Mort Sahl on Curtis L. Craford (aka Larry Crafard)
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also makes passing reference to a long-time political
satirist and part-time Garrison adviser, Mort Sahl.
In the early 1990s, Mort's career was given a second
life as a result of his one-man show on "Off Broadway"
entitled "Mort Sahl's America" (now available on audio).
It was reviewed in several publications including the
prestigious NEW YORKER magazine by theatre critic John
Lahr. I learned about Lahr's review through corres-
pondence with another JFK researcher. In the course
of the review (April 25, 1994, p. 91), Lahr quotes from
Sahl's act, as he comments on an interview allegedly
conducted by Earl Warren and Gerald Ford of the W.C.
with Curtis LaVerne Crafard, described as "a barman..
who had worked at Jack Ruby's Carousel Club before he
was seized by F.B.I. men as he hightailed it out of town
the day after the Kennedy assassination, saying, 'They
(are) not going to pin this on me.'" Lahr indicated that Sahl was
reading "verbatim a snatch of Earl Warren and the then
Representative Gerald Ford and includes the following
interchange: "Warren asks him what he did before he was
a bartender. 'I was a master sniper in the Marine Corps,"
Crafard says. Warren's next question is 'What kind of
entertainment did they have at the club?'" Lahr concludes
his review by stating that this sudden switch of topics
at an apparent crucial point in the interview with
Craford is "..the one pure moment of political comedy.." in his act.
Well, it might have been "pure" in the comedic sense, but
it sure wasn't pure, as history, to say the least. First
of all, Curtis (or "Larry" as he called himself at that
time) was not a bartender at the Carousel Club, but a
handyman, working for room and board. Although he did
decide to quit his job, after Ruby told him off over the
phone about the lack of dog food for his precious dogs,
and hitchhiked to northern Michigan to visit his sister
for Thanksgiving, he did not "hightail it". In fact, he
got a ride with a gas station mechanic for a short while
who recognized Craford, and who didn't recall anything
suspicious about his behaviour. He also was not "seized"
by the FBI at any point, although they did track him
down at his sister's through an address on an envelope
found at the Carousel Club. He was interviewed both at
his sister's and in the FBI's office, and was also
photographed (the photos were later shown to various
individuals who thought they had seen Oswald at the
club, whom the FBI suspected might actually have been
Craford; none agreed after being shown the photos,
however.) As for Craford's WC interview, he was
questioned for three days in Washington DC, but not by
Warren and Ford, but by lawyers Burt Griffin and Leon
Hubert (his interview was over 200 pages long.) He
never made any comment to the FBI or anyone else that
"they are not going to pin this on me." He was never in
the Marines, although he had joined the U.S. Army after
highschool around 1959 (he was dismissed for medical
reasons after 14 months). Of course, he went through
basic training and fired the standard weapons, including
an M-1, as he discussed with Griffin and Hubert. He
certainly was not a "master sniper", nor did he ever
make that statement to the W.C. Clearly, Griffin and
Hubert were not interested in the type of entertainment
at the Carousel, and questioned Craford in an extremely
thorough manner (although Judge Griffin told me in 1993
that he believed Curtis was "holding back" throughout
the interview.)
It was bad enough that THE NEW YORKER accepted what Mort
Sahl had stated about Curtis in his one-man act, but to
make matters worse, researcher/writer Gaeton Fonzi also
made reference to Lahr's review in a speech he made at
the JFK Lancer conference in Dallas last Nov. (1998).
However, he gave no hint that the information came from
Sahl via THE NEW YORKER, but, instead, implied that he
had derived it directly from the Warren volumes (by the
way, I have learned from a L.A. TIMES review of Sahl's
show from 1996 in California that Mort had the 26 volumes of the
Warren Commission's investigation on stage as part of his
set, which would add to the credibility of his caustic
comments). Gaeton's speech was included in the Winter,
1998 issue of KENNEDY ASSASSINATION CHRONICLES, edited
at that time by Debra Conway, who heads JFK Lancer. The
speech also appears at JFK Lancer's website. To her
credit, Debra has recently included an e-mail from me
and her own response, at the point in the speech where
Gaeton refers to Craford. (I would imagine the next
issue of KAC will include my comment as a letter to the
editor.)
