By

Joan Mellen

Part 4:

OTTO OTEPKA STUDIES THE HOFFA CONVICTION

With time on his hands, still working for the Department of State, but bereft of responsibility, Otepka began to examine Walter Sheridan's methods in his effort to convict Jimmy Hoffa. Otepka made no judgment on the guilt or innocence of Hoffa himself. He was interested only in the means by which the Hoffa conviction was obtained. In a 1968 “Memorandum,” Otepka writes that “it became generally known throughout the government intelligence community in Washington that the free-wheeling Sheridan had FBI agents perform electronic surveillance operations for the ostensible purpose of gathering evidence on which to prosecute Teamster Union President James Hoffa.” Otepka's tone is measured, like the man himself.

George Bush's persistent surveillance of American citizens, unimpeded either by court-issued warrants or probable cause, locates an antecedent in Sheridan's relentless and entirely illegal wire-tapping. So Otepka noted that “government intruders intercepted conversations of American citizens in no way connected with Hoffa, nor in any way related to national security, and compiled dossiers for future reference.” His words are eerily prescient: it was Bobby Kennedy and Walter Sheridan who provided a major precedent for George W. Bush's assault on the U.S. Constitution. Despite the horrific price that Bobby Kennedy paid, it is for this reason that his unsavory activities need to be examined, and rejected.

Lauded as the historian of historians, Arthur Schlesinger went on to lie for Sheridan and Robert Kennedy, providing another misguided precedent: the embedding of the press and authors in official politics. “In the entire investigation in connection with the Hoffa cases,” Schlesinger would write, “there has not been one instance of wiretapping or bugging of Hoffa.” Schlesinger had to have known that the truth was otherwise. Readers might consult the three-part series on the Hoffa trial by Fred Cook published in “The Nation” magazine.

Each night during the Hoffa trial, Justice Department lawyers, under Sheridan's direction, would play tapes of conversations between Hoffa and his attorneys. These tapes were obtained by the illegal bugging of Hoffa's hotel suite at the Patton Hotel; they were utilized by the prosecution to determine what questions to ask in court the next day.

Later Sheridan, a consummate liar, claimed he “didn't know of any wire tapping or bugging in the Hoffa case,” only for a retired police detective named Herman A. Frazier, to trap him. Only through a wire tap could Sheridan have known about a fake name, “Armentrout.” When Sheridan asked Frazier about “Armentrout,” it at once became apparent that Sheridan had listened to a wiretap. The truth had reared its inevitable head. Conservative publisher William Loeb of the Manchester “Union-Leader” swore out an affidavit that Cartha DeLoach, third in command at the FBI, revealed to him that Walter Sheridan had headed Bobby Kennedy's “wiretapping unit,” that Robert Kennedy had also instructed the IRS to tap wires. Furious, DeLoach denied that he had told Loeb about the wire taps, but the cat was out of the bag.

Otepka perused a 1964 “Life” magazine article written, he discovered, with Walter Sheridan's cooperation. It describes the chief witness against Hoffa, Edward Grady Partin, who had been paid, illegally, by Sheridan, as “a high-minded man having been involved only in some inconsequential brushes with the law, but now working on the side of justice and law and order.” Partin was in jail “because of minor domestic difficulties,” “Life” wrote of the man who had committed crimes ranging from first degree manslaughter, rape, and kidnapping to assault and battery and forgery.

For Partin, perjury was a misdemeanor. Partin was a more vicious criminal than Hoffa ever dreamed of being. In New Orleans, Partin had been represented for a time by a lawyer named Lou Merhige. When they parted company, Partin owed Merhige ten thousand dollars.

“You won't sue me and I won't have you killed,” Partin told Merhige as they murmured their final goodbyes.

Otepka noted that on the witness stand during the Hoffa trial, Sheridan swore under oath that he knew of no payments of money to Partin, an outright lie. Sheridan denied that he had authorized payments for Partin's services as a federal undercover agent, which would have been against the law. When Partin, not easily controllable, admitted that he was, indeed, paid, then added, “They still owe me!” Sheridan passed the responsibility onto his own assistant, former FBI agent Frank Grimsley.

