New Book by Fred Litwin on Garrison

[Joe Bauer]

The refusal by the Shaw trial judge to allow the New Orleans PD booking officer from testifying that Shaw did indeed admit to using the alias "Clay Bertrand" was just one major death blow to the entire case.

Imagine if the jury heard a sworn N.O. police officer testify under oath to his first hand account of Shaw admitting to him face to face that he did use this alias which would have tied the testimony of Dean Andrews directly to Shaw.

It would have probably destroyed Shaw's credibility to a degree of undermining every other aspect of Shaw's testimony from that point on.

Hasn't it been accepted by most that Garrison knew his case against Shaw was unwinnable from an early point in time, greatly because he knew he could not beat the power groups who had blocked extradition of key witnesses, subverted inclusion of key evidence, intimidated prosecution witnesses, tainted the media and blocked key evidence of Shaw's true background ,etc.?

However, just getting the case tried with much

evidence and testimony heard, read and documented in the public record that otherwise would have never been exposed on this

level if the case trial was never allowed, was

to some degree a victory in itself?

Edited October 7, 2020 by Joe Bauer

[James DiEugenio]

If you look at The Garrison Tapes by John Barbour, which I think is the best documentary on the subject, going in Garrison thought  that it was a winnable case. 

Vince Salandria, who met with him personally in August of 1967, and was an Ivy League attorney who practiced part time, told him that he was not so sure about that.  But he thought they would learn a lot about the plot by the obstructions that would be made against the proceedings in his case.

This turned out to be an accurate prediction by Vince. In Destiny Betrayed, I spent two chapters, and a large part of a third, describing in detail all the ways that this was done.  The ARRB was actually pretty good on this issue.  And so we discovered things like the Garrison Group at CIA HQ, and what some of their actions were. We also learned in detail just what NBC did through local affiliate WDSU and reporter Rick Townley, and how high up the chain this went--namely to David Sarnoff at NBC in New York. To listen to Rosemary James recently on local New Orleans TV completely misrepresent what happened with the Sterns, the owners of WDSU, after Shaw was indicted, is almost funny. Because the facts are just the opposite of what she says. Also,  when Garrison managed to keep a home base, the CIA sent in a guy to talk to the local media owners, and, for example, two guys at the States Item who wrote about Garrison fairly were transferred to different beats.  And it wasn't just the CIA, it was also the FBI.  They wired Garrison's office, and according to former FBI agent Bill Turner, they used one of the best wire men they had to do this.  Hoover wanted to know everything that Garrison turned up, because he knew it was making him look bad: for example, the Bureau had covered up the Clinton/Jackson incident.

As I outlined in my lecture above, the FBI knew the information Garrison was gathering was accurate, and they were developing similar leads on their own.  Yet they denied this and refused any aid to Garrison. But it's worse than that. After Shaw's defense begged the FBI to help, they actually did so  shortly before the trial. Knowing that Garrison's information was accurate. IMO, after looking at that record, if things would have been normal--that is if the FBI had extended aid and information to Garrison--I think Shaw would have been convicted, on the grounds that his credibility would have been brought into serious question.

As I noted in that talk, on several material  points, the FBI had discovered information that exposed Shaw's claims, and this supplemented what Garrison had discovered.  But at the outset, Hoover was determined not to extend any aid at all to Garrison, and in fact, he countered him at key points. For example, when Garrison turned over Ferrie to the FBI for questioning, the Bureau made an announcement that there was no problem with Ferrie and it was Garrison, not them, that requested Ferrie be questioned.  What they left out was that they let Ferrie lie his head off during questioning. And if they had explored any of his statements by questioning a third party, Ferrie should have been arrested and charged with perjury and obstruction of justice. And they would have found the photo of Ferrie with Oswald in the CAP--and much more.

