted pilot, a cancer researcher who kept hundreds of mice in his room, a self-professed psychologist, a self-trained hypnotist, a self-ordained priest, a soldier of fortune, a contract worker for both the CIA and the Mafia -there was indeed no end to the David Ferrie dabble. In 1950, he joined the Army Reserve and the "predictable" David Ferrie described his anti-Communist obsession in a letter to the commander of the U.S. 1st Air Force. In the words of David Ferrie:

There is nothing I would enjoy better than blowing the hell out of every damn Russian, Communist, Red, or what have-you.. We can cook up a crew that will really bomb them to hell... I want to train killers, however bad that sounds.8

Obsessive hatred motivated David Ferrie to the point where he enthusiastically embraced every conspiracy that satisfied his rabidly anti-Communist temperament. In particular, his determination to "train killers" was satisfied when David Ferrie trained and armed anti-Castro exiles who engaged failed, military skirmishes in Cuba. Heavily involved in covert, anti-Castro exile activities, in 1961, Ferrie reportedly planned airborne missions against Castro's military installations. It is certainly difficult to believe that the CIA would turn down a daring pilot like David Ferrie and the overlap between CIA-supported anti-Castro operations and Ferrie's anti-Castro involvement, strongly suggests that Ferrie was indeed, as is often reported, a CIA operative. When interests overlap, it is sometimes difficult to separate the effort of one from the other, and that certainly seems to be the case with regard to anti-Castro plots, David Ferrie, the Mafia, the CIA and J. Edgar Hoover's FBI. In the process of deploying covert war efforts, David Ferrie developed the reputation of a heroic Cold Warrior. In stark contrast, John F. Kennedy, who had refused to use the American military to invade Cuba, was the perceived traitor. David Ferrie certainly hated Kennedy to the point where he did not waste a single opportunity to proclaim his wish to have him shot. And while David Ferrie's demand was ultimately fulfilled, his obvious share of the responsibility is on the low end of the scale -Ferrie's proclivity was to join and to advance plots, he did not have the power to hatch them.

In particular, David Ferrie was one of many intelligence spooks who helped set Oswald up. At the time of his arrest, Lee Harvey Oswald had David Ferrie's library card on him, and that certainly exposed the secret relationship that was never supposed to be disclosed. Initiated in 1955, when the nearly sixteen year old Lee Harvey Oswald had joined the Civic Air Patrol unit in New Orleans and was a cadet under the command of David Ferrie, the genuine nature of the secret relationship between Ferrie and Oswald is practically impossible to uncover -suffice it to say, it definitely existed and David Ferrie, who claimed a Ph.D. in psychology and who had listed himself as "doctor" in the telephone directory, was certainly anxious to put his skills to use in the advancment of his predictable obsessions. The dirty tricks of covert operatives like David Ferrie routinely evade detection, but Kennedy's assasination was followed by reports that David Ferrie's library card had been found in the possession of Oswald, and that evidently terrified Ferrie to the point of panic. On November the 22nd, David Ferrie was with Carlos Marcello celebrating the fact that the Mafia Boss had just been cleared of the long-standing deportation charges that Robert Kennedy had initiated. The assassination of John F. Kennedy presented further cause for celebration amongst "patriots" who were angry at Kennedy for refusing to support and for seeking to dismantle the illegal, covert operations of anti-Castro exiles. But despite the momentous occasion which was ostensibly one of if not the happiest day in Ferrie's life, the opportunity to relax and enjoy anti-Kennedy triumphs was instantly disrupted by a revelation which was so dramatic that the celebration was abruptly terminated and Ferrie drove non-stop into the night some 350 miles to Texas. While in Texas, Ferrie hung around pay phones where he frantically placed calls which were obviously too urgent to postpone. The report that Ferrie's library card had been found in the possession of Lee Harvey Oswald had evidently awakened Ferrie to the realization that his secret relationship with Oswald threatened to be exposed, and that instantly disrupted an otherwise perfect day.

