Title Quote: Gaeton Fonzi
Photo: Fonzi during his years at Philadelphia Magazine
Photo: Fonzi during his years at Philadelphia Magazine
On February 12, 1976, Paul Hoch picked up a copy of the March issue of the Saturday Evening Post for a mere dollar and twenty-five cents.1 Hoch, a computer programmer at Berkeley with a PhD in Physics, had more than a casual interest in that specific periodical since he had co-authored an article related to the Kennedy assassination that was slated to appear that month.2 Hoch’s collaborator was George O’Toole who was a former chief of the CIA’s Problem Analysis Branch and author of the 1975 book The Assassination Tapes.3
As a senior at Harvard on November 22, 1963, Hoch was finishing a late lunch at Leverett Dining Hall when JFK was shot. He thereafter developed a keen interest in the case and purchased a set of the 26 volumes of the Warren Commission’s hearings and exhibits which rivaled a set of encyclopedias in size and scope.4 No ordinary researcher, Hoch was considered one of the best assassination scholars of his generation and a source of dependable information for government investigators. In that capacity, Hoch had submitted his work to the Rockefeller Commission, which was tasked with probing the CIA in the wake of allegations of agency misconduct.
After the Church Committee was formed in 1975, Hoch again lent his expertise to the government inquisitors. While the committee’s primary mandate was to investigate intelligence agency abuses, a limited investigation of the assassination of JFK focusing specifically on FBI and CIA cooperation with the Warren Commission was also authorized. Hoch wrote to committee member Senator Richard Schweiker in September of 1975, sending him a copy of his Rockefeller Commission memo which highlighted possible CIA connections to the JFK case. Sometime after, Hoch also sent Schweiker a list of questions for FBI Special Agent Warren De Brueys and other material.5
On January 20, 1976, Hoch received a call from Gaeton Fonzi, a journalist who was working for Schweiker as a government investigator.6 The Senator had hired the Miami-based Fonzi in late 1975 to run down leads pertaining to the large exile community there using his knowledge of the area and its colorful characters.7 After obtaining a pre-publication copy of the O’Toole-Hoch article, Fonzi wanted to talk to Hoch about one such personality—former anti-Castro activist Antonio Veciana. The O’Toole-Hoch piece speculated that Veciana was one of three men who allegedly visited Sylvia Odio in September of 1963, because his associate Reinol Gonzalez had been arrested at the Odio farm. Odio’s story, while not necessarily known to the public at large, was one of great interest to the Warren Commission and is still hotly debated among JFK researchers.
Odio said that one of the three men she met, who stated they were anti-Castro Cubans soliciting funds, used the name “Leon Oswald.” After the assassination of JFK two months later, Odio and her sister said they recognized accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald as the “Leon Oswald” who had visited them. Ultimately, the commission decided that Odio was mistaken and had not seen Oswald based on evidence that showed he could not have been at her apartment at the time suggested.8 Skeptical of the commission’s findings, Fonzi wanted to talk to Veciana to see if he knew anything about the Odio matter since he correctly believed that Veciana was acquainted with Odio’s father.9 But Fonzi’s incredulity was not the result of an investigator’s inherent cynical tendencies.
Born in Philadelphia in 1935, Fonzi had made his reputation as a reporter for Philadelphia magazine from 1959 to 1972. As might be expected of an individual with a high-profile occupation, opinions on Fonzi varied. D. Herbert Lipson, who was chairman of the corporation that owned Philadelphia magazine, called Fonzi “fearless.”10 Another colleague went much further, saying he was, “one of the best investigative reporters who ever drew breath.”11 The high-water mark in Fonzi’s early career occurred in 1967 when he penned an exposé on one of his own—Philadelphia Inquirer investigative reporter Harry Karafin. Fonzi revealed that Karafin had accepted payments from prospective subjects in return for not writing about them. Karafin was eventually convicted of 40 counts of blackmail and corrupt solicitation and sentenced to four to nine years in prison.12
But Fonzi also experienced his share of setbacks. One self-inflicted wound occurred in 1964 when a piece entitled “Report from Mahanoy City” earned him the wrath of the residents of that borough in the southern Pennsylvania coal region. Although he insisted that he “meant no harm,” Fonzi’s article smacked of elitism and described Mahanoy City as “Hickstown U.S.A,” among other things:13
God bless Mahanoy City. God bless all its little people who don’t know where the hell they are and don’t give a damn about getting anywhere else. God bless this little town stuck down between fat rolling columns of coal a million miles from nowhere and hung like an eternity in the obscene cliché of small town America … God bless the granite-faced waitress who sits in the bar at night with her red hair whipped on top of her head, her matronly white waitress shoes switched for baby-blue heels and her hard trim body encased in a fancy dress and trying for all the world to forget that there is such a place as Mahanoy City.
