The DA Who Put the JFK Assassination on Trial
Earling Carothers "Jim" Garrison was born in Denison, Iowa, in 1921, but he became a New Orleans man — the kind of larger-than-life, controversy-courting, impossible-to-ignore figure that this city produces and attracts in equal measure. As Orleans Parish District Attorney from 1962 to 1973, Garrison dominated the city's legal and political landscape. But he is remembered for one thing above all: he was the only prosecutor in American history to bring charges in connection with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
The Investigation
In 1966, Garrison announced that he had uncovered a conspiracy to assassinate JFK, centered in New Orleans. Lee Harvey Oswald had lived in New Orleans in the summer of 1963, distributing pro-Castro leaflets, getting into fights with anti-Castro activists, and — according to Garrison — meeting with a network of right-wing conspirators who were plotting to kill the president.
Garrison's prime suspect was Clay Shaw, a respected New Orleans businessman and the founder of the International Trade Mart. Garrison accused Shaw of conspiring with Oswald, David Ferrie (an eccentric pilot and Eastern Airlines employee), and others to carry out the assassination. The investigation consumed Garrison's office for years, generated international headlines, and turned the district attorney into one of the most famous — and most controversial — legal figures in America.
The Trial
The trial of Clay Shaw began on January 29, 1969, and lasted barely a month. Garrison's case was built on circumstantial evidence, witness testimony of questionable reliability, and a theory of conspiracy that many observers found compelling in outline but thin in specifics. The jury acquitted Shaw in less than an hour.
The verdict was widely seen as a humiliation for Garrison. Critics called him a publicity hound, a bully, and a reckless prosecutor who had destroyed an innocent man's reputation. Supporters argued that the evidence of conspiracy was real, even if Garrison had charged the wrong man or presented the case poorly. The debate has never been resolved.
The Movie
In 1991, Oliver Stone released "JFK," a film based largely on Garrison's investigation, with Kevin Costner playing a heroic version of the DA. The film reignited national interest in the assassination, led directly to the passage of the JFK Records Act, which mandated the release of millions of pages of government documents, and rehabilitated Garrison's reputation in the eyes of many Americans who had come to believe that the Warren Commission's lone-gunman conclusion was insufficient.
Garrison himself appeared in the film, playing Chief Justice Earl Warren in the recreation of the Warren Commission. It was a characteristically audacious move — the man who had spent his career attacking the Warren Commission literally playing the man who ran it.
The New Orleans Character
Garrison was six feet six inches tall, handsome, eloquent, and possessed of a theatrical presence that was made for New Orleans. He was also vindictive, paranoid, and willing to stretch the law to pursue his theories. He used his office to go after political enemies, raided Bourbon Street clubs in morality crusades, and governed with a combination of charm and intimidation that was effective but ethically questionable.
He died in New Orleans on October 21, 1992, still insisting that he had been right about the conspiracy, still larger than life. Jim Garrison was the kind of figure who could only have thrived in New Orleans — a city that has always had room for men who are brilliant and flawed in equal measure, who chase the truth with an intensity that sometimes carries them past it.
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