Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1962-07-09
BY CECIL HOLLAND
Star Staff Writer

The Senate's investigation Of
Billie Sol Estes keeps getting
back to a man who died under
mysterious circumstances a
year ago last month.
This was Henry H. Marshall,
an Agriculture Department
specialist in Texas.
His death from five bullet
wounds from a bolt action %
caliber rifle left puzzling ques-
lions for the Senate subcom-
mittee investigating the Billie
Sol Estes scandal to unravel.
These questions include:
/. Did an Agriculture De-
partment memo holding that
the indicted PecoS (Tex0
operators cotton allotment
scheme was illegal reach the
level where it could have been
blocked at the outset?
2. Did Mr.. Marshall indicate
in any fashion that the Estes
scheme was legal or that ques-
lions concerning it should be
ignored at the county level
which had to deal with the
operation?
PayOffs Admitted
The Senate investigating sub
committee headed by Senator
Mcclellan, Democrat Of Arkan-
sas, will turn this week to I'M
travelling the mystery left by
Mr.. MarShall's death. Agricul-
ture Department officials in
Texas will be witnesses.
The subcommittee received
testimony last week that two
Agriculture Department en-
ployes in Oklahoma had ac-
copied $1,640.80 in cash for
helping representatives Of the
Pecos operator obtain cotton
allotments from Oklahoma
farmers whose land had been
taken over by eminent domain
for public projects.
While Secretary Of Agricul-
ture Freeman has commended
that the Government has lost
no money in it's dealings with
Estes, the disclosures Friday
brought to 10 the number OF
personal casualties in the Estes
story.
Before the suspension Of the
two Okla homa men, who
headed the Agriculture Depart
ment's farm office in Mcintosh
County, eight others in the de-
partments had been revealed as
being involved in the Estes case
and had been separated from
the Department. Three were in
the Washington office.
Hearings Resume Wednesday
The hearings will resume at
1890 am. Wednesday when
efforts will be made to unravel
a complicated story Of whether
Estes had any reasons to be-
lieve that his cotton allotment
acreage deal met with the
Agriculture Departments ap-
prevail.
From the beginning Of the
Senate investigation and other
inquiries, this has been a con-
troversial and clouded point.
Mr.. Marshall's death has added
to the Estes story a dramatic
and still unexplained part.
Mr.. Marshall's body was
found a year ago in June on his
ranch not far from Marshall,
Tex. An official verdict of sui
eide was returned, but when
the Estes scandal broke the
question of his death was re-
opened.
An investigation starting In
May and continuing into June
resulted in conflicting versions
regarding the circumstances of
the Agriculture Department Of
ficial's death. Under court Or
der, his body was exhumed. A
pathologist reported that cir
tumStance indicated that in
stead of being a suicide it could
4ave been a murder.
Conflicting Testimony
The Importance Of Mr.. Mar
nall and the information re-
harding the Estes cotton allot-
@ent operations which he car
he'd into his grave have figured
PROMINENTLY in the continuing
Inquiry.
1t cropped up in the Senate
earring Friday and it figured
prominently in an investigation
conducted by the Agriculture
Department starting July S,
1861, into the Estes operations
1t all goes back to the question
of what part Mr.. Marshall