This Is Not America
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Clay Shaw Clay Shaw had been awarded the International Order of Merit from the City of New Orleans only seventeen months before this arrest. He was well-known throughout New Orleans as managing director of the International Trade Mart, a position he held from 1946 till 1965. That such a ‘respectable’ was wanted for this conspiracy seemed almost incredible. Shaw, while director of the Trade Mart, also made quite a fortune as a real-estate developer. In his free-time, he was a writer and a patron of the arts. One of his play, about life on a submarine, was made into a film. Because of this hobby, he was a good friend of Tennessee Williams. Shaw admitted that, during the World War II, he had been with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), acting as liaison to Winston Churchill. We only have Shaw’s word for this. What is known is that Shaw had numerous lunches with Winston Churchill during the war. Perhaps the OSS decided to enlist Shaw after Shaw had been become friendly with Churchill. Shaw had been introduced to Churchill by Sir Michael Duff. Sir Michael was a well-known bisexual and was the great love of Shaw. Shaw, who was a homosexual like Ferrie, Garrison’s first suspect, had known two great loves in his life: the first was Sir Michael, the other one was William Formyduval, with whom he lived when arrested. Researchers speculate Sir Michael introduced Shaw to Peter Montgomery. Fact is that Montgomery developed a relationship with Shaw, perhaps a sexual one as well. Montgomery, always having had an avid interest in espionage, joined the Intelligence Corps at the start of the war. What was not known until Montgomery’s death was that he and Anthony Blunt had been lovers. What was more: it was Montgomery’s and Blunt’s greatest love. Anthony Blunt was one of the ‘Magnificent Five’, the most renowned Soviet moles inside British Intelligence. An unanswered question was whether Shaw knew Blunt as well and whether Shaw knew of Blunt’s espionage activities. Blunt, on his part, said Montgomery never knew about his activities. Wolfgang zu Rutlitz, another of Blunt’s lover during the Second World War, WAS a Soviet spy. All these people were stunned to learn such a man of such high standings, who did nothing but visit the most wealthy and well-known, was arrested for conspiring to kill his President.
Pandemonium On March 2, the day after Shaw’s arrest, Acting Attorney General Ramsey Clark said that the FBI had investigated “Shaw just after the assassination”. The FBI had found nothing incriminating. First, the FBI had refused any comment, but informants told the New York Times that there wasn’t any information on such an investigation. A Justice Department official then told that same New York Times that the FBI did investigate a Clay Bertrand and that Clay Bertrand and Clay Shaw were the same man. By June, however, Attorney General Clark said his original statement had been “erroneous”; The FBI had concluded that Bertrand was not identified as a real person and that Bertrand wasn’t Shaw. A few days after Shaw’s arrest, Garrison had been forced to present his case before a three-judge panel, who believed Garrison had sufficient grounds to put Shaw on trial. Garrison, besides Russo, had another witness, a heroin-addict named Vernon Bundy, who said he had seen Shaw and Oswald together at the lake-front. He was too far away to hear what they were talking about, but he did see Shaw giving money to Oswald. On March 22, Shaw was