In September 1977, Jim Garrison sent a letter to the HSCA about Clay Shaw - which we published yesterday. Along with the letter, Garrison sent a memo with his best leads about Clay Shaw. Here is the memo along with Garrison's notations..
First, let me fill in a couple of paragraphs that are hard to read (I have a copy of this memo that was typed before Garrison added his notations).
J. Statement of Barbara Messina, Monroe, Louisiana, re:
Q. One of the meetings was at Shaw's apartment in the 1300 block of Dauphine Street, during which meeting Dean Andrews came into Shaw's apartment and spoke privately with him. Ferrie informed Whalen that they had received 'inside' information from Dean Andrews....
T, After describing the details of his having informed the F.B.I. of the Cuban group's contact with him, Krop describes in some detail one of the Cubans contacting him - one Carlos Rodriguez.
X. (It is interesting to note that this letter which describes Hardy as a Tampa resident, is dated May 26, 1968. By that time, Thornley had become a resident of Tampa).
A2. After a hearing in federal court, the federal judge obliged Chandler and orders his Grand Jury subpoena quashed.
Summary: .. I don't think it would accomplish much to simply keep piling them up. I thought, however, that I'd get the above described....
Now, on to the memo itself.
I find it amazing that Garrison, after prosecuting Clay Shaw for conspiring to kill JFK, still has so many possible leads that were still open. Did he not uncover the conspiracy?
I don't have time to go through each lead, but here are some comments:
A. Jules Rocco Kimble gave two statements to Garrison. In his first statement, dated September 6, 1967 he just said that he had knowledge of a trip Ferrie took to Canada. Shaw was not mentioned. He said he would find out more. In his next statement, dated October 10, 1967, Kimble now said he went to Montreal with Shaw and Ferrie. Kimble had very little credibility - he was a member of the Ku Klux Klan and he eventually went to prison for murder. One last point - Shaw hated to fly.
B. The Golden Lantern memo is presented in my book. There is nothing of relevance in it.
C. The Clinton witnesses have serious credibility issues discussed in my book.
D. E. The statements of the Tadins are discussed in my book, On The Trail of Delusion. They claimed that David Ferrie was teaching their deaf son to fly, which seems doubtful I My book presents a copy of her statement in which she describes Clay Shaw as a "notorious degenerate."
J. Jack Ruby was picked up by "an elderly gray haired man in a Cadillac"? Really? Garrison tells the HSCA that this is "a lead in need of a thorough followup..." Barbara Messina, a resident of Monroe, LA., talked to the FBI in November 1963. She had met Ruby at the Carousel Club, and in November 1962, he took her out for breakfast. He drove a Cadillac owned by a man in his 60s or 70s.
K. Edward Girnus is another prisoner with information. Garrison didn't take him seriously in 1967, but now he wants the HSCA to look into him. I'll be discussing Girnus more tomorrow.
Q. Edward Whalen is yet another prisoner and I will have more information on him tomorrow.
W Garrison writes that this is "another interesting lead apparently farmed out to someone on the staff but not followed through." He goes on to admit that "our available staff did not handle all of the follow-ups effectively." My god, they had nothing on Clay Shaw, and here he admits they had a "shortage of leads connecting Shaw and Ferrie" and they couldn't follow this one up?
X. An unsigned letter about a man who remodeled Shaw's home and saw some Cubans? Garrison then says "another lead long overdue for a follow through."
B2. Garrison goes over the interview of David Logan who met David Ferrie at a party in 1961"where Clay Shaw was also present." But, it was the host who supposedly pointed out David Ferrie to him, not Clay Shaw, and that was after the party. He never said Shaw and Ferrie were together.
C2. Rev. Raymond Broshears was most certainly a fraud. He told Garrison he was a roommate of Ferrie's in 1965, but could not describe any of the details of Ferrie's apartment to Stephen Roy, who was perhaps the world's expert on Ferrie. None of Ferrie's friends remembered Broshears. Roy wrote that "I came away with the feeling that Broshears story was almost certainly untrue."
These were Garrison's best leads. And, guess what? None of them went anywhere, and none of them were mentioned in the HSCA's final report.
Update
Lead S is missing from Garrison's typed summary. Here is lead S from his handwritten notes:
