Edward Wegmann

Edward F. Wegmann was the civil lawyer of Clay Shaw, director of the New Orleans International Trade Mart, and with his brother William J. Wegmann, F. Irvin Dymond, and Salvadore Panzeca defended him after District Attorney Jim Garrison arrested him on March 1, 1967, for conspiring to kill President John F. Kennedy. Shaw was acquitted on March 1, 1969. The Wegmanns then obtained a federal injunction against Garrison's second prosecution, for perjury, which the court found had been brought in bad faith.¹

Investigators

The defense "hired not one, but two top-notch private detective services," the Wackenhut Corporation and Holloway Associates of Texas, "Former FBI Agents," which "were filing reports for a period of at least two years." A third, the International Security Bureau of New York, reported on a prosecution witness in February 1969. Wackenhut men reported to the defense with the television reporter Rick Townley on April 19, 1967. A Wackenhut investigator, Charles R. Carson, was making inquiries of the FBI in New Orleans that month with Dean Andrews. The Assassination Records Review Board found that Wegmann's records "indicate that the Shaw defense team had retained Southern Research Company as of mid-1967," the Shreveport firm whose New Orleans office had investigated David Ferrie. After William Gurvich left Garrison's staff in June 1967 he gave the defense about two boxes of the district attorney's investigative files. The researcher who first went through the papers wrote that Wackenhut "was getting a lot of cooperation from the Bureau for Shaw's defense."²³

Washington

In September 1967 the defense, "confused by the smoke-screen Garrison was raising" about the CIA, asked the Justice Department for someone "who could steer them as to the true facts and circumstances." The agency and the department declined, since "if Garrison learned of federal assistance to Shaw's lawyers, he'd play it to the hilt." Through the contact the department learned that Shaw had not told his own lawyers that from 1948 to 1956 he had reported to the agency's Domestic Contact Service on 33 occasions. The agency's general counsel, Lawrence Houston, wrote on October 2, 1967, that if Shaw were to "be convicted on information that could be refuted by CIA," then "we may be in for some difficult decisions." At the trial Dymond asked Shaw whether he had ever worked for the agency, and Shaw answered: "No, I have not."⁴

The approach went through Jack Miller, the former head of the criminal division, who was also the lawyer of the NBC man Walter Sheridan, then under subpoena from Garrison. Houston reported on September 18 that Miller "has been approached by the lawyers for Clay Shaw, Mr. Irving Diamond and Mr. FNU Wakeman. They told Miller they felt Shaw was leveling with them but that they were so confused by the smoke screen Garrison was raising they would like to talk to someone in Government who could steer them as to the true facts and circumstances." Houston told Miller that Justice would claim executive privilege for any agency witness. Nathaniel Kossack of the criminal division "agrees it is tempting to try to do something, such as talk to Shaw's lawyers, but he feels it is rather dangerous unless we know that we can trust them absolutely."⁵

Wegmann's daughter gave his files to the review board in 1995. They include the diary of Tom Bethell, a member of Garrison's staff.²⁴