Regardless of whether the most visible claim in Ray and Mary La Fontaine's Oswald Talked is true -- whether Lee Harvey Oswald did, in fact, talk to one John Franklin Elrod(1) following the assassination of John F. Kennedy -- there are numerous problems with the claims that form the "big picture" of their book. While the authors hardly go out of their way to emphasize the New Orleans aspect of their theory, it is nothing less than crucial to their "follow the guns" scenario, and it relies almost wholly on the convictions of "an American original"(2) --that "flamboyant"(3) but "frequently pilloried former New Orleans DA Jim Garrison."(4)
According to the La Fontaines, Lee Harvey Oswald "had been recruited in March 1963 as an FBI informant,"(5) and "It was in the role of FBI informant that Oswald visited New Orleans later that year . . ."(6) In fact, the authors state "it would appear"(7) that Oswald himself was the FBI informant responsible for a July 31, 1963, raid on an "arms camp near Lake Pontchartrain."(8) Oswald, they conclude, must have learned of this arms cache through either "Banister and/or the gunrunning exiles of the DRE."(9)
The Directorio Revolucionario Estudiantil (DRE), or student directorate, was a militant right-wing, anti-Communist, anti-Castro group linked to the arms cache seized in Lacombe, Louisiana, near Lake Pontchartrain.(10) The La Fontaines write, "conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy required that the conspirators be associated with Oswald -- whether he served as coconspirator or (as he claimed) a 'patsy'" (emphasis in original).(11) "Only one group conspicuously fills this bill,"(12) the authors claim -- the DRE.
On the other hand, the La Fontaines note, "Only the Camp Street building"(13) -- where Garrison suspect Guy Banister had an office, and where the authors theorize Oswald used an office on the second floor(14) -- "can put Oswald in the company of other 'conspirators.'"(15)
"If Oswald can't be connected to such an office,"(16) the La Fontaines write, "whether as a room he really paid money for, was allowed to use for free, or just visited on occasion -- and if that office can't be solidly placed in a specific Camp Street building . . . then the game's over. Posner wins."(17)
"At some point during the summer of 1963," the authors continue, "the DRE unquestionably identified Oswald, as did Banister, as just the kind of 'nut' who could be a useful tool in the war against Castro and Fair Play for Cuba subversives."(18) Whether he learned of the arms cache from the student directorate or from Guy Banister, "Oswald would develop"(19) what the La Fontaines call a "seemingly collaborative relationship with the DRE."(20)
However, "By the end of that summer he had apparently caught Banister's evil eye,"(21) the La Fontaines state -- "This would have been particularly true if, as one might expect, word gradually started to seep through Banister's FBI grapevine about the identity of the Pontchartrain informant"(22) -- "or worse, [Oswald had] aroused the passionate animosity of the fanatically anti-Castro DRE. Later, as we'll see," the authors write," even after he was back in Dallas(23) . . . the long arms of his New Orleans antagonists would reach out and enfold the fluttering ideological moth, Lee Harvey Oswald."(24)
Let's break this rather muddy theory down into its essential parts.
Let's look at the specifics.
The La Fontaines must prove that an association with either the DRE or Guy Banister could have provided Oswald with knowledge of the Lacombe arms cache, and they must prove that Oswald had a cozy enough relationship with "Banister and/or the gunrunning exiles of the DRE"(35) to allow him access to such information.
Banister will be discussed shortly; first let's look at the DRE.
Carlos Bringuier was the DRE delegate in New Orleans and the group's only member there.(36) When Bringuier was warned by FBI agent Warren de Brueys that the Bureau could infiltrate his organization "and find out what you are doing here,"(37) Bringuier responded, "Well, you will have to infiltrate myself, because I am the only one."(38)
Bringuier was the individual that Oswald approached in August 1963, claiming to harbor anti-Castro sentiments, and professing interest in training anti-Castro exiles in "guerrilla warfare."(39) It was Bringuier with whom the ex-Marine tangled when the DRE delegate subsequently encountered Oswald handing out his pro-Castro leaflets on Canal Street. Bringuier was then one of those whom Oswald debated on WDSU radio, a debate that resulted from publicity generated by the Canal Street incident.(40)
We can break the Oswald-Bringuier question down into three smaller points. For Oswald to have learned of the DRE arms cache through his association with Carlos Bringuier, the following three things must be true:
Even if Oswald was not the informant for the July 31 raid, the third point must be true for the La Fontaines' overall theory to be valid. According to the La Fontaines, Oswald had to have been collaborating with the DRE in New Orleans, or else their entire theory collapses, as the DRE is the "only group" they theorize to have been able to involve Oswald in the assassination.(42)
First, is there any evidence that Carlos Bringuier or any of his associates knew about the arms cache at Lacombe prior to the publicity surrounding its seizure? No. The implication, of course, is that Bringuier must have, because the cache was part of an operation that the FBI attributed to the DRE,(43) and Bringuier was the DRE delegate in New Orleans.
It's not that simple, however. The DRE operation involving the arms cache was being run out of Miami by the directorate's John Koch Gene ("John Koch" in La Fontaine(44)) and Carlos Victor "Batea" Espinosa Hernandez.(45) Bringuier himself had nothing whatsoever to do with the operation or the arms cache, nor any of the DRE's paramilitary operations.(46) He was involved only in "propaganda and fund-raising activities" in New Orleans.(47) The last person who would need to know about a secret arms cache, of course, is a propaganda specialist, and the funds for the cache seem to have come from Miami through Sam Benton(48) and possibly also from Michael McLaney, at whose brother's home the cache was being stored.(49)
For Oswald to have learned of the cache from Bringuier or one of his associates would also mean that the two men had become acquainted at least a week prior to the established date of their meeting, if not a great deal earlier.(50) (Surely Oswald could not have infiltrated Bringuier's "organization" overnight, after all.) The La Fontaines note that "we should keep in mind"(51) that the information on Bringuier's initial encounter with Oswald "comes down to us only from Carlos Bringuier, a man who . . . may have a lot to hide."(52)
The La Fontaines ignore the testimony of Philip Geraci III and Vance Blalock, both of whom were present when Oswald introduced himself to Bringuier on August 5, 1963.(53) Since neither Geraci nor Blalock was a close friend of Bringuier's -- in fact, they barely knew him -- neither would seem to have any reason to perjure himself.(54)
What evidence do the La Fontaines produce to support their theory that Oswald was secretly working with Bringuier? They produce none.(55) The best they can do is offer another unsubstantiated theory of theirs, that Carlos Quiroga(56) -- a friend of Bringuier's who was not himself a member of the DRE -- might have been in league with Oswald. This, they say, "strongly suggests that the former Marine conspired with the DRE."(57)
The only semblance of evidence for Quiroga and Oswald's alleged complicity concerns the occasion that Quiroga is known to have visited Oswald's Magazine Street apartment, in order to learn more about Oswald's purported chapter of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. According to a single witness, Mrs. Jesse James Garner, Quiroga brought with him, not "a few"(58) FPCC leaflets to return to Oswald, but rather a small stack of them.(59) According to the La Fontaines, Quiroga was therefore delivering FPCC pamphlets to Oswald.(60)
"Why would Quiroga deliver pamphlets?" asks researcher David Blackburst. "We know that Oswald ordered his own pamphlets from the FPCC and other sources, and that he himself ordered the printing of the FPCC leaflets, and that he purchased the rubber stamp set. So there seems to be no reason for Quiroga to deliver pamphlets."(61)
Indeed, Oswald seems to have been fully capable of picking up his own leaflets on other occasions. Don't printing shops also generally give the customer his purchase in a bag or box, instead of just handing him a loose stack of papers?
Even were this theory about Oswald and Carlos Quiroga correct, it would prove nothing whatsoever about Oswald and Carlos Bringuier, much less Oswald and the DRE. Carlos Quiroga, in fact, was once suspected of being a secret agent for Castro -- though he was apparently cleared of the allegation(62) -- so of all Bringuier's friends, Quiroga is the riskiest for the La Fontaines to single out as collaborating with Oswald and Bringuier.
Had Oswald and Bringuier been working together, would Bringuier testify to the Warren Commission that he had initially suspected Oswald of being an FBI infiltrator?(63) Isn't the La Fontaines' entire theory based on the allegation that the FBI, "far from investigating the assassination, had participated in a massive cover-up about Oswald" because "a real investigation would have disclosed the embarrassing fact [sic] that Oswald . . . had been recruited in March 1963 as an FBI informant"?(64)
Was this conspirator or conspirators' associate, Carlos Bringuier, so unconcerned for his own safety that he would mention such a thing? Compare his reaction, then, to that of the La Fontaine's star witness John Franklin Elrod, whose own purported claims constitute -- according to the La Fontaines themselves -- "the kind of thing a man could get killed for just knowing."(65) Would Bringuier be in any safer a position?
We'll come back to Bringuier shortly, but it's clear that where the DRE delegate is concerned, the La Fontaines are grasping at straws.
One of Jim Garrison's prime assassination suspects was former FBI agent William Guy Banister, who in 1963 was running a small private detective agency at the corner of Camp and Lafayette Streets in the heart of the Big Easy.(66)
"Oswald had Banister's address on his pamphlets," the La Fontaines state -- at a time when Oswald claimed to the FPCC in New York that he had briefly rented an office in the Crescent City.(67) Furthermore, Banister was "a probable gunrunner,"(68) the authors tell us, "mixed up with anti-Castro exiles,"(69) and involved with the "anti-Castro arms camp near Lake Pontchartrain."(70)
Banister "had probably himself been one of the major facilitators for the camp, a Mafia-CIA-Cuban-exile collaboration," we're informed,(71) which was supposedly part of "an arms-smuggling 'corridor' extending eastward [from Dallas] through Louisiana to Santos Trafficante in Miami."(72)
With Banister purportedly a member of "the gunrunning New Orleans right wing,"(73) the authors theorize that Oswald "was likely sent to the Crescent City to inform on gunrunning by right-wing subversives," such as "Guy Banister and the equally gun-happy student directorate"(74) -- the DRE.
By linking Banister to the CIA-Mafia anti-Castro plots on one side, to Oswald on the other, and the DRE in some undefined way in the middle,(75) the La Fontaines thus would hand us the final solution to the Kennedy assassination, signed, sealed, and delivered -- a grand unification theory with Guy Banister as the missing link. According to the authors, Banister had a personal connection to Lee Harvey Oswald, "had a gunrunning history and ties to all of the participants,"(76) and his private detective agency "was the Grand Central Station of the arms-smuggling underground railroad reaching from Dallas to Miami."(77)
"If Oswald can't be connected to such an office" as the one he mentioned in his letters to FPCC headquarters,(78) the La Fontaines write, "whether as a room he really paid money for, was allowed to use for free, or just visited on occasion -- and if that office can't be solidly placed in a specific Camp Street building" -- the one in which Guy Banister's office was located -- "then the game's over," they declare.(79) "Posner wins."(80)
"Only the Camp Street building can put Oswald in the company of other 'conspirators,'" they conclude. "Without this connection firmly in hand, the proponents of a conspiratorial Oswald" would find their theories all to be "built on sand."(81) "Everything turns on this office, then. On this site, the battle of New Orleans will be decided."(82)
So be it.
The La Fontaines write, "The central question in all of Oswald's New Orleans summer -- more important even than the necessary conjectures on why he was doing the crazy things he appeared to be doing -- is this: Was there an 'element of truth' in his claim to Vincent Lee, repeated three times in two months, that he was involved in 'renting a small office' for his FPCC chapter?"(83)
Does any eyewitness place Oswald in such an office? Why, yes -- in fact, two eyewitnesses: onetime Banister secretary and mistress, Delphine Roberts, and her daughter, also named Delphine.(84)
Delphine Roberts, Sr., of course, denied in 1967 having ever so much as heard Oswald's name prior to the assassination.(85) She initially repeated this in 1978,(86) and later told House Select Committee investigators that Banister had kept a file on Oswald, though that was the extent of her knowledge.(87) She stated that she had heard Banister speak of Oswald. "She did not give an opinion on whether Oswald might have been working for Banister," and she "stated she never saw Oswald in person."(88)
Later she seems to have had a change of heart. She told House committee investigators that she did see Oswald in Banister's office on a few occasions after all.(89) "She believed that Oswald was either working, or attempting to work, for Banister."(90)
She told Anthony Summers that she actually saw Oswald in Banister's office numerous times, and she had come to believe that he was working "undercover" for the ex-G-man:
As I understood it he had the use of an office on the second floor, above the main office where we worked. I was not greatly surprised when I learned he was going up and down, back and forth. Then, several times, Mr. Banister brought me upstairs, and in the office above I saw various writings stuck up on the wall pertaining to Cuba. There were various leaflets up there pertaining to Fair Play for Cuba. They were pro-Castro leaflets. Banister just didn't say anything about them one way or the other.(91)
One would expect the building's owner and landlord, Sam Newman, to be aware that one of his first-floor tenants was making use of a vacant room on the second floor, but he didn't know of any such thing, and he himself never saw Lee Harvey Oswald in or around the building.(92) The building's janitor, James Arthus, lived on the premises at 544 Camp, and he never saw Oswald there either.(93) None of the building's other tenants remembered seeing Oswald that summer,(94) and certainly no one else in Banister's office recalls Oswald "going up and down, back and forth" between the two offices.(95)
Delphine Roberts also claims that Oswald once brought his wife by the office,(96) though Marina Oswald denies ever having been to any such office with her husband.(97)
The House Select Committee, despite an apparent eagerness to link Oswald to David Ferrie(98) (a part-time investigator for Guy Banister)(99) could not accept Delphine Roberts' testimony.(100) HSCA Chief Counsel G. Robert Blakey would later write that Roberts' "demeanor as a witness did not lead us to place much credence in her testimony."(101)
It is often claimed that Delphine Roberts, Jr., supports her mother's account, but this is not precisely so. The younger Delphine claims that Oswald did not have an office at 544 Camp, but rather that "he lived there, had an apartment there, for two or three months."(102) She says that "Oswald came to 544 Camp at night and left every morning,"(103) despite the fact that Oswald spent every night that summer with his wife and daughter (except on August 9, when he spent the night in jail).(104)
The younger Delphine didn't mention anything to Anthony Summers in 1978 about having met Oswald's wife or mother, but she told Gerald Posner in 1993 that she had met one or the other and that "she was lovely."(105) (It's not clear whether Roberts meant Oswald's mother, Marguerite -- as Posner states(106) -- or whether she erroneously named Oswald's wife as "Marguerite.")
Posner interviewed both mother and daughter, and came away with some most fascinating material. He found, for example, that Delphine Roberts, Sr., "claims to be related to the 'king and queen of Wales [sic] and Mary Queen of Scots,' as well as 'being one of the very few, since the beginning of the world, who has ever read the sacred scrolls that God himself wrote and gave to the ancient Hebrews for placing in the Ark of the Covenant. . . . I think I have been the last person to see them.'"(107) She told him she was writing a book on the Kennedy assassination, "although it will also tell the story of the Creation."(108)
And, of course, Roberts was pleased to volunteer a great deal of information on her white supremacist views, which don't seem to have mellowed much over the years.(109)
This information supplements earlier Roberts anecdotes, such as her recollection that around the time she and Guy Banister met, she saw "Fidel Castro and his top aide Che Guevara walking on Canal Street" while Roberts was holding a demonstration in tribute to the American flag.(110)
Okay -- forget the office. Who needs an office anyway?
Remember: "Oswald had Banister's address on his pamphlets," the La Fontaines assure us: That "544 Camp St." stamp "is the killer, the Warren defenders' Halloween boogieman that refuses to die."(111)
As all buffs [sic] know,(112) the most important stamped address on the Oswald FPCC literature . . . was that of a now-famous corner building with entrances on different streets. By some dream logic mimicking the two faces of Oswald [sic], the building had acquired two official addresses, one for each entrance. The front entrance constituted the building's "main address" -- the one Oswald stamped on his handouts -- 544 Camp Street. The second address belonged to the more obscure side entrance, on Lafayette Street."(113)
In reality, however, 544 Camp Street was not Guy Banister's address, and when the La Fontaines state that "two different addresses"(114) -- Banister's at 531 Lafayette and the former CRC office at 544 Camp -- "referred to the same location,"(115) they are mistaken.
Both addresses did lead into the same structure of cement and steel, but contrary to what one reads in many books, the 544 Camp Street entrance did not lead to Banister's ground-level office, but only up a stairway to the second floor.(116) As onetime Banister employee Joe Newbrough puts it, "If you entered 544 Camp Street, the only way you could have gotten to Banister's office was to go out a window."(117) "Banister never even considered his office to be part of the Newman Building."(118)
Who was it who claimed that Guy Banister's address was 544 Camp Street? Jim Garrison, of course.(119)
Why did Lee Harvey Oswald stamp that address on a handful of his pamphlets? One can only speculate. It might be of some significance that the one occasion Oswald is known to have used pamphlets with the "544 Camp St." stamp was August 9, 1963, the day Carlos Bringuier and friends discovered him holding a "demonstration" only a few blocks from Bringuier's store.(120)
A year and a half earlier, 544 Camp Street had briefly been the workplace of none other than Carlos Bringuier, when he had served the Cuban Revolutionary Council out of its second-floor office, before resigning from the group to join the DRE. If, as some believe, Oswald set out on August 9, 1963, to provoke Bringuier personally into a publicity-attracting skirmish -- possibly to help inflate his résumé for his expected entrée into Cuba -- the young Marxist might have believed it a wry touch to include Bringuier's onetime work address on his leaflets.(121)
One person who believed that Oswald's behavior suggested precisely such a set-up was Lt. Francis Martello, who questioned Oswald following his arrest that day, and noted later to Warren Commission counsel Wesley Liebeler that Oswald "seemed to have set [Bringuier and friends] up, so to speak, to create an incident . . ."(122)
What other evidence is presented in Oswald Talked to make that all-important connection between Lee Harvey Oswald and the "spook-filled"(123) Newman Building?
The Clinton witnesses.
As badly as the La Fontaines themselves mangle the facts about the Clinton folk, new evidence uncovered by Patricia Lambert appears to completely discredit the Clinton story.(124)
Recall that, according to the La Fontaines, Guy Banister had been involved with "an anti-Castro arms camp near Lake Pontchartrain"(125) that "the FBI would raid that summer, while Oswald was in New Orleans."(126) Banister "had probably himself been one of the major facilitators for the camp, a Mafia-CIA-Cuban-exile collaboration."(127)
First of all, there was no "arms camp" at Lake Pontchartrain -- the La Fontaines are conflating two independent operations. The first was a paramilitary training camp run by the Movimiento Democrata Cristiano, or Christian Democratic Movement (MDC),(128) which operated briefly and without weapons(129) on land owned by wealthy ultra right-winger David L. Raggio.(130)
The second was a plan to bomb the Shell Oil Refinery in Havana, with a cache of explosives that was seized by the FBI on July 31, 1963, approximately a mile from the MDC camp, on the property of William Julius McLaney.(131) But by virtue of propinquity, the training camp and the arms cache were unrelated to one another.
The La Fontaines' only cited source for Banister's involvement with the DRE cache is a secondary source completely reliant upon other secondary sources, Claudia Furiati's ZR Rifle: The Plot to Kill Kennedy and Castro, which states, "The arms at Pontchartrain were supplied with the cooperation of the Mafia. The Louisiana corridor was controlled in Dallas by Jack Ruby,(132) and in Miami by Santos Trafficante . . . [who] was the bridge between the Mafia and the Cuban exiles." In a passage the La Fontaines neglect to cite, Furiati names Guy Banister as a key player in this "corridor."(133)
Furiati herself cites no sources for any of these claims. There can be little doubt, however, where they originated.
In 1988's On the Trail of the Assassins, Garrison describes the FBI seizure of the arms cache on the McLaney property, which he claims to have first learned of from an August 1, 1963, Times-Picayune article.(134)
Who is the single eyewitness Garrison then puts forward to link the FBI raid with William Guy Banister? Jack S. Martin -- the FBI raid at the McLaney home was "part of Banister's deal,"(135) Martin is quoted as saying. Garrison continues, "The Banister apparatus, as Martin described it, was part of a supply line that ran along the Dallas-New Orleans-Miami corridor. These supplies consisted of arms and explosives for use against Castro's Cuba."(136)
Where have we heard this theory before?
Unfortunately, Big Jim tells us, Jack Martin "would put nothing in writing, nor would he sign his name to anything."(137) "But," Garrison writes, Martin "did tell whatever he could recall about the business at Guy Banister's -- although only to me."(138)
Garrison is not being especially candid with us. Jack Martin put numerous statements in writing, and also allowed the NODA to record a number of interviews with him as well. None of these statements or interviews concerns any alleged gunrunning activities of Guy Banister's, nor do any concern the Lake Pontchartrain arms cache.(139)
Moreover, Life journalist Richard Billings was working closely with the NODA in the early stages of the JFK probe, and his contemporaneous notes contradict Garrison's 1988 account completely. Garrison told Billings in January 1967(140) that he had found out about the goings-on near Lake Pontchartrain, not from any newspaper accounts or onetime Guy Banister employees, but from two Cuban informants who had been partly responsible for organizing and operating the MDC training camp, Ricardo Davis and Angel Vega.(141) On February 11, 1967, Garrison again discussed the two Lacombe operations with Richard Billings, still naming Vega and Davis as his sources.(142)
Even if Jack Martin did reveal such things to Garrison -- off the record, of course -- is Jack Martin a reliable witness?
This is something of a contrast to remarks Garrison made to Richard Billings in December 1966 -- that Martin was "an undependable drunk,"(144) "a totally unreliable witness,"(145) and "a liar."(146) After questioning Martin on one occasion, Assistant DA Lou Ivon referred to him as "evasive,"(147) and called him "a lush and a bum."(148)
Aaron Kohn, head of New Orleans' Metropolitan Crime Commission, an influential citizens' watchdog committee, told the House Select Committee on Assassinations, "Jack Martin has always been a kind of harassing influence around here, somebody who wastes a lot of time, but you discover the best thing to do is to let him waste your time when he has things on his mind or else he wastes a lot more of your time when he gets drunk, waking you up in the middle of the night, threatening to kill you . . ."(149)
Kohn also noted that Martin's real name was Suggs, and vaguely recalled his having been "incarcerated in an institution over in Texas" under that name.(150) Kohn's memory served him well.
Jack S. Martin, born Edward Stewart Suggs, had a rap sheet stretching back to October 1944, and spanning the US from California to Arkansas to Texas to Louisiana. He was arrested in January 1945 in Fort Worth, Texas, for carrying a pistol; he was fingerprinted in Los Angeles in December 1945; he was arrested in December 1947 for disturbing the peace in San Diego and again in May 1949 in Dallas.(151)
In 1952, Martin became a suspect in a Houston murder investigation, and was arrested in May of that year for unlawful flight to avoid prosecution for that crime. On May 16, 1952, he was charged with murder; the charges were later dropped, and he became a witness in the case. He was arrested a year later in Los Angeles, and held until it was determined he was no longer wanted in Texas. In March 1954, he was fingerprinted in Galveston for vagrancy and a drunk and disorderly charge.(152)
An FBI report reads, "Our files also disclose that in January 1957, we received information from a local store in New Orleans that Suggs had become involved in an altercation with a woman he claimed to be his wife in the store and, as a result, was ejected from the store. Suggs exhibited identification to store authorities and claimed to be an FBI agent. We instituted inquiries in this matter at that time to locate Suggs and determined that he was in a psychiatric ward [at] Charity Hospital, New Orleans as of January 17, 1957. His psychiatrist informed our agents that Suggs was suffering from a character disorder . . ."
