Jim Garrison and Oliver Stone

[Owen Parsons]

Mr. Parsons, have you read the Life articles about Jim Garrison's organized crime connections.

I do not agree with anything that Purvis says outside of his lack of respect for Jim Garrison, but do you think that Life magazine got it wrong too?

Yes, Life magazine/Luce press got it dead wrong about Garrison just like the rest of the major media.

I don't have time to dig up ancient Life magazine articles, but the main charge, as I understand it, is that the mob picked up Garrison's tab while at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas. Davy debunks this one: "Garrison provided evidence to the Life reporters that the 'hospitality' he recieved was nothing more than the standard loss-leader feature extended to most important personages who visited not only the Sands but most other hotels in Vegas. Garrison provided a copy of his Sands bill to the reporters and pointed out that there was a rather hefty valet and telephone bill that the hotel did not cover. As Garrison noted, 'Apparently I am not very highly regarded by the Mafia if they won't even pick up my phone bill.' Nevertheless Life went ahead with these charges." It should be noted that one of the people involved with this article was David Chandler, a personal friend of Clay Shaw's (Davy 153-4). I have already posted additional information showing that Jim Garrison was not a friend of Marcello or the mob. If you have any more charges of Mob/Garrison connections send them my way and I'll debunk them.

This is pretty convincing:

From 1965 through 1969, Garrison obtained just two convictions and five guilty pleas in police cases brought against Marcello's gangsters. He elected not to prosecute 84 such cases, including 22 gambling charges, one for attempted murder, three for kidnapping and one for manslaughter. Garrison even managed to hush up the fact that last June a Marcello bagman, Vic Carona, died after suffering a heart attack during a political meeting held in Garrison's own home.

It reminds me of David Ferrie's death.

If the Life allegations were not true, why didn't Jim Garrison sue the reporters?

"Garrison, though he disdains trying to prove negatives, has stated that he never met Marcello in his life and pointed out that Marcello was the subject of Federal investigations in which Garrison could not interfere, and local investigations in Jefferson Parish, where Marcello lived, in which Garrison also could not participate" (DiEugenio p. 364 n.2).

As for the Vic Carona thing, this is unsubstantiated. I can't prove a negative, however, so perhaps this will be revelatory: it's nearly identical to a charge made against Congressman Cornelius Gallagher after he began investigating the FBI's use of privacy encroaching technology on U.S. citizens. "DeLoach allegedly claimed the Bureau had 'incontestable' proof that a missing New Jersey gambler, Barney O'Brien, had died of a heart attack in the Congressman's house 'while lying next to Gallagher's wife'" (Davy 160, quoting Anthony Summers). This charge and all the other mob smears the FBI used on Gallagher were later discredited. I've already shown that the FBI was not friendly with Garrison. Senator Edward Long was also subject to a Life piece connecting him to the mob after looking into the same areas (Davy 159-63). Richard Sprague, the original Chief Counsel of the HSCA, was also smeared in this manner when he started pushing the envelope too much.

Also, Aaron Kohn is the major (read only) source for Life's information about Garrison (Davy 157). I've covered him already. Kohn's act was shown for what it was when he was called before the Grand Jury. Kohn was also involved in an FBI wiretapping operation against Garrison and filed numerous reports to the FBI about Garrison during his investigation (Davy 163-64).

Edited November 2, 2005 by Owen Parsons

[Lynne Foster]

I don't know Mr. parsons, I think actions speak louder than words. On the one hand, Garrison refused to prosecute mobsters and on the other, he wanted to prosecute Kennedy's assassins?

That does not add up ....

[Owen Parsons]

I don't know Mr. parsons, I think actions speak louder than words. On the one hand, Garrison refused to prosecute mobsters and on the other, he wanted to prosecute Kennedy's assassins?

That does not add up ....

Apparently you did not read my post. Garrison could not get involved in the investigation of Marcello. Also, Joan Mellen's book, which I am now in the process of reading (up to chapter three now), has stated that Marcello pushed Governor McKeithen to get Garrison out of office.

Edit: Since you are so taken with the Life stories, perhaps you will find this passage from Mellen enlightening, "'I made it up,' Chandler [note: Chandler the Life hack and Clay Shaw buddy] revealed later of his charge that Garrison was connected to organized crime. 'It was like throwing a pebble into a pool....'" (Mellen 259).

