I wrote about Eladio del Valle in April of 2021. He was a former Cuban Congressman who was murdered in Miami in February 1967. Was he friends with David Ferrie? Was he David Ferrie's paymaster? Was he an assassin on the grassy knoll? Conspiracy theorists love to tell stories about del Valle - but what is the truth?
My post showed that the only information linking del Valle to the JFK assassination was from a tendentious story in the National Enquirer. And since that story, del Valle has become somewhat of a cipher --perhaps an assassin, perhaps linked with David Ferrie, perhaps a chief suspect of Jim Garrison.
After I wrote my post, I came across a letter from JFK researcher Hal Verb to fellow buff Harold Weisberg:
Bill Barry was a reporter for The Miami News, and I realized that since del Valle was murdered in Miami, he might know something about it. He actually covered stories related to the JFK assassination:
Miami News, February 18, 1967
Barry also covered the Cuban community:
Miami News, August 21, 1967
However, I could not find this supposed letter in the Harold Weisberg Archives. However, when I visited the archive in 2019, I noted that the papers of Hal Verb are housed there, and perhaps the Bill Barry letter might be in those files.
Last week, I noticed that the papers of Sylvia Meagher are now online at the Harold Weisberg Archive. Perhaps that Bill Barry letter was uploaded as well, and bingo, I found it:
As I expected the National Enquirer story was a fraud. It was a ridiculous story on its face, as it clearly was chock full of stuff that was patently untrue.
I believe this is the final word on Eladio del Valle.
By the way, Barry's letter refers to Nancy Perrin Rich's story of Cuban gunrunning and Jack Ruby. Her story is not credible. Here is an excerpt from my book, On the Trail of Delusion -- Jim Garrison: The Great Accuser: (pages 229 - 230)
Nancy Perrin Rich was interviewed by the FBI in late 1963, and she testified before the Warren Commission in June 1964. She told quite the story. Her marriage to Robert Perrin, who had a history of mental illness, dissolved in 1960, at which point he left. She got wind in 1961 that he was living in Dallas, and she called the police department and just happened to reach officer J. D. Tippit (the policeman Oswald later killed on the afternoon of the assassination). Upon her arrival in Dallas, she went straight to the police station and talked to him.
Nancy Rich reconciled with her husband, who put her to work as a prostitute, and she claimed to have worked for Ruby in the summer of 1963 as a bartender and part-time waitress. After she left his employ, she attended four meetings where she and her husband were offered $10,000 to smuggle rifles to Cuba and bring out refugees. She asked for $25,000, but the deal fell through. Claiming that Jack Ruby had arrived at one of the meetings with a bulge in his pocket, she said he was later called into another room, and the bulge was gone when he emerged. The obvious implication was that he was a financier of the project.
Her story was implausible on its face. During her testimony, she couldn’t remember who had taken them to these meetings, who else had attended, or even the location of the apartment. She could barely remember when she had lived in Dallas and New Orleans. And J. D. Tippit never worked behind a desk. There were also significant discrepancies between her FBI statements and her testimony before the Warren Commission.
After speaking to the FBI, Rich was given a lie detector test. The test was inconclusive because she had taken methedrine, but the examiner was still of the opinion that “she has a tendency to delusions of grandeur.” The attorney who had represented her on a 1961 vagrancy charge described her “as being a habitual liar, who found it very difficult to tell the truth.” Her stories were “so ridiculous that no one could possibly believe them.” A Dallas police detective called her a “psychopathic liar who got great delight out of telling wild tales.”
Previous Blog Posts on Eladio del Valle
An examination of the allegations that Eladio del Valle was one of the assassins.
An examination of rumors about Eladio del Valle emanating from the Garrison investigation.