Jim Garrison and Oliver Stone

[Lynne Foster]

I haven't heard anything about Jim Garrison which would lead me to think that he ever, genuinely tried to solve the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

As far as I can see, he only demanded control, the truth never mattered. Isn't this the real truth about Jim Garrison?

[Mark Stapleton]

I haven't heard anything about Jim Garrison which would lead me to think that he ever, genuinely tried to solve the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

As far as I can see, he only demanded control, the truth never mattered. Isn't this the real truth about Jim Garrison?

Come on Lynne, that article's rubbish.

[Tim Gratz]

Mark, can you identify specific factual allegations in the article that you assert are "rubbish"?

[Lynne Foster]

Mark, can you identify specific factual allegations in the article that you assert are "rubbish"?

I think the article is very factual. I am surprised Oliver Stone was duped as much as he was.

Judge for yourself:

Give me just one good reason to dispute anything that is written here.

Don't take my word for it, but Jay Epstein is a serious investigator and this is what he said about Garrison:

On January 21, 1969, after nearly two years of concocting and playing out hois charges in the national media, Jim Garrison finally tried the accused, Clay Shaw, in a court of law in New Orleans. Even though Garrison had announced on February 24, 1967, that he had "positively solved the assassination of President John F. Kennedy" -and one week later, arrested Clay Shaw for conspiring to kill the president -it now turned out that he had not yet found any evidence whatsoever of the putative conspiracy that he presented at the trial at the time he made this sensational claim, The conspiracy he laid out in court took place at a single meeting in late September 1963 in the apartment of David Ferrie in which three conspirators, Clay Shaw, David Ferrie, and Lee Harvey Oswald, plotted the "cross fire" and triangulation of fire" in Dallas through which theyplanned to assassinate Kennedy, and this conspiracy was witnessed by the only other person in the apartment, Perry Raymond Russo...

The last known person to speak to Ferrie was George Lardner, Jr., of the Washington Post, whom Ferrie had met with from midnight to 4:00 a.m. on February 22, 1967. During this interview, Ferrie described Garrison as "a joke". Several hours later, Ferrie died of a cerebral hemorrhage [he was probably murdered because "the joke" needed a corpse like Lee Harvey Oswald, to promote his bizarre allegations]

Give me just one good reason to dispute anything that is written here.

Edited November 9, 2005 by Lynne Foster

[Mark Stapleton]

Mark, can you identify specific factual allegations in the article that you assert are "rubbish"?

I think the article is very factual. I am surprised Oliver Stone was duped as much as he was.

Lynne,

This piece is a clumsy hatchet job on Garrison. Who wrote it anyway?

Quoting:

"The only genuine motivation Garrison ever betrayed was the absolute obsession to cover up the truth". (????? then why did he bother to open an investigation)

"The intimidating power and influence that Garrison commanded exceeded legal limits. In 1966, he interceded directly with the Louisiana Governor and won a pardon for Linda Brigette, a stripper, who in effect was granted a license to perform the sort of lewd dancing the law forbade" (Surely proof that Garrison sat with the devil. Who else would intercede and allow the countryside to be ravaged by one so evil as....................a stripper!!!)

There are other examples of ridiculous rhetoric from the author but its so bent and skewed, I couldn't be bothered. Trust Tim Gratz to defend it.

[Lynne Foster]

Who wrote it? It sounds like a chapter from the book, Preserving the Legacy,, by Mat Wilson. I was initially introduced to this work from a link on the Spartacus website, [did I spell that correctly?] that celebrated researchers who had broken new ground -Mat Wilson was one of 3 or 4 researchers.

At any rate, I don't think that the "investigation that Garrison opened" was a serious investigation.

II think it was merely an effort to claim jurisdiction over the matter. Maybe, you bought the hero-worship that Oliver Stone's movie promoted?

Remember, "drink deep" -that's education. If we fall for all the propaganda that surrounds the Kennedy Assassination -that's the cover up, intentional or not.

I don't think it is possible to take Garrison seriously because he even blamed RFK for the assassination of his own brother, and I can't accept the claim of anybody who suggests that Garrison had any intention beyond covering up the truth.

Does anybody on this forum blame RFK for the assassination of his own brother?

