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Perry Russo
Perry Russo
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Perry Raymond Russo (May 14, 1941 – August 16, 1995)[1][2] was an American insurance salesman who became the key witness for the prosecution in the trial of Clay Shaw in New Orleans in 1969. Russo claimed that in September 1963, he witnessed businessman and civic leader Clay Shaw conspiring with Lee Harvey Oswald and David Ferrie to assassinate U.S. President John F. Kennedy.

Key Information

Friend of David Ferrie

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Russo was an insurance salesman from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He attended Tulane University, received a bachelor's degree from Loyola University New Orleans in 1964, and attended one year of law school at Loyola.[2][3] He moved away from New Orleans in September 1965.[3] Russo came forward after his friend David Ferrie died on February 22, 1967, while being investigated by New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison in regard to Kennedy's death. In four television and newspaper interviews that Russo gave,[4] he talked at length about Ferrie. He said that Ferrie had told him about a month before the assassination: "We will get him, and it won't be long," and on another occasion, "You know we can get Kennedy if we want him."[citation needed]

Russo said nothing in the interviews about Oswald, Shaw, or a conspiracy.[5] When a television reporter asked him on February 24 if Ferrie had ever mentioned Oswald's name, Russo said, "No. I had never heard of Oswald until the television [coverage] of the assassination."[6]

However, when he was interviewed by Garrison's office on February 27, Russo described a roommate of Ferrie's in New Orleans as having "sort of dirty blond hair and a husky beard … a typical beatnik, extremely dirty." When Russo was shown a picture of Oswald, he said that Oswald was the person whom Ferrie had introduced to him as his roommate sometime between May and October 1963.[7] When shown a picture of Shaw, Russo said he saw him and Ferrie talking in a car at Ferrie's service station. But still Russo said nothing about Shaw or Oswald conspiring with Ferrie to murder Kennedy.[8] Russo added that if he were hypnotized he may have total recall on names and places and dates.[citation needed]

Garrison arranged to have Russo interrogated three times while hypnotized, the first time while also under an injection of sodium thiopental, known popularly as "truth serum". Russo described a conspiracy plot, with Shaw (using the alias "Bertrand") and a rifle-toting "Leon" Oswald at Ferrie's apartment when Russo was visiting in mid-September 1963. Russo said Ferrie told him, "We are going to kill John F. Kennedy" and "it won't be long."[9] According to Jim Garrison, Russo had already testified to this, and that the hypnosis interrogation was for the purposes of verification of testimony.[10]

Testimony against Clay Shaw

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At Shaw's preliminary hearing on March 15, 1967, Russo repeated the claims he had made under hypnosis. When asked on cross-examination why he had not gone to the authorities two months after the alleged meeting, when Kennedy was assassinated, Russo replied, "I had an involvement with school, which was more pressing to me."[3]

Russo named two witnesses who could corroborate his story of attending a party at Ferrie's apartment in September 1963 in which the assassination plot was made. The first, Russo's former girlfriend, appeared on an NBC News program about the Garrison investigation on June 19, 1967, and denied being at Ferrie's apartment, and said that she never even met Ferrie until 1965. The second, a friend of Russo's, told NBC News that he was at Ferrie's apartment then but saw nobody resembling Oswald or Shaw.[11]

Russo failed two polygraph examinations ordered by Garrison, on March 8 and June 19, and during the second he confessed to the polygraph operator that his story was not true.[12][13] Walter Sheridan, a former FBI agent and aide to Robert F. Kennedy who was investigating the Garrison accusations for NBC News, reported,

"In my conversations with Perry Russo, he has stated that his [preliminary hearing] testimony against Clay Shaw may be a combination of truth, fantasy, and lies. He says he wishes he had never gotten into this, but now he feels he has no choice but to go through with it. He said he’s afraid if he changed his testimony, that Garrison might indict him for perjury . . . Russo said ‘The hell with truth, the hell with justice. You’re asking me to sacrifice myself for Clay Shaw, and I won’t do it.’"[11]

