Locked in his room at a mental hospital in Galveston early last week, Louisiana's Governor Earl Long was raging. He wanted out, demanded that he be permitted to return to his home state. He hired lawyers; then he fired them when they refused to do his bidding. At length, he implored his wife Blanche to get him released, promised her that he would submit to psychiatric treatment in New Orleans. Blanche Long, worried about her husband's loss of weight and fearing for his weak heart, agreed. After Earl signed a paper releasing his wife and state officials from any liability stemming from the scheme they had engineered to spirit the Governor out of the state (TIME, June 15), Blanche Long arranged for Earl to go back home.
But once he was back in his own state, Louisiana's mad Governor erupted once more. Scarcely had he signed in at New Orleans' Ochsner Foundation Hospital than he began demanding his release again. For three hours his doctors tried to outtalk him, but Earl insisted that he wanted only to drive to his farm—or maybe a friend's farm—where he could rest. He was, after all, still the Governor of Louisiana; nobody could stop him, he cried. But wife Blanche did.
The Law. She moved fast. Determined to have her husband committed again, she called Dr. Chester Williams, the coroner* of East Baton Rouge Parish (i.e., county), arranged for Williams to get commitment papers ready, then sped up the 80-mile, Huey-built Air Line Highway to Baton Rouge to sign them. While she was on the way, Coroner Williams and Parish Sheriff Bryan Clemmons ordered two detectives onto the highway at the parish line to wait for Earl Long, who would surely soon be racing for Baton Rouge to reclaim his power.
Sure enough, a half hour later, a white, unlabeled, state-police Ford sped by. A trooper was driving, and with him sat Earl Long. In the back sat an oldtime Long friend, Physician-Oilman (reputed annual income: $7,000,000 to $8,000,000) Martin O. Miller. The two detectives radioed the word to the sheriff's office, swung behind the Ford and began trailing it. In a few minutes came a message from Sheriff Clemmons: "The papers have been signed. Put your plan into effect."
The Ruse. The detectives pulled abreast of the Ford, waved the driver to the roadside. They greeted the Governor pleasantly, told him that they had been ordered to escort him to the capital. Long's driver got out of the Ford; Chief Detective Herman Thompson slid in behind the wheel and made for Baton Rouge. The disheveled Governor seemed delighted with the attention, spent the remainder of the trip trading small talk.
It was only after Thompson pulled into the basement-ramp area of the courthouse at Baton Rouge that Earl Long realized that he had been tricked. "What's going on?" he cried. Thompson told him about the commitment papers. "Goddam! Goddam you all," screamed Earl. "You all are doing it again. Goddam you, I'll get you! I'll get all of you!" Turning wildly to a deputy whose father holds a state job with the Department of Corrections, Long yelled: "Your old man just lost his job!" As Earl thundered and cried, a crowd of incredulous onlookers pressed in close. Frantically, Earl boomed: "You all look here! You all look! See?"