Edited October 7, 2020 by James DiEugenio

[Greg Doudna]

11 hours ago, Dr. Gregg Wager said:

If Garrison's case against Clay Shaw was frivolous, as repeatedly claimed by non-lawyers such as journalist Tom Wicker, that would be reason to blame Judge Haggerty for agreeing to try it. I've never heard of anyone ever criticizing Haggerty. 

As far as Garrison's case against Shaw for conspiracy, the law says he only has to show that Shaw entered into an agreement with said people for a criminal purpose. Liability for any crime committed by any conspirator that is reasonably related to the original purpose is shared by all conspirators. That's why conspiracy is called "the darling of the prosecutor": it can typically be very broad. A "chain conspiracy" involves groups of conspirators, not one big conspiracy with a mastermind at the center.       

Garrison argued many things, collectively and in the alternative, including the illegal break-in at Schlumberger (which was easy to prove) as part of an ongoing criminal enterprise by the conspirators. 

Shaw's only defense was that he was not the "Clay Bertrand" that Dean Andrews claimed (in testimony before the Warren Commission) tried to hire him to be Oswald's lawyer. Shaw also denied even knowing Ferrie or Oswald, even though many (including the Clinton people) testified they saw him together with the two. We're also supposed to believe that Dean Andrews made up the whole story (giving false testimony to the Warren Commission) and that "Clay Bertrand" never existed. 

The biggest problem with Garrison's case was that his main witness died before he could testify. Had Ferrie lived and testified, I can't believe a jury would have acquitted Shaw. 

Garrison had the responsibility to vigorously prosecute Shaw based on the evidence against him. Compared to the way other prosecutors around the country operate (not to mention other certain DAs in New Orleans), Garrison's methods were perfectly sound.      

Thanks Dr. Wager for clarification on legal "conspiracy". Fair enough, but what, exactly, of the various claims alleged with respect to Shaw, apart from Perry Russo's testimony, even show Shaw to be part of an "ongoing criminal enterprise" by that less-stringent more elastic definition? Shaw was not claimed or shown to be part of the Schlumberger Well Co. munitions robbery in 1961. As for the other claims: (a) that as a CIA operative he was running Oswald in New Orleans--does that prove conspiracy to commit a crime (in the absence of evidence of conspiracy to commit a crime), let alone the assassination of JFK? (b) that he requested Dean Andrews provide legal counsel to Oswald after the assassination--how is helping someone obtain legal counsel evidence of criminal wrongdoing or involvement in conspiracy to commit the crime with which the other person is charged? (c) he was with Oswald and Ferrie doing voter registration in Clinton--how does involvement in voter registration establish criminal behavior or conspiracy? (d) he was associated with Oswald and Ferrie, and Oswald was later arrested for the murder of JFK?--how does that later event establish that Clay Shaw was involved in the later act for which Oswald was arrested? (e) asset or contract relationship with CIA--how does that establish involvement in a criminal conspiracy? Like being in the armed forces, CIA employment is legal and a huge organization and not all who worked for CIA or who had contact with Oswald were therefore involved in the JFK assassination or criminal conspiracy, Angleton's "many mansions", etc. (f) lying and perjury at trial, such as about relationships with persons or agencies such as CIA--perjury is criminal, and raises questions of why and motive, but (if established) how does that establish involvement in a criminal conspiracy, in the absence of evidence establishing such involvement? 

Each of the claims listed above are contested, but my point is, even if for the sake of argument each of the above is correct, how do any of these claims specifically establish legal conspiracy to commit a crime on the part of Clay Shaw, whether conspiracy to murder JFK or any other involvement in organized criminal activity? It is like saying: A, therefore B, hen B does not logically follow. Non sequitur.