There is no official record of the claim that Oswald's library card was found in the possession of Lee Harvey Oswald. The unofficial record is less evasive. Within hours after the assasination, Ferrie went to Oswald's former landlady to ask her whether she had come across Ferrie's library card.9 The claim that Oswald had Ferrie's library card in his possession was evidently true enough to cause Ferrie to frantically search for his missing library card, to frantically trail through Texas in a mysterious bid to tie up "loose ends", and to provoke a Jim Garrison-style hoax. Indeed, on November 25, 1963, Jim Garrison actually turned Ferrie over to Hoover's FBI to create the impression that David Ferrie's link to the Kennedy assassination had been thoroughly investigated. Ferrie was not turned over prior to the 25th because when he bee-lined to Texas following the Kennedy assassination, he stayed until Sunday evening. Earlier that very same day, Jack Ruby had murdered Oswald and had conveniently simplified Ferrie's concerns -a dead Oswald could neither confirm nor deny reports that he had borrowed David Ferrie's library card.

As long as the Warren Report dominated the so-called truth about the Kennedy assasination, David Ferrie had nothing to worry about. Obsessed by the need to cover up the truth, the Warren Report was doing just fine until it was critically analyzed and discredited. And then, it all fell apart and Jim Garrison resumed his "damage control" responsibilities. In the process, David Ferrie died, or committed suicide or he was murdered, depending upon what Jim Garrison was prepared to tell the world. Garrison explained Ferrie's strange death in the following terms. "I suppose it could just be a weird coincidence that the night Ferrie penned two suicide notes, he died of natural causes."10 Jim Garrison, who was evidently a "traceless death" enthusiast, was not too concerned about exposing the genuine cause of Ferrie's death. His book of fiction The Star Spangled Contract, graphically illustrates the act of murder and the process of erasing every hint of foul play to make death appear natural. In Mafia Kingfish, John Davis describes the same process in an an ugly, factual account exposed by British journalist Christopher Robbins, whereby Carlos Evertze, an executioner for Dominican Republic dictator Rafael Trujillo, murdered a suspected student activist. The student was knocked out with chloroform, a 4-inch extra-fine needle was driven into his brain from underneath the earlobe, pulled out rapidly, and the pinpoint of blood was brushed away with alchohol. "In the autopsy it seems as if the victim had a cerebral hemorrhage. The needle xxxxx just looks like a pore."11 Likewise, the mysterious death of David Ferrie had all the earmarks of the "traceless" operations that Jim Garrison, Carlos Marcello and J. Edgar Hoover relied upon, to cover up the truth about the Kennedy assassination. The sequence of events that led to the murder of David Ferrie are very clear: In November of 1963, Jim Garrison turned David Ferrie over to the "custody" of Hoover to "investigate" reports of a link with Oswald. Hoover released Ferrie into the "custody" of a world which was essentially controlled by Jim Garrison and Carlos Marcello. When Marcello's lawyer warned Ferrie about his library card being in the possession of Oswald, it was only a matter of time before the lingering panic to cover up the truth caught up with David Ferrie. And while he was in the custody and constant surveillance of Jim Garrison, he died -a patriot.

Guy Banister, the self-proclaimed, violent anti-Castro crusader who occupied the strange world of David Ferrie and Carlos Marcello, was evidently one of Hoover's direct links into the world of violent, unaccountable fanatics. Banister was Hoover's former FBI Special-Agent-In-Charge in Chicago, and that was certainly a position reserved for loyal Hooverites. In New Orleans, Banister's private detective agency operated on the level of the covert operations headquarters of right wing extremists. Well connected to intelligence agencies since his alleged association with Naval Intelligence during World War II, reports that Banister had cultivated FBI and CIA contacts are entirely consistent with all the evidence that surrounded his bizarre world. Shortly before the Bay of Pigs, Banister's office was a storehouse for boxes of grenades, mines and other munitions, and the clandestine, illegal paramilitary operations Banister engaged were actually the unofficial territory of the FBI, the CIA and the Mafia. Banister was certainly well connected to the clandestine war against Communism. With former bosses like J. Edgar Hoover and Carlos Marcello, Banister's agenda was as transparent as David Ferrie's. On the surface, the people that Banister worked for were worlds apart, but in the world of illegal covert operations, they were one and the same. Technically a civillian, Banister offered intelligence interests the opportunity to disguise illegal, covert operations. Not surprisingly, the irresistible intrigue that Banister's office exuded also attracted young, independent intelligence enthusiasts like Lee Harvey Oswald. It is difficult to pinpoint the allure but like a notorious strip-joint that tickles the fancy of an adolecent, Banister's office was a veritable "clap trap", where the mix of government intelligence agents, "retired" zealots and the Mafia, produced a free-wheeling climate where conspiracy and intrigue was the order of the day. It is no small coincidence that all of Guy Banister, David Ferrie, J.Edgar Hoover and Carlos Marcello did absolutely everything in their power to undermine the Kennedys. The connections that link them all together are too solid and the suspicions too closely linked to the Kennedy assassination to doubt the fact that they all colluded in the effort to frame Lee Harvey Oswald. Oswald in fact handed out pro-Castro leaflets that were stamped in Banister's office, and in a world where they controlled the profile of Lee Harvey Oswald, they were ideally suited to the task of demonizing Oswald. Working out of Banister's office, Oswald was probably used to advance a covert scheme to feret out Communists, and secrecy made the task of setting Oswald up, a breeze.

