Destiny Betrayed: JFK, Cuba, & the Garrison Case

by DiEugenio, James

  Walter then revealed how the FBI tried to cover their role in this, and at the same time, after numerous pleas, to help Shaw’s lawyers. He said that originally the technical surveillance was done by Wackenhut on assignment for Aaron Kohn of the Metropolitan Crime Commission. Since Kohn was in alliance with the Wegmanns, some of this material had to be passed on to them. But Walter clarified this by saying that this Kohn/Wackenhut bonding was just a thin cover. (Kohn could be trusted since he had worked for the FBI in their fingerprint division.) Because all the conversations were monitored in the FBI’s Technical Surveillance Room, the transcripts of Garrison’s calls were typed in the FBI office, and these full file documents were kept in the office filing cabinets.30 That was quite a lawsuit Garrison could have filed.

  We have just described how Walter told Lou Ivon that the FBI at times just completely eliminated the testimony of a witness. And we have seen in the previous chapter how Ricardo Davis told Harold Weisberg the FBI had shown him a photo of Clay Shaw the day after the assassination, a report that Weisberg could not find. Well, in the wake of Garrison’s investigation, Hoover also tried to deny any reports made by the witnesses in Clinton or Jackson. Even though Reeves Morgan said he had called the Baton Rouge office of the Bureau after the assassination. Garrison’s office tried to get in contact with the agent there, a man named Elmer Litchfield. Andrew Sciambra wrote him letters. There was no reply. Alcock and Sciambra went to his office. He would not meet with them. In February of 1968, Sciambra wrote Hoover himself about the call by Morgan, and if the FBI had any reports about Oswald in the Clinton-Jackson area, Hoover referred him to the Warren Report and the 26 volumes. Years later, the FBI agent revealed that he and a cohort had driven by the Clinton Court House days after the assassination. The colleague said to him, “That must be where that guy thought he saw Oswald.”31 And in fact, an FBI agent was dispatched to the hospital in Jackson to check on Oswald’s visit there.32

  Loran Hall: “Play This if I’m Killed”

  In a future chapter we will discuss the crucial Sylvia Odio incident. For now, we can say that when the Warren Commission asked the FBI to either prove or disprove that this incident had occurred, Hoover manufactured a fairy tale that fell apart upon the slightest examination. Hoover said that Odio had been visited by three men, but none of them was Oswald. The trio was made up of William Seymour, Lawrence Howard of Marydale Farms, and a man named Loran Hall.33 This was simply not true, and Seymour was not a ringer for Oswald. As he had to have been according to Odio’s testimony.34 Further, the Commission had the FBI documents in hand that disproved their own fanciful thesis, before the Hearings and Exhibits were published.35 Yet these documents were not included in the volumes.

  It is true that all three men were involved in anti-Castro Cuban exile activities prior to the assassination. And, in fact, Hall had been arrested during a south Florida raid as part of Kennedy’s crackdown on exile activities against Cuba in 1963.36 Howard was exceptionally fanatical. He told the HSCA’s L. J. Delsa that if the government asked him to swim to Cuba to kill Castro, he would do it. He said this with a loaded revolver on the table in front of him.37 Garrison called Hall in for questioning. Afterwards he issued a statement that said Hall was not connected with the events in Dallas on November 22, 1963. He then added that “it is equally apparent that other individuals and agencies caused Mr. Hall’s name to be injected into exhibits of the Warren Commission and into other statements so that any effort to investigate the assassination would cause his name to appear.”38 This would seem to indicate that it was Hoover who did this.