[Guest Stephen Turner]

Lynne FWIW, I believe the investigation started out as a straight arrow, but partly due to Jim's overweening ego, ended up as a vanity project. But the establishment and their lickspittal media dont throw the ammount of muck, that they threw at Garrison for no reason. I think he got some things right, but ended up harming the credibility of the research community. Steve.

[Thomas H. Purvis]

Who wrote it? It sounds like a chapter from the book, Preserving the Legacy,, by Mat Wilson. I was initially introduced to this work from a link on the Spartacus website, [did I spell that correctly?] that celebrated researchers who had broken new ground -Mat Wilson was one of 3 or 4 researchers.

At any rate, I don't think that the "investigation that Garrison opened" was a serious investigation.

II think it was merely an effort to claim jurisdiction over the matter. Maybe, you bought the hero-worship that Oliver Stone's movie promoted?

Remember, "drink deep" -that's education. If we fall for all the propaganda that surrounds the Kennedy Assassination -that's the cover up, intentional or not.

I don't think it is possible to take Garrison seriously because he even blamed RFK for the assassination of his own brother, and I can't accept the claim of anybody who suggests that Garrison had any intention beyond covering up the truth.

Does anybody on this forum blame RFK for the assassination of his own brother?

________________________________________________________________________________

______

"At any rate, I don't think that the "investigation that Garrison opened" was a serious investigation."

________________________________________________________________________________

______

The only thing "serious" about the Garrison smoke-screen was it's serious attempt at deflecting the facts from and pointing the fingers at those of New Orleans who were actually the motivating factor behind LHO.

Other than that, Garrison should have hired out to Barnham & Baily after having left the DA's office.

I personally enjoy a good "circus" act.

Tom

P.S. I loved Regina, Saskatchewan; Geraldton, Ontario; and St. Anne de Shane, Manitoba when I lived in your country.

[Dawn Meredith]

Who wrote it? It sounds like a chapter from the book, Preserving the Legacy,, by Mat Wilson. I was initially introduced to this work from a link on the Spartacus website, [did I spell that correctly?] that celebrated researchers who had broken new ground -Mat Wilson was one of 3 or 4 researchers.

At any rate, I don't think that the "investigation that Garrison opened" was a serious investigation.

II think it was merely an effort to claim jurisdiction over the matter. Maybe, you bought the hero-worship that Oliver Stone's movie promoted?

Remember, "drink deep" -that's education. If we fall for all the propaganda that surrounds the Kennedy Assassination -that's the cover up, intentional or not.

I don't think it is possible to take Garrison seriously because he even blamed RFK for the assassination of his own brother, and I can't accept the claim of anybody who suggests that Garrison had any intention beyond covering up the truth.

Does anybody on this forum blame RFK for the assassination of his own brother?

Lynn:

I don't know who you are. Your bio is not at all revealing. Have you bothered to read anything Garrison ever wrote such as " A Heritage of Stone", or better yet "On the Trial os the Assassins".? You clearly have not read the latter book or you would have realized that Stone's film is in many parts verbatim of this work. (Stone read this book and was just blown away and decided to turn this work into a film).

Your own bias against and lack of knowledge about the man you are condemning here speaks volumes.

Very easy to just parrot some "trash Garrison" article.

Noone here thinks RFK killed JFK, nor did Garrison think this.

Dawn

[Tim Carroll]

Does anybody on this forum blame RFK for the assassination of his own brother?

I love what RFK stood for at the end of his life and consider his assassination as significantly damaging to the nation's spirit as that of the President. I would certainly not apply the word "blame" to RFK's possible inadvertant contribution to the wrong elements. Nevertheless, I believe the following is worthy of consideration.

The day after his brother's murder, Bobby Kennedy sought answers from Harry Ruiz-Williams, a CIA agent staying at a CIA-operated safe house used by Cuban exiles. Afterward, speaking with journalist Haynes Johnson, Bobby said that he "suspected CIA-backed anti-Castro forces of having been involved in his brother's death." He was later quoted as telling one of the investigators from his Senate committee days: "Those Cuban cunts are all working for the mob. They blame us for the Bay of Pigs, and they're trying to make this look like a Castro-Communist hit. I don't buy it. And I don't trust those guys at the CIA. They're worse than the Mafia."[1]

Of course, Bobby knew better than anyone what had transpired beneath the surface of the administration's use of the exiles. More personally, he knew the dark side of his own role in the unleashing of elements he now considered responsible for his brother's death. Many of those close to Bobby who saw in him a classic case of survivor's guilt were unaware that a much deeper level of responsibility may have informed his anguish.

