Stephen Roy

Sorry, tried several times to upload a JPG at low res, but it keeps citing an error message.

This would be the Orthodox Catholic Church of the Americas... closely aligned with Old Catholic churches and the Russian Orthodox Church -- unless there was more than one Basilian sect in NO. The group Martin and Ferrie were associated with was the "Byzantine Primitive Catholic Church, Old catholic Church in N.A., Apostolic, Orthodox, Catholic, Order of Saint John", according to the consecration certificates. The group Ferrie alone was associated with was the "Society of the Domestic Missionaries Of Saint Basil the Great", according to his membership card. Extreme r-w and anti-Semitic. Glad to see you're qualifying the assertion he was investing "ordination mills". The idea that HEW would hire the likes of Jack Martin and/or David Ferrie in ANY capacity is farcical. First, there's this: On October 4, 1959, the American Council on Education, acting on a grant from the Carnegie Corporation, issued a report called “American Degree Mills” by Robert H. Reid, charging that “an international ring of agents, operating out of the United States, Canada and various European countries” was engaged in issuing phony college degrees and religious ordinations for cash. Arthur Fleming, the U.S. Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, was incensed and declared war on the scam. He vowed, among other things, to “confer with religious leaders” to attack “degree mills [that] award many so-called religious degrees” for money and produce a list of the offending mills. In April 1960, he began with a list of 30 degree mills, many with religious sounding names, stating that he would “confer with Justice, State, Postmaster and FTC [Federal Trade Commission] to determine what action can be taken by the feds” to stop them in their tracks. On July 6, the report’s author, Robert Reid, spoke on the issue and mentioned one particular degree mill. Renewed activity has been reported by an Italian-based institute that deals both in doctoral and post-doctoral degrees and honors. “Minerva University”, also known as “Phoenix University” in Bari, Italy is offering American students correspondence degrees in a wide variety of subjects from advertising to sanitary engineering. It claims to be a member of the “American Council of Students and Colleges”, an organization not listed in any official American directory. In answer to an official inquiry about the institution, Dr. Fillipo Domini, director of the Instituto Italiano di Cultura, the Italian cultural office in New York, wrote that the Bari institutes “are not legally accepted by the Italian government and the degrees granted by them have no validity according to Italian law.” One subject of HEW interest in terms of ordination mills was a man named Carl John Stanley, operating out of Louisville, Kentucky, as The Most Reverend Christopher Maria Stanley, Archbishop Primate of North America, of the Holy Catholic Apostolic Church, among other names. Somehow, Martin became involved in such an investigation. In an effort to acquire hard evidence in the form of a phony certificate of ordination, he was ordained on September 19, 1960 as "Reverend John J.S. Martin", a Priest in the church. He paid Stanley $200. for the phony ordination papers. Then this, if the scan/attachment works correctly: Well, the scan failed to upload. It is a letter from Russell Long to Martin on US Senate letterhead, 2/14/62: Mr. J.S. Martin PO Box 357 New Orleans 9, La. Dear Jack: You may be sure that I will put in a good word with Health, Education and Welfare. I know they will be glad to continue to work with you. I am glad to have theinformation on Stanley and I am adding it to my file. Keep me advised of further developments in this regards. With every good wish, I am Sincerely yours, Russell (Martin's handwritten note:) Dear Russell: This will serve to introduce Mr. Richard Robey of the FAA. Will you please give Dick any help he may need concerniong the matter he will bring up. Thanks, Jack. I will try again to upload the image as a separate post. Mongoose did not suddenly spring forth from a vacuum. The seeds were sown in a report delivered on May 4, 1961called Cuba and Communism in the Hemisphere . From this and meetings held in the following days by the JCS, it was recommended that covert means be used to destabalise Castro's government. By November this was formalised in Operation Mongoose. Since there is no evidwence of any "Operation Mosquito" ever existing, I wonder how Ferrie could be discussing it? Unless he and Arcacha just made the name up. Could it be that this was a tentative early title for Mongoose? Whatever the case, your dismissal of the possibility that Ferrie was discussing an operation which became known a few months later as Operation Mongoose seems to assume, as suggested aleady, that this operation sprang out of nowhere. I don't see any solid connection between the names. The earliest references to Mongoose post-dated this. You seem determined to use this as almost conclusive evidence that a stroke was inevitable. If so, I have to tell you, you're wrong. Minor brain bleeds are the norm for premature babies -- for known reasons -- but 4.6% of full-term babies suffer brain bleeds which have no medical explanation. Additionally, anyone of any age can have a minor bleed without ever realising it because they suffer no ill effect, and remain healthy in every respect. I was just relating what the man said. He did examine the body. As I recall, there was no mention of these bleeds until the 1990s, so they were obviously not considered to be of any significance to the Coroner. But then, we also need to consider the source of this claim: Lambert's interview with Dr Welsh. No, that is not my source.

