A Farewell to Justice Read online

  A FAREWELL

  TO JUSTICE

  Other Books by Joan Mellen

  The Great Game in Cuba: How the CIA Sabotaged Its Own Plot to Unseat Fidel Castro

  Our Man in Haiti: George de Mohrenschildt and the CIA In the Nightmare Republic

  A Farewell to Justice: Jim Garrison, JFK’s Assassination, and the Case That Should Have Changed History

  Jim Garrison: His Life and Times, The Early Years

  Hellman and Hammett: The Legendary Passion of Lillian Hellman and Dashiell Hammett

  Kay Boyle: Author of Herself

  Modern Times

  In the Realm of the Senses

  Seven Samurai

  Literary Masterpieces: One Hundred Years Of Solitude

  Literary Masters: Gabriel Garcia Márquez

  Literary Topics: Magic Realism

  Bob Knight: His Own Man

  Natural Tendencies: A Novel

  Privilege: The Enigma of Sasha Bruce

  The World of Luis Buñuel: Essays in Criticism

  Big Bad Wolves: Masculinity in the American Film

  The Waves At Genji’s Door: Japan Through Its Cinema

  Voices from the Japanese Cinema

  Women and Their Sexuality In The New Film

  Marilyn Monroe

  A Film Guide to “The Battle of Algiers”

  A FAREWELL

  TO JUSTICE

  Jim Garrison,

  JFK’s Assassination, and the Case

  That Should Have Changed History

  JOAN MELLEN

  Skyhorse Publishing

  Copyright © 2013 by Joan Mellen

  Originally published by Potomac Books, copyright © 2005 by Joan Mellen. The 2013 Skyhorse edition contains a new update and revisions throughout the original text written by the author.

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Skyhorse Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

  Skyhorse Publishing books may be purchased in bulk at special discounts for sales promotion, corporate gifts, fundraising, or educational purposes. Special editions can also be created to specifications. For details, contact the Special Sales Department, Skyhorse Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018 or [email protected].

  Skyhorse® and Skyhorse Publishing® are registered trademarks of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.®, a Delaware corporation.

  www.skyhorsepublishing.com

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

  ISBN: 978-1-6287-346-69

  Printed in the United States of America

  For Robert Buras

  “He has abandoned his life to understanding that moment in Dallas, the seven seconds that broke the back of the American century.” Don DeLillo, Libra

  CONTENTS

  Acknowledgments

  Preface

  Cast of Characters

  1 An Article in Esquire Magazine

  2 The Mafia, Sacred Cows, the Cupid Doll and a Spy Left Out in the Cold

  3 Clay Shaw Cosigns a Loan

  4 Oswald and Customs

  5 The Banister Menagerie

  6 More Evidence Denied to Jim Garrison

  7 Tiger by the Tail

  8 A Witness Comes Forward and Intrigue at the VIP Room

  9 An Operative in Action

  10 A Skittish Witness

  11 John F. Kennedy, Jim Garrison and the CIA

  12 “White Paper”

  13 Smoking Guns in a Rural Parish

  14 An Unsung Hero and the Do-Not-File File

  15 A Tale of Two Kings and Some Soldiers of Fortune

  16 Witnesses and Roustabouts

  17 Jackals for the CIA

  18 Upheaval

  19 State of Louisiana v. Clay Shaw

  20 Just Another Day at Tulane and Broad

  21 Potomac Two-Step

  22 The Death of Jim Garrison: Vale

  23 Rabbi

  Update: A Farewell to Justice Revisited

  Notes

  Annotated and Select Jim Garrison Biography

  Index

  About the Author

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  FOR HER COMMITMENT TO this project, I would like to thank most my agent, Ellen Levine. The platonic ideal of a literary agent, she has been a beacon of light and inspiration, no less of courage and integrity. I am grateful.

  Rick Russell, my editor at Potomac Books, Inc., has manifested an intellectual courage rare among publishers. For his confidence in this project, his resolute objectivity, and the broad range of his wisdom as a professional historian, I am also grateful. I would like to express my appreciation as well to Jehanne Moharram for her tireless efforts and ready imagination.

