Authors: Lamar Waldron
Johnson with Harry Williams and Manuel Artime, with the support of
Bobby Kennedy. At a time when so much information about the CIA’s
role in the Bay of Pigs was still secret, it’s hard to believe that Hunt
would have devoted the time and energy needed to write such a book
unless he had at least informal approval from his patron, Helms. Though
Hunt’s book about the fiasco would not be published until 1973, Hunt’s
CIA file says that he had submitted it to a publisher by mid-1968.22 That
raises the possibility that Hunt had completed the book so that it, or an
advance excerpt, could have been used against Bobby Kennedy, if he
ran for president in 1968 and tried to blame the CIA for the Bay of Pigs
fiasco.
Hunt’s other writing project in 1966 was a series of fiction books
designed to cast the CIA in a good light. Neither the tawdry glitz of
James Bond nor the bleaker depictions of the CIA in books and movies
like
The Spy Who Came In from the Cold
were especially favorable to the
CIA, so Richard Helms championed Hunt’s idea for a series of CIA-
approved spy novels. Helms kept copies of the paperbacks in his drawer
to give to visitors, and nine novels appeared from 1965 to 1972, under
the pseudonym David St. John, the name of Hunt’s infant son.23
Chapter Twenty-eight
Carlos Marcello and Santo Trafficante dealt with the rising interest in
JFK’s assassination and the new conspiracy books by adapting the strat-
egy they were developing to keep Jimmy Hoffa and Johnny Rosselli out
of prison. Marcello and Trafficante’s frequent meetings in the fall of 1966
and early 1967 allowed them to quickly respond to, and take advantage
of, new developments. Beginning on September 21, 1966, a series of
three meetings over three days in New York City showed Marcello,
Trafficante, and the Mafia at the height of their post-JFK arrogance and
power, though it ultimately sent the mob bosses (very briefly) to jail. The
first conclave, revealed by Marcello to an FBI informant, has not been
previously reported. Marcello said “the really serious meeting” occurred
on the evening of September 21, and “that the New York Police would
have ‘seen some real power’ if they had [known about it].”1
While Marcello identified that as the most important meeting, the
one the following day at New York City’s La Stella restaurant was very
impressive. At the main table with Marcello and Trafficante were New
York mob bosses Carlo Gambino, Joey Gallo, and Joseph Colombo, as
well as eight more mob heavyweights from New York and Louisiana.
Such an assemblage didn’t pass unnoticed in Manhattan police circles,
and the mob bosses were all arrested for consorting with mobsters (one
another). After a humiliating strip search and several hours in jail, each
was released on $100,000 bail and the charges were later dropped.2
On September 23, as if to show they were not intimidated, Marcello,
Trafficante, Frank Ragano, Jack Wasserman (Marcello’s lawyer), and
three others returned to the same restaurant for lunch. Police showed
up again, without arrest warrants but with a
New York Daily News
pho-
tographer. Just as Trafficante and Ragano had done on the night JFK was
assassinated, the two raised their glasses in a toast—only this time, a
photographer caught the moment on film.3
Marcello’s arrogance was punctured on October 1, 1966, when he
returned to New Orleans. The local FBI office was slowly overcoming
its lax attitude about Marcello that had prevailed for years, and at the
airport, an FBI agent confronted the godfather. Accounts vary as to the
reasons for what happened next, but the physical act was well docu-
mented, by witnesses and a photographer: Marcello took a swing at the
FBI agent and hit him. The resulting arrest and charges would dog Mar-
cello for years, eventually sending him to a short stay federal prison.4
Journalists and historians have long debated the reason for Marcello’s
trip to New York for the highly unusual Mafia meetings. Those reasons
range from the son of Marcello’s predecessor demanding a bigger cut
to squabbling between the New York Mafia families. Those or other
concerns could have been factors, but because of what happened next,
it’s also likely that Jimmy Hoffa was on the agenda.
Soon after the meetings, a group of Mafia leaders reportedly autho-
rized Marcello to spend up to $2 million to prevent Jimmy Hoffa from
going to prison. Various leaders had contributed, and they decided that
if anyone could keep Hoffa out of jail, it was Marcello.5 This effort would
guide much of what happened in New Orleans in the coming months,
as a plan was put into place to keep Hoffa out of prison or to get him
released once he was there.
Marcello’s “spring Hoffa” plan, which he probably worked out with
Trafficante at their long private meetings, was also part of their strat-
egy to keep Johnny Rosselli from being deported. That would help to
preserve the secret all four men shared: their roles in JFK’s murder. The
spate of books and articles criticizing the Warren Commission had not
yet focused on the Mafia at all, or mentioned them by name, but that
could happen at any time—unless the godfathers took some type of
action to prevent it. They made sure their strategy to help Hoffa and
Rosselli would also divert attention away from their role in JFK’s mur-
der and ensure that high US officials would have to keep covering up
important information.
Trafficante kept up with national affairs and would have noticed
the newspaper and TV polls that pitted Bobby Kennedy against LBJ
in a hypothetical battle for the 1968 nomination, even though Bobby
had made no public remarks suggesting he might run. Throughout the
summer and fall, Bobby consistently beat LBJ in the polls. The worst
nightmare for Trafficante and Marcello would be Bobby Kennedy as
president, with the resources to conduct a thorough, secret investigation
of his brother’s murder. As president, Bobby Kennedy could declare
martial law or (martial rule, as in Phenix City) and send the National
Guard into their compounds and domains. If the Mafia dons’ strategy
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to help Hoffa and Rosselli also damaged Bobby’s presidential chances,
all the better.
