Judyth Baker Posted January 11, 2005 Share Posted January 11, 2005 (edited) To all: I have been told that David Blackburst (Stephen Roy) has posted on this Forum, but I cannot seem to find the post. I read his post over at alt.conspiracy, where Mr. Bob Vernon published it, and now reproduce that post here, with my commenhts. Before going any further, I would like to say that I regret having made Mr. Roy feel uncomfortable about telling people about his other name. I didn't do it to be mean to Mr. Roy. I apologize for making Mr. Roy feel that in some way I have made things harder for him. My intention was to make things easier for many others. Since Mr. Roy has said he has even used both his names at the same time at the Lancer Conference, I do not wholly understand why he is upset with me for mentioning his fake name now. He also said he would be publishing his book under his real name, so again, I do not understand why he is upset with me at revealing his true name to you here. I brought out Mr. Roy's real name on this forum because I believe that we must be frank and open with each other if we are to work in harmony together and in trust. Mr. Blackburst, below, wrote that he believed we were friends. I concur. BUT -- Mr. Roy NEVER told me his real name all the years we were "friends." I had to discover by accident that he was Mr. Roy. Mr. Roy was at the 2000 Lancer Conference, for example, but Mr. Blackburst, my friend, apparently did not attend, for he was cc'd about my concerns and did not mention that he was a panelist there. Mr. Roy did not bring up my name at the Conference, whereas my friend, Mr. Blackburst, had he attended the Conference, would surely have done so, for he knew how important it was to me to tell people that I believed Lee Oswald was an innocent man. Mr. Blackburst, my friend, had he attended the conference, would have asked me if I wanted to have my name mentioned. In fact, he already knew that I would have preferred it, because it was new information for those who came to the conference, and they had the right to know that a new witness was presenting. After all, I had already been known to Mr. Blackburst, my friend, for a year by then. And I had communicated in private emails that I was even thinking of attending the conference myself. I was dissuaded from doing so by my friends. When I told Debra Conway I suspected that she instructed the panel on which Mr. Roy sat not to mention my name, Mr. Roy wrote back to Lancer and said he had not been so instructed. My friend, Mr. Blackburst, would have comforted me at this time and perhaps given me advice on how to handle the situation. But only Mr. Roy was involved at Lancer.... Even as late as December, 2004, my friend, Mr. Blackburst, never told me in private what went on. Sadly, I had to learn from the post of Mr. Roy, today, what my friend, Mr. Blackburst, really was thinking at the Conference. This is just the kind of thing that has to stop. We must be frank and open. We must not play the old games. We can continue to go in circles, or we can be upfront and honest. I thought my friend, Mr. Blackburst, was treating me fairly. Mr. Roy, who never admitted to being my friend or to even knowing me, did not. ==========================More below========== For those who wish to read any more (I do not, but feel I must continue)....My comments are interspersed with Mr. Roy's =====like this==== I would also like to say that I have never experienced any problem with Mr. Roy personally, except that I feel he was not entirely candid with me, as I have indicated above, and I shall also note below. I did indeed feel we shared a friendship until I realized that he was not treating me entirely aboveboard. If I have been in error concerning this, I will certainly be happy to apologize. But please come with me to Mr. Roy's post. There are always two sides to every story. Best Regards, Judyth Vary Baker ====comments below===== ================================================== Stephen Roy Today, 05:00 PM Post #51 ================================================= > New Member > Group: Members > Posts: 2 > Joined: 7-January 05 > Member No.: 2230 > A big thank you to John Simkin for allowing me to pop in here an > clairify a few points. I have been in touch with Judyth Vary Baker since > about 1999, and we have had a on-again/off-again private correspondence. > For some reason, Baker chose to go public with it in this forum over the > past week. ======= ====================================== No, Stephen, I have not gone public with your correspondence, which is voluminous. I have mentioned only a very small part of the matter, as also have you. I have not posted your emails except as it touched upon using a false name on forums concerned with the JFK assassination, while using your real name elsewhere. You also used your real name at Lancer, so still I cannot understand why you are so upset that I have told people that these two people happen to be the same person. ----============more below====================== >ROY/BLACKBURST: I came onto the internet in the mid-90s under a variant of my given > name, and I engaged in discussion on some JFK newsgroups. One day while I > was at work, a scraggly 40-ish man came to my door and said something to > my wife about me "perpetuating the coverup." She excused herself, called > me and the police, but the man walked away. My wife insisted and I agreed > to adopt a "screen name", something a bit more anonymous. I tried several > possibilities but AOL said they were already in use. AOL allows up to 10 > characters, so I tried a TV term, "blackburst" (the signal to which all > video devices are synchronized in a TV studio), and AOL accepted it. I > became known as a David Ferrie specialist in the JFK groups. When people > would ask my first name, I arbitrarily chose "Dave" (after Ferrie). ===================================== This is all fine and good, except that you, Stephen, are not just 'anybody.'You have been declared THE expert on David W. Ferrie. YOU have been the one who is, in fact, quoted everywhere. But the name people quoted as THE authority was NOT the name that you recently said would be listed as author of the book on Dave Ferrie. So, how would anyone not in your inner circle know this? You said you were my friend, but you never told me, for example, that you were really Mr. Roy. We're talking about five years. I am sorry if your wife was frightened, and I can understand your decision to use the false name. However, since