In addition, Garrison did consider suing Life but decided against it because malice would be difficult to prove (Mellen 258-9).

Edited November 3, 2005 by Owen Parsons

[Lynne Foster]

I really think that Aaron Kohn was genuinely concerned about fighting organized crime.

I also think that if Garrison had genuinely tackled adversaries like organized crime and those who killed Kennedy, he would not have lived to be able to talk about it -he would have been buried and called a useless drunk by the likes of Gerald Posner and others who slandered intelligent people like Dorothy Killgalen after she was found dead.

I don't think that it is possible to conclude that Garrison was serious about fighting organized crime

or about solving the Kennedy assassination, if you study the bizarre quotes that have come out of his mouth -he is directly responsible for turning the Kennedy assassination investigation into a circus, and i don't care if i am banned from this message board for saying so.

Serious investigators do not talk the way Jim Garrison talked, they prosecute criminals, and you can't dance around his pathetic record -it speaks for itself.

[Owen Parsons]

I really think that Aaron Kohn was genuinely concerned about fighting organized crime.

I also think that if Garrison had genuinely tackled adversaries like organized crime and those who killed Kennedy, he would not have lived to be able to talk about it -he would have been buried and called a useless drunk by the likes of Gerald Posner and others who slandered intelligent people like Dorothy Killgalen after she was found dead.

I don't think that it is possible to conclude that Garrison was serious about fighting organized crime

or about solving the Kennedy assassination, if you study the bizarre quotes that have come out of his mouth -he is directly responsible for turning the Kennedy assassination investigation into a circus, and i don't care if i am banned from this message board for saying so.

Serious investigators do not talk the way Jim Garrison talked, they prosecute criminals, and you can't dance around his pathetic record -it speaks for itself.

Excuse me, but Posner did slander and bury Garrison, using the same garbage you are now using and more (BTW, I agree with you about Killgalen but we aren't talking about her). You are correct that Garrison wasn't killed, he got off easy, the Federal government only attempted to frame him for bribery and tax evasion. As for Garrison and organized crime, I have addressed it numerous times, but you don't seem interested in listening. The idea that Garrison's investigation was a "circus" is something invented by the various media assets of the CIA and FBI (Phelan, Sheridan, Aynesworth) and characters like Aaron Kohn. Do you honestly think that any other major independent investigation would come out looking differently? Kohn made many charges about organized crime, but didn't typically bother to back them; I have shown this and again you don't seem interested in listening. You can "genuinely" believe that Aaron Kohn was an honest individual and believe that Garrison wasn't, but that doesn't make it so. It seems to me that you were so taken with this idea that LBJ, Hoover, and the mob were behind Garrison that you are unable to relinquish it (and everything else on that website). The only one dancing around Garrison's record is you.

Edited November 4, 2005 by Owen Parsons

[Lynne Foster]

Federal government only attempted to frame him for bribery and tax evasion

I don't agree with that. If the government failed to convict just one more tax evader, that's no big deal -it happens all the time.

But to suggest that this is evidence that Garrison was a serious investigater -now that's stretching it, as far as I am concerned.

As far as Posner trashing Garrison, I don't think he minded because both Posner and Garrison thrived on trashing honest people. The fact that they trashed each other is merely a consequence of their peculiar intentions -to obscure the truth, no matter what it took. Isn't that what tax evaders do?

You know, when I was in New orleans, I noticed that many of the restaurants did not take credit cards. I wonder why?

[Pat Speer]

Owen, Lynne has a legitimate point about Garrison on one issue: his mob affiliation. While I don't think he was under their thumb, it's indisputable that he did little to fight Marcello and his like during his time as DA. Garrison's assertion in On the Trail that Marcello was totally low profile and a non-factor in NO smells like a bunch of horsepoopy. Based on all I've read about New Orleans, Louisiana, and the mob, the town, and the state, were thoroughly infected. Garrison undoubtedly played ball with the "boys." That doesn't mean they gave him orders, however. It just means he knew not to look into Ferrie's ties to Marcello, else he wind up like Sheriff Hennessy, a New Orleans official murdered by the mob a long time before.

[Owen Parsons]

Federal government only attempted to frame him for bribery and tax evasion

I don't agree with that. If the government failed to convict just one more tax evader, that's no big deal -it happens all the time.

