Dean Andrews

[Robert Charles-Dunne]

This is one of the problems of trying to deal rationally with the Garrison case. If one concedes any sincerity to his case, the Garrison-haters get emotional. If one questions any point of his case, the Shaw-haters get emotional.

Since I "hate" neither Garrison nor Shaw, where does that leave someone like me? It's an interesting smear to insert the words "rationally" and "get emotional" in your sentences above, as though anyone who has reached a decision on the matter - either way - is ipso facto "irrational" and unreasonably "emotional."

It is AS NECESSARY to question our own theorizing as it is to question the WC theorizing. We should be held to the same standards of logic.

I truly find it difficult to believe that Shaw, if he was the wily conspirator some believe him to have been, could have been so stupid as to incriminate himself repeatedly. This is a man who is believed to have successfully pulled off a presidential assassination. Yet:

He goes out of his way to be seen with Oswald and Ferrie in Clinton LA. He could have parked the car around the corner, used a different car, worn a disguise, not given his name when asked, even stayed at home. But no, he drew attention to his association with the man he presumably knew would soon be known as an assassin.

He incriminates himself by plotting the assassination in front of a total stranger, Perry Raymond Russo.

I could be wrong, but my impression has always been that Ferrie did most of the talking at this event, while Shaw was more a discreet observer than a "plotter," if that evening could even be considered "plotting" the event. Too much liquor, in the company of men who all hold similar political views, can lead to heated statements that are open to subsequent misinterpretation.

Any conspirator would presumably have shown some interest in checking to see if the Warren Commission mentioned their name, and in fact the WC did mention the mysterious Clay Bertrand. So he "playfully" signs the alias in the Eastern Air Lines guest book.

By the day of his arrest, he DOES know that the name Bertrand has meaning to Garrison, having heard it from several sources, including Layton Martens. He was visited just a short time previously by Perry Russo, who allegedly knew him as Bertrand. So Habighorst asked him if he had any aliases, and he "absent-mindedly" or arrogantly says "Clay Bertrand."

How stupid was this guy? Is it unfair of me to even ask the question?

Not at all. But claiming that somebody couldn't be so stupid as to do something stupid is conjecture without any basis offered to support it, or any realistic way to demonstrate it.

People act against their own self-interest all the time. Dean Andrews is a perfect case in point. Let us assume he simply made the whole thing up, as many have alleged. Here is a lawyer, trained to understand the downside of making false reports to police, who claimed one thing, only to retract it under oath, leaving himself liable to perjury charges. One could just as easily ask why a man smart enough to become a lawyer would needlessly implicate himself this way, in an event that needn't have ever been disclosed were it not for his own big mouth. But asking the question isn't the same as answering it.

But I will wait for someone to challenge Stephen Roy's comments in a convincing way.

"Comments" is precisely what they are. There was no evidence to support the conjecture, merely the incredulity that Shaw could have been so stupid.

No evidence to support WHAT conjecture?

As noted above, claiming that Shaw was too clever to implicate himself is "conjecture," not a conclusion based upon any evidence.

It will be interesting to see whether the byline is Stephen Roy or "David Blackburst," his previous alias. Apparently "Mr. Blackburn" was about as pleased to be outed as "Mr. Bertrand" had been. Interesting that in Mr. Roy's worldview Mr. Shaw was too smart to use an alias, and admit it, while Mr. Roy also used an alias, and was forced to admit it, much to his chagrin.

Of what relevance is that? I came online under my own name and had an incident where somebody looked me up and visited my house when I wasn't home, so I used Blackburst (a word related to my job) at the insistence of my wife. Many people in this forum use aliases in the newsgroups. Dave Healy is one. A number of authors I helped knew who I was. When I spoke at Lancer in 2000 under my own name, my name tag listed both names. I was angry when I was outed because I had asked the person not to do it, and it was done unnecessarily. This is a cheap shot on your part.

Actually, rather than a cheap shot, it illustrates why people use an alias; self-protection. In Shaw's case, it was to prevent disclosure of his sexual orientation, an unknown detail in New Orleans polite society, the emergence of which would have seen Shaw's name struck from the social register, as it were.

Once you had been "outed" as Blackburst, you owned up to it, which is to your credit since you hadn't used the alias to commit any crime. Shaw's admission to having used the "Bertrand" alias was similar in that respect: it didn't put a rifle in his hands in Dallas; it didn't prove that he had any connection to the assassination; it simply meant that, if Dean Andrews told the truth, Shaw had sent him "gay kids" - Oswald among them - as clients in the past, and sought to retain his services to represent "gay kid" Oswald at his trial in Dallas.

Shaw may well have been a conspirator, but he sure was a stupid one.

Shaw may also well have been nothing more than a bit-part player who facilitated the framing of Oswald, without knowing in advance what purpose was being served by his actions. If so, he may have been an unwitting accessory to the crime, whose actions took on a darker hue after the assassination. Rather like Oswald himself, suddenly ensnarled in something large and sinister that only became truly apparent once it was too late.

[Robert Charles-Dunne]

As for Shaw's admission to Habighorst that he used Bertrand as an alias, whatever one posits for a rationale would, obviously, be entirely speculative and beyond our ability to confirm.

However, we should at least consider that Shaw thought himself either above suspicion, or at least bulletproof and immune from prosecution.

If so, his hypothetical feeling of omnipotence was well-founded.

Immediately after his arrest, the Attorney General of the US, Ramsey Clark, announced that soon after the assassination, Shaw had been investigated by the FBI and cleared of all suspicions [wholly untrue, per the extant record].

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Clark later said that he had misunderstood the FBI, that they had investigated BERTRAND in 1963, not Shaw.

According to Patricia Lambert, surely no Garrison fan and with whose work I know you are familiar, the entire episode was one farcical misunderstanding after another:

"The day after he arrested Shaw, Garrison again benefited from the hand of fate. United States Attorney General Designate Ramsey Clark had a blundering encounter with the press in Washington and provided Garrison with another credibility boost. Emerging from a Senate confirmation hearing on his nomination, Clark answered questions about events in New Orleans by saying that Clay Shaw had been investigated by the FBI in 1963 and cleared. Clark's statement was a simple mistake. He should have said "Bertrand" had been investigated. Shaw at first took comfort in the report. Assuming he had been investigated because of Oswald's pamphleteering in front of the Trade Mart, Shaw told reporters he had not known about the FBI investigation but was delighted and pleased that he had been cleared by them. That same day, the bureaucratic snafu was compounded when a befuddled spokesman for the Department of Justice, pressed on the issue, said of Bertrand and Shaw, "We think it's the same guy." "

The foregoing presupposes that Ramsey Clark was too stupid to distinguish between a real man and an alias, too ill-informed to know what had and hadn't been investigated by FBI in '63, and that the "befuddled [Justice] spokesman" also fell victim to this peculiar mass-delusion.

However, one might also posit, with equal feasibility, that Clark had announced to the press exactly what he'd been briefed to say, and that the "befuddled spokesman" made the grave error of speaking an uncomfortable truth on the Justice Department view of Shaw/Bertrand: "We think it's the same guy."

For the duration of the trial, according to CIA's Victor Marchetti, Langley expressed daily solicitude over his plight and wondered if CIA was doing all it could to aid Shaw.

Even Judge Haggerty admitted to a journalist that he thought "Shaw lied through his teeth" during the trail, after it ended in Shaw's acquittal.

If Shaw thought that "somebody up there likes him," he certainly wasn't wrong.

That still doesn't explain him "handing the sword" to Garrison.

Again, you think it's a "sword." But, was it? Even if Garrison had been able to definitively demonstrate to a jury that Shaw had used the alias "Bertrand," would it have affected the outcome of the case? Hardly. Even if the jury had been swayed to believe every single utterance made on the stand by Andrews, Russo, et al, the use of the "Bertrand" alias didn't implicate Shaw in the assassination. It merely placed Shaw in some bad company, partying with paramilitary lunatics and consorting with some very rough trade. Not something to be proud of, perhaps, but not - in and of itself - damning evidence of Shaw conspiring to kill the President.

Moreover, if it was Shaw who signed the American Airlines VIP lounge guest register as "Clay Bertrand" on December 14, 1966, he clearly felt there was no downside to doing so.

Actually, it was Eastern Air Lines.