you used your real name at the Lancer Conference, I believed, and I think quite reasonably, that you were no longer afraid to use your real name, since you had come forth and presented yourself in person using your real name. Meanwhile, we have identity problems -- a number of people use multiple names and support their statements by writing to themselves and praising themselves...just one example of how false names create the illusion of many behind one, when that is not the case. And we have credibility problems, where sometimes one's word comes against another's. In my case, if I say something that the "Ferrie expert" says doesn't jive with Ferrie, who is going to believe me? The "Ferrie expert"must be truthful. If he is believed blindly, he must have earned that trust. -- I felt it imperative to begin to identify those who have used false names. My special concern with you, Stephen, remains that you are not just anybody. YOU are THE expert on Dave Ferrie. As such, everyone needs to know that you use two names in the research community--Blackburst and Roy. =========================more below ============ ROY/BLACKBURST: I explained publicly on a number of occasions that Blackburst was a > pseudonym, and why I chose it. I also explained this by email to several > people. Eventually, I did share research with a few folks, which > necessitated using my real name, but in a spirit of privacy. ========================-================== In other words, Stephen, you have been posting information on the Internet publicly under a fake name, but sharing research with a few people privately using your real name. We have had a lot of that going on in the research community. ===================more below=================== >ROY/BLACKBURST In late 1999 or early 2000, I was contacted by Baker and her > associates and we had numerous exchanges. I had a clear impresson that > Baker wanted to keep these exchanges private at that time. I also wanted > to remain on her bulk email list so that I could get the details of her > account. ================================================ This is not quite correct, Stephen. I did not contact you. Dr. Howard Platzman did, and after awhile, I received copies of your emails ABOUT me. I finally wrote to you because I did not like being talked ABOUT when I felt it would be better if we could speak to each other directly. I began to cc you on a large list on contacts after that. ================more below======================== >ROY/BLACKBURST In the summer of 2000 I signed on to the JFKLancer Forum, but the > rules required that I use my real name. I never used "Blackburst" on my > few posts on that forum. ============================================= But Stephen, how would anybody know that MR ROY and MR BLACKBURST were one and the same on the forum? How did they know that if they asked you questions about Dave Ferrie that YOU would be able to answer them, whereas hardly anyone else in the world could do that? But they had no idea you were that same expert, Mr. Blackburst. ==================more below======================== Debra Conway invited me to speak at the Lancer > NID2000 conference, and the topic of my 30-minute talk was agreed upon as > "Ferrie: Man and Myth." Although I considered speaking as Blackburst, > Debra convinced me to use my real name. Of perhaps 100 or so topics I > could have mentioned about Ferrie, I chose about 10. When I arrived in > Dallas, I was given a name tag with my own name, and I wrote "Blackburst" > underneath it. I made no secret of my identity. I spoke to numerous > attendees wearing this tag, including Steve Tyler, Joe Biles, Mary > Ferrell, Peter Dale Scott and many others. The tag can be seen in the > video of my talk. ================================================ Then why in the name of heaven are you upset at me for revealing your name and also mentuoning your wife's fright, etc? However, I had a unique experience, and so did many others who did not attend the Conference> Mr. Blackburst never said he attended this Conference. As I agonized about what was going on, Mr. Blackburst never indicated to me that Mr. Roy was going there, would be there, and would return, and have all sorts of information. Mr. Blackburst, my friend, never shared a single moment of that Conference with his friend, Judyth Baker. ===================more below==================== > It has been erroneously suggested that I was asked not to mention > Baker, but this is not true. I had not included Baker as part of my > limited talk time, but I do recall some email just prior to the > conference, in which she considered going to the event. ================================================= Yes, you certainly should have recalled it, Mr. Roy, because Mr. Blackburst, my friend, knew how upset I was at being told I should not go to this conference, when I wished so very much for people to know that I wished to speak out about the innocence of Lee Harvey Oswald. Mr. Blackburst knew I wanted peopel to know that a new witness was willing to speak out. I had just learned that Debra Conway had not told me about this panel. I complained to Mr. Blackburst and others later that I was very disappointed that Debra did not tell me about this panel. My friend, Mr. Blackburst, had no information about the Conference to share with his friend, Judyth Baker. He knew no more than the rest of us who had not attended. Or so we all thought. ======================more below=============== In the Q & A > following my talk, a question arose about Edward Haslam's thesis in "Mary, > Ferrie and the Monkey Virus." I replied that I had reservations about the > paucity of evidence cited in the book, and the author's tendency to ask a > question on one page, then repeat it a few pages later as a fact. > Nevertheless, I added (paraphrase) that a new witness had emerged whose > account, if proven true, could change the way we look at Oswald's time in > New Orleans. One or two other panelists then briefly made reference to the > Baker matter. ================================================= Mr. Roy, you do not mention that the name "Baker" was never given out. I also must remind you that my friend Mr. Blackburst never told me he had these reservations about Mr. Haslam's research, which in fact helps support my testimony. Mr. Roy brought up reservations about Mr. Haslam that my friend, Mr. Blackburst, never told me about. ========================more below=========== > At the time, I thought I was doing what Baker