Jim Garrison: Some Unauthorized Comments on the State of the Union

[James DiEugenio]

Fascinating interview with Garrison/Cassandra/Dr. Stockman.

This was a couple of months after the Shaw trial.

In my intro I note how his comments have changed in some respects since the 1967 Playboy interview.  Some really insightful comments for 1969. 

https://kennedysandking.com/articles/garrison-interview-some-unauthorized-comments-on-the-state-of-the-union-may-27-1969

[Guest]

Yeah it is a good interview. Thanks for posting this Jim.

And thanks to Malcolm for initially sharing this with me.

Edited August 8, 2019 by Bart Kamp

[James DiEugenio]

I credited you both in the intro.

Where would we be without Malcolm.

[Paul Jolliffe]

12 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Fascinating interview with Garrison/Cassandra/Dr. Stockman.

This was a couple of months after the Shaw trial.

In my intro I note how his comments have changed in some respects since the 1967 Playboy interview.  Some really insightful comments for 1969. 

https://kennedysandking.com/articles/garrison-interview-some-unauthorized-comments-on-the-state-of-the-union-may-27-1969

Thanks Jim, Bart and Malcolm.

Garrison made a couple of mistakes, but his overall point was pretty good: the Military Industrial "Warfare" complex was behind the assassination of JFK (and almost certainly MLK and RFK, too.)

I think we all generally agree with that. 

But exactly who is the "Military Industrial (Warfare) Complex"? 

Several hundred thousand people worked for the Defense Department, or the intelligence agencies or the major defense contractors in 1963, and 99% of those people were innocent of the assassination, and would have been appalled had they known.

A minor point:

Garrison specifically claimed that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs had not (as of 1969) been replaced since 1963, in violation of both law and custom.

Not so. General Earl Wheeler began his appointment on July 3, 1964, replacing Maxwell Taylor. Now Maxwell Taylor, as Jim DiEugenio spelled out in his interviews with Dave Emory, had a major hand in changing President Kennedy's Vietnam policy shortly after the assassination, and seemed to play a part in delaying any implementation of JFK's Vietnam withdrawal policy in the fall of 1963. 

Garrison missed an opportunity to identify Taylor there.

Another point from the interview:

When asked about David Ferrie's activities in New Orleans (connecting him presumably to the assassination), Garrison waffled a bit. Garrison detailed Ferrie's background as a pilot, his CAP association with young Oswald, his use of 544 Camp Street for the Cuban Revolutionary Front. 

All good.

But directly tying the assassination to Ferrie is much more difficult, even today: whatever was Ferrie's role (if any) in helping to set up "Oswald" as a Red/pro-Castro/Commie Symp, Ferrie had no known contact with "Oswald" for at least two months prior to the assassination. 

Garrison pointed out Ferrie's bizarre trip the night of 11/22/63 from New Orleans to Houston (phone calls at the ice rink on 11/23/63) and then to Galveston (where he may or may not have received a call from Jack Ruby). 

OK. And therefore, we should conclude that Ferrie's role was . . . what exactly?  (Back-up patsy? Getaway pilot for a Houston team? I don't find that so far-fetched, actually. Early on Saturday morning, the conspirators could not be sure their patsy plan was going to work. "Oswald" was still very much alive!)

My point is that Garrison should have clearly articulated his suspicions about David Ferrie's role, and he had the opportunity here in this interview. After all, Ferrie was not about to sue for libel!

While Garrison wouldn't say much about Clay Shaw because of the upcoming perjury trial, I still think Shaw was probably innocent of complicity in the assassination itself. Was Shaw CiA?

Of course!

Did the CIA interfere like hell with Garrison's prosecution of Clay Shaw!

Absolutely!

But it would seem that Shaw's demonstrable involvement with "Oswald" (or LHO, either one), was limited to setting him up as a lefty, pro-Castro weirdo in August. 

I still am not sure what we can conclude about the alleged meeting in N.O. in September between Shaw, Ferrie, "Oswald",  and Perry Russo. Even if it went down exactly as Russo later claimed (maybe, maybe not), we know the assassination itself was not planned or executed by anyone there - it was executed by the highest levels of the CIA, specifically those men loyal to Allen Dulles! Further, Clay Shaw was apparently oblivious to "Oswald's" exact role: patsy!

