The KGB "played" overly ambitious, scandal-plagued, and revengeful Jim Garrison

[Tom Graves]

TG-

The word "voluntary" is not mutually exclusive with "highly paid."

I assume JKM is accurate in his description of Shaw as "highly paid." The CIA has never retracted, corrected or clarified that description of Shaw by their own historian.

As a non-CIA officer, Shaw was likely not instructed or ordered anywhere, but was likely asked to perform certain tasks, and voluntarily did so, and then was highly paid.

Shaw may have contributed large amounts of information to the CIA, though verbally, or may have performed tasks for which there is no revealing paperwork, such as moving goods internationally through front companies.

Shaw may have been a source for documents written by others, including CIA officers.

My take is Shaw was among a group of US assets somewhat monitoring LHO, and other Cuban assets, in New Orleans, and for good reason. LHO was a declared Marxist, had been to Russia, and may have been seen in company of G2'ers or DGI'ers.

According to your tortured logic, J. Kenneth should have said Shaw was a highly paid contact source.

But he didn't.

He called him a highly paid contract source.

Whatever that is.

[Benjamin Cole]

TG--

OK, the accurate description of Shaw is that he was a "highly paid contract source."

If JKM and the CIA believe that to be true, then it was likely true.

So the CIA had Shaw "under contract" to provide information. So what? The contract may have been a formality of a sort.

Shaw was asked to perform certain tasks, and if he felt he could, then he did.

There is little doubt Shaw was a CIA asset, and evidently important in the 1950s, important enough to be "highly paid."