Kerry Thornley: A New Look

[John Butler]

Does anyone know how tall Kerry Thornley was?

Edited June 27, 2020 by John Butler

[Ron Bulman]

On 6/26/2020 at 3:50 PM, James DiEugenio said:

Ron, on page 26, of Garrison's book, he describes that within one square block of Banister's office were Local HQ for SS, ONI, FBI and CIA.

And he says a large post office was across the park.

BTW, for me Garrison's book is such a pleasure to read.  First, I find all that New Orleans stuff so fascinating a forensically relevant.  I mean, just look what you can do with Kerry Thornley if you dig a little.  Second, Garrison is a  good writer.  In this field so many authors just are not gifted writers, like Livingstone for example.  But Garrison really was a good writer.

 

I had forgotten that not having ever read On The Trail Of The Assassins a little over a year ago I bought a copy on line for under $10 including shipping.  I'd skimmed through it, marking a couple of pages with post it notes sticking up.  Then for some reason I put it on a bottom shelf of stacked books and forgot about it.  Your post jogged my memory.

I started on it this afternoon.  First I went to page 26, back a couple then forward a couple.  On page 24 Garrison proves me wrong about what I thought I saw in the picture I linked a few posts above yours.  The entrance on Lafayette was not angled on the corner of it and Camp, it seems likely that was the entrance to the Mancuso Restaurant.  The entrance to 531 Lafayette was further down from the corner on Lafayette, on the side of the building.  "The entrance at 544 Camp opened onto stairs leading to the second floor.  There was something familiar about the building, and it took me a moment or two to refresh my memory.  Then I went around the corner past where Mancuso's small restaurant used to be and walked a few steps down Lafayette street to the other entrance to the building.  There I found myself looking at what I knew had been - back in 1963 - the entrance to the upstairs private detective office of Guy Banister.  . . .the door had borne the designation, "Guy Banister Associates, Inc. Investigators."  Looking closer at the picture I linked you can see what looks like a door further down the side of the building.  Yeah this is fascinating.

On page 26 Garrison says "I turned away from Banister's old office and looked across Lafayette street , where the U.S. Post office Building loomed.  Occupying an entire city block, it was majestic and timeless . . . housed the New Orleans Secret Service operation . . . New Orleans headquarters of the Office of Naval Intelligence. . . . Guy Banister, who had begun his career in World War II with the O.N.I., had chosen an office right across the street. . ."  At this point I'm thinking if it was across Lafayette street from the Newman/544 Camp/531 Lafayette building it wouldn't have been demolished for the Hale Boggs Federal Building, that was on the Other side of the Newman building.  The picture I linked of the Post Office Building from after it's being built in 195 or 1917 was of a majestic and timeless building.  But there was no post office in the area when I'd looked on google maps.  So I looked again.  As I zoomed in in landscape on the opposite corner of Camp and Lafayette from where the Newman building was a street view pop up  appeared on the left.  Of the Louisiana Medical Examiners offices.  The image of the façade of the building is unmistakable.   It's the former Post Office building in the 1915/17 picture I linked.  I guess the PO outgrew it.  But it wasn't torn down but repurposed, because or its majesty and timelessness.  Looks like one half houses the Medical Examiners the other half the US Court of Appeals and Fifth Circuit Bar Association.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Louisiana+Medical+Examiners+Board/@29.9480157,-90.0705146,170m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m13!1m7!3m6!1s0x8620a6737acec6ef:0xbbeb3fe11c22fcd6!2s544+Camp+St,+New+Orleans,+LA+70130!3b1!8m2!3d29.9481016!4d-90.0697165!3m4!1s0x8620a6739c0a7147:0xc57c907c17597823!8m2!3d29.9473365!4d-90.0697971 

[James DiEugenio]

Nice work Ron.  Like being there. 

John:  According to Thornley, he was 5' 10". (Garrison, p. 73.  Although, if he was alive I would ask to measure him.  I don't believe anything the guy ever said.)

 

[John Butler]

Thanks Jim,

Kerry Thornley at 5'10" feet ruins a "wonderfully speculative notion" about the person in the photo below.  I call this film frame the 3 patsy photo.  It has an Oswald figure, Bill Shelley, and Chauncy Holt.  There is also another figure, an unknown person, there who is pointed to by the red arrow.  I'm trying to find out who that person was.  In this photo the figure pointed out appears to be to tall for Kerry Thornley.  But, he does have Thornley's round head.  Not much help in identifying a person. 