David Ferrie had certainly cultivated Oswald's trust -he even lend him his library card to reinforce the impression. A library card in the possession of another party implies some sort of ongoing relationship and Marcello's lawyer certainly didn't miss the significance when he warned Ferrie about his library card being in the possession of Oswald. In typical American Grotesque fashion, Banister's office, through private detective Jack Martin, diverted attention away from the library card reports and towards sensational propaganda like the claim that Ferrie was Oswald's "getaway pilot". The secret service interviewed Martin and Banister's loyal lieutenant provided "evidence" to confirm Ferrie's claim that he was simply the victim of false leads. The aggressive campaign to discredit the fact that Oswald and Ferrie knew each other ultimately triumphed when Jack Martin told the secret service that he suffered from "telephonitis while drinking and that it was during one of his drinking sprees that he telephoned Assistant District Attorney Kohlman and told him this fantastic story about David William Ferrie being involved with Lee Harvey Oswald".12 The simple story about Ferrie's library card was buried in the process. When Marcello's lawyer, G. Wray Gill, was questioned by the FBI about how he learned that Ferrie's library card had been found on Oswald, Gill could not recall, though he supposed it might have originated with Jack Martin.13 In retrospect, the frantic, exhaustive disinformation campaign to deny a simple truth, is merely a reflection of the campaign to cover up the truth about the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

In the last analysis, it is not possible to dispute the fact that Marcello, Ferrie, Banister and Hoover were all absorbed by a cooperative, well coordinated effort to cover up the truth and that betrays all the secrecy, all the deception and all the deliberate disinformation which can and was conveniently manufactured. The power that this corrupt triumvirate commanded was broad enough to penetrate the very heart of Dallas Texas. In Bob Davis' Mafia Kingfish, a chapter appropriately titled Marcello's Dallas, details the fact that the Texas rackets were actually a satellite of the Marcello organization. John Halfen, Marcello's bagman funelled money to cultivate political influence and the system was honed to the point where "thanks partly to the influence of Vice president Lyndon Johnson, Carlos Marcello was able to operate freely in Dallas in 1963."14 With allies like Jack Ruby, who also operated on the level of a Mafia bagman in the sense that he cultivated corruptible police, all the mysterious pieces of the Kennedy assasination puzzle fall into place. Clearly, if the Dallas Texas "circle of corruption" was capable of papering over concrete evidence like Ferrie's library card and of eliminating Kennedy assassination suspect Lee Harvey Oswald, relatively simple tasks like getting Jack Ruby to plant the "magic bullet" at Parkland where he was spotted and possibly even dropping off assassins at the grassy knoll [the scene of other Jack Ruby citings], were relatively painless. At the very least, every single unanswered question which surrounds the "magic bullet" dissolves, when the motivation behind all the purposeful controversy, is carefully acknowledged.

Edited December 18, 2005 by Lynne Foster

[Stephen Roy]

It seems to me, in November of 1963, when J. Edgar Hoover determined that David Ferrie's testimony would be sealed and classified a national security concern

Just a correction: There was never any "testimony" by Ferrie. He gave several statements to the FBI (and the Secret Service and NODA) in 1963, and the FBI also generated about 40 other interviews related to Ferrie. These were given to Warren Commission and became CD75. As they were not used in the preparation of the report, they were not published by the WC. They went into the first collection of unpublished WC documents that were transfered to the National Archives and were available to researchers by early 1967, at the latest.

They were never sealed and classified a national security concern.

