For those with the time (about 40 minutes)
and the interest, here’s the Full Interview entitled
“UFOs, Cults & Charles Manson Connections + Conspiracy with Adam Gorightly”:
Early Discordian Barbara Reid was a familiar figure in New Orleans bohemia of the 1960s. Known in the French Quarter as “Mother Witch,” she was an avid voodoo practitioner, claiming to have learned the craft from an Orleanian Creole who was a spiritual descendent of Marie Laveau. According to Reid, she was the only Caucasian to whom this knowledge was passed on.00001
Reid worked as a writer and producer for New Orleans television station WDSU and made occasional appearances on local radio, including a 1970 episode of The American Legion Hour on WTIX-AM called “Witches and Metaphysics.” She frequently appeared in newspaper stories, such as a June 1969 Times-Picayune article about Friday the 13th superstitions in which Reid informed the reporter: “I am not a witch, but I’ll show you what a witch can do if you make me out as a kook.”
June 1969 Times-Picayune article about Friday the 13th with Barbara Reid.
A Times-Picayune story from September 1964 concerned the closing of Kerry Thornley’s favorite French Quarter hang-out, The Bourbon House. To mark the event, a mock funeral procession was staged, which—along with jazz band accompaniment—included Barbara Reid in a coffin “…clad in her usual all-black garb and sporting a black beret and cigarette holder.”
September 1964 Times-Picayune article featuring Barbara Reid in a coffin. Her name is misspelled as Reed.
Known for its rag-tag collection of beatniks, poets and jazz music aficionados, many of the Bourbon House regulars—at the urging of Barbara Reid—began staging informal jazz sessions in the early-60s at Larry Borenstein’s art gallery, an institution that would eventually be renamed—and gain international acclaim—as Preservation Hall, the legendary French Quarter music venue still in operation.
Barbara Reid, with daughter on her lap, at Preservation Hall. Louisiana Music Magazine, Winter 2012.
Preservation Hall officially opened its doors on June 10th, 1961, an enterprise launched by Reid and her partner in the venture, Kenn Mills. These activities—with Reid at the helm—led to a revival of the traditional jazz scene in New Orleans. However, Reid’s participation in the early days of Preservation Hall has been mostly expunged from the historical records due to a falling out she had with Larry Borenstein, the owner of the venue.
Barbara Reid’s campaign poster. Reid was instrumental in recording many of the local jazz musicians of the era and—according to her husband, Bill Edmiston—helped integrate the two New Orleans musician unions that had previously segregated blacks and whites.
If all that wasn’t enough, Reid was one of the first members of the New Orleans branch of the Discordian Society, claiming at one time or another to be the reincarnation of Goddess Eris herself! Whatever the case, Reid certainly brought a high degree of chaos into Kerry Thornley’s life during the Jim Garrison investigation period when she placed Kerry in the company of Lee Oswald in September of 1963, a couple of months before JFK’s assassination.
Barbara Reid’s Legion of Dynamic Discord certificate issued by Lord Omar K. Ravenhurst, September 1964. From the House Select Committee on Assassination files, National Archives.
According to Discordian Society co-founder Greg Hill, Barbara Reid was an aspiring politician, pot dealer and former lover of Jim Garrison:
“When Barbara ran for City Council [in 1964], Garrison was absolutely against it and, she told me, repeatedly warned her to stop playing around where she might get hurt. And that, of course, made her all the more anxious to run. I was going to be her Campaign Secretary, but the draft caught up with me and off I went Ft. Polk. When I returned for a day, 8 weeks later, the election was all over with and she placed #3 out of four (not bad, considering). She was pushing for the black vote, and had some kind of lowdown on corruption with the Fed Housing section of the city. She also had the bohemian vote; her posters depicted a caricature of her, all glasses, beret and cigarette holder. It was during this time that she told me that Garrison was an ex-lover of hers and that his warnings to her were as a friend to a friend (though later I got the impression that he was pretty exasperated with her). Like everything else she told me, I didn’t know if I should believe it or not and so, like everything else she did and said, I just enjoyed the circus and didn’t bother believing or disbelieving. I think she said that the affair was sometime ago before Garrison became prominent. She spoke of him with fondness, though annoyed with his not backing her attempted sojourn into city politics.
“I left before Barbara was busted for pot (curiously enough, I felt that the Quarter was being very uncool narc wise, and predicted a giant bust by October—but nobody took me very seriously. I missed the mark by about a month, I think. Many people got it bad, according to what I heard later.). Anyway, she once spoke of not being too concerned with being busted because she ‘could take care of it.’ At the time I wondered if she meant Garrison, but didn’t press the delicate subject…”00002
April 11, 1964 New Orleans States-Item article on Barbara Reid pot bust.
According to the New Orleans States-Item, Reid was arrested on April 10th, 1966 following a six month investigation when narcotics officers seized a large quantity of marijuana from her apartment. Reid—identified as an “unsuccessful candidate last November for District C”—told officers that she was a “den mother” at the Quorum Club, a bohemian coffee house in the French Quarter where she presided over a gaggle of hippie kids. Evidently, the Quorum Club was at the center of this six month investigation. Curiously, Reid’s arrest record for the pot bust identifies her as a “fugitive from Arizona.” These charges were later dropped.
April 10, 1966 Barbara Reid arrest report.
