Jim Phelan: Just Another Government Shill

On May 6, 1967, the Saturday Evening Post ran an anti-Garrison article by journalist James Phelan titled “A Plot to Kill Kennedy? Rush to Judgement in New Orleans.” Phelan, who had previously authored an article praising the DA's attempts to clean up New Orleans, “The Vice Man Cometh,” was scathing in his attack on Garrison's assassination probe. Phelan's new article went to the very heart of the case by attempting to undermine the credibility of Garrison's star witness, Perry Russo, and implying that his crucial account had been planted in his head through the use of hypnosis. As the basis for his story Phelan used two documents he had been given by the all-too-trusting Garrison within days of Clay Shaw's arrest. As Phelan explained to author James Kirkwood, “The two things he gave me were the memorandum of [Assistant DA Andrew] Sciambra's when he first interviewed Russo in Baton Rouge and the second one was a transcript of Russo's answers when he was hypnotized by Dr. Fatter.” [1]

Phelan found that during the hypnosis session—actually one of three—Russo had described a gathering at David Ferrie's apartment in which Ferrie, “Leon” Oswald and “Clem Bertrand”—whom he identified as Clay Shaw—had discussed a plot to assassinate Kennedy but the memo Sciambra had made of his first meeting with Russo contained no mention of the “assassination party.” From this, Phelan concluded that Russo had not brought up the crucial gathering until he was hypnotized by the DA's office and suggested that when he took the stand at Clay Shaw's preliminary hearing, “Perry Russo did not know, when he testified, what was fact and what was hypnotic hallucination.” [2] But Phelan knew better.

When Phelan had raised the apparent discrepancy with Garrison it had been explained to him that the memo he had read was technically not the first “Sciambra memo.” As Sciambra would explain under oath at the Shaw trial, he had begun transcribing his notes two days after his interview with Russo in Baton Rouge but having written little more than a paragraph Sciambra was interrupted by Russo's arrival in New Orleans. At that point Sciambra and fellow assisstant DA, Al Oser, took Russo over to Mercy Hospital where Orleans Parish Coroner, Dr. Nicholas Chetta administered Sodium Pentathol (commonly referred to as “truth serum”). Russo then repeated the same story he had told in Baton Rouge, including the “assassination party.” The following day, Sciambra and Oser went into the DA's office and dictated a memo of the Sodium Pentathol session which included the following passage:

I then asked him if he could remember any of the details about CLAY BERTRAND being up in FERRIE'S apartment and he told me that he was in FERRIE'S apartment with CLAY BERTRAND and FERRIE and the roommate [Note: the “roommate” was the man known to Russo as “Leon” whom he identified as Lee Harvey Oswald] and he remembers FERRIE telling him that "We are going To kill John F. Kennedy" and that "it won't be long". He said FERRIE again repeated his earlier statement that he could plan the perfect assassination of the President because he could fly anything that had wings on it and he had perfect availability of exit out of the country. When I asked him who FERRIE was referring to when he said "we", he said "I guess he was referring to the people in the room". He said this was not the first time that FERRIE had talked to him about how easy it would be to assassinate the President. He said that FERRIE, in September and October of 1963, became obsessed with the idea that he could pull off a perfect assassination. [3]

This became the first “Sciambra memo.” He then went back to transcribing his notes from the February 25 interview in Baton Rouge but did not include the details of the “assassination party” that had already been covered in the memo of the Sodium Pentathol session. As Sciambra admitted, this second memo was “hastily done, it was incomplete, it was inaccurate, there were omissions in it, and it does not reflect what Perry Russo told me during my first interview in Baton Rouge on February 25.” [4]

Phelan was not satisfied with Sciambra's explanation and demanded a meeting with Russo which Sciambra happily arranged. Phelan then travelled to Baton Rouge, taking with him photographer Matt Herron, and confronted Russo with Sciambra's second memo. Phelan claimed that during this meeting Russo admitted to him that he had not mentioned the assassination plot until he was “Down in New Orleans”—presumably under the influence of Sodium Pentathol. [5] At that point according to Phelan, “I said to Matt Herron, 'Did You hear that?' He said, 'Yeah.' I said, 'Burn it in your head, kid. I mean right now, burn it in your head because someday you're going to be in court on this and I'm going to have to tell this story and you're my witness.'” [6] Perhaps not surprisingly, Russo denied making any such admission to Phelan. But Russo was not the only one to contradict Phelan's story.

