Giesbrecht, Richard, conspiracy witness

Entry from Who’s Who In The JFK Assassination
Michael Benson, Citadel Press, 1993, pages 152–154

      In 1964 Giesbrecht was a 35-year-old Mennonite businessman and father of four. He told the FBI of a conversation he had overheard in the Horizon Room cocktail lounge at Winnipeg International Airport on February 13, 1964, between a man he later identified as David Ferrie and a man in his middle or late 40s, with reddish blond hair, a badly pockmarked neck and jaw, who wore a hearing aid, and spoke with an accent, possibly Latin. Giesbrecht told the FBI that it didn’t take him long to realize that the men he was eavesdropping on had knowledge of the plot to kill JFK. Both men, he said, wore light tweed suits and loafers. He assumed that both were homosexuals.
      According to author Paris Flammonde:

Ferrie indicated that he was concerned over how much Oswald had told his wife about the plot to kill Kennedy. Additionally, they discussed a man named Isaacs, his relationship with Oswald, and how curious it was that he would have gotten himself involved with a “psycho” like Oswald … Isaacs seemed to have allowed himself to be caught on television film near the President when Kennedy arrived in Dallas, and, at the time the conversation was taking place, was under the surveillance of a man named Hoffman, or Hochman, who was to “relieve” him and destroy a 1958 model automobile in Isaac’s [sic] possession … [Ferrie said,] “We have more money at our disposal now than at any other time.” … The conversation moved to another area and the two began speaking of a meeting to take place at the Townhouse Motor Hotel in Kansas City, Missouri, on March 18. They mentioned that the rendezvous would be registered under the name of the [a] textile firm. It was noted that no meeting had been held since November 1963 … Ferrie mentioned that an “aunt” (or “auntie”—gay [slang] for an older homosexual) would be flying in from California. A name which Giesbrecht thought sounded like “Romeniuk” was mentioned several times; Ferrie inquired about some paper, or merchandise, coming out of Nevada and the other man replied that things had gotten too risky and that the house, or shop, at a place called Mercury had been closed down, but that a “good shipment” had reached Caracas from Newport … It was also agreed that the Warren Commission would not stop its investigation, even if it did decide that Oswald was guilty.

      At this point, Giesbrecht realized that a third man, sitting at another table, was staring at him as he eavesdropped. He described the man as 35 years old, light-haired and red-cheeked with a “slightly deformed” nose. He weighed about 200 pounds, stood 6’0”, and had either a scar or a tattoo on his left hand. Extremely frightened at this point, Giesbrecht headed for the airport’s Royal Canadian Mounted Police office. He was followed. His entrance to the RCMP [to a stairway] was blocked by two men [by one man]. He ran to a phone booth and tried to call the RCMP, but was forced to hang up before getting his message across when his pursuers approached [only one pursuer]. He finally managed to lose the men [the man] elsewhere in the airport and called his lawyer, who called the U.S. consulate, which called the FBI.
      At first the FBI was enthusiastic about Giesbrecht’s information. “This looks like the break we’ve been waiting for,” Special Agent Merryl Nelson reportedly told him. Within two months, however, the bureau had cooled considerably. They told him to forget what he had heard. “It’s too big,” an agent told him. “We can’t protect you in Canada.”
      Source: Flammonde 29–32.