Jim Garrison and Oliver Stone

[Mark Stapleton]

Mark Stapleton wrote:

HaHa. So Tim, I am obliged to "refute the facts", am I ? What facts are these?

Mark, the "facts" are the "facts" alleged in the article that Lynne referenced that you summarily dismissed as "rubbish". And it may escape the sophistication of your mind, but not everything the CIA says is a lie.

And I do think if you call an article "rubbish" you have some obligation to defend your position. The article contains numerous facts that, if true, are fairly damning to Garrison. So far you have refuted not a single such fact.

Tim wrote, "the article contains numerous facts that, if true, are fairly damaging to Garrison."

Tim, how can an allegation be called a "fact" before its truth or otherwise is ascertained? Sheesh.

Anyway, I asked you in an earlier post to provide evidence to support the claim that Garrison met Roselli. Lynne's article didn't provide any. Merely stating that, "according to the CIA" isn't really proof, is it?

The list of instances where you have been asked a reasonable question by a Forum member and failed to provide an answer is growing with each passing day. What shall I do with this one? File it with all the others?

[Tim Gratz]

Larry's post was excellent. He raises a good point: Why would the CIA lie to itself?

But anyone interested in the best refutations to all of the anti-Garrison points raised in the article should read Professor Mellen's "A Farewell to Justice", due out in about two weeks.

Edited October 28, 2005 by Tim Gratz

[Pat Speer]

Of course the background for all this is that this is the same period in which

Roselli took his little "team turned by Castro onto JFK" story to Warren, and

Warren took it to SS and FBI and they all ignored it. Roselli had to shop the

story through Davidson to his office mate Jack Anderson and Anderson then

wrote his little bombshell which put Johnson in motion. That certainly was not

a happy thing for the CIA and led eventually to the Church committee, a very

unhappy outcome for them.

As usual nothing is simple... Larry

Larry, after reading Maheu's, Rosselli's, and Morgan's Church Committee testimony, it was clear to me that the original story was leaked by Maheu to Morgan in order to get a government committee on wiretapping to back off. Over the next few months before the story's publication it's possible Anderson tracked down Rosselli and got the rest of it. But the original decision to leak came from Maheu.

I don't recall Davidson's involvement. Davidson was involved, however, in sending a warning to LBJ about Hugh McDonald's investigation. After McDonald paid him a visit asking questions about de Mohrenschildt, he immediately contacted Clyde Tolson in order to get word to Hoover to warn LBJ. Tolson, however, had some FBI men follow up on it and they consequently created a paper trail that was discovered by the HSCA. During the Dominican crisis in 65, there were a series of discussions between LBJ and Fortas about how best to handle the situation. During one they keep mentioning a "Davidson" who was to make contact with the new leaders hand-picked by Johnson. Michael Beschloss somehow concludes that Davidson was in fact Fortas, and that they were using a code name because Ladybird was within ear distance. As Irving Davidson was both Carlos Marcello's man in Washington and a former rep for Trujillo, I suspect that "Davidson" was really Davidson. His involvement might be indicative of the real objective of the Dominican Crisis. Haven't had time to follow up on it though.

[Pat Speer]

Tim, the Pearson article blaming Bobby for his brother's death was almost certainly planted by LBJ as a political reprisal for Bobby's coming out against the war. Pearson had sat on the story for months but only put it out the day after Bobby's speech. Pearson personally met with LBJ to discuss the Rosselli story, only it wasn't actually the Rosselli story, it was the Maheu story, per the Church Committee testimony of both Morgan and Rosselli. Should one doubt that Pearson would perform such hatchet-work on behalf of LBJ one should be aware that Pearson had a secret meeting planned at LBJ's ranch on the night of November 22nd, 1963, (per Pearson's Oral History at the LBJ Library. The purpose of the meeting? A brainstorming session on how to protect LBJ from the Bobby Baker scandal, Don Reynolds' testimony in particular. Pearson subsequently ran a series of articles attacking the credibility of Mr. Reynolds.

Lookat the opening line of the article: LBJ is sitting on an H-bomb... This is an obvious effort to distance LBJ from the leak. The timing of the article and the spin blaming Bobby was LBJ all the way.

Fascinating. I did not know about this meeting. However, I do know about the numerous phone-calls that LBJ made to journalists and politicians about the Don Reynolds problem. In fact, it has been noted that in the weeks following his arrival in the White House he was far more concerned about Reynolds than he was about Oswald. Understandably, given the testimony that Reynolds gave to the Senate Rules Committee on the day JFK was assassinated.

On 17th January, 1964, the Senate Rules Committee voted to release to the public Reynolds' secret testimony. LBJ responded by leaking information from Reynolds' FBI file to Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson. On 5th February, 1964, the Washington Post reported that Reynolds had lied about his academic success at West Point. The article also claimed that Reynolds had been a supporter of Joseph McCarthy and had accused business rivals of being secret members of the American Communist Party. It was also revealed that Reynolds had made anti-Semitic remarks while in Berlin in 1953.

A few weeks later the New York Times reported that LBJ had used information from secret government documents to smear Reynolds. It also reported that Johnson's officials had been applying pressure on the editors of newspapers not to print information that had been disclosed by Reynolds in front of the Senate Rules Committee. The story never took off but when the LBJ tapes were released, it was clear that the New York Times story was completely accurate.

What is also interesting is that in his book "Forty Years Against the Tide", Carl Curtis, who was one of those senators calling for a full investigation into the Don Reynolds affair, admitted that he and John Williams had been relying on leaks coming from Robert Kennedy.

Does anyone know what happened to Don Reynolds? I assume he must have had an accident in about 1964/65.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKreynoldsD.htm

John, I may have read too much into Pearson's words. He didn't specifically say why he was meeting Johnson. So that others can come to their own conclusion, here is the actual transcript.

Drew Pearson Oral History Interview 4-10-69. LBJ Library. Interviewer: Joe Frantz

F: Where were you on November 22, 1963, when the assassination occurred?

P: In Dallas.

F: Let's recount that, your day.

P. My day was not very important. I was in Dallas changing planes actually. I'd been invited by the Vice-President, Mr. Johnson, to go to the ranch that afternoon--or, no, I guess that evening, late late that evening. I was due to speak in San Marcos College--

F: Southwest Texas State.

P: That evening when I got to Austin to change planes it was--I was in Dallas I think probably at the time of the assassination, but I was at the airport and I didn't know about it. I caught my plane on and when I got into Austin I was notified of it. My speaking engagement, naturally, was cancelled immediately and I went to the hotel to write a special story about the assassination and do a special broadcast. I met there Rhea Howard of Wichita Falls, an old friend of Lyndon Johnson's, and an old friend of mine...I flew back to Wasington that night, got in around 2:00 o'clock in the morning with my daughter-in-law, who was Mrs. Johnson's secretary then, and became social secretary of the White House.

So, Pearson didn't say it was about Reynolds, but that remains my impression. Something about LBJ's scheduling a meeting with Pearson for late, late in the evening when the President was staying at his house. Anything else could have waited till they got back to Washington.

[Dawn Meredith]

The CIA create false information...gee I hd never thought of that....

And to smear Garrison....what a novel concept!!

And here I thought Garrison and the CIA were pals.

I have this book on order and I will carefully review her

research, but documentation from the CIA to "prove"

anything about Garrison will be given the credit it deserves (very little).

And whether or not Garrisn ever met someone from OC or not is really not relevent

to the issue of who killed JFK and why.

I am not interested in all these side issues.

LIke VInce Salandria called it, (quoted in FOnzi's Last investigation" ) "microanalysis" of the case.

Purvis and Lynn are welcome to their views, and I am alowed to profoundly disagree.

This is a debate, is it not?

Dawn

[Lynne Foster]

Thank you for the fact that Purvis and I are welcome to our views.

