Legacy of Secrecy (82 page)

of natural causes from a burst blood vessel, and he did have a history

of high blood pressure. However, Garrison hinted at suicide and even

murder. Yet another possibility given his medical condition is that the

tremendous strain Ferrie was under, from knowing he had introduced

Oswald to Carlos Marcello, and realizing the fate awaiting anyone who

implicated the powerful godfather, might literally have caused Ferrie

to worry himself to death.13

There was no debate about the cause of death for Ferrie’s friend in

Miami, Eladio del Valle. The
St. Petersburg Time
s reported that “within

hours of Ferrie’s” body being discovered, “police said del Valle’s

body was found crumpled, beaten, and shot on the floor of his red

Cadillac convertible . . . at the time, the death was portrayed as being

mob-related.” Richard Mahoney adds that del Valle “had been tortured,

his head split open with an ax, and shot through the heart.”14 If Santo

Trafficante was behind del Valle’s “mob-related” death, killing him so

quickly after Ferrie’s death was ruthlessly efficient. Del Valle’s murder

was overshadowed by the news coverage of Ferrie’s demise, and soon

forgotten by the national press.

Bobby Kennedy was aware of Ferrie’s connection to Marcello, since

Bobby’s Mafia prosecutors had encountered Ferrie in 1963 and earlier.

After reading news reports about the odd circumstances of Ferrie’s

demise, Bobby called the New Orleans coroner at his home, to hear

the details for himself.15 On the day Ferrie’s body was found, President

Johnson was briefed on the situation in a phone call from Acting Attor-

ney General Ramsey Clark. Clark revealed that Ferrie had called the

New Orleans FBI four days before his death, saying “he was quite a sick

man,” and that he “wanted to know what the Bureau could do to help

him with [Garrison].” Clark called the whole situation “a pretty sordid

mess [that] sure took a bad turn today.”16

Important developments in the Garrison case, and in Bobby Ken-

nedy’s life, would occur just a week after Ferrie’s death—but before that,

Bobby’s old friend Haynes Johnson wrote an interesting summary of

Garrison’s case for the
Washington Star
. In an article researcher Paul Hoch

provided, Haynes wrote on February 26, 1967, that a central “thread that

winds through the story involves . . . John F. Kennedy’s . . . problem of

Cuba.” Haynes expanded on the anti-Castro theory mentioned briefly

by the
Times
, saying that Garrison’s theory was:

. . . that Oswald was working with an anti-Castro right-wing orga-

nization and actually intended to kill Fidel; that Oswald’s publicly

pro-Communist activities in New Orleans and his attempt to enter

Mexico and secure a Cuban visa were a ruse to enable him to carry

out that Castro assassination objective; that when Oswald was

denied entrance to Cuba, the plot shifted and Kennedy, accused of

letting down the anti-Castro Cubans at the Bay of Pigs, became the

target. This theory has been examined at length in the past and has

been discarded.17

Paul Hoch posed the question of who “examined at length” such a

theory, since no investigation like that appears in the Warren Report.

Haynes’s article also details some of the anti-Castro activities of Guy

Banister, David Ferrie, and the Cuban exile “organization created by

the CIA” that shared their office building and activities. (We can only

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LEGACY OF SECRECY

imagine what E. Howard Hunt, the creator of that organization, must

have felt when he read that portion of Haynes’s article.) The article never

mentions Ferrie’s and Banister’s work for Carlos Marcello, which seems

like an odd lapse for the usually thorough Haynes Johnson, who had

won a Pulitzer Prize just a couple of years after working with Bobby,

Artime, and Harry Williams on their
Bay of Pigs
book.18

Though no article on Garrison had mentioned Carlos Marcello yet, the

Louisiana godfather would have known that some journalist was bound

to report on his connection to Ferrie and Banister eventually, unless

something was done. Oddly, after Ferrie’s death Jim Garrison seems to

have abandoned the theory Haynes and the
Times
had written about,

in order to go in another direction. Garrison began focusing intently on

what he had previously considered only a minor lead: After JFK’s mur-

der, a colorful attorney named Dean Andrews had claimed that while he

was hospitalized, someone named Clay Bertrand had called him about

representing Lee Harvey Oswald. Andrews later seemed to back away

from his allegation in talks with the Warren Commission, though he did

make other interesting comments about Oswald and never-identified

Hispanic associates to the Warren Commission staff.