Then Grimsley, obviously less comfortable with perjury than Sheridan, admitted that the plan to pay Partin originated with Sheridan himself. The government had no choice but to produce a Justice Department memorandum, dated July 3, 1963, signed by Sheridan and requesting that a check be made out to A. Frank Grimsley, Jr. Grimsley was to “give this money to a confidential source,” it read. After the Hoffa trial, in gratitude, Bobby Kennedy sent Partin a “Lotus Ford” racing car, which Partin had requested as the gift he would most appreciate.

There were others connected to Bobby Kennedy's obsessive “get Hoffa” campaign who would testify to Sheridan's obstruction of justice, people Sheridan was unable to silence. Frederick Michael Shobe testified that Sheridan had hired him to harass and embarrass Hoffa and the Teamsters Union. Shobe revealed that he was paid in cash, sometimes directly by Sheridan. He was able to produce Sheridan's unlisted home number in Bethesda, Maryland. Shobe had served time for burglary, forgery and armed robbery, rendering him vulnerable to blackmail. Yet he told the truth.

Sheridan had threatened him, Shobe testified. Sheridan had reminded Shobe that he associated with questionable people, violating his parole. Instead of returning to prison, Sheridan promised, Shobe should join Sheridan's special investigative squad. Sheridan dangled a presidential pardon and a federal job before Shobe.

Sheridan was to enlist the identical technique in his attempts to bribe Jim Garrison's witnesses, Perry Raymond Russo and Marlene Mancuso. Both were offered jobs in California, cash payments and a new life, should they help him to denounce Garrison and ruin his investigation. Jim Garrison would “go down” and she would “go down with him,” Sheridan threatened Mancuso should she not comply.

When Shobe discovered that the job Sheridan was offering him was in Japan, he balked. Shobe went on to testify for the defense.

Hoffa's lawyer asked Shobe whether Sheridan had made it plain to him that his plan was to “get Hoffa.” Shobe said that it was. Sheridan had told Shobe that Hoffa should be in jail anyway, “and that…if we have to resort to unfair tactics, well, that's where a person like myself came in at…to get him by any means, fair or foul.”

Did Sheridan say this to him directly?

“That is correct,” Shobe said.

Shobe also revealed that Sheridan had attempted to intimidate a Hoffa co-defendant named Thomas E. Parks, a funeral home employee. Sheridan's goal was to force Parks to testify against Hoffa. Unless Parks agreed, Sheridan said, he would be implicated in a bribery attempt. In another Sheridan-inspired scam, worthy of his later antics in New Orleans, a fake arrest of Parks would be orchestrated. Parks would be taken into some woods. His abductors would be identified as Hoffa's strongmen. They would dig a hole…then Parks would be rescued at the penultimate moment.

Shobe gave this testimony to the judge out of the hearing of the jury. He testified that he knew that the penalty for kidnapping in Tennessee was death. The prosecution did not even bother to challenge Shobe's testimony. It was Sheridan's modus operandi, the use of bribery, blackmail, and the intimidation of witnesses. After the Otepka case, and the Hoffa case, not to mention Sheridan's obstruction of justice in New Orleans – for none of which he suffered any punishment, Sheridan was so impeachable that it is inconceivable that Robert Kennedy, even as President, would have dared set this character loose to lead an investigation into his beloved brother's death.

BOBBY KENNEDY, WIRE TAPPER EXTRAORDINAIRE

After the death of his brother, Robert Kennedy persistently lied about his encouragement of unauthorized and illegal wire tapping. A telling set of documents exposing Bobby's attempt to conceal his knowledge about and sanction of illegal wire taps resides at the LBJ library in Austin, Texas. The file opens with a 1964 letter from J. Edgar Hoover to Bill Moyers, working then for Lyndon Johnson.

