Is Niederhut just a run-of-the-mill "useful idiot," or something more?

[Tom Graves]

On 29 October 2024, Niederhut started a thread titled "Jim Garrison -- A Truly Great American Hero" at the so-called JFK Assassination Debate - Education Forum by posting the following:

The city of New Orleans should erect a statue of Jim Garrison in front of the courthouse where the Clay Shaw trial occurred. I finally read Garrison's 1988 classic book this week, On the Trail of the Assassins, which I neglected to read after I belatedly got interested in the JFK assassination a few years ago.  I'm probably the only forum member who hadn't read this classic. It's a masterpiece. It's true that Clay Shaw evaded conviction, partly by lying about his Clay Bertrand alias, his affiliation with the CIA, and his well-documented association with David Ferrie and Lee Harvey Oswald. Nevertheless, the jurors correctly concluded (per Mark Lane) that JFK was killed by a conspiracy. The book describes, quite cogently, the lengths to which the Federal government went to sabotage Garrison's investigation, and to smear him in the mainstream media. Among other details, I had never read about Garrison's bizarre encounter with NBC attorneys and Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show. Garrison was a WWII veteran, and former FBI agent, who did a good job of describing his own initial naivete and later disillusionment in the process of discovering the complicity of the CIA, the FBI, and the Dallas Police Department in the assassination cover up. I was surprised to learn that Garrison had never doubted the integrity or accuracy of the Warren Commission Report for three years after JFK's murder. He only began to read the WCR after Senator Russell Long told him it was a fraud. My advice to forum Newcomers is to avoid my mistake and read this classic early on in your explorations of JFKA history.  It's an excellent companion text to Oliver Stone's classic 1992 film, JFK.

. . . . . . .

One thing Niederhut forgot to mention is that Garrison lied in On the Trail of the Assassins when he wrote that he didn't read the 4 March 1967 article in a Communist-owned Italian newspaper, "Paese Sera" (or a knock-off article published in a far-left French newspaper), about Clay Shaw's alleged involvement with the "fascistic CIA" in Italy until after the 1969 Clay Shaw trial, which article persuaded the overly ambitious, scandal-plagued, and revengeful DA to change his theory against Shaw from "He masterminded a Loeb-and-Leopold homosexual thrill-kill assassination of JFK!!!" to "He organized it for the evil, evil, evil CIA!!!"

[Benjamin Cole]

TG--

I have mixed sentiments towards Garrison.

I suspect someone inside the CIA was feeding Garrison info, and he believed it. That someone may have been Bruce Solie, or someone manipulated by Solie.

Despite the contention of some, the CIA historian, in a written report presented to the CIA Director, said that Clay Shaw had been a highly paid contract source for the CIA in the 1950s. I accept the CIA historian's description of Shaw. To make multiple typos in the most important sentence in the report regarding Shaw...well, a dwindling long shot.

Was Solie part of the KGB propaganda wars, and did he turn Garrison to his advantage? Maybe.

On Niedernut, are you asking if he was financed from offshore? Or just another rigid far-leftie?

So many lefties actively, even compulsively, embrace all anti-US, or anti-Israel narratives, and so rigidly that, yes, one often wonders if they were basically hired to do so.

Who knows about Niedernut? He all but neurotically described LNT'ers as CIA assets, and banned participants who disagreed with his views on the RFKA (I was one).

I see Andrew Iler has done some housecleaning at the EF-JFKA. Still, the crackpots are in force.

[Tom Graves]

Despite the contention of some, the CIA historian, in a written report presented to the CIA Director, said that Clay Shaw had been a highly paid contract source for the CIA in the 1950s. I accept the CIA historian's description of Shaw. To make multiple typos in the most important sentence in the report regarding Shaw...well, a dwindling long shot.

Dear "BC,"

Pray tell, what is a "CIA contract source"?

Is it anything like a "CIA contact source"?

Why in the world is it that Clay Shaw is the only person who has ever been described in a CIA document as a "CIA contract source," but oodles and gobs of have been called a "contact source"?

Regardless, if Shaw was truly a "highly paid CIA contract source," as your boy J. Kenneth McDonald claimed, he must have been a highly valued source, right?

Hmm.

Although your boy, J. Kenneth McDonald, never admitted publicly that he'd made a mistake in calling Shaw a "highly paid CIA contract source," it sure seems that he and/or his overworked staff really screwed up there, and that he should have written that Shaw was a highly valued CIA contact source, instead.

-- "TG"

[Benjamin Cole]

TG-

I doubt the CIA historian made any error in his definition of Clay Shaw, in preparing a classified report for the CIA director.

The CIA historian may have used non-standard nomenclature in describing Shaw. So what?

The CIA historian may have relied on documents that are not public record, or on off-the-record verbal discussions with CIA officers, in coming to his conclusions about Shaw. The historian may have not been allowed to discuss those OTR discussions, or classified records.

No one at the CIA has ever issued a statement that the CIA historian was in error in his description of Shaw. I find it hard to believe the CIA would never clear up the record, if the historian had bungled the truth.

Rather, I suspect someone at the CIA had Garrison's ear, and that someone wanted to plant the "CIA did it" narrative.

Who might that be?

[Tom Graves]

TG-

I doubt the CIA historian made any error in his definition of Clay Shaw, in preparing a classified report for the CIA director.

The CIA historian may have used non-standard nomenclature in describing Shaw. So what?

The CIA historian may have relied on documents that are not public record, or on off-the-record verbal discussions with CIA officers, in coming to his conclusions about Shaw. The historian may have not been allowed to discuss those OTR discussions, or classified records.

No one at the CIA has ever issued a statement that the CIA historian was in error in his description of Shaw. I find it hard to believe the CIA would never clear up the record, if the historian had bungled the truth.

Rather, I suspect someone at the CIA had Garrison's ear, and that someone wanted to plant the "CIA did it" narrative.

Who might that be?

Well, your buddy, J. Kenneth McDonald, wrote that so-called history in January 1992.

Probable KGB mole Bruce Leonard Solie -- James Angleton's Office of Security-based confidant, mentor, and mole-hunting superior -- had already retired from the Agency in 1979, but he didn't die until 23 December 1992, so who knows?

[Benjamin Cole]

TG--

If what you and John Newman suspect is true about Solie, then Solie is the perfect candidate to leak info to Garrison...that Garrison would naturally believe, given the source.

Somebody inside the CIA leaked to Garrison that Shaw had a history with the CIA.

The KGB "CIA perped the JFKA" narrative in full flower.

In fact, Shaw was possibly monitoring LHO in New Orleans, just as de Mohrenschildt had in Dallas (although De M. may have been a double agent).