“Hardly had I retired,” he relates, “than I received a phone call from Governor Allen, who in a very excited voice said to me: ‘Huey has been shot!’ Realizing that I must have certain information to deal with such a situation, I demanded that the Governor stay on the telephone at least long enough to answer one question before I took action.
“The question was: ‘Is this an action involving many persons or is it the act of just one individual?’ This I had to know in order to determine what troops, if any, were needed to handle the situation.
“Governor Allen immediately informed me that it was the spontaneous action of just one individual. With this information in hand, I started almost at once for Baton Rouge. In a remarkably short time I reached the capitol, where I immediately set up headquarters in the office of the executive counsel. From then until about 2 A.M. I talked to a great many persons regarding events leading up to, during, and after the assassination.
“One of the reasons for this inquiry was that I had to make a decision as to whether or not we were faced with the necessity of dealing with an armed insurrection on the part of a considerable number of individuals.”
Early that Sunday night Judge Leche, still inclined to make light of his conversation with Senator Long some hours before, was leaving Baptist Hospital, where his physician, Dr. Wilkes Knolle, had just changed the dressing of the airplane splint in which his left arm was immobilized.
“Our chauffeur was driving Tonnie [Mrs. Leche] and me home from the hospital,” his account of the day’s events continues, “and as we drew up in front of my house in Metairie I could hear the phone ring. I tossed my keys to the chauffeur and said: ‘Hurry up and answer it, and tell whoever it is I’ll be there as soon as I can work my way out of the car.’ He did so, and I got out awkwardly, my left arm being held rigidly horizontal at shoulder height with the elbow bent, and when I got to the phone it was Abe Shushan telling me Huey had just been shot. I called out to the chauffeur not to leave, we were going to Baton Rouge right away, and I told Tonnie I would send the car back for her and she could come up the next day, if that seemed indicated.
“I went directly to the governor’s office, and Oscar Allen was there, very nervous and visibly shaken. He was talking on the telephone and picked up a sheet of paper while holding the other hand over the mouthpiece, and said: ‘This is what I am going to release to the press.’ At the time I thought he said he had already released it. In brief, the statement said for everyone to remain calm, this had been merely the irresponsible act of one individual, and that it did not mean more than just one individual’s crazed action.
“I tore the paper up and handed the pieces back to him, saying: ‘Huey has been charging in Louisiana and in Washington that there was a plot on foot to kill him, and that he surrounded himself with bodyguards for that reason. He conducted a formal investigation into a murder plot with witnesses who said they had won their way into the confidence of the plotters, and named them, and carried on an investigation in New Orleans for days.... How in the world can you take it on yourself to proclaim officially that this was all twaddle, and that only one individual was responsible for what happened?’
“He said very excitedly: ‘You’re right, you’re right, you’re right!’ I left, and was driven over to the hospital, but by that time the operation was either over or in progress, so I did not see Huey. I stayed in the hotel, and Tonnie joined me there the next day.”
The operation was begun at 11:22 P.M., but Drs. Maes and Rives were not present. What happened is told by Dr. Rives in the following account: