False Witness (8 page)

Those with access to Andrews's FBI documents knew about the hospital, the drugs, how ill Andrews was the weekend of the assassination, and about his quick recantation. But few paid any attention to that. The focus was on Andrews's backsliding testimony to Wesley Liebeler. That was published by the Warren Commission in its Hearings and Exhibits, those twenty-six blue bound books bearing the presidential seal destined for libraries nationwide. Even the Warren Report, while emphasizing its tenuous nature, gave Andrews's testimony a paragraph.
⁴⁵
That's where Jim Garrison would discover it three years later.

*
This incident, vastly reshaped, will later be retold by Garrison in his book and prominently featured in Stone's film.

*
The classmate later told the FBI that Oswald attended only two or three meetings, “four at the most” (Edward Voebel, FBI interview, Nov. 25, 1963).

†
This story has had a long life (see chapter 13).

‡
This prompted Secret Service inquiries about David Ferrie that weekend, which have prompted some students of this case to conclude that the government possessed legitimate information of his involvement in the crime.

*
Martens, who was dealing with a difficult home situation, stayed at Ferrie's apartment only about two weeks until he rented a place of his own (Martens, interview with Jim Garrison's assistants, March 12, 1967).

*
Though Ferrie had no recollection of it, on at least one occasion, perhaps two, his path crossed with Oswald's. (See notes, pp. 44 and 61.) But he and Oswald were never concurrent members of the CAP. Oswald joined on July 27, 1955. That was six months after CAP officials denied Ferrie's membership renewal—a reaction to his political lectures to cadets. Nevertheless, for a period of time that year Ferrie continued “to work with the squadron” unbeknownst to CAP officials, who “found out” in “late” 1955 and put a stop to it. Ferrie was reinstated in 1958, and permanently terminated in 1960. For awhile afterwards he operated a “spurious” CAP squadron. (Joseph Ehrlicker, CAP Commander, Louisiana Wing, FBI interview, Nov. 26, 1963; John Ciravolo, telephone conversation with author, July 9, 1997.)

*
Pershing Gervais said Martin was “absolutely crazy.” On one occasion Gervais physically threw Martin out of his office and “hit him on the head” with his telephone. Guy Banister used his gun. Martin seemed to drive people to strike out at him with whatever happened to be handy.

*
What Andrews didn't know was that Oswald's careful handling of citizenship and immigration matters while in Russia, and his returning home with U.S. government help, indicated he knew exactly where he stood on those issues.

*
When he began retreating from the “Bertrand” story, Andrews began shoring up this
Oswald-was-my-client
tale. He increased the
Oswald visits
from “three” to the possibility of as many as “five” and claimed that Oswald arrived
after
5
P.M
., after his secretary had left for the day. That explained why there was no record of Oswald in the appointment book and why the secretary had no knowledge that he was a client.

On a humid evening in late October 1966, the upscale New Orleans restaurant Broussard's was the scene of a significant meeting. That night Jim Garrison took his old Tulane law school classmate Dean Andrews to dinner there. Garrison had just discovered that Andrews was a witness before the Warren Commission and he wanted to know all about it. Andrews was flattered to be invited out by this powerful man. The office, Garrison told him, thinks very highly of you. The two shared a skepticism about the Warren Report that created a common ground, and the occasion was a pleasant social affair. Andrews had no idea an investigation was in the offing. He thought Garrison merely wanted to compare notes with him about the assassination.
²

Garrison, listening attentively, accepted without question what
Andrews said about the Oswald visits and the mysterious Clay Bertrand, and prodded Andrews for everything he could recall about Oswald. Once again the compulsive talker was compelled to talk. Andrews repeated what he could remember of what he had told Liebeler. They kicked around some theories about the assassination, discussed the weapon, and Harold Weisberg's book
Whitewash
, which Garrison had with him. Then Garrison “mooched” Andrews's copy of the Warren Report.
³

That congenial get-together was Garrison's first move on the case; soon he was talking to Jack Martin. Searching for access to the crime of the century, Garrison had found his on-ramp. Yet exactly
when
he turned his attention to the assassination and
why
are unclear. There are two accounts of how it came about. Garrison claimed his interest was kindled sometime in the fall of 1966 on a plane trip to New York with U.S. Senator Russell B. Long of Louisiana.
⁴
During that flight, Long expressed doubts about the Warren Report's lone-assassin theory, especially Oswald's ability to fire so accurately in such a brief time.
*
This troubled Garrison, who had accepted the Warren Commission's conclusions, and prompted a reexamination of the Report, which turned him 180 degrees in the other direction. So goes the official version.

The unofficial one involves a stripper convicted of lewd dancing, a pardon Garrison engineered for her, and the allegation that her case was linked to elements of “organized crime.” That charge triggered a classic Garrison counterattack. “Organized crime,” Garrison proclaimed, didn't exist in Orleans Parish (an untenable position that he never altered) and he had his principal critic subpoenaed by the Grand Jury “to put up or shut up.” A newspaper editorial followed reproaching Garrison. He reacted by turning his guns on the newspaper as well.
^†
Then Garrison's good friend, writer David Chandler, published an article in
New Orleans
magazine implying that some individuals in the district attorney's office were taking bribes. Garrison, the article said,
had lost his way. No longer the shining knight of old, Garrison had “touched off” what Chandler called an “organized crime donnybrook.” Word quickly “got back” to Chandler that his charges had put Garrison “into a complete tailspin”—that he had virtually “gone crazy” over them.
⁵
In the midst of this escalating furor, Garrison turned his attention to the Kennedy assassination. Some believe he did so in an effort to regain his earlier hero's image and to draw attention away from the corruption and organized crime charges. If so, Garrison selected the right issue. The assassination was the topic of the day.

