JFK Assassination Forum
JFK Assassination Plus General Discussion & Debate => JFK Assassination Plus General Discussion And Debate => Topic started by: Benjamin Cole on February 16, 2026, 09:47:34 AM
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After her book on New Orleans District Attorney James Garrison, Farewell to Justice, author Joan Mellen was, at least in left-wing JFKA-canon circles, held in reasonable regard.
But thereafter Mellen defecated on her own record, and in so doing has raised high suspicions about the credulity of her JFKA-related observations. (Mellen passed away last year).
The backstory: On June 8, 1967, in the tumult of the Israel-Arab Six Day War, Israeli jets and torpedo boats attacked the USS Liberty, a surveillance ship in international waters off the coast of Egypt—a ship that had sailed into a live-fire war zone without properly notifying the Israelis.
In the ghastly friendly-fire episode, 34 American sailors on the USS Liberty were killed and 174 wounded. Within a day, Israel acknowledged responsibility for the error.
In Mellen’s farce-parade, gong-show of a book, Blood in the Water: How the US and Israel Conspired to Ambush the USS Liberty, she contends President LBJ connived with the Israelis, and even the captain of the USS Liberty, to organize the attack on the USS Liberty, with the intention that it be sunk.
The USS Liberty sinking was then was to be blamed on Egypt, and that would justify LBJ sending four fighter planes armed with nuclear warheads to bomb Cairo—an attack that was called off only seven minutes from completion, when heroic USS Liberty sailors defied the odds and saved the ship.
Dead sailors tell no tales, but the USS Liberty crew largely survived, and could identify their tormentors, and so LBJ backed off of his plan to nuke Cairo.
Yes—Mellen contends LBJ recalled the four a-bomb laden jet-fighters only because he knew that the USS Liberty attack could not be pinned on Egypt.
It gets nuttier, and I have just given a slice of Mellen's insanity.
William McGonagle, captain of the USS Liberty, Yellen writes, was an “insecure man and a control freak.”
Mellen claims McGonagle knew in advance about the false-flag scheme, and received a promotion and a new command as a reward for participating in the cover-up.
Which raises an interesting question: If the USS Liberty was supposed to sink with all hands…did not that include McGonagle? In other words, by Mellen’s account, the ship’s captain agreed to visit Davy Jones locker so he could get a promotion? Or was the plan for McGonagle to be the lone survivor? How?
There is much more to the lamentable USS Liberty episode, the many tragic errors made on both sides, including the USS Liberty declining to identify itself when asked by Israeli torpedo boats.
The CIA investigated the USS Liberty attack, under the orders of CIA Director Richard Helms, who was understandably angry and suspicious of the events.
But the CIA, in fact, reviewed intercepted Israeli communications in real time during the attack, and in which Israelis indicated their belief they were striking an Egyptian vessel. Their non-public report cleared the Israelis of intent, if not an unforgivable error.
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP84B00049R000902350010-7.pdf
That should have been the end of the story, and every official investigation since has cleared the Israelis of intent. But in conspiracy land, no tale ever really dies, no matter how nutty.
The anti-Semitic crackpots have been flailing the USS Liberty tale ever since 1967, despite there being a ton of reasons for Israel to not attack a vessel belong to its biggest ally, and no credible reason for the attack.
Lately, Tehran-stooge social influencers have been chattering again about the USS Liberty, as in Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson.
Sadly, even JFKA researcher James DiEugenio has seen fit devote a string of heavily slanted, misleading blog posts on the nearly 60-year-old USS Liberty event, one headlined “Israel Attacks America.”
What has the USS Liberty have to do the JFKA?
Well, as floundering JFKA researcher Jefferson Morley dog-whistled to Tucker Carlson, Mossad was close with CIA counterintel chief James Jesus Angleton….and so, you know.
The JFKA research community has always been a motley crew.
And in decline now?
https://honestreporting.com/the-uss-liberty-incident-the-truth-behind-the-tragedy/
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She's always full crackpot.
Her Garrison book was full of nonsense, and she believed Thomas Beckham, who was just a conman. She even believed he was now a Rabbi.
I could go on and on about her Garrison book. How anybody could take her seriously is beyond me. She even believed Raymond Broshears.
https://www.onthetrailofdelusion.com/post/what-do-jfk-conspiracy-books-say-about-raymond-broshears (https://www.onthetrailofdelusion.com/post/what-do-jfk-conspiracy-books-say-about-raymond-broshears)
fred
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She's always full crackpot.
Her Garrison book was full of nonsense, and she believed Thomas Beckham, who was just a conman. She even believed he was now a Rabbi.
