Clay Shaw

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This is an article about the New Orleans businessman. See E. Clay Shaw, Jr. for an article about the politician from Florida.

Clay Laverne Shaw (March 17, 1913 – August 14, 1974) was a successful businessman in the U.S. city of New Orleans, Louisiana. He is notable as the only person ever to be tried for conspiracy in relation to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Shaw was honorably discharged from the United States Army as a major in 1946. He served as a secretary to the General Staff and was decorated by three nations: The United States with the Legion of Merit and Bronze Star, by France with the Croix de Guerre and named Chevalier de l'Ordre du Merite, and by Belgium named Chevalier of the Order of the Crown of Belgium.[1]

After World War II Shaw helped start the International Trade Mart in New Orleans which facilitated the sales of both domestic and imported goods. He was known locally for his efforts to preserve buildings in New Orleans' historic French Quarter. [1]

New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison prosecuted Shaw on the claim that he used the alias "Clay Bertrand" among New Orleans' gay society and conspired with anti-Castro Cubans to assassinate Kennedy.[2] Shaw was acquitted on all charges.

Contents

[edit] Arrest

District Attorney Jim Garrison arrested Shaw in 1967. He believed that Clay Shaw was the man named as 'Clay Bertrand' in the Warren Commission Report. A lawyer named Dean Andrews Jr. testified to the Commission that he was contacted via telephone by a "Clay Bertrand", who inquired if he would be interested in defending Oswald in court. This was whilst Andrews was "in hospital and under sedation". Andrews described Bertrand as a bisexual man who had previously brought gay clients to him, for Andrews to defend. Andrews also said that Lee Oswald had previously visited his office on approximately three occasions in June-July, about his citizenship status, his wife's status and his dishonourable discharge from the Marine Corps. On 11/23/63 [2], [3].

Andrews later gave different descriptions of Bertrand to investigators. He first said that "Clay Bertrand" was over six feet tall, (Clay Shaw stood 6'4") and then later said that he was 5'8" tall. Eventually Andrews testified to the Orleans Parish Grand Jury that Clay Bertrand was not Shaw, but was a client of his named Eugene Davis. He also reiterated this contention on a NBC news program. Eugene Davis then denied being Clay Bertrand, and Andrews said that he had named Davis without the latter´s knowledge. [4]

Police officer Aloysius J. Habighorst (who fingerprinted Shaw following his arrest) gave evidence that Shaw admitted - when asked - that he had used the name Clay Bertrand as an alias. This was on the fingerprint card, along with Shaw's signature. Shaw contended that he had never admitted the alias to Habighorst, and also claimed that he had signed the fingerprint card while it was still blank. See James Kirkwood American Grotesque: An Account of the Clay Shaw-Jim Garrison-Kennedy Assassination Trial in New Orleans pp. 353-359 (ISBN 0-06-097523-7).

Officer Habighorst's testimony and the fingerprint card were deemed inadmissible as evidence as the judge concluded that any such questioning - during the booking - constituted a violation of both Miranda v. Arizona and Escobedo v. Illinois. The judge went on to say that he believed Habighorst's testimony was a fabrication and doubted that the incident even took place - stating in court that, "I do not believe Officer Habighorst." [5]

[edit] The trial

Further information: Trial of Clay Shaw

During the trial, which took place in 1969, Garrison called Perry Russo - an insurance salesman - as his main witness. Russo testified that he had seen Shaw with both Oswald and David Ferrie, and that he had heard them both talking about killing the president. [6]

Critics of Garrison argue that the primary sources from the New Orleans District Attorney's office show Russo's story had evolved over time. [7] Garrison's defenders attribute the discrepancy to sloppy writing on the part of Assistant D.A. Andrew Sciambra; the author of the memos in question.

Shaw's attorneys were successful in raising questions as to the validity of Russo's story. Other Garrison witnesses such as Charles Spiesel - a paranoid accountant who admitted under cross examination that he filed suit in New York in 1964 against a psychiatrist and the City of New York, claiming that over a period of several years the police and others had constantly hypnotized him and harassed him out of business as well as admitting to regularly fingerprinting his children- destroyed the prosecution's credibility. Shaw was found not guilty less than one hour after the case went to the jury.

[edit] Clay Shaw and the CIA

Garrison later wrote a book about his investigation of Clay Shaw and the subesquent trial called On the Trail of the Assassins. This book served as one of the main sources for Oliver Stone's movie JFK. In On the Trail of Assassins, Garrison states that Shaw had an "extensive international role as an employee of the CIA".[3] Shaw denied that he had had any connections with the CIA. [8]

Richard Helms, former director of the CIA, testified under oath, in 1979, that Clay Shaw had been a part-time contact of the Domestic Contact Division of the CIA, where Shaw volunteered information from his travels abroad and specifically from his visits to countries behind the Iron Curtain. By the mid-1970s, 150,000 Americans (businessmen, and journalists, etc.) had provided such information to the DCS. [9]

Shaw died in 1974 at age 61 of lung cancer.

[edit] Further reading

  • Joe Biles, In History's Shadow: Lee Harvey Oswald, Kerry Thornley & the Garrison Investigation. ISBN 0-595-22455-5
  • Milton Brener, The Garrison Case: A Study in the Abuse of Power. ASIN B0006C04I0
  • William Davy, Let Justice Be Done: New Light on the Jim Garrison Investigation. ISBN 0-9669716-0-4
  • James Kirkwood, American Grotesque: An Account of the Clay Shaw-Jim Garrison-Kennedy Assassination Trial in New Orleans. ISBN 0-06-097523-7
  • Patricia Lambert, False Witness: The Real Story of Jim Garrison's Investigation and Oliver Stone's Film JFK. ISBN 0-87131-920-9
  • Joan Mellen, A Farewell to Justice: Jim Garrison, JFK's Assassination, and the Case That Should Have Changed History. ISBN 1-57488-973-7

[edit] References

  1. ^ "Clay L. Shaw." Dictionary of American Biography, Supplement 9: 1971-1975. Charles Scribner's Sons, 1994.
  2. ^ James Phelan, Scandals, Scamps, and Scoundrels, p. 150-1. (ISBN 0-394-48196-8)
  3. ^ Jim Garrison, On the Trail of the Assassins (ISBN 0-446-36277-8), page 87.

[edit] External links

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