The Fort Lawton Frame-Up

Fort Lawton doesn't exist anymore – not as an Army base and not in historic memory, unless you come across “On American Soil” by Jack Hamann (University of Washington Press, 2007). In 1944, 43 Black soldiers were court-martialed there – 40 charged with rioting and three with first-degree murder. It was the biggest court martial of World War II. The lead prosecutor was an ambitious lawyer from Texas, Lt Col Leon Jaworski, who in 1964 investigated the assassination of JFK for the Warren Commission and in 1974 became the special prosecutor of Richard Nixon in the Watergate scandal.

The Army ceded Fort Lawton – almost 700 acres on Puget Sound – to Seattle in 1965 and the city made it into Discovery Park. When Native Americans invoked an 1865 treaty promising “the reversion of surplus military land to their original landowners,” Seattle ceded 20 acres to the United Indians of All Tribes.

In 1986, an unusual headstone at the Fort Lawton cemetery piqued the interest of Jack Hamann, a law school grad who had become a reporter for KING TV in Seattle. It bore the (misspelled) name Gugliemo Olivotto and the date 14 Agosto 1944. His research began by checking back issues of the local papers. “One Dead in Lawton Riot” declared the Seattle Post-Intelligencer headline for August 16, 1944, over a story he summarizes thus: “An Italian prisoner of war had been lynched at Fort Lawton, and the prime suspects were members of a 'mob' of African-American soldiers.” To his surprise, Hamann then had to “look long and hard to find anyone who had ever heard about this incredible event,” which was “conspicuously absent from history books and even from the collective memories of lawyers, soldiers, and journalists.”

Back in 1944, when the Army was hurriedly shifting personnel and equipment to the Pacific, Fort Lawton had become a major embarkation point. About 10,000 soldiers were housed there that summer, including a 200-man “Italian Service Unit” made up of POWs who had been interviewed by US Military Intelligence and deemed apolitical. Mussolini had been killed and the US State Department, anticipating the Cold War, was courting the new government. ISU members lived in barracks, did jobs unrelated to combat, and wore the same olive drab fatigues as GIs, with a white shoulder patch that said “Italy.” (Signifiantly, Hamann notes, some ardent fascists avoided prison by bluffing their way through MI screenings and getting assigned to ISUs.)

The “Italian Area” at Fort Lawton was adjacent to the “Negro Area.” More than a million African-Americans served in the Army during World War II. Units were segregated and Black soldiers were disproportionately assigned supportive roles. “When roughly 10% of the soldiers were Black,” Hamann notes, “34% of quartermaster units and 42% of engineering units were Black. In the Transportation Corps… port companies, were almost 80% Black.” (After ranks were depleted by the Battle of the Bulge in the winter of 1944-45, commanders were ordered to accept Black volunteers. ”General Dwight Eisenhower resisted the order,” the US Army website now acknowledges, “but formed black volunteer platoons that could be attached to combat units.”)

Three “Negro port companies” had been assembled at Fort Lawton in August '44 – Invisible Men trained to load troops, food, supplies, ordinance, and equipment onto trucks, ships, and planes. Their work called for skill and coordination, Hamman reminds us. “A hatch tender signals a winch operator as slings of cargo are loaded…” The inherent dangers had been demonstrated only a month earlier when an explosion of two ships at the Navy munitions depot in Port Chicago, California, killed 320 sailors, two-thirds of them Black, and seriously wounded 300. The 50 survivors who refused to resume handling munitions were then convicted of mutiny. The Port Chicago sailors were Invisible Men until Robert Allen's fine book about their court martial came out in 1990.

