Saturday, May 25, 2013

Roger Stone: Lyndon Johnson had John F. Kennedy Killed


(Above: President John F. Kennedy with First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy. Courtesy of The Daily Caller)

For those of us who are conservative-libertarians, we know very well how vicious Democrats are towards their opponents.  It is no surprise that they "eat their own young" as well, which is apparently what happened between John F. Kennedy and the Democratic Party establishment during his presidency (1961-1963).  JFK, as he is commonly called, rallied against the establishment of the Democratic Party during his political career in the House, Senate, and as president.  Here is what we know about his political beliefs (Courtesy of Conservapedia):
Although the father had abandoned Boston in frustration, JFK’s return to the city restored the family’s traditional power base among the large and powerful Irish-American community in Massachusetts. Strong family connections with the Chicago Irish political community (led by Mayor Richard J. Daley) augmented his national Catholic base. JFK always had two sets of advisers, an inner circle of Irish politicians who planned his campaigns, and a Protestant-Jewish coterie of intellectuals (mostly from Harvard) who promoted his stature as the intellectual in politics. That image was solidified by the Pulitzer Prize awarded his Profiles in Courage (1956). JFK possessed powerful assets: an excellent speaker and glib commentator on major issues, a middle-of-the-road political record that offended no one, strong expertise in foreign policy, articulate anti-Communism, unfailing charm and stage presence, a national network of Irish allies, a Catholic base that comprised a fourth of the electorate, and an immense purse that was ready to fund his ambitions, not to mention innumerable relatives who campaigned endlessly on his behalf.
JFK fought his way into the Senate in 1952 by defeating incumbent Republican Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., the archetypal Yankee. Kennedy largely ignored the old-boy Senate (controlled by his rival Lyndon Johnson) to display his talents through newspaper and television interviews, magazine articles, and highly publicized speeches around the country. Aided by his closest advisor, his brother Robert Kennedy, JFK appealed to conservatives by tolerating Joe McCarthy and launching attacks on corrupt labor leaders, especially Jimmy Hoffa of the Teamsters Union.
The Kennedy family represented the conservative wing of the Democratic party, and was known for its anti-Communism and close ties with Republican Senator Joe McCarthy. Many liberal Democrats, led by Eleanor Roosevelt, distrusted JFK primarily because they could never forget the father’s break with Franklin Roosevelt or the family’s support for McCarthy. Yet with the fading away of Adlai Stevenson (the liberal Democratic candidate in 1952 and 1956), liberals lacked a viable candidate.
Plus, there are more details about his politics:
Kennedy was arguably a moderate; his policies appeal to both conservatives and liberals. He apparently offered symbols for the liberals while following a conservative course in foreign and most of his domestic policy. After his death Kennedy's legacy was picked up by liberals, and there is a vague notion to the effect that Kennedy was a progressive in the same vain as his successor, Lyndon Johnson.
To be a liberal in the days when Kennedy was in politics, 1946-63, meant supporting the programs of the New Deal, following in the footsteps of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and upholding the New Deal Coalition. Support for labor unions was important; support for civil rights had been a minor issue (and one more associated with the Republican Party). Hostility to the Catholic Church was common among liberals. In foreign policy liberals had turned away from Roosevelt's détente with the Soviets and had adopted the containment policy. Liberals rejected rollback, that is efforts to remove Communists regimes from power. Verbal support for the United Nations was standard rhetoric, although in practice it meant little. The symbolically most important issue of them all for liberals was opposition to Joe McCarthy and his style of aggressive anti-Communism.
On most of these points Kennedy was largely on the conservative or moderate side. He had a base in Massachusetts with many strong liberals in academe and labor unions that had to be appeased, so he never attacked liberalism too loudly. He solved the state problem by a close alliance with the Democratic party organizations in the cities, controlled mostly by Irish politicians. JFK's campaign manager and chief confidante was his brother Bobby, a devout Catholic who was in close touch with the Catholic establishment and the local machines. JFK thus maintained very close ties to the Catholic establishment; he carefully followed the required public rituals of the Catholic church. It was a major achievement by Kennedy in 1960 to resolve the religious issue and bring Catholics into the mainstream of American life and to the top ranks of national leadership.
On foreign policy he was a leading anti-Communist hawk; he won in 1960 by attacking Eisenhower's foreign policies as not aggressive enough. When elected he sent forces to invade Cuba and rollback Communism; he increased the military presence in Vietnam; he sent the Navy to confrontation with the Soviets in the Cuban Missile Crisis, forcing the Soviets to withdraw. Liberals have misread these episodes--saying that the Cuban invasion was really Eisenhower's idea; that in Vietnam he might have changed his mind in a second term; and that in Cuba he was liberal because he did not blow the world up.
On the liberal side, he achieved the creation of the Peace Corps. To combat Communism in Latin America he proposed a liberal program of financial and technical assistance and free-food programs, and indicated he would take a sympathetic view of revolutionary movements that have the legitimate objective of bettering the life of the hemisphere's poor and downtrodden. Kennedy explicitly exempted any such movements dominated by "external"—meaning Communist—forces, thereby shutting the door on renewed diplomatic relations with Fidel Castro's Cuba. On domestic issues, a pilot program for food stamps for low-income Americans was launched in 1961. Further, Social Security benefits and food distribution to poor Americans was increased; including free school lunches. In 1961, Kennedy signed Executive Order 10925, which required affirmative action by government contractors as to both applicants and employees. It also established the "President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity". Kennedy also established the "Presidential Commission on the Status of Women" which was an advisory commission to investigate: education, income and workplace issues of women. Thereafter, in June 1963, Kennedy signed the "Equal Pay Act" which was to close the so-called wage gap based on sex.
Kennedy also endorsed the 1960 Democratic Party platform which expressed support for civil rights and universal healthcare. Although a staunch supporter of Keynesian economics, as Kennedy is often called the first president to openly endorse this economic policy, he reduced the top income tax bracket from 91% to 65%. These tax cuts are heralded by many conservatives as landmark since they, like all other tax cuts, brought economic growth. Kennedy planned deficit spending to promote growth but was hesitant to the displeasure of his more liberal advisers. Liberals argue that he'd support raising the top income tax bracket rate today. Civil rights were not a major concern until 1963. As a senator, Kennedy voted mildly on civil rights legislation and supported then Senate leader Lyndon Johnson's move of having Eisenhower's 1957 Civil Rights Act sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee which at the time was controlled by southern Democrats. On unions, he built up a reputation of strong opposition to union corruption, especially in the Teamsters; he quietly kept on good terms with George Meany, the AFL-CIO leader, while avoiding Walter Reuther, the leader of the liberal wing of the AFL-CIO.
Kennedy had a pro-business reputation and sponsored policies such as tax cuts and low inflation that conservative businessmen wanted. On taking office he called for a "full-fledged alliance" with business. He did get into a brush-up with the steel industry when the steelmen broke their promise to him to keep prices down; that move made Kennedy more popular among the anti-business liberals, but Kennedy never proposed major legislation that business opposed. He named Douglas Dillon, a leading Republican businessman, as his Secretary of the Treasury. On dealing with unemployment, he never proposed New-Dealish programs but instead had a package that was acceptable to conservative Republicans.
Crime was a signature issue for Kennedy, and on taking office he promised a major crackdown on organized crime, thus appealing to conservatives. On appointing Brother Bobby as Attorney General, he quipped, "I can't see that it's wrong to give him a little legal experience before he goes out to practice law." On the liberal side, Kennedy asked Congress for federal aid for school construction and more money for federally assisted housing. They did not oblige. Although liberals assert that the Vietnam War was initiated and supported by conservatives, Kennedy did increase the number of military advisers and special forces there which helped set up the full military combat commitment made by his successor, Lyndon Johnson.
Joe McCarthy was a close friend of the Kennedy family. Joe Kennedy was his biggest financial backer. Bobby Kennedy began his career as an aide to McCarthy. JFK was not close to McCarthy, but he refused to attack him publicly or to vote for his Senate censure in 1954 when McCarthy's career was collapsing. Kennedy was very friendly towards Republicans and appointed some to positions in his cabinet, namely Robert S. McNamara.
If ever there was a truly "bipartisan" politician in Washington, it was JFK.  He was conservative enough to dramatically cut taxes during his run in the Oval Office, but also liberal enough to support civil rights for African-Americans and create the oft-reviled Affirmative Action law.  The fact that such notable liberals within the Democratic Party as Eleanor Roosevelt distrusted JFK symbolized a growing rift and a new period of disharmony among the rank and file of the Left. Yet, as the article plainly states, JFK helped usher in, in many ways, a new era in the history of the Democratic Party. Many media political pundits claim that it was he who brought the media forever more to their side, that he wanted to promote civil rights while he was president.  But he was at odds with the party enough to draw the ire of many, including Lyndon Johnson, who would be his vice president.  In the relationship between JFK and Johnson, there is more than meets the eye, which will be discussed later in the article.