Moreover, since Purvis and I have reached the same conclusion, independent of each other, I think there is a scientific weight to the fact that our so-called "views" can be independently verified.

In my opinion, our views, where Jim Garrison is concerned, reflect the facts, and anybody who does not independently verify the same does not know anything about the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

So study the link on the first post in this thread very, very carefully, if you want to understand the truth about the assassination of John F. Kennedy, who was indicentally murdered because he vigorously opposed the Vietnam war to the point where he had scheduled the troop withdrawal that the Johnson Administration reversed.

[Mark Knight]

Initially, when the news of Garrison's investigation hit the media, I was intrigued. When Ferrie's name came out, I thought Garrison might be onto something. When I heard rumors that Garrison was getting stonewalled and having problems with the federal government in continuing his investigation, I was pretty damn sure he was onto something.

But by the time he brought Clay Shaw to trial, the show didn't match the hype. The evidence didn't lead where Garrison had initially implied that it would. Bottom line was, Garrison hadn't made the case that he'd sold the American people. For those of us who had, thru the media, bought our tickets, we thought we were due a refund.

I don't mean to imply that there was no value whatsoever to the Garrison investigation. But for him to go to trial with what appeared to be such a flimsy case, after the way Garrison had hyped it in the media, it was an immense letdown for those of us who'd had faith that, just maybe, the JFK assassination case would be broken wide open and the guilty brought to justice.

For those of you with business experience who are familiar with the customer satisfaction motto of "under-promise and over-deliver," Garrison did the exact opposite. And that is what was [is] so disappointing about the Garrison investigation. Or, in "redneck" terminology, "he let his alligator mouth overload his hummingbird ass."

[Lynne Foster]

Mark,

Everything you say makes good sense, but the real question is:

Why did "he let his alligator mouth overload his hummingbird ass"?

I think the answer is that he was deliberately trying to cover up the truth.

I think the trial was a circus because Jim Garrison wanted it to be a circus.

Remember, it's never the crime that exposes these fraud artists, it's the cover up -why do

you think Libby is currently facing perjury charges?

The only difference between Jim Garrison and Libby is the fact that Jim Garrison controlled the Grand Jury.

Sure, Garrison did not formally work for the Johnson Administration, but his actions speak louder than his words.

Edited October 29, 2005 by Lynne Foster

[Mark Stapleton]

Initially, when the news of Garrison's investigation hit the media, I was intrigued. When Ferrie's name came out, I thought Garrison might be onto something. When I heard rumors that Garrison was getting stonewalled and having problems with the federal government in continuing his investigation, I was pretty damn sure he was onto something.

But by the time he brought Clay Shaw to trial, the show didn't match the hype. The evidence didn't lead where Garrison had initially implied that it would. Bottom line was, Garrison hadn't made the case that he'd sold the American people. For those of us who had, thru the media, bought our tickets, we thought we were due a refund.

I don't mean to imply that there was no value whatsoever to the Garrison investigation. But for him to go to trial with what appeared to be such a flimsy case, after the way Garrison had hyped it in the media, it was an immense letdown for those of us who'd had faith that, just maybe, the JFK assassination case would be broken wide open and the guilty brought to justice.

For those of you with business experience who are familiar with the customer satisfaction motto of "under-promise and over-deliver," Garrison did the exact opposite. And that is what was [is] so disappointing about the Garrison investigation. Or, in "redneck" terminology, "he let his alligator mouth overload his hummingbird ass."

I think it's a bit of a tough call on Garrison. I don't want to sound like a rabid defender of his and Lynne Foster and Tom Purvis obviously don't like him.

However, his trial was hamstrung by bureaucratic scrutiny and interference from the start, Washington, the CIA and sections of the media being the main offenders. By all accounts, he was accorded little sympathy by Johnny Carson when he appeared on the Tonight Show. Also, Ferrie was murdered and one of his witnesses changed his story after being sworn in (I can't recall his name). Overall, he didn't have a smooth run and apparently the trial judge wasn't favorably disposed to his case either. I'm only going on the book and the film JFK on this last point so I stand to be corrected.

He was obviously a self publicist but it must be remembered that he was elected, making him a politician as well as DA. His alligator mouth might have raised unrealistically high expectations of closure but it also drew attention to the fact that there was something very wrong about the WC. For this he deserves credit.

[Owen Parsons]

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?

To answer your rhetorical question, no, that article is not, in fact, the truth about Jim Garrison. I will now proceed to lay out why it is not the truth.

I would like to start off by noting the author's contention that "ronically, it was not the CIA... which was responsible for the Kennedy assassination cover up." This strikes me as frankly bizarre. It was not the FBI or Lyndon Johnson who engineered the Oswald-in-Mexico-City deception, but our friends at the CIA. This should be kept in mind as we continue.

I pass over the CIA's allegation that Jim Garrison was in contact with Johnny Roselli, which hardly deserves credence (Larry Hancock, who apparently has access to Joan Mellen's book, has stated in this thread that the story at first was that Garrison met with the CIA's own Robert Maheu), to address the seemingly more credible but no less false allegations of mob ties. Garrison was not "the most loyal Mafia ally imaginable." I quote here from Bill Davy's book, Let Justice Be Done, pages 154-155, "One has only to look at the New Orleans Times-Picayune of the day [Note: during Jim Garrison's "war on French Quarter vice"] to see through this charge. Garrison gave the green light to padlocking at least four Marcello connected bars: The Flamingo, The Old French Opera House, The 500 Club and The Sho-Bar. In the case of the Flamingo, Garrison sought to close that bar down for a year and directed his Assistant D.A., Denis A. Barry, to prove in court that the owner, Frank Sinopoli, was only a front for Marcello." Additionally, Garrison did look into Mafia connections during his assassination probe. Davy quotes from a four page memo Jim Garrison wrote to his staff in December 1967, titled, "Organized Crime Aspects of the Assassination": "It cannot be denied, for example, that there is evidence which appears to indicate some involvement of individuals who seem to have organized crime connections. Furthermore, we cannot arbitrarily assume that, even if the militant right wing factor continues to develop effectively, involvement of organized crime elements may not be an additional factor as a product of joint interest." (Davy 155) In addition to this, why would Garrison go after Ferrie, who was tied in with Marcello? I could cite many more example of Garrison's lack of connection to the mob and Marcello specifically, but this should be enough.

Next, the author implies that the only evidence that Garrison really had against Clay Shaw were the items seized from Clay Shaw's residence. This ignores the testimony of Perry Russo, Vernon Bundy, the Clinton Witnesses, Clay Shaw's booking card, and much else.

Yes, Garrison did indeed state that he has great respect for the FBI, understandable as he had once worked for them, but this is not the full story. For instance, Garrison brought William Walter's information (which certainly doesn't make the FBI look good in regards to the assassination) to light in his appearance on the Johnny Carson show (this was rebroadcast on Black Op Radio and can be accessed at http://www.blackopradio.com/inc_archives2005.html, go down to show #214). This also ignores the concentrated efforts on the part of the FBI to subvert Garrison's investigation. As an example, Joan Mellen quotes from an FBI document wherein J. Edgar Hoover directs his field agents to "Give Garrison Nothing!" (this can be found on the front page of Joan Mellen's website, http://www.joanmellen.net). Of course, this hardly fits with the author's contention that Garrison conducted his investigation on behalf of the FBI for the purposes of obfuscation. For the second time in the article we find the author exonerating the CIA from blame.

The author quotes Jim Garrison's statements regarding the lack of involvement of Lyndon Johnson, but leaves out the more famous part of those comments, namely, "[Who is] the one man who has profitted most from the assassination-your friendly president Lyndon Johnson." Garrison made this statement to show what sort of conclusions could be drawn since the files were sealed, which he was advocating opening. If Lyndon Johnson was actually guilty of JFK's murder, as the author contends, Jim Garrison's advocation of the opening of the files could hardly help him in any case.

