Man of a Million Fragments: The True Story of Clay Shaw

Contents

Introduction

PART I

1. The Early Years

2. World War II

3. The Opening of International House

4. Promotion Continues for the International Trade Mart

5. The Trade Mart Opens

PART II

6. The Caribbean and South America

7. 906 Esplanade

8. A Return to South America

9. A Letter to the CIA

10. A Break from the Mart

11. The Louisiana Purchase 150th Anniversary Celebration

12. The Mart at its Peak

13. A Trip to Mexico

14. Shaw Manages International House (Part 1)

15. Shaw Returns to Cuba

16. An Architect is Selected

17. An Encounter at the Airport

18. The Election of John F. Kennedy

19. The Number Two Man at the CIA Comes to Town

20. A Critical Point for the Mart

21. A Mysterious Trip, and a Tragedy in Dallas

22. The Mart Hits New Lows as a New Building Begins to Rise

23. Clay Shaw Retires

PART III

24. The Beginning of the Jim Garrison Investigation

25. An Arrest in the Kennedy Assassination

26. Appeals and Delays on the Way to Trial

27. A Verdict, and Another Arrest

PART IV

28. Turning the Tables: A Lawsuit is Filed

29. A Key Court Decision, and a Job Offer

30. Free at Last? A Cruise on the Mediterranean

31. The Beginning of the End

32. The End? Not Just Yet

33. A Plaque on a Building

Aftermath

Acknowledgments

Endnotes

End of Document

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Introduction

The assassination of President Kennedy in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963, was the most shocking and memorable public event of most peoples’ lives. Like the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the event which began World War II for the United States, or the events of 9/11, most people could, years later, remember where they were when they first heard the news.

Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested the same day. A loner-type who had defected to Russia in 1959, married, and then returned to the United States in 1962, he was in the process of trying either to get back to the Soviet Union, or to get to Cuba, at the time of Kennedy’s assassination. Two days later, on Sunday, November 24, 1963, as Oswald was being moved from one location to another, a local nightclub owner named Jack Ruby shot and killed him. Ruby, a character with connections both to the local police and to underworld figures, was perhaps not quite as mysterious as Oswald, but his motive for shooting Oswald was murky. Ruby was tried and convicted of shooting Oswald, and died three years later.

Oswald was born in New Orleans, had lived there at certain points in his life, and most importantly, had lived there from April until September 1963, approximately two months before the assassination of President Kennedy. After Oswald’s arrest, the FBI was interested in, among other things, activities Oswald had engaged in while residing in New Orleans. He had tried to join an anti-Castro Cuban group, pretending to be in sympathy with them, and had wound up fighting with some of its members in a public spat. He also had handed out pro-Castro leaflets on street corners in New Orleans, including outside the International Trade Mart building at the corner of Camp and Common streets. That institution was managed at the time, and had been essentially since its beginnings in the mid-1940s, by a person named Clay Lavergne Shaw, a somewhat prominent New Orleans citizen known for his participation in numerous civic affairs, for his leadership of the Trade Mart itself, and to a lesser degree, for being a homosexual of refined tastes.

Immediately after the assassination, two leads developed out of New Orleans that the FBI investigated and quickly dismissed. In one of them, a sometime private investigator and heavy drinker named Jack Martin reported to the local district attorney’s office that a person he knew by the name of David Ferrie, an offbeat pilot who wore cheap wigs (his real hair had fallen out years before) and who allegedly liked hanging around with young boys whom he taught to fly, had known Oswald in an outfit called the Civil Air Patrol some years before, and that Ferrie was going to fly Oswald to safety after the assassination. The Secret Service and the FBI checked Ferrie out, and interviewed Martin, in which conversation Martin supposedly admitted that he had made the allegations while intoxicated, and that he didn’t have any firsthand knowledge that Ferrie had actually known Oswald, or was going to be any kind of getaway pilot for the assassination.

In the second prong of stories arising out of New Orleans, a colorful, rotund, local attorney named Dean Andrews claimed that while he was hospitalized under sedation during the day following the assassination, he received a telephone call from a sometime client he identified by the name of Clay Bertrand, who asked him to go to Dallas and represent Oswald on the criminal charges related to President Kennedy’s assassination. When interviewed by the FBI, Andrews maintained that Oswald had consulted with him during the previous summer about matters dealing with his discharge from the Marines, and about his wife’s immigration issues. Andrews was uncertain in his physical description of Clay Bertrand, and ultimately admitted that he might have dreamed the whole episode about receiving the telephone call from him. Later, the Warren Commission sent a young attorney, Wesley Liebeler, to New Orleans to interview Andrews, among others. As a result of that interview, a lengthy transcript was produced, wherein Andrews wandered all over the map in his description of his past dealings with Oswald, and his descriptions of Clay Bertrand. The FBI made an attempt to find Clay Bertrand in New Orleans, but was unsuccessful. The second strand of the New Orleans stories was ultimately dismissed by authorities as being unverifiable, and as having little to do with the actual assassination.

During the years that followed, from 1964 until late 1966, a healthy skepticism developed among the general public about the official conclusion that Oswald had committed the assassination, and had committed it alone. This skepticism was fueled by the combination of Oswald’s mysterious background, including his having defected to the Soviet Union and then returned with a spouse (something that was very rare indeed), the fact that Ruby shot Oswald two days after the assassination, silencing the alleged killer forever, along with Ruby’s own mysterious friendships, the fact that most government records related to the assassination, such as FBI, CIA and Secret Service records, were all sealed for seventy-five years in accordance with normal Federal rules for government records, and the fact that the Warren Commission, which investigated the assassination for President Lyndon Johnson and the Federal government, produced a comprehensive report that was sometimes incomplete, and sometimes incorrect. Additionally, a growing body of books, and articles in newspapers and magazines, made the case for a wider conspiracy involving others besides Oswald; some versions had it that Oswald had nothing to do with the actual assassination. By the end of 1966, the skepticism about the official conclusions related to the assassination had reached a crescendo, and a majority of the American public did not believe what the government was telling them.

