Judyth Vary Baker to be on Coasttocoastam tomorrow night

[Stephen Roy]

Now that her second(?) book is out, her tour is over, her conference is over, we may see a trail-off.

One thing that annoys me greatly is her new-ish tendency to imply that serious researchers who know the case and doubt her story are lone-nutter WC defenders or worse, part of a conspiracy to silence her. Reminds me a bit of what attorney Joe Welch said to Joe McCarthy in 1954: "At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"

[David G. Healy]

Annoying or not, me thinks there is much wringing of hands, rancor and way too much ENVY here... simply put, Judyth has it dialed in.

Edited December 9, 2014 by David G. Healy

[Stephen Roy]

Annoying or not, me thinks there is much wringing of hands, rancor and way too much ENVY here... simply put, Judyth has it dialed in.

What if it's all untrue?

[Patrick Block]

And what if it isn't?

I post very infrequently here, mostly because I only offer my opinions if I feel I have something specifically meaningful to add to the topic. I generally don't speak up at all, unless I feel like I am on extremely firm ground, because, most of the researchers, CIA moles and concerned citizens who write on the boards are quite serious and well read and don't need my two cents.

Obviously, Ms. Baker's story is not "all untrue". She worked at the same outfit as Oswald, during this super critical time period in the events leading up to the JFK assassination. They lived in the same general neighborhood, undeniably walked the same sidewalks took the same busses, and visited the same stores, post offices, lunch rooms, etc.

Ms. Baker can prove all of this. She can prove she was precisely the right age to be of interest to Mr. Oswald, and she even resembles in some ways his wife- and men do tend towards certain physical qualities in women.

One of the most interesting aspects of Ms. Baker's provable tale is the way Oswald and Baker both left their place of employment so abruptly and nearly at the same crucial point in history.

She was pretty. She was very, very bright, as was Oswald. It is quite fair to suppose both were well above average IQ and shared bookish interests, enough so that should they have met, it is easy to understand an attraction. It would be actually surprising for a man of his age, and his tendencies to follow his own course, to not have talked to her, should they have met. Is it really a stretch to believe they didn't?

Beyond this, there is no proving or disproving anything- which makes it pointless, illogical, and downright wasteful a project to dwell on this as something that can not ever make or break the case of who killed JFK.

Even the brightest of us cannot accurately remember where we were, what we were doing, or when things happened to any great accuracy over this sort of time distance. While Ms. Baker has the advantage of being a part of stupendously important moments in time, (if all of what she remembers actually occurred), it is very silly, in my opinion, to judge her recounting as if it can be either accepted in toto or picked apart and declared complete lies on the basis of known timelines.

Even if everything she claims happened to her did indeed happen, her story could not possibly be retold accurately- because she is a human being.

So, in the opinion of this citizen researcher, like so very much of the eye witness accounts- we cannot know Ms. Baker is lying, nor can we know if she is attempting to be truthful. How can we?

I see this intelligent woman placing herself in a quite terrible position. She, of course, does incur the wrath of those who still lurk behind the controls of our country- the men and women who see America as a place to gain power and money at the cost of our most basic freedoms.

That has always been what the JFK assassination was ultimately about- and they don't want the fat and complacent citizenry stirred up by some old lady making wild accusations about her first hand experiences of Oswald's innocence.

She also has willingly placed herself on the chopping block for all of those researchers who realize that there was a conspiracy, but have a different idea of who committed it than her own story suggests- and these folks tend lead the charge in calling her entire story a lie from the "conspiracy" side.

By declaring a final verdict about Ms. Baker's story- in either direction- we are letting our emotions, rather than logic and our powers of deduction decide things for us.

It takes way too much faith to arrive at an actual conclusion on this subject, in my opinion.

And faith gets you nowhere in the JFK case.

Edited December 9, 2014 by Patrick Block

[Jonathan Cohen]

But we can know that she's lying, and she surely is. As Stephen Roy has demonstrated time and again, "she did not have a relationship - ANY relationship, ever - with Oswald, Ferrie, Sherman, Shaw, Ruby, etc. The whole story is untrue."

[Stephen Roy]

I have spoken with numerous people who knew Ferrie well, and none of them recognize Baker by name, description or picture. Some of these people were at Ferrie's home very frequently.

Baker has failed to come up with physical evidence of any kind proving or even suggesting that she actually knew Ferrie. She claims to remember his words and personality traits: Some of this can be found on the Internet; the rest is things that cannot be proven.

When it was alleged years ago that she was vacuuming-up info from researchers and replaying it as if from her own memory, I was invited to test her. I gave her a barium meal, a false piece of Ferrie info, to see if she would claim to remember it. She did.

There are many other examples. I cannot believe that she would guess wrongly whether Oswald was circumcised. I cannot believe that she would mispronounce the nickname of the uncle Oswald introduced to her. (Dutz) I can't believe that she would claim to have written a credit report actually written by a man named Desmare. I can't believe her claim that the Secret Service consulted with Oswald on the motorcade route. An on and on.

