A Better Conspiracy Theory Than Oliver Stone's

By JONATHAN KWITNY on two men Oswald worked with in 1963, Vietnam. "JFK" makes the coup sound What distresses me about Oliver Stone's Guy Banister and David Ferrie, who are like a surprise to Kennedy. Kennedy's for- new movie "JFK" is not that I think it will depicted as intelligence agents arming Cu- eign policy team, and brother Robert, con- persuade the country of Mr. Stone's thesis, bans for a new Bay-of-Pigs-type invasion tinued to support the war for years. Oper- that the rest of the government killed Ken- called Operation Mongoose, which we're ation Mongoose was never an invasion nedy. Rather, I think the movie, with Its told Kennedy canceled. Not so. plot, but a campaign of sabotage against many distortions, will reinforce the more What Messrs. Banister and Ferrie, pri- Castro nurtured by the Kennedys. widely held view—already expressed in vate investigators, were mainly doing in Messrs. Garrison and Stone bring up early criticism of the film—that the assas- those months was helping Marcella defend Marcello only to accuse the assassination sination Is a morass, not understood and a second deportation proceeding the Ken- conspirators of trying to stop Mr. Garrison maybe not understandable. This thesis, nedys brought against him, to be tried— with public smears linking him to Mar- while less noxious than Mr. Stone's, also maybe not so coincidentally—Nov. 22. Mr. cello. Mr. Garrison says in his 1988 book, ignores the evidence. Ferrle was Marcello's private pilot, meet- "On the Trail of the Assassins," that in 12 Because of the intellectual dishonesty in ing with him often. Messrs. Ferrie, Banis- years as New Orleans district attorney he the work of early Warren Commission ter and Marcello all hated Fidel Castro critics like Jim Garrison, the hero of the never met Marcello (not something I'd and actively encouraged his Cuban opposi- think a DA would want to boast of ). film and author of a book on which It is tion. But considering that the stakes were based, I tended for years to accept the Marcello's vast gambling, dope and kick- What the movie doesn't say is that the commission's "lone nut" theory. While back empire (Ruby helped run the Dallas corruption charges against Mr. Garrison flawed, it was the most satisfying around. end ), and that Marcello was almost killed were largely compiled by Walter Sheridan, Then, In 1978, some lawmen I had long re- when the Kennedys forcibly deported him then with NBC News. Mr. Sheridan had spected, who had joined the staff of the to the Guatemalan jungle in 1961, is it been the Kennedys' chief aid on rackets in- House Select Committee on Assassinations, really likely that anti-communism is what vestigations since the 1950s and was so invited me to Washington. In a day, they moved this group to undertake something close to the family he took a job with laid out previously unassembled evidence so dangerous as killing a president? Teddy after Bobby died. Mr. Sheridan ob- that changed my mind. The film says former CIA director Rich- viously wasn't on the assassination team. Amid much corroborative detail, the ard Helms testified that Ferrie's friend Marcello, on the other hand, was a com- key fact was this: In the months before the Clay Shaw ''worked for" the CIA; in fact, rade in crime of Kennedy nemesis Jimmy assassination, Lee Harvey Oswald and Mr. Helms said only that Mr. Shaw, like Hoffa, and Mr. Sheridan exposed that, Jack Ruby—the two men everyone agrees many businessmen traveling abroad, which is what led him to Mr. Garrison. committed crimes that week-end—were sometimes told inquiring agents in the U.S. Yes, a lot remains unanswered about both working with intimates of Carlos Mar- what he'd seen. the assassination: How many guns were cello, the Mafia boss of the South. And Consider also that on Nov. 22—as Mar- there? (It's unlikely Oswald fired alone, Marcello, an experienced murder-plotter, cello went to trial, Mr. Ferrie went myste- but not impossible.) Why did Mr. Ferrie go had the strongest motive for murdering riously to Texas and Kennedy went to his to Texas? ,(To fly some killers out? To help President Kennedy: The president's death death—CIA officer Desmond Fitzgerald, kill Oswald? ) Was Oswald supposed to saved Marcello and his empire from ruin; calling himself "the personal representa- have been killed earlier, and was the iob nrohahlv gnthinp.PtaP mold haves rive of Robert Kennedy," delivered yet an- botched ;I suspect so.) Now. that alone does!) t prove anybody oilier weapon (a booby-trapped pent to yet But the basics were becoming clear. killed anybody (although with additional another Cuban exile to try to kill Castro. This movie, supposedly about truth, has evidence it makes a helluva case ). But it Messrs. Garrison and Stone would have sadly muddied the waters. does prove, at least in me, that anyone you believe the Kennedys had suddenly 4,11, .i„bliett honestly seeking truth about the assassina- turned into flower children, bent on break- tion has to go over the Marcello mountain ing up the CIA and embracing Khrush- Mr. Kwitny, a formerlJournal reporter. before taking the road further. chev, and that this was the motivation for wrote and presented a PBS documentary You can't write it out of your script as the assassination. But Just weeks before on the Kennedy assassination. A review of Messrs. Garrison and Stone—and some of the murder, President Kennedy had staged "VFW" appears on the Leisure & Arts page their critics— have done. The movie dwells a coup installing a military government in today.

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