  At the time of the Garrison investigation, there is very little doubt that Hall did not want to go to New Orleans at first. Hall was involved with three men at this time: Richard Billings of Time-Life, Jerry Cohen of the LA Times; and Art Kunkin of the LA Free Press. The first two were invariably critical of Garrison almost from the start. Even though Billings had cooperated with Garrison for a few months late in 1966 and early in 1967. But when Garrison indicted Shaw, the Time-Life inquiry began to noticeably cool. What else could have happened with both Aynesworth and Shaw’s friend Holland McCombs as part of the team? The interesting part of the LA Times coverage was this: On the editorial board at the time was Ed Guthman. Guthman worked for Robert Kennedy’s Justice Department in 1963 as the Public Relations officer. Later on, he would be part of Bobby’s final campaign for the Democratic nomination for the presidency. During that campaign, Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis in April of 1968. In Los Angeles, in June of 1968, at the Ambassador Hotel, RFK was shot and later died. This was the last of the major assassinations of the sixties. The trial of Clay Shaw did not take place until over seven months later. Therefore, Guthman was in a position to do something about what was happening to America at the time.

  When the news first broke about Garrison’s inquiry, the first LA Times reporter in New Orleans was Atlanta based Jack Nelson. Since one of Nelson’s specialties was the FBI beat, he naturally gravitated to former FBI employee Aaron Kohn. Who, as we have seen, was helping Walter Sheridan tamper with a witness—Fred Leemans—by coercing him to lie on camera. The result of Nelson’s conversation with Kohn was predictable. For Nelson then told writer Eugene Sheehan that he thought Garrison had concocted a “hoax,” and he was “exploiting all the doubts about the [Warren] Commission.” He then told Sheehan how surprised Kohn was that Garrison would let himself get caught up in such a “bush league play.” Nelson then made a highly revealing comment that speaks reams about the mainstream press and its reaction to the four major assassinations of the sixties: “You know how these things go. Every time somebody dies, this kind of thing feeds on itself.” In other words, it didn’t matter to Nelson how unusual the actual circumstances of Kennedy’s death were. And he apparently didn’t care to read the already published books of Mark Lane or Harold Weisberg which delineated just how suspicious those circumstances were. For Nelson there was nothing more unusual about Kennedy’s death than there was about, say, Franklin Roosevelt’s.

  While Nelson was being plied by Kohn in New Orleans, Jerry Cohen was on the beat in Los Angeles. He was joined by Lawrence Schiller. There have been literally scores of pages declassified on Schiller, mostly by the FBI. It is not at all an exaggeration to say that Schiller acted almost as a quasi-FBI agent for the Bureau on the Kennedy assassination. In 1967 he co-authored a book called The Scavengers and Critics of the Warren Report. This book had an accompanying album with it. Both works heaped ridicule on the critics of the Commission. But in true undercover agent fashion, Schiller never revealed to the critics he interviewed—such as Weisberg, Lane, and Sylvia Meagher—what his intent was when he interviewed them for the book.39 One of his favorite spying targets for the Bureau was Mark Lane. He spent a lot of time and effort tracking down Lane’s informants for the Bureau. In one FBI interview he did on this subject, he explained himself as an “advocate of viewpoint of [the] Warren Commission and is opposed to ‘irresponsible journalism’ of writers such as Lane.”40

  When Garrison was trying to bring Loran Hall back to New Orleans for an interview, he sent investigator Steve Jaffe to Los Angeles to try and get him to show up voluntarily. It took awhile for Jaffe to find Hall. And in a hand printed note he wrote to Jim Rose, he told the former CIA agent he was being tailed.41 When Jaffe tracked Hall down he asked him why he was reluctant to be interviewed by the DA. Hall replied that he had been visited by Cohen and Schiller the night before. They both told him he would be charged with contempt or perjury and thrown in jail for five years if he visited New Orleans. They also told him “Garrison was some kind of nut” and urged him not to go to New Orleans under any circumstances.42 Schiller even went to the FBI to track down the agent who had interviewed Hall about the Odio incident back in 1964.43 Schiller kept informing the FBI of his efforts, along with Cohen, to keep Hall away from Garrison. He also told them that he would co-write a negative article with Cohen about Garrison’s attempts to get Hall back to New Orle
ans. He asked the Bureau for help in showing Garrison had no case against Hall and that he was “grasping at straws.”44 What is notable about this is that, to this author’s knowledge, Schiller did not work for the LA Times at that time. Just how close did Schiller keep the LA Times on Hall’s tail? When Hall flew to Sacramento to talk to Ronald Reagan’s Attorney General Edwin Meese, Cohen went with him. He even paid for the trip.45