[Lynne Foster]

It seems to me, in November of 1963, when J. Edgar Hoover determined that David Ferrie's testimony would be sealed and classified a national security concern

Just a correction: There was never any "testimony" by Ferrie. He gave several statements to the FBI (and the Secret Service and NODA) in 1963, and the FBI also generated about 40 other interviews related to Ferrie. These were given to Warren Commission and became CD75. As they were not used in the preparation of the report, they were not published by the WC. They went into the first collection of unpublished WC documents that were transfered to the National Archives and were available to researchers by early 1967, at the latest.

They were never sealed and classified a national security concern.

That is not what Jim Garrison said.

He said theNovember 1963 report on David Ferrie was deemed classified until 2038.

[Lynne Foster]

Here's the entire quotation which illustrates the obsession to seal the truth about the assassination of John F. Kennedy: the truth has to surmised, it isn't handed out:

PLAYBOY: Why did you become interested in Ferrie and his associates in November 1963?

GARRISON: To explain that, I'll have to tell you something about the operation of our office. I believe we have one of the best district attorney's offices in the country. We have no political appointments and, as a result, there's a tremendous amount of esprit among our staff and an enthusiasm for looking into unanswered questions. That's why we got together the day after the assassination and began examining our files and checking out every political extremist, religious fanatic and kook who had ever come to our attention. And one of the names that sprang into prominence was that of David Ferrie. When we checked him out, as we were doing with innumerable other suspicious characters, we discovered that on November 22nd he had traveled to Texas to go "duck hunting" and "ice skating."

Well, naturally, this sparked our interest. We staked out his house and we questioned his friends, and when he came back --- the first thing he did on his return, incidentally, was to contact a lawyer and then hide out for the night at a friend's room in another town --- we pulled him and his two companions in for questioning. The story of Ferrie's activities that emerged was rather curious. He drove nine hours through a furious thunderstorm to Texas, then apparently gave up his plans to go duck hunting and instead went to an ice-skating rink in Houston and stood waiting beside a pay telephone for two hours; he never put the skates on. We felt his movements were suspicious enough to justify his arrest and that of his friends, and we took them into custody. When we alerted the FBI, they expressed interest and asked us to turn the three men over to them for questioning. We did, but Ferrie was released soon afterward and most of its report on him was classified top secret and secreted in the National Archives, where it will remain inaccessible to the public until September 2038 A.D. No one, including me, can see those pages.

[Lynne Foster]

Like J. Edgar Hoover, David Ferrie was an anti-Communist fanatic who was heavily involved in anti-Castro, Cuban operations, and the fact that Garrison and Hoover treat him the way the government expected Valerie Plame to be treated, speaks for itself.

[Stephen Roy]

It seems to me, in November of 1963, when J. Edgar Hoover determined that David Ferrie's testimony would be sealed and classified a national security concern

Just a correction: There was never any "testimony" by Ferrie. He gave several statements to the FBI (and the Secret Service and NODA) in 1963, and the FBI also generated about 40 other interviews related to Ferrie. These were given to Warren Commission and became CD75. As they were not used in the preparation of the report, they were not published by the WC. They went into the first collection of unpublished WC documents that were transfered to the National Archives and were available to researchers by early 1967, at the latest.

They were never sealed and classified a national security concern.

That is not what Jim Garrison said.

He said theNovember 1963 report on David Ferrie was deemed classified until 2038.

You're a bit behind the curve on this. First, you said testimony, but it was interview reports.

Second, I explained the routing of those reports. Weisberg quoted them in print in 1967 in Oswald in New Orleans.

I don't know why Garrison said that, but the reports have been available since 1967.

Like J. Edgar Hoover, David Ferrie was an anti-Communist fanatic who was heavily involved in anti-Castro, Cuban operations, and the fact that Garrison and Hoover treat him the way the government expected Valerie Plame to be treated, speaks for itself.

Ferrie was mildly involved in anti-Castro activities Nov 1960-April 1961, and heavily involved from April 61 to about October 1961. Very little Cuban stuff after that.

Fanatic? Well, his rhetoric was tough, but fanatic is a bit strong.

[Lynne Foster]

You have got to be kidding !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Fanatic is understatement.

This is from John's page on Ferrie:

"In 1963 Ferrie and Guy Bannister began working for the lawyer G. Wray Gill and his client, Carlos Marcello. This involved attempts to block Marcello's deportation to Guatemala."

I guess the Kennedy war against organized crime diverted Ferrie's attention.