Another FBI document reports that Suggs was a patient in a psychiatric ward in 1956 through 1957.(153) An 'Informative Note' in Martin's FBI file states, "Several sources have reported Martin is a mental case."(154) The actual diagnosis was "sociopathic personality disorder, antisocial type."(155)
The FBI interviewed Edward Suggs in 1960 about impersonating an FBI agent.(156) When Martin later informed the FBI that an associate of his, Carl Stanley, "was involved in illegal activities including Fraud Against the Government," the "FBI ultimately concluded both men were mentally ill. According to Carl Stanley, Edward Suggs said he had worked for the CIA. No documents supported this."(157)
Secret Service agent Anthony Gerrets interviewed Martin in December 1963, noting that Martin "has the appearance of being an alcoholic"(158) and "has the reputation of furnishing incorrect information to law enforcement officers, attorneys, etc."(159)
A November 28, 1963, New Orleans FBI teletype stated that all the allegations linking David Ferrie to the assassination or to Lee Harvey Oswald personally in the summer of 1963 "stem from Jack S. Martin who was previously confined to the psychiatric ward of Charity Hospital, New Orleans, for character disorder. Martin is well known to New Orleans office and is considered thoroughly unreliable."(160)
The Mob-thirsty House Select Committee on Assassinations was extremely interested in linking Oswald to David Ferrie, who had been a part-time investigator for New Orleans Mob kingpin Carlos Marcello's attorney, G. Wray Gill. The committee could not accept Martin's testimony, however.(161)
Both of the La Fontaines' two main sources on Oswald's summer in New Orleans,(162) express doubts about Jack Martin's credibility. Anthony Summers,(163) calls Martin "an odd character,"(164) and notes "some justifiable doubt" about his tales.(165) Peter Dale Scott goes further. Calling David Ferrie's denials of involvement in the assassination "quite plausible,"(166) Scott writes, "More suspicious than Ferrie, in my view, is . . . Jack Martin, [who] made much of Ferrie's alleged membership in a phony church. However . . . Ferrie had testified that he 'became involved with these religious orders only to assist Martin in [an] investigation into the sale of phony certificates of ordination and consecration.' The Select Committee, after investigating Ferrie extensively, agreed that 'Martin . . . and Ferrie had performed some investigative work on a case involving an illegitimate religious order in Louisville, Ky.'"(167) "[T]his finding radically discredits Martin's multiple allegations against Ferrie."(168)
Edward Stewart Suggs, aka Jack S. Martin, summed up his life quite aptly during one of his bouts in an institution. In December 1956, at Mercy Hospital, Martin said, "I ruin everything I get my hands on."(169)
In the next section, we'll see how one of the La Fontaines' sources gives them another chance to link Guy Banister to the Lacombe arms cache. It should be borne in mind, however, that when Oswald Talks calls Guy Banister's private detective agency "the Grand Central Station of the arms-smuggling underground railroad reaching from Dallas to Miami,"(170) the authors are repeating a description from Hinckle and Turner,(171) who got it from Jim Garrison; and when Garrison describes such things, he either cites Jack S. Martin,(172) or he cites no source at all.(173)
As researcher David Blackburst has pointed out,(174) the belief among some conspiracy theorists that Guy Banister was a gunrunner seems to have sprung from the fact that Guy Banister's office was one of three locations where armaments from the infamous Houma heist(175) of 1961 were stored overnight.(176) Banister himself was not involved in the heist.(177)
The Banister-as-gunrunner theory was first prominently advanced in "The Garrison Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy," a January 1968 Ramparts article written by unofficial Garrison investigator William W. Turner.(178) Turner references an article in the New Orleans States-Item of April 25, 1967, reporting "that a reliable source close to Banister said he had seen 50 to 100 boxes marked 'Schlumberger' in Banister's office-storeroom early in 1961 before the Bay of Pigs.(179) The boxes contained rifle grenades, land mines and unique 'little missiles.' Banister explained that 'the stuff would just be there overnight . . . a bunch of fellows connected with the Cuban deal asked to leave it there overnight.'"(180)
Of course, this refers to the arms stolen from the Schlumberger Well corporation by Banister associates David Ferrie, Sergio Arcacha Smith, and others, but not Banister himself.
What is the La Fontaines' source for the claim that the "gun-happy"(181) Guy Banister was a member of "the gunrunning New Orleans right wing"(182) -- one of the "gunrunning . . . right-wing subversives"(183) that Oswald "was likely sent to the Crescent City to inform on"?(184)
They cite no source whatsoever. The closest they seem to come would be in their allusions to the "arms camp"(185) by Lake Pontchartrain, for which Banister "had probably himself been one of the major facilitators."(186) They cite no source for this claim, either.(187)
The closest thing to a citation is in reference to the authors' assertions that Banister "was the alleged organizer of the right-wing paramilitary Minutemen in the state of Louisiana,"(188) and "a known gunrunner affiliated with the Minutemen, an agent working the heart of the clandestine underground railroad of arms trafficking extending from Texas to Florida."(189)
According to Peter Dale Scott -- one of the La Fontaines' major sources -- it is as alleged organizer of the Louisiana Minutemen that "Banister may have had prior knowledge of an arms cache seized by the FBI on July 31, 1963."(190)
Following Scott's lead, the La Fontaines tell us that one of the eleven individuals arrested in connection with the McLaney arms cache(191) was Richard Lauchli,(192) a "mega gun-dealer," but more importantly, "a founding member of the Minutemen."(193)
Richard Lauchli, however, had left the Minutemen in September 1962, after a falling out with co-founder Robert DePugh.(194) Lauchli was the dealer who sold Sam Benton the dynamite seized in the Lacombe raid, but the Minutemen organization had no involvement with the arms cache or the operation for which it was intended.(195) Lauchli has never been linked to Guy Banister in any way.
Was Guy Banister the "organizer of the right-wing paramilitary Minutemen in the state of Louisiana,"(196) or even just "affiliated with the Minutemen," as the La Fontaines claim?(197)
The La Fontaines' source(198) is Peter Dale Scott,(199) who cites Warren Hinckle and William Turner.(200) Hinckle and Turner's sole source for the claim is an interview with one Jerry Milton Brooks,(201) "a former Minuteman" described as "a political researcher for Banister" circa 1961.(202)
How reliable an informant was Jerry Milton Brooks? Brooks is the source of the groundless factoid that Guy Banister was involved with the 1954 CIA-backed overthrow of the Arbenz government in Guatemala. "In his terse, clipped rhetoric," William Turner writes, Jerry Milton "Brooks told of an inscrutable front called the Anti-Communism [sic] League of the Caribbean, operating out of New Orleans, which he credits -- with CIA help -- with engineering the 1954 overthrow of the leftist Arbenz government in Guatemala."(203)
The Anti-Communist League was founded by New Orleans attorney Maurice Gatlin. Referencing an interview with Brooks, Turner writes, "the late W. Guy Banister, a former FBI division boss in New Orleans [sic], reportedly was connected with both the League and the Minutemen."(204)
Jerry Milton Brooks tells some interesting stories, but the CIA overthrow of Arbenz was launched on June 16, 1954, and completed within five days,(205) while Maurice Gatlin did not found the Anti-Communist League until September of that year,(206) and Guy Banister was the Special Agent in Charge of the Chicago FBI through December '54.(207) (Banister joined the Anti-Communist League when he became a client of Gatlin's in New Orleans.)(208)
Despite a great deal of heavy breathing from Jim Garrison and his advocates, not excluding the La Fontaines,(209) there is no evidence that Guy Banister ever worked for the CIA.(210)
Perhaps understandably, the FBI didn't think too highly of Brooks' reliability, deeming him "mentally imbalanced"(211) [sic] in a report of March 16, 1961. Likewise, the ATF was wary of him, noting a few years later that "he apparently wants to do something to gain attention or notoriety."(212)
On one occasion, Brooks' testimony as a government witness against Minutemen founder Robert DePugh helped put DePugh in jail for four years, though privately, Brooks said he possessed information that could have exonerated DePugh.(213)
Brooks had a police record that included attempted burglary in 1948, burglary and larceny in 1950, and extortion in 1957.(214)
On November 22, 1963, when La Fontaine witness Delphine Roberts "heard the news [about the assassination] on the radio,"(215) she "jumped up from her desk, twirled around the office, and said, 'Oh, he's dead, he's dead, he's dead!"(216) She told her boss that "she was glad the President had been shot."(217)
"Don't let anybody hear you talk like that," Guy Banister snapped. "It's a terrible thing that someone could shoot the President."(218) Banister closed his office early and kept it closed for several days out of respect.(219)
"He didn't like the President, but he was a loyal FBI man," Roberts says of her former lover and boss.(220)
There is no evidence that Guy Banister had any connection with the arms cache seized at the McLaney property, nor the operation for which it was intended -- nor the assassination of John F. Kennedy.(221)
The La Fontaines aren't finished with the McLaney cache yet.
The La Fontaines write, "It was in the role of FBI informant that Oswald visited New Orleans"(222) in the summer of 1963; and they claim that somewhere down the memory hole is "Oswald's informant file, showing the ex-Marine as the informant in the Pontchartrain operation,"(223) meaning the seizure of the infamous arms cache.(224)
That file was ostensibly glimpsed by William S. Walter, the onetime FBI employee who first came forward in the late Sixties to tell Mark Lane and Jim Garrison that the FBI had suppressed information concerning a possible threat upon JFK's life.(225) Walter first spoke of "Oswald's informant file"(226) eleven years later, to the House Select Committee.(227) (Is it really possible that Walter simply neglected to mention Oswald's alleged informant status to Lane and Garrison a decade earlier?)(228)
It wasn't until 1995, however,that Walter mentioned anything connecting Oswald to a specific report on the Lacombe arms cache. In an interview with Mary La Fontaine, Walter said that he had seen an informant file on Oswald, which "identified Oswald as a Bureau informant on the DRE's Pontchartrain arms cache."(229)
Is Walter's latest claim on the level?
Though the name of the Pontchartrain informant is still classified by the FBI, we do know two things about him: one, he was a Cuban exile pilot and businessman (described as having "numerous contacts among the Cuban population of South Florida"); and two, he was reporting to the FBI in Miami, not New Orleans. (230) Either fact, of course, would rule Lee Harvey Oswald out.
One other bit of information is worthy of note. William S. Walter initially came forward with the claim that the FBI had dispatched a teletype to its field offices in the wee small hours of November 17, 1963, warning of an assassination attempt to be made on the President's life in Dallas. After the assassination, this teletype purportedly disappeared from all files in all of the FBI's offices, and Walter claims he was instructed never to mention it to anyone.(231)
Walter later attempted to reconstruct the alleged teletype warning from memory. The La Fontaines emphasize Walter's notation that a "Cuban faction" of some kind was under suspicion for this upcoming assassination attempt, and theorize that the DRE was the "Cuban faction" in question.(232)
The relevant portion of the reconstruction, exactly as published in the La Fontaines' book, reads as follows, with the bracketed insertions and italics as in La Fontaine:
INFO HAS BEEN RECEIVED BY THE BUREA[U]S BUREAU
HAS DETERMINED THAT A [Walter handwritten insertion:
CUBAN FACTION QOU] MILITANT REVOLUTIONARY GROUP
MAY ATTEMPT TO ASSASSINATE PRESIDENT KENNEDY ON
HIS PROPOSED TRIP TO DALLAS TEXAS NOVEMBER
TWENTY TWO DASH TWENTY THREE NINETEEN SIXTY
THREE. ALL RECEIVING OFFICES SHOULD IMMEDIATELY
CONTACT ALL CI'S; PCIS LOGICAL RACE AND HATE GROUP
INFORMANTS AND DETERMINE IF ANY BASIS FOR
THREAT.(233)
That's odd -- wouldn't "race and hate group informants" be better prospects for information if the "militant revolutionary group" in question were an ultra right-wing "race" or "hate" group like the Ku Klux Klan, which the FBI was informed actually did threaten John F. Kennedy's life in Dallas?(234) Wouldn't informants in the Cuban exile community be a better place to start for information on a militant Cuban threat?