In another film frame we have a Oswald that looks remarkably like the figure pointed to by the red arrow.  The figure in the 3 patsy photo generally has his back to the camera so that he is not filmed in a way that he can be identified.  Intentional?

 

I had two candidates to this and one of them was Kerry Thornley.  From what is written in this thread and other places indicates this might be Thornley.  But, there is no real proof. The color frame is definitely not Kerry Thornley and is supposed to be Lee Harvey Oswald and I think that is correct.  But, could pass as the red arrow figure from the neck down.  Even the shirt tucked into the trousers looks similar.  The 3 patsy photo is an altered film frame.  I don't think the frame on the left is altered. 

This photo shows that at one time Kerry Thornley was as thin as the figure in the 3 patsy photo.  His arm looks like the same as the photo.  But, once again not enough for a firm identification.  If Kerry was 5'10" feet tall then you could shave him an he could pass for an Oswald double.  Better than some who are accredited to be an Oswald double.  He has the same receding hair profile that Oswald had.  Not enough for a firm identification.

 

Edited June 28, 2020 by John Butler

[James DiEugenio]

John: Nice try, there is a bit of a resemblance, but I think that guy is a little too tall for Thornley if he was really 5' 10".  (But like I said, with him, who knows?)

See, Garrison and others have also speculated about this, as did Fonzi.  It was not about what Lifton or Gorightly say as there being some kind of Oswald double. Since the facial resemblance was not of that degree.  As  Weisberg was trying to show, you could not do that even if you tried.

But if Thornley was 5' 10", then physically, he had a similar slender physique as Oswald did.  So, as you read Garrison's book, on page 74, Thornley admitted to stopping off in Dallas in the early summer of 1963.  Which is when the Oswalds had left the city to go to New Orleans.  But the Neely street apartment was empty at the time.  And I have to say, Breck Wall, who knew Ruby, once told writer Dave Manning that its Thornley in that BYP.

The other thing that I did not mention is the thing about Mexico City.  Thornley also visited Mexico City about 3 weeks before Oswald went.  He allegedly went alone and his reason was to practice his Spanish. Hmm. In my book, I might have got this date wrong.  In researching the article, I found out that Thornley sent a postcard from Mexico to New Orleans dated something like August 30th.  His girlfriend Jeanne Hack said Thornley, who was usually kind of loquacious, would not say anything about that journey.

He told the FBI in February "that he had made this trip by himself and emphatically denied that Oswald had accompanied him from New Orleans to California, or from California to Mexico."  And BTW, that denial began very early, like the first time the FBI questioned him and it continued for months. 

But yet on the same day of that February memo, another FBI memo was written which said, that Thornley had been been in Mexico and California with Oswald, and the Secret Service had been notified of this. (James DiEugenio, Destiny Betrayed, p. 190)

Again, there should have been a full court, no holds barred, air, land and sea inquiry into this guy.  And the WC gave him a free pass to do his cut and paste job on Oswald, literally creating an assassin for them, a man who wanted to be known 10,000 years from now as he had the hand of God on his forehead.

Like I said, Thornley, was good at creating pulp fiction.

 

Edited June 28, 2020 by James DiEugenio

[Matt Allison]

In the years after the assassination, Thornley gives all the appearances of someone you would think the intelligence agencies used to infiltrate leftist and anti-war groups in the late '60s and early '70s.

[James DiEugenio]

See, that is what I think is important about his comments to those two witnesses I named as to Oswald not being a communist.

If he knew that, that early, and we are talking about here like the 24th, then that indicates to me that he was a part of this circle around LHO.  Its like Banister telling his secretary, "Oh, don't worry about that guy on Canal Street.  He's one of mine."

Except Thornley did all he could to separate himself from that ring.  And like I said, if you read his grand jury testimony, its almost ludicrous how he equivocates in denying  knowing these people.  Sort of like: Oh,  I was just reminded of how I might have seen this tall guy Clay Shaw.  Literally that is the kind of stuff he said.

I would have liked to have talked to HSCA investigator Larry Delsa about Thornley.   

Edited June 29, 2020 by James DiEugenio

[John Butler]

Kerry Thornley says no, no, I was not in New Orleans in the summer of 1963.