Does it in the end come down to reliance upon the testimony of Perry Russo about the party at Ferrie's place where Russo says he saw Ferrie, Oswald, and Clay Shaw making concrete plans to murder President Kennedy? Without corroboration, how strong is that? Even one of the staunchest advocates of Clay Shaw's guilt, James DiEugenio (whom I respect, that is not meant sarcastically), as I understand it says Russo was mistaken in his Oswald identification, that Ferrie's roommate was not Oswald as Russo claimed but some other person. But if Russo got his Oswald identification wrong, how much credence should a reasonable citizen give the uncorroborated testimony of Perry Russo to seeing Clay Shaw at that party concretely planning with Ferrie and Oswald to off JFK, in between drinks and refreshments and music?  

Is it in the end Perry Russo that is alleged to actually establish that Clay Shaw was involved in legal conspiracy to murder JFK? Is that it?

I think there was CIA-sector involvement with Oswald and the JFK assassination and coverup thereof. But are there secure grounds establishing that Clay Shaw was part of that (referring not to involvement with CIA, nor relationship with Oswald, nor any other thing, but conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy)? When I read things like the below, I react with ... "huh?" "Say what?"

"The testimony of the Clinton witnesses at the Shaw trial testifying that they saw Shaw, Ferrie and Oswald together up there--alone provides the overt act that should have convicted Clay Shaw of participation in a conspiracy involving 'Oswald'. It did not depend upon whether Oswald actually killed President Kennedy." (Joan Mellen, "Clay Shaw Unmasked")

Merely being seen associating with one or two men who turn out several months later to be mixed up in a terrible crime in a different state, is "alone" the "overt act" that merits criminal conviction of someone for conspiring in the later act in which the other person or persons several months later end up arrested? 

Sounds a little like stories of Stalin-era trial logic I read of long ago, in which once charged on the basis of suspicion, no one could be acquitted. Or Kafka's The Trial.

[Micah Mileto]

Is there any possible significance to the Louisiana boxer named Clay Bertrand who was mentioned in the papers a few times in the 50's?

[James DiEugenio]

No there isn't Micah.   

Clay Shaw was Bertrand.  And it is not just Garrison who knew it.  The FBI and the Justice Department also knew it.

[James DiEugenio]

Greg keeps on prancing around the main point of my presentation. 

If all of this was innocent, as Mr Doudna clearly implies that it is, then why did Shaw lie about it all?

Above, I said he lied six times on material points. 

In other words, Shaw risked going to prison for 30 years because, according to Greg, he simply was a victim of innocent circumstance.  

He simply knew Ferrie and lied about it.

He simply knew Oswald and lied about it.

He just used the alias of Bertrand, and lied about it.

He simply worked for the CIA and lied about it.

He happened to drive up to Jackson, 100 miles north of New Orleans, where he was seen by several people, and he lied about it. 

He just happened to call Andrews and lied about it. (How ya doing Deano!  Heard you were under the weather.)

Greg completely dismisses the point I made through attorney Allard Lowenstein. From his experience, people with nothing to hide, do not hide things.

And these are not disputed today.  As I said, the ARRB did a good job in this field. Shaw did work of a covert nature with the CIA. He had a covert security clearance. Shaw was in Clinton/Jackson with Ferrie and Oswald. He did call Andrews to go to Dallas and defend Oswald. Shaw used the alias of Bertrand. Fred Litwin can go through as many of Irvin Dymond's papers as he likes. That will not change these facts, nor will it change the fact that Dymond was a xxxx, as I showed in my two part essay on Kerry 'the Hit Man" Thornley.

BTW, its not just Russo who talked about that gathering.  Bill Davy found Niles Peterson who was also there and Michael Kurtz found someone else who recalled it (although some might question his credibility today.)

But i agree with Joan Mellen; the Clinton Jackson incident would have been enough to incriminate Shaw since it was an overt act in furtherance of a conspiracy.

 

[James DiEugenio]

But let us not forget the other incriminating characters around Shaw who Garrison was also investigating.

As I mentioned in my presentation, and which Greg also ignores:

Ferrie had a diagram of Dealey Plaza in his desk at work.

Sergio Arcacha Smith reportedly had a map of the sewer system in Dealey Plaza in his apartment in Dallas. Ties in very well with what Rose Cheramie said, does it not?