It was in that atmosphere that the district attorney of New Orleans, Jim Garrison, began his own investigation into the Kennedy assassination. By October 1966, he was informally questioning attorney Dean Andrews about the identity of the mysterious Clay Bertrand. Soon he began to focus on members of the anti-Castro Cuban community in New Orleans, some of whom had encountered Oswald during 1963. Garrison also picked up on Jack Martin’s old identification of David Ferrie as having known Oswald, and as having possibly been a getaway pilot for Oswald immediately after the assassination.

Garrison’s main focus during the first several months of his investigation was related most closely to David Ferrie and the anti-Castro Cuban community. Ferrie was brought in for questioning, as were some of the Cubans, and most of the activity in Garrison’s office and among his investigators seemed to be concentrated in that direction. Ferrie denied ever knowing Oswald, or having any connection to the assassination, as he had done in 1963. He immediately, as he also had in 1963, pointed the finger at Jack Martin as the person who had started investigators looking in his direction, accusing Martin of having a certain jealousy toward him that manifested itself in such accusations.

Regarding the anti-Castro Cuban community, Garrison had gotten hold of a left-wing theory that Oswald, rather than being a communist, as the official conclusions had stated, was in reality an anti-communist posing as a communist, and had worked in some way with members of the anti-Castro Cuban community to effect Kennedy’s assassination. The anti-Castro Cubans that Garrison’s office interviewed all denied that, and immediately rejected Garrison’s theory of such a conspiracy in the assassination.

Regarding Clay Bertrand, Garrison had identified him, at least in his own mind, as his fellow New Orleanian, Clay Shaw, former Managing Director of the International Trade Mart. Garrison and Shaw knew each other slightly. Both had been active in civic affairs over the years, Garrison at one time working as an attorney for long-time Mayor de Lesseps Chep Morrison’s office, and Shaw dealing with Morrison on a regular basis from the mid-1940s until the early 1960s. They also had both been present at a speech President Kennedy gave in New Orleans in May of 1962, where he dedicated the Nashville Avenue Wharf.

Dean Andrews had stated that Clay Bertrand had called him on past occasions to represent gay kids who had gotten into trouble with the law. Although Andrews never identified Bertrand as being Clay Shaw, Garrison knew that Shaw was gay, and that he was a prominent member of that community in the French Quarter (also referred to with some frequency by its old French name of Vieux Carré) section of New Orleans. Accordingly, by the end of November 1966, Garrison had concluded that Shaw was Bertrand, but that his involvement in the actual assassination, if any, was relatively minor and indirect. Shaw was asked to come in for questioning just before Christmas 1966, but the focus was still on David Ferrie and the anti-Castro Cuban community.

Garrison’s investigation rocked along in secret for several months, although word leaked out to various individuals in New Orleans. Television reporter Sam DePino may have been the first newsman to learn of an investigation into the Kennedy assassination by Garrison’s office, although DePino did not know much about it at the time; his superiors would not let him pursue the story more actively in the early stages. In an attempt to find out if the FBI knew any details, DePino advised the FBI of Garrison’s investigation during the first week of November 1966; he formed the impression that the FBI may have already known of it. Sometime later, Aaron Kohn, Managing Director of the Metropolitan Crime Commission, a non-profit organization devoted to fighting corruption among public officials, as well as vice activities in the city, also learned of the investigation. Kohn had been a reluctant supporter of Garrison as district attorney during Garrison’s first term from 1962 to 1966. However, he had broken with Garrison during the fall of 1966 over activities in Garrison’s office that he regarded as corrupt, and by the time he learned of Garrison’s Kennedy assassination investigation, he was a firm opponent of Garrison.

Kohn and some of the anti-Castro Cubans advised the FBI of Garrison’s investigation. Maintaining the official position that Oswald had committed the assassination and committed it alone, the FBI was always on the alert for any new information that might arise related to the assassination, particularly any information that might contradict its official conclusion. Accordingly, the FBI was very interested in Garrison’s investigation, even if Garrison had no intention of asking for its cooperation, and the FBI had no intention of volunteering it.

Garrison’s investigation broke in the news with a story in the local afternoon newspaper on February 17, 1967. Although David Ferrie was not identified in the story, he contacted one of the story’s authors and volunteered that Garrison was investigating him, while firmly denying the accusations that had been laid at his doorstep. The printing of the story brought a swarm of out-of-town news reporters to New Orleans, anxious for any new information about the assassination. In a bizarre twist, five days later, on February 22, 1967, David Ferrie’s nude body was found at his residence. If Ferrie had been Garrison’s main suspect, that suspect was now dead, and many, including some of the members of Garrison’s own staff, thought the investigation would quietly die away as well.

But it didn’t. Seemingly without missing a beat, the investigation refocused on Clay Shaw, and a potential witness emerged who could supposedly tie Shaw, Ferrie, and Oswald together. Accordingly, on March 1, 1967, Shaw was unexpectedly arrested, astounding all of those who had known him for years, and throwing his life into instant disarray. After his arrest, theories about the Kennedy assassination, and who was involved, reached a new intensity of theorizing and speculation, and for the next several years New Orleans would be the center of most of that focus. After numerous delays in the trial date, and appeals by Shaw’s attorneys, the trial was finally held in early 1969. Other indictments and hearings would cause the criminal aspect of the case to persist until the early 1970s, and a civil suit filed by Shaw against his accusers would drag on until 1978, some four years after his death.

The Garrison investigation, as it came to be known, shone a light on a number of individuals, including Clay Shaw and David Ferrie, and others, who had never been publicly discussed related to the assassination of President Kennedy. Once the story of the investigation broke in the newspapers, and in the national media, it brought forth numerous additional individuals, many of whom volunteered information about things they had supposedly witnessed, or had heard through another party, or general information about the background of Shaw, Ferrie, or other publicly identified objects of Garrison’s investigation. Many of those who came forward were residents, or former residents, of the French Quarter, the rectangular area near the river in New Orleans that has attracted many interesting people, and many tourists, over the years. Some of those who came forward were convicts, serving time in Federal or state prison, who volunteered information based upon what they had read or heard in the media. Many others came forward, with varying degrees of credibility, either innocently volunteering information they had heard, or in some cases manufacturing outright information that they thought the prosecution (or the defense) would want to hear. The newspapers in New Orleans and elsewhere were filled with daily stories about such individuals, who emerged for brief moments of time, then disappeared, with no one ever again questioning them in any detail about their stories in order to obtain an indication of their credibility. Some of those individuals lived long lives, and died within the last few years. Others barely survived Garrison’s investigation, with some meeting violent deaths.

