Post by Rob Caprio on Dec 1, 2018 21:55:26 GMT -5
All portions ©️ Robert Caprio 2006-2024
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JFK With Singer/Actor Frank Sinatra:
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The House Select Committee on Assassination (HSCA) looked into several Mafia crime bosses that the Warren Commission (WC) did not. They also reviewed the Castro assassination attempts the CIA attempted along with these crime bosses. The WC was never told of these attempts and this is huge as it could have altered their outcome of Lee Harvey Oswald (LHO) acting alone in the murder of President John F. Kennedy (JFK). I say could have because the WC did have a lot of evidence that showed them a conspiracy was involved in the assassination and they ignored that evidence so perhaps they would have ignored this as well.
We will look at another crime boss in this post and his ties to the CIA, the Castro assassination attempts and the anti-Castro Cubans.
The HSCA Says…Sam Giancana.
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The HSCA would say that organized crime had been attempting to assassinate Cuban leader Fidel Castro before the CIA got involved in those attempts with them.
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(2) CIA-Mafia Plots.--Turning next to the CIA-Mafia plots, the committee found in its investigation that organized crime probably was active in attempts to assassinate Castro, independent of any activity it engaged in with the CIA, as the 1977 Task Force Report had suggested. The committee found that during the initial stages of the joint operation, organized crime decided to assist the CIA for two reasons: CIA sponsorship would mean official sanction and logistical support for a Castro assassination; and a relationship with the CIA in the assassination of a foreign leader could be used by organized crime as leverage to prevent prosecution for unrelated offenses. (HSCA Report, p. 114)
www.historymatters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/report/html/HSCA_Report_0072b.htm
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A key piece in the CIA-Mafia relationship and partnership was a former FBI agent named Robert Maheu. He had become a private investigator and would act as the liaison between the CIA and the Mafia along with Los Angeles based mobster Johnny Roselli. In fact, It would be Roselli who would claim that it was the Cuban exiles that were used for the assassination of JFK.
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As for Roselli, the committee considered it significant that public revelations about the plots corresponded with his efforts to avoid deportation in 1966 and 1971 and to escape prosecution for illegal gambling activities in 1967. It was Roselli who managed the release of information about the plots and who proposed the so-called turnaround theory of the Kennedy assassination (Cuban exiles hired by the Mafia as hit men, captured by Castro and were forced to "turn around" and murder President Kennedy). The committee found it quite plausible that Roselli would have manipulated public perception of the facts of the plots, then tried to get the CIA to intervene in his legal problems as the price for his agreeing to make no further disclosures. (HSCA Report, p. 114)
www.historymatters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/report/html/HSCA_Report_0072b.htm
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Of course the claim that Castro had JFK killed flies in the face of reality as he had a lot to gain with JFK in the White House, whereas with Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ) he did not know what would happen. Also, if Castro had been involved why did we never invade or attack Cuba in any way? In fact, we moved all of our attention away from Cuba and instead focused on Vietnam. Clearly to me, Roselli was trying to move the attention away from the real culprits and away from those that may have been involved in some way like himself. The HSCA did not believe it either.
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The allegation that President Kennedy was killed as a result of a Mafia-CIA plot that was turned around by Castro was passed to Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson by Washington attorney Edward P. Morgan; its ultimate source was Roselli. The committee found little credibility in such an explanation for the President's death because, if for no other reason, it would have been unnecessarily risky. The committee determined from CIA files that, in 1963, the Cuban Government had agents of its own in nearly every country of the Western Hemisphere, including the United States, who undoubtedly would have been more dependable for such an assignment. Even if Castro had wanted to minimize the chance of detection by using hired non-Cuban killers, it appeared unlikely to the committee that he would have tried to force Mafia members or their Cuban exile confederates to engage in the assassination of an American head of state. (Ibid., pp. 114-115)
www.historymatters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/report/html/HSCA_Report_0073a.htm
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Exactly, why would Castro rely on some Cuban exiles that the Mafia and CIA were using when he could use his own loyal people for the murder of JFK if that is what he wanted? The HSCA would not say the same thing about the mob elements however as they of course would conclude that elements of the Mafia were involved in the assassination. The part I don’t agree with is they suggest that the mob may have worked with Castro, and again, I see no reason why Castro would want JFK dead only to get LBJ as president. Here is what they wrote about this.
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The committee found it more difficult to dismiss the possibility that the Mafia, while it was not turned around by Castro, might have voluntarily turned around with him. By late 1962 and 1963 when the underworld leaders involved with the CIA in the plots had perhaps lost their motivation to assassinate Castro, they had been given sufficient reason by the organized crime program of the Department of Justice to eliminate President Kennedy.
The committee's investigation revealed that Mafia figures are rational, pragmatic "businessmen" who often realine their associations and form partnerships with ex-enemies when it is expedient. While Castro, by 1963, was an old enemy of organized crime, it was more important that both Castro and the Mafia were ailing financially, chiefly as a result of pressures applied by the Kennedy administration. Thus, they had a common motive that might have made an alliance more attractive than a split based on mutual animosity.
By 1963 also, Cuban exiles bitterly opposed to Castro were being frustrated by the Kennedy administration. Many of them had come to conclude that the U.S. President was an obstacle requiring elimination even more urgently than the Cuban dictator. The Mafia had been enlisted by the CIA because of its access to anti-Castro Cuban operatives both in and out of Cuba. In its attempt to determine if the Mafia plot associations could have led to the assassination, the committee, therefore, recognized that Cuban antagonism toward President Kennedy did not depend on whether the Cubans were pro- or anti-Castro.
The committee found that the CIA-Mafia-Cuban plots had all the elements necessary for a successful assassination conspiracy--people, motive and means, and the evidence indicated that the participants might well have considered using the resources at their disposal to increase their power and alleviate their problems by assassinating the President. Nevertheless, the committee was ultimately frustrated in its attempt to determine details of those activities that might have led to the assassination--identification of participants, associations, timing of events and so on. Many of the key figures of the Castro plots had, for example, since died or, as in the case of both Giancana and Roselli, had been murdered. (Ibid.)
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I am not doubting that elements of the Mafia wanted JFK and RFK neutralized, but to claim they were the only ones that had this wish or need is as silly as saying LHO acted alone to me. Due to the evidence the HSCA found, and that others have found, we can safely believe that elements of the Mafia were involved, but they were not the masterminds of the plan IMO. What do you think?
The HSCA would show there was a link between Jack Ruby and Sam Giancana in a tangential way by showing Ruby knew two of Giancana’s top gunmen.
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The committee also examined allegations that, even before the 1947 move to Dallas, Ruby had been personally acquainted with two professional killers for the organized crime syndicate in Chicago, David Yaras and Lenny Patrick. The committee established that Ruby, Yaras and Patrick were in fact acquainted during Ruby's years in Chicago, particularly in the 1930's and 1940's. Both Yaras and Patrick admitted, when questioned by the FBI in 1964, that they did know Ruby, but both said that they had not had any contact with him for 10 to 15 years. Yaras and Patrick further maintained they had never been particularly close to Ruby, had never visited him in Dallas and had no knowledge of Ruby being connected to organized crime. Indeed, the Warren Commission used Patrick's statement as a footnote citation in its report to support its conclusion that Ruby did not have significant syndicate associations.