__________________________ To what do you attirbute this? I'm not sure. The obvious presumtions would be that he either spit up or vomited. But it is also striking that he was found as if he had retired for the evening. ]

Yes, it was a duplex (see attached picture, if it works, as it looks today). A couple lived downstairs, and the man was his landlord. Their recollections are not as colorful as you might imagine: Lots of teenagers coming and going, Ferrie waliking his dog, strong cigarette smell, etc. They have vivd memories of the day of his death. The man was one of two who found the body, and there were a lot of authorities there for a few days.

Do you happen to have a transcript of the speech Ferrie was making before some group - I'm sorry, I can't remember the name right now, where his anti-Kennedy rhetoric was so vitriolic that he was asked to leave the stage? I am pretty sure no recording was made and no transcript was made. I DO have the official minutes, but the description is vague, that Ferrie indicated his talk would be controversial, that he got into areas that the MOWW considered inconsistent with an official meeting, and asked him to stop while they adjourned the official meeting. Some people say Ferrie continued, some say he didn't. I did talk to one person who was there. He caveated it by saying it was a long time ago, and it didn't seem significant in that political climate, but he recalls that Ferrie described the failure of the invasion and the cancellation of the air strike, and he said that the president did this. Motioning to a Cuban he had brought with him, he said that in Latin America, the crowds would be chanting "To the wall with him!", presumably a firing squad. Or some such thing. That is, as he recalls, when Adm. Ryan asked him to stop. This long after the event, it is very hard to determine what happened, but the bottom line is that it was so critical of the President that the MOWW considered it out of line.

Eastern Air Lines (EAL) wasn’t quite sure what to make of Captain David Ferrie: He was a good (though not great) pilot (“He has a tendency to talk his way through flight school rather than follow the procedures“); He showed promise in company public relations and training, but he could be “an odd one at times.” After training in Miami, he was assigned to LaGuardia. He had just requested a transfer to New Orleans (MSY) when an investigative report from the Retail Credit Company was delivered (May 21, 1951), showing that he had been less than candid about his work history. He omitted Benedictine High School, from which he had been fired, and extended his tenure with Jeda Oil and Drilling to cover the omission. Serious consideration was given to firing him then and there, but he managed to talk his way out of it. Ferrie settled in to New Orleans, living on St. Louis Street, Perrier Street and Bourbon Street. One friend noted that he “liked the south but didn’t like southerners.” Initially a co-pilot, he qualified on the Martin 404 and the Douglas DC-4. Toward the end of 1951, Ferrie answered a call for “seniors” (adults) to help expand the New Orleans Cadet Squadron of the Civil Air Patrol (CAP) based at Lakefront Airport. He began making speeches to civic organizations about air travel to the southeast, and even appeared on a television program (I have been unable to locate a kinescope of this show). EAL actually thought he might be more valuable in Traffic and Sales than as a pilot. In 1953, he attended Tulane for one semester, and during the same period, he looked into the possibility of entering the priesthood again at a seminary in Corpus Christi. In 1954, Ferrie was nearly fired again after it was found that he had allowed a 15-year old boy to fly on a pass as his “adopted son”, a claim quickly proven false. He was not making a good impression on the Louisiana CAP Wing Commander, either. After a CAP boy he trained to fly died in a crash in December 1954, he submitted his 1955 papers, but the Wing Commander instead appointed a new interim Squadron Commander. Ferrie was angry and hurt. In April 1955, his papers were returned unsigned. In June 1955, Ferrie was approached by the Commander of the smaller (15-20 cadets) Moisant Airport CAP squadron to lecture the boys. On July 27, Lee Harvey Oswald joined the squadron. He had been taken by friends to the Lakefront Squadron but did not join, but one of the friends talked him into joining the Moisant squadron. It was on a SARCAP (search and rescue) event one Sunday in August that the famous Ciravolo picture was taken. Oswald apparently only stayed a month or two, and Ferrie didn’t stay much longer, becoming peeved at having a girls’ CAP group as part of the squadron. One cannot read too much into such an encounter with a 15-year old Oswald, 8 years before the assassination; However, in an October 1956 letter, Oswald said that he had been studying Marxism for “well over 15 months” - precisely the time he encountered Ferrie. By 1957 he lived in apartment in Vinet Avenue, where he had many white mice and said he was doing cancer research. He soon qualified on the Lockheed 1049 Constellation series and the Convair 440. In the summer of 1957, he traveled to Italy with his mother to take exams for his Doctorate in Psychology from the University of Phoenix, then under investigation by US authorities as a “diploma mill.” Not long after, Ferrie invited his ailing mother to come live with him. She sold the family home in Cleveland to finance Ferrie’s first house on Airline Park Boulevard. At the back, he had something akin to a training lab for boys, including an ingenious skeleton with pumps, tubes and lights, nicknamed “Jonathan”. In March 1958, a former cadet who had become Commander of the Lakefront CAP squadron invited Ferrie back as an advisor, and after a series of propaganda letters, he managed to be re-appointed as Executive Officer. He obtained a Taylorcraft L-2 for flight training for his cadets, started a cadet rifle club and a rocketry club. He was reprimanded by the FAA when the L-2 was used in a reckless manner by a cadet. By now, his activities with the boys (classified as “ephemophilia”) were becoming reckless. With the boys, he became enmeshed in a bizarre investment (read: “con”) to develop a palm nut, whose fuel was allegedly to be used by NASA. He apparently taught a seminar in aeronautics at Loyola. He was involved in the runaway of a boy who was remanded to a youth center, then visited him claiming to be a doctor. In June 1960, Ferrie became upset on a CAP encampment at Keesler, among other things, being ordered not to sleep in the cadet barracks, and quit in a huff, taking several boys with him. they considered starting a group called the Omnipotents, but ultimately formed their own unauthorized group, the Metairie Falcon Squadron in October 1960. By now, Ferrie had other things on his mind. He had been interested in the politics of Cuba for about a year, and was about to become involved. NEXT: FERRIE AND THE ANTI-CASTRO MOVEMENT

David William Ferrie was born on March 28, 1918 at Cleveland, Ohio (about 10 months after his Irish-Catholic "counterpart" was born in Brookline, Massachusetts) to James Howard Ferrie and Burdette Couts Goldrick Ferrie. The Ferries were so-called "black Irish", having black rather than reddish hair, and had a family tradition of public service: Grandfather Patrick T. Ferrie served for 45 years with the Cleveland Fire Department, the last 20 as Fire Warden, his son William served 50 years with the CFD, and son James (David's father) spent 23 years with the Cleveland Police Department. James' cousin, A.J. Weatherhead, founded the Weatherhead Company and later, the Weatherhead Foundation, one of the Cleveland area's largest philanthropies. James Howard Ferrie was a former motorman who started at the Cleveland PD as a patrolman and worked his way up to the rank of captain and Chief of Detectives. He obtained an LLB from Cleveland Marshall Law School (then located within Baldwin-Wallace College) in 1920, but deferred his law practice to remain on the CPD until 1937 in order to qualify for the pension. With his Cincinnati-born English-Catholic wife, he had 2 sons: David and Parmely. David was born with the assistance of a midwife in an apartment at 5411 Clark Avenue. By 1928, James had been promoted to lieutenant and had enough money to buy his family home at 17302 Laverne Drive, near Puritas Avenue and Rocky River Drive, very close to Cleveland Hopkins Airport, which probably contributed to young David's interest in flying. The family move brought him to a new parish and a new school, St. Patrick's. Evidence suggests that Ferrie may have been molested at that church, which may have had a bearing on his own orientation later in life. At about the same time, he dropped out of school for about a year and began to experience health problems, including Alopecia Areata, the loss of hair in clumps. David Ferrie might have followed the family tradition and become a public servant, but his mother, who was very involved in church life, steered him toward a career path to the priesthood. At St. Ignatius High School, an all-male Catholic institution, he was a writer for the school newspaper, a champion debater, and a budding actor. In the class play, a murder mystery, he played the victim, a district attorney whose murder is solved by a man named Gill! As he was given to signing papers with his full initials (dwf), he was nicknamed "dwarf" by a fellow Ignatian! Ferrie's first higher-education experience was at John Carroll University, a Jesuit institution. He was involved in the Glee Club and school newspaper, and again excelled at debate. But the school forced him to repeat a year due to certain emotional issues. They wrote: "Industrious and ambitious. Is somewhat socially immature. Is an enthusiast, wants attention and distinction. Wholly lacking in common sense; hard to direct or control." In Spetember 1938 David Ferrie entered Saint Mary Seminary, then on Ansel Road. (Internal documents establish the correct spelling as "Saint Mary". not St. Mary or St Mary's). Over his two year stay, the rector noticed in Ferrie qualities he considered unsuitable for the priesthood: Brashness, a compulsive leadership complex, excessive criticism of superiors, and most important, he "came to be regarded among his associates as rather antinomian" (one who believes that faith is enough for salvation, that adherence to a moral code is not necessary.) He was asked to leave the seminary. The stress and depression once again caused an occurrence of hair loss. He took a part-time job pumping gas and entered Baldwin-Wallace College, his father's alma mater. He was assigned to student-teach at Rocky River High School, but he still felt a calling to the priesthood. He applied for admission to the Society of the Precious Blood at St. Charles Seminary in Carthagena. The war was heating up, and his correspondence indicates that he asked for a hurry-up admission to avoid the draft, while his younger brother enlisted. The same traits that had plagued him at John Carroll and Saint Mary emerged at St. Charles. Among other things, he had engaged in a "doctrinal dispute" with others at the seminary and actually caused a split amongst faculty and staff. When he was declined Perpetual Membership in the Society in late 1943, he had a nervous breakdown and was ordered to seek psychiatric help. By late 1944, he was again forced out, and suffered a full breakdown. Ferrie spent about a year undergoing various psychiatric treatments, and he developed a fascination with psychiatry (and in 1946, a fascination with hypnosis.) His depression cannot have been helped by the fact that, while he dodged the draft, his younger brother had been shot down over France and parachuted to safety and was honored in the Cleveland VE-day parade. His father steered him toward learning to fly, and he obtained his student pilot license on August 10, 1945. He now secured a job teaching Aeronautics at the Catholic all-male Benedictine High School, and his dad bought him a Stinson 150 monoplane. In 1947 Ferrie became a Cadet Instructor at the Civil Air Patrol unit at Hopkins. But his behaviour did him in once again. He was fired from Benedictine in 1948 for, among other things, rolling a car over in the driveway of the school and stealing school property. He was also chased out of the CAP for some unorthodox flying activities and taking a group of underage boys to a whorehouse. His father apparently hushed up some criminal charges over these incidents, and David again had a nervous breakdown. He began flying small planes on a commercial basis for Jeda Oil and Drilling Company for about a year, devloping an interest in the Southeastern US. When the company folded in 1949, he became an insurance inspector for two companies. He was fired from the first for using his private plane in vioation of company rules. He served the second admirably, but was now interested in other things. With the cold war heating up in Asia, he joined the US Army Reserve and wrote highly anti-Communist letters to officials in hopes of a direct commission as a fighter pilot. By June 1950, the Korean War was in full swing, and there was a shortage of pilots for the expanding US passenger airline industry. Ferrie applied at Eastern Air Lines and was hired as a pilot trainee on April 16, 1951. (Again, this is the correct spelling: President Eddie Rickenbacker deliberately chose the separate words "Eastern Air Lines" as a symbol of individuality.) NEXT: FERRIE IN NEW ORLEANS

