Owen Parsons

Garrison is probably mistaken here (a common fault among humans). Shaw made arrangements for this trip on November 11. Shaw flew from New Orleans to Los Angeles on the 18th and took a train to San Francisco on the 20th [this is from Shaw's trial testimony, under oath. Before this, Shaw had given an account of his whereabouts during the assassination to NODA. In this account, Shaw places himself on the train when the assassination occurred. After his arrest, he told the New Orleans Times-Picayune that he was in the St. Francis Hotel during the assassination, which is probably closer to the truth]. He arrived at the San Francisco World Trade Center on November 22, mid-morning. [As an aside, J. Monroe Sullivan, the director of the San Francisco World Trade Center, has a few interesting things to say about this. He said Shaw (whom he had never met) called him to set up the luncheon (whose purported purpose was to obtain tenants for the International House). Shaw would pay all the expenses and send out the invitations. This is contrary to Shaw's account, which holds that Sullivan called him. After Shaw had arrived at the Trade Center, a bulletin came in that Kennedy had been shot. Sullivan was shocked but Shaw exhibited no reaction. Sullivan asked Shaw if he would like to go ahead with the luncheon and Shaw replied in the affirmative. Makes one wonder what sort of Kennedy admirer Shaw really was]. Mellen's account only generally says that it was the week of the assassination that the loan was co-signed. If we are to be rigid about this, let us suppose that the loan was co-signed on the 17th, a Sunday, the week of the assassination. I don't really know how Ferrie dispensed with his funds, but this is probably why Gill (who, according to Beckham, was the one who instructed Ferrie to rent a plane) did not bother to give Ferrie the $400 for the plane, since he had already given him $7000 not long before this. He would have assumed Ferrie already had the necessary funds and Ferrie may not have been inclined to press the matter. But no one can really know, of course. I looked at the Stephen Roy post on alt.assassination.jfk, which seems to be the major source of your information. He raises another point, that Ferrie owned a Taylorcraft L-2 which was airworthy. Why didn't he use that? I did a little a digging and discovered from one of Stephen's own posts on this forum that Ferrie's Taylorcraft was disassembled in 1963. Since the instructions for the flight were pretty short notice, I doubt Ferrie would have had time to reassemble it. And don't think I've been avoiding you. I have other things to deal with on weekdays (i.e. school work) and sometimes I just feel like taking a break from posting. Also, weren't you wanting to end the discussion by staking the credibility of the entire book on the NARA thing? What ever happened to that?

I was careful to make a fine distinction. I didn't say you hated Habeas Corpus, just that you didn't believe in the validity of it. Also note the qualifiers I added. How else am I supposed to read it when you claim you schooled some "Habeas Corpus law professor" in the context of a post that threatens some future revelation that will devastate the research community? You really didn't provide much in the way of detail, in "plain english" or otherwise. To answer your question; what I was trying to get was some clarification on your posisition. Thanks for providing it and showing me wrong.

Mark: Actually, if I understand Gerry correctly (and he can be difficult to understand), he doesn't believe in the validity of Habeas Corpus. He went on a rant (directed at me, incidently) in the best books thread. During the course of this, he related how during some unspecified time he confronted some unnamed "Habeas Corpus law professor" and totally debunked and disgraced him, sending him back to the books.

I'd also like to note that the only real reason David Lifton is so anti-Garrison is because Garrison charged Oswald's Marine buddy Kerry Thornley with perjury for denying he knew Oswald while living in New Orleans, a thing he was almost certainly guilty of. David Lifton had been growing chummy with Thornley and went ballistic over this. If I had to point the finger at any one person in the research community as being disinfo, it would be Lifton. In addition to his explicitly stated goal of clearing the Warren Commissioners of complicity, after the fact, in the cover up, he seems to point the finger of guilt at shadowy non-entities. Add to this his creation of the body alteration theory, the men-in-paper-mache-trees theory, his support of Zapruder film alteration, and his seemingly arbitrary belief that there were no shots from behind. I really can't find anything in this resume that will stand the test of time. Then there is his somewhat nasty disposition. I don't put much stock in David Lifton's judgements on what is and isn't fraudulent.