“Discovery Park Graves,” Hamann's hour-long documentary about the forgotten “riot” and the ensuing court-martial at Fort Lawton, was well received when it aired in 1987. His career flourished and he won numerous awards. But over the years he came to have serious misgivings about his original take on the Fort Lawton case, and he decided to investigate further. ”On American Soil” was his take two. After it was published, Hamann explained to archivist David S. Ferriero:

“The documentary had primarily accepted Jaworski’s theory that black soldiers in the segregated 1944 US Army had grown to resent that white commanders treated them little better than the Italian prisoners housed right across the street. Jaworski had convinced the court that simmering resentment boiled over the night of August 14, 1944, fueling a riot and Olivotto’s lynching. Years after the documentary first aired, friends and colleagues often expressed discomfort about its unanswered questions and incongruous assertions. In particular, it was the only case in American history where black men stood trial accused of a mob lynching; didn’t that raise a red flag or two?… In 2001, with many more years of reporting experience under our belts, my wife, Leslie, and I realized that the documentary had relied primarily on secondary sources –1944 news articles and such – rather than on primary sources. Determined to learn more, we set out on a journey which eventually led us to the National Archives in College Park, Maryland.”

The Hamanns had hoped to find the court-martial file in a matter of hours. But it would be weeks before Leslie came across something “far more intriguing and powerful” in the 'Miscellaneous' section of the Archives’ World War II collection – a recently-declassified report by Brigadier General Elliot D. Cooke, who had investigated the tragic episode for the army Inspector General. From Cooke's report Hamann learned “that the U.S. Army knew – in advance of the trial – that its detectives had thoroughly botched the investigation of Olivotto’s murder, and that the defendants had been fingered by highly-suspect informants.”

”Leon Jaworski himself had a copy of that investigation,” according to Hamann, “yet fought successfully to keep it out of the hands of the defendants’ Army-appointed lawyers.” Jaworski aspired to prosecute war criminals in Europe after the Allied victory, and he needed to win convictions at Fort Lawton to get that assignment. The court martial of US soldiers alleged to have attacked Italian POWs and killed one of them was being watched closely in Washington, DC. Italian-American organizations had expressed outrage, editorials demanding punishment were forwarded to the White House, and Secretary of War Henry Stimson had promised that “proper disciplinary action will be taken.”

Gen. Cooke's investigation and report helped Hamann construct a coherent account of the assault on ISU members at Fort Lawton. (“Riot” is an inaccurate description of the event.) August 14 had been a payday, and two of the “Negro port companies” – the 650th and 651st – were due to ship out for a combat zone the next day. That night members of the third company had thrown them a big going-away party. Around 11 pm, three ISU members returning from a night on the town in Seattle walked past some Black soldiers socializing in front of their barracks. Willie Montgomery, a small 39-year-old corporal from NYC who was very drunk, said something derogatory. According to Giuseppe Belle, Montgomery was cursing and came at him with a knife, so Belle, hit him with a left hook that knocked him out. The Italians raced to their barracks while Montgomery's friends attended to him on the ground. Luther Larkin, a soldier who had some training as a medic, testified that Montgomery was out cold and that he administered artificial respiration as onlookers gathered.

Two MPs patrolling in a jeep soon came by. Although Montgomery had revived, the MP in charge, Clyde Lomax, insisted on driving him to the hospital. There were two hospitals on the base, but Lomax drove to the one furthest away. He would stay away for half an hour, although he knew that serious trouble was brewing between the Blacks and the Italians.

According to testimony at the court martial, Montgomery's friends had gone into the barracks yelling, “They got one of us, let's go get them” and words to that effect. Groups of Black soldiers headed for the ISU barracks, picking up rocks and fence posts to use in their assault. Twenty-four Italians, three black soldiers and three whites who'd been in the ISU orderly room were injured, some seriously. It was not reported that any Italians were missing. The next morning, as dawn was breaking, Pvt Lomax, driving his jeep on the beach, came upon Olivotto's limp body hanging from a rope strung between two steel cables on an obstacle course used by trainees.

Gen. Cooke's assistant, Lt. Col. Curtis L. Williams, arrived at the end of August and learned that hardly any evidence had been collected or statements taken from witnesses. None of the attackers had been identified by the MPs who arrived on the scene and ordered them back to their barracks. Even the rope from which Olivotto had been found hanging had disappeared. No photographs of his limp body had been taken. No footprints or vehicle tracks had been preserved. Trainees had been allowed to run the obstacle course the day after Olivotto was cut down.

