David Ferrie
David Ferrie | |
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John F. Kennedy assassination |
David William Ferrie (March 28, 1918 – February 22, 1967) was an American
Early life
Ferrie was born in
In 1944 Ferrie left St. Charles because of "emotional instability."[4] He obtained a pilot's license and began teaching aeronautics at Cleveland's Benedictine High School. He was fired from the school for several infractions, including taking boys to a house of prostitution.[5] He then became an insurance inspector and, in 1951, moved to New Orleans where he worked as a pilot for Eastern Air Lines, until losing his job in August 1961, after being arrested twice on morals charges.[6]
Ferrie was involved with the
In March 1958, a former cadet-turned-commander invited Ferrie back to the New Orleans Cadet Squadron. Ferrie served unofficially for a time and was reinstated as Executive Officer in September 1959. Ferrie quit the squadron in June 1960 after a disagreement during a
Ferrie described himself as a
Ferrie often spoke to business and civic groups on political issues. In July 1961, Ferrie gave an anti-Kennedy speech before the New Orleans chapter of the Military Order of World Wars, in which "his topic was the Presidential administration and the Bay of Pigs Invasion fiasco."[5] In his speech, Ferrie attacked Kennedy for refusing to provide air support to the Bay of Pigs invasion force of Cuban exiles.[14] Ferrie's tirade against Kennedy was so poorly received that he was asked to leave the podium.[5] Ferrie admitted to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, after the assassination, that when speaking about Kennedy, he might have used the expression: "He ought to be shot." Ferrie insisted, however, that these words were just "an off-hand or colloquial expression."[14]
In the early 1960s, Ferrie became involved with
In February 1962, Banister assisted Ferrie in his dispute with Eastern Airlines regarding "charges brought [against Ferrie] by the airline and local New Orleans police of crimes against nature and extortion."[13] During this period, Ferrie was often seen at Banister's office.[18] Banister testified to Ferrie's "good character" at an airline pilot's grievance board hearing in the summer of 1963.[13][18]
According to several witnesses, Ferrie and Banister also worked together in the fall of 1963 for lawyer G. Wray Gill, on behalf of Gill's client,
Allegations of involvement in the Kennedy assassination
The FBI and Secret Service were interested in Ferrie as early as November 25, 1963, just three days after the Kennedy assassination. He and two other men were arrested and booked for vagrancy by the New Orleans district attorney's office; they were "held for investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Secret Service". They were released the next day. First Assistant District Attorney Frank Klein, who questioned Ferrie with investigators, said he could not comment on the case.[20] It was later reported that Ferrie was "intensely interrogated by the district attorney's office in 1963 after the assassination" and "talked also to the FBI and the Secret Service."[21]
On the afternoon of November 22, 1963 – the day
In the ensuing days, Martin told reporters and authorities that Ferrie might have been involved in the assassination. Martin told the New Orleans police that Ferrie "was supposed to have been the getaway pilot in the assassination."[1] He said that Ferrie had threatened Kennedy's life, even outlining plans to kill him, and that Ferrie might have taught Oswald how to use a rifle with a telescopic sight. Martin also claimed that Ferrie had known Oswald from their days in the New Orleans Civil Air Patrol, and that he had seen a photograph, at Ferrie's home, of Oswald in a Civil Air Patrol group.[23]
Martin also told bail bondsman Hardy Davis that he had heard on television that Ferrie's New Orleans library card had been found in Oswald's possession when he was arrested in Dallas. Davis reported this to Ferrie's employer, the lawyer G. Wray Gill.[24] In fact, no such library card was found among Oswald's possessions.[25] Ferrie subsequently visited both Oswald's former New Orleans landlady and a former neighbor about this report.[26] Ferrie was able to produce his library card for FBI agents who interviewed him on November 27, 1963.[27]
Martin also claimed that Ferrie had driven from New Orleans to
On November 25, Martin was contacted by the FBI. Martin told the FBI that Ferrie might have hypnotized Oswald into assassinating Kennedy. The FBI considered Martin's evidence unreliable. Nevertheless, FBI agents interviewed Ferrie twice about Martin's allegations.[30] Ferrie admitted that he had made public and private statements criticizing Kennedy's actions during the Bay of Pigs, but he denied ever stating that the President should be killed. He stated that he had no recollection of having met Oswald and if he had the meeting would have been "very casual".[31] Ferrie stated that Martin had "bedeviled him in every manner possible" since sending him out of Gill's office in an "undiplomatic manner" in June 1963.[32][33] Gill told the FBI that Martin blamed Ferrie for not getting a job and subsequently "slandered Ferrie at every opportunity".[34] The FBI also interviewed about 20 other people in connection with Martin's allegations. The FBI said that it was unable to develop a substantial case against Ferrie. An inquiry by the House Select Committee on Assassinations, conducted a decade and a half later, concluded that the FBI's "overall investigation of the 544 Camp Street issue at the time of the assassination was not thorough."[35]
After learning of the allegations, Ferrie contacted several of his former Civil Air Patrol associates for more information about Oswald. Former cadet Roy McCoy told the FBI that "Ferrie had come by looking for photographs of the cadets to see if Oswald was pictured in any photos of Ferrie's squadron."