The author next quotes convict Miguel Torres regarding alleged criminality on Garrison's behalf. What the author of this little essay does not inform the reader is that after Torres made these allegations on NBC's fraudulent white paper, he refused to repeat these charges before the Orleans Parish Grand Jury. He was subsequently cited for contempt of court and had his prison sentence extended. His grand jury appearance can be read here: http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/garr...orres_0001a.htm. Garrison commented on him, as well as another giver of false testimony, John Cancler, in his famous Playboy interview as follows, "Of course, these two convicts have been used against my office in a variety of respects. Miguel Torres also claims I offered him a full pardon, a vacation in Florida and an ounce of heroin if he would testify that Clay Shaw had made homosexual overtures to him on the street. What on earth that would have established relevant to this case I still don't know, but that's his story. I think it was actually rather cheap of me to offer Torres only an ounce of heroin; that wouldn't have lasted out his vacation. A kilo would be more like it. After all, I'm not stingy. Torres' friend John Cancler, a burglar, has also charged that one of my investigators tried to induce him to burglarize Clay Shaw's house and plant false evidence there, but he refused because he would not have such a heinous sin on his conscience. I suppose that's why Cancler's prison nickname is 'John the Baptist.' I can assure you, if we ever wanted to burglarize Shaw's home --- which we never did --- John the Baptist would be the last man on earth we'd pick for the job. By the way, Mr. Cancler was called before the grand jury and asked if he had told the truth to NBC. He replied; 'I refuse to answer on the grounds that my answer might incriminate me' --- and was promptly sentenced to six months in prison and a $500 fine for contempt of court" (http://www.jfklancer.com/Garrison2.html).

Next under the author's cosshairs is Garrison's chief witness, Perry Raymond Russo. "Under repeated cross- examination," Russo did not "basically admitted the fact that he did not know anything about the Kennedy assassination" and that "he disseminated rehearsed lies." This can be easily verified by reading his trial testimony. The author makes it seem as though Russo was approached by Garrison to give false testimony when, in fact, Russo approached Garrison with his testimony first. As for the "demanding press that essentially exposed the fact that his testimony was not genuine," that was one James Phelan, an FBI informant [the documents are reproduced here: http://www.realhistoryarchives.com/media/phelan.htm]. Again, this undercuts the author's charge that the FBI was behind Garrison probe. As for Phelan's charges, Lisa Pease rebuts them at http://www.realhistoryarchives.com/collect.../jfk/russo3.htm and http://www.realhistoryarchives.com/collect.../jfk/russo4.htm. Davy and Jim DiEugenio also rebut these charges in their respective books, and soon Joan Mellen will do the same to an even greater extent, if her Taking Aim interview is anything to go on. Also of interest is this interview with Russo: http://www.redshift.com/~damason/lhreport/...cles/perry.html. As for the allegation that former CIA/NSA "newsman" Walter Sheridan trying to bribe Russo is "absurd", well, it really isn't. Russo made out an affidavit to this fact (as did many other witnesses, ie Fred Leemans and Marlene Mancuso, who Sheridan and his buddy Richard Townley attempted to bribe).

Regarding William Gurvich, he was an infiltrator who pilfered many of Garrison's files and turned them over to the defense team (there were no discovery laws in La. at the time). He said he had no confidence in Garrison's investigation, despite many statements to the press to the contrary prior to his defection. Read his Grand Jury testimony for a laugh here http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/garr...rvich_0001a.htm and here http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/garr...vich2_0001a.htm. He is unable to substantiate any of his charges of illegal acts on Garrison's part.. An example: "Q: You don't know the names of the 2 members of the staff who did illegal acts that you were referring to in your telecast? A: I am sure I can think of them. Q: Well would you please think of them now and give us the names? A: Well, if you will continue I will think while you talk" (page 62 of the 1st transcript). Later, "Q: Did 2 members of Garrison's staff perform illegal acts on his orders? A: I don't remember - I am having trouble with that - Q: Do you know? Is the answer yes, no, or I don't know? A: I don't remember" (page 72 of the 1st transcript). And again, "Q: Give us one fact, you are supposed to be an investigator. You have not given us one single fact. I am trying to lay it on the line. You go around and say what all these people are saying - that is unimportant. I think every one of the Jury are thinking what I am telling you and I think I am speaking for all of them when I say you don't have nothing. You haven't given us one thing to go on. A: Well, they are entitled to their opinion and I am entitled to mine. Of course I did not expect you to act on this, but I thought they were serious things" (p. 86.1).

Garrison did not charge RFK with being behind the assassination of his brother, but rather obstructing his investigation. This doesn't seem all that unlikely as Walter Sheridan was RFK's right hand man in his war against Hoffa. During Sheridan's all-out assault on Garrison's investigation, RFK vouched for his integrity. More on Sheridan and his NBC white paper can be found in "'Shoot Him Down' NBC, the CIA and Jim Garrison" by Bill Davy, which is a very condensed version of his chapter in Let Justice Be Done, minus the footnotes, on the media assault on Garrison (the link is here: http://www.abclies.net/nbc_cia.html).

Particularly laughable is this passage, "On March 2nd, shortly after Garrison arrested Shaw, Attorney General Ramsey Clark indicated that Shaw had been investigated and cleared of any connection to the assassination. But on June 2nd, the Justice Department, obviously on the prodding of J. Edgar Hoover, indicated that Clay Shaw had never been investigated. In other words, despite the Warren Commission investigation, Justice Department Czar J. Edgar Hoover was giving Jim Garrison the official green light to "investigate" the Kennedy assassination." This is a half-truth at best. The unusual thing was that prior to Ramsey Clark's statement, officially Clay Shaw had never been investigated by the FBI (Clark did not say it was the Warren Commission who investigated Shaw, as the article falsely states). Ramsey Clark stated that not only had Clay Shaw been cleared by this investigation, but that, in fact, he and Clay Bertrand were one and the same (Clay Bertrand is the person who called attorney Dean Andrews to represent Oswald prior to his being shot by Ruby and who Garrison had charge with being an alias of Clay Shaw's). The Justice Department subsequently confirmed this. The New York Times of March 3, 1967: "A Justice Department official said tonight that his agency was convinced that Mr. Bertrand and Mr. Shaw were the same man, and that this was the basis for Mr. Clark's assertions this morning." Once it had been realized what kind of blunder had been made, it was retracted. Billy Davy, in his book, quotes from a memo by Cartha DeLoach to Clyde Tolson on March 2, 1967, "The AG then asked whether the FBI knew anything about Shaw. I told him Shaw's name had come up in our investigation in December, 1963 as a result of several parties furnishing information concerning Shaw." Hoover himself signed off on the memo as follows, "I hope a.g. isn't going to peddle this information we send him. H." (Davy 170) Well, this pretty much undercuts the article's assertions, doesn't it? In fact, it shows them to be the reverse. Number three man in the FBI Cartha DeLoach gave this information to Ramsey Clark. He recounted this to Clyde Tolson, Hoover's no. 2. Hoover, understanding what Cartha had done, hopes that Clark doesn't "peddle" the information he has recieved. When he did, he is made to recant, thus undercutting any help Clark's statements might have inadvertantly given Garrison. The intention of Clark's statements had been to help Shaw by clearing him, and the FBI had him withdraw them because they actually helped Garrison and violated the official history.

Next, it is recounted how Garrison had made comments about possible "racketeering influences of our eight vacationing judges." The reader is not told that these comments came about because the judges refused to fund his organized crime investigations (Paris Flammonde, The Kennedy Conspiracy, page 9 - this is still a very good book with an immense amount of detail and information despite its age). Again, isn't Garrison supposed to be flacking for the mob? Subsequently he had his right to criticize the judges upheld in the Supreme Court. Does anything more really need to be said about this incident?

