Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy (105 page)

By January 29, 1969, the day the Clay Shaw trial finally got under way,
Garrison's case was already foundering. His chief suspect, Ferrie, was
dead and others had fled New Orleans and were safe in other states that
refused to honor Garrison's extradition requests.

Governor John Connally, himself a victim in Dallas, refused to ex tradite Cuban leader Sergio Archaca-Smith, while California governor
Ronald Reagan declined to allow extradition for one Edgar Eugene
Bradley.

Garrison, in a mistake that was to cost him further credibility, apparently had mistaken Bradley for Mafia man Eugene Hale Brading who was
arrested in Dealey Plaza shortly after the assassination.

But Garrison's major "missing witness" was Gordon Novel, a young
electronics expert who eventually became embroiled in some of this nation's most controversial cases. Novel first approached Garrison in early
1967 with information about David Ferrie and Cuban exile activities, but
soon Garrison came to believe that Novel was a CIA "plant."

After Garrison subpoenaed Novel, he fled to Ohio where Governor
James Rhodes-despite a personal call from Governor John McKeithen of
Louisiana-refused to allow extradition. Likewise, the governor of Nebraska declined to honor an extradition order for Sandra Moffett, a former
girlfriend of Perry Russo who was present at the gathering of Ferrie,
Shaw, and Oswald in September 1963.

A note left behind in his New Orleans apartment, which was later
authenticated as being written by Novel, mentioned his work for Double
Check Corporation, a CIA "front" located in Miami. The letter stated:
"Our connection and activity of that period [with Double Check] involves
individuals presently . . . about to be indicted as conspirators in Mr.
Garrison's investigation."

In 1974, Novel, who claimed to have worked for the CIA, met with
President Nixon's special counsel Charles Colson and discussed developing a special "de-gaussing" machine that would erase Nixon's incriminating White House tapes from afar. Novel also cropped up as an electronics
expert in the case of automobile magnate John DeLorean.

Despite the media attacks and missing witnesses, Garrison gamely
moved ahead with his prosecution of Clay Shaw. His goals were twofold:
1) convince the jury that a conspiracy was behind President Kennedy's
death and 2) prove that Clay Shaw was a part of that conspiracy. Garrison
achieved the first goal but failed on the second.

After a string of witnesses from Dallas-including the Bill Newmans
and railroadman James L. Simmons and others not called before the
Warren Commission-told of shots to Kennedy's front and medical testimony pointed out the shortcomings of the President's autopsy, the jury
became convinced of Garrison's charge that a conspiracy had existed.

This conviction solidified when the jury viewed the Zapruder film of the
assassination-made available for the first time due to Garrison's subpoena
power.

After the trial, every juror agreed that Garrison had convinced them that
Kennedy had died as the result of a conspiracy.

However, the evidence of Shaw's involvement proved not as convincing. Despite several credible people who testified they had seen David Ferrie and Lee Oswald with a man matching Clay Shaw's descriptionincluding several prominent residents of Clinton, Louisiana-many jurors
remained skeptical.

Insurance salesman Perry Russo repeated his 1967 statements that he
was present when Shaw and Ferrie talked about assassinating Kennedy.
Russo said that Shaw had been introduced to him as Clem Bertrand.

He said Ferrie and the man he identified as Shaw talked of triangulation
of gunfire and the need to have alibis at the time of the assassination.

Defense attorneys pointed out that Russo had been given a truth serum
drug to help his recall and reiterated the charge that Garrison had implanted the entire Ferrie-Shaw story while Russo was under the drug's
influence.

One particularly compelling witness was Vernon Bundy, who testified
he had seen Clay Shaw meet with Lee Harvey Oswald at a seawall on
Lake Pontchartrain in June 1963. Bundy said he knew the man speaking
with Oswald was Shaw because he noticed the man had a slight limp.

A puzzled Shaw was asked to walk down the center isle of the courtroom and everyone-including an amazed Garrison-noticed for the first
time a nearly imperceptible limp.

Another credible witness was postman James Hardiman who testified
that during 1966 he had delivered letters addressed to "Clay Bertrand" to
a forwarding address for Clay Shaw. Hardiman said none of the letters
were returned.

