[104-10305-10005.pdf — page 64]
# Garrison Case-# Can We Afford# Not to Listen?BY JACK MABLEYTHE INVESTIGATION INTO the assassination of President Kennedy is being reopened. It is being conducted by a prosecutor with the power of subpena and a grand jury with the power to indict.It would be better for the country if the federal government were making the investigation rather than a New Orleans official who has been accused of being unstable and of seeking headlines.However, the federal government shows no signs of wanting to reopen the matter, and the prosecutor, Jim Garrison, appears to be quite insistent on carrying it thru.![JIM GARRISON photo]A number of writers and self-appointed investigators also are dissatisfied with conflicting facts and unanswered questions, and they continue to publish evidence to rebut the Warren commission conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald alone was involved in the assassination.ONE OF THE MOST persistent critics of the Warren conclusion is Ramparts magazine. This is a liberal, no, a radical publication which represents the viewpoint of a small minority. However, it has done some effective investigative reporting, particularly in exposing the CIA infiltration into college activities.Ramparts assigned an investigator, William W. Turner, who they say is a former FBI agent, to spend 9 months looking into the New Orleans evidence."I have worked closely with the D. A. [Garrison] and his staff," Turner reports. "In my opinion, there is no question that they have uncovered a conspiracy."The gist of the New Orleans case is that Oswald was Involved with a heterogeneous group of adventurers, anti-Castro Cubans, and radical righters who included members of the Minutemen and American Nazis.Their common cause was to encourage or mount a revolt in Cuba against Castro. They also were strongly anti-Communist.There is no question this group existed. Garrison has evidence that Oswald was part of it. Garrison's investigators have evidence that Oswald's pro-Russian leanings actually were a front, or a disguise to conceal his real role as an communist.GARRISON BELIEVES THAT Osvald was schooled in covert operations by the CIA while in the marine corps at Atsugi naval station in Japan. Supporting evidence is Oswald's proficiency in the Russian language, the source of which was never explained, the ease with which he entered Russia, and the lack of censure by the government on his return, or by the marine corps in his discharge.In effect, Garrison feels Oswald was either a CIA agent or was involved with CIA activities.The New Orleans group was angry at President Kennedy because of the failure of the Bay of Pigs operation and because they thought Kennedy wasn't sufficiently anti-communist:Garrison has dozens of witnesses he will subpena to fit bits and pieces into the puzzle, Individually, many can be dismissed as unreliable, but collectively they raise many questions that an objective observer would like to see resolved.It certainly is within the power of the federal government to disprove every one of these witnesses' stories, if they can be disproved, Presumably, the federal government does not want to dignify Garrison's allegations with formal denials.IF THERE IS ANY substance to Garrison's charges, two powerful agencies of the federal government stand to be discredited. Garrison has interviewed one witness, Richard Cass Nagell, a highly decorated Korean war veteran who claims to have been a CIA agent, who says he sent a registered letter to J. Edgar Hoover warning him of the assassination plot: If this is true, Hoover and the FBI would be guilty of dreadful dereliction of duty.The CIA and CIA fronts are deeply involved in the activities of the men Garrison believes plotted the President's murder..Turner, the Ramparts investigator, believes powerful government agencies are doing everything in their power to discredit Garrison.Ten persons involved in the case have died, most of them violently, since the assassination. All went to their graves with information Garrison considers pertinent to his investigation.Unless Garrison is killed or removed from office in some way, it is difficult to see what can stop him from airing these stories, probably in a court of law that the public may judge their validity.