Destiny Betrayed: JFK, Cuba, & the Garrison Case

by DiEugenio, James

  Brothers Samuel and Hugh Exnicios were New Orleans attorneys involved in the controversy surrounding the Shaw prosecution. Hugh represented Al Beaubouef—one of Ferrie’s companions on his Texas trip the day of the assassination—and later, Gordon Novel. Samuel represented a man named Woodrow Hardy. Hardy worked for Clay Shaw. He supervised many of his French Quarter real estate renovations. By 1963, he had worked for Shaw for many years. For so long that he had his own key to his house. One day in that fateful summer of 1963, Hardy slipped his key in the patio door and walked in to see Shaw, Ferrie, and Oswald talking away. Shaw did not exchange pleasantries. Nor did he talk shop. He got up and escorted Hardy outside, making it clear he was preoccupied.203 Reading that brother Hugh was involved in the Shaw case, Woodrow decided to tell his lawyer, Samuel, about the incident. But he was too afraid to come forward with the information at the time.

  Garrison did get an anonymous letter about Hardy. It said that Hardy had seen many Cubans visiting Shaw. Including Emilio Santana, the man with Sergio Arcacha Smith and Rose Cheramie on the way to Dallas four days before the assassination.204 But Garrison could not follow up on the letter. Which would have been interesting since before fleeing New Orleans, Santana, who worked for both Clay Shaw—and also the CIA’s Clandestine Services from 1960–63—had told Garrison that Shaw had been to Havana with Jack Ruby in 1959. They were there on a gun-smuggling mission. Santana said both men were involved in Cuban exile activities,205 which is something that is certain today.

  The Reverend Clyde Johnson was a rightwing extremist who ran for Governor of Louisiana in the sixties. He was also a vociferous and vehement critic of President Kennedy, especially over his Cuba policies. In 1963, while running his campaign, he was paged at the Roosevelt Hotel. Johnson placed this in either July or August. A man calling himself Alton Bernard met him in the lobby. Bernard told him that he had seen him on TV a few times and encouraged him to continue with his anti-Kennedy diatribes. He completely agreed that Kennedy had betrayed the Cubans at the Bay of Pigs. To show his appreciation, and his possible future value, Bernard gave the extremist 2,000 dollars. Bernard stayed in phone contact with Johnson, each time appreciative of his torching of Kennedy.

  The two met again in September in Baton Rouge at the Capitol House Hotel. When Bernard arrived he was with a young man named Leon. A kind of grubby, unshaven, unkempt version of Oswald. (As we shall see, this Leon, is similar to the one Perry Russo recalled at David Ferrie’s.) The two visitors were soon joined by a mysterious Cuban and a man known simply as Jack. The candidate left the room to go to the bathroom. He heard a discussion going on about “getting” someone. Bernard chimed in with words to the effect that others were working on this too. At first, Johnson thought they were talking about him. But, as he grew apprehensive and fearful, he then heard someone say something like, he has to come down from Washington, since the pressure is on. When Johnson came out, Jack said, pointing at him, “What about him?” Bernard said, “That’s alright. He’s one of my boys.” The candidate would identify Jack as Jack Ruby, Leon as Lee Oswald, and Alton Bernard as Clay Shaw.206 Johnon’s story was partly corroborated by his running mate Edward McMillan. McMillan recalled a post-election celebration in January of 1964. Johnson was staying at the Monteleone Hotel and among the crowd in Johnson’s room was Clay Shaw.207 One of the more fascinating things in what is left of Garrison’s file on Johnson is an address book found by the candidate which identifies Clay Bertrand as “Lay Out Man” in August of 1963. It also has the name of Jack Rubion, Dallas, Texas.208 As William Davy notes, we will never know if Johnson was genuine or not. As we shall see, a sorry fate, little different than others in the Garrison case, awaited him.