Just a bit of background information, prior to a few posts of biographical info on David Ferrie. I was interersted in the assassination from the start. JFK was "my generation's president." I don't have a clear recollection of it, but I shook hands with JFK when he was a Massachusetts senator visiting my city in the mid-50s. I was saddened when he was killed, as were many. A "researcher" even then, I saved not only the local newspaper accounts of the tragedy, but also the Nov 21 paper announcing the reasons for the trip! When Oswald was killed, I had the feeling we may never know why and how JFK was killed, and like many, I wondered if he had been silenced. I collected various magaine and newspaper accounts of the WC investigation, and obtained a USGPO version of the report late in 1964, and the Hearings and Exhibits in 1965 ($75.). I followed some of the early critical literature, such as Lane's book. I followed the Garrison probe, to some extent, and by happenstance, spent that summer of 1967 near New Orleans. By the early 70s I had obtained a bootleg Z-film and was lecturing on the assassination. I wrote a few articles for weekly papers and had a short dalliance with the Assassination Information Bureau, then in Cambridge. I continued to be fascinated by the New Orleans aspects of the case. Eventually I came to feel that David William Ferrie was the key, so I began collecting everything I could find about him, including from NARA. Few books covered him in detail, and even fewer seemed to have any hard info about his role in the assassination, so I decided to be the guy to "nail" Ferrie - to find the smoking gun. (At around this point, I worked in a District Attorney's office for about 2 years, and my orientation became much more focused on evidence than theory.) At around the time HSCA began its work, I started cold-calling witnesses, and got some great interviews. HSCA produced many new documents and new leads, and I followed many of them. Over the next decade, many FOIA releases helped my research and led to new interviews. By the early 90s, the ARRB forced the release of reams of new stuff on New Orleans. I arranged all my materials into a long chronology and began writing the text on a word processor. This led me to the Internet, and I became established as a Ferrie specialist, and I quietly helped a few researchers. This also led to my being invited to speak at the 2000 Lancer November In Dallas conference on the topic of David Ferrie. During the site tour, I shook hands with a filmmaker - while sitting on the grassy knoll! - to work on a Ferrie film. A late marriage and two children severely slowed my writing, but I have begun again in earnest. I am about half done, and I already have publisher interest. (I continue the process of interviews, however, as time allows.) My book will be more of a biography than anything else. Most of us have a cartoon-like Joe Pesci image of Ferrie, but I want to show who he really was, and introduce a whole bunch of new stuff into the record. I DO cover all of the usual information about his role (and a bunch of new stuff in that regard), but draw few conclusions. I let the reader decide. I gave a talk to researchers recently (not Lancer) and asked for a show of hands: How many people think Lee Harvey Oswald should have been given a presumption of innocence? All hands go up. How many think David William Ferrie should have been given a presumtion of innocence? No hands, a buzz in the room, then a few timid hands go up. Ferrie was the Perfect Villain. Fiercely anti-Communist and anti-Castro, an apparent child molester, a near-genius with a few evil qualities, and those dramatic police booking photos with the "Universal Studios horror lighting", making him look even more evil. I have tried not to presume him guilty without evidence. Some things you have heard about Ferrie prove true, but others prove untrue. I will try to sort out what I can. But remember Jim Marrs' opening to Crossfire: "Don't trust this book." Take my book for what it's worth. In the long run, I think most will find valuable new stuff and a whole new understanding of Ferrie. That's enough about me and my orientation. Now, on to Ferrie.