wanted. ============================================= I have emails that provide ample evidence that this was not the case. On the other hand, Mr. Blackburst received those emails, not Mr. Roy. ======================more below================== Years later, > questions were raised about whether ot not the panel was muzzled. I saw no > such thing. And questions were raised about why nobody mentioned Baker. > While her account was not part of my formal presentation, I DID mention > her in the Q/A. ================================================== Years later, Mr. Roy told me what my friend Mr. Blackburst apparently did not know, for my friend did not tell me one word about any of this. ===============more below===================== > At various times over the years, Baker and her associates pointedly > asked me why I would not come out and support her account. I replied that > I thought we should all wait to see what evidence was presented in the > book. =============================================== I must admit that I said I hoped you would support me privately. I NEVER pointedly asked my friend Mr. Blackburst to "come out"and "support" me. I DID ask my friend Mr. Blackburst to CONFIRM certain points that we had discussed that showed I knew Dave Ferrie. I never asked that you do this publicly, and if I ever did, I would ask you to show me the emails, because I recall nothing of the kind. I have indeed asked for confirmation of certain points, but not in public. I am surprised that you have stated this. ====================more below=================== > A few years back, I thought about setting up a meeting. As it was > hard to get time off from work and home, I asked if I could do a one-day > turn around: Fly into Moisant, meet her at the airport for a few hours, > and fly home that night. Her emails at the time, which I saved, indicate > that she wanted to meet but did not have a vehicle available to travel > from her home to Moisant on my prospective date. I did not end up meeting > her, but I did give her my home phone number in the process ======================================= What Mr. Roy fails to mention here is that I was offered this opportunity in a very short window of time. I did offer to fly to HIM and called him to try to make an appointment. He never called me back. I wrote to him several times and asked him to call me. He failed to reply. Finally, he wrote an email saying I had refused to meet him. He graciously accepted a correction later and said we just couldn't get our schedules to mesh, but this was not true. I could not obtain his address, though I tried. Dr. Platzman also tried to get an address. I have support for these statements. By now, I was beginning to think maybe Mr. Blackburst wasn't really my friend, after all. ======================more below=============== > As noted, I was long troubled by some of the assertions in Haslam's > book, so I kept an eye out for anything to confirm or deny them. One > assertion made by others (but not specifically by Haslam) is that Ferrie > had many white mice and did medical research in his last apartment at 3330 > Louisiana Avenue Parkway. ============================================== Haslam of course indicated that this work was done nearby, and that included mice being housed nearby, not at Dave's. In fact, that was more or less the case. However, concerning mice, I'm not certain if he removed them on weekends. I know he removed them when he had two parties, telling me he didn't want anybody messing with his mice. Mice: my main bone of contention with Mr. Roy. =================more below=============== The documents I found suggested that he did have > such mice in 1957, six years and 3 living spaces perviously, but not in > 1963. As I interviewed people who knew Ferrie, I would ask about this, and > I was unable to find anyone who saw them in that period. This includes > several very close friends. Ferrie's landlord did not see mice or a lab > there. Pictures taken at at 1963 birthday party do not appear to show > them. Coroner's pictures from Ferrie's 1967 death do not show them. ================================================= I believe when the book comes out that everything Mr. Roy does not understand will become clear. However, in private I explained a lot of these matters, but then again, I explained them to my friend, Mr. Blackburst, and we are now talking to Mr. Roy. ========================more below============== > I communicated the above PRIVATELY to Baker and her associates. At > some point, I was asked in the newsgroups if there was any indication of > mice in that apartment at that time. I decided to give a carefully phrased > and honest answer that none of those I spoke with recalled them. This > apparently angered Baker. ============================================ Not angry. Surprised. And upset. What upset me is that Mr. Blackburst would not reveal the names of the friends, nor when he interviewed them, nor their quotations. The readers were supposed to take Mr. Blackburst's word for it. HE was the expert. But I was a living witness. I had also the statements of at least two other persons who saw mice in Dave's apartment that summer. But to Mr. Blackburst, neither I, nor my two witnesses, counted. But yet he said "all"Dave;s friends said otherwise. When I asked, he would not reveal ANY names of the people he said had a different opinion. Not all of them demanded secrecy. I know this because I was in contact with one of Dave's friends, who has since died. My friend, David Blackburst, would not give me the names of ANY of the people he had interviewed who declared there were no mice present. He would not give me any interview dates. He would not give me any quotations. But he was content to publish on the newsgroups that "everybody" he had interviewed, without exception, ALL said there were no mice, etc. And people accepted that on faith. Was I angry? No. I was frustrated. I was concerned. I was saddened that in five years of correspondence, Mr. Blackburst never gave me a single name or direct quote. I was very patient, too, when he published what he did. I did not contradict him. I asked him in private why he had said that. =======================more below================= > Baker also raised some question about "research technique", saying > that I was wrong to bring witnesses together. Let me clarify: In most > cases, I contacted them by "cold-calling", or cold email or snail mail. =================================== "In most cases"i s not good