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Home , David Ferrie, Perry Russo

SUNDAY, APRIL 2, 1967 Seeking Truth in In the Middle of the Night

anti a --conspiracy" mat so sar seems iv me permission to use it . . . He saw By George Lardner Jr. defy the cast. the act and he said, 'Use the couch' ...". Washington Post Staff Writer A public official with a literary bent, She was convicted nevertheless, but "The sun was shining on the sea, Garrison, 45, insists that he has been Garrison said prison for Miss Brigette Shining with all his might; able to make sense of it all. All you would be unfair for "an unjustly con- He did his very. best to make have to do, he has said, is know how victed mother of small children" and The billows smooth and bright— won her a governor's pardon despite was odd, because it was to peer "Through the Looking Glass." And this He has been straining his eyes day the Crime Commission's loud protests. The middle of the night." It was around the same time that —Through the Looking Glass and night and he has made the world sit up and take notice. Garrison told a reporter that he was N NEW ORLEANS, it is still the Before his election in 1962, Garrison "disgusted with politics" and intended I middle of the night. District Attor- was known at the Orleans Parish court- to quit. At one point in the interview, ney 's baroque investiga- house as an assistant DA with a fond- reported in the magazine New Orleans, tion into the assassination of President ness for arriving at noon and quitting Garrison grumbled that he never even Kennedy continues. And no one, not at 2, but since then he has made a got any credit for cleaning up Bourbon even Garrison, who claims to have career of assailing politicians and Street. found the truth even as he looks for it, the press, and coming out on top. "You must be getting paranoiac about knows when or where it will end. He ridiculed the criminal court it," the interviewer joked, pointing out Thus far, a civic leader has been in- judges as "sacred cows," attacked the that Garrison had gotten plenty of pub- dicted for conspiracy, an attorney has police for "brutality" and before long, licity for the erstwhile crusade. been accused of perjury, a minister's Jim Garrison, who always admired the "Paranoiac! Paranoiac?" Garrison dimpled wife has been arrested as a late Huey Long, was undisputed • king- said, bristling, and called his chief as- sistant, Charles Ward, into material witness and a peripatetic fish in a grimy stone courthouse where the office on night club operator wanted for ques- DAs before him had come and gone the double. "Do I get credit? Am I para- , tioning has been shouting that it is all with astonishing rapidity. noiac?" he demanded of Ward. a monstx ous fraud. But last September, Garrison sudden- Ward assured his boss that he wasn't paranoiac. - ly found his image sagging in -a public JIM GARRISON brawl with the prestigious New Orleans It took only a month for Garrison With a booming voice to match his Crime Commission over a buxom to perk up again. "Me quit?" he said 6-foot-7 frame, Garrison claims to have Bourbon Street stripper named Linda in October. "Oh, no. People are talking traced the President's death to a series Brigette. about me running for governor. If Mc- Miss Brigette had twice been con- Keithen's second-term bid fails, I'm a of plots concocted in a world of homo- possibility." sexuals, Cuban freedom fighters and victed of obscene and lewd behavior for her gyrations on a couch (at her For reasons beSt known to himself, assorted screwballs. second trial, when asked if she was it was also in October that the District It is a cast that defies credibility, still using the couch, she testified Attorney decided that'' the "truth" sweetly, "Yes sir, Jim Garrison gave about the assassination remained un- told by the Warren Commission but was still within his grasp. To Jim Garrison, crumble. r•errie's trip (to and there are no such things as questions Galveston) was checked out thoroughly. that can't be answered or problems The FBI traced the rumors to Jack S. that can't be resolved. Martin, 51, sometime private detective and courthouse hanger-on who had DAVID W. FERRIE known Ferrie for several years and Among the first to be called to an- even reportedly ordained Ferrie into swer was the late David W. Ferrie, a an obscure and dissident Catholic sect vain, nervous pilot who launched a (Martin was a bishop). career of instability as a dropout from The Secret Service reported that a Catholic seminary where his supe- Martin had "every appearance of being riors decided he was too much of "a an alcoholic" and added that he ad- paradox" for the priesthood. mitted calling Garrison's office with his Dismissed from Eastern Airlines in tales during a drinking spree. March, 1963, be-cause of a record of Secret Service agents also said that homosexual arrests, Ferrie had been Garrison's men, even then, were