A fresh analysis of the Dean Andrews phone call and the name "Clay Bertrand"

[Allen Lowe]

12 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

I don't believe that is a fact or correct at all. I found the passage in Joan Mellen's book. It is only a confession if you change "wasn't guilty", Shaw's words, as really meaning "was guilty". If you make that change of wording, projecting belief in his guilt into overriding Clay Shaw's words saying the opposite, then you can call it a confession. It is like reasoning that a person charged of a crime asked his plea who answers "not guilty" is actually a confession, on the grounds that since he really was guilty he actually was confessing, if you overlook that he said the opposite. Oh well. Here is the passage, with Joan Mellen's interpretation that this was "close to a confession".

"Nearly five years later, Clay Shaw came as close to a confession as he dared, setting him apart from the many CIA employees, from Lawrence Houston to David Atlee Phillips to Richard Helms, who carried their silence to the grave. Near death from lung cancer, Shaw was visited at the Ochsner Foundation hospital by longtime acquaintance and neighbor George Dureau, a New Orleans painter and photographer.

"As Dureau remembers, Shaw said, 'You know, I wasn't guilty of what Garrison charged. But Garrison had the right idea. He was almost right. Someone like me, with a background in army intelligence and with post-war intelligence connections, very well might have been asked to meet with someone like Oswald or Ferrie, to give them a package or some money or whatever, and I would have faithfully done it without ever asking what I was doing it for.' That 'package' recalls Donald P. Norton's testimony that Shaw gave him a suitcase of money to deliver to Oswald in Monterrey [Mexico]." (Mellen, Farewell to Justice, 2007 edn, 317)

This is one of those things that is read by people differently, like a Rorschach Inkblot. If you already think Clay Shaw was part of a plot to kill Kennedy, then of course this looks like he is "close" to confessing, by euphemistically saying what really happened in the language of "hypothetically" how it could have worked. 

If on the other hand Clay Shaw had no part in a plot to kill Kennedy, it reads as in a thoughtful moment seeing it through Garrison's eyes, almost sympathizing with Garrison, wrong as he was.

Rorschach Inkblot. 

Oh come on. He is saying he was guilty of participating in the plot,  just not in the  way Garrison charged him. “Garrison had the right idea. He was almost right.”  He would not have said this if he had no connection to the plot.

Edited April 4, 2022 by Allen Lowe

[Greg Doudna]

2 hours ago, Allen Lowe said:

Oh come on. He is saying he was guilty of participating in the plot,  just not in the  way Garrison charged him. “Garrison had the right idea. He was almost right.”  He would not have said this if he had no connection to the plot.

Well Allen that's one way it could be read, on the prior assumption that he was guilty. In checking the footnote, I see the witness, George Dureau, told of Clay Shaw's "Garrison was on the right track ... " words in a television interview taped in 2002. That is 28 years later than the time of the conversation reported. Tracy Parnell was right in commenting earlier that memories can be shaped over time on the basis of later input. Dureau gave a version of something Clay Shaw said, the original 28 years earlier being inaccessible. To cite that as evidence that the original was a confession goes too far. You don't know that. To make this point clear, consider this question: are you saying that the unknown original words Clay Shaw spoke 28 years earlier (which you do not know directly), of which Dureau gives the hearsay quoted above 28 years later, could not under any reasonable construction have been spoken by an innocent man? 

I think the answer becomes clear when reformulated this way, that answer being "no". Therefore your reading is at best a possible reading. If you do not already know Clay Shaw was guilty, it does not establish that he was. I still think an innocent Clay Shaw was musing that he could see Garrison's point of view and (if Dureau's version is roughly accurate) he could almost sympathize and agree with it--people like him of his background could have been involved in the assassination, maybe were, so Garrison was not wrong in suspecting him. But that is not him saying he was involved in the assassination, or had any knowledge of who was. Also, it does not mean his musing has any claim to being correct, of any greater weight than a thousand other musings of reasonably intelligent persons uninvolved in the assassination. Obviously my opinion, not meaning to disrespect yours.