Who was Clay Shaw? It was a question asked by many people the day he was arrested and in the days and weeks that followed. Many ask it even to this day. A discreet, seemingly mysterious man, a homosexual who was widely respected in his local community by people of all stripes, a person who ran an organization called the International Trade Mart, which people in New Orleans knew well, but which to those outside the city also seemed somewhat mysterious, and a person with alleged connections to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

Shaw’s alleged CIA connections were reported (somewhat inaccurately) shortly after his arrest, but never documented, and never brought up by the prosecution during his trial. Shaw himself publicly denied ever having had any connection with the CIA. In December 1973, some eight months before he died, an independent news service, quoting a co-author of an upcoming book about the CIA, reported that Shaw had been involved with the agency. By that time, his criminal case was over, and the media had lost interest, so no one bothered to ask Shaw directly about the report. Besides, his mother had just passed away, and shortly thereafter he suffered a brain seizure. By the time he recovered to some degree from the seizure, he had been diagnosed with cancer, and died several months later.

By the time of Shaw’s death in 1974, the criminal case against him had been thoroughly discredited. Congressional investigations into the CIA and the Kennedy assassination during the mid-1970s looked into Shaw peripherally, but drew no conclusions that he had any involvement. By 1983, when the local New Orleans newspaper ran, on the 20th anniversary of President Kennedy’s assassination, an article about the discredited Garrison investigation that resulted in the indictment and prosecution of Shaw, almost all of Garrison’s aides were critical of the very investigation in which they had participated, and even Garrison admitted that he probably should have shut the investigation down after Ferrie’s death.

However, things change, and attitudes change along with them. Garrison, who had earlier written both a non-fiction book about the assassination (which did not mention Shaw’s case to any degree) and a novel, published in 1988 his own version of the case against Clay Shaw for the first time. In it, he resurrected the case as presented at trial, as if he believed it with a religious fervor. Hollywood soon came calling, in the form of director Oliver Stone, and in December 1991, the movie JFK was released to great popularity. The movie, heavily based upon Garrison’s book, presented the view that Shaw was closely involved in the assassination, even if his exact role was murky.

Although the movie was controversial, its conclusion that Shaw was involved in the assassination was accepted by many viewers, and revived a waning interest in the Kennedy assassination. Congress decided to empanel a special board, the Assassination Records Review Board, to review and declassify, much earlier than otherwise would have happened, most of the records held by governmental agencies such as the CIA, FBI, Secret Service, Department of State, and others. The Board also had authority to collect private records, and in so doing collected Clay Shaw’s personal papers, Jim Garrison’s records of the case, and the records of the defense team kept by Shaw’s long-time personal attorney, Edward Wegmann. Since those records were opened or collected during the 1990s, many researchers have poured through them, backward and forward, trying to connect the dots related to any particular theory of the assassination, but especially one that might connect Shaw, Ferrie, or other characters unearthed by the Jim Garrison investigation, with the assassination.

But, again, who was Clay Shaw in this convoluted and changing scenario? The CIA memos that were released related to Shaw indicated that he had been a source for the agency from late 1948 into 1956. One or two memos indicated that he may have even volunteered to do some work for them, such as attend a trade show for the agency, or send out some inquiries under his name for its benefit. Almost all memos issued after his arrest in 1967, however, were consistent with the idea that he had been a source of information, and nothing more, during the years already mentioned. However, one memo mentioned his connection with an internal CIA program called QKENCHANT, which generated new speculation that his role was deeper than merely being an information source, a role the details of which supposedly have never been fully revealed.

And what was the International Trade Mart, exactly? The easy answer was that it was an organization designed to help promote international trade between New Orleans businesses and the rest of the world, specifically Latin America. But, what were the details of its founding, its day-to-day operation? What was Shaw’s exact role in this business? Did he use the organization as a cover to become involved as a CIA source?

Did Shaw know Oswald or David Ferrie? Even after Shaw’s acquittal, many people thought that he had known Ferrie, and that Ferrie had known Oswald. Even if Shaw himself was not directly connected with the assassination, his relationships left much to question.

What about other aspects of Shaw’s life? He had written or co-written several plays in his youth, or in young adulthood, and he had lived in New York City for seven years, from the beginning of 1936 to near the end of 1942, when he went into the Army. His Army service was somewhat of a mystery, too, with some saying that he had been an employee of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) during the war.

Had he ever been married? If not, who were his significant companions over the years, or did he have one or more in particular? What about the whips and chains supposedly seized from his residence the night of his arrest? Were they, in fact, an old Mardi Gras costume, or did they indicate an interest on his part in sadistic and masochistic activities?

This book, then, tells the story of Clay Shaw’s life from its very beginnings until his death. In addition to being a biography of Shaw, though, it is also the story of the International Trade Mart, and to a lesser degree, its sister organization International House, which were parts of a multi-pronged, city-wide international trade movement in New Orleans during the 1940s and forward, perhaps peaking during the 1950s. It is also a retelling of the Jim Garrison investigation, and how it related directly to Shaw, and to a certain degree, an examination of the credibility of many, though perhaps not all, of the individuals who generated publicity during that investigation in one form or another. The story touches on many topics of the era, including the city of New Orleans itself, the Cold War, racial segregation in the old South, and homosexuality, for which the city of New Orleans, and the French Quarter in particular, provided a relatively friendly environment.

The details of Shaw’s life are reconstructed from numerous interviews of individuals who knew him, worked for him, socialized with him, or of individuals who had some connection with the Garrison investigation, such as several prosecutors who worked in Garrison’s office. The reconstruction of Shaw’s life is also based upon the many documents that have been collected or released over the years, particularly during the 1990s. Those include not only thousands of governmental documents, but those contained in other collections as well, such as the collections related to the International Trade Mart and International House. Barring the release of some new governmental information or the discovery of some significant private collection, I believe this is the most complete story of Shaw’s life that can be told.

