Not in Your Lifetime: The Defining Book on the J.F.K. Assassination (54 page)

217
     HSCA speculation: HSCA Report, p. 114.

Szulc: “Cuba on Our Mind,”
Esquire
, February 1974.

Smathers: “Were Trujillo, Diem, CIA Targets Too?” by Jack Anderson, UFS syndicated article,
Miami Herald
, January 19, 1971; conv. 1978; and int. by D. M. Wilson for JFK Oral History Program, March 31, 1964.

RFK, Giancana, and plots:
Sen. Int. Cttee. Assassination Plots
, p. 129–; HSCA X.187.

218
     RFK “stops” plot:
New York Times
, March 10, 1975; also int. of Frank Mankiewicz, October 29, 1969 for RFK Oral History Program.

CIA officials’ refrained: e.g. in Thomas Powers,
op. cit.
, Chapter 9.

Helms recalled: Helms with Hood,
op. cit.
, p. 188.

219
     Bissell:
VF
, December 1994 (drawing on interviews of Bissell by Jan Weininger). For another reading of Bissell on this subject, see Evan Thomas,
The Very Best Men, Four Who Dared: The Early Years of the CIA
, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995.

Harvey told I. G.:
ibid
., pp. 132, 137.

Former officer: int. Jan Weininger, citing her int. of case officer, 1994.

Smathers: int. by Robbyn Swan, 1994.

Note 2
: Judith Campbell is frequently named as Judith “Exner,” her later married name. Judith Campbell was her name during the Kennedy administration.

Campbell:
Sen. Int. Cttee. Assassination Plots
, p. 129; Judith Campbell as told to Ovid Demaris,
My Story
, New York: Grove, 1977; “Jack, Judy, Sam and Johnny,”
New Times
, January 23, 1976;
New
York
Post
, December 22, 1975; author’s articles,
New York Daily News
, October 6, 7, 8, 1991; ints. Exner, 1990–1992; int. Evelyn Lincoln, 1991.

220
     Halpern: Evan Thomas,
op. cit.
, p. 403,
American Heritage
magazine, November 1995, p. 60, and int. Mark Allen, 1995.

Giancana on wiretap: Robert Blakey & Richard Billings,
The Plot to Kill the President
, New York: Times Books, 1981, p. 383.

14. The Mob Loses Patience

221
     Trafficante quote: int. José Alemán,1978; originally quoted in the
Washington Post
, May 16, 1976 (explained later in this chapter).

RFK on organizer: Schlesinger,
Robert F. Kennedy
,
op. cit.
, p. 8.

222
     “shooting fish”:
ibid
. p. 62.

223
     Hoffa on RFK: (“bastard”) James R. Hoffa, as told to Oscar Fraley,
Hoffa: The Real Story
, New York: Stein and Day, 1975, pp. 107–115; (“monster”) Ralph and Estelle James,
Hoffa and the Teamsters
, New York: Van Nostrand, 1965); (“brat”) BBC int. of Hoffa, 1975.

Hoffa to Teamsters on RFK:
International Teamster
, February 1959.

JFK replied: “The Mafia, the CIA, and the Kennedy Assassination,”
Washingtonian
, November 1975.

RFK on gangsters: Schlesinger,
Robert F. Kennedy
,
op. cit.
, p. 240.

224
     RFK on Hoffa associates/syndicate: Schlesinger,
Robert F. Kennedy
,
op. cit.
, p. 75.

RFK on Baker: Schlesinger,
Robert F. Kennedy
,
op. cit.
, p. 60.

RFK on “private government”: Robert Kennedy to Sen. Govt. Operations Cttee., September 25, 1963.

Hoffa prime target: Walter Sheridan,
The Fall and Rise of Jimmy Hoffa
, New York: Saturday Review Press, 1972, p. 193.

225
Hoffa’s “seamy” information on Kennedys: cited Jim Hougan,
op. cit.
, p. 119.

Note 1
: The author’s book
Goddess: The Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe
(New York: Open Road Integrated Media, 2013, and London: Orion, 2012) is a full-scale biography that includes the star’s relationships with the Kennedy brothers.

“Fuck Hoover!” int. William Roemer, 1988; William Roemer,
Man Against the Mob
, New York: Donald Fine, 1989, pp. 118, 214; int. Neil Welch, 1988.

Giancana & RFK: McClellan Committee hearing June 9, 1959, 86th Cong., 1 Sess., 18672–.

226
     Giancana crime career:
New Times
, January 23, 1976; and Robert Blakey to author, 1979.

Kennedy prosecution record: Department of Justice figures, HSCA V.435;
Congressional Record
, March 11, 1969, S2642; research of Katherine Kinsella for author, 1978; HSCA V.434–.

