by Joan Mellen
Blakey capitulated to every Agency demand, about “sanitized materials,” about documents kept “top secret” and “eyes only,” and about no notes or copies being made during those rare moments when investigators could, in a locked room at CIA headquarters, be permitted to view some CIA documents. A nondisclosure agreement would silence House investigators and lawyers “in perpetuity.” Blakey further promised to “protect Agency sources and methods.” He permitted the CIA to decide whether and how it wished to comply with any and all of the HSCA’s requests. The CIA went on to control exactly what questions the Committee could ask of CIA assets like Bernardo de Torres, Lawrence Howard, Loran Hall and William Gaudet.
In the year 2003 Blakey would complain that the Agency did not reveal to Congress the role of George Joannides, the CIA’s liaison to the HSCA, in the events of 1963, events which had included Joannides’ encouraging the DRE to expose Oswald’s supposed pro-Castro activities. Helms’ choice of Joannides compromised the committee’s investigation, Blakey protested. But it was Blakey himself who had compromised the investigation from the start. Richard Helms did not require the assistance of George Joannides to inflict CIA domination on the HSCA. Blakey had accomplished that himself.
Unaware of Blakey’s agreement with the CIA, taking premature comfort in Blakey’s having kept on some of Sprague’s staff, Jim Garrison allowed himself to believe that in the Committee’s final report, “my office is going to be vindicated.” He made the error of sending memos of undeveloped leads to lawyer Jonathan Backmer, instead of handing them directly to Delsa and Buras, who remained incorruptible and independent. It was Blackmer whom Garrison asked to determine whether Fred Lee Crisman was a “domestic intelligence operative.” Blackmer ignored him. It was Blackmer whom he asked to look into “Shaw and CMC activity.” It was not done.
In some venues it was already too late. Delsa requested of the Dallas police that he be permitted to read the notes taken when Oswald was questioned; he was incredulous when he was told that there were none. “You were sitting with a guy suspected of killing the president and you didn’t even write his name on a matchbook? How could you run a check on him?” Delsa demanded. In New Orleans, Francis Martello, with whom Buras had served on police intelligence, revealed his bitterness about the Warren Report, calling it a “travesty.” Dubious about any federal investigation, Martello concealed from Robert Buras that Oswald had ordered him to telephone the FBI field office and say that someone they knew, Lee Oswald, was there with him.
Yet Delsa and Buras began to vindicate Jim Garrison and add to his evidence. Jack Martin, now working as a night watchman at an old age home where in priest’s robes he listened to confessions, introduced them to William Dalzell, who described making drops of medical supplies into Cuba with David Ferrie; Dalzell had driven Sergio Arcacha Smith to a training camp near Slidell. From Joe Oster, they confirmed that Banister talked with the CIA on the telephone often.
L. J. flew to California where he asked Kerry Thornley how he came to learn Spanish in the Marines, as he drew close to Thornley’s own CIA connection. When, exactly in 1963, had Thornley returned to New Orleans? Delsa asked. They agreed to meet the next day, only for Thornley to fail to show up.
“This kid’s running on me,” L. J. told the Los Angeles police, who were willing to search for the missing witness. But the HSCA suddenly changed L. J.’s assignment. L. J. was ordered to abandon the Thornley lead and instead investigate a supposed photograph of Oswald, Che Guevara and Castro’s mistress Marita Lorenz in a safe at the Russian embassy at Ottawa, a futile distraction. Thornley escaped. It was clear to L. J. that the HSCA did not want Thornley’s associations penetrated and that he himself had drawn too close to the CIA’s involvement in the assassination.
L. J. tracked down Lawrence Howard in El Monte, California. If he had worked for the CIA, Howard said, it would have been “indirectly.” He had been in Dallas only for five days, from the end of September until October 4th. Shown a photograph of Thomas Edward Beckham, Howard said he “looked familiar.” Delsa concluded that Howard was an “interesting person,” one who “could have fired the shots that changed history for the whole century.”
Back in New Orleans, Buras interviewed Delphine Roberts, who now recounted Banister’s remark about Oswald’s use of “544 Camp Street” on his leaflet: “How is it going to look for him to have the same address as me?” Still she was not yet ready to admit she had seen Oswald in person.
