Destiny Betrayed: JFK, Cuba, & the Garrison Case
Page 64
84 In a January 26, 1967 interview with Garrison assistant Charles Ward, Chandler essentially admitted this.
85 Flammonde, pps. 60–62.
86 Tom Bethell diary entry of October 6, 1967.
87 Davy, p. 154; Mellen, A Farewell to Justice, pps. 255–59.
88 Davy, p. 153.
89 Garrison, p. 164.
90 See unpublished manuscript by Garrison called Coup d’Etat p. 16ff; also quoted in Mellen, op. cit., p. 255.
91 This “Mob influenced” myth was finally demolished by the author at a talk he did at the 1995 COPA Conference in Washington called “Garrision, the Media, and the Mob.” That talk is repeated and amplified by William Davy in his book Let Justice be Done on pages 153–67.
92 Author’s 1997 interview with Mort Sahl in Los Angeles.
93 Probe op. cit. Vol. 4 No. 5, p. 25.
94 Ibid.
95 Ibid.
96 Ibid, p. 32.
97 Ibid.
98 Garrison, p. 173.
99 Interview with Boxley by George Rennar in 1971.
100 CIA Memorandum 4/26/68, Domestic Contacts Service.
101 Author’s 1996 phone interview with Harold Weisberg.
102 Ibid.
103 Ibid.
104 Flammonde, p. 198.
105 New York Post, December 21, 1967.
106 Flammonde, p. 200. For the record, there is little doubt that McIntire’s group was very conservative.
107 Ibid.
108 Probe, Vol. 3 No. 6, p. 19.
109 For reasons to be stated in the next chapter, I do not like using Bethell or his diary for anything on the Garrison case. But in this instance, this entry seems well–documented and it jibes with other information and interviews I have done on the subject of Bradley.
110 Hinckle, p. 268.
111 Ibid.
112 Ibid, pps. 282–83.
113 Author’s 1991 interview with Steve Jaffe in Dallas.
114 Hinckle, pps. 272–73.
115 Author’s 2000 interview with Harold Weisberg.
116 Letter of January 4, 1969 by Paul Rothermel. Rothermel worked for H. L. Hunt.
117 In that respect, it resembles a forerunner of the infamous Torbitt Document.
118 File memorandum of Paul Rothermel, January 19, 1969.
119 File memorandum of Harold Weisberg, January 9, 1969.
120 Author’s 1996 interview with Ivon; author’s 2000 interview with Weisberg.
121 Garrison, p. 190.
122 Author’s interview with Lou Ivon, 1994; author’s interview with Vince Salandria in 1995. As expressed to me by Salandria, the problem Garrison had with the saboteur Boxley was simple: Garrison actually liked Boxley personally. This blinded him to what the man was doing to him. From studying Garrison’s life, this was a serious character fault he had.
123 Garrison, p. 192; DVD, The Garrison Tapes.
124 Author’s conversation with Marcus in Los Angeles in 1997.
125 Author’s 1991 interview with Steve Jaffe in Dallas.
126 To show just how bad this all got, in a letter to Joan Mellen dated April 29, 1998, Weisberg claimed he saw Rose manufacturing evidence.
127 Author’s 1996 interview with Ray Marcus and Maggie Field in Los Angeles.
128 NODA Memorandum of December 20, 1968, Burton to Garrison.
129 Author’s 1992 phone interview with Vince Salandria.
130 In his 1971 interview with Rennar, Boxley revealed that there was a “Garrison desk” at CIA. This very likely was the previously described Garrison Group.
Chapter 13
1 Flammonde, p. 213.
2 Ibid., p. 233.
3 Ibid., p. 239.
4 Ibid., p. 240.
5 Ibid., p. 241.
6 Ibid., pp. 244 ff. At this time, Dymond actually had his picture taken clutching the Warren Report to his chest. Joesten, “Highlights,” p. 54. For a complete chronicle of the incredible delaying tactics of the defense, see Flammonde, pp. 233–246.
7 Flammonde, p. 235.
8 Ibid., p. 244.
9 Ibid., p. 212.
10 The Kohn episode is described in Flammonde, p. 235.
11 Ibid., p. 299.
12 Ibid. In his statement to the DA’s office on charges that he was Clay Bertrand, Davis characterized them as “utterly and completely false and malicious and damnable.” Ibid., p. 308.
