The story Leander D’Avy told investigators for Jim Garrison and the HSCA is one of the least believable tales in JFK assassination literature. Predictably, John Armstrong chose to use it in his 2003 book Harvey and Lee as an example of a sighting of “Lee”. The fact is, he must use stories like this because “Lee” must turn up in places where “Harvey” isn’t to make his two Oswald theory plausible.
Fortunately for Armstrong, after any publicized event such as the assassination, eyewitnesses will come forward and swear they have seen people in places where it was impossible for them to have been for various reasons (see John McAdams, Assassination Logic, p. 42-43). Let’s look at Armstrong’s assertions regarding D’Avy starting with pages 401-402 of Harvey and Lee:
Leander D’Avy was the doorman at the Court of Two Sisters and had worked there for two years after retiring from 20 years service in the US Air Force. In June 1962 a young man walked in and asked D’Avy if Clay Bertrand worked at the restaurant (Clay Bertrand was an alias used by New Orleans businessman Clay Shaw). The night manager, Gene Davis, overheard the conversation and told D’Avy that he wanted to talk to the young man.
After the young man left D’Avy overheard Gene Davis tell a waitress that the young man had been behind the Iron Curtain. D’Avy remembered the young man resided in the apartment/storeroom over the restaurant on two occasions-in July 1962 and again in November 1963 (on both occasions Harvey Oswald was living in Dallas). D ‘Avy described the young man as light complexioned with a scar over one eye, about 5’9,” in his mid-twenties, well built, and wore yellow pants. After the assassination D’Avy saw photographs of Lee Harvey Oswald in the newspaper and was positive he was the same man that he saw at the restaurant. But the man accused of assassinating the President, Harvey Oswald, was living with his family and working in Dallas in the summer of 1962. The man who D’Avy saw was Lee Oswald.
NOTE: Eugene Claire Davis, aka Gene Davis, worked at the Court of Two Sisters Restaurant for 12 years and in 1962-63 was the night manager. Davis was an active FBI informant who had reported to the Bureau since 1960. He was given FBI informant number “NO 1189-C” on October 11, 1961.
Lee Oswald was the young man seen by D ‘Avy wearing yellow pants. Following the assassination there were no yellow pants found by the Dallas Police among Harvey Oswald’s possessions.
One evening D’Avy visited the Show Bar and noticed Lee Oswald sitting at one of the tables. He also looked across the room and saw Jim Ivey (“Tiger Jim”) talking to Clay Bertrand (Clay Shaw). Ivey, a former professional boxer who worked at the El Morocco Bar in the French Quarter, confronted D’Avy and began punching him. A Cuban refugee named “Pepe” intervened and asked Ivey what had happened. Ivey replied, “He (D’Avy ) knows about us.” Ivey was concerned that D’Avy had overheard a conversation between himself and his CIA contact, Clay Bertrand (Clay Shaw). The significance of Leander D’avy’s testimony is that it places Lee Oswald in New Orleans in the summer of 1962 while Harvey Oswald was in Fort Worth.
On another occasion, when D’Avy was working as doorman at the Court of Two Sisters, a car from Texas carrying several passengers stopped at the loading zone in front of the restaurant. When D’Avy asked the driver of the car to move, a man, whom D’Avy later recognized as Jack Ruby, reached his arm out the window of the car and slapped him. A woman in the car said rather loudly, “Jack, what did you do that for?”
On page 730, Armstrong again mentions the D’Avy story:
On a Saturday morning in late October or early November the doorman at the Court of Two Sisters Restaurant, Leander D’Avy, was looking for his boss, Gene Davis, to collect his paycheck. One of the waiters told D’Avy that Davis was in the storeroom above the restaurant. When D’ Avy entered the storeroom he was surprised to learn that it had been converted into an apartment with tables, chairs, a bed, and a kitchenette. He asked Gene Davis for his paycheck and noticed that Lee Oswald, David Ferrie, and four unidentified men were nearby.
Both D’ Avy and Davis had met Lee Oswald in June 1962 at the Court of Two Sisters Restaurant after Oswald visited the bar and asked for Clay Bertrand. After D’Avy collected his paycheck from Davis, he left and returned to the restaurant.
