Jack
Martin lived in New
Orleans.
A private detective he was friendly with both Guy
Banister and
David Ferrie. On the afternoon of 22nd
November, 1963, Martin and Banister went drinking together. On their
return to Banister's office the two men got involved in a dispute
about a missing file. Banister became so angry that he he drew his
Magnum revolver and hit Martin with it several times. Martin was so
badly injured that he had to be detained in the local Charily Hospital.
Over the next
few days Martin told friends that Guy
Banister and
David Ferrie had
been involved in the assassination of John
F. Kennedy.
According to Martin, Ferrie was the getaway man whose job it was to
fly the assassin out of Texas. He also claimed that Ferrie knew Lee
Harvey Oswald from
their days in the New Orleans Civil Air Patrol and had given him lessons
on how to use a rifle with a telescopic sight.
On 25th November,
Martin was contacted by the Federal Bureau of
Investigation. He told them that he thought Ferrie had hypnotized
Oswald into assassinating Kennedy. The FBI considered Martin's evidence
unreliable and decided not to investigate Banister and Ferrie.
This information
eventually reached Jim
Garrison, the
district attorney of New Orleans.
He interviewed Martin about these accusations. Martin claimed that
during the summer of 1963 Banister and David
Ferrie were involved in something very sinister with a group of
Cuban exiles.
Jim
Garrison now
became convinced that a group of right-wing activists, including Guy
Banister,
David Ferrie, Carlos
Bringuier and Clay Shaw, were involved
in a conspiracy with the Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA) to kill John
F. Kennedy. Garrison
claimed this was in retaliation for his attempts to obtain a peace
settlement in both Cuba
and Vietnam.
Delphine
Roberts
worked for Banister and later became his mistress. Roberts told Anthony
Summers that
during the summer of 1963 Lee
Harvey Oswald worked
for Banister. She said she was in the office when Banister suggested
that Oswald should establish a local Fair Play for Cuba Committee.
This story was supported by her daughter who met Oswald during this
period.
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(1)
Jack Martin was interviewed by FBI agents Regis Kennedy and Claude
Schlager on 25th November, 1963.
Martin advised
that in his occupation as a private investigator he has had occasion
to develop considerable information about Ferrie and reported it to
Richard E. Roby, Special Agent, Investigative Division, Office of
Compliance and Security, Federal Aviation Agency, Washington, D.C.,
who must have a big file on Ferrie as they conducted a complete investigation
of his activities in New Orleans several years ago. Martin advised
that he called WWL-TV Station and furnished the station with background
information about Ferrie, particularly his homosexual tendencies and
the fact that he formerly operated the Civil Air Patrol. He also told
them that Ferrie was an amateur hypnotist and that it was his idea
that Ferrie may have hypnotized Lee Oswald and planted a posthypnotic
suggestion that he kill the President.
Martin stated
that has visited in the home of David Ferrie and he saw a group of
photographs of various Civil Air Patrol cadet groups and in this group
he is sure he saw several years ago a photograph of Lee Oswald as
a member of one of the classes. He stated he did not recall the group
that Oswald was in or any other details. In addition he stated that
Ferrie conducted military type drills with rifles, fatigue clothes
and helmet liners of the Civil Air Patrol Cadets and he recalled that
Ferrie claimed to have taught these cadets how to shoot. Martin stated
that he observed in Ferrie's home a number of foreign made firearms
and it is his opinion that Ferrie could have taught Oswald how to
purchase a foreign made firearm or possibly have purchased the gun
that was shown on television. He advised that he saw similar type
weapons at Ferrie's home when he visited there two years ago.
Martin advised
that Ferrie discussed with him the charges of crime against nature
which resulted in the his arrest by Jefferson Parish authorities and
he recalled that Ferrie had told him that one of the "kids that
was a witness against him" had moved to Mississippi from New
Orleans and subsequently joined the United States Marine Corps. He
heard on television that Oswald had been in the Marine Corps therefore
he surmised that Oswald was that "kid," that he was a witness
against Ferrie in the crime against nature charge that had joined
the Marine Corps. Martin explained that it might have been the same
individual or a very close coincidence.
(2)
Aaron Kohn, head of New Orleans' Metropolitan Crime Commission, interviewed
by the House
Select Committee on Assassinations (1976)
Jack Martin
has always been a kind of harassing influence around here, somebody
who wastes a lot of time, but you discover the best thing to do is
to let him waste your time when he has things on his mind or else
he wastes a lot more of your time when he gets drunk, waking you up
in the middle of the night, threatening to kill you...
After years of all kinds of wild allegations I threw him out of my
office after he wound down to the point where he was 'turn-offable,'
if there is any such thing.
(3)
Jim
Garrison,
On the Trail of the Assassins (1988)
Martin was seated across
my desk, his anxious gaze fixed on my every move. An on-again, off-again
alcoholic, he was a thin man with deeply circled, worried eyes. Although
he had been written off as a nonentity by many, I had long regarded
him as a quick-witted and highly observant, if slightly disorganized,
private detective. I had known him casually as far back as my days
as an assistant D.A. and always had gotten along well with him.
"Jack," I said,
"why don't you relax a little? You should know by now that you're
among friends here."
He nodded nervously. He
was seated in the roomy, upholstered chair across from my desk, but
he looked most uncomfortable. I offered him some coffee. "You're
not under cross-examination. Jack," I said "I just want
a little help. Understand?"
"The police report
says the reason Banister beat you was you had an argument over telephone
bills." I pulled a copy of the police report from my desk drawer
and shoved it across to him. "Here, take a look at it."
He bent his head over and examined it as if he had never seen it before.
I was sure that he had seen it many times, probably even had a copy
at home.
After a moment he looked
up without saying a word. His eyes told me he was deeply concerned
about something.