  Hall was very worried at first about going to New Orleans. He claimed there had been two attempts on his life at the time. One was done by poison and one was by sabotaging the steering mechanism on his car.46 In fact, he was so worried about his untimely death that he created a tape recording in case he was killed. He turned this tape over to Art Kunkin. Kunkin was the creator, publisher, and editor of the LA Free Press. This was one of the very few papers which treated Garrison favorably. Kunkin told the author this was an old reel to reel tape, and Hall met with Kunkin privately at his home to give it to him. Hall gave Kunkin strict instructions. He was only to play the tape in case Hall met an untimely death under suspicious circumstances: a one car accident. He was then to publicize the transcript in his paper. When the author met Kunkin in the nineties, he asked the editor what he did with the tape.47 Kunkin said that since Hall did not die at the time, he never played it. The author replied, “I would have played it for myself that night just to know what was on it.” Kunkin was then asked where the tape was now. Kunkin said he thought he still had it in his attic. A mutual acquaintance then spent an afternoon looking through his attic in an attempt to find the potentially explosive tape. To no avail.

  There is one more culminating fact that needs to be noted about this sorry tale concerning a frightened Hall, FBI asset Schiller, the compromised Cohen, the spoon-fed Jack Nelson, and RFK aide Ed Guthman. While Guthman was a chief editor of the LA Times at this time, he actually visited with Garrison ever so briefly in March of 1967.48 He then helped coordinate the Times coverage of the DA. Which, as we can see with Schiller and Cohen, was so biased as to be worthless. When this author wrote to him about this in 1993 and asked him why it all seemed so one-sided, he sent a note back. He stated that the Times had a few experienced reporters covering the Garrison case. He conferred with them. They then decided “that there was no substance to Garrison’s charges.”49 The former editor was very likely being disingenuous. Or the years had clouded his memory. Because this is not accurate. And Guthman apparently knew it at the time. There is an interesting revelation about Guthman in Richard Billings’s journal about his involvement with Garrison’s inquiry. He writes there that the prolific FBI informant Lawrence Schiller, who worked so hard with Guthman’s newspaper, had garnered some interesting information about Guthman and Warren Commission counsel Wesley Liebeler. Namely this: Guthman had told Liebeler it had been known for two months that Clay Shaw and Clay Bertrand were the same man.50 Which was one of the central tenets of Garrison’s case. So much for Guthman’s faux statement about there being “no substance to Garrison’s charges.” This is how compromised the mainstream press was on the issue. Even when they knew better, they said the opposite. In one of the LA Times anti-Garrison’s editorials, the closing line was, “Whatever the outcome, the press will not be muzzled in its search for the truth in New Orleans.”51 As we have just seen, they most certainly were. But it took thirty years to find out about it.

  The Garrison Group

  The fact that Garrison would not go away, even after being bludgeoned in public, made his enemies ratchet up the weaponry in the war against him. At the same time, Shaw’s lawyers kept on trying to get direct help from Washington. This is perhaps due to the Wegmanns understanding who Guy Banister really was and what he was doing in New Orleans, therefore understanding that certain agencies in Washington had a lot to lose in this case. In September of 1967, Irvin Dymond and Ed Wegmann had a meeting with Nathaniel Kossack of the Criminal Division of the Justice Department. (Kossack was another previous acquaintance of Walter Sheridan through RFK’s Get Hoffa team.52) The two lawyers impressed upon Kossack that if Shaw was convicted, the Warren Commission would be completely discredited and confidence in the American government would be undermined throughout the world. They were shocked that Washington could let a DA in a medium-sized city do such a thing. Further, even after Sheridan’s special, Garrison’s approval ratings were still sky high in the state. They then concluded by saying that the DA was “a dangerous, irresponsible man” and he had to be stopped.53 Wegmann and Dymond wanted investigative assistance and cooperation. And they listed specific requests for information on Oswald, Ruby, and CIA files on Ferrie, Novel, their own client Shaw, and even themselves! (In the last chapter we will see why this was necessary.) They also wanted a formal investigation of Perry Russo in order to shake him up psychologically.54 Two copies of this memo went to CIA General Counsel Lawrence Houston. In the second one, Kossack said that it seemed clear to him that Shaw had not told his lawyers of his own long involvement with the Agency. When Hunter Leake and Lloyd Ray of the New Orleans CIA station heard of this, they found it hard to believe that Shaw could be this secretive with his own defense team.55

