On the Trail of Delusion, Episode 9, Dr Alecia Long

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I want to thank everybody for coming this afternoon my name is Fred Litwin noted author Fred Litwin and of course Fred is also the author of I was a teenage JFK conspiracy freak on the trail of delusion and Oliver Stones film flam at the demagogue of D Plaza Fred Litwin is here he’s a longtime author and certainly Watcher of politics uh joining us uh Fred Litwin great to have you here thank you very much

hey welcome to another edition of On the trail of Delusion where we try to separate the wheat from the chaff and we actually try to present serious discussions on the JFK assassinatio

the kind of material that you just won’t see on typical Conspiracy YouTube videos

I’m absolutely delighted today to have Alicia long as my guest Alicia is a professor of history at Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge Alicia has written four books the latest book that she’s written is cruising for conspirators which is all about Jim Garrison’s prosecution of Clay Shaw in the 1960s

this is her fourth book and there’s another book coming on the way which we’ll talk about

Alicia has a ma from Ohio University and a PhD from the University of Delaware and I have to say that your book Cruising for Conspirators is not only one of the best books written on this topic but I I know this topic but in fact when I read this book I found it exciting I found your narrative to be incredibly exciting even though I knew it was going to happen

www.//a.co/d/bt4UT6C

I said wow this is so well written and so interesting um that uh this book is going to stand the test of time I mean a 100 years from now people will still be referring to this book as one of the classic books on the case so I’m absolutely delighted um to be here and my first question is sort of what got you interested in Jim Garrison

So you know my work and training as a historian uh my dissertation was focused on the City of New Orleans and so New Orleans really is kind of like the central location for the stories and histories that I’m interested in as a you know research historian and um my first book was um about the history of prostitution in New Orleans

between the end of the Civil War and 1920 and the Storyville vice district and one of the sources that’s very rich in New Orleans is court records

and so the first book was really based on a series of Court records and um what you see immediately whether you’re looking at New Orleans or Louisiana more broadly is you know that there are many miscarriages of justice and that’s that’s true everywhere um but because New Orleans is such a distinctive place and has so many characters

Sometimes these stories are just super Vivid out of the court records and um I originally set off I think to write a book about morals in the 1960s just to kind of understand that decade in the city’s history but you know I came across the Shaw story and the Garrison prosecution and that seemed like you know a glaring example of a miscarriage of Justice and um you know as you know the evidentiary record around just the Garrison investigation is huge and so you know it’s it’s that was plenty of material to write a book and it’s plenty of material to write half a dozen

you know more books in terms of uh you know that particular h District Attorney’s tenure in office

but it was also really uh you know it was a very volatile time in the United States

but it’s also a really volatile time uh of change in New Orleans and so that’s you know that’s my background as a historian and a research historian is is New Orleans

and also the history of sexuality so so the first book is really about you know kind of as a feminist take on uh prostitution and this book uh really reflects kind of my sense of uh you know how badly uh LGBT plus people were treated

in fact and in law um in the mid 20th century and how this case not only is an example of that but it really kind of provides us a window into um how that worked uh you know on a kind of mechanical level in law um and in culture and society and so that’s kind of that’s where my research comes from

it’s an interest in New Orleans in the history of sexuality it’s you know New Orleans is a fascinating place so you know you’re you’re an historian and I think you’ve probably read a lot of uh conspiracy books on the JFK assassination but can you talk a bit about uh your expertise as a historian and what that brings to the table and how you might when you read conspiracy books how you know how are they lacking in what you would call good material for historians so you know I mean I was I was thinking about this a lot and I’m teaching a historiography course for graduate students this semester where we really look at the history of how historians are trained um what they’re taught to believe about what they’re doing um and how that changes over time and you know in the early 20th century I think historians were uh really obsessed with the idea of objectivity and they felt like they could just be objective enough that they could you know rebuild the past in a very reliable um way and that that belief and objectivity uh I think has really waned over the course of the 20th century and into the 21st and I think most people are willing to acknowledge that they have uh you know presumptions about things um that they have sort of you know they bring things to the table with them that help shape their work but having said that I mean I think the really valuable thing about the way historians are training in graduate school is that you really are taught to focus on evidence right right I mean question formulation is uh you know an act of creativity and Imagination and you know predisposition what are you interested in um but once you settle on a question you know you really are trained to identify as much archal material as you can and try to put that story together in as complete a way as you can understanding that there are questions you won’t be able to answer much of the material written about Garrison at the time um and then let’s say like in the late 20th century no one was super polarized but beyond that the books that seemed to me the best books were the books that were dealing in evidence right either um archal evidence or they’re going out and doing interviews like you you’ve done a lot of interviews right um and you’re talking to people um you know about things they experienced or saw firsthand and there you know this whole class of books related to The Garrison investigation that are so obsessed with defending Jim Garrison um and defending his um activities um particularly around the Kennedy assassination but more generally I think I tried really hard to be fair to Jim Garrison um as a historical figure um I don’t think he’s an admirable person um or public official um but I really looked at his you know his record from you know the late 40s forward and a lot of the things that happened and you know this I mean a lot of the things that happened in the Garrison investigation there was a pattern that was already set you know before he got there that uh is that gets replicated uh in his prosecution of Clay Shaw and there are numerous examples of that so you know I think looking at that you know staying in the evidence um is something that I think historians are trained to do and I teach a course for undergrad um called the history of conspiracy in the United States and we really look at it from the time of the Declaration of Independence to the 21st century and you know there’s a question that I always ask them you know when they make U assertions about things and there are um I have numbers of students who are you know predisposed to conspiracy thinking um but we always kind of you know land on that question about what is the evidence here yeah right and you know in terms of the Kennedy assassination the preponderance of the evidence is that Lee Harvey Oswald did it are there many you know questions about you know where he was and what he was doing and what the hell is going on here and you know mean obviously um but if if we’re going to stay in the evidence that’s where you land yeah very true and I think the the same can be said the evidence against Clay Shaw is pretty weak if not of almost non-existent right yeah it’s very shoddy

