Ochsner saw the situation clearly. With revolutionaries in the capitals of Latin America, the displaced elite would no longer be able to jump on jets and fly to New Orleans for medical treatment. The medical empire he built was threatened. Ochsner did something about it. He became a fanatical anti-Communist.
In 1961, Ochsner institutionalized his anti-Communist crusade by founding an organization called INCA, the Information Council of the Americas. INCA’s objective was to prevent Communist revolutions in Latin America by teaching the sordid truth about Communism to the Latin American masses. In brief, it was a right-wing propaganda mill, loosely modeled on Radio Free Europe. Ochsner served both as INCA’s President and Chairman.
A typical INCA production interviewed Cuban exiles about the horrors of losing their sugar plantations or their mattress factories to Castro’s forces. From these interviews, INCA produced and distributed tape recordings called “Truth Tapes” to 120 radio stations throughout Latin America. INCA’s most ambitious project was a film about Castro called Hitler in Havana. The New York Times reviewed the film, calling it “the crudest form of propaganda” and a “tasteless affront to minimum journalistic standards.”39
In a perceptive article about INCA, archivist Arthur Carpenter described anti-Communism as an ideology of convenience, which offered the ruling elite “a respectable way to discredit challenges to its power.”40 But Ochsner’s conviction was deeper than that. Once I had the opportunity to ask someone who knew him personally about his political views, and got this reply: “He was like a fundamentalist preacher in the sense that the fight against Communism was the only subject that he would talk about, or even allow you to talk about, in his presence.”
Financing for INCA is said to have come from Ochsner personally and from other doctors and business people in the New Orleans area. Ochsner and INCA Executive Director Ed Butler enlisted as many New Orleans business and political leaders as possible in their cause. Sears heirs Edgar and Edith Stern, owners of WDSU radio and television, were members of INCA.41 Eustis Reily of the Reily Coffee Company personally donated thousands of dollars to INCA.42 Of all the names on the INCA letterhead, the most interesting one is INCA’s “Chief of Security,” Robert R. Rainold, who was described as the “Past President of the National Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI.” One must wonder if Mr. Rainold was aware that the former head of the FBI’s Chicago office lived in New Orleans or that the Reily Coffee Company was managed by an ex-FBI man.
In the spring of 1963, Ochsner was quoted in a newspaper as saying, “As a surgeon, I know that in an emergency, sometimes you are forced to do things quickly or the patient will die ... We must spread the warning of the creeping sickness of Communism faster to Latin Americans, and to our own people, or Central and South America will be exposed to the same sickness as Cuba.”43
Later that summer INCA members descended upon Lee Harvey Oswald, filming his pro-Castro leaf-leting for television and ambushing him during a live radio broadcast with a newspaper clipping about his “defection” to the Soviet Union. The records of the Mexican consulate office in New Orleans show that when Oswald obtained his visa for his trip to Mexico, his name followed William Gaudet, who is known to have worked for the CIA and who edited an anti-Communist newsletter which Ochsner financed.44 There is no doubt that INCA produced anti-Communist propaganda for Latin America, but one has to wonder what other activities it was involved in?
MARY SHERMAN’S MURDER happened the following summer, in July 1964. There is no mention of her in Ochsner’s biography, nor of the grief or shock Ochsner must have personally felt over her tragic death. On July 22, 1964, however, the day after Mary Sherman’s murder, Ochsner wrote a letter to his largest financial contributor saying “our Government, our schools, our press, and our churches have become infiltrated with Communism.”45 It appears the Communists must have forgotten to infiltrate “our hospitals.”
Ochsner’s own biographers cautioned that once Ochsner got out of his field of medical expertise, he exhibited an amazing naiveté, and even said things that could be termed as “ridiculous.”46 The problem seemed to be that he saw the rest of the world with the same clarity that he saw medicine. For example, he cited the lack of anti-war demonstrations on college campuses during the 1970-71 school year to be the result of INCA’s influence.47 In fact, this was linked to the cynical and movement-deflating initiation of a lottery system for draft eligibility, which would quickly reduce the number of college males facing potential induction by over seventy-five percent.