  In February of 1967, Perry Russo was a young insurance salesman living in Baton Rouge. He had also been a former friend of David Ferrie. Russo had written to Garrison when he became aware of his investigation, but the letter was never delivered. Russo then gave interviews to both a local TV station and a reporter from the Baton Rouge State-Times.209 When the interviews appeared, Garrison immediately sent Andrew Sciambra, a young assistant DA, to take a deposition from Russo in Baton Rouge. Russo said he had known Ferrie fairly well and had attended a gathering at Ferrie’s apartment in mid-September of 1963.210 He revealed that, late in the evening, after most had left, he, Ferrie, two of Ferrie’s friends, and several Cuban exiles remained. Russo had brought two friends to Ferrie’s that night, Sandra Moffett and Niles Peterson. Both left early, but Peterson later remembered a man named Leon Oswald.211 By the time the discussion took place, both of Russo’s friends were gone. Almost everyone else had left except Ferrie, Leon Oswald, and a tall, distinguished, white-haired man named Clem Bertrand.

  The group, reported Russo, discussed Cuban-American politics and everyone expressed their distaste for both Castro and Kennedy. Then, the assassination of Fidel Castro was raised, but Bertrand noted that there would be a real problem getting at him inside Cuba.

  Around this time the Cubans left, and only Ferrie, Oswald, Bertrand, and Russo remained. Ferrie continued the conversation saying that if they could not get at Castro, they certainly had access to Kennedy. Russo said this was characteristic of Ferrie. Since he had known him, Ferrie had become more and more embittered at the President. Russo had no liking for Kennedy either. He was a Republican and a Goldwater supporter. Joined by their stated hatred of JFK, the men now turned to the details of a plot to do away with him.

  Ferrie became intense. Pacing the floor, he expostulated on the way to do it: In a “triangulation of crossfire”—shooting at Kennedy from three directions. Ferrie insisted this would ensure that one of the shots would be fatal. As Ferrie became more excited and voluble, Bertrand remained calm, smoking, and added, coolly, that if it happened, they had to be away from the scene. Ferrie said he would be at Southeastern Louisiana campus in Hammond. Bertrand said he would be on a business trip to the West Coast.

  Russo realized that the discussion had now transcended the hypothetical. They were talking about where they would be when it occurred. Indeed, on his way back from Texas the weekend of the assassination, Ferrie did go see a friend at the university in Hammond. And on November 22, Shaw did have a speaking engagement in San Francisco.

  Ferrie kept on talking about a triangulated crossfire. But Russo was now tired and his memory weak. Ferrie drove him home that night.

  When Sciambra showed Russo a photo of Clay Shaw, he identified him as Clem Bertrand. When shown photos of Oswald, Russo could not positively identify him. But when artists drew in renditions with whiskers, Russo made a positive ID.212

  Garrison now thought he had a sufficient case to go forward. But not satisfied with Russo’s memory, he decided to subject him to the tests of hypnosis and the so-called truth serum. Sodium Pentothal tests are not allowed in court but prosecutors often use them to check and corroborate testimony. Dr. Nicholas Chetta, the Orleans Parish Coroner, administered the Sodium Pentothal. Dr. Esmond Fatter, an expert in hypnosis and memory, coordinated the questioning.

  The story held up to Garrison’s satisfaction. Here was finally a gestalt that made sense. A group at the operational level—the Cuban exiles—with real reasons to want Kennedy dead. A group at the organizational level—the CIA—with resources and experience to plan and execute such an operation. Both had access to the kind of marksmen necessary to pull off the lethal, military-style ambush in Dealey Plaza. From this perspective, Oswald’s odd associations with people like DeMohrenschildt, the Paines, and Ferrie fit in. So did the call from “Bertrand,” and Ruby’s final, culminating murder.

  What Garrison did not know that this was as good as it was going to get. This was the peak of his inquiry. From this point on, his investigation would be a long toboggan slide toward ruination. The seeds of destruction had already been sown.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Inferno

  “Certain elements of the mass media have an active interest in preventing this case from ever coming to trial at all a
nd find it necessary to employ against me every smear device in the book.”