Mr. THORNLEY. That is Cinco De Mayo. I arrived in California on May 5 and I stayed there until late August. Now, I think in one of these reports that I gave to the FBI. the information might be different. Since then I have checked with notebooks that I kept of my activity, and I was on my way back to New Orleans in late August. I went by way of Mexico City because I have taken 5 years of Spanish in school and I never had the opportunity to live in an environment where I would have to use it, depend on it solely, and I wanted to see how I would do. I have always wanted to visit Mexico, to see Mexico City. I checked into the prices. I had found out I had enough money that I would be able to go down to Mexico City and stay a short while.
So I went down there for about a week, actually it was 6 days I spent within Mexico, from Tijuana to Mexico City, on a Mexican bus, and then when my money began to run out from Mexico City to Matamoros or Brownsville, Tex., on a Mexican bus.
At this time, on my way up on a bus to Matamoros, it was September 2, because I had that in my notes, I have some notes about the bus ride and, the date September 2.
And I went from Brownsville to New Orleans by way of either Greyhound or Continental.
Mr. JENNER. When did you arrive in New Orleans?
Mr. THORNLEY. I went directly to New Orleans, so I imagine I arrived in New Orleans on September 3, possibly September 4.
Mr. JENNER. So that between approximately May 1, 1963, and September 4 and 5-
Mr. THORNLEY. Say May 3 to September 4.
Mr. JENNER. You were not in New Orleans?
Mr. THORNLEY. Right.
Mr. JENNER. You were returning to your home in California? You stayed there for approximately a month or so?
Mr. THORNLEY. Longer than that.
Mr. JENNER. Longer than that. You then went to Mexico, Mexico City, and you then returned directly to New Orleans?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes, sir.
Mr. JENNER. During none of that period of time did you have any contact with or hear anything about Oswald?
Mr. THORNLEY. Definitely not.

Jim Garrison says yes, yes, you did and were in New Orleans during the summer.

District Attorney

Parish of Orleans

State of Louisiana

2700 Tulane Avenue

New Orleans 70119

February 21, 1968

P R E S S   R E L E A S E

 

Kerry Wendell Thornley today was charged with committing perjury before the Orleans Parish Grand Jury during his testimony on February 8, 1968. The perjury charges were based on his sworn testimony before the Grand Jury to the effect that he did not think he had met Lee Oswald in New Orleans in 1963. Evidence indicates that he did.

….

This is the thing that I have read about repeatedly with the CIA agents mentioned in Kennedy research.  I believe that Thornley was CIA or ONI loaned to CIA, a government agent of some sort. Their greatest skill was lying.  Followed by roll playing and sticking to a script.  If betraying a fellow agent was required so be it.

Harold Weisberg talks about a Leon Oswald, dirty, unwashed, and unshaven.  This is not the Oswald I see in photos of that period.  I see this only at the Dallas Police Station.  There are other examples of the dirty, unshaven Oswald.  The visit to Sylvia Odio comes to mind. 

Perry Russo after some questioning and examining of his recollections decided that Leon Oswald was Lee Harvey Oswald after an artist put a beard on a photo of Oswald.  Slyia Odio said that Leon Oswald was Lee Harvey Oswald.

For a quick reference from Wikipedia “Odio testified that she was certain that "Leon Oswald" was Lee Harvey Oswald and that the meeting occurred prior October 1, likely on the preceding Thursday (September 26) or Friday (September 27).^”

 It seems Garrison drew a beard on a photo of Oswald for Odio as was done for Russo.  And, behold Lee Oswald was identified.  Weisberg identifies a False Oswald.  Just one of many incidents to come in the future of Oswald.

Two bearded characters in the Oswald saga in New Orleans and Dallas. Any others?

I just remembered Loren Hall:

The problem I have with these characters is none of them look like Oswald.  Time and memory recollection could change this if a questioner was suggestive of who they might be, say Oswald.  Odio says that the Leon Oswald came around prior to Oct. and about Sept. 26 or 27 while Oswald was supposedly in Mexico.  He left New Orleans on the 25th and didn't return I have read.

The Kerry Thornley without a beard could be a better match as a double.  Seymour shorter, I believe, but could over time morph into an Oswald in someone's memory. 

The Harvey and Lee story has Harvey in New Orleans.  And, Lee possibly there too.  Other possibilities for doubles were John Thomas Mason, who was said to be a twin of Oswald, but I don't see that either.  Larry Crafard is also said to be a double of Oswald.

If these are the choices one might as well just grab some average height guy of the street and claim he is Oswald.  Many people have difficulty with facial recognition.  With what I have read and seen on the forum that number is greater than one might suspect.

