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The U.S. Government Subverted the Investigation of New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison

There’s people who’ll disagree, but I think Jim Garrison was a true American hero. In 1966, the New Orleans District Attorney’s Office uncovered evidence believed to be linked to the assassination of President Kennedy and opened up an official investigation of those facts that they were legally obligated to pursue. It was within their legal jurisdiction and could have—and should have—been pursued without obstruction of justice.

Take note here that the American people welcomed the District Attorney’s investigation because it seemed that it was the first authentic look at it that anyone had taken. It was widely perceived that finally there was going to actually be an investigation.

If you want a good example of the American people’s serious reservations about the Warren Commission and the way that they overwhelmingly welcomed Garrison’s investigation, just listen to the District Attorney’s appearance on The Steve Allen Show in 1971. And when you listen to Jim Garrison eloquently explaining what really happened, it’s really amazing that—even though the truth was available then—we’re still being lied to now:³⁸² youtube.com/watch?v=KXZfsbpa2kI.

Justice was obstructed. And it was obstructed by the very people who were supposed to be guarding our rights to learn the truth.

It is now known that the U.S. government hindered the investigation wherever it could. At first, few believed Garrison’s claim that the CIA had curtailed his investigation:

Then . . . former CIA official Victor Marchetti revealed that high-level CIA conferences in early 1969 had determined to ‘give help in the trial.’ Said Marchetti: ‘I sure as hell know they didn’t mean Garrison.’ Marchetti maintained that both [Clay] Shaw and David Ferrie, another of Garrison’s prime suspects, had served the agency at one time.³⁸³

In fact, the wheels of power in the U.S. government impeded the investigation of Jim Garrison at every opportunity: electronically bugging his office, smearing his name, and blocking extradition of witnesses Garrison sought after they had fled to other states. His attempts to subpoena witnesses were struck down by judges.³⁸⁴ And then major media went after him, too; they launched vicious and well-organized attempts against his investigations.³⁸⁵

So here’s a very important question: Why did the U.S. government block Jim Garrison’s court case? That shows a government conspiracy, as Garrison was a legitimate District Attorney prosecuting a local case; it was a murder case so there’s no statute of limitations on murder—it’s his call. If he wants to go after this case, why were subpoenaed witnesses halted by the federal government? That point completely shows a government cover-up, government malfeasance to the worst degree. They worked against District Attorney Garrison’s trial. That had to come from the highest echelons of government. Who makes the call to block Jim Garrison’s trial? Is it the Attorney General? Is it the President? It ain’t gonna be some mid-level guy making a call like that and over-ruling a legitimate local district attorney of Orleans Parish, you can bet on that.

Although the jury found that there was not sufficient evidence to convict Clay Shaw, who was the defendant in that trial, Garrison proved a lot of important things. He found strong assassination links to mobster Carlo Marcello’s associates David Ferrie, Guy Banister, and Jack Ruby.

He also proved Oswald’s intelligence linkage: Garrison’s investigation found Shaw linked to a subterranean world of anti-Castro operations involving a bizarre pilot and paramilitarist named David Ferrie and a rabid John Birch Society member and ex-FBI agent named Guy Banister.

Newly released government files, plus the results of digging by researchers William Davy, Peter Vea, and Jim DiEugenio, indicate that Oswald was frequently seen with Shaw, Ferrie, and Banister. In 1995, Lou Ivon, an investigator for Garrison, told Davy that in February 1967, he had met with a frightened David Ferrie, who admitted doing contract work for the CIA and who knew Oswald and Shaw. Four days after he told Ivon that Shaw worked for the CIA and that he hated Kennedy, Ferrie was found dead. Two unsigned suicide notes were found next to the body, but the autopsy cited a brain aneurysm as the cause of death.³⁸⁶

Garrison investigated Oswald’s background more tenaciously and with much more thoroughness than did the Warren Commission.