I can't accept the view that we can never know if her story is true or untrue. All evidence is not created equal: There is good evidence and bad evidence. We have an obligation to prevent the contamination of the evidence stream with untrue stuff, to at least flag it as unreliable. Today, a Google search of David Ferrie returns nearly half Judyth Baker. What will the proportion be in a year? And what if it's untrue? The research community ought to take a stand on things like this. To abrogate that responsibility diminishes our credibility.

[Don Jeffries]

Is it possible that Judyth could, like others in this case, simply have elaborated on some kind of reality over the years, exaggerating her own connection to a historical event? I recall how Richard Carr was scrutinized so severely a few years back, on this forum, and several alleged inconsistencies found in his background. As I pointed out at that time, who could survive such scrutiny unscathed?

Judyth is only human, like the rest of us. Many people start out exaggerating, and then have to lie to keep things going. This leads to more lies, of course, as the old expression informs us; "What a tangled we we weave, once we practice to deceive." The fact that Judyth has passionate followers would only exacerbate this. Few of us are immune to believing our own press clippings.

As Patrick Block so cogently pointed out, there is some kind of connection probable here. Judyth did work at the same place Oswald worked, at the same time. Sure, she could have invented the story completely, but it's just as likely that some of her tale is true, and that over time she exaggerated it, out of ego or whatever.

[Stephen Roy]

Don:

I get what you're saying, and it's been suggested before. I've looked at this in great detail and, in my qualified opinion, the story is not partly true. It is entirely untrue (except that she worked at Reilly.) So I don't accept the idea.

[Paul Brancato]

Stephen - if this question shows ignorance of your work and research, please forgive me. If you have questioned personal friends of Ferrie over the years, some of whom were at his house frequently, what have you learned about Ferrie? In a nutshell of course...

[Bernice Moore]

IMO ;IF I may, I would suggest to Judyth followers the old research addendum,of Do not believe me , nor anyone, Do your Own Research... into everything that she has claimed as others have, and then you will be able to undoubtedly prove your conclusions by being able to support,her claims with the evidence you will have uncovered and presented to the community proving her story,rather than with just an opinion.. after perhaps reading one or two books that she has written and or numerous posts on the web...in otherwards all are entitled to their opinions, but be prepared to back them up with your own research to be taken seriously..in the research world...thanks b..

[Stephen Roy]

Stephen - if this question shows ignorance of your work and research, please forgive me. If you have questioned personal friends of Ferrie over the years, some of whom were at his house frequently, what have you learned about Ferrie? In a nutshell of course...

Where to begin? First, since his friends, acquaintences and family tend to be deeply convinced that the allegations about him are not accurate, I haven't come across a smoking gun. I don't see any reason for them all the be dishonest after all these years, and, indeed, some of them believe there was a conspiracy - just not involving "Dave." I have come across a couple of interesting things: An acquaintance of his attorney who thinks he saw Ferrie, Shaw and Oswald together, and a mysterious package Ferrie left for a friend "just in case" in about 1964.

Some of the stuff against Ferrie seems to prove untrue. Some of the things linking him with CIA don't hold up, but he definitely was active with the Frente Revolucionario Democratico (FRD) in 1961, a CIA-created group. Curiously, not a shred of paper has come out indicating that CIA knew who Ferrie was prior to Garrison's probe. Under a program called CLIP, the CIA, through the Justice Department, limited FBI investigation of the FRD. Ferrie's time with the FRD (and its successor CRC) was shorter than thought: After Ferrie was arrested on morals charges in August 1961, the Cubans dropped him (and shortly after, they dropped Arcacha). The claim that he flew Marcello back from Guatemala is problematic: It appears that he didn't, but that he bragged that he did.

Prior to his fall from grace, Ferrie had an uncanny ability to interact with local educators and he taught at aerospace seminars. Ferrie's brother (who recently died) was involved in the Atoms for Peace program, and he seems to have had some communications with the FBI about his brother. Ferrie also lost some money in a business scam. As far as the odd churches go, he helped investigate one as an "ordination mill," but he found a whole sect of "gay-friendly" churches and became involved with them. He could be paranoid, and he put on quite a performance when the IRS audited his taxes.

On the personality side, he was smart and well-spoken but not a genius. He went off on tangents. He was strongly anti-communist but had some liberal views. He was outspokenly misogynistic, mistrusting women. He was a braggart. He was apparently very funny, vulgar, and did good impressions of famous people. He was attracted to post-pubescent boys, 14-18. He gradually became slovenly about hygiene and appearance. A favorite meal was spaghetti with butter and salt (a Cleveland Irish classic), with some beers.

I can find zero evidence to support the Dr. Mary Sherman fantasy.

Lots of Banister stuff, too: He was approved as a CIA contact in late 1960; his wife threw him out of the house not long before the assassination; and at around the same time, there was/were one or more break-ins at his office.

[Pamela Brown]

Annoying or not, me thinks there is much wringing of hands, rancor and way too much ENVY here... simply put, Judyth has it dialed in.

Why would any researcher committed to using documentation correctly 'envy' anyone who does not? That doesn't really make sense, David. Do you think we 'envy' Judyth's ability to bully people? To libel and discredit Marina? Perhaps you are uncomfortable that Judyth is unmasked...