I am sad to hear that you are leaving the forum. I hope that our recent exchange was not the reason. I am looking forward to reading your book.

Larry: I think I remember you from the now-notorious NID2000, a fascinating presentation on John Martino, as I recall. I had just finished posting to James, when I saw you fill in details on Larry DeJoseph. I admit that this is an area I know little about. Clearly, Hemming was involved in many activities, and CIA docs specifically link him to the LaBorde/Bartes activites in late 62. But for all the interesting stuff Hemming has offered, I still find it necessary to use a fine filter on his claims. But I'd love to know about the picture you saw. As I noted, there is a lot of internally corroborative stuff on Ferrie's tenure with the New Orleans FRD/CRC Nov60 to about Sept61, where his Cuban activities seem to drop off considerably. And live interviews have suggested that the pederasty charges seriously tainted him in many circles. (And even Garrison suggested that Arcacha's activities slacked off in early 1962.) But there are hints through 1962, such as the Beckham thing and some correspondence between Ferrie and postal authorities. It is widely believed, based largely on Bill Turner, that Banister's office was a hotbed of anti-castro activity in 1963. That was probably true in 1961, but I can't find much support for a high level of activity in 1963 (as regards Banister and Ferrie.) On the July 1963 camp(s), we really have only Delphine Roberts (not a bad source, but not a great one) and Tannenbaum's film recollection. I would have to see the film before making up my mind. And everyone connected with the known camp seems to suggest that Ferrie was not involved. Again, I wonder if Garrison's staff chronologically glommed the 1961 activities with the 1963 camp, and Turner simply repeated it. But this is by no means a final verdict. A Ferrie friend said to me (paraphrase) "Look, I don't think Dave was involved in all this stuff when I knew him. I spent thousands of hours with him, and he never gave a hint of it. But even having said that, with Dave, I'll never know if he might have fooled me." When one of his best friends says "you never know...", who knows what might pop up someday? I've turned up a few tantalizing leads, but that's for the book! But you, James and others have looked into areas I may have missed. Anything you want to add for a serious and objective representation of Ferrie would be much appreciated!

James: Thanks for the welcome! I've seen your pictures in other forums. In time, I'll be making available some interesting Ferrie pix: Some brand new, some improvements over old versions. Also, I note that we are WAY off topic from Baker's original thread. I wonder if we should move this to a new thread. I don't recognize the name you mentioned, Larry DeJoseph. Any details to jog my memory?

Wow, a complicated one, and I'm on the run. Let me take a quick stab at it. There is a substantial body of evidence that has David Ferrie actively involved in anti-Castro activities from November 1960 until shortly after his morals arrests, the September 1961 Houma heist being something of his "last gasp" as the Cubans ostracized him over the pederasty charges. (During 1961, Ferrie probably WAS involved in certain training north of the lake, but it is unclear if it involved Cubans or his CAP "IMSUs". One of the interesting things is that when Ferrie had his IMSU training at Belle Chasse, CIA admittedly was training UDT teams there.) There is a report from a questionable source (Thomas Beckham) that Ferrie was involved with a group called UCMF in the fall of 1962. The notion that he was involved in the 1963 Ponchartrain camp is a bit "iffy", too, coming mostly from Delphine Roberts. She was in a position to know what Banister was up to, but she was also a piece of work. Everybody associated with the camp said Ferrie had nothing to do with it. So who do we believe? Just a speculation, but I wonder if people have conflated Ferrie's 1961 documented activities with the 1963 camp. As for Banister, Ferrie was NOT an employee there. He had a fulltime job at Gill, Bernstein, Schreiber and Gill law firm. He was NOT always at Banister's office. But it's academic, because by 1963, he and Banister were very close, and Ferrie was a visitor to Banister's office. Incidentally, did you know that there was/were one or two break-ins into Banister's office from the adjacent Mancuso's restaurant in, as I recall, the fall of 1963?

I suppose there are a number of things Ferrie might have done with the package between the time he retrieved it and the time Garrison subpoenaed him in December 1966. As best I can tell, Ferrie's place was a pit on the day he was found dead, but there is no indication of anything like a search. The back boor was busted open, but that was by Jimmy Johnson, who found the body. The only inventory I've found of the apartment does not list anything like that package.