In December 1966, Garrison interviewed Martin. Martin claimed that during the summer of 1963, Ferrie, Banister, Oswald, and a group of anti-Castro Cuban exiles were involved in operations against Castro's Cuba that included gun running activities and burglarizing armories.[39] Garrison later wrote: "The Banister apparatus ... was part of a supply line that ran along the Dallas–New Orleans–Miami corridor. These supplies consisted of arms and explosives for use against Castro's Cuba."[39]
As Garrison continued his investigation, he became convinced that a group of right-wing extremists, including Ferrie, Banister, and
Death
On February 22, 1967, less than a week after the now-defunct afternoon newspaper the
Ferrie's autopsy was performed by
Allegations regarding a relationship between Ferrie and Oswald
In an initial interview with the House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1978, Banister's long-time friend and secretary, Delphine Roberts, stated that she had never seen Oswald; however, in a subsequent interview she stated that she had seen Oswald in Banister's office several times.[53] According to Roberts, the first time she saw Oswald in Banister's office was when he interviewed for a job in the summer of 1963[54] and on another occasion he brought his wife, Marina, with him.[55] Reporter Earl Golz wrote that Roberts said Oswald had interviewed for the position of "undercover agent" and that he and Ferrie - who she said was "detective agent" for Banister - had together attended an anti-Castro training camp for rifle practice.[56] The HSCA investigated Roberts's claims and said that "because of contradictions in Roberts' statements to the committee and lack of independent corroboration of many of her statements, the reliability of her statements could not be determined."[55]
In 1979, the HSCA stated in its Final Report that Oswald – who had been living in New Orleans in the summer of 1963 – had established contact with anti-Castro Cubans[57] and "apparently" with American anti-Castro activist Ferrie.[58] The Committee also found "credible and significant" the testimony of six witnesses who placed Oswald and Ferrie in Clinton, Louisiana, in September 1963.[59] One of the witnesses was Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) chairman Corrie Collins. Collins identified a photograph of Ferrie at the trial of Clay Shaw, saying, "but the most outstanding thing about him [Ferrie] was his eyebrows and his hair. They didn't seem real, in other words, they were unnatural, didn't seem as if they were real hair."[60] A later release of witness statements taken by Garrison's investigators in 1967, unavailable to the HSCA, showed contradictions in the witnesses' testimony given in 1969 and 1978.[61] For example, Collins was shown a photo of Ferrie by Garrison investigator Andrew Sciambra in January 1968 and (in Sciambra's words) "said that he remembers seeing this man around Clinton somewhere but can't be sure where or when."[62] Yet later at the Shaw trial, he placed Ferrie in the company of Shaw and Oswald.[63] In 1979, the House Select Committee on Assassinations stated that available records "lent substantial credence to the possibility that Oswald and [David] Ferrie had been involved in the same [Civil Air Patrol] unit during the same period of time."[8] Committee investigators found six witnesses who said that Oswald had been present at Civil Air Patrol meetings headed by Ferrie.[64]
Frontline photograph
In 1993, the
Portrayals
Ferrie was portrayed by actor
References
- ^ a b David Ferrie, House Select Committee on Assassinations – Appendix to Hearings, Volume 10, 12, pp. 112–113.
- ^ FBI Interview with David Ferrie, November 25, 1963, Warren Commission Document 75, p. 286.
- ^ a b c PBS Frontline "Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald", broadcast on PBS stations, November 1993 (various dates).
- ^ a b David Ferrie, House Select Committee on Assassinations – Appendix to Hearings, Volume 10, 12, p. 106.
- ^ a b c d David Ferrie, House Select Committee on Assassinations – Appendix to Hearings, Volume 10, 12, p. 107.
- ^ David Ferrie, House Select Committee on Assassinations – Appendix to Hearings, Volume 10, 12, pp. 107–108, 108–110.
- ^ a b David Ferrie, House Select Committee on Assassinations – Appendix to Hearings, Volume 10, 12, p. 108.
- ^ a b Oswald, David Ferrie and the Civil Air Patrol, House Select Committee on Assassinations, Volume 9, 4, p. 110.
- ^ David Ferrie, House Select Committee on Assassinations – Appendix to Hearings, Volume 10, 12, pp. 108–109.
- ^ a b "David Blackburst Archive: David Ferrie: Civil Air Patrol File".
- ^ "Cuban Refugees Need Food, Clothes". Times-Picayune. New Orleans, Louisiana. July 14, 1961. p. 11.
- ^ David Ferrie, House Select Committee on Assassinations – Appendix to Hearings, Volume 10, 12, p. 109.
- ^ a b c d 544 Camp Street and Related Events, House Select Committee on Assassinations – Appendix to Hearings, Volume 10, 13, p. 127.
- ^ a b FBI interview of David Ferrie, November 27, 1963, Warren Commission Document 75, p. 199.
- ^ David Ferrie, House Select Committee on Assassinations – Appendix to Hearings, Volume 10, 12, p. 110.
- ^ "Who was Lee Harvey Oswald? Many questions linger". AP News. November 10, 2013. Retrieved November 26, 2023.
- ^ Ogles, Carl; Ogles, Jeff Goldberg (February 25, 1979). "Did the Mob Kill Kennedy?". Washington Post.
- ^ a b David Ferrie, House Select Committee on Assassinations – Appendix to Hearings, Volume 10, 12, p. 111.
- ^ a b David Ferrie, House Select Committee on Assassinations – Appendix to Hearings, Volume 10, 12, p. 112.
- ^ "3 Held for FBI Probe Released". Times-Picayune. November 27, 1963. p. 39.
- ^ a b "Paper Says Pilot Quizzed in JFK Death". Dallas Morning News. February 19, 1967. p. 19.
- ^ 544 Camp Street and Related Events, House Select Committee on Assassinations – Appendix to Hearings, Volume 10, 13, p. 130.
- ^ FBI Interview of Jack S. Martin, November 25, 1963 & November 27, 1963, Warren Commission Document 75, pp. 217–218, 309–311.
- ^ FBI interview of W. Hardy Davis, November 27, 1963, Warren Commission Document 75, p. 216.
- ^ Warren Report, Appendix 11: Reports Relating to the Interrogation of Lee Harvey Oswald at the Dallas Police Department, Reports of Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Warren Commission Hearings, vol. 24, p. 17, CE 1986, FBI report dated November 25, 1963, concerning items in possession of Lee Harvey Oswald when apprehended. Warren Commission Hearings, vol. 26, p. 587, CE 3042, FBI report of laboratory examination of items possessed by Lee Harvey Oswald for possible espionage significance. Oswald had his own New Orleans library card, and used it to check out 34 books between May and September 1963, when he moved back to Dallas. Warren Commission Hearings, vol. 25, p. 928, CE 2650, Secret Service report dated December 10, 1963, and FBI report dated February 25, 1964, of checks of public libraries in New Orleans, La., and Dallas, Tex., and a list of books knowns to have been checked out by Lee Harvey Oswald.
- ^ David Ferrie, House Select Committee on Assassinations – Appendix to Hearings, Volume 10, 12, pp. 113–114.
- ^ FBI interview of David Ferrie, November 27, 1963, Warren Commission Document 75, pp. 199–200, 294.
- ^ FBI Interview with David Ferrie, November 25, 1963, Warren Commission Document 75, pp. 288–289.
- ^ "Garrison Predicts Success for Probe". Times-Picayune. February 19, 1967. p. 3.