A deputy attorney general had requested a name check and an Internal Revenue Service check “concerning Walter James Sheridan,” who needed to be cleared for re-employment as “confidential assistant” to Robert Kennedy, Hoover writes. He notes that on November 13, 1964, the House Judiciary Committee had approved a resolution inquiring into the Justice Department's handling of “individual rights and liberties as guaranteed by the Constitution.” The Otepka case hovers just below the surface of this sentence, along with the knowledge that it was Walter Sheridan who, in masterminding the surveillance of Otepka, had violated his rights.

Courtney A. Evans, an assistant FBI director, had been responsible for handling “liaison with the office of the Attorney General.” Evans had established a “close relationship” with Robert Kennedy, with whom he met repeatedly to discuss “the use of microphones [wire tapping] by the FBI” and “microphone surveillances in criminal-type as well as security-type investigations.” Evans presented Kennedy with written information about wire taps, meeting with Kennedy's “enthusiastic approval,” Evans recounted. The rights of citizens under the law was of small moment as the FBI and Robert Kennedy pooled their knowledge of the latest technology in illegal wire taps. Robert Kennedy was elected to the U.S. Senate from New York in November 1964.

By December 24, 1965, Courtney Evans had retired from the Bureau and joined the law firm of a Kennedy acolyte, Herbert J. Miller, Jr. Miller would serve as Walter Sheridan's lawyer on more than one occasion. It was Herbert J. Miller, Jr. who extracted Walter Sheridan when he was indicted in Orleans Parish by Jim Garrison for petty bribery and intimidation of witnesses.

Walter Sheridan died in 1995. During the period of the ARRB, the National Archives sought to obtain Sheridan's papers as Kennedy assassination records. The papers had been deposited at the Kennedy Library. Herbert J. Miller, Jr. then stepped in, seized Sheridan's records from the Kennedy library, and removed them to the bosom of the Sheridan family, far from the prying eyes of historians. Miller's taped interview with Jeremy Gunn of the ARRB is a masterpiece of obfuscation. On the subject of his deceased client Sheridan, and his behavior in New Orleans, Miller refused to answer a single question for the historical record.

One day Courtney Evans, at Bureau headquarters, shared with two fellow FBI officers details of the contacts he had with Robert Kennedy. He had furnished written information to Kennedy “and other Justice Department officials” who had served under Kennedy, Evans revealed. The subject of the discussion was the FBI's use of microphone surveillances.

Then something odd occurred. After this meeting, Courtney Evans furnished Robert Kennedy with a letter denying that the two ever had any discussions about wire taps. Evans also lied and denied he had ever provided Bobby with written material about the FBI's use of microphone wire taps.

Confident that Evans' lying letter would protect him, defending himself in the press against persistent charges that he had sanctioned wire taps, Robert Kennedy denied he knew anything about the FBI's use of surveillance microphones. To demonstrate his veracity, Bobby released to the press the fraudulent letter that Evans had obligingly written for him. The letter is dated February 17, 1966. In it, Evans states, falsely, that he “did not discuss the use of microphones by the FBI with Robert Kennedy during his tenure as Attorney General.” Evans also denies he knew of any written material that was sent to Robert Kennedy “at any time” concerning microphone surveillances.

Yet, as if Bobby sensed that the letter would not be enough, and that this fraud would backfire, he sent Herbert J. Miller, Jr. to testify before the Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights of the Senate Judiciary Committee. There Miller argued that wire taps should be permitted, that legislation should be passed to authorize “limited and controlled interception and disclosure of telephone conversations.” Miller went on to request that the FBI monitor and tape record a meeting between three people, one a former lieutenant governor of Nevada. The FBI denied the request. The devious political games Attorney General Kennedy played continued in the years that he was Senator Kennedy.

Kennedy had surrounded himself with loyalists and people who would lie for him. But in J. Edgar Hoover he had a tireless enemy; historians must acknowledge that the truth may emerge from unsavory sources who reveal facts for motives of their own. On September 26, 1966, Hoover wrote to Lyndon Johnson's Special Assistant, Marvin Watson, that the FBI had written evidence not only of Robert Kennedy's authorization, but of his “insistence on the usage of microphones as an investigative technique.” It was one more example of the contradictory policies pursued by the Kennedys. Kennedy lobbied for greater and extensive use of wire taps, even as he denied being knowledgeable on the subject, just as John F. Kennedy pursued sabotage against Cuba at the same time as his emissary William Attwood pursued rapprochement with Fidel Castro.

