On the Garrison Trail

Aide & Assist



Jim Garrison:
"...years later my assumption that the C.I.A. had been aiding Shaw’s defense was proved true. At the time of the New Orleans investigation
into President Kennedy’s assassination, Victor Marchetti had been a high-ranking staff employee at C.I.A. headquarters. In an article published
in True magazine in 1975, Marchetti referred to the Agency’s concern during the Shaw trial..."

"...I used to attend, among other things, the Director’s morning meeting, his morning staff meeting. This was Richard Helms at the time and he held a meeting
every morning at 9, which was attended by 12 or 14 of his leading Deputies plus 3 or 4 staffers —the executive assistants to the number one,
two and three men in the Agency and also the Press Officer. I often used to take the minutes of this meeting … which are a joke because things would be
left out or written in a vague fashion so they were meaningless.

But during the Clay Shaw trial I remember the Director on several occasions asking questions like, you know, “Are we giving them all the help they need?”
I didn’t know who they or them were. I knew they didn’t like Garrison because there were a lot of snotty remarks passed about him.
They would talk in half sentences like “is everything going all right down there … yeah … but talk with me about it after the meeting” or
“we’ll pick this up later in my office.” So after several of these over a week or two I began to ask myself what’s going on, what’s the big concern.
I began to ask around … and to one of the other people who attended the meeting …at the time I said,

“What’s the concern about this trial and this guy Shaw?”

I was then told, “Well … Shaw, a long time ago, had been a contact of the Agency … He was in the export–import business …he knew people coming and
going from certain areas—the Domestic Contact Service—he used to deal with them … and it’s been cut off a long time ago” … and then I was told
“well of course the Agency doesn’t want this to come out now because Garrison will distort it, the public would misconstrue it.”

Can I Get a Witness?


Witnesses by the prosecution included individuals from Dealey Plaza called to illustrate conspiracy as it happened.
Photographs in the immediate aftermath of the assassination showed the chaos and fear within close proximity of the car.
One such picture as the motorcade was still exiting the plaza showed a couple covering their young children on the ground at curbside
Bill and Gayle Newman were the closest civilian eyewitnesses and both were interviewed on live television within 15 minutes of the shooting.

Newman was an electrician that had taken the day off to see the president with is wife and children. He was standing at the curb as the car passed.
Here was one witness that knew the shots had come from behind him, from the "garden area up on the hill", and felt he was in the line of fire.
He and his wife immediately hit the dirt and covered their children. Newman did not see the shooter as he was looking at the president.
But it was obvious which direction the shots had come, and he was less than 15 feet from the head shot. Both identified the knoll as the source of shots that day.

The television interview with Jay Watson of WFAA-TV is the first to name the "Grassy Knoll", indicating the garden area up on the hill behind the Newmans.
One AP report Jay reads describes the sound of an automatic weapon, and although this gives no credence to the Agent Hickey accidental shooting, it certainly
demonstrates proof the "Oswald rifle" could not make the shots in that short a time span. Also, the WFAA news team was within 100 yards of the fatal shots.
They were rolling film at the time, and at one point Jay asked his associate to get that developed for broadcast ASAP, though it has never appeared anywhere.

Bill Newman | WFAA Interview (11/22 12:45p)

JW: Do you think the first gunshot came from behind you too?
BN: I think it came from the same location, apparently there back up on the knoll, what you call...

JW: For the benefit of the nomenclature of all you folks, you have gone out under the viaduct and on the left side
there is some grass, do you think the shot came from on top of the viaduct towards the President, is that correct?

BN: Yes sir, no, not on the viaduct itself but on top of the hill, on the mound of ground, there's a garden.

JW: How far away would you say that is from where the President was, a couple, 300 yards?

BN: Well, I have no idea, I didn't see where the gunshot came from, we were looking directly at the President, when he was hit and he's more
or less directly in front of us and we didn't realize what happened until we seen the side of his head, when the bullet hit him in the head.

Bill Newman | Shaw Trial Testimony

Q: Do you have any impression as to the direction from which the shots came?

A: Yes, sir. From the sound of the shots, the report of the rifle or whatever it was,
it sounded like they were coming directly behind from where I was standing.

Q: Now would you push the microphone aside and step down to the aerial photograph and identify that general area,
just the general area from which the sounds came.