Often overlooked in 1967 was the fact that the jive-talking Andrews

had been a minor attorney for Carlos Marcello. However, after Ferrie’s

death, Garrison apparently felt that he needed a live suspect. There

were indications (later disputed) that Alberto Fowler’s former coworker

and landlord Clay Shaw had used the alias “Clay Bertrand,” reportedly

when he tried to help out New Orleans gays who had been arrested.

Though Garrison didn’t know it at the time, Clay Shaw had been a CIA

informant until 1956, which was not unusual for the head of a bustling

Trade Mart in a city like New Orleans, whose ports did a huge amount

of business with Latin America and other foreign countries. According

to CIA files, Shaw had occasional and brief, casual social contact with

local CIA official Hunter Leake until 1965, when Shaw retired from the

Trade Mart.19

Also unknown to Garrison in late February 1967 were reports that

someone resembling Clay Shaw had been seen with Ferrie and Oswald

in the small town of Clinton, Louisiana. Congressional investigators

uncovered enough witnesses to find this incident credible, though others

have pointed to racial politics that might have been responsible for the

reports. (Oswald was supposedly trying to get a job at a local mental

hospital at the time of a civil-rights voting drive.) Ferrie and Shaw may

well have known each other through New Orleans’ gay underground,

and the same could have been true for Shaw and Oswald. Since Oswald

didn’t own a car or drive, if he did get to Clinton, someone would have

to have driven him. But as with David Atlee Phillips’s Dallas meeting

with Oswald two months before JFK’s murder, it makes little sense for

Shaw to have allowed himself to be seen with Oswald in public (and

with Ferrie) a couple of months before JFK’s assassination, if Shaw had

any knowing involvement in the murder.20

However, focusing attention on Shaw in 1967 was a good way to keep

Garrison’s investigation away from Carlos Marcello, and from Traffi-

cante’s ties to del Valle. It would also divert attention from Alberto

Fowler’s Cuban exile associates who should have been investigated,

men like Felipe Rivero, Manuel Artime, and Tony Varona. Shaw’s role

as a low-level CIA informant would also force the CIA to cover up and

withhold information if Garrison targeted him. So, on March 1, 1967, just

as the Ferrie publicity had started to die down, Jim Garrison announced

that Clay Shaw had been arrested for the murder of JFK, setting off a

new wave of press coverage.

On March 1, 1967, the news about Clay Shaw’s arrest was not foremost

in Bobby Kennedy’s mind since Bobby had just been informed that he

was the target of an assassination plot. Jimmy Hoffa’s brutal hench-

man, Frank Chavez, had just left Puerto Rico with two thugs, headed

for Washington and determined to kill Bobby. The Supreme Court had

just declined to hear Hoffa’s appeal—meaning the Teamster President

would enter federal prison in only a week—and Chavez was determined

to get his revenge on Bobby.21

We spoke to Justice Department prosecutor Tom Kennelly, who

helped to uncover the threat, and he told us that because Chavez and

his two men were armed, they took the threat very seriously. Washing-

ton police located Chavez and his henchmen at a Washington hotel and

put them under surveillance, while authorities ordered round-the-clock

protection for Bobby Kennedy’s Hickory Hill home in Virginia. Walter

Sheridan’s home received similar protection, since his family was still

there while Sheridan was in New Orleans, investigating Garrison.22

Frank Mankiewicz was just beginning his secret investigation for

Bobby into JFK’s murder when the FBI showed him photos of Chavez

and his two thugs, in case they came near Bobby’s Senate office or press

events. Mankiewicz told a journalist that while “we were sure looking

for them” and everyone else was very concerned, Bobby “didn’t want to

talk about it.”23 The Chavez assassination threat undoubtedly impacted

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LEGACY OF SECRECY

Mankiewicz’s nascent investigation. In light of Jack Ruby’s many calls to

mob associates and Teamster officials before JFK’s death, it was enough

information to point Mankiewicz in the right direction, even as he and

others in Bobby’s office watched for any sign of Chavez and his men.

