Reclaiming History (386 page)

^*
As far as Oswald’s palm print being found on the rifle, Stone shows a federal agent (presumably FBI) putting Oswald’s palm print on the rifle when Oswald’s body was at the morgue (see long endnote discussion).

†However, as Stone’s Garrison tells the audience, even if it was Oswald who killed Tippit, it was only because he realized he was being set up as a patsy. And therefore, in the audience’s mind, the killing was more in the nature of self-defense, and hence would not connect him to the assassination of Kennedy.

^*
I have no idea why sophisticated conspirators like the CIA, military-industrial complex, et cetera, would want so many killers and accomplices (ten to twelve) at the assassination scene, which would mean that not just one, but all ten or twelve would have to escape, thereby immeasurably increasing the likelihood of detection and apprehension.

^*
As we know, the Warren Commission and the HSCA, as well as all the many forensic pathologists who either conducted the autopsy on the president or studied the autopsy photos and X-rays of his wounds, concluded that only two shots hit the president, and both struck him from the rear. Stone, of course, doesn’t tell his audience any of this.

†The famous photo of Witt sitting on the edge of the grass on the north side of Elm, his feet on the sidewalk and a black man to his right, was taken shortly after the shooting in Dealey Plaza (4 HSCA 432–435, 441).

‡ Portions of the opened, black umbrella can be seen fairly clearly to the right of the Stemmons Freeway sign in the lower left part of Zapruder frames 223–228.

^*
We
can
thank Oliver Stone for some small favors. At least he didn’t put on screen the accusation by conspiracy theorist Robert B. Cutler in his 1975 self-published book,
The Umbrella Man
, that Witt’s umbrella actually had a sophisticated, battery-powered, rocket-launcher attachment that fired a fléchette (a small, steel dart) containing a paralyzing chemical into the president’s throat at Zapruder frame 183 (in a 1976 copyrighted diagram, Cutler changed the frame to 188) to neutralize him so that his head would be a stationary target during the shooting sequence by multiple assassins almost immediately thereafter. (4 HSCA 437; Benson,
Who’s Who in the JFK Assassination
, p.97) This is too much even for conspiracy author David Wrone, who writes, “How does one aim a miniature fléchette hidden in an umbrella and at right angles to the target without a sight?” (Wrone,
Zapruder Film
, p.100)

†Quite apart from the fact that there was no credible evidence that Shaw used the alias Clay Bertrand, as Shaw would later say, “For about 17 or 18 years I had been managing director of the International Trade Mart here [in New Orleans], and in that capacity I was in the public eye a great deal. I was on television quite often and my picture had been in the local papers. I attended many civic affairs, luncheons, meetings. In addition, I’m a highly recognizable fellow. I’m rather outsized—6 ft., 4 inches tall—and I have a shock of prematurely grey hair that is almost white. In a town of this size, where I had made perhaps 500 speeches and knew literally thousands of people, the idea that I would go around here trying to use an alias is utterly fantastic.” (“Clay Shaw,” p.31)

^*
At the Shaw trial, Eugene Davis testified that he had met Andrews at a gay bar in the Quarter around 1956 or 1957, and had known Andrews through the years. He testified he was never introduced to anyone as Clay Bertrand and had never used that name. Further, that he did not call nor have telephone contact with Andrews on the day of the assassination or any of the days immediately following the assassination. (FBI Record 124-10067-10035, FBI report of Eugene Davis’s testimony at Clay Shaw trial on February 27, 1969, gathered from the New Orleans
Times-Picayune
, February 28, 1969, p.2) At the grand jury proceedings in the Shaw case, Davis testified that Andrews had represented him on two legal matters, that he, Davis, had never had or used an alias, had never known or met Lee Harvey Oswald, had no idea who Clay Bertrand was, if there was such a person, and had “never, never” attended any gay wedding. Davis said he had two sons and a daughter with a wife who had “run off with somebody else.” At the end of his testimony, lamenting the fact that he had been dragged into the case with all the unfavorable publicity in the media, Davis said, “Whoever is using me as a black sheep, or whatever the thing is here, I sure would appreciate it, Mr. Garrison, if you would get to the bottom of this.” (Transcript of testimony of Eugene Davis before Orleans Parish grand jury, June 28, 1967, pp.1, 4–6, 9, 14, 19–20, 24–25)

^*
Indeed, Andrews told the grand jury that he had told Garrison personally that Shaw was not Bertrand. “I told the Jolly Green Giant [Garrison’s nickname] in Brennan’s [Broussard’s?] restaurant he wasn’t that.” Question: “You told Garrison that?” Answer: “Right. I told him that Clay Shaw was not Bertrand.” (Transcript of testimony of Dean Andrews before the Orleans Parish grand jury, June 28, 1967, p.12)

