In the wake of Oliver Stone's JFK, it's almost inevitable that David Ferrie should become for many people a suspect in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Joe Pesci's memorable performance as a manic, demented clown has indelibly marked Ferrie as a suspicious character for all posterity. David Ferrie: Presumed Guilty
Garrison's Villain and Hollywood's ClownCopyright © 1999-2001 by David Reitzes
David Ferrie (right) with
Bay of Pigs veteran Julian Buznedo
In reality, however, Jim Garrison never produced the slightest evidence that Dave Ferrie participated in the murder of the President that Ferrie actually admired.
Saturday Evening Post reporter James Phelan was invited by the DA to come to New Orleans to get the inside story of his JFK investigation. Phelan writes:
"You had to see Dave Ferrie to believe him," says a New Orleans newsman, "and once you saw him you could never forget him." Ferrie was 48, completely hairless, and habitually wore glued-on eyebrows and had tufts of hair fastened at random on his head with spirit gum. He had a nasal voice, an antipathy to soap and a penchant for authoritative statements.He also had a long record of failure in a wildly disparate series of endeavors. Ferrie had been a teacher, an unsuccessful candidate for the priesthood, a pilot who had been discharged by Eastern Air Lines for homosexual activity, a "psychologist" with a "degree" from a diploma mill, a private investigator, a self-proclaimed cancer-cure researcher and an amateur hypnotist. In New Orleans he had become enmeshed with a group of anti-Castro Cubans and had been training teams of "guerrilla jungle fighters" for some future assault on Cuba. To muddy things further, some of his acquaintances insisted later that Ferrie often expressed admiration for Fidel Castro. In his spare time, Ferrie labored on a miniature submarine that he was trying to fashion out of an airplane fuel tank. "Like most of Dave's projects," said a friend, "it didn't work."
Garrison later was to describe this exotic loser as "one of history's most important individuals." But when Ferrie first surfaced in the Garrison probe on February 18, Ferrie simply identified himself as a reject from the Warren Commission investigation. He had been picked up by Garrison's men shortly after the Dallas tragedy in 1963, Ferrie declared, on a tip from an unstable New Orleans character [Jack Martin]. Ferrie said he gave the FBI a "meticulous accounting" of his movements on the weekend of the assassination. Says a Washington source, "The FBI squeezed Ferrie dry, found nothing there, and discarded him." When Garrison opened his own investigation, three years later, he ran Ferrie through a new interrogation. Said Ferrie, "Supposedly I have been pegged as the getaway pilot." Ferrie denied any role in any plot, denied that he ever knew Lee Oswald and termed Garrison's project "an utter waste of time."
Four days after he made this statement, David Ferrie was found dead in his filthy, cluttered apartment at 3330 Louisiana Avenue Parkway. Although the New Orleans coroner flatly declared his death due to natural causes (massive brain hemorrhage from an artery failure), Garrison referred to it darkly as a suicide, hinted it might be murder and began issuing a series of provocative statements.(1)
However, autopsy pathologist Ronald Welsh and coroner Nicholas Chetta had categorically declared Ferrie's death a natural one, and flatly denied the possibility of suicide or foul play. Today, Welsh emphasizes that the autopsy he conducted revealed the presence of scar tissue on the brain, indicating that Ferrie had suffered one or more "small bleeds" during the weeks or months prior to the fatal rupture, a common occurrence in such cases. This proves that Ferrie's condition had been developing for some time.(2)
Jim Garrison was suspicious of a car trip to Houston that Ferrie made with two friends, beginning some twelve hours after the assassination. The DA had investigated it in 1963 and again in 1967, and, at the DA's instigation, so had the New Orleans Police Department, the Houston police, the FBI, and even the Texas Rangers. They pored over phone records from stops Ferrie made along the way, interviewed witnesses, and grilled Ferrie and the two men with whom he had taken the trip. Investigators have continued to question the same evidence and interview the same witnesses to this day. Nothing has ever come of it.
Why did Ferrie and his two friends drive to the Winterland Skating Rink in Houston that night? One of Ferrie's companions, Alvin Beauboeuf, told investigator Gus Russo, "I was a former roller skating champion with dozens of medals. I wanted to see how good I'd do on ice. I had convinced Dave that ice skating was going to be the next big thing -- like disco became in the seventies. We had been planning the trip for a couple of weeks."(3)
Investigator David Blackburst points out that Ferrie had recently received about $7000 from employer G. Wray Gill, an attorney for New Orleans Mob boss Carlos Marcello, and about $1600 from a settlement with Eastern Air Lines, with which he was interested in starting a business with Beauboeuf. One of the businesses they were considering, in fact, was an ice-skating rink. (Instead, they opened Dave & Al's service station two months later.) (4) Ferrie friend Layton Martens told Gus Russo, "Ferrie had said that if [he and G. Wray Gill] won the [Marcello] case, he might be interested in purchasing a skating rink."(5)
Martens and Beauboeuf said the exact same thing in the Sixties, and each passed a lie detector test about it in 1967.(6)
Ferrie told the FBI that "he had been considering for some time the feasibility and possibility of opening an ice skating rink in New Orleans." He "said he rented skates and skated at the rink for a while looking the situation over and also taking into consideration the amount of business at the rink. He stated that he introduced himself to Chuck Rolland and spoke with him at length concerning the cost of installation and operation of the rink." Ferrie also wanted to speak to the owner, who was not in at the time.(7) He and his friends then made a stop at the Bellaire Skating Rink on Chimney Rock Road that evening, and Ferrie was disappointed to find that Bellaire's owner was also not available.(8)
Blackburst also points out that Ferrie had worked nearly every day in November 1963, and took off for some relaxation with his friends immediately after his obligations with the Marcello hearing had passed.
Al Beauboeuf told A. J. Weberman, "The trip to Texas had been planned two weeks in advance. It all rolled out. The [Marcello] trial finished up and we just went. Unless Dave had some unique way of engineering me into going there."(9)
Ferrie volunteered to the New Orleans District Attorney's Office both in 1963 and in 1967 that he would gladly submit to a polygraph examination and to the administration of sodium Pentothal (so-called "truth serum"). On both occasions, the NODA turned him down.(10)
Did Dave Ferrie know Oswald? We know he did in 1955, or at least made his acquaintance, when they briefly crossed paths in the Civil Air Patrol. What about later? We have a handful of eyewitness reports from people of highly questionable credibility. Even if Ferrie did know Oswald in 1963, there's no evidence whatsoever that this relationship would have continued past September. That should severely limit Ferrie's potential as a suspect.
The greatest injustice of all is that which Jim Garrison committed upon David Ferrie's character. Garrison's claims about Ferrie largely originated with Jack Martin, who began making a series of phone calls the day after the assassination, claiming that Ferrie had some connection to Oswald or the assassination.
Who was Jack Martin?
In his 1988 memoirs, Garrison states of Martin, "I had long regarded him as a quick-witted and highly observant, if slightly disorganized, private detective."(11)
This is something of a contrast to remarks Garrison made to Richard Billings in December 1966 - that Martin was "an undependable drunk,"(12) "a totally unreliable witness"(13) and "a liar."(14) Garrison generously avoids mention of the lawsuit Martin had filed against him in the summer of 1963, which had been withdrawn). After questioning Martin on one occasion, NODA chief investigator Lou Ivon referred to him as "evasive"(15) and called him "a lush and a bum."(16)
Aaron Kohn, head of New Orleans' Metropolitan Crime Commission, an influential citizens' watchdog committee, told the House Select Committee on Assassinations, "Jack Martin has always been a kind of harassing influence around here, somebody who wastes a lot of time, but you discover the best thing to do is to let him waste your time when he has things on his mind or else he wastes a lot more of your time when he gets drunk, waking you up in the middle of the night, threatening to kill you . . ."(17) "After years of all kinds of wild allegations," Kohn continues, ". . . I threw him out of my office after he wound down to the point where he was 'turn-offable,' if there is any such thing." Martin wasn't merely giving information to Garrison in the fall of 1966, either: "Jack Martin," Kohn stated, "is the man who came in here about August 1966 to tell me the theory of the JFK assassination that came out of Jim Garrison's mouth in January 1967."(18)
Kohn also noted that Martin's real name was Suggs, and vaguely recalled his having been "incarcerated in an institution over in Texas" under that name. (19) Kohn's memory served him well.
Jack S. Martin, born Edward Stewart Suggs, had a rap sheet stretching back to October 1944, and spanning the US from California to Arkansas to Texas to Louisiana. He was arrested in January 1945 in Fort Worth, Texas, for carrying a pistol; he was fingerprinted in Los Angeles in December 1945; he was arrested in December 1947 for disturbing the peace in San Diego and again in May 1949 in Dallas.(20)
In 1952, Martin became a suspect in a Houston murder investigation, and was arrested in May of that year for unlawful flight to avoid prosecution for that crime. On May 16, 1952, he was charged with murder; the charges were later dropped, and he became a witness in the case. He was arrested a year later in Los Angeles, and held until it was determined he was no longer wanted in Texas. In March 1954, he was fingerprinted in Galveston for vagrancy and a drunk and disorderly charge.(21)
An FBI report reads, "Our files also disclose that in January 1957, we received information from a local store in New Orleans that Suggs had become involved in an altercation with a woman he claimed to be his wife in the store and, as a result, was ejected from the store. Suggs exhibited identification to store authorities and claimed to be an FBI agent. We instituted inquiries in this matter at that time to locate Suggs and determined that he was in a psychiatric ward [at] Charity Hospital, New Orleans as of January 17, 1957. His psychiatrist informed our agents that Suggs was suffering from a character disorder . . ."(22)
Another FBI document reports that Suggs was a patient in a psychiatric ward in 1956 through 1957.(23) An 'Informative Note' in Martin's FBI file states, "Several sources have reported Martin is a mental case."(24) The actual diagnosis was "sociopathic personality disorder, antisocial type."(25) Onetime Garrison investigator Pershing Gervais described Martin as "absolutely crazy."(26) Gervais said that Martin "had a way of breathing up stories and being very positive about things. He would concoct things about someone and then he would talk to that someone" and construct a story "that would kind of jibe." When asked about Martin's reliability, Gervais laughed and said, "He couldn't be reliable if he intended to be."(27) Garrison investigator Lynn Loisel - who was nothing if not loyal to his boss - referred to Martin at that time as a "sack of roaches."(28)
The FBI interviewed Edward Suggs in 1960 about impersonating an FBI agent.(29) When Martin later informed the FBI that an associate of his, Carl Stanley, "was involved in illegal activities including Fraud Against the Government," the "FBI ultimately concluded both men were mentally ill. According to Carl Stanley, Edward Suggs said he had worked for the CIA. No documents supported this."(30)
Secret Service agent Anthony Gerrets interviewed Martin in December 1963, noting that Martin "has the appearance of being an alcoholic."(31) Gerrets' report states flatly, "Martin had admitted to being a heavy drinker . . ." and "has the reputation of furnishing incorrect information to law enforcement officers, attorneys, etc."(32)
A November 28, 1963, New Orleans FBI teletype stated that all the allegations linking David Ferrie to the assassination or to Lee Harvey Oswald personally in the summer of 1963 "stem from Jack S. Martin who was previously confined to the psychiatric ward of Charity Hospital, New Orleans, for character disorder. Martin is well known to New Orleans office and is considered thoroughly unreliable."(33)
The Mob-thirsty House Select Committee on Assassinations was extremely interested in linking Oswald to David Ferrie, who had been a part-time investigator for New Orleans Mob kingpin Carlos Marcello's attorney, G. Wray Gill. The committee could not accept Martin's testimony, however.(34)
Author Anthony Summers calls Jack Martin "an odd character,"(35) and notes "some justifiable doubt" about his tales.(36) Peter Dale Scott goes further. Calling David Ferrie's denials of involvement in the assassination "quite plausible,"(37) Scott writes, "More suspicious than Ferrie, in my view, is . . . Jack Martin, [who] made much of Ferrie's alleged membership in a phony church. However . . . Ferrie had testified that he 'became involved with these religious orders only to assist Martin in [an] investigation into the sale of phony certificates of ordination and consecration.' The Select Committee, after investigating Ferrie extensively, agreed that 'Martin . . . and Ferrie had performed some investigative work on a case involving an illegitimate religious order in Louisville, Ky.'"(38) "[T]his finding radically discredits Martin's multiple allegations against Ferrie."(39) Martin himself obtained a mail-order pastoral certification for his onetime friend, Thomas Beckham.(40)
After Dave Ferrie passed away, Martin's friend David F. Lewis tried to implicate Beckham in the assassination, just as Martin and Lewis had previously done with Ferrie.(41)
Beckham told the New Orleans Times-Picayune that "he was being framed by Garrison and Jack Martin."(42) A. J. Weberman notes, "On July 7, 1960, Edward S. Suggs [aka Jack S. Martin] advised the FBI that Thomas Edward Beckham, age 17, was in California, allegedly passing fraudulent checks on his father's account." Weberman also cites an FBI report noting, "The information that Thomas Beckham was one of Garrison's witnesses was furnished this Bureau by Edward Suggs . . ."(43)
Edward Stewart Suggs, aka Jack S. Martin, summed up his life quite aptly during one of his bouts in an institution. In December 1956, at Mercy Hospital, Martin said, "I ruin everything I get my hands on."(44)
It was Suggs, aka Jack Martin, who started all of the rumors about Oswald and Ferrie, including the claim that Oswald had been arrested with David Ferrie's library card.(45)
Jerry Shinley has posted two FBI interviews with Jack Martin in full, and I reproduce them here. Note the wide variety of charges Martin speculates about. Note also that in place of evidence of complicity in the assassination, Martin makes allegations about Ferrie's character, as Ferrie's detractors continue to do to this day. Finally, note that Martin omits any mention of a first-hand acquaintance with Lee Harvey Oswald.
FBI Interview of Jack S. Martin 11/25/1963by SA REGIS L. KENNEDY and SA CLAUDE L. SCHLAGER at New Orleans, Louisiana
JACK S. MARTIN, 1311 North Prieur Street, New Orleans, Louisiana, advised that he was listening to a TV program on WWL-TV reporting the life of LEE OSWALD and reporting various interviews with people in New Orleans that were acquainted with LEE OSWALD. MARTIN stated that one of the people interviewed whose name he does not know who he describes as a white male, age early 20's, wearing horn rimmed glasses, recalled that OSWALD had been active in the Civil Air Patrol with DAVID FERRIE. MARTIN stated that when he heard this he "flipped." MARTIN advised that in his occupation as a private investigator he has had occasion to develop considerable information about FERRIE and reported it to RICHARD E. ROBY, Special Agent, Investigative Division, Office of Compliance and Security, Federal Aviation Agency, Washington, D.C., who must have a big file on FERRIE as they conducted a complete investigation of his activities in New Orleans several years ago. MARTIN advised that he called WWL-TV Station and furnished the station with background information about FERRIE, particularly his homosexual tendencies and the fact that he formerly operated the Civil Air Patrol. He also told them that FERRIE was an amateur hypnotist and that it was his idea that FERRIE may have hypnotized LEE OSWALD and planted a post-hypnotic suggestion that he kill the President.