[Greg Doudna]

5 hours ago, Paul Brancato said:

That’s what I thought too. In the doc I refer to, which is filed under Nagel, someone in CIA, the author of the doc, says flat out that Kohn is an enemy of Garrison, which must be because as you say he thought Garrison was corrupted by Marcello. The author seems to be inferring that Kohn assisted Sheridan because he disliked Garrison, but not specifically because Garrison was whitewashing Marcello on this particular issue. So it’s logical to infer that Sheridan was out to stop Garrison, something Kohn appreciated. Sheridan worked for NBC at the time, not RFK, his former boss. Why were Sheridan and his superiors trying to stop Garrison? It certainly wasn’t because he was protecting the Marcello organization. Was it to defend innocent CIA asset Clay Shaw? They did protect him, but that’s not why they obstructed Garrison, which they assuredly did. They were protecting state secrets, not a Mafia assassination. 
I think I agree with Jim D on this one. 

I admit I am not well informed on Kohn. From the interview in Kirkwood, it seemed like Kohn was viscerally anti-Garrison analogous to the way many thoughtful Americans today (of which I am one) are viscerally anti-Trump. Kohn spoke of Garrison as like a Huey Long, a populist appealing to base instincts (at that time there was a prospect that Garrison could become a senator and who knows, maybe even a run for president). He seemed certain that Garrison was corrupt, compromised in his relationship with Marcello, and outraged that Garrison would not acknowledge that Marcello was involved in organized crime, which to Kohn was sort of missing the elephant in New Orleans. I do not think it follows necessarily at all that the reason Kohn was anti-Garrison was because he was trying to stop him from exposing a CIA conspiracy or exposure of state secrets related to the JFK assassination. That is like saying the reason there is wide and serious opposition to Trump is so as to stop Trump from draining the swamp in D.C. or exposing the Deep State. If I were to guess (this is a guess), if Kohn was like most people and believed the Warren Commission he would not believe there was any CIA JFK assassination conspiracy to be exposed.

Have you read Sinclair Lewis, It Can't Happen Here? It is about a Huey Long-like fictional character who turns America fascist, in a 1930s setting. It is little known even though by one of America's acknowledged best writers. It has special relevance in the Trump years. (I recommend it.) It was written in 1935. I do not know if Kohn read it but what I read of Kohn sounded like echoes of someone who saw Garrison in something of those terms. 

[Joe Bauer]

22 hours ago, Sean Coleman said:

But Shaw admitted his alias?

 

[Joe Bauer]

22 hours ago, Sean Coleman said:

But Shaw admitted his alias?

Then the above document is not real?

It's not in the official NOPD record?

NOPD Officer Aloysius Habighorst just made the whole claim up? Another nut case scenario?

[Greg Doudna]

Joe the document is real but not contemporary, and the part about Clay Shaw giving information from being asked questions, including the alias, is either mistaken or lying from the officer. Other officers testified it did not happen that way, and it also makes no sense it happened that way. Did you read my earlier on page 1 to you? Please, do a little reading.

There is something deceitful about the way this document is cut and pasted that you are posting. For if you will notice, the document in the photo you are showing has no date. It is not that it actually has no date. There is a date but you don't see it because it is cropped. The date is just above the top words "Statement of". That date is January 23, 1968. And above that, also cropped off, is "Office of the District Attorney". 

In other words, this is not a New Orleans Police Department document. Nor was it a document created in the course of police work. It was a document created by that officer for the Garrison office, ten months later. 

By cropping that from the top, it is deceptively made to look like a real-time police document such that people like you see it and carelessly think "whoah, a police document!" And then you spread that photo cropped that way some more. 

For six months more after that document was created in the district attorney's office, that document sat there, in Garrison's office, without the New Orleans Police Department knowing of its existence.

Then six months later, in July 1968, Garrison's office, at a time when that office was preparing for trial against Clay Shaw, authorized that document's release to the media by Habighorst and Habighorst went on media shows making that alias claim--without the Police Department, the officer's employer, knowing a thing about that document until reading about it in the papers in July 1968, eighteen months after the arrest of Clay Shaw at issue. The police chief wondered why they had never been sent over a copy, either by the officer or by Garrison's office.

It looked a lot like trying to influence the public and poison any jury, prior to Clay Shaw's trial. I believe the Garrison office's position was the press was giving so much publicity favorable to Clay Shaw that that needed to be "balanced", or something like that. 