November 22, 1963: JFK is Assassinated; Government Says Lee Harvey Oswald was the Lone Assassin in the Warren Commission

(Above: The Zapruder Film, which caught the assassination of JFK.)

On November 22, 1963, President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, TX.  The man who took the fall for this was Lee Harvey Oswald, a riddle wrapped within an enigma whom no one can agree on whether or not he was an expert marksman since he allegedly shot JFK from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository (now called the Sixth Floor Museum) in what is known as Dealey Plaza.

OswaldinMinsk.jpg

(Above: Picture of Lee Harvey Oswald, the man who according to the reports from the Warren Commission and the House Select Committee on Assassinations, killed JFK. Courtesy of Wikipedia)

Here is what is know about Oswald.  Many of these details, rather than providing answers, create an image of Oswald as more of an enigma and a conundrum than anything else.  Therefore, we tend to ask more questions about JFK's presumed assassin (Courtesy of Marquette University):
". . . if you put the murdered President of the United States on one side of a scale and that wretched waif Oswald on the other side, it doesn't balance. You want to add something weightier to Oswald. It would invest the President's death with meaning, endowing him with martyrdom. He would have died for something. . . . A conspiracy would, of course, do the job nicely." — William Manchester.
An historical enigma, Lee Harvey Oswald is at the center of the assassination, regardless of whether you consider him the lone gunman, a coconspirator who was also a patsy, or totally innocent.
Oswald had a vastly unstable childhood. The Oswald Timeline - I, gives the details of his frequent moves and changes of school.
What about Oswald's adult life?
DateResidenceActivity
Oct. 26, 1956San DiegoReports to Marine Corps Basic Training
March 18, 1957Jacksonville, FLNaval Air Technical Training Center
May 1957Biloxi, MSKeesler AFB
July 1957El Toro, CAMarine Corps Air Station
Aug./Sept. 1957U.S.S. BexarPacific Crossing
September 1957Atsugi, JapanMarine Air Control Squadron No. 1
November 1957Atsugi, JapanShoots self with derringer / Court-martialed
Nov. 57/March 58Various PacificManeuvers with Marine Unit
June 27, 1958AtsugiCourt-martialed for fight with Sergeant / Confined until August 13
Sept./Oct. 1958South China SeaWith Marine unit
December 1958El Toro, CAMarine Corps Air Station
Sept. 11, 1959—Released from active duty
Sept. 20, 1959New OrleansSails for Europe
Oct. 10, 1959LondonTakes Plane to Helsinki
Oct. 16, 1959—Arrives in Moscow
Oct. 21, 1959Hotel BerlinApparent suicide attempt
Oct. 31, 1959U. S. EmbassyAttempts to renounce U.S. citizenship
Jan. 7, 1960—Arrives in Minsk
Jan. 1960 — May 1962MinskOswald very closely surveiled by KGB
Feb. 1961MinskWrites U.S. Embassy / Wants to return to U.S.
March 17, 1961MinskMeets Marina Nikolayevna Prusakova
April 30, 1961MinskLee and Marina Married
May, 1962—Oswalds leave Minsk, travel to Fort Worth
June/July 1962Fort WorthLive with Robert Oswald
July/Aug. 1962Fort WorthLived with Marguerite Oswald / Gets job at Leslie Welding Co.
Aug. 1962Fort WorthMove to 2703 Mercedes Street
Oct. 1962DallasBegins at Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall Co.
Nov. 1962DallasMove to 604 Elsbeth Street
Feb. 22, 1963DallasOswalds meet Paines
March 12, 1963DallasLee orders rifle from ad for Klein's Sporting Goods in American Rifleman
March 1963DallasMove to 214 West Neely Street / Lee receives pistol and rifle
March 31, 1963DallasOswald, in black "hunter of fascists" outfit, gives cheap Imperial Reflex camera to Marina, is photographed with rifle and pistol
April 10, 1963DallasAssassination attempt on General Walker. Lee leaves note for Marina, telling her how to deal with his death or arrest. This is the first page of the note, and this is the second.
April 24, 1963—Lee leaves for New Orleans / Marina moves to Paine home
May 10, 1963New OrleansGets job with Reily Coffee Company
May 11, 1963New OrleansMarina joins Lee at 4905 Magazine Street
July 19, 1963New OrleansOswald fired by Reily Coffee Company
August 9, 1963New OrleansOswald arrested in altercation passing out Fair Play for Cuba leaflets
Sept. 23/25, 1963New OrleansMarina leaves for Dallas with Mrs. Paine / Oswald leaves for Mexico City
Oct. 3, 1963—Oswald arrives in Dallas
Oct. 15, 1963DallasOswald Hired by Roy Truly at Texas School Book Depository
Oct. 16, 1963DallasOswald begins work at Depository
Nov. 22, 1963, 12:30 pm.Dealey Plaza, DallasKennedy Shot, fatally wounded
Nov. 22, 1963, 12:40 pm. (approx.)Elm StreetFleeing Oswald boards Cecil McWatters bus, then gets off, taking transfer.
Nov. 22, 1963, 1:15 (approx.)10th and Patton StreetsOswald shoots Officer Tippit
Nov. 22, 1963, 1:30 (approx.)Jefferson StreetJohnny Calvin Brewer, shoe store clerk, sees Oswald acting suspiciously, follows to Texas Theater
Nov. 22, 1963DallasOswald arrested in Texas Theater / Taken to police car / Booked, charged with killing Tippit
Nov. 22, 1963DallasPhony Selective Service Card found on Oswald
Nov. 22, 1963 (afternoon)Dallas Police HeadquartersMarina tells police that Oswald owned rifle, which is now missing.
Nov. 22, 1963 (late evening)DallasOswald faces press in news conference
Nov. 24, 1963DallasOswald shot, killed by Jack Ruby
Nov. 24, 1963 (afternoon)DallasLee's dead body lies in Parkland morgue
Nov. 25, 1963Fort WorthOswald funeral, Lee buried at Rose Hill cemetery, by Miller Funeral Home.