enough. ONE case of an investigator bringing witnesses together is ruinous. Imagine allowing two people who had murdered somebody being allowed to talk together before they were interviewed in jail. Similarly, in important matters such as Dave Ferrie's past, witnesses must be kept apart so their stories will not merge. Mr. Blackburst/Roy failed to do this, on more than one occasion, as he did admit to me. =====================more below=========== > The interviews would be either via telephone or one-on-one. On a few > occasions, I would meet someone I had only spoken with on the phone for > lunch or some such thing. In several cases, one Ferrie acquaintence would > introduce me to another, and so on. And on two occasions while I was in > New Orleans, a couple of acquaintences who ALREADY KNEW other Ferrie > friends would ask if they could join the friends and I for dinner. ============================================= It makes no difference if these people already knew each other. Important differences in testimony can emerge if they are interviewed separately and if they are not allowed to meet the investigator except in a research situation. Not only can researchers be conned by a group, any individual in a group who is dominated will then be afraid to offer a differing opinion later, for the investigator has not insulated himself or herself from known others. The investigator should never allow witnesses to know who has been interviewed and who has not. The events described by Mr. Blackburst are unfortunate and promote team agreement. =======================more below================ I did > NOT ever bring together people who did not already know each other. =============================================== Illustration: Michael and Ruth Paine and Marina Oswald already knew each other. Obviously, it was important that they were interviewed separately. It would be outrageous to have allowed them to mingle with each other prior to being interviewed. The fact that Mr. Roy cannot see what he has done, and how he said "I did not EVER bring together people who did not already know each other" proves that he DID bring them together, and that he does not understand how this contaminates witnesses, is most unfortunate. Just such practices have given the Kennedy assassination research community a non-professional patina. =======================more below========== > And she has asked why I do not name some of these people. The first > obvious reason is that some of these interviews were hard to get, and I > want exclusivity for future publication. ============================================ I only waited five years. How about even ONE name? Interestingly, I freely gave the names of my witnesses to my friend, Mr. Blackburst, in the interest of wishing to solve the case. I also freely offered additional evidence and access to my materials. =======================more below=============== Another factor is privacy. Some > were very reluctant to talk, and only did so on a pledge of privacy. ================================================ But not all of them felt that way. I know this for a fact, since I knew one of them myself. ========================more below================ One > is an elected official. Another is a community watch leader. Another is a > successful attorney. They don't want more publicity about "that Ferrie > thing." And still another factor: Ferrie was at least bisexual, and had > relationships with a few of these people, some as underage boys. One can > easily understand why I just "don't want to go there." ================================================== Of course, others did not feel that way. We are talking about NOT ONE quotation. Not ONE name. Not ONE interview date. Not ONE attempt to help me meet any of them. We are talking, then, about a blanket statement given to the newsgroups that "all" the people Mr. Blackburst interviewed "agreed" that there were "no mice" in Dave's apartment in 1963. The entire research community is expected to take Mr. Blackburst's statement as gospel, as the unvarnished truth, but we are allowed no names, no interview dates, and no quotations. And he knew this statement was in direct opposition to my onw. In addition, several times, my friend Mr. Blackburst said he would look up a quote for me. He never managed to locate a single one in five years. I have emails proving this. =========================more below================ > Then in recent months, there was a flap over a complicated story > involving Lee Harvey Oswald's tooth. Baker apparently incorporated into > her account some information I had either emailed or posted concerning the > date Ferrie first left the New Orleans Cadet Squadron of the Civil Air > Patrol. ============================================== Foolishly,as does the rest of the research community, I blindly believed what Mr. Blackburst published, and used his chronology to try to pin down when Lee's tooth was knocked out. Or loosened. Or whatever. Lee never gave me a date. Mr. Blackburst apologized that the information he had provided in an archive was incorrect. By then, I had Dave Reitzes on my case over it, because I said I had pinned down the date, thanks to Mr. Blackburst. ========================more below=============== At one time, I had fragmentary dates and reported them in that > way. ============================================= And he published those "fragmentary dates"for the use of the research community. After some thirty-odd years I couldn't remember Moisant from Lakefront. Lee talked about both sites. I took Mr. Blackburst's word for the dates when Dave Ferrie was at Moisant, or when he was not, or when he was at Lakefront, or when he was not. The dates were in some cases wrong. ==========================more below============== I subsequently located and spoke with some who had first-hand > knowledge of that event, and obtained news clippings which indicated that > a new commander was in place by January 1955. Baker then blamed the flap > on me, first privately, then publicly. ================================================== Yes, because the information that was inaccurate REMAINED up for everyone to use, and it was wrong. 