Although I haven't listened to Mort Sahl's 70-minute
routine, now available through Dove Audio, I will be
able to obtain it from the Vancouver Public Library,
and plan to contact Mort Sahl through Dove Audio. The
audio production was reviewed in BILLBOARD magazine on
Aug. 2, 1997 by Trudi Miller Rosenblum, although I
only have a summary of it. I have written by e-mail
to THE NEW YORKER and specifically to John Lahr, but
have not received a reply as yet. I also have been in
contact with Curtis L. Craford.
Curtis has kept a low profile over the years, unlike
some others connected to Oswald, Ruby or the JFK
assassination in general. In Jan. 1992 Ron Rosenbaum
wrote an article about Curtis (without mentioning his
name) for TIME magazine, which was based in part on a
telephone interview with me (he had learned about my
contact with Curtis through another researcher). It
was reprinted in JFK: THE BOOK OF THE FILM (around p.
400). I am referred to as a "Canadian researcher".
Curtis was also referred to in Norman Mailer's book
OSWALD'S TALE, and Mr. Mailer was very interested in
knowing that I had been in contact with Curtis (I
received two replies to both of my letters). One slight
error appears in the book in reference to Curtis, in that
Mailer assumed that Curtis had gone back to Michigan on
Nov. 23, 1963 because that was his home, when, in fact,
he grew up in rural Oregon, although he had relatives
whom he visited in Michigan on his way to his sister's
cabin.
- Peter R. Whitmey
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Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
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YORKER, in response to my "letter to the editor" via
their website. In regard to the reference made by critic
John Lahr to Mort Sahl's one-man show, in which Mort
appears to be quoting from the Warren volumes, in regard
to the W.C.'s interview of Curtis Laverne Crafard (now
spelled "Craford"), Mr. Kethrerry states in part:
"We believe that the passage in question, Mort
Sahl's alleged reading of the Warren Commission
Report, is nothing more than a spoof."
Although Mort's objective was to make fun of Earl
Warren and Gerald Ford, suggesting that they were more
interested in learning about strippers than solving the
"crime of the century", it seems to be that it was done
at the expense of Curtis Craford. Had the references
made by Sahl and quoted by John Lahr been at all
accurate, then no one could really complain, since the
Warren volumes are public information. However, as
I pointed out in my previous posting (and to THE NEW
YORKER), everything stated by Mort (other than the name
of the former employee of Jack Ruby) was fabricated.
You'd think that THE NEW YORKER would at least offer an
apology for not checking on the accurary of Mort's
remarks.
I have discovered that Mort Sahl has his own website
which I have written to, through their e-mail service.
Sahl was also interviewed on AOL several years ago,
which is also available at another website, where he
refers to his long-time friendship with Jim Garrison,
and his role in assisting the D.A. in his investigation.
Since Garrison was convinced at one point that Curtis
was involved in the assassination (according to writer
Ron Rosenbaum in his TIME article from Jan. 1992), it
could be that he influenced Mort Sahl into feeling the
same way. The comments made by Sahl is his routine, in
my opinion, strongly suggest that Craford, supposedly a
former "master sniper" in the Marines, was afraid that
the assassination would be "pinned" on him, and therefore
decided to "hightail it" out of Dallas on Nov. 23, but
was "seized" by the FBI in the process; later, in a
matter-of-fact manner, he let Earl Warren and Gerald Ford
know about his "suspicious" background, before becoming
a "barman" for Jack Ruby. I doubt if Garrison made much
effort to locate Craford.
Based on several conversations with Curtis, his
ex-wife, as well as Judge Burt Griffin and others, I
suspect that Curtis has information relevant to either
the assassination or the death of Lee Harvey Oswald, as
well as the pre-assassination activities of Jack Ruby,
that he is still keeping to himself. But I certainly
don't think he was either involved in the assassination
or being set up to take the blame.
It is unfortunate that Curtis was not questioned
by the HSCA, who appeared to have difficulty finding
him, according to an interview with Judge Griffin by
one of the staff members, which I received from the
NARA. I have learned that Curtis was living in Oregon
at that time, and although he might not have had a
listed phone number, his father and brother did (that's
how I located him myself in 1989). Undoubtedly, the
FBI in Portland would have known his whereabouts; at
that time, he had been working for Pinkertons, which
would require a thorough security check. - Peter
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Reitzes, has not responded to this posting. Here's your
chance, Dave, to condemn Garrison through Mort Sahl.
How can you resist? - Peter