More Detail?

Lee Oswald Photo Gallery

Lee Oswald as troubled truant

Lee Oswald: Troubled Youth

  •  The whole lone assassin case hangs on the notion that Lee Harvey Oswald was the sort of disturbed individual who might have shot the president. If he was, what were the roots of his psychological problems? Oswald's chronic truancy after he and his mother moved to New York in 1952 landed him in Youth House, a facility for troubled teenagers. There professionals on the staff conducted a thorough examination of him. "Lee Oswald: Troubled Youth" is the Warren Commission's summary of what they found.

Oswald's Defection to the USSR

  • The circumstances of Oswald's defection to the USSR, and his time in Moscow are covered in detail, and with interesting new sources, on the "Lee Harvey Oswald in Russia" web site run by Peter Wronski.

Oswald in Holland

  • On the way back to the U.S. from Russia, Lee and Marina passed through the Netherlands and boarded a ship in Rotterdam. Does some mystery surround this? Perry Vermeulen has a web site on the subject. He's not pushing any particular theory, but filling in holes in the historical record.

"Suspicious" Happenings in Oswald's Life

  •  Conspiracy authors specialize in finding "spooky" or "suspicious" happenings in the life of Lee Oswald — happenings that supposedly reveal some sinister connection with a government agency or other group of possible assassination conspirators.
  • Some of the employees at Oswald's place of work in New Orleans, the Reily Coffee Company, left to take jobs at a nearby NASA facility.
  • Lee and Maria Oswald, when they returned from the USSR to the Dallas/Fort Worth area, supposedly lost some of their luggage.
  • In the Marines, Lee Oswald got gonorrhea in a manner the Marines ruled "in the line of duty . . . not due to own misconduct." Does this imply that Oswald was, for example, sleeping with prostitutes on orders from some intelligence agency? Mark Zaid, a JFK assassination researcher and a lawyer, looked into this legal determination.
  • Conspiracy authors have exploited the Warren Commission's inability to explain how Lee Oswald — during his defection to the USSR — got from London to Helsinki to suggest some sinister intelligence plot afoot. Author Chris Mills' research on the topic reveals a simple solution to the puzzle — one the Warren Commission should have produced.
  • Conspiracy books often claim that Oswald had "Top Secret" or even "crypto" security clearance, which supposedly indicates some sinister connection to some intelligence agency. The House Select Committee on Assassinations got to the bottom of this issue. Here is their report
  • On the streets of New Orleans, Oswald got into a violent confrontation with anti-Castro activists. Conspiracy books will tell you that a police officer said the confrontation was "staged," implying that Oswald was in league with the activists. Read the actual testimony and see what the officer (Francis Martello) actually said.

Why’d He Do It?

There is no way an examination of Lee Oswald's character and personality can prove he was the lone assassin. Prove that he was a malcontent loner, and you've only proved that he was the perfect patsy for some conspiracy. Prove that he was enamoured of spy games and false identities, and you simply open the possibility that real intelligence operatives suckered him into a game that cost him his life.
But people do have a right to demand that lone gunman theorists provide a plausible account of how malcontent Oswald might have chosen to kill Kennedy. Starting with the Warren Commission Report, and continuing with books like Jean Davison's Oswald's Game, they have indeed done so.
Two essays on this site address these issues.
  • Jerry Organ is a lone assassin theorist who believes that Oswald was indeed willing to kill for political reasons, as he argues in "The Oswald Agenda".
  • Mel Ayton, while giving due weight to Oswald's leftist politics, provides an especially incisive discussion of the personal motives that drove Oswald. Ayton analyzes the claimed assassin within the framework of a classic psychological study of pathological murderers -- one published before the Kennedy assassination (which is important, since it could not in any way have been slanted or biased to implicate Oswald).

Are the Backyard Photos Genuine?

