Yesterday, I published some fact checking of James DiEugenio's rejoinder to Jamie Kirchick's excellent article, "Guilt by Orientation."
Cover of Confidential Magazine from August 1968
Towards the end of his article, DiEugenio commented on an article from Confidential Magazine:
The article concludes with more meritless attributions Kirchik [sic] borrows from Litwin. Jim Garrison never wrote a memo, or said anything in public, about Shaw’s homosexuality. There is not one memo I have ever seen to this effect by him. So what does Kirchik [sic] do? He says an August 1968 Confidential magazine article portraying the Kennedy murder as part of a gay plot was written by a Garrison investigator. Kirchik [sic]—who does not seem to give a damn about fact checking—has slipped on another banana peel. The author was not a Garrison investigator. He was a friend of Bill Boxley, later exposed as a CIA plant inside the DA’s office. (Davy, pp. 146–47)
The Confidential Magazine article was written by Joel Palmer. For a short period, he was a part-time investigator -- just like Steve Jaffe and Steve Burton.
You can read Palmer's first-hand story here. A short excerpt:
There are several memos from Joel Palmer to Jim Garrison:
Here is a Joel Palmer memo with Garrison's markings:
Here is another Palmer memo with Garrison's markings:
Here is a memo written by Steve Burton regarding a job that was required by Garrison's office. He couldn't do it, so he asked Joel Palmer.
The reason that conspiracy theorists do not like to mention Joel Palmer is that he worked on an extremely embarrassing part of Garrison's investigation. He assisted Bill Boxley in looking into Nancy Perrin Rich and her ex-husband Robert Perrin, who committed suicide in 1962. Boxley convinced Garrison that Robert Perrin was actually still alive and had been involved in the JFK assassination. It was all so ridiculous that there was a staff revolt and the only way out to get Garrison to fire Boxley was to convince him that he was still with the CIA.
Bill Boxley was hired because he did have CIA experience.
I completed memo on Oswald's movements while he was unemployed in New Orleans. Boxley away in Houston -- doing heavens knows what, I never see any memos from Boxley. The other day I had lunch with Boxley and he told me how he came to be hired by Garrison. It was on May 1, 1967. I think he had been doing some work for the Wakenhut organisation before working for Garrison. He came right out and told Garrison that he had been employed by the CIA in the ‘50s -- early ‘50s I think. Boxley also worked for a fairly covert part of the agency -- maybe Plans Division or something like that. He is quite discreet about the CIA–it wouldn't pay him to be otherwise, he allows -- but he insists that assassination of the President is not something that he would outright dismiss as unthinkable as far as the CIA is concerned. In any event, Garrison accepted that Boxley was no longer working for the CIA, etc., and hired Boxley immediately. Boxley was of course grateful, and impressed by Garrison. They spent quite a bit of time talking about the CIA, and the kind of operations it gets into. Boxley began to introduce him to the espionage argot -- talk about "cut-offs, safe houses" etc., and no doubt was largely responsible for getting Garrison to believe what he evidently wanted to believe: that the assassination was engineered by the CIA. The next day Boxley picked up a copy of the local paper and read in it headlines about Garrison's latest allegation, about the CIA. He was so startled that at first he thought the story was about him, and that Garrison was going to pounce on him.
I think Boxley lacks judgement, but he is a likeable and friendly person. I think he would do just about anything for Garrison.
Bethell wrote that Boxley "no doubt was largely responsible for getting Garrison to believe what he evidently wanted to believe: that the assassination was engineered by the CIA."
Alcock had a confrontation with Garrison today -- alone in his office. I asked Alcock what had happened when he came out. He said that he had told Garrison that he didn't believe anything Garrison was saying about the CIA etc., and that none of it could be proved in court. Alcock added, for good measure, what [sic, should be that] no-one else in the office (except Boxley) believed it either. Then Alcock said: You know, Jim, we get disturbed when we see you listening to Boxley, giving you all that bull..."
"I've learned one thing about Boxley," Garrison replied. "He's right."
Joel Palmer called last night trying to reach Jim G. on a non-CIA phone.
So, on the two hours of the plane trip home I wondered how I could persuade Garrison not to pull the most irrational of his ample store of impossibilities when his own staff could not. I wound up with the rather simplistic thinking: if it takes a crook to catch a crook, it takes a nut to reach a nut.
Then I had to figure how to catch the nut who was to reach and persuade the nut.
Vincent Salandria, a lawyer in Philadelphia and one of the early critics, doted on long dissertations relating the JFK assassination that of Trotsky in Mexico. I knew also that Garrison respected and liked him and that he liked Garrison. So, I phoned Salandria and made the only pitch I believed had any chance of working.
"Vince," I told him, "I've just returned from New Orleans. Just as I was leaving I learned that the CIA is trying to wreck Jim's investigation from the inside." As he asked questions I answered them.
While I have no present recollection of them, I fear that it was necessary that I made those answers up, too. I told him that I had promised to return after seeing my dentist and taking a brief rest and getting clothing washed and dry-cleaned and I hoped he would go with me and help me frustrated those dirty dirties of the dirty CIA.
Weisberg's plan worked and Garrison fired Boxley. Here is an excerpt of a letter, dated January 22, 1968, sent by Bill Turner to Larry Haapanen:
Here is Garrison's press release:
Garrison was asked about Boxley at a press conference on December 11, 1968:
Garrison could not provide any proof that Boxley was a CIA agent because it just wasn't true.
"Garrison fired Boxley because he could not fire himself!"
One last item, DiEugenio's source that Boxley was a CIA plant comes from pages 146 - 147 of Bill Davy's book, Let Justice Be Done. Guess who was Davy's source? He's taken this all from Garrison's book, On the Trail of the Assassins.
Previous Relevant Blog Posts on James DiEugenio
Clay Shaw was not Clay Bertrand.
A response to James DiEugenio about my writings.
Prouty couldn't back up any of his allegations when he was interviewed by the ARRB. You wouldn't believe the lame excuse offered up by DiEugenio.
Why does Oliver Stone support so many dictators?
DiEugenio has no understanding of Permindex/CMC
DiEugenio gets it all wrong on the Mannlicher-Carcano
The conclusion on the Mannlicher-Carcano
Over the past ten months, I have debunked every witness cited by DiEugenio regarding Clay Shaw and David Ferrie.