Then came Charles Spiesel, a New York accountant who had suddenly
shown up in New Orleans to tell Garrison that he had met David Ferrie on
a visit and that they had been joined by Clay Shaw. Appearing to be a
credible witness, he had been belatedly added to Garrison's witness list.

Once on the stand, Garrison cringed at Spiesel's cross-examination. The
man rambled on about how he had been hypnotized on several occasions
by various unidentified people and how he regularly fingerprinted his
daughter upon her return from Louisiana State University to make sure she
was really his daughter.

Garrison's case also was not helped by several statements he made prior
to the Shaw trial, including the claims that Shaw had met with Ruby and
Oswald in the Jack Tar Capital House in Baton Rouge on September 3,
1963, and handed them money and that the man who killed President
Kennedy had fired a .45-caliber pistol then fled through the Dallas drainage system to another part of town. None of these claims were substantiated.

More harm came in the testimony of attorney Dean Andrews, whowhile under a perjury charge by Garrison-changed his story of being
called by a man named Clay Bertrand and asked to defend Oswald just
after the assassination. On the stand, Andrews said the name "Clay
Bertrand" was simply a "figment of [his] imagination" and that he had
never known Clay Shaw. Andrew's statements strongly affected the jury, although later Garrison was to convict Andrews of perjury based on his
testimony.

And when Assistant District Attorney James L. Alcock tried to discredit
Andrews's testimony, it appeared he was impeaching the core of Garrison's charge that Shaw and Bertrand were one and the same.

So the crux of the case came down to whether Clay Shaw, the respected
director of the International Trade Mart, and Clay (or Clem) Bertrand, the
man overheard plotting against Kennedy, were the same man.

Garrison's strongest piece of evidence was Shaw's jail card, which
showed he used the alias Clay Bertrand.

Yet Criminal District Court judge Edward Aloysius Haggerty refused to
allow the jail card to be introduced as evidence, saying Shaw had not been
allowed to have a lawyer with him during the booking procedure.

Garrison's "dramatic finale" then became New Orleans policeman
Aloysius J. Habighorst, the man who filled out Shaw's jail form, and who
was expected to testify that Shaw had told him his alias was "Clay
Bertrand. "

However, before Habighorst could take the stand, Judge Haggerty ordered the jury removed from the courtroom. He told stunned prosecutors
that he was not allowing Habighorst's testimony to be admitted because
again no attorney had been present and his alias story appeared to be a
violation of Shaw's rights.

Judge Haggerty then said: "Even if [Shaw] did [admit the alias], it is
not admissible. If Officer Habighorst is telling the truth-and I seriously
doubt it ... "

This remark brought Assistant D.A. James Alcock to his feet, saying:
"Are you passing on the credibility of a state witness in front of the press
and the whole world?"

To which Judge Haggerty responded: "It's outside the presence of the
jury. I do not care. The whole world can hear that I do not believe Officer
Habighorst. I do not believe Officer Habighorst."

With the judge's statements, Garrison's case-already severely weakened by dead, incredible, and unobtainable witnesses-collapsed.

Alcock moved to have a mistrial declared, but Judge Haggerty denied
this, ordering the trial to proceed without the crucial testimony of Officer
Habighorst.

Clay Shaw took the stand in his own defense claiming that he never
knew Ferrie, Oswald, or Ruby and that he had not participated in a plot to
kill Kennedy. Garrison's team was unable to provide any motivation for
Shaw's involvement in such a scheme.

Just past midnight on March 1, 1969-two years to the day that Shaw
had first been arrested-the jury filed into Judge Haggerty's courtroom to
announce Clay Shaw's acquittal after less than an hour of deliberation.

Two days later, on March 3, Garrison filed perjury charges against
Shaw for maintaining that he never met David Ferrie. Garrison later wrote:

We had more witnesses to prove this flagrant case of perjury than I had
ever encountered as district attorney. . . . Given my personal choice, I
would much rather have let the matter rest once and for all... .
However, the choice was not mine. My decision had been made automatically when-contrary to the numerous statements in our files-Shaw
had taken the witness stand and, in his grand and courtly manner, made
a mockery of the law against lying under oath.