The authors are unclear as to where they got their copy of the reconstruction. According to the La Fontaines, when the House Select Committee on Assassinations questioned Walter in 1978, they asked him specifically what the notation Cuban faction QOU meant, and he replied he did not know.(235) So presumably, the notation was on the reconstructed message in 1978. According to the House Select Committee, the reconstruction was first obtained by the government in 1975, when Walter gave the FBI a copy.(236)
Mark Lane received a copy of Walter's reconstructed teletype under the Freedom of Information Act and forwarded it to Jim Garrison.(237) Here is precisely how the relevant portion of Garrison's copy reads, with bracketed notation and line breaks as in Garrison:
INFORMATION HAS BEEN RECEIVED
BY THE BUREAS [sic] BUREAU HAS
DETERMINED THAT A MILITANT
REVOLUTIONARY GROUP MAY ATTEMPT TO
ASSASSINATE PRESIDENT KENNEDY ON
HIS PROPOSED TRIP TO DALLAS TEXAS
NOVEMBER TWENTY TWO DASH TWENTY
THREE NINETEEN SIXTY THREE. ALL
RECEIVING OFFICES SHOULD IMMEDIATELY
CONTACT ALL CIS, PCIS LOGICAL RACE
AND HATE GROUP INFORMANTS AND
DETERMINE IF ANY BASIS FOR THREAT.(238)
Notice anything different?
The La Fontaines state that the raid on the Pontchartrain cache was a "turning point"(239) "in the eyes of the extremist CIA, Mafia, and Cuban exile elements -- the incident that finally convinced this alliance of convenience that John Fitzgerald Kennedy was hopelessly ambivalent, a condition for which a permanent solution was required."(240)
What's the authors' source for this claim? Why, it's ZR Rifle, a television documentary based on Claudia Furiati's book of the same title.(241)
Would anyone care to venture a guess as to where this theory originated? Let's compare it to the words of a certain onetime New Orleans DA:
On the operative level of the conspiracy, you find anti-Castro Cuban exiles who never forgave Kennedy for failing to send in US air cover at the Bay of Pigs and who . . . felt they would never see their homes again if Kennedy's policy of détente was allowed to succeed. . . . In the New Orleans area, where the conspiracy was hatched, the CIA was training a mixed bag of Minutemen, Cuban exiles and other anti-Castro adventurers north of Lake Pontchartrain for a foray into Cuba and an assassination attempt on Fidel Castro. David Ferrie, who operated on the "command" level of the [conspiracy], was deeply involved in this effort. The CIA itself apparently did not take the détente too seriously until the late summer of 1963, because it maintained its financing and training of anti-Castro adventurers. There was, in fact, a triangulation of CIA-supported anti-Castro activity between Dallas -- where Jack Ruby was involved in collecting guns and ammunition for the underground -- and Miami and New Orleans, where most of the training was going on. But then, Kennedy . . . began to crack down on CIA operations against Cuba. As a result, on July 31, 1963, the FBI raided the headquarters of the group of Cuban exiles and Minutemen training north of Lake Pontchartrain and confiscated all their guns and ammunition -- despite the fact that the operation had the sanction of the CIA. This action may have sealed Kennedy's fate.-- Jim Garrison, Playboy interview, October 1967(242)
For all of Garrison's rhetoric, there is no evidence this raid had any particular significance to the Cuban exile community. That legendary cache of explosives was intended for a bombing mission reportedly to involve exactly two planes and two pilots.(243) Though it is universally acknowledged that US support of anti-Castro activity peaked in 1963, the DRE's activities were not curtailed in the slightest by the Lacombe raid, and their relationship with the US government remained strong and healthy through 1966.(244)
Why would this raid have been any more important than, say, the arrests of several of the very same people planning the exact same mission six weeks earlier?(245) Why would it have been more important than -- just to name one example -- the raid on MDC headquarters in Miami on April 21, 1964, which resulted in the seizure of another large cache of arms and ammunition -- which itself didn't curtail anti-Castro activity to any appreciable degree?(246) Why would it have any more significance than any of the many other battles between the Feds and the exiles, which would continue for years?(247)
Garrison is also making the same mistake the La Fontaines do when they talk of an "arms camp" at Lake Pontchartrain -- conflating two independent operations, the MDC training camp and the McLaney arms cache.(248) To hear it from Big Jim, one would actually think that Mike McLaney's vacation cottage was the "headquarters" of a massive CIA-Minutemen-exile paramilitary operation. Who does Big Jim think he's fooling?
He's fooling Ray and Mary La Fontaine, for starters.
The La Fontaines' feelings about Big Jim seem to be fairly well spelled out in one particular section of their book, a section that also happens to demonstrate the kind of scholarly methodology the La Fontaines and Jim Garrison seem to share.
"Whatever may be said about Garrison's mistakes, and they were legion," the La Fontaines state, "the DA was on a fertile path. He had zeroed in on the early sixties occupants of the Newman Building at 544 Camp Street [sic], and on participants in the burglary of an arms bunker near Lake Pontchartrain [sic] in 1961." (The 1961 heist took place in Houma, south of New Orleans, not by Lake Pontchartrain, north of New Orleans. Either way, the authors never state precisely what significance the 1961 Houma heist could have had to the assassination investigation.) In addition to David Ferrie, they note, there was one man who "fit both categories"(249) -- "Sergio Arcacha Smith."(250)
The La Fontaines claim that in February 1967, the Dallas police department "was assisted by a journalist, Hugh Aynesworth, who shared information with the police intelligence division. It was information that, if not divulged, might have led to a different outcome for the prosecutor. Instead, he was never able to question the one man who by his associations connected Ferrie, Shaw, and Guy Banister. His name was Sergio Arcacha Smith."(251) Aynesworth's information, we're informed, "effectively contributed to the sabotaging of Garrison's efforts."(252)
What extraordinary statements these are. Are the La Fontaines saying that Clay Shaw might have indeed been convicted of conspiracy to assassinate John F. Kennedy had an alleged association with Sergio Arcacha Smith been uncovered? Do the authors believe that Clay Shaw was, in fact, guilty as charged?
What information precisely did Aynesworth have that allegedly demolished Garrison's case beyond repair?
Aynesworth gave the Dallas police intelligence unit the names of some people who had been questioned by Garrison's office.(253)
O the horror! O the shame! As if the two local papers in New Orleans weren't reporting the comings and goings of every single person who walked through the doors of the Criminal District Court Building at Tulane and Broad.(254)
Also Aynesworth actually had the nerve -- the unmitigated gall! -- to interview Sergio Arcacha Smith in Texas and tell him that Jim Garrison considered him an "important witness."(255)
Garrison himself, of course, had no problem saying as much to the press,(256) which obligingly labeled Arcacha a "fugitive from Garrison's investigation,"(257) despite the fact that Arcacha had left New Orleans five years earlier.(258) But to the La Fontaines, this is a blatant act of "tampering with a witness and doing so in the very offices of a law enforcement intelligence unit."(259)
According to the La Fontaines, Aynesworth's "bombshell"(260) insured that Garrison's office "was never able to question" Arcacha.(261) But they know this isn't true -- their own book says that the NODA had the opportunity to question Arcacha, and refused to do so unless Arcacha waived his right to legal representation.(262)
Arcacha was perfectly willing to speak to Garrison so long as his lawyer was present, and -- as his lawyer stated at a May 1967 extradition hearing -- "so long as [Arcacha] doesn't have to go into the lair of Mr. Garrison,"(263) who was well known to be harassing Arcacha's former associates in New Orleans.(264)
It was not Aynesworth, however, who convinced Arcacha to be wary of Garrison. In the early days of the DA's investigation, "an assistant DA, at Garrison's direction, called Smith on a number of occasions and asked him to come to New Orleans to answer questions. Smith was not, assured the assistant DA, a suspect. Some of the Cubans whom Garrison had already interviewed, however, felt otherwise and had told Smith in no uncertain terms that the Orleans Parish DA was trying to 'frame' him. Smith declined to come."(265)
In fact it was Aynesworth who personally tried to arrange a face-to-face meeting between Arcacha and Garrison. Arrangements were made for Garrison to visit Arcacha in Dallas, and a date was set. Garrison never showed. Arcacha's attorney followed up with a registered letter to the DA, offering to meet with Garrison or any member of his staff, in any place but New Orleans. The letter was never answered.(266)
The La Fontaines don't belabor the fact that because of Garrison's innuendo, Arcacha was arrested in Texas and released on $1,500 bond (reduced from the original figure of $5,000).(267) They don't mention the fact that Arcacha lost his job because of Garrison, that Arcacha and his attorney received death threats because of the DA's baseless and increasingly wild allegations, or that Arcacha and his wife had to seek special protection for their children, whose father was suddenly a "suspect" in the Kennedy assassination.(268)
Assuming for a moment that associations are indeed suitable grounds for prosecution, however, let's examine the methodology with which the La Fontaines link Arcacha to Clay Shaw. They write, "According to CIA documents released in 1977, Shaw was indeed a CIA asset, and Arcacha was the New Orleans delegate to an organization set up by the agency as an umbrella for all Cuban exile organizations, the Cuban Revolutionary Council."(269)
But Clay Shaw was not a CIA asset at the time the Cuban Revolutionary Council existed -- if, in fact, the CIA would ever have considered a mere contact like Shaw an asset at all -- and the La Fontaines know that. The 1977 CIA releases they cite -- but do not quote -- specifically state that Shaw's relationship with the Agency's Domestic Contact Service ended in 1956.(270)
Even were this not so, no domestic contact could have had anything to do with CRC activities in New Orleans. Domestic contacts report on information obtained in foreign nations, in an overt fashion, through their routine activities.(271) A summary of the information Shaw gave the Agency was available to the public four years prior to the time the La Fontaines published their book.(272)
What connection to the assassination could Sergio Arcacha Smith have possibly had? Arcacha was fired from the Cuban Revolutionary Council on January 20, 1962, and he left Louisiana the following October.(273) The La Fontaines are aware of this.(274)
Who was Sergio Vicente Arcacha Smith? The La Fontaines never even bother to ask the question, much less try to answer it. Gus Russo is the only author who has ever tried to set the record straight:
In pre-Castro Havana, President Batista appointed Sergio Arcacha Smith Cuba's ambassador to India. Arcacha had actually attended high school with controversial young Fidel Castro, whom he disliked. However, he held President Kennedy and his brother Bobby in high esteem. "Kennedy lacked experience, but he had charisma," Arcacha offers. "The proof of his charisma is that when he died, people in every country cried."(275)After the revolution, Arcacha went to Venezuela. "The original idea was to set up the Frente [Frente Revolutionario Democratico (FRD)] there. However, the Frente was formed in Mexico," Arcacha recalls. After a brief stopover in Miami, the Frente leadership sent him to New Orleans to oversee that city's outpost, an umbrella organization known as the Cuban Revolutionary Council (CRC).(276)
Shortly before the April 17, 1961, Bay of Pigs invasion, the United States, attempting to coordinate the various exile groups, formed the CRC. It was an activist group whose stated purpose was "to establish a democratic government in Cuba through the use of military force." According to the CIA, which helped form the alliance, the CRC was "created . . . to coordinate and direct FRD activity . . . [It] had direct access to President Kennedy and top White House aides . . . Arcacha Smith became the [CRC] delegate in New Orleans."(277) On the CRC's board of directors sat such Bobby Kennedy exile intimates as Manuel Ray and Manuel Artime. This was not by accident. Prior to the Bay of Pigs invasion, the White House had called upon the Council to monitor pro-Castro activists who threatened to kidnap JFK's children. When the CRC opened its branch in New Orleans, it tapped Arcacha to be its delegate.(278)
Arcacha is protective of his friends, and it is only now, three decades after the fact, that he made himself available for the first time to talk about certain aspects of his time in New Orleans.(279)
[…]
Arcacha's most important superior was Robert Kennedy. Arcacha is discreet when asked about Bobby Kennedy directly, saying only, "In 1961, I started working with the US government." He would first acknowledge their relationship (off the record) to Dick Billings, former editor of Life, in April 1967. This magazine had long involved itself in anti-Castro operations. "Off the record," Arcacha insisted, "because I do not want to involve Mr. Kennedy and do not think it would be right. . . . [W]e used to call Mr. Bobby Kennedy whenever we had anything to report or ask advice [sic]. He knew what we were doing all the time. But please don't use this, as it's off the record. That's the way it was. We would call Mr. Bobby Kennedy and he would take care of it."(280)
How Arcacha became acquainted with the Attorney General is something that he is not yet ready to discuss, but one thing is certain: he was close to Bobby Kennedy, and their bond would strengthen as the years progressed.(281)
Whatever his relationship with RFK, it is well known in the exile community that Arcacha was heavily involved in smuggling exiles out of Cuba. Public relations executive Ronnie Caire helped Arcacha to begin fund-raising, to set up bank accounts, etc. He testified that Arcacha attempted to purchase PT-boats for the Cuban invasion. In addition, Caire said, the New York Times reported one week before the invasion that Arcacha's New Orleans branch of the CRC coordinated the exile training camps around New Orleans.(282) Arcacha also smuggled spies into the Cuban underground, facilitated by his experience and contacts in Batista's secret police prior to the Castro takeover.(283)
As to his own role, Arcacha implied that the Cubans he was recruiting were to become part of the landing force, Brigade 2506.(284) Recently, Arcacha admitted that he also assisted the ill-fated Bay of Pigs mission of Nino Diaz, and coordinated shipments of supplies to the training camps in Latin America.(285)
Arcacha still considers the details of his relationship with the Kennedys during this time as the equal of state secrets. However, some details have been recently revealed. "Whenever we needed a plane, for example to send arms to the camps in Nicaragua, I'd call Bobby. The next day it would be there," recalls Arcacha. Robert Kennedy had vested interests in Latin American Cuban exile training camps . . . and was giving Arcacha an open channel.
