In his biography on Shaw, Mr. Carpenter provides a number of accounts from people discussing Shaw's politics, what they were. None support in any way Garrison's claims that Shaw was a right winger and it was for that, in part, that he conspired to assassinate JFK. In fact, nowhere in the book is there the slightest hint of Shaw being on the right at all. Or of hating JFK.
A colleague, Charles Nutter, said this: "I suppose he was a liberal Democrat. I was a Republican then but could never get an argument out of him. He was not much interested in politics. He worked for Kennedy a bit. But he was interested in cultural pursuits, preserving the French Quarter and that gay world they talk about."
Another: "[He was] indifferent to the ramifications of politics, to religion, and to most things except his amazing running of that complicated Trade mart, cultural and intellectual pursuits."
Another: "Clay was never political minded...Clay was always the poised, gracious urbane gentleman. His political views were so quiet, few knew them. Over the 14 years I attended many meetings with him and never heard him mention politics."
Carpenter cites several letters that Shaw wrote shortly after the assassination, to friends and others who he met while promoting the Trade Mart. In none of them did Shaw mention the Kennedy assassination. That, to me, is a bit odd. But it supports the view that he was really mostly apolitical, not interested in such matters.
So where did this idea come from?