Salerno: quoted in
JILE
, Indiana Police Association journal, Spring 1979.

Weisburg/Bruno wiretap: HSCA V.443, 458.

227
     Fithian:
JILE
, Indiana Police Association journal, Spring 1979.

HSCA assessment: HSCA Report, p. 161.

228
     Partin episode: ints. Judge Hawk Daniels, 1978; int. Edward Partin, 1978; “An Insider’s Chilling Story of Hoffa’s Savage Kingdom,”
Life
magazine, May 15, 1964; HSCA Report, p. 176–.

229
     JFK told Bradlee: Benjamin Bradlee,
Conversations with Kennedy
, New York: W. W. Norton, 1976, p. 125–.

Trafficante & Kennedys: McClellan Committee Hearings, 1959 (p. 12432).

Alemán episode: int. José Alemán, 1978; originally reported by George Crile in the
Washington Post
, May 16, 1976. Alemán testimony, HSCA V.301 (incorporating staff reports); HSCA Chief Counsel, HSCA V.345; HSCA Report, p. 172–; Moldea,
op. cit.
, p. 427n46.

Note 2
: The date of the alleged Alemán-
Trafficante conversation is unclear. It was first reported (
Washington Post
, May 16, 1976) as September 1962. Alemán himself was unsure because he had at least three meetings with Trafficante during that general period. In his testimony to the Assassinations Committee he spoke of June–July 1963 (HSCA V.303).

230
     Hoffa millionaire:
Playboy
, December 1975.

231
Note 3
: The Bureau denied this allegation by Alemán.

Marcello: (Ed Reid quoting Aaron Kohn) Reid,
op. cit.
, p. 156; (syndicate income) HSCA IX.65; (elusive)
ibid
., p. 154; (Cuban involvement) Jim Hougan,
op. cit.
, p. 335 (quoting FBI); (link to Hoffa)int. Judge Daniels, 1978; (Marcello, Hoffa and Nixon contribution) Moldea,
op. cit.
, p. 108; (bribe in Hoffa case) Reid,
op. cit.
, pp. 159–60; (birth and deportation)Reid,
op. cit.
, p. 151–; (influence) HSCA IX.52, 88n52; and Aaron Kohn, quoted by Fensterwald/Ewing,
op. cit.
, p. 307.

233
Note 4
: One report said Marcello was picked up by two CIA agents posing as Justice Department officers (Hougan,
op. cit.
, p. 113). The Assassinations Committee staff report, however, specified that they were Immigration Service officers (HSCA IX.71).

234
     Marcello “threat”: ints. Edward Becker, 1978, 1992; originally revealed by Ed Reid,
op. cit.
, p. 161–; Becker int. by Earl Golz,
Dallas Morning News
, December 1978; HSCA Report, p. 171–; HSCA IX.75; int. Julian Blodgett, 1992; and see Anthony Summers,
Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover
, New York: Putnam, 1993, p. 327–.

235
Note 5
: Ed Reid, who first reported the alleged Marcello threat in his book
The Grim Reapers
(see Bibliography), was the winner of many journalism awards, including a Pulitzer Prize in 1951. He became an acknowledged specialist on organized-crime operations for that period.

Note 6
: Neither Roppolo nor Liverde (which should perhaps be rendered “Livaudais”), the other associate who allegedly attended the meeting, was interviewed by the
Assassinations Committee. They should have been. (“Liverde,” Becker has said, may have been a member of the Liberto family, one of whose members was suspected of conspiring with Marcello to murder Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.).

236
Note 7
: Apparent corroboration of the Hoffa/Trafficante/Marcello involvement in President Kennedy’s death appeared in 1994, in
Mob Lawyer
by Frank Ragano, the longtime attorney for all three. Ragano wrote that Hoffa had sent him to see Marcello and Trafficante in July 1963, to ask them to have the President killed. After the assassination, Ragano claimed, Hoffa exclaimed, “I told you they could do it,” while Marcello said, “Tell [Jimmy] he owes me big.” Ragano also claimed that, days before his death in 1987, Trafficante effectively confessed to the crime—saying: “Goddamn Bobby. Carlos [Marcello] fucked up. We shouldn’t have killed John. We should have killed Bobby.” While some have expressed belief in Ragano’s account, this author finds the Trafficante “confession” story dubious. The author looked into whether Trafficante was where Ragano said he was on the day Ragano said he met with him, and decided it was unlikely, if not impossible. Exposing Ragano as a liar, however, would not dispose of the “Mob dunnit” theory—nor of the notion that Trafficante and Marcello played some part in Kennedy’s murder. For more detail on the author’s probe of the Ragano story, see
VF
, December 1994.

