Was Clay Shaw a highly paid CIA contract source?

[Tom Mahon]

Over the years, tinfoil-hat JFKA conspiracy theorists have pounced on the fact that CIA's historian, J. Kenneth McDonald, characterized Clay Shaw as a "highly paid CIA contract source until 1956" in an 82-page 1992 memo titled "Survey of CIA's Records from House Select Committe on Assassinations Investigation."

Did he mean to say that Shaw was a "highly valued contact source," instead?

Was McDonald's report (on several people) cobbled together over a few years by people working under him? Is it possible that they really, really, really xxxxxx it up regarding Clay Shaw?  (Rhymes with mucked)

What the heck is a "contract source," anyway?

Regardless, it's interesting to note that British researcher Malcolm Blunt said in a 2021 YouTube interview about "Yuri Nosenko and the JFK assassination" that probable KGB mole Bruce Solie in the CIA's mole-hunting Office of Security was "all over the Kennedy investigation" and "all over Clay Shaw for Jim Garrison."

[Lance Payette]

Over the years, tinfoil-hat JFKA conspiracy theorists have pounced on the fact that CIA's historian, J. Kenneth McDonald, characterized Clay Shaw as a "highly paid CIA contract source until 1956" in an 82-page 1992 memo titled "Survey of CIA's Records from House Select Committe on Assassinations Investigation."

Did he mean to say that Shaw was a "highly valued contact source," instead?

Was McDonald's report (on several people) cobbled together over a few years by people working under him? Is it possible that they really, really, really xxxxxx it up regarding Clay Shaw?  (Rhymes with mucked)

What the heck is a "contract source," anyway?

Hmm?

Regardless, it's interesting to note that British researcher Malcolm Blunt told Bart "The Xxxx" Kamp in a 2021 YouTube interview about "Yuri Nosenko and the JFK assassination" that probable KGB "mole" Bruce Solie in the CIA's mole-hunting Office of Security was "all over the Kennedy investigation" and "all over Clay Shaw for Jim Garrison."

Insofar as I know, that reference is the ONLY "evidence" that Shaw was a highly paid contract source. He does fit the profile of exactly the sort of person the CIA would be interested in debriefing after his various contacts and travels - nothing sinister, nothing particularly intelligence-oriented, nothing highly paid, nothing any patriotic American in Shaw's position wouldn't have been happy to do (and thousands did). This to me illustrates the game of conspiracy theorists, where a probable innocent error in some obscure document that is inconsistent with all the other evidence is magnified into huge smoking gun; put enough of them together and - voila! - you have a grand conspiracy.

[Steve M. Galbraith]

Insofar as I know, that reference is the ONLY "evidence" that Shaw was a highly paid contract source. He does fit the profile of exactly the sort of person the CIA would be interested in debriefing after his various contacts and travels - nothing sinister, nothing particularly intelligence-oriented, nothing highly paid, nothing any patriotic American in Shaw's position wouldn't have been happy to do (and thousands did). This to me illustrates the game of conspiracy theorists, where a probable innocent error in some obscure document that is inconsistent with all the other evidence is magnified into huge smoking gun; put enough of them together and - voila! - you have a grand conspiracy.

Whatever his relationship was - I think he was merely a contact source not a contract source (although the highly paid part, if true, is a problem for me) - it ended, as the document says, in 1956. Even if you have goldfish memory you should remember that 1956 is not the same as 1963. First grade was a long time ago but I remember that lesson.

But alas, in conspiracy world details like this don't matter. If you need to reverse engineer your conspiracy - it was the CIA, no, it was the Pentagon, wrong, it was the Mob, the Birchers, anti-Castro Cubans, LBJ, whatever - then inconsistent information like this doesn't really matter. It doesn't have to make sense; it just has to help show your conspiracy by, well, whoever.