Author: Carter McLellan – Date: May 2, 2025

Contents

1. Youth, 1913-1931
2. Early Career, 1932-1941
3. WWII in the Army, 1941-1946
4. Man of Intrigue, 1946-1965
5. The Death of Clay Shaw, 1966-1974
6. Supranational ties review
7. Death of Shaw, suspicious?
8. Notes

Youth, 1913-1931

Clay LaVergne Shaw was born on March 17, 1913, in Kentwood, Louisiana, USA, to Alice Rebecca Herrington and Gloris Lenora Shaw. Kentwood was a small rural town in Tangipahoe Parish, north of New Orleans. Clay’s father Gloris was a U.S. Marshall and his grandfather was a Sheriff of Tangipahoa Parish.

Around 1918, when Clay was 5, the Shaw family moved south to New Orleans. He graduated from Warren Easton High School in 1928, a year before the beginning of the Great Depression and during the latter part of Prohibition. In 1929, he co-authored a playwright called Submerged.

Early Career, 1932-1940

In 1932, when Clay was about 19 years old, he was hired by the Western Union Telegraph Company, a large financial services company. In 1935, Western Union transferred Shaw to New York City, where he became a district manager. By 1935, Shaw already had been exploring homosexuality.

Then around 22, Shaw decided to pursue a career in writing by attending Columbia University. He left Western Union for a career as a consultant in public relations and advertising and was hired by Keedick Lecture Bureau. He remained as a consultant until 1940, then age 27.

WWII in the Army, 1942-1946

Early on in WWII, Shaw enlisted in the Army and was assigned to the Medical Corps. He later received an officer’s commission and was posted to England where he served briefly in a hospital unit. He was transferred to the Quartermaster Corps and served as secretary to the General Staff in England.

From 1943 to 1944, Shaw was an aid-de-camp to General Thrasher. Then from 1944 to 1946, Shaw was Deputy chief of staff, Oise Sect, European theatre operations, in France and Belgium. In 1946, Shaw retired as Major General Staff Corps.

He was awarded the Legion of Merit and Bronze Star from the US. His time in France earned him the Croix de Guerre and he was made a Chevalier de l’Ordre du Merite. In Belgium he was made a Knight of the Order of the Crown of Belgium.

His time in England, France and Belgium appears to have made him numerous contacts, including European nobility.

Various allegations have been made about Shaw’s activities in the Army during WWII. Including that he was allegedly an office in the OSS and worked as a liaison for the OSS to the English. He also was allegedly in contact with the British SOE. Furthermore, he was allegedly involved in the early part of Operation Paperclip in brining Nazi scientists to the US, in 1945.

Man of Intrigue, 1946-1965

Following Shaw’s honorable discharge from the Army in 1946, he returned to civilian life in New Orleans. On January 19, 1946, Theodore Brent recommended Shaw to become the Manager of the newly formed International Trade Mart (ITM), a position he accepted. Shaw then embarked on traveling around the world to obtain leases for rental space. That endeavor was successful, as by 1949 almost all the rental space was under lease.

From 1949 to 1959, Shaw was said to have helped establish trade relations with Cuba’s Batista. Furthermore, from 1949 to 1956, Shaw was reported to have made contact with the CIA up to 30 times. Shaw apparently traveled to Brazil in 1951. Shaw became the Secretary of the Mississippi Valley World Trade Council founded in 1956.

On July 28, 1958, Shaw joined the Board of Directors of Permindex, a highly intriguing outfit set up in Geneva, Switzerland, modeled after the ITM. Then from 1961 to 1965, Shaw was on the board of director’s of Permindex’s Centro Mondiale Commerciale (CMC) in Rome, Italy. Additionally, Shaw served as managing director at the ITM’s sister organization, the International House (IH), from 1961 to 1962. In early May 1961, Shaw introduced Deputy Director of the CIA, 1953-1962, Charles Cabell to a Foreign Policy Association (FPA) event in New Orleans.

On August 16, 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald and an accomplice distributed Fair Play for Cuba (FPCC) pamphlets in front of the ITM. On November 22, 1963, President Kennedy was assassinated by Oswald in Dallas, Texas, ahead of a speech at the Dallas Trade Mart. Between 1963 to 1964, Shaw reportedly was involved in setting up a nickel deal with Richard White of Freeport Suphur between Cuba and a Canadian corporation.

Shaw finally retired in 1965, after serving as the managing director of the ITM for nearly 20 years.

The Death of Clay Shaw, 1966-1974

It seems that 1966 was the last peaceful year of Clay Shaw’s life. On March 1, 1967, New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison had Shaw arrested on the charge that he was involved in a conspiracy to assassinated President Kennedy. Garrison’s evidence hinged on evidence that Shaw used the alias Clay Bertrand and on testimony of questionable witnesses like Perry Russo. Exactly two years later, Shaw was acquitted on March 1, 1969.

