Garrison's Last Gasp

One of the more convenient aspects of the case against retired New Orleans Businessman Clay Shaw was that neither of the men with whom he was accused of conspiring to kill President Kennedy happens to be alive. Lee Harvey Oswald, of course, was murdered in Dallas two days after Kennedy was assassinated; the other alleged conspirator, a homosexual pilot named David Ferrie, died of a brain hemorrhage two years ago. With little fear of contradiction" (except from Shaw), the state trained its prosecution on trying to connect the defendant with both men, particularly New Orleans-based Ferrie. In the end, Shaw was on trial for his alleged associations, which alone could prove nothing about a "conspiracy." Last week, two years to the day after he was arrested, Shaw was acquitted of plotting to kill Kennedy.

To critics of the Warren Commission's finding that Lee Harvey Oswald was solely responsible for Kennedy's death, District Attorney Jim Garrison's performance was a crashing letdown. The state produced no evidence whatever, as Big Jim had said it would, linking Shaw with Oswald's murderer, Jack Ruby. Though it found eyewitnesses who claimed that the fatal gunfire came from directions other than the Texas School Book Depository, where Oswald was stationed, no witness purported to have heard shots from more than one location --another Garrison assertion. One eyewitness to the Shaw "plot," New York Tax Accountant Charles Spiesel, admitted to a penchant for discovering conspiracies--most of them directed against himself. The other, Salesman Perry Russo, declined on cross-examination to characterize an alleged conversation between Shaw, Ferrie and Oswald as more than a "bull session."

Spun-Sugar Story. The ho-hum atmosphere of the trial became almost surreal with the appearance for the defense of Dean Andrews, a pudgy little New Orleans lawyer. Andrews set off the Garrison investigation with a story that he got a phone call from one "Clay Bertrand" the day after Kennedy was shot, asking him to defend Oswald. Andrews had already switched his story so often that he had been convicted of lying to a grand jury. When Assistant D.A. James Alcock tried to pick apart points that helped the defense, Andrews retracted the rest of the tale, swallowing it all like so much spun sugar. He did not know Clay Shaw; Clay Bertrand was a "cover name" he had remembered from a "fag wedding" in the early 1950s. He had received no telephone request to represent Oswald. So he had lied when he testified to the call story before the Warren Commission? Said Andrews: "You call it a lie if you want. I call it huffin' and puffin'."

Forum for Attack. Then, for the first time, the defendant had his say. Clay Shaw, 55, a white-haired, deep-voiced bachelor who has lived under accusation and innuendo for the past two years, calmly denied any part in a conspiracy or acquaintanceship with either "co-conspirator." Did he have any ill feelings toward Kennedy? "Certainly not," replied Shaw, adding that he had admired and voted for the President.

In his closing argument, Garrison tried to wrap up with sheer demagoguery what he had been unable to deliver in fact: that the Warren Commission report was a "fraud" and that the whole apparatus of the Federal Government was being used to hide the truth. He mentioned the defendant by name only once, all but confirming Defense Attorney F. Irving Dymond's charge that Shaw "was brought in here for no other purpose than to create a forum to present this attack on the Warren Commission." Garrison's last gasp did not impress the jury. The twelve men deliberated just 50 minutes before unanimously acquitting Shaw on the first ballot.

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