Authors: Lamar Waldron
Attorney General Kennedy the same day.5
An FBI memo to Hoover states that “trespass was made to install” the
bugs “on [the] night of 2/28/64, prior to subject moving to this house.”
After the FBI agents broke in, three bugs were “installed in the attic of
subject’s resident, in spaces above [the] ceiling light fixtures in [the]
dining-living room area, in [the] kitchen, and in subject’s bedroom.”
According to the FBI, “physical surveillance covering Marina” began
four days prior to the break-in, utilizing “eight Agents . . . in cars.” The
phone taps began on February 29, while the secret bugs started pick-
ing up information on March 2, 1964, after Marina and her children
had moved in. The electronic surveillance required an additional eight
agents daily.6
Hoover wrote that he decided to end the Marina operation because
the “coverage has embraced Marina Oswald’s dealings with her attor-
ney, [and] from a legal standpoint this is undesirable.” However, Hoover
told Rankin that “Marina Oswald’s attorney . . . had indicated that he
would keep the Dallas Office of the FBI fully informed of all information
that would be of interest.” Hoover also assured Rankin that he would
“advise the President’s Commission of any unusual activities on the
part of Mrs. Oswald,” meaning an FBI agent would continue to keep
a close eye on Marina. The eight-man physical surveillance ended on
March 9, 1964, while the phone tap and bugs were removed on March
12, probably after another FBI break-in.7
Agents prepared a full report containing all of the “take” from the
phone tap and bugs, including “personal information concerning
Marina Oswald’s sexual desires and her sexual attraction” to one of her
associates. (An FBI agent involved testified that the Bureau nicknamed
Marina “hot pants.”) However, Hoover didn’t share the full report with
306
LEGACY OF SECRECY
the Warren Commission—he gave them only “pertinent information”
by letter. The full report probably wound up in Hoover’s “official and
confidential” files, where he kept his most sensitive and scandalous
information.8
In at least two other cases (probably more), the FBI tapped the
phones of those involved in the JFK assassination investigation. One
case involved a couple who were casual associates of Gilberto Policarpo
Lopez, the Tampa suspect who went to Texas, Mexico City, then Cuba in
late November 1963. If even casual associates of Lopez had their phones
tapped, much closer associates of Lopez and Oswald were also likely
being tapped.
In Marina’s case, the FBI released memos about arranging the phone
taps, but no transcripts; in contrast, transcripts of the Tampa couple
were declassified, but not the memos about arranging the taps (or any
authorization from Attorney General Kennedy). The Tampa transcripts
were carbon copies that the Tampa FBI office transferred to the National
Archives after the 1992 JFK Act, with the original transcripts going to
FBI headquarters.9
In the interest of privacy, we won’t name the couple involved. In gen-
eral, the transcripts show the conversations of an intelligent left-wing
couple and their friends about primarily mundane personal matters,
but also about politics and the aftermath of JFK’s death. They discuss
how US officials had “pinned [JFK’s death] on the Fair Play [for Cuba
Committee] and communists, when they had no right to do so, and why
didn’t [US officials] say [Oswald] was a CIA man in the first place?” The
FBI transcriber writes that “conversation continued re: Oswald being
employed by the CIA.”10
The FBI phone-tap transcripts start on December 5, 1963, and end on
December 20, 1963. There is no indication that the FBI told the Warren
Commission about them, since the Tampa threat had been withheld
completely from the Commission. A stamp on the transcripts confirms
CIA approval of their release and indicates that the CIA originally
received copies, though the Agency never released or acknowledged
any of those files.11
As for the CIA, it withheld from the Warren Commission, and prob-
ably from the FBI, its own bugging of the American safe houses near
Washington, D.C., occupied by Cuban exiles such as Manuel Artime.
Keeping in mind Artime’s calls to and from Bobby Kennedy, it’s likely
that the CIA had phone taps on conversations involving the Attorney
General—surveillance that was not only illegal, but also certain to end
Helms’s career if Bobby or other US officials ever found out about it.12
The Warren Commission’s investigative problems and failings have
been amply documented over the years, most recently in Gerald D.
McKnight’s
Breach of Trust
,
so we will focus on only a few important
examples, involving organized crime, Bobby Kennedy, and the “magic
bullet” theory.
Most writers have long assumed that Warren Commission coun-
sel (now senator) Arlen Specter came up with the magic bullet theory,
which holds that JFK’s back wound, neck wound, and all of Gover-
nor Connally’s injuries were caused by a single bullet that emerged in
almost pristine condition, with very little visible damage, after shatter-
ing Connally’s wrist bones and rib. However, Congressional investiga-
tors found that it was the main autopsy physician, Dr. Humes, who first
“suggested both men could have been shot by one bullet.”13 Specter
quickly embraced this theory because he needed it to account for all the
wounds and avoid a conclusion of conspiracy. Since the Warren Com-
mission claimed that Oswald fired only three shots, and one hit JFK in
the head and one missed the limo entirely, either one “magic bullet”
created all of the other wounds in JFK and Connally, or there had to
have been more than one shooter.
Dr. Humes made his suggestion to Specter in early March 1964, and
witnesses who clearly saw and heard shots from the grassy knoll were
soon being pressured to change their testimony. We heard about that
firsthand from JFK aide David Powers, who saw the shots from the
knoll with fellow aide Kenneth O’Donnell, from their vantage point
in the limo immediately behind JFK’s. Both men told former Speaker
of the House Tip O’Neill the same thing, as O’Neill recounted in his
autobiography. O’Donnell, who was with Powers at the time, stated to
O’Neill that he “told the FBI what I had heard, but they said it couldn’t
have happened that way and that I must have been imagining things.
