Destiny Betrayed: JFK, Cuba, & the Garrison Case

by DiEugenio, James

There was also a further subdivision. Garrison had the utmost respect for both Salandria and Weisberg. But since it was Salandria who had smoked out Boxley, Garrison now started to favor him on the eve of the Shaw trial. And it was Salandria who now was chosen to design the Dealey Plaza part of the Shaw trial.129 Thus began a falling out between Garrison and Weisberg.

  All in all, the taking on of Wood/Boxley ended up being a first-class debacle.130 All the worse since its denouement had not come until the eve of the Clay Shaw trial.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Anticlimax: The Shaw Trial

  “Garrison had something big, high persons were involved in the assassination conspiracy. Shaw felt confident because he knew that these high persons would have to defend him.”

  —Carlos Bringuier, April of 1967

  Clay Shaw was arrested in March of 1967. He was arraigned on April 5, 1967. His chief counsel, F. Irvin Dymond, entered a not guilty plea and asked for an expeditious trial so his client would have the opportunity to demonstrate his innocence. He requested thirty days to file pre-trial motions.

  The motions dragged on for twenty more months.1 The trial did not begin until January of 1969. Some of the delay was caused by prosecution motions, but, contrary to lingering claims that Garrison never really wanted a trial, most of it was due to the defense attorneys. Moreover, there was a critical difference between the two sets of pre-trial motions. Most of the prosecution’s motions were filed in order to secure evidence or witnesses. Despite Dymond’s original request to expedite the case, most of the defense motions were meant to delay or throw out the case.

  For instance, in June the defense requested subpoenas for 32 witnesses. Included were Garrison; members of his legal and investigative staff; businessmen from Truth and Consequences; Albert LaBiche, the foreman of the Orleans Parish Grand Jury; and the entire grand jury itself.2 The tactic was to subpoena many witnesses and much documentary material and then to file more motions based on anything discovered. In fact, Dymond subpoenaed the entire grand jury twice.3 He also summoned seven criminal court judges. Sometimes, the defense would file a motion and then not show up to argue it.4 Occasionally Dymond would file a motion on the last day of a sitting grand jury, so that the motion would have to be tabled for thirty days until a new grand jury was seated.5

  The longest delay, the one that postponed the trial for six months, came after the defense had exhausted all local and state pretrial appeals. In the summer of 1968, Dymond filed a petition in federal District Court asking that Shaw’s indictment be overturned on the ground that the Warren Report was “legally valid, accurate, binding, and controlling upon all courts in the United States.”6

  In July of 1967, Garrison had tried to expedite matters by filing for an early trial date.7 For one thing, he wanted to stop Phelan and Sheridan from tampering with, intimidating, and making offers to witnesses. But when he saw that the defense was determined to drag out the pre-trial phase, he decided to use the interval to secure more evidence from the government. Here, Ramsey Clark, his nemesis, blocked his path.

  After the Attorney General had bungled his first attempt to discredit Garrison’s case, he secretly tried another method. Garrison had been trying to secure the original JFK autopsy photos and X-rays to exhibit at the trial. They would form an important part of his case, since, to prove a conspiracy, he had to present evidence against the Warren Report, which maintained there was no conspiracy and that Oswald had acted alone. In 1968, Clark convened a panel of experts—which did not include any of the doctors who had performed the original examinations—to review the autopsy photos and X-rays. In early 1969, just a few days before he left office and on the eve of the trial, Clark announced that this panel had endorsed the findings of the Warren Report. The panel released its findings, but none of the original evidence on which it was based. This was clearly meant to influence public opinion before Shaw’s trial began.

