by Joan Mellen
p. 203: “He is”: Interview with Ross Scaccia, January 6, 2000. Eugene Davis here confirms that Clay Shaw used the name Clay Bertrand.
p. 203: Garrison demands equal time: Jim Garrison to Mr. William R. McAndrew, June 26, 1967, NOPL. See also Robert W. Lishman to Honorable Jim Garrison, June 19, 1967. Lishman was chief counsel of the congressional committee overseeing the FCC, NARA.
p. 203: “prosecution of an open case”: “NBC Using Lies to Rap Case—DA,” States- Item, June 20, 1967.
p. 203: He would have to spend half his time: “Garrison Sets Up Conditions for TV,” New York Times, July 5, 1967, p. 31.
p. 203: the Shaw defense attempts to enjoin Jim Garrison from appearing on television: To: Richard Billings & Nancy Haskell, From: Holland McCombs—Dallas, July 12, 1967, Re: Arcacha and Shaw, Papers of Richard N. Billings, box 4, folder 58.
p. 203: Jim Garrison compiled a list of those Sheridan attempted to bribe in the Hoffa case: Memorandum, July 17, 1967, To: Jim Garrison, From: Mike Karmazin, NODA, NARA.
p. 204: Lyndon Johnson is shown a Harris poll: Memorandum to the president, From: Fred Panzer, Subject: Advance Harris for Tuesday, September 19, 1967, NARA.
CHAPTER 13
p. 205, Epigraph: “Why was his name erased?” Interview with Anne Dischler, February 1, 2001.
p. 205: A. H. Magruder: February 23, 1967, To: Jim Garrison, From: Det. Frank Meloche and Sgt. Fenner Sedgebeer, Re: Statement of Mr. A. H. Magruder, NARA. See also Memorandum, February 25, 1967, To: Jim Garrison, From: Detective Frank E. Meloche, Re: Statement of Mr. A. H. Magruder, NARA.
p. 205: “East”: “Insane Asylum of Louisiana at Jackson,” Times-Picayune, October 18, 1963, section 1, p. 21. See also “Decay of Jackson Linked to East Louisiana Hospital. Once Center of Culture, Town Has Fallen,” by Charles M. Hargroder. Times-Picayune, March 29, 1965, section 1, p. 1. The first of New Orleans’ great cornet players, Buddy Bolden, beloved in Storyville, had spent the final twenty-four years of his life at “East.” p. 205: “involved with a group of men in the assassination”: To: SAC, From: SAPR. Lancaster, November 23, 1967, 89-69-1480, NARA.
p. 206: “she’s got something to share with us”: Interview with Jim Olivier, July 17, 2001. Olivier videotaped Trooper Donald White.
p. 206: going to Dallas to kill President Kennedy: Deposition of Francis Louis Fruge, Interrogatories, April 18, 1978, House Select Committee on Assassinations, 49 pages, NARA. See also Interview by Robert Buras with Francis Louis Fruge, April 7, 1978, NARA.
p. 206: “this is when it’s going to happen”: Memorandum, May 22, 1967, To: Louis Ivon, From: Frank Meloche, NODA, NARA.
p. 206: Dr. Weiss hears her: Interview with Dr. Victor Weiss in Rough Side of the Mountain.
p. 206: Ruby and Oswald: Rose Cheramie is only one of many witnesses who place Ruby and Oswald together. See the notes for chapter 7.
p. 207: Jim Garrison called Fruge on February 25, 1967: Notes of Anne Dischler.
p. 207: Meloche, Dischler, and Fruge fly to Houston: Memorandum, March 13, 1967, To: Jim Garrison, From: Frank Meloche, Re: Rose Cheramie, NODA, NARA.
p. 207: Rose uses twenty aliases: Memorandum, March 28, 1967, To: Jim Garrison, From: William Gurvich, Re: Rose Cheramie, NARA.
p. 207: Rose Cheramie’s name everywhere but in the Warren Commission archives: National Archives, March 29, 1967, T. Bethell, NODA, NARA.