  Houston had been talking with Justice even earlier than this September meeting about their Garrison problem. Houston told Justice Department lawyers Kossack and Carl Belcher that they should carefully consider what to do about their mutual problem at their regular Wednesday morning meeting.56 Right around the time of the Kossack meeting, September 21, 1967, two things happened. First, an internal memo went out suggesting that 1.) Director Richard Helms get the White House and Congress to attack Garrison in public, and 2.) CIA should have selected communications smear Garrison’s case and his motives. In relation to this, one week later, Donovan Pratt of Jim Angleton’s staff is suggesting using their press contacts to plant negative editorials in newspapers.57

  The second thing that happened at this time occurred the day before Dymond and Wegmann appeared in Kossack’s office to plead for help. There was a meeting of something called the Garrison Group. Chief Counsel Houston was there, as was Ray Rocca of Angleton’s staff. (Rocca was Angleton’s specialist on the Warren Commission and Jim Garrison.) And there were at least six other high level officers in attendance. They included the Director of Security, and Thomas Karamessines, the Deputy Director of Plans. Karamessines was commonly known as one of Helms’s most trusted colleagues. Thus it was quite logical he was there since the meeting was called at Helms’s request.58 Helms wanted the group to “consider the possible implications for the Agency” of what Garrison was doing in “New Orleans before, during, and after the trial of Clay Shaw” (italics added). It is crucial to keep in mind that phrase: before, during, and after. As we will see, the effective administrator Helms was thinking not just of some short term fix, but of formulating a strategy for the long haul. According to the very sketchy memo about this meeting, Houston discussed his dealings with the Justice Department and the desire of Shaw’s defense to meet with the CIA directly. Rocca then said something quite ominous. He said that he felt “that Garrison would indeed obtain a conviction of Shaw for conspiring to assassinate President Kennedy.”59 This must have had some impact on the meeting. Since everyone must have known that Rocca had developed, by far, the largest database on Garrison’s inquiry at CIA. Perhaps in the world. To say it was voluminous does not even begin to describe its scope and size.60 After this, it was decided that actions should be decided upon for performance before the trial, and then during and after the trial. This memo states that this was the first meeting of this group.61

  The second meeting took place six days later. The same people were in attendance, with the addition of Donovan Pratt of Angleton’s staff. The problem of the Agency’s long history of contact with Cuban groups was posed, in that these groups could be implicated by Garrison.62 Karamessines, speaking for Helms, said the Director needed some legal help since, although he wanted to fight, he also wanted to know how CIA could get in trouble in its quest to counter Garrison.


  The third memorandum on this group’s activities is confusing. First, the members of the meeting are not listed. Second, there is mention of a “policy meeting” held on the twenty-seventh, the day after the previous meeting. But there is no noting of what occurred at that meeting. Third, in the version this author has, there are still redactions—censored material—in this memorandum. Not just of what happened at the meeting, but even of who was there. Third, this memo is even shorter and sketchier than the first one. Finally, the title of “Garrison Group” is not on the memo. It is just titled “Garrison Investigation.”63 There is no real way to quantify what happened with this group. Except to add that Victor Marchetti, who eventually became Helms’s executive assistant, stated that these discussions were eventually taken off the record and into certain offices.64 As we will see, that does seem to have been the case.