David Ferrie

[JL Allen]

I love that story about driving to Houston late at night during the severe thunderstorm to go ice-skating. Then, he says, the next morning they all went goose hunting. Then he says "a couple of the "boys" killed some geese - but he didn't. When informed that "the boys" had testified that they took no rifles - he remembers that they had driven all the way out to where the geese were - and realized that they had forgotten to bring their rifles - so, no, they didn't kill any geese. What a load of crap.

Edited September 11, 2005 by JL Allen

[Tim Gratz]

To JL:

I know that in the way the movie "JFK" Ferrie responded in this way in his interview with Garrison. Are there any primary source documents that verify that Ferrie actually said this in the interview?

The movie "JFK" is not always, of course, true to the historical record.

[Lawrence Riley]

I watched the commentary of the film with Oliver Stone and he recalled how Garrison re-told the story about Ferrie's trip to Texas. He noted Garrison's dry sense of humor. So it would appear that Stone used Garrison's actual version of the story.

[Mark Knight]

Just a small technical point here: one does not usually shoot geese with a rifle. Usually, a goose hunter uses a shotgun...most often a 12-gauge, but there are 10-gauge shotguns specifically known as a "goose gun."

One would have to be an especially good shot to use a rifle to kill a goose, and finding a particular caliber rifle that would prove effective in the kill without ruining a large amount of meat [bruising, etc] would appear to be quite difficult, I would think.

So the fact that "the boys" "took no rifles" when going goose hunting might actually be technically correct.

Edited September 12, 2005 by Mark Knight

[JL Allen]

Evenstill, Ferrie said that they had actually not gotten any geese - because they had discovered that they had NOTHING TO SHOOT THEM WITH. AFTER he had already stated that a couple of the boys had gotten geese. There's a big difference between the recollections of actually having multiple dead geese and then, dealing with the distinctive realities associated (sights, smells, sounds, physical interactions, weight, mass, blood... they all traveled in the same car...) - and, the thoroughly empty - vaccuous - "non-experience" - of never having had any dead geese to remember to begin with. He sounds like a bald-faced xxxx to me - spewing nothing but "hooey" - irregardless of the types of weapons which they had all apparently forgotten to bring on their hunting trip.

Edited September 12, 2005 by JL Allen

[Mark Knight]

So...you must believe the hunting trip story was nothing more than a Ferrie tale?

What that conclusion portends might be rather Grimm, Brothers.

[where can a fellow get a good 'rim shot' when he needs it?]

Ba-dum-BUM!

[Stephen Roy]

I love that story about driving to Houston late at night during the severe thunderstorm to go ice-skating.  Then, he says, the next morning they all went goose hunting.  Then he says "a couple of the "boys" killed some geese - but he didn't.  When informed that "the boys" had testified that they took no rifles - he remembers that they had driven all the way out to where the geese were - and realized that they had forgotten to bring their rifles - so, no, they didn't kill any geese.  What a load of crap.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The discussion was between Ferrie and ADA John Volz, not Garrison, and it took place in late 1966, not 1963. From the transcript:

FERRIE: I had some business for Gill to take care of.

VOLZ: What business was this with Gill?

FERRIE: One of his cases in Federal Court. Marion James Johnson was on appeal. I forgot whether I was to ask him for money for a transcript or what.

VOLZ: Where did you go first?...

FERRIE: We wanted to go ice skating then hunting. We were going to hunt geese south of Beaumont, in that area, to be more specific...

VOLZ: You were going hunting? Di you take any weapons?

FERRIE: Yes.

VOLZ: What kind?

FERRIE: Shotguns.

VOLZ: How many?

FERRIE: I assume offhand a weapon apiece...

VOLZ: What made you decide to go to Vinton?

FERRIE: Sooner or later I was going to have to go there for Gill. This was two birds with one stone.

VOLZ: What did you do in Vinton?

FERRIE: Talked to Marion James Johnson...Once again, if I could get the record I could tell you so. Don't forget this was three years ago...When we left Galveston we decided to go look for the geese. I remembered I boarded a ferry across the channel down along the south shore. We did, in fact, get to where the geese were and there were thousands, but you couldn't approach them. They were a wise bunch of birds.

VOLZ: Did you kill any geese?

FERRIE: No.

[Tim Gratz]

Stephen's post clarified a lot, I think.