reluc- interrogated shortly after the assassina- tant to. share their information and tion by Garrison's men, the Secret sought to shield the identity of in- Service and the FBI. formant Martin. (Also known as Ed- Employed as a private investigator ward Stewart Suggs, Martin has told by attorneys for reputed Mafia kingpin at least one acquaintance that a mur- , Ferrie had been sitting der charge was lodged against him in outside a Federal courtroom in New in 1952 and later dropped.) Orleans awaiting the outcome of the PATRICK L MARTENS Ferrie turned himself in for question- ing at Garrison's office. Booked with case against Marcello (acquittal) until him on charges fabricated to hold them several hours after the assassination in were Beauboeuf, Who recently inherited Dallas. Ferrie's possessions, and Patrick Lay- Then he left for With two of ton Martens, now 25, who had moved his always present, always changing in as Ferrier's roommate five days young companions, Alvin R. Beauboeuf, before the assassination. then 18, and Melvin Coffey, then A cellist in his senior year at South- about 26. western State University now, Martens told investigators then The three didn't go near Dallas, but that he knew of no association between during their absence, authorities be- Ferrie and Oswald. Last week, Martens gan receiving a wild array of second- was subpoenaed before the Orleans hand reports about Ferrie: that he Parish grand jury at Garrison's behest, knew Lee Harvey Oswald and trained but apparently with no different re- him to shoot, that he may have hypno- sults. tized. Oswald, that he may have been For his part, Ferrie acknowledged to stationed in Dallas as a "getaway pilot" the FBI in 1983 that he had been sharp- for a presidential assassin. ly critical of President Kennedy for the failure of the and In the confused aftermath of the that he might have stated on occasion assassination, it must have sounded that Mr. Kennedy "ought to be shot" good. Ferrie was a pilot. He had played around with hypnotism for years. Hi . But he said he never meant that it knew how to handle a rifle (although ,, should actually be done, a qualifier that seems believable enough in light not, he insisted to the FBI, a telescopic out- sight). of Ferris's lifetime history of And for years, he had been active rageous talk and pitiful performance. in units, some report (He once was linked with an outfit edly counterfeit, where he could serve called the Omntpotents, a teen-age club as a molder of young men. Oswald was with the avowed purpose of planning briefly a member of the CAP in New an invasion of ; on other occasions, Ferrie is known to have suggested, ap- Orleans in 1955, although Ferrie said ntly with a straight face, raids on he never met him; adding shortly be- pare fore his death that Oswald was In a Castro's shipping lanes in a homemade submarine equipped with foot pedals different unit. Even before Ferrie got back to New and bombing Cuba with drone planes from the safety of a mother ship with Orleans, Secret Service agents in Dallas none other than in the were alerted about him as they were pilot's seat.) questioning Marina Oswald. Over the phone, it came across as "Ferry.'" Did she know "Mr. Ferry?" She said she didn't. JACK S. MARTIN From there on, the reports began to The FBI is understood to have in- terviewed 19 persons about Ferrie. It suiciae of . one of history's most impor- tant individuals," and calmly suggested failed to turn up any positive sign that there were more to come. Oswald and Ferris knew each other. Ferrie's greatest worry, apparently, The Government concluded that Ferrie stemmed from his deep-seated and oft- had nothing to do with the assassins- en-expressed conviction that justice was lion and closed the books, in the not to be found in a courthouse. This process excluding from the public feeling stood out in a bitter note found in his apartment, typed in a mood of record some 55 pages sprinkled with depression, but no one knows when. rumors and allegations about Ferrie's "When I was a boy," Ferrie said, "my homosexual tendencies. father preached you were innocent Summoned again after Garrison until proven guilty. (There is) no great- started his investigation last fall, Petrie er lie. A man on trial has flat got to found himself quizzed once more about prove his innocence. Truth and false- his activities in 1963. "I was the first hood, right and wrong have no place' one they questioned," he said in an in the courts. All the state needs is !, interview with me shortly before his evidence to support a conviction. If death. "It was Martin's list they were this is justice, then justice be damned." using." Two days later, with newsmen pour- ing into town, Garrison outdid himself DAVID F. LEWIS by announcing to the world that the Garrison has scoffed at suggestions assassination had been "solved beyond that he would rely on Martin's informa- any shadow of a doubt" Oswald, the tion. But