NOTE: Gene Davis had been an active FBI informant since October 11, 1961. This means that an FBI informant was aware of Lee Oswald prior to the assassination.
We will revisit the Armstrong allegations per D’Avy, but first it is important to study the evolution of D’Avy’s story over the years to judge the believability of his assertions. D’Avy called New Orleans Assistant District Attorney Andrew Sciambra, with whom he was acquainted, in August of 1967. D’Avy told Sciambra, who was working with Jim Garrison in his re-investigation of the JFK case, that the man he had seen “looked very much like Lee Harvey Oswald.” He also stated “since he saw a picture of Oswald he has been trying to place the face.” D’Avy almost certainly saw Oswald’s photo when everyone else in America first did – immediately after the assassination. I have to assume that not only did D’Avy not believe his information was important enough to report to authorities in 1963, it also took him nearly four years to “place the face” to Oswald. So D’Avy’s initial description of “Oswald” is far from a rock-solid identification.
D’Avy next spoke to Sciambra in November of 1967, and it seems in the ensuing months, his memory had somehow improved. He now said the man in the yellow pants was “identical” to Oswald. He provided new details about Shaw as well, stating that Shaw was at a gay hangout called the Court of Two Sisters Restaurant several times and spoke to Gene Davis on at least some of these occasions. D’Avy also added Attorney Dean Andrews, a key player in the Garrison saga, to the mix, although he would not tie Andrews to any of the others in his tale. He added several colorful characters to his story including a Texas millionaire who looked like Alan Ludden of “Password” fame. Finally, D’Avy added the detail about “the iron curtain” to this version of his assertions.
In December of 1967, Sciambra interviewed D’Avy at his home where he added the curious detail that “Clay Bertrand” had worked at the Court of Two Sisters. It is, of course, beyond belief that a prominent individual such as Shaw, who ran the International Trade Mart in New Orleans, would be working part time at a restaurant. Sciambra also showed D’Avy photographs of suspects in Garrison’s investigation including David Ferrie, Sergio Arcacha Smith and Loren Hall. Although he identified Smith, D’Avy said only that Ferrie “looks familiar but he cannot place him exactly as to time and place.”
As we have seen, the story D’Avy told Sciambra gradually expanded to include more characters and detail and although the Garrison probe ended with the acquittal of Clay Shaw in 1969, D’Avy wasn’t finished spinning his yarn. In 1977, D’Avy was interviewed by HSCA Staff Counsel Belford Lawson and investigator Jack Moriarty but now expanded his story to include new allegations. D’Avy said that in November, 1963, he went to the Court of Two Sisters to find Gene Davis to pick up his paycheck and was told by a waiter that Davis was in an upstairs storeroom. D’Avy entered the storeroom, which had been converted to an apartment complete with a bed, table and chairs and a kitchenette. There, he claimed to have seen a total of eight men:
· Lee Harvey Oswald, who was lying on the bed.
· David Ferrie, who D’Avy could not identify “exactly as to time and place” ten years before.
· A Cuban known to be an acquaintance of Ferrie.
· Gene Davis.
· An unidentified man in the back of the room.
· And most notably, the Three Tramps of conspiracy fame, one of whom had whiskers and sported a sailor suit complete with khaki pants.
What did the HSCA investigator’s think of D’Avy’s story? Lawson wrote:
The potentially crucial significance of the information disclosed makes investigation of the witness’s leads virtually compulsory.
But under a section titled “Evaluation of the Witness’ Credibility” Lawson stated:
The witness’s frequent contradictions raise serious questions about his credibility. For example, the witness changed the number of persons present at the storeroom meeting, changed from saying that he was paid by check to saying that he was paid in cash, changed from saying (a) that after testifying for Garrison he moved from New Orleans to Jackson to saying (b) that he moved to a different part of Jackson, and even changed the date of the storeroom meeting from November ’63 to summer ’62, then to summer ’63.
So, it seems that the HSCA investigators didn’t find D’Avy’s story very believable at all. However, they felt they had to pursue it, just as the FBI chased down dozens of leads following the assassination that proved to be dead ends.