  There was, of course, a method to the seemingly endless and frivolous attempts by the defense to delay the trial (they even attempted to subpoena Clark as a witness to support the Warren Report8). It was to gain more time for both the covert and overt arms of the Shaw defense team to weaken the prosecution’s case. That is for people like Boxley to undermine Garrison from within, for Aynesworth to try and influence more witnesses, for the CIA to try and reverse testimony as it did with Mr. Moran and the VIP Lounge, and for media allies like Chandler and Snyder to influence the local jury pool. Judge Edward Haggerty seemed to realize this when he commented from the bench in 1967:

  The key flaw in the system of free press versus free trial is the unchallenged chatter that hits the … media between the time of the arrest and the time of trial. Elaborate trial rules permit jurors to hear admissible evidence, subject to searching cross-examination; the whole system is subverted when the press, radio and television media fill jurors’ heads with inadmissible evidence.9

  Wise and fair words. But Haggerty did not seem to realize that his admonition was far more constraining for Garrison, isolated and under the judge’s nose as he was, than for Shaw’s attorneys, whose cooperative friends in politics and the media were not bound by Haggerty’s warning. Further, Shaw’s lawyers would forever deny that they were getting any such covert help. As we have seen, Dymond lied to this author about his knowledge and use of the CIA cleared attorneys panel. Dymond had to lie in order to conceal an attorney’s knowledge and cooperation in an obstruction of justice.

  One friend of the defense was Aaron Kohn, the managing director of the Metropolitan Crime Commission.10 This was a private watchdog organization of business interests that kept an eye on the police and the DA’s office. Under the influence of Newsweek and its point man Hugh Aynesworth, as well as Shaw’s defense team, Kohn had sent an ominous letter to Louisiana Attorney General Jack Gremillion urging him to investigate charges of bribery and intimidation in the DA’s office. Not content with this, Kohn went to the media and began to denounce Garrison: “What you are looking at is a budding new Huey Long. I’m no longer interested in if he’s right. His course is a destructive one.”11 Kohn did not say what Garrison was destroying. And he did not seem to realize how serious it was for the Metropolitan Crime Commission to accuse the DA of such serious transgressions, especially since the grand jury and police department had already investigated the charges and found them false.

  The defense also used their ally Dean Andrews. Andrews had stated on the NBC special that the mysterious Clay Bertrand was not Shaw, and that although he knew who Bertrand was, he could not disclose his real name. Later, after Sheridan’s special, NBC gave what it said was the name, Eugene Davis, to the FBI. But when Andrews testified before the Warren Commission, he had stated that he had seen “Bertrand” only a few times. He had known Davis since law school, for seventeen years. He had seen him every few months during all that time. Moreover, Davis himself vehemently denied ever using the alias, and when he was separately questioned and investigated by both Garrison and the FBI, they concurred.12

  This was a good example of how the media coverage delayed the trial and damaged the case. When Shaw’s lawyers heard Andrews’s new story, they asked for a dismissal because now Shaw could not be Bertrand. The judge had to wait for Davis to be checked out before throwing out the motion.13 In the meantime, Garrison felt compelled to file perjury charges against Andrews for the games he was playing. He got the perjury conviction, but under Louisiana law a convicted perjurer can still testify at a trial while his conviction is being appealed. Andrews appealed, and Dymond went ahead and used him at the Shaw trial.

  But Walter Sheridan had done even more to undermine Garrison’s case. As stated before, former CIA agent, Jules Ricco Kimble, had been on a mysterious plane flight to Montreal in 1963 with Ferrie and Shaw. When Sheridan got wind of it, he intimidated Kimble first, into not talking, and then, into skipping town.14 Emilio Santana, another important witness, (especially in relation to Sergio Arcacha Smith and the Rose Cheramie story) also disappeared. Garri
son’s investigators felt that the ubiquitous Sheridan might have reached him also.15