Bobby had personally entertained Cuban exiles at his house, Hickory Hill, and kept in touch with them at their apartments at the Ebbitt Hotel in downtown Washington, where they were housed by the CIA. Even Desmond FitzGerald, Bobby's replacement for Wild Bill Harvey, was concerned about the directness of Bobby's involvement with the Cuban exiles. The Attorney General's freelancing with the the Cuban exile community was a formula for disaster. Peter Collier and David Horowitz have written poignantly about Bobby's anguish over what may have been an unintended consequence of his own actions:

"It was Bobby who had led the administration into dangerous places, daring the gods of the underworld and seizing the fire that finally erupted into anti-Kennedy hatred. He had done it in the service of his brother's presidency, yet he had gone past duty or necessity, using his special status as the brother within to justify what had become at times an almost perverse exploration of self. While Jack was alive, everything was justified; now that he was dead, it was all called into question. Had his acts created an environment for assassination? Had his zeal helped create the concatenation of forces that wanted Jack dead?"[2]

Four years after the assassination of the President, the CIA Inspector General conducted an internal investigation which was forwarded to Lyndon Johnson, who told newsman Howard K. Smith: "I'll tell you something that will rock you; Kennedy was trying to get Castro, but Castro got to him first."[3] In March 1967, columnist Drew Pearson wrote, "President Johnson is sitting on a political H-bomb-an unconfirmed report that Senator Robert Kennedy (Dem. N.Y.) may have approved an assassination plot which then possibly backfired against his brother."

The source for the Pearson article was the original mafioso hired by the CIA to kill Castro, Johnny Roselli. The spin being placed on this new round of stories was, like the Oswald promotion, aimed at leading the public to believe that Castro was behind the conspiracy in Dallas. Roselli had revealed to Pearson, through his attorney, Edward Morgan, that "One of our assassination teams was captured and tortured until they told all they knew about our operation which they said was ordered by the White House." Roselli asserted that "the team was turned around, you know, brainwashed, and sent back into our country to kill Kennedy."

All good lies contain a good measure of truth, and such may be the case with Roselli's attempt at history-making. Although this colorful rendition is compelling, given the source, it should be recognized that contained in this version is the admission that it was an anti-Castro hit team that had killed Kennedy. But this secret "team" would hardly have required anything so exotic as brainwashing to retarget its skills against the President. By November of 1963, Kennedy was clearly a foe to the extreme anti-Castro elements; they believed he had cancelled the airstrikes and betrayed the Bay of Pigs operation, then compounded the betrayal by giving the no-invasion pledge, and finally sealed the antipathy by shutting down the exile camps and beginning negotiations directed toward the normalization of relations with Cuba.

When Roselli's well-connected lawyer asked him how he had contained such explosive information, Roselli noted that "all phases of this operation were approved by Allen Dulles and President Eisenhower." He questioned why neither Dulles, who was a member of the Warren Commission investigating the Kennedy assassination, nor Eisenhower, who had full knowledge of the plots, ever came forward. "So what was I supposed to think?" He inferred that the President "wanted to keep the lid on." Roselli speculated that perhaps Johnson "thought it'd be bad for the country to know about this operation-you know, the government of the United States involved with the so-called Mafia to kill the leader of a foreign country and then it boomerangs."[4]

A possibility that may never be resolved is Johnson's notion that some action taken by Bobby Kennedy "backfired against his brother." There is ample evidence of Bobby's continued encouragement of anti-Castro efforts during a period of time when his brother, the President of the United States, was pursuing a very contrary policy.

Because of the closeness of the brothers it is generally assumed that Bobby was fulfilling one aspect of a multi-track approach on the part of the Administration. While it is understandable that some token support for the exiles might be considered prudent as a way of co-opting more radical elements, the extent to which one approach represented the direct undermining of the other presents a historical conundrum regarding the brothers' coordination of authority. The possibility must be considered that Bobby crossed the line of plausible deniability into a realm in which he was acting in his own highly unofficial capacity apart from any directed intention on the part of the President, and that something that occurred in Dallas required Bobby's acquiescence to the cover-up.

