A Farewell to Justice

by Joan Mellen

Garrison and his staff had been faced with the decision of whether and how to show Shaw’s intelligence activity and his connection to the CIA. They had no access to the CIA’s complex Shaw files, and were unable even to invoke the Paese Sera articles because newspaper articles are, finally, only hearsay. Nor did the Paese Sera articles prove conclusively that Centro Mondiale Commerciale was a CIA front distributing laundered money to influence Italian politics. The documentary evidence that Ferenc Nagy, at the helm of the CMC, was a longtime CIA asset emerged only in the 1990s. Lacking the resources to investigate in Italy, unable to appreciate the “fullness” of Shaw’s involvement in CMC, Jim Garrison had read the Paese Sera series only in a cursory manner.

  “We did not have any evidence that Shaw worked for the CIA,” Garrison summed up. He knew it in his bones, he said later, “once we learned that it was he who had called Andrews,” and that Shaw was “a pal of Ferrie’s.” Moreover, Garrison believed that the jury was not ready for the concept of “domestic espionage,” even as he knew he was “taking the risk of leaving out motive.”

  It was only in 1973, Garrison was to say, “thanks to Victor Marchetti,” that he knew for certain “that Shaw and Ferrie were both CIA employees, which means that we were not wrong with regard to the trial of Shaw.” In addition to his recounting how Helms had revealed he was helping Clay Shaw, Marchetti would explain that Shaw’s Project QKENCHANT files resided under CIA “Operations,” rather than with “Domestic Contact.”

  In February 1969, all Alcock could do was to expose Shaw’s lies, among them Shaw’s outright fabrication that he did not solicit that invitation to San Francisco. Alcock did uncover yet another Shaw lie: Shaw’s denial that he had been at the Lake Front Airport in 1963. State witnesses Nicholas Tadin and his wife Mathilde identified Shaw as having been present when they were observing their son’s flying lessons with David Ferrie. Salvatore Panzeca considers the Tadins to have been the most damaging state witnesses. Frank Meloche, who knew the Tadins, was certain: “They would never have lied.”

  Dymond asked for a directed verdict on the strength that he had proven that the name “Clay Bertrand” “had a completely fictitious origin.”

  Alcock’s closing was passionate and reflected his belief that Clay Shaw was guilty. He said he had proven Shaw a liar “within four hours” through the Clinton witnesses. The premise that Shaw did not know Ferrie or Oswald “lay shattered, broken, and forever irretrievable in the dust of Clinton, Louisiana.” If Shaw had lied on any material issue, he told the jury, they were free to “disregard his entire testimony.” He did not apologize for Spiesel, who had remembered Clay Shaw because he had telephoned Shaw later at Ferrie’s suggestion about work in New Orleans. Whatever his eccentricities, Spiesel was a functioning businessman who had been to college and served in the military.

  Alcock asked the jury to consider how Russo could have known what Shaw’s alibi would be. “Leon” had said he was going to look for work in Houston, a fact confirmed by Ruth Paine. Clay Shaw, Alcock concluded, was “unworthy of your belief.”

  Al Oser had the easier job of proving a conspiracy in the assassination at Dealey Plaza. He repeated Dr. Nichols’ testimony that if President Kennedy had been hit in the back of the head, he would have been driven forward from the blow, the bullet traveling at 2,175 feet per second, with a wallop of 1,676 pounds. “That’s a wallop! That’s a wallop!” Oser said. He pointed to a blow-up of the crime scene with people running toward the grassy knoll. “Where is everybody running to in the photograph, gentlemen?” he asked the jury.

  A defiant Dymond had written his closing statement the night before, he bragged to his friend Burton Klein, while in the act of being ministered to by a woman of the night. If the State meant to charge the government with “dishonest, unscrupulous conduct,” they should have done so, he said. “As a loyal American citizen,” he believed in the Warren Commission. Critics of the Warren Report,” Dymond said, pandering to a Southern ethos where dissent meant integration and communism, were “a group of vultures, no better than supporters of the Soviet Union.”

  Anticommunism and racism were then aligned to class snobbery as Dymond asked the jury to compare the credibility of the Clinton witnesses with that of so distinguished a figure as Lloyd Cobb. “There is no way in the world that this defendant could have been in Clinton, Louisiana when the State claims he was there,” Dymond said. “Bertrand” was an invention of Andrews, he insisted. “Only a lunatic” would have signed that guest book ‘Clay Bertrand,’” Dymond said.

