Authors: Lamar Waldron
of natural causes from a burst blood vessel, and he did have a history
of high blood pressure. However, Garrison hinted at suicide and even
murder. Yet another possibility given his medical condition is that the
tremendous strain Ferrie was under, from knowing he had introduced
Oswald to Carlos Marcello, and realizing the fate awaiting anyone who
implicated the powerful godfather, might literally have caused Ferrie
to worry himself to death.13
There was no debate about the cause of death for Ferrie’s friend in
Miami, Eladio del Valle. The
St. Petersburg Time
s reported that “within
hours of Ferrie’s” body being discovered, “police said del Valle’s
body was found crumpled, beaten, and shot on the floor of his red
Cadillac convertible . . . at the time, the death was portrayed as being
mob-related.” Richard Mahoney adds that del Valle “had been tortured,
his head split open with an ax, and shot through the heart.”14 If Santo
Trafficante was behind del Valle’s “mob-related” death, killing him so
quickly after Ferrie’s death was ruthlessly efficient. Del Valle’s murder
was overshadowed by the news coverage of Ferrie’s demise, and soon
forgotten by the national press.
Bobby Kennedy was aware of Ferrie’s connection to Marcello, since
Bobby’s Mafia prosecutors had encountered Ferrie in 1963 and earlier.
After reading news reports about the odd circumstances of Ferrie’s
demise, Bobby called the New Orleans coroner at his home, to hear
the details for himself.15 On the day Ferrie’s body was found, President
Johnson was briefed on the situation in a phone call from Acting Attor-
ney General Ramsey Clark. Clark revealed that Ferrie had called the
New Orleans FBI four days before his death, saying “he was quite a sick
man,” and that he “wanted to know what the Bureau could do to help
him with [Garrison].” Clark called the whole situation “a pretty sordid
mess [that] sure took a bad turn today.”16
Important developments in the Garrison case, and in Bobby Ken-
nedy’s life, would occur just a week after Ferrie’s death—but before that,
Bobby’s old friend Haynes Johnson wrote an interesting summary of
Garrison’s case for the
Washington Star
. In an article researcher Paul Hoch
provided, Haynes wrote on February 26, 1967, that a central “thread that
winds through the story involves . . . John F. Kennedy’s . . . problem of
Cuba.” Haynes expanded on the anti-Castro theory mentioned briefly
by the
Times
, saying that Garrison’s theory was:
. . . that Oswald was working with an anti-Castro right-wing orga-
nization and actually intended to kill Fidel; that Oswald’s publicly
pro-Communist activities in New Orleans and his attempt to enter
Mexico and secure a Cuban visa were a ruse to enable him to carry
out that Castro assassination objective; that when Oswald was
denied entrance to Cuba, the plot shifted and Kennedy, accused of
letting down the anti-Castro Cubans at the Bay of Pigs, became the
target. This theory has been examined at length in the past and has
been discarded.17
Paul Hoch posed the question of who “examined at length” such a
theory, since no investigation like that appears in the Warren Report.
Haynes’s article also details some of the anti-Castro activities of Guy
Banister, David Ferrie, and the Cuban exile “organization created by
the CIA” that shared their office building and activities. (We can only
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LEGACY OF SECRECY
imagine what E. Howard Hunt, the creator of that organization, must
have felt when he read that portion of Haynes’s article.) The article never
mentions Ferrie’s and Banister’s work for Carlos Marcello, which seems
like an odd lapse for the usually thorough Haynes Johnson, who had
won a Pulitzer Prize just a couple of years after working with Bobby,
Artime, and Harry Williams on their
Bay of Pigs
book.18
Though no article on Garrison had mentioned Carlos Marcello yet, the
Louisiana godfather would have known that some journalist was bound
to report on his connection to Ferrie and Banister eventually, unless
something was done. Oddly, after Ferrie’s death Jim Garrison seems to
have abandoned the theory Haynes and the
Times
had written about,
in order to go in another direction. Garrison began focusing intently on
what he had previously considered only a minor lead: After JFK’s mur-
der, a colorful attorney named Dean Andrews had claimed that while he
was hospitalized, someone named Clay Bertrand had called him about
representing Lee Harvey Oswald. Andrews later seemed to back away
from his allegation in talks with the Warren Commission, though he did
make other interesting comments about Oswald and never-identified
Hispanic associates to the Warren Commission staff.
