David Ferrie

[Stephen Roy]

Just a bit of background information, prior to a few posts of biographical info on David Ferrie.

I was interersted in the assassination from the start. JFK was "my generation's president." I don't have a clear recollection of it, but I shook hands with JFK when he was a Massachusetts senator visiting my city in the mid-50s. I was saddened when he was killed, as were many. A "researcher" even then, I saved not only the local newspaper accounts of the tragedy, but also the Nov 21 paper announcing the reasons for the trip! When Oswald was killed, I had the feeling we may never know why and how JFK was killed, and like many, I wondered if he had been silenced.

I collected various magaine and newspaper accounts of the WC investigation, and obtained a USGPO version of the report late in 1964, and the Hearings and Exhibits in 1965 ($75.). I followed some of the early critical literature, such as Lane's book. I followed the Garrison probe, to some extent, and by happenstance, spent that summer of 1967 near New Orleans.

By the early 70s I had obtained a bootleg Z-film and was lecturing on the assassination. I wrote a few articles for weekly papers and had a short dalliance with the Assassination Information Bureau, then in Cambridge. I continued to be fascinated by the New Orleans aspects of the case. Eventually I came to feel that David William Ferrie was the key, so I began collecting everything I could find about him, including from NARA. Few books covered him in detail, and even fewer seemed to have any hard info about his role in the assassination, so I decided to be the guy to "nail" Ferrie - to find the smoking gun.

(At around this point, I worked in a District Attorney's office for about 2 years, and my orientation became much more focused on evidence than theory.)

At around the time HSCA began its work, I started cold-calling witnesses, and got some great interviews. HSCA produced many new documents and new leads, and I followed many of them. Over the next decade, many FOIA releases helped my research and led to new interviews. By the early 90s, the ARRB forced the release of reams of new stuff on New Orleans. I arranged all my materials into a long chronology and began writing the text on a word processor. This led me to the Internet, and I became established as a Ferrie specialist, and I quietly helped a few researchers.

This also led to my being invited to speak at the 2000 Lancer November In Dallas conference on the topic of David Ferrie. During the site tour, I shook hands with a filmmaker - while sitting on the grassy knoll! - to work on a Ferrie film. A late marriage and two children severely slowed my writing, but I have begun again in earnest. I am about half done, and I already have publisher interest. (I continue the process of interviews, however, as time allows.)

My book will be more of a biography than anything else. Most of us have a cartoon-like Joe Pesci image of Ferrie, but I want to show who he really was, and introduce a whole bunch of new stuff into the record. I DO cover all of the usual information about his role (and a bunch of new stuff in that regard), but draw few conclusions. I let the reader decide.

I gave a talk to researchers recently (not Lancer) and asked for a show of hands: How many people think Lee Harvey Oswald should have been given a presumption of innocence? All hands go up. How many think David William Ferrie should have been given a presumtion of innocence? No hands, a buzz in the room, then a few timid hands go up. Ferrie was the Perfect Villain. Fiercely anti-Communist and anti-Castro, an apparent child molester, a near-genius with a few evil qualities, and those dramatic police booking photos with the "Universal Studios horror lighting", making him look even more evil. I have tried not to presume him guilty without evidence. Some things you have heard about Ferrie prove true, but others prove untrue. I will try to sort out what I can.

But remember Jim Marrs' opening to Crossfire: "Don't trust this book." Take my book for what it's worth. In the long run, I think most will find valuable new stuff and a whole new understanding of Ferrie. That's enough about me and my orientation. Now, on to Ferrie.

[Robert Charles-Dunne]

Robert,  that's a very interesting point.  What bothers me though is why wouldn't Tannenbaum (not your bashful type) raise a stink.  Even if it had been taken all he would have to do is give a legal deposition that he had viewed it and enter that in the record.  Just think how much of  an impetus that would have given to the Committee?

The other thing that's always bothered me is why he never discussed where he/they got it?  Even if it were stolen the implications are so immense that its hard to see nothing happening with it - and if some powers that be had  totally shut down discussion about it why would he have ever mentioned it?

....I'd sure like to see him interviewed about that one subject...

P.S.  It reminds me of the other HACA wild card story about a staffer who talked about a plane found out in West Texas with Oswald's prints in it.  Seems like that never made it into any memos either...

Larry:

I share your concerns, and am fully prepared to discount Tanenbaum's tale, in the event that nothing surfaces to confirm his story.

If the HSCA wasn't fully operational until January 1977, and Tanenbaum left under duress in July, we have a limited time-frame in which that film must have surfaced, if it did exist.  Though not necessarily true, I would presume such a film would have been found closer to Tanenbaum's departure than to the HSCA's start-date, for it would have surely taken them some time to rifle through repositories as unlikely as Georgetown [my supposition, let me stress.]