  Cory Allyn at Skyhorse Publishing was a magnificent editor.

  A very special thank you for his generosity and many kindnesses to Malcolm Blunt, that most brilliant navigator of the National Archives. James H. Lesar of the Assassination Archives and Research Center in Washington, DC, was a source of encouragement from the beginning to the end of this project. I’m grateful as well to Dan Alcorn for reading the manuscript and for his suggestions. Special gratitude goes as well to Teresa Neaves, who worked with Don Lee Keith on an investigation of the murder of Mary Sherman. The hospitality of Gordon Winslow in Miami is much appreciated. I am deeply grateful to Judge Louis P. Trent for his help.

  I owe as well special thanks to those who stood by with encouragement and support. When I looked up, they were there: Christopher Sharrett; Gary Aguilar; Larry Hancock; Andy Winiarczyk; Donald V. Organ and Joan Bovan Organ; Zachary Sklar; Peter Whitmey; Marlenę Mancuso; Gaeton Fonzi; and Stuart Wexler. And especially for his faith in this project, Lyon (“Snapper”) Garrison. A particular thank you goes to James Rubino, to Marianne Fisher-Giorlando, Gregory Parker, and Larry Haapanen.

  In New Orleans, Numa Bertel, John Volz and Robert Buras understood the nature of this task. For their patience, generosity and wisdom I am particularly grateful.

  And a special thanks to Dr. Frank and Cathy Martello.

  I am grateful to Temple University for its generosity in offering me a study leave and a summer research grant to complete this project; to Professor Robert Caserio, now the chair of the Department of English at Perm State University, for his help and interest; his departure is Temple’s overwhelming loss; to Professor Alan Singer, director of the graduate program in creative writing during the years of this project, for his generosity and friendship; to Marina Angel, professor at the Temple University School of Law, for her graciousness and the loan of her own research assistants who worked on Jim Garrison’s opinions for the Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Fourth Circuit; Professor Justin Vitiello did simultaneous translation from the Italian; Professor Emerita Maria Luisa Caputo-Mayr translated from the German.

  The transcendent liberality of spirit and open-mindedness of all these people are herewith acknowledged; if Jim Garrison had ever suffered public attack for his investigation of the murder of John F. Kennedy, you would not have known it from them.

