by Joan Mellen
The middleman between Sheridan and Gervais would be Zachary “Red” Strate, who had been convicted with Jimmy Hoffa of the illegal use of Teamster funds in the building of the New Orleans Fontainebleau Motor Hotel. If Strate would deliver Gervais, Sheridan promised, Strate’s Chicago conviction would be overturned. At their meeting at the Bourbon-Orleans Hotel, arranged by lawyer Edward Baldwin, Strate brought Malcolm O’Hara with him. Baldwin had lured O’Hara to this conference by explaining the purpose of Sheridan’s documentary: it “was to end the problem, destroy Garrison or get him to resign.”
“I am here in New Orleans representing Robert Kennedy,” Sheridan said, “and I have been sent down here to stop the probe, no matter what it takes.” He needed Gervais to make Perry Russo change his story, a story the Shaw defense obviously believed. When Strate informed Gervais of Sheridan’s attempt to bribe him, Pershing suggested they “go see Garrison right away and tell him.”
In Chicago, Strate took the stand and testified to Sheridan’s attempt to bribe him. Represented by Herbert J. Miller Jr., Sheridan lied, denying that he had ever attempted to bribe Strate. Once more he escaped censure.
Jim Garrison had become aware that the FBI knew too much about his investigation. That his telephones were tapped was a continuing irritation. “Joe, I’d be glad to talk to you,” he told CBS correspondent Joe Wershba, “if only we could get the number one faggot in Washington off my line.” One day the FBI received a call from someone trying to reach Jim Garrison. “Mr. Garrison informed us that if we could not reach him at home,” the man said, “he could be reached through the sound room of the FBI.” Russell Long told Cartha DeLoach that Garrison did not mind so much the FBI tapping his wires. But they had also tapped the wires of his girlfriend!
“That’s a damned lie!” Deke sputtered. The FBI now had between ten and fifteen agents following Jim Garrison’s investigators, and Hoover was supposedly sending a daily report on the Garrison investigation to Lyndon Johnson, a fact Warren de Brueys believes entirely possible.
Sheridan assigned Gordon Novel as an operative inside Garrison’s office. Novel garnered the assignment to “debug” the offices at Tulane and Broad with the help of Truth and Consequences backer, Willard Robertson. When Garrison complained that the FBI was tapping his phones, Robertson, who had known Novel since he was a wild Metairie teenager, proposed that the problem be solved by this young “electronics expert.”
Novel was already an FBI informant when he signed on with Sheridan, informing the Bureau of the details of the robbery at the Schlumberger ammunition dump. He did not mention to the FBI his later contention that Guy Banister had provided him with a key to the bunker, even as Novel’s former wife, Marlenę Mancuso, who was present, reports that the bunker locks had been removed with bolt cutters; no key was needed.
“Bob thinks this is a fraud,” Sheridan told Novel when he enlisted him. Novel’s first question to Sheridan had been, “Who do you represent, Mr. Kennedy or NBC?” Novel was to claim that Sheridan hired him as his “chief of security,” a role he later pretended Garrison had also given him. He would be a triple agent, Novel smiled to himself, working for the FBI, for Sheridan, and for Garrison.
Novel reported to the FBI the day he entered Garrison’s office. “In five days” Garrison planned to arrest David Ferrie, Novel said. The next day, February 22nd, the day of Ferrie’s death, Novel told the FBI that Garrison was persuaded that Clay Shaw was Clay Bertrand. He informed to the FBI on the 23rd as well. With the help of Novel, the FBI was now monitoring every Garrison lead. “Find the loop holes so we can plug them!” Hoover ordered. “Compared to the FBI, the Mafia look like altar boys,” Novel concluded.
A man named “Luis Angel Castillo” was arrested on March 2nd in the Philippines in connection with an assassination plot against President Ferdinand Marcos. Castillo testified he had been “programmed” to kill a man riding in an open car in Dallas on November 22, 1963. Already fully informed about Garrison’s case, the FBI ordered that, under hypnosis, Castillo be asked about a list of names, all from the Garrison case: David Ferrie, Layton Martens, Alvin Beaubouef, Lillie Mae McMaines [Sandra Moffett], Perry Russo and Clay Shaw.
“David Ferrie” drew an extreme physical reaction; Castillo seemed to know “Lillie McMaines” as a party girl. The CIA located Castillo’s 201 file in its Far East Division. What is to be noted is not whether Castillo had great value as a Kennedy assassination suspect, but that the FBI took seriously the names of Garrison’s witnesses, that they were in the Bureau’s early possession, and that they were being used in FBI interrogations as valid leads.