p. 207: “accidental”: April 4, 1967, State of Louisiana, Parish of St. Landry, City of Eunice, interview of J. A. Andrews by Francis Fruge, NARA.
p. 207: no record of the driver: Fruge checked on the driver who hit Rose: Outside Contact Report, telephone conversation with Francis Fruge, December 19, 1978, 015044, HSCA, NARA.
p. 208: direct knowledge of the assassination plot: Comment Ça Va by Matt Vernon, Eunice News, July 18, 1967, p. 1.
p. 208: The Silver Slipper: Commission Exhibit 3067, FBI interview 11/28/63 by SA J. Edward Kern. See also, “The Silver Slipper?” by Lisa Pease, Probe, July–August 1999, p. 4.
p. 208: “dapper, mustachioed”: Nagell quoted in The Man Who Knew Too Much, p. 395.
p. 208: diagrams of the sewer system: Outside Contact Report, telephone conversation with Francis Fruge, December 19, 1978, 015044, HSCA, NARA.
p. 208: testimony of Cal Kelly: Interview with Mrs. Anne Dischler, Dischler Notes, courtesy of Mrs. Dischler.
p. 208: Investigation at the Holiday Inn, Lafayette: Dischler Notes.
p. 208: Alberto Fowler had met Angers: Memorandum, April 15, 1969, To: Andrew J. Sciambra, From: Alberto Fowler, Re: Telephone conversation of 4/14/69 with Harold Weisberg, NODA, NARA.
p. 209: “ a Communist Louisiana”: “Come to Louisiana: Cuban Council Envoy Is Heard,” Times-Picayune, May 21, 1963, section 2, p. 3.
p. 209: “tight-lipped”: Interview with Anne Dischler, February 4, 2002.
p. 209: criticizing the Kennedy family: Memorandum, July 13, 1967, To: Jim Garrison, From: Andrew J. Sciambra, Re: Information received from Lt. Fruge, July 11, 1967, NODA, NARA.
p. 209: Ernie Broussard Jr., of Abberville says the same man who had called himself “Lee Harvey Oswald” returned a few weeks after the assassination, Dischler Notes.
p. 209: “if you need anything, holler”: Memorandum, April 6, 1967, To: Jim Garrison, From: Frank Meloche, Re: Telephone Call from Lt. Fruge, Lafayette, La. Op. 23, Lafayette, NODA, NARA.
p. 209: Cedric Rolleston telephones Frank Meloche: Memorandum, March 3, 1967, To: Jim Garrison, From: Frank Meloche, Investigator, Re: Lee Harvey Oswald and Clay Shaw in Alexandria, Louisiana, NODA, NARA.
p. 210: Corinne Verges Villard: Office of the District Attorney, February 28, 1967, Statement of: Mrs. Corrine Verges Villard, Residing: 813 North Railroad Avenue. Morgan City, Louisiana, NODA, NARA.
p. 210: Barbara Messina knew Ruby and Oswald: Memorandum, October 21, 1968, To: Jim Garrison, From: Andrew J. Sciambra, Re: Travel to Monroe, Louisiana, NODA, NARA.
p. 210: “Lee Harvey Oswald” answers an advertisement for an apartment: Memorandum, July 29, 1968, To: Jim Garrison, From: Andrew Sciambra, Re: Interview of Aldeane Magee, 4360 Clayton Drive, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, NODA, NARA.
p. 210: all recorded by the state police: Interview with Anne Dischler, January 10, 2002.
p. 211: “he could have had a double”: “Note” in The Councilor 4, (no. 19), 20 February 1967, p. 3.
p. 211: Judge Rarick gets a haircut: Interview with John R. Rarick, June 12, 2000. Regarding Oswald getting a haircut: interview with Lea McGehee, June 12, 2000.
p. 211: “a barber shop is a good place”: Lea McGehee interviewed by Jim DiEugenio, August 26, 1994. McGehee remembers Oswald’s line, “a barber shop is a good place for a haircut and information,” in his HSCA interrogatories.
p. 211: “all or most everybody”: Interrogatories, April 19, 1978, Testimony of Edwin Lea McGehee, Select Committee on Assassinations, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, NARA.
