Colonel Bertrand and Clay Shaw

[Francesca Akhtar]

Just wondering if anyone else has heard the theory before that Shaw was also a 'Colonel Bertrand' who worked for French intelligence in the 1940's? It seems palusible as he did work for the OSS. This piece from the book 'Opium Lords by Salvador Astucia explains it better than me:

It is significant that Shaw received France’s Croix de Guerre while serving as a Colonel in the US Army in the 1940s. There is strong circumstantial evidence that Shaw may have also served as a Colonel in the French espionage organization, Service de Documentation Exterieure et de Contre Espionage (SDECE), under the aliases of a Colonel René Bertrand and Colonel Beaumont. This would tie Shaw directly to professional assassin Christian David who revealed in the late 1980s that French Corsican assassins were hired to kill President.

Jim Garrison proved that Clay Shaw often used aliases Clay Bertrand or Clem Bertrand. Danish journalist, Henrik Krüger, wrote in his 1976 book, The Great Heroin Coup, that a Colonel René Bertrand, alias Colonel Beaumont, worked for SDECE in the 1940s. According to Krüger, Colonel Bertrand used his influence in 1949 to get French gangster Jo Attia’s prison sentence reduced from life to four years. Attia had been convicted in France for illegal possession of weapons and involvement in the death/murder of another gangster, Pierrot le Fou. Attia had saved Colonel Bertrand’s life during World War II and evidently asked Bertrand to return the favor by getting his sentence reduced.5

Jo Attia was one of France’s most colorful criminals, and was the first gangster in that country to become an international spy. It was Jo Attia who, according to Krüger, introduced heroin trafficker Christian David to international espionage. Jo Attia also worked with French Corsican crime family, the Guerini brothers.6 Christian David told an interviewer—in Nigel Turner's documentary, The Men Who Killed Kennedy—that Antoine Guerini, of the Guerini crime family, offered him the contract to kill President Kennedy; but David refused because it was too dangerous. Christian David and Jo Attia were both involved in the 1965 kidnapping and murder of Moroccan political activist Mehdi Ben Barka. They were also closely associated with, according to Henrik Krüger, the men who killed Patrice Lumumba of the Congo.7

Given that Clay Shaw was a Colonel in the US Army in the late 1940s, that he admitted to working for the OSS, and given that he was awarded France’s Croix de Guerre, and given that Shaw resided in New Orleans which has a strong French heritage, and given Shaw’s known propensity to use aliases, it is possible that French SDECE officer, Colonel René Bertrand, alias Beaumont, was actually Colonel Clay Shaw. This "missing link" about Shaw’s background connects the dots to many of Jim Garrison’s discoveries about Shaw’s past, his links to international espionage, and his involvement in the assassination of President Kennedy. In addition, Henrik Krüger wrote that Colonel Bertrand, alias Beaumont, is one of the names most associated with SDECE espionage involving assassination, kidnapping, and other notorious scandals.8

I just came across the book which is online here:

http://www.jfkmontreal.com/importance_garrison.htm

Don't think I agree with the authors views in general but this bit on Shaw I found interesting, if true as I have been doing some work on Shaw's time in England during WW2 and France.

[James Richards]

Francesca,

I do not think Clay Shaw masqueraded as any Colonel in the SDECE.

In 1971, Colonel Bertrand/Beaumont sued Colonel Roger Barberot for slander. Barberot had plenty of derogatory comments regarding the SDECE and Bertrand took offence.

Anyway, that episode is pretty complicated but the bottom line is that in 1971, I don't believe Shaw was mixed up with this nasty episode.

James

[Francesca Akhtar]

Thanks for your input James. Sounded somewhat plausible to me but I had no evidence that this was true. The author doesn't give any sources to back it up. Also I guess that having recently gone through a trial unlikely if it was Shaw he'd want to go though one again, especially if it was unpleasant.

I have been able to trace some of Shaw's movements in Englan durinng World War 2 but seems he disappears when he got to France as my contact says he didn't have contact with him then and he went off to do other things.

Probably when he helped prepare for the Normandy landings etc.

[James Richards]

Francesca,

Bertrand/Beaumont is certainly not Clay Shaw.

To put some perspective to all of this, you may wish to research an ex French spook by the name of Roger DeLouette who was arrested in New Jersey with some 96 pounds of heroine in his car. A man by the name of Paul Ferrer aka Colonel Fournier (an officer of the SDECE) was allegedly behind the smuggling operation.

Colonel Bertrand and a man by the name of Colonel Roger Barberot began a personal war regarding the implications of French Intel being involved in drug dealing/smuggling and assassination.

FWIW.

James

[Francesca Akhtar]

Hi James,

thanks for the info. Delouette sounds interesting. Just another of those weird coincidences with the Bertrand thing. Although I wonder if Shaw perhaps knew of this man and that's where he took the alias from? No idea, just a thought.