Judyth Vary Baker has written a second book about the JFK assassination and the people involved in it. Her first was about her relationship with Lee Harvey Oswald, called, Me and Lee. This book, titled, David Ferrie, is about a very enigmatic character who was part of the circle of people Judyth came in contact with in New Orleans during the summer of 1963. This is the first book to really focus specifically on this mysterious man.

David Ferrie was truly an enigma. A fantastically gifted person, but also quite a scumbag! A homosexual in a time when this was a crime, continually on the edge of the law. He would work for the CIA, for the mafia, wherever he could get paid.

He got involved in the plot to develop a lethal mixture of cancer cells which the CIA hoped to inject into Fidel Castro. The cancer research was what had brought the author to New Orleans in the first place.

The Castro plan unravelled at the last minute. Lee Harvey Oswald was involved in this plot for the main reason that he thought this would save President Kennedy’s life.

The book, David Ferrie, is a fascinating look into the inner workings of one part of the assassination scenario of 1963. It is also an intriguing look into the life of this somewhat pathetic man.

In Ferrie’s last phone conversation with Judyth Vary Baker, shortly after the assassination, he told her she had to keep her head down, stay under the radar, in order to remain alive. Judyth succeeded in doing this, still alive to this day. Just about all the other players in the assassination drama have been killed, most within a short time. David Ferrie himself died suspiciously (like all the others) within five years. Judyth’s name and her involvement with Oswald was, when even acknowledged, totally disparaged as a rather unreliable and flakey witness. Nobody took her story seriously.

Judyth lives in exile, for her own safety. She appears occasionally for interviews. These two books, published in the last five years, have brought her name to greater public awareness. In her seventies now, she wants the truth known. She promised David Ferrie in that last phone call, that she had to remain alive in order to tell Oswald’s two children the truth about their father.

This book, as a follow-up to Me and Lee, is yet another fascinating look at the New Orleans group who ultimately became involved in the assassination plot. Certainly worth a read. But read Me and Lee first, to give a fuller context to David Ferrie.

Bond of Secrecy, written by his son, Saint John Hunt, is an account of the last few years of E. Howard Hunt’s life, and some of the confessions he made in his last years and days.

E. Howard Hunt, of course, is best known for his involvement in the Watergate break in, which ended up bringing down the presidency of Richard Nixon. But E. Howard was also involved in the JFK assassination. He was a CIA Spy, and apparently quite high up in the ranks.

Hunt did not spill everything about his involvements to his son, but he did disclose a lot. It seemed he wanted to get things off his chest, so to speak. He never expressed remorse, believing till the end that JFK needed to be eliminated, etc.

There is much in this book which sheds light on the sinister activities of the CIA in these two events. For example, Hunt leads the chain of command for the JFK assassination directly up to Lyndon Johnson. No one wants to believe that a vice president, who subsequently became president for five plus years, was fairly directly involved in the assassination of a sitting President of the USA. But there it is. From someone who was certainly in the know. The hand-written note he gave his son had LBJ at the top, with an arrow pointing down to Cord Meyer, another arrow down to David Morales and then down to “French Gunman, Grassy Knoll”. One box off to the side of this sequence of four boxes was an arrow going sideways from Cord Meyer to Bill Harvey.

I think it’s essential to refocus on what this information, that I’ve been providing you–and you alone by the way, consists of. What is important in the story is that we backtrack the chain of command up through Cord Meyer and laying the doings at the doorstep of LBJ.

 

He in my opinion, had an almost maniacal urge to become President. He regarded JFK, as–as he was in fact, an obstacle to achieving that.

 

So that would have put LBJ at the head of a long list of people who were waiting for some change in the Executive Branch.

This quote is on page 132 of the book, and is taken from a recording made in January 2004. E. Howard Hunt regarded LBJ as completely unethical, a thug and bully, who obviously would stop at nothing to achieve his ends.

I want to include one more quote from the book. This is taken from a lengthy reciting of an interview with CIA agent Marita Lorenz:

Later Lorenz, prompted by Dunne’s questions, explained that when Sturgis sought to recruit her for yet another CIA project, he told her that she had “missed the really big one” in Dallas. He explained, she said, “We killed the President that day. You could have been a part of it–you know, part of history. You should have stayed. It was safe. Everything was covered in advance. No arrests, no real newspaper investigation. It was all covered. Very professional. (p 159)

Pretty strong evidence to confirm many, many peoples’ convictions that the CIA was behind the assassination. I myself no longer have any doubts whatsoever.