But to suggest that this is evidence that Garrison was a serious investigater -now that's stretching it, as far as I am concerned.

As far as Posner trashing Garrison, I don't think he minded because both Posner and Garrison thrived on trashing honest people. The fact that they trashed each other is merely a consequence of their peculiar intentions -to obscure the truth, no matter what it took. Isn't that what tax evaders do?

You know, when I was in New orleans, I noticed that many of the restaurants did not take credit cards. I wonder why?

The Government didn't just fail to convict him, they suborned perjury and manufactured evidence. All of this was shown in court and Garrison was acquited. They took him to court again for failing to pay taxes on the bribery money he did not take. The Government again lost their case. If you bothered to look at that article I linked to, you would know this.

Garrison could not have minded Posner trashing him because by the time Posner's book was out Garrison was dead. I can't make heads or tails of what you are trying to say in this paragraph in any case.

Also, if you think so highly of Aaron Kohn, perhaps you would like to know that Kohn originally shared my opinion of Garrison and offered him much praise. His attitude changed after he learned of Garrison's then secret investigation from Chandler (Kohn had always been an ardent lone nutist and published a pamphlet featuring the "Backyard" photographs). It was then that he started making his absurd charges about Linda Brigette's (the stripper) "economic" importance to the mob and Garrison's connection to the mob because he wouldn't send her sent to jail (see Mellen on this, I'm not even going to bother to cite pages for you anymore).

Edited November 5, 2005 by Owen Parsons

[Lynne Foster]

Also, if you think so highly or Aaron Kohn, perhaps you would like to know that Kohn originally shared my opinion of Garrison and offered him much praise.

I can understand that. Garrison the great pretender, deserves a great deal of praise, you have to unravel his intentions to understand the real person, and that is not always easy.

[Owen Parsons]

Owen, Lynne has a legitimate point about Garrison on one issue: his mob affiliation. While I don't think he was under their thumb, it's indisputable that he did little to fight Marcello and his like during his time as DA. Garrison's assertion in On the Trail that Marcello was totally low profile and a non-factor in NO smells like a bunch of horsepoopy. Based on all I've read about New Orleans, Louisiana, and the mob, the town, and the state, were thoroughly infected. Garrison undoubtedly played ball with the "boys." That doesn't mean they gave him orders, however. It just means he knew not to look into Ferrie's ties to Marcello, else he wind up like Sheriff Hennessy, a New Orleans official murdered by the mob a long time before.

Garrison did look at Cosa Nostra and Marcello connections to the assassination (Davy, Mellen etc. I'm sick of citing pages by this point, but these names specifically). Garrison also wasn't able to do all that much about Marcello even if he wanted to. Somehow I doubt fear of death had any influence on Garrison, since he fully expected this to be his fate for investigating the assassination and prosecuting Shaw. I agree that Garrison did play "ball" however. Garrison did stop just short of prosecuting Marcello (though he padlocked his bars) during his early French Quarter sweep because Marcello provided him with useful information against his opponent during his original campaign for DA, as Mellen shows. Overall, I think you are right. This is much different than what Foster would like to believe however. My point is that the allegations of direct mob associations that Lynne likes to trumpet are bunk. By the time of OTA Garrison probably honestly believed this, after witnessing much of the Justice Department's propaganda on other issues.

Also, if you think so highly or Aaron Kohn, perhaps you would like to know that Kohn originally shared my opinion of Garrison and offered him much praise.

I can understand that. Garrison the great pretender, deserves a great deal of praise, you have to unravel his intentions to understand the real person, and that is not always easy.

Funny how you didn't quote the reasons for Kohn's turnaround (ie, the Kennedy assassination probe). Kohn praised him for his efforts against organized crime, not for being "the great pretender." You really have nothing to go on but your agenda.

Edited November 4, 2005 by Owen Parsons

[Lynne Foster]

Garrison did look at Cosa Nostra and Marcello connections to the assassination (Davy, Mellen etc. I'm sick of citing pages by this point, but these names specifically).

I don't think that this means very much. Garrison even claimed that Robert F. Kennedy had a hand in his own brother's murder, I don't think that Garrison was seriously interested in investigating the Marcello organization, and if he was affiliated with it as all the evidence strongly suggests, he did not have to investigate Marcello.