it seems clear that this, plus DA declared to. a French newsman, the paperback attacks on the Warren was "a decoy, a victim and a fall guy." Commiasion, is largely what he started And, Garrison said to reporters who out with. Associated with Martin is piled into an elevator with him; "It's David F. Lewis, a flappy-tongued my personal belief that Oswald did not freight handler who once worked as kill anyone that day in Dallas." •a private detective in the Guy Bannis- At the news conference, 'Garrison ter Detective Agency. In downtown New also allowed that "Life magazine has Orleans where Martin used to hang helped me in several instances" during his hat as a private detective. the investigation, although he said it Ferrie and various Cubans are said would be unfair to single out Life for to have met there and elsewhere to special mention since other news media talks of various anti-Castro schemes. had helped, too. Despite reports by both the FBI and the Secret Service that he recanted, Martin still insists that Ferrie knew Oswald. Lewis has chimed in that he knew Oswald, too. The DA, however, has assiduously sought to avoid identification with the Martin and Lewis team. Nor has he made any recent reference to Miguel Silva Torres, a 26-year-old Cuban who was serving three concurrent nine-year terms for burglary in Angola State Prison until Garrison had him moved to the Orleans Parish Prison Jan. 80 in connection with his investigation. Torres once lived a block from Oswald's old New Orleans address on Magazine Street, but what he may have told Gar- . rison remains unknown. Instead, the District Attorney has been grasping for new leads, searching for "proof" that might perhaps be more satisfying in a courtroom. . The death of Ferris Feb. 22 propelled the search. A failure but not without- sparks of brilliance, Ferrie saw himself as standing in the investigation's way, JACK RUBY LEE'HARVEY OSWALD a bar, if he played it right, to what he . . . His deed set the stage. . . . Was he hypnotized? felt was a "witchhunt." Ferrie died at 49 of a cerebral hemorrhage, perhaps brought on by stress, the coroner ruled and the police agreed. Undaunted, Garrison called it the He denied any plans to announce his findings in a magazine article, although the New Orleans States-Item subse- quently said that it was his original tuai ox umana salesman, got out of intention to do so, under his own byline, the car and knocked, bringing Shaw until news of the investigation spilled to the door. Russo said. It was "Clem out Bertrand." Shaw, a 54-year-old bachelor and All of that was on Feb. 24. Not until socialite who pioneered the 33-story the next day did Garrison's men meet International Trade Mart in New Or their star, witness, in Baton Rouge: leans, was subpoenaed to Garrison's Perry Russo, 25, insurance salesman office the next day, March 1. His ques- and college graduate. tioners, according to friends of Shaw, Once under psychiatric care for un- did not advise. hini of his rights. Shaw specified problems, Russo learned of got the message before long. Garrison's Ferrie's death on television and final- men reportedly told him they had evi- ly, he later testified, it dawned on him dence of a meeting with Ferrie and that the David Ferrie he had known Oswald. since 1960 was the same David Ferrie "Gentlemen, I thought I was coming that the papers were saying Garrison down here to help you," Shaw report- was investigating. With Ferrie dead, edly replied, apparently referring to Russo decided to write a letter to Gar- Oswald's distribution of Fair Play for rison. Cuba leaflets outside the old Trade The pace picked up. Hypnosis, sodium Mart in 1963, "but this is getting pentothal (so-called truth serum) and serious. I think I'd better get a lawyer." two-way mirrors came into play. Russo Shaw got a lawyer. He also got ar- had told a television newsman that he rested; apparently after a fuss over lie didn't know Lee Harvey Oswald "until detector tests that his attorney would television of the assassination." let him take only under certain condi- But under questioning hy. Garrison's tions. He was booked on a charge of men—his memory supposedly sharp- conspiracy to murder John F. Kennedy. ened by sodium pentothal and hypnosis That night, Garrison's men swooped —he recalled a party in Ferrie's flat in into Shaw's apartment with a search mid-September of 1983 that wound up warrant and carted , off all sorts of with Ferrie, a "Leon Oswald" and a paraphernalia, including whips, chains, "Clem Bertrand" plotting to assassinate a black net cap, cape and hood—their the President relevance yet to be explained; "Mr. Russo regressed very beauti- Russo, meanwhile, had been standing fully," said the doctor-hypnotist, who in • another room of Garrison's suite testified that he put Russo into a "time during the questioning, peering at tunnel" back to September, 1963. Shaw through a two-way mirror. Enter ':Leon Oswald," beatnik