p. 211: ten Negroes: See “Voters Records of More Counties Are Called For” by Lewis Hawkins, Times- Picayune, May 24, 1960. section 1, p. 5.
p. 211: “I have no friends”: Interview with Edwin Lea McGehee by Patricia Orr and Robert Buras, Select Committee on Assassinations, January 19, 1978, HSCA, NARA.
p. 212: “Oh!”: Oswald is surprised when he learns that East is a mental hospital: Memorandum, July 26, 1967, To: Jim Garrison, From: Andrew J. Sciambra, Re: Interview with Lea McGee [sic] on July 17, 1967, NODA, NARA.
p. 212: “if you know somebody, you have a better chance”: McGehee interviewed in Rough Side of the Mountain.
p. 212: the sanction of the right politician: “Decay of Jackson Linked to East Louisiana Hospital.” Op. cit.
p. 212: Oswald departs in a large black car: It should be noted that McGehee first told Moo Moo Sciambra, tentatively, that Oswald had got into an old beat-up car, dark in color, a Nash or a Kaiser, with a young woman in the front seat and a basinette in back: Memorandum, June 26, 1967, To: Jim Garrison, From: Andrew J. Sciambra, Re: I
nterview with Mr. Lea McGee [sic] on June 17, 1967, NODA. To the House Select Committee in 1978, McGehee said he saw Oswald neither exit from the car nor enter it upon his departure from the barber shop. By the time he turned around after washing his hands, the car was gone. Note that McGehee told Robert Buras and Patricia Orr, interviewing him on January 19, 1978, that “a big black car pulled away shortly after Oswald left.” He continues to believe this is the car Oswald entered.
p. 212: Van Morgan plays “Tarzan”: Interview with Van Morgan, June 11, 2000.
p. 212: “you have to see a politician to get a job”: Reeves Morgan interviewed in the film, Rough Side of the Mountain.
p. 212: “a smart aleck white boy”: Memorandum, January 23, 1968, To: Jim Garrison, From: Andrew J. Sciambra, Re: Interviews with people in Jackson and Clinton, Louisiana, NODA, NARA.
p. 213: the FBI called back and asked what Oswald had been wearing: The Final Assassinations Report: Report of the Select Committee on Assassinations (New York: Bantam Books, 1979), p. 170n. This detail represents an extraordinary indictment of the Warren Commission. As will later be shown, the FBI’s behavior indicated that they did in fact receive the call from Reeves Morgan. Blakey’s staff relegated this revelation—that the FBI had called Morgan back—to a footnote. That the FBI knew that Oswald had traveled to East Feliciana Parish in the company of Clay Shaw and David Ferrie could easily have been established had Blakey not pulled back from the Louisiana investigation.
p. 213: tough, “soldier-of-fortune type”: McGehee interviewed by Patricia Orr and Robert Buras.
p. 213: McGehee identifies a photograph of Lawrence Howard: Memorandum: Summary of Deposition and Deposition of Edwin Lea McGehee, barber in Jackson, Louisiana, taken on April 19, 1978, at Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
p. 213: Blackmer’s perfunctory depositions in Baton Rouge: Interrogatories, April 19, 1978, Baton Rouge, Lea MeGehee, 25 pages; Reeves Morgan: 008501, April 19, 1978, 23 pages; Henry Earl Palmer, 008499, April 19, 1978, 25 pages.
p. 213: Kilbourne and Rarick watch the black Cadillac: Interview with John R. Rarick, June 12, 2000. Description of Richard Kilbourne is by John R. Rarick.
p. 214: Manchester also reads gas meters: CORE papers, reel 4, frames 549–550.
p. 214: CORE records recount how strangers were stopped in Clinton on a regular basis: Congress of Racial Equality papers, Part 2, Southern Regional Office, 1959–1966, edited by August Meier and Elliot Rudwick, University Publications of America, Frederick, Maryland. Field Report, East Feliciana by Ed Vickery and Bill Brown, reel 3, frame 806.