As for the conflict between Garrison and Police Chief Giarrusso, Mellen notes in Black Op Radio #144 (not currently accessible) that Giarrusso was the one who actually took the bribes that the federal government brought Garrison to court over (and of which he was subsequently acquited). Despite their not being on good terms, Giarrusso investigated and cleared Garrison's Assistant D.A.'s of bribery charges brought against them and also cleared Officer Habighorst (who took Clay Shaw's booking card, wherein Shaw gave Clay Bertrand as an alias) of any misconduct (Paris Flammonde, The Kennedy Conspiracy, pages 245 and 298).

Aaron Kohn. Aaron Kohn and Garrison were once on good terms, but had a falling out after Kohn recklessly charged that Garrison and Governor McKeithen were under the mob's influence (he contended that the aforementioned stripper, Linda Brigette, was Marcello connected). He resurfaced with more unsubstantiated allegations of Garrison's mob connections after Garrison's probe went public. It was at this point that he was called before the Grand Jury. I quote Davy here, "When one of the executives of Kohn's Crime Commission appeared before the Grand Jury, he admitted, 'No, we have nothing, we have no evidence to present before the Grand Jury'" (Davy 158). Kohn was not squashed by the Grand Jury, he simply didn't present any evidence, as Garrison said.

As for perjury charges against Kerry Thornley, these were accurate. Thornley denied having any contact with Oswald while both were in New Orleans. As Jim DiEugenio and Bill Davy note, "Garrison had no less than eight witnesses who said they had seen Oswald and Thornley together in New Orleans in 1963. And some of them went beyond just noting the association between the two. Two of these witnesses, Bernard Goldsmith and Doris Dowell, both said that Thornley told them Oswald was not a communist. This is amazing since, as noted earlier, the Warren Commission featured Thornley as its key witness to Oswald's alleged commie sympathies" (http://www.webcom.com/ctka/pr599-lambert.html).

Next, we come to a charge that is totally false. Garrison did not, ever, have a witness who claimed to be Julius Ceasar and wore a toga. This claim originates with Robert Sam Anson, who wrote that this alleged witness appeared in court and testified to that effect (Jim DiEugenio, Destiny Betrayed, page 370, note 101). Just take a look through the trial transcripts. You will find absolutely nothing like this. I repeat, this charge is a 100% fabrication. We are told of "psychiatric patients who offered hypnotically induced testimony." Garrison did not have witnesses who were psychiatric patients. The only witness who underwent hypnosis was Perry Russo, and he told Garrison's investigators his story before the hypnosis sessions. The hypnosis was to verify Russo's conscious recollections, one of the "independent verifying tests, including polygraph examination, truth serum and hypnosis," as Garrison stated in his Playboy interview. "We thought this would be hailed as an unprecedented step in jurisprudence; instead, the press turned around and hinted that we had drugged our witnesses or given them posthypnotic suggestions to testify falsely."

Lastly, the author says that "when Garrison was arrested on bribery and tax evasion charges, he claimed that the American government had framed him because it did not want him to continue to investigate the assassination of John F. Kennedy." The reader is given only half the story. Garrison was acquitted and the Federal Government did, in fact, attempt to frame him. Peter Whitmey wrote a good, lengthy article about this scheme, "Pershing Gervais and the Attempt to Frame Jim Garrison" (it can be read here: http://karws.gso.uri.edu/JFK/the_critics/W...ey/Gervais.html).

So, in all, there is really nothing to the article but smoke and mirrors, falsehoods and half-truths. The article contains "factual assertions," as Tim Gratz puts it, only in that these charges were made against Garrison. That is, indeed, factual. What are not factual are the charges themselves and the way in which the author spins things, such as Ramsey Clark's comments to the press, which can only be described as deceptive. In addition, two blatantly false charges are made ("Julius Caesar" and alleged hypnotically induced testimony provided by psychiatric patients). The article is, indeed, "rubbish."

I also note that I have independently come to the same conclusions as Dawn Meredith. So now it is two-to-two, and by your logic, I (and Dawn Meredith) know just as much about JFK's assassination as you and Thomas Purvis. Not that there is any scientific weight whatsoever to that contention.

edit: cleaned post up and corrected chronology re: Kohn

Edited November 5, 2005 by Owen Parsons

[John Dolva]

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?

To answer your rhetorical question, no, that article is not, in fact, the truth about Jim Garrison. I will now proceed to lay out why it is not the truth.

I would like to start off by noting the author's contention that "ronically, it was not the CIA... which was responsible for the Kennedy assassination cover up." This strikes me as frankly bizarre. It was not the FBI or Lyndon Johnson who engineered the Oswald-in-Mexico-City deception, but our friends at the CIA. This should be kept in mind as we continue.

I pass over the CIA's allegation that Jim Garrison was in contact with Johnny Roselli, which hardly deserves credence (Larry Hancock, who apparently has access to Joan Mellen's book, has stated in this thread that the story at first was that Garrison met with the CIA's own Robert Maheu and that Counter-Intelligence decieving Plans is perhaps not so unusual), to address the seemingly more credible but no less false allegations of mob ties. Garrison was not "the most loyal Mafia ally imaginable." I quote here from Bill Davy's book, Let Justice Be Done, pages 154-155, "One has only to look at the New Orleans Times-Picayune of the day [Note: during Jim Garrison's "war on French Quarter vice"] to see through this charge. Garrison gave the green light to padlocking at least four Marcello connected bars: The Flamingo, The Old French Opera House, The 500 Club and The Sho-Bar. In the case of the Flamingo, Garrison sought to close that bar down for a year and directed his Assistant D.A., Denis A. Barry, to prove in court that the owner, Frank Sinopoli, was only a front for Marcello." Additionally, Garrison did look into Mafia connections during his assassination probe. Davy quotes from a four page memo Jim Garrison wrote to his staff in December 1967, titled, "Organized Crime Aspects of the Assassination": "It cannot be denied, for example, that there is evidence which appears to indicate some involvement of individuals who seem to have organized crime connections. Furthermore, we cannot arbitrarily assume that, even if the militant right wing factor continues to develop effectively, involvement of organized crime elements may not be an additional factor as a product of joint interest." (Davy 155) In addition to this, why would Garrison go after Ferrie, who was tied in with Marcello? I could cite many more example of Garrison's lack of connection to the mob and Marcello specifically, but this should be enough.

Next, the author implies that the only evidence that Garrison really had against Clay Shaw were the items seized from Clay Shaw's residence. This ignores the testimony of Perry Russo, Vernon Bundy, the Clinton Witnesses, Clay Shaw's booking card, and much else.

Yes, Garrison did indeed state that he has great respect for the FBI, understandable as he had once worked for them, but this is not the full story. For instance, Garrison brought William Walter's information (which certainly doesn't make the FBI look good in regards to the assassination) to light in his appearance on the Johnny Carson show (this was rebroadcast on Black Op Radio and can be accessed at http://www.blackopradio.com/inc_archives2005.html, go down to show #214). This also ignores the concentrated efforts on the part of the FBI to subvert Garrison's investigation. As an example, Joan Mellen quotes from an FBI document wherein J. Edgar Hoover directs his field agents to "Give Garrison Nothing!" (this can be found on the front page of Joan Mellen's website, http://www.joanmellen.net). Of course, this hardly fits with the author's contention that Garrison conducted his investigation on behalf of the FBI for the purposes of obfuscation. For the second time in the article we find the author exonerating the CIA from blame.

The author quotes Jim Garrison's statements regarding the lack of involvement of Lyndon Johnson, but leaves out the more famous part of those comments, namely, "[Who is] the one man who has profitted most from the assassination-your friendly president Lyndon Johnson." Garrison made this statement to show what sort of conclusions could be drawn since the files were sealed, which he was advocating opening. If Lyndon Johnson was actually guilty of JFK's murder, as the author contends, Jim Garrison's advocation of the opening of the files could hardly help him in any case.