A: In my opinion, the sounds of the shots sounded as if they had come from directly behind me (indicating).
I was standing near this light standard here, and I thought the shots were coming from back here, and apparently
everybody else did because they all ran in that direction.

Q: Start right from the beginning and just tell us as you recall.

A: Okay. My wife and myself were watching the parade come toward us. We had to more or less step off the curb to look up the street,
and as the car was approaching I heard two shots -- BOOM, BOOM -- and when the first shot was fired the President throwed his hands up
like this (demonstrating), and at the time what we thought had happened, somebody throwed firecrackers or something under the automobile
and he was protecting his face. At the time of the first shot Governor Connally turned in his seat in this manner (demonstrating),
to look back at the President I suppose, and then the second shot was fired, and then as the car approached us to where we were standing,
I could see Governor Connally leaning back in his seat holding his hands down like this (demonstrating), and at that time I could see blood on his shirt,
and that is when I actually realized that it appeared, you know, he had been shot.

The President all the time was staying in an upright position in his seat and it looked like he was looking into the crowd of people as
if he was trying to see someone. I caught a glimpse of his eyes, just looked like a cold stare, he just looked through me, and then when the car
was directly in front of me, well, that is when the third shot was fired and it hit him in the side of the head right above the ear and his ear come off...

"...I observed his ear flying off, and he turned just real white and then blood red, and the President, when the third shot hit him he
just went stiff like a board and fell over to his left in his wife's lap, and I told my wife, "That is it, hit the ground," and that is when
we hit the ground because I thought the shots were coming over our heads. And then I looked back and I saw Mrs. Kennedy jumping up on the back end
of the car and the Secret Service man or whoever it was into the car, and then they shot on off, took off.

Q: Approximately how far were you from the President when the third shot hit him?
A: I was the width of one lane, approximately 10 or 15 feet. I was standing on the curb's edge, edge of the curb. They were in the second lane.

Q: What was the reaction which you observed to the President's head on the third shot?

A: The only reaction that I can recall -- I don't recall whether his head went back or forward, but I do recall when the impact hit him that
he just stiffened and he went to the left, real hard to the left and into her lap, and --

Q: From your position, did he come toward you or away from you?
A: He went away from me.

Q: Did you give any statement to the Federal Bureau of Investigation?

A: Yes, sir, I did, and also to the Sheriff's Office after the assassination. A news reporter carried me to the FAA,
and then from that point went to the Sheriff's Office and I give a written statement.

Q: Were you called as a witness to the Warren Commission?
A: No, sir, I wasn't.

Francis Gayle Newman | Shaw Trial Testimony

Q: Did you hear the first of these noises?
A: Yes, sir. Now, do you want me to tell you where the President's car was when I first heard the noises?

Q: If you can.
A: The President's car was maybe 100 or 150 feet from us when I first heard the noise and the first two noises were close together, just seconds apart.

Q: Before I go into that, were you able to observe Governor Connally after the first report?
A: Yes, sir, I saw Governor Connally with the first shot seemed to turn a little bit like this. (Indicating.)

Q: You said you then heard a second report?
A: Yes, sir.

Q: Were you able to observe any reaction on the part of Governor Connally then?
A: Yes, sir, at the time of the second shot Governor Connally grabbed his stomach.

Q: Did he do anything else?
A: Well, his eyes just got real big and he sort of slumped down in the seat.

Q: Were you able to hear a third report?
A: Yes, sir, we heard a third report, it was a short time, not maybe 10 or 12 seconds after the first two shots.

Q: And what were you able to observe the effects of this shot then?

A: Yes, sir, that shot when it happened, the President's car was directly in front of us and it was about a lane's width between us,
it wasn't in the lane next to the curb it was in the middle lane, and at that time he was shot in the head right at his ear or right above his ear.

Q: Where did the noise sound to you to come from?
A: Sounded it was coming from directly behind us.

Q: You heard one noise that sounded like a firecracker and then a little later on you heard two more close together?
A: No, sir, I heard two close together and then one.

Q: I see. The first two were close together?
A: Yes, sir.

Q: And the second one was -- the third one was seconds later?
A: Yes, sir.

Q: Would you mind as best you can by slapping the side of the Judge's bench show us just how you heard those shots?
A: The first two (tap, tap) and then there was a pause, and I don't know exactly how many seconds, but then there was another shot.

