Dave Reitzes
Jim Garrison denied that the witness had received any special treatment from the DA's office in exchange for his testimony. Garrison claimed that Bundy's background was of no importance. Bundy, claimed Garrison, was in prison voluntarily, having turned himself in for narcotics treatment on March 4, 1967.(1) Bundy stated the exact same thing, under oath, at Shaw's hearing.
Vernon Bundy and Jim Garrison were lying.
Vernon Bundy did not turn himself in voluntarily on March 4, 1967. Vernon Bundy was arrested on March 4, 1967, by the New Orleans Police Department, and charged with violating parole. (Bundy had pleaded guilty to theft charges on May 25, 1966, and had been placed on probation for five years.)(2) Bundy's probation was revoked and he was sentenced to a year in prison, a sentence that ended suddenly following his appearance at the Shaw preliminary hearing.
Bundy was arrested again on January 8, 1968, for armed robbery. His rap sheet states that the New Orleans District Attorney declined to file charges.
"The question is," Garrison said, in a filmed interview with NBC, "is he [Bundy] telling the truth or not? There are many attorneys who are brilliant liars and there are dope addicts who have never learned to lie. And that's the case here. The question is, was he telling the truth, and the answer is, obviously."(3)
Jim Garrison was lying.
In March, Garrison had assigned James Kruebbe to administer a polygraph examination to Bundy. Kruebbe's analysis was that Bundy was lying. NOPD polygraph operator Edward O'Donnell, was present when Kruebbe reported this to Garrison and Assistant DA Charles Ward. Ward assured Kruebbe that Bundy would not be used as a witness, but Garrison overruled him.(4)
"I don't care if he is lying or not," Garrison told the men, "We are going to use him."(5)
"I'll never forget those words," O'Donnell says in the 2000 History Channel documentary, False Witness.
In 1971, Jim Garrison was asked under oath by Judge Herbert Christenberry if he had said this. Garrison refused to answer.(6)
In his famous 1967 Playboy interview, Jim Garrison denied that either Vernon Bundy or star witness Perry Raymond Russo had failed a polygraph test. Garrison even denied under oath that Russo had failed such a test, when actually, he had failed two.
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1. NBC White Paper, "The JFK Conspiracy: The Case of Jim Garrison," broadcast June 19, 1967.
2. James Kirkwood, American Grotesque (New York: Harper, 1992), p. 226.
3. NBC White Paper, "The JFK Conspiracy: The Case of Jim Garrison," broadcast June 19, 1967.
4. Patricia Lambert, False Witness (New York: M. Evans & Co., 1998), p. 100.
5. History Channel documentary, "Time Capsule: False Witness," cited in Lambert, p. 202.
6. Lambert, p. 202.
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