I tell the stories of Clyde Johnson, Edgar Eugene Bradley, Thomas Beckham, Fred Crisman, Kerry Thornley.
Did you skip David Ferrie, the focus of Garrison’s investigation when it was first publicized on February 17, 1967?
Ferrie died on February 21, four days after Garrison’s investigation became public.
And did you skip Eladio Del Valle?
An October 1967 letter from the CIA to the Justice Department’s “Internal Security Division” states that Eladio Del Valle, who had been described as a “valuable witness” by Jim Garrison, had been “murdered in Miami on February 22, 1967,” the same day that the body of Ferrie was discovered.
Del Valle “had been involved in anti-Cuban operations.”
With David Ferrie and Eladio Del Valle both dead, which would be the original target of Garrison’s investigation and a “valuable witness” in the investigation, Garrison focused his prosecutorial efforts on Clay Shaw in order to make his case for a conspiracy.
The CIA told the Justice Department’s Internal Security Division that Garrison’s prosecution of Shaw was exposing “people who have been involved in Cuban operations.”
The CIA gathered intelligence on Garrison and on all aspects of his investigation. An abundance of CIA memorandums and communications reveal top-level CIA officials focused on the Garrison investigation.
Two months after Del Valle and Ferrie were murdered, an April 26 CIA memo stated that there are “
loads of possible concern to CIA because of what may be an intent to involve the Agency directly or indirectly.”
A June 1967 CIA memo, written shortly after the CIA realized they had a “problem,” states, “The activity of District Attorney James C. Garrison of New Orleans shows no signs of abating . . . .
We shall continue to study all available information about the New Orleans investigation.”
In September 1967, the CIA documented, “Since the Garrison investigation was first publicized in February 1967,
we have kept book on all persons in the case: 139 to date.”
The CIA also established the “Garrison Group,” consisting of some of the senior-most officials in the CIA; the Executive Director, the Deputy Director for Plans, the Deputy Director of Support, the CIA General Counsel, the CIA Inspector General, and Raymond G. Rocca, the Chief of Research and Analysis in the CIA’s Counterintelligence Division.
A CIA memo states that at the first meeting of the Garrison Group on September 20, 1967, “
Rocca felt that Garrison would, indeed, obtain a conviction of Shaw for conspiring to assassinate President Kennedy.”
The memo also quotes the
CIA Executive Director as having said, “The possibility of
Agency action should be examined from the timing of
what can be done before the trial, and what might be feasible
during and after the trial.”
The CIA also engaged in a world-wide propaganda campaign to discredit Garrison.
In July 1968, the CIA sent a dispatch to all CIA stations and bases around the world, and it contained a nineteen-page article critical of Garrison and his investigation. The dispatch states, “You may use the article to brief interested contacts, especially government and other political leaders.” It also states that the article should be used to demonstrate “that there is no hard evidence of any such conspiracy.”
The CIA had previously issued a “Propaganda Notes” Bulletin when the Warren Report came out in September 1964, and copies of the Warren Report were sent to CIA “field stations” so that “covert assets” in the United States and around the world could “explain the tragedy” of President Kennedy’s assassination. The CIA also issued “Countering Criticism of the Warren Report” in January 1967.
And now, in 1968, the CIA was engaged in a worldwide effort to disparage a New Orleans District Attorney and his investigation.
It’s all in my book. Click the link.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07V9JT65Y