  That journalistic duo, Phelan and Aynesworth, were both on the scene: Phelan as a witness for the defense and Aynesworth to help Shaw’s attorneys. An odd thing about this was that neither man had an ostensible writing assignment at the time. But it turned out that Phelan had a very special function for his backers. Most reporters in town to cover the proceedings rented a hotel room. But not Phelan. Phelan rented a house.16 Why would he do such a thing if he was not there to write a story? Because his was a much bigger assignment. His job was to put the spin on each day’s testimony for the residing press corps, thereby controlling the entire national media reportage on the Shaw trial. How did he do such a thing? He would invite all the reporters over to his rented house at the end of each day. He would then serve them refreshments and snacks. He then would spell out the next day’s story on a chalkboard. This is how some of the most interesting and important testimony presented during the proceedings got covered up by the media. On the day the Zapruder film was shown, Phelan had his work cut out for him. For the repeated showing of the film—depicting Kennedy’s body being violently knocked back—really shook up the press. It appeared Garrison was right, it was a conspiracy. But when they arrived at Phelan’s rented house, the reporter pulled a proverbial rabbit out of his hat. He took out his chalkboard, raised up his piece of chalk, and he began to outline the dynamics of the so called “jet-effect” explanation for the action on the film. That is, if Oswald was firing from behind Kennedy, why does Kennedy’s body recoil with tremendous force to the rear of the car? What Phelan and the jet effect proffer is that somehow the spurting of blood and brains served as a jet that drove Kennedy’s head backward with overpowering force.17 This is how determined Phelan was to keep a lid on what came out of the trial. One can only assume where the reporter got his quick course in physics to dream up such a theory in a matter of hours.

  Actually, we can do a bit more than assume. Decades later, David Chandler wrote an article for a small magazine in Denver, called Westword. Towards the end of the piece he wrote that, in early 1964, Phelan was in J. Edgar Hoover’s office. There he overheard the Director talking about certain Oswald files. Phelan got the clear impression that Hoover was destroying all records of the FBI’s contacts with Oswald. That Phelan was this close to the Bureau and Hoover, and that in his entire writing career he never revealed this fascinating episode of evidence destruction personally ordered by the Director, all this cogently sums up his work and writing on the JFK case.18

  One of the attorneys who was originally announced for Shaw’s defense team was the aforementioned Guy Johnson. As we have seen, Johnson was an important intelligence asset in New Orleans in more than one way. And he worked in that regard with Shaw and Banister. Therefore, it was not wise to keep him on the defense team. And in fact he was dropped from the team fairly early. When this author asked Sal Panzeca why he was dropped, the lawyer said it was because there was a personality conflict between Johnson and the Wegmanns.19 At that time, this author did not know enough to realize this was another smoke screen by Shaw’s defense. We will return to the real reason Johnson left in the last chapter. One which is only alluded at here.

  But the worst for Garrison came from another surprise inside his own office. Tom Bethell had been one of the DA’s key investigators and researchers. He was an Englishman, and an assassination expert. Since Garrison had designated him as his chief archivist, he had access to and control of both Garrison’s files and his most recent witness list. He had always been a curious presence inside the office. Since he would argue about certain aspects of the case with people like Vincent Salandria, and invariably take the Commission’s side of things.20 Secretly, he met with Sal Panzeca, one of Shaw’s attorneys, and gave him a witness list he had prepared, with summaries of each witness’s expected testimony for the prosecution.21 Years later, when writing about this betrayal, Bethell tried to insinuate that he had volunteered this information to Lou Ivon and Garrison.22 This is misleading. There was an inquiry into how it happened. And when all the evidence pointed to Bethell as the culprit, then and only then, did he weepingly admit what he had done.23

  If anything showed Garrison’s desire to try this case, it was his response to Bethell’s confession.24 With it, Garrison could have called for a mistrial. He did not. He continued to press forward knowing the defense was lying in wait for him every step of the way. Whether this was nobility, stubbornness, stupidity, or a death wish, it is up to the reader to draw his or her own conclusion.

  The Shaw case posed both tactical and strategic problems. Tactically, the classic way to crack a conspiracy is to isolate one of the conspirators and convince him to talk, either by offering immunity or presenting an overwhelming accumulation of evidence that targets him. This way, the code of silence can be broken. Once one yields, the dominoes fall one by one as the evidence begins to accumulate, and the convictions follow. Shaw understood that with Ferrie, Oswald, and Banister all dead, this tactic would be virtually impossible. As long as Shaw preserved his impeccably respectable exterior and denied everything, the true nature of his background and operations was shielded from Garrison’s probing. And as long as his attorneys and the media pummeled Garrison, others would be discouraged from digging further into Shaw’s background.25

  But Garrison made a strategic error here. With Shaw and his attorneys taking a hunkered-down stance, while seeming to be above the fray, the only attack with any hope of success was to overwhelm them with so many witnesses, even minor ones, as to make that stance seem phony. If one could chip away at Shaw’s testimony, his image might begin to crack and, along with it, the basic defense strategy. In other words, the “respectable” Clay Shaw would become the issue: his character, his life, his weird associations, his murky service record, his mysterious European jaunts. Who was he really? If that line was crossed, Garrison could go on the offensive, and the wall might come tumbling down.