The author next quotes convict Miguel Torres regarding alleged criminality on Garrison's behalf. What the author of this little essay does not inform the reader is that after Torres made these allegations on NBC's fraudulent white paper, he refused to repeat these charges before the Orleans Parish Grand Jury. He was subsequently cited for contempt of court and had his prison sentence extended. His grand jury appearance can be read here: http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/garr...orres_0001a.htm. Garrison commented on him, as well as another giver of false testimony, John Cancler, in his famous Playboy interview as follows, "Of course, these two convicts have been used against my office in a variety of respects. Miguel Torres also claims I offered him a full pardon, a vacation in Florida and an ounce of heroin if he would testify that Clay Shaw had made homosexual overtures to him on the street. What on earth that would have established relevant to this case I still don't know, but that's his story. I think it was actually rather cheap of me to offer Torres only an ounce of heroin; that wouldn't have lasted out his vacation. A kilo would be more like it. After all, I'm not stingy. Torres' friend John Cancler, a burglar, has also charged that one of my investigators tried to induce him to burglarize Clay Shaw's house and plant false evidence there, but he refused because he would not have such a heinous sin on his conscience. I suppose that's why Cancler's prison nickname is 'John the Baptist.' I can assure you, if we ever wanted to burglarize Shaw's home --- which we never did --- John the Baptist would be the last man on earth we'd pick for the job. By the way, Mr. Cancler was called before the grand jury and asked if he had told the truth to NBC. He replied; 'I refuse to answer on the grounds that my answer might incriminate me' --- and was promptly sentenced to six months in prison and a $500 fine for contempt of court" (http://www.jfklancer.com/Garrison2.html).

Next under the author's cosshairs is Garrison's chief witness, Perry Raymond Russo. "Under repeated cross- examination," Russo did not "basically admitted the fact that he did not know anything about the Kennedy assassination" and that "he disseminated rehearsed lies." This can be easily verified by reading his trial testimony. The author makes it seem as though Russo was approached by Garrison to give false testimony when, in fact, Russo approached Garrison with his testimony first. As for the "demanding press that essentially exposed the fact that his testimony was not genuine," that was one James Phelan, an FBI informant [the documents are reproduced here: http://www.realhistoryarchives.com/media/phelan.htm]. Again, this undercuts the author's charge that the FBI was behind Garrison probe. As for Phelan's charges, Lisa Pease rebuts them at http://www.realhistoryarchives.com/collect.../jfk/russo3.htm and http://www.realhistoryarchives.com/collect.../jfk/russo4.htm. Davy and Jim DiEugenio also rebut these charges in their respective books, and soon Joan Mellen will do the same to an even greater extent, if her Taking Aim interview is anything to go on. Also of interest is this interview with Russo: http://www.redshift.com~damason/lhreport/articles/perry.html. As for the allegation that former CIA/NSA "newsman" Walter Sheridan trying to bribe Russo is "absurd", well, it really isn't. Russo made out an affidavit to this fact (as did many other witnesses, ie Fred Leeman and Marlene Mancuso, who Sheridan and his buddy Richard Townley attempted to bribe).

Regarding William Gurvich, he was an infiltrator who pilfered many of Garrison's files and turned them over to the defense team (there were no discovery laws in La. at the time). He said he had no confidence in Garrison's investigation, despite many statements to the press to the contrary prior to his defection. Read his Grand Jury testimony for a laugh here http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/garr...rvich_0001a.htm and here http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/garr...vich2_0001a.htm. He is unable to substantiate any of his charges of illegal acts on Garrison's part.. An example: "Q: You don't know the names of the 2 members of the staff who did illegal acts that you were referring to in your telecast? A: I am sure I can think of them. Q: Well would you please think of them now and give us the names? A: Well, if you will continue I will think while you talk" (page 62 of the 1st transcript). Later, "Q: Did 2 members of Garrison's staff perform illegal acts on his orders? A: I don't remember - I am having trouble with that - Q: Do you know? Is the answer yes, no, or I don't know? A: I don't remember" (page 72 of the 1st transcript). And again, "Q: Give us one fact, you are supposed to be an investigator. You have not given us one single fact. I am trying to lay it on the line. You go around and say what all these people are saying - that is unimportant. I think every one of the Jury are thinking what I am telling you and I think I am speaking for all of them when I say you don't have nothing. You haven't given us one thing to go on. A: Well, they are entitled to their opinion and I am entitle to mine. Of course I did not expect you to act on this, but I thought they were serious things" (p. 86.1).

Garrison did not charge RFK with being behind the assassination of his brother, but rather obstructing his investigation. This doesn't seem all that unlikely as Walter Sheridan was RFK's right hand man in his war against Hoffa. During Sheridan's all-out assault on Garrison's investigation, RFK vouched for his integrity. More on Sheridan and his NBC white paper can be found in "'Shoot Him Down' NBC, the CIA and Jim Garrison" by Bill Davy, which is a very condensed version of his chapter in Let Justice Be Done, minus the footnotes, on the media assault on Garrison (the link is here: http://www.abclies.net/nbc_cia.html).

Particularly laughable is this passage, "On March 2nd, shortly after Garrison arrested Shaw, Attorney General Ramsey Clark indicated that Shaw had been investigated and cleared of any connection to the assassination. But on June 2nd, the Justice Department, obviously on the prodding of J. Edgar Hoover, indicated that Clay Shaw had never been investigated. In other words, despite the Warren Commission investigation, Justice Department Czar J. Edgar Hoover was giving Jim Garrison the official green light to "investigate" the Kennedy assassination." This is a half-truth at best. The unusual thing was that prior to Ramsey Clark's statement, officially Clay Shaw had never been investigated by the FBI (Clark did not say it was the Warren Commission who investigated Shaw, as the article falsely states). Ramsey Clark stated that not only had Clay Shaw been cleared by this investigation, but that, in fact, he and Clay Bertrand were one and the same (Clay Bertrand is the person who called attorney Dean Andrews to represent Oswald prior to his being shot by Ruby and who Garrison had charge with being an alias of Clay Shaw's). The Justice Department subsequently confirmed this. The New York Times of March 3, 1967: "A Justice Department official said tonight that his agency was convinced that Mr. Bertrand and Mr. Shaw were the same man, and that this was the basis for Mr. Clark's assertions this morning." Once it had been realized what kind of blunder had been made, it was retracted. Billy Davy, in his book, quotes from a memo by Cartha DeLoach to Clyde Tolson on March 2, 1967, "The AG then asked whether the FBI knew anything about Shaw. I told him Shaw's name had come up in our investigation in December, 1963 as a result of several parties furnishing information concerning Shaw." Hoover himself signed off on the memo as follows, "I hope a.g. isn't going to peddle this information we send him. H." (Davy 170) Well, this pretty much undercuts the article's assertions, doesn't it? In fact, it shows them to be the reverse. Number three man in the FBI Cartha DeLoach gave this information to Ramsey Clark. He recounted this to Clyde Tolson, Hoover's no. 2. Hoover, understanding what Cartha had done, hopes that Clark doesn't "peddle" the information he has recieved. When he did, he is made to recant, thus undercutting any help Clark's statements might have inadvertantly given Garrison. The intention of Clark's statements had been to help Shaw by clearing him, and the FBI had him withdraw them because they actually helped Garrison and violated the official history.

Next, it is recounted how Garrison had made comments about possible "racketeering influences of our eight vacationing judges." The reader is not told that these comments came about because the judges refused to fund his organized crime investigations (Paris Flammonde, The Kennedy Conspiracy, page 9 - this is still a very good book with an immense amount of detail and information despite its age). Again, isn't Garrison supposed to be flacking for the mob? Subsequently he had his right to criticize the judges upheld in the Supreme Court. Does anything more really need to be said about this incident?