  •  The HSCA analysis of the famous Oswald backyard photos. If you're used to reading the likes of Jack White on this subject, you'll find this analysis a revelation.
Oswald "Sightings"
  • Conspiracy books list large numbers of witnesses who saw Lee Oswald in all sorts of places the Warren Commission said he wasn't: in the Carousel Club, on a shooting range, talking to "Maurice Bishop," visiting Sylvia Odio. Just how seriously should these witness accounts be taken? Are they the evidence that blows the lid off the coverup, or are they just like claims of people who saw Elvis at the Laundromat? In this section of the Warren Commission Report, the Commission investigates several of these claims.
  •  Of all the many Oswald sightings, one has loomed particularly large in conspiracy literature, and even been accepted by some sober lone assassin theorists: the case of Sylvia Odio. Odio, one night in late September 1963, was visited by three men, one Anglo and three Hispanics, and after the assassination she came to believe that the Anglo was Lee Harvey Oswald. Odio was apparently an honest witness, but most likely the fellow she saw was not Oswald.
  •  And here is a late 1950's picture of Ray Herbert of the Chicago White Sox. "What," you may be asking, "is the point?" Look at the photo and ask yourself: "How many guys who looked a lot like Oswald were running around in 1963, easily misidentified as our boy Lee?" Cecil Jones discovered this photo.
  •  The House Select Committee on Assassinations found Odio a "credible" witness — although they stopped short of flatly stating that Oswald had indeed visited Odio's apartment. Here is their report on this incident, authored by Gaeton Fonzi.
  •  Was Odio the sort of woman who might have offered a mistaken identification, and even been hysterical about it? Her psychiatrist, Burton C. Einspruch, testified before the House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1978. Here is his assessment of his patient.
  •  One whole spate of sightings occurred in a place called Alice, Texas where seventeen separate witnesses thought they saw Lee Oswald — usually with Marina and a babe in arms. In an essay from his web site, Dave Reitzes reviews these sightings and explains why they are bogus.
G-Man Assigned to the Case
 FBI agent James Hosty (pictured at left) was the man the bureau assigned to keep tabs on Lee Oswald after he returned from New Orleans to Dallas. Although he failed to contact Oswald until after the assassination, he twice visited Marina and Mrs. Paine. Intimately involved in the case, his views on a broad variety of issues are recorded in this interview by researcher Steve Bochan. Bochan's interview shows an interesting FBI "insiders" view.
A Propensity for Violence?
 The Walker assassination attempt is an extremely important incident, judged by both the Warren Commission and by the House Select Committee to indicate Oswald's propensity for violence. How strong is the evidence against Oswald? This section of the Warren Commission Report deals with this incident. If Oswald shot at Walker, it is extremely easy to believe that he shot at Kennedy seven months later.
 Conspiracy books try to attack the Warren Commission version of the Walker shooting by citing a witness, Walter Coleman, who supposedly saw two men fleeing the scene. Read the FBI report of Coleman's testimony, and see whether it in any way challenges the Commission's version.
Local Media Celebrity
The high point of Lee Oswald's campaign of pro-Castro activism occurred in New Orleans where Oswald appointed himself Secretary of a rump chapter of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. As spokesman for the Committee, Oswald appeared on WDSU Radio twice.
Michael O'Dell kindly supplied these audio clips.
Two Oswald theorists

More Than One "Oswald?"

 A recurring theory has been that there were "two Oswalds" — one the birth Lee Harvey Oswald, and another a look-alike substituted for the real Lee Oswald by some sinister people for some sinister reason. And authors pushing this theory can produce considerable "evidence" to support it. But just how well does this "evidence" fare under critical scrutiny?
"Guiding Hands" Leading Lee to the Depository?
 If Lee Oswald was the designated patsy in the assassination, then the "guiding hands" of The Conspiracy had to be leading him to his job in the building overlooking the parade route. Just how did Lee get his job? This essay by Joel Grant explores the issue. Of course, yet another set of "guiding hands" had to be working to bring John Kennedy down Elm Street. Grant also explores this possibility in his essay "The Three Furies." Do we see the sinister workings of a conspiracy here, or merely the working out of a perverse fate?
A Brother's Pain
The "victims" in the assassination also included Oswald's family, who had to bear the pain of being associated with the killer. Here is the first-person account of Robert Oswald, Lee's brother. At Lee's funeral his family grieves. From left to right: Marina, June, Robert, Marguerite, Rachael, and the Reverend Louis Saunders.
Playing the Victim Game
If Oswald was in fact a Marxist, conspiracy theorists often ask, why did he not proclaim himself to be JFK's killer, and proudy declare his political beliefs? The answer lies in the value of the "Victim Game," something that since the late 60s we have heard from minorities wanting the benefit of affirmative action programs, from militia types claiming Federal persecution, and indeed from all sorts of groups. But the Old Left pioneered the Victim Game, and Oswald's mother headed Lee in that direction even before he became a leftist. Russ Burr explains this recurring factor in Lee's behavior in his brief essay "I'm Just a Patsy."

Was the Evidence Against Oswald "Inadmissible"

Conspiracy books attack the evidence against Oswald by claiming that the "chain of custody" was broken for most of it, and that only marking evidence is sufficient to establish a "chain of custody" for legal purposes. This legal brief submitted by the plaintiffs in the O. J. Simpson civil trial shows this claim to be untrue. All the key pieces of evidence (the rifle, the hulls in the Depository, the hulls at 10th and Patton, materials from Oswald's rooming house and from the Paines' house in Irving) would have been legally admissible.

Oswald Writes to Commend Communist Newspaper

Lee Oswald not only subscribed to the Trotskyist newspaper The Militant, he wrote a letter to the editor commending the paper for "analysis and coverage of the labor movement" that was "unsurpassed." Paul Hoch kindly supplied this image.

Was Oswald "Denied Counsel?"

A common theme in conspiracy books is that Oswald was "denied counsel" when in the custody of the Dallas Police. The real story is more complex, and tells us a lot about just how Lee Oswald thought. Oswald, in His Own Defense, an essay by Joel Grant and John Locke, explores this issue.

Should Oswald’s Interrogation Have Been Recorded?

To anybody who watches TV crime dramas, it might seem obvious that Lee Harvey Oswald's interrogation should have been taped. Isn't that what the cops always do? Given the massive stakes in this case, isn't it suspicious that no audio recording was made? Unfortunately, what seems "obvious" today doesn't necessarily apply in 1963. As late as 2004, the Innocence Project was urging police departments to record interrogations. Indeed, their survey of police practices in that year showed that virtually no departments recorded suspect interrrogations as far back as 1963. As researcher Sandy McCroskey (who discovered this report) pointed out:
"All departments in Alaska record [interrogations] and had been doing so for nineteen years in 2004. That means they weren't in 1963, as they started only in 1985. Los Angeles had been recording for 23 years in 2004. That means they started only in 1981. What about New York City? Well, all we have for that state is Broome County, and it didn't start until 2002! Chicago? No department in Illinois started before 1994. Washington, DC started in 2003. No police department in Texas was recording interrogations until 1992."
And of course, in 2004 a large number of departments still didn't record interrogations, a reality the Innocence Project was trying to reform.

