TOM ROSSLEY SAID:
Attorney General Ramsey Clark made a public statement that Clay Shaw had already been investigated/cleared by the Warren Commission.
The Warren Commission never mentioned Clay Shaw in their Report OR their 26 volumes.
JOHN CANAL SAID:
I have no doubt that Clark made such a statement, but did his statement appear in a newspaper article? IOW, is there something to confirm what he said? Otherwise, it's just hearsay.
ANTHONY MARSH SAID:
I suggest that WC defenders read the whole damn article [that appeared in The New York Times in March of 1967, referenced by Vincent Bugliosi in the quote below]. Even that reporter and many other reporters make the point that it's extremely curious that Clay Shaw should have been investigated about the Kennedy assassination back in Nov-Dec 1963. On what basis? What connection?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
The FBI almost certainly did NOT investigate Clay Shaw in late 1963. Ramsey Clark was undoubtedly confusing the name Clay Bertrand with Clay Shaw.
Dean Andrews testified about the make-believe person named "Clay Bertrand" in his Warren Commission testimony. And, as author Vincent Bugliosi explains in his book "Reclaiming History", Ramsey Clark probably thought that "Bertrand" and Shaw were the same person.
Here's the relevant passage from Bugliosi's book:
"The issue of whether Clay Bertrand was Clay Shaw initially confounded law enforcement to the point where Acting Attorney General Ramsey Clark told the New York Times on March 2, 1967, that Shaw “was involved in an FBI investigation in the New Orleans area in November and December of 1963” concerning the Kennedy assassination, but the FBI had found “no connection” between Shaw and the assassination (New York Times, March 3, 1967, p.22).
The reason Clark said what he did is that on the morning of March 2, 1967, Cartha “Deke” DeLoach, the number-three man at the FBI, had told him over the phone that “Shaw’s name had come up in our investigation [of the assassination] in December, 1963.”
DeLoach’s memo of the conversation says that “I stated [to Clark] we had attempted to ascertain the identity of an individual by the name of Clay Bertrand, but to no avail. I mentioned it had been alleged that this was an alias used by Shaw. I stated also that we had conducted considerable investigation regarding a man whose name was [Dean] Andrews.”
Since no evidence has ever surfaced (other than DeLoach’s assertion), documentary or any other kind, that the FBI investigated Shaw in 1963 for Kennedy’s assassination, and since no evidence has ever surfaced that anyone (other than Perry Russo four years later in 1967) suspected Shaw in 1963 of being involved in the assassination, it seems very clear that DeLoach was in error in what he told Clark.
How did the error come about? An internal FBI memo of March 2, 1967, the same day DeLoach spoke to Clark, says that “on February 24, 1967, we received information from two sources that Clay Shaw reportedly is identical with an individual by the name of Clay Bertrand, who allegedly was in contact with Dean Andrews.” .... (Andrews had told the FBI and Secret Service this earlier, on November 25.)
The New York Times said that “an examination of papers in the archives...shows that the FBI did inquire into the activities of a man named ‘Clay Bertrand.’ ”
Since an unidentified Justice Department official told the New York Times on the evening of March 2, 1967, that the FBI actually believed Clay Bertrand was Clay Shaw, and that this was the basis for Clark’s statement to the paper earlier in the day, the Times concluded that the FBI, when they were investigating Clay Bertrand, thought they were “inquiring into the activities of Mr. Shaw.”
The Times said that “usually well-informed Government sources...said that to the best of their knowledge the FBI had not conducted an investigation of Clay Shaw.” (New York Times, March 3, 1967, p.22)" -- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 875 of "Reclaiming History" (Endnotes)
David Von Pein
September 16, 2009