13 Popkin, “Garrison’s Case,” p. 20.
14 Turner, “Garrison Commission,” p. 68.
15 Author’s 1992 phone interview with Lou Ivon.
16 Author’s 1997 interview with Art Kunkin in Los Angeles.
17 Ibid.
18 Westword Magazine, Volume 16 No. 13, November 25, 1992, p. 21.
19 Author’s 1994 interview with Panzeca in New Orleans.
20 Author’s 1992 phone interview with Vincent Salandria.
21 Kirkwood, pp. 246–47.
22 National Review, December 16, 1991.
23 Author’s 1992 phone interview with Lou Ivon.
24 Bethell also disparagingly wrote about his experiences with Garrison case in his book The Electric Windmill (pp. 60–71). One has to wonder just why Bethell joined Garrison’s staff in the first place.
25 In a generally faultless performance, Shaw slipped only once. At a very early press conference he referred to the alleged assassin as “Harvey Lee Oswald.” As researchers know, the only instances in which Oswald had been referred to in this way were two cases of Oswald impersonations and in some intelligence files. See Weisberg, Oswald, p. 233; and Melanson, pp. 124–25.
26 Kirkwood, p. 491.
27 Joesten, “Highlights,” p. 48.
28 Garrison, p. 85. Other witnesses included William Morris, who was introduced to Shaw by Eugene Davis.
29 Joesten, Garrison, p. 80.
30 Garrison, pp. 117–119.
31 Having been through most of Garrison’s surviving files the author can attest to the fact that the DA could have called more witnesses on each of these evidentiary points. For instance, in William Davy’s accumulated archives, he now has marked a combined total of 16 witnesses who say that Shaw used the Bertrand alias.
32 From what we know today about the electronic monitoring of Garrison’s office by the FBI, it would not be surprising if Shaw’s lawyers knew this about Garrison’s health and decided to press for a trial at that appropriate time.
33 On the number of jurors, see the New Orleans States–Item, February 5, 1969; on the number of days, see the New Orleans Times–Picayune, March 1, 1969. Most prospective jurors were dismissed for one of two reasons: financial duress (jurors were not paid) or bias toward one side or the other.
34 CIA Memorandum from CI/R & A to Sara Hall, Security, February 11, 1969,
35 CIA memo from Angleton to Hoover and Sam Papich, February 28, 1969.
36 Probe, Vol. 4 No. 5, p. 21.
37 CIA routing sheet of February 12, 1969.
38 Probe op. cit., Vol. 4 No. 5, p. 32.
39 Russell, p. 436.
40 Davy, p. 310; Mellen, A Farewell to Justice, p. 301.
41 Author’s 1994 interview with McGehee in Jackson.
42 Davy, p. 301.
43 Probe, Vol. 3 No. 5, p. 25.
44 Kirkwood, p. 228.
45 Author’s 1994 interview with Volz in New Orleans.
46 The Spiesel appearance is described in Kirkwood, pp. 231–242, and Garrison, On the Trail, pp. 236–237. This testimony does not have a stenographic transcription available.
47 Probe, Vol. 4 No. 4, p. 13.
48 Author’s 1991 phone interview with Jim Alcock.
49 Ibid.
50 Kirkwood, p. 231.
51 Ibid., pp. 231–232.
52 Ibid., p. 232.
53 Ibid., p. 233.
54 Ibid.
55 Ibid., p. 235.
56 Garrison, p. 236.
57 Ibid, p. 237.
58 Ibid.
59 Ibid.
60 Ibid.
61
Probe, op. cit.,
62 Ibid.
63 Letter from Ed Wegmann to Elmer Gertz, March 12, 1969.
64 This actually understates Herron’s reaction to Russo’s testimony.
65 Kirkwood, p. 276.
66 Garrison, pp. 237–238.
67 Kirkwood, p. 295.
68 New Orleans States–Item, February 13, 1969; Kirkwood, pp. 296–298.
69 Kirkwood, pp. 308–309.
70 Ibid., pp. 306–308.
71 Ibid., p. 306.
72 HSCA interview with Joe Oster, January 27, 1978.
73 Shaw trial transcript of February 17, 1969.
74 FBI Memorandum of May 10, 1967.
75 New York Times, March 3, 1967.
76 New Orleans Times–Picayune, February 23, 1969.
77 Memo by Finck to Director of Air Force Institute of Pathology, dated March 11, 1969.
78 Shaw trial transcript; Zapruder testified on February 13, Simmons on the fifteenth.
79 Shaw trial transcript, February 17, 1969.
80 Op. cit., Finck memo of 3/11/69.
81 Ibid.
82 McKnight, p. 166.
83 See the web site JFKcountercoup, entry dated February 12, 2012.
84 Author’s 1991 interview with O’Connor in Dallas.
85 Except where noted, the above material about Finck’s appearance at the trial is from Finck’s testimony of February 24–25, 1969, Shaw trial transcript.