As for the conflict between Garrison and Police Chief Giarrusso, Mellen notes in Black Op Radio #144 (not currently accessible) that Giarrusso was the one who actually took the bribes that the federal government brought Garrison to court over (and of which he was subsequently acquited). Despite their not being on good terms, Giarrusso investigated and cleared Garrison's Assistant D.A.'s of bribery charges brought against them and also cleared Officer Habighorst (who took Clay Shaw's booking card, wherein Shaw gave Clay Bertrand as an alias) of any misconduct (Paris Flammonde, The Kennedy Conspiracy, pages 245 and 298).

Aaron Kohn. Aaron Kohn was brought before the Grand Jury to provide evidence that Garrison and Governor McKeithen were under the mob's influence, as he charged (he contended that the aforementioned stripper, Linda Brigette, was Marcello connected). I quote Davy here, "When one of the executives of Kohn's Crime Commission appeared before the Grand Jury, he admitted, 'No, we have nothing, we have no evidence to present before the Grand Jury'" (Davy 158). Kohn was not squashed by the Grand Jury, he simply didn't present any evidence, as Garrison said. Kohn subsequently resurfaced to make more unsubstantiated allegations of Garrison's mob connections after Garrison's probe was made public.

As for perjury charges against Kerry Thornley, these were accurate. Thornley denied having any contact with Oswald while both were in New Orleans. As Jim DiEugenio and Bill Davy note, "Garrison had no less than eight witnesses who said they had seen Oswald and Thornley together in New Orleans in 1963. And some of them went beyond just noting the association between the two. Two of these witnesses, Bernard Goldsmith and Doris Dowell, both said that Thornley told them Oswald was not a communist. This is amazing since, as noted earlier, the Warren Commission featured Thornley as its key witness to Oswald's alleged commie sympathies" (http://www.webcom.com/ctka/pr599-lambert.html).

Next, we come to a charge that is totally false. Garrison did not, ever, have a witness who claimed to be Julius Ceasar and wore a toga. This claim originates with Robert Sam Anson, who wrote that this alleged witness appeared in court and testified to that effect (Jim DiEugenio, Destiny Betrayed, page 370, note 101). Just take a look through the trial transcripts. You will find absolutely nothing like this. I repeat, this charge is a 100% fabrication. We are told of "psychiatric patients who offered hypnotically induced testimony." Garrison did not have witnesses who were psychiatric patients. The only witness who underwent hypnosis was Perry Russo, and he told Garrison's investigators his story before the hypnosis sessions. The hypnosis was to verify Russo's conscious recollections, one of the "independent verifying tests, including polygraph examination, truth serum and hypnosis," as Garrison stated in his Playboy interview. "We thought this would be hailed as an unprecedented step in jurisprudence; instead, the press turned around and hinted that we had drugged our witnesses or given them posthypnotic suggestions to testify falsely."

Lastly, the author says that "when Garrison was arrested on bribery and tax evasion charges, he claimed that the American government had framed him because it did not want him to continue to investigate the assassination of John F. Kennedy." The reader is given only half the story. Garrison was acquitted and the Federal Government did, in fact, attempt to frame him. Peter Whitmey wrote a good, lengthy article about this scheme, "Pershing Gervais and the Attempt to Frame Jim Garrison" (it can be read here: http://karws.gso.uri.edu/JFK/the_critics/W...ey/Gervais.html).

So, in all, there is really nothing to the article but smoke and mirrors, falsehoods and half-truths. The article contains "factual assertions," as Tim Gratz puts it, only in that these charges were made against Garrison. That is, indeed, factual. What are not factual are the charges themselves and the way in which the author spins things, such as Ramsey Clark's comments to the press, which can only be described as deceptive. In addition, two blatantly false charges are made ("Julius Caesar" and alleged hypnotically induced testimony provided by psychiatric patients). The article is, indeed, "rubbish."

I also note that I have independently come to the same conclusions as Dawn Meredith. So now it is two-to-two, and by your logic, I (and Dawn Meredith) know just as much about JFK's assassination as you and Thomas Purvis. Not that there is any scientific weight whatsoever to that contention.

Owen, is it possible to review the evidence that Jim may have overlooked, discounted (if any) or valued according to his FBI sympathies sans those sympathies in order to see what he may have missed?

A big ask of anyone, so what I mean is : does the evidence, transcripts etc exist as a 'body', accessible for review?

Edited October 30, 2005 by John Dolva

[Dawn Meredith]

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?

To answer your rhetorical question, no, that article is not, in fact, the truth about Jim Garrison. I will now proceed to lay out why it is not the truth.

I would like to start off by noting the author's contention that "ronically, it was not the CIA... which was responsible for the Kennedy assassination cover up." This strikes me as frankly bizarre. It was not the FBI or Lyndon Johnson who engineered the Oswald-in-Mexico-City deception, but our friends at the CIA. This should be kept in mind as we continue.

I pass over the CIA's allegation that Jim Garrison was in contact with Johnny Roselli, which hardly deserves credence (Larry Hancock, who apparently has access to Joan Mellen's book, has stated in this thread that the story at first was that Garrison met with the CIA's own Robert Maheu and that Counter-Intelligence decieving Plans is perhaps not so unusual), to address the seemingly more credible but no less false allegations of mob ties. Garrison was not "the most loyal Mafia ally imaginable." I quote here from Bill Davy's book, Let Justice Be Done, pages 154-155, "One has only to look at the New Orleans Times-Picayune of the day [Note: during Jim Garrison's "war on French Quarter vice"] to see through this charge. Garrison gave the green light to padlocking at least four Marcello connected bars: The Flamingo, The Old French Opera House, The 500 Club and The Sho-Bar. In the case of the Flamingo, Garrison sought to close that bar down for a year and directed his Assistant D.A., Denis A. Barry, to prove in court that the owner, Frank Sinopoli, was only a front for Marcello." Additionally, Garrison did look into Mafia connections during his assassination probe. Davy quotes from a four page memo Jim Garrison wrote to his staff in December 1967, titled, "Organized Crime Aspects of the Assassination": "It cannot be denied, for example, that there is evidence which appears to indicate some involvement of individuals who seem to have organized crime connections. Furthermore, we cannot arbitrarily assume that, even if the militant right wing factor continues to develop effectively, involvement of organized crime elements may not be an additional factor as a product of joint interest." (Davy 155) In addition to this, why would Garrison go after Ferrie, who was tied in with Marcello? I could cite many more example of Garrison's lack of connection to the mob and Marcello specifically, but this should be enough.

Next, the author implies that the only evidence that Garrison really had against Clay Shaw were the items seized from Clay Shaw's residence. This ignores the testimony of Perry Russo, Vernon Bundy, the Clinton Witnesses, Clay Shaw's booking card, and much else.

Yes, Garrison did indeed state that he has great respect for the FBI, understandable as he had once worked for them, but this is not the full story. For instance, Garrison brought William Walter's information (which certainly doesn't make the FBI look good in regards to the assassination) to light in his appearance on the Johnny Carson show (this was rebroadcast on Black Op Radio and can be accessed at http://www.blackopradio.com/inc_archives2005.html, go down to show #214). This also ignores the concentrated efforts on the part of the FBI to subvert Garrison's investigation. As an example, Joan Mellen quotes from an FBI document wherein J. Edgar Hoover directs his field agents to "Give Garrison Nothing!" (this can be found on the front page of Joan Mellen's website, http://www.joanmellen.net). Of course, this hardly fits with the author's contention that Garrison conducted his investigation on behalf of the FBI for the purposes of obfuscation. For the second time in the article we find the author exonerating the CIA from blame.