Perhaps what Reid meant by taking “care of it” was that—because of her inside track to Jim Garrison—she could either blackmail or bribe her way out of the charges. Contrary to popular mythology, Garrison was not immune to this type of corruption. In 1970—following a performance by The Grateful Dead at a New Orleans venue called “The Warehouse”—the band’s hotel rooms were raided by police and several members were arrested on drug charges, an incident recounted in their song “Truckin’” and the line: “Busted down on Bourbon Street…”00003 Afterwards, The Grateful Dead tour manager was able to bribe Garrison to take the bust off the records.00004>
In February 1965, Reid was arrested with members of the Hell’s Angels and charged with “bringing the Hell’s Angels to New Orleans.”00005 A February 25th, 1966 New Orleans States-Item article stated that the charges against Reid (identified as “Barbara Reed” in the arrest report) had been dropped, although the four Hell’s Angels “would be held as possible fugitives…”
February 25th, 1966 Times-Picayune article on Hell's Angels and Barbara Reid.
One of Barbara Reid’s more obscure connections involved the Process Church of the Final Judgment, a counterculture cult that emerged in England during the mid-60s of which many dark legends have been spun over the years, first by Ed Sanders in The Family: The Story of Charles Manson’s Dune Buggy Attack Battalion and later by Maury Terry in The Ultimate Evil.
Ed Sanders claimed that The Process Church had a “baleful influence” on Manson and his minions, while Maury Terry alleged that the group was implicated not only in the Tate-LaBianca murders, but the Son of Sam slayings, as well, and that Process Church leadership oversaw a vast Satanic network dealing in drugs, pornography and ritual murder.
In correspondence with this author, Kerry Thornley wrote that he “…first encountered the Process Church in New Orleans in Feb. ’68 when I was there to testify, reluctantly, to the Grand Jury. Barbara Reid, the principal witness against me, and a friend (!) of mine, was said to be ‘up to her ass’ in The Process, which, indeed, maintained a coffee house half a block from Barbara’s apartment. I went over there with Slim (Brooks)… and saw pamphlets about Satan On War and Lucifer on War and Jehovah on War—which I found confusing because I thought Satan and Lucifer were both the same guy, until then, (of course—heh-heh)… A bunch of pale, thin zombies were sitting around in this place. I was telling very funny Garrison stories but nobody was laughing…”
In the next installment we’ll explore Barbara Reid’s involvement with Jim Garrison’s investigation and her role as a Dealey Plaza Irregular.
To read the whole crazy story pick up my book Caught In The Crossfire: Kerry Thornley, Lee Oswald and the Garrison Investigation (Amazon) while supplies last!
Thanks to Tim Cridland for unearthing many of the materials used in this post.
A great issue on a variety of subjects and with this slick piece of work tucked into it:
“Aside from David Ferrie, there was no other among Jim Garrison’s sordid cast of suspects more colorful than Kerry Wendell Thornley, who not only co-founded the spoof religion Discordianism in 1958, but was also writing a novel, The Idle Warriors, based on Lee Harvey Oswald three years before JFK’s assassination. Garrison claimed that The Idle Warriors—as well as Thornley’s non-fiction work, Oswald—were attempts to set up his old Marine Corps pal prior to the assassination. If that wasn’t enough, Garrison claimed that Thornley was a CIA agent who impersonated Oswald and had an affair with his wife Marina…”
A young Kerry Thornley in New Orleans.On August 13, 1962 Kerry Thornley was arrested for “placing advertisements on telephone poles” in the New Orleans French Quarter in violation of a city ordinance, a minor infraction for which he was fined $15. For this egregious offence, the cops hauled his ass off to jail, which seemed rather severe, although I wouldn’t be surprised if it was on account of Kerry shooting off his mouth, as he was often wont to do in his younger years.
Kerry Thornley's arrest report for the advertisements on the telephone pole caper, August 13, 1962.
In early 1968, Jim Garrison’s investigators questioned the arresting officers in the case, neither of whom could remember the exact message of the advertisement Kerry posted on the telephone poles. This incident led Garrison to theorize that Kerry had distributed Lee Harvey Oswald’s infamous Fair Play for Cuba propaganda—although Big Jim never actually took the time to determine the exact nature of the advertisements, or to identify who had employed Kerry for this job. In his grand jury testimony, Kerry identified specific individuals he had worked with passing out these advertisement flyers—leads Garrison apparently never pursued. Or if he did, nothing came of them.
It should be noted that Kerry’s arrest for this telephone pole caper occurred a year before Oswald was making his Fair Play For Cuba mischief in New Orleans. Never one to let the facts dissuade him, Garrison later informed Gaeton Fonzi (of the House Select Committee on Assassinations) that: “…police records can be changed and there’s the possibility the arrest was in 1963, which would put it four days after Oswald’s arrest for handing out FPFC leaflets.”
Oswald's Fair Play for Cuba flyer.Whatever the case, Garrison (in On The Trail of the Assassins) seemed to be merely jumping the Thornley shark, as it was actually Harold Weisberg who crafted the tenuous theory that Kerry was the individual who picked up Oswald’s Fair Play For Cuba (FPFC) handbills, information purportedly obtained from interviews Weisberg conducted with Douglas Jones—owner of Jones Printing Company in New Orleans—and Jones’ secretary, Myra Silver.
The first problem with this scenario is that Thornley was in California when Weisberg placed him picking up the FPFC handbills, this according to Kerry’s Warren Commission and Orleans Parish Grand Jury testimonies. This was the same timeline that Garrison also endorsed mainly because it dovetailed with his theory that Kerry—in early May of ’63 while on his way to California—stopped over in Texas to fake those funky photos of Oswald holding his trusty Mannlicher-Carcano and then on his way back to NOLA in late August spent a few days in Mexico City on or around the same time that Oswald or someone pretending to be Oswald visited the Russian and Cuban Embassies.