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Part I

1. The Early Years

Clay Shaw was born on March 17, 1913, in Kentwood, Louisiana, a small town located approximately ninety miles north-northwest of New Orleans. His father, Glaris Lenora Shaw, was also born in Kentwood, in 1887, and married Alice Herrington, a native of Monticello, Mississippi.¹

Shaw’s father joined the Army in 1908 at age twenty, and served a three-year term in, among other places, the Philippine Islands.² After leaving the Army in February 1911, Glaris Shaw began an apprenticeship in saw filing, and worked for a lumber company in the Kentwood area until 1916. For the next two years, he worked as a mill superintendent in a small town in Colorado; his wife and young Clay lived there with him. Years later, Clay Shaw would partly attribute his lack of the stereotypical Southern accent to the time he spent in Colorado as a child.

In January 1918, Glaris entered the Army again, this time to serve in World War I, and was discharged in October 1919.³ By this time, the family had moved to 3607 Banks Street in New Orleans, where Clay Shaw, known in those early years as Lavergne (or Vern) Shaw, attended Crossman Grammar School. Except for an almost seven-year period in New York City from early 1936 to late 1942, and his Army service from November 1942 to January 1946, Clay Shaw lived in New Orleans the remainder of his life.

After the war, Clay’s father worked as a draftsman/engineer at J. De Tarnowsky Company,⁴ as well as at a variety of other jobs during the 1920s, including for the Louisiana Box and Lumber Company from 1920 to 1923, taking training with the Veterans Bureau from 1923 to 1926, and working with the Railway Audit and Inspection Company from 1927 to 1930. By 1926, the family had moved to 3519 Baudin,⁵ and soon thereafter to 325 South St. Patrick Street, and Glaris Shaw was now working again as a saw filer, probably while training with the Veterans Bureau.⁶ In 1930, he joined the Bureau of Prohibition, a division of the Department of the Treasury.⁷ It is possible that Glaris Shaw may have worked two jobs during some periods because, as is shown in 1929, his occupation is listed in the city directory as a checker for the United Fruit Company. ⁸ Clay Shaw’s mother, Alice, worked off and on as a schoolteacher, taking time off to raise her son, but returning to teaching in the depths of the Great Depression.

Clay Shaw graduated from Warren Easton High School in New Orleans in 1928, at the age of fifteen. At the time, the school was an all-boys high school, all white, with a mostly male faculty.

The 1927 edition of the Eastonite, the annual for Warren Easton High School, showed a photo of a thirteen-year-old Shaw looking somewhat fat in the face, with a crop of thick, dark hair standing higher than normal, serving as quite a contrast to the tall, lean Shaw with prematurely graying hair who would emerge less than two decades later. One of the members of the senior class that year was Harnett Kane, who became a somewhat prominent New Orleans writer soon thereafter, known for books about the Huey Long era and other Louisiana matters.⁹

Shaw’s high school yearbook photo, taken around age 13 (Courtesy: New Orleans Public Library)

Shaw’s graduation year of 1928 saw him in a class with Herman Stuart Cottman, sometimes known as Bunny. Cottman and Shaw would co-write several plays together during the late 1920s and the first half of the 1930s, but would drift apart during Shaw’s time in New York City in the late 1930s. The Eagle, a publication of the graduating class of the school included in the annual that year, commented that Cottman was known about the school for his excellent dramatic work during his stay there.¹⁰ Leon Hubert was also a senior in 1928. Hubert later served as district attorney of Orleans Parish, and as an attorney for the Warren Commission following President Kennedy’s assassination.

Herman Stuart Cottman. Shaw’s co-author on early plays, yearbook photo, taken around age 15 (Courtesy: New Orleans Public Library)

There was no individual photograph of Clay Shaw in the 1928 high school annual, but there was a photo of Shaw and Cottman together as part of the Dramatic Society. Shaw again had a stunning head of dark hair standing somewhat high on his head, not unlike the main character of Henry in the film Eraserhead, while Cottman was very neat and conservative in dress.¹¹ The biographical paragraph of Shaw said that he had come to Warren Easton in 1925, and that as of graduation had not yet decided what occupation he intended to follow. Out of an almost all-male faculty, Shaw selected Miss Jessie Tharp, the drama teacher, as his favorite teacher. His hobby was acting, and he had been one of the more prominent members of the Dramatic Society. Listed as one of Shaw’s favorite sayings, under the hobby designation, was: I ain’t proud!¹²

As part of the 1928 annual, the seniors published the Turkey Buzzard, a satirical future newspaper that was supposed to have been written on June 1, 1948, some twenty years later. It purported to show what each graduate would be doing at that time. Several of the articles in the publication were about students murdering people, or doing other horrific deeds, in the future. The role assigned for LeVergne (the spelling of Shaw’s middle name by others varied throughout his life) Shaw was as a columnist giving Advice to the Lovelorn. The setup was that individuals would write advice columnist LeVergne Shaw with various problems, addressing him as Aunt LeVergne or Madame LeVergne, and that Shaw would answer them, much like Dear Abby or Ann Landers might have done at a later date.

One of the letters was from a married woman who noticed that whenever her husband returned late at night, he always had a pair of silk stockings in his pocket, and wanted to know what to do. Shaw answered that if the husband was getting home late at night, if the woman sent him her address, he would come over early in the evening and talk with her about the case. Another letter was from a boy of forty-nine, very much in love with a woman of twenty-three. The woman didn’t have enough money for the two of them to get married, but wanted to move away, get married, and keep it a secret until she had enough money to support them both. Shaw advised the man to wait until the woman was financially able to support them both before marrying her. Still another letter was from a man who said that his girl had moved out of the country to live; he wondered why she wouldn’t write to him. Shaw advised him not to waste his young life on irresponsible women, saying that if the woman cared for him, she would at least write to him. Don’t throw away your life, he advised.¹³

Another part of the annual had a comic newspaper listing the graduates as different characters; Shaw was listed as Maggie. He also received, as LeVergne Shaw, what was intended to be the humorous award of Favorite Actress.¹⁴