  But for some reason, Garrison rejected this approach. He wanted to present a streamlined case against Shaw, using a few credible witnesses to expose his alias and his part in the conspiracy. He then hoped to launch a frontal assault against the Warren Report to prove that the assassination was the work of many, not of one man.

  It was a mistake. And Garrison sorrowfully realized this mistake afterwards when he said, “One of my bad decisions was not to use all of our witnesses.”26 A letter from a source close to Garrison reveals more on this point: “Garrison, of course, knew how the American news media would treat the trial, so he did not use many of his witnesses and held back on much of his evidence. His strategy considered the trial to be only one step of many, leading to the conviction of all the assassins and the exposure of the top structure above them. However, the strategy backfired … ”27

  The prosecution also chose to ignore the issue of Shaw’s homosexuality. But since one of the main points of the case was Shaw’s use of an alias, this weakened their case, since it seriously hurt the State’s chances of proving Shaw’s use of an alias. Given the prejudices of the establishment and Shaw’s straight business ties, his homosexuality would have been a motive for using an alias. Garrison even had witnesses in the French Quarter who attested to its use.28 But they were hesitant to violate Shaw’s privacy and Garrison was reluctant to press them or Shaw on the issue. Except for one instance, not initiated by the prosecutor, whenever the point surfaced, it did so in veiled, indirect terms.

  One failure that was not Garrison’s fault was his inability to bring in the intelligence community and its ties to the assassination. In May of 1967, Garrison first openly attacked the CIA and accused it of complicity in the crime.29 But many of the intelligence connections to the case, such as Banister, his former partner Hugh Ward, and Ferrie, had died, while some, like Novel, had fled, and others, such as FBI agents Regis Kennedy and Warren DeBrueys, initially refused to testify. This weakened the possibility of getting the intelligence community in
the dock and really exposing how Oswald was used in the conspiracy and how and why the cover up was constructed. As we have seen the CIA arranged to not have subpoenas served on its officers.

  Another prosecution error was in not calling enough witnesses to nail down the Shaw-Ferrie relationship. There were many witnesses who attested to this relationship. As noted above, Sheridan deprived Garrison of Jules Ricco Kimble, who had flown with the pair to Montreal.30 We have previously noted the witnesses involved in the Freeport Sulphur connection and how Ferrie and Shaw figured in that episode. On rebuttal, Garrison did call two witnesses, Nicholas and Matilda Tadin, to link the pair and fortify Russo’s statements, but there should have been more.31

  Garrison’s attack on the Warren Report was much better than the New Orleans side of the case. He attacked the Report on three levels. First, he called new witnesses or witnesses who had been ignored by the Commission, all of whom attested to a crossfire in Dealey Plaza and/or sightings of possible assassins. Second, he demonstrated how one shooter could not have performed the feat attributed to Oswald, because of the timing of the shots and the trajectory of the bullets. And finally, by obtaining the Zapruder film and by cross examining Dr. Finck, he made public evidence which had never before been revealed, and changed the nature of the case forever.

  Garrison himself did not appear very often at the trial. He made the State’s initial presentation, outlining the case to the jury, and he made one of the final summations. He questioned few witnesses between. There has been all kinds of speculation down through the years, including by this author, as to why Garrison was not the lead lawyer for the prosecution. In the files contributed to the Review Board by Garrison’s son, Lyon, the reason finally appeared. In a reply to a query by a supporter mailed to him after the trial, the DA explained that he was stricken by both his recurrent bad back and the Hong Kong flu at the time. His back bothered him so much that he could barely bend over. In fact, it was so bad that, at times he literally had to crawl across the floor to replace a file. But since he feared that Shaw’s lawyers would delay the trial again, he decided to press forward with the proceeding anyway.32