Lee Oswald: In His Own Words


To understand the assassination a necessary — but alas, not sufficient — requirement is that you understand Lee Oswald. To believe the lone assassin theory you have to conclude that here was a man who in fact could have shot John Kennedy in cold blood. Of course, concluding that Oswald was this sort of man doesn't rule out a conspiracy. Intelligent conspirators would certainly frame a man who looked capable of being the lone gunman. But even if Oswald did it by himself, were his motives mainly personal, or political? We can start to examine the theory of Oswald the political assassin by looking at his own writings. Was this man capable of killing to achieve a political objective?

Sinister Meeting with "Maurice Bishop?"

The story is a favorite of Gaeton Fonzi, and of Tony Summers. Lee Oswald supposedly met with the very sinister "Maurice Bishop" (believed by many buffs to be the CIA's David Atlee Phillips) in Dallas in late August or early September 1963. Never mind that he was in New Orleans all this time, the story has other massive credibility problems, as the HSCA investigation made clear.

Lee's Political Views

On July 27, 1963, Lee was accompanied by Dutz and Lillian Murret (his aunt and uncle) and Marina to speak at the House of Studies at Spring Hill College in Mobile, Alabama. There he discussed his experiences in the Soviet Union before an audience of Jesuit seminarians. Among a variety of views he expressed was the following:
Question: Why don't the Russians see they are being indoctrinated and they are being denied the truth by these jamming stations?Answer: They are convinced that such contact would harm them and would be dangerous. They are convinced that the state is doing them a favor by denying them access to Western radio broadcasts.Source: Commission Exhibit 2649, 25H727-728.
Bag Oswald used to bring rifle to Depository

Was it Really Curtain Rods?

The paper bag at right, photographed in the National Archives, was claimed by the Warren Commission to be the one that Lee Oswald used to bring his Mannlicher-Carcano rifle to the Texas School Book Depository on the morning of the assassination. Conspiracists, of course, disagree. Just what does the evidence show? Is there a viable alternative to the Warren Commission conclusion?

Oswald a Homosexual?

That's what Jim Garrison thought, and conspiracy writers have even uncovered a CIA document that says he was. But Lee's wife Marina told the intimate details of their sex life to Priscilla McMillan, and the KGB spied on Lee and Marina's Minsk apartment round-the-clock. It's clear that Lee was heterosexual, and the CIA document and the way conspiracy authors have interpreted it tell us more about them than about Lee's sex life.
Ruth Paine standing in front of garage in which was stored Lee Oswald's rifle

Ruth Paine's Kindness: No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

The woman at right is Ruth Paine, who took Marina Oswald and June Oswald into her home at a time when the Oswald family was in need of support. This act of kindness enmeshed her in the horror of November 22, 1963, and the turmoil over the assassination that continues to this day. Writer Thomas Mallon offers a perceptive study of the character of Mrs. Paine and the dynamics of the Paine household in "Marina and Ruth: The Assassin's Wife and the Quaker Woman Who Took Her In."
Lee's Lies
Regardless of whether Lee Oswald was a lone-nut assassin, he was clearly not the All-American Boy. He schemed, deceived, manipulated, and hoodwinked through all of his short adult life. In the essay "Lee's Lies" Brian Dautch outlines some of his many untruths.
The Straight Scoop on Lee / Some of the most damning testimony about Lee Oswald came from his wife Marina. Conspiracy authors have attacked this testimony, pointing out that Marina was a recent immigrant to the United States, was fearful of the authorities, and spoke English very poorly.
These criticisms are well taken, but they don't apply to her testimony before the House Select Committee on Assassinations.
The following is from Volume II of the Hearings of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, pp. 301-302. Due to remarriage, Marina is "Mrs. Porter" here. The testimony was given on September 14, 1978. Note her endorsement of Priscilla Johnson McMillan's Marina and Lee as an accurate account.
Chairman STOKES. Now again you know Priscilla Johnson McMillan, don't you?
Mrs. PORTER. Yes, sir.
Chairman STOKES. That is the lady who wrote the book "Marina and Lee."
Mrs. PORTER. Yes.
Chairman STOKES. And you talked with her with reference to what she was writing about the book, didn't you?
Mrs. PORTER. Sure.
Chairman STOKES. You have read that book?
Mrs. PORTER. Yes; not recently but a year ago.
Chairman STOKES. I beg your pardon?
Mrs. PORTER. A year ago, yes.
Chairman STOKES. A year ago, right.
Let me read this passage to you from the book. I am reading at page 436.
"Marina was now certain that Lee was guilty. She saw his guilt in his eyes. Moreover, she knew that had he been innocent, he would have been screaming to high heaven for his rights, claiming he had been mistreated, and demanding to see officials at the very highest levels, just as he had always done before. For her, the fact that he was so compliant, that he told her he was being treated all right, was a sign that he was guilty."
Did you tell Miss Johnson that?
Mrs. PORTER. Yes.
Chairman STOKES. Now in addition to it, you told Miss Johnson, did you not, about the police coming and taking away many possessions, and one of the possessions that they left was a small demitasse cup, and when you looked and discovered the fact that they had not taken the cup, you also found in there Lee's wedding ring. Did you tell her about that?
Mrs. PORTER. Well, I do not — I remember the demitasse, but it is missed. I don't know where it is. Are you asking me did I find Lee's ring?
Chairman STOKES. Did you find his ring?
Mrs. PORTER. Yes, sir.
Chairman STOKES. And then did you tell Miss Johnson this:
"'Oh, no,' she thought, and her heart sank again, 'Lee never took his ring off, not even on his grimiest manual jobs.' She had seen him wearing it the night before. Marina suddenly realized what it meant. Lee had not just gone out and shot the President spontaneously. He had intended to do it when he left for work that day. Again things were falling into place. Marina told no one about Lee's ring."
Did you tell Miss Johnson that?
Mrs. PORTER. Yes.
Chairman STOKES. As my time has expired, the Chair would request unanimous consent to proceed for 3 additional minutes. Without objection. Now did you tell —
Mr. FAUNTROY. Overruled, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman STOKES. That is democracy.  Mrs. Porter, it has always been important for the American people to ascribe some motive to this killing. And I notice further that, in the same book, Miss Johnson writes this, and I am reading at page 434 of the book:
"In his eyes, his political ideas stood higher even than himself. He would talk about Marxism, Communism, and injustice all over the world."
Did you tell Miss Johnson that?
Mrs. PORTER. That was Miss Johnson's conclusion about studying Lee as a person. Her findings weren't based only on what I told her. She did great research and met with lots of people who knew Lee. That was her conclusion, and I agree with her.