Jaworski's “Egregious Error”

Brigadier General Cooke's job had been to investigate the officers who had failed to prevent the fatal melee on August 14. (He was in charge of the Army's Overseas Inspection Division. which had jurisdiction because most soldiers at Fort Lawton were en route to the Pacific.) Prosecution of the attackers was handled by lawyers from the Judge Advocate General's Corps. Lt Col Leon Jaworski got the assignment, Hamann writes, because he was “a rising star in the JAG Corps,” and the War Department was counting on convictions to placate Italy's post-Mussolini government.

All 400 men from the 650th and 651st port companies had been held in a stockade for four days after the attack on the Italian Service Unit. On August 19 they were moved to a small Army facility in Seattle where “they were ordered to march past in single file” as ISU members studied their faces. Thus a preliminary list of suspects was developed.

“While most Italians drew a complete blank” during the perp walk, Hamann recounts, “and a few others said they recognized one or two each,” a 36-year-old sergeant named Agosto Todde “had somehow been able to pick out nine men who he said had unquestionably been in the Italian area, most armed with clubs, several doing violence. While the memories of other Italians seem to fade, Todde's only grew sharper. Weeks after the attack, he confidently identified three additional men, then two more, then another two… whom he swore had been in or around the fighting.”

“This very helpful witness had been identified by Army intelligence as 'a prisoner to be watched,'“ Hamann writes. “ISU screeners accepted him because, although 'sly and probably still pro-Nazi,' he was 'willing to work.'

Giuseppe Belle was “an even more problematic witness. Identified as 'stridently pro-fascist and/or pro Nazi' by US Army intelligence agents (who infiltrated the POW intake centers), Belle had evaded imprisonment and wound up in the ISU at Fort Lawton.

On August 23, 340 members of the Negro port companies had been shipped out to New Guinea, where they were urgently needed. ”General MacArthur had recently secured dozens of ports south of the Philippines, at a cost of thousands of lives. Fresh port companies were absolutely necessary if MacArthur was to maintain his supply chain leading to his momentous return to Manila.”

After Jaworski arrived at Fort Lawton, he arranged the return of 25 men from New Guinea. He had been given Cooke's report, but it was light on names because none of the white MPs who cleared out the attackers from the Italian Service Unit barracks could or would identify them.) He jump-started the prosecution by offering immunity to five Black soldiers named as participants in the attack by Todde and Belle. Pvt Jesse Sims named 20 who had taken part, including Sgt Robert Gresham, who named 11, and so it went until Jaworski felt he could charge 42 men with rioting. None of the witnesses said they had seen or knew anything about the murder.

Guglielmo Olivotto was 33. He had fought and been captured in North Africa. He was the most devout Catholic in the ISU, and was known to have an inordinate fear of Blacks. Several Italians testified that he had jumped out a window when the barracks was attacked. Evidently he had not run straight down to the beach where his body was found hanging at dawn the next day; the intervening terrain was full of brambles and his skin was unscratched. Hamann suggests that Olivotto had gotten a ride in a jeep.

Why did Jaworski charge three men for a murder to which there were no witnesses? The reader (c'est moi) infers that convictions for rioting, a misdemeanor, might not have mollified the Italian government, which would have disappointed the Top Brass and Diplomats in DC… And so three Invisible Men alleged to have led the attack that caused Olivotto to flee – Luther Larkin, Arthur Hurks and William Jones – were charged with first-degree murder.

Larkin gets special attention in “On American Soil.” Growing up in West Helena, Arkansas, he was an amateur naturalist. In the army he trained to be a medic, then was assigned to a port company because the quota for Negro medics had been filled. On the night of August 14 he was with Roy Daymond, William Jones (who had been jilted by his girl at the going-away party) and the very drunk Willie Montgomery on Lawton Road, when the Italian trio strolled by. Montgomery cursed them and got knocked out cold. Larkin knelt down and gave him artificial respiration as a circle of onlookers grew and Jones denounced the Italians.

Larkin recalled the scene when he testified: ”You could hear whispers in the crowd, the fellows was talking like, 'we'll teach them not to come up here and jump on our men.' Sergeant Gresham… asked me how bad was he hurt, and I said 'Oh, he'll be all right. And he said – he stated these words: 'I should blow the Company out.'“

The defendants' lawyers, Major William Beeks and Captain Howard Noyd, wanted to emphasize that Gresham had been an instigator, not Larkin. Beeks asked, “What were his words again?” Larkin reiterated, “He said in these words, 'I should blow the Company out.' And I said, 'You ain't lying.' Just like that… And he blew the whistle. He blew the whistle there and he walked to 719 [the company barracks].”

