JFK ASSASSINATION: MELLEN'S MUDDLED PARAGRAPH

     When Joan Mellon's book about New Orleans Dist. Atty. Jim Garrison was published, I read it, and was pleased that her book was favorable to Garrison.  DA Garrison is one of my heroes.  Mellen had interviewed me for the book, and I gave her the names of some others whom she also interviewed.  I read the book, but did not review it.  The reason I did not is given below.  This is from a letter to someone who is also interested in the assassination of President Kennedy.  In one paragraph, Mellen got the thrust correct, but all of the details muddled.  The letter, in part, follows:

     Joan Mellen interviewed me by phone but made several errors in the paragraph.  Here is what she wrote in Farewell to Justice, p. 56-57: [Referring to how LHO seemed to have  no connections to the NO Left, what Leftist would avoid the Left?}  "None in history, young Bob Heller and Tulane student Hugh Murray both thought.  Heller's roommate, Oliver St. Pe, took a look at the Fair Play...leaflet, considered replying to the post office box of 'Hidelll,' stamped on it, then changed his mind.  It must be a trap, he decided."
     Judyth, There were so many errors in this one paragraph, I decided not to review her book.  Even though I look upon Garrison as a hero, I distrusted her research.  Let me clarify.  I am the one who picked up the FPCC leaflet in the Tulane library.  I then went upstairs, behind the public area to where grad students had desks, carrols (spell?).  I we to Harold Alderman who had been active in the FPCC, I think in Miami or some other city, and asked him, "What are you putting out?"  I thought it was his leaflet.  He wanted to see the yellow flyer.  He knew nothing about it.  We discussed what we might do, but were cautious.  I joked that if we sent a letter to the po box, it might be the FBI.  A trap.  We decided to do nothing until we found out more about the source of the flyer.  (This is discussed in v. 26 of the Warren material.)  Alderman took the leaflet and placed it on the door to his dorm room, until Nov. 22, when he took it down.  He was visited by the FBI, I think on Tuesday 26 November, and he told them about me, and I was visited by 2 FBI agents on that Tuesday as well.

     On Nov. 22, I assumed a seg had killed Kennedy.  I was stunned when Shelly Zervigon, wife of Carlos, called me in the afternoon to tell me they had arrested a Communist from NO for the crime.  WHAT!?!  Many thought I was a communist.  I assumed I would soon be rounded up.  In 1938 a minor diplomat was killed in Paris by a young Jew, and then the Nazis began the mass roundup of Jews in Germany.  Kennedy was no minor diplomat; he was the President.  I decided to go out that night and drink, for it might be my last chance to do so.  I was asking, who is Oswald?  Who knew him?  I finally was told that Bob Heller, a Tulane student who as a freshman in fall 1960 got involved in CORE and I think was arrested.  Heller had spoken to Oswald on Canal St. or somewhere downtown.  His was the only name I came up with and his contact with Oswald was most casual.  There had been no followup after the street meeting.  When the FBI interviewed me, I gave them Heller's name.  Another student a Tulane, Phil Good (spell?) then called me fink whenever he saw me.  I have no qualms about cooperating with the FBI on the assassination.  Had I not, how could I fairly criticize their efforts and the lone nut theory?

     Oliver St. Pe was my roommate.  He said he never knew Oswald, tho both were in Ferrie's CAP (but St. Pe was 2 years older than I, and so a little older than Oswald).  St. Pe was in CORE, but no radical.  Oliver was not Heller's roommate, and if they knew each other at all, it would have been more because of CORE, when many Tulanians joined at one time, and Oliver was reducing his activities.

     Because I found such confusion in the paragraph that mentioned me, I decided not to review her book.  The general thrust of that paragraph is accurate, but the details were hopelessly muddled.