The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, more well-known as the Warren Commission, was established by President Lyndon Johnson on November 29, 1963 to investigate the assassination of JFK.  It provided more controversy than it did answers.  History.com  provides more details into the Warren Commission's findings:
A week after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963, his successor, Lyndon Johnson (1908-1973), established a commission to investigate Kennedy’s death. After a nearly yearlong investigation, the commission, led by Chief Justice Earl Warren (1891-1974), concluded that alleged gunman Lee Harvey Oswald (1939-1963) had acted alone in assassinating America’s 35th president, and that there was no conspiracy, either domestic or international, involved.
Despite its seemingly firm conclusions, the report proved controversial and failed to silence conspiracy theories surrounding the event. Subsequent investigations have both supported and called into question the Warren Commission’s report.
Warren Commission: President Kennedy is assassinated
The 46-year-old Kennedy was shot while traveling in a motorcade in an open-top limousine as it passed the Texas School Book Depository Building in downtown Dallas at approximately 12:30 p.m. First lady Jacqueline Kennedy, Texas Governor John Connally (1917-1993) and his wife Nellie were riding with the president, and the governor also was shot and seriously wounded. Kennedy was pronounced dead 30 minutes later at Dallas' Parkland Hospital.
Vice President Johnson, who was three cars behind Kennedy in the motorcade, was sworn in as the 36th U.S. president at 2:39 p.m., taking the oath of office aboard Air Force One as it sat on the runway at Dallas Love Field airport.
Less than an hour after Kennedy was shot, Oswald, a former Marine who had recently started working at the Texas School Book Depository Building, killed a policeman who questioned him on the street near his Dallas rooming house. Thirty minutes later, Oswald was arrested in a movie theater by police responding to reports of a suspect. Oswald was formally arraigned on November 23 for the murders of Kennedy and Officer J.D. Tippit.
The next day, Oswald was brought to the basement of the Dallas police headquarters on his way to a more secure county jail. A crowd of police and press with live television cameras rolling gathered to witness his departure. As Oswald came into the room, Jack Ruby (1911-1967) emerged from the crowd and fatally wounded him with a single shot from a concealed .38 revolver. Ruby, who operated strip joints and dance halls in Dallas and had minor connections to organized crime, was immediately detained. He claimed that rage at Kennedy's murder was the motive for his action.
Johnson appoints Warren Commission
Since Oswald was killed so soon after murdering Kennedy, his motive for the crime remained unknown. On November 29, 1963, Johnson established the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy in order to investigate his predecessor’s death. The commission was led by Chief Justice Warren, a former governor of California who was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1953. The commission also included two U.S. senators, two U.S. representatives, a former CIA director and a former World Bank president.
During its almost yearlong investigation, the Warren Commission, as it was commonly known, reviewed reports by the FBI, Secret Service, Department of State and the attorney general of Texas, and also pored over Oswald's personal history, political affiliations and military record. The group listened to the testimony of hundreds of witnesses and traveled to Dallas several times to visit the site where Kennedy was shot.
In its 888-page report presented to Johnson on September 24, 1964 (and released to the public three days later), the commission concluded that the bullets that killed Kennedy and injured Connally were fired by Oswald in three shots from a rifle pointed out of a sixth-floor window in the Texas School Book Depository. Oswald's life, including a visit he made to the Soviet Union, was described in detail, but the report made no attempt to analyze his motives. Additionally, the commission found that the Secret Service had made poor preparations for Kennedy's visit to Dallas and had failed to sufficiently protect him, and concluded that Ruby had acted alone in killing Oswald.

Warren Commission Report proves controversial
The Warren Commission's conclusion that Oswald was a "lone gunman" failed to satisfy some who witnessed the attack and others whose research found conflicting details in the commission's report. A number of conspiracy theories arose, involving such disparate suspects as the Cuban and Soviet governments, organized crime, the FBI and CIA and even Johnson himself. Some critics of the Warren Commission's report believed that additional ballistics experts' conclusions and a home movie shot at the scene disputed the theory that three bullets fired from Oswald's gun could have caused Kennedy's fatal wounds as well as the injuries to the Texas governor.
In the late 1970s, the U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) launched a new investigation into Kennedy’s death. In its final report, issued in 1979, the HSCA agreed with the Warren Commission’s findings that two bullets fired by Oswald had killed Kennedy and wounded Connally. However, the HSCA also concluded there was a high probability that a second gunman fired at Kennedy, and that the president was probably assassinated as a result of an unspecified conspiracy. The committee's findings, as with the those of the Warren Commission, continue to be debated.
The enormous volume of documentation from the Warren Commission was placed in the National Archives and much of it is now available to the public. However, access to Kennedy's autopsy records is highly restricted. To view them requires membership in a presidential or congressional commission or the permission of the Kennedy family.
You can find the full Warren Commission reports courtesy of the National Archives.  The U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on Assassinations Report is available as well courtesy of the National Archives.

What did JFK's brother and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy think of the Warren Commission's report on the president's assassination?  His son had this to say in a report from January 12, 2013 edition of The Dallas Morning News:
A rare public appearance in Dallas this weekend by relatives of President John F. Kennedy was filled with political discussion and personal reminiscences, with only occasional attention to the tragedy that has linked the family and city for 50 years.
In a round-table discussion Friday night in the Dallas Arts District, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., son of the president’s brother and attorney general, said his father publicly supported the official Warren Commission conclusion that the president was killed in Dealey Plaza by a lone gunman.
“In private, he was dismissive of it,” he said. “My father believed the Warren report was a shoddy piece of craftsmanship.”
Robert Kennedy Jr. and his sister, Rory, were guests of PBS talk-show host Charlie Rose, who interviewed them for an hour and a half on a sparsely decorated stage at the Winspear Opera House.
Robert Kennedy Jr. said his father was concerned enough about the accuracy of the Warren report that he asked Justice Department investigators to informally look into allegations that the accused assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, had received aid from the Mafia, the CIA or other organizations.
He said the staff members found phone lists linking Jack Ruby, Oswald’s assassin, to organized crime figures with ties to the CIA, convincing the elder Kennedy that there was something to the allegations.
The attorney general refrained from voicing his doubts in public, his son said, because he believed that with the issue of civil rights then gripping the country, “it was a distraction for him to make this a principal issue.”
Though talk about the aftermath of the assassination surfaced several times during the evening, most of the discussion centered on life in the Kennedy family.
Robert Kennedy Jr., 58, an environmentalist and lawyer, is the third of Ethel and Robert Kennedy’s 11 children. Rory Kennedy, 44, is the youngest and an Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker.
Rory Kennedy said her father was shy but passionate about issues. Her uncle, the president, was more aloof, but the more comfortable with retail politics.
Despite the difference in personalities, she said, “it’s hard to imagine two brothers being closer.”
Much of the evening was lighthearted, with Robert Kennedy Jr. entertaining the audience with stories about growing up in the most famous family in America.
He told about a family party in which a borrowed elephant charged at Amy Carter, daughter of President Jimmy Carter, and how boxing champion Muhammad Ali tried a zip line on the property, only to collide with a blue spruce.
He also recalled that when he was 8 years old, he asked for a meeting with his uncle to discuss environmental issues.
The younger Kennedy entered the Oval Office with a salamander as a gift. The amphibian had died en route, but he presented it to the president anyway.
“I was in denial,” he said.
The president kept poking at the salamander, he recalled, announcing “he doesn’t look too well.”
“I had to admit there was a startling lack of animation,” Robert Kennedy Jr. recalled.
Other recollections were more sobering.
The president’s widow, Jacqueline Kennedy, spent much of the five years after his 1963 assassination outside the United States because she was shocked at the level of violence here.
The attorney general read books extensively during that period, his children said.
“He read the Greeks,” Robert Kennedy Jr. said. “He read the Catholic scholars, and he read the poets, Emerson and Keats, trying to figure out why a just God would allow injustice of this magnitude.”
For RFK, it would have been political suicide to have not backed President Johnson and the Warren Commission.  After all, the strength of the Democratic Party is and has always resided in its cohesiveness, the fact of how they always band together and near-unconditionally support their fellow party members politically.