Myra Silver’s statement, page 00001, to the Feds regarding the individual who picked up the FPFC handbills. Silver identified the pick-up date as May 29, 1963 during the period Kerry Thornley was in California. Silver's statement is among the many articles related to the Garrison Investigation that can be accessed at www.archives.gov/research/search/. The notes on the document were written by Jim Garrison, or one of his assistants.Myra Silver's statement, page 00002, to the Feds regarding the individual who picked up the FPFC handbills. Silver identified the pick-up date as May 29, 1963 during the period Kerry Thornley was in California. Silver's statement is among the many articles related to the Garrison Investigation that can be accessed at www.archives.gov/research/search/. The notes on the document were written by Jim Garrison, or one of his assistants.
Douglas Jones—in his FBI statement—describes the individual who ordered and later picked up the FPFC handbills as a “husky type person” which was the polar opposite of Kerry Thornley, who—throughout his life—was a long, skinny bean pole of a guy. (Unless he was wearing a fat guy disguise!)
Douglas Jones' statement to the Feds regarding the FPFC caper. Includes Garrison's notes.
In his unpublished memoir, Mailer’s Tales, Harold Weisberg recalled presenting Douglas Jones and Myra Silver with “about a hundred miscellaneous pictures including several of Oswald.” From these photos, Jones and Silver supposedly selected Kerry Thornley as the individual connected to the FPFC handbills, all part of his recurring role as a purported Oswald double and all around CIA bad guy.
Also in Mailer’s Tale, Weisberg claimed that he had tape recorded his interview with Jones and Silver, and then placed the tape in his files, which was later “…burglarized by a man who had free access to them and who was also working, unknown to me, for David Lifton.” Because of this—Weisberg claimed—it “ended any chance I had of carrying what Jones and Silver told me forward.”
A young and intense David Lifton.As for the positive identification of Thornley’s photo by Jones and Silver, we must once again rely solely on the word of Harold Weisberg, who admittedly had photos of Kerry Thornley doctored, and who afterwards claimed that his recording of Jones and Silver had been heisted from his files by an unnamed party working under the diabolical direction of dastardly David Lifton!
Read David Lifton’s take on Kerry Thornley and the Garrison Investigation here.
In Caught in the Crossfire, I noted the same discrepancy Scheufele points out: that Kerry Thornley was in California during the same time-frame Baker places him in NOLA meeting with Lee Harvey Oswald and banging his wife, Marina, behind Oswald’s back. Baker’s version of events contradict Thornley’s Warren Commission testimony as having arrived in California on May 5th and then returning to New Orleans on September 4th of ‘63. (Baker claims she saw Thornley and Oswald together on May 8th and May 28th of that year.)
In response, Baker supporters will no doubt counter that Thornley fibbed about traveling to California—or about the exact timeframe of where he was and when, etc. Having reviewed hundreds of letters written to and from Thornley during this period—as well as his many JFK assassination related writings—I’ve seen no glaring inconsistencies in any of Kerry’s statements regarding his movements in the summer of ’63. It was based on Kerry’s own timeline (of having traveled through Texas on his way to California and then spending time in Mexico City on his way back to NOLA) that Jim Garrison cobbled together his theory that Kerry staged the famous doctored photo of Oswald (with his trusty Mannlicher Carcano) while passing through Texas and then on his return trip visited Mexico City in around the same time that Oswald (or someone pretending to be Oswald) was making a nuisance of himself at the Cuban and Russian Embassies.
Baker further asserts that Oswald’s “Neighbors testified to the Warren Commission that Thornley was there so often they were unsure as to which one (Lee or Thornley) was really Marina’s husband. Jim Garrison’s investigation confirmed the same point.” (Me and Lee, page 321.)
Baker’s claim that the Warren Commission investigated Thornley’s supposed relationship with Marina Oswald has no factual basis—unless someone can identify the specific Warren Report sections where the testimonies of Oswald’s neighbors presumably appear. Nor did Garrison “confirm” any of these rumors, which from what I’ve been able to piece together first surfaced in a February 22nd, 1968 letter to Garrison from John Schwegmann, Jr., owner of Schwegmann Bros. Super Markets:
An employee of our store, Mrs. Myrtle LaSavia… says that she, her husband, and a number of people who live in that neighborhood saw Thornley at the Oswald residence a number of times—in fact they saw him there so much they did not know which was the husband, Oswald or Thornley…
(From In History’s Shadow: Lee Harvey Oswald, Kerry Thornley & the Garrison Investigation by Joe Biles, pages 60-61.)
In 1977, Garrison resurrected LaSavia’s allegations in a memo to the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), shown below. In said memo, Garrison states that “an effort will be made to locate these neighbors’ statements…” However, there’s no evidence that Oswald’s neighbors “positively” identified Thornley, aside from the second hand account attributed to Myrtle LaSavia. Garrison never produced any of these neighbor statements (identifying Thornley) for the HSCA—for the simple reason that they probably never existed to begin with.
Page 00001 of a 1977 memo sent from Jim Garrison to Jonathan Blackmer of the House Select Committee on Assassinations.
Assistant District Attorney Andrew Sciambra paid a visit to a Mr. and Mrs. Tony LaSavia on February 29th, 1968—a week after Garrison received the Schwegmann letter. From this meeting a memo was produced, which is cataloged among Jim Garrison’s Papers (Box 7) in the National Archives. In Farewell to Justice, Joan Mellen—quoting from Sciambra’s Feb. 29th, 1968 memo—states that LaSavia and her husband identified Thornley “…as being the person who used to walk with Marina to the Winn-Dixie food store.”
