You can read Part One about Fred Leemans here. How do conspiracy books treat Fred Leemans? James DiEugenio, published the Leemans affidavit of January 1969 [in which he recanted] in his book, Destiny Betrayed, and wrote the following: (page 241) The source for footnotes 92,93 and 94 is the July-August 1977 issue of Probe Magazine, and specifically page 18. Since not all the issues of Probe are online, and few libraries have them, it makes it hard to check DiEugenio's sources. Fortunately, I was able to find page 18 in the John Armstrong Collection. Here it is: DiEugenio's logic goes like this: Fred Leemans was interviewed on Walter Sheridan's special on NBC which attacked Garrison. Sheridan's lawyer was Edward Baldwin. And, Edward Baldwin's law partner wrote a letter to the CIA requesting that they "place my name on their referral list of qualified attorneys in this area." Therefore, the CIA is there to assist "any witness they could pry loose from Garrison." Here is actual letter Quaid sent to the CIA: The CIA wrote back to Quaid: The CIA then investigated James Quaid. Here is another relevant CIA document: All of this raises serious questions about Mr. James Quaid. Perhaps he was briefly associated with Baldwin, and perhaps he had some leftover letterhead. But, his status, at the time he wrote that letter, is very unclear. And, there is no evidence to support the DiEugenio claim that "Quaid had heard about this easy employment from his law partner Ed Baldwin." Nor is there any evidence that Baldwin was on any such referral panel. But, here is something interesting. Quaid was permanently disbarred in 2003: Two reprimands in 1970 and a conviction for a felony burglary charge - and then finally permanent disbarment. Perhaps the CIA was right that his letter was a provocation. Certainly, his letter does not prove any of DiEugenio's assertions. Now on to DiEugenio's other piece of evidence - a memo referring to Lloyd Cobb, who was Clay Shaw's boss at the International Trade Mart in New Orleans. Cobb received a "Provisional Security Approval on 19 June 1967 to permit contact and assessment of COBB in connection with his use on a Cleared Attorneys' Panel for the Office of General Counsel." We do not know if Cobb was approved or not. Nor do we know why his services were required. Here is what the OGC does: OGC provides advice and guidance to officers and employees within the CIA related to U.S. intelligence activities. OGC is also responsible for advising the Director of the CIA on all legal matters relating to her role as head of CIA. OGC handles a wide variety of legal issues, including both civil and criminal litigation, foreign intelligence and counterintelligence activities, counterterrorism, counternarcotics, nonproliferation and arms control, personnel, and security matters, contracting and much more. This article in the New York Times provides some clues: The C.I.A.'s office of general counsel keeps a list of ''cleared'' lawyers for employees. ''But being on the C.I.A.'s list of cleared attorneys creates a potential conflict of interest for lawyers,'' Ms. Brookner writes. ''It gives an attorney an opening to a new client base, but may jeopardize the lawyer's willingness to litigate zealously against the agency.'' It's not surprising that the CIA does have a list of "cleared" lawyers for their employees. Here is a report from the GAO, lINTELLIGENCE AGENCIES: Personnel Practices at CIA, NSA, and DIA Compared With Those of Other Agencies: Intelligence officials have also dealt with employee attorneys with security clearances in EEO cases. While NSA and DIA will not initiate security clearance actions solely for the purpose of employee representation, CIA officials said they maintain a list of cleared attorneys for their employees, and the agency will process a clearance for an employee attorney. To date, all of the agencies have been able to work with employee attorneys to conduct EEOC hearings while still protecting national security information. James DiEugenio wants you to believe that the CIA helped Clay Shaw, William Gurvich, Walter Sheridan, and other people charged in the case. But none of them were CIA employees or officers. And Lloyd Cobb did not represent anybody of interest in the Garrison investigation. There is absolutely no evidence that the CIA assisted in the provision of legal services to any of these people. And there is no evidence that Clay Shaw's attorneys knew about any "cleared" panel of attorneys - and as my book shows in the conclusion - Shaw received very little help from either the FBI or the CIA. One last piece of evidence. DiEugenio claims that witnesses like Gordon Novel were paid by the CIA, In fact, I have blogged about this here. In an answer to a legal interrogatory, Gordon Novel said that “he understood” his two early lawyers were “clandestinely remunerated by a party of parties unknown to me.” The fees were $1,633 each - and, of course, Novel never said the fees were paid by the CIA. Elmer Gertz, Novel’s lawyer for his libel action, clarified this further: There is no evidence that his lawyers were even paid.