86 Biles, p. 151; Boswell’s ARRB testimony of February 26, 1996.
87 Boswell’s ARRB testimony of 2/26/96.
88 Ibid.
89 Ibid.
90 Ibid.
91 Probe, Vol. 3 No. 1, p. 13.
92 Two good discussions of Clark’s attempts to uphold the collapsing official story at this time are the essay by Gary Aguilar and Cyril Wecht in the book Trauma Room One, pps 214–26; and the discussion in Doug Horne’s book, Inside the ARRB, Vol. 1, pps.143–51.
93 Probe, Vol. 4 No. 4, p. 19.
94 Maryland State Medical Journal, March 1977.
95 Kirkwood, pp. 348–349.
96 Author’s 1994 interview with Irvin Dymond in New Orleans. For Appel’s story see the Shaw trial transcript of February 25, 1969.
97 Davy, p. 181.
98 The Habighorst episode is in Kirkwood, pp. 353–359; and Garrison, pp. 145, 159, 242–243.
99 Author’s 1992 phone interview with Habighorst’s widow, Elsie.
100 In Elsie Habighorst’s possession. She has sent the author samples.
101 Op. cit., Habighorst interview. Habighorst’s captain confirmed this.
102 Ibid.
103 Hurt, p. 275.
104 Op. cit., Habighorst interview.
105 Ibid.
106 Habighorst interview.
107 Habighorst was the kind of policeman who brought home stray animals and lost children; he would then make phone calls until he located the pet’s owners and the children’s parents. Letter from Habighorst’s daughter, Karla Kemp, to the author, February 27, 1992.
108 New Orleans Times–Picayune, February 20, 1969.
109 Ibid.
110 Ibid.
111 Author’s 1992 phone interview with Lou Ivon.
112 New Orleans Times–Picayune, February 20, 1969.
113 Ibid.; see also Garrison, p. 242.
114 New Orleans Times–Picayune, February 20, 1969.
115 Colloquy from New Orleans Times–Picayune, February 20, 1969.
116 Garrison, p. 242. Haggerty himself seemed confused by his decision. The day after he made it, when Alcock asked him to reconsider, he based his continued stance on Miranda, not Escobedo. Yet, the day before, when it was explained that Shaw had his rights read to him before Habighorst interviewed him, Haggerty seemed to base his ruling on Escobedo. See Kirkwood, p. 360.
117 New Orleans Times–Picayune, February 21, 1969. Habighorst took Haggerty’s rebuke hard. He could not understand why his word was being questioned. Within a year of the trial, he retired from the force, and became a private investigator. When his vision began to fail, he became a steamship dispatcher out of his home. In 1980, he died of a heart attack, aged 47.
When I asked William Wegmann about Judge Haggerty’s hostility to Habighorst’s testimony, he referred me to Irvin Dymond. When I took it up with Dymond, he told me Haggerty knew Habighorst because he grew up in the same neighborhood as the judge’s family. This is correct, but Haggerty may have made a grave error. Habighorst had two uncles who lived within two blocks of Haggerty. When they got in trouble, they asked Haggerty to bail them out. But Habighorst himself lived two miles from Haggerty and had no such history of run–ins with the law. Wegmann interview, February 18, 1992; Dymond interview, February 20, 1992; Elsie Habighorst interview, February 29, 1992.
Haggerty’s attitude is even more odd in light of the fact that he did not believe Shaw. In an interview he did for a New Orleans documentary filmmaker shortly before he died, Haggerty said he thought “Shaw lied through his teeth” at the trial, that he did “a con job on the jury.” The documentary, “He Must Have Something,” by Stephen Tyler, was broadcast on WLAE–TV, February 9, 1992.
118 New Orleans Times–Picayune, February 26, 1969; Popkin, “Garrison’s Case,” p. 20. By this time, Andrews had been willingly coopted by the defense. On the day he testified, he was accompanied to court by Phelan. (See photo, front page, New Orleans Times–Picayune, February 26, 1969.) It should be recalled that Andrews’s original testimony about the Bertrand call, as well as his saying he feared for his life if he revealed the information, were corroborated by three sources. He told it to Mark Lane before he told it to Garrison, and he told it to Anthony Summers after he had told it to Garrison. See Turner, “Inquest,” p. 24; Summers, p. 340. The fear explains why he would rather commit perjury than divulge Bertrand’s real name.