Apologies and thanks for pointing out the error. I stand corrected.

One witness who ID'ed Shaw as that signator [former AA VIP room employee Mrs. Jessie Parker] testified to that fact, and another person present, CIA asset Alfred Moran, denied Shaw had been present when questioned by Garrison's staff, but admitted Shaw had been present when speaking with other CIA personnel, as Agency documents - subsequently declassified - clearly illustrated. If he was brazen enough to sign "Clay Bertrand" on December 14, 1966, why would he refrain from such an admission to Habighorst a few months later? Because he was inebriated or disoriented when arrested? Or because he thought it was immaterial to the DA's case? Who knows?

With all due respect to my colleague Joe Biles, I find the EAL guest book matter inconclusive and open to question.

That is your prerogative. But this perforce requires you to dismiss or ignore the testimony of Mrs. Parker, the CIA documents refecting the identical admission of Alfred Moran, and expert graphology opinion regarding the bona fides of the signature. One can dismiss anything as "inconclusive" if one arbitrarily raises or lowers the evidentiary bar at will. But you must consider this signature issue inconclusive, for were you to accept it as genuine, you could no longer argue that Shaw was too clever to implicate himself over the use of the "Bertrand" alias.

Having studied many of Garrison's own documents, I wonder why there is no mention of the booking card during all the months his staff was looking for evidence that Shaw was Bertrand. Why even bother, if Shaw had already admitted it?

It is my speculation [please note the qualifier] that two gross assumptions converged. The DA's staff - much like yourself - assumed that Shaw wouldn't be so accommodating as to admit to using the "Bertrand" alias upon his arrest, and therefore didn't seek out the arrest records. Likewise, Habighorst assumed the DA already had evidence demonstrating Shaw's of the "Bertrand" alias, as Garrison announced to the press on the day following Shaw's arrest, and therefore Habighorst didn't draw the DA's attention to the arrest records.

[Michael Hogan]

I truly find it difficult to believe that Shaw, if he was the wily conspirator some believe him to have been, could have been so stupid as to incriminate himself repeatedly. This is a man who is believed to have successfully pulled off a presidential assassination.

I don't think many people believe it was Shaw himself who "pulled off a presidential assassination," which would indeed require him to be a very clever person. He was just one player in a larger conspiracy.

This is one of the problems of trying to deal rationally with the Garrison case. If one concedes any sincerity to his case, the Garrison-haters get emotional. If one questions any point of his case, the Shaw-haters get emotional.

Since I "hate" neither Garrison nor Shaw, where does that leave someone like me? It's an interesting smear to insert the words "rationally" and "get emotional" in your sentences above, as though anyone who has reached a decision on the matter - either way - is ipso facto "irrational" and unreasonably "emotional."

I was going to comment on Stephen Roy's posts about Clay Shaw, but I'm glad I waited. Owen and Robert made their cases clearly and convincingly. They did a better job than I could have.

A command of the facts and logic trump speculation and unfounded statements almost every time.

[Antti Hynonen]

Stephen Roy Posted Yesterday, 03:06 AM

This is one of the problems of trying to deal rationally with the Garrison case. If one concedes any sincerity to his case, the Garrison-haters get emotional. If one questions any point of his case, the Shaw-haters get emotional.

It is AS NECESSARY to question our own theorizing as it is to question the WC theorizing. We should be held to the same standards of logic.

I truly find it difficult to believe that Shaw, if he was the wily conspirator some believe him to have been, could have been so stupid as to incriminate himself repeatedly. This is a man who is believed to have successfully pulled off a presidential assassination. Yet:

He goes out of his way to be seen with Oswald and Ferrie in Clinton LA. He could have parked the car around the corner, used a different car, worn a disguise, not given his name when asked, even stayed at home. But no, he drew attention to his association with the man he presumably knew would soon be known as an assassin.

He incriminates himself by plotting the assassination in front of a total stranger, Perry Raymond Russo.

Any conspirator would presumably have shown some interest in checking to see if the Warren Commission mentioned their name, and in fact the WC did mention the mysterious Clay Bertrand. So he "playfully" signs the alias in the Eastern Air Lines guest book.

By the day of his arrest, he DOES know that the name Bertrand has meaning to Garrison, having heard it from several sources, including Layton Martens. He was visited just a short time previously by Perry Russo, who allegedly knew him as Bertrand. So Habighorst asked him if he had any aliases, and he "absent-mindedly" or arrogantly says "Clay Bertrand."

How stupid was this guy? Is it unfair of me to even ask the question?

QUOTE(Robert Charles-Dunne @ Oct 1 2006, 12:49 AM)

QUOTE(J. Raymond Carroll @ Sep 30 2006, 10:25 PM)

QUOTE(Owen Parsons @ Sep 30 2006, 05:20 PM)

. There is simply no way this could have been fabricated ad hoc, which is probably why Shaw's lawyers didn't contest that the card was filled out on the day of Shaw's arrest, as you are now doing. You are looking extremely silly right now.

Well, I am not afraid of looking silly.

Nor are you inclined to offer proof for your baseless assertions, apparently. Gut instincts are one thing; evidence rising to the level of legal requirements are another. Given the fact that both victims of your character assassination are now dead, you can malign them with impunity. But, appealing to your instincts as a gentleman, I say again:

"You have suggested Garrison bribed Habighorst, and have called Habighorst a "crooked cop," all without a scintilla of proof for either assertion. If you have such proof, please offer it. If you do not have such proof, please acknowledge your unfortunate penchant for fabricating scurrilous nonsense from whole cloth as you require it."

If I am wrong then I am wrong, and so be it.

Ego to one side for the moment, there is more riding on this matter than whether or not you look silly. Have you some precedent for accusing Garrison of bribery and Habighorst with being a "crooked cop" or not? It's a simple question and can be resolved with a simple answer: yes or no?

But I will wait for someone to challenge Stephen Roy's comments in a convincing way.

"Comments" is precisely what they are. There was no evidence to support the conjecture, merely the incredulity that Shaw could have been so stupid.

No evidence to support WHAT conjecture?

Yet history is replete with examples of arrogant stupidity; why should Shaw be thought above being stupidly arrogant?

Shaw had just been arrested and charged with a heinous crime. What makes you think he was in an arrogant mood?

Please, do provide some reason for your assertions, rather than rely upon Mr. Roy to pull your fat out of the fire for you.

I have never met Stephen, and all I know about him is that he gives the impression of having seriously studied the New Orleans aspect of the case. In fact I think he is writing a book on the subject.

A biography of David Ferrie, not an assassination book.

It will be interesting to see whether the byline is Stephen Roy or "David Blackburst," his previous alias. Apparently "Mr. Blackburn" was about as pleased to be outed as "Mr. Bertrand" had been. Interesting that in Mr. Roy's worldview Mr. Shaw was too smart to use an alias, and admit it, while Mr. Roy also used an alias, and was forced to admit it, much to his chagrin.

Of what relevance is that? I came online under my own name and had an incident where somebody looked me up and visited my house when I wasn't home, so I used Blackburst (a word related to my job) at the insistence of my wife. Many people in this forum use aliases in the newsgroups. Dave Healy is one. A number of authors I helped knew who I was. When I spoke at Lancer in 2000 under my own name, my name tag listed both names. I was angry when I was outed because I had asked the person not to do it, and it was done unnecessarily. This is a cheap shot on your part.

I agree with Stephen Roy that it is most improbable that Clay Shaw would reveal his alias if he really was Clay Bertrand. I know for certain that I woulld not.

Yet Mr. Roy did use an alias, and was forced to admit same. I guess you're smarter than both of them.

Another truly relevant comment.

So I would repeat the words of Judge Haggerty: "I dont care, the whole world can hear that I do not believe officer Habighorst."

Then bear in mind that, prior to his death, Judge Haggerty also claimed that "Clay Shaw lied through his teeth" during the trial and that Shaw "did a con job on the jury." Not exactly helpful to Shaw's apologists, is it?

Bear in mind, also, that the judge with whom you so uncritically agree was removed from the bench for professional misconduct; the very thing of which you have accused both Garrison and Habighorst without troubling yourself to provide the slightest evidence for your assertions.

Apparently you don't mind casting aspersions against the demonstrably innocent in your rush to agree with the demonstrably crooked. Given the company you keep, can you provide a single reason why we should care what you think?

