False Witness

by Patricia Lambert

  He spoke of abstract and lofty matters. “Power” thwarting “justice.” Men, he said, had to make justice “occur,” which often meant fighting power. He called the government’s investigation of the president’s assassination “the greatest fraud in the history of our country,” adding that “it was probably the greatest fraud ever perpetrated in the history of humankind.” He referred repeatedly to the function of “juries,” and the message was unmistakable. The remedy to the “greatest fraud” in humankind’s history was this jury and its verdict. Tonight the work of those “important and powerful and politically astute men” on the Warren Commission could be undone by this “jury of citizens.” Amazingly, he ended his remarks by appropriating Jack Kennedy’s most famous line. “I suggest that you ‘ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country.’ ” Which was? They could “cause justice to happen for the first time in this matter.” They could show “that this is still a government of the people.” If they did that, as long as they lived nothing would ever be “more important than that.”36

  When Garrison finished, James Kirkwood wrote, some of his supporters obviously wanted to applaud. A short pause in the proceedings followed, and when court resumed Garrison’s wife remained but he was gone. The jury had opted to begin deliberations despite the late hour. Haggerty read the panel their instructions and the twelve men filed out to begin their deliberations. Haggerty dismissed the two alternates. Then he announced that court was in recess awaiting the verdict. It was 12:10 A.M. Most members of the press, even Shaw’s most ardent supporters, believed the jury would vote to convict. Not because the evidence was there; it wasn’t. But because this was New Orleans where conventional rules didn’t apply, and because Garrison’s persona and his remarkable power of speech enthralled so many. It wasn’t just the press that thought so. Nina Sulzer, the Sheriff’s administrative assistant (who helped with security in the courtroom), and a devoted friend of Shaw, was convinced of it, and Judge Haggerty’s minute clerk had been betting lunches on it for days. Pershing Gervais had influenced the thinking of some, including James Phelan who also thought the worst was on its way. Garrison had the last word and Gervais claimed that was all “the boobs in the jury box” would remember.37

  While they waited for the verdict, many milled about in the hallway (the doors to the building had been locked), but Clay Shaw remained in the courtroom, chain smoking and humming tunelessly, as he awaited his fate. It wasn’t long coming. The jury was gone a scant fifty-four minutes and some members of the audience and press had to scurry to regain their seats. As the twelve filed in, none were smiling, none looked at Shaw, both said to be bad signs for a defendant. The time was 1:04 A.M.

  “Gentlemen of the jury, have you reached a verdict?” Foreman Sidney J. Hebert, Jr., a fifty-five-year-old retired fire captain, nodded affirmatively. Judge Haggerty asked to see it. Hebert handed the long sheet of paper to the minute clerk. He passed it to the judge, who examined it and returned it to the clerk. “Stand up, Mr. Shaw,” Haggerty said. Shaw stood up. “Mr. Clerk, you may read it, sir,” Haggerty said. “We, the jury,” the clerk read, “find the defendant, Clay L. Shaw, not guilty.”

  Shouting, shrieking, sobbing, and general pandemonium erupted in the courtroom. Some women spectators cried out, No! No!, but mostly it was a whoop of joy. Shaw grasped the hand of his long-time attorney, Edward Wegmann. “Thank you,” Shaw said. Alcock, looking exhausted and shaking his head, sat slumped in his chair at the prosecution table. He declined to poll the jury. Reportedly, Mark Lane left the courtroom looking gloomy. Shaw, smiling broadly, moved to the jury box and shook the hands of the twelve men as they departed. Then he was ushered out a side door by Sheriff Louis Hyde and a phalanx of deputies. A few minutes later, sitting by himself in the back of a sheriff’s car, siren wailing, Shaw was driven out of the Parish Prison and away from Tulane and Broad to the cheers of his supporters. It was like an “up” Hollywood ending—a noisy, satisfying spectacle.

  His defense team adjourned to a “sailor’s lounge” called The Spotlight run by a friend of Irvin Dymond, one Brother Savoy, who immediately ousted his other patrons, brought out “the good stuff,” and turned his establishment over to the victory party. They celebrated into the dawn, along with many of the news representatives who had covered the trial. One member of the defense later greeted the day with no recollection of where he had parked his car the night before.