  In rebuttal, Oser expressed his indignation at being called “un-American.” He explained why, although the state had subpoenaed FBI ballistics expert Robert Frazier, Frazier became a defense witness instead, going on to testify that the windshield of Kennedy’s limousine had been broken—from the inside.

  Frazier had arrived in New Orleans only to demand that Harry Connick accompany him at all times. Connick then told William Alford that he could not talk to the witness unless he revealed his questions to Connick in advance.

  “Harry, I’m not going to tell you that,” Alford said in his cordial way. “It’s none of your business.”

  “Well, I think it is,” Connick said. When Alford insisted that the purpose of the statute was to protect the witness, not for Connick to demand that Alford divulge his case, Connick held firm. “If you don’t tell me, you’re not talking to him.” Disgusted, Alford threw both Connick and Frazier out of his office.

  Alcock concluded by referring to the defendant as “a veritable Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.” Where Clay Shaw spent his time was a mystery to Lloyd Cobb and to his own secretary. He was glad, Alcock said, that the case had reached “a jury like yourselves despite the efforts of the Jim Phelans, the Walter Sheridans and the [Fred] Frieds of NBC.”

  There were tears in Jimmy Alcock’s eyes. He knew he was going to lose, he had told Frank Meloche. He had given his all.

  Jim Garrison delivered the final closing statement. He loved his country, he said. But justice “did not happen automatically. Men have to make it occur.” He called the Warren Report “the greatest fraud in the history of our country,” one only the jury could correct. The trial might be over, he added, but he intended still “to fight for the truth.” Contemptuous of poor Pierre Finck, who had obeyed a general not to complete the autopsy, and of Frazier, who had resorted to the fantasy that Oswald had “created a sonic boom firing his weapon,” Garrison termed the murder of John F. Kennedy “the most terrible moment in the history of our country.” The jury could “cause justice to happen for the first time in this matter.”

  Judge Haggerty read the conspiracy statute to the jury, reminding them that anything done in furtherance of the conspiracy counted, not only an unlawful act, but even a lawful one. Nor was it necessary for the defendant to be present at the time of the commission of the crime. Only “common intent” (such as that expressed at Ferrie’s gathering) was required, not a formal agreement. Nor even did the conspirators have to state expressly the terms of their common understanding: A “tacit, mutual understanding and the willful, intentional and knowing adoption by two or more persons of a common design” was enough. When Dymond asked that the jury be informed of “the general reputation of the accused for honesty, truthfulness, peace and quiet,” Judge Haggerty denied this request.

  It was after midnight. “March 1st” would be written on the verdict forms. Fifty-four minutes after they were sent to deliberate, the verdict was announced: “We the Jury find the defendant not guilty.”

  Nearly five years later, Clay Shaw came as close to a confession as he dared, setting him apart from the many CIA employees, from Lawrence Houston to David Atlee Phillips to Richard Helms, who carried their silence to the grave. Near death from lung cancer, Shaw was visited at the Ochsner Foundation hospital by longtime acquaintance and neighbor George Dureau, a New Orleans painter and photographer.

  As Dureau remembers, Shaw said, “You know, I wasn’t guilty of what Garrison charged. But
Garrison had the right idea. He was almost right. Someone like me, with a background in army intelligence and with post-war intelligence connections, very well might have been asked to meet with someone like Oswald or Ferrie, to give them a package or some money or whatever, and I would have faithfully done it without ever asking what I was doing it for.” That “package” recalls “Donald” P. Norton’s testimony that Shaw gave him a suitcase of money to deliver to Oswald in Monterrey.

  As for whether Shaw’s government service extended into the 1960s, one day Shaw, who lived a block away, walked up to Dureau and said, “Would you like to go to Spain with me?”

  Dureau was bisexual, “across the board,” as he puts it. But Shaw’s impromptu invitation did not appeal to him. Dureau found an excuse. “Oh, I couldn’t go to Spain,” he said. “I don’t have a passport.”

  “Silly boy, you don’t think I could get you a passport in one day?” Shaw said.

