Authors: Lamar Waldron
the city, state, and region for Trafficante, and to feed information to law
enforcement agencies that could help the Tampa godfather. In this way,
de la Llana was like a Tampa version of the Chicago Mafia’s Richard
Cain: The number-two man in the Cook County/Chicago sheriff’s
office, Cain was actually a “made” member of the Mafia named Ricardo
Scalzetti. While de la Llana was not an actual member of the Mafia, a
high-ranking Florida law enforcement source who worked with him said
that de la Llana didn’t try to hide his affinity for the Mafia: He “talked
like a classic Italian gangster,” and when he was off duty he dressed like
one, too. Our source said that de la Llana was originally a good cop, but
he had been “caught [up] in some mob deal” and “turned bad.” By 1963,
de la Llana was “feeding information to Trafficante” on a regular basis,
his position secure because of Trafficante’s political influence, even
when new Police Chiefs came into office.9 With someone like de la Llana
in place, it’s clear why Trafficante felt confident enough to plan a JFK
hit in Tampa, since he would know if his plot leaked, and he had
someone on the inside to ensure the patsy blamed for JFK’s death was
quickly killed.
In Sgt. de la Llana’s brief testimony at the October 15, 1963, Senate
hearings, he didn’t mention Trafficante, though the godfather’s name
appears in a (no doubt carefully) prepared statement that was submitted
for the record. That statement was devoted primarily to a minor Mafia
courier who had already been arrested and who had an extensive FBI
record. The main testimony about Trafficante came from Tampa Police
Chief Neil G. Brown, who would soon be replaced by Chief J. P. Mullins.
Chief Brown’s testimony foreshadowed the events to come in Dal-
las and explain why Trafficante felt his role in JFK’s murder could stay
hidden. Brown began by showing a large chart of organized crime in
Tampa, with Trafficante’s name at the very top. Brown also talked about
Trafficante’s ties to Rosselli’s boss, Giancana, and to a French Connec-
tion heroin partner of Michel Victor Mertz. Next came accounts of Traf-
ficante’s direct ties to several murders, in addition to many others he
had ordered.
Chief Brown called Trafficante a suspect in the notorious barbershop
slaying of New York mob boss Albert Anastasia. Brown also said that
Trafficante had “been picked up by the police for questioning about the
gangland slayings of three [other] men” over the years, but authorities
were unable to prosecute Trafficante for those hits. Usually, Trafficante
took care to insulate himself from mob executions, using intermediaries
and professional hit men to carry out his dirty work.
One of the Trafficante hits Chief Brown discussed would have
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LEGACY OF SECRECY
particular resonance on November 22. Brown said that Trafficante had
targeted a victim whose “head was blown off [while he] was seated in
his automobile.” In a further eerie foreshadowing of what would hap-
pen two days after JFK’s murder, Brown said that in the Tampa case, the
main “suspect in this murder was himself murdered.”
Chief Brown pointed out the “relative infrequency with which such
professional murders are successfully prosecuted,” and explained why.
He said that only one of twenty-three Mafia murders in Tampa had been
solved, and the lone exception was not a typical Mafia hit. In contrast,
he explained that 97 percent of non-Mafia murders in Tampa had been
solved.
Brown explained that it was very “difficult to obtain evidence suf-
ficient for successful prosecution of Mafia members, because the wit-
nesses who might offer such evidence have always been reluctant to
do so [due to] fear of Mafia reprisals, since it is common knowledge in
Tampa that the Mafia does not hesitate to murder for such reprisals.”
Brown agreed with Senator McClellan’s blunt assessment that the wit-
nesses “know that the penalty for them talking would be death.” In fact,
Chief Brown was able to point out three reprisal hits in Tampa that were
motivated by “the Mafia’s knowledge . . . that the victims had given to
legal authorities evidence incriminating Mafia members.”10
Brown’s testimony about “reprisal hits” helps to explain Trafficante’s
confidence that he would be able to get away with helping Marcello
and Rosselli murder JFK. Not only witnesses, but also those in—and
even on the fringes of—the underworld would know the danger of
helping authorities. That was also why Trafficante and the other mob
bosses used experienced people they had worked with before, who were
familiar with the penalty for talking, or even for failure. This explains
the risks Trafficante’s associates took, such as Jack Ruby’s shooting a
suspect inside police headquarters after his efforts to find a policeman
to silence Oswald apparently failed.
Chief Brown left office soon after his Congressional testimony, but his
replacement, J. P. Mullins, was even tougher on Trafficante and orga-
nized crime. However, Sgt. de la Llana was still on the force, able to feed
inside information to Trafficante.11 This connection was crucial for Traf-
ficante if word of the Tampa attempt threatened to leak to the public after
JFK’s assassination, or if leads from Dallas ever pointed to Trafficante.
If either of those scenarios occurred, Trafficante’s infiltration of the
impending JFK-Almeida coup plan could be used to prevent too much
digging in his direction. Of the five major exile leaders and groups in
the coup plan, Trafficante had bought off his old associate Varona, had
arms and drug ties to Artime, had potentially neutralized Ray by link-
ing Oswald to Ray’s group in Dallas, and had formerly dealt arms to
Menoyo (whose partner, Veciana, had also been set up to meet Oswald
in Dallas). Trafficante’s drug network with Mertz and Marcello ran
through Fort Benning, home to the coup’s Cuban American troops. As
noted later in this chapter, Trafficante even had John Martino ready to
tell journalists, if necessary, about JFK’s invasion plan for Cuba.
We mentioned earlier Trafficante’s significant use of his drug net-
work in the JFK hit, which included Martino, Mertz, Ruby, and Nicoletti.
Other Trafficante drug-trafficking associates linked to the hit included
former death-squad leader Rolando Masferrer, whom Varona brought
secretly into the coup plan after the $200,000 bribe mentioned in Chapter
2. There was also Masferrer’s partner, Eladio del Valle, who was close
to Marcello’s David Ferrie—Cuban officials place del Valle in Dallas on
November 22, 1963, based on the testimony of captured Cuban exile
Tony Cuesta.12
According to Cuesta, former Trafficante bodyguard and drug traf-
ficker Herminio Diaz was also in Dallas on November 22. Cuban offi-
cials say that the Cuban Diaz was “a hit man from the forties” who had
been part of “an assassination plot against Costa Rican President Jose
Figureres in 1956.”13 CIA files say that Diaz worked at a mob-owned
casino in Havana, first as a cashier and then, in 1959–1960, as chief of
security.14 An FBI memo links Diaz to two of Trafficante’s men, who
were running guns to Cuba at the time with Jack Ruby.15 In July 1963,
Diaz came to America, where Cuban officials say he worked with Traf-
ficante and Varona. By September 1963, Diaz was of interest to the CIA’s
Special Affairs Staff (SAS), which Desmond FitzGerald ran for Richard
Helms. In addition to AMWORLD, FitzGerald and Helms were run-
ning the unauthorized CIA-Mafia plots and assassin recruiter QJWIN
at the time.
One reason Herminio Diaz would have been of interest to FitzGerald
was that in Diaz’s July 1963 interview by one of David Morales’s AMOT
assets, Diaz mentioned the names of Juan Almeida and Rolando Cubela,
saying they were part of a group of disgruntled Cuban officials who
wanted to act against Castro. Diaz had some of the details wrong, but
even mentioning Almeida and Cubela was enough to get FitzGerald’s
attention. Even though another CIA asset said that Herminio was “fond
of gambling and capable of committing any crime for money,” the CIA
considered using him as an “agent candidate or . . . asset.”16
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LEGACY OF SECRECY
Diaz was apparently part of one of Helms and FitzGerald’s unauthor-
ized Castro-assassination operations by November 22, because shortly
after the events in Dallas, a State Department memo to the White House
national security advisor would link Diaz to “an [unsuccessful] attempt
to assassinate Castro in December 1963.”17 But even though Diaz caught
the CIA’s eye, he was still working in Trafficante’s lucrative drug net-
work. A CIA file confirms that Diaz was “smuggling narcotics or acting
as courier between narcotics traffickers in Mexico and US.” Diaz even
“had meetings with local Mexican Police Chief, who [was his] personal
friend. Diaz traveled frequently between Miami and New York and
always seemed to have large amounts [of] money.”18 Cuban officials
described Diaz as a “mulatto” or “dark skinned,” and claimed he was
in the Texas School Book Depository as JFK’s motorcade approached.19
Based on statements from Harry Williams, law enforcement, and Con-
gressional testimony, Trafficante apparently had yet another CIA man
working for him in Dallas on November 22. Seen near the “grassy knoll”
just down the street from the Book Depository, this Cuban exile was a
full-time CIA employee with longtime Mafia ties. He was, and for years
to come would continue to be, close to two Trafficante drug associates.
A seemingly average family man, he shared the sexual predilection of
Ferrie, del Valle, and sometimes Ruby for teenage boys, which made him
subject to blackmail if he ever tried to refuse Trafficante.20
Because Trafficante spoke Spanish well and had spent so much time
in Cuba, he became the Mafia’s main liaison to Cuban exiles, a role
he would maintain into the 1970s (with exiles like Artime) and 1980s
(with Artime’s second-in-command, Rafael “Chi Chi” Quintero, linked
to drug trafficking). For the JFK hit, Trafficante knew how to exploit the
exiles’ personal weaknesses and desire to see Fidel eliminated. Along
with the Mafia, certain Cuban exiles had been excluded from the coup
plan, so they had no incentive to see it go forward. Also, by November
1963 some exiles, as well as Trafficante’s CIA employee, had learned
about JFK’s secret peace feelers to Castro. They no doubt worried that
JFK would call off the coup if there was a breakthrough in the peace
talks. After the sense of betrayal some, like David Morales, felt over the
Bay of Pigs, it’s easy to imagine exiles working for Trafficante wanting
to ensure they wouldn’t suffer betrayal by JFK again. This explains why
some Cuban exiles and CIA operatives were willing to help assassinate
JFK, even with the JFK-Almeida coup plan fast approaching.
To Artime’s aide Rafael “Chi Chi” Quintero, even the Cuban Mis-
sile Crisis had been a betrayal by the Kennedys. Quintero said, “Talk
about the word ‘treason’ at the Bay of Pigs; this [the Cuban Missile Cri-
sis] was even bigger for us, the people involved.” As Miami journalist
Don Bohning wrote, exiles like Quintero had been certain the Missile
Crisis “would be the end of Fidel.”21 When it wasn’t, perhaps Quintero
and a few others became receptive to what Trafficante had in mind. In
a letter to the JFK Assassination Records Review Board, one of Quin-
tero’s associates says Quintero admitted to some involvement in JFK’s
assassination.22
Trafficante knew that getting rid of Fidel was still a priority for the
exiles, but if he told them JFK’s assassination could be blamed on a
Cuban or apparent Cuban sympathizer, then the US military invasion
they knew was almost ready might well go forward in retaliation. In
such a scenario, the US invasion wouldn’t be the carefully staged and
sequenced operation in which Almeida invited US forces into Cuba,
but would instead be a full-scale attack on the Cuban leaders who had
apparently assassinated JFK.
Johnny Rosselli, the Chicago Mafia’s pointman in Hollywood and Las
Vegas, would later confess his role in JFK’s assassination, as did Traf-
ficante and Marcello. Rosselli was crucial to their plot to kill JFK, due to
his years of clandestine work for the CIA. Though all of those involved
with Marcello and Trafficante in the JFK plot had been CIA informants,
assets, or operatives, Rosselli was the Mafioso with the highest role
with the CIA.23 After taking on a key position in the CIA-Mafia plots
in the summer of 1960, Rosselli had grown close to hard-drinking CIA
official William Harvey in 1962. After Harvey left Cuban operations in
1963, replaced by the more office-bound Desmond FitzGerald, Rosselli
remained friends with Harvey while growing close to Miami’s David
Morales, who was prone to bouts of heavy drinking. Rosselli’s friend-