NOVEL CLAIMS AGENCY 'SET UP' MUNITIONS BURGLARY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000600030012-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 29, 1999
• Sequence Number: 12
• Publication Date: April 25, 1967
• Content Type: NSPR

., CPXRGHT
Sanitized - Approved For Release :
-R P75-00149R000600030012-3
(Copyright, 1967, by The New Orleans States-Item, The
,i s-Picayune Publishing Corp. and The Dayton (Ohio)
fly News.)
Do the long tentacles of the Central Intel-
nice Agency reach deep into Dist. Atty. Jim
airison's Kennedy death plot investigation?
There is mounting evidence they do, and at
ast one Garrison probe figure in,ends to u,ne CIA
u~.mections as part of his d,afcnse.
Still others linked to the Garrison investiga-
on have been named as acting for the super
,knot espionage organization -- as informers, as
:!laets and munitions cap-riers.
EVEN THE INVESTIGA'TION'S PIVOTAL
gure, 54-year-old Clay L. Shaw, has had CIA con-
_,,'rions attributed to hint. Shaw, charged with com-
licity in Kennedy's death, was linked with the
IA i,y an influential Itali~in newspaper.
, h) Gordon Novel,
/ / ~~ii~~ll'I'iul~uGiIVIV~IIIIII'~illliVil~l'llllll~allVfJ~fu'illlilll~IBIViII~IiIIIIIII~IIIP111111111411P41~lIIJIIHi8114uI"II "41~~'~~IliGliuu'iJal '~1~~" _
Clays Agency 'Set U~un~ ~ ~ ~ohs ~u~~~Gry
a 29-year-old fugitive witness who is fighting extra-
dition at Columbus, Ohio.
Novel, a one-time New Orleans bar owner and
electronics expert, has told a number of friends
and intimates he was a CIA operative and will use
this role to battle Garrison's charges.
The defense will be laid down, Novel says, if
he is returned to New Orleans to face accusations
This story is the joint effort of States-Item
staff members Hoke May, David Snyder, Ross
Endicott Yockey, and Rosemary times and R. T. E'?ndicott
the Dayton (Ohio) Daily News:
Novel is free in Columbus on $10,000 bond.
He was arrested April 1 in surburban Gahanna,
Ohio, on Garrison's warrant charging he helped
plan the munitions burglary in 1961.
He is accused both of conspiracy and burglary
along with 44-year-old Sergio Arcacha Smith of
Dallas, once the leader of a militant anti-Castro
organization in New Orleans. Garrison charges they
conspired with another key JFK probe figure,
David W Ferrie, to stage the munitions theft.
FEIIRIE WAS A STRAGE, HAIRLESS for-
m.er .?i s?e pmt,: v^; d;cil a; 4ehat the Orleans.
that he burglarized an n_?il service company's muni
tions bunker in nearby Terrebonne Parish.
NOVEL'S ATTORNEY AT NEW ORLEANS,
Steven Plotkin, would not deny his client's reported
statements.
"I will neither confirm nor deny them," Plot."-iii
said.
Associate'&
i Alllancc,
ind5
APRIL 1967
Sanitized - Approved For Release :
CIA-RDP75-00149R000600030012-3
"natural causes" five days
.. ?_.A;_n
was ' as made public.
ai er ` _--'r1-S iu-O,t
The New Orleans DA said Ferrie was "one of his-
tory's most important men."
The charges against Novel and Arcacha are
spinoffs from Garrison's main investigation. The
prosecutor has called Novel "a very important wit-
Second-Uia;s : v+t;r,o ,'r id
at New 01`4 a w, Ca.
Hess" and has filed a material witness warran
against him.
Novel, who has to be one of history's most
loquacious fugitives, has carried on a running long-
distance feud with the man who wants him to do
his talking before a grand jury. He repeatedly has
called Garrison's investigation a "fraud" and a
"fiction."
He has held a number of press conferences and
submitted himself to a series of lie detector, truth
serum and psychological tests to prove he is telling
the truth. A psychologist at Columbus says mental
tests indicate he is.
TO POLYGRAPH OPERATORS AND TO.
friends and associates, Novel has said the munitions
burglary was no burglary at all - but a war ma-
terials pickup made at the direction of his CIA
contact.
(Turn to Page 7, Column 1)
 :. l,ub l : cal ,~,1 1 ift'f Ifi6Fdatse
uri, r its Is ory during a
recert news interview. He immediately was
s:1ushed by his Columbus lawyer, Jerry ~ri~eirtr.:e.
von more -cce.ntly, Novel restated his charge: a a3inst
:;.rrison in a bv!ined story carried by The Dayt':,n Daily
:`:.. s. Crypticai:y, he said, "I think Garrison will exp se
sonic CIA operations in Louisiana." He did not e1abornlte.
r} oft repeated but unpublished account of ho,w) the
PYJR,(. ;:~,Is disappeared describes the bunker he says he
empty as a CIA staging point for munitions destined
used as part of the abortive Bay of Pigs attack on
Cuba in April, 1961.