Steve: I'm not sure. I haven't run into that acronym before. And there are a zillion similar sounding ones. A CAP member like Joe Biles may correct me, but I understand that the Civil Air Patrol frowned on real flight training being given to cadets, even though many of the "seniors" did train cadets to fly. (FYI, Dave Ferrie trained MANY people, including CAP cadets, to fly between 1945 and 1965, but he never actually got his instructor's ticket until 1965!!!) I presume Curry was too old to have been in CAP (14-18) in the 40s. I don't have an answer. OOPS I'm not sure if I hit the add reply button or not. Forgive me if I post this twice.

Steve: I'm not sure. I haven't run into that acronym before. And there are a zillion similar sounding ones. A CAP member like Joe Biles may correct me, but I understand that the Civil Air Patrol frowned on real flight training being given to cadets, even though many of the "seniors" did train cadets to fly. (FYI, Dave Ferrie trained MANY people, including CAP cadets, to fly between 1945 and 1965, but he never actually got his instructor's ticket until 1965!!!) I presume Curry was too old to have been in CAP (14-18) in the 40s. I don't have an answer.

Thanks, Ryan. I have a BUNCH of new Ferrie stuff! A lot of it is biographical, but there are some VERY interesting new things! Here's a sneak preview: In 1964 or 1965, Ferrie arrived late one rainy Sunday night at the office of friend in Jefferson Parish who was well-known for his opposition to Carlos Marcello. Ferrie handed him a package for safekeeping: It was described as an overstuffed manila envelope, apparently containing some sort of tape reels as well as papers. Ferrie indicated that the package was to be turned over to the right people if anything ever happened to him. (The friend presumed it had something to do with Marcello, but cannot be sure, even today.) He placed it in a file cabinet. Some time later, Ferrie returned and asked if the package was still there and unopened. The friend said it was, and retrieved it. Ferrie said thanks and took the package away with him. A couple of years later when Ferrie was found dead, the friend recalled the package and wished he had peeked inside. VERY provocative. 1964 or 1965? Something to do with Ferrie's work on the Marcello case? Something to do with the assassination? Who knows?

Let me begin by staing that I wish we could just end this discussion. The damage has been done. Let us bring it to a close. Judyth Baker goes on for some 17 pages with "Mr. Blackburst said this" but Mr. Roy said that." We get the point. I explained why I needed to use the Blackburst screen name, and why I needed to use my real name on JFKLancer and at NID2000. It was MY CHOICE to keep the two separate, to the extent that I wished to do so. I used my real name only when I had to, but I knew that I would eventually publish my book under my real name. Blackburst was a name I used for internet security. I always made it clear to Baker and others that Blackburst was only a screen name. I provided her with my photo and phone number (which, when checked through Switchboard, would yield my personal info.) If she had deduced my real name, she could have emailed me and I would have told her that this was the case. At that time, I would have told her that I DID mention her at NID2000. If anyone feels that my use of a screen name has caused any problem, I apologize. Baker has made several references to me holding myself out as a Ferrie expert. I have never described myself in this way; I am a Ferrie SPECIALIST. A few others have referred to me as a Ferrie expert. I am not the be-all and end-all on Ferrie; I have attempted to flesh out a biography of this unusual fellow in order to provide a backdrop for the research of others. The great majority of what I intend to publish is brand new to Ferrie watchers. I have taken great pains to try to verify the information I have found. Some widely-believed things about Ferrie may be inaccurate, but other things will be supported by new information. But what I write will not be the final word on Ferrie. Baker apparently presumes that I hung on every word of her voluminous emails prior to the NID2000 conference, and knew exactly what she wanted. I did not. I knew that she was still shrouded in some privacy, but was upset that she was not included at the conference. As I mentioned, she was not included in my 10 or so talking points about Ferrie, but I DID make a reference to her account in the Q/A, which I thought was what she wanted. Now she is virtually obsessing about what I should have said there. But I can't go back in time and do it differently. Baker said she has not gone public with my correspondence, but she did publish quotes from private emails. She does not understand why I am upset about her revealing my name. I am not surprised that she does not understand. I am upset because it was MY CHOICE when to reveal it, and that she did it without the courtesy of an email. All that matters is how things affect her. She raises the suggestion that I might use one screen name to praise another. I have never done this. She includes admonitions that "the Ferrie expert" must be truthful. I resent the suggestion that I have been deliberately untruthful in any way. In recalling our attempted rendezvous a few years ago, Baker's emails support my account that we could not get together on one of my available dates. While it is true that she attempted to arrange other get togethers, I was unable to do so at those times. We disagree on the topic of mice in Ferrie's apartment in 1963. All I can say is that I have spoken to people with proven relationships with Ferrie, and I have not yet found one who recalls the mice in that apartment. I mentioned this privately, and only mentioned it in a newsgroup because I was specifically asked this question. She has completey misunderstood my paragraph about interviewing witnesses. No formal interviews were done in the presence of other witnesses. AFTER the interviews, several people who were ALREADY ACQUAINTED went out for chow and few Coronas on a couple of occasions. Mr A says, let's go have dinner with Mr B. Baker thinks I contaminated them by agreeing. To her, all my research on Ferrie is now tainted because I had a couple of sandwiches and a few beers. The Ferrie CAP story is annoying. Fragmentary documents showed that Ferrie submitted his 1955 papers in December 1954, that they were returned unsigned in April 1955, and that he was at a different unit by June 1955. I wrote that in a newsgroup post, an extemporization, about 10 years ago. Over the last few years, I learned Ferrie was involved in an unfortunate incident in Dec54 and that an interim commander was in place by Jan55, so the Apr55 return of his papers was not his actual departure date. How was I to know that she reconstructed some dates based on my old posts? Baker is mad that I didn't go to Google or some old posts archived at Dave Reitzes' web site and change it. She keeps repeating that a pronouncement by the "Ferrie expert" has some mystical importance, and that I shouldn't expect to get new information as time goes by. Hey, even after I publish, I expect to find new information. "I will let readers decide if Mr. Blackburst has treated me as a friend. I certainly treated him as one." By revealing something I wanted to keep confidential, and then obsessing about it for several days. I did ask her to remove any reference to me from her book, and this IS because I am upset. Judyth Vary Baker has been beaten up many times on the internet in the past few years, and it has distorted her perspective about beating others up. I feel bad that my necessary use of a screen name and the complications it caused has been confusing to others, including Baker. But she has indicated no remorse for violating my privacy.