This is also from John's page on Ferrie:

"On the afternoon of 22nd November, 1963, Guy Bannister and Jack Martin went drinking together. On their return to Banister's office the two men got involved in a dispute about a missing file. Banister became so angry that he he drew his Magnum revolver and hit Martin with it several times. Martin was so badly injured that he had to be detained in the local Charily Hospital.

Over the next few days Martin told friends that Ferrie and Guy Bannister had been involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. According to Martin, Ferrie was the getaway man whose job it was to fly the assassin out of Texas. He also claimed that Ferrie knew Lee Harvey Oswald from their days in the New Orleans Civil Air Patrol and had given him lessons on how to use a rifle with a telescopic sight. "

If all that is true, then Jim Garrison did a fantastic job covering up the truth about the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The suggestion that DA Jim Garrison did not know everything there is to know about Banister's fanatic is not even remotely plausible.

Edited December 14, 2005 by Lynne Foster

[Lynne Foster]

On November 25, 1963, Garrison arrested David Ferrie, questioned him, and handed him over to the FBI.

Wednesday 30 June 1971: Jim Garrison is arrested, he is charged with violating the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970. Garrison and two police officers are accused of accepting bribes from gamblers in New Orleans involving illegal pinball machines.

___________________________

Violence and arrest appear to be inevitable in serious corruption cases. I wonder how many people were murdered to keep Jim Garrison out of jail. I did a google search to try to find out some details about his 1971 arrest, but i can't find any.

No doubt, somebody will say that the government was after Garrison, because the Big Easy DA was honest LOL

[Stephen Roy]

You have got to be kidding !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Fanatic is understatement.

Lynne, I've spoken with people - many people -who knew Ferrie. He was strongly anti-Castro and could mouth off. But people who knew him said he wasn't the loony tune he appears to be in books.

This is from John's page on Ferrie:

"In 1963 Ferrie and Guy Bannister began working for the lawyer G. Wray Gill and his client, Carlos Marcello. This involved attempts to block Marcello's deportation to Guatemala."

I guess the Kennedy war against organized crime diverted Ferrie's attention.

Ferrie was active in anti-Castro affairs from November 1960-October 1961. He was dropped by the Cubans after an arrest on morals charges. He got Gill as his lawyer and started working for him, to offset Gill's charges. When the Marcello case was looming, Ferrie worked on it. He was somewhat infatuated with the Marcellos.

This is also from John's page on Ferrie:

"On the afternoon of 22nd November, 1963, Guy Bannister and Jack Martin went drinking together. On their return to Banister's office the two men got involved in a dispute about a missing file. Banister became so angry that he he drew his Magnum revolver and hit Martin with it several times. Martin was so badly injured that he had to be detained in the local Charily Hospital.

The injuries were not serious.

Over the next few days Martin told friends that Ferrie and Guy Bannister had been involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Not correct. Martin did not allege any Banister involvement in the JFK case in 1963.

According to Martin, Ferrie was the getaway man whose job it was to fly the assassin out of Texas. He also claimed that Ferrie knew Lee Harvey Oswald from their days in the New Orleans Civil Air Patrol and had given him lessons on how to use a rifle with a telescopic sight. "

Martin did say all this. Flying the assassin was not true. The CAP connection was true. The rifle allegation is probably not true.

If all that is true, then Jim Garrison did a fantastic job covering up the truth about the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The suggestion that DA Jim Garrison did not know everything there is to know about Banister's fanatic is not even remotely plausible.

Believe it or not, Garrison made some significant mistakes about Ferrie in his books.

[Guest Matt Allison]

You show quite a talent with these hysterical Garrison posts of yours; time to consider writing fantasy books for children.

It seems to me, in November of 1963, when J. Edgar Hoover determined that David Ferrie's testimony would be sealed and classified a national security concern, Hoover was trying to hide his involvement in the Cuban Operation, the covert, illegal effort to send equipment and arms to Cuba, to overthrow Fidel Castro.

This alliance explains why Jim Garrrison did not try to destroy the Marcello organization. Those who supported covert operations in Cuba were in a position to blackmail J. Edgar Hoover and Jim Garrison, but blackmail was probably not even a concern because the alliance between the Mafia and corrupt officials was evidently voluntary.

That would explain J. Edgar Hoover and Jim Garrison's reluctance to recognize organized crime -Hoover and Garrison recognized the covert, Cuban Operation to destroy Castro and that was evidently their priority concern.

I think this is a good link about Jim Garrison's new Orleans.

