On February 27, 1967, Perry Russo was injected with sodium pentothal and was then interviewed by Andrew Sciambra who was an Assistant D.A. on Garrison's staff. This session was not tape recorded and there is only a memo from Sciambra that tells us what happened.
Here is Sciambra's memo about Russo's session:
On January 29, 1971, Perry Russo visited Clay Shaw's lawyers for an interview. He discussed the session while he was injected with sodium pentothal.
"Among other things, I offered my $64 question about you: at the time you arrested Clay Shaw, what serious evidence did you have that he had in fact conspired with anyone to kill JFK?
The answer is in the Sciambra's memo on the sodium pentothal interview (shown above). Russo's first hypnosis session came right after Shaw was arrested, and that was when the memory was firmly planted on the so-called assassination session at David Ferrie's apartment.
So, all Garrison had was a half-hour interview with Perry Russo, under the influence of sodium pentothal, alleging that David Ferrie said to Clay Bertrand, "We are going to kill John F. Kennedy." Not a word from the so-called Clay Bertrand. And nothing about a party at Ferrie's apartment where Oswald and others supposedly discussed the assassination.
The day after the sodium pentothal session, Garrison had Russo walk up to Clay Shaw's house in the guise of selling insurance. Russo then identified Shaw as Bertrand, and that was enough for Garrison to have Shaw arrested.
Does that sound like serious evidence to you?
Here's a letter to the editor from the Washington Post of March 27, 1967:
Previous Relevant Blog Posts
You can read Andrew Sciambra's memorandum after interviewing Perry Russo in Baton Rouge, and a link to a recording of Russo's third hypnosis session.
A transcript of an April 1971 interview of Perry Russo by Clay Shaw's attorneys.
Russo's initial story was different from the story in the courtroom.
James Phelan wrote a memo listing all the inconsistencies in Perry Russo's stories.
In January 1971, Russo told Shaw's attorneys that Clay Shaw was not at the supposed conspiracy meeting at David Ferrie's apartment.
Jim Garrison had Perry Russo take a lie detector test. It did not go well.
When asked about Russo's lie detector test, Jim Garrison lied.