In Boundless Affection, This Modest Volume
Is Dedicated to
THE LYING NEWSPAPERS
A Generic Term Applied by Huey P. Long to
The Free Press of a Free Republic.
Especially is it dedicated to any and all who
during almost half a century have been
My Fellow Workers
As Typified by
John F. Tims and Ralph Nicholson
And Most Specially Is It Dedicated to the Memory of
Richard Finnegan and Marshall Ballard.
Contents
| Foreword | [ix] | |
| Chapter 1: | Prelude to an Inquest | [1] |
| Chapter 2: | Profile of a Kingfish | [13] |
| Chapter 3: | August 8, 1935: Washington | [29] |
| Chapter 4: | August 30 to September 2 | [39] |
| Chapter 5: | September 3 to September 7 | [53] |
| Chapter 6: | September 8: Morning | [69] |
| Chapter 7: | September 8: Afternoon | [75] |
| Chapter 8: | September 8: Nightfall | [81] |
| Chapter 9: | September 8: 9:30 P.M. | [91] |
| Chapter 10: | September 8-9: Midnight | [103] |
| Chapter 11: | The Aftermath | [127] |
| Chapter 12: | Summation | [145] |
| Chapter 13: | The Motive | [157] |
| Epilogue | [171] |
Foreword
Until I undertook to gather all available evidence for what I hoped to make a definitive inquiry into the circumstances of Huey Long’s assassination, I had no idea of how many gaps there were in my knowledge of what took place. Yet except for the actual shooting, which fewer than a dozen persons were present to see, and for what then took place in the operating room of Our Lady of the Lake Sanitarium, most of what had any bearing on the circumstances took place before my eyes.
Consequently I am so deeply indebted to so many who were good enough to fill those gaps with eyewitness reports, that no words of mine could begin to settle the score. Chief among those whose claims on my gratitude I can never wholly acquit are Dr. Cecil A. Lorio of Baton Rouge, one of the only two surviving physicians who played any part in the pre-operative, operative, and post-operative treatment of the dying Senator; Dr. Chester Williams, the present coroner of East Baton Rouge parish, who made it possible for me to see, study and understand the microfilmed hospital chart sketchily covering the thirty hours that elapsed between the time of the shooting and its fatal termination; Col. Murphy J. Roden, retired head of the Louisiana State police, who was the only person to grapple with Dr. Weiss; my friend and for many years colleague, Charles E. Frampton; Sheriff Elliott Coleman of Tensas parish; Chief Justice John B. Fournet of the Supreme Court of Louisiana; and Juvenile Court Judge James O’Connor, who carried the stricken Kingfish to the hospital after the shooting.
No less am I under obligations to Earle J. Christenberry, Seymour Weiss, and Richard W. Leche, to whom I owe so much of the information on background elements that alone make intelligible some of the otherwise enigmatic phases of what actually occupied no more than a fractional moment of crisis.
My thanks are likewise tendered to Captain Theophile Landry, formerly an officer of the state police; to General Louis Guerre who was that organization’s first commandant; to Adjutant-General Raymond Fleming of Louisiana; to Charles L. Bennett, managing Editor of the Oklahoma City Times; and particularly to Dr. James D. Rives and Dr. Frank Loria of New Orleans.