At a press conference with Garrison the day after the NBC broadcast, Russo accused Sheridan of attempting to bribe him into changing his story, and of alternating between promises and threats in seeking his help to "wreck the Garrison investigation." NBC News denied the allegations, and Sheridan said that Russo had solicited offers from them. George Lardner of The Washington Post who reported on the story said a week or two earlier that Russo solicited a bribe from him in order to divulge "weaknesses" in his testimony.[14][15]

Garrison had Russo testify two years later at the Clay Shaw trial, which ended in a not-guilty verdict after less than an hour of jury deliberation.[citation needed]

Later life

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In August 1970, Perry Russo and another man were arrested for burglarizing a New Orleans residence, stealing property valued at eight thousand dollars, and being in possession of a stolen safe-deposit key. Garrison’s office declined to prosecute on the burglary and theft charges. Russo pled guilty to possessing the stolen key and was given a three-month suspended sentence.[16][17][18]

In 1971, two years after Shaw's not-guilty verdict, Russo told one of Shaw's lawyers that he never saw Shaw at Ferrie's apartment, and that Garrison's office had done "a complete brainwashing job" on him.[19][20] In a second, tape-recorded interview with a former Garrison investigator and two of Shaw's attorneys, Russo spoke of Garrison and his staff telling him before the trial that they had a contract with Life magazine for $25,000, and that "after the Shaw conviction" they would "either give that to me or see somehow that I got a lot of it for my trouble." Russo also said, "I guess I always knew [Shaw] had nothing to do with anything."[21] But to others, Russo continued to assert that he had seen Ferrie, Shaw, and Oswald conspiring to kill President Kennedy.[22]

Journalist James Phelan, who covered the Garrison investigation for The Saturday Evening Post, later explained,

"He [Russo] told me [in March 1967] that he was caught in the middle of this thing, that if he stuck to his story, Shaw and his friends and lawyers would clobber him. If he changed his story, then Garrison would charge him with perjury and chuck! — there would go his job with Equitable Life. He told me all he was concerned about was his own position, that he wished he'd never opened his mouth about it, wished he could go back to the day before he shot off his mouth up in Baton Rouge."[23]

Oliver Stone's 1991 film JFK has Russo's testimony given by a fictional character named "Willie O'Keefe". Stone has said that in addition to Perry Russo, O’Keefe was a composite of three other Garrison witnesses — David Logan, Raymond Broshears, and William Morris.[24] In addition, Russo made a cameo appearance as an angry bar patron in the scene where news of the President's death is received.[25] George Lardner of The Washington Post, noting that in June 1967 Russo had invited him to "bribe him to disclose 'weaknesses' in his testimony", wrote that it was a "convenient device" for Stone to have eliminated Russo from his script.[15]

Offering a counter view to Stone's JFK, author and New Orleans native Nicholas Lemann wrote an opinion piece in the January 1992 issue of GQ criticizing Garrison's prosecution of Shaw and expressing the view that it had embarrassed the city of New Orleans. Lemann's only reference to Russo described him as "a young insurance salesman-cum-grifter who claimed to have overheard Shaw and Ferrie discussing the assassination at a party." In November 1992 Russo sued the publisher, Advance Magazine Publishers Inc. d/b/a Conde Nast Publications, for defamation. Noting that "Lemann intended to communicate both the longstanding controversy over Russo's testimony against Shaw, and Russo's admittedly strange existence on the fringes of respectable society", District judge Charles Schwartz Jr. dismissed Russo's claims against the publisher.[26]

He was interviewed for the 1992 documentary The JFK Assassination: The Jim Garrison Tapes.[27] Russo, who had been working as a driver for United Cab in New Orleans, died of a heart attack at age 54.[28][29]