Blakey on Mob guilt:
Newsweek
, July 30, 1979.

15. Six Options for History

238
     Johnson predicts visit:
Dallas Times-Herald
, April 24, 1963 (reporting Johnson speech previous evening).

April 24 departure: II.459, Ruth Paine testimony.

Murrets and Oswald call: VIII.135, 164.

Uncle’s Mafia link: HSCA Report, p. 170; HSCA IX.95.

239
     HSCA on Soviets: HSCA Report, p. 103.

Oswald lone gunman: Report, p. 423.

240
Note 1
: The thesis postulating Soviet involvement in the assassination was expounded—fatuously—by the British writer Michael Eddowes in his book
The Oswald File
(see Bibliography). Eddowes suggested that the real Oswald never returned to the United States. Eddowes based his theory mostly on discrepancies in the heights recorded for Oswald on official documents, which seem to show that the Oswald who returned from Russia was considerably shorter than the Oswald who served in the Marine Corps. Eddowes suggested that the fake Oswald killed President Kennedy on orders from Soviet leader Khrushchev. The monstrous political implications aside, this theory founders on the fact that the fingerprints of Marine Oswald are identical with those of the Oswald who died in Dallas. To accept Eddowes’ theory one would also have to believe that Oswald’s mother was fooled by the fake Oswald on his arrival from Russia. Nevertheless, Eddowes succeeded in persuading Texas courts to order the exhumation of Oswald’s body for tests to determine whether the corpse was really his. On exhumation, according to the authorities, the body was declared to be what it was buried as in 1963—that of the authentic Oswald.

Johnson swung: see Anthony Summers,
Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover
, New York: Putnam, 1993, p. 330 and sources.

Note 2
: Long after the Warren inquiry, when the existence of the CIA plots to kill Castro was revealed, some former Commission members were outraged, saying the CIA had kept them in the dark. According to Earl Warren’s son, however, the Chief Justice did learn about the plots. (
VF
, December 1994; ints. Warren’s son Earl Warren Jr., and his grandson, Jeff Warren, 1994; outrage of some Commission members: e.g., author’s ints. Burt Griffin, for BBC, January 1977.)

Coleman: int. 1994.

Warren & HSCA on Cuban role: Report, p. 21, HSCA Report, p. 129.

241
Note 3
: The author first referred to was Gus Russo, who in 1998 wrote
Live by the Sword: The Secret War Against Castro and the Death of JFK
(Baltimore, MD, 1998). The passage cited is at p. 459. The former CIA analyst, Brian Latell, wrote
Castro’s Secrets: The CIA and Cuba’s Intelligence Machine
(New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012). The author’s thesis is summarized at p. 247.

Note 4
: See Chapter 22, “Casting the First Stone.”

HSCA on top mobsters: Report, p. 1.

242
Note 5
: Robert Blakey, a former special prosecutor in the Kennedy Justice Department, spent the greater part of his career as professor of law at Notre Dame University, and director of the university’s Institute on Organized Crime. The quotation is taken from p. xiv
of his book
The Plot to Kill the President
(New York, Times Books, 1981) coauthored with Richard Billings, who had been editorial director of the House Committee.

Note 6
: The book is
The Road to Dallas: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy
, by David Kaiser (Cambridge, MA, Belknap, 2008). Kaiser’s view, in essence, is that the assassination was the result of “a conspiracy of mobsters and misfits.” (See his book, pp. 8, 414.)

Marcello acknowledged: Lamar Waldron with Thom Hartmann,
Ultimate Sacrifice
:
John and Robert Kennedy, the Plan for a Coup in Cuba and the Murder of JFK
, New York: Carroll & Graf, 2005, pp. 12, 818.

Edwards: Fensterwald,
op. cit.
, p. 148.

243
     Hart:
Denver Post
, May 2, 1976.

244
     Fonzi: see Bibliography.

Note 7
: The late Gaeton Fonzi’s 1993 book was
The Last Investigation
(New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press). The references cited are on pp. 404, 409.

Note 8
: The former analyst, who is also a trained historian, is John
Newman, whose 1995 book was
Oswald and the CIA
(New York: Carroll & Graf). He contributed a postscript to the previous edition of this book.

245
Note 9
: The former
Washington
Post
journalist, Jefferson Morley, is the author
Our Man in Mexico
:
Winston
Scott
and
the
Hidden
History
of
the
CIA
, Kansas, MO: Univ. Press of Kansas, 2008. For the references used, see that book, p. 238, and Morley’s article “What Can We Do About JFK’s Murder?” (
The Atlantic
,
December 21, 2012)