THE MIAMI CONNECTION

National Enquirer digs into JFK’s assassination.

Above is a cover of National Enquirer published today in 1967 with a headline informing readers that three days after identifying the photo of an alleged conspirator in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, a man named Eladio Ceferino del Valle was found dead in Miami. Good thing his photo is from a distance, because he had been severely beaten and shot in the chest, and his head had been chopped open. He died the same day another alleged Kennedy conspirator named David Ferrie died in New Orleans. Ferrie had two suicide notes next to him, but a coroner ruled the cause of death to be a naturally occurring aneurysm.

Enquirer scribe Charles Golden perhaps goes off the rails a bit in trying to tie Kennedy’s assassination to Fidel Castro. He brands del Valle a Castro double agent who pretended to flee Cuba just before the revolution, but who was working for Fidel the entire time. Golden then claims that “key investigators feel Castro’s higher-ups used homosexuals for the assassination,” the significance being that David Ferrie was gay and del Valle was bi-sexual. Golden tosses off this doozy on page two of his story: “Sexual deviation is taking on special importance as new evidence comes to light in the assassination probe.”

But even though Golden seems to let his own prejudices color his reporting, he does cite some interesting facts. Eladio del Valle’s and David Ferrie’s deaths occurred just as New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, who was investigating Kennedy’s assassination, was planning to drag them into his probe. Eladio del Valle died three days after being contacted by Garrison, and Ferrie’s death came just days before Garrison planned to arrest him as part of his investigation. If all this sounds like the plot of Oliver Stone’s movie JFK, that’s because it basically is. But if any of it sounds untrue, it isn’t—it’s all public record. And if any of it sounds a bit crackpot, well, let’s just flip that term on its head, shall we?

Miami, New Orleans, National Enquirer, Jim Garrison, Charles Golden, Fidel Castro, John F. Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald, Eladio del Valle, David Ferrie, Oliver Stone, murder, tabloid

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

December 3

1964—Mass Student Arrests in U.S.

In California, Police arrest over 800 students at the University of California, Berkeley, following their takeover and sit-in at the administration building in protest at the UC Regents’ decision to forbid protests on university property.

December 3

1968—U.S. Unemployment Hits Low

Unemployment figures are released revealing that the U.S. unemployment rate has fallen to 3.3 percent, the lowest rate for almost fifteen years. Going forward all the way to the current day, the figure never reaches this low level again.

December 2

1954—Joseph McCarthy Disciplined by Senate

In the United States, after standing idly by during years of communist witch hunts in Hollywood and beyond, the U.S. Senate votes 65 to 22 to condemn Joseph McCarthy for conduct bringing the Senate into dishonor and disrepute. The vote ruined McCarthy’s career.

December 1

1955—Rosa Parks Sparks Bus Boycott

In the U.S., in Montgomery, Alabama, seamstress Rosa Parks refuses to give her bus seat to a white man and is arrested for violating the city’s racial segregation laws, an incident which leads to the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The boycott resulted in a crippling financial deficit for the Montgomery public transit system, because the city’s African-American population were the bulk of the system’s ridership.

November 30

1936—Crystal Palace Gutted by Fire

In London, the landmark structure Crystal Palace, a 900,000 square foot glass and steel exhibition hall erected in 1851, is destroyed by fire. The Palace had been moved once and fallen into disrepair, and at the time of the fire was not in use. Two water towers survived the blaze, but these were later demolished, leaving no remnants of the original structure.