But these can easily be explained away as nothing conspiratorial. Right?

And before anyone asks, these are both in my book.

Edited October 8, 2020 by James DiEugenio

[Robert Montenegro]

58 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

Sergio Arcacha Smith reportedly had a map of the sewer system in Dealey Plaza in his apartment in Dallas.

I am sure these questions have been answered before, but if I may may ask you now Mr. DiEugenio, do you think the storm water drainage system under Elm St. was used as an escape and evasion route for one of the fireteams in Dealey Plaza?

If yes, is their any credence to the claims that there was heavy reconstruction being done to the sewers under Dealey Plaza?

And if that previous question is in the affirmative, who contracted the labor, equipment and raw materials for said construction?

Obviously, Sergio Arcacha-Smith, according to the CIA's own reporting, had indirect connections to CIA, via organizations being funded by the Company: 

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/104-10067-10056.pdf

Edited October 8, 2020 by Robert Montenegro

[Micah Mileto]

1 hour ago, James DiEugenio said:

No there isn't Micah.   

Clay Shaw was Bertrand.  And it is not just Garrison who knew it.  The FBI and the Justice Department also knew it.

I know they are not the same person, but I did notice the NO boxer when I searched "Clay Bertrand" on newspapers.com.

[Dr. Gregg Wager]

Thanks for responding, Greg, but you take a lot of space with arguments I would not spend much time on. Give me and Mr. Garrison a little more credit.

Banister and Ferrie stockpiled crates of weapons stolen from Schlumberger at Banister's office. Shaw frequently showed up there with full knowledge and support of the activity and of further gun-running and training, perhaps even as a CIA handler. The FBI and at least the City of New Orleans did not recognize that the CIA could "approve" such domestic crimes under "Operation Mongoose," which included planning assassinations (especially of Castro).  

Of course it's not illegal to be on the CIA payroll, but as Watergate demonstrated, agents ("retired" or not) caught engaging in domestic crimes do not get immunity from local law.

As for Russo's story, I understand a girlfriend of his was at the party and could corroborate. If Russo's "Leon Oswald" might have been a misidentification, that doesn't dismiss his entire account. Russo related his story to Garrison under sodium pentothal and hypnosis (a common practice then, although not allowed anymore).

[James DiEugenio]

Robert:

I am not sure about that.  I had heard that there was some kind of construction going on around this time on the sewer system.  But I am not sure what it was and if the result was to either increase or decease  the diameter.

But I do know that someone did actually go into the sewer system in 1991 and travel through it.  It was just for that purpose, to see if an assassin could hide down there and come up at a different point.  There was a film made of this.  And he did it. 

In my book, I did a lot work on SAS since I think he has been ignored by too many authors.  

[Jim Harwood]

On 10/6/2020 at 11:57 PM, James DiEugenio said:

Thanks Joe.

There are very few people in the JFK case who, today, you can make a better case against than Shaw. Somehow, Greg left all of that out. Wonder why?

Anyone who provably lies  six times on the stand--and does so on material issues--thus risking 30 years in prison 1.) Has a lot to hide, and 2.) Knows he has friends in high places who will protect him.

"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.

And did they ever.

An interesting side bar into Shaw's life was his connections and friendship with high society as well as Hollywood types. He was said to have exchanged X Mas cards with father of Fake News CNN host Anderson Cooper, Wyatt Cooper known as Mr. Gloria Vanderbilt,  playwright Tennessee Williams who purchased a Shaw home and Rod McKuen the popular poet of the 1970's. 

To quote McKuen

"Clay Shaw was a gentleman and a gentle man. Alas, we are in all too short supply of men of his caliber. ... In his passing he was not the victim -- those of us remaining are, for it will be some time, if ever, that a man of his integrity comes into our lives again." -- Poet Rod McKuen, upon the 1974 death of Clay Shaw

[Robert Montenegro]

12 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

I am not sure about that.