"Now, does a simple
argument over phone bills sound like a believable explanation to you?"
I asked.
I waited. Then, dreamily,
he shook his head slowly. "No," he admitted. "It involved
more than that."
"How much more?"
Again I waited. He breathed
deeply, sucking in the air.
"It started like
it was going to be nothing at all," he began. "We'd both
been drinking at Katzenjammer's - maybe more than usual, because
of the assassination and all. Banister especially."
Pausing to chug down another
cup of coffee, he made a real effort to collect his thoughts.
"Well, when we came
back to the office. Banister started hitching about one thing and
then another. He was in a mean mood. Then all of a sudden, he accused
me of going through his private files. Now I never went through his
private stuff ever - absolutely never. And that really ticked me off."
He hesitated for a long
moment.
"Go on. Jack,"
I said gently.
"I guess I blew up,"
he continued, his face flushed with memories of injustice. "That's
when I told him he'd better not talk to me like that. I told him I
remembered the people I had seen around the office that summer. And
that's when he hit me. Fast as a flash - pulled out that big Magnum
and slammed me on the side of the head with it."
"Just because you
remembered the people you'd seen at his office the past summer?"
I asked.
"Yeah, that's all
it took. He went bananas on that one."
"And just who were
the people you'd seen in the office that summer?" I prodded softly.
"There was a bunch
of them. It was like a circus. There were all those Cubans - coming
in and going out, coming in and going out. They all looked alike to
me."
Someone once commenced
that whenever you really want to do something unseen, whenever you
go to great pains to make sure that you are unobserved, there always
turns out to be someone who was sitting under the oak tree. At the
strange place that was Banister's office. Jack Martin, unnoticed in
the middle of it all, was the one sitting under the oak tree.
He drew a long breath
and then went on. "Then there were all these other characters.
There was Dave Ferrie - you know about him by now."
"Was he there very
often?" I asked.
"Often? He practically
lived there."
Then Martin fell silent.
I saw by the look in his eyes that he had come to a full stop.
I was not about to let
my weekend visit to 544 Camp Street go down the
drain that easily, so I gave him a hand. 'And Lee Harvey Oswald'"
I added.
Jack swallowed, then nodded.
It was almost as if he felt relief in finally
having a burden lifted from him. "Yeah, he was there too. Sometimes
he'd be meeting with Guy Banister with the door shut. Other
times he'd be shooting the bull with Dave Ferrie. But he was there
all right."
"What was Guy Banister
doing while all this was going on?"
"Hell, he was the
one running the circus."
"What about his private
detective work?"
"Not much of that
came in, but when it did, I handled it. That's why I was there."
"So, Jack,"
I said. "Just what was going on at Banister's office?"
He held up his hand. "I
can't answer that," he said firmly. "I can't go into that
stuff at all." Unexpectedly, he stood up. "I think I'd better
go," he said.
"Hold on. Jack. What's
the problem with our going into what was happening at Banister's office?"
"What's the problem?"
he said. "What's the problem?" he repeated, as if in disbelief.
"The problem is that we're going to bring the goddamned federal
government down on our backs. Do I need to spell it out? I could get
killed - and so could you."
He turned around. "I'd
better go," he mumbled. He wobbled as he headed for the door.
(4)
Anthony Summers, The
Kennedy Conspiracy (1980)
David Ferrie, aide in Carlos
Marcello's apparatus, and anti-Castro activist, attracted brief official
attention less than forty-eight hours after the assassination. Just
hours before Ruby killed Oswald, and while Ferrie was still away on
his peculiar marathon around Texas, a disaffected member of Banister's
staff called New Orleans authorities to say he suspected Ferrie of
involvement in the President's murder. This was Jack Martin, a Banister
investigator, and he voiced suspicion that Ferrie had been in contact
with Oswald. Within hours of the assassination, Martin had been involved
in a dispute with Banister - a confrontation that may have occurred
when Banister caught Martin trying to examine confidential files.
For whatever reason, Banister injured Martin by hitting him on the
head with a revolver butt. It was the day after this, following a
visit to the hospital, that Martin raised the alarm over Ferrie. A
hue and cry began, but Ferrie - as we have seen - was away in Texas.
His associates, questioned in his absence, proved uninformative. One
did, however, relate a strange incident.
He said that a lawyer
had already been to Ferrie's home, promising to act on Ferrie's behalf
as soon as he returned. The lawyer, said Ferrie's friend, had remarked
that "when Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested by the Dallas police,
Oswald was carrying a library card with Ferrie's name on it."
The lawyer, G. Wray Gill, was one of Carlos Marcello's attorneys.
Ferrie spoke with Gill by telephone, on the evening of the day Ruby
killed Oswald, but did not immediately report to the authorities.
When he finally did so next day, Ferrie turned up accompanied by the
Marcello lawyer. He denied knowing anything about Oswald or the assassination.
Martin, the informant who had started the chase after Ferrie, was
dismissed as a crank with a grudge. He was indeed an odd character
- a fact for which Ferrie may have been most grateful. As this story
has shown, there was good reason to suspect him. A case in point is
the reported concern by Marcello's lawyer about a library card.
Nothing in the record
reflects the finding in Oswald's possession of any document relating
to Ferrie. Yet the Secret Service did ask Ferrie whether he had loaned
Oswald his library card. Ferrie denied it, but the statements of two
witnesses suggest he was panic-stricken over just that. One of Oswald's
former neighbors in New Orleans would later tell investigators that
Ferrie visited her soon after his Texas trip - asking about Oswald's
library card. Oswald's own landlady said the same - and added a disturbing
factor. She recalled Ferrie turning up to ask about the card within
hours of the assassination - before he set off on his trip. This bizarre
episode, which may be of key significance, remains unexplained.
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