The goal of everyone here is to determine the truth related to the assassination. This is not a game of "for us or agin' us."

Shaw may well have been a conspirator, but he sure was a stupid one.

What are we to make of Dean Andrews? He claimed that he told a tale, then recanted it. How are we to know which of his statements to believe?

QUOTE(Antti Hynonen @ Sep 30 2006, 06:02 PM)

QUOTE

Stephen Roy Posted Yesterday, 03:02 PM

I see people here questioning Habighorst's possible motives for fabricating Shaw's admission of using the Bertrand alias. But here's what I don't understand: Why, in Heaven's name, would Shaw make such an admission?!?

If Shaw was Bertrand, he MUST have known how damaging an admission it would be. If he was Bertrand, he must have taken note that the name was discussed in the WC Report and Hearings/Exhibits. If he was Bertrand, he must have been alerted when one of Garrison's Assistant DAs mentioned the name to him. He must also have been alerted a few days earlier when Perry Russo showed up at his door, a man who allegedly knew him as Bertrand. And since Shaw subsequently denied that he was Bertrand, we can assume it was something he had no interest in admitting to.

Then why was Shaw stupid enough to casually tell Habighorst that this was his alias?!? This can't be blithely dismissed by Shaw doing it "absent-mindedly" or "playfully."

One needs to ask this sort of question when trying to assess the whole Bertrand thing. It is hard for me to believe that Shaw was stupid enough to admit to Habighorst that he used this alias.

As for Andrews, I don't know if we can ever know for sure. While he first brought up the name Bertrand, he later insisted and swore under oath that he was not Shaw. The Garrison-haters see it one way, the Shaw-haters see it another way. The only resolution is that Andrews' various statements cannot be taken as proving the matter either way.

Mr. Roy,

This alias statement by Clay Shaw certainly wasn't something said playfully or absent mindedly.

Two other possibilities come to mind.

One.

Shaw revealed his alias to the officer because he thought it would be revealed by some manner sooner or later anyhow. It would be safer to be honest at this point, the CIA would sure to bail him out, would it not...???

But on what basis can we presume arrogance on his part? He had just been arrested and charged with a heinous crime. To read his diary and the accounts of lawyer Panzeca, he regarded it as a very serious matter. His alleged co-conspirator David Ferrie doesn't seem to have been bailed out by the CIA.

Two.

It was a pure slip of the tongue, as he was startled and didn't expect to be arrested and must have thought that his alias would not be significant in terms of incriminating him in any way. Apparently he was debriefed later (by some friends....), after his arrest and found out his alias would be key in incriminating him in the case, after all the CIA had it's insiders within Garison's team.

I find it hard to believe. See my other comments in this topic. If he was a conspirator, he must have known the FBI and WC had looked into a Clay Bertrand. According to his memoir, the name was mentioned to him by Garrison's men before his arrest, and Layton Martens also told him that Garrison was interested in Bertrand. And he had just received a "pretext visit" by Perry Russo, who allegedly knew him as Bertrand.

Mr. Roy,

I am not suggesting arrogance in any way. I shall rephrase. I am offering 2 possibilities as to why Mr. Shaw could have told Officer Habighorst his alias, neither has to do with arrogance.

My first suggestion said, (in other words) he probably made a quick decision (answered after considering) under pressure, and didn't fully realize the implications of this until later. He may have though that he'd be protected by his lawyers and/or agency ties, if any, and that his alias would be insignificant information.

Second suggestion, it might have just been a slip of the tongue (answered spontaneously, without considering), as he never expected to be arrested. Again, I'm sure he was under pressure, while under arrest and giving his personal information to the police.

I believe both above scenarios are more likely than the scenario that Habighorst took a bribe and altered 5 copies of the arrest card. It is a possibilty though, but I haven't seen or heard anything that would support this. On the otherhand other information suggests that Clay Shaw did in fact convey Clay Bertrand as his alias.

This reinforces the statements and questions in the initial postings of this thread, relating to Mr. Dean Andrews' phone calls and discussions of one "Clay Bertrand" requesting Andrews' to represent one Lee Oswald in the murder of the President.

Coincidence that both Andrews and Shaw withdrew/denied something they had said earlier?

[Stephen Roy]

I truly find it difficult to believe that Shaw, if he was the wily conspirator some believe him to have been, could have been so stupid as to incriminate himself repeatedly. This is a man who is believed to have successfully pulled off a presidential assassination.

I don't think many people believe it was Shaw himself who "pulled off a presidential assassination," which would indeed require him to be a very clever person. He was just one player in a larger conspiracy.

Not by himself, no. But he is believed to have played a central role, and he was tried on that basis. Further, this is a guy who managed many complex projects, such as the ITM build. That requires attention to detail.

He incriminates himself by plotting the assassination in front of a total stranger, Perry Raymond Russo.

This incident occurred very late in to the night (when peoples' judgements are perhaps not so good) in the context of a party that had mostly dispersed. Russo described the conversation as being like a "bull session" at the trial; not really a planning session, per se.

Again, though, wouldn't you expect a guy of Shaw's ability, even drunk and tired, to be aware of the idiocy of giving the whole game away to a complete stranger?

Any conspirator would presumably have shown some interest in checking to see if the Warren Commission mentioned their name, and in fact the WC did mention the mysterious Clay Bertrand. So he "playfully" signs the alias in the Eastern Air Lines guest book.

Clay Bertrand is only mentioned in one of the many, many, volumes of supporting evidence, not the main report. I do not know when or how Shaw would find the time or interest to dig through all the volumes just to make sure his alias doesn't pop up.

If Shaw was the conspirator who called Andrews, one presumes he would be interested in what Andrews had to say to the FBI and WC. Wouldn't SOMEONE who read the WC materials have called Shaw and said "Guess who the WC was looking for...?"

The conspirators (I would not class Shaw as a major figure among these) were probably pretty confident that they were able to foist one on the American people with the WC, and the media was very active in supporting the WC conclusions. So, for these people, the case has been "closed" quite satisfactorily and there isn't much reason to worry anymore.

As for the guestbook, I will take the testimony of the two people who witnessed Shaw signing it or saw him in the VIP room that day (one of which denied knowledge to Garrison's people but told the real story to his CIA employers) and expert testimony of the documents analyst who wasn't involved in framing Bruno Hauptmann and wasn't a good buddy of J. Edgar Hoover (which apply to Team Shaw's expert) as pretty much definitive.

I'm not saying it didn't happen. I'm questioning why Shaw would be so stupid.

Reasons can be offered as to why Shaw signed the book, but I don't think its needful since the weight of the evidence against Shaw is already so heavy.

The evidence that he conspired to kill JFK, or the evidence that he was less than candid about his assertions?

Shaw had just been arrested and charged with a heinous crime. What makes you think he was in an arrogant mood?

Because these people think they're teflon, which, in view of the trial outcome and WC (among many other things), is probably close to the truth. Shaw most likely knew the CIA wouldn't let him out to dry, and they didn't.

I'm just wondering what you base this supposition on. Do you have any other examples of such arrogance?

What are we to make of Dean Andrews? He claimed that he told a tale, then recanted it. How are we to know which of his statements to believe?

Dean Andrews' original story is more accurate because there are independent witnesses (three of them) to confirm it. Dean Andrews wouldn't have called Eva Springer from the hospital in regards to representing Oswald on behalf of Bertrand at 4:00 on the 23rd if the call was something he made up.

Are you saying there are no other possible reasons? I would dispute that.

Dean Andrews had a good reason to change his story (namely, death threats from "Washington D.C." as he told Mark Lane).

But he changed it in 1963, then reverted to it in 1964, then changed it again, reverted to it in 1966, played "can't say he is/ain't" in 1967, then finally changed to the story he went to his grave with. It's hard to fit your theory into that chronology.

But on what basis can we presume arrogance on his part? He had just been arrested and charged with a heinous crime. To read his diary and the accounts of lawyer Panzeca, he regarded it as a very serious matter. His alleged co-conspirator David Ferrie doesn't seem to have been bailed out by the CIA.

You're right. Ferrie wasn't bailed out by the CIA; in all probability he was murdered by them.

In all probability? How did the CIA cause him to have a burst aneurysm?

However, Ferrie was probably not regarded as as much of a team player as Shaw, which is demonstrated by his confession to Ivon, although I am aware you won't credit that.