'Last time I looked, it was STILL there, and STILL wrong. Bet it gets fixed now.... it doesn't matter, because what Lee told me about, as Mr. Blackburst is aware, occurred, he said, before Thanksgiving, if I recall correctly, which is November, not December. Mr. Blackburst in fact wrote an email to me saying it was posssible Lee and Dave Ferrie could have met in November 1954, which was my original estimated date. But I trusted the erroneous date supplied by Mr. Blackburst originally, and defended the date to Dave reitzes based on my trust of Blackbursts data.' I learned my lesson about blind trust in his data. When the erroneous date and other errors rermained unchanged in the archives for weeks to come, without Mr. Blackburst correcting them, I began to search for other inconsistencies in his reports. After I collected a few, with little trouble, I realized that people were blindly accepting everything Mr. Blackburst was writing, and I did not want anybody else to rely on incorrect data and then be skewered as I had been. As I looked deeper into the matter, I realized Mr. Roy had to be Mr. Blackburst. I could hardly believe that my supposed friend, Mr. Blackburst, had never told me a word about the convention that he had attended, and which had caused me so much concern. By 2004, my friend, Mr. Blackburst, had now published on the internet that "all"Dave's friends never saw any mice in his apartment when I had TWO witnesses, plus myself, who stated otherwise. BY expressing "all" David Blackburst excluded ME from the list of witnesses who claimed to have known Dave Ferrie. then he gave me the final blow, saying he was on the fence about me and would have to wait to see if I were credible or not. The many things I related about Dave, never printed untul years later or still not in print=-these counted for nothing with him. I have since had my information checked with another person who knew Dave Ferrie, and I gave him information I had not given Mr. Blackburst, mainly because Mr. Blackbuurst never interviewed me personally. This person KNOWS I knew Dave Ferrie and is willing to say so. Not Mr. Blackburst. And that was the end of allowing people to rely with blind faith on Mr. Blackburst. ======================more below========== > In a private email, I noted that she should be careful about > incorporating published materials about Ferrie into her account, because > 90% of those published materials are of questionable accuracy, and I noted > that I thought she was buying into things she was reading. She somehow > quoted this back to me in a private email as me saying her account was 90% > gleaned from published materials, which is not what I said. ==================================================== I do stand corrected in this matter. I was upset that Mr. Blackburst said I was "buying into things" I "was reading," he was saying that my memories of the friendship, or my testimony concerning Dave Ferrie, were being affected by the inaccurate accounts I was reading, and 90% of these were of questionable accuracy. He had now moved to the position of saying I was a contaminated witness.. It was now that I did become upset with Mr. Blackburst. He was acting as if evidence I had provided him in the past, proving I knew Dave, was worthless. He never presented a single word to the newsgroups and research community that I had provided him with proof that I did know Dave Ferrie. He kept that to himself and to a very small group. Despite what he has written here, I never demanded that he make his opinion public. I asked that he give it to selected people in private. ==============================see below============= I > Until recently, I considered Baker a friend. We had many pleasant > exchanges and I offered private support as best I could. ================================================= I will let the readers judge if Mr.Blackburst has treated me as a friend. I certainly treated him as one. ========================see below================ For some reason, > she has decided to take this into a public forum and violate several > confidences. She has quoted private emails. More important, she has given > out my real name and personal info against my stated desires. =============================================== If anyone doubts why I have brought these matters up-- and it is for the sake of openness in the research community, I suggest that he or she re-read this post. I do not want anyone to go through what I have gone through at the hands of "two" people who turned out to be the same person. ==========================more below============ I TOLD HER > several times that Blackburst was not my real name. I sent her a photo of > my family. I gave her my phone number, which would display my name on > callerID. Now she has let the toothpaste out of tube, and it can't be > pushed back in. I don't know what I've done to deserve this, but Baker > judgmentally emailed me that it was best for the research community, and I > would thank her someday. =================================================== Well, maybe Mr. Blackburst/Mr. Roy will not thank me, but I believe all of us should know with whom we are dealing. I DID NOT KNOW MR, ROY, ON THE PANEL, WAS MR., BLACKBURST, MY FRIEND. AND MR. BLACKBURST, MY FRIEND, LET ME AGONIZE OVER WHAT WAS HAPPENING AT LANCER, as I can prove from emails. Was Mr. Blackburst, then, acting in an ethical manner? I cannot express in words how miserable I am at having to write these words. Mr. Blackburst/Roy has given a lot of information to the research community. I do not know why he has investigated Mr. ferrie for at least the past twenty years, but he has, and that work must not be considered woirthless. However, under the circumstances, the testimony he has gathered cannot be considered untainted. And though I have always liked Mr. Blackburst, I have to confess that I do not like Mr. Roy very much at all. ===============================more below========== > She even indicated that she expects me to attack her. THIS is not an > attack, but a careful worded defense, which still leaves some things > private. I have no desire or reason to attack her. But the friendship, if > there was one, is over. ================================================= I knew there would be a price to pay. I take no pleasure in making Mr. Roy angry. I remember when I was a child abuse investigator. I began with a certain number of friends, but every week I made more enemies as I rescued battered children, neglected childreb, sexually abused children. In this case, I want to see honest men and women and honest interviewing and reliable methodology. I hate making enemies, darn it. Hate it! I like people. I like having friends. This makes Mr. Roy feel badly, it makes me feel badly, but I see no help for it. No more fake names, please. No more poor research