Clay Shaw

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Clay Shaw

Clay Laverne Shaw (March 17, 1913 - August 15, 1974 ) was a businessman in New Orleans , Louisiana . He was the only one charged in connection with the assassination attempt on John F. Kennedy . He was acquitted.

biography

Shaw was honorably discharged from the US Army as a major in 1946 . He served as Secretary of the General Staff and was decorated by three nations: the United States with the Legion of Merit and the Bronze Star , France with the Croix de guerre , and Belgium with the Order of the Crown (Knight) .

After World War II , Shaw helped set up the International Trade Mart in New Orleans, which facilitated the sale of domestic goods and goods from abroad. He was known locally for his efforts to preserve the buildings in New Orleans ' historic French Quarter .

arrest

New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison prosecuted Clay Shaw on the grounds that Shaw and a far- right group including David Ferrie and Guy Banister were involved in a conspiracy involving the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to assassinate President Kennedy. Garrison arrested Shaw on March 1, 1967, believing Clay Shaw was the man referred to as "Clay Bertrand" in the Warren Commission report. Garrison claimed that Shaw used the pseudonym "Clay Bertrand" in New Orleans' gay community.

negotiation

During the negotiations, which ran from January to February 1969, Garrison named insurance agent Perry Russo as his main witness. Russo testified that he attended a party in the apartment of anti- Castro activist David Ferrie . At that party, Russo said, Ferrie, Oswald, and "Clay Bertrand" (whom Russo identified as Clay Shaw in the courtroom) discussed killing Kennedy.

Russo's story only developed over time. Before the trial, he told the press that he only found out who Oswald was on television after the attack. The records of the first questioning by Assistant DA Andrew Sciambra do not mention a "murder party" either. Russo now testified that he had met Shaw on two occasions, none of which was a "party". Only after further interrogations, which took place under the influence of the so-called truth drug thiopental and under hypnosis , Russo could remember a meeting with Ferrie, Shaw and Oswald, at which the three would have talked about the murder of Kennedy. He described Oswald as an unkempt, bearded beatnik and roommate of the homosexual Shaw.

Another Garrison witness, Charles Spiesel, further weakened the prosecution with his testimony. Spiesel said under cross-examination that he filed a lawsuit against a psychiatrist and the City of New York in 1964 . He swore that the police and others had hypnotized him over a period of several years and drove him out of business. He also confirmed that he regularly fingerprinted his daughter to make sure she hadn't been replaced by a doppelganger. Spiesel was named by the prosecution as a witness that he had attended a meeting at which Clay Shaw had been present and Spiesel could identify him as "Clay Bertrand". Shaw was acquitted less than an hour after the case went to the jury.

consequences

Garrison later wrote a book about his investigation into Clay Shaw, and the investigation that followed was called Upon Investigating the Murderers . In the book, Garrison wrote that Shaw had an "extensive international role as a member of the CIA." Shaw denied such a connection.

Clay Shaw actually had contacts with the Domestic Contact Service (DCS) of the American foreign intelligence service CIA between 1948 and 1956 and provided testimonials to this service as part of his trips abroad. In the mid-1970s, 150,000 Americans (businessmen, journalists, etc.) reported such information to the DCS.

In 1979 the House Select Committee on Assassinations wrote in its final report that the committee “was inclined to believe that Oswald was in Clinton, Louisiana in late August, early September 1963 , in the company of David Ferrie or even Clay Shaw. "And that witnesses in Clinton, Louisiana" made an indefinite connection between Ferrie, Shaw and Oswald less than three months before the murder. "

death

Shaw died on August 15, 1974 at the age of 61 at 12:40 p.m. in his apartment at 1022 St. Peter Street. The death certificate was issued by Dr. Hugh M. Batson signed, citing metastatic lung cancer as the cause of death . No autopsy was performed.

Fictional representations

Shaw was portrayed by Tommy Lee Jones in Oliver Stone's 1991 film JFK - Crime Scene Dallas .