 

 

Edited June 29, 2020 by John Butler

[Joe Bauer]

On 6/28/2020 at 7:04 AM, John Butler said:

Thanks Jim,

Kerry Thornley at 5'10" feet ruins a "wonderfully speculative notion" about the person in the photo below.  I call this film frame the 3 patsy photo.  It has an Oswald figure, Bill Shelley, and Chauncy Holt.  There is also another figure, an unknown person, there who is pointed to by the red arrow.  I'm trying to find out who that person was.  In this photo the figure pointed out appears to be to tall for Kerry Thornley.  But, he does have Thornley's round head.  Not much help in identifying a person. 

In another film frame we have a Oswald that looks remarkably like the figure pointed to by the red arrow.  The figure in the 3 patsy photo generally has his back to the camera so that he is not filmed in a way that he can be identified.  Intentional?

 

I had two candidates to this and one of them was Kerry Thornley.  From what is written in this thread and other places indicates this might be Thornley.  But, there is no real proof. The color frame is definitely not Kerry Thornley and is supposed to be Lee Harvey Oswald and I think that is correct.  But, could pass as the red arrow figure from the neck down.  Even the shirt tucked into the trousers looks similar.  The 3 patsy photo is an altered film frame.  I don't think the frame on the left is altered. 

This photo shows that at one time Kerry Thornley was as thin as the figure in the 3 patsy photo.  His arm looks like the same as the photo.  But, once again not enough for a firm identification.  If Kerry was 5'10" feet tall then you could shave him an he could pass for an Oswald double.  Better than some who are accredited to be an Oswald double.  He has the same receding hair profile that Oswald had.  Not enough for a firm identification.

 

Questions regards photos.

Is this Thornley directly above? The carved pumpkin to the right of his knee tells you this was taken in late October. But what year? And where?

In the photos of Oswald's leaflet passing group above:

Some say the small dark haired fellow with the identical thin black tie and white shirt as Oswald was Raphael Cruz Sr. ( Senator Ted Cruz's father. ) 

And Cruz Sr. was living in New Orleans the entire time Oswald was there and passing out his leaflets.

Whether or not this man is Cruz Sr. he does look totally Cuban.

And what Cuban in his right mind is going to thrust himself into a broad daylight public spectacle of pro-Castro activity in one of the top two fanatical, hot headed anti-Castro communities in America ( New Orleans )  in the Summer of 1963?

The other being Miami.

The anti-Castro groups in these cities were so so extreme in their anger and hatred of Castro, they were constantly planning life and death risk taking measures to take back their homeland if the opportunity to do so could be realized.

Oswald was physically confronted and assaulted by members of this group at another leaflet passing. One would think these same angry Oswald attackers might be even more agitated at seeing an actual Cuban born person helping Oswald pass out his pro-Castro leaflets.

The other out-of-place character in the photos ( besides the big pompadour, blond, taller and super thin, sunken cheeks Shelley look-alike ) is the short, muscular, swarthy, hairy armed, sun glasses wearing character in the lower right.

Was this guy a leaflet passing helper too? Just needing a few dollars at the time?

Or was he just a passerby at the time of the photo?

The guy just radiates a sinister, covert, aggressive energy to me. Kind of a David Morales type presence? He looks Cuban as well.

 

Edited June 30, 2020 by Joe Bauer

[Dr. Gregg Wager]

When a student at USC during the 1970s, I learned quickly how hippies were duped into Libertarianism by the promise to legalize marijuana. They didn't realize that those at the top of the Libertarian pecking order were anti-FDR conservatives. John Hospers was a philosophy professor at USC and the first to run for President as a Libertarian in 1972. His lengthy book should be used as a source more often. At least one of California's initiatives in the 1970s to legalize marijuana was organized by the Libertarians. Mixing Ayn Rand and Libertarianism almost went without saying back in the 1970s, let alone how it all goes down today.

That Thornley would self-describe himself as an Ayn Rand enthusiast a decade before Hospers's run for president is unusual and shows how early on he was strangely on board with alternative intellectualism that even to 1960s conservatives was considered extreme. For example, William F. Buckley especially denounced Rand for her atheism. I remember finding pre-Hospers use of the word "Libertarian" in political writings used in South America by American intelligence trying to create a pro-American radicalism that would offset radical Marxism.     

Don't discount as mere lazy scholarship the way Gorightly tries to link hippies and early Ayn Rand followers with people like Kesey, even though on the surface these people shouldn't get along. He also mentions Robert Anton Wilson, a devout disciple of Timothy Leary. He was widely read on college campuses. I even quote Wilson in my dissertation, mostly as a source for left-wing radical belief systems, but then he also embraces theories about the Illuminati, which I associate with the politically right. In the long run, Wilson was at least as influential as Kesey, if not more influential. In fact, I always suspect that when Kesey was in exile in Mexico (after his famous bus trip), he made some deal with the CIA or FBI to avoid prosecution (he made lots of anti-drug lectures after that, as one of MK ULTRA's most famous volunteer subjects). 