For the benefit of others, Lou Ivon claimed in the early 90s that Ferrie all but confessed to him on Feb 19-20, 1967. I have a few problems with that: If he DID confess, he was immediately back to denial the very next day. Also, I wonder why THIS important conversation, among all others, appears nowhere in the Garrison documents, and why it wasn't used in court. (Lawyers tell me that it would qualify in Louisiana as a deathbed confession.)

Ferrie wasn't "one of the boys" and couldn't be relied upon.

Then why did Ferrie deny all until his death?

Besides that, the CIA would probably not risk another assassination so soon after Ferrie and in the context of Garrison's investigation. BTW, having read Shaw's diary, I don't regard it as a serious document. But that's just my opinion.

You don't think it represents how he perceived things at that time? Why?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Clark later said that he had misunderstood the FBI, that they had investigated BERTRAND in 1963, not Shaw.

If Clark ever did say this, that would be incorrect, as the FBI's own memos, reprinted in Davy's book, show (i.e. that Shaw's name came up in connection to the assassination in 1963 and this is what Clark was told). However, Clark has come clean about this issue. See Mellen pg. 128-9.

As I read the FBI/DoJ traffic from 1967, it was a misunderstanding, and I don't think Bill or Joan proved otherwise. If you refer to Bill's comments about Regis Kennedy's testimony, I think it's a misreading. In any case, all of this only goes to perjury, not conspiracy.

With all due respect to my colleague Joe Biles, I find the EAL guest book matter inconclusive and open to question.

There is a case to be made that he did, and that he didn't sign it. Lacking certainty, I still find it an incredibly stupid thing to do. (Sorry, I think I deleted your comment by mistake.)

Having studied many of Garrison's own documents, I wonder why there is no mention of the booking card during all the months his staff was looking for evidence that Shaw was Bertrand. Why even bother, if Shaw had already admitted it?

Because Garrison's team wasn't aware of the booking card at the time and Habighorst wasn't aware of its significance. In any case, this is irrelevant, because it is conclusively not an ad hoc forgery.

But the absence of awareness of it at least raises the possibility that it was added later.

BTW, thanks for a civil discussion on the evidence. This is the way it should be!

[Stephen Roy]

This is one of the problems of trying to deal rationally with the Garrison case. If one concedes any sincerity to his case, the Garrison-haters get emotional. If one questions any point of his case, the Shaw-haters get emotional.

Since I "hate" neither Garrison nor Shaw, where does that leave someone like me? It's an interesting smear to insert the words "rationally" and "get emotional" in your sentences above, as though anyone who has reached a decision on the matter - either way - is ipso facto "irrational" and unreasonably "emotional."

Apologies for poor phrasing. I was speaking in global terms, not this discussion. The Garrison matter is a microcosm of the JFK case, and is usually between two polarized sides, and it often moves away from evidence into argument very quickly.

I was struck that my simple comment about Shaw's seeming stupidity caused the reaction it did.

It is AS NECESSARY to question our own theorizing as it is to question the WC theorizing. We should be held to the same standards of logic.

I truly find it difficult to believe that Shaw, if he was the wily conspirator some believe him to have been, could have been so stupid as to incriminate himself repeatedly. This is a man who is believed to have successfully pulled off a presidential assassination. Yet:

He goes out of his way to be seen with Oswald and Ferrie in Clinton LA. He could have parked the car around the corner, used a different car, worn a disguise, not given his name when asked, even stayed at home. But no, he drew attention to his association with the man he presumably knew would soon be known as an assassin.

He incriminates himself by plotting the assassination in front of a total stranger, Perry Raymond Russo.

I could be wrong, but my impression has always been that Ferrie did most of the talking at this event, while Shaw was more a discreet observer than a "plotter," if that evening could even be considered "plotting" the event. Too much liquor, in the company of men who all hold similar political views, can lead to heated statements that are open to subsequent misinterpretation.

But again, in front of a stranger? It seems as odd to me as him going out of his way to be seen in Clinton.

Any conspirator would presumably have shown some interest in checking to see if the Warren Commission mentioned their name, and in fact the WC did mention the mysterious Clay Bertrand. So he "playfully" signs the alias in the Eastern Air Lines guest book.

By the day of his arrest, he DOES know that the name Bertrand has meaning to Garrison, having heard it from several sources, including Layton Martens. He was visited just a short time previously by Perry Russo, who allegedly knew him as Bertrand. So Habighorst asked him if he had any aliases, and he "absent-mindedly" or arrogantly says "Clay Bertrand."

How stupid was this guy? Is it unfair of me to even ask the question?

Not at all. But claiming that somebody couldn't be so stupid as to do something stupid is conjecture without any basis offered to support it, or any realistic way to demonstrate it.

I'm not claiming he couldn't be that stupid. I'm just noting that he was.

People act against their own self-interest all the time. Dean Andrews is a perfect case in point. Let us assume he simply made the whole thing up, as many have alleged. Here is a lawyer, trained to understand the downside of making false reports to police, who claimed one thing, only to retract it under oath, leaving himself liable to perjury charges. One could just as easily ask why a man smart enough to become a lawyer would needlessly implicate himself this way, in an event that needn't have ever been disclosed were it not for his own big mouth. But asking the question isn't the same as answering it.

But Andrews wasn't part of the conspiracy, as Shaw was. The stakes were much higher.

But I will wait for someone to challenge Stephen Roy's comments in a convincing way.

"Comments" is precisely what they are. There was no evidence to support the conjecture, merely the incredulity that Shaw could have been so stupid.

No evidence to support WHAT conjecture?

As noted above, claiming that Shaw was too clever to implicate himself is "conjecture," not a conclusion based upon any evidence.

If it were one incident, it wouldn't be noteworthy. But it was several, including some I haven't mentioned.

It will be interesting to see whether the byline is Stephen Roy or "David Blackburst," his previous alias. Apparently "Mr. Blackburn" was about as pleased to be outed as "Mr. Bertrand" had been. Interesting that in Mr. Roy's worldview Mr. Shaw was too smart to use an alias, and admit it, while Mr. Roy also used an alias, and was forced to admit it, much to his chagrin.

Of what relevance is that? I came online under my own name and had an incident where somebody looked me up and visited my house when I wasn't home, so I used Blackburst (a word related to my job) at the insistence of my wife. Many people in this forum use aliases in the newsgroups. Dave Healy is one. A number of authors I helped knew who I was. When I spoke at Lancer in 2000 under my own name, my name tag listed both names. I was angry when I was outed because I had asked the person not to do it, and it was done unnecessarily. This is a cheap shot on your part.

Actually, rather than a cheap shot, it illustrates why people use an alias; self-protection. In Shaw's case, it was to prevent disclosure of his sexual orientation, an unknown detail in New Orleans polite society, the emergence of which would have seen Shaw's name struck from the social register, as it were.

Mine wasn't an alias, it was a screen name. I never used it anywhere but in the newsgroups. I wasn't introduced to anybody under it; I didn't sign it in a guest register; and I didn't give it to police as an alias.

Once you had been "outed" as Blackburst, you owned up to it, which is to your credit since you hadn't used the alias to commit any crime.

By that time, many people knew who I was. I had "owned up to it" four years previously at a conference.

Shaw's admission to having used the "Bertrand" alias was similar in that respect: it didn't put a rifle in his hands in Dallas; it didn't prove that he had any connection to the assassination; it simply meant that, if Dean Andrews told the truth, Shaw had sent him "gay kids" - Oswald among them - as clients in the past, and sought to retain his services to represent "gay kid" Oswald at his trial in Dallas.

True. It goes to perjury, not conspiracy.

Shaw may well have been a conspirator, but he sure was a stupid one.

Shaw may also well have been nothing more than a bit-part player who facilitated the framing of Oswald, without knowing in advance what purpose was being served by his actions. If so, he may have been an unwitting accessory to the crime, whose actions took on a darker hue after the assassination. Rather like Oswald himself, suddenly ensnarled in something large and sinister that only became truly apparent once it was too late.

As for Shaw's admission to Habighorst that he used Bertrand as an alias, whatever one posits for a rationale would, obviously, be entirely speculative and beyond our ability to confirm.

However, we should at least consider that Shaw thought himself either above suspicion, or at least bulletproof and immune from prosecution.