Shaw called Dean Andrews to secure defense counsel for "Oswald", a thing which he WOULD NOT HAVE DONE IN A MILLION YEARS if he were in on it!

The last thing the conspirators wanted was for "Oswald" to get a lawyer and to begin talking!

Shaw's phone call to Andrews meant that Shaw could not have been anywhere near to the top of the conspiratorial food chain. (And I believe Garrison not only knew that, but hinted at that when he said "The New Orleans portion of the assassination was merely a small corner of the entire operation. However, we did catch hold of a part of that corner and my thought has been that if we kept our grip firm perhaps the press would ultimately acquire an understanding and pass on to the people what had happened in America.")

Now, Garrison correctly pointed out the incredibly suspicious and premature call from White House Situation Room in Washington to Air Force One (flying to Washington) that the assassination was the work of a lone nut. Suspicion has fallen on McGeorge Bundy - and maybe rightly so. Did Bundy give the game away with that call? (Vincent Salandria has argued that point for several decades.)

Garrison also rightly noted that the tapes of the calls did exist, and were quoted by Theodore White in his "Making of the President 1964". Garrison apparently did not know that the White House Communications Agency never made any transcripts available to the Warren Commission, not only of the Air Force One tapes, but from the motorcade in Dallas itself!

We know (but Garrison did not)  the fact that the White House Communications Agency was in direct contact with Secret Service Agent (and in my view, SUSPECT) Winston Lawson is unknown to most researchers, even today. The fact that their tapes have not been heard by anybody is damning. 

Finally, Garrison also claimed that Pierre Finck testified that the autopsy was controlled by "an Air Force Major General". According to the extant transcript of Finck's testimony, that isn't quite right: Finck claimed that 

A: Well, I heard Dr. Humes stating that -- he said, "Who is in charge here?" and I heard an Army General, I don't remember his name, stating, I am." You must understand that in those circumstances, there were law enforcement officers, military people with various ranks, and you have to co-ordinate the operation according to directions." . . .

Q: "Now, can you give me the name then of the General that was in charge of the autopsy, as you testified about? 
A: Well, there was no General in charge of the autopsy. There were several people, as I have stated before, I heard Dr. Humes state who was in charge here, and he stated that the General answered "I am," it may have been pertaining to operations other than the autopsy, it does not mean the Army General was in charge of the autopsy, but when Dr. Humes asked who was in charge here, it may have been who was in charge of the operations, but not of the autopsy, and by "operations," I mean the over-all supervision."

I wonder if , in 1969, Garrison had some reason to suspect that USAF Chief of Staff (and legend) General Curtis LeMay was present at the autopsy. Today we believe so, but did Garrison subconsciously believe it then? What tipped him off, I wonder? (Did Garrison's investigators uncover more about the autopsy than Garrison let on, and could there still be some hidden gems waiting to be discovered?)

 

Anyway, this interview is a solid, readable introduction to Garrison's overall views on the Military Industrial (Warfare) Complex's hold on American Foreign Policy and the reduction of the American President to that of a "showman" (Garrison's term). To readers not familiar with Garrison's outlook, this interview is an easy overview.

 

 

 

 

Edited August 8, 2019 by Paul Jolliffe

[James DiEugenio]

I tend to think that Garrison was referring to LeMay without saying his name.  And as everyone knows LeMay flew into Washington in the early evening.  And he seemed to try and disguise  his inbound flight.  Further, this info was cut from the official AF One Tapes. 

As per the specifics of the plot, I think that Shaw, Ferrie and Banister were involved in the setting up of Oswald in the summer of 1963.  If one takes a look at what Oswald was doing before and after, it was in New Orleans that he really got a high profile as a pro Castro, pro FPCC sympathizer, and then it was those filmed and pictured incidents that were used to brand him as a communist in the public and MSM eyes.   I think that was really a key part of the plot, especially if the plan was to polish off Oswald early, which they did. That image would be then branded into the American consciousness so that in the short term it would be indelible.