Leander D’Avy’s story is clearly not believable for many reasons. But what motive would D’Avy have for telling such a yarn? A careful reading of his statements reveals the possibility of bad blood between D’Avy and Davis. D’Avy did not come forward with his story until August, 1967 and then only after reading in the media that his boss Gene Davis was “involved” in the assassination. In his November, 1967 account to Sciambra, D’Avy said that Davis and several other men including the club owner’s son “formed a little clique”, a fact which he apparently was not happy about. D’Avy also gave Sciambra a photograph of a friend of Davis’ who had gotten very drunk one night. Since D’Avy knew Garrison was investigating Davis, it is reasonable to assume that he didn’t think the photo would help Davis’ cause. Similarly, in his December, 1967 interview, D’Avy mentions Clay Shaw, Sergio Arcacha Smith and Oswald, all of whom were subjects of Garrison’s investigation, as individuals he saw talking to Davis. Finally, when referring to the “iron curtain” allegation D’Avy stated he would “confront Gene Davis and prove what (I am) saying is true.”
Having looked at D’Avy’s story and possible motives in detail, let’s revisit John Armstrong’s assertions regarding D’Avy:
Clay Bertrand was an alias used by New Orleans businessman Clay Shaw.
Armstrong makes this statement as if it were a fact. Actually, Shaw denied using the alias and it has never been proven that he did. For a complete discussion, see: http://www.jfk-online.com/cbrumors.html
After the assassination D’Avy saw photographs of Lee Harvey Oswald in the newspaper and was positive he was the same man that he saw at the restaurant.
As mentioned previously, D’Avy was less certain that he had seen Oswald in his initial statement. D’Avy’s story of seeing no less than eleven assassination related figures also compromises his credibility. Armstrong neglects to mention D’Avy’s original statement and many of his more colorful recollections.
… the man accused of assassinating the President, Harvey Oswald, was living with his family and working in Dallas in the summer of 1962. The man who D’Avy saw was Lee Oswald.
This is a logical fallacy that Armstrong makes throughout his book-a person sees someone or something and therefore his two Oswald theory is proven. It apparently never occurred to him that in some cases people honestly believe they have seen someone who they did not. In other cases, for various reasons, they simply lie.
Gene Davis had been an active FBI informant since October 11, 1961. This means that an FBI informant was aware of Lee Oswald prior to the assassination.
Gene Davis apparently was an FBI informant. In the real world, people such as Davis, who was the manager at a restaurant with an interesting clientele, are paid to provide the FBI with useful information. In Armstrong’s world, anyone associated with the FBI or CIA is someone to be mistrusted and who has ulterior motives. If Gene Davis had been aware of “Lee”, that would be news, but since the only evidence of this is Armstrong’s interpretation of D’Avy’s shaky assertions, it is safe to say it didn’t happen.
Lee Oswald was the young man seen by D’Avy wearing yellow pants. Following the assassination there were no yellow pants found by the Dallas Police among Harvey Oswald’s possessions.
Another Armstrong fallacy-there were no yellow pants found at “Harvey’s” so this proves that there were two Oswalds and that “Lee” owned the pants.
Ivey was concerned that D’Avy had overheard a conversation between himself and his CIA contact, Clay Bertrand (Clay Shaw).
Of course, there is no definitive proof that Shaw worked for the CIA or was Ivey’s contact and the source Armstrong gives (Lawson HSCA Memo) provides none.
He (D’Avy) asked Gene Davis for his paycheck and noticed that Lee Oswald, David Ferrie, and four unidentified men were nearby.
In this case, Armstrong has misrepresented what D’Avy said to make his point. The source he cites is the same July 8, 1977 HSCA memo written by Belford Lawson that I have used for this article. Lawson clearly states that D’Avy saw eight men and only characterized one man as “unidentified”. Armstrong has conveniently added the Three Tramps to the list of those men who were unidentified and hoped that the reader would not bother to check the source, which necessitates using the CD he provides with the book.
In conclusion, John Armstrong uses the story of Leander D’Avy as proof of a sighting of “Lee”. Armstrong employs a “hit and run” technique with D’Avy as he does throughout his book. That is, he makes an assertion that is either unsupported by the evidence, a complete misrepresentation or something “cherry picked” from witness testimony and then moves on to the next assertion. This methodology, which is illustrated very well by his treatment of D’Avy, should be of great concern to Armstrong’s adherents.
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