Did Jim Garrison originally think the JFKA was a homosexual thrill-kill?

[Tom Graves]

Did Jim Garrison originally think closeted gay businessman Clay Shaw (who had been a highly valued contact source for the Agency from 1948 to 1956) had masterminded a homosexual "thrill kill" assassination of JFK which involved Lee Harvey Oswald, David Ferrie and Guy Banister?

Yep, that's what the over-ambitious, scandal-plagued and revengeful New Orleans DA thought before he read an anti-CIA / anti-Shaw article published in "Paese Sera," a Communist-owned Italian newspaper (which article was republished in a French Communist newspaper, L'Humanité, translated into English, and given to him by Bertrand Russell's Far-Left secretary, Ralph Schoenman -- Joan Mellen's ex-husband -- in 1967).

We know that in his 1989 book, On the Trail of the Assassins, Garrison lied when he wrote that he hadn't been aware of the article until after the Shaw Trial was over because about three weeks after Garrison had arrested Shaw, Life Magazine's Richard Billings -- who was helping Garrison -- wrote in his journal that Garrison had a copy of the L'Humanité article:

"Story about Shaw and CIA appears in Humanite [L'Humanité], probably March 8 . . . Giant has copy datelined Rome, March 7, from La Presse Italien . . . It explains Shaw working in Rome in '58 to '60 period . . ."  (22 March 1967)

[Lance Payette]

Absolutely! Makes perfect sense. I believe it all, and Jim DiEugenio agrees (well, I'm pretty sure he does, since Garrison is his hero). "Homosexual thrill killings" are a well-known category of major crime. Ask any FBI profiler; they have to attend 40 hours of classroom training just on homosexual thrill killings, although today the course is called LGBTQ+ thrill killings. Here is a fairly scholarly yet amusing discussion, "A Homosexual Thrill-Kill?", https://feralhouse.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/thrill-kill-by-gorightly.pdf. The author, Adam Gorightly, is apparently quite well-known in certain circles and describes himself as "a true Rennaissance man of the lunatic fringe," https://adamgorightly.com/index.html (if only DiEugenio and his ilk were as honest!). I like his final paragraph that addresses the possibility the JFKA "was orchestrated by Freemasons along the 33rd degree latitude to correspond with the ancient 'Killing of the King' fertility rite," which is kind of where my own research has been pointing.

In a more serious - WAY more serious - vein, here is a scholarly but very readable dissertation from 2020 that exposes (no pun intended) Garrison's nonsense and his own sexual proclivities. It's entitled "New Orleans never was tighter”: Jim Garrison’s Gendered Vice Campaign in New Orleans, 1962-1966, https://scholarworks.uno.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3945&context=td. Wasn't Garrison also believed to have been a cross-dresser, or am I confusing him with John Travolta?

You have failed to mention Bruce Solie or the KGB in this post, Tom. Let's get back on track, shall we? In fact, I tend to think the entire Garrison investigation was orchestrated by Solie to ferret out a mole (can you ferret out a mole? can you mole out a ferret?) in the ... well, somewhere, perhaps the Mardi Gras Planning Committee, which Tennent Bagley believed was simply crawling with moles and ferrets and whatnot.

[Tim Nickerson]

Absolutely! Makes perfect sense. I believe it all, and Jim DiEugenio agrees (well, I'm pretty sure he does, since Garrison is his hero). "Homosexual thrill killings" are a well-known category of major crime. Ask any FBI profiler; they have to attend 40 hours of classroom training just on homosexual thrill killings, although today the course is called LGBTQ+ thrill killings.

Up here, the course is called "2SLGBTQQIA+ thrill killings".