On the other hand, the committee established that Yaras and Patrick were, in fact, notorious gunmen, having been identified by law enforcement authorities as executioners for the Chicago mob and closely associated with Sam Giancana, the organized crime leader in Chicago who was murdered in 1975. Yaras and Patrick are believed to have been responsible for numerous syndicate executions, including the murder of James Ragan, a gambling wire service owner. The evidence implicating Yaras and Patrick in syndicate activities is unusually reliable. Yaras, for example, was overheard in a 1969, electronic surveillance discussing various underworld murder contracts he had carried out and one he had only recently been assigned. While the committee found no evidence that Ruby was associated with Yaras or Patrick during the 50's or 1960's, it concluded that Ruby had probably talked by telephone to Patrick during the summer of 1963. (Ibid., pp. 150-151)
www.historymatters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/report/html/HSCA_Report_0090b.htm
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This shows us that Jack Ruby knew two of Giancana’s hitmen at some point and the HSCA did conclude that Ruby had probably talked with Patrick the summer before the assassination. Obviously, if Giancana was involved in the murder of JFK, and Ruby was too, they would not leave an obvious trail to tie them together so the issue of him not seeing Patrick and Yaras for years is a moot one IMO. The HSCA would continue to explain their thoughts on who was involved in the assassination from the Mafia.
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In its investigation into the possibility that organized crime elements were involved in the President's murder, the committee examined various internal and external factors that bear on whether organized crime leaders would have considered, planned and executed an assassination conspiracy. The committee examined the decisionmaking process that would have been involved in such a conspiracy, and two primary propositions emerged. The first related to whether the national crime syndicate would have authorized and formulated a conspiracy with the formal consent of the commission, the ruling council of Mafia leaders. The second related to whether an individual organized crime leader, or possibly a small combination of leaders, might have conspired to assassinate the President through unilateral action, that is, without the involvement of the leadership of the national syndicate.
The most significant evidence that organized crime as an institution or group was not involved in the assassination of President Kennedy was contained in the electronic surveillance of syndicate leaders conducted by the FBI in the early 1960's. As the President's Crime Commission noted in 1967, and as this committee found through its review of the FBI surveillance, there was a distinct hierarchy and structure to organized crime. Decisions of national importance were generally made by the national commission, or at least they depended on the approval of the commission members. In 1963, the following syndicate leaders served as members of the commission: Vito Genovese, Joseph Bonanno, Carlo Gambino, and Thomas Lucchese of New York City; Stefano Magaddino of Buffalo; Sam Giancana of Chicago; Joseph Zerilli of Detroit; Angelo Bruno of Philadelphia and Raymond Patriarca of Providence. The committee's review of the surveillance transcripts and logs, detailing the private conversations of the commission members and their associates, revealed that there were extensive and heated discussions about the serious difficulties the Kennedy administration's crackdown on organized crime was causing.
The bitterness and anger with which organized crime leaders viewed the Kennedy administration are readily apparent in the electronic surveillance transcripts, with such remarks being repeatedly made by commission members Genovese, Giancana, Bruno, Zerilli, Patriarca and Magaddino. In one such conversation in May 1962, a New York Mafia member noted the intense Federal pressure upon the mob, and remarked, "Bob Kennedy won't stop today until he puts us all in jail all over the country. Until the commission meets and puts its foot down, things will be at a standstill." Into 1963, the pressure was continuing to mount, as evidenced by a conversation in which commission member Magaddino bitterly cursed Attorney General Kennedy and commented on the Justice Department's increasing knowledge of the crime syndicates inner workings, stating, "They know everything under the sun. They know who's back of it--they know there is a commission. We got to watch right now--and stay as quiet as possible."
While the committee's examination of the electronic surveillance program revealed no shortage of such conversations during that period, the committee found no evidence in the conversations of the formulation of any specific plan to assassinate the President. Nevertheless, that organized crime figures did discuss possible violent courses of action against either the President or his brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy--as well as the possible repercussions of such action-can be starkly seen in the transcripts. (Ibid., pp. 163-165)
www.historymatters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/report/html/HSCA_Report_0097a.htm
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This shows the problems that JFK and Robert F. Kennedy (RFK), the Attorney General of the United States (U.S.), were bringing to bear on the organized crime network of the U.S. and why elements of the Mafia would be happy to see JFK and RFK gone. The irony in all of this is that the FBI’s head honcho, J. Edgar Hoover (JEH) had for years, claimed there was NO Mafia or organized crime in the U.S.! JEH knew this was baloney as he went to places that the mob owned and was wined and dined, but publicly he never admitted to an organized crime network, and then enter the Kennedys claiming not only that there was one, but that they were going to destroy it! How uncomfortable that must have been for JEH and we can surmise he too would not mind JFK and RFK out of the picture as well if anything was to happen to either of them. I think we see this kind of thinking in the horrible cover-up “investigation” he gave the nation following JFK’s assassination. This should be remembered when one reads this statement by the HSCA.
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The committee concluded that had the national crime syndicate, as a group, been involved in a conspiracy to kill the President, some trace of the plot would have been picked up by the FBI surveillance of the commission. Consequently, finding no evidence in the electronic surveillance transcripts of a specific intention or actual plan by commission members to have the President assassinated, the committee believed it was unlikely that it existed. The electronic surveillance transcripts included extensive conversations during secret meetings of various syndicate leaders, set forth many of their most closely guarded thoughts and actions, and detailed their involvement in a variety of other criminal acts, including murder. Given the far-reaching possible consequences of an assassination plot by the commission, the committee found that such a conspiracy would have been the subject of serious discussion by members of the commission, and that no matter how guarded such discussions might have been, some trace of them would have emerged from the surveillance coverage. It was possible to conclude, therefore, that it is unlikely that the national crime syndicate as a group, acting under the leadership of the commission, participated in the assassination of President Kennedy. (Ibid., p. 166)
www.historymatters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/report/html/HSCA_Report_0098b.htm
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While I don’t disagree that as a group organized crime was probably not involved as that would have involved too many people, groups, and issues as the whole point of planning something this big is secrecy, but to think because what the HSCA had access to did not show this it did not happen is naïve IMO. Given the relationship between JEH and the Kennedys and the octopus like organization the FBI was, it would seem very unlikely that JEH did not catch wind of something being planned, but the key question is—would he have shared it with anyone? Given the way the whole Chicago plan was buried I doubt it. JEH was no fan of JFK and I personally don’t see him stepping in and telling him that he was a marked man. Just look at what happened to Abraham Bolden for trying to do this.
What do you think JEH would have done with this type of information? Here was the HSCA’s conclusion about this issue in a nutshell.
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While the committee found it unlikely that the national crime syndicate was involved in the assassination, it recognized the possibility that a particular organized crime leader or a small combination of leaders, acting unilaterally, might have formulated an assassination conspiracy without the consent of the commission. (Ibid.)
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Who might this leader or small group of leaders be? The names most frequently bandied about are Carlos Marcello, Santos Trafficante and Sam Giancana, but what do you think? Who do you think was involved if anyone from the Mafia world? Here is what the HSCA thought about that question.
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The committee found that Santos Trafficante's stature in the national syndicate of organized crime, notably the violent narcotics trade, and his role as the mob's chief liaison to criminal figures within the Cuban exile community, provided him with the capability of formulating an assassination conspiracy against President Kennedy. Trafficante had recruited Cuban nationals to help plan and execute the CIA's assignment to assassinate Castro. (The CIA gave the assignment to former FBI Agent Robert Maheu, who passed the contract along to Mafia figures Sam Giancana and John Roselli. They, in turn, enlisted Trafficante to have the intended assassination carried out.) (Ibid., p. 173)
www.historymatters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/report/html/HSCA_Report_0102a.htm
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This is clearly implicating Santos Trafficante, Sam Giancana and Johnny Roselli in the assassination of JFK, but what about others? Do you think anyone else was involved from the mob world? One name I would not leave out is Carlos Marcello as he was the leading mob boss in the country since his territory was the oldest and this meant he could act WITHOUT the mob commission’s permission. While the HSCA did not get into Sam Giancana’s role that much, they had to take notice of his violent death shortly before he was to appear before them. Clearly, someone or some group did not want him talking about this issue to them.