If so, his hypothetical feeling of omnipotence was well-founded.

Immediately after his arrest, the Attorney General of the US, Ramsey Clark, announced that soon after the assassination, Shaw had been investigated by the FBI and cleared of all suspicions [wholly untrue, per the extant record].

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Clark later said that he had misunderstood the FBI, that they had investigated BERTRAND in 1963, not Shaw.

According to Patricia Lambert, surely no Garrison fan and with whose work I know you are familiar, the entire episode was one farcical misunderstanding after another:

"The day after he arrested Shaw, Garrison again benefited from the hand of fate. United States Attorney General Designate Ramsey Clark had a blundering encounter with the press in Washington and provided Garrison with another credibility boost. Emerging from a Senate confirmation hearing on his nomination, Clark answered questions about events in New Orleans by saying that Clay Shaw had been investigated by the FBI in 1963 and cleared. Clark's statement was a simple mistake. He should have said "Bertrand" had been investigated. Shaw at first took comfort in the report. Assuming he had been investigated because of Oswald's pamphleteering in front of the Trade Mart, Shaw told reporters he had not known about the FBI investigation but was delighted and pleased that he had been cleared by them. That same day, the bureaucratic snafu was compounded when a befuddled spokesman for the Department of Justice, pressed on the issue, said of Bertrand and Shaw, "We think it's the same guy." "

The foregoing presupposes that Ramsey Clark was too stupid to distinguish between a real man and an alias, too ill-informed to know what had and hadn't been investigated by FBI in '63, and that the "befuddled [Justice] spokesman" also fell victim to this peculiar mass-delusion.

However, one might also posit, with equal feasibility, that Clark had announced to the press exactly what he'd been briefed to say, and that the "befuddled spokesman" made the grave error of speaking an uncomfortable truth on the Justice Department view of Shaw/Bertrand: "We think it's the same guy."

Jeez, Im running out of colors here!!!

While not certain, I read it as Clark asking Did we investigate this guy in 63? And the FBI saying Yeah, we looked for Bertand in 63, and Clark presuming Shaw was checked out and found clear. But I'm not sure, and the record doesn't settle it.

For the duration of the trial, according to CIA's Victor Marchetti, Langley expressed daily solicitude over his plight and wondered if CIA was doing all it could to aid Shaw.

Even Judge Haggerty admitted to a journalist that he thought "Shaw lied through his teeth" during the trail, after it ended in Shaw's acquittal.

If Shaw thought that "somebody up there likes him," he certainly wasn't wrong.

That still doesn't explain him "handing the sword" to Garrison.

Again, you think it's a "sword." But, was it? Even if Garrison had been able to definitively demonstrate to a jury that Shaw had used the alias "Bertrand," would it have affected the outcome of the case? Hardly. Even if the jury had been swayed to believe every single utterance made on the stand by Andrews, Russo, et al, the use of the "Bertrand" alias didn't implicate Shaw in the assassination. It merely placed Shaw in some bad company, partying with paramilitary lunatics and consorting with some very rough trade. Not something to be proud of, perhaps, but not - in and of itself - damning evidence of Shaw conspiring to kill the President.

Good point, and I agree. But it still damaged his denials of being the Bertand Andrews or Russo knew.

Moreover, if it was Shaw who signed the American Airlines VIP lounge guest register as "Clay Bertrand" on December 14, 1966, he clearly felt there was no downside to doing so.

Actually, it was Eastern Air Lines.

Apologies and thanks for pointing out the error. I stand corrected.

One witness who ID'ed Shaw as that signator [former AA VIP room employee Mrs. Jessie Parker] testified to that fact, and another person present, CIA asset Alfred Moran, denied Shaw had been present when questioned by Garrison's staff, but admitted Shaw had been present when speaking with other CIA personnel, as Agency documents - subsequently declassified - clearly illustrated. If he was brazen enough to sign "Clay Bertrand" on December 14, 1966, why would he refrain from such an admission to Habighorst a few months later? Because he was inebriated or disoriented when arrested? Or because he thought it was immaterial to the DA's case? Who knows?

With all due respect to my colleague Joe Biles, I find the EAL guest book matter inconclusive and open to question.

That is your prerogative. But this perforce requires you to dismiss or ignore the testimony of Mrs. Parker, the CIA documents refecting the identical admission of Alfred Moran, and expert graphology opinion regarding the bona fides of the signature. One can dismiss anything as "inconclusive" if one arbitrarily raises or lowers the evidentiary bar at will. But you must consider this signature issue inconclusive, for were you to accept it as genuine, you could no longer argue that Shaw was too clever to implicate himself over the use of the "Bertrand" alias.

As I note elsewhere, I am not denying he signed it, but the evidence is not conclusive in my eyes. Plus, he denied it.

Having studied many of Garrison's own documents, I wonder why there is no mention of the booking card during all the months his staff was looking for evidence that Shaw was Bertrand. Why even bother, if Shaw had already admitted it?

It is my speculation [please note the qualifier] that two gross assumptions converged. The DA's staff - much like yourself - assumed that Shaw wouldn't be so accommodating as to admit to using the "Bertrand" alias upon his arrest, and therefore didn't seek out the arrest records. Likewise, Habighorst assumed the DA already had evidence demonstrating Shaw's of the "Bertrand" alias, as Garrison announced to the press on the day following Shaw's arrest, and therefore Habighorst didn't draw the DA's attention to the arrest records.

Possible.

I was going to comment on Stephen Roy's posts about Clay Shaw, but I'm glad I waited. Owen and Robert made their cases clearly and convincingly. They did a better job than I could have.

A command of the facts and logic trump speculation and unfounded statements almost every time.

In all fairness, I was neither speculating nor making any unfounded statements. Owen and Robert and I are having a give and take. No knockouts here.

Mr. Roy,

I am not suggesting arrogance in any way. I shall rephrase. I am offering 2 possibilities as to why Mr. Shaw could have told Officer Habighorst his alias, neither has to do with arrogance.

My first suggestion said, (in other words) he probably made a quick decision (answered after considering) under pressure, and didn't fully realize the implications of this until later. He may have though that he'd be protected by his lawyers and/or agency ties, if any, and that his alias would be insignificant information.

Possible, sure. But one of the first considerations of most defendants (especially after having consulted with a lawyer) is to admit nothing. Panzeca said he told him to admit nothing. And one could make a case that Shaw knew the significance of the Bertand name by this time.

Second suggestion, it might have just been a slip of the tongue (answered spontaneously, without considering), as he never expected to be arrested. Again, I'm sure he was under pressure, while under arrest and giving his personal information to the police.

I believe both above scenarios are more likely than the scenario that Habighorst took a bribe and altered 5 copies of the arrest card. It is a possibilty though, but I haven't seen or heard anything that would support this. On the otherhand other information suggests that Clay Shaw did in fact convey Clay Bertrand as his alias.

This reinforces the statements and questions in the initial postings of this thread, relating to Mr. Dean Andrews' phone calls and discussions of one "Clay Bertrand" requesting Andrews' to represent one Lee Oswald in the murder of the President.

Coincidence that both Andrews and Shaw withdrew/denied something they had said earlier?

In Andrews case, he admitted having made the earlier statements. Shaw denied them. And if we use that yardstick, there are quite a few cases of changing testimony on both sides of this case. To a large extent, we have to try to rationalize inconsistencies in statements by Russo, Beckham, the Clinton witnesses, etc.

Again, I'm not defending Shaw or denying that he did any of these things. I am just pointing out the stupidity of it. I was a big supporter of Garrison's case and I still feel he was very sincere. But there are a few weak spots in his case, and I think we need to consider them.

[J. Raymond Carroll]

I was a big supporter of Garrison's case and I still feel he was very sincere. But there are a few weak spots in his case, and I think we need to consider them.[/color]

On the question of Garrison's sincerity, what I do not understand is this: Garrison claimed that he truly believed that Clay Shaw was guilty of conspiring to murder JFK. If a murder conspiracy suceeds, then every conspirator is as guilty of murder as the one(s) who pulled the trigger. Why did Garrison not charge Clay Shaw with murder, and instead charge him only with the much lesser crime of conspiracy?

