On March 26, 1971, Perry Russo was interviewed by Edward Wegmann, William Gurvich and Sal Panzeca. Wegmann and Panzeca were part of Clay Shaw's legal team; Gurvich had once worked for Garrison but left the investigation in June 1967 when he realized the whole thing was ridiculous.
It's a long transcript - some 95 pages covering a variety of topics. It was the second interview they conducted with Russo; the first being on January 29, 1971 and that transcript is 60 pages. A third interview was in April.
To give this all context, note that Judge Christenberry held three days of hearings, regarding the perjury charges against Clay Shaw, from January 25th to January 27th, 1971. Ultimately, he granted a permanent injunction against further prosecution of Clay Shaw.
I don't know if anybody has published these transcripts - but this excerpt is explosive - and it shows you how Sciambra started to implant a false memory into Russo.
Here is part of the transcript:
It's an incredible story. Russo could only really remember seeing Shaw once - at the Nashville Wharf when Kennedy came to speak in 1962. His identification of Shaw at David Ferrie's service station is questionable, to say the least.
Russo is very clear that he "could have figured out the plot" just from the questions that were asked by Sciambra. He told Russo that it was very important to link Ferrie and Shaw: "It was important that these two be linked together." And, Sciambra was the one who talked about a plot: "If you would be around Sciambra long enough you could find out exactly who murdered who and where and how and all that."
Wegmann also says that Matt Herron confirmed to him that Russo had not talked about an assassination meeting in Baton Rouge, when he accompanied James Phelan - remember we published a Tom Bethell memo yesterday saying that Herron confirmed that in 1967.