Regretfully, Arcacha says, his travails in New Orleans were in vain, as "Castro knew everything we were doing. He had people everywhere."(286)
[…]
According to some, Arcacha also was instrumental in arms procurement for the many raids on Cuba that were, after the Bay of Pigs, to become part of 1962's Operation Mongoose. But often, his proximity to the administration's plans (and his "Cuban big mouth") would cause trouble.(287) ["Cubans talk too much," Arcacha says flatly.](288) Three months before the Bay of Pigs invasion, he was quoted in the local newspaper as predicting, "Cubans will launch an invasion in 1961 to overthrow the regime of Fidel Castro. The actual invasion will not be launched from US territory."(289) One week before the invasion, Arcacha again spoke with the paper, saying, "Preparations are almost complete for an anti-Castro Cuban invasion . . . The invasion could begin this afternoon, tomorrow, anytime. We are just waiting for the signal."(290)
After the Bay of Pigs was launched, Arcacha told the paper of how he had waited by his short-wave radio for the coded signal: "Look to the rainbow. The sky is clear. The fish are ready." According to Arcacha, each sentence had its own important meaning.(291)
Russo implies that Arcacha immediately set up operations in the Newman Building at Camp and Lafayette building,(292) when actually he and the CRC were in the nearby Balter Building for most of their time in New Orleans. Arcacha opened an office in the Balter Building in December 1960(293) and moved to the Newman Building the following October.(294) He was only at 544 Camp Street for three months before being deposed from his position with the CRC.(295)
"I rented office space at 544 Camp Street," he says. "My office was on the second floor above the restaurant [Mancuso's], and Banister's was downstairs and around the corner. I only met Banister three or four times. He was more interested in Central America than Cuba. Any contact with his office was through Dave Ferrie, whom I saw regularly."(296)
Russo continues:
With Garrison making so much noise about the 544 Camp Street "assassins," Sergio Arcacha worried that the real truth of that operation might surface, forever making him and Robert Kennedy's secret war -- in the public's mind at least -- the reason Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated John Kennedy. In late March, Arcacha wrote US Attorney General Ramsey Clark, asking for support in his fight against Garrison. On April 6, 1967, Assistant Attorney General Fred Vinson, Jr., replied, writing that "it would not be proper for us to comment in a case pending in a state court." However, Bobby Kennedy, as was his wont, would soon take things into his hands in his own way, showing his personal solidarity with Sergio Arcacha Smith.(297)
On March 28, 1967, former Arcacha volunteer Layton Martens tried to get the FBI to intervene in Garrison's persecution of Arcacha, reminding the Bureau that "Senator Robert Kennedy had approved" Arcacha's activities in New Orleans, and warning them that "Garrison may bring Senator Kennedy's name into the case."(298) Martens reaffirmed his story to the House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1978,(299) and to Gus Russo in 1994.(300) Both Arcacha and Martens took polygraph tests in 1967 and passed.(301)
Just when things were their most bleak for Arcacha, he received a telephone call from Bobby Kennedy's secretary, Angela Novello. The Senator had made arrangements for Arcacha to fly to Washington and put his story on film. Walter Sheridan would make him part of his NBC News special, but agreed not to air Arcacha's segment without his permission. . . . "I told them everything about my work in New Orleans, but I never gave them permission to use it."(302)[…]
Here is what Arcacha would say later about his meeting with Robert Kennedy in Washington. "We met in Senator Kennedy's office. Bobby had put me up in a penthouse for a week. He said to me, 'Sergio, I know none of your people killed my brother. Why is Garrison doing this? You know that there is nobody in the world who wants to find out who killed Jack than I.'" With that, Bobby Kennedy produced from his desk one of the coveted PT-109 tie-clips, bestowed only upon close friends. "Here, Sergio, this is for being a friend of the Kennedy family," said Bobby. Arcacha retains the clip to this day.(303)
"Whenever we needed anything in New Orleans," Arcacha told Russo in 1994, "I'd call Bobby Kennedy and he'd help us right away. He was always there for us. I stayed in touch with him until the end."(304)
This is the person who, according to the La Fontaines, could have redeemed Jim Garrison's debacle and put Clay Shaw behind bars for twenty years-to-life?
Are the La Fontaines even aware of the fact that by Jim Garrison's own account, Sergio Arcacha Smith was not under suspicion for the Kennedy assassination at all, but only the 1961 Houma burglary, which wasn't even in Garrison's jurisdiction?(305) Arcacha has never been linked to the assassination, a crime in which he would never have taken part.(306)
Having scrutinized the La Fontaine methodology,(307) here comes the punchline: Arcacha did know Clay Shaw. Arcacha approached Shaw on one occasion around December 1960, when he was seeking funds for the fledgling New Orleans delegation of the Cuban Revolutionary Council. This is revealed in a polygraph test administered to Arcacha in March 1967. Here is the relevant exchange:
Q. Did you ever meet Clay Shaw?
A. Yes.
Q. Were you alone with Shaw at the time of this meeting?
A. No.
Q. Was Martin Mackaulif [sic -- anti-Castro activist Martin McAuliffe] with you at the time?
A. Yes.
Q. Were you at any time in Clay Shaw's office?
A. No.
Q. Did this meeting take place in a coffee shop at the International Trade Mart?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you discuss with Shaw the idea of a Crusade to Free Cuba?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you discuss any other issue with him?
A. No.
Q. Did he express any interest whatsoever in this Crusade?
A. No.
Q. Did you talk to Shaw at any other time?
A. No.
Q. Did you ever meet or talk to a Clay Bertrand?(308)
A. No.(309)
Examiner John Spoonmore writes, "Our test reflects that Smith was truthful" in answering these questions.(310)
Explosive stuff, eh?
Yet the La Fontaines insist that were it not for the near-treasonous actions of Hugh Aynesworth, there could have been a "different outcome" for Jim Garrison.(311)
Precisely how well informed are the La Fontaines when it comes to Big Jim's case?
When Clay Shaw "was acquitted -- and the national reputation of prosecutor Jim Garrison ruined," was it, as the La Fontaines state, because the jurors "couldn't find any motivation . . . for the respected trade mart director to have taken part in a conspiracy to assassinate the president"?(312)
No, the jurors -- by their own accounts -- acquitted because Jim Garrison had no case.
Was an indictment for David Ferrie "imminent" at the time of his death, as the La Fontaines believe?(313) No, Garrison made that up. There were no plans to arrest Ferrie at that time.(314)
Was the black Cadillac seen in Clinton, Louisiana, checked out and found to be "registered to the International Trade Mart," as it is written in Oswald Talked?(315) No, by the prosecution's own account at the Shaw trial, no such thing ever happened.
Did Garrison threaten "to subpoena" Oswald's fellow Marine, Kerry Thornley, "as a material witness," as the La Fontaines would have it?(316) No, Garrison tried to coerce false testimony out of Thornley, charged him with perjury when he refused to go along, and tried to frame him as a conspirator, as described in this article by David Lifton, the researcher who put Garrison in touch with Thornley. To cover his tracks later on, Garrison lied about how he found Thornley, omitting mention of Lifton completely.(317)
One day perhaps the La Fontaines will enlighten us all about Jim Garrison's many "mistakes."(318) Would those "mistakes" include suborning perjury, as Garrison did with star witness Perry Raymond Russo? The La Fontaines reference Russo only once in their book, describing him parenthetically as "a witness in Jim Garrison's Clay Shaw trial who placed Oswald together with Shaw and David Ferrie."(319)
One would never know from the La Fontaines' book that, aside from an easily impeached witness named Charles Spiesel, Perry Raymond Russo was Jim Garrison's only conspiracy witness.
Would these "mistakes" the La Fontaines speak of include suborning perjury from Vernon Bundy, attempted bribery of witnesses like Alvin Beauboeuf, and coercion of false statements from witnesses like Jules Ricco Kimble?
Would Garrison's "mistakes" include blatantly and demonstrably lying on dozens and dozens of documented occasions both to the media(320) and in his memoirs? Would these mistakes include personally fabricating evidence for the benefit of the House Select Committee on Assassinations? How about perjuring himself before the Orleans Parish Grand Jury? Or blatantly misrepresenting the circumstances of David Ferrie's death?
Would these "mistakes" apply to actions of Garrison's over and above the Kennedy probe, such as harassing civil rights workers or otherwise grossly abusing his office, as researcher Jerry Shinley has demonstrated?
Would these "mistakes" include the countless factoids of Garrison's own invention that have become enshrined in countless conspiracy books, such as the myth that Lee Harvey Oswald had some spooky connection to NASA, the fairy tale that Clay Shaw used the alias "Clay Bertrand,"(321) or the groundless allegation that a phone call linked one of Garrison's suspects, David Ferrie, to Jack Ruby?
Considering that the La Fontaines blame Hugh Aynesworth, of all people,(322) for helping "shape the national view of Garrison as a corrupt, out-of-control public official,"(323) it's unlikely that the La Fontaines will be discussing any of the substantive issues of the Garrison case anytime soon. Once one begins to do that, it becomes difficult to justify using Big Jim's unsubstantiated theories as evidence.(324)
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1. For more information, please click here. The title of this article derives from Marianne Sullivan's 1994 memoir, Kennedy Ripples: A True Love Story, utilized as a source by Ray and Mary La Fontaine in Oswald Talked (La Fontaine, 263-74).
