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| Judyth Vary Baker, 2011 Toronto |
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| Judyth Vary Baker 1964 |
BIOGRAPHY OF JUDYTH VARY BAKER
Judyth Vary Baker (1943 - ) born in South Bend, Indiana, is an American
artist, writer and poet. Her work in cancer research as a teenager led to later
involvement in what Baker and a number of researchers believe was a biological warfare project aimed at eliminating Cuba’s Fidel Castro at the height of the Cold War. In 1963, her decision to protest the use of unwitting prisoners for a
dangerous cancer experiment essentially destroyed her cancer research career. Baker’s
intimate relationship with accused Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, who
Baker and others say was involved in the anti-Castro effort, and was framed in
a cover-up, has become the subject of documentaries, plays and books since she
first spoke out to Sixty Minutes in 1999. Her book Me & Lee: How I came to know, love and lose Lee Harvey Oswald(2010) argues the innocence of Oswald, providing witnesses to Baker's affair with Oswald and documentation of their relationship, which began in New Orleans
in April, 1963 and continued until Oswald’s last call only two days before the
assassination of President Kennedy.
Baker’s published poetry includes A Dangerous Thing to Do, When the Clouds Came Flying By (children’s poems) and individual works. Her paintings, lithographs and computer art are sold worldwide. Due to harassment, threats
and hospitalizations due to incidents before and after the History Channel’s
documentary on her relationship with Oswald (2003: “The Love Affair” Episode 8
in the A & E series The Men Who Killed Kennedy) Baker began living a secluded life in exile in Europe.[i]
Early
Life
Judyth Baker was born Judyth Anne Vary, the
oldest child of Donald William and Glorianne W. Vary in South Bend, Indiana, on
May 15, 1943. She was seriously ill as a young child and was hospitalized for
over a year with complications from a ruptured appendix and gangrene. The event
gave her a deep interest in science and medicine. She attended St. Mary's
School in NilesMichigan, Southside Jr. High School in St.Petersburg, Florida, and Manatee High School in Bradenton, Florida. The Hungarian side of her family heavily
influenced Baker with patriotic values due to their strong feelings for
relatives who fought in the 1956 Hungarian revolution.
Baker’s father, an electrical engineer, and her
large extended family recognized the child’s genius and encouraged her to
develop skills in science and art after Baker spontaneously began to read a
telephone book before age three. Baker’s excellent memory, creativity and artistic talents meant that by age 8 she was quoting
Shakespeare and Jane Austen, keeping the family’s financial records, designing
ads for her father’s TV stores, and singing duets with her younger sister,
Lynda, on their father’s television station. By the time Baker was 10, she had learned
how to put together radios and TV sets. When Baker was introduced to Robert Adler, a TV pioneer in the field, for whom her father worked from time to time
in Chicago, she decided she wanted to become a scientist. When her beloved
Hungarian grandmother, Anna Hoffer Whiting, passed away from cancer in 1957,
Baker was determined to become a cancer research scientist.
Baker
Begins Cancer Research Efforts
In Bradenton, Florida, Baker was befriended by Georgianna Watkins, leader of the area’s American Cancer Society, who guided her earliest research
projects with cancerous fish. Watkins also introduced her to Dr. Alton Ochsner,
former President of the American Cancer Society, at the dedication of the
Wilson Clinic near Sun City, Florida, who encouraged her efforts.
On October 17, 1958, Baker was introduced by her
biology teacher to Dr. Canute Michaelson, a high-ranking Norwegian geneticist
and radiobiologist with CIA ties who had served as a double agent against
Hitler.[25] Michaelson's exploits as a spy fascinated her.
After Baker expressed her desire to become a cancer research scientist,
Michaelson provided Baker with equipment and contacts. Two local doctors, who
soon after would begin studying radiation and cancer at Oak Ridge,[26] under the eye of
the CIA, next began advising Baker in the early stages of her research (see Baker’s book, Me & Lee, How I came to know, love and lose Lee Harvey Oswald,
for documentation).
Baker’s patriotic zeal was further enhanced in
high school by friendships with retired military officers, especially her
science and physics instructor, Col. Phillip V. Doyle, and by local anti-Castro
Cubans, including a close friendship with fellow student Tony Lopez-Fresquet,
the oldest son of Castro's first finance minister, Rufo
Lopez-Fresquet.[27] After gaining national attention in science
fairs for her improvement on a German method to extract magnesium from
seawater, she obtained additional support for her work in cancer from Dr. David
Jacobus and others at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. Baker
was sent hard-to-get anti-radioactive steroids and instructions on how to use
them in her experiments.
Baker’s need to use cancerous mice for her
anti-cancer experiments prompted her to try to induce cancer in mice as fast as
possible. By 1961, Baker, aided by famed Tampa, FL bacteriologist James A. Reyniers,
induced lung cancer in weanling mice in record time under primitive lab
conditions. Baker was now collecting
scholarships and awards, including a placement in the Westinghouse Science
Talent Search, and was becoming known across the country as a young prodigy in cancer
research.
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Baker's cancer research while in high school earned her national attention. Later, she would become
involved with accused JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald. Later, she would write a book (Me & Lee) and
launch a crusade defending Oswald. "If i had said Oswald killed Kennedy," Baker says, "I'd be a rich
woman. But instead, I am dedicated to telling you the truth, and I am willing to bear the consequences."
|
In March, 1961, at age 17, Baker became the first
high school student to attend the elite Science Writer’s Cancer Research Seminar,
a 5-day national meeting of science writers and the world’s most important
cancer research scientists, where her research was inspected by top American
Cancer Society (ACS) officials, research scientists, and Nobel Prize winners
Dr. Harold Urey and Sir Robert Robinson, who began to mentor her work.[29]
At that time, Baker also met and was befriended
by the three doctors credited today with wakening the world to the dangers of
smoking: Dr. Harold Diehl (Sr. Vice President of Research for the American
Cancer Society), Dr. George Moore (Director of Roswell Park Institute, the
first hospital to ban smoking) and Dr. Alton Ochsner (founder of the famed
Ochsner Clinic in New Orleans). All three doctors had testified together in
lawsuits against the tobacco industry: the fact that Baker had induced lung
cancer in mice in record time using concentrated tobacco smoke focused their
attention on her work.
Roswell
Park Cancer Institute
 |
| Dr. George E. Moor |
After Dr. Urey and the doctors examined her lab
and records in her high school laboratory, Dr. George Moore invited Baker to
spend the summer of 1961 in Moore’s own private laboratory at Roswell Park, in Buffalo, New York, the oldest important cancer research center
in the United States. There she conducted research on melanoma cancers, learned
techniques for handling cancers induced by the Friend
virus and the SV40 monkey
virus, and helped develop a predecessor of what would become a world-famed RPMI
formula for growing cancerous tissues in
vitro. For most of that summer Baker
also studied radiobiology with Dr. James T. Grace, handling cancer-causing
viruses, including the SV40 Monkey virus, as a participant in Roswell
Park’s national program for science students, then under the direction of Dr.