A big thank you to John Simkin for allowing me to pop in here an clairify a few points. I have been in touch with Judyth Vary Baker since about 1999, and we have had a on-again/off-again private correspondence. For some reason, Baker chose to go public with it in this forum over the past week. I came onto the internet in the mid-90s under a variant of my given name, and I engaged in discussion on some JFK newsgroups. One day while I was at work, a scraggly 40-ish man came to my door and said something to my wife about me "perpetuating the coverup." She excused herself, called me and the police, but the man walked away. My wife insisted and I agreed to adopt a "screen name", something a bit more anonymous. I tried several possibilities but AOL said they were already in use. AOL allows up to 10 characters, so I tried a TV term, "blackburst" (the signal to which all video devices are synchronized in a TV studio), and AOL accepted it. I became known as a David Ferrie specialist in the JFK groups. When people would ask my first name, I arbitrarily chose "Dave" (after Ferrie). I explained publicly on a number of occasions that Blackburst was a pseudonym, and why I chose it. I also explained this by email to several people. Eventually, I did share research with a few folks, which necessitated using my real name, but in a spirit of privacy. In late 1999 or early 2000, I was contacted by Baker and her associates and we had numerous exchanges. I had a clear impresson that Baker wanted to keep these exchanges private at that time. I also wanted to remain on her bulk email list so that I could get the details of her account. In the summer of 2000 I signed on to the JFKLancer Forum, but the rules required that I use my real name. I never used "Blackburst" on my few posts on that forum. Debra Conway invited me to speak at the Lancer NID2000 conference, and the topic of my 30-minute talk was agreed upon as "Ferrie: Man and Myth." Although I considered speaking as Blackburst, Debra convinced me to use my real name. Of perhaps 100 or so topics I could have mentioned about Ferrie, I chose about 10. When I arrived in Dallas, I was given a name tag with my own name, and I wrote "Blackburst" underneath it. I made no secret of my identity. I spoke to numerous attendees wearing this tag, including Steve Tyler, Joe Biles, Mary Ferrell, Peter Dale Scott and many others. The tag can be seen in the video of my talk. It has been erroneously suggested that I was asked not to mention Baker, but this is not true. I had not included Baker as part of my limited talk time, but I do recall some email just prior to the conference, in which she considered going to the event. In the Q & A following my talk, a question arose about Edward Haslam's thesis in "Mary, Ferrie and the Monkey Virus." I replied that I had reservations about the paucity of evidence cited in the book, and the author's tendency to ask a question on one page, then repeat it a few pages later as a fact. Nevertheless, I added (paraphrase) that a new witness had emerged whose account, if proven true, could change the way we look at Oswald's time in New Orleans. One or two other panelists then briefly made reference to the Baker matter. At the time, I thought I was doing what Baker wanted. Years later, questions were raised about whether ot not the panel was muzzled. I saw no such thing. And questions were raised about why nobody mentioned Baker. While her account was not part of my formal presentation, I DID mention her in the Q/A. At various times over the years, Baker and her associates pointedly asked me why I would not come out and support her account. I replied that I thought we should all wait to see what evidence was presented in the book. A few years back, I thought about setting up a meeting. As it was hard to get time off from work and home, I asked if I could do a one-day turn around: Fly into Moisant, meet her at the airport for a few hours, and fly home that night. Her emails at the time, which I saved, indicate that she wanted to meet but did not have a vehicle available to travel from her home to Moisant on my prospective date. I did not end up meeting her, but I did give her my home phone number in the process. As noted, I was long troubled by some of the assertions in Haslam's book, so I kept an eye out for anything to confirm or deny them. One assertion made by others (but not specifically by Haslam) is that Ferrie had many white mice and did medical research in his last apartment at 3330 Louisiana Avenue Parkway. The documents I found suggested that he did have such mice in 1957, six years and 3 living spaces perviously, but not in 1963. As I interviewed people who knew Ferrie, I would ask about this, and I was unable to find anyone who saw them in that period. This includes several very close friends. Ferrie's landlord did not see mice or a lab there. Pictures taken at at 1963 birthday party do not appear to show them. Coroner's pictures from Ferrie's 1967 death do not show them. I communicated the above PRIVATELY to Baker and her associates. At some point, I was asked