The HSCA refused to authorize Buras and Delsa to investigate Oswald’s appearance at the East Louisiana State Hospital at Jackson. Buras was permitted to talk only to the Clinton witnesses who had already been interviewed by Francis Fruge, Anne Dischler and Moo Moo Sciambra. Nor were Buras and Delsa permitted to go to Clinton and Jackson together. Instead, a Committee bureaucrat, Patricia Orr, came to Louisiana to accompany Buras to East Feliciana Parish. Orr carried the specific list of Clinton people Buras was authorized to interview. He was not sent the earlier statements of these witnesses so he could compare them with what the witnesses said now.
On the drive to Clinton, Orr told Buras she believed in the single bullet theory.
“Don’t tell me this bullet did all that up and down and came out in pristine condition,” Buras said.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Orr said. “You’re just a cop. These people are ballistics experts.”
“They’re not experts. They’re liars,” Buras answered.
Blakey and Cornwell could not entirely stifle the Louisiana investigation. Interviewed by Buras, Henry Earl Palmer remembered the doctor with “a Spanish surname” with whom Oswald said he was living. But Dr. Frank Silva was not on Patricia Orr’s list and Buras was not permitted to meet with him. Nor could he contact Ronald Johnston, the Baton Rouge private investigator who had telephoned the Committee saying he knew two separate people who had seen Oswald and Clay Shaw together at the Clinton courthouse, as well as at the hospital. Nor was Buras permitted to investigate any 1963 contacts between Guy Banister and Henry Earl Palmer, to corroborate Palmer’s assertion that he knew Banister and that Banister had definitely not appeared in Clinton.
Buras was forbidden to examine any possible contact between Banister and Alvin and Lloyd Cobb. He could not investigate Marydale Farms and whether Ferrie, Shaw and Oswald had been seen there together. He could not inquire into whether John Henry Shipes had been correct in connecting Shaw with the East Feliciana Klan. He could not explore the appearance of someone calling himself “Oswald” at the Lafayette Holiday Inn. He could not look into the connection between Ruby, Oswald and Gladys Palmer. It was soon apparent to Buras and Delsa that they were being paid not to investigate what Oswald’s residence in Louisiana revealed about the assassination.
In New Orleans, Delsa interviewed Warren de Brueys. Delsa now knew that John Quigley had consulted de Brueys before visiting Oswald in jail.
“I’d like to see your notes,” Delsa said. He had no notes, de Brueys said. Besides, he had never met Lee Harvey Oswald.
Garrison’s grand jury transcripts now sat in Harry Connick’s filing cabinets. Connick and his assistant, Bill Wessell, insisted, “all grand jury records are destroyed after being held for ten years.” Alive and well, the transcripts would become part of the National Archives owing to the courage of a police investigator attached to Connick’s office named Gary Raymond.
Upon taking office, Connick began to burn Jim Garrison’s records. When it came to the grand jury transcripts connected to the Clay Shaw trial, Raymond, whom Connick had put in charge of the incinerations, had demurred.
“It’s not exactly John Brown killing Jim Smith here,” Raymond said.
“Was Shaw convicted?” Connick argued. There was no appeal pending. When Raymond still hesitated, arguing that there was an “ethical or moral obligation” to hold onto these records, Connick became angry.
“I told you to burn it! Burn it all!” Connick ordered. Believing that “nothing in the law required
me to follow an order I interpreted as illegal, immoral or unethical,” Raymond held onto the transcripts.
By the time Buras visited Jack Rogers, he did not even bother to ask to see Rogers’ files. Buras knew he was not supposed to request documents that might uncover new evidence. It would not please Blakey and his deputy, Gary Cornwell, were he to validate Jim Garrison’s work. The HSCA never obtained Jack Rogers’ files on the assassination and preferred it that way.
So, too, no evidence reached Washington when Frank Bartes, that cousin of Dr. Frank Silva and Oswald cohort, showed Buras a photograph taken in Cuba. Beside an airplane stood Fidel Castro, Bartes himself and a tall gray-haired man whom Bartes easily identified from the photo book as #5, Clay Shaw: Buras did not bother to take that photograph with him. Clay Shaw, above all, was someone whose role in the assassination Buras and Delsa were not to explore.