Thank you for you candor, Mr. DiEugenio, I truly appreciate it. 

One of the reasons why I ask, is because I had the pleasure of meeting a living-breathing Vietnam War-era, Long-Range Reconnaissance Patrol (LRRP) Commando when I was in the California Cadet Corps, named James Red-Bear (he was a Choctaw First Nations man).

He shared with me that one aspect of his Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) training involved, curiously enough, escaping from a civilian police element all-points bulletin (in his case, his unit was taken to Washington, D.C., so they had to successfully evade FBI, Secret Service, Metropolitan Police undercover detectives, etc.), via the sewer system!

That was in 1965.

He also said that underwater demolitions training at that time was provided by Italian UDT "frogmen" connected to the U. S. Army Southern European Task Force in Italy, and that once again, an element of their training was escape and evasion via sewers! 

12 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

In my book, I did a lot work on SAS since I think he has been ignored by too many authors.  

 I have a copy here of "Destiny Betrayed (Second Edition) JFK, Cuba, And The Garrison Case" on my book shelf, an absolute gem of a book!

Your finding of Permindex's connection to J. Henry Schroder Banking Corporation was mind-bending!

Especially ever since the most powerful CIA-sponsored narcotics trafficker,  Police General Phao Siyanon, fled to Switzerland with hundreds of millions of dollars! 

Makes you wonder where he invested it...

It is fascinating that John Garrett Underhill Jr. claimed that the "...CIA's Far East Division murdered President Kennedy..." and, according to District Attorney Jim Garrison, Gary Underhill claimed "...a distraught Underhill told friends that a semi-autonomous CIA clique which had been profiteering in narcotics and gun-running was implicated in the assassination..."

Of course the Chief of the CIA's Far Eastern Division in 1962 was Desmond FitzGerald, later commander of the Cuban Task Force.

Here is a link to Gary Underhill's claims, as reported to CIA Counterintelligence Chief of Research & Analysis, Raymond G. Rocca:

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2018/104-10105-10188.pdf

I should note that the former Directorate of Plans, Far East Division Chief, Alfred Conrad Ulmer Jr. was in the Dallas-Fort Worth area when President Kennedy was murdered, apparently having lunch with George Herbert Walker Bush.

Of course, Rose Cherami claimed on November 20, 1963, when she was found by the side of road in Louisiana injured and suffering from heroin withdraw, that she was being transported from Florida to Texas as part of a drug and sex trafficking racket. She also claimed that President Kennedy would be assassinated in Dallas soon, a notion she apparently picked up from the two gangsters that were transporting her. 

The two individuals who were with Rose Cherami were specifically identified as Emilio Santana Galindo and Sergio Arcacha Smith.

Emilio Santana Galindo was, in fact, a JM/WAVE asset...

Edited October 8, 2020 by Robert Montenegro

[Dr. Gregg Wager]

Years ago, I looked up Sergio Arcacha Smith's office address in Houston on Google maps and it wasn't far (within a few blocks) from the ice skating rink where David Ferrie was making all his telephone calls on 11/22.

[Jim Harwood]

Is this Fred Litwin the book writer? 

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20060124006204/en/Polyair-Inter-Pack-Announces-CEO-Resignation

if so his company's President Henry Schnurbach was the head of the B'nai B'rith of Canada.

https://www.apollo.io/people/Henry/Schnurbach/54a440df7468693b8cc19638

 

And the B'nai B'rith was long ago implicated in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and JFK murder suspects abound in Canada from Bloomfield, to Shaw and Ferrie not to mention it is rumored LHO was in Montreal in 1962 for a Lord Bertrand Russell "Ban the bomb" march.  Then later we have James Earl Ray in Canada.

https://larouchepub.com/eiw/public/1993/eirv20n21-19930528/eirv20n21-19930528_054-yes_the_bnai_brith_was_implicate.pdf