Note: This is a very long post. I have tried to type out the important sections of Tom Bethell's memo below. I have included all of these documents for historical purposes.
In August of 1968, Tom Bethell leaked a memo that listed the witnesses to be called in Clay Shaw's trial to Sal Panzeca, one of Shaw's attorneys. Here is that memo:
This memo is proof of Garrison's extremely weak case against Clay Shaw. Many of these witnesses would not be used - Thomas Breitner, Clyde Johnson, Peggy Landry, Vernon Gerdes, David Lewis, and Jules Ricco Kimble. The witnesses that Garrison did use were bad enough -- the ones that did not testify were even worse.
The Art Kevin and Art Kunkin interview will be posted in an upcoming post.
Here is the letter that Mark Lane wrote in the March 7, 1969, edition of the New Orleans States-Item:
Of course, Bethell had the proper counter to Lane: " .. that the Grand Jury and the Judges do what Garrison tells them to do, to a large extent."
Here is a blog post about Garrison's grand juries. Some of the judges in New Orleans parish were elected because of Garrison's support, and thus were in his pocket from the start.
Here is the memo that Bethell wrote about giving the witnesses memo to Panzeca:
It is important to understand that there was no discovery in the courts of Louisiana at the time. So, Shaw's defense team had no idea of which witnesses would be appearing in court. They had no access to internal Garrison memos and statements. This put them at an incredible disadvantage.
Bethell is surprised that Panzeca did not know anything about the Clinton witnesses.
I was particularly surprised that he appeared not to know about the Clinton area. I then decided that I would do more to help the defense than just mention a few names, and I told Panzeca that I had fairly recently written a memo listing witnesses who would be used, and I offered to give it to him that evening.
I think Bethell is wrong about Edgar Eugene Bradley. He certainly did travel in very anti-Kennedy waters, but I don't think he ever "solicited someone to kill him." Bethell adds that "In Shaw's case, however, it did not look as though there was any evidence that he was even anti-Kennedy. Therefore, I said, the charge against him was particularly unjustified."
The leak was noticed because Hugh Aynesworth, Kent Biffle and William Gurvich went to Clinton to check out the witnesses. You can read Aynesworth's impressions of Clinton here.
It is interesting that Alcock did not believe that Bill Boxley was the source of the leak since "he 'worshipped' Garrison."
A couple of the Clinton witnesses "called up the office, and had said they had been shown copies of their statements by Gurvich and Aynesworth. He [Lou Ivon] obviously was at a loss to understand how the statements could have gotten out, as they had been closely guarded in a locked file in Ivon's office."
Gurvich and Aynesworth did not have any statements -- just the memo above, but it's interesting that the witness statements were locked up. Those witness statements would have been a gold mine to Shaw's defense because they showed a variety of inconsistencies in their stories.
The leak really worried them:
Alcock was really worried. "They're looking right down our throat," he said. "This could be a disaster. I tell you, we could be looking at a directed verdict in this case." I think he also said something about this would depend on whether Russo cracked or not.
Russo cracking? Is this an admission that he knew Russo was making his stories up?
Alcock went public about the leak. Here is an article from the Times-Picayune:
After Bethell told Ivon that he was the leaker, they drove out to get James Alcock:
Alcock said words to the effect that "I thought we were friends," and I said as far I was concerned we still were friends, but that I did not believe that Clay Shaw was guilty. Alcock asked me specifically what bothered me about the case against him, and I said, "Russo," he said, ""Well, I believe we've all had our doubts about Russo, but don't you believe any of the other people, such as the postman, the Clinton witnesses, etc." I said I did not.