Clay Shaw's attorney responded to the press reports of the claim that Clay Shaw had admitted his use of the alias to that officer with, "The story is an absolute lie and a falsehood".

[Sean Coleman]

12 minutes ago, Greg Doudna said:

Joe the document is real but not contemporary, and the part about Clay Shaw giving information from being asked questions, including the alias, is either mistaken or lying from the officer. Other officers testified it did not happen that way, and it also makes no sense it happened that way. Did you read my earlier on page 1 to you? Please, do a little reading.

There is something deceitful about the way this document is cut and pasted that you are posting. For if you will notice, the document in the photo you are showing has no date. It is not that it actually has no date. There is a date but you don't see it because it is cropped. The date is just above the top words "Statement of". That date is January 23, 1968. And above that, also cropped off, is "Office of the District Attorney". 

In other words, this is not a New Orleans Police Department document. Nor was it a document created in the course of police work. It was a document created by that officer for the Garrison office, ten months later. 

By cropping that from the top, it is deceptively made to look like a real-time police document such that people like you see it and carelessly think "whoah, a police document!" And then you spread that photo cropped that way some more. 

For six months more after that document was created in the district attorney's office, that document sat there, in Garrison's office, without the New Orleans Police Department knowing of its existence.

Then six months later, in July 1968, Garrison's office, at a time when that office was preparing for trial against Clay Shaw, authorized that document's release to the media by Habighorst and Habighorst went on media shows making that alias claim--without the Police Department, the officer's employer, knowing a thing about that document until reading about it in the papers in July 1968, eighteen months after the arrest of Clay Shaw at issue. The police chief wondered why they had never been sent over a copy, either by the officer or by Garrison's office.

It looked a lot like trying to influence the public and poison any jury, prior to Clay Shaw's trial. I believe the Garrison office's position was the press was giving so much publicity favorable to Clay Shaw that that needed to be "balanced", or something like that. 

Clay Shaw's attorney responded to the press reports of the claim that Clay Shaw had admitted his use of the alias to that officer with, "The story is an absolute lie and a falsehood".

 

Apologies Greg, I did the cropping 

[Paul Brancato]

8 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

I admit I am not well informed on Kohn. From the interview in Kirkwood, it seemed like Kohn was viscerally anti-Garrison analogous to the way many thoughtful Americans today (of which I am one) are viscerally anti-Trump. Kohn spoke of Garrison as like a Huey Long, a populist appealing to base instincts (at that time there was a prospect that Garrison could become a senator and who knows, maybe even a run for president). He seemed certain that Garrison was corrupt, compromised in his relationship with Marcello, and outraged that Garrison would not acknowledge that Marcello was involved in organized crime, which to Kohn was sort of missing the elephant in New Orleans. I do not think it follows necessarily at all that the reason Kohn was anti-Garrison was because he was trying to stop him from exposing a CIA conspiracy or exposure of state secrets related to the JFK assassination. That is like saying the reason there is wide and serious opposition to Trump is so as to stop Trump from draining the swamp in D.C. or exposing the Deep State. If I were to guess (this is a guess), if Kohn was like most people and believed the Warren Commission he would not believe there was any CIA JFK assassination conspiracy to be exposed.

Have you read Sinclair Lewis, It Can't Happen Here? It is about a Huey Long-like fictional character who turns America fascist, in a 1930s setting. It is little known even though by one of America's acknowledged best writers. It has special relevance in the Trump years. (I recommend it.) It was written in 1935. I do not know if Kohn read it but what I read of Kohn sounded like echoes of someone who saw Garrison in something of those terms. 

I did read that book, though long ago. It was one of my father’s favorites.

I wasn’t trying to imply that Kohn had a POV on JFK and helped Sheridan because of it. I wasn’t clear. I meant to say that clearly Walter Sheridan was went after Garrison for reasons other than Kohn’s reasons for disliking Garrison. Sheridan just wanted to stop Garrison, period. 

[Greg Doudna]

45 minutes ago, Sean Coleman said:

Apologies Greg, I did the cropping 

Thanks Sean for clearing that up quickly before I ran with a conspiracy theory of my own regarding that cropped photo! 🙂 You're a gentleman. 

[Greg Doudna]

On 4/3/2022 at 10:56 AM, James DiEugenio said:

Is this more of Greg's Mafia did it angle?  

