CHAPTER 10

THE $1,000 A DAY BLABBERMOUTHING SLEUTH

The formula Donahue came up with was radically different than all the innumerable zany theories supposed to explain the assassination of the President. That it was so original gave it enormous publisher appeal. Especially because of the time in which the book would be published: the coming twenty-fifth anniversary of the assassination. It was certain to attract great attention.

Publishers are in business to make money, as are most people in most in businesses. If a publishing enterprise does not make money it does not survive. Making money is as essential in publishing as it is in any kind of business or professional activity. There is a difference in publishing as a business, however, the publishing industry enjoys special protections that were properly regarded, when this country was founded, as being essential to freedom. People being informed would make this new system work. If it was to work as intended, as designed, the people had to be kept informed so they could decide what they were for and what they were not for. They could then make their desires known. Unless they were informed they could not really understand the issues on which they were called to decide. This remains true, as it remains true that people must be informed for the system to work, if it is to work, publishing still requires those same freedoms to fulfill its role of informing the public.

However, with the passing of time and considerable nibbling and sometimes the taking of big bites, those who publish were able to make great changes in what they could do without being called to task for it. The courts, to assure freedom of expression, came close to making almost any kind of lie, defamation or character assassination, immune.

To make up an illustration, if a publisher really detested someone yet had nothing really defamatory about that person, and if he could get a Member of either House of the Congress to state on the floor of the House what the publisher wanted to be said about that person it detested, what was said on the floor could thereafter be published no matter how false and defamatory, and the person at whom it was aimed could not do a thing, had no redress.

Likewise, and again the intent of the courts was to assure the freedom of expression so the people could know the truth, with Mark Lane as its counsel, the right-wing extremist publication, Spotlight, of the right-wing extremist, Willis Carto (who, in this country, is the leading denier of the Holocaust under Hitler), was held not to have libeled the former CIA officer, who was also convicted in the Watergate scandals, E. Howard Hunt — even though what is published could be considered libelous and was without question false. This was because the one who wrote that story was quoting sources, had not made it up himself. It was also because Hunt was held to be a public figure. For public figures, what was added to the required proof of libel was that it consist of malice. No malice, no libel for some.

Over the years, as the various kinds of publications found it possible to stretch the essential rights given publishing by the constitution and as the costs of litigating, including the considerable hourly charges of lawyers who specialized in that area, it became almost impossible for the average person to think of filing suit for damages no matter how great those damages may have been and no matter how baseless as a matter of fact they were.

I was one of a number libeled in a book the publisher knew was libelous. He knew that was what was said about me that was so damaging was entirely false. But he also knew that at my age and given the costs, the chances were that he could, even if I sued, delay the case until I was no longer alive. Besides which he knew I didn't have the means of paying the high hourly charges of the lawyers and other costs. Not that the usual hourly charge of the non-specializing lawyer does not exceed the ability of the average person to pay those charges and entailed expenses.

So, despite what Donahue's publisher says, and says in so unusual a way, what was really in his mind was would he be sued. Before he published this travesty of Donahue's invention, he had reasonable assurance that Hickey would not file suit.

St. Martin's Press had reason to believe that Hickey would not sue. Could not. So he could be defamed with impunity.

Publishers are more inclined to be concerned about being sued today because of the considerable cost of successfully defending a suit for damages, even a spurious suit.

In St. Martin's and Donahue's case, however, much as they have said about this and about their claimed concern for the man they accused of killing the President that he was supposed to keep alive, to see that nobody killed him, they used their own means of learning what the probabilities were. Much as they said they never once made any mention of this. I learned of it only by accident.

St. Martin's did what is rather unusual. It included what it titled "NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER" at the end of the book. It is usually at the beginning, if a publisher has anything to say that he says it, as the author does in a foreword or in an introduction. But in Mortal Error, this note extends over eighteen pages, from page 238 through page 255. That note is signed by St. Martin's Chairman, Thomas McCormack. He and his statement were also a major element in promoting the book, literally, all around the world.

There is no forward; there was no introduction, and the hired hand, Bonnar Menninger, has less than a page of "Acknowledgments," on unnumbered page ix. He begins with the Donahues and he does not overlook McCormack.

As Donahue made up out of nothing at all, as Menninger emphasizes in the writing and as McCormack says in his note what did not happen at all but which is all their book has, Hickey's "accidental" firing of that AR-15, was not intended, was an accident. They then go farther and make up a nonexisting case of Hickey being a "brave" man. His alleged bravery consisted entirely of picking up that rifle. For all the world as though, if he had been a coward, which he was not, he still would not have picked up that rifle.