But none of Ochsner’s monomania hindered his ability to rub elbows in increasingly powerful and wealthy circles. During one visit to Central America as a guest of the Guatemalan government, he became friends with National Airline’s Chairman Dudley Swim of Carmel, California. Swim offered Ochsner a seat on National’s Board of Directors.48 There he became friends with National’s largest stockholder, washing-machine baron Bud Maytag. Ochsner also sat on the Board of Directors of National Banks of Florida, courtesy of Edward W. Ball who managed the Alfred duPont Fund.49 It was in these circles that Ochsner met William Frawley, an arch-conservative California industrialist, who headed Schick Electric and Technicolor. Frawley became INCA’s largest financial contributor, and put Ochsner on his Board of Directors. Among Frawley’s political friends was Richard Nixon, whom Frawley had helped in his early political career.
In the early 1960s, ex-Vice President Richard Nixon called on Ochsner in New Orleans, supposedly to discuss his future political plans. Nixon joined Ochsner and newspaper editor George Healy for a private luncheon at the exclusive Boston Club across the street from Ochsner’s INCA.50 While Nixon and Ochsner shared many political sentiments, they also shared some important medical experiences. The ill-fated polio vaccine which NIH released during Nixon’s Vice Presidency (1953-61) killed one of Ochsner’s grandsons and temporarily crippled his granddaughter. The publicity about the bad vaccine outraged the public and caused a political debacle, toppling the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare and routing the leadership of NIH. Entering the office of President in 1969, Nixon promptly declared “War on Cancer,” quadrupled the budget of the National Cancer Institute,51 converted the Army’s biological warfare center to a cancer research laboratory, and financed NIH’s “Viral Cancer Program.”52 Were these events somehow connected? Had Nixon discussed any of his plans for his War on Cancer with the former president of the American Cancer Society?
Ochsner’s second wife, whom he met at a party at Frawley’s house, was even closer to Nixon than Ochsner was. Her first husband, an attorney from Los Angeles, was one of the people who helped launch Nixon’s political career.53 When problems with her passport threatened to interfere with Mrs. Ochsner’s honeymoon to Greece, she called the White House and asked to speak to “Dick” Nixon. Her problems with the State Department were promptly solved.54
THIS IS THE LEVEL OF POLITICAL SUPPORT that Alton Ochsner enjoyed when District Attorney Jim Garrison began his investigation into the murder of JFK. And when Garrison started looking into the activities of Lee Harvey Oswald, he discovered that INCA and Ochsner were close to those events. Garrison’s original intention was to arrest “the whole gang down at INCA” and squeeze them until they talked. His staff, however, felt that strategy was too risky and might backfire.55 Garrison compromised and arrested only Clay Shaw, in the hope that Shaw’s association with Oswald would be more tangible and could be proved more easily in a court of law. One has to wonder if Garrison was aware that Ochsner had been working in a “Sensitive Position” for the U.S. government.
In May 1967, as Garrison turned up the heat in his JFK investigation in New Orleans, Ochsner feared his own arrest.56 In response, INCA’s corporate records were air expressed to California, where Ed Butler put them “under lock and key.”57 Butler was in California working for one of Frawley’s companies.58 Frawley had contributed significant amounts of money to the early political efforts of Ronald Reagan who, as California governor, r
efused all of Garrison’s extradition requests.
Needless to say, Ochsner did not take Garrison’s investigation lying down. He fought back in his own inimitable manner. First, he was very vocal about his opinion that Garrison’s probe was unpatriotic because it eroded public confidence and threatened the stability of the American government. (How could arresting the President’s assassins threaten the stability of the American government?) Secondly, Ochsner promoted the idea that Garrison was crazy. He even managed to get a copy of Garrison’s military medical records. These showed that Garrison, a frontline pilot, who few behind enemy lines during the World War II invasion of Europe, had suffered from battle fatigue, was grounded temporarily due to mental exhaustion, and had received psychological counseling. As tenuous as it was, this could be used to assert that Garrison had some form of psychological problem at some point in his life. It was all part of the “he-must-be-crazy” tactic. Ochsner sent the file to a friend who was the publisher of the Nashville Banner.59
But that was mild compared to what came next. Garrison was being assisted by New York attorney Mark Lane, who had written Rush to Judgement, the first book to question the conclusions of the Warren Commission. To discredit Garrison, Ochsner attacked Lane, branding him an unscrupulous Communist and “a professional propagandist of the lunatic left,” who was trying to create distrust and cause the U.S. to “crumble from within.”60 Further, Ochsner instructed Congressman F. Edward Hebert (Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee) to tell Congressman Edwin E. Willis (Chairman of the House Committee on Un-American Activities) to dig up “whatever information you can” on Mark Lane.
