Newspaper Article: a Reporter at Large

cittitt of the lrnoll lust heforc
the l‘resident's motorcade
f\“;l\"lt\‘\l the ambush point.”
Garrisott further described
this man, presumably one of a
nttttther of .mti-Castro Cu-
han paramilitarist.\, as being
clad in green combat fa-
tigues. .-\s it happened, how- »
ever, the person Garrison
was talking about was jerry
Boyd Bclltnap, an employee
of the l)all.u ilfarning
.\'i*tt1, who had fainted in
Dealer Flam about twenty minutes he-
fore the motorcade arrived. Belknap
explained to the l".ll.l. that he had had
frequent fainting spells since he‘_suf-
fered a serious head injury in an auto-
mohileiaccident in i960, and that he
had been receiving daily medication to
prevent these spells. \Vhen Garrison
learned that the man who fainted was
not the paramilitarist he had presumed
him to be, he told his staff to forget
about the matter. Yet in_his public
statements ltc continued to say that he
had located this seventh rm-other of the
commando team. Y
1\ prosecntofwlm wants to insure
that the story oi his investigation rc-
ntains newsworthy must protlnee nfte
evidence constanllyl Garrison's corps of
lrregulars proved helpful not siniply
in digging out new evidence hut, on
occasion, in finding opportunities for
Garrison to present -it. When .\lni1
&thl appeared on the johnny Carson
t\‘lc\‘Lsion show last ]am|ar_\' and oom-
plained .‘tl\uttl the cntjerage that the
\';tt‘ittus l\‘tt"\li.1 had given the District
.~\ttorne_\' and his ease, Carson agreed
to ha\e Carrimn on his prtigrattt,
provided that he would not "_1(‘Y‘t‘l\’
reiterate old charges but would present
new evidence. Garrison telegraphed
Carson scceptittg llltiitllplfllnphl offer.
.~\ntl on the evening of last ]anuar\'
3lst Carson tlcvotcd ntost of his show
to an interview with Garrison. \\'hcn
Carson aslted Garrison to reveal tin:
“new evitlencc that he claimed he had,
Garrison reached into a ltlaelt icathcr
portfolio ltc held in his lap and pulled
out some |\ll0ltIgf$(pll§, which, he said,
showed suspects being arrcstctl im-
ntediately alter the assassination. “llcre
are the pic_tures- of five of them being
arrested," he said, “and they've never
been shown before.” llc went on to
say, “Several of these men art-ested_
have Ihcicn connected by our oflice with
the Central Intelligence Agency." The
new evidence Garriepn pre-
sented that night had been
. found by Allan Chapman
some weeks before, in the
photographic department of
-10-
thc llitllas Timer lIrne:’.r',
Roi-ert ll-illingswurth, man-
aging editor of the Tim:
/Irnil-I, has told mt‘ that he
personallv inspected with a
tnagnilt|_tt‘g glass the photo-
graphs given tn Chapman,
and that they showed noth-
ing more than some bystand-
ers, two of whom were cm-
plo'_\-ed in the building Ifl
\\'lut’lt Oswald worked, hetn;
routinely questioned hy pw
licemen. Carson, who was, of course.
tecmg the pictures for the first time,
_had‘ no way of knowing who the
§indo-iduals in the pictures were or
’
whether they were-in fact “being ar-
rested," and he had no way of (h_'tl~
,
lenging Garrison’: claim that they
-
were connected with the C.l.¢\. \\'lut
1Garrison presented to the public that
inight, then, was not actually new
teridcnce-—witne.\ses pictured in l\t\
lphott-graphs had testified hclore the
1\\'arren Commission-—-hut a new and
‘totally unsubstantiated interpretation of
old evidence. 5
.-\ny sensational murder case attracu;
its share of crank letters, pulvlicity seek-l
icrs, and hogns tips, and, whereas roost
district attorneys regard such ofl'er_t of_
help as a nuisance, Garrison found
them a rieh source of new witness:-s.f
_read_v to provide _;\ll(‘g:\tinI\5 and dis-'
closures of the sort required to keep his
story current in the press. Altltrittgh it
is extrcincly douhtiul whhthcr any of
these volunteer witnesses will eter‘
testify in court, the t‘.1.\c of .1 man
named l)nn:tld Philctus .\'nrton illus
tratcs the tiseito which the testimony of
I
w.:\ .1 cmivirteil haul: emht~u.ler with a
ipnwn rt't"t-nl.) lint rvrn though Nor-
,
ton was turned down in _lul)' as a pos-
stl\l\' court is-itttess, (.i.trrison rcft-rn\l
to him as a “sijcrct witness" in llt\“
.intcvvit-w that ap'|tt‘aretl in the ()(‘_tol\er
5-“Hr vi I’/fly/'¢_tu "\\'e have evidence
that Oswald maintained his 'C.l..-\.
, contacts . . . and that Ferric was alsu
etnployctl h)’ the C.l.1\.," ltc an-
nounced. "ln this regard, we Will pre-
sent in court .1 witness-—-formerly .\
C.l.:\. t-ourier—wlto titer hoth Ferric
and Oswald officially in__ tltcir-‘C.l..'\.
connection." This "courier" was std»-
sequently identified by ‘:4 memher of
G;trri~on'.t stall as Norton.
.-\nt-thrr witness wltti was found in
the tn:til—-this one with l_'rofe.\mr Pop-
ltin's assistance-—-was Richard Case
Nagt-ll, an inmate of :t fetleral institu-
tion for the criminally insane in Spring-
tit-ld, Miwiuri. Nagell had ht-en arrest-.
ed while he was attempting tit roh a
bank inilil Paso in ‘September, l963,
and had been sent to prison. After the
,',|\§;l_\§l!l.'lIlllIl| he cl:\itnctl that llc had
purposely got himsclf~ arrestetl in order.
to provide himself with an alibi for his
involvctllcttt in the assassinatitin eon-
spir;tc_v; his part in it, he said, had hecn
to kill Oswald, who was the" "pansy."
.-\lthough- the court records indicated
that _;\,':_pgt-ll hatl sttllered brain tlamage
in an airphtné crash in l9§7, Garrison
thought his story worth pursuing, and
sent a former assistant district attorney,
\\'illiam R. Martin, to Missouri to
question hint. .\'agell insisted that he
had -iroof of the -:on.<pirac_\' in the fortnt
- of tape recordings stashed :t\\':t_\_' in a
steamer trunk in California. \\'hen no
recorditvrs could he found, ltoweve'r,such “secret witnesses" can he pot in
I ' dd _
the open arena of puhlic "Pinion. '.\or~ -
ton, a thirty-four~)'c:tr-old night-eluh,
Ecntertainer, got in touch with Gar-'
lrisun in June, W67, clainting that hel
‘
lud been a C.l./\. courier, and tlut he
had delivered fifty tlttiusanil dollars tn’
rt man who was “.1 dead ringer for‘
‘()swald" in Mexico in l9fiZ and had‘,
received .1 httntlred-and-iiit)'-tltousin'tl- l
I
dollar "til-:l<up" from David Ferric in ‘
.l9SS. He said, further, that he would
like to work as an investigator for
Garrison‘, Norton was irnmediately‘
‘brought to New Orleans from Van-
‘couver, where he was living‘ at the
i
time, and was interrogated by Garri-
son’: pseudonymous intelligence expert ,
Bill Boxley. Though t\'orton was more ll
‘
than willing to itlcnti'l_v Oswald, Ferric, 3
and even $haw as,C.l.1\. agents,
Istory contained so many contradictions
and implatisibilitiesthat lloxley will
other staff members concluded that he:
|would be totally ineffective as: wit-3
Ines. (It was later rcvcaled that he-
\'agell Ytilltl Martin, They've stolen
the tapes," and refused to discuss the
matter anyvfttrtlter. 'l'hough Nagcll,
llkC Norton, was rej,-cted as .1 court
t ,
‘
I
vritttcsa, (jllfflfllll eontinttcd to use &\'a~
gt-ll’s story to holster his case in public.
Explaining Oswald's role as a patsy in
the conspiracy, Garrison stated in his
Plat-bo_t' interview, “\\"c ltavc evidence
that the plan was to have him l()s-.
waldl slmt as a cop killer in the 'l't-itas
'l'heatn- ‘while resisting arrest.' " Gar-
rison said he was unahle to divulge the
evidence at the time, but the .wl_i_tile§‘
.
thing. was one of l\'agell's tales, Q
Another confidential witness with-
whoin Garrison has ‘spent a good deal
of time is :1 ‘Dallas ex,-convict who was
recently under suspicion in Texas for at-
tempted murder. .-\ecording to Thomas
Bethell, this witness" “drops into the
otfiee at fairly frequent intervals and
readily identifies almost at-yottc you
show him a photograph of." He has
proved more cooperative than accu-
_ _
$' T’