For two headline-filled years, New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison has made it clear that his assassination-conspiracy case against Businessman Clay Shaw involves another, unnamed defendant: the Warren Commission. To prove his contention that Shaw and others had been part of a plot to shoot President Kennedy, Garrison needed to disprove the commission's findings that Lee Harvey Oswald had acted "alone and unassisted" on November 22, 1963. He also hinted often that elements of the Federal Government itself—particularly the CIA—were somehow involved in the assassination. Last week, as testimony in the case finally started, Garrison won the right to put on trial both of his defendants—the named and the unnamed.
The breakthrough for Garrison came in what will probably be one of his few courtroom appearances, since he leaves most trial work to assistants. While the jury and two alternates were being chosen (an all-male group with eleven whites, three Negroes, only two college graduates among them), Garrison entered the Orleans Parish Criminal courtroom just once, and then only as a spectator. With the jury finally sworn in, Garrison wanted to make certain that the trial started off with all the scope and drama that he deems appropriate. He went to the front of the dimly lit, 38-ft-high courtroom, drew himself up to all of his 6-ft. 6-in. height and confidently intoned a 42-minute opening statement.
Feel for Pageantry. "We will later offer evidence concerning the assassination in Dealey Plaza in Dallas," said Garrison, "because it confirms the existence of a conspiracy and because it confirms the significance and relevance of the planning which occurred in New Orleans." Defense Attorney F. Irvin Dymond immediately objected that "the actual assassination has no place in this case." He was quickly overruled by Judge Edward Haggerty, a raspy-voiced jurist who has displayed as much feel for sweep and pageantry as Garrison; he had introduced the jurors to the press by parading them around a motel swimming pool. Said Haggerty: "I can't tell the state how to run its case, if they want to overprove it."
The only Garrison eyewitness who bore any relevance to a conspiracy was Perry Russo, who is an insurance agent. In a preliminary hearing, Russo claimed to have overheard Shaw, who is the retired managing director of the New Orleans International Trade Mart—and was named the Outstanding Citizen of New Orleans in 1965—discussing the assassination with Oswald and the late David Ferrie, a former airline pilot who is also accused in Garrison's case. As a star witness, Russo left something to be desired: he did not remember some of the most incriminating details until after he had been hypnotized and shot with truth serum by Garrison's investigators.