[Tim Gratz]

Lynne wrote:

Violence and arrest appear to be inevitable in serious corruption cases. I wonder how many people were murdered to keep Jim Garrison out of jail.

I guess an active mind can wonder many things! Lynne is wonder-full!

[Lynne Foster]

You have got to be kidding !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Fanatic is understatement.

Lynne, I've spoken with people - many people -who knew Ferrie. He was strongly anti-Castro and could mouth off. But people who knew him said he wasn't the loony tune he appears to be in books.

This is from John's page on Ferrie:

"In 1963 Ferrie and Guy Bannister began working for the lawyer G. Wray Gill and his client, Carlos Marcello. This involved attempts to block Marcello's deportation to Guatemala."

I guess the Kennedy war against organized crime diverted Ferrie's attention.

Ferrie was active in anti-Castro affairs from November 1960-October 1961. He was dropped by the Cubans after an arrest on morals charges. He got Gill as his lawyer and started working for him, to offset Gill's charges. When the Marcello case was looming, Ferrie worked on it. He was somewhat infatuated with the Marcellos.

This is also from John's page on Ferrie:

"On the afternoon of 22nd November, 1963, Guy Bannister and Jack Martin went drinking together. On their return to Banister's office the two men got involved in a dispute about a missing file. Banister became so angry that he he drew his Magnum revolver and hit Martin with it several times. Martin was so badly injured that he had to be detained in the local Charily Hospital.

The injuries were not serious.

Over the next few days Martin told friends that Ferrie and Guy Bannister had been involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Not correct. Martin did not allege any Banister involvement in the JFK case in 1963.

According to Martin, Ferrie was the getaway man whose job it was to fly the assassin out of Texas. He also claimed that Ferrie knew Lee Harvey Oswald from their days in the New Orleans Civil Air Patrol and had given him lessons on how to use a rifle with a telescopic sight. "

Martin did say all this. Flying the assassin was not true. The CAP connection was true. The rifle allegation is probably not true.

If all that is true, then Jim Garrison did a fantastic job covering up the truth about the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The suggestion that DA Jim Garrison did not know everything there is to know about Banister's fanatic is not even remotely plausible.

Believe it or not, Garrison made some significant mistakes about Ferrie in his books.

And it was all very deliberate, to cover up the truth about the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

There are no mistakes in the zeal to cover up the truth.

[Lynne Foster]

This is no mistake, it reflects J. Edgar Hoover and Jim Garrison's obsession to seal the truth about the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

PLAYBOY: Why did you become interested in Ferrie and his associates in November 1963?

GARRISON: To explain that, I'll have to tell you something about the operation of our office. I believe we have one of the best district attorney's offices in the country. We have no political appointments and, as a result, there's a tremendous amount of esprit among our staff and an enthusiasm for looking into unanswered questions. That's why we got together the day after the assassination and began examining our files and checking out every political extremist, religious fanatic and kook who had ever come to our attention. And one of the names that sprang into prominence was that of David Ferrie. When we checked him out, as we were doing with innumerable other suspicious characters, we discovered that on November 22nd he had traveled to Texas to go "duck hunting" and "ice skating."

Well, naturally, this sparked our interest. We staked out his house and we questioned his friends, and when he came back --- the first thing he did on his return, incidentally, was to contact a lawyer and then hide out for the night at a friend's room in another town --- we pulled him and his two companions in for questioning. The story of Ferrie's activities that emerged was rather curious. He drove nine hours through a furious thunderstorm to Texas, then apparently gave up his plans to go duck hunting and instead went to an ice-skating rink in Houston and stood waiting beside a pay telephone for two hours; he never put the skates on. We felt his movements were suspicious enough to justify his arrest and that of his friends, and we took them into custody. When we alerted the FBI, they expressed interest and asked us to turn the three men over to them for questioning. We did, but Ferrie was released soon afterward and most of its report on him was classified top secret and secreted in the National Archives, where it will remain inaccessible to the public until September 2038 A.D. No one, including me, can see those pages.

[Lynne Foster]

Lynne wrote:

Violence and arrest appear to be inevitable in serious corruption cases. I wonder how many people were murdered to keep Jim Garrison out of jail.

I guess an active mind can wonder many things! Lynne is wonder-full!

Tim, you are the basket case who claims that Fidel castro murdered John F. Kennedy -talk about an active mind LOL