Garrison Tells It Like It Was & Still Is - At His Finest - Against Fairy Tales!

[TLR]

No, I don't require them to be perfect, Leslie, but I think Garrison made a fatal mistake charging Shaw with being part of the plot to kill JFK. No one made him do that. I'm sure he would have preferred Dave Ferrie or Guy Banister, but they were dead. He should have just continued his investigation and not made any charges he couldn't prove. He also made a lot of reckless and unfounded statements in early press interviews.

Feb 24 1967: Garrison announced to the press, "I have positively solved the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. My staff and I  solved the case weeks ago. I wouldn't say this if I didn't have evidence beyond the shadow of a  doubt. We know the key individuals, the cities involved and how it was done. There were several plots, but that's more than I wanted to say. Ferrie might not be the last suicide in the case. The only way they are going to get away from us is to kill themselves....The key to the whole case is through the looking glass. Black is white and white is black. I don't want to be cryptic, but that's the way it is....There will be arrests, charges and convictions. This is no Mickey Mouse investigation."

Maybe this was just an enormous bluff designed to rattle the entire government. But it looks reckless to me. He veered back and forth between making very perceptive and smart comments, and then making wild charges that he couldn't support. 

May 21 1967 In an interview on WWL-TV, New Orleans, Garrison claimed that the CIA knew the names of the other assassins, but "we can't find out [their names] with the CIA keeping its vaults locked...If the director of the CIA and the top officials of the CIA were in the jurisdiction of Louisiana, I would charge them without hesitation." That day he also stated that the CIA knew "the name of every man involved and the name of the individuals who pulled the triggers" (NY Times 5/23)

May 28 1967 On "Issues and Answers," (ABC-TV) Garrison said, "Of course the Central Intelligence Agency had no role in the planning or intending the assassination of President Kennedy. I think that would be a ridiculous position for anyone to take."    

Sep 24 1967 Garrison charged that RFK was "without any question of a doubt...interferring with the investigation of the murder of his brother" and was making "a real effort to stop it." ("Page One," WABC-TV, New York)

Jan 26 1968 Paul Rothermel, a former FBI agent hired by H.L. Hunt as an investigator, wrote a memo to Hunt: "The source of the information reports that Garrison is convinced that the assassination was carried out by Gen. Edwin Walker with the financial support and backing of Herman and George Brown of Houston and H.L. Hunt of Dallas. He said that Garrison is a heavy drinker and lives extravagantly...We have extended our cooperation to Garrison in his probe hoping to help guide his investigation. I think everyone would like the assassination solved, and certainly there is no member of the Hunt family or organization who has the least thing to hide. In spite of the above, there have been persistent stories to the effect that Garrison either suspects or is antagonistic toward the Hunts. We have no proof that this is the case. It is reported that Garrison is a most vindictive left winger, that he is bisexual and a clever blackmailer. Garrison understands public opinion, and can without introducing evidence of proof, harass, intimidate, and smear whomever he wishes."

[Leslie Sharp]

Hi TLR, I probably should have prefaced my remark with "on a purely philosophical plain."  I was meaning to point out that an individual's flaws do not necessarily mean that the message he or she reveals is flawed.  Your highlights of Garrison's tactics seem to indicate that you believe that his message might have been flawed as well. 

I choose to view Garrison's effort from the perspective of, 'what if he had not pursued Shaw, et al;' would the investigation into the assassination have slowly died?  We know that the House Select Committee most likely would not have been convened.  And would the material that Garrison had accumulated have made it to the screen for consideration by a wide audience via Stone's risky expose of the contradictions in the official story had Garrison not persevered? 

I had not remembered that Garrison suggested that Robert K. had interfered to that degree. I think all families want to protect their secrets, and the Kennedys would not have been the exception. 

All I can say is that in the early days, suspicion was running rampant, and Garrison most likely fell victim to disinformation and obfuscation of facts, and he would have been vulnerable to manipulation.  That's not a defense, but it does balance any suggestion that he himself had an agenda other than getting to the truth.  New Orleans was central to Oswald's history, and was home to a very shadowy element of bankers, oil interests, Minutemen, ties to European (France in particular) aristocracy, and, as a significant sea port for intrigue, a base for political machinations in Central and South America.  I'm fascinated that few have zeroed in on a man named Stephen Lehmann, NO attorney with deep ties to the Whitney family was named as the CIA's paymaster in New Orleans.   (Lehmann's nephew went on to head Columbia School of Journalism).  Garrison took his job very seriously in my opinion.

Because I know first hand about the H.L. Hunt family, having worked for them for a number of years, I can say that 'they' (for lack of a better term) are wired differently when it comes to democracy and politics in general.  I know for certain that their operations tolerated extremists, including post-WWII Eastern European born hoteliers who celebrated Hitler's birthday in limited regalia in front of their staff, unimpeded.  Rothermel's memo to H.L. reeks of the corporate indoctrination, and reading between the lines, I hear precisely the ethos of their operations - tell the boss what he wants to hear.

[TLR]

I choose to view Garrison's effort from the perspective of, 'what if he had not pursued Shaw, et al;' would the investigation into the assassination have slowly died?  We know that the House Select Committee most likely would not have been convened.  And would the material that Garrison had accumulated have made it to the screen for consideration by a wide audience via Stone's risky expose of the contradictions in the official story had Garrison not persevered? 

Actually, after the acquittal of Shaw, the JFK case dried up for the next few years and very few books were published until 1974-75, when Watergate, the CIA/FBI scandals, the Rockefeller Commission, Church Committee, etc reawakened interest in the subject. When it came out that Howard Hunt had discussed assassinating Jack Anderson, and the Tramp photos emerged, people wondered whether the old tramp was Hunt.

[Leslie Sharp]

Post Script:   H. L. Hunt was aligned with the same individuals connected to the ideology of General Edwin Walker, who on the day of Kennedy's assassination flew to Shreveport, LA to speak to a segregationist organization.  Personally, I think that Walker was a mere pawn, and completely in the dark when it came to the shooting outside his home in April of 1963.  I also believe that had the shooter wanted to kill Walker, Walker would have been dead that evening. 

Repeating 'old news' here ... HL Hunt funded the distribution of First Baptist Church/William Criswell's anti-Kennedy sermon; Hunt was a major contributer to the Navy League; Hunt was spirited out of Dallas on November 22nd/23rd of 1963 to hole up in a Washington DC hotel; Hunt founded Western Goals, one of the new breed of right wing think tanks in the '70's (Ref. Larry McDonald); Charlie Wilson used Rosewood's Mansion on Turtle Creek during his Afghan operation; Ricky and Sandra diPortanova - allies of Henry Kissinger and Brandy Brandstetter - were frequent flyers at The Mansion in Dallas; Sandra was a high school buddy of Joanna Herring, Charlie Wilson's warrior muse.

But on a more contemporary note, Ruth Collins Altshuler, (daughter of the founder of one of Dallas' premier insurance companies) Chairperson of the 50th Anniversary commemoration was interviewed at length regarding the challenges confronting Dallas from her frequent hang-out, the club on the top floor of The Crescent Court owned by Rosewood Hotels, a division of Hunt family investments. (the incident will be viewed as purely coincidental unless one understands Dallas power structures.) 

The following may be considered as irresponsible speculation, but my file on the subject supports this brief and risky dot-connecting and may in fact over time, prove the length of the arm of Dallas and Texas wealth in alliance with national and international corporate and military interests in furthering Imperialism:  "Craft International" is (at least in the Spring of 2013) housed in a Hunt/Rosewood/Crescent-related office building adjacent to the Crescent Court;  Craft private militia members are alleged to have been present at the time of the Boston bombing.  If one were to study the trajectory of US semi-private policies spanning the last 50 years, this is a good place to start. 

