Clay Shaw news

[David Andrews]

21 minutes ago, Jim Harwood said:

I was surprised that Clay Shaw was so connected to high society. He knew Tennessee Williams, and according to a Don Carpenter he knew CNN's Anderson Cooper's father Wyatt Cooper who of course was married to a Vanderbilt (sp?). And according to young male hustler in Toronto Clay Shaw used to go to London and hang around with Robin Drury the manager of Christine Keeler (sp?) of the Profumo scandal fame.  Clay Shaw was a real British aristocrat who dined regularly with Winston Churchill and according to the Daily Mall in February 1967  they reported that Clay Shaw had planned to move to London just before Jim Garrison put the pinch on him. 

When he died in 1974 poet and singer Rod McKuen paid to have his obituary published in a San Francisco newspaper. 

Through the notoriety of his prosecution, Clay Shaw was introduced to the gay novelist-playwright James Kirkwood, Jr., (quite well known at the time), who fell under Shaw's spell and wrote a book refuting Garrison called American Grotesque.  Maybe that's worth reading for the Shaw-disseminated propaganda.

https://www.amazon.com/American-Grotesque-Shaw-Jim-Garrison-Kennedy-Assassination/dp/0060975237

Edited April 2, 2019 by David Andrews

[B. A. Copeland]

On 4/2/2019 at 12:22 PM, David Andrews said:

Through the notoriety of his prosecution, Clay Shaw was introduced to the gay novelist-playwright James Kirkwood, Jr., (quite well known at the time), who fell under Shaw's spell and wrote a book refuting Garrison called American Grotesque.  Maybe that's worth reading for the Shaw-disseminated propaganda.

https://www.amazon.com/American-Grotesque-Shaw-Jim-Garrison-Kennedy-Assassination/dp/0060975237

I remember Jim Di. stating in his work (Destiny Betrayed 2nd) that American grotesque has (I'm paraphrasing and please correct me Jim!) been proven to be....well, worthless as far as its relationship to what we actually know today. Interestingly enough, it does have worth but in a negative sense, perhaps, as you say David, to show Pro-Shaw propaganda. Its depressing when you get to the part in Jim's book when the forces really started moving against Garrison....especially that  one cattle rancher who gave Garrison that warning before the crap hit the fan.... What a scene that was.

[James DiEugenio]

Funny, many moons ago, Kirkwood's biographer got in contact with me about American Grotesque.

In my communications with him, even he was surprised at how bad the book was in light of what we know today and what a hatchet job it was on Garrison.

Shaw actually put Kirkwood up to the book after a couple of luminaries turned him down. At that time, Kirkwood was not really that well established so he accepted the job.

A guy who lives down there told me how he sat in on a dinner one night in which Shaw, James Leo Herlihy, and Kirkwood plotted out the book in advance. In other words they were going to make Garrison out to be  an anti-gay zealot.

Which, as I have noted before,  is really bizarre since Garrison never brought this up even when it would have benefited his case.

If you want to read something funny, read the part of Kirkwood's book where he discusses the screening of the Zapruder film in court. I think Shaw wrote that part.  Only he could keep a straight face while penning it.

BTW, I have to say,  when JFK  came out, Paul Hoch recommended Kirkwood's book to his readers in his newsletter, Echoes of Conspiracy.  He was serious about it.  Which, even at that time, was kind of scary. With what we know about Shaw today, plus what the CIA did to neutralize Garrison, and what we know the DA had in his files, Kirkwood's book is utterly and completely worthless.

 

 

[David Andrews]

I'm sure American Grotesque has all the objective value of Roman pornography, yet that, too, is studied in some quarters,