A Reporter at Large: Garrison Edward Jay Epstein 35 a R.EPOR.TER

p. 35 - A reporter at large: Garrison Edward Jay Epstein 35 A R.EPOR.TER. AT LARGE GARRISON GREAT many Americans curtly told him, "At this stage, we are bridge was crossed, a whole new set of must have responded with some supposed to be closing doors, not open- clues to why Oswald killed the Presi- A measure of bewilderment when, ing them." It later turned out that dent might have been found. on March 1, 1967, they heard the news some of the doors left ajar but un- Could Garrison have discovered such that Jim Garrison, the District At- opened led to associates of Oswald's in a bridge? Skeptics tended to dismiss torney of Orleans Parish, Louisiana, New Orleans, so it seemed entirely the possibility on the ground that Gar- had arrested a prominent New Orleans conceivable to me that Garrison just rison was a flamboyant and extreme- citizen, Clay L. Shaw, for "participa- might have stumbled upon some valu- ly ambitious politician. According to tion in a conspiracy to murder John F. able information that the Commission Aaron M. Kohn, the managing direc- Kennedy." The conclusions of the had, for one reason or another, side- tor of the Metropolitan Crime Com- Warren Commission, published some stepped. mission of New Orleans, "Garrison two and a half years before, had of- Consider, for example, a story at never lets the responsibilities of being fered the authoritative judgment that the root of Garrison's investigation, a prosecutor interfere with being a poli- Lee Harvey Oswald alone was respon- which involved a meeting among Os- tician." However, the fact that Gar- sible for the assassination. And although wald and three men—David William rison was politically motivated did not a host of doubts were subsequently Ferrie, Carlos Quiroga, and W. Guy necessarily—to my mind, at least— raised concerning the adequacy of Banister—all of whom the Warren preclude the possibility that he might the Warren Commission's investigation Commission had had reason to be in- be on to something. Whereas it might and the reliability of its conclusions, it terested in. Ferrie, who, according to not always have been in the interests of seemed incredible that the New Or- the testimony of one Commission wit- the Warren Commission, which was leans District Attorney could declare, as ness, commanded a unit of the Civil concerned as much with dispelling Garrison had, "My staff and I solved Air Patrol in which Oswald may have doubts as with ascertaining facts, to the assassination weeks ago. I wouldn't been a member briefly, had been ar- pursue leads that might generate fur- say this if we didn't have the evidence rested in New Orleans shortly after the ther doubts, or possibly damage the ef- beyond a shadow of a doubt." Indeed, assassination, on a tip that he was in- fectiveness of federal agencies, an am- the possibility that a local prosecutor volved with Oswald, and then released. bitious politician, it seemed to me, had found the answers to questions that Carlos Quiroga, a prominent Cuban might well pursue leads to their con- had baffled the investigative resources exile, had visited Oswald's home several clusion, especially since solving "the case of the federal government seemed so times in New Orleans, for the purpose, of the century," as Garrison called it, remote to most journalists that, soon he alleged, of appraising Oswald's pro- would certainly enhance his reputation. after the initial stir provoked by Shaw's Castro activities. W. Guy Banister, a Convinced that it was possible—indeed, arrest, news of the "assassination plot" private detective known to be associated probable—that Garrison could find de- was generally relegated to the back with anti-Castro activists in New Or- tails of Oswald's affairs that the Com- pages and treated about as seriously as leans, had an office in a building whose mission had missed, I went to New Or- flying-saucer reports. address appeared on some of the pro- leans shortly after Garrison announced I, for one, however, was prepared to Castro literature that Oswald occasion- that he was getting to the bottom of believe that District Attorney Garri- ally handed out on the streets. All the "assassination plot" and arrested son's claims might have some substance this information was in the hands of the Shaw. to them. In the course of writing my Commission, yet none of these three hook "Inquest," I had found that the men was questioned by the Commis- VE R since he was first elected Dis- Warren Commission's investigation had sion or its staff. It seemed to me that E trict Attorney, in 1961, Jim Gar- been severely constrained both by bu- leads such as these, if they had been rison—he legally changed 'his given reaucratic pressures exerted from with- pursued, could have provided a possible name to