by Joan Mellen
The Times-Picayune reported that Banister died alone. Allen Campbell says he knows who shot Guy Banister. Lou Ivon went to the morgue to look at Banister’s body: there was no head wound of any kind.
Jim Garrison uncovered more than one Oswald-Banister connection. William Dalzell had conceived of a front for Arcacha’s Cuban Revolutionary Council, to be called “Friends of Democratic Cuba,” and Banister had helped draw up the charter. On January 20, 1961, two men, claiming to represent “Friends of Democratic Cuba,” had visited the New Orleans Bolton Ford dealership to purchase trucks for shipment to Cuba. They called themselves “Joseph Moore” and “Oswald,” even as the real Oswald was in the Soviet Union at the time. Later, shown a photograph of Oswald by the FBI, Bolton assistant manager Oscar Deslatte said this was not the man who had called himself “Oswald.” When the vice-president of Bolton called the FBI, the agent, who arrived at once, grabbed the bid form, which was never to be seen again, certainly not by the Warren Commission.
This “Oswald,” Deslatte later told Jim Garrison, was an aggressive, unpleasant man. When the bid was made out in Moore’s name, “Oswald” had objected: “I’m the man handling the money! You should have my name too.” His companion was a heavyset Cuban with a scar over his left eye, a description confirmed by Bolton truck manager Fred Sewell. The one called “Oswald” was small and thin, about five feet seven inches tall. To confuse the issue, William Dalzell’s landlady and girlfriend, Betty Parent, nicknamed “Betty Parrott,” a Regis Kennedy informant, insisted to Sciambra that Moore was five feet eight, with blonde hair and blue eyes, not Cuban at all.
A month after it was created, Friends of Democratic Cuba dissolved, as if it had existed only for the purpose of the Bolton Ford truck-bidding incident. According to its president, Martin L. McAuliffe, a “Mr. Call” of the FBI had ordered them to dissolve because they were “in violation of the law to work with a foreign power,” even as no such “Mr. Call” existed at the FBI. Insisting he never heard of Joseph Moore or the incident, McAuliffe did not fear lying to Jim Garrison. He, too, was a CIA asset, having visited the New Orleans field office three times by June 1961.
An informant told Garrison that a Joseph Moore had once liberated William Dalzell from jail, had “worked in intelligence in the Marines,” and was now CIA. Garrison also uncovered an FBI interview with a car salesman named James A. Spencer at Dumas and Milnes Chevrolet.
Some time between February and August of 1961, when, again, Oswald was still in the Soviet Union, a man who identified himself as “Lee Oswald,” with a Magazine Street address, had come into this Chevrolet dealership to purchase an automobile. This “Lee Oswald” had spoken favorably of Fidel Castro. Spencer remembered him because he came in twice, although he did not purchase an automobile. The only New Orleans people who knew Oswald’s name at that time were Oswald’s Marine acquaintance Kerry Thornley—and David Ferrie.
Warren Commission historian Mary Ferrell discovered that the descriptions of Oswald when he was out of the United States listed him as five feet eleven inches tall, while at home he was always five feet nine. Some forms said his eyes were gray, others that they were blue, as if he were deliberately obscuring his identity, the simpler to “infiltrate,” the more easily to be impersonated.
Only now has Jack Martin’s protégé, Thomas Edward Beckham, revealed what inspired Banister to a rage so virulent that on the evening of the Kennedy assassination it sent Martin bloody and reeling to Baptist Hospital in a police patrol car.
It is a sultry November day in 1963. Jack Martin and Thomas Edward Beckham, on whom, as his charge, Jack keeps an ever watchful eye, are at Guy Banister’s office. As Jack closets himself with Banister, Tommy, as he is known, chats with Delphine Roberts.
“Do you have many girlfriends?” Delphine asks flirtatiously.
Tommy is twenty-one years old, cute in a Pat Boone sort of way. He is small and boyish, only five feet seven inches tall, and maybe 157 pounds. Charming and pliant, he exudes dimples and an ingratiating smile. When his hair turns gray suddenly, he dyes it black. Tommy dropped out of school in the third grade and can neither read nor write, but he has begun to learn by reading the labels on liquor bottles. His mother is Jewish, his father not.