Regis Blahut was busted and ousted in June '77.  If he had been responsible for removing the film, one must speculate either that he took it on an occasion prior to being caught in the evidence safe-room, or perhaps even on that occasion.

As for Tanenbaum not raising a stink about the film's disappearance, a number of points come into play. 

If Tanenbaum assumed the film remained among HSCA's holdings, then its disappearance may not have become evident to him until after the HSCA's report was issued.  I've found no evidence that Tanenbaum remained in touch with HSCA staffers after his resignation [though, again, this doesn't make it so.] 

Moreover, all the quotes I've read from Tanenbaum make it apparent [to me, at least] that he had nothing but contempt for the way in which the "investigation" was conducted after he and Sprague departed.  Perhaps the disappearance of this film, certainly evidence of singular import, helps to explain his bile.

   And I don't think anybody has been able to get a straight answer from Tannenbaum on why he did nothing with such a smoking gun piece of evidence...if it really existed.

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Larry:

Though PURELY hypothetical, I wonder what we would find if we compared the time-frame of Tanenbaum's tenure with the HSCA with the date on which CIA's Regis Blahut was busted for rifling through [and pilfering from?] HSCA's evidence locker.

It always seemed to me that whatever Blahut was after must have been of the highest significance, in order to justify taking so great a risk. I've never been able to figure out what that might have been; certainly his claim of 'personal curiosity' [if memory serves] doesn't seem like much of a rationale.

It seems to me that CIA might wish to make disappear photographic evidence that the lone nut, about whom they evidenced so casual an indifference, was demonstrably connected with a camp under their nominal control. Since Blahut lied about having rifled through that evidence locker, and only admitted to this violation when it was proved his fingerprints were found on photographs therein, we know that he seemed particularly interested in photographic evidence.

If the time-frames match [i'll try to check on that], perhaps we can speculate our way to solving several minor mysteries.

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[Stephen Roy]

David William Ferrie was born on March 28, 1918 at Cleveland, Ohio (about 10 months after his Irish-Catholic "counterpart" was born in Brookline, Massachusetts) to James Howard Ferrie and Burdette Couts Goldrick Ferrie. The Ferries were so-called "black Irish", having black rather than reddish hair, and had a family tradition of public service: Grandfather Patrick T. Ferrie served for 45 years with the Cleveland Fire Department, the last 20 as Fire Warden, his son William served 50 years with the CFD, and son James (David's father) spent 23 years with the Cleveland Police Department. James' cousin, A.J. Weatherhead, founded the Weatherhead Company and later, the Weatherhead Foundation, one of the Cleveland area's largest philanthropies.

James Howard Ferrie was a former motorman who started at the Cleveland PD as a patrolman and worked his way up to the rank of captain and Chief of Detectives. He obtained an LLB from Cleveland Marshall Law School (then located within Baldwin-Wallace College) in 1920, but deferred his law practice to remain on the CPD until 1937 in order to qualify for the pension. With his Cincinnati-born English-Catholic wife, he had 2 sons: David and Parmely. David was born with the assistance of a midwife in an apartment at 5411 Clark Avenue. By 1928, James had been promoted to lieutenant and had enough money to buy his family home at 17302 Laverne Drive, near Puritas Avenue and Rocky River Drive, very close to Cleveland Hopkins Airport, which probably contributed to young David's interest in flying. The family move brought him to a new parish and a new school, St. Patrick's. Evidence suggests that Ferrie may have been molested at that church, which may have had a bearing on his own orientation later in life. At about the same time, he dropped out of school for about a year and began to experience health problems, including Alopecia Areata, the loss of hair in clumps.

David Ferrie might have followed the family tradition and become a public servant, but his mother, who was very involved in church life, steered him toward a career path to the priesthood. At St. Ignatius High School, an all-male Catholic institution, he was a writer for the school newspaper, a champion debater, and a budding actor. In the class play, a murder mystery, he played the victim, a district attorney whose murder is solved by a man named Gill! As he was given to signing papers with his full initials (dwf), he was nicknamed "dwarf" by a fellow Ignatian!

Ferrie's first higher-education experience was at John Carroll University, a Jesuit institution. He was involved in the Glee Club and school newspaper, and again excelled at debate. But the school forced him to repeat a year due to certain emotional issues. They wrote: "Industrious and ambitious. Is somewhat socially immature. Is an enthusiast, wants attention and distinction. Wholly lacking in common sense; hard to direct or control."

