My New Book, A Heritage of Nonsense: Jim Garrison's Tales of Mystery and Imagination

[W. Niederhut]

1 hour ago, Jean Ceulemans said:

I have read those a number of years ago, and I have read Litwin´s articles.  If you only read one side... that´s up to you. 

Jean,

     That is sophomoric bunk.  Your (above) comments on this thread about those of us who have raised accurate criticisms about Mr. Litwin's propaganda (since 2018) indicate that you either never read James DiEugenio's highly detailed critiques of Litwin's JFKA disinformation, or that you didn't understand them.

      Litwin's most recent cherry-picked disinformation didn't appear ex nihilo.  It's part of a multi-year disinformation campaign to smear the JFK investigators who have debunked the Warren Commission Report.

[Jonathan Cohen]

2 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

      Litwin's most recent cherry-picked disinformation didn't appear ex nihilo.  It's part of a multi-year disinformation campaign to smear the JFK investigators who have debunked the Warren Commission Report.

Another highly objectionable comment from a moderator. If you have any actual proof that Fred Litwin is "part of a multi-year disinformation campaign to smear the JFK investigators who have debunked the Warren Commission Report," I and many others would love for you to share it. Otherwise, you're just spewing hot air.

[Pat Speer]

2 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

Jean,

     That is sophomoric bunk.  Your (above) comments on this thread about those of us who have raised accurate criticisms about Mr. Litwin's propaganda (since 2018) indicate that you either never read James DiEugenio's highly detailed critiques of Litwin's JFKA disinformation, or that you didn't understand them.

      Litwin's most recent cherry-picked disinformation didn't appear ex nihilo.  It's part of a multi-year disinformation campaign to smear the JFK investigators who have debunked the Warren Commission Report.

I believe I mentioned smoking and former smokers in a previous thread. My take on Fred is that he grew angry after finding out Garrison was flawed, and had once pushed some theories about Shaw, Ferrie and Oswald--that were to him hateful and offensive.

I met the director Robert Stone at the screening of his film Oswald's Ghost. He was of the same mind, IMO. He could follow and support the JFK research community's thinking until the rise of Garrison--with his flamboyance and public discussion of a thrill kill cult. This turned him off completely to such an extent he felt compelled to make a movie about the failure of the research community to make its case and its reliance upon the likes of Garrison. 

I told him there were reasons to suspect a conspiracy pre-dating Garrison that were never adequately addressed, and that there were many reasons to suspect a conspiracy that have nothing to do with Garrison. But he wasn't interested. He couldn't move beyond the fact a group of people he once admired had embraced someone he found repulsive. He felt betrayed. 

Now, admittedly, I haven't read Fred's books. So maybe he can pipe in about his motivations and why the likes of Garrison are far more offensive to him than say Arlen Specter and David Belin.

[James DiEugenio]

BTW, one obvious question should be asked here.

Fred Litwin has no background as far as I can see in forensics, in detective work, as a criminal lawyer.

If Garrison, who was a lawyer, and tried many criminal cases, was up a tree then the obvious question is why did the following people take him so seriously later on?

Jonathan Blackmer, lawyer for the HSCA

Bob Buras, investigator for the HSCA

LJ Delsa, investigator for the HSCA

Bob Tanenbaum, Deputy Chief Counsel for the HSCA

Anyone who reads the HSCA files will see this correspondence.  The Blackmer/Garrison correspondence is very interesting.  Garrison tells him, the JFK case will not be like a normal criminal case.  Because it was planned  and executed as a covert operation with plausible deniability built into the plot.  Blackmer was very much impressed with the DA.

Now Buras was a very experienced criminal investigator who had worked for Tanenbaum for years on a famous case involving the murder of two police officers.  Buras was another police investigator who Delsa brought in.

Tanenbaum was of course head of homicide in New York City for seven years, and he never lost a felony case.

So in other words, we are to believe a guy who worked in computers in England and the Far East, retired early after making a lot of money, decided to become a culture warrior, over these men who did direct investigations and had literally decades of experience in forensics and investigation and court room proceedings?