Even after Shaw as acquitted, Garrison attempted to charge him with perjury. Shaw also filed a lawsuit against Garrison and his financiers at Truth & Consequences, Inc.

Shaw as a chain smoker and died from metastic lung cancer on August 15, 1974. He was buried in his hometown at Woodland Cemetery in Kentwood.

Supranational ties review

Early ties

I’ve not done a whole lot of research yet into the Shaw family, but we do know that Clay Shaw’s father Gloris was a U.S. Marshall and his grandfather was a Sheriff of Tangipahoa Parish.

It’s interesting to note that Shaw graduated from Warren Easton High School in 1928, and 27 years later Lee Harvey Oswald would attend the same high school in 1955, but soon quit. This doesn’t really indicate much, but it is an interesting fact of history.

Shaw’s early employment at the Western Union Telegraph is noteworthy. This job, which he held from 1932 to 1935, would give Shaw early experience with financial services. This was a large and storied business. Victor Astor (1891-1959), a member of the Pilgrims Society, was at some point a director of Western Union and Chase National Bank and owner of Newsweek. Astor was known to have had an interest in intelligence matters and developed an informal intelligence circle with Anglophile views. His intelligence circle would come to aide President FDR. Victor Astor was active in New York, and Clay Shaw would be sent to New York in 1935, but soon left Western Union.

Another Pilgrims Society member who was a director of Western Union in the 1890s to 1900s was Newcomb Carlton (1869-1953). British Naval Intelligence was watching the company. Furthermore, like Victor Astor, Carlton was a director of Chase National Bank, as well as other companies as Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., American Express Co., American International Corporation and others. Carlton was also a stockholder in Kuhn Loeb & Co., which invested in Western Union.

Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919), was a Pilgrims Society member and director of Western Union Telegraph, American Express and other companies. He sold Carnegie Steel to JP Morgan in 1901 and renamed it to US Steel.

Other Pilgrim Society members who have been directors of Western Union include Morris Ketchum Jesup (1830-1908), JP Morgan (1837-1913), Ralph Thomas Reed (1890-1968), Percy Avery Rockefeller (1878-1934), Mortimer Leo Schiff (1877-1931), and Albert Henry Wiggin (1868-1951). It’s interesting to not the long standing elite ties of Western Union Telegraph, it’s connections to New York and Britain through the Pilgrims Society. Some of these themes did come up in Clay Shaw’s life.

Shaw’s link to the Keedrick Lecture Bureau might also be interesting to consider. It was founded in 1907, one of the counties oldest lecture-circuit agencies. It’s counted a number of interesting clients like Norman Cousins and Lee Radziwill.

It does appear that Shaw attended Columbia University, an elite educational institution with numerous ties. It’s one of the big “Ivy League” Universities located in Manhattan, New York City. President of Columbia University from 1902 to 1945 was Nicholas Murray Butler, head of the Pilgrims Society. On graduate around the time Shaw attended might have been Thomas Karamessines, a graduate in 1938, OSS agent, CIA Rome station chief from 1959 to 1963, and CIA/DDO from 1967 to 1972.

Military Career

Clay Shaw served in the US Army from 1941 to 1946 during WWII. It does appear that he may have developed a number of connections during this five year period. He served in England, France and Belgium.

He was initially assigned to the Medical Corps and later received an officer’s commission and was posted to England where he served briefly in a hospital unit. He was transferred to the Quartermaster Corps and served as secretary to the General Staff in England. From 1943 to 1944, Shaw was an aid-de-camp to General Thrasher.

Then from 1944 to 1946, Shaw was Deputy chief of staff, Oise Sect, European theatre operations, in France and Belgium. In 1946, Shaw retired as Major General Staff Corps. His time in France and Europe earned him several awards. He was awarded the Legion of Merit and Bronze Star from the US, in France he earned the Croix de Guerre and he was made a Chevalier de l’Ordre du Merite, and in Belgium he was made a Knight of the Order of the Crown of Belgium.

Supranational ties

Clay Shaw became involved in the “Supranational Network” after his honorable discharge from the Army and return to New Orleans. In 1946, Shaw found himself taking up the position of managing director of the new International Trade Mart (ITM), which was chartered in 1945. Shaw would remain as the managing director of the ITM until his retirement in 1965.

The ITM had 41 founding directors, among them prominent citizens of New Orleans. The first President was Theodore Brent, from 1945 to 1953, when he passed away. Brent had been a trustee at the Ochsner Foundation Hospital since 1944 and was the first vice president of the ITM’s sister organization, the International House. The second President of the ITM was William Zetzmann, from 1953 to 1962, when he passed. Zetzmann was the primary founder and President of the International House and had been a director at the Hibernia National Bank alongside Brent. The third ITM President was Lloyd Cobb, from 1962 to 1972, when he passed. Cobb had been a Director at the International House and in 1953 was granted a CIA security clearance. The fourth President, after the ITM merged with the IH in 1968, was Captain John Willis Clark, a trustee of the Cordell Hull Foundation for International Education, director of the Information Council of the Americas (INCA), and President of the Mississippi Shipping Company.