In 1970, Fonzi authored a book on media mogul Walter Annenberg entitled Annenberg, a Biography of Power that was generally not well received. One review from the period called the volume “a pretentious hatchet job” and maintained that it was “badly written.”14 Another misstep by Fonzi occurred in 1972 when he co-authored a series on the Pennsauken, New Jersey police department, accusing that organization of corruption and ineptitude. Two members of the department filed suit against Fonzi, his co-author and the parent company of Philadelphia magazine. The police chief, Joseph Brook, ultimately won his suit for an undisclosed sum.15 It may not be a coincidence that Fonzi left the publication the same year the suit was filed.
Although Fonzi brought years of experience to his job as a Church Committee investigator, he also carried the inherent bias associated with that of a JFK conspiracy advocate. Fonzi had an ongoing interest in the assassination which had been sparked by late 1964 discussions with Vincent Salandria, a noted Warren Commission critic based in Fonzi’s hometown. Eventually, following a series of interviews with former commission staff member Arlen Specter in 1966, Fonzi became convinced that a conspiracy had killed the 35th President. As time went on, Fonzi developed a modest reputation as a Warren Commission critic and in 1969 Esquire magazine touted him as “one of the Philadelphia group” of assassination investigators.16
One misadventure of the Philly group was their pursuit of Igor Vaganov as a suspect in the JFK case. Despite a lack of evidence, the researchers believed Vaganov was suspicious and that he was involved in either the JFK case or the shooting of Dallas police officer JD Tippit the same day. But Vaganov had an alibi for the time JFK was shot and the .38 handgun (the same caliber used in the Tippit slaying) that he owned was not in his possession on November 22nd. The Philly group arranged to have witnesses to the Tippit crime see Vaganov but they refused to implicate him. The group also tried to link Vaganov to a “mysterious” red Ford seen by Tippit witness Domingo Benavides. But the Ford was later found to belong to Jack Tatum, a witness who first came forward in 1978.17 Michael Ewing, a staffer for the HSCA which was the successor of the Church Committee, wrote that the Philly group’s “harassment” of Vaganov, “would send shudders through those familiar with things such as Constitutional rights; not to mention logic and evidence.”
In an article for Philadelphia magazine, Fonzi talked about what he called his “paranoia” which resulted from “acceptance of the Kennedy Assassination Conspiracy Thesis.”18 Fonzi believed this mindset was justified by certain “revelations” that did “nothing to alleviate” his affliction. These revelations included the arrest of Warren Commission critic Jim Garrison for bribery, a charge that he was eventually acquitted of. Parenthetically, Fonzi was one of the few JFK researchers who still supported Garrison even after his reprehensible prosecution of New Orleans businessman Clay Shaw. A New York Times editorial called the trial, “one of the most disgraceful chapters in the history of American jurisprudence.”19 Shaw was found not guilty by a jury of his peers in less than an hour.20
Fonzi considered the disclosures in the Pentagon Papers and the escalation of the Vietnam War to be further rationalizations for his “paranoia.” Another of his proofs of conspiracy, the allegation that the rifle found in the book depository building was a Mauser, rather than the Mannlicher-Carcano owned by Oswald, was debunked by a film shot by photographer Tom Alyea and other evidence.21 Years after his Church Committee-HSCA service, Fonzi confirmed his prejudice toward conspiracy beliefs in an article critiquing Vincent Bugliosi’s book Reclaiming History when he wrote “I was never a ‘conspiracy theorist.’ I went from an agnostic to a conspiracy believer.” In 1996, Fonzi again admitted his lack of objectivity in an interview with researcher Steve Bochan. “It's true. I had already made up my mind years ago as a result of the investigation and as a result of the work I had already done on the Kennedy assassination.”
In 1993, in a no-holds-barred piece for the Philadelphia Gazette, Fonzi confessed to not just his predisposition toward conspiracy beliefs, but to an inability to consider any other explanation for the death of JFK. “One of the opinions I’ve come to,” he wrote, “is that the issue of conspiracy is not contestable.”22 While accepting an award from the JFK Lancer research group in 1998, Fonzi’s propensity to believe conspiracy memes created a major embarrassment. In his remarks to the group, Fonzi related an anecdote that was meant to show that the Warren Commission had no interest in finding the truth about the JFK case.