All of this is aimed at eliminating any basis for any lawyer's claim of "malice" against Hickey who steadfastly refused to talk to Donahue or McCormack.

However, there was no tricky language that could disguise what Donahue said, Menninger wrote and St. Martin's published, with all the attention possible drawn to it, that Hickey is a killer and that the man he killed — assassinated — was the President of the United States, the man Hickey was paid to help keep alive, to prevent any such thing from happening to the President.

This was a unique formula, in both the victim and the defense, if a lawsuit were filed.

It could also lead to many lawsuits if Hickey had the means of filing them.

He could, under the law, file suit in every state in which St. Martin's did business. If it was possible to serve the papers relating to the suit on a St. Martin's representative in Alaska, Hawaii or any other state, that was a separate lawsuit in each state.

And, of course, if the book damaged Hickey, he could file separately for the damages he claimed in each state.

The loud and repeated claims by Donahue, Menninger and McCormack/St. Martin's in the book and elsewhere is that Hickey and the Secret Service did not respond to their efforts to question him. This is, as we soon see, the reason McCormack gives for his publishing the book.

What they do not say, however, is not only was there was no reason for either the Secret Service of Hickey to respond to those questions, but that there was no legal requirement that they do so. In addition, they also do not say that there were repeated denials that any shot was fired. Thus there was no reason to respond to any other questions. To respond was to risk having everything that was said be twisted and misrepresented.

The only reason for continuing with questions after the firm and unequivocal statements of denial, and they were in the plural, as we have seen, was to try to get the Secret Service or Hickey to say what could be used against them and him, respectively. Any statements would have been used as some form of support for the Donahue invention that was not true.

Although this Donahue is not a lawyer — he began as a salesman and was self-trained in guns — he had a gut understanding of the realities and he wanted very much to have Hickey answer questions when Hickey would not respond to any letter or phone. So Donahue did what I said I learned about only by accident.

And a rare accident it was!

A dear friend of my youth is a scientist with a rare skill and experience in that skill that for years had taken him all around the world. On a trip that took him to several countries in 1987 his last stop, as he says in the note he wrote on what I quote, was in Switzerland. Before that he was in Israel, among other places. In Israel he got and read its respected The Jerusalem Post. The

page he sent me, page four, included a column titled In Person," by Benny Morris. That appears to be a title carried on interviews.

There was little chance that reclusive Hickey with his psychological problems, the man who had pretty much withdrawn from most associations, would see or hear of The Jerusalem Post or of the In Person column. In the issue dated Monday, September 14, 1987, or five years before publication of the book, the largest type headline on this column is Occupation: Private eye. In smaller headline type that is black and was underlined is, inside single quotation marks, 'The bullet that killed JFK was fired by a Secret Service agent.' While this statement in and of itself repeats what had been in the Baltimore Sun stories by Reppert and in an editorial it ran, what it says appeared no place else of which I know and I was sent clippings from all over. Thus, I know of and below use a little of what got the book extensive attention throughout the world.

It got, for example a much bigger and more prominent play in the major paper in London than it did in Washington or any other American city.

Benny Morris's interviewee also seemingly was convinced that what he said would not get back to Hickey. Otherwise he would not have said what he did . One of his profession would ordinarily be more careful than almost anyone other than perhaps a lawyer to see to it that what he said did not get back to the person about whom he said it.

The interviewee was very well known in his field, if not famous. He was Nicholas Beltrante. Beltrante was the former chief inspector of police in Washington. He then owned and operated a world-wide detective agency, which apparently took him to Israel, where Morris could and interviewed him.

And, what is unusual in his profession, Beltrante blabbed. He said things he should never have said if there was the possibility of a lawsuit in which what he said could be used against his client and against his client's interest.

He would certainly have been used, for example to eliminate any defense of innocence or of lack of knowledge about the conditions of Hickey's health, which could have been used in a lawsuit.

Could indeed, have been used as proof of damages if damages were sued for.

For Beltrante to run off at the mouth, as he did is a rare breach of professional conduct in his profession and for a man in his position in it. Apparently he believed that what he said would never get back to the United States or that it would be possible for Hickey to sue.

But, from the picture that is at the center of those columns as that page was made up, Beltrante did smile pretty for the camera.

Morris did not devote his entire column to the Donahue part of what Beltrante said. He did begin with it and devoted a little less than half to it. To be fair, to avoid any unintended exaggeration or emphasis, we use what Morris wrote that relates to the Donahue fabrication of Hickey as the assassin without any changes in it:

The cable address on his business cards reads: "SLEUTH." Nicholas Beltrante, sixty-ish, looking every inch an ex-cop, heads "Beltrante & Associates, Worldwide Professional Investigations" and has been called "the dean of American private eyes" by The Washington Post.

