Destiny Betrayed:
JFK, Cuba, and the Garrison Case (2nd ed.)
(New York: Skyhorse
Publishing, 1992, 2012)
By James DiEugenio…
Rev. by Hugh Murray
The JFK
assassination has been of interest to me since I first heard the news while
teaching 5th grade in my native New Orleans. (When I informed my class that the President
had been shot in Dallas, one pupil burst into tears, all the others into
cheers.) But my fascination with the
case has been intermittent. I read, even
write about it; and then I burn out. I
am delighted that DiEugenio’s (hereafter, JDE) book has updated me about so
much.
Absent from
all I have read, including this fine book, is an example of the role of the
media in US-Cuban relations. During the
Bay of Pigs (BoP) invasion, the local CBS affiliate, WWL, the 50,000 watt,
clear-channel station owned by the Jesuit university, Loyola U. of the South,
reported the news as it was happening – the massive uprising on the island,
reports that the anti-Castro rebels had killed Fidel’s brother Raul, the
popularity of the rebel insurgency against Castro, etc. Soon after, with the failure of the invasion,
we learned that all the reported news was a lie. The CIA-sponsored invasion induced the most
reliable radio source in New Orleans to simply lie to its listeners. I am unsure just when it began, but sometime
after the BoP defeat, WWL suspended its regular programming at 9pm each night and
instead broadcast in Spanish beaming its powerful signal toward Cuba. All too transparent were the connections
between the government, the CIA, and the best news networks and the major radio
station in the largest city of the South (at least, until publication of the
1960 census, New Orleans was as it had been since before the Civil War, the
largest city of the South, larger than Houston, Dallas, Miami, Atlanta,
Memphis).
Much of JDE’s
book centers on New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison and his
investigation of a conspiracy to kill President Kennedy – one which included
David Ferrie and Clay Shaw. What makes
this book so valuable is that JDE includes newly declassified material demonstrating
the collusion between the attorneys defending Shaw and the Federal Government –
the FBI, the CIA, and their assets in the media. At the time, one knew that Garrison had his
critics in the local press, but not until I read this did I discover that the
Feds pressured a local newspaper (both were owned by the Newhouse chain) into
reassigning two reporters whose stories reinforced the Garrison position;
thereafter, they were required to cover other events.
JDE
documents the role of NBC and its local affiliate, WDSU, in using “assets” and
CIA friendly reporters to defend Shaw and smear Garrison. Of course, it was on WDSU’s call-in program
that the left-wing, pro-Castro, Lee Oswald appeared as a guest. He was “ambushed” by the anti-Communist Ed
Butler, who informed the listening audience that Oswald was not merely
pro-Castro, but that he had resided in the USSR, in effect conflating pro-Castroism
with Communism. Do not misunderstand me:
- in a radio debate, each side ought to use whatever arguments that can best
make their case, so long as they are truthful.
The vehemently anti-Communist had every right to make the best case
against his pro-Castro opponent. The
question is not so much about Butler the anti-Communist; but how much of a
leftist was Oswald? Or was he a guest on
WDSU to establish the impression that he was a left-winger and Marxist?
While I
heartily recommend this book, I do wish to add some background that may shed
light on why some in New Orleans may have been skeptical of Garrison’s
investigation into Pres. Kennedy’s murder.
It was
probably late spring or summer of 1961 when I reported to the NO Customs House
Building. The draft was the law, and I
was called. We were given some forms to
fill out, and a boxed chicken lunch, which we might eat on the way north to Ft.
Chafee, Arkansas. I had some uneasiness
about the forms, for this included a list of subversive organizations, and we
had to describe any type of association we might have had with any of the
organizations listed. I thought, should
I, or not? Then I remembered, photos of
the event had been taken, and there was a heavy penalty for lying, so I
mentioned it. In 1960 at a Congress of
Racial Equality (CORE) training institute in Miami, at which our teachers included
baseball legend Jackie Robinson, and Martin Luther King – one weekend a dance was
held for our integrated group. The organization
that allowed our mixed crowd to dance in their hall was the Jewish Culture Club
(JCC). The JCC was on the Attorney
General’s list of subversive groups. We
had our dance there (where I first did the twist), and JCC members mostly sat
at tables and watched us. Most of the
CORE people were in our 20s; the youngest of the JCC crew was about 60. There was not much contact, though, of
course, we were very happy to have a place to dance. Also, on the form I had to complete, was a
question of had we ever been arrested. I
had, and had been convicted of a felony.