Ever talkative, in the short time before Garrison banished Novel, Garrison mentioned in his presence that he was exploring whether Carlos Marcello was connected with Jack Ruby. He planned to bring Marcello before the Orleans Parish grand jury, Garrison confided to Novel. Novel then reported to the FBI that Garrison planned to indict Marcello.
Novel stole Garrison’s office memos, including copies of lie detector tests administered to witnesses, and handed them over to Walter Sheridan. He gave Sheridan tape recordings of meetings he attended with Garrison and his staff, his expertise in taping second to none.
Novel gave Sheridan tapes of conversations between Garrison and Willard Robertson. He supplied Sheridan with the list of Garrison’s Truth and Consequences supporters. The FBI then sent letters to the members of Truth and Consequences, accusing Garrison of being a schizophrenic and a homosexual. Aaron Kohn requested that Dr. Lief declare that Garrison was a “paranoid schizophrenic . . . obsessed with fear of his own active or latent homosexuality, coupled with the use of his prosecutive power in an attempt to destroy homosexuals.”
Jim Garrison had obtained a photograph of a laundry truck that he thought might resemble the one used at Houma, and was perhaps utilized in Dallas. He showed it to Novel, who sold it to Sheridan for five hundred dollars. That night, Sheridan not only told William Gurvich that Novel had sold him this photograph, but also that he had been meeting with Novel on a regular basis. Gurvich, ever anxious to secure his position with Garrison, reported to his boss and the “chief of security” was seen no more at Tulane and Broad.
“You’re going to be investigated,” a friend of one of Shaw’s lawyers told Marlenę Mancuso. She would look “bad” unless she talked to Sheridan. Richard Townley found Mancuso on May 18, 1967, working as a cashier in the French Quarter at Lucky Pierre’s. “If you do a taped interview with us, we’ll show you in a good light,” Townley said. “We’re going to destroy Jim Garrison. Everybody is going down.” Mancuso was to state for the “White Paper” that Garrison had coerced her into giving testimony on the Schlumberger ammunition dump raid.
“You’re the one who’s trying to coerce me,” Mancuso said. A friend of Novel named Gerry Munday then called Mancuso. He didn’t want to see her hurt “or face federal perjury charges,” Munday said. Finally, Walter Sheridan appeared in person at Lucky Pierre’s.
“You might as well talk to us now,” Sheridan began. If Mancuso would denounce Garrison, he would get her a job on “The Tonight Show.” Mancuso was a former Miss New Orleans, dark-haired, sultry and very beautiful. The offer was not far-fetched.
“He’s going down the drain and you’re going with him,” the pint-sized Ness said in Mafia-speak. He demanded to know why she had hired G. Wray Gill. Didn’t she realize he was Carlos Marcello’s lawyer? Garrison violated people’s civil rights, Sheridan said, although the truth was that Garrison had violated no one’s rights. It was Walter Sheridan who trampled persistently on the Bill of Rights.
At 6 A.M. Mancuso set off for home, with Sheridan dogging her footsteps. They arrived at the St. Louis Cathedral on Jackson Square. “I want to go inside and say a little prayer,” Sheridan said. His hypocrisy, Mancuso thought, was “stifling.”
Another day, Sheridan and Townley showed up at Mancuso’s home. They were looking for Gordon Novel, they said. “I have rights too,” Mancuso said to Bobby’s man. “If you
don’t get out, you could get killed,” Townley told Mancuso on the telephone the next day.
“I can’t take the harassment anymore,” Mancuso finally told Jim Garrison. “They’re trying to destroy you and I’m not going to be part of anything like that.”
“Would you mind signing a statement?” Garrison said.
“That’s why I’m here,” Mancuso said. She swore out an affidavit accusing Sheridan of attempting to bribe her to change her testimony and to coerce her into appearing on his program. In contrast, she says, Garrison and Lou Ivon behaved “like gentlemen.”
Sheridan worked on other Garrison witnesses. He paid Jules Ricco Kimble five hundred dollars for information about the papers and tapes Jack Helms had taken from Ferrie’s apartment. Kimble should stop talking to Garrison and hide out in Canada where he would be “safe,” Sheridan advised. Sheridan enlisted an FBI agent named Clement Hood to tell Kimble that if Garrison subpoenaed him, Hood would help him in exchange for Kimble’s full cooperation with Sheridan now.