  The following people contributed to my understanding of Jim Garrison, of Louisiana politics or of Jim Garrison’s investigation. I am grateful to them all: William Alford; Anselmo Aliegro; Joseph E. Allain; Mark Allen; Smiley Anders; Richard Angelico; Thomas Angers; Trent Angers; Edward I. Arthur; Gerald P. Aurillo; Michael H. Bagot; F. Lee Bailey; Peggie Baker; Wilma Baker; Judge Denis A. Barry; Herbert Barton; Alvin Beauboeuf; Eddie Becker; Tammy Beckham; Thomas Edward Beckham; Jack Benjamin; Sally Boyce Benjamin; Barbara
Bennett; Col. Esteban Benuvides; Pierre Bezou; Richard N. Billings; Gary Bizal; Christopher Blake; Don Bohning; Steve Bordelon; Isidro Borja; Joseph Bosco; Jeffrey Bowman; Carol Boyd; Edgar Eugene Bradley; Jim Bradshaw; Sheila Breaux; H. John Bremermann; Mickey Bremermann; Milton E. Brener; Tyler Bridges; the late Linda Brigette; Carlos Bringuier; Eric J. Brock; Betty Brown; Jordan Brown; Morris Brownlee; Vincent J. Bruno; Jay Bryant; Carl Bunch; Van H. Burns; Clay Calhoun; Debra Calhoun; Allen Campbell; Daniel Campbell; Martin Xavier Casey; Lawrence J. Centola Jr.; Loraine Chadwick; Patricia Chandler; the late Judge Lawrence Chehardy; Dan Christensen; John Ciravolo; Ramsey Clark; John Clemmer; the late Corrie Collins; James A. Comiskey; Raymond Comstock; Harry Connick; Dr. Dimitri L. Contostavlos; Jean Franco Corsini; Curtis Crafard; Edward Craford; Louis Crovetto; Jorge Navarro Custin; Martin F. Dardis; Howard K. Davis; Warren de Brueys; L. J. Delsa; Bill DeMar; the late Irene Dempsey; the late Jack Dempsey; Dr. Doug Desalles; Bernard Diedtrich; John J. Dolan; Michael Dolan; Julius N. Draznin; Thomas Duffy Jr.; Judge Adrian Duplantier; Clarence O. Dupuy; George Dureau; Judge Thomas A. Early Jr.; Paul Eberle; Lolis Elie; Samuel Exnicios; Wayne Fairchild; the late Mary Ferrell; Diane Fernandez; Silvio Fernandez; Phillip Foto; Alberto Antonio Fowler; George Fowler; Charles W. Frank Jr.; Donald Freed; Richard Gaille; Warren Garfunkel; Eberhard Garrison; Elizabeth Garrison; Jasper Garrison; Mrs. Liz Garrison; Max Gartenberg; Pat Gartenberg; Edwin H. Gebhardt; Seymour Gelber; the late Walter Gemeinhardt; Darrow Gervais; the late Vance Gilmer; K. Eric Gisleson; Earl Patton Gore; Fred Gore; Alvin Gottschaull; Morgan Goudeau; C. Jackson Grayson Jr.; Carla Grayson; Elizabeth Grayson; Lawrence Guchereau; Judge James C. Gulotta; Joy Gulotta; H. Jeremy Gunn; Edwin Guthman; David Halberstam; the late Walter Hammer; Margaret Palmer Harvey; John Haygood; the late Dr. Robert Heath; Bob Heller; Gerald Patrick Hemming; Sharon Herkes; Matt Herron; Don Howell; Mary Howell; Merryl Hudson; Mrs. Nora Ibert; Louis Ivon; Dr. Bernard Jacobs; Stephen Jaffe; Rosemary James; Steve Jennings; Roger E. Johnston Jr.; the late Don Lee Keith; Iris Kelso; Maxine Kemp; Angelo Kennedy; Arthur Kinoy; Phillip Kitchen; Burton Klein; Judge William F. Kline; Helen Kohlman; the late Herman Kohlman; Allen B. Kołtun; Louise Korns; Gail Kramer; Phyllis Kritikos; Irene Lacost; Elizabeth Landry; Rob Landry; Mark Lane; Jose Antonio Lanuza; Judge Rene Lehmann; Professor Henry Lesnick; Mary Lesnick; Dr. Harold Lief; Sheriff Elmer Litchfield; Marcie Ann Little; Judge Marcel Livaudais; William Livesay; Lt. Col. Lawrence E. Lowry; Irvin L. Magri Jr.; Scott Malone; Michael Marcades; Victor Marchetti; Ray Marcus; Vince Marino; David Marston; the late Layton Martens; Dr. Robert N. McClelland; Edwin Lea McGehee; Ray McGuire; the late Emory Carl McNabb; James McPherson; Lou Merhige; the late Frank Meloche; the late Gene Miller; Dr. Frank Minyard; Van Morgan; Jefferson Morley; Pat Morvant; Hugh Murray; Antonio Navarro; John Newman (New Orleans); Nicholas Noriea; Donold P. Norton; Gordon Novel; Joseph A. Oster; Lester Otillio Jr.; Dr. Martin Palmer; Salvatore Panzeca; Andy Partee; Jack Peebles; William Pepper; Paulette Perrien; Morris Phillips; Shawn Phillips; Rosemary Pillow; Joseph W. Pitts; Monique Poirrier; William Porteous, III; Bill Preston; the late Colonel L. Fletcher Prouty; Carlos Quiroga; Brucie Rafferty; John R. Rarick; Joseph Rault Jr.; Ellen Ray; Gary Raymond; Karlem (Ducky) Reiss; Dr. Randy Robertson; Suzanne Robbins; Dr. Luis Fernandez-Rocha; Rolando Masferrer Rojas; Clark Rowley; Juan Salvat; Verla Bell Sample; Martha Ann Samuel; Dr. Monroe Samuels; Stephanie Brett Samuel; Edward Sapir; James Savage; Jack Sawyer; Ross Scaccia; Russell J. Schonekas; Danielle Schott; Donald G. Scheuler; G. Harrison Scott; Dr. C. B. Scrignar; Mike Seghers; Julie Serera; Ralph Slovenko; Courtney Smith; the late Sergio Arcacha Smith; Sanford Socolow; Michael F. Starr; Oliver Stone; Jefferson Sulzer; Victoria Sulzer; Anthony Summers; Elizabeth Swanson; the late Joseph T. Sylvester Jr.; Robert K. Tanenbaum; John Tarver; Angie Teasdel; Jay Teasdel; Wilmer Thomas; Stuart Timmons; Mrs. Lillian Cohen Trent; Joseph J. Trento; William W. Turner; Stephen Tyler; Roland Wall; William Walter; Bruce Waltzer; Barbara Ward; Lenore Ward; Dr. Cyril Wecht; Ralph Whalen; Gus Weill; Judge Tom C. Wicker; Judge David R. M. Williams; Fred Williams; John D. Wilson; Christine Wiltz; Fritz Windhorst; Maj. Gen. Erbon W. Wise; Louis E. Wolfson; David Wolkowsky; Gaby Wood; Joyce Wood; Aline Woodside; Ross Yockey; Billy Zachary.