Moo Sciaambra who developed a lot of testimony among Witnesses and the the big example there’s the Clinton Witnesses you know whose initial depositions are all over the place but by the time they come to testify these story sort of narrowed into something that is you know moderately coherent and and consistent um but that’s because he he works with these witnesses to develop that testimony that is something districts attorney District Attorneys do um but there was a you know there was a lot of really shady stuff um you know happening there I think the same and I’m gonna I’m gonna flake on the name this morning I’m sorry but the the drug addict who

uh yeah that’s also you know another one of those stories where Bundy understands what they’re looking for and he hands it to them what let’s go back to I mean you you live in Baton Rouge I do you you have a an expertise on understanding New Orleans but also Louisiana um I’m from Canada so I don’t have that expertise I don’t have that knowledge so perhaps you can talk a bit about Louisiana and New Orleans and what what is it about those places that makes this case interesting or stand out or what you know what do people need to know about Louisiana and New Orleans yeah I would say just kind of generally I’m I’m really grateful I I came to LSU at uh in 2007 and that was my second academic job taught at Georgia State University before that and had worked in the Louisiana State Museum for six years before that so I’ve been at this long time now and um but one of my charges and I was hired to teach Louisiana history and I teach a big survey course on Louisiana history every semester um and I’m really grateful for that because you know before I had that job I I really was I think I had a lot of expertise on New Orleans I had less expertise about the state and and that has really kind of enhanced my understanding of um not just how New Orleans is distinctive but how it fits into um the States history and and the States history is very it’s not it’s not that it’s just conservative it’s that you know there seems to be historically speaking a kind of you know a preference for demagoguery right among among the populace uh at the state level um and and you know in in many cases at the you know local level and it’s also really important and and I do this in in cruising for conspirator is really explain how Jim Garrison became so empowered um in his first term in office that by the time he got to investigating the Kennedy assassination there were no controls over him none I mean he effectively was unsupervised he had the governor in his pocket he he arguably got John mckian elected um and so mckian you know is hands off um he has beaten the Attorney General um at the United States Supreme Court and um you know so he is he is a super empowered local official and you have to sort of understand that larger context of what was happening in Louisiana not just in the 1960s but over time to understand how somebody could be operating in the way that he was operating um during that period of time I think there was a history of of uh police corruption in in in Louisiana as well um yeah and and this um this new book that I’m working on um what’s so interesting to me is how these people uh keep popping up over time and so Persian geret right uh is U dismissed from the police force in 1953 um for um you know they sort of soft pedal but there’s you know there is testimony that he and his partner are actually coordinating these safe cracking robberies right while they’re cops and so ultimately he’s dismissed from the police force and this all happens the the new book is a is about marage and a murder and a miscarriage of Justice in the early 1950s and there’s a a murder of this woman named U Diddy Cooper by her um then husband James Cooper who owned the Quarter Two Sisters restaurants you can sort of see how this all like floating around in the French Quarter and Jer is right in the middle of it right um and this big police corruption Scandal I think in part um accounts for why there is such a miscarriage of Justice in her murder um but so you have to sort of you know know who these people are and who these characters are and so if you know that backstory about persan jery um Jim Garrison making him his chief investigator in 1962 is this extraordinary kind of Fu right um and you know and also a kind of indicator of how that office will be run in terms of um using that office to um enrich themselves using the legal process um in ways that are very Sim iCal yeah one one of my favorite stories about persing jery was told to me by Milton brener um that he that he would find out which cases in the DA’s office were not going to be prosecuted and then he we go to those people and say well I can get your case dismissed if you pay me money and of course it would all it would looked at those people like he was highly successful right yeah he he he was a real operator uh and I love after he left the DA’s office um at the time of the um first campaign for re-election for Garrison that he told I don’t remember who he told this to but he described himself as an underworld on budsman right you know it’s it’s classic it’s it’s fascinating tell me a bit about um perhaps a history of homosexuality in Louisiana or New Orleans and how it was looked upon in the 1960s because sometimes people think oh New Orleans was so uh open about stuff but it wasn’t completely open so if you want to perhaps talk a bit about homosexuality sure I mean there’s you know this is important I think you know particularly because of you know contemporary uh kind of conservative culture War issues and I think sort of understanding the longer history of this is really important particularly for young people who have you know grown up in a world that is so different yeah from you know the uh 21st century uh you know world and and and you know New Orleans likes to Pride itself on being liberal um and its critics like to think of it that way but there is actually you know there are a lot of these uh you know reformers in New Orleans in the early 1950s who are themselves kind of obsessed with homosexuality and particularly the visibility of it in the French quarter and they battle it really hard um through city ordinances um through uh lobbying the state legislature and having a sort of legal regime set up in place by the late 1950s in New Orleans or for the state actually and you know homosexuality which it would have been called at the time you know it’s becomes the kind of this placeholder for uh decadence and the kind of disreputability uh that the city has and so you know there’s a huge campaign there’s a big one in 1953 there’s another one in 1958 um and the early 1960s police are raiding gay bars on a very very consistent basis and just hauling people in and often they’re not even charged but it’s you know it’s the it’s the harassment and and and I’ll also say because you know I think it’s really important to distinguish you when particularly when doing this kind of work like uh you know kind of close historical work really to distinguish between the police and the District Attorney’s offices um because there’s often a lot of tension in there and and what I found in the historical record and I’ve written a couple of articles about it um is you know the police are kind of dragged into to right uh this um because for them it it’s a lot of trouble and a lot of hassle to be raiding These Bars all the time and and dragging these people in and processing them and then a lot of these cases just get n acrossed so it’s like you know it’s it’s you know it UPS their level of uh you know work you know and and processing people in the French Quarter and and I think they knew that for the most part uh you know not always but for the most part the the establishments that were gay or gay adjacent um were no different than and in many cases a lot um less criminally adjacent than many other places in the French Quarter but they ultimately get sort of drawn into these reformers quests to uh rid the City of New Orleans of this reputation and a visible you know homosexuality homosexual communities in the French border that is something that’s important again to understand with regard of the Garrison investigation and the shaw matter and there’s a there’s a photo that I use and I think youve probably I’m sure you’ve seen this one of three of Garrison’s investigators sitting at a table and it’s full of you know mug shots of men and boys and you know exactly what those are that’s that big pool of pretty vulnerable gay people they have arrested and now they can sort of you know try to button hole and harass and there are you know a number of specific cases of that type they don’t create that uh you know situation but they exploit it mercilessly not just in the of Shaw but in trying to uh find witnesses who will confirm these you know this crazy theory that they have developed about you know David fery and Clay Shaw and Lee Harvey Oswell and and that also I mean the going combining that with the DA’s power of subpoena he actually could actually um subpoena to appear either before the grand jury or in his office but um people were sort of scared of Garrison he had a lot of power they were nervous absolutely they were I mean a lot of G people went underground and you I mean you have people uh you know talk about that in interviews um that the District Attorney’s Office does um and they also uh there’s one interview and again I’m not going to remember the specific name because there’s so much of this kind of stuff but that um you know one gay bar owner uh said that his partner had been told that if they would produce testimony you know putting Clay Shaw and David FY together that they could run their drag shows um without harassment right and and you also see it in Jean Davis’s testimony before the grand jury where he you know is essentially like saying I’ll say whatever you want me to say because I’ve always given you evidence isn’t that right Mr Garrison and then Garrison says yes and like Gan Davis is a kind of quintessential you know kind of gay bar owner who uh is you know very much part of a certain segment of uh the gay community in the French Quarter um but also an informant for the police um you know trying balance all those things so he can stay in business yeah and stay out of jail ideally exactly yeah so it’s an incredible milu and I I mean I’ll go back to there’s one conspiracy author who claims the problem with me and others like you is that you don’t understand New Orleans and only this person understands New Orleans and I find that you know quite quite ridiculous that uh people say that because you certainly understand New Orleans and Louisiana well you know I think you have to under just with regard to this particular um author um you know I recently discovered that there was a second part of um a very absurd uh it proport to be a book review um of cruising for conspirators and and you know it’s not I can’t really take it seriously because at the first one in the first review uh that this person wrote uh it was clear this person had not read the book right I mean I think they might have read a um you know an excerpt or a preview um but yeah I mean there’s some people just so um defensive and uh and mean is not the right word but just so sort of like angry and costic and toxic yeah and you can’t I you know you cannot engage meaningfully with a person who approaches their subject matter in that way and I’m about as a as a professor you know as a teacher I’m all about you know having just you know having respectful disagreements with people yeah and walking away with a relationship with that person intact um and and you know that to me is teaching and that to me is dialogue and I think there are some people in the conspiracy Community with whom you can have conversations um you know but not many not many it’s really it’s a how few you can and and and then I’ll just say this and then we can move on but you know I also think there is no little sexism in in you know some of the treatment that I received um from one author in particular and you know I hope that person will do some self-examination um because I think they have a problem with women I hope so too and I think you’re right but uh I somehow doubt it yeah well I’m not g to get my hugs up but don’t hold your breath no so let’s talk a bit about um Clay Shaw okay what led Garis Garrison to Clay Shaw and what kind of life he was leading um in New Orleans in the 1960s he had it pretty good uh right up until um you know he becomes a suspect and um he’d been traveling he was in Spain for a period of time he was in England for a period of time he had uh saved enough money and made enough money from uh you know flipping properties in the French quar that he had a secure retirement in place and uh I think he was enjoying himself despite the dangers I think he had a you know pretty uh active uh sex life and that was an important part of his life um and had been for a long period of time he’s very attractive man you know and I didn’t have problems finding Partners when he is identified I mean you have to I mean know what happened in December when he’s interviewed in December I think the tone of that interview is is really interesting because you see him in that particular interview kind of like balancing the danger he’s in with a kind of covering you know a sort of closedness around his identity as a homosexual and and when he is uh you know when he’s arrested there’s this whole period of time where for practical reasons I think but also because he’s doing a lot of self-examination he stops picking men up and and having relationships and a lot of people you know fall away from him and he kind of isolates himself and there are a very small number of people with whom he has relationship Jeff bson is probably like the you know the closest example with whom he’d been a couple for you know many