American conspiracy theorists might have a good reason to venture over to the New York Art, Antique, and Jewelry Show this week.
The Manhattan show, which started November 20 and ends November 24 , includes the Garrison Files, a collection of documents and video footage from Jim Garrison, a former New Orleans District Attorney. Garrison, a controversial character, alleged a complex (and much-dismissed) conspiracy involving anti-Communist and anti-Castro extremists was behind the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. He prosecuted Clay Shaw, a local businessman, as a co-conspirator of Lee Harvey Oswald, the shooter. The trial, which resulted in Shaw’s acquittal, yielded these files—which include two copies of the famous Zapruder film, which depicts the assassination. Only seven copies of the film are believed to be in existence.
Garrison became an object of fascination after the release of the film “J.F.K.,” the Oliver Stone film that portrayed Garrison, who was widely regarded as an irresponsible hothead, as a hero.
The Garrison Files have a sticker price of $168,500, according to the New York Post.
Dick Stolley, the legendary former Life magazine editor who brought the film from Abraham Zapruder in November 1963, says he suspects that Garrison’s staff made illegal bootleg copies of the film when they borrowed it for the Clay Shaw trial and then sold them to conspiracy theorists. But, Stolley tells Coins2Day, it was “nothing we could ever prove, unfortunately.” Stolley also was a founding former managing editor of People, which, like Coins2Day, is owned by Time Inc.
New Orleans’ MS Rau Antiques bought the files from the daughter of Garrison’s lead investigator, whose family had owned the items for decades, according to the Post. The files will be on sale until someone purchases them. As of mid-day Sunday, no one had.