False Witness

by Patricia Lambert

  The labyrinthine story that follows is not about the president’s assassination. It is about what really happened in New Orleans. What Jim Garrison was really like. How he got away with it in the first place, and how he managed on four separate occasions to rise phoenixlike from his own ashes.7

  * It also, understandably, infuriated Oliver Stone, who reportedly considered filing a lawsuit.

  * In that holiday “sweeps” weekend the big winner was Hook, followed by Father of the Bride. Early reports placed JFK third, but (though the numbers were close) it trailed The Last Boy Scout and Star Trek VI.

  * The film, nominated in eight categories, including Best Picture and Best Director, won for editing and cinematography.

  PART ONE

  FRAUD IN NEW ORLEANS

  CHAPTER ONE

  MARCH 1, 1967: THE ARREST

  I went out to the D.A.’s office with a perfectly clear conscience. I didn’t take a lawyer with me. To my mind, I was in the position of a good citizen making himself available to give information to these people, which might or might not be useful.1

  —Clay Shaw (regarding his arrest), 1969

  It happened on a Wednesday. A television announcer broadcast the first news of it. The New Orleans district attorney’s office had issued a subpoena for Clay Shaw to appear for questioning. Shaw, the fifty-three-year-old retired director of the International Trade Mart, was visiting the office of a friend that morning. He learned of the subpoena from someone who had heard about it on television. Shaw wondered what it was all about. Why didn’t District Attorney Jim Garrison just telephone and say he wanted to speak to him? Shaw had given Garrison all the information he had when he was interviewed back in December and had thought no more about the matter. Now this. Shaw recalled hearing on television last night that Garrison’s office had asked a former neighbor of his, James Lewallen, to come in for questioning. Perhaps they wanted to ask him something about Lewallen.

  Shaw immediately called the district attorney’s office. He asked to speak to Garrison, but he wasn’t there. So he spoke to one of Garrison’s investigators, Louis Ivon. Yes, Ivon said, a subpoena had been issued. That was “entirely unnecessary,” Shaw said. He “would be glad” to come in and talk to them—when did they want him? Since he hadn’t had lunch, they agreed on one o’clock. But when Shaw, on his way to a restaurant with a friend, stopped by his house to pick up his mail, he found three deputy sheriffs and a detective waiting on his patio, subpoena in hand. Because it was almost noon, Shaw accepted the detective’s offer to drive him to the D.A.’s office. They arrived around 12:15. Garrison wasn’t there and didn’t show up until 4:00 that afternoon.2

  They kept him waiting about two hours, Shaw later said, while they moved him from one room to another and he listened to the detective’s life story. “What is the holdup?” he asked. No one seemed to know. At one point they shifted him to Garrison’s office, which Shaw noted was “quite large and impressive” with a “beautiful desk, comfortable chairs,” a “handsome chess board” in one corner, and the complete works of Shakespeare “in small red leather-bound volumes” on the desk. By now Shaw was irritated and hungry, having missed lunch, and he let the detective know it. Soon afterwards, they took him into a different type of room, plain and utilitarian, where Asst. D.A. Andrew Sciambra and Ivon were waiting. They gave him a sandwich and a Coke and waited until he finished eating. Then, with Sciambra sitting directly across from Shaw, and Ivon sitting on the edge of the desk, they began to question him. To Shaw’s surprise, his neighbor wasn’t the topic. They showed him several pictures of boys, none of whom Shaw knew, and they reeled off a list of names, none of which he recognized. Sciambra soon turned to the real subject at hand. What did Shaw know about a man named David Ferrie? Had he ever been to Ferrie’s apartment on Louisiana Parkway? Had he visited a service station Ferrie owned on Veterans Highway? Did he know Lee Harvey Oswald? Shaw told them he had never in his life seen Ferrie, had never been to his apartment, or his service station, and he didn’t know Oswald. “What would you say,” Sciambra said, “if we told you we have three witnesses who could positively identify you as having been in Ferrie’s apartment and in Ferrie’s gas station?” Their witnesses, Shaw replied, “were either mistaken or they were lying.”3