years before and um you know this upends his life I mean he you know he becomes identified as a potential conspirator in the assassination of JFK and I just I think about him often in you know in the courtroom uh watching the Auda film over and over and over and watching Kennedy’s head be blown apart and being identified as a person had something to do with that to you know to stand in that room that was a really devastating you know thing for him uh and he never quite recovered from it and you know even when he is you know like there’s a letter I want to say it’s like from maybe six months before he dies he says you know it doesn’t matter that I was found not guilty this is going to be my legacy this is you know and and and that’s also you know a part of the tragedy is that despite losing resoundingly in court right um in a you know in an environment that he largely controlled the terms of Garrison I mean you know despite losing uh he still goes after him and and you know when he dies all bets are off so you know people who support Garrison just seem to like you know alide the the the verdict in court you know there’s always there’s always a reason that it’s corrupt you know there’s always a reason that you know these people are wrong and it’s a you know it’s a I don’t think it’s a very balanced way to look at those events no the G gon’s supporters would say well Garrison never mentioned homosexuality well that is BS and it’s not true Garrison was kind of a u a master of you know saying something and then disowning having said it you know what I mean as as it became inconvenient I mean and you know you can say what you want about James failen but you know Garrison didn’t sue him over that article you know um in fact you know also think Garrison was one of those people who understood the value of publicity um good or bad right as long as he was in the news uh that was that was working for him in some way um and you know so this not true and um you know I once saw um a noted Garrison Defender um I was on a panel with this person it’s one of the rudest people um I’ve ever been on a panel with I me just like astoundingly rude and unprofessional but um you know this person you know in talking about that James failen article uh in in response to a question from the audience says well you know he made a mistake there and he was sorry well how do you know number one what difference does it make I mean you know you don’t have to out somebody multiple times to you know to have used that as a methodology um to make somebody you know um legible as as suspicious um and so you know that is what happened and you know if you want to excuse it you’re welcome to do that but it it that is not a um that is not an evenhanded um you know uh evaluation of of that evidence I’m I’m struck by uh his Playboy interview in September uh 1967 if you look at the Preamble the intro to that interview um they talk about Clay Shaw being the queen bee of the homosexual community in New Orleans well that’s not Garrison saying that but he wrote a large part of that it really is him saying he never objected to to Playboy putting that in and that there’s these Illusions all over the case yeah and then you and you’re the person who made me aware of the confidential um article um that appears just months before this case goes to trial and the fact that it’s you know fed by evidence from the District Attorney’s office and the way that evidence was handled in that case is I mean just scandalous in terms of like chain of custody and I’m talking you know about the the material taken from Shaw’s home uh the night of the arrest and how that gets like moved around to Robert Heath’s office how it goes to you know uh Garrison’s Suburban home for a photo shoot with Life magazine and you know these are uh you know that is just it’s like a complete uh you know betrayal of the public trust the way the evidence in that case was used and I would be more shocked by it if it were a kind of unique circumstance but um you know it was not and um you know there were many Shenanigans undertaken by Garrison and his investigators as regards evidence in that case and many others what’s amazing is that the case went to trial that’s the amazing thing and that really has to do with cowardice on the part of those three judges who who let the thing move forward I think they were afraid of Garrison and they were afraid of um somehow being branded as people who didn’t want to get to the truth about the Kennedy assassination and that that was a scary thing um at that period of time and that points to another thing about G Garrison had a very very uh he was responsible for some of the judges getting elected so he had some of the judges sort of in his back pocket he absolutely did and I you know I have read somewhere and I don’t I don’t know this to be the case and I’m trying to remember it was in a transcript of of you know of an interview that somebody gave a deposition and and there was an implication that Hagerty who had a drinking problem you know hackery actually had like bounced a bunch of checks the District Attorney’s Office you know kind of knew this and kind of threatened to make it public if you know if Hagerty didn’t uh you know play ball uh in their View and and that Hagerty made some of the calls he did I think actually you know was to his credit um in that in that courtroom knowing you know that Garrison could make him look bad if he wanted to but and then you know his behavior after the case when he’s like you know caught in the motel room with the prostitutes and you know uh brings porn movies from that have been seized I me you know it sort of gives you a sense of the irregularities that you know uh you know are part of criminal district court in in New Orleans during that era um and uh yeah it’s you know it’s a crazy crazy story yeah and you you could see it in some of the grand jury testimony I mean Carlos koga’s grand jury testimony Garrison sort of threatening them continually threatening them you know um you know you should think about what you’re saying and and uh I’ll give you time to go outside and take a break and come back in and and bobu too right I mean who they you know I mean literally threatened physically threatened um yeah and and and have material um of him um that is um you know very incriminating um and um you know try to hold that over his head and that he refused to testify and that he refus to uh help you know underg guard that flimsy story um I think also was pretty brave right um you know in in that moment because you know they’ll threaten anybody um to get what they want I mean it seems to me that’s what the record suggests is happening yeah yeah for sure the other thing that I I’m found striking is the um perhaps this whole case would have gone wouldn’t have gone forward if if there had been Discovery in Louisiana courts right the Garrison didn’t have very stingy yeah yeah um yeah and you know this is also a period of time when they