I had been arrested in the very first lunch-counter sit-in in New
Orleans, charged with criminal mischief, and convicted for this felony. By this time, I had already learned that with
a felony I could not volunteer for the service, but the Navy had told me I
could be drafted. Now, however, when I
returned my form to the army officer, he was surprised. “But you’re not even Jewish!” He then related that I would have to speak
with an agent of the FBI, and that would be a few minutes because he was then
interviewing a Black Muslim. When the
FBI man got to me, he did not even mention the dance or the JCC. But he did state that I could not be drafted
because of the felony. He would speak to
the District Attorney, and request that the sit-in charge be dropped, and then
I could be inducted. Meanwhile, he would
get back to me. Richard Dowling, the NO
DA who had personally come to our sit-in at Woolworths to literally read us the
law and then have us arrested, apparently refused to drop the charges. But in March 1962 Garrison defeated Dowling
in the Democratic primary for district attorney (which then meant
election). Garrison, like Dowling, did NOT
drop the felony sit-in charges. Not
until 1963 did the US Supreme Court rule on the New Orleans sit-in cases, and
some resolution was made. My point is
that JDE seems to be making Garrison into a civil rights/libertarian on various
issues, and I dispute that interpretation.
JDE notes
that when police arrested a book seller for peddling obscene material, James
Baldwin’s Another Country, Garrison
refused to prosecute. But I do not
recall Garrison as a civil libertarian.
In the French Quarter, outside the strip clubs, there were photos of the
women wearing g-stings and pasties. Suddenly,
with Garrison’s anti-vice crusade, the pictures had to be covered. The French Quarter came up with an ingenious
method of doing so. The pictures would
remain, however parts of the women’s bodies would be covered by a curtain of
beads, and with a flick of the hand, a passerby could readily ogle the forbidden
picture. Of course, if you walked by the
door, the bouncer would open it so you could see the women live as they
performed. Indeed, one stripper would
sit on a swing that would go from inside the club through a window to the sidewalk
(though I am unsure if that was pre-Garrison or not).
As I was a
graduate student at Tulane in the early 1960s, I was acquainted with many
others in various fields of study. Years
later, probably in the 1980s on a visit to my home city, I saw one of these
acquaintances, and we chatted in the Tulane cafeteria. Only then did I learn of why he had come to
Tulane. In 1960 he left San Francisco
for New Orleans because he was gay, and he believed at the time that NO was a
freer place for gay people that SF. It
seems incredible to hear that today, and yet… I remember one Mardi Gras, of the
early 1960s, going to the Quarter with a married couple from North Dakota. The streets were packed. On Bourbon, there was a stage, and a beauty
contest. We were watching in the tightly
massed crowd. Then Ramona said to me,
“Look at the legs on that one.” Those
were the legs of a football player I thought.
And then I realized, these beauties were not women. There were no arrests. Hundreds were watching a beauty contest of
transvestites, on a public street. I do
not know, but could that have occurred in 1961 in SF? Or NY?
Perhaps NO in 1960 was more tolerant to gays than other tolerant cities.
The grad
student from SF told me in the 1980s about his experience with Garrison’s anti-vice efforts. This grad student was gay, and he was walking
alone in the Quarter, when he said the police arrested him and all other single
males they could find. I cannot attest
to how accurate this was – for surely many tourists, and locals, entering the
strip clubs might be single, or without their wives. I doubt if they were arrested. But perhaps Garrison did try to arrest single
men in other parts of the quarter, simply because they were there and
single. And there was the case of the
Quorum Club, a place on Esplanade Ave., officially across the street from the
Quarter proper. It was probably in 1963,
when Garrison was DA that there was a raid on the club, and the 35 or so
arrested had their names and addresses published on page one of the Picayune
and States-Item. The newspaper informed
the public that the Quorum was a center of drug use, integration, and
homosexuality. I remember because
someone I knew from Tulane as an undergrad was among those listed. Next weekend, I purposely went to the Quorum
Club for my first time.
Only about
5 years ago did I meet Kenneth Owen, a librarian at Tulane, one who had retired
from the University of NO. Owen told me
he had gone in 1962 or 1963 to a club on Rampart St., one that was the predecessor
of the Quorum Club. There he spoke with
Oswald. From that conversation, he
believed Oswald was gay. Yet, Ruth Ann
Kloepfer, who went with her mom and sister to visit the Oswalds at their Magazine
St. apartment at the request of fellow Quakeress from Texas, Ruth Paine. Ruth Ann Kloepfer told me in a phone interview
in the 1990s how angry she was with Lee Oswald.
