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Who was Richard Cain?


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I was doing some reading today in a new book and this author spends some time on Richard Cain.  Except his description of Cain has him in more than one camp at one time.

Namely he was not just in the Mafia, but also he has ties to the CIA and the FBI.  IF I recall correctly did not Escalante actually name him as one of the assassins in the Cuban G2 TV special on the JFK case?

I have never written about him at any length.  But can anyone name a good, reliable  source for a biography of Cain.

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Jim, his stepbrother wrote a detailed bio and presented twice at Lancer on him.  I discuss him a bit in SWHT and there are a ton of MFF files dealing with him....unfortunately a number of people write about his CIA connections without really doing the homework on that, a search will show  you what the CIA really thought of him - suggested by the fact that they refused several approaches from him to provide info in Mexico City (pre assassination).  Basically he was a Giancana source and asset within Chicago PD and eventually ended up - after the assassination - in Mexico with Giancana.  I'll try to recall the name of the book, its buried somewhere under tons of other books in deep storage...

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Thanks Larry, so from you he was a Chicago cop who was an asset of Giancana.  

And we he tried to approach CIA about MC, they didn't want to hear from him?

I would appreciate that source when you can get it.

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The Spartacus overview seems quite through to me and I think much of it is from the book I mentioned which is cited in the overview; you can get it at:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_ss_b?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=The+Tangled+Web%3A+The+Life+and+Death+of+Richard+Cain&x=16&y=15

Two minor points,  Cain did set up an investigative business in Mexico City and appears to have done some training but his approach to the CIA was simply an offer to provide human intelligence rather than to offer his service in placing bugs or wiretaps (a claim that often appears in JFK books and articles).  The CIA didn't see any value in his contacts and simply rebuffed him.  There is a possibility that Cain was part of the courier chain to get the first poison into Cuba for the initial attempt on Castro, no proof of that but he was in Florida at the right time and might even have carried it into the country.  Just speculation though. 

Another minor point is that Cain is sometimes mentioned as having provided the information on tracing the Carcano back to the firm that ostensibly sold it to Oswald.  That is not correct and occurred because Cain is mentioned in a document which is in the same batch of documents which does contain info on the rifle.  Its a common mistake since the FBI sometimes placed a number of related documents together in investigative files - related either by city or time frame, if you are not reading very closely its easy to get lost.

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, Larry Hancock said:

Larry,

 

The Spartacus overview seems quite through to me and I think much of it is from the book I mentioned which is cited in the overview; you can get it at:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_ss_b?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=The+Tangled+Web%3A+The+Life+and+Death+of+Richard+Cain&x=16&y=15

 

Would you happen to know, and I'm too lazy to research it right now, if Cain was involved in the Special Services "Red Squad" while he worked in the Chicago PD?

 

I'm just curious. The Spartacus entry says that he worked in the "Detective Bureau" and "Cain developed a reputation as being a good cop when he was dealing with non-mob-related activities. He often invited the press along to raid on brothels and gambling dens."  These are areas that the Dallas Special Services Bureau was involved with.

My curiosity was aroused the day I was reading an FBI report one day on Alpha 66 in New York, and discovered that the information to the FBI was being supplied by Jack Caulfied (of Watergate fame). Caulfield and Tony Ulacewicz both came out of New York's BOSS (or Special Services Bureau.)

 

Steve Thomas

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Off the top of the head I think he was involved in vice and possibly the crime squad ....which is why he was so useful to Giancana.  Apparently he was a good cop until he realized he could be a cop and still make good money on the side...

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Thanks so much Larry.  I will download that source.

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  • 6 months later...

Wesley Swearingen, a former FBI agent, wrote a "whistle-blower" book in 2010 entitled, "To Kill A President."

In that book, he expresses absolute certainty that Richard Cain -- a dirty Chicago cop -- was involved in the JFK assassination along with his Mafia bosses.

Swearingen will hear no other CT's about JFK.  He is sold on his own CT.

As an FBI agent in 1963, Swearingen personally tracked Richard Cain -- until FBI headquarters (soon after the JFK murder) told him to "stand down."

Swearingen chose to keep investigating Richard Cain secretly and privately -- and when FBI headquarters found out, they demoted Swearingen down to tracking stolen cars in the Midwest.

After he retired from the FBI, he began work on his FBI tell-all.  YouTube has some videos on him. 

Regards,
--Paul Trejo

Edited by Paul Trejo
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Bill Simpich wrote about Cain in "State Secret" and associates him with Harvey and the Mexico City intrigues:

Richard Cain was a crooked cop in Chicago who worked with Sam Giancana and Johnny Roselli. The CIA’s Office of Security was so nervous about Cain in 1967 that stated the Agency had never “employed or utilized” him, while the Chicago field office referred to Cain in 1961 as “our private eye. Cain was apparently an inside source for Harvey himself, as his skills with wiretaps and myriad connections with the Chicago criminal underground were just what Harvey and Roselli needed. In the words of Peter Dale Scott, “a CIA component willing to collaborate with Giancana’s men in assassination would certainly have no problem in recruiting Giancana’s electronic expert for a wiretap operation.”

