Another day, another factoid: DiEugenio on Ferrie's CIA connection

[Lance Payette]

I will admit, I’ve paid comparatively little attention to the Garrison Follies. I’ve read quite a bit, but I find it tedious and silly. I did, however, have a bit of fun this morning while icing my Achilles.

If you aren’t familiar with Keven Hofeling, he is a Utah attorney who posts the most incredibly lengthy, bombastic, obsessive-compulsive stuff at the Other Forum. His average post must be 6,000 words. He apparently also has a Rumble channel, JkevenJD, on which he posts 9/11 Truther and JFKA CTer videos.

Jim DiEugenio is a fan. This morning, he started a thread: “David Ferrie was Plugged in to the Agency.” The Agency, of course is the CIA.

DiEugenio says Keven is “doing a nice job” and links us to a video Keven has entitled “LA Arresting Officers on CIA Intervention on Behalf of JFK Assassination Suspect David Ferrie.” It’s only three minutes long: https://rumble.com/v6zwhy4-la-arresting-officers-on-cia-intervention-on-behalf-of-jfk-assassination-su.html.

The video was filmed some 40 years after the JFKA. The stars are two former New Orleans police officers who were assigned to the Juvenile Bureau, Roland Fournier and Charles Jonau. They explain in the video that in 1961 they arrested Ferrie for pedophile-type activities. They were then shocked and terrified to find themselves the subject of arrest warrants!

Jonau speculates that Ferrie was “a man with incredible power.” The “thought occurred to him,” Jonau says, that Ferrie “had a CIA connection” and the Agency caused the arrest warrants to be issued.

And that’s it. The “thought occurred” to Jonau. He admits he “had no idea where it was coming from.” Yet this – this big Double Nothing Whopper with Cheese – is enough for DiEugenio to start a thread announcing Ferrie was “plugged in to” the CIA.

Typical DiEuegnio lunatic hyperbole, yes. But if that’s all there was to it, it would scarcely be worth mentioning here.

This morning, I skimmed through all 428 pages of Garrison’s Ferrie file in the expectation that there would be something about all this: https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/docid-32263970.pdf. Indeed, there was.

Here’s what happened: Fournier and Jonau were investigating a runaway teen named Landry. It turned out that Landry had been with Ferrie and had been molested several times. The runaway investigation snowballed into a full-tilt investigation of pedophile Ferrie. On August 8 and August 26, 1961, Ferrie was arrested on numerous pedophile-type charges. Since Ferrie was a captain with Eastern Airlines, this caused a wee bit of concern at Eastern.

On October 31, 1961, Ferrie wrote Eastern a letter. He referenced his then-attorney Graffagnino and said that “reputable detectives” had been involved in the composition of the letter. He attributed his troubles to a “local official” who was a Communist and out to get him. He said the New Orleans police had searched his home without a warrant “in clear violation of the law.” He said the primary juvenile witness against him admitted he’d been coerced by police and had now recanted. The climax of all this, he said, was an extortionate offer by police that all would be forgiven if he “paid a substantial sum of money,” left the state and kept quiet. This extortion attempt had been reported to “Federal authorities for whatever action they may take.” He concluded, “Be assured that civil suits are in preparation (and possibly more will be prepared) against any and every individual, organization and/or group responsible in any way for any damages that have occurred to me during this affair.” Eastern suspended him but agreed to hold off on termination pending the disposition of the criminal charges.

Ferrie even contacted the key victims and tried to talk – or threaten - them into changing their stories, which they did for a while. Fournier and Jonau investigated this as well. Whereupon Ferrie was arrested in early 1962 for witness intimidation and extortion. The full story is almost too complicated to describe, but the upshot is that the juveniles wouldn’t cooperate and virtually all of the charges against Ferrie were dismissed on the prosecution’s motion of nolle prosequi. One charge went to a bench trial, and Ferrie was found not guilty. It was Garrison’s own office that dismissed the intimidation and extortion charges because the witnesses wouldn’t cooperate.