He merely had to pretend to investigate Marcello, to control his critics.

Excuse me? What is my own agenda?

Edited November 4, 2005 by Lynne Foster

[Owen Parsons]

Garrison did look at Cosa Nostra and Marcello connections to the assassination (Davy, Mellen etc. I'm sick of citing pages by this point, but these names specifically).

I don't think that this means very much. Garrison even claimed that Robert F. Kennedy had a hand in his own brother's murder, I don't think that Garrison was seriously interested in investigating the Marcello organization, and if he was affiliated with it as all the evidence strongly suggests, he did not have to investigate Marcello.

He merely had to pretend to investigate Marcello, to control his critics.

Excuse me? What is my own agenda?

Garrison did not charge Bobby with being behind the assassination, but obstructing his (Garrison's) investigation. I stated this all the way back in my original rebuttal and I am sick of repeating myself. Garrison did not pretend to investigate Marcello to control his critics, this information comes from the internal DA's office memos during the probe and Gordon Novel's Playboy deposition. This was not publically available at the time. The "evidence" of Garrison's "affiliation" with Marcello has been debunked.

Your agenda is an anti-Garrison one, of course.

[Lynne Foster]

Your agenda is an anti-Garrison one, of course.

I am not anti-Garrison. I am trying to make sense of Jim Garrison, and I genuinely believe that it is not posible to deny his affiliation to the Marcello organization.

Face it, organized crime ruled in the 1960's, even J. Edgar Hoover WAS NOT interested in fighting it.

Robert F. Kennedy is the only one who was interested in fighting organized crime, and the suggestion that he interfered in a genuine investigation against organized crime is not credible.

Perhaps, Robert Kennedy understood those who called Garrison's investigation a hoax and a charade.

Edited November 4, 2005 by Lynne Foster

[Dawn Meredith]

I don't know Mr. parsons, I think actions speak louder than words. On the one hand, Garrison refused to prosecute mobsters and on the other, he wanted to prosecute Kennedy's assassins?

That does not add up ....

Why don't you just order Joan Mellen's book and read it. He did prosecute corruption. He could not be bribed or bought.

As for Life mag, pleeeeease. If you believe anything Life has to say on the assassination you have done no homework.

Dawn

[Robert Howard]

"The Truth Will Set You Free" The great thing about the concept of democracy, is that "We the People" have the right to express our views irregardless of how illogical one percieves them to be. This is my response to some of the comments that Jim Garrison was some kind of deceitful person who was "protecting Carlos Marcello" a charge that I consider (as I believe anybody that didn't start researching the Kennedy Assassination yesterday, realizes the sheer idiocy of.) Courtesy of Craig DiLouie

What is perhaps most alarming to many conspiracy theorists are powers that the President and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) can assume during a state of national emergency, which the President can (and has) declared at any time. Each president going back in recent history declared 75-200+ national emergencies to justify issuing executive orders that have the power of legislation. Most of these executive orders have to do with the operation of government and foreign policy; one of Bill Clinton's executive orders, for example, required Federal buildings to become more energy-efficient. Other executive orders, however, are more ominous, which rendered into law powers of the Federal government during a national emergency. On September 30, 1973, Senators Frank Church (D-Idaho) and Charles McMathias (R-Maryland) made a joint statement regarding these orders:

"The President has the power to seize property, organize and control the means of production, seize commodities, assign military forces abroad, call reserve forces amounting to two and a half million men to duty, institute martial law, seize and control all means of transportation, regulate all private enterprise, restrict travel and in a plethora of particular ways, control the lives of Americans . . .

"Most [of these laws] remain a potential source of virtually unlimited power for a President should he choose to activate them. It is possible that some future President could exercise this vast authority in an attempt to place the United States under authoritarian rule.

"While the danger of a dictatorship through legal means may seem remote to us today, recent history records Hitler seizing control through the use of emergency powers provisions contained in the laws of the Weimar Republic."

How did the President gain these broad and dramatic powers? Again, by granting them to himself via executive order. In current times, despite the present wave of patriotism (with the Michigan Militia reportedly offering to help President Bush with homeland security), these powers, coupled with genuine emergencies now and in the future, could make one concerned. Coupled with ECHELON, a vast global intelligence-gathering network (and Carnivore, the FBI capability to read emails), they could make one nervous. Even paranoid.