References

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Revisions and contributorsEdit on WikipediaRead on Wikipedia
from Grokipedia
Perry Raymond Russo (May 14, 1941 – August 16, 1995) was a insurance salesman who emerged as the central witness in New Orleans Jim Garrison's 1967–1969 investigation and prosecution of for conspiring to assassinate President . Employed in sales for , Russo had known since around 1960–1961 and came forward after Ferrie's February 1967 death, claiming to have attended a September 1963 party where Ferrie, Shaw (whom he identified as using the alias "Clem Bertrand"), and discussed plans to kill Kennedy, including methods like triangulation of fire and disposal of evidence. Russo's , elicited in part through sessions and possibly sodium pentothal to "recover" suppressed memories, formed the prosecution's core at Shaw's and March 1969 trial, where he described the gathering as a "freak party" involving homosexual activities and plotting. However, significant discrepancies arose: Russo's trial account softened his certainty about Shaw's presence and identity, with defense witnesses—including police officers—testifying that he had expressed doubts about the identification and that used for lineup were suggestive. These issues, compounded by Garrison's unconventional methods and lack of corroborating physical , led to Shaw's swift by the after less than an hour of , highlighting Russo's as pivotal yet undermined by questions of reliability and potential . Post-trial, Russo maintained his account in interviews and appeared in documentaries, including Oliver Stone's JFK (1991), but faced ongoing scrutiny over the evidentiary weaknesses of his claims amid broader skepticism toward Garrison's probe, which relied heavily on circumstantial connections without forensic substantiation. His role underscored tensions between eyewitness recollection and verifiable proof in historical inquiries, with no independent confirmation ever emerging to link Shaw, Ferrie, or Oswald in the manner described.

Early Life and Background

Personal Background and Career

Perry Raymond Russo was born on May 14, 1941, in New Orleans, . He attended beginning in 1959 before transferring to , from which he graduated in 1964 with a in . Russo worked as an insurance salesman in the New Orleans area, employed by . By early 1967, at age 25, he was based in Baton Rouge while continuing in insurance sales. Following his involvement in the 1969 Clay Shaw trial, Russo's professional life was disrupted; he resumed employment around 1973 as a taxi driver for and later United Cab in . He claimed the damaged his career prospects in insurance, preventing further success in that field. Russo died on August 16, 1995.

Association with David Ferrie

Perry Russo first met in the early 1960s, around 1960 or 1961, according to Russo's before the Orleans Parish on March 22, 1967. At the time, Russo was working in sales for in , while Ferrie resided in New Orleans and was known for his involvement in aviation-related activities, including the . Their initial acquaintance appears to have been social rather than professional, as Russo later described visiting Ferrie's apartment on multiple occasions for gatherings. Russo portrayed their relationship as that of casual acquaintances, with interactions centered around informal events at Ferrie's apartment in New Orleans. During his testimony in the case, Russo confirmed knowing Ferrie from the early 1960s and attending such events, though specifics on the frequency or depth of their contact were limited and subject to challenging Russo's recollections. Ferrie, an eccentric figure with interests in and anti-Castro activities, hosted these parties, which Russo attended sporadically before Ferrie's death. The association gained prominence following Ferrie's apparent suicide on February 22, 1967, amid scrutiny from New Orleans Jim Garrison's investigation into the JFK . Russo, prompted by news reports linking Ferrie to the probe, contacted Garrison's office shortly thereafter, stating he had known Ferrie since the early and recalling discussions involving Ferrie about political . This disclosure positioned Russo as a potential , though the reliability of his memories—later extracted via and sodium pentothal injections administered by Garrison's team—remains debated in legal records.