Edwin Mirand.
That same year, Dr. Ochsner, whose anti-communist
views were widely known, used funding from right-wing oil baron Clint Murchison
and other to establish the Information Council of the Americas (INCA) with Ed Butler
as Executive Director. The main objective of the organization was to prevent
communist revolutions in Latin America.[33]
By Fall of 1961, Baker was enrolled in the medical
technology program at St. Francis College (now St. Francis University)[21]in her
home state of Indiana, using a nearby hospital for her more advanced lab work. Assigned
to enhance the growth rate of malignant melanoma (at Dr. Alton Ochsner’s
suggestion, as reported in Baker’s local newspapers) the 18-year-old's new
research project was well established in only two months.
Baker immediately presented information about
her new project to the Indiana Academy of Science, where an abstract of her
research was published, titled "Studies on the Increase in vitro of Mitotic
Activity and Melanogenesis
in the RPMI HA # 5 (7113) Strain Melano.”[ii] the abstract mentions
that her cancer research was continuing at her lab at St. Francis. [30]
Concurrently, Dr. Alton Ochsner’s work in
1961-1962 on melanoma was important enough to be recorded in his official
biography:[31]Baker says
Ochsner continued to direct her work in melanoma research and encouraged her
research in lung cancer, which was Ochsner’s specialty.[32]
Baker, told she could never have children, found
herself deeply influenced by the nuns at St. Francis, some of whom were highly
trained in the medical sciences. Baker
said, “By then, I had seen a lot of death and suffering due to cancer, and I
wanted to dedicate my whole life entirely to fighting cancer, which I couldn’t
do if I got married.” When she earned
permission to enter the order of St. Francis on Feb. 2, 1962, with plans to
continue her cancer research career as a nun, she was forcibly returned to
Florida by her father, where she was confined in their island home and given
anti-Catholic literature to read. Her father took her daily to his office to
run his business. “He gave me a dollar a
day for my work, and even supervised me when we ate lunch at the local
restaurant,” Baker says. “I felt that God had rejected my offer to serve Him
all my life, and now I couldn’t even continue my college education.” The
experience profoundly affected Baker, who lost her faith in God at that time.
University
of Florida
By mid-February, 1962, Baker’s mother and her aunt,
Elsie Vargo, were distressed that Judyth’s education was now at a halt. They secretly
enrolled her, despite the late date, at The University of Florida after
garnering the influence of US Senator George Smathers,[iii] who arranged a full
scholarship for her there. Computer data was also created to account for her
late (and technically illegal) arrival.
Baker’s father responded by trying to get her arrested
as a runaway. However,
with UF’s Dean of Women Marian Brady’s help,
Baker obtained a writ of emancipation (at that time parents had legal custody
of their dependents until age 21). Brady created several cover jobs for Baker
to account for funding provided, in fact, by Senator Smathers “even as police
outside her office door were demanding entrance,” says Baker.
From that time onward, Baker avoided returning
home again.
At UF, Baker worked under a special license
granted to her sponsors and supervisors to handle irradiated human blood
products in the university’s Nutrition Lab and in the Department of Nuclear
Engineering, where she developed a method to help detect metastatic cancer
cells in the bloodstream. By early
April, 1963, she was also involved with anti-Castro elements on campus. Baker,
no longer interested in becoming a nun, was now dating, and became engaged to
Robert A. Baker, III, an English major who, with her encouragement, would enter
graduate school studying geology and petroleum engineering. (In 1965, Judyth
Baker would receive UF’s Phi Beta Kappa Award as UF’s Most Creative
Undergraduate for her original and outstanding work in the visual arts, writing,
journalism, and biological science.)
In mid-April, 1963, Ochsner invited Baker to New
Orleans to work in a summer internship under one of the country’s foremost bone
cancer specialists, Dr. Mary Stultz Sherman, with a promise to be admitted to Tulane
Medical School two years early that Fall under a full scholarship with a
stipend. Enticed by the offer, Baker
immediately accepted.[iv] However, she was afraid
to tell her fiancé that she would not be returning to Florida. “We would have
been separated for a couple of semesters, until he graduated from UF, and I was
afraid he’d have second thoughts about getting married,” Baker says.
New
Orleans
19-year-old Baker arrived in New Orleans two
weeks early due to UF’s new trimester system, but to her dismay, both Ochsner
and Sherman were out of town. Her fiancé, who only knew that Baker had “plans
to work” in New Orleans, was not due to arrive until May, at which time an
elopement was planned, but in the meantime, Baker needed emergency funds. Unwilling
to ask for help from her parents, she began temporary work at a Royal Castle
near the airport. This restaurant was then being used by a government surveillance
team to spy on the powerful Mafia leader, Carlos Marcello, whose office behind
the Town & Country Motel was just next door. Robert Kennedy had forcibly
deported Marcello, who had defiantly returned to the US and was now involved in
a deportation court case that he would win on November 22nd, the
same day Kennedy was shot.
By April 26, Lee Harvey Oswald had met Baker,
who in November would be accused of killing President Kennedy. Researchers
believe his meeting with Baker was not accidental. Baker says Oswald concluded she was involved
in clandestine operations due to the many people she knew who were linked to
the CIA, her employment at that particular Royal Castle, her closeness to
Ochsner, her knowledge of Dr. Sherman, and a mix-up of names. By the time Oswald realized the truth, the 23-year-old
had already introduced Baker to the clandestine side of Ochsner’s cancer
research project, exposing Dr. Sherman and her friend David W. Ferrie as among
the participants.[v]
Baker learned that Oswald was working with
former FBI Chicago chief Guy Banister in anti-Castro operations[vi] where Oswald eventually posed
as pro-Castro to help ferret out pro-Castro spies in New Orleans. After Oswald
introduced Baker to Banister, her fears about Oswald, who told her he had been
a “defector” to the USSR, were assuaged.
She now looked upon Oswald as a hero who had been a successful spy in
the USSR. The fact that Oswald had not
been arrested upon his return, and his use by Banister, increased her trust in
him. Ochsner’s secret project, Baker
learned, was being spied upon by Oswald, to make sure “the product” as it was
called, which would be used to try to kill Castro, remained under CIA control.
Abandoned by her new husband, who immediately left
town after their marriage without providing contact information, and with
Ochsner and Sherman still unavailable,[vii] on May 4, 1963 Baker
turned to Oswald after she was evicted in the middle of the night due to a
police raid from her rented room. Baker told witnesses of her plans to enter
Tulane Medical School in New Orleans in the Fall, unaware that she would spend the summer helping to
develop a biological weapon using cancer under Ochsner’s and Sherman’s
direction.