The author quotes Jim Garrison's statements regarding the lack of involvement of Lyndon Johnson, but leaves out the more famous part of those comments, namely, "[Who is] the one man who has profitted most from the assassination-your friendly president Lyndon Johnson." Garrison made this statement to show what sort of conclusions could be drawn since the files were sealed, which he was advocating opening. If Lyndon Johnson was actually guilty of JFK's murder, as the author contends, Jim Garrison's advocation of the opening of the files could hardly help him in any case.

The author next quotes convict Miguel Torres regarding alleged criminality on Garrison's behalf. What the author of this little essay does not inform the reader is that after Torres made these allegations on NBC's fraudulent white paper, he refused to repeat these charges before the Orleans Parish Grand Jury. He was subsequently cited for contempt of court and had his prison sentence extended. His grand jury appearance can be read here: http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/garr...orres_0001a.htm. Garrison commented on him, as well as another giver of false testimony, John Cancler, in his famous Playboy interview as follows, "Of course, these two convicts have been used against my office in a variety of respects. Miguel Torres also claims I offered him a full pardon, a vacation in Florida and an ounce of heroin if he would testify that Clay Shaw had made homosexual overtures to him on the street. What on earth that would have established relevant to this case I still don't know, but that's his story. I think it was actually rather cheap of me to offer Torres only an ounce of heroin; that wouldn't have lasted out his vacation. A kilo would be more like it. After all, I'm not stingy. Torres' friend John Cancler, a burglar, has also charged that one of my investigators tried to induce him to burglarize Clay Shaw's house and plant false evidence there, but he refused because he would not have such a heinous sin on his conscience. I suppose that's why Cancler's prison nickname is 'John the Baptist.' I can assure you, if we ever wanted to burglarize Shaw's home --- which we never did --- John the Baptist would be the last man on earth we'd pick for the job. By the way, Mr. Cancler was called before the grand jury and asked if he had told the truth to NBC. He replied; 'I refuse to answer on the grounds that my answer might incriminate me' --- and was promptly sentenced to six months in prison and a $500 fine for contempt of court" (http://www.jfklancer.com/Garrison2.html).

Next under the author's cosshairs is Garrison's chief witness, Perry Raymond Russo. "Under repeated cross- examination," Russo did not "basically admitted the fact that he did not know anything about the Kennedy assassination" and that "he disseminated rehearsed lies." This can be easily verified by reading his trial testimony. The author makes it seem as though Russo was approached by Garrison to give false testimony when, in fact, Russo approached Garrison with his testimony first. As for the "demanding press that essentially exposed the fact that his testimony was not genuine," that was one James Phelan, an FBI informant [the documents are reproduced here: http://www.realhistoryarchives.com/media/phelan.htm]. Again, this undercuts the author's charge that the FBI was behind Garrison probe. As for Phelan's charges, Lisa Pease rebuts them at http://www.realhistoryarchives.com/collect.../jfk/russo3.htm and http://www.realhistoryarchives.com/collect.../jfk/russo4.htm. Davy and Jim DiEugenio also rebut these charges in their respective books, and soon Joan Mellen will do the same to an even greater extent, if her Taking Aim interview is anything to go on. Also of interest is this interview with Russo: http://www.redshift.com~damason/lhreport/articles/perry.html. As for the allegation that former CIA/NSA "newsman" Walter Sheridan trying to bribe Russo is "absurd", well, it really isn't. Russo made out an affidavit to this fact (as did many other witnesses, ie Fred Leeman and Marlene Mancuso, who Sheridan and his buddy Richard Townley attempted to bribe).

Regarding William Gurvich, he was an infiltrator who pilfered many of Garrison's files and turned them over to the defense team (there were no discovery laws in La. at the time). He said he had no confidence in Garrison's investigation, despite many statements to the press to the contrary prior to his defection. Read his Grand Jury testimony for a laugh here http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/garr...rvich_0001a.htm and here http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/garr...vich2_0001a.htm. He is unable to substantiate any of his charges of illegal acts on Garrison's part.. An example: "Q: You don't know the names of the 2 members of the staff who did illegal acts that you were referring to in your telecast? A: I am sure I can think of them. Q: Well would you please think of them now and give us the names? A: Well, if you will continue I will think while you talk" (page 62 of the 1st transcript). Later, "Q: Did 2 members of Garrison's staff perform illegal acts on his orders? A: I don't remember - I am having trouble with that - Q: Do you know? Is the answer yes, no, or I don't know? A: I don't remember" (page 72 of the 1st transcript). And again, "Q: Give us one fact, you are supposed to be an investigator. You have not given us one single fact. I am trying to lay it on the line. You go around and say what all these people are saying - that is unimportant. I think every one of the Jury are thinking what I am telling you and I think I am speaking for all of them when I say you don't have nothing. You haven't given us one thing to go on. A: Well, they are entitled to their opinion and I am entitle to mine. Of course I did not expect you to act on this, but I thought they were serious things" (p. 86.1).

Garrison did not charge RFK with being behind the assassination of his brother, but rather obstructing his investigation. This doesn't seem all that unlikely as Walter Sheridan was RFK's right hand man in his war against Hoffa. During Sheridan's all-out assault on Garrison's investigation, RFK vouched for his integrity. More on Sheridan and his NBC white paper can be found in "'Shoot Him Down' NBC, the CIA and Jim Garrison" by Bill Davy, which is a very condensed version of his chapter in Let Justice Be Done, minus the footnotes, on the media assault on Garrison (the link is here: http://www.abclies.net/nbc_cia.html).

Particularly laughable is this passage, "On March 2nd, shortly after Garrison arrested Shaw, Attorney General Ramsey Clark indicated that Shaw had been investigated and cleared of any connection to the assassination. But on June 2nd, the Justice Department, obviously on the prodding of J. Edgar Hoover, indicated that Clay Shaw had never been investigated. In other words, despite the Warren Commission investigation, Justice Department Czar J. Edgar Hoover was giving Jim Garrison the official green light to "investigate" the Kennedy assassination." This is a half-truth at best. The unusual thing was that prior to Ramsey Clark's statement, officially Clay Shaw had never been investigated by the FBI (Clark did not say it was the Warren Commission who investigated Shaw, as the article falsely states). Ramsey Clark stated that not only had Clay Shaw been cleared by this investigation, but that, in fact, he and Clay Bertrand were one and the same (Clay Bertrand is the person who called attorney Dean Andrews to represent Oswald prior to his being shot by Ruby and who Garrison had charge with being an alias of Clay Shaw's). The Justice Department subsequently confirmed this. The New York Times of March 3, 1967: "A Justice Department official said tonight that his agency was convinced that Mr. Bertrand and Mr. Shaw were the same man, and that this was the basis for Mr. Clark's assertions this morning." Once it had been realized what kind of blunder had been made, it was retracted. Billy Davy, in his book, quotes from a memo by Cartha DeLoach to Clyde Tolson on March 2, 1967, "The AG then asked whether the FBI knew anything about Shaw. I told him Shaw's name had come up in our investigation in December, 1963 as a result of several parties furnishing information concerning Shaw." Hoover himself signed off on the memo as follows, "I hope a.g. isn't going to peddle this information we send him. H." (Davy 170) Well, this pretty much undercuts the article's assertions, doesn't it? In fact, it shows them to be the reverse. Number three man in the FBI Cartha DeLoach gave this information to Ramsey Clark. He recounted this to Clyde Tolson, Hoover's no. 2. Hoover, understanding what Cartha had done, hopes that Clark doesn't "peddle" the information he has recieved. When he did, he is made to recant, thus undercutting any help Clark's statements might have inadvertantly given Garrison. The intention of Clark's statements had been to help Shaw by clearing him, and the FBI had him withdraw them because they actually helped Garrison and violated the official history.

Next, it is recounted how Garrison had made comments about possible "racketeering influences of our eight vacationing judges." The reader is not told that these comments came about because the judges refused to fund his organized crime investigations (Paris Flammonde, The Kennedy Conspiracy, page 9 - this is still a very good book with an immense amount of detail and information despite its age). Again, isn't Garrison supposed to be flacking for the mob? Subsequently he had his right to criticize the judges upheld in the Supreme Court. Does anything more really need to be said about this incident?

