He served in the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II, having joined the year before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Remaining in the Guard, when it became apparent that he suffered from shell shock due to his numerous bombing missions flown during World War II,[8] led one Army doctor to conclude that Garrison had a "severe and disabling psychoneurosis" which "interfered with his social and professional adjustment to a marked degree.

"[10] Upon returning again to civilian life, Garrison worked in several different trial lawyer positions before winning election as New Orleans District Attorney, starting with his first of three terms in January 1962.

Garrison received national attention for a series of vice raids in the French Quarter, staged sometimes on a nightly basis.

Until the trial, the film rarely had been seen, and copies were made by assassination investigator Steve Jaffe, who was working with Garrison's office.

[19] Russo's version of events has been questioned by some historians and researchers, such as Patricia Lambert, once it became known that part of his testimony might have been induced by hypnosis and by the drug sodium pentothal (sometimes called "truth serum").

Throughout his life, Russo reiterated the same account of being present for a party at Ferrie's house along with Mr. Bertrand, where the subject of Kennedy's potential assassination had come up.

We thought this would be hailed as an unprecedented step in jurisprudence; instead, the press turned around and hinted that we had drugged our witnesses or given them posthypnotic suggestions to testify falsely.

[29] During Garrison's 1973 bribery trial, tape recordings from March 1971 revealed that Garrison considered implicating publicly the former United States Air Force General and Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Charles Cabell, of conspiracy in the assassination of Kennedy after learning that he was the brother of Earle Cabell, the Dallas mayor in 1963.

[31] The very same reasonings as to why he thought that President Kennedy was killed were espoused by Garrison in filmed television appearances that he would make leading up to his death, the year after Stone's release of his cinematic film JFK, largely based on Garrison's pioneering role in the lone prosecution in the case of President Kennedy's assassination.

[34] In 1987, Garrison appeared in the film The Big Easy where he essentially played himself, and the next year he was featured in The Men Who Killed Kennedy series, airing in the United States beginning in 1988.

A Heritage of Stone, published by Putnam, places responsibility for the assassination on the CIA and says the Warren Commission, the Executive Branch, members of the Dallas Police Department, the pathologists at Bethesda, and various others lied to the American public.

Garrison himself had a small on-screen role in the film, playing United States Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren.

[41] Garrison's investigation and trial of Shaw has been described by critics as "a fatally flawed case built on flimsy evidence that featured a chorus of dubious and even wacky witnesses".

[42] Political commentator George Will wrote that Garrison "staged an assassination 'investigation' that involved recklessness, cruelty, abuse of power, publicity mongering and dishonesty, all on a scale that strongly suggested lunacy leavened by cynicism.

[48] Political analyst and conspiracy believer Carl Oglesby was quoted as saying to "have done a study of Garrison: I come out of it thinking that he is one of the really first-rate class-act heroes of this whole ugly story [the killing of John F. Kennedy and subsequent investigation].

"[49] Conspiracy author David Lifton called Garrison "intellectually dishonest, a reckless prosecutor, and a total charlatan".