Guy Banister and the CIA

[Benjamin Cole]

5 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

I love brief summaries like that. There should be a repository for them.

Thank you Ben.

 

Well, thank you Sandy. We can disagree or agree on issues or event, and that is fine. I always read and enjoy your commentary, even when I disagree. 

[Benjamin Cole]

5 hours ago, Paul Cummings said:

Smoking and drinking. Not conducive for making the expected lifetime tables.

Yes, that's fine, but no one has said that Banister was a smoker.  

Banister almost certainly was a drinker, but we have no clues to what extent. He got into a fight with two or three younger men on a bus three months before his death---that does not sound like a man with a bad heart, but who knows?

Evidently, Banister was not arrested for public drunkenness after the bus episode (is being drunk in public in N.O. in 1963 even a crime?)

What Banister's regrettable politics have to do with his untimely death is beyond me. Banister's death was indisputably untimely---a male of his age, in 1964, had an average of 14 years left to live, according to the Social Security actuarial tables provided. 

 

 

 

[Mark Knight]

Remember, those actuarial tables are AVERAGES. Some die sooner, some die later.

My dad died from heart problems at age 61 in 1991. He was neither a smoker nor a drinker. 

So those actuarial charts don't predict; they simply average the numbers.

At this point I'm nearly 7 years past my dad's terminal age. And I smoked until 1998, and I drink.

[Ron Bulman]

9 minutes ago, Mark Knight said:

Remember, those actuarial tables are AVERAGES. Some die sooner, some die later.

My dad died from heart problems at age 61 in 1991. He was neither a smoker nor a drinker. 

So those actuarial charts don't predict; they simply average the numbers.

At this point I'm nearly 7 years past my dad's terminal age. And I smoked until 1998, and I drink.

Since it's Saturday night, Cheers!

[Benjamin Cole]

5 hours ago, Mark Knight said:

Remember, those actuarial tables are AVERAGES. Some die sooner, some die later.

My dad died from heart problems at age 61 in 1991. He was neither a smoker nor a drinker. 

So those actuarial charts don't predict; they simply average the numbers.

At this point I'm nearly 7 years past my dad's terminal age. And I smoked until 1998, and I drink.

I hear you.

My sister led a very healthy lifestyle, then suddenly died of brain cancer at 69, while my mother is 93 and has smoked and drank her whole life (light social smoker). 

As they say, "Growing old is not for sissies." 

I sure would like to know more about Banister anticipating his own murder (or death). 

 

 

 

[Gene Kelly]

On 8/17/2022 at 4:44 PM, Tom Gram said:

John Mmahat's presence on T&C is more than a little suspicious. He was actually one of Harry Connick's attorneys when Garrison challenged the '73 election for DA that Connick won by just over 2000 votes. Mmahat also wrote a newspaper article smearing Garrison over the bogus pinball bribe allegations during the campaign, without disclosing that it was basically a political ad for Connick:

http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg Subject Index Files/G Disk/Garrison Jim/Garrison Jim Criminal Trial 1973/Item 116.pdf

That's without even getting into Mmahat's involvement with and almost certain financial interest in the detective firm that was working for Clay Shaw's lawyers. 

I wasn't exaggerating either when I said he was a criminal. Mmahat was sentenced to decades in prison in the early 90s on several counts of fraud, conspiracy, etc. in a scheme involving shell companies.

Tom

This is excellent research you are doing on INCA ... what do you make of the T&C group?  Were they actually out to help Garrison (which is the commonly held view) or rather to monitor and control the investigation?  With such a suspicious collection of individuals - particularly Mmahat - it sure seems the latter.   And did the DA know, or was he duped?

Gene

[Tom Gram]

On 8/21/2022 at 12:17 PM, Gene Kelly said:

Tom

This is excellent research you are doing on INCA ... what do you make of the T&C group?  Were they actually out to help Garrison (which is the commonly held view) or rather to monitor and control the investigation?  With such a suspicious collection of individuals - particularly Mmahat - it sure seems the latter.   And did the DA know, or was he duped?

Gene

Thanks Gene. I agree it sure seems like the latter. The point of T&C was ostensibly to provide private funding that Garrison could use to build his case however he wanted, but I think Jerry Rose was likely spot on about its true purpose. 

T&C had no direct control over the investigation, but it’s hard to believe that Garrison would investigate his benefactors in any depth. Even if Garrison knew what was going on, he may have had no choice. Without the money coming in from T&C he wouldn’t have been able to function, so he may have been forced to bite the bullet and steer clear of INCA etc. while maintaining the illusion of true independence. 

Money also buys access. For example, I wonder if members of T&C recommended a few “volunteers” for Garrison’s staff. Like you said, Mmahat in particular is very suspicious, and I think it’s a safe bet that any information or access acquired through T&C would have been fed to Southern Research (likely Connick too) by Mmahat and used against Garrison.

I’ve been looking for information on how T&C and its members interacted with the DA’s office, but haven’t had much luck. If you or anyone else finds anything on this angle let me know. 

Edited August 22, 2022 by Tom Gram

[Gene Kelly]

Thanks Tom

When I read the Jerry Rose article, it seemed to imply that Garrison was knowingly compromised and intentionally avoided implicating INCA.  Particularly since Eberhard Deutsch had been Jim Garrison's former law partner and political mentor.  Other indicators for me are that we know very little today about the mysterious T&C group (other than they "sponsored" the investigation) ... plus, if T&C were truly adversarial (and legitimately interested in the "truth"), you'd think that Sheridan and the CIA would've went after them to discredit/disrupt, as they did with Garrison's staff.  It seems that T&C was really there to help Shaw's attorneys in his defense, and to limit the damage. 