So I testified they way they wanted me to.”14
When we interviewed Powers, he was head of the JFK Presidential
Library, and said, “The Warren Commission was handed this theory
on a [silver] platter, and anything that didn’t conform with it, they just
didn’t take.” Powers talked about how frustrated he was, trying to tell
the truth while someone with the Warren Commission constantly inter-
rupted him. Powers and O’Donnell were both interviewed on the same
308
LEGACY OF SECRECY
day, May 18, 1964, but while O’Donnell’s testimony is printed in the
usual transcript format, Powers’ is represented only by a brief, tortu-
ously worded affidavit. However, before they conformed to the official
story, both Powers and O’Donnell did manage to get in brief indications
of a shot from the knoll in front of them.15
As printed in the Warren Commission volumes, Powers’s affidavit is
unsigned by any witness and does not even bear the name of the official
who oversaw its preparation. But the National Archives was able to
locate the original copy for us, which shows that Arlen Specter prepared
Powers’s affidavit. Powers and O’Donnell’s story leaked briefly in June
1975, when the
Chicago Tribune
reported that the two men were told
they had to change their story “for the good of the country and global
tranquillity.”16
As for the magic bullet theory, many experts consider it physically
impossible. A bullet from the Depository would have been coming down
at a very steep angle, striking JFK’s back almost six inches below the
top of his collar. However, it exited from the hollow of JFK’s throat, just
below his Adam’s apple, a higher position. For a bullet hitting JFK in
the back to exit that high, JFK would had to have been leaning very far
forward, at a thirty-degree angle, but films and photos clearly show that
he hadn’t leaned forward more than eleven degrees.
In addition, Connally’s jump seat was actually lower than JFK’s, so
even if the bullet somehow managed to hit JFK’s spine or some other
bone (a scenario for which there is no evidence) and was deflected
upward and out JFK’s throat, it had to have magically changed course
in midair and then dove down to hit Connally. That clearly didn’t hap-
pen, since Connally can be seen in the Zapruder film holding his Stetson
hat well after JFK has already been hit in the throat; Connally’s wrist
would have been shattered at that point if both men were hit by the
same bullet.
The only way the “magic bullet” theory could be made palatable
was if the back wound were changed into a back-of-the-neck wound.
According to Josiah Thompson, the Warren Commission “staff let the
autopsy doctor instruct a medical illustrator to raise the back wound
from the back to the neck. Commission member US Rep. Gerald Ford
then corrected a final draft of the panel’s report to read ‘neck wound’
rather than ‘back wound.’”17
Several Warren Commission staff members tried to do a thorough
investigation, including delving into Jack Ruby’s Mafia ties and Cuban
gunrunning, but were stymied. As we mentioned earlier, the FBI
intimidated several witnesses who tried to talk about Ruby’s gunrun-
ning, while FBI agents relied on Ruby’s mob associates to say that Ruby
had no mob associates. After the two Commission staffers investigating
Ruby wrote a long memo to Rankin, outlining numerous problems and
stonewalling by the FBI and by Richard Helms, they were barred from
interviewing Ruby in Dallas.18 The resulting interview by Earl Warren
and Gerald Ford was marked by Ruby’s saying, “Unless you get me to
Washington, you can’t get a fair shake out of me.” Anthony Summers
writes that “repeatedly, eight times in all, [Ruby] begged the Chief Jus-
tice of the US to arrange his transfer to Washington for further question-
ing and lie-detector tests.” Warren and Ford refused, even when Ruby
pleaded with them, saying, “Gentlemen, my life is in danger.” Given
Sheriff Decker’s mob ties and Marcello’s control of Dallas, Ruby’s con-
cerns were all too real.
The Warren Commission staff lost another important source of infor-
mation when mob associates of Rosselli and Trafficante framed Chicago
Secret Service agent Abraham Bolden. Based on information provided
by two criminals he’d put in jail, Bolden was arrested on the day he went
to Washington to tell Commission staff about the Secret Service’s laxity,
as well as the Chicago and Tampa attempts. One of Bolden’s accusers
worked for Sam DeStefano, a notorious associate of Richard Cain, the
number-two man in the Cook County/Chicago sheriff’s office. Richard
Cain’s brother, Michael, who detailed the declassified files on Richard
in his book
Tangled Web
, says that Richard Cain had the “motive, means,
and opportunity” to frame Bolden. Richard Cain was part of the Chi-
cago Mafia, had worked with Rosselli and Trafficante on the CIA-Mafia
plots, was an active CIA informant, and files show that he had infiltrated
AMWORLD.
Abraham Bolden was sentenced to six years in prison, even though
his main accuser later admitted to committing perjury in his testimony
against Bolden. In addition, Bolden’s judge was clearly biased against
him, having told the jury that Bolden was guilty before their delibera-
tions began. Even after that misconduct resulted in a mistrial, the same
judge was allowed to conduct Bolden’s second trial, which resulted in a
conviction. Bolden has been fighting to clear his name ever since.
A Kennedy aide familiar with the JFK-Almeida coup plan told us
that Bobby was aware of Bolden’s plight, but couldn’t do anything
about it. The implication was that any interference by Bobby would
have resulted in the exposure of the Chicago and Tampa attempts that
he had kept secret. The resulting national uproar would have disclosed
310
LEGACY OF SECRECY
the reason for the secrecy—the JFK-Almeida coup plan—and put Com-
mander Almeida at risk, potentially triggering a crisis with Cuba or
Russia. Being unable to help Bolden no doubt only added to Bobby’s
pain and frustration.19
Bobby Kennedy, like so many others, also withheld important infor-
mation from the Warren Commission. He avoided testifying by agree-
ing to provide a statement, which he agonized over for almost two
months. It finally said that he “knew of no credible evidence to support