- ^ FBI Interview of David Ferrie, November 25, 1963 & November 27, 1963, Warren Commission Document 75, pp. 285–297, 199–200.
- ^ Oswald, David Ferrie and the Civil Air Patrol, House Select Committee on Assassinations, Volume 9, 4, pp. 106-107.
- ^ FBI DeBrueys Report of 02 Dec 1963 re: Oswald/Russia, November 25, 1963, Warren Commission Document 75, p. 293.
- ^ Oswald, David Ferrie and the Civil Air Patrol, House Select Committee on Assassinations, Volume 9, 4, p. 105.
- ^ 544 Camp Street and Related Events, House Select Committee on Assassinations – Appendix to Hearings, Volume 10, 13, p. 130.
- ^ 544 Camp Street and Related Events, House Select Committee on Assassinations – Appendix to Hearings, Volume 10, 13, p. 126.
- ^ David Ferrie, House Select Committee on Assassinations – Appendix to Hearings, Volume 10, 12, p. 114.
- ISBN 978-0-7432-6918-6.
- ISBN 0-941781-02-X.
- ^ a b Garrison 1988 p. 40
- ^ a b Jim Garrison Interview Archived October 22, 2019, at the Wayback Machine, Playboy magazine, Eric Norden, October 1967.
- ^ Garrison 1988 pp. 12–13, 43, 176–178, 277, 293
- ^ Garrison 1988 pp. 26–27, 62, 70, 106–110, 250, 278, 289
- ^ a b c "Ferrie, JFK Probe Data Linked". The Gadsden Times. Gadsden, Alabama. UPI. February 23, 1967. pp. 1–2. Retrieved August 18, 2014.
- ^ a b Bugliosi 2007 p.1401
- ^ "Tests Are Run On Body of Figure in JFK Probe". Times-Picayune. February 23, 1967. p. 1.
- ^ Garrison 1988 p. 138
- ISBN 978-0-393-07212-9.
- ^ "JFK Probe Principals Silenced". The Spokesman-Review. Spokane, Washington. Associated Press. February 24, 1967. p. 1. Retrieved August 18, 2014.
- ISBN 1-589-80918-1.
- ISBN 1-461-73239-5.
- ISBN 1-574-41148-9.
- ISBN 9781589809185. Retrieved December 3, 2013.
- ^ "XIII. 544 Camp Street And Related Events". Appendix to Hearings before the Select Committee on Assassinations of the U.S. House of Representatives. Vol. X. Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office. March 1979. pp. 128–129.
- ^ "I.C.". Report of the Select Committee on Assassinations of the U.S. House of Representatives. Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office. 1979. p. X.
- ^ a b Appendix to Hearings before the Select Committee on Assassinations of the U.S. House of Representatives, Volume X 1979, p. 129.
- ^ Golz, Earl (January 16, 2023). "Did Oswald ACT ALONE?". D Magazine. Dallas, Texas. Retrieved January 15, 2023.
- ^ HSCA Final Assassinations Report, House Select Committee on Assassinations, pp. 134–147.
- ^ HSCA Final Assassinations Report, House Select Committee on Assassinations, p. 147.
- ^ HSCA Final Assassinations Report, House Select Committee on Assassinations, p. 142.
- ^ "John F. Kennedy assassination: Clay Shaw trial testimony of Corrie Collins, eyewitness to alleged conspiracy in assassination of JFK". Jfk-online.com. Retrieved September 17, 2010.
- ^ David Reitzes, "Impeaching Clinton".
- ^ Andrew Sciambra, "Memorandum to Jim Garrison".
- ^ "Surprise Witness Called In Shaw Trial; Garrison Calls 5 To Stand". Sarasota Herald-Tribune. Sarasota, Florida. AP. February 7, 1969. p. 1. Retrieved October 21, 2014.
- ^ Oswald, David Ferrie and the Civil Air Patrol, House Select Committee on Assassinations, Volume 9, 4, pp. 110–115.
- ISBN 1-461-73239-5.
- ISBN 9781597974899. Retrieved October 23, 2014.
- ^ Reitzes, David (2001). "Wo was Ferrie".
- ^ Kempley, Rita (March 27, 1992). "'RUBY': THE LIKABLE LOSER". The Washington Post. Retrieved February 25, 2019.