  JUST ANOTHER DAY AT TULANE AND BROAD

  20

  Clarence Darrow lost the Scopes trial—who knows it?

  —Jim Garrison

  JUST ANOTHER DAY AT Tulane and Broad,” Garrison I quipped as soon as he learned that Clay Shaw had been acquitted. Then in an ironic paraphrase of Lee Harvey Oswald, he added, “Now everyone will know who I am.” He was not emotional, unlike the two of his assistants who had broken down. He spoke, instead, of his sympathy for President Kennedy: “If you happen to get elected president, you must not get the idea that you can with equanimity try to end an eighty billion dollar a year warfare operation.” Kennedy had been “taking steps to end the Cold War,” Garrison believed. Nor was the culprit the CIA alone. In implementing the assassination, the CIA was functioning as “the clandestine arm of the warfare interests in the United States government.”

  The investigation had cost, by his records, $99,488.96, of which he had personally donated $15,875.

  The jury told Mark Lane they had agreed that there had been a conspiracy, with the United States government a participant. There was a good chance of Clay Shaw’s having been involved. But there was also reasonable doubt. The two alternates said they would have voted to convict. Garrison concluded that it was not possible to expose “a sophisticated clandestine operation in an Anglo-Saxon courtroom.” It had been like “trying to carry water in a sieve.”

  Jokingly, he said he had been “rudely interrupted by the jury’s verdict,” only for a reporter to write that he had criticized the jury.

  Garrison then wrote a letter of appreciation to each jury member. He was sensitive to criticism that he had violated Clay Shaw’s rights. He had not mentioned Shaw’s name in the intervening two years, he said. He had allowed nothing about Shaw’s personal life to arise at the trial.

  “Garrison should resign,” the States-Item blared. Garrison laughed. His office had never lost a major case in six and a half years, “and, darn it, we lose one case and the next morning I’m called on to resign!” The New York Times wrote he was unfit for public office.

  Clay Shaw filed a $5 million lawsuit accusing Garrison, along with Perry Russo and the Truth and Consequences backers, of violating his constitutional rights. It was against the law to sue a prosecutor if you had been indicted by a grand jury. But Shaw was no ordinary defendant. The wife of Federal Judge Herbert Christenberry sent Clay Shaw a congratulatory letter, speaking as “we.” During the investigation, Christenberry had informed on the Shaw case to the FBI.

  Two days after the verdict, Garrison charged Shaw with two counts of perjury: that he had never met Lee Harvey Oswald, that he had never met David Ferrie. “He was lying to the jury,” Judge Haggerty said publicly. “I think Shaw put a good con job on the jury . . . I believe he was lying to the jury on a number of things.” Undistracted by Spiesel’s peculiarities, Haggerty believed his testimony, impressed that Spiesel had been able to identify the building Shaw had once renovated, which was right next to one Shaw owned.

  Pleading double jeopardy, Shaw and his lawyers marched over to the office of U.S. Attorney Louis LaCour. The perjury case landed on the lap of Federal Judge Herbert Christenberry.

  Hunter Leake conveyed the news to Langley: “The bête noir has become a phoenix. Certainly Garrison must consider himself a miraculous bird to arise, in the face of widespread public indignation and hostility, from his own ashes.” Leake had hoped that Garrison “had been consumed, in fire, by his own act.” The CIA had planned to close down their “communications installation” on Garrison on April 28th. Now they had to maintain their surveillance. CIA continued its monitoring. Memos flew between the Office of General Counsel, and the St. Louis field office.

  In the absence of a Louisiana law against obstruction of justice, Garrison charged Tom Bethell with “unlawful use of movable property for allegedly showing the state’s trial memorandum in the Shaw case to a Shaw attorney.” Dean Andrews was charged again with perjury, for lying on the stand at the Shaw trial. In the middle of the month, a “Proclamation” went out to Garrison’s staff: “Because of the solemnity of this occasion and because so many of you worked overtime in the recent case, St. Patrick’s Day will be a half-holiday.” It was signed “Jim Garrison (of the McFerrins and Chapmans from County Monahan).”

