Does everyone already know about this new Jim Garrison book and the interesting Clay Shaw reference?

[Vince Palamara]

Cruising for Conspirators: How a New Orleans DA Prosecuted the Kennedy Assassination as a Sex Crime

https://www.amazon.com/Cruising-Conspirators-Prosecuted-Assassination-Boundless/dp/1469662736/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=alecia+p.+long&qid=1634422393&s=books&sr=1-1

 

[Anthony Thorne]

Sharon Litwin passed away in 2016.

https://www.vianolavie.org/2016/06/24/in-memory-and-honor-of-sharon-litwin-nolavie-co-founder-and-president-26824/

There can't be that many Litwin's in the world involved in studying the JFK case, but Fred Litwin wrote I WAS A TEENAGE JFK CONSPIRACY FREAK.  If Fred Litwin is writing a book debunking JFK assassination theories, and Sharon Litwin is collecting papers on Clay Shaw that end up being used in another debunker's book on the same topic, you wouldn't really be going out on a limb by wondering if Fred and Sharon Litwin were related.

Regarding Alecia Long, the author of CRUISING FOR CONSPIRATORS, I wrote this back in May.

Quote

 

Alecia Long has been sponsored by the Ford Foundation. She's the director of the Listening to Louisiana Women Oral History Project at Louisiana State University. The Ford Foundation covered the grant that started that project, from 2009 to 2013, and Long was put in charge of it.

Currently, the director of the Ford Foundation is Darren Walker, who is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Before joining the Ford Foundation, Walker was a Vice President of the Rockefeller Foundation. I'm assuming Long's book on Garrison will be warmly received by people who have sponsored her in the past.

 

 

[Vince Palamara]

2 hours ago, Anthony Thorne said:

Sharon Litwin passed away in 2016.

https://www.vianolavie.org/2016/06/24/in-memory-and-honor-of-sharon-litwin-nolavie-co-founder-and-president-26824/

There can't be that many Litwin's in the world involved in studying the JFK case, but Fred Litwin wrote I WAS A TEENAGE JFK CONSPIRACY FREAK.  If Fred Litwin is writing a book debunking JFK assassination theories, and Sharon Litwin is collecting papers on Clay Shaw that end up being used in another debunker's book on the same topic, you wouldn't really be going out on a limb by wondering if Fred and Sharon Litwin were related.

Regarding Alecia Long, the author of CRUISING FOR CONSPIRATORS, I wrote this back in May.

 

Thanks for your feedback on this. Yes- Sharon and Fred have to be related (one would think).

[Anthony Thorne]

Some additional info. Sharon Litwin published this article in 2016.

https://www.vianolavie.org/2016/07/12/new-orleans-and-the-kennedy-assassination-29758/

Quote

 

While the New York Times beat out local newshounds on the Oswald connection, three years later, it was States-Item reporters Rosemary James and Jack Wardlaw who scooped the next big story. In 1966, when rumors were rife around the Criminal Courts Building that Garrison was investigating the assassination, Rosemary asked him for an interview. He said no.

So they started to do their own research and discovered all sorts of expenses paying for investigators going to and from Dallas for who knows what reason. They decided there was enough there to print a speculative story. When it was published, Rosemary says, “all hell broke loose and journalists from all over the country came in. He (Garrison) was in hog heaven. He got all the headlines he ever wanted for a while.”

But interest waned and, Rosemary says, every time the media would back off, Garrison would come up with a new conspiracy theory.

“We started calling it ‘Garrison’s Theory du Jour’,” she says, “ because he would call a news conference and he would have a new theory about exactly what happened, the most ridiculous of which was 14 Cubans shooting from the storm drains of Dallas and catching Kennedy in a triangulation of cross fire.”

Ultimately, the most stunning of Garrison’s theories was the arrest of distinguished New Orleans businessman Clay Shaw for conspiracy to commit the murder of President Kennedy. The arrest caused a sensation, not only in New Orleans but around the world. Journalists hurried back to New Orleans, everyone believing Garrison must have some overwhelming evidence to make such a claim.

The trial began, and as the world’s journalists flocked to the courtroom, they watched as it turned into a surreal drama of the bizarre. Rosemary James went every day for six weeks. She says it was a circus.

“In those days, it was not required under Louisiana law that the District Attorney provide a list of witnesses to the defense. Well, Tom Bethel, a British guy who had gone to work for Garrison’s office just to earn some money while he was in New Orleans researching jazz, realized what a travesty was going on in this office, and he turned the list of witnesses over to the defense.”

At first blush some of Garrison’s witnesses appeared quite credible on the stand. It was on cross examination, the defense having had access to the list of witnesses and time to prepare that, Rosemary says, “to a man, they all fell apart.”

 

James and Wardlaw were the co-authors of the 1967 book PLOT OR POLITICS?: THE GARRISON CASE AND ITS CAST. So go figure why Litwin would choose to speak to the authors of a Garrison book that had been written nearly half a century earlier, rather than an author that had looked at the events years later.

Edited October 18, 2021 by Anthony Thorne

[James DiEugenio]

I started reading this book last night.  What a joke.

She deals with Oswald in the military in five lines. And does not bring up the fact that he learned Russian.

But that's good compared to this.

She deals with his journey to the USSR and stay there in one sentence.

Paul Hoch said it was a very good book.

LOL, ROTF.  Well maybe it will get dramatically better?