Fred Leemans came forward during the Garrison investigation with an incredible story. Here is his statement from May 5, 1967. So, Fred Leemans operated a Turkish bath and Clay Shaw used to visit using the name Clay Bertrand. Occasionally he would be in the company of man called "Lee" who was small, slender, described as a beatnik, and had a beard, Might that have been Oswald? It fits the description of Oswald given by Perry Russo. In addition, they were accompanied a few times with some "Latins." Leemans sold the Baths to John Emrold, and here is his statement from May 23, 1967: Here is that article that mentioned the Canal Street Baths, New Orleans Times-Picayune, October 11, 1961: The Canal Street Baths were closed by the police in 1963, New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 20, 1963; Fred Leemans then had a change of heart and called Irvin Dymond, Clay Shaw's trial attorney. Here is Dymond's note on what happened: Leemans did write Jim Garrison a letter, and here it is, dated May 30 1967: NBC aired its special "The JFK Conspiracy: The Case of Jim Garrison" on June 19. 1967. Fred Leemans comes on at about the 49-minute mark. Here is a transcript (Leemans starts at page 49): Assistant District Attorney Robert Lee then signed an affidavit telling his side of the story and denying that Leemans had been bribed. In Lee's version, Leemans called him to talk about Clay Shaw, rather than the way around. Lee says he prepared Leeman's written statement after interviewing him; and then he says that his story was taken down by Lorraine Schuler. There was increasing pressure on Leemans. Here is a note to Irvin Dymond from his secretary, December 10, 1968. And, in January 1969, Leemans changed his story back and signed an affidavit for Garrison: After the Clay Shaw trial, author James Kirkwood interviewed Irvin Dymond, and he mentioned Fred Leemans: "Fred Leemans, as I ... He ran a Turkish bath establishment on Canal Street. Here, back in 1963. The first that I knew of Fred Leemans was when he came here to my office, oh it must have been a year and a half ago, told me that he had been back, had given a statement to Garrison. Let's see, I've forgotten whether it was to Garrison personally . . . Charlie Ward or somebody else. To the effect that during 1963 Clay Shaw and Lee Harvey Oswald frequently visited his Turkish bath together. He told me that - very veiled, indefinite promises of reward had been made to him by the representatives of the D.A.'s office. He later learned that I had defended his daughter, a girl by the name of Colleen Leemans, and decided to come in and made a clean breast of it. And tell me that his statement to the D.A.s office was untrue. I took an affidavit from him to that effect. For about the next year, I received intermittent phone calls from Leemans. Oh, maybe one every four months. Each one with a hint that he wanted money. He left a couple of messages here that he was at the end of his rope, his place was about to be foreclosed, his wife was sick, and all kinds of stuff. Needless to say, I didn't offer him any money. I didn't offer anybody any money, in this case, or in any other case, for that matter. Well the next I heard, Fred Leemans had gone back to the D.A.'s office, refuted the affidavit that he had given me, reinstated his original claims that Shaw and Oswald had frequented the Turkish bath." There you have it. The good, the bad and the ugly. So what really happened? Well, since I don't believe Shaw went to the baths with Lee Harvey Oswald, and since I don't believe he used the name Clay Bertrand, I do believe that Garrison's office did use leading questions to get the information they needed. But Leemans was desperate for cash - any side that gave him money would have been ok with him. Garrison probably dithered in his financial support, and Leemans went to Dymond. After the TV cameras left town, I wouldn't be surprised if Garrison did put pressure on Leemans - Al Beauboeuf told me about the pressure they put on him to change his testimony that he had been offered a bribe. Garrison's men followed him around town and made it hard for him to get a job. Leemans probably felt the best way to co-exist in New Orleans was to recant and say he had not been bribed. Part Two will look at how conspiracy authors treat Fred Leemans.