On December 11, 1966, the FBI released to the press two memoranda which had been personally prepared by Courtney Evans in 1961 for then-Attorney General Robert Kennedy on the subject of wire taps. Bobby at once ceased to speak to Courtney Evans, as if Evans were the one who had betrayed him. Assigned to damage control, Herbert J. Miller, Jr. dashed off a letter to Judiciary Committee chairman Sam Ervin. He doubted, Miller wrote, that anyone in the Justice Department knew about the FBI surveillances. “I did not know and I wager that the Attorney General did not know there was trespass,” Miller says. The ambiguous word, “wager,” tells it all. Herbert J. Miller, Jr. was nothing if not clever.

As for Bobby Kennedy's motive in spearheading his destruction, Otto Otepka has never gone beyond the statement that he believes that Bobby was involved in keeping Oswald's activities secret. After the murder of his brother, Bobby had demanded of Frank Mankiewicz, “Do you think any of our people were involved?” Taken by surprise, Mankiewicz had thought, he told me, do you think there might have been? Bobby was well aware of Oswald and may well have had Oswald in mind as one of “our people.”

In 1963, Bobby Kennedy said: “If the American people knew the truth about Dallas, there would be blood in the streets.” The statement made no sense. It was as preposterous coming from the brother of the slain President as it was issuing from Lyndon Johnson, who enlisted similar words to persuade a reluctant Earl Warren to head his Presidential Commission.

In the last year of his life, campaigning for the Presidency, Bobby said more than once that he believed the Warren Commission was correct in its conclusion that Oswald had acted alone in the murder of his brother. It is apparent now that he knew otherwise. It may well be that in private, accountable to no one, Bobby had suggested to bewildered friends that once he was President he would conduct a thorough investigation of his brother's death. Later, he might discover reasons why reopening the issue was not such a good idea after all.

One reality has come to light: Bobby knew about Oswald in advance of his brother's assassination, and knew far more about Oswald than he was ever to admit. When Jim Garrison zeroed in on David Ferrie and Ferrie's relationship with Oswald, Bobby made certain that Garrison's investigation would fail.

After Robert Kennedy's death, the Kennedy family continued to obstruct any investigation into the death of the President. Jim Garrison went into federal court to gain access to X-Rays and autopsy photographs for the Clay Shaw trial. Garrison's assistant, Numa Bertel, prevailed. The Justice Department lawyer opposing the release of the documents was asked whether he planned to appeal. He had to consult the Kennedy family before he could make a decision, the lawyer said. The answer came back from the Kennedys. He was to do everything in his power to ensure that these records not be made available to Garrison. Yes, he would appeal, the lawyer said. Time ran out and the point became moot.

In 1968, Richard Nixon appointed Otto Otepka, still a government employee, to a Subversive Activities Control Board, not a very active body. It was obviously an attempt to offer Otepka active employment. Confirmation did not come easily. Falsely, Otepka was labeled a Birchite, because some Birchites supported his cause. He was also labeled an anti-Semite. Otepka was neither of these. Leading the attack against Otepka's confirmation in committee was a fierce Edward M. Kennedy, fighting like a tiger to consign Bobby's old adversary to oblivion. Kennedy lost. The full Senate approved Otepka's confirmation, 67-21.

And so it should not be surprising that Edward Kennedy would offer a flamboyant eulogy at Walter Sheridan's 1995 funeral. Kennedy terms Sheridan an “extraordinary human being” with “a heart as large as his ability, and his courage and dedication to justice.” It was not the finest of Kennedy hours. The most telling line in Teddy's eulogy is this one: “When Walter surfaced with his catch, all the networks and reporters were there, ready to record it at our hearings.” Manipulation of the press was the least of Sheridan's skullduggery.

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