2. Ray and Mary La Fontaine, Oswald Talked, 342.
5. La Fontaine, 6. The La Fontaines state that the FBI had picked "him up from the CIA, the likely agency that had earlier sent the ex-Marine, complete with telltale intelligence ID, on a mission to Russia" (Ibid.). The "telltale intelligence ID," in fact, is the only evidence the authors present linking Oswald to the CIA. The Assassination Records Review Board investigated the issue; please click here to read their findings and the supporting documentation.
6. The La Fontaines claim that Dallas FBI agent James Hosty "probably 'recruited' or otherwise dragooned"Oswald "into participating in a covert check of mail-order gun dealers" (Ibid., 181). Hosty discusses this and other subjects in this 1996 interview conducted by researcher Steve Bochan.
8. La Fontaine, 182, see 300-10.
9. La Fontaine, 183; see La Fontaine 6-7, 145-7, 154-62, 181-3, 300-10, 351-61. "After thirty years of communal agonizing, two viable readings are left of the Oswald weirdness in New Orleans that summer" (Ibid., 145). One is the Warren Commission's conclusion that Oswald spent the summer promoting the pro-Castro Fair Play for Cuba Committee (FPCC) and building a résumé of sorts as a friend of Castro's revolution.
For reasons that aren't entirely clear, the La Fontaines link this theory to the man they call "an American original" (Ibid., 342), Jim Garrison, who -- if the Warren Commission version is correct -- was "himself [according to the La Fontaines] mentally unstable," (Ibid., 145) and who must have then, in the La Fontaines opinion, "maliciously exploited" (Ibid.) Oswald's summer in New Orleans, apparently "for his personal aggrandizement" (Ibid.).
The other interpretation they call the "Summers-Scott" theory, based on Anthony Summers' Conspiracy (now reissued as Not In Your Lifetime) and Peter Dale Scott's Deep Politics and the Death of JFK, and built upon earlier theories propounded by Harold Weisberg and Jim Garrison (Ibid.). According to this theory, Oswald was collaborating with elements of US intelligence to smear such leftist organizations as the FPCC (Ibid.).
As the La Fontaines see it, "Garrison, in this scenario, far from a malevolent degenerate as he is often depicted, was a courageous crusader ahead of his time" (Ibid., 146). The authors fail to note that neither Anthony Summers nor Peter Dale Scott of the "Summers-Scott" theory would be likely to agree. Summers says that Garrison's "probe has long been recognized by virtually everyone -- including serious scholars who believe there was a conspiracy -- as a grotesque, misdirected shambles" (Anthony Summers, Conspiracy, 1991 ed., the relevant passage being quoted here), while Scott and his co-editors on The Assassinations: Dallas and Beyond call Garrison's prosecution of Clay Shaw "seemingly indefensible" (Peter Dale Scott, Paul L. Hoch and Russell Stetler, eds., The Assassinations: Dallas and Beyond, 9).
The La Fontaines would have it both ways: Oswald was a genuine Marxist whom the FBI sent to "New Orleans to keep tabs on [Garrison suspect Guy] Banister and other right-wing subversives" (La Fontaine, 182)
But Oswald didn't count on the evils that awaited him in something the La Fontaines call "the Banister/DRE lair" (Ibid., 183). "To Banister, the FPCC was no more than an entertaining front organization run by a kook whom the ex-agent encouraged by providing an upstairs office to store leaflets and other paraphernalia. To [New Orleans DRE delegate Carlos] Bringuier, the mythical local chapter, complete with a pro-Marxist former defector at its head, provided the perfect anti-Castro propaganda campaign" (Ibid.).
"For his part, Oswald may have agreed to serve the DRE's ends -- participating in a media blitz 'unmasking' the FPCC as a Communist-controlled organization for propagandist Bringuier -- in order to gain the confidence of the exile group and obtain information on such matters as the Pontchartrain operation" (Ibid.).
10. La Fontaine, 310. Though the La Fontaines fail to cite a source for the arms cache's connection to the DRE, Peter Dale Scott writes, "The FBI reported in 1967 that the 1963 dynamite cache at the McLaneys' 'was an operation of the Directorio Revolucionario Estudiantil (DRE)'" (Scott, Deep Politics and the Death of JFK, 340 fn. 63, citing FBI airtel 62-109060-4758). Two DRE members from Miami were arrested in connection with the cache, John Koch Gene and Carlos "Batea" Hernandez; according to Scott, the above-mentioned FBI report mentions another DRE member, Jose Basulto Leon, but Scott does not explain Basulto's connection, as he was not among those arrested.
While DRE involvement with the cache would seem to be well established, it should be noted that the usually-well-informed Scott not only conflates the MDC camp and the McLaney arms cache, but he conflates both with an exile training camp operated in the summer of 1962 by Gerry Patrick Hemming and Frank Sturgis (Peter Dale Scott, Crime and Cover-Up, 17-8; Scott, Deep Politics and the Death of JFK, 88-9, 120).
11. La Fontaine, 7.
12. La Fontaine, 7. The word "conspicuously" could be the authors' escape clause, as they never claimed there was anything conspicuous about Oswald's alleged access to an office in 544 Camp Street. Neither, though, is there much conspicuous about his alleged association with the DRE.
13. La Fontaine, 147.
14. La Fontaine, 147-52, 181-4.
15. La Fontaine, 147.
16. La Fontaine, 147.
17. La Fontaine, 147. Gerald Posner, for any who don't know, is the author of the 1993 book, Case Closed, which posits that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone assassin of John F. Kennedy. The authors add that Posner "knows full well that on this matter there can be no compromise or misguided, faint-hearted mercy. The Camp Street address rubber-stamped on the FPCC literature is a poisonous snake in the garden threatening the orderly creation of Posner's New Orleans Oswald" (Ibid., 150).
18. La Fontaine, 147, 311.
19. La Fontaine, 183.
20. La Fontaine, 183. Since it was Jim Garrison who popularized the theory that Oswald indeed was collaborating with right-wing elements in New Orleans, to prove this theory valid would prove -- in the La Fontaines' view -- that Garrison, "far from a malevolent degenerate as he is often depicted, was a courageous crusader ahead of his time" (La Fontaine, 145. See endnote 8).
21. La Fontaine, 147, 184.
22. La Fontaine, 147, 183.
23. La Fontaine, 147, 184. For a discussion of the La Fontaines' theory of Oswald and the DRE in Dallas, please click here.
24. La Fontaine, 184.
25. La Fontaine, 7. "The only groups intimately associated with Oswald were the right-wing Dallas Russian community [and only in late 1962/early 1963 -- DR], and the militant, CIA-funded DRE [but only -- so far as is known -- through the person of Carlos Bringuier -- DR]. The new evidence," the La Fontaines continue, "strongly suggests that Oswald first attempted to infiltrate the DRE in New Orleans as an FBI informant on neutrality and weapons issues. As we may recall, the leftist former defector was likely sent to the Crescent City to inform on gunrunning by right-wing subversives. Guy Banister and the equally gun-happy student directorate, which, though supposedly a propaganda group, had stockpiled the Pontchartrain arms cache raided by the Bureau in late July, were obvious targets. Indeed, Oswald's informant file, seen by former FBI employee William S. Walter, identified Oswald as a Bureau informant on the DRE's Pontchartrain arms cache" (La Fontaine, 310).
26. La Fontaine, 7. A "conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy required that the conspirators be associated with Oswald -- whether he served as coconspirator or (as he claimed) a 'patsy'" (Ibid.; emphasis in original). "Only one group conspicuously fills this bill,"the La Fontaines claim -- the DRE (Ibid.).
27. La Fontaine, 154.
28. La Fontaine, 154.
29. La Fontaine, 183; see 6-7, 145-7, 154-62, 181-3, 300-10, 351-61.
30. La Fontaine, 222, citing ZR Rifle documentary (Nei Sroulevich, producer), based on Claudia Furiati's ZR Rifle: The Plot to Kill Kennedy and Castro.
31. La Fontaine, 222.
32. La Fontaine, 222.
33. La Fontaine, 183.
34. La Fontaine, 183.
35. La Fontaine, 183.
36. Warren Commission Report, 728; Warren Commission Hearings Vol. X, 34-5; House Select Committee on Assassinations Final Report, 141; House Select Committee on Assassinations Hearings Vol. X, 85, 132. Click here to read Carlos Bringuier's Warren Commission testimony.
37. Warren Commission Hearings Vol. X, 34-5.
38. Warren Commission Hearings Vol. X, 34-5.
39. Warren Commission Report, 728. On August 5, 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald "visited a store managed by Carlos Bringuier, a Cuban refugee and avid opponent of Castro, and the New Orleans delegate of the Cuban student directorate. Oswald indicated an interest in joining the struggle against Castro. He told Bringuier that he had been a marine and was trained in guerrilla warfare, and that he was willing not only to train Cubans to fight Castro but also to join the fight himself. The next day Oswald returned to the store and left his 'Guidebook for Marines' for Bringuier" (Ibid.).
A few days later, a friend of Bringuier's saw Oswald passing out Fair Play for Cuba Committee leaflets on Canal Street, not far from the store Bringuier managed. He, Bringuier and another exile proceeded to the site of Oswald's mini-demonstration, and Bringuier was enraged when he recognized the pro-Castro demonstrator as the anti-Castro activist wannabe of a few days before. Though no physical violence resulted, some heated words were uttered, a crowd gathered, and Oswald was arrested along with the three Cubans for disturbing the peace (Warren Commission Report, 728; Warren Commission Hearings Vol. X, 47).
40. Warren Commission Report, 407-8. A full transcript of the debate is reproduced in the Warren Commission Hearings volumes as Stuckey Exhibit No. 3 (Warren Commission Hearings Vol. XXI, 633-41). It is available on-line at A. J. Weberman's Web site.
41. Warren Commission Hearings Vol. X, 34.
42. La Fontaine, 7. See endnote 9.
43. See endnote 10.
44. La Fontaine, 153.
45. FBI from SSCIA 157-10007-10104; NARA 124-10236-10075; A. J. Weberman Web site, Nodule 12.
46. "None of the New Orleans individuals associated in [the Bringuier-Oswald incidents] had any involvement in the paramilitary activities of DRE. The New Orleans chapter engaged solely in propaganda and fundraising activities" (House Select Committee Hearings Vol. X, 86-7). See also Warren Commission Hearings Vol. X, 34-6.
47. House Select Committee Hearings Vol. X, 86-7. Moreover, the DRE did not conduct its fund-raising in a covert manner (Warren Commission Hearings Vol. X, 36, 75-6, 82). The La Fontaines, however, state that the "gun-happy directorate, which, though supposedly a propaganda group, had stockpiled the Pontchartrain arms cache . . ." (La Fontaine, 310). The La Fontaines, two "serious journalists" (as the dust jacket to their book states) are simply drawing conclusions out of thin air. The DRE is well established to have been a paramilitary organization, and made no secret of it in 1963 (House Select Committee Hearings Vol. X, 286-323). Carlos Bringuier, however, played no part in these activities, which were run out of Miami (see endnotes 49 and 131); his role was indeed limited to propaganda and fund-raising (House Select Committee Hearings Vol. X, 86-7).
48. Benton purchased the 2500 pounds of dynamite seized at the McLaney home from Richard Lauchli (FBI Miami MM 105-1742; A. J. Weberman Web site, Nodule 12). Both men were arrested in connection with the cache, though no charges were filed. "The Kennedys got us off," says McLaney aide Steve Reynolds. "They were aware of the operation from the start" (Russo, 184, see 67-71). William McLaney adds, "My brother and I both met Robert Kennedy many times. We did favors for him, and sometimes he'd return them" (Ibid.). This is consistent with McLaney's more guarded Congressional testimony of 1978 (Ibid.). Victor Espinosa Hernandez, a lifelong friend of Rolando Cubela Secades (AM/LASH), was reportedly in close contact with Robert Kennedy (Ibid.). According to Gerry Patrick Hemming, McLaney associate Sam Benton "had cooperated with Robert Kennedy on a stolen securities investigation" (Ibid., 184-5, see 69). Richard Lauchli supplied arms to Dr. Paulino Sierra's provisional Cuban government, and Sierra was close to Robert Kennedy (Ibid., 185).
49. FBI from SSCIA 157-10007-10104; NARA 124-10236-10075; A. J. Weberman Web site, Nodule 12. The cache was seized at the vacation home of William Julius McLaney. Neither he nor Mike McLaney was arrested in connection with the cache, and it has never been established that either man helped finance it. It's known, however, that Mike McLaney was indeed financing anti-Castro air strikes of just this sort -- a planned bombing of the Shell Oil Refinery in Havana -- in the hopes of regaining the profitable gambling concessions he'd enjoyed at the Hotel Nacional in Havana during Batista's reign, and had lost when Castro nationalized the casinos. Six weeks prior to the raid, McLaney associates Benton, Lauchli, and Carlos Victor Espinosa Hernandez had been arrested in Miami while planning an identical mission slated for mid June. Espinosa had reportedly been trying to hire an exile to fly the mission, and Richard Lauchli was on-hand with a station wagon full of munitions to sell. Benton claimed he "was acting in a consultant capacity" and was there to photograph the raid for the news media (Ibid.).
Benton had once worked with McLaney at the Hotel Nacional (Gus Russo, Live by the Sword, 69), and is described by Peter Dale Scott as "a longtime resident of Cuba under Batista and a major figure in the sophisticated placement of fraudulent securities at mob-controlled banks, banks which once channeled casino profits from Cuba. According to Senate hearings, Benton operated in these placements with Mike McLaney, a former casino operator in Havana and a personal friend of J. Edgar Hoover" (Scott, Crime and Cover-Up, 17). Benton was accused of selling fraudulent securities in the late 1960s, and was indicted in 1971 for the sale and transportation of stolen securities (Ibid. See also A. J. Weberman Web site, Nodule 12). Benton pleaded guilty to income tax fraud in August 1974 (A. J. Weberman Web site, Nodule 12). Scott also links Benton in a rather vague way, through the Ansan Corporation, to Laureano Batista (no relation to the former dictator), who was involved with the Christian Democratic Movement (MDC) training camp at Lacombe (Scott, Crime and Cover-Up, 17). To a certain extent, however, Scott may be conflating the 1963 MDC camp with earlier MDC operations involving Frank Sturgis (mentioned by Scott), who had no connection to the 1963 training camp, but was involved with a similar camp established in the summer of 1962, and is described by Scott as having been involved with Laureano Batista in a 1961 operation (Scott. "From Dallas to Watergate," reprinted in Peter Dale Scott, Paul L. Hoch, Russell Stetler, eds., The Assassinations: Dallas and Beyond, 373). Laureano Batista's operation, however, was based in Miami (Milton Brener, The Garrison Case, 69).
Clearly all these people were moving in some of the same circles, but alliances shifted rapidly and none should be taken for granted. One of the organizers of the 1963 MDC camp, Victor Paneque Batista, "was Laureano Batista's personal assistant and allegedly his nephew" (Scott, Crime and Cover-Up, 18) Paneque was arrested in connection with the McLaney cache, but his role in that operation -- if he had one -- is unknown. It might be solely because of Paneque's arrest that the Benton-McLaney-Espinosa operation is sometimes called an MDC-DRE collaboration, which may or may not be accurate. According to the FBI, it was strictly a DRE operation; see endnote 10.
The Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, better known as the Schweiker-Hart Committee, seems to have been as confused as anyone else with regard to the Lake Pontchartrain goings-on. Book V of their 1975 Final Report states, "The group of Cubans connected with the Guatemalan Lumbar Co. project is identified as the same group arrested when the FBI raided and seized dynamite on property in Lacombe, La. It should be noted that the FBI raid occurred on July 31, 1963, at property owned by William J. McLaney, whereas the Guatemalan Lumber Co. trainees were on property owned, according to Frank DeLaBarre, by a friend of his. Although DeLaBarre did not mention the name of the owner, the FBI report from Miami, Bufile No.2-1821, sec. 33, lists the names of the Cubans arrested on McLaney property; Victor Paneque was not among them" (Book V, 12, cited in House Select Committee Hearings Vol. X, 75).
When questioned by Jim Garrison in 1967, Carlos Bringuier stated he knew of no connection between the training camp and the arms cache. When Garrison angrily suggested that perhaps Bringuier had been fooled by his fellow exiles, Bringuier responded, "Maybe I have been fooled and maybe you have been fooled. We will have to see which one of us is the fool" (Brener, 76).
50. La Fontaine, 154.
51. La Fontaine, 183.
52. La Fontaine, 183. Here the La Fontaines are practicing a brand of scholarly methodology they apply often, and has been most famously applied to the John F. Kennedy assassination by that "courageous crusader" (Ibid., 145. See endnote 8) for truth, Jim Garrison, who tried to build a career out of charging people for crimes and seeing if they could prove their innocence.
See the La Fontaines' treatment of Silvia Odio, (Ibid., 237-80) and James Hosty (Ibid., 181-2, 232-5, 306-8, 355, 390-1), to name two prominent examples. Click here and here for researcher Steve Bochan's two-part analysis of their Odio theory, or access them both from this page. Click here for a brief article of my own, supplementing Bochan's research. Click here for Bochan's November 21, 1996, interview with James Hosty.
The most obvious example of Garrison's behavior, of course, is his prosecution of New Orleans businessman Clay L. Shaw for allegedly conspiring to assassinate John F. Kennedy, based upon evidence Garrison knew to be fabricated. Please click here for a full discussion of Garrison's case against Shaw. Click here to see how Garrison actually perjured himself before the Orleans Parish Grand Jury with regard to his case. Click here to see how he later altered his records to cover his tracks. Click here to see how the La Fontaines' "courageous crusader" falsified his entire case for his 1988 memoirs. For other examples of Garrison in action, check out John McAdams' Web page on the man the La Fontaines call "an American original" (La Fontaine, 342).
53. Warren Commission Hearings Vols. X, 35-6, 76-7, 82-5.
54. Warren Commission Hearings Vols. X, 36, 75, 82. When Oswald returned the following day, he also spoke to Bringuier's brother-in-law, Rolando Palaez (Ibid., Vol. X, 36), who was not questioned by the Warren Commission.
55. "The committee deposed Carlos Bringuier and interviewed or deposed several of his associates. It concluded that there had been no relationship between Oswald and Bringuier and the DRE with the exception of the confrontation over Oswald's distribution of pro-Castro literature" (House Select Committee on Assassinations Final Report, 145).
The La Fontaines observe that Oswald appears to have written about his street scuffle with Bringuier and friends before it actually occurred. This could be evidence of collaboration between the parties involved, or it could be evidence that Oswald himself set Bringuier and the exiles up; see endnote 83.
56. Carlos Quiroga told the FBI that he was acquainted with Bringuier and had been aware of the Oswald-Bringuier incident of August 9, 1963. "Approximately a week later, August 16, 1963, he was seated in Thompson's Restaurant," when an International Trade Mart employee showed him one of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee handbills that a young man -- Oswald, of course -- was passing out in front of the Trade Mart. Quiroga proceeded to the Trade Mart, but Oswald had left. Quiroga then (with Carlos Bringuier's approval) "drove to the address listed on the handbill," and spoke to Oswald for about an hour, pretending to be sympathetic to his views. Following this conversation, Quiroga contacted Lt. Martello of the New Orleans Police Department and "offered to infiltrate the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, but he received no encouragement from him, and so took no further action" (FBI Report of November 27, 1963, 62-109060-466,5263,5218, 105-82555-5263A, LHM 2.21.67; A. J. Weberman Web site, Nodule 12).
Milton Brener writes:
Carlos Quiroga was contacted intermittently for various reasons by DA investigators following his questioning in the early part of 1967. His next contact of consequence with the DA's office began in mid-April and lasted approximately six weeks.Quiroga is an intense, fiery, short-tempered individual. His eyes still bristle when he speaks of his escapade with Garrison's office. As he tells his story, the words flow quickly and the anger is obviously deep.
On April 14th he was contacted by a DA investigator. The subject discussed was one of Garrison's favorites, another request for a lie detector test. Quiroga agreed. He already had experience with the DA's Office, however, and spoke first to an attorney. The attorney was loath to advise consenting to the test, but pointed out certain dangers that might be faced from the indictment-happy DA upon refusal. He urged caution. Quiroga finally agreed to the test, but requested by letter that he be given copies of the questions to be asked. He was informed that this would be done.
Quiroga . . . was accompanied to the office [of the polygraph operator] by his wife. The operator informed Quiroga that he could not be allowed to see the questions prior to taking the test [contrary to accepted procedure in polygraph examinations], but Quiroga refused to submit to the polygraph unless he were shown the questions, as agreed. The irritated operator called Garrison and was told to inform Quiroga to take the test at once or that he would be arrested immediately.
Faced with this threat, Quiroga agreed and was then given a routine statement to sign to the effect that the test was taken voluntarily. This he refused to do. A heated argument ensued and the operator informed Quiroga that he would not be given the test and would face arrest unless this statement was signed. Quiroga's wife began crying and the harassed Cuban finally signed the statement and submitted to the test. [Note: No reputable polygraph operator would conduct a polygraph examination under these conditions. -- DR] The following day he made a complaint to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, neither the first nor the last complaint to be made to that Bureau by witnesses in the Garrison probe.
On May 10th Quiroga was subpoenaed to appear before the Grand Jury. Upon arrival at the building, however, he was confronted by an assistant district attorney who bluntly informed him, "You failed the lie detector test." [Small wonder. -- DR] He was also told that he must get a lawyer, for unless he changed his testimony, Garrison said, he would be indicted. Quiroga again consulted with an attorney.
Shortly thereafter, he was again subpoenaed before the Grand Jury, this time for May 24th. Prior to going into the Grand Jury room, he was warned again that unless he testified "truthfully," contrary to previous statements he had given, he would be indicted as an accessory after the fact to the murder of Kennedy, and for perjury. Inside the Grand Jury room Quiroga attempted to take the Fifth Amendment and refused to answer questions. He was heatedly told by Garrison, and by one of his assistants, that he could not, under the circumstances, claim the Fifth Amendment and that he must testify or he would be held in contempt. [Note: Attorneys were not permitted to accompany their clients inside the Orleans Parish Grand Jury room, at least not while Jim Garrison was DA (Brener, 11, 21, 41) -- DR]
After repeated threats, he began to answer questions. Garrison and his assistant wanted brief yes or no answers. But Quiroga does not answer briefly. As they do from many Garrison witnesses, the words flow freely from Quiroga. The argument erupted anew. Garrison finally shouted at him uncontrollably to get out of the Grand Jury room. Quiroga left.
He was subsequently told through his attorney that if he "keeps his mouth shut," he will be let alone (Brener, 187-8).
Garrison was never able to pin anything on Quiroga, though not for lack of trying. Two of his most notoriously unreliable witnesses -- and Garrison had many such witnesses -- Jack Martin and David Lewis, tried several times to implicate Quiroga in the assassination. Quiroga demanded to be allowed to confront Martin, who immediately betrayed his lack of reliability when Quiroga began quizzing him about dates that some of Martin's allegations were supposed to have occurred. David Lewis was discredited when he claimed that Quiroga had tried to shoot him; a failed polygraph test prompted the confession that Lewis had made the story up for Garrison's benefit (Brener, 75-6).