have the you know non-unanimous jury verdicts um and you know so in this case I think there were 12 I think you know only nine of them would have had to say guilty um you know to to get a guilty verdict the way you know this worked at at that time in Louisiana law and that has since been addressed and now you do have to have unanimous jury verdicts particularly in capital cases but um you know also I mean I mean I’m asking you a question now but like what’s interesting this is such a low bar case I mean it’s a conspiracy case now conspiracy cases can be extremely serious and if he was convicted he could spend a long time in prison but I mean they’re fairly easy cases to prove if there is in fact a demonstrable conspiracy right the crime didn’t even have to happen they just have to have people in discussion with each other but the evidence you know that they present for that of this you know conspiratorial discussion is so flimsy um and Russo is such a disaster on the stand also a very vulnerable person uh who is you know manipulated threatened uh you know um in certain ways it’s it’s it’s amazing that it went ahead it’s amazing that the trial you know went on um and I guess I’m less familiar and you may know more about this I sort of less familiar with uh how that was evaluated from outside Louisiana you know how people saw that um and and did they see it as just a kind of you know Banana Republic kind of you know charade you know uh in Louisiana or was it you know something that was taken seriously and I’m trying to think you know if if I know the answer to that I’m not so sure that I do but I think you know like the national networks I think had Garrison’s number um but but they covered the case you know because it was big news and and I think also well certainly in Louisiana the times pikun and the state’s item really took him seriously and and they could have really blown a lot of this out of the water but didn’t and didn’t say Garrison until after the verdict yeah and that you know that too is you know the newspapers yeah then he needs to resign you know but they’re hedging their bets the whole time it reminds me of that uh the time of the 1927 flood in the Mississippi River and everybody in the city can see that the river is rising but the newspapers are not printing anything about it you know and um it’s you know because they’re it you know they’re involved in the business community and the business Community is concerned that this could hurt business and you know there’s and and and in a way you know they give Garrison a pass for a long time it’s not that it’s not that they’re not critical of him sometimes they are um but just in terms of you know the reporting on the thing it’s it’s often very you know shallow um and and there were people who you know bucked that Trend I think like Rosemary James is probably one of those people um but you know it um it it makes you think about like what you’re seeing in the newspapers and and how to evaluate that on balance you know um in in any case that you’re looking at yeah you were you were one one of very lucky to talk to Rosemary James what what did she tell you about Garrison so I talked to her twice and and in one of the cases I did a formal uh oral history interview with her and I have a transcript of it and um you know she she knew Shaw I mean she had dinner his house uh she was married to her I think first husband at the time and uh you know they were they were so social people but she was also you know a television news reporter at this period of time and and you know she knew Garrison did not play fair um that he tried to make her the issue you know once they uh you know released that story that they have somehow done him wrong but you know she went and told him that they were going to do it and he could you know ask them not to or you know have his side of it you know kind of and he didn’t and uh you know that too I think is a you know a calculation on his part um you know to get it out there but then act like you know the forces against me are you stacked against me um you know kind of thing and uh yeah it’s newspapers are not objective sources they’re the first draft of things and um you know they make mistakes and they don’t always correct them and so you have to you know make sure that um there’s some kind of you know uh corroboration uh for uh particularly significant claims that they make yeah she by the way one what do you think of um well Garrison’s the prosecution of Garrison after the case for uh the bribery and the with the pinball machines and also the income tax evasion well I think probably um so so two things about it one is it’s very interesting that Jer of course is the person who you know turns the evidence um in the in the pinball case uh you know testifies for the feds um and um you know I’ll say this he wasn’t convicted Y and um you know but the transcripts the recorded transcripts that ran in the newspapers were extremely damaging and I’ve never read and I I don’t you know I don’t even know if full transcripts are out there I’ve never read all the trial testimony in those 1970s cases he’s not convicted in either one of those cases and the justice department then and now doesn’t like to take things to Court unless they think they can win um and you know they didn’t win against him and that’s important to acknowledge um but do I think uh Garrison was on the take absolutely and and I think there is evidence of that it just apparently was not compelling enough um in court to get a jury to convict him and uh but even even that and this is probably some sort of like Poetic Justice but like even at that even though he’s not convicted that badly damages him uh not so much that he couldn’t several years down the road get reelected as a judge because he is an appealing political figure to people but he’s not reelected um you know to that what guess it would have been the fourth term or the third term I’m trying to think yes the third term I think yeah I’m not sure third or fourth I reach TR to 66 four years I think he’s there yeah I think his fourth the beginning of his fourth term and Harry conik Jr or Harry conik beats him and I I didn’t know this at the time I published the book but I you know I found something you know Garrison sued him um and said the uh the the election was corrupt um and and and tried to you know sort of get the vote results overturned and um you know and that’s just you know he’s a sore loser you know and uh and but again he was not convicted and he does then become a judge and um you know that doesn’t make him a saint but you know he you know apparently some voters at least were willing to you know Overlook uh those uh trial you know interview transcripts and recorded uh you know conversations between him and Jer yeah well if you read some of those recorded conversations it’s pretty damning but of course U afterwards Jer sort of retracts um everything because he wants to go back to New Orleans and have a life