with He again identified him as "Clem a beard. The FBI never uncovered any Bertrand," and left the courthouse, evidence to suggest that Lee Harvey pausing on the way to tell a television Oswald affected such poses—and Os- interviewer, "? No, I don't wald's wife, Marina, told investigators know Clay Shaw." He testified later that her husband had spent the night that he did not want to make the away from home only once, in July, identification to "someone who was not during their six months in New Orleans legal." in 1983. DEAN ANDREWS • JR. Russo, however, said he tentatively The Warren Commission had heard selected a photo of Lee Harvey Oswald, of a "" from jive-talking handed to him by Garrison's men in Dean Adams Andrews Jr., an attorney Baton Rouge; as Ferris's "roommate." who said "Bertrand" had called him Brought to New Orleans Feb. 27, Russo after the assassination and asked him said he grew "positive" after Garrison's to go to Dallas to defend Oswald. An- men drew a picture of a bearded, un- drews also said he assumed it was kempt Lee Harvey Oswald for him. "Bertrand" who had sent Oswald to him for legal help earlier in 1963, the CLAY SHAW first time in the company of some "gay The identification of "Clem Bert- kids . . . Mexicanos . . . They swish." rand" was _do n e Gangbusters style. Andrews, however, told_the, f'BI that, Garrison's men drove RUM* -id the qielitrand" was 6 feet 1 or 2 with brown French quarter home of businessman Clay Shaw and sat in the car and See PLOT, Page C4, Column 1 waited. Neighbors of Shaw say they're sure they saw what looked like a tommygun on the lap of one of the DA's men during the vigils that week. Eventually, Russo, posing as a Mu- _ PLOT, From Page Cl stuck around Ferris's apartment after report as "hesinsay" and ordering Shaw held for ,trial. hair; then later described him before the party was over, and heard the plot- ting, only beoause he was waiting for Since the extravaganza began usfold- a Warren Commission attorney as about ing, Garrison and his men have 'given 5 feet 8 with sandy .hair and weighing a ride home. But he couldn't remember off an aura of complete confidence, of between 185 and 175 pounds. The FBI how, 'in the end, he did get home ("I having touched all bases, but it is ap- never found "Bertrand" and noted that think I caught a bus, I'm not, sure"). parent that this is somewhat of an Andrews—who said he met him only exaggeration. . twice—was under sedation ina hos- Vernon Bundy For example, when asked by report- pital when "Bertrand"is' said to have ers about RUSpO'S party "date," Sandra called, him after the assassination. At the hearing, Garrison called only one other "substantive witness." His Moffett, William Gurvich, a nattily It would be, difficult to remember dressed private detective serving as Shaw, a 'silver-haired giant of a man choice, an admitted narcotics user housed in the Orleans Parish Prison, Garrison's special aide, smiled; expres- (8 foot 4; over 200 pounds) as 5 feet 8 sively squashing his thumb on a ,wood- with sandy hair. left many—in the courtroom open- mouthed. The addiot,. Vernon Bundy, en partition, and replied, "We've got Andrews snubbed- Garrison's efforts her right there." —lie detector, "truth serum" or "time 29, swore that he saw Shaw and Oswald his memory. For together on the New Orleans lakefront If indeed' She was, the seems to have tunnel"--to improve squiggled away. Now Lily Mae Me- his pains, the portly lawyer has now in June or July of'1983—just at Bundy was about to send his spirits soaring Mathes, the wife of a part-tinte min- been indicted for perjury by the Or- ister in Omaha, she said she was never leans Parish grand jury, where Garri- over Lake Ponchartrain on a heroin- him to answer questions last colored cloud. at the alleged party and didn't even son-called meet Ferrie until 1985. Picked up in month. • Garrison has said privately that wit- rest of thethsicetypnotized nesses he relies on have to pass two of Nebraska last week as a material wit- The she faces extradition. - Russo's story, brought out at a pre-, his "big three"—lie detector, sodium ness, pentothal and hypnosis—but it was not In the past week, Patrick Martens liminary hearing on Shaw's arrest, also told reporters that he never heard ranged from the incredibly precise to stated whether Bundy took any of these, or what the results were. Ferrie mention either. Shaw or Oswald. the surprisingly vague. Ferrie, Russo "I knew pretty well everyone," he said, said,: was wearing "a general's hat" 'Bundy did not tell his story to. the DA's office until the third day of the "but I never heard him mention them." over.his kinky red wig and mascaraed Garrison has yet to unfold his theo- eyebrows. "Bertrand" had on a maroon four-day hearing, conducted by a three- , clear judge panel beneath a huge, tattered ries in full detail, but it 'seems'' sports jacket. Oswald was wearing "a that he is searching for another "gun- dirty