[Steely Tom]

True. But as I understand it, New Orleans was full of "bizarre individuals" at that time, and probably today too.

John Kennedy Toole's novel A Confederacy of Dunces is built around that observation. He wrote it during the early sixties (it contains references to a recently-released movie of the Beach Blanket Bingo genre, for example), even though it was published in 1980.

[Rockingham]

In the early 60s, New Orleans was rife with Mafia activity under the control of Mafia boss Carlos Marcello. Lee Harvey Oswald was the nephew of one of Marcello's bolita men, Dutz Murret.

In addition, Dallas was under Marcello's jurisdiction, with Jack Ruby reliant on Marcello for permission to operate and for a reliable flow of strippers. Supposedly, Ruby was deeply in debt to Marcello.

Moreover, New Orleans at the time was a center for CIA plots against Castro, with key CIA officers like George Joannides and David Phillips spending time there.