Authors: Lamar Waldron
level-three facility where most prisoners had few comforts. However,
Marcello was not like most other prisoners, and he soon found ways to
receive extraordinary privileges.
During Marcello’s stay at Texarkana, he became the target of yet
another undercover FBI sting operation: CAMTEX (for “Carlos Mar-
cello, Texas”). As revealed for the first time in this book, CAMTEX
resulted in Carlos Marcello’s clear confession to having ordered JFK’s
assassination. In Chapter 3, we quoted Marcello’s confession, made in
front of two witnesses, as reported by the FBI Informant who shared
Marcello’s prison cell in Texarkana. The following provides dramatic
new information from declassified files at the National Archives about
Marcello’s admission, the Informant (whose full name is in some of the
files, and has been confirmed by the authors), and how the FBI recorded
hundreds of hours of secret tapes of Marcello discussing his crimes.
The fifty-six-year-old Informant arrived in Texarkana from Tampa to
serve an eight-year sentence. The Informant wrote that in his “crowded
dorm with a hundred other guys . . . there was not much to see,” except
“the hallway, the dorm I lived in, a TV lounge, and at the end of the hall
lots of little rooms. I thought to myself,
If you behave you get one of the
little rooms
.” Then “I saw a little man that looked like he just stepped
out of a band box” (evoking the smartly dressed big-band leaders of the
1940s). The little man’s “clothes were new and pressed and his shoes
were shined. This guy was really sharp . . . a guy standing near me said,
‘That’s Carlos Marcello. He runs this place; a good friend to have.’ It did
not take long to see the guy was right. Marcello went where he pleased
and did what he wanted. He had one of the little rooms, so I guess he
was big time.”4
The Informant saw that some “of the inmates hung around [Marcello],
trying to get his attention.” Marcello “was on the phone all the time,”
and the Informant thought “he must have a lot of friends to call.” Several
days later, the Informant sat down beside Marcello “in the lounge. He
was reading a paper and did not notice me. When he finished reading
he said, ‘Hello, I’m Carlos Marcello.’ I shook his hand and told him my
name . . . he asked me if I had heard any news about” a governor who
was being prosecuted for corruption. Marcello “got up to leave and said,
‘If you need anything look me up.’”
That fateful meeting took place in March 1985, and the Informant
wrote that as time passed, he and Marcello “became friends, in a strange
sort of way . . . since I was older than most of the inmates, I guess he
was drawn to me.” Marcello had recently turned seventy-five, mean-
ing he and the Informant were much older than the average Texarkana
inmate.
Even after Marcello’s imprisonment, his criminal empire continued,
albeit at a reduced size. Marcello’s biographer John Davis says that Mar-
cello’s “most trusted brother, Joe, was supposed to have taken over as de
facto boss of what was left of the Marcello organization.” The main goal
of FBI agent Thomas Kimmel, who created and supervised the CAMTEX
operation, was to find out how Carlos Marcello controlled his criminal
organization from prison.
Kimmel arranged for veteran FBI agent Tom Kirk, nearing retirement,
to work undercover on this one last assignment. Kirk would go to the
prison on visiting day and appear to be the Informant’s best friend.
Kirk’s “cover identity” would be that of a shady businessman hunting
for opportunities, even if they were illegal. A local Texas FBI man, whom
Kimmel described as “a terrific agent,” would complete the team, work-
ing with Kirk, Kimmel, and the Informant. FBI headquarters in Washing-
ton authorized the CAMTEX operation against Marcello, since it echoed
the BRILAB sting that had sent him to prison in the first place.
Despite the Informant’s worries, the first few weeks went smoothly,
and one visiting day the Informant casually introduced Kirk to Carlos
Marcello. The Informant said, “Kirk thought that it was great that he
could meet Marcello, but it was easy, as Marcello always wanted to be
in the limelight.”5 They gradually began to draw Marcello into a series
of illegal business schemes, detailed at length in the FBI files. But none
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worked, for various reasons, not the least of which was Marcello’s
caution.
So, the Informant explained, “the FBI asked the (Prison’s) Unit Man-
ager to move me into Marcello’s room with him. Some days later this
was accomplished.”6 Marcello’s former roommate was moved to another
cell, and now the FBI had installed its Informant in Marcello’s private
cell. This was an unparalleled opportunity for the FBI and the Justice
Department, so it’s not surprising that the Informant would soon be
told that reports of his work were reaching even US Attorney General
Edwin Meese.
After spending time as Marcello’s roommate, the Informant had heard
enough from the godfather to know that “the only thing Marcello was
really interested in was getting out of prison. He had a standing offer
with any attorney of a million dollars if they could get him released from
prison.” That knowledge gave the FBI a new goal for its sting, and the
Informant was soon telling Marcello that his “best friend” (Kirk) knew
someone in the Bureau of Prisons who could arrange a transfer to a more
comfortable prison—for the right price.
After the Informant gave the FBI important information from Mar-
cello about the trial of a governor, Agent Kirk told the Informant “he
was going to report to his boss and try for a wiretap of the prison.”7 The
Informant said, “Two weeks later, Kirk came to see me. He said, ‘Well,
a judge is going to give us a wiretap on this evidence.’”
Kirk told the Informant that “the Unit phone in the hall would be
bugged and that I would have a bug in the room that I shared with
Marcello. I was told to buy a Panasonic radio in the (prison) store. I
bought the radio and [the Unit Manager] came to the room and said
that he would have to take the radio away to see if it was legal for me
to have. I called Kirk and he told me that the bug was being installed
in the radio and it would be returned when they were finished. On the
17th of September,” the Unit Manager “brought the radio back and told
me that I could have it.”
Once the Informant was alone with the specially modified transistor
radio, he “thought to myself here I am in this little room with the head
of the Mafia from New Orleans, with a radio with a bug inside. I was
really scared. If I was found out, I was dead.”8
Internal FBI memos, Kimmel, and other FBI sources all confirm the
Informant’s account of the dangerous bugging operation. A “Priority”
memo sent from the Dallas FBI office to the Director of the FBI confirms
that the Informant “was roommate of New Orleans organized crime
boss Carlos Marcello at Federal Correctional Institution, Texarkana,
Texas,” and “was instrumental in furnishing probable cause to initiate
Title III coverage of Marcello and prison telephone.” The memo also
confirms that the Informant “successfully introduced FBI undercover
agent to Marcello.”9
Kimmel verified that the “Title III” coverage approved by the judge
covered both the special transistor radio and the phone tap. The Infor-
mant says the bugging operation against Marcello yielded “hundreds
of hours” of tapes, something Kimmel also confirms. However, Kimmel
told us that the FBI listened to every tape, but would transcribe a par-
ticular tape only if Marcello mentioned something of interest.
The Informant doesn’t mention the JFK-Almeida coup plan in his
notes in the FBI files, but he does say that Marcello “was always talking
about . . . things I knew nothing about.” It would be interesting to see if
there are any comments about Cuba, Martin Luther King’s assassina-
tion, or Joseph Milteer on the hundreds of hours of secret tapes the FBI’s
Informant made of Marcello, but they have never been released.
As Marcello and the Informant gradually grew closer over the follow-
ing months, Marcello shared more of his background and experiences.
By December 1985, after a Marcello family member had paid a bribe to
soon move the godfather to a much better prison, Marcello had come
to view the Informant as a trusted friend.10
“The last month that we spent together—December—we talked a
lot,” the Informant told the FBI. “Marcello seemed to be very upset about
the Kennedys. This is all he would talk about. I was so tired of hearing
about his so-called kidnapping that it played on my nerves. That is all
he talked about, no matter where we were.”
We noted earlier that Marcello had told the Informant and another
trusted inmate from New Orleans about “his meeting with Oswald,”
and that Marcello “had been introduced to Oswald by a man named
Ferris [Ferrie], Marcello’s pilot.” Marcello had also told them “about
Jack Ruby, [whom] Marcello had . . . set . . . up in the bar business” in
Dallas, and that “Ruby would come to Churchill Farms to report to
Marcello.”11
On December 15, 1985, the Informant and Marcello “were sitting out-
side in the patio” of the prison yard. Referring to the same trusted indi-
vidual who had worked for Marcello’s brother and had heard Marcello
talk about Oswald and Ruby, the Informant wrote, “My friend came over
to join us.” (The friend/witness is named in one of the FBI files.) Marcello
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then embarked upon a blazing tirade about the Kennedys. After Mar-
cello blurted out his admission of having JFK killed, he “stopped, real-
izing what he had said, and turned and walked over to some other
inmates. My friend looked at me, and said, ‘I don’t know about you,
but I did not hear anything.’ My friend left, and I could see that he was
upset. I was in shock. I never believed that the little man would admit
that he had conspired to kill the President. We went back to our room
and nothing else was said” about the matter, that day or the next.12
Marcello’s confession quoted earlier in the book came from a detailed
account in FBI files, written three years later by the Informant for the
head of the San Francisco FBI. Yet it is remarkably consistent with the
following internal FBI memo, written shortly after Marcello blurted out
his confession. This FBI memo names the Informant but cautions that
his name shouldn’t be “disclosed in a report or otherwise unless [he
has] to be a witness in a trial or hearing.” It confirms that the Infor-
mant “has provided reliable information in the past.” It goes on to say,
“On December 15, 1985, he was in the company of Carlos Marcello and
another inmate at the Federal Correctional Institute, Texarkana, Texas,
in the courtyard engaged in conversation. Carlos Marcello discussed his
intense dislike of former President John Kennedy as he often did. Unlike
other such tirades against Kennedy, however, on this occasion Carlos
Marcello said, referring to President Kennedy, ‘Yeah, I had the son of a
bitch killed. I’m glad I did. I’m sorry I couldn’t have done it myself.’”13
The consistency of the wording, date, witness, and circumstances
across three years give the Informant’s statement a high degree of cred-
ibility. After telling the FBI about Marcello’s admission, the Informant
was willing to take a lie-detector test about it. The Informant had nothing
to gain by making up such an admission, since he would antagonize the
very FBI agents he was risking his life to help if he failed the test, or the
witness denied it. Also, the Informant didn’t try to leverage Marcello’s
JFK admission for anything else. Finally, by reporting Marcello’s JFK
confession to the FBI, the Informant increased the chance that Marcello
would take potentially lethal action against him, if the godfather ever
found out.
Given the trust that had developed between Marcello and the Infor-
mant—to the extent that Marcello had his family bribe the Informant’s
“best friend” (Kirk) to move Marcello to a more comfortable prison—
it’s not unreasonable that while raging against the Kennedys, Marcello
would have impulsively blurted out the confession as he did such
remarks. By that time, the Informant had become Marcello’s trusted
prison confidante. However, two days later, when Marcello was in a
calmer frame of mind, he realized he needed to do something about his
JFK revelation. After all, Marcello had for years kept a sign in his office
that read: THREE CAN KEEP A SECRET, IF TWO ARE DEAD.
The Informant says that “on the 17th of December I was packing,
to leave the next day” for the level-two Seagoville Prison near Dallas,
where Marcello would soon follow. “Marcello was out making his calls.