Why are we staking our dispute on the credibility of an entire book on this one point? This isn't what I claim. Its obvious that this is what she is referring to just by reading the text. I did not say it was "top-secret," this is a straw man you have built. I said it was "abortive." An internal NARA effort that never went anywhere. I suppose the reason the research community has not yet heard of it (until now) is because most researchers haven't bothered to interview NARA employees like Mellen did. Add to that the alleged veiled threats of the CIA man and I think you've got your answer. I don't know a lot about how the National Archives operates, having never been there, but they do unseal document. See Gerry's post [Gerry makes a point about how only the NARA director can declassify the documents, which is all fine and good, but this team's purpose was to make a recommendation, not to declassify], or, better yet, check out this example. In 1999, after the closure of the ARRB, NARA released this series of documents pertaining to the disposal of JFK's ceremonial casket off the coast of Maryland. You sure like making loud declarations about how "preposterous" things are. Use your own brain, Tim. You're the one who spent your initial post implying that Mellen was spinning a tale about the ARRB, when she clearly wasn't. I pointed out to you what she was actually saying and suddenly I'm not utilizing my mental faculties.

Gerry, I don't really care if you think I'm your arch-nemesis Weberman, Mellen's research assistant, or even (as Lynne Foster suggested) Nation Review hack Jonah Goldberg. None of it bothers me as I know, from personal knowledge, that my biography is correct. If you or anyone else wants to think otherwise, be my guest.

Oh, give it a rest Gerry. There is nothing "Stalinist" about what I posted. I just pointed out that there is no reason why Bohning shouldn't be called "CIA linked," in answer to Tim's objections. I don't think that makes Bohning, or anyone else the CIA wants to utilize, a bad person. Nothing to do with "Enemies" or "Evil doers."

A CIA media asset isn't pledged to do whatever the CIA tells them. The CIA is satisfied that they will report in the way the CIA wants them to and feeds them information accordingly. The issue of whether or not Bohning was being paid by the CIA or whether or not his editors knew and approved of his CIA contacts is pretty irrelevant. Bohning had a cryptonym (AMCARBON-3), Covert Security Approval, and was DDP approved. If this doesn't make someone at least "CIA linked" (which is the actual word Mellen uses) or "CIA sponsored" (the original word), I don't know what does. Ayton doesn't mention any of this and trys to make it sound like Mellen has made a totally baseless, McCarthyite charge, supposedly because Bohning is inconvenient to her thesis (which he isn't). His entire review (and just about everything else he has written relevant to the JFK, MLK, and RFK assassinations) is like this. Mel likes to ignore inconvient information (like when he talks about the LAPD and Sandy Serrano re: the RFK case) and make emotional appeals (he talks about Mellen "play[ing] with people's lives..." in alt.assassination.jfk). He also calls Mellen's book, in one of his posts, "a complete fabrication from start to finish." The simplest answer to this is that she is not talking about the ARRB. There are quite a few difference between this National Archives effort and the ARRB. Its as easy as reading the paragraph and yet its exactly that hard. I didn't bother responding to this before because I thought it would be fairly obvious to the casual reader, nothing to do with avoiding it. Talking to ARRB members would probably get you nowhere. "Before the group could make any determinations, they were visited by a representative identifying himself as representing the CIA. He warned them that under no circumstances must they reveal to anyone what they had viewed in those documents. His visit was perceived as a threat by them all. No one talked." This passage makes it quite clear that the warning was given before any declassifying work had started. It is not about the ARRB, and it is not a request to ARRB members to keep quiet about documents they had not declassified. "No one talked" means that this abortive National Archives declassification effort was not made public, obviously. Try paying closer attention to what you are reading. I too would welcome more information from Mellen, however.

Thats great, Tim. Bill's having sex with Monica led to Al Qaeda growing and 9/11 (which happened under BUSH'S WATCH).

Dr. Gary Aguilar has written pretty much the ultimate treatment of Max Holland here.

I would note that Lynne and I have independently come to the same conclusion about your being James Dobson. I think there is some scientific weight to that. Anyone who does not independently verify that James Dobson and Stephen Turner are the same man are yins and do not know anything about the murder of Laci Peterson.

Stephen, are you really James Dobson? Somebody, and unfortunately like Lynne Foster, I cannot divulge my source, claims that you are Dr. James Dobson, founder and chairman of Focus on the Family. Now, I don't know anything about this person, but if anybody has any information regarding this strange allegation, please dispute or verify. Is James Dobson an evangelical? Is he a yin or a yang? Also, why is no one talking about the--- BIG YIN! I suggest you study this article very very carefully I am trying to stay on topic here

no what she meant to say is obious to anyone who isnt a nixon lover why doesnt anyone talk about this link--- BIG YIN! your politically motivated posts tell me everything I need to know about you, Ms. Garrison

In addition to her skill at posting utter BS, Ms. Foster has shown herself to have quite a talent for misreading words. "Wry" becomes "shy," "wang" becomes "yang," etc. Its really amazing.

You're just about the most obnoxious person I've ever encountered. Go away.

The CIA certainly thought Don Bohning was an asset ("AMCARBON-3"), even if Bohning disagrees with them. Mellen draws a perfectly reasonable conclusion from the documents.