Other founding directors of the ITM were Joseph Montgomery, a Tulane University trustee from 1947 to 1967, member of the Boston Club, member of INCA, involved in the Ochsner Foundation Hospital, and vice president and legal aide of United Fruit Co. There was also Leonard K. and Ralph Nicholson, who controlled the New Orleans States Item and Times-Picayune. Leonard was a member of the Boston Club. Harvey Koch was another founding director, who was a director of INCA. There was also Charles Nutter, the chief of the AP New Orleans Bureau and managing director of the International House from 1945 to 1961, succeeded by Shaw from 1961 to 1962.

A number of other individuals who came to the ITM included Alberto C. Fowler, a Cuban exile and friend of Shaw who was the director of international relations a the ITM by 1966, a director of the Inter-American Municipal Organization (IAMO) and involved in INCA. Fowler alleged stalked JFK just before his assassination.

There was the highly curious Gordon Novel who came to the ITM on business to meet with Shaw. Novel was allegedly involved with Banister, Ferrie and Arcacha Smith in the Houma Schlumberger arm depot “raid” in 1961, and was suspected of “infiltrating” Shaw’s investigation. He would later show up in disinformation circuit, such as with Coast to Coast AM, but made a number of interesting allegations over the years.

One intriguing individual who worked at All Transport, Inc. at the ITM was Juan Valdes, a neighbor of Doctor Mary Sherman. Valdes alleged met with Oswald and knew Ed Butler of INCA, who had previously been involved with Free Voice of Latin America at the ITM. Valdes was a homosexual and fits that theme in the New Orleans JFK saga (think David Ferrie and Clay Shaw).

Another interesting individual at the ITM was William Gaudet (1908-1981), a graduate of Tulane University and founder of the Latin American Report in the late 1940s. Gaudet worked for the CIA and had spotted Oswald distributing FPCC literature in front of the ITM, where the Latin American Report was headquartered, in August 1963. Gaudet was close to Alton Ochsner and had worked with Nelson Rockefeller on latin american affairs, since 1942 as executive secretary of the Coordination Committee for Costa Rica, then after WWII as State Department Press Attache in Latin America. He understood that Ferrie and Shaw were friends and both homosexual. Gaudet was of particular note as a result of having received a Mexican tourist permit with the serial number just preceding that of one issued to Oswald on Sept. 17, 1963. Gaudet had reportedly worked for the CIA from 1947 to 1969, during which time he held various journalistic positions focused on Latin America.

The ITM’s sister organization, International House, was another highly intriguing outfit. It was chartered in 1943 and primarily founded by the earlier mentioned William Zetzmann, who also served as the President. Directors also involved at the ITM included Theodore Brent and Lloyd Cobb.

Another primary founder was the highly intriguing Rudolph Hecht, who served as the chair of IH until his death in 1956. Hecht had been chair of the Mississippi Shipping Co. working with its President Brent. He was chair in the 1960s at the Hibernia National Bank alongside directors Brent and Zetzmann. He was also a president of the American Bankers Association and member of the Committee for the Marshall Plan to Aid European Recovery.

There was Joseph Rault, Sr., whose son would later be involved in inspiring Jim Garrison to launch of JFK investigation. Rault Jr. was a member of the New Orleans Petroleum Club and a temporary director in the 1960s at IAMO. Rault Jr., a colleague of Garrison at Tulane University, was the primary organizer of Truth & Consequences, a committee to gather funds for Garrison set up in 1967.

Another IH Director was C.C. Walther, a Boston Club member, and President of the Mississippi Valley World Trade Council, for which Shaw served as Secretary. Furthermore, Walther was a member of INCA.

Probably the most interesting director of the IH was Dr. Alton Ochsner. He was the chair of the surgery department at Tulane University from 1927 to 1961. He was a member of the Boston Club, chair of IAMO, and founder and head of the Ochsner Foundation Hospital, which was financed by the Murchisons from Texas. Ochsner was President of the Cordell Hull Foundation for International Education in the 1960s, and involved with the New Orleans Metropolitan Crime Commission alongside Oswald employer Eustis Reily. Ochsner was the founder and chair of the Information Council of the Americas (INCA), directed by Ed Butler who had direct contact with Oswald in August 1963. Ochsner also attended Bohemian Grove in 1965.

