At the Duquesne JFK conference, Joan Mellen, a professor at Temple University and author of “Farewell to Justice,” sings the praises of the New Orleans District Attorney as depicted in Oliver Stone’s “JFK.”
“If it hadn’t been for Jim Garrison there would have been no Oliver Stone or ‘JFK,’ and if there was no ‘JFK,’ there would be no JFK Assassination Records Act,” Mellen said. “And if there was no JFK Records Collection at the National Archives, none of the books written about the Kennedy presidency in the past 20 years could have been written,” Mellen said.
Garrison’s charge that businessman Clay Shaw was involved in JFK’s assassination is weak in my opinion. Nonetheless, Mellen’s claim about who deserves credit for the new JFK historical record is correct.
Credit must go to Stone’s movie and the power of “JFK” is attributable to his glorification of Garrison.
But that doesn’t mean Garrison was right about Shaw. Several credible witnesses said they had seen Shaw with Oswald in Clinton, Louisiana, which Shaw denied. Garrison’s case depended on other witnesses who were not so reliable, to put it mildly. Shaw was swiftly acquitted in 1969.
During the trial, Shaw denied working for the CIA under oath.
Mellen notes that the latter claim is now in doubt. According to a CIA document written by a senior CIA historian in 1992, the memo says that Shaw was “a highly paid contract source” for the CIA.
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See also:
“What happened in New Orleans” (JFK Facts, October 12, 2013)
I believe that you’ll find that the “CIA proprietary commercial operations in foreign countries” had everything to do with Permindex, CMC, the Trade Marts, and eventually with the Rockefellers and the WTC.
Barry Seal was “in tight” with Clay Shaw and was one of the tenants in Shaw’s Trade Mart…..
Jim Garrison did an incredible job considering what was actually known at the time.
Joan Mellen has been ahead of the curve. In January, 2007, despite not knowing that George Bush’s oil exploration partner, foreign affairs and political advisor, Thomas J. Devine was a schoolmate of Joseph and Peter Dryer at a small private Rochester K-12 school prior to the Dryer brothers spending their final three prep school years at Choate Academy, and also not knowing that Devine was one of 16 Sigma Chi fraternity housemates from 1944 to 1948, along with Priscilla Johnson’s CIA contact, Garry Coit, Joan Mellen gave a presentation including this.:
http://www.jfkassassinationforum.com/index.php/topic,9126.msg268265.html#msg268265
“……There are powerful reasons why George H. W. Bush was motivated to invoke the Warren Report, even, amazingly, to refer to a “conspiracy theorist,” as if that designation would at once banish some truths he does not want available. Only two degrees of separation separate George H. W. Bush from Oswald himself……This CIA document reveals that Thomas Devine had informed George Bush of a CIA project with the cryptonym WUBRINY/LPDICTUM. It involved CIA proprietary commercial operations in foreign countries.”
Great to hear/see you again!
There is absolutely no evidence that Clay Shaw was guilty of anything except being a successful gay man. For that Jim Garrison financially ruined him.
Who was the Clay Bertrand that hired Dean Andrews to do legal work for Oswald in the summer of 1963? According to WC, Andrews was sought after by the same mystery man the weekend of the assassination to represent Oswald. If Oswald was a loner why would someone pay Andrews to represent him?
Photon: study the individuals listed on a document found in Shaw’s possession.
45 minutes to acquit- because they needed a bite to eat before taking a vote.
If I remember correctly, the jurors were interviewed after the trial, and the impression they gave was that they felt that Garrison had showed their was a conspiracy to murder JFK, but that he had not connected Clay Shaw to it.
He perjured himself about never working for the CIA. Just as Dulles mentioned assets would do to WC members.
He never “worked for” the CIA.
He was debriefed by the Domestic Contact Service.
That’s a good point about the Records Act.
If it wasnt for the film, JFK, I have no doubt that the lone nutter theorists would be posting here :
“There is absolutely no evidence that the CIA sponsored the DRE”
and , no doubt, they would go on :
“There is absolutely no evidence that George Joannides, liasion to the HSCA, was the case officer for the DRE”
Shaw’s claim isn’t in doubt; it has been decisively disproven. Joan is great.