Authors: Lamar Waldron
of ammunition for these weapons.” That arrangement might have been
related to an incident two days later, in which author Jane Franklin
writes that Cuban authorities captured several exiles in a speedboat
who were “armed with high-powered rifles, cyanide bullets, and a plot
to assassinate [Fidel].” On July 19, 1967, an FBI memo said that Juan
Bosch and five of his men “were indicted in Miami . . . and charged with
conspiracy to export arms.” However, they were freed on $1,000 “recog-
nizance bonds.” Five days later, the FBI says, Bosch and some of his men
were “indicted at Macon, [Georgia] . . . for attempting to export arms,”
yet they were freed once more on only “recognizance bonds.”24
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LEGACY OF SECRECY
The soft treatment of Bosch, his men, and Rivero’s associates by
US authorities raise suspicion that their activities were approved at
least tacitly by someone in the CIA. The same idea applies to Felipe
Rivero, whom the FBI described on July 11, 1967, as “excludable and
deportable”—yet he was never deported. Likely not approved by
the CIA, however, were the six Cuban exiles who, according to the
FBI, “hijacked a 380-foot ship in Miami” to use in an attack on Cuba;
“their plan failed, and they escaped. They were indicted in Miami on
7/26/67.”25 That was the type of bad publicity the CIA didn’t need.
By the summer of 1967, the CIA’s anti-Castro operations were clearly
approaching, or actually in, a state of disarray. FBI files are full of reports
of bickering and backbiting between Cuban exile groups and leaders,
some of which turned violent.
Things got worse on July 23, 1967, when Desmond FitzGerald, the
CIA’s Deputy Director for Plans, died of a heart attack, further disrupt-
ing the CIA’s already problematic Cuban operations. Bobby Kennedy
attended the funeral of the man he sometimes played tennis with,
probably never realizing the secrets FitzGerald (and Helms) had with-
held from him. Helms appointed his trusted former deputy Thomas
Karamessines to take FitzGerald’s position.26 As for Cuban operations,
Helms needed someone experienced, someone he could trust, to assume
command and get them back on track. Just as Helms had turned to
E. Howard Hunt almost a year earlier, when Helms needed someone
seasoned to deal with the influx of new JFK conspiracy books, Helms
called on another familiar associate he trusted, David Atlee Phillips.
Like Hunt, Phillips had the advantage of not only being experienced,
but already knowing about (and having worked on) the CIA’s most sen-
sitive Cuban operation: AMWORLD and the coup plan with Almeida,
the remnants of which still involved the ongoing covert monitoring
and support of Almeida’s family members outside Cuba. Phillips’s
experience with Cuban operations from the Bay of Pigs to AMWORLD,
coupled with his background in journalism, would also make him useful
in dealing with disclosures emerging from Jim Garrison’s investigation.
In fact, by October 1967, because of a new book mentioning Manuel
Artime, Harry Williams, Tony Varona, and Alberto Fowler, Phillips
would write a long memo about the cover-up of the CIA’s secret Bay of
Pigs base just outside of New Orleans.27
In addition, the deniable way in which Phillips controlled Cuban
exile Antonio Veciana—by using the deep-cover identity of “Maurice
Bishop”—typified the more hands-off model the CIA was beginning to
use with more of its operatives. Finally, since Phillips had been involved
with activities such as meeting Oswald, Helms would have known that
Phillips had just as much reason to avoid publicity and squelch criticism
of the Warren Report as Helms did.
For all of those reasons, from Helms’s perspective, Phillips was a
logical choice to take over the fight against Castro. Hunt could not
assume that position, because he was busy managing the CIA’s rela-
tionship with publishers and running covert operations for western
Europe—and because of his problematic official history with Cuban
operations. Phillips wrote in his published autobiography that within
weeks of FitzGerald’s death, he had left his post as Station Chief of the
Dominican Republic and was back in the US, meeting President Lyndon
Johnson and becoming the CIA’s Chief of Cuban operations.28 Soon,
Phillips would have several AMWORLD veterans, including David
Morales, pursuing a top Cuban target in Bolivia: Che Guevara.
It’s important to point out that relatively few CIA files have been
disclosed about the scope and extent of the CIA’s Cuban operations
from 1967 onward, in stark contrast to the information available about
the period from 1959 to 1966. That might be because Phillips and other
Cuban operatives were later involved in various aspects of Watergate
and were investigated regarding JFK’s assassination, while exiles like
Posada and Rivero were linked to terrorist bombings in the 1970s that
caused international incidents. It is this lack of CIA files that makes it
difficult to determine which exiles were acting on their own, and which
the CIA supported or sanctioned.
From the perspective of Phillips, Helms, and the CIA, their task in
recruiting exiles had become more difficult. Fewer exiles, especially
inspirational leaders, were willing to risk their lives in the fight against
Fidel. Finding such men had not been easy in 1963, just months after the
Bay of Pigs prisoner release and the Cuban Missile Crisis, but by 1967
it was even more difficult. Moderate leaders, like Harry Williams, had
settled into family life and were building businesses, while others, like
Manolo Ray, had moved away from Miami. The exiles who were willing
to risk their lives, like Rivero and Bosch, were also harder to control and
prone to violent attacks. That left Phillips with exiles like Posada and
Antonio Veciana. Because the press, especially the emerging left-wing
media, was starting to look at domestic CIA operations, Phillips would
soon have both men based outside of the US—and eventually working
together on an attempt to assassinate Fidel.29
Phillips’s new assignment coincided with Hunt’s becoming Chief of
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LEGACY OF SECRECY
European Covert Operations, meaning that both AMWORLD veterans
had done quite well for themselves and had avoided the exile faced by
some of their fellow former AMWORLD officials. Richard Helms was
probably relieved once Phillips took over Cuban operations and could
help to monitor developments in Jim Garrison’s investigation, since
Helms still had his hands full with Vietnam and increased domestic
surveillance.
In May 1967, Carlos Marcello had an urgent matter to attend to: the first
journalist to link him directly to JFK’s assassination. The journalist’s
account being readied for publication had nothing to do with Marcello’s
ties to David Ferrie or Jack Ruby, or any of the disclosures from the Gar-
rison investigation. Instead, it revealed Marcello’s fall 1962 outburst
about JFK, made to a few associates in what the godfather thought were
the secure confines of his immense Churchill Farms property.
The writer was Ed Reid, a longtime crime reporter who had coau-
thored
The Green Felt Jungle
in 1963, the book that first exposed Johnny
Rosselli’s Las Vegas influence and lavish lifestyle. Assisting with the
research on that book had been private detective Ed Becker, who in 1962
had gone with Marcello to Churchill Farms to discuss a business propo-
sition. With Becker were two of Marcello’s most trusted associates, Carlo
Roppolo and Jack Liberto, Marcello’s bodyguard and personal barber.
Becker heard Marcello rage against Bobby Kennedy over what the god-
father saw as Bobby’s persecution of him. Marcello said that if he killed
Bobby, JFK would simply send the US military after him—but if JFK
were killed, then Bobby’s power would be over. (Congressional inves-
tigators later confirmed Becker’s account and found him credible.)30
By 1967, Ed Reid was working on his next book about the Mafia,
The Grim Reapers
, and Becker allowed Reid to recount a brief version
of Marcello’s threat against JFK, as long as the detective’s name wasn’t
used. Since Becker said he had told two FBI agents about Marcello’s
1962 threat, on May 6, 1967, Reid asked Los Angeles FBI officials about
the incident, and showed them his manuscript.