p. 214: Manchester is proud to have been the one to arrest Mike Lesser: Memorandum from Sciambra to Garrison, July 18, 1967, NODA, NARA. Michael Lesser is arrested, FBI August 9, 1963, Report made by SA Michael Baron, Character of Case: CR, File #NO 44-1852, interview of Henry Earl Palmer by Michael Baron and Richard K. Tengstedt/bap, dictated, August 6, 1963, NARA.
p. 214: the White Camellia Organization was headed by Alvin Cobb: Report of Operator # X 65, June 25, 1965, Re: New Orleans Case # 486- 65, Papers of Jack N. Rogers.
p. 214: “we pulled that guy over”: Interview with John R. Rarick, who also reports on his conversation with Kilbourne.
p. 214: Jack Rogers hired private detective Mr. J. D. Vinson to develop information on Lee Harvey Oswald on November 22, 1963: FBI interview with Mr. J. D. Vinson, November 27, 1963, by SA John L. Quigley, FBI 124-10035-10368, agency file, 105- 82555-3RDNR 454, NARA.
p. 214: in the Councilor Touchstone reported on the “pretty black Cadillac”: Ned Touchstone, “The Truth About the Assassination,” undated manuscript. Papers of Ned Touchstone, Louisiana State University at Shreveport.
p. 215: a 1965 calendar: Papers of Jack N. Rogers. Material from Jack Rogers’ files courtesy of his daughter.
p. 215: one of Jack Rogers “Operators,” # X 10, learns about a photograph of Oswald and Ruby: March 11, 1964, Report of Operator # X 10. Re: New Orleans case # 220-63, Papers of Jack N. Rogers.
p. 215: Gladys’ maiden name was in fact Ragland, and they had another sister named Irene Ragland: Notes of Jack N. Rogers, March 11, 1967, Papers of Jack N. Rogers.
p. 215: Gladys worked for Jack Ruby at the Carousel Club: Interview with Billy Zachary, January 28, 2003. Zachary was a close friend of Matt Junior Palmer: Notebooks of Anne Dischler; Margaret Harvey interview with Billy Zachary, December 12, 2002.
p. 215: impeccably madeup: Interview with Margaret Harvey, December 12, 2002.
p. 215: “outspoken”: Interview with Irene Lacoste, December 10, 2002.
p. 215: “noisy and boozy”: Interview with Carl Bunch, January 2, 2002.
p. 215: Thomas Williams calls about Gladys Palmer: Memorandum, March 17, 1967, To: Louis Ivon, Chief Investigator, From: C. J. Navarre, Re: Information volunteered by Thomas Williams, Route 1, Box 8, Ethel, Louisiana, NODA, NARA; Billy Kemp, June 29, 1976, From: Jeff Gottlieb, interview with Billy Kemp, June 14, 1976, NODA, NARA.
p. 215: Lincoln: Jack Ruby also had a Cadillac: Testimony of Little Lynn Carlin, Warren Commission, Vol. XIII, pp. 213–214, taken at Fort Worth Post Office, April 15, 1964.
p. 216: “don’t give her any money for the funeral”: Interview with Josephine Palmer, January 31, 2002.
p. 216: Gloria Wilson was dating Lee Harvey Oswald: Interview with Lea McGehee, February 3, 2001.
p. 216: D. J. Blanchard saw Gladys with Lee Harvey Oswald: Dischler Notes.
p. 216: the FBI had interviewed Gladys: Henry Earl Palmer interviewed for the HSCA by Robert Buras, January 19, 1978.
p. 216: She did have her tape recorder: These tapes were in the custody of Francis Fruge, and disappeared after his death.
p. 217: Henry Earl was an “Exalted Cyclops”: FBI, To: The Attorney General, From: Director, FBI, February 10, 1969, 180-10024-10264, 62-109060-6712, NARA. Hoover believed, cynically, that it might help the Shaw defense team should the Klan associations of some of the witnesses for Jim Garrison be made public.
p. 217: Henry Earl is suspicious of Judge Rarick: Interview with John R. Rarick, November 26, 2000.