Jim from Earling Carothers— in and by limits of time imposed from bridge between the known and un- has been a controversial figure in New without. Far from being the rigor- known worlds of Lee Harvey Oswald Orleans. He has fought long and hard ous and exhaustive examination that in New Orleans. And once such a against prostitutes, homosexuals in the it was taken to he, the Commission's French Quarter, and the more vul- work was, at certain crucial points, nerable purveyors of vice, hut, according reduced to little more than an ex- to his critics on the Metropolitan Crime ercise in the clarification of super- Commission, he has neglected the ficial evidence. When one delved more problem of organized crime in New deeply, some far more difficult problems Orleans. "People worry about the than any acknowledged by the Com- crime 'syndicate,' " Garrison once said, mission began to appear. Even members "hut the real danger is the political of the Commission's own staff found establishment, power massing against this to be true. For example, when one the individual." When the city's eight staff lawyer suggested, late in the in- criminal-court justices exercised their vestigation, that it might be worthwhile statutory right to oversee the financing to look further into the partly cor- of his anti-vice campaign, Garrison roborated claim of one witness that charged that their actions "raised in- Oswald had been associated not long teresting questions about racketeer in- before the assassination with two un- fluences." A court subsequently con- identified Cuban exiles, his superior victed Garrison of criminally libelling 36 JULY 13, 1968 the eight judges, but the conviction was conspiracy? "It's exactly like a chess said that the District Attorney's staff reversed by the U.S. Supreme Court, problem," he explained. "The War- had yet to examine all this material, in a decision that held that individuals ren Commission moved the same pieces and he suggested that Harris and I have the right to criticize public offi- hack and forth and got nowhere. I look through Shaw's address hooks and cials even though the charges may turn made a new move and solved the financial records in hopes of discover- nut to be unfounded. Garrison is popu- problem." The move he meant was the ing some information that might inter- larly referred to in New Orleans as arrest of Clay Shaw. He pointed out est Garrison. We were left alone with the Jolly Green Giant—an image con- that after Shaw was arrested men from the evidence. jured up by his imposing physical the District Attorney's office searched Though none of these materials, as stature (six feet six inches) and his Shaw's home, in the French Quarter, far as I could see after examining them, political glad hand. When I met him, and found in it a cache of new evi- had anything directly to do with the in mid-April, his welcome was gra- dence, which he suggested that I should assassination, the odd way in which cious, if slightly fulsome; he told see, because it would give me "a new Garrison treated them did give me, me, almost solemnly, that it was his perspective on the case." when I thought about it later, "a new reading of my book that first set him Early the next morning, I went to perspective on the case." I recalled that thinking about launching an investiga- the District Attorney's office, which is a judge's order had forbidden discus- tion of his own. (Later, I learned housed, next to the Parish Prison, in sion or disclosure of any evidence in that this was a standard greeting, ex- the Criminal District Court Building, the case. The very fact that Harris and tended to almost all critics of the a massive structure at Tulane Avenue I were allowed to examine objects Warren Commission.) Over a leisure- and South Broad. Garrison had not yet seized from Shaw's home and desig- ly dinner at Broussard's, Garrison be- arrived, but one of his assistants, James nated "evidence" seemed to be a direct gan to tell me about the conspiracy he C. Alcock, told me that Garrison had violation of that order. Why, I won- had uncovered. It was a diffuse nar- left word that I should "start going dered, should the District Attorney rative, in which it appeared that Os- through the evidence." I did so with risk having his case thrown out of wald had only been feigning the role Jones Harris, a New Yorker of inde- court on a technicality by letting he went to considerable lengths to es- pendent means who has devoted the outsiders go freely through the evi- tablish for himself as a pro-Castroite better part of the last three years to a dence? Moreover, it seemed curious and had in fact been part of an anti- private investigation of the assassina- that Clay Shaw's papers had not al- Castro assassination team trained by tion.

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