MARTIN state that has visited in the home of DAVID FERRIE and he saw a group of photographs of various Civil Air Patrol cadet groups and in this group he is sure he saw several years ago a photograph of LEE OSWALD as a member of one of the classes. He stated he did not recall the group that OSWALD was in or any other details. In addition he stated that FERRIE conducted military type drills with rifles, fatigue clothes and helmet liners of the Civil Air Patrol Cadets and he recalled that FERRIE claimed to have taught these cadets how to shoot. MARTIN stated that he observed in FERRIE's home a number of foreign made firearms and it is his opinion that FERRIE could have taught OSWALD how to purchase a foreign made firearm or possibly have purchased the gun that was shown on television. He advised that he saw similar type weapons at FERRIE's home when he visited there two years ago.
MARTIN advised that FERRIE discussed with him the charges of crime against nature which resulted in the his arrest by Jefferson Parish authorities and he recalled that FERRIE had told him that one of the "kids that was a witness against him" had moved to Mississippi from New Orleans and subsequently joined the United States Marine Corps. He heard on television that OSWALD had been in the Marine Corps therefore he surmised that OSWALD was that "kid," that he was a witness against FERRIE in the crime against nature charge that had joined the Marine Corps. Martin explained that it might have been the same individual or a very close coincidence.
MARTIN advised that he has reported this matter to Major TROSCLAIR of the New Orleans Police Department, Intelligence Division, and he felt that Major TROSCLAIR was not giving the matter sufficient concern so he called Assistant District Attorney HERMAN KOHLMAN who was a former newspaper reporter and who was very familiar with the FERRIE case as he had written various feature stories about FERRIE. MARTIN stated that he explained all of his ideas and suspicions to KOHLMAN.
MARTIN advised he was really suspicious of FERRIE's activities when he received a report from W. HARDY DAVIS, a New Orleans Bail Bondsman, who told him that G. WRAY GILL, New Orleans attorney and employer of FERRIE had called him to locate FERRIE who lives down the street from him and at the same time had denied to the TV station that FERRIE was an employee of GILL's Office. DAVIS furnished MARTIN information that FERRIE had left town for Texas on Friday evening, November 22, 1963, which information he also made available to Mr. KOHLMAN of the District Attorney's office. Martin stated that FERRIE is a completely disreputable person, a notorious sex deviate with a brilliant mind being highly trained in mathematics, sciences, several foreign languages including Latin, modern Greek and ancient Greek. MARTIN advised that FERRIE had been educated in a seminary and subsequently expelled from the Catholic Church and he, MARTIN, suspected him of being capable of committing any type of crime.
MARTIN stated that he felt that FERRIE's possible association with LEE OSWALD should be the subject of close examination as he personally believed that he could be implicated in the killing of President JOHN F. KENNEDY.(46)
FBI Interview of Jack S. Martin 11/27/1963by SAs L.M. SHEARER, JR. and REGIS L. KENNEDY
at New Orleans, La.JACK S. MARTIN, 1311 North Prieur Street, New Orleans, advised that he has never heard DAVID FERRIE make a statement that President KENNEDY should be killed, or outline a means by which he could be killed. MARTIN stated he had never made a statement to anyone regarding this allegation.
He advised that over several years association with FERRIE, he has heard him state the Deputy Sheriffs in Jefferson Parish who had charged him (FERRIE) with a Crime against Nature offense, should be killed. His remarks were made in general conversation several years ago. MARTIN stated he had never repeated these comments to anyone.
MARTIN advised he had several phone discussions with HARDY DAVIS, a bail bondsman . . . regarding a television program which mentioned the possibility that DAVID FERRIE was associated with LEE HARVEY OSWALD in the Civil Air Patrol, and MARTIN and DAVIS may have come to the conclusion the OSWALD had used or carried FERRIE's library card. He advised he had three telephone conversations with Assistant District Attorney HERMAN KOHLMAN, New Orleans, on Saturday, November 23, 1963, in which he told KOHLMAN that FERRIE had guns similar to the type used to kill President KENNEDY that had appeared on television, and further informed KOHLMAN that HARDY DAVIS had told him FERRIE possessed Cuban propaganda literature that he kept in attorney G. WRAY GILL's office in New Orleans, but GILL made FERRIE move it approximately a year ago. MARTIN said DAVIS claimed it was Fair Play for Cuba Committee literature but MARTIN did not believe it, because he knew FERRIE was active with the Cuban Front Group that was anti-Castro. MARTIN stated he is acquainted with the leaders of the anti-Castro group that were in New Orleans before the Bay of Pigs Invasion, and was aware that FERRIE was also involved with this group. MARTIN advised he talked with JERRY PHILIP STEIN to obtain the phone number of KOHLMAN, who had recently married and obtained a new phone number, and that STEIN was the former roommate of KOHLMAN.
MARTIN admitted he had talked with STEIN about FERRIE, but did not recall specifically what information he furnished STEIN.
MARTIN advised he called television station WWL, New Orleans, and told them they should contact Major PRESLEY J. TROSCLAIR of the New Orleans Police Department, who was investigating FERRIE's connection with the shooting of President KENNEDY. He made this call immediately after he had called TROSCLAIR and furnished him with his suspicions regarding FERRIE, based on his personal knowledge of FERRIE and his observation of WWL-TV programs of the background of OSWALD.
MARTIN advised he received information from HARDY DAVIS that FERRIE was out of town and suspected FERRIE had gone to Texas. MARTIN made this information available to Assistant District Attorney KOHLMAN.
MARTIN further stated he considered FERRIE to be a completely degenerate person and it was his opinion that FERRIE is capable of any crime. If was for this reason that MARTIN suspected FERRIE of being involved in the killing of President KENNEDY.
MARTIN advised that he considered the possibility that FERRIE had taught OSWALD to shoot a rifle and use a telescopic sight, in that he knew FERRIE taught military training to Civil Air Patrol Cadets and OSWALD was a Civil Air Patrol member. MARTIN insisted he told no one FERRIE had flown OSWALD to Dallas, Texas.(47)
Note that little of what Martin alleged came from first-hand knowledge. Martin didn't even have first-hand knowledge of Ferrie leaving town on the night following the assassination; he got the information from Hardy Davis.Jack Martin had once worked with Dave Ferrie and held a grudge against him for various offenses that most likely originated in his imagination, like practically everything else he said. He blamed Ferrie for prejudicing Guy Banister against him, when Banister knew Martin very well and was quite capable of mistrusting Martin for plenty of reasons of his own.
It is Jack Martin who began the character assassination of Dave Ferrie, which Jim Garrison eagerly picked up and disseminated.
Gus Russo writes:
David Ferrie has long been portrayed on paper and in film as an American grotesque: a raving hater of President Kennedy, who threatened to kill the President. He was said to be angry at JFK for failing to help the Cuban exiles restore liberty to their land. It seems certain he made a celebrated statement after the Bay of Pigs fiasco on which much of the portrait has been based. That incident occurred in July 1961, when Ferrie was addressing the New Orleans chapter of the Order of World Wars. Ferrie became so critical of Kennedy's handling of the Bay of Pigs invasion that he was asked to discontinue his remarks. But that was almost certainly taken out of context and misinterpreted.A devout Catholic (who was, for a time, a seminarian), Ferrie voted for Kennedy in 1960 and was "elated" when he defeated Richard Nixon for the presidency that year. "Things are going to turn for the better now that a Catholic has been elected," a good friend would remember Ferrie saying. Another friend elaborated, "After all, he was an Irish Catholic too. He was an enthusiastic supporter [of Kennedy]. Dave was a spokesman for the Kennedys . To him, the idea of a Catholic president was mind-boggling, He thought Kennedy was fabulous."(48)
Who's pushed the idea of Ferrie as a rabid right-winger, a Kennedy-hater, a potential murderer? Two people first and foremost: Jim Garrison, who got his information almost solely from Jack Martin and discredited witness Perry Raymond Russo; and HSCA chief counsel G. Robert Blakey, who needed a Mob "connection" close to Oswald, to fit his Mafia theory of the assassination. Ferrie, an employee of Carlos Marcello's lawyer, G. Wray Gill, fit the bill.
Researchers love to cite the HSCA on the credibility of the so-called Clinton witnesses, some of whom alleged a connection between Ferrie and Oswald.(49) Who was responsible for bestowing this mantle of credence on the Clinton folks? G. Robert Blakey and his co-author on both the HSCA Final Report and Blakey's own book, The Plot to Kill the President -- Richard Billings.(50)
Who was Richard Billings? Billing had been a reporter for Life covering the Garrison investigation. When Life made the decision that Garrison's investigation was disreputable and they would no longer cover it, Billings went kicking and screaming. Later in 1968, Billings tried several times to contact Garrison, but Garrison was stung by Life's loss of confidence in him, and blamed Billings at least in part.(51)
Of all the journalists who were close to the Garrison investigation in its early stage, only Billings maintained a low profile following the release of Oliver Stone's JFK, refraining from the sort of criticism that others like George Lardner and James Phelan renewed upon Garrison.
So the two men responsible for bestowing credibility upon the Clinton witnesses were a longtime Garrison loyalist and G. Robert Blakey, who needed a Ferrie-Oswald connection to bolster his Mob-did-it theory. Yet these same two men are rightly criticized by conspiracy theorists and "lone-nutters" alike for distorting the HSCA's work in their Final Report and Blakey's own book on the case. This is just one of many examples of CTs citing a source they would normally avoid like the plague, simply because it suits their agenda -- just as it fit the agendas of G. Robert Blakey, Richard Billings and Jim Garrison to portray David Ferrie as a demented, rabidly anti-Kennedy fanatic.
It's time to cut Dave Ferrie loose. We goofed. We believed the ravings of Jack Martin and Perry Russo, the groundless insinuations of Jim Garrison, and the biased claims of Robert Blakey and Richard Billings. There has never been the tiniest shred of evidence against David Ferrie, and we disgrace ourselves by clinging to fantasies about him.
David Ferrie was an innocent man. Let him rest in peace.
You may wish to consult the newsgroup archive NOTES
of Ferrie expert David Blackburst
1. James Phelan, "Rush to Judgment in New Orleans," The Saturday Evening Post, May 6, 1967.
2. Patricia Lambert, False Witness (New York: M. Evans & Co., 1998), pp. 60, 64, 302 fn. 12. Robert Artwohl has posted an analysis of the specific claims made by Garrison in his 1988 memoirs.
3. Gus Russo, Live by the Sword (Baltimore: Bancroft Press, 1998), p. 329.
4. FBI Interview of David Ferrie, November 25, 1963, Warren Commission Document 75, pp. 285-97. When questioned in 1966-67, Ferrie also stated that he and his friends had gone hunting that weekend. This was incorrect, but in the November 25, 1963, interview, he did mention that hunting was one of the activities he and his friends had been considering at the time. He stated that he had not brought weapons with him for two reasons: "he did not know what the hunting seasons were in other states, and he was also concerned about transporting firearms across the state line."
5. Russo, p. 329.
6. Russo, p. 329.
7. FBI Interview of David Ferrie, November 25, 1963, Warren Commission Document 75, pp. 285-97.
8. For more information on Ferrie, see the report written about him by the House Select Committee on Assassinations.
9. A. J. Web site, Nodule 24, p. 10. 10. FBI interview of David Ferrie, November 25, 1963, Warren Commission Document 75, pp. 285-97; Lambert, 44.
11. Jim Garrison, On the Trail of the Assassins, 1991 ed., 32.
12. Richard Billings, investigative notes, undated entry from December 1966 (p. 2).
13. Richard Billings, investigative notes, undated entry from December 1966 (p. 2).
14. Richard Billings, investigative notes, December 29, 1966 (p. 4).
15. Richard Billings, investigative notes, January 25, 1967 (p. 8).
16. Richard Billings, investigative notes, January 25, 1967 (p. 8).
17. HSCA 180-10087-10439, p. 75.
18. HSCA 180-10087-10439, p. 75.
19. HSCA 180-10087-10439, p. 75.
20. FBI 62-109060-4539; A. J. Weberman Web site, Nodule 24, 2.
21. FBI 62-109060-4539; A. J. Weberman Web site, Nodule 24, 2.
22. FBI 62-109060-4539; A. J. Weberman Web site, Nodule 24, 2.
23. FBI 62-109060-4539; A. J. Weberman Web site, Nodule 24, 2.
24. Lambert, 30.
25. Lambert, 30.
26. Lambert, 30 fn.
27. Lambert, 296 fn. 24, citing her personal interview with Pershing Gervais, September 3, 1993.
28. Hugh Exnicios, Lynn Loisel, and Al Beauboeuf, "Conference," twenty-nine-page transcript, March 10, 1967, cited in Lambert, 230, 329 fn. 9.
29. FBI 62-109060-4539; A. J. Weberman Web site, Nodule 24, 2.
30. FBI 62-109060-4539; A. J. Weberman Web site, Nodule 24, 2.
31. Secret Service report, December 13, 1963, Warren Commission Document 87; cited in House Select Committee Hearings, Vol. IX, pp. 105-6.
32. Secret Service report, December 13, 1963, Warren Commission Document 87; cited in House Select Committee Hearings, Vol. IX, pp. 105-6.
33. House Select Committee Hearings Vol. IX, 106; FBI airtel from New Orleans to Director and Dallas office, Nov. 28, 1963, David W. Ferrie file.
34. House Select Committee Hearings Vol. X, p. 130.
35. Anthony Summers, Conspiracy (New York: Paragon House, 1989), p. 489.
36. Summers, p. 304.
37. Peter Dale Scott, Deep Politics and the Death of JFK (California: University of California Press, 1993), p. 247.
38. Scott, p. 247, citing House Select Committee Hearings, Vol. X, p. 130, cf. 110; House Select Committee Final Report, citing House Select Committee Hearings, Vol. X, p. 110; cf. Warren Commission Document 75, p. 293.
39. Scott. p. 247.
40. Orleans Parish Grand Jury testimony of Thomas Edward Beckham, February 15, 1968, pp. 17-8.
41. Tom Bethell journal, February 15, 1968; Orleans Parish Grand Jury testimony of Thomas Edward Beckham, February 15, 1968, pp. 106, 138, 140)
42. New Orleans Times-Picayune, February 16, 1968.
43. FBI 62-109060-4539; A. J. Weberman Web site, Nodule 24, 2.
44. Lambert, 23, citing Mercy Hospital records, December 27, 1956.
45. Investigator David Blackburst has posted an analysis of how this widely disseminated story developed from Jack Martin's claims of the assassination weekend.
46. FBI Interview of Jack S. Martin, November 25, 1963; Warren Commission Document 75, pp. 309-11; Jerry Shinley, Newsgroup post of May 13, 2000.
47. FBI Interview of Jack S. Martin, November 27, 1963; CD 75, pp. 217-8; Jerry Shinley, Newsgroup post of May 13, 2000.
48. Russo, p. 144.
49. See my article, Impeaching Clinton. 50. Blakey and Billings also embraced another groundless factoid publicized by Garrison -- the claim that two telephone records linked Dave Ferrie to Oswald's killer, Jack Ruby.
51. Lambert, pp. 46, 55-56, 83, 199-200; Tom Bethell journal, March 14-15, 1968.
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