In Spetember 1938 David Ferrie entered Saint Mary Seminary, then on Ansel Road. (Internal documents establish the correct spelling as "Saint Mary". not St. Mary or St Mary's). Over his two year stay, the rector noticed in Ferrie qualities he considered unsuitable for the priesthood: Brashness, a compulsive leadership complex, excessive criticism of superiors, and most important, he "came to be regarded among his associates as rather antinomian" (one who believes that faith is enough for salvation, that adherence to a moral code is not necessary.) He was asked to leave the seminary. The stress and depression once again caused an occurrence of hair loss.

He took a part-time job pumping gas and entered Baldwin-Wallace College, his father's alma mater. He was assigned to student-teach at Rocky River High School, but he still felt a calling to the priesthood. He applied for admission to the Society of the Precious Blood at St. Charles Seminary in Carthagena. The war was heating up, and his correspondence indicates that he asked for a hurry-up admission to avoid the draft, while his younger brother enlisted.

The same traits that had plagued him at John Carroll and Saint Mary emerged at St. Charles. Among other things, he had engaged in a "doctrinal dispute" with others at the seminary and actually caused a split amongst faculty and staff. When he was declined Perpetual Membership in the Society in late 1943, he had a nervous breakdown and was ordered to seek psychiatric help. By late 1944, he was again forced out, and suffered a full breakdown. Ferrie spent about a year undergoing various psychiatric treatments, and he developed a fascination with psychiatry (and in 1946, a fascination with hypnosis.) His depression cannot have been helped by the fact that, while he dodged the draft, his younger brother had been shot down over France and parachuted to safety and was honored in the Cleveland VE-day parade.

His father steered him toward learning to fly, and he obtained his student pilot license on August 10, 1945. He now secured a job teaching Aeronautics at the Catholic all-male Benedictine High School, and his dad bought him a Stinson 150 monoplane. In 1947 Ferrie became a Cadet Instructor at the Civil Air Patrol unit at Hopkins. But his behaviour did him in once again. He was fired from Benedictine in 1948 for, among other things, rolling a car over in the driveway of the school and stealing school property. He was also chased out of the CAP for some unorthodox flying activities and taking a group of underage boys to a whorehouse. His father apparently hushed up some criminal charges over these incidents, and David again had a nervous breakdown.

He began flying small planes on a commercial basis for Jeda Oil and Drilling Company for about a year, devloping an interest in the Southeastern US. When the company folded in 1949, he became an insurance inspector for two companies. He was fired from the first for using his private plane in vioation of company rules. He served the second admirably, but was now interested in other things. With the cold war heating up in Asia, he joined the US Army Reserve and wrote highly anti-Communist letters to officials in hopes of a direct commission as a fighter pilot.

By June 1950, the Korean War was in full swing, and there was a shortage of pilots for the expanding US passenger airline industry. Ferrie applied at Eastern Air Lines and was hired as a pilot trainee on April 16, 1951. (Again, this is the correct spelling: President Eddie Rickenbacker deliberately chose the separate words "Eastern Air Lines" as a symbol of individuality.)

NEXT: FERRIE IN NEW ORLEANS

[Stephen Roy]

Eastern Air Lines (EAL) wasn’t quite sure what to make of Captain David Ferrie: He was a good (though not great) pilot (“He has a tendency to talk his way through flight school rather than follow the procedures“); He showed promise in company public relations and training, but he could be “an odd one at times.”

After training in Miami, he was assigned to LaGuardia. He had just requested a transfer to New Orleans (MSY) when an investigative report from the Retail Credit Company was delivered (May 21, 1951), showing that he had been less than candid about his work history. He omitted Benedictine High School, from which he had been fired, and extended his tenure with Jeda Oil and Drilling to cover the omission. Serious consideration was given to firing him then and there, but he managed to talk his way out of it.

Ferrie settled in to New Orleans, living on St. Louis Street, Perrier Street and Bourbon Street. One friend noted that he “liked the south but didn’t like southerners.” Initially a co-pilot, he qualified on the Martin 404 and the Douglas DC-4. Toward the end of 1951, Ferrie answered a call for “seniors” (adults) to help expand the New Orleans Cadet Squadron of the Civil Air Patrol (CAP) based at Lakefront Airport. He began making speeches to civic organizations about air travel to the southeast, and even appeared on a television program (I have been unable to locate a kinescope of this show). EAL actually thought he might be more valuable in Traffic and Sales than as a pilot. In 1953, he attended Tulane for one semester, and during the same period, he looked into the possibility of entering the priesthood again at a seminary in Corpus Christi.