A few important quotes:
"I hope you don't think that I would ever charge a man unless I believed that he was guilty," he [Jim Garrison] began. I said I believed that, ie, I believed that he did think that Clay Shaw was guilty. He paused to take this in and then went on: "I am a district attorney, and that is all I am; if I wasn't district attorney I wouldn't be anything, and I hope you realize that I take my job seriously --" words to that effect. He wasn't mad or shouting at me, he seemed to be trying to make me feel sorry for him. I noticed that he looked worse that I had ever seen him: a livid blistering tan acquired over the weekend, and his eyes were bloodshot. He made a comment about how hard he had worked on the case "working till 3 o'clock in the morning," and he added that he had "wrecked his health" in so doing. "Thank God it's only physical and not mental," he said.
Here is a very telling section:
He [Jim Garrison] explained the harm which, in his opinion, my actions had done. He said that the trouble is once witnesses have been approached by investigators from the other side, you have to spend "hundreds of hours" talking them back into their original position. (Parenthetically, it does not seem that this did result from the defense's investigation of the witnesses, ie. all the witnesses came forward with the same story they had told before, as far as I know. (Except I don't know what happened to Connie Kaye or Thomas Breitner;) also some "talking" may have been necessary, because I know Sciambra made an emergency trip to Clinton in the week before the trial.)
And then the conversation turned to Shaw and Oswald and Ferrie:
Garrison then went into my feelings about Shaw. He seemed to have no quarrel with my position about Russo or my estimate of Shaw as a conspirator, (although I can't remember his exact words on this point,) "but surely you can believe that Shaw knew Oswald and Ferrie?" I said I couldn't believe that either. Why not? Because, I said, the FBI's investigation had been so thorough that Shaw and Oswald could hardly have known each other without it long ago having been in the public record. "Take the case of George de Mohrenschildt," I said. I was aware that Garrison thought of Shaw as a sort of New Orleans counterpart to de Mohrenschildt -- a Dallas oilman who surprisingly befriended Oswald. I pointed out that it was no secret that Oswald had known de Mohrenschildt. Garrison seemed exasperated by my stupidity on this point. "Don't you realize de Mohrenschildt was a decoy, he didn't have anything to do with the assassination. I realized that the minute I saw the Federal government wanted us to believe he was involved." He conceded that de Mohrenschildt probably played some minor "custodial" role.
Bethell is crack on when he surmises that Shaw might have "some connection with an intelligence agency, in view of his war background and his position in the trade mart."
Money Quote:
I also told Garrison that I was not contending that his whole investigation was a waste of time, because there were a few points about Oswald's background and his stay in New Orleans which were of interest and had not been explained by the Warren Commission. I cited the "544 Camp St" found on some pamphlets which Oswald had on his possession while in this city. Garrison seemed to concur with this, and pulled out a big chart drawn by George Eckert of the 544 Camp St. area. He also rather hesitantly injected the name "Guy Banister" into the picture, who had an office at that address. I said it was one of the big disappointments of the investigation that this interesting lead had not resulted in anything. (which I meant sincerely: when the investigation began, I think the people working on the case thought that there was a good chance of turning up something important in Oswald's background at this address. Despite considerable investigation, however, nothing turned up.)
Then Garrison gets downright nutty:
Garrison then got going on his theories about the 4900 block of Magazine Street, where Oswald lived. It was his contention that this was a "safe block" used more or less exclusively by CIA agents. He cited one person who lived there at the same time as Oswald and then moved to an address on Lark St., which Garrison says is a high class neighborhood; this person also had "Omnirad Corporation" against his name in the phone book, I believe. I made no comment as Garrison expounded on these theories, based on a belief that propinquity is an incriminating factor. [link added]
What is really amazing about the leak is that Garrison decided to put Charles Spiesel on the stand despite knowing that the defense knew about him. Maybe they thought that they wouldn't realize just how crazy he was.
In addition, Bethell continued to work for Garrison after they knew about the leak.
Additional Material
Ivon memo on the Bethell confession:
Here is Tom Bethell's affidavit:
Here is the indictment:
Here is coverage of the indictment in the press:
Jim Garrison had to recuse himself from the case:
The charges were eventually dropped.