Involvement in JFK Assassination Probe

Contact with

Perry Russo, an insurance salesman residing in Baton Rouge and a longtime acquaintance of , initiated contact with 's office in late February 1967, shortly after Ferrie's death on February 22, 1967, amid Garrison's public investigation into potential JFK assassination links. Prompted by news reports and Garrison's televised statements connecting Ferrie to the assassination, Russo volunteered information about Ferrie's anti-Kennedy views and activities, including obsessions with Cuba-related plots. On February 24, 1967, Russo appeared on WAFB-TV in Baton Rouge, publicly describing Ferrie's fixation on undermining Kennedy's policies and his general hostility toward the president, though without alleging direct involvement at that stage. Garrison's assistant district attorney, Andrew Sciambra, responded by interviewing Russo in Baton Rouge on February 27, 1967, where Russo detailed past interactions with Ferrie dating back to 1962 but made no initial reference to or a specific meeting. This encounter led to Russo's transport to New Orleans for intensified scrutiny, including tests and administration of sodium pentothal on March 3, 1967, during which more detailed claims emerged.

Alleged Eyewitness Account

Perry Russo claimed that in the summer of 1963, he attended a party at David Ferrie's apartment in New Orleans, where he overheard Ferrie, (using the alias ""), and discussing a plot to assassinate President , which they referred to as an "operation." Russo stated that the conversation included references to Oswald as "The Little Man" and involved hypothetical scenarios of eliminating the president, including tactics resembling a triangular formation of shooters to ensure success. Russo further alleged a subsequent meeting at Ferrie's apartment, attended by the same individuals, where the group elaborated on the assassination details, including Oswald's prospective role in the shooting and contingency plans involving diversionary activities by associates. He maintained that these events occurred several months prior to the November 22, 1963, assassination in , and that he recognized Shaw from photographs shown to him during subsequent questioning by authorities. These claims emerged after Russo contacted Jim Garrison's office in late February 1967, following Ferrie's death, prompting interviews that included hypnosis and administration of sodium pentothal to elicit the recollections. Russo insisted the memories predated the assassination publicity and were not influenced by media reports, though he admitted initial uncertainty about Shaw's identity until photo identification.

Testimony in Clay Shaw Case

Preliminary Hearing

The preliminary hearing for , charged with conspiring to assassinate , convened on March 14, 1967, in Orleans Parish Criminal District Court before Judge Bernard J. Bagert. The proceedings, spanning March 14 to 17, featured testimony from several witnesses, with Perry Russo emerging as the prosecution's central figure. Russo, an salesman from Baton Rouge, took the stand on , identifying Shaw in court as the individual he knew by the alias "." Russo recounted attending a gathering at David Ferrie's apartment in September 1963, where he alleged Shaw, Ferrie, and discussed plans to kill Kennedy. According to Russo, the men referred to the plot as a "" and outlined using riflemen positioned in a triangular formation to ensure success, with Oswald assigned a role in the operation. He described Shaw introducing himself as Bertrand and engaging in detailed conversation about evading detection post-assassination, including code words like "" for future contact. Russo maintained he had not fabricated the account, emphasizing his prior acquaintance with Ferrie through activities. Defense attorneys, led by F. Irvin Dymond, cross-examined Russo on potential inconsistencies, such as his delayed recollection of Shaw's involvement and prior statements to investigators, but Russo reaffirmed his identification and the substance of the overheard discussion. No directly linked Shaw to the alleged meeting, and the prosecution relied heavily on Russo's eyewitness claims to establish . On March 17, 1967, Judge Bagert ruled that sufficient existed, binding Shaw over for in Orleans Parish Criminal District Court on conspiracy charges under law. This decision advanced the case to indictment, though subsequent scrutiny in federal courts questioned the reliability of Russo's preliminary statements compared to his later testimony.