Upon being discharged by Eastern, mostly because of egregious lies on his employment application, Ferrie filed a grievance. At the grievance hearing, Fournier testified that everything involving Ferrie had been routine police work. Landry, now 18, testified to having been plied with alcohol and molested by Ferrie. Ferrie lost his grievance.

Read the materials pertaining to all this and you will be laughing out loud at the notion the CIA intervened on Ferrie’s behalf by causing arrest warrants to be issued against Fournier and Jonau (as though that would have made any sense). Moreover, there is not one word pertaining to what Fournier and Jonau described 40 years later – i.e., being the subjects of arrest warrants. At an earlier hearing with Eastern, Ferrie’s attorney G. Wray Gill described Fournier and Jonau as “two vicious detectives” whose work was determined to be fraudulent by the DA’s office but gave no indication any action had been taken against them.

I have a pretty good guess as to what may have happened (if anything did). As is obvious from the above, Ferrie and Graffagnino immediately went into high gear and adopted the philosophy that the best defense is a good offense. In Louisiana, all that was necessary to obtain an arrest warrant was for a citizen to appear in front of a magistrate and swear one out. This would have been entirely consistent with the tenor of Ferrie’s letter to Eastern on October 31, 1961. If he did this, the warrants would have been summarily quashed on the motion of the officers.

Oh, Jonau also says he received mysterious calls from people associated with the Cuban Revolutionary Front. This is quite possible, although his descriptions of the calls make little sense. On July 18, 1961, before any of this had hit the fan, Sergio Arcacha Smith had naively written to Eastern Airlines on behalf of the Cuban Democratic Revolutionary Front, singing the praises of Ferrie and asking that he be granted a 60- or 90-day leave of absence to participate in critical FRD activities. Eastern politely declined. Arcacha Smith was also involved in Ferrie’s grievance and apparently accompanied Wray Gill to one of the meetings. It is not surprising, therefore, that Jonau might actually have received calls from the FRD, although it seems unlikely the FRD would have “promised to deliver runaway boys” in exchange for the charges being dropped against Ferrie. (Jonau, of course, would have had no authority to drop the charges anyway.)

Well, there ya go. That’s what DiEugenio thinks establishes a connection between Ferrie and the CIA. The CIA had arrest warrants issued against Fournier and Jonau because Langley thought this clever tactic would somehow improve the situation of their critical asset Ferrie. Ya think? I know, I know, I’m just trapped in this prison of rational thought and am no fun at all.

[Lance Payette]

But wait, it keeps getting better ...

Brother Keven is convinced these were FEDERAL arrest warrants, even though Jonau and Fournier say nothing like this!

Brother Keven says, "This matter of the almost total absence of information relating to the federal arrest warrants for Detectives Roland Fournier and Charles Jonau of the New Orleans Juvenile Bureau that David Ferrie managed to have issued against them is something I have found to be very perplexing and deeply troubling as it screams from the rooftops that Ferrie was supported by a federal agency or agencies during the period in 1961 that he was being investigated and prosecuted for MK-Ultra-like sexual crimes against juveniles who were in the Civil Air Patrol unit that Ferrie commanded, as Oswald was."

MK-Ultra-like sexual crimes!

BWAHAHA!!! 

What is like to be inside the head of someone like this?

[Charles Collins]

I will admit, I’ve paid comparatively little attention to the Garrison Follies. I’ve read quite a bit, but I find it tedious and silly. I did, however, have a bit of fun this morning while icing my Achilles.

If you aren’t familiar with Keven Hofeling, he is a Utah attorney who posts the most incredibly lengthy, bombastic, obsessive-compulsive stuff at the Other Forum. His average post must be 6,000 words. He apparently also has a Rumble channel, JkevenJD, on which he posts 9/11 Truther and JFKA CTer videos.