Tommy has a strong, clear voice, and he can entertain you by playing the guitar and singing, even yodeling. Under the name “Mark C. Evans,” he is a rock/folk singer of some ability, performing at high school hops. He says that he even appeared on “Louisiana Hayride,” the country music radio program of live concerts out of Shreveport, a virtual “cradle of the stars” that launched Hank Williams, Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash.
Sometimes Tommy makes as much as two or three hundred dollars a week. He earns money as a barker in the Quarter. For a time, with his deep, crystal-clear voice, he is a radio announcer. He has also worked for the Greyhound company calling out bus departures: “Welcome aboard Greyhound, now boarding at Gate Three!”
Tommy’s father originally brought him together with Jack Martin, giving Jack some money in the hope that Jack would help Tommy in his singing career. Through Jack, Tommy finds himself often in the company of a group of older men who gather at Thompson’s cafeteria. At Holsum’s, another hangout, Jack introduces Tommy to A. Roswell Thompson, who is active in the Klan. In his white robes, once a year, in broad daylight, “Rozzy” lays a wreath at the foot of the statue of Robert E. Lee at Lee Circle. Tommy hears that he was involved in desecrating a Jewish cemetery. Rozzy’s belt buckle, a gift, reads: “To A. Roswell Thompson, From Huey P. Long. Share The Wealth. Every Man A King.”
Thompson takes an interest in Tommy. Another of the men in this group is Clay Shaw, who offers Tommy the opportunity to have sex with a man.
“I don’t go for that,” Tommy says.
“Everybody to his own way,” Shaw says. One day he introduces Tommy to a Cuban girl named Gloria Borja. “You be careful, kid,” Shaw tells Tommy, only Shaw calls him “Thomas.”
When Jack and Guy Banister go out to Moisant Airport to welcome former Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista, Tommy begs to go along. Batista is part-owner of a Jefferson Parish gambling casino called “The Beverly Club,” his partner, Carlos Marcello.
At Walgreen’s on Canal, near South Rampart and near the International Trade Mart, Tommy finds Jack engaged in conversation with the Nazi George Lincoln Rockwell. When Rockwell is later arrested, it is Hardy Davis who will bail him out.
Jack seems annoyed to see Tommy today. “What the hell are you doing here?” Jack growls. “Do you know who this is?”
“I’m a Jew,” Tommy says.
“I was a decorated Army man,” Rockwell says. “If I quit, would you hire me? There’s people who want me to fight their battles.” Later Rockwell is spotted with Clay Shaw at a gay establishment called Dixie’s Bar of Music. Encountering at Banister’s office young Daniel Campbell, who has been assigned to attend meetings of the New American Nazi party and take down names, Rockwell invites him to a gay bar. Campbell declines.
Rockwell’s presence at Guy Banister’s office, and in the company of Clay Shaw, helps to define the politics of those with whom Oswald consorted in New Orleans. Fulgencio Batista the brutal dictator and George Lincoln Rockwell the Nazi—these were typical Banister acquaintances.
At Jack Martin’s apartment, Tommy spots a woman and a baby, a glimpse into mysterious Jack’s private life, since he never speaks of anything personal, seeming always unanchored and without connections, without a past. One day Tommy observes at Jack’s five men in Roman collars, one in a big clerical hat, another with a huge crucifix swinging diagonally across his chest. On another visit, Tommy notices filing cabinets with locks. Jack speaks of “safe houses.” Tommy asks Jack if he has intelligence connections, to which years later Jack will admit, evasively: “only for short periods and never officially.”
On yet another day, Tommy walks into Walgreen’s, and there is Jack speaking Spanish with Sergio Arcacha Smith and Luis Rabel. One of them calls John
F. Kennedy a “Communist.” The Bay of Pigs has come and gone.
Jack has Tommy ordained in his church, the Old Orthodox Church of North America, and a phony degree arrives from Earl Anglin James in Toronto. Jack has sent James a gold key to the city of New Orleans that he wears on his watch chain. David Ferrie’s 1962 and 1963 telephone records include seven calls to the unlisted number of Earl Anglin James. The only call he got from New Orleans was from Jack Martin, James will lie.