techniques ruining witnesses. No more proclamations without quotations, dates and names backing up the proclamations. No more declaring one is an expert while using a fake name. No more, please, of all such behavior. =====================more below============ I have asked, if she included a particuar exchange > in her book, to delete it. I regret that she has come under bad influences > and has made some bad decisions. ================================================ Why in the world should information that Mr. Blackburst/Mr. Roy gave me about Dave Ferrie be deleted? What is Mr. Roy's point? Is this to punish me? Will this help the research community to understand the case better? Mr. Roy/Blackburst gave me written permission, and now I am somehow to stop the spread of this information wherever it is now located -- especially from my book --and remove it ---because he has changed his mind. Needless to say, considerable time has passed and the permission given was believed to be "real" permission. Was it not real? Mr.Roy gave his permission for this information to be revealed --- but now he wants it removed? Is this the kind of researcher we are asked to trust blindly and fully? There has to be responsibility taken for what we say and do. And once we give permission to use information, it is released, how can it be reeled back in? Imagine if I gave permission to one of you readers to use something I had told you, and a year later say no, now you cannot use it., But by then others have seen it and used it, because you freely gave it to others. Would I have a right to be angry at you then? In this case, Mr. Blackburst\/Roy already gave permission for the materials about Dave which he said I could use to be published. He acts as if I can somehow rip it out of the past, wher et has gone to others, and where it has been incorporated here and there in my writings, now that he has suddenly changed his mind. I leave it to the good sense of the readers here to decide if Mr. Roy is helping or hindering the truth by making this demand. ========================more below============ > (BTW, I had the "Coke Syndrome" with my computer, spilling a partial > can of Coke onto the keys. It works OK, but I have very sticky keys, > requiring me to keep going back to see if I have miskeyed. Apologies for > any typos!) ================================================== use pipe cleaners with lemon juice and try that! :- ) JVB ================================================ Edited August 9, 2007 by John Simkin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephen Roy Posted January 12, 2005 Share Posted January 12, 2005 Let me begin by staing that I wish we could just end this discussion. The damage has been done. Let us bring it to a close. Judyth Baker goes on for some 17 pages with "Mr. Blackburst said this" but Mr. Roy said that." We get the point. I explained why I needed to use the Blackburst screen name, and why I needed to use my real name on JFKLancer and at NID2000. It was MY CHOICE to keep the two separate, to the extent that I wished to do so. I used my real name only when I had to, but I knew that I would eventually publish my book under my real name. Blackburst was a name I used for internet security. I always made it clear to Baker and others that Blackburst was only a screen name. I provided her with my photo and phone number (which, when checked through Switchboard, would yield my personal info.) If she had deduced my real name, she could have emailed me and I would have told her that this was the case. At that time, I would have told her that I DID mention her at NID2000. If anyone feels that my use of a screen name has caused any problem, I apologize. Baker has made several references to me holding myself out as a Ferrie expert. I have never described myself in this way; I am a Ferrie SPECIALIST. A few others have referred to me as a Ferrie expert. I am not the be-all and end-all on Ferrie; I have attempted to flesh out a biography of this unusual fellow in order to provide a backdrop for the research of others. The great majority of what I intend to publish is brand new to Ferrie watchers. I have taken great pains to try to verify the information I have found. Some widely-believed things about Ferrie may be inaccurate, but other things will be supported by new information. But what I write will not be the final word on Ferrie. Baker apparently presumes that I hung on every word of her voluminous emails prior to the NID2000 conference, and knew exactly what she wanted. I did not. I knew that she was still shrouded in some privacy, but was upset that she was not included at the conference. As I mentioned, she was not included in my 10 or so talking points about Ferrie, but I DID make a reference to her account in the Q/A, which I thought was what she wanted. Now she is virtually obsessing about what I should have said there. But I can't go back in time and do it differently. Baker said she has not gone public with my correspondence, but she did publish quotes from private emails. She does not understand why I am upset about her revealing my name. I am not surprised that she does not understand. I am upset because it was MY CHOICE when to reveal it, and that she did it without the courtesy of an email. All that matters is how things affect her. She raises the suggestion that I might use one screen name to praise another. I have never done this. She includes admonitions that "the Ferrie expert" must be truthful. I resent the suggestion that I have been deliberately untruthful in any way. In recalling our attempted rendezvous a few years ago, Baker's emails support my account that we could not get together on one of my available dates. While it is true that she attempted to arrange other get togethers, I was unable to do so at those times. We disagree on the topic of mice in Ferrie's apartment in 1963. All I can say is that I have spoken to people with proven relationships with Ferrie, and I have not yet found one who recalls the mice in that apartment. I mentioned this privately, and only mentioned it in a newsgroup because I was specifically asked this question. She has completey misunderstood my paragraph about interviewing witnesses. No formal interviews were done in the presence of other witnesses. AFTER the interviews, several people who were ALREADY ACQUAINTED went out for chow and few Coronas on a couple of occasions. Mr A says, let's go have dinner with Mr B. Baker thinks I contaminated them by agreeing. To her, all my