***

The Jim Garrison Investigation

Jim Garrison was the District Attorney for Orleans Parish (New Orleans) in Louisiana from 1962 to 1973.  A member of the Democratic Party, he is best remembered for conducting a massive investigation into the JFK assassinations.  Portrayed as a hero in Oliver Stone's JFK, one website portrayed Garrison as a "reckless crackpot who abused his power" and who had a healthy-enough relationship to the New Orleans Mafia that he chose not to include them in his investigation despite incorporating alleged agents of the CIA into the investigation. (Courtesy of Marquette University) Opinions differ as to whether he uncovered a conspiracy behind JFK's assassination, but he was blocked from successful prosecution by a federal government cover-up, whether he bungled his chance to uncover a conspiracy, or whether the entire case was an unproductive waste of resources.

Garrison's life history is briefly recounted by Spartacus Educational, a British website:


(Above: Former New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, who investigated the JFK assassination and implicated several different people who were allegedly agents of the CIA and FBI as co-conspirators.  Courtesy of Spartacus Educational)
James Garrison was born in Knoxville, Iowa, on 20th November, 1921. His family moved to Chicago and after Pearl Harbor Garrison joined the U.S. Army. In 1942 he took part in the fighting in Europe.
After the war Garrison attended Tulane Law School in New Orleans. He then joined the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and served as a special agent in Seattle and Tacoma. In 1954 Garrison returned to New Orleans where he became assistant district attorney.
In 1961, Garrison was elected as the city's district attorney. He developed a good reputation and in his first two years he never lost a case. According to Joan Mellen, the author of A Farewell to Justice (2005): "He hired the first woman assistant attorney in New Orleans history, Louise Korns, who had been first in her class at Tulane, and entrusted most of the research to her... Garrison's was the first office to employ full-time police investigators, among them Louis Ivon... Garrison dressed nattily in three-piece suits and he was not corrupt, rejecting the Napoleonic premise that political office was a form of private property."
Three days after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Garrison brought in David Ferrie for questioning. He had been informed by Jack Martin, a part-time private investigator, that Ferrie had known Lee Harvey Oswald and might have been involved in the assassination. Ferrie told Garrison that on the day of the assassination he had driven to Houston in order to go ice-skating. Garrison thought he was lying and handed him over to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. However, after a brief interview he was released.
In 1965 Garrison was told by Hale Bloggs, a Congressman from Louisiana and a former member of the Warren Commission, that he had serious doubts that Oswald was a lone-gunman. This encouraged Garrison to read the Warren Report and books on the assassination by Mark Lane, Edward Jay Epstein and Harold Weisberg.
Garrison recruited Tom Bethell to investigate the case. He interviewed Vince Salandria who claimed that the conspirators were the CIA and military leaders who wanted to stop President Kennedy's effort to end the Cold War. He also contacted Sylvia Meagher and Mary Ferrell.
In November 1966 Garrison told a journalist, David Chandler, that he had important information on the case. Chandler told Richard Billings and in January 1967, the Life Magazine reporter arranged a meeting with Garrison. Billings told Garrison that the top management at Life had concluded that Kennedy's assassination had been a conspiracy and that "his investigation was moving in the right direction". Billings suggested that he worked closely with Garrison. According to Garrison "The magazine would be able to provide me with technical assistance, and we could develop a mutual exchange of information".
Garrison agreed to this deal and Richard Billings was introduced to staff member, Tom Bethell. In his diary Bethal reported: "In general, I feel that Billings and I share a similar position about the Warren Report. He does not believe that there was a conspiracy on the part of the government, the Warren Commission or the FBI to conceal the truth, but that a probability exists that they simply did not uncover the whole truth."
Garrison also recruited Bernardo de Torres, who had good connections with anti-Castro figures. William Turner, the author of Rearview Mirror: Looking Back at the FBI, the CIA and Other Tails (2001) has argued: "A veteran of the Bay of Pigs, De Torres showed up on Garrison's doorstep early in the probe, saying he was a private detective from Miami who wanted to help, and dropping the name of Miami DA Richard Gerstein, a friend of Garrison's, as an opener. In retrospect, Garrison remembered that every lead De Torres developed ended up in a box canyon." One of the jobs Garrison gave him was to find Eladio del Valle.
Garrison became suspicious of his motives and on 7th January, 1967, he ordered his staff "under no circumstances" to offer any information to De Torres. Four days later he wrote at the top of one of De Torres' memos: "His reliability is not established." Garrison was right to be suspicious as he later discovered he was working for the CIA. According to Gaeton Fonzi, de Torres's CIA handler was Paul Bethel. Another researcher, Larry Hancock, has argued that "It certainly appears that De Torres’ role in the Garrison investigation is suspicious, and it supports Otero’s remarks to HSCA investigators that De Torres had ‘penetrated’ Garrison’s investigation. It also shows that De Torres had an agenda of his own in addition to getting intelligence about Garrison’s investigation and investigators. That agenda involved once again shifting attention to Fidel Castro and a Cuban hit team rather than the activities of the Cuban exiles."
Garrison eventually became convinced that a group of right-wing activists, including Guy Banister, David Ferrie, Carlos Bringuier, Eladio del Valle and Clay Shaw were involved in a conspiracy with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to kill John F. Kennedy. Garrison claimed this was in retaliation for his attempts to obtain a peace settlement in both Cuba and Vietnam.
On 17th February, 1967, The New Orleans States-Item reported that Garrison was investigating the assassination of Kennedy. It also said that one of the suspects was David Ferrie. Five days later Ferrie's body was found in his New Orleans apartment. Although two suicide notes were found, the coroner did not immediately classify the death as a suicide, noting there were indications Ferrie may have suffered a brain hemorrhage.