Tommy has no particular interest in being a priest, but he does what Jack tells him to do. He is soon in charge of a “Mission” at 352 North Rampart Street called “United Catholic Mission Fathers,” which, he says, really meant “United Cuban Revolutionary Forces.” Tommy is given a card that reads: “Priest in charge of the Holy Chapel for Peace.” Printed as well is his name: “Father Evans.” The purpose of the Mission is collecting money for the struggle against Castro, for which they use containers supplied by the Continental Can Company. Among those who visit the Mission are David Ferrie and mercenaries Loran Hall and Lawrence Howard, trained by the CIA at No Name Key in Florida for sabotage against Cuba. Howard’s CIA affiliation is masked by his role as an informant for the Alcohol, Tobacco, Tax Unit of the Internal Revenue Service, with the CIA reimbursing his salary.
Lawrence Howard is a large, burly man, at least 235 pounds. He is Mexican, with a luxuriant head of black hair and a flowing mustache, your image of Pancho Villa. He, too, has been heard to complain about Kennedy’s withdrawing air support at Playa Giron. The leader at No Name Key, Gerald Patrick Hemming, says that Howard was sent to spy on him by a CIA handler.
Tommy and Gloria Borja have sex at the Mission. When she becomes pregnant, Jack Martin finds a New Orleans character named W. T. Grant to pose as a judge and “marry” them. But Tommy suggests they run away and marry legitimately in Las Vegas. When their financial circumstances force Tommy back to New Orleans, Jack is right there waiting for him.
Tommy now becomes a courier, transporting the money they raise at the Mission to Miami. One day he is arrested at the airport and driven to the First District police station. The money disappears; there are no charges.
After Jack introduces Tommy to Guy Banister, Banister asks Tommy to spy on Jack for him. “Sometimes I like to see how my people are doing,” Banister says. Loyal, Tommy reports the conversation to Jack. Jack now begins to give Tommy puzzling advice. Jack tells him to throw himself down the stairs at Thompson’s cafeteria, and “act like you’re knocked out. Then go to a doctor.”
One day Tommy is arrested at the Mission for impersonating a priest, and he suspects that Jack is somehow behind this arrest. Jack advises him to commit himself to the Charity Hospital’s “third floor,” the psychiatric ward. A while later Jack tells him to commit himself voluntarily to the mental hospital at Mandeville. “It’s to protect you,” Jack says. This time Tommy obeys. Accompanied by his mother and one of his brothers, he goes to the Mandeville hospital. He wears his priest collar and the people think it surely must be his brother being committed, not the priest. A psychiatric record is being built against him, and he cannot imagine why.
In the spring of 1963, upstairs at Walgreen’s, Tommy meets a young man about his own age named Lee Oswald. When Tommy first sees him, Oswald is doing a flexing exercise, pushing his hands together.
“What do you do, work out?” Tommy says.
“If you do this, it will help your arms and enlarge your chest,” Oswald says, eager to be friendly. He learned the exercise in the Marines.
They run into each other often. He has just returned from Mexico City, Oswald says one day. He tells Tommy that he has lived in the Soviet Union.
“Why?” Tommy says.
“We can’t pick the place where we are born, but we can choose where we want to live,” Oswald says. He compares himself to Hemingway, who lived in Paris. From the start it is apparent that Lee is acquainted with the other members of the group.
The subject of homosexuality arises. “Shaw is homosexual,” Tommy says.
“I know,” Lee says.
Oswald mentions his “undesirable” Navy discharge, which brings him to anger. He blames John Connally, former Secretary of the Navy, and now the governor of Texas, for his troubles. He says he has written to Connally. “I have and always had the full sanction of the U.S. Embassy, Moscow, USSR, and hence the U.S. government,” Oswald had written, demanding that Connally “take the necessary steps to repair the damage done to me and my family.” It was to change his discharge that he consulted lawyer Dean Andrews.
Lee and Tommy grow friendlier. Lee has money and is always ready to pick up a check. He buys Tommy lunch. “Don’t you want a piece of pie?” Lee asks Jack Martin, “Don’t you want something to eat?” It’s almost as if he’s trying to buy friends, Tommy thinks. But Jack sticks to his diet of bad coffee and cigarettes. Tommy cannot understand why Jack seems to dislike Lee so much, especially since he’s always trying to pick up Jack’s check.
Sometimes Tommy sees Lee at Thompson’s restaurant. He runs into Lee at Guy Banister’s office where he hears Lee call Banister “the chief.” He hears Lee attacking Governor Connally. “I hate that son of a bitch,” Oswald says. “Connally was a target,” Gerald Patrick Hemming believes, as did CIA operative Richard Case Nagell. Nagell, in New Orleans that summer, heard talk of the assassination not only of President Kennedy, but of “other highly placed government officials.”