Let me take a guess: Clem Sehrt maybe?

Completely bogus if that is it.

The whole Sehrt as Bertrand stuff was Aaron Kohn's invention.  And it was designed as a "Mafia did it" distraction, which is what Kohn specialized in. What Greg does not understand is that this whole Mob did it angle was elicited and then magnified to both smear Garrison, and also to distract from his evidence. And you can take this all the way back to Peter Noyes and his Legacy of Doubt book. It peaked during the Blakey/Billings HSCA days and their following cruddy book.  Kohn was working hand in glove with those two, and he supplied the Clem Sehrt nonsense.  Andrews himself told Weisberg that Shaw was Bertrand.

Just avoid this rigamarole and listen to Paul Bleau, who went through the voluminous Garrison files. 

That is he did primary source work without the McAdams/Reitzes Maytag driver spin to it.

In this topic I presented what represents considerable research on my part on a certain question, a proposal and an argument, as an attempt to possibly advance better understanding of an aspect of the JFK assassination, for those who may find it of interest or worthy of discussion. You come over here, on my topic thread, simply for the purpose of trashing and discrediting and poisoning of a well, without deigning to read my research or comment on it, just telling others not to read it ("just avoid this rigmarole").

You say, "what Greg does not understand is that this whole Mob did it angle was elicited and then magnified to ... smear Garrison". 

Are you serious? The "Mob did it" angle did not begin in any public or published sense until after the Garrison investigations and the trial and acquittal of Clay Shaw were completed and over. The two books which are considered the first "mob did it" books are Peter Noyes, Legacy of Doubt (1973), and Dan Moldea, The Hoffa Wars (1978). Are you serious that those two books, and then Seth Kantor's 1978 and David Scheim 1988 and HSCA 1989 and so on, were done for the purpose of smearing Garrison in 1967-1969? Isn't that a bit of a skewed interpretation?  

I did a little further checking and actually found two mob-did-it proponents before 1973. One was Robert Kennedy, referring to reports of private belief on the part of Robert Kennedy that Marcello killed his brother. However that was never published.

The other was (boy do I wish I could do a drumroll here) . . . a courageous New Orleans district attorney named Jim Garrison.

I learned this from an author who has been at this a lot longer than me, one James DiEugenio. I looked up all the "Mafia" references in your book, Destiny Betrayed: JFK, Cuba, and the Garrison Case and find, according to your book, that Garrison already in the late 1960s was pushing that the Mob did the JFK assassination, with you at pains to have the reader understand that any claims to the contrary are wrong!  

"So the idea that Garrison never entertained any kind of Mafia involvement is one of the many canards passed around from book to book by authors who were all too eager to criticize the DA without even looking at his files. In that same year of 1967, there was a story in Newsday which stated that 'Garrison is trying to learn whether the Cosa Nostra and anti-Castro Cubans may have been linked by mob-controlled gambling operations in pre-Castro Cuba ... Garrison is trying to determine if there is a thread which binds the Cosa Nostra, anti-Castro groups, the late David Ferrie, Oswald, and Jack Ruby. During his deposition for his unsuccessful libel suit against Garrison, Gordon Novel revealed that at one time Garrison was considering involvement by local don Carlos Marcello in the assassination. The FBI also picked up information that Garrison was examining the Mafia angle when, in June of 1967, a Bureau source said that 'Garrison believed that organized crime, specifically, 'La Cosa Nostra' is responsible along with other anti-Castroites for the assassination.'" (DiEugenio, Destiny Betrayed [2012 edn], p. 212)

It is true Garrison believed the mob, whatever its responsibility in carrying out the hit, was still subordinate to the CIA in chain of command. But I also think there was a "green light" to Marcello and Trafficante to carry out the assassination, and that elements in the CIA attempted to link Oswald to Castro for the purpose of creating a casus bellus for an attack upon Cuba or the Soviet Union.

So what is the difference really.

Well, the difference is Garrison did not go anywhere with it--no evidence of investigation, let alone prosecutions, no development of evidence in that direction, and no book publication--as others later did develop, and in my small way I in 2022 propose to further develop. 