Cain also had reason to be angry at Mexico City station chief Win Scott; Cain had been deported from Mexico in 1962, based on a tip to interior minister Gustavo Diaz that Cain was investigating Mexican citizens... a tip that materialized after Cain visited Scott at the Mexico City station, looking for work. Diaz’s tip led to the discovery that Cain was impersonating a treasury agent – probably a DFS officer - while he was working at the treasury department and conducting these trainings.

Cain spoke Spanish, had a Mexican wife, and enjoyed living in Mexico much of the time. He had wiretapped the Czech embassy in Mexico City. The odds are good that Cain trained one or more of the very DFS and Mexican army officers that worked inside the intercept center in Mexico City. A connection with any of the officers at the intercept center would have been an ideal way for someone like Harvey or Morales to introduce false information about Oswald within the insecure LIENVOY wiretap system. During the midst of his reports on the Chicago FPCC in the fall of 1963, Cain was in touch with the DRE’s military coordinator.  Allegedly an ex-Army Intelligence officer, we know Cain helped the CIA during the early sixties as an informant.  Cain had gone to Cuba to assassinate Castro in late 1960, and barely escaped with his life.  Tilton learned about Cain’s work just days before starting his own anti-FPCC program. Both Simmons and Cain had a history of investigating the FPCC.

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Amazing documentation info on Cain.

Much to ponder here.

One thing that always strikes me when reading about the backgrounds of so many of these JFK/RFK era covert operation characters (in this case Cain ) is the reality of how extensive and widespread corruption was in our entire country in the 20th century and specifically on 11,22,1963.

I have always maintained that to this day, we have never come to grips with this fact. Not even close.

When one reads about how extensive and long term the Mafia payoff/bribery system was regards just the Chicago PD ( including many higher level positions) and we all know that this same system included judges, politicians ( all the way to the governor's office ) and who knows who else that the entire political and policing system in that city and state was more singularly influenced by the Mafia than any other separate entity including the voting citizens. 

And just multiply this corruption by 50 or even 100 when you accept that almost every major city in this country was corrupted in the same Mafia way.  New York, Philadelphia, Newark, Detroit, Kansas City, Miami, Tampa, New Orleans, Cleveland and on and on ... and throw in Dallas in 1963.

Not hard to come to the conclusion that the payoff system had to be in place in Dallas in 1963 due to the proliferation of organized crime controlled gambling and prostitution there.

Tying this all into the JFK event -

During WWII we allowed ourselves to become bedmates with Italian organized crime.

This legitimized them to a degree and we never really let go of this devil's pact alliance.

And it was never stronger than during the late 50's and early sixties with our mutually beneficial  "Get Castro" thing.

William Harvey's ties to the higher echelons of organized crime was so tight he and his wife considered Mafioso Johnny Rosselli a better and more worthy person and patriot than JFK!  

Doesn't that say it all?  How pervasive and perverse this organized crime influence was?

And throw in J.Edgar Hoover's downplaying organized crime and it's influence and not dealing with it and no wonder they proliferated to be one of the top three influential power groups in this country for decades.

Colonel Dan Marvin mentioned in the documentary "The Men Who Killed Kennedy" that when our agencies wanted to get rid of someone here in the states, on our own soil ( which was against their initial charter granted authority ) they would simply contract this out to organized crime. That is a mind blowing, reality altering statement.

If Marvin's claim is true, and that doesn't shake one's sense of corrupt government bedmates reality to the bone, what would?

I believe Nixon and LBJ were beholden parties to this massive organized crime network as both never made serious attempts to confront it.

And who can forget sitting Vice President and former Maryland governor Spiro Agnew being run out of that office for his corrupt doings and ties to "guess who?" The man was one succession step away from being our president!

I believe it wasn't until Jimmy Carter that there was ever any real effort to confront organized crime and hugely corrupted major city police departments. Carter made New York police corruption ( and Las Vegas ) a priority in his term.  

One could easily see organized crime being pulled into the JFK event in several capacities. In the least getting rid of inconvenient witnesses or investigators? Like Dorothy Kilgallen?

Lastly, can you imagine how much less of a perfect patsy Lee Harvey Oswald would have been without his NO Fair Play For Cuba activities just months before 11,22,1963?

To have many clear shot still photos and minutes of focused film footage of Oswald passing out his Castro defending literature in busy downtown NEW ORLEANS and getting into it with Bringuier and then being arrested so all this could be published and broadcast in the press and then have Oswald actually on radio and even TV defending this phony political ideology ...what a great indicting image creation this all was!  

Like it was put together by experienced film makers.

Certainly Oswald alone could not have come up with and created this perfectly indicting almost documentary like production.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by Joe Bauer
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