Stirred by a series of critical books and articles, people everywhere were debating the accuracy of the Warren Report. Mark Lane, in his 1966 bestseller
Rush to Judgment
, presented a serious challenge to the government's conclusions. But Lane's book was an advocate's brief. Harvard graduate student Edward Epstein published
Inquest
that same year and it had no such down side. Impressed by its balance and scholarly cachet, management at a number of leading news organizations (among them
Time
magazine, the
New York Times
and the
Wall Street Journal
) sent their own investigative teams into the field to see what they could find.
⁶

While Epstein influenced the members of the news media, it was the nation's most popular magazines, those familiar and trusted publications found on coffee tables everywhere, that swayed middle America. In November 1966, a milestone article appeared in
Life
written by Richard Billings. Using frames from the Zapruder film and citing John Connally's testimony disputing the single-bullet theory, “A Matter of Reasonable Doubt” raised the possibility of a second shooter and called for a new inquiry.
⁷
No single piece published had more impact. It may have played a greater role in turning the majority of Americans away from the conclusions of the Warren Report than any book written. In those days most of the country still relied heavily on the print media for its news.
Life
(then part of one of the largest news organizations in the world) was still an entrenched and honored part of the American scene. For an institution as conservative and important to endorse such an idea seemed, in itself, to validate the notion of conspiracy. And
Life
was not alone.

Two months later,
The Saturday Evening Post
, a magazine of heartland values and Norman Rockwell sentiments, asked on its cover, “Do we need a new investigation?” and the article said yes.
⁸
As with the management
at
Life
, those at
The Post
had turned away from the official lone-assassin version and were cautiously exploring the idea of conspiracy. Questioning the government's conclusions was in vogue, and the questioning was being done by the people at the nation's most venerable and prominent publications. Many today believe Garrison went out on a limb with his Kennedy investigation; that isn't true. By the time he launched his boat, a news media flotilla had already left the dock. Garrison wasn't bucking the tide, he was moving with it, and so was the rest of the country. Contrary to today's conventional wisdom, it wasn't a handful of cranks that drew the country into the conspiracy camp. It was the mainline media.

But for Garrison it was Senator Long. He shaped to a surprising degree Garrison's thinking on the case during that airborne conversation. Long speculated that the assassins used Oswald as “a fall guy,” “a decoy” whose shots from the Texas School Book Depository drew the attention of everyone “while another man fired the fatal shot.” Garrison would make those ideas the backbone of his own theory about the mechanics of Dealey Plaza. Long also triggered Garrison's recollections of the flurry of activity in his office when tipster Jack Martin named David Ferrie as Oswald's accomplice. Around the time of the assassination, Garrison told Long, his office had arrested and released “a very unusual type of person who made a very curious trip at a very curious time.” Garrison said he might now take another look at all that.
⁹

While his motives are obscure, the course Garrison pursued from then on is clear enough. He began by studying the Warren Commission Report and its twenty-six volumes, as well as the writings of some of its critics. Primarily because Oswald had studied Russian while in the Marine Corps, Garrison became convinced that he was linked to the U.S. intelligence community and that he had been engaged in undercover activities the summer before the assassination. Whatever Oswald had been up to, he had spent that summer in Garrison's jurisdiction. With that tenuous justification, Garrison opened his own investigation into the case.

In the weeks that followed, Garrison assembled a small staff to work in secret on the project, which he called “The Smith Case,” after Winston Smith, George Orwell's
Nineteen Eighty-Four
protagonist. He also dreamt up code names to identify the principals involved. Oswald was “Patsy,”
Ferrie “Blackstone,” and Banister “Barney.” This pseudo-clandestine game playing suggests that Garrison, at least for a time, was having
fun
. He was also busy. He instigated a reunion with David Chandler that would bring about Garrison's deep but short-lived involvement with
Life
magazine. He had numerous sessions with Jack Martin, and he took Dean Andrews to dinner a total of three times, with conversations in between.

Garrison told few outside the secret team that he was “reopening” the Kennedy case. But he confided in Andrews. This was after their initial dinner at Broussard's. Garrison asked for Andrews's help. He named three people he wanted to know about. One was David Ferrie, “whom Garrison called the ‘getaway pilot.' ” Another was the Mexican Andrews claimed accompanied Oswald to his office. The third was Clay Bertrand. But Andrews couldn't help. He had had contact with Ferrie only once, he told Garrison, in connection with a parole he arranged for a friend of Ferrie.
*
Regarding the Mexican (“Oswald's shadow”) and Bertrand (a “voice on the phone”), Andrews had nothing new to add.
¹⁰
Garrison wasn't satisfied, but it would be several weeks before Andrews heard from him again.

Meanwhile, Garrison spoke to the loquacious Jack Martin. Disregarding his recantation to the Secret Service, Martin enlarged and embellished that 1963 story, shaping it to fit the new situation. He told Garrison about the pistol-whipping the night of the assassination. But now he claimed it was sparked by a comment he made about the men he saw in Guy Banister's office that summer. Whom did he see? A “bunch” of Cubans, David Ferrie (who “practically lived there”), and Lee Harvey Oswald.
¹¹
These “revelations” intensified Garrison's interest in all manner of Cuban activities. He concluded that Oswald's pro-Castro public stance was a pretense, that he was actually anti-Castro and working as an
agent provocateur
for Guy Banister. Supporting this idea was the address “544 Camp Street”
^†
that Oswald stamped on some of the literature he handed out on the streets of New Orleans. Banister's office was in the same building (though located around the corner at 731 Lafayette
Street), and Garrison found that conclusive. Guy Banister now became central to his thinking. Oswald, Garrison decided, was working out of Banister's office. Nefarious doings, Garrison believed, transpired there.