Post by Rob Caprio on Dec 16, 2018 11:52:00 GMT -5
All portions are ©️ Robert Caprio 2006-2024
www.historyofthecoldwarpodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Johnny-Roselli.jpg
The House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) would continue their look into people that may have had something to do with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy (JFK) that had ties to the Mafia. And in all of these cases ties to the CIA too. This particular person was a conduit between the Mafia and the CIA in their efforts to kill Cuban Dictator Fidel Castro in the early 1960s.
The HSCA Says…Johnny Roselli.
************************************************
When the HSCA turned to the issue of the CIA-Mafia plots against Fidel Castro we see the introduction of Johnny Roselli’s name into their report. The HSCA said that the Mafia decided to assist the CIA in their attempts to get rid of Castro for two reasons.
Quote on
www.historymatters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/report/pages/HSCA_Report_0072b.gif
(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
Quote off
Clearly, their cooperation could be “leverage” for many other things they did not want to be prosecuted for too and perhaps one of these was the help of parts of the Mafia in the murder of JFK. This assistance in this matter, and remember Sam Giancana claimed they helped in the removal of other leaders too, would buy them a lot of leverage for other issues.
The HSCA claims that after early 1963 however the Mafia no longer had any interest in the removal of Castro, but kept acting like they did to keep the CIA on their side and away from prosecuting them for other issues.
Quote on
During the latter stages of the CIA-Mafia operation, from early 1962 to early 1963, however, organized crime may no longer have been interested in assassinating Castro. The Soviet influence in Cuba had rendered the prospect of regaining the old Havana territory less likely, and there were fortunes to be made in the Bahamas and elsewhere. There is reason to speculate that the Mafia continued to appear to participate in the plots just to keep the CIA interested, in hopes of preventing prosecution of organized crime figures and others involved in the plots. (Ibid.)
Quote off
This is all well and good, but keep in mind one important fact—the CIA has NO jurisdiction in the United States (U.S.) so what would the CIA be prosecuting the Mafia for? The FBI has jurisdiction in all things that relate to the Mafia in the U.S., thus, what would their cooperation with the CIA do to help them in this country against prosecution from the FBI? The sheer fact of the CIA recruiting on U.S. soil should have been addressed not just by the Warren Commission (WC), but by the FBI too when all of this became clear as the CIA has no right to do that within the U.S., but as usual we saw no action by anyone on this issue.
A former FBI agent, Robert Maheu, would be hired to assist the CIA as a go-between the Mafia personnel for the Castro attempts as he had turned to a career in private investigation. (It should be remembered that he worked for Howard Hughes too for years and he had links to the CIA as well.) It was no coincidence that the release of the CIA-Mafia plots came from Roselli in 1967 at a time he was trying to avoid deportation and prosecution for his illegal gambling activities.
Quote on
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. 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. (Ibid.)
Quote off
We can see Roselli had a good bit of motivation to release this information when he did, and we can see he was the one that first brought up the “turn around” theory involving Castro and JFK. We don’t know if he invented this one or not as he could have been told to leak it by someone else or some group who would benefit from it too. The Castro did it theory is a theory that is as big a red herring as the LHO did it all alone theory as both are meant to take the focus off of who was really responsible and involved. Even if Castro wanted revenge and satisfaction the removal of JFK was the worst way to go about it for Cuba as Lyndon B. Johhnson (LBJ) was much more of a war-hawk that JFK. LBJ never did anything to Cuba when he took over so could this mean Castro had information on what really happened to JFK? Could he have said if you come after me I will tell the world who was responsible in the assassination of JFK? I have never really read a plausible reason for why we never really bothered Cuba again after JFK’s murder so this is something we can’t just dismiss out of hand IMO.
The HSCA wrote this about the Mafia’s possible role in the murder of JFK.
Quote on
www.historymatters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/report/pages/HSCA_Report_0073a.gif
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. (Ibid., p. 115)
www.historymatters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/report/html/HSCA_Report_0073a.htm
Quote off
The issue of the Cuban exiles is an important one as we have to again ask if they were motivated to rid the U.S. of JFK because he wouldn’t take action against Catro then why did they NOT want to rid the country of LBJ when he did NOTHING against Cuba while serving as president? Does this make any sense to you? It doesn’t to me and shows once again to me that the exiles were just a tool for those that really wanted JFK gone.