  —Jim Garrison, Playboy, October, 1967

  The conventional view of the beginning of the end of Garrison’s Kennedy investigation is usually dated from February 17, 1967. On that day, the New Orleans States-Item published a story headlined, “DA Here Launches Full JFK Death Plot Probe,” by a young reporter, Rosemary James. The story described how Garrison had funded his secret investigation through judicially approved vouchers from his fines and fees account. The vouchers included trips to Florida, Washington, San Francisco and Texas. James described this as “pouring out-of-the-ordinary sums of money into a probe of a possible assassination plot.” Since the probe had been secret, a fact that James treated as scandalous, there was no indication of what the DA and his small staff had achieved with the minuscule 8,000 dollar expenditure.

  Rosemary James maintained that she had shown the story to the DA before publication, and he had read part of it before responding with a “No comment.” A tale which Garrison strongly disputed.1 And his response to the newspaper and its reporter—locking them out of a press conference—would surely indicate his anger at the disclosure. James never revealed what had provoked her to begin looking through the vouchers. She later remarked in a book that there were rumors around town that Garrison was working on something big. She never got more specific than that. It turns out that James was blowing smoke about what really provoked the story.

  Jack Dempsey KOs Rosemary James

  At the time of that story, James was a young reporter who focused on maritime stories based upon New Orleans’s importance as a port city. Meanwhile, Jack Dempsey was a veteran local reporter who usually covered the police beat and the court system. On January 23, 1967—over three weeks before the James story appeared on the front page—Dempsey had written a short notice in his States Item column entitled “On the Police Beat.” It read as follows: “Did you know? At least five persons have been questioned by the District Attorney’s office in connection with another investigation into events linked to the Kennedy assassination.” From his courthouse beat, Dempsey had discovered sources who knew that Garrison was calling in witnesses about the Kennedy assassination. But because the story was so brief and because, unlike James, the modest and mild-mannered Dempsey was not out to make a name for himself, this initial exposure of Garrison’s inquiry remained essentially unnoticed until the debut of Steven Tyler’s documentary He Must Have Something in 1991. In that film, Dempsey briefly discussed this issue. His memory differed markedly from James’, who was also in the film. So when the author journeyed to New Orleans in 1994, he made it a point to look up Dempsey. That interview, building on the snippets in Tyler’s film, undermines and rewrites the standard reports about this issue.

  Rosemary James was asked to come into the story by her editors only after Demspey’s original story had run. The paper was planning to build on Dempsey’s original discovery, but did not want to include Dempsey in that follow-up. One insight into why is his reply to a question by the author about his original brief notice in January. The question concerned if he got any feedback to the first story. He slowly shook his head from side to side: “Did I get feedback?” He stopped his head movement and repeated, “Did I get feedback?” He then proceeded to tell the author about an experience that was a little scary for him. When Garrison discovered the short notice, he called Dempsey into his office. He was obviously beside himself. He understood what this would do to his investigation. He wanted to know who had tipped him off. And he threatened to take Dempsey before the grand jury to find out who his sources were. Dempsey, who was very guarded on that issue, told the DA that he could not reveal that information. Further, if he was placed on the stand, he would not answer any questions. Garrison said that doing that would result in a contempt of court charge and a jail term. Dempsey replied with words to the effect that if that was the price he had to pay, then his children’s friends could begin calling their father a jailbird.2 Although Dempsey was trying to put up a brave front, it was clear to the author that the reporter felt Garrison was actually going to call him before the grand jury. Dempsey left the meeting with no clear indication of what the DA was going to do. But the States-Item was determined to unmask Garrison’s inquiry. Realizing Dempsey was in trouble already, they gave the young woman the unenviable assignment of getting Garrison’s comment before the longer story was to run. In Tyler’s film, James gives her usual rendition of what Garrison said when she asked him about the story. She says that he replied with an emotionless, “No Comment.” Meaning to her that this was a winking approval to print the story. When Dempsey comes on screen, we understand what actually happened. And it's consistent with what the DA did to him. He says that when James returned from Garrison’s office she said that the angry DA had asked her, “Who wrote this garbage?” Garrison then continued by calling the story completely false and that they would be “in trouble” if it ran. And what Garrison did after, is also consistent with Dempsey’s version. Garrison was so angered that he went through a three-stage reaction to the James story. First, he issued a statement denying the story, saying it was based on rumor.3 Then he swore at the press, before bursting out with, “I don’t have to explain trips to any newspaper.”4 By February 20, he could deny the story no longer and called a press conference to detail how the story had already hindered his investigation. “[W]e were making progress until the newspapers revealed a number of details.” He added that he did not plan to make the probe public “until the time came to make arrests.”5 All of the above demonstrates that James seems to have been less than honest about her “no comment” remark. And her subsequent tale about Garrison actually wanting her to run with the story, thereby implying he wanted publicity for his probe, is rendered absurd by Garrison’s confrontation with Dempsey. But that meant nothing to the States-Item. The next day they made explicit what James was implying. They wanted to know what Garrison had uncovered, “or is he merely saving some interesting new information which will gain for him exposure in a national magazine.”

