1. David William Ferrie was an American pilot who was alleged by New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison to have been involved in a conspiracy to assassinate President John F Kennedy.
26 Facts About David Ferrie
1. 2.
Decades later, photos emerged establishing that David Ferrie had been in the same Civil Air Patrol unit as Oswald in the 1950s, but critics have argued this does not prove that either David Ferrie or Oswald was involved in an assassination plot.
3.
David Ferrie next spent three years at the St Charles Seminary in Carthagena, Ohio.
4.
Later in life, to compensate for his hair loss, David Ferrie wore a homemade auburn wig and false eyebrows.
5.
David Ferrie was fired from the school for several infractions, including taking boys to a house of prostitution.
6.
David Ferrie then became an insurance inspector and, in 1951, moved to New Orleans where he worked as a pilot for Eastern Air Lines, until losing his job in August 1961, after being arrested twice on morals charges.
7.
David Ferrie was involved with the Civil Air Patrol in several ways: He started as a Senior Member with the Fifth Cleveland Squadron at Hopkins Airport in 1947.
8.
David Ferrie was asked to be a guest aerospace education instructor at a smaller squadron at Moisant Airport, and lectured there from June to September 1955.
9.
David Ferrie served unofficially for a time and was reinstated as Executive Officer in September 1959.
10.
David Ferrie quit the squadron in June 1960 after a disagreement during a bivouac.
11.
David Ferrie described himself as a liberal on civil rights issues, and he was "rabidly anti-Communist", often accusing previous US presidential administrations of being "sell-outs" to Communism.
12.
David Ferrie initially supported Castro's campaign against Fulgencio Batista in Cuba, but by mid-1959 became convinced that Castro was a Communist.
13.
David Ferrie often spoke to business and civic groups on political issues.
14.
Martin claimed that David Ferrie had known Oswald from their days in the New Orleans Civil Air Patrol, and that he had seen a photograph, at David Ferrie's home, of Oswald in a Civil Air Patrol group.
15.
David Ferrie subsequently visited both Oswald's former New Orleans landlady and a former neighbor about this report.
16.
David Ferrie was able to produce his library card for FBI agents who interviewed him on November 27,1963.
17.
Martin claimed that David Ferrie had driven from New Orleans to Texas on the night of the assassination.
18.
When questioned by the FBI, David Ferrie stated that he and two friends drove 350 miles to the Winterland Skating Rink in Houston, about 240 miles from Dallas, that evening.
19.
David Ferrie said that "he had been considering for some time the feasibility and possibility of opening an ice skating rink in New Orleans" and wanted to gather information on the ice rink business.
20.
Martin told the FBI that David Ferrie might have hypnotized Oswald into assassinating Kennedy.
21.
David Ferrie admitted that he had made public and private statements criticizing Kennedy's actions during the Bay of Pigs, but he denied ever stating that the President should be killed.
22.
David Ferrie stated that he had no recollection of having met Oswald and if he had the meeting would have been "very casual".
23.
David Ferrie stated that Martin had "bedeviled him in every manner possible" since sending him out of Gill's office in an "undiplomatic manner" in June 1963.
24.
Garrison believed that Shaw, Banister, and David Ferrie had conspired to set up Oswald as a patsy in the JFK assassination.
25.
On February 22,1967, less than a week after the now-defunct afternoon newspaper the New Orleans States-Item broke the story of Garrison's investigation, David Ferrie was found dead in his apartment.
26.
David Ferrie was portrayed by actor Joe Pesci in the Oliver Stone film JFK, by Tobin Bell in the film Ruby, and by Louis Vanaria in the movie The Irishman, starring Pesci.