PRIOR TO THAT DISASTROUS CIA-staged operation,
~:^r a says, he was working for the intelligence service at
\ei. Orleans. Part of his job, he contends, was to operate
i:nc evergreen Advertising Agency as a front for CIA com-
;:lunications.
':'Vith funds fanneled to him by the CIA, Novel says he
prepared special radio commercials used on 300 stations
in the U.S. and Canada. Their cryptographic messages, he'
c laims, were to alert agents to the invasion date. The com-
et rcais advertised aluminum Christmas trees, he says,
and the key alert code names were "Star Christmas Trees"
and "Holiday Trees." In late 1960, $72,000 worth of radio
dine was placed by the agency.
On the day the munitions were picked up, he says, he
.vas called by his CIA contact and told to join a group which
was ordered to transport munitions from the bunker to New
Orleans. The key to the bunker, he says, was provided.
.__...rx'S N MADE THE TRIP in his own automobile,
a .Lineoin, and met several people there - all of them al-.
:credly acting for the CIA. He identifies them as Ferrie,
Arcacha, several Cubans, and another figure in the case.
They loaded the boxes of ordnance on trucks, he con-
nues, and returned to New Orleans where the explosives
wer dropped in three spots - Ferrie's home, Novel's office
auilding and the office of a stormy former FBI agent and
New Orleans police official, Guy Banister, who died of a
heart attack in the summer of 1964.
A friend of Banister's, a man whose word is considered
reliable, told a reporter in New Orleans he saw 50 to 100
boxes of munitions in Banister's Lafayette st. office early
in 1961.
Banister was a private detective then, operating a com-
pany called Guy Banister Associates. His friend said he
saw the munitions in a storeroom-office, in boxes marked
with the name "Schlumberger."
SAYS FIVE OR SIX OF THE BOXES were open.
Inside, he says, were rifle grenades, land mines and some
..%ttic missiles" of a kind he had never seen before.
".one friend said he remonstrated with Banister because
fochng with this kind of stuff could get you in trouble."
He added:
" ,an ister said no, it was all right, that he had approval
from so...ebody. He said the stuff would just be there over-
night, that somebody was supposed to pick it up. He said
a bunch of fellows connected with the Cuban deal asked to
leave it there overnight."
-Banister's friend said this happened well before the
April Bay of Pigs invasion.
The munitions, Novel says, were picked up and con-
solidated soon after the New Orleans drops. He says they
eventually were taken by boat to Cuba for use in a diver-
sionary operation staged in conjunction with the Bay of
Pigs attack.
Cuban sources in New Orleans say the cadre of Cubans
trained by the CIA on the city's West Bank in 1961 was
sent to Varacoa to make a diversionary assault. The at-
tack did not come off because Castro militia was waiting
and took the group prisoner.
NOVEL'S ACCOUNT OF THE explosives caper sharply
con licts with Garrison's charges against Arcacha and
Novel. The DA's accusation says the burglary took place
ai';cr Aug. 1, 1961-three months after the Cuban disaster.
The DA accuses the two men of conspiring to burglarize
a bunker at an abandoned military base at Houma. Gar-
rison's bill of information says the bunker was leased by
the Schlumberger Well Services Co. of Houston.
Schlumberger officials say they know nothing of any
CIA operations in connection with their magazine, where
oil field service equipment and certain low yield explosives
are stored.
As to the date the Houma burglary happened. no one
seems to know or will say exactly when it took place.
Schlurnberner says it has no records. The Houma police say
their records are missing, and the Terrebonne Parish DA,
'dllit:oi'~ Broussa :i, will not reveal the date he charges
Arcs.a rnd Nove burglarized the Houma bunker. 1:ie said
i is "material evidence" in his case.
:Mart. Hc was with the organization for 19 ears and in a
4"DR76-00"4 6O N? 00.12rrational
commerce through America's second-ranking seaport.
On March 4, Paese Sera, an afternoon newspaper in
Rome, carried a story which said Shaw is a director of a
.Firm known as World Trade Center Corp. The newspaper,
which is leftist in its political leanings, claimed the corn.
pany was a CIA front operation.
It said the company moved its operations from Switzer.
1a7nd to Rome and has since transferred its offices to Johan-
nesburg, South Africa, where it is still in existence.
THE SAME STORY, MINUS THE CIA allegation, was
published in Rome's conservative newspaper; De La Sera,
on March 5.
Incidental to his own story, Novel tells intimates the
CIA may have asked Shaw to observe the traffic of foreign
commerce through New Orleans.
In Ohio, Novel continues to live his free, loquacious life
while waiting for the uncertain extradition machinery to
grind away between governors' offices at Baton Rouge and
Columbus.
He lives in a rent free apartment, drives a used car
with dealer's tags and continues to promise he will send
"Garrison down the drain" when what he says is the full
truth is revealed.
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