When Garrison informed the HSCA that ”neighbors of the Oswald’s responded positively to Thornley’s picture”, he seems to be referring exclusively to the claims of Myrtle LaSavia, as well as her husband, Tony, who probably got roped into backing up his wife’s story. However, let’s not confuse a memo for a witness statement; documents of this nature are of subjective value, in my opinion, and in particular the many Garrison Investigation memos related to Kerry Thornley that were rarely, if ever, supported by witness statements. It confuses the matter even more when memos such as these are presented as “evidence.”
Curiously, another woman bearing the last name of LaSavia—Mary Lee LaSavia—was interviewed by Andrew Sciambra during the same time frame as Myrtle LaSavia. It’s unclear if the two LaSavia’s were related—or if Sciambra had simply misidentified Myrtle as Mary Lee, which is my suspicion.
Andrew Sciambra memo to Jim Garrison about David Ferrie, March 1, 1968.
As noted in the memo above (from March 1st, 1963, a day after Sciambra’s meeting with Mr. and Mrs. Tony LaSavia), Mary Lee LaSavia passed on information that Oswald’s former neighbor “MRS. EAMES today said that DAVID FERRIE came to see her in regards to where the OSWALDS were right after OSWALD left Texas…” Later in the memo, Mrs. Eames states “that David Ferrie did come to her house but it was not until after the assassination…”
As hard-core JFK assassination junkies should be well aware, it was right after the assassination that Jack Martin (future Garrison witness) was questioned by the FBI, and at that time leveled a number of charges against David Ferrie, including the allegation that Ferrie’s library card was discovered among Oswald’s posthumous possessions. It appears that Ferrie’s appearance at Mrs. Eames residence was probably to gather information to refute Jack Martin’s claim.
In the same memo, Mrs. Eames states that “she cannot remember seeing anybody with the OSWALDS or go to the OSWALDS home. She said that they were loners and didn’t associate with anybody.” This comment seems to refute Myrtle LaSavia’s assertion that a number of Oswald’s neighbors had seen Marina in the company of Kerry Thornley—or, at least, it appears she was the only neighbor making this claim.
It’s interesting to note that Andrew Sciambra neglected to ask Mrs. Eames about Kerry Thornley, as the timing of this interview was just a week after the emergence of the Schwegmann letter. Or perhaps Sciambra did ask Eames about Kerry Thornley, but neglected to include her answer in his memo.
On March 4th, 1968—three days after Sciambra met with Mrs. Eames, and a week after his meeting with the LaSavia’s—Garrison staff member Tom Bethell compiled a list of residents in Oswald’s neighborhood, in addition to visitors seen at the Oswald residence, none of whom included Kerry Thornley.
Memo from Tom Bethall to Jim Garrison, March 4, 1968, page 00001.Memo from Tom Bethall to Jim Garrison, March 4, 1968, page 00002.Memo from Tom Bethall to Jim Garrison, March 4, 1968, page 00003.
On instructions from Sciambra, investigator Gary Sanders interviewed Miss Rose Cavalier of 918 Upperline, the same street where the LaSavia’s lived. During this interview, Cavalier indicated that, on several occasions, she’d seen Lee and Marina Oswald pass by her residence walking in the direction of the Winn-Dixie Supermarket. However—when presented with a photo of Kerry Thornley—Miss Cavalier apparently had difficulty distinguishing between the two: Oswald and Thornley. Gary Sanders also noted that Miss Cavalier “may have eyesight problems although she told me that she did not wear glasses.”
Memo from Gary Sanders to Louis Ivan about Miss Rose Cavalier, March 4, 1968, page 00001.Memo from Gary Sanders to Louis Ivan about Miss Rose Cavalier, March 4, 1968, page 00002.
Although Thornley was similar in height and build to Oswald (depending on the source), their facial features were not at all similar—unless of course Sanders was showing Miss Cavalier the infamous touched up photo of Thornley. In this regard, any photo identifications of Kerry Thornley (courtesy of Garrison’s investigation) inevitably leads us down that slippery slope we discussed in our previous posts Fred Newcomb, Harold Weisberg and Photographic Tomfoolery in the Garrison Investigation Part 00001 here and Part 00002 here.
The infamous touched-up photo of Kerry Thornley taken from the Garrison Investigation suspect files.
Whatever the case, I’ve come across nothing substantive (at least not yet!) to suggest that this Kerry Thornley-Lee and Marina Oswald-love-triangle was ever “confirmed” by Garrison’s investigators, and that these allegations all seem to have originated from the same sole source: Myrtle LaSavia.
However, Kerry and Marina were spotted together on February 8th, 1968 as they passed one another in the courtroom hallway coming and going from their respective grand jury testimonies. Apparently, this “chance encounter” was staged by Garrison to place the two together in the prospect that Marina would react to Kerry’s appearance and suddenly spill the beans about their supposed romantic tryst. According to Tom Bethell’s account, Marina registered no recognition of Kerry, and when questioned by Andrew Sciambra if she knew him (Thornley), Marina responded to the contrary.
February 9, 1968 Times-Picayune article that incorrectly identifies Kerry Wendell Thornley’s middle name as 'Lee,' a rather curious mistake in light of Garrison’s theory that Kerry was one of notorious Oswald doubles.
In his blogpost, Matthew Scheufele concludes that Baker is a faker, a theme trending of late at JFK assassination research forums where Judyth’s apparently been taking it on the chin (from a rather vocal anti-Baker faction) who insist that Me and Lee is a largely fictional account backed only by a pay stub from when she worked at the Reilly Coffee Company concurrent with the employment of her purported paramour, Lee Oswald.