In 1954, Ferrie was nearly fired again after it was found that he had allowed a 15-year old boy to fly on a pass as his “adopted son”, a claim quickly proven false. He was not making a good impression on the Louisiana CAP Wing Commander, either. After a CAP boy he trained to fly died in a crash in December 1954, he submitted his 1955 papers, but the Wing Commander instead appointed a new interim Squadron Commander. Ferrie was angry and hurt. In April 1955, his papers were returned unsigned.

In June 1955, Ferrie was approached by the Commander of the smaller (15-20 cadets) Moisant Airport CAP squadron to lecture the boys. On July 27, Lee Harvey Oswald joined the squadron. He had been taken by friends to the Lakefront Squadron but did not join, but one of the friends talked him into joining the Moisant squadron. It was on a SARCAP (search and rescue) event one Sunday in August that the famous Ciravolo picture was taken. Oswald apparently only stayed a month or two, and Ferrie didn’t stay much longer, becoming peeved at having a girls’ CAP group as part of the squadron. One cannot read too much into such an encounter with a 15-year old Oswald, 8 years before the assassination; However, in an October 1956 letter, Oswald said that he had been studying Marxism for “well over 15 months” - precisely the time he encountered Ferrie.

By 1957 he lived in apartment in Vinet Avenue, where he had many white mice and said he was doing cancer research. He soon qualified on the Lockheed 1049 Constellation series and the Convair 440. In the summer of 1957, he traveled to Italy with his mother to take exams for his Doctorate in Psychology from the University of Phoenix, then under investigation by US authorities as a “diploma mill.” Not long after, Ferrie invited his ailing mother to come live with him. She sold the family home in Cleveland to finance Ferrie’s first house on Airline Park Boulevard. At the back, he had something akin to a training lab for boys, including an ingenious skeleton with pumps, tubes and lights, nicknamed “Jonathan”.

In March 1958, a former cadet who had become Commander of the Lakefront CAP squadron invited Ferrie back as an advisor, and after a series of propaganda letters, he managed to be re-appointed as Executive Officer. He obtained a Taylorcraft L-2 for flight training for his cadets, started a cadet rifle club and a rocketry club. He was reprimanded by the FAA when the L-2 was used in a reckless manner by a cadet.

By now, his activities with the boys (classified as “ephemophilia”) were becoming reckless. With the boys, he became enmeshed in a bizarre investment (read: “con”) to develop a palm nut, whose fuel was allegedly to be used by NASA. He apparently taught a seminar in aeronautics at Loyola. He was involved in the runaway of a boy who was remanded to a youth center, then visited him claiming to be a doctor.

In June 1960, Ferrie became upset on a CAP encampment at Keesler, among other things, being ordered not to sleep in the cadet barracks, and quit in a huff, taking several boys with him. they considered starting a group called the Omnipotents, but ultimately formed their own unauthorized group, the Metairie Falcon Squadron in October 1960.

By now, Ferrie had other things on his mind. He had been interested in the politics of Cuba for about a year, and was about to become involved.

NEXT: FERRIE AND THE ANTI-CASTRO MOVEMENT

[Steve Thomas]

Stephen,

NEXT: FERRIE AND THE ANTI-CASTRO MOVEMENT

Do you happen to have a transcript of the speech Ferrie was making before some group - I'm sorry, I can't remember the name right now, where his anti-Kennedy rhetoric was so vitriolic that he was asked to leave the stage?

Thanks,

Steve Thomas

[Stephen Roy]

Do you happen to have a transcript of the speech Ferrie was making before some group - I'm sorry, I can't remember the name right now, where his anti-Kennedy rhetoric was so vitriolic that he was asked to leave the stage?

I am pretty sure no recording was made and no transcript was made. I DO have the official minutes, but the description is vague, that Ferrie indicated his talk would be controversial, that he got into areas that the MOWW considered inconsistent with an official meeting, and asked him to stop while they adjourned the official meeting. Some people say Ferrie continued, some say he didn't.

I did talk to one person who was there. He caveated it by saying it was a long time ago, and it didn't seem significant in that political climate, but he recalls that Ferrie described the failure of the invasion and the cancellation of the air strike, and he said that the president did this. Motioning to a Cuban he had brought with him, he said that in Latin America, the crowds would be chanting "To the wall with him!", presumably a firing squad. Or some such thing. That is, as he recalls, when Adm. Ryan asked him to stop.

This long after the event, it is very hard to determine what happened, but the bottom line is that it was so critical of the President that the MOWW considered it out of line.

[Matt Allison]

Ferrie's brother Parmely was the spittin' image of Dave, and, as I just learned, also lived concurrently in the same town I grew up in, Rockford IL. Weird...

https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/austin-tx/parmely-ferrie-5363771

 

 

Edited May 23, 2023 by Matt Allison