[Joe Bauer]

22 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

Then six months later, in July 1968, Garrison's office, at a time when that office was preparing for trial against Clay Shaw, authorized that document's release to the media by Habighorst and

 

Habighorst went on media shows making that alias claim

 

without the Police Department, the officer's employer, knowing a thing about that document until reading about it in the papers in July 1968, eighteen months after the arrest of Clay Shaw at issue. The police chief wondered why they had never been sent over a copy, either by the officer or by Garrison's office.

Sorry, but when witnesses "directly involved" with major players or other important aspects of the JFK/ OSWALD/JIM GARRISON investigation come forward with incredible claims that bolster Garrison's case, it seems they are just too often labeled as L****.

Russo, Martin, Francis Fruge, Lewis, Habighorst, Bannister's secretary ( stating Oswald's presence ) etc, etc.

When all other avenues of discrediting these pro-Garrison witnesses doesn't hold well ( Dallas witnesses as well ) the final tactic is to just say they are simply l****.

Then you are left with either blindly accepting this final base assessment of these pro-Garrison witnesses "or" giving at least some consideration to the weight of logic, reason and common sense in determining whether this final discrediting label is more justified than not.

I don't know the personal background of Officer Habighorst. However, if he wasn't making money or fame by sticking with his Clay Shaw alias stating claim even years after his personal one-on-one encounter with Shaw in the booking department of the NOPD...why put himself out there for ridicule and attack by publicly doing so years later? 

And regards these 5 other witnesses in the NOPD booking room who contradict Gabighhorst's Clay Shaw alias claim; weren't they all farther away from Gabighorst and Shaw in this booking interaction?  

Sean Coleman...you admit cropping this copy of the the Habighorst booking document. Why did you do this?

Do you believe the document ( original and copy) is a phony? 

Do you personally believe Habighorst's Clay Shaw / Clay Bertrand alias claim?

Or do you also prescribe to the "Habighorst is simply a l***" take?

 

Edited April 5, 2022 by Joe Bauer

[Greg Doudna]

13 minutes ago, Joe Bauer said:

Sorry, but when witnesses "directly involved" with major players or other important aspects of the JFK/ OSWALD/JIM GARRISON investigation come forward with incredible claims that bolster Garrison's case, it seems they are just too often labeled as L****.

Russo, Martin, Francis Fruge, Lewis, Habighorst, Bannister's secretary ( stating Oswald's presence ) etc, etc.

When all other avenues of discrediting these pro-Garrison witnesses doesn't hold well ( Dallas witnesses as well ) the final tactic is to just say they are simply l****.

Then you are left with either blindly accepting this final base assessment of these pro-Garrison witnesses "or" giving at least some consideration to the weight of logic, reason and common sense in determining whether this final discrediting label is more justified than not.

I don't know the personal background of Officer Habighorst. However, if he wasn't making money or fame by sticking with his Clay Shaw alias stating claim even years after his personal one-on-one encounter with Shaw in the booking department of the NOPD...why put himself out there for ridicule and attack by publicly doing so years later? 

And regards these 5 other witnesses in the NOPD booking room who contradict Gabighhorst's Clay Shaw alias claim; weren't they all farther away from Gabighorst and Shaw in this booking interaction?  

Sean Coleman...you admit cropping this copy of the the Habighorst booking document. Why did you do this?

Do you believe the document ( original and copy) is a phony? 

Do you personally believe Habighorst's Clay Shaw / Clay Bertrand alias claim?

Or do you also prescribe to the "Habighorst is simply a l***" take?

Here is how I reconstruct it. Habighorst was the officer who processed Clay Shaw. There is 100% certainty that both Clay Shaw and his lawyer were correct that his attorney instructed Clay Shaw to say nothing to police during this process--according to the attorney, not even good morning or how are you, literally nothing. Furthermore, Clay Shaw was accompanied by his attorney and the attorney sought to be with him at every moment of the process, though was prevented by police during the process of Habighorst's fingerprinting.

OK, Habighorst does the fingerprinting cards. He's an honest cop, doing his job, there is no attempt to frame Clay Shaw. (Whether or not it was constitutionally proper, I believe the refusal to let the attorney be in the room with Clay Shaw during the fingerprinting appears to have been procedure, not singled out by police for Clay Shaw--though I admit not being quite sure of that, but give the police the benefit of the doubt there.) This is March 1967.