Former FBI Special Agent William Turner, who had worked with the Garrison investigation, also shared some very interesting revelations in an excellent piece that detailed his experiences with that investigation. It was an article called, “The Garrison Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy,” and it really went in-depth about what they knew and how they knew it. A short excerpt follows, but if you have the time, the whole article is worth a read: wf.net/~biles/jfk/ramparts.txt

[District Attorney] Garrison believes that Oswald was schooled in covert operations by the CIA while in the Marine Corps at the Atsugi Naval Station in Japan, a U-2 facility [interestingly, two possibly relevant documents, ‘Oswald’s access to information about the U-2’ {CD 931} and ‘Reproduction of CIA official dossier on Oswald’ {CD 692} are still classified in the National Archives]. Curiously, the miscast Marine who was constantly in hot water had a Crypto clearance on top of a Top Secret clearance and was given two electronics courses. ‘Isn’t it odd,’ prods Garrison, ‘that even though he supposedly defected to the Soviet Union with Top Secret data on our radar nets, no action was taken against him when he came back to the United States?’³⁸⁷

One of Garrison’s major “finds” was Dean Andrews, a flashy Southern attorney who was an established link between Lee Harvey Oswald and Clay Shaw. Andrews knowingly concealed the fact that Clay Bertrand was an alias for Clay Shaw, who—it has been proved—had ties to U.S. intelligence.³⁸⁸ The government clearly intimidated Dean Andrews into changing his testimony, as I’ll show you below. But the CIA itself proved that Shaw was with the Agency:

Now the CIA has admitted as much. Memorandums on a number of the figures in Garrison’s probe were prepared in 1967 and 1968 for the deputy director of plans . . . Garrison and Marchetti were right. The CIA verified Shaw’s background in an April 6, 1967, file for the deputy chief, security research staff.³⁸⁹

But bear in mind that this was what researchers dug up later. At the time, when Garrison was trying to conduct an authentic investigation, they stonewalled him every step of the way. Make no mistake about it—the government lied and said there was no connection between Shaw and the CIA.

There’s a clip online where you can see what a colorful character Dean Andrews was. That was the jive-talking New Orleans attorney who John Candy portrayed so well in Oliver Stone’s film, JFK. That piece was also one of the many “hatchet jobs” done on the Garrison investigation in the press, so it also shows you what Garrison was up against: youtube.com/watch?v=jCkw8zWmQD8.

Garrison documented the following conversation between him and Andrews for his book, On the Trail of the Assassins. For the film JFK, it was depicted almost verbatim. In the following exchange, the fear in Andrews’s voice practically jumps off the printed page. Andrews was convicted of perjury, but in his opinion that was a much better choice than being killed.

GARRISON: If you lie to the Grand Jury as you have been lying to me, I’m going to charge you with perjury. Now am I communicating with you?

ANDREWS: (stunned) Is this off the off the record, Daddyo?
(Garrison nodded)
In that case, let me sum it up for you real quick. It’s as simple as this. If I answer that question you keep asking me, if I give you the name you keep trying to get, then it’s goodbye, Dean Andrews. It’s bon voyage, Deano. I mean like permanent. I mean like a bullet in my head—which makes it hard to do one’s legal research, if you get my drift. Does that help you see my problem a little better?

GARRISON: Read my lips. Either you dance in to the Grand Jury with the real moniker of that cat who called you to represent Lee Oswald, or your fat behind is going to the slammer. Do you dig me?

ANDREWS: [He stood up suddenly.] Do you have any idea what you’re getting into, my man? You want to dance with the government? Is that what you want? Then be my guest. But you will get sat on, and I do mean hard.³⁹⁰

But the government torpedoed that witness and Garrison knew it. He also explained in his book how that came about:

It had readily become apparent to me, however, that the more Andrews realized that his having received a phone call to defend Lee Oswald was a potential danger to him, the foggier the identity of Clay Bertrand became in his mind. By the time Andrews appeared before the Warren Commission in July of 1964, Bertrand’s height had shrunk from six feet two all the way down to five feet eight inches. Apparently in response to subtle pressure from the FBI agents, Andrews told them, “Write what you want, that I am nuts. I don’t care.” The agents obligingly wrote in their final report that Andrews had come to the conclusion that the phone call from Bertrand had been “a figment of his imagination.” This not only allowed the Bureau to conclude its investigation into Andrews but harmonized with its announced conclusion that Lee Oswald had accomplished Kennedy’s assassination alone and unaided.³⁹¹