Cancer
to Be Weaponized
Aided by Sherman's anti-Castro friend David
Ferrie, and with the cooperation of the CIA,
the New Orleans Project had begun a year earlier after efforts to deal with removing
the SV40 monkey virus, a cancer-causing virus, from the polio vaccine were
unsuccessful. Ochsner’s own grandson had
died from the contaminated polio vaccine. Even though officials knew the
vaccine carried the SV40 monkey virus, the public was not told: millions of
children and adults would receive the contaminated polio vaccines for the next
four decades.[viii]
Baker said that after several deadly cancers had
emerged due to experiments with radiation, the CIA encouraged Ochsner, a rabid
anti-communist, to proceed with weaponizing the cancer strains, with the goal
to kill Communist Cuba’s leader, Fidel
Castro, in a manner that could
not be connected to any agency or to the U.S. government. Ochsner's patriotism and strong anti-communist
stance deeply impressed young Baker. She
told Ochsner she was willing to cooperate in the project to eliminate Castro
through biological means so "nobody in the U. S. government could be
blamed."[34]
In 2008 the CIA officially admitted that at this time many
unusual plans and attempts were made to assassinate Castro, some involving
biological agents, such as creating a diving suit infected with a deadly
fungus, using poisoned cigars, and employing cancer-causing agents such as
thallium.[22]In the
book Doublecross, about the Giancana
Mafia family in Chicago, the public learned that the mafia was aware of these
efforts by the CIA, and was also involved in them.[ix]
Baker says Lee Harvey Oswald acted as an assistant and courier in the
project.
Cover
Jobs and a Love Affair
Baker documented how cover jobs were arranged
for herself and Oswald, where they spent approximately half their time. Though
she was a slow typist, Baker said arrangements were made to hire her as a
secretary for former FBI agent William I. Monaghan, Wm. B. Reily Coffe
Company’s Vice President of Security, Finance and Field Sales. After moving
into nearby apartments the same week, Baker and Oswald rode the same bus to and
from work together the next eleven weeks.
Both Baker and Oswald began their employment on the same day, at a (then)
small subsidiary company, Standard Coffee, owned by Reily, where their
background reports were laundered and Baker was taught how to handle the Vice
President’s secretarial duties. A week
later, the two new employees were transferred together to Reily’s main company.
WC documents support these facts.[x]
Baker’s initial “J” is legible on five of
Oswald’s eleven Reily time cards (recently two “J’s” were discovered to have
been erased from Oswald’s Reily Time Cards, on exhibit at the Mary Ferrell
Foundation website: however, they can be clearly seen on NARA documents posted
years earlier, elsewhere).[xi]
On July 19, 1963, an ad to replace Baker was ordered
-- the same day Oswald was fired. Baker
herself was fired August 9th, the same day Oswald was arrested for
handing out flyers in New Orleans. Baker
says she was fired prematurely because she was seen with Oswald that day. These
events are documented by paycheck stubs, bank deposits, letters and newspaper
ads and articles which have been seen by many researchers.
Baker had arrived in New Orleans in April. So did
Oswald. She left New Orleans in
September: so did Oswald. Both Baker and
Oswald were unhappily married, and they eventually commenced a love affair. “I
could speak some Russian, and Lee said I resembled his Russian wife,” Baker
says. “Just as Lee did, I played chess, loved to travel, was deeply interested
in religion and politics, and, just as Lee, I loved classical music and was
well-read in philosophy, science fiction and Russian novels. My family called
me ‘Juduffski’ because of my fascination with all things Russian. As for Lee,
he called me ‘Juduffki.’ We were immediately attracted to each other.”
Several witnesses, such as William “Mac”
McCullough (former bouncer and musician linked to Mafia’s Marcello and Marino
brothers in New Orleans) and Anna Lewis, whose husband, David Lewis, worked
with Guy
Banister, a former FBI agent long linked to Oswald, have supported
Baker's statements about her affair with Oswald. [23] Baker has
described Oswald’s involvement in other undercover projects in New Orleans and
elsewhere. She said Oswald also volunteered to provide technical and courier
assistance for the "get-Castro project", as well as functioning as
her bodyguard and protector in the city.
Oswald eventually told Baker about his efforts
to infiltrate a developing JFK assassination plot, even while fearing that he
was being lured into thje ring in order to be positioned to take the blame,
since he was a returned (but fake) defector from the USSR and had been assigned
to portray himself as pro-Castro. Baker
says Oswald confided he realized he was being passed over for advancement “because
he wasn’t trusted, since he did not return from the USSR in a casket.”
Statements made by Oswald’s wife, Marina, in the
biography Marina and Lee by Priscilla
Johnson MacMillan, as well as close readings of witness testimonies – too
numerous to mention here -- provide circumstantial evidence that Baker and
Oswald planned to divorce and marry in Mexico. One such piece of evidence is
the fact that Oswald left his wedding ring behind on the morning of the
assassination.
Baker’s career in cancer research was cut short
when she protested using an unwitting prisoner originally described as a
“volunteer” suffering from a terminal form of cancer who turned out to be
healthy. Ochsner, furious that Baker had written a note seen by a secretary
unfamiliar with the project, informed her that both she and Oswald were
“expendable.” After being forced to
conduct blood tests on one or more such prisoners,[xii] Baker was forced to
return to Florida with her husband, but she and Oswald nevertheless made plans
to re-unite in Mexico[xiii] after his final
assignment in Mexico City.
Instead, Oswald was ordered back to Dallas after
all his efforts to hand off the biological weapon were blocked. Oswald was now
increasingly suspicious of how he was being handled, despite assurances that
Hurricane Flora had been responsible for the aborted attempt against Castro.
When Oswald, who gathered information on an
assassination ring first in New Orleans, and then in Dallas, told Baker had
been invited to be a shooter (he had posed as anti-Kennedy to allay suspicions)
he told her “You may think I’m a good shot, but I’m not that good.”
From then on, Baker says, Oswald believed he was
a doomed man and even anticipated becoming a patsy. Despite the dangers, he
pretended blind obedience, Baker says, and a lot of stupidity, to keep on
gathering information, which he passed, when possible, on to the FBI. When they last spoke only 37 ½ hours before
the assassination, Baker begged Oswald to run for his life. But Oswald refused,
saying, “If I stay, that will be one less bullet aimed at Kennedy” meaning he
would be quickly replaced with someone willing to shoot at the President.
“Oswald had to be in the building and to appear apparently
ready to take his position on the sixth floor,” Baker says, “so he wouldn’t be replaced.
Lee considered himself a dead man by
this time, because if he fled, they’d kill everyone he loved, and eventually
track him down, too.”