Phelan's “witness” Matt Herron was subpoenaed by Shaw's defense team but they did not put him on the stand. Apparently they did not like what he had to say. Years later, researcher Jim DiEugenio tracked Herron down and asked him what Russo had really said to Phelan. “In a recent interview I did with him,” DiEugenio writes, “Matt Herron said that Russo told Phelan that he mentioned the meeting with Bertrand in Baton Rouge.” [7] That's right, Herron supported Russo's account! And not only did he say that Phelan had lied about what Russo said, he revealed that before they even met with Russo, Phelan told Herron he was going to destroy Garrison. [8]

So why was Phelan out to ruin Garrison's investigation?

Because Jim Phelan was just another government shill.

The first person Phelan went to see with the documents he had pried out of Garrison's hands was notorious CIA/FBI asset and Guy Bannister associate, Robert Maheu. [9] From there he flew to Washington where handed copies over to FBI agent H.P. Leinbaugh and dutifully reported everything he knew about Garrison's investigation. [10] Phelan always denied that he was informing to the Bureau on Garrison but as Jim DiEugenio wrote, “The ARRB declassified three documents which exposed his informing to the FBI about his talks with Garrison, his turning over of Garrison's documents, and further, his rants about the DA and how he had to be stopped.” [11] All Phelan asked was that “his identity as the source of this material should be fully protected.” [12]

Which is pretty much the type of request one would expect from a weaselly little government shill.


1. James Kirkwood, American Grotesque, p. 162.
2. Saturday Evening Post, May 6, 1967, p. 25.
3. NODA memorandum, February 27, 1967.
4. State of Louisiana V. Clay Shaw testimony of Andrew Sciambra, February 12, 1969.
5. Kirkwood, p. 165.
6. Ibid.
7. James DiEugenio, Tom Hanks, Gary Goetzman, and Buglisoi's Bungle. A Comprehensive Review of Reclaiming History, Part 5: Bugliosi vs. Garrison and Stone, or How to Investigate a New Orleans Conspiracy from Pasadena.
8. Ibid.
9. Kirkwood, p. 162.
10. Joan Mellen, A Farewell to Justice, p. 144-145.
11. DiEugenio.
12. FBI memorandum 62-109060-5113.

Introduction Pt. 2

With Andrews refusing to help, despite Garrison warning that he would call him in front of the Grand Jury, Garrison and his staff began combing the French Quarter looking for leads. Initial searches yielded no results but eventually assistant DA Andrew Sciambra was told by the bar bartender at “Cosimo’s” that Clay Bertrand was the alias of Clay Shaw, director of the New Orleans International Trade Mart. [1] According to Garrison, the bartender felt it was no big secret and, sure enough, “my men began encountering one person after another in the French Quarter who confirmed that it was common knowledge that “Clay Bertrand” was the name Clay Shaw went by.” [2] The problem Garrison encountered was that no one was willing to go on record and provide a signed statement.

On February 17, 1967, Garrison's investigation, which had been operating in secret, hit the headlines. “DA HERE LAUNCHES FULL JFK DEATH PLOT PROBE” the New Orleans States Item revealed. The day after the story broke, two of Garrison’s assistants, Lou Ivon and Andrew Sciambra, visited David Ferrie at his apartment to gauge his reaction. Ferrie was sick, unable to eat and showing signs of deterioration. According to Allan Campbell, Ferrie had shown him the States Item article and exclaimed, “I’m a dead man!“ During the course of his conversation with Ivon and Sciambra, Ferrie continued to deny any involvement in the assassination. He said that he had never heard of Shaw or Bertrand and complained that he was being framed. [3] The following afternoon, Ferrie called Ivon, begging for his protection. “They’re going to kill me!” he cried. Ivon quickly called Garrison who instructed him to check Ferrie into the Fountainebleau Hotel under a false name. According to Ivon, Ferrie broke down and admitted that he had worked for the CIA, that he knew Shaw and that Shaw too had worked for the agency. He also admitted that he knew Oswald but still claimed that he was not involved in the assassination. [4] Ivon left the Fountainebleau around 2:00 AM but when he returned a few hours later, Ferrie was no longer there. Three days later, David W. Ferrie was found dead in his apartment.