  Then Jim Garrison began to investigate the Kennedy assassination all over again. “I have just begun to fight,” he announced. Lou Ivon thought it was time to go back to the office, and to politics, but Jim “just kept it up, kept it up.” Summarizing as yet undeveloped leads, Garrison ordered red and yellow folders. He and Alcock shared one set of files, Sciambra, Alford and Ivon another. “The Murret Lead” reflected that Jim Garrison was not overlooking the Mafia connections of Oswald or anyone else. He learned that, some time after September 24, 1963, a man Oswald’s aunt Mrs. Murret identified as Clay Shaw appeared at her home.

  A man named Lopez said he went to Cuba with Clay Shaw. A chemistry professor said he met Thornley and Oswald together in New Orleans. The federal government listed a “Suggs” file as secret, as Garrison began to lift the corner of Jack Martin’s CIA history. A Banister employee named Bob Guzman spotted Oswald at Thompson’s Cafe where Tommy Beckham had met him. Bootsie Gay now came forward, her testimony further confirmed by Al Clark. David Gentry claimed he saw Shaw visit Oswald’s house and was given a polygraph.

  The investigation drew closer to Woodrow Hardy: Garrison interviewed Mrs. Esther Stein, who had worked at Shaw’s house when Oswald visited, and chatted with the carpenter. A painter named George Clark saw Oswald playing cards with another man at Shaw’s house: they were “friends of the owner,” they said. Clark identified Oswald and Shaw, who had come in, talked briefly to the young men, and left.

  Richard Burnes now represented Dick Wight, the vice-president of Freeport Sulphur, and agreed to bring him to the office. A cab driver had taken Shaw to Ferrie’s apartment on numerous occasions. The office reexamined a Bertrand library card that had been discounted because the telephone number on it was wrong, although the lead had come through a Library Board member. They reinterviewed Mr. and Mrs. Eames, whom Ferrie had visited to ask “what library card Oswald was using at the time Mr. Eames saw him in the main library,” believing it might be his.

  Old friends helped. Pudgie Miranne suggested that Mr. C. Earl Colomb, a former vice president of the International Trade Mart, might clarify “Shaw’s hidden intelligence connections with the federal intelligence apparatus.” At the New Orleans Athletic Club, Harry Daniels suggested they talk to David Cotter, a close friend of Shaw’s, who left New Orleans abruptly when the investigation began. They returned to the Ryder Coffee House because Garrison had never been satisfied with proprietor Jack Frazier’s evasions.

  Garrison wanted Henry Lesnick to persuade David Logan to come forward “this time.” Eddie Porter said he met Oswald in the Penny Arcade of the 100 block of Royal in the company of a male prostitute; Oswald had told Francis Martello that this “John” was a member of the Fair Play for Cuba committee.

  Local law enfo
rcement was no more cooperative than it had ever been. With the assistance of New Orleans police intelligence, the Louisiana State Police had prepared a forty-one-page report on Oswald and Ferrie at the request of the Warren Commission; ten pages remained classified. No copies materialized.

  At the end of April, Garrison’s investigators located Allen and Dan Campbell. Allen could testify to relationships between Banister and G. Wray Gill, as well as between Banister and A. Roswell Thompson. He could also confirm that Ferrie had flown to Dallas the week of the assassination. He knew how well Banister knew Shaw and was aware of Banister’s CIA connections. Dan Campbell had seen Oswald at Banister’s office.

  Wary, Garrison asked people to write to him in care of Judge Matthew Braniff, who owed Garrison his judgeship, which he had recommended on the condition that Braniff stop drinking. Never a man to hold grudges, Garrison ran into reporter Jack Dempsey and extended “his big right paw.” He welcomed John Volz back into the office and Volz worked on the perjury case against Shaw.

  Garrison ran for reelection in the autumn of 1969. “I did not fight the federal government two and a half years just to resign because the newspaper says I should,” he declared. Hardy Davis sought revenge by implying that there had been corruption in the office’s failure to collect forfeited bail from the Maryland National Insurance Company. It had been Charlie Ward’s responsibility, but Garrison took the blame, calling it his “one serious mistake” in seven years in office.

  When two vacancies opened up on the Criminal Court, Garrison reneged on his promise to Charlie Ward and proposed Al Oser and Israel Augustine, who would be the first African-American judge “in modern times.” When Ward resigned from the district attorney’s office, Jimmy Alcock became chief assistant, and Moo Moo Sciambra, executive assistant. “Now the top command is entirely made up of men who fought that fight with me,” Garrison said.