Trial Proceedings

Perry Russo took the stand on February 10, 1969, delivering the prosecution's central eyewitness testimony in the State of v. Clay L. Shaw trial. He recounted knowing since the early 1960s through social and connections, and attending a gathering at Ferrie's apartment at 3330 Avenue Parkway in late September 1963. There, Ferrie introduced Russo to "Leon Oswald"—later identified by Russo as , described as Ferrie's roommate—and "Clem Bertrand," whom Russo identified in court as defendant . Russo alleged the men engaged in explicit discussions of assassinating President Kennedy, with Ferrie pacing and referencing news clippings while proposing a "triangulation of crossfire" involving 2-3 shooters: one delivering a diversionary shot, two for the kill shots, and a to absorb blame. Shaw reportedly endorsed the plot as akin to a maneuver, objecting only to certain escape details, while Oswald defended Ferrie's expertise for potential flights to (via for refueling) or ; the group also planned alibis, such as Shaw traveling on business and Ferrie speaking at a college. Russo claimed he was invited to join but declined, viewing the talk as serious rather than hypothetical. Cross-examination by defense counsel, including Irvin Dymond, spanned hours and emphasized variances from Russo's prior accounts, notably that his testimony had been more definitive on Shaw's presence and identity as Bertrand, whereas at he qualified his certainty under oath. The defense elicited admissions that Russo's enhanced recollections surfaced after pre-trial sessions and administration of sodium pentothal, conducted by Garrison's office to probe suppressed memories. Russo maintained his identifications but acknowledged not coming forward immediately after the , attributing delay to fear and uncertainty until Ferrie's 1967 death prompted contact with authorities. On February 27, 1969, the defense called rebuttal witnesses to undermine Russo, including New Orleans Police E.M. O'Donnell, who testified that Russo had confided post-arrest doubts about Shaw being the plot participant he overheard, and another associate echoing similar hesitations. Russo's multi-day testimony, totaling around ten hours, underpinned the entire conspiracy charge, with prosecutor James Alcock deeming it pivotal despite no corroborating physical evidence.

Credibility and Controversies

Inconsistencies in Testimony

Perry Russo's initial interview with Assistant District Attorney Andrew Sciambra in Baton Rouge on February 25, 1967, produced a memorandum that omitted any mention of a conspiratorial meeting at David Ferrie's apartment where assassination plans were allegedly discussed, or of Clay Shaw's association with Lee Harvey Oswald. Russo later claimed under oath that he had described such a meeting during this interview, but Sciambra testified that the memorandum did not fully capture the conversation due to haste in note-taking, though he acknowledged key omissions regarding the plot discussion. These gaps became central to defense arguments that Russo's account evolved significantly after his relocation to New Orleans. Following the Baton Rouge interview, Russo was administered sodium pentothal—a known as a ""—and subjected to sessions on February 28, March 2, and March 12, 1967, under the supervision of Orleans Parish Nicholas Chetta and physician Esmond Fetter. During these sessions, Russo first identified (using the alias "") as present at the alleged 1963 party and detailed discussions of tri-mination—killing in stages—as a method for assassinating Kennedy. James Phelan, who reviewed the Sciambra provided by 's office, testified at the Shaw that profound differences existed between Russo's initial statements and his enhanced recollections, describing the early account as lacking any reference while the post- version introduced elaborate plot details. Phelan confronted with these variances in March 1967, prompting claims from the DA's office that merely clarified suppressed memories, though critics argued the techniques risked implanting false recollections through . At the and trial, defense exposed further inconsistencies, including Russo's prior uncertainty about Shaw's identity. New Orleans Police Lieutenant E.M. O'Donnell testified that Russo informed him he could not definitively confirm Shaw as the man at the meeting, despite selecting a , stating only that Shaw "could be" the individual. Russo's trial also conflicted with a February 1967 statement under , where he described details diverging from his courtroom account, such as variations in the meeting's sequence and participants' dialogue. These prior inconsistent statements, admitted as , undermined Russo's reliability, with the defense portraying his narrative as progressively embellished to fit Garrison's theory rather than rooted in unaltered recollection.