  Besides falsely picturing the DA as an ambitious and self-centered publicity seeker, the story now caused the klieg lights of the national media to descend upon New Orleans. As the second States-Item article revealed, the local media was not going to be in the DA’s corner on this issue. And since the national media had bought into the Warren Report hook, line, and sinker, they were not going to be an easy sell either. At this point, an upper class envoy was sent to meet Garrison in an attempt to guide the DA to guard his own self-interests. The envoy had likely been briefed since he knew more about Garrison’s inquiry than had been printed in the papers up to that point. In his book, Garrison disguises this person under the false name of John Miller.6 But he does reveal his proper profession, a wealthy Denver oil man. His real name was John King. And his agenda was to first flatter the DA for his achievements, and then to essentially tell him that whatever he had done to that point had been high tide for him. It would all be downhill now that the media was on to him. With that dire prognostication in front of him—which happened to be accurate—King now magnanimously offered an escape passage to the DA. He offered him a lifetime appointment to the federal bench. As stated, it appears that King had been briefed about Garrison’s inquiry. He had not been briefed about Garrison the man. As Governor McKeithen had found out, Garrison was not interested in a high-paying, cushy job over being an active DA. If he had, he would have accepted McKeithen’s previous offers. And once Garrison was onto the Kennedy case, as Bill Alford’s previous anecdote shows, he was totally committed to it. Whatever the personal price would be. And it turned out to be quite large. So Garrison told King what he later said to Playboy and to McKeithen: Nothing was going to divert him from his Kennedy investigation.7

  The Last Days of David Ferrie

  Ferrie had been placed under surveillance by Garrison in late 1966, and cameras had been fixed outside his apartment to record his comings and goings. A
change had come over Ferrie. Two changes, to be exact. The first had come right after the assassination. In late November 1963, Ferrie dropped out of sight for awhile and seemed directionless. He quit his job with Banister and the two parted ways. This may have been because he was the only one of the group to be questioned by the FBI and the District Attorney.

  In his own mind, according to what he told Lou Ivon, the next casualty of the story was Ferrie. He had become an emotional wreck, existing on coffee, cigarettes, and tranquilizers. His behavior toward Garrison was mercurial. Sometimes he would call and ask how the investigation was proceeding. Other times, he would tell him that he was now a marked man. But after Ferrie read the Rosemary James story, he now called Ivon and spoke rather prophetically: “You know what this news story does to me, don’t you? I’m a dead man. From here on, believe me, I’m a dead man.” When Ivon tried to reassure him that he was overreacting, Ferrie replied “You’ll find out soon enough. You’ll see.”8 He then tried a desperate two-track system. He leaked the story about his involvement in the probe to several reporters and, the day the story broke, Ferrie began to denounce Garrison to any reporter who would listen. He called the inquiry a “big joke,” and said that he had been tagged “as the getaway pilot in a wild plot” to kill the President.9 Ferrie seemed to be doing a good job in promoting his cause and deflating Garrison. Washington Post national security reporter George Lardner, Jr., referred to Ferrie as “an intelligent, well-versed guy on a broad range of subjects.”10