Around the age of fifteen, about the time of his graduation in the spring of 1928, Shaw became involved in Le Petit Theatre du Vieux Carré, an up-and-coming local theater known locally as simply Le Petit Theatre. One of his first notices, or possibly his very first notice, appeared in a workshop performance of The Rising of the Moon, by Lady Gregory. Shaw appeared under the name La Vergne Shaw, playing the role of Patrolman X, on May 8 and 9, 1928.¹⁵

Perhaps because of his size, Shaw appeared several times in the role of a policeman in various productions, as in Michael and Mary, by A.A. Milne, in May 1932. He also appeared as a policeman in Once in a Lifetime, by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman.¹⁶ Shaw often appeared in minor parts of the plays, or participated in non-acting parts, particularly under the Properties section.¹⁷

Future attorney Eberhard Deutsch also acted in the mid-1920s;¹⁸ Deutsch would later become a prominent lawyer in New Orleans, employing future District Attorney Jim Garrison for a time. His firm would later represent Garrison personally, as well as Garrison’s office of district attorney, including during many junctures of Garrison’s prosecution of Shaw, and with regard to Shaw’s civil suit against Garrison.

The artist William Spratling, who in a few years would move permanently to Taxco, Mexico, to begin a long career in the silver jewelry industry there, played bit parts at the theater in the last few years of the 1920s.¹⁹ If he and Shaw crossed paths at that time, however, Shaw did not consider it an official meeting of any sort, because when he met Spratling in 1955 on a trip to Mexico, he would describe it as if it was the first meeting between the two.

Some individuals whom Shaw encountered during his time with Le Petit Theatre in the late 1920s and early 1930s recalled him, or remained close friends with him, for decades. Among those was Muriel Bultman, daughter of a prominent funeral home owner in New Orleans. Born to a wealthy family, Muriel Bultman spent time at boarding schools in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s, and received a degree from the University of Alabama, somewhat uncommon for a female in those days. She later married briefly, then opened her own shop as a talent agent, interacting with people in the theater, opera, and movies in both New York and Hollywood. In March 1931, she worked as a volunteer, along with Shaw (listed as Levergne Shaw), on several plays at Le Petit Theatre, including The Apple Cart and The Poor Nut. She worked as a volunteer for Hedda Gabler, by Henrik Ibsen, in April-May 1931. She also worked with Shaw (working as Lavergne Shaw), under the Properties section of different plays, in January and February 1932.²⁰

Another person whom Shaw met during his activity with the theater was Mary Moore Sanborn. Sanborn’s credits include appearances in The Joy of Living, by Herman Sudermann (April 1926), Dear Brutus by J.M. Barrie, the author of Peter Pan (June 1926), and A La Creole, by Flo Field (March 1927). In February 1928, Sanborn appeared in Anna Christie by Eugene O’Neill, and in February and March 1929 in The Women Have Their Way, by Serafin and Joaquin A. Quintero. In March 1930, she appeared in The Silver Cord by Sidney Howard, in the lead role of Mrs. Phelps.²¹ Sidney Howard would later become a famous screenwriter, drawing the lone credit for the screenplay for the movie Gone with the Wind, although many others worked on it.

In an interview more than seventy years later, Mary Moore Sanborn’s daughter, Marymor Cravens, told the author that some in the Le Petit Theatre circle thought that Shaw might have been a person of mixed black and white descent, a rumor about Shaw which would follow him his entire life, and would emerge more fully after his arrest in 1967. Mrs. Cravens said that it had not mattered to her mother whether he was or not, but others had noted that Shaw never brought his family around to watch him perform, or to attend any of the plays he had written, and people sometimes speculated about his background.²²

Mary Moore Sanborn, though very friendly with Shaw over the period of at least a decade, still either was unaware of his homosexuality, or held the duality of views that people in New Orleans often held about homosexuals, placing them into either respectable categories, or groups that referenced fear or repulsion. In a letter to another daughter at boarding school in Europe, Sanborn mentioned how everyone’s nerves were on edge about the amount of homosexuality going on at boarding schools. She added, regarding the subject of homosexuality, That’s a new one for you.²³

Another person Shaw might have met during his early Le Petit Theatre days was the writer Flo Field, who in 1927 had a satirical hit play, A La Creole. Mary Moore Sanborn had appeared in the play. Flo Field and Shaw would be good friends in later years.

Herman Stuart Cottman, Shaw’s co-author on four plays, and two years older, appeared as early as October 1926 in The Swan, written by Ferenc Molnar. Cottman appeared to have the more prominent acting roles, appearing in Caesar and Cleopatra, by George Bernard Shaw, in April 1928.²⁴ He also appeared, in September 1929, in a workshop production of Fennel, by Jerome K. Jerome.

Another regular performer in that era was Howard F. Bogner, who appeared in quite a few plays, often playing major parts, in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Years later, in the mid-1960s, he would become Muriel Bultman’s second husband for a brief period of time, before they divorced around the time of Shaw’s trial. The artist Boyd Cruise, later known for his paintings and his sponsorship by the prominent businessman L. Kemper Williams, did some work at Le Petit Theatre during the late 1920s and early 1930s as well.²⁵

The most successful collaboration of Shaw, using the name Le Vergne Shaw, and Cottman, using the name H. Stuart Cottman, was the one-act play Submerged, published in 1929, about men trapped at the bottom of the ocean in a submarine. The play was written as part of a one-act-play tournament sponsored by the Alumni Association of the New Orleans School of Speech and Dramatic Art. A newspaper article published around the time of the play’s early performances in New Orleans, probably 1929 or 1930, contained an interesting quote from the authors: We knew better than to put any girls in our play. The article stressed that the play was geared primarily for boys.²⁶

Submerged was directed by Jessie Tharp, Shaw’s drama teacher in high school. For many years Tharp was one of the most prominent personalities at Le Petit Theatre, acting in many plays, and directing many along the way as well; she would also star in Shaw’s play, Memorial, at the end of 1948.

