Clay Bertrand

Clay Bertrand is a man referred to in the Warren Commission Report regarding the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963. New Orleans attorney Dean Andrews testified to the Warren Commission that he received a call from "Clay Bertrand," the day after the assassination of President Kennedy, asking him to fly to Dallas to represent the suspected assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald.[1][2]

The actual existence of a "Clay Bertrand" has been debated, with Andrews claiming both that he made the name up,[3] and that the FBI intimidated him into claiming Clay Bertrand did not exist.[3]

New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison asserted that "Clay Bertrand" was actually New Orleans businessman Clay Shaw.[4] During the trial of Clay Shaw, Garrison accused Shaw of using the alias "Clay Bertrand" to solicit Andrews' legal services on Oswald's behalf; however, Garrison was unable to prove a connection to Shaw. Shaw was found not guilty.

Ten years after Shaw's trial, former assistant to the Director of the CIA and proponent of the organized crime and the CIA conspiracy theory Victor Marchetti argued that Clay Bertrand was, in fact, Clay Shaw.[5]

Notes

  1. ^ Testimony of Dean Adams Andrews, Jr., Warren Commission Hearings, Volume 11, p. 331.
  2. ^ Summers, Anthony. Not in Your Lifetime, (New York: Marlowe & Company, 1998), p. 241. ISBN 1-56924-739-0
  3. ^ a b Testimony of Dean Adams Andrews, Jr., Warren Commission Hearings, Volume 11, p. 334.
  4. ^ Garrison, Jim. On The Trail of the Assassins, (New York: Sheridan Square Press, 1988), pp. 85-86.
  5. ^ Kroth, Jerome A. (2003). Conspiracy in Camelot: The Complete History of the Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. New York: Algora Publishing. p. 132. ISBN 0875862470.