Kerry Thornley

Kerry Wendell Thornley served in the Marine Corps with Lee Harvey Oswald at the El Toro base in California in 1959 and later at Atsugi, Japan, a base where LSD was known to have been field tested by the CIA and the originating base of the U2 spy plane flights. Based on his acquaintance with Oswald, Thornley wrote a novel titled The Idle Warriors in 1962, before the Kennedy assassination, making him the only person to have written a book about Oswald prior to November 22, 1963.¹

Warren Commission Testimony

Thornley testified before the Warren Commission on May 18, 1964, at 9:40 a.m. in Washington, D.C., interviewed by John Ely and Albert E. Jenner, Jr. He provided detailed recollections of Oswald during their Marine service and maintained he had not seen Oswald since June 1959. At the time of his testimony, Thornley stated he was satisfied that Oswald acted alone.¹

The "Kirstein" Encounter and the Garrison Investigation

While living in New Orleans in 1961, Thornley was introduced to a man named "Gary Kirstein" in a bar called the Bourbon House. Kirstein was described by Thornley as a "son of a Neanderthal racist" who was writing a book titled "Hitler Was a Good Guy." During their conversation, Thornley and Kirstein debated theoretically how to assassinate President Kennedy, as if they were two writers discussing how it could be written in a novel. Thornley said Kirstein basically predicted everything that was going to happen in the next twenty years, including the Charles Manson family, the war in Vietnam, and other events. Thornley stated that he had blocked out the memory of this conversation for ten years.¹

New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison later accused Thornley of involvement in the Kennedy assassination conspiracy and charged him with perjury for denying that he had met Oswald in New Orleans. Garrison claimed Thornley might have impersonated Oswald between 1961 and 1963. Thornley had lived in a New Orleans apartment rented from John Spencer, who was connected to Clay Shaw, the businessman Garrison prosecuted for conspiracy to assassinate Kennedy.¹

Later Claims

Thornley later came to believe that "Kirstein" may have been E. Howard Hunt, the CIA officer and Watergate "plumber." In 1992, Thornley appeared on the television program A Current Affair and confessed to being part of a conspiracy to assassinate Kennedy, claiming to have encountered evidence of Nazi activity related to the murder. He published an article titled "Did the Plumbers Plug JFK, Too?" in an Atlanta underground newspaper, after which he received threatening phone calls from someone imitating sounds he and a New Orleans associate named Roger Lovin used to make. The caller asked, "Kerry, do you know who this is?" and when Thornley answered no, replied "Good!" and hung up.¹

Thornley came to believe he had been programmed for some part in the assassination and that "Kirstein" was his controller who may have implanted some sort of device in his brain. Twelve days after making statements to the Atlanta police regarding new allegations about the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Thornley was attacked and pistol-whipped by two men in ski masks who took only his identification. He died in 1998. His posthumous work "Confession to Conspiracy to Assassinate JFK" was published in 2000.¹

Banister, Ferrie, and Roselli

While in New Orleans, Thornley reportedly met both Guy Banister and David Ferrie, both central figures in JFK assassination research. After moving to Los Angeles, Thornley met John Roselli, one of the country's most powerful mobsters and an object of suspicion regarding the assassination. Roselli was later found chopped into pieces and stuffed into an oil drum dumped off the Florida coast shortly before he was to testify before the House Select Committee on Assassinations.¹