James DiEugenio writes in his book, Destiny Betrayed, that one of Clay Shaw's secretaries saw David Ferrie in his office. Here is what he wrote: (page 209) Here is the underlying FBI document (redacted unfortunately - unredacted courtesy of Malcolm Blunt: So, let me get this straight. Orvie Aucoin, who was a news cameraman, told informant 1213-S that Aura Lee, in front of various people, had said she had seen Ferrie go into Shaw's office several times. None of these people contacted Garrison's office with this important information. And, Aura Lee did not come forward herself. So, was "Aura Lee" really Clay Shaw's secretary? We have the trial testimony of Miss Goldie Moore, who was actually Shaw's secretary for 19 years until he retired in 1965, Miss Moore never saw Clay Shaw with Lee Harvey Oswald: And, Miss Moore never saw David Ferrie at the International Trade Mart: And Miss Moore also testified that she never heard Shaw use the pseudonym Bertrand. So, now we know that "Aura Lee" was not Shaw's secretary - but, of course, she could have filled in during a holiday, no? Donald Carpenter, in his magisterial biography of Clay Shaw, Man of a Million Fragments: the true story of Clay Shaw, identified the real Aura Lee - and her name is Aurelie Alost. And she worked for the Italian State Tourist Office, which was located in the International Trade Mart. New Orleans Times-Picayune, November 22, 1958 Aurelie Alost left her job as manager of the Italian Tourist Office in 1963. New Orleans Times-Picayune, March 29, 1963 Ms. Alost then went to work in one of the hospitals in New Orleans. There was some communication between Shaw and Alost. Carpenter notes that in 1957 Shaw wrote a letter to Lee thanking her for her work on the United Fund drive. In 1960, Alost wrote Shaw a letter of thanks for "the courtesy he had shown to an out-of-town guest of her office." (page 212) Alost never came forward with any information about David Ferrie, and no one has ever interviewed her. She probably had nothing to say. You'd never know any of the above information by just reading Destiny Betrayed.

We've already blogged on Breck Wall and his trip to Galveston the weekend of the assassination. Jack Ruby called Breck Wall on Saturday night, November 23rd, to talk about his problems with the American Guild of Variety Artists (AGVA). Garrison implies that Breck Wall gave the order to Ruby to kill Oswald, and his notation is from 1977. The notation on the upper right reads as follows: "8/3/77 Note: within 1 hour after DF's [David Ferrie] check-in here, RUBY makes his last l/d call for the night, calling BRECK WALL who has already arrived in GALVESTON. Next A.M. - w/o any more l/d calls - RUBY goes to police HQ + kills Oswald." On the bottom part of the memo is more nonsense. "An Observation on an American Success Story." I don't know if jointly owning a filling station (which only lasted about ten months) is an example of "subsequent upward mobility." But to Garrison this all ties together into something suspicious. I covered Ferrie's trip to Houston and Galveston here, and here. In March 1967 Garrison gave an interview to Lawrence Schiller who was then taking photographs for Life Magazine. I don't have the document, but here is a description in the Peter Vea index. The Schiller document is at the Assassination Archives and Research Center (AARC) which is now closed. If anybody has this document please let me know.

Jim Garrison received this anonymous letter in May 1968: It reads: Dear Sir: Concerning: Woodrow Hardy 910 S. Oregon Avenue Tampa Florida Phone 254-5251 I'm sending you this information in case it may be of help to you on the Clay Shaw trial. I met Mr. Hardy at a New Year's Eve party. During our conversation he told me was a private contractor and remodeled homes. He moved here from New Orleans, and told me he remodeled Clay Shaw's home there. He said at the time he saw many Cuban type men visit there and that one man in particular (the name I have forgotten), who denied to you that he knew Shaw, but stood outside the Shaw residence handing out papers and could not but help know Shaw. It may help your case if you contacted Mr. Hardy. It sounds like he is referring to Oswald - perhaps handing out flyers outside the Trade Mart? But, is he saying that he saw Oswald at Shaw's home. It's a very tenuous lead. But, Garrison noted that Hardy should be interviewed. And he added Thornley to the top of the memo - perhaps Hardy saw the second Oswald. The lead was never followed-up, and when Garrison sent the HSCA a list of his leads he included Hardy: The last two lines read: "By that time, Kerry Thornley had become a resident of Tampa). Another lead long over-due for a follow through." Propinquity is always on Garrison's mind. However, the conspiracy books think that Hardy is evidence that Shaw knew Ferrie, Oswald, and perhaps even Emilio Santana. James DiEugenio writes in Destiny Betrayed that: (page 216) "Garrison did get an anonymous letter about Hardy, It said that Hardy had seen many Cubans visiting Shaw. Including Emilio Santana, the man with Sergio Arcacha Smith and Rose Cheramie on the way to Dallas four days before the assassination. But Garrison could not follow up on the letter." DiEugenio doesn't even source this to the anonymous letter which is in the Garrison papers at the National Archives. Instead he sources it to Joan Mellen. Mellen does say that Garrison could not follow up on the lead (page 95), but does not say why. But, she adds to the story from an interview she did with Sam Exnicios, who was supposedly Hardy's lawyer. Exnicios told Mellen in 2002 that Hardy told him he found Shaw, Ferrie, and Oswald deep in conversation in the summer of 1963 (page 94). Mellen says that Hardy feared for his life. But is there confirmation for the above allegation? Mellen writes that "The investigation drew closer to Woodrow Hardy: Garrison interviewed Mrs. Esther Stein, who had worked at Shaw's house when Oswald visited, and chatted with a carpenter." (page 320) Here is the memo about the carpenter: I find the specificity hard to swallow. He supposedly saw Oswald 13 years earlier when he was just 16 years old? And, Clark never came forward - he only said something after Mrs. Esther Stein said something. But Mellen thinks this corroborates the Woodrow Hardy story.

Jim Garrison was convinced that Kerry Thornley was the second Oswald. Here is a memo regarding an interview with yet another felon about Oswald and Ruby. You can see the Garrison notations throughout the document, and right at the top right of the first page, there is a checkmark next to Thornley. The Garrison notation on the left margin of the first page reads as follows: Note: In '63, LO leaves NO on Sept. 24th THORLEY [sic] arrives back in NO (after visiting Mexico) at the end of his 1 [?] month trip. [^ in early September] Passage through Dallas would have been reasonable. And, of course, Oswald was hanging out with Ruby at the "hangout for homosexuals." Now, that sounds like Thornley! Or Oswald? Or the second Oswald? Remember that Garrison believed that Thornley, while passing through Dallas, posed for the backyard photograph of Oswald.

James DiEugenio, in his book Destiny Betrayed, writes that "Dr. Jacob Hety knew a gay man named Greg Donnelly. Donnelly had known Shaw for many years, and he had referred to him as Clay Bertrand." (page 387) His reference is a memo from February 14, 1968: DiEugenio gets the name wrong - It is Dr. Kety, not Dr. Hety. Of course, DiEugenio doesn't really give you the full flavor of what Dr. Kety said in the interview. When talking about Clay Shaw, Sanders noted that "he seemed confused at this point." It appears that Kety really meant Clay Le Verne [Clay Shaw's middle name was Lavergne], and not Clay Bertrand. DiEugenio adds certainty to a claim that is not really being made. So, what happened with this lead? Well, here is an excerpt from a 'new leads' memo written after the Shaw trial. The lead is still there - to be followed up more than a year later. I guess it didn't appear to be that urgent. And no mention of Bertrand. There are no further memos regarding Greg Donnelly. As mentioned in the memo above, Kety was related to Harold Weisberg, and is mentioned in his book Oswald in New Orleans: (page 395) Did Dr. Kety tell Weisberg about Donnelly and Shaw? Did he not mention Bertrand? Did nobody ask Weisberg about this lead? Or, were they not speaking? The FBI’s extensive coverage of Marcello turned up an interesting telegram:

Clay Shaw's maid, Virginia Johnson, worked for him for eight years. Did she perhaps know that he was Clay Bertrand? Did she see mail at Shaw's residence addressed to Clay Bertrand? James DiEugenio, in his book Destiny Betrayed, writes that "Virginia Johnson had been Shaw's maid for several years, until 1965. A man who stayed with Shaw on several occasions told her that Shaw had used the name Bertrand." (page 387) His source is a memo dated March 22, 1967. Here is that memo: Virginia Johnson refers to Mr. Formadol - who is really William Formyduval - one of Clay Shaw's closest friends. While she heard the name Bertrand from Formyduval, the memo states that "When asked if Mr. Formadol referred to Mr. Shaw as Bertrand, she stated no, but she heard the name from him." Further, "Officer Navarre was unable to pin her down on any specific point in reference to the name "Bertrand." She also said she did not see Lee Harvey Oswald or David Ferrie at Shaw's apartment, and that she made the black hood for his Mardi Gras costume. Notice there was a lot of kidding at the fabric shop about the case. Mrs. Johnson was interviewed a second time in January, 1968: The underline above regarding Jack Spencer had a notation on the side (unfortunately cut off in this version of the document) that says "Kerry Thornley's landlord at time of the assassination." Maybe that is important because of propinquity? Again, she reiterated that she had seen no mail addressed to Clay Bertrand. This time, she said that "she had never heard the name Bertrand." It's interesting that she notes the gossip going on at the fabric store. It's right in line with thinking that New Orleans was a hotbed of rumors and gossip. At the end of the memo, it appears that Gary Sanders is almost anxious to see if they could get Shaw on an illegal tax deduction. Why not? They had nothing else! But wait, there's more. Joan Mellen, in her book, And Justice For All, add this juicy tidbit: (page 119) Now, where did Mellen get this from? Johnson said nothing about this in the above two memos. Well, she got it from two sources. First, this letter sent to Jim Garrison: Garrison's notation is from 1977 - and indeed he sent this lead off to the HSCA, He wrote: "NOTE: Long shot, but strong if it comes thru. Morgan should be contacted so that the lead can be followed up. JG P.S. The writer of this letter took the trouble to get Penn Jones to pass it on to me to be sure we'd get it. Doesn't sound like a crackpot letter." And, indeed here is an excerpt from a leads memo that Garrison sent to the HSCA on September 12, 1977: Oops, he farmed it out to his staff and they didn't follow through! I wonder whether the HSCA followed-up this lead. Mellen's other source is an internal Life Magazine memo: This is Mellen's source? Does this look like proof that Virginia Johnson revealed there had been a killing in Clay Shaw's house? How many readers would actually check Mellen's sources?

Right at the end of the Clay Shaw trial, two surprise witnesses came forward for the prosecution. Nicholas and Mathilda Tadin took the stand on February 27, 1969. They had just come forward that very day with their story. New Orleans Times-Picayune, February 28, 1969 They testified that their oldest son, who was sixteen in 1964, took flying lessons from David Ferrie. They claimed to have seen Ferrie at the airport with Clay Shaw. Here is some testimony from Nicholas Tadin: Note the dialogue - Tadin says when seeing Clay Shaw - "Oh, Christ, look at this." His wife replied, "what is the matter?" And, Mr. Tadin then said, "Clay Shaw over there." As Vincent Bugliosi notes in his book, Reclaiming History: "In 1964, Clay Shaw was not a suspect in the Kennedy assassination and was not a controversial figure in any way. In an obvious slip, Tadin was talking as if he had seen Shaw with Ferrie at some time after he became a suspect in the assassination. If Tadin were telling the truth about seeing Shaw with Ferrie, there was nothing about Shaw in 1964 that could reasonable have caused Tadin to say to his wife, "Oh, Christ, look at this." New Orleans States-Item, February 28, 1969 Mr. Tadin had also seen Clay Shaw riding around town in his Thunderbird. The only problem is that Shaw's Thunderbird was black. Mrs. Tadin took the stand after her husband, and she commented to her husband after seeing Clay Shaw at the airport. James Kirkwood was immediately suspicious about the Tadin's son, who was supposedly taking flying lessons from David Ferrie (page 418 in American Grotesque). Their son was deaf, and it was highly unusual in 1964 for deaf people to pilot planes. Not so much today - there is even a deaf pilots association. To show how rare it was, check out this story from the Brattleboro Reformer of May 23, 1964: This is from the Austin American of September 17, 1964: And yet, it was true. Here is a picture of Noel Tadin with David Ferrie in the Clarion Herald on August 26, 1965: However, there are some real issues with the testimony of Mr. and Mrs. Tadin. First, here is the statement that Mrs. Tadin gave to the D.A.'s office earlier that day: Now. how would Mr. Tadin know in 1964 that Clay Shaw was a "notorious degenerate?" Secondly, Nicholas Tadin said he decided to testify because he was angry that Clay Shaw denied knowing David Ferrie. So, why did the Tadins only speak out at the end of the Clay Shaw trial? Why did they wait so long? Nicholas Tadin admitted that he had known about Clay Shaw's denial that he knew David Ferrie two years earlier, following the preliminary hearing. Ok, so they didn't want to get involved in 1967, So why now? Well, right after the trial, Irvin Dymond, Edward Wegmann and Clay Shaw visited the FBI to make a civil rights complaint against Jim Garrison. I'll be posting the entire memo in an upcoming post. But, here is the page about the Tadins (FBI# 44-41824-2; RIF #124-10089-10001, courtesy of Jerry Shinley). And you can see there was some anger when Dymond cross-examined Tadin - at the end of his testimony, he asked him if he ever lied: Because there was no discovery in Louisiana courts, Shaw's defense team was blindsided by the Tadins. They had no time for any investigation of their story, and no time to prepare for cross-examination. After the trial, James Kirkwood talked to Judge Haggerty who told him, when speaking about the Tadins, that "But the jury, I asked one of them, they said they couldn't buy that because he waited too long." (page 635)

The Michele Metta book, On the Trail of Clay Shaw: The Italian Undercover CIA and Mossad Station and the Assassination of JFK, has a section on the links between the Umbrella Man and Clay Shaw. That section in his book is entitled "The Umbrella Man and Skorzeny." (page 157) What follows is Metta's train of thought - and I have enclosed the actual documents that he just quotes in his book. As I have earlier pointed out about this book, the translation from Italian to English is absolutely atrocious. Of course, even a good translation wouldn't make much sense either. It all starts with the man seen in various films of November 22, 1963 holding an open umbrella. Metta notes that (page 157): "This too cryptic conduct gave reason to the assassination scholars Sprague and Cutler to make an analysis and reach the conclusion that this umbrella was used to fire a dart with a paralyzing agent at JFK to restrain his muscles and make him an immobile target far much easer to kill." Here is a link to the Sprague and Cutler article from the June 1978 issue of Gallery Magazine.. Now, here is where it gets interesting. A 1944 CIA document details a supposed plan by Otto Skorzeny to kill General Dwight D. Eisenhower. Skorzeny was a SS officer during World War II who was involved in several operations during the Battle of the Bulge, Skorzeny led Operation Greif (Griffin) in which German soldiers infiltrated Allied lines by wearing American uniforms. Here is the CIA document: What Metta finds interesting is that Skorzeny was to use "poisoned ammunition." And so here is an except of an MI5 document relating to the interrogation of Skorzeny after the war: You can search for MI5 documents here. The salient point here is that the bullets were to be "intended for assassination." But here is another CIA report from 1963: Skorzeny tested a "poison pistol" on inmates of a concentration camp. Metta then quotes from the testimony of Charles Senseney, Department of Defense employee, formerly in the Special Operation Division at Ft. Detrick. He testified before the Church Committee during hearings held in September 1975 on "Unauthorized Storage of Toxic Agents." Metta only quotes part of the testimony - "if you are using a lethal agent, it would probably kill." He left out the part about not giving it to the CIA. But, what stands out for Metta is that the M-1 could be used in an umbrella: Metta then goes to the testimony of Pierre Finck during the Clay Shaw trial. Finck said that they were told not to dissect the bullet track in Kennedy's neck. And so Metta ties this all together: "Pierre Finck failed the same way a 24th May, 1996, scrutiny before the Assassinations Records Review Board, and since we have now evidence of the support given by former Nazi criminals to the development of the experiments at Fort Detrick and Zapruder's film perfectly shows the wound in the neck was the very first to hit John Kennedy and that, effectively, from that moment on the president appears as completely paralyzed, this matter would certainly deserve a further investigation, also considering what exposed by Hearings of the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research into the Project MKULTRA:" So Metta thinks we need a new investigation! Metta then quotes from the report on MKULTRA: "Under an agreement reached with the Army in 1952, the Special Operations Division (SOD) at Fort Detrick was to assist CIA in developing, testing, and maintaining biological agents and delivery systems. By this agreement, CIA acquired the knowledge, skill, and facilities of the Army to develop biological weapons suited for CIA use." But he leaves out the next paragraph: Interesting that they were "unable to develop a similar incapacitant for humans." You might be wondering what this all has to do with Clay Shaw. In fact, you might be wondering if any of this makes sense since, thanks to the HSCA, we know the identity of the Umbrella Man. His name was Louie Steven Witt, and he used his umbrella as a political protest against President Kennedy. The umbrella was a symbol of the support of JFK's father, as ambassador to the U.K., for Neville Chamberlain's appeasement policy. You can read Witt's testimony here. Witt's umbrella is opened during the HSCA hearing. Josiah Thompson debunks the Umbrella Man. Ok, back to Clay Shaw. Well, Metta maintains that there was some sort of connection between Otto Skorzeny and Giuseppe Pièche, who was an Italian General during World War II (and who continued to serve in Italian governments after the war). Metta maintains that Pièche was a member of the CMC - the World Trade Center in Rome - in which Clay Shaw was a Board Member. So, that's the link. Does any of this make any sense? By the way, when Clay Shaw joined the Board of Permindex/CMC, Pièche was not on the board. He certainly could have joined later. But, the people who really managed Permindex/CMC were George Mantello and his son Enrico. In hundreds of letters in the Bloomfield Archive about Permindex/CMC, about 99% were written to the Mantellos and Hans Seligman, and just a handful to D'Amelio and Nagy. No other Board members were ever mentioned. In fact, there is not one mention of Clay Shaw in the entire Louis Bloomfield Archives.

Jim Garrison, in his book On The Trail of the Assassins, found an entry in Clay Shaw's address book that was curious, to say the least. Here is what he wrote (pages 147-148): "With but one exception, Shaw's entire address book consisted of addresses and phone numbers. That one exception appeared on one of the otherwise unused pages. There, inscribed in Shaw's handwriting, were the words "Oct" and Nov" - which would appear to mean October and November. Then, after an indecipherable scribble - there was scrawled simply: "Dallas." This paragraph was almost repeated word for word in James DiEugenio's book, Destiny Betrayed (page 237): "But there was another entry in Shaw's book that was just as interesting. Although the entire book listed addresses and phone numbers, on one otherwise blank page were scrawled the two abbreviations "Oct." and "Nov." and next to these, the word "Dallas." Here is the page from Shaw's address book: The page is not quite as advertised. Does it look nefarious to you? UPDATE Garrison might have gotten this tidbit from a memo written by reporter Ross Yockey on an incident in Winnipeg. At the end of his June 29, 1967 memo, he added this:

Michele Metta's book, On The Trail of Clay Shaw: The Italian Undercover CIA and Mossad Station and the Assassination of JFK, is a book I hope some of you will read. Perhaps one of you can tell me exactly what is in this book. Clearly the book was written in Italian and the translation into English is really poor, and, as such, the book is completely impenetrable. The content is laughable, and I will be discussing more of the book in future posts. Here is one passage where I can add some clear value to readers (pages 137-138): “Finally, there existed a dense and long correspondence beween Louis Bloomfield, CMC majority shareholder, and George H. Bush. This correspondence is among the boxes of documents submitted by Louis Bloomfield himself, as explicitly expressed in his own will, to the Library and Archives Canada, in order to be read by researchers. However, they are still inaccessible due to a really meaningful veto by Bloomfield’s widow.” So, I am proud to present the complete correspondence between Louis Bloomfield and George H. W. Bush. If you want to read some of this book, you can check out its' Amazon page - you can preview several pages, and you can also search inside the book.