The HSCA found that the CIA-Mafia plot had the essentials to be involved in the murder of JFK, but of course they failed to find the evidence they needed to show this.
Quote on
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.)
Quote off
As I have said before many times, evidence cannot be found if it is either really not looked for or so much time has gone by that all such evidence is no longer available to find. This proves nothing as these elements—CIA, Mafia & Cuban exiles—were more than likely involved in some way, but unfortunately it may be too late to show how unless the government releases the many documents still locked up.
The HSCA would say the conclusion of the Senate committee and the CIA was not believable to them for the following reasons.
Quote on
www.historymatters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/report/pages/HSCA_Report_0073b.gif
The committee, moreover, was unable to accept the conclusion of the CIA and the Senate committee that the CIA-Mafia plots were irrelevant because they had been terminated in February 1963, several months before the assassination. The record is clear that the relationships created by the plots did not terminate, nor had the threat to Castro abated by that time. There is insufficient evidence to conclude that the inherently sinister relationships had become benign by November 22, 1963.
In June 1963, according to the interim report of the Senate committee, Roselli had dinner with William Harvey, chief of the CIA's Cuban Task Force. CIA files show that Roselli continued to maintain direct contact with Harvey at least until 1967, and he was in touch, at least indirectly, with the Agency's Chief of the Operational Support Branch. Office of Security, as late as 1971. The Task Force Report itself alluded to information that, as late as June 1964, gangster elements in Miami were offering $150,000 for Castro's life, an amount mentioned to the syndicate representatives by CIA case officers at an earlier date." (Ibid., p. 116)
www.historymatters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/report/html/HSCA_Report_0073b.htm
Quote off
A minor point in the first paragraph should be pointed out to be incorrect. February to November is more than a “several months” as they wrote. In fact, it is three-quarters of a year, but the point is still the same as they said the plots did not terminate in February 1963 anyway. As we have seen before there were discussions to kill Castro on the very day of the assassination in Paris, France, when CIA officer Desmond Fitzgerald meets with Rolondo Cubela (AM/LASH) and presents him with a poison pen. This shows they did not end in February 1963 as some claimed they did. But again, why did these plans go away as soon as the shooting died down in Dallas? That is a very important question I have never seen a satisfactory answer to it.
William Harvey has been suspected to have been involved in some way for many years by various researchers, but the evidence to support the claim has never been shown. Harvey was stationed in Italy at the time of the assassination and he made comments like this that did not prevent others from suspecting him—“This was bound to happen, and it’s probably good that it did.” One can see he was NO JFK or Kennedy fan from this comment. E. Howard Hunt certainly pointed his finger at Harvey and said LBJ could have used him with promises of promoting him since he had been demoted by the Kennedys following his refusal to stop his plans for Castro. Harvey also had connections to both Santos Trafficante and Giancana who both seemed to have some connections to what happened on November 22, 1963.
This tied the bow neatly as Trafficante got the contract from the CIA to kill Castro and he passed it on to Maheu who then passed it on to Giancana and Roselli. (Ibid., p. 173)
Roselli would say Lee Harvey Oswald (LHO) was meant to be met by a contact at the Texas Theater (TT) and then flown out of the country where he would be done in. The body would be then presented to show he was shot while trying to “resist arrest.” They had an alternate plan of sending him to Cuba to set up Castro for the murder of JFK and this would have presented the CIA and the military with a great reason to invade. To me the ONLY reason this never happened is because Castro learned who was really behind the assassination and pretty much blackmailed those responsible into doing something else. What other reason can there be for why we never bothered Cuba again?
According to information published by columnist Jack Anderson the problem all of these guys had was that Trafficante was a mole for Castro and was reporting everything to him that the CIA was trying to do. Giancana said that Trafficante was a “a rat.” This would explain why Castro was so well informed of the plans to kill him as well. Giancana’s hitman and enforcer Charles Nicoletti said he was leaving the mob because the CIA was “taking over the operation” and he wanted no parts of that. If this is true then it shows the CIA had a much bigger role in the mob’s plans and operations than has ever been admitted. What could this mean in regards to the events of November 22, 1963?