[Stephen Roy]

I was a big supporter of Garrison's case and I still feel he was very sincere. But there are a few weak spots in his case, and I think we need to consider them.[/color]

On the question of Garrison's sincerity, what I do not understand is this: Garrison claimed that he truly believed that Clay Shaw was guilty of conspiring to murder JFK. If a murder conspiracy suceeds, then every conspirator is as guilty of murder as the one(s) who pulled the trigger. Why did Garrison not charge Clay Shaw with murder, and instead charge him only with the much lesser crime of conspiracy?

Off the top of my head, the conspiracy allegedly took place in Orleans Parish, the murder did not.

[Robert Charles-Dunne]

In Andrews case, he admitted having made the earlier statements. Shaw denied them. And if we use that yardstick, there are quite a few cases of changing testimony on both sides of this case. To a large extent, we have to try to rationalize inconsistencies in statements by Russo, Beckham, the Clinton witnesses, etc.

The devil resides in the details, and this whole episode is positively diabolical. However, we have prima facie evidence that Shaw was among those who told different stories to different people, admitting the "Bertrand" alias to Habighorst, but denying it to others.

If we start with the premise that "Bertrand" was an alias he used while traveling in the gay circles Shaw habituated, there's nothing particularly ominous about that fact, just as steering mostly "gay kids" toward Andrews - Oswald among them, apparently - doesn't implicate "Bertrand" in much of anything. The latter-day allegations of Russo placed "Bertrand" in a more problematic circumstance, at least suggesting that he might have been part of a successul conspiracy to murder the President, assuming that such a conspiracy actually took place, and further assuming that Shaw actually played some role in it.

While that may have been Garrison's take on the matter, perhaps arrived at more of necessity [after Ferrie's demise] than any legitimate factor, I think Garrison was likely substantially over-reaching in using the "Bertrand" alias as a major factor in his case against Shaw. I also think we compound the error of over-reaching by assuming that Shaw was so fearful of this disclosure that he would never have admitted using "Bertrand" as an alias, because that fact alone proved little or nothing about his involvement in a conspiracy.

There's a possibility we should consider:

In Oliver Stone's JFK, he has a Mob character tell one of the DA's staff that it was well known Shaw used the name "Bertrand," which was used to discredit Stone, since this scene was without sufficient historical foundation.

But, let's assume for the moment that it was largely true; that Shaw was well known as "Bertrand" among the gay subculture in New Orleans. Knowing this, when asked by Habighorst if he had any aliases, perhaps Shaw - in a spur of the moment decision - revealed that he used "Bertrand" because he feared it would be too easily proved, if only Garrison's people trolled through the gay subculture where Shaw was known as "Bertrand." Moreover, really, what did it matter? It didn't make Andrews' assertions true, or even confirm them, and it didn't place Shaw in Oswald's company at anything other than a party.

However, in disclosing this to his legal counsel, perhaps his lawyers determined that this was too damning an admission. [i don't see it that way, but others certainly could do so, particularly those responsible for defending him against these sensational charges.] That would account for the apparent flip-flop in his initial admission versus his subsequent denial, and still not convict him of anything.

Again, I'm not defending Shaw or denying that he did any of these things. I am just pointing out the stupidity of it. I was a big supporter of Garrison's case and I still feel he was very sincere. But there are a few weak spots in his case, and I think we need to consider them.

You are remarkably charitable in your characterization of Garrison's case. Like you, I believe the DA to have been entirely sincere, and I think he likely uncovered more than he realized or knew how to exploit. However, at the end of the exercise, his case received precisely the verdict that it deserved. He may have convinced the jury that Kennedy was the victim of a conspiracy rather than a lone assassin, but he didn't have Shaw dead to rights and was incapable of proving a weak case against the man.

[Owen Parsons]

Again, though, wouldn't you expect a guy of Shaw's ability, even drunk and tired, to be aware of the idiocy of giving the whole game away to a complete stranger?

People do all sorts of really stupid things when they are drunk/tired. Still, Shaw did very little talking and Russo himself says that he was in and out of the apartment during the conversation.

If Shaw was the conspirator who called Andrews, one presumes he would be interested in what Andrews had to say to the FBI and WC. Wouldn't SOMEONE who read the WC materials have called Shaw and said "Guess who the WC was looking for...?"

There is a possibility of this, but then, the matter was assumed to be settled and of little interest. Both the government and the media were fully behind the WC no conspiracy verdict and the FBI, in those very reports, had dismissed Dean Andrews' story as a drug-induced fantasy.

I'm just wondering what you base this supposition on. Do you have any other examples of such arrogance?

Gordon Novel comes readily to mind.

Are you saying there are no other possible reasons? I would dispute that.

I suppose some other explanation can always be contrived, but I think its the only good one. Eugene Davis (who Andrews said was Bertrand at some point) would have no reason to make this call. Nor does it fit with a publicity stunt of some kind. Andrews only contacted the authorities after Oswald had been shot to say he had seen Oswald on three occasions, thinking his information would be useful. He didn't mention then that he had been asked to represent Oswald.

But he changed it in 1963, then reverted to it in 1964, then changed it again, reverted to it in 1966, played "can't say he is/ain't" in 1967, then finally changed to the story he went to his grave with. It's hard to fit your theory into that chronology.

His "change" in 1963, so far as I can see, is saying that he could have dreamed it up under sedation as the FBI suggested (in contradiction to the evidence it had collected). His descriptions of Bertrand got fuzzier and fuzzier after this. Later he would say that he made it up for attention (if I remember correctly) and/or that it was Eugene Davis. This, one assumes, is when the death threats from D.C. really kicked in (not MY theory, this is what Andrews told to Mark Lane, Jim Garrison, and Anthony Summers). The story he went to his grave with is apparently that Shaw and Bertrand are the same and that the call is real, as he told Weisberg.

How did the CIA cause him to have a burst aneurysm?

There are many ways you can go about this. Let's see what Dimitri Contostavlos M.D. has to say about Ferrie's death. What follows is an excerpt from a letter he wrote to Richard A. Sprague:

In 1969 I wrote to Jim Garrison of New Orleans to inform him about

a theory which I had developed concerning the death of David Ferrie, one

of Oswald's circle of acquaintances who died suddenly on the eve of his

official questioning by Garrison's investigators. After some confusion,

during which it was originally alleged that he had committed suicide by

poisoning, a pathologist ruled that the cause of death was subarachnoid

hemorrhage. At the time of my communication Garrison was preoccupied

with getting re-elected, and may have passed me off as just another crank

or he may have checked out my theory and ruled it out; in any case I got

no response to the letter or to a telphone call which his secretary

answered.

The cause of my concern in this case is that, although fatal

subarachnoid hemorrhage (a bleeding into one of the spaces around the

brain) is usually due to natural causes, namely rupture of aneurysm or

other arterial abnormality, it is recognized by Forensic Pathologists

as occuring in certain forms of blunt trauma. In the year prior to my

communication to Garrison, I had encountered while working in Dade County,

Florida, 3 cases of this condition all resulting from punches or karate

blows to the side of the neck and had demonstrated for the first time the

exact site and nature of the injury. My scientific paper on this subject

was published in the Journal of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences

and resulted in widespread recognition of the lesion and in a number of

additional published case reports.

It should be emphasized that the injury may be occult, manifesting

only as the brain hemorrhage which may be, and to my certain knowledge has

been in the past, labeled as a stroke due to normal causes. The New Orleans

district is served, or was during the period in question, by a coroner

system, with autopsies performed by hospital pathologists who are usually

not experienced enough in the pathology and investigation of trauma cases. It

is for these reasons that I became concerned that possibly a homicide had

been missed in the Ferrie case, particularly in view of the timing of his

death at such a critical moment during the Kennedy assassination investigation.

The injury involves the fracture of a small bone in the neck, and

may therefore be detected in the skeleton many years after death. Provided

that the body has not been cremated or buried at sea, the deceased can be

exhumed for reexamination. (link)

For the benefit of others, Lou Ivon claimed in the early 90s that Ferrie all but confessed to him on Feb 19-20, 1967. I have a few problems with that: If he DID confess, he was immediately back to denial the very next day. Also, I wonder why THIS important conversation, among all others, appears nowhere in the Garrison documents, and why it wasn't used in court. (Lawyers tell me that it would qualify in Louisiana as a deathbed confession.)