and he realizes that Garrison still has some power um ultimately he does say no it was it was real but but uh it’s kind of interesting to to note that U yeah and yeah that that is you know I mean J had you know been around a long time and um you know had family and you know um you know children and you know does come back to Louisiana and he’s critical of Garrison in the early 90s you know when the when the when JFK comes out you know he’s one of the voices in the newspaper who says it was you know all a sham and a scam and uh you know and uh late in life he he gives an interview I think it’s to the times pyun and you know he um you know he basically admits you know that you know to being sort of a quasa criminal um as a cop and after um but I think you know he saw that and a lot of people saw that as you know just the way things were uh during that period of time yeah he he actually I think he stole all the the all the money on the take money from the from the police himself yeah and took a police character a woman drug addict to New York City um yeah it’s like this I I’m I’m in the records now for you know 1953 and uh you know the investigation into the police and uh you know he fights really hard to be reinstated and it’s ultimately the Louisiana Supreme Court that turns back his claim he kind of tries to make a you know a civil service claim to be reinstated to the police um so that was important to him but you know at that point he essentially becomes you know like an underworld bar owner and you know um you know uh very criminally adjacent oh and I just wanted say one more thing which is that you know the tax evasion charges Aaron con is the person who turns over evidence to the justice department about a Garrison’s taxes versus you know salary and you know what he’s spending and and you know con was a you know a dogged investigator and um also you know an enemy of of garrisons but he’s the person who does that this is not like the you know the CIA telling the justice department to you know I mean you know you know Garrison had you know throttled them in the press and I’m sure they didn’t like him any um you know but they receive evidence from a local source that leads to the tax evasion charges so this is not some sort of you know criminal conspiracy uh you know emanating from the CIA or the FBI it’s it’s cone and it’s a personal Grudge in that particular case the funny thing in the bribery case was the Garrison uh fired his attorneys in the middle of the case and and and and then became his own attorney MH and that probably turned the case around he gave a a long summation at the end I think that probably uh uh convince people you know part of his whole story was they’re after me because of the assassination blah blah blah and and uh I it was a crazy it was absolutely crazy in a certain way you know he must have been I you know he must have been impressive yeah in in the courtroom you know um with opening statements and closing statements but you know one of the things I say at the end of cruising for conspirators I think he kind of you know do you know what jump the shark means yeah you know he sort of jumped the shark at a at a moment um in that summation where he basically says a conspiracy charge is like a murder you know and he and he he’s gets the thing ginned up into something so big that I think it might have given the jury pause you know um what we have here before us is not a very good case um and then he sort of like you know saying you know this is about the president’s murder and if you don’t find this person guilty you’re you know you’re uh you know you’re implicated um in letting the government get away with this conspiracy to kill the president and you know I think he really overdid it there and I think that probably in no small part uh contributed to the uh you know the outcome uh among the jury members um although they were also just exhausted and worn down by the time they they went into that room I mean they’ve been a marathon of closing statements so do you think there was uh do you think Garrison was actually gay himself there may have been some repressed homosexuality that played a part in this so you know I think um uh again Aaron con is a person who like very closely documents uh Garrison’s extraordinary sex life that’s what con calls it and um you know Garrison certainly was sexually Reckless um you know as a person who was married and you know fathered to five children I think um you know he brazenly you know had affairs um and you know mostly what is documented is uh very young women um and he did you know uh uh you know frequent like normal Wallace’s house and you know so he’s he’s clearly having sex with women but there is a there’s a kind of undercurrent of you know like men having sex with other men on the down low is you know what we would call it now right and and I think there’s certainly the possibility of that and and I think that for two reasons one is um I recently discovered uh a newspaper story about Jer when he was about 15 years old and he’s in a car with a 30-year old man very late at night and there’s a car accident and he’s injured so he ends up going to the hospital and when I first looked at it I didn’t I didn’t a lot about it and then I came back to it and it’s like is he hustling you know and there’s this whole kind of like hustling culture in and around the French quarter and you know again Jer married children but I do think there are you know men who have sex with other men and and of course the best evidence for sort of thinking about Garrison’s sexual compulsivity if that’s a word like you know is is grabbing the teenage boy in New Orleans Athletic Club and and so I think for him it might have been more about youth than about you know gender per se and and I tend to think and again I’m not you know I’m not an LGBT plus person but you know I tend to think of being gay is sort of like an identity that people adopt and you know and being proud of who they are um not just sexually but on the whole and so like I think of being gay as an identity and then I think you know some people engage in sex acts that they don’t identify with do you know what I mean like they don’t see it as part of you know and I and I think there was a lot of that kind of thing um you know in New Orleans in the 1950s and 60s uh you know men who married because everybody was expected to get married you know if you know if you didn’t get married that was like considered the problem um but then might also have been having sex with other people male or female so you know I don’t think he was gay but do I think there’s you know a possibility that you know he had uh sex of some kind or the other with men sure absolutely and you know here’s an example like a weird example around this is um uh it’s in the book of another Garrison Defender who talks about uh Garrison and this friend of his having sex with a woman uh you know a sort of a manaja one gal two guys but that they