Books on the subject

  • Joe Biles: In History's Shadow: Lee Harvey Oswald, Kerry Thornley & the Garrison Investigation. ISBN 0-595-22455-5 .
  • Milton E. Brener: The Garrison Case: A Study in the Abuse of Power. CN Potter, 1969.
  • Donald H. Carpenter: Man of a Million Fragments: The True Story of Clay Shaw. Donald H. Carpenter LLC, 2014, ISBN 978-0-692-22641-4 .
  • James DeEugenio: Destiny Betrayed: JFK, Cuba, and the Garrison Case. Sheridan Square Press, New York 1992, ISBN 1-879823-00-4 .
  • William Davy: Let Justice Be Done: New Light on the Jim Garrison Investigation. Jordan Pub, 1999, ISBN 0-9669716-0-4 .
  • Edward Jay Epstein: The Assassination Chronicles: Inquest, Counterplot, and Legend. Carroll & Graf Pub, 1992, ISBN 0-88184-909-X .
  • Paris Flammonde: The Kennedy conspiracy: An uncommissioned report on the Jim Garrison investigation. Meredith Press, 1969.
  • Jim Garrison: A Heritage of Stone. Putnam Publishing Group, 1970, ISBN 0-399-10398-8 .
  • Jim Garrison: On the Trail of the Assassins. Sheridan Square Press, New York 1988, ISBN 0-446-36277-8 .
  • Max Holland: The Power of Disinformation: The Lie that Linked CIA to the Kennedy Assassination. In: Studies in Intelligence. Fall-Winter 2001, No. 11
  • 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 .
  • Jim Marrs: Crossfire: The Plot that Killed Kennedy. Carroll & Graf, New York 1989, ISBN 0-88184-648-1 .
  • Joan Mellen: A Farewell to Justice: Jim Garrison, JFK's Assassination, and the Case That Should Have Changed History. Potomac Books, Washington DC 2005, ISBN 1-57488-973-7 .
  • Gerald Posner: Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK. Anchor Books, New York 2003, ISBN 1-4000-3462-0 .
  • Anthony Summers: Not in Your Lifetime. Marlowe & Company, New York 1998, ISBN 1-56924-739-0 .
  • Harold Weisberg: Oswald in New Orleans: Case for Conspiracy with the CIA Canyon Books, New York 1967, OCLC 434028 .

swell

  1. ↑ Clay L. Shaw. In: Dictionary of American Biography . Supplement 9, 1971-1975. Charles Scribner's Sons, 1994. (Eng.)
  2. ↑ Milton E. Brener: The Garrison Case. Clarkson N. Potter, New York 1969, pp. 62-64; Patricia Lambert: False Witness. M. Evans and Co., New York 1998, pp. 48-49; Paris Flammonde: The Kennedy Conspiracy. Meredith Press, New York 1969, pp. 71-74; Clay Shaw testimony, State of Louisiana v. Clay L. Shaw, February 27, 1969 The JFK 100: Who Was Clay Shaw
  3. ↑ James Phelan : Scandals, Scamps, and Scoundrels. ISBN 0-394-48196-8 , pp. 150–151 (English)
  4. ↑ Perry Russo
  5. ^ Testimony of Perry Russo
  6. ^ John McAdams: JFK Assassination Logic. How to Think About Claims of Conspiracy . Potomac Books, Dulles, VA 2011, pp. 45-51.
  7. ↑ Attempt to Use Insane Witness Blows Up In Garrison's Face
  8. ↑ Jim Garrison: On The Trail of the Assassins. Sheridan Square Press, New York 1988, ISBN 0-446-36277-8 , p. 87.
  9. ↑ James Phelan: The Penthouse Interview with Clay Shaw. Penthouse , 2007, accessed December 18, 2007 : "In this connection, the Rome newspaper Paesa Sara published a long story alleging that you were connected with an" international commercial organization "named Centro Maondiale Commerciale, which Paesa Sara termed" a CIA front . " What is your explanation? ... Other than what I've told you, I know nothing more about the Centro Mondiale Commerciale. I have never had any connection with the CIA. "
  10. ↑ Max Holland: The Lie that Linked CIA to the Kennedy Assassination.
  11. ↑ HSCA Final Assassinations Report , House Select Committee on Assassinations, p. 145.
  12. ↑ HSCA Final Assassinations Report , House Select Committee on Assassinations, p. 143.
  13. ↑ Clay Shaw: Mysterious Death? mcadams, August 28, 1974, accessed December 19, 2007 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Shaw, Clay
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Shaw, Clay Laverne (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American businessman
DATE OF BIRTH March 17, 1913
DATE OF DEATH 15th August 1974