119 Kirkwood, p. 399.
120 New Orleans Times–Picayune, February 27,1969.
121 Ibid.
122 Ibid.
123 Ibid . Early in the trial, one of the Clinton witnesses, Henry Palmer, revealed that he had known Banister before the Clinton trip. When asked if Banister was with Ferrie and Oswald that day, Palmer said no. New Orleans Times–Picayune, February 7, 1969. Coupled with the sheriff’s testimony about his conversation with the driver of the car (see Chapter 3), can there be any doubt the third man was Shaw?
124 Kirkwood, p. 173.
125 Ibid., pp. 400–401
126 Marrs, p. 100.
127 Shaw’s testimony is from the trial transcript and New Orleans Times–Picayune, February 28, 1969.
128 New Orleans States–Item, February 28, 1969.
129 Kirkwood, p. 420.
130 New Orleans Times–Picayune, March 1, 1969.
131 Ibid.
132 Ibid.
133 Kirkwood, pp. 454–460.
134 New Orleans Times–Picayune, March 1, 1969.
135 Ibid.
136 Kirkwood, p. 462.
137 Probe, Vol. 5 No. 5, p. 34.
Chapter 14
1 For a partial listing of these witnesses, see Davy pps. 185–86, Biles, pps. 124–25, and Mellen pps. 320–21.
2 Biles, p. 120.
3 Ibid.
4 See the entry for this article at the Library of Congress for the Gurvich photo credit.
5 See Sullivan, The Bureau (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1979), p. 93.
6 CIA Memorandum of May 23, 1969.
7 Shaw vs. Garrison, US Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit, November 20, 1972.
8 Garrison, p. 253.
9 Probe, Vol. 4 No. 5, p. 13.
10 Ibid., p. 14.
11 Ibid., p. 15.
12 Ibid., p. 13.
13 Ibid., p. 15.
14 Ibid., p. 13.
15 Op. cit., Shaw v. Garrison.
16 Ibid.
17 Biles, p. 124.
18 Ibid.
19 Mellen, A Farewell to Justice, p. 334.
20 Garrison, p. 264.
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br /> 21 Mellen, op. cit., p. 335.
22 Garrison, p. 264.
23 Mellen, op. cit., p. 335.
24 Garrison, p. 258.
25 Vancouver Sun, May 24, 1972.
26 Tatro, Edgar, “The HSCA’s Birth: An Outsider’s View,” The Fourth Decade, Volume 1, Number 4, p. 4.
27 Ibid.
28 Ibid.
29 Dick Russell, On the Trail of the JFK Assassins, (Skyhorse Publishing: New York, 2008) p. 103.
30 Garrison, p. 259.
31 Ibid.
32 Mellen, op. cit., p. 336.
33 Garrison, p. 266.
34 Ibid, pp. 269–70.
35 New Orleans Times Picayune, September 23, 1973.
36 Garrison, p. 271.
37 Ibid.
38 Mellen, op. cit., p. 334.
39 DiEugenio, James. “Connick vs. Garrison: Round Three.” Probe, Vol. 2 No. 5, p. 3.
40 Ibid.
41 Ibid.
42 Ibid.
43 Ibid, p. 6.
44 Ibid, p. 3.
45 Ibid, p. 4. Luckily, after a protracted legal battle, the Review Board was able to get the Garrison files left in the office from Connick and into the National Archives.
46 Garrison, p. 271.
47 Russell, op, cit., p. 104.
48 Shaw versus Garrison, United States District Court, Eastern District of Louisiana, March 4, 1975. Since this was Christenberry’s court, the panel used his dismissal of the Shaw case as a characterization of Garrison’s investigation.
49 Letter from Weisberg to Joe Rault, January 7, 1973.
50 Robertson v. Wegmann, May 31, 1978, U.S. Supreme Court decision.
51 Ibid.
52 Author’s 1994 interview with Connick in his New Orleans office.
53 New Orleans States–Item, October 29, 1969.
54 Garrison, p. 146.
55 Mellen, op. cit., p. 236.
56 Post by Jim Marrs on November 1, 2005 at JFK Assassination Forum on the Spartacus web site. Marrs interviewed Copeland in the seventies while he was a reporter in Fort Worth. It is interesting to note that in the online edition of this essay at the Mae Brussell Archive, Copeland actually refers to the two men as being from the Customs Department and Bureau of Narcotics.
57 See Chapter 1 of the online version of the essay at Mae Brussell Archive.
58 Ibid.
Chapter 15
1 New Orleans States-Item, March 15, 1968.
2 DiEugenio, James. “The Sins of Robert Blakey: Part 1.” Probe, Vol. 5 No. 6, p. 13.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid., p. 14.