On March 1, 1967, New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison arrested and charged New Orleans businessman Clay Shaw with conspiring to assassinate President Kennedy, with the help of Lee Harvey Oswald, David Ferrie, and others. On January 29, 1969, Shaw was brought to trial in Orleans Parish Criminal Court on these charges. On March 1, 1969, a jury took less than an hour to find Shaw not guilty. It remains the only criminal trial to be brought for the JFK assassination.
Key persons and witnesses Jim Garrison, District Attorney of New Orleans, who believed, at various points, that the JFK assassination had been the work of Central Intelligence Agency personnel, anti-Castro Cuban exiles, "a homosexual thrill killing,"James Phelan, Scandals, Scamps, and Scoundrels, (Random House, 1st Edition 1982) pp. 150-151.Hugh Aynesworth, "The Garrison Goosechase", Dallas Times Herald, November 21, 1982 and ultra right-wing activists. "My staff and I solved the case weeks ago," Garrison announced in February 1967. "I wouldn't say this if we didn't have evidence beyond a shadow of a doubt."Jim Garrison Interview, Playboy magazine, Eric Norden, October 1967.Milton E. Brener, The Garrison Case: A Study in the Abuse of Power (New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1969), p. 84. Clay Shaw, a successful businessman, playwright, pioneer of restoration in New Orleans' French Quarter, and director of the International Trade Mart in New Orleans. David Ferrie, a former Eastern Airlines pilot and associate of Guy Banister. Ferrie drove from New Orleans to Houston on the night of the assassination with two friends, Alvin Beauboeuf and Melvin Coffey. The trip was investigated by the New Orleans Police Department, the Houston Police, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Texas Rangers. These investigative units said that they were unable to develop a case against Ferrie, and Garrison initially accepted their conclusions. Three years later, Garrison became suspicious of the Warren Commission conclusions about the assassination after a chance conversation with Louisiana Senator Russell B. Long. Ferrie died on February 22, 1967, less than a week after news of Garrison's investigation broke in the media. Garrison later called Ferrie "one of history's most important individuals". Perry Russo, who, after Ferrie's death, informed Garrison's office that he had known Ferrie in the early 1960s and that Ferrie had spoken about assassinating the President.Patricia Lambert, False Witness (New York: M. Evans and Co., 1998), p. 304 fn. 4. He became Garrison's main witness when he claimed to have overheard Ferrie plotting the assassination with a white-haired man named Clem Bertrand, whom he later identified in court as Shaw.
Background
The origins of Garrison's case can be traced to an argument between New Orleans residents Guy Banister and Jack Martin. On November 22, 1963, the day that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, Banister pistol whipped Martin after a heated exchange. (There are different accounts as to whether the argument was over phone bills or missing files.)544 Camp Street and Related Events, House Select Committee on Assassinations - Appendix to Hearings, Volume 10, 13, p. 130. Over the next few days, Martin told authorities and reporters that Banister had often been in the company of a man named David Ferrie who, Martin said, might have been involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy.HSCA Final Assassinations Report, House Select Committee on Assassinations, p. 143. Martin told the New Orleans police that Ferrie knew accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald going back to when both men had served together in the New Orleans Civil Air Patrol and that Ferrie "was supposed to have been the getaway pilot in the assassination." Martin also said that Ferrie had driven to Dallas the night before the assassination, a trip which Ferrie explained as research for a prospective business venture to determine "the feasibility and possibility of opening an ice skating rink in New Orleans."David Ferrie, House Select Committee on Assassinations - Appendix to Hearings, Volume 10, 12, pp. 112-13.FBI Interview of David Ferrie, November 25, 1963, Warren Commission Document 75, pp. 288-89.
Some of this information reached New Orleans DA Garrison, who quickly arrested Ferrie and turned him over to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which interviewed Ferrie and Martin on November 25. Martin told the FBI that Ferrie might have hypnotized Oswald into assassinating Kennedy. The FBI considered Martin unreliable. Nevertheless, the Bureau interviewed Ferrie twice about Martin's allegations.FBI Interview of David Ferrie, 25 November 1963 & 27 November 1963, Warren Commission Document 75, pp. 288-89, 199-200. The FBI also interviewed about twenty other persons in connection with the allegations, but said it was unable to develop a substantial case against Ferrie, and released him with an apology.544 Camp Street and Related Events, House Select Committee on Assassinations - Appendix to Hearings, Volume 10, 13, p. 126. Garrison later wrote that the FBI "took the surprising step of issuing a news story saying that it had not requested he [Ferrie] be picked up." The 1970s inquiry by the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) concluded that the FBI's "overall investigation ... at the time of the assassination was not thorough".
In the autumn of 1966, Garrison began to re-examine the Kennedy assassination. Guy Banister had died of a heart attack in 1964,Summers, Anthony, Not in Your Lifetime, (New York: Marlowe & Co., 1998), p. 226. but Garrison re-interviewed Martin, who told the New Orleans DA that Banister and his associates were involved in stealing weapons and ammunition from armories and in gunrunning. Garrison believed that the men were part of an arms-smuggling ring supplying anti-Castro Cubans with weapons."