They had gone there to help Marina and children, and while her mother
and sister were helping the Russian woman in one room, Ruth Ann was convinced
that Lee was coming on to her in the other.
Ruth Ann was a beauty. Her anger
resonated after 30 years. The point here
is that Garrison may not have been the greatest defender of civil liberties. (Moreover, I have no idea if Oswald was
totally hetero or not. I do not think it crucial to the
assassination. Michael Snyder, in a
fascinating piece analyzing the writings of Clay Shaw, claims that Gove Vidal
stated that the young Oswald was hustling as a teen and Shaw had seen him in
the bars. Snyder includes some
interesting paragraphs on the subject of Oswald’s sexuality. Interesting, but speculation none the less. Some may stress the influence of David Ferrie
on Oswald. Ferrie was clearly
queer. Yet, I had a very hetero room
mate who was greatly influenced by David Ferrie. Ferrie’s homosexuality did not rub off on
him.)
One more
incident, but I cannot affirm that this occurred under Garrison or before. But it was on the first page of either the
first of 2nd sections of the local paper – a detective was so determined
to get proof of a man having sex with another, he pushed some device through
the man’s apartment keyhole. Because the
bed was located beyond the range of the device’s sightline, the detective was
unable to prove the perversion of the apartment’s inhabitants. That was major reading in the newspaper of
that era.
When
Garrison raided the home of Clay Shaw, taking many personal items, and when
these items were listed on the pages of the newspapers, Shaw’s whips, his
ropes, his veil, etc., some naturally assumed that Garrison was simply
indulging in another anti-gay crusade.
Because Garrison had a history of antagonism, even persecution , of
gays, his pronouncement of a homosexual plot to kill Pres. Kennedy roused
skepticism, and anger and fear, among gays.
And it roused skepticism among open-minded straights who decried gay
oppression. Was Garrison conducting an
anti-gay witch hunt?
As Garrison
got his prosecution of Shaw underway, and began to allege Shaw was somehow
connected with the CIA, Garrison’s charges seemed even more preposterous. Everyone knew what Western operatives were
like. 007 was a macho man who drank the
finest wines and bedded the most beautiful women. Sean Connery was no limp-wristed queer. As a friend told me at the time, “Shaw could
not possibly be involved in an assassination plot; he’s a homosexual.” (There were queers who were spies, but those
were the spies for the Communists, like the Cambridge crew who served the
Soviets). Those in HM Secret Service or
the CIA were men who loved women. Shaw
could not possibly be CIA. The entire
project – government agents involved in a plot to kill the President, a funny
looking man like Ferrie involved, plus a “respectable” queer who knew Tennessee
Williams and Gore Vidal involved with a 25-year-old defector who had brought
his wife back from the USSR – just too bizarre.
And the Federal Government covering up such a crime! Absurd.
And yet?...
Garrison’s
interest had begun in November 1963 when he had David Ferrie arrested in
connection with the case. (See “My New
Orleans Story” on my blog, esp. part 3 re Ferrie). After his arrest, Ferrie was handed over to
the FBI for questioning, and the FBI then released him. That seemed to end the matter in 1963.
Then there
were questions about Oswald’s stay in New Orleans after his return from Minsk. When arrested by NO police during a scuffle
where he was distributing Fair Play for Cuba leaflets, Oswald asked to speak
with the FBI. That interview from one to
three hours, and though notes were taken, they were later destroyed. Would a Communist, or a leftist, when
arrested, ask to speak to the FBI? The
others who were distributing the leaflets with Oswald were allegedly paid to do
so. Who paid them? Oswald also said he was paid to hand them out. Was he lying?
Or was he paid, and by whom? JDE
has various people saying that Oswald was working on this project for Guy
Banister. (Might the others leafleting
have been some of the gay “Mexicanos” Dean Andrews said accompanied Oswald when
they came to his office?) Finally, the
address on some of the FPCC leaflets was indeed that of the same building that
housed Guy Banister Associates and his anti-Castro organization. JDE writes of several witnesses who saw
Oswald working in Banister’s offices.
David Ferrie also did work for Banister.
There is a photo of the young Oswald at a barbeque when he was in
Ferrie’s Civil Air Patrol. And Oswald’s
landlady said that after the assassination, Ferrie had come to Oswald’s old
apartment looking for his, Ferrie’s, library card. Ferrie, Oswald, Banister. And Shaw?
