False Witness (49 page)

*
In 1995 a former investigator in the New Orleans D.A.'s office leaked forty-four Garrison-era grand jury transcripts to the press. The transcript I received in the mail is not one of those.

†
Many years later Perry Russo mentioned his visit to Wegmann's office to writer Hugh Aynesworth.

*
Why Russo increased the number of these phantom sightings may never be known with certainty. Most likely he was responding to pressure from Garrison to repair his story, badly damaged ten days earlier by the bomb James Phelan exploded in Garrison's den. Garrison knew this jury would soon be reading Phelan's article and Russo's “new” recollections probably were meant to nullify its impact. Russo was certainly trying to bolster his credibility in the eyes of these jurors who, to their credit, were skeptical even without Phelan's information.

This appendix is not all-inclusive but an additional sampling only, a supplement to
chapter 14
, specifically, and the whole of
False Witness
, generally. The first page numbers refer to the Sheridan Square Press edition of Garrison's book,
On the Trail of the Assassins
:
My Investigation and Prosecution of the Murder of President Kennedy
; those in parentheses refer to the Warner Books paperback edition.

1.
p. xi
(xi)—Garrison's statement that prior to the trial he publicly linked Shaw to the CIA is probably true. But that admission is a stark contrast to Garrison's oft-repeated claim that he never made any negative public statements about Shaw before the trial (Kirkwood,
American Grotesque
, pp. 489, 574–575).

2.
p. xii
(xii)—Clay Shaw wasn't acquitted, as Garrison claims, because the jurors found no motivation, but because, as several jurors said at the time, Garrison had presented no
evidence
to support his case. (See
chapter 11
.)

3.
p. 5
(3)—Guy Banister's pistol whipping of Jack Martin did not lead to Clay Shaw's prosecution. Perry Russo's assassination plot-party story did.

4.
pp. 4
–
5
(3)—Garrison characterizes Guy Banister as an “occasional” drinker, a “highly composed individual” unlikely to engage in violence and excessive drinking, and describes his November 22, 1963, attack on Jack Martin as “unusual and explosive.” But Banister was forced to retire from the New Orleans Police Department following an episode in which he reportedly “threatened a waiter with a pistol.” Author Anthony Summers described Banister as “choleric” and “a heavy drinker.” G. Robert Blakey and Richard Billings also described Banister as “a heavy drinker.” According to them Banister had “a violent temper,” and they referred to “reports that he shot a man during Mardi Gras festivities.” (Anthony Summers,
Conspiracy
[New York: Paragon House, 1989], pp. 290–291; G. Robert Blakey and Richard N. Billings,
The Plot to Kill the President
, [New York: Times Books, 1981], pp. 165–166.)

5.
p. 5
(3)—Contrary to Garrison's exciting narrative, the beating did not convert Jack Martin “into a bloody, battered mess,” and he was not “carted off to Charity hospital” in a police car. Martin's wounds were relatively minor
(“three small lacerations on the forehead and one laceration on the rear of the head”). And he went to Charity Hospital under his own steam. After he was treated he was well enough to take himself home. From his apartment he called the police, reported the incident, and a patrol car picked him up and took him to Baptist Hospital where he was examined and photographed. (New Orleans Police Department Report K-12634-63, Nov. 22, 1963, signed by Lt. Francis Martello.)

6.
p. 5
(3)—Jack Martin did not share his ideas about David Ferrie with only one friend, as Garrison indicates. Martin passed on his fantasies to a good portion of the population of New Orleans. (See
chapter 3
.)

7.
p. 6
(4)—Garrison claims that the weekend of the assassination his men discovered Oswald had been seen with Ferrie. That is not true. Neither his men, the New Orleans Police Department, the FBI, nor the Secret Service found any such evidence. That weekend the only information Garrison or anyone else had of an Oswald-Ferrie relationship came from Jack Martin's telephone rampage. (See
chapter 3
.)

