Oswald in New Orleans by Harold Weisberg

Author:Harold Weisberg
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Published: 1967-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

10. DR. JEKYLL—OR MR. HYDE— OR BOTH?

When you have turned 50, are unmarried and own so much property you feel you must resign an excellent income and an important and respected position to look after it, and if you are interested in the arts, what plans do you make and with what do you surround yourself?

Clay Shaw retired from the managership of the International Trade Mart at about the time interest in the assassination and its official “solution” began to awaken, after publication of Whitewash, which for the first time brought the strange career, activities and disappearance of “Clay Bertrand” to public attention, and long after it had been circulated through most of the better-known publishing houses. If it was with Whitewash as it was with Whitewash II, copies were in federal hands before publication.

When Shaw was in the news in March 1967, the London Daily Mail of March 17 carried a notice saying he had recently been in London, where he planned to move, and had expressed interest in buying the rights to plays he intended to produce there.

Shaw knew about Garrison’s investigation not later than December 1966, possibly during November. After his March 1 arrest and release, he held a press conference in the office of his lawyers. The account of it in the Times-Picayune quotes him as saying “that he was questioned by Garrison’s office about Christmastime last year when he was asked to answer questions about Oswald distributing leaflets in front of the old International Trade Mart.” He declined to say what he had been asked about himself. He did say, when asked if he knew any anti-Castro Cubans, “No, I have not known any of them.”

Shaw ended his successful career at an early age. He retired in the prime of life, full of vigor and interests. His career meant much to him. He described himself as a “dreamer” and “idealist” because of his yearning to hinder communism and help the needy countries by trade, by making available to them the things they needed that this country can supply, particularly through the port of New Orleans. What happened in a year and a half to change his plans so radically, to impel him abruptly to pull up his stakes, forgetting the beauty and wealth in New Orleans—even to leave the country? The timing also is provocative. In addition to the New Orleans investigation, on which the FBI kept an eye from its beginning, and the publicizing of the career of “Clay Bertrand,” aroused national interest in thè assassination and dissatisfaction with the Report were producing demands for a new investigation.

Any new investigation inevitably meant the first real investigation of “Clay Bertrand.” There was no reason for Clay Shaw to anticipate this with pleasure.

The remarkable coincidence of Attorney General Clark’s extraordinary clean-bill-of-health statement, made at precisely the moment Shaw was in distress, suggests federal interest in him. The fact is, propriety demanded the Attorney General make no comment; it is improper for him to intrude into state affairs.

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