I was also shocked to find this Wikipedia article about Thornley's chum Greg Hill: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaclypse_the_Younger

I wouldn't be surprised if Thornley was just as much an agent provocateur with his Ayn Rand stuff as Oswald was with Marxism. On the other hand, I'm not about to guess at this point why someone like Gorightly would attempt to prop up Thornley as a hippie-era prankster.   

   

[James DiEugenio]

My point was that Kesey wrote two quite distinguished  novels that managed to crossover and be recognized by both the critics and the public. Which does not happen often.

To have written two novels as distinguished as One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest and Sometimes a Great Notion within two years of each other is a really exceptional achievement.  Especially because, as I wrote in my article, the two books are so different.  The former is an allegory in the form of a  novel (usually allegories are in short story form).  The second is a vast, expansive epic of the west. 

To compare Zenarchy, Kerista magazine articles, and Principia Discordia with those two fine novels, that makes Gorightly even a worse literary critic than he is a biographer and investigator.  Which is really saying something.

The reason Hill has that at Wiki is Gorightly.  Its part of his effort to turn Thornley's circle into Kerouac, Kesey and Burroughs.

It would be funny if it was not so patently ridiculous.

Edited June 30, 2020 by James DiEugenio

[Joe Bauer]

Did Thornley say he attended the DLI ( Defense Language Institute) in Monterey, CA.?

He would have had to have been in the military at the time.

He studied what language...Spanish?

I have lived 1 to 3 miles from the school most of my life.

I have known dozens of people who were either instructors, children of instructors and later military people studying there.

One lady student soldier explained to me one part of her program was a complete immersion into whatever language you were learning. For many weeks where she couldn't even go home and be with her husband and children.

I remember her husband saying that in those weeks she would be gone and speaking only one language. In her case this was Spanish.

We knew each other through a shared family interest of buying and collecting sports cards ( my son loved the hobby ) for a year or two.

I understand that this method of complete immersion 24/7 for many weeks ( besides a long term program ) is a long time proven one that works quite well.

Did Thornley ever say he went to this school and was he ever asked if Oswald attended it as well.

Edited June 30, 2020 by Joe Bauer

[Ron Bulman]

41 minutes ago, Joe Bauer said:

Did Thornley say he attended the DLI ( Defense Language Institute) in Monterey, CA.?

He would have had to have been in the military at the time.

He studied what language...Spanish?

I have lived 1 to 3 miles from the school most of my life.

I have known dozens of people who were either instructors, children of instructors and later military people studying there.

One lady student soldier explained to me one part of her program as a complete immersion into whatever language you were learning. For many weeks where she couldn't even go home and be with her husband and children.

I remember her husband saying that in those weeks she would be gone and speaking only one language. In her case this was Spanish.

We knew each other through a shared family interest of buying and collecting sports cards ( my son loved the hobby ) for a year or two.

I understand that this method of complete immersion 24/7 for many weeks ( besides a long term program ) is a long time proven one that works quite well.

Did Thornley ever say he went to this school and was he ever asked if Oswald attended it as well.

I've long thought Oswald went though something such regarding Russian but have no idea if Thornley spoke Spanish or where he learned it if he did.  

[Ron Bulman]

I never knew Jim Garrison knew Guy Banister before the assassination or that he once encountered David Ferrie.  "When he was with the police department, we had lunch together now and then, swapping colorful stories about our earlier careers in the F.B.I.".  Until 1966 Garrison believed the FBI had done a thorough investigation, as well as the Warren Commission.  He left the FBI out of boredom from doing security checks for defense industry employees.  

[Dr. Gregg Wager]

It's hard to deny Kesey's accomplishment as a novelist. That bus trip he took also influenced rock music from the Beatles to the Partridge Family. 

As for Kesey's contribution to whatever underground hippie culture of the day you want to recognize, that's something else (including the unedited film he made while traveling on the bus). Allen Ginsberg hated Timothy Leary and his ilk, but there are plenty of literary critics who don't care for beat poets like Ginsberg. 

Still, how does it all tie in to Oswald?

I'm also curious about any new ties between Sergio Arcacha Smith and David Ferrie. I once put into Google maps the addresses of Arcacha Smith's office in Houston and the ice skating rink where Ferrie was making telephone calls on Nov. 22, '63. They are less than a mile from each other.

   

Edited June 30, 2020 by Dr. Gregg Wager