A pair of sources that were not so close-mouthed about Sam Ginacana’s role in the JFK assassination were his brother, Chuck, and nephew, Sam, who wrote the book Double Cross.. In the book they recount a story of how JFK’s father, Joseph, P. Kennedy (JPK) came to beg for his life with Sam Giancana. It seemed he owed favors and did not want to pay them back due to his fear they would interfere with his son’s career as a politician, thus, mobster Frank Costello put out a contract on his life. In the book they claim the following was promised to Giancana in exchange for his help with this issue.
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Mooney [Sam Giancana’s nickname] turned his back to Kennedy [JPK] to face the window once again. “So let’s assume I talk to Frank [Costello]…I see no benefit to Chicago, here. I’ve heard nothing today that leads me to think that…that you can promise me anything in return for my assistance.”
“I can. And I will. You help me now, Sam, and I’ll see to it that Chicago…that you…can sit in the goddamned Oval Office if you want. That you’ll have the President’s ear. But I just need time.” There was an urgency in his tone. “I get pushed and I don’t think my son has the experience, or the contacts, to see him through a presidential race. Do you understand now why I want you to talk to Costello?”
Mooney turned to look him square in the eye. “Let me see what I can do. But I want your word that the day your son is elected…that’s the day that—“
Kennedy interrupted: “That Sam Giancana is elected, too. HE’LL BE YOUR MAN. I swear to that. My son…the President of the United States…will owe you his father’s life. He won’t refuse you, ever. You have my word.” (Sam and Chuck Giancana, Double Cross., pp. 609-610) (Emphasis added)
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Supposedly this occurred in May of 1956, and if it is accurate and true, then we would see that JFK, through his father’s promise, owed Sam Giancana whatever he wanted once he became the President of the United States (POTUS), but as we have seen both he and RFK did not keep his father’s promise if he had made it as Giancana had recounted to his brother years later. Why would JFK and RFK go back on their father’s promise? Did JPK not tell them about it or did this never happen? We obviously can’t know for sure so each person has to make up their own mind on this issue.
The book goes on to say this about Giancana’s role in the assassination.
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Mooney told Chuck that he’d kept Johnny Roselli as his liaison to Marcello, Trafficante, and the CIA, while concurrently directing his lieutenants to put Ruby in charge of overseeing the Outfit’s role in the assassination, collaborating in Dallas with the government agents.
So it came to be that another Jack Ruby—a smart, clever man, one very different from the person erroneously portrayed by the media as an overzealous yet bumbling nightclub owner—played a major role in the events surrounding the murder of the President.
Ruby, Mooney told Chuck, had been a logical choice. The guy had previously demonstrated his extreme loyalty and ability to work with the CIA during the planning for the Bay of Pigs invasion. Mooney said he’d heard through Lenny Patrick that Ruby actually had come into his own while collaborating with his intelligence buddies; over time, the Dallas gangster had formed fast friendships with undercover agents—men like Lee Harvey Oswald. Indeed, at one point, Ruby went so far as to give CIA operative and Outfit pilot David Ferrie a job in his Carousel Club.
But there was another reason Mooney said he selected Jack Ruby for the job: His relationships with Dallas law-enforcement officers were unusually good. Since first coming to Texas, true to his Chicago Outfit training, he’d massaged the local cops and politicians, gradually getting to know most on a first-name basis. These friendships, Mooney said, had been extremely useful in overcoming problems “with the local cop in the street” in the aftermath of the assassination.
As the person representing the Outfit in Dallas, the task had quite naturally fallen to Ruby to silence Oswald when he was unexpectedly captured alive. “Having Oswald alive . . . and in custody . . . put us on the spot, real good,” Mooney said, chuckling. Chuck, for his part, didn’t see the humor.
Utilizing his associations with the Dallas police force, Mooney explained that Ruby was able to gain entry to the police station--an astounding feat for a person the press later referred to as a “half-witted strip club operator”—both immediately after Oswald’s incarceration and, more critically, during Oswald’s transfer.
The look on Oswald’s face at the sight of a man he knew, should have tipped the cops, Mooney admitted. “ [expletive], I heard they were queer for each other,” Mooney said. “They sure as hell were friends. . . . Oswald knew what the story was when he saw Jack comin’ at him. He knew he’d been made the patsy already and then he knew Jack was gonna take him out . . . but what the [expletive] was he gonna do about it then?” Mooney shrugged impassively. “It was too late.”
Mooney said that the “alleged lone gunman,” Lee Harvey Oswald, like Ruby, had ties to both the CIA and the Outfit. Oswald had been connected to the New Orleans Mob from the time he was born; his uncle was a Marcello lieutenant who had exerted a powerful influence over the fatherless boy. Early in life, Oswald had formed a powerful alliance with the U.S. intelligence community. First, as an impressionable young man during a stint in the Civil Air Patrol with homosexual CIA operative and Outfit smuggling pilot David Ferrie—a bizarre, hairless eccentric whom Mooney said he and Marcello frequently used to fly drugs and guns out of Central America. And later, when serving in the marines during the late fifties, when Oswald attended a series of intensive intelligence training sessions run by the Office of Naval Intelligence in a top secret Japanese spy base. The short of it, Mooney said, was that Lee Harvey Oswald was a CIA agent.
Oswald had been a spy for the U.S. government in the Soviet Union, and had been trained to speak fluent Russian. He was not a Castro sympathizer nor Communist at all, as the misinformation that spewed forth from government agencies in the wake of the assassination had the public believing. In truth, Mooney said, “Lee Harvey Oswald was a right-wing supporter of the ‘Kill Castro, Bay of Pigs Camp’ . . . CIA all the way.” (Ibid., pp. 864-869)
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There is so much to discuss here, but in an effort to keep this post from getting too long I will simply say if this is correct, and there is evidence to show it is in regards to LHO and the intelligence community, it sure explains a lot about what the relationships were in this case. It has been said that Sam Giancana could not keep his mouth shut and that is why he was killed before he could appear before the HSCA, and it seems he couldn’t help from bragging to his brother about his role in all of this. Now, the question is whether it is true, not true, or only partially true.
Giancana would say that LHO was told to meet Ruby once he got to Dallas by his intelligence superiors and to work on reestablishing his relationship with David Ferrie. (Ibid., p. 869) The book then claims that the man who has been called LHO’s “handler” was also an associate of Giancana’s—George DeMohrenschildt. “The guy helped me make a lot of money in oil, man oh man, did he have the contacts with Texas oilmen back then. He introduced me to a lot of’ em, too.” (Ibid., p. 870) He would claim the money for the assassination of JFK came from the oil people and he personally made millions with his deals in the oil business thanks to people like deMohrenschildt. (Ibid., pp. 870-871) According to Giancana, it was Marcello who suggested LHO for the fall guy position and after Roselli was sent to New Orleans to meet him (which he did in Guy Banister’s office) he agreed. He was perfect due to his extreme PATRIOTISM and malleability as he was easily manipulated. (Ibid.)
The book then mentions something I have not read before—that the fired ex-deputy of the CIA and brother of the Dallas Mayor, Charles Cabell, was employed in the Robert Mahue private detective firm. Giancana said in addition to Banister and Cabell there was a “covert operations specialist” from the CIA there along with “some top brass in U.S. military intelligence from Asia.” (Ibid., p. 872) Roselli acted as the go-between with the CIA and Marcello, Trafficante and Hoffa. Giancana said that the entire conspiracy went “right up to the top of the CIA.” Giancana claimed that “some of its former and present leaders were involved, as well as a “half dozen fanatical right-wing Texans, Vice President Lyndon Johnson, and one of the team from the Bay of Pigs Action Office under Eisenhower.” (Ibid., p. 874) One of Giancana’s lieutenants was Frank Fiorini (a.k.a. Frank Sturgis) and he epitomized the setup he recounted to his brother as Sturgis continually worked for the CIA and the Mafia to the point you couldn’t tell who he really worked for.
Giancana had said the assassination took months to plan and involved many levels of people and he named the cities it was slated for—Miami, Chicago, Los Angeles and Dallas. (Ibid., p. 876) The one city we see missing is Tampa, but perhaps after the attempt in Miami never got off the ground they made the quick trip there instead. We know an attempt was afoot in Tampa so this is a good possibility it was not mentioned as it became a last minute substitute. He claimed that both “Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson knew about the whole damned thing,” as they met with him a few times shortly before it went down. (Ibid.) He describes the “nuts and bolts” of the plan for us here.
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“The politicians and the CIA made it real simple,” Mooney explained. “We’d each provide men for the hit. . . . I’d oversee the Outfit side of things and throw in Jack Ruby and some extra backup and the CIA would put their own guys on to take care of the rest.”
According to Mooney, the nuts-and-bolts planning had involved some of the top people on the Dallas police force; most conveniently, the mayor, Earle Cabell, was the brother of former CIA deputy director Charles Cabell. As the man responsible for citywide security, the mayor provided the police protection for the presidential motorcade. Mooney grinned. “They made sure it was so loose down there on the day of the hit, [expletive], a four-year-old could’ve nailed Jack Kennedy.”
Chuck would later learn through the Outfit grapevine that Mooney solicited professional killers from several quarters. Killers, who the guys said, were required to be “top-notch marksmen”: two of Marcello’s men, were recruited for assassination as well as well as two of Trafficante’s Cuban exile “friends.” It was rumored that one of these exiles was a former ‘Havana vice cop turned mobster and the other a radical-turned-corrupt U.S. Customs official.
From Chicago, Mooney brought in Richard Cain, Chuckie Nicoletti, and Milwaukee Phil, all having worked previously on “the Bay of Pigs deal.” Mooney said that both Cain and Nicoletti were actual gunmen for the hit, being placed at opposite ends of the Dallas Book Depository. In fact, he asserted it was Cain, not Oswald, who’d actually fired from the infamous sixth-story window.
Mooney also alleged that the CIA had added several of their own “soldiers”, using one of the anti-Castro and Roscoe White as actual gunmen for the hit along with J. D. Tippit and Lee Harvey Oswald—the man Mooney said they intended to frame as the lone assassin.
During the operation, Mooney said the CIA upper echelon sequestered themselves in a hotel, surrounded by electronic equipment. With the aid of walkie-talkies, the men were able to secure their firing positions and learn of Oswald’s whereabouts immediately following the hit. Mooney’s backup, Milwaukee Phil, stood armed and ready to handle any last-minute interference with the shooters.
To eliminate Oswald, Mooney said the CIA had selected White and Tippit, who both—like Richard Cain, who’d served in Chicago’s Sheriffs Department—held positions in law enforcement, on the Dallas police force. Under the guise of self-defense and in the line of duty, they were to murder the “lone gunman.” However, Tippit had wavered, Mooney said, allowing Oswald to escape. Thus, White had been forced to kill his partner. “Probably the only real screwup in the whole goddamned deal.”
“And the rest is history,” Mooney said, grinning. “For once, we didn’t even have to worry about J. Edgar Hoover. . . . He hated the Kennedys as much as anybody and he wasn’t about to help Bobby find his brother’s killers. He buried his head in the sand, covered up anything and everything his ‘Boy Scouts’ found. But there was a line into the CIA. If somebody knew too much, the CIA found out about it and took care of the problem.” When Mooney used the phrase “took care of the problem,” Chuck caught the tacit message being conveyed.
From what Mooney said that day, the CIA had indeed stepped in with immense efficiency and removed all traces of conspiracy. As for any evidence that Chicago’s Mob boss was a participant in the events of November 22, 1963, Mooney said he was well insulated, thanks to his practice of delegating the details to his trusted lieutenants. Mooney—like the higher ups in the CIA—cared very little about the minute details of the plot’s inner workings; the results were all that mattered. He’d met one last time in Dallas, right before the hit, with the top guys in the CIA group, some politicians, and the Texan assassination backers, and that was that.
Chuck had listened appalled while Mooney unveiled the story of the President’s murder. Now, his brother suddenly looked away, falling quiet as he apparently searched for the right words. He turned back to Chuck and went on. “The hit in Dallas was just like any other operation we’d worked on in the past . .. we’d overthrown other governments in other countries plenty of times before. This time, we just did it in our own backyard.”
He said the murder of President Kennedy was little different from the plot to kill Castro, the murders of Vietnam’s leaders, that of Panama’s president—or any of the other dozens of military/CIA-sponsored coups propagated throughout the world.
“On November 22, 1963,” Mooney stated with chilling authority, “the United States had a coup; it’s that simple. The government of this country was overthrown by a handful of guys who did their job so damned well . . .not one American even knew it happened. But I know. I know I’ve guaranteed the Outfit’s future…once and for all. We’re set here in the United States. (Ibid., pp.876-882)
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Whether all of this is true or some of it is true it does weave a pattern that fits with the bits and pieces we have read about for many years now. Could the last meeting he describes be the one at Clint Murchison’s house on November 21, 1963, that we have read about for many years? We know the CIA has overthrown quite a few elected leaders around the world so this is not an empty boast, but rather a simple fact based on the record. The one issue I may have is that Richard Cain was a shooter as former HSCA head, G. Robert Blakey, said this was “absurd” due to Cain’s having “eyesight so poor he had trouble driving an automobile.” (Fatal Hour, by G. Robert Blakey & Richard Billings, p. xlii) If Blakey’s assessment is accurate then obviously he could not be one of the shooters, but Cain was a member of the Sheriff’s department near Chicago, IL, so how could he maintain his position if his eyesight was so poor? Furthermore, if Cain was in that window why was there a partial print matching LBJ’s man Malcolm Wallace found then? Was it left to frame LBJ if need be? I don’t’ think they would have a problem with getting LBJ to go along with the cover-up since he was facing serious charges himself, but these sorts of people believe in having insurance.
Outside of the shooters the story does match things we have learned over the years. In regards to the shooters, we have heard something different from Christian David as he said three Corsican mobsters were sent to Mexico City (Sauveur Ponti, Lucien Sarti, and Jorge Bocognini) on orders from the Marseilles mob syndicate, Antoine Guerini and they are met at the border by Giancana members who take them to Brownsville and then Dallas, Texas. We will never know for sure who the shooters were as we have had so many names mentioned, but the consistent point is that Giancana was involved in both scenarios. Giancana was fighting for his way of life as the intense surveillance put on him was making his position as the head of the Chicago mob (one of the most prominent in the country) precarious, thus, he could have sought action against the Kennedys in the way he knew how. He came from a violent world where this kind of action was normal business in terms of how to handle a rival or enemy.
What do you think? Was Sam Giancana involved in the conspiracy to murder JFK as he claimed?
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JFK With Singer/Actor Frank Sinatra:
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The House Select Committee on Assassination (HSCA) looked into several Mafia crime bosses that the Warren Commission (WC) did not. They also reviewed the Castro assassination attempts the CIA attempted along with these crime bosses. The WC was never told of these attempts and this is huge as it could have altered their outcome of Lee Harvey Oswald (LHO) acting alone in the murder of President John F. Kennedy (JFK). I say could have because the WC did have a lot of evidence that showed them a conspiracy was involved in the assassination and they ignored that evidence so perhaps they would have ignored this as well.
We will look at another crime boss in this post and his ties to the CIA, the Castro assassination attempts and the anti-Castro Cubans.
The HSCA Says…Sam Giancana.
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The HSCA would say that organized crime had been attempting to assassinate Cuban leader Fidel Castro before the CIA got involved in those attempts with them.
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(2) CIA-Mafia Plots.--Turning next to the CIA-Mafia plots, the committee found in its investigation that organized crime probably was active in attempts to assassinate Castro, independent of any activity it engaged in with the CIA, as the 1977 Task Force Report had suggested. The committee found that during the initial stages of the joint operation, organized crime decided to assist the CIA for two reasons: CIA sponsorship would mean official sanction and logistical support for a Castro assassination; and a relationship with the CIA in the assassination of a foreign leader could be used by organized crime as leverage to prevent prosecution for unrelated offenses. (HSCA Report, p. 114)
www.historymatters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/report/html/HSCA_Report_0072b.htm
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A key piece in the CIA-Mafia relationship and partnership was a former FBI agent named Robert Maheu. He had become a private investigator and would act as the liaison between the CIA and the Mafia along with Los Angeles based mobster Johnny Roselli. In fact, It would be Roselli who would claim that it was the Cuban exiles that were used for the assassination of JFK.
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As for Roselli, the committee considered it significant that public revelations about the plots corresponded with his efforts to avoid deportation in 1966 and 1971 and to escape prosecution for illegal gambling activities in 1967. It was Roselli who managed the release of information about the plots and who proposed the so-called turnaround theory of the Kennedy assassination (Cuban exiles hired by the Mafia as hit men, captured by Castro and were forced to "turn around" and murder President Kennedy). The committee found it quite plausible that Roselli would have manipulated public perception of the facts of the plots, then tried to get the CIA to intervene in his legal problems as the price for his agreeing to make no further disclosures. (HSCA Report, p. 114)
www.historymatters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/report/html/HSCA_Report_0072b.htm
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Of course the claim that Castro had JFK killed flies in the face of reality as he had a lot to gain with JFK in the White House, whereas with Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ) he did not know what would happen. Also, if Castro had been involved why did we never invade or attack Cuba in any way? In fact, we moved all of our attention away from Cuba and instead focused on Vietnam. Clearly to me, Roselli was trying to move the attention away from the real culprits and away from those that may have been involved in some way like himself. The HSCA did not believe it either.
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The allegation that President Kennedy was killed as a result of a Mafia-CIA plot that was turned around by Castro was passed to Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson by Washington attorney Edward P. Morgan; its ultimate source was Roselli. The committee found little credibility in such an explanation for the President's death because, if for no other reason, it would have been unnecessarily risky. The committee determined from CIA files that, in 1963, the Cuban Government had agents of its own in nearly every country of the Western Hemisphere, including the United States, who undoubtedly would have been more dependable for such an assignment. Even if Castro had wanted to minimize the chance of detection by using hired non-Cuban killers, it appeared unlikely to the committee that he would have tried to force Mafia members or their Cuban exile confederates to engage in the assassination of an American head of state. (Ibid., pp. 114-115)
www.historymatters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/report/html/HSCA_Report_0073a.htm
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Exactly, why would Castro rely on some Cuban exiles that the Mafia and CIA were using when he could use his own loyal people for the murder of JFK if that is what he wanted? The HSCA would not say the same thing about the mob elements however as they of course would conclude that elements of the Mafia were involved in the assassination. The part I don’t agree with is they suggest that the mob may have worked with Castro, and again, I see no reason why Castro would want JFK dead only to get LBJ as president. Here is what they wrote about this.
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The committee found it more difficult to dismiss the possibility that the Mafia, while it was not turned around by Castro, might have voluntarily turned around with him. By late 1962 and 1963 when the underworld leaders involved with the CIA in the plots had perhaps lost their motivation to assassinate Castro, they had been given sufficient reason by the organized crime program of the Department of Justice to eliminate President Kennedy.
The committee's investigation revealed that Mafia figures are rational, pragmatic "businessmen" who often realine their associations and form partnerships with ex-enemies when it is expedient. While Castro, by 1963, was an old enemy of organized crime, it was more important that both Castro and the Mafia were ailing financially, chiefly as a result of pressures applied by the Kennedy administration. Thus, they had a common motive that might have made an alliance more attractive than a split based on mutual animosity.
By 1963 also, Cuban exiles bitterly opposed to Castro were being frustrated by the Kennedy administration. Many of them had come to conclude that the U.S. President was an obstacle requiring elimination even more urgently than the Cuban dictator. The Mafia had been enlisted by the CIA because of its access to anti-Castro Cuban operatives both in and out of Cuba. In its attempt to determine if the Mafia plot associations could have led to the assassination, the committee, therefore, recognized that Cuban antagonism toward President Kennedy did not depend on whether the Cubans were pro- or anti-Castro.
The committee found that the CIA-Mafia-Cuban plots had all the elements necessary for a successful assassination conspiracy--people, motive and means, and the evidence indicated that the participants might well have considered using the resources at their disposal to increase their power and alleviate their problems by assassinating the President. Nevertheless, the committee was ultimately frustrated in its attempt to determine details of those activities that might have led to the assassination--identification of participants, associations, timing of events and so on. Many of the key figures of the Castro plots had, for example, since died or, as in the case of both Giancana and Roselli, had been murdered. (Ibid.)
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I am not doubting that elements of the Mafia wanted JFK and RFK neutralized, but to claim they were the only ones that had this wish or need is as silly as saying LHO acted alone to me. Due to the evidence the HSCA found, and that others have found, we can safely believe that elements of the Mafia were involved, but they were not the masterminds of the plan IMO. What do you think?
The HSCA would show there was a link between Jack Ruby and Sam Giancana in a tangential way by showing Ruby knew two of Giancana’s top gunmen.
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The committee also examined allegations that, even before the 1947 move to Dallas, Ruby had been personally acquainted with two professional killers for the organized crime syndicate in Chicago, David Yaras and Lenny Patrick. The committee established that Ruby, Yaras and Patrick were in fact acquainted during Ruby's years in Chicago, particularly in the 1930's and 1940's. Both Yaras and Patrick admitted, when questioned by the FBI in 1964, that they did know Ruby, but both said that they had not had any contact with him for 10 to 15 years. Yaras and Patrick further maintained they had never been particularly close to Ruby, had never visited him in Dallas and had no knowledge of Ruby being connected to organized crime. Indeed, the Warren Commission used Patrick's statement as a footnote citation in its report to support its conclusion that Ruby did not have significant syndicate associations.
On the other hand, the committee established that Yaras and Patrick were, in fact, notorious gunmen, having been identified by law enforcement authorities as executioners for the Chicago mob and closely associated with Sam Giancana, the organized crime leader in Chicago who was murdered in 1975. Yaras and Patrick are believed to have been responsible for numerous syndicate executions, including the murder of James Ragan, a gambling wire service owner. The evidence implicating Yaras and Patrick in syndicate activities is unusually reliable. Yaras, for example, was overheard in a 1969, electronic surveillance discussing various underworld murder contracts he had carried out and one he had only recently been assigned. While the committee found no evidence that Ruby was associated with Yaras or Patrick during the 50's or 1960's, it concluded that Ruby had probably talked by telephone to Patrick during the summer of 1963. (Ibid., pp. 150-151)
www.historymatters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/report/html/HSCA_Report_0090b.htm
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This shows us that Jack Ruby knew two of Giancana’s hitmen at some point and the HSCA did conclude that Ruby had probably talked with Patrick the summer before the assassination. Obviously, if Giancana was involved in the murder of JFK, and Ruby was too, they would not leave an obvious trail to tie them together so the issue of him not seeing Patrick and Yaras for years is a moot one IMO. The HSCA would continue to explain their thoughts on who was involved in the assassination from the Mafia.
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In its investigation into the possibility that organized crime elements were involved in the President's murder, the committee examined various internal and external factors that bear on whether organized crime leaders would have considered, planned and executed an assassination conspiracy. The committee examined the decisionmaking process that would have been involved in such a conspiracy, and two primary propositions emerged. The first related to whether the national crime syndicate would have authorized and formulated a conspiracy with the formal consent of the commission, the ruling council of Mafia leaders. The second related to whether an individual organized crime leader, or possibly a small combination of leaders, might have conspired to assassinate the President through unilateral action, that is, without the involvement of the leadership of the national syndicate.
The most significant evidence that organized crime as an institution or group was not involved in the assassination of President Kennedy was contained in the electronic surveillance of syndicate leaders conducted by the FBI in the early 1960's. As the President's Crime Commission noted in 1967, and as this committee found through its review of the FBI surveillance, there was a distinct hierarchy and structure to organized crime. Decisions of national importance were generally made by the national commission, or at least they depended on the approval of the commission members. In 1963, the following syndicate leaders served as members of the commission: Vito Genovese, Joseph Bonanno, Carlo Gambino, and Thomas Lucchese of New York City; Stefano Magaddino of Buffalo; Sam Giancana of Chicago; Joseph Zerilli of Detroit; Angelo Bruno of Philadelphia and Raymond Patriarca of Providence. The committee's review of the surveillance transcripts and logs, detailing the private conversations of the commission members and their associates, revealed that there were extensive and heated discussions about the serious difficulties the Kennedy administration's crackdown on organized crime was causing.
The bitterness and anger with which organized crime leaders viewed the Kennedy administration are readily apparent in the electronic surveillance transcripts, with such remarks being repeatedly made by commission members Genovese, Giancana, Bruno, Zerilli, Patriarca and Magaddino. In one such conversation in May 1962, a New York Mafia member noted the intense Federal pressure upon the mob, and remarked, "Bob Kennedy won't stop today until he puts us all in jail all over the country. Until the commission meets and puts its foot down, things will be at a standstill." Into 1963, the pressure was continuing to mount, as evidenced by a conversation in which commission member Magaddino bitterly cursed Attorney General Kennedy and commented on the Justice Department's increasing knowledge of the crime syndicates inner workings, stating, "They know everything under the sun. They know who's back of it--they know there is a commission. We got to watch right now--and stay as quiet as possible."
While the committee's examination of the electronic surveillance program revealed no shortage of such conversations during that period, the committee found no evidence in the conversations of the formulation of any specific plan to assassinate the President. Nevertheless, that organized crime figures did discuss possible violent courses of action against either the President or his brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy--as well as the possible repercussions of such action-can be starkly seen in the transcripts. (Ibid., pp. 163-165)
www.historymatters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/report/html/HSCA_Report_0097a.htm
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This shows the problems that JFK and Robert F. Kennedy (RFK), the Attorney General of the United States (U.S.), were bringing to bear on the organized crime network of the U.S. and why elements of the Mafia would be happy to see JFK and RFK gone. The irony in all of this is that the FBI’s head honcho, J. Edgar Hoover (JEH) had for years, claimed there was NO Mafia or organized crime in the U.S.! JEH knew this was baloney as he went to places that the mob owned and was wined and dined, but publicly he never admitted to an organized crime network, and then enter the Kennedys claiming not only that there was one, but that they were going to destroy it! How uncomfortable that must have been for JEH and we can surmise he too would not mind JFK and RFK out of the picture as well if anything was to happen to either of them. I think we see this kind of thinking in the horrible cover-up “investigation” he gave the nation following JFK’s assassination. This should be remembered when one reads this statement by the HSCA.
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The committee concluded that had the national crime syndicate, as a group, been involved in a conspiracy to kill the President, some trace of the plot would have been picked up by the FBI surveillance of the commission. Consequently, finding no evidence in the electronic surveillance transcripts of a specific intention or actual plan by commission members to have the President assassinated, the committee believed it was unlikely that it existed. The electronic surveillance transcripts included extensive conversations during secret meetings of various syndicate leaders, set forth many of their most closely guarded thoughts and actions, and detailed their involvement in a variety of other criminal acts, including murder. Given the far-reaching possible consequences of an assassination plot by the commission, the committee found that such a conspiracy would have been the subject of serious discussion by members of the commission, and that no matter how guarded such discussions might have been, some trace of them would have emerged from the surveillance coverage. It was possible to conclude, therefore, that it is unlikely that the national crime syndicate as a group, acting under the leadership of the commission, participated in the assassination of President Kennedy. (Ibid., p. 166)
www.historymatters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/report/html/HSCA_Report_0098b.htm
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While I don’t disagree that as a group organized crime was probably not involved as that would have involved too many people, groups, and issues as the whole point of planning something this big is secrecy, but to think because what the HSCA had access to did not show this it did not happen is naïve IMO. Given the relationship between JEH and the Kennedys and the octopus like organization the FBI was, it would seem very unlikely that JEH did not catch wind of something being planned, but the key question is—would he have shared it with anyone? Given the way the whole Chicago plan was buried I doubt it. JEH was no fan of JFK and I personally don’t see him stepping in and telling him that he was a marked man. Just look at what happened to Abraham Bolden for trying to do this.
What do you think JEH would have done with this type of information? Here was the HSCA’s conclusion about this issue in a nutshell.
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While the committee found it unlikely that the national crime syndicate was involved in the assassination, it recognized the possibility that a particular organized crime leader or a small combination of leaders, acting unilaterally, might have formulated an assassination conspiracy without the consent of the commission. (Ibid.)
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Who might this leader or small group of leaders be? The names most frequently bandied about are Carlos Marcello, Santos Trafficante and Sam Giancana, but what do you think? Who do you think was involved if anyone from the Mafia world? Here is what the HSCA thought about that question.
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The committee found that Santos Trafficante's stature in the national syndicate of organized crime, notably the violent narcotics trade, and his role as the mob's chief liaison to criminal figures within the Cuban exile community, provided him with the capability of formulating an assassination conspiracy against President Kennedy. Trafficante had recruited Cuban nationals to help plan and execute the CIA's assignment to assassinate Castro. (The CIA gave the assignment to former FBI Agent Robert Maheu, who passed the contract along to Mafia figures Sam Giancana and John Roselli. They, in turn, enlisted Trafficante to have the intended assassination carried out.) (Ibid., p. 173)
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This is clearly implicating Santos Trafficante, Sam Giancana and Johnny Roselli in the assassination of JFK, but what about others? Do you think anyone else was involved from the mob world? One name I would not leave out is Carlos Marcello as he was the leading mob boss in the country since his territory was the oldest and this meant he could act WITHOUT the mob commission’s permission. While the HSCA did not get into Sam Giancana’s role that much, they had to take notice of his violent death shortly before he was to appear before them. Clearly, someone or some group did not want him talking about this issue to them.
A pair of sources that were not so close-mouthed about Sam Ginacana’s role in the JFK assassination were his brother, Chuck, and nephew, Sam, who wrote the book Double Cross.. In the book they recount a story of how JFK’s father, Joseph, P. Kennedy (JPK) came to beg for his life with Sam Giancana. It seemed he owed favors and did not want to pay them back due to his fear they would interfere with his son’s career as a politician, thus, mobster Frank Costello put out a contract on his life. In the book they claim the following was promised to Giancana in exchange for his help with this issue.
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Mooney [Sam Giancana’s nickname] turned his back to Kennedy [JPK] to face the window once again. “So let’s assume I talk to Frank [Costello]…I see no benefit to Chicago, here. I’ve heard nothing today that leads me to think that…that you can promise me anything in return for my assistance.”
“I can. And I will. You help me now, Sam, and I’ll see to it that Chicago…that you…can sit in the goddamned Oval Office if you want. That you’ll have the President’s ear. But I just need time.” There was an urgency in his tone. “I get pushed and I don’t think my son has the experience, or the contacts, to see him through a presidential race. Do you understand now why I want you to talk to Costello?”
Mooney turned to look him square in the eye. “Let me see what I can do. But I want your word that the day your son is elected…that’s the day that—“
Kennedy interrupted: “That Sam Giancana is elected, too. HE’LL BE YOUR MAN. I swear to that. My son…the President of the United States…will owe you his father’s life. He won’t refuse you, ever. You have my word.” (Sam and Chuck Giancana, Double Cross., pp. 609-610) (Emphasis added)
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Supposedly this occurred in May of 1956, and if it is accurate and true, then we would see that JFK, through his father’s promise, owed Sam Giancana whatever he wanted once he became the President of the United States (POTUS), but as we have seen both he and RFK did not keep his father’s promise if he had made it as Giancana had recounted to his brother years later. Why would JFK and RFK go back on their father’s promise? Did JPK not tell them about it or did this never happen? We obviously can’t know for sure so each person has to make up their own mind on this issue.
The book goes on to say this about Giancana’s role in the assassination.
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Mooney told Chuck that he’d kept Johnny Roselli as his liaison to Marcello, Trafficante, and the CIA, while concurrently directing his lieutenants to put Ruby in charge of overseeing the Outfit’s role in the assassination, collaborating in Dallas with the government agents.
So it came to be that another Jack Ruby—a smart, clever man, one very different from the person erroneously portrayed by the media as an overzealous yet bumbling nightclub owner—played a major role in the events surrounding the murder of the President.
Ruby, Mooney told Chuck, had been a logical choice. The guy had previously demonstrated his extreme loyalty and ability to work with the CIA during the planning for the Bay of Pigs invasion. Mooney said he’d heard through Lenny Patrick that Ruby actually had come into his own while collaborating with his intelligence buddies; over time, the Dallas gangster had formed fast friendships with undercover agents—men like Lee Harvey Oswald. Indeed, at one point, Ruby went so far as to give CIA operative and Outfit pilot David Ferrie a job in his Carousel Club.
But there was another reason Mooney said he selected Jack Ruby for the job: His relationships with Dallas law-enforcement officers were unusually good. Since first coming to Texas, true to his Chicago Outfit training, he’d massaged the local cops and politicians, gradually getting to know most on a first-name basis. These friendships, Mooney said, had been extremely useful in overcoming problems “with the local cop in the street” in the aftermath of the assassination.
As the person representing the Outfit in Dallas, the task had quite naturally fallen to Ruby to silence Oswald when he was unexpectedly captured alive. “Having Oswald alive . . . and in custody . . . put us on the spot, real good,” Mooney said, chuckling. Chuck, for his part, didn’t see the humor.
Utilizing his associations with the Dallas police force, Mooney explained that Ruby was able to gain entry to the police station--an astounding feat for a person the press later referred to as a “half-witted strip club operator”—both immediately after Oswald’s incarceration and, more critically, during Oswald’s transfer.
The look on Oswald’s face at the sight of a man he knew, should have tipped the cops, Mooney admitted. “ [expletive], I heard they were queer for each other,” Mooney said. “They sure as hell were friends. . . . Oswald knew what the story was when he saw Jack comin’ at him. He knew he’d been made the patsy already and then he knew Jack was gonna take him out . . . but what the [expletive] was he gonna do about it then?” Mooney shrugged impassively. “It was too late.”
Mooney said that the “alleged lone gunman,” Lee Harvey Oswald, like Ruby, had ties to both the CIA and the Outfit. Oswald had been connected to the New Orleans Mob from the time he was born; his uncle was a Marcello lieutenant who had exerted a powerful influence over the fatherless boy. Early in life, Oswald had formed a powerful alliance with the U.S. intelligence community. First, as an impressionable young man during a stint in the Civil Air Patrol with homosexual CIA operative and Outfit smuggling pilot David Ferrie—a bizarre, hairless eccentric whom Mooney said he and Marcello frequently used to fly drugs and guns out of Central America. And later, when serving in the marines during the late fifties, when Oswald attended a series of intensive intelligence training sessions run by the Office of Naval Intelligence in a top secret Japanese spy base. The short of it, Mooney said, was that Lee Harvey Oswald was a CIA agent.
Oswald had been a spy for the U.S. government in the Soviet Union, and had been trained to speak fluent Russian. He was not a Castro sympathizer nor Communist at all, as the misinformation that spewed forth from government agencies in the wake of the assassination had the public believing. In truth, Mooney said, “Lee Harvey Oswald was a right-wing supporter of the ‘Kill Castro, Bay of Pigs Camp’ . . . CIA all the way.” (Ibid., pp. 864-869)
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There is so much to discuss here, but in an effort to keep this post from getting too long I will simply say if this is correct, and there is evidence to show it is in regards to LHO and the intelligence community, it sure explains a lot about what the relationships were in this case. It has been said that Sam Giancana could not keep his mouth shut and that is why he was killed before he could appear before the HSCA, and it seems he couldn’t help from bragging to his brother about his role in all of this. Now, the question is whether it is true, not true, or only partially true.
Giancana would say that LHO was told to meet Ruby once he got to Dallas by his intelligence superiors and to work on reestablishing his relationship with David Ferrie. (Ibid., p. 869) The book then claims that the man who has been called LHO’s “handler” was also an associate of Giancana’s—George DeMohrenschildt. “The guy helped me make a lot of money in oil, man oh man, did he have the contacts with Texas oilmen back then. He introduced me to a lot of’ em, too.” (Ibid., p. 870) He would claim the money for the assassination of JFK came from the oil people and he personally made millions with his deals in the oil business thanks to people like deMohrenschildt. (Ibid., pp. 870-871) According to Giancana, it was Marcello who suggested LHO for the fall guy position and after Roselli was sent to New Orleans to meet him (which he did in Guy Banister’s office) he agreed. He was perfect due to his extreme PATRIOTISM and malleability as he was easily manipulated. (Ibid.)