One
possible link was the “jive-talking” attorney dean Andrews, who had defended
the gay Latins when Oswald came with them.
The man who often paid for these cases was Clem Bertrand. JDE stresses and incident that the judge
would not permit to go before the jury of the Shaw trial. When being booked, Shaw was asked if he had
used any alias, and, according to the policeman booking him, he declared he
used Clem Bertrand. He also signed a
card to that effect. Moreover others,
like the receptionist at the airport VIP lounge asserted that Shaw signed in as
Bertrand. JDE relates that even more
have also maintained that Shaw was Bertrand.
Andrews had
stated and given testimony for the Warren Commission that he had received a telephone
call in November 1963 asking him to defend the newly arrested Oswald in
Dallas. The person calling was Clem
Bertrand. But as time went on, Andrews
backtracked, and became ever more evasive.
About the time Garrison was placing him on the stand under oath, Andrews
was interviewed by local TV. The
reporters kept pressing him. Finally, I
recall this over the decades, Andrews replied, “If they can kill the President,
they can squash me like a roach.”
Even in the
1960s there were some strange news items about the Garrison case. Shortly after Garrison included Clay Shaw
among his conspirators, Pres. Lyndon Johnson’s Attorney General Ramsey Clark in
March 1967 interceded in the process.
Clark announced on television that the government had investigated Shaw
in 1963 and there had been nothing to connect him to the events in Dallas. This comment by the highest law enforcer in
the US led to other questions – just WHY was the Federal Government
investigating Shaw at all in 1963 concerning the Kennedy killing?
What JDE
adds in this edition of his book is proof from newly released documents of how
the Federal Government actively engaged in the defense of Shaw and obstructed
the Garrison prosecution. JDE shows how
Shaw’s attorneys asked for and received help in their defense from the FBI (p.
265). He details how the CIA obstructed
the Garrisons case, infiltrating the prosecution team, gaining access to the
prosecutions list of possible witnesses, their names and addresses, so that the
pro-Fed, pro-Shaw attorneys or “journalists” might reach them first and suggest
the “proper” story line. Or threaten them if they did not recant. Sometimes the Fed infiltrators might spy,
sometimes simply steal files accumulated by Garrison’s team. JDE shows how, as everyone at the time could
see, important witnesses might be encouraged to flee Louisiana, and in other
states, governors, like Ronald Reagan refused to extradite the material
witnesses.
What is
news to me is how JDE discovered that the Feds put pressure on the editors of
the local newspapers in New Orleans. From
the first, the local papers ran some stories supportive of Garrison; others
critical. Such even-handed reporting was not what the Feds desired. The CIA pressured the States-Item, and suddenly two pro-Garrison reporters were
reassigned.(p. 278) They were to write
no more about the Garrison case.
Finally,
the national media would be used to smear and mock Garrison’s efforts. This time NBC and its local affiliate WDSU
would be the main defenders of Shaw and the Warren Report’s official line. They maintained that Garrison was persecuting
Shaw. Along with journalists who had
ties to the CIA, and one who had attempted to join the CIA, Hugh Aynesworth,
James Phelan, and others were able to place hostile stories about Garrison in
prominent national magazines, and NBC devoted a whole hour of prime time to
Garrison bashing.
I disagree
when JDE describes the trial of Clay Shaw as anti-climatic. This trial afforded most Americans their
first opportunity to view the Zapruder film.
Whereas CBS reporter Dan Rather, who viewed it in November 1963, reported
how the film showed Kennedy being thrust forward by the bullet coming from
behind, the film shows Kennedy being knocked backward by the force of
the bullet. The short film was shown
many times at the trial, so many could see that the killing shot may well have
come from the front, which would have meant more than one assassin, which would
have meant conspiracy.
I was
teaching at a university and tried to attend as much of the trial as
possible. I recall listening to a New
Yorker describe listening to plotters planning to kill the President. He met David Ferrie in a bar, and accompanied
him to what was probably Shaw’s home, and Shaw and Ferrie then discussed the
assassination of Kennedy. The
prosecution’s witness, Mr. Spiesel, was articulate and to the point. Then he was cross examined by Shaw’s defense. Spiesel spoke of how he might walk into a
room, and someone across the room might look at him, almost immediately
hypnotize him, and make him impotent. He
admitted that when his daughter returned from LSU to her home in New York, he
had her fingerprinted to insure that she was truly his daughter! The more he spoke, the harder it was for me
and most spectators in the courtroom to stifle our laughter. Garrison’s prosecution suffered a heavy blow
by placing what seemed to by a lunatic on the stand.