Q: You would not pretend to know how many seconds between the second and third one?
A: Not between the second and third one, no, sir.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
On the Trail of the Assassins | Jim Garrison

His testimony was corroborated by Frances Newman, his wife. And by James Simmons, an employee of the Union Terminal Railway.
And by Mrs. Mary Moorman, a housewife from Dallas, and Mrs. Philip Willis. Richard Randolph Carr, confined to a wheelchair because
of a construction accident, nonetheless traveled from Dallas and testified that he had heard shots from the grassy knoll and had seen
a furrow caused by a bullet that missed the President’s limousine, cutting a path eastward through the grass in Dealey Plaza.

Carr then ran down the outside stairway of the building he was working on and happened to see four men running out of the Book Depository.
One walked away, but the other three climbed into a Nash Rambler parked facing north on Houston Street and drove off unimpeded against the traffic.
When he told his story to the F.B.I., Carr testified, the agents told him to keep his mouth shut.

Deputy Sheriff Roger Craig corroborated some of Carr’s testimony, repeating under oath that he had seen a Nash Rambler driven by a Latin man pull
up on Elm Street in front of the Depository and pick up a young man, whom he later took to be Lee Oswald, before speeding away.

Footnotes on the Hound | The Fourth Bullet

Jim Garrison:
"Years later two other important discoveries concerning the autopsy were made. The first was that during the autopsy Commander Humes
apparently found an additional bullet that he never acknowledged in his report. On the contrary, he told the Commission he did not
find any bullets. The bullet is mentioned in a receipt given to the Bethesda Naval Hospital’s commanding officer by the F.B.I. agents to
whom it was given. Released under the Freedom of Information Act to Mark Lane, the receipt says:

22 November 1963

From: Francis X. O’Neill, Jr., Agent FBI
James W. Sibert, Agent, FBI
To: Captain J.H. Stover, Jr., Commanding Officer, U.S. Naval Medical School, National Naval Medical Center, Bethesda, Maryland.

1. We hereby acknowledge receipt of a missile [sic] removed by Commander James J. Humes, MC, USN on this date.

(signed)
Francis X. O’Neill, Jr.
(signed)
James W. Sibert

The discovery of a fourth bullet during the autopsy necessarily meant that more than one shooter hit the President.
The second discovery came in August 1972, when Dr. Cyril Wecht, an eminent pathologist and the coroner of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
obtained a court order allowing him to examine President Kennedy’s brain at the National Archives. An examination of the brain,
which had been preserved in formalin, might have revealed from what direction, how many times, and where bullets had struck the President’s head."
Unfortunately, Dr. Wecht could not perform such an examination. The President’s brain, it was explained to him, had disappeared.

As a Bird on Wings

A major turn against the prosecution in the Clay Shaw trial was in the calling of New Orleans Police Officer Aloysius Habighorst.
Habighorst was one of the booking officers the night of Shaw's arrest, and the one that had typed the alias "Clay Bertrand", on his arrest card.
A defining moment in the trial came when the judge called for the jury's removal immediately after this witness was called to testify on this matter.

The jury could not hear this was routine procedure in the booking process that did not require the attorney to be present. This young officer had nothing to hide.
He had handled the card as a means of recording the defendant's answer in a standard procedure, asking standard questions, like he had done hundreds of times before.

Habighorst said that when he asked the questions of Shaw that at one point the defendant got up to go the wash basin to clean the ink from his hands.
The officer remembered attorney Wegmann was in and out of the room, and may not have been present while all the information was being solicited.
Under cross examination he went further to say that Wegmann (Shaw's attorney) was in the doorway of the room while he asked the question on the back of the card.

Questions of a previous officer, Captain Curole, keeping the defendant's attorney out of the room played a key role in the Judge's decision to not allow Habighorst.
The prosecution argued these were routine questions asked as general procedure with no implication of guilt at the time, and often times done without the attorney present.
But the jury heard none of it and Judge said he wouldn't believe it if they did. Yet along with all the other Shaw vs Bertrand evidence it continues to remain solid.
It could have been a turning in pin pointing Shaw's direct involvement in the assassination. Absolute proof of Bertrand being Shaw leads to some network of conspiracy.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Court's Ruling on Officer Aloysius Habighorst

THE COURT: Do you wish to be heard, Mr. Alcock?