The book then mentions something I have not read before—that the fired ex-deputy of the CIA and brother of the Dallas Mayor, Charles Cabell, was employed in the Robert Mahue private detective firm. Giancana said in addition to Banister and Cabell there was a “covert operations specialist” from the CIA there along with “some top brass in U.S. military intelligence from Asia.” (Ibid., p. 872) Roselli acted as the go-between with the CIA and Marcello, Trafficante and Hoffa. Giancana said that the entire conspiracy went “right up to the top of the CIA.” Giancana claimed that “some of its former and present leaders were involved, as well as a “half dozen fanatical right-wing Texans, Vice President Lyndon Johnson, and one of the team from the Bay of Pigs Action Office under Eisenhower.” (Ibid., p. 874) One of Giancana’s lieutenants was Frank Fiorini (a.k.a. Frank Sturgis) and he epitomized the setup he recounted to his brother as Sturgis continually worked for the CIA and the Mafia to the point you couldn’t tell who he really worked for.
Giancana had said the assassination took months to plan and involved many levels of people and he named the cities it was slated for—Miami, Chicago, Los Angeles and Dallas. (Ibid., p. 876) The one city we see missing is Tampa, but perhaps after the attempt in Miami never got off the ground they made the quick trip there instead. We know an attempt was afoot in Tampa so this is a good possibility it was not mentioned as it became a last minute substitute. He claimed that both “Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson knew about the whole damned thing,” as they met with him a few times shortly before it went down. (Ibid.) He describes the “nuts and bolts” of the plan for us here.
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“The politicians and the CIA made it real simple,” Mooney explained. “We’d each provide men for the hit. . . . I’d oversee the Outfit side of things and throw in Jack Ruby and some extra backup and the CIA would put their own guys on to take care of the rest.”
According to Mooney, the nuts-and-bolts planning had involved some of the top people on the Dallas police force; most conveniently, the mayor, Earle Cabell, was the brother of former CIA deputy director Charles Cabell. As the man responsible for citywide security, the mayor provided the police protection for the presidential motorcade. Mooney grinned. “They made sure it was so loose down there on the day of the hit, [expletive], a four-year-old could’ve nailed Jack Kennedy.”
Chuck would later learn through the Outfit grapevine that Mooney solicited professional killers from several quarters. Killers, who the guys said, were required to be “top-notch marksmen”: two of Marcello’s men, were recruited for assassination as well as well as two of Trafficante’s Cuban exile “friends.” It was rumored that one of these exiles was a former ‘Havana vice cop turned mobster and the other a radical-turned-corrupt U.S. Customs official.
From Chicago, Mooney brought in Richard Cain, Chuckie Nicoletti, and Milwaukee Phil, all having worked previously on “the Bay of Pigs deal.” Mooney said that both Cain and Nicoletti were actual gunmen for the hit, being placed at opposite ends of the Dallas Book Depository. In fact, he asserted it was Cain, not Oswald, who’d actually fired from the infamous sixth-story window.
Mooney also alleged that the CIA had added several of their own “soldiers”, using one of the anti-Castro and Roscoe White as actual gunmen for the hit along with J. D. Tippit and Lee Harvey Oswald—the man Mooney said they intended to frame as the lone assassin.
During the operation, Mooney said the CIA upper echelon sequestered themselves in a hotel, surrounded by electronic equipment. With the aid of walkie-talkies, the men were able to secure their firing positions and learn of Oswald’s whereabouts immediately following the hit. Mooney’s backup, Milwaukee Phil, stood armed and ready to handle any last-minute interference with the shooters.
To eliminate Oswald, Mooney said the CIA had selected White and Tippit, who both—like Richard Cain, who’d served in Chicago’s Sheriffs Department—held positions in law enforcement, on the Dallas police force. Under the guise of self-defense and in the line of duty, they were to murder the “lone gunman.” However, Tippit had wavered, Mooney said, allowing Oswald to escape. Thus, White had been forced to kill his partner. “Probably the only real screwup in the whole goddamned deal.”
“And the rest is history,” Mooney said, grinning. “For once, we didn’t even have to worry about J. Edgar Hoover. . . . He hated the Kennedys as much as anybody and he wasn’t about to help Bobby find his brother’s killers. He buried his head in the sand, covered up anything and everything his ‘Boy Scouts’ found. But there was a line into the CIA. If somebody knew too much, the CIA found out about it and took care of the problem.” When Mooney used the phrase “took care of the problem,” Chuck caught the tacit message being conveyed.
From what Mooney said that day, the CIA had indeed stepped in with immense efficiency and removed all traces of conspiracy. As for any evidence that Chicago’s Mob boss was a participant in the events of November 22, 1963, Mooney said he was well insulated, thanks to his practice of delegating the details to his trusted lieutenants. Mooney—like the higher ups in the CIA—cared very little about the minute details of the plot’s inner workings; the results were all that mattered. He’d met one last time in Dallas, right before the hit, with the top guys in the CIA group, some politicians, and the Texan assassination backers, and that was that.
Chuck had listened appalled while Mooney unveiled the story of the President’s murder. Now, his brother suddenly looked away, falling quiet as he apparently searched for the right words. He turned back to Chuck and went on. “The hit in Dallas was just like any other operation we’d worked on in the past . .. we’d overthrown other governments in other countries plenty of times before. This time, we just did it in our own backyard.”
He said the murder of President Kennedy was little different from the plot to kill Castro, the murders of Vietnam’s leaders, that of Panama’s president—or any of the other dozens of military/CIA-sponsored coups propagated throughout the world.
“On November 22, 1963,” Mooney stated with chilling authority, “the United States had a coup; it’s that simple. The government of this country was overthrown by a handful of guys who did their job so damned well . . .not one American even knew it happened. But I know. I know I’ve guaranteed the Outfit’s future…once and for all. We’re set here in the United States. (Ibid., pp.876-882)
Quote off
Whether all of this is true or some of it is true it does weave a pattern that fits with the bits and pieces we have read about for many years now. Could the last meeting he describes be the one at Clint Murchison’s house on November 21, 1963, that we have read about for many years? We know the CIA has overthrown quite a few elected leaders around the world so this is not an empty boast, but rather a simple fact based on the record. The one issue I may have is that Richard Cain was a shooter as former HSCA head, G. Robert Blakey, said this was “absurd” due to Cain’s having “eyesight so poor he had trouble driving an automobile.” (Fatal Hour, by G. Robert Blakey & Richard Billings, p. xlii) If Blakey’s assessment is accurate then obviously he could not be one of the shooters, but Cain was a member of the Sheriff’s department near Chicago, IL, so how could he maintain his position if his eyesight was so poor? Furthermore, if Cain was in that window why was there a partial print matching LBJ’s man Malcolm Wallace found then? Was it left to frame LBJ if need be? I don’t’ think they would have a problem with getting LBJ to go along with the cover-up since he was facing serious charges himself, but these sorts of people believe in having insurance.
Outside of the shooters the story does match things we have learned over the years. In regards to the shooters, we have heard something different from Christian David as he said three Corsican mobsters were sent to Mexico City (Sauveur Ponti, Lucien Sarti, and Jorge Bocognini) on orders from the Marseilles mob syndicate, Antoine Guerini and they are met at the border by Giancana members who take them to Brownsville and then Dallas, Texas. We will never know for sure who the shooters were as we have had so many names mentioned, but the consistent point is that Giancana was involved in both scenarios. Giancana was fighting for his way of life as the intense surveillance put on him was making his position as the head of the Chicago mob (one of the most prominent in the country) precarious, thus, he could have sought action against the Kennedys in the way he knew how. He came from a violent world where this kind of action was normal business in terms of how to handle a rival or enemy.
What do you think? Was Sam Giancana involved in the conspiracy to murder JFK as he claimed?