Months later the Garrison district attorney's office in its investigation of Clay Shaw takes depositions, and takes Habighorst's deposition in Jan 1968, ten months later. Here is what I think. Habighorst is still an honest cop. He was mistaken in the detail of what had happened ten months earlier through carelessness (ten months later). He was not suborned into writing the statement the way he did, he just wrote it from memory. He had imperfect memory ten months later. Not intent to lie. 

I see an indicator in that Jan 1968 statement which reads in support of this "mistake" interpretation. It is that Habighorst actually gives the accurate sequence of when the signature was obtained from Clay Shaw in that fingerprinting. In his own Jan 1968 deposition Habighorst tells of having Clay Shaw sign the cards, following which, in the deposition, Habighorst then tells of after that, asking Clay Shaw for his personal information and Clay Shaw answering and then the rest of the card (including the alias) being filled in. This is in agreement with the whole point at issue which Clay Shaw testified had happened, and other officers testified was common procedure--have the person SIGN FIRST, then the officer fills in the rest of the card AFTER the prisoner had SIGNED a blank card. If Habighorst had intended to frame Clay Shaw, or if Habighorst's later testimony was true that Clay Shaw had framed himself (so to speak), Habighorst would have written his Jan 1968 differently, referring to the relative sequencing of when the signature happened. The reason Habighorst wrote Clay Shaw was asked to sign the card, before Habighorst then wrote of the information on the card being filled in, was because that sequence, in which Clay Shaw signed the blank card before the card was filled in, is what happened. 

The Garrison office notices Habighorst's deposition and runs with it. Six months later Habighorst goes public with his claim, in agreement with what he wrote in the deposition in Jan 1968, that Clay Shaw told him the alias. (As if Clay Shaw had taken "stupid pills" that morning, and blew off his attorney's instruction to say nothing.)

I believe what happened was Habighorst got what happened ten months earlier a little jumbled in his deposition of Jan 1968 and then became convinced that was the truth. At the time he went public with it in July 1968 I do not believe Habighorst was aware that he had been mistaken or that other officers would call it mistaken. The other possibility is that Habighorst was corrupted, not in Jan 1968 but in July 1968. By corrupted meaning willing to help the district attorney's office. It is known Habighorst had a serious personal grievance against Clay Shaw's attorney over an unrelated matter. Not any personal issue with Clay Shaw himself, but the attorney representing Clay Shaw. Did that enter into Habighorst being happy to stick it to that attorney's case as a contributing factor? Who knows. 

It would be a different matter if Habighorst's testimony had been backed up by his fellow officers as to the normal procedure and what happened. That would probably shift weight in favor of Habighorst's testimony to a lot of reasonable minds, if that had been the case. But that wasn't the case. It was Habighorst versus multiple opposing testimony from colleagues and fellow officers bringing out what nearly all objective observers have judged as what happened, which is what Clay Shaw said: he had been asked to sign the blank fingerprint cards first, then the rest of the information on the cards was filled in by the officer, which in this case was Habighorst.

Again, even if there is genuine ambiguity (doesn't look too ambiguous to me), ambiguity is not a sound basis upon which to convict someone criminally. Not in America. Do you agree? 

Sean's cropping of the photo had nothing to do with it being phony Joe. Nobody on earth has ever said that document is phony, even though you keep raising that as if that is a question. Although you can ask Sean to confirm this for sure, I am sure the cropping was inadvertent without intent to distort the appearance of evidence. I know of nothing in Sean's history that is other than honest, he is a poster on this forum who has a track record of intelligent and accurate comments, and there is no need to go to any conspiratorial question (in this case re Sean's cropping of the photo of the document).  

You're still in "just asking questions mode" Joe. Now that you've had a little time to think over at least the basics of the situation, both sides of this story, what do you think? Where do you come down? Yes, no, uncertain ...? what is your verdict or call? (Referring to the specific issue of the Habighorst claim that Clay Shaw told his alias, then signed the card verifying his alias on that card, as opposed to the defense testimony that Clay Shaw, in agreement with customary police procedure, signed a blank card that was filled in by police after he signed it, and Clay Shaw did not tell Habighorst that alias.)

Remember the issue here is not what about a lot of other Garrison witnesses over here or over there, but the facts of this particular issue. 

Saying, well, these other witnesses over here and over there of Garrison have been wrongly rejected and Garrison got a raw deal over here and over there, therefore I think the guy must be guilty in this case (even if I have no idea what the actual truth is in this case) . . . that is the most common form of logic by which innocent people get "stitched up", to use the UK expression. "Looks guilty to me" (based on other things). Therefore its OK to be loose with the evidence in this particular instance, because we know he's guilty anyway. 

[Sean Coleman]

1 hour ago, Joe Bauer said:

Sorry, but when witnesses "directly involved" with major players or other important aspects of the JFK/ OSWALD/JIM GARRISON investigation come forward with incredible claims that bolster Garrison's case, it seems they are just too often labeled as L****.

Russo, Martin, Francis Fruge, Lewis, Habighorst, Bannister's secretary ( stating Oswald's presence ) etc, etc.

When all other avenues of discrediting these pro-Garrison witnesses doesn't hold well ( Dallas witnesses as well ) the final tactic is to just say they are simply l****.

Then you are left with either blindly accepting this final base assessment of these pro-Garrison witnesses "or" giving at least some consideration to the weight of logic, reason and common sense in determining whether this final discrediting label is more justified than not.

I don't know the personal background of Officer Habighorst. However, if he wasn't making money or fame by sticking with his Clay Shaw alias stating claim even years after his personal one-on-one encounter with Shaw in the booking department of the NOPD...why put himself out there for ridicule and attack by publicly doing so years later? 

And regards these 5 other witnesses in the NOPD booking room who contradict Gabighhorst's Clay Shaw alias claim; weren't they all farther away from Gabighorst and Shaw in this booking interaction?  

Sean Coleman...you admit cropping this copy of the the Habighorst booking document. Why did you do this?

Do you believe the document ( original and copy) is a phony? 

Do you personally believe Habighorst's Clay Shaw / Clay Bertrand alias claim?

Or do you also prescribe to the "Habighorst is simply a l***" take?

 

Joe, I cropped the statement to draw attention to the text not realising knowledgeable sleuth researchers would notice certain details were omitted! Won’t be doing that again….

I’m guessing the document is real? No reason for it not to be - unless Habighorst’s imagination ran riot that evening - it’s content was thrown out by Judge Haggerty (due to Shaw’s lawyer not being present at fingerprinting….wtf???) so the event was presented as an actual occurrence.

Habighorst had 15+ years of service under his belt and had risen to the heady heights of Police Patrolman. He was assigned to Central Lockup, Bureau of Identification, booking in and fingerprinting miscreants of all descriptions. Seems to be an unambitious (15 yrs, still a patrolman) copper doing his job, a small cog in a big machine. 
So yes, I believe he just did his job that night, booked in a potential criminal as per usual, probably looking forward to ending his shift to go home and have his dinner in front of the tv. 
Can’t see anything nefarious with him

[Paul Brancato]

Greg - how do you inow that Habighorst had an issue with Shaw’s attorney? Had you previously elaborated on this in a previous post here? 

[Greg Doudna]

2 hours ago, Paul Brancato said:

Greg - how do you inow that Habighorst had an issue with Shaw’s attorney? Had you previously elaborated on this in a previous post here? 

From James Kirkwood, American Grotesque (1970 edn), 354:

The policeman [Habighorst] was cross-examined by [defense counsel] Billy Wegmann, not Irvin Dymond. There was an interesting reason for the substitution. Officer Habighorst's brother had been driving across a bridge several years previously and gotten into a contretemps with another motorist. They stopped their cars, argued, and then Habighorst's brother had taken out a gun, shot and killed the man. Dymond, who defended the brother, succeeded in reducing the crime from murder to manslaughter and the defendant had served four years in prison. It was widely rumored that Officer Habighorst thought his brother should have gotten off scot free, and his feelings toward Dymond were not friendly. In an attempt not to crank up an already hostile witness, Billy Wegmann handled the questioning."

I would like to make clear I do not think any issue Habighorst had with Dymond entered into Habighorst's testimony. I think it started out as a case of an honest cop making a mistake from memory in that deposition written ten months after the fact, then as it became questioned at a late stage sticking to it. 

Edited April 5, 2022 by Greg Doudna