research on Ferrie is now tainted because I had a couple of sandwiches and a few beers. The Ferrie CAP story is annoying. Fragmentary documents showed that Ferrie submitted his 1955 papers in December 1954, that they were returned unsigned in April 1955, and that he was at a different unit by June 1955. I wrote that in a newsgroup post, an extemporization, about 10 years ago. Over the last few years, I learned Ferrie was involved in an unfortunate incident in Dec54 and that an interim commander was in place by Jan55, so the Apr55 return of his papers was not his actual departure date. How was I to know that she reconstructed some dates based on my old posts? Baker is mad that I didn't go to Google or some old posts archived at Dave Reitzes' web site and change it. She keeps repeating that a pronouncement by the "Ferrie expert" has some mystical importance, and that I shouldn't expect to get new information as time goes by. Hey, even after I publish, I expect to find new information. "I will let readers decide if Mr. Blackburst has treated me as a friend. I certainly treated him as one." By revealing something I wanted to keep confidential, and then obsessing about it for several days. I did ask her to remove any reference to me from her book, and this IS because I am upset. Judyth Vary Baker has been beaten up many times on the internet in the past few years, and it has distorted her perspective about beating others up. I feel bad that my necessary use of a screen name and the complications it caused has been confusing to others, including Baker. But she has indicated no remorse for violating my privacy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryan Crowe Posted January 12, 2005 Share Posted January 12, 2005 Stephen, Like I said in my other post, welcome aboard. Its good to hear both sides of the story and am glad you have joined this forum and maybe help shed some light on who David Ferrie really was as there are so many stories about him. IMHO The entire Judyth Baker story has become a soap opera here "as the world turns" and is getting old......Its time to research and not get into a pissing match with the he said she said. I agree with your opening comment "Let me begin by staing that I wish we could just end this discussion. The damage has been done. Let us bring it to a close". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Thomas Posted January 12, 2005 Share Posted January 12, 2005 Steve, The Ferrie CAP story is annoying. If I'm reading this right, was Jesse Curry in CAP too in the 1940's? Mr. HUBERT - Were you in service during the war, sir? Mr. CURRY - I was in what was called the CPA, Civilian Pilot Training. It was a program that was open to people who were over combat age in the Air Force. Steve Thomas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephen Roy Posted January 12, 2005 Share Posted January 12, 2005 Steve: I'm not sure. I haven't run into that acronym before. And there are a zillion similar sounding ones. A CAP member like Joe Biles may correct me, but I understand that the Civil Air Patrol frowned on real flight training being given to cadets, even though many of the "seniors" did train cadets to fly. (FYI, Dave Ferrie trained MANY people, including CAP cadets, to fly between 1945 and 1965, but he never actually got his instructor's ticket until 1965!!!) I presume Curry was too old to have been in CAP (14-18) in the 40s. I don't have an answer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephen Roy Posted January 12, 2005 Share Posted January 12, 2005 Steve: I'm not sure. I haven't run into that acronym before. And there are a zillion similar sounding ones. A CAP member like Joe Biles may correct me, but I understand that the Civil Air Patrol frowned on real flight training being given to cadets, even though many of the "seniors" did train cadets to fly. (FYI, Dave Ferrie trained MANY people, including CAP cadets, to fly between 1945 and 1965, but he never actually got his instructor's ticket until 1965!!!) I presume Curry was too old to have been in CAP (14-18) in the 40s. I don't have an answer. OOPS I'm not sure if I hit the add reply button or not. Forgive me if I post this twice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryan Crowe Posted January 12, 2005 Share Posted January 12, 2005 Stephen, Can you share any info on Ferrie and the Lake Ponchatrain camp and his presence at Banisters office? Oh yeah I forgot to add, I look forward to reading your book when it is released. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephen Roy Posted January 12, 2005 Share Posted January 12, 2005 Stephen,Can you share any info on Ferrie and the Lake Ponchatrain camp and his presence at Banisters office? Oh yeah I forgot to add, I look forward to reading your book when it is released. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Wow, a complicated one, and I'm on the run. Let me take a quick stab at it. There is a substantial body of evidence that has David Ferrie actively involved in anti-Castro activities from November 1960 until shortly after his morals arrests, the September 1961 Houma heist being something of his "last gasp" as the Cubans ostracized him over the pederasty charges. (During 1961, Ferrie probably WAS involved in certain training north of the lake, but it is unclear if it involved Cubans or his CAP "IMSUs". One of the interesting things is that when Ferrie had his IMSU training at Belle Chasse, CIA admittedly was training UDT teams there.) There is a report from a questionable source (Thomas Beckham) that Ferrie was involved with a group called UCMF in the fall of 1962. The notion that he was involved in the 1963 Ponchartrain camp is a bit "iffy", too, coming mostly from Delphine Roberts. She was in a position to know what Banister was up to, but she was also a piece of work. Everybody associated with the camp said Ferrie had nothing to do with it. So who do we believe? Just a speculation, but I wonder if people have conflated Ferrie's 1961 documented activities with the 1963 camp. As for Banister, Ferrie was NOT an employee there. He had a fulltime job at Gill, Bernstein, Schreiber and Gill law firm. He was NOT always at Banister's office. But it's academic, because by 1963, he and Banister were very close, and Ferrie was a visitor to Banister's office. Incidentally, did you know that there was/were one or two break-ins into Banister's office from the adjacent Mancuso's restaurant in, as I recall, the fall of 1963? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryan Crowe Posted January 12, 2005 Share Posted January 12, 2005 Stephen, Excellent stuff, I believe on AJ Webermans site when talking with Hemming, Hemming mentions Ferrie as a main figure at this camp, and Ferrie wanted nothing to do with Hemming. I think with Ferrie being a visitor at Banisters office in 63 and numerous people seeing anti cubans at this same address at that time, one has to wonder if Ferrie was still connected to these folks in some manner. I have never heard of the break in at Banisters office, Could this have been the reason why he was thinking people were stealing his files? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Richards Posted January 12, 2005 Share Posted January 12, 2005 Hi Stephen, Sorry to jump in here; I'm sure you feel like you are being swamped. I was wondering if you have any details regarding the relationship between Ferrie and Larry DeJoseph? BTW, welcome to the forum. James Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry Hancock Posted January 12, 2005 Share Posted January 12, 2005 Stephen and James, to put my own oar in the camp thing... I think we can make a good case that Ferrie was still involved as of 1962 with the attempt to set up the CRC sponsored camp that involved Hemming and associates. I say that because I have seen photos from that period showing Ferrie with Larry DeJoseph - and with him in planes, cars etc in New Orleans. Hemming says that Ferrie was helping them with his plane and that certainly appears to be true. However I've seen no sign that he was involved with the "camps" of 1963 which were something totally different - and one of which was not really a camp but rather a U-Haul with explosives for bombs...but that's another story. Anyway, I think he was in action there as related to anti-Castro affairs until that time - he may have dropped out about the time Arcacha Smith started having his problems and eventually left town. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephen Roy Posted January 13, 2005 Share Posted January 13, 2005 James: Thanks for the welcome! I've seen your pictures in other forums. In time, I'll be making available some interesting Ferrie pix: Some brand new, some improvements over old versions. Also, I note that we are WAY off topic from Baker's original thread. I wonder if we should move this to a new thread. I don't recognize the name you mentioned, Larry DeJoseph. Any details to jog my memory? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephen Roy Posted January 13, 2005 Share Posted January 13, 2005 Larry: I think I remember you from the now-notorious NID2000, a fascinating presentation on John Martino, as I recall. I had just finished posting to James, when I saw you fill in details on Larry DeJoseph. I admit that this is an area I know little about. Clearly, Hemming was involved in many activities, and CIA docs specifically link him to the LaBorde/Bartes activites in late 62. But for all the interesting stuff Hemming has offered, I still find it necessary to use a fine filter on his claims. But I'd love to know about the picture you saw. As I noted, there is a lot of internally corroborative stuff on Ferrie's tenure with the New Orleans FRD/CRC Nov60 to about Sept61, where his Cuban activities seem to drop off considerably. And live interviews have suggested that the pederasty charges seriously tainted him in many circles. (And even Garrison suggested that Arcacha's activities slacked off in early 1962.) But there are hints through 1962, such as the Beckham thing and some correspondence between Ferrie and postal authorities. It is widely believed, based largely on Bill Turner, that Banister's office was a hotbed of anti-castro activity in 1963. That was probably true in 1961, but I can't find much support for a high level of activity in 1963 (as regards Banister and Ferrie.) On the July 1963 camp(s), we really have only Delphine Roberts (not a bad source, but not a great one) and Tannenbaum's film recollection. I would have to see the film before making up my mind. And everyone connected with the known camp seems to suggest that Ferrie was not involved. Again, I wonder if Garrison's staff chronologically glommed the 1961 activities with the 1963 camp, and Turner simply repeated it. But this is by no means a final verdict. A Ferrie friend said to me (paraphrase) "Look, I don't think Dave was involved in all this stuff when I knew him. I spent thousands of hours with him, and he never gave a hint of it. But even having said that, with Dave, I'll never know if he might have fooled me." When one of his best friends says "you never know...", who knows what might pop up someday? I've turned up a few tantalizing leads, but that's for the book! But you, James and others have looked into areas I may have missed. Anything you want to add for a serious and objective representation of Ferrie would be much appreciated! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Simkin Posted January 13, 2005 Share Posted January 13, 2005 I have moved the debate on David Ferrie to a new thread. Please post material on David Ferrie here instead: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=2890 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Judyth Baker Posted January 13, 2005 Author Share Posted January 13, 2005 I would like to add my welcome to Stephen Roy on this forum. There is no doubt that he has been called an expert on Dave Ferrie by many, and deservedly so. He will be able to supply much important information about Dave to this forum. I believe that a thread on Dave Ferrie where Stephen Roy offers information can be fruitful and useful to those interested in Ferrie. I would like to reiterate that I also knew Dave, and hope that someday Mr. Roy will want to add the materials I have offered him to his collection. My only objective is to bring forth into the light who is who, and that we have the right to know who the authors of the purveyors of information really are in this research community, and if they have an agenda, or can be trusted to offer the unvarnished truth. It is a fact that I was disappointed with Mr. Roy's handling of me as a witness, but I do recognize his expertise concerning the milieu of Dave Ferrie and believe he is well capable of presenting a great deal of information that nobody else has. I have seen him bring forth new information of value. Best Regards, Judyth Vary Baker Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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