Often overlooked in 1967 was the fact that the jive-talking Andrews
had been a minor attorney for Carlos Marcello. However, after Ferrie’s
death, Garrison apparently felt that he needed a live suspect. There
were indications (later disputed) that Alberto Fowler’s former coworker
and landlord Clay Shaw had used the alias “Clay Bertrand,” reportedly
when he tried to help out New Orleans gays who had been arrested.
Though Garrison didn’t know it at the time, Clay Shaw had been a CIA
informant until 1956, which was not unusual for the head of a bustling
Trade Mart in a city like New Orleans, whose ports did a huge amount
of business with Latin America and other foreign countries. According
to CIA files, Shaw had occasional and brief, casual social contact with
local CIA official Hunter Leake until 1965, when Shaw retired from the
Trade Mart.19
Also unknown to Garrison in late February 1967 were reports that
someone resembling Clay Shaw had been seen with Ferrie and Oswald
in the small town of Clinton, Louisiana. Congressional investigators
uncovered enough witnesses to find this incident credible, though others
have pointed to racial politics that might have been responsible for the
reports. (Oswald was supposedly trying to get a job at a local mental
hospital at the time of a civil-rights voting drive.) Ferrie and Shaw may
well have known each other through New Orleans’ gay underground,
and the same could have been true for Shaw and Oswald. Since Oswald
didn’t own a car or drive, if he did get to Clinton, someone would have
to have driven him. But as with David Atlee Phillips’s Dallas meeting
with Oswald two months before JFK’s murder, it makes little sense for
Shaw to have allowed himself to be seen with Oswald in public (and
with Ferrie) a couple of months before JFK’s assassination, if Shaw had
any knowing involvement in the murder.20
However, focusing attention on Shaw in 1967 was a good way to keep
Garrison’s investigation away from Carlos Marcello, and from Traffi-
cante’s ties to del Valle. It would also divert attention from Alberto
Fowler’s Cuban exile associates who should have been investigated,
men like Felipe Rivero, Manuel Artime, and Tony Varona. Shaw’s role
as a low-level CIA informant would also force the CIA to cover up and
withhold information if Garrison targeted him. So, on March 1, 1967, just
as the Ferrie publicity had started to die down, Jim Garrison announced
that Clay Shaw had been arrested for the murder of JFK, setting off a
new wave of press coverage.
On March 1, 1967, the news about Clay Shaw’s arrest was not foremost
in Bobby Kennedy’s mind since Bobby had just been informed that he
was the target of an assassination plot. Jimmy Hoffa’s brutal hench-
man, Frank Chavez, had just left Puerto Rico with two thugs, headed
for Washington and determined to kill Bobby. The Supreme Court had
just declined to hear Hoffa’s appeal—meaning the Teamster President
would enter federal prison in only a week—and Chavez was determined
to get his revenge on Bobby.21
We spoke to Justice Department prosecutor Tom Kennelly, who
helped to uncover the threat, and he told us that because Chavez and
his two men were armed, they took the threat very seriously. Washing-
ton police located Chavez and his henchmen at a Washington hotel and
put them under surveillance, while authorities ordered round-the-clock
protection for Bobby Kennedy’s Hickory Hill home in Virginia. Walter
Sheridan’s home received similar protection, since his family was still
there while Sheridan was in New Orleans, investigating Garrison.22
Frank Mankiewicz was just beginning his secret investigation for
Bobby into JFK’s murder when the FBI showed him photos of Chavez
and his two thugs, in case they came near Bobby’s Senate office or press
events. Mankiewicz told a journalist that while “we were sure looking
for them” and everyone else was very concerned, Bobby “didn’t want to
talk about it.”23 The Chavez assassination threat undoubtedly impacted
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LEGACY OF SECRECY
Mankiewicz’s nascent investigation. In light of Jack Ruby’s many calls to
mob associates and Teamster officials before JFK’s death, it was enough
information to point Mankiewicz in the right direction, even as he and
others in Bobby’s office watched for any sign of Chavez and his men.