Methods of Interrogation and Criticisms

Perry Russo underwent interrogation using sodium pentothal, a commonly referred to as "," on February 27, 1967, at Mercy Hospital in New Orleans, administered by coroner Nicholas Chetta under the direction of Jim Garrison's office. During this session, assistant district attorney Andrew Sciambra questioned Russo, who experienced a severe physical reaction requiring restraint and later reported for parts of the event; under the drug's influence, Russo identified "" as a participant in a discussion of assassinating President Kennedy alongside and "Leon Oswald." Russo's submission to the procedure was voluntary, following his initial contact with Garrison's investigators and prior media appearances. Subsequent hypnosis sessions, conducted by Dr. Esmond Fatter starting March 1, 1967, involved techniques, such as visualizing events on an imaginary television screen, to "enhance" Russo's recall of a mid-September party at Ferrie's apartment where the plot allegedly unfolded. In these sessions, Fatter and Sciambra posed leading questions about specific details, including the presence of a white-haired man with a and alibi planning for , which Russo incorporated into his narrative identifying as Bertrand. Garrison maintained that these methods corroborated Russo's preexisting memories without introducing new information. Critics, including Shaw's defense attorney Irvin Dymond, argued that the techniques implanted false memories, as Russo's initial February 24, , interview with Sciambra yielded no recollection of an assassination discussion or direct knowledge of Shaw, only vague sightings from a distance. Sodium pentothal does not reliably produce truthful accounts and can induce or fantasy, according to medical experts like Dr. Edwin Weinstein, particularly given Russo's adverse reaction and partial . is highly susceptible to , with Fatter's leading prompts blurring the line between genuine recall and induced imagery, as noted by Yale psychiatrist Dr. Jay Katz in his analysis of the transcripts. Federal Judge Herbert Christenberry later ruled in Shaw v. that the use of these methods cast significant doubt on the testimony's validity, suggesting the story may have been fabricated under their influence. Further undermining the techniques' reliability, Russo failed a test administered by Garrison's office, indicating deception in key claims, and privately admitted to Baton Rouge police lieutenant O'Donnell after Shaw's arrest that he could not confirm Shaw as the man he saw. Journalist James Phelan, after reviewing the sessions, contended that the "conspiracy" narrative emerged primarily from reinforcement rather than independent recollection. These procedural flaws contributed to the state court's dismissal of charges against Shaw at the and the trial's on March 1, 1969.

Post-Trial Life and Legacy

Later Career and Public Role

Following the 1969 acquittal of , Perry Russo encountered significant professional setbacks in his prior role as an insurance salesman, later stating that his involvement in had irreparably damaged his employability in that field. In 1970, he pleaded guilty to possessing stolen property—a safe-deposit box key—and received a three-month . By approximately 1973, Russo transitioned to driving a taxi for in New Orleans, a occupation he maintained for the bulk of his subsequent years, eventually switching affiliation to United Cab. Russo's public engagements remained tied to the JFK assassination narrative, where he periodically reaffirmed his testimony despite criticisms of its reliability. In , he appeared as an interviewee in the public television documentary He Must Have Something, which examined the Shaw trial proceedings. That same year, Russo filed a lawsuit against Conde Nast Publications over an article in Vanity Fair that portrayed him negatively in connection with the case, though the suit was ultimately unsuccessful. These instances marked his limited but persistent involvement in discussions surrounding Garrison's probe, without broader media or advocacy roles.

Death and Subsequent Assessments

Perry Raymond Russo died of a heart attack on August 16, 1995, in New Orleans, , at the age of 54. At the time, he was employed as a taxi driver for United Cab. Posthumous analyses of Russo's account have reinforced doubts about its veracity, emphasizing discrepancies between his and trial testimonies, where key details such as the alleged plot discussion were altered or amplified. Critics, including former conspiracy proponents, have highlighted how Russo's claims of overhearing a plot emerged only after exposure to and sodium pentothal—techniques prone to inducing and —rather than in initial interviews following David Ferrie's death. No independent corroboration for Russo's specific allegations against surfaced in subsequent decades, contributing to scholarly and legal consensus viewing his role as emblematic of investigative overreach in Garrison's probe.

References

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