†Banister had been the special agent in charge of the Chicago office of the FBI in the late 1940s and early 1950s. After his retirement from the bureau in 1954 he moved to New Orleans and in the mid-1950s became the assistant superintendent of police with the New Orleans Police Department. In 1957, New Orleans mayor De Lesseps “Chep” Morrison fired Banister after he allegedly threatened a waiter at a New Orleans restaurant with his revolver. Shortly thereafter, he set up his own private detective agency in New Orleans, where he remained until his death from a heart attack in 1964. Although by all accounts he was sympathetic to right-wing causes, and stridently anti-Communist, Jim Garrison’s description of him as a “rigid exponent of law and order” probably defined who he was even better. That’s why he had index cards in his office not only on 27,000 Communists in the United States but also on members of the Nazi Party and Ku Klux Klan. (Garrison,
On the Trail of the Assassins
, p.2; HSCA Record 180-10072-10214, Interview of Joseph Newbrough Jr. by HSCA on April 10, 1978, p.1; 10 HSCA 126)

^*
In 1993, a photograph surfaced of a Civil Air Patrol (CAP) cookout in New Orleans, showing Ferrie and Oswald in it, though not anywhere near each other. At the time the photo was taken, sometime in 1955, Oswald, who joined the CAP briefly on July 27, 1955, was clearly a member of the group, but Ferrie, a pilot who had previously commanded the group, was not, having been expelled from it on December 31, 1954. However, he apparently continued to be associated with the group in an unofficial capacity, and the HSCA was unable to determine if Ferrie and Oswald actually knew each other in the CAP. (9 HSCA 103–115) With respect to Ferrie having no recollection of ever having met Oswald, even if Ferrie had met Oswald at a CAP meeting, as the owner of the photo, John Ciravolo, told author Patricia Lambert in a July 9, 1997, interview, “I’m in the picture [too], and I’m sure David Ferrie wouldn’t remember me, either” (Lambert,
False Witness
, p.61). Prior to the emergence of the photograph, the person most cited as putting Oswald and Ferrie together at the CAP in New Orleans was Edward Voebel, a high school friend of Oswald’s in New Orleans who got Oswald interested in the CAP unit. Voebel testified before the Warren Commission that Oswald only attended “two or three meetings” and then “lost interest.” Voebel said, “I think [Captain Ferrie] was there when Lee attended one of those meetings, but I’m not sure of that.” (8 H 14)

^*
For many at the time, the sudden and untimely death of Ferrie, just four days after he had been identified in the media as a target of Garrison’s investigation, seemed to confirm Garrison’s allegation that powerful, unknown forces were behind the assassination, forces that would never permit Garrison to peel away the layers to the truth. “He sure took a bad time to die,” Attorney General Ramsey Clark told President Johnson on the evening of Ferrie’s death (Tape-recorded conversation between Clark and LBJ at 6:40 p.m., February 22, 1967, in Holland,
Kennedy Assassination Tapes
, p.402). To a media that was becoming impatient with Garrison for his failure to provide substantive evidence of his startling charges, Ferrie’s death caused a heightened interest in the case. Maybe, the journalists thought, Garrison was on to something after all. The problem for Garrison was that, if we’re to believe him, with Ferrie’s death he had lost his main suspect in the Kennedy assassination. But Garrison was not about to let a little thing like death derail his determination to solve the assassination. Within three short days, he had a new chief suspect, Clay Shaw, and four days later, March 1, introduced Shaw to the world when he placed him under arrest for having conspired to murder Kennedy.

^*
Ferrie elaborated on the problem in an earlier interview with the FBI. He said he had been working as an investigator and law clerk for Gill since March of 1962. Martin began visiting him at Gill’s office, and because Gill didn’t want Martin “hanging around” his office, Ferrie admits he put Martin out of Gill’s office in an undiplomatic manner. Since that time, Ferrie said, Martin had been out to hurt him “in every manner possible,” including, finally, trying to connect him with the assassination. (CD 75, pp.287, 293, FBI interview of David Ferrie by SAs Ernest C. Wall Jr. and L. M. Shearer Jr. on November 25, 1963)

^*
I say “virtually” as opposed to “positively” because at a press conference on February 22, 1967, the coroner, Dr. Chetta, theorized the possibility of a link between Ferrie’s aneurysm and suicide if Ferrie ingested pills to kill himself and the pills induced such violent retching that it burst a blood vessel (
Los Angeles Times
, February 24, 1967, p.6). But this was before the negative toxicology report came out on February 24. On February 25, Chetta announced to the media that there was “no indication whatsoever of suicide or murder” in Ferrie’s death. (
Times-Picayune
[New Orleans], February 26, 1967; see also
Los Angeles Times
, February 24, 1967, pp.1, 6)

