Jim Garrison

From The Black Vault Encyclopedia Project

Jump to: navigation, search
Jim Garrison

Earling Carothers Garrison (November 20, 1921 - October 21, 1992) -- who changed his first name to simply Jim in the early '60s -- was District Attorney of New Orleans, Louisiana from 1962 to 1973; he is best known for his investigations into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Garrison remains a controversial figure; opinions differ as to whether he uncovered the actual conspiracy behind the John F. Kennedy assassination but was blocked from successful prosecution by Federal government coverup, whether he bungled his chance to uncover the truth of the conspiracy, or whether the entire case was a wild goose chase motivated by Garrison's alleged desire for publicity.

Contents

Early life and career

Earling Carothers Garrison was born in Denison, Iowa. His family moved to New Orleans in his childhood, where he was raised by his divorced mother. He served in the US National Guard in World War II, then got a law degree from Tulane University in 1949. He worked for the FBI for two years, then returned to active duty with the National Guard. After fifteen months, he was relieved from duty. Army doctors concluded he has a "severe and disabling psychoneurosis" which "interfered with his social and professional adjustment to a marked degree. He is considered totally incapacitated from the standpoint of military duty and moderately incapacitated in civilian adaptability."[1] He was released from duty in October 1952.

District Attorney

Garrison worked for the New Orleans law firm Deutsch, Ketrigan & Stiles until he became an Assistant District Attorney from 1954 to 1958. Garrison became a flamboyant, colorful, well-known figure in New Orleans, but was initially unsuccessful in his run for public office, losing a 1959 election for criminal court judge. In 1961 he ran for District Attorney, winning against incumbent Richard Dowling by 6000 votes in a five-man race. Despite lack of major political backing, his performance in a televised debate and last minute television commercials are credited with his victory.

Once in office, Garrison engaged in a series of high profile charges which brought little tangible result. He indicted Dowling and one of his assistants with criminal malfeasance, but the charges were dismissed for lack of evidence. Garrison did not appeal. Garrison received national attention for a series of vice raids in the French Quarter staged, sometimes on a nightly basis. Newspaper headlines in 1962 were full of Garrison's exploits, Quarter Crime Emergency Declared by Police, DA. - Garrison Back, Vows Vice Drive to Continue - 14 Arrested, 12 more nabbed in Vice Raids. The raids, which he sometimes led packing a pistol, resulted in no trials or convictions. Then he attacked the police. Superintendant of Police Giarrusso challenged Garrison's legitimacy, claiming, "the DA is trying to run the police department."

After a conflict with local criminal judges over his budget, he accused them of racketeering and conspiring against him. The eight judges charged him with misdemeanor criminal defamation and Garrison was convicted in January 1963. (In 1965 the US Supreme Court overturned the conviction and struck down the state statute as unconstitutional.) At the same time, Garrison indicted Judge Bernard Cocke with criminal malfeasance and, in two trials prosecuted by Garrison himself, Cocke was acquitted.

Garrison charged nine policemen with brutality, but dropped the charges two weeks later. At a press conference he accused the state parole board of accepting bribes, but could obtain no indictments. He accused the state legislature of the same, but held no investigation. He was unanimously censured by the legislature.

In 1965, he ran for reelection against Judge Malcolm O'Hara, who charged Garrison with a "Napoleonic complex" and said his "ugly force...compells him to destroy everyone who fails to bow to his will." Garrison won with 60 percent of the vote.

In 1973 he lost the office to Harry Connick, Sr.. He was elected a State of Louisiana Appeals Circuit Court Judge, serving from 1978 to his death in 1992.

After the Clay Shaw trial, Garrison wrote three books about the Kennedy assassination, A Heritage of Stone (1970), The Star Spangled Contract, and the best selling book, On the Trail of the Assassins (1988). During the Shaw trial, Garrison attempted to connect Shaw to the CIA. At the time, no hard evidence could be produced regarding any such connection. Subsequently, in 1979, Richard Helms (former director of the CIA) gave sworn testimony in a civil deposition which confirmed Shaw's contact with the CIA prior to the Shaw trial. In addition, it has been discovered, through FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests that Clay Shaw had access to and clearance from the CIA to a CIA program called QKENCHANT. To date, there is no unclassified information concerning what the QKENCHANT program was about. However, whether in fact this CIA connection tied Shaw to the Kennedy assassination is an unresolved and contested issue even to date. The controversy surrounding Clay Shaw's now apparent CIA activities will not be conclusively resolved until the scope and purpose of the QKENCHANT program are fully revealed.

The 1991 Oliver Stone motion picture JFK was largely based on Garrison's book. Kevin Costner played a fictionalized version of Garrison in the movie. Garrison himself had a small on-screen role in the film, playing United States Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren.

Garrison was able to subpoena the Zapruder film and show it in public for the first time. Until the trial, the film had not been seen by the public, and bootleg copies made by assassination investigators working with Garrison led to the film being widely distributed.

Quotes

  • "Fascism will come to America in the guise of National Security" - Jim Garrison [unknown. (unknown)]
  • "This is not the first time I've charged a person before I've made the case." - Jim Garrison [James Phelan, Scandals, Scamps, and Scoundrels (New York: Random House, 1982), p. 155.]
  • "Most of the time you marshal your facts, then deduce your theories. But Garrison deduced a theory, then he marshaled the facts. And if the facts didn't fit he'd say they had been altered by the CIA." - Charles Ward, former assistant to Garrison [Patricia Lambert, False Witness (New York: M. Evans and Co., 1998), p. 228.]

Further reading

  • Jim Garrison, On the Trail of the Assassins. ISBN 0446362778
  • James DeEugenio, The Assassinations. ISBN 0922915822
  • William Davy, Let Justice Be Done: New Light On The Jim Garrison Investigation. ISBN 0966971604
  • Patricia Lambert, False Witness: The Real Story of Jim Garrison's Investigation and Oliver Stone's Film JFK. ISBN 0871319209
  • Christine Wiltz, 'The Last Madam" p. 145 - 150 ISBN 0-571-19954-2
  • Joan Mellen, "A Farewell To Justice: Jim Garrison, JFK's Assassination, And The Case That Should Have Changed History". ISBN 1-57488-973-7

References

External links

Copyright

"Original data received from Wikipedia on April 21, 2006. Credit given to original authors can be seen Here."

Retrieved from "http://www.theblackvault.com/wiki/index.php/Jim_Garrison"
Personal tools