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The Front Matter PELICAN PUBLISHING COMPANY Gretna 2001 Copyright © 2001 By Garry Boulard All rights reserved The word “Pelican” and the depiction of a pelican are trademarks of Pelican Publishing Company, Inc., and are registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Boulard, Garry The big lie: Hale Boggs, Lucille May Grace, and Leander Perez in 1951/Garry Boulard. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN 1-56554-868-X (pbk.) 1. Boggs, Hale, 1914-1972. 2. Grace, Lucille May. 3. Perez Leander 1891-1969. 4. Anti-communist movements—Louisiana— History. 5. Louisiana—Politics and government—1951-6. Politi- cians—Louisiana—Biography. 7. Louisiana—Race relations. 8. Anti-communist movements—United States—History. I. Title. F376.B68 2001 976.3'063—dc21 2001036330 Printed in the United States of America Published by Pelican Publishing Company, Inc. 1000 Burmaster Street, Gretna, Louisiana 70053 In honor of good cheer and the men and women of the Esquivel Club Contents Acknowledgments . .9 Chapter One A Most Important Matter . .13 ChapterTwo Suddenly a Nightmare . .31 Chapter Three Perez of Plaquemines Parish . .53 Chapter Four Mr. Boggs Goes to Washington . .79 Chapter Five Miss Lucille . .101 Chapter Six Red Corpuscles . .123 Chapter Seven Full of Politics . .139 Chapter Eight Not a Single Witness . .157 Chapter Nine “He’s Not a Communist, He’s a Catholic” . .179 Chapter Ten “God Bless His Soul” . .205 Notes . .223 Index . .279 7 Acknowledgments The story of the 1951-52 Louisiana gubernatorial election and how a faraway ideology—Communism—was used to divide and destroy men on our own state’s shores required the help of a large number of people whose memories form the soul of this book. In alphabetical order, I thank the following people for being so generous with their time and help: Avery Alexander, Archie Boggs, Lindy Boggs, George Brown, Joe Cangiamilla, Maurice Clark, Reese Cleghorn, James Coleman, Walter Cowan, Helene de la Houssaye, Fred Dent, Jr., Laurence Eustis, James Fitzmorris, Norman Francis, James Gillis, Camille Gravel, John Hainkel, Rosemary James, Jess Johnson, Jr., Irvin Joseph, Abe Kupperman, Trudy Wenzel Lash, Stephen Lescher, Naomi Marshall, Robert Maloney, Joseph C. Meyers, Jr., Stuart McClendon, Ellen Bryan Moore, Claire Boggs Morrison, William Nunguesser, Revius Ortique, Trey Ourso, Edgar Poe, Ory Poret, Floyd Newlin, Barbara Rathe, Henry Sevier, Jr., Howard K. Smith, Bill Smolkin, Carlos Spaht, Moises Steeg, Ben Toledano, and Tom Wicker. I owe, of course, a special debt to the helpful staffs of the three archives I used the most: the Special Collections Depart- ment of the Howard-Tilton Memorial Library at Tulane Uni- versity, which contains all of Congressmen Hale Boggs and F. Edward Hebert’s papers, as well as a good deal of material concerning far left and Socialist activism in 1930s New Orleans; the Louisiana Collection of the New Orleans Public 9 10 THE BIG LIE Library, which holds the papers of New Orleans mayors Robert Maestri and deLesseps S. Morrison, as well as several boxes of correspondence relating to Leander Perez, specifi- cally his anti-civil rights work; and the Lower Mississippi Valley Collection of the Hill Memorial Library at Louisiana State University, which contains the valuable scrapbook collection maintained by Lucille May Grace covering the early l930s to her l951 gubernatorial run. For more information on Perez’s anti-civil rights activities, I also consulted with the Catholic Council on Human Relations Papers at the Amistad Collection. In tracing Hale Boggs’ early days, I turned to the Biloxi Public Library in Biloxi, Missis- sippi, as well as the Mississippi Department of History and Archives in Jackson. The Iberville Parish Library staff helped me with informa- tion on the Grace family; while the Washingtoniana Collec- tion at the District of Columbia Central Library, with their very useful collection of articles from the old Washington Star, proved to be an informative guide for tracing Boggs’ congres- sional career. The staff of the clerk’s office with the l9th Judicial District Court, Parish of East Baton Rouge, dug into their archives to find a transcript copy of the suit filed against Boggs by Lean- der Perez and Lucille May Grace. I thank Jack Epstein, whose scholarship on Congressman Hebert spirits this work; and Michael Enright, who helped obtain for me valuable congressional papers on Boggs and Perez, and David Ross for his contributions to the dust jacket design. I also thank the following friends who listened to endless stories from me about this book, and, at least to my face, did so without complaint: Apo Aydin, Denice Bizot, June Gal- loway, John Lawrence, Charmaigne Padua, Susan Roberts, David Ross, John Tottenham, and Aaron Walker. .
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