Hebert sent Ochsner a report on Lane extracted from the confidential government files, which cited various “Communist fronts” with which Lane had been associated.61 Ochsner also secured a questionable second report on Lane from an unknown source. The unsigned cover memo said its information was from “the files of the New York City Police, the FBI, and other security agencies,” and claimed that Lane was “a sadist and masochist, charged on numerous occasions with sodomy.” Armed with these materials and a photo of a man (supposed to be Lane) engaged in a sadomasochistic act with a prostitute, Ochsner personally campaigned against Lane and the District Attorney.62 These actions may possibly explain why Dr. Alton Ochsner was occasionally referred to as “a right-wing crackpot.”63
And thus we have seen some of the many sides of Dr. Alton Ochsner (1896-1981), an influential doctor who helped shape the American medical system we have today, a highly-respected citizen of New Orleans who participated in civic institutions and who frequented elite social events, a businessman who promoted an enormously successful clinic and who sat on the boards of several large corporations, a crusader committed to fighting Communism in Latin America, a behind-the-scenes sponsor of Louisiana political figures, a patriot with a thirty-year history of classified assignments for the U.S. government, and, of course, Mary Sherman’s boss.
What was the “Sensitive Position” Dr. Alton Ochsner held for the U.S. government? And did it have anything to do with any cancer research Dr. Mary Sherman was conducting?
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1 A significant portion of the information in this chapter comes from John Wilds and Ira Harkey’s “official” biography, Alton Ochsner: Surgeon of the South (Louisiana State University Press, 1990); AMA award: p. 195.
2 FBI file, Edward William Alton Ochsner, Freedom of Information Act, FOIPA No. 329,965, September 18,1992; on file at Loyola University Archives in New Orleans, Louisiana, 70118.
3 Wilds and Harkey, Alton Ochsner, p. 151.
4 Ibid., p. 24.
5 Keith, Don Lee . “Ochsner: the Surgeon, the Man, the Institution,” Times-Picayune, June 3, 1973, s. 2, p. 8.
6 Ibid.
7 Wilds and Harkey, Alton Ochsner, p. 38.
8 Ibid., p. 61-62.
9 Ibid., p. 45.
10 Ibid., p. 44.
11 DiEugenio, Destiny Betrayed, p. 216, photo.
12 Wilds and Harkey, p. 84.
13 Ibid., p. 87.
14 Ibid., p. 90.
15 Keith, “Ochsner,” s. 2, p. 9.
16 Wilds and Harkey, p. 214.
17 Keith, “Ochsner,” s. 2, p. 8.
18 Wilds and Harkey, p. 104.
19 Pope, John, “Crusading pioneer Surgeon Alton Ochsner is dead at 85,” Times-Picayune/ States-Item, 9/25/81, s. 1, p. 1.
20 Ibid., s. 1, p. 4.
21 Keith, “Ochsner,” s. 2, p. 8.
22 Wilds and Harkey, pp. 144-145.
23 Pope, “Crusading Pioneer Surgeon,” s. 1, p. 4.
24 FBI file, Alton Ochsner, “Security Investigation Data for Sensitive Position,” FBI ref. #77-60-528, October 30, 1959.
25 Arthur Carpenter, “Social Origins of Anticommunism: The Information Council of the Americas,” Louisiana History, Spring 1989, p. 127.
26 Bulletin of the Tulane Medical School, Spring 1967.
27 DiEugenio, Destiny Betrayed, p. 216.
28 Wilds and Harkey, p. 215.
29 Wilds and Harkey, p. 158.
30 Ibid., p. 198-199.
31 Ibid., p. 199.
32 U.S. Congress, “Project MKULTRA, The CIAs Program of Research in Behavioral Modification,” Joint Hearing before the Select Committee on Intelligence and the Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research of the Committee of Human Resources, U.S. Senate, August 3, 1977 (Washington, 1977), especially letter from Stansfield Turner to Intelligence Committee Chairman Senator Daniel Inouye, Appendix B.
