During her recent visit to London, where she shared the company of two of my closest associates, Declan and Lola Heavey, Judyth Vary Baker and I took advantage of the opportunity for us to discuss many aspects of her life story, which include her experiences in New Orleans, meeting Lee Harvey Oswald, and conducting research on cancer with David Ferrie and Mary Sherman, M.D., with the objective of developing a bio-weapon that the agency could use to take out targets, such as Fidel Castro, while leaving no trace of non-natural causes of death. It is a fascinating story that sheds light upon some of the murkest aspects of the assassination of JFK. These six YourTubes were followed by other and longer interviews on “The Real Deal”, which can be found at its archives at http://radiofetzer.blogspot.com, but will also be included here in future blogs. I am making every effort to insure that Judyth’s story reachs the American public, which is entitled to know the truth about its nation’s history.
Judyth transitions from Gainesville to New Orleans (Part 1 of 6)
Judyth Vary Baker has often been asked how she made the transition from the University of Florida at Gainesville to the exotic location of New Orleans. As she explains in this interview, she had met some of the major players in cancer research as a result of their interest in inducing lung cancer in mice faster than anyone had ever done before. Among them was Alton Ochsner, M.D., President of the American Cancer Society. When he learned that she was interesting in leaving the University of Florida, he contacted her and suggested that she come to Tulane, where he would insure that she was admitted to the Medical School by special arrangement. He promised her scholarship support and sent her prepaid tickets to fly there. She recently heard from a former classmate in whom she had confided her plans, Kathy Santa, who is now herself a doctor, who expressed surprise that Judyth had not pursued the medical career they had talked about shortly before she left for Louisiana.
Judyth Vary Baker and Lee Harvey Oswald in New Orleans (Part 2 of 6)
Judyth Vary Baker discusses her relationship with Lee Harvey Oswald, how they were hired by the same company (Standard–a small subsidiary part of Reily Coffee) on the same day, how they lived in close proximity and traveled on the same bus to and from work (for eleven weeks), how she was responsible for clocking Oswald out when he was absent from Reily, how she smoothed out problems with his work records and concealed his many absences (because the job was merely a front for his covert activities), and how she was ordered to be replaced the day he was fired, and the fact that she was forced to resign the same day Oswald was arrested (Aug. 9, 1963) — all of which a PhD statistician and student of JFK, Dr. John D. Williams, has calculated that the improbability of all of their associations occurring by chance was approximately 1/1,000,000 or less. A striking example of their relationship occurs when Lee is interviewed and uses Judyth’s pronunciation of “New Orleans” (“New Or-leens”) in lieu of the traditional pronunciation, with which he was raised. Some have thought Oswald was not raised in New Orleans because they heard his deliberate mispronunciation, even though Oswald also is on tape saying “AX” instead of “ask” which is typical native New Orleans speech.
Judyth Vary Baker and Lee Harvey Oswald in New Orleans (Part 3 of 6)
Judyth Vary Baker continues her discussion of her relationship with Lee Harvey Oswald, including his arrest on August 9th, 1963, where he had held back some of the “Fair Play for Cuba!” handouts, which Judyth had trimmed to make their size more uniform. She met Dean Andrews, who put them into his briefcase and asked if she was Lee’s girlfriend and Judyth explained that Lee was married. Because she was seen speaking to Lee before he began this August 9th, ‘pro-Cuba’ action, by a new hire from Reily’s, she was forced to resign the same day–Reily’s wanted distance from the so-called ‘communist’ –Oswald had recently also worked with Judyth at Reily’s. Oswald’s activities were set up to ‘dirty’ him so he could be used in anti-Castro assignments. Baker was introduced to many players in New Orleans by Lee, including a former Customs Agent named Charles Thomas, who was brought in from Miami to expedite Lee’s passport. Baker knew enough about Thomas to locate his family decades later: they confirmed his activities. Lee’s favorite television show was “I Led Three Lives”, where it turned out that he would himself be living several. He once told Baker that he was lucky that he knew his own name, he had been involved in so many covert activities.
Judyth Vary Baker, David Ferrie, and Dr. Mary Sherman (Part 4 of 6)
Judyth Vary Baker talks about David W. Ferrie, a fascinating character who knew seven languages, could play classical piano, a former Eastern Airlines pilot, and the go-between for Guy Banister, a former FBI agent located in New Orleans, and Carlos Marcello, the head of the Mafia in that region of the country. Ferrie, long known for his scientific curiosity and personal research activities involving cancer–he was known to be using numerous mice years before 1963–worked with Baker in furthering a cancer research project supervised by Mary Sherman, M.D., a world-class expert in that area, using mice and monkeys in the last segment of an effort to develop a bioweapon that could be used to take out Castro, the prime candidate they had in mind at the time. Baker realized later that after Castro, the cancer could be held frozen virtually forever and used whenever the CIA or other entities wished. The thought sickened her. She had been told that killing Castro was her patriotic duty–this was only months after the Cuban Missile Crisis when Soviet ballistic missiles were in Cuba, aimed the the US. It was essential to use mice at first, but then work with marmosets commenced, soon moving up to larger primates, to assure the product worked with human beings.
Judyth Vary Baker talks about HARVEY & LEE (Part 5 of 6)
Judyth Vary Baker, who knew Lee Harvey Oswald in New Orleans, discusses the “evidence” that is purported to support the theory of John Armstrong, HARVEY & LEE, that there were “two Oswalds” , who led parallel lives, one called “Lee”, the other called “Harvey”. The man she knew in New Orleans is the one Armstrong refers to as “Harvey”. Judyth, who has a background in physical anthropology and had courses in forensic anthropology, explains that, with respect to the photographic record, several of the photos that are alleged to differentiate between them do not actually do so, where she notes that Lee’s (“Harvey”‘s) eyebrow had a slight crook, which is also present in photographs that are alleged to be of “Lee” (the second Oswald). She notes that “Lee”‘s eyes were supposed to be hazel and “Harvey”‘s blue, but that Lee had unusual eyes that could easily look different colors under different lighting conditions. From her discussion, it becomes apparent that the evidence that is supposed to support “the two Oswalds” carries far less weight than many tend to suppose.
Judyth Vary Baker on the “Cancun/Kankun” Contretemps (Part 6 of 6)
Judyth Vary Baker discusses the claim that she was creative in discussing her plans with Lee for the future based upon alleged inconsistencies between a series of quotes. QUOTE 1 is the basic story: she had told her agent at the time, Peter Cox, that they were going to meet in the Yucatan in the vicinity of Chichen Itz. Lee had not used the name “Cancun”, which, as you have observed, did not exist other than in the form of the village of Kankun. She put her finger on a map at his request and he said, “Oh, Cancun!”, and ran with it. Since in QUOTE 2 Martin Shackelford said what had happened (how the misunderstanding had arisen), there is certainly no inconsistency there. And QUOTE 3 is one where Judyth is being more specific about what they (she and Lee) had actually discussed, where QUOTE 4 expands on their tentative plans. Mexico is a predominantly Catholic country, of course, so they would expect to be married by a priest. I discussed each of the quotes with Judyth and, the more we talked about it, the more it became apparent to me that this arose from violating the condition of translation known as “the principle of charity”, where you should (in ordinary conversational contexts) look for interpretations that make what it all hangs together the right way. It does.
