Transcript of Interview with [EXCERPT] Judge Jim Garrison by Patricia Toole February 18, 1986 New Orleans, Louisiana JUDGE GARRISON: When I saw "Russian examination" and then found out that this was shortly before he received an honorable discharge (not a dishonorable discharge) and within a few weeks he's on his way to Russia, this sounds more like intelligence to me. The next morning I noticed that he had handed out leaflets on which he had printed with a little rubber stamp, "544 Camp." I went down to 544 Camp Street and a little old Union building of false granite and I said well this is the side entrance to the offices of Guy Banister. He used to be in charge of the Chicago Office of the F.B.I., was in Naval Intelligence during the war. He was a fanatic anti-communist. I said Oswald can't be a genuine communist if this is where he was operating from. So then I thought that if he was operating from out of here then Banister had some kind of anti-communist government operation, they would have removed that address immediately. So I checked that and sure enough the second time he was giving something out, the address had been removed. I started off lucky in the sense that from the outset I was on, considering the point of a compass has 360 degrees, I happened to be probably the one critic who started off on exactly the right compass. In other words, all the other deceptions, the "golden apples", as a friend of mine, one critic, called them, to catch your attention -- the mob, Castro, and the oil millionaires of....... MS. TOOLE: I have one book, called THE GARRISON CASE. I'm not sure who wrote it. JUDGE GARRISON: Milton Brenner. It was a surprising venomous book...I had heard about it. I made him an Assistant District Attorney. He was an Assistant D.A. About a year out of my office and he seemed to feel that it was inconceivable that the federal government would do anything like that so he wrote a book attacking me which I never bothered to read. MS. TOOLE So that one is not favorable towards you? JUDGE GARRISON: No. Neither is PLOT OR POLITICS by Rosemary James and if there was some political advantage in fighting the government. I could have been governor if I had wanted when McKeithen ran. My recognition was exactly the same percentage as his in the State. But I liked being D.A. so I chose to support McKeithen. And not to run. But she somehow got the idea that I was in this investigation for political advancement. Frankly, I assumed I'd be killed because I knew I was right. And I had everything to lose and nothing to gain. Here's a book saying politics. The other books such as Anthony Summers which I despise so much but I keep it because they're raisins in it. When the C.I.A. writes a book, basically to say the mob did it, they give things away, material that you don't already have sometimes. They put raisins in it to make you eat the cookie. So I find it very useful for reference. What makes me so mad is that it's full of lies......And there's a new C.I.A. book, REASONABLE DOUBT and Henry Hurt has about thirty pages working me over and attacking....I don't know why anyone would be attacked at all for being the only public official in the country who tried to do something about it to begin with. But that doesn't matter. Their point is discreditation. They wanted to get the message across -- don't believe what Garrison's been telling you about the C.I.A. We're telling you he's wrong. He's involved with the mob. And this one also by Summers said that I was involved with the mob and I had a secret meeting with Joe Tosselli at a Las Vegas hotel that he had. Can you imagine me meeting with Joe Rosselli - your remember the guy that was killed with a bullet in his stomach and his legs cut off - and put in a barrel and dropped in the Bay off Florida?