  Jim Garrison’s whereabouts when the curtain fell are unclear. He later claimed he was home and learned of the verdict by way of a telephone call. The other, more likely report said he was in his office when aides brought word of his defeat. He let loose with a roaring tirade. The verdict, he said, meant that the people of this country didn’t want the truth about the assassination, a view that doesn’t jibe with what the jurors Said. They blamed him. Juror Larry Morgan, a twenty-four-year-old aircraft mechanic, was shocked by how weak the state’s case was. He said the quality of Garrison’s witnesses didn’t fit the “seriousness” of the charge. Charles Ordes, a thirty-nine-year-old Continental Can supervisor, believed the state failed to present a case. He didn’t think Garrison had enough to go to trial in the first place and that the grand jury should have stopped him. “I couldn’t convict a man on that evidence,” he said. “Garrison has a right to his opinion about the government and the Warren Commission,” said twenty-eight-year-old David I. Powe, a credit manager, “but I just don’t feel his opinion is enough to convict a man.” Others agreed.38

  Editorials appeared in a number of the nation’s major newspapers applauding the verdict, condemning Garrison’s abuse of power, and demanding action against him. Saturday, after two years of silence, the New Orleans States-Item ran a scathing front page commentary, calling for Garrison’s resignation. Sunday, the equally remiss Times-Picayune followed suit. The American Bar Association announced that it would request a “probe” of the New Orleans D.A. and ask the Louisiana Bar Association to consider disciplinary action. And Garrison’s old protagonist, Aaron Kohn of the New Orleans Metropolitan Crime Commission, referring to “various crimes” committed by “Garrison and members of his staff” during their Kennedy investigation, said his organization would be considering possible steps as well.

  On Saturday, at a press conference held at the home of Edward Wegmann, a relaxed and smiling Clay Shaw, surrounded by his attorneys, called the past two years “a horrifying nightmare-like experience.” He spoke of the financial drain, which meant he would be going back to work, and of his plans to write a couple of plays. He said he endorsed what Garrison said about the danger of power and authority preventing justice from happening but that Garrison had miscast himself as St. George and the federal government as the dragon. In reality, Garrison was the source of the “oppression” in New Orleans and Shaw and his attorneys represented “justice and humanity.” Shaw refused to analyze Garrison but blasted the group of wealthy private citizens who had provided him money.* No D.A. should ever accept money from anyone, Shaw said, otherwise the rich could pay him to investigate anyone they chose. Shaw made it clear he was planning a lawsuit.† The verdict, he said, was “by no means the end of the matter.” Pressed to provide details, both Shaw and Wegmann declined, preferring, Wegmann said, to wait until they were ready “to take definitive action.”39

  Garrison at last had been defeated. The forces of light finally had triumphed. Clay Shaw breathed the air of freedom for the first time in two years.

  It lasted forty-eight hours.

  Monday afternoon Garrison had Shaw rearrested and charged with two counts of perjury. The basis of the action was Shaw’s statements on the witness stand that he had never met Lee Harvey Oswald or David Ferrie.

  The nightmare resumed.

  Shaw posted a 1,000 bond and again told reporters, “I never knew Oswald or Ferrie.”

  The posse after Garrison turned tail and ran.The local newspapers were suddenly neutral again. And nothing came of the bold declarations by the b
ar association or Aaron Kohn. Outside New Orleans some indignant media voices objected to Garrison’s latest maneuver but they quickly lost interest. Those who had mistakenly touted the acquittal as a vindication of the Warren Report (the jurors made clear it was not) also fell silent.