As often as they could, Blakey and Cornwell separated Buras and Delsa. Buras had to take Harold Leap, the CIA’s man on the Committee, with him when he interviewed former FBI clerk William Walter and the CIA’s William Gaudet. As Walter discussed a report written by Warren de Brueys, which established that de Brueys had contacted Oswald as an FBI security informant, Leap repeatedly interrupted him. Irritated by Leap’s attempts to prevent him from talking, Walter was indignant. “I know what I know and I know what I saw,” he said angrily. Oswald had “an informant’s status with our office.” Other agents besides de Brueys had contacted Oswald. Later, testifying in Washington, Walter had to endure repeated insinuations by Committee lawyers that he was lying.
At the interview of William Gaudet, Leap made certain that Gaudet would not be asked why his name, just before Oswald’s, was obliterated from the list of people getting Mexican tourist cards that had been sent to the Warren Commission. (The Commission had not called Gaudet.) Gaudet in turn kept silent about his relationship with the FBI and denied that he was the informant who had told the FBI that Jack Ruby had appeared at Larry Borenstein’s gallery.
There were some weeks when Delsa and Buras were given no assignments at all. Yet within the small window of time in which they moved freely, they succeeded in developing a key assassination witness, Thomas Edward Beckham. “I was never able to do much with him,” Garrison had written to Blackmer, but he was a “subject worthy of inquiry. He was a protégé of F. Lee Crisman and part of the Banister cell.” Beset by “prevaricators, poultroons and opportunists of the lowest order,” Garrison had allowed Beckham to elude him.
Garrison wondered whether Beckham had been set up as an "alternative patsy in case of a last minute problem with Lee Harvey Oswald.”
On July 28, 1977, Delsa and Blackmer interviewed Beckham in Mobile, Alabama. Beckham admitted he knew Lee Harvey Oswald and had seen him at Banister’s office. Oswald, Beckham said, had been involved with “a group of ex-CIA members who plotted, [and] carried out the assassination,” then framed him. Beckham described meetings he had attended with David Ferrie and Shaw, Luis (whom he still called “Lucious”) Rabel, G. Wray Gill, Grady Durham and Sergio Arcacha Smith.
On August 9th, Delsa and Blackmer interviewed Beckham again. He had been a “runner” for Banister’s group, Beckham explained. He had seen Ferrie in green fatigues returning from a training camp. He was certain Oswald was working for the government. He believed Banister had been murdered. He revealed how he had been dispatched to Dallas with that package of maps, photographs and diagrams handed to him by G. Wray Gill and David Ferrie. He had delivered them to Lawrence Howard in Dallas outside the Executive Inn motel. Delsa flew to Dallas and interviewed the manager of what had been the Executive Inn, but was now a Best Western. No 1963 records had survived.
When these extraordinary interviews were described to Jim Garrison, he formulated a new set of questions to be put to Beckham. Meanwhile Delsa and Buras should investigate Fred Lee Crisman, whom Garrison was more certain than ever was a “cutout or go-between at a very high level.”
On October 1st, free of Blackmer, Delsa and Buras interviewed Beckham at the Holiday Inn in Jackson, Mississippi. Now Beckham outlined two specific meetings at which he had been present, and the assassination discussed. One was at Algiers, the other at the Marcello-owned Town and Country Motel in Jefferson Parish. He repeated how he had taken the drawings and maps of Dallas buildings to Lawrence Howard. He revealed now that Fred Lee Crisman had ordered him to lie to the Garrison grand jury. He explained Crisman’s close connection to Offutt Air Force base in Omaha.
At this interview, Beckham was alternately remorseful and frightened. He was “wishing I hadn’t done it,” he said. He wondered who in the New Orleans police department still knew Jack Martin, whom he called “a very dangerous man.” You’ll never get anything on Fred Lee Crisman or Jack Martin, Beckham predicted. “They’re too big.”
He was right.
The next step, Buras and Delsa decided, was to test Beckham’s credibility with a lie detector test.
THE DEATH OF JIM GARRISON: VALE
22
I don’t know if I would do it again because of the emotional price I paid.