Jim DiEugenio is a fan. This morning, he started a thread: “David Ferrie was Plugged in to the Agency.” The Agency, of course is the CIA.

DiEugenio says Keven is “doing a nice job” and links us to a video Keven has entitled “LA Arresting Officers on CIA Intervention on Behalf of JFK Assassination Suspect David Ferrie.” It’s only three minutes long: https://rumble.com/v6zwhy4-la-arresting-officers-on-cia-intervention-on-behalf-of-jfk-assassination-su.html.

The video was filmed some 40 years after the JFKA. The stars are two former New Orleans police officers who were assigned to the Juvenile Bureau, Roland Fournier and Charles Jonau. They explain in the video that in 1961 they arrested Ferrie for pedophile-type activities. They were then shocked and terrified to find themselves the subject of arrest warrants!

Jonau speculates that Ferrie was “a man with incredible power.” The “thought occurred to him,” Jonau says, that Ferrie “had a CIA connection” and the Agency caused the arrest warrants to be issued.

And that’s it. The “thought occurred” to Jonau. He admits he “had no idea where it was coming from.” Yet this – this big Double Nothing Whopper with Cheese – is enough for DiEugenio to start a thread announcing Ferrie was “plugged in to” the CIA.

Typical DiEuegnio lunatic hyperbole, yes. But if that’s all there was to it, it would scarcely be worth mentioning here.

This morning, I skimmed through all 428 pages of Garrison’s Ferrie file in the expectation that there would be something about all this: https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/docid-32263970.pdf. Indeed, there was.

Here’s what happened: Fournier and Jonau were investigating a runaway teen named Landry. It turned out that Landry had been with Ferrie and had been molested several times. The runaway investigation snowballed into a full-tilt investigation of pedophile Ferrie. On August 8 and August 26, 1961, Ferrie was arrested on numerous pedophile-type charges. Since Ferrie was a captain with Eastern Airlines, this caused a wee bit of concern at Eastern.

On October 31, 1961, Ferrie wrote Eastern a letter. He referenced his then-attorney Graffagnino and said that “reputable detectives” had been involved in the composition of the letter. He attributed his troubles to a “local official” who was a Communist and out to get him. He said the New Orleans police had searched his home without a warrant “in clear violation of the law.” He said the primary juvenile witness against him admitted he’d been coerced by police and had now recanted. The climax of all this, he said, was an extortionate offer by police that all would be forgiven if he “paid a substantial sum of money,” left the state and kept quiet. This extortion attempt had been reported to “Federal authorities for whatever action they may take.” He concluded, “Be assured that civil suits are in preparation (and possibly more will be prepared) against any and every individual, organization and/or group responsible in any way for any damages that have occurred to me during this affair.” Eastern suspended him but agreed to hold off on termination pending the disposition of the criminal charges.

Ferrie even contacted the key victims and tried to talk – or threaten - them into changing their stories, which they did for a while. Fournier and Jonau investigated this as well. Whereupon Ferrie was arrested in early 1962 for witness intimidation and extortion. The full story is almost too complicated to describe, but the upshot is that the juveniles wouldn’t cooperate and virtually all of the charges against Ferrie were dismissed on the prosecution’s motion of nolle prosequi. One charge went to a bench trial, and Ferrie was found not guilty. It was Garrison’s own office that dismissed the intimidation and extortion charges because the witnesses wouldn’t cooperate.

Upon being discharged by Eastern, mostly because of egregious lies on his employment application, Ferrie filed a grievance. At the grievance hearing, Fournier testified that everything involving Ferrie had been routine police work. Landry, now 18, testified to having been plied with alcohol and molested by Ferrie. Ferrie lost his grievance.

Read the materials pertaining to all this and you will be laughing out loud at the notion the CIA intervened on Ferrie’s behalf by causing arrest warrants to be issued against Fournier and Jonau (as though that would have made any sense). Moreover, there is not one word pertaining to what Fournier and Jonau described 40 years later – i.e., being the subjects of arrest warrants. At an earlier hearing with Eastern, Ferrie’s attorney G. Wray Gill described Fournier and Jonau as “two vicious detectives” whose work was determined to be fraudulent by the DA’s office but gave no indication any action had been taken against them.