Beltrante, a former chief inspector of police in Washington, DC, spends most of his time overseeing the work of 22 associates. Occasionally, he takes on a case himself — charging $1,000 a day "plus expenses." He charges $50 an hour (plus expenses) for the work of each of his associates, who keep $20 an hour for themselves.

Beltrante personally takes only cases "with very large fees" or of "great interest." He is currently investigating, together with ballistics expert Howard Donahue, the 1963 assassination of President John Kennedy. "Howard came to me four years ago and said: 'I have only $500. But read my report.'" Beltrante was initially very sceptical [sic]. "I took it up very reluctantly. It seemed farfetched. But the report convinced me."

The 40-page Donahue report "showed" that — on the basis of analysis of remaining metal fragments — the bullet that struck Kennedy in the back of the head and killed him "could not have been, fired from Lee Harvey Oswald's rifle. The wrong calibre ."

Donahue determined that the bullet in fact came from a "special weapon" held by one of the Secret Service agents who was in the car behind the president's. "What happened was that after the first shot or shots the president's car jerked to a halt. The Secret Service car then came to an abrupt stop — and the Secret Service agent accidentally let off a shot, the shot that killed the president. But the administration refused to admit this as it would have discredited the agency whose job it is to protect the president."

Beltrante relates - "we know this for a fact" — that several weeks after the assassination, while driving in Texas, President Johnson stopped his car and told the Secret Servicemen in the car following: "Keep further back. I don't want to be a victim of a Secret Service agent."

Beltrante says: "We have determined which agent in the Kennedy backup car was responsible. He was retired from the service a year and a half later. He suffered an emotional breakdown." Beltrante attributes the breakdown to the assassination. "He hasn't worked since. He lives like a recluse. He refuses to answer the telephone. We have him under surveillance." He declines to give the name because of "possible libel actions."

Having presented this unchanged in any way, it is fair to call attention to what can have significance. The last quoted paragraph in particular. There the chief of the private investigators who as of then still had Hickey "under surveillance," and from his statement of when he began had had Hickey under surveillance for four years, also described him as unable to work, as a "recluse" who "refuses to answer the telephone." So, all of them knew that writing and phoning Hickey was certain not to get a response and thus could not honestly be used in a pretense, as it is used, of Hickey's confirmation of the monstrosity attributed to him so money could be made from that.

Beltrante uses "we", associating himself with Donahue in the project, as in "we know this for a fact." Beltrante refused to name Hickey "because of possible libel actions."

He says that they still had Hickey "under surveillance" and he began by saying that it was four years earlier that Donahue went to him with $500 and asked him to take the case as an investigation. With Beltrante them charging $1,000 a day plus expenses for himself, for the time he spent on any case, and fifty dollars an hour for those he had doing the shadowing for what he says has been a four-year prior period, either his sleuthing for Donahue was an expensive charity case or he did receive additional compensation.

On the possibility of which there is not a word in St. Martin's statement.

It does not seem likely that Beltrante undertook all this time-consuming work gratis, without getting paid for any of it. But he also does not refer to getting any more than that initial five hundred dollars.

But if he got no other pay, all that shadowing for which he usually got fifty dollars an hour plus expenses was unpaid. That is not a way to keep a business from going broke.

Beltrante is not mentioned in the book or in the publisher's statement yet he does say that he had joined in the investigation with Donahue:

He is currently investigating, together with ballistics expert Howard Donahue, the 1963 assassination of President John Kennedy. "Howard came to me four years ago. . . But the [40-page Donahue] report convinced me.

That report would convince anyone who knew nothing about the case, who was not aware of the facts that had been established in it, as much fact had been, and who was not in a position to raise questions about anything in that report.

Donahue left a copy with me for my critical opinion. I read it promptly, put paperclips in the margin where there were obvious questions and errors. I dropped him a note after reading it but he never came back to go over those many parts about which I had serious questions or knew to be factually incorrect. I did not remove those dozens of paperclips from that report until writing this. It was by then certain that Donahue would not be back and would not want to believe where he was wrong, as he was often, as we see in this writing.

Which is much less complete, much less critical than it could be.

That paragraph about President Johnson, even if as I do, I doubt the quotes are correct, had nothing to do with the JFK assassination.