Ferrie did state that they had shotguns with them. And Mark Knight turned out to be exactly correct when he noted that rifles are not used in goose-hunting.

Mr. Allen's post was based, I believe, solely on the "JFK" movie.

This simply demonstrates the error of not relying on primary sources. Cleaarly "JFK" used "artistic license" in many places. Note also that Garrison himself was not apparently a party to the Ferrie interview but the movie places him in it--far more dramatic that way.

I am not making any judgment here of the truthfullness of Ferrie's tale I only want to caution Mr. Allen and others to be careful in their reserarch. It is best to use literature that at least has a cite to primary sources that can be verified. I would not trust the "JFK" movie for historical accuracy.

[Stephen Roy]

I have to agree here, Tim.

I was very much a supporter of Garrison's case at the time, and admired him greatly. When his files began to become available, I saw his case in a different light. By the time his autobiography was published, I could see some discrepancies between his files and his writings. I presume he was writing from memory, and he made a few mistakes. And in a few cases, one can be misled. For example, how strong the case was against Shaw at the time of his arrest. Over the next few years, even more Garrison files became available.

Then came "JFK", based largely on Garrison's book but with other material added and certain dramatic liberties taken. It is a stunning film and still one of my favorites. Nevertheless, I caution researchers not to consider the film evidence. There is a lot of Garrison's original stuff there, but the film does not precisely follow the evidence. And I even urge caution with Garrison's book. I recommend checking other sources.

I still admire Garrison, and I think his intentions were good. He truly believed that he had solved the case, but as another writer put it, I'm not sure he found "the " conspiracy.

[Gary Buell]

From Peter Levenda's blog:

At one time, there were as many as four “bishops” functioning from Guy Banister’s Camp Street office, and these included virtually all of his investigators, from David Ferrie and Jack Martin to Thomas Beckham and the lawyer Thomas Jude Baumler. Beckham was a bishop with the Universal Life Church, along with his friend Fred Lee Crisman (the man who was involved with the seminal UFO event of the 20th century, the Maury Island affair) and with Raymond Broshears, yet another minister of the Universal Life Church and later with one of the Orthodox sects with lines to Stanley, and who became a well-known gay activist in San Francisco later on. (Broshears would claim, probably falsely, to have lived with David Ferrie in New Orleans; however, it seems certain that he was at least an acquaintance of Ferrie.) In addition, Ferrie, Martin, Beckham, Broshears and Baumler all shared the same apostolic succession: that of Bishop Earl Anglin James in Canada (about whom more later) and of Bishop Carl Stanley of the American Orthodox Catholic Church.

http://sinisterforces.info/blog

[Tim Gratz]

Stephen (Roy, that is):

I agree wholeheartedly with your post.

Let's take the Ferrie interview as a case in point.

I think there was nothing necessarily wrong with making Garrison himself the interrogator in the Ferrie interview. Since he is the "hero" of the case, it makes dramatic sense to have him in the scene, and it does not change the facts of the assassination.

However, if Ferrie did tell the interviewer that they had shotguns with them when they went on the the "goose-hunt" it certainly is twisting the facts for the movie to have Ferrie stating to Garrison that they took no weapons along. Ferrie's explanation of the trip may have been bogus, but to remove all weapons makes it patently bogus. And, basing his view of the assassination on the "JFK" movie, J.L. really thought that is exactly what Ferrie told Garrison.

Another example is, of course, the famous scene with "Mr. X". Garrison never met with "Mr X', so it was nothing quite that dramatic. But I am sure there are millions of people who saw the movie who believe that meeting did in fact occur.

I do agree with you that "JFK" was a great movie, as a movie, despite its factual flaws and it did, of course, lead to the law opening up the records of the case, which has advanced the investigation although it has clearly not solved it.

I hope this interchange will caution noy only J. L. but also other researchers who may be new to the case to carefully check the facts and look, if possible, to primary sources. The problem, of course, is that if the first writer who is examining a primary source somehow, intentionally or not, gets a fact wrong, it is easy for later writers to cite the first writer, without independently checking the primary source, and thereby repeat the error. And the more often an error is repeated, the more believable it becomes.