"So there would be no leak, Ivon decided not to have his report typed by an office secretary but to give Jim Garrison his handwritten notes directly." (Mellen 105) Mellen notes that these notes have vanished. Partial corroboration of this comes from Jim Garrison himself in OTTA, pg 376, where he writes that many of his notes were stolen.

As for why it wasn't used in court, its not hard to see why, for me at least. For such a sensational piece of evidence against Ferrie, I think Garrison would want a source beyond the word of one of his assistant D.A.s to present to the Jury. His other witnesses had been pilloried enough. On a minor point, Garrison wanted to avoid bringing the CIA (which figures in the confession) into the case, as he felt that to the Jury this would seem like "talking about UFOs."

Then why did Ferrie deny all until his death?

Are you referring to Ferrie's final interview with George Lardner in which he says that he and Oswald were in different CAP units and that he and his buddies went "goose hunting" on the weekend of the assassination? Ferrie would of course have an interest in sending a different signal to the press.

You don't think it represents how he perceived things at that time? Why?

I think the first three paragraphs sum it up well:

And so it begins... this Journal which is to be a record of the most horrifying, unbelievable, nightmarish experience through which I have ever lived. March the first will be certainly the great day in my life. That water shed from which all events must be dated before and after. For it was on March 1 that I was arrested "for conspiring with others to murder the President, John F. Kennedy."

Even as look at the words now it seems absolutely unbelievable that such a thing could come about. But it has, and it is important that I try to set down for myself and possibly others, the Kafkaesque horror which began on this date.

But, when the mind is numbed with horror, the heart frozen with apprehension, where does one find words to describe that which is almost indescribable? (link)

He explicitly says that he is writing this not only for himself but "possibly others." All these melodramatic adjectives he uses I find to be quite overdone; they have very little to do with the reality of how Garrison conducted his case and I think Shaw knows this. Its a literary production (and not a very good one) with an audience in mind. It is also written on a type-writer, which is not suggestive of intimacy.

As I read the FBI/DoJ traffic from 1967, it was a misunderstanding, and I don't think Bill or Joan proved otherwise.

I am referring to this, excerpted from a memo to Clyde Tolson from Cartha DeLoach of March 2, 1967:

The AG then asked whether the FBI knew anything about Shaw. I told him Shaw's name had come up in our investigation in December, 1963 as a result of several parties furnishing information concerning Shaw.

[Hoover appended the following] I hope a.g. isn't going to peddle this information we send him. H.

This can be found on page 192 of Davy's book.

There is a case to be made that he did, and that he didn't sign it. Lacking certainty, I still find it an incredibly stupid thing to do. (Sorry, I think I deleted your comment by mistake.)

Stupid thing to do or not, I think all the evidence leads to one, and only one, conclusion. Reitzes tried to make a case that Shaw didn't sign it, and Biles pretty much destroyed it.

But the absence of awareness of it at least raises the possibility that it was added later.

Maybe, but the point is moot.

BTW, thanks for a civil discussion on the evidence. This is the way it should be!

You're welcome, and I agree.

Edited October 3, 2006 by Owen Parsons

[Owen Parsons]

DOUBLE POST, SEE ABOVE

Edited October 3, 2006 by Owen Parsons

[Stephen Roy]

Duplicate deleted

Edited October 3, 2006 by Stephen Roy

[Stephen Roy]

In Andrews case, he admitted having made the earlier statements. Shaw denied them. And if we use that yardstick, there are quite a few cases of changing testimony on both sides of this case. To a large extent, we have to try to rationalize inconsistencies in statements by Russo, Beckham, the Clinton witnesses, etc.

The devil resides in the details, and this whole episode is positively diabolical. However, we have prima facie evidence that Shaw was among those who told different stories to different people, admitting the "Bertrand" alias to Habighorst, but denying it to others.

In fairness, I do see a difference. Andrews's changing statements are recorded in FBI reports and testimony, and he stood by the gist of them, while indicating that his earlier accounts were not true. Shaw's alleged admission of the alias is recorded only on the card he claims did not contain the alias, and he denies giving it.

If we start with the premise that "Bertrand" was an alias he used while traveling in the gay circles Shaw habituated, there's nothing particularly ominous about that fact, just as steering mostly "gay kids" toward Andrews - Oswald among them, apparently - doesn't implicate "Bertrand" in much of anything. The latter-day allegations of Russo placed "Bertrand" in a more problematic circumstance, at least suggesting that he might have been part of a successul conspiracy to murder the President, assuming that such a conspiracy actually took place, and further assuming that Shaw actually played some role in it.

I'm not sure that we MUST start with that premise, but continue.

While that may have been Garrison's take on the matter, perhaps arrived at more of necessity [after Ferrie's demise] than any legitimate factor, I think Garrison was likely substantially over-reaching in using the "Bertrand" alias as a major factor in his case against Shaw. I also think we compound the error of over-reaching by assuming that Shaw was so fearful of this disclosure that he would never have admitted using "Bertrand" as an alias, because that fact alone proved little or nothing about his involvement in a conspiracy.

No, but it WAS the name under which Russo alleged to have heard him conspire. And Shaw knew that Garrison was interested in a Bertrand. I can see a certain casualness up to a point, but not after his arrest.

There's a possibility we should consider:

In Oliver Stone's JFK, he has a Mob character tell one of the DA's staff that it was well known Shaw used the name "Bertrand," which was used to discredit Stone, since this scene was without sufficient historical foundation.

But, let's assume for the moment that it was largely true; that Shaw was well known as "Bertrand" among the gay subculture in New Orleans. Knowing this, when asked by Habighorst if he had any aliases, perhaps Shaw - in a spur of the moment decision - revealed that he used "Bertrand" because he feared it would be too easily proved, if only Garrison's people trolled through the gay subculture where Shaw was known as "Bertrand." Moreover, really, what did it matter? It didn't make Andrews' assertions true, or even confirm them, and it didn't place Shaw in Oswald's company at anything other than a party.

However, in disclosing this to his legal counsel, perhaps his lawyers determined that this was too damning an admission. [i don't see it that way, but others certainly could do so, particularly those responsible for defending him against these sensational charges.] That would account for the apparent flip-flop in his initial admission versus his subsequent denial, and still not convict him of anything.

Possible, I s'pose, but I see it in the context of a whole series of really weird decisions on Shaw's part.

Again, I'm not defending Shaw or denying that he did any of these things. I am just pointing out the stupidity of it. I was a big supporter of Garrison's case and I still feel he was very sincere. But there are a few weak spots in his case, and I think we need to consider them.

You are remarkably charitable in your characterization of Garrison's case. Like you, I believe the DA to have been entirely sincere, and I think he likely uncovered more than he realized or knew how to exploit. However, at the end of the exercise, his case received precisely the verdict that it deserved. He may have convinced the jury that Kennedy was the victim of a conspiracy rather than a lone assassin, but he didn't have Shaw dead to rights and was incapable of proving a weak case against the man.

One of the weirdest things I ever experienced: I'm sitting in the living room of one of Ferrie's closest friends, who defends him to this day, watching the NBC White Paper and Garrison's response, and the friend says: You know, he was right. Who was right? Garrison. I thought you said Dave was innocent. He was, but I think Garrison was right about Shaw.

Ya never know.

[Stephen Roy]

Again, though, wouldn't you expect a guy of Shaw's ability, even drunk and tired, to be aware of the idiocy of giving the whole game away to a complete stranger?

People do all sorts of really stupid things when they are drunk/tired. Still, Shaw did very little talking and Russo himself says that he was in and out of the apartment during the conversation.

If Shaw was the conspirator who called Andrews, one presumes he would be interested in what Andrews had to say to the FBI and WC. Wouldn't SOMEONE who read the WC materials have called Shaw and said "Guess who the WC was looking for...?"

Maybe I'm just thinking about what I'd do. If I were Shaw and a conspirator, I would damn well know if anything leaked out, and be sure to do anything to avoid it becoming a problem.

There is a possibility of this, but then, the matter was assumed to be settled and of little interest. Both the government and the media were fully behind the WC no conspiracy verdict and the FBI, in those very reports, had dismissed Dean Andrews' story as a drug-induced fantasy.

I'm just wondering what you base this supposition on. Do you have any other examples of such arrogance?

Gordon Novel comes readily to mind.