MR. ALCOCK: Yes, I do. On that particular point, Your Honor, I think if one thing is clear in this record, it is that this Defendant at his own request
had the presence of counsel with him and advice as to his Constitutional rights. The record clearly reflects that Mr. Panzeca arrived and conferred with him,
Mr. Wegmann arrived and conferred with him, they went together to the Central Lockup.

There was no interrogation of this Defendant as to his innocence or guilt or implication or non implication into the alleged crime in the B of I room,
this is merely a booking procedure, and I think it is clearly analogous to a situation where in the booking process a person's clothes are searched or a
person is searched to take possible weapons of self destruction from the prisoner, and the courts have consistently held that these are not violative of the
Constitutional right relative to search and seizure, and I think that is clearly analogous here.

This is strictly a procedural proposition, something that is done with every prisoner that is brought in, and there was no interrogation, as Miranda considers
interrogation about the elements of the crime that the person is charged with. I think this is a clear exception.

THE COURT: I am going to sustain the objection of the Defense for the following reasons:

The District Attorney's Office and its associates, including assistants and investigators, are not herewith conforming to their charge of violating
any law or any instructions, in other words, their skirts are very, very clean. However, when we get to Captain Curole, who probably does not know about the Escobedo
case, it appears to me that Captain Curole's instructions to the Defendant Mr. Shaw certainly are violative of the Supreme court decision in the Escobedo (case)
where he was taken in a cubbyhole or private place to be questioned, even though his attorney was banging at the door to be let in. Now, it may not be
as drastic as the Escobedo case, but no police officer has a right to tell an attorney he cannot be with his client at any time no matter what he is supposed to do.

MR. ALCOCK: Your Honor --
THE COURT: Now let me finish. Don't get excited.

MR. ALCOCK: I hope I am going to be given --

THE COURT: Let me finish what I am going to say, Officer Habighorst violated in spirit and in effect the Miranda decision, because if he asked questions and
we don't have to go into whether he did or did not, because even if he did it is inadmissible because he did not forewarn Mr. Shaw of his right to
remain silent on an inculpatory statement such as do you have an alias, so even if Officer Habighorst is telling the truth about what he did testify to --
and I doubt it very, seriously from all the circumstances --

MR. ALCOCK: Your Honor!

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
On the Trail of the Assassins | Jim Garrison

"To provide a dramatic finale, we had scheduled as our final witness New Orleans Police Officer Aloysius Habighorst.
He was the police desk officer who booked Clay Shaw after we arrested him. It will be recalled that Habighorst routinely asked Shaw if he had any alias,
and Shaw, apparently greatly shaken by his arrest, replied, “Clay Bertrand.” This, of course, was one of the most important pieces of evidence in our case
because it came from Shaw himself and directly linked him with the call to Dean Andrews about representing Lee Oswald in Dallas.

We instructed the court attaché to call Officer Habighorst. But before Habighorst could take the stand, Judge Haggerty suddenly ordered the jury removed from the court.
Then he informed Jim Alcock, who was questioning at the time, that he was going to rule inadmissible the fingerprint card, signed by Shaw, on which
“Clay Bertrand” had been typed in the space designated for “alias.” Haggerty went on to say that he would not believe whatever Officer Habighorst said, anyway.
Alcock, angered and flushed, leaped to his feet and protested the judge’s ruling and his incredible comment about Habighorst. Haggerty replied that Shaw had been
deprived of a constitutional right at the central police lockup when he was asked—without a lawyer being present—whether or not he had an alias.

From time immemorial, this had been standard booking procedure at the central lockup. We knew that there was no constitutional requirement that an attorney be
present for routine questions at booking. That was not the law then, and it is not the law even today. But Judge Haggerty was changing the law before our eyes.
Alcock announced in frustration that he would ask for writs from the Louisiana Supreme Court, but I knew that was a futile gesture. In those days appellate courts in
Louisiana never granted such writs in an ongoing trial.

On that solemn note the presentation of the state’s case against Clay Shaw essentially ended. As we walked out of the courtroom for the break before the defense
presented its case, I glanced out through the huge windows, which were open for a change. A feeling of sadness passed over me. I was envisioning our case,
like a giant bird with its great wings flapping slowly, sailing through the open windows off into the blue."