V/ITH DAILY EVENING EDITION 115th Year. No. 57. WASHINGTON,' D. C., FEBRUARY 26, 1967

the other, on the Lafayette % Street side, was the headquar- ters for Guy Banister Associates, Inc., a private detective agency. In the days before and after Ihe–Bily of Pigs in April, 1961, the Cubans met often in Banis- ter's office. And there, two people are reliably reported to have informed Dist. Atty. , was seen with the Cubans and the group around Banister. 3 in Group Named That group included three of 1011e 'arsons whose names have Plot surfaced since Garrison's inves- tigation of President John F. Kennedy's assassination became public a week ago Friday. They are: Jack S. Martin, David Le • avid William Martin and Lewis were em- New Kennedy ployed by Banister's firm, Martin as an investigator and Lewis as a messenger and office Investigation man. Ferrie, who died last week, had been working closely with Banister in anti-Castro activities and also had retained Is Examined Banister's firm to help him in a morals case with which he had By HAYNES JOHNSON been charged. Star Staff Writer One of the Cubans who used to 1867. The Washington Star go to Banister's office told this —Off Lafay- reporter, in the course of a ette Square, across the street seven-hour conversation ending from the magnolia trees, 'the early yesterday morning, that . azalea bushes, the statue of Garrison had questioned him a Benjamin Franklin,' and the number of times in the past newspaper plant of the Times- month. Garrison told him, the Picayune and States-Item, are Cuban said, that witnesses have two vacant offices which now stated they saw him there with carry "For Rent" signs. Oswald and the others. One office, on the Camp Street The Cuban flatly denies it, and side, once housed Cuban exiles says he has offered to take a lie involved in anti-Castro activities detector test and truth serum if after the ; necessary to substantiate his position. He has not been asked ant. Huey Long ruled the state. to take such tests, he says. on the New Orleans Bank of Grows Ever Bolder Commerce in New Orleans in rea Met Oswald in 1963 the summer of 1963, used to help In the face of criticism and That same Cuban, who wants"' pay the way back to Miami for worldwide attention and specu- two of the Cubans from that to remain anonymous, in fact lation, Garrison has grown ever did meet Oswald at Oswald's bolder in his public statements. 4 camp. apartment on Magazine Street • The departure of other Finally, on Friday, he said flatly nthsms from New Orleans to in August 1963. He had gone he had "solved the case" of the there in an attempt to learn Kennedy death "beyond the 4 Miami, and one to Dallas. about Oswald's pro-Castro deal- shadow of a doubt." 4 • Documents frOm an anti- ings in New Orleans and about He says he knows the 'key Castro organization which Oswald's supposed Fair Play for individuals, the cities involved, operated briefly in New Orleans Cuba Committee organization in and promises arrests. But when in 1962 and then was disbanded. the area. pressed to be more specific, he • A photograpkAote0swald They talked for about half an remains enigmatic, and poses a distributing pro-Castro litera- hour, and Oswald gave him parable for the public: ts owsw s n Canal Street here that some literature as they left, he "The key to the whole case is sh a man supposedly later said. Then the Cuban promptly ' through the looking glass,", he photographed behind a sign in reported his contact with Oswald told reporters. "Black is white; Dealey Plaza in Dallas on Nov. to the New Orleans Police white is black: I don't want to be 22, 1963. Department. cryptic, but that's the way it is." These are among the scraps After President Kennedy's Emerging from an attempt to that Garrison is known to be assassination on Nov. 22, 1963, unravel some of that riddle, and considering. On the surface, the Cuban repeated his account to place Garrison's investigation they seem to fall into much of in perspective, is a tangled web the speculative character of the of meeting with Oswald to the host of sensational books written Continued on Page A-14, Col. 1 of plot, counter-plot, and coun- ter-counter plot; of rumors and about the assassination. Their wild talk; of some fact; some value remains undetermined. fiction, and, in the end, a tantal- Beyond this, everything is izing question mark. shrouded in conjecture. Continued From Page A-1 Secret Service. The Warren The Thread Is Cuba A Link Is Needed Commisson was fully aware of Out of all the smoke, one thing The thread that winds through is certain: To prove any conspir- his meeting, although his name the story involves one of the does not appear in the report. acy Garrison must be able to ' central problems of John F. link Oswald with others. That is After investigating that one inci- Kennedy's two years, 10 months dent and a host of other rumors where the relationship between and two days inthe White house Guy Banister's detective agency involving Cubans—both for and - —the problem of Cuba. against Castro—the commission and the Cubans becomes cru- It is Garrison's obvious con- cial. concluded that Oswald had acted tention that Cubans were some- alone in killing the President. ' But more important; initially, • how-iniolved in the President'S is what the Warren Commission the commission concluded that death. From what can be Oswald had acted alone in has determined about Oswald in learned at this time, his case New Orleans. killing the President. appears