Confidential Magazine from August 1968. The article about the "homosexual ring" was written by Joel Palmer, a part-time investigator for Jim Garrison. According to the article, Kennedy was the "victim of a sick and vicious homosexual plot." The homosexual ring consisted of Oswald, Ruby, Ferrie, Shaw, Russo and J. D. Tippit - they were tied together "into one of the most unique and diabolical plots in the history of the world." You can see more of that article here.

At the beginning of his probe, Jim Garrison believed that the JFK assassination was a homosexual plot. He met journalist Hugh Aynesworth at his home in January 1967 and told him a remarkable story: (Witness to History, page 193)

“Hugh,” he said at last, “you’re lucky you’re in town today. We’ve just verified this guy, and believe me, it’s dynamite.” Explaining no more for the moment, Garrison then called one of his assistant DAs, ex-boxer Andrew Sciambra, known as Moo, who arrived a short while later with this slight little guy from Houston, a piano player, who proceeded to tell us how he knew that Ruby and Oswald were long time gay lovers.

He went into great detail, naming clubs in Dallas and Houston where he said he had been performing when Ruby and Oswald dropped by. He even described one occasion when the owners of a Houston club had booted out the two of them “because,” he said, “they had been groping each other all evening long.”

Garrison beamed.

“You might be the most important witness we’ve run across yet,” he told the piano player. “And you are certain they were with each other on several occasions?”The little man vigorously nodded yes, clearly pleased that Garrison was buying his story.

Garrison told James Phelan of the Saturday Evening Post a very similar story: (Scandals, Scamps and Scoundrels, page 150-151)

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 in Dallas had been a homosexual plot.“They had the same motive as Loeb and Leopold when they murdered Bobby 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 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 homosexuals? How far can you stretch the arm of coincidence?”

These early beliefs of Jim Garrison are no trivial matter - they are at the heart of whether he was running an honest investigation or running one racked with homophobia, paranoia, and just plain nuttiness.

People forget that when the case started in late 1966, homosexuality was still taboo and gay people in New Orleans were regularly arrested for crimes against nature. While Clay Shaw was a respected member of New Orleans society, his outing as a homosexual helped to paint him as something more sinister - someone with a hidden life - and making it easier for people to wonder about his possible role in a conspiracy. He was also someone who was extremely vulnerable. - he didn't want to talk about his homosexuality and his interest in S&M. In fact, Garrison, and others, felt that Shaw would commit suicide.

Ultimately Garrison abandoned the homosexual theory. The many buffs who swarmed to New Orleans probably found it improbable and distasteful. And they convinced Garrison to go after a much bigger target like the CIA.

Supporters of Jim Garrison like James DiEugenio not only do not discuss the issue of homosexuality in the case, they deny it was ever a factor. Here's James DiEugenio from a review of my book, On The Trail of Delusion:

For the record, there is not one memo I have read that shows Garrison ever outlined such a homosexual-oriented plot. At the beginning of the inquiry, there is evidence that Garrison was suspecting a militant rightwing plot. And as Garrison developed cases against Shaw and Ferrie, he was checking out leads that would connect them in the gay underworld. But nothing that either Peter Vea or Malcolm Blunt ever uncovered shows what Litwin is trying to impute to Garrison. Those two men are the two best pure archival researchers ever on the JFK case. And Vea specialized in the Garrison files.

and

Just as Jim Garrison never said anything about Shaw being a homosexual during the two years of that being a live case, Garrison has never written anything about Bloomfield being Jewish.

And, of course, he is right that there is no such memo from Jim Garrison about a homosexual plot. But, as seen above, Garrison did discuss such a plot with many people. And the concept of homosexuality animated his investigators who probed people's sexuality and fed Garrison a steady stream of gossip, innuendo and rumors about gay people in New Orleans. Even as late as 1977, Garrison was still interested in homosexuality - he gave a list of suggested questions that the HSCA should ask of Thomas Beckham. Here's one about Fred Crisman:

But there was an article, under Jim Garrison's name, that appeared in the April 9, 1967 edition of QUICK, a German weekly magazine. Here is the article and a translation.

What QUICK reported six months ago is now confirmed by Jim Garrison, the public prosecutor from New Orleans: The murder of the President was a conspiracy. Read pages 14 to 24.

Jim Garrison: Here are my proofs! The Kennedy assassination was a conspiracy.

For the first time, Jim Garrison, public prosecutor from New Orleans, is revealing the implications of the conspiracy: Kennedy's murderers were sick homosexuals.

This is the leader of the plot: Clay Shaw, well-respected businessman from New Orleans. It was but a fantastic vision of his disturbed mind that drove him to plan a sensational perfect crime. The deeper cause was homosexual exuberance. Blood-stained chains and whips were found in Shaw's cellar. Garrison: "My evidence against him is enough."

Five perverted men and a frigid woman are connected to the biggest plot of the century. Because Lee Oswald could not get any sexual satisfaction from his wife, he sought contact in homosexual circles. He happened to meet Ferrie, a pilot, who was the male lover of Clay Shaw. Together with the Cuban Manuel Garcia Gonzales, they planned the plot. Oswald and the homosexual Ruby were nothing but puppets

Marina Oswald's cold feeling drove her husband to the homosexuals.

Clay Shaw was the cold cynical brain of the plot. His first accomplice was the pilot Ferrie.

Lee H. Oswald had a love affair with Ferrie. During the assassination attempt, he was supposed to divert attention from the murderer.

David W. Ferrie was willing to reveal his knowledge. When his name became known, he died suddenly.

This man, a Cuban exile, was picked out to be the killer. He is still hunted by Garrison. Vanished without leaving a trace: Manuel Garcia Gonzales.

Jack Ruby, the Dallas bar owner, was given the order from Ferrie to kill Oswald.

I, Jim Garrison, have been investigating the Kennedy case for three years. I did not spend $900,000 dollars like the Warren Commission, I only spent $4,600. But by the time of the Clay Shaw trial, I will be able to produce evidence that President Kennedy was the victim of a plot by homosexuals. I'm going to prove that Lee Harvey Oswald was involved in the plot, but I will also prove that Lee Harvey Oswald didn't shoot alone. The real culprit is Manuel Garcia Gonzales. And the head of the plot is Clay Shaw.

This is the milieu of the conspirators: The bars of the French Quarter in New Orleans. Here they were looking for abnormal friendships, and here they found each other. At the gay meeting place, "Wanda's Bar," (above) Shaw discussed Oswald's role in the plot.

The sexually abnormal conspirators had a model for their deed from American criminal history: the Leopold and Loeb case from Chicago. This is my theory.

And here is the evidence that led me to this theory: Clay Shaw's male friend was the pilot, David W. Ferrie. Ferrie met Oswald by chance and fell in love with him. By then, in the spring of 1962, Shaw and Ferrie had already decided to assassinate the president.

They had already found a man to be the killer: Manuel Garcia Gonzales. Ferrie told Oswald about the forthcoming murder and Oswald agreed to take part. He was supposed to distract the police with his shots, after the real killer, Gonzales, had already finished the job. I know the whole thing sounds like ...

as they say, a pretty wild story. But I'll show, point by point, how I came to believe that this "wild story" is the only possible truth in the Kennedy murder case.

I was instructed by the FBI three years ago to interrogate Ferrie. Somehow the Federal Criminal Police had become aware of Ferrie in connection with the Kennedy murder.

When I talked to him, he said things that puzzled me. Immediately after the assassination, Ferrie drove with two other men, whose names he never mentioned, from New Orleans to Houston, Texas, where he went with his two companions to the city ice rink and waited two full hours next to the public telephone for a call. After the call, the three men drove to Galveston that night. Here again they waited for a call. This time for three hours in a snack bar.

When I asked Ferrie what this strange trip meant, he said, "It was a vacation." As I said, I was puzzled the first time I arrested Ferrie and handed him over to the FBI. When I stopped hearing from the FBI, I became curious, and continued my own research.

I found out that the night Ferrie and his companions were waiting for a call in Houston and Galveston, a certain Breck Wall was also in Houston and then in Galveston. And now it gets interesting - Breck Wall is a close friend of Jack Ruby's - and oddly enough - Jack Ruby was also a homosexual, word of which has strangely enough to this day not gotten around.

Ferrie Ordered Ruby: "Kill Oswald!"

His 'male girlfriends' called him Pinky. Ruby was so serious about his homosexual tendencies that he had a vagina tattooed under his left upper arm.

When I found out, I already knew two things: Immediately after the assassination, the homosexual Ferrie and his two companions went on a trip to the vicinity of Dallas, and there was suspicion that the homosexual Ferrie got in touch with a friend of the gay Jack Ruby. That wasn't much, but it was a start.

[SIDEBAR] The Key to Action

Model of the Conspirators: The Chicago child murderers Leopold and Loeb

In May 1924, the two sons of millionaires Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold planned "the perfect crime." They killed a child just to understand "what a murderer feels like." Despite the sophistication, after the murder, they committed a mistake and were caught. It is known in forensic science as the Loeb-Leopold complex. Jim Garrison is certain that Shaw, Ferrie, Oswald and Gonzales were planning the assassination attempt on John F. Kennedy out of the same complex. The Munich psychiatrist and neurologist, Professor Dr. Max Mikorey, wrote in an assessment: "I believe that socially inferior homosexuals can easily plunge into conspiracies when driven by hatred and envy. Hate and envy, for example, of a radiant hero. In such a homosexual conspiracy, the number of strange deaths after the assassination of Kennedy could be explained: the pronounced group spirit demands a radical extermination of all people who are dangerous to the group because they reveal their abnormal disposition."

Next, I was interested in what Jack Ruby had been up to from the time when Kennedy was murdered to the minute he shot Kennedy killer Lee Harvey Oswald. Lo and behold, I found that Jack Ruby had done something very unusual: he paid off his debts.

To get the full picture, one must know that Ruby had debts his whole life, and that he never thought of voluntarily paying off his debts. Now he paid $25 to a strip-tease dancer, hawked part of his nightclub for $2,000, and divided it up among those who had been waiting for months. But besides paying off debts, he did something else: at 11:44 PM he called Breck Wall in Galveston.

Today it is evident that Ruby had been given the order from Ferrie through Breck Wall to kill Lee H. Oswald.

Jealousy Causes a Death Order

It's been a long journey from my first suspicion of this homosexual plot to what I know about it today. A path that led me through human peculiarities, perverse passions, and a lot of dirt.

I don't want to say that the Warren Commission and the FBI tried to avoid the path through this filth in their research. But I now know that with their methods of investigation, there was no way to find out anything about the circles that planned and carried out the murder of Kennedy. To get an intelligent homosexual criminal talk, you need a gay man who is familiar with the homosexual mentality.

The main investigator who worked for me is one such man (his name is known to the editors). He knows all the gay boys in the French Quarter from his earlier days. He was one of them. He knows how they think, how they feel, and how they react. Although he has been married three times by now, he hasn't forgotten. And he did a good job.

He led me to Clay Shaw. And what kind of homosexual this man is has never been in any newspaper before. In his apartment, we found whips and chains, and there was blood on the whips and chains. We found a pair of shoes that previously belonged to a Chinese executioner, and we found a ...

[SIDEBAR] The Warren Commission Kept a Secret

"The Scavengers and Critics of the Warren Report" is what Larry Schiller calls his report, about the people who cashed in on the death of the President, which will be published next week in America. The American author points out that the Warren Commission committed gross errors in the investigation of the Kennedy murder. The main points are:

• A policeman named J. D. Tippit was murdered. He was one of the witnesses to the assassination. The Commission ignored that there were three policemen named Tippit. The other two were often guests at Jack Ruby's strip club. They probably got the wrong guy.

• The Commission never tried to find out where Oswald bought the ammunition for his rifle. DA Garrison now knows that Oswald was accompanied by Ferrie during the purchase.

• Why did the Commission allow only 65 of the 69 original X-rays and photographs of the President's body in the hospital to reach the National Archives? The four that are missing show that the face has a bullet wound. This was never mentioned in the Warren Report.

• Why didn't the Commission question Ms. Carolyn Walther? She told the FBI three times that she saw two men at the window from which Oswald shot during the assassination.

• The Commission spent 3.6 million Marks on its investigation. But they did not correctly reconstruct the events. The attack took place on a sunny afternoon at 12:30 PM. The reconstruction took place on a cloudy morning. The presidential limousine was a "Lincoln Continental." But the reconstruction used a Cadillac, which is 15 centimeters higher than the original car. It was simply assumed that the shot had been fired from the 6th floor. Other angles were not even checked. In any case, the Commission didn't do a gun test.

... gun. That was important to us than the instruments of sexual torture, because it was the same type of rifle that Lee Harvey Oswald used when he shot Kennedy.

I was almost certain that such a rifle would turn up at Shaw's because, back then, at the very beginning of my investigation, I had a list drawn up of the 1,600 people who owned such a gun.

At the time I had the idea that in such an assassination attempt - if you want to blame someone else for it - all those involved would use the same type of weapon. At the end of lengthy investigations, it will indeed be possible to find out which bullet came from which barrel - but for the time being, the first one caught with a weapon of this type will go to jail, and the real perpetrators have enough head start to leave the country. This is exactly how the plot had been planned. Lee H. Oswald, who was only supposed to fire to distract attention, was chosen to be the man to blame.

I suspect that Clay Shaw had given this role to the unfortunate Oswald because he was jealous of Oswald. After all, Oswald had taken his male friend Ferrie away from him.

The questioning of Shaw's male lover James Dondson made me even more certain that Shaw was head of the plot. At the very hour Kennedy was killed, Shaw was in bed with Dondson in the same hotel room. A few minutes after the assassination, a certain Richard Randoff called the hotel and told Shaw that Kennedy had been shot. Even though the caller only used the word "shot," it was immediately clear to Shaw that Kennedy was dead. He hung up the phone, turned to Dondson, and said, "Now I have to call a few people right away."

Lying was second nature to them

And now comes the most important link on which the whole chain of evidence against Shaw hangs. At the same time that Shaw was on the phone, attorney Dean Andrews received a call from Clay Bertrand, asking that Andrews defend Oswald. The lawyer, who specialized in taking homosexual cases, knew Oswald.

The FBI never ...

managed to identify the caller, Clay Bertrand. I claim: Clay Shaw is Clay Bertrand.

First of all, it can be assumed that homosexuals change their surnames in order to protect themselves from possible blackmail. However, they always keep their first names. Of course, this is only an empirical truth and not proof that the two Clays were the same person. But I was sure I was on the right track and I made my way through Shaw's homosexual environment until I discovered some witnesses who knew Shaw by the name Bertrand.

It was not easy to get them to talk, and it was even more difficult to find out the truth. Homosexuals, whether they are persecuted or not, are well aware that society believes they are abnormal. But since they cannot afford to be totally excluded from society, they lead a life of lies. They lie until lying becomes second nature to them.

Yes, I hypnotized witnesses

There were only two means of learning the truth from them: hypnosis and truth serum. I've used both and that's how I came to the last link in the chain of my evidence. As Clay Shaw, this man with his male lover Ferrie, in the presence of other homosexuals, hatched a conspiracy. Immediately after the assassination, as Clay Bertrand, he appointed a defense attorney for Oswald. There was a direct connection from the homosexual Ferrie to the homosexual Ruby.

The contours of the plot were clear to me. Now I was looking for details. But I would not be astonished, if by these details, the whole Warren Report, the whole official report would become nothing but a useless packet of paper.

I realize that neither the Warren Commission or the FBI are going to be very pleased by my activities. When I mentioned Shaw publicly, the FBI claimed they had questioned Shaw a long time ago and found nothing suspicious. Since the Warren Commission's investigation report contains FBI reports, and since Shaw's interrogation is missing in the official report, one can only conclude: The FBI did not forward the contents of the Shaw inquiry.

Of course, people will wonder what other important interrogations have been withheld by the FBI. If not all the material has been given to the official commission, their whole report is nothing but worthless. And if the Warren Commission's report is worthless, then it is time for another investigation. An investigation that will finally clear up the mystery surrounding Kennedy's murder.

I am sure I will be able to convince the court in Shaw's trial about the homosexual conspiracy. I know that I am expected to expose a much larger conspiracy. A few weeks ago, I myself spoke of Cuban backers. When my inquiry was prematurely disclosed, I simply had to blow smoke in the wrong direction so that my investigation would not be disturbed. Let them all believe I am after political assassins from Cuba ...

The real killer is still free.

In all seriousness, there are some vague connections to extremists from Cuba in this plot. Oswald undoubtedly had such connections.

But I have reason to believe that Shaw, as the inventor of the plot, tried to keep his active participation in the plot to a minimum, when he learned about Oswald's political connections. It may have been these political reasons or the jealousy of Oswald - in any case, Shaw was not involved in the last phase of the attack.

The fact that he planned the plot with Ferrie should be enough to get him ten years in prison. But I am more than happy to let him go if he would help me find the real shooter: Manuel Garcia Gonzales.

Tomorrow's Post

Was this article written by Jim Garrison?