33 FBI file, Alton Ochsner, “Security Investigation Data for Sensitive Position,” October 30, 1959.
34 FBI file, Alton Ochsner, Office Memorandum from Special Agent in Charge of FBI office in New Orleans to J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the FBI, Re: Alton Ochsner, June 5, 1948. Cites March 25, 1946 article in New Orleans Item, saying, “Dr. Ochsner had received a War Department citation for his patriotic service in connection with medical research.”
35 Carpenter, p. 126.
36 Ibid., p. 125.
37 Ibid., p. 119.
38 FBI file, Alton Ochsner, “Security Investigation Data for Sensitive Position,” October 30, 1959.
39 Carpenter, p. 132.
40 Ibid.
41 Ibid., p. 129.
42 Ibid., p. 128-129.
43 “Dr. Ochsner Outlines anti-Red Tape Activity,” New Orleans States Item, April 16, 1963, p. 33; clipping found in FBI file on Alton Ochsner.
44 Summers, Anthony and Robbyn, “The Ghosts of November,” Vanity Fair, December 1994, p. 110.
45 Carpenter, p. 125; letter from Alton Ochsner to R.H. Crosby, July 22, 1964, Historic New Orleans Collection. The Crosby family donated $300,000 to Ochsner Medical Foundation: Wilds and Harkey, p. 157.
46 Wilds and Harkey, p. 189.
47 Ibid., p. 202.
48 National Airlines was sold to Pan American Airways, which went broke after deregulation.
49 Wilds and Harkey, p. 203.
50 Ibid., p. 199-200. Did Ochsner walk Nixon across the street to INCA?
51 Shorter, Health Century, p. 205.
52 These are well-known and widely-published facts, abundantly documented in NIH publications, such as The Viral Cancer Program Progress Reports, (National Institutes of Health, 1971-77); source: Richard Hatch, “Cancer Warfare,” Covert Action pp. 14-17.
53 Wilds and Harkey, p. 231.
54 Ibid., p. 235.
55 Interview with Anne Benoit, former law clerk to Judge Jim Garrison, conducted by Jim DiEugenio, 1993. Benoit reviewed JFK-related literature for Garrison during the nine years he sat on the bench, and discussed both the assassination and his investigation with him frequently.
56 Carpenter, p. 136.
57 Ibid.
58 Ibid., p. 133.
59 Ibid., p. 138.
60 Ibid., p. 137.
61 Ibid.
62 I heard this “photo story” several times in both the 1960s and 1990s. I have not seen the photo which Ochsner showed
around, but, while we were working on the Frontline piece, Gus Russo told me that he had. Therefore, I assume that the photo does or did exist, but I have always assumed that it was a fake. None of these “dirty tricks” should in any way be considered a true refection of Mark Lane’s character.
63 Comments personally heard by the author in New Orleans from the 1960s to the 1990s.
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CHAPTER 9
The Treatise
IN THE PLAYBOY INTERVIEW we reviewed earlier, Jim Garrison referred to a “medical treatise” written by David Ferrie on the subject of inducing cancer virally.1 Finding this document was a high priority for me, since it would go a long way towards verifying Garrison’s claim about Ferrie’s cancer research and establishing Ferrie’s capability to induce cancer. The other side of the issue: What did the American medical establishment really know about cancer at the time? And how did the theories and techniques in “David Ferrie’s medical treatise” relate to that leading edge of cancer research in America?
For over a year I asked many people if they knew anything about the treatise and got nowhere. I had begun to question whether it even existed. Then I got a phone call from Jim DiEugenio, the author of Destiny Betrayed: JFK, Cuba, and the Garrison Case, and chairman of a group of published JFK assassination authorities called Citizens for Truth about the Kennedy Assassination (CTKA), saying that one of the researchers pouring through the recently released JFK assassination materials in Washington, D.C. had found it. He sent me the document. These pages have been photocopied down several generations and are barely legible in places. They are reproduced as Document A (p. 347). Here is a brief description of their contents:
Dr. Mary’s Monkey Page 18