Louis Fischer designed the production of Submerged. A lifelong friend of Shaw from his Le Petit Theatre days, she was born in Mobile, Alabama, and became an important part of the great French Quarter scene of the 1920s through the 1960s. Many who passed through the artistic and social scenes in the French Quarter knew her, and she accumulated a diverse group of artists, gays, and other French Quarter dwellers around her. She knew Gloria Vanderbilt well, in addition to an array of famous literary figures and actors. Fischer was known almost as much for her physical unattractiveness as for her social skills, and seemed remarkably undisturbed by it. Grace Charbonnet recalled attending a party in the 1940s at which Fischer was present; she came up behind Fischer while she was surrounded by a large group. Fischer turned around, spotted Charbonnet, and proclaimed, Well, here we have the most beautiful woman in New Orleans, and the ugliest one, together!²⁷

In May and June 1929, Shaw appeared in a bit part as a soldier in The Queen’s Husband by Robert Emmet Sherwood. For that part, Shaw used the name of Clay La Vergne Shaw.²⁸ During the 1930s, Sherwood, a popular playwright and later screenwriter for the movies, would, act as an advisor to President Franklin Roosevelt.

In 1929, at the age of sixteen, Shaw began work as a clerk at Western Union Telegraph Company.²⁹ In 1930, he was an operator for Western Union, and his father is shown in the city directory as a clerk at an unspecified company, probably United Fruit.³⁰

Shaw’s boss at Western Union was John C. J.C. Jackson, the district manager. Shaw would work with Jackson for almost six years, before transferring to New York City with Western Union at the beginning of 1936. After Shaw returned to New Orleans in 1946 to work with the newly created International Trade Mart, he would occasionally work with Jackson on issues related to telegrams and their processing. Jackson followed Shaw’s career with some pride.

Gordon Jackson, Jackson’s grandson, recalls that his father, also named Gordon, and his father’s brother, Robert, were Shaw’s contemporaries, and knew him well during that 1929 to 1935 period; Robert Jackson graduated in the same high school class as Shaw. Robert Jackson was an intellectual who studied with John Dewey and Margaret Mead at Columbia University while getting a doctorate in educational psychology, and who also had a clinical practice on the side. He and his wife, Sylvia, a thorough-going liberal, accepted Shaw as a fellow intellectual and devotee of high culture.³¹

Gordon Jackson recalls that Shaw’s sexual orientation wasn’t really a secret to any of the family members, and not an issue in their dealings with him. He recalls his father telling him that Shaw once surprised him when Shaw tried to hold hands with him in the back seat of a car on a drunken evening.³² The advance was rebuffed, but no harm was done to the friendship, or to Shaw’s relationship with the family.

Shaw appeared at Le Petit Theatre in the workshop production of A Knight at an Inn, by Lord Dunsany, as a merchant sailor. Herman Cottman appeared in that same workshop as A.E. Scott-Fortesque.³³ Cottman also appeared in a workshop production of Grey Feather, playing the role of Clayton, a yacht steward, on August 1, 1930.³⁴

The next play authored by Shaw and Cottman, A Message From Khufu, was published in 1931. A tale of the raiding of an ancient Egyptian tomb, with deadly consequences, it was the duo’s most successful play after Submerged.

Those two early plays Shaw co-wrote with Cottman were generated as part of a nationwide student drama contest sponsored by a publisher, Row, Peterson and Company, of Evanston, Illinois. Claude Merton Wise, a University of Wisconsin speech and drama professor, was involved with the publisher in selecting the plays. The authors of the plays would receive up to a fifty percent royalty on production of the plays, and a five percent royalty on book sales of the plays.³⁵

By the time Submerged and A Message from Khufu were published, Wise had moved from Wisconsin to the Speech and Drama Department at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The two plays received attention, to some degree, throughout the country, with performances in small theater productions in all parts of the United States. Submerged was more popular, but A Message from Khufu was also performed regularly throughout the 1930s and 1940s. Shaw would draw royalties from the plays, in modest amounts, into the 1970s. ³⁶

In 1930, the royalties for Submerged were $343.30, with 652 copies sold. In 1931, 1,033 copies of Submerged were sold, generating royalties of $679.57, its most successful year of book sales, and probably of performances as well. That same year, 223 copies of A Message from Khufu were sold, generating royalties of $39.42.³⁷

During 1932, the most severe year of the Great Depression, all authors of plays in the series accepted a ten percent reduction in royalties as a percentage of sales. That year, Submerged sold 606 copies, yielding royalties of $37.56, while A Message from Khufu sold 194 copies, generating royalties of $14.84. Royalty income from stage productions was severely reduced during the 1930s, as many theaters cut ticket prices to keep patrons attending their productions.

There were more than forty different titles in the Row, Peterson and Company collection, which generated royalties to authors spread across the United States. Claude Wise received a yearly notice of the royalties paid to authors; Submerged continued to sell 500 to 800 copies per year throughout the 1930s and into the early 1940s. Sales of A Message from Khufu continued to climb throughout the 1930s, peaking in 1938 with sales of 394 copies and royalties of $27.30. Sales and royalties declined after the early 1940s, although they sporadically rose and fell over the next thirty years.³⁸

Some Internet references indicate that a British film called Men Without Women was made from Shaw and Cottman’s play, Submerged. However, that film appears to have been generated from a different source.

Shaw appeared as the Emperor Nero in a workshop production of The Emperor Discourses, by Claude Derbes, on August 11, 1931, under the name C.L. Shaw.³⁹ As can be seen, Shaw experimented with a variety of names related to his acting and playwriting in the late 1920s through the mid-1930s. He was still not yet known as Clay Shaw to most people at this point; most of his family and friends called him Vern.

By 1931, the Shaw family had moved to 4907 Willow Street. Glaris was listed in the city directory as a salesman (although he had already begun his tenure with the U.S. Treasury Department), and Clay Shaw was listed as Laverne (no g) Shaw, no doubt reflecting the name he had begun using in the Le Petit Theatre.⁴⁰

Sometime in 1931, Shaw took an additional job as secretary to L.S. Mac McClaren at International Harvester Company. McClaren, a recent law graduate who had been unable to find enough legal work to earn a living during the depths of the Great Depression, had transferred with the company from Memphis to New Orleans to head up the credit and collection division for southern Mississippi and southern Louisiana.⁴¹

That job would only last a short period, as Shaw continued with Western Union, but his friendship with McClaren would last four decades. McClaren eventually moved to McComb, Mississippi, where he served as District Attorney, and in the Mississippi state legislature. Shaw would later see him periodically while speaking at Rotary or Kiwanis Club events in the McComb area. McClaren, having been a prosecutor, and having known Shaw personally, followed closely the events of Shaw’s arrest and prosecution, and was supportive throughout that period.