Lee visits the Mission. Together Tommy and Lee visit Orestes Peña’s Habana Bar. One day when Oswald is distributing his leaflets outside the International Trade Mart, Tommy goes along. A cameraman appears, and it’s clear the press has been invited in advance. On his heels is Jack Martin, furious.
“Get away from there!” Jack shoos Tommy from the area. “What are you trying to do, get yourself in trouble?”
A photograph survives of Thomas Edward Beckham, dressed all in black, in front of the International Trade Mart as Oswald enters the building. Beckham confirms that it is, indeed, he.
It is August 16, 1963, another suffocating summer day in New Orleans. Standing just inside the doors of the Trade Mart is Warren de Brueys, Oswald’s handler, his shadow. Oswald enters the Press Club where he asks for a glass of ice water. Seated at the bar is States-Item reporter on the police beat, Jack Dempsey, a big, bluff, generous Irishman in his characteristic long-sleeved white shirt, and bow tie, his straw hat beside him. Still holding one of Oswald’s “Fair Play for Cuba” leaflets, Dempsey offers Oswald a beer.
“No, thank you, sir,” Oswald says. “Water would do me better than a beer or a coke.”
“Have you read the leaflet?” Oswald says.
MORE EVIDENCE DENIED TO JIM GARRISON
6
I” knew I was dancing with the CIA. I wasn’t guessing.
—Jim Garrison
TOMMY ATTENDS MEETINGS at Algiers, on the West Bank of the Mississippi River, but still part of Orleans Parish, and at the Town and Country Motel in Jefferson Parish. The subject is always the same: what is to be done about John F. Kennedy? The group assesses the news that Kennedy has assigned his school friend William Attwood to meet with Fidel Castro, seeking rapprochement. This effort, not yet reported in the press, is known to everyone here.
Sometimes Clay Shaw is present, but everyone here calls him “Clay Bertrand.” He looks like movie actor Jeff Chandler, Tommy thinks. At every meeting there is also someone with a criminal background, like Tony Marullo, who is related to the Marcellos by blood. Guy Banister himself never attends, but sends a woman named Anna Burglass to represent him. G. Wray Gill sometimes makes an appearance.
“Are you serious about killing John F. Kennedy?” Tommy asks Jack Martin one day.
“You don’t kill a president. You assassinate him,” Jack says. Lee attends some of these meetings, as does Jack Ruby, owner of the Carousel Club in Dallas. Tommy has already been introduced to Ruby. One day, Tommy and Clay Shaw are together in the lobby of the Monteleone Hotel on Royal Street, whe
n they run into Jack Ruby, who is a regular at this hotbed of international intrigue. Jack Ruby is well known to the Monteleone doorman, Kelley, a homosexual, who, on at least one occasion, has been thrown out of Dixie’s Bar of Music for unwelcome advances to some young man. Kelley’s acquaintance with Ruby, the subject of an FBI report, adds credence to Beckham’s memory of having met Ruby at Kelley’s place of employment.
“Where are you hanging your hat these days?” Shaw asks Ruby. Ruby motions—upstairs. There is talk of Tommy entertaining at Ruby’s club. Ruby has deep roots in Louisiana, and one of his cousins owns The Court of Two Sisters restaurant. A year before the assassination, Ruby was treated for rectal cancer at the Ochsner clinic.
At Holsum’s, Tommy runs into Jack Martin’s partner, Joe Newbrough, who is sitting with a man named Fred Lee Crisman. Joe is asking for advice from Crisman about federal fraud charges looming against him.
“Didn’t it scare you when you read, “United States of America v. Joseph Newbrough?” Crisman says. “How did that hit you?” Crisman then turns to Tommy and introduces himself. Soon they are meeting alone. Crisman says he’s a teacher, and can teach Tommy to read and write. He can help Tommy speak correctly so that he doesn’t say “worser” and “you knowed.”
“If it kills me, I’m going to teach you English,” Fred says. They begin to meet often. It is some time later that Tommy will summon his nerve. “Fred, I know you’re a government agent, an operative,” Tommy will venture. Crisman will only laugh.
When Jack Martin is finally finished talking with Guy Banister this hot November day in 1963, he and Tommy walk over to the Old Post Office. Jack reads his mail, then puts it back into his box. He is lingering, peering outside. Half an hour passes. Tommy becomes impatient.