I have a pretty good guess as to what may have happened (if anything did). As is obvious from the above, Ferrie and Graffagnino immediately went into high gear and adopted the philosophy that the best defense is a good offense. In Louisiana, all that was necessary to obtain an arrest warrant was for a citizen to appear in front of a magistrate and swear one out. This would have been entirely consistent with the tenor of Ferrie’s letter to Eastern on October 31, 1961. If he did this, the warrants would have been summarily quashed on the motion of the officers.

Oh, Jonau also says he received mysterious calls from people associated with the Cuban Revolutionary Front. This is quite possible, although his descriptions of the calls make little sense. On July 18, 1961, before any of this had hit the fan, Sergio Arcacha Smith had naively written to Eastern Airlines on behalf of the Cuban Democratic Revolutionary Front, singing the praises of Ferrie and asking that he be granted a 60- or 90-day leave of absence to participate in critical FRD activities. Eastern politely declined. Arcacha Smith was also involved in Ferrie’s grievance and apparently accompanied Wray Gill to one of the meetings. It is not surprising, therefore, that Jonau might actually have received calls from the FRD, although it seems unlikely the FRD would have “promised to deliver runaway boys” in exchange for the charges being dropped against Ferrie. (Jonau, of course, would have had no authority to drop the charges anyway.)

Well, there ya go. That’s what DiEugenio thinks establishes a connection between Ferrie and the CIA. The CIA had arrest warrants issued against Fournier and Jonau because Langley thought this clever tactic would somehow improve the situation of their critical asset Ferrie. Ya think? I know, I know, I’m just trapped in this prison of rational thought and am no fun at all.

So Lance, what else is known about the (apparently more than just casual) association between Ferrie and Sergio Arcacha Smith? Is that the same person that was arrested with LHO in New Orleans for "disturbing the peace" (if I remember correctly)? If so, this seems intriguing to me. But then again there are a lot of other aspects of the case that are intriguing.

[Lance Payette]

So Lance, what else is known about the (apparently more than just casual) association between Ferrie and Sergio Arcacha Smith? Is that the same person that was arrested with LHO in New Orleans for "disturbing the peace" (if I remember correctly)? If so, this seems intriguing to me. But then again there are a lot of other aspects of the case that are intriguing.

Ya got me. I'm no authority on all the New Orleans Garrison-type intrigue. Sergio's letter is on page 165 of the file I linked. It's kind of jaw-dropping. He just gratuitously mentions in a letter to Eddie Rickenbacker at Eastern Airlines that the FRD was established as a "CIA front" to overthrow Castro. After the Bay of Pigs, the FRD was demoralized and in disarray until Ferrie arrived as some sort of savior. So important has Ferrie been to the FRD, Sergio says, that they need his advice on a day-to-day basis for 60 to 90 days as their paramilitary efforts reach a climax. Sergio is indeed the guy who introduced Ferrie to Bringuier, but as far as I know he wasn't part of the incident where Oswald was arrested. I'm sure this letter and his association with Ferrie is well-known, but it jumped out at me as almost humorous that he thought Eastern Airlines would release one of its pilots for this sort of "moonlighting." Yes, there are astounding connections and twists and turns throughout the JFK case.

Undoubtedly, someone can speak more intelligently about this aspect than I can.

FWIW, Stephen Roy, whose posts always seemed well-informed, had a timeline of Sergio's activities in which he said Sergio "began severing his relationship with Ferrie" after the latter's arrests in August 1961.