  Sciambra asked him to take a truth-serum test to prove he didn’t know Ferrie. “Why on earth should I take a truth-serum test?” Shaw said. “If you don’t,” Sciambra replied, “we’re going to charge you with conspiring to murder the president of the United States.” Describing that moment later, Shaw conveyed his astonishment by flinging his arms outward. “You’ve got to be kidding,” he said, “you’ve got to be kidding!” Sciambra assured him they weren’t. “In that case I want a lawyer and I want one now,” Shaw said. They agreed, and he began trying to reach his attorney. Shaw quickly discovered that Edward F. Wegmann, the civil attorney who had represented him since 1949, was out of town. Shaw tried his brother, William J. Wegmann, but he, too, was unavailable. He finally reached thirty-three-year-old Salvatore Panzeca, an associate working in William Wegmann’s law office, who said he would be there in about thirty minutes. Sciambra and Ivon then left the room, locking the door behind them. Shaw sat alone, a “storm [raging] inside” him, awaiting the arrival of Salvatore Panzeca.4

  He had never seen “a more welcome sight” than Panzeca’s “stocky little form coming through the door.”

  “I am Sal Panzeca,” he said, “you are now my client, I must advise you this room is probably ‘bugged,’ that the mirror on the wall is a two-way mirror, and therefore, from this moment on you communicate with no one, absolutely no one, except me.” This “aggressive, bantamcock attitude” Shaw found “strengthening.” Panzeca, whose size and manner call to mind actor Danny DeVito, recently recalled that tense situation. Since he was certain the room was bugged, the two at first communicated by writing notes. Finally, Panzeca asked Sciambra for an office to use, but Sciambra claimed they were all occupied. So Panzeca told Sciambra that he was going to talk to his client in the men’s room.5

  Panzeca led Shaw into a tiny bathroom off the hallway leading into the district attorney’s office. Even there, Panzeca didn’t feel safe. It, too, might be bugged. As a precaution, they would forgo English. He asked Shaw if he spoke Spanish. Shaw said he did and made some additional comment in Spanish. Something about his inflection or the use of his hands triggered an intuitive insight on Panzeca’s part. “Esta maricón?” (“Are you queer?”) he asked. “Si,” Shaw replied. Until that moment, Panzeca had been unaware of Shaw’s sexual orientation. For the defense, this was the first note sounded of that sexual theme that would run throughout the prosecution of this case.6

  Panzeca spoke to Shaw at length and was “totally convinced” he was innocent. The question was, what to do about the truth-serum test. Shaw had no objection to the test per se, but he was afraid that personal questions might be asked that would expose his private life. Panzeca eventually worked out a counterproposal. Then he asked to speak to Jim Garrison. Ushered into Garrison’s office, Panzeca found himself in the midst of an ongoing meeting. Confronting him was a phalanx of assistants and investigators (among them Warren Report critic Mark Lane). Panzeca recounted his conversation with Garrison: “ ‘Well, Sal,’ Garrison said, and he starts giving me [a] litany about how important all this was. Then he said, ‘Will Clay Shaw take a truth-serum test?’ And I thought about it and I said, ‘No, I don’t think that is something I could recommend to my client.’ ” Then Panzeca made his counteroffer. “ ‘Maybe I could talk to Ed Wegmann tomorrow and have Clay Shaw take a polygraph,’ I said. But there were certain conditions. One would be that Shaw have a night’s rest to get over all this trauma. Two, that we wanted to see the questions before they were asked, even though we wouldn’t review them with our client. And I said it was all predicated upon the approval of Mr. Ed Wegmann, Shaw’s lawyer.” Garrison exploded. “ ‘That’s bull shit,’ he said, ‘We’re not going to do that. I’ll charg
e him.’ I said, ‘With what?’ And he said, ‘Conspiracy to kill Kennedy.’ Well, I almost fell off the chair. I asked Garrison what the bond would be and he said, ‘Oh, it’ll be hundreds of thousands of dollars.’ I said, ‘Is that it?’ He said, ‘Yes, we’re going to charge him.’ ”7