[Leslie Sharp]

TLR, I'll take your word for the timing of renewed interest in the JFK assassination post the Shaw trial of 1969.  However, I do think that researchers like Peter Dale Scott were plugging away in the interim.  My approach is purely unscientific, and would not stand up in a court of law, nor would I want it to.  I'm wedded to "innocent until proven guilty," even for the bad guys.  However, I do think that if you elevate yourself onto a perch observing 1969 (Shaw trial), 1973/4 (Watergate), 197whatever (the family jewels, the Church Committee and HSCA) you will see a number of the same and/or related players.  I'm interested in that aspect because I search for a grand unifying theory relating to the assassination of John Kennedy.  I have difficulty accepting that the photo of the tramps, regardless of who they were, was a seminal moment.  I began questioning the Warren Report when my mother read it and questioned it, sometime in the late 1960's.

A tiny factoid:  The inspector General of the CIA was related to the office mate (Drew Pearson) of Jack Anderson.  This was rarefied air, and if only those family members who hold vast reservoirs of information would speak out.   

[TLR]

Yes, Scott and Weisberg and others were still plugging away, but if you look at the bibliography of books and articles published between 1969 and 1974, it really dried up. Very little new evidence came out. The 10th anniversary got little attention because the country was in the throes of Watergate. The film Executive Action (1973) was barely screened in theaters before it disappeared.

The Rockefeller Commission actually investigated the Tramp photos to debunk them. It was a big deal at the time. I'm an agnostic about them, personally.

I totally agree that JFK, MLK, RFK, Watergate, Iran-Contra and other events are connected by the same players, groups, networks, etc. Thanks for all the information you posted about the Hunts and related Dallas matters.

[Leslie Sharp]

TLR, likewise, thank you for the feed back. 

It's always healthy to have one's feet held to the fire.  Full disclosure:  I have deliberately been selective with what I read in the anthology of the assassination;  early on I found that relying on others' research slanted my private perspective.  I'm guessing that a number of researchers and authors experienced the same. ... don't build on anything that you don't believe intuitively.  Having said that, as I have also frequently state, my assumptions about the assassination rest on the shoulders of giants.  It's not black and white.

You triggered several hot buttons:  Watergate AND the 10th Anniversary.  At some point into my personal research (1990's), I decided that Watergate wasn't what it appeared.  I was studying the Grolier Society because I had acted as a tour guide for them in the mid-1970's on a tour of Texas culminating in the hand-over of an original copy of the Guttenberg Bible by the Pforzheimer family at the University of Texas at Austin.  I'm fairly convinced that Walter Pforzheimer was present during that tour, and I think that John McCloy (another Grolier member) may have been present as well; the tour was handled by my employer, Nieman Marcus Travel of Dallas.  Former OSS guy, Walter P. was the historian for the CIA, and purely coincidentally, he lived in the Watergate Complex in DC at the time of the break-in.  I read that he had installed a walk-in safe in his apartment at the Watergate, and I imagined (true to any conspiracists' line of thinking) that the break-in had something to do with his safe.  I moved past that, but ended up encountering people close hand who were on the periphery of the Watergate story, and I for one determined that the entire incident was similar to the Kennedy assassination; it was designed to bring down the presidency during that particular term, not the person (Nixon) holding the job.  And one can examine the undermining of every presidency since.  Kennedy was unique; he represented a dynasty.

The other hot button:  Executive Action.  No one watching that movie (we checked it out last night to watch it for my 7th time) missed the implications of a Southern/Texan as archetype of the plot against Kennedy.  You're right, the movie was buried.

[piopat]

I watched and enjoyed this video and I thought it would fit in well in this discussion and thread , I hope everyone enjoys it no matter what their views are on garrison . its jfk media cover up : jim garrison the lost tapes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1HoWYPzzsI

[TLR]

That's very interesting, Piopat. Thanks for posting. There's no doubt that Garrison, despite his flaws, was threatening a lot of important people.