  For hospitality in the state of Louisiana, I am grateful to the late Dr. Frank Silva and Debbie Silva, whose rare kindness can never be repaid; to Anne Butler of the Butler-Greenwood Plantation; to Anne Hundley Dischler, for her great generosity to me; and in Los Angeles, to Shirley Magidson.

  I have been greatly helped by the historians who came before, some in large ways and some in small: Thank you everybody: Debra Conway; Stephen Roy; Jim DiEugenio; Gary Mack; Jim Marrs; Peter Dale Scott; Romney Stubbs; the late Harold Weisberg; Len Osanic; Martin Shackelford; Joe Biles; Michael Kurtz; Vincent Salandria; Gus Russo; Clayton Ogilvie; Kathy Strang; Steve Jones; John Kelin; the late Richard Popkin; Gary Shaw; Jim Olivier; Ed Sherry; with a special note of gratitude to Jerry Shinley. For his research help, I would also like to acknowledge Peter Vea, who worked tirelessly on behalf of this project. Julie Luongo was an able and committed assistant.

  These friends were there: Michael and Elena Wood; Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and C.R.S. Jhabvala; Judge Richard A. Posner; Dorothea Straus; Richard Kluger; and Alan Wilde.

  My former students helped out graciously: Adrian Khactu; Jeffrey Reichman; Andrew McCann; Rob Schmitt; Ian Flamm; Jimmy J. Pack; Jonathan Hall; and Ian Mount, who made the discovery at Tulane University that the FBI had come in and eviscerated the papers of Hale Boggs . . . and my gratitude to the dining group that drove out to the country: Hugh Rosen, Virginia Nalencz, Debra Leigh-Scott, Joanne Daume, and Jim Quinn. And a special thank you for her generosity of spirit and help to Sonia Vora.

  My gratitude to Martha Wagner Murphy of the JFK Collection of the National Archives: lucid, competent, always helpful, a superb research librarian. Thanks, too, to James R. Mathis for his courtesy and assistance.

  I am grateful always to the Mercer County Library, Hopewell Branch, for their courtesy and help, in particular to its director Ed Hoag, and to Hope Sulow.

  I am particularly grateful to Irene Wainwright at the Louisiana Division/ City Archives of the New Orleans Public Library; Pat Ferguson at LSU–Shreveport; Laura B. Street, archivist, Louisiana State University–Shreveport; Noel Library Archives; Louisiana State University Library, Special Collections: Emily Robison; Bruce Petronio, Mercer County Library, Lawrenceville Branch.