Down in Texas, when he was at his ranch, Johnson was an exceptionally wild driver. My then friend Ron Nessen, who was an NBC-TV News reporter, broke the story. It caused considerable embarrassment at the White House. But Johnson's complaints were about the restrictions, that he was not permitted all that wild driving he enjoyed as Nessen reported accurately, and that his privacy was restricted.

This is not exactly the way it comes out in the book on pages 112-3. There Donahue spoke to a Secret Service friend after the Reppert stories appeared in the Sun back in 1977:

The agent was aware of Donahue's theory, and when he heard the Sun was working on a story he volunteered to run the thesis up the chain of command at his agency, just to see how the brass would react. Several days later, the agent stopped by and said that when he told his supervisor about it, the supervisor had responded: "This is too big for me to handle." His boss then sent a written report on Donahue's theory to headquarters in Washington.

Later, the agent said, his superior called him back and asked, "What kind of guy is Donahue?"

"He's a firearms expert who has testified in federal cases," the agent replied.

"Oh shit !" the supervisor said, and hung up.

Donahue's research soon uncovered an intriguing piece of evidence that seemed to show — albeit obliquely — that President Johnson may have been among those who were aware of the accident. He ran across the item in LBJ: The Way He Was, a book written by longtime White House correspondent Frank Cormier. In the book, Cormier had recounted a visit LBJ made to Texas the Christmas after he had become President, a trip that included a visit to his ranch by an old friend of Johnson's, A. W. Moursund, for some deer hunting.

Moursund was driving and Johnson watching for deer in the scrub growth along the road when the President suddenly became irritated by his Secret Service guard following in a station wagon close behind. Johnson directed Moursund to stop the car. An agent ran forward to see what was wrong.

"Dammit," Johnson snapped. "I don't want you tailgatin ' me! Now you keep that wagon back outta sight or I'm gonna shoot out your tires!"

Cormier went on to say that while Johnson demonstrated genuine, if somewhat sporadic affection for some agents, he could also be pointlessly cruel toward them. "In an off-the-record talk at the White House, a few weeks earlier," Cormier wrote, "Johnson had shocked me by exploding: 'If I ever get killed, it won't be because of an assassin. It'll be some Secret Service agent who trips himself up and his gun goes off. They're worse than trigger-happy Texas sheriffs."

Johnson's comments were obviously less than conclusive, but they were relevant. If nothing else, the words demonstrated Johnson had an aversion to the Secret Service and for this perhaps he had a reason.

Whether or not Johnson actually said what Cormier quotes, and Johnson was an accomplished story-teller and a practicing liar, an his disclosed phone conversation transcripts leave without any question at all, he has offered his opinions about the assassination that made him President and in not one of those available official versions did he even suggest the suspicion that it was by the Secret Service. It is also interesting that Cornier used what he uses after stating that Johnson said it "in an off-the-record talk." Most reporters respect the confidentiality of what is told them off the record but temptations to put in a book what can sell it is sometimes great.

The source note on this on page 343 is to, "Frank Cormier, LBJ — The Way He Was (Garden City, N.Y,: Doubleday & Co., 1977).

(As noted earlier this Donahue book has no bibliography. This does indicate that somebody was looking for what could be stretched as Beltrante stretched what Menninger has in his glorification of Donahue. It is, with the actuality of Johnson's wild driving and exposure of it, interesting that in even this heavily altered account he is quoted as objecting to being tailgated. All Presidents resent the privacy they loose but not all drive wildly and then have to say something after that irresponsibility is exposed.)

Note that in the book's conclusion of this passage a left-handed effort is made to give it that Beltrante twist, that while Johnson's "comments were less than conclusive" they were, as is not explained and cannot be explained but is the dirty suggestion of dishonest writing, "but they were relevant." Relevant to what Donahue made up out of nothing is all that can be intended, what was proven not to be true and was not — could not — be proven to be true.

Before leaving this Beltrante version it is worth noting that it includes rather large exaggerations, like, "Donahue determined" that Hickey fired the shot, a bald lie! In his version, which is faithful to the Donahue fabrication as rendered by Menninger, there is absolutely no question about it "But the administration refused to admit" that Hickey of the Secret Service had killed the President "as this would have discredited the agency whose job it was to protect the President."

So, their private eye who with his slack jaw was a little less than the Sam Spade he referred to in this interview. He also was part of the fakery for this totally dishonest and seriously damaging book that serves, as all books can serve, as a permanent defamation of the innocent Hickey and his family. Wherever a copy of that book is found in the future, and as we see, many copies were printed, well into the six figures in the hardback, that rewriting of our tragic history that also exculpates the guilty will continue to exist and do harm.