25-10-2015, 10:45 PM
Dawn Meredith Wrote:" Many of the quasi-historians who dabble in the Kennedy case are less than accurate their approach to scholarship. One who did me an enormous service was a woman named Mary Ferrell, famous for her collection of Warren Commission documents. When I met Mary in Dallas, she arrived carrying a parcel.
Inside was the full manuscript of the diary of Tom Bethell. It has never been published and Bethell told Mary she must never show it to anyone. Bethell had been one of those who infiltrated Jim Garrison's investigation, and did everything he could to subvert it, including providing the Shaw defense with the prosecution witness list and strategy. Garrison trusted Bethell, Garrison investigator John Volz told me, because he had gone to Oxford University."
Joan Mellen
I was told by Mary's son that it was in fact Mary Ferrell who sent Bethell to infiltrate and attempt to sabotage Garrison. So of course she would have his "full manuscript".
Dawn
Hi Dawn - as a n00b, that's the first thing I see when I enter the "JFK Research" space - is that it's highly politicized. And, it occurs to me, that it's gotten kind of... um... 'stupid' at this point... what I mean is, we already know all about how horrible our CIA was during the 60's, we know all about MK/ULTRA and such (we even have pictures of the kids with electrodes attached to their heads).... so like... what could possibly be worse? What could they possibly tell us about the JFK assassination that's worse than what we already know? We already know the CIA was in bed with the mafia, we already know there were generals behind the scenes someplace, we already know the shooting was equivalent to a "coup" of some sort, we already know the next president and his FBI director engaged in a criminal conspiracy to obstruct justice.... what could possibly be worse than all this? Now, after fifty years?
Garrison was at least in part politically motivated. He was on the right track, but only on "one" right track, and he didn't have enough information to get to the end of it. In 1967 it might have still made sense to have someone "subvert" an investigation, and who it was in particular is probably of lesser interest than the outcome in terms of the information space.
Part of my background is as a research scientist. The social environment there is somewhat similar to the JFK research space, there are cliques and they don't necessarily trust each other, the big benefit there that the JFK space seems to lack somehow is an extensive and rigorous system of peer review. Which doesn't necessarily mean accusing your author of being a government shill - even though that may be true too - there were plenty of government shills publishing legitimate research papers in the particular area of science I worked in).
Garrison mentions in his Playboy interview that he thinks he's identified one of the Tippit shooters, and he thinks he's identified Oswald's impersonator. Do we know who he thought those two people were, or did that information get buried?