“If he stayed,” Baker added, “and didn’t shoot, Lee
believed there would be enough circumstantial evidence against him to make him
a patsy for the crime --which is exactly what happened.” Baker noted that “Oswald
expected to be shot dead. He was quite intelligent, however, and managed to be
taken alive, but the CIA and FBI had to hope he wouldn’t tell anybody about his
connections to the CIA and FBI. They believed that if he did so, his CIA
contacts in the USSR would have been executed.” But, Baker adds, “Lee was
faithful to his country. He knew what would happen to others if he revealed his
true identity as a former spy and an anti-Castro operative borrowed from the
ONI for use by the CIA and FBI. He never betrayed those who were risking their
lives for us in the USSR.”
Oswald, arrested only 90 minutes after the JFK
assassination, was immediately charged with two murders—that of Dallas police
officer J.D. Tippit, and of President John F. Kennedy. He was next declared the sole assassin – that
there was no conspiracy -- only a few hours later by John Edgar Hoover of the
FBI, who directed his Dallas FBI agents not to look for anybody else.[xiv]
Aftermath
After the JFK assassination Baker's promising
career as a cancer researcher abruptly ended. Baker states she was told to keep
a low profile and stay silent, if she wanted to stay alive.)[36]Baker kept
silent about her relationship with Oswald for 36 years after the JFK
assassination, fearing retaliation from those she believed responsible for the
President's death. However, after seeing the movie [[JFK]] by Oliver
Stone, she mustered the courage to come forward with her story.
Baker states Oswald was a deep-cover operative for the American government and that he told her
he had penetrated a ring in Dallas, Texas that planned to assassinate Kennedy.
Baker has stated that her goal is to exonerate
Lee Harvey Oswald from the charge that he was the assassin of John F. Kennedy.
Her stance has raised ire among some who are certain that Oswald acted alone in
the November, 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy.
Thefts, threats of arrest, and ‘accidents’ put
Baker in the hospital and drove her from the United States into hiding in
Europe in 2003 after the documentary “The Love Affair” was filmed. Soon after
it aired, the documentary, which was supposed to be shown for ten years, was
banned from the History Channel. In
2005, Baker left the EU after all her possessions were stolen and a specious
lawsuit was entered against her, returning briefly to the US to teach. In 2007,
she was seriously threatened while teaching in Hungary and, after being openly
robbed in Budapest and threatened again, she fled to Sweden, where she entered
the political asylum system, despite the fact that she was warned that she
could not stay permanently. Her family, friends and donors have helped
establish safe places for her to live since then, in undisclosed locations
inside and outside the EU. She rarely gives interviews.
NOTE: MARTHA ROSE CROW SUDDEENLY DIED SOON AFTER
WRITING THIS SECTION OF BAKER’S BIOGRAPHY, WHICH SHE ADAPTED FROM EXTANT
SOURCES. SHE HAD IMMEDIATELY RECEIVED THREATS, ALONG WITH BAKER, AFTER SHE POSTED
BAKER’S BOOK ON HER BLOG AND WROTE “JUDYTH VARY BAKER IS MY BEST FRIEND.” AT ABOUT
THE SAME TIME, DR. JAMES FETZER RECEIVED HIS “FIRST DEATH THREAT EVER” IMMEDIATELY
AFTER INTERVIEWING BAKER.
MARTHA’S UNTIMELY DEATH BECAME A POLICE CASE DUE
TO SUSPICIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES, BUT BECAUSE HER BODY WAS CREMATED (WITHOUT HER
FAMILY’S PERMISSION, AS THEY WERE FLYING FROM THE US TO THE NETHERLANDS TO
CLAIM THE BODY) NO EVIDENCE OF SUSPECTED POISONING COULD BE FOUND, AND SHE WAS
ACCOUNTED AS SUDDENLY DEAD BY A HEART ATTACK – SUPPOSEDLY CAUSED BY THE FLU.
SHE WAS 51 YEARS OLD. THE REST OF THIS BIOGRAPHY
WAS WRITTEN BY JUDYTH VARY BAKER FROM MARTHA’S NOTES:
Baker remained with Robert A. Baker, III,
publishing poetry and short stories under fictitious names and developing a
career as an artist. She obtained her A.A. from UF in 1965 and a B.S. in
cultural and medical anthropology from The University of Houston in 1986.
The couple had five children by the time they
divorced in 1987, 24 years after leaving New Orleans. “In brief,” Baker says, “Robert continued to
be absent from my life and the lives of our children.” The couple had joined the Mormon Church in
1969, “where Mormon brothers and sisters became the big, extended family I had
longed for ever since childhood,” Baker added. “Unfortunately, I couldn’t
reconcile Mormonism with the basic tenets of Christianity, and asked to be excommunicated.
For this, Robert never forgave me, and we ended up divorced.”
Baker as a single parent with four children next
earned her M.A. in English, Linguistics and Creative Writing from the University
of Central Florida. Later, she would go on to ABD status in English literature
and linguistics from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, but would be
denied an extension to defend her dissertation after she was injured in 2003,
despite a 3.9 GPA and having passed all comps and her oral exam. By then, she
was informed, she had become “notorious” due to speaking out about Oswald.
In a well-documented series of threats,
harassments and acts of character assassination, such as passing out petitions
to get her fired (that event was conducted in Orlando by the son of an FBI
employee,” Baker notes), she found her fifteen-year-long teaching career
destroyed by her decision to speak out.
“Though I hadn’t seen the inside of a hospital
since 1981 before speaking out, by 2007 I had been in and out of five hospitals
and confined twice to wheelchairs due to deliberate attempts to shut me up,”
she says. “I finally had to move overseas. By 2007, after I applied for
political asylum, suddenly all my problems ceased. Of course, I was now out of sight and
couldn’t be interviewed. I didn’t even see my own book after it was published,
for quite awhile. But I was safe.”
In 2011, Baker was invited to Toronto, where she
received a warm welcome: her story became national news in Canada, but was
ignored in the United States.
In 2012, she received threats not to go to
Dallas in 2013, while at the same time her bank account was hacked, with
purchases made in Houston and Dallas (Baker was again living in Europe at the
time). Angry supporters urged her to return to the US despite any dangers,
offering protection and donations.
In November, 2012, Baker found herself inundated
with interview requests when her publisher proposed a broad tour of the US West
Coast with her story.
Notes
Baker's assertions have aroused controversy
among researchers and historians who support the Warren Commission's conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald
acted alone in the killing of former US President John F. Kennedy in 1963. While some conspiracy theorists also
discount Baker's claims, an increasing number of researchers now consider most
or all of her story to be credible. Typically, these are researchers who have
actually interviewed Baker (who is reclusive) in person, and who have
personally examined her evidence files.