In 1932, Glaris Shaw is listed in the city directory as an agent, with the family living at 1527 North Broad Street.⁴² Shaw’s father first served as an agent in the Prohibition Service of the U.S. Department of the Treasury; after Prohibition ended, he became an employee of the Alcohol Tax Division of the Treasury.

In May 1934, Shaw was in the cast of A Lady with Five Husbands. In January 1935, he served as Assistant to the Director in Night over Taos.⁴³ In June 1935, Shaw and Cottman’s three-act play, The Cuckoo’s Nest, was performed at a summer workshop of the theater. Jessie Tharp directed, and the program mentioned that Shaw and Cottman’s earlier plays, Submerged and A Message from Khufu, had won local tournaments for playwriting.⁴⁴ Louis Fischer was involved as the stage designer for the play.

Another person Shaw encountered in Le Petit Theatre, during the mid-1930s, was Kay Lucas. Lucas would later marry a doctor, William Leake, and suffer through an abusive marriage, during which her twin children were killed by a passing vehicle. She was hospitalized for mental problems, and eventually divorced in Florida. Later, she acted on stage in New York, and performed for U.S. troops in Europe.

The question of whether Shaw ever had a heterosexual relationship, particularly a sexual one, or at least an attempt at one, came up fairly often in interviews with those who knew him. Kay Lucas possibly hinted at one in a letter that she wrote to Shaw years later, a month or so after his arrest in March of 1967. After hearing of his arrest in the news, Lucas, now remarried, sent him a couple of telegrams, and then a lengthy letter, from her residence in the state of Washington, offering her support. In the letter, she identified herself more fully, referencing their friendship from years before, and asked, Do you recall a long, long night on 727(?) St. Anne when we tried the ‘NOBLE EXPERIMENT?’⁴⁵ The address could have referred to St. Ann Street in the French Quarter in New Orleans; Shaw lived at 727 St. Ann Street briefly in 1942 (He also lived at 627 St. Ann Street immediately upon returning to New Orleans after World War II). The letter also referenced knowing Shaw during his New York City days after leaving New Orleans.

Lucas also wrote to Shaw two years later, not long after he was acquitted on March 1, 1969, offering her congratulations, and said, In a strange way (I’m sure unknown to you) you’ve been a person who has had a profound influence on me and my life, and my memories of you are always with joy and laughter…..from chess games, concerts…shared troubles, and honest affection…& 727 St. Anne.⁴⁶ There is no indication Shaw responded directly to her letters or telegrams, other than with the same form letter with which he responded to the enormous volume of correspondence he received after his arrest. Apparently, the two had been out of touch for many years, and Shaw had not seen Lucas since the early 1940s, prior to his entering military service for World War II.

The family does not appear at all in the 1933 city directory, and no directory was published for 1934, although clearly they were living in New Orleans; Glaris Shaw’s Treasury records indicate that he was an agent in New Orleans during that period. By 1935, Glaris Shaw is shown as an investigator for the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (as part of the Department of the Treasury), and the family was living at 8422 Panola. Clay Shaw was listed as C. LaVergne Shaw, and was employed as a salesman at Western Union.⁴⁷ With Clay Shaw’s move to New York City at the end of 1935, and his father and mother’s move to Shreveport as a job transfer, the family disappears from the New Orleans city directories. In September 1935, due to a transfer with the Department of the Treasury, Shaw’s father moved to the Casa de Fresa Hotel in Hammond, Louisiana, where he stayed until January 1936, before moving to the residence at 455 Egan Street in Shreveport, Louisiana, where he and Shaw’s mother would live until the early 1950s.⁴⁸

Shaw’s father would generally serve with some distinction as a member of the Alcohol Tax Division until his retirement in mid-1953. However, in the spring of 1953, just months before his retirement, the Treasury Department investigated Glaris Shaw for a series of incidents that occurred from December 1945 to June 1947, when he made large purchases of whiskey from two liquor companies for members (judges) of the Federal District Court in his territory, at the request of those members. Shaw’s father explained to the internal Treasury officials that it was a means of maintaining a cordial and close working relationship with the member of the court. Shaw was warned that such purchases could be portrayed as a conflict of interest, and might place him and his department in an embarrassing position; he was advised to refrain from such activity in the future.⁴⁹

In November 1935, shortly before his departure from New Orleans to work in New York City for almost seven years, Clay Shaw, in perhaps his last involvement with Le Petit Theatre during that era, served as scenic assistant on Elizabeth the Queen. In early 1936, he transferred to New York City with Western Union. He apparently saw an opportunity to combine the corporate career ladder with the possibility of turning his early playwriting skills into an even larger success. One of the individuals with whom Shaw interacted at Western Union in New York City was Keith Bruce Mitchell, who was Director of Sales. It is unclear if Shaw knew Mitchell before leaving New Orleans, but by 1935 Shaw was in the sales department there. Mitchell, who was gay, became a lifelong friend of Shaw, and later served as Vice President of International Relations with Western Union, often testifying before Congressional committees in the 1950s and 1960s.

Not long after arriving in New York City, Shaw met Judson O’Donnell. His friend, Muriel Bultman, who was also working in New York City, introduced the two of them. Shaw and O’Donnell would share an apartment for a time in New York City, until O’Donnell moved to the West Coast and Shaw went off to World War II. It is unclear if the two had a physical relationship, but in later years they would leave money to each other in their wills, and the two would each often direct young men going between New Orleans and southern California, where O’Donnell settled, to look up his close friend for insight into the local scene.

O’Donnell also co-wrote a play called What Big Ears?, which opened and closed very quickly in 1942. O’Donnell’s co-author was Jo Eisinger, the future screenwriter, who was part of Shaw and O’Donnell’s group in New York City at the time. O’Donnell would move to California in the 1940s, register as a Republican, and work as a script reader for a studio. As an interesting aside, in 1951, while living next door to actress Barbara Payton, O’Donnell would witness a fist fight between actor Franchot Tone and Payton’s boyfriend, Tom Neal, over the affection of the beautiful actress. O’Donnell was quoted in several newspaper articles about the brawl, which was big news in Hollywood at the time.

