vault backup: 2026-09-21 19:17:08

10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Edward Wegmann.md

@@ -0,0 +1,38 @@
+---
+category: "JFK Assassination"
+tags:
+  - Person
+  - EdwardWegmann
+  - ClayShaw
+  - JimGarrison
+  - NewOrleans
+  - Wackenhut
+  - SouthernResearchCompany
+alias:
+  - Edward F. Wegmann
+  - William Wegmann
+  - William J. Wegmann
+summary: "New Orleans lawyer who with his brother William defended Clay Shaw against Jim Garrison, engaged Wackenhut and other firms of former federal agents, and sought guidance from the Justice Department on the CIA."
+location: "New Orleans, Louisiana"
+created: 2026-09-21
+updated: 2026-09-21
+---
+
+Edward F. Wegmann was the civil lawyer of [[Clay Shaw]], director of the [[New Orleans]] [[International Trade Mart]], and with his brother [[William Wegmann|William J. Wegmann]], [[Irvin Dymond|F. Irvin Dymond]], and Salvadore Panzeca defended him after District Attorney [[Jim Garrison]] arrested him on March 1, 1967, for conspiring to kill President [[John F. Kennedy]]. Shaw was acquitted on March 1, 1969. The Wegmanns then obtained a federal injunction against Garrison's second prosecution, for perjury, which the court found had been brought in bad faith.[^1]
+
+### Investigators
+
+The defense "hired not one, but two top-notch private detective services," the [[Wackenhut Corporation]] and [[Holloway Associates]] of [[Texas]], "Former FBI Agents," which "were filing reports for a period of at least two years." A third, the International Security Bureau of [[New York City|New York]], reported on a prosecution witness in February 1969. Wackenhut men reported to the defense with the television reporter [[Rick Townley]] on April 19, 1967. A Wackenhut investigator, [[Charles R. Carson (Wackenhut)|Charles R. Carson]], was making inquiries of the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] in New Orleans that month with [[Dean Andrews]]. The [[Assassination Records Review Board]] found that Wegmann's records "indicate that the Shaw defense team had retained [[Southern Research Company]] as of mid-1967," the [[Shreveport, Louisiana|Shreveport]] firm whose New Orleans office had investigated [[David Ferrie]]. After [[William Gurvich]] left Garrison's staff in June 1967 he gave the defense about two boxes of the district attorney's investigative files. The researcher who first went through the papers wrote that Wackenhut "was getting a lot of cooperation from the Bureau for Shaw's defense."[^2][^3]
+
+### Washington
+
+In September 1967 the defense, "confused by the smoke-screen Garrison was raising" about the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]], asked the [[Department of Justice|Justice Department]] for someone "who could steer them as to the true facts and circumstances." The agency and the department declined, since "if Garrison learned of federal assistance to Shaw's lawyers, he'd play it to the hilt." Through the contact the department learned that Shaw had not told his own lawyers that from 1948 to 1956 he had reported to the agency's [[Domestic Contact Service]] on 33 occasions. The agency's general counsel, [[Lawrence Houston]], wrote on October 2, 1967, that if Shaw were to "be convicted on information that could be refuted by CIA," then "we may be in for some difficult decisions." At the trial Dymond asked Shaw whether he had ever worked for the agency, and Shaw answered: "No, I have not."[^4]
+
+Wegmann's daughter gave his files to the review board in 1995. They include the diary of [[Tom Bethell]], a member of Garrison's staff.[^2][^4]
+
+### Footnotes
+
+[^1]: Shaw v. Garrison, 328 F. Supp. 390 (E.D. La. 1971), affirmed, 467 F.2d 113 (5th Cir. 1972).
+[^2]: DiEugenio, James. "The Wegmann Files," *Probe,* vol. 4, no. 4, May-June 1997, pp. 8-9; National Archives and Records Administration, finding aid to the Papers of Edward F. Wegmann.
+[^3]: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Domestic Intelligence Division, informative note, April 14, 1967, JFK record 124-10369-10048; Assassination Records Review Board, letters to Southern Research Company, electronic files of Philip G. Golrick.
+[^4]: Holland, Max. "The Lie That Linked CIA to the Kennedy Assassination," *Studies in Intelligence,* vol. 45, no. 5, 2001. https://www.cia.gov/resources/csi/static/Lie-That-Linked-CIA.pdf