I could go on and on about her Garrison book. How anybody could take her seriously is beyond me. She even believed Raymond Broshears.
https://www.onthetrailofdelusion.com/post/what-do-jfk-conspiracy-books-say-about-raymond-broshears (https://www.onthetrailofdelusion.com/post/what-do-jfk-conspiracy-books-say-about-raymond-broshears)
fred
Dear Fweddie,
Since you enjoy my posts on probable mole Bruce Leonard Solie so much, here's one about Joan Mellen that I posted at Substack some time ago in which she refers to Solie without actually mentioning him:
Tinfoil-Hat JFKA Conspiracy Theorist Joan Mellen
The following is a partially paraphrased excerpt from an article by tinfoil-hat JFKA conspiracy theorist Joan Mellen, whose former husband, Ralph Schoenman (Bertrand Russell’s secretary in London), according to Mellen, gave New Orleans DA Jim Garrison the L’ Humanite’s version (which Richard Billings refers to in his journal on 16 March 1967) anti-CIA / anti-Clay Shaw article that was published in the Communist-owned Italian newspaper "Paese Sera" three days after Garrison had arrested Shaw on suspicion of having masterminded the "homosexual thrill-kill" assassination of JFK.
My comments are in brackets.
Mellen, slightly paraphrased:
CIA's Security Research Staff of the Office of Security (OS/SRS) shared information with only one other CIA component, James Angleton's Counterintelligence / Special Investigation Group (CI/SIG).
It is instructive to look into how the CIA [i.e., Bruce Solie’s Security Research Staff in the Office of Security] avoided compliance with the Church Committee’s requests bearing on the Kennedy assassination — in particular one handwritten sheet issued from Bruce Solie at OS/SRS. It refers to "sensitive documents which were pulled from Office of Security files prior to their being reviewed by Frank Church’s Senate Select Committee."
There were two figures about whom the CIA [i.e., Bruce Solie’s Security Research Staff] was worried and decided to protect. One was marked the "Oswald File, and contained documents dating from April 1959, prior to Oswald’s departure for the Soviet Union, a period for which the CIA [i.e., Bruce Solie] insisted [to FBI’s liaison to CIA, Sam Papich, on 4 November 1959 — four days after Oswald “defected” to the USSR] that it had no knowledge of him.
My comment:
Former high-level Army Intelligence analyst and NSA officer John M. Newman says in his 2022 book, “Uncovering Popov’s Mole,” that Bruce Solie sent (or duped his confidant, protégé and mole-hunting subordinate, James Angleton, into sending) Oswald to Moscow in 1959 as an ostensible “dangle” in a planned-to-fail hunt for “Popov’s Mole” (Solie) in the wrong part of the CIA.
You can read Mellen’s complete article by googling “Clay Shaw Unmasked: The Garrison Case Corroborated.”
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Your buddy,
-- Tom
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FL--
Thanks for your reply.
I am still curious why Bruce Solie would become actively involved in the CIA reaction to the whole Garrison investigation and prosecution.
Joan Mellen being a crackpot aside.
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FL--
Thanks for your reply.
I am still curious why Bruce Solie would become actively involved in the CIA reaction to the whole Garrison investigation and prosecution.
Joan Mellen's being a crackpot aside.
What did you find out from British researcher Malcolm Blunt?
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Solie was head of the domestic contact division in 1967....and so was advised about clay shaw...who
was just a domestic contact.
fred
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Solie was head of the domestic contact division in 1967....and so was advised about clay shaw...who
was just a domestic contact.
fred
Dear Fweddie,
You're sorely mistaken.
James R. Murphy was Director of CIA's Domestic Contact Service in 1967.
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=101511#relPageId=2
Your buddy,
-- Tom
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TG-
Nothing. I can't even get in touch with him.
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TG-
Nothing. I can't even get in touch with him.
Bummer.
Don't they have a postal service in Thailand?
If so, maybe you can do some "detective work" and figure out where Malcolm J. J. Blunt lives in England and send him a L-E-T-T-E-R.
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FL-
That was not the way Blunt put it. He described Solie as being "all over" Garrison.
John Newman has posited Solie, a KGB asset, was running LHO.
If true, that might explain Solie's intense interest in what LHO had been doing in N.O.
If not true, Solie might have legitimately been interested in finding out if LHO was a G2 asset.
Gus Russo has said LHO interacted with G2 assets in N.O.
The CIA historian in writing referred to Clay Shaw, who perjured himself in the Garrison trial, as a "highly paid" CIA asset. This is rather explicit.
Shaw was a domestic asset, but of course had international connections and information, and traveled as well.