Mankiewicz was already familiar with the articles about Hoffa’s talk of
assassinating Bobby in a car in the South during the summer of 1962,
and Mankiewicz may have also learned about the FBI report linking
Chavez to Jack Ruby.24
Back in 1962, Hoffa had probably been thinking of Chavez when
he talked about killing Bobby. In addition to possibly having Bobby
shot, Hoffa had also mentioned using a “firebomb” to kill Bobby, after
which the assassin could go to Puerto Rico to “hide out.” Chavez, who
was living in Puerto Rico in 1962, had previously been charged in one
firebombing incident and was the top suspect in another. However, by
the eve of his imprisonment in March 1967, Jimmy Hoffa felt the time
wasn’t right for an attempt on Bobby. The Teamster president had other
important business to attend to, including Trafficante and Marcello’s
plans to keep him out of prison.
Frank Ragano, the lawyer Hoffa shared with Trafficante, had rep-
resented Frank Chavez successfully five years earlier. The day before
Chavez and his cronies left for Washington in 1967, Ragano had arranged
for Trafficante to talk to Hoffa from the payphone of a Miami Holiday
Inn. Trafficante was still beyond the reach of almost all FBI phone taps,
but he took no chances and used only random payphones for business.
Ragano heard Trafficante’s side of the conversation as the Tampa mob
boss commiserated with Hoffa about Bobby Kennedy, saying, “That
dirty son-of-a-bitch. Maybe he should have been the one to go instead
of his brother. Yeah, I’ve talked to my friend in New Orleans and I will
talk to him again. I’m sure he understands.” Trafficante concluded his
phone call with Hoffa by saying, “You’ll be out before you know it.”25
Trafficante and Marcello were getting ready to play two of their
remaining trump cards to prevent Hoffa from serving a long prison
sentence. As part of their strategy, Johnny Rosselli had leaked part of
the same story he’d given Jack Anderson and Drew Pearson to some-
one in Jim Garrison’s office and to a reporter with WINS, New York
City’s first all-news radio station. Since Anderson and Pearson hadn’t
run Rosselli’s story, the mobsters hoped these new leaks would force
the issue. In addition, Marcello would soon use some of the Mafia’s $2
million Spring Hoffa fund, and Frank Ragano, in an attempt to bribe a
key witness against Hoffa.
However, all that would be for naught if Chavez attacked Bobby at
this critical time. Just six days away from reporting to federal prison,
Hoffa couldn’t afford to get mixed up in an assassination plot, so the
task of reining in Chavez fell to Frank Ragano. The morning after the
Hoffa-Trafficante call, Hoffa called Ragano and demanded that he come
to Washington immediately to talk Chavez out of his ill-timed assassina-
tion plan. Ragano flew to Washington the same day.26
At Chavez’s hotel, Ragano found Chavez and his two thugs “packing
huge handguns in shoulder holsters.” Ragano explained that if Chavez
killed Bobby now, officials would easily figure out who had done it and
why. An attempt on Bobby would ensure that Hoffa’s prison life would
be hell, and that the Teamster president would have to serve his entire
thirteen-year sentence. Chavez admired Ragano’s legal prowess and
reluctantly agreed to call off the attempt. Still, Chavez concluded the
meeting by saying of Bobby, “Sooner or later he’s got to go.”27 Jimmy
Hoffa shared that sentiment, and it was only Chavez’s timing that he
didn’t like. In less than three months, Hoffa himself would be talking
in prison about having Bobby killed—but it would be Chavez who was
shot.
After Chavez returned to Puerto Rico with his men, Hoffa told Frank