^*
But the person who Garrison says reignited his
interest
in investigating the assassination in the autumn of 1966 (and before he called Martin into his office) was the U.S. senator from Louisiana, Russell Long, whom he knew and whose father was Huey “Kingfish” Long, the most colorful and powerful politician in Louisiana history. In November of 1966, Garrison found himself, as noted earlier, seated on a plane next to Long on a flight from New Orleans to Washington, and when the subject turned to the Kennedy assassination, the senator expressed his doubts about the Warren Commission finding that Oswald had acted alone. He just didn’t believe that Oswald, using a cheap, bolt-action rifle with a defective scope, could have fired two out of three shots with deadly accuracy at a moving target. Someone else was also involved, Long told Garrison, who at that time had put the Kennedy assassination behind him. When Garrison asked Long who would have had a motive to kill Kennedy, Long replied, “I wouldn’t worry about motive until I find out if there appeared to be more than one gunman.” After returning to New Orleans, Garrison, who respected Long’s intelligence and stature, immediately ordered the entire set of Warren Commission volumes to study, and he was on his way. (Garrison,
On the Trail of the Assassins
, pp.13–15; Mann,
Legacy to Power
, pp.254–256;
Morning Advocate
[Baton Rouge], February 21, 1967)

^*
Assassination researcher Gus Russo believes that when the national office of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee denied Oswald’s request to set up a local chapter in New Orleans, he simply appropriated this address near where he worked to give the appearance of substance to his one-man operation (Russo,
Live by the Sword
, p.550 note 23).

^*
Even without Beverly Oliver’s admission, it appears obvious from the Babushka Lady photo that Oliver was not she. Photos of Oliver at the time show her to be a teenager of average weight. But even though one can’t see her face, the Babushka Lady gives every appearance of being heavier and much older, almost matronly.

^*
Beverly Oliver is so outrageous that in 1997 she contacted James Earl Ray’s lawyers with some explosive information. Ray, in Memphis, Tennessee, had been arguing that a mysterious and long-sought figure he had met by the name of “Raoul” was the mastermind behind the assassination of Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., and it was Raoul, not he, who had shot and killed King on April 4, 1968, in Memphis. (Ray pled guilty in 1969 and was sentenced to ninety-nine years in prison, but in later years tried to set aside his conviction on the ground that he was innocent and had been coerced into pleading guilty.) Oliver told Ray’s lawyers that at the time she met Oswald and Ferrie at Ruby’s nightclub, Raoul was with them. (Michael Dorman, “Prosecutors Probe Claims by Ray’s Lawyers about King Assassin,”
Newsday
, December 10, 1997, p.A24)

^*
Also historians agree that JFK and his brother RFK were of the same mind about virtually every issue pursued by the Kennedy administration. Indeed, as one author wrote, RFK was “his brother’s troubleshooter, lightning rod, spokesman, adviser, no-man [as in yes and no], eyes and ears (‘Little Brother Is Watching’), whiphand overseer of the FBI and CIA and [all of the] presidential wishes and thoughts that the President would not let himself be heard to speak” (Beschloss,
Crisis Years
, p.303). No one (except, perhaps, Oliver Stone’s X, who did not exist) was more aware of JFK’s disenchantment with the CIA over the Bay of Pigs than former CIA director Richard Helms, who was the CIA’s chief of operations at the time. In his memoirs, he writes that in the wake of the Bay of Pigs, “at the Agency [CIA] the impression was that Robert Kennedy…would serve as his brother’s vengeful hatchet man.” But Helms goes on to say that “whether it was the result of General [Maxwell] Taylor’s perceptive and levelheaded approach, the influence of Admiral Burke and Allen Dulles [JFK had appointed General Taylor to head the aforementioned executive inquiry as to why the Bay of Pigs invasion had failed, and Burke, chief of naval operations, and CIA Director Allen Dulles were on the committee], or his own findings, [Robert] Kennedy was to develop a more balanced view of the Agency than he had in the days after the collapse of the ZAPATA [code name for invasion] operation. In the weeks that followed, we were relieved to learn that he was a quick study. The two months of back-to-back interviews and briefings with the committee left Kennedy with an abiding interest in covert action and a measure of respect for the Agency.” Elsewhere, Helms, who worked very closely with RFK for over a year on Operation Mongoose, the administration’s effort to overthrow Castro, said about RFK, “
as always
speaking for his brother.” (Helms with Hood,
Look over My Shoulder
, pp.182, 205)