Death of a Duke

In tiny San Diego (pop. 4,750), seat of Duval County in the heart of the south Texas triangle, a team of sheriffs, marshals, and Texas Rangers was closing in on its man. Then it spied the fugitive's 1969 Chrysler Imperial at the edge of a quiet pasture, and the search was over. Slumped over the steering wheel, a bullet in his brain, was George B. Parr, 74, the "Duke of Duval," an affable, unimposing man who for decades reigned as one of America's most autarchic political bosses, the man who reputedly put Lyndon Johnson in the U.S. Senate. Beside him lay a .45, but no note.

The story of the Duval duchy began in 1911 when three Mexican Americans were gunned down in San Diego by a gang of Anglos opposed to the town's incorporation under Chicano control. Ethnic conflict reached a high pitch. Alone among the area's "Americans" to champion the Mexicans' po sition was George's father Archie Parr, a small-time rancher. For years thereafter, the Mexicans -- who still make up 90% of the population of Duval and surrounding counties -- honored Parr as their cacique. Parr saw to it that roads were built, local government jobs were manufactured, and bail money was available to miscreants. In return, Parr's political vassals, many of them ill-educated and poor, voted the way he said.

Missing Ballots. George Parr inherited -- and expanded -- Archie's godfatherly political role. He grew rich when oil was discovered on Parr land, branched out into banking, beer distribution and other business interests, and built himself a walled Spanish-style manor that boasted a private race track.

He tripped in the mid-1930s, when he served nine months in federal prison for income tax evasion. Yet despite his lust for wealth, Parr felt affection for the local people and won many friends. His influence was so strong that when a Parr nominee already on the ballot disobeyed the boss a few weeks before the election, Parr managed to beat him with a write-in candidate.

Parr's star was never higher than in 1948, when Coke Stevenson--a former Texas Governor and onetime Parr favorite fallen from grace--was pitted against young Congressman Lyndon Johnson in a tight Democratic senatorial primary. Six days after the election, it looked as if Stevenson had won by 113 votes of the almost 1 million cast. But then one precinct of Parr-bossed Jim Wells County reported that it had discovered 202 ballots that had not been counted before--and 201 of them were for Johnson. Recriminations flew, but the Democratic state executive committee upheld L.B.J.'s nomination--and soon thereafter the last-minute ballots mysteriously disappeared. Johnson went on to win the general election.

A few years later, the law began to catch up with Parr. A Jim Wells County jury convicted Parr of threatening a local restaurant owner with a gun, and he was fined $100. He was again discovered to be behind in his taxes--this time more than $1 million--and went into bankruptcy. He was also convicted of using the mails to defraud a school district of $220,000 by issuing checks to nonexistent people.

Another Fortune. Nonetheless, Parr's well-greased machine got out the vote as before. Duval County went for Kennedy and Johnson by a 12 to 1 margin in 1960, and John Connally, vying for the gubernatorial nomination two years later, swept the county 14 to 1. Things began to look up for the boss: the U.S. Supreme Court threw out his school-funds conviction, and the Government dropped a tax-evasion case it had been preparing. Quietly he built another fortune. No one knows just how, but Parr's long-standing network of friends surely helped out.

Yet in recent years Parr had become something of a relic. Old friends gradually began to turn their backs. A hint of bitterness would creep into Parr's piercing blue eyes as he saw his power slipping away.

Last year the Government went after him once again. He was found guilty of failing to report $287,000 in income and sentenced to five years in prison. "I'm not afraid," he remarked. "I just hope they don't have any bedbugs." Two weeks ago, a federal district court denied his appeal; when it was learned that he had been seen toting a gun, a hearing was scheduled to consider revoking his bond. But George Parr, a persistent piece of Western folklore to the end, decided not to go to the hearing--and picked up his pistol instead.

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