Authors: Lamar Waldron
sent home because of the tragedy. Fonzi writes that, as Odio thought
more about the assassination, “she began to feel terribly, uncontrollably
frightened, and, while walking to her car, fainted. She remembers wak-
ing up in the hospital.”31
Odio’s younger sister Annie, who had also seen the three men back
in September, joined her at the hospital. The notes from Fonzi’s first
interview with Silvia Odio say that later on November 22, Silvia was:
. . . watching television with her sister and seeing Oswald . . . one of
the men who came to the apartment. “We were just so scared because
we both recognized him immediately.” They both were extremely
frightened and very anxious about the welfare of their many siblings
and their mother and father in prison in Cuba and, since they didn’t
know what was going on or whether or not there had been a con-
spiracy of many involved in the assassination, they both decided not
to bring their experience to the attention of the authorities. (“I never
wanted to go to them, I was afraid. I was young at the time, I was
recently divorced, I had young children, I was going through hell.
Besides, it was such a responsibility to get involved because who is
going to believe you, who is going to believe that I had Oswald in
my house? I was scared and my sister Annie was very scared at the
time, she was only 14.”)
The only authority figure Silvia had told about Oswald’s visit at the
time it happened was Dr. Burton Einspruch, who had had been counsel-
ing Silvia about her family difficulties. Dr. Einspruch confirmed that to
Fonzi, saying he recalled Silvia’s telling him about the three men’s visit
prior to JFK’s assassination.
The only other person Silvia confided in was her sister Sarita. How-
ever, Sarita told a mutual acquaintance, who told a friend, who told the
FBI. This action started a chain of events that threatened to unravel the
Warren Commission investigation just before its close, almost a year
later. As documented in declassified files and in
Ultimate Sacrifice
, what
has become known among historians as the “Odio incident” can be
linked to four associates of Santo Trafficante, including two who had
learned about parts of the JFK-Almeida coup plan: John Martino, who
met with Sarita Odio around the time of the incident, and Rolando Mas-
ferrer, whose brother lived in the same Dallas apartment complex as
Silvia Odio.32
In Tampa, Santo Trafficante greeted his lawyer, Frank Ragano, at the
International Inn, the posh hotel where JFK had spoken just four days
earlier. The hotel’s fancy restaurant, usually full on a Friday night, had
less than a dozen customers besides Trafficante, Ragano, and Ragano’s
girlfriend. With so few people around, the normally cautious Trafficante
could be effusive without worrying.
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LEGACY OF SECRECY
Trafficante beamed as he told Ragano, “Isn’t that something—they
killed the son-of-a-bitch.” Ragano says that Trafficante hugged and
kissed him on the cheeks as the Tampa godfather gloated, “The son of a
bitch is dead.” According to Ragano, Trafficante’s face was “wreathed in
joy” as he boasted, “We’ll make big money out of this and maybe go back
to Cuba.” Trafficante also said he was glad for their mutual associate
Hoffa, since Bobby’s power would end under LBJ. In his autobiography,
Ragano claims he doesn’t know what Trafficante meant about return-
ing to Cuba, but it’s clear Trafficante hoped that blaming the seemingly
pro-Castro Oswald for JFK’s murder would provoke the invasion that
Trafficante’s associates, like Martino, knew had been planned. Even if
there weren’t an invasion, with JFK out of the way and Bobby no longer
controlling Cuban operations, Trafficante and his men would be free to
return to Cuba if Castro were assassinated. (CIA and FBI files would
later confirm that associates of Trafficante knew about Helms’s unau-
thorized plots to use Cubela/AMLASH to assassinate Fidel.)33
Ragano writes that he and an ebullient Trafficante raised their glasses
of scotch “as Santo said merrily, ‘For a hundred years of health and
to John Kennedy’s death.’ Santo and I both started laughing.” Those
words no doubt rang hollow in the somber, mostly empty restaurant.
Ragano’s girlfriend, a young college student, was horrified. After a few
words with Ragano, “she rushed out of the restaurant.” Ragano stayed
to continue the celebration with Trafficante.34
Trafficante had much to celebrate that night, in the hotel where JFK
had spoken so recently. His close associate Marcello had successfully
bribed his way to an acquittal, and now that JFK was dead, Bobby’s
extraordinary power was coming to an end. Also, the JFK hit hadn’t had
to occur on Trafficante’s turf. Moreover, Trafficante’s man on the Tampa
police force, Sgt. Jack de La Llana, could let him know if any word of
the Tampa assassination attempt started to leak, or if the JFK investiga-
tion started to point toward Trafficante.35 Finally, Trafficante knew Jack
Ruby, and he apparently felt confident that Ruby would be able to take
care of silencing Oswald.
Chapter Fourteen
As night fell in Washington, D.C., on November 22, 1963, Bobby Ken-
nedy was on his way to Bethesda Naval Medical Center, along with
Jackie and a caravan that included JFK’s body. During the twenty-
minute ride, Bobby heard Jackie’s account of the shooting; once they
arrived at Bethesda Naval Hospital, he would also hear what JFK aides
Dave Powers and Kenneth O’Donnell had witnessed. According to his-
torian Richard Mahoney, as they passed the Capitol building, Bobby
later “recalled reflecting on his and Jack’s dramatic days together on the
McClellan Committee,” when they first began investigating organized
crime and Mafia bosses like Marcello and Trafficante.1
Entire books have been written about JFK’s autopsy, which several gov-
ernment commissions studied over the course of thirty-five years, yet
substantial controversies remain. The location and size of wounds on
some autopsy x-rays and photos don’t match what others show, or what
some at Parkland or Bethesda observed. Even worse, crucial evidence
is missing, ranging from photos and tissue samples to JFK’s brain. At
the root of these controversies is the fact that Bobby Kennedy controlled
the autopsy.
A few basic facts about the autopsy are not in dispute. All agree that
the Bethesda doctors didn’t realize that JFK had been shot in the throat,
since that wound was obscured by a tracheotomy incision. But the
Bethesda doctors did find JFK’s small back wound, which the Dallas
physicians had missed in their rush to perform the tracheotomy and
deal with JFK’s massive head injuries. The Bethesda doctors initially
assumed JFK had been shot once in the back and once in the head, and
that Connally had been hit by a separate shot. It was only the next day,
Saturday, that lead autopsy physician Dr. James Humes learned about
the throat wound. Dr. Humes later admitted that he burned his first draft
of the autopsy report on Sunday, November 24.2
Beyond those key points, much has been disputed over the years and
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remains controversial, ranging from what the autopsy doctors did or
didn’t do (and why) to what kind of casket JFK arrived in to whether
he was in a body bag. By focusing only on the most glaring issues here,
in layman’s terms when possible, we can illustrate why some of the
problems arose that night and why they persist today. (For detailed
accounts, see
In the Eye of History,
by William Matson Law, and
Best
Evidence,
by David Lifton.)
At Bethesda Naval Hospital, the man really calling the shots was Bobby
Kennedy, from the family suite on the hospital’s seventeenth floor. There,
Bobby was part of a group that included Jackie, as well as JFK aides Dave
Powers and Kenneth O’Donnell. Bobby was no doubt shocked when he
heard what Powers and O’Donnell had seen from their vantage point
in the motorcade, in the limo directly behind JFK’s. As Powers told
us, and as he and O’Donnell both confirmed to former House Speaker
Tip O’Neill, they clearly saw shots from the grassy knoll.3 Powers and
O’Donnell had known and worked with Bobby for years; the Attorney
General would have trusted their observations. In addition, Admiral
George Burkley—the only doctor at Bethesda who had also seen JFK
at Parkland—later stated that he believed JFK had been killed by more
than one gunman.4 All of this presented a dilemma for Bobby: If Oswald
had been shooting from the rear, as Hoover and the news were now
reporting, who had been shooting from the front?
Bobby’s suspicions, expressed to Haynes Johnson just hours ear-
lier, pointed to someone connected with a CIA-backed exile leader like
Artime, who was involved in the JFK-Almeida coup plan. That belief
tied into the suspicions Bobby expressed to CIA Director McCone about
the CIA. Bobby’s own subcommittee of the National Security Council
had been making Cuba Contingency Plans for two months, to deal with
the possibility that if Fidel learned about the coup plan, the Cuban leader
might retaliate by assassinating an American official. The possibility of a
shooter from Cuba, or even a double agent, couldn’t be ruled out. Also,
Oswald had spent more than two years in Russia—what if the other
shooter had been sent by the Russians?
Any of those options could have led to a crisis with Cuba or Russia
or both, especially if it were prematurely exposed. At the very least, the
coup plan with Commander Almeida would have been compromised,
resulting in the death or imprisonment of Almeida and his allies. The
plan’s exposure would have ended Bobby’s political career and any
chance he had to find out what had really happened to JFK. Bobby’s
concerns about Cuba, Russia, and Almeida would have been shared by
other officials in the know, like Joint Chiefs Chairman General Maxwell
Taylor, who had ultimate authority over a military facility like Bethesda.
One of the main points of Bobby’s subcommittee’s planning had been to
avoid a situation in which the premature release of information could
back JFK into a corner and cause a crisis that could go nuclear. Now the
thinking behind some of that planning would have to be implemented
to deal with JFK’s own death.
Some have tried to claim that shadowy generals, the CIA, or J. Edgar
Hoover ran the autopsy without Bobby’s knowledge, but much evi-
dence shows that is simply not true. Several of the people in the autopsy
made it clear that JFK’s personal physician, Admiral Burkley, wielded
a heavy hand at the autopsy on Bobby’s behalf. Francis O’Neill, one of
two FBI agents present at the autopsy, told Congressional investigators
that there was “‘no question’ that Burkley was conveying the wishes of
the Kennedy family.”5 Jerrol F. Custer, the radiology technician who took
x-rays in the autopsy room using a portable x-ray machine, stated that
Admiral Burkley said, “I am JFK’s personal physician. You will listen
to what I say. You will do what I say.”6
A laboratory technician at the autopsy, Paul O’Connor, said that
“Admiral Burkley controlled what happened in that room that night,
through Bobby Kennedy and the rest of the Kennedy family.” O’Connor
says they only “did a perfunctory examination” of JFK’s internal organs
“because Admiral Burkley kept yelling that the Kennedy family wanted
just so much done, and that’s all and nothing else.” O’Connor said that
when Burkley came into the autopsy room, he “was very agitated—
giving orders to everybody, including higher-ranking officers.”7
But at least the appearance of observing military rank had to be
maintained, and the Commandant of the Bethesda facility, Admiral
Calvin Galloway, was present in the autopsy room, so Burkley some-
times conveyed Bobby’s wishes using Galloway. James Jenkins, a navy
man from Bethesda’s clinical laboratory who helped at the autopsy, said
that the main autopsy doctor “was probably being directed by Burkley
through [Admiral] Galloway.”8 One of the assisting autopsy physicians,
Dr. J. Thorton Boswell, said that “Dr. Burkley was basically supervising
everything that went on in the autopsy room, and that the commanding
officer was also responding to Burkley’s wishes.” Dr. Burkley himself
stated in his oral history at the JFK Library that “during the autopsy I
supervised everything that was done . . . and kept in constant contact
with Mrs. Kennedy and the members of her party, who were on the
seventeenth floor.”9
Bobby was calling the shots to Dr. Burkley, and JFK military aide
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General McHugh later testified that “Bobby Kennedy frequently phoned
the autopsy suite.” According to Gus Russo, the Commander of Bethes-
da’s Naval Medical School, Captain John Stover, said that “Bobby went so