False Witness (48 page)
Authors: Patricia Lambert
He did it with an eye on history and a respectful salute to President Kennedy. But I wonder what President Kennedy, who loved this country's history and admired above all public figures who “stood fast for principle,”
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would think about the destruction in his name of an innocent citizen and a movie that glorifies the politician responsible.
Clay Shaw's story is unique in our country's history. Perhaps nothing like it exists anywhere. The Dreyfus affair comes to mind. But for most of the world, Dreyfus remains vindicated, while Clay Shaw's good name has been blackened apparently irreparably. For as writer Brent Staples has said, “historical lies” given credibility by the movies are “nearly impossible to correct.” The real Clay Shaw served his country honorably and well in World War II. He contributed to the cultural and financial well-being of his community, and he supported Jack Kennedy's presidency. Shaw also deserves to be recognized for the contribution he made to Oliver Stone's Congressional lobbying effort. Whatever the ultimate consequence of the Assassination Records Collection Act, Stone must share any credit for it with Clay Shaw, who paid for the release of the files with his life and reputation, not once but twice, and not willingly, since the dead cannot acquiesce. Or sue.
This one may have the last word though. For real historians love hard data and among the millions of pages that have flowed into the National Archives are many revealing ones from New Orleans, including the transcript of that final confrontation between Garrison and
Shaw in federal court, the Christenberry hearing.
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Shaw's preliminary hearing and the Christenberry transcript are like two legal bookends, marking the beginning and the end of the real Jim GarrisonâClay Shaw story. In the power of that documentary record, now officially preserved in Washington, D.C., lies truth's best hope.
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A 1996 assessment of the militias concluded that the Oklahoma City bombing actually sparked a growth in membership (Richard A. Serrano, “Militias: The Ranks Are Swelling,”
Los Angeles Times
, April 18, 1996).
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Garrison eventually dismissed the charges against Bradley, claiming he had been supplied “false information.” In April 1991 Bradley met with Garrison, who told him they both had been “set up” (Bradley, telephone conversation with author, Aug. 13, 1993).
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This is recounted in chapter 7.
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Shortly after his arrest, Shaw heard “through the grapevine that F. Lee Bailey would be very anxious to appear in the case and would charge, what was for him, a nominal fee.” But Shaw decided to rely on the local “legal talent” (Shaw Journal, p. 47).
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Shaw's main expenses were investigatory, chasing down Garrison's endless charges. Overwhelmed with the awesome burden of defending the case, Shaw's attorneys at one point reached out to the federal government for help, but none was forthcoming. “I got the cold shoulder from Ramsey Clark,” Irvin Dymond recalled, “and I got the cold shoulder from J. Edgar Hoover. He wouldn't even have us on his appointment book” (Dymond et al. Interview).
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John F. Kennedy,
Profiles In Courage
(New York: Harper & Row, 1964), “Foreword To The Memorial Edition,” by Robert F. Kennedy, p. 9.
Reporter: | What would you say your philosophy of life is? |
Clay Shaw: | The man who lives a successful life is the man who develops his potentials to their fullest . . . and who makes it a policy to try not to harm anybody else. |
 | âPress Conference, March 2, 1967 |
A GRAND JURY TRANSCRIPT SURFACES
On August 4, 1995, I received anonymously through the mail a six-page grand jury transcript.
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It is a brief but dramatic interrogation of Perry Russo by Jim Garrison. The exchange on Garrison's part was hostile. He was angry because Russo had visited the office of Shaw's attorney, Edward F. Wegmann.
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Moo Moo Sciambra, Russo's “babysitter,” had seen him enter. Garrison was keeping a close watch on his star witness and was alarmed and threatened by Russo's hobnobbing with the enemy. Garrison reacted as he always did when he felt at risk. He attacked.
He hauled Russo in front of this body and made certain he didn't jump ship. He threatened Russo outright with a perjury charge if he changed his story and dropped a veiled threat of an “accessory” charge as well. Garrison also snapped his whip at his grand jurors that day. The secretary recording these minutes freeze-framed Garrison in his most revealing mode. We see him bullyingâ“I want that cooperation or I'll go to Judge Bagert and quietly shut this whole investigation down.” We see him brainwashingâ“I told you I knew who the real assassins were and would haul them to justice.” It was Russo, though, who made this transcript invaluable by what he said that day. The others present made it so by what they knew and when they knew it.
Russo unwittingly exposed how he was manipulated: “Mr. Garrison told me he had four strong witnesses [a former Dallas police officer, a CIA guy and some others] that could place Ferrie, Clay Shaw and Oswald together after I heard them planning it,” Russo said. (Garrison,
of course, had no one.) Russo said Mark Lane told him “that he uncovered information three days after the assassination that put Shaw and Ferrie in the midst of it.” (Lane had nothing.) But Russo turned this session into a smoking gun when he revised his own testimony.
Two weeks earlier he testified under oath at the preliminary hearing that he saw Clay Shaw a total of
three
times, including
one
occasion at David Ferrie's home when the plotting occurred. Here, also under oath, he told the grand jury he saw Shaw at Ferrie's house “at least five . . . maybe six times.”
