On May 6, 1967, the Saturday Evening Post ran an anti-Garrison article by journalist James Phelan titled “A Plot to Kill Kennedy? Rush to Judgement in New Orleans.” Phelan, who had previously authored an article praising the DA's attempts to clean up New Orleans, “The Vice Man Cometh,” was scathing in his attack on Garrison's assassination probe. Phelan's new article went to the very heart of the case by attempting to undermine the credibility of Garrison's star witness, Perry Russo, and implying that his crucial account had been planted in his head through the use of hypnosis. As the basis for his story Phelan used two documents he had been given by the all-too-trusting Garrison within days of Clay Shaw's arrest. As Phelan explained to author James Kirkwood, “The two things he gave me were the memorandum of [Assistant DA Andrew] Sciambra's when he first interviewed Russo in Baton Rouge and the second one was a transcript of Russo's answers when he was hypnotized by Dr. Fatter.” [1]
Phelan found that during the hypnosis session—actually one of three—Russo had described a gathering at David Ferrie's apartment in which Ferrie, “Leon” Oswald and “Clem Bertrand”—whom he identified as Clay Shaw—had discussed a plot to assassinate Kennedy but the memo Sciambra had made of his first meeting with Russo contained no mention of the “assassination party.” From this, Phelan concluded that Russo had not brought up the crucial gathering until he was hypnotized by the DA's office and suggested that when he took the stand at Clay Shaw's preliminary hearing, “Perry Russo did not know, when he testified, what was fact and what was hypnotic hallucination.” [2] But Phelan knew better.
When Phelan had raised the apparent discrepancy with Garrison it had been explained to him that the memo he had read was technically not the first “Sciambra memo.” As Sciambra would explain under oath at the Shaw trial, he had begun transcribing his notes two days after his interview with Russo in Baton Rouge but having written little more than a paragraph Sciambra was interrupted by Russo's arrival in New Orleans. At that point Sciambra and fellow assisstant DA, Al Oser, took Russo over to Mercy Hospital where Orleans Parish Coroner, Dr. Nicholas Chetta administered Sodium Pentathol (commonly referred to as “truth serum”). Russo then repeated the same story he had told in Baton Rouge, including the “assassination party.” The following day, Sciambra and Oser went into the DA's office and dictated a memo of the Sodium Pentathol session which included the following passage:
I then asked him if he could remember any of the details about CLAY BERTRAND being up in FERRIE'S apartment and he told me that he was in FERRIE'S apartment with CLAY BERTRAND and FERRIE and the roommate [Note: the “roommate” was the man known to Russo as “Leon” whom he identified as Lee Harvey Oswald] and he remembers FERRIE telling him that "We are going To kill John F. Kennedy" and that "it won't be long". He said FERRIE again repeated his earlier statement that he could plan the perfect assassination of the President because he could fly anything that had wings on it and he had perfect availability of exit out of the country. When I asked him who FERRIE was referring to when he said "we", he said "I guess he was referring to the people in the room". He said this was not the first time that FERRIE had talked to him about how easy it would be to assassinate the President. He said that FERRIE, in September and October of 1963, became obsessed with the idea that he could pull off a perfect assassination. [3]
This became the first “Sciambra memo.” He then went back to transcribing his notes from the February 25 interview in Baton Rouge but did not include the details of the “assassination party” that had already been covered in the memo of the Sodium Pentathol session. As Sciambra admitted, this second memo was “hastily done, it was incomplete, it was inaccurate, there were omissions in it, and it does not reflect what Perry Russo told me during my first interview in Baton Rouge on February 25.” [4]
Phelan was not satisfied with Sciambra's explanation and demanded a meeting with Russo which Sciambra happily arranged. Phelan then travelled to Baton Rouge, taking with him photographer Matt Herron, and confronted Russo with Sciambra's second memo. Phelan claimed that during this meeting Russo admitted to him that he had not mentioned the assassination plot until he was “Down in New Orleans”—presumably under the influence of Sodium Pentathol. [5] At that point according to Phelan, “I said to Matt Herron, 'Did You hear that?' He said, 'Yeah.' I said, 'Burn it in your head, kid. I mean right now, burn it in your head because someday you're going to be in court on this and I'm going to have to tell this story and you're my witness.'” [6] Perhaps not surprisingly, Russo denied making any such admission to Phelan. But Russo was not the only one to contradict Phelan's story.
Phelan's “witness” Matt Herron was subpoenaed by Shaw's defense team but they did not put him on the stand. Apparently they did not like what he had to say. Years later, researcher Jim DiEugenio tracked Herron down and asked him what Russo had really said to Phelan. “In a recent interview I did with him,” DiEugenio writes, “Matt Herron said that Russo told Phelan that he mentioned the meeting with Bertrand in Baton Rouge.” [7] That's right, Herron supported Russo's account! And not only did he say that Phelan had lied about what Russo said, he revealed that before they even met with Russo, Phelan told Herron he was going to destroy Garrison. [8]
So why was Phelan out to ruin Garrison's investigation?
Because Jim Phelan was just another government shill.
The first person Phelan went to see with the documents he had pried out of Garrison's hands was notorious CIA/FBI asset and Guy Bannister associate, Robert Maheu. [9] From there he flew to Washington where handed copies over to FBI agent H.P. Leinbaugh and dutifully reported everything he knew about Garrison's investigation. [10] Phelan always denied that he was informing to the Bureau on Garrison but as Jim DiEugenio wrote, “The ARRB declassified three documents which exposed his informing to the FBI about his talks with Garrison, his turning over of Garrison's documents, and further, his rants about the DA and how he had to be stopped.” [11] All Phelan asked was that “his identity as the source of this material should be fully protected.” [12]
Which is pretty much the type of request one would expect from a weaselly little government shill.
1. James Kirkwood, American Grotesque, p. 162.
2. Saturday Evening Post, May 6, 1967, p. 25.
3. NODA memorandum, February 27, 1967.
4. State of Louisiana V. Clay Shaw testimony of Andrew Sciambra, February 12, 1969.
5. Kirkwood, p. 165.
6. Ibid.
7. James DiEugenio, Tom Hanks, Gary Goetzman, and Buglisoi's Bungle. A Comprehensive Review of Reclaiming History, Part 5: Bugliosi vs. Garrison and Stone, or How to Investigate a New Orleans Conspiracy from Pasadena.
8. Ibid.
9. Kirkwood, p. 162.
10. Joan Mellen, A Farewell to Justice, p. 144-145.
11. DiEugenio.
12. FBI memorandum 62-109060-5113.
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