pullover." • American flag in a glass case, a me- mento of Chief Judge Bernard man," or perhaps two, whom -he Pre- Sandra Moffett Bagert's World War II days aboard an amiably thinks were most probably The witness, however, couldn't recall LST. It was specially, installed, with situated on the "greasy knoll" ahead what Sandra Moffett-rthe girl he maw- floodlights; on the eve of the hearing. of the President's car when he was . The judges concluded the hearing by shot. tains he took to the party -- was The favorite skulking spot for War- wearing. Russo also testified that he dismissing the Warren Commission's ren Commission critics who insist on seems to have been the pilot's main police officers supposedly Stand- Oswald's innocence, the "grassy knoll" entree to the Cuban community in New Mg nearby twiddling their thumbs. angle grew out of the 'hazy impressions of a few spectators. But it is all heady Orleans, has had one confrontation With such circumstantial bits mkt' stuff and Garrison, convinced that his with Garrison's men, in Dallas, where Pieces carefully culled from the thou- cause is just, is pursuing it full-time. Aroacha now lives. sands of pages of Warren Commission testimony and reports, Garrison is Julien Buznedo It ended in a scene when Aroacha building his case. So far it is open- insisted on having either Dallas detec- ended. Russo said the "plot" Fenie • The cast is far from complete. Russo tives, the FBI or an attorney present described called for two or three gun- said there were two Latin types named Gurvich, who made the trip with "Manuel" and "Julien" at the party. men, leaving ,Garrison free to 'allege ) another Garrison aide, reportedly blew that there were one, or two, besides Garrison apparently thinks one was up and the two left without posing Julien Buznedo, a Bay of Pigs veteran their questions. now living near Denver, who knew Rust* said Perrin once 'tried,' "Mostly because it was none of their notiza. him, leaving Gambian free to" Ferrie in New Orleans; the DA has a business," Gurvich declared later. "It's picture of him with ?erne. allege, or not to allege, that Oswald had our case. This isn't the poverty pro- been hypnotized. The District Attorney Buznedo says he was working at a gram. We don't give anything away." restaurant in Latonia, Ky., and moved has an intricate house of Cards in 'his • Aroacha says he left New Orleans in hands and he apparently to Colorado in 1963. He said he spent 1981, never met Oswald, denies any intends to only a. few weeks in New Orleans in play them one by one, first 'bringing "-'; role in the assassination and says he Shaw to trial alone, then, presumably, 1962 and hasn't been back. was at work, in Houston, that day. Just As for "Manuel," Garrison has been another and another as he cements his how he might fit into Garrison's scheme ease against each. looking for a Manuel GarciaGonzalez of things is uncertain, except perhaps since January on a narcotics charge The DA is not without tritica in his that he worked until recently for an home town. Aaron. Kohn, niattaging di- packing a $50,000 bond, but has yet to air conditioning company. turn him up. rector oft the New Orleans Crime Com- Among the "grassy knollers," a green mission and admittedly no fan. of the .; Ford pickup truck with "Air Condition- District Attorney these days, charges Arcacha and Novel ing" lettered on the side—which one that Garrison's public record in the Sergio Arcacha Smith, a former witness says she saw illegally parked past .few years shows "a pattern which Cuban exile leader in New Orleans, and near the grassy knoll on the ramming reflects his ability to blind himself to , a nightclub operator, of the assassination--ds a piece de facts and values inconsistent with his ! have also been staying out of the Dis- resistance. - impulsive conclusions." . trict Attorney's reach. Novel, who has The witness, Eva Mercer, said a man In the current investigation, how- said he suspects Garrison wants to ask "wearing a gray jacket, brown pants ever, Garrison has vowed to win con- him about Arcadia, has been flitting and plaid shirt" took "what appeared vitiations. "Anyone who bete against ' around the country denouncing the in- to be a gun case" out of the back of me," he hat Said, "will Vaie.' vestigation as a fraud. the truck and walked toward the grassy New Orleans, where rumors are Aroacha, who knew Fannie well and knoll—all this, incredibly, with three savored like wine, he may, be right. SECTION C

PERRY RUSSO JIM GARRISON ... the star witness. . peering at the Looking Glass.

`LEON OSWALD' rtieltaett -beatnik:—

DAVID F. LEWIS . . . flappy-tongued freight handler. CLAY SHAW . "I'd better get a lawyer." DEAN ANDREWS JR. . . . consulted under sedation. WILLIAM GURVICH . . . a thin thumb.

GORDEN NOVEL SANDRA MOFFETT . . . staying out of reach. . . . not quite under the thumb.

JUDGE BAGERT AARON ROHN . . . a flag under glass. . no Garrison fan.