Baker retained many items, such as paycheck
stubs, bus tickets, letters, newspaper articles, and personal items, which have
been closely inspected since 1999 by investigators in the JFK assassination
case. [35] Those who have done so almost inevitably become
her supporters. Her detractors point to Baker's waiting over three decades
before speaking out, and that her failure to alert others to Kennedy's danger
should be punished, if she is telling the truth. Baker contends that she would
not have been believed, that she would have endangered Oswald’s efforts to try
to save JFK, and that the only agencies she could report to actually
participated in the cover-up, and would have silenced her.
Heated debate on the veracity of Baker's story
exists in Internet newsgroups, especially regarding the idea that a bioweapon
could have been developed outside a major laboratory, under relatively primitive
conditions, but Baker says she was chosen to work in the project precisely
because she was able to work with deadly cancers under relatively primitive
conditions, having done so at her own high school. Even Baker's detractors
concede her contemporaneous work with Oswald at Reily, and the fact that her
husband was absent most of the summer of 1963, when Baker says she and Oswald
had an affair.
Critics now trend to say that while evidence may
exist that Baker apparently knew Oswald intimately, based on the statements of
live witnesses, work records, and circumstantial evidence, that Oswald would
not have confided in her and that it makes no difference what he told her,
because he was a pathological liar. Baker
replies that Oswald lied just as any other CIA operative had to do, hiding his
true activities thereby: she has a list of CIA agents who assert their families
never knew what they were doing, using lies to cover up their true activities
and fully aware that if they were exposed, the CIA, etc. would deny.
It should be noted that evidence and witness
statements supporting Baker concerning the development of a biological weapon
have been assessed and published ever since 1999 by such researchers as Edward
T. Haslam (viz., his book Dr. Mary's Monkey, Trine Day, 2007), by reporter and well-known
author Jim Marrs (author of Crossfire, upon which the 1991 Oliver Stone film JFK was based), by Dutch researcher Wim Dankbaar, by Dutch crime
investigator Peter DeVries, by British researcher and producer Nigel Turner
(producer and writer of the long-standing The Men Who Killed Kennedy documentary series, for The History Channel), by Harrison
Livingstone (author and researcher, with Robert Groden, of the best-selling
book High Treason), by veteran researcher Martin Shackelford, and by Dr.
James Fetzer, all of whom, after investigating Baker, have subsequently
supported her story.
Since Me
& Lee’s debut in 2010, more researchers and primary witnesses have
expressed their support, as seen in her Facebook friends list, including Vince
Palamara, the premiere civilian expert on the Secret Service, whose review on Me & Lee, at Amazon.com, expresses
his initial disbelief in her story, until he read the book and subsequently recommended
it.
Baker was also investigated for fourteen months
by Sixty Minutes and was scheduled to
be filmed three times, but “the door was slammed in our faces” according to Don
Hewitt, the program’s founder who, with Mike Wallace and Phil Scheffler,
examined Baker and her documents in New York, and sent her, with investigators,
to New Orleans and Washington, DC between 1999 and 2001. However, they failed to interview any of her
living witnesses and retained Brian Duffy (who wrote a long article praising now-discredited
author Gerald Posner’s Case Closed, a
book now known to distort Oswald’s case, for US News & World Report.). Wrote Duffy: “…she has no evidence.” When author Edward T. Haslam described a
“different” Judyth Vary Baker whom he had met, Sixty Minutes was told by
higher-ups at CBS to stop filming. Baker
then received emails of apology from Hewitt and Scheffler, who assured her they
had wanted to film her.
Haslam, upon meeting Baker, realized that he had
met an imposter in 1972, when he was seeking information in New Orleans about
Dr. Mary Sherman. After years of investigating Baker, Haslam rewrote his
original, obscure book, Mary, Ferrie
& the Monkey Virus. Dr. Mary’s
Monkey was published in 2007, using baker as a prime witness for the New
Orleans project he had researched. The
book has met with considerable success.
A prior 700-page biography of Baker was
published by researcher and author Harrison E. Livingstone in 2004.[16]Other
writings where Baker is mentioned prominently include Interview with History,[17] and The Radical Right and the Murder of John F. Kennedy.[18]Baker has also
been the subject of scholarly journal articles by such researchers as Dr. John
Williams.[19]
Author Edward T. Haslam has been interviewed multiple times on TV, radio, and on the Internet, providing personal supporting evidence for Baker's story.
Author Edward T. Haslam has been interviewed multiple times on TV, radio, and on the Internet, providing personal supporting evidence for Baker's story.
Baker's sister has stated on film that she was
told of the affair with Oswald in 1964.
Baker’s
children have agreed that they knew about a green glass Baker treasured as a
gift from Oswald in 1963. Additionally, family members and friends insist Baker
began speaking privately of her association with Oswald as early as 1980, some
19 years before she spoke out publicly.
A [photo of William "Mac" McCullough,
formerly of New Orleans and a singer and bouncer for Mafia-run nightclubs, is
Baker’s book, Me & Lee. McCullough described
Baker and Oswald as "companions" on three audiotapes, warning Baker
that she was in danger and that “they never forget.”
The Charles Thomas family (Louisiana) has
verified that Baker met Charles Thomas, a former Customs agent, when she was
introduced to him by Lee Harvey Oswald in June, 1963. Thomas, under the name
“Arthur Young” expedited Oswald’s passport in June, 1863, pushing through
passport Oswald’s application along with others (so it wouldn’t be noticed,
Baker says) in a mere 24 hours, even though Oswald’s old passport showed he
lived in the USSR, and his new application indicated he intended to visit Cuba,
which was forbidden for Americans. Baker
has photos of Charles Thomas given her by his family, including one showing
tattoos on Thomas’ fingers that Baker had described to a relative in her
initial efforts to prove she had actually shaken hands with Thomas.
Video testimony was volunteered by longtime New
Orleans resident, Anna Lewis, former wife of David Lewis. David Lewis once
worked as a private investigator for Guy Banister (who stated Banister and
Oswald knew each other). Lewis includes the statement that Baker "was
Oswald's mistress," with additional details. Lewis indicated a dislike for
Baker but never retracted her statements, though she complained to researcher
Martin Shackelford and others that she had been threatened after the film was
made, and lost her job. (Lewis remained
adamant about her statements concerning Baker.
Late in 2011, Lewis died of lung cancer). Lewis’ interview is available at
the website www.jfkmurdersolved.com, hosted by Dutch researcher Wim Dankbaar,
and on YouTube.
Various witnesses have contributed snippets of
verifying information to Baker’s account, such as William Livesay[xv]
Detailed information on Baker can be found at her official websites (judythbaker.blogspot.com, judythvarybaker.blogspot.com and meandlee.com), on her Facebook pages, and at Edward T. Haslam's website (http://doctormarysmonkey.com).