never touched each other’s penises oh well then like you know good times you know it’s like I mean it’s just sort of there’s this you know desperate attempt to excuse everything he does is somehow you know holy pure and you know um you know it’s just it’s a very strange story um but I think it might in fact be a very telling story yeah I I I went through the papers of Patricia Lambert and and she has I have I have not published it but she has a a full transcript of talking to that boy from the New Orleans Athletic Club mhm um which he talks about what happened and also the boy’s brother two two transcripts and so uh some really damning evidence there but um yeah and you know also where are her papers uh sixth floor Museum oh okay oh that’s great I’m glad they’re there yes that that happened I’m sure but what is also true is that the good old boy Network protected him yeah and he had a lot of control over the grand jury who the grand jury Foreman was and Le I’ve recently discovered leish who was one of the grand jury Foreman during this period of time in the 1950s was also a grand jury foran so there the you know there’s this kind of I I I hesitate to call it this but that’s I mean that’s the way it functions it’s kind of good old boys network uh in which this is kind of covered up and so Drew Pearson writes about it but the local newspapers don’t write about it um and Aaron con you know writes a letter and says you know this happened and the grand jury needs to look into this um and you know he got away with it um you know and that’s certainly you know assault um it’s you know attempted crime against nature um you know he could easily have been charged with a 1489 if that family had been willing to you know come forward and do that but but you know they too have interests in the community y um and I think you know also the interest of their sons you know um one of at least one of whom was a minor um and so you know that would have been a very you know I don’t want to say shameful but I think it would have been a very embarrassing thing um to have pursued charges against the sitting district attorney um yeah they were a prominent Catholic Family with high high ranking Catholic clergy so it was a very uh there was no way they’re going to bring that forward was well and also the the you know speaking of you high ranking Catholic clergy and people covering for them um you know conic did that very consistently uh you know sort of like uh made cases or allegations against a priests um you know uh go away for long periods of time um so you know this again the good old boys network at work um you know people looking out for each other so the sad part of this whole case is the fact that unfortunately Clay Shaw died before his damages case could be heard which then allowed G Garrison to write about Shaw and his book and say what ever he wanted to say right that was very unfortunate it was and I’m not you know what’s so interesting is that that weird quirk in Louisiana civil law that said you know you had to have these kind of immediate family members who could step in as plaintiff he didn’t have anybody in that category so you know the claim ultimately according to Louisiana law dies and the Supreme Court decides that the Louisiana law is not inherently prejudicial which says much more about uh the way people thought about you know families and and categories of you know relationship during that period of time in the law um and again I think that’s really reflective of um our own moment you know where uh we are there are parties uh who are attempting you know in the United States to pathologize unmarried childless pet owners you know and somehow the problem these are levers that people try to pull you know and and Shaw’s sexuality was one of those Le that Garrison was willing to use to try and and bring a case forward um against a person who had some vulnerabilities but also had enough uh resources to uh hire very good attorneys and uh you know defend himself um in court thankfully and that raises the whole issue of people who can afford uh those sort of lawyers the miscarriages of justice that occur because of that absolutely and I don’t I can’t remember the percentage it’s something I talk about um in class in in my Louisiana history class there’s a far higher percentage of people in jail incarcerated in Louisiana and we you know we incarcerate more people than anyone else in the world per capita um and you know most of those people have pled out the majority of people never get to trial they take a lower charge they make some sort of deal for lesser time and and and so there’s a way in which our whole you know contemporarily but also historically the way the law is used not to bring about justice but to really kind of like keep certain populations of people under control you know um by manipulating those things and um you know I I think in many significant ways uh lisiana is um a kind of on the Leading Edge of um you know Injustice uh in the United States with you know with its current carceral crisis and and and many of those things but also because of the way uh the Contemporary Administration in Louisiana has just written off anybody uh who disagrees with a very you know Conservative Christian nationalist kind of uh you know position I.E like putting the Ten Commandments in every classroom in the state including uh at universities uh and I’m hoping lawsuits will uh you know keep that from happening because I would find that deeply offensive right to have teach in a university classroom with um a Biblical passage required to be uh in in every room um you know so yeah it’s a a lot of extremes down here absolutely so you know you you teach a you know you’ve taught a course on conspiracy and so tell me a bit about your students and what they think and and after and and after what they think after going through your course right about this case and other and other cases of conspiracy you know i’ I’ve noticed something uh in the class and I don’t know what this means um I’ve taught it I want to say I’ve taught it three times now um it’s a it’s an upper division course and it’s a fairly demanding course and so they have to you know show up and be prepared or they they just can’t successfully you know navigate the course um and I have more women who take that course than men um they and women are a majority of you know University students in the United States today anyway but the males male students who have taken that course tend to be far more uh conspiracy-minded than the women and I don’t I don’t know what that’s about um but that’s just what I’ve noticed um in that course and I think there’s a you know a lot of young men use Reddit and you know um there is a lot of you know this kind of kind of conspiratorial conversation on Reddit and and I think there’s a way particularly that young men are being socialized around conspiracy that is different uh for young women uh who you know who’s who are being fed different