This is something that has always puzzled me about the JFK case.  The rules of evidence, plus logic and standards somehow get injected into a Bermuda Triangle where they disappear, and someone like Litwin comes in, who has no qualifications except his own anti-conspiracy, Garrison bashing bias,and people like Greg and Jonathan shamelessly accept it without doing any investigation on their own to independently check it.

The Cheramie story is proven as Garrison presented. Period.  Blackmer checked it out and affirmed it led to Sergio Arcacha Smith and Emilo Santana.  

The Clinton/Jackson evidence is just as solid. The HSCA investigated that.  Bill Davy and myself went up there and took it further.  Joan Mellen literally lived there for two weeks out of a motel.  Oswald was there. Accompanied by Ferrie and Shaw.  Period, end of story.

As I have proven, and William has posted, Fred Litwin is not a reliable source, on many counts.  And only people who are not familiar with his techniques could trust him. I am familiar with them.

[James DiEugenio]

Pat and Jonathan, whew.

Litwin goes after the whole critical community in his books, let us make no mistake about that.

Here is another demolition of him:

https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/jim-garrison-vs-fred-litwin-the-beat-goes-on-part-2

 

Just one excerpt:

But there is another oddity about Litwin. The present author has been in this field for going on three decades. I have read a rather large amount of material on the subject. This includes research journals from both America and abroad. I do not recall coming across Mr. Litwin’s name in any of them. Apparently, the man kept his beliefs about a JFK plot rather close to his vest.

As Matt D pointed out, the above part of his story is like the photo of Oswald in Mexico CIty that no one can find.

 

Edited 14 hours ago by James DiEugenio

[James DiEugenio]

Now, let us excerpt another section from that review to show the techniques Litwin uses to conceal the facts.

 

He does all he can to denigrate the value of the information that Jack Martin relayed to Garrison’s office within 48 hours after the assassination. For instance, he does not fully explicate why Guy Banister exploded and pistol-whipped his former investigator/employee Mr. Martin. Martin had made some rather incriminating comments, like implicating Banister in the Kennedy assassination. Martin specifically said: “What are you going to do—kill me like you all did Kennedy?” Martin later said that if Banister’s secretary had not intervened, he thought Banister might have killed him. (HSCA Volume 10, p. 130) After the assault, Banister threw some money at his victim. On his way to the hospital, Martin told an acquaintance: “The dirty Nazi bastards did it to him in Texas, and to me here.” (Affidavit of Martin and David Lewis to Jim Garrison 2/30/68)

Since Martin was describing events on the day of the assassination, who does Litwin think Martin was referring to when he said, “Did it to him in Texas?” In light of the Martin’s previous comment, it was probably President Kennedy.

But stay with me, it gets worse as it always does with Fred.

[James DiEugenio]

"What was the specific reason for Banister’s assault? Again, Litwin does not fully reveal that aspect. As Garrison’s staff later discovered, the FBI in New Orleans—namely agent Regis Kennedy—later thought that Martin might have pilfered Banister’s files on Oswald. (Garrison memorandum from Andrew Sciambra, 10/28/68) In fact, a part-time employee at Banister’s office, Mary Brengel, told the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) that she felt that both Banister and his secretary Delphine Roberts knew what was going to happen in Texas that day. (HSCA interview of 4/6/78)

It was Roberts who rescued Martin. Banister then swore her to secrecy and kept her out of the office after the bloody incident with Martin. (Anthony Summers, Conspiracy, p. 294) So when Garrison interviewed her, she was tight-lipped. Later she did reveal things to the HSCA, specifically to investigator Bob Buras. On his second attempt to get her to talk to him, Roberts told Buras that Oswald was at Banister’s office and had a few private meetings with him. He was allowed to use a second floor room to print up his anti-Castro materials. (HSCA interview of 7/6/78) Reporter Scott Malone later found a corroborating witness for this information. Brengel told him that Roberts said Oswald had been at 544 Camp Street, Banister’s office, that summer. (James DiEugenio, Destiny Betrayed, second edition, p. 111) When this author interviewed another Banister employee, Dan Campbell, he also revealed that Oswald had been in Banister’s office that summer. In a separate interview with this writer, so did his brother Allen. (Destiny Betrayed, p. 112)

In other words, it makes perfect sense for Banister to have had a file on Oswald and for Martin to be interested in it on the day of the assassination. It also follows that, as Roberts told Buras, Banister was upset when he heard that Oswald had handed out flyers in New Orleans with Banister’s office address of 544 Camp Street on them." (HSCA Buras interview.)