8.
p. 7
(5)—According to Garrison, Jack Martin's “thoroughly reliable” friend contacted Asst. D.A. Herman Kohlman and reported what Martin had told him, triggering Garrison's pursuit of Ferrie the weekend of the assassination. But Kohlman and the records of the Secret Service say otherwise. It was Martin, himself, who telephoned Kohlman at home (Secret Service Report, Nov. 24–29, 1963; Herman Kohlman, telephone conversation with author, July 29, 1996). By interjecting a supposedly “thoroughly reliable” friend into the picture (and also claiming, as described in the preceding item, that the D.A.'s office knew of other witnesses who saw Ferrie with Oswald), Garrison is trying to distance his initial “case” against Ferrie from its thoroughly unreliable instigator—Jack Martin. (Since several people who received telephone calls from Martin reported his claims to the Secret Service, it is entirely possible that someone also called the D.A.'s office about them. But, if so, the originating source, Martin, remained the same; and the record is unequivocal that Martin himself spoke to Kohlman directly.)

9.
p. 7
(6)—David Ferrie did not leave New Orleans
one hour
after the assassination, as Garrison writes, but almost
six hours
afterwards. Proof of that is the telephone call (confirmed by the FBI) Ferrie placed, just before leaving, from Melvin Coffey's home to the Winterland Skating Rink in Houston. (See
chapter 3
.)

10.
p. 24
(27)—There is no evidence that Banister or anyone else “stopped” Oswald from using the 544 Camp Street address on his literature. Reportedly, Oswald used the Camp Street address only on one occasion, Aug. 9, 1963, the day he deliberately caused a confrontation with the anti-Castro Cubans, which resulted in his arrest and a good deal of publicity. The publicity seems to have been what Oswald had in mind. Anticipating media scrutiny that day,
it seems likely that he used the bogus office building address (instead of his home address) on his literature because it lent his Fair Play For Cuba “organization” (he was its only member) an air of legitimacy.

11.
p. 39
(43)—Jack Martin's anonymity is one of the myths Garrison invented for his memoir. Garrison asserts that Martin demanded absolute secrecy, and refused to sign anything. In real life, Martin signed several documents. For instance: On Dec. 26, 1966, Martin signed a “Statement” in the district attorney's office, given to “Jim Garrison in the presence of Louis Ivon,” which Ivon typed, and in which Martin claimed he saw David Ferrie in Guy Banister's office in the company of “three or four young men,” one of them Oswald. On April 7, 1967, Martin signed a six-page version of his involvement in the case entitled, “General Statement & Affidavit Regarding Garrison Probe.” On March 1, 1968, Martin (along with David Lewis) signed yet another, lengthier version of events, in two parts, this one entitled, “J.F.K. Assassination Investigation Report.” These documents are today in the National Archives.

By claiming Martin insisted on anonymity, Garrison is providing an alibi to explain (1) why this pivotal witness never told his story to the grand jury; (2) why he never took the witness stand; and (3) why (back then) Garrison was telling the press he would never be foolish enough to listen to Martin. Garrison also is using Martin's alleged fear of exposure to heighten the drama of his narrative. But back in 1967 Jack Martin was enthusiastically promoting himself to the media (see, for example, Merriman Smith, “JFK Plot Quiz: Seamy Suspects,”
Los Angeles Herald-Examiner
, March 5, 1967).

12.
pp.
74
–
75
(85–86)—Garrison's claim that someone else posed for the backyard Oswald-with-rifle photographs and they were altered to appear to be Oswald is disputed by the testimony of Oswald's wife and his mother. Marina Oswald testified that she took the pictures of Oswald holding the rifle in the backyard of their Neely Street apartment in Dallas. Marguerite Oswald testified that after Oswald was arrested she saw such a photograph (inscribed “For my daughter June”), and that at the police station Marina had that picture “folded up in her shoe.” Marina later tore the picture up, burned what she could of the pieces, and what was left Marguerite flushed down the toilet (WC Vol. 1, pp. 15–16, 117–118; 146, 152).

13.
p. 80
(92)—In his first interview with the FBI, Dean Andrews did not describe Clay Bertrand as six feet two inches, as Garrison writes; Andrews said Bertrand was five feet seven inches (FBI interview, Nov. 25, 1963).

14.
pp. 85
–
86
(98–99)—Contrary to Garrison's claim that his aides located several bartenders and bar owners in the French Quarter who knew Clay Shaw was Clay Bertrand, but they all refused to testify, Andrew Sciambra told Edward Epstein that he had “squeezed” the French Quarter and failed to find anyone who had ever heard of Clay Bertrand (Epstein,
Counterplot
, p. 50). Garrison told James Alcock and Tom Bethell the same thing (Bethell Diary, p. 11).
If such witnesses had existed, Garrison would have hauled them before his grand jury and forced them to cooperate.

