Clay Shaw

[Jan Klimkowski]

Peter - thank you for posting this article.

Clay ""Le/La Vergne" Shaw's literary offerings are fascinating, revealing, and provocative.

Like his dramatic alter ego Shaw, Clay Shaw was sacrificed, this time by the CIA, who felt that Americans were no longer buying the "lone-nut assassin" narrative. Shaw was to be a "limited hang out," a sacrificial lamb to attract attention away from CIA complicity. They knew that Garrison would not be able to prove Shaw's CIA involvement with the evidence to which he had access. In light of this sacrifice of Shaw, it is fascinating that when Shaw was asked before and during the trial, "how do you feel," Shaw repeatedly, to the point where Kirkwood says he could reply for Shaw, smiles and declares, "I feel like a spring lamb," (100, 101). Kirkwood, though a great storyteller, (see his novels P.S. Your Cat is Dead and There Must Be A Pony!) did not possess a particularly analytic mind, and never comprehended the significance of this repeated remark, which Shaw wanted to be recorded in the press and in Kirkwood's book. Here Shaw reveals his gift for symbolism and allusion. A "spring lamb" is a young suckling lamb, and while the expression "to feel like a spring lamb" connotes feeling energetic, with Shaw's literary mind and facility with symbolism, other layers reveal themselves. First, it also suggests that he is as innocent as a white, pure lamb. But "Spring lamb" also connotes "sacrificial lamb," a scapegoat. A sacrificial lamb is killed for the good of the rest of the social unit, who remain pure or are purified by the blood sacrifice. Clay Shaw knows he is being made a sacrifice by the CIA, and what's more, on some level, like his character "Shaw" in Submerged, something deep within him welcomes it, is excited by it. Shaw's repeated remark amounts to communicating to insiders that he is being sacrificed.

The silence of the sacrificed lamb....

Meanwhile, although the article is generally very good, the psycho-sexual, S&M interpretation below of Garrison feels strained.

So both Shaw and Garrison were on one level hoping for the guilty verdict, with Shaw subconsciously desiring to be that sacrificial "Spring lamb," a masochistic martyr like his character Shaw. On the other hand Garrison was consciously hoping for a guilty ruling to further debunk the Warren Report's conclusion that Oswald was a "lone-nut" assassin. But on another level they both wanted the "not guilty" ruling that was handed downShaw, consciously, for obvious reasons and Garrison, perhaps only subconsciously, due to his lack of unequivocal evidence that would clarify the extent of Shaw's involvement in the conspiracy. With the unavailability of slam-dunk evidence in Garrison's case and doubts about Perry Russo's and oddball Charles Spiesel's testimony, Garrison probably knew that it was unlikely that Shaw would be found guilty, yet he needed to expose the Warren Report and screen, for the first time, the Zapruder film in a public forum. Certainly a guilty verdict would strengthen the public's belief in conspiracy. Both Garrison and Shaw realized that a guilty verdict, though unlikely, was possible, adding to the high-stakes S/M thrill of the case, that could actually lead to the M's eventual death if things got out of hand. Shaw was found not guilty, but according to Shaw his finances were depleted by legal costs and he had to go back to work (restoring and selling houses in the French Quarter) rather than pursue his desire to renew his writing.

What do the experts think?