Oh yeah, you're a treasure all right.

I had a pleasant enough Thanksgiving dinner, just enough to make my stomach hurt.

You know you've really "made it" once anonymous sources start putting forward false information about you. If, when you speak of Jonah Goldberg, you mean the National Review commentator, then I would answer that 1) I am not him 2) Jonah Goldberg ain't a high school student and 3) I would probably classify him as a Yin.

Just look at any of Garrison other comments about the files. Read Garrison's introduction to Harold Weisberg's Oswald in New Orleans. He was not shy about voicing his objections on this subject. The word I used was "wry." Look it up.

Who said he was comfortable with it? If you had any reading comprehension whatsoever, you would see that that is clearly a wry dig at the actions of the government in regard to the assassination. The sealing of the files was always one of his major talking points. There is never any substance to anything you say because all your opinions are drawn from the various tripod/geocities/angelfire sites of some character named "Mat Wilson."

Garrison's actions in 1963 make perfect sense. He didn't know then what we know about the FBI now, and trusted them to pursue the Ferrie lead, as he assumed leaving no stone unturned in Kennedy's assassination was in their interest. Besides, if Garrison were really working for Hoover (this is pure BS, as I have shown with FBI documents time and time again), he wouldn't even have bothered to take Ferrie into custody in the first place. And duh, where do you think Garrison would get his hands on the calls Ferrie made from Gill's office except from Gill? Also, your hero "Oswald-Did-It-for-the-KGB" Epstein is wrong about Ferrie dropping dead "several hours" after Lardner left. Lardner left at 4 a.m. 4 a.m. is the last possible time Ferrie could have been alive, according to the autopsy report.

Yes, I know I shouldn't feed her fire, but this thread was so silly I couldn't help myself.

I think you should note that Beckham also places Shaw in Gill's offices at the time the assignment was given. I don't really know how you can say his story doesn't implicate Shaw. People don't always think ahead or operate at the peak of their mental faculties. Beckham was also being endowed with a dubious profile through his checking into mental hospitals at Jack Martin's urging, part of the "sheep dipping" process. If Beckham were to come forward, he could easily be discredited with this information. This is what I am getting at when I talk about him being set up as a backup patsy. I don't think that there is a great deal of chance that he would be caught for delivering an envelope. And even if he was "caught" the conspirators had already succeeded in making him look like a nut. I think Beckham would be a pretty safe bet. Also, there is quite a bit of evidence placing Oswald in the presence of conspirators. As an example, I think most researchers credit the Antonio Veciana story, and you yourself have said that Mellen did good work on the Clinton incident. I didn't say it bolstered his credibility, but its a perfectly feasible answer to your objection. Read her story again. It is Ferrie's material that is being cleaned out of the office, not Gill's. Gill apparently went into panic mode after Ferrie was taken into custody, and quickly moved to sweep everything relating to Ferrie up. Apparently it occured to him that Ferrie might not have been so careful as he was. I am also impressed with how well this story supports Beckham's, though it is independent of it. Larry: Oh, believe me, I'm quite familiar with Crisman's various activities and life story. I have a few thoughts on it. I think its quite likely that the UFO-spewing-molten-slag story was just cover for something more prosaic, namely the dumping of toxic waste. Mellen suggests this and I think Crisman himself later said as much. I would also note that his tales of fighting robots ("Deros") in underground caverns sent via letter to one of Raymond Palmer's magazines, came right on the heels of the UFO story, before any real investigation of it had started, and were later mocked in a major magazine, Harper's, seemingly to impeach the value of his UFO testimony further. I don't know about his demonstrated ability to forge documents on government stationary (I wouldn't put it past him), but I assume you are talking about the "Easy Papers," which speak of Crisman's alleged efforts to undermine the Tacoma School Board on behalf of the CIA. First, these aren't, to my knowledge, on government stationary, second, though probably written by him, they have not been successfully linked to him. I would note that the Easy Papers seem to have been produced shortly after he was called before the Grand Jury in Re: Garrison's investigation and after Garrison's office had called him an "industrial espionage agent," or something to that effect. It would appear to me that the purpose of this document is to make suggestions that he is an intelligence agent appear absurd. Crisman actually talks about these (probably self-perpetuated) allegations in his autobiography, Murder of a City, Tacoma, noting how silly they are. It seems to me that there is quite a bit of method in Crisman's madness. Crisman's whereabouts on November 22 are really only of importance if one believes Crisman was one of the tramps (which I don't). Crisman had always maintained that he was in school on November 22. Beckham's story does not place him elsewhere, nor does Crisman need to be elsewhere.

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