to rest on one theory Although the FBI is maintain- New Orleans first appears in about the assassination: the Oswald story on Sept. 20, ing a strict "hands-off" position That Oswald was working with 1959. On that date, nine days in connection with Garrison's an anti-Castro right-wing organi- after his release from the Ma- highly publicized investigation zation and actually intended to rine Corps, Oswald took a ship and will not discuss the case, kill Fidel; that Oswald's public- from New Orleans to LeHavre, it is clear that the government ly pro-Communist activities in France, as the first step of his places little credence in what 3 New Orleans and his attempt to journey to Russia. has been turned up so far. enter Mexico and secure a Three years later, after his Cuban visa were a ruse to Motives Questioned return to the U.S., Oswald came enable him to carry out that back to New Orleans in late In the view of some who have Castro assassination objective; April 1963, seeking a job. The been closely acquainted with the that when Oswald was denied next month, his wife and daugh- case, Garrison's material is a entrance to Cuba, the plot ter joined him here. rehash of old information, with shifted, and Kennedy, accused From then until the third week some new elements added. The of letting down the anti-Castro in September, the Oswalds lived district attorney's motives are Cubans at the Bay of Pigs, on Magazine Street in the city, being questioned; there is became the target. This theory but after his family went back to increasing talk that he wants to has been examined at length in Texas, Oswald traveled to use his inquiry as a political the past and has been discarded. Mexico seeking a Cuban visa. springboard, that he intends to To these basic ingredients, On Oct. 4, he joined his family in run for lieutenant governor this Garrison seems to have added Texas. year, and higher office later. new factors. These are among Oswald tried to organize a "He has a long list of fraudu- them: Fair Play for Cuba Committee, lent issues," said one highly • The existence of a training a pro-Castro group, in New placed official here, referring to camp for Cubans in St. Tamma- Orleans. He passed out litera- Garrison. "But he's as quick as ny Parish (County) across Lake ture on the streets, and engaged a cat and he always lands on his Pontchartrain in the summer of in broadcast debates about feet." 1963 where, supposedly, Oswald Cuba. From these activities That same official, he was not went for the purpose of partici- grew a number of conspiratiori- willing to be quoted by name, pating in the plot to kill Castro. al theories about his supposed also said that Garrison might • The later movement of an connection, with Cuban groups, well be the shrewdest politican American, who reportedly again both pro and anti-Castro. in since the flamboy- organized that camp, from New The Warren Commission Orleans to Houston. concluded that: • Two canceled checks drawn "Without exception, the ru- mors and allegations of a con- spiratorial contact were shown to be without any factual basis, in some cases the product of mistaken investigation." Nothing that Garrison has made public yet in any way alters those findings. His case, therefore, • must dispute those conclusions by showing that Oswald had sinister relation- ships with others. There, the

trail comes back to Banister's remembers Banister coming office. ...- into a downtown hotel with a What follows is an account of gun strapped to his leg. Drawing each of the principal links in the pistol, he slammed it on the that part of the story, based on ' table and said; "This is power." interviews and other sources. Banister, without question, GUY BANISTER — A former was actively, , FBI -agent.. and , one-time New t• involved in the anti-Castro cause the-Bay Orleans police official, Militant of Pigs. Whether in fact his anti-Communist, private detec- office was the enter of an arms tive, and once publisher of a cache, .as ot,: e4ed here, is not weekly newspaper in this area, bnown,- Mit A '9.5 a Sadt that was found dead of a heart attack Cubans Met here along with in. his apartment here in June .a former pilot, 1964. and that they were observed by He had a stormy and colorful two of Banister's employes, career. Ten years before his Martin and DvidLewis.lee These death, he had retired as the •last two', Men ` iit IO be princi- teFBIligentlee.harge of pal original s urces of informa- the FBI office. During tion in Gerrie n's current inves- his days with the bureau he had tigation. I. - participated in some of the •There is nothing substantive to FBI's most celebrated cases— indicate that. Banister„ was including• Roger. Touhy and John personally tinvolved- 'tin r any Dillinger. supposed "plot." '' - ' • Brief, Stormy Career - - , JACK.; S. • MARTIN. 