But again Garrison had not counted on the federal government.

According to federal law at the time, "A court of the United States may
not grant an injunction to stay proceedings in a State Court except as
expressly authorized by an Act of Congress, or where necessary in aid of
its jurisdiction, or to protect or effectuate its judgments."

Garrison wrote:

Fortunately for Shaw, the federal judicial system shut its eyes to that
federal law. The United States District Court DID Isici enjoin me from
prosecuting Shaw for committing perjury, and the federal appellate
structure firmly backed up the District Court's ruling all the way. When
the assassination of a dead president has been ratified by a live national
government, details such as the law very quickly become irrelevant.

Clay Shaw, his finances depleted after the years of defending himself
and despondent over the revelations of his homosexual connections, retired
to his New Orleans home where he died on August 14, 1974.

Even Shaw's death did not pass without question. Neighbors saw some
men carrying what appeared to be a body completely covered by a sheet
on a stretcher into a carriage house belonging to Shaw. They called the
coroner's office, which dispatched investigators. The coroner's investigators found Shaw's home empty and, after a day of searching, learned that
Shaw had just been buried in his hometown of Kentwood. A death
certificate signed by a Dr. Hugh Betson stated death was caused by lung
cancer.

New Orleans coroner Dr. Frank Minyard-concerned over the circumstances of Shaw's death and the rapidity of burial-initially said he would
seek a court order for the exhumation of Shaw's body. However, word
reached the news media, which immediately editorialized against such a
move, hinting that the exhumation was just another attack by Garrison,
and Minyard dropped the whole matter.

Despite his courtroom loss and the tidal wave of negative publicityThe New York Times called the case "one of the most disgraceful chapters
in the history of American jurisprudence" while the New Orleans StatesItem demanded Garrison's resignation-the scrappy district attorney nevertheless handily won reelection later that year.

But his troubles with the federal government were not over. On June 30, 1971, Garrison was arrested at his home by agents of the Internal Revenue
Service who charged him with accepting illegal payoffs from pinball
machine operators.

After two years of more bad publicity, he was finally brought to trial.
Several pinball machine operators told of making payoffs, but none of
them could directly implicate Garrison.

Finally, a former Garrison investigator and Army buddy, Pershing
Gervais, took the stand and told how Garrison had accepted $150,000 in
payoffs. He even produced a tape recording of Garrison's voice reportedly
made of the district attorney discussing the matter.

But on cross examination, Gervais admitted that he had told a television
reporter that he had been forced by the Justice Department to lie and
incriminate Garrison. Gervais had admitted the case against Garrison was
"a total, complete political frameup, absolutely."

Furthermore, a speech expert testified that the incriminating tape had
been created by splicing together several innocuous comments made by
Garrison.

Garrison and two codefendants were quickly found not guilty, but
enough damage had been done. Busy defending himself in court, Garrison
failed to mount an effective campaign in 1973 and was defeated for district
attorney by two thousand votes.

Furthermore, the federal government came at him again, this time
alleging income tax evasion in connection with the discredited pinball
payoffs. Again Garrison was found not guilty, but by this time the national
audience had largely turned its back on the "controversial" lawman in
New Orleans.

Even today many assassination researchers believe Garrison was far
afield of truth about Kennedy's death. Many agree with House Select
Committee on Assassinations chief counsel Robert Blakey, who bluntly
wrote: "In short, the Garrison case was a fraud."

Blakey, who claims organized crime killed Kennedy, apparently fails to
see any suspicious connection in the facts that David Ferrie was with New
Orleans mob boss Carlos Marcello in court on the morning of the assassination; that Ferrie was the Civil Air Patrol leader of Lee Harvey Oswald;
and that Ferrie and Clay Shaw both worked for the CIA and were connected to anti-Castro Cubans.

It should also be pointed out that critics of Blakey's work on the House
Committee noted a cozy relationship between Blakey and government
agencies such as the FBI and CIA.