Beeks and Noyd had only 10 days to prepare their 43 case(s). They were denied access to Cooke's report, which had been classified, Hamann writes, “ostensibly to protect 'war secrets,' although the real secret was the incompetent conduct of Colonel Branson, Major Orem, and their subordinates, including the Fort's white MPs.”

Sitting in judgment of the Invisible Men were nine White officers. The “law member,” who ran the proceedings, was Lt Col Gerald O'Connor, who had been a lawyer in civilian life. Whenever Jaworski and Beeks disputed a point, O'Connor ruled in favor of the prosecutor. Most significantly, he granted Jaworski's objection to testimony about the August 12 and 13 clashes at the PX between Italians and white soldiers.

“Jaworski knew from General Cooke's report that the Saturday and Sunday skirmishes at the PX could spell trouble for his prosecution,” Hamann explains, “especially since the omnipresent Pvt Lomax had popped up there, too… Beeks did not realize that the white soldier who had started the PX fight was Tex Stratton, or that the MP who had responded was the omnipresent Lomax. He certainly did not know that General Cooke had insisted that Pvt Lomax be court martialed for mysteriously disappearing during the time Olivotto was murdered… Although Jaworski knew that Stratton had twice threatened the Italians and that Stratton and Clyde Lomax had talked about it afterwards, he did not feel compelled to share that fact with the court or with Beeks.”

Potential witnesses were under intense pressure to name names. Sammy Snow had been held in solitary confinement for five days until he padded his accusations. An interrogator had thrown a rope onto Cpl Willie Prevost's lap – presumably the one from which Olivotto was hung – and told him, “You'll know more about the case when you're hanging by the neck from this rope.” Prevost added three names to his confession.

After 22 days the defense began. A company cook named Herman Redley confirmed the alibis of Sgt Ernest Graham and Pfc Sylvester Campbell. ”On cross-examination Jaworski pulled out a thick report and began to quote from sworn statements Redley had made during General Cooke's investigation. Until that moment, Beeks had always been told that copies of Cooke's report were top secret and not available to either attorney.” Beeks demanded access to the report. Jaworski refused, claiming falsely that as prosecutor he had sole right to use it. Beeks asked the court to grant him access. Jaworski told O'Connor that only the Secretary of War had the authority to grant access to the whole report. In the end Beeks accepted Jaworski's offer to show him material from the report relating to his clients.

Jaworski might not have called Lomax to the stand if the Fort Lawton investigators led by Major William Orem hadn't lost the rope from which Olivotto was found hanging. “Jaworski knew that General Cooke had demanded that Lomax be court-martialed. He knew that none of the other MPs could account for Lomax's whereabouts much of the night. He knew that Lomax was prone to use racist language. But most important, he knew that Beeks had no idea how much baggage Lomax carried.”

Jaworski simply showed Lomax a rope and he confirmed that it was “that type of rope” from which he found Olivotto hanging. “The daily newspapers made no mention of the astonishing fact that the real rope was missing,” Hamann points out.

“Reports about the Fort Lawton trial were delivered weekly to the White House. The State Department continued to raise concerns that Italy's new government might react poorly if Olivotto's death went unpunished. At the same time, the Federal Bureau of investigation warned White House officials that the trial might be exploited by Communists or their sympathizers… By December 1944, the FBI's weekly intelligence reports included the names of alleged Communists attending the Fort Lawton trial. In particular a Negro columnist for the Northwest Herald was singled out for observing that 'When the enemy can get better treatment than the citizens of the country who captures him, something is bound to happen. Court-martial the authorities who allowed this to happen.'“

Pfc Pancho Jones had been a union organizer before the war and a member of the National CIO Committee to Abolish Racial Discrimination. As a member of the 651st port company he had been rounded up and held behind barbed wire August 15-19. Upon his release he wrote to reassure a friend. Hamman quotes from his letter:

“The riot, contrary to what the authorities have released to the press, started four days before the Monday night incident. It started with white troops who had just returned from the Pacific theater. These guys beat up Italians for three days in the PX. They tried to get the colored troops to help them. It wasn't until Monday night after one of the Italians hit a soldier from our sister company that our boys became involved. Unfortunately for us the army has only involved the Negro troops in this case. As usual, we are the 'fall guys.'