On one occasion, Garrison "called in Quiroga and left him alone in a room, and the Garrison team brought in a rifle with a telescopic sight and left it in the room for an hour or two. They wanted to see if Quiroga was stupid enough to touch it . . . You cannot imagine what they were willing to do to succeed in their case" (Gerald Posner, Case Closed, 436, citing his personal interview with Carlos Bringuier, March 16, 1992).
57. La Fontaine, 183.
58. La Fontaine, 162. The La Fontaines name Carlos Bringuier as the source of this information, but no specific citation is provided. Bringuier's Warren Commission testimony would not seem to be the source.
59. La Fontaine, 162. The La Fontaines quote Mrs. Garner as saying the stack was "about 5 inches or 6 inches." The words are not those of Mrs. Garner, but of Warren Commission counsel Wesley Liebeler, who was estimating, based on a hand gesture from Mrs. Garner. The La Fontaines' uncited source for the statement is Warren Commission Hearings Vol. X, 269. Quiroga is not named in Mrs. Garner's deposition (or for that matter, anywhere in the Warren Commission Report or Hearings volumes), but it is clear from the context that it is Quiroga. Assuming Mrs. Garner's memory is reliable, it's likely that Quiroga had picked up a stack of leaflets left behind at the Trade Mart by Oswald.
Mrs. Garner also placed the date of Quiroga's visit a week earlier than Quiroga and Bringuier did, something that, to most investigators, would weaken her credibility, not boost it, as the La Fontaines would have us believe (La Fontaine, 162). Garner is the rock-solid witness who, when asked by the Warren Commission about visitors to Oswald's apartment, didn't mention anything about "unforgettable" (La Fontaine, 184) Garrison assassination suspect David Ferrie (Warren Commission Hearings Vol. X, 268-9), but mentioned at the 1969 trial of Clay Shaw -- two years after Garrison had made Ferrie famous -- that David Ferrie had visited her home "the same night" President Kennedy was killed "or the following night" (Shaw trial transcript, February 26, 1969, [2042] 11). Mrs. Garner said she had briefly mistaken the notoriously slovenly and strange-looking Ferrie (who tended to dress, according to Jim Garrison, "as if he had been shot by cannon through a Salvation Army clothing store" [Garrison, 6]) for an agent of the US Secret Service (Shaw trial transcript, Ibid.). Almost a decade later, in 1978, she told the House Select Committee that Ferrie had stopped by the night following the assassination and had asked specifically about a library card, something she had never mentioned before (House Select Committee Hearings X, 113). By 6:00 PM the night of the assassination, David Ferrie had left New Orleans for a friend's house in Metairie, as the House committee conceded (Ibid., 122 fn. 208); Ferrie was out of town the entire weekend (Ibid., 112-3).
60. La Fontaine, 162.
61. David Blackburst, Newsgroup post of June 23, 1999. See Warren Commission Report, 292, 407, 728; Lee Exhibits No. 2, 4 (Warren Commission Hearings Vol. XX, 512, 518); Warren Commission Exhibit No. 1410 (Warren Commission Hearings Vol. XXII, 796-9), 1411 (Warren Commission Hearings Vol. XXII, 800-2); Warren Commission Exhibit No. 2542, 2543, 2544, 2545 (Warren Commission Hearings Vol. XXV, 769-71).
62. A CIA report states that Quiroga reportedly "was an ardent Castro supporter and made anti-US statements." Another document states: "On the basis of the foregoing, the possibility is suggested that Quiroga may be, or may have been, a penetration of the Cuban Revolutionary Front on behalf of Cuban intelligence." The CIA Office of Security Indices Results: "Subject's security file contains FBI reports on internal security investigation on Subject in 1960. Allegations that he was a plant by Castro in anti-Castro groups in US were explored. (Deleted) Subject's file reflects that he was covertly investigated in 1964. (Deleted)" . . . Carlos Quiroga stated during a telephone interview with A. J. Weberman: "All this is false. I could not be [a Castro supporter] -- my father was in prison [for fighting] against Castro. In 1961, before Batista was overthrown, I was not really pro-Castro, I was against Batista. I never was a Castro agent" (A. J. Weberman Web site, Nodule 12).
63. Warren Commission Hearings Vol. X, 35. Even the La Fontaines themselves do not suggest that Bringuier was dissembling on this point (La Fontaine, 162).
64. La Fontaine, 6. Bringuier had been warned by FBI agent Warren de Brueys that the Bureau could infiltrate his organization "and find out what you are doing here" (Ibid., 34-5). When Oswald made his appearance, talking about training exiles in guerrilla warfare, Bringuier seems to have assumed he was talking in particular about the MDC camp (Ibid., 43). He wondered how Oswald could have known about a secret training camp, one that he himself had only just found out about (Ibid.). Thus, he initially suspected that Oswald might be working for the Bureau (Ibid.).
However, Bringuier did make it clear to the FBI that he "knew of no connection that OSWALD had with any Cubans, and that OSWALD made no mention of any Cuban training camp, and gave no indication of knowing about a training camp, or of being acquainted with any Cubans" (FBI NO 100-16601, December 17, 1963, SA John T. Reynolds; A. J. Weberman Web site, Nodule 10). By the time of his Warren Commission deposition, he was convinced that Oswald must have been working for Castro (Warren Commission Report, 728; Warren Commission Hearings Vol. X, 47).
Producing a September 4, 1963, newspaper, he told Liebeler about Fernando Fernandez, the Castro spy who had been caught trying to infiltrate the MDC training camp. He found this highly significant, explaining, "in New Orleans we are about 900 miles from Miami. In Miami is where the headquarters of all the anti-Castro groups. I could not find any reason for Oswald to come to me and offer me his service to train Cubans in guerrilla warfare . . . because, if he was willing to infiltrate one active organization, he will go directly to Miami and he will offer his service over there in Miami, but not in New Orleans where it is not publicly known that there was something going on at that moment" (Ibid., 43).
The capture of Fernandez -- a genuine Castro spy -- only weeks after Oswald's visit -- seemed to reaffirm his belief (Ibid., 43).
Peter Dale Scott writes, "Bringuier's logic here is of major importance. Oswald had to be working for one side or the other; he could not have been acting alone" (Scott, Deep Politics and the Death of JFK, 251). Scott may well be correct, but since Oswald did not explicitly reveal knowledge of a secret training camp, Bringuier might have been leaping to conclusions. It has also been suggested that Oswald was simply feeding Bringuier a line, so that later his appearance as a pro-Castro demonstrator would provoke the anti-Castro activist into an incident that would garner Oswald a headline or two. The press coverage of his street scuffle with Bringuier allowed him to inflate his "résumé" when he appeared a couple months later in Mexico City, trying to claim the privilege of a visa to Cuba because of his ostensibly documented loyalty to Castro's revolution (Warren Commission Report, 288).
65. La Fontaine, 41. In 1967, when Jim Garrison related for Bringuier his theory that anti-Castro Cubans were behind the assassination, Bringuier replied, "You are the District Attorney and you should know, but I think that is stupid" (Brener, 76).
Bringuier has lost little of his fire over the years. In 1993, A. J. Weberman pressed Bringuier on the subject of a possible Oswald-Bringuier collaboration, and Bringuier told him, "I believe that you have a preconceived idea. Then there would be no possible way for me to change your idea. Most of the people who have those preconceived ideas are communists" (A. J. Weberman Web site, Nodule 10).
66. Jim Garrison, On the Trail of the Assassins, 1991 ed., 26-9, 33-5, 42-9, 67-9, 71, 216, 326. Garrison claimed that Banister "had begun his career in World War II" with the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) (Garrison, 29), and William Turner also claimed that Banister had been with the ONI (William W. Turner, "The Garrison Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy," Ramparts, January 1968; see endnote 178). Banister, born in 1901, had actually begun his career in the position of investigator for the Monroe, Louisiana Police Department, then became a patrolman in December 1929. After a series of promotions, he was hired by the Justice Department's Division of Investigation in November 1934. The Division of Investigation soon changed its name to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, for which Banister was employed for the next two solid decades; he worked for the FBI, not the US armed forces, through World War II (House Select Committee Hearings Vol. X, 483; FBI 62-103863-13; A. J. Weberman Web site, Nodule 11, 8.) It is not known where the ONI rumor originated. Anthony Summers attributes it to unspecified members of Banister's family (Summers, Conspiracy, 1989 Paragon ed., 290, 590-1), while William Turner writes, "A man who knew Banister well has told Garrison that Banister became associated with the Office of Naval Intelligence through the recommendation of Guy Johnson, an ONI reserve officer and the first attorney for Clay Shaw when he was arrested by Garrison" (Turner, "The Garrison Commission . . .", Ibid.); Garrison knew Guy Johnson very well and mentions him in his memoirs (Garrison, 29 fn.), but does not attribute the Banister-ONI information to him or name Johnson in relation to it at all; Garrison cites no source for the claim (Garrison, 29). Banister died of a heart attack in 1964.
Turner's full Ramparts article used to be posted on-line, but currently there only seems to be a zipped file of three out of four sections. The fourth part is the least significant, however, dealing primarily with the slaying of J. D. Tippit and theories about Jack Ruby.
67. La Fontaine, 149.
68. La Fontaine, 182.
69. La Fontaine, 182.
70. La Fontaine, 182.
71. La Fontaine, 182.
72. La Fontaine, 35.
73. La Fontaine, 181.
74. La Fontaine, 182-3. This raises a few questions itself. First of all, Guy Banister had spent a solid two decades with the FBI, most of those years as a Special Agent in Charge, and had spent several more years as a member of the New Orleans Police Department (House Select Committee on Assassinations, Hearings, Vol. XIII, 483). Not only was he a fanatical right-winger, a militant white supremacist, and a staunch anti-Communist, but he was also known for a quick temper and a nasty violent streak (Patricia Lambert, False Witness, 277). The La Fontaines take it for granted that Lee Oswald could put one over on this law enforcement veteran, similar to their speculation that Oswald would just as easily infiltrate a sensitive gunrunning operation in Dallas a few months later (La Fontaine, 39-42, 356-60). Also, according to the La Fontaines, Banister himself was still working for the FBI (Ibid., 181-2, 352, 369, 391) -- and there actually appears to be some corroboration for that (see Gus Russo, Live by the Sword, 196, 334). Be warned, however, that in this area, Russo is uncharacteristically skimpy with his source citations. Either way, it's not clear why the La Fontaines would refer to Banister at one point as a "contact between Oswald and the FBI" (La Fontaine, 166-7).
75. The La Fontaines refer to something they call "the Banister/DRE lair" (Ibid., 183). This is a place where such events as "a mammoth Banister/Bringuier brainstorm" (Ibid., 179) can be theorized to determine the course of Western civilization, even when there is no evidence that Carlos Bringuier ever associated with Guy Banister.
76. La Fontaine, 182.
77. La Fontaine, 182.
78. La Fontaine, 147.
79. La Fontaine, 147.
80. La Fontaine, 147.
81. La Fontaine, 147.
82. La Fontaine, 148.
83. La Fontaine, 147. During the summer of 1963, Oswald wrote a letter to Vincent T. Lee, head of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee (FPCC) in New York, asking for some literature and advice, and added that he was considering renting an office. The New York office sent literature, but advised him that renting an office in a city like New Orleans, teeming with Cuban exiles, wasn't such a good idea (Warren Commission Report, 291, 407-8; Warren Commission Hearings Vol. X, 90-3).
On August 1st, Oswald wrote again to V. T. Lee in New York. In this letter, postmarked August 4, 1963, he wrote: "In regards to my efforts to start a branch of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee in New Orleans . . . I rented an office as planned and was promptly closed 3 days later for some obsure [sic] reasons by the renters, they said something about remodeling, ect. [sic] I'm sure you understand after that I worked out of a post office box and by useing [sic] street demonstrations and some circular work have substained [sic] a great deal of interest but no new members. Through the efforts of some cuban-exial [sic] 'gusanos' a street demonstration [of Oswald's] w