Sheridan tried to enlist police officer Fred Williams, who had been a Garrison investigator. He handed Williams a PT-109 tie clasp. This was nice, Williams thought, but he didn’t trust Sheridan. If Jim had nothing, why were these strong efforts being made against him? (In later years, disgusted with the false promises of the Kennedy’s, Sergio Arcacha Smith would give away his P-T 109 souvenir to author Gus Russo.)
Nina Sulzer, whose husband Jefferson was a close friend of Clay Shaw, was a social worker at Orleans Parish Prison. “You’re on the wrong team,” she told Vernon Bundy on Sheridan’s behalf. “What are they doing for you?” she said, referring to Garrison’s office.
“There’s nobody doing nothing for me,” Bundy said. Then he turned his back on Sulzer.
Jack Martin also refused to have anything to do with Sheridan, accusing him of “extortion.”
“If you say it was a hoax that’s all we need from you,” Townley coaxed. “I hear you’re gonna blast Marcello,” Martin replied, fishing. Then Townley, on tape, told Jack Martin what Sheridan had admitted: the Marcellos had nothing to do with the assassination.
“I’m not the guy you think I am,” Martin said, as of course he was not.
“Walter’s still working for the CIA,” Martin told Townley, “and you’re being paid by them whether you know it or not.” Martin had a last word for Aaron Kohn as well: “Why don’t you quit working for the CIA?”
Sheridan’s primary target was Perry Russo. James Phelan, an “excellent pipeline,” Townley thought, had begged Russo to agree to a private meeting with Clay Shaw, without letting Russo know that Walter Sheridan would also attend. Russo had turned him down. Phelan continued to work on Russo for Sheridan while Richard Townley paid Russo three separate visits, putting on what Russo was to term “a tremendous amount of pressure.”
“Shaw is innocent,” Townley told Russo. Then he threatened that the Shaw lawyers would prove Russo was a drug addict and he would be “ruined for life.” If Russo would only admit that his testimony had been “doctored,” Irvin Dymond would not slander his character.
“I want you to understand something right off the bat,” Sheridan said when he met Perry Russo. “I think you’re making up some of this, that you’re lying. I think you dreamed up some of it and I think the D.A. shoved some stuff in your head.”
“Well, you’re entitled to your opinion,” Russo said.
“When did you first mention the party?” Sheridan demanded, moving into Phelan’s strategy involving the Sciambra memos.
“To Sciambra. In Baton Rouge . . . that was the basic reason Sciambra wanted me to come to New Orleans that Monday. There was no other reason for me to come down. Just because I knew Ferrie was not enough reason. . . .” Russo said.
“We’re going to take Garrison out of this,” Sheridan said, unfazed. “We can’t allow this to go any further. Garrison is going to jail and you’re going to jail.”
When Russo grew weary, Sheridan laid out his plan. Russo was to go to Biloxi, Mississippi, out of Garrison’s jurisdiction. Shaw would be at a motel where they would talk. Then, with the cameras rolling, Russo would go outside and state that he had never before met Clay Shaw, or anybody named Oswald. He had never heard anything about the shooting of the president back in the summer of 1963. He had very little contact with Ferrie, who was “crazy.”
“You might be able to save yourself. We’re getting Garrison. He’s done with. We’ll finish him off,” Sheridan said onto Russo’s tape.
When Sheridan asked Russo where he would most like to live, Russo named Los Angeles. Sheridan then promised him a monthly check for five years, and a fake job. He need not fear extradition. Part of Sheridan’s assignment was to see to it that no state governor extradited a witness for Garrison. When Richard Helms asked his assistant, Thomas Karamessines, “Are we giving that guy down there all the help he needs?” he was referring, in part, to Sheridan’s efforts on behalf of Clay Shaw, who told friends like Jefferson Sulzer how much the CIA was helping his defense team.
On June 21st, Russo signed an affidavit against Phelan, Townley and Sheridan. All three had offered him attorneys if only he would say that he had lied, while a “high official of NBC” would get him a job in California. In this document, Russo reiterates his testimony that he had heard Ferrie, “Clem Bertrand” and “Leon” Oswald discussing the assassination of President Kennedy.