Another of Shaw’s friends from this era was the writer Lyle Saxon, a former newspaper reporter who wrote several best-selling books about various aspects of Louisiana, and New Orleans in particular. Saxon wrote Fabulous New Orleans, a book portraying New Orleans against the background of Mardi Gras, and Gumbo Ya-Ya, a collection of folk tales from Louisiana. Saxon, during the mid-to-late 1930s, worked for the writer’s portion of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Like Shaw, Saxon was gay. He also served as a mentor to many young writers in the French Quarter during the 1920s and 1930s.

Shortly after arriving in New York City, Shaw wrote Saxon a letter from his new address at 45 West 12th Street in Manhattan. Shaw described the approximately 100-year-old house he had found, which was occupied by an incredibly aged female named Miss Perkins. Like everything in the house, she rates as an early American antique… Shaw had the top floor, which held a large bedroom and bath; the downstairs had a large library filled with books that would allow Shaw to cultivate my mind a little now…⁵⁰ Interestingly, in light of his later gregariousness, Shaw commented, with regard to him not knowing anyone yet in New York City, that, I suppose I’m a very perverse sort of egg but you don’t know how pleased it makes me to walk down the streets and realize I know practically nobody among these teeming millions… Such an almost giddy feeling of freedom, no ties, no obligations, etc.… Shaw said that he was caught up in the hustle and bustle of the metropolis and having the time of my life.⁵¹

Shaw commented that he was sorry he had not seen Saxon during a visit he made to Shreveport before going to New York City, but he indicated he had met Little Clive one night, and that Clive spent the evening regaling me with various experiences he has had in all parts of the country. Really, he makes Kraft-Ebbing read like a Sunday school tract . . . what a boy . . . Shaw closed the letter by saying that there was much I should like to tell you, but the Postal regulations being the things they are I’m afraid I shall have to wait for a personal interview.⁵²

Shaw’s reference to Little Clive and the Krafft-Ebing report were interesting early indicators of Shaw’s familiarity and comfort with sexual practices, at least to a theoretical extent. The Krafft-Ebing report was a set of case studies dealing with what was considered sexual perversity in Europe during the 1880s. Among other things, the book coined the term masochism. Although its author, an Austro-German sexologist and psychiatrist, wrote the book in such a way and with a title that was intended to discourage lay readers, the book was highly popular with them anyway, and went through many printings and translations. Many individuals, including some who were gay, used the book as a how to manual. In the author’s interviews with various individuals in preparation of this book, several of them mentioned the Krafft-Ebing report as having been useful to them during their young sexual years.

Also shortly after arriving in New York City in 1936, Shaw met writer William March, who had some New Orleans connections as well. Years later, Shaw would share his memories of March, whom he also knew later in New Orleans, with March’s biographer, English author Roy S. Simmonds. He recalled some of March’s eccentricities, his method of writing, his parties with large quantities of cold martinis, and his ideas for what eventually became March’s most famous work, The Bad Seed. Another Shaw friend from the New York days, Marion Seidenbach, her husband, Shaw and March formed a social group that saw each other numerous times during Shaw’s almost seven-year period there.⁵³

The Cuckoo’s Nest, the full-length play co-authored by Shaw and Herman S. Cottman, was published in 1936, although it had been performed in New Orleans the year before. The story, a farce about a very eccentric family who take up residence in a strangely deserted boarding house in New York City, was not as successful as the first two, shorter plays.

Mary Moore Sanborn wrote to her daughter, Cynthia, in Europe in August 1936, concerning the publication of The Cuckoo’s Nest, "Did I ever tell you that the boys, Shaw and Bunny [Herman Stuart Cottman], sold our play to the same publisher who has bought their other two [Submerged and A Message From Khufu]? I understand he is plugging it quite hard in his new catalog. This is The Cuckoo’s Nest. You remember that it was my idea, title, and roughly sketched plot, and they wrote it while I was in England? I’m to get 20% of what it brings in royalties. This will never be anything to brag about, but may in time bring me $50 or $60 a year. The publishers have made around $8,000 out of Submerged. Bunny and I are now embarked on a one-actor for the same market, to be called (so far) Light."⁵⁴

Marymor Cravens, Mary Moore Sanborn’s daughter, recalled that Shaw had dinner with her and her mother in New York City in the late 1930s, when she was attending a boarding school in Peekskill, New York, and he was living in the city. She lost touch with Shaw after the 1930s, although she may have seen him once or twice on business to New Orleans, until his arrest and trial toward the end of his life.⁵⁵

During his time in New York, Shaw often saw Robert Jackson and his wife, Sylvia, who were by now living in the New York City area. Sylvia’s brother, Ken Williams, was in the advertising and public relations industry, and later restored properties in various places, including one in Puerto Rico. Ken Williams was gay, and knew Shaw in that social circle as well.

Many writers have tried to place Shaw, politically, in the right-wing conservative camp, but Gordon Jackson, J. C. Jackson’s grandson, is skeptical of that, based upon Shaw’s long-time friendship with his uncle Robert and his wife Sylvia. If Shaw were a conservative, he wouldn’t have garnered such gushing affection from Sylvia, who was an in-your-face liberal and something of a political correctness cop. Jackson added that, Robert was less political, more intellectual, and I suspect that Shaw, like him, saw politics as being a bunch of lies on the mere surface of things and not terribly interesting.⁵⁶

On March 21, 1938, Shaw and his co-author, Herman Stuart Cottman, signed a contract with The Dramatic Publishing Company to publish their play, STOKERS, which the two had initially copyrighted in 1932. Perhaps their least-known play, it concerned a political radical, perhaps a Communist, among a ship’s crew, who tries to persuade his fellow crew members to blow up the ship for political reasons. In the end, the radical admits his true motive is personal revenge rather than ideology. The contract gave the publisher the rights to publish the play, and to be the agent for the play. It allowed the publisher to change the title if necessary, but the authors held the copyright. Royalties from amateur stage productions, radio, and television would be split 50/50 between the authors and the publisher. Professional stage productions and motion picture royalties would be split, with 10 percent going to the publisher and 90 percent going to the authors. For copies of the play sold