  Feeling as though he had been “hit by a two-by-four,” Panzeca left to inform his client. Jim Garrison was known to be impulsive but neither Panzeca nor Shaw had expected such an outcome. Shaw, especially, felt “that surely this was all some mistake which could still be cleared up.” Panzeca went into the anteroom and told Shaw he was going to be arrested. “I don’t think he responded except to listen to me,” Panzeca said. “The man was totally obedient.” Shaw and Panzeca now assumed the arrest was inevitable. But two key members of Garrison’s staff made an effort to prevent it. Asst. D.A. James Alcock and private investigator William Gurvich had been out of town and returned in the midst of this. Surprised to find Shaw there, they were dismayed to learn his arrest was “imminent.” They decided to object “vehemently” and requested a meeting with Garrison. The three convened in the office of First Assistant District Attorney Charles Ward. Garrison told them about a new witness who incriminated Shaw. Garrison was persuasive. Gurvich and Alcock backed down. The arrest would proceed.8

  Panzeca called Criminal District Judge Thomas Brahney, who knew Shaw, to arrange for bail. Judge Brahney was aware of what was happening—he was watching it on television. Garrison requested 25,000 but Brahney later reduced it to 10,000.9* William Wegmann arrived with a bail bondsman around 5:00 P.M. Some thirty minutes later, Louis Ivon entered the room where Shaw was waiting and formally placed him under arrest “for conspiracy to murder the president, John F. Kennedy.” Shaw listened in “a state bordering on shock,” and later referred to those words as “unbelievable and outrageous.” A short time later, one of Garrison’s investigators announced Shaw’s arrest to the 200 or so media representatives waiting outside Garrison’s office. Garrison himself soon emerged and told reporters he had “no doubts about the case.”10

  Unaware of the momentous events taking place at the Criminal District Court building, Edward Wegmann had returned home from his business trip to Atlanta. His daughter, herself an attorney today, described how her father learned about his client’s dilemma. The telephone rang just as he entered the front door. “He was still wearing his hat and coat when he answered it,” Cynthia Wegmann said. The caller was a friend of Shaw who told Wegmann that Shaw was being charged with conspiracy to murder the president. “I’m in no mood for jokes,” Wegmann said, and hung up the phone. It rang again immediately. This time Shaw’s friend convinced Wegmann he wasn’t joking. Wegmann left at once for the district attorney’s office.11

  Shaw later wrote “how happy” he was to see Wegmann “and the flame of indignation surrounding him as he came into the office.” “What the hell is this all about?” Wegmann asked. “Your guess is as good as mine,” Shaw replied. It was now about 7:00 P.M. A long conference followed. Their immediate concern was the search warrant on Shaw’s home, which they had learned about only a short time before.† Edward Wegmann decided to stay with Shaw. Panzeca and William Wegmann (who had left and was summoned from a social event) headed for Shaw’s house to handle the search. When they arrived on the scene, the process was already underway. About a dozen of Garrison’s men had descended on Shaw’s red-door carriage house at 1313 Dauphine and were photographing and boxing up material. An irate William Wegmann, doing what he could to protect Shaw’s rights, demanded that Shaw’s private papers be inventoried before they were removed. One of Garrison’s assistants threatened to arrest him. Garrison’s men would leave that night with five cardboard boxes filled with Shaw’s possessions.12

  Meanwhile, Garrison’s aides prepared to transfer Shaw to the police department’s Central Lockup for booking. Louis Ivon insisted on handcuffing Shaw. Edward Wegmann objected, angrily and loudly. “He isn’t going anywhere,” Wegmann said. Ivon clamped on the handcuffs. Shaw was then transferred. That scene was captured on television. Shaw later recalled being “led forward into the dazzling glare of the TV cameras and the stacatto flash of flashbulbs.” He was guided down a corridor full of jostling reporters and camera crews. Wegmann, trying to shield the handcuffs from view, told Shaw to stay behind him, but Shaw found it impossible to do so. Dressed in a conservative brown suit with a green and light-orange striped tie, Shaw remained silent and stoic as he walked “what seemed an interminable distance” to the elevator. It deposited him and his contingent of “guards” on the ground floor at approximately 8:30. From there, sitting between Edward Wegmann and investigator Lynn Loisel in the back seat of a car, he rode the short distance to the recently opened Central Lockup. To Shaw “it looked very clean and efficient, all gleaming white and yellow tile.” He emptied his pockets, removed his tie and belt, and was booked for conspiring to murder John F. Kennedy.* Then he was fingerprinted and photographed. Released on bail, he left with Wegmann at 9:20 that night.13 †

  Clay Shaw was a commanding figure. His curly white hair was clipped short, his face was square, features strong, and his eyes a remarkable shade of blue. Like Garrison, he was huge, six feet four inches, 225 pounds, with broad shoulders and a deep chest. That morning his physical stature was more than matched by his stature in the community, which he had served for almost two decades. He entered Garrison’s office at noon a respected civic leader. He left some nine hours later accused of the American equivalent of regicide.

  In the high emotion of that time, many people were convinced of his guilt by the charge alone. After all, no district attorney would bring such a charge unless he had substantial evidence to back it up. Only a few of those closest to Garrison knew the truth, that Shaw was arrested on the basis of statements made by a single witness while he was in a drugged and semi-conscious condition.

  That witness and his statements were the end point of certain unlikely events set in motion at the time of President Kennedy’s death. But Shaw’s arrest was primarily the consequence of the strange and complex character of the man who ordered it, New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison.

  * A reporter on the scene that day recently remarked that a mere 10,000 bail for plotting to assassinate the president caused considerable comment among his colleagues in the media and injected a note of unreality into the proceedings.

  † The application for that warrant contained information that Garrison’s statement to the press did not contain. It identified the other alleged conspirators: David Ferrie and Lee Harvey Oswald.

  * Louis Ivon, Lynn Loisel, Al Oser, John Volz, and James Alcock were listed on the Register as the arresting officers.

  † They went to Wegmann’s office, where Shaw revealed to Wegmann (a deeply religious, conservative man) the facts about his personal life. “None of these problems,” Shaw later wrote, “made any difference in Eddie’s attitude” (Shaw Journal, p. 19).

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE JOLLY GREEN GIANT

  My office may not be a popular office in the next four years. But it will be honest and efficient. No favors will be granted. A little old lady with a problem will receive as much attention as the mayor of the city.

  —Jim Garrison (after being elected district attorney of New Orleans in 1962)

  Jim Garrison gave no sign in his early years that he would later emerge the central figure in an international controversy of historical importance involving the political crime of the century. Born Earling Carothers Garrison on November 20, 1921, in Denison City, Iowa, he was the first child and only son of Jane Ann Robinson and Earling R. Garrison. His parents divorced when Garrison was two and he and his younger sister, Judith, were raised by their mother, a former school teacher, and a woman of large physique, a Robinson-family trait (her father and two uncles were seven feet tall), and reportedly of a domineering nature. His maternal grandfather, Garrison wrote in his memoir, was successful in coal and real estate and one of the leading citizens of Knoxville, Iowa,
where his mother was born.

  The great mystery about Garrison’s life has been his father.* When Garrison was thirty, according to his military medical records, he had seen his father only once. Even his name was unknown until the release recently of Garrison’s FBI file. Prior to that the only public reference to him was a single sentence Garrison wrote in his memoir that described him as “an attorney.”1 He was also a convicted felon.

  Earling R. Garrison, alias Waldo Morrison, born June 2, 1898, in Denison City, Iowa, was arrested seven times. He was first picked up on May 16, 1928, in Des Moines for mail fraud,* and served two years in the federal penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas. On April 26, 1930, he was convicted of larceny† and received a five-year sentence in the penitentiary at Anamosa. How much time he actually served is unclear, but only three years later he was arrested again in Des Moines for “uttering [a] forged instrument,” disposition unknown. After that he was arrested at various times for drunkenness, and for selling liquor to Indians in the southwest. On April 8, 1943, he applied for a “storekeeper” job in Fort Huachuca, Arizona. What became of him afterwards is not known.2 How all this affected his son is unclear.

  The year after his father was sent away for larceny, Garrison’s mother moved her family to New Orleans. Garrison was ten. He attended several different elementary schools and graduated from Fortier High. He joined the U.S. Army on January 12, 1941, almost a full year before Pearl Harbor thrust the country into World War II. Garrison first served in an artillery company, along with another young man from New Orleans named Pershing Gervais, and the two formed a close relationship that would endure for more than two decades.