In early 1968, someone wrote Jim Garrison's office with information about a Reverend Raymond Broshears. Here is a William Turner memo:
Turner knew of Garrison's interest in 'odd' churches. I don't know if Burton, a west coast investigator for Garrison, followed up on this. What happened next is that Raymond Broshears was on the Stan Bohrman television show in early July 1968. Bohrman's claim to fame was to bring talk radio to television.
Stephen Jaffe, another west coast investigator, was watching that night. Reverend Raymond Broshears claimed to have been a roommate of David Ferrie in 1965, and guess what? Yup, Ferrie told Broshears all about the assassination plot to kill JFK.
Reverend Raymond Broshears
Jaffe wrote this up in an article in the August 9th, 1968 issue of the LA Free Press.
There you go, now we know the truth! We are indeed fortunate that the guest who was going to talk about psychic phenomenon cancelled. And, what a conspiracy! David Ferrie was a getaway pilot in Houston who was going to fly the assassins to South Africa. The two assassins unfortunately died in an airplane crash near Corpus Christi. And I loved this part of the interview:
After the television show, Jaffe went with Mark Lane to interview the good reverend. Here is the start of a memo Jaffe wrote to Jim Garrison:
Unfortunately, I don't have that memo from July 10, 1968.
Broshears was interviewed once more in Long Beach and Garrison then subpoenaed him to testify in New Orleans.
Broshears was interviewed twice in New Orleans and there are four lengthy memos on covering these interviews in his file. I will be posting the first memo tomorrow.
Just who was Reverend Raymond Broshears? He was a controversial gay rights activists in the late 1960s and 1970s, and he founded the Lavender Panthers to help patrol gay areas in San Francisco.
What is perhaps important to note that Broshears was discharged from the Navy in 1955. He claimed he received a "serious injury to the head causing what was then thought to be a minor brain dysfunction." Markowitz writes that one of Broshears' friends thought he was schizophrenic. He quotes from Broshears' FBI file which says that in 1969 that he was diagnosed with "schizophrenic reaction" and was "paranoid [and] incompetent."
In the 1970s he was increasingly paranoid and "believed the CIA and FBI were poisoning him." In one FBI report, Broshears "insinuated that the federal government intended to arrest and shoot all homosexuals." Markowitz writes:
"Indeed, Broshears had a reputation for exaggeration and lies. "He was a little like Donald Trump," says Sievert. "He couldn't take criticism. He would blow up at the oddest thing. And you're never quite sure what to believe. Ray would tell you something, and you wouldn't take it for gospel because Ray said it."
But, was Raymond Broshears really David Ferrie's roommate? Stephen Roy, the foremost expert and biographer of David Ferrie, was skeptical. None of Ferrie's other friends or roommates remember Raymond Broshears. Roy spoke to Broshears for an hour and Broshears got many facts about Ferrie totally wrong.
There's one other small thing. Broshears was arrested in 1965 in Belleville, Illinois for groping a 17-year-old boy. He spent six months in county jail - at exactly the same time he was supposed to be in New Orleans.
So did Jim Garrison believe Broshears? Do conspiracy theorists believe his stories? What about Oliver Stone? And, what did Broshears tell the HSCA? All this, and more, coming up in future blog posts!
For further information:
Adam Gorightly has also written extensively about Raymond Broshears. Search for Broshears and several articles will come up. Very interesting reading. He also has done a lot of work on Kerry Thornley, Fred Crisman, and Thomas Beckham.