[Tom Graves]

Absolutely! Makes perfect sense. I believe it all, and Jim DiEugenio agrees (well, I'm pretty sure he does, since Garrison is his hero). "Homosexual thrill killings" are a well-known category of major crime. Ask any FBI profiler; they have to attend 40 hours of classroom training just on homosexual thrill killings, although today the course is called LGBTQ+ thrill killings. Here is a fairly scholarly yet amusing discussion, "A Homosexual Thrill-Kill?", https://feralhouse.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/thrill-kill-by-gorightly.pdf. The author, Adam Gorightly, is apparently quite well-known in certain circles and describes himself as "a true Rennaissance man of the lunatic fringe," https://adamgorightly.com/index.html (if only DiEugenio and his ilk were as honest!). I like his final paragraph that addresses the possibility the JFKA "was orchestrated by Freemasons along the 33rd degree latitude to correspond with the ancient 'Killing of the King' fertility rite," which is kind of where my own research has been pointing.

In a more serious - WAY more serious - vein, here is a scholarly but very readable dissertation from 2020 that exposes (no pun intended) Garrison's nonsense and his own sexual proclivities. It's entitled "New Orleans never was tighter”: Jim Garrison’s Gendered Vice Campaign in New Orleans, 1962-1966, https://scholarworks.uno.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3945&context=td. Wasn't Garrison also believed to have been a cross-dresser, or am I confusing him with John Travolta?

You have failed to mention Bruce Solie or the KGB in this post, Tom. Let's get back on track, shall we? In fact, I tend to think the entire Garrison investigation was orchestrated by Solie to ferret out a mole (can you ferret out a mole? can you mole out a ferret?) in the ... well, somewhere, perhaps the Mardi Gras Planning Committee, which Tennent Bagley believed was simply crawling with moles and ferrets and whatnot.

Dear Fancy Pants,

James Phelan was an investigative reporter for "The Saturday Evening Post" who'd written a favorable article about Jim Garrison. (You've heard of "The Saturday Evening Post," right?).

After Garrison had arrested Clay Shaw on 1 March 1967, he decided to get away from the chaos he'd created in The Big Easy and take a short vacation in Vegas. Phelan wanted to interview him about his case against Shaw, so they rendezvoused there on March 5th and 6th.

On pages 150 and 151 of his 1982 book, Scandals, Scamps, and Scoundrels, Phelan wrote:

"In an effort to get Garrison's story into focus, I asked him the motive of the Kennedy conspirators. He told me that the murder at Dallas had been a homosexual plot.

'They had the same motive as Loeb and Leopold, when they murdered Bobbie Franks in Chicago back in the twenties,' Garrison said. 'It was a homosexual thrill-killing, plus the excitement of getting away with a perfect crime. John Kennedy was everything that Dave Ferrie was not — a successful, handsome, popular, wealthy, virile man. You can just picture the charge Ferrie got out of plotting his death.'

I asked how he had learned that the murder was a homosexual plot.

'Look at the people involved,' Garrison said. 'Dave Ferrie, homosexual. Clay Shaw, homosexual. Jack Ruby, homosexual.'

'Ruby was a homosexual?'

'Sure, we dug that out,' Garrison said. 'His homosexual nickname was Pinkie. That's three. Then there was Lee Harvey Oswald.'

But Oswald was married and had two children, I pointed out.

'A switch-hitter who couldn't satisfy his wife,' Garrison said. 'That's all in the Warren Report.' He named two more 'key figures' whom he labeled homosexual.

'That's six homosexuals in the plot,' Garrison said. 'One or maybe two, okay. But all six homosexual? How far can you stretch the arm of coincidence?'

I told him that was an intriguing theory, but it wasn't evidence he could present to a court."

. . . . . . .

Dear Fancy Pants Rants,

Since you brought up Bruce Leonard Solie, why don't you google him?

(I said "google," not "ogle.")

And since you brought up Tennent H. Bagley (a "Lone Nutter," like you and I), why don't you read his 2007 Yale University Press book, Spy Wars: Moles, Mysteries, and Deadly Games, and his 2014 follow-up article "Ghosts of the Spy Wars," and learn something about your beloved KGB?

Both are free-to-read. Just google (not ogle, you dirty boy) "spy wars" and "archive" simultaneously and "ghosts of the spy wars" and "archive" simultaneously.


-- Tom

[Lance Payette]

Dear Fancy Pants,

James Phelan was an investigative reporter for "The Saturday Evening Post" who'd written a favorable article about Jim Garrison. (You've heard of "The Saturday Evening Post," right?).