kind of things by algorithms or using different platforms so you know my students are really interesting and they teach me things all the time about you know what’s out there in the digital world and you know what they’re things I have no idea about because I don’t I don’t use social media that much um but you know I think they’re pretty smart and I you know I think they’re self- selected group these particular students but they’re very skeptical of um you know broad conspiracy claims um and they come to their own conclusions about those sort of things I’m not I’m not there to um you know uh persecute uh people who believe in conspiracies but they often you know will you know self-report about relatives or you know stepdads or you know whatever like being like real conspiracy you know nuts um and how uncomfortable that makes them and you know what’s so um what’s so alarming about that is is that you know conspiracy has a very long history uh in the United States and you know sort of like bubbles up here and there but I can’t think of a Time besides the McCarthy era um when consp consp iracy has been so consequential in American politics they just got a tendency to believe in conspiracy and to think very lazily about things um to not think critically about you know claims that are being put out in front of you and so you know it’s it’s particularly consequential at the moment in a way that you have sort of like qanon Advocates who are now very influential members of Congress and you know charlatans are not they hold these offices of enormous consequence in people’s lives um and so you know it’s a it’s a very um it’s a time when I think it’s important to slow down and and think about things uh carefully um rather than just kind of getting whipped up you know by the claim of the moment um I mean on the JFK side it used to be it was the left wing that it was all conspiratorial but now it’s the rightwing has discovered oh my God you know it’s a deep State and I’m seeing more and more more congressmen or senators and Republicans um who are like oh oh the JFK assassination oh my God this is evidence of the deep State um you know and the the same forces it’s it’s it’s striking and it’s it’s very uh it’s horrifying but if you think about it like that’s where the JFK records act come from now I’m very grateful for the JFK records act yeah and I think in the end it’s a good piece of legislation but what it was responsive to is Oliver Stone’s movie yep you know and and and his theory of the case um which runs completely counter to the conclusions um taken by you know the government uh bodies investig investigative bodies who looked into the case um so you know they get whipped up into into cultural you know uh soup too and and do things that sometimes have you know beneficial consequences but come out of you know a willingness to uh you know accept a kind of theorizing about the intelligence agencies or um you know U good Lord I mean you know just yeah uh it’s crazy times yeah so the one thing I I do say about Jim Garrison and and Clay Shaw and the whole case is I I wish somebody would make a movie you know I do too and I wish they would license my book you know but what a great topic for a movie Ian it’s just oh yeah you know I I when I tell people this story they’re so fascinated nobody really knows it and it’s a very interesting story yeah you know I tell you and and this is probably just me being like older or oldfashioned um but you know young people don’t read books and you know and uh and and yeah if somebody could make a you know a version of this that runs counter to the kind of mythologies uh and you know U you know shaming of people um in in JFK and and you know tell that story from you know a different angle um you know I think that’ be fabulous um and uh you know you know time will tell huh time will tell so we’re gonna we’re gonna end the interview but I think um I know is there anything else you want to tell us about you know your terrific book well thank you for your uh compliments and you know um one of the great things about being a professor or a writer or a thinker and and you know you you know this too is that you know you’re constantly learning how to do new things and um and and in part that’s the kind of appeal of that sort of work and um so I was you know moving probably plotting Le a narrative non-fiction Direction there and and I’m going to move further in that direction um uh in in this next project which you know I I see as an as a series of books right that gets us to back to this question and and I hope to retell this story in in a different way um as as I go on this journey uh with this new set of books so um you know I’m excited about the future but I you know I also stand by cruising for conspirators and it’s the book I’m proud of it’s in the evidence and uh and I think I did try to be even-handed and objective but you know I wasn’t in the bag for anybody I had a you know I had an idea that this was had been a miscarriage of justice but um you know I think it was and I think that book shows it and as as does your work kind of like your books show us kind of pathologies not just in you know conspiracy thinking about the JFK assassination but just kind of more uh you know more specifically around the Garrison case so I I appreciate you having me and uh getting to be a part of this broader group of conversations uh with people who I also really admire and respect and learn from and um you know have fruitful discussions even if we don’t always agree and it’s great having you but when when could we expect your next book what is there a time frame so you know actually um I’m getting ready for the fall semester and I’m setting some deadlines for myself so I don’t get pulled Way Off Track and I’m hoping to have a first draft by you know like a year from now right um and these are it’s it’s not you know it’s not a book like uh cruising it’s not a you know it’s not like a 10 year inter um and so I’m hoping to kind of move through these at a at a faster clip um but it’s it’s a different kind of work for me so I feel like I have to produce a full um a full example out of the series uh in order to look for you know an agent and and then try to sell the longer Series so I you know I just I’ve talked to enough people in publishing to understand that because my track record is somewhere else that I have to produce the first uh book in the proposed series and and then go from there so I’m hoping in about a year I’ll have a draft full draft great I I can hardly wait it’s going to be a fantastic book I know it well you’re very kind and it’s it’s a lot of fun to talk to you always so yeah yeah you’re you’re amazing and so we’ll we’ll have more more discussions on Garrison we’ll have a panel discussion etc etc but thank you very much Alicia and we really really appreciate your tremendous work well that’s very kind of you and uh you know thanks so much I really appreciate it okay thank you very much