1. David C. Heymann, RFK. New York: Penguin Putnam Inc., 1998), 10.

2. Peter Collier and David Horowitz, The Kennedys, (New York: Summit Books, 1984), 317.

3. New York Times, June 25, 1976.

4. Ovid Demaris, The Last Mafioso. New York: Bantam Books, 1981), 235-241.

Edited October 24, 2005 by Tim Carroll

[Ron Ecker]

Robert Kennedy was an intelligent man with a terrible lack of good judgment. The proof of this lies not only in his activities as AG, but, as if to top himself, in his running for president after they had killed his brother. What the hell did he expect the killers to do?

That a lack of good judgment seemed to run in the Kennedy family is further evinced by brother Teddy running for president after both John and Robert had been dispatched and Teddy himself had somehow survived "accidents" by airplane and automobile.

In the case of Teddy, of course, it's possible that by the time he came into the world, the Kennedy family quota on intelligence had simply been used up.

Edited October 24, 2005 by Ron Ecker

[Lynne Foster]

Lynn:

I don't know who you are. Your bio is not at all revealing. Have you bothered to read anything Garrison ever wrote such as " A Heritage of Stone", or better yet "On the Trial os the Assassins".? You clearly have not read the latter book or you would have realized that Stone's film is in many parts verbatim of this work. (Stone read this book and was just blown away and decided to turn this work into a film).

Your own bias against and lack of knowledge about the man you are condemning here speaks volumes.

Very easy to just parrot some "trash Garrison" article.

Noone here thinks RFK killed JFK, nor did Garrison think this.

Dawn

Hi Dawn. If I had read those 2 books alone, I too would agree with you. It is Jim Garrison who publicly blamed RFK for the assassination.

I think most of the KA critics ultimately reached the conclusion that Garrison was just a 'circus act'. There is no doubt that he knew a great deal about the Kennedy assassination because he studied all the work of the critics, but why did he simultaneously levy absurd charges?

Of course Garrison did not think that RFK was involved, and that's what makes his charges so transparent. He wasn't trying to expose the truth, he was trying to be the circus ringleader, and he did an excellent job.

Read the 'Garrison Report' at the beginning of this thread again, I think it is very factual.

If 'On the Trail of the Assassins' was conclusive, we wouldn't be debating here.

[Mark Stapleton]

Lynn:

I don't know who you are. Your bio is not at all revealing. Have you bothered to read anything Garrison ever wrote such as " A Heritage of Stone", or better yet "On the Trial os the Assassins".? You clearly have not read the latter book or you would have realized that Stone's film is in many parts verbatim of this work. (Stone read this book and was just blown away and decided to turn this work into a film).

Your own bias against and lack of knowledge about the man you are condemning here speaks volumes.

Very easy to just parrot some "trash Garrison" article.

Noone here thinks RFK killed JFK, nor did Garrison think this.

Dawn

Hi Dawn. If I had read those 2 books alone, I too would agree with you. It is Jim Garrison who publicly blamed RFK for the assassination.

I think most of the KA critics ultimately reached the conclusion that Garrison was just a 'circus act'. There is no doubt that he knew a great deal about the Kennedy assassination because he studied all the work of the critics, but why did he simultaneously levy absurd charges?

Of course Garrison did not think that RFK was involved, and that's what makes his charges so transparent. He wasn't trying to expose the truth, he was trying to be the circus ringleader, and he did an excellent job.

Read the 'Garrison Report' at the beginning of this thread again, I think it is very factual.

If 'On the Trail of the Assassins' was conclusive, we wouldn't be debating here.

Lynne,

Surely you jest.

[Mark Stapleton]

Does anybody on this forum blame RFK for the assassination of his own brother?

I love what RFK stood for at the end of his life and consider his assassination as significantly damaging to the nation's spirit as that of the President. I would certainly not apply the word "blame" to RFK's possible inadvertant contribution to the wrong elements. Nevertheless, I believe the following is worthy of consideration.