After Garrison had arrested Clay Shaw on 1 March 1967, he decided to get away from the chaos he'd created in The Big Easy and take a short vacation in Vegas. Phelan wanted to interview him about his case against Shaw, so they rendezvoused there on March 5th and 6th.

On pages 150 and 151 of his 1982 book, Scandals, Scamps, and Scoundrels, Phelan wrote:

"In an effort to get Garrison's story into focus, I asked him the motive of the Kennedy conspirators. He told me that the murder at Dallas had been a homosexual plot.

'They had the same motive as Loeb and Leopold, when they murdered Bobbie Franks in Chicago back in the twenties,' Garrison said. 'It was a homosexual thrill-killing, plus the excitement of getting away with a perfect crime. John Kennedy was everything that Dave Ferrie was not — a successful, handsome, popular, wealthy, virile man. You can just picture the charge Ferrie got out of plotting his death.'

I asked how he had learned that the murder was a homosexual plot.

'Look at the people involved,' Garrison said. 'Dave Ferrie, homosexual. Clay Shaw, homosexual. Jack Ruby, homosexual.'

'Ruby was a homosexual?'

'Sure, we dug that out,' Garrison said. 'His homosexual nickname was Pinkie. That's three. Then there was Lee Harvey Oswald.'

But Oswald was married and had two children, I pointed out.

'A switch-hitter who couldn't satisfy his wife,' Garrison said. 'That's all in the Warren Report.' He named two more 'key figures' whom he labeled homosexual.

'That's six homosexuals in the plot,' Garrison said. 'One or maybe two, okay. But all six homosexual? How far can you stretch the arm of coincidence?'

I told him that was an intriguing theory, but it wasn't evidence he could present to a court."

. . . . . . .

Since you brought up Bruce Leonard Solie, why don't you google him, Fancy Pants?

(I said "google," not ogle.")

And since you brought up Tennent H. Bagley (a "Lone Nutter" like you and I), why don't you read his 2007 Yale University Press book, Spy Wars: Moles, Mysteries, and Deadly Games, and his 2014 follow-up article "Ghosts of the Spy Wars" and learn something about your beloved KGB?

Both are free-to-read -- just google (not ogle) "spy wars" and "archive" simultaneously, and "ghosts of the spy wars" and "archive" simultaneously.

-- Tom

Not sure what you think the passage from Phelan adds to the equation, but it's quoted in full in the Gorightly piece I linked. The Rennaissance man of the lunatic fringe doesn't miss much.

[Tom Graves]

Not sure what you think the passage from Phelan adds to the equation, but it's quoted in full in the Golightly piece I linked. The Rennaissance man of the lunatic fringe doesn't miss much.

Dear FP,

Do you think Phelan lied in his book about what Garrison told him, or maybe even made up altogether his story about rendezvousing with him in Vegas three days (or was it four?) after he'd arrested Shaw?

It's interesting to note that they met in Sin City about the time the anti-CIA / anti-Shaw article was published in "Paese Sera," and about three weeks before Garrison received a translated-by-Schoenman knock-off copy of it.

In other words, Giant told Phelan his sorely (pardon the pun) mistaken homosexual thrill-kill theory about Shaw, et al., before he'd been set straight (pardon the pun) by the Kremlin via "Paese Sera" or "L' Humanite" or some-such Commie rag, and even, I've read, before he sent a copy of it to his local New Orleans States-Item newspaper for it to publish.

Factoid for Fancy Pants: Garrison (played by Kevin Cosner) confronts Shaw (played by Tommy Lee Jones -- who ironically plays the role of Pete Bagley in the BBC film, "Yuri Nosenko: KGB") -- with a put-together-by-Stone Italian-language hybrid fake copy of the anti-CIA / anti-Clay Shaw article in his KGB-approved "JFK."

[Tom Graves]

Not sure what you think the passage from Phelan adds to the equation, but it's quoted in full in the Gorightly piece I linked. The Rennaissance man of the lunatic fringe doesn't miss much.

What "equation"?

Fancy Pants Lance's "The nice-nice KGB is preferable to the evil-evil CIA" equation?