I believe that Earling Carothers "Jim" Garrison, District Attorney for New Orleans who put local businessman Clay Betrand on trial in connection with the assassination of John F. Kennedy, sums it all up perfectly in the October 1967 Playboy interview:

PLAYBOY: Many of the professional critics of the Warren Commission appear to be prompted by political motives: Those on the left are anxious to prove Kennedy was murdered by a conspiracy within the establishment; and those on the right are eager to prove the assassination was an act of "the international Communist conspiracy." Where would you place yourself on the political spectrum--right, left or center?

JIM GARRISON: That's a question I've asked myself frequently, especially since this investigation started and I found myself in an incongruous and disillusioning battle with agencies of my own Government. I can't just sit down and add up my political beliefs like a mathematical sum, but I think, in balance, I'd turn up somewhere around the middle. Over the years, I guess I've developed a somewhat conservative attitude--in the traditional libertarian sense of conservatism, as opposed to the thumbscrew-and-rack conservatism of the paramilitary right--particularly in regard to the importance of the individual as opposed to the State and the individual's own responsibilities to humanity . . .

I was with the artillery supporting the division that took Dachau; I arrived there the day after it was taken, when bulldozers were making pyramids of human bodies outside the camp. What I saw there has haunted me ever since. Because the law is my profession, I've always wondered about the judges throughout Germany who sentenced men to jail for picking pockets at a time when their own government was jerking gold from the teeth of men murdered in gas chambers. I'm concerned about all of this because it isn't a German phenomenon; it's a human phenomenon. It can happen here, because there has been no change, there has been no progress and there has been no increase of understanding on the part of men for their fellow men.

What worries me deeply, and I have seen it exemplified in this case, is that we in America are in great danger of slowly eroding into a proto-fascist state. It will be a different kind of fascist state from the one the Germans evolved; theirs grew out of depression and promised bread and work, while ours, curiously enough, seems to be emerging from prosperity. But in the final analysis, it's based on power and on the inability to put human goals and human conscience above the dictates of the State. Its origins can be traced in the tremendous war machine we've built since 1945, the "military-industrial complex" that Eisenhower vainly warned us about, which now dominates every aspect of our life. The power of the states and the Congress has gradually been abandoned to the Executive Department, because of war conditions; and we've seen the creation of an arrogant, swollen bureaucratic complex totally unfettered by the checks and balances of the Constitution.

In a very real and terrifying sense, our Government is the CIA and the Pentagon, with Congress reduced to a debating society. Of course, you can't spot this trend to fascism by casually looking around. You can't look for such familiar signs as the swastika, because they won't be there. We won't build Dachaus and Auschwitzes; the clever manipulation of the mass media is creating a concentration camp of the mind that promises to be far more effective in keeping the populace in line. We're not going to wake up one morning and suddenly find ourselves in gray uniforms goose-stepping off to work. But this isn't the test. The test is: What happens to the individual who dissents? In Nazi Germany, he was physically destroyed; here the process is more subtle, but the end results are the same. I've learned enough about the machinations of the CIA in the past year to know that this is no longer the dreamworld America I once believed in. The imperatives of the population explosion, which almost inevitably will lessen our belief in the sanctity of the individual human life, combined with the awesome power of the CIA and the defense establishment, seem destined to seal the fate of the America I knew as a child and bring us into a new Orwellian world where the citizen exists for the State and where raw power justifies any and every immoral act. I've always had a kind of knee-jerk trust in my Government's basic integrity, whatever political blunders it may make. But I've come to realize that in Washington, deceiving and manipulating the public are viewed by some as the natural prerogatives of office. Huey Long once said, "Fascism will come to America in the name of anti-fascism." I'm afraid, based on my own long experience, that fascism will come to America in the name of national security.

I don't know Mr. parsons, I think actions speak louder than words. On the one hand, Garrison refused to prosecute mobsters and on the other, he wanted to prosecute Kennedy's assassins?

That does not add up ....

Why don't you just order Joan Mellen's book and read it. He did prosecute corruption. He could not be bribed or bought.

As for Life mag, pleeeeease. If you believe anything Life has to say on the assassination you have done no homework.

Dawn