But I was
also in court when the Garrison staff placed one of the doctors from the
Kennedy autopsy in Bethesda, Maryland on the stand. Dr. Pierre Finck also began matter-of-factly
about examining Pres. Kennedy’s body.
One area of dispute between the upholders of the official Warren Report
story and its critics centers around the wound in the President’s neck. Those who saw it as an entry wound,
inevitably must conclude that a shot came from the front, which means
conspiracy. To avoid that, the official
line is that the shot by Oswald from the 6th floor of the School depository
Building entered the upper back/neck area and exited the front of the neck, and
then went on to wound Texas Gov. Connelly in several areas. Finck was asked under oath if he had probed
the path of the throat wound to make sure that it was the same path as the
bullet that entered the back/neck. No,
Dr. Finck did not probe it. Why
not? He was ordered not to do so. Who ordered him not to do so? Well, there were many generals and admirals
in the room, and they all outranked him.
So he did not probe the wound.
With this testimony, Finck was admitting that the doctors were not in
charge of the autopsy – the military was calling the shots. JDE speculates that the man in charge was
Curtis Le May, who in 1968 would run for VP on the American Independent Party ticket
headed by Gov. George Wallace of Alabama.
I do not know which officer or officers were in charge. What Garrison revealed in this trial was this
– the doctors were NOT in charge of the autopsy of Pres. Kennedy. And consequently, Kennedy did not receive a
proper examination.
I was also
in the courtroom for the summary by Jim Garrison himself. He spoke of the CIA and an Alice-Through-The-Looking-Glass
government. I concluded years later that
Kevin Costner did a much better job at summarizing the case in the film “JFK” than
did Garrison in the New Orleans courtroom.
I did not
attend all of the trial, but had I been on the jury, I would have voted Shaw
not guilty because I believe insufficient evidence had been presented by the
prosecution to demonstrate that Shaw was a conspirator. The jury also voted not guilty. When interviewed by TV reporters after the
verdict, most believed there was a conspiracy to kill Kennedy, but Garrison
failed to prove his case against Shaw. JDE
reports that two alternate jurors left their votes. Both of them voted Shaw guilty, but their
votes did not count.
I have
written several articles about the New Orleans scene, contrasting it with that
portrayed by the Warren Commission volumes (see the Third Decade and the Fourth Decade). I also posted “My New Orleans Story” on my
blog, and that includes additional material related to Guy Banister and David
Ferrie, which I shall not repeat here.
Reading JDE’s
book, I found some chapters, like the one on Mexico, muddled and not well
integrated into the rest of the work. On
the other hand, I found the author’s use of declassified material convincing in
demonstrating that the Federal government exerted major pressure to silence
witnesses, prevent extradition, sabotage the Garrison prosecution, and bolster
the defense of accused Clay Shaw. I may
have suspected some of this when it was happening, but the extent of it is new
to me. To read how “journalists” would
interview witnesses with the purpose of turning them against Garrison,
sometimes even threatening them. And JDE
provides even more witnesses who linked Shaw, Banister, Ferrie, and Oswald.
The other
major contribution by the author is his discussion of foreign policy. True, most other books on the assassination
discuss Cuba; some discuss Vietnam, but JDE places great emphasis on
conversations the young John Kennedy had in 1951 in Vietnam with American
diplomat, Edmund Gullion. Gullion
insisted that there were differences between popular national and anti-colonial
uprisings, and Communist revolutions. He
urged that the US should not oppose all such uprisings. He told this to Kennedy while the French were
in the midst of their war against Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh. In 1954, the French lost.
Whereas I
had always viewed Jack Kennedy as a staunch anti-Communist, a Cold Warrior, a
Catholic whose dad, while serving as US Ambassador to the UK, rejected FDR’s
interventionist policies prior to WWII.
And as Senator, John Kennedy not vote to censure Sen. Joseph McCarthy,
and his brother, Robert, worked for the McCarthy’s Senate committee. JDE assembles items which challenge my
earlier impression. Thus, though the new
Pres. Kennedy went along with the BoP invasion of Cuba, he refused to order air
strikes or additional support, thereby dooming the anti-Castro raiders. This decision alone made him powerful
enemies. Later in 1961 Kennedy fired
Allen Dulles when he learned more about how the CIA had misled and lied to
him. The Cuban exiles had wanted Kennedy
to invade and overthrow Castro with the BoP.