And he proved that the Warren Commission altered witness testimony in a very corrupt manner. Another important witness whom the Garrison investigation found was Julia Ann Mercer:

Some of the best witnesses to the assassination found their way to us after it became apparent to them that the federal agents and the Dallas police really were not interested in what they saw. Julia Ann Mercer was just such a witness. In fact, no other witness so completely illuminated for me the extent of the cover-up.

Mercer had been but a few feet away when one of the riflemen was unloaded at the grassy knoll shortly before the arrival of the presidential motorcade. Consequently, she was a witness not only to the preparation of President Kennedy’s murder but also to the conspiracy involved.

She gave statements to the FBI and the Dallas Sheriff’s office, and then returned to the FBI and provided additional statements, but she was never called by the Warren Commission—not even to provide an affidavit.³⁹²

Quite contrary to the attempted smear job done on her by author Gerald Posner in his book, Case Closed, Julia Ann Mercer was a sophisticated woman and very credible witness. Jim Garrison described his pleasant surprise at meeting her:

Then one day in early 1968, her husband called me at the office. He said that he and his wife were in New Orleans on business and had some things to tell me. I agreed to meet them at the Fairmont Hotel, where they were staying.

Arriving at their suite, I found a most impressive couple. A middle-aged man of obvious substance, he had been a Republican member of Congress from Illinois. Equally impressive, she was intelligent and well-dressed, the kind of witness any lawyer would love to have testifying on his side in front of a jury.³⁹³

Ms. Mercer’s statements were definitely altered, and she showed that to Garrison in precise terms:

After he had departed on business, I handed her copies of her statements as they had been printed in the Warren Commission exhibits. She read them carefully and then shook her head.

‘These all have been altered,’ she said. ‘They have me saying just the opposite of what I really told them.’

It’s not at all surprising that Mercer’s testimony was a threat to the cover-up. She was the eyewitness to an amazing event, and her recollection of it was absolutely positive.

About an hour before the assassination, she had been driving west on Elm Street and had been stopped—just past the grassy knoll—by traffic congestion. To her surprise (because she recalled that the President’s parade was coming soon), she saw a young man in the pickup truck to her right dismount, carrying a rifle, not too well concealed in a covering of some sort. She then observed him walk up ‘the grassy hill which forms part of the overpass.’ She looked at the driver several times, got a good look at his round face and brown eyes, and he looked right back at her.

Mercer also observed that three police officers were standing near a motorcycle on the overpass bridge above her and just ahead. She recalled that they showed no curiosity about the young man climbing the side of the grassy knoll with the rifle.³⁹⁴

So, silly us, we think that the United States Government would actually welcome upstanding citizens spending their own time to testify about important events that they witnessed, right?

Wrong, Charlie Brown!

After the assassination, when Mercer sought to make this information available to law enforcement authorities, their response was almost frenzied. At the FBI office—where she went the day after the assassination—she was shown a number of mug shots. Among the several she selected as resembling the driver was a photograph of Jack Ruby. On Sunday, when she saw Ruby kill Oswald on television, she positively recognized him as the driver of the pickup truck and promptly notified the local Bureau office. Nevertheless, the FBI altered her statement so it did not note that she had made a positive identification.

She laughed when she pointed this out to me. ‘See,’ she said, ‘the FBI made it just the opposite of what I really told them.’ Then she added, ‘He was only a few feet away from me. How could I not recognize Jack Ruby when I saw him shoot Oswald on television?’³⁹⁵

So that was what the Feds did. And guess what? The authorities in Dallas did the same thing. They altered her testimony, too, in what Garrison aptly describes as the “same fraud”:

The Dallas Sheriff’s office went through the same laborious fraud and added an imaginative touch of its own. Although Mercer had never been brought before any notary, the Sheriff’s office filed a sworn affidavit stating that she did not identify the driver, although she might, ‘if I see him again,’ and significantly changing other facts.