4—Xartin, In 1955 Banister joined the , 52, is Vdolibtedly the most New Orleans'Police Department ,controvermar '1411r0i of all thoan,,41' as chief investigator and super- ,znentiOhed .:, Oceptly. ' ' He as visor _of training, the third supposed Ao' ave provided the ranking member of the force. initial leads for Garrison. His career was relatively brief Ma n's story has been told and -stormy. He engaged in before and dismissed as unfac7 public quarrels with his superi- tual • "government investiga- ors, and at one point charged tors.' I is authoritatively report- they had conspired to "defeat ed tha Martin furnished infor- justice" by stopping a police matio to Asst. D.A. Herman S. investigation. Kohler n here. Later, Martin is said have disavowed his story In 1957, when he was the entirel Avhen, questioned by the assistant police chief, he was FBI d ing the Warren Commis- suspended after he was accused sion in estgation. . . of drawing a gun in a Bourbon Street bar. He was dismissed for - , artin Not Available what the police superintendent Wh: Martin his said since, called "open defiance." then, ust come either from Banister drifted into investiga- himse or 1 from Garrison. - five work. He bought a weekly Garris ing; Martin newspaper, the West Bank is not e. Ile 'left town some- Herald across the river here, time the end of last month' where he employed, among ...ltd . h s notlbeen heard from others, Jack S. Martin. By 1960, since. he had formed his own detective His e says that is not "o-agency and brought Martin - unusua . Jack, she says, takes along with him. off aloha for several months In those days, Banister contin- every year. • • ued to act with a flair. One Mrs. i Martin talked at length prominent New Orleans citizen to tili reporter about her - ,husband and the case. It was is David Lewis, who had worked the first time any newsman had • with her husband .and Banister been to see her, she said. She and in recent years has been seemed to 'want to talk, and employed at the bus terminal with bocruteb — ma ...-1.sibuint dwelt at length on the effect of here. "Lewis has an amazingly reaction to every problem was the recent publicity on her and to walk up and down the room 9-year-old son, Jack Jr. beating his forehead and saying I "They have asked me if my 'Now what would Socrates have husband is a- nut, if he is a iretentive memory," she said. , done?' " she recalls. pyschiatric • case," she said. If anyone is of interst in this Ferrie had never tried to hide They have asked me a number case it is David Lewis. He is his activity on behalf of the of uncomplimentary things. sitting in probably the hottest I anti-Castro Cubans here. Im-- Now,, my husband does drink seat in history." mediately after the Bay of Pigs but he drinks less than a lot of DAVID LEWIS — Lewis, 26, a invasion foundered in April 1961, other people. I have tried to get native of Houston, has publicly he even made a speech about it him to join Alcoholics Anony- stated that he knows five per- before the Exchange Club of mous, and some years ago I did sons involved in the assassina- New Orleans. get him to go into the New tion with Oswald. Lewis has '.,, His title was "The Recent Orleans Charity Hospital for his appeared on television here, but Invasion of Cuba" and, that drinking. That's before I has added nothing specific to summer, after he Was arrested stopped trying to change him." that statement; After leaving in the morals case, a search of Banister's employ, he got a lob "An Ordinary Man" his apartment here turned up with the - Trailways Bus Line numerous maps of Cuba and Then she said: terminal in the baggage depart- seven or eight World War 1 "Jack really isn't a man of ment. He is married, and has rifles and a quantity of ammu- mystery. He is a plain, ordi- four children. nition. nary, middle-aged man who DAVID WILLIAM FERRIE - A 15-year old boy, who was„ 4, comes home, puts on his slip- Ferrie's name first figured in involved in the morals Case, pers and holds his dog in his lap the assassination three days said at the time that he had — a man who makes model afte.._ Kennedy's death in Dallas. flown to Cuba with Ferrie on planes for his son and a chapel He was arrested that Nov. 25 in several occasions. (a religious chapel hi the house) New Orleans and charged with for his wife and hundreds of being e fugitive from Texas. In Physically Repelling ecclesiastical heraldry for his view of what is happening now, That was never substantiated. friends." the newspaper accounts of the To illustrate her point, she The official investigation held arrest are instructive. that he was not involved in the walked around the 150-year-old Ferrie, and two other young house and pointed to her hus- assassination. • men, the papers here reported, Besides the facts surrounding band's easels; to pictures of her were picked up "in connection husband with Lucille Bali and his life, Ferrie himself was a with some leads of our ,own," ems, singularly repelling ,., figure Desi Arnaz in Hollywood with a District Attorney Garrison was , mayor of New Orleans; and to physically. He 'was sickly, and personally autographed "best quoted as saying, knocking his hair and his eyebrows had wishes" photographs from, down reports the FBI or Secret been burned off. Instead of among others, Richard Nixon Service had asked for the buying an adequate wig, Ferrie and Guy Banister. arrests. affected a different; more Ferrie and his friends were At several points, sheupgot striking device. He glued down from her char, and once, when released in two days, and his red, toupee and false eye- the television showed Garrison subsequent investigation by the brows with glucose cement. making another statement, she FBI led the Warren Commission He also was regarded as said. "I'm so nervous and to dismiss him from serious something of a quick-buck afraid of what they're going to consideration in the assassina- artist, anxious for money, but say about Jack." tion. In fact, investigation with little visible means of proved, Ferrie was in New Isupport. .. A Flying Tiger Orleans at the time of the " After the -latest flare of publi- Physically, Martin