“There are many more factors in this case but I am sure they will not come out until after the war. The issues involved go deeper than those presented in the press. The white troops here were much more concerned by the presence of the Italians than we were. Certainly we resented the breaks they were getting, but there was nothing we could do about it. This was nothing new to us. To be charged with the whole thing however makes all of us rather sick.”

If the defense lawyers had seen the Cooke report, writes Hamann (virtually solving the whodunit for us), they might have realized that “Private Clyde Lomax had the means, the motive, and the opportunity to commit the crime. Lomax, who was openly racist, was present that virtually every key moment, from the Internet at the PX to the aftermath of the fight between Willie Montgomery and Giuseppe Belle to the vicious beatings inside Baracks 708 to the 'discovery' of Olivotto's body the next morning. He had lied or been evasive about his whereabouts and was soon to be court martialed for leaving his post at the precise time that Olivotto disappeared. Perhaps he had come across Olivotto during the riot and offered him a ride in his jeep. That might explain why Olivotto's body had no bruises and no scratches. Lomax had previously delayed reporting the brewing trouble between the blacks and Italians, perhaps enjoying the possibility the two groups he disliked would bring each other misery. If Lomax lynched Olivotto, he may have done it in the hope that black soldiers would get the blame.”

Beeks had held Jaworski in the highest esteem – he'd even accepted the prosecutor's rationale for not sharing Gen Cooke's report – but he was appalled when Jaworski waxed eloquent in calling for the death penalty. ”The court could plainly see, said Jaworski, that the assault was not random. It was inspired. directed, and organized by three soldiers, men who now have the responsibility for the destruction that followed. 'What a picture of brutality! What a picture of savagery!'“

Beeks was also appalled, he said in his closing argument, that men were being charged with rioting on the basis of only one witness's unconfirmed testimony. The court was swayed and 13 men were acquitted.

The initial sentences on the rioting charge ranged from 10 years hard labor in prison to six months in the Fort Lawton stockade. (Not to mention loss of rank, forfeiture of pay, and dishonorable discharges.) The nine-man court had to be unanimous on the murder charge, and they weren't. Jones got 15 years and Hurks 12 for their alleged roles in leading the so-called riot. The murder charge against Larkin was reduced to manslaughter and the would-be medic was sentenced to 25 years.

The automatic appeal of the verdicts and sentences for the Army's Board of Review was handled by an officer from the Seattle Port of Embarkation, Dolph Barnett. Very troubled by the theory behind Jaworski's murder charge, but keenly aware that the Brass in Washington wanted maximum punishment, he recommended reducing Hurks's sentence to 10 years and Larkin's to 15.

When World War II ended, more than 33,000 soldiers were incarcerated for wartime offenses. “President Truman, under pressure to show mercy and to relieve the crowding in military stockades, established a special clemency board in the War Department.” Many of the Fort Lawton frame-up victims filed petitions (with the help of Thurgood Marshall)… On July 8, 1946, the clemency board reduced to three the sentences of all 17 Fort Lawton defendants with terms longer than five years… Then Truman announced “blanket 'Chrismas clemencies'“ for all imprisoned personnel with less than three years left on their sentences.

On June 1, 1947, Luther Larkin was pardoned. “His discharge papers took note of his exceptionally good behavior in prison… He returned to Arkansas and opened a fancy restaurant, complete with white linens… On December 9, 1948, Larkin felt a sharp pain in his abdomen that wouldn't go away. He went up the hill to the segregated hospital above his parents house but was sent home that same day. The next morning at eight, he died on his mother's kitchen table… His appendix had burst.”

No summary can do justice to this book. The storytelling grabs you like John Grisham and the reporting is thorough as Robert Caro (whose wife, like Hamann's, is an essential partner in research). Soon after “On American Soil” was published in 2007, Congressmen Jim McDermott (D-Seattle) and Duncan Hunter (R-San Diego) urged the Army to re-examine the case.

