Bernard Fensterwald

Bernard "Bud" Fensterwald Jr. (August 2, 1921 – April 2, 1991) was an American lawyer who defended James Earl Ray and James W. McCord Jr. Other notable clients included Mitch WerBell, Richard Case Nagell and the widow of John Paisley.

Fensterwald was born in Nashville, Tennessee. He served in the United States Navy during World War II. Fensterwald graduated from Harvard Law School in 1949. He entered the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies and received an M.A. in 1950.

From 1951 to 1956 Fensterwald worked for the State Department as an Assistant Legal Advisor. This included defending State Department employees accused by Joseph McCarthy of being members of the American Communist Party. In 1957 Fensterwald was hired by Thomas C. Hennings as an investigator for the Senate Committee on Constitutional Rights. In the 1960s he was chief counsel for the Senate Judiciary Committee under Senator Edward V. Long." Fensterwald once implied that Long was being blackmailed by the FBI.

In 1968-1969, Fensterwald and Richard E. Sprague founded a private sector "Committee to Investigate Assassinations," which primarily concerned itself with the Kennedy assassination. In the late 1970s, he was Congressman Thomas N. Downing's favorite to become chief counsel for the House Select Committee on Assassinations but withdrew himself from consideration after objection from Congressman Henry B. Gonzalez. In 1984, Fensterwald and James Lesar (with whom Fensterwald had represented James Earl Ray) founded the Assassination and Archives Research Center (AARC).

One of Fensterwald's more notable cases was his unsuccessful defense of Watergate criminal James McCord. He was also connected to other characters on the fringes of Watergate. John Paisley, who was the CIA liaison to the White House Plumbers, was Fensterwald's friend and neighbor. When Paisley died under suspicious circumstances, his widow hired Fensterwald to investigate. Prior to the Watergate burglaries, both Fensterwald and McCord employed a private investigator named Lou Russell.

Fensterwald died of a heart attack in Alexandria, Virginia, aged 69.