As an example, let us say witness A told author B that he saw Oswald and Ruby meeting together at Alba's garage. Author "A" then states that Oswald and Ruby were seen together at Alba's garage, and the statement is repeated in the next ten assassination books. (Correctly, the other authors cite B's book, not the witness, because they did not interview A.) Well, A may have been (for whatever reason) lying through his teeth, or simply mistake. But the fact that the assertion that Ruby met Oswald at Alba's garage is now believed by everybody who has read any of the eleven assassination books, when it all comes down to one witness who might be wrong. With the "fact" now in eleven books, it is hard to remember that it all comes down to the accuracy of that single witness.

[Tim Gratz]

Gary wrote:

At one time, there were as many as four “bishops” functioning from Guy Banister’s Camp Street office,

And let us not forget Maurice Bishop!

[Alan Kent]

An FBI report of an interview with NBC cameraman Gene Barnes states: "Barnes said Bob Mulholland (NBC news, Chicago) talked, in Dallas, to one "Fairy," a narcotics addict now out on bail on a sodomy charge in Dallas. Fairy said that Oswald had been under hypnosis from a man doing a mind-reading act at Ruby's Carousel. Fairy was said to be a private detective and the owner of an airplane who took young boys on flights 'just for kicks'"

Raymond Broshears told Dick Russell that Ferrie had been dispatched to Texas to facilitate the escape of Kennedy's assassins. Ferrie's understanding was that they instead decided to attempt a flight to Mexico in the plane in which they had departed Dallas, and that they crashed the plane, killing the three of them.

As has been mentioned, Ferrie told a Garrison investigator that he drove to Texas to "take care of some business for Gill," and specified the alleged business.

I have often wondered if Ferrie might have been "patsied" as a participant in the assassination plot. The Barnes information, while probably garbled somewhat in the translation, is close enough to an accurate description of parts of Ferrie's life, that one might wonder whether someone was feeding information to the press very shortly after the assassination in order to tie Ferrie to the world of Oswald and Ruby.

If (and this is a big if...) Broshears told Russell the truth, Ferrie could have been sent on a "wild goose chase," with the legal business as a cover, in order to muddy the waters of a post-assassination investigation. Ferrie, having spoken publicly against President Kennedy, might well have been seen as an easy target.

Theories such as this can, of course, be strung out on many fronts, and we have no lack of them in the research community! I'd be interested to hear Stephen Roy's comments.

[Stephen Roy]

Alan:

The Barnes-Mulholland story originated with John Corporan at WDSU-TV, who mentioned the then-developing Ferrie story to Mulholland. By the time it got to Barnes, it was garbled. I have an account of this in my Ferrie book.

As interesting as Broshears' account was, I spoke with him and do not consider him a good source. And he was not Ferrie's roomate at any time.

Peter Dale Scott mentioned Ferrie as patsy. There may be something to it. FWIW< I don't think the evidence regarding Ferrie is very solid. There are lots of little dribs and drabs, but I don't see him at the center of the conspiracy. But others disagree.

[Alan Kent]

Alan:

The Barnes-Mulholland story originated with John Corporan at WDSU-TV, who mentioned the then-developing Ferrie story to Mulholland. By the time it got to Barnes, it was garbled. I have an account of this in my Ferrie book.

As interesting as Broshears' account was, I spoke with him and do not consider him a good source. And he was not Ferrie's roomate at any time.

Peter Dale Scott mentioned Ferrie as patsy. There may be something to it. FWIW< I don't think the evidence regarding Ferrie is very solid. There are lots of little dribs and drabs, but I don't see him at the center of the conspiracy. But others disagree.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

We are finally getting some serious scholarly work on the Garrison case, and the cast of characters that were featured. Davy's book, your forthcoming Ferrie study and, of course, Joan Mellen's bio, will probably alter many of our perspectives.

In theorizing about the origin and development of plots against President Kennedy, I have often "set aside" the scenarios backed by supporters of Garrison. Much of the activity surrounding Oswald's New Orleans time is indeed suspicious and worthy of investigation. Shaw, Bannister, and many of the more rabid anti-Castro Cubans who moved around their operations were involved in conspiritorial activities, and Oswald seems to have moved within this ambit. Still, I have not seen much good evidence that ties all of these goings-on to a Kennedy assassination plot.

Now, if Oswald was "plucked" from that environment because of the successful legend that he created there in support of many other projects, pointed in the direction of Mexico City and then Dallas by parties who were intent upon setting him up for the planned Dallas assassination, THEN you have a working assassination plot. But here we are far above the level of Shaw or Bannister.

Or so I have long thought. Let's see what the forthcoming evidence has to say on the matter!