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Clay Shaw perjured himself in the Garrison trial.
Shaw was asked under oath by his own attorney if he had ever "worked for" the CIA.
Shaw said, "No," which was technically correct since he wasn't paid for what he did.
So, you're mistaken when you say Shaw "perjured himself."
The CIA historian wrote that Shaw had been a "highly paid" CIA asset.
J. Kenneth McDonald wrote in the cobbled-together, 23-years-after-the-fact report that Shaw had been a "highly paid CIA contract source [from 1948] until 1956."
Unless he was misled by probable KGB "mole" Bruce Solie or probable KGB "mole" Leonard V. McCoy, McDonald made two big mistakes -- mistakes which the likes of James DiEugenio, Oliver Stone, and Vladimir Putin absolutely treasure -- he said "highly paid" when he should have said "highly valued," and he said "contract source" when he should have said "contact source."
What the heck is a "contract source," anyway?
LOL!
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TG-
I will stand by the CIA historian's description of Clay Shaw, unless you can present evidence to back up your description of Shaw.
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TG-
I will stand by the CIA historian's description of Clay Shaw, unless you can present evidence to back up your description of Shaw.
"BC,"
Documents proving that Clay Shaw was a highly valued contact source for the CIA are on the Internet.
I'm sure you can find them if you look for them.
Regardless, J. Kenneth did get one thing right in his error-filled, cobbled-together 23-years-after-the-fact report:
Shaw was a highly valued I mean highly paid CIA contact source I mean CIA contract source until 1956, seven years before he allegedly masterminded the homosexual "thrill kill" I mean allegedly organized the evil, evil, evil CIA's assassination of JFK.
-- "TG"
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TG--
Perhaps we can address this on a new thread.
This thread is supposed to be about Joan Mellen defecating on herself with her book on the USS Liberty.
IMHO, her book on USS Liberty seriously undermines her credibility in general.
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for the whole year?
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=55003#relPageId=2 (https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=55003#relPageId=2)
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For the whole year?
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=55003#relPageId=2 (https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=55003#relPageId=2)
Dear Detective Fweddie,
Look at the "From" line on page 1 of your precious 11 April 1967 document.
Who the heck was B. Frank Young?
Oh yeah, he was the Director or Assistant Director of the Domestic Contact Service at that time.
What's really interesting is that he was in that position in May 1969, as well, as you can see by looking at the below document.
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/FERRE%2C%20NELS%20F.%20S.%20-%20PROMI%5B16505849%5D.pdf
Your buddy,
-- Tom
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you are right, but who cares?
This preoccupation with Solie is just plain silly, and he had little to do with Garrison.
fred
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You are right, but who cares?
This preoccupation with Solie is just plain silly, and he had little to do with Garrison.
-- Fred
Dear Fweddy,
As you surely "absorbed" during your “I Was a Teenage JFK Conspiracy Freak” years:
1) The KGB* is a world-class humanitarian organization compared to the evil, evil CIA,
2) the evil, evil CIA was NEVER penetrated by a mole or two or three until Aldrich Ames started spying for the Ruskies in 1985, and
3) evil, evil James Angleton’s confidant, mentor, and mole-hunting superior, Bruce Leonard Solie, was just the “dour, plodding, risk-averse” mole hunter that he appeared to be!
*Today’s SVR and FSB
Your buddy,
— Tom /s
PS If you don't care, why did you go to the trouble of mistakenly challenging what I said?
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What does Solie have to do with Garrison.
I searched my private database of over 20,000 pages of documents, mostly garrison related, and his name
came up twice. When I search the Mary Ferrell site for Solie and Garrison, I get about 10 separate documents.
fred
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What does Solie have to do with Garrison?
I searched my private database of over 20,000 pages of documents, mostly garrison related, and his name
came up twice. When I search the Mary Ferrell site for Solie and Garrison, I get about 10 separate documents.
-- Fred
British researcher and National Archives habitué Malcolm Blunt -- who is correct in saying Yuri Nosenko was a false defector and Bruce Solie was probably a KGB mole, said near the end of a 2021 YouTube interview that Solie was "all over the Kennedy investigation and all over Clay Shaw for Jim Garrison."
Now, you wouldn't think that a dyed-in-the-wool JFK Assassination Conspiracy Theorist like Malcolm Blunt would say such a thing, would you?
But he did.
I'm guessing that he based his statement on documents he found at the National Archives that haven't appeared online yet.
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He could say whatever he wants. How about some evidence?
fred
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He could say whatever he wants. How about some evidence?
-- Fred
Evidence of what, Fweddy?