Read Lambert's co-producer's request to Stone, his response to her, as well as letters to the History Channel from:

• Oliver Stone
• Jim DiEugenio

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August 22, 2000

Dear Mr. Davids,

It has come to my attention that the History Channel is planning to show a documentary based on Patricia Lambert's book "False Witness: The Real Story of Jim Garrison's Investigation and Oliver Stone's Film JFK." As editor of Garrison's book "On the Trail of the Assassins," as co-writer of the film JFK and as a former adjunct professor of journalism at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, I believe that such a documentary would be a one-sided exercise and would seriously hurt the long-term credibility of the History Channel.

Lambert's book purports to be a scholarly investigation, and those who have not delved deeply into the vast literature on the Kennedy assassination might be persuaded by it. But I can tell you that I worked closely with Jim Garrison for three years and knew the man very well, and I do not recognize the Jim Garrison portrayed by Lambert. Jim Garrison was a man of great integrity, courage and honesty, a man of genuine intelligence, and a man who loved America. Indeed, he devoted 23 years of his life serving in the United States military, working for the FBI, serving 12 years as district attorney in New Orleans and another two terms as judge on the Louisiana State Court of Appeals. All of this service was done under intense scrutiny, and up until the moment Garrison said publicly that the CIA might be involved in the Kennedy assassination, he was considered by nearly everyone to be an honest public servant, hailed in the press for his attempts to clean up New Orleans from corruption.

That public view of him changed as soon as he started looking into the CIA. The greatest failing of Lambert's book is that she does not seem to recognize that Garrison's investigation of Clay Shaw was sabotaged from day one by relentless government intervention. FOIA documents reveal that Garrison's phones and offices were bugged by the FBI. He was shadowed by FBI agents everywhere he went. Several of his key witnesses died under mysterious circumstances (David Ferrie, Eladio del Valle, Rose Cheramie, etc.) and others were bribed or threatened (e.g. witness Perry Russo was offered a job in California if he disappeared and dropped his testimony against Shaw; and bathhouse owner Fred Leemans received calls threatening his business).

Up until the Shaw investigation Garrison had routinely been able to extradite witnesses from other jurisdictions, but for the Shaw investigation every single one of his attempts to extradite witnesses was denied. All attempts to obtain federal tax records for Lee Harvey Oswald and Ruth and Michael Paine were denied. As Tom Bethell, a "volunteer" for Garrison's investigation, later admitted publicly in his book, he illegally handed over key files from the prosecution's case to Shaw's defense lawyers before the trial. And, as Victor Marchetti, a former aide to CIA covert operations directorate chief Richard Helms, later wrote, Helms made sure that Shaw received CIA help during the trial.

Not the least of these sabotage efforts against Garrison's case was the smear campaign run by the CIA against Garrison personally. We now know from an April 1, 1967 memo released under the FOIA that the CIA designed a plan to destroy the credibility of critics of the Warren Commission--the two most prominent of whom at the time were Jim Garrison and Mark Lane. The memo directs the CIA's "media assets"--i.e. writers and editors--to publish articles that showed these critics to be politically or financially motivated, to be sloppy in their research, to be crazy, etc. This is exactly the portrait that emerged in the press of Jim Garrison in the next few years.

It is this portrait that Lambert has resurrected. How? By going to the same sources used in that media smear campaign--reporters James Phelan and Hugh Aynesworth, both known today from FOIA files to be assets of the FBI (and in Aynesworth's case to be reporting directly to George Christian, White House press secretary of Lyndon Johnson--see letter from Aynesworth to Christian found in LBJ Library), the NBC documentary put together by Walter Sheridan (which even the FCC ruled was unfair when Garrison complained), and of course the attorneys for Shaw and several others whom Garrison arrested during the investigation. All these sources are highly partisan, yet Lambert relies on them almost exclusively. Sure, she has source citations, and this might pass for scholarship in some people's minds. But I urge you to do what many in the assassination research community have done--check the sources yourself. Then you will find out the old saw is true: garbage in, garbage out.

To use partisan sources exclusively, without giving those holding other opinions a chance to respond, violates the first rule of journalism that we always taught at Columbia--be fair, be honest, let all sides have their say. Unfortunately, Patricia Lambert has been extremely selective with her sources, including those critical of Garrison and automatically excluding or twisting the words of those who might be supportive of him. The result, I'm afraid, is a highly misleading book that tells us very little about the real Garrison investigation and very much about Lambert's own biases. If the History Channel shows a documentary that relies solely on that book and that writer, you will be doing a disservice not only to your viewers and your own credibility, but also to history itself.

A genuine, unbiased investigation of Garrison and the movie JFK would be a valuable contribution that the History Channel could make. However, you would have to choose another writer and producer and make an entirely different film from the one currently in production. It would not be based solely on Lambert's book, although it would certainly include her views and those of her primary sources. But it would also include the views of many others who've done a lot of study of Jim Garrison or knew him well. These would include Joan Mellen, professor at Temple University who is currently working on a biography of Garrison; Garrison's wife and children; the surviving members of his staff (Lou Ivon, Andrew Sciambra, Jim Alcock, Alvin Oser, Numa Bertell, etc.); some of the key witnesses like Perry Russo and the Clinton witnesses; Ellen Ray and Bill Schaap, publishers of Garrison's book "On the Trail of the Assassins" on which the film JFK was based; Jim DiEugenio, author of "Destiny Betrayed: JFK, Cuba and the Garrison Case"; and William Davy, author of "Let Justice Be Done" about the Shaw case. There are many more who could and should be interviewed for a documentary done in good faith.

I hope that you will reconsider this whole project. I am an admirer of the History Channel. And I know that you will have the good sense to do the right thing.

Sincerely,

Zachary Sklar

cc: Jean Horton Garner