[Charles Collins]

Ya got me. I'm no authority on all the New Orleans Garrison-type intrigue. Sergio's letter is on page 165 of the file I linked. It's kind of jaw-dropping. He just gratuitously mentions in a letter to Eddie Rickenbacker at Eastern Airlines that the FRD was established as a "CIA front" to overthrow Castro. After the Bay of Pigs, the FRD was demoralized and in disarray until Ferrie arrived as some sort of savior. So important has Ferrie been to the FRD, Sergio says, that they need his advice on a day-to-day basis for 60 to 90 days as their paramilitary efforts reach a climax. Sergio is indeed the guy who introduced Ferrie to Bringuier, but as far as I know he wasn't part of the incident where Oswald was arrested. I'm sure this letter and his association with Ferrie is well-known, but it jumped out at me as almost humorous that he thought Eastern Airlines would release one of its pilots for this sort of "moonlighting." Yes, there are astounding connections and twists and turns throughout the JFK case.

Undoubtedly, someone can speak more intelligently about this aspect than I can.

Thanks, yes I got a little confused about who was involved in the incident where LHO was arrested in New Orleans.

 Wow, I was vaguely familiar with the name and a small amount of the legend of Eddie Rickenbacker. I just spent a little time skimming over his Wikipedia webpage. He somehow survived some very harrowing incidents. Definitely an interesting read.

[Michael T. Griffith]

Kevin Hofeling is a devout 9/11 Truther, so you will never see my citing any of his stuff. I should mention that I recently created a new website on the nutty 9/11 conspiracy theories:

https://sites.google.com/view/september11refuted/home

That being said, your claim that David Ferrie had no substantive connections with the CIA is further proof that you've only read material that supports your belief in the lone-gunman theory.

Shortly before he died in February 1967, Ferrie told Lou Ivon, the chief investigator for New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison, that he had worked for the CIA. Ferrie also told Ivon that Oswald had been in Guy Banister’s office many times and had also been to the CIA-sponsored training camp near New Orleans where anti-Castro Cubans were trained.

Ferrie was heavily involved in CIA-backed anti-Castro activities. He spent considerable time working for the Cuban Revolutionary Council (CRC), a CIA-backed anti-Castro group.

For more information on David Ferrie, I recommend the following articles:

https://spartacus-educational.com/JFKferrie.htm

https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/reportvols/vol10/pdf/HSCA_Vol10_AC_12_Ferrie.pdf
This is the HSCA's perhaps overly cautious, but still informative, report on David Ferrie.

https://www.maryferrell.org/php/cryptdb.php?id=AMIRON

I also recommend Anthony Summers' 147-page review of Ferrie and his associations in his book Not in Your Lifetime, pp. 281-428.

[Fred Litwin]

Nonsense. Show us your sources that Ferrie told Ivan anything like that.

https://www.onthetrailofdelusion.com/post/did-david-ferrie-confess-in-a-hotel-room

[Steve M. Galbraith]

Michael Griffith, with his usual hyperbole and exaggerations, cited Summers book and said readers should consult "the 147-page review of Ferrie and his associations in his book Not in Your Lifetime, pp. 281-428." One hundred and forty seven pages. If you read Summers' book you'll see the section in the book on Ferrie starts at page 281 (the first mention) and ends at page 294 (the last mention) where Summers then starts a new chapter discussing JFK's Cuban policies. It's not even 15 pages much less 147.

Summer's book has exactly one reference to Ferrie and the CIA. Nothing more. That reference quotes Banister's secretary, Delphine Roberts, saying: "I believed his [Ferrie's] work was somehow connected with the CIA rather than the FBI."  Believed. Somehow. Connected. That's it. In fact, Summers spends more time discussing the possibility that Oswald was gay or bisexual and had "possibly sexual connections" with Ferrie.

Here are the footnotes/references to Ferrie in the index. Again, that's it.



In his note on the section on Ferrie, Summers says:

 

Blackburst's/Roy's writings on Ferrie can be read here: www.jfk-online.com/dbjmaadf.html

As he points out, there's no evidence that Ferrie worked for the CIA.