is small assassination and no evidence city in what is certainly going to and thin, with a moustache. He was ever turned up to indicate be only still another in an end- was in the Flying Tigers before that he knew Oswald or was in less rounds of - rumors and World War II. Since the war, any way involved in the Presi- _ sensations about the Kennedy according to his wife, he has dent's murder. death, Ferrie, unlike Martin, been a reporter, a public rela- A Natural Candidate was quite willing to be inter- tions man and a private investi- viewed, even though he was g a t o r. - "Whenever there's Almost inevitably, ,though, seriously ill. excitement or intrigue going on, Ferrie's personal character and On Monday of last week, he there's Jack," she said once. background made him a natural was interviewed by Theodore C. "He's a natural for it." candidate for a conspiratorial Link of the St. Louis Post-Dis- Mrs. Martin said she had theory: He was a homosexual patch. Garrison's investigation, known Ferrie and a number of who had been fired from his job he told Link, was "way off anti-Castro Cubans. She said as an Eastern Airlines pilot base." she had never met Oswald, aft,r he was arrested' in a although she , had heard the "crime against nature" case; rumor that: he was a militant anti-Castroite "Guy Banister's office was in who actively participated in this building, so were the Cu- Bay of. Pigs activity in New bans' and so, theoretically, was Orleans, and he was dearly an Lee Oswald's.'!.. intelligent but disturbed person. Mrs. Jack Martin, for in- Calls Lewis Key stance, recalls what she says She believes that a key figure was Ferrie's "preoccupation amended to weeks or months. Speaks of Contacts 'About This Article He spoke readily about his Haynes Johnson, who wrote contacts with other Cubans, and this article, is a Pulitzer with Ferrie and Banister. prize-winning special assign- "Ferrie was active in the Cuban ment reporter for The Star revolutionary front," he said. "I and author of the book "The don't know when he got in, but Bay of Pigs," written with he was active. He tried to help the assistance- of- the Cuban us raise money. We used to go leaders of the 1961 invasion of to Guy Banister's office, and one of the reasons was because Cuba. he was an anti-Communist. I don't know of any arms ever put in Guy, Banister's offim. Ttn rc may Love beetrilef four hours talking to' George .". . I don't know." Lardner Jr., of the Washington He added later, about Ferrie: Post, and denied ever knowing "rerrie could drea.a of things Oswald. Lardner probably was —he was a very bright intelli- the last man to see him alive. gent person—and one time I Dictates Own Epitaph remember he, was going to try and get a small submarine and Ferrie had dictated his own plan to get into Havana Bay epitaph in a note found in his and blow up one of those docks apartment which read: over there." "'lo leave this life for mils a also: told of Ins meeting ' sweet prospect. I find nothing in with Oswald and repeated in it that is desirable and on the detail what he had reported to other hand everything' that is government investigators'. It loathsome." added nothing new to what has The coroner has ruled Ferrie been written. As to the question died of natural causes. Garrison of a Cuban training camp in St. has called him one of history's Tammany Parisn, he said he most important suspects, with- was aware of such a place, but out spelling out why. Even Li had only vague knowledge of it. this investigation is totally ' Specifically, he said, the camp discredited, as many think it had broken up early in August will be, Ferrie's,death undoubt- because of endless bickering edly will add even more fuel tc between Cubans there. thos, already inflammatory rumors surrounding the Kenne- Calls Probe Crazy dy assassination. Of Garrison's investigation, he THE CUBANS — Depending said the district attorney, in his on whom you talk to, there an personal sessions with him, anywhere from a minimum of "changes quite,. a bit. One time four to a maximum of 14 names he says Communists did it; being bandied about in New another time, the refugees did Orleans. They are, at this it." He gave the names of writing, still anonymous, but the •,.people `he ' knew"' in'vol'ved. In names of several are already meetings at Banister's office, common knowledge. just as he has to Garrison, and This reporter has spoken with includes the name of a young two of them here. The first, American who has left town. already mentioned in this story, At the , end of a long conversa- spoke at great length in front of tion; Which began 'in house his wife in their living room. and included a tour of the places Like Mrs. Martin, he seemed where the Cubans had met after to want to pour out what he the Bay of Pigs, he commented: knew. He was especially in- "I'll tell you about hew this censed, he said, at reading that investigation is conducted. It's Garrison was saying it might be the craziest damn thing in the 30 years before arrests were world." made — a remark the D.A. later That remains to be proved conclusi7ely. The 6-foot-6-inch district attorney, with an, un- deniable flair about him, was correct when he referred to "through the looking glass." It is, after all, very much like Alice in Wonderland. -Assedated Press New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison lion of what he calls the John F. Kennedy (right) talks to newsmen about his investiga- assassination "plot!'