‘See that notarized signature?’ she asked me. ‘That’s not my signature either. I sign my name with a big “A” like this.’ She produced a pen and wrote her name for me. It was clear that the signature the Dallas Sheriff’s office had on its altered statement was not even close to hers.³⁹⁶

It was obvious that Garrison actually cared about finding the truth, and as a District Attorney, he certainly knew how to weigh the evidence, too:

The implications of her experience were profound. First of all, Mercer’s observations provided further evidence that there was another rifleman on the knoll ahead of the President.

But to me the responses to her statements were even more chilling. They proved that law enforcement officials recognized early on that a conspiracy existed to kill the President. Both local and federal authorities had altered Mercer’s statements precisely to conceal that fact.³⁹⁷

Jim Garrison described the Warren Report quite well:

The twenty-six volumes is [sic] a domestic intelligence accomplishment.³⁹⁸

The following is straight from Garrison himself, regarding his interview of private investigator Jack Martin about the goings-on at Banister’s office between Banister, Ferrie, and Oswald in the period prior to the JFK assassination.

MARTIN: There was Dave Ferrie—you know about him by now.

GARRISON: Was he there very often?

MARTIN: Often? He practically lived there.

GARRISON: And Lee Harvey Oswald?

MARTIN: Yeah, he was there too. Sometimes he’d be meeting with Guy Banister with the door shut. Other times he’d be shooting the bull with Dave Ferrie. But he was there all right.

GARRISON: What was Guy Banister doing while all this was going on?

MARTIN: Hell, he was the one running the circus.

GARRISON: What about his private detective work?

MARTIN: Not much of that came in, but when it did, I handled it. That’s why I was there.

GARRISON: So, Jack. Just what was going on at Banister’s office?

MARTIN: I can’t answer that. I can’t go into that stuff at all. I think I’d better go.

GARRISON: Hold on, Jack. What’s the problem with our going into what was happening at Banister’s office?

MARTIN: What’s the problem? What’s the problem? The problem is that we’re going to bring the goddamned federal government down on our backs. Do I need to spell it out? I could get killed—and so could you.

But he went forward with that investigation anyway, and he deserves a lot of credit for that.

As Jim Garrison put it himself:

One man with the truth constitutes a majority.³⁹⁹

³⁸² The Steve Allen Show, 1971, KTLA-TV, (Golden West Broadcasters, Inc.): youtube.com/watch?v=KXZfsbpa2kI

³⁸³ Dick Russell, On the Trail of the JFK Assassins, 85.

³⁸⁴ Joan Mellen, A Farewell to Justice: Jim Garrison, JFK’s Assassination, and the Case That Should Have Changed History (Potomac Books: 2005).

³⁸⁵ William Davy, Let Justice Be Done: New Light on the Jim Garrison Investigation (Jordan Pub: 1999): ctka.net/nbc_cia.html

³⁸⁶ Roger S. Peterson, “Declassifed,” August 1996, American History Magazine: assassinationweb.com/Peterson.htm

³⁸⁷ William W. Turner, “The Garrison Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy,” Ramparts Magazine, January 1968: wf.net/~biles/jfk/ramparts.txt

³⁸⁸ Russell, On the Trail of the JFK Assassins, 85.

³⁸⁹ Ibid.

³⁹⁰ Garrison, On the Trail of the Assassins, 91–95.

³⁹¹ Ibid, 92–93.

³⁹² Garrison, On the Trail of the Assassins.

³⁹³ Ibid.

³⁹⁴ Ibid.

³⁹⁵ Garrison, On the Trail of the Assassins.

³⁹⁶ Ibid.

³⁹⁷ Ibid.

³⁹⁸ The Steve Allen Show, 1971, KTLA-TV, (Golden West Broadcasters, Inc.): youtube.com/watch?v=KXZfsbpa2kI

³⁹⁹ Jim Garrison, “Gerald Ford & Jim Garrison in 1967,” retrieved 9 May 2013: youtube.com/watch?v=lixaRjLxadw