 

[Anthony Thorne]

It sounds horrendous. 

Recent review by Martin J. Kelly.

https://www.washingtondecoded.com/site/2021/10/cruising.html

Is this stuff meant to coincide with the JFK documents decision? I mean, get a load of this.

Quote

 It is a bit unusual to find research of this caliber in the literature on the JFK assassination. That it exposes Garrison’s tabloid-themed prosecution, without invoking Garrison’s own history of mental problems or making anything out of the later accusation that he groped a 13-year-old boy in New Orleans, gives it a sound rationality as rebuttal to Garrison sycophants. Cruising for Conspirators might well be read as an inoculation against whatever fiction Oliver Stone will deliver in his new documentary.

Alecia Long links the above review on her Twitter, and notes, "Thanks to Martin J. Kelly and Max Holland." Kelly and Holland are both cited, along with a few others, at the bottom of this Fred Litwin article slamming Josiah Thompson's recent book. So I think you're facing a group effort here.

https://www.onthetrailofdelusion.com/post/a-reminder-read-nick-nalli-s-important-review-of-josiah-thompson-s-book-last-second-in-dallas

And I see the former site is Holland's. That explains most of it.

Edited October 18, 2021 by Anthony Thorne

[Benjamin Cole]

At this late date, it sure looks like someone is still planting anti-JFKA research articles and books, and yes likely as PR prior to Biden's decision on whether to release 50-year-old docs pertaining to the JFKA.

I used to think there must nothing in print that would be of value at this late date, due to scrubbing, and initial procedures to not put key matters into writing to begin with. Now, I am beginning to wonder.  

Maybe something is in the docs, when pieced together with other info would yield solid clues. 

 

 

[Ron Ecker]

3 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

At this late date, it sure looks like someone is still planting anti-JFKA research articles and books, and yes likely as PR prior to Biden's decision on whether to release 50-year-old docs pertaining to the JFKA.

I used to think there must nothing in print that would be of value at this late date, due to scrubbing, and initial procedures to not put key matters into writing to begin with. Now, I am beginning to wonder.  

Maybe something is in the docs, when pieced together with other info would yield solid clues. 

 

 

I couldn't understand why Donald Trump, who had zero respect for the intelligence community, listened to the intelligence community on JFK and didn't release documents. One almost has to believe there's some kind of dynamite in those documents.

 

 

[Benjamin Cole]

1 hour ago, Ron Ecker said:

I couldn't understand why Donald Trump, who had zero respect for the intelligence community, listened to the intelligence community on JFK and didn't release documents. One almost has to believe there's some kind of dynamite in those documents.

 

 

Trump was a major disappointment. My guess is someone had some compromising info on Trump.  But it may be Trump just acted irrationally or transactionally. 

[James DiEugenio]

Let us never forget, Max Holland was the man behind one of the very worst JFK documentaries of recent years.

https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-reviews/the-lost-bullet-max-holland-gets-lost-in-space

Considering the works of Gus Russo  for PBS in 1993, Peter Jennings in 2003 and Tom Brokaw at the fiftieth, that is saying something.

In fact Holland's piece of rubbish should be stamped on his forehead in order to ostracize him from human contact. That is how bad it was.

So this is why no one should take that review of Alecia Long at face value.  I will be reviewing her book, and Long is not going to like it.

[James DiEugenio]

The reason I brought those points up about Oswald with Alecia Long is simple.

Many years ago, when Phil Melanson appeared before the ARRB, he said that he hoped that once the Board's mission was complete, their work would make his book Spy Saga look like a Cliff Notes version of Oswald.

IMO, I think that has happened.  In light of the declassified work of Betsy Wolf, plus the work of Newman, Armstrong, Simpich, Titovets and others, we have learned a lot about Oswald.

For any author on this case to deal with Oswald, and Oswald in New Orleans, but to leave all of that work out, that is simply not being honest with the reader.  Because it is that work which provides the important backdrop to recent advances by people like Morley, and especially Paul Bleau's milestone article on the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. Which if you have not read, you really should.  Malcolm Blunt supplied a lot of the ammo for this first class essay https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/exposing-the-fpcc-part-1 

If you are not going to level with the reader about Oswald, then why are you even writing about the subject in the first place?

Edited October 18, 2021 by James DiEugenio

[James DiEugenio]

In the list of people who have helped us understand Oswald to a much more comprehensive degree, I should have added Greg Parker.

Here is my review of his book which is worth having and has a lot of originality about it.

https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-reviews/lee-harvey-oswald-s-cold-war

[Karl Hilliard]

On 10/16/2021 at 11:06 PM, Anthony Thorne said:

... you wouldn't really be going out on a limb by wondering if Fred and Sharon Litwin were related.

 

 

https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/sfgate/name/sharon-litwin-obituary?pid=180373920

Fred Litwin is not mentioned.

[James DiEugenio]

I don't think that is her Karl.  Compare the picture above posted by Anthony from her column.

Plus in that obit, it says she lived in Oregon and the San Francisco area. Not the Crescent CIty.

Edited October 19, 2021 by James DiEugenio

[Karl Hilliard]

OK here is a New Orleans Sharon [doesn't say where she was born]

Quote

Ms. Litwin was president of NolaVie, an online cultural news magazine she co-founded in 2011

[no picture]....  https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/nytimes/name/sharon-litwin-obituary?pid=180762699