  The following librarians also offered generous assistance: Brian A. Stiglmeier of the Supreme Court of the United States library; William Meneray, Curator of Special Collections, Tulane University; Wayne Everard, Archivist, New Orleans Public Library; Alvin Bethard, University Libraries, University of Louisiana, Lafayette; Scott Taylor, Georgetown University Library; Professor Sarah Brown of Florida Atlantic University; Ann Kerr of the Mercer County Library, Lawrence Branch; First Lieutenant Larry D. Pool, Department of the Army, United States Army Field Artillery Training Center, Fort Sill, Oklahoma.

  Thanks to the staff at Fort Sill for their assistance. University of Iowa Special Collections: Ethel Bloesch and Kathy Hodson; Norelius Community Library, Dennison, Iowa; Doug Parker, photo librarian at the Times-Picayune newspaper; Mary Linn Wernet, Curator of Special Collections, Watson Memorial Library, Cammie G. Henry Research Center, Northwestern State University of Louisiana at Natchitoches; Bob Aquilina, historian, U.S. Marine Corps, Marine Corps Historical Center.

  Thanks, too, to the Florida Thoroughbred Breeders and Owners Association of Ocala, Florida.

  The late Lynn Pelham—one of the greats—was extraordinarily generous. The cover photograph is his work.

  No book on the Kennedy assassination can be written today without use of the records made available at the National Archives. All historians of this subject owe an enormous debt of gratitude to film director Oliver Stone for lobbying successfully, with passion and integrity, for these records to be made public. Were it not for Stone’s efforts, this book could not have been written, nor
would any of the books written after 1992 about this period of American history have been possible.

  The staff of the Windsor Court Hotel in New Orleans were kind to me in every way during my many visits. In particular, I would like to thank Jacqueline Doise for her unfailing courtesy and generosity.

  Had it not been for Ralph Schoenman, this book would not have come into being; his friendship, devotion and understanding have been without parallel.

  Special thanks to Tony Lyons at Skyhorse for his determination to reissue A Farewell to Justice. I am grateful.

  PREFACE

  I BEGAN WITH A BIOGRAPHY of Jim Garrison, flamboyant district attorney of Orleans Parish, Louisiana, a Don Quixote in a three-piece suit, and emerged with my own investigation into the murder of President John F. Kennedy. As a DA, Garrison was daring, a reform democrat and civil libertarian. What catapulted him onto the stage of history, however, was not his liberal approach to crime, but his discovery that the planning and a good part of the implementation of the assassination of the president occurred not in Dallas, Texas, but in Louisiana. The cover-up began in the tiny rural towns of Clinton and Jackson, north of Baton Rouge.

  The release in the 1990s of thousands of documents, most from the CIA and FBI, has established the truth of Garrison’s lone cry in the wilderness. To the moment of his death in 1992, Garrison was persuaded that the CIA, the same team that had overthrown President Arbenz of Guatemala in 1954, among them Lawrence Houston, Richard Helms and David Atlee Phillips, had planned the assassination, and then, with the assistance of the FBI, attempted to cover its traces, not always successfully. Kerry Thornley, the Marine Corps buddy of Lee Harvey Oswald, who told the Warren Commission that Oswald was a Marxist, turned out himself to have been a CIA employee trained, according to a CIA document, in Washington, D.C., in chemical and biological warfare.

  Garrison’s chief suspect, Clay Shaw, was a CIA operative, who, as a director of the Centro Mondiale Commerciale in Rome, joined fellow agents, like Ferenc Nagy, who since 1948 had worked for the CIA under the direction of Assistant Director of Central Intelligence, Frank Wisner. Despite his denials, Shaw knew Oswald’s mentor David Ferrie so well that he cosigned a loan for him a week before the assassination so that Ferrie could rent a plane and fly to Dallas. When Ferrie denied he had been in Dallas for eight to ten years, the FBI turned a blind eye to his well-documented acquaintance with Oswald. Ferrie was never called before the Warren Commission.