“And the Army board of review,” Hamann would explain to an interviewer, “issued a resounding, really, unprecedented verdict… that the entire case needed to be tossed out. They said that Leon Jaworski had committed an egregious error – that was their words – in withholding this report that had been prepared. And they said that all of these defendants had been denied fundamental fairness and declared that they should not only have their convictions tossed out, but they should be paid what was due to them.” The few defendants still alive, alas, were in their eighties.

Leon Jaworski had died in 1982. He had written four books, “all of them reminiscing about his personal life and legal career,” according to Hamann. “The books are full of anecdotes about Jaworski's many legal victories, particularly in high profile cases. He mentions the Fort Lawton trial only in passing, and even then, mistakenly reports that Olivotto was found hanging from 'a barracks rafter.'“

Jaworski was known to friends and family as “The Colonel” (the rank he achieved in '45). Robert Draper, a New York Times reporter who admires The Colonel describes his prosecution of the Fort Lawton Invisible Men as “a blemish on an otherwise honorable career.” I wonder… Did the potent ambition that motivated his “egregious error” in Seattle just fade away in civilian life? Did Jaworski's determination to please the Top Brass diminish as his career advanced? Is that how ambition works?

In 1960 he represented Lyndon Johnson in the case that allowed Johnson to run for both the Senate and the vice presidency. After Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Jaworski helped rubber stamp the Warren Commission's finding that Lee Harvey Oswald had done the deed solo. LBJ then appointed him to the President's Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence, the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes, and the Permanent International Court of Arbitration.

As Richard Nixon's role in the Watergate burglary was coming to light, Jaworski was named Special Prosecutor by Robert Bork, Nixon's Acting Attorney General. The legal action that secured Jaworski's reputation for great integrity – demanding that Nixon relinquish his unedited White House tapes – can also be seen as the act of a man shrewd enough to know that by November, 1973, the Top Brass wanted Nixon out.

PS 11/22/2024

Thanks to R.B. for sending a Texas Monthly piece showing that Leon Jaworski's behavior at Fort Lawton was not a rare "blemish on an otherwise honorable career," but a perfect example of his relentless striving for position (and all that goes with it in our society). The 4,000 word profile by Harry Hurt III that ran in November, 1977, was belied by its title, "Have Conscience, Will Travel." What Jaworski had instead of a conscience, we learn, was a keen understanding of public relations and a masterful "presentation of self."

In recalling his Army career to Hurt, Jaworski apparently left out the Fort Lawton court martial" "Jaworski started out trying top-secret cases of German POWs charged with committing crimes while in US detention camps. Then, as the war drew to a close, Washington sent him overseas, where he became chief prosecutor in the first set of war-crime trials after the war." Jaworski was awarded the Legion of Merit and a promotion. "Ever after, he preferred for friends and associates to call him 'Colonel.'" 

"Returning to Houston, Jaworski was feted and honored and his name was added to the name of his law firm." His clients were "some of the states richest families and some of the countries biggest corporations… He defended Anderson, Clayton in a series of major antitrust suits on the West Coast. Then he went to Miami to defend Florida Power and Light in another set of antitrust cases. Back home he represented the likes of Conoco chairman L.F. McCollum, Lincoln Liberty life insurance president Lloyd Bentsen, Texaco heirs Joe and Craig Cullinan, and oilman J.R. Parten. He helped the Bank of Scotland weather a scandal and helped a few corporate powers get their start… Perhaps his most controversial legal/political deal was his decision to represent the embattled Oscar Wyatt and his Coastal States Gas Producing Company…"

Jaworski and other partners at his law firm "occupied all four positions on the board of trustees of the multimillion dollar MD Anderson Foundation, an institution that often served as their own private backup bank. Established by the same cotton merchant who founded Anderson, Clayton, the Anderson Foundation was created for the purpose of giving money to charities, particularly medical ones. Its trustees… were very selective about where they channeled their largesse."

If you're interested in how corporate lawyers plunder while serving the plunderers, check out Hurt's profile of Jaworski's career at https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/have-conscience-will-travel/