Whether Baker actually knew (and loved and lost) Oswald is fodder for endless debate in these aforementioned JFK assassination forums dating back over the last decade. If you’re a part of this scene then you probably know exactly what I’m talking about—and if not, you’re probably wondering what all the fuss is about. But say what you will about her, Baker is indeed a polarizing figure within the ranks of current day assassination researchers who appears to attract as many staunch supporters as she does detractors. Jesse Ventura is one such ardent Judyth Baker believer, for whatever that’s worth.
Scheufele closes out his post: “Garrison concluded that Thornley was in California visiting his relatives” at the time of the Judyth Baker sightings—although it’s hard to know what Garrison really believed, or if his many charges against Thornley were simply flavors of the week spoon-fed by the likes of Harold Weisberg and the other Dealey Plaza Irregulars. Although Garrison labeled Thornley a perjurer, he seemed content to endorse Thornley’s summer of ‘63 travel log because it dovetailed with his claims that Kerry was working behind the scenes during this period to incriminate Oswald.
February 21, 1968 Garrison press release, page 00001. Full PDF here.But if one is seeking vindication for Kerry Thornley, why stop at Judyth Baker? Baker’s alleged Thornley sightings seem rather tame in comparison to the charges leveled by Jim Garrison in his February 21st, 1968 press release [Adobe PDF here.] that characterized Thornley as a diabolical CIA agent based on the startling revelation that Kerry had a post office box in a federal building where most post offices tend to be located… in federal buildings.
In this somewhat rambling press release (replete with footnotes), Garrison identified Kerry as part of a clandestine cabal engaged in “image creating” that falsely portrayed Oswald as a lone nut commie symp with a happy trigger finger. It could be similarly argued that Garrison played the exact same game by portraying Thornley as a rabid right wing super-spook, the ultimate intent of which was to implicate an innocent man in a convoluted JFK assassination conspiracy.
Granted, Kerry Thornley naturally raises some curious eyebrows—and deservedly so—due to his propinquitous associations to Oswald and Garrison’s rogue gallery of spooks. To this end, I claim no ultimate certitude as to Thornley’s innocence or guilt as a witting or unwitting participant in the JFK assassination.
My motivation for writing Caught in the Crossfire was not so much a case of seeking vindication for Kerry Thornley as to provide equal time to present Thornley’s side of the story; to dig deeper beneath the surface story (The Gospel according to Garrison) and not immediately assume that Thornley was a CIA agent (or one of the notorious Oswald doubles or was staging fake photos or writing incriminating books or bedding down Marina) just because someone entertained “theories” that have been subsequently parroted as “facts.”
Caught in the Crossfire: Kerry Thornley, Lee Oswald and the Garrison Investigation Order The Chaos Now!In the first part of this series, I recounted how Harold Weisberg (working on behalf of Jim Garrison’s investigation) hired a California artist named Fred T. Newcomb to touch-up photos of Kerry Thornley to make him more resemble Lee Harvey Oswald. The apparent intent behind this photographic skullduggery was to bolster Garrison’s contention that Thornley was one of the notorious Oswald doubles.
Fred Newcomb’s May 8, 1968 letter to Harold Weisberg addressing his concerns about the Kerry Thornley touch-up job. From the Harold Weisberg Archives.
Prior to my research for Caught in the Crossfire: Kerry Thornley, Lee Oswald and the Garrison Investigation (Amazon), I was unfamiliar with Fred Newcomb, but as I recently discovered he was a long-time Warren Report critic and active player in the early days of the JFK assassination research scene. In fact, Newcomb was one of the early investigators to analyze the backyard photos of “Oswald” (holding his trusty Mannlicher Carcano rifle) and produced the first report detailing how those photos had apparently been doctored. (Later, Jim Garrison would even go so far as to suggest that it was Kerry Thornley who staged these photos!) Due to his association with the Garrison Investigation, Newcomb was among the handful of JFK assassination researchers who obtained a copy of the film Farewell America (Amazon).
Although it was never commercially released in the U.S., Farewell America had been passed on to Garrison investigator Jim Rose (aka E. Carl McNabb), who then supplied boot-legged copies to the likes of Fred Newcomb, as mentioned in this letter.
December 5, 1968 Los Angeles Free Press article on Farewell America.
Farewell America included Zapruder film footage that’d been purportedly liberated from Time-Life who owned the rights to the film at the time, as well as possession of the physical copy. Over the years, rumors have circulated that French Intelligence was somehow involved in the heist of the film then later returned it to the Time-Life vaults after making duplicates. French Intelligence, in turn, shared this footage with the producers of Farewell America who incorporated it into their film. On account of this bootlegged version of Farewell America, the Zapruder film had now began (circa 1968) to circulate within the JFK assassination research community.
French Intelligence notwithstanding, a more likely source of the Zapruder footage (featured in Farewell America) was Jim Garrison, who subpoenaed the film from Time-Life in 1967 and received a copy that was several generations removed from the original. Unsatisfied with the low quality of this multi-generational version, Garrison subpoenaed Time-Life again in early 1968 in an attempt to obtain an original copy of the film but was denied this request.
March 15, 1968 newspaper article, Zapruder Film Subpenaed.
At some point, Mark Lane borrowed Garrison’s copy of the Zapruder film and had several copies reproduced at a lab in New Orleans, which he then distributed to his network of cronies across the JFK assassination landscape.
One recipient of Lane’s largesse was Penn Jones, Jr, editor of a small town Texas newspaper called the Midlothian Mirror, whose major claim to fame was a death chart he compiled listing every dead person he could think of who could’ve possibly been associated with the Kennedy assassination. In 1970, Jones arranged the first television broadcast of the Zapruder film on a late night television show that aired in Chicago called Underground News with Chuck Collins.
Meanwhile, a firm called EFX Unlimited was awarded a contract by Time-Life in 1969 to work on a Zapruder film related project, which is where part time JFK assassination sleuth and photo-optics technician Robert Groden enters the story. Groden—as the story goes—was working as a subcontractor for EFX Unlimited during this period and was “granted access” to an unauthorized version of the Zapruder film provided to him by EFX’s owner, Moses Weitzman.
Over the next few years, Groden enhanced this unauthorized (and much higher quality) version of the Z-film, basically slowing down the significant frames and making the footage less shaky and easier to view. In 1973—on the tenth anniversary of the JFK assassination—Groden presented his Zapruder footage at a symposium hosted by Georgetown University, an event attended by comedian activist Dick Gregory who met with Groden afterwards and encouraged him to take the film to a larger audience. This ultimately resulted in the first national airing of the Zapruder film in 1975 on Geraldo Rivera’s Good Night America.
Fred Newcomb, circa 1995.In 1974, Fred Newcomb—in collaboration with fellow researcher Perry Adams—self-published one hundred copies of their JFK assassination tome, Murder From Within, which they distributed to members of the Senate, Congress, FBI and other law enforcement agencies. Murder From Within presented the theory that JFK’s assassination was an inside job orchestrated by LBJ and executed by Secret Service agents. Newcomb and Perry based their conclusions on an eight year investigation that included over fifty witness interviews as well as their analysis of the Zapruder film.
During the course of their analysis, Newcomb and Perry discovered in a couple of the Zapruder frames—just before and after the fatal headshot—that JFK’s limo driver turns around and appears to be holding a pistol at the exact instant that the President’s head went supernova. Newcomb and Perry were later called to share their findings before the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA).
At first blush, Murder From Within might seem just one in a slew of many “crackpot” JFK assassination books that emerged over the years, mainly due to its controversial assertion that the triggerman of the operation was the aforementioned limo driver, and secret service agent, William Greer. But when one delves into the material presented in the book, it soon becomes evident that the authors went deep into their research and produced a well documented account, which included the theory that JFK’s wounds had been altered during his autopsy, a theme later explored in greater depth in David Lifton’s Best Evidence (Amazon).
In the early-80s, Newcomb and Perry started shopping around Murder From Within and over the next several years apparently struck deals, at one time or another, with three different publishers all of whom eventually decided against publishing the book because, according to Newcomb, “they were scared.”
In the late 1980s, the Greer-shot-Kennedy theory gained renewed traction when Perry Adams joined forces with researchers David Evans with Lars Hansson and the trio—using Zapruder film footage—produced what Hansson later described as a “rough, preliminary videotape” entitled The Truth Betrayed: Dallas Revisited. In Lars Hansson’s Lear and Loathing in Las Vegas, the videotape was “to serve only as a preliminary research tool to spur potential investors to underwrite a thorough professional investigation into the theory that the driver of the presidential limousine, William Greer, actually turned around and fired the fatal shot at JFK with a handgun… It was never intended at any time to be considered a final statement on the issue, much less to be shown publicly and/or distributed as such.”
During the Dallas Revisited period, Lars Hansson was part of the UFOlogical-conspiratorial scene then erupting out of Las Vegas, Nevada that included such “patriots” as James “Bo” Gritz, John Lear and William “Bill” Cooper, all of whom were often featured on The Billy Goodman Happening radio show in their mission to bust to the New World Order’s chops and expose not only the JFK Assassination Conspiracy, but also reveal the reality of reverse-engineered alien technology being developed at Areas 51, not to mention the shocking existence of a certain secret underground alien base in Dulce, New Mexico where all sorts of sinister doings have supposedly transpired over the last several decades.
John Lear was the son of the Lear Jet inventor, Bill Lear, and so Lars Hansson—figuring Lear had deep family pockets—shared a copy of Dallas Revisited with him in the prospect that he could get Lear to invest in his research. Little did Hansson know, but by this time Lear had fallen out of favor with his father, thus losing access to those deep family pockets.
Meanwhile, Lear was beginning to make a splash in UFOlogy and was responsible for setting up the first televised interview with Area 51 whistle blower Robert Lazar, who allegedly worked on reverse-engineered craft at the facility. Lear was also on the forefront of promoting the Dulce Base story and presenting this material at public lectures for the UFO faithful. After getting his paws on Dallas Revisited, Lear began showing the film at his lectures, little to the knowledge of Lars Hansson, who had never intended the film for public consumption. Lear then shared a copy of Dallas Revisited with Bill Cooper, who not only trotted it out and presented it like his own baby, but also started selling videotape copies.
When Lars Hansson caught wind of these developments, a shit-storm soon started brewing between he and Bill Cooper. According to Hansson:
“Cooper’s supporters told me a couple of months after my visit to his home that Cooper had a copy of the tape and was showing it publicly. At that time, in late October 1989, I confronted him over the phone about his dishonesty regarding his use and sale of the videotape, and have since done so publicly in print, on television, and on the radio. When he chickened out of appearing on the TV program INSIDE REPORT, which was taped in April and aired in May 1990, after learning that I would also be appearing to counter him, the producers deliberately left out half of my statement. I had made it clear on their videotape that at the time I threw the rough video together I believed that there was sufficient supporting evidence to warrant a complete investigation; however, after seeing a much clearer version of the Zapruder film, discussing the issue with a number of other respected researchers, and combing through the evidence at hand more closely, I had decided by November 1988 the theory was no longer tenable…”
Below is a YoutTube vid from the above-mentioned episode of Inside Report, featuring not only Lars Hansson, but also Fred Newcomb, Perry Adams, Robert Groden and Harold Weisberg.