The founding secretary until late 1943 was Hale Boggs, a congressman from Louisiana, who sat on the Warren Commission and ended disappearing in an unusual plane disappearance in 1972. Nelson Rockefeller was a supporter of the IH and gave a speech there. The managing director of the IH from 1945 to 1961 was Charles Nutter, who was succeeded by Clay Shaw, from 1961 to 1962, followed by Paul Fabry. The ITM and IH merged in 1968 to become the World Trade Center of New Orleans.

Since 1958, until his retirement in 1965, Shaw had been on the board of Permindex/CMC, an extremely intriguing outfit set up in line with the ITM in New Orleans. This organization has already been discussed in a separate article, illustrating how it has links to the Kennedy assassination and deep CIA ties in Rome, where it has strong connections with P2 and Operation Gladio.

In 1961, Shaw gave an introduction to Deputy CIA Director Charles Cabell at the New Orleans Foreign Policy Association. Cabell’s brother Earle was the Mayor of Dallas, a member of the Dallas Council on World Affairs and supporter of the Texas Crusade for Freedom. Cabell had also been linked to Ed Butler and George White.

It might be interesting to note the a Guy Banister file reportedly connected Shaw to Richard White of Freeport Sulphur in connection with a trip to Cuba in a flight possibly piloted by David Ferrie in 1963 or 1964. Freeport Sulphur has had various names. It has involved a number of interesting persons, from John Hay Whitney, Godfrey Stillman Rockefeller, to James Moffett of the WTC New Orleans and Henry Kissinger.

Sexual elements

An important aspect of Clay Shaw is the sexual element. He was known to have been a homosexual. Following his arrest, it began to be known that Shaw might have been into some serious SM type activity. Joan Mellen explains:

“The search of Clay Shaw’s house [at 1313 Dauphine Street produced interesting things]. … Upstairs, it was as if an entirely different lived here. Attached to the beams in the ceiling over the bed in the master bedroom, just as Dr. Lief’s patient had described them, were huge hooks with chains fitted with wrist straps handing free, hooks large enough to hand a human body. On the ceiling were bloody palm prints. Many hands had been suspended there, William Alford thought, and he wondered whether anyone had died or been seriously injured in this room. A black gown bore “whip marks,” William Gurvich noticed. Five whips bore traces of blood. A cat-o’-nine-tails sat in the closet. … [Garrison] didn’t want to make Shaw’s sexuality an issue. … Garrison’s investigators emerged … with five cardboard boxes containing ropes, whips, chains, marble phalluses, the black cape, a black hood and black lacquer Asian-type sandals with white satin linings…”

Jim Garrison had refused to pursue this bizarre aspect. There was even testimony from Shaw’s maid, Virginia Jonson, who claimed there had been a “mysterious death or killing of someone in the house,” and there had been no police investigation of the matter. Just two week prior to Shaw’s arrest, police were called because Shaw and two black males were naked on the patio using bottles on each other. When Shaw was arrested, he contacted Fred Lee Crisman, a CIA operative who described himself as “being sadistic in sexual practice preferences.”

All of this becomes increasingly worrying when one looks at what ISGP pointed out: Clay Shaw’s contact with Princess Jacqueline de Riquet Caraman-Chimay of France. The same de Chimay family later came up in connection with the Dutroux X-dossiers in Belgium, in which victim-witness X2 alleged child hunts had taken place at Chateau de Chimay in the 1980s.

ISGP also compared Permindex with the Belgian European Institute of Management (EIM), which was strongly linked to the X-dossiers network and suspects of the Gang of Nijvel. Here too are links to Gladio and P2. Both involves members of the 1001 Club and both may have had ties to Intertel. Roy Cohn had reportedly been on the board of Permindex as well, and he would later been linked to Craig Spence and alleged to have ran a homosexual pedophile blackmail operation.

The MKULTRA and blackmail type activities in New Orleans are heavy and certainly indicate a pattern that merits further investigation. Even Jim Garrison had been accused of homosexual pedophilia at the New Orleans Athletic Club, where Shaw as also a member.

At one point, while investigating Shaw’s connections at the International Trade Mart, I stumbled upon a document discussing the President Lloyd Cobb, a lawyer whose firm had a client in 1953, the Helis Petroleum Corporation. In 1967, during an investigation of William Helis, whose sister was reported to have been “grossly immoral.” An informant of undetermined credibility stated to the CIA:

“The essence of the rumor was to the effect that Clay SHAW has been closely linked as an associate of one of the wealthy and socially prominent ‘HELIS’ girls as well as one of the MONTELEONE girls of the family who founded the hotel of the same name. Persons mentioned, name SHAW, nee HELIS and nee MONTELEONE were referred to in terms indicating gross immorality with overtones suggesting sexual deviation. The rumor appeared to be to the effect that they were among the prominent members of a cult whose immorality was generally known but to some extent at least, tacitly accepted by New Orleans society.”

This is just another indication of the sexual undercurrent behind the JFK assassination.

Death of Shaw, suspicious?

1974 death

Notes