The day after his brother's murder, Bobby Kennedy sought answers from Harry Ruiz-Williams, a CIA agent staying at a CIA-operated safe house used by Cuban exiles. Afterward, speaking with journalist Haynes Johnson, Bobby said that he "suspected CIA-backed anti-Castro forces of having been involved in his brother's death." He was later quoted as telling one of the investigators from his Senate committee days: "Those Cuban cunts are all working for the mob. They blame us for the Bay of Pigs, and they're trying to make this look like a Castro-Communist hit. I don't buy it. And I don't trust those guys at the CIA. They're worse than the Mafia."[1]

Of course, Bobby knew better than anyone what had transpired beneath the surface of the administration's use of the exiles. More personally, he knew the dark side of his own role in the unleashing of elements he now considered responsible for his brother's death. Many of those close to Bobby who saw in him a classic case of survivor's guilt were unaware that a much deeper level of responsibility may have informed his anguish.

Bobby had personally entertained Cuban exiles at his house, Hickory Hill, and kept in touch with them at their apartments at the Ebbitt Hotel in downtown Washington, where they were housed by the CIA. Even Desmond FitzGerald, Bobby's replacement for Wild Bill Harvey, was concerned about the directness of Bobby's involvement with the Cuban exiles. The Attorney General's freelancing with the the Cuban exile community was a formula for disaster. Peter Collier and David Horowitz have written poignantly about Bobby's anguish over what may have been an unintended consequence of his own actions:

"It was Bobby who had led the administration into dangerous places, daring the gods of the underworld and seizing the fire that finally erupted into anti-Kennedy hatred. He had done it in the service of his brother's presidency, yet he had gone past duty or necessity, using his special status as the brother within to justify what had become at times an almost perverse exploration of self. While Jack was alive, everything was justified; now that he was dead, it was all called into question. Had his acts created an environment for assassination? Had his zeal helped create the concatenation of forces that wanted Jack dead?"[2]

Four years after the assassination of the President, the CIA Inspector General conducted an internal investigation which was forwarded to Lyndon Johnson, who told newsman Howard K. Smith: "I'll tell you something that will rock you; Kennedy was trying to get Castro, but Castro got to him first."[3] In March 1967, columnist Drew Pearson wrote, "President Johnson is sitting on a political H-bomb-an unconfirmed report that Senator Robert Kennedy (Dem. N.Y.) may have approved an assassination plot which then possibly backfired against his brother."

The source for the Pearson article was the original mafioso hired by the CIA to kill Castro, Johnny Roselli. The spin being placed on this new round of stories was, like the Oswald promotion, aimed at leading the public to believe that Castro was behind the conspiracy in Dallas. Roselli had revealed to Pearson, through his attorney, Edward Morgan, that "One of our assassination teams was captured and tortured until they told all they knew about our operation which they said was ordered by the White House." Roselli asserted that "the team was turned around, you know, brainwashed, and sent back into our country to kill Kennedy."

All good lies contain a good measure of truth, and such may be the case with Roselli's attempt at history-making. Although this colorful rendition is compelling, given the source, it should be recognized that contained in this version is the admission that it was an anti-Castro hit team that had killed Kennedy. But this secret "team" would hardly have required anything so exotic as brainwashing to retarget its skills against the President. By November of 1963, Kennedy was clearly a foe to the extreme anti-Castro elements; they believed he had cancelled the airstrikes and betrayed the Bay of Pigs operation, then compounded the betrayal by giving the no-invasion pledge, and finally sealed the antipathy by shutting down the exile camps and beginning negotiations directed toward the normalization of relations with Cuba.

When Roselli's well-connected lawyer asked him how he had contained such explosive information, Roselli noted that "all phases of this operation were approved by Allen Dulles and President Eisenhower." He questioned why neither Dulles, who was a member of the Warren Commission investigating the Kennedy assassination, nor Eisenhower, who had full knowledge of the plots, ever came forward. "So what was I supposed to think?" He inferred that the President "wanted to keep the lid on." Roselli speculated that perhaps Johnson "thought it'd be bad for the country to know about this operation-you know, the government of the United States involved with the so-called Mafia to kill the leader of a foreign country and then it boomerangs."[4]

A possibility that may never be resolved is Johnson's notion that some action taken by Bobby Kennedy "backfired against his brother." There is ample evidence of Bobby's continued encouragement of anti-Castro efforts during a period of time when his brother, the President of the United States, was pursuing a very contrary policy.