And here is the startling evidence of what is either Roy Kellerman’s hair glare or, as Bill Cooper termed it in the video, William Greer firing an “electrically operated, gas powered assassination pistol built by the CIA” containing a shell fish toxin dart!
As for Murder From Within (Amazon), it was finally published in 2011 by Fred Newcomb’s son, Tyler. In the book’s introduction, Tyler Newcomb makes these comments about the Zapruder film:
“The ‘optical illusion’ on the film of the Driver turning, aiming, firing and turning back to drive at the moment Kennedy’s head explodes is mind shattering. What are the odds such a thing could actually happen at that exact instant on the most important amateur film ever made? The ‘gun’ however upon close frame inspection appears to be part of Roy Kellerman’s hair. But is it? No one can prove it either way because the film was in possession of the Secret Service and if Dad’s theory is correct they were busy altering the film itself creating a new original obliterating their complicity in the killing.”
Caught in the Crossfire: Kerry Thornley, Lee Oswald and the Garrison Investigation Order The Chaos Now!In the chapter from my book Caught in the Crossfire: Kerry Thornley, Lee Oswald and the Garrison Investigation (Amazon) called “Photographic Tomfoolery,” I recount some rather sketchy activities undertaken by Harold Weisberg (on behalf of Jim Garrison’s investigation) which involved the recruitment of California artist and JFK assassination investigator Fred T. Newcomb to retouch a photo of Kerry Thornley, the intent of which was to use these altered photos to build a case against Thornley suggesting he was one of the notorious Oswald doubles.
Recently, ace investigator of the odd and arcane, Tim Cridland, shared with me the following letter he uncovered in The Harold Weisberg Archive at http://jfk.hood.edu that an embittered Fred Newcomb sent to Weisberg in the aftermath of this debacle, the second paragraph of which is the most telling:
“Ever since you asked me (on New Orleans stationary) in an unsigned letter, to retouch a photo of Kerry Thornley, I have had a bad taste in my mouth. Not only did you send me on this foolish assignment, but when the flack started, you ducked for cover…”
Letter from Fred Newcomb to Harold Weisberg, dated January 15, 1969.
Fred Newcomb’s January 15th, 1969 letter also includes snipes at “investigators” Steve Jaffe and Jim Rose, who were both on the Garrison dole, and who both spent a considerable amount of time attempting to dig up dirt on Kerry Thornley. (More about the enigmatic “Jim Rose” in future installments!)
As for the abovementioned touch-up caper, this was first exposed by Kerry Thornley’s lawyer, Arnold Levine, in an article that appeared in the November 27, 1968 edition of the Tampa Times:
Photo touch-up charged
By TOM RAUM Times Staff Writer
Did New Orleans Dist. Atty. Jim Garrison commission a set of deliberately “touched-up” photographs of Tampan Kerry Thornley to show an allowed likeness to accused presidential assassin Lee Harvey Oswald?
The possibility was confirmed to The Times today by Thornley’s attorney, Arnold Levine. An aide to Garrison has disclaimed any such order.
The Times learned of the existence of a letter which was reportedly mailed to a freelance artist in California bearing the letterhead of Garrison’s office. The letter contained a purported request to “touch-up” photographs “to make Thornley look as much as possible like Oswald.”
THORNLEY, onetime buddy of Oswald, is being prosecuted by Garrison about his connection with the alleged assassin in New Orleans during the months prior to the John F. Kennedy assassination in 1963.
Attorney Levine said he has reason to believe Garrison wanted to use the touched-up photographs to support a theory that Thornley posed as Oswald on several occasions when Oswald was away from New Orleans—apparently on clandestine missions.
The Times has also come into the possession of copies of photos which Levine said were re-touched by the California artist, as well as another letter apparently from one of Garrison’s assistants denying that the district attorney had any intention of using a “‘touched-up’ photograph of Kerry Thornley in his trial.”
The 29-year old Tampa free lance writer, who served in the same Marine Corps outfit with Lee Harvey Oswald, is presently awaiting trial on the perjury charge. Specifically, he is charged with lying before a New Orleans grand jury last winter.
LEVINE TERMED the request to touch-up Thornley’s photograph “just another example of the sham” of Garrison’s investigation, and the charges which have been lodged against the Tampan.
The letter asking for the “re-touch” job bears the date of March 12, and the name of Harold Weisberg, a New Orleans writer whom Levine said has a “well-known” connection with Garrison.
Written on what appears to be official stationery, the letter, addressed to Fred Newcomb of Sherman Oaks, Calif., says:
“Enclosed are four sets of pictures of Kerry Thornley printed backwards but otherwise entirely untouched. My purpose was to emphasize the resemblance to Oswald and his receding hairline, which when his hair is combed the opposite of his normal fashion is quite emphatic.
“WHAT I WOULD like you to do with one of each pair is pretend you were a make-up man doing the minimum necessary to make Thornley look as much as possible like Oswald as for example by pruning off or brushing back the forelock, trimming the eye¬brows, shadowing the chin, etc.
“I would like you to keep one pair for your use out there, send one pair to me and the other two to Jim Garrison …”
The letter indicates that it was typed by a secretary with the initials “bb.”
