add site
services
publishers
database
health videos
toolbar
stats
live show
health store
more stuff
JOIN/LOGIN
| advertise add site services publishers database health videos
| | about toolbar stats live show health store more stuff JOIN/LOGIN |
Jim Karas | Keynote Speaker | Jim Karas Personal Training | Chicago | jimkaras.com | Jim Hussey - NLP, TIR, psychotherapist, hypnosis, NVC, NonViolent traumarelief.org |
Earling Carothers "Jim" Garrison (November 20, 1921 – October 21, 1992) — who changed his first name to Jim in the early 1960s — was the District Attorney of Orleans Parish, Louisiana from 1962 to 1973. A member of the Democratic Party, he is best known for his investigations into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy (JFK). Garrison remains a controversial figure. Opinions differ as to whether he uncovered a conspiracy behind the John F. Kennedy assassination but was blocked from successful prosecution by a federal government cover up, whether he bungled his chance to uncover a conspiracy, or whether the entire case was an unproductive waste of resources.
[edit] Early life and careerEarling Carothers Garrison was born in Denison, Iowa.[1][2][3] His family moved to New Orleans in his childhood, where he was reared by his divorced mother. He served in the U.S. National Guard in World War II, then got a law degree from Tulane University Law School in 1949. He worked for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for two years and then returned to active duty with the National Guard. After fifteen months, he was relieved from duty. One Army doctor concluded he had 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."[4] As it turned out, Garrison was suffering from anxiety and exhaustion that was likely due to the fact that, during World War II, he had flown 35 dangerous reconnaissance missions over France and Germany. He had also witnessed the horrors of totalitarianism first-hand when his unit entered the Dachau concentration camp one day after its liberation. Although one doctor did recommend that Garrison be discharged from service and collect 10% permanent disability, Garrison would not hear of it. Instead he applied for the National Guard where his record was reviewed by the army surgeon general who “found him to be physically qualified for federal recognition in the national army.”[5] [edit] District AttorneyGarrison worked for New Orleans law firm Deutsch, Kerrigan & Stiles from 1954 to 1958, when he became an assistant district attorney. 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 6,000 votes in a five-man Democratic primary. 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 cracked down on prostitution and the abuses of Bourbon Street bars and strip joints. 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 praised Garrison's efforts, "Quarter Crime Emergency Declared by Police, DA. — Garrison Back, Vows Vice Drive to Continue — 14 Arrested, 12 more nabbed in Vice Raids." Garrison's critics often point out that many of the arrests made by his office did not result in convictions, implying that he was in the habit of making arrests without evidence. However, assistant DA William Alford has said that charges would more often than not be reduced or dropped if a relative of someone charged gained Garrison’s ear. He had, said Alford, “a heart of gold.”[6] 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 U.S. 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, running for reelection against Judge Malcolm O'Hara, Garrison won with 60 percent of the vote. [edit] Kennedy assassination investigationNew Orleans D.A. Jim Garrison began an investigation into the assassination of President Kennedy in the fall of 1966, after receiving several tips from Jack Martin that a man named David Ferrie may have been involved in the assassination. The end result of Garrison's investigation was the arrest and trial of New Orleans businessman Clay Shaw in 1969. Garrison's key witness against Clay Shaw was Perry Russo, a twenty-five year old insurance salesman from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. During the trial, Russo testified that he had attended an "assassination party" at David Ferrie's apartment, where Shaw, Ferrie, and Lee Harvey Oswald had discussed killing President Kennedy. Russo’s version of events has been questioned by some historians and researchers, such as Patricia Lambert, once it became known that part of his testimony was induced by hypnotism, and by the drug Sodium Pentothal (sometimes called "truth serum").[7] Indeed, the early version of Russo's testimony, as told in the DA memo, before he was subjected to Sodium Pentothal and hypnosis, fails to mention an "assassination party" and says that Russo met Clay Shaw on two occasions, neither of which occurred at the "party."[8][9] However in Jim Garrison's book On the Trail of the Assassins, he says Russo had already told of the party at David Ferrie's before any "truth serum" was admitted. The jury didn't see enough evidence to convict Shaw. A verdict of not guilty was given. Garrison was able to subpoena the Zapruder film from Life magazine and show it to the public for the first time. Until the trial, the film had rarely been seen, and bootleg copies made by assassination investigators working with Garrison led to the film's wider distribution. [edit] Later careerIn 1973, Garrison was tried for accepting bribes to protect illegal pinball machine operations. Pershing Gervais, Garrison's former chief investigator, testified that Garrison had received approximately $3,000 every two months for nine years from the dealers. Garrison acting as his own defense attorney, called the allegations baseless, alleging they were concocted as part U.S. government sought to destroy him because of his efforts to implicate the CIA in the Kennedy assassination. The jury found Garrison not guilty. Some sources[who?] say that Gervais admitted to concocting the charges.[10] In the same year, Garrison was defeated for reelection as district attorney by Harry Connick, Sr.. On April 15, 1978, Garrison won a special election over a Republican candidate, Thomas F. Jordan, for a state Circuit Court of Appeals judgeship, a position that he held until his death.[11] In 1987, Garrison appeared as himself in the film The Big Easy. After the Shaw trial, Garrison wrote three books on the Kennedy assassination, A Heritage of Stone (1970), The Star Spangled Contract, and the best-seller, On The Trail of The Assassins (1988). His investigation again received widespread attention through Oliver Stone's 1991 film, JFK, which was largely based on Garrison's book On the Trail of the Assassins as well as Jim Marrs' Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy. 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 Chief Justice Earl Warren. Garrison was also the subject of the song "Keep A Workin' Big Jim" by the white supremacist singer Johnny Rebel. [edit] LegacyGarrison was later viewed as an embarrassment by writer Gerald Posner, who believes Oswald acted alone.[12] However, several researchers, including Jim DiEugenio[13][14], William Davy[15][16], and Joan Mellen[17] have defended Garrison. According to a number of critics[who?], Garrison was cruel and mistreated witnesses in his attempt to prove an assassination conspiracy. Witnesses, including Perry Raymond Russo later claimed to have been bribed and threatened with perjury and contempt of court charges by Garrison in order to make his case against Shaw.[18] However, in seeming contradiction[clarification needed] to this, Perry Russo, in an interview with public radio station reporters Will Robinson and Marilyn Colman, had this to say: "...[NBC News reporter] Walter Sheridan tells me and threatens me that he's gonna take Garrison out and take me with him."[19] [edit] Further reading
[edit] References
[edit] External links
Categories: 1921 births | 1992 deaths | People from Crawford County, Iowa | American military personnel of World War II | District attorneys | Louisiana state court judges | People associated with the John F. Kennedy assassination | Louisiana lawyers | Louisiana Democrats | People from New Orleans, Louisiana | Tulane University alumni | Tulane University Law School alumni | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ↑ top of page ↑ | about thumbshots |
