Gaeton Fonzi Channels Jim Garrison
Crack HSCA investigator Gaeton Fonzi spent some time with Jim Garrison during the early stages of the HSCA. Here is a Fonzi memo which shows he believed a lot of Garrison's nonsense.
https://www.onthetrailofdelusion.com/post/gaeton-fonzi-channels-jim-garrison
Some very smart and decent men, and I think Fonzi was one, got caught up during that time in all of the hysteria about the CIA and other matters. The
"zeigeist" "zeitgeist" of that time in America. That is, the "family jewels" revelations, the plots, the upheaval over the war, the general cynicism about the country. They simply lost their bearings. And many people simply could not accept (still can't), as Norman Redlich said, the idea that a nobody like Oswald could kill the president, especially JFK. Fonzi was, it appears, one of these people. Although completely falling for Garrison's paranoid fantasies is inexcusable. What was Fonzi thinking?
And yes, the CIA did terrible things, albeit many of them with the approval and direction of presidents (including JFK); but going from that fact to the events in Dallas in November of 1963 is, for me, a stretch. After nearly 60 years there is simply no "there there."