Fonzi said that Earl Warren had personally interviewed a man named Larry Crafard, a perennial favorite of theorists since he worked at Jack Ruby’s club. Fonzi, who ironically was receiving his award for “lifetime achievement” in the investigation of JFK’s death, claimed that Warren asked Crafard what he did before working for Ruby. “I was a master sniper in the Marine Corps,” Crafard supposedly replied. Fonzi then told the audience that Warren immediately and inexplicably changed the subject by asking Crafard what type of entertainment Ruby’s club offered.23
The problem is nothing like this ever happened. Warren did not question Crafard—WC staffers Burt Griffin and Leon Hubert did. And Crafard, who served in the Army rather than the Marines, never said he was a master sniper and therefore no interviewer changed the subject on this point. It seems that Fonzi got his information about the imaginary exchange from a Mort Sahl comedy routine. Amazingly, Fonzi accepted that Sahl was accurately quoting the Warren Commission volumes and repeated his “quotes” verbatim without verifying them.24
Although some of these instances of Fonzi’s bias postdate his government employment, there is little doubt that in early 1976, Fonzi, rather than being an impartial truth-seeker, was a man on a mission to uncover the criminal conspiracy in the death of JFK that he was certain existed.
Go to Chapter 2
The Bishop Hoax: Table of Contents
Notes
1. Email from Paul Hoch to W. Tracy Parnell, February 7, 2020. Hoch admits to being “a little obsessive” and keeping meticulous records on his JFK expenses (for tax purposes) and activities.⏎2. The O’Toole-Hoch article is believed to be the first reference to Veciana in connection with the JFK assassination.⏎
3. Email from Paul Hoch to W. Tracy Parnell, April 23, 2021.⏎
4. Bob Katz. “Still on the Case.” The Boston Globe, November 13, 1988.⏎
5. Email from Paul Hoch to W. Tracy Parnell, February 6, 2020.⏎
6. Email from Paul Hoch to W. Tracy Parnell, February 6, 2020.⏎
7. Fonzi, The Last Investigation, 30. What was initially described as a two-week job would turn into three years of government work for Fonzi who would earn as much as $45,200 per year during his stint as a government investigator—exceptionally good money in the seventies (US House of Representatives Certification Report, January 5, 1979).⏎
8. Warren Report, 324.⏎
9. Fonzi, The Last Investigation, 118.⏎
10. Walter F. Naedele. “Gaeton Fonzi, 76, Reporter Who Wrote of JFK’s Killing.” The Philadelphia Inquirer, September 1, 2012, B04.⏎
11. Gil Spencer. “Letter from the Editor.” Philadelphia Daily News, December 13, 1976, 29.⏎
12. Diane Mastrull. “D. Herbert Lipson, 88, Philly Mag’s Giant.” Philadelphia Daily News, December 26, 2017, 4.⏎
13. “Mahanoy City Residents Burn at ‘Hicktown’ tag.” (Pottsville, PA) Republican and Herald, August 14, 1964, 1-2.⏎
14. Ben H. Bagdikian. “An Axing Job on Annenberg.” Arizona Republic, April 5, 1970, 38.⏎
15. “Pennsauken Cops File Suit on Story.” (Camden, NJ) Courier-Post, October 16, 1972, 5; “Brook Wins Magazine Libel Case.” (Camden, NJ) Courier-Post, January 3, 1975, 15.⏎
16. Fonzi, The Last Investigation, 27-28.⏎
17. Myers, With Malice. Kindle Edition, Chapter 9.⏎
18. Fonzi, “My Paranoia and Me.” Fonzi later said that this article was written tongue-in-cheek. But as Mike Ewing pointed out, the problem with this assertion is that although the article is “lighthearted” in places, Fonzi presented several “facts” in the article that were questionable. Additionally, Ewing wrote that it was “clear to those who read the article” that Fonzi really believed his “paranoia” was justified. When Ewing mentioned the Fonzi article to a Church Committee staffer, he quipped, “Well, that’s Fonzi for you.” ⏎
19. Bugliosi, Reclaiming History, 1376.⏎
20. Litwin, On the Trail of Delusion, 130.⏎
21. Bugliosi, Reclaiming History Endnotes, 55-56.⏎
22. Fonzi, “Seduced by the Web Weavers.”⏎
23. Gaeton Fonzi, 1998 JFK Lancer Pioneer Award speech.⏎
24. Canadian researcher Peter Whitmey was the first to notice the problem with Fonzi’s JFK Lancer speech. When Whitmey contacted Fonzi he was “somewhat defensive” and Whitmey was convinced that he “had been under the impression that Sahl’s reading of the Warren Commission’s interview with [Crafard] was accurate and not a humorous means by which Sahl could make his point.” ⏎
You have explained things so far in a very clear easy to understand fashion.
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