Mankiewicz was already familiar with the articles about Hoffa’s talk of

assassinating Bobby in a car in the South during the summer of 1962,

and Mankiewicz may have also learned about the FBI report linking

Chavez to Jack Ruby.24

Back in 1962, Hoffa had probably been thinking of Chavez when

he talked about killing Bobby. In addition to possibly having Bobby

shot, Hoffa had also mentioned using a “firebomb” to kill Bobby, after

which the assassin could go to Puerto Rico to “hide out.” Chavez, who

was living in Puerto Rico in 1962, had previously been charged in one

firebombing incident and was the top suspect in another. However, by

the eve of his imprisonment in March 1967, Jimmy Hoffa felt the time

wasn’t right for an attempt on Bobby. The Teamster president had other

important business to attend to, including Trafficante and Marcello’s

plans to keep him out of prison.

Frank Ragano, the lawyer Hoffa shared with Trafficante, had rep-

resented Frank Chavez successfully five years earlier. The day before

Chavez and his cronies left for Washington in 1967, Ragano had arranged

for Trafficante to talk to Hoffa from the payphone of a Miami Holiday

Inn. Trafficante was still beyond the reach of almost all FBI phone taps,

but he took no chances and used only random payphones for business.

Ragano heard Trafficante’s side of the conversation as the Tampa mob

boss commiserated with Hoffa about Bobby Kennedy, saying, “That

dirty son-of-a-bitch. Maybe he should have been the one to go instead

of his brother. Yeah, I’ve talked to my friend in New Orleans and I will

talk to him again. I’m sure he understands.” Trafficante concluded his

phone call with Hoffa by saying, “You’ll be out before you know it.”25

Trafficante and Marcello were getting ready to play two of their

remaining trump cards to prevent Hoffa from serving a long prison

sentence. As part of their strategy, Johnny Rosselli had leaked part of

the same story he’d given Jack Anderson and Drew Pearson to some-

one in Jim Garrison’s office and to a reporter with WINS, New York

City’s first all-news radio station. Since Anderson and Pearson hadn’t

run Rosselli’s story, the mobsters hoped these new leaks would force

the issue. In addition, Marcello would soon use some of the Mafia’s $2

million Spring Hoffa fund, and Frank Ragano, in an attempt to bribe a

key witness against Hoffa.

However, all that would be for naught if Chavez attacked Bobby at

this critical time. Just six days away from reporting to federal prison,

Hoffa couldn’t afford to get mixed up in an assassination plot, so the

task of reining in Chavez fell to Frank Ragano. The morning after the

Hoffa-Trafficante call, Hoffa called Ragano and demanded that he come

to Washington immediately to talk Chavez out of his ill-timed assassina-

tion plan. Ragano flew to Washington the same day.26

At Chavez’s hotel, Ragano found Chavez and his two thugs “packing

huge handguns in shoulder holsters.” Ragano explained that if Chavez

killed Bobby now, officials would easily figure out who had done it and

why. An attempt on Bobby would ensure that Hoffa’s prison life would

be hell, and that the Teamster president would have to serve his entire

thirteen-year sentence. Chavez admired Ragano’s legal prowess and

reluctantly agreed to call off the attempt. Still, Chavez concluded the

meeting by saying of Bobby, “Sooner or later he’s got to go.”27 Jimmy

Hoffa shared that sentiment, and it was only Chavez’s timing that he

didn’t like. In less than three months, Hoffa himself would be talking

in prison about having Bobby killed—but it would be Chavez who was

shot.

After Chavez returned to Puerto Rico with his men, Hoffa told Frank