On October 5, 1966, the Texas Court of Appeals ordered a new trial
for Jack Ruby, further complicating the situation for Marcello and Traf-
ficante. The court was also considering a change in venue, meaning that
Ruby would no longer be in a cell that reportedly overlooked Dealey
Plaza (a reminder of what happened to those who crossed Marcello)
and under the control of Sheriff Decker, an associate of Marcello’s Dal-
las crime boss. On October 12, Trafficante went to Las Vegas, probably
to meet with Johnny Rosselli about the events due to unfold. Soon after
that, their plan began to be put into action. It’s best to think of it as an
evolving strategy, which changed to address new developments that
would rapidly unfold in the coming weeks and months.6
Marcello, Trafficante, and Rosselli apparently came up with a three-
pronged strategy that attempted to keep Rosselli and Hoffa out of jail,
while neutralizing any current or future threat from Bobby Kennedy.
Their plan’s main goal was to avoid exposure of their roles in JFK’s
murder, whatever the cost: In the coming months and years, it became
clear that they were willing to kill even high-profile targets, like govern-
ment witnesses, in order to achieve their goals. Ultimately, like a pack
of desperate jackals, they would even turn on one another.
It’s important to keep in mind that Rosselli’s Mafia position was lower
than Marcello’s or Trafficante’s. While they were essentially godfathers
of their respective territories, Rosselli was only a Mafia don whose main
patron (Giancana) had left the country. So, while all three wanted to
avoid suspicion, protecting Marcello and Trafficante would always take
precedence.
The mob bosses’ plan would box in Bobby Kennedy even further,
limiting his ability to call publicly for any type of new investigation—
and hopefully hurting his chances to run for the presidency in 1968.
We mentioned earlier Senator Edward Long’s hearings on electronic
surveillance, designed to help Hoffa while hurting Bobby’s reputation.
Rosselli was laying the groundwork to strike even harder at an area
sensitive to Bobby, one that would keep Bobby from leaking damaging
information about the Mafia to reporters, since it would only support
the distorted story Rosselli was about to spread.
To avoid immigration charges, Rosselli was pressuring the CIA to
intervene on his behalf, depicting himself as a patriotic citizen who had
helped the CIA and now needed its help. That ploy wasn’t working with
Helms, so the three mob bosses developed a story to float to a few high
US officials and to America’s most powerful journalist. It was designed
to alarm them, as well as the CIA and Bobby Kennedy, and would be
especially effective for those who knew about the CIA-Mafia plots and/
or the JFK-Almeida coup plan.
The basic story Rosselli would leak in late 1966, and on a much
larger scale early the following year, was that Bobby Kennedy had been
responsible for a 1963 attempt to kill Fidel Castro that had somehow
boomeranged, killing his own brother. It was a more detailed version of
the “Castro killed JFK” story that Rosselli and Trafficante associates like
John Martino had been pushing mere days after JFK’s murder. This story
would hit Bobby Kennedy on several levels: It would associate his name
with an assassination attempt in an era when that was unthinkable for
most Americans; make Bobby responsible for his own brother’s death;
and threaten to expose Commander Almeida, still one of the highest-
ranking officials in the Cuban government.
Helms and the CIA would be hit hard by the story, since Rosselli
added some details from a real incident: the March 13, 1963, attempt to
assassinate Fidel near the University of Havana, using mortars, bazoo-
kas, and machine guns. It had been one of two attempts to assassinate
Fidel within a three-week period (the other was April 7, 1963), in which
several of the participants had been captured. JFK’s personal emissary,
James Donovan, had been in Cuba around that time, trying to negotiate
the release of twenty-one prisoners, including three CIA agents. These
Castro assassination attempts had been totally unauthorized by, and
unknown to, the Kennedys and CIA Director John McCone. Those plots
wouldn’t become public until several years later, after a Cuban govern-
ment report detailing the attempts—and earlier ones under Vice Presi-
dent Richard Nixon—would help to trigger the Watergate break-ins.7
To tie the failed 1963 Castro assassination attempt to JFK’s murder,
Rosselli added a twist from a best-selling book and popular movie,
The
Manchurian Candidate
, produced by Rosselli’s friend Frank Sinatra. As
Rosselli would tell the story, some of the captured Cuban exiles had
been tortured and “turned” by their captors, then sent back to America
to kill JFK.
In hindsight, it may sound like the wild tale it was. But the fact that
it was couched in terms of a real operation that only a few high officials
knew about gave it some credibility. Though skeptical at first, when the
officials and journalists hearing the story found out that the CIA really
had been conspiring with the Mafia, they thought the rest of the story
might be true as well.
As with any good “con,” the story the longtime gambling kingpins
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LEGACY OF SECRECY
concocted played on the desires and fears of its targets. For LBJ, the
tale offered dirt to use against Bobby Kennedy. For Bobby, it seemed to
confirm his worst fear. For Cold Warriors like Hoover, it confirmed that
communist Fidel had killed JFK.
The tale worked best when revealed cautiously, and only under care-
fully controlled circumstances, so the person hearing it couldn’t ask
Rosselli questions. Years later, when Rosselli testified under oath to
Congressional investigators, he would downplay or deny the “turned-
around assassins” story. Even so, the phony story would outlive Ros-
selli and both godfathers, continuing to resurface as fact in books and
documentaries into the twenty-first century.
The false story’s brilliance was not just its partial basis in reality,
but also in the fact that if officials or the public ever saw evidence that
linked Rosselli to those involved in JFK’s murder, it would seem as if
the Mafia don was just an innocent patriot, one whose associates had
been “turned” and used by Fidel. Since Trafficante and Marcello had
also worked on the CIA-Mafia plots, the same would be true if evidence
tied them to those who had murdered JFK. The ultimate irony is that