I agree that these three guys were low level in the plot to the point that they made tactical mistakes that then had to be covered up.  I think Garrison understood this over time which partly accounts for the differences in the 1967 and 1969 interviews.  But when one adds in the information that Garrison was gathering through his aides and lawyers plus his insights into the Big Picture, he was really the only one in that position with that kind of knowledge.  It was not until the ARRB declassified his memoranda and people like Bill Davy, Joan Mellen and myself got it out there that the public really saw what he had unearthed.  In the meantime, people like Summers took every opportunity to trash him.

Do you believe that Summers actually said, on the occasion of JFK, that the idea Kennedy was killed having anything to do with Vietnam is about as probable as him having been killed by bow and arrow by a girlfriend??  I mean that is really nutty.  And it pinpoints two problems I have with the guy.  First, if it does not fit into his overview, then it does not exist.  Summers had nothing in his book about Vietnam so therefore it did not happen.  Second, Summers made a cottage industry out of the Monroe/Exner stuff. I mean we owe that lying Jeanne Carmen to Tony Summers.  And he also began the aggrandizement of Exner into some kind of messenger between the Mob and the White House, which was more BS. 

But there was Jim Garrison out there on Vietnam as early as 1969, even earlier really, in 1968.  He deserves a lot of credit for that, which he does not get.

[Joe Bauer]

Was this an edited transcript of Garrison's comments in the interview?

Or was this a straight recording transcript of Garrison's own words exactly as he spoke them?

Either way, the man is simply an eloquent speaker with an extremely well read and interestingly expressed grasp of history, literature, even philosophy.

Garrison's July 15th, 1967 NBC rebuttal presentation on national TV was equally eloquent.

I believe JFK and Garrison shared this fine mind eloquence trait on a similar level and with the same common good guided moral compass.

I wonder what it would have been like to have Jim Garrison as our president.

 

 

Edited August 8, 2019 by Joe Bauer

[James DiEugenio]

I am not sure if it was edited.

I used to have this interview and I think I gave it, in my files, to Bill Davy.

I think it was with a Dutch news service, it may be Oltmans.  Although I am not sure.

[Guest]

5 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

I credited you both in the intro.

Where would we be without Malcolm.

Thank you and yes the document god MB is quite something else.

[David Andrews]

One useful consideration is Garrison's point on how a covert op is not structured to be tried in a court of law - something one would think would be noticed through several Senate and House investigations, and somehow remedied, even to a degree.

The proof of the pudding is the Watergate hearings.  I understand these weren't in themselves court proceedings - but nowhere else in the last decades did you hear so much under-oath confession, being that it was all orchestrated toward a political end.  That Senate chamber was like a confession box compared to the days of HUAC and McCarthy,

 

Edited August 9, 2019 by David Andrews

[James DiEugenio]

Yeah, and Dash and Ervin missed the real point of the break in.

[David Andrews]

Is it possible that Garrison's deal with this publisher was to write both the questions and the answers for verbatim publication, or to at least answer their written questions in writing?  The typescript has a certain well-rehearsed, formal air about it.

Edited August 9, 2019 by David Andrews

[Ron Bulman]

2 hours ago, David Andrews said:

One useful consideration is Garrison's point on how a covert op is not structured to be tried in a court of law - something one would think would be noticed through several Senate and House investigations, and somehow remedied, even to a degree.

The proof of the pudding is the Watergate hearings.  I understand these weren't in themselves court proceedings - but nowhere else in the last decades did you hear so much under-oath confession, being that it was orchestrated toward an end.

 

Since you mention Watergate, just as an aside... 45 years ago today Tricky Dick became the only U S president to ever resign.

[James DiEugenio]

thanks for the reminder Ron.

David:

From my understanding Garrison really studied for these interviews.  Now, if he got the questions in advance I do not know.  I got that from his secretary.

[Rob Couteau]

Great interview, with some really succinct, down to earth answers. "The Cold War had become by far America's biggest business. The military industrial complex had become by far the most powerful force in America."

[James DiEugenio]

That comment sort of made Ike's warning a reality.

Great touch by Stone to use it in his film.

Edited August 9, 2019 by James DiEugenio