So again, it was not just Garrison, it was the FBI, Summers, Scott Malone, and Buras.  And it was not just Martin or Roberts, it was also Brengel and Dan Campbell.  And as we have seen, Clay Shaw knew about Oswald and 544 Camp Street, through his aide de camp Jesse Core.  Who helped arrange the ITM leafleting incident.

Edited 15 hours ago by James DiEugenio

[Fred Litwin]

Pat: My disgust with Jim Garrison lies in the fact that not only did he come up with absolutely nothing, but that he manufactured evidence to indict an innocent gay man. He ruined Clay Shaw's life for nothing. After Shaw was acquitted, he then indicted Shaw for perjury. It took Shaw another two years to get that quashed. Shaw was a retired man who just wanted to write plays and restore properties. He had to sell his house and go back to work.

But it wasn't only Clay Shaw. Garrison indicted Edgar Eugene Bradley for conspiring to kill Kennedy. Again with absolutely no evidence. Fortunately for Bradley, that case went nowhere, and Garrison eventually apologized. Gee, sorry!

Other people were bulldozed and terrorized. People in New Orleans were afraid of Garrison and he had immense power. By the way, one of the major problems facing Clay Shaw was the lack of discovery in Louisiana's courtrooms. Shaw's attorney's had no acc

ess to Garrison's case, and so they were in the dark, and every time they saw a rumor in the press, they had to hire investigators to check things out.

Yes, I am not an investigator. But neither is James DiEugenio.

I don't have much respect for Jonathan Blackmer. He did a lousy job on the Clinton witnesses, and you can see my post here:

https://www.onthetrailofdelusion.com/post/the-hsca-and-the-clinton-jackson-witnesses-part-one

Other posts on Jonathan Blackmer:

https://www.onthetrailofdelusion.com/post/jim-garrison-and-the-house-select-committee-on-assassinations-hsca-part-one

https://www.onthetrailofdelusion.com/post/exclusive-jim-garrison-tells-tells-the-hsca-that-fred-crisman-was-one-of-the-three-tramps

I know that this will result in a flurry of posts from James DiEugenio to bury post. 

fred

[James DiEugenio]

Fred, I am going to prove what a lousy investigator you are, in spades.  I just showed you up on 544 Camp Street.

I am now going to do the same with David Ferrie.  These are from your own words.

Litwin’s depiction of David Ferrie is about as limited and dubious as his work on Banister. Litwin writes that when the FBI and Secret Service questioned Ferrie, he denied knowing Oswald, or having anything to do with Kennedy’s assassination. Litwin leaves it at that. Which is rather uncurious of him. For as anyone who reads Ferrie’s FBI statement has to acknowledge, Ferrie lied his head off to the Bureau. And it is hard to buy the argument that they did not know he was lying. For instance, Ferrie said he never owned a rifle with a telescopic sight and would not know how to use one. This, from a man who was a trainer for both the Bay of Pigs invasion and Operation Mongoose. (HSCA interview of John Irion, 10/18/78; Davy pp. 28-31; CIA memo of October 1967, “Garrison Investigation: Belle Chasse Training Camp”)

Ferrie also said that he did not know Oswald and Oswald was not a member of his Civil Air Patrol (CAP) unit in New Orleans. This was another lie that Litwin seems comfortable with. In this case, all the Bureau had to do was question some of the other members of that CAP unit to find out Ferrie was lying. Jerry Paradis, who later became a corporate attorney, told the HSCA that he knew Ferrie and Oswald were members of the same CAP unit because he was also a member and he saw them together at a meeting. (HSCA interview of 12/15/78) Anthony Atzenoffer said the same about Ferrie and Oswald at the CAP meetings. (HSCA interview of 1/2/79) As we all know, in 1993, PBS discovered a photo of Oswald and Ferrie at a CAP cookout and showed it on TV.

