Friday, April 9, 2021
One of our earlier blog posts looked at Eladio del Valle and the rumor that he was David Ferrie's paymaster.
In 1975, an allegation was made that he was one of the assassins of JFK. Was there any truth to this?
Bill Turner, an investigator for Garrison and a writer for Ramparts Magazine, gave the HSCA an unpublished manuscript, The Cuba Project, which discussed the allegations:
W. R. Morris was the author of The Twelfth of August, which was the authorized biography of Buford Pusser, the hero of the film, Walking Tall. In 1975 Morris came out with a very short book, The Men Behind the Guns (about 28 pages):
Here is a page from the book about the W. R. Morris:
Here is a promotional flyer for the book:
Here is the article from the July 1975 issue of the National Tattler with an article about Morris and his theories.
Clearly Morris got his information about del Valle from the National Inquirer because he has the exact same allegation - that Ferrie was paid $1.000 - $1,500 per flight to Cuba, depending on the mission. The rest of Morris's allegations are just plain fantasy.
Morris communicated with the Rockefeller Commission in 1975. Here is an Earl Golz article about Morris and his allegations about Jim Braden:
Earl Golz also wrote an article for the Dallas Morning News on May 16, 1975:
Morris then wrote the FBI in 1976. Here is their reply:
A copy of Morris's book made its way to the FBI. Here is their report:
Then this memo was issued:
The ARRB looked into possible files regarding Morris's main source Harry Dean:
You can read more about Harry Dean here.
In 1985, W. R. Morris co-wrote Alias Oswald with R. B. Cutler:
Alias Oswald was reviewed favorably in The Third Decade (I used to subscribe to this publication in the early 1990s):
Even he author, Jerry Rose, didn't find Harry Dean very convincing