—Jim Garrison
I N WASHINGTON, ROBERT BURAS and L. J. Delsa received permission for the polygraph of Thomas Edward Beckham. Only then did they bring Beckham to New Orleans. On March 8th and 9th, 1978, Richard Hunter of the New Orleans police department, and a former partner of Buras, as a favor, did the polygraph. There was no cost to the Committee.
Buras put the requisite amount of pressure on Beckham, knowing that those most habituated to lying have the best chance of beating the machine. “Don’t shade it,” Buras told Beckham. “Give it your best shot.”
“Was he being truthful?” Buras and Delsa asked Hunter as soon as it was over. Delsa had believed Beckham because he always made distinctions and when he didn’t know something, he said so. With liars, Delsa had discovered from years in homicide, “water swells over the levee without control.” Beckham says he told Buras and Delsa the truth.
After two days, Hunter revealed his conclusion. He had discovered no deception. Asked whether Fred Lee Crisman had conveyed him into secret areas where you needed security clearance, Beckham said that he had. The machine revealed no deception. Did Crisman bring him onto Offut Air Force Base? Beckham said yes, and there was no sign of deception.
“This guy is amazing,” Hunter said. Despite Beckham’s lack of any formal education whatsoever, he was a very intelligent man. Beckham resembled no liar Hunter had ever encountered. He was telling the truth. Like Oswald, Buras and Delsa concluded, Beckham had been a young, uneducated kid grabbed up by intelligence.
The next day, March 10th, Delsa and Buras were summoned to Washington by their immediate superior, Cliff Fenton. They were questioned separately, then charged with conducting an unauthorized polygraph. They had questioned an important witness with CIA connections, zeroing in on truths that the compromised, CIA-controlled Committee could not tolerate.
Deeply religious, firm in his principles, Buras did not take lightly challenges to his rectitude.
“I looked you right in the eye and requested permission for the polygraph,” Buras told Gary Cornwell.
“Did I give you a specific reply?” Cornwell shot back. “Would it be fair to say that by not replying, while I looked right at you, that you took that as tacit approval?” Cornwell denied he ever heard the request for permission to administer a polygraph to Beckham. When Delsa supported Buras, Cornwell scanned the horizon for a suitable scapegoat.
“Blackmer gave you permission, didn’t he?” Cornwell said. Delsa noted that Blackmer had of late gotten dangerously close to Jim Garrison and might have become a Cornwell target.
“Bobby, they’re afraid of what the polygraph showed,” Delsa said. “They’re looking for a scapegoat so it could be written off as a mistake.”
There would be no investigation of Fred Lee Crisman, who had died in 1975. Buras concluded that if they could have connected Beckham and Crisman “to some guy with the vowels ‘
a’ or ‘o’ at the end of their names,” Blakey would have permitted them to continue. But in approaching those who had planned the assassination, Buras and Delsa had gone far beyond any role organized crime might have played in its implementation.
Buras and Delsa were punished with two-week administrative suspensions. Blackmer was also suspended. Grudgingly, on March 13th, 1978, the Committee constructed an after-the-fact paper authorization of the polygraph so that Buras and Delsa could be reimbursed for their air fares in bringing Beckham to Louisiana.
Team #3 had been effectively destroyed. Orestes Peña was deposed by Martin Daly, an ex-cop from New York, and William Brown, who knew next to nothing about the Louisiana evidence. When John Manchester appeared in Washington before an Executive Session, which meant that his testimony would be sealed, Buras and Delsa were not invited, although they alone knew what had happened in Clinton and Jackson.
Buras located a distraught Francis Fruge at home in Basile. Having lost all respect for the “federal people,” Fruge was bitter about how the HSCA had treated him, bitter that the FBI had failed to pursue the leads he had developed from the Rose Cheramie story. He had told Mike Ewing, a Cornwell deputy, about the sudden suicide in jail of Andrew Dunn, but Ewing had not authorized an investigation.
Now Buras and Delsa were explicitly forbidden from following up on any of Jim Garrison’s leads. “We’re not interested in Garrison. Stay away from his stuff,” they were ordered. “We were tadpoles in a sea of sharks and never knew it,” Delsa concluded. “We didn’t have a chance.”