  Shortly after his dramatic rebound, Garrison was interviewed on television. Rejecting any idea of resigning, Garrison announced that he was thinking of running again. He blamed losing the case on the rules of evidence that he said made it virtually impossible to present what was essentially a charge of “domestic espionage.” He said the jurors had been concerned about the absence of a motive. (Their statements contradict this. They were concerned about the absence of evidence.) Garrison also said it was a mistake deciding not to use some witnesses who had “been in trouble,” that he should have used them all. (Whom Garrison passed over and why is unclear, since Russo had an arrest record and Bundy was in prison and Garrison didn’t hesitate to use them.)* Asked what started him after Shaw originally, Garrison turned once again to his favorite suspect, David Ferrie, and began describing his trip to Texas the day of the assassination.40 †

  The new charges lodged against Shaw carried a twenty-year jail sentence, and the risk of his being convicted was far greater this time. For one thing, the acquittal had not been as dead bang as first believed. The two alternate jurors, excused before deliberations, had both marked their ballots “guilty,” and the first vote wasn’t unanimous as widely reported. The black high school teacher, confused about the Clinton story, had voted to convict. His confusion was quickly cleared up and on the next ballot the verdict was unanimous. Yet several jurors, impressed by the Clinton witnesses, had acknowledged to the press that they believed Shaw had been acquainted with Oswald and Ferrie. At the perjury trial the key Clinton witnesses could be expected to testify again. Garrison’s own attitude, later revealed by Perry Russo, was that a perjury conviction would have the same “effect” as convicting Shaw of conspiracy, that afterwards people would “forget” the other trial.

  Garrison had found another angle to work. Once again, he was back in the driver’s seat.

  He would remain there another two years. In that time he was reelected; sued in a five-million-dollar damage suit filed by Clay Shaw’s attorneys; compelled to answer their interrogatories and submit to a deposition. He published his first book, Heritage of Stone, a catalog of his theories about the assassination, emphasizing the role of the CIA. And he was named in Jack Anderson’s column as the target of a New Orleans grand jury investigation on charges that he had “fondled” a thirteen-year-old boy at the New Orleans Athletic Club.* Garrison made no public statement about the allegation, nothing came of the matter, and it had no discernible effect on his life. Garrison, it seemed, was still in control of the situation. But that would soon change.

  Since October 1967 Shaw had urged his attorneys to take action against Garrison in federal court. They had tried repeatedly and been rebuffed. But on the day Shaw’s perjury trial was scheduled to begin, they filed a desperate plea in federal court and this time they succeeded. Shaw’s wish was about to become reality, and Garrison’s protracted and fraudulent prosecution of him was about to be brought to a screeching halt.

  * At the preliminary hearing, when Shaw’s attorneys attempted to introduce the Warren Report to support its case, the three-judge panel ridiculed the Report and denied the motion.

  * Garrison told one reporter that showing the film might cause a revolution; “they might even make me Vice-President!” Garrison said, grinning (Art Kevin, “Jolly Green Giant,” Kennedy Assassination Chronicles, Summer 1997, p. 17).

  * As one of the local newspapers reported, when this witness (Richard Simmons) was interviewed four months after the assassination by the FBI, he referred to what he saw as “exhaust fumes of smoke” near the embankment, and seemed to associate it with a police motorcycle. In that interview, Simmons made no reference to the footprints (WC Vol. 22, p. 833).

  † In photographs, Newman and his wife, who were directly in front of the knoll, can be seen on the ground covering their two children with their own bodies.

  * This was Roger Craig, who, in Dec. 1967, moved to New Orleans and went to work for Willard E. Robertson, one of the founding members of Truth and Consequences.

  † This witness, Richard Carr, in a 1964 FBI interview mentioned only one man at the building. He also said nothing to the FBI about the shot that hit the ground and “knocked a bunch of grass up,” which he described in court.

  ‡ The Warren Commission concluded that a single bullet had passed through the president’s throat and gone on to strike Governor Connally.

  § The President’s head did move forward slightly, though it wasn’t visible when viewing the film in motion, only when examined frame-by-frame (David Lifton, Best Evidence [New York: MacMillan, 1981], p. 49).

  * Habighorst was interviewed on television and the States-Item published a photograph of the card, along with his version of what occurred, all authorized by Jim Garrison and in violation of the court’s pretrial guidelines. (See note 10.)

  † Louis Ivon also testified regarding this issue; his memory was remarkably spotty.

  ‡ When his attorney was excluded from the Bureau of Identification room and when he was supposedly asked the question about aliases without being warned of his right to remain silent.

  * The incident occurred at Gen. Walker’s Dallas home on April 10, 1963.