Detailed information on Baker can be found at her official websites (judythbaker.blogspot.com, judythvarybaker.blogspot.com and meandlee.com), on her Facebook pages, and at Edward T. Haslam's website (http://doctormarysmonkey.com).
Black Op Radio's Internet website provides an
hour-long interview with Baker, hosted by Anita Langley, that can be heard and
downloaded on the Internet. It is the only radio interview that Baker ever consented
to make until 2011, when she consented to be interviewed by “Popeye” Federal
Jack. See Interview # 171 Judyth Vary Baker "Lee Oswald" May 13, 2004:http://www.blackopradio.com/contents.html
An extensive video interview of Baker telling
her story is available on DVD through the website www.jfkmurdersolved.com,
where she is interviewed by veteran assassination researcher Jim Marrs, author
of the book Crossfire, the Plot that
Killed Kennedy.
Popeye with Federal Jack, Alex Jones of Coast to
Coast, George Freund of Conspiracy Café, and many other radio and TV interviews
suddenly became available through Baker’s trip to Toronto in 2011, with more
interviews scheduled for 2012. “After that,” Baker says, “I don’t know what
more I can do to vindicate that innocent man. I’ve done what I can.”
Statistical
Study
One portion of Baker's claim (to have known
Oswald) is no longer considered controversial by most serious researchers due
to witness statements and after the publication of studies conducted by statistician
Dr. John Williams, concluding that her work with Oswald at the Reily Coffee
Company was pre-arranged with better than a million-to-one chances, with a 98%
chance that Baker and Oswald knew each other well. Williams' statistical study
was based on a number of events and correlating calendric dates that Baker and
Oswald shared in New Orleans, such as being hired the same day by the same
small sub-company (Standard Coffee), being transferred together a week later to
the same branch of the parent company (Wm. B. Reily), the fact that Baker's
supervisor ordered an ad to replace her the day Oswald was fired from Reily,
that Baker's last day of work at Reily was the same day Oswald was arrested in
New Orleans; that they rode the same bus, moved into their apartments the same
week, moved to New Orleans the same week.
Supporting evidence that they could both speak Russian, that they arrived
and left New Orleans the same months, and that witnesses have testified seeing
the two together as "companions" and "lovers"
established a statistically significant
connection between Oswald and Baker. See
Williams, Dr. John, "Judyth and Lee," The Dealey Plaza Echo, 2006.
It is no longer
possible to list all the stories and interviews on Judyth Vary Baker. The list below refers to the earliest stories and interviews, a few reflecting instances of the initial
hostility with which her story was first regarded – an attitude which no longer
prevails. Miussing from this list are articles written by WC defender John McAdams, whose articles against Oswald and attacking Baker include disinformation which McAdams has refused to correct.
^ e.g. beginning with Reiter, Amy. "Love on
the Grassy Knoll?" Salon.comhttp://www.salon.com/people/col/reit/1999/04/22/oswald/;
Publisher's Weekly (May, 1999); later, such articles as "Woman Says She
Was Oswald's Mistress" by Christ Andersonhttp://www2.tbo.com/content/2008/nov/22/woman-says-she-was-oswalds-mistress/life/ ;
DERISION
§ ^ e.g., Zwaap, Rene. Een Amerikaanse held http://www.groene.nl/2003/25/De_vermeende_Kennedy-moordenaar_en_zijn_laatste_minnares(2004) RESPECT
§ ; "Lee Oswald planeaba refugiarse en
Mérida" http://www.florecitayucateca.com/2006/02/28/lee-oswald-planeaba-refugiarse-en-merida/(2006) NEUTRAL
§ Svensson, Maria. "Jag var Oswalds
flickvän"http://www.dt.se/nyheter/dalarna/article253753.ece (2007) NEUTRAL
§ ^ Early
Newspaper Articles About Judyth Vary Baker http://www.jfkmurdersolved.com/judytharticles.htm
RESPECT
§ ^ The History Channel: The Men Who Killed Kennedy: "The Love Affair," 2003, TMWKK, The
Final Chapter, ep.8 The Love Affair, in 5 segments http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ry3DrsN9PY&feature=PlayList&p=0ED4E37B91ABEDC4&index=0&playnext=1
§ ^ Turner, Nigel. The Men Who Killed Kennedy, Episode 8, "The Love Affair" (segment one of five
segments of Baker's biography on film): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ry3DrsN9PY
§ ^ e.g. "Interview with the Author of Dr.
Mary's Monkey" March 14, 2009http://www.oraclebroadcasting.com/archives.php?stream=/americanawakening/americanawakening.2009-03-14_16k.mp3&title=americanawakening
RESPECT
§ ^ "Jim Marrs and Edward T. Haslam"
Video. Free. 58 minutes.http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-678503303319704937
§ ^ e.g., DeVries, Peter. "The JFK
Assassination." November 2005, Dutch National Television http://www.jfkmurdersolved.com/vries.htm,
§ ^ The Groene Amsterdamer, The Netherlands, November, 2003: http://www.groene.nl/2003/0325/rz_kennedy.html
§ ^ Judyth Vary Baker, Me & Lee,{{Me & Lee}} http://www.amazon.com/Me-Lee-Came-Harvey-Oswald/dp/0979988675/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1242932363&sr=1-4
§ ^ Lee Harvey Oswald: The True Story of the Accused
Assassin of President John F. Kennedy, by His Lover (v. 1) ed. by Harrison E. Livingston, Trafford
Press, 2004, www.amazon.com/Lee-Harvey-Oswald-Assassin-President/dp/1412088763/ref=sid_dp_dp
§ ^ e.g. Dr. John Delane Williams and Kelly Thomas
Cousins, "Judyth and Lee in New Orleans,"Dealey Plaza Echo,
Vo. 11, no. 1, March 2007, pp. 24-42
§ ^ http://www.namebase.org/sources/WY.html Central Intelligence Agency. Report on Plots to Assassinate Fidel Castro. Text dated 25 April 1967; cover memorandum by
the Inspector General dated 23 May 1967. 133 pages. This report classified
"Secret -- Eyes Only," was declassified after Congress ordered a
government-wide review of material relating to the JFK assassination. It was
sent to the National Archives in November 1993....relates CIA-Mafia plots to
kill Castro, which included poisoned cigars and poison-tipped ballpoint pens,
an exploding sea shell, a skin-diving suit dusted with fungus, a chemical to
make his beard fall out, and botulin pills that one technician "tested on
monkeys and found they did the job expected of them."