What do you think Roselli’s role was in the murder of JFK if any? His ties to various people and organizations certainly make him a man who bears further investigation. His highly timely death (for those that wanted what he knew kept quiet) also makes one wonder how much he really knew about what happened to JFK.
www.historyofthecoldwarpodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Johnny-Roselli.jpg
The House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) would continue their look into people that may have had something to do with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy (JFK) that had ties to the Mafia. And in all of these cases ties to the CIA too. This particular person was a conduit between the Mafia and the CIA in their efforts to kill Cuban Dictator Fidel Castro in the early 1960s.
The HSCA Says…Johnny Roselli.
************************************************
When the HSCA turned to the issue of the CIA-Mafia plots against Fidel Castro we see the introduction of Johnny Roselli’s name into their report. The HSCA said that the Mafia decided to assist the CIA in their attempts to get rid of Castro for two reasons.
Quote on
www.historymatters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/report/pages/HSCA_Report_0072b.gif
(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
Quote off
Clearly, their cooperation could be “leverage” for many other things they did not want to be prosecuted for too and perhaps one of these was the help of parts of the Mafia in the murder of JFK. This assistance in this matter, and remember Sam Giancana claimed they helped in the removal of other leaders too, would buy them a lot of leverage for other issues.
The HSCA claims that after early 1963 however the Mafia no longer had any interest in the removal of Castro, but kept acting like they did to keep the CIA on their side and away from prosecuting them for other issues.
Quote on
During the latter stages of the CIA-Mafia operation, from early 1962 to early 1963, however, organized crime may no longer have been interested in assassinating Castro. The Soviet influence in Cuba had rendered the prospect of regaining the old Havana territory less likely, and there were fortunes to be made in the Bahamas and elsewhere. There is reason to speculate that the Mafia continued to appear to participate in the plots just to keep the CIA interested, in hopes of preventing prosecution of organized crime figures and others involved in the plots. (Ibid.)
Quote off
This is all well and good, but keep in mind one important fact—the CIA has NO jurisdiction in the United States (U.S.) so what would the CIA be prosecuting the Mafia for? The FBI has jurisdiction in all things that relate to the Mafia in the U.S., thus, what would their cooperation with the CIA do to help them in this country against prosecution from the FBI? The sheer fact of the CIA recruiting on U.S. soil should have been addressed not just by the Warren Commission (WC), but by the FBI too when all of this became clear as the CIA has no right to do that within the U.S., but as usual we saw no action by anyone on this issue.
A former FBI agent, Robert Maheu, would be hired to assist the CIA as a go-between the Mafia personnel for the Castro attempts as he had turned to a career in private investigation. (It should be remembered that he worked for Howard Hughes too for years and he had links to the CIA as well.) It was no coincidence that the release of the CIA-Mafia plots came from Roselli in 1967 at a time he was trying to avoid deportation and prosecution for his illegal gambling activities.
Quote on
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. 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. (Ibid.)
Quote off
We can see Roselli had a good bit of motivation to release this information when he did, and we can see he was the one that first brought up the “turn around” theory involving Castro and JFK. We don’t know if he invented this one or not as he could have been told to leak it by someone else or some group who would benefit from it too. The Castro did it theory is a theory that is as big a red herring as the LHO did it all alone theory as both are meant to take the focus off of who was really responsible and involved. Even if Castro wanted revenge and satisfaction the removal of JFK was the worst way to go about it for Cuba as Lyndon B. Johhnson (LBJ) was much more of a war-hawk that JFK. LBJ never did anything to Cuba when he took over so could this mean Castro had information on what really happened to JFK? Could he have said if you come after me I will tell the world who was responsible in the assassination of JFK? I have never really read a plausible reason for why we never really bothered Cuba again after JFK’s murder so this is something we can’t just dismiss out of hand IMO.
The HSCA wrote this about the Mafia’s possible role in the murder of JFK.
Quote on
www.historymatters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/report/pages/HSCA_Report_0073a.gif
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. (Ibid., p. 115)
www.historymatters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/report/html/HSCA_Report_0073a.htm
Quote off
The issue of the Cuban exiles is an important one as we have to again ask if they were motivated to rid the U.S. of JFK because he wouldn’t take action against Catro then why did they NOT want to rid the country of LBJ when he did NOTHING against Cuba while serving as president? Does this make any sense to you? It doesn’t to me and shows once again to me that the exiles were just a tool for those that really wanted JFK gone.