Journalist James Phelan said Garrison told him that the assassination was a "homosexual thrill killing." As Garrison continued his investigation he became convinced that a group of right-wing activists, which he believed included Ferrie, Banister, and Shaw (director of the International Trade Mart in New Orleans), were involved in a conspiracy with elements of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to kill President Kennedy. Garrison would later say that the motive for the assassination was anger over Kennedy's foreign policy, especially Kennedy's efforts to find a political, rather than a military, solution in Cuba and Southeast Asia, and his efforts toward a rapprochement with the Soviet Union. Garrison also believed that Shaw, Banister, and Ferrie had conspired to set up Oswald as a patsy in the JFK assassination. News of Garrison's investigation was reported in the New Orleans States-Item on February 17, 1967.
On February 22, 1967, less than a week after the newspaper broke the story of Garrison's investigation, David Ferrie, then his chief suspect, was found dead in his apartment from a brain aneurysm. Garrison suspected that Ferrie had been murdered despite the coroner's report that his death was due to natural causes. According to Garrison, the day news of the investigation broke, Ferrie had called his aide Lou Ivon and warned that "I'm a dead man".
With Ferrie dead, Garrison began to focus his attention on Clay Shaw, director of the International Trade Mart. Garrison had Shaw arrested on March 1, 1967, charging him with being part of a conspiracy in the JFK assassination.. At the New Orleans police station, when Officer Aloysius Habighorst asked Shaw whether he used any aliases, Shaw replied (according to Habighorst), "Clay Bertrand". This was noted on the arrest sheet and fingerprint card, but was disallowed during the trial for being improperly obtained.
Earlier, Garrison had been searching for a "Clay Bertrand", a man referred to in the Warren Commission report.Commission Exhibit No. 1931, Warren Commission Hearings, vol. 23, p. 726. New Orleans attorney Dean Andrews testified to the Warren Commission that while he was hospitalized for pneumonia, he received a call from "Clay Bertrand" the day after the assassination, asking Andrews to fly to Dallas to represent Oswald.Testimony of Dean Adams Andrews, Jr., Warren Commission Hearings, Volume 11, p. 331. According to FBI reports, Andrews later said that this Bertrand phone call was a figment of his imagination.Testimony of Dean Adams Andrews, Jr., Warren Commission Hearings, Volume 11, p. 334. Andrews testified to the Warren Commission that the reason he told the FBI this was because of FBI harassment.
In his book On the Trail of the Assassins, Garrison says that after a long search of the New Orleans French Quarter, his staff was informed by the bartender at the tavern Cosimo's that "Clay Bertrand" was the alias that Clay Shaw used. According to Garrison, the bartender felt it was no big secret and "my men began encountering one person after another in the French Quarter who confirmed that it was common knowledge that "Clay Bertrand" was the name Clay Shaw went by." However, a memo from investigator Lou Ivon to Garrison stated that as of February 25, 1967, Ivon had been unable to locate a Clay Bertrand despite numerous inquiries and contacts.
In December 1967, Garrison appeared on a Dallas television program and claimed that a photograph taken in Dealey Plaza immediately after the assassination depicted a federal agent in plain clothes picking up and walking away with a .45 caliber bullet. He said that the bullet was not entered into evidence for the Warren Commission and was proof that another gunman was involved in the assassination. The photograph also showed Dallas Deputy Sheriff Buddy Walthers looking on with a uniformed Dallas policeman. Walthers stated the following week that the photograph was taken approximately 10 minutes after the assassination, and that the finding was "nothing significant". He said that it appeared to be blood on the grass or possibly a piece of skull. Walthers added: "If it had been a bullet, it would have been significant."
When Garrison's evidence was presented to a New Orleans grand jury, Shaw was indicted on a charge that he conspired with Ferrie, Oswald, and others named and charged to murder Kennedy. A three-judge panel upheld the indictment and ordered Shaw to a jury trial.
Following Shaw's arrest Attorney General Ramsey Clark stated that the FBI had already investigated Shaw over the assassination but had found no evidence of his involvement. Later Clark said that he had been in error and no investigation had taken place.
Trial On February 6, 1969, Garrison took 42 minutes to read his 15-page opening statement to the jury. Garrison stated that he would prove that Kennedy was shot from multiple locations; that Oswald conspired with Shaw as early as June 1963; that Shaw, Oswald, and Ferrie traveled to Clinton, Louisiana, where they were observed by a witness; that Oswald transported the gun identified by the Warren Commission as the assassination rifle to the Texas School Book Depository and that this gun took part in the assassination; that the shot that killed Kennedy came from a different direction; that Oswald escaped from the Texas School Book Depository in a station wagon driven by another man; and that Shaw received mail under the name "Clay Bertrand".
Garrison believed that Clay Shaw was the mysterious "Clay Bertrand" mentioned in the Warren Commission investigation. In the Warren Commission Report, New Orleans attorney Dean Andrews claimed that he was contacted the day after the assassination by a "Clay Bertrand" who requested that he go to Dallas to represent Oswald.