Another fascinating dimension to the complex Garrison story. 

Gene 

[James DiEugenio]

You are correct Gene.

Garrison was interested in Ochsner and Butler.

A rumor began, never verified, that JG was going to indict the doctor.  And this is why Butler fled with files to LA.

In looking through what is left of JG's files I never saw anything to that effect.

But Garrison was interested in Butler and Bringuier

With all due respect to Jerry, he and his publication were never really good on New Orleans.

[Matt Allison]

For over 30 years my assumption has been that Banister's heart attack was induced, and I've yet to see anything to change my mind. He wasn't in ill health; if you read the autopsy report posted earlier there is nothing unusual there for a 63 year old man. Guy Banister ran Oswald that summer of '63, and every single nefarious character in the New Orleans aspect of the JFKA could be connected to Oswald via one person: Banister.

After removing Oswald from the scene and then Banister as well 8 months later, it guaranteed that it would be next to impossible to ever get the full accurate story of what happened w the assassination.

[Bob Ness]

18 minutes ago, Matt Allison said:

For over 30 years my assumption has been that Banister's heart attack was induced, and I've yet to see anything to change my mind. He wasn't in ill health; if you read the autopsy report posted earlier there is nothing unusual there for a 63 year old man. Guy Banister ran Oswald that summer of '63, and every single nefarious character in the New Orleans aspect of the JFKA could be connected to Oswald via one person: Banister.

After removing Oswald from the scene and then Banister as well 8 months later, it guaranteed that it would be next to impossible to ever get the full accurate story of what happened w the assassination.

What information exists that connects Banister with running LHO? This has come up a couple times and isn't something I'm aware of. Can you enlighten me?

[Benjamin Cole]

1 hour ago, Matt Allison said:

For over 30 years my assumption has been that Banister's heart attack was induced, and I've yet to see anything to change my mind. He wasn't in ill health; if you read the autopsy report posted earlier there is nothing unusual there for a 63 year old man. Guy Banister ran Oswald that summer of '63, and every single nefarious character in the New Orleans aspect of the JFKA could be connected to Oswald via one person: Banister.

After removing Oswald from the scene and then Banister as well 8 months later, it guaranteed that it would be next to impossible to ever get the full accurate story of what happened w the assassination.

You may be right. 

Consider this article: 

nationalpost.com/news/world/a-nurse-killed-85-people-by-inducing-cardiac-arrest-and-then-trying-to-resuscitate-them

So, even in a hospital setting, in the modern era, a nurse was able induce heart attacks in 85 people before being detected, and then only when caught in the act. 

"But it wasn’t until 2005 that Hoegel’s (the nurse's) colleagues caught him in the act while he was administering ajmaline, a drug used to induce arrhythmic contractions"

---30---

 

https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/crime_police/article_6213dd92-650c-11e8-b0f0-8f8b0d8c361e.html

Some lady bumped off her husbands and boyfriends through induced heart attacks, through an agent called "barium acetate."

Again, the murders were not caught in the autopsy stage, but through related detective work. 

So, inducing heart attack is doable, and evidently not generally detected even in the modern day. 

As stated, the Banister autopsy did not mention blood or urine tests, or stomach pumps.

It appears no one even looked to see if Banister's heart attack could have been induced. 

Another lead not followed by the WC, and no evidence presented 

 

[Benjamin Cole]

And another one:

"In February 1993 Marie Robards, a tall, striking Fort Worth 16-year-old, pulled off what a prosecutor called the perfect crime, murdering her 38-year-old father, who was divorced from her mother, by slipping a spoonful of the poisonous chemical barium acetate into the refried beans of the take-out Mexican food he was eating one evening. The autopsy found nothing unusual. To detect certain poisons and less common chemicals such as barium acetate, a specialized $150,000 machine was required, which the Tarrant County medical examiner’s office did not own. The coroner attributed Robards’ death to a heart attack."

---30---

https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/poisoning-daddy/

The murderess was only caught when she suddenly confessed, not under duress. 

I guess from this story we can conclude barium acetate is tasteless or relatively so, and can kill a 38-year-old man pronto. 

So offing Banister was as simple as putting some barium acetate in his food....

barium acetate is common enough to be found in high-school chemistry kits, and has been around since the 1800s.

 

 

 

[Matt Allison]

8 hours ago, Bob Ness said:

What information exists that connects Banister with running LHO?

William Gaudet, and numerous Banister employees.

I also want to add that a good source of info on INCA exists in Edward Haslam's book "Mary, Ferrie, and the Monkey Virus". While the book contains speculation on the topic of Ferrie, the section on INCA was well researched and valuable.

[James DiEugenio]

13 hours ago, Bob Ness said:

What information exists that connects Banister with running LHO? This has come up a couple times and isn't something I'm aware of. Can you enlighten me?

Destiny Betrayed, second edition, pp. 109-113.

It was so well known that the custodian at 544 Camp Street, James Arthus, teased Banister about it.

Even Jesse Core, Shaw's right hand man, warned the FBI that Oswald was placing Banister's address on his flyers.

Isn't it revealing how the FBI went along with Banister's cover up, and then, from my understanding, Banister got out of that building, after the assassination. If anything shows how rigorous the FBI cover up was afterwards, its probably that.

Edited August 23, 2022 by James DiEugenio