But there is something even more incriminating about Ferrie which indicates that not only was he knowingly lying to the FBI but was also trying to scoop up evidence that would prove his perjury. For in the days immediately following the assassination, Ferrie was looking for that CAP picture of him with Oswald. He called a former CAP member, Roy McCoy, to find out if he had a copy. The FBI had to know Ferrie was doing this. Why? Because McCoy and his wife later called the Bureau and told them about Ferrie’s search for the photo of him with the alleged assassin of President Kennedy. In other words, the FBI was complicit in Ferrie’s cover-up. (New Orleans FBI report of 11/27/63)

[James DiEugenio]

Now, how does one get any more incriminating than the above?

Ferrie is lying to the FBI on multiple counts as part of a homicide inquiry.

As any experienced lawyer, like James Comey or Trey Gowdy, will tell you, when a witness lies during an official interview, this is evidence of not just perjury but also of obstruction, and the obstruction has to be of a serious nature, perhaps even including himself.  And make no mistake, Ferrie was taking a huge gamble here.  Since he had to know he was lying, and he had to know, as I listed, there were several people who could prove he was lying.

[James DiEugenio]

But the capper for me is that Ferrie was looking for the picture of him and Oswald right after the assassination.

Ferrie knew he was lying.  And he was attempting to obstruct justice in order to preserve his lie.

Those two counts will get you about ten years in prison.

Why risk it if you are an innocent man?

Is this what Fred means when he says Garrison had nothing?

LOL, ROTF,🤑

 

Edited 15 hours ago by James DiEugenio

[James DiEugenio]

Is Jonathan listening? Here is more of Fred's technique:

Litwin trudges onward with Dean Andrews. Andrews was the New Orleans lawyer who said that a man named Clay Bertrand called him on Saturday, November 23, 1963, and asked him to go to Dallas to defend the alleged assassin of JFK, Lee Harvey Oswald. Again, it takes Litwin about two sentences to descend into travesty. First, he says that Andrews was in hospital and heavily sedated at the time he got this call—which is supposed to cast doubt on the credibility of the claim. Twenty-three years ago, the estimable William Davy checked on this point through the hospital records. Those records indicate that Andrews got the call at least four hours before he was sedated. (Davy, p. 52) Litwin then writes that the call was actually from a man named Eugene Davis. This is also wrong. The name of Eugene Davis did not enter the record until NBC produced its hatchet job on Jim Garrison in the summer of 1967. Davis subsequently denied this under oath. And Andrews was then convicted of perjury. (Davy, p. 302; Jim Garrison’s interview in Playboy,10/67)

[James DiEugenio]

Now, what kind of writer recycles discredited baloney like this?

As noted above, these two BS stories about sedation and Davis had been convincingly discredited many years prior.

So yes Jonathan, it is totally reasonable for William to say those things about Litwin.  Since it is provable.

This is what moderators should do.

[Pat Speer]

55 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

Now, what kind of writer recycles discredited baloney like this?

As noted above, these two BS stories about sedation and Davis had been convincingly discredited many years prior.

So yes Jonathan, it is totally reasonable for William to say those things about Litwin.  Since it is provable.

This is what moderators should do.

Really? I was the most-active moderator of this forum, when we had the likes of Fetzer and Thompson duking it out on a daily basis. 

IF I had harassed every member who said something that was dubious, or who had repeated something which had been discredited, thousands upon thousands of posts would have been erased or prevented from even existing, and the forum would have shriveled up long ago.

People love to repeat what they "Know", and what they "Know" is more often than not something they heard from someone else or read somewhere or put together without studying all of the evidence.

Heck we have presidential candidates saying they believe something to be true because they saw it on television somewhere. Much of the information shared on this forum is of a similar bent. 

[Jean Ceulemans]

B.t.w. Fred´s sales got a boost I see, why?

Because people see the heavy reactions to Fred´s announcement here, makes´m curious I guess, so those reactions are really not very productive, are they? 

Again, I don´t agree with everything Fred writes, that seems to be something that some here think (or are afraid of ???).