in the newsgroups if there was any indication of mice in that apartment at that time. I decided to give a carefully phrased and honest answer that none of theose I spoke with recalled them. This apparently angered Baker. Baker also raised some question about "research technique", saying that I was wrong to bring witnesses together. Let me clarify: In most cases, I contacted them by "cold-calling", or cold email or snail mail. The interviews would be either via telephone or one-on-one. On a few occasions, I would meet someone I had only spoken with on the phone for lunch or some such thing. In several cases, one Ferrie acquaintence would introduce me to another, and so on. And on two occasions while I was in New Orleans, a couple of acquaintences who ALREADY KNEW other Ferrie friends would ask if they could join the friends and I for dinner. I did NOT ever bring together people who did not already know each other. And she has asked why I do not name some of these people. The first obvious reason is that some of these interviews were hard to get, and I want exclusivity for future publication. Another factor is privacy. Some were very reluctant to talk, and only did so on a pledge of privacy. One is an elected official. Another is a community watch leader. Another is a successful attorney. They don't want more publicity about "that Ferrie thing." And still another factor: Ferrie was at least bisexual, and had relationships with a few of these people, some as underage boys. One can easily understand why I just "don't want to go there." Then in recent months, there was a flap over a complicated story involving Lee Harvey Oswald's tooth. Baker apparently incorporated into her account some information I had either emailed or posted concerning the date Ferrie first left the New Orleans Cadet Squadron of the Civil Air Patrol. At one time, I had fragmentary dates and reported them in that way. I subsequently located and spoke with some who had first-hand knowledge of that event, and obtained news clippings which indicated that a new commander was in place by January 1955. Baker then blamed the flap on me, first privately, then publicly. In a private email, I noted that she should be careful about incorporating published materials about Ferrie into her account, because 90% of those published materials are of questionable accuracy, and I noted that I thought she was buying into things she was reading. She somehow quoted this back to me in a private email as me saying her account was 90% gleaned from published materials, which is not what I said. Until recently, I considered Baker a friend. We had many pleasant exchanges and I offered private support as best I could. For some reason, she has decided to take this into a public forum and violate several confidences. She has quoted private emails. More important, she has given out my real name and personal info against my stated desires. I TOLD HER several times that Blackburst was not my real name. I sent her a photo of my family. I gave her my phone number, which would display my name on callerID. Now she has let the toothpaste out of tube, and it can't be pushed back in. I don't know what I've done to deserve this, but Baker judgmentally emailed me that it was best for the research community, and I would thank her someday. She even indicated that she expects me to attack her. THIS is not an attack, but a careful worded defense, which still leaves some things private. I have no desire or reason to attack her. But the friendship, if there was one, is over. I have asked, if she included a particuar exchange in her book, to delete it. I regret that she has come under bad influences and has made some bad decisions. (BTW, I had the "Coke Syndrome" with my computer, spilling a partial can of Coke onto the keys. It works OK, but I have very sticky keys, requiring me to keep going back to see if I have miskeyed. Apologies for any typos!)

I live in Massachusetts, but have spent time in Louisiana, California and other places. I have worked in television for many years. Until recently, I was the Director of TV/Radio at a college, but I am now the Executive Director of a non-profit corporation. I am well-known as a local media personality and am very involved in public service, including service on a Council Against Discrimination. I became interested in the JFK assassination when it happened and I lectured about it and wrote articles in the 70s. I gravitated toward an interest in the New Orleans aspects of the case and, in particular, David Ferrie. I decided to be the person to "nail" Ferrie, and I have collected virtually every available document about him and interviewed many of his old associates. I have assembled this in chronological form and I am about halfway through a biography of Ferrie, for which I already have publisher interest. My research suggests that some of the published information about Ferrie is true while some is not. My book will take a middle-of-the-road approach, recounting everything and letting the reader decide. I hope to be able share some of this in the Forum.