[Pamela Brown]

And what if it isn't?

I post very infrequently here, mostly because I only offer my opinions if I feel I have something specifically meaningful to add to the topic. I generally don't speak up at all, unless I feel like I am on extremely firm ground, because, most of the researchers, CIA moles and concerned citizens who write on the boards are quite serious and well read and don't need my two cents.

Obviously, Ms. Baker's story is not "all untrue". She worked at the same outfit as Oswald, during this super critical time period in the events leading up to the JFK assassination. They lived in the same general neighborhood, undeniably walked the same sidewalks took the same busses, and visited the same stores, post offices, lunch rooms, etc.

Ms. Baker can prove all of this. She can prove she was precisely the right age to be of interest to Mr. Oswald, and she even resembles in some ways his wife- and men do tend towards certain physical qualities in women.

There is a new Judyth 'believer' born every day...if your idea of 'firm ground' is based on anything Judyth says you are on a slippery slope indeed.

Nobody said 'all' of Judyth's stories are 'untrue'. She did work at Reilly Coffee at the same time as Lee. But just what does she say about their meeting there? Not a word. She says they didn't even meet at Reilly. They met at the "Post Office". There is no other objective documentation tying Judyth to Lee Oswald than the fact that they worked at Reilly at the same time. Everything else is manufactured by -- guess who -- Judyth...

Judyth's idea of 'proof' is to take a piece of actual evidence and cherrypick it and twist it to make it Judyth-centered. If you are able to assimilate Judyth's statements objectively at some point, you may come to see how she does this, and then you might dare to confront her and then she will turn on you as she has everyone else who dares to question her credibility, and then she will throw you to the wolves and you will find yourself trying to speak up to spare others the same fate...

[Paul Brancato]

Any evidence that he raised mice for cancer research?

Banister is far more interesting to me than Ferrie. Clearly you have done some first hand digging. I was sold originally on the possible Ferrie involvement with Oswald, but find the evidence flimsy. when he died suddenly before having to testify at the Shaw trial, and on the same day as Arcacha Smith (do I recall that correctly?), it seemed very suspicious. I suppose it was, but I am not sure what to be suspicious of. Perhaps a dead Ferrie was better than one under oath precisely because we are left wondering what he knew and what he did. What was the deal about the library card? I never quite got that. Another false lead?

On a related subject, I was very intrigued by Peter Levenda's work regarding wandering Bishops. He also drew links between wandering bishop Fred Crisman, Banister, and early UFO reports from 1947. I came away from Levenda's books thinking that the wandering bishops were performing intelligence operations. I also never believed that Banister was an out of control racist maverick unconnected to official intelligence. Something was going on in New Orleans in summer of 1963 that involved Oswald, the FBI, the CIA, possibly ONI. But - not Judith Vary Baker.

[Stephen Roy]

Any evidence that he raised mice for cancer research?

Banister is far more interesting to me than Ferrie. Clearly you have done some first hand digging. I was sold originally on the possible Ferrie involvement with Oswald, but find the evidence flimsy. when he died suddenly before having to testify at the Shaw trial, and on the same day as Arcacha Smith (do I recall that correctly?), it seemed very suspicious. I suppose it was, but I am not sure what to be suspicious of. Perhaps a dead Ferrie was better than one under oath precisely because we are left wondering what he knew and what he did. What was the deal about the library card? I never quite got that. Another false lead?

On a related subject, I was very intrigued by Peter Levenda's work regarding wandering Bishops. He also drew links between wandering bishop Fred Crisman, Banister, and early UFO reports from 1947. I came away from Levenda's books thinking that the wandering bishops were performing intelligence operations. I also never believed that Banister was an out of control racist maverick unconnected to official intelligence. Something was going on in New Orleans in summer of 1963 that involved Oswald, the FBI, the CIA, possibly ONI. But - not Judith Vary Baker.

Mice: During the Garrison 1967 probe, one of his investigators recalled an incident in 1957, six years before the assassination and several homes earlier, when Ferrie had mice in cages and claimed he was searching for a cure for cancer. People who met him later do not recall mice in his last apartment.

Death: Ferrie died in February 1967, two years before the Shaw trial, but right after Garrison's probe became public. It is worth noting that he had been complaining of medical problems for about a year before his death.

Same day: The man who died on the same day was Eladio del Valle. The only link of Ferrie to del Valle was an article in the National Enquirer which made claims which seem to be contradicted. The other fellow you mention was Sergio Arcacha Smith. He was the New Orleans delegate of the CIA-created FRD and was pretty close to Ferrie from April to about September, 1961.

Library card: A bit complicated, but it all appears to track back to a misunderstanding on the part of Jack S. Martin, a friend (and later enemy) of Ferrie. It does not appear that any such card was found on Oswald, but Ferrie was rattled by the allegation.

Odd churches: Upon close research, there doesn't seem to be any special significance to the odd churches. Jack Martin used Ferrie in an investigation of "ordination mills," but Ferrie later found that one f those groups was actually a gay-friendly church, and he became involved with it.