With Ferrie dead, Garrison concentrated on building his case against Clay Shaw. One thing that had become abundantly clear to Garrison during the course of his investigation, was that the majority of Oswald’s contacts during the summer of 1963 were people that had been in some way connected to the CIA. Garrison suspected the same of Shaw, but was unable to prove it. The man who was to become Garrison’s star witness against Clay Shaw came to the DA’s attention on February 24, 1967, just a few days after Ferrie’s death. Perry Russo, an insurance salesman from Baton Rouge and an acquaintance of Ferrie, gave an interview to the Baton Rouge States-Times about Ferrie's anti-Kennedy remarks. The next day, Garrison sent assistant DA Andrew Sciambra up to Baton Rouge to talk with Russo. Russo told Sciambra about a meeting he had attended at Ferrie’s apartment in the summer of 1963. According to Russo, Ferrie and his guests at the gathering had discussed a plan to assassinate President Kennedy. Present at the gathering were a group of Cubans, a man he thought was Ferrie’s roommate named “Leon” and an older man named “Clem Bertrand.” The party, he said, discussed using a “triangulation of crossfire.“ Sciambra produced a stack of photographs from his brief case and asked Russo to identify anyone he knew. He recognized a number of Cubans and identified “Leon” as Lee Harvey Oswald. Most importantly, he identified a picture of Clay Shaw as the man he’d known as “Clem Bertrand.”

Russo agreed to travel back to New Orleans to meet with Garrison. Once he arrived at Garrison‘s office on Monday 27, Russo was asked to describe “Bertrand” to a police artist named Robert Buras. The finished picture was an exact likeness of Clay Shaw. Given the importance of Russo’s account, it was decided that more should be done to test its veracity. Russo was taken over to Mercy Hospital where he was administered Sodium Pentothal (commonly referred to as “truth serum“) by Orleans Parish Coroner, Dr. Nicholas Chetta. Under the effects of Sodium Pentothal, Russo confirmed the details of the meeting at Ferrie’s apartment. He also corrected Sciambra when used the name “Clay.” Russo knew the man as “Clem Bertrand.” He described him as “a tall man with white kinky hair, sort of slender.” [5] “There’s not a chance at all that what this kid said is not true” Dr. Chetta said. “It had to have happened.” [6] On March 1, Russo was put under hypnosis by Dr. Esmond Fatter, during which time he recalled the date, the place and the “big guy” with “white hair” named “Clem Bertrand.” A second hypnosis session confirmed all of the details of the first. Satisfied that he had done all he could to test the truthfulness of Perry’s story, Garrison obtained a warrant for the arrest of Clay Shaw.

Following Shaw's arrest, Garrison filed a motion for a preliminary hearing - something he was not obliged to do but felt that “because of the enormity of this accusation, we should lean over backward and give the defendant every chance.” [7] The preliminary hearing, of course, essentially worked in the defendant’s favour since Louisiana law at that time did not oblige prosecutors to share the names of their witnesses with the defence. At the hearing, Garrison presented a new witness, a heroin addict named Vernon Bundy. Bundy testified that in June or July of 1963, he had been preparing to shoot-up at the Lake Pontchartrain seawall when a black sedan pulled into the parking lot. The driver, a tall grey-haired man, got out and walked past Bundy to talk to a younger man. The pair spoke for fifteen to twenty minutes and the driver of the sedan handed a roll of money to the younger man. Bundy claimed to have overheard the younger man ask, “What am I going to tell her?” to which the grey-haired man replied, “Don’t worry about it. I told you I’m going to take care of it.” Bundy also claimed that the younger man dropped some yellow leaflets and that after the two men had left he had walked over and picked one up. On it, he said, was some writing about Cuba. [8] Bundy would identify the two men as Clay Shaw and Lee Harvey Oswald.

The three judge panel at the preliminary hearing agreed that there was enough evidence to indict Shaw for conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy. At this point, Garrison could have filed a charge against Shaw “just by signing it and depositing it with the city clerk.” Instead, he chose to take the extra precaution of voluntarily presenting his case before the Grand Jury. If the Grand Jury had failed to indict Shaw it would have meant the end of Garrison’s case. It did not. Shaw was indicted and Garrison spent the next two years trying to bring his case to trial. During those two years, Garrison's staff and witnesses would be the subject of a relentless smear campaign by the national media. Not surprisingly, a fair trial was rendered impossible and Shaw was acquitted of all charges.

1. Jim Garrison, On the Trail of the Assassins, p. 85.
2. Ibid. p. 86.
3. Joan Mellen, A Farewell to Justice, p. 102.
4. Bill Davy, Let Justice Be Done, p. 66.
5. Mellen, p. 115.
6. Ibid.
7. Playboy interview.
8. Davy, p. 124-125.