A second letter, dated May 21, and also bearing the “bb” initials purports to be from executive assistant Dist. Atty. James Alcock to artist Newcomb, and reads:
“I HAVE just received the documents you sent concerning Harold Weisberg’s request for you to do some photograph touching-up on pictures of Kerry Thornley. So that the record may be set straight, Mr. Weisberg, who is not a member of our staff, made the request without our authority or consent.
“Further, this office has absolutely no intention of using any ‘touch-up’ of Kerry Thornley in his trial…”
Neither Garrison nor Alcock could he reached by The Times today for comment, but a receptionist in the district attorney’s office confirmed that there is a typist in the office typing pool with the initials “bb.” She declined to give her name.
THE RECEPTIONIST said that while Weisberg “isn’t a member of the staff he was well known in the office.”
Weisberg, author of “Whitewash,” is presently in Frederick, Md., the DA’s office said.
Garrison alleges that Oswald, David Ferrie, Clay Shaw and Jack Ruby, working on the fringe of the CIA hatched the assassination plot while they were in New Orleans in 1963.
Thornley, who has published a book on his acquaintance with Oswald, denies he met with Oswald in New Orleans.
No trial date has been set for Thornley’s case.
November 27, 1968 Tampa Times article on Kerry Thornley touched-up photos, page one.November 27, 1968 Tampa Times article on Kerry Thornley touched-up photos, page two.
According to Kerry Thornley, this wasn’t the last of such photographic chicanery:
“Visitors to (Garrison’s) office from the Los Angeles Free Press were shown half a photograph with me in it.
“In the other half of this picture is Marina Oswald,” they would be told, and it was obvious that I had my arm around someone. Soon enough a Free Press staffer identified this photo as the same one which had appeared in a January 1968 Tampa newspaper. It showed me standing outside the courtroom just after my extradition hearing with my arm around my wife, Cara. The negative was flopped in Garrison’s print, but even Garrison’s most fanatical partisans had to admit it was the same picture….” —Kerry Thornley, Star Witness Story (Unpublished essay, 1975)
Kerry Thornley and his wife Cara from the Tampa Tribune, January 23, 1968.
Fred Newcomb—working from a flopped negative of the above photo of Thornley and his wife—modified it per instructions from Harold Weisberg.
The evolution of Newcomb’s touch-up job.
In the November 28th edition of the Tampa Times, Harold Weisberg responded to the touch-up allegations.
November 28, 1968 Tampa Times article on 'Weisburg.'
Adam Gorightly at The Find The Others Conferestival, Liverpool, England, Nov. 23, 2014. Photo by Adam Clark. Here’s some recent interviews. One wonders what 60 Minutes and TMZ are waiting for…?
“The assassination of President John Kennedy and the conspiracy theories that have developed about it might seem to have been covered in many previous books, but self-described ‘crackpot historian’ Adam Gorightly, who has written nine books so far, appears to have found a fresh angle. His new book, Caught in the Crossfire: Kerry Thornley, Lee Oswald and the Garrison Investigation details how Thornley, a little-known but influential counterculture figure, had to fight off accusations from conspiracy theorist and district attorney Jim Garrison of New Orleans.”
“Researcher and author Adam Gorightly joins us to discuss Kerry Thornley, a man who found himself in the hall of mirrors that was Jim Garrison’s JFK assassination investigation. We discuss on this Conspiracy Corner.”
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Ground Zero with Clyde Lewis: The Tale of Two Oswalds Listen here.
“One particular conspiracy theory that is compelling and is seldom talked about is the possibility that there were doppelgangers posing as Lee Harvey Oswald before the assassination even occurred. The idea of multiple assassins or Oswald doppelgangers running loose remains a troubling issue and adds a strange curve to the tragic event. It is one theory that only a hand full of JKF researchers wish to examine as it is viewed as one of those truth is out there topics, one worthy of bring a script for the X-Files.”
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Coast To Coast AM JFK Assassination Special Listen here.
“In the third hour, Gorightly spoke about Kerry Thornley, who met Lee Harvey Oswald in 1959 during basic training at El Toro Marine base and, rather curiously, began writing a book featuring a main character based on Oswald (after he defected to the Soviet Union). Gorightly speculated that Oswald was at El Toro as a spy on some sort of intelligence mission. Thornley claimed he never saw Oswald after 1959 yet both men ended up in New Orleans shortly before JFK’s assassination in 1963, he said. During that period Thornley met some shadowy characters, Gary Kirstein and Slim Brooks, that would later lead him to suspect he’d been unwittingly manipulated into a JFK assassination conspiracy, Gorightly explained, noting that Thornley had been specifically asked about how one could go about killing the president.”
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Type 1 Radio Lounge with Adam Gorightly Listen here.
“Adam Gorightly is coming to England, before that he will join the gang in the lounge to take us on a trip back to our conspiratorial roots.”
Check Out Art Podcasts at Blog Talk Radio with Type1RadioAshram on BlogTalkRadio
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Adam Gorightly Interviewed on The Outer Edge 11/16/2014: Caught in the Crossfire Listen here.
“This Sunday night, we talk to Adam about his ground-breaking new work Caught in the Crossfire, which examines the connections between Kerry Thornley (the founder of Discordianism) and Lee Harvey Oswald.”
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Caravan To Midnight – Episode 173 UFO Sightings with Adam Gorightly Listen here.
“Take a trip today with John B. and Adam Gorightly as they explore the hidden world of global conspiracies and UFO sightings with a few drops of psychedelia here and there.”
I recently happened upon a post at 
