Talk:Clay Shaw

Be careful on editing this article

I included a citation to the CIA's magazine called Studies in Intelligence. The article in the CIA magazine contains information derived from CIA memoranda from the New Orleans CIA Office about Clay Shaw. He is the subject of the article.

Today, one of the editors deleted out the information, along with the cite to the article. The reasons given by the editor:

"Said CIA link is actually an article by Max Holland, and in fact serves to debunk the Paese Sera article."

Since the editor deleted the link, the reader can't check out the accuracy of what the editor claims. Here it is. [1] It is a CIA web site. When you get there simply look up the title that was supplied and there you have the article based on historical records, and the author's opinion of the historical documents.

Here is the CIA's synopsis:

"The Lie That Linked CIA to the Kennedy Assassination" by Max Holland, Stud. Intel. Fall/Winter 2001, No. 11:5-17 PDF Follows the trail of a Soviet disinformation effort that linked Clay Shaw, accused of masterminding the plot that led to President Kennedy's assassination by New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, to CIA. The article traces the disinformation from its first appearance in a small, leftist Italian newspaper in 1967 to its role in stimulating Oliver Stone's film, JFK, many years later. Provides a detailed account of how the Agency reacted to Garrison's efforts, what Shaw's relationship with the Agency actually was, and the ultimate impact the disinformation had on the belief of many that the Agency had a hand in Kennedy's death.[2]

Whatever the the intent was for publishing the article, the article can be cited for the material it contains. The editor who deleted the information in this article on Shaw believes that if the CIA's intent was to "debunk" some theory or another , that the factual information presented in the article is only valid for that purpose. This is inaccurate. What does one believe the CIA is doing, giving one set of facts for one issue and changing the facts when another issue comes up that relates to the same facts? The editor needs to explain himself. RPJ 04:18, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Your cite was inaccurate and misleading. You said it was from the CIA when it wasn't and gave the impression that the link was confirming Shaw's covert ties to the CIA, which it wasn't it's in fact debunking it. Ramsquire 16:16, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

The editor above must have made a mistake. The web site is a CIA web site, and the magazine is a CIA magazine. I put the link back in the article. Click the link and go to it. Thank you. RPJ!

You're right... it is my comments that are misleading. Let me clear it up once and for all. The web site is a CIA website, but the article is from Max Holland, and has no CIA link except for it being in a CIA magazine and on the cia.gov website. To cite the information to the CIA is like giving a library a citation because it has George Orwell's "Animal Farm" in it's stock. The website/magazine is just a respository for hundreds of articles written over time relating to intelligence. My advice is to just cite the article to Holland. Instead of saying "This information is contained in a magazine article published by the CIA called: "The Lie That Linked CIA to the Kennedy Assassination.", you'd overcome my objection by saying "According to Max Holland..." and then citing the link to his article.

The other issue I had is that you present the evidence in a one-sided way. Unless the reader checked the cite, he would have no way to know that the article actually serves to state that Shaw had no links to the CIA, which is counter to the information presented in the article. Whatever happened to presenting both viewpoints, and letting the reader decide? Let the readers know the main thesis of the article instead of using the information in the article in a misleading way.

Ramsquire 16:55, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Allegation of one-sided and misleading edits

One editor ("Ramsquire")contends that the edits I made to the Shaw article "present the evidence in a one-sided way." That is inaccurate. Editor Ramsquire has simply misread the article. Contrary to what Ramsquire believes, the article does not state that "Shaw had no links to the CIA."

The main thesis of the article contends that the CIA was not linked to the Kennedy assassination--not that there weren't links between the CIA and Clay Shaw. Long after Shaw's trial, the CIA wasvforced to tell the truth about the first eight years of its relationship with Clay Shaw. The CIA now states it can't reveal it's secret documents on the relationship between it and Shaw on the day Kennedy was murdered. Therefore, the relationship on the day of the murder is still a mystery. 04:18, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

See RPJ, this is really getting tedious. Read your previous edits and let me know, honestly if you previous edits accurately described the article? Let's go through it.

Shaw had considerable contact with the CIA after the War, which both he and the CIA denied for many years after the Kennedy assassination. [3]

The implication is clear, Shaw and the CIA lied and therefore may had some role in the Kennedy assassination. That's misleading, it is also inaccurate, because Shaw denied being a CIA agent or employee, which Garriason accused him of, not of not ever having contact with the CIA. As far as we know, Shaw was right and has no link to the CIA.

Over an eight year period, Shaw relayed information on 33 separate occasions to the CIA. His reports about devaluation in Peru, a proposed new highway in Nicaragua, and the desire of Western European countries to trade with the Soviet block were graded by the CIA “of value” and “reliable.” the CIA relationship with Shaw was one of the secrets which the CIA hid from the public for many years while it denied any relationship.

First, whether or not the above described contacts are "considerable" is POV. Also, in your edit there is no mention that Shaw was one of literally thousands of American businessmen conducting international business at the time who presented such information to the CIA as part of their "civic duty".

That's in the article by the way (I did read it, nothwithstanding your snide comments). That's what I mean by one-sided presentation. You mention Shaw's contacts, but not its context. The contacts incriminate Shaw, but the context exonerates him. Present both, let the reader decide. That's misleading.

- This is contained in a press report by the CIA called: "The Lie That Linked CIA to the Kennedy Assassination"[4]

As discussed before, it's an article from Max Holland called "The Lie That Linked the CIA to the Kennedy Assassination, and it is located in a CIA magazine relating to Intelligence and can be found on the CIA website. Your presentation makes it appear that the CIA wrote some kind of report that contains the information. They didn't, that's misleading.

- As of today, the CIA won't release any documents describing the relationship between Shaw and the CIA after the first eight years of Shaw's affiliation. The Lie That Linked CIA to the Kennedy Assassination

What the article says is that what happened after 1956 has not been revealed in recently released documents. It is simply spin, misleading and inaccurate to cite the article as support for the proposition that the CIA won't release the documents. The articles says the information is not in what was released. Your sentence makes it seem as though some sort of document exists and the CIA is holding it from the public. You don't know that (unless you work for the CIA, and are whistleblowing here at Wiki), and that isn't implied in the article.

Ramsquire 19:03, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Any of this go in?

In 1979, Richard Helms (former director of the CIA) gave sworn testimony in a civil deposition which confirmed Shaw's contact with the CIA prior to the Shaw trial. In addition, it has been discovered, through FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests that Clay Shaw had access to and clearance from the CIA to a CIA program called QKENCHANT. To date, there is no unclassified information concerning what the QKENCHANT program was about. However, whether in fact this CIA connection tied Shaw to the Kennedy assassination is an unresolved and contested issue even to date. The controversy surrounding Clay Shaw's now apparent CIA activities will not be conclusively resolved until the scope and purpose of the QKENCHANT program are fully revealed. RPJ 08:19, 25 July 2006 (UTC)