They were sorely disappointed.
Then during the Missile Crisis of 1962, many Kennedy advisors wanted to
go beyond “quarantine” (blockade). They
wanted air strikes and possible military invasion. Again, Kennedy disappointed them. Kennedy used diplomacy, normal channels and
secret, back-door maneuvers to avoid escalation. According to JDE, Kennedy sought to protect
Patrice Lumumba in the newly independent Congo, and he tried to foil the
Belgian and British attempts to establish the break-away province of Katanga. Kennedy pushed for the Peace Corps to spread
American values to 3rd world nations in a non-violent manner. He and Khrushchev installed the red phones in
their offices to prevent an accidental nuclear war. And in his American U. speech of June 10,
1963 Kennedy pressed for a nuclear test ban treaty and suspended American
atmospheric nuclear testing. The address
was titled, “A Strategy for Peace,”
enunciating a new era in American policy. No longer the Cold War, but rapprochement
with the Soviets, people to people bridges with the 3rd world
through the Peace Corps, and, and here is where JDE adds new material, through the
use of back-door diplomacy, the possibility of again recognizing Fidel Castro’s
Cuba. Such a change in direction would
have been anathema not only to the Cuban exiles, but to Dulles, and to many
others who saw this not merely as weakness, but treason.
The author
also maintains that Kennedy had decided that 15,000 American military advisors
would be the maximum in Vietnam, and that they were all to be removed by
1965. I had read this “only if” scenario
before. Kennedy was just about to
withdraw from Vietnam, when he was killed, and so we had the tragedy of
Vietnam. I have never accepted this.
It was
probably in 1962 when I visited New York City for the first time. All my New York friends at Tulane had bragged
about the wonderful newspaper, the New
York Times. Now, I could buy it at a
news-stand. In NY I also went to a
lecture by an historian, and Communist, Herbert Aptheker. His topic: he was going to analyze that day’s
Bible of journalism, the New York Times. I do not recall all of the hour’s talk, but I
do remember when he pointed to a small item toward the bottom of page 1. He read the headline of the story, but declared
that that was not the real news of the story.
Indeed, he was dismissive of the headline and most of the story. Aptheker said the real news in the article
was that the number of American advisors in Vietnam was revealed to be
11,000. He then stated that the previous
acknowledged number of Americans involved was a mere 9,500. He stressed that the real story was American
escalation of the war in Vietnam. The
real story was hidden by the New York
Times in the New York Times. (I cannot attest to the specific numbers,
Aptheker presented, but I certainly remembered his point, that Kennedy was
escalating the war.) But in this book JDE
presents material that Kennedy was preparing to withdraw from Vietnam. JDE presents declassified material that
Kennedy was seeking better relations with Castro. JDE makes a persuasive case.
Yet, by
omitting a major incident, he weakens that case. On November 2, 1963, Ngo Dinh Diem was assassinated. Why? To
promote a peace agreement with North Vietnam?
Or to insure there would be no
peace with the North. Leaders of the
coup had talks with the CIA prior to their putsch, to ask what the reaction of
the US might be. How does that assassination
in Saigon relate to the one a few weeks later in Dallas? Or is there no connection? JDE should have discussed this as it clearly
is relevant to his contention about the upcoming withdrawal of troops by
Kennedy.
It is
evident from this book that the US government sought to suppress the truth
about events in Dallas. DA Garrison on
New Orleans pressed to find answers. The
Feds applied the power of the national government to smear Garrison, infiltrate
his team, intimidate witnesses, help others flee to different states, use
national magazines, NBC, major “journalists,” to discredit Garrison. The Feds won with the acquittal of Clay
Shaw. They won again when Garrison was
defeated for re-election by Harry Connick, Sr.
Yet, Garrison showed great strength and courage. His crusade led to further exposure of the
weaknesses of the official story created in the Warren Report. Garrison won in that he pulled more evidence
from a government accustomed to projecting lies propped by power. And the American people won also; we learned
more about the Kennedy assassination; we learned more about government
cover-ups; and we learned that there are heroes in America. Some heroes can take on, not only City Hall,
but they can take on the entire Washington Establishment when it lies to the
American people.
So even before Obama shoved the US toward an oppressive totalitarian state, there were other examples of repression in the US. Garrison fought for freedom and truth against the Establishment then. One hopes we can do the same in the struggle against Obamoppression today.
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