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Russo was either lying now or he was lying at the preliminary hearing. Prior to that hearing, Russo confessed to his first polygraph technician that his story was fiction from the outset. He also admitted it to his second polygraph operator and to Shaw's defense team. He lied at the preliminary hearing. He lied at his first grand jury appearance. He lied at this one. He lied at Shaw's trial. Today, thirty years later, we know that. But, if this transcript is legitimate (as I believe), it shows that
way back then
everyone in that grand jury room knew almost two years before the trial began that Perry Russo had lied at least once. Moreover, those who believed what he said this day knew he lied later at the trial when he repeated his preliminary hearing testimony. These grand jurors, Garrison, and his two key assistantsâwho handled that trial and were later appointed to the benchâall knew Garrison's pivotal witness was a perjurer.
The transcript I received in the mail is reproduced on the following pages.
ORLEANS PARISH GRAND JURY
PROCEEDINGS OF
MARCH 29, 1967
PRESENT: | MESSRS. ALVIN V. OSER AND JAMES ALCOCK, Assistant District Attorneys |
 | JIM GARRISON |
 | MEMBERS OF THE ORLEANS PARISH GRAND JURY |
WITNESS: | PERRY |
Reported By:
Maureen B. Thiel,
Secretary
Orleans Parish Grand Jury
PERRY RAYMOND RUSSO, being sworn in by the Foreman of the Orleans Parish Grand Jury, was questioned and answered as follows:
BY MR. JIM GARRISON:
Q. | You are the same Perry Raymond Russo who testified before this grand jury last week, are you not? |
A. | Yes sir. |
Q. | I believe you testified about seeing Clay Bertrand, whom we now have identified as Clay Shaw, several times at Dave Ferrie's house. Can you tell us again, how many times did you see him there? |
A. | At least five . . . maybe six times, counting the times when they finally talked about it, the assassination, you know. |
Q. | Did they, at any time, suggest that you do anything? Did they ask you to do anything? After all, you had heard so much of what they contemplated . . . |
A. | No. |
Q. | You were asked by one of the grand jury members here about what went through your mind after you heard the plan had been carried out. You said that you were too busy and, I take it, unconcerned, to tell anybody about it in 1963, 1964, 1965 or 1966. Why was that, Perry? I know the answer, but I want the gentlemen here to understand it too. |
A. | I only saw him about five times in the days after . . . I mean, you know, in 1964. That was Ferrie. And he |
BY A GRAND JUROR:
Q. | Let me see if I understand here. You heard all this and you know JFK was killed a few days later, just the way you heard it planned. Yet, you were too busy to get involved. Is that what you're saying, Mr. Russo? |
 | I mean I don't know how you could have slept at night. Mr. Garrison has explained in great detail that you are now making an almost supreme sacrifice to come forward, to stand tall against some elements in our government who have covered this whole horrible thing up, but why didn't you say something? |
A. | It isn't easy to tell a secret of such great scope. And I didn't know for sure that they did it. I guess Oswald was there, at least, but Ferrie was somewhere else. Mr. Garrison told me he had four strong witnesses that could place Ferrie, Clay Shaw and Oswald together after I heard them planning it, so maybe what I saw and heard isn't all that important. I've |
BY MR. GARRISON:
Q. | I don't think it's called for to jump on this witness, the one man who had guts enough to come here and jump into all this mess. He has been hounded by the go-along press, has been followed by private detectives, has been bribed by TIME magazine to change his story and has been ridiculed for the truths he has told us. If you want to cast some blame, I think maybe you'll have ample opportunity when I get people like Walter Sheridan, Rick Townley, James Phelan, Hue Aynesworth and Gordon Novel up here . . . and I will. All of them will be subpoenaed. And you haven't seen a criminal until you talk to Regis Kennedy and William Gurvich. I've told you all about Carlos Quiroga and Layten Martins. We have evidence tying Quiroga to Dallas, Sheridan and Phelan to taking bribe money from the CIA and a tape recording |
A. | Okay. Shoot. |
Q. | Did you meet with Edward Wegmann, a lawyer for Clay Shaw, at his office after you visited this grand jury last week? I'll have to be honest with you. Mr. Sciambra . . . Moo Moo . . . said he saw you on the same floor as Wegmann's office. I know it's a free country, but with all the accusations flying around, I've got to know what you've been doing. |
A. | The day after I left the grand jury, I got a call from Mr. Wegmann. He was real polite, a gentleman to me. He said he knew that me and C.G. Mitchell, an old friend of mine, had got caught shoplifting at Schwegmann's and he said since I was in the public eye and all, things might go bad for me when it hit the |
Q. | You didn't relate what you discussed before the grand jury, did you? |
A. | No, not a bit. Mostly about the shoplifting. Andy told me that was taken care of, so I didn't see anything wrong with talking about it. He said they'd never been able to find that arrest record . . . that it was the least the D.A.'s office could do for the risks I'm taking. We was innocent anyway. |
Q. | Do you know the danger in talking to the defense lawyers? They're just out to destroy you and make this grand jury and me look like fools. Nobody can stop you from going where you want to or talking to whoever you want to, but the help my office has given you will certainly have to stop if we see a reoccurence of this type behavior. Do you understand me, Perry? |
A. | Yes sir. Completely. I didn't mean . . . |
Q. | One panel member asked last week if you might have some risk of being charged as an accessory after the fact. Mr. Alcock tried to explain the law to the questioner . . . and I hope we've straightened that out. There will be no such charges emanating from the Orleans Parish district attorney's office, so you don't have to be afraid -- if you don't change your story. In that case, the charge would not be accessory it would be perjury. |
A. | I understand. I only know what I saw and heard . . . and I won't change that. |
Q. | Since the grand jury has specifically asked that Dean Andrews be brought back this afternoon, I'm going to excuse you now, Perry. Thank you and keep your chin up. |
A. | Okay. So long. |
