Final_Judgment

[548] Final Judgment 644
involved in the conspiracy such that Clay Shaw is only a peripheral
character in the long run. And I don't believe that the book does hinge on
the Shaw connection, although it is certainly significant.
Because of the fact that Garrison was potentially going to unearth the
Israeli connection (through Shaw) it was necessary that Garrison's inquiry
be quashed. I noted earlier that the actual attempts to stop Garrison actually
began before he had even come across Shaw. The man who actually tried to
bribe Garrison into stopping the investigation, international oilman John
King, was intimately tied to the Mossad and the Permindex network.
The Permindex Connection is important, though, but I don't pretend to
know precisely what role Shaw actually played in the conspiracy. It may
well be that Shaw never knew that the assassination was in the works and
that his connections to his fellow CIA asset, Guy Banister, and to Lee
Harvey Oswald may, to Shaw, have appeared entirely innocent (to the
extent, of course, that any intelligence intrigue of any nature can be
described as "innocent").
The whole Garrison investigation was flawed in many ways, of course,
and perhaps that is even partly Garrison's own fault. However, it's very
clear that Garrison was a man with a mission and he may have gone astray
in some of his assumptions and allegations. But it's clear that he hit pay dirt
with the Shaw investigation.
Shaw knew CIA contract operative David Ferrie and lied on the stand
during the trial, claiming that he didn't know Ferrie. Some have come to
Shaw's defense, saying he may have lied because he didn't want to be
associated with a known and rather flamboyant homosexual such as Ferrie
(Shaw was himself homosexual) but this is a limp-wristed excuse, no pun
intended. But more importantly, Shaw did have a long-time association with
the CIA as we know now, but Garrison was never able to prove that connection
at the time. If he had, it's likely that Shaw may have been convicted.
However, the jury concluded that there wasn't enough evidence to tie Shaw
to any conspiracy.
Don't forget that one of Garrison's key witnesses, a New Orleans
police officer named Aloysius Habighorst was never permitted to testify to
the fact that Shaw had admitted to the officer that he sometimes used the
alias "Clay Bertrand." This was significant in that it was a "Clay Bertrand"
who had called New Orleans attorney Dean Andrews and asked Andrews to
represent Oswald after he was arrested in Dallas.
Andrews said that he had dealt with "Clay Bertrand" in the past so
when he received the call after the assassination, the name of Clay Bertrand
was not unfamiliar. And it is apparent that Shaw was indeed "Clay
Betrand." Had the jury heard the testimony by the police officer, of course,
it would have probably sealed Shaw's fate during the trial in New Orleans.
So I believe very firmly that the thesis in Final Judgment would stand
without or without the matter of the Clay Shaw investigation. The Shaw
investigation, I suppose, might be the icing on a very big cake, so to speak.
Frankly, I think a good case can be made that Shaw—despite his longtime
ties to the CIA—may also well have been some sort of contract