Cuban Refugees Called Key to JFK Death Probe

New York Times Service NEW ORLEANS The death last week of former airliner pilot David William Ferrie left Orleans Parish District Attorney Jim Garrison, who says he has detected a "conspiracy" culminating in the assassination of President Kennedy, with an investigation centered almost almost entirely Cuban refugees.

on

This was learned here from a source within Garrison's office and is bol-

stered by what is known publicly about the "witnesses" Garrison and his staff are seeking.

THE DISTRICT attorney's investigators are combing Cuban refugee communities in the United States. especially in Miami. They are searching for persons who can shed light on what Garrison thinks was a plot to kill Premier Fidel Castro of Cuba that turned into a plot to assassinate President Kennedy.

Garrison was sharply attacked yesterday by Carlos Bringuier, a leader among anti-Castro Cubans in New Orleans who once engaged in a radio debate with Lee Harvey Oswald.

The Warren Commission has said Oswald killed President Kennedy alone, without being a part of any plot.

BRINGUIER SAID the district attorney has "hurt all of the Cuban community."

ture with a man Garrison's investigators believe to be a Cuban.

The fact that Oswald was distributing pro-Castro, rather than anti-Castro, literature has not dissuaded Garrison from his theory that Oswald was part of an anti-Castro plot.

THE FEDERAL Bureau and the of Investigation and Warren Commission found television film at station WDSU in New Orleans showing Oswald distributing proCastro leaflets with two men. One of the men was

Many of Garrison's "clues" appear to be old ones. They were developed identified by the bureau as by the Warren Commission and the FBI and later rejected by them on grounds that they were either false clues or were unsupported by evidence.

One of the "clues" is the alleged anti-Castro sentiment of Ferrie, 48, who was found dead in bed soon after protesting Garrison's investigation. Garrison believes there was a link between him, Oswald and anti-Castro Cubans.

ANOTHER IS testimony taken by the Warren Commission from Dean Andrews, a New Orleans attorney who said, then denied, and then said again that Oswald and several Latin American homosexuals had once been sent to his office by a shadowy figure named "Clay Bertrand."

A third is a photograph from Warren Commission files showing Oswald distributing pro-Castro litera-

Charles Steele of New Orleans who said that Oswald had hired him at an employment office for $2.

The other man, the one Garrison assumes was a Cuban, was never identified by the bureau, according to Wesley J. Liebeler, an attorney who helped direct the Warren Commission's

investigation in New Or-

leans.

Garrison also has been unable to locate the man, it was learned, although-according to sources close to the Miami police department-he thinks he knows his name "Manuel Garcia Gonzales."

IN ADDITION to the photographs, Garrison is also intrigued by the ramb-

ling testimony of Andrews, who now works part time as an assistant district attorney in Jefferson Parish, which borders New Orleans.

After President Kennedy was assassinated, Andrews testified, "Clay Bertrand" called at a hospital where Andrews was "under medication" and asked him to rush to Dallas to assist Oswald in an attempt to get the Defense Department to change his dishonorable discharge to an honorable discharge.

Under cross examination by Liebeler, Andrews admitted telling the FBI that "Clay Bertrand" was a figment of imagination.'

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LIEBELER SAID an intensive search by the FBI failed to show any evidence of the existence of a Clay Bertrand.

Yesterday. Andrews said he had not talked to Garrison because such talk might be dangerous, but added that he feels he is being "tailed" (under surveillance).

Garrison's investiga-

tors found it "interesting" that Andrews said Oswald, when he originally visited him at his office, had been accompanied by "gay.. Mexicanos." They think that they might have been Cubans, and note that Ferrie was once charged: but never prosecuted for alleged homosexual involvement with juveniles.

LIEBELIER SAYS the Warren Commission produced no evidence that would point in any way to

a plot among anti-Castro Cubans to kill President Kennedy. He also added that a lenghthy FBI probe convicted the commission staff that Ferrie was not linked to Oswald or to any plot.

Garrison called Ferrie's death an apparent suicide, and said he had planned to arrest the former pilot "next week."

However, Orleans Parish Coroner Nicholas Chetta said Ferrie died of a brain hemorrhage, possibly brought on by stress.