On March 3, 1969, just two days after Clay Shaw was acquitted of conspiring to kill JFK, Garrison indicted him on two counts of perjury -- for his statements that he had never met Lee Harvey Oswald or David Ferrie.
Jim Garrison had his work cut our for him. He now had to find new witnesses for an upcoming trial. His staff redoubled their efforts, and memos started flying in on some new, but mostly old leads, or more accurately rumors.
Ultimately, he found very little, and he listed the witnesses he would call at Clay Shaw's trial for perjury. Here are the relevant pages from Garrison's response to Clay Shaw's motion to dismiss in court case #71-135:
Here is Clay Shaw's response to this list, dated March 25, 1971:
Here is my analysis of each of these witnesses:
Betty Rubio:
There are no contemporaneous Garrison memos on Betty Rubio, and as such, there are no statements on record from her.
Mr. and Mrs. Nicholas Tadin:
I covered the Tadin's in this blog post. They only came forward at the end of the Shaw trial, and Nicholas Tadin had a grudge against Shaw's trial lawyer, Irvin Dymond. After the trial, James Kirkwood talked to Judge Haggerty who told him, when speaking about the Tadins, that "But the jury, I asked one of them, they said they couldn't buy that because he waited too long." (page 635)
Herbert Wagner:
I covered Herbert Wagner in this blog post. Wagner said in 1967 that he could not identify Clay Shaw.
Jim Louviere
Here is a blog post on Louviere, which shows that in March 1967, Louviere did not identify Shaw with Ferrie at the service station. Of course, Garrison knew that Shaw's defense team would not get a copy of this memo because there was no discovery in Louisiana courts at the time.
The Clinton Witnesses (Andrew Haden Dunn, John Manchester, Henry Earl Palmer, Corey Collins):
Let's start with Andrew Dunn. Here is a Garrison memo on Dunn:
While Dunn did identify Clay Shaw, he also identified the other passengers in the car as Guy Banister and Jack Ruby. I don't think he would have been of great value in a perjury trial.
The other problem for Garrison is that Andrew Dunn died in 1968:
Garrison's men were mixed up. They probably wanted to call William Dunn, who was very much still alive. I am not sure if William Dunn would have been much better. Here is a Garrison memo on Dunn:
Dunn picked out Thomas Beckham as a passenger, or driver, in the front seat of the car. When William Dunn testified at the Clay Shaw trial, Shaw's lawyers did not know that he had previously identified Beckham.
John Manchester was also a problematic witness. His memory was not very good. He also had trouble identifying David Ferrie as one of the people in Clinton. Here is an excerpt from an Anne Dischler's note from May 25, 1967:
The note reads: "Manchester was unable to positively identify either photograph shown him. He does state that he seems to remember going to this car and questioning the occupants (this was regular routine because of Civil Rts. demonstrations at that time -- however two white people in a line of negroes did attract attention as unusual.) Photographs of Shaw and Ferrie do look highly familiar to Manchester."
Mr. Sciambra: Can you describe the individual on the passenger side?
Mr. Manchester: No, sir, I can't, Mister, I didn't talk to him.
Somehow, Manchester's story changed during his HSCA deposition:
Mr. Blackmer: During the course of the trial, were you able to identify the other occupant of the automobile?
Mr. Manchester: Yes, sir. I recognized David Ferrie, the other man in the car with Clay Shaw. I don't know if I identified him at the trial or not. I don't remember. I don't remember if I identified a picture of him at the trial. Of course, I understand that Ferrie was deceased at the time of the trial.
Who knows how Manchester would have testified in a perjury trial.
Henry Earl Palmer, the registrar of Clinton, did identify David Ferrie, but have a look at his testimony:
Mr. Sciambra: Did you notice any individuals in the car?
Mr. Palmer: Yes, I did. I saw two in the front seat.
Mr. Sciambra: Can you describe the individual on the passenger side?
Mr. Palmer: Well, the man on the passenger side, all I can tell you about him, he appeared -- his eyebrows were heavy and his hair needed combing. He had messed-up hair, I noticed that. That is all I could see of him.
Mr. Sciambra: I would like to have this marked "S-3," for purpose of identification. (Whereupon, the document referred to by Counsel was duly marked for identification as "Exhibit S-3.")
Mr. Sciambra: (Exhibiting photograph to witness) I show you what the State has marked "S-3" for purposes of identification, and I ask you if you recognize the individual in this picture?
Mr. Palmer: I can't recognize the individual, but the hair and eyebrows are similar.
Mr. Sciambra: In other words, you would say the hair and the eyebrows are similar?
Mr. Palmer: Yes, sir.
Mr. Sciambra: Do you know who this person is?
Mr. Palmer: From the picture I know, now.
Mr. Sciambra: What is it?
Mr. Palmer: That is Mr. Ferrie.
This is not exactly a firm identification.
During his first interview with Anne Dischler on May 25, 1967, Palmer was unable to identify David Ferrie:
'The note reads:
Mr. Palmer was shown pictures of Clay Shaw and David Ferrie on May 25, 1967. He positively identified Clay Shaw as the driver of this Cadillac before mentioned. He was unable to identify Ferrie as the passenger with Shaw.
While Palmer did identify Lee Harvey Oswald as one of the men wanting to register to vote, he did not identify Oswald as being with Shaw.
Corrie Collins was also a problematic witness. There was no mention of Lee Harvey Oswald in his initial interviews, and his initial identification of Clay Shaw was very weak. His memory improved over time.
The key consideration is one of discovery, and this is true for all of the Clinton witnesses. Had the Shaw defense team had all of the Garrison memos on the Clinton witnesses, they probably would not have testified. There were just too many holes and inconsistencies in their recollections.
James Laurent:
Like Betty Rubio, there are no contemporaneous Garrison memos on James Laurent, and as such, there are no statements on record from him. David Ferrie ran his service station for several months in 1964 -- it would be quite possible that Clay Shaw might have stopped there for gas.
A perjury trial would have been extremely dangerous for Clay Shaw. How do you prove you don't know someone. Garrison would have paraded these witnesses -- horrible as they are -- and that might have persuaded a jury.
Judge Herbert Christenberry held hearings on the motion to dismiss the perjury charges and on January 25, 1971, James Alcock, second-in-command to Jim Garrison, was asked about these witnesses:
Alcock can provide no information on these new witnesses and whether they could have testified at Shaw's trial for conspiracy.
Here is what he said about the perjury charges:
He also noted:
Previous Relevant Blog Posts
A summary of the story and links to my 19-part series on Clinton/Jackson