Word traveled fast to Marcello’s associates, and the next day, an inter-
mediary for top Chicago Mafia attorney Sidney Korshak contacted the
Los Angeles FBI office. Korshak, whom the Justice Department called
one of “the most powerful members of the underworld,” had been help-
ing Johnny Rosselli and the Chicago Mafia bury damaging informa-
tion since 1941. An expert at forcing Chicago’s two largest newspapers
to soft-pedal his mob connections, and a man with ties to Hollywood
power brokers, Korshak was the ideal person to suppress Becker’s Mar-
cello revelation in Ed Reid’s forthcoming book.31
Sidney Korshak tried to damage Becker’s credibility and reputation
to the FBI. Even though J. Edgar Hoover had told the Warren Commis-
sion that JFK’s murder would remain an open case, and that “any infor-
mation coming to us from any source will be thoroughly investigated,”
exactly the opposite happened in May 1967. Despite FBI files describing
Korshak’s Mafia ties, the Bureau failed to investigate Becker’s story and
accepted Korshak’s allegations at face value. The FBI still had pending
charges against Marcello for punching a New Orleans FBI agent, but it
didn’t bother to tell that agent or the New Orleans office about Becker’s
accusation against Marcello.32
Korshak’s intermediary tried to intervene directly with Ed Reid, after
which an FBI agent visited Reid and both tried to convince Reid to drop
Becker’s Marcello account. Neither succeeded, and Becker’s account
remained in the book. Reid’s manuscript also contained the first detailed
overview of Marcello’s criminal empire, as well as sections about Santo
Trafficante and Johnny Rosselli (though it didn’t link those two to JFK’s
murder).
However,
The Grim Reapers
wasn’t published until two years later, in
1969, long after the media had lost interest in Garrison’s investigation,
so the mainstream press gave the passage little attention. It’s unclear
if the efforts of Korshak, or others, had any effect on the book’s delay.
If Reid’s information had been published earlier, at the height of the
media’s interest in Garrison, it could have turned the spotlight of sus-
picion toward Marcello.
Marcello, Trafficante, and Rosselli were achieving much of what they
had been striving for by May 1967: The FBI had backed off Rosselli
because of the leaks to Anderson, their names hadn’t surfaced in the
press as suspects in JFK’s murder, and Bobby was publicly professing
his support for LBJ. In addition, Marcello and Trafficante could take
advantage of new heroin opportunities because of the Expo 67 situation
in Montreal. While Rosselli didn’t have a role in the heroin network,
he could relax once more among the stars at Hollywood’s Friars Club
without worrying about his immigration status.
But a major piece of unfinished business for Rosselli, Trafficante, and
especially Marcello was Jimmy Hoffa. Marcello had so far been unsuc-
cessful in using the Mafia’s $2 million fund to get Hoffa out of prison, but
would soon increase his efforts. Hoffa, in Lewisburg Federal Prison since
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LEGACY OF SECRECY
early March, was getting impatient—and focusing his anger on Bobby
Kennedy. Hoffa still hoped that Marcello and his associates might come
through; he knew how much they wanted to keep receiving loans from
the Teamster Pension Fund. But Hoffa knew that if Bobby ever became
president, his chances of getting out—or staying out—were nil. Hoffa
probably feared that even if he were able to win release, as president,
Bobby could simply have him prosecuted again . . . and again, and again.
Hoffa wanted to make sure that couldn’t happen.
According to FBI files, on May 30, 1967, an inmate overheard Hoffa
say “that he had a contract out on Senator Robert F. Kennedy.” The
inmate’s account contained credible details, and “stated that on or about
Memorial Day, 1967, he was in the dining hall at the Lewisburg Federal
Penitentiary and at the table next to him was James Hoffa, who was
talking to the two . . . individuals [both Americans] of Italian descent.”
One of the individuals wasn’t named, but his physical description and
age (“55–58 years old”) fit that of fifty-seven-year-old Mafia underboss
Carmine Galante, Hoffa’s closest mob confidant in prison. According to
Ed Reid, Galante had been prosecuted when Bobby was Attorney Gen-
eral, and “sentenced to 20 years for conspiracy to violate the narcotics
laws.” Galante had “many associates in Montreal,” and Hoffa expert