Because of the closeness of the brothers it is generally assumed that Bobby was fulfilling one aspect of a multi-track approach on the part of the Administration. While it is understandable that some token support for the exiles might be considered prudent as a way of co-opting more radical elements, the extent to which one approach represented the direct undermining of the other presents a historical conundrum regarding the brothers' coordination of authority. The possibility must be considered that Bobby crossed the line of plausible deniability into a realm in which he was acting in his own highly unofficial capacity apart from any directed intention on the part of the President, and that something that occurred in Dallas required Bobby's acquiescence to the cover-up.

1. David C. Heymann, RFK. New York: Penguin Putnam Inc., 1998), 10.

2. Peter Collier and David Horowitz, The Kennedys, (New York: Summit Books, 1984), 317.

3. New York Times, June 25, 1976.

4. Ovid Demaris, The Last Mafioso. New York: Bantam Books, 1981), 235-241.

Tim,

The idea that JFK was murdered due to the overzealous activities of his brother has been raised on the Forum before. While there may be evidence indicating Bobby sometimes acted beyond the scope of his vested authority, the argument that Bobby's activities caused his brother's death is heavily outweighed by the evidence supporting the more obvious argument that it was Jack Kennedy's actions which caused his own assassination, IMO.

The nuclear test ban treaty, rapprochement with Cuba, plans to circumvent the Federal Reserve, plans to scrap the oil depletion allowance, his planned timetable for the removal of personnel from Vietnam, his unfavorable disposition towards the CIA post BOP and lastly, the extremely unlucky position he occupied* are far more persuasive reasons for his assassination than Bobby's alleged dealings with the underworld and anti-Castro Cubans.

The underworld generally doesn't kill those from the "other" world if it can help it, IMO. Too much trouble--publicity, investigations etc. It's bad for business. Of course, once a public official has been bribed he becomes an inhabitant of their world and the rules may then change in respect to that individual. If the US mafia was really as trigger happy as some suggest why didn't they murder Mayor LaGuardia and Tom Dewey back in the thirties? A Mayor and a DA would be easier targets than a President, IMO.

* I don't mean the unlucky position of being President, I mean the unlucky position of being the only person between LBJ and the Presidency.

Edited October 25, 2005 by Mark Stapleton

[Tim Carroll]

While there may be evidence indicating Bobby sometimes acted beyond the scope of his vested authority, the argument that Bobby's activities caused his brother's death is heavily outweighed by the evidence supporting the more obvious argument that it was Jack Kennedy's actions which caused his own assassination, IMO. The nuclear test ban treaty, rapprochement with Cuba, plans to circumvent the Federal Reserve, plans to scrap the oil depletion allowance, his planned timetable for the removal of personnel from Vietnam, his unfavorable disposition towards the CIA post BOP and lastly, the extremely unlucky position he occupied are far more persuasive reasons for his assassination than Bobby's alleged dealings with the underworld and anti-Castro Cubans.

I wouldn't want to be misunderstand on a semantical point about this. I couldn't agree more with the itemization above. The things I would add to the list are the acceleration of the Civil Rights movement and my old favorite: JFK's Secret Deal to dismantle U.S. missiles in Turkey and Italy to resolve the Missile Crisis. Right now it's 1 am and Seven Days In May is on TV. The movie reminds me that of the list of grievances against JFK's performance, the first listed, the nuclear test ban treaty, which was a pressing issue in that autumn of 1963, is often given too little weight.

JFK's presidency was obviously the target of the assassination, but the plausibly deniable operatives were of a distinctly anti-Castro disposition. It was in this area that RFK's almost hysterical support could have coopted him from pursuing his brother's killers. So it would not be my argument that "Bobby's activities caused his brother's death," it's my argument that his activities would have been useful to the cover-up if some connection existed implicating a close associate or endorsed program, such as Manuel Artime at Second Naval Guerilla or an Operation Northwoods plan gone awry.

Lastly, the NY Times' assertion (not mine) that "President Johnson is sitting on a political H-bomb-an unconfirmed report that Senator Robert Kennedy (Dem. N.Y.) may have approved an assassination plot which then possibly backfired against his brother," raises a critical point: the AM/LASH plot cannot be dismissed from a discussion of the Caribbean intentions of the Kennedy brothers and the ramifications thereof.

Tim