The HSCA found that the CIA-Mafia plot had the essentials to be involved in the murder of JFK, but of course they failed to find the evidence they needed to show this.
Quote on
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.)
Quote off
As I have said before many times, evidence cannot be found if it is either really not looked for or so much time has gone by that all such evidence is no longer available to find. This proves nothing as these elements—CIA, Mafia & Cuban exiles—were more than likely involved in some way, but unfortunately it may be too late to show how unless the government releases the many documents still locked up.
The HSCA would say the conclusion of the Senate committee and the CIA was not believable to them for the following reasons.
Quote on
www.historymatters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/report/pages/HSCA_Report_0073b.gif
The committee, moreover, was unable to accept the conclusion of the CIA and the Senate committee that the CIA-Mafia plots were irrelevant because they had been terminated in February 1963, several months before the assassination. The record is clear that the relationships created by the plots did not terminate, nor had the threat to Castro abated by that time. There is insufficient evidence to conclude that the inherently sinister relationships had become benign by November 22, 1963.
In June 1963, according to the interim report of the Senate committee, Roselli had dinner with William Harvey, chief of the CIA's Cuban Task Force. CIA files show that Roselli continued to maintain direct contact with Harvey at least until 1967, and he was in touch, at least indirectly, with the Agency's Chief of the Operational Support Branch. Office of Security, as late as 1971. The Task Force Report itself alluded to information that, as late as June 1964, gangster elements in Miami were offering $150,000 for Castro's life, an amount mentioned to the syndicate representatives by CIA case officers at an earlier date." (Ibid., p. 116)
www.historymatters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/report/html/HSCA_Report_0073b.htm
Quote off
A minor point in the first paragraph should be pointed out to be incorrect. February to November is more than a “several months” as they wrote. In fact, it is three-quarters of a year, but the point is still the same as they said the plots did not terminate in February 1963 anyway. As we have seen before there were discussions to kill Castro on the very day of the assassination in Paris, France, when CIA officer Desmond Fitzgerald meets with Rolondo Cubela (AM/LASH) and presents him with a poison pen. This shows they did not end in February 1963 as some claimed they did. But again, why did these plans go away as soon as the shooting died down in Dallas? That is a very important question I have never seen a satisfactory answer to it.
William Harvey has been suspected to have been involved in some way for many years by various researchers, but the evidence to support the claim has never been shown. Harvey was stationed in Italy at the time of the assassination and he made comments like this that did not prevent others from suspecting him—“This was bound to happen, and it’s probably good that it did.” One can see he was NO JFK or Kennedy fan from this comment. E. Howard Hunt certainly pointed his finger at Harvey and said LBJ could have used him with promises of promoting him since he had been demoted by the Kennedys following his refusal to stop his plans for Castro. Harvey also had connections to both Santos Trafficante and Giancana who both seemed to have some connections to what happened on November 22, 1963.
This tied the bow neatly as Trafficante got the contract from the CIA to kill Castro and he passed it on to Maheu who then passed it on to Giancana and Roselli. (Ibid., p. 173)
Roselli would say Lee Harvey Oswald (LHO) was meant to be met by a contact at the Texas Theater (TT) and then flown out of the country where he would be done in. The body would be then presented to show he was shot while trying to “resist arrest.” They had an alternate plan of sending him to Cuba to set up Castro for the murder of JFK and this would have presented the CIA and the military with a great reason to invade. To me the ONLY reason this never happened is because Castro learned who was really behind the assassination and pretty much blackmailed those responsible into doing something else. What other reason can there be for why we never bothered Cuba again?
According to information published by columnist Jack Anderson the problem all of these guys had was that Trafficante was a mole for Castro and was reporting everything to him that the CIA was trying to do. Giancana said that Trafficante was a “a rat.” This would explain why Castro was so well informed of the plans to kill him as well. Giancana’s hitman and enforcer Charles Nicoletti said he was leaving the mob because the CIA was “taking over the operation” and he wanted no parts of that. If this is true then it shows the CIA had a much bigger role in the mob’s plans and operations than has ever been admitted. What could this mean in regards to the events of November 22, 1963?
What do you think Roselli’s role was in the murder of JFK if any? His ties to various people and organizations certainly make him a man who bears further investigation. His highly timely death (for those that wanted what he knew kept quiet) also makes one wonder how much he really knew about what happened to JFK.