Sheridan made good on one threat: In October 1968, Time magazine printed that Russo was a “known drug addict.” Russo sued and won; Time paid him $15,000. In two more attempts to slander Russo, the FBI was told he was a “known homosexual,” who frequented the 100 block of Royal setting up “chickens”; a homosexual named Elmer Renfroe, working with the Shaw defense, claimed to have attended “the wedding of David Ferrie and Perry Russo.”
In 1990, Jim Garrison was offered one last corroboration of Russo’s testimony. A former Shaw lover called to say that Garrison had been “absolutely correct” in charting Shaw and Ferrie’s involvement in President Kennedy’s assassination. He had heard them both “saying things no American should ever say.” He had valued his relationship with Shaw and so remained silent. This source also believed that Ferrie had been murdered because he had talked too much.
Sheridan’s “White Paper” was aired on June 19, 1967. Years later, disturbed by this and so many press attacks, Garrison’s children would ask how he could bear it. “What do you expect from a pig but a grunt?” Garrison told his eldest son, Jasper.
Gordon Novel could not appear since, when Jim Garrison filed a material witness warrant against him, he fled the jurisdiction, alighting in McLean, Virginia, “lair of the CIA,” as Garrison put it. There Novel took a lie detector test in the presence of Walter Sheridan, administered by a former Army intelligence officer and CIA contact, Lloyd B. Furr. Knowing the questions in advance, Novel passed. Then Novel flew to Columbus, Ohio. The FBI could always reach him through Walter Sheridan, he told them. “I was doing everything in my power to destroy Jim Garrison,” Novel admits.
In Ohio, Novel entertained members of the Shaw defense team, whom he told that Garrison’s staff had written Ferrie’s ” notes.” Among Novel’s scams was the forgery of a letter to a “Mr. Weiss,” supposedly proof that Novel was with the CIA. Weiss, Novel claims, was “a high security official, in charge of the State Department Intelligence and Security Division.” “That was cute,” Novel says. The States-Item reported that he was a CIA operative.
Other of Novel’s mischievous actions included filing a damage suit against Jim Garrison and Truth and Consequences because Garrison had “ruined his reputation as a man of honesty, honor and probity.” Judge James A. Comiskey ruled that Novel had to return to New Orleans to pursue the lawsuit. Later Novel filed a libel suit against Garrison and Playboy, based on Garrison’s mentioning him in his Playboy interview, a suit Novel claimed was financed by the White House. At CIA Counter Intelligence, The Rock stated for the record: it was NBC and Sheridan who w
ere “supporting and financing Novel.”
When Jim Garrison tried to extradite Novel, Walter Sheridan telephoned Ohio governor Rhodes and invoked national security. It was Deke himself who had decided that Novel not be extradited. “It would be deplorable if the Department of Justice and the FBI had to be of assistance to Garrison,” DeLoach said. Hoover scribbled onto Deke’s memo to Clyde Tolson, “I certainly agree.”
Some of Sheridan’s “White Paper” is devoted to challenging Perry Russo’s contention that the real Lee Harvey Oswald was present at Ferrie’s gathering. On camera, Layton Martens claims that “Leon” was really James Lewallen, no matter that Lewallen was well over six feet tall. When Russo’s friend, Lefty Peterson, says he doesn’t remember the name of Ferrie’s roommate, Sheridan prompts him: “Could it have been Jim?” Martens adds his persistent lie that Ferrie admired President Kennedy.
Martens under oath had denied having been present at the Schlumberger robbery, or that he had ever met Novel, or Juan Valdes. On April 5th, Martens had been indicted for perjury; Garrison termed it “arrogant perjury.” Martens was to admit for Sheridan another of his lies to Jack Martin: there had been no “letters of marque” from Robert Kennedy to David Ferrie and himself, only an ordinary letter. On the “White Paper,” Sheridan, of course, does not mention that Martens had been indicted.
Dean Andrews appears, pale and sweating profusely. He could have invented the names “Manuel García Gonzalez” and “Richard Davis,” he says, although off camera he had admitted to Sheridan that they were real people. On the air, Sheridan keeps only Andrews’ line, “If it is the Manuel García Gonzalez that I told him, he has got the right ta-ta, but the wrong ho-ho.” On the unedited tape, Sheridan asks, “You made them up?” and Andrews replies, “Fags use aliases as females use make-up.”
Jim Garrison had persisted in attempting to extract the real identity of “Clay Bertrand” from Andrews. Protesting, Andrews insisted they had a deal: if only Andrews would just reply, “I don’t know if he is, and I don’t know if he isn’t,” Garrison would back off. He wouldn’t.