As for the conflict between Garrison and Police Chief Giarrusso, Mellen notes in Black Op Radio #144 (not currently accessible) that Giarrusso was the one who actually took the bribes that the federal government brought Garrison to court over (and of which he was subsequently acquited). Despite their not being on good terms, Giarrusso investigated and cleared Garrison's Assistant D.A.'s of bribery charges brought against them and also cleared Officer Habighorst (who took Clay Shaw's booking card, wherein Shaw gave Clay Bertrand as an alias) of any misconduct (Paris Flammonde, The Kennedy Conspiracy, pages 245 and 298).

Aaron Kohn. Aaron Kohn was brought before the Grand Jury to provide evidence that Garrison and Governor McKeithen were under the mob's influence, as he charged (he contended that the aforementioned stripper, Linda Brigette, was Marcello connected). I quote Davy here, "When one of the executives of Kohn's Crime Commission appeared before the Grand Jury, he admitted, 'No, we have nothing, we have no evidence to present before the Grand Jury'" (Davy 158). Kohn was not squashed by the Grand Jury, he simply didn't present any evidence, as Garrison said. Kohn subsequently resurfaced to make more unsubstantiated allegations of Garrison's mob connections after Garrison's probe was made public.

As for perjury charges against Kerry Thornley, these were accurate. Thornley denied having any contact with Oswald while both were in New Orleans. As Jim DiEugenio and Bill Davy note, "Garrison had no less than eight witnesses who said they had seen Oswald and Thornley together in New Orleans in 1963. And some of them went beyond just noting the association between the two. Two of these witnesses, Bernard Goldsmith and Doris Dowell, both said that Thornley told them Oswald was not a communist. This is amazing since, as noted earlier, the Warren Commission featured Thornley as its key witness to Oswald's alleged commie sympathies" (http://www.webcom.com/ctka/pr599-lambert.html).

Next, we come to a charge that is totally false. Garrison did not, ever, have a witness who claimed to be Julius Ceasar and wore a toga. This claim originates with Robert Sam Anson, who wrote that this alleged witness appeared in court and testified to that effect (Jim DiEugenio, Destiny Betrayed, page 370, note 101). Just take a look through the trial transcripts. You will find absolutely nothing like this. I repeat, this charge is a 100% fabrication. We are told of "psychiatric patients who offered hypnotically induced testimony." Garrison did not have witnesses who were psychiatric patients. The only witness who underwent hypnosis was Perry Russo, and he told Garrison's investigators his story before the hypnosis sessions. The hypnosis was to verify Russo's conscious recollections, one of the "independent verifying tests, including polygraph examination, truth serum and hypnosis," as Garrison stated in his Playboy interview. "We thought this would be hailed as an unprecedented step in jurisprudence; instead, the press turned around and hinted that we had drugged our witnesses or given them posthypnotic suggestions to testify falsely."

Lastly, the author says that "when Garrison was arrested on bribery and tax evasion charges, he claimed that the American government had framed him because it did not want him to continue to investigate the assassination of John F. Kennedy." The reader is given only half the story. Garrison was acquitted and the Federal Government did, in fact, attempt to frame him. Peter Whitmey wrote a good, lengthy article about this scheme, "Pershing Gervais and the Attempt to Frame Jim Garrison" (it can be read here: http://karws.gso.uri.edu/JFK/the_critics/W...ey/Gervais.html).

So, in all, there is really nothing to the article but smoke and mirrors, falsehoods and half-truths. The article contains "factual assertions," as Tim Gratz puts it, only in that these charges were made against Garrison. That is, indeed, factual. What are not factual are the charges themselves and the way in which the author spins things, such as Ramsey Clark's comments to the press, which can only be described as deceptive. In addition, two blatantly false charges are made ("Julius Caesar" and alleged hypnotically induced testimony provided by psychiatric patients). The article is, indeed, "rubbish."

I also note that I have independently come to the same conclusions as Dawn Meredith. So now it is two-to-two, and by your logic, I (and Dawn Meredith) know just as much about JFK's assassination as you and Thomas Purvis. Not that there is any scientific weight whatsoever to that contention.

Owen:

What a breath of fresh air!!! I read thru your post, so happy that someone went to all the trouble that you did to refute this total defamation of Garrison by Purvis and our young Canadian "plant", Lynn. ((??). Then I clicked on your bio, expecting to see that you are a Phd or MA in history. Instead, a high school student! Wow!!! You write with such maturity and wisdom. After only a two year study of this case, you have an incredible command of some rather complex issues. (And you've read the great Paris Flammonde even, a very hard to come by work.)

Your post made my day. It is just so encouraging to know that there are young kids out there who care enough about learning the truth about our government and its sordid past. I hope our other youthful member, Nic, sees this. She is 18 and very knowledgable about the case.

As to mentioning your youth, I don't not mean it in any disparaging way, but as a compliment. I respesent a lot of teens and most don't read anything, let alone truthful US history. I am impressed.

Thanks also for providing the links for your points. Maybe the Garrison haters in our midst will aquire an education.

With appreciation,

Dawn

ps I hope you someday run for office!!!

[Owen Parsons]

Owen:

What a breath of fresh air!!! I read thru your post, so happy that someone went to all the trouble that you did to refute this total defamation of Garrison by Purvis and our young Canadian "plant", Lynn. ((??). Then I clicked on your bio, expecting to see that you are a Phd or MA in history. Instead, a high school student! Wow!!! You write with such maturity and wisdom. After only a two year study of this case, you have an incredible command of some rather complex issues. (And you've read the great Paris Flammonde even, a very hard to come by work.)

Your post made my day. It is just so encouraging to know that there are young kids out there who care enough about learning the truth about our government and its sordid past. I hope our other youthful member, Nic, sees this. She is 18 and very knowledgable about the case.

As to mentioning your youth, I don't not mean it in any disparaging way, but as a compliment. I respesent a lot of teens and most don't read anything, let alone truthful US history. I am impressed.

Thanks also for providing the links for your points. Maybe the Garrison haters in our midst will aquire an education.

With appreciation,

Dawn

ps I hope you someday run for office!!!

Thanks for all the kind words Dawn! It makes all the time I spent composing my rebuttal worth it.

[Lynne Foster]

There is no rebuttal for a man without integrity.

Nothing on this website has been effectively refuted, although the zeal to defend the man who effectively covered up the truth is indeed interesting.

http://www.geocities.com/zzzpeace/garrison.htm

Also, the claim that Garrison discredited the warren Commission is silly. The only thing that Garrison ever discredited is the truth -that's why David Ferrie dropped dead while in his custody:

I think the little high school student ought to go back to school.

[Terry Mauro]

There is no rebuttal for a man without integrity.

Nothing on this website has been effectively refuted, although the zeal to defend the man who effectively covered up the truth is indeed interesting.

http://www.geocities.com/zzzpeace/garrison.htm

Also, the claim that Garrison discredited the warren Commission is silly. The only thing that Garrison ever discredited is the truth -that's why David Ferrie dropped dead while in his custody:

I think the little high school student ought to go back to school.

***********************************************************

"Also, the claim that Garrison discredited the warren Commission is silly. The only thing that Garrison ever discredited is the truth -that's why David Ferrie dropped dead while in his custody."

Oh puleeeezzze, with your skewed attempts at logic, Ms. Know-It-All Foster!

David Ferrie was iced by the same cabal bent on discrediting Garrison. HELLO???

Take your own advice and go back to school. You apparently lack the tools of a more seasoned and knowledgeable educator of which you claim to be. And, you do claim to be an educator, am I reading you correctly? Your lack of professionism reeks of condescending audacity.