Judyth Vary Baker, David Ferrie, and Dr. Mary Sherman (Part 4 of 6)

Judyth Vary Baker talks about David W. Ferrie, a fascinating character who knew seven languages, could play classical piano, a former Eastern Airlines pilot, and the go-between for Guy Banister, a former FBI agent located in New Orleans, and Carlos Marcello, the head of the Mafia in that region of the country. Ferrie, long known for his scientific curiosity and personal research activities involving cancer--he was known to be using numerous mice years before 1963--worked with Baker in furthering a cancer research project supervised by Mary Sherman, M.D., a world-class expert in that area, using mice and monkeys in the last segment of an effort to develop a bioweapon that could be used to take out Castro, the prime candidate they had in mind at the time. Baker realized later that after Castro, the cancer could be held frozen virtually forever and used whenever the CIA or other entities wished. The thought sickened her. She had been told that killing Castro was her patriotic duty--this was only months after the Cuban Missile Crisis when Soviet ballistic missiles were in Cuba, aimed at the US. It was essential to use mice at first, but then work with marmosets commenced, soon moving up to larger primates, the last steps in the sequence before the product would be tested using one or more human beings.