15.
p. 87
(100)—Patience and “plodding footwork” had nothing to do with Garrison's notion that Shaw was Bertrand. Garrison arrived at that conclusion because of Shaw's first name and his homosexuality. William Gurvich, James Alcock and Tom Bethell confirmed that. (See
chapter 4
and note p. 47.)

16.
p. 152
(176)—Perry Russo
did not
make a positive identification of Clay Shaw in his first interview with Andrew Sciambra. Russo made only a vague, tentative identification, and two days later, when Russo arrived in New Orleans, he emphasized his uncertainty about it. Nor did Russo say initially that he knew Shaw as “Bertrand”: even after the sodium Pentothal session, Russo said he didn't know anyone by that name. (See
chapter 6
.)

17.
p. 106
(123)—Garrison makes it sound as though hordes of residents in Clinton remembered Oswald waiting in the registration line because he was the only white man there. But only three people, of the three hundred Garrison says were interviewed, testified that they remembered Oswald. Moreover, he was never the only white man in line. There was at least one other, Estus Morgan, by the testimony of Garrison's own witness, Henry Earl Palmer. (The number of whites probably was considerably higher than that, based on the lists of names—taken from the registrar's rolls, with race indicated—that Anne Dischler recorded in her notes.)

18.
p. 106
(123)—Garrison's claim that “all” the Clinton witnesses gave definitive descriptions of David Ferrie, saying he was “wearing a crazy-looking wig and painted eyebrows,” is false. None of them said that, or anything close. Only two Clinton witnesses even claimed they recalled Ferrie. Henry Earl Palmer said the man's hair and eyebrows “didn't seem real,” and Corrie Collins said his hair was “messed up,” his eyebrows “heavy” (trial transcript, Feb. 6, 1969, p. 84 [Palmer]; pp. 110–111 [Collins]).

19.
p. 106
(124)—Contrary to Garrison's version of events, none of the four Clinton witnesses who claimed to recall the driver of the black car commented on his “manners,” nor called him “distinguished.” None of them said he “nodded politely”; no one claimed he “said hello.” (See trial transcript, Henry Earl Palmer, John Manchester, and Corrie Collins on Feb. 6, 1969; and William Dunn, Sr. on Feb. 7, 1969.)

20.
pp. 106-107 (124)—According to Garrison, the Clinton town marshal checked the black limousine's license plates with the State Police and found they were registered to the International Trade Mart. But that isn't what the marshal testified to at Shaw's trial. He said Shaw
told
him he worked at the International Trade Mart (John Manchester, trial transcript, Feb. 6, 1969, p. 60). If a check on the car actually had established the tie to the Trade Mart, Manchester would have said so on the witness stand and the documentary
evidence of that registration would have been entered into evidence.

21.
p. 107
(125)—Garrison writes that Oswald showed “his Marine discharge card” to barber Edwin Lea McGehee, but nothing in the earliest statements and trial testimony supports that. According to that evidence, Oswald showed a military card to Registrar of Voters Henry Earl Palmer.

22.
p. 108
(126)—Garrison's claim that Andrew Sciambra found a woman in personnel at East Louisiana State Hospital who interviewed Oswald isn't true. No evidence exists that Oswald was ever interviewed by anyone at the hospital. No one in personnel even remembered seeing him. The clerk who claimed she saw Oswald's application, Maxine Kemp, went to work at the hospital the year after the assassination. Oswald, of course, was dead by then. Moreover, Kemp told this writer she was never interviewed by Sciambra, only by Francis Frugé. (See
chapter 13
.)

23.
p. 114
(132)—Richard Billings did not arrive in New Orleans in 1967; he arrived in December 1966. Moreover, Garrison himself prompted Billings's trip to Louisiana and the participation of
Life
magazine when Garrison contacted David Chandler, the unmentioned man in this memoir. By omitting Chandler from his story, Garrison creates the impression that the overture for the “secret deal” with
Life
was entirely the idea of
Life
's management. He also avoids the real reason
Life
withdrew from the arrangement: their loss of confidence in him following his arrest of Clay Shaw. (See
chapter 6
.)