The impression I get is that Novel was a name-dropper who wasn't really connected with the CIA. Do you buy his story? (I can understand if you do, but I'm not sure for personal reasons. But you're right, if he was CIA connected, he acted arrogantly.

Are you saying there are no other possible reasons? I would dispute that.

I suppose some other explanation can always be contrived, but I think its the only good one. Eugene Davis (who Andrews said was Bertrand at some point) would have no reason to make this call. Nor does it fit with a publicity stunt of some kind. Andrews only contacted the authorities after Oswald had been shot to say he had seen Oswald on three occasions, thinking his information would be useful. He didn't mention then that he had been asked to represent Oswald.

But he changed it in 1963, then reverted to it in 1964, then changed it again, reverted to it in 1966, played "can't say he is/ain't" in 1967, then finally changed to the story he went to his grave with. It's hard to fit your theory into that chronology.

His "change" in 1963, so far as I can see, is saying that he could have dreamed it up under sedation as the FBI suggested (in contradiction to the evidence it had collected). His descriptions of Bertrand got fuzzier and fuzzier after this. Later he would say that he made it up for attention (if I remember correctly) and/or that it was Eugene Davis. This, one assumes, is when the death threats from D.C. really kicked in (not MY theory, this is what Andrews told to Mark Lane, Jim Garrison, and Anthony Summers). The story he went to his grave with is apparently that Shaw and Bertrand are the same and that the call is real, as he told Weisberg.

Do you have a print source on this?

How did the CIA cause him to have a burst aneurysm?

There are many ways you can go about this. Let's see what Dimitri Contostavlos M.D. has to say about Ferrie's death. What follows is an excerpt from a letter he wrote to Richard A. Sprague:

In 1969 I wrote to Jim Garrison of New Orleans to inform him about

a theory which I had developed concerning the death of David Ferrie, one

of Oswald's circle of acquaintances who died suddenly on the eve of his

official questioning by Garrison's investigators. After some confusion,

during which it was originally alleged that he had committed suicide by

poisoning, a pathologist ruled that the cause of death was subarachnoid

hemorrhage. At the time of my communication Garrison was preoccupied

with getting re-elected, and may have passed me off as just another crank

or he may have checked out my theory and ruled it out; in any case I got

no response to the letter or to a telphone call which his secretary

answered.

The cause of my concern in this case is that, although fatal

subarachnoid hemorrhage (a bleeding into one of the spaces around the

brain) is usually due to natural causes, namely rupture of aneurysm or

other arterial abnormality, it is recognized by Forensic Pathologists

as occuring in certain forms of blunt trauma. In the year prior to my

communication to Garrison, I had encountered while working in Dade County,

Florida, 3 cases of this condition all resulting from punches or karate

blows to the side of the neck and had demonstrated for the first time the

exact site and nature of the injury. My scientific paper on this subject

was published in the Journal of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences

and resulted in widespread recognition of the lesion and in a number of

additional published case reports.

It should be emphasized that the injury may be occult, manifesting

only as the brain hemorrhage which may be, and to my certain knowledge has

been in the past, labeled as a stroke due to normal causes. The New Orleans

district is served, or was during the period in question, by a coroner

system, with autopsies performed by hospital pathologists who are usually

not experienced enough in the pathology and investigation of trauma cases. It

is for these reasons that I became concerned that possibly a homicide had

been missed in the Ferrie case, particularly in view of the timing of his

death at such a critical moment during the Kennedy assassination investigation.

The injury involves the fracture of a small bone in the neck, and

may therefore be detected in the skeleton many years after death. Provided

that the body has not been cremated or buried at sea, the deceased can be

exhumed for reexamination. (link)

What do we make of the autopsist who was certain it was a stroke, and saw evidence of prior bleeds?

For the benefit of others, Lou Ivon claimed in the early 90s that Ferrie all but confessed to him on Feb 19-20, 1967. I have a few problems with that: If he DID confess, he was immediately back to denial the very next day. Also, I wonder why THIS important conversation, among all others, appears nowhere in the Garrison documents, and why it wasn't used in court. (Lawyers tell me that it would qualify in Louisiana as a deathbed confession.)

"So there would be no leak, Ivon decided not to have his report typed by an office secretary but to give Jim Garrison his handwritten notes directly." (Mellen 105) Mellen notes that these notes have vanished. Partial corroboration of this comes from Jim Garrison himself in OTTA, pg 376, where he writes that many of his notes were stolen.

As for why it wasn't used in court, its not hard to see why, for me at least. For such a sensational piece of evidence against Ferrie, I think Garrison would want a source beyond the word of one of his assistant D.A.s to present to the Jury. His other witnesses had been pilloried enough. On a minor point, Garrison wanted to avoid bringing the CIA (which figures in the confession) into the case, as he felt that to the Jury, this would seem like "talking about UFOs."

But the nature of the alleged comments was sensational, and could have "made" his case. It was tantamount to a deathbed confession to a cop. The fact that this didn't come out until so much later, and that there is not trace of it in the files makes me wonder. So many other things are recorded in memos. But this is just my opinion.

Then why did Ferrie deny all until his death?

Are you referring to Ferrie's final interview with George Lardner in which he says that he and Oswald were in different CAP units and that he and his buddies went "goose hunting" on the weekend of the assassination? Ferrie would of course have an interest in sending a different signal to the press.

When you look at the Ivon conversation in chronological context, Ferrie 1) denied all, 2) told all to Ivon, and 3) denied all again. On the 20th, he was planning a lawsuit against Garrison and Martin, telling Bringuier he was not involved in the assasination, visiting the FBI and denying all. On the 21st, he said much the same to Pena, Snyder and Lardner. It just seems odd that this happened in between all his denials. Hey, we have his NODA interview from the 18th (with Ivon and Sciambra) and he was denying all then, too. It just seems anomalous.

You don't think it represents how he perceived things at that time? Why?

I think the first three paragraphs sum it up well:

And so it begins... this Journal which is to be a record of the most horrifying, unbelievable, nightmarish experience through which I have ever lived. March the first will be certainly the great day in my life. That water shed from which all events must be dated before and after. For it was on March 1 that I was arrested "for conspiring with others to murder the President, John F. Kennedy."

Even as look at the words now it seems absolutely unbelievable that such a thing could come about. But it has, and it is important that I try to set down for myself and possibly others, the Kafkaesque horror which began on this date.

But, when the mind is numbed with horror, the heart frozen with apprehension, where does one find words to describe that which is almost indescribable? (link)

He explicitly says that he is writing this not only for himself but "possibly others." All these melodramatic adjectives he uses I find to be quite overdone; they have very little to do with the reality of how Garrison conducted his case and I think Shaw knows this. Its a literary production (and not a very good one) with an audience in mind. It is also written on a type-writer, which is not suggestive of intimacy.

But even his wording quoted here shows that he saw it as some horrible thing that came out of left field. Thus, I can't see him being too casual about dropping the alias.

As I read the FBI/DoJ traffic from 1967, it was a misunderstanding, and I don't think Bill or Joan proved otherwise.

I am referring to this, excerpted from a memo to Clyde Tolson from Cartha DeLoach of March 2, 1967:

The AG then asked whether the FBI knew anything about Shaw. I told him Shaw's name had come up in our investigation in December, 1963 as a result of several parties furnishing information concerning Shaw.

[Hoover appended the following] I hope a.g. isn't going to peddle this information we send him. H.

This can be found on page 192 of Davy's book.

I hadn't noticed that. But there is no record of Shaw being investigated in 1963, is there?

There is a case to be made that he did, and that he didn't sign it. Lacking certainty, I still find it an incredibly stupid thing to do. (Sorry, I think I deleted your comment by mistake.)

Stupid thing to do or not, I think all the evidence leads to one, and only one, conclusion. Reitzes tried to make a case that Shaw didn't sign it, and Biles pretty much destroyed it.

I'll re-read Biles tonight. Shaw is not really my focus, but I had the impression that it was shaky.

But the absence of awareness of it at least raises the possibility that it was added later.

Maybe, but the point is moot.

BTW, thanks for a civil discussion on the evidence. This is the way it should be!

You're welcome, and I agree.

I wish all discussions on the Garrison case could be as civil! One side thinks I'm pro-Garrison, the other thinks I'm pro-Shaw.

[Stephen Roy]

Duplicate deleted

Edited October 3, 2006 by Stephen Roy