  * This discrepancy, Finck claimed, was due to the panel’s measurements having been made on X-rays, which “[do] not give a scale reproduction of the subject” (trial testimony, Feb. 25, 1969, pp. 22–24).

  † Agent Kennedy had been called earlier by the state and testified about interviewing Andrews. Kennedy said he spent twenty hours unsuccessfully trying to locate “Clay Bertrand” (trial transcript, Feb. 17, 1969, pp. 6, 9).

  * By testifying, O’Donnell was breaking law enforcement’s code of silence, alienating many of his colleagues, and defying Garrison, the most powerful man in the state.

  * He had borrowed his friend’s only once, in 1966 to visit his ailing father in Hammond.

  † Leases totalling 1,425,000 a year were needed for the project to succeed and his job was to obtain them during the ninety-day period from July 8 to October 8. If he had failed there would have been no new building.

  ‡ Clay Shaw and the CIA are discussed further in chapter 14.

  * Alcock dwelt on Spiesel’s French Quarter tour and the building Spiesel selected at 906 Esplanade that Shaw owned in the 1950s. Shaw also once owned the building next door.

  † Alcock was suggesting that this “error” with Oswald’s name showed a link between Shaw and Oswald. But in the earliest reference to the application, an official at the hospital said the name allegedly on it was “L. Harvey Oswald” (Guy Broyles, interview with Andrew Sciambra, Jan. 23, 1968).

  * As noted earlier, Eugene Davis admitted to James Alcock in a 1967 telephone call that he had called Andrews while he was in the hospital (Bethell Diary, pp. 1, 10).

  * None of her degrees had included handwriting analysis classes; she studied the subject under what she termed an “authority” in the field, and a chemist.

  * Richard Randolph Carr, Mr. and Mrs. Newman, and Roger Craig.

  * Shaw was outraged and wounded that the business community he had served for nineteen years financed Garrison’s case against him.

  † Shaw believed Garrison always feared he would be sued, which is why he used the extraordinary three-step trial procedure—bill of information, preliminary hearing, and grand jury indictment. He did it so he could argue, Shaw wrote, “that he was only doing his duty in trying me” (Shaw Narrative, p. 2).

  * Garrison most likely was referring to Reverend Clyde Johnson, known as “Slidin’ Clyde,” due to his slipperiness, a part-time backwoods preacher well known to law enforcement in several states. Johnson’s bizarre story of meeting with Shaw and Jack Ruby in a Baton Rouge hotel where money changed hand
s was actually mentioned by James Alcock when he described, to the first panel of prospective jurors, the six overt acts the state would prove. But it was never mentioned again.

  † For the first time, Garrison referred to Ferrie saying that on this trip he planned “to go duck hunting,” which Oliver Stone would later showcase in his film. Ferrie never mentioned this duck-hunting notion (which is unequivocally disputed by Alvin Beaubouef, one of Ferrie’s companions that weekend) during his multiple interviews in 1963. It first surfaced in 1966, when Ferrie was interviewed by Asst. D.A. John Volz; Ferrie also mentioned it, the night he died, to George Lardner. Why Ferrie invented this duck story is unclear. Perhaps he thought “hunting” sounded more manly than “ice skating.”

  * This charge is discussed in chapter 16.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  SHAW VS. GARRISON:

  THE CHRISTENBERRY DECISION

  To characterize these facts as unique and bizarre is no exaggeration.*

  —Judge Herbert W. Christenberry (on Jim Garrison’s prosecution of Clay Shaw), 1971

  On January 26, 1971, Clay Shaw’s attorneys finally turned the tables on Jim Garrison, casting him as the defendant in a bold new lawsuit they had filed eight days earlier in the U.S. District Court in New Orleans. They had asked the court to invoke its equity powers and stop Garrison from prosecuting the perjury charges. The court was holding a hearing on their motion. Over the past four years, Garrison had wielded the most feared legal power in Louisiana. But now he was forced to take the witness stand and explain his actions. As one observer noted, the hunter had become the hunted. Ten witnesses had already testified. It was the morning of the second day when Garrison’s name was called in the federal courtroom of Judge Herbert W. Christenberry.