p. 217: He was living with Dr. Frank Silva: Lynn Loisel drove up to Clinton and talked to Francis Fruge, who reported that Oswald had told Henry Earl Palmer that he was living with Dr. Frank Silva: Diary of Richard N. Billings, pp. 82–83.
p. 217: Manchester remembers there were three men in the car: Conversation of John Manchester with John R. Rarick, August 13, 2000.
p. 218: then they changed their minds: Interview with Anne Dischler, July 4, 2000.
p. 218: Henry Earl offered no explanation: This scene from interviews with Anne Dischler, January 31–February 2, 2001.
p. 218: “ some damn state trooper”: Interview with John R. Rarick, June 12, 2000.
p. 218: “Jim was always a finer man”: John R. Rarick to Joan Mellen, March 6, 2000.
p. 219: Manchester knows that Oswald had registered to vote: Interview with Anne Dischler, January 3, 2002.
p. 219: “selling bananas”: Affidavit of John Manchester, Town Marshal, Clinton, Louisiana, NODA, NARA.
p. 219: a witness named Henry Brown: Dischler Notes.
p. 219: “it’s useless to try to register”: Memorandum, January 17, 1968, To: Jim Garrison, From: Andrew J. Sciambra, Re: Interview with Melvin Morgan Ellis and John Ellis, Clinton, Louisiana—January 9, 1968, NODA, NARA. See also Estes Morgan talks to Oswald: Memorandum, January 23, 1968, To: Jim Garrison, From: Andrew J. Sciambra, Re: Interviews with people in Jackson and Clinton, Louisiana, NODA, NARA.
p. 219: “the ‘i’ in the word ‘parish’”: Rough Side of the Mountain.
p. 219: “Don’t come thanking Jesus in here”: Rough Side of the Mountain.
p. 220: Oswald takes his pre-employment physical: Interview with Maxine Kemp, June 12, 2000.
p. 220: “Dr. Silva is from Cuba”: Interview with Dr. Frank Silva, October 7, 2000.
p. 220: Oswald applies for a job at the States-Item: Memorandum, October 18, 1967, To: Jim Garrison, F
rom: Tom Bethell, Re: Oswald’s Alleged Attempts to Find Work, NODA, NARA.
p. 220: The Amlash Legacy. Also quoted in Anthony Summers, Not in Your Lifetime (New York: Marlowe, 1998), p. 371.
p. 220: “father of psychiatry in Baton Rouge”: Obituary, Advocate (Baton Rouge), October 15, 2004.
p. 220: second cousin. Their mothers were first cousins. Mrs. Silva had died when her son was born; she had chosen the name Francisco because she liked Bartes’ name.
p. 220: Francisco Bartes Clarens: Among his complaints was that the views of the anti-Castro Cubans were not being heard, see The Final Assassinations Report: Report of the Select Committee on Assassinations (New York: Bantam Books, 1979), Introduction by G. Robert Blakey, Chief Counsel and Staff Director. See also Anthony Summers, Not in Your Lifetime, p. 231. Jim Garrison had assigned William Martin to interview Francisco Bartes Clarens: Memorandum: July 29, 1967, To: Jim Garrison, From: William R. Martin, Subject: Francisco (Frank) Bartes, NODA, NARA. Regarding the CIA connections of Bartes Clarens, Martin sabotages Jim Garrison’s investigation one more time here by neglecting to ask Bartes whether he had ever encountered Lee Harvey Oswald. Bartes had warned the FBI that Oswald was “a dangerous man,” only a month later to say that Oswald was “unknown to him”: Newman, Oswald and the CIA, p. 337. Martin tells Jim Garrison that “Mr. Bartes wants to be a friend of this office and do whatever he can to help us in our inquiry into the Kennedy assassination.” The Domestic Contact Service was kept in the dark about Frank Bartes: CIA Memorandum, November 20, 1967, Subject: Garrison Investigation of Kennedy Assassination, Francisco Antonio Bartes Clarens, 104-10106- 10692, Agency file: 80T01357A, NARA: “It is requested that this inquiry be sent to the New Orleans office by a separate memorandum which omits all reference to the DD/P and to any association between Bartes and the Clandestine Services.”