Garrison immediately announced that Ferrie had been a part of the Kennedy conspiracy. "The apparent suicide of David Ferrie ends the life of a man who in my judgment was one of history's most important individuals. Evidence developed by our office had long since confirmed that he was involved in events culminating in the assassination of President Kennedy... We have not mentioned his name publicly up to this point. The unique nature of this case now leaves me no other course of action." Garrison added that he was making preparations to arrest Ferrie when they heard of his death. "Apparently, we waited too long."
Another suspect, Eladio del Valle, was found dead in a Miami parking lot twelve hours after Ferrie's was discovered in New Orleans. Police reported that de Valle had been tortured, shot in the heart at point-blank range, and his skull split open with an axe. His murder has never been solved. Diego Gonzales Tendera, a close friend, later claimed de Valle was murdered because of his involvement in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. A senior member of the Cuban Secret Service, Fabian Escalante, agreed: "In 1962 Eladio Del Valle tried to infiltrate Cuba with a commando group of 22 men but their boat had an English key - a little island. In the middle of 1962. Of course, we knew this. I tell you about this, because one of our agents who was one of the people helping to bring this group to Cuba, was a man of very little education. They talked English on many occasions on this little island with Eladio Del Valle told this person, on many occasions, that Kennedy must be killed to solve the Cuban problem. After that we had another piece of information on Eladio Del Valle. This was offered to us by Tony Cuesta. He told us that Eladio Del Valle was one of the people involved in the assassination plot against Kennedy."
A week after the death of David Ferrie, Garrison announced the arrest of Clay Shaw. He was 54 years old and a retired businessman. John J. McCloy, a former member of the Warren Commission, was asked by a journalist what he thought about the Garrison investigation. He replied that the Warren Commission had always known that new evidence in the case might turn up. "We did not say that Oswald acted alone. We said we could find no credible evidence that he acted with anyone else."
Ramsay Clark, the new Attorney General, stated that the FBI had already investigated and cleared Shaw "in November and December of 1963" of "any part in the assassination". As Garrison pointed out: "However, the statement that Shaw, whose name appears nowhere in the 26 volumes of the Warren Commission, had been investigated by the federal government was intriguing. If Shaw had no connection to the assassination, I wondered, why had he been investigated?" Within a few days of this statement Clark had to admit that he had published inaccurate information and that no investigation of Shaw had taken place.
As part of Garrison's attempt to prove the existence of a conspiracy, he subpoenaed the Zapruder Film from Time-Life Corporation. The company refused and they fought this subpoena all the way to the Supreme Court, which finally ruled that the corporation had to hand over the film. As Jim Marrs has pointed out: "Time-Life grudgingly turned over to Garrison a somewhat blurry copy of the film - but that was enough. Soon, thanks to the copying efforts of Garrison's staff, bootleg Zapruder films were in the hands of several assassination researchers."
In May, 1967 Hugh Aynesworth published a critical article of Garrison in Newsweek: "Garrison's tactics have been even more questionable than his case. I have evidence that one of the strapping D.A.'s investigators offered an unwilling "witness" $3,000 and a job with an airline - if only he would "fill in the facts" of the alleged meeting to plot the death of the President. I also know that when the D.A.'s office learned that this entire bribery attempt had been tape-recorded, two of Garrison's men returned to the "witness" and, he says, threatened him with physical harm."
Garrison later responded to Aynesworth's claims: "As for the $3,000 bribe, by the time I came across Aynesworth's revelation, the witness our office had supposedly offered it to, Alvin Babeouf, had admitted to us that it never happened. Aynesworth, of course, never explained what he did with the "evidence" allegedly in his possession. And the so-called bribery tape recording had not, in fact, ever existed."
In September, 1967, Richard Billings told Garrison that Life Magazine was no longer willing to work with him in the investigation. Billings claimed that this was because he had come to the conclusion that he had links to organized crime. Soon afterwards, Life began a smear campaign against Garrison. It was reported that Garrison had been given money by an unnamed "New Orleans mobster".
In Shaw's trial Perry Russo claimed that in September, 1963, he overheard Clay Shaw and David Ferrie discussing the proposed assassination of John F. Kennedy. It was suggested that the crime could be blamed on Fidel Castro. Russo's testimony was discredited by the revelation that he underwent hypnosis and had been administered sodium pentathol, or "truth serum," at the request of the prosecution. It claimed that Russo only came up with a link between Shaw, Ferrie and Oswald after these treatments. Shaw was eventually found not guilty of conspiring to assassinate Kennedy.
In 1973 Garrison lost the office to Harry Connick. After leaving his post as district attorney Garrison wrote a book about his investigations of the Kennedy assassination, On the Trail of the Assassins (1988). Carl Oglesby summarized Garrison's theory as follows:
  • (a) Rabidly anti-Communist elements of the CIA.'s operations division, often moving through extra-governmental channels, were deeply involved at the top of the assassination planning and management process and appear to have been the makers of the decision to kill the President.
  • (b) The conspiracy was politically motivated. Its purpose was to stop JFK.'s movement toward détente in the Cold War, and it succeeded in doing that. It must therefore be regarded as a palace coup d'etat.
  • (c) Oswald was an innocent man craftily set up to take the blame. As he put it, "I'm a patsy."
Several researchers were highly critical of the methods that Garrison used in his investigation. Sylvia Meagher wrote: "As the Garrison investigation continued to unfold, I had increasingly serious misgivings about the validity of his evidence, and the scrupulousness of his methods." Anthony Summers was surprised that Oliver Stone decided to base his film JFK on Garrison's work: "From a vast array of scholarship, he picked a book by Jim Garrison, former District Attorney of New Orleans, as his main source work. Garrison, many will recall, is a strange figure - considered crazy by some, and crooked by others."
Jim Garrison died on 21st October, 1992.
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