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10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Clay Shaw.md
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@ -11,13 +11,13 @@ tags:
- CIA
- 1960s
category: "Historical Figure"
summary: "Clay Shaw was a prominent New Orleans businessman and founder of the International Trade Mart who was arrested by District Attorney Jim Garrison in 1967 on conspiracy charges related to the Kennedy assassination, acquitted in 1969, and posthumously confirmed by declassified documents to have been a CIA domestic contact - a fact CIA Director Richard Helms denied under oath at the trial."
summary: "New Orleans businessman and Trade Mart founder, arrested by Jim Garrison in 1967 for conspiracy in the Kennedy assassination and acquitted in 1969, who reported to the CIA's Domestic Contact Service from 1948 to 1956."
born: 1913-03-17
died: 1974-08-14
location: "New Orleans, Louisiana"
---
Clay Lavergne Shaw (March 17, 1913 - August 14, 1974) was a prominent [[New Orleans, Louisiana|New Orleans]] businessman, civic figure, and founder of the International Trade Mart who became the only person ever tried for conspiracy in the assassination of President [[John F. Kennedy|Kennedy]]. [[District Attorney]] [[Jim Garrison]] arrested Shaw in March 1967; he was acquitted after a brief jury deliberation in March 1969. Documents declassified after his death confirmed that Shaw had served as a CIA domestic contact - a connection CIA Director [[Richard Helms]] denied under oath during the trial.[^1]
Clay Lavergne Shaw (March 17, 1913 - August 14, 1974) was a prominent [[New Orleans, Louisiana|New Orleans]] businessman, civic figure, and founder of the [[International Trade Mart]] who became the only person ever tried for conspiracy in the assassination of President [[John F. Kennedy|Kennedy]]. [[District Attorney]] [[Jim Garrison]] arrested Shaw in March 1967; he was acquitted after a brief jury deliberation in March 1969. Documents declassified after his death showed that Shaw had reported to the CIA's domestic contact office from 1948 to 1956.[^1]
### Background
@ -29,21 +29,22 @@ Shaw's personal life was private; he was gay in an era when homosexuality was cr
### CIA Connection
The central factual question that emerged after Shaw's acquittal and death was his relationship to the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]]. Shaw denied any CIA connection during the trial. CIA Director Helms testified under oath that Shaw had no relationship with the agency.
Shaw was a source of the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]]'s [[Domestic Contact Service]], the office that interviewed Americans returning from abroad. His first report, in December 1948, concerned trade with [[Czechoslovakia]] through the Trade Mart. He reported "on 33 separate occasions" through 1956, on matters such as a Peruvian devaluation, a highway in [[Nicaragua]], and European trade with the Soviet bloc, and was not paid. The service's contact division closed the case on June 4, 1956, and he was never passed to the clandestine directorate. On March 3, 1967, two days after his arrest, the chief of the service's [[New Orleans]] office, [[Lloyd Ray]], cabled headquarters recommending that the general counsel be briefed "to be on the safe side."[^2]
Documents released by the [[Assassination Records Review Board|JFK Records Act]] declassification process in the 1990s confirmed that Shaw had been registered as a CIA domestic contact under the name "Clay Bertrand" - a name that appeared in Garrison's investigation from an early stage. Shaw had used the alias "Clay Bertrand" in the New Orleans gay community, and Garrison's investigation had connected "Bertrand" to the anti-Castro network.
Director Richard Helms formed a committee of six senior officers, the [[Garrison Group]], which first met on September 20, 1967. The general counsel, [[Lawrence Houston]], wrote on October 2 that if Shaw were to "be convicted on information that could be refuted by CIA," then "we may be in for some difficult decisions." That September Shaw's lawyers, [[Edward Wegmann]] and his colleagues, had asked the [[Department of Justice|Justice Department]] for guidance on Garrison's claims about the agency and were refused, and the department learned that Shaw had not told them of his reporting. At the trial his lawyer [[Irvin Dymond]] asked whether he had ever worked for the agency. "No, I have not," Shaw answered.[^2]
The CIA's use of "Clay Bertrand" as Shaw's contact name and Helms's denial under oath that Shaw had any CIA connection represented, at minimum, perjury by Helms and concealment by the agency of a relevant relationship during a criminal trial. Whether Shaw's CIA contact role had any connection to Kennedy's assassination remained unproven.[^1]
Garrison and later writers held that "Clay Bertrand," the name given by the lawyer [[Dean Andrews]] for the man who asked him to represent [[Lee Harvey Oswald]], was an alias of Shaw's. Shaw denied it.[^1]
### Trial
Garrison announced Shaw's arrest on March 1, 1967. The charges were based primarily on the testimony of [[Perry Russo]], who claimed to have attended a meeting at which Shaw (identified as "Clay Bertrand"), [[David Ferrie]], and [[Lee Harvey Oswald]] discussed killing Kennedy. Russo's testimony was obtained in part through hypnosis, which the defense successfully challenged as potentially shaping the witness's recollections.
Garrison announced Shaw's arrest on March 1, 1967. The charges were based primarily on the testimony of [[Perry Russo]], who claimed to have attended a meeting at which Shaw (identified as "Clay Bertrand"), [[David Ferrie]], and Lee Harvey Oswald discussed killing Kennedy. Russo's testimony was obtained in part through hypnosis, which the defense successfully challenged as potentially shaping the witness's recollections.
The trial lasted approximately five weeks in January-February 1969. The defense presented evidence of Shaw's respected civic record and attacked Garrison's witnesses. The jury deliberated for less than an hour before acquitting Shaw.
Shaw subsequently filed a civil malicious prosecution suit against Garrison. He was in the early stages of this litigation when he died of lung cancer on August 14, 1974, at age sixty-one.[^2]
Shaw subsequently filed a civil malicious prosecution suit against Garrison. He was in the early stages of this litigation when he died of lung cancer on August 14, 1974, at age sixty-one.[^3]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Garrison, Jim. *On the Trail of the Assassins.* Sheridan Square Press, 1988. DiEugenio, James. *Destiny Betrayed: JFK, Cuba, and the Garrison Case.* Sheridan Square Press, 1992.
[^2]: Davy, William. *Let Justice Be Done: New Light on the Jim Garrison Investigation.* Jordan Publishing, 1999. Melanson, Philip H. *Spy Saga: Lee Harvey Oswald and U.S. Intelligence.* Praeger, 1990.
[^2]: Holland, Max. "The Lie That Linked CIA to the Kennedy Assassination," *Studies in Intelligence,* vol. 45, no. 5, 2001, citing the Russell Holmes Papers and the HSCA Segregated CIA Collection, National Archives. https://www.cia.gov/resources/csi/static/Lie-That-Linked-CIA.pdf
[^3]: Davy, William. *Let Justice Be Done: New Light on the Jim Garrison Investigation.* Jordan Publishing, 1999. Melanson, Philip H. *Spy Saga: Lee Harvey Oswald and U.S. Intelligence.* Praeger, 1990.