§ ^ "The Story of Judyth Vary Baker, The Woman
who cracked the US Govt. White Wash" by Jim Phelps (Oak Ridge scientist) http://www.doewatch.com/jb.html RESPECT
§ ^ "Senior Attends National Meet with
Scientists" April, 1961:http://www.judythvarybaker.com/docs/1961%2004%2014%20Macohi%20Senior%20attends.htm
§ ^ Ochsner, as the former ACS President (1952),
with his friends Dr. Harold S. Diehl (then current Vice President of the ACS,
in charge of research) and Dr. George Moore testified in several courtcases
about links between smoking and lung cancer. Viz: Wor1d Conference on Smoking and Health"... "Tobacco and Cancer, American
Cancer Society ..." dale.ckm.ucsf.edu:8080/o/a/i/oai13f00/Soai13f00.pdf
§ ^ Ochsner told the New Orleans States Item: "We must spread the warning of the creeping sickness of
communism faster to Latin Americas, and to our own people, or Central and South
America will be exposed to the same sickness as Cuba." (16th April, 1963)http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=10662
§ ^ quote from the History Channel Documentary The Men Who Killed Kennedy, "The Love Affair," Episode 8,
November, 2003.
§ ^ E.G., Edward T. Haslam, Jim Marrs, Edgar Tatro,
Nigel Turner, Wim Dankbaar, Martin Shackelford, Peter DeVries, Howard
Liebengood, Harrison Livingston.
§ ^ "The Love Affair" Episode 8 of The
History Channel documentary series, The Men Who Killed Kennedy,segment 5,: http:// Explorar / Vídeos / TMWKK, The Final Chapter,
ep.8 The Love Affair, seg.5ca.netlog.com/go/explore/videos/videoid=566086
External links
§ JudythVaryBaker.blogspot.com
§ JudythBaker.bl.ogspot.com
§ "The Story of Judyth Vary Baker - The Woman who
cracked the US Govt. JFK White Wash" By Jim Phelps
§ "Progression Literature" as a new literary genre
explained; writings from 1963 to present by Baker
§ Poets for Human Rights: one of
Judyth Vary Baker's official blog, with a gateway to her poetry written to
promote human rights see her
FB page “Poets for Human Rights”
Adapted from a biography filled with inaccuracies created by Warren Commission defenders and removed from Wikipedia after Baker’s book was published: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judyth_Vary_Baker
[i] Baker returns to the United States in November, 2012 for an
extensive series of new interviews and appearances in her ongoing crusade to
vindicate Oswald, at which time she will attend the premiere of a play
featuring Baker and Oswald’s affair, The
Sniper’s Nest (by playwright Lisa Soland).
[iii]
The university of Florida UF was Smathers’ alma mater. He had
established a medical research hospital (Shands) on UF’s campus and had brought
in a flood of funding for scientific research. Smathers had previously offered
to arrange a full scholarship for Baker at UF, which she had declined, choosing
to return to Indiana, her home state, for her college education.
[iv]
Dr. Kathleen Santi, at that time ready to leave UF for medical studies at Emory
University school of Medicine, has stated that she remembers Baker telling her
she was “going to go to Tulane” when she announced she was leaving UF
“forever.” When her boyfriend, Robert Baker, learned of her decision to leave
UF, he told her would come to New Orleans and marry her. Baker, unsure of her
fiance’s sincerity, decided to keep her future plans to herself. “I wanted to
see if he’d actually come,” she says. “He didn’t want his parents to know, as
he was supposed to spend the summer working in their real estate office. He
knew they’d be angry if he left, so he convinced them that he wanted to work in
New Orleans in a geology-related job. They were relieved, since they were
convinced their son’s degree in English was worthless.” Robert did show up –a day late. However, he’d arranged matters so he had only
one day to spend with his new wife, after which he worked for most of the
summer offshore. Knowing his new wife would be upset with him, he refrained
from giving her any contact information. “I realized I had done something
really stupid by marrying Robert,” Baker recalls. “But hormones had blinded me,
and it was the only way to get birth control pills!”
[v]
Evidence for Ochsner’s role in the project is chronicled in Edward T. Haslam’s
book, Dr. Mary’s Monkey (Trine Day,
2007 and 2013).
[vi]
Also attested to by Dr. Michael Kurtz, now a professor of history in Louisiana,
who as a student observed Oswald and Banister working together on college
campuses, as first reported in his book Crime
of the Century.
[vii]
Newspaper articles indicate Ochsner was in South America at this time. Dr. Sherman may have been with him, since she
was the only major staff member who spoke fluent Spanish, was not married and
who could without family obligations.
[viii]
As reported in Ochsner’s official biography, Surgeon of the South. Also, researcher Jim Dieugenio writes: Sarah Stewart and Bernice Eddy were two of the most
respected and advanced cancer researchers in America who worked, among other
places, at the National Institute for Health. Second, they were trying to prove
that cancer could be transferred by a virus. Third, they were both around
during the famous Salk/Sabin "sugar cube" mass inoculation for polio
in the fifties. Although this is usually hailed as a triumph over polio, what
many people do not know is that several children died right after getting the
vaccine. As Haslam puts it: "Within days, children fell sick from polio,
some were crippled, some died." (pgs 203-204) One of the children who died
was the grandson of Dr. Alton Ochsner who championed the vaccine against some
doubts in high places about its safety. This is why Sabin had to refine the
vaccine after its initial release.
The doubts were articulated later on
by Bernice Eddy. As Haslam notes,
The vaccine's manufacturers had grown their polioviruses
on the kidneys of monkeys. And when they removed the poliovirus from the
monkey's kidneys. They also removed an unknown number of other monkey viruses.
The more they looked, the more they found. (p. 207)
In 1960, Eddy, who had harbored
suspicions about these viruses and the vaccine, went public with her fears. At
a talk in New York she stated that she had studied the monkey kidney cells used
in the formation of the polio vaccine and found they were infected with
cancer-causing viruses. As Haslam notes, "This was tantamount to
forecasting an epidemic of cancer in America." (Ibid) As documented by
Edward Shorter in The Health Century, Eddy suffered
professionally from her public warning. Quoting Shorter, "Her treatment
became a scandal within the scientific community." (p. 208)
But right after this, Haslam presents
several statistical charts and graphs (pgs 210-216), which present fairly
convincing evidence that the Salk/Sabin vaccine may have caused more deaths
than it cured. He outlines, at the very least, a provocative statistical case
that the monkey viruses were behind a high growth in soft tissue cancers: lung,
breast, prostate, lymphoma, and melanoma of the skin.
[x]
See the book Me & Lee for
extensive references on this matter.
ABOVE:
INITIALS J CAN BE COMPARED WITH KNOWN EXAMPLE OF BAKER’S WRITING
FROM
1964. BELOW: ONE EXAMPLE OF OPENLY TAMPERING WITH HISTORIC EVIDENCE REGARDING
BAKER’S
DOCUMENTATION: VIZ: WHERE LEE HARVEY OSWALD’S TIME CARDS,
ONCE SHOWING J’S ON TWO OF THEM, HAVE BEEN
MADE ILLEGIBLE, AS SEEN
ON THE
MARY FERRELL FOUNDATION SITE IN 2012.
NEXT:
VIEW THE ORIGINAL TIME CARDS WITH J
INITIALS VISIBLE, AS
OBTAINED
FROM THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES IN 2000 FOR TV’S SIXTY MINUTES.
COMPARE TO UNALTERED CARDS, BELOW:
TWO J’S –ONE
PARTIALLY ERASED—WERE VISIBLE IN
2000. Originally all three J’s on these time cards were visible. This
copy, straight from the National Archives (2000), shows an apparent erasure of
one “J” WITH ANOTHER “J” PARTIALLY ERASED, WITH A THIRD “J” STILL INTACT.. J’s
on several other time cards, as seen above, are clear and legible. However, by
2012, all the J’s were missing on the time cards on display at the Mary Ferrell
Foundation website. Fortunately, a
certified copy of the unaltered time cards, signed and dated by National
Archive archivists, were seen by dozens of researchers before the J’s vanished
on the cards as shown in the Marty Ferrell collection (a site widely accessed
and trusted by researchers). Hostile
commentators have since tried to claim that Judyth’s initial was only on ‘a
couple’ of the time cards, when in fact they could be seen in 2000 on five of
the eleven, and, demonstrably, had been present on six of Oswald’s eleven time
cards. Baker had to sign off on Oswald’s
time cards often as the Vice President’s floor secretary on credit, security
and field sales, because Oswald’s time cards had been sent over for inspection
and approval or denial of paycheck by the Personnel Department over concerns
for erratic hours as recorded. Oswald was on time only once in 11 weeks of work
at Reily, once checking out so late that his time-out was recorded as “the next
day.” (7:32 PM) Judyth’s initial and “made 40” cleared Oswald’s record and kept
him from being fired. In actuality, Oswald was attending meetings and
frequently doing courier work on Reily time, which had to be hidden, with the
cooperation of Monaghan (a former FBI agent) and Judyth, by approving Oswald’s
erratic time cards. See Baker’s book Me
& Lee for more details.
[xii]
Initially, Baker was afraid to mention that she had done more than simply pick
up blood samples for Ochsner, concerned with being charged as an accomplice to
murder. “I had nobody I could trust with that kind of information,” she
explained.
[xiii]
Much ado about nothing” occurred when Internet critics claiming Oswald killed
Kennedy joined forces to ddiscredit her by focusing on just one word
–“Cancun.” The word was written “Cancun”
instead of “Kankun” in “Baker’s” first book, which was actually written by Dr.
Howard Platzman from emails and comments supplied by Baker and supplemented by
a ‘teaser’ manuscript largely rewritten by Baker’s first literary agent, who
corrected “Kankun” to the modernized spelling “Cancun” as the meeting place for
baker and Oswald. Located near Chichen-Itza on the Yucatan Peninsula, Oswald
told baker they had expectations of staying at “a fine hotel” near there.
According to Baker, and in fact supported by researchers Martin Shackelford and
by Dr. Platzman, Baker originally said the village was spelled “Kankun” and was
near a landing strip where a plane to be supplied by Alexander Rorke and his
pilot would carry her from Eglin AFB, Florida. But Rorke’s plane was shot down
the day Oswald entered Mexico, and Baker was unable to rejoin Oswald in Mexico
as originally planned.
Critics who stated that Cancun did not exist at the
time and there were no fine hotels in that area in 1963 were answered when a
reader of the accusations, Debra Burt, discovered that indeed a fine hotel
existed near Chichen-Itza (the Mayaland Hotel, built in the 1930’s, still a
beautiful hotel, and in full operation today); further, other researchers,
including Shackelford, found the area on maps in 1963 spelled as
“Kankun”—which, in fact, is why the Mexican government decided to call their
new resort city in the same area “Cancun.” Though all of this is now well known
to researchers, the Warren Commission supporters attempting to discredit Baker
still bring up “Cancun” as “evidence” that Baker was untruthful and have
refused to post the new information vindicating her. In response, a group called Vindication for
Judyth Vary Baker was begun on Facebook to answer such false charges. The page
has hundreds of members today.
Baker: “If a “researcher” tells you that “Cancun” did
not exist in 1963 and there were no fine hotels there, then you know you’re
talking to a dishonest person intent on persuading the public that Oswald
killed Kennedy. These disinformation agents infest the Internet like worms.”
Written 22 Nov. --same
day Oswald was arrested.
[xv] William Livesay describes
being part of a medical experiment as a prisoner
at Jackson :
-----Original Message-----
From: William Livesay [mailto:bestofferrealty@yahoo.com]
Sent: Thursday, May 06, 2004 5:51 AM
To: Judyth Vary Baker
Subject: Re: re Angola
From: William Livesay [mailto:bestofferrealty@yahoo.com]
Sent: Thursday, May 06, 2004 5:51 AM
To: Judyth Vary Baker
Subject: Re: re Angola
Hi. I was in New Orleans Parish
Prison for nearly a year awaiting trial in 1962, then sent to Angola from
1963-5. Then transferred to La. Correctional & Industrial School at
DeQuincy, a smaller institution for first offenders. There my Life sentence was
cut to 15 years & I was paroled in 1968. While at Angola
several others & I volunteered for medical experiments to be held at
Jackson. There were 8 or 10 in my group to board the bus to the hospital. The
only 2 names I remember are Dan Robertson & a guy with the last name of
Mayes. After we were there for 4-5 days, Mayes walked out of the ward one
night after seeing one of the hospital orderlies come in from outside &
forgetting to lock the door. The next morning the bus came & took us all
back to Angola. I remember we were given some pills every morning
but I have no idea what the experiment was about .I learned later
that half of us were given medicine & the other half were given
placebos. Several years later I went to New Orleans at the request of Dan
Robertson to testify on his behalf in a lawsuit he had brought against the
State (or possibly the hospital) to show that the pills he took during that
brief stay had caused him mental problems. I remember the doctor from Jackson
testifying also about the experiment. wrote:If I can help further please let me
know. Sincerely, Bill Livesay
NOTE: THIS BIOGRAPHY WILL BE UPDATED AND LINKS ADDED IN THE FUTURE. MARTHA ROSE CROW ORIGINALLY DERIVED THIS BIOGRAPHY FROM A CORRUPTED WIKIPEDIA ARTICLE. SHE DIED BEFORE IT COULD BE COMPLETED. JUDYTH BAKER HAS REVISED AND UPDATED HER FRIEND'S WORK AND WILL RETURN TO IMPROVE IT